Pardon My French

So the bags are packed and the euro boots and beret are on. I guess I’m as close to ready to leave as I’ll ever be.

For having acquired so much junk, packing went pretty smoothly– much easier than it was prior to coming here. Still, it’s not the greatest pack job of my life, but it will have to work. One thing that may prove difficult is that I have another suitcase, mostly filled with gifts. I’m hoping I don’t have trouble navigating where the hell I’m supposed to go (so my stuff actually goes in the airplane with me.) because aimlessly wandering the airport with two heavy bags isn’t really my idea of a good time.

I leave for the train station within the hour, allowing lots of of time for the 45 walk to centre ville. There are no trains or taxis who will drive me to the station since it’s before 7 on a Monday during Vacances. Thanksfully, Chris offered to accompany me as my pack mule, so I’m hoping this won’t be as hellish as I have envisioned over the last few days. I hope to leave the house around 5 and my train leaves at 6:45. I should arrive in Paris, Charles De Gaulle around 9:30 and my plane is scheduled to take off around 2 this afternoon.

I went to bed around 10, pretty early considering my chaotic sleep schedule, but I didn’t sleep very well. I tossed and turned for four hours before finally jolting awake around 2. I stared at my ceiling for another hour before I just gave up, got up and dressed/make uped myself. Now I’m sipping tea, looking through the photos from my trip and telling myself I’ll come back here someday.

I’m really crossing my fingers that there isn’t any kind of snow storm and we don’t have to land in Cleveland or anything like that. The length of this travel day is already intimidating as is– 2 hours on a train, sitting around and airport for close to five hours and an eight hour plane ride.
I also keep reading stories on CNN about plane crashes, bombings and terrorist attacks. I am just telling myself Christmas is magic and nothing will happen. I’ll probably take some drugs to knock me out the second I get on and hope to god I don’t wake up until I get there. I don’t know why, but in the last two years, I suddenly became afraid of flying.

I’ll be back in the states around 5 p.m. Michigan time. I hope me jet lag isn’t too bad and I hope I don’t cry. I cried the day I got here and now I will probably cry the day I leave. Figures.

See ya, France!

These last few days have been really tough. Everyone’s been leaving, so it’s been kind of a continual cycle of sleep when you can, run to the train station, cry a lot and then spend all the time you can with who’s left. Now it’s just me and the kids who are staying for the year. I knew when I got here that I would have to pack up and leave again someday, but I still got attached to people and now I’m having a hard time letting go.

It was around 7 in the morning, really dark, still and quiet after Chris and I took Ines, Siri and Mindy to the train station. We were waiting for a bus to take us home so we could go back to sleep (I was really tired as my sleep schedule has been completely all over the place for the past week.) I decided to take this time for my now ritual visit of the ATM. Everyday over the past few days, I’ve taken out the entirety of my daily limit of 250 Euro because I still need to pay Madame my rent from October to December. This morning’s transaction caught me completely off guard when the machine ATE my card! I apparently entered my pin number incorrectly twice and this in turn raised some sort of flag that suspicious activity was at play. Meanwhile, I just stood there, my jaw on the ground, staring at Chris in total disbelief before nearly starting to cry. I am scheduled to leave the country in two days, the bank is closed on weekends (it’s Saturday) and I had no idea what to do. After a complete freak out, mulling over stories I’d heard about organized debit card thefts and having bad credit for life, I realized that the machine had eaten my CREDIT CARD, not my DEBIT CARD. Ah, so THAT’S why it didn’t work.
I called 5/3 and had them freeze my account. I don’t really need any money at the moment, since I’ll just be traveling, so I’ll figure out how to solve the problem when I get home–I’l probably just end up cancelling it. I think this is a good example of why sleep is important.

Today, while I was in Centre Ville, I saw this huge thing that wasn’t a bus. I pointed it out to Chris and the two of us stared at it for a good 15 seconds before we realized that it was a SEMI TRUCK. Granted, it was a really nice looking one, not like the one’s back home, but to be honest, I forgot about those things. I think I’m going to have some serious culture shock all over again upon my arrival to the US.

Tomorrow I pack.

If the facebook photos weren’t already a dead give away, I made it to Paris Saturday. My foot hurt a little throughout the day, but I ignored it and trudged on like a champ. By the end of the day, everything else hurt too, so the pain balanced itself out. The day began around 7 when Amanda and I ran to the train station. The train ride there, the ride back 9 that evening and a brief hour repose for lunch were the only breaks we had during the day. The goal was to cover as much ground and drink as many Starbucks holiday themed beverages as humanly possible. A jolt of caffeine and our overwhelming excitement pushed us further than I expected. We power shopped our way through seven districts and we took the Metro just a single time.
Wen we arrived, I got a latte in my hand as quickly as I could. I’ve only tromped around that city once before, but I knew exactly where the nearest Yuppiebucks was. (EVEN THOUGH there are about have a jillion of them in that city, I honestly did know exactly where I was going. Straight out of Montparnesse for three blocks and then a sharp right– see? No coincidence.) Much to my dismay, there weren’t any peppermint mochas, gingerbread lattes or pumpkin spice or egg nog frappacrappawhatevers. French Starbucks had these praline jobs, cherry grinotte mochas and crème brûlée lattes. I had myself a mediocre cherry mocha. If it wasn’t the caffeine that kept me moving all day, it was probably the sugar. The barista used SO MANY flavor syrups.

It was my first time seeing Notre Dame, the Louvre, The Seine, Shakespeare and Company or any of the other museums. I just felt so lucky to be there.

The Champs-Élysées was unfortunately a nightmare. This I should have foreseen. I had no problems moving on the Avenue during my last trip to Paris, but I guess I still should have known that your right to personal space and ease in walking are not possible when you’re on the Champs-Élysées. There was some sort of Winter Wonderland festival going on and vendors selling just about everything packed in along both sides. It took about a half hour to get to the actual shopping district just because there were so many people. People would just abruptly stop walking or decide to play baby rodeo with their infants in the middle of the walkway. HM, maybe THAT’s why Parisians hate tourists. The lights WERE beautiful, though and we left soon after they were turned on.

Here’s some photos from our day

As of today, I have just 12 days left in France. A friend told me to “stop counting,” but I feel like I have to so that this fact actually starts to sink in, or so that I push myself harder to make sure I get the most out of these next two (ish) weeks. At the moment, it’s a storm of exams and last minute assignments. I even conveniently overlooked the fact that Columbia needs yet, another essay from me, so I’ve been pushing myself to get that cranked out. But everything will slow down soon– the application deadline is Monday at Midnight, New York City time and by Wednesday next week, I’ll be done with everything. I won’t even have to go to school after that, just get my things in order before it’s time to jet out. I don’t want to wish away my time in France, but I know I will just feel so relieved when everything just comes to a stop. Just a few more days of stress and then it’s home for the holidays.

We have to notify the secretary’s office when we’re going to miss class. I won’t be there today, so here’s my email:

Bonjour,

Je m’appelle Caitlin et je suis un étudiant americaine.
J’ecris parce-que je voudrais excuser de mes cours pour le jour. Hier après-midi, pendant revenais à pied à la maison, je me suis froissé ma cheville.
En ce moment-même, c’est enflée encore et j’ai très mal. Je vais envelopper mon pied et alterner chaud et froid.

S’il vous plaît, dites mes profs. J’ai un examen de comprehension écrite aujord’hui dans mon cours de langue et je m’inquiete pour mes notes. Quelles sont mes options?
Excusez-moi. Merci.

-Caitlin M. Foyt
Central Michigan University

Yesterday afternoon, I rolled my ankle coming down a flight of steps. It hurt pretty badly, but was better after I hopped around groaning for a minute. I was able to walk normally after a few minutes, but as the evening progressed, it started to kill a little and even began to swell. I woke up this morning and the symptoms are the same. I’m concerned that I’ll miss my busiest day of the week, but moreso that I have my big day in Paris tomorrow– yeah, the one I’ve had planned for a month.I just hope it gets better in time.

And speaking of better– as you can see in my email up there, my French is still really lousy and I find that to be really frustrating.

It took living in another country for me to realize that I am proud of where I come from.

I was born and raised in Metro Detroit, the only actual suburbs in the state of Michigan. Everything about how I grew up just screams how I am a midwesterner through and through. The most obvious of these traits? I apparently have an accent and when I speak French or English here, Europeans always know exactly where I’m from. “Vous êtes de Chicago?” Basically. Just a little more north, guys.

Europeans seem to have an unsaid rivalry between their countries. People are proud of where they come from. There is a similar concept in the US. The states are all like little countries and there are these little characteristics special to the territory that meet you at the boundary of every one.
One day, early in the semester, a girl from the west coast made a nasty comment about Detroit. I reacted without thinking: something about how diverse (UP-Suburbs) Michigan is, Yooper dialect, Meg and Jack White, Iggy and Motown and how we were once a huge engine room in this country. I remember saying something like “So many historical things have happened in my city. Name three important things that have happened in the entire state of Oregon.” She stared at me, completely stunned and caught off guard. I know all kinds of important things have happened there, but that wasn’t the point. It was a knee jerk reaction. I think it’s kind of like you can speak badly of your family when they get on your nerves, but no one else can. No one talks crap about Michigan unless they live there. (CIDEF really is a bit like high school, huh?)

My sister told me today that my dad is now legally deaf. He’s been losing his hearing for a couple of years now and I guess now it’s officially on the books. I don’t see my parents very often (not enough) and when I hear stuff like, that it blows my mind. My parents are starting to get old- they’re not going to be around for forever. I’ve always dreamt of moving far, far away from everything and suddenly I have this epiphany. Yeah, I want to live in the city, but I think I’d be really happy living and working in Chicago. I love the Midwest.