Le bus et la pluie.

Bonsoir, mes petites cerises (Good evening, my little cherries). 

J'ai marché à le bus ce matin dans la pluie (I walked to the bus this morning in the rain).  I also carried my super-French black umbrella and sang Aux Champs Elysees to myself.  Everything about the walk is adorable: Other than the stop and yield signs, and the bus stops, there is very little of anything that makes Bizanos twenty-first century-esque.  Quaint, I believe, is the best word.  There is a white gate at the end of my driveway, which I close behind me.  Encircling the perimeter of each home are lakestone and concrete walls (approximately waist-high) over which flowering bushes cascade, so as I walk down the uneven and moss-covered sidewalk, I'm accompanied by different types of foliage.  Each home is unique, and many of them are named (Les Mimosas and Laurets, for example).  Rather than yellow stripes down the middle of the road, there is a strip of concrete (approximately a foot wide) inlaid with lakestones which graces the winding road.  Obviously, there are cars and bicycles, but I only see maybe ten cars and four cyclists throughout the whole seven-minute walk. I live in a very quiet village.  

I share the bus with four or five other regulars, two of whom are especially worth noting. There's an elderly gentleman I usually see in the afternoons on my ride home.  He's waif-like, but far from delicate (I can tell by his practical walking shoes and the way he hops off of the bus). He sits up very straight on the bus and reads the paper most of the time.  He purses his lips and opens his eyes in a way that makes him look like he's surprised, a little awed, and quite amused~all at once. When he hops off of the bus, he clasps his hands behind him and walks slowly homeward, bent forward a little by age.  I like to think he has an adorably petite wife waiting for him there, with white hair piled high, blue eyes, and red lipstick.  

There's a woman who rides the bus almost everyday to market (I can tell by her grocery basket).  She's quite old, and has definitely spent her life as a housewife here in southern France. She always wears a skirt, pantyhose, and shoes with a practical little heel on them.  The funny thing, though, is that they don't make her the least bit glamorous.  She usually wears some sort of house sweater or old rain slicker, too.  There's nothing physically attractive about her, but she has bright blue eyes that continually smile.  Her nose smiles, too.  She greets the entire bus with a cheerful, heavily southern "Bonjour," and thanks the bus driver as she leaves with a gusty "Merci, Monsieur!"  She calls me "Mademoiselle."  We try to talk sometimes, but her accent is so strong that I usually don't understand what she's saying.  That's ok, though~she gossips with the other older ladies on the bus. 

I love ma petite ville (my little town).  

I especially love it because of what happened today.  My host family was supposed to get back from the coast last night, but they've apparently decided to stay on for an extra day (or two, we'll see...).  Anyway, at about  19h00 (seven o'clock) this evening, there was a loud knock at the door.  When I answered it, there was a woman who looked to be about sixty or so, wearing a skirt and a rainslicker, and carrying a navy blue umbrella.  She is my neighbor, and she came to check in on me, like my host mom had asked her to do.  We had a little conversation (all in French~yay), and she said that she had tried to come earlier in the week and I wasn't there. She wanted to know if I wanted to join them for dinner.  She was adorable.  I thanked her and she said if I needed anything to just come over and knock.  

I guess that's all for now.  

The only other other bit of exciting news is that I had pizza for lunch today at a little pizzeria downtown~it had ham, onions, cheese, tomato sauce, and an egg on it.  It was really good, but made me remember how much I'm looking forward to some New York style pizza when I get home.  

A bit of sad news: I'm in desperate need of a pedicure. 

Marguerite.

Douce France

Bonjour!

Monday is La Fete Nationale (Bastille Day) here in France, and the Tour de France happens to come through Pau that day.  The weather is perfect (for me, anyway, which means it's overcast and cool...), it's a long weekend, we're going to la mer (the coast), and I learned a new song (which we all sang today at our Apertif~basically a free lunch so all of the students can get to know one another better).  Then I had pistachio ice cream while I finished some shopping.  It was a good day.  Vive la France!  

It was my resolution to decide what to do with my life while here in France this summer (note my use of the past tense).  In lieu of doing that, I've culturally assimilated to a French attitude, summed up in this phrase: "Eh, ce n'est pas grave."  It literally means "It's not serious," but the attitude is one of laissez-faire~life will just happen, and that's okay.  C'est la vie.  I can't explain it very well (both my English and French are failing me), but it's the prevailing attitude here in the south of France.  

You missed the bus?  There's another one coming in a half-hour.  

You forgot your umbrella?  You'll just get wet.  

You were late for class?  I hope you gave an acceptable white lie. 

You have a deadline to meet?  Do it later, it's time for dejeuner.

It's almost time to resume class after our break?  Let's finish our conversation first.

You ruined that crepe?  No one cares.

You need a taxi tout de suite?  One will be there in twenty minutes.

You've had too much wine?  Have another glass. 

My favorite taxi driver here in Pau is a good example.  I was trying to say something in French to him, and he stopped me with a smile and said (in French, obviously), "Slow down~enjoy the words.  We have the time. Here, we like our language.  Say the words, don't just use them."

Everything is very calm and sensible here.  They do get rather heated about politics, though.

Marguerite.  

Crepes

Bon soir, mes amis.

Ingrid Betancourt's release has been getting major press here in France. It's moving to observe the country rally around one of its daughters, and give her the attention and honor she deserves.

Metta (pictured in the previous post completely asleep next to me on the train) made me listen to a song at lunch today, and I almost cried into my gruyere omelette. However, things are looking brighter after tonight. We had "cooking class" at Metta's host mom's house tonight, and she taught us how to make crepes~I learned how to have two pans of crepes going at the same time! Her host mom calls us "mes filles" ("my girls"). I love being at her house, because it's really cozy and I feel comfortable enough to go barefoot in the house. She's divorced, and her kids are older teens and kind of "lead their own lives," as it were, but she loves to cook and talk with us (I think she likes having us around the house~I have to admit, we are kind of fun). She has a sixteen-year-old daughter (Marlin) who's really adorable, too. She doesn't talk much, but when you engage her in conversation, she smiles and talks a lot~we had a good conversation about shoes tonight.

We made ham and cheese crepes for dinner, and then had dessert crepes with glace (ice cream) and chocolate sauce. As Metta and I were making crepes, we needed to count them to know if we had enough crepes saveur (savory crepes), so we could add the sugar to make crepes sucree (sugar crepes). She counted, and said, "Only seven? It was seven, like, two crepes ago." You know you've been in France for a long time when you start counting in crepes.

We've finished with most of the important devoir (homework) tonight, so we're going to sleep. The bus comes early. Except when it's late.

Marguerite.

A Mediocre Monday.

Bon soir!

So I may never get around to writing about Paris, but I did post some photos from our excursion to the Pays Basque (Basque Country), which was on Saturday.  I learned a lot, and posted fun facts in the photo captions.  One interesting thing (which I don't think I mentioned in those fun facts) is that there are seven Basque provinces, only three of which are in France (the other five are in Spain).  Bayonne is the capital of one of the French provinces.  We had a quiz on information regarding the pays Basque, and yours truly won it (you could choose your prize, and I chose an apron).  I even know the Basque word for house, "exte" (pronounced "etch").  Now that I've amazed you with my in-depth, apron-winning-worthy knowledge of the pays Basque, back to ordinary July life in Pau.

Now that the weather has turned warmer, the, um, culturally different standard for cleanliness has become pungently obvious.  Here is just one example: I got on the bus this morning, and an enormous man got on at the next stop. Approximately forty seconds after his entry, the entire bus smelled like rotten cheese.  After surviving the rest of that ride, my connecting bus was late, so I arrived at school just on time.  We had an interesting class, and learned about Le Tour de France (which will be coming through Pau on the 14th and 15th of this month).  

A note on Paris:

Steve did send me some pictures he took of our Paris trip, and of the many he took of us sleeping on the train to Versailles, this is the least embarrassing:

I took a lot of pictures (Paris V) of the new grille (gate) that was just restored at Versailles, and found a really interesting in Le Point (like our Newsweek) about it: there is a debate raging right now as to whether or not it was just a big waste of money, because it's so extravagant.  I decided to do one of my French presentations on this debate, because it is an interesting question: should a foundation use its resources to restore golden gates to dead kings' castles, or is the preserving of history a task that should wait for other times?

Marguerite.

  

Une petite pause.

Salut, mes amis.

I have been quite busy since I've returned from Paris~Les Soldes are in full swing, donc (thus, so) I've been forced to do some shopping.  Classes commenced yesterday, too.  They are from 9:30 to 12:30 (last session they began at 9:00), with a one hour phonetiques class twice a week. There are six levels of French to test into, and I tested into the fifth level (I was a bit intimidated, though, so I switched down to four, but it was good to have visible proof that mon francais is improving).  I also have a class on the history of French music this session.  We listened to some Maurice Chevalier, whom I've loved him since I saw In Search of the Castaways quand j'etait petite (when I was little).  My professors are wonderful, mais elles parlent tres vite (but they speak very quickly).  Je crois que cet semestre est plus difficile que le semestre dernier (I think that this semester is more difficult than last semester), but that can only do good things for my French.

I promise to write about my time in Paris sometime soon, but it's a bit intimidating to write about such a beloved city; so much has already been eloquently written.  However, I did take pictures, and many of the captions have fun facts (I'm a terrible photographer, though, so my photos don't do the city justice).  The album names are proof of my creativity: Paris, Paris II, Paris III, Paris IV, Paris V, and Paris VI (I posted all of the photos I took so I could delete my memory card--please don't feel obligated to look through all of them, or be as fascinated by chandeliers as I am).  

My host dad's parents are in town this week, so we had a long dinner yesterday.  There would be nothing interesting to report if it hadn't been such a light meal (the big meal of the day in France is dejeuner, or lunch, and dinners tend to be light).  They kept refilling my glass with some sort of aperetif from Portugal, and I couldn't really refuse~though I tried! However, I was already completely exhausted from the day, and kept getting sleepier and sleepier.  My french comprehension took a nosedive after my third glass of it.  Pascal's father was impressive, though.  Whereas I would sip my glass, in hopes that it wouldn't get refilled (it was really good, but I can't drink too much), he would pour a glass and then drink the whole thing like a shot.  It would have been completely inappropriate for me to leave before dessert, so I sat there until about nine o'clock, when we finally finished the apricot tart.  After the meal, Sandrine (my host mom) told me I should go dancing with some of my friends because I "already had a good start on the night."  I laughed.  And then I slept really well.  I do not know how the French can drink so much with such light meals and not be falling out of their chairs.

A+ (A plus, which is an abbreviation for a plus tard, which translates basically as "later"), 

Marguerite. 

Gavarnie (Pyrenees)

Bonjour, mes amis.

I didn't take these three photos (my camera can't capture scope like this), but I did take these.  There was a lot more snow when we were there.  This particular spot is protected by UNESCO as one of the "World Heritage" places in the world.  We hiked to the waterfall (shown here):

By the end of the hike, we had hiked for over four hours.  It was positively gorgeous, but got more difficult the closer we got to the waterfall (from the distance of the photo to the left, we still had to hike for about thirty five minutes to get to the waterfall itself.  The wind was so strong and the air was so cold, that I was drenched in less than twenty seconds when we finally got close to the waterfall.  It made for an uncomfortable walk back.  However, because I was already so dirty and wet, I didn't mind so much when I fell into the stream.  Balance never has been my strongsuit).  

I saw my first herd of mountain goats on that hike, too.  I had always had romanticized, Heidi-like images of herds of mountain goats.  In reality, they really smelled goaty.

We had lunch at a charming lodge in the village.  The chicken was wonderful and very fresh.  One girl got hers and said, slightly horrified, "I got a feather in mine."  She had a similar reaction to Roquefort, "Why did I put it in my mouth?  I knew I didn't like green things."  Not everyone is loving the locally raised/produced food like I am.  

Speaking of food, I found really great yogurt here.  It's produced by a family business in the Pyrenees, and they make yogurt (all different flavors).  There's a picture and description of the farm on the packaging, and it says that one of the brothers in the business is in charge of the milking, and the other of the actual yogurt-making.  It's unpasteurized goodness, and I'm completely addicted.  

The only bad news is that I have two finals tomorrow, and I haven't studied for either of them.  I spent the night last night at a friend's apartment, and because the buses don't run on Sundays, I had to walk home.  It took me an hour and a half, and then I went walking with a friend of mine.  I'm slightly fatigued.  

Last night was France's annual Fete de la Musique and we went dancing afterwards.  The music festival was lots of fun:  It didn't start until after nine o'clock in the evening, and went until two o'clock am.  EVERYONE attends...including families, babies in strollers, gypsies, and dragqueens. 

I had dinner with my family tonight, which was nice--I'm understanding more and more French daily.  Yay.  The little boy and I had a funny exchange all through dinner, he would say, "Merci, Madame" (funny because I'm actually mademoiselle) and I would respond, "De rien, Monsieur" (funny because he's so young).  My host dad and I are going to watch the match du football later. 

Bisous, 

Marguerite.

The most adorable afternoon.

My French class (students and teacher) had lunch together today at a restaurant a cote de campus (close to campus--you spell it with a few accents, but I can't figure out how to add them in this format).  I had an excellent apricot tart for dessert.  The apricots looked like three sunny-side-up eggs.  It was wonderful.     

There's a gentleman  in my French class who is a retired federal judge, and after lunch today, I asked him what his afternoon plans were.  He said he had to go to the train station to cancel a ticket, so I invited him to come with a group of us to the Blue Van (it's on the way to the train station).  The Blue Van, mes amis, is what I will miss most about Pau.  It sells ice cream in the town square.  Not only is it beyond picturesquely adorable, it has the best ice cream in the world. My RFJF (Retired Federal Judge Friend) and I discovered that we share a passion for ice cream and Sherlock Holmes stories, so it didn't take much convincing for him to join our group headed for the centre-ville.  I had une boule (scoop) of citron (lemon) and une boule of framboise (raspberry), and he had chocolate.  We ate our ice cream in the shade, under a huge trellis, which houses a few wrought iron benches (ils sont tres mignon--they are very cute).  After that, we left the group and walked to the train station.  We chatted about Joseph Conrad, military history, the plight of the American farmer, Dickens, and Alfred Hitchcock movies.  One of his hobbies is architecture, and he recommended the book Brunelleschi's Dome.  We also talked about some of the cases he's had throughout his career.  It was so interesting: he would give me the situation and then ask me what I thought, then I would give an answer, and then he would say, "Yes, but what's the next question?"  We would go back and forth, and then he would tell me what he ruled and why.  J'ai trouve un ami!  (I have found a friend!)  

After the train station, we sat outside at a cafe from about 4:30-7:00, and tried a few different kinds of beer.  He has German heritage, so he's something of a beer expert.  Though we both like to drink wine while in France, it was too hot for it this afternoon.  Here in France, it is common for beer to come with some sort of flavored syrup.  We were utterly mystified by the different (often brightly) colored drinks being served, so finally we tried a red one--definitely grenadine.  Not so great.  We had a wonderful afternoon, though, and went our separate ways with plans to search out some restaurants in Paris when we go next week (I should've known we were going to be fast friends when in class the other day, he asked if I had a Michelin guide).  We are both quite grateful for each other's company.  I think he's grateful for some companionship (he eats most of his dinners alone), and I'm certainly grateful to escape the ubiquitous presence of students, especially with someone who is such a gentleman.  He reminds me of my grandfather--utterly brilliant (but self-effacing and diplomatic so you wouldn't know it unless you engage him), excellent conversationalist, and a gentleman through and through. Spending the afternoon with him reminded me of how much I miss the wonderful men in my life--my father, uncles, and brother.  There are only a few male students studying here, and I really miss the company of men!

Tomorrow I'm hiking through the Pyrenees with our group, and will attend France's annual Fete de la Musique in the evening.   

Bisous, 

Marguerite.