The Noel Adventure Begins!

I am now in Parce sur Sarthe at the countryhome and I feel like I have just started another whole adventure. As of now, my host family is here with an older host sister and her family (husband, 8 year old, 7 year old, and 5 year old), but the house has plenty of room to take in more guests. By the end of the week, it will be completely full with family. Since I am not at home, I want to share all that is happening here so we can pretend like we are together.

To start, I would like to say that I could not have been placed with a better family. Since the first day in France, they have brought me into their family like another son, have been patient teachers of the french language and culture, and have included me in every aspect of their daily lives. And their warm family feeling has carried right over into the Christmas season. My older host sister and her family were very welcoming and inclusive too. Today I was woken up by three little kids asking, "Are you still sleeping?" and they were happy to talk with me as they watched me get dressed and ready for the day. The stranger-border is completely gone between the kids and I already, so I have become their tree, the monster, the protector, and their secret-keeper (although sometimes I can not understand what they say as they whisper to me during a game of cache-cache, hide-and-seek). I have already learned two new card games that I can add to the collection to play back home. With the whole family, we play cards and Settlers of Catan (en Francais now) in front of the always-lit fire which warms the living room. I was able to read for a while today, joined in on the conversation about christmas gifts, and assured the kids that Santa was in the States too. In general, it is hard to find a moment of silence without one of the kids jumping on me or inviting me to play a game, but it is a pleasant change. As more and more families arrive to the house, there is always something fun going on.

We had a taste-all-the-liquor-in-the-house night tonight, and I learned a little about familial french drinking. We started with Muscat as the before dinner aperatif, and it is by far my choice aperatif in France. After dinner, over cake, we tried homemade fermented cherry liquor (which the older host sister made in 1990 I believe), pear, peach, and something else strong but sweet. We then voyaged into the basement and chose a dusty bottle that my host dad described as "explosive" as in you explode when you drink it. The scent alone tested the strength of my nostrils, and our baby sips warmed our stomachs right away. My host dad threw some into the fire and it "exploded" from the fuel. They assured me that I will have to smuggle some home when I leave.

We decorated the house with metallic Christmas colors, set up le sapin (the Christmas tree), and the family sang songs and prayed by la creche (the nativity scene). I have a sheep (un mouton) along with the other kids, and we move it closer to baby Jesus each night until Christmas day. If I had to be anywhere other than home in Texas for Christmas, it would be here. I am now living completely en francais, but it feels great to be able to say I can actually do that, and I am excited for more french family to arrive! There are 6 days until Noel and 17 days total until I am in Texas!

A bientot mes amis!

All my friends are leaving Nantes within the next two days and I am already missing them! We finished our finals earlier this week, so the past few days have been dedicated to enjoying our time together, making dinners for our host families, and shopping in the Christmas markets. I have been taking beaucoup de photos of all the Christmas decorations throughout Nantes and also just of all the normal scenes that I walk by everyday. It all seems so familiar to me now, but this week is the last time I will walk past them for probably quite a while. We have been noting all of our "lasts" this week and the emotions are so different than those of our "firsts." Our last time in the IES building, our last bus ride, our last tram. My life in Nantes will soon be just memories.

This time of the semester is completely characterized as bittersweet. I would absolutely love to be in my home in Texas right now (I have played out my arrival day in my head so many times) because of course I miss my family and my friends and all the comforts of home, but I also completely love living in Nantes. Knowing that I will not be back here for a while is so unreal. In less than a month, I will be in the States where I feel completely comfortable, but I will no longer be in Nantes. It is hard for me to fully comprehend that. Three months ago I was just figuring out this foreign city, and now I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

We went to a petit restaurant this afternoon as a final lunch with our big group of close friends. It is called Black or White, and it is a little burrito bar owned and run by Americans. We walked in, took our seats on our stools, and then we heard English. If you have never lived in a country that speaks a different language, it is hard to fully understand how weird that was. We were in a little gem of a restaurant in the middle of Nantes where everyone inside was speaking English. For months the only english we have heard spoken is from each other, so this was such a surprise. I could not help but just sit and listen to the people around us. Until today I had doubted all aspects of a returning culture shock, but this made me a believer. I do not know how I will react when everyone around me in a public place is speaking English like me. In France, I can speak in English and assume that the conversation is staying only between me and my friends. I do not know how you can have a private conversation when everyone else can understand what you are saying! It is just unreal to think of how things will be so different when I get home in less than a month. I just do not know how I am going to go back to living in the States after I have lived in France (It is not a downgrade by any means, but it will be stepping away from a life of adventure for a life of normal).

My friends are all leaving before me so I am not experiencing the realness of actually going home yet, but I am surrounded by people who are. I know friends who are already back in the States and my best friends here are all leaving Friday and Saturday. These are people that I have been around literally every single day for the past four months. We somehow found each other early on in our first week in Nantes and have completely fallen in love since then. We have become so much like each other with our habits and sayings and accents. And it is a weird connection because we have been through so many amazing adventures together and have had to overcome the same french hardships which makes us even better friends. I feel like our connection is so strong and our personalities so overlapping. I can not imagine going back to school without seeing my Nantes friends every day. We have been talking about how everyone is going to want to know about our experience in France once we arrive back home and about how much we are going to want to talk about it (it is all we have known for the past four months). For most people, an "I had an amazing time, met lots of great people,  loved my host family, and learned more french" will suffice and going into more detail will not interest them too much. But it is impossible to sum up living in France for a semester for someone who just asks "How was your trip?" I feel like you have to understand the progression from the beginning to the end of the semester, my fears and accomplishments and trips and gained knowledge, to even understand a piece of how this experience has made me feel. I know my family wants to hear all the stories and details and emotions of everything that is happening, and that's why they read this little bloggy. But in general, there is no one who fully understands how I have changed except my friends here. We have already pointed out this fact, so there will surely be skype dates where we can talk about everything French without worrying about seeming pretentious (and when no one else cares anymore about what we did or what we saw). They are a good support group for returning back home!

To celebrate our soon departure, tonight my friends and I made a Mexican dinner (chicken quesidillas, rice, beans, queso, guacamole, hot sauce) for my host family and they loved it. My host mom especially loved the velveta queso which was completely gone by the end of the meal. They had never eaten quesidillas before so we had to teach them how to eat them properly (you do not roll them, you can add guac and tomatoes on top if you want, and where to put the beans and rice on the plate). They loved the entire meal and the spices tested their spiceless, french pallates a bit. Again, it was a great bonding time for my family and friends who all got to finally meet each other and see our real interactions and conversation together. It was a great final dinner with my friends together.

With my bags all packed to leave for the other house on Saturday, I am feeling all sorts of emotions. I am really sad that my friends are leaving. I am happy that my host family is so great. I am sad that I will not be home for Christmas. I am excited to experience Noel in France. I am already really missing Nantes and my daily french routines. I am happy that I feel comfortable enough to truely call Nantes home. I am sad that I will not be in Nantes next semester. I am ready for three whole more weeks of living in FRANCE. I would love to be on a plane to Texas to see my family right now. I wish I could live in France longer and keep soaking in the french language. It is bittersweet indeed.

In the end, I feel so completely blessed right now. C'est bonne, la vie.

Winter in Barcelona

My trip to Barcelona both started and ended pretty roughly, but the actual trip was completely amazing and worth the few hardships I faced. After struggling with whether or not to actually go on our trip to Barcelona (flights were being cancelled from Paris because of the snow, so we could have possibly been either stuck in Paris before even getting to Barcelona or we could have been stuck in Barcelona without being able to fly back to Paris), Laura, Abigail, Amy and I hopped on the train to Paris early friday morning. Our train was a little delayed, but we made it through the Paris metro system to the airport. However, I had to pay a 25 euro ticket while on the metro because I had not purchaced the correct ticket. I was pretty upset that I had been fined for not knowing which zone of Paris I was traveling through, but I handed over the money anyway and looked forward to the adventures to come.

 
 

To start, Barcelona was such a great vacation spot after experiencing weeks of winter in Nantes. The weather was so temperate for the begining of December and the skies were blue and sunny. Our hostel was once again very enjoyable and had easy access to the metro. We had an amazing view of the city from the 12th floor, free breakfast (bread rolls and nutella/jam), and our 8-person room only costs 11 euros per night. For our first night, we explored the busy downtown shopping areas. Some things we saw: Christmas lights decorating all the streets, at least five H&Ms within a ten minute walk from each other, Christmas markets on every corner (They mostly sold landscapes and figurines to make nativity scenes, but the most popular trinket in Barcelona was a "pooper" which is a figure with his pants down to go in the nativity. I am not sure how the trend started..), musicians and dancers entertaining the crowds, and hundreds of tourists doing their christmas shopping. We kept having moments of "We are in SPAIN right now!" and "It is almost CHRISTMAS time!" that really made us enjoy even the small things.

 

My favorite part about Barcelona was all the Gaudi buildings and park areas. The Temple de la Sagrada Familia was unreal and so unlike any other cathedral around. It looked like it was melting on one side, one side was topped with giant stone fruit baskets, and one side was sleek stone with biblical characters surrounding the main entrance. We somehow snuck inside for a few minutes (before we were kicked out for not having payed) and the inside towered high but with a completely modern aspect. Gaudi had so much freedom to create whatever his mind could imagine, and la Sagrada Familia looked like so much fun to have dreamed up. We spent most of our first full day in Park Guell which sits above all of Barcelona and was the most beautiful part of the city. It reminded me so much of being in Texas because the landscape was rugged and shrubby and there were even cacti! From the highest point in the park, we saw the entire city below us, all the buildings packed so tightly together. It was completely beautiful and I found myself wanting to take multiple pictures of basically the same scene just to try to capture it entirely. All the trees were still green and leafy (unlike the bare winter trees in Nantes now) and the sun warmed my back in a way I have not felt for a while in France. It was peaceful walking in the park all morning, and there were musicians scattered around the weaving paths. As soon as the music from the women playing the hammered dulcimer stopped, the steel stringed guitar began, and then a hang drum, then a folksy group of guitars. The Casa Museu Gaudi below the park was completely decorated with colorful tiles which must have taken so much time to individually place every single one. After being in Barcelona, I have fallen in love with everything Gaudi.

 

We ate burritos and paella and rice pudding, and I was a happy boy tasting all the spices that I have missed for the past few months (On a side note, people can smoke freely inside of restaurants and bars, so I probably inhaled a few cigarettes worth of smoke during my few days there). We also walked to the beach, and standing in the sand and touching the mediterranean water was so exciting since it is December! I tried to soak in as much of the warmth as possible so that I can remember back to that day when I am especially cold in Nantes. Another side note: My friends and I have come to enjoy replicating ads or sculptures in each new city we visit. We also take plenty of opportunites to practice being models with our own Vogue photo shoots. Barcelona was no exception for either of those opportunites.

My friends left for Nantes on Sunday afternoon (but I stayed because my ticket home on Monday costed over 100 euro less) and I felt my first real homesickness ever. I just had this realization that I was all alone in another country and my friends and family were no where close. I tried to nap it off at first, but I will admit that I looked into flights that would take me back to Texas earlier than my current ticket (they are rediculously expensive now, so do not worry about me trying to cut short my time in France again). After my afternoon siesta, I walked downtown and got lost in all the stores and markets and music and people (surrounded by all the Christmas spirit!) for a few hours until my feet started dragging. Monday morning I took a train to the airport and was so ready to just be back in Nantes. I arrived at my terminal over two hours early, and I ended up staying there for a total of six hours because my flight kept getting delayed. The air traffic controllers in Spain had been on strike over the weekend and apparently things still had not cleared up by Monday. My plane, which left Barcelona four hours late, also arrived in Paris four hours late, so I missed my train (and the last train of the night) home to Nantes. The next eight hours were extremely long and lonely as I tried to find a place to doze off in the Paris airport (all the benches are homeless person-proof and so it is impossible to lay across them comfortably). I had to buy a ticket to go to another train station at 6am the next morning and then another new train ticket to go to Nantes. I could not have been happier to be in Nantes (which truely feels more and more like home) on Tuesday morning as I walking home completely exhausted.

I had to wait a few days to write this blog because I ended the trip with feelings that might have overshadowed all the fun I had during the weekend. I was in Barcelona with my three best friends from IES, we saw beautiful, funky architecture all around town, and felt the mediterrean sun in December! I am completely content after spending a winter weekend in Barcelona with my friends. Being stuck in Paris overnight is just another thing to check off my to-do list.