10 signs you're heading back to America

My hometown. Franchement, I got teary eyed.

1. Everyone's speaking English. Loudly.
2. Too much ice in the water glass. 
3. Blue jeans and tennis shoes.
4. Beach boys radio station on the plane.
5. Smiling! Oh, I really missed smiling at strangers.
6. You have to take your shoes off to go through airport security (go, DHS!)
7. Nutrition facts no longer contain calories (vs. kilocalories) or irrational serving sizes. 
8. You're flight attendant's name is Cathy and she's maybe the nicest person you've ever met (hello, customer service!). 
9. You can see baseball fields from the plane window. 
10. Economic propaganda commercials by CNBC: "capitalize on it"

RDU -- 22 hours without sleep!

What I learned from my time abroad

1. Picnics are the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
2. Humiliation is a good teaching tool: the times that my cheeks went red are the mistakes that I won't repeat.
3. I like to run. 
4. A meal without cheese is like a pretty girl missing an eye. Un repas sans fromage est une belle à qui il manque un œil.
5.  Accents are endearing.  
6.  Always buy the one euro insurance. 
7. Every "weird" food is worth trying once. 
8. When you don't know how to say something "in so many words," you learn to just say what you mean.
9.  People are fascinating, and everyone has a story.
10. Not everything will go as planned, but everything will work itself out. Tout se rangera.
11. I've got the travel bug.
12. Life is a lot more enjoyable when you're not unnecessarily stressed. 
13. There is beauty in contrast. 
14. The French way of showering (only turning water on to rinse) saves a heck of a lot of water.
15. How to make crème brûlée. 
16. Don't let fearing get in the way of living. 
17. It is, in fact, possible for me to go without Mexican food for five months (but I'm not looking to run a second trial...).
18. I look far more German than French.
19. With but a step into a church, I can find community and family anywhere in the world.
20. I can't wait to get back to Europe.

A Country Bumpkin in Paris

Peur du jour- 21 Mai 2012: Making a fool of myself

In this episode of European Travels with Kathleen, we find our main character in the Charles de Gaulle Marriot on the eve of her homecoming.

My dad was too good to me. With a flight out of Paris at noon, I knew I was going to have to already be in Paris the night before. I was seriously considering spending the night at the airport to save some money and to avoid the hassle of dragging five months of belongings through the Paris metro system. But, Dad was generous and put me up in the Marriot where I have a real bed, wifi, and a fitness center (free weights and a balance ball for the first time in months!!!).

Home sweet home

But, it quickly became clear to me that I have no idea how hotels work. I must not stay in nice ones very often. Or maybe this hotel is just special. But you have to use your key card for everything. I completely missed the sign in the elevator saying that you have to insert your key to select your floor and was corrected by a bellboy and two American businessmen after I missed my floor. Then I couldn't figure out why none of the lights or electrical sockets in my room were working. I went down to the front desk (because even the phone was out of order) and told them (in French) that the electricity wasn't working... He chuckled at me and asked "did you use your card?" There's a card holder near the light switch that activates all of the lights and electricity.

I'm that clueless girl that gives everyone a reason to laugh. De rien.

"Amen" is always the same

Peur du jour- 20 Mai 2012: German Mass

About four months ago, I went to my first mass in French. And I was terrified. On my morning walk to mass in the small Bavarian town of Lupburg, I experienced similar anxiety. Only this time, I was going to mass in a language which I don't speak at all (other than ein bier, bitte or danke or tschüss). Luckily, God blessed me with a few German friends in Montpellier who helped me prepare for this very mass.

In comparison with what I came to know in France, German mass much more closely resembles American mass.

• It has the same sense of order concerning the procession for the Eucharist, the kneeling/sitting/standing business, and the communication of hymnal pages (they had a cool light up board in the front of the church so I didn't even have to try to interpret numbers!). This organization does not surprise me at all; I've already waxed poetic about the trains. 

German Church in Lupburg

French Cathedral in Montpellier

• The architectural style is completely different from what I experienced in France. White walls instead of stone; natural light instead of colored.

• Similar demographics. There were lots of children and families (so I definitely didn't feel like an outlier skewing the average age). This is likely because Catholicism is a lot stronger in this region. In Bavaria, I see the stations of the cross along the walking trails. In Montpellier, it seemed like more people were "PACS"ed (a type of civil union) than were married.

But I also noticed some differences:

• Much less singing than in American or French masses.
• Like French mass, worship is more personal (vs. communal) in the manner that no one holds hands during the "Our Father" and the exchange of peace seemed to be confined to those sitting only to your left and to your right. I think this probably goes back to the fact that Americans tend to be much more touchy-feely.
• Mass in general seemed to be a little more formal. There's the manner of dressing which in general tends to be less casual in Europe. Also, I noticed that everyone in mass always had their hands folded in prayer which seems a little stricter than the US and far stricter than France.

So I think that in addition to having caught the travel bug this semester, I've caught the Catholic-comparison bug. It's so incredible to me how the slight variations in the rhythm and customs of a mass can be such a manifestation of regional and national culture. I can't wait to keep exploring, but in the mean time, I'd love to hear about your experiences in masses around the world in the comments!

Awesome thing #342 about Germany: The trains

Day 5 in the motherland. Germany continues to impress me. Remember my big cultural lesson about how great the French train system was? I think I was coming from an uninformed perspective. Any train system looks great next to the relatively nonexistent one in the United States.

1. German trains are actually on time. Inconceivable! Lindsey and I have been taking the train daily for our day trips and never once has a train been late. It's nice to know that you can count on making a connection and that you can accurately plan your day.
2. German trains actually check your tickets. This is nice because a lot of the time on French trains I wondered why I had wasted my money on a ticket they wouldn't even check (the answer: because I am honest).
    
3. German trains give you great stories. Friday night train rides out of Munich have no shortage of activity. Lindsey and I were accused (in German) of being Chelsea fans by a dusty old German man drinking beer from his backpack. Another older German man heard us speaking English and asked if we could explain the one English word he didn't understand: stillbirth (he had seen it in a health warning on his cigars). At one point, the four German men in our car were shouting about the upcoming Champions League Final match this weekend and all Lindsey and I could understand were town names and Amerika and JA!!! Never a dull moment.

I, of course, will be cheering for FC Bayern

Guten appetit!

Peur du jour- 16 Mai 2012: Conceding

 On Wednesday mornings, the bread truck comes. Around 8:30, we heard a loud honk announcing its arrival. I watched the neighbors crowd around the back of the truck in the brisk gray morning similar to the way kids crowd around the side of an ice cream truck.

Now, I thought that I had earned the right to be a pastry snob. France does millefeuilles and réligeuses and pains au chocolat and escargots brioches and and croissants aux amandes and every other delicious thing you could imagine. What on earth could possibly come off the back of a German truck that could be tastier than what you purchase straight from the oven in France?

I stood deliriously corrected.

So delicious I didn't even want to take it out of my lap to photograph it.

The Germans understand that the chocolate is the best part of a pain au chocolat. So not only is the whole thing FILLED with Schokolade, but also the ends are dipped in it. The end result: chocolate with every bite. I feel cheated by those skimpy French pastries that contain only a single nugget of chocolate.

Deutschland ist wunderschön.

Mais, je parle français

Peur du jour- 15 Mai 2012: More language immersion 

Today, Lindsey and I went to Regensburg, a really cool Bavarian town on the Danube river. We looked at the beautiful cathedrals, wandered around a fest and enjoyed beer, sauerkraut, and sausage at a restaurant on the river side.

A bridge over the Danube with a view of the Gothic cathedral

The restaurant was one of those places with a bunch of picnic tables where you sit down at the same table with strangers. After spending a few minutes hovering (UNC's dining hall, Lenoir, has really honed our table hunting skills), we found two spots at a nice table in the sun. After ordering our beers (the waitress started talking to us in English after we most surely butchered her native tongue), I heard that the people next to us were speaking French. Génial!

Our incredibly delicious lunch

Lindsey suggested that I ask them to take a picture of us once we got our beers. And without missing a beat, as soon as the waitress set the beers down on the table I was speaking French. We got to talking about how I had just spent the semester in Montpellier and where they were from and all of that. We let them enjoy their meal, but they said goodbye to us before they left!

The aforementioned picture taken by French hands!

Before my semester abroad, I would have been way too shy to do this. Isn't it cool how things change?