if you loved this one, wait'll you see...

I'm very proud of myself for having won all technical battles necessary to bring you my new and improved blog at:

http://grown-uplessons.com

Go there, read it, check out old posts if you haven't already, ooh and ahh over the pretty pictures, memorize your favorite stories, retell them, pass on the word, know it, love it, etc.

You get the idea.

this will be a short one

I'm home.

pack, clean, clear, sweep, scrap, jump, higher, higher, higher

Okay. Phew. I have so much to do and it's making me really stressed. The next few days are going to fly by. I've done the past couple of nights on very little sleep and my expectations for the next three are no better.

Today I played Packing: Round #1. I think I won. My large suitcase is completely full and I probably have just the right amound of stuff to fit into my smaller suitcase and my backpack.

Nearly every second of my time is promised away for these next few days because I have so many people to see and so much to finish before Friday night, when the French boys of Village 5 are throwing me an all-night party to proceed driving me to the airport. (Don't worry, Mama and Papa. Vincent will be quite sober to drive.)

Today I said goodbye to Massimo. I feel like I'm really bad at goodbyes because I never expect them to be forever. I can't seem to finish a farewell without saying something to the effect of, "Yeah, see you around ... someday. I'm sure we'll see each other again, right?" Maybe this is a silly, not-living-in-the-moment kind of way to act. Maybe I should just say goodbye and get on with my damn life.

I also said goodbye to Colin yesterday morning, which was really hard.

Each thing I need to do and each person I need to see seems to multiply my heart rate. My chest is pounding! Every free moment of thought that I have, I dedicate to the trip home. I try to picture myself checking my luggage in Bordeaux, boarding my transatlantic flight in Madrid, and finally walking past security in Cincinnati and into the arms of my family. I wonder what their first thought will be when they see me. Will I look different to them? Will I look older? It almost seems silly to dedicate thought to such things considering that they just saw me in January and also that, thanks to this blog my Daily Booth account (clicking on the photo in the upper left of this screen will take you there), they've had a pretty constant stream of photos of me.

I guess I just expect everything to change. I'm not a different person than when I left, but I feel a whole lot older and wiser than I did before and I want someone to notice.

zee beach

Today Raymond, Amandine, Colin, Robert, Chris, Gudrun, Monika, Massimo, Alex, Maja, Nathalie and I met at the beach at Arcachon. We came by car and train (some of us were smuggled in the back of a van) to spend a long afternoon under the sun (and we've got the burns to prove it). I know my stories have been leaving something to be desired lately, but I'm too tuckered out from the sun, a heavy dinner at l'Entrecôte, and an evening of feeling crummy to write much. Here are a few pictures, courtesy of Gudrun and Amandine (my camera is, surprisingly, not fixing itself).

Colin finally found a French girlfriend. They seemed to bond on an emotional level, but he decided to hold out on buying her a drink.


Nationalities, left to right: American, Irish, French, Italian, American, Norwegian, Dutch, English, Swedish, Romanian. (Our favorite Icelandic Edith Piaf impersonator and and another Swede are missing from this shot.)


"No press photos, please."


Robert and Chris, the EU's most charming couple.



"I was thinking about doing big arms."
"Oh, me too! I want to do big arms!"
"We can't ALL do big arms. Look, I'll do big arms and you can look at me and go, 'Ooh, he's doing big arms.' Okay?"

faites-moi un grimace

A couple of days ago I took Mama's suggestion and borrowed a camera to go to the reflecting pool in Bordeaux, where I asked total strangers to make a funny face for the camera.

here's what i'm doing/thinking to keep myself awake while i wait to skype with my mama

1. Just got home from acting in a play at DEFLE. "Cyrano de Bergerac ... À Peu Près!" The performance went well, but I'm beat.

2. My room is full of dirty dishes, but otherwise tidy. Or was before I stripped off my sticky clothes and couldn't be bothered to pick them up.

3. Flossing my teeth like a good girl. There's a strange rough spot between my front bottom two teeth and I'm certain it's plaque. Or tartar. Which is worse? I can never remember. Ugh. Must remember to make a dental appointment for soon after I go home.

4. My apartment has hot water again. To shower tonight or tomorrow? That is the question.

5. Tomorrow Colin and I leave for the Ile d'Oléron to visit Christelle, Nico and Jade. We'll be back Sunday night.

6. Skyped with Mama and Oliver. What a charming dog, even if he might have fleas. Gew.

7. I'm boring myself making this list, which means you, my lovely readers, must be snoring. I think I'll save the shower for tomorrow and read Les Misérables until I can't keep my eyes open any longer.

colin took this picture of me in rome and i like it a whole whole bunch

i'll bring my teapot if you bring the stars

I wanted to go to bed early tonight but I’m having trouble sleeping. Popped a Melatonin and sat down here, in front of this garishly lit computer screen, because my hand aches too much to write with a pen and paper.

One of my neighbors is playing soft music on his guitar. Soft from where I sit, anyway. It’s leaking in through my window with the accompaniment of laughter that trickles in from the street and the whoosh of cars that pass outside.

Do you know what it feels like? Those moments when you just feel “off” for no particular reason? It feels like limbo between two extremes. I’m buzzing, mind full of incomplete thoughts about nothing at all, but my body is tired or wants to be, I’m not sure. I’m not unhappy by any means. Just unsettled.

And the last day-and-a-half has been so amazing, too. A whirl. I finished classes on Wednesday and skipped straight to the tram with Alexandra and Gudrun, who introduced me to a couple of tucked-away vintage shops that I wished I had found myself seasons ago. I’ve been very frugal since my ATM debacle* in London, but I rummaged through a packed floor-to-ceiling thrift store before I treated myself to a striped sundress with no tag and uneven seams that prove it was homemade, along with two summery cotton tops, both in shades of blue (in keeping with EVERY OTHER ARTICLE OF CLOTHING I OWN) that will look great with jeans.

Friday night, after nipping home to pull my sticky hair up off my neck, slip into one of my new blouses and a pair of espadrilles and rub a bit of perfume behind my earlobes to cover the summer skin smell I’d been cultivating all day, I was back in town to celebrate Hillary’s birthday with friends at a small Lebanese restaurant in the St. Pierre quarter. The food was delicious if not a bit overpriced, but we feasted on parsley-heavy taboulé and warm, fresh falafel drizzled in tahini sauce. Afterwards we wandered to Milo’s Café, a tiny, unpretentious bar where I had spent an afternoon on my first Sunday in Bordeaux with Colin, Stephanie and Jonah. A round of very diverse drinks later and it was almost midnight. Veronica and I left the others and headed our own separate directions before the tram turned into a pumpkin.

This morning I let myself sleep in until half past nine and passed a slow morning reading and enjoying the sun in my room. It was a warm and sugary sun, the kind that’s so absolutely delicious that you want nothing more than to disrobe, spread out and let it soak into your skin to replace any trace of winter that’s left there. Gudrun came over in the afternoon and, equipped with books and towels and blankets and sunglasses and sunblock and swimsuits and sundresses and beach bags and chapstick and a frisbee, we walked to Christophe’s place in Village 3 to meet him and Raymond for an afternoon trip to the beach. As soon as we got in the car, the clouds started setting in. By the time we arrived at the beach of Le Grand Cahot, the wind had picked up carrying the smell that announces rainstorms. We trudged along the path that cut through the beach grass. The sight of the water, slate blue and vast, put sprite in our step and we were soon camped on our towels and blankets, optimistically baring pale ankles to the absent sun. We didn’t read the books we’d brought, nor did we dare compete with the wind in a game of frisbee. Instead we talked about books and movies, our professors and fellow classmates. After a while, I don’t know how long, the wind picked up stronger and we decided to pack up and leave. Soon after climbing back into the car and delighting in its warmth, we were back on the road and bits of blue sky taunted us as we rolled through fields broken by pines. The longer we drove, France Bleu Gironde radio in the background, the more sun and blue sky we saw. It was after five and late-afternoon hunger had set in. We talked about split pea and potato soup at Karl, burgers at the Frog and Rosbif, steak et frites near Cour Victor Hugo. In the end, we parked outside Village 3 and parted ways. I came home and ate spinach with salt and grape seed oil drizzled on top with a bit of bread and yogurt.

The rest of tonight is a blur; unimportant really. I didn’t do anything special. The heat and sun gave it a dog-days-of-summer type of lull that I relish for it’s glorification of laziness. No work but no play either.

And here I am, beating out my overflowing mind to the sound of my fingers falling on a keyboard. My computer clock reads 23:23, and I think I’m finally ready to close my eyes. Not to sleep, not just yet. I know myself too well.

I’m excited to see what tomorrow brings.


*For those of you whom I haven't already filled in, a dishonest ATM in London ripped me off for 113€. The explanation is complicated, but the important bit is that those smart bankers know it'd cost me for than 113€ to pursue the matter, so they're keeping my moolah.

"there, there, that wasn't so bad!" "yes, yes, it was so bad. it was worse."

Today is a very frustrating day. I have an important paper to write on some aspect of 20th century French litterature and, even though I'm happy with the topic I've chosen, I'm having trouble actually accomplishing the task set before me.

As is sometimes my habit when I have a large academic task to accomplish, I let myself sleep until 10:15 this morning in hope that I would feel well rested and ready to set to work. Au contraire. I rose feeling groggy. I didn't shower and I didn't eat before pulling my computer onto my lap and opening the Microsoft Word document that held the precious few pages I'd already put down. But a slow Internet connection slowed my work because I still need new sources for my topic and because I depend on WordReference.com to translate when necessary.

Then, the program went on the fritz, frequently quitting "unexpectedly" and losing the very minuscule amount of writing that I had been able to accomplish.

I gave up. I was exhausted. It was already after 2 p.m.!

After I couldn't work myself up to doing anything else productive, I sat down once again in front of my computer screen. And I'm still here, at 4:48 p.m. Where has my day gone?

I feel sick in a tired/stressed way. I know that the best way to recover from a long and demanding week is probably to go for a good run, take a hot shower, relax for a little while and then try to write a couple pages so that I can feel accomplished, but I honestly just want to sleep for days.

Maybe instead I'll just listen to You Look Nice Today.

la laverie libre service

Here's a short story I wrote for my writing workshop. The theme was "Rencontre avec un être remarquable" ("Meeting with a remarkable being"). If you can read it, excuse the "cheese factor." I was rushed, okay?

Elle portait mon maillot de corps avec un jean coupé qui laissait voir ses hanches pâles. A ses pieds, des sandales en cuir. Moi je portais un short aussi, et des tennis effilochés. Il faisait nuit, et dans l'éclairage fluorescent, sa peau paraissait presque transparente.
Elle était assise, le dos tourné, sur la table de pliage au centre de la salle, balançant ses jambes dans l’air. Elle chantonnait faiblement une chanson qu’elle seule connaissait alors qu’elle regardait attentivement les vêtements qui tournoyaient devant elle dans les quatre sèche-linges. Avec difficulté, elle s’est tournée pour me faire face.
« Hé ! Nous avons encore des biscuits ? »
J’étais assis dans une chaise en plastique, un bouquin à la main. Je l’ai posé sur mes genoux pour lui répondre.
« Pourquoi ? Tu as mal au ventre? »
« J’ai la tête qui tourne, c’est tout. »
Tenant mon bouquin dans une main, j’ai ramassé mon sac à dos qui traînait par terre et j’en ai sorti une boîte de craquelins que je lui ai tendue. Elle mordillait délicatement, laissant néanmoins tomber des fines miettes sur son ventre arrondi et ses jambes nues.
« Je regardais ce linge-là qui tourbillonne, » dit-elle.
Elle ne semblait pas dérangée par le fait que j’étais retourné à mon livre ; cela ne paraissait pas la gêner car elle continuait à me parler, sa voix grêle s’opposant au grondement des séchoirs.
« L’essorage me fait penser à l’enfant. Tu ne penses pas qu’elle est toute agitée comme ça, dans mon ventre ? »
« Hein ? Non. »
Elle avait toujours des peurs absurdes comme ça.
« T’es pas la première qui fait ça, tu sais ? Il est bien, lui. »
Elle s’est levée ; les miettes sont tombées sur les tomettes comme une averse. Elle venait vers moi avec une main sur son abdomen pour s’asseoir dans la chaise voisine.
« Pourquoi tu dis toujours ‘lui’ ? Ca peut être encore une fille. »
Elle a posé la tête sur mon épaule. Avec un soupir résigné j’ai jeté mon bouquin sur la table de pliage pour la tenir dans mes bras.
Nous sommes restés comme ça pendant quelques instants quand elle a tressailli en poussant un cri doux. « Donne-moi ta main ! » Elle ne m’a pas laissé assez de temps pour réagir avant de me saisir la main, qu’elle a placée sur son flanc. Silence. Elle me regardait avec ses yeux grands, bleus, pleins d’attente.
Je ne sentais rien ; je n’avais jamais rien senti. Je ne voulais pas la décevoir, mais je suis un gars honnête. J’ai haussé les épaules.
« Non, chérie. Je n’y arrive pas. » Je lui ai donné un baiser sur la tempe. Avec sa main toute petite, elle glissait ma main ici et là sur l’hémisphère de son ventre.
« C’est vrai ? Mais moi je l’ai senti… » Elle poussait mes doigts contre l’endroit. J’ai retiré brusquement ma main.
J’étais soulagé de ne rien avoir senti. C’était bien parce que j’avais évité de n’apercevoir aucun mouvement que je pouvais maintenir cet aveuglement qu’il n’y avait pas de bébé. J’avais lu que le fœtus développait son système auditif entre seize et vingt-cinq semaines après la fertilisation. Et il y avait sûrement de l’air dans ses petits poumons qui se formaient. Pendant que le linge tournait dans le sèche-linge, ses ongles, ses cils et ses sourcils poussaient. Les semaines semblaient s’envoler et il me semblait qu’aussi longtemps que je pourrais retirer ma main pour ne pas sentir les petits coups, je pouvais m’accrocher toujours à ce mot inanimé : fœtus.
Car admettre la présence, ça veut dire la fin. Déjà elle prêtait plus d’attention à ce grumeau qu’à moi. L’été était presque fini, et notre réalité aussi.
Elle s’est levée. Elle n’avait même pas besoin de dire sa contrariété. Je la humais dans l’humidité de l’air stagnant. C’était honteux, injuste qu’elle soit si prête et zélée et moi, si lâche. Je ne veux pas vous faire penser que je ne l’aimais pas ; j’étais radin, c’est tout. J’étais hésitant. C’est comme ça que je dirais. Je n’avais ni frères ni sœurs et partager, ce n’est pas mon fort.
Mais ma taciturnité était trop faible pour sa détermination. Elle s’était encore assise à côté de moi. Elle me regardait intensément.
« Là, chéri. » Elle a pris fermement ma main dans la sienne, sans détourner le regard. Très tendrement, elle a étalé mes doigts sur son estomac ; j’étais rassuré de sentir le coton usé de mon propre maillot de corps qu’elle portait. J’ai décontracté les muscles de ma main.
Elle m’a dit doucement de remuer ma main plus à droite ou plus haut. Elle cherchait l’endroit. Sa voix profonde était moelleuse, délicieuse ! Pour cette voix je ferais n’importe quoi. Je n’avais plus peur ; je suppose que je me suis oublié un peu mais avant que j’aie eu le temps de m'en apercevoir l’enfant était sous mes doigts. Comme s’il était arrivé enfin à la porte de ma conscience – toc ! toc ! Après chaque coup je suis devenu de plus en plus ivre de ce mouvement extraordinaire.
Tous les peurs que j’ai eues me semblent maintenant loin et inutiles. Il y a assez de spéculation sur le moment où un garçon devient homme. Pour moi, il me paraît moins extraordinaire que mon fils -- j’avais raison ; c’était bien un garçon – a grandi dans neuf mois de quelques cellules minuscules en un bébé de presque quatre kilogrammes que le fait que suis passé de l’adolescence à l’âge adulte dans les trois secondes où j’ai ressenti pour la première fois ces coups de pied sur le ventre de ma chérie. Peut-être que c’est égoïste : être plus touché par le changement que ma première rencontre avec mon fils a provoqué en moi que par la simple existence de cet être. Peut-être. Mais voilà. J’ai toujours dit que je suis un gars honnête.

applause, applause, life is our cause

I've had an Internet outage in my dorm for a few days now. Today marks a clear low: It's raining, gray and chilly in Bordeaux. I've made a lot of progress on homework during my long day of classes, and there's no way I'd rather spend this evening than chatting on Skype with friends and family. Blurgh blegh blah.

sometimes i say i'm sorry even when you say i don't have to

i promise to buy batteries for my camera so this stops being so dull and wordy

Yesterday was Easter, and a pretty lonely and boring one too.

My day went like this:

Woke up and saw the overcast sky, cookie cereal with Colin, shower, agonized over what to wear to lunch, decided on jeans with a cute white top, changed my mind, changed my mind back again, waited for Pierre to pick me up for lunch, lunch with Ethan and the Thomas family (escargot, lamb, roasted vegetables, crème brûlée), home, felt lonely, changed into a dress (because everyone knows that on Easter, you have to wear a dress), started homework, Skyped with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunts Laurie, Barbie, Susie, Uncle Rick, said goodbye, peeled the stringy part out of green beans, danced around my room to The Kooks, finished the green beans, cooked steak dinner with Colin, watched Weeds with Colin, ate cookies with Colin, said goodnight to Colin, went to sleep.

I certainly mean no offense to Ethan, the Thomas family, my family in Cincinnati or Colin when I say that yesterday was "lonely and boring." But it was, as far as Easters go. And I'm not sure why.

Maybe I'm ready to come home.

that's what she said

My friend Cody Meinhardt came to visit me from Paris this weekend. Cody and I met in our orientation group at DePaul in August 2006. Since I transferred to Kent State, we've been in contact only through Facebook, but since he has been studying in Paris this year, he decided to make the 3-hour TGV (Train Grande Vitesse - look it up) ride down to Bordeaux.

Cody also doesn't have classes on Thursdays or Fridays, so he arrived Thursday morning and I picked him up from the train station. Typical Bordeaux weather - intermittent rain, wind, temperatures in the 50s Fahrenheit - had been predicted but it turned out to be a beautiful day. We met Colin for lunch on campus and then I gave him the walking tour of the city center before we reunited with Colin and Ethan in the late afternoon. In the evening, we went to the Frog & Rosbif, an English bar, where the boys ate amazing looking hamburgers (I had an incredible veggie burger) and we all drank beer brewed on premises. It satisfied our commununal mal du pays (homesickness).

The weather took a turn for the worse on Friday but Colin, Cody and I ate breakfast at Karl (unlimited bread, Nutella, confiture, butter, and honey with hot chocolate served in a bowl with whipped cream on top. Then we went to the Musée d'Aquitaine, where neither Colin nor I had ever been before. It was mostly arrowheads and bones dug up in the region, but it was free and a perfect way to get out of the rain. In the evening we went to see "The Burning Plain" starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. I highly recommend this film. Afterwards we all (Christoph, Gudrun, Monika, Alexandra, Massimo, Magda, Colin, Cody and I) went to dinner at Peppone, a wonderfully authentic (even Massimo admitted it) Italian restaurant that I discovered with my parents when they were here in January. Then we went to Dick Turpin's, another English pub, where Raymond met us for a beer.

Saturday I had play practice all day. Our theater class will be presenting an original play on May 15. It's about a troupe of actors who are putting on "Cyrano de Bergerac," but they're really untalented and unprepared the day before the curtain rises. The first act follows their hopelessly ridiculous rehearsals on the eve of the play's debut, and the second act shows their presentation of the play. I play Roxanne, the female lead. We rehearsed for about 8 hours and made progress, but it's hard to pull a play together when most of the actors are only taking the class because it's a requirement.

When I got off play practice, I hopped over to Casino to pick up a few groceries for my vegan curry, which Cody and I whipped up in about 25 minutes before heading to Val and Mariah's for a vegan dinner. It was incredible. I love having friends who love to cook (and who are good at it). There were stuffed peppers, cinnamon quinoa, soup, salads, and even chocolate cake! Tons of wine, too, of course. I wished that more of our French friends had been able to make it. Most of them have rarely, if ever, heard the French word for "vegan" - végétalien - and don't believe that eating that kind of food can be enjoyable. Oh well, more for us!

Sunday morning Colin, Cody, Massimo and I went to the market on the quay and grabbed some mini canelé before putting Cody on the tram to the train station. We introduced Massimo to some of our market favorites, like fricassée de calamars with potatoes and salami and cannelettes, which are crêpes that taste of canelé.

I spent Sunday afternoon/evening in bed, resting and daydreaming...

Such a delicious weekend.

soleil et beau temps

I'm still sick. I've traded fever-like chills for a hacking cough. Still, it's beautiful today, and warm (73 Fahrenheit) and I won't be stopped from spending the afternoon outside on the lawn with a book.

I also have a rock-hard baguette, eggs, milk, and maple syrup. Looks like French toast for dinner.

sticks and stones

I know I've been a really deplorable blogger lately. I've completely glossed over my trip to Italy, which was fabulous. Colin and I spent six days in sunny Rome visiting all the major tourist attractions on a student budget, meaning we decided not to pay to see anything. As a result, we settled for seeing the Colosseum from the outside and didn't visit the Vatican Museum (this is still something I would like to do someday, with the right tour guide). We did, however, make a mandatory one euro "donation" to Santa Maria della Concezione, a church whose crypt was decorated with the bones of over 4000 monks. Talk about macabre interior design! Chandelieurs constructed from rib cages, walls stacked with femurs and skulls, and a few monks who were completely whole and mummified from the dry air. Some had skin on their faces, still, and bits of their beards. Gew. It was unbelievably creepy and cool, simultaneously. It looks like this:




(We weren't allowed to take pictures, so photo credit goes to http://www3.sympatico.ca/tapholov/pages/bones.html)

In other news, Michela just spent five days in France with me. We started with a couple of days in Paris and finished back in Bordeaux. It was just what I needed after I've been feeling so homesick lately. More on that (and pictures) to come.

I'm sick. I think I may have the flu. Body aches, sore/achy throat, pain in my ears, and a headache that comes and goes. And on my way to the grocery store with Colin this morning, I tripped when I was jumping over a barrier at knee height and fell flat on my face. Most of the damage seems to be on my knees and the heel of my hands.

An inscription in Santa Maria della Concezione reads, in several languages, "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be." No kidding! I feel like I'm falling apart.

let me tell you what i do when my day is over (let's get this party started)

I've picked up running again, which feels really good. The weather has been generally in the mid-50's Fahrenheit and sunny, which is a nice change after the usual gray drizzle that is this city where I live.

Next to my building there's this small block whose perimeter, I think, measures about a quarter of a mile, which is perfect for keeping track of how far I run as long I don't mind running in circles (which, of course, I don't). So yesterday I did ten laps or about 2.5 miles. I'm not sure how long it took me, but it was short enough that I didn't collapse and long enough that I felt pretty awesome and glisten-y when I got home. (Girls don't perspire and we definitely do not sweat - we glisten.)

Today when I got home from class I changed straight into leggings and a tee shirt and grabbed my iPod, prepared to do at least eleven laps. (Wow!) Then I bumped into my friend Vincent, who was on his way home from class. I was supposed to give my first English lesson to Vincent only an hour or so later. After a quick hello-goodbye (or "salut-à toute," as it were), I was on my way, suddenly painfully aware of how ridiculous I looked, running in circles. So much for that. I took off in another direction and tried to zone out to my music instead of dwelling on the tedious job of mapping out my route afterward to find out how far I'd run.

About two minutes in, I was reminded by my legs locking up that I had forgotten to stretch last night. After 23 minutes and 28 seconds (I added up the lengths of the songs on my iPod playlist) I absolutely had to give in to the pain. I walked it off, meandering home to stretches and a hot shower awaited me.

My English lesson with Vincent went pretty well. Since it was our first, we just talked in English for an hour and I noted the mistakes that he repeated. Next week we're going to work on his English résumé. All throughout, though, my back was seriously hurting right here:



Oh! It aches. I should probably be alternating hot and cold every 20 minutes but I can only make hot (dry rice in a dish towel closed with a hair tie).

The major downside to my back hurting is that I'm quite uncomfortable sitting in my wooden desk chair, to which I have duct-taped myself for the rest of the night and into the wee hours of the morning pending the completion of some serious homework. The upside of being taped to a chair is that I've been able to do the laborious task of mapping out my run. Turns out my circle is actually .32 miles, meaning I ran 3.2 miles last night. Tonight I ran much less, only 2.4 miles.

This post has already consumed much too much of my precious homework time. Taking an Aspirin like a good girl and signing out for the night.

oughtta be working; daydreaming instead

I'm sitting at my desk waiting for a Skype call from my parents and toiling over a particularly grueling piece of homework: compiling a play from various scenes written by my classmates and filling in all the holes.

It's dark outside, but my windows have these really amazing, roll-downy blind things that completely block what's outside from view. I'm imagining that it's sunny and balmy. I'm turning up my heat to simulate this effect. Hmm. Need breeze. Turning on fan.

Scratch that. Turning off fan and heat.

...

Even midway through daunting projects like this play, I still feel like I'm staring at a blank page. A big, white void waiting to be filled. Even equipped with a backspace key, the first word is the hardest. Shaking head. I have thousands of words before me. I only have to ORGANIZE them.

Non. Ce n'est pas possible.

...

I'd rather be barefoot. Running, jumping, climbing trees. Basking in the sun. Frolicking. Did I mention bare feet? Because that part is very important.

This would all be better with a flower tucked into my hair. In the dream, of course. Yes, I think I shall have a flower in my hair.

mixed feelings

Today marks 100 days until I fly home.

That scares me because I feel like I should have my life all figured out when I get back, and I still don't have a clue.

what i'm doing right now

This week has been really backwards. I partied Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights this week, and I'm doing homework on a Friday afternoon. In my new room - Did I mention that I moved into a renovated building in mid-December? I even have my own bathroom.

si il ____ , je ferai grève !

I arrived in Paris last night, a day ahead of schedule, to meet Melissa, my former suitemate and close friend from DePaul. She's spending a semester in London and we picked Paris as a halfway point.

Like I said, I was supposed to leave today but took the last train out of Bordeaux last night because today the SNCF, the national train company, was striking, along with transportation workers nationwide. I was afraid that I would encounter problems today with the Metro, so I went ahead and took a cab to my Montmartre with my only major plans for today consisting of doing a load of laundry and switching hostels before Melissa's arrival with her two London roommates. It turns out that the Metro is simply fuctioning at reduced frequency, so it really isn't as earth shattering as everyone predicted.

I woke up this morning and walked around the neighborhood before checking out of the Square Calaincourt Hostel with my bag full of dirty clothes. I tracked down a laverie to wash my clothes, and read. I've been working on Les Misérables, Part I, 500 pages for the past two months, often putting it down to read something else.

Then I checked into the Montclair Montmartre Hostel, unpacked a bit, and set out to find food. I soon found a really charming café.(This is Paris, after all.) While I was eating my baguette, paté, prosciutto, cornichons and cheese, a flirtatious little boy spied on me through the slats in the back of his chair. After his father urged him to come over to my table and talk to me, we had a lovely chat. I learned that he was English, four years old, and lives in Paris. As I left him to eat his croque monsieur (a grilled ham and cheese sandwich) with his father, the little boy bashfully touched my arm and then smiled, looking away. It made me really how much I miss being with children of his age.

Soon Ida, one of Melissa's roommates who arrived in Paris this morning, will be back at the hostel and we'll leave to pick up Melissa and her other roommate, whose name I can't remember, at the Gare du Nord. Plans for tonight include a baguette, cheese, and a [some] bottle[s] of wine, and a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower. In all of the times I've been to Paris, I've never been to the top. This is partially the result of my terrible fear of heights, which I hopefully can conquer tonight in the spirit of adventure.

today's program is brought to you by frog legs: quintessentially delicious!

Last night I went into town to watch Barack Obama's inauguration from the Café Gourmand. The event was hosted by the Bordeaux-USA association and the café was packed with Americans, American-loving Frenchies, and at least one woman who made it clear that she didn't love anyone as much as she loved her view of one of the two large televisions in the room as, from her seat at the back of the room, she shouted at people to get out of her way before the ceremony had even started.

I have to admit that I was moved to the point of tears. This seemed unjustified seeing as I've hardly been personally affected by what I would call Bush's tyrannies, and Obama's election will, in the immediate future, serve more to help me save face as an American abroad than anything else. Nonetheless, I cried.

One of the plethora journalists approached me and asked me why I was crying. I know he was just looking for a usable sound byte, but the question threw me off. "DUH," I wanted to say, motioning to the television screen, but I didn't know how to translate that into French. Instead, I tried to create grammatically correct sentences to express the hope Obama holds for Americans, BLAH BLAH BLAH. I won't pretend that anything I said was any better crafted than your average campaign ad, but cut me some slack! I was crying, for God's sake, and the difficulty of forming French sentences after watching CNN in English is not to be underestimated.

But the journalist saw through my shallow answers and wanted to know precisely which MOMENT had made my eyes well up. I was nearly frustrated by his persistence but gathered up all of my honest emotion and tried to put it into one sentence. I said, roughly (and in French):

"I never in my life expected to be proud to be an American, but tonight I am."

Today I received a text from Ethan that said, "Were you on the radio today?" I'm not sure why, but I hadn't really expected the journalist to use anything I said, and I definitely didn't expect for it to get back to me if he did. It turns out that a friend of Ethan's approached him at school saying that she had heard an Elizabeth from Ohio on the radio talking about the inauguration.

I was pretty excited to hear this. (Unlike Colin, I'm not used to hearing my own voice on the radio. Let's be real: I'm excited to be on WYSO. No, even better, I'm excited to be on local access television, so being on French radio was pretty cool.) In addition, my roommate Jessica greeted me this evening by telling me that I was famous: she had heard me, too!

I'm still having trouble expressing exactly what I'm feeling about President Obama. Ooh! Just writing "President Obama" makes me all tingly, though. Let's celebrate, America! Something has happened to us, and I may not be able to put it into words yet, but I know that it's amazing.

[NOTE: I'd like to find the clip and post it here, but I haven't yet been able to find it yet. I have a team of Frenchmen working on it though, so check back for updates.]

serosiusly pull together it

I've seen some awful misspellings and mistranslations during my time abroad, but I may have found the most atrocious perpetrator this evening.

I was reliving my near-death experience in the Gorges de Verdon, the Grand Canyon of Europe, on YouTube at Mama's suggestion when, in a particularly frightening video involving bridge jumping, I found this official-looking, most likely government-posted sign...



... to which I can only say "Huh?"

the small-town girl in me made me do it

I took a day trip today and bummed around the medieval town of Saint-Emilion (see previous post). I’ve recently been musing about making such a trip, but finally decided to come at Lindsay’s suggestion that I meet her and group of Californians (veterans from last semester and new arrivals alike). They were going to take a walking tour of the city followed by a wine tasting, and Lindsay insisted that I could join them by slipping in among the fifty or so students unnoticed.

I called Lindsay this morning as soon as I had checked the train times. I would arrive in Saint-Emilion at 2:10 PM. “Perf,” she said, in the California tradition of abbreviation.

I debated at the ticket counter but finally settled on a return ticket leaving Saint-Emilion at 6:04 PM. I would be glad that I hadn’t opted for the tempting 7:40 PM return.

While I was waiting for my train, Lindsay called with some bad news. She wasn’t sure there would be time for them to meet with me because their excursion was more carefully organized than she had anticipated. If it wasn’t too late, maybe I would want to get refund on my tickets?

Not wanting to call it quits, I decided to go anyway. The train ride was only about half an hour and the weather was gorgeous when I stepped onto the platform in Saint-Emilion – sunny and almost too warm for the thin fleece jacket and cotton jersey scarf I was wearing.

I had been forewarned that the train station sits a little ways outside of Saint-Emilion, but as I stepped into the road it occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea in which direction the town lay. From my vantage point, I couldn’t even see it. I followed a gang of cyclists until they disappeared from sight and then, luckily, found street signs that led me into the southernmost tip of the city.

I grabbed a map from the tourism office and then set to exploring. I wandered through the twisted streets, not missing a chance to descend a crooked staircase or to explore nooks and crannies that reeked of medieval secrets. I walked through cloisters near one of Saint-Emilion’s churches and hiked through neat rows of vines at the town’s borders. I visited the only remaining medieval door to the city, of which some of the original wood remains from the fifteenth century. I’ve also been reading The Golden Compass, lent to me by Hannah during my family’s visit, and I frequently stopped to rest on benches throughout the city, basking in the warmth of the sun and falling into the brilliantly crafted story.

I met up with Lindsay and the others for a brief moment between their activities, during which Lindsay apologized profusely and unnecessarily. I wasn’t at all let down; I don’t need to be told that days to myself are to be treasured, but this was an honest reminder.

After saying goodbye to the Californians and trekking a bit more through the decidedly steep alleys, I needed a rest. I entered a small brasserie and ordered a café crème and a gauffre, a very crispy waffle eaten as a snack or dessert but never for breakfast. Hydrated and refueled, I started the two-kilometer walk back to the train station.

Julien was on his way back to his parents’ house for a weekend visit and while I was waiting for my train, he stopped to say a quick bonsoir and to see me off. The sun was setting when I boarded my train, and I slept the whole thirty-six minutes it took me to get home.

Check out my pictures by clicking here.

bonne année and a happy new year

Once again, it's been forever since I've been in touch. I had a really wonderful two-and-a-half weeks with my family. We laughed, we cried, we got stuck in a freak snowstorm on the Côte d'Azur, we tasted wines and got Hannah hyper on too many espressos.

My pictures will soon be on Picasa but for now, you can view them in these Facebook albums (even if you don't have a Facebook account):

The Browns Go To France, Part I

The Browns Go To France, Part II


After a stressful drive to the Bordeaux train station on Monday morning, and after we finally found the Europcar office and returned our rental, Mama, Papa, Hannah and I had about 15 minutes to get them to their TGV platform and say goodbye. I wasn't quite prepared for how hard it was to let them go. In some ways, I was ready. I had so many things to accomplish this week, and I've been out of school for almost a month and I'm getting really sick of vacation. But I wasn't ready for them to go away for five months. Its hard to believe that we're entering the longer half of our separation.

We all cried on the platform, and when their train pulled up, I had to walk away.

We fought and bickered during their visit, as families do, but we also laughed and played. There's no complicated message here. I just miss them so much.