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.

an english holiday

I had a wonderful holiday in England, but with a bit of a rough start. On the eve of my departure, I slept en ville at James’s apartment because his place is close to the train station and I was scheduled to leave Bordeaux at 06h27. We made a family-style dinner of pâtes bolognaise with Valeria, Esther and Mathilde and afterwards James and I met our friend Benjamin in the English bar across the street, the Frog et Rosbif before finishing the night off back at the apartment with Christmas carols and sleepy banter.

The following morning, James walked me to the tram, which I took to the gare, and my train left on time without incident. I arrived in Biarritz, from where I was to fly to London Luton via Ryanair. (The train ride to Biarritz often pays for itself in Ryanair savings—my flight only cost me 13,50 euros.) I took a cab from the Biarritz train station to the airport—another 7 euros. After checking in and settling into an uncomfortable seat next to the gate, minutes before takeoff we were told that our flight had been cancelled due to fog. The passengers for my flight were to be bussed to Pau, where our flight had been redirected. Unbelievable! I had just taken the train through Pau on my way to Biarritz, and the trip is considerably longer by bus. It took us about two hours, in addition to a forty minute wait for the bus, before we made it to the Pau airport. Of course it wasn’t foggy in Pau, and by that time it probably was also sunny in Biarritz.

I called Joëlle, my hostess, to warm her of my tardiness and took a place in line to board. I regretted stowing my coat and scarf in my luggage as I watched the other passengers step out onto the tarmac and board the plane by a rolling staircase. (I’ve secretly always wanted to do this.) When it was my turn to go outside, I was equally pleased and disappointed to find the air temperate, warm even! Where was the winter I knew? Next to the airport, palm trees were growing. Palm trees! At Christmas! Between my redirected flight and the lack of proper Christmas weather (i.e., snow), I was having trouble getting in the spirit.

We arrived in London about two hours late and I had no chance of making my originally scheduled train from Paddington Station to Chippenham. I wasn’t even sure how to get from Luton, a northern suburb of London, to Paddington. Fortunately I met Chris, a 24-year-old from Bristol, who was headed my way and also wasn’t sure of the route. Together we were able to decode the complicated London Underground, changing at Luton Parkway Station and King’s Cross.

At Paddington I tried to convince a customer service agent that it was not my fault I had missed my first train, but even though she was sympathetic, she couldn’t give me a new ticket for free. Instead I had to buy a new ticket for £57,50, and the kind customer service woman told me that I should be able to get a refund on one of the tickets later on.

Jacque, a Californian from DEFLE, and Joëlle met me at the station at Chippenham and we drove to Hullavington House, Joëlle’s home. I met her parents, Bob and Magali (who is française) and her sister Ellie. The girls played cards—a Danish game whose name escapes me but which resembles a sort of “group” solitaire, oxymoronic though it may be. Then we ate dinner, chili con carne, before calling it a night.

On Christmas Eve, Joëlle, Jacque and I drove into Castle Combe, a nearby town used frequently for filming because of its old world charm. “Throw some dirt on the ground, and it looks pretty much as it did 400 years ago,” Joëlle told us, and she was right. The town had a familiar air to it—that of a fairy tale. The originally Dr. Dolittle may be among the most famous films shot there, but Stardust is probably the most recent.

Next we drove to Lacock [LAE-cock], also home to a famous film ser—Harry Potter! The cloisters there are the setting for many scenes passed between classes at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, because of the holiday, the cloisters were closed and we (and by “we” I mean “I”) looked longingly through the locked gates and a pasture of grazing sheep at a large stone building, behind which one finds the cloisters. Bad luck.

Next was a reenactment of the nativity scene in the village of Hullavington, where the Virgin Mary rode through the streets on a donkey and finished at the conveniently named Star Inn, the local pub. After the play we shared hot mulled wine and steaming mince pies.

We ate dinner at home but not before Bob treated us to an aperitif: a pint at his favorite pub. English pubs are not like bars. Cozy and not unlike a large living room, they exude a homey sort of warmth and serve as a gathering place for people of all ages. A Christmas tree stood in one corner, adorned with ornaments made by the local children.

After dinner, we changed our clothes and drove into Chippenham. Jacque and I were both surprised to learn that in England, Christmas Eve is not the quiet family affair as we have come to know it but instead a night on the town, catching up with old friends. We met several of Joëlle’s former classmates and shared a couple of drinks before returning home and going to sleep.

On Christmas morning we rose at nine to make American pancakes.

Time out! No, we did not open our presents first thing. Elle and Joëlle’s stockings were waiting outside their bedroom doors and they opened those tiny gifts, but we had a leisurely breakfast in our pajamas and didn’t even start getting dressed until at least 10h30.

Clean and fed (and only slightly impatient—I was reminded of David Sedaris’s criticism that some European cultures care more about food and family than “things of real value”), we sat before a lit fire in the living room and took turns opening packages. I had black gloves from Jacque, a daily calendar with photos of Britain and an amusing novel about fitting into French culture from the Greens, and a necklace and eye shadow powder form Joëlle and Ellie. The Green family’s guests that day, Alan and Michelle, even brought me a box of pink champagne truffles for my birthday. (When I said that I was unfamiliar with the mark, Hotel Chocolat, Joëlle told me that it’s very expensive.)

We passed the afternoon playing Pub Quiz, a sort of simple DVD version of Trivial Pursuit, men verses women. Magali was busy in the kitchen and so we were four young women against two well-seasoned, male pub-goers, but we won anyway by a rather impressive margin. Alan and Michelle left and we sat down to Christmas lunch in the dining room.

Lunch started with crackers. Not the kind that you eat—the kind that you pull apart with the help of your neighbor to reveal jokes, a tiny gift, and a tissue paper crown, just like Bridget Jones’s! We donned our crowns, marveled at the tiny surprises (mine was a set of magic poker cards) and told our jokes.

The meal was astounding. Our plates were heaped so high with food that Magali repeated again and again that we weren’t obligated to finish it all, but we did anyway. There were steamed peas and carrots, roast chicken, crispy roasted potatoes and parsnips, pigs in blankets (sausages wrapped in bacon) and Yorkshire pudding (bowl-shaped pastries filled with a brothy sauce). The wine flowed abundantly and we were all rather flushed by the end of the meal. Joëlle, Jacqueline and I took the two dogs, Paddy and Bessie, for a walk through the town, still wearing our paper crowns and laughing animatedly in the street. (There is only one street in Hullavington. It is aptly called “The Street.”)

When we came home, rosy-cheeked, there was figgy pudding in white, creamy and potent brandy sauce, and by the time we had finished we were glued to the couch by the weight of our stomachs for the rest of the night, watching reruns of Blackadder with Rowan Atkinson and a Christmas special of the British sitcom The Royle Family. There was a brand new episode of Wallace and Gromit on, “A Matter of Loaf and Death,” and soon afterward we all made our way upstairs to our respective beds and promptly passed out.

I woke up the next morning, my 21st birthday, to breakfast with the girls. Joëlle denied me any presents until dinnertime. We went into Chippenham where Joëlle showed us a couple of her preferred shops and we profited from Boxing Day sales. In the afternoon we napped and then Joëlle helped Magalie with dinner while Bob drove Jacque and I into Marlesbury, one of the oldest towns in England whose roads date to the Romans in the first century A.D. It was bitter cold and we were glad to return hope to an appetizer of cake, topped by sixteen lit candles. Everyone sang, I made a wish, and then three of Joëlle’s friends, Flossie, Joey and her boyfriend, Brad, came over for an Indian feast. There were four dishes, including a spicy chicken korma and a daal, and samosas and pupadam aplenty. I had my first legal sip of alcohol—a bit of bubbly—and we finished the night with another game of Pub Quiz.

Joëlle and Ellie gave me a really cute, hardbound journal and a black satin clutch, and Jacque gave me a beautiful gold necklace. Mama sent a small gift from the States: dainty little gold, dangly earrings with “the color” beads and another really cute journal.

Jacqueline was already gone when I woke up on the 27th. Joëlle and I passed a quiet morning at home until the early afternoon, when she left to pick up her boyfriend, Dave, from the train station. With Dave we took the dogs for a walk in the countryside, donning Wellingtons à l’anglaise. In the evening, the whole family plus Dave and me walked to a neighbor’s home for a potluck and games. Jamie Cullum grew up in the house, which is a converted barn and really charming. We ate chili and potatoes and vegetable curry and played the same card game from the first night, along with the UK edition of Cranium (I had a definite disadvantage in the trivia department) and Sing Star, a PlayStation 3 karaoke competition game. It was so much fun. Dave beat Ellie at the Kaiser Chief’s “Ruby,” and Joëlle and I were closely tied in Abba’s “S.O.S.”

We left after midnight and I said goodbye to everyone before packing my things and going to sleep. I had to wake up early the next morning to catch a bus to London, and my trip to Bordeaux was timely and without incident.

Observations: England is everything I’ve built it up to be. I lot of Wiltshire towns probably have real Hogwarts students living in them, I told myself while cursing my Mugglehood repeatedly.

No, but seriously, the English countryside is charming even in its gray dampness. There is something inherently festive about the stone cottages and gray-green fields. Everyone I met, including bus drivers and Londoners, was welcoming and only too excited to learn that it was my first time in England and wished me a wonderful stay,

let's talk about...

... how I just finished my first semester in France.

It's official. Exams are over and I'm on vacation! Too bad I still have TONS to do before I leave for England on Tuesday.