Monday, March 30, 2009

Barcelooonaaaa!


Within moments of finding my seat on the Montpellier-Barcelona voyage this weekend, a shabby, brown-toned sort of train, my seat-mate sat down next to me and asked if I spoke English. I nodded, and minutes later found myself typing out a text message to his anglophone girlfriend as he dictated. I made sure to remember it, because it was hilarious and sad at once: "Hello baby love. Yesterday was a good day but today is a bad day. Tonight you will sleep in new york and I sleep in Barcelona alone. I make a big kiss. I miss you. Call me when you arrive."

I don't remember his name, but we talked half-english half-french for most of the (six hour?!?) ride there. He was in his forties, he liked working at farms because he liked smoking cigarettes in the morning on the field, he told me. He had a recent cardiac problem that prompted him to sell his things and make his way, via train, to Morocco. A girl across the way, knitting, had heard I was from New York (I've given up trying to explain that Long Island or upstate is not New York City, but the state of New York, so I just stick with that). She was from New Jersey, had studied sculpture at SVA and was now living in Barcelona and trying to find a job, any job, that would let her stay there. Nearing the end of our trip, another man fell into our little party in a corner of car six - he was from Queens, but had been in Spain for ten years.

Seriously. Jersey? Queens? I can't escape the tri-state area, and I kind of like that.

But anyway, that weird train trip was a good indication of the exciting weekend I was about to have in Barcelona, one of my favorite cities I have visited thus far, I think! The only Catalan I remember is café amb llet - or café au lait on this side of the border. I saw Gaudi's architecture, an epically coreographed fountain show, a spring festival in a park, another Arc de Triomph, Las Ramblas, an amazing market with people and meet and fruit and chocolate and just food spilling out its seams. I loved Barcelona!

And now I only have about five days of rest before I start my next ridiculous eurotour, courtesy of Paul Valéry's two-week long spring break: Prague, Paris, London, Istanbul. Oh, quelle vie.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Wish you were here!

My host mom went out of town for a few days to visit her son, which means I've had the apartment to myself for the past twenty-four hours or so. If I could write here a postcard to wherever she is (she told me it was about a ten-hour car ride, but I forgot to ask in which direction), it would go something like this, I think...

Coucou, Michèle! The house phone still rings even though you aren't here, and I don't think I'm going to pick it up. After you left, I immediately exercised my right in raiding the food you left (Thanks, by the way, though the actual cooking of said foods is still a mystery) and leaving articles of clothing in various rooms at free will. I've made a permanent campsite on the living room couch, with the balcony window open to let in some air and sounds (which have been, today, skateboarding teenagers, cars, and a national strike in progress). I didn't come home for dinner last night. I have not answered the door for strangers. See you in a few days!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

My face feels warm


I awkwardly asked some people to take our photo, haha.

Surpassed all of my expectations this morning and woke up, got dressed, and met everyone else into to voyage to the beach. One hour's worth of public transportation (tram & bus, easily paid for by my ultra-cool monthly pass) and we were there, in gorgeous Palavas, and the shore stretched out for miles.

Call me low maintenance, but a solid four hours of hanging on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea with some American (& one Spanish!) students and French groceries and I'm set. Every (99.9% to be exact) second guess, every uncomfortable moment...today, it's okay. And now I remember why I picked the south of France.

Friday, March 13, 2009

How is France real.

So for a few weeks the professors of all the university-led courses were on strike (though I take courses at the university, it's through the international student department, so mine went on as usual), then the students blockaded the doors to all the buildings (seriously, I have not seen a single one untouched, and there are a whole lot of doors) with chairs, desks, benches, etc. and plastered the campus with posters that read, "Paul Valéry en grève!" and today, when I thought there wasn't anything more they could do, I tried to get on campus for my politics class and the entryway was closed. The whole campus was just closed off to the outside world.

Supposedly, the night before there was rioting with the students (or homeless people? I head that too, I don't know) and the president of the school ordered the campus closed for the day, and for the blockade to end. So, supposedly on Monday things will resume as usual...not that anything has been usual around here.

So after finding a makeshift classroom in a building down the road, learning about things like the Dreyfus Affair and Emile Zola and the French print media, I celebrated the ridiculous French university system by sitting in a park for a few hours, with some friends, some cheese, and a baguette. Ahh, la vie française.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

When writers read my mind

You know those moments when you're reading something, and it feels like it was written exactly for you, for this exact moment in time?
I've been reading some of Aimee Bender's short stories online and they're really, really incredible. I was reading her story "On a Saturday Afternoon" and came across this...
I once thought that if I traveled in France, I would have a different brain, the brain of a girl who travels in France. I saw myself, skipping through meadows in a yellow and blue print dress. But even with the old buildings, with the bright, bready smells, with the painted French sunlight, it was still my same brain in there, chomping as usual, just fed this time by baguettes and brie.
Wow wow wow. This is kind of exactly how I feel. I'll explain later.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Toujours, un grève


This is what most of campus looks like: piles of chairs and desks all over the place. Most of them are blocking doors to all the buildings; this one here is more symbolic, I guess. These are the front gates to the school but these desks here aren't really keeping anyone out. All the main university courses are cancelled for the time being, but since all of my classes are through the International Students department, they're still going on. But there's still small interruptions - my professors had to find a new room for our classes, and I couldn't get back my politics exam because my professor couldn't get to his office. Yikes. Some of my friends haven't had classes for weeks, and are wondering if they'll still get credit if the strike continues. I just couldn't imagine something like this happening at Geneseo, but I guess its pretty normal here.

A class I had last Tuesday was cancelled and a friend's class was on strike. So where do you go when you have a sudden petits vacances thrust upon you?

The Meditteranean Sea, bien sûr. Just a 5 euro train ride away. Sometimes I wonder how this life is possible.


Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Revelations

I traveled three thousand miles to fall in love with a city. Since I came back to Montpellier from vacation I have felt overwhelmed in the greatest way, and I realize why I chose this strange medium-ish city over Paris, or over any other program I could have snuck my way into. I wanted to know France, and while I won't pretend to be an expert in an entire culture or country after two months of living in it, I feel the start. My thinking and speaking muddle between English and French, leaving meaning somewhere in the middle, suspended like an insect in ancient amber (yeah, like the kind you saw in Jurassic Park).

The apartment buildings, the trains running on time a few blocks from my bedroom, the dog-shit covered streets, always being asked if I have a spare cigarette, taking the afternoon slowly in with a café au lait and making a mustache from the bubbly milk. For once, I have not wondered if there is something greater out there, something more I should be seeing. Right now, I will have to remind myself years down the road, I was a part of it. It exists. I can touch it. The moon shines through the skylight every night and I will be the first to admit that not every day is perfect, not every day is inspirational, but I am here and I am finding the experience very, very formidable.

[but there is home, too, the united states. geneseo. and this summer, an empty vessel which needs to be filled by this better self, The Self That Went to France. there are people I need to still wrap my arms around. it's not just the city - i need them, too.]

The university campus is barricaded by its own students as of today. I'm not entirely sure what the strike is about to explain it well, but it seems French students are very vocal and very ready to make their opinions known to the President, to protect their educational system. I can't imagine what would happen if Geneseo students mobilized and boycotted class for a day, but here it hardly makes news: France has a culture of grèves, after all. I guess we'll have to wait and see if this makes a difference or not. My classes are proceeding as usual, since I chose to take all of mine through the International Relations department (e.g. French professors but all American students. I was really nervous about my level of French two months ago), and those are still proceeding as normal, so I'm not personally affected. But it's really interesting to witness, in any case.

I don't have classes on Wednesdays anyway (seriously, my schedule here is way, way, laughably less jam-packed than at Geneseo) so today I wrote some cover letters for summer internships and went to see Milk, with Sean Penn. It was amazing, seriously breathtaking. It's interesting to watch films with the English soundtrack and French subtitles, because you can see how they chose to use certain words and phrases. And I learned things! Thanks to Milk, when you want to say "Don't hang up," on the phone to someone, it's "Ne quittez pas." Now you know.