In Which Our Author Anticipates An Addiction

I went to Lille last weekend to visit a dear friend, Aurore. We met when I lived in Tours seven (gasp!) years ago and we've kept loosely in touch ever since. I treasure her friendship, because from the beginning she took me on as a project and made a focused effort to integrate me into French culture; everyone needs a friend like this.

One of the things I love best about Rory is that she's fiercely protective. I can't count the number of times she snapped at her fiancé to "articulate" when he spoke to me. It makes me laugh. I mean, I take it as a compliment when French people speak at their normal speed, although at some point I do completely lose track of the conversation and just stare into space. She also reprimanded him several times to use smaller words, which also made me smile.

Anyway, Lille was fantastic. Rory met me at the train station and we walked around the gorgeous downtown and caught up over a delicious lunch of hot sandwiches and a very indulgent dessert. I had a speculoos cheesecake, speculoos being a cinnamon-flavored cookie indigenous to the area.* I scored a verbal invite to the August wedding, which I'm totally stoked about. My diet starts January.

After dessert and coffee, we roamed around town some more and did a little shopping. I fell madly in love with a line of jewelry called Skalli, which is odd since I don't consider myself a jewelry person. I wear one ring (which I got when I was 11), an occasional necklace and I lost my watch. Still, something about this line really appealed to me.

Then Aurore suggested we take a ride on the giant Ferris wheel, and who was I to object? The views were gorgeous, Lille is absolutely breathtaking, and I took lots of pictures. I also fell out of the teacup on my way out, which left a humdinger of a bruise on the same leg I'd previously damaged falling off the bus.

We explored the Christmas market, which was massive. I swear there were more English people than French there. Because Lille is so close, lots of Brits take a bus or ferry over for a day trip, especially this time of year. Aurore understands English really well, which I forget because we always speak French together, but it was cute to see her laugh every now and then at something stupid the tourists said. (Said one rather chav girl about the products at what was clearly a waffle stand, "They're sort of like little pancakes.")

We met up with Laurent, Rory's fiancé, and we had a juice and I entertained them with my ability to name all 50 states. (You'd be amazed at what amuses French people.) Then we went back to their house, which I hadn't seen yet, and I got to take the grand tour. They've done a lot of work to the place, and it looks great. It's what the French would call très design.

Then it happened: Aurore broke out the Wii. This was my first Wii experience. My friend Chrissie has one, but up until now I've managed to avoid it. I don't know much about video games; I had an Atari, and I used to play Nintendo at Amy Lee's house, but my last experience with "gaming" was Leo's Playstation, and honestly, it was just too friggin' complicated.

I got sucked in to Wii-dom so fast it's scary. First we did Wii Sports, where Rory handily whipped me at tennis, I redeemed myself in bowling only to lose-- to a French girl-- in baseball. This gravely wounded my national pride and I feel certain that the State Department will be revoking my passport any moment now. Then we played a game whose named translates loosely to "Bonehead Rabbits." I feel sure that it has a different name in the U.S. It's based on the idea that rabbits have taken over the television and you (a rabbit) must act out the various shows. Some of them I was incredibly bad at (anything involving music), but others I rocked out (dancing and this other program wherein a drill sergeant shouts commands at recruits and they try not to mangle themselves).

Oh my gosh, I loved it. I was sitting on Rory's couch watching her snowboard a wildebeest (yes, that's what I said) and I thought, I need one of these. And I knew immediately that one of two outcomes was inevitable: I would spend entirely too much money and never use the thing or, more alarmingly, I would become grossly addicted and never, ever leave my house again.

Still, since I'm feeling muscle fatigue two days later, I can't help but be tempted. I mean, that sucker kicked my tail, and we weren't even doing the Wii Fitness thing!

So, here I am, vacillating. On the one hand, I've got a massive crush on the Wii. On the other, I'm already a homebody as it is. So time will tell...

Tomorrow I'll post about the wildly fun dinner party we went to, and if I can get my hands on pictures, I'll introduce you to my new boyfriend, Quentin. The world isn't ready to accept us yet, but in 16 years and 10 months, we'll be able to declare our love officially.

*Yes, I realize the article says Belgium, but Lille is spitting distance from the border, so there's a bit of overlap.

Weekend In Paris

Last day of meetings, this time at the lycée hotelier where we'd had dinner the night before. By that time I was on information overload, so I'm not sure I really processed anything that was said that day. Annie brought her niece so that we could role play the conseils de classe, which are meetings held each trimester with an administrator, the teaching team, two student representatives and two parent representatives to discuss the progress of each individual student in the class. Yeah. Totally looking forward to that.

We said our somewhat emotional goodbyes, even though Mr. Moto brought us the good news that we'll meet again at the end of January (except for Maureen, whose third world location makes travel costs prohibitive).

I took the metro to my friend Caroline's office, then sat quietly while she finished working on a project. We got to the train station with about two minutes to spare and Caroline asked if I really wanted to take the time to buy a ticket because nobody ever checks and it's no big deal. I told her I'd already been controlled twice, so we got a ticket. And no one checked it.

Her new place is in a town 3 miles outside Paris, and it's adorable. It's on the fourth floor, which is a painful climb, but it's bright and airy and spacious and absolutely beautiful. We had a delicious dinner of ham-and-cheese crepes, with pastries for dessert and a respectable amount of wine.

Saturday we went to the market in town and it was awesome. They sold everything there from fruits to fish to rastafarian caps. The guy selling melons offered to let us sample one, and his sales pitch went like this: "You've probably had better, but you've probably had worse, too." He was right, so we bought three. And happily they were even tastier than the sample melon.

Caroline's mom came by and we went into the city. The artists' neighborhood in the 20th was having an "Open House" day, so you could go in to the artists' workshops and look at all their stuff. It was pretty cool. After that we checked out an exhibit called "Frigos sur le Pont des Arts," which was kind of hilarious-- refrigerators on a bridge.

There was a disastrous episode wherein I complained about my jeans not fitting any more and Caroline decided she would help me find some new ones. Only we haven't shopped together too much, so she didn't realize what would happen: I'd try on two pairs and become unreasonably frustrated when they didn't fit, would refuse to ask anyone for help and rashly declare that nothing would fit, no matter where we went, and I would just want to go home and feel sorry for myself.

Frankly, I don't know if it was mental exhaustion from meetings or emotional exhaustion from this first month of school, but I was in total shut-down mode. In short, I was a terrible house guest, no fun at all, and poor Caro just had to put up with me. So we went back to her place and had dinner; we'd intended to watch a movie but ended up watching about two hours of Les Simpson instead. Somehow it's funnier in French.

Sunday we headed back in to town; only when we got to train station, both ticket machines were broken and there was no one at the window, so it was impossible to buy a ticket. Argh. At any rate, off we went to the Mémoriale de la Déportation, the Holocaust Memorial. It is stark and striking and moving. I was taking pictures like crazy and Caroline was standing very far away from me looking perturbed. Finally she came up and whispered that she didn't think pictures were allowed, so I stopped. (I never did see a sign, but I guess I believe her.) Anyway, profit from my contraband photos now:

We had a fantastic lunch at a Lebanese place near Boulevard St. Michel, then it was back to Caro's place to pack up my stuff. She walked me to the train station, but I guess we were a little behind schedule, because the train was pulling away and I had to literally run to get on it.

And yeah, I got controlled. Obviously. Without a ticket. I tried telling the guy that the two machines were broken and there was no one at the window (which was true enough, in the morning), but he whipped out a cell phone and called the station to verify, so I was SOL. I had a few seconds to recall a book I read about French people and what the author calls Persistent Personal Operating, where you essentially have to make them care about you personally, generally by giving them a sob story and throwing yourself at their mercy.

And so... I cried. Isn't that such a wretched girl thing to do? But French men... well. Anyway, it wasn't my intention to cry, but I was just so tired and fed up and sick of everything that I got all choked up and went the Noble Martyr route and said of course I'd pay the fine immediately but could we please hurry because I was going to miss my train to Le Mans. He asked to see my ticket, then fussed at me for only booking a ticket Paris- Le Mans rather than a Caro's Town-Le Mans ticket. I told him how sorry I was (not particularly true) but that I didn't know that was possible (which was true) and got a brief lecture on How To Buy Train Tickets. I choked up again and said I'm sorry, I didn't know, I'm just a poor little foreigner, etc. He asked my nationality, I told him, he said, "That's a beautiful country. I don't know Alabama, but I like the U.S." Then he said that since I was an American he would let me go this time. "But go quickly or you'll miss your train. Take the 13 line for Chatillon and that'll take you directly to the Montparnasse station. Now hurry!"

French people. I will never understand.

Paris Day One

Three days of freedom from classes and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I got to the train station way early because I was just ready. I ran into another exchange teacher, Annmarie, at the hotel, and we roamed the neighborhood and had lunch together. Then we headed down to our rendezvous point to get ready for our official immigration medical visit.

I'd forgotten what a delight these were. The good parts: reuniting with all the other exchange teachers. I feel about these folks the way veterans feel about their platoon mates: we've Been Through Stuff that no one else will ever understand. We were all positively giddy to see each other.

The doctors took us in pairs-- I was with Joanna, and let me tell you, these docs have the system down. They shuffled Joanna and me around the room like magic; we never once ran into each other, and somehow we both managed to be weighed, measured and given an eye exam within about two minutes. The doctors were cracking jokes-- at one point, Joanna made a big production over the doctor asking her if she were pregnant, which he thought was just hilarious. Seriously, he almost fell down laughing, then he opened various doors to tell everyone what she'd just said.

After the doctors were finished with us, they hustled us into a hallway with three doors, told us to each pick a room, strip down to the waist, and wait for someone to come get us. Ah yes, the chest x-ray. I'd forgotten about this little delight. What's that you say? Drapes or paper shirts to protect one's modesty? Surely you jest. What are you, some sort of prudish American who's so ashamed of your own body you're not comfortable parading around naked in front of a bunch of lab techs? Some people have the craziest hangups.

I tried to brazen my way through it, but it's just a godawful experience. Someone comes to get you and walk you in to the xray room. This is the standup variety, so a helpful lab tech will walk up behind you and smash your boobs against a cold metal wall. At this point, the lab tech decided to pull my hair into a clip of some sort, and that kicked my discomfort level through the roof. After all, scientists have identified hand-to-head as pretty frigging high up on the human intimacy scale, and I felt like Nurse Ratched was rushing me a bit.

After we got our handy souvenir chest xrays, we were called individually to another doctor for a medical history. This is where I lie a lot, because it's so much easier to just answer "no" than to deal with follow-up questions. However, I was so proud to actually know the French word for "arthroscopy" that I eagerly volunteered that bit of information. He then asked what the doctors found and I had to feel stupid once again. It wasn't even a vocabulary deficiency; I remember I asked my knee doctor three times what they did to me, and he told me, but it all went over my head.

Finally we worked our way back out to the main office, where we were given our official visas:

Here we are in the Place des Vosges admiring our lungs:

That night we had a cocktail party with the Agency in charge of our exchange, and we shared the time (and wine, and food) with a group of college students who are spending a semester in France. They're newly arrived and a little petrified, and it was so nice to talk to them about living in France. Honestly, my confidence has been absolutely decimated since school started, so I was thrilled to be able to feel knowledgeable and capable again.

We also got to meet several high-level bureaucrats, including the director of the Commission, a Frenchman with a longish aristocratic name* who was quite friendly and knew me immediately because he'd spent so much time looking at our files. Which have photographs. And my hair makes me easy to identify. Go figure. I also met a very nice lady from the Embassy who travels the world with her daughter and lived four years in New Orleans, so that was fun to talk about.

Maureen (my favorite third world denizen) and I had dinner and a glass of wine, then we went back to the hotel to prepare for our first day of meetings.

*This is foreshadowing. This man will appear in tomorrow's post.

Un Week-End à Tours

I had a great weekend that went a long way towards restoring my enthusiasm for the year ahead. I lived in Tours in 2002-03 and fell madly in love with the city (though, to be fair, it took a good six months for me to warm up to it). One of the perks of being in Le Mans is that it's only an hour's train ride away, so off I went. (This is the short version of the story; the long one involves a bus, a tram and a guy who, given the option to sit anywhere he could in the train, opted to bypass three completely empty rows in order to sit next to me and fart violently every ten minutes.)

But Tours-- oh, so worth the suffering! I take the same picture every time I'm here, of the city hall, because it never gets any less gorgeous:

At the train station, I met my boy Bama Ross, who has hidden himself away in England for the past two years but could no longer evade me. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel (a very comfortable, cheap place run by someone Ross knows, naturally, because Ross knows everyone) and proceeded directly to The Pale, our home away from home.

There’s just something special about this place—no matter when you show up, there’ll be someone there you know. Ther’s also something immeasurably awesome about having the barmaid on duty make a phone call for you, and the following exchange takes place:

Phone: Ring.

Jodie: Hello?

Me: Roll damn tide!

Jodie: Oh! I’m just across the street, I’ll be right down.

Brilliant. Jodie, the darling of the Pale (and most of Tours, frankly), is returning home to Ireland after 10 years. And while on the one hand, I’d like to scold her for her bad timing, she’s been talking about this move for as long as I’ve known her, and I’m proud of her for finally making it happen. So good luck to you, Jodes—and give those students what-for!

One of the many reasons we love Jodie is that she always locates our mugs for us. The tradition at The Pale is, once you’ve consumed 100 pints of beer, they give you your own glass. And there are no repeat names—mine is the first and only Melissa, but Ross, seeing as how there was already a Ross somewhere, became Bama Ross. These days, they’re having to think of exotic and bizarre names to put on their mugs, so we old-school types feel a bit smug.

Sunday morning, Jodie and I went to Les Halles to buy oysters and shrimp, which was an adventure in itself. She was preparing an appéro that evening to thank everyone who’s helped her get ready for her move. And we shut the place down that night—not in a rowdy way, just fun. The girls were running around singing ABBA songs (myself excluded—I was outside with the boys pretending to know enough about Formula One racing to hold up my end of the conversation, when the truth is everything I know about Formula One I learned from a book narrated by a dog.)

The weather, it’s worth noting, continues to be spectacular. As I write this from my couch in Le Mans, I could almost say that it’s chilly except this is August and you would all swear I’m exaggerating. All I can say is low of 57 degrees. Beyond that, words fail me. Tomorrow I’ll explore the city some more and report back anything of interest (to me. Your interests are irrelevant.)