Rock on.

(New music! Haha, this blog's playlist is awesome, and continuously under construction.)

Well folks, I hope it's not too inhuman of me, but I'm going to tell you about my week.

On the grand scale of things, this last week has been pretty awesome. I'm really having the time of my life over here. Between decent classes, a great group of friends, and all the random (usually unexpected) adventures, it's true what everyone told me--I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. I can't wait to come home and start putting these changes into practice. And I do feel like this trip has changed me as a person. But that's another entry.

Right, the telling of the week.

I believe I last updated a week ago today. Tuesdays are my big days of magical accomplishment here, so that's the best day to sit down and write blog updates. Here's how I've been since then:

Wednesday we met seven French resistants. That was incredible, and it was really something else to hear accounts of the resistance from those who lived in it, who participated, who hid messages in the handlebars of their bicycles and sheltered wounded pilots. Some of them were arrested and deported, one was a liaison agent, and even though a few of them had thick provencale accents I loved listening to their accounts of what they had done for their country. I particularly liked hearing from Mireille (she was the liaison agent.) She told us about one of her most emotionally difficult moments during her time as a resistant. There was a woman who had turned in the names of 40 communists, and Mireille had to carry a message that said that this woman could no longer be trusted, and had to be killed. She said it was very difficult for her to deliver that message because she knew that the resistants would kill this woman to keep her from giving more information. I cannot even imagine what that must have felt like, to hold that message in your hand and be responsible for delivering it.

The Resistance museum is in a place called Fontaine de Vaucluse, which is gorgeous if not, as Danielle puts it, "tres touriste." Good thing about touristy places, though: always good ice cream. I got a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of caramel. I also like ice cream cones now. Before I used to just throw the cone away but after I ate the cone a few times I started to like it. Random only semi-interesting tangent, sorry.

Anyway, Fontaine de Vaucluse is...I guess I'd call it a natural spring? I think that's the best way to put it. I'll put some pictures up on the blog when I've posted this entry. Gorgeous, although the water is freezing. Just ask Amanda and James, who jumped in. That was one of the funniest moments of the trip thus far, and I am jealous of them for having done it. Now that it's all said and done I wish that I'd jumped in there with them, just to say I've done it, but oh well. I didn't have a change of clothes with me and wasn't interested in wearing freezing wet jeans to the museum.

Hmm...other highlights...I've got lit class in half an hour, here, so I've got to condense. I figure that I've got so little time left here (relatively speaking) that I'd better start hitting harder with the blog entries. Once I get back in the states I'm thinking that my readership is going to drop significantly. I'm not offended or anything, I just figure that my French adventures are more interesting than my random commentaries on life in Ohio.

(Barracuda just came on...hold on, I've gotta air-guitar for a minute. Picture me doing so, should you so desire!)

Thursday I think was one of the nights we went to Place Pie. There have been a lot of late nights out with friends this week, so they're starting to run together. Funny how at the beginning of this program I used to know exactly what I did, what I ate, who I saw on any given day of the week. Now a week goes by and it feels like an hour, and all the meals and faces and jokes all blur into one another. Anyway, we went to Place Pie and hung out for a while. My first (hopefully ONLY) major headache of this trip hit that night though, so I turned in earlier than everybody else. Big thankya to Ian yet again for walking me home.

(Can't...stop...air guitar-ing!)

Friday in Oral Production we learned weather words, a source of much sarcasm throughout the group as we had already learned pretty much all the vocab list...in MIDDLE SCHOOL. Cath and I cobbled together a weather report for our participation grade, and then reveled in our free Friday afternoon. Friday night Kristin went to Le Comptoir (snooty bar/resto) and I wasn't really interested, so I went to the island with a bunch of the others for the evening. I've already told the story of island night so many times that I'm just going to sum up, but long story short...

1) I've learned not to hang out at the island at night anymore
2) I know how a French person reacts if you flip them off and yell something vulgar (for the record, I DID NOT DO THIS)
3) Ian got head-butted in the face, and
3b) Ian gets sorta scary when he's really angry.

Got home late again, slept in semi-late Saturday morning, then spent Saturday walking around randomly shopping/eating ice cream/sitting in parks with Catron, Kristin, and Caitlin. Caramel ice cream from the magical corner. We also watched random creepy guys jump on and off the carousel, and found the park where Petrarch met Laure. It was a grand adventure. Saturday night was...Place Pie again, I think.

Sunday was rainy and rather lousy out, so I spent the day straightening up my room, reading, napping (may or may not have been multiple naps...) and then Kristin and I walked around the block after dinner to stall doing our history and resistance homework. Hung out in Cathy's room for the night, catching up since we hadn't really seen her since Friday.

Then last night was Lit, History, and then our second Resistance test. Two long essay questions, each of which we'd already discussed more or less completely in class. I feel like I did fine, but we'll see once I get the paper back, I guess.

Last night we hung out at Catron's apartment for the night until after 2:00 in the morning, and it was pretty awesome, listening to 90s music I had no idea I still knew ever word to, singing Chicago, and eating potato chips for the first time since leaving the states.

Sorry I'm getting really brief and un-detailed, I've got ten minutes to lit and like I said, little description is better than none. I can always go into more detail later but if I don't get the time, at least you know something.

Today it was pretty hard to drag myself into Writing Workshop, but I wrote my bio for our project (more on that later) and feel like I did decently at it. Now I've just got lit left today, then some kind of "neighbor party" in the city tonight, then we're going over to Catron's apartment again. Tomorrow there aren't any classes, but Thursday I should be back online and I might even have a halfway decent entry to put up. I miss having the time to sit back and write metaphorical ones. I could wax eloquent for so long about how this trip has already changed me, and how I feel about how much time I've got left here, and all sorts of pensive stuff that's a little more "a la Grace." So I guess the moral of the story is keep checking back here. I haven't forgotten the blog, I'm just trying to really live up my last few weeks. Partying like it's 99, as it were.

In the meantime, hang out here for as long as you want and listen to my awesome music. Air guitar optional, but encouraged. Rock on.

Love you all, miss you all daily,
-G

Trapped in Thursday

Yes, I am well aware that it is Tuesday. It's a metaphor. One I don't really feel like explaining right now, but it has to do with being stuck between metaphorical Wednesday and metaphorical Friday.

Right now, I'm trying to kill three hours between Written Prod and Lit. Technically, there's probably work I could be doing, but whatever it is I don't feel like doing it. In fact, it's been sort of tough to get back in touch with my motivation ever since I got home from Nice. That's why I haven't updated for a while--I was waiting for it to blow over.

I'm not sure if it has blown over, but at least an update now will be more civil than it would've been a few days ago.

Most of the group seems to have run out of steam this week. I'm not sure if it's possible to explain, or if we just have had to start working harder in order to care. The novelty's gone by now, and maybe we're all just starting to run a little low on patience. They told us this would happen, and frankly I didn't believe them. I figured I would hit rock bottom at the beginning of the program, and then the only way to go was up. Instead, I find myself prey to the very slump they were warning us about in February. Anyway...

I haven't updated since Nice, apparently?

Well, the train home from Nice was pretty uneventful (especially in comparison to the Barcelona group's travels, or so I'm told,) and when Cathy and I got back to Avignon, it was raining. Typical Avignon by my definition. Last year's group claims it rained about four times total during their quarter. This time around it's at least once a week, more like twice. Monday there weren't any classes, so we started back with class on Tuesday. Not much to note about Tuesday-Friday.

Well, actually, Wednesday the history prof was a no-show, so Amanda, Kristin, Justin, Caitlin and I went to the gardens at the top of the palais to kill the time before our quote-unquote "excursion." Discussed the magnificent use of metaphor in "Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife." And oh BOY did I ever put a heaping dose of sarcasm on the word "magnificent." Then we met at the Palais to walk around as they set up the stage for the theater festival (kind of a big deal...haha...picture Cannes only for live theater, and there you have the Avignon festival.) The In-Off happens in July, but they're already starting to set up for it. Like I said, big deal here.

But here's the real interesting part of the update. I'm sure you guys drop by this thing to read about my lovely adventures, not about me being grumpy and bored in class.

Saturday we had a group excursion to Uzes. The weather was okay at first, at least okay enough for us to shop in the market for our picnic lunch. Kristin, Major and I bought bread, cheese, strawberries, some magnificent lemony cake-pastry thing, all for the picnic lunch we thought we'd be having that afternoon. The plan for the day was to have a picnic lunch and then canoe to the Pont de Gard.

'Course this is back before we knew we were going to be here for the rainiest spring in Avignon (probably not actually a valid statistic, it just feels that way.) We had finished shopping, hanging out in a cafe for an hour, and walking back to the bus when it started raining. So we ate our picnic lunch on the bus waiting for the rain to pass, as Chrisophe called the canoe people and tried to sort things out.

Long story short, we spent an hour and a half sitting on the bus in the parking lot at Uzes, the rain ended up making the water too high and the current too violent to canoe, and we improvised. Definition of improvisation: call up the Haribo Candy Museum and see when they're open.

Like most other establishments in France that have employees, the Haribo Museum closes for a few hours at lunchtime. So we had to wait until it opened to go. Hence the whole "sitting for an hour and a half on a bus in a parking lot" thing. Haribo makes gummy candy. How shall I sum up the place? Uhh...museum leg of the visit lasted about fifteen minutes, gift shop leg of the visit lasted significantly longer.

Huge. Stinkin'. Gift shop.

Enormous.

How on earth do you put that much candy in one room? Plus random things like Haribo umbrellas, keychains, postcards. And for one reason or another, the candy is all really really cheap. Therefore, folks seem to take this as an excuse to load up on as much candy as they can carry. The man in front of me in line had his basket full to the point of overflowing, and things kept spilling over the sides. He wasn't the only one. This made waiting in line with my relatively small amount of purchases rather trying. But I guess if you're going to an enormous cheap candy store you might as well load up and then coast on it for a while. I bought myself a bag of gummy fries (about as basic as you can get...) and congratulated myself on NOT going overboard like a kid in a...*sigh* I just lost the desire to complete that metaphor.

Go figure, by the time we'd left the Haribo factory it was perfect canoeing weather, aside from the whole "killer current" thing, but we did still get to go to the Pont de Gard.

Funny thing about the Pont de Gard, it's not actually a bridge. It is bridge-shaped, but it's technically an aqueduct. What is it with the French and calling things bridges that aren't technically bridges? Between the Pont de Gard and the Pont St. Benezet, they're not exactly batting 1000 with describing their landmarks.

The Pont de Gard is a Roman aqueduct. Oh wait, I mentioned that. So once you've looked at it and thought to yourself "wow, that aqueduct is really really old," there's not much to do but go sit on the rocks and put your feet in the river. And watch snails. There are lots of snails there. And spiders.

By this time I was pretty tired, and didn't really feel like searching for amazing adventures, so most of the group just sat around and climbed on rocks until it was time to go back to the bus. Or, in Kristin's case, take pictures of snails. And talk to said snails.

Once I got home it was definitely naptime, since we had plans to go out to the museums that night. It was the Nuit des Musees, which basically means that most of the museums were free for one night, so the group made plans to dress nice and meet at the carousel. That sort of all collapsed around us and long story short, I spent more time talking to Major than I did actually giving a darn that I was in a museum.

However, there was this one really neat museum that had a bunch of Egyptian and Greek statues (known amongst the group as "the museum with all the rocks.") Sam, you'll appreciate this: they have four or five red figure kraters!!!!! I was tres geeked, although I'm not sure anyone else got why it was so impressive that I knew what they were called.

Got home pretty late, feeling particularly exhausted and like the day hadn't lived up to its potential.

For the first time since getting here, I slept past 9h00 in the morning. I never EVER sleep past 9h30, but Sunday morning I gave myself until 10h45, by which time Amanda had already texted us and wanted to meet up with us for the afternoon. We went to the park and sat around talking until we noticed the very creepy man staring at us from the next bench. Then we decided it was time for some steak-frites. I didn't go to my usual kebab, but it was still pretty good, being a steak-frites and therefore awesome by default.

After that we spent a little time at the internet cafe, and then we just hung out in Amanda's apartment for the evening. It was exactly what I needed-socializing that required nothing but lying on the couch and talking. I miss "just hanging out." When I see people here, it's always at Place Pie or O'Neill's or something, we never just go to someone's house and chill. So Sunday afternoon was pretty nice.

Yesterday, class. Same as always. Civ is now officially torture. Even those who liked it at the beginning of the quarter have lost faith in it. I wrote a journal about it, but it was a little grumpy to publish here. Bottom line: if he's not going to put in the effort to help me understand, I'm not going to put in the effort to pay attention.

Then for Resistance I hadn't done the reading (shh...don't tell Christophe,) so it was pretty slow going. Then IMing with Mom and Dad, then home.

Dinner last night was exactly what I needed: something totally frivolous. You'd never have guessed I was in a bad mood: we talked American television. It sort of turned into a guessing game: Danielle describing an American show, us guessing it, then offering our opinions on it. It was intriguing, since this was a native French woman spouting American pop culture. Here's a sampling of foreign TV according to Danielle.

Baywatch.
Beverly Hills 90210
Hawaii 5-0
Columbo
Mission Impossible
Silver Spoons
Dallas

For the very first Monday night since getting to France, I didn't go out. O'Neill's international night was a question mark (although Irish boy was last spotted on Friday night,) so I decided I'd rather get some work done and watch cartoons with Cathy than hike out to a pub. We did go out to Place Pie on Sunday night to celebrate Cathy finishing Shades of Grey. I had a Coca and a crepe, and we talked old school Nickelodeon shows.

That's about all I have to tell, unfortunately. Lackluster, non? At least a little?

Let me sum up:

Tempers have been touchy and tense, classes aren't any more demanding, but require more effort. Journal entries getting tedious, missing home and feeling guilty about thinking I'm about ready to come home, mood swings from class to class, but I'm still going to say that I'm 83% happy, and that's a solid B, so I consider it a victory.

I'm thinking that I'm going to write another blog entry tonight, maybe get a little more metaphorical like these used to be, and then you'll have something more interesting to read. Until then, this one'll have to tie you over.

Hopefully I'll get out of Thursday. Tomorrow we've got our excursion to meet real French resistants! Probably going to be a long day, but interesting!

Well, I'm going to go get lunch before the cafeteria runs out of sandwiches.
Missing you all,
G

A Splendid Afternoon

Baie des Anges, Nice
May 9th, 2008, 3:49 PM

Several years ago, I received a small handwrtten note from a man I loved very much, a man who meant a great deal to me.

Grace: Look at the ocean and wonder.

That man is gone now, gone from my sight. He remains only in memories, in each precious letter of that note, in the photograph of him following his own advice. He gazes into the sea, facing the horizon, the ocean stretching out at his feet.

And today I find the ocean at my feet, my face turned to the horizon.

The sailboats inch along the distant horizon, looking like the great fins of some giant creature gliding through the water in the distance. The seabirds are out fishing--they fly into the wind, wings pumping frantically although they gain no forward motion. They sustain this aerial treadmill until they tire, and then they stop flapping and let themselves be thrown backward. They watch the swells below, those hills of water that will give birth to waves. Suddenly they bank their wings, plunge into the water, come shooting back again. They are not usually successful, but the pattern repeats as long as it must.

All across the water, all the way to that horizon, tiny whitecaps appear fleetingly, peppering the deep blue of the water. The sea is coming up for air.

Closer to land, that midnight blue becomes a vivid turquoise and, nearer still, a minty green. Where clouds have filtered it, the sunlight has painted the waves a grey-green. Here in this space between green and grey , the waves build, build, begin to rise up, and as the water wrinkles they curl in on themselves, left to right, to come sighing against the shore in a white band of salt and foam. Here they linger, stretch themselves thin, then fall gently back, carrying the stones with them. The wave has two sounds: one, the crash of the water falling against itself. Two, the rattle of a multitude of stones tumbling in the aftermath.

One wave need not wait for the next. They build on each other, draw strength from each other. Slowly, ever so slowly, they approach me as I contemplate them. My thoughts seem to draw them nearer.

All along the rocky shores of Nice we are watching the sea. Children skip out into the spray, then come skipping back as the foam and spray comes chasing after them. The rest of us lie on our backs against the slant of the hill, front row seats to the natural symphony in its timeless dance at our feet. Our thoughts are our own, but with all of us scattered along the shore together it feels communal. Our thoughts belong to us, but it is the same ocean we watch. And in the same way it is communal by distance, it spans times. I think of years and years of men watching these waves, these waves that pound on from one day, one year, one lifetime to the next. And doing so I think of him.

As I step forward, barefoot, and let the waves tug at my ankles, I wonder if they tugged his. I wonder what thoughts he offered the sea, that day a photo was snapped of him watching the waves. I wonder what instinctual fascination pulls our gazes to the gentle bow of the horizon line. From here the world seems endless. As the sun begins to fall, my shadow to lengthen, I wonder at that neat seem between sea and sky. I wonder how many of us, in how many years, how many nations, languages, how many humans are bonded by the eternal call of that horizon past the waves. How many of us take time to stand in the waves, look at the ocean, and wonder.

I wonder where he is now. Sometimes I wonder that. I know we share the wisdom in his words, that watching the ocean is like a way to be with him again, but still I wonder where he went after sending his thoughts to be carried out to sea with the waves. The spray blowing against my face, the foam churning around my ankles , the sound of folding water all feel like he's still in my life. Six little words, precious in their simple beauty and precious in his handwriting, anchor his memory to my life here today.

Look at the ocean and wonder.

I'm looking. I'm wondering. I'm thinking about life and love, and I'm thinking about him.

I love him. I miss him.

--G
In memory of Larry Larson

It's the name of a town AND an adjective that describes that town!

So...I've got to say it. Forgive me.

Nice is nice.

Wow...so nice. But this is just a quick shoutout to all you folks that I got in safe, have my hostel, have already spent a couple hours lying on the beach working on my tan, taken a few pictures, seen more topless tourists than I wanted to, and am having a ton of fun already.

Despite our train having been late this morning due to a fire on the tracks.

And the fact that I'm running on four hours of sleep.

Yeah, I could do without that.

Cathy's up in the room taking a nap, but I'm not very good at midday napping. Only when I'm sick, or when the clocks have changed recently. So I decided to hang out downstairs with the free internet. There are eight computers at the hostel, six of which work. I changed out of my swimsuit, took a shower (yay, the showerhead could be mounted on the wall, unlike chez Danielle) and am killing time until dindin.

Yeah, I said dindin.

I'm feeling a little spastic right now, can you tell?

Well, the longer this post gets the more I figure I'll just go ahead and say. I don't remember quite when the last time I got an update up was--Monday? Tuesday? One or the other, but I forgot to look. Well, I'm just going to skip over classes and hop straight to this morning.

A 6h42 train, a desperate sprint through the train station to our track only to find out that it wasn't necessary and the announcement "your train is at the platform right now" was a lie, another sprint to the train car, four hours of train ride through a series of progressively more gorgeous towns, and here I am in Nice, right over by Italy. On the Cote d'Azur. That's the French riviera, folks.

Take THAT.

And as you take that, picture me doing a happy little victory dance involving copious arm waving and maybe a little "running man" or "the sprinkler." Or both.

Our hostel is so close to the train station that we can hear that FREAKING three-tone SNCF jingle that precedes every announcement. I'm going to dread those three notes for the rest of my born days by the time this trip is over. Cathy and I dumped our duffel bags onto our bunks (top bunk for me--just like band camp!) and headed in the general direction of the ocean to see what we could see.

We saw many things. Like tourists. And STORES. Lots and lots and lots of stores. That sell things for the tourists to buy. We also saw Justin! Just bumped into him. Like...hey, here comes one of the twenty people from the Avignon group, just walking down this street by us at the same time by pure coincidence.

I'm going to do a better Nice post when I have more time. The function of this one was really just to let you all know I got here safe, despite late trains, track fires, ambiguous methods of addressing buildings in France, confirmation codes, etc. etc.

I'll be in Nice until Sunday afternoon, so I may or may not be hopping down here to the internet room at night to do a little catchup work. I didn't bring my laptop here, didn't want to deal with it in a hostel, so I won't be able to do any big fancy blog posts until I'm back in Avignon, but feel free to comment and email and things and I'll probably find some time to return them between adventures.

Ciao, bellas!
--G

You got peanut butter in my vegemite!

Avignon—April 30^th, 2008

Just over two hours remain in the month of April, and I still have not ceased to be amazed that so much time can honestly have gone by. True, I have settled comfortably into a routine here, but when I think about an entire month spent living in France, it's enough to make my head spin.

Yes, there is something of a rhythm now, I'm finally learning the room numbers for my classes without having to look at my schedule. I can officially walk to and from school without actively thinking about where I'm going. I even know the traffic patterns well enough to jaywalk. (The pedestrian signs in turn lanes turn green at the same time the traffic lights do, so it's better to cross when the pedestrian sign tells you not to. Go figure, not even the traffic signs are straightforward here.) And I guess that when I think about all this, that's when it's easiest to sit back and realize that no matter how much this might feel like a quick vacation, I am living in France.

My last update was either on Thursday or Friday, I can't remember which, but the point is that I still haven't talked about the excursion yet. On Saturday morning we all piled into the tour bus (everyone was on time this time!) and headed out to the Village de Bories for leg one of the Saturday adventure.

This bus trip was different from that of two weeks ago. On the Baux excursion, we were all sitting near each other, leaning into the aisle to talk to each other, all of us singing. This time, we were more spread out, conversation was much lighter, and more of us slipped on earbuds and watched the gorgeous French countryside roll by to our own personal soundtracks of choice. The difference? Well, two more weeks of near-constant contact. We have classes together, we spend our breaks together, we go out at night...together, we have excursions together, heck most of us live together in pairs or my trio. And while I wouldn't say we're sick of each other, I think it's safe to say that we have grown accustomed to each other.

It was maybe forty-five minutes to the village, or more specifically to the parking lot in the middle of nowhere where we had to wait for our tour guide to arrive. We stepped out of the bus and congregated in the empty gravel lot. Jenna and Ian found a metal hoop to kick back and forth. Major and Kristin passed the time as Richard and Madeline, their filthy rich British alter egos. I became their German servant girl, Bertha. I don't even bother asking anymore...

It turns out that in order to get to the village, we had to squeeze twenty four people into a bus-van hybrid that I'm guess-timating had twenty seats max. Once everyone was nice and...not comfy, we embarked on the most complex series of twists, turns, narrow roads, and terrifyingly close scrapes with small cliffs I've ever ridden through. All of this took us back to the Village de Bories.

A borie (which can be a masculine OR feminine noun, either is acceptable. Ooh, ahh.) is a dwelling made out of rocks. Okay, I'm being vague again. Bories are made entirely of short, flat rocks stacked in a shape somewhere between a rectangle and a dome. It's amazing the things they could make out of rocks a few hundred years ago—dwellings, storage buildings, pigsties, doghouses...of course, they all looked exactly the same to me. I only know what they were because there was a large stone outside each building with its purpose inked on it in black ink, and in three languages. I have no idea whose job it was to distinguish the function of one borie from the borie next to it, but I don't imagine it's particularly easy work. It was all rocks and dirt floors to me.

Then again, being there with nineteen friends, with the morning sun shining and hills rolling casually across the horizon all around us, I have never been happier to tour a village made of rocks. We were all a little camera-happy that morning, there was lots of posing and smiling as we trailed after the tour guide, who had a noticeable provincale accent that I found amusing to listen to. All of her nasal vowel were kicked up a notch, like they do in Quebec, and she pronounced more vowels than the Parisians do, and...well, I shan't bore you with the linguistics of it. As for the content...well, I'm not sure I remember any of it, aside from that the style of architecture dates back to 2000 years BCE. Funny thing about listening to her talk—I was hearing the sounds way more than I was hearing the words.

After we'd finished in the stone village, we squished ourselves back onto the van-bus. About halfway back to our tour bus we found ourselves hood to hood with a police car. The driver leaned around his seat, and with a quick hiss of “assiez-vous! Les fliks!” told everyone who was sitting on a lap to get on the floor so the cops wouldn't see them. That got a good round of laughter as we edged past the police car on the narrow walled-in street, our side view mirror and his just barely missing each other.

Gordes is where all the French celebrities and various well-to-dos have their summer houses. Danielle lived there for twenty years. It is situated on a big hill and, when we hopped off the bus (quickly, the bus can only stay stopped for two minutes!) and got our first good look at Gordes, it was as though we'd stepped straight into a postcard. This was not my first “living postcard” experience. Les Baux was the same way, and the top of the Palais gives you that feeling too. Anything with a view of Le Pont St. Benezet, of course, it's as though that bridge was built to have its picture taken from every conceivable angle. Just think, if every old landmark here had its own song, maybe they'd give the Pont St. Benezet some competition. The Pont St. Benezet is probably half the reason people like me knew that they city of Avignon even existed. Weird to think of that now, but I digress...

There was more posing and grinning and we went through the age old camera shuffle—a duo or a trio throws arms around each others shoulders and poses, and suddenly the whole group is on them, shutters clicking. Then one or all of the people in the photograph give their cameras to friends, then the friend snaps the picture with both cameras, hands them off and joins the picture. Rinse. Repeat. We had a group picture taken, too (who's got the copy of that?) and then reluctantly abandoned our scenic view and carefully made our way down the hill we were on, then up the hill Gordes is on.

The hill Gordes is on is immensely, incredibly, murderously steep. Tiny little stone protrusions pretending to be stairs are more hindrance than help, and we were glad that there were gorgeous brightly-colored flowers taking advantage of every patch of dirt—stopping every now and then to admire the flowers gave us an excuse to stop and catch our breaths. I stuck to the back of the pack, moseying along and trying to figure out who kept calling my cell phone. We have program cell phones, so I knew the only people with my number were the other group members and Mom and Dad. Since the sun wasn't even up at home and all the group were with me, I figured it was a wrong number. I finally did answer.

“'Allo-oui?” I asked, playing it safe and answering in French. A long pause, then “Allo?” I paused too, then decided on, “Bonjour, c'est qui?” Who are you? Succinct, to the point. It frightened them off, and they hung up on me, never to call again. French wrong number. Crazy. And since I couldn't possibly have done all this and hiked full-speed up the hill of death at the same time (would that you could hear the sarcastic tone I imagine with the word 'possibly...') I hung back with the moseyers.

Once at the top of Mt. Gordes, we were given a few hours to wander freely, find some lunch (yes, mine was on a bun!) shop, do the whole tourist thing. We wandered uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill, into a church*, into a zillion tourist stores, and wondered how exactly all the snobby French celebrities move their furniture into their lavish homes. Verdict was that they must have the stuff airlifted in by helicopter.

*Okay, random observation, that I possibly have already mentioned before. One of the crazy things about France that I have discovered since getting here is that there are big beautiful churches and chapels and whatnot thrown into the weirdest places. We can be walking through a crowded, narrow street cluttered with shopfronts and graffiti, turn a corner, and BOOM! There's some really old sinfully pretty church tucked in amongst the shops like a Van Gogh in the bargain bin.

Where was I? Gordes. Well, I kept my spending to a couple postcards and a ham sandwich (told you it was on a bun.) Then I tailed random people for the rest of the time, watching Amanda ambush people with her spray-on sunblock. Lucky for us, there was no more hill-hiking planned for the day, and the bus met us at the top of the hill to take us to Roussillon.

Here's what I know about Roussillon. You cannot possibly visit that place without hearing the word ochre. I think it's the same word in English...err...ocher? Spell-check says that's right. Ocher. Pigment.

So we toured an ocher factory. Our tour guide was, as Amanda put it “pretty.” Umm...he was a man, but a pretty man. I realized when I read back over that that “pretty” is ambiguous unless I specify gender. We hiked over the fine, red sandy ground and listened to him narrate the process of ocher-making. Here's what I got...

Step one: Dump copious amounts of dirt in a stone trough.

Step two: Wash dirt.

Step three: Drain water.

Step four: Take remaining dirt and put in a reservoir.

Step five: Wash dirt.

Step six: Drain water.

Repeat...repeat...cook remaining dirt, grind it up, and there you have ocher. By that time most people had put their cameras away (except Jenna, of course!) so I decided to take some pictures to distract me from the fact that I was in a dirt factory. They burned incense in the gift shop, so we retreated outside and played hide and seek in the “sculpture” on the lawn. Said sculpture was a forest of brightly-colored wooden cubes just big enough to play hide and seek in.

Back onto the bus, for a drive into Roussillon proper. Again, they cut us loose with a suggestion of some nice ice cream places, and what huge killer hills to hike up for a scenic view. I got a scoop of chocolat and a scoop of Cookies, and hiked up half of one killer hill. Very nice red dirt cliffs and, further into the horizon, a glimpse of enormous snow-covered mountain. Then Major and I investigated random bookstores, rock stores (I'm not kidding...it was a rock store—not rock music, rock stone rock.) and then I ran into Amanda.

We were sitting on a wall outside the three-story bookstore complete with cafe. Suddenly this family walks by with a troupe of kids of varying ages, and they sit down on the wall next to us. Somewhere during the process Amanda and I discovered to our delight that the little kids were speaking...

They're Italian! Amanda and I mouthed to each other in glee, scarcely able to believe our good fortune. As linguistically intimidating as young children are, young children speaking foreign languages are still fascinating, and oh joy, these ones were jabbering away in Italian.

“Giocchiamo!” one of the boys crowed, which I actually UNDERSTOOD to mean 'let's play!' and then they were chasing each other around. They played hide and seek for a while, and Amanda and I gleefully whispered the numbers one through ten around with the counter. As far as I was concerned, I speak Italian like a six year old anyway, so these kids were right at my level! Katy walked by, politely looked only a little puzzled at why Amanda and I were sporting enormous grins and surreptitiously looking at the kids.

“They're speaking Italian!” we whispered.

Well, the Italian kids left, and then a bunch of us ended up in a cafe with Katy. Keeping true to typical French cafe tradition, I got charged for water...eye-roll...

We stayed in the cafe until meet time, making idle chitchat in French. Katy told us about how the airport confiscated her peanut butter from her carryon bag, dismissing it as a spreadable. “Like I'm going to make a bomb out of peanut butter,” she sighed in English. I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard Katy speak any English, but as soon as I'd noticed the codeswitch, she moved straight back into French, which was fine by me. I realized about ten seconds after climbing back onto the bus that I'd forgotten to buy any postcards, and listened to grumpy music halfway back to Avignon.

Not that my postcard streak has been perfect...I'm trying to buy a postcard for myself at every city I visit, but...and you're going to laugh...I didn't buy any in Paris.

It was a twenty minute walk home, then I scraped the ocher dust off my shoes and dozed off a little before dinner. We told Danielle that we wouldn't be joining her and her daughter in law in Sorgues on Sunday morning—we all chose to sleep in a little rather than visit the market for a third time. But she was also going to take us to some event Sunday afternoon that she just described as a “party” over and over. Cathy opted out, but Kristin and I met yet another of Danielle's friends (I forget her name...I forgot her name five minutes after meeting her, I was rather tired...) who offered a handshake rather than a set of bizous, which was a welcome change. I'm used to bizous now, used to meeting a perfect stranger and being swept into the routine—right first, then left, then right, with cheeks touching and audible kissing noises. It is a little startling the first few times, but it's another of those things I've gotten used to now, like paying for water or the concept of a coin that's worth over three dollars.

The “party” turned out to be the Fete Saint-Marc, and we missed most of it. All that remained of the artisans market was a few stalls sticking it out until the end of the day, and one organ grinder (no monkey, unfortunately) who whistled very loudly and popped more balloon animals than he completed. Apparently, the traditional dancing was set to start at 3:30, but schedules in France, much like pirate codes, are more like guidelines than rules. (Sorry if you didn't get that joke but I couldn't resist a good Black Pearl reference.)

The dancers appeared over an hour after the scheduled time, but it was interesting. I've seen traditional Provencale dancing before—at market, at that place Michelle took us, traditional dancers pop out from around corners all the time here—but this was different. The dancers grinned, and whistled, whooped, and waved around farming implements! Rakes, baskets, scythes of various sizes, fake torches, wooden shoes, fake horses: these people had more props than you could shake a rake at. The music was live, the dancers really knew their stuff, and all in all it was a really fun afternoon. Kristin and I compared which dancer's skirt was our favorite, exchanged a grin when one of the dancers did the worm to great applause, and snuck into a pastry shop for some nutella-themed goodness. Nutella, by the way, fantastic.

Then it was home for dinner, then time to face facts—we had a Resistance test on Monday, there was journaling and reading and studying to be done.

It's all part of this weird double-standard—vacation and study. Weekends packed with adventure after adventure, weekdays stuffed end-to-end with class and work. On excursion weekends, it's a little too easy to forget the 'study' part of 'study abroad.' Then the classes suck you in come Monday, get you feeling trapped...Rinse. Repeat.

Monday night, the crazy trio and Amanda fought our way through a deluge to O'Neill's in hopes of meeting our respective British Isles boys. Kristin and Richard, Amanda and Scott, me and Ireland (I do know his name but I'd rather call him Ireland than spell it wrong). It was pouring down rain, plus wind, and my shoes and socks were thoroughly soaked, and my jeans were saturated up to the knees. The umbrella had done no good—not even my three layers of shirt (long sleeve, short sleeve, button up) were safe. In the end, only Muhammadu showed, Cathy's correspondent, and those of us hoping for a glimpse of the British boys were disappointed. We greeted Laurent with a stubbly set of bizous, taught Muhammadu to play poker with my dog-eared Nightmare Before Christmas deck. Headed home pretty early.

The Resistance test didn't quite kick my butt, although the first essay question did a little. Plus I got As on the graded papers Chistophe handed back to me, so I left feeling pretty good relatively speaking. Tuesday started off with Creative Writing out in the courtyard (recipe poems. I wrote: Recipe for a Poem A La Major, which according to Major is dead-on accurate.)

Recipe for a Poem A La Major (roughly translated.)

Ingredients: 500 grams sarcasm, 500 grams cynicism, a spoonful of humor, a pinch of effort, and one crazy idea.

Mix the sarcasm and cynicism, let them boil for two hours. The humor must absorb the taste of these items. Use the mixture of humor and cynicism to create a crazy idea. Put the idea on paper, and while waiting for the end of the two hours, speak with an English accent. Say that you can't write poems. After two hours, read the poem. Savor the bitter taste of sarcasm. Finish with an awkward pause, a little confused applause, but always with a smile.

And I repeat, I received a participation grade for this!

After classes on Tuesday Christophe cancelled the scheduled film screening for Resistance and we played petanque instead. (That's peh-TONK, for you non-francophones.) I was actually more of a spectator slash photographer, but I think it's basically boccee ball. You throw the little yellow ball, then each player gets two chances to get as close to the little yellow ball as they can. The old French men play it in flocks. Two of them even wound up seated on the hoods of cars watching our group play. Christophe, Katy, and Professor Bory (our lit professor) cleaned up the competition, but it was fun anyway. Professor Bory is really cool, and suggested that the next time we have a tournament that the losers need to buy the winners a drink. I think it's because he's so confident in his petanque skills—the man has his own petanque set, for goodness sake, I'd feel confident about beating a bunch of rookie Americans too if I were him. The only way it could've been cooler to play petanque with Professor Bory would be if he'd worn one of his trademark neckerchiefs during gameplay, but hey, the world isn't perfect I suppose.

Avignon, May 1^st, 2008

Wednesday we had classes because of the long weekend this weekend. Civ was akin to torture, and as usual Professor Boura (Boura, Bory, I can hardly keep them straight...) lectured gleefully past the scheduled end time for the class. Then lunch break, then Bory's class, which was significantly better. Problem is that any day starting out with Civ just shuts my brain down for the rest of the day. I feel bad for Bory—I'd pay so much more attention to him if we didn't come to his class straight from Civ, aka the Bane of Grace's Existence On This Continent 101.

Today is the start of the first of two long weekends, as well as the first day of May. Which means that every establishment in France that's got employees is closed. Makes it difficult to track down lunch. We hung out in Amanda's apartment and ate Ramen, and ordered train tickets. Cathy and I are going to Aix-en-Provence for the day tomorrow. We went to the train station and bought our 12-25 cards, which make train tickets cheaper if you're between the ages of 12 and 25. They cost 49 euro, but between the Aix trip, next weekend's as-yet-undetemined location, and the train back to Roissy to fly home, they should pay for themselves.

The train to Roissy. Wow, it's hard to believe that that ticket is starting to become more and more pressing a need. Exactly six weeks from this moment, I will be on a plane home. Hopefully with a better in-flight movie than Bee Movie. I'm just about at another big milestone: halfway through the program. That's in a few days. Today I had to sit down and ponder the fact that I officially spent the entire month of April without standing on US soil. Without seeing my family, playing with my dogs, eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in real cheese sauce, and doing all the other things that I've been taking advantage of for years.

Avignon, May 3^rd, 2008

When I wrote that date, I tried to write 'April.' Whoops.

As I write this, I am officially closer to coming home than I am to leaving home. Today is my halfway mark—39 days behind me, and 39 ahead. More on that later.

Thursday, Cathy and I went to Aix for the day. This involves walking, bus, train, bus again, walking again, bus, train, bus, and walking. See, there are two train stations in Avignon: Avignon centre is right in the middle of the city in easy walking distance. Avignon TGV is where all the big trains pass through on their way to Paris, Marseilles or other bigger cities. There are buses that run from centre to TGV and back, so Cathy and I hopped one of those. On said bus, we met an Australian couple who heaved enormous sighs of relief when they overheard Cathy and I speaking English. Soon, we were hearing about the wife's studies in Sydney (Italian and Linguistics, small world right?) about studying abroad, receiving another encore of the “aren't you lucky to be just at the perfect time in your life to be doing this?” speech. Cathy and the wife (never asked her name) did most of the talking, while her husband and I just nodded and smiled a lot.

We punched our tickets, got on our train, and had been moving for about ten minutes when the train slowed, and slowed, and then stopped. Our TGV had some technical difficulties, and we were to expect a delay of fifty minutes. Lucky for us, it was only about thirty in the end. I hid behind my sudoku and my headphones, listening to the little kids across the aisle play a card game and the businessman sitting next to me muttering on his cell phone. I could've taken a picture of the man and in the background you would've seen the “turn cell phones off” sign pasted over our seat. Eye roll..

Usually being stuck on a train is something that would freak me out a little, but I was curiously laid back, considering. After all, I didn't have any deadlines except for my return train seven hours later, I had stuff to do, people to watch if I got too desperate, and it was a pretty strange moment. I realized that I would usually be really anxious in that type of situation, but that I'd somehow learned to look at the bigger picture. Sure it was hot, and the businessman was blatantly ignoring a posted sign that prompted courtesy, and our train was broken, but what did I care?

Once we got to Aix TGV, we had to take another bus to get to the city itself. Go figure, TGV stations are all in these crazy remote locations perfect for scalping tourists on bus fare. Aix en Provence has an even stronger feel of tourism about it than Avignon does. In Avignon, all you have to do to escape the tourist vibe is walk away from the Palais des Papes and the Pont St. Benezet. In Aix, it was pretty obvious everywhere we walked. There were lots of stores involved in that afternoon, a lemon slushie, and a museum of natural history involving several dinosaur eggs, the freakiest fake ostrich I've ever seen, some dinosaur bones, a sound box playing reptilian screeches, and big plastic replicas of other dinosaurs. Amusingly enough, placed in what used to be a hotel, with painted cherubs gallivanting over the ceiling of every room.

After we were done in the city, we hopped the bus back to the train station. Our train was headed for Geneva after it stopped in Avignon, so needless to say we were very careful to be at the doors in time for our stop. Then we took another bus back into town, and walked home. It was past dinnertime, but Danielle had potato chips and leftover quiche for us.

Yesterday we decided that we'd rather stay in town than take another day trip, so I ended up leaving the house at lunchtime, getting a steak-frites, and sitting in my park for five hours.

Samedi, le 2 mars.

Translated from the original French journal entry.

I'm not in Arles today.

Danielle says that it's too bad we stay in Avignon so much.

But this afternoon is perfect. I have two benches in the park—one's in direct sunlight, the other in the shade. I move from one to the other when I feel like it. I listen to my music, read, write a little in French, write a little in English. I watch the people walking by. I'm happier like this than leaving Avignon for leaving Avignon's sake.

My bench in the shade: an old woman (black skirt, white hat) breaks a baguette and throws the pieces to the birds in front of her. There are thirty or thirty-five of them. She doesn't have a particularly happy air—her expression is more pensive than content. She has a somber rhythm about her actions—break, pause, throw and again—break, pause, throw. The living sea of wings and beaks is thrilled.

My bench in the sun: a child, barefoot, plays in the fountain with a purple balloon. He kicks the balloon. He thinks it's funny the way it floats away. The English tourists like it too. Like me, they are watching the boy in the fountain, like one watches a mildly amusing film.

I ate a steak-frites from the kebab on the corner—the one with the man in the glasses, who says “grazi” instead of “merci.” I think he recognized me today, this is the third Saturday I've come. He wished me bonne journee for the third time, and for the third time I replied Merci monsieur, bonne journee.

Back to the bench in the shade. The little boy isn't there anymore. Now there's a little girl (pink hat.) She plays in the water. Her father takes photo after photo. Her mother holds her sandals. I wish I could play in that fountain, barefoot like a kid. Children don't see the strangers who watch their game with envious smiles. For us, the simple pleasures aren't so easy.

In the sun: tourists. Italians this time. They enter the park, take pictures, leave the park. My precious corner of France is nothing but a photo opportunity to these people. In the fountain, three brothers have followed the girl with the pink hat's example. They throw their shoes and jump into the water.

A young couple has taken my bench in the shade, but I'm not concerned. The sunlight is the gentle sunlight of early evening now, and I can stay here. I have three hours until dinner. I've been here for four hours. An afternoon wasted, Danielle would say. Danielle doesn't like waste. But I'm not thinking about Danielle anymore. She can do what she likes with her afternoons.

Another old woman (sunglasses, blue sweater.) She's talking to herself, with a very serious air. Tourists (English again, I think,) enter the park. Watch the girl in the pink hat. A dozen photos, and they leave my sacred corner. Hour after hour, week after week, May after April after March, the grand parade of tourists never ends. I can see now that the grand parade will never finish. They will always come into the park, smile into each other's camera's, and leave. This park is my sanctuary in Avignon. For them it is a row of flowers in a photograph.

A French boy (Spiderman t-shirt) is speaking rapidly to his mother. She isn't listening, I can tell even though he can't. Her son will speak French effortlessly, and so much better than I will.

Tourists. I'm not exaggerating. They come, they approach the fountain for a wave of photos, they leave.

I've decided to put my feet in the fountain. It's not important who's watching me, just like it's not important that Danielle thinks I should leave town more. If the girl in the pink hat can play in the water, I can slip off my shoes too. We aren't that different, she and I, but for a country and a language. I just need a pink hat and a carefree laugh. Or, she needs glasses and a tendency to observe details that others find insignificant.

The pigeons are making a noise like old mens' laughter. Yes, maybe that's the metaphor. I've been trying to think of one for the past hour.

Tourists. Americans. Same game.

The girl in the pink hat has left the park, and the pigeons have retaken the fountain. They're thirsty, and nobody is playing in their fountain anymore. Some kind lady has brought a bag of birdseed. Ten, twenty, fifty pigeons—a bigger crowd than for the pensive old lady in the white hat.

A little girl just took my picture. She thinks I didn't see her, but I did. Am I particularly interesting, or is she just the younger French me, finding strangers more fascinating than the average person?

Two hours until dinner. Five hours spent here, four pages in my journal, three Aerosmith albums, a steak-frites, one phone call, and a slight sunburn.

I am profoundly content.

Not much to do today, except marvel that this is my halfway point, that for the first time here I'm closer to coming home than I am to the day I left. I wonder if I'm going to change. I wonder if things are going to be different after June 12^th, 2008. I wonder if, come the morning of June 13^th, I will be a different person than I was on March 26^th. I wonder if I should buy myself a cookie tin for when I'm home, and if I should stop making my French journal entries so long and metaphorical. I wonder if Ireland will be at O'Neill's tomorrow, and if, despite what I've said in my journal*, if I'll let a regret or two surface once I'm home.

*Jeudi, le 1er mai

Translated from the original French journal entry.

Six weeks from this moment, I'll be in a 767, destination Boston Massachusetts, USA. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And it's true that I want to see my family, that I want to live a familiar life again, but at the same time I don't want to think of this future. June 12^th will arrive without me thinking of June 12^th. I want to think about May 1^st, 2008.

Cathy and I are staying in town today. We have tickets for Aix tomorrow, and maybe we'll go to Arles on Saturday or something, but I'm not sure. So today I cleaned my room, I read a little out of the forgotten books of old students, I write. [...] Now almost everything that needed done has been accomplished. All that remains is two hours of reflection in the journal before dinner.

Danielle doesn't think we should stay in Avignon. At every opportunity she always says that “c'est dommage, rester en ville.” It's like everyone wants me to leave Avignon at every opportunity. Danielle doesn't understand why I prefer to stay in town on Wednesdays and weekends. But I'm not here for Danielle. I'm not here to live the life others want for me. I think I'm happier staying in Avignon with my friends than leaving town alone for eight hours in a town I know nothing about. Everyone has their advice for me, but they're not here. Can they really understand the choice between a day alone in Nimes and an afternoon on the island with two baguettes and three good friends?

I'm nothing less if I choose to spend my free time where I'm happy. It's no less of an adventure. I'm not going to regret one single thing. I will refuse the idea of having regrets of my life here. Good or bad, I'm taking it as it is. What's the value of having been here if I start thinking of everything I didn't do, instead of everything I did?

So I don't say anything when Danielle starts with “c'est dommage.” I have my excursions, I have Aix tomorrow, and somewhere to go next weekend. That's enough leaving for me. If I'm so happy here in Avignon, why on earth should I leave just because others say I should? And I don't have to explain myself. I'm too lucky to be here, I've worked too hard, to live eleven weeks in France for other people.

I think I've lived too much of my life for other people, loathe to make their opinions of me suffer. Maybe if that's what this trip is going to change about me, then I won't be so afraid of letting it change me.