December 14th, 2008

Look at the date.
I have been in France for 2 days shy of 4 months. How has that happened?
While there have been times in which I've been frustrated, tired, homesick, people-sick, even the tiniest bit of regretful of my decision to come to France, the time has flown by, and I've realized that I have truly enjoyed my time here and learned and grown so much. The other day, I bought my train ticket to return to Paris to catch my flight back to the United States in January. Already. It's that time.
Last night, Claire and I went to our friend Nathalie's apartment for a French dinner with our mutual friend Simon. They are from the town of Poitiers which is a long 10-hour drive Northwest of Aix-en-Provence. They are both just a year older than us and studying at the Fac, also, but they are studying what is an equivalent of International Studies and language. They both studied abroad last year in German-speaking countries, and are both very proficient in English. The dinner was absolutely amazing! The food was mouth-wateringly tasty. On the menu?
Appetizer: Salad with lardons (bits of pork, kind of like bacon bits but much better quality and tastier) and a mustard-balsamic vinaigrette.
Main dish: Tomates farcies, or tomatoes stuffed with ground beef that has been seasoned with herbes de provence (a blend of rosemary, thyme, marjorum, and other various green herbs)
Dessert: Profiteroles (pastry puffs/cream puffs) with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.
But not only was the food amazing, the company, and the conversation were, as well! We talked about everything, ranging from getting to know our hometowns better (Little Rock, AK, Princeton, NJ, Poitiers, France), politics in both the United States and France, languages, food, religion...all sorts of things. We ended up staying for 4.5 hours (!!). It's great when you make friends, but it's even more valuable when you find that you learn from your friends. I've found that while I've learned a lot about art history, cooking, living in a tiny house with 4 other girls, how to ask for a pitcher of water, and how French train tickets work, I've learned an immeasurable amount from Nathalie and Simon. They've taught me about all sorts of little traditions from their hometown, they explained the reasons for and causes and results of all of the youth demonstrations in France in the past 5 years or so, they've taught me how to order peach syrup in a beer, how to say that I'm full without saying that I'm a pregnant animal, and the reason why the politics of the United States is so important to France and how the downfall of Sarkozy makes Obama's presidency exciting but raises doubts among some French people.

So much.

There are some people who would look at my study abroad experience and say that I wasted my time for 5 months, that I didn't take advantage of the French culture, that I didn't go out enough (or at all, rather), that I didn't meet French men, that I spent too much time and effort on classes rather than frolicking about Southern France, that I should have been more liberal with money and traveled around Europe. Even other people on the program think that my approach to study abroad has been silly, that it's ridiculous that I've only been out to one bar, and that I haven't yet been to a nightclub.
But in a month or so, when I'm back in the States, I'm certain that I'll be able to look them directly in the eye with a smile on my face and say that I learned more than I could have ever hoped to learn during my 5 months in France and that I know now that La Princesse de Clèves is every so subtly a book about female empowerment in an oppressive society, that most of the time no one is judging you or making fun of you that it's usually something we make up in our own insecurity, that the "primitivist" movement of art did not just aim to copy ancient art forms but was developed with a theory based on simplification of the form and the attribution of religious signification to the art of sculpture, and that eating beef tartare and escargot is actually quite pleasant.

I'd say that's pretty good :)

La Fête des Lumières

"The Festival of Light" in English.
It is an annual 3-night event in the beautiful city of Lyon, a few hours north of Aix-en-Provence by train. It originated as a festival to celebrate the day of the Annunciation, a Christian holiday, but it has turned into a giant festival of light displays, music, hot food vendors in the streets, in which the entire city of Lyon comes out to play until 1:00 in the morning the next day.
2 of my housemates, 1 of their friends from home who was visiting, and I decided to spend a night in Lyon and see what all of this was about. It was a nice French college student that I met at a Halloween party that I met that told me about this event, something I had never heard of. He told me that it was imperative that I go, and so I took his advice, and looked up at the event. He was right: I had to go. And thank goodness I did.
First of all, the city of Lyon is gorgeous no matter what. It is a mix of big shopping centers and beautiful rococo-style buildings, and gorgeous cathedrals, with a corner of the city that houses its remains from when the Romans had control. We arrived at the Lyon Part-Dieu train station at a little after 1:00pm on Friday and decided to go to the hotel by foot. It took at least an hour, but it was an amazing stroll through the city.
After the sun set, the entire city began to light up. The strings of lights hanging above us in the streets turned on, and the displays and exhibitions began. Street lights covered in red and blue film lighted the path through the festival, washing the city in eerie colors.

There's no way that I can show you everything that I had the pleasure of seeing that night, but I will try to describe it for you. We walked around with 1-euro cups of mulled wine in our hands, stoppping every now and then for a "bretzel", a hot wrap, or a pastry to keep us going through the night and stopped and saw some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my entire life. We walked around with our heads tilted up towards the lights, our mouths hanging every so slightly open in awe. We were all children that night. We even rode a massive ferris wheel, something I haven't done in AGES.

But let me show you at least my favorite display/presentation/exhibit of them all. It was titled "On dirait que..." which means "They would say that...". I don't understand the title. But it consisted of a light projection on the front of the Hôtel de Ville, or the City Hall, which is a beautifully ornate, very pristine-looking building located in a big plaza in the center of Lyon. It was lit up with all sorts of colors to depict a giant toy dollhouse belonging to a child giant. It was a small girl who was also projected in her giant-ess form on the wall of the building next to City Hall. The projection showed what happened to the dollhouse as she played with it, with new figures dancing through the house, what happened when she filled it with water, when she splattered it with paint, etc. Here's the sequence, starting with the building in the middle of the day, when we first arrived in Lyon:
ISN'T THAT AMAZING??? It was my favorite part of the night.
The city was gorgeous and the next day, we went up to two cathedrals perched on the other side of the Saône River of Lyon. There are two rivers in Lyon, the Rhône and the Saône. Here is a view of my travel-mates next to the Saône at the end of our night out on the town during the festival, and another picture of me with a view of Lyon from one of the cathedrals, high above the city.
This must've been one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I only wish that you had all been there to share it with me :)

My New Obsession: Art

Perhaps this is a result of the fact that I've voluntarily thrown myself into an intense 3-month crash course on modern art, but I have a new obsession: art. If I have a little extra time or need a break, I'll look for random artists and themes with the term "art" on Google Images to see what comes up and just gaze at the pieces. I have LOVED sitting in class and hearing about how Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" questioned how we define art in addition to just being really funny (this sculpture consists of a ceramic urinary turned upside down and signed in black ink). I get to learn that Edgar Degas, although a very interesting and revolutionary sculptor, was also a sexist, racist, misogynistic, anti-semitic asshole. I get to learn that Medardo Rosso's sculptures "disappear" if you look at them from the wrong angle or in the wrong light because the way he molded the bronze, the figure is only distinguishable from a certain point of view. SO. FREAKING. COOL.
I have also gotten really into looking at my surroundings a little more carefully to see what I can find. That's what we're supposed to do while we're abroad, aren't we? Slow down, take a deep breath, and absorb everything that we can. Here are some examples of the artwork or beautiful images that I have seen around town and at the Fac:


This coming weekend, Fay, Jacqueline, Jacqueline's friend Alicia, and I are going to Lyon, a big city north of us for its annual Festival of Lights which goes for 3 days straight. Every night, the city lights up with tons of art installations, concerts, activities, and such with the theme of light for those three days. We're going to be spending a night there so we can stay out late and look at everything. That should be fun!