In my Father's Shoes

*This is the last of four new posts about my vacation in Provence. To make sure everything makes sense, start with "All Saints' Vacation--The Beginning". I did not add pictures to the posts, but I will upload pictures to the google page as I can. Love you all!*

All Hallow’s Eve Eve. Today, in the supermarket, I passed by a girl with a green-painted face, and a little boy who I think was supposed to be a vampire. No idea about the girl…maybe a witch? I think that’s about all of the Halloween I’ll get, which is more than my father got when he studied in France in the seventies. Papa once (probably more than once, but hey…) told me about the Halloween he spent in southern France, when hardly anyone here had heard of the holiday. He and his university friends decided to go trick-or-treating that October 31st, but they had to explain the custom at every door they went to. You know, the usual, “it’s a weird American thing…kids come to your door, bang on it, and you have to give them candy or something…”. At the end of the night, when my father returned home, he and his friends each had a sack full of wine, bread, cheese, and jars of savory and sweet concoctions (jellies, mustards, and the like). A mighty fine catch, I might say, and possibly (at my age, and my father’s age at the time) better than a pillowcase full of candy. Now, thirty odd years later, most people in France are fairly well informed about Halloween and what we crazy Americans do. There are Halloween parties, costume contests, painted faces, and vampires, but people don’t really go trick-or-treating. I think that if I tried to go trick-or-treating, it might count as a check on my “stupid American” tally.
On the topic of differences between France thirty years ago and France now, I have decided that we are on a time difference of about thirty years. First of all, thirty years ago French people didn’t know about Halloween, but they do now. Also, before I left my father told me to say good-bye to ketchup, but that’s all over the place in France now too. Who wants to take bets on what will be popular in France thirty years from now?
While I can’t say that I am heading out tomorrow night with an empty sack and visions of French cheeses dancing in my head, I have been doing some of the things that Papa did when he was in France. Yesterday we visited Avignon, the city that my father studied at when he was in college. No wonder he still talks about his time in France! The city is absolutely gorgeous, and I would move from Perpignan to there in an instant. The weather was cold and rainy, but luckily we started our day in the Palais des Papes (the Popes’ Place), the place of residence of the Popes when they left Rome during part of the Middle Ages. The palace was absolutely stunning, although unfortunately we were only able to take pictures of the outside, to not damage the artifacts inside with camera flashes. It was also absolutely immense—it basically took an entire village of people to run the place. Well, not quite, but you get the idea. At the risk of sounding repetitive (I think I say this about every historic monument I visit), the coolest thing was imagining the people who used to actually live there. I walked where Popes walked! I stood in the kitchen where papal feasts were prepared, stood in the room where medieval papal bulls were signed, et cetera et cetera et cetera.
After visiting the Popes’ palace, we walked a short distance to the Pont d’Avignon (the Avignon Bridge), made famous by the eponymous song (“sur le pont d’Avignon, on y danse et on y danse”…yeah, I had never heard it before either, don’t worry). The bridge was just a bridge, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. It was partially destroyed during the WWII bombings, and so now only partially traverses the Rhône, so it can’t actually be used as a bridge. Did you know that in the Middle Ages people used to build houses and live on the bridges in Europe? Actually, they built houses everywhere, including inside places like the Roman amphitheatres. In the 19th century, when there were cultural movements stressing the protection and restitution of historical monuments like that, the people living inside the monuments had to be evicted, and their houses were razed. Just imagine a portion of a city sitting inside a thousand year old Roman amphitheatre! Hilarious.
Anyway, after the Pont, the weather got worse and it started pouring down rain. We tried doing a self-guided walking tour of the city, but there weren’t signs for anything, and we continually had to watch the sidewalk for the magic red arrows telling us where to go—we weren’t even looking at the buildings in the neighborhood. Also our umbrellas kept getting turned inside out because of the wind. We gave up on the walking tour, and found a café.
After tea, some of us decided to walk around the city to find something more to do or see, and so set off. We found this great little antique shop where I spent way too much time and too much money, but I found some awesome gifts for some of the people back home. We spent the rest of the time looking for monuments that were either closed or privately-owned, but we got to see some really beautiful parts of the city. We ended our night in the Place de la Republique, taking pictures with one head and holdings bags of roasted chestnuts with the other (they were amazing, Papa! Unfortunately, I still haven’t seen a chestnut vendor in Perpignan, so I will have to head to Avignon every time I need a fix. No big deal.).
The visit to Avignon absolutely made up for the failed visit to Aix-en-Provence (it also marked the first day that we had absolutely no problems with the apartment), and today’s visit wasn’t so bad, either. We started the day with a visit to the Pont du Gard, which is a portion of the Roman aqueduct that connected Nîmes and Uzès two thousand years ago. The Pont du Gard is a bridge portion of the aqueduct that stretches over the river Gardon, and is an immense three-tiered structure, 48 meters high. I have always been fascinated by the Roman aqueduct: by its sheer immensity, by the precision of construction required to move water that quickly, efficiently, and far, and by the speed of construction (the Pont took about 5 years to construct; the aqueduct, 14). Much of the Roman aqueduct has been destroyed over the years, but the Pont remains more or less intact, in its original state.
After the Pont, we drove over to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, just west of Avignon. Our timing wasn’t perfect, because we arrived right in the middle of lunch, when everything, and I mean everything, closes. We ate our lunch in the car with the rain pouring down on us, and bided the time until 2:00. We walked around the town for a while, looking at the little shops and restaurants, and wandered upon La Chartreuse, a chapel/monastery founded during Pope Innocent VI’s reign (one of the Avignon Popes). The monastery was giant, but lacking in signs as well, so I really don’t know much about its history. What I do know is that there is a bitchin’ gothic style tomb that houses the remains of Innocent VI.
Finding ourselves without much to do in Villeneuve, we piled back in the car again to drive to a city called Orange, which seems to be a really lovely place, although we didn’t get to see too much of it. We did visit the Théâtre Antique, one of only three remaining Roman theatres in the world. The theatre was, of course, awesome, but a little to big to take pictures of, which is unfortunate. My personal favorite in the theatre was the presence of a tabby cat that followed Isabel and I around. He was the sweetest thing, and yowled when we tried to leave. And of course, because the Romans’ conception of acoustics was so amazing, his yowls reverberated throughout the theatre and the night in Orange.
Tomorrow, we are packing up and leaving the apartment fairly early, and visiting Les-Baux-de-Provence. I don’t really know what there is to see there, but one of Isabel’s teachers highly recommended it. Afterwards, we’re taking the “auto-route” home. I have had a lovely time traveling the French countryside visiting ancient monuments, but I am really looking forward to a quiet weekend home alone before school starts next week. I have some errands to run concerning my carte de séjour, and I hopefully have to plan a lesson surrounding Barack Obama’s big win on Tuesday.

'Jour Rate' a la Duras

During our visit to Aix-en-Provence today, the thought that kept running through my head was, “jour raté”, a phrase taken from the Marguerite Duras book that I translated last year, which means “day failed”. In Duras’ book Le Navire Night, the phrase is “film failed”, referring to her failure at capturing the story told in “Le Navire Night” on film. Aix-en-Provence was a complete failure. We got our water back in the apartment last night, so we were all able to take showers and wash the piles of dishes on the counter. For some reason, the water was freezing cold, so I may or may not get pneumonia soon. I’ll keep you posted. We woke this morning and began to get ready for our early start to Aix, and the electricity switched off. And then the water stopped. Luckily, I had already heated my coffee in the microwave and filled my water bottle. The landlady came downstairs and tried to explain the problem, which had something to do with a stupid plumber yesterday and her old pumphouse/well combination. She promised that we would have water, hot water, and electricity when we returned in the evening, and so we trudged to the car in the cold grey morning. When we arrived in Aix, we found the Tourism Office, from which we were to take a guided tour of the city. The tour guides heard us speaking accented French, and kept insisting that we could take the tour in English, despite the fact that two out of four of us don’t speak English. The tour took us through the old city, which mostly dates from the 18th and 19th centuries. We toured some lovely streets lined with what are called “hôtels particuliers”. I am not sure what this really means in English, but basically they are these awesome homes that the aristocracy built during that time period, with decorative facades facing the street, and that open into a courtyard in the back. The hôtels particuliers line the streets without breaks between them, and are generally three stories high. The first and second stories are inhabited by the family, and the third story is reserved for the staff. Generally a grand staircase connects the first and second floors, and the third is reached by a simple wooden stair. It’s kind of hard to explain, but I am sure you have all seen them before, and also I took a ton of pictures.
During the tour, the guide explained a lot of the city’s history, and gave a lot of architectural information. I am so glad that we studied architecture a little in some of my French classes, because otherwise I would have only understood about half of the tour. Aix-en-Provence is famous for many things, of course, but it is in Aix that Paul Cézanne and Emile Zola met each other at the age of 12 or 13, and where they stayed friends together for around fifteen or twenty years. It is also the city where Paul Cézanne died, after painting for too long out of doors. There are tours of the city that focus on Cézanne’s influence and life in the city, too. We also visited a cathedral, the oldest part of which dated to the 5th century. It is one of four places in France where the old-style “baptisoires” (I don’t know the English word, but it’s the thing you get baptized in) still exists. It’s basically this hole in the ground surrounded by eight marble columns, and it looks, at first sight, like the site of some creepy ritual…Which I guess it kind of is. But it makes more sense when you see it. I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures in the cathedral, but I did take some pictures outside the church, in the little cloister that was built a few centuries later.
Sometime during this lovely romp into the architectural history of Aix-en-Provence, it started to rain. Not like the rains we have had in Perpignan, but like a good, nice, hard, Bellingham rain. If I hadn’t planned to be outside visiting a city today, I might have enjoyed seeing the rain, because it reminds me of home. But I got soaked, and I was wearing flat shoes with no socks. My feet were wet, and my jeans were wet almost up to my knees. Luckily I had had the foresight to wear a hat and a coat, but I still had to buy an umbrella (I can do that here because people won’t make fun of me…Also they actually work because the rain doesn’t go sideways) in a small shop we passed. We hurried back to the car to eat our sandwiches and decide what to do, stepping through cobble-stone streets that turn into dangerous puddle-holding holes in the rains.
At the car, we looked at the map of Aix and found a movie theatre not too far away from our parking garage. Luckily there were several movies starting soon after we arrived, and two of my companions decided to go to “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (which I still need to see) and Tom and I followed the line of parents, children, and pre-teen girls into “High School Musical 3: Nos Années Lycée”. Chelsea, by the way, there is a High School Musical game for the DS. We need to get it! I have been waiting for this for so long! Unfortunately, it was dubbed, but they did, at the very least, leave the songs in the original English, which is really the most important thing anyway. It was everything that I had hoped for and more, and I am just waiting for plans for the university chapter to be released. Seeing “High School Musical 3” was the highlight of my visit to Aix, which is unfortunate, because I am sure it’s a lovely town…But not today it wasn’t. After the movies, we walked briefly around the town doing some window shopping, but headed home not long afterwards. Now, I am waiting for the pork roast in the oven to finish, and looking forward to Avignon tomorrow. Avignon is the city where my father studied when he was in France, so it will be cool to see some of that city. And I am keeping my fingers crossed for better weather.

On the Roman Circuit: Arles

Still without water this morning, I washed my hair in a pot of heated water in the bathroom sink, and kept my fingers crossed for water in the evening. We left the house (filled with empty plastic mineral water bottles, which we have been using to cook and rinse dishes, as well as to wash hands, face, and teeth) and visited Arles, which is the city closest to where our apartment is. When we got home tonight, we had water, which was very exciting, but it was freezing cold and dribbled out of the faucets. So I got to take a shower, but did so with a tub of hotpot-heated water at my feet, and the ice cold showerhead spraying sideways. At least there’s water.
In Arles, we went to the tourism office and bought a monument pass (called the Circuit Romain) which allowed us entrance into the Roman theatre, the Roman amphitheatre, the Roman public baths, and also something called the Alyscamps (I don’t think an English word exists for that, but basically it was this lovely walkway lined with Roman tombs. Kind of weird, but peaceful nonetheless). We spent the day visiting these ancient buildings, and exploring the streets of Arles, which is a beautiful little Provençal town on the edge of the Rhône. I am still continually amazed by the age of things in Europe, and I was even more amazed in Arles because the city dates back to Roman times, and the remains of Roman buildings and edifices are everywhere. Even though it’s really just a bunch of rocks piled on the ground, there’s something so awesome about standing and sitting where people stood and sat over two thousand years ago. The steps in the amphitheater were sloped in the middle from the hundreds of thousands of feet that have tread upon them over these last two thousand years. Today, I ran my hand along stone that was carved and smoothed by some workmen two thousand years ago. I just can’t get over that.
Aside from the Roman ruins, Arles is also well known as one of Vincent van Gogh’s residences. It was in Arles that he painted many of his best known paintings, and where he cut his ear off. The city of Arles is very proud of its history with van Gogh, although not one of van Gogh’s paintings can be seen in any of Arles’ museums. The citizens of Arles to whom van Gogh gifted his masterpieces never seemed to like them (a certain doctor used his portrait by van Gogh to block a hole in a chicken coop), and sold them or gave them away. In the evening, we took a walking tour of the city (in French!) which lasted about two hours, and was centered on van Gogh’s life in the city. I’ve never done anything so touristy before, but I feel like it has more merit because it was about an artist! It was really cool to learn more about van Gogh, and the city of Arles, and also to see the actual buildings and vistas that van Gogh painted. I saw the lights reflected in the surface of the Rhône at night, like van Gogh painted them. I saw the wheat fields with the Abbaye de Montmajour in the background, like van Gogh once saw them. I saw the narrow street lit yellow in the night, and the white tables and yellow chairs of the café where van Gogh painted “Café at night”. The tour ended at the “Espace van Gogh” which is now a library and university branch, but was the hospital where van Gogh was cared for after he cut his ear lobe. I also found out, during the tour, the real story surrounding his ear. I had always thought that he cut it off because of the prostitute that he sent it to, because she had spurned him or something. Apparently, two months before his breakdown, Paul Gaugin had come to Arles to share “La Maison Jaune” (the Yellow House, where van Gogh painted his bedroom with the blue door and yellow chairs). Their time together began well, but quickly deteriorated. Gaugin drank often, but van Gogh couldn’t really hold his liquor, it turns out. The two fought often and violently, especially toward the end, and on the Christmas Eve before van Gogh’s suicide, they had the row to end all rows. Gaugin finally told van Gogh that he couldn’t stay any longer, and was leaving. The tour guide said that Gaugin told van Gogh he never wanted to see or talk to him again. After Gaugin left the house, van Gogh chased after him into the tiny streets of Arles, brandishing a straight razor threateningly (is there really any other way to brandish a straight razor?). When Gaugin, a much larger man, turned around and told him to go home, van Gogh returned alone to the yellow house and cut off his ear. It turns out that it wasn’t because of the prostitute, but because of a fellow artist.
We ended the evening in Arles at a lovely little restaurant just across the street from the Roman amphitheatre, where I had bull (Heather! It was delicious! Eating bull right next to the stadium where they have bullfights was ironic, too!), fries, and a salad. Yum! Now, I have to go to bed, because we have a “long” hour and a half drive into Aix-en-Provence tomorrow.

All Saints' Vacation--The Beginning

The first of my many French vacations has begun! While I write, I am sitting on the bed in a little country house in Provence, in a village called Port-le-Crau, outside of Arles. My partners in crime are watching CSI in French in the living room (in French, it’s called Les Experts) Sound idyllic? Just wait.

We left Saturday morning after a night of frantically searching the internet for lodging—the apartment we thought we had reserved was actually not available, so we had nowhere to stay for the entire week. At around nine Friday night, Isabel spoke with a woman about an apartment in Arles that was not available…When she asked if the woman knew of anything else in the area, or any other option, the woman suggested an apartment in her house outside of Arles. At a loss, we decided to take the apartment without ever seeing any pictures of it. I just hoped it didn’t have fleas. The owner seemed a little weird too; she was about to hang up the phone when Isabel asked if she wanted our names or telephone number. The woman seemed surprised, and said she had to go find a pencil.

The next morning we set off fairly early. Isabel had picked up the car the night before (which unfortunately only she can drive…For some reason automatic cars are much more expensive to rent in Europe, and I have never driven a stick) the night before, so we packed it up and headed out of Perpignan. The drive was pretty nice, along the water for a while and then through the countryside. I found out that you have to pay to use the freeways in France, so we stuck to the smaller ‘state’ routes. After a few brief stops (a city called Agde being the most memorable) we arrived in Arles around 2:30, and bided some time until we were able to go to the apartment. We visited a 10^th century monastery called l’Abbaye de Montmajour, which was this great white stone structure a ways outside of Arles. It sits on top of a hill, and overlooks fields and vineyards, and basically Provence. It was amazing. The coolest thing about visiting these old places is that people actually used to be there. A thousand years ago, monks sat and prayed and lived and ate where I was. The place was kind of creepy at times, too, especially in the dark, unlighted places where they used to keep the relics. I always get so frustrated when visiting monuments, because it seems like there is always some place visitors are not allowed. There was a whole wing of the monastery under (re)construction, but we still got to see quite a bit anyway.

After visiting the monastery, we met the owner of the house outside of Arles. She led us to her home, along this tiny little road through fields and fields and past more fields. It really was in the country. Her property is lovely—she has an orchard of olive trees (the harvest of which begins tomorrow), and trees and plants and lots of birds in outdoor cages. The garden was beautiful, and the house was, too. The house is divided into three apartments, and we had the one on the bottom floor. We were all pleasantly surprised by the apartment. It was clean, and cute in a provincial (or should I say provencal) kind of way. The woman was very welcoming, and we settled in for the night. Although the kitchen lacked certain essential items (knives, for examples), and only one of the three stove elements worked, it turned out to be great.

Until we tried to wash the dishes. The warm (not hot, just warm) water was gone about 5 minutes into using it. Not a problem, though. I can take cold showers for a week. During the night, things got worse. I got up to go to the bathroom early in the morning, and tried to turn the light on. No go. The electricity was cut off throughout the entire apartment. Apparently this is fairly common in the French countryside (and in Europe in general. I guess it saves money to cut the electricity at night), so I wasn’t too worried. I would have liked for the owner to warn us, but oh well. The next morning, the electricity came back on at around 8 am, and Isabel got up to take a shower. There was no water. The water trickled briefly, and then stopped. Isabel called the owner upstairs, and before she could say anything, the woman said, “I know you have no water, I’m coming downstairs!” She explained that a pipe had burst overnight, and she had to cut off the water and electricity so that she wouldn’t drown upstairs. She called a plumber, but it was Sunday morning (when everyone in France refuses to work…and if someone tries to make them they just strike), and also the beginning of school vacation. So needless to say, a plumber would not be able to make it until Monday morning. We would have no water (although we would have electricity) for cooking, cleaning, taking showers, or flushing the toilet (the woman brought us a pack of bottled water to drink). The four of us discussed options for the rest of the vacation. I wanted to find a hotel for the day/night, and ask for a reduction on the apartment. It’s my vacation for chrissakes! I shouldn’t have to make sure I go pee during the day because I can’t do it at home. None of the others wanted to do this, so I was overruled, and brushed my teeth with Evian.

We left breakfast dishes on the counter, unable to wash them, and set off for our first day of travels. First on the agenda was a city called Cassis, which has been strongly recommended by Chris Stephens, who found it by chance on his trip to Europe a few years ago. He raved about it, so I have wanted to go ever since. We drove southeast, through Marseille (where we all decided we would have to return to…it seemed like a really cool town), along the sea for a while, too. We hit traffic because of a marathon in Cassis, but it really wasn’t that bad if you compare it to LA or even Seattle traffic. These crazy Europeans (and the one Costa Rican) were all antsy and uncomfortable in the car though, because they’re not used to driving such long distances. I think it took about three hours to drive to Cassis, with several stops, and including traffic. It was nothing.

On route to Cassis, we took this amazing road called Route des Crêtes, which stretches high above the coastline through some hills (the English guy kept calling them mountains. Bwahahahahahaa!) that drop abruptly off at the Mediterranean’s edge. Apparently these are the tallest cliffs in all of Europe. Like all European roads, la Route des Crêtes was far too narrow, especially because it snaked up and down these (albeit really tall) hills, and there were no guardrails for most of the length of the road. The views, however, were breathtaking, with the sea on one side and a port town called La Ciotat on the other. The one that I remember best occurred about halfway up, when my poor bladder could take it no longer and I had to find myself a nice bush to water. What a view! Route des Crêtes stretches between La Ciotat and Cassis, so we followed the winding road down to the port town on the other side. We quickly found a beach, and ate our sandwiches there before swimming (yeah, I swan outdoors on October 26^th) and laying in the sun for an hour or so. When Chris was here, he said that he found the drain in the sea where France was stealing all of the Mediterranean water. I looked, Chris, but I couldn’t find the drain. Perhaps they’ve camouflaged it so that fewer people discover their secret. When the sun started to get a little lower, we took a walk through the town, down into the packed city center. I think everyone in France runs this marathon in Cassis. There were people everywhere with race number tacked to their backs and goodie bags marked Neuf/SFR (my shitty internet company…). It reminded me of when Mom and Papa worked with Train to End Stroke.

Walking around Cassis with my tiramisu ice cream (I should have gotten the cassis flavor, since we were there…Cassis is French for black currant, a popular flavor for just about anything. I have already tried Cassis jam, and I guess the purple Skittle in France isn’t grape, but cassis. I have yet to try those…) I realized that I love Provence. Actually, I realized this driving through the countryside. It’s beautiful here—the prettiest part of France that I have seen so far, by far. I can’t quite explain what it is, but hopefully my pictures will give an inkling. It’s amazing—the vineyards, the olive tree orchards, the gardens, the architecture, everything. I’m in love. Cassis was exceptionally beautiful, and exceptionally Provençal. The buildings and houses and businesses along the port were so beautiful.

The three girls (Isabel, Ligia, and myself) decided to take a little touristy boat trip around the “calanques” of Cassis. I am not sure what the English word is for calanques, or if there even is one, but it’s this land formation that may or may not be unique to this area of France. Two little fingers of land snake out into the sea, leaving an inlet of water that is calm and generally fairly large. They aren’t land spits, though, because the water inlet is bordered by fairly tall cliffs on either side. The water isn’t deep enough to make ports, nor is the inlet large enough. It’s hard to explain, but I took plenty of pictures. I’ll add captions to the pictures this time so you can see what pictures are what. Anyway, the boat visited three calanques, and it was really beautiful. There were people rock climbing on the cliffs of one of the calanques, and I felt a pang of regret that I left my climbing shoes at home but managed to bring my straightener and all of my knitting needles. Maybe someone can send them to me?!?

One thing that I did not like about Cassis was the castle overlooking the city. I am sure I would have loved it, except for the fact that it’s privately owned and I couldn’t visit it. Well, as it has been turned into a luxury hotel, I could visit it if I had between 400 and 1000 euros lying around. Which I don’t.

The trip home took much less time, as we took a faster route, and also paid entirely too much to use the “auto-routes”. I prefer to take the slower, free roads, but I think I might be the only one. These people and their phobia of long distances in the car! When we arrived home, we still didn’t have water, but I was able to see the stars for the first time since coming to France (it sucks living in a city), which was lovely. CSI is still on (I think this makes the third episode), dirty, unwashable dishes are stacked on the counter, and I am about to heat some water in the hotpot so that I can wash my face. Tomorrow is Arles, Tuesday Aix-en-Provence,Wednesday Avignon, and Thursday either Nimes or Orange. Friday we have a half day, as we have to head home, but I think we are going to visit Les Baux de Provence for part of the day before leaving for home.

I have almost another week before school starts, but I am staying in Perpignan. I finally get paid, so I am going to start buying gifts for people, I think! I am so excited! Also, I’ve got a date with the television next Tuesday night, as my eyes will be glued to the French coverage of the American election. I sent my absentee ballot last week. I tried to take a picture of myself and the line connecting the two sides of Obama’s arrow, but my arm wasn’t long enough and the camera couldn’t really focus. Oh well. More updates to come on my fabulous French vacation. Maybe when I write next I’ll have water!

Biding Time

I have been persuaded to write a new blog post, despite the fact that absolutely nothing has happened since my last one. I suppose that some (mostly just Chelsea) really enjoy reading the banalities of my daily life in France, though, so this one goes out to you!

One of my friends from Bellingham/Western came to visit over the weekend (Sarah). Her train was supposed to get in around 4:30 at the station, but I waited until around 7:30 before leaving. We couldn’t find her anywhere, I didn’t have a cell phone, and even if I did I didn’t know if Sarah did or not. Walking into the city center, we stopped at an internet café and found out that Sarah for some reason thought she should take the train to Montpellier (two and a half hours away by train) and meet me at that station. When she finally figured it out and took a train to Perpignan, it was about 9:30, so we walked back to my apartment and basically went to bed.

The next day we went to Collioure again, and attempted to hike to the castle on the next hill over (you can see it in some of the Collioure pictures on Picasa). We spent about two hours finding our way over there and making it up the hill, and reached the top around 1 pm. The castle was fenced and gated and didn’t open until 3, so we trudged back down the hill and explored a little more of the city, including an old church out on a rock jetty, and some of the little shops in town. Highlights: The creepy crucifix with dying Jesus, made creepier by the fact that it was metal, old, and rusty, and therefore looked bloody and gory; the little jewelry store where Emma accidentally dropped a plastic ring stand (keeping the 50 euro ring securely in hand), and the shopkeeper rushed over, tutting, and took the ring from Emma’s hand. We decided it was time to go.

On Sunday we took the bus to Canet to play mini-golf in a small park that we had seen a few times. The bus stops didn’t really match up to the mini-golf park, so we had to backtrack about 15 minutes to get to the place. When we did, it was this weird restaurant/mini-golf place, and one family was having their mid-day meal there. The old couple who ran the place provided us with golf clubs and golf balls hidden behind the restaurant’s bar. We had to walk through the restaurant to get to the mini-golf park area outside. After the first hole, we had already decided that it just wasn’t worth keeping score. The mini-golf trip was probably the most surreal experience I have had since coming to France (in fact, I have come to the conclusion that mini-golf trips are always surreal…Miniature world, anyone?). The course was impossible, rundown, and the flat putting planes were bumpy and warped. Some of the obstacles were not just difficult, but actually impossible. We tried putting our putters through. They wouldn’t go through.

Sunday night, Sarah and I watched a pirated version of The Royal Tenenbaums on my laptop before she took a taxi to the station. In all, the weekend was kind of an epic fail, but in a funny, quaint kind of way.

This week has been pretty uneventful, too. I had my phone line installed on Monday, so I have a phone! Until I get my internet/telephone service, I can only receive calls, though, not make them. I will be getting internet service between Wednesday and Friday of next week. Yay! I am going to stay up all night reading Wikipedia articles and watching Youtube videos of little children saying “Bu-lood!”. It’s gonna be awesome!

Tuesday I had a doctor’s appointment for my immigration papers, basically. Even though I am only going to be a French citizen for about 6 months, they want to make sure I’m not carrying any American communicable diseases. Like conservatism or something. My appointment was at 10 am, and I left the doctor’s at 12:15. I was probably with a doctor for about 20 minutes total in that time. Waiting. Oh well. I got out of classes for that day! They checked my height, weight, vaccination history, blood pressure, and eyes (oh my god I need new, much stronger glasses. Also, I had to read the letters in French. Bwahahahahahaha!). Then they took an X-ray of my lungs, for some reason. Maybe to see if I had tuberculosis. Anyway, after taking the X-ray, the doctor told me to sit in his office next door. He came in a few minutes later with a giant orange envelope, asked me if I smoked (a habit that I have managed to not take up while in France), then handed me the envelope and told me to have a good day. After I left his office, I opened the envelope and it was my X-ray. I got to keep my lung X-ray! It’s hanging on the wall in my studio.

The rest of my week was spent (and still is being spent) in classes, waiting for vacation to start this weekend. I am leaving Saturday morning with four other assistants. We are renting a car, and an apartment, for a week. The apartment is near Arles, which is centrally located to all of the places we want to visit, so we are just going to drive each day to a nearby city and explore. The accommodation is soooo much cheaper this way—we’d be spending a ridiculous amount of money on hostels otherwise—and it kind of makes up for the car rental being a bit more expensive. On the list of cities to visit: Marseille, Cassis, Orange, Avignon, Arles, Aix-en-Provence, and probably more.

On Friday night, I am going to watch High School Musical 3 with another assistant who loves it almost as much as I do. I am so excited! I also found out, on the topic of movies, that Quantum of Solace comes out on Halloween in Perpignan, a full two weeks before it comes out at home. I am so excited my skin is crawling.

Anyway, after vacation I will have exciting news and beautiful pictures to share, but before then I don’t think I will be blogging. There’s no Wifi in the apartment rental, so I will feel right at home. J

Perpignan Schools and the Paris Complex

I am currently sitting in my room (still without internet, although the telephone company is coming to install a phone line on Monday. I hope this means I will have internet soon, but I can imagine that it might take at least 2-3 more weeks after that. Ooft. Wifi in France totally sucks) typing this blog entry into a Word document, so that I can upload it later.

I should be in class right now, and I got up at six this morning to be ready for an eight am class, to which the teacher did not show. She is sick, and apparently there is no such thing as substitute teachers in France. Which means that I got up at the crack of dawn for nothing. She reserved three of my six hours today, which means that I just don’t have to be there. This is my third week, technically, of my teaching position, and I am required to teach 12 hours a week. With all three weeks combined, I have been in class for a total of 14 hours. First it was the other school that still hadn’t contacted me. Then, I have spent at least three hours that I should have had class in the staff lounge, because my supervising teachers neglected to tell me that their classes would be in the multimedia room for a cinema session. So I show up to a locked classroom, with no indication of where anyone is. And then the teacher who is ill today makes three more hours of missed class. And next week, I have a doctor’s appointment (for immigration services…I guess to make sure I am not harboring any contagious diseases) next Tuesday morning, and my classes in the afternoon are cancelled too. So next week I will only be teaching about 9 hours. And then the next two weeks are vacation. Fortunately, I get paid no matter how many hours I teach a week, and I never have to teach above twelve.

Also, at Marcel Pagnol, they are having me stay for a half an hour in each class, meaning that even though I only teach 6 hours at Pagnol, I am seeing twelve classes a week. Do you have any idea how hard it is to accomplish anything in an hour, let alone a half an hour? I completely lost track of time in a class yesterday, and stayed in one room for the whole hour. The teacher whose class I missed found me afterwards and was furious. She said that because she knew I was coming she had only planned for half an hour, and so she had nothing more to do than play hangman with her students. What kind of an ill-prepared teacher doesn’t have a back-up plan? I’m not even a real teacher, and I know that! I felt bad for missing her class, but jeez…Take some responsibility in your own class’ planning, lady!

Needless to say, the teaching experience seems a bit disorganized and hectic so far, which is definitely not the way I like to work. I don’t think teaching is going to be my favorite part of being in France. Unfortunate, because I really enjoy teaching. But the assistantship program, as one of my colleagues pointed out, is a really weird set-up. She said is creates this false relationship (that sounds better in French, and much more eloquent, I assure you), a false environment, if you will, in the classroom. Two teachers in a classroom like that is not a normal classroom, and the students know it and the teachers know it and act accordingly. None of the teachers really seem to know how to “use” me effectively in class yet, either. There are some teachers that want me to take half of the class and teach them myself (although they haven’t given me any clue as to what I should be teaching them), there are some teachers that want me to help them throughout the class, with them doing the teaching (this “help” includes requests for me to interrupt the students’ speech and immediately correct errors, which is something I was not taught to do. In fact, it was something I was taught not to do), and there are some teachers who tell me not to prepare anything and they will do it all but then when I arrive to class expect me to conduct class (this actually happened this week…talk about a nightmare! I improvised, and had the class ask me questions the whole period. It was pandemonium). So yeah…I really am not sure what is expected of me. For now, we are still in the beginning phases, so the students are getting to know me. My next step, for those classes where I am expected to teach on my own, is to have a class discussion of the topics that the students want to cover throughout the year. I would rather be teaching material that they are interested in, and conform that material to meet educational standards for their different levels. After that, I guess I will discuss the material with the teachers, and double-check on what sort of grammar and expressions the students are expected to know.

The classes so far have been…rowdy, to say the least. The students will not shut up to save the world, and it takes about 5 minutes (this is not an exaggeration) for them to take out a piece of paper. Apparently this is normal, too, because one of the teachers told me that it is impossible to finish everything that is planned because they are just so slow at everything. In one class, however, I spent the first 20 minutes or so having them ask me questions about myself, about America, and about anything, really.* Throughout the whole 20 minutes, the students were talking over each other, talking over me, and just talking in general. They couldn’t possibly have been listening, or have heard any of the questions or answers. I finally got sick of it and told them to take a piece of paper, and I wrote ten questions (that they had asked) about myself on the board. They all kind of freaked out, and asked if it was a test, and if it was graded. I said yes. But I’m not really going to grade it. After they finished, I collected the papers, and was reading them in the staff room. Almost every student got almost every answer correct. I couldn’t believe it! They actually were listening, and learning. They were just really chatty. I will have to amend my teaching style (and lesson planning style) to account for this, however. I can’t wait to get past this initial period in the teaching program. I think that I might like teaching a lot more, once it’s not just “How old are you? Do you have any pets?” et cetera et cetera… Maybe after vacation.

I’ve written before about how I am teaching in two really “difficult” middle schools, I believe. One of the teachers at Marcel Pagnol, during our first meeting, mentioned how difficult the middle school was. Most of the other teachers at both schools have done the same. The conversation went something like this:

“You know this is a very difficult school, right?”

“Well, yes…That’s what people have said.”

“It’s true. The violence, the behavior problems. It’s unbelievable. It’s almost as bad as Paris. In fact, I think you can make that comparison—the schools here are just as bad as in Paris.”

Paris, of course, is known for what are called its “banlieues”. There is no easy way to translate this word, but the banlieues are the areas on the city’s edge, filled with HLMs. The banlieues are Paris’ suburbs, but not suburbs in the nice, Bothell/Woodinville kind of suburbs. Not American suburbia. Paris’ surroundings, Paris’ suburbs, are some of the most impoverished and violent areas of the country (for a snapshot, rent the French film “La Haine”. It’s quite good). And the teachers at Marcel Pagnol compare their students and their school to the schools in those Parisian ghetto districts.

Honestly, I don’t believe it. I haven’t been here for very long, and I have only been to the schools a few times, but I don’t see the kind of behavior problems that all of my colleagues insist are present. The students don’t seem like gang-bangers, they seem like 13 and 14 year olds. They may be a little flippant towards their teachers, but so was I in eighth grade, and I was even a good student. My hypothesis about this whole situation in my middle schools relates directly to a phenomenon in Perpignan that I have dubbed “The Paris Complex”. I cannot count the times so far that I have heard, referring to Perpignan, or another small village like Collioure, or even a larger city like Montpellier, “It’s okay, but it isn’t Paris!” It’s seems like everyone outside of Paris has this inferiority complex about not living in Paris. The city centre in Perpignan is “ok, but it’s little. We don’t live in Paris, here!” The night scene in Perpignan, “it’s not Paris…you won’t find much.” The selection of stores in Perpignan, “there are very few stores here to choose from. It’s not Paris, you know!” Over and over and over again. Alright already! So we aren’t living in Paris! I really didn’t want to live in Paris anyway. Suffice it to say, every French person who doesn’t live in the city of lights wishes they did, and constantly compare their own small city or village to the offerings of the big one.

My colleague’s equation between the Parisian schools and Collège Marcel Pagnol, I think, is a product of this “Paris complex” too. Perpignan is by no means Paris, but Nathalie (the teacher at Pagnol), used to comparing her city to Paris, is grasping at the one similarity between the two very different towns. Perpignan may not be Paris, but hey, our schools are almost as bad if not just as bad as those in Paris.

I guess I really am not sure how bad the schools in Paris are (maybe they aren’t actually that bad, and my prejudice based on films and hearsay is misguided), or for that matter how bad the schools in Perpignan are. I will have to give it a few more lessons before I really decide.

*Some of the weirdest questions:

Have you ever met Tupac/Eva Longoria/Fifty Cent?

What are your phobias?

What do you eat for breakfast?

What do you want to eat?

For this last one, I had to clarify what the kid meant. Like for dinner, tonight? Yes…That’s what he wanted to know.

Riding the Hogwarts Express

This past Sunday some of the other assistants and I decided to go to a nearby village, called Banyule-sur-mer (FYI any town with the name Something-sur-mer is going to be beautiful, because “sur-mer” means on the sea…Another lovely Mediterranean town) for a wine festival. We caught a regional train at around 12:30 and were there by 1:00. When we walked down to the beach, following the trail of people and dogs, and the directions of a little old French woman, there loads of people with wine glasses strapped on lanyards around their necks. After asking several rather tipsy Frenchmen and women, we discerned that all the glasses were gone, the wine was gone, and the festival (the wine part of it anyway) had started right after Mass, at about 10:00am, and ended around noon. Don’t they know that if you drink before 5pm you are clearly an alcoholic? To say the least, we were a little miffed about missing the wine tasting part of the wine festival, but there was still plenty to see and do. There were so many people on the beach, sitting at makeshift tables, on lawn chairs, on blankets, on rocks. They had all prepared food for the day, and brought huge picnics with them. There were giant platters of couscous for an entire extended family to share, racks of meat, fruits, vegetables, baguettes galore, and bottles upon bottles of wine on each table. There were also food booths for people to buy food at. Restaurants (or families, I am really not sure) were preparing food for hundreds, roasting whole pigs and chickens on spits over beach-side fires, making assembly crêpes with Nutella, and stirring a dish of seafood paella the size of my dining room table back home. I am living in the center of a cultural area called Catalonia, which extends into the southeast of Spain as well. The Catalan people have a troubled history, mostly filled with persecution by the Spanish and French governments, and it has only been in the years since Franco died that it has been legal to be proud to be Catalan. Perpignan is a really great mixture of Spanish and French and Catalan culture. So the wine festival was also a Catalan festival, with Catalan food and music and flags everywhere. We stopped at the place preparing the paella, where I got seafood paella as well as a serving of this delicious Catalan sandwich. They slice a baguette, toast the bread, then rub garlic on it, then rub really ripe tomatoes on that, then layer this delicious Spanish ham called cerrano on top of that. It’s amazing. I also ordered a glass of local red wine, which the generous tooth-less man kept re-filling for free. He also gave out glasses to the other assistants for free, too, which was nice if a little lecherous.

After eating, we went down to the water, and walked on the rocks a little bit. I think that even the Europeans are a little amazed to be on the Mediterranean. It’s just so exotic, you know? Even though we missed the wine portion of the wine festival, and that was really the reason we went, we had a wonderful time. The food was great, the few glasses of wine I did have were amazing and mostly free, and the ambience was just so much fun. The people are so proud to be Catalan, so proud to be sharing their food and drink, and everyone was just happy. It couldn’t help rubbing off on all of us, too.

The train home was a different type than the train we arrived on, and I was stoked to get on the train and see COMPARTMENTS. I rode in a train compartment like Harry Potter on the Hogwarts Express! OH MY GOD! It wasn’t a scarlet steam engine (more blue, and I have no idea what it ran on), but it was still amazing. There were eight seats in the compartment, and eight of us, and we traveled across part of the south of France together like Harry Potter and his friends travel across England to get to Hogwarts. I love Europe.

By the way, I have added a TON more photos to my Google photo page.

Just another update from across the pond

I now finally feel like I have enough time to sit down and write a complete blog post. Finally. It’s funny, because I feel enormously busy here, and exhausted all the time from everything I am doing. But I’m not really doing anything. Back in the States, I am used to working at least two jobs (three for the last year or so of school) and taking four classes at Western per quarter. All told, counting up all the hours I spent working, in class, and doing homework per week, it was probably around 60 hours a week. Here, in France, I haven’t even really worked a “full” twelve hour week yet. And yet, I can’t seem to find enough time in the day to do what I want to do. I suppose this makes sense though, because moving anywhere (even if it is just down the street) is a time-consuming process. It’s even more time consuming in another country, because I have had to habituate to the cultural differences, too. And also, the bus system in Perpignan totally sucks, so there is always a lot of waiting around for buses (there are very few buses per hour, they don’t run on Sundays, and they stop at around 7:30pm). In fact, I do a lot of waiting in my life here in France, which just makes me think of the movie Waiting, which just makes me think of the Game, which just makes me think of all my guy friends and their attempts, which is really unfortunate, but kind of nostalgically sweet at the same time.

Speaking of the guys, it’s been really weird not hanging out with guys all the time. I don’t have many girlfriends in the states, and those that I do have would rather watch football (Kili) or play Halo with their boyfriends (Alyssa) than do “girly” things. Much like me. So it has been quite an adjustment hanging out with girls all the time since I have gotten here. Don’t get me wrong, I love the other assistants that I have met, and I have been having a lot of fun with them, but it’s a lot of girl time for me, and I am not used to that. We did meet some assistants in the Perpignan area (who are guys) at the orientation in Montpellier, so that was good at least. One of them is a guy named Tom, from somewhere in England (so he says weird things like jumpers, trousers, and “brelly” instead of umbrella), AND HE KNOWS AWKWARD TURTLE. I couldn’t believe it! It’s international. Yes!

I haven’t really written about what I have been doing for a while, so let me begin with last weekend. Some of the other assistants and I took the train to a little sea town called Collioure, which is a little ways east (I think) of Perpignan. It is right on the Mediterranean, and it costs about 6 euros for a round-trip train ticket. The town kind of sits up on a hill above the water, spreading down towards the water’s edge, and is bordered on the other side by the foothills of the Pyrenees. The town is really old (but I can’t check how old because of my lack of internet connection. It’s hard not having Wikipedia at the tips of my fingers!), and used to be frequented by pirates, I guess. So there were pirates there hundreds of years ago, although I don’t know if it was a pirate port, or if the pirates just tried to attack the city often. Another Wikipedia job, I guess. A little spit of land juts out into the water, and the old town church is out on this spit, which has been painted by artist after artist. All lot of artists have taken inspiration from the vistas and beautiful surroundings in Collioure, and so all over the town are these weird little picture frames up on poles, that frame the view that such-and-such an artist drew, for such-and-such a painting. There is usually a plaque explaining who the artist was, and the name of the painting. Up a slight incline sits a 12^th or 13^th century castle, which is one of the royal palaces of the Kings of Majorque (or Mallorca if you are Spanish or Catalan). The palace was also a Templar settlement during the same time, too. In the 15^th century it became a military settlement, and in the next centuries it was used as a citadel alternately by the Kings of Aragon, Spain, and France, as the area changed hands. (Can you tell I have a pamphlet about the castle here with me?) At any right, it is this really really old chateau, and I went to see it in Collioure that day. I VISITED A CASTLE. It was so, so cool! I am fascinated by all of the old things here, and it was so cool to walk through these little stone corridors through which royalty and servants walked about 800 years ago. It’s hard to explain this fascination that I have with all things old to the other Europeans here, but I think everyone back home can understand my excitement at visiting a castle. One of the British girls, while in the Collioure castle, said, “I think that of all the castles I visited, this is my favorite…” I can’t even imagine being able to say “of all the castles I have visited…” but I guess soon enough I will be able to. I just love how old everything is!

After visiting the castle, we didn’t have too much time to explore the city before our train home, so we sat down to eat dinner in an outdoor café/restaurant. Afterwards, Emma (another British girl) and I walked around town looking for a bank and an ice cream shop. We found both, and I had the most amazing Nutella flavored gelato that I have ever had in my entire life. You can actually get Nutella ice cream here! It beats the Nutella milkshakes that Greg and I tried to make before I left, but now that I know about it, I’m probably going to gain about 50 pounds while I am here (between the Nutella ice cream, the bread, the tartes, the crème brûlée, et cetera et cetera et cetera)…We walked around the windy streets in Collioure, and found this beautiful pedestrian road that took us up some stairs in between these stacks of brightly colored houses with pink flowering vines hanging from balconies. God, it’s so gorgeous there! I am planning on making a trip there with everyone that comes to visit me, so get ready! Emma and I also want to make monthly trips there ourselves. Our next one is scheduled for next weekend (when my friend Sarah comes in to visit from Rennes), and we are going to take a hike up to another nearby foothill that has yet another old castle sitting on top of it. I can’t wait!

On Tuesday of this week, we took another train to Montpellier, about a two hour train ride away, and the “capital” of our educational area. All of the assistants in the Montpellier Académie had to be at an assistants’ orientation on Wednesday, but we thought it would be better to go the night before, and not take the train at 6:30 on Wednesday morning. So I found what I hoped wasn’t a sketchy hostel in Montpellier, and we piled in the train with a baguette and a hunk of chèvre cheese in hand. We found our hostel after getting slightly lost, and found out it was only a five minute walk from downtown. We checked in with the nice French man at the front desk, scratched the neck of the hotel kitty sleeping on a cushion in the lobby, and were delighted to find a clean, cute, and yet cheap hotel room awaiting us. I will definitely be staying there when I return to Montpellier.

I really enjoyed Montpellier, and I barely even had time to see it. It is gorgeous there, and there is actually grass in the park (something that is oddly lacking in Perpignan), and it is soooo clean in comparison to Perpignan. After seeing Montpellier, I kind of realized that I don’t like Perpignan very much, which is really too bad. It is a dirty city, and there isn’t much going on here, ever. Montpellier was clean, and alive, and much more like what I am used to. I think that Perpignan is nice in its own way, and I don’t hate living here, but I much prefer Montpellier. The good thing about realizing this, though, is that I know that not all of France is like Perpignan. There are cities that I will absolutely love! Montpellier is definitely one of those. Because of the weird restaurant hours in France (you can’t just walk in to a restaurant and eat whenever you want. Usually they don’t start serving dinner until around 7pm), we couldn’t eat even though I was starving, so we went around and looked at some shops. I bought a warm coat, because I stupidly left all of my warm coats at home, and it gets cold in Perpignan in the mornings and at night. It’s hot during the day, but man it’s cold during the other times. We ate dinner at a restaurant in the main square in Montpellier, and it was lovely to see the city gradually darken and the lights on all the old buildings flicker on. It felt very European. Afterwards we found a far too expensive bar, where I tried to order a Long Island Iced Tea, by saying “Un Long Island Iced Tea”. Which is what it is. The waiter had to have me repeat it twice, and I finally just pointed to the menu, which said, “Un Long Island Iced Tea”. He said, “OH! Un long island iced tea”, with a slightly more French accent on the English words. So ridiculous! It was always the same with the IEP students and English words or names, too, though. When we played Apples to Apples, and Thomas Edison came up, they wouldn’t know who he was until finally someone would say, “Oh! To-ma-su Ed-u-son-u.” And then they got it! It’s funny how that works.

The orientation the next day was rather unremarkable.

On Thursday and Friday, I sat in on some more classes, at both Marcel Pagnol and Albert Camus. I have not actually started teaching yet—I have only observed a regular English classes, or answered questions about myself. The questions were kind of fun, although I consistently was asked whether I knew Eva Longoria, and one girl asked me if I was greedy. So that was weird. It must be the American thing. But I would rather save stories of teaching for a later date, when I haven’t already written a two and a half page blog post, and when I actually have more to talk about. I have classes again on Tuesday, so perhaps on Wednesday I will be able to post something about the educational world in France.

Nothing much else exciting to tell, but I did join a library, which is a really comforting and lovely thought. I went today and got some books to read, in French of course. And tomorrow we are heading to a wine festival in a nearby village. One of the other assistants read about it somewhere. I guess you pay two euro for a glass, and then you are able to taste all of the local wines.

I need to get ready, though. I have to go on a run before the other four assistant that live in the high school and I trudge over to McDonald’s, to make use of the free Wifi and post this on my blog.