A Mélange of small thoughts

This week I was part of the French census. I don’t know why I thought this was awesome… it was really just another official form I had to fill out for the French government (I’m honestly surprised it didn’t require a passport sized photo and a copy of every piece of identity I have). But just like when I got my bank account, it made me truly feel like I’m a part of this. It’s just one of those times where I stopped and thought “whoa. Right now my home is France”.

As good as the census made me feel, two slightly awful things happened to me this past week…

1.     I lost my wine opener
2.     I used the last of my stash of peanut butter (deemed a necessity for the 50 pounds of luggage I was permitted to bring from the good  ol’ USA )

… It’s been a bit of a slow week. 

Let’s talk a little bit about wine in France. Just to let you know how I’ve been spoiled… the other day at the supermarket I picked out what I thought was a 2euros bottle of Bordeaux. I was appalled at the check-out to learn that this bottle was nearly 5euros instead. I bought it nonetheless because explaining to the cashier that I didn’t want it was more complicated than I wanted to get into a) this has to be done in French  b) it’s a little embarrassing that I am refusing a wine because it is priced at 5euros instead of my usual dirt cheap choice. 

I have recently been informed that if I splurge on a bottle of 3 euro wine, the quality difference is exceptional and I will not suffer from any sort of headache the next day.

3euros is less than $5. For a Bordeaux. How oh how will I ever return to the United States?

PS. I found my wine opener. I had left it in a friend’s room.

Mélange Point # 3

I have been told by multiple friends to wait to read “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series, or to see the movie, until I am no longer living alone in a foreign country. In fact I was specifically directed not to read this story until I was living with Joe and we had a dog (that would no doubt love and protect me). These people know how out of control my imagination can get, and how just reading about or watching crime scary scenarios can mess with my head. 

Example 1: last summer my family rented a vacation house on Surfside Beach, South Carolina. Out on the balcony one night, looking out over the ocean we are fairly certain that we saw some UFOs. The national UFO hotline was called (Have I mentioned how much I love love love my family?). Later that night, everyone had gone to bed except my brother and me. We were chatting on the balcony when all of a sudden we noticed some movement near the stairs that connected our house to the beach. Oh… just a cat. Or was it? My over-active imagination convinced itself that this cat was an alien disguised as a cat and sent to observe us. It just kept looking at us like it knew that we knew it was truly an extraterrestrial. I had to go inside. 

Example 2: The one time I watched Dexter while living in Cincinnati I was so terrified I could not sleep, and when my roommate was walking around and getting ready for bed I was convinced he was an intruder outside my closed bedroom door. 

You can see why my friends worry about me reading scary books alone. 

Well I met up with a French friend for lunch and a movie on Saturday. She suggested we see the movie Millennium. Not knowing anything about the film, I agreed. Guess who saw “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” under a new sneaky French title? This girl. No worries, I so far have not been overly terrified in everyday general life, but fortunately I rarely have to go anywhere alone in the dark and my room is the shape of a box with no places for scary murderers to hide. 

Now here’s a bit of typical Ohhh Steph…

My friend and I were saying goodbye at the end of our day’s adventures… She went in for the “bises”, the endearing and here-normal double kiss on the cheek way of saying hello and goodbye to friends. I misread these signals and gave her a big American hug. You can take the girl out of the Midwest but I guess you can’t take the American Midwest out of the girl. It was awkward. Sometimes daily interactions here remind me of being that oh so odd high school girl who didn’t know how to act around boys. Except here I don’t discriminate against any gender, it’s just with everyone. 

 In my defense I haven’t had a hug in about a month now. Its one thing America has got right… hugs are great. The bises give the impression that you are closer to the person, kissing their cheek like that, but really it’s just two quick air kisses… a hug is for real human contact. Do any of you remember when I came home from study abroad and couldn’t stop hanging all over anyone and everyone who would stand next to me? Oh wait I can still be like that? It’s a side effect of living here…After living alone for however many months, in a country that doesn’t hug, one gets a little anxious for human physical contact.

Speaking of America stuffs, I bought a flight home. The decision has been made, the ticket purchased… and there’s no going back. It was not an easy one to make. But that’s right people, you can stop worrying that I will somehow find a way to live here forever. Which I could, honestly. Besides the people I love (which is a HUGE thing don’t get me wrong), there isn’t much more that I miss about living in the USA.

Ok, maybe I miss the hugs… 

 But now that I have a flight I have been dreaming a little bit of what I will do when I return home… besides the whole awful looming job search… I will drive in my cute little red car with the sunroof down singing as loud as I want without worrying that a neighbor will overhear. I cannot wait to go to the Beer Engine in Cleveland with le boy and devour a real, delicious hamburger and a giant craft beer. When I do my laundry I won’t have to scatter every article of clothing on every possible surface of my room to dry for two days.  Cars, hamburgers, a dryer… all things I could technically live without here forever, but it is nice to be positive about coming back stateside. Plus I get to see you. And that is a wonderful thought.

Ok maybe not all of you. I just recently figured out how to look at my blog stats… which I am pretty sure are quite low and when it comes to blog fame, I don’t have it yet. But Hey! There are more of you than I thought! And some of you are reading not only from the US, but from France, Kuwait (thanks Glue), the UK, Spain, Brazil & Morocco (merci loveshines), Latvia, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Dear world… You are neat.

See you in May my American friends, family, my little red Focus, and the Beer Engine.

I can’t wait to give you all a hug.

Bisous (even better if they're awkward)

Steph

Merci

I am a lucky lucky girl, with a lot to be thankful for. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, which left me just a tad homesick here in lovely France, I thought I’d dedicate this post to all the things I have to be thankful for at the moment.

Of course, the first, most important and probably gushiest I’ll get right now, I am thankful for my family. I think it was my greatest stroke of luck to be born a Wiezbenski, as I have wonderful parents, interesting and smart and unique siblings (and their significant others and children), extended family who send me texts and emails and cards and even have visited me over here… it was not easy to be away from everyone this past week. But I really need to give a shout out to my mother, who is a gem among gems, who mailed me Thanksgiving plates and napkins and surprise! the new Harry Potter DVD, who instinctively knew I would need a pick me up this past week, and who put up with a lot of complaining and a dramatic story & tears about my frustrations in finding a cookie sheet to fit my mini-oven here in France. Of course she realized that some of this frustration was certainly from France’s inability to provide me with this oven “truc”, but of course stemmed from other things, mainly homesickness. Thank you.

I am thankful for many many enthusiastic Americans who wanted to gather together and share this holiday with each other and with our many foreign friends. We had a turkey! I made green bean casserole, but couldn’t find canned Cream of Mushroom Soup or a bag of Fried Onions, so I did it all from scratch. God bless you Crème fraîche. I am really enjoying exploring cooking more, and getting creative when I don't have access to what I'm used to in America.  We had at least eight nationalities at our festivities… and that’s when I am just struck by how lucky I am to be here. To be living this experience. To be learning every day, from new people, from our world. It's hard for me to capture those kinds of feelings at home, isolated in our giant country.

I mentioned at the feast… I am so thankful to have great great people to share this with in France, but I am also thankful that I have so many really wonderful people at home to miss right now. You know who you are.

I am thankful that the process of legalizing my stay here is complete. I’m an immigrant! For the year. And to get away from all these emotional sentiments, I’ll share a bit of awkward with you. The process involved a lot of paperwork, some passport sized photos, and a medical appointment. The awkward parts were when they took a topless XRAY to test for Tuberculosis (I think it’s because they don’t want to deal with people coming back to their offices to get a skin test read), and they let you keep the XRAY to take with you on your tram ride home. This was only after the doctor analyzed it (no worries on the TB thing) and informed me that I need to eat a bigger breakfast because my stomach was looking a little empty. Medical Technology you are so weird. Language barriers can be interesting at the doctor’s office, and the one that made me blush the most was when the nurse said the standard “Condoms are the only protection against STDs” line except I did not understand her rapid-fire French, looked quite confused at this statement, and asked her to please repeat, like I had never heard this information before… once I got it, I awkwardly stated “Oh yea.. they teach us that in America too”.

I am thankful for The Hunger Games, which is the series of books I have been reading recently, and which is the cause of the delay in my normal Sunday blog posting. I am first to admit I am a giant book nerd and love reading in general… but these I cannot put down.

I am thankful for the interest of other teachers at school in who I am, and what I am doing here. I have rides organized for 2 of the 4 days of the week, when teachers go out of their way to bring me to and from school. This turns my hour long multiple public transport commute into a quick 15 minute car ride.  I have also been asked into and taught 2 geography classes, mainly just answering kids’ questions on the USA and showing pictures from my Roadtrip Vegas-Ohio last summer. The students had good and interesting questions and I took up their entire hour of class speaking with them. It was nice to have an entire class in French as well, as most of my classes are obviously in English. I am quite enjoying the majority of my students and teaching in general.

Because this is getting long, like normal, I am quickly but just as importantly thankful for:

the markets here (that constantly remind me of my sister in law, oh Hilary how you would enjoy shopping for food like this, actually making a relationship with your food and the people it comes from)

With the market comes Pastry Saturdays, my futile attempt to control my consumption of delicious French treats. This week,with nothing in my apartment for breakfast, I went for an apricot croissant from a baker at the market near médiathèque. I originally tried to photograph it for you, but it was so perfectly flaky and gooey at the same time that holding a camera and enjoying my weekly indulgence was just impossible.

that I live in Nantes, a big city with many social options each week. Like this past weekend, the national Festival de Bars Bars providing free local live music in almost every bar in the city and many other cities across the country. One of my English teachers at school is in a band that played and it was fun to go out and see her.

The Christmas market. And all that comes with it. Mulled wine, chis chis, carousels, beautiful Christmas trucs, and lights lights lights. Bliss. I’ll leave you with those beautiful images.

Mulled Wine. The only reason to like colder weather

 

Bises Bises Bises

Steph

Trop Contente

Bonjour Blog Readers are you out there? If you are, and you’ve been reading… send some comments my way. It brightens up my inbox! (Are my posts too long? I know I know. I write a lot…)

It’s been almost a month since the big Au Revoir and my dramatic entrance into France via 5 planes and at least 10 airport mental breakdowns. 

Things I am missing (besides your face)

Internet : This has been more frustrating than all the paperwork required to live in France. I’ve finally figured out my wifi in the lobby, but that’s only because I spent about 2 nights camped out in the lobby waiting for a computer guru to walk by. The problem was I knew what he looked like but did not know his name…

I have since purchased internet for my room. But I have to wait for at least 10 days to get my router/box technology thing. Unfortunately this box will probably come when I am on vacation with my family and I am afraid that if I don’t pick it up they will send it back.

I am also missing…

A kitchen that has more than 2 hot plates, 1 pot, 1 pan, 2 plates, 1 mug, and 2 bowls. I have mastered the art of making a pizza in a frying pan. And I’m eating like a college freshman again. Pasta Pasta Pasta. Lazy nights it’s just honey and baguette. I was planning on toughing it out and only using the hotplates for my time here, but I think I may make the big splurge on a toaster oven once the Department of Education fills up my French bank account a bit. I would really like to experiment a little with duck and also snails while I am here… maybe even rabbit if I can find something at the grocery that doesn’t actually look like a rabbit… 

Clothes Dryer. We have one at the foyer, but one of my friends used it and it worked for 2 hours and he thought his clothes were less dry afterwards. All of my clothes are currently spread on every possible surface of my room to “dry”. This makes things a bit uncomfortable when friends stop by- hey welcome to my room, there is no space to sit because my clothes are hanging off all the chairs and my desk and my kitchen table and every door handle… and yea, that’s a display of my underwear over there.

Things I am loving

The fact that my pants are feeling a little looser. Cheers to optimism and ignoring the fact that I haven’t put my jeans in a dryer for 3 weeks now. But the amount of walking I do over here is fantastic.

Kebabs and frites (gyros and fries) are the Cousin Vinny’s of France. There is a “restaurant” conveniently located at our tram stop and its open late night.

I have a lovely view of the field next to my building…. I tend to do a lot of watching out these windows. There’s a cat with no tail that frequents it quite often. There are a lot of bunnies that chase each other around. I see dogs and their owners and am jealous of them. We also had a homeless man for a brief spell of time and I could see his red tent in the woods next to the field (He has since packed up and moved away).

Canadian Thanksgiving. I celebrated the holiday for the first time here, and it was really one of my favorite nights thus far. We met up at another foyer and the Canadians prepared chicken (a turkey is hard to find and involves a lot of planning), taboulé (it’s kind of like stuffing right?), vegetables, mashed potatoes, salad, wine wine wine. I love Thanksgiving because its celebrations involve food and people you love… and this year I felt so grateful to be able to share this meal with people from all over the world (I think we had 6 different countries represented).  Community. I love it. The best part about Canadian Thanksgiving? We get to do the same thing all over again in 6 weeks for American Thanksgiving. The Americans are determined to have a turkey.

Free Fridays: I finally got my work schedule, and this girl has 3 day weekends every weekend. I am also finished teaching by 12 on Wednesdays.  But I have classes at 8am Mon/Wed/Thurs… and I have an hour commute. But I’m not complaining. I will teach for a week next week and then start our two week All Saints/Fall Vacation. 

And finally, I found this postcard to decorate my room: It’s a bulldog, with a glass of champagne tipped over, and the dog is wearing a sparkly red babyhat. I am warming up to the idea of a bulldog because Joseph is slightly obsessed, but I really do love this particular bulldog  because we both understand that every good party clearly needs a dog, some champagne, sparkles, and an amusingly small hat.

I shall leave you with that image. A Bientôt!

Bisous,

Stephanie

I wrote this post before leaving for the market this morning… I got home and almost deleted all of my “things I am missing” section. I forgot my camera this morning, so more on the market in a later post…

But this morning while shopping for fresh fruit and cheese and bread I said to my friend “Really, is there ANYTHING wrong with our lives right now? Because this is perfection”. Somehow no matter how many times I visit, France seems to recapture my heart in a new way. I’m quite Happy.

Saturday Night Saturday Night

I had some interesting interactions in Nantes this weekend…

1.       Some friends and I were on our way to the castle, when we passed some French men sitting at an outdoor table… I overheard one of them ask the other if he thought we were French. In my opinion French women always look fabulous… so WooHoo! For maybe being considered one.
 
2.       Later in the evening I was asked on the street if I had a lighter. Here is our conversation
“No I do not have a lighter, I do not smoke”
“You are clearly not French”
“Why because I don’t smoke?”
“No, because of your accent”
Goodbye all self confidence and good feeling from being possibly mistaken for a French girl earlier in the evening.
 
3.       We left to go to a bar and I was not quite finished with my wine… so I just carried it by my side and tried to be discreet when we were walking through the center of town. Someone walked past me and asked what I was doing with that bottle of wine. I wanted to say I am hiding it. In French “to hide” = se cacher. Instead of using that verb I used “Se coucher” which means to go to/to take to bed.  I told a stranger I was taking my bottle of wine to bed. Awesome.
 
4.       We got to the bar where I ran into a whole crowd of my students… I’ve just been observing a lot of classes so I did not recognize them, but they knew who I was right away. Why were my high school students in a bar? Perhaps that young drinking age is not so great for professional relationships. I am mainly confused why they were in Nantes… it takes me an hour on public transportation to get to my high school and I doubt they drove themselves as they cannot get their license until age 18. Thankfully when I saw them I was just standing in line for the bathroom and not doing anything to make a fool of myself. I told them I would see them Monday and that was that.
 

Some other interesting weekend tidbits:

There is a bar here called “La Maison” which translates to “The House”. It is organized like a house would be with its different rooms decorated as different rooms in a house… you can choose to drink in the kitchen, the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom even. Very fun.

 

I also had my very first treat from a bakery (I’ve been very good you see). I am biding my time until the perfect macaron comes into my life, but I did get directions to the supposed very best boulangerie in Nantes. I also walked past this beautiful display (a revolving tower of macarons? Yes Please!) but did not have the time to stop. I’m sure it will not disappoint. Neither did this Caramel Éclair. The caramel here is sea-salted and absolutely delicious.

 

Sunday: to recuperate from being so Frenchy, in a true act of desperately missing Joseph (and also a desire to interact with fellow human beings) I went to watch American football at the one bar in Nantes that will show a game. The Bills won. Eagles were looking sloppy. Sportz. ‘Merica. Speaking English. Oh Yeah. Apparently  that even my English  has a very strong American accent and is hilarious for people from Australia and Guadeloupe to imitate. (Emily George if you are reading this- the country of Guadeloupe reminds me of AP U.S. History and our dilemma with Guam. Yes?)

No word on my school schedule yet- so I've been working on my to-do list and spying on people with their dogs in the field outside my window instead.

Maybe by the time I see my students again they will have forgotten that they saw me in a bar on Saturday night.

Bises!   Steph

Why Love France?

Sometimes people are confused just why I love France so much, and why I always want to be there.  So here’s a little something something I put together to let you know just what I am specifically excited about for the next couple months of my life, and some things I am not so excited about.

Things I love…

• Let’s get it out there right away: The Food, the Drinks, the Desserts, the Wine…The food is brilliant. I can’t wait to discover a local boulangerie for my everyday baguette, try many patisseries for macarons and bonbons, go to the market for fresh veggies and fruit, and pair a good stinky cheese with even better glass(es) of red wine.

• Being a Pedestrian. All the time. I won’t have a car in France. No big deal. I’ll have public transportation, hopefully a bike, and my own two legs. This will suffice. .. and will hopefully counterbalance my love of French food.

• Foreign Language I make mistakes. But I love love love this language. And I can’t wait to see just where my language skills will go after such a long period of time listening/speaking/writing it.  And the funny stories I will have from language miscommunications. These situations can breed awkward, and I tend to thrive in that. Bring it on.

• Teaching I know I belong somewhere in the education field, and I feel lucky that I have had a lot of different opportunities to see just where I want to fit in. I am excited and terrified to have a classroom of my own.

• Travel There is a Mediterranean cruise planned for October with my parents and my aunt. I’ll probably be in Spain at Christmastime. I want to get to Morocco to see my college roommate at some point. And my very first friend ever is planning on coming over to backpack. Top it all off with the possibility of working camp again this spring? Family, Boyfriend, Friends… the world is ours. I can’t wait to explore more of it with you

• A Slower-Paced Lifestyle They work a shorter work week, take longer lunch breaks, and close their shops up when they need to. Americans put so much value on ambition and convenience… which can be great. But I think that some days it’s harder for us to take a step back and enjoy everyday living.  

• New People + New Perspectives One of my favorite parts about study abroad was the class of kids I studied with. We had about 17 kids in class, representing about 9-10 different countries. Living in the Midwest, this is not something I get to experience often. I’m excited to learn more about France and will have most of my interactions with French people, but there is also a German language assistant and a Spanish language assistant placed at my school. And I’m sure multiple nationalities will be living at the “foyer” that I will be calling home

• Pretending to be Belle from Beauty & the Beast It’s too easy. Life over there is so picturesque. I just want to sit on a fountain while people sing a song about me, read a book, and have a sheep take a bite out of a page.  I can skip the whole locked up in a castle for a spell of time. 

Things I can handle but wish I didn’t have to…

• (The lack of) my American life + Time Difference  I will miss you, and you, and you… I have a lot of wonderful people to miss. This will not be easy. I know that. I love you. I know that the time difference makes it hard to keep in touch, but let’s try. And if you ever are wondering what life 6 hours into the future is like, chat me up…

• Dog Poop. Everywhere. The French are not the most responsible dog owners when it comes to picking up their pups’ messes. When I studied abroad I had one particularly terrible day. And on my way to my program director’s office to discuss said day, I stepped in Dog Poop for the first time that semester. He congratulated me and said that meant I had truly lived in France for a significant period of time.

• Greves (Strikes) True Story, I was once tear-gassed in France.  Because I was outside eating my lunch at the wrong place wrong time, and the middle schoolers were striking. While I love that the French really work for what they believe and act as an important part of their government processes, this can be very inconvenient. And make you cry. And they are very common.

• Neutral Colors Goodbye bright colored clothing and prints. I used to think I was so worldly and people would mistake me for European all the time. Nope. I am so… American.  I don’t need to be drawing any excess attention to myself so I try as hard as I can to dress like the French when over there. So I’ll be donning black, brown, beige, grey etc clothes for a good spell of time.

There are good and bad things about everywhere you can live. But since I try to live my life a little more on the optimistic side, I think my list of great things about France outweighs my negatives.  My lists could be far more extensive, but you get where I’m going. I love France.  I’m excited to live there, and maybe now it’s a little clearer why. I'm only 10 days away!

Bises, 

Steph