I must write something

but I can't write anything linear, cohesive. The only things that come to me are scattered remembrances, like a beam of white light shot into a kaleidoscope of color through a prism.

I've discovered a park. Oh, if only I'd discovered it earlier. It is divine. I purposely sit in the sun. I've never gotten sunburn in my life. I want the sun to bake me into a deep golden brown. Gingerbread. I laugh at my journal scribblings of yesteryear. Those times when my principal worry was comprehensive exams. When I fancifully imagined I'd meet someone here and get back to the States in time to plan an August wedding. Mirth.

On the way out, crunching my ballet flats against pebbles, a middle-aged Frenchman wearing a wife-beater and a Panama hat called out Bonjour, Mademoiselle! La vie est belle, n'est-ce pas? Life is beautiful, isn't it? Oui, I smiled. La vie est belle.

The girls had a Eurovision-thon Saturday night. Norway won last year, so the contest was held in Oslo. (Think the American Idol of Europe. Sort of.) We gorged ourselves on blinis and salmon and cheese and gave each country's performance our own 1-12 score. We all got up and danced for France and we all gave it a 12:

My straight-laced host mother later admitted to watching some of the show and said she was truly ashamed of France's performance. Ha!

The Armenia song was one of my favorites. The song would not leave my head:

I've got a couple more Rotary presentations coming up, and an oral presentation coming up. I'm going to do it on culture shock. I've had enough culture shocking experiences to be able to talk knowledgeably about it, I think.

Whoops.

Aaack! I've been such a slacker.

This puppy is winding up and winding up fast. I have less than a month left.

(sigh.) Where to begin?

I have pictures to share here. (Complete with captions for your explanatory pleasure.)

I'll write more when I'm in a less scattered state of mind.

Today was a sunshine day.

It was. It was all smiles.

Sunshine and class discussion and not caring how my wavy afro hair blew in the wind.

It was a newly discovered park day. Statues and fountains and flowers and mothers with strollers and mysterious middle aged men doing tai chi in the shadows. Journaling in the sun. Picking up train ticket stubs and museum ticket stubs and photobooth pictures and old notes that fell out. Pebbles. Not wanting to move. Wanting the world to stand still and wanting the sun to warm me forever.

Lunch at the Resto U. All of us from everywhere. Teasing the Canadian guy for how he says "about" and "out" and "been" and "bag" and "thorough." All of us speaking French in our respective accents.

Homework in the sun. Watching an improvised game of volleyball. Walking down a cobblestoned street to meet my Norwegian friend for the European culture activity she was involved in. She quizzed French people on the streets. Do you know the capital of Norway? None of them did.

Goat cheese flavored snack crackers and gummi alligators I bought from the grocery store that charges you for a plastic bag. I put them in my bookbag.

A quick round in the garden right outside the Musee des Beaux Arts. Pigtailed little girls. Lovers entwined on a bench. Old men making their caned way.

I have to take every day like this. Enjoy it for what is. Accept it as a gift.

Funny Story

So, while in Paris, I went to this colorful, noisy, jam-packed open-air market. I bought a half-kilo of cherries and went my way, eating and discreetly spitting out the pits. I was accosted by this crusty old dude who was asking for 10 centimes for a cup of coffee. Really? I'm not going to stop in the middle of this overflow of humanity, dig out my wallet and give you anything.

I told him "Sorry," and kept walking. He started following me and was like, "Please, just 10 cents isn't much, you can't give me that? I just want a cup of coffee." I shook my head and kept walking.

But here's the funny part. Then he was like, "Ha, ha, that's just a joke. I actually want to invite you to have a cup of coffee with me." What?! You go from begging me for 10 cents to trying to ask me out for coffee? Is this some kind of a new pick-up tactic? I wanted to stop and howl with laughter, but I said, "No, leave me alone," and kept walking. All around us were stalls with merchandise, and he was like, "Please, you can choose anything you want and I'll buy it for you." I mean, really? Trying hard not to laugh at the increasing absurdity of the situation, I just kept going. He eventually gave up. Thank God.

Anytime I need a laugh, I'll think of the beggar-turned-player at the open-air market in Paris.

Paris, Going Back

Wow. That went by fast. I'm leaving to go catch the train back to Tours in about an hour.

I always do a lot of reflection on train rides, watching the landscape speed by from my window seat.

Sometimes I think if I can just get back to the US, I can get back to being myself.

There's a poem a friend of mine wrote a long time ago when we were in undergrad. For some reason, she didn't like it very much, but I loved it. It's simply about taking a nap in the afternoon. There's a poignant line from it that has stayed with me for a very long time:

"God, wake me when things are changed."

It's beautiful and honest and somewhat sad. It's the recognition that we need God. That we desire things to change. That we need God to change them. But they can't change on their own, not the things within our power. For that, we have to be awake.

Paris, Day One

This is actually the third time I've been to Paris. Well, 3 not counting just passing through airports and train stations in Paris en route to somewhere else.

The first time was in 2004. I was 22, taking a little weekend trip with my roommate while studying abroad in Spain, and I had a fleeting romance (if you could call it that) with the tour guide. That was before I could speak French. The second time was in 2008. It was the summer before I started grad school full time, and I had spent a month in Salamanca, Spain doing a summer program with my university. On the way back to the States, our group stopped over in Paris for the weekend. I still didn't speak any French back then either.

I was thinking on the train how terrible yet easy it is to take things for granted. I've been before, so it's easy to kind of shrug my shoulders about it. Some classmates asked what I was doing for the break. "Oh, I'm just going to Paris. Pas grand chose." I had to think about that. Just going to Paris? We're students in France, most of whom have been here for a while, so everyone's gone to Paris. At least to the Charles de Gaulle airport, if nothing else. That shouldn't make it any less exciting or special. But that's what happens when you take things for granted.

I've already done the touristy stuff. Louvre, Champs-Elysee, gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. I wanted to do some different stuff this time. I did a lot of walking, exploring and reminiscing. This movie, Sabrina, is what made me first want to go to Paris. I love this clip. "I met myself in Paris." It was kind of my state of mind today.

On my way to check into my hotel, I listened to an impromptu strings concert on the street. When I checked in, the concierge said he adored my American accent. I went to the plaza around the Centre Georges Pompidou to get a Nutella crepe and watch the street performers, aspring artists, and crazies. A crowd gathered around this old, cuckoo man who was lighting matches and eating them. A little curly headed boy ate a crepe and had chocolate all over his face. A lithe man juggled crystal balls. I took a walking tour of Montmartre and took a picture of the cafe where Amelie worked, Le cafe des 2 moulins. I saw a troupe of b-boyers hyping up their show with broken English. I had another crepe for dinner. Ham, cheese and mushrooms. A man sang Arabic love songs accompanied by a tinny Casio keyboard on the metro. I walked under the Eiffel tower and simply shook my head to vendors who were trying to pressure me into buying one of those cheap mini-Eiffel towers. I bought one of those the first time.

More fun tomorrow.

Sometimes

I don't know whether to write.

Sometimes I want to wait for the right moment, for the right mood to strike me.

To be honest, nothing bloggable has gone on lately. I'm just living my French life. Walking to school, passing people on those European stone slab sidewalks. Speaking Frengnish (French, English and Spanish) every Monday night at Le Palais. Taking breaks between classes, getting tiny cups of cappuccino for 40 euro cents from the coffee machine. Individually wrapped pain au chocolat pressed upon me by my host mom after breakfast. You can eat it later at 10 o'clock, she insists. The phonetics labs used to be the livery belonging to whatever aristocrat owned the building years ago. Impeccably dressed Arab men smoke outside the front gate. Veiled women whisper in huddles. A Japanese-speaking French guy, normally in torn jeans, shows up in a suit. I got a job at a department store, he explains. Chez moi can mean the actual place you live here in France, or it can mean your country of origin. Dogs, bicycles, scooters, scarves and man purses. The Colombian kids go somewhere cool every weekend. I got a text message invitation to a Chinese dinner. The weather won't make up its mind. A couple of weeks ago it got up to 25 degrees Celsius. Today the high was 13. And I've been in France long enough to have a sense of Celsius like the rest of the world.

We have Thursday and Friday off this week, making for an extra-long weekend, and I decided that I wouldn't be able to stand staying in Tours with nothing to do. So I got myself a train ticket to Paris. With the aid of my friend's trusty travel guide, I found decent lodging near the Louvre. Traveling alone seems to be my lot, at least for now. So, travel alone I will. I only wish the weather would warm up a little as I roam the streets, museums, and cafes of the City of Light once again.

The Absurd

I think I saw the worst movie in my life in French Civilization today called Play Time. It was absolutely absurd and plotless and had virtually no dialogue. People were getting up and leaving! I felt so bad for my professor. I love the little guy to death. He really is the best. He's travel size, has an impeccable Colonel Sanders-style goatee, and the most intricately trimmed sideburns. He has a pair of glasses that sits on the edge of his nose. There are no little ear thingies. He also has a pocket watch. And to top it off, he literally knows everything. But today, he was sitting there cracking up at the movie while the rest of us were kind of like, really?

We have a sub this week for grammar, vocab, and written production and comprehension. She looks like an older, female, French version of the Mad Hatter. She came in with this slightly unkempt, offbeat, yet exigent air, and her laugh has a touch of the maniacal. I really think she's trying, and part of me feels bad for her because it's tough to come in to a new group and pick up where someone left off. She doesn't know us, doesn't really have a feel for our level of French . . . I mean, as an educator, I can see her side of things. But, ugh. Today was excruciating. It was absurdly surreal. Like a Dali painting come to life. We're doing all of these random, boring things, and though I know she's not purposely trying to make people feel uncomfortable or confused, she's doing just that. With her circuitous, unclear explanations and her rather abrasive, I'm-the-professor-don't-you-get-it-somebody-answer-me-now manner, she doesn't make things any easier.

Today the cold wind was so strong it pushed me along a little bit as I walked home.

Dear France,

We only have two more months together. And we need to work some things out so that these last two months aren't a catastrophe. First of all, I'm going to need you to get your weather game in order. Why is it snowing in parts of France other than the Pyrenees right now? You know it's May, right? And secondly, I'm going to need you to stop making me feel like I'm drowning in Syrup of Depression all the time. You're supposed to be fun and lively. You're supposed to make me feel sophisticated and polished and enlightened. I'm supposed to go back home and dazzle people with my sparkle and verve, not dampen everyone's psyches by sloshing melancholia all over the place and looking like French workers went on strike from me.

I know, your first instinct might be to blame me, as you are wont to blame Americans, and okay. I get it. I'll own up to my part. I'm an adult. But you've got to hold up your end of the deal too and stop making me cry over absurd things if at all possible.

Cordialement,

Moi

40km ≈ 25 mi.

Why is the United States the only country in the world who doesn't use the metric system? Okay, apparently Myanmar and Liberia use it too, so I can't say only. But while we have to memorize random measurements for conversion purposes, all everyone else has to do is move a decimal point.

Anyway, this weekend, I did something completely out of the ordinary. I had an extreme case of wanderlust. I had a need to explore. I had a need to reconnect with something, accomplish something concrete. I wanted to feel wind in my hair, blood rush through my veins. And what better way to do all of those things than take a 40 km bike trek through the French countryside along the Loire?

Sometimes the road was level, smooth and steady. Sometimes it went downhill, exhilarating. But sometimes it went uphill, tiring. The first couple of times, I switched gears and ground my way through it. Later on, I had to get off my bike and walk with it uphill. To say that the bike ride was a life metaphor would be way too cliche. So I'm not going to write it. But I will admit that I thought it. I thought it when I passed picturesque scenes of provincial French life. If I focused too intensely on the ride itself, getting through it, fiddling with the gears, trying to keep up with the others, etc., I would miss the beauty around me. When we finally reached our destination, I had a sense of accomplishment, and the beauty of the castle of Chenonceau and the surrounding gardens were all well worth the ride.

I was going to make a slideshow, but I realized I could just post a link here, and all interested readers could see the photo album I already created.

There are a few sort of depressing things I was thinking about expressing, but I'm kind of reluctant to because I don't want to ruin my little triumphant bike ride story. I'll just say this: It's cold again, and I want to die. Can the weather here PLEASE make up its mind? Just the other weekend, I got a nice toasty glow out by the beach. Last week, I browned my legs in the sun while doing homework to the tune of children's laughter in the park right behind the Institut. But today I walked outside and just wanted to turn right back around and crawl back into bed. And it's supposed to be this way for the rest of the week. C'est pas possible. I was complaining to my host mom about how I had just gotten used to the nice weather and now it's like this again. She was all like, "Well, that's how it is in May. The weather had been too nice." Really, Madame? God, You know how I am with weather. Thistooshallpass. Thistooshallpass.