Thoughts on living abroad

So sue me, I had a hard time coming up with a creative title for this. I went for obvious - at least no one is confused as to what this is about.

This post sort of grew out of my last one. Generally I write about things I've been doing, new experiences, things like that. But as I was writing the belated Thanksgiving post, I started thinking about homesickness. And as a disclaimer, I swear this isn't going to be super depressing, mostly because I don't really get homesick.

Ok, that's not completely exactly fully true, but mostly so. I tend to be fairly mellow about adjusting to new situations and locales, and usually figure there's no point in wishing for some place/thing not currently available. I might as well enjoy what I've got, instead. And I pretty much do. There are benefits to being a terribly practical person.

This is not to say, lest ye be offended, oh reader, that I never miss anything. Not being homesick does not equal not wanting some things related to home. Mostly I miss people. While I am willing to accept the necessity of being a long way from family and friends, that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to be closer. But places and things ... these I find I can live without. Although cheap and easily available Dr. Pepper - and doriotos, cheap or otherwise - would be fabulous.

Most of this I found out in college, when I was (for a couple years, at any rate) a long way from most of my immediate family. But I had Grinky and lots of aunts and uncles and cousins nearby, not to mention my useless older brother (for the first 9 mo or so, anyway), and of course I soon made some very good friends. Being here is the first time I've really been on my own, and I wasn't sure if I'd handle the situation the same way.

So far I have. I do miss family and friends, and can't wait to see people at Christmas, but I haven't had that hard of a time adjusting, which is what I was hoping for (and sort of expecting).

What I've found that I did not expect is that rather than missing specific places, favorite restaurants, stores, or foods (except the aforementioned Dr. Pepper, nectar of the Gods, and doritos, whose awesomeness is beyond mere words) what I actually miss is the sense of familiarity and security that having these things around gives. I love Target (no, I really really love that store) but when I'm in a French grocery/general stuff store, I don't miss Target itself - the French store has everything I need. But I DO miss knowing exactly how the check-out lines work, and knowing the general vicinity in which one will find q-tips.

They say that when you move somewhere where you don't know the language, the first few months are fatiguing because you have to work so much harder just to function at a basic level in society. My French is good enough that this hasn't been much of a problem (although finding contact solution without knowing the word for contacts was a bit of a struggle!). But even in Western Europe, where the culture is similar in very many ways to the US, I've found it harder than I expected to figure out some of the details of daily life - like how one gets the attention of the waiter.

It's the sense of familiarity that, when I'm feeling nostalgic, I miss most. Until they're gone, one doesn't realize how much security comes from an understanding of social cues. It gets better the longer I'm here, because of course I'm learning more of how things work and what's expected in French society, but when I try and buy phone credit from a tabac for the first time, rather than the electronics store I'd been going to, or when I buy a baguette from a different boulangerie, it takes a little adjustment all over again.

It's not a bad thing, really, but it is something I didn't really expect, that's taken some adjusting. It does give a lot of perspective on how much we take for granted an intimate knowledge of our own culture, though!

A somewhat belated Thanksgiving

Yes, I know that Thanksgiving was Thursday, but I'm a little slow on the draw. Besides, it took me a while to figure out exactly what I wanted to do for this post.

This was my first Thanksgiving without any of my family here. It was ... weird. I confess, though, that if I have to be without family, I'd really rather be here than somewhere in the US but lacking the ability to get home. No one here was celebrating Thanksgiving, so it was easier to forget what I was missing. And thanks to Skype, I did get to talk to the majority of my immediate family (plus Grinky!) which is always wonderful.

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here are things I'm thankful for:

1. The family I'm with here. They know it's harder to be in a foreign country at holidays, so they made me a "Thanksgiving dinner" over the weekend: turkey, potatoes, and corn (all foods I'd mentioned as being traditional). They've been wonderful.

2. The internet. And my computer. Darling macbook, if my poetry wasn't as the screeching of nails on a chalkboard to the ears of the unfortunate hearer/reader, I would write sonnets to you. After all, I am a long way from family, friends and familiarity (though alliteration hasn't forsaken me) and it's so so so nice to be able to keep up with people through facebook, email, skype and, of course, this blog.

3. Heat. The heat in the house went out last Monday night and was out on Tuesday, but is back. And y'all, and I am thankful. Because it snowed last night and now the temp is hovering around 28 - so a continued lack of heat would not be pleasant.

4. My actual family. Hmmm, somehow I feel like they should be higher on the list. Sorry actual family! But they've been so supportive of me being here, and of helping me mail things and sort out stateside stuff that it's hard to take care of from here, and hey, they're flying me back for Christmas! Besides, I kind of like them. Except my older brother, of course.

5. Friends. This is probably you, the person currently reading this. Know that I am so, so thankful for you, and I miss you!

Happy (late) Thanksgiving!

The Louvre

Since I last wrote I have, as you may have surmised from the title of this post, been to the Louvre. I feel like I should have more to say about it, given how I much I enthused in my post about the Musée d'Orsay, but I have to admit, I liked the Musée d'Orsay better.

Don't get me wrong, the Louvre is amazingly impressive. Another au pair and I went together - oh wait, we actually went before my last posting. Oops. Anyway, we went on the 5th, because pretty much all the museums in Paris are free on the first Sunday of the month. I love being here, but sometimes being an au pair is like being in college again, ie I have no money.

Now you may be thinking, Oh my, Susanna, you went to the world's most visited art museum, the one that houses one of the most famous paintings in the world, on a day when everyone and their brother-in-law was going to be there? On an average day there are 12,000 visitors, and many more on a day like that! What were you thinking?

This is a valid question. Mostly we were thinking, "Score! Free museum!" but I should also remind you that the Louvre is 652,300 square feet. That is very, very large. And as an aside, thank you google, for helpfully providing information about the size of the museum and average numbers of visitors. So yes, there were thousands of people there but, frankly, if you weren't in the section with the Mona Lisa or some of the Greek antiquities, it wasn't that crowded. We were in this massive line to get in, but it moved at practically a walking place - you just can't fill the building up.

Which leads me to why I like it less than the Musée d'Orsay. The Louvre is unbelievably, ridiculously, overwhelmingly impressive. We visited several exhibits (Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Near East, and Dutch and Flemish paintings. We visited, maybe, 1/4 of the museum. We were there about 5 hours. The place never ends. In the Dutch and Flemish collection there are rooms upon rooms of paintings, each wall covered in them, and you keep walking through them, in awe of the beauty and artistry and history until you can't even take it in anymore. And then there's the architecture and decoration of the building itself. After all, it was palace before it was a museum and the rooms, and the view of Paris from some of the windows, are breathtaking. But the weight of all that history and beauty and the sheer size of the place is a little suffocating.

I think if I was going to be in Paris for a long amount of time (and really, I would need a couple years for this) I would go on the first Sunday of each month, just for a couple hours, and visit only one exhibit, taking my time. I know I'm here about a year, but there are other museums I want to go to, so that isn't feasible now; I have to visit more than one exhibit each time I go.

I do plan to go back, though. I want to see the African art, as well as the Napoleon rooms, and I'd really like to see the French art as well. For now, here are a couple pictures I took. I only took a few because I quickly realized that if I kept going I'd never be able to stop, but you can see a few things:

My friend is there for a size comparison. I was so excited to see these, because we'd studied them in art history. Which reminds me: I HAVE SEEN HAMMURABI'S CODE. Just saying.

This was another favorite thing. The random person in the corner is for scale. This is the top (the top 1/5, maybe) of a column from the palace of one the Persian kings. There were 36 columns in his throne room, each topped by one of these. That's some serious impressive, people.

And these are views from one of windows. Not too good, as pictures go, but I loved being able to look out at Paris. If you look very, very closely at the first you can see La Defense and the Arc de Triomphe. The second features, obviously, the Eiffel Tower, but very sneakily also has the Grand Palais. Probably no one can see it, but I swear it was clearer when you were actually looking at it, not trying to photograph it through a window.

Other favorite things I saw that I did not photograph: the statue of Cupid and Psyche, paintings by Vermeer and Jan Steen, the huge room lined with absolutely massive Rubens that illustrate the life of Queen Marie de Médicis, and, of course, Hammurabi's Code. Also, lots of truly beautiful gold jewelry (and I got to see some rings like the one I patterned the Egyptian ring in my honors project on!). But while I loved some of the art I got to see, the Musée d'Orsay reigns supreme in my art museum affections. Sorry Louvre!

Vacation and all that jazz

So it’s been rather a while since I’ve posted, but I can’t actually apologize for that. First, because I said I wasn’t going to any more, and second, because I’m not actually sorry.

This is because I’ve only had internet access for half the days out of the past two weeks and during the days I did have internet access, I was studying for the GMAT. La vie! But the GMAT is done now and my internet access is back, so voilà, an update!

The reason I have been sans internet is, well, ok, there are two reasons. Actually, after I took the GMAT Friday the internet was down at the house, but the week before I was on vacation with the family and thus, no internet. And since the last week has been pretty GMAT-centric, and therefore both boring and arduous, I’m going to go back a couple weeks and talk about vacation instead. The second reason is that once I got back from vacation it was super sketchy (and is still kind of so) and it kept (keeps) being on for an hour or two and lulling me into a false sense of security and then traitorously disappearing.

Anyway, vacation. The dad had to work, but the mom and the three kids and I went to Île de Ré, an island of the western coast of France where the maternal grandparents have a house. It was lovely – the house, the island, the extended family, all of it. The mom's older brothers were there, the married one accompanied by his wife and three sons (the youngest is 14 mo).

Mind, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Two of the cousins are twin 5 year-old boys. You may remember that the youngest of my kids is also a 5 year-old boy. Good kids, all, but let me tell you, 3 x (five year old boy) does NOT equal 3 children. The increase in energy and noise levels with each additional boy is kind of exponential … it’s like dealing with 9 normal children.

Here are some other, equally scientific facts that I learned from the boys:

1. The amount of sand contained in one pocket after an hour at the beach = 2 x (volume of said pocket)

2. The amount of sand contained in the shoes of three boys after an hour at the beach does not have an equation because it defies expectation, logic, the laws of mathematics, the laws of physics and possibly the law of gravity.

3. It is only possible for you, the babysitter, to be in one place at a time. When you are with 6 kids, however, it is possible for them, collectively, to be in 15 different places at any given moment, at least 4 of which involve some activity they are not allowed to do.

Looking back at what I’ve already written, I’m afraid I’m making it sound like I spent the entire week running around desperately, frazzled and at my wit’s end as the children apparated around the island. This was not the case. Mostly it was a great week, and it was nice to be away from the routine of normal life - and what a place to be for that! The island is beautiful, after all. Evidence below.

The houses are almost all like this – white, with the green doors and shutters. We were in one town and I got to visit two more, which is where the pictures of the harbors come from. Picturesque, non? And I tried all kinds of seafood: oysters (not a fan, I have say), mussels, shrimp, prawns and goodness knows what else. And while I didn’t love everything, I’m glad I had the chance to try it all.

So yes, I did spend a week with a fair number of children. But hey, I have cousins so that wasn't really anything new. And I did have the chance to explore a really lovely part of France that has a very distinctive culture and ... decor? style? Not sure what the correct word would be there. Regardless, it was very relaxing and I think I'll be going back at Easter!

Dear Art Nouveau furniture: Why yes, I would like to be a part of your awesome, thanks.

Oh Musée d'Orsay ... I went into you expecting to be thrilled by your display of impressionist art, to have my eyes astounded by Renoir and Degas and Monet, to be fascinated by the adaptation of train station into museum. And just as I expected, I was thrilled, astounded and fascinated.

BUT a new joy also entered my life: art nouveau furniture. A void in my life that I didn't even know existed has been filled!

And ok, yes, I may be letting my inner need for melodrama get away from me a bit there, but really, it's hard to express how much I loved the museum and especially the (wait for it!) art nouveau furniture.

The museum is, simply put, beautiful. It was built around 1900, I think (NB - yes, it was built between 1898 and 1900, as confirmed by wikipedia) as a train station, and it has a huge vaulted ceiling running down the middle of the building, with smaller side, well, aisles, for lack of a better word. The flowered recessed coffers covering the main vault are a little much for my taste, but in between them the vault is made of slightly clouded glass, and the overall effect is of a huge, open, airy space. They're doing some work in one part of the museum at the moment, so some things are a bit rearranged, but I actually liked having the sculpture down the middle aisle. It seemed a bit haphazard at times, but I enjoyed the effect.

Most of the Monets are, sadly, at an exhibition at the Grand Palais right now (thought it's not that sad because if all goes according to plan that's where I'll be on Saturday) so I didn't see many of them. But I did see some gorgeous Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh paintings, not to mention tons of other incredible impressionist, pos- impressionist and symbolist work. Sorry if I'm boring anyone here, but I loved getting to see stuff that I'd only ever seen in tiny textbook reproductions, and I'm still kind of hugely excited.

Okay, I lied, I'm not sorry at all if I'm boring any one - impressionism rocks. So I'm going to keep talking about art. And furniture. Oh, but first! I almost forgot. One of the exhibits was about the Paris Opera House, so they'd done little miniatures of the buildings that were cut away so that you could see what they looked like inside. And set into the floors under (presumably) very thick glass was a model of the Opera as seen from above, including the streets and buildings around it, so you could actually walk over it and look down at the models from above. Super cool, or, as the children would say, hyper-cool (pronounced "eeper-cool").

But my favorite part of the museum was not whay I was expecting because I didn't actually know it would be there: the art nouveau furniture.

Y'all. It's gorgeous. It's all about naturalism and flowing lines and elegance. I loved it. I have, for everyone's benefit and my personal enjoyment, included pictures that I did not take, but that I found through google images. Hopefully this only breaks one or two copyright laws, and not a lot.

That's actually in the museum, although I didn't take the pic (apparently Hervé Levandowski did, but I couldn't because lesser mortals are not allowed to take photographs in the museum). Anyway, I love it. Below are more examples. Feast your eyes.

It is, I suppose, possible that some of you did not want to look at this many pictures of art nouveau beds and would not otherwise have done so. It's okay, you may express your thanks for my broadening of your horizons by sending chocolate.

Also, as I was writing this post I ended up feeling like: 1. It was sort of getting away from the original intent, whatever that was, and 2. It neither had a point nor was particularly enlightening as to my daily life and activities.

I have decided to leave it as it is, though, because my weekends in Paris - and going to museums like the Musee d'Orsay (and seriously, if you don't know what the building looks like, you need to google it) are one of the reasons (second to French) that I'm here. So there you go! You now have your fill of early 20th century French art for the day!

Transportation strikes

This is the new entry for one of the following life lists: "Things I Like" or "Things I Don't Like." Guess which one it's for.

(Psst ... if you guessed that "transportation strikes" goes on "Things I Like" then you should reconsider your answer. Just a hint)

So yeah, there is in fact a large transportation strike going on here at the moment. They're protesting the proposal to raise the retirement age to 62, and there's been pretty wide-spread participation. According to the mom here, who works in the French education system, it's been causing unrest in schools, too, since some of the teachers in public schools are striking and there have been student demonstrations at several high schools, some of which got violent.

My experience with the strike, though, is pretty much limited to yesterday. Or early this morning, if you want to be all technical and accurate. I went to into Paris in the early afternoon to visit the Musée d'Orsay (more on that later, for now, two words: So. Awesome.) and then met up with some other au pairs in the evening. I knew they were planning to stay quite late, but I'm not exactly a night owl, so I decided to catch the 11:23 train from Gare Saint Lazare back to Villennes sur Seine, the itsy-bitsy town a few km from us (no idea why they have a train station and we don't) where I'd left the car.

Yeah, well, because of the strike the online info about train times was wrong and the only train running to Villennes last night was what is normally the last train of the night, the 1:03. I had been told to avoid the last train and the first metro runs because they're super sketchy, so I wasn't about to take it by myself. Villennes, where I get off, is an adorable town of a few thousand, and perfectly safe. Some of other stops on the train are less sleepy and reassuring. Like Poissy which, while fine in the daytime, has been characterized by one of the other girls as "that town where all the criminals live." That is not strictly true, since lots of nice people live there as well, but it is a little creepy to be in the Poissy Gare Sud late at night. Fortunately for me, one of the other girls decided she didn't feel like staying out last night either, so we caught the 1:03 together and everything was fine.

Well, fine in the sense that we got to Villennes and back home without any trouble, not fine in the sense of getting home when I wanted to or in the sense of not having to take the sketchy train or in the sense of not having to sit around Saint Lazare much longer than I planned. Not fine in those ways, but fine in the I-was-totally-safe way.

Actually, because of the strike lots of other people were, just like us, forced to take the 1:03 rather than an earlier train, so I felt more secure than I otherwise would've on a train that late. But that twisted benefit of the strike did not, at all, outweigh the serious inconvenience of having to wait nearly 2 hours longer than I expected to have to wait. At all.

And I know that's sort of the point of strikes like this, to make the public sit up and pay attention to the cause, but I cannot tell a lie: mostly I just thought, "Ok, yeah, they want to raise the retirement age 2 years, but doesn't everywhere else in Europe except Russia have a higher retirement age than 62 already? And seriously, it's cold in this station. So start working again so that I can catch a normal train. Thanks."

This is perhaps not the kindest or best approach to addressing what may be legitimate grievances. But it was cold at Saint Lazare, so my sympathy was kind of (very) limited.

I hope they can get the strike issues worked out though, because while it doesn't really bother me during the week (we have to drive to our French classes anyway because even when they aren't on strike the buses don't run at times that work for us), lots of other girls in my French class need public transportation to get to and from class and aren't able to get - or have to come really early/leave really late because only every second bus is running (there's still some transportation available, it's just limited).

Okay, but my next entry will be about the Musée d'Orsay! I wanted to do one entry for both, so that I could end on a happy note, but this kind of got away from me and is super long, so ... yeah, it'll have to wait. Next time: art! windows! awesome furniture! impressionism! picture taken illegally inside museum! Yeah, you know you're super excited.

Game time

Yesterday, while the girls were doing homework, the youngest and I played his current favorite game. I feel that it merits a description because it's been a big part of my life this week (he wants to play it constantly) and will probably continue to be around for the next couple weeks.

It's called Thief and Police Officer (yes, I'm aware there's a game called Cops and Robbers, but I can't remember it's rules and don't want to get them confused). Anyway, whenever possible he is the thief and I am the police officer. Essentially, the game boils down to this: he pretends to steal something so I grab him and throw him in jail - literally throw, since jail is the sofa. Then I walk away (presumably to apprehend other thieves) and he escapes. So I catch him and throw him back. You get the idea.

I am not allowed to spend very long locking him in his cell because this delays his escape and his favorite part of the game is, of course, getting grabbed by the knees and chucked onto the couch. This does beg the question of exactly what kind of jail I'm running, and how effective police training is, given that he escapes, on average, at least once a minute.

This isn't the only game he's taught me, either. A couple weeks ago his favorite game was a card game called Seven Families. It's sort of like Go Fish, except the cards are specialized so instead of collecting 4s, say, you're collecting all six member of The Family Dakodac in the Mountains. It's not a bad game, all things considered, but unfortunately, being 5 and in kindergarten, he can't really read - problematic when the names of the families are written on the tops of the cards. Yeah, it's a lot more complicated when you're trying to be very clear in your description of the card you need since he's only looking at the pictures. Also, he tries to change the rules, so you have to keep an eye on him.

The other game he taught me was Mille Bourne. Now, admittedly, the last time I played that I was maybe 10, but I'm pretty sure that some of the rules we played by are not actually related to the rules of the game in any way. Also: correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it sort of the point to travel 1,000 miles? Because the other problem (besides some seriously questionable rules) is that he can't actually count to 100, much less 1,000. This did add some excitement to the game ("Ok, see now I've gone 500 miles and you've gone - no, I'm counting, no, I meant, ok, fine. Yes, it's your turn now. Wait, that light is what color?") It made the game ... how can I say this ... an exciting change from ordinary, confining games of Mille Bourne where things like number of miles figure somehow into game play.

At least he doesn't want to play monopoly!

Safety Info

You may or may not have heard, but the US (and now Great Britain and Japan, and possibly others) have issued travel warnings to their citizens who are currently in Europe because of the threat of a terrorist attack, and being a US citizen in France (the warnings were strongest for France and Germany), this is something I'm taking seriously.

Don't freak out, because it's not like I'm barricading myself in the house or anything, and the town I live in is very tiny (aka completely safe) but I am going to be taking precautions if I go into Paris, trying to avoid super touristy areas, that sort of thing.

Anyway, I don't want to alarm anyone, just let you know in case you hear about the warnings that I'm aware of them and should (God forbid) there be a terrorist attack in France I'll update facebook to let y'all know that I'm fine :)

Happier post to follow soon, hopefully!

New French cultural experience: Wednesdays

Wednesdays are, in fact, a French cultural experience when you are with French children. This is because, until 6th grade, when they start collège, they have Wednesdays off. Collège is essentially middle school, though with there are much bigger differences between 5th and 6th here than in the US. This means that on Wednesdays there are lots of different activities the kids participate in, rather than having stuff after school the other days of the week. What this means in terms of 'what Susanna does with her life for the day' is that I spend a lot of time driving.

Not that I mind that, now that I'm a semi-competant driver, though you can see why it was so important to learn how to drive, and quickly, because they started Wednesday activities (at least some of them) the week after they started school. Wait, I think that sentence started out going somewhere different than where it ended up. Crap.

But moving right along, the point is that on Wednesday this is what my life looked like (note totally French time notation):

• 11.00 - Lauriane to pottery
• 12.30 - Lauriane from pottery
• 12.30-1.30 - lunch
• 14.00 - Alix to pottery
• 14.45 - Lauriane to rock climbing
• 15.00 - Aymeric to multi-sport
• 15.30 - Alix from pottery
• 16.00 - Aymeric from multi-sport
• 16.30 - Lauriane from rock-climbing
• 18.00 - Lauriane to catechism
• 19.00 - Lauriane from catechism

It looks kind of crazy, but it was actually fun, mostly. The kids enjoy the activities, and they something fun to do outside of the house. And, to be perfectly honest, it means I don't have to come up with a full afternoon of activities that all three of them will enjoy.

It's a different approach to extra-curricular stuff, though, because in the US you get out of school earlier (I pick them up at 4:30 - 16.30, as it were) and so you do all your activities after school (my youngest sister's cheerleading practices come to mind). I'm honestly not sure which I think works better - because if both parents work and you don't have an au pair, you have to get someone to watch the kids one day a week or you have to have daycare. But the same can be true in the US, where the kids can get out of school before parents are out of work. Hard (if not impossible) to make a judgement call on 'better' or 'worse' between the two approaches.

Woah y'all, I introspected there. Ok, not really, but I did reflect on cultural differences! Win for my blog!

And now I shall leave you with an image from our arts and crafts session a few Wednesdays ago. Behold, here is what I have accomplished as an au pair:

Why yes, it IS a spiral bound notebook that I turned into a sheep, thank you for noticing (when you lift the head you get to the notebook, which is cleverly sandwiched between head and body). I know, I know, too awesome.

Classes start tomorrow. I'm kind of way excited.

I have come to a decision: I will no long apologize at the beginning of each post for not updating this more frequently. I live life with no regrets! ... Ok, that last statement's not exactly 'true' in the strictest sense of being 'not false' but the point remains: I cannot continue to take up blog space, when I do update, with elaborate promises to update more often which, let's face it, are probably lies anyway.

Having gotten that both out of the way and off my chest, I'm starting classes tomorrow! Taking French classes is a requirement for obtaining an au pair visa, and I'm not sure that I'd be taking them if I wasn't required to, but as I am, I'm excited. If I didn't have the classes I'm sure I could join a language exchange coffee gathering, or something (there are surprisingly many) but I think that having the structured time, hopefully with emphasis on some of the finer grammar points I no longer remember, will be good. Extra instruction in French culture couldn't hurt either.

Not that just being here isn't a lesson in French culture - it certainly is. Did you know that you not only greet by kissing twice on the cheek, you greet those you're especially close to with four kisses? I now know this because one set of grand-parents informed me, the second time they came over, that I was included in the group of people they greet with four kisses. They're very sweet and fun, and both sets of grandparents (the maternal ones came for lunch today) have been lovely. I feel very included in the conversations - and the paternal grandparents have even been to Kenya!

Ok, on to other French cultural lessons. Oh, one of the other au pairs and I had a discussion about this: the food culture. Because in the US having cheese after the meal, or wine with it, is sometimes considered a rich/snobby/pretentious thing to do. Here it's just done. I wonder if perhaps some of the idea that the French are snobby has to do with their association with behaviors we consider pretentious but which are the norm here. And I hope this doesn't make me a pretentious snob when I get back, but ... I want to keep up some of that. Especially the cheese and bread part. Oh how I shall miss 45 centime baguettes when I get back to the US!

And, for your edification, here's the kind of cheese I'm talking about:

Note the mold on the casing the the bits of grass stuck to it. I bought it at the farmer's market in Versailles last Saturday. And despite the somewhat sketchy appearance (and in the end I did cut off the rind before eating it) this cheese was made of awesome. No, really. You've heard of 'La vache qui rit' cheese? The laughing cow? Yeah, this was made by an actually laughing cow. Or goat. Whatever, the point is, nothing this amazing could have come from an animal that wasn't in an excellent mood. And it's that kind of thing (the cheese, not the happy bovines) that I'm really enjoying.

The biggest adjustment, at the moment isn't cultural, though: it's the weather. It's fall now, and starting to get - well, they say it's getting cool, I say it's getting cold. This may be a problem once it actually becomes winter. As an example, yesterday and today I doubled my socks. They are ankle socks and essentially the cheapest Target had to offer, so doubled they're about the thickness of 1.5 pairs of normal socks, but still. I also bought boots, since I didn't own any without heels. Actually, in B'ham last year I just continued to wear my normal ballet flats (or sandals) all winter - I'm a follower of the 'just add trouser socks' mentality. That is not going to work here. Soon I shall also have to invest in warm tights (none of that thin nylon here! we believe in tights that insulate) and probably an additional sweater. La vie!

To bring this post round full-circle, I have decided (in the time it took to write this post) that I am going to make extravagant promises to update more often. This time, though, I have a plan. And yes, I realize my last plan was to update daily with a short post. That lasted ... 3 days? Maybe? But this time (and LCL, you should appreciate this) I am going to make a schedule. This way on certain days I will write emails, on certain days I will update blog, on certain days I will just eat chocolate and pretend to be productive. Everyone wins! Update on which days are blog days will follow. Eventually.

And now I've been to Paris!

Wow, sorry anyone who's reading this, but I just realized how long it had been since I updated this. What with writing emails and now trying to be on facebook regularly, I loose track of what I have and I haven't kept up to date.

So yes, I'm still here (it would be sort of a problem if I suddenly wasn't), well settled-in, with the kids in school - except for today, since they don't have school on Wednesdays. Still very much enjoying getting to speak French, eating tons of baguettes and sampling cheeses. Also: I bought a trench coat, which makes me feel very française. Hopefully I will post pics of that soon.

The other thing that's making me feel very française is driving here. I am getting more confident not just in my stick-shift driving abilities, but also in my turning-corners-while-looking-in-the-little-mirror-mounted-on-the-side-of-the-road capabilities. Mind, I still stall out now and then, but not too too often. Not more than once a trip, usually, and often not at all. Although starting on a hill gives me the willies. I spend a lot of time worrying about hitting the car behind me. So far so good. Let's hope I didn't jinx it.

But the most exciting news (that was all just intro, sorry!) is that I have now been to Paris! Twice! For proof, see my facebook page. Me + Eiffel Tower = profile picture.

Saturday I went in with two other au pairs and we met up with the friend of a friend of one of them, who's also an au pair. It was a lot of fun ... which is a really underwhelming way to express my feelings about the day, but while it's a drab expression, rest assured that the day was awesome, despite the blisters I developed. Generally I say "beauty is pain" and accept the lack of skin on my Achilles tendons, but since I really want to be able to think about what I'm seeing while in Paris, and not just about my feet, I may have to forego that particular philosophy in the future.

But I digress: Paris. On Saturday we pretty much just wandered around. We found the Swedish embassy first, since one of the au pairs I was with is Swedish and needed to vote, then we made our way to the Seine. We ate on the outdoor patio of a café next to the river, then walked over the Louvre before taking a metro to the Champs Elysées to meet the other au pair. We walked down the Champs Elysées and stopped for coffee (or hot chocolate, in my case) just to say we'd eaten there. Yeah, the café we were at had 8 euro cokes ... so I won't be doing that again any time soon. I mean, I can buy a can of coke in the grocery store for less than a euro - location-based pricing is so weird. But after the Champs Elysées we went to Notre Dame (though not into it) and then to the Latin Quarter and by the Sorbonne (and that's an area I'd like to spend more time in).

Sunday I went in with the fam, and we went to the Eiffel Tower. It was amazing. As you may know, I'm terrified of heights. Not of falling, particularly, just of being up high at all. So the elevators with the glass sides? Yeah, not so fun. Once I was actually up on the platforms, though, it was better. And the views were absolutely amazing. Paris is HUGE, by the way. I knew it was, obviously, but seeing it from that high up, and really getting a good look at how densely packed all the buildings are (and sometimes it looks like Paris is one giant apartment complex) really brings the size of the city home. I'm so glad I got to go all the way to the top.

Okay, I think this is long enough for now - just an overview he of what I've been up to. More details of specific activities to follow!

In France!

And I'm finally in France! This should be an especially exciting blog post, then, since being here is sort of what this entire blog is supposed to be about.

BUT: I'm now here! I'm writing from the day bed in my room, having a little extra time tonight because I did not end out going for a driving lesson with the father (I'm going to have to find a better way to refer to the family I'm working for - that's way too awkward). The reason I have to re-learn to drive being that the car I'll have the use of is manual transmission and prior to Tuesday, I'd never driven anything but automatics. But tonight it was raining pretty heavily and since my coordination of the clutch v the gas is still tenuous at best, we decided it was best not to risk me driving around in the dark.

Other than driving lessons, I've been settling in. Le père (i.e. the father, which is better ... but perhaps not there yet) has been working since I got here on Mon, but la mère (starts with "m," rhymes with "other") started work yesterday. So I had the three kids (9, 7, and 5) half the day yesterday and all day today because they don't start school till late next week.

In terms of French accomplishments, I have drunk an Orangina (oh, how I love thee!), eaten baguettes or some other bread with butter and jam for breakfast every morning, had cheese after dinner most nights, and, most importantly, spoken and mostly understood lots of French. I have to take French lessons while I'm here, per government mandate for everyone on au pair visas, but those don't start till late September. So for now I'm speaking French with the family and working on learning some of the basic household vocab that I've forgotten.

I have also been learning to cook various french meals - because they believe strongly in a hot meal for lunch as well as dinner, unlike most Americans (i.e., you know, me). Fortunately for me, I have the help of the oldest child in this, since I'm often uncertain about the meanings of food-words and, when those are clear, about how the French usually cooks said foods. And the 9-year old is a competent cook, or at least a competent explainer, so so far I've done pretty well. All 2 days that I've cooked lunch, that is. But hey, we all have to start somewhere.

In other French news, when la mère got back from work in the early afternoon on Wed she gave me the afternoon off and I walked to a nearby shopping center where I purchased a hair-dryer. I brought my own, but after using in on Monday, I decided that it might be prudent to purchase one that I was sure could handle French electric voltage. Mine blew out the same amount of air regardless of setting, was significantly louder than usual, and emitted and unfortunate and pervasive smell of smoke and singed rubber.

So yeah, bought a new one. And while that may sound banal (o ye of little imagination!), it was actually a minor victory: I found the mall, found an electronics store, found the hairdryers, talked to a sales-person, paid for the hairdryer, and picked it up from the back of the store after doing so. All kinds of French happened throughout that, people. And I understood everything and managed not to make a complete fool of myself.

And this sounds trite, but I think the title of this is blog is actually appropriate now. Because I really am - mostly, except for a few things like, you know, this blog - living in a francophone environment. It's actually kind of thrilling, not gonna lie.

Leaving!

Since the last post, written a day or two after I got to Orlando, I haven't updated. This has been (mostly) purposeful - I've been at home, relaxing, spending time with family, doing last minute getting-ready-to-go-to-France things, and those don't make for particularly exciting blog posts (in my opinion). So suffice it to say that the last week and a half has been lovely - we had an early b'day party for my youngest brother and sister, went to the beach, I got to see a friend from high school, watching Phineas and Ferb, read, and generally lazed away my time.

Now, though, I'm sitting in the airport in Orlando, surrounded by people who are speaking what I think is Dutch (though I wouldn't swear to that) and waiting to board what promises to be a very crowded plane.

I'm a little nervous, I admit. After all, I haven't actually met the family I'll be living with for most of the next year, and I don't actually know anyone in France. It's a lot of newness. But I'm also really excited. I've been looking forward to living in a francophone country for years - and my obsession with French can finally be appeased! I know it will be quite an adjustment, so I'm trying to get ready to be wrong a lot and to learn learn learn - so please pray for me in that, that I'll be humble when I'm wrong, ready to be taught, and a good au pair and role model for the children. And now I've got to run, because they're going to start boarding in a few min; wish me luck!

Back at home!

Well, once again I forgot about my blog. In my defense, since my last post I turned 22, packed all my stuff, drove to the top of Pike's Peak, traveled to Birmingham, had a sleepover, met with as many relatives as possible, repacked my possessions, flew to Orlando, had my birthday party, took the GRE and went through all the stuff I'd packed at the beginning of the summer in order to start packing for France.

So I've been a little busy. Also: GRE, you were not particularly better the second time. All that studying I did (and I swear, I did study) and I only raised my math score a measly 10 points. Ugh. My verbal score didn't change at all (not that I was particularly trying to raise it).

Although given that I now think I have to take the GMAT anyway, this maybe doesn't matter that much. But it would have been so gratifying to raise it 40 or 50 points. But I'm letting that go. Really.

And anyway, that day ended better than it began (I took the GRE from 8:30 to 12) because my 19-but-almost-20 year old sister and I had a combined birthday party that night with, and this was her idea, a piñata. See below:

I know. Fierce. But we won. And now have smarties and chocolate to prove it.

In other news, my Mom, Dad, younger brother and I went biking this afternoon while my younger sister read and my youngest sister was in cheerleading practice. It ended up being fun. I hadn't ridden a bike in, wow, several years? A long time, anyway. But we rode around a nearby neighborhood and drove by youngest sister's practice on a path that may, in retrospect, have been verboten for bikes. Oops. And we got disgusting and hot and sweaty (though, being in Orlando, that would have happened even if we'd just sat outside long enough). So went swimming as soon as we got home. Lots of fun. It's good to have some time at home.

Career choices and creepy fortune cookies

It’s my second-to-last week of work. What this has mostly meant for me is that I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to cram in conversations with co-workers about careers, i.e. asking them about their jobs and, therefore, where I should go to graduate school.

One of the best of these conversations was when a colleague took Co-Intern and me out to lunch. We went to this little Chinese place across the street from our office building and had a nice long lunch where the food was good (although Co-Intern might quibble a bit about that – her orange chicken was very, very citrusy, though not bad) and the conversation was better.

Our colleague is about 40, I would guess, and has a lot of experience to share, both personally and professionally. It was a lot of fun to talk to her, and especially to get advice (have I mentioned I’m a little desperate for that? Yeah, because I am). So we talked about working in a nonprofit vs. the corporate world (my personal opinion: just because it’s Christian nonprofit doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be run like a business – it’s just that the profit isn’t in $), about men, about marriage, about being a career woman and a mother. Fascinating, and definitely things I need to think about.

The only thing that wasn’t wonderful about the lunch was my fortune cookie. Apparently someone can read my mind – and I don’t mean that the fortune cookie had insight into my career decision struggles or secret fears. No, my fortune cookie actually read, “Someone can read your mind.” Thanks, creeper fortune cookie. But the worst part is that when I saw it I immediately though, “Oh great, must be Edward.”

Maybe my (apparent) belief in fictional characters indicates a lack of grounding in reality and THAT’S what keeping me from making career decisions (and partner in the apartment o’ awesome, the Edward thing is totally your fault).

Life Crisis

Wow, I am an utter failure at updating. I think that saying I’d update everyday was seriously overambitious – I need to ease into this whole blogging thing.

But, for now, my event du yesterday: life crisis.

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s dealing with this right now. In fact I know I’m not. That does not make it easier. Yesterday’s life crisis was brought on by a talk I had with my boss’ boss about (surprise!) what I wanted to do with my life and career. Not that the talk went badly in and of itself, just that not having a life/career plan really comes to light when you’re having a discussion like that. And that’s pretty much what happened to me.

It does explain why I can’t pick which grad schools to apply to – I don’t know what I want to do with my career, so picking the program that will best help me reach that (nonexistent) goal is a little difficult.

With that conversation in mind, I have decided to change the way I approach the issue. Instead of worrying about what grad schools to concentrate on, I’m going to focus solely on figuring out what I’m good at, what I like doing, why I like doing it, and where those intersect. After that my hope is that an idea will come to me, like a bolt of very inspired lightning, and I’ll know how to make a career out of them.

Yeah, it’s pretty fool-proof.

White water rafting!

Today I went rafting! It was my host mom's (HM's) idea, and we spend several weeks getting everything organized. And today was finally the day.

So my host family, minus host brother #2 (HB2 - which I maybe shouldn't use, because isn't that a kind of pencil?), myself, 9 other interns, 2 friends-of-an-intern and 1 significant-other-of-an-intern drove out to Bighorn Sheep Canyon and spend 3 hours rafting 14 miles. I'd never gone rafting before, and it ended up being a lot of fun. And fortunately it was hot today (upper 90s) because the water, like all water here apparently, is runoff from the mountains and therefore very cold.

Anyway, there were 6 of us per raft plus the guide. It wasn't a particularly intense rafting experience, since none of rapids were above a 3, but quite a few of us (myself included) had never rafted before, so I can't say that was really a downside.

I'm told that we passed several bighorn sheep on the way down, but my raft only managed to see one. Still, it was exciting because it was up on a hill at the top of the canyon and you could see the silhouette outlined against the sky. Very picturesque and whatnot.

And the canyon itself was pretty. Somewhat brown, but lots of bushes and trees and dramatic rock formations - it looked exactly how a canyon in CO ought to look, especially one that had witnessed snipers and fighting over building the railroad through it. Very Tombstone, but without, you know, the town of Tombstone or the actual outlaws or Val Kilmer.

What was especially nice was that in places where the river was calmer and deeper, we got to get out and swim - although you still had to be careful of the current.

The rapids themselves were a lot of fun. Random rocks and water spray, and bumping and small drops; it was fun and a little exciting, and it just felt so good to be outside (which is not something I always embrace). And I didn't get sunburnt and afterwards we went to this hole in the wall hamburger place where I got a milkshake called "the grasshopper" that contained mint ice cream and oreo chunks. It was a kind of fabulous end to a Friday spent on a river, not in a cubicle.

I now feel like I've had a very CO-y experience, and even have something eventful to post about!

Today I made a decision

Today, in an attempt to overcome my blog-writer's-block and blog-writing-angst (it's been what, a month since my last post?) I have decided to do something different with this thing. My new goals is to write a short post every day (good luck to me on that!). The operative word here is short. After all, the original goal of this was to keep family and friends up to date on what I was doing while I work/travel over the next year.

So, in hopes that this will stick, here's the first event du jour post!

Okay, it's actually an event du yesterday, but one can't have everything in life. So: yesterday I studied for the GRE!

Yes, I am aware that that is neither a CO-specific nor an interesting activity (trust me, I KNOW studying for the GRE is not quite a thrill ride), but I decided it was better to do a boring event than not post at all. Probably.

Anyway, I bought a prep book to help study because, after taking the GRE in Nov I realized that while I'm totally awesome at the verbal section I'm, well, less totally awesome at the math section. And now I'm very glad indeed that I bought the book because in the course I studying I realized that:

1. I really need it - because:

2. I remember almost nothing about math. I can barely remember how to multiply. And sometimes I have to think about the multiplication table a disgracefully long time.

Oh math, I seriously don't love you. But last night I was feeling pretty good about things. I was going through the math section, and I was sure that I was going to go into the GRE saying, "Take that, GRE! I will destroy you! I laugh at your "hard" math problems!"

And then I did the 10 practice problems at the end of the section. And got, oh, about 5 right (which is .5, or 1/2, or 50% - maybe the studying is paying off!).

Yeah.

So, unfortunately, I foresee quite a few more evenings spent in the company of my fabulous GRE prep book. But hopefully something else will happen on those days so I won't have to keep writing about them!

CO milestone

Since Saturday, my life has had two major Events - one on Saturday itself and one on Monday. But to really appreciate the magnitude of these, I should explain something.

Some people get really excited about certain types of activities. For example: some people like coffee. They cannot imagine starting or getting through a day without it. Take a step above that: some people really like Auburn/Alabama football. And a step above that: many people are very dedicated to breathing.

And then, a step above that, is how I feel about reading.

With that in mind, here's my event for Saturday: I joined the public library here!!

Wow, when I actually write it out it seems somehow less awesome and life-changing than it was. Rest assured, it was an Event (with an "E") that will stand out in my memories of this summer. Because I brought 8-9 books with me from AL (yes, yes I did devote quite a bit of my suitcase weight limit to books), and I've been reading the books that I've found around my host family's house, but while all of those options are nice, they are not the same as having a library card and, therefore, access to the range of fabulous books I've been waiting to read until I graduated.

Although, to be fair to myself, a number of the books on that list were read regardless of my being in my final semester and having mountains of work to do (A Conspiracy of Kings comes to mind). But now, since I'm only working 40 hours a week and have a couple hours free in the evening, I'm re-devoting myself. It's wonderful, if not productive in the sense that I have not been doing much email/facebook/blog type stuff. And at some point I may stop putting off sleep to read, but I can't guarantee it.

The joy of Saturday was slightly dampened, though, by my quick realization that the library where I got my library card, which is the one closest to my host family's house, was in fact very cute, very small, and very not filled with the books I wanted to read.

Which brings us to Monday, and why that was an Event, possibly even with a capital Vent, not just a capital E. Because I talked to one of the other interns who's a local and he recommended a different library. I went there right after work. It's farther away, so I can't go all the time, but it was a beautiful, peaceful, totes fab experience. I found about 7 books, both fiction and non, that I've already started (including one called Bastard Languages, about Creoles and other slang languages, that I'm definitely looking forward to, and wow, I am SUCH a dork).

So now that I'm equipped with that most necessary of items, a library card, I would love book recommendations, for when I finish the ones I've got. :)

Starting a blog

I thought it would be such a great idea to start a blog. Inspired by friend LL, I decided it would be an awesome idea to have a blog where I could write about what I was doing, keep people updated on my summer and on next year (since I'd be traveling some) and generally have a chance to share my thoughts and feelings with the world.

So I set up this blog about 3 weeks ago, maybe 4, and promptly didn't write a single post.

The problem, I've found, is that I'm too cautious for the internet. I'm leery of putting my thoughts out there, where they can be read recklessly and by goodness only knows who, where a careless word could come back to haunt me. Additionally, having started my summer job, I find that I'm also little nervous about being indiscreet in my opinions. I'm getting paid and enjoying my job so far, and I'd like to continue doing so until August, thank you very much.

All of this has conspired to cause me to fail to write a blog post. But writing an entire post about not writing (though it seems a little post-modern, somehow) also seems a bit self-indulgent.

So I'm going to screw my courage to the sticking point and actually write something that contains information about me, my opinions, and my job. Take that.

Basically, I'm in Colorado. It still amazes me to see mountains when I walk outside - Alabama does not have snow-capped peaks. I started work at a Christian nonprofit last week, and am still figuring out exactly how it works and what I'll be doing. What's most interesting to me so far is that I seem to be among the more liberal of my fellow interns. This is a new experience for me. But I could be very wrong because the thing about being in a Christian nonprofit is that there are expectations (and whether there should be or not is not the subject of this post) about opinions and behavior and it's hard to tell if what I'm slowly picking up about the other's beliefs and ideas are accurate or if they reflect the surroundings.

And I think that's enough for now. More deep, thoughtful reflections about life, the universe and everything to follow.

Oh! And I have the first set of paperwork I need for my visa!! :D

I felt that I should share some pictures, also, in preparation for a later post that actually is about what I've been doing. This is snow. In the woods that we were walking in. LAST WEEK.

Just had to get that last part out.