Les Vacances

Hello!

I’ve got a HUGE post in the works to share about one of the best days in France (last Saturday), but I have other pictures and such to share!

(Sorry about this picture… didn’t have a tripod, wanted to have a picture of myself at Malpasset, and I used the self-timer, and then hopped over rocks…)

So, the vacation was two weeks long. The weather was generally crappy the whole time, though I did explore a little bit… and watch too much TV (Allez, Amerique!~ les jeux olympiques d’hiver et LOST sur “l’ordi”; Go, America! ~ the Winter Olympic games and LOST on the computer. “l’ordi” is the slang for “l’ordinateur.” ).

I had made plans (or attempted to), but let’s be honest… us lycéens, both French and American, did not do a good job of making plans. My first Sunday of break was spent with Nathalie, her friends Stephanie and Christophe as well as two of their kids, exploring Malpasset. It was a beautiful day, and I took far too many pictures.

(The link below leads the the source of both pictures; it’s in FRENCH, but you can find about it. As always, click the pictures for the full-size image.)   Malpasset before and after.

Malpasset is a valley near Fréjus were a dam broke in 1950; Dad and I saw the memorial for those who died in the catastrophe before he left (it’s right by the Roman arena). 423 people died or disappeared, and it was the worst such disaster to ever occur in France.

Anyway, the remains are still there, and you can tell where it flooded down the valley… there are huge stones everywhere, and despite the tragedy of it, it’s rather breathtaking. It’s now a park where people can walk/hike, but they ask you to be respectful.

 

 

(The first is the sign; the insert is a bigger version of the text translated into English.)

It was clear and beautiful, and the stroll was through a lovely (sparse) forest, and the landscape—rocky hills similar to the Gorges of Verdon—was striking. The above map shows the area. It wasn’t a long “hike” but I enjoyed it, running around in the sunshine!

The trail on the way there.

(Sorry about all the weird contrast and colors! And the excessive amounts of photos…)  

Do you see what I mean about striking?

I didn’t realize I had taken pictures of my travel companions (that I can post on the internet, I think. There aren’t faces and one is a dog. There’s some super strict law about images on the internet in France.) First one is Nathalie hiking up a hill, and the second is Benji by the water.

 

When we actually got to the Dam, I make my way slowly across the side of the mountain (covered in huge rocks and pieces of the broken dam) until I climbed up onto the dam itself, joining a select number of similar-minded daredevils.

 

Unfortunately, I don’t actually have pictures of this (Stephanie does, and maybe I’ll ask if I can have a digital copy of them, because I was just standing up there looking pleased with myself), though I do have pictures of the view from the top!

(These [below] aren’t it… the pictures of the view from the top were mostly looking down, not so much out… and the picture of me was again with the camera-sans-tripod-plus-timer! I was terrified that I would drop it or it would fall and break.)

  

Things like the above made it hard to cross the stream; I clambered across and then had to help with the transport of the two little boys’ bikes.

I’m including this one despite the fact you can see the boy; again, you can’t see his face clearly so I hope it’s alright. I just want to show how HUGE these bits of dam/rocks are. The boys could stand up to full height in the tunnel under the bigger.

 Again… self-timer, rocks… But you can kind of see the Dam in the background of this one!  

Finally, I came back down and we slowly made our way back over hills to the cars, ignoring the path in favor of walking across sparse brush. :)The next big adventure of break with the exception of Carnaval was shopping in Cannes. I don’t have pictures of shopping itself, nor the train ride, but I have a few from the beach where mes copaines (“copain” is different than “ami” in that an ami is a close friend, while  a copain  is more of an acquaintance) and I hung out when we were finished shopping.

   

I don’t get it; this seems to be the “cool” thing to do for teenagers, but I didn’t find it to be particularly interesting. The train ride was the most exciting part (13e for round-trip, but I don’t remember if we had some sort of reduction), but I’m glad I got to see the “rest” of Cannes.

But seriously. Cannes is typical commercialization, and it reminded me of how Nice was nice for shopping. Dad and I really didn’t miss out on anything by skipping over it on that trip along the coast. Cannes is famous for the film festival, and it’s a really ritzy area—yachts galore, a long boulevard along the coast, spacious sandy beaches, lots of people, as well as high-end boutiques.

Yet again, the experience was good, as well as the exposure to “teenage” culture (the girls I went with are in troisième, which is in “college” [middle school equivalent, 4 years instead of 3]; AEU, they would be in 9th grade), though it was significantly awkward due to the fact that I only knew one of them.

They didn’t make much of an effort to include me, and I felt like I was being dragged along for the sake of proving how very kind and welcoming the one girl I knew is. I hated that, and I felt like a tag-along the entire time, hanging out with girls that I wasn’t comfortable with, whose names I didn’t learn until it was over (not that I could tell them apart anyway, as they ALL LOOKED THE SAME TO ME. It was scary!).

[Sorry, that was a bit harsh, blog readers; I’m still a bit miffed about this outing. I trust people so easily, and when I feel like I’m being used, it dashes my opinions of people. I don’t want to be a fashionable accessory or an addition to someone’s collection of foreign friends. End rant, though I will always have more to say about this.]

SIDE NOTE: … There are a total of three pictures of me from this shopping trip, and I honestly don’t like any of them. (Though I would post them anyway.) They’re posed and not like me, and I hate that. These are on facebook, but I will not put them on here. (Besides that law thing. So you get pictures of Cannes, though I took quite a few pictures of a flock of sailboats, which intrigued me. xD)

What I learned, though, is that I have ISSUES with shopping, which are only enflamed by similar shopping trips. It more or less goes against lots of the things I believe in (for example, shopping is bad for the environment, what with transportation and the environmental impact of mass-production, combined with the wasteful ways of the industry & the consumers). I enjoy shopping with real friends, and I’m more likely to enjoy it at Goodwill, where I don’t feel like a selfish and wasteful person.

The sad thing is, I will continue to join in on shopping trips here, because it is a social activity. It gets me out of the house, exposes me to more French language and sights, as well as the opinions and behaviors of French teenagers outside of the school environment. Maybe sometime the shopping won’t be a burden, and hopefully I can figure out where the thrift stores are around here, as those are infinitely more amusing (and cheaper).

-Aly

P.S. Picture count from the vacation:

Malpasset: 218
Carnaval: 718
Everything else: 50

[Trips to McDo’s/Quick count: 5 ]

Honesty

Hello!

If I'm going to be completely and utterly honest here (I am), I haven't been working on the posts from last month. I do have things to share-- little anecdotes of my first weeks of school and life here, my day of awesome with Dad in the mountains, interesting things I've learned-- but I really haven't been working that hard on drafting the posts that will include such things.

For one thing, yes, I am busy. I do have quite a bit of time off, but I fill the time living (this includes time on the computer, because that's part of daily life); I may not always be using my time productively, but as with life everywhere else, life here has its "ups and downs."

Yesterday was definitely one of those days, and I have struggled with similar sentiments periodically since Dad left and throughout the course of this past week. It makes me uncomfortable to admit this, but sometimes I just want to pack up and go home. In those moments, it seems like it would be the easiest solution, but I know (as do you) that it is not. If I come to you in those moments, rant in hand and asking for an internet-hug and tell you that I want to give up, kindly send the hug, listen to the rant, and slap some sense into me.

It's easy to forget when you are alone in a place you're not fully comfortable with that you are there for a purpose, and you aren't as alone as you would like to believe. I have this problem a lot-- sometimes, I am paralyzed and tormented by the thought that I don't really have somebody here that I can completely, effortlessly confide in. I struggle with the separation from people I now realize have been like security blankets: whose company I seek out at any moment when I have a chance, who make me a better person and keep me smiling. This is normal, and I didn't realize it would be quite like that. That's the nature of the thing, though, and recognizing that I have to be my own person is vital.

That isn't to say that I don't have friends here. People I will push away sometimes, or seek out; these friendships are still in the beginning stages where I still don't know that much about each individual, but I consider to be friends all the same. The language barrier is a problem; I can't always understand everything they're talking about, or the context of the conversation. I can't always reply and I am, in fact, quite socially awkward, so placed in a situation where I would have to come up with a topic of discussion where I can actively contribute and is interesting for all participants is something I need to work on. I do want to get to know them better, but I fall short of actually accomplishing this.

What I often forget, though, is that the friends I have here may be experiencing the same thing-- the awkward getting-to-know-you stage where you may not know quite what to say. Just like anywhere else, it's impossible to believe that somebody else will make the effort if you, yourself, do not. The people I count as friends appear to honestly want to be my friend (even if I don't see them all the time)-- people like Corentin and Nadia, who take the same bus as me, Laure, Jean-Paul, both Charlottes, Insaf... and more (listing all the names isn't a good idea, because that's confusing). They are, as previously mentioned, quite patient with my slow French, which is still scattered with English phrases.

Much to my amusement, some of my English phrases have been adopted. It makes me smile to hear them say "Fail"; today on the bus, Corentin said "epic fail", and pronounced it "epique faiiil." Such things make me giggle and want to hug whoever said the phrase because (let's face it), their accents make English words sound ridiculously cute. Similarly, it seems my accent makes some things sound cute to them, too-- I was reading Harry Potter (en français... n'inquiete pas!) very quietly and Insaf informed me of that while Jean-Paul nodded.

I have vacation starting Saturday; lots of French people go skiing, but as far as I know, I'll be in Fréjus for the duration of the break. I will be taking the initiative and trying to make plans with some friends; maybe some exploring is in order, of places I haven't been, such as Marseilles.

I didn't expect for there to be issues within the host family; I didn't expect this, but I try to take it in stride. I'm not new to handling a similar situation, but I feel as though it's not my place to interfere. I tread the line between stranger and family, and as a visitor, I don't want to stir the waters. My issues here ("chez moi", because this is my "home" here, no matter that I still refer to AEU as "home") stem from handling a younger brother that is 11 years old. HE IS ELEVEN, you guys. Eleven-- and I'm seventeen; this doesn't make for peace, as I am residing in his room-- in "his" house-- taking up space he finds familiar and comforting in the same way that I find my space AEU familiar and comforting. Beyond that, the two of us have communication problems as well; he is full of energy and the desire to play that is expected from young boys. I won't hesitate to tell you that sometimes I do not like the kid at all, but I recognize that he is a KID and the problems I have with him are expected and even normal for a younger "sibling".

I'd also mention, that like every time I travel, being here has inspired in me a desire to write and create. I can't face my novel, but I guess nothing will happen to it if I don't sit down and read it. I can't just shrug off my moments of inspiration and my desire to write stories; they won't be written if I don't write them, and it's been too long since I've made any effort to write stories. I want to get back that. If anything, like this blog, it is an exercise in expression and practice for true writing (I do still dream of being an author).

I know this wasn't particularly interesting, but there you have it. Life continues.
♥,
-Aly

French Sickie

Hello, everybody!

I've been here in Fréjus for ONE MONTH! I've been in France for a bit longer, but still. I've made it through one month, and I'm beginning to think that the time here will be passing too quickly. This scares me-- I feel like there's so much more to learn, to see, and to experience. I've got to learn, though my vocabulary, pronounciation, and general knowledge is improving as I spend more time surrounded by French culture and words. This isn't a long-overdue update, but I'm working on those! (After I finish the Week One post, I probably won't be worrying about going back and filling in all the mundane details of my life.)

At any rate, right now I'm sick (I have a cold), so I haven't done anything interesting this weekend. I didn't have the time/energy/willpower to run at all this past week at the beautiful Ville Aurelienne. One of my friends has said that he might run with me some Saturday though, so that's awesome because I don't have a running buddy here. This next Saturday marks the beginning of Winter Holidays here, which last for a couple weeks (I think). I don't have any plans, but hopefully I can find something other than reading and/or watching movies to entertain myself.

(I've been reading Harry Potter books; my friend Charlotte H. gave me the second, fifth, and sixth Harry Potter books in French, for which I will love her forever because HARRYPOTTEREEP! I read the first chapter of the second book yesterday.... and then watched the first two movies.)

Being sick in a foreign country is particularly unpleasant, as all the things you do when you're sick may not work so well or be quite the same, since you're elsewhere. The medicine isn't the same, and I've been sucking on Ricola/Coldeeze that Dad left me (again) because I've been hacking all over the place. I may head over to the Pharmacie down the street (if Nathalie and Olivier don't think I'll collapse or suddenly catch pneumonia along the way...) and hunt for some meds that Mom looked up that are the French equivalents of familiar things (like Motrin, except not really).

(I've been taking this stuff called Doliprane, which is similar to Tylenol-- you dissolve it in water and drink it; not yummy. It's supposed to get rid of my fever, not that I know my exact temperature because 1) Celsius???? and 2) I refuse to use their thermometer... but I generally know when I have a fever.)

My friends here are quite awesome; they use MSN, rather than AIM, so I spend a lot of time on there now, even though I haven't used that email address in years. My expressions don't translate well into French, but they seem to understand some of them ("happydance, anyone? no? Okay, errr... danse de bonheur? oui? YAY!!!!!").

I love to go downtown-- I always walk the same way, because I don't know which way is faster and the path I take is the one that Laure showed me when I went to see Avatar in French with her and her friend Anais. I ran at Base Nature a couple weeks ago, and decided that it'll work in when I'm in desperate need of running, but it's like the beginning of the Wendy's course (flat, field; when it's not marsh-like, it's probably dusty). But Fréjus is qute a nice place, if a bit sleepy. I'm looking forward to summer, because there seems to be NOTHING to do here in the winter!

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm doing well; I'm speaking in French to my friends at school more, and actually participating in some classes (such as some of my 9-hours-of-French-classes, where I'll read out loud a bit of a poem or story excerpt). I'll be attempting to make Toll House Cookies at some point (I have to save some for my English teacher, actually, haha), and things are more-or-less settling down at Chez Chasson now (11 year old boy = never true calm), and MY FRENCH IS IMPROVING (or so I've been told by quite a few people, though I believe that Corentin may say otherwise based on the amount of correcting he does... xD).

Hope all you North Carolinians are enjoying your SNOW (!!!), and that everybody is well & happy :)
-Aly

Day Ten: Fire Dancers

Jan. 1, 2010

Hello!

I still owe you, my dedicated readers (=P), the rest of the posts leading up to this week.

I’ll start where I left off from the last post; refresh your memory if you need to.

This evening (except it was still 2009 at that point), Dad and I headed over to the Roqui’s for dinner. We have been corresponding with the Roquis since sometime last January. I was supposed to live with them originally, but that didn’t work out as planned. At any rate, they have been tremendously helpful with getting me here to France, particularly with paperwork for both my enrollment in the lycée and to get me the visa to come here.

Dinner was moules (mussels) frites, and appetizers! Jean-Pierre, my friend Angela’s father, said it’s a tradition, though I don’t know if he meant a FRENCH tradition or a family tradition. The frites are eaten dipped in mustard (which in this case was mayonnaise and mustard? Uhh. It came like that in the jar.), which I tried and enjoyed. (I swear it’s better than it sounds…)

Dessert was buche de noël in ice cream form, which I have to say is a completely acceptable way to eat a Yule Log. I had three slices :D

George and Therese(I probably spelled their names wrong) were there, too (my dad’s friend Pierre’s parents; Angela’s mother, Elise, is Pierre’s sister. Got all that? It’s not really that important other than to explain how we know them.); it was nice to see them again. They remember us (or at least my dad) from when we met them during their stay in North Carolina a few years ago. (Though that may have been quite a while ago, like my sixth grade year.)

Dinner was an interesting affair—I think Angela, Alaina (her younger sister), and I were all being awkward and not talking, but our parents were talking. There was a constant mix of English and French, which is always interesting.

After we finished eating, we started watching the French review-of-the-year show (that’s what I think it was), which seemed to consists of things that a group of people sitting around the table thought were funny, if not particularly important. This shows seem quite popular, though, because I swear the Chassons were watching the same type of show the night before.

Finally, after a few pictures with George and Therese, Dad and I headed down to Saint Raphaël-plage to see the annual fireworks spectacle (show). We went expecting something like Fourth of July fireworks… loud, colorful explosions, and not much else.

It was a bit wet and chilly, if my memory serves me correctly, which made waiting a bit uncomfortable, but when the show began and we had a pretty good view, I definitely wasn’t complaining.

I’ll let you see what you can from the pictures, because it was just really awesome and different.

This was the beginning; dude crouched on a rail looking out over the dark water.

Anyway, those aren’t very clear pictures. I’m trying to decide the best way to put more pictures up at least so that you can see pictures I DON’T include on the blog. Not sure how to go about this in a safe way. Let me know what you think (about the idea and any ideas!).

Dad and I decided that was definitely a satisfactory way to bring in the New Year, though technically it ended before the New Year began. Everybody was yelling “BONNE ANNÉE! DEUX MILLE DIX!” (“HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2010!”)… there wasn’t a BIG GRAND FINALE (unlike American fireworks where there must ALWAYS be a Grand Finale). It was cool though. That was much more interesting than watching the ball drop on television. xD

The next morning we slept in until noon, skipped breakfast, and began our quest for Pizza, which ended up taking quite a bit of time as nothing was open. Hence, after we didn’t actually have pizza (we had very large salads. yum.), we immediately had to go to the Bruzzone’s for tea at 2:00 (14h).

I haven’t mentioned the Bruzzones on here before, except in brief passing as the OTHER Nathalie (Rick-with-the-blog’s friends in Fréjus). Nathalie B. works for “Vous Accueil”, which is an organization that welcomes newcomers to the town and provides information. [If I understood that correctly.] She is the one that received Rick’s email and did a lot to help find me another solution of someplace to live before I came here. She doesn’t actually know Nathalie Chasson, but it is partially thanks to Nathalie Bruzzone that we found me a place to stay here.

They invited us for tea so that we could actually meet them: Nathalie, her husband Laurent, and their daughters Fanny (14) and Laure (17; she’s 13 days older than me), and Aurlien, Laure’s boyfriend and Jerome, Laurent’s friend, joined us. Tea actually meant tea for my dad, but I just had fruit juice. With tea, we ate Galette des Rois, which is what you might know as King Cake. It isn’t the same though; king cake to me meant what we eat every year in French class, but this is quite different. (The ones we have in NC are the “Louisiana Style” King Cakes, which are cinnamon rolls with frosting and sugar.)

(click through to source of picture, since I didn’t actually have a picture; there's a recipe, too, except it's in metric measurements.)

At a later date, I'll post a recipe for Galette des Rois in American measurements; I've asked Nathalie (Chasson) for it, and I'll translate & convert it for you :)

Apparently there’s two types of King Cake, one for Northern France, and another in Southern France. The kind pictured above is typical in Northern France, and it’s particularly delicious served warm. As is typical for king cakes, there is a small baby Jesus inside; when you find it, you get to wear a fake King crown (and be “King” for a day! WHOO!).

The nice thing about my dad’s networking while trying to find me a place to stay is that I now have met more French people that are incredibly kind and welcoming, and want me to have a really great experience here.

(Dinner was that elusive Pizza from this really great Pizza place that was decorated with Pirate-y-ness in Saint Raphaël. I consider that a great success in Pizza-Questing.)

-Aly

Day Nine: “This is strange…”

Dec. 31, 2009

Bonsoir! (because it’s currently 6:15pm here.)

We’re going back quite a while now, because we’re finally reaching the END OF DECEMBER.

So, the first thing we did on (errr… *has to check what day of the week that was*…) THURSDAY! was go to Carrefour to shop for school supplies.

Since we hadn’t actually gone to a grocery store (I use this term loosely, since Carrefour is really a supermarché) in France before to actually BUY things, we were all “well, this is strange…”

“This is strange…”

1. Pillows- So, you know how pillows are usually rectangular? I’m talking about the pillow that you sleep on every night; I’m willing to bet that it’s rectangular, right? Well, not here! Europeans have SQUARE pillows. They’re a bit bigger than our pillows, I guess, but they’re square, which just seems incredibly strange. I mean, in a world of small spaces (cars, apartments, etc.), there are these huge square pillows. (Insert “this is strange…”)
   
2. Shopping Carts- The first thing you do when you enter a store to go grocery shopping is take a cart.You leave it to the workers to haul the shopping carts from the pens into the store, and you expect that there will always be shopping carts or baskets right inside the door for your convenience. In France, this is not the case (as we discovered after we got inside and realized we would like a cart). The carts are in pens outside the door, but they’re all chained together. The locks holding the carts together have slots on them to put money in; once you pay, you can take the cart. (We found out later that it’s a token-type thing and not actual money, though I suppose you have to pay for the token? Not sure how that works.) When you return the cart, you lock it back into the other carts and you get your money/token/thingy back.
   
3. Fruit- In American grocery stores, fruit is nicely labeled how much for a pound (or a bag, or whatever… since I only ever buy fattie club foods, I’m not exactly certain xD). At the cash register, the cashier weighs your fruit, and you pay for it. Here, you  weigh your own fruit… actually, there’s this guy who has a little stand in the fruit section. He just stands there, really… until somebody comes up with their bag of fruit, which they place on the scales (there’s four). He prints off a sticker that says how much your bag of fruit costs, and sticks it on the bag; after, you are free to continue your shopping. [I wonder what it says in his job description… must be good with stickers; VERY STRENUOUS work environment? xD  I think I would’ve enjoyed that job, once upon a time.]
   
4. Grocery Bags- Personally, I think this is good, and we should have expected it; especially with our philosophy on plastic bags. In France, they don’t HAVE plastic (or paper) grocery bags at supermarkets. You can’t just go to the checkout and shove all your purchases in a conveniently-located bag to take it home in. You have to bring your own bag (which is some variety of cloth), and you load it yourself, and you’d better be quick about it, too! (We learned this the hard way, when I had to shove everything into my purse and Dad had to carry a stack of things that were too big for my purse out to the car.)

While we were at Carrefour (not the supermarket, but the centre commercial that is attached), we decided we needed lunch (before we actually bought anything); seeing a sign outside a small “sandwicherie” (everything seems to be  [word]-erie here, but that’s just a gross generalization) advertising “THE AMERICAN”, we decided to try it.

“The American” was supposed to be a sandwich with cheese and some sort of “American” sauce… being Barbeque sauce. We thought it would be, y’know… barbeque, like pulled pork or chicken or something.

When it arrived it looked something like this:

(There were more “frites” on there, though.)

So “The American” sandwich, as perceived by the French:

Onions (underneath the cheese), “Hamburger Cheese” because they refuse to call it American cheese (I discovered this later), hamburger patties (cut in half so that they fit on the baguette), a little bit of lettuce, fries, ketchup, and barbeque sauce… all on a baguette. Although we are Americans, we ate the fries first. Maybe the French people could eat the American like it (apparently) should be, frites and all. Because seriously, I’m fairly certain I’ve never laughed that much at a sandwich before.

ANYWAY, after our shopping adventure, we headed over to Fréjus-Centre to explore more, since the last time we explored downtown, we only saw the Cathedral.

This time we saw the Roman Arena and wandered around downtown; even though stores near the beach are closed, centreville was still fascinating.

Unfortunately, the arena is being restored or renovated or something of the sort so we couldn’t actually go inside. :(

[Uhh, there would be pictures here but I can’t seem to find them on my computer. Help me out here, Dad!]

(Conclusion: more trips to Fréjus will be necessary in the future. Or to France. As if I didn’t think that would be necessary before.)

I love how modern businesses operate under ancient roofs (fine, the roofs probably aren’t ancient, but the buildings are! ESPECIALLY in comparison to the US!). You can walk down these tiny cobblestone streets that probably haven’t changed much since they were laid, but you can see cars and people in modern clothing walking around as though they don’t know they’re walking on FREAKING history! :O

*nerd moment*

Seriously, though. Walking on history.

(Uhh, I forgot to mention; there seems to be “gangs of girls” here. There are these girls here that walk around in what look like gangs; all scowling, wearing look-alike outfits in all black, and just generally looking intimidating. I think Dad was frightened by them; then again, I was a bit scared intimidated, too!)

Andddd that concludes Day Nine, because I think I’ll shove dinner that night with the Roquis into Day Ten, even though it technically wasn’t. Sorry for the picture-less post! I’ll add pictures once I find ‘em! :)

Hope you’re having a great Monday!

-Aly