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.

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?

Mon mot préféré

My love of words is such that I have a list of my favorites in both languages.

• In English: erroneous, obfuscate, particularly, obliterate, etc. 
• In French: se débrouiller, oreiller, laïcité, etc. 

I like these words not because of their denotations, but because of how they sound and how they feel in my mouth when I say them. There is one French word, however, that I am in love with. More than feeling nice to say, it's the word I would like to choose to describe my life if I could only choose one:

Epanouissement nm. 1. [of a flower] blooming, opening. - 2. [of an expression] brightening. - 3. [of the body] filling out - 4. [of a personality] flowering.

I am flourishing in France with no shortage of epanouissement.

Tongue Tied

Peur du jour- 29 Avril 2012: Accepting correction with humility

The great thing about kids is that they are straight-talkers. If they notice something that is out of accordance with what they know, they don't hesitate to remark about it.

This characteristic of children is what led me to realize a flaw in some of the things I've been saying in French. There is a vowel complexity that can be particularly tricky for Americans which shows itself in the past participial of the verb courir (to run), "couru".

I can't tell you how many times I've used this word with my host mother. I run every day, but never in my nearly four months here has she corrected me. The second I used this word with some children from my church, however, they were all over it.

"Repeat after me. Cou-ru. No. Cou-ru. No. Cou-ru. No not couru, couru!"

I attempted to repeat after them for several minutes. Incredibly frustrating. But now I whisper this word as I walk to myself in the streets (definitely keeps the crazies away). And I'm thankful that they had no shame in shaming me. Because that's how we learn.

Monaco, Au pif!

Peur du jour - 10 Avril 2012: Wandering in Monaco

Today, I took a solo-adventure to the principality of Monaco. Monaco is home to the Monte-Carol, the royal family of Monaco, and enough beautiful cars to give you a sore neck (from the head-turning, obviously). I went in the casino, walked through many beautiful gardens, saw the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace, counted dozens of sleek yachts, and even saw the beginning of the Grand Prix race track. Monaco is where you go when you want to show off how rich you are.

Now, since public displays of wealth are for me what public displays of affection are for others, Monaco wasn't exactly  my favorite cup of tea (spearmint, if you were wondering). But I definitely could appreciate the beauty and history behind it. And it was hard to not imagine yourself as a Bond Girl while walking the gardens of the casino. But I found my favorite spot in Monaco by just wandering around while searching for the Exotic Garden. I saw a trail that intrigued me, but I wasn't really sure where it led or if I should even be there.

And all of a sudden, I found myself in a grove of olive trees overlooking the city. In the country rated the most expensive place to live in the world, I was most content sitting in a bed of grass overlooking the sea.

There's something for everyone!

The Royal Palace- My view from the trail

PS) "Au pif" is a french phrase which translates to "by nose" and roughly translates to "off the cuff" especially when referring to cooking (as in, cooking without a recipe). I used it in this sense to describe my process of choosing roads/paths to walk down.

Bon Appetit

Cultural Lesson #5: Bon Appetit

This French phrase is definitely not a foreign to American ears. From titling a cooking magazine to appearing on Garfield comic strips, this phrase like "rendez-vous" and "déjà vu," has been welcomed into the English language. But, before coming to France, every time I heard someone use bon appetit, it didn't mean very much; it was just a goofy thing to say. It's so French (like the baguette or accordion music) that it's almost  stereotypical. You begin to even wonder if it's something said outside of the dinner tables and restaurants of American movies set in France or scrolled at the bottom of a menu at a fancy restaurant.

I'm here to tell you that bon appetit is so much more than just a fun thing to say before starting a meal. It goes back to the idea that French people see meals as less of a time for nourishment and more of a time to share food around the same table. Everyone says it. You say it at family dinners, friendly picnics, restaurants, and even when just grabbing a crepe from a stand with a friend. If I walk by the kitchen and see my host mother eating breakfast or lunch, it's polite for me to say "bon appetit." It's even considered normal for a stranger to say it to you if you're eating your lunch on a park bench.

It's one of the things I could use to rebut the stereotype of French as cold and standoffish. Food brings us all together. For your next meal, I wish you bon appetit!

PS) I will be blogging all this week, as I have internet access and a computer!

Another awesome weekend

Okay, so je suis crevée after this weekend and I cannot bring myself to stay awake to blog about it. I promise blog posts in the days to come! I went to Perpignan for a Catholic conference for the youth of the region and it was just fantastic. Two things:

1) This weekend I had a lot of people say "I just love your accent" or "I find your accent so endearing" which kind of broke my heart. I was so hoping to not have an accent.. Ca arrive... (it happens...)

2)  Sneak peak!

Baixas, France by sunrise

This is what to expect from "une grillade" (a cookout) in France: grilled sausages on baguettes and muscat wine.

A tout!

PS) It can't seriously already be April, right? Is that the April fools joke? That it's not actually April yet?

Stage fright

Peur du jour: 25 Mars 2012- Public Speaking

So today we began daylight savings time in France-land (goodbye five hour difference between me and Carolina basketball, hello one hour less of sleep!). And, like anyone who is over reliant on technology to give her the time, I missed morning mass. (I thought that turning my cell phone off and turning back on around six in the morning would change it to the right time.. it didn't). But I took it as a sign that I wasn't meant to go to morning mass at St. Denis, and instead decided that I would go to evening mass at St. Bernadette which was being organized by La Source.

So I got to the church early to help prepare for the mass however I could. Part of this was organizing la quête (the collection) and the other part of this was doing a reading for mass. I had been asked in a different church to do the reading back in my first few weeks of being in Montpellier, but I was too much of a scaredy-cat to do it. This time was different. Sort of.

I've never really been one to get stage fright. In fact, I love to perform. I love giving speeches in class, performing in plays, and singing and playing my saxophone for an audience. But for whatever reason, I was really nervous to do this. I felt a little better after reading through the passage and seeing that there were no funky words (even in English, there are words and lots of names that I stumble over), but my heart was still hammering as I approached the alter.

And then I realized that I was just going to do my best and that my best would have to be enough. So what if I'm not a native French speaker? So what if my accent isn't perfectly perfect all the time? I'm not willing to let my fears/apprehensions hold me back from contributing.

And I actually think it went pretty well!

Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert

Peur du weekend- 9 Mars - 11 Mars: Weekend retreat

I just had one of my favorite experiences in France thus far!

This weekend, I went on a weekend retreat through the Eglise Saint Bernadette where I participate in the youth group that I go to each Thursday night. We went to Saint-Guilhem-le-desert which is an INCREDIBLE town perched in the "high valley" of the Herault region. Our group of 10 (of whom I knew only the priest) stayed in a Carmelite Monastery in this small pilgrimage town. It was the first time in my life I'd ever been on an overnight retreat and I'm so glad I made the decision to go. I was nervous because I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into on a lot of fronts, but, as is often the case, everything turned out even better than I expected.

Here are some highlights:

1) Spending a whole weekend (except for a period of maybe half an hour) speaking in French! Nothing beats being surrounded with native speakers and not even having the option of speaking in English (though it seemed like some of my new friends liked to throw out the English words they knew every once in awhile). It's also really encouraging that I had three different people on three different occasions tell me how impressed they were with my French. I even made witty in-the-moment jokes (hey, it's hard when you do a grammar check on everything you say before you say it). And everyone laughed!

2)  My first car ride in France. Maybe this isn't that exciting... but it was pretty cool to watch the French countryside rolling by with my hand out the window (in the wind)!

3) My first traditional French meal experience. So a lot of the other American students here live with families that like to feed them a lot EVERY night. You've got the entrée and then the salad and then the plat and then the fromage and then the dessert. I've heard stories about where some of my friends have just had to go lay motionless on their bed after dinner because they were served so much food and their host families encouraged them to eat all of it. Luckily I was not rendered immobile by any of my meals, but I did have an oh-my-gosh-when-is-this-meal-going-to-end-?!?! moment (and laughed silently to myself when it happened). It was a good cultural experience eat the French way, even if it was just for a weekend. Here's a rough outline of how nearly every French person eats:

• Breakfast: tartine (bread with butter and confiture), coffee or tea or juice, fruit
• Lunch: Appetizer, main course, cheese course, dessert
• 4pm snack: fruit, yogurt, etc.
• Dinner: ...this one I'm a little confused about because I had always thought French people ate lighter for dinner, but our dinner on Saturday night was just as large as the lunch.

4) My first French "jeu de société" (board game). I am such a board game-a-holic. So when the first night I realized that playing a French board game would be our getting to know you activity I was INSTANTLY hooked. I tried to politely veto anything that was American ( they love Monopoly and Scrabble and all the stuff that we play) and we finally landed on something called Le Village. The premise is that a small village is infested with les loup-garous (werewolves) and you are trying to figure out who is who. It was really super fun (especially because we were playing in the dark with only the light of a crackling, cozy fire). I was even elected mayor one round and successfully found out the werewolves in two swift turns (because my powers of deduction and perception are excellent) with no accidental villager casualties. Bravo is what they said to me.

5) Making animal friends. I don't think I've ever seen so many friendly animals in a town ever.

Exhibit A (this looks like my kitty!):

 Exhibit B (this little guy followed me around for awhile and is perched on my leg in this picture):

 Exhibit C:
Saturday night we went to evening prayer with the Carmelite nuns in the main Church in Saint Guilhem. In the middle of the whole thing I hear this pitiful yowling coming from behind me where the main entrance is. Sure enough, a little orange striped cat wanders over to me. I can't help but pet it which I guess was an instant invitation to jump in my lap. I've never had a cat purring in my lap during church before. It was kind of awesome.

6) Hiking to somewhere that seems inconceivably high.

This is my view from above: (you can see part of the foot trail winding down into the village which is on the left)

This is me, perched in the ruins of an old castle:

 I saved this for last... do you see that tiny castle-looking thing on the very last cliff (roughly the center of the picture)?

Yeah. I climbed there. And there wasn't really a path. And I did it in oxford flats (which was stupid, but I got locked out of the monastery because I was REALLY late coming back from personal prayer time, so I couldn't change my shoes).



I have so many more stories to tell, but I feel that this has reached a sufficient length. The last thing I'll say is that this weekend was so much more than just a weekend of cultural and language growth and getting to see a cool little French village. I grew so much spiritually and was really happy to devote an entire weekend doing nothing but praying and reflecting and reading the Bible and devoting my time to God. I'm so delighted to haven partaken in this and can't wait to put into action everything I have learned!

Mother tongue

Peur du jour- 1 Mars 2012: Teaching Frenchies the Chicago "A"ccent 

I'm assuming you guys can all hear in your mind the way that last word is supposed to sound.

So I have not yet talked about my experience volunteering at lycée Jules Guesde (the s is silent... weird, I know). Every Thursday morning (and soon to be Monday and Thursday mornings), I take the bus over to this lycée professional to help out in the English classes. The teacher I work with is really great and tends to like to give me a lot of responsibility.

Some of the funniest things that have happened are trying to get them to understand my "heavy accent." In France, they learn British English (because England is a lot closer than America), but I've never really thought that the way I spoke was difficult to understand. Of course I have an American accent (and even a little bit of a Chicago accent...), but I always assumed that if I at least spoke slowly and clearly, they would understand.

The first time I introduced myself and talked about where I was from and why I was in France and what I was studying, I had a room full of blank stares. And one girl stood up and said (in English) (very loudly) "I DON'T UNDERSTAND." I was reduced to drawing a crude map of the united states on the board and saying "home" while pointing at Chicago and "school" while pointing in the general direction of UNC. And then all the "oooh"s and "ahhh"s and "that's so far!"s started. Also, I mentioned that UNC has a great basketball team, but I'm pretty sure that some of them misunderstood and think that I play basketball for UNC.

Suffice it to say that I end up speaking a lot of French to them (which is fine by me!). I do help them with the tricky pronunciations, though. One of the business classes I was working with was doing a dialogue where one person worked in a clothing store and the other person was a client. The two boys I was helping were writing a dialogue about a "shirt," and they had to be hastily corrected (please, just think for a minute about what inappropriate word "shirt" can sound like). I'm starting to notice which sounds the French have trouble making, which is very interesting (and helps me understand why my name is so butchered. They call me Karlein. Not my name, but it's okay). I think to them, English must feel like spastic stuttering. I was correcting someone on how to pronounce the word "asked" and realized how many percussive sounds our language has!

My work with the lycéens has been rewarding thus far, but every now and again I realize that I may be influencing the way they pronounce English words for the rest of their lives! And then I get really self conscious about my Midwestern accent...

Chandaleur

Peur du jour- 2 fevrier 2012- Speaking up

So yesterday was a low point. And today was a high point!

Beth and I went to the student mass at the Catholic church near UPV. It was wonderful! Today is the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple and is a holiday known as Chandaleur in France. Most of the secular French celebrate la fête des crêpes by eating lots and lots of crêpes. At the Catholic mass, we did it a little bit differently (but don't worry, I still ate three crêpes for dinner).

The evening started with a wonderful candle light procession outside. It was pretty cold (side note: it snowed again today :), but very moving and meaningful. Then we had mass and a period of meditation before heading to a rec-room in a different building to have discussion in small groups. During the small groups was where I had my peur du jour moment. We were talking about some pretty intimate faith life things and I wanted to say something but my language-apprehension was holding me back. And then I just blurted it out and gave away our American-ness (which was a GOOD thing because after small group several people asked us where we were from).

Dinner was my favorite part because it's where we met so many wonderful people of all ages. Beth and I sat down next to some people that we thought looked friendly and, not that I'm counting my chickens, but I think we made some pretty awesome friends tonight (two of whom are English majors and speak English SO very well). We laughed at jokes in both languages and ate soup and loaded crepes with nutella and drank cider and had a jolly good time. I can't wait to go back.

Bottom line: Good things are worth speaking up for. Good things are worth waiting for. Good things are truly a gift from God.

One God

Peur du jour: 8 Janvier 2012- Going to Mass in French

Wow. Just wow.

Mass is something that I know so well. I've been to mass nearly every holy day of obligation (Sundays and religious holidays) since I was born and even more than that when I went to Catholic school or when I have decide to go to weekday masses. We know the prayers, we know when to stand and sit and kneel, we know the songs (does this kind of stuff still freak you out, Lilli?). We Catholics went through a bit of a shock with the new translation of the liturgy, but even after a month of that it felt comfortable for me.

So here I am in a new church in a new city in a new country. The organ is playing and my friend and I found the sheets that had all of the lyrics to the songs and prayers for the day and everything seems good. Then the cantor starts speaking. And, of course, it's in French (go figure). In addition to the obvious language difference, the following stood out to me:

1. The place was empty: I am used to nearly always full churches (if you get there late, you don't have a seat, or at least not a good one). We got to the church 10 minutes early and there were maybe 20 other people there. People continued filing in until around the gospel, but it still was not anything close to the size to which I am accustomed. To give you an idea: they only needed two people to hand out the Eucharist and it took way less time that the Eucharist does in the American churches to which I have been.
   
   This is perhaps because of the time of day we chose to go. My friend and I were occupied at the most popular mass time here (11:30 AM) because we had been part of a group invited for an apératif with a charming Irish-French photographer, Claude, who graciously welcomed those of Irish descent into his home. We decided to go to the 18h00 mass on Sunday evening. My host mother told me that the morning masses are much more populated and lively.
   
   That being said, Catholicism is really in trouble in France. The shortage of priests seems to be exaggerated in this Protestant city. The church I went to today shares its priests with another cathedral in centre-ville. In addition to the lack of priests, my host mother told me there is a lack of parishioners as well. I'm not sure if it's just because the Catholics in Montpellier were unsuccessful in the Wars of Religion or if this is pretty indicative of the state of Catholicism in France. It was definitely a shock for me coming from an area of the United States with large and quickly growing Hispanic-Catholic population.
2. 
   
3. The church was clearly trying to economize: One big thing was that there was no wine at communion (which I found odd in wine country). The church was pretty dark as well (but it was old and perhaps they were trying to preserve the authenticity of the building). The church was also cold (it seems to me like most of the churches I frequent are pretty liberal with the heat and air conditioning). Also absent were the luxurious pews and kneelers. I guess in America we like our comfort because the seating arrangement in this church was rows of wooden chairs and a wooden kneeler that couldn't be rotated away from the floor (I probably looked like an idiot stumbling around the kneeler on the cobblestone floor in my high heeled boots).
   
   It's hard to tell if this was a part of the French being concerned with gaspillage (waste), the culture of going to mass in an old cathedral, or something else all together.
4. I was pretty confused at communion: America is the land of lines. We line up for everything (I love it). I had never considered that other churches might choose a less organized way to do communion. Instead of going pew by pew in an orderly fashion to walk to the front of the church, everyone seemed to just stand up at the same time and head for the priests. This put me in the awkward position of merging into the line to receive the body of Christ. "Pardon..Merci" Not a big deal, but just... different.

Some other church related things

• I definitely got my first whiff of the French body odor sitting so close to the natives. Stinky or not, we are all God's children.
• Tonight at dinner I had le galette des rois (King Cake) which is a cake served during the Epiphany (today). It's also served in some regions for Mardi Gras (which is when I have had it before--Jess and Sam had mad baking skills in high school!) Usually a trinket or a Baby Jesus is hidden in the cake and whoever gets the piece with the trinket is king for the day. In  my adventures today I saw a number of children walking around with crowns on their head (a clear sign that they had been the lucky winners!) It was almond flavored and très delicieux
• I felt the strongest surge of community when we did the Latin part of mass. There's just something about knowing that every Catholic in the world says "Amen" and sings "Gloria" and "Hosana" Super cool. 
• We "tutoyer" God. In French, like in Spanish (and Portuguese and Italian I would presume), there are both a formal and informal version of the second person. In French "tu" is familiar and "vous" is formal. Vouvoyer is the verb which means to use vous with someone. Tutoyer is the verb which means to use the tu form with someone. For example, when I first used "vous" with my host mother she said "tu peux me tutoyer" (you can use "tu" with me). Vous is used with people who are older than you, people in places of authority, strangers of whom you may want to be respectful or are meeting for the first time. I found it so interesting that the French tutoyent God. It seems like if anyone should receive the respectful vous, it would be Him. But, maybe vous would indicate some sort of barrier between God and his followers. The use of tu is perhaps meant to illustrate our friendship and intimacy with God.

The bottom line: Church isn't about the buildings or the individual differences; it's about the people, the community. Awkward situations, body odor, and foreign languages aren't nearly enough to keep me from worshiping in God's house. Besides, I spend approximately 1 hour of my week worshiping in a church and the other 167 hours worshiping elsewhere.

The Churches I plan to check out (tonight was at St. Denis):

Carré Saint-Anne

Cathédral St. Pierre de Montpellier (better pictures to come, I promise)

Cathédral St. Roch

Lingua Franca

Peur du jour: 3 Janvier 2012- Asking a question to a stranger IN FRENCH

Baby steps, right?


This happened several times on the TGV  ("Train of Great Velocity") from Paris to Montpellier. I needed to ask the mec (guy) next to whom I was sitting if he was getting off at the next stop and needed me to move. I asked the woman who sat next to me if she knew if the next stop was Montpellier. I asked the ticket officer if the train was running behind.

These all seem like very insignificant things, but they were scary to me. In France for the first time, using my language with natives for the first time, in a foreign country alone for the first time. Jet-lagged, nervous, on edge. But with every word I spoke in French I realized that I was doing it. I was speaking in natives in french and they understood me. This is the beginning of a great adventure, I can feel it.

 

The view from the window of the train. This was the only time I was able to sit next to the window because this was the stop where the window-seat passenger switched (seats on the TGV are assigned-thanks for the heads up, Siebert Family!)

I'm in France!