The Month in Review: A Dinner Party

Sunrise: 8:15am
Vocabulary:
canapé - sofa
la classe - classy

It's Monday night and I'm sitting at my computer, when Marie tells me that we've been invited to dinner and that we're going to Ikea. Puzzled as I was, I tossed on my scarf and coat and followed her out. In the lobby, we met her niece and nephew, who had arrived by bike, and headed down to the garage to pile into the car. As we drove to Ikea, two significant and practically simultaneous revelations struck: (1) we would not be eating at Ikea and (2) I needed neither my coat nor my scarf.

It has been just over a month since my arrival in Nantes and the greatly diminished language barrier remains a barrier nevertheless -- although I might attribute the above more to syntax than to my limited knowledge of French. As I tell everyone, it seems, I have my "good French days" and my "bad French days." I've sensed a gradual increase in the number of good days, but sometimes the right words just don't come out. While I've been struggling against my meager vocabulary, though, I've found that I can fake it pretty well -- all it takes is a room full of French people. The more saturated I am in French French, the easier it is for me to speak with an authentic-sounding accent, and I've just about perfected the three words I use most often: "merci," "pardon," and "bonjour." But, I exaggerate (or underexaggerate), I've received a fair number of compliments on my accent from many of the French students I've recently encountered -- although according to Marie and her nephew Arnault, the best compliment of all would be, "You have no accent!" I'm trying.

While the language has, of course, been my main focus and obstacle over the past month, there are other, smaller things, that I'm also still trying to get a handle on. The weather, for example. I wish I could say, definitively, whether or not it is autumn here. Each day commences with decidedly autumnal temperatures, which linger well into the late morning and early afternoon, but ultimately climb to 70 or 75 (in Fahrenheit, of course). Thus, a coat is a highly practical article of clothing when I leave for class, but has become outmoded by the time I'm done with lunch. (I guess that's French fashion for you!) It's humid here, too. The air right now is a sponge and I am not looking forward to the day it gets wrung out. Every time we have a gray or rainy day, Marie jovially remarks that "c'est un vrai temps nantais!" While my body and psyche are both still adjusting to Nantes' peculiar meteorology, I must admit that a crisp, cloudy day in Nantes makes me about as happy as a brisk, sunny day in the states (that is, very happy). Perhaps there's hope for me after all.

We arrived at Ikea around 8:30pm. Everything here closes early. Most buses quit running at around 8:00pm (even on weekends). But Ikea, Ikea stays open until 9pm. We had arrived on a mission: to pick up a sofa for Marie's niece, Alice. While she went off in quest of the desired piece of furniture, Marie, Arnault, and I took a more leisurely turn around the store, pausing to pick up some lightbulbs. On the way out, Marie stopped by the small food section of the store to pick up several boxes of the cookies to which we had lately become addicted. She came back with six boxes of cookies (two of each kind) and a chocolate bar for each of the kids. If I were to come up with a term for this phenomenon it would be "little treats," and it remains unclear whether "little treats" are customary, or just a peculiarity of this French family. In any case, my life seems to be just full of little treats, just little moments of indulgence. While Americans seem to have this decadent, luxurious image of French life, I've found that the secret to the lifestyle here lies in finding the right moment for a little treat.

After a brief drive back into the city, I helped Alice carry her new sofa up three flights of stairs -- or, I should say, a box of pieces that would soon become a sofa. She's a student at the local architecture school and, as is customary here, she lives on her own in a small apartment because there is no such thing as "on-campus housing." On the way out, I helped her carry a gargantuan pile of trash and cardboard boxes out to the dumpsters. The next stop on our driving tour was Marie's house, again, to pick up the bikes and head over to Arnault's house for dinner. We brought some bread and a small dish of eggplant and ham to contribute to the rest of the meal: couscous and steamed vegetables. I was surprised Marie didn't make her usual joke about "eating like they do in Spain," since we started our meal well after 8:00pm.

After the main meal, we moved on to cheese and wine. Alice rinsed out my glass for me, without a second thought, and brought in a hunk of Camembert, which we ate directly out of the wrapper. While it is most elegant to eat cheese plain, with fork and knife, we ate our Camembert on small pieces of bread while sipping a red wine from Bordeaux. Arnault keeps a wine map on a wall by the dinner table (which is in a room that triples as dining room, living room, and bedroom) and showed me the exact region of our wine. He pointed out that if I took a bite of cheese and then sipped the wine, the taste would change completely. And it did! Before my enological revelations, though, they asked me to smell the cheese. "Most French people enjoy the scent of this cheese," said Alice as she held it up to my nose, "except for me." They all seemed floored when I told them I liked the smell, and then cut off a sizable piece for my bread. "But she likes Roquefort," Marie said almost proudly. "She's not like most Americans."

I find it both comforting and off-putting (if that's possible) that the French treat family members' homes practically as their own, both in the liberties they take and the responsibilities they assume. Whenever Marie has relatives over for dinner, she makes sure I get the best place at the table, she offers me every course first, and only asks her family members for help in the kitchen. I think I'm something of a novelty, though, more than just a guest. People constantly ask me if we "have" certain things in the states. The first time we ate eggplant, Marie hadn't expected me to know what it was. Whenever I mention how much I love the bread here, people ask, "But don't you have bread in America?" People also ask me questions about the economy, politics, education, the environment. Even if I'm not an expert, a simple yes or no can often elicit at least one ooh or semi-interested ah.

We closed the evening with tiny cups of decaf coffee and spéculoos cookies (which also come in spreadable form!). After two cookies (which taste like Teddy Grahams, but look much classier), I drank the rest of my coffee black -- again, to oohs and ahs. I had never drunk black coffee before, but I think it may become a habit. As much as I continue to find myself lost in the cultural differences here, I already feel myself changing, adopting new ways of going about my life -- adapting maybe, but also changing for good.

Last Saturday, my friend Emily and I met up with my maraine Angèle and her friend Anaïs for a voyage to Trentemoult, a small island just a ten minute ferry ride from Nantes (and pulled straight from my imagination). I invite you to spend the day in our shoes this way. (For reasons that remain unclear, this album is password protected. Get in by typing: iheartchucks.)

NB: After rereading this, I have surmised that as my French improves, my grasp of English becomes increasingly tenuous. There are just so many misplaced modifiers. Please forgive me.

Memory of an Elephant

What I show you now, you'll grock, is the ultimate explanation for France's relationship with absurdism:

This is the Elephant of Nantes. He lives on the Île de Nantes, just a three minute walk across a bridge. Marie took me for a visit last Sunday. "He's our version of the Eiffel Tower," she said. "Of course, I'm joking... but not really." There are a ton of other machines just like the Elephant, but the Elephant is by far the most impressive and the most well known. He parades around the island a couple times a day with a backload of lucky kids and their families. Personally, I found it more enjoyable to watch from afar. From my observations, the best part of sitting on the elephant (aside from the free ride) is not getting sprayed by its trunk. His ears move. His eyes blink. And his trunk sprays water every so often. It's the authentic elephant experience.

More Elephant:

and

The island itself is pretty fascinating. It used to be the maritime trade center of the city, as I understand it, but it has since become more of a tourism epicenter. Although fake palm trees line the streets and a novelty carousel clanks away, I wouldn't say the city really did much tearing down and building up to turn the island into a cultural novelty. Using all the old storage hangars as blank canvases, the city of Nantes took industrial grunge chic to a new level, filling them with mechanical wonders, museums, exhibitions, and, of course, bars. Hangar à Bananes is a pretty chic strip of bars and clubs in the big old hangar that used to store (surprise!) bananas. Last night, actually, we went to a reggae concert in one of the clubs called Altarcafé. Although I've been living in fear of predatory European man, things were totally civilized last night. I think we stuck out a bit because we were getting more into dancing to the music than most of the other people around us, but, oh well, I think I tend to stick out when I start dancing anyway. (Think Elaine from Seinfeld.)

In addition to the hangars, the island also sports several large stationary cranes (grues), some of which continue to operate and others which remain vestigial testaments to the city's shipping history. (And, let's face it, when you're meeting up with friends to go to Hangar à Bananes, "the big yellow crane" is a pretty good landmark.) Another, more sobering testament to the city's past lines the edge of the island on the path leading to Hangar à Bananes: a series of rings that light up blue, green, and red in the evenings as a symbolic representation of shackles, forever reminding the city of the shameful part it played in the triangle trade.

I know you know I took some photos of all of this, so here they are. First, two specimens of industrial grunge chic: chez Monsieur Elephant and a little info booth.

Une grue jaune!

A pretty bad picture of the rings. They're way cooler at night.

All of the facts included in this blog post I learned from Marie. She's absolutely the model of self-cultivation. She's interested in art, architecture, science, history, and she goes out of her way to learn as much as she can of the topics that interest her. She has a zillion little binders and journals full of photos, brochures, even pages she's printed off the internet, as a way to remember everything she's seen and learned. And she really seems to know at least a little something about everything. I think she'll be a very good influence on me.

I've already started picking up all the little brochures and info packets from the places we've visited around Nantes. Today: Jardain des Plantes (it's a very original name but I think you can figure it out) and Musée des Beaux Arts. Sadly, no photos, but again, the brochures more than make up for that. This weekend is part of the Journées de Patrimoine, which comprise lots of free events all over the city relating to the culture and history of Nantes... it also means the museums are open for free. Tomorrow: Planetarium!

A Coincidence

Well, it turns out my host mom also hosted a Haverford girl last fall as well! In fact, she hosted the girl who I spoke with at the interminable info session earlier this past semester. All good reviews thus far.

I sent Marie-Annick a reply email a few days ago, and I'm a little nervous because I just don't think I can translate my personality very well (a fear I have previously voiced on this very blog). In French, I think I come across as nice and polite, but not much else. And maybe I don't even come across as polite. Maybe I come across a heinous angry bitch...although, let's face it, that might be closer to the truth. Me? I may be the angriest person on the eastern seaboard.

What? What? Something noteworthy?

Well, after a hiatus of over a month, I am still here at my job (but only for a few more days). As promised, I have not updated much (read: at all) because I have been so swamped corrupting the youth of America and also because nothing noteworthy has happened on the study abroad front.

UNTIL TODAY!

Today, I received my housing placement. I am doing a homestay, so the program forwarded me a note from Marie-Annick, an adorable 58-year-old Frenchwoman who is about to adopt a semi-neurotic 20-year-old American daughter. I'm really looking forward to it! In her note she writes, "J'ai 58 ans et, au dire mes ami(e)s, demeure très proche de la jeuness, et partage ses gouts: j'aime beaucoup le cinéma, la musique; j'ai un piano chez moi, ... et ne demanderais pas mieux que de jouer à 4 mains!" For those of us who do not speak French, this roughly translates to, "I plan to starve you to within an inch of your life and at the end of your stay I will attempt to drop a piano on your head and you will have four chances to save yourself." Or actually, "I am 58 years old, and my friends say that I seem young and share the same tastes/interests as those who are young: I love film and music; I have a piano at my house...and would ask for nothing more wonderful than to play 4 hand piano! (i.e. to have a partner for duets on the piano.)"

I like this woman's attitude. She's going to take me to art museums and feed me delicious meals. I can already tell. In return, I feel obligated to master Heart & Soul before I depart. I shall sign off the way Marie-Annick signed her note.

French kisses nantais!
Thea