Sundays in France
Sundays in France are, quite simply, dead. It's actually kind of bizarre to walk around - the town looks like a ghost town. Every store is closed on Sundays. Sometimes you can find a cafe or two that is open, but even those might be closed. Luckily, my favorite joint in the whole city, the take-away pasta window (a pasta queen's dream come true!), is open on Sundays, so I don't generally starve. But even the streets and sidewalks seem deserted. I have yet to figure out what the French actually
do on Sundays, but as far as I can tell it does not include leaving the house. So generally, and especially on rainy days like today, I take my pasta, walk back home, and indulge in a very English movie or book. After all, it seems to be the French way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.
A Middkid Invasion of Paris
This weekend was possibly one of the best weekends of my whole life. I'm completely and utterly exhausted; my feet are about to fall off, and I have to do more homework than I ever thought possible, but I wouldn't trade this weekend for the world. I was in Paris with about 9 other Middkids. They came in from Italy, Spain, England and the States, and we spent about 3 days together in Paris. We walked around Montmartre, went up the Eiffel Tower, and kept up the Midd tradition of being unable to make any decisions or agree on anything, ever. We walked a total of about 10 million miles, and ate an unimaginable amount of baguettes and Nutella. I had seen most of the kids when I went back home over Winter Break, but two of them I hadn't seen for 6 or 9 months. Overall, it was just amazing to be back together again, and even more amazing for it to happen in Paris. I fell back in love with that city this weekend - it really is just so beautiful and friendly and open. And I'm sure it helped that the weather was gorgeous, sunny and really pretty warm. It was a truly fabulous weekend.
Of course, I had no desire to leave and say good-bye to everyone, but there was a surprise waiting for me back in Poitiers that I had forgotten about. And that surprise was comfort. It's a different kind of comfort than the one I felt this weekend, being around a group of my closest friends, but it's comfort nonetheless. I walked into the University this morning and felt completely like I knew what was going on, where I was, and what I had to do. When I'm at Midd, or with my Middkids, there is a constant craziness that always keeps me on my toes and extremely happy. Here in Poitiers, I don't have that huge group of crazy friends, so my life is very different. However, I'm starting to feel as though I like this life too, where I see friends in the cafeteria, but still come home to my own empty room. It's been over a month now that I've been living in Poitiers, and I'm starting to get used to, and to more importantly enjoy, my life here as well.
A Return to Normalcy
After my first week in Poitiers, I remarked that it felt like the first week of high school. Things went smoothly and, overall, seemed to make sense. That feeling has really continued throughout my whole first month here.
I don't know if it's because I spent all of last semester in Moscow, experiencing a life so completely different from anything I had ever known. I don't know if it has to do with the size of Poitiers - in general it feels much more comfortable and manageable because, in my life, I've always been used to smaller cities. I don't know if it is because of the familiar feeling of a college campus where I recognize people as I walk through the halls and spend my lunchtimes in a noisy, crazy cafeteria that looks nothing like Proctor or Ross, but reminds me of both. The truth is, everything here is different. I mean, it's France for goodness sake! People walk around with a long baguette in their hand; you hear the words "Oh la la" at least twice a day, and when we take a break during a class, the majority of the class goes outside to smoke a cigarette. France couldn't be more, well, French. But at the same time, life has gone on at a very familiar beat. I still spend days in class and nights procrastinating from doing work. I still hang out with friends whenever I get the chance (mostly American ones... we're still working on those French friends). One thing that has really struck me during this round of study abroad is the fact that it may be study abroad, but it's still life. I still get bored; I still have to find dinner every night. Study abroad is not just one waltz under the Eiffel Tower after another. It's your life, picked up and moved to completely different surroundings. And while those different surroundings affect you and change you and make you think more than anything ever has before in your life, you're still walking through every minute of every day, living it.
I don't mean this to be a good or bad judgment on France. I've just realized that my ideal "living abroad in France" situation always ignored the fact that I actually had to live it. Life is still life, even with the baguettes.
La petite allemande
There are four rooms on the third floor of my house. The first isn't even finished - the floors are just wooden and there's no wallpaper on the walls - and is used as a storage room. The second was my room for the first few days, when the third, my current room, was still occupied by the Middkid who lived there first semester. And the last housed an English girl for my first week or so here, but has been empty for the past three weeks. This past weekend, however,
la petite allemande, the little German, moved in.
All I knew about this girl was what my host family had told me - they always referred to her as
la petite allemande, but apparently her name was Jennifer. When she finally arrived Friday night, I found out a lot more. So technically, yes, she's German, but for the first 14 years of her life, she lived in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia! She's Russian! After the German version of high school, she worked as an au pair in the south of France for a year, and then again for a year in England (even though she didn't speak a word of English before she left).
Needless to say, our conversations are pretty much the biggest and bestest linguistic moments that have ever occurred. Mostly we speak in French - it's easiest for both of us to speak in a language that is neither of our native lanuages. But quite often she switches into English, and we both throw in Russian words here and there when there's just no better way to say it. And somehow, my mind gets it. We switch back and forth, back and forth, and no matter what, we both understand. Yesterday, we were talking, and she said a sentence or two in Russian, and it wasn't until after she said it that I really realized she had just spoken Russian - I just kept understanding! It's a little linguist's dream come true, and the only thing better is that she's very nice, and we seem to be getting along really well.
Reverse Culture Shock
I was talking to my friend Evan the other day on the phone. Evan was in Moscow with me on the Midd program, and is now spending the semester in Paris on the Brown program. When Evan and I
finally received our French visas back sometime in December, we said how much easier France was going to seem after being in Russia. The worst part of culture shock in France, we decided, was the smell of fresh bread every morning. And the other night on the phone we decided that we were absolutely correct.
Evan said the other people on the Brown program keep complaining about how rude Parisians are - how they never smile or say excuse me or anything. But Evan, on the other hand, thinks everyone's so friendly. And the other day, when someone bumped into him on the Metro and
apologized, he actually gave them a dirty look, just cause he was so surprised. Stephanie, another Middkid in Poitiers, was complaining the other day about how grey it always is here. But everytime the sun comes out, even for a part of the day, I get so happy that it just decided to shine at all, and can't help but walk around in it for a bit. I have a complex about giving people a 20 euro bill when I'm buying anything for less than 15 euros. You see, I just can't do it. And if I'm forced to, I first apologize and explain that I don't have anything smaller. Not that they care, of course.
They told us that we'd probably get reverse culture shock when we left the Motherland, that we'd carry a plastic bag around with us for a few weeks, or marvel at how small the keys are. But seeing as the change went from grey skies to blue skies and frowns to smiles, I'm pretty much okay with it.
