La Vie En Rose

Arc de Triomphe (Personal Photo)

Paris. It is La Ville Lumière, a rose-coloured dream of monuments and history-saturated streets, a city I had envisioned visiting of since I first said bonjour in fourth grade, a city I had begged to visit for years. Family discussions of this nature often went like this:

Parents: Laura, where would you like to go for vacation this year?

Me: Paris!

Parents: Where within driving distance*?

*Side note: Florida counts as “within driving distance”: it takes about twenty-two hours including gas and coffee breaks, but we’ve done it... and without changing drivers – my Dad drives it all!

When I signed on that crazy ride to spend a year abroad in Nice, France, the first destination on my list of “Places to See” was Paris... Oddly, it was only in January that I visited the city. Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and Germany squished in before it.

As such, the moment I set the TGV train to go to Paris for the first time, so many butterflies filled my stomach that I thought I would float off the ground, suitcase. When I popped into Paris from Germany and saw the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, that was not Paris. That was a tidbit, a teaser—to say that I visited Paris for the first time on my previous trip would be like saying you experienced a fine red wine after but inhaling the bouquet.

Sunset at the Eiffel Tower (Personal Photo)

I would be staying with family in a small town twenty kilometres from the city centre—family I had never met, and whom my parents had not seen for many years. I hoped that they would like me. My parents assured me that I would be fine. When I arrived at the Gare de Lyon after a five-hour train ride, I made a beeline for my uncle’s workplace at the other end of the city, where we had agreed to met, so that I could drop off my bags and determine how the rest of my afternoon would go.

I planned an ambitious but achievable loop that would start and finish with the Eiffel Tower. First, in daylight, and then at sunset. When I first saw the Eiffel Tower, I thought to myself, I am in Paris! I really am in Paris! I blinked, but it didn’t go away. After asking a young couple to take my photo, I power-walked to the Arc de Triomphe, where I climbed up to the very top up a dizzying spiral staircase to a lovely view of the. Absolutely free, I might add, because I had proof that I was a resident as opposed to simply a tourist. It would not be the only place my wallet would be spared.

After walking down the Champs-Élysées and across the Seine, I dashed into the Hôtel des Invalides (also free for me) before closing time to see Napoleon’s tomb. From there, I returned to the Eiffel Tower. My mind lurched at the line for the elevator, the expected wait time 45 minutes. That long, and I’d miss the sunset. Another sign said that the very top was closed: the second level was as high as you could go. 

The Eiffel Tower at night (Personal Photo)

Glancing at the one person in line for the stairs—and the half-price ticket—I braved the 700+ steps. I have no idea how I did it, especially after having already climbed the Arc de Triomphe, but I made it in time for a gorgeous sunset. The tower lit up while I was on it, and by the time I got back down, it was sparkling. However... I was a bit behind schedule!

As I was running back, on the other side of the Eiffel Tower... I happened to bump into the very same couple that had taken my photo earlier. With my silver fedora, I must have been memorable, for they recognised me before I recognised them! We were walking in the same direction, so I told them how to get to the Arc de Triomphe before sprinting back to my uncle’s workplace. My timing was perfect.

Dinner was spectacular. Lamb chops with vegetables and a red wine as old as I was! After sipping a tisane (an herbal infusion — technically not tea), meeting their cat Leo, and Skyping my parents, I tucked it in for the night. Snuggled in a real bed, belly still warm from the home-cooked meal, and mind fluttering with the afternoon’s adventure and the following day’s promises, I drifted off.

The Weirdest Christmas Ever

Where's Waldo? (Personal Photo)

Regard our family Christmas photo. Anything seem... strange to you?

Call me selfish, but I didn’t go home for Christmas. Plane tickets home are pricey, jet lag is a pain and really, when it’s between Spain/Nice, where I’m outside wearing a t-shirt and drinking in the cerulean skies, and Canada, where the polar vortex is causing heavy snowfalls, ice storms and power outages... Well, what would you do?

 Ever seen Christmas with the Kranks? That’s what this year felt like—like I was skipping Christmas. There’s no snow, it’s warm, and I wasn’t with my family. But I do have an awesome pair of French neighbours who seem to have adopted me, dropping by with random gifts (to date: nail polish, a dress (unfortunately, too small in the shoulders, so I couldn’t keep it), rainbow gloves). Whenever I try to bake them something, they always put a slice of cake on the plate when they return it! They’re also the ones who contacted my landlord after my apartment was almost broken into, and they’re always on the look-out for suspicious activity. Since then, my neighbour has invited me to eat a galette des rois with her to celebrate the New Year (but that’s for a later post!)

And did I mention that she invited me for Christmas Eve dinner à la niçoise?

*clears throat*

Scaaarrrfff (Personal Photo)

On the Veille de Noël, my neighbour gave to me:*

• Twelve ounces of rosé
• Eleven buttered bread slices
• Ten spoonfuls of foie gras
• Nine helpings of scampi**
• Eight cups of mussels
• Seven slices of duck
• Six types of vegetables
• Five minutes for a stretch break!
• Four types of cheese
• Three bûches de Noël
• Lindor chocolates
• And champagne—our favourite “bubbly”!

* Sorry, foodies, no pictures of the dinner! But take note of all the seafood!

** and oysters—fresh from one of Yolande’s friends

I brought a bottle of wine as a gift, but we did not drink it. Naturally, Yolande had already chosen wine to accompany our meal: a rose to go with all the seafood (that being said, red wine does go with cheese). This did not surprise me, as I know these sorts of things, and I did not insist on my bottle being opened. We supped with her daughter, so it was all of this food just for the three of us! She even got me a scarf and nail polish! Earlier in the month, I gave Jean-Pierre and Yolande their own gifts—Christmas mugs filled with chocolates and tea.

We ate for about four hours straight, chatting the whole night. According to my Dad, according to my landlord, according to Yolande, my French was “impeccable.” (Aww, yeah!)

15 C, even in January. i.e. T-shirt weather. (Personal Photo)

Christmas morning was mine alone, although I spent most of it unpacking from Spain and packing for my next destination—Germany (next post). I busied myself until my family back in Canada would be awake and called for a video chat using my Blackberry Playbook.

It’s the first year, in fact, that I’ve spent Christmas (and Thanksgiving, for that matter) away from my family. And it looks like Easter will follow, but Ill tackle that hurdle when I get there.

It’s not quite the same watching your brother open yours presents and his presents. Really, he gets twice the fun and I’m stuck there, looking in and making funny faces on the screen. Or when he gives you chocolates that you CAN’T EAT because you’re in France... (Yeah, I didn’t expect any sympathy—“I’d go to your [event], but I’m in Europe... boo hoo” doesn’t work, either.)

I did, however, get to see how my parents and my brother reacted to their personalized gifts (compliments of online shopping, which I’m really getting the hang of!). David’s Tea has this “Provence” tea with lavender reminiscent of the part of France I’m residing in, so I got them that, among other things.

Between that and spending the evening with some of my Canadian classmates, it was a good two days of craziness! But the craziness would spiral into madness... and insomnia...

TO BE CONTINUED...

Crazy Little Thing Called Course Registration

(For your viewing pleasure, I have included some photos from my exploration of the area around the Museum of Contemporary art, although they have little connection to my post. Enjoy!)

Entrance to the Museum of Contemporary Art (Personal Photo)

Class registration was... interesting. And chaotic. 

At UWO, we register for our courses entirely online. If a class is full, we can register for another class and then swap when there’s a spot. Then there is an add/drop period, after which you’re stuck in the courses you’ve signed up for. For the most part, you then attend lectures on the first day of classes.

At the University of Nice, tutorials and electives are separate from lectures, at least in terms of registration. The entire campus signs up for those courses in the same room, regardless of year or program. For lectures, you just show up during the first week of class. Essentially, you audit your courses until sometime in October, when you register for exams. This is in place of an add/drop period, for if you decide to drop a course, you simply stop attending class and don’t sign up for the exam.

The hour before this sign-up session, my classmates and I were being told about course registration in general. From our chairs, we could see the crowd amassing outside the room, pressing against the sides of the doors and occasionally creeping a toe over the threshold. 

La Tête Carrée (Personal Photo)

At some unseen signal, they swarmed into the room like ants and filled up every available seat. Then the professors then filed in and sat in the front rows. One of them announced where each year would be registering, but because of the acoustics of the room, I couldn’t hear much more than echos. Still, I managed to successfully manoeuvre my way around the room, pushing and shoving and saying “Excusez-moi” more times than I can count. There must be an art to it, since some people were weaving their way through the mass of bodies with seeming ease.

On another note, marks are given out of 20, and phantom whispers have told me, to my inner perfectionist’s horror, that it is incredibly difficult to do well in school here. I’m trying not to think about that—I have more pressing issues at the moment [such as getting my Carte de séjour]. 

 

The Acropolis (Personal Photo)

The credit system is also different. From my understanding, courses are valued in terms of “ECTS,” which seem to translate as: 1 hour of class = 2 ECTS. Most courses are 4 ECTS. Students require 30 ECTS per semester. Thankfully, as an exchange student, I don’t have to worry too much about this. I simply pick three courses worth 4 ECTS. At this moment in time, I’m planning on taking Phonology, Medieval French and Translation (although I’m going to check out the Sociolinguistics course and a Philology courses, too).

This semester, I will only have twelve hours of class per week... a welcome reprieve from my previous semester, which was twenty-two hours per week! Plus—wait for it, wait for it!—my weekend will begin Wednesday afternoon!

We likes that, doesn’t we, Preciousss?

Baby Steps in the French Riviera

Unfortunately, all my photos of Monaco and Cannes are on my Dad’s camera, so I’ll share photos of my apartment instead.

Cannes (Day Trip - Sept. 5, 2013)

View from Apartment (Personal Photo)

Once we had settled in to the apartment, my family and I decided to explore how the buses operated, so on impulse one morning we decided to go to Cannes, famous for its annual film festival held in May. It cost us only 1.50 euros each. After days of walking around Nice, the bus ride to Cannes was a welcome respite for my feet, which throbbed at the end of each expedition.



The roads here are narrow and twist like vipers; every hamlet is a maze of twisty passages, all alike. I was glad we were not driving, for within a heartbeat I would have become lost: the extra moment it would take to process the French signs (and share that information with my father, the hypothetical driver) would inevitably lead to such an end. And that’s not including dealing with unfamiliar traffic laws and road signs!
 

After being forced off the bus at its last stop, we hit the beach. Unlike those in Nice, the beaches of Cannes are sandy, which was much gentler on my tender toes. A few minute’s walk from the beach lay the pedestrian-only area lined with shops and small cafés. As I wandered further, the way narrowed and began to twist upwards. Squeezed into the space were increasingly fancy restaurants. My stomach, not yet accustomed to the 7pm French dinner hour, was rumbling by 5:30. As we passed one restaurant, the brother of the chef convinced my family to come back for dinner, and so I found myself supping on salmon, dorade (sea bream), and crème brûlée while enjoying a glass of white wine on the house. (I should add that many French restaurants seem to close sometime in the afternoon and reopen for dinner at about 6pm; the ones that remain open all day advertise themselves as having “non-stop” service.)

 

Monaco (Day Trip - Sept. 7, 2013)

Main Room of Apartment (Personal Photo)

Two days later, our destination was Monaco, a tiny country situated an hour’s bus ride from Nice. Tourism and gambling are its main industries. It even has its own monarch. Oddly enough, I was reminded of Genovia, a similar but non-existent country from The Princess Diaries. We hopped off at the Monte Carlo Casino and, after snapping a few photos of the outside, walked down and around the bay to the Palace.

We saw a rare event: every day, at 11:55am sharp, there is the changing of the guards; however, we had chosen the lucky day when no such event occurred. Instead, we watched for 15 minutes as a forklift shoved some steel beams onto the back of a transport truck. As we waited in vain, I saw pigeon missing one of its feet and dubbed it Peggy, the peg-legged pigeon. I also saw a seagull the size of a small dog and thought it was going to snatch my baguette panini sandwich from my hands.



A “Nice” Arrival (Sept. 2, 2013)

Baie des Anges - View from le Château (Personal Photo)

I will only get away with writing this once—Nice is very nice.

The water of the Baie des Anges is impossibly blue, although strangely enough, the air smells only faintly of the sea, if at all. Every single day but one has been sunny, and even when it did rain, it cleared up by mid-morning. From the walkway along the beach, I can see all the way across the city; at night, streetlamps light up the coast. Day or night, the bay makes a perfect postcard photo.

Beautiful city aside... It was a very long day. Groggy from a combination of sleep deprivation and jet lag, I missed my bus stop and had to haul my luggage an extra half-mile to my apartment. Unlike back home, the names of the upcoming stops are neither announced nor displayed, and the street names are displayed on plaques on buildings rather than signs at intersections. Despite this mishap, I located my apartment easily (although I had fun with the keys, which are finicky) and napped. Later, I met my coordinator for dinner at a restaurant called Le Québec. With my expert internal GPS, I got lost several times despite preplanning my route and checking my map every five minutes.

 

Promenade des Anglais at night (Personal Photo)

Walking home in the dark, I was more anxious than I have ever been at night. My heart pounded with every step I took, but I set forth with a look of determination and false confidence. At night, everyone seems shifty (especially men lounging on doorsteps or investigating the dumpsters), and shadows leap from dark alleys. Nothing happened, fortunately. Perhaps I am simply paranoid from being in an unfamiliar environment, but if I had been watching me as a movie, I would have been screaming, “Don’t do it, stupid!” Next time I’m shelling out the Euros for a bus ticket. The Promenade des Anglais (walkway along the beach) is less intimidating than the narrow sidewalks of the other streets.


My parents dragged themselves onto my doorstep the next day, equally disoriented and fatigued. We spent a leisurely day at the beach and celebrated our survival with a bottle of wine. Speaking of which, wine is plentiful and cheap here. The grocery store has an entire aisle devoted to it, and bottles sell for as few as 3 Euros. My father shared some advice he obtained from a wine tasting: find a cheap bottle of wine that you love. Coca Cola (from our limited experience) is expensive, barely cheaper than wine.

It must sound like I am living a dream, that this has all been a vacation so far. For all its ups, there have been downs as well, and people don't always mention those in idealistic Facebook statuses about how wonderful their lives are. It is hot enough here that within minutes of being outside, my skin is slick with sweat. Despite wearing SPF 60 and 85 sunscreen, my cheeks turn pink after a mere two hours at the beach. My apartment lacks AC, and because I shut my balcony door at night for security purposes, I am too hot at night to sleep well (this will be less of an issue as winter approaches). Another mishap: when I went to the bank to get my debit card, I was told it wasn’t there. Without my bank card, I cannot get a mobile phone plan or internet. Woe is me! I must use campus wifi.

I have had more adventures in my first week, but those shall be saved for my next post.

Until next time!

Ready, Get Set, Fly!

The idea of living in another country is exciting. And terrifying.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I never thought I was one to go on an academic exchange. The travel bug has tread outside my bedroom door, but never before has it crawled over the threshold to sneak into my bed and bite me. I saw the opportunity of a lifetime, and some impulsive force compelled me to seize it, clutch it to my heart with both hands, and not let go.

Completing paperwork and hunting down documents was not how I planned spending my free time in the summer, nor making difficult phone calls with insurance companies and banks. People idealise the process, envy that you’re going abroad and they’re staying behind. Little do they know the stress of it all.

In September, I will be flying to Nice, France. It will be my first flight alone; although I am a seasoned traveller, I am still nervous.

In my lifelong dream of going to France, I’ve always thought of Paris, the City of Lights. I hear it is a beautiful city. The weather promises to be mild, for Nice is on the coast of the Mediterranean sea; I may come to miss the Canadian winters I have grown up with, but I will never miss shovelling snow. It will be my home for the next nine months.

I leave tomorrow. I can hardly believe it.

My heart quivers whenever I think of my approaching flight, as though moths have taken residence beneath my skin, gnawing at me like I am made of cotton. These past nights have brought me poor sleep; troubled dreams of flying and getting lost haunt me, ghosts that do not trouble me as much during my waking moments. My bags are packed, but a nagging voice at the back of my mind whispers that I’ve forgotten something critical, sowing seeds of doubt that I do not need.

Likely as not, I will not believe that I am actually going to be spending the year in France until I wake up in the morning in my apartment, breathing in the sea air.