Le Dernier Mois: The Last Month

Saturday 6/23

I left early for Zurich the next morning, to visit my friend Clare. I flew Swiss Air, since there was not a large price difference between flying and taking the train. I thought flying would save time, but that was actually not the case, as you have to factor in the time it takes to get to the airport and wait at the gate. The great part about flying Swiss Air, though, is that they give you a little Swiss chocolate bar at the beginning of the flight and right before you land, they give you a “pain au chocolat” (chocolate bread).

I’ve known Clare for 11 years now. She’s am amazing person; after beating Leukemia when she was 17, she came to St. Paul as an exchange student from Switzerland my senior year of high school, and we had French class together. In Switzerland, three different languages are spoken (French, German and Italian), plus Clare’s mom (Carol) is American and her dad (Hans) is Swiss, so she speaks four languages. Since I was studying for the AP French Literature exam and, being Swiss, she had a high level of French, the two of us got to sit in the little room off the big classroom to “study.” Also with us was a Canadian, Brandon Zhang, the child of Chinese immigrants, who already spoke fluent French; the second semester, Andy York, another plain old American like me, joined us. I actually had to do some studying, as I had to get through a certain amount of literature before the exam in the spring, but for everyone else, almost zero studying was taking place. Our teacher was busy with the French Four and Five kids in the regular classroom, and would occasionally poke her head in to see what we were doing. I remember that the first semester, just to make sure that Clare and Brandon (who were not taking the AP exam) were also occupied, she assigned us to read Moliere’s “L’Ecole des Femmes,” and we had to act out a small scene from it for the class.

Clare’s parents met in Italy when her mom was working as a nanny and her dad was a Swiss guard for the Pope, so she was born in Italy and lived there until she was four years old. Her older sister was baptized by the Pope.  Her parents’ apartment is filled with pictures of her father travelling all over the world with John Paul II. Clare is an Events Planner for Credit Swiss and now lives in Berne, but she comes home on the weekends to her parents’ apartment in Wadenswil, a city of about 20,000 not far from Zurich, also located on the edge of Lake Zurich. Actually, she will be ending her job in a few months to travel the world for a year!

Arriving in Zurich felt so different from being in Paris. First of all, it isn’t complete chaos like Paris is. People actually use the crosswalks to cross the streets and cars actually pay attention to pedestrians and stop for them! And, it’s the cleanest country that I have ever seen! Wadenswil is just beautiful, overlooking Lake Zurich with a great view of the Alps in the distance. For the first time since arriving in Paris, I felt quite…relaxed, not pulled in a million directions by all the things to see and do.

Clare’s mom, Carol is so sweet and easy to get along with. She reminds me a lot of my own mom; it was almost like I got to go home for the weekend.

That afternoon, we went swimming in Lake Zurich. Several of Clare’s friends were there playing volleyball. The water, while not ice-cold, was certainly not warm, so we swam for a bit, looking towards the mountains. Clare pointed out to me a cluster of houses on a hill nearby (in the town of Wollerau) where Roger Federer lives! In addition, the town of Wadenswil (the town nearby, where Clare’s parents live) is close to where the story “Heidi” was written.

That evening, Clare’s mom made us pasta for dinner. Then we walked down to an outdoor bar on Lake Zurich to watch the Spain-France soccer match with a couple of her friends. Clare and I each drank white wine mixed with Sprite—which also happens to be a favorite drink of my grandmother’s. I was chilly from the light breeze coming off the lake and one of Clare’s friends lent me his down vest. They were teasing me about being cold, given that I am from a very cold state! As for the soccer game itself, I was rooting for France, but they did not play well—it was almost like they weren’t trying at all. Spain beat them easily.

Another big difference between Zurich and Paris—everyone speaks English. Even though I speak no German, all Clare’s friends speak English very well so I had no problems communicating with them!

Sunday 6/24

After catching up on some much-needed sleep, I got up and had a croissant with mango jam for breakfast. As I looked out the window at the lake at the bottom of the hill and the snow-covered alps in the distance, eating my croissant with mango jam, I thought “Does life get any better than this?”

I went to Italian mass in the morning with Hans. Originally, I was going to go to the German mass, but since I have almost no knowledge of German, I thought Italian would be easier to understand, because it’s related to French and Latin. Hans came home from a German mass to accompany me to the 11:00 Italian Mass—it was very sweet of him to go with me. And how many times in your life do you get to attend mass with a retired Swiss Guard named Hans?

I understood very little of the spoken Italian (actually, the priest saying the mass in Italian was Hungarian), but when it came time to sing, I could read the words and understand many of them because they overlap so much with French.

After mass, Hans introduced me to some Italian friends living in Wadenswil. Everyone else I had met up until this point was native to the German-speaking part of Switzerland and spoke fluent English, but I noticed the Italians did not even attempt to speak English with me. Hans spoke the whole time in Italian and translated into English for me. He later told me that the Italians who move to Switzerland keep more to themselves. Some of them manage to get by without speaking any of the other two languages in Switzerland. Even those who are born in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland tend not to be as strong in the other languages.

That afternoon, I had work to do. Actually, the translation was for a company called Solo Swiss, and it manufactures industrial furnaces. It was one of the hardest translations I’ve done. I won’t bore you with a description of industrial furnaces though.

In the evening, Carol and Hans took us out for pizza at a small pizza place in Wadenswil. That night, I stayed up late writing in this blog and watching soccer with Carol.

Monday 6/25

Clare took Monday off and asked me what I wanted to do, and my first response was “go for a hike in the Alps,” since I love mountains. However, Monday it ended up raining and cloudy, and we knew we couldn’t get a very good view.

Instead, we went to some an old brewery in Zurich that had been converted into thermal baths. But first, we stopped to drop something off at Clare’s friend’s apartment. The friend was an American working for a company in Zurich, and amazingly, spoke no languages other than English. Everyone in Zurich speaks English and all signs are translated into English. This is an amazing contrast to France—you could never actually live in France without speaking English, and even if you did manage with the basics of life, you would be completely isolated from non-anglophones.

We headed to the thermal baths. The walls inside were made entirely of stone, and there were fifteen different baths and saunas to try. The steam from sauna we went into was infused with some kind of flower. One bath had underwater music, so you could float along listening to music. After the underwater music bath, I ended up with an annoying bunch of water in my ear for several days, but it was totally worth the experience!

 That evening, we went to see a French movie called “Les Intouchables” in Zurich. It’s about a wealthy man in Paris who also happens to be quadriplegic, and hires a personal care attendant who happens to be an ex-convict from “la banlieue” (this means suburb in French, but the suburbs outside of Paris have the reputation of being what we consider inner city ghettos in the United States). The two of them hit it off and becomes friends. It was a great film—I recommend it. The movie was of course in French, but subtitles in the theater were in German since we were in Zurich. Every once in a while, when I missed a phrase, I would ask Clare to tell me in English what the German subtitle said!

Tuesday 6/26

Tuesday morning we ate breakfast at a bakery in Zurich, where I ate the best chocolate croissant that I’ve ever tasted. Then we walked by the river for a while and climbed a hill to look out over Zurich. We walked down the equivalent of Zurich’s “Champs Elysees” (again, much calmer and smaller scale than the one in Paris) and stopped in a chocolate store—dangerous! I could have eaten the whole store! I bought a small chocolate cat to bring home to Tiphaine. Then I boarded the train for the airport and Clare headed off to work. When I got on the train, Clare surprised me with a couple of small pieces of chocolate filled with alcohol that she had bought at the store, and we said goodbye.

It was amazing to see one of my closest friends from senior year of high school eleven years later. I only wish I could have stayed longer in such a peaceful place. I hope I can go back some day and hike around the Alps with Clare!

Friday 6/29

I had arrived home Tuesday to find out that Tiphaine had been called to work at Wimbledown for several days; she returned Friday. Her major news: she got to see and briefly talk to Camilla Parker-Bowles, who asked for directions somewhere. Prince William and the Duchess of Windsor were not cited, however!

Life is never dull when Tiphaine is around. That night, we went to “soiree” at the nearby tennis club to which we belongs. Unlike in the United States, you can’t just go to a public court and use it for free; you have to pay a fee to join a club and sign up for court times.

We caught up, discussing her time in London and my time in Zurich. One of her comments about the English was that “they don’t know how to dress.” According to her, their summer clothes are atrocious—they wear designs that clash, and English women’s skirts and shorts are extremely short. She said that because of this way of dressing, the French stereotype is that English women are “easier” than French women.

Another big topic of discussion involved one of Tiphaine’s journalist friends (whom I had met at the Roland Garros VIP Players Party under the Arc) who had stayed behind in London to go on a date with Lukas Rosol ( the Czech who beat Nadal). Last year, the friend had dated a Spanish player, a good friend of Nadal’s, for about three months, but then broke it off with him when she saw pictures of him in Dubai with another woman with whom he claimed he was “just friends.” I guess maybe she thought Rosol would be different?

We both agreed that we saw little appeal in trying to maintain an actual relationship with someone in professional sports, because in her words “Ils regardent a droite et a gauche” (literally “they look to the left and the right”). Since every few weeks, they’re off to a different country to play in a new match, “Cest une nouvelle femme chaque semaine” (“It’s a new woman every week”). Her journalist friends say that Roger Federer pays money for it. That really doesn’t surprise me. People in the professional sports world, at least those who see in the media, have money, talent and fame, and in a lot of areas of life, they can buy what they want when they want—I guess this extends to the bedroom too.  The sad thing is that a lot of women can’t see past the mask of fame, money and athletic prowess and realize that they’re just the woman of the week. I guess it’s similar to the problems that accompany fame and power in the world of politics.

Since the soiree was mostly older people, we decided to relocate after we ate. Tiphaine’s friend texted her to see if we wanted to go to a party by the Seine, under the Eiffel Tower. We decided to join him.

While waiting for the bus near the tennis courts (in the Boulogne area), a car of young guys pulled up in broad daylight with loud music playing, offering to give a ride to “two beautiful girls.” Of course, we refused and said we were waiting for another friend to pick us up. After they drove off and left us alone, I learned a new vocabulary work; Tiphaine called them “des ploucs.” I looked it up later and it means something like “redneck.” Since I couldn’t look up the word at the time, I had her describe the meaning to me in French (although I had basically inferred the meaning from the context).  The way she described it was “Quelqu’un qui porte son jogging tout le temps.” (“Someone who wears his jogging clothes/sweatpants all the time.”).

Since being in London, Tiphaine’s new strategy of bumming cigarettes off strangers was to ask for a cigarette and/or light in English. When she spoke in English, people would assume she was some kind of a ditzy foreigner and take pity on her. That way she was guaranteed to get a cigarette when she asked.

We had an interesting discussion about men in the Metro on the way to the party. I was telling her about a friend from Rennes I had seen recently who had told me that she preferred American and African men to French men because she thought French men were (often) “too effeminate.”

While waiting for Tiphaine’s friend William, we sat right next to the Eiffel Tower which was all lit up. Then William pulled up on his scooter and we walked across the street and down the stairs to the Seine. It was an outdoor bar and dance floor surrounded by palm plants. Besides palms, the theme of the party must have been 90s music, since all the music was from the late nineties.

Saturday 6/30

That evening, we went to Tiphaine’s friend Nicolas’ place for dinner. Unfortunately, “dinner” turned out to just be chips and a few slices of sausage. Nicolas kept questioning me about if I had found a French guy to marry…I was about to ask him if he was trying to make a proposal. We brought white wine to drink, and Nicolas also served us beer, so we were rather drunk by the time we arrived later at her friend Marie’s place (to be served yet more wine).

Marie served us dried apricots with our white wine. The French have some interesting theories about diets. For example, Marie stated that she was eating dried apricots because “they don’t have many calories but they give you a lot of energy.” I was going to point out that since calories are a unit of energy, it’s impossible to have one without the other…

It was really fun to see her apartment—it’s beautiful. She showed us some of the clothes she had recently bought on sale. Then she, Tiphaine and I stood out on the little balcony. I sipped my wine while she and Tiphaine smoked a cigarette and discussed their plans for going to Corsica in August (Marie’s family has a home there and Tiphaine and a couple other friends were going to join them for a week).

Sunday 7/1

Sunday morning, I went to the Chapelle Sainte Rita. It’s not a very large space, so if you arrive late you often have to crowd on the benches against the back wall. I ended up near the votive candles under the statue of Sainte Rita. Sitting near a few hundred burning candles is uncomfortably warm and you have to constantly worry about setting something on fire…

 In the afternoon, went to the Tuileries with Marie (the friend from the night before) and another friend. We sat by the fountain in the sun and talked (or rather, I listened). It was a perfect day to be in such a beautiful garden—clear, sunny and in the mid-seventies. Prior to sitting by the fountain, we walked through a carnival on the side of the Tuileries All the rides reminded me of the Minnesota State Fair (minus some of the fried food).

Monday 7/2

Monday morning, I went with Tiphaine to Normandy. She wanted to sign up for Driver’s Training and eventually take her driver’s license test there. The man at the driving school wasn’t returning her calls, so she decided she would just have to go there in person to sign up.

We almost missed the train at Montparnasse. Then, our train got held up because two people decided to have a picnic too close to the train tracks. Therefore, when we changed trains at Lisieux we once again almost missed our train. From the train window, I could see the Cathedral of Lisieux, home of Saint Therese of Lisieux…I will have to come back to France just so I can get to see it. Tiphaine told me that many miracles happen there through the intercession of Saint Therese. “What kind of miracles?” I asked. “Ca depend de ce que tu lui demandes,” she answered. (“It depends on what you ask her.”)

We arrived at Deauville, our final destination. There was a large casino there, and many of the signs were translated into English, because a fair amount of British vacation in Normandy. Tiphaine got lucky—the driving school was open and the instructor was there so that she could sign up for her training.

After she registered, we walked down onto the endless beaches of Normandy. We went wading in the Channel and I remarked that I wished I had my swimming suit. “Just take off your dress and go in your bra and underwear,” she suggested. I was wearing a black bra and pink underwear, which she convinced me, looked enough like a bathing suit that nobody would notice. “I have a bathing suit just like that,” she told me. It didn’t take much convincing and I jumped in and floated in the waves. It was cold, but nothing like the Pacific in January or Montana's Boulder River in June!

Clouds had been hovering over the channel the whole time, and right after I got out, it started to sprinkle. I used my blouse as a towel to dry off as much as possible before putting my dress back on.  On our way back to the train, we stopped and each ordered a crepe with nutella. I also ordered a cup of tea of warm up. Even so, the train ride home was a cold one.

In the evening, we attempted to meet up with one of Tiphaine’s friends. He was in some kind of a running or jogging club, and had invited us to go running for an hour near the base of the Tour Eiffel, followed by a picnic. Since I had already been running that day, and Tiphaine is not a runner, we had told him that we would meet them for the picnic part. While we were waiting for the group, we sat at the base of a statue on the Champs de Mars, across from the Ecole Militaire and gazed at the silhouette of Tour Eiffel, transfigured by the setting sun against the deep blue sky. Several Americans passed us, and I could hear they were talking about automatic cars versus stick shifts. I was proud that I knew the words in French to tell Tiphaine what they were talking about (unavoidable, really, that I learned the word for “stick shift,” since Tiphaine had wanted me to drive once and I couldn’t due to the fact that it wasn’t an automatic). Tiphaine got a text from her friend that the picnic was taking place at the Place de Breteuil, so we wandered over there to try to find them. I don’t recall ever having seen the Place de Breteuil before, but it has several lovely views of the city, a long boulevard where people can have picnics and a square with a large lit-up fountain in the middle. 

Tiphaine’s friend was not answering his phone, so we never ended up finding the picnickers, but it was a gorgeous nighttime “visite” of Paris. I’ll never forget looking at the Tour Eiffel at sunset as we waited

Tuesday 7/3

Tuesday morning I had a translation in the morning. Then that afternoon, I went shopping with Tiphaine and her friend Abir (the Syrian friend that I had met at Roland Garros) near rue Saint Denis in the deuxieme arrondissement. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before that the government regulates the times for sales, at least as far as clothing goes. So sales occur in January and July, and every week of the month, the prices drop. This doesn’t really make sense to me, because why would anyone buy anything in the first three weeks of the month if they know that the price will be the lowest during the last week? I asked someone this and the answer was that you want to get your size while it's still in stock.

 I think the reason why we chose Rue Saint Denis was because the stores are cheaper there in the first place, so when the clothes are marked down, they’re really cheap. It seems that this year, shirts and dresses with drawings of skulls on them are really in, so of course I didn’t buy any. I did manage to find a pair of strappy rhinestone sandals for 50% off though.

As it turned out, Rue Saint Denis is not only for buying clothes but also sex. The layout was literally: clothing store, narrow doorway with prostitute, clothing store, narrow doorway with prostitute, etc. Most of the women did not look particularly young (30s or 40s), but maybe they were obviously heavily made-up. I’m sure had not had easy lives, so maybe they just appeared older than they were. My only comment to Tiphaine was “On dit que c’est la carriere la plus vieille du monde,” to which she responded “C’est vrai, ca a toujours existe.” (“They say it’s the oldest profession in the world.” “It’s true, it’s always existed.”)

That evening, we went to a movie at Montparnasse with Tiphaine’s friend Emmanuel a bunch of his friends. I had wanted to see the movie “Faust,” but what did all the Parisians want to see? “L’Age de Glace” (“Ice Age”)! So I acquiesced and saw “Ice Age” in French with a bunch of Parisians. It wasn’t my first choice, but you can learn a lot linguistically from any type of film. The phrases I learned were “Je vais te rendre la politesse,” (“I’m going to return the favor”), “Ca jete de l’eclairage sur..” (“that sheds light on…”), and some argot: “glauqe” (“sad”).

 It was pretty hilarious—the entire theater was full of adults. I don’t go out to movies, let alone animated films, often enough in the United States to know what demographic sector frequents each genre of film, but my guess is that in the United States, most of the people seeing a movie like “Ice Age” would be children.

So after the movie, where did everyone want to eat? I know that you’re all thinking “some classy bistro.” Guess again: McDonalds. However, after we got our cheeseburgers, we took them to someone’s apartment nearby to eat. The apartment had a large living room with a fire place and several mirrors and paintings. Classical music was playing in the background. And there we were sitting and eating McDonalds. However, our host did offer us some wine and cheese, which made the soiree feel slightly more “Parisian.” I met a guy named Laurence. I noticed he was wearing a ring with his family crest (“blazon”) and talked with him about it. When I looked around the room, I realized that at least one other person was wearing a blazon. Meanwhile, another guy was talking about having his bachelor party at a monastery. Since I had never heard of that before, I thought I had misunderstood what he was saying. So when the time came for the inevitable grill-the-foreigner question “Did you understand the conversation?” I actually thought that I had misunderstood, and said “I just heard ‘bachelor party’ and ‘monastery,’” to which everyone responded “Yes, he had his bachelor party at a monastery.’” I asked Tiphaine about it later and she said she had never heard of that before either.

Emmanuel drove us home and tried to explain to Tiphaine his philosophy on quitting smoking and exercising. He used to smoke but managed to quit and now says that workouts are his new drug—if he doesn’t exercise, he doesn’t feel good. Once he started working out, he became motivated to quit smoking because he had more difficulty breathing. I could tell Tiphaine was inspired by the fact that he had replaced something as addicting as smoking with exercise. Plus, because he knew what it was like to be addicted to tobacco, she took him more seriously about not smoking than someone like me, who just comes off as this really zealous anti-tobacco American.

Wednesday 7/4

Wednesday morning, I had another deadline to meet, so in the morning I worked at the Starbucks near Place Victor Hugo (just one Metro stop away) for a change of scenery. Yes, I would have preferred to work in a more authentically French establishment, but I was in a time crunch and I knew Starbucks would be guaranteed to have wireless.

After finishing work, I bought a sandwich and ate it outside on a bench, opening myself up to solicitations from a beggar woman with a child. All of a sudden Tiphaine appeared. She knew I was working near Place Victor Hugo and had some errands to run (mostly involving clothing sales) so had come to find me. She had managed to make a reservation on the courts to play tennis that night, and for some reason was already in her tennis skirt and shoes even though we weren’t supposed to play until 7:00 pm. First we went to a store near l’Opera, then to the Printemps department store.

On the bus on the way to l’Opera, my conversion to Catholicism came up. I was mentioning how the last time I had lived in France (in Rennes) I attended a Baptist church that was on some kind of government list as being a “sect” (“cult”). But France has a pretty narrow definition of religions it recognizes; it seems all it takes to be a cult is to not be Catholic, Calvinist, Jewish or Muslim. In my case, the church I had attended was especially suspect because even though everyone there was French, it had been started by evangelical Protestant Americans. As an American, I simply saw that church as a conservative Protestant church, so I was surprised to hear that French people were using a word for it which to an American connotes drinking koolaid and committing mass suicide.

I explained to Tiphaine my later realization that even though everyone at that church was very warm and kind, they were very narrow in their thinking. They were teetotalers (which I find “debile,” especially in a country of such good wines, and since neither the Bible nor Tradition prohibits drinking). But what made the situation even more ironic was that they claimed to be Christian but would only hang out with other Christians who had had this subjective experience of “being saved.” They would never deign to set foot in a bar or to socialize with wider French society. And nobody ever swore. Really clean upright, well-meaning people. But having an education, intellectual curiosity and not getting married to some pre-approved spouse from the “Mission Timothee” made me true anomaly. In their opinion, Catholics were not even Christian but rather pagans needing their particular brand of salvation.

Tiphaine agreed that it was excessive to prohibit drinking and her opinion was that you should be able to “do what you want.” In her opinion, Catholicism was a “free religion” (hmmm…some Church history and dogma missing there--a typical French attitude towards religious authority).

She said "I don’t believe everything, because the Church is “que des hommes” (“just men”). I could never be Muslim or Jewish though. I don’t like how Muslim women are treated and have to wear the tchador. And the Jews? Not being able to use a light switch on the Sabbath? Je trouve ca debile (I find that stupid).”

“The reason I don’t believe everything,” she continued “is because there are some things that I don’t understand…for example, why some people are born without arms and legs or why some people have certain illnesses.” “Oh,” I said, “You mean suffering?” “Yes,” she replied, “…but anyway, I do believe in miracles. [At one point she had mentioned Lourdes and the ‘magic’ water there that imparted cures.] And if I ever saw a miracle, I would believe absolutely everything.” At this point, a woman behind us said “Excuse me, I’m Protestant and I was listening to your whole conversation.” “Yes,” Tiphaine said somewhat apologetically. “I’ve just been trying to explain a few things to her because she’s American.”

The woman continued on: “And I just wanted to say that the Bible clearly tells us the reason why suffering exists, which is because of Adam and Eve’s original sin in the garden. All we need is the Bible to give us these answers.” Then her stop came and she had to get off before she could proselytize us any further.  After the woman exited the scene, Tiphaine whispered to me “Je pense qu’on peut pas parler de la religion dans le bus, parce que tout le monde entend” (“I think we can’t talk about religion in the bus, because everyone’s listening.”).

We returned home and I worked.

That evening, we had managed to reserve two places at the tennis club that Tiphaine had joined. We both played against a young man. Actually, “played,” is the wrong word—we just hit the ball around!

A funny side story—at one point, I stepped off the court to get a drink. I walked through an area with picnic tables to the drinking fountain. Next to the drinking fountain was a table stacked with what looked like brown mugs, so I figured they were for the patrons to fill their cups at the water fountain. Being very thirsty, I refilled my mug three or four times with water before heading back to the court. Walking back through the picnic table area, I noticed that each table had a brown mug in the center. Finally I figured out that these were actually ashtrays. So I had been imbibing out of an ashtray! At the very least, I think it was clean. When I returned to the court and told Tiphaine about it and said I hoped I hadn’t swallowed any ashes, she said “Au pire, c’est comme tu as fume une cigarette” (“Worst case, it’s like you smoked a cigarette.”).

Thursday 7/5

All day Thursday, I worked on a translation involving the French tax code—I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that I had a major headache by the end.

That evening, my cousin Elisabeth had invited me to a dinner party at her friend Maria’s apartment with Elisabeth, her boyfriend Jonathan, Maria and her husband Julius.

Maria and Julius are very interesting people. Maria is Russian and Julius is Lithuanian. They have known each other since they were teenagers and married very young—they have three children, who were asleep when we had the dinner party. Maria’s parents had moved to Israel when she was a young adult, and Maria had given up her Russian citizenship for political reasons. Without citizenship in any country, she and Julius were not permitted to leave Israel and remained there for seven years. Maria said that she hated every minute of it. Their time in Israel was when they got to know Elisabeth’s family. Later, they moved to Paris, where Julius works as an architect. They obviously speak a lot of languages—Russian, Lithuanian, French, Hebrew and English. Since they speak English and Russian at home, ironically, in the street is where her children hear French, so they call it “la langue du marche” (the language of the marketplace”) Maria said that eventually, they would like to move to Norway. She does not like the French educational system (she thought it was too rigorous for children) and actually wanted to homeschool their three children, so she had people from the French Ministry of Education visiting the next day to speak to them about it. Apparently, homeschooling is a very rare phenomenon in France. I had never heard of anyone there doing it.

Tiphaine texted me wanting to know if she could stop by for dessert with us, and said that she would be bringing a guest (as he was giving her a ride there): her friend Marie’s brother Pierre, visiting home from his sabbatical as an economics professor in Montreal.

We had wine and cheese, followed by a berry tarte that Maria had made for dessert. Jonathan had the opportunity to share with Pierre an economic theory he had read about. While everyone was talking, I was holding the cat on my lap. “Tu as apprivoise le chat,” Pierre remarked to me (“You’ve tamed the cat.”). I remember when I learned this verb “apprivoiser.” It was during my junior year of high school. We were reading “Le Petit Prince,” (“The Little Prince”), and the phrase was that “le Petit Prince avait apprivoise la rose” (“the Little Prince had tamed the rose”). 

Friday 7/6

Friday morning involved more translation. 

I ate a sushi restaurant for lunch in the Latin Quarter with a friend. Neither of us got real sushi but rather a meal where you get miso soup, salad, and a main dish with rice and meat. We both ordered beer with our meal. 

Then we went to the Pantheon and saw the tombs of Marie Curie, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, etc. Seeing Victor Hugo’s tomb was the coolest, as I am in the middle of reading Les Miserables. When we got out of the Pantheon, it was starting to rain, so we got a hot chocolate at the cafe across from the Sorbonne Law School. Once the sun came back out, we took a stroll around the Jardins Luxembourg.

Around 11:00 pm that evening, I met up with Tiphaine and a friend of hers who had just left one soiree to head to someone’s birthday party at a bar. At this point, Tiphaine decided that she thought the bar birthday party was lame and suggested that we try to go back to the other one. However, she knew that the male friend she was with had a crush on her, and since he had invited her to this birthday party, she did not want to act “mal eleve” (“badly raised”) and couldn’t think of a proper excuse to leave. My suggestion was that I should pretend to be sick from being drunk (of course, I had had nothing to drink at this point) and then we could make our escape. She agreed, lit up a cigarette and whispered “When I finish this, we’ll go, so start acting now.” I put my head in my hands and she threw me a concerned look: “Ca ne va pas du tout, Kirsten?” (You’re not feeling well, Kirsten?) “Non, ca ne va pas du tout,” I responded. “Il faut que j’aille aux toilettes…je me sens malade.” (“No, I’m not feeling well at all. I have to go to the bathroom…I feel sick.”) I ran downstairs to the bathroom, pinched my cheeks to make them red and splashed some water on my face to create the illusion of sweat. I returned upstairs, wiping my brow with a paper towel and saying that I had been sick. “How much did you drink?” she asked. “Five drinks,” I said. “Some wine and a lot of vodka.” Tiphaine responded that we should go home. 

Unfortunately, her friend at first wanted to accompany us, until Tiphaine finally assured him that we would be fine on the Metro and that she would then call her sister. However, he did accompany us downstairs to wait for the Metro. I tried to stumble a little bit as we walked down the stairs to make sure that he really believed I was drunk. As we sat waiting, I kept my head between my hands to hide my face and keep from laughing. At one point, I clapped my hand up to my mouth as if I was going to vomit but was trying to restrain it. “Are you going to be sick?” Tiphaine asked. “Je peux attendre” I replied. (“I can wait.”) “Merde,” was her answer. Finally, the Metro came and Tiphaine “guided” me on. We sat down—I was still leaning over with my head in my hands as if I was about to be ill. After the train pulled away, she said “It’s okay now.” I popped up and we both burst out laughing. “Tu a deja fait du theatre?” she asked. (“Have you ever done any acting?”) When I told her no, she said “Kirsten, il faut absolumment que tu fasses du theatre!” (You really should get into acting!)

Saturday 7/7

This morning, I went on a hike with my cousin Eric’s church. Eric and his wife Claire are my cousin Elisabeth’s mother and father and live in a suburb close to Versailles. They attend an Anglican Church in Versailles that has monthly hikes in the Paris area. I wasn’t able to make the June hike, but fortunately I was able to make this one.

We met at Gare St. Lazare to take a train as far as Colombes. It was a small group: my cousin Eric, Adrian Parr, an Englishman, Anne-Valerie Laplanche, a French woman and Hans, a Malagasy man.

We got off the train at Colombes and hiked along the Seine, taking a brief lunch break along the way, and ended at the Impressionist Gardens in Rueil-Malmaison.

It was a very interesting hike getting to know these other people. Adrian had married a French woman. He used to work for the British government until he got laid off and came to work for the French government—something to do with pesticide control. Anne-Valerie had attempted to start a second career in speech therapy, but after four years of study, was unable to pass the required exam, so she was looking for jobs in her previous career. Hans had grown up in Madagascar and knew Eric from when they were graduate students at Purdue, and had since been in Paris for some twenty years. Imagine my shock to meet a Malagasy man by the name of Hans, especially given that the only two Hanses I’ve ever known have been my uncle (ethnic background 100% Scandanavian) and my friend Clare’s father (the Swiss guard).

It rained on and off throughout the hike, but when we ended at the Impressionist Gardens, the sun was actually beating down. They flowers were lovely, and there were a couple of ponds with water lilies.

That evening, I met some friends for pizza and wine at an Italian restaurant in Montmartres. After dinner, we walked up the winding streets to Sacre Coeur, where we looked out over the city at night.

Sunday 7/8

Today, I worked and studied. At this point, I am taking two online classes as the last prerequisites to begin Nursing School in the fall: Nutrition and Statistics.

Monday 7/9

 I went to the Jacquesmart-Andre Museum on Boulevard Haussman. It was a private residence (mansion) that used to belong to a childless couple who collected art and left all their home and art for public consumption. There was a special exhibit on Egyptian statues there, lent from the British Museum. 

I passed a painting portraying a Greek myth (Antoon Van Dyck Anvers, 1599). The title was: “Le Temps coupe les ailes de l’Amour" or “Time Cuts the Wing of Love.”

That evening, I walked through the Tuileries around sunset, under the mini Arc de Triomphe and to  the fountain next to the Louvre's pyramid. I dipped my feet in while looking at the sunset.

Tuesday 7/10

I left at 10:00 am to visit Rennes, the city where I had lived and studied in 2004. I was going to stay with my hostparents, Annie and Dede. After getting off the train at Rennes, I immediately went and ate a galette at a nearby creperie. Galettes, which are savory crepes, are made with black flour and are a specialty of that region (Brittany).

Rennes is a much quieter city than Paris, more comparable to the size of St. Paul. My hostparents’ home is in walking distance of the train station and their neighborhood is quite quiet and safe, so they had left the back door unlocked for me. Eight years later, I intuitively remembered the route from the train station to their house, and how to jiggle the gate of the back garden to open it. I was overjoyed to learn that Miki, their dog (a curly-haired, golden mutt) was still alive!

I slept in the old room that I had had when I lived there. Annie, remembering how much I loved chocolate, had left a little bowl of chocolates and a note welcoming me back. I was so touched.

That afternoon, I had to take a test for my Nutrition class and I was also busy working on a translation project.

When Annie and Dede returned home from work, it was wonderful to see them. Annie’s first words to me were: “Tu n’as pas du tout change.” (You haven’t changed at all).

When I lived with them, every Monday night Annie would make galettes for dinner with crepes for dessert. Even though it was a Tuesday night, she made galettes and crepes since I was visiting. After two “galettes completes” (ham, egg, gruyere cheese) plus a Nutella crepe for dessert, I was stuffed.

We stayed up late talking and catching up on life. My host sister Marie, who is my age, had gotten married four years ago to the same man she was dating when I lived there, and they had had two children. Annie showed me her album of the wedding and photos of her two grandsons.

Both of Annie’s parents were still alive, but her mother was in and out of the hospital with heart failure. Annie, who works fulltime as an interior designer (she has her own store in Rennes), was going over to her parents’ house every day to help out with her mother. Between fulltime work, a dying parent and two grandchildren, she had lost weight from the stress. She was small in the first place, but now she looked tinier than before. But she was still as energetic as ever.

 Annie told me that she was very pleased that I was going to be a nurse, because she too had studied to be a nurse, but then she married Dede and could not complete her required internship in Paris. So she became an interior designer instead.

They asked if I still attended church, a fact which they had found fascinating when I lived with them. Annie is an atheist and Dede is an agnostic, even though (or maybe because) he grew up as an orphan raised by nuns. I told them that I had converted to Catholicism in 2008.

“You’re lucky to be able to believe,” Annie told me. “What is so sad is that I wish I could believe. I’ve always told myself that people believed because they need to believe in something. As my mother’s death approaches, it’s a depressing thought to see nothing after death. Of course “on peut se transmettre a travers ses enfants” (You can continue to live through your children), but it’s not the same. Sometimes, when I’m lying awake at night thinking about my mother’s death, seeing that as the final end…ca fait peur (it scares me).”

“As for Dede,” she continued, “he doesn’t admit it, but I know he believes there’s something out there.”

Wednesday 7/11

Wednesday morning I was working on a translation I had to turn in. My host dad, bless his heart, had taken the day off, both to visit his mother-in-law at the hospital and to give me a ride to the train station in the afternoon. We ate lunch together at the house. Miki, of course was begging for food as we ate. You could still tell her “panier!” (“basket!”) and she would lay down in her basket by the wood burning stove (they don’t have central heat). It reminded me of old times!

I wished I would have had time to stop by Annie’s interior design store before my train left, but I didn’t. Dede dropped me off at the train station that afternoon.

That evening, back in Paris, I went to a soiree with Tiphaine at one of the largest apartments I have ever seen, whether in Paris or in the U.S. The host of the party was a friend of a friend and the apartment actually belonged to his parents. This party had lots of bilingual people, or people who at least wanted to practice their English. I met several people who worked for law firms doing translation (French to German and French to English). One woman had a German mother (that’s how she spoke German); another woman was originally English. I also met a Canadian there, from Toronto. She wanted to become a teacher, but the new requirement there is that you have to be bilingual to become a teacher. Since she did not know French, she had come to study at the Sorbonne for a year and become fluent. She was talking to Tiphaine, and neither of them knew enough of the other’s language to hold a conversation about Tiphaine’s driver’s training, so I got some practice in French-English interpretation!

Thursday 7/12

Tonight I had dinner with my friend Seline (the one I studied with in Rennes). The good news is Seline has found a new job since we had last seen each other, working with an investment fund for environmental projects in South America.

Friday 7/13

After studying all day for a Statistics test, I went with Tiphaine to an event at the Pavillon Royal, a building renovated under Napoleon III in the 19^th century, near the Bois de Boulogne. Here’s how one website describes it:

“Take a look at The Pavillon Royale, a breathtaking house near to the Place de L’Etoile and Port Dauphine. 

This delightful venue is a brilliant fusion of France’s rich history and their flare for chic modern design. Guests receive red carpet treatment as seen in the photograph above while also being able to enjoy the grand architecture and magnificent green surroundings.

The private terraces off the first floor provide breathtaking views of the nearby Bois de Boulogne and the beautiful gardens. The interior of the Pavillon Royale is equally magnificent, with seven modular rooms featuring Baccarat chandeliers which transport you to the Haussmann era.”

The event was a party hosted by Grand Marnier. The cost to get in was 35 Euros, which exceeded both of our budgets, so Tiphaine suggested that, given that it was within walking distance of us, we should try to get in for free and could easily return home if we were unsuccessful.

We left the house between 10:00 and 11:00 pm and walked through the rain. Fortunately, I had my umbrella, but the road leading up to the Pavillon was dirt, which had turned to mud in the rain.

Tiphaine is a master of gaining free access to expensive parties; we simply nonchalantly, confidently walked in without stopping at the desk to purchase tickets.

Of course, since we didn’t have tickets, we didn’t have the required wristbands. We were able to try some of the drinks without wristbands, but not with others. Again, Tiphaine had a solution. Independently, we each went up and told the person dispensing the wristbands, “I left my wristband in the bathroom; could I have a new one?” It worked, and we were able to get the drinks served in special red Grand Marnier glasses.

We met two engineers at this party—a man and a woman. I had thought they were a couple but it turned out they were just roommates. One of them said his job was title was “project manager” at Louis Vuitton. I’m not really sure what exactly this meant. Since Louis Vuitton manufactures handbags, I had never considered that an engineer would work there.

Sat. 7/14

Today was Bastille Day, and living so close to the Champs Elysees, I awoke to the sound of the military planes flying overhead for the parade on the Champs. Tiphaine was reading me the schedule of events for the parade, including “l’arrivee du connard” (“the arrival of the idiot.”) I asked whom she was referring to and she looked at me and said “Hollande, of course!”

Elisabeth had invited me to a free ballet at l’Opera, the caveat being that it involved a four-hour wait in line. I also had a Statistics test to take, and knew I would be going out again that night to a Bastille Day party, so I decline the invitation.

Later that evening, I met up with Tiphaine and some of her friends (including Emmanuel, the guy who organized the trip to Ice Age at Montparnasse) at the Caserne de Pompiers (Fire Station) near Place Violet in the 15^th arrondissement. Riding the way over on the Metro, I passed the Eiffel Tower when fireworks were being set off—perfect timing.

Every year, the Brigade of Firefighters in Paris hosts dances at their different locations throughout the city. This fire station had a courtyard where the dance was held. There was a stage with singers and a disco ball in the center of the courtyard. You could buy champagne or beer to drink, and hotdogs and french fries to eat.

Sunday 7/15

No time to sleep in—Eric and Clare Kvaalen had invited me to attend their church in Versailles, followed by lunch at their apartment. As I’ve mentioned, they attend an Anglican church in Versailles. The services are all in English and most of those who attend are English-speaking ex-pats. It was like nothing I have ever experienced before: after the homily, the worship musicians played a contemporary Christian song called “We Will Dance” and the congregation formed a conga line around the sanctuary.

After the service, I met a Romanian woman who worked for Renault. She spoke French like a native speaker, plus Romanian, German, Spanish and at least one other language.

We went back to Eric and Clare’s apartment and ate a very nice lunch that Clare had prepared for us. During this conversation, I was asking Clare if she was raised Christian. She said that her father was on atheist “grace à Monsieur Sartre” (“thanks to Mr. Sartre). Turns out Jean-Paul Sartre, the atheist existentialist French philosopher, had been her father’s teacher!

That evening when I got back, I attended the 10:00 pm Mass at Sacre Coeur. This Mass was much, much calmer than the Mass I had attended there on a Sunday morning. It was a lovely, peaceful way to close the day.

Monday 7/16

The major event from today was going to a café to see an exposition of the friend (an artist) of a friend of Tiphaine. Actually, I did not think that this was art—it was really just lots of cut-outs from comic books affixed to canvas—but the guy was attempting to sell them for hundreds of euros!

There were petit-fours to eat (which, I learned, can be both sweet and savory; I had thought they could only be sweet). The café also had a couch that looked like large red lips, just like the one in the Dali Museum.

We met up with the friend of Tiphaine’s who had invited her to the exposition. She actually looked like a lot like Kate Middleton, so I was not at all surprised when she told us she did modeling on the side. She had recently been present at the shooting of “The Smurfs 2”  in front of L’Opera Garnier had gotten to see Neil Patrick Harris from “How I Met your Mother.” He plays Gargamel, who kidnapps Schtroumpfette and takes refuge in his hideout under l'Opéra Garnier.

Tuesday 7/17

This evening we went to a picnic to celebrate the birthday of Laurence (Tiphaine’s friend who had graduated from dental school) at the Cite Universitaire. Theo, the Danish man who had worked for Hollande’s campaign, was there again. He wanted to practice English again. I also tried out the few Norwegian phrases I remembered from my semester of Norwegian in 2003. I wanted to see if it was similar enough to Danish that he could understand, and he did (of course, they were very simple phrases, like saying my name, my age, “please pass the cheese” and “I’m knitting a hat.”

One friend had brought a dessert: chocolate cake with chocolate filling. I was surprised when I bit into it and found it to be quite salty! According to the guy who had made it, that was because it was made with salted butter. When I told Tiphaine this, she said “no, he just doesn’t know how to cook.”

Friday 7/20

Today I had to write a paper for Statistics, so I studied with Elisabeth at the library at the Centre Pompidou. We probably only studied for about half the time we were there, though. We spent a lot of time just catching up, chatting and discussing French and American cultural differences.

One interesting thing to note about studying in the Centre Pompidou Library: there are periodically announcements over the intercom to keep an eye on your bags in case of pickpockets. It must be a big problem, because they even translate the warning into English, which is rare for Paris: “Attention: Pickpockets are operating in the library.” I was just thinking to myself, it’s not often that you get to be in a library and hear such warnings, which I associate much more with airports and train stations.

I took a break at one point and got a cup of coffee in the library café. An African man approached me, asking “Je peux vous offrir du bavardage?” What he meant was “Can I talk to you?” but his way of asking it was very awkward. Literally, he said “Can I offer you a chat?” I had never heard the question phrased that way, and I am pretty sure that that is not a typically French way of asking to speak with someone. I told Elisabeth about it when I got back, and she said, based on how he phrased the question, that he was probably an immigrant from a non-Western country and didn’t understand the cultural nuance that in France, when you want to speak with a woman, you don’t have to ask her permission to talk to her; instead you just smoothly find a way to strike up a conversation.

Saturday 7/21

That afternoon, I boarded the train to Fontainebleau, where I was going to visit my Uncle Peter’s friend Luigi Mancarelli and his family; they had invited me to stay the weekend.

Luigi picked me up at the train station in Fontainebleau we went back to his home in Samois and dropped my bag off. The Mancarelli home is lovely; it has a terrace and overlooks the Seine below. They have three dogs: a Picardy Shepherd, a French Bulldog and a “race inconnu” (“unknown breed”=Luigi’s joking way of saying “mutt”). His daughter Julia is a veterinarian student in Milan, and the French bulldog, Figaro, had exceptionally narrow nasal passages (even for a bulldog), one of her professors had performed an operation to enlarge them. Even so, Figaro still sounded like a pig snorting when he breathed.

After dropping my bags off, we went and walked around the gardens and fountains outside the chateau in Fontainebleau. Fontainebleau is known for its chateau, which was where all the royalty lived before Versailles was built. Luigi also showed me INSEAD, an international business school in Fontainebleau where he went to school and now occasionally teaches classes. He told me that Fontainebleau was home to NATO from 1949 to 1967 and showed me the apartments that used to house Americans.

After this whirlwind tour of Fontainebleau, we went and picked up his Alexandre and and Alexandre’s girlfriend Laura at the train station. They were also coming home for the weekend. They had recently moved back from London, where they had both been pursuing Masters degrees, Laura in Tourism and Alexandre in Music Industry Management. They had been in Paris for the day looking for jobs. Both spoke English very well; Laura is originally from Mauritius, which is bilingual, so she actually speaks English, French and Patois. She had also lived for a year in California.

On our way to the train station, Luigi asked if my roommate had talked at all about the recent elections. I said yes and asked his opinion on Sarkozy versus Hollande, to which he responded that Sarkozy had too much “bling bling.” Hollande, on the other hand, was unrealistic in some of his attempts to be just a “normal guy.” For instance, Luigi said that much was made of Hollande traveling to Normandy by car, even though he traveled there at 160 km/hour (speed limit 130 km/hour). Then there’s the issue of Valerie Trierweiler; not necessarily a big deal to the French that she and Hollande aren’t married, but Luigi and I  agreed that someone in that living situation would never get elected in the U.S.

After picking up Alexandre and Laura, we stopped at the grocery store to get the ingredients Laura needed to cook us dinner (Luigi’s wife, who trains horses as a hobby, was gone that weekend, so wouldn’t be joining us). Julia was also there for dinner (she was on vacation from vet school in Milan) so I got to meet her.

Laura made us pasta with veal for dinner, served with champagne to drink. For dessert, she made us a tart with pears and nutella inside.

Sunday 7/22

Today I visited the inside of the chateau. Luigi and Alexandre dropped me off while they went to play tennis. The chateau was room after room of decadence. One of the most memorable rooms was Anne d’Autriche’s bedroom, as well as room displaying clothes worn by Napoleon.

We returned home to eat lunch—Luigi and I finished the champagne. We also Skyped my Aunt Berit and my Uncle Peter. Berit and Luigi had never actually seen each other before, only spoken on the phone when Luigi would call Peter around Christmas. My cousins Gian and Michael got to meet Julia and Alexandre over Skype and even Daisy, Berit and Peter’s poodle and Figaro the French bulldog got to meet!

 That afternoon, Luigi, Alexandre, Laura and I went hiking through Samois, along the Seine and in the woods. Fortunately, Luigi had found a pair of his wife’s hiking boots to lend me, because the hike ended up lasting for 2.5 hours. We strolled past the what was once the medieval “lavoir” (wash house), as well as the old home of Django Reinhardt, a famous jazz guitarist of Belgian origin, who spent part of his life in Samois. Ethnically, he was actually Sinti, which is a group related to the Roma (pejorative “Gypsy”).

On the Seine, we even passed some people water-skiing. I never realized the Seine was clean enough to do that! Later, after hiking through the woods for a while, we passed a campground with tents. This was yet another activity that I had not imagined could every take place within any radius of proximity to Paris.

Tiphaine arrived in Samois at 6:00 and had a drink with us on the terrace back at Luigi’s home. I don’t think she is used to dogs because she was afraid of the Picardy shepherd. It was a pretty big dog—maybe the size of a miniature horse.

That evening, Tiphaine and I took train back home. As we entered the building, we could hear squeals of children through the courtyard and down to where the elevators were. Her nieces Agathe and Diane were going to spend the next two nights with us. We entered the apartment, where Tiphaine’s sister Isoline and her husband were dropping off Agathe and Diane. Marine was there, and Aurore had also stopped by. There’s never a dull moment when Tiphaine’s nieces are around.

Monday 7/23

Monday I was busy studying for two exams that I had to take the next day. That evening, we went to a soiree at Tiphaine’s friend Carla’s very posh apartment. Carla is originally Spanish; two other friends were there: Irene and her brother, who have a French father and a Finnish mother. Irene’s brother actually lives in Finland now and was just in town visiting.

 They asked me why I was leaving Paris so soon, to which I responded that I was beginning nursing school in the fall. They were shocked that there was any kind of nursing program that is only fifteen months long, because in France there is only one option for nursing education, which is a three year-long equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree here. It is rare there for anyone to have a sort of “second career” in that field, let alone any field. Irene asked me how I got interested in nursing and I told her about my mother’s bone marrow transplant in the summer of 2008. Their mother had a successful liver transplant several years ago. 

Irene gave us a ride home; as we rounded the Arc de Triomphe, she shouted “Va te faire enculer!” at another driver after he cut her off. I won’t translate that—too vulgar.

Tuesday 7/24

Tuesday morning I took a test for my Nutrition class, followed by a last run in the Parc Monceau.

That afternoon, I met Elisabeth and Jonathan at the Centre Aquatique in Neuilly-sur-Seine, which consists of an indoor swimming pool, an outdoor swimming pool and a small waterslide. The vocabulary word I learned was “bonnet de bain” (“swimming cap”). Elisabeth and I talked about how we both hoped that the next time she came to the United States she would get to visit my grandparents’ cabin in Montana. Her brother has gotten to visit the cabin during our family reunion in August and described it as something she would love: everybody sits around and eats, talks and knits.

That evening, I met two friends, Marie-Mathilde and Andrea for dinner. The three of us had lived in the French House at St. Olaf College during my senior year in 2005. Marie-Mathilde was the French exchange student that year, whose job it was to make sure we were speaking in French. That year, she married an American whom she had met when he was on a Fulbright in in France. When I moved to Princeton, New Jersey in September of 2005, Marie-Mathilde and her husband happened to move to a nearby town, as Marie-Mathilde had gotten a job teaching in a French immersion school. So I had the opportunity to see them once in a while over the next few years. I had not seen Marie-Mathilde since we both moved from New Jersey in 2008, she to go back to France where her husband was going to finish his Ph.D. and I back to Minnesota where my mom was undergoing a bone marrow transplant for multiple myeloma. I knew that in the meantime, she had had a little girl, Margot (a couple years ago I knitted a hat for her).  Now Marie-Mathilde lives in the U.S. again, but happened to be back in Paris visiting friends and family during the time I was there—we overlapped by one day.

Marie-Mathilde had brought Margot with her. Margot was adorable—she had curly hair just like Shirley Temple. With an American parent and a French parent, she is bilingual.

Andrea I had not seen since the summer after we graduate from college. She had studied in Rennes (the same city where I had studied) the year before me (2003) and had met a Frenchman, Gregoire, there. They had stayed together ever since. She earned her Ph.D. at Purdue and two years ago, they married. Now they live in a suburb of Paris, Evry. Gregoire is a gendarme (policeman). 

We went to a Creperie and ordered galettes (the specialty of Bretagne) since Andrea and I had both studied there, and that is Marie-Mathilde’s native region.

Tiphaine called me after we had ordered wanting to know if she could join us, so I let her know where we were. About twenty minutes later, she wandered in wearing bright blue dress and holding only her iphone. She ordered a salad while Marie-Mathilde, Andrea and I ate dessert.

Then Elisabeth stopped by after teaching an English lesson nearby to pick up her roommate’s old cell phone that I had been borrowing for the past couple months. The situation seemed surreal, like I was having a dream involving people from all different stages of life who didn’t even know each other. In some ways it was, especially the part when the bill came and Tiphaine asked if she could borrow money from me because she had not brought her purse. Why hadn’t she brought her purse? Well, because, she had purchased a new pair of shoes on her way home from her physical therapy appointment so her bag was heavy, and when she passed her mother in the street, she gave her purse to her mother and took only her cell phone with her. I would have lent her the money, but my travel debit card had expired, my regular debit card had been frozen after someone got a hold of the number, and, as luck would have it, restaurant’s machine would not read my credit card. Thank goodness for Elisabeth—she lent me the 20 euros because she didn’t like to “voir ma cousine en detresse” (“see my cousin in trouble”).

Elisabeth, Tiphaine and I all ended up taking the same initial metro line heading home. As we were looking on the map to decide the quickest route for Elisabeth to take, I learned a new vocabulary word, another word with Arabic origins: “kif-kif.” The verb “kiffer” means “to like” but the saying “c’est kif-kif” means “it’s all the same,” or maybe a little more colloquially “it’s six and one half dozen of the other.”

Back at home, I took a Statistics test and finished packing. Then I went into Tiphaine’s room to chat before going to sleep. We said that we would keep in touch over Skype.

Wednesday 7/25

Yseult and Tiphaine gave me a ride to the navette (airport shuttle) at Porte Maillot, where we said goodbye and I encouraged her to come visit the U.S. I flew to London, where I had a two hour layover. As I was standing in line to board in London, all of a sudden, the spitting image of my college roommate Kristen was standing in front of me. Well, it wasn’t Kristen, but it did turn out to be her sister Lisa (they look very much alike), traveling home from Ireland with her husband John. What a small world—Lisa and I were bridesmaids together in Kristen’s wedding in Washington D.C. last October!

The world and my life have both changed so much since the last time I left France. The most noticeable change is how much faster communication is than in 2004. Back then, when I wanted to check my email, I would go to the library at the University of Rennes II, and use dial-up internet. At least in France, no one had wireless then (I don’t remember it in the United States either). Skype was rare and I don’t think Facebook even existed. And it was much less common to use Google as a means of obtaining information on whatever you wanted to know. Blogs? I never heard of them then. The development in communications has plenty of downsides, but if you’re living abroad, it has revolutionized the experience—now, I can talk to family and friends over Skype (for free!) and get to see them face to face, rather than paying for phone cards. Sharing photos on Facebook and my experiences in this blog bridges my two worlds.

I could say so much more about the differences between living in France as a 20-year-old versus living here at age 29 as a “real adult,” so to speak, with almost another decade of the joys and sorrows of life behind me, but that would be the length of a book.

Two things for which I am grateful: unlike the last time I came back from travel abroad, I am returning home to a mother in good health (I came home to my mom’s cancer diagnosis after visiting London for a week in January 2008), and I am so fortunate to have been able to know so many people: Tiphaine and her family, Elisabeth, Seline, Clare and her family, my host parents, Gina Forno, the Mancarellis. And two things I hope for: (1) that I will be back again, and (2) that everyone I met here will come to visit the U.S. and allow me to return the favor of hospitality.

"Voir mille objets pour la premiere fois et pour la derniere fois, quoi de plus melancolique et de plus profond! Voyager, c'est naitre et mourir a chaque instant. Peut-etre, dans la region la plus vague de son esprit, faisait-il des rapprochements entre ces horizons changeants et l'existence humaine." [Seeing a thousand objects for the first and last time, what could be more melancholy and more profound! To travel is to be born and to die at each moment. Maybe, in the depths of his soul, he saw the connection between these changing horizons and human existence.]

--Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (translation mine).