On leaving

I’m in Amsterdam now, and the past few days have been a whirlwind of packing up and saying my goodbyes.

It started last Thursday at my Each One, Teach One meeting. It was my last week, so leaving was actually pretty sad. It’s become one of the highlights of my week. I’ve met some really great people there, and I’ll definitely miss them all. Over the course of the next few days and exams, I said goodbye to most of my classmates, too. I guess I just wasn’t expecting it to actually be sad.

The worst was saying goodbye to my host family. Though I’ll be back for weekend later this month, Friday was my official last day with them. They had an incredible going away party for me, and that’s when it finally hit that I’m leaving. Sophie made an enormous Indian feast all from scratch. There were 8 of us there, and despite the crowd and the intense conversation, I felt so comfortable being there with them, almost like I was there with my own family and friends. After months of awkward situations and not knowing what to say, I felt like it was my reward for a semester of hard work. John (Sophie’s boyfriend), Jason (his son), and Fabian (Chloe’s boyfriend) were all playing guitar and everyone was singing, dancing, laughing and having a great time. 

Despite the many challenges that come along with studying abroad, It’s been a great semester. I’ve been so looking forward to my own bed, my own room, and just having my own space back, that I keep forgetting all the wonderful things about my day to day life in Nice.

Back a couple months ago I made a list of things I missed from America. Now, a list of things I know I will miss from Nice:

Dinners with my host family- You just can’t beat the home cooked meals every night. I’m convinced that it’s the hours we spent around the dinner table that improved my French skills the most. The guitar sessions afterwards were also one of the highlights of the semester.

The rock beach-Despite the fact that the sun hates me, I really do love hanging out on the beach in Nice. The fact that it’s rock and not sand makes it so much easier to stop off and lay down for an hour without getting disgustingly sandy. I’ve never lived 2 minutes away from any body of water, let alone the electric blue Mediterranean.

Shops being closed on Sundays- Though initially (and still sometimes) frustrating, I love the idea of there being one day each week where almost no one has to work and they can spend the day relaxing with family, friends, or just doing their own thing. Growing up where almost everything (Except Chick-fil-a) is open almost every day, it took some getting used to. Now I’m just not sure if it’s worth it. Anything you’d need in an emergency is accessible. Everything else can wait a day, can’t it?

Cheese and Nutella are cheap- Enough said.

The street market- I love all the fresh produce, and walking through the flower market at the end is amazing. It’s one of the few places in Nice where people will actually always speak French to me. Restaurants and other businesses typically revert to English, despite the fact that I always initiate conversation in French. 

The coins here that actually amount to something- Due to the one and two euro coins, pocket change here is actually valuable.

Speaking French- In case it comes as a shock to you all, I actually love the French language. It’s been a real challenge to communicate solely in French (except for with my American friends), but when I’m with only English speakers I really miss mixing the two languages. Using French in the classroom is just not the same.

More to come on Amsterdam, Geneva, Copenhagen, and Barcelona, as well as my last weekend in Nice, and my return to the USA on June 20^th!

Boat day

I am a terrible person.

Yesterday I forgot to blog, leaving you all in “a world of darkness.” Actually, I’m sure no one is seriously distressed about it…right?

I nearly forgot again today. We just got home from our day at sea, aka “boat day.” I’ve been so pumped about boat day for the past two weeks. Since Monday, every time I am leaving one of my friends I say “Ok! See you for boat day!” and I kept getting reminded that boat day was still several days away and I would see them again before then.

This is really similar to our boat.
The water was also just as blue.

 When I woke up this morning, things weren’t looking so great. But what started out as thunderstormy and miserably dreary day turned out to be beautiful and sunny. Our department chartered a private boat for the group and they took us around Antibes, Cannes, and out near an island, where we anchored and swam around for an hour or so. People dove in right from the boat. The water was so crystal clear, you could see all the way to the bottom. It was also freezing.

Everyone eventually made it back on board, despite our director’s fear of instant death by drowning from swimming too soon after eating. Around 8pm we dropped anchor again and the skipper and first/only mate (?) cooked up a paella feast, complete with full on shrimp (heads still intact, beady black lifeless eyes staring up at us from a pile of rice). Of course cheese and dessert courses followed.

The night ended with an extreme dance off between two guys in our program. Somewhere out there, there is video evidence of this.

We were out for about 8 hours total, and surprisingly my sickeningly pale complexion managed to not attract every UV ray in the sky. I’m only “pretty pink” instead of “sizzling fresh off the grill.”

Picking up the pieces of my dignity

 

Today the tram doors attacked me.

I’m pretty sure it was actually even more embarrassing than I think it was. I was listening to my ipod on my way to school, waiting at the tram stop. Some woman with a stroller was taking forever and a day to get on the tram, so I had to slip in behind her at the last minute. Unfortunately that didn’t work out as well as I hoped.

As the doors closed on me, I felt myself let out a scream, but I really don’t know how loud it was, because of my ipod. I do know that when I squeezed myself the rest of the way through, the entire car was looking at me, so I imagine I may have yelled louder than was necessary. I've made it unscathed for over 4 months, and of course it happens my last week of being here!

How do you come back from that? I tried really hard, but there’s no way to salvage your dignity. It's kind of like when my cat attempts do do something graceful and fails horribly. You just pretend not to notice as she picks herself up and slinks away into the shadows. Unfortunately, slinking was not an option for me. The best I could do was put on my sunglasses, pretend to read the newspaper, and count the stops til I could finally get off that violent tram car.

I sure hope summer school is an option.

Are you already wondering where this post is going?

 

Alright, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news…

The Good News:

I got a new bed. This means no more cot-style thin mattress on a plywood plank. Bad news is, I’m leaving in 5 days. At least maybe I’ll be well rested for my next two days of exams.

The Real Bad News:

Today I had my first round, which consisted of three exams. First was written comprehension. We had an article and had to answer a bunch of questions about it. Not too bad, but quite a bit of writing. Somehow I managed to get ink on my cheek and my shirt.

Next up was oral comprehension. We listened to a radio clip and had to answer questions about it. That’s always a bit challenging because the voices are kind of fuzzy and it’s usually tons of statistics and numbers. Not too bad, though. Today it was about radars and automobiles. By this point I had ink all over my hands and smudgy fingerprints all over the exam.

Then came the last and toughest exam- written expression. We get the prompt (topic) and have to write an argumentative essay in a very specific format. We’ve been working on perfecting it all semester, and my crazy teacher has a list about 10 miles long of required and forbidden elements. Basically even if you manage to write a perfectly cohesive essay and you forget to skip 2 lines between the intro and body, but 3 lines between the body and conclusion, you’re screwed. Things like that frustrate me because they don’t really matter at all.

So there I was, ink covered, hot, itchy mosquito bite on my temple (soon to be an ink covered itchy mosquito bite on my temple), racking my brain trying to remember all my formatting rules, hoping that at least I’d get a winning topic.

This is my topic, roughly translated: We place a lot of value on hygiene as a way to improve our quality of life. Why do we make this tough decision? There are alternative methods to also live a long and healthy life. Explain.

…What?

First off, is being hygienic really that tough? Is it such a challenge to brush your teeth, shower, and wash your hands on a semi-normal basis? I don’t understand how this is a difficult decision, especially when you compare it to the alternatives- rotten teeth, body odor, and constant illness. Those things don’t sound like the ticket for a long life. That sounds like Dark Ages-type living where people died at age 20. We place a lot of value on hygiene because we don't all want to die of the plague. Is that what they were looking for?

What are the alternatives? Green tea? I hope so, because that’s what I said…

Countdown

I leave France in less than one week.

Ok, I’m not actually going straight home, but I will be soon enough. I can’t believe it! Where has the time gone? It’s simultaneously taking forever and flying by. In 3 weeks, I’ll be back in Maryland. Here is my agenda in the meantime-

June 4-9: Fly to Amsterdam. Staying with my friend Rabiah, who somehow lucked out and got a research grant or something to work on her PhD there for the summer. Highlight will be seeing a familiar face, and maybe visiting the van Gogh museum. Or maybe Rabiah’s 3 Dutch guy roommates….hmmm…….

June 9-11: Fly to Geneva to meet Justin, Sam, Heather, and Lori. We will all be spending quite a bit of time in close proximity for the duration of the trip. This is going to be really fun, or we may actually kill each other between June 10th and June 17th. We’ll be in Geneva for 2 days. Right now the highlight is a tour of the CERN laboratory. Physics isn’t really my thing, but the boys are geeking out about it. This should be amusing.

June 11-14: Copenhagen. And Rabiah will be flying over from Amsterdam for this leg of the journey. Highlights include vikings, beer, and a trip across the bridge to Sweden.

June 14-17: Barcelona. I am really excited about this part. Everyone that goes there seems to fall in love with it. The only downer is a pickpocketing problem…and the fact that it’s probably going to be about a million degrees. Highlight- paella.

June 17-19: Back in Nice. Say goodbye to host family, pick up luggage, and try to enjoy my last 2 days on the Mediterranean, despite the fact that the Mediterranean hates me. Seriously, I was out for an hour today and fried. One hour!! Need higher SPF sunscreen, which these Frenchies don’t seem to believe in. I’m starting to think the stuff they market as sunscreen around here is actually baby oil or something.

June 20: HOME, where I'm sure that my cat will hate me forever for leaving her with her nemesis (my roommate) for 5 months.

Starved for attention and begrudgingly sitting in
Lori's lap

 

Grandma Partied Hard

 

I’m pleased to announce that Grandma survived the party last night. In fact, it was really crowded and I was there so late that I saw the end, when the police were called for a noise disturbance.

You should all be proud of me. I was out until 3am.

Needless to say, I’m exhausted. I got up at noon and decided that today was the day that I was going to have pizza, a craving I’ve been fighting for 2 weeks now. The place beside our apartment has really great pizza. It’s torture walking by every day and not caving to the crispy-crusted cheesy gooey deliciousness. We all have our crosses to bear.

The goal was to get some serious studying done today. But after eating the pizza and skimming pages for 20 minutes, this grandma needed a nap. Two hours later when I woke up, I was pretty productive until dinner, which was about a 1-hour window.

Study goal: ~4 hours

Reality: ~1.5

After dinner Sophie wanted to watch a movie. Somehow Cabaret came up in conversation and I told her I’d never seen it, so that’s what we ended up watching. It’s funny to see Liza Minnelli back when she was young and moderately attractive, but to me she will always be Lucille 2, the crazy old vertigo-suffering cougar from Arrested Development. 

The whole movie, I was cracking up and thinking about how much she looks like my sister. We always joke that Liza Minnelli is her celebrity lookalike…minus the spider lashes and crazy eye shadow. 

Do you know the hot dog man?

I was just downstairs with Chloé and her boyfriend for a neighborhood block party. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I don’t know any of the neighbors at all, and mingling with complete strangers in France is a little awkward.

Fortunately it went better than expected. This old guy seemed to take a liking to me and kept striking up conversation about the type of meats that can be smoked and also kept bringing me hot dogs. It was a little weird, since I don’t really like hot dogs (or care about what kind of meats can be smoked) but I felt strange refusing. At one point I had one bun (=slice of a baguette) and 3 hotdogs crammed in. Eventually I resorted to stuffing the extra wieners down inside my empty beer bottle.

In other news, I’m going to a party tonight, which was a great excuse to stop being fed hot dogs.

Yes, you heard it right- Grandma’s going OUT! It’s a real college-kid type party that doesn’t even start until 10 or 11..way past my bedtime!

We’ll see how I feel tomorrow….