Le Rhume

It's a truth universally acknowledged that kids are dirty, even the French ones. Sure, they're cute, chubby, and jolly whenever they're not in middle of a temper tantrum, but their cuteness is wrapped inside a germ-infested package of snotty noses, a desire to touch every piece of shiny trash on the street, and an inability to wash their hands properly after using the bathroom. Thankfully I love children anyway. They're mostly non-judgmental compared to their older teenage counterparts, and often give me petits dessins (deh-see-nawj: drawings) and handmade jewelery as their way of saying “I think you're alright”. And then, you know what? I think they're alright too. I respond well to gifts.

Considering I teach almost 200 children everyday, ride the Parisian metro ( the very dirty but practical subway) to and from work, and have been subsisting on a McDo's (meek-dohz: McDonald's in French) and yogurt diet because I'm broke and McDonald's is the only place in my neighborhood with free wifi, I'm actually pretty surprised I lasted two weeks in Paris without getting sick. But Thursday morning, when I woke-up to my alarm at 5:30 in the morning to dress for work, I had that all-too-familiar “oh shit” feeling: I was getting a cold, and I could tell this one was going to—how you say—suck balls.

Let it be said that the French don't seem to handle having une maladie (oon mahl-ah-dee: an illness) very well. You should see the way they baby their children at the slightest mention of a stomach ache, and it seems that every time I show up to work some teacher or another is at home sick, recovering from what could only be terminal pneumonia from the way the French dramatize it. 

 

This all makes sense if you think about it, considering that not too long ago Paris was ridden with plagues, death, and the worst possible stench you could possibly imagine. However, I was under the impression that underground plumbing in France was installed long ago, doing away with the need to associate the common cold with death, but still this fear seems to have been passed down through the generations. The French won't hesitate to go to the doctor the moment their throat starts to itch, and in case le médecin (luh mehd-uh-sun: the doctor) is out on vacation, there's une pharmacie (oon farm-uh-see: a pharmacy) on every street corner selling every type of snake oil to cure whatever particularly ails you, whether that be your puss-encrusted pink eye or the cottage cheese pattern on your thighs.

After spending two and a half hours waiting for the train in the cold suburban air due to yet another grève (grehv: strike), I was feeling particularly crappy the next day and headed to the corner pharmacy myself to hopefully find some generic equivalent to DayQuil. Not so easy in France, where pharmacists tend to be treated with as much revere and respect as doctors--and porquoi pas (por-kwa pah: why not), I guess—though this means that all over-the-counter medicine is actually kept over the counter. In order to get so much as a multivitamin, you have to explain your each and every symptom to the pharmacist before she will prescribe what she deems appropriate and hand it over to you. 

 

This is the case even for something as simple as buying ibuprofen, as I experienced last year, when I explained to the man behind the counter, « I'd like some ibuprofen, please » to which he responded « Why? ». Confused, I explained « Because I have pain ». « You should take aspirin, it's better » he said, handing me a ten euro box of aspirin. To which I had to explain that I, in fact, had horrible menstrual cramps and ibuprofen is the only thing that works, and where's a box of tampons while we're at it? Eventually he gave in, but I've never willingly walked into a pharmacy ever since.

But this is a brand new year, in a brand new city in France, and my cold was making me feel particularly pathetic, so in my plugged-up nose, watery eye, sore throat and chills haze, I stood at the pharmacy counter down the street explaining to the nice, soft-spoken lady pharmacist in my broken French (translated here for your comfort and my humiliation): 

 

«Good day! I have a nose that is....I do not know how to say... » as I point to my nose trying my best to make snot motions with my hands. 

 

The pharmacist helps me out  « stuffed or runny? » she asks in French. 

I think for a minute and decide « yes, runny!», making runny snot motions with my hand now just as she did, realizing that I had never until this moment bothered to consider whether a stuffy nose was actually runny or vice versa, « and I have bad in my throat and eyes with some water. Is it that you have things for to hide the symptoms?»

« Yes, of course! Tell me, do you have chills? »

« But yes, I do! »

« Do you have a fever? »

I feel my forehead, wondering why I never bothered to ask myself the same question, « No, I do not believe so! »

« And how are your bowel movements? »

« Fine. Just fine . »

I look behind my shoulder and the customers waiting in line at the next cash register over are looking at me with sly grins on their face, partly thrilled to be witnesses to my humiliation and partly intrigued by my over-eager French phrases that would make even a two year-old cringe.

The pharmacist strolls over and takes down the French equivalent of DayQuil and some cough drops. She explains to me that I'm to take the DayQuil—called Actifed in France—once every four hours, on a full stomach, and then the night pill at night, when it's dark and before I go to sleep. Then she explains the cough drops to me, saying « These you suck on, to make your throat losen up and feel better. They're sweet and they taste good. ». At five euros a box, I didn't care how good they tasted. I'm an American, not an idiot, and I'd rather spend my five euros on something more worthwhile, like a bottle of wine, than 12 honey-flavored cough drops. I know when I'm being gypped.

I tell her I'll just take the Actifed. She gives me a look with raised eyebrows, then says « as you like ». I pay, say my most polite merci (mer-see: thank you) and leave at a casual strolling pace, vowing never again to forget the name for French DayQuil, as that entire fiasco could have been avoided.

Two days later, and I still feel like crap but thanks to that lovely pharmacist's keen powers of deduction, she was able to properly surmise that I, in fact, have le rhum (luh room: a cold). Maybe if I had just bought the damn cough drops, I'd be cured by now.

Au revoir, Bonjour

Another summer come and gone, and I found myself at the airport on the morning of September 26^th giving a heartfelt au revoir (oh ray-vwa: goodbye) to those I love at the San Francisco airport. As far as goodbyes go, I'm not a huge fan, and each time I have to say goodbye seems harder than the last. So, true to fashion, this past particular time also particularly sucked. Watching my family wave crude sexual gestures to me from the waiting area at the security line, I found myself thinking fondly about the amazing family and friends I have in the States, and all the inconnues (in con ew: unknowns) waiting for me in Paris.

Luckily, as I stepped onto solid ground and said bonjour (bone jewr: hello) to France once again, it wasn't long before the City of Lights decided to offer me some charity by providing me with a pretty sweet housing situation. After a day of frantically emailing every housing offer I came across online while sitting in the dimly-lit and smelly common rooms of a hostel in Montmartre, I managed to set-up a meeting with a family in the 16^th arrondissement (arrow dees mont: neighborhood) of Paris searching for an English speaking babysitter for their three enfants (on fant: young children) in exchange for housing. Three days later, I was lugging my 60-pound valise (val eez: suitcase) up seven flights of stairs to my chambre de bonne (sham-bruh duh bone: converted maid's quarters) overlooking the top of le tour eiffel (luh toor ay-fel: the Eiffel Tower) and hundreds of other quaint stone Parisian apartment buildings similar to mine, rent free for the “simple” task of spending ten hours a week looking after a 2 year-old boy and his 3 year-old and 5 year-old sisters. I'll probably have a mental break-down and reconsider motherhood completely by the end of this year, but for the moment I'm content at least at having a place in Paris to call my very own.

In the meantime, I'm spending most of my days running back and forth between Paris fashion week tents to see if I can stalk any celebrities of Paris Vogue fame, opening French comptes bancaires (kompt ban-kair: bank accounts), and going to primary school orientations. Then, at night, I sit in my room alone listening to the traffic go bye rocking back and forth hoping for some copains (ko-pan: friends) to share the city with. Yes, un peu pathetique (un pu pa-tet-iq: a bit pathetic). I'm just hoping Paris hasn't given up on me as a complete charity case at the moment and still has some amazing, funny, witty French friends in store for me not too far down the road before I end up turning out like some really pathetic hermit Parisian stereotype, like Quasimodo or something.  The sad part is, I already have the scoliosis so a life of freakishness probably isn't far behind...sigh.

Home Again

Ok, so it's been awhile.  Awhile for my blog, and awhile since I've been home.  As far as the blog goes, you can't blame me: I've been trying to unpack, job search, and get over the typical home sadness that comes when travelers return and shockingly realize that home hasn't changed into some exotic foreign country, and life hasn't completely fallen apart without them like it's supposed to.  Kind of like home sickness, except the other way around, if ever-so-slightly more narcissistic. 

Of course, it's sweet to be home: I've gotten to sleep in a bed full of dogs, cats, and a charmingly handsome (and comfy!) boyfriend again (though two very important dogs are missed), my mom actually put roses on my windowsill (why weren't my roommates in France ever so accomodating??), I'm able to finally enjoy the new baby smell of my gorgeous niece Sedona, and I can engage in grocery shopping transactions again without the inevitable fear of running into a language barrier regarding asparagus.


What's draining about being home is that I've spent the past week and a half uploading thousands of pictures, searching for a job in the crappy job market I almost let myself forget about, and unpacking. Considering I've spent the past eight months struggling to do something as simple as call a taxi, the familiarity of the monotony of home life seems, somehow, eery.  Almost enough to make me run for the nearest airport again, but then I think about going through airport security for the tenth time this month, and a simple nap sounds much more feasible. Enough naps, and I might be able to summon up the energy to post the rest of the Europe photos and share them with you, though somehow traveling around Europe again sounds slightly less scary and frustrating...

Au revoir

As I type this I'm sitting at Parc Paul Mistral, watching French hippies stand in a circle with their shirts off, rhythmically banging away on drums and quietly chanting while their friends in dreadlocks juggle nearby. I'd almost think I was back in Arcata or Santa Cruz again, except for the fact that 100 feet away are three disapproving French ladies in their troisième âge (twa-zee-ehm ahj: senior citizens) with perfectly coiffed hair and bundled in sweaters (keep in mind it's practically 90 degrees out today), shooting these hippies judgmental glances and gossiping behind cupped hands, while an equally old-aged Frenchman in dress shirt and khakis tries to dance to the music. And on the bench next to them is a girl no less than six months pregnant,simultaneously rubbing her belly with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other while she giggles with her husband and watches three labs run around the grass, chasing after a toddler. Oh, only in France...

This is what my life in Grenoble has come down to: watching hippie ladies, old ladies, and pregnant ladies sit together in the park while they gossip, smoke, and giggle. And it's all about to come to an end. Tomorrow is Monday, which marks the first day of my last week of work. This week will be full of au revoirs (ohr vwa: goodbyes), but it won't be melancholy. I'm ready to move on. In fact, in French there are many ways to say goodbye, but most of them all mean “until the next time”, which sort of takes the sting out of the sentiment. Au revoir directly translated really just means “until the next sighting”. A bientot (ah bee-en-toe), another casual way of saying goodbye, really translates to “see you very soon”, and a tout a l'heure (ah toot ah loor) implies “until the next hour we see each other again”. So what do the French say if they never intend on seeing someone again? Adieu (ah-deeu), which means “to God”. This very formal word for goodbye is best reserved for a French person if they think they're about to die, or secretly hope that the person they're saying goodbye to is about to die and be sent up “to God”.

A bit like the French, I like to think of goodbyes not so much as a parting forever, but the chance to say bonjour (hello) to someone else. Sure, I'll be saying my goodbyes to my students this week, but I'll be saying hello to Andrew on Friday for the first time in months. I might be saying goodbye to my apartment at the end of May, but I'll be saying hello to my home in Boulder Creek for the first time since September, where my family and animals will be waiting for me. And I might be saying goodbye to Grenoble and all the friends I've met here, but I'll be saying hello to a new region of France in October.

That's right: on April 7^th, 2010, I received an email from the English Teaching Assistantship program in France informing me that I'd been offered a teaching assistantship position in the region of Versailles—a suburb of Paris. Knowing that I have a place in France waiting for me--giving me another year of trying hopelessly to seem French--means leaving Grenoble is not sad but just a necessary step towards more adventure, and I couldn't be more ready. Even though I've been spoiled with six weeks of vacation in the past seven months, I'm exhausted. Nothing about Grenoble has been easy, but rather one long lesson that has taught me that chasing after my rêves (rehv: dreams) is a whole lot of hard work, mixed in with a few sunny days in a park listening to hippies butcher the drum...and a lot of other nice moments too.

Quand la vie vous donne de citrons... aka Leith (in Romansh)

Quand la vie vous donne de citrons (kand lah vee voo dohn duh see-trohn)...when life gives you lemons, sometimes you feel like just chucking them right back in the face, plus throwing a few hard, sharp rocks for good measure. That's certainly how I feel right now, anyway. I don't want any citron pressé (see-tron pres-ay: lemonade); I'd rather have my niece be healthy, I'd rather the hot water in my apartment be working, and I'd rather be able to visit my sister in Sweden before she—and I—leave the continent. But no, sometimes life's just a bitch and you have to wait for the PMS to subside.

The past few days Iceland decided it wanted to be on my liste de merde (leest duh mehrd: shit list), so it started spewing ash into the sky, clouding any chance of my getting to Scandinavia for the week to see my sister. Full of optimism—or at the very least complete naivete—I decided to make a trip to Genève (Geneva) anyway to see if my flight from the city would eventually take off. If you read the news at all, you'd know it didn't. So I've spent the past two days wandering around this lovely city in Switzerland, where Romansh is one of the forgotten official languages.  What the heck does Romansh sound like?  I have no idea.

Geneva itself is beautiful, and fortunately I was able to score a room in an over-booked hostel and get out of Grenoble for a while. The thing is, the more I wandered around Geneva, the more I realized that the stereotypes about the Swiss are completely true: obsession over Swatches, immaculateness as religion, and shady Swiss banks are everywhere.

I've noticed you can tell a lot about a culture's values by what their buildings look like. In the States, we believe in capitalism and the free market, meaning our skyscrapers tower over churches and other less-important buildings like behemoths, dwarfing anything that gets in the way of the Corporate America. In France, they're a bit more lackadaisical about money, religion, and life in general and their skylines mirror this in a melange of white-washed concrete apartment buildings and the banks and churches that blend seamlessly in between them. In Switzerland, though, it's the banks that stand out among the crowd with their fluorescent signs that practically scream “deposit your illegal profits here”. Even the cathedrals on the hill can't help but feel inadequate and humiliated standing next to these Swiss banks that really are on every street corner.

And on the subject of money: for a country as conspicuous wealth-centered as Switzerland, I've got to say that the Swiss Franc is the fakest looking money I've ever seen. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the money while in Switzerland because, well, I forgot, but trust me: the money is just recycled rainbow vomit, and the coin francs are pretty enough but also big enough to double as tricycle wheels.

The Genevois (jen-ev-wa: people living in Geneva) are rich, the streets are spotless, the cars are all Ferraris or Maseratis or--at the very least--Audis, though the lack of grit means the city lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. What's a city without seedy hookers and petty street crime, anyway?!  Lac Lemin (lah-k lay-mahn: Lake Geneva) is a refreshing spot to relax after you've spent a day's salary on breakfast (this city is expensive!) and everyone here seems to speak at least three languages. Geneva also seems to attract a lot of Americans: I heard more American accents in Geneva in three days than I've heard in my entire time in Grenoble. I'm not quite sure what all these Americans are doing here, but seeing as Geneva's the home of the United Nations, I guess you can't help but expect everyone in the city to actually be  from somewhere else.

Anyway, as far as travel plans go not the hottest weekend ever, but since every single European on vacation this weekend was in the same boat (or lack of airplane, ha) as me, I can't say it's all due to my bad karma.

Notre Dame

Awhile ago I read an article about a woman who prayed to Sainte Thérèse (sahnt ter-ehz: Saint Thérèse), asking the saint to scatter flowers from heaven.  Saint Thérèse is from Lisieux (lis-ee-u), France.  A nun during the late 1800s, Thérèse showed her love for God and humankind by scattering flowers, hence her nickname "The Little Flower".  The theory in the Catholic Church is that if you to pray Thérèse for 14 days, then on the 15th day you will be presented with flowers in some form, a sign that your prayer will be answered.  Just as the legend goes, the woman in this article prayed to Saint Thérèse and, lo and behold, on the 15th day received 12 dozen leftover roses from her neighbor's garden.  Instantly the woman's faith in the Church was renewed and she's been claiming the healing power of prayer ever since.

As inspiring as an article like this can be, I'm not a religious person.  Sure, I believe in some strong greater-than-human force, and I also believe in the power of prayer if only in so much that positive thoughts cause positive actions.  But honestly, I really couldn't care less if someone needs Christmas, Krishna, or karma in order to express their spirituality--or lack thereof.  France, for instance, seems to be less and less religious everyday, but there's one thing the French still have faith in: Notre Dame (no-tra dahm: Our Lady), and there are plenty of intricate cathedrals around celebrating Her.

French love les femmes (leh fehm: women), and of all the women they love, it seems they love the Virgin Mary the most (well maybe second most to Bridgette Bardot or Chanel).  Most cities in France have at least one cathedral dedicated to the matriarch such as Notre-Dame de Grenoble, the cathedral in downtown Grenoble that I visited today in order to light a candle and say an Ave Maria for my beautiful, perfect, wonderful 3-months old niece who goes into Stanford Children's Hospital on Monday for major heart tests and, possibly, surgery.

There are a million-and-one ways to express spirituality, but in my desperate need of a physical way of expressing my inner-turmoil over my niece's condition, it was nice to have a cathedral close-by to just sit and think and cry and hope in peace in front of the powerful, sacred Our Lady icon with her baby in her arms.  Even if I don't believe in the power of the Pope, like most of the French I do believe in the power of women and the incredible strength of Sedona to make it through.  After all, ever since her birth Sedona has become the lady of the Maver family.  Her birth, existence, and beauty makes my faith in family stronger, and my prayers will always be with her.  I hope yours will be too.

Pâques

Pâques (pak : Easter) is here, marking the arrival of spring and--even for the French--chocolate eggs, bunnies and hens who lay said chocolate eggs, and lots of cakes and other delicious food.  Like any other dimanche (dee-mansh: Sunday), restaurants and shops on Pâques are shut and families are out enjoying the warmer weather in the park.  As a 24 year-old American in Grenoble, how did I celebrate this holiday, you might be wondering?  With alcohol and mes amies (mayz ahm-ee: my girlfriends), of course, who when loneliness kicks in substitute as a very fine adoptive family great for parties and English conversation.


This holy weekend was spent on Saturday lapping up the vino at lunch over pizza in le centre ville (luh sen-trah veel: downtown) followed by a happy hour cocktail at a bar followed by more pizza and cocktails over a dinner that ended at 11:30, followed by French club music and "wine juice" afterward.  We left the bar tipsy and tired as bells were ringing-in the holy day and fashionably dressed actually pious French women were leaving the Saturday vigil.

Naturally, a samedi (sahm-dee: Saturday) like that would have to be followed on Easter Sunday by a trip to Chartreuse, the famous distillery in Voiron (vwar-own) which manufactures industrial strength, green alcohol made by Chartreuse monks from an ancient secret recipe.  The distillery offers free tours and tastings of this blessed liquid  named Chartreuse, which happens to taste more like ancient cough medicine than it does an ingredient in world-famous cocktails.  The entire distillery smells just as strong as the liquor tastes: earthy, musky, spicy, with a bit of holy mixed in (thanks to the monks).  All in all, a very blessed French Pâques, a holy Sunday when oddly enough the one place in France still open is an alcohol manufacturing plant run by monks.  Joyeuses Pâques,tout le monde (joy-oos pak too luh mohn-d: happy Easter, everyone)!