A Year in France: May 2012

Well I have to say I'm pretty darn proud of myself. Updating my blog without a two month gap of silence? Pretty impressive compared to my previous amount of blogging. But now for the challenging part, trying to describe it all in under 5000 words. To be honest I could probably write a book. Not necessarily an interesting one, but a book nonetheless. My trip to Spain brought so many new things to sight. An unknown language, interesting foods, charismatic people, and everything else that is to be found in a country that is foreign to you. The flight over was for the most part boring, with a stop over in Barcelona. I tried to keep myself occupied with the game "Spot the Americans". A self invented game where the player picks out people passing by and, before hearing them speak, has to guess if they are American or not. For the most part it's overwhelmingly obvious. I'll definitely miss playing it after I return home. Anyways, I was greeted at the gate by the wonderful and eager Ms. Anna Saunders. It was so strange being in Europe with somebody who goes to the same school as you back in the USA. A nice kind of strange! We talked about all the things we missed in America, all the things we are going to miss from Europe and everything else there is to discuss, all under the ever-present sun in Alicante, Spain. If I could I would write down the day by day, hour by hour schedule we had. But keeping your interest in mind I'll stick to a summary of my spring break. We did something different everyday, except for the afternoons when we walked to the Mediterranean and laid in the sun reading and eventually getting in the water to play in the waves. Yes, play in the waves. So not only were we the weird foreigners swimming in the "cold" water. We were the weird foreigners playing in the cold water. Well the locals seemed to find it amusing, and after a year of the both us of trying to blend in we decided to not care for a few days, and let our foreignness shine. Although Spain borders France, the two lifestyles are vastly different. In my opinion anyways. I guess the more south you get the slower everything goes. Everybody was relaxed, always taking it easy. Loud and animated. Friendly and open. I watched the movie Hunger Games in Spanish in the movie theater, understood nothing. Tasted homemade Paella, decided it was the most delicious thing ever (although I say that about three times a week here). Met some friendly Americans that were in Spain for the year like Anna, they were lovely. Watched bull fighting, Hemingway makes it seem way more interesting than it really is. Went shopping, turns out Spain is a lot cheaper than France. Visited the city of Alicante numerous times during the day and at night, it's a beautiful city! Hiked up a mountain to visit a castle, a truly wonderful view. I wish I could have brought you all with me! It was an overall great vacation, I plan on returning one day whether it be to put on a show for the locals again, or enjoy a coffee under the palm trees. A big thank you to Anna, for being such a wonderful host! And to her host family for putting up with my limited Spanish vocabulary that consists of "bueno" and "cierto". Our conversations weren't really deep.
So I returned to France and school started up again. It was hard getting my thoughts away from beaches and palm trees. But the thought that I only had 9 weeks left brought me back to reality quickly. 9 weeks?! Oh no! May has been full of four day school weeks. I spent last four day weekend on a three hour road trip to the south of France, Biarritz. A wonderful coastal city just a few kilometers from the Spanish border. Nobody mentioned to me before leaving that this city was pretty chic and that everybody, no really, everybody is well dressed. I showed up in a sweatshirt and tennis shoes. Oh the humiliation. Girls dressed in wrinkle free blazers, nice heels, fashionable scarves, and name brand bags did double takes when they passed me. I don't think they've ever even seen a sweatshirt before. Where could this tennis shoes wearing, backpack toting, girl come from? America. I was just thanking God I didn't wear, or own for that matter, a pair of crocs. Although I would have loved to see the reaction that would have gotten out of people. I've decided to be a little more sensible with fashion since that incident.
A few days ago a good friend, Karoline (she's Norwegian) and I decided to go to the village rummage sale. Not expecting much out of a rummage sale for a village with a population smaller than my high school back home, we didn't bring much money. Well, we were wrong. Everything and anything could be found there. We spent the day chatting with the villagers, making some British friends, and finding some bargains on old jewelry. The woman selling the refreshments was so charmed by our foreign accents she gave us multiple pieces of homemade cake. Maybe a few too many. She told me all about her travels to the USA and how she thought Americans where some of the nicest people she knew. I smiled extra big, half to show her she was right, and half because the cake was so, very good. After our fifth piece that we got for free I invited her to come visit me if she ever found herself in the DC area. She got so excited and then proceeded to give us the rest of a cherry pie she had made that afternoon. Oh, the perks of living in France.
The days are going by fast and in 13 days school is over. How very bittersweet! I'll end with some pictures. Hoping the May weather is better over there than it is in Southwest France :)