Thanksgiving à la française

Sunrise: 8:30
Vocab: avoir le mal du pays - to be homesick

Well, and I will be honest. I've been hard pressed to work up the gumption to write this blog post. Officially three weeks away, my imminent return home has fostered a lot of reflection and not a little lethargy. The Mal du Pays struck pretty hard after Thanksgiving and I needed to spend a lot of Friday locked in my room going on facebook and pretending to be in America. Don't get me wrong, I had an amazing birthday and the food at Thanksgiving was delicious (both to be discussed!), but the distance between me and my friends and family just seemed that much greater when I realized how separate our experiences of this week had been; for me, Thanksgiving was more or less just another day with a fancy dinner at the end, and for them, my birthday was just a 24-hour window in which they had an excuse to write on my facebook wall. Well, maybe that's a bit much, but you see what I mean -- inverse experiences.

I'm eager to get home for Christmas, but my looming departure has also induced a certain amount of clinging; I still have so much left to see and do, it seems, and French friends who I may not see again for a long time once I leave. No question about it, I will return, but it won't be the same. This desire to see and do has not combined well with my approaching finals -- not a lot of work, but more work than I have been doing, to be honest. Mixing two such volatile ingredients in a vessel primed with homesickness has led to lethargy and a generally sedentary lifestyle these past few days. I'm overwhelmed. And thus the W descends again. This is a study abroad blog, after all, and I ought to document every aspect of this experience -- which includes the occasional period of emotional turmoil. During my solitary Friday, I watched L'auberge espagnole, a really fantastic French film with Audrey Tautou (in a role much smaller than and different from Amélie) that follows a young French university student on his year abroad in Spain with ERASMUS. He cries all the time.

But, on to happier things. My birthday was incredible; I was on such a high then that I guess my current crash was somewhat inevitable (again, tragedy?). Turning 21, for some unexplained reason, induced a day of delirious happiness. In between my two classes at the fac, as I was sitting in the open study space in the lobby Censive (the humanities building, basically), I could hardly control my impulse to laugh. Fortunately, that night I found an outlet for all of my suppressed mirth: Nantes Comedy Club. Naturally, it was Angèle's suggestion, and so after my inaugural G&T, we headed over to the show. Well, to make a long story short, it didn't take long for the MC to discover that I was an American student celebrating her 21st birthday, and naturally he started to tease me -- and I bantered back! I don't know what came over me, but I was actually funny, and that discovery was probably the best birthday gift I could have received. Other comedians that night seemed to pick up on my willingness to play with them and to speak in English and French, but the moral of the story is: I have a French sense of humor!

Two days later, it was Thursday, time for Thanksgiving à la française. IES had booked a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere -- on the outskirts of town, if you will -- because they had to find somewhere large enough to accommodate a group as formidable as ours: IES students, French host families, and visiting American parents. Marie couldn't make it because of another obligation, so I was really all alone in the midst of so many families and pseudo-families. Luckily, I found a place at the table with my friend Lauren and her host siblings: Comb, Elois, and Fauste (approximated spellings). Comb and Elois, the two older brothers, are 17 and 15 respectively, leaving their 13-year-old sister Fauste rather at a disadvantage when it comes to teasing. She holds her own though, and the three of them put on quite a show over dinner. I spent the most time speaking with Comb because he is absolutely obsessed with America; no sooner had I mentioned my New York upbringing when he began to grill me with Gossip Girl related questions ("is it really like that?").

I can't say I minded, though. French kids are funny. Most of the ones I've met have been incredibly poised and gracious, good conversationalists, and sharp dressers, but there are always little details here and there that give away how young they are -- the way they fidget when the conversation gets boring, or bite their nails, or laugh too loud. I was lucky to spend my Thanksgiving with such a lively group of siblings. But even these America-fixated, Abercrombie-American-Eagle-Hollister-wearing French adolescents had never experienced Thanksgiving before. I think the menu puzzled them a bit...it confused me, too, honestly, because all of the right ingredients were there, but it just didn't feel like home. The dishes were too polished. Here is what we ate...

The evening started with...how to describe it...I suppose it was something like bruschetta (only monster sized) with roasted peppers and vinaigrette dressing. (Sorry the photo quality is not wonderful; I blame the ambient lighting and my aversion to flash photography.):



After the appetizer came the true test, though -- the turkey. I have to say, I was impressed with my dinde à la française. The perfectly cooked meat was tender and juicy, dribbled over with a cranberry (wine?) sauce that artfully combined savory and sweet. Also on the plate were cooked chestnuts (a recurring theme here that I'm beginning to enjoy) and mushrooms...perhaps an attempt at stuffing. What I really missed though, was mashed potatoes. I guess purée de pommes de terre just doesn't fly in the land of wine and cheese, and each plate came with two measly, scrawny boiled potatos. Alas (oh, but note the red wine):



We rounded out our night of French portions with an insufficient amount of dessert; then again, when the primary confection is pumpkin flan, perhaps it's better to have only a sliver. I've never been a huge pumpkin pie fan, but this Thanksgiving, I finally came to appreciate the art of the pumpkin pie (although, as Garrison Keillor so accurately states, "The best pumpkin pie you eat isn't much different from the worst"). Our pumpkin flan wouldn't have been that bad if it hadn't been for one very out of place spice; we suspect it may have been curry, and I, personally, suspect that they based their pumpkin flan recipe on a recipe for pumpkin soup (a much more common dish in France):



Well and there you have it. In spite of my semi-sarcastic commentary, it really was a lovely meal -- if for no other reason than the company!

Addendum: And how could I forget to mention another amazing birthday present?! I was sitting next to Lauren's host dad at dinner, so naturally we chatted a little bit about my studies and experiences in Nantes. And, do you know what he told me? "You speak French very well. You have no accent." YES!

To Market, To Market...too soon?

Sunrise: 8:22
Vocab: boudin - blood sausage

Farm attire.

At long last! The entry about my experiences as a murderer of small animals. Well, to be fair, they were large animals, and it wasn't me who killed them, and nothing was wasted. Seeing as I wrote 10 pages in my notebook when it was all fresh in my mind, I've decided to excerpt a few snippets for your reading pleasure. For purposes of discretion I will not: (1) post all of my notes, (2) include any names, or (3) post photos of the piggies. (Yes, I justified the text of this entry; trust me, it looks much better this way.)

Sunday, October 15, 2009

We had stumbled into an immense family gathering. Over the course of the weekend, I kissed easily over 40 people between hellos & goodbyes; you acknowledge everyone present when you arrive and when you leave. I am omniscient because I had no responsibilities and could bounce from inside to outside as the different family members proudly displayed and explained their roles.

We killed 4 pigs. I'm not a squeamish person, but I thought I might lose my proverbial lunch. The pig is terrified, seeing he must confront his own mortality. She struggles and screams -- not squeals, screams. Every fiber of her existence tenses and converges into one simple message: I am alive and I do not want to die. And that's what pretty much all of us want, isn't it? Her death is inevitable, though, planned by the human arbiters of life and death...the only gods in the pig world. I understand more than ever why the base of tragedy -- the most ancient and fundamental tragedies -- is inevitability. I felt myself in a completely alien world, watching a woman easily in her mid-60s eagerly place a bucket under the cascade of blood, while the men held the pig still in the throes of its death tremors.

After killing the pigs, the next step was griller... in other words, to light them on fire to clean the skin and slightly cook the insides before cutting them open. It was raining. Hard. And the bonfires felt oddly funerary as the pigs transitioned to meat (as Angèle said). The human role in all this requires a strong stomach and a hearty constitution: You have to face your role as a killer, but you also have to have respect for the whole process underway. The man who butchered the pigs had been doing so since he was eight. One fluid motion after another, he opened the animals, separating head from body, organs from flesh, and later, separating the different cuts of meat.

While the work was clearly divided according to sex, all the work for men and women alike takes a toll on the hands. The men worked outside in the rain, scrubbing down the charred carcasses, and setting up spigots to run cold water through the organs of the animals. The women worked inside to separate the intestines, finessing them out of their tangles, tugging and tearing at the connective tissue. Cold water, warm blood, hot insides. Even with hands no doubt numbed by the spigot water, though, the men still came inside periodically to roll themselves the perfect (filterless) cigarettes in zero seconds flat.

If the French are efficient in nothing else, they work quickly when preparing food. Within minutes the assembly line was whirring away. Ladies tearing at innards, an older mustachioed gentleman grinding away at the sausage machine, and the other men outside in the rain cleaning shit out of intestines that only minutes before had been inside, steaming with the heat of a recently-killed corpse.

After several hours of hard labor, we sat for lunch, which lasted easily two hours. With the efficiency of the day, we had converted the meat prep. room into a kitchen. Warmed by the fire, we passed around huge loaves of crusty country bread before partking of salads that people had made the night before. For the main course, we had sausage (not from our pigs) & pasta. I wasn't brave enough to try any of the recently killed cuts that we had cooked for lunch, but I did try a bite of the blood sausage. Never again. The taste was fine, but the texture reminded me too much of the substance recently flushed out of those same intestines. We wrapped up with strong country camembert, roasted chestnuts, & clementines.

That night, we had dinner with another part of the family. Again, there were at least 20 (une vingtaine) of us. This meal lasted around four hours. We took our time, starting with aperitifs & cold appetizers that we passed around on platters, then the warm appetizers -- a small plate of mini tarts for everyone. The main course, which came out in pre-arranged plates, consisted of three types of sausage, a cut of ham, half a baked potato, and a sauerkraut-like cabbage mélange. We three girls split a plate amongst ourselves and it was just the right amount of food for each. After the cheese course came dessert and digestifs. Angèle's uncle challenged us girls to try Calvados (affectionately: "calva"), a locally made apple brandy that you drink from a spoon, poured over a sugar cube. The other two didn't much care for it, but I appreciated the burning sweetness of the combination, which amused the family to no end.

I know Angèle and Anaïs said it depends on the family, but the French seem to thrive on family collectivity... certainly in the countryside.

Teaser!

The Chateaux photo album is up! If you're itching to see some pix (which I miraculously whittled down to about 50), check it out now. If you want captions and explanations, you'll have to wait a few more days.

I got back from killing the pig a few hours ago. I filled ten pages of my notebook. I'll be posting an account as soon as I can.

Non-anniversaires and Putting on Airs

Sunrise: 8:10
Vocab: paresseux/euse - lazy

First of all, the Paris photo album is ready. Secondly, I realize now, after rereading my recent entry on Paris, how lackluster my tone appears. I did love Paris, don't get me wrong. I couldn't stop gawking, but I also felt at home. It's so like New York in so many ways that I felt like I understood how the city worked. That said, I came back to Nantes knowing I'd made the right choice. Even though I can't say I do my homework in Jardin de Luxembourg, I can say I've lived a more authentically French life these past few months. I don't want to be in a city that feels like home; I'd rather be in a city that comes to feel that way.

Case in point: Last Saturday night, on the eve of my depart for a weekend at the chateaux of the Loire Valley, I attended a surprise birthday party for one of our neighbors, Annick-Francoise. Marie had been planning it with Annick's daughter, Anne, and the turnout was pretty extraordinary. Recently widowed, Annick-Francoise absolutely detests birthdays, so we respected her distaste with a NON-anniversaire surprise, in the hopes, I think, of celebrating her life. She's a very odd lady Annick-Francoise; she collects dolls. And busts. Her house is full of eclectic art. Oh, and she's a writer. So, I guess that makes her eccentric, and not odd.

The guests at the party were, therefore, an eclectic/eccentric mix as well: family, neighbors, literary friends. The first woman I met was actually a Russian expatriate named Eleina who speaks French with a lovely Russian accent. I also spent some time chatting with Annick's other daughter, Helena, and her husband. They were duly impressed with my accent (yes!) and apparent ability to express myself. Little did they know, everything I said to them I have probably said about a million times at this point (I come from New York. I'm majoring in comparative literature. No, I've never been to France before. Yes, I like Nantes a lot.). Anyway, they were good company while it lasted, but we kept shuffling around for cake and gifts and things. I didn't mind, though; the overall crowd merited some people watching, and who better to do it than an outsider such as myself. (Again, syntax.) I just wanted all of them to be avant garde writers aged beyond their prime and still languishing in their own virtuosity...so that's what they became. The bespectacled lady with the long braid, the man brave enough to carry off mutton chops while wearing too many different patterns, the tiny lady with jet black hair and an impressive set of jowls.

A close runner-up to this experience for quirkiness (and warming of the cockles of my heart) -- which deserves a brief mention here -- would have to be Le Plus Grand Apéro en France. Since we had Wednesday off for Armistice day, basically all the college students in Nantes (this is an exaggeration) decided to converge on Place Royale with copious amounts of alcohol to try and break the French record for number of people enjoying aperatifs together in the same place. We stumbled (not literally) upon this classy soirée/drunken mob after conversation club during our quest for kebabs. Thank you, Nantes.

In between the Grand Apéro and the Non-anniversaire, as you have discerned, I visited some chateaux. So, without any further ado...

And now: A tour of some very expensive real estate

In other words, a brief account of my weekend touring the chateaux of the Loire. I promise my laziness has nothing to do with the lack of photos in this entry. I took over 200 photos and I just couldn't narrow them down, so I'm in the process of creating yet another photobucket album to accommodate my shutter-happy tendencies (check back after next Wednesday).

Since I will caption the photos, I won't go into too much detail about the specific history (or names) of the chateaux we saw. (This is mainly because all the information from the trip is on my desk and I am on my bed. Again. Laziness.) Instead, I'll take a brief moment to assert and defend the following: Autumn in France is beautiful. As lovely as the chateaux were/are, my favorite part of the weekend was spent taking the air: walking through enchanted gardens, following trails paved with soggy yellow leaves, finding hidden mazes, falling backwards into a crunchy pile of fallen leaves, the brightest red you can imagine.

I spent a lot of time looking up, admiring branches, and playing with the color settings on my camera. My favorite chateau was probably Chenanceau, again, not really for the chateau, but for the grounds. The gardens were straight out of Alice in Wonderland and the woods felt weirdly untouched next to such highly manicured shrubbery (although the topiary left something to be desired...oh God). From a bridge, we watched a dog on the other shore plunge into the water in quest of a thrown stick. Oh, and we sang more or less every song from The Sound of Music. On our tromp through the woods we found: a labyrinth, a Greek-temple-inspired stone structure, ephemerals, and griffins. No, really. Griffins.



Oh, and the day ended with a rainbow. Magic.

My Life After Paris: Livin' in the Fast Lane

Sunrise: 8:01
Vocab:
plier - to fold

la brume - fog

In a little over a week, I've gone from having a decent amount to report to having decidedly too much to share. What have I done recently? Well, I've gone to Paris, I've suffered a bout of some mysterious illness (grippe AHH?!), attended a French surprise birthday party, and most recently, returned from a two day jaunt to see some of the chateaux of the Loire Valley. Between Paris and the chateaux, I've taken over 500 photos. I've discovered that I love taking high-contrast color saturated photos and I become vexed when the sun starts to set and the lighting ne convient pas for the "Vivid Colors" setting on my camera. On the other hand, I've also discovered how much I love taking photos in sepia. Please do not judge me for this. If you had just spent two days in enchanted forests, you would have wanted to take sepia photos, too. It's only natural.

I have my first exam at the fac coming up this Thursday and I'm going to tuer le cochon avec Angèle this coming weekend. I can only write in simple declarative sentences because I hardly know where to start (let alone where to finish!).

I guess I'd better start with Paris. First of all, I know this is maybe a cop out, but I've opened a new photobucket account called theainfrance -- pretty clever, I know -- to create photo albums for my big trips like Paris and the Loire (and so that I don't have to narrow down my photo selections quite as much). I know the photo blog entries are fun and pleasing to the eye and I promise they have not died, but I think we'll all be much happier this way. Paris photos should be up presently, followed swiftly by photos from the chateaux. And so, without further ado, my slightly scattered thoughts on Paris:

Thursday Night: Strangers on the Train

Getting to the train station would have been a cinch if we hadn't stopped at McDo for dinner. I should note that I had nothing to do with the choice of restaurant as I had lately enjoyed the last of my tabouleh, carrot rapé, cheese, and bread at the IES center. We spent about fifteen minutes waiting on a five or six person line and waited easily another twenty for...what? the intense culinary preparation required by a filet o' fish and two p'tit wraps? While we waited we waxed poetic on the inefficiency of many (most?!) French establishments and wistfully lamented the lack of Good Old American Capitalism...which would soon become one of the major themes of our trip.

At any rate, we made it to the train station with time to spare: Emily and Leah ate their sandwiches in peace and I had time to pick up a pre-train café au lait with whipped cream. The sound that precedes every SNCF announcement never fails to terrify me; in a minor key, it could easily precede the entrance of a legendary villain. I'm not sure which one, but it totally works. I managed not to die of fright before the arrival on our train, and after boarding we found ourselves in a pleasant purple and orange car sitting directly across from one of the cutest little girls in France. After about an hour of reading my book and goofing off, I decided to try and make a new friend, so I started folding origami cranes. My neighbor had been looking bored for quite some time so I wasn't at all surprised to notice her clandestine glances at my folding. When I finished, she could barely conceal her awe, and so I offered to teach her. Although I quickly discovered that explaining origami is nigh impossible when you don't remember the French word for "fold," we managed and by the end of my second crane, I had made a new French friend.

Her name was Laurie and she was off to Paris to watch her friend compete in -- of all things -- a double dutch tournament. Laurie was traveling with her friend's mom, who also started to chat with us. All in all, two hours well spent -- a little bit of last-minute French practice before spending the weekend speaking English almost exclusively. We connected with Emily's friend Theresa, you see, in the Paris train station. Theresa is studying in Italy this semester and does not speak a word of French...and it should basically go with out saying that most of the shopkeepers refused to speak a word of French to any of us.

The metro was a breeze. One look at a map and I knew what to do. One foot set in the tunnel and I felt at home. The rhythm of the Paris metro reminded me so strongly of my home subways that, I have to admit, I felt a pang of homesickness. We found our hotel just around the corner from the metro stop (a small blessing since, in the 19th arrondissement, we were not close to anything else). Hotel Crimée. The name looks sketchier than the hotel actually was. Crimée has nothing to do with the amount of crime besieging the hotel, but with the Crimean War. The rooms were small and the bathrooms oddly proportioned, but they did the trick for our purposes (sleeping, mainly) and the music channels on the T.V. provided some very useful insights into French pop culture.

Friday: The Real Paris

We commenced our first full day in Paris with a traipse around Monmartre, just one arrondissement over. After a couple victory!-we're-in-Paris pastries, we headed up to Sacré Coeur. Armed with a metro map and a pocket map of Paris, we could not wander astray, but we took the following intrepid approach in Montmartre: go up the hill! And later: go down the hill! It was as effective as you would imagine, which is to say, very. (I'd like to take a brief pause here to apologize for my syntax; I don't know what's gotten into me.) Upon reaching the top of the hill, Sacre Coeur's imposing facade confronted us...confronted is too strong of a word. I wouldn't say it welcomed us. I'll go with greeted. A legless man sitting in a wheelchair barked genially into a microphone while fashioning little dogs out of yarn; two boys showed off playing with Chinese yo- yos; a man dressed all in red struck up a tune on the didgeridoo.

Even on such a foggy day, the hilltop presented an incredible view of Paris (perhaps all the more incredible cloaked in mystery as it was). The crypt at Sacré Coeur was closed, but at the very least we got to see the main church which was lovely. We didn't dawdle, though; we had too much too see. Following our ecclesiastical introduction to Paris, we promptly headed down the hill in search of windmills (moulins)...you know...the red light district. Don't make me spell it out. At the bottom of the hill we found Moulin Rouge and Starbucks! Emily couldn't have been happier to "taste a little capitalism."

After a photo shoot in front of the Moulin Rouge with our Starbucks, we met up with Anna, one of my friends from Haverford and freshman-year-suitemate extraordinaire! She took us to the Montmartre Cemetery and showed us Hector Berlioz's grave. Even in the midst my recent existential ponderings, at that moment I just couldn't feel the weight of my own mortality; all I could think was how beautiful all the tombs were. And how oddly disorganized! Considering they take the time to sculpt their trees into rectangles here, you'd think they could line their graves up a little better.

From Montmartre, we hopped the metro to the opera house and from there proceeded to march all over the city, pausing for the occasional photo op. Our most notable photo op might have been at the Jardain des Tuileries, which, for some unexplained reason, hosts a display of monstrous oversized silver heads which could easily have sprung from the mind of one Tim Burton. We also took a turn around the Marais, the third arrondissement, upon my request. I can't remember what I was expecting to find there, exactly. The Marais is home to one of the largest Jewish neighborhoods in Paris. Also one of the gayest neighborhoods in Paris. We saw lots of Orthodox Jews, but their sexual identities remained unclear. I should mention that we spent the entire weekend playing "Gay or European?" It is not an easy game. Not all was lost, though! We took a spin by Place des Vosges and peered into the windows of the high-end boutiques that were much too classy for our American sneakers.

We rounded out our first day in Paris with pizza at an Italian (?!) restaurant and a walk by the twinkling Eiffel Tower.

Saturday: One Museum, Two Museums, FREE MUSEUMS!

I'm sorry, that pun is so bad it's probably not really a pun, but I think you'll understand my excitement when I tell you we spent our Saturday at the Louvre and Orsay museums for free! Thanks to (grâce à) our student IDs, we received the EU student treatment: eye-rolls followed by free tickets. This installment will go a bit faster since I'm not sure it's worth it to rehash every piece of art we saw. Suffice it to say, I saw the Venus de Milo, gawked at the crowd around the Mona Lisa (which is tiny!), found a bust of Benjamin Franklin (they seriously love that man here), and visited some ancient temples from Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Yes, the Louvre was incredible, huge, intimidating, formidable, but I think I liked the Orsay more. Set up in an old train station, the Orsay is home to more recent works of art, including paintings by some of my favorite impressionists (I mean, seriously, this is France). We traipsed through the current exhibit on Art Nouveau, which turned out to be a poor choice. The psychedelica room may have pushed us beyond our museum tolerance. We bought some postcards and headed out. Oh, but that didn't mean we had run out of steam. We went shopping after that.

I should also mention that I'd had to start the day buying some mysterious French cough syrup. I hadn't wanted to admit to myself how sick I was starting to feel, but as dinner rolled around, it was starting to get rough. I made it to (and through!) dinner, though. We ate at the Restaurant Chartiers, on the recommendation of my Let's Go! France (an absolutely invaluable addition to our team). The 45-minute wait was absolutely worth it. My camera had died at that point, so I felt the need to scribble something in my notebook. Here's what I managed to get down before our waiter unceremoniously tossed us out (they were turning tables like there was no tomorrow): "mirror windows, gilded walls, carnage on the table." It was seriously the most satisfying steak frites I have ever had the pleasure of eating. I didn't even care that our waiter mainly spent the evening yelling at us: "You have 2 minutes to decide and 4 to eat! I need to get home to my wife!" At first we thought he was joking...

We walked from the opera district all the way to the Champs Elysées, ending with a view of the illuminated Arc de Triomphe. We like to do our major monuments at night.

Sunday: La Grippe AHH!

My body finally succumbed on Sunday. I woke up with a pounding headache and could not stay standing for more than 30 seconds at a time. I had to pass on the Rodin in favor of spending the day alternately sleeping and watching top 40 music videos -- in other words, au lit.

In spite of the somewhat inhospitable bald concierge who always had the night shift, Hotel Crimee turned into a nice little home away from home.

Monday: Au Revoir, Paris!

Our last day in Paris began in much the same way as our first: in Montmartre. We picked the first brasserie we saw and went in for some brunch. As it turned out, we'd picked the local bar. As we waited for our chocolat viennois and croque monsieurs, lots of old men shuffled in and out, yelling at the bartender and then at each other -- geneially, of course. For the first time since our arrival, our hosts addressed us in French (up until the end, when another bartender said, "bye bye!"). Well, somehow we'd also managed to fake it pretty well at the hotel.

Bellies full, we headed back up towards Sacré Coeur to explore some of the shops we'd seen on the first day. Afterwards, we headed over to Ile de la Cité for a glimpse at Notre Dame and a peek at Sainte Chapelle. We had to go through the National Guard to get inside. On the bright side, they accidentally gave us free tickets. I had quickly discovered that holding up my University of Nantes ID, looking slightly confused, and asking if there was a "reduction" for students would often land me free tickets. Joined by my friend Maud, from high school, we ogled the stained glass for a while, and then headed over to the fifth arrondissement for our second round of hot chocolate.

After a delightful lunch, it was time to head back to Montparnasse and catch our train. I left the city sick, tired, and thoroughly content. For once in my life, I had embraced the chance to be a flagrant tourist, and it was marvelous.