Night Two-Hundred and Sixteen

les chanceuses

It’s funny when you know something is coming for a long time and then it comes.

We are at the beach. We have been planning this trip for months. It was alternately intended to happen in Sardignia, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, but in the end we just drove a couple of hours south and rented a mobile home in a sprawling campground near a construction zone (so THAT’s why it was so cheap…) It is too windy, and when the wind dies down it’s too buggy, but it doesn’t matter. We’ve had seven months of what feels like the best luck the universe could muster, savoring our small-town dorm life like a group of international princesses on a hotplate vacation. Now we are very close to the end, and we just needed a place to enjoy our girlhood one last time before we all run off to grow up (okay, I’m really speaking for my old self here. The other three have a ways to go, yet.) Anyway, this mobile home (I’m sorry, mo-beel ome) will do.

I remember as a teenager often feeling that I had just missed out on the really good part. Like something wonderful had always seemed to have happened just before I got there, and all that was left were the older kids exaggerated recollections of how amazingly cool it had been (they had been freshman at the time, their perspectives therefore hopelessly skewed by their noses pressed against the glass). Probably things are never quite as good as they seem through the eyes of former high school freshmen. Still, I have caught myself more than once in the last few months feeling as if I was really truly (finally!) in the golden moment, exactly where I was supposed to be exactly when I was supposed to be there. And you know what? It really was as good as they said.

So, this is the beginning of the end. Tomorrow we head back to Manosque, and a few days after that suitcases will be packed and rooms emptied for the last time. We are sentimental, here at the beach, and resistant to the sentimentality, as if we might be able to slow the earth’s rotation through denial. Last night, as we were walking home from dinner, one of us sighed and said “Oh, girls…” and another one blurted out “Horse!” It worked. We were successfully distracted into a discussion about the French words for horse and hair and how easy it is to confound the plural forms (“first week mistakes, girls, first week mistakes”, our linguist chided).

There are new first weeks on the horizon, with new first week mistakes. Will our luck follow each of us home, or will it disperse as our proximity decreases, like wonder-quad powers? There’s no telling. We will pack our bags, we will get on buses and trains and planes, and we will see how far this fortune can stretch.

Night One-Hundred and Ninety-Two

la vitesse

How can thirty-five days have passed since my last post?

We all seem to be experiencing an inverse relationship between the lengthening spring days and our perceptions of the passage of time. We have started to talk about the end, and after, and we are at once already departed and more here than we have ever been.

Things have happened. A full recap is obviously out of the question, so I’m just going to pick some photos that I like and use them as an outline:

Sunday, February 15th, Café de la Poste, Manosque, France



That’s the post office there in the reflection. Right after I took this, two old men called me over to their table (and I went, as I am wont to do when old men call me over, as they are wont to do) and I somehow managed to incite an argument between them about Sarkozy, the watching of which was an entertaining way to spend an hour.

Thursday, February 19th, my dorm room, Manosque, France


Here’s Matt, taking a well-deserved rest after 20 hours of airplane and bus travel.

Friday, February 20th, Manosque, France


I live here.

Saturday, February 21st, Rocher de Bellevue, Saignon, France


About sixty seconds after I took this picture we decided to get married here.

Saturday, February 21st, St. Remy de Provence, France


Later that same day in St. Remy. I just like this picture.

Sunday, February 22nd, Manosque, France


We took advantage of having access to a real kitchen and threw a dinner party. Unfortunately, I forgot that everything is closed on Sunday, and ended up having to improvise dinner for 9 people with whatever I could scrounge from our dorm cupboard. We ended up having gluten-free taglietelli with baby artichokes, jambon, and chevre, an herbed pork loin (fortuitously purchased Saturday) cooked in (slightly aged) apples, roasted potatoes, salad, and a beautiful apple tart made my Linda. It was decidedly not my most successful culinary effort ever, but we didn’t starve (for food or good company).

Monday, February 23rd, somewhere in Provence, France


Goats!

Tuesday, February 24th, Amsterdam, Netherlands

I loved Amsterdam and took a gazillion pictures. Here are three:






These swans have a strong sense of irony.

Saturday, February 28th, Clessé, France


We spent two lovely days at the home of our friends Xavier and Regan in the wine country in Eastern France.

And then we all piled in le camping car and made our way, via Annecy…



to Switzerland.

Sunday, March 1st, somewhere in the Valais region of Switzerland


The Swiss wine makers have squeezed grape vines into every available square inch of their steep steep fields. It’s kind of amazing.

It was fun hanging out with Regan and Xavier and camping out by the side of Lake Geneva, but Switzerland was cold and expensive, and we were happy to get back to sunny Provence.

Saturday, March 7th, Roussillon, France

]

And eat one last time at our favorite place in Eygalières, where we managed to become regulars in the space of two weeks.



Monday, March 9th, Manosque, France



On Matt’s last day in Manosque, we all went up to the top of Mont d’Or…



…and had a chilly picnic.

Sunday, March 15th, Reillanne, France

The following Sunday, I was invited over by one of the professors who I work with for the most gorgeous Sunday lunch with her most gorgeous family.



March 15th was (supposedly) the last day for burning in our department (I have noticed that not everyone got the memo). Here’s Cris’ husband Alfie taking advantage.



Wednesday, March 18th, Saignon, France



Last Wednesday me and my posse rolled into Saignon to do some wedding business. We sat and had drinks at the Auberge next to this fountain, and, when the girls ordered sirops, the incredibly kind woman who was serving us brought out a pitcher, held it under the running stream of the fountain, and plunked it down on our table. It tasted extra good.

Friday, March 20th, the dorm hallway, Manosque, France

Which brings us to this past Friday, when we invited some friends over for another whatever-was-left-in-the-fridge dinner. We had potatoes baked in crème fraiche with gruyere, a zucchini fritatta, salad, pasta Bolognese (by Carmen, of course), and Mars ice-cream bars and champagne for dessert. Afterward, we did the only thing you can do when you find yourself forced to confront the inexorable march of time and (as Carmen beautifully put it as we were walking home late from the cinema a few days later) “le futur inconnu”: we danced.

Nights Fifty-Six Through Fifty-Nine

la vie quotidian

Things that happened this week:

Someone’s boyfriend came to visit.
Someone went to see an action movie in French that turned out to be a historical drama in English.
Someone broke up with her boyfriend.
Someone found a giant green bug in her shoe.
Someone got yelled at for not having a cell phone.
Someone got back together with her boyfriend.
Someone ate pasta at least 11 times.
Someone finally wrote an important letter.

Things I took pictures of this week:


Lycée Regional Polyvalent Les Iscles (where I work)


again


and again


a good dog


a (very very French) movie being filmed in our town square


and light so nice…


…it even made our hallway pretty.


And a sunset…


…


…


…that just kept getting better


and dinner by candlelight (the power went out at the restaurant).

I’m off to Nice and then Florida. See you in December.

xo,

H

Night Twenty-Five

Vamos a la Playa

As a reward for successfully surviving our first full week of classes, we went to the beach. It was totally bitchin’.

We started off in Cassis. Here, I’ll show you:



You can see Manosque at the top of the photo. It was about an hour and a half drive on the autoroute. Toll roads are genius, by the way.

So, Cassis is a lovely little tourist town by the sea, and there seems to be some sort of chateau there.



I really have no historical background or culturally relevant information to offer. We drank some coffee and moved on to Ste-Cyr-Sur-Mer, and there we passed a most delightful afternoon. The sun showed up for work and everything. We were happy. Now we’re home, all sunned-out and salty. Enjoy some photographs, won’t you?

Nights Nineteen through Twenty-Four

Laundry, Life

I went to the laverie last Sunday, did my (very expensive) laundry, and read an article in French Marie Claire that profiled a bunch of different women’s sexual histories. Learned the phrases le pire (the worst), elle a roulé sa bosse (something like “she gets around”) and un fétiche, which should be self explanatory.



I feel like I worked a lot this week. Twelve hours of teaching is way more than twelve hours of work (she realizes, far too late). I believe I have now met all of my students at least once. They range in English ability from abysmal to fluent (I have one student who is a native English speaker and speaks the language better than I do. I am tempted to tell him that the system is failing him and he should demand to be placed in a different class, but I need his help with idioms.)

Abilities and enthusiasm for the language aside, I can honestly say that I have enjoyed every one of my classes. Even the students about whose misbehavior and bad attitudes I am forewarned (I crossed paths with a teacher at one of my schools as I was on my way to my first class with a new group. She looked at my class list and her eyes got all wide and she made the you’re-in-trouble face and kind of shook her head in dismay. And then she said, brightly, “Bon chance! Let me know how it goes!” and took off. Thanks. It went just fine, by the way) are not so bad. At least not so far. Timid, defensive, and reluctant to speak English, yes, but evil and out of control, no.

This week I discovered a lovely, bright, deco-ish café with free wifi, and The Fig and I (oh, quickly: I have a roommate who prefers for her exploits not be – how would you say? – blogged about willy nilly – can I use blogged like flung? Welcome to my linguistically-consumed brain. Anyway, she doesn’t want to show up on the blog. But here is the blog, and here she is in my life, so I must find a way. Coincidentally, one wine-fueled night a couple of weeks ago we assigned each other fruit nicknames. I am the Peach. My roommates are The Fig, The Grapes, and The Pineapple, but I’ll leave it to you to guess whom is whom. So, you can heretofore expect to see my roommates referred to by their fruit names on this blog.) Okay, so the Fig and I have become instant regulars (and complete spectacles. Apparently, no one has ever thought to bring a computer to this café before. The wifi was previously decorative. Why is this whole blog parenthetical tonight?)


Les Fruites

Other happenings this week: I experienced the good French graces of one of my professors, who let me come over to his perfectly arty, funktified, Berkeley-lands-in-Provence house and use his computer, I spent a sleepless night hiding from a GIGANTIC bug that kept dive-bombing my bed, and I made a plan to go to Italy for the first break, now a mere week away. Yay!

Last Sunday we took a little road trip to the Gorges du Verdon. Actually, we didn’t quite make it all the way there, but we had a good time anyway. It’s a story best told in photos, I think:

















Last but not least, a new feature: Idiom of the Week.

This week’s idiom, courtesy of the Colombian: Vete a freir asparagus. Juliana claims that this is a Colombian version of “Go to hell.” Go fry some asparagus? More research is required.