Virtually Home

Last night I hung out with Vianney. We made a sort of sautéed beef at his and Benjamin's place, with figs and red bell peppers and lots of garlic. It sounded a little strange at first, and then it turned out to be awesome. And we mashed some potatoes with these weird white sweet potatoes he'd found at the Eurasia market. Which, by coincidence, I had also visited the day before. After dinner we met up with Vianney's friend Halforth at the Charles Dickens. Halforth is from Iceland but went to school in Stillwater starting about 6th grade, and went on to graduate from OSU before he moved to France to learn French. It was weird to meet someone who was Oklahoman in such a random way. I refrained from slandering the Cowboys. That's how novel it was. Xavier met us there, and it was nice to get to see him again, since it was looking doubtful. Benjamin wasn't around, since he'd gotten his driver's license earlier that day and was busy driving around his hometown ...

Friday, the two study abroad advisers from OU were in town to tweak the program, such as it is. All the OU kids were invited for lunch with them at the international relations office on campus, but I was the only one that showed up. I had a moment of panic when I arrived and the staff didn't know what I was talking about and told me the Americans had already been and gone -- it turns out that even though those staffers were invited, they hadn't been informed. Score one for French efficiency. And so we had a very French box lunch, and some red wine. Alcohol plus university officials on campus was odd. One of the French staffers confused me for French and didn't realize I was American until I started speaking with Jack and Kye in rapid English. That made me proud but a little incredulous. Dan and Mary came and picked me up from campus and we drove out into the outskirts of Bordeaux, where everything is much less rich- and idyllic-looking. There's a Nazi submarine base t...

I feel incredibly conflicted. The last few days has passed in a haze of nostalgia and trying to see everyone before they or I leave. After the British girls left, I met up with Lucy and some English/Italian friends at Jardin Publique. The weather was beautifully hot, and I stayed in the shade so as not to make my sunburn worse. I went to open mic night at the Connemara for the last time, which was pretty sad. I played "This Year" by the Mountain Goats and U2's "One", that last with Lawrence Collins and my friends Nath and Clémentine singing along. It wasn't the best rendition, in part from my lack of preparation and in part from their lyrics covering my tab on the music stand, but it all worked out. We played some more guitar in the park across the street after the bar closed. I walked home. It stormed a bit that night, and a cold front came in. It's now in the mid 60s at midday and pretty cold in the morning and the evening. Last night was Wednesd...

This is a line from Noah and the Whale's new album, The First Days of Spring. It's an appropriate line. And, really, an appropriate album. I spent yesterday and this morning hanging out with the British girls who were here. We used Benjamin's free pitcher coupon at the Frog and Rosbif, and we drank a glass of Maison Blanche over there, which is my favorite of their brewed-in-house beers. We hung out by the river, which is always beautiful. And packed with French people drinking in public. In France it's legal to drink in public, but not to be drunk in public -- no one heeds this second part, but in general the atmosphere is always lovely. One of my favorite things about Bordeaux is that there are always plenty of people in the streets, walking around and talking, even in the middle of the night. It's a strange contrast with dead Oklahoma, where there is no easy way to be a pedestrian. We went to bed quite late and then woke up around 10. I made some coffee and, ...

Yesterday, I got a Facebook message from a stranger saying that she was a friend of Vianney's, coming in on a plane from Scotland and then a train from Paris, and could I please remind him to pick her up from the train station, because he wasn't answering his landline or his cell? I left him a message. And about two hours later receive several frantic phone calls and text messages advising me that he'd completely forgot his friends were coming in from Scotland and was in Toulouse with Christine, and could I pick them up and keep them. And so I found myself with Lily and Philippa, who are Scottish and English respectively, last night. We dropped their stuff of at my apartment, got a drink with Benjamin at the Frog & Rosbif, and took a walk by the river. I guess we're going to try to see the major sights of Bordeaux today.

Things I will miss about France: My friends. Being able to walk to the grocery store. Mixed housing and commercial areas, allowing me to live over a hair salon and a pub. Public transportation. Architecture. Hearing people speak French everywhere. The dairy selection at the grocery store, minus UHT milk. Cheap, omnipresent wine. Cheek-kissing as a greeting. Legally drinking in public. Trains. Orangina. Things I am looking forward to at home: My friends. Not having to look out for dog droppings while walking down the sidewalk. Customer service, efficiency, timeliness. Driving a car. Flying airplanes. Personal space. Living in a city with trees. Having a university community. Classes that are both interesting and somewhat difficult. Also, professors who are accountable to their students regarding grades, appointments, etc. Using dollars. Not having ATM fees. Not having to check the exchange rates. My local record store. Cain's Ballroom. The cabin. Swimming...

Once again, I've fallen way behind on my updates. I find myself overwhelmed with things I want to do while I'm here, and this has made me largely unable to do any of them. This is a flaw I'm trying to correct as it pertains to school work, too. Anyway, last Thursday I went with two Californians and two French friends out to Benjamin's family's farm in Calonges, France. Normally, it's about 45 minutes by train from Bordeaux, but since they were doing some work on the tracks, we had to take a large tour of the surrounding towns and ended up, two hours later, at the Tonneins train station, where Ben's dad picked us up. After a short and awkward car ride, four people and some luggage in the backseat of a Mercedes, we got to Ben's house in Calonges. The town is not even really large enough to be called a town. On a fifteen minute walk from Ben's front door, you can pass through three "town centers". I only saw one church, though, so they'r...

On May 8th and 9th, I went with my landlady and twenty-five of her masters students who were variously enrolled in either English or Religious and Culture Studies on a whirlwind tour of the Dordogne region. The students brought, variously, their parents and girlfriends and whoever else might want to tag along, so we had a pretty massive caravan that often encountered trouble making u-turns on one lane, dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. I was planning a really elaborate post, but now that I've allowed so much time to pass, I've kind of lost interest. The first day got off to a rocky start, but afterward was pretty fantastic. I showed up where I thought we were meeting, at 8 a.m. on a Saturday, which, in Bordeaux, is about the only time of the week that there aren't a large number of people out in the street -- just a few teenagers straggling home, still drunk, from last night's party, and the team of (rather ineffectual) street sweepers fighting the constant battl...