More Reasons Why I Love My Host Family

Now don't get me wrong real family, I love you too. It's just that you're not really here at the moment and thus I am unable to provide my multitude of readers with amusing familial anecdotes. But as Michèle and Alain seem to be constantly adorable, they will just have to be the subject of my stories for the next few months.

1-We spent the night of Mardi Gras eating beignets and debating what the lumps of fried dough resembled. Alain made fun of me when I tried to explain that one looked like the bagpipes, but he can't really talk because his top suggestion of the night was one that (somehow) looked like a penguin dancing with a flamingo.

2- Last week I asked them where I could find a good used bookstore because I was looking for Madame Bovary. The next night when I came into the kitchen for dinner, I found an old copy of the book sitting at my place. "What's this?" I asked. "Alain brought it for you from his father's house," Michèle replied. "For you to keep."

3-Being that they are both huge amateur Egyptologists, I have been thoroughly overwhelmed with homemade travel movies, photo albums, and suggested sites to tour. Alain has also equipped me with a few things he finds necessary for Egypt: a wind-up flashlight to look at the engravings better, several pages with pictures and names of places I must visit, and a really cool belt that has a zipper on the inside to hide drugs or money or something worth stashing.

4-I walked into the apartment after class today to be greeted by an amazing smell emanating from the kitchen. "Mmmmmm," I sighed as I passed by the door. "It's soap," Michèle said. "Really?" Laughter. I don't know why she finds it so terribly funny to mislead me like that. Turns out it was our dessert: a lemon meringue tart that was most delicious. At one point she said that it was for me, but I couldn't understand the rest of her sentence. Why? Because I'm going to Egypt tomorrow? Because she knows how much I love desserts? In fact, it doesn't really matter why. It was incredible all the same.

Past, Present, Future

Sorry for petite repose, but I've been lazy lately. Sore too. I've only just recovered from climbing Mt. Saint Victoire (pictures are on Facebook if you are interested). Please understand that there is a great difference between hiking and climbing and I use this verb quite intentionally. But sore muscles, a cut face, and several wrong turns aside, it was an absolutely amazing day with an equally stunning view. Southern France has got to be one of the prettiest regions I have ever seen and an elevation of 3000 only increases the magnitude of the beauty.

Today was a completely carefree day as I spent it, practically, doing rien. Nothing. My first and only class today started at 10 and so I leisurely got up, ate a huge pain au chocolat, and walked to the institute. Spring is finally ebbing its way into Provence, but my host mother still made me wear a coat for fear of the cold. "You Americans always think that sun means a warm day," she said. And, like almost always, she was right. After class ended I met up with my wonderful (and pretty much only) French friend, Laura. We ended up getting lunch and walking around parts of Aix. I can't tell you how much it helps (and often how frustrating it is) to be able to speak French with someone for 5 consecutive hours. When I finally returned home for dinner, I found Michèle in the kitchen completely surrounded by bottles. Her response when I asked her what she was doing? "Making alcohol." She laughed and Alain piped in, "You know the word péché (sin)...?" "Ahhh," I said. "Well, I'm sure there are worse things." When she managed to clear the table of the bottles, we had a nice dinner of vegetable soup, potatoes, lamb (literally collier d'agneau or lamb throat) and bread. And I, ever the glutton, had maronsui's (basically a sweet, chestnut mousse) for dessert.

But our first vacation (Yes, we get two breaks in one semester. For a total of 3 weeks vacation. This is France, you know) is coming up next Monday and I can't wait becaussssse...I'm going to Egypt. I have a dear dear friend who lives there with her husband and I'm going to be able to do Cairo with her. I've been looking forward to this for months but I feel slightly worried being that there was a bomb attack in a tourist area of Cairo only several days ago. I would like to be able to come back and finish the rest of my time here. For my parents and those others who feel like cautioning me, don't worry. I'll be careful. But I'm still going.

Moment: Thursday afternoon.

There were four of us at the café. With two coffees. I knew better than to take up space like that, especially at a café as high-class as the Deux Garçons (a famous haunt of Cezanne and Zola).

As we sat down, I saw the woman sitting next to us--fat, overly made-up, sucking a huge cigar--grab a chair from our table to hers. We explained that we were expecting someone else and she pointed behind her and told us to get another chair. After my friends ordered their coffee, she leaned in and asked us how many drinks we had gotten. "Is the waiter coming? Did he understand you?" she asked my German friend, insinuating that her accent was far too poor to be understood.

In an impeccably timed movement, the waiter arrived just then and delivered the properly ordered coffee.

When our oh-so-charming neighbor's friend arrived, she gestured towards us in contempt. "Two drinks and four places, can you believe that?"

So you know what, French lady? Suck on your cigar. At least we're young and thin and have better things to do than insult foreigners.

A Month in Review

It's hard to believe that one month ago, almost at this very moment in fact, I was driving to Atlanta to make my departure flight to France. If every month goes as quickly as this, I fear that France will start slipping away faster than I can experience it.

The other night I dreamed that I had returned home and was welcomed by all of my friends and family after my long absence. But the only thing I could think was how upset I was to leave France, as I hadn't accomplished everything I had wanted to; as if I had been extracted from something wonderful far too early.

But even if I were forced to leave now, I would be completely content with the time I have passed here. This has been an overwhelming month of firsts and I will never forget it. These firsts include eating rabbit and rooster, dancing in a disco, touching the Mediterranean, functioning entirely in French, walking into the Monte Carlo casino, and getting a hot baguette from the bakery. It has been a wonderful melange of simple and grand but I can't help feeling that the best is yet to come.

Monaco

View from the palace garden. See the sailboats in the background?View of the Monte Carlo casino at night

View of the bay from the palace

There are moments in life when one is made fully, if not abruptly, aware of one's status in the world. For me, this would be the status of impoverished student. And so I tell you that there is no better place in the world than Monaco to hand you this realization (on a golden platter of course.) I have never before experienced a place that exudes wealth so completely; that so thoroughly reminds you of your exclusion from a lifestyle of excess. But although it may seem otherwise, Monaco is not entirely perfect. There is discarded gum on the sidewalks and people in ill-fitting track-suits that serve, fortunately, as a reminder of the reality of the place. That said, it is also a place where orange trees and placid policemen line the streets. Where sunny, open-air markets hum with the sounds of buyers and sellers and local children. Where hundred dollar meals, thousand dollar coats, and million dollar yachts are readily available to anyone with the funds. Where the glow of a real palace rises above the rest of the city.

Although I hardly have the credibility to say so after just spending one day there, I believe the best part of Monaco is the palace gardens. As the palace itself is elevated from the rest of the city, the garden seems to hang magically from the side of a cliff, giving one a most incredible view of the sea and the nearby Italian shore. The weather was absolutely perfect the day we were there and I could not help feeling that I had witnessed a small portion of heaven. Blooming flowers, meandering pathways, shady trellises, sailboats dancing coquettishly in the distance...I wish you all could have seen it.

I suppose Walt Disney has disappointed me again as I found the palace itself to be somewhat lacking. The architecture and surrounding statues were beautiful, but not as appropriately palatial as I would have expected. The changing of the guard at precisely 11:55 was interesting to watch but, again, it seemed kind of farcical to me, as if it were all a big game of make-believe. The royal family, however, is entirely real and their presence in Monaco is a rather intriguing if not long story (their family has been in power for more than 700 years.) As history goes, the first Grimaldi arrived at the Rock of Monaco (where the palace is now) disguised as a traveling monk. He begged the guards at the existing settlement to allow him entrance. Being the humane people they were, the guards let François Grimaldi into their walls where he proceeded to kill everyone with his hidden sword. I am happy to report that the more modern members of this family are quite unlike this founding ancestor. During the Nazi occupation of Monaco, the Prince secretly warned Jewish members of the community that the Gestapo was coming for them. Now, the country has abolished capital punishment, instituted universal suffrage, and has abolished taxes for everyone except the French and Italian.

Although I can hardly imagine myself a member of such a world as this, it was wonderful to be in a place that felt so wholly and satisfyingly perfect.

Irresistible

A long weekend behind me, I'm wondering when and how to describe to you what I've seen: Carnival in Nice, Monaco, the Monte Carlo casino, the Mediterranean in such blue profusion that I don't think I'll ever forget it, Grace Kelly's tombstone, Eze, and a cavalcade of images so intense in light and color, so ineffably beautiful, that I have no words to express them.

And so I think I will start with the last and perhaps simplest of our adventures: the Galimard perfume factory. The Galimard perfume factory was founded in 1747 and is now split between two locations, Grasse and Eze. Grasse, if you would like to know, was one of the major settings in Patrick Süskind's most strange novel, Perfume.

As there were about 50 people in our group (we were traveling with a fellow study abroad program) it was somewhat difficult to fit everyone in the narrow, white-washed hallways of the factory. I'm increasingly glad that our program only has 13 people in it--traveling with this many people is not the most comfortable way of seeing the world. We were led through the museum part of the factory by a slender Dutch woman named Sylvy. The combination of her accent and slightly rehearsed tour commentary made for a hilarious 20 minutes and I wish now I would have written down more of what she said. Although I think my favorite must have been the following: "Shall I tell you about the irresistible perfume? It is a mixture of caramel, jasmine, and vanilla. Ladies, when you put this on the men will want to eat you. How else do you think I get this skinny?"

One aspect about the factory that I found very interesting can be seen in the first picture. In both Grasse and Eze one has the ability (for a price of course--I believe that it was 200€ in Eze) to create one's own perfume. What you are essentially paying for is the opportunity to sit for two hours with someone the perfume world calls a Nose. There are approximately 300 Noses in the world and 2 of them work in Eze. Noses study for roughly 12 years and must be able to identify thousands of scents. They cannot smoke, drink alcohol, eat spicy foods, or swim in chlorinated pools in order to protect their most marketable olfactory organ. What you see in the first picture is the room where you create your perfume. The bottles are darkened so as to increase the longevity of the scents and there were about 3 more rows of these shelves.

In the end, Sylvy's most excellent and rather adorable marketing skills payed off as I was lured into buying some authentic French perfume. It took me forever, but I finally settled on one called Pêle-Mêle, which is composed of bergamot, tangerine, jasmine, lily of the valley, and rose. It smells so amazing that I have to restrain myself from coating all of my belongings in an aromatic pell-mell.

Beware of False Friends

The rather appropriately named French term faux amis is used to describe the hundreds of false cognates found between French and English. Literally, this translates to ''false friends.'' And, like any good traitor, these friends can get you into trouble. The main problem for English speakers is that these words look so similar to our own we just assume that they are identical in meaning. Not so. Here are some common faux amis:

Blesser (to injure) vs. Bless
Attendre (to wait for) vs. Attend
Bras (arm) vs. Bras
Chair (flesh) vs. Chair
Coin (corner) vs. Coin

You begin to see the problem. And so, with the potential hazard of this situation adequately described, I would like to tell a story. Tonight I sat down to an absolutely delicious dinner (spinach and goat cheese quiche, ravioli, green salad) and, like every night, began talking to my host family. We discussed the food, the weather, our day, and my recent trip to Nice. At one point, they began talking about my sandwich meat in the refrigerator. I was somewhat confused about the relevancy when I realized that they were worried about it spoiling. They simply wanted to know how long ago I had purchased it. Then I proceeded to tell them that I'm not really used to having meat spoil so fast because in the states everything is so full of préservatifs (those of you who know French, feel free to start laughing at my expense). My host mother looked at me a little quizzically and so I repeated it. Plein de préservatifs. She started laughing. "You mean conservateur,'' she said. ''Préservatifs is something completely different. For another conversation.'' By this point I knew that I had finally made that inevitable slip of the tongue and so I finished the sentence and looked over at my host father whose English is the better of the two. He smiled and said, "Condom." And so, friends and family, I just informed the French that American lunch meat is full of condoms. In truth, I have absolutely no idea what packaged sandwich meat is made of, but I'd like to think it doesn't really matter. All the preservatives cancel it out anyway, n'est-ce que pas?

Rita Hayworth

Today my professor told me my hair looked like Rita Hayworth's. If only.

But then again, I am somewhat disinclined to believe the compliments of a man who told several girls in our class that he would marry them in his next life.

Fast Forward

I'm going to be in Nice and Monaco this weekend and so I'm not sure how dedicated I'll be to posting. Since I'll most likely be occupied all Saturday, Happy Valentines Day! And so, appropriately, une lettre d'amour:

Chère Aix-en-Provence,
Ma puce, ma belle, ma poupée. I don't know if I can list all the reasons I love you. I love that, at any given moment, I can walk into a shop and buy the most delicate, chocolate-plump pastry available. I love that my school has cracked walls, peeling paint, and a history as old as my state's. I love walking the 20 minutes to my house with cold cheeks but an invigoration not easily matched. I love climbing the stairs of my apartment and hearing the various television programs blaring through thin doors at each level. I love the flower market, the produce market, and the otherwise un-classifiable stuff market. I love cracking into a fresh baguette. I love the candy shop where hovering employees approach with free samples. I love the man who plays the accordion on the street. I love that the soles of my boots are nearly worn to a pulp from the cobblestones.

But Aix, mon amour, if we are to stay together some things must needs be remedied. I don't understand why a mildly clean public restroom is such a difficult request. All I ask for is a little light, dry floors, and a few squares of toilet paper. And what about water fountains? I know, I know. You are the city of fountains, elegantly carved and covered in moss. But what I need is something less...old-fashioned. Metal, perhaps, and temperature controlled. And why is it that nearly everywhere I step there is some form of animal excrement waiting to cling to my carefully chosen outfit? Mon chou, plant some grass, lower your prices, stop playing American music, and smile just once in a while. Do these things, and I'll be yours forever.

Bises,
Allison

Les Deux Mistrals

There are two Mistrals in France (in actuality I'm certain there are many more but these are the only two of which I know).

Mistral N° 1:
Frédéric Mistral (born 1830) was a French writer and lexicographer who is primarily known for his efforts to revive and disseminate the Provençal dialect. For those of you who aren't aware (and trust me, I didn't learn this until pathetically recently), French has not always been this country's central language. Provençal, a dialect of Occitan, is spoken primarily in Southern France and is rooted in the Romance and Gallo-Romance language families. It is also the name given to the older version of the langue d'oc used by the troubadours of medieval literature. Mistral, as you would have it, also studied law at a school here in Aix-en-Provence. Thank you Wikipedia.

As informative as this all is, it is Mistral N° 2 which I would like to discuss tonight.

Mistral N° 2:
Le Mistral is a strong French wind that blows from the North and North West. As French Wikipedia states, it is strong, dry, and can reach speeds of up to 62 miles per hour! I don't think this is an entirely complete description.

Le Mistral is a wind that hurls glass jars across parking lots, rips small infants from the arms of their stunned mothers, and threatens in an instant to undress you. It is a wind that offers no mercy to persnickety umbrellas, bare hands, or carelessly closed shutters. Even at this minute I can hear it heaving itself against my window pane, insisting entrance. When I first arrived I was somewhat confused why my host mother insisted that I close the shutters of my window every evening. Shutters, how quaint, I thought. Several nights later I as was walking home in the dark, it all became clear to me. Or rather, it would have had my eyes not been streaming from the fury of an unseen but all too fully felt blast. But it's true, there are shutters on nearly all the homes and apartments here. Not simply the purely decorative and thus completely useless ones you see in the states (ironwork shutters, really?) but ones that have worked for years to keep out a force more persistent than gym sales reps. And so here I am, only miles from the Mediterranean Sea, wondering if this winter wind will ever cease blowing.

How's the weather in your part of the world?

Moment: Last Friday. 3 pm.

Sitting in my theater history class. The professor is speaking fast, but in a manner I can comprehend. He writes various dates on the board--probably ones worthy of further investigation---that I've now forgotten. The lugubrious drone of an accordion eases through the window and I'm instantly distanced from the lecture. Can it be that I'm actually in France?

Rather insignificant, and yet...

...I'm still proud of myself.

Yesterday as I was walking past the bus stop near my house a woman asked me for directions. This was a triumphant moment for several reasons:
1. She had a slight speech impediment that made her French rather difficult to understand but I was able to do so nonetheless.
2. I actually knew where she needed to go.
3. I was able to answer her in French.
4. I must not have looked so completely American and out of place as to make her avoid asking me.

In retrospect, though, I wonder if she actually found the place.

Ma Nouvelle Famille

Being that I hesitated to hop on this blogger bandwagon, I feel the need to catch up with some posts.

Remember my French host family? Well, they are still here and adorable as ever. We live in a small but nice apartment on the North side of town. When I return home, the historic Mont Saint Victoire (I'll explain this some other time) towers in the distance.

Try to imagine. Michèle: petite, short gray hair, loves her cats. She is very generous, but does not hesitate to tell you the truth. Although she seems capable of a strong temper (I would never want her to be angry at me) she has a wonderful laugh that I love to hear. Alain: photographer, amateur Egyptologist, loves his cats. He likes the Beatles and cowboys. The other morning as I was happily eating a tarte aux pomme (essentially apple pie) for breakfast, he came in to wish me good morning. When I looked up I saw that he was wearing those zip up pajamas you see on three-year olds. It was covered in a bumblebee pattern. I can't get over how adorable he is.

The other night after dinner we started discussing music and the various artists they enjoy. They brought a CD player and a stack of CDs into the kitchen and started playing some songs by the Belgian singer Jacques Brel. At one point we simply sitting there at the empty table, silent, listening to the power of his songs. Of the few I heard, my favorite by far was Jaurés. As Michèle described it to me, it is a song sublime; better felt than heard.

Late, Like Everything I Do

Does anyone else realize that in nine days I will have been in France for one month? Hard to believe. I've been meaning for weeks now to actually sit down and create this blog, but of course I've found other things to divert me. What with all the crèpes to eat and streets to explore there is hardly even time to study. And then there was the problem of not having a laptop at my apartment. Of course there are always school computers, but that would require me to painstakingly peck out the letters on these oh-so-frustrating French keyboards (read: the Q is in the A spot, you have to SHIFT for a period, W is in the Z spot, and all other sorts of aerobatic switching of locations). But, as luck would have it, my charming French host family offered me the use of their second laptop and so I have no other excuses. So please just know that I am painstakingly pecking at this very moment just for you. And thus I begin late, as usual, with an account of my marvelous and sometimes mundane adventures abroad.

So, to recap the past month: I arrived safely in Aix-en-Provence, France after a rather uneventful trans-Atlantic flight, a seven hour layover in the heinous Gatwick London airport, and jet-lagged bus ride from Marseille. I am living with an adorable older French couple about a 20 minute walk from the school. Adjusting to living with strangers was a little difficult at first, but I think I've finally found a comfortable balance between family member and boarder and I really enjoy being here now. School (the official reason I am here) is going nicely as well, but I'll have to explain this in more detail later. In effect, I am completely content in this jolie ville of Aix. Now if only the weather would improve.

Rather unrelated to my travels abroad, today is my brother's sixth birthday. And so, bonne anniversaire Stewie! Je me te manque!