Leith (in English)

After spending a week cut-off from all civil forms of communication while trapped in the snow with a bunch of French sixth-graders, I returned this week to the land where my love of travel and life abroad all began: England. 

For the holidays, I'm spending a full two weeks with an absolutely lovely family who's become closer than family to me over the past few years.  With my sister in tow, we're all planning on spending the next few cold, snowy, holiday cheer-filled days exploring the beautiful English Dales and stuffing our mouths with chips and wine until I have to waddle back over the French border come January.

Granted, I love France and am even growing used to French culture, but there's something about spending time with something a bit more familiar and comfortable over the holidays...  Of course, given that my own family and boyfriend are 6,000 expensive miles across the map, my surrogate English family is a comforting memory of when I first fell in love with living life on the other side of the Atlantic. 

As an added bonus, for the first time in three months I can greet people on the street in English, crack jokes and actually be understood, and just sit back and relax by the Christmas tree as the snow drifts by the window.   But nothing could possibly top the feeling of watching the made-for-t.v. movie on the telly about England's Fattest Man and his alcoholic nurse, con-artist manager and pregnant runaway friend who force-feeds him healthy food to make him lose weight (and thereby his only means of making money).  No one does heartwarming Christmas programming like the English. 

Man, it's good to be home away from home.

Parlez-vous anglais?

Part of the job description of being an English assistant in France, it seems, is being laughed at when I speak French (because of my accent), laughed at when I speak English (because of my accent), and laughed at when I talk about Ameircan Christmas traditions (still can't figure out why this is deserving of laughter, but whatever).  So, cette semaine (set suh-mene: this week), I decided to give my students a taste of their own médicament (meh-dee-ka-mehn: medicine): chants de Noël (shant duh no-ell: Christmas carols) sung together in chorus and original Christmas stories using brand-new English vocab.  The result?  My ultimate form of revenge: a chance to laugh at them for once.  On the inside, of course.

Here is one of my favorite Christmas stories, written by a group of three 17 year-old boys:

"Once upon a time, Santa Claus was distributing gifts for children with his reindeers.  He stopted in a pub and he can't leave because he was too drunked.  Elves helpt him to continue and he managed to finish the distibuting."

Doesn't that story just make you all warm and fuzzy inside?  After all the stress I've experienced these past few weeks between moving, Christmas shopping, and preparing for this week's week-long séminaire anglais (sem-een-ar ahn-glay: English Retreat) with a group of 50 sixth-graders in the mountains, something about this story has just inspired in me the true meaning of Christmas: Santa in a bar getting drunk with his elves.  If Santa did exist, I'm pretty sure that this is a more realistic version of how Christmas would réussir (ray-oo-seer: pan out).  Needless to say, these students definitely got an A+ for effort.

Grenoble

You can't say I didn't try.  I gave it two months and a lot of hope, but last week I finally decided I'd had enough of small town living.  I'm a city girl at heart, and after spending an amazing weekend with Andrew exploring Lyon and Grenoble, I decided to move into a quaint and quirky French apartment near the Stade des Alpes in the center of Grenoble, and along with it a big cut in my spending money.  Mais tant pis, c'est la vie en la belle France (may tahn-t pee, say lah vee on leh bell Frahn-s: But too bad, that's life in beautiful France).

The truth was, I was afraid that if I didn't move soon no one would ever want to talk to me again.  Life in La Côte Saint André brought out a whole new breed of pessimist in me that I didn't even know existed. So, I'm really thinking of my relocation as a mental health investment.  Don't get me wrong: La Côte is just as full of friendly people and pretty rolling hills as it ever was.  But I've spent my entire life in small towns.  I needed a change of pace.  I'm one of those people who gets a secret thrill out of over-crowded shops, busy traffic, and strangers walking down the street who never wave or say hi.  Unfortunately, this sort of high-quality lifestyle is usually reserved for high-population areas, and definitely doesn't exist in small-town France.



This sort of urban gruffness does exist in Grenoble, however.  In fact, Grenoble is one of those rare cities that makes up for in character what it lacks in size.  The entire city is surrounded by desolate mountain ranges that, at this time of year, are covered in neige (neh-j: snow).  Luckily this makes for amazing views out your window no matter how crappy the rest of your apartment might be.  The ancient stone cathedrals, Drac and Isère rivers, and la Bastille (lah bahst-eel) guarding over the city are all within (reasonable) walking distance, and no matter which street corner you're standing on, you're never far away from a glass of wine or cup of coffee in a toasty warm café (kaf-eh) offering reprieve from the frigid cold.


My own personal favorite part of being a new resident of Grenoble?  In a matter of the three days I've been living here, I've managed to get all my Christmas shopping done at Victor Hugo Square's fabulous marché de Noël (marsh-ay duh no-ell: Christmas market), which is basically a crowded smorgasbord of Alsace-inspired wooden looking vendor's booths selling random knickknacks and, more importantly, mulled wine.


Of course, as any true dorky francophile would, I also christened my new place with a bottle of cheap champagne I bought at the local Casino supermarket down the street.  And you know what I realized as I toasted to my own smart thinking at becoming a Grenoblois (gr-uh-nob-lwa: inhabitant of Grenoble)?  Drinking a glass of champagne in my apartment while listening to drunken teenagers stumble down the street and grumpy French drivers crash into each other never tasted so good.  Vive la France (veev lah Frahn-s: long live France)!

Le jour d'action de grâce

After watching the French film of Coco Chanel's life on my computer, I noticed that midnight had crept it's ugly head toward my laptop clock, marking my first French jour d'action de grâce (joor d-ak-see-ohn duh grah-s: Thanksgiving).  The thought of spending the next morning cooking all day and teaching all night so that I could celebrate this American holiday without family, sweet potatoes, or pumpkin pie left me exhausted and slightly depressed, so instead of thinking anymore about it I decided to change into my pjs and climb into bed.

My hand poised over the light switch, a sudden frappe (fra-p: knock) on the door made my heart race and my body freeze.  Convincing myself that the loud knock was just the wind, I tried to ignore my confusion at someone possibly standing outside my bedroom at midnight.  I left my hand hovering over the light switch, debating whether or not I should go off to sleep without even checking to see if there was anyone there.  But mon coeur (mohn koor: my heart) wouldn't let me ignore le bruit (leh brew-eet: the noise).  There was definitely a knock, and I could feel a presence of someone - or something - on the other side of the threshold, waiting.

Turning the lock, I peeked around la porte (lah poor-t: the door), expecting to see no one there and for my fright to be all a mistake, as it's so often been with my old, loose French door on windy nights in the past.  In a split second my eyes scanned to hall, trying to adjust to the dark, only to see two eyes staring back at me.  Human eyes.  Male eyes.  Male eyes that belonged to someone who looked an awful lot like my boyfriend, Andrew.

And with a mouth forming words in a voice that sounded so much like Andrew's.

And with arms reaching out to hug me in a way so much like Andrew's.

"But wait" my mind told me, "Andrew is visiting his step-grandpa in Davis.  Andrew doesn't speak French.  There's no way Andrew could find his way around.  Andrew has to be at work on Monday.  Andrew is spending Thanksgiving with his family around their dinner table in California.  There's no way Andrew is standing at my bedroom door, in France, at midnight.  I've finally done it.  I've finally gone so crazy that now I can't even separate dreams from reality.  I'm a certifiable nutcase."

But my heart couldn't help but believe.  So I screamed.  I shouted Andrew's name over and over again, trying to wake myself up from this dream.  But I wouldn't wake up.  So I decided to hug Andrew, hoping his touch would wake me up.  But I just couldn't, for the life of me, wake up.

You know what?  It turns out I wasn't dreaming.  Mon Saint André (moh-n san-t ahn-dray: my Saint Andrew), who doesn't speak a word of French, who had never before flown overseas, who only had a weekend off from work, and who can never, ever succesfully keep surprises, managed to catch me completely by surprise by showing up at my bedroom door in The Middle of Nowhere, France so he could be with me for Thanksgiving.  True story.

And here I thought the most exciting thing about Thanksgiving this year would be the homemade cranberry sauce.

Crise de foie

I can't say Julia Child didn't warn me: I'm suffering from la crise de foie (lah kreez deh fwa: indigestion aka an American stomach in France).  Try as I might to blend myself seamlessly into a life of la cuisine française (lah kwiz-een frahn-says: French food) my delicate American stomach has started its own vocal form of protest.

This started with the milk.  After having un café crème (uhn kaff-ee krehm: a coffee with frothed, creamy milk) to help me out of bed in the mornings, my daily routine then followed with hours of hunched-over mal au ventre (mahl o van-tre: stomach pain).  I shrugged this off as due to the fact that in France they don't refrigerate their milk or whipped cream, until I found that even my chocolate ice cream-filled crêpe (kreh-p: crepe) had me racing for les toilettes (leh twa-lett: the toilet) before I even had time to ask for l'addition (l-dision: the bill).  Even salad has become a culprit lately, though that might be because my body is suffering from a serious lack of vegetables.

The thing is, I haven't found my little town of La Côte Saint André to be particularly centered around fresh, high-quality ingredients.  And I say this from experience.  The only thing that stays open 24 hours around here are two vending machines dispensing Mars Bars and Coca-Cola.  In fact, it turns out that France is a bigger consumer per capita of McDo's (Mic-dohs: McDondald's) than even the United States.  What I have found though, is that whatever similar products the shelves of the French supermarkets carry compared to what's carried in Safeway, French food is just plain richer.  The dark chocolate is darker.  The whole milk is, well, wholer.  The bread is...breadier: a crispy melt-in-your-mouth yeast substance of the kind you could only possibly hope to find at a French boulangerie (boo-lahn-jerry: bread bakery) before noon.

So, like every American before moi, my stomach (weaned on soy milk, sliced sandwich bread, and pasturized everything) has gone it's own form of a French culture shock.  Just like my mind can't handle the fact that buses don't run on Sundays, my stomach can't seem to cope with the fact that the freshly picked vegetables I buy still have dirt on them.  It seems that the French are a bit more ruthless about their food than my poor American stomach is used to.

Thanks to reading My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme months ago, I'd be lying if I said I  arrived here without knowing that even the most devoted American food enthusiast runs into gastrointestinal difficulties in France, even Julia Child herself.  Naïvement (nih-eev-meht: naively), I still hoped I'd be the one American girl able to dive into sautéed crêpes aux champignôn (kreps oh shamp-in-yons: mushroom crepes) and tartes au chocolat (tart oh shoc-oh-laht: chocolat tarts) unscathed.  Unfortunately, if I've learned any lessons about French culture this far, it's that no good meal/hike/Internet connection/day comes without a fight.  But despite my stomach's protests, I'm determined to win this particular war.  After all, if I can't enjoy French food - all the way from the first bite to the last moment of digestion - than I've lost out on half the fun of being here.  Let's just hope my stomach eventually agrees.

Le Grand Lemps

This past week I finally started teaching at Le Grand Lemps (leh grahn-d la-nce), a village east of La Côte whose only real claim to fame is that there's a gare (gehr: railway station) in the center of town allowing the villagers a quick and easy escape to Lyon forty minutes away.  Of course, it could be any animosity I hold toward this village is le collège (leh koll-ehj: the junior high) where I will be spending a weekly nine hours of my life for the next five months.  As if going through junior high the first time wasn't bad enough.

I don't know about you, but junior high was a nightmare for me from day one.  The kids were petty and often just plain cruel, the classrooms smelled like bad BO and acne medication, and junior high was also my first introduction to public locker rooms which is, let me just clarify, a nightmare scenario in and of itself.  My single happy memory of my junior high days was graduation: my ticket out.  And now here I am teaching those hellish students in those stinky classrooms.

The really scary thing?  Junior high, the second time around, isn't so bad.  Les collègians (leh koll-ehj-ee-ahns: the junior high students) actually haven't grown into that bitter stage in life yet, and are actually excited about English and - dare I say it - eager to participate in class.  Every day I walk into a classroom it's like a scene out of the Twilight Zone: I expect to be eaten alive without any shred of dignity left yet, at the end, I miraculously manage to live to dread another day.  I'm certain these collège students are going to turn on me sometime.  It's just a matter of when.  Until that happens, I'm actually having fun.

Also, in 10-15 days I might actually have the Internet.  In my bedroom.  Meaning I can continue my pre-France life of staying in bed until noon searching for bootlegged Sex & the City episodes in my nightgown without any blocked website access or crappy wireless signals.  What's the French word for euphoria?  Oh, yeah: la euphorie (lah oo-for-ee).

Ruedouane

Novembre (noh-vehm-bruh: November) has officially arrived in la vallée de l'Isère (lah vall-eh deh l-eezehr: The Isère Valley). How do I know? Because I've been trudging through rainy sludge in ballet flats for the past week, spending entire afternoons in bed willing summer to make a comeback, and have decided to make coffee, hot chocolate, and soup my staple diet for the rest of the year. Sure, I might die malnourished, but at least I’ll be warm in the process.

I'm sure I'll feel giddy about the winter as soon as I have a pair of decent boots and more than one sweater in my name, but in the meantime I reserve the right to complain. I mean, it's wrong to expect a coastal Californian girl to be able to prepare herself mentally for the biting cold...isn't it?

Anyway, this past freezing, rainy Thursday, after sitting through lesson planning for two hours at the collège (kol-ehj: junior high) where I start teaching next week, I was in middle of town waiting for l'autocar (l-aught-oh-kar: the bus) which was, per its typical schedule, a fashionable 20 minutes late. Noticing my hands turn a burning shade of frostbitten reddish-blue I've never seen before (I haven't taken the plunge yet into investing in even the cheapest pair of gloves: I'm a masochist at heart), I made the executive decision to flag down the first autocar I saw, even if it wasn't headed in my direction, and beg for a ride home. What can I say? I guess I have a thing for pissing-off bus drivers.

Well, as it turns out the driver I flagged down, a Monsieur Ruedouane from Algeria, not only took pity on me but let me ride for free, informing me that I had a free ride home with him for the rest of the year! While taking me back to La Côte, Ruedouane told me about how much fun he’s had getting to know the teaching assistants throughout years, and that anytime he has a layover between bus schedules he'd love to grab coffee and discuss American-Arab relations. And no, I'm not talking sexual relations. Ruedouane is simply an outgoing, curious, and harmless middle-aged Frenchman who has temporarily renewed my faith in the French Republic. Now, not only do I have a free commute to the junior high school, but free French lessons and coffee to boot! Génial (jeen-ee-al: brilliant)!

Vienne

I know it's injuste (en-joost: unfair) and puéril (pu-eer-eel: childish), but for the past few weeks I've been getting that sneaking suspicion that every single person in France has a more exciting life than me. A bit injuste because I realize it's unrealistic to expect myself to have met a gaggle of friends all over the French countryside to do things with, and puéril because, let's be honest, it's a bit immature not to realize that everyone leads a pretty pathetic life from time to time, even if you are French. Still, I can’t help but have the feeling that, while I’m holed up in my room, everyone else in town is busy getting wasted and having the time of their life.

As tough as it is to come to terms with, I have no friends in France who will whisk me off to an amazing Halloween party on a moment’s notice, or invite me on a vacation to their family villa in Monaco. So, I've decided that until I meet these fabulous friends, I have to be my own party. And this party started yesterday: a party of one in Vienne for Halloween. Jaloux (jah-lo: jealous)?

Vienne is a town/city (not quite sure if it's big enough to earn "city" status) just slightly sud (s-ood: south) of Lyon, filled with Roman ruins and quaint street markets. I spent the day walking along the Quai du Rhône (qu-ay duh roh-n: the banks of the Rhône River), sipping espresso in cafés, and sightseeing until I was literally blue in the face (though the blue face was probably more from that damn cold fog).

Of course, what would a day full of French adventure be without having to run after the last bus back home screaming "Wait! Stop!" in English? I practically had to knock the bus' door down while it was stopped at a red light on its way out of town, only to be ridiculed by the bus driver - in French - for 15 minutes. Oh oui, j’ai fait ça (oh wee, jay fay sah: oh yes, I did that).

Toussaint

It has come to my attention that the French seem to really appreciate the art of (and numerous health benefits that result from) multiple vacation periods.  In fact, as I'm writing this, after having been at "work" for a mere three weeks, I'm currently preparing for Toussaint (too-sahnt:  All-Saints' Holiday), a ten day vacation to celebrate the fact that, at one time or another, France used to actually be Catholic.  The holiday lasts from the 24th of October to the 4th of November, which happens to be exactly six weeks before the next vacation, which comes exactly six weeks before the vacation after that, which comes four weeks before the vacation after that... you get the idea.


Unfortunately for me, my first well-earned French ten day recuperation period is going to be more an exercise in patience than pleasure.  Sadly, it's been a pathetic three weeks since I've traveled beyond the town limits of La Côte Saint André, and - for reasons far beyond my realm of comprehension -  my French bank account still hasn't been opened properly, meaning je n'ai pas d'argent (jah n-aye pah dh-arh'jahnt: I have no money).  So, unfortunately for this vacation, I believe I'll be spending much of my time staring out the window feeling sorry for myself and day dreaming about the day that I can have my échappe belle (eh-sha-ppe bell: narrow escape) to Grenoble, Vienne, or Lyon for some much-needed city exposure.  Give me another couple of days of this stir-crazy period and I may just end up crawling to the nearest nightclub I can find.


In the meantime, I'm without Internet.  Encore (on-core: again).  So if I'm still sane the next time you hear from me, you'll have witnessed un miracle (uhn meer-ack-luh: a miracle).

Bon anniversaire

With two anniversaires (an-ee-vers-err: birthdays) to celebrate this weekend, I've been meditating over two very important thoughts: first, merci à Dieu (mehr-see ah dee-ue: thank God) for Skype, Facebook, and the Internet in general for reminding me of birthdays and letting me get in touch with people overseas; second, I and everyone I know are getting old(er).

Let me explain.

Saturday I waited around until a decent California hour to wish my boyfriend's mom a bon annivesaire (bohn an-ee-vers-err: happy birthday).  While talking to her about party plans, I also did my usual Skype multi-tasking ritual of Facebook stalking when I came across a very useful tidbit of information: Sunday was the birthday of my Italian colocataire (co-lohc-a-ter: roommate).  So thanks to the infinite wisdom of Facebook to inform me of every single bit of information that my Facebook friends would otherwise not want me to know, I was able to have a little birthday surprise setup for said roommate when she woke up and walked into the kitchen this morning.


Sitting around the kitchen table watching the birthday girl blowing out her lone bougie anniversaire (boo-gee an-ee-vers-err: birthday candle) while comparing lesson plans and paychecks, I couldn't help but briefly be terrified by the fact that here we were, a birthday girl and her new-found friends eating pasta and chocolate eclairs and discussing our work lives.  I couldn't help but think to myself: how did I get so old?

Sure, me and my roommates are still in the "young" as far as it goes, but when I told my class of high school students my age they gasped in horror.

"What?" I asked, "Is that old?"

"Yes, if you want to know the truth" a student responded.

"Umm, well... thanks for being honest."

And to think that just three years ago I couldn't even drink a glass of wine legally.  One of the perks of being older?  Now I have the power to flunk that student if I want to.

La Côte St. André

L'automne (luh tohm: Fall) seems to have arrived overnight in the small French village of La Côte St. André (la coht sah-nt ahn-drey: the coast of Saint Andrew), the place I'm calling home for the next several months.  What used to be a humid haze sitting over the valley everyday has developed into a crisp, clear blue as threatening storm clouds in the distance make their way to Grenoble a few miles down the road.  And the locals, including myself, have retreated indoors, trying desperately to come to terms with the fact that, for the next seven months, it will be impossible to leave the house without thermal underwear, scarf, and anorak.

Despite the biting cold, there  are some perks to living in La Côte, aside from the fact that even though the town only has 5,000 inhabitants, there are still six bars and four bakeries.  From one window in my bedroom, for example, I can see the steeple and hear the bells ringing in the hour of a church that has been in town since the 1300s.  La Côte St. André might be a sleepy little town, but at least it's been a sleepy little town since le Moyen Âge (leh moy-ehn ah-jh: middle ages).  From my other bedroom window I can see the Alps shooting up in the not-so-distant east, and if I'm feeling deranged enough I could, theoretically, wake up and watch beautiful sunrises creeping over the mountains every morning.  And right from the comfort of my rent-controlled apartment no less!

But perhaps it's the people in this town that, despite wanting to pluck my eyes out from boredom, still endear me to this place.  The other night, for example, I was sitting in one of the randomly-placed benches in town when a car pulled up in front of me and paused for several minutes.  As I decided to start reaching for my pepper spray, the driver--a high school rap artist wannabe-- ran out and clipped some roses from the hillside, jolted back into his car and sped off to what could only be his acne and teenage angst-ridden French lover down the lane.  Then of course there's the fact that the famous chocolate museum in town offers free samples of all their goods, and every time I walk into the corner grocery store a few blocks away the owner greets me like we're long lost friends.

I have to admit, sometimes, when I'm stuck indoors at 7:00 at night, watching dubbed episodes of The Family Guy and French soap operas, I can't help but wonder what excitement I'm missing out on by not making the move to Grenoble.  But part of me knows I made the right choice. Ok, sure, this town might not have the excitement of a grande ville (grahn-d vee-l: city), but I have a feeling I have a much better shot at making my way into the hearts of the French people here.

Faire la Chasse

 

"Be sure not to hike alone in the woods."--Teacher
"Why?"--Me
"Because someone might mistake you for an animal and shoot you."--Teacher
"Haha, right."--Me
"I'm not joking."--Teacher
"...oh.... holy crap."--Me

This conversation took place a couple weeks ago and I had nearly forgotten all about it until this past Sunday, while hiking alone neck-deep in the beautiful forested hills behind La Côte St. André.  What started out to be a pleasant, sunny hike on a Sunday afternoon quickly turned into a scene out of Bambi when a sudden round of rifle shots went off in the distance.  One shot!  Then two!  Three! The whole time bloodhounds are barking excitedly and in chorus, making me wonder why some birds are still chirping merrily over my head.  Shouldn't they fly out of town as fast as their wings will carry them, scared for their lives?!

Hunting for pleasure is as foreign to me as the idea of escargot (ess-cahr-go: snails) being a delicacy or spending 250 euros on a piece of lingerie.  But for the French, faire la chasse (fehr la sha-sse: to go hunting) is not just a national sport: it's a national art form.  Practically every large mass of forest in this country isn't deciated to preserving wildlife, but to hunting it.

No matter where you are in France it seems to be that everyone is either on the hunt or eager to be hunted.  For instance, the teenage boys in my English classes eagerly shoot out cat calls, hunting for some sort of female attention, while the girls in my class seem to be hunting more for attention, admiration, and an escape from their annoying male classmates.  The French Peugeots (poo-joe: a French car company) that zip around town (practically maulling everyone down at every crosswalk) are really just innocently hunting for the best parking spot.  My French landlord who walks into my aparetment on a daily basis unannounced (and uninvited) is really just hunting for a way to get away from his femme (fah-m: wife).  The old newsboy-cap wearing Frenchmen sitting in bars, nursing a glass of cognac for hours are just hunting for some friendship and social interaction.   And I, as well as everyone else I see strolling around downtown La Côte on a Sunday afternoon--despite all the shops and bars being closed--are really just docile animaux (ahn-ee-moh: animals) waiting to be hunted by some stray bullet of juicy gossip or interesting news so that we have some exciting piece of information to share around the dinner table later that night.

Of course, no matter what pays (pie-ee: country) you go to people will be hunting for activities to fill in their day.  In this way, French people are no different.  What stands out to me is that, in France, no secret is made about the hunt.  Everyone is either the hunter or the hunted, and every French person seems to be born with the inherent kowledge that the more cunning, quick-witted, and mysterious you are, the better your chance of survival.  What I find fascinating is how quickly I fit myself into the "hunted" category.  Just call me dead meat.

Mon St. André

I would just like to take a minute to write a little devotional to mon Saint André (mohn sahn-t ahn-drey: my Saint Andrew). Not only is this particular saint incredibly unique, handsome, and loving (as well as a charmer of animals big and small), but we've also had the opportunity to get to know one another pretty well these past few months and--I think it's safe to say--we're pretty crazy about each other too.

In part because of this new-found André obsession, I think it's fitting to be living in a town whose patron saint is St. André. Every day I pass by numerous streets, buildings, and parks which--literally--have "Andrew" written all over them. 


From my bedroom window I can hear the church bells of l'eglise St. André (leh gleez sahn-t ahn-drey: The Church of Saint Andrew) ring every 30 minutes, reminding me of all the times Andrew has called me on the phone with a caring and supportive (or, sometimes, fight-inducing) word to say. I pass by le bar St. André (leh bahr sahn-t ahn-drey: Saint Andrew's bar), watching couples sipping wine and coffee together as I think back on all the wonderful dates and discussions Andrew and I have had over a bottle of wine (or absinthe cocktail). Then, of course, there's the massive bouquet des fleurs de lys (boh-kay dh flhur dh leez: lilies) Andrew had delivered to my door today. Now, even as I breathe in and out, the aroma of the flowers is a reminder of how romantic and caring Andrew has always been to me. If Andrew was ever in doubt over whether or not I think about him, he shouldn't be worried. How could I possibly forget him?! He's everywhere!


Long distance relationships are never easy. I don't think either Andrew or I pretend to know where our future together lies, but in the meantime it's nice to know I have a friend and lover out there, somewhere, who is thinking of me as much as I think of him.  When I was single for ever so many countless years, I had faith that a good, sweet, romantic, beautiful man was something that only existed in fairy tales. But, what do you know: Andrew exists in real life.  My life.  And that, I think, is something worth shouting "hallelujah" to.

Now can I get an Amen?!

Autrans

After a week of sulking and wasting away in France, the arrival of October meant that it was finally time for work to begin.  "Work" of course being a three day orientation in a ski resort town in the Alps, where the entire weekend was spent speaking English, exchanging phone numbers, and getting so plastered that the enitre camp suffered a collective massive hangover the next morning.

What, did you expect any less?  I mean, I am in France after all!

Autrans (oh-trahn) is the Alpine foothill town where all this drunken debauchery took place.  While this quiet village once hosted numerous Olympic events during the 1968 Winter Games, I'm pretty sure the surge of international language assistants into the local liquor store the other night was probably the most excitement this town had seen since... well, 1968.  But the town certainly is beautiful!  Spiked mountains surround the area like massive soldiers, and the lush green pastures in the town's valley still have plenty of promise left before they're blanketed with snow and become heavily trafficked ski runs in a month's time.

Unfortunately, the youth camp (not the fascist dictator kind of youth camp, but something strikingly reminiscent) where all the language assistants were being housed for two nights didn't seem to reflect much of the region's beauty.  The camp was a mix between a run-down youth hostel and a summer camp horror film (not what I expected out of la belle France, thank you).  All the food was some sort of variety of beige, and the fact that I was a vegetarian seemed to annoy the chef so much that he could only muster up the effort to make me half of an omelet... for every single meal.  True to the stereotypical French bureaucratic style, every activity was disorganized, even to the point of bed arrangements: I was misplaced in my room and spent both nights trying to fall asleep next to the sounds and smells of five drunken males.  Thankfully, all the guys were really nice so I actually lucked out.

Despite the less-than-romantic appeal of the place, the weekend itself turned out to be genial (geen-ee-al: brilliant).  I met lots of really friendly people from all over the world who had come to Grenoble for the same exact reason I had: to learn and fall in love with la culture française (la kwul-tuur frahn-saiz: French culture).

Comparing notes with other assistants in the area, I learned that I'm not the only one stuck in a small village in the French campagne (cohmp-an-yah: countryside).  Far from it, in fact.  This, for some bizarre reason, made me re-think the whole "move to Grenoble" bit and give living in La Côte St. André another shot.  Of course, learning that my town is famous for its chocolate didn't hurt either.  All-in-all, good news for the official start of my life en français (on frahn-sayz: in French).

L'Internet

Today was my first day as une assistante d'anglais (euhn ah-seez-tahnt dh ahn-glay: an English assistant).  I'm tired, hungry, thristy, and I'm pretty sure I've crapped my pants out of nervousness somewhere along the way.  However, I'm still vivante (veehv-ahnte: living), though barely because my apartment doesn't have l'Internet (the Internet).  It's rare that I'm even allowed to log into Facebook or Blogger, let alone acutally post pictures or blogs or do anything remotely interesting.

While I'm hoping to change this situation soon, I did want to say that I've survived my first day on the job and have a week full of work ahead of me.  Also, I've decided to stay in my big apartment in this small town, to give life in a French village a shot.  After all, even life in a French village is still la belle vie française, non (lah bell vee frahn-sayz, no: the beautiful French life)?

Keep tuned, and let me know of any exciting news in your part of the world!  I haven't been able to check into Yahoo! headlines for about a week now, which (I'm sad to say) has been my connection to the rest of the world since I arrived in France two weeks ago.

Les dimanches

Les dimanches (layz dee-mahn-sh: Sundays), I discovered today, is the time of the week where the entire country of France falls fast asleep.  Shops, even in the cities, are closed for the most part, expect for the necessary bread purchase in the morning at the local boulangerie (boo-lahn-jehr-ee: baker's).  This isn't because the French necessarily feel the need to commit themselves to God, Church, and Country.  Oh no, quite the opposite.  You may still have one or two churchgoers from the olden days, but the rest of le pays (lay py-eez: country) rolls out of bed at 10 in the morning, spending the rest of the time lounging around in their slippers, cutting tomatoes and preparing their hunger for 1:00, when lunch is served.

My own very first traditional Sunday spent in France was in the hills of Voiron, a suburb of Grenoble.  Claudie, an English teacher at the lycée (leez-eh: high school) invited me to share lunch with her, her English husband, and her four French sons.

The whole experience was lovely, even though I struggled to understand the slang spewing out of her sons' mouths, feeling like a fool every time Claudie had to translate for me.  And of course there was the inevitable faux pas (foh pah: misstep) of my gaping mouth as Claudie brought out the main dish: curried chicken.  I silently cursed myself for forgetting to mention my vegetarianism, secretly hoping that those large white round blobs simmered in curry sauce was just the French version of tofu.

As I quickly debated with my conscious over whether to eat or not to eat, I decided to bite the bullet and go with the flow.  After all, I hoped to be invited back to her house someday.  I, as politely as I thought possible, asked for the smallest piece of chicken breast and said a silent prayer that I wouldn't spend the next two days hanging over the toilet with the presumed sickness that haunts all végétariens when they decide to swallow their morals and their pride with a meat dish.  The verdict?  Not bad.  Tasted like chicken.  And I'm still alive to write about it.

In all, the meal was delicious and lasted a good hour and a half, followed by a stroll around a nearby lake as Claudie, her husband, and I compared differences between cultures.  Claudie informed me that this Sunday ritual of leisurely meals and sacrificed chickens is currently a hot political debate in France.  Apparently the government is pushing for a more Anglo-Saxon Sunday.  But government be damned: the French, for now, have made it clear that le dimanche is a religion in and of itself.

L'arrivée

After two long days of no sleep and lost luggage, flirtatious immigration officers and cobblestone streets, I arrived on Wednesday afternoon a bit shell-shocked.  I was in France, but my feelings were a bit numb...

But let me back up a little.  The whole reason I'm in France is to be an English assistant for junior high and high school students in La Côte St. André and Le Grand Lemps, two tiny towns in the Rhône-Alpes region of France ( that's on the lower-right side of the map, for those of you who want to know).  I knew when I Googled these towns that they would be small and I might not like them, but I figured I'd give living on campus a shot, given the fact that looking blindly for housing in French didn't exactly appeal to me as a golden travel experience.

On the ride to the town the teacher, Claudie ( a sweet femme (feh-mm: woman) in her fifties who invited me to dejeuner (deh-juhn-eh: lunch) at her place on Sunday) told me how depressing the town was, how quiet, how isolated... I wonder if she could see my chest pounding with terror.  Walking around, though, I realized there was no denying it: La Côte St. André really was a true petite ville française (puh-teet veel frahn-sayz: small French town) where everyone may know your name, but what does that matter when everyone is locked up in their houses by sundown?

Alright, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic (note: alone in big apartment in small French town make Leith go crazy)  but after carefully surveying my options I'm secretly looking for another housing situation.  I can't deny it: I'm a city girl and the beautiful Alpine dirt, noise, and inflated prices of Grenoble are calling to me like a scene from The Sound of Music.  I can't wait until the Italian assistant arrives on Monday.  Maybe she can talk me down from the ledge.  You never know, maybe in a month I'll fall in love with this town.  It could happen...

In the meantime, I'm really enjoying speaking rudimentary, bastardized French to the locals.  You say you're from California and they're willing to forget the fact that you accidentally just asked if you could hump their goat.  In fact, mention you voted for Obama and they're willing to throw a cookie into your purchase for free.

La fête of my depart

Saturday night the clouds parted, the planets aligned, and heaven created a day in my honor: my going away fête ([feh-tt]:party).  Ok, no, I'm not quite that narcissistic (yet!), but with all the delicious food (in line with polylgot American culture, a truly global feast: lasagna, cucumber and tomato salad, chips and salsa, cream torte, cheese plate), gifts, cocktails, and company involved, I don't see why the country didn't just declare the week before my departure a national holiday.

Everyone arrived at 6:30 pm, and stumbled off drunk around 2:00 am, just in time for me to crawl into bed and sleep off a potential gueule de bois ([goo-wl doo bwa]: hangover).  What I learned from the whole night: mix a splash of Chambord liqueur with a glass full of champagne, top off with a raspberry, and you have a refreshing, colorful, delicious drink in your hands straight from France.  Who knew?

A big merci ([mehr-see]: thank you) to my family for spending Saturday night together.  I can't wait until the next family gathering, when baby Sedona will be at the table too.  In the meantime, I leave in six days and here I am, procrastinating in front of Blogger.  I never learn.

Let les cauchemars begin

Well, it's official: the nightmares have begun.  For the past few weeks I've been having strange cauchemars ([coh-sh-mahr]: nightmares) about leaving home and the horror that my sleeping mind seems to believe France will be.  In these sweat-inducing REMs teachers ignore me, students taunt me, or I'm stranded on some country road in France homeless and penniless.  I'd be lying if I said that these dreams don't leave me with chills and a potential heart attack.  Why can't I just sleep as soundly as my dogs? 

A lesser person might feel like she's either having a mental breakdown, or else on the fast track to disaster... luckily, I feel like I've been through this before.

I remember before leaving for England I would have the same terrible night terrors, such as I'd miss my plane and end up living the rest of my life stuck inside a bathroom stall at the airport, among other things.  Let's just say that dream never actaully came true, so I'm cautiosly optimistic that this round of frights won't either... croisons les doigts ([kraw-son lay dwoit]: fingers crossed)!

Of course... there's always the chance that I arrive in France only to find that that the whole experience is a cauchemar in a much more real way than my dreams.  I can't help but let the fear of being miserable and lonely drift in and out every now and then.  I loved Bristol, made great friends, got good grades.  What are the chances that lightening will strike twice?  I know all I can do is wait and find out, so in the meantime I just try not to think.  Period.  Surprisingly much easier to do than I thought it would be.  After all, uncertainty is supposed to be the spice of life or some crap like that.  I hope it is, anyway, because I leave in seven days and I still don't have aucune idée ([oh-koon ee-day]: any idea) what I'm getting myself into, nevermind even a travel book on France.  I should probably look into that...

How it all began...

Il était une fois... there was a slightly naïve and depressed twenty-something girl in the Santa Cruz Mountains who had just about given up on her future.  Broke, single, and with really bad stress-induced acne, she was sitting in her parents' house on a cold, pre-winter day toying with the idea of selling her kidneys on the black market in order to make her first student loan payment.  Luckily, she sidetracked herself first with a generous dose of crazed  Facebook stalking of the people she went to high school with, if only to see if she was the only person from her graduating class with $20,000 in student loan debt with a balls job punching numbers part-time for a vitamin nutcase.

Slightly cursing the Yale and Berkeley graduates and secretly relieved by other graduates who also, evidently, were struggling to find a job, someone's Facebook network status suddenly caught her eye with one simple word: "France".  A revelation!  Little will this underclassman ever know that his publicly viewable Facebook page would change the course of this French-obsessed girl's dreams forever.

(Cliquez to read more)

Remembering Mathilda

If you're lucky, you have at least one person in your life who inspires you, who you look up to, and who, even when they're enterré, you think of everyday as if they were still sitting right next to you over a cup of coffee, chatting about the day.  For me, that person was Grandma Tillie, and today was the one year anniversary of her death, which was spent as a happy remembrance of all the wonderful ways she inspired everyone who knew her.

Some memories of Tillie are impossible to recreate: the fresh, flowery smell of her skin thanks to her religious use of face creams and lotions (she had flawless skin to the day she died); Christmases in her kitchen and the way those chocolate chip oatmeal cookies melted in my mouth just-so; her uncanny ability to break out into song on any occasion... Fortunately, Tillie also left behind a long list of other, more easily imitated memories and habits that I spent the day trying to celebrate.

First off, I visited Tillie's grave and added to her beautiful setting a lemon cyprus and orchid that I'm sure, much to Tillie's delight, made all the neighboring graves slightly envioux.  Later, I ate dejeuner with a tall, dark, and handsome gentlemen (what can I say, she preferred men) at her Saratoga restaurant, La Trattoria, where I made sure to have a glass of white wine with ice on the side scooped carefully into the glass with a fork and fingers.  I then spent the rest of the day with said tall, dark, handsome man basking in the sun at the beach without a care in the world.   I'd like to think I made Tillie proud, though I know what would really make her proud is that my family still talks about her--and misses her--every single day.


For those of you who weren't lucky enough to know her, Mathilda "Tillie" Coughlan Mahoney was a much loved mother, grandmother, dancer, jokster, and beauty extraordinaire, not to mention my family's source of tradition and proud Irish roots.  She meant so much to so many and is thought of avec amour everyday.

The French Repa Chez Lui (My French meal at his place)

I've often debated on which is the more romantic, exciting, fun-inducing setting for a night of wining and dining: a night in or a night out on the town? I always enjoy the idea of spending a night eating and drinking without having to worry about cleaning or dishes, but when I find my bank account dwindling because I have to take out a small loan just to afford a cocktail at the bar, nights at home with friends becomes a bit more appealing everyday. Seeing as I'm going to have to spend a lot of nights in during the next few months because, let's face it, being a teaching assistant isn't exactly the most lucrative job in the world, Andrew reminded me this past Sunday just how romantique a night at home can be.

In order to, no doubt, score points in the boyfriend category, Andrew spent the afternoon boiling, peeling, and mixing together a full course picture-perfect French meal. We started out with pain chaud (warm bread), followed by crêpes decorated with warm framboises (raspberries) and stuffed with artichoke hearts, champignons (mushrooms), and handpicked chèvre from France with the most smooth, creamy, nutty aftertaste I could ask for. This was followed by a cheese plate of smoked gruyère from Switzerland, a wonderful fresh salad with sundried tomatoes and avocado, finished off by raspberry shortcake with handmade whipped cream for dessert. Throw numerous glasses of pinot grigio and cabernet sauvignon into the mix, with a warm cup of café américain as the coup de grâce, I was only able to realize what an amazing meal Andrew had made after the food coma wore off. It's hard to believe the French might eat any better than this. So delicious, even the cat couldn't help but get a bite in!

If it sounds like I'm bragging, it's because I am. Seriously, if Andrew ever decides to give up on the whole fire safety thing, I'm pretty sure he has a bright future at le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Knowing that Andrew can throw together such amazing French meals, I may never want to eat out again. Especially since, this time, he was in charge of the dishes too.

Food of the Dogs

Like Americans, the French tend to adore les petits chiens. Everywhere from bars to four star restaurants haute cuisine allow pooches and their peeps to dine alongside one another for what inevitably turns out to be a rich cultural dining experience. I mean, who doesn't want to chew on a piece of 100 euros-a-plate coq au vin while Fido's slobber drips down your leg? I know I do! There are entire lists of restaurants on Google, pointing out all the dog-friendly cafés spotted throughout le pays de France.

Luckily for me, I adore animals just as much as the French do, which is why I searched high and low for a four-paw-friendly dining experience right here in Santa Cruz. What I found was The Harbor Cafe: a total Santa Cruzian brunch place with doggy menus and bottomless mimosas on Fridays. And you know what? Dog-friendly restaurants are really onto something. The clientele tends to be full of dog lovers (re:nice people), the waiters tend to be nicer to you if only because they're scared of being attacked by your dog if they make a false move, and the poochies inevitably become attention whores who adore the entire experience.

Gearing up for France, my mom, me, and three of our dogs decided to hotfoot it over to the Harbor before closing so we could feast on orange juice, champagne and bacon (for les chiots). Dogs, sun, and mid-afternoon cocktails: the perfect mother/daughter salute to Santa Cruz sunshine and dreams of a dog-friendly France.

Clercking, clacking, cubicles, and champagne

As most people know, champagne is simply a sparkling white wine made from grapes grown only in the region of Champagne, in the northeast of France. Most all countries have their own just-as-tasty knock-offs of the good stuff because, let's face it: celebratory times can only be properly acknowledged with alcohol and bubbles.

I can honestly say that tonight I discovered the reason they invented champagne: to toast the end of depressing cubical jobs spent sitting in front of the blue glow of the computer screen. After eleven months of work under the title "Data Entry Clerk", all I ever really had to show from my job was an ass that has artfully crafted itself into the shape of my swivel chair. That, and perhaps a case of carpel tunnel syndrome.

But no longer. Today was my last day at my (now old) job. To celebrate, Andrew and I went to Red (the restaurant) and toasted with a glass of bubbly to all the old, crappy jobs we've ever had, all of which have thankfully come to end somehow, and to all the (hopefully not so crappy) jobs we might have again. Don't get me wrong, I've met plenty of super friendly, talented people this past year due to my work. Which is why I also secretly toasted that their crappy jobs would soon come to an end too, so that they could move on to bigger and better opportunities at a company that actually gives raises and sick leave. What can I say? I believe in the power of "Cheers!".

So, here's to crappy jobs, great jobs, and all that happens in between those paychecks! As the champagne toasts go in France: tchin-tchin!