my french country internship

hello again, world. it’s been a while, so i thought this was as good a time as any to give you a little update on my goings-on! for those of you who don’t know, i’m back in france. at this point, i don’t think anyone can really be surprised… it seems to happen pretty often these days. but how did i get here, you ask? well, it’s a fun story!

back in may, when i got home from my last stint of working in france and traveling in europe, i didn’t have much of a plan. (shocker, right?) i knew that i had a friend from france coming to visit me in nashville at the end of the summer, so i was hesitant to find a “big girl job” that would take away from my ability to spend time with her. apparently, normal jobs don’t give you two weeks of paid vacation… weird. plus, i still thought i was going to be taking a big road trip before  her arrival… so really, i had no true motivation to get my career going. instead, i lived at home and pieced together an income throughout the summer, working as an assistant coach for my neighborhood swim team (the same one i was on for 14 summers!), tutoring french, and dogsitting. it was fun and relaxing – exactly what i needed the summer to be, in order to avoid the reentry shock that i suffered last time around. as the summer drew on, certain plans formed and other plans fell through… the roadtrip ended up getting postponed for another time, and my friend mathilde came for two weeks. i flew up to meet her in new york city, taking advantage of her flight route to spend a few days touring around with her. we came back to franklin and enjoyed a week of fun, southern adventuring and relaxation together. i got to bring her down to my friend liz’s lake house, which was fabulous, and we had a couple good days in nashville as well.

all throughout the summer, mathilde’s departure was my mental d-day – i was allowed to lay low and not think about the future until after she left. it seemed so far away during the months of june and july, but finally, the week was upon me… her departure was set for august 20^th. i could feel the pressure mounting as my mantra of priorities – “car, job, house” – started to get louder and louder. and then, everything got crazy. on the 17^th, my mom sent me a link to a blog  that she had been following for some time called ‘my french country home.’ the author of the blog, sharon, was looking for someone to help her through a hectic few months – a sort of unofficial fall internship. the ideal candidate: young(ish) with few attachments and responsibilities (i.e. able to pick up and leave); be willing to live in the french countryside for a few months; have a love for all things french, antique, travel, writing; be interested in learning about publishing, blogging, travel planning. as i read the post, i couldn’t help but feel like it would be foolish not to at least send an email. what could it hurt? so, i spent an hour drafting up a message that introduced me, explained a little about my history, and gave a few reasons why i would like to be chosen as the intern. i sent it late sunday night. by wednesday, i had a response that detailed the job a little more and requested a conversation on skype if i was still interested. on friday, i skyped with sharon for about half an hour and we hit it off really well – she told me she would decide within the week and let me know. the following friday, i was offered the job, and i bought my tickets on sunday. so, within the span of two weeks, i learned about, applied for, interviewed for, accepted, and bought tickets for an 8 week internship in normandy! definitely the fastest one of my europe trips has ever come together. :)

i had two weeks to get everything sorted before leaving on the 14^th of september. when i arrived, sharon picked me up from the airport and brought me back to her beautiful home, located in normandy, to the west of paris. it’s a beautiful area of the country, with rolling hills and winding rivers. i have been staying in the guest cottage, which is exactly as charming as you’re imagining. her husband and son are both incredibly nice and there are two dogs, gibson and ghetto, whom i adore. my job has been great – lots of variety and fun excursions. i’ve done everything from assisting at glamorous photo shoots and helping facilitate group tours to carrying out the everyday, behind-the-scenes maintenance of the blog. it’s been a dream to see some of the places i’ve gotten to visit – glitzy parisian hotels, charming 17^th century homes, huge antique fairs, and quaint village squares, just to name a few. learning about the blogiverse has been interesting as well – the amount of work it takes would genuinely astound you. if you would like to see photos from my time here in normandy, check out this album or my instagram.

i actually just got back from visiting a friend in sweden, but that’s a story for a different post. :) this internship has flown by – it’s my sixth week of work already, and i only have two more after this one! once i leave here, i’ll have two weeks of travels before heading home at the end of november. then, the winter, with more adventures already on the books. i truly am living the dream, y’all. i can't believe my life sometimes. cheers to the uncertainty, flexibility, adventure, and joy that being 23 offers!

a portrait of the author, laughing in the face of conventional employment - honfleur, france - september 2014

frunneymoon, part two - island time

after soaking up the history in athens, the second half of our trip was spent gallivanting around the islands. (man. just reading that sentence makes me want to pinch myself – i have had so many cool adventures, i sometimes can’t believe it’s real life.) we had organized a three-island route, starting in serifos, passing through paros, and ending in santorini. our plans started off perfectly – we got the ferry to serifos with no problems (except a little seasickness on my part) and made our way up to our first b&b, which entailed a fairly long up-hill evening hike with our bags. little did we know, our host was waiting for us at the dock in his truck… whoops. we found this out by taking a wrong turn at the very end of our hike, and ending up in a very dark, very isolated little courtyard of houses. no b&b in sight. after a few minutes of deliberation, we decided to knock on the door of the nearest house and ask for directions. slightly intimidating, and even worse because of the language gap – thank goodness for those few phrases we had learned! we eventually got our point across and the man called our host, michael, who came to find us. so.. all’s well that ends well, i guess. due to funky ferry schedules, we only had one night in serifos, so we took advantage of our nice b&b to relax, take a hot shower, and just decompress from the hustle and bustle of athens. it was a fabulous evening!

our ferry the following day wasn’t until after dinner, so we had the whole day to explore the little island. we packed our things and brought them down to michael’s little grocery shop on the bay, where he let us store them for the afternoon. after buying a few snacks, we headed to the beach, where we proceeded to plop down for at least an hour. since we were there at the end of april/beginning of may, the true summer season hadn’t yet begun, which meant we basically had the place to ourselves. it was pretty hot, but we were on the windy side of the island, so the breeze kept us cool... too cool, actually, because we didn’t realize how fried we got until way later… whoops. after having a small lunch at a restaurant on the beach, we decided to hike up to the ancient capital of the island, chora. it was only a mile and a half, but it was honestly all uphill. like, a mile of stairs. it was so amazing, though, because the path took us through the old village, past the classic little white houses with blue shutters and big red bougainvillea bushes, and once we reached the top, we had an unbelievable view. really windy, though!! we spent a few minutes taking photos and admiring the view and then started making our way back down to the harbor. we grabbed our bags, said goodbye to michael and his wife, and then stopped for a cup of tea on our way to the dock. that tea break ended up being one of our coolest memories from the islands, all because we met a 98-year-old woman named maria out on the terrace. the waiter translated for us for a few minutes, and we chatted about her experiences as a native of the island. eventually, though, the waiter had to go help other customers.. but that didn’t stop maria from talking to us! we sat there for nearly a half an hour, laughing along with her to jokes we only sort of understood. she had two cats with her, and i’m pretty sure she explained that one of them was the other one’s mother, and also that her husband had passed away a few years ago (she mimed a dead person to explain that one, hands crossed across the chest and eyes closed). but regardless of the fact that we hardly understood each other, it was awesome to sit and share a moment with someone like maria.

after our tea, we headed down to the dock to catch our ferry to paros. as we waited, a man who had talked to us for a few minutes in the café came up to us and handed me a small gift bag, saying it was a “memory from serifos.” when he walked away, we looked in the bag to find two coffee mugs, painted with typical mediterranean villages. mine had a sailboat and liz’s had a donkey! very random and very kind. kind of like greece. the night got weird, however, when our ferry showed up an hour and a half late… which meant we got to paros very, very late. urgh. and due to the may 1^st holiday, the ferry schedules were limited for the following days, so we had to reevaluate our timing a little bit. we ended up deciding to just spend the night in paros and take a 10am ferry the next morning, in order to have a more relaxing stay on santorini. we managed to walk around the main town on the island that morning, but it hardly counted as a visit to the island. oh well.. next time!

in retrospect, our decision was an excellent one. we got to santorini in the early afternoon (a day early) and found the shuttle for our hostel. it turned out that the place liz had found for us to stay was like… the greatest hostel that has ever existed. i cannot express how nice it was. the place was pretty new and beautifully maintained, in the classic white/peach mediterranean style with a huge pool and cabana bar. we had our own suite, with full beds, a huge (clean!) bathroom, a kitchenette, wifi… all for 13 euro per night. and they didn’t care that we were showing up a night early. it was unreal. plus, we met two sisters basically our age on the shuttle who were staying the same days as us, so we had friends for our visit! the extra day we had on the island meant that we could do a fun tour and have a day to just bum around on the beaches, plus we had three evenings to go into the villages. we literally could not have dreamed up a better situation.

our first full day, we were talked into taking an adventure boat tour by poppy, the amazing woman who runs the hostel. she signed us up the night before and told us when to catch the bus down to the harbor. amanda and brianna (the sisters we met) had decided to come as well, so, around 9am, the four of us found ourselves on a big boat full of tourists, heading out to sea. the boat looked kind of like a pirate ship – it was all wooden and had the rope rigging and big masts and everything… it was cool. our first stop on the tour was the volcano in the middle of the caldera. santorini is famously crescent-shaped – the island itself is actually the rim of the volcano crater, sticking up out of the water. we popped over to a volcanic island in the middle of the bay, where were were allowed to get off the boat and walk around. i may have snuck some volcanic rock for my amateur-geologist mom. as it turns out, volcanoes aren’t very interesting if there’s not like.. lava. it kind of just looked like a very arid, rocky, hilly island. but, anyway.. our second stop was to a hot springs near another island in the volcanic grouping. normally, the boat goes way closer to the spring, but there were other tours there already, so we had to drop anchor about 100 meters away from the spring. they had announced that anyone wanting to swim to the springs needed to go downstairs and change clothes as we approached… the four of us waffled for about 10 minutes, and then finally bri said she was going to do it, which propelled the rest of us into action. a quick minute later, i found myself jumping off the side of a (rather large) boat, into the very cold mediterranean ocean. brr. the swim wasn’t very long, but it was tough going with the waves. to make matters worse, when we got to the hot springs, we discovered that it was really more of a tepid spring. to call it warm would have been generous. plus, we had waited so long deciding that we were called back to the boat within like 2 minutes of getting to the spring. sigh. the swim back was even harder, going against the current, but we all made it back and quickly dried off. all in all, kind of a disappointment, but a worthwhile experience, just for the story. the rest of the day was much less exhausting. we stopped at a different island for lunch, and then made our way over to oia, one of the more famous villages on santorini. it’s where you see all those pictures of the homes clustered together on the cliffs, little blue domes of churches poking out here and there. as we hiked our way up some more nearly vertical steps, we stopped to admire the progressively more impressive view. we made it to the top and explored shops lining the single pathway through the village. after grabbing a quick dinner, we headed to the very end of the village’s main thoroughfare… along with a whole drove of fellow sunset spectators. oia is best known as the place to watch the sunset on santorini, because it has an unobstructed western-facing view. and boy, is the sunset worth seeing in oia. we admired the fading pastels (along with hundreds of others) until the last sliver of the glowing sun slid beneath the horizon… and then there was applause. literally. people applauded the sunset. as twilight fell, we made our way to the meeting place and got on the bus back to our hostel. such an adventurous, memorable day!

day two of santorini was perhaps equally adventurous, in a totally different way. along with amanda and brianna, we rented four-wheelers and took off for the beaches! i’d only driven a four-wheeler a couple times, but the guy at the rental place showed me the basics and i picked it up pretty quickly. once we were squared away, we picked up a picnic lunch at the grocery store, checked the map and hit the road. i distinctly remember the feeling of the wind on my face, as we zipped along a wide stretch of road overlooking the ocean. that was a glorious moment. even though we got slightly lost, the whole island is small, so we made it to the beach we had been looking for in good time. we chose a beach on the southern side of the island, known for its red and black sand. after hiking over the rocks to actually access the beach, we settled in for a few hours of blissful mediterranean beach lounging. we played in the water, ate our lunches, and laid around on the sand for a few hours, until we were all simply too hot. so, we packed up the bags, and headed to akrotiri, a cool archaeological site nearby. it had been destroyed pompeii-style by a volcanic eruption many centuries ago, but we got to see a little bit of how the city would have looked just by observing the way the foundations were structured. very historical, very interesting. we made our way back to the rental shop, returned the four-wheelers, and grabbed some take-out gyros to eat by the pool for dinner. we sat and talked for a long time, finally saying goodnight (and goodbye!) as we went to our separate rooms to pack.

we woke up bright and early to catch our flight off the island, heading back to istanbul. the teensy little airport was basically just big enough to manage one flight at a time, so there were only maybe 50 or 60 people there. although our flight plan was changed a little last minute, we eventually made it back to istanbul for a two day whirlwind visit. we stayed with my friend alex again (bless her, and her darling flatmate liz), so liz could have a quick taste of turkey (hah!) before we both flew away to our next destinations! it was incomprehensibly fun to have liz come traveling with me – i love seeing new places, but i love seeing them with friends even more. we had an amazing experience in greece - i would go back in a heartbeat! if you’d like to see some pictures from this trip, you can check out the album here, starting at photo #51. :)

frunneymoon, part one - athens

never one to do things halfway, i wrapped up my birthday week with the boys juuuust in time for another wonderful trip – my college roommate / soul sista liz came over for a mediterranean-style friend honeymoon (we coined it the “frunneymoon”). for the sake of efficiency, she arrived into istanbul just a few hours after the boys had departed. we hung around for one night with my friend alex (of previous post fame), and then left together the following day for 10 wonderful days in greece!

our first impression of greece was highly favourable. it wasn’t necessarily unexpected, but it was certainly a pleasant confirmation. everyone was exceedingly kind and helpful, from the concierge at the airport to the bus driver in the city center (who let us ride for free because the ticket kiosk was sold out - what?!). moreover, most people spoke excellent english, which was a definite surprise (and relief) for me. we did put some individual effort into learning some basic phrases before we arrived, which always makes a huge difference; starting with a few words in someone’s native language can result in a major change in the attitudes of people you meet along the way! plus, it’s fun to learn new ways to communicate.

the first half of our frunneymoon was spent exploring the city of athens, another amazingly historic place. if you can’t see the trend here, i like history-cations. we had an absolute blast for four days in the city. my favourite part (no surprises here) was seeing the ancient ruins; the enduring presence of millennia of history never ceases to astound me. i loved climbing up the acropolis, seeing the remnants of what was once the shining city on the hill that birthed modern democracy. we stood under the shadow of the parthenon, and it wasn’t difficult at all to imagine what it must have been in its glory days. (the full-scale replica in nashville helped a bit on that front.) we walked along the same paths that some of the greatest thinkers in history – plato, socrates, aristotle – might have strolled down, expounding on their philosophies to the young men who followed in their wake. it was so easy to picture that ancient city, the thriving culture that truly believed itself to be the pinnacle of all human history.

even apart from the overwhelming historical significance, athens was wonderful. we had some truly excellent food – i never liked gyros until i went to greece! like morocco, everything was fresh and often made right in front of you… also, the feta cheese was incredible. the best thing we ate, though, was the yogurt. yes, greek yogurt. on the recommendation of one of liz’s belmont friends, we went and found the yogurt shop “around the corner from the acropolis metro station, across from the gelato shop” and it. was. incredible. we went the first day.. and the second.. and the third.. and the fourth. literally, we ate this yogurt every day we were in athens. it was so fresh and creamy and delicious, and you could add fruit or cereal.. and then the honey. oh my lord, the honey… i have never had anything so delectable. i got the same thing every day – regular yogurt with bananas, corn flakes, and pine honey. the last day i added strawberries. i had to ask panos (the worker, who i ended up friending on facebook because he was so awesome) to give me the same quantity in a bigger cup so i could mix it all better. sigh… i miss you, fresko yogurt bar.

our time in athens wasn’t just spent eating yogurt on the acropolis, though. we saw a good part of the city in those four days! everything from the more modernized “academy” and national library to the little shopping streets of the plaka neighborhood. we checked out a couple museums, the panathenaic olympic stadium (the birthplace of the modern olympics), saw an enormous group of soccer fans gathering in a huge park on their way to a game, and even made some friends in our hostel. on the recommendation of the internet, we took an afternoon/evening trip out to the coast, to the temple of poseidon at sounio. it’s this isolated little temple on the tippy top of a cliff, overlooking the mediterranean on three sides. kind of makes sense why poseidon would want a temple there! we enjoyed watching a gorgeous sunset before taking the final bus back to the city. our last night, we hiked (read: took the cable car) to the top of the tallest hill in athens, lycabettus hill. there’s a teeny little church on top, and a restaurant, and that’s about it! we treated ourselves to a nice dinner, looking out over the city as the sun set and the lights started to twinkle. seeing the parthenon lit up from a different vantage point was certainly awe-inspiring!

on the fifth morning, we headed to the port to catch our boat for the second half of the frunneymoon… but i think that’s a story for a different post. :) if you would like to see photos from greece, check out this facebook album!

istanbul: a bi-continental birthday with my boys

okay, okay. i know. this blog is embarrassingly far behind… i got so busy with traveling (without my laptop, no less) that it sort of just fell down the priority list. then i got home, and i was too overwhelmed to sit and blog… and then, all of a sudden, it’s been over 4 months since my last post. yikes. in an effort to not leave this year’s documentation in limbo (like i did three years ago after my semester abroad), i’m going to try to catch up. slowly. i’m fully aware that you, as my faithful readers, might have completely lost interest by now. but if any of you hates incompletion like i do, and if you have been wondering how my adventures ended, then you’re in luck. just pretend like the forthcoming entries were published 4 months ago.

when last we left our friend jill… i had just finished school. the previous post outlines how i felt leaving my little village, but shares basically nothing about what my next steps were. the curiosity must have been killing you! essentially, the week after work was one slow transition from normalcy to exploration. i spent a few days packing up and cleaning my apartment, stowed my big bag and a few boxes in the attic of the café, and took off with my backpack. since i lived so far from basically everything, even getting started on my traveling took a few days! i spent one evening in bordeaux with my friend emma and her little group, enjoying some rare and precious (and slightly alcohol-blurred) moments together. the next night, i had the absolute joy of spending some time with my dear friend devon in paris, and then i started the multi-step process of getting to istanbul the following afternoon!

this year had many, many plans with many cool people… but few had me more excited than my birthday week in istanbul with two of my absolute best friends. months beforehand, i had convinced two of my closest high school friends, ben and sam, to come explore the city with me for a week in april. step one of getting there involved a 7 hour layover in amsterdam with one of the boys! sam arrived just before i did; we stored our bags in the luggage lockers and took the train into the city for a few hours. it really is a cool place – different from any city i’ve ever visited. i loved the canals and the slightly off-kilter architecture. the clichés were all there, which was interesting. definitely challenges the concept of propriety! after walking for a while, taking some photos, and grabbing a bite to eat, we returned to schiphol airport for our flight to istanbul. a few short hours later (in the middle of the night), we touched down in turkey! getting through border control was a breeze, as we’d already procured our visas online, so it wasn’t long before we were meeting our third musketeer at the airport starbucks. ben had arrived about an hour before us, having come from visiting friends in london. it was so surreal to all be together again, feeling so normal in such new place! we settled in for a little airport camping until the shuttles into the city started running. (in other news, two velvety chairs pushed together makes a fairly decent bed!) around 6am, we caught the first bus into town and made our way to the hostel. unfortunately for us, we weren’t allowed to get into the room until 2pm, which gave us 7 very sleepy hours to kill… we did get to leave our bags though. we passed the morning by grabbing breakfast along the bosphorus and then taking a nap in a park near taksim square. once we got into the room and had a proper nap, the real fun began!

we had one full week together in the city, which called for a little strategizing – there is so much to see! i tried to stay flexible (occasionally a challenge for me) while still ensuring that we covered good ground each day. in typical me fashion, there was a lot of walking involved.. my travel style has evolved into simply picking a neighborhood and trying to see as much of it as possible before moving on to the next one. this strategy actually worked well for us, because we didn’t have too many specific items on our “must-do” list… generally, we just picked a few sights to see, and explored the surrounding area until it was time to move on!

one of my main reasons for wanting to visit istanbul is the history of the place – it may not stand up to the likes of jericho or damascus, but still… the site has been continuously inhabited for almost 3,000 years and that is nothing to shake a stick at! thanks to centuries upon centuries of the influence of various people groups, the culture in istanbul is incredibly vibrant and unique. i particularly loved the architecture – there is a distinct islamic vibe, evidenced by countless mosques, beautiful mosaic work, and arabesque and geometric patterns everywhere. my favourite building that we visited was the sultanahmet blue mosque – an enormous place of worship, filled with light and colour. i also loved the hagia sophia, which is situated just across from the blue mosque. we visited both of those places on my birthday, which made for a very happy history-lover. :)

one of the more surprising elements, however, was the prevalence of water-related activities... or, at least, the necessity of ferries. not including our handful of ferry rides back and forth across the strait, we took two separate boat trips during our week. our first trip was a tour up the bosphorus, bringing us to a village on the shores of the black sea. since it was on the eastern side of the river, it was technically my first visit to the asian continent! (hey, the line has to be drawn somewhere, and i crossed it!) we hiked up a big hill to the castle ruins perched high above the harbor, appreciating the views of the black sea and the bosphorus from the top. our second boat tour came on our last full day, when we took the hour-long ferry to the island of heybeliada – one of a group of islands called the “prince’s islands” in the sea of marmara. the islands are awesome – there are no cars to speak of, and locals get around on bikes or in horse-drawn carriages. seriously. we rented bikes for a few hours and rode around the whole island before grabbing a delicious dinner on the boardwalk. it was certainly a workout, but worth it for the gorgeous views. heybeliada is also famous for having some prime examples of the unique architecture in the area. coming from europe, i was so used to the yellow and gray stone so often used for homes – in istanbul, there were some really gorgeous wooden houses, almost reminiscent of a home in the french quarter of new orleans. i loved taking pictures of the old homes – they have so much character.

in addition to being an exceptionally historical place, istanbul is known for its lively nightlife… which we definitely witnessed. there were no all-nighters (much to ben’s chagrin), but we went out most nights, to a different bar (and even a club, once) to see what all the hype was about. different bars impressed me for varying reasons; some had great drinks and food, others had awesome entertainment and a neat atmosphere, and still others impressed me with their sheer awfulness… but regardless, we had loads of fun meeting people and spending time together. i do not miss that beer though… ugh. if i ever have an efes beer again in my life, it will be too soon. i will say, though… despite all the great nightlife in the city, my favourite evening was the one we spent on the asian side, watching the sun set over the old city. the minarets of the hagia sophia and the blue mosque gave the skyline a delicate silhouette against the dramatically fiery sunset, and the lights of the city twinkled in the water... it was magical.

the best part of the trip was, without a doubt, the friend time. seeing my boys after such a long separation was a blast! we enjoyed discovering new foods together (and also finding that nyc-themed café next to our hostel), walking through the back streets of various neighborhoods, and soaking up the culture in the streets and markets. honestly, we just goofed around a lot and reveled in the fact that three kids from franklin were halfway across the world together, living the adventurer’s dream. the cherry on top of that sentimental sundae was that i got to spend some time with one of my first-ever couchsurfing friends, alex! she was one of the flatmates in the place where i stayed in london, back in 2011. we kept in touch via facebook over the last 3 years, so i already knew that she’d relocated to istanbul over a year ago. when i decided that i’d be going to turkey, she was my first thought! we saw her several times throughout our week stay, and then i got to stay at her flat once the boys left. it was absolutely lovely.

this post seems disjointed… i tried to go for an overall review, as opposed to a day-by-day recounting. suffice it to say, i loved visiting such a wonderful city with such awesome company. and that’s enough about that. :) if you’d like to see a few pictures (also uploaded embarrassingly late), feel free to click here! next up is greece – stay tuned!

camel friends and exfoliation - morocco, part two

oookay, let’s get this second installment going!

as a precursor to this next bit, let me just say that, generally, i stay as far away from guided tours as i possibly can. in nearly every circumstance, i prefer to do the planning myself and enjoy every moment of the exploration once i get to a new place… but i had one item on my moroccan must-do list that was basically impossible for me to accomplish without paying some kind of professional, and that was to ride a camel. preferably in the saharan desert. so, early in the morning on our third day in marrakech, lauren and i crept down the dark stairs of our hotel and waited for the quiet knock of our tour company’s representative, who was sent to retrieve us. we followed him down the street to the plaza where all the tour vans were parked, waiting for the droves of tourists who were leaving that day on various excursions. after a slight hiccup with the number of passengers in our first van (no, 16 people is not the same as 15, and no, you cannot just “squeeze” in the back), we joined a different group and started to get acquainted with our new friends. there were three germen men, two chinese guys, an italian couple (shout out to fred and maria vittoria!), an indian girl, a girl from vancouver, and us. we’d chosen the two day / one night excursion, which ended up meaning a whole lot of van time and not much outside time… you live and you learn, i guess. but when you’re driving through the high atlas mountains, a view from the window is still pretty awe-inspiring! 

we stopped a few times on the way out to the desert, most notably at the fortified city of ait ben haddou – famous for being the city to film any movie with a middle eastern / african / sometimes ancient roman vibe. we’re talking lawrence of arabia, prince of persia, gladiator, even game of thrones… and despite all that, the handful of families that still live in this ancient kasbah do so without running water or electricity. after that afternoon spot, we high-tailed it out to the city of zagora, which was our last stop in “civilization” before the camel portion of our trek. when we pulled up to the dirt lot where our camels were waiting, about five miles outside of zagora, i felt this little twinge of excitement – one of those “i am about to do this, and it is something awesome” feelings. we loaded up the “saddle” bags (woven bags draped on either side of a few camels) and hopped up. and i say “hopped” because i literally had to jump a little bit, even with the camel kneeling down… those things are enormous! when mine finally stood up, my head was about 15 feet off the ground. which was slightly disconcerting at first, but the awesome vantage point it gave me to look out over the expansive landscape quickly outweighed any uneasiness i felt. and to top it off, we set out to our camp just as the sun was setting, which was a miraculously beautiful sight. the camel trek lasted about an hour and a half, which meant that by the end of it, the sky was pitch black in all directions, and filled with more stars that i have ever seen. we saw a few lights off in the distance, but eventually, we were walking towards one tiny glow on the horizon, and i felt like i was almost riding through the sky. the fact that our guide knew exactly where to walk in the dark like that was incredible. 

when we arrived at the camp, we put our bags in the tents and sat for a bit of mint tea. then, the other guides had dinner waiting (harira soup and tajines, what else) so we spent the evening socializing around the tables, first with food and then with hookahs, before eventually moving outside to listen to some berber music around the campfire. in the morning, i woke up eaaaarly to watch the sun rise over the dunes by myself… and it was arguably even more breathtaking than the sunset. the light was so soft and everything had a sort of magical glow about it; the pictures did not do it justice. once everyone else in the camp had woken up, we had a quick breakfast of leftover bread and jam, with the ever-present mint tea, and then loaded up the camels for the return journey. i enjoyed soaking up the sounds and sights of the waking desert as we made our way to the rendez-vous point. from there, it was van time basically all the way back to marrakech! after a little refresh in the hostel room, lauren and i went and got dinner and tea with the italian couple, which was so fun! they are wonderful, and we had a great time talking for several hours – a fabulous way to end our time in marrakech!

after a comical, three-stooges-esque train ride (let’s just say the concept of a train “selling out” doesn’t exist, and neither does personal space, or personal hygiene), the next stop was fez, the cultural and spiritual capital of morocco; it also has one of the oldest and largest medinas in africa, and boasts several universities, one of which is certified by UNESCO as the oldest in the world! we stayed with a friend of connor’s, in a super cool riad tucked into the medina. ethan and his housemates were, like everyone else we encountered in morocco, exceedingly hospitable and generous. we had a blast getting to know them during our short stay – cooking dinner together, trying new restaurants (i highly recommend café clock if you’re ever in fez), and exploring the medina… which is absolutely enormous, and rather confusing until you get the hang of it. while we were only there for two full days, i really got the feeling that fez was the most “authentic” place we went. of course, there are plenty of tourists, but as you walk around the souk in the evening, you can see everyone going about their daily lives – buying food for dinner, greeting their neighbors, coming in and out of the mosques. it seemed less like a tourist trap (like marrakech) and more just like a glimpse into the inner workings of a city that has stood the tests of time. 

i also had the distinct realization in fez that moroccan culture, like so many other cultures in the world, is decidedly not one of waste. especially in the food/animal department… when a sheep is slaughtered, for example, the wool is used to make fabric, the skin is used for the leather goods you see for sale in the medina, the meat is sent a few streets over to the butcher stalls, and even the innards are given to the cats that roam the streets. it seems gruesome at first, when you spot a pile of skins, or a row of whatever body part (heads were particularly disconcerting), or a cat nibbling on some intestines… but then, it becomes almost comforting. i found myself enjoying the peace of mind that comes from watching the butcher grind your meat in front of you – there can be no questions as to what went into that kilo of kefta. and the leather flats that you buy haven’t moved more than 50 meters in their little, inanimate lives, because the tannery is just around the corner and the man you just paid is the man who made those shoes, probably a just few days before. it’s a far cry from the distanced, thoughtless consumerism we have in america, in all the best ways.

the coolest thing we did in fez, though, was going to the hammam. a hammam is a traditional public bathhouse… and talk about a real, moroccan experience. we got up close and personal with a steaming room full of mostly (if not completely) naked women, and had the top layer of skin basically stripped from our bodies in the process. the hammam is an interesting way to see the other side of the relatively conservative culture of the outside world. inside the safety of the hammam doors (there are no men inside during female hours, and vice versa), the women are free to show parts of themselves that never see the light of day. and i noticed that there was basically no evidence of any kind of self-conscious body language; the overall attitude was just, “yep, we’re all ladies here, we have the same parts, it doesn’t matter how they’re shaped.” if only just for that reason, it was something you’d never see in the states, and it was a really nice feeling. the other important service the hammam provides is purely social – for some of the women, it’s their only outing for the week, and they take advantage of the total freedom of expression that the privacy offers to chat freely with their friends and neighbors. plus, on top of all that, you get SO clean. despite the kind of grimy atmosphere (a very, very hot tile room constantly sloshed with water that you draw in buckets from a tub, the soap/skin/whatever else running off bodies onto the floor where you’re sitting), i have never felt so exfoliated and clean. we paid the extra few dirhams to have the resident hammam lady scrub us with the little black mitts we’d bought earlier… and she did not mess around. i was glowing like a lobster by the end of it, but it felt great! she also washed and brushed my hair for me, which is my #1 favourite thing. so, all in all, a fantastically entertaining and eye-opening experience.

i keep writing too much!! this will have to do for now – the final part will follow! pictures from this installment are here, beginning with number 67!

no hashuma - morocco, part one

hello again, friends!

i know it’s been a while… lots to catch you up on! i didn’t mention it at the end of my last blog, but i had another break for the second half of february (life is tough here) – hence, the radio silence. buckle in for a fun recap of the last three weeks!

but first, a little back story. last november, i did something slightly outside of my normal comfort zone; i bought a ticket to africa, to go visit a friend i’d never met in person, who is living and teaching in morocco as a fulbright fellow. sounds like the perfect setting for one of those internet catfishing horror stories, but we had been chatting on facebook for months, and had even started talking on skype at that point…. plus, i really wanted to go to morocco! besides, this year is all about challenging myself and stepping outside of my little glass box. so, i took that leap of faith while the tickets were still cheap! fast-forward three months, and my friend and i were skyping almost daily, thus alleviating basically all of my albeit-slight discomfort about flying to a different continent to stay with a stranger.  another contributing factor was the fact that another assistant in my region, lauren, saw my post about going to morocco and asked if i wanted to travel together. we skyped a few times and organized ourselves on a googledoc… in fairness, she took an even greater leap of faith, considering the fact that she’d never spoken to connor and we’d only talked a few times! but, it was another situation of starting out as strangers and ending up feeling like life-long friends!

by the time my departure rolled around, i was absolutely beside myself with excitement. i couldn’t wait to add another country (and continent!) to my growing list – especially one with such a vibrant culture as morocco. i also couldn’t wait to get to hang out with my new friends in person, as opposed to seeing them on my computer screen! getting to morocco was no mean feat – i took the train on a thursday afternoon up to paris, slept in the charles de gaulle airport, and then caught a 6am flight to agadir. staying overnight in an airport is a very interesting experience... you definitely get a whole new level of people watching. in retrospect, i should have gone through security when i got there at 10pm, because there were couches at the gates! i spent the night curled awkwardly between two metal arm rests, dozing in between the rounds of floor buffing / waxing that were happening around me. le sigh. but, i fell asleep almost instantly on the plane (even before the takeoff – unheard of, for me!) and slept for nearly the entire flight. so, all in all… a free night in paris! arriving in morocco was magical, because it was SUNNY! i hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, due to the incessant rain in central france. i immediately felt my vitamin d count start to rise, and with it, my spirits. i spent the rest of the trip trying my hardest to soak up as much sun as possible, and i have the freckles to show for it now!

my first stop was agadir, a southern city on the coast. connor is living there for the school year, teaching in the university. it was so fun to finally meet in person – one of those surreal “i don’t know you, but i do” kind of feelings. a few quick games of bananagrams quickly dispelled any potential awkwardness, followed by a warm nap on the rooftop terrace. the first afternoon, two of connor’s friends took us up to a surf town about thirty minutes away called taghazout, where i got to try surfing for the second time in my life. it’s still really hard, but so invigorating! we had a wonderful time exploring the beaches and enjoying my first (but certainly not last) glass of fresh mint tea. we didn’t do much “tourism” in agadir, as there is not too much to do (unless you’re staying at one of the several beach resorts). mainly, i just got to hang out with connor and his housemates and enjoy having new friends.  when lauren arrived two days later, we cooked a big mexican fajita feast for the house and sat up talking late into the night. it was a great way to ease back into social interaction, after the isolation of my normal life!

monday morning, lauren, connor, and i piled onto a big bus and headed up the coast, to a town called essaouira. we only stayed for a few days, but it ended up being one of my favourite places in morocco – a little oceanside town with a fun souk (market) and incredibly nice people. everyone from the hostel workers to the people next to us at our breakfast café seemed eager to welcome us to their country and make us feel at home. i fell in love with the textures and colours on constant display in the souk stalls: rugs, ceramics, leather goods, metal work, fresh food… you name it. even the physical buildings contributed to the aesthetic, with the warm oranges and browns standing in contrast to the brightly coloured doors and the crisp whitewash, all backed by an endless blue sky. while in essaouira, we met a moroccan student from marrakech named zakaria, who ended up being one of the highlights of our trip! we shared a fun afternoon together, jamming on a rooftop terrace overlooking the ocean, with a few other café friends – it was the first of many opportunities for philosophical discussion of culture and humanity, and i certainly cherish that memory already! in the souk, lauren and i had our first real introduction to bargaining, and got some pretty sweet deals on a few souvenirs and gifts (mainly thanks to connor, let’s be honest). the downside of the souk wandering is definitely all the catcalling – as foreign women, we had quite the array of phrases thrown our way, from “ohh beautiful!” to “hey, harry potter!” (my glasses) and “hannah montana!” (no clue). there were others that were much more unpleasant. honestly, though, with a decent sense of humour and a thick skin, it is not intolerable. you just have to write it off as part of the culture and let it slide off your back… and also, keeping a list of the best lines and laughing over it later doesn’t hurt!

another three hour bus ride brought us inland to what could arguably be morocco’s biggest party city. true to its reputation, marrakech was decidedly more tourist-oriented; certainly a big change from little essaouira. thankfully, we had zakaria as the best tour guide imaginable, so we got to experience the souk and surrounding area in a slightly more authentic way (read: we didn’t get harassed or ripped off, because we were with a moroccan). the enormous main plaza, place jema al fnae, is known as one of the biggest night-time spots in europe, and i can attest to that. it was absolutely teeming with people – eating at the food stalls, watching street performers, selling various trinkets, generally loitering… the introvert in me was definitely overwhelmed with the sheer number of people, but it was fascinating to see. despite the inundation of foreigners and locals alike, i did love walking around the twisty medina streets and simply taking photos; i have never been so visually inspired in my life! the catcalling was much worse in marrakech, and much worse when it was just me and lauren, without the boys. we got a couple marriage proposals (one including camels!), several creepy “oh wow/nice/beautiful/spicy” murmurs, and countless “hello/bonjour/hola” greetings (i suppose i could pass for spanish). thankfully, morocco still uses french as the language of tourism (thanks, french protectorat!), so we got by just fine, but picking up a few words in the local dialect, darija, made our experience much more comfortable! once you learn how to say “no, thank you” in arabic to the men trying to direct you into their stalls to view their purses/lamps/shoes/scarves/etc, it becomes easier to just keep on walking…

i actually think i’ll cut myself off here, because i’m only halfway through and already waaaay over my average word count… so, installment two should be up soon! in the meantime, here are the pictures from my trip, starting at photo 19! :)

wander holidays

okay, y’all. i’m just going to go ahead and apologize for the delay in this blog post.. it’s been a long time coming. i haven’t posted all year (ba dum, tsss) and i have no excuse except for the fact that i traveled for 20 days straight over the holidays and couldn’t really sit down at a random computer to start blogging. soo…

happy new year! it’s 2014!! i can’t believe it.. i feel like new year’s 2013 was just like 6 weeks ago… i really need to get my internal calendar sorted. i’ve been out of the country for over 4 months, and i’ll be home just over 4 months from now! ay caramba.

in the interest of not making this post a total “captain’s log” of my travels, i give you a bridget jones version of my holiday season saga. (if you want the longer version, feel free to read below!)

          days elapsed: 20

          countries visited: 3

          cities visited: 9

          friends visited: 14

          friends made: 16

          modes of transportation used: plane (4), train (4), bus (11), car (many)

          party games played: 4

          presents: given – 6 // received – 5

          cups of tea consumed: innumerable

          most interesting experience: england – singing christmas carols on the train to 

          cambridge with a bunch   of mildly-intoxicated football hooligans // 

          ireland – partying until nearly dawn with a different bunch of 

          slightly-more-than-mildly-intoxicated couchsurfing buddies

okay, that’s enough of that. here’s the longer version!

basically, i spent the first week of my break (well, tuesday through saturday) getting to the place where i’d be spending christmas – six cities in six days, and it was a whirlwind. excideuil, bordeaux, nantes, dublin, london, cambridge! i had a blast visiting friends in each of my stops along the way – several of whom i hadn’t seen since 2011! crazy! the highlight of that week was probably my pit stop in london. i hung out with my first-ever couchsurfing host, tristan, and got to see the beauty that is london at christmas. plus, i finally got my picture at platform 9 3/4. so, i got that going for me.

arriving in cambridge was a welcomed respite – i was really looking forward to sleeping in the same bed for more than one night! i spent the week with two dear friends from home – cameron and carly. if you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might remember them from my time in scotland back in september! they spent this fall semester in cambridge as a part of a seminary exchange program between westcott house in cambridge and sewanee, back in tennessee. we visited several of the major colleges in town, decorated our makeshift christmas tree, attended multiple anglican masses (including christmas eve midnight mass and christmas morning mass, a scant 8 hours apart), cooked several lovely meals, shopped a little, and celebrated our first christmas away from home, together as friends abroad. it was a wonderful way to enjoy the holiday – i was so grateful to have a little bit of home with me here in europe! :)

the next week and a half of my vacation was spent in varying parts of ireland. i moved around so much in the first few days! one night in dublin, two nights in cork, one night in galway, and then i finally landed in clare for new year’s! the weekend in cork was an absolute blast – one of the best couchsurfing experiences i’ve had to date. my host and his friends were the epitome of hospitality and i felt right at home from the very beginning. i mean.. i was jokingly (but maybe not?) invited to their friend’s wedding in brazil next summer after having been at the house for like 6 hours. typical. a weekend was not long enough in cork; i can’t wait to go back and explore the city a little more! a quick pit stop in galway allowed me to visit with my friend emma and her family before i headed back down to clare to relax for a few days at my friend shane’s house. we essentially had a 4 day house party, with varying groups of friends coming to hang out each night! i always love getting to spend time in that house – it’s so wonderful to be in a family environment! warms the soul. and our new year’s eve was the perfect mix of relaxing and entertaining – and by that, i mean i got to wear comfy clothes and not worry about braving the elements outside, while still partying it up with my friends! my last night in ireland was spent in wonderful company, wandering around dublin and soaking in that fantastic irish charm. this break really reinforced my desire to move to ireland in the very near future.. might have even started researching grad school options! shh, don’t tell my parents.

i finally, finally made it back home to my little village on sunday, after spending the night in bordeaux after my flight. living in a place with no train station (or even bus access on the weekends) makes getting in and out fairly difficult, but thankfully i have friends at each step in the journey that make traveling much more enjoyable! now that i’m home and can reflect on this break, i have to admit.. i probably overdid it a little bit. my life here in excideuil is so relaxing and laid-back that my vacations are actually more demanding and stressful than my work weeks! next break, i’m going to focus on one country (morocco!!) in the hopes of giving myself more time to enjoy fewer places. and i might even take a week off from travel planning before i launch myself into that new endeavor! vacationing is hard work, y’all.

i hope that you had a wonderful holiday season, and that 2014 brings you all the happiness and adventure that you can imagine! wander on, my friends!

*as always, if you’d like to see pictures from this post, just click here (starting at #29)!*

christmastime in excideuil

surprise! a quick little christmas post, just in time for the holidays. :) the festive spirit has really kicked in here in excideuil. there are lights everywhere – on lamp posts, strung across the streets, draped in trees, adorning the church. the village even set up three huge pines, strategically placed throughout the town, and adorned several of the drainpipes on my street with pine branches. my favourite decoration, though, are the cheerful paintings that many of the local business owners commissioned to brighten up their windows. my upstairs neighbor, christelle, is a wonderfully gifted artist, and she created personalized designs for each business – the shoe repair shop has a boot, the printer has a book, the appliance shop has santa delivering an electric heater… it’s adorable. i also was lucky enough to be included in the decorating committee for the café downstairs. we spent all afternoon a few weekends ago setting up the tree, draping lights and streamers around the room, and just generally adding christmas cheer to the already bright and lively coffee shop. it made me feel so much more at home to get to do something so traditionally comforting. check out my cute christmas village here!

now that i’ve gotten to enjoy the christmas-y atmosphere of the village for a few weeks, it’s high time for another break, if i do say so myself. amazingly, this semester is drawing to a close already.. and poor me, i’ve only had like 3 weeks of vacation so far! happily, i leave tomorrow for my christmas break. i won’t spoil the surprise, since i will surely blog about my experiences once i’m back.. but i’ll be in cambridge, england for the first week and hopping around ireland for the second week! as ever, getting there is half the fun – the rest of this week will be filled with reunions, as i stop off in a new place each day to catch up with old friends, before finally arriving in england on friday! at first, it seemed silly to take 4 days to get somewhere when i could go much more directly and be there in about 4 hours.. but i’m excited to be seeing everyone along the way!

as much as i enjoy my little idyllic countryside home, i can’t wait to spend time in places that have traffic lights and shops open past 5 pm!! …sarcasm aside, i am so looking forward to seeing some dear friends and celebrating the holiday season together. it’ll be my first one away from home, and i am so blessed to have such a great group to share it with. hopefully i’ll get to post from the road – if not, i’d like to wish everyone a merry christmas and a very prosperous and adventure-filled 2014!

thanksgiving, à la française

before i left the states back in early september, my mom went above-and-beyond the call of duty and made me a full thanksgiving dinner.  she was worried that i would be sad about missing out on the best meal of the year, so she pulled out all the stops. and i was truly grateful, because there is nothing like sitting in my dining room with my whole family and eating some seriously fantastic grub. and she was right, in a certain sense – today was a sad day, in a way. but the pang i felt in my heart when i thought about everyone gathering together back home without me was soothed in no small measure by the joy that i’ve gotten to experience during this season in france. not only did i get a bonus thanksgiving-in-august, but i got to celebrate it in three different ways over here in europe! so really, moving abroad just multiplies the festivity, if you can find the right people. and it certainly magnifies the sense of gratitude!

thanksgiving #1 - friendsgiving

this past week, i had the absolute privilege of sharing a thanksgiving meal with about 30 people, hosted by the home-church group that my friend devon and her husband attend in paris. the dinner was at the home of michael and sara, who live in a beautiful apartment in the marais district of paris and evidently have no qualms with welcoming all the waifs and strays! there were plenty of expats there, from all over the world, and a few native frenchies as well.. my friend jessie and i enjoyed getting to know several of the guests as we all chowed down on the standards – turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce (!!!) – as well as some traditional dishes from other countries! and let’s not forget the desserts, which took up the entire table after the first round was cleared away. the atmosphere was lovely, the food was delicious, and the people were warm and welcoming – it truly felt like a family gathering, despite the fact that the majority of the group had never met. at the end of the evening, several of the church members made sandwiches with the leftovers and encouraged all of the guests to grab a few on the way out, so that we could share the bounty we had enjoyed with someone less-fortunate who looked like they could use something to eat. it was a really sweet gesture, totally in keeping with the attitude and generosity of everyone i met that evening. i ended up leaving one sandwich next to a woman sleeping bundle of ragged blankets in a little alcove down the street, and giving another to a man near notre dame, who sat under an umbrella with two little dogs tucked inside his over-sized coat. it wasn’t much, but i was happy to give someone a break from hunger, if only for one night.

thanksgiving #2 – chez moi

the sensation of immense gratitude carried over to monday, when i finally got home to my little village to find a thanksgiving package from home waiting for me on my doorstep! i knew it had been sent, but it was still such a nice surprise to see my mom’s handwriting smiling at me from my threshold the moment i got home. and the contents of that box were faaaantastic! here’s an inventory: poultry seasoning (for the stuffing!), jif peanut butter (per my request), cupcake baking cups, taco bell sauce packets, red sprinkles, a nature valley protein bar, turkey gravy mix and alfredo sauce mix from kroger, some christmas decorations, a sponge, betty crocker peanut butter cookie mix, some tea, airborne tablets, a turkey dishtowel, and a card. now, i know that some of those things might seem random or kind of meaningless… but it was so great. sometimes, it’s just nice to see things from home for novelty’s sake; i don’t even like taco bell, really, but those sauce packets made me smile! and i may live in one of the culinary capitals of the world, but there are times when absolutely nothing beats an apple and peanut butter. and the simple act of hanging that turkey-appliquéd dishtowel on my toaster oven’s handle made me feel like i was back in the kitchen at home. but i digress...

cooking for one is hard; i’ve said it before, but it’s never been more true when you’re cooking a meal that usually needs to serve a dozen people or more. i decided that i wanted to do a little thanksgiving meal for myself, just to get a taste of home, so i asked my mom to send my grandmother’s stuffing recipe (hence the poultry seasoning in my box). well! this morning, i made that stuffing, and let me tell you… it was great. i toasted, cubed, and staged the bread last night, so it was all nice and dried-out by the morning! the process itself was simple – sautée onions and celery, add chicken stock and seasoning, mix in bread cubes, put in oven – but the act of making it gave me such a feeling of nostalgia! granted, i’ve never been the one to make the stuffing before, but just having the smell in my apartment was enough to make me feel like i was back in franklin. i also made a teensy serving of mashed potatoes and got two turkey breast fillets from the supermarket – three cheers for a thanksgiving dinner for one! and as a bonus, i skyped my parents while they were at our big extended family dinner, so i even had the chance to say hi to everyone!

thanksgiving #3 – sharing the message at school:

as an english assistant, i’m somewhat of an ambassador between my american culture and that of my students. last week and this week, a few of my teachers took advantage of the holiday season to talk about america – in some of the younger classes, that meant discussing thanksgiving! i can’t explain how strange it was to hear a holiday that i’m so familiar with boiled down to the bare bones – “it’s a day where families gather to eat a turkey and pray to God.” i mean… that’s true for some people, i guess, so i couldn’t correct them. but i enjoyed the lessons, because it was a great opportunity for me to share what thanksgiving really means. the kids had basically no idea (short of the turkey/God thing), so i had a blank slate! after a little reflection, i told them that thanksgiving was a day where families gather together and shared a meal (had to keep the english level pretty simple..) in order to express their gratitude for everything they have. despite being a historically catholic country, france is exceptionally unreligious, so i tried to stay away from talking about thankfulness in purely a religious sense. also, explaining the concept of blessings was difficult. the story of the first thanksgiving was also challenging. historically, the whole “pilgrims and indians eating together” might not be entirely accurate… but at least it gives a better origin story than “we kinda just came and displaced and/or killed pretty much everyone, and then centuries later, the government arbitrarily decided to create a holiday about it for commercial purposes.” sooooo… pilgrims and indians it is. i focused more on the fellowship and quality time aspects of the holiday. :)

so, in summary, i am thankful for…

…a God who loves me unconditionally and never fails to provide for me, 

who lets me make mistakes so i can learn the way i learn best,
 and who blesses me endlessly every day.

…a family who supports me and encourages my insatiable desire for adventure.

…a job that allows me to pursue those adventures, 

while simultaneously providing new experiences in and of itself.

...coworkers and students who are supportive, engaging, and patient.

…a body that puts up with all the shenanigans i put it through 

and remains in moderately good health – traveling is hard, y’all!

…a wonderful apartment in a great community.

…the people i love who are spread out all over the world (literally).

…the miracle of technology, which lets me stay connected with aforementioned 
loved ones via various social media.

…peanut butter.

happy thanksgiving, everyone! :)

ps - i documented my little thanksgiving cooking experience here if you’d like to see it!

                                                        

silver and gold

this entry is going to be a little more of a “captain’s log” style… too much to recount!

as i mentioned in my last post, i had a medical appointment on wednesday, in bordeaux. basically, the immigration office needed proof that i am, in fact, alive and not likely to cost them too much over the course of my stay here in france. so, i spent two hours on wednesday afternoon hanging out with several other assistants (we’d all been given the same appointment window), and intermittently entering various offices to discuss my vaccination history, strip from the waist up for a chest x-ray (no TB here, yay!), read a tiny line of text across the room, and finally get that long-sought-after OFII sticker in my passport. now, i’m a legal citizen! at least, until june…

one nice (read: incredible) part about my job is the flexibility. the principal had no issues with me taking wednesday and thursday off for this doctor appointment, so i made the most of my time and went up to paris for a long weekend! i was excited to see the city again, but i was more excited to finally get a chance to catch up with one of my closest friends from my semester in angers! jessie lived across the hall from me, and is basically the reason i stayed sane during my time abroad. she introduced me to several other international students on our floor, who ended up becoming like family to me. seeing her this week in paris felt like a true completion of my prodigal return to france! she met me at the metro stop near her house late wednesday night, and i’m pretty sure we didn’t stop laughing until i left eeearly monday morning. love that girl.

being back in paris was a little surreal – i’ve visited several times before, but it had been over two years since my last visit. it was also the first time that i’d gone primarily to visit friends (as opposed to going for touristy purposes), and i genuinely enjoyed the lack of pressure i felt to go, go, go all day, every day. i spent a lot of the weekend simply walking around various neighborhoods, soaking up the atmosphere and marveling at the beauty that i found in literally every direction. i did, however, do a few touristy things… i spent the better part of thursday afternoon meandering through the louvre, since i hadn’t been since 2008 and i can get in for free with my newly-validated residency visa. i was particularly blown away by several of the greek and roman scultures, but my favourite part was the decorative arts wing, which includes the napoleonic apartments. having just finished reading vanity fair, it was cool to see what the setting of the novel looked like in person. i really enjoyed walking through rooms that held such historical significance, especially since they’re not reproductions – real life happened in those rooms. or, as real as early 19th century napoleonic society could be. i love imagining all the women in their gowns and jewels and feathered hair ornaments, perching daintily on the crushed red velvet couches in the salons, and the men with their breeches and starched neckclothes and quizzing glasses. if i had a time machine, that’s definitely where i would go.

thursday actually was kind of a luxurious day. when i left the louvre, i walked along the rue de rivoli until i passed a fancy-looking bookshop (you know how i can’t resist the allure of a nice book display) and ducked inside… only to almost immediately and very nearly bump into karl lagerfeld, of chanel fame. he came in to pick up a few gifts, and you would have thought a member of the royal family had walked in, with the way the employees jumped up to help him. although, i suppose that he is sort of royalty in fashion-loving paris. i continued my walk all the way down to the eiffel tower, where i enjoyed a little picnic dinner and watched that steel celebrity sparkle for a little while. there really is nothing like it anywhere in the world. right as i was about to head back to the apartment, jessie called and said she’d gotten tickets through her university to attend a play at the “theatre de la ville” for free that evening! evidently, it was the play to see in paris right now, so i scurried over there and met up with her and her classmates. it was a packed house – there were even people standing outside, trying to scalp tickets! so, i guess it really is popular. i had no idea what the play even was called, let alone what it was about! as it turns out, it was a two-man show called “the old woman,” which is a sort of theatre-of-the-absurd work, based off of a russian poem, and performed by none other than willem dafoe and mikael baryshnikov! it lived up to its genre… it was certainly absurdly bizarre, but i enjoyed it purely as a cultural experience.

friday was all about friendship. i walked around a little in the morning, did some grocery shopping, and then had a big lunch prepared for when jessie got home from school around 2pm! we ate and talked for a long while, just enjoying the opportunity we had to finally catch up after nearly two and a half years! it was so lovely, and really felt like we picked up right where we left off. then, around 8, jessie got ready for a night out with her NYU classmates, and i got ready to go have dinner with another friend of mine in paris, devon! she was a french major at belmont who graduated my freshman year, so we never really got to know each other during college. however, since she had studied abroad in angers, she was always the person to whom  we were referred with questions about life as an exchange student. so, we’ve communicated on facebook intermittently for years. now, she’s living with her french husband (who she met while studying abroad, precious!) in paris. she is a true gem – we sat in her little studio apartment and talked for almost 5 hours; i only left because i had to get the last metro home! it was so, so great to finally have the opportunity to sit down in person and get to know each other – it already felt like we had known each other for ages!

saturday was much more relaxed. after the late night, jess and i both enjoyed sleeping in and making breakfast for lunch! one interesting thing about the holiday season over here is that, for obvious reasons, it goes straight from halloween to christmas… so paris was in full christmas mode during my visit! we spent the afternoon wandering through the christmas market that lines the champs-elysees, stretching all the way from the place georges clemenceau to the place de la concorde. jessie’s friend emily joined us, and we did a little shopping and a lot of eating – there is nothing like holiday fair food. from there, we headed down the seine to my favourite place in paris – shakespeare and company. i go there every time i’m in the city, and it never fails to make my heart skip a beat. i have dreamed of working there since the first time i visited, and that dream is still alive. one day! the evening was spent walking through bustling streets, eating crepes in paper cones and enjoying the festive atmosphere.

the grand finale of my weekend in paris was a wonderful ex-pat thanksgiving dinner, given by two lovely friends of my friend, devon... it was an absolute treat! devon invited me (and Jessie!) to join her home-church group for a big meal on Sunday. i’ll save my reflections about celebrating thanksgiving abroad for my post later in the week; suffice it to say, i have been immeasurably blessed with friends in this world, both old and new, and i thank the lord every day for those relationships!

as always, to see photos from this trip, check my facebook album here, starting at photo 25!

the title of this blog comes from the “friends both new and old” concept… but it also reminded me, indirectly, of a great christmas tradition in my family (and many others, i’m sure). here’s a sneak preview, to get you in the spirit. it’s that time of year again!

vacation life.

hola amigos!

it’s been far too long since i’ve posted on here – but, i’ve been busy (read: on holiday in spain)! here in franceland, vacation days are plentiful. usually, schools go for about six weeks, and then the students get a two week break. this pattern continues from the beginning of september to june. as a teaching assistant, i have the pleasure of benefitting from this lovely little schedule, which means i get 8 weeks of vacation this year (fall break, christmas break, winter break, spring break). the halloween break snuck right up on me… i felt like i’d only just started work (because i had) and then boom! two weeks of vacation. being the proactive little traveler that i am, i had to take advantage of the time! i was pretty exhausted from the constant vagrancy of september, so i decided to go easy and plan a trip to see two of my friends from nashville, who are living and teaching in madrid for the year! it was much simpler than planning a big tour through scandinavia, which was my other idea.

before i left, however, i did have a very interesting teaching experience. as the only english assistant in the school, i was offered the chance to teach an optional english camp during the first two days of the vacation. the school puts on this program each semester, and they usually find a native english speaker to plan the lessons and run the two-day camp. this time, i had 15 high schoolers, ranging from 10^th-12^th grade, to entertain for a total of 10 hours. i was exceedingly pleased with the lesson i created, which centered around a “roadtrip across the usa” theme and touched on all aspects of language acquisition (reading, listening, writing, conversing, public speaking). in theory, it was great. in reality….. it was alright. some things just didn’t work in practice like they had in my head (ie – group vocabulary research, roadtrip itinerary creation). if i had known that the students expected these camps to be mainly focused on speaking practice, i would have planned differently… however, considering the fact that i was given literally no guidelines or instruction, i thought it was pretty successful. the first time trying something is always going to be awkward, and now i know better for next time!

the moment my camp was over on tuesday, i hit the road for my vacation! since excideuil is so far out into the country, it’s kind of a process to even get to an airport. i’ve found that the best thing to do is get into bordeaux for the evening and then fly out the following day, so that’s exactly what i did. plus, i got to hang out with my friends in bordeaux for a night, which is always, always a plus. :)

europe is so fun, because international flights can be amazingly short! we crossed a mountain range and completely changed cultures in less than an hour… i’m not sure we even got up to full altitude. but anyway, i got to madrid in about an hour and fifteen minutes, and promptly got to partying! the friends i was visiting, mitchell and nicole, met me at the airport, brought me home to drop my bag, and then led me to this fantastic area of madrid called lavapies. this particular neighborhood just haaaappened to be in the middle of a week-long event called “tapapies,” in which dozens of bars were offering signature tapas for 1 euro each. convenient. we ended up bar-hopping through lavapies for a couple nights of my stay, because it was just too good for one visit.

the majority of my time in the city proper was spent walking (as is my habit in new cities), visiting some seriously fantastic art museums (mostly for free, thanks to the handy free-admission hours that most museums offer throughout the week), and eating. my lord, did we eat. here in excideuil, it’s hard to cook for just one person… i invariably end up making the same couple meals, because they’re easy to make in small quantities. but in madrid, we got to cook for four, which led to some wonderfully creative dinners and snacks. it was great to get to see my friends and spend some quality time together in such an exciting and vibrant city!

consequently, we did get out of town on two separate day trips, which were both fantastic. one of the days, we took the train out to avila, a medieval city with a giant wall surrounding the old town. we did a little taste test of the typical pastry of the town and then walked along the top of the walls for over a kilometer. it was interesting to see how closely it resembled the walls of the chateau in angers, where i used to live. they were constructed around the same time, so i guess that was just the style back then! our other day trip was to toledo, another town about an hour south of madrid. we went on a sunday, so it was pretty quiet, which meant fewer tourists but also earlier closing hours. we saw a lot, but i definitely want to go back one day and see all the churches and museums that were closed! even so, it was great just to walk around and see the tiny streets and hidden plazas.

my last day in spain was halloween, which was so fun. i went with nicole out to the school where she teaches, so i could visit her classes and help spook the kids in this haunted classroom experience one of the teachers had set up. it was so entertaining, because the kids immediately came up to me and started asking questions and trying to figure out who i was. i even bonded with one of the girls when i told her i was from the same town as taylor swift. i was particularly interested in seeing the differences between her school and mine here in france – the educational systems are really quite different! all in all, i’m happy with my decision to teach middle/high school… as cute as the primary school kids were, i just don’t have the energy for that kind of mayhem every day!

if you would like to see photos from my trip to spain, check out this facebook album, starting at picture number 77!

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after i got back to excideuil from vacation, i worked for 4 days (for a grand total of 10 hours) and then had a 4 day weekend, thanks to armistice day. #france. my upstairs neighbor, mathilde, invited me to her house for the break, which was super kind of her. we left friday afternoon and made the 5 hour trek up to her town, which is called ‘les sables d’olonne.’ it’s a beach town on the atlantic coast, and it’s so lovely! luckily, we had a few hours of sunshine on saturday and sunday, so she got to show me the beach, the boardwalk, the harbor, and some of the more rugged coastline. the weekend was filled with exceptional food (oh, how i missed home-cookin’) and lots of french practice for me (note: conversations in loud bars and comedy shows containing political satire are even harder in a foreign language). mathilde and her parents were so hospitable and fun – i had a great time. (for pictures, click here!) and now, somehow, my christmas break is only 5 weeks away. so, naturally, i’m already planning. that’s pretty much how things go here… finish one vacation, start planning the next! 

it's a quiet village

after a week of the country life here in excideuil, i feel like i’m starting to get the hang of it. during the week, i was forever going back and forth between my flat and the school, each time in the hope that the teachers would have a schedule for me. (no luck.. maybe tomorrow?) it's so great to live this close to my work... whenever i have a free hour, i can go home for a little snack or a catnap. love it. i also did some administrative-y stuff, like opening a bank account and filling out/mailing infinite forms. i spent most of my free time either in my apartment, watching french tv and trying to figure out how the heck the timetables are organized, or down in the café, chatting with vicki and the other patrons. there was a lot of free time…

the biggest day of my week was wednesday, when i went back into périgueux for the departmental assistant orientation day. the entire morning, we were inundated with information regarding our moves to france – how to get our visas validated, how to sign up for the social security system, how the complementary insurance system worked, how to get our rent subsidy… it was enough to make me want to give up, by the end of it. there are just so many administrative hoops… and i’m only going to be here for 8 months. ugh. but the afternoon was great – we were split up into groups, based on the languages and grades we’d be teaching, and then a teacher walked us through how to plan our lessons and gave us a bunch of tips and activity ideas. all in all, it was a great orientation… just very overwhelming. that actually kind of describes what moving abroad is like… great and overwhelming. i’ve been gone for over a month – time is flying!!

anyway, if the slow tempo and relative calm of the work week is any hint to you, weekends here in excideuil are verrrry peaceful. in that, unless you have a car, you can’t leave. happily for me, my upstairs neighbor / new friend mathilde does have a car, so the two of us got to escape the village for a few hours on saturday and head into a town nearby called trelissac for a little retail therapy. there’s not much happening in trelissac, but there was a nice little shopping center. i got a few things that i’d been passively needing (a pair of light tennis shoes, a clock, a yoga ball) and we browsed a few home goods stores (i’m just as obsessed with them here as i am at home). it was really nice to be able to leave excideuil (in a car!) for a few hours, just for a change of scenery. and then today, the weather was absolutely beautiful, so mathilde and i went on a walk around the village and took some pictures. we also watched a rugby match down at the little athletic center… where i learned that some things, like obnoxiously passionate fans of amateur sports teams, are universal experiences. the rest of my evening was spent skyping with my family and planning my upcoming trip to spain!

basically, the point of this post was to let the blogosphere know that i have a new facebook album, filled with photos of my apartment and the village in general. check it out!

arrival

well, i’ve passed my first week here in the countryside of southern france, and let me tell you… it’s lovely here. i’m definitely living a charmed little life here!

let me back up a little bit, just to explain how it is that i got where i am. when i was applying for the TAPIF program, i chose “small town / rural area” as my preference, because i wanted a better shot at true immersion.. sometimes, in bigger towns and definitely in the major cities, assistants will just flock to each other and you pretty much end up speaking only english. not what i was going for this time! so, when i received my placement back in june, i found out that i’d been placed in a rural village called excideuil (ex-cee-duh-yuh, sort of). all in all, there are about 2,000 people who live here… which is only slightly larger than my high school. soooo… small town. but, even with all the reservations i had about my remote placement, i knew that it would be the absolute best thing for my french to be as immersed as possible. and i was excited about the prospect of my own beauty-and-the-beast-esque village.

in researching the town, i came across the facebook page for a café in town called ‘kitsch kafé,’ owned and operated by a lovely british ex-pat named vicki. since i was curious about the village, i looked through the photos on her page and noticed that they also rented the apartments over the café… an idea that appealed greatly to me. i reached out to vicki, just wanting to introduce myself and learn a little bit about the village. we continued our correspondence over the summer, and in late july, she told me that their studio apartment was going to be available at the end of september… exactly when i would be arriving in excideuil! too perfect. having my housing worries taken care of before i even left the states was a huge weight off of my shoulders, and made my transition into france life much easier.

so, i arrived here in excideuil on monday, september 30^th. vicki even sent one of the café regulars, a philedelphia native named richard, to meet me at the bus stop and help me get my bags to the café (a whopping 200m walk down the street). when we walked in the door, vicki immediately greeted me with a smile and the bisous (the french kiss-kiss greeting) and showed me right upstairs. my apartment is TOO cute. it came totally furnished, which is an immeasurable blessing… she went above and beyond and provided bedding, towels, dishes, even hangers. pretty much everything i needed except for food. i can’t express how rare this type of accommodation is in france, and especially for the rent i’m paying, which is half of what i paid in nashville. it’s a studio, so all one room, but i have a little sleeping nook with a double bed, a decent bathroom, a kitchen with hot places and a little countertop oven, and even a couch and small tv! everything i need for a sweet life in the countryside. (pictures to come this weekend!)

i’ve spent my first few days here just settling in. i went to the supermarket down the road my first evening here and then again the next night, just to get my pantry stocked with the basics (pasta, cereal, madeleines, nutella, etc). i also stopped by the hardware store next to the market for a little plug adapter the first night, and a tv cable the next night. it’s fun to learn the little idiosyncrasies of a new place. for example, the woman at the hardware store really likes exact change… the first night, she was really short with me when i only had a 5 euro note and she had to give me change back, but the second night, i gave her exactly 3.20 for the cord, and she chatted with me about my job for about 5 minutes and wished me ‘bon courage’ as i left. i also learned that it’s way better to bring my backpack to the supermarket, instead of lugging shopping bags back home. and that’s even more true now that i have a bike!! richard, the philedelphian, is in the middle of a decade-long saga of renovation in a 15^th century home just behind the café, and he had a bike up in the attic that he’s lent to me! i used the pressure washer behind the supermarket to wash it off, and it works like a charm. so, instead of walking with giant bags like i did the first night, i can now bike with my backpack to the supermarket! much easier.

i think i’ll cut myself off here and do a separate post about my school – don’t want these suckers to get too long, or even i won’t want to reread them! :) x