we'll go ahead and call last weekend a wash

With a peep melting in my mouth and the Beach Boys in my ears, my thanks to everyone who sent an ND care package, they meant a lot to me.  I’m still having a wonderful time in France, but I do miss everyone back home.  Leo and I really should have worked harder on that teleportation device…alas.  I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to properly recount spring break, Isabel and I got back to Angers around midnight the night before classes started.  This was only partially our fault.  Yes, we did buy train tickets that were supposed to bring us back to Angers late, but late was 10:30, 11pm.  We were delayed in Lyons when the power went out for a little while, but Isabel spent the night and we made it to class alright the next day, more or less.  Then, of course, we were hit with a ton of work and stories of impending tests and dossiers.  I don’t think there’s an exact translation for “dossier,” but I’m not sure.  My dictionary says “file, folder” and this is pretty accurate as far as I can tell because “Documents” folder on the French computer at schools say “Dossier,” however, the big/final papers in our classes are also called dossiers.  I guess ‘file’ could cover the concept of a final paper, with a little imagination.

 

Also, as much as there is at home that I can’t wait to get back to, it also scares me how fast the time is passing and how little I have left.  It seems like it was only a few days ago that I was struggling through my first dinner with my host family.  Even now I have trouble understanding my host parents, but that’s because they’ve started speaking faster.  On the good side, I still understand about 75% of what they say, on the bad side, I’m still missing 25%. But my host mom will take calls during dinner if I’m finishing up a course and it never used to matter whether or not I listened because I couldn’t understand anyway, but I find myself catching bit and pieces by accident.  The best part, something I haven’t experienced since I got back from spring break, are those happy times when you’re engrossed in a conversation and you honestly can’t tell what language you’re listening to because the mind is finally comfortable enough to understand the ideas without having to translate the words.  The last time this happened, I was eating with some friends at the home of our program direction, Madame Menyard.  We started talking about families, childhood, and raising children. We were discussing the differences between American and French families and I forgot what language I was listening to and speaking.  In all likelihood, I was speaking abominable frenglish, but for a few minutes I had just a little taste of fluency and it was very nice.   

 

When I first got back to France after spring break, it felt familiar, even after London, which I had been to twice before.  It was a relief to find out I hadn’t actually forgotten every French word I’d ever learned.  Even more than that, my first dinner with my host family after spring break was pretty easy.  I use dinners to gauge how well I can speak.  I thought I’d retained my French skills over spring break.  However, after about two or three days in class, I quickly realized this was not exactly the case.  That, combined with a sleep debt I owe to Spain, Italy, and England, it was a hard week.  And the weekend didn’t really make it any better...

 

Slept in Saturday, spent about four hours in a McDonald’s (or in French “Macdo,” with a French accent) trying to get some work done, finally paying to wash clothes in Angers, and eating microwavable paella on the floor of my “salle de bain cuisine” (salle de bain cuisine à manger?) with Isabel.  I can now say that 3 euro frozen paella is truly one of the most disappointing ends to a mediocre day, especially if you’ve just been to Spain and spent 8 euros on a really good plate of fresh paella. 

 

Sunday? Isabel and I spent the day in her studio once again trying and failing to get much done (her room is in the backyard, detached from the house itself, I probably mentioned this a while back).  We were waiting to leave with her family to her go to her host sister’s confirmation which was supposed to be around 5:30pm.  Unfortunately, after a significant amount of worrying and awkward eye-contact with her host family, 5:15 came and went.  To further complicate matters neither one of us knew the correct word for “confirmation” in French.  It might be the cognate, quite frankly I’m still not sure, but we finally got up the courage to text Isabel’s host mom around 5:20.  It was nearly an hour later when she texted us back to say that it had actually been the day before… Foiled again!  But wait, there’s more!  After I left around 9pm, Isabel found out that her family knew we were in her room the whole time, including when we sent the text message…

 

The one thing that narrowly saved the weekend for me is that I got the chance to cook.  I can use the kitchen chez moi if I ask ahead of time, but I never think to do this until it’s dinner time.  Isabel has a kitchenette in her studio/apartment situation and I used it to make omelets for brunch both Saturday and Sunday.  And these were no run of the mill, ordinary omelets; you can’t make these kinds of omelets in the dining hall. Oh no, these omelets were excellent.  We’re talking fresh eggs, salt, pepper, fresh broccoli, fresh mushrooms, emmental, and deliciousness.  The secret ingredient being deliciousness.  Plus, I finally learned to properly butter the pan so that the omelet gets just a little golden and folds perfectly.  In general, but especially against the backdrop of this weekend, these omelets were simply lovely.