Life in Another Language

It doesn't come up a lot in my blog, but living life in French is sometimes absolutely exhausting. I take a lot of naps during the week even though I get a perfectly adequate amount of sleep (especially compared to semesters at Holy Cross) and on weekends where I'm not traveling, I get even more sleep.

Yet, I'm still drained all the time. You don't fully understand how much living life in another language can just exhaust a person until you actually do it. Language is almost automatic in our mother tongues, and we really don't have to think too hard about grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, but in a foreign language, every word used poses a new struggle. Every phrase leaves you questioning the grammatical correctness. Every verb challenges in its conjugation even though I've been conjugating them for seven years now. (Is it imparfait? or passe compose? or how about we throw the subjunctif into the mix just for fun?) And for goodness' sake, I will never remember which words are feminine and which are masculine! As if "table" and "window" and "war" have such strong feminine qualities as to give them a decisive gender! And I'll have you know that "lipstick" is, indeed, masculine... at least according the the French. 

All of this is, without a doubt, so draining. Of course, I spend a decent amount of time living in English as well--for example, I Skype my parents and friends in English, I write this blog in English, I google a lot of things in English... but every social interaction outside of my computer involves French; every time I buy food at the super market, eat in a restaurant, sit on the tram, not to mention all my university classes and dinners with my host family!  

I'm especially tired today, after my TCF (Test de Connaissance du Francais). It was a monstrous 4-hour exam with a 15-minute interview, six essays, and seemingly a million reading and oral comprehension questions. In about two months I'll receive the results of the test announcing my language level... I'm really hoping I attained a C1 level, with is the first stage of advanced language fluency, but I'm pretty sure I'm just at a B2, which is intermediate fluency. Honestly, I'm just thrilled that the TCF is over. It's been hanging over my head since I arrived in Strasbourg back in September (goodness, that was a while ago!). 

This weekend won't be a relaxing one, either. Tomorrow morning I'm heading to the South of France with Kat and Malou for one crazy three-day weekend! We're squeezing in visits to four towns: Avignon, Arles, Marseilles and Aix en Provence. It promises to be both overwhelmingly awesome and exhausting. 

Even though I probably won't get much sleep this weekend (or next week, in general) I'm still really excited. I've been waiting to go to the famous South of France for months now! Fingers crossed that we'll have some more beautiful weather! I'll try to write again soon.

Colmar's Easter Markets

Originally, I planned to visit my friends in Dijon this weekend... but it turns out that none of them were there! As the three of them voyaged through Sweden or Luxembourg or wherever else in Europe, I was left in Strasbourg without a clue of what to do. 

My weekend was far from wasted, however!

On Friday night, Laeticia took Emma and I to the cinemas to see Avis de Mistral, which completely exceeded all of our expectations. It's a little French film starring Jean Reno among others, and it was set in the beautiful Provence region of France. I fell in love with the scenery and with the characters, and I am proud to say that even though some of the vocabulary escaped me, I understood basically all the dialogues and jokes in the film! After Avis de Mistral, the three of us went out to dinner at a local crêperie for some delicious galettes and desert crêpes. 

Saturday was the first rainy day that we've had in a while, and I mostly stayed inside to do homework. Saturday night, though, I went out to dinner with Kat and Ariana. We ate at a fantastic little tapas restaurant across the river from Petite France. The three of us split 8 or 9 dishes (including guacamole, calamari, a charcuterie plate, and toasted bread topped with a sweet pepper-tomato-eggplant sauce) along with a liter and a half of sangria! It was a really fun night, and we've promised to have another tapas dinner together before leaving Strasbourg. 

Strasbourg at night! Reflections with the Cathedral in the background

And finally, Kat and I spent the afternoon in Colmar. It was my fourth time in the charming town, although the last time I visited was with my mom in chilly, Christmas-y December. Now, Colmar has blossomed into a medieval spring village, the ancient timber houses decorated with rabbits, colorful crêpe flowers, and paper streamers. Everything looked so much brighter in the warm afternoon sun (mid-70's!) and it really did feel like Easter!

The Easter markets are much less crowded (and much less well-known) than the Christmas markets, but they were lovely all the same. Everything sold had an air of spring about it: from the bunny- and lamb-shaped chocolates to the floral scarves to the candles with crocuses and tulips painted on them. I treated myself to a beautiful egg made of wood and painted with cherry blossoms outlined in delicate gold paint--a memento that I am already quite fond of. 

Kat and I spent the afternoon strolling around Colmar, seeing the canals of "Little Venice," eating ice cream, and soaking up the sun. In one of the parks there was a free concert, so we lay in the warm sun and listened to music for a while, it was absolutely lovely! 

Next weekend is sure to be more action-packed, though: Malou is taking Kat and I to the south of France for three days! I'm extremely excited, but before that, I have to get through this week... Honestly, university in France hasn't been too stressful so far, but as the semester (and our year abroad!) is winding down, I have found myself bombarded with projects, essays, exams, and random tasks in preparation for my senior year, not to mention trying to secure a summer job or internship! So... until next time!

Three Days of Sunny Serenity

Strasbourg is unbelievably gorgeous at the moment. For the past three days, the weather has been 70s, sunny, and sprinting the border between spring and summer. If the forecasts are correct, all next week will be the same. 

I didn't plan anything for this weekend. A waste of a good weekend in Europe? Well, some people might say that--especially seeing how militant my fellow Americans become when they land on this continent, trying to discover all of Europe in an endless series of three-day weekends. 

I, on the other hand, was perfectly content to whittle away my lazy days with "nothing." Friday I spent outside, reading in the park at Place de la Republique with Kat. I bought a carton of sweet red strawberries at the market and ate them while reading, it was perfect. That night, I introduced Laetitia and Sandrine to Le Tarbouche, my favorite Lebanese restaurant -- hummus, rice, salad, lamb kebabs, and chicken kebabs! 

Saturday was spent in much the same manner; reading outside on the grassy banks of the river while watching the tour boats glide by. After dinner on Saturday, Kat and I grabbed casual drinks at Acadamie de la Biere, then walked around Strasbourg's center city to admire the Cathedral all lit up in the unusually warm night. 

Today was spent, once again, reading outdoors in a park with Kat for a long, three-hour stretch, followed by a half-hour catnap in the grass. We also bought ice creams from Amorino. Wildflowers are rampant at the moment, and birdsong is only muted when the trams rattle by. I didn't spend the weekend island hopping in Greece or hitting the Ice Bar in London, but it was absolutely lovely all the same. I hope this weather continues for the next two months: my last two months! 

No More English

For Lent, my friend Kat gave up speaking English with all those who know French.

So basically, she gave up speaking English with me, seeing as all her family and friends back home can't speak French... and admittedly, I am the person who she speaks with in English the most here in Strasbourg. Kat really wants to become fluent (although she's basically fluent in my opinion) and I understand that speaking English with me all the time halters her progress. When she first suggested the idea back in January, I was quite nervous. It's been a slight refuge, being able to communicate in my mother tongue with Kat when I can't quite work out the right words in French; however, on the other hand I knew that the No-English rule would help my own language progress.

To feel proactive, I gave up speaking English with Kat specifically, since nearly everyone else I converse with here has a limited knowledge of English anyway. 

So, nearly four weeks into Lent, how is the No-English thing going?

Well, it's crumbled a bit, to be honest. We both started off so strong. Two days after Lent started, we took that spontaneous overnight trip to Luxembourg and it was a full 24+ hours of French-only. For me, that was hard. I was so used to conversing with Kat in English that sometimes I would forget the rule and just spit something out in my excitement, which earned me an amused glare and some silence from Kat until I repeated the phrase in French. After our trip to Luxembourg, the rule continued (even in our text conversations) and I gradually got a little better at speaking. 

Now, though... we take some meals off. I usually follow Kat's lead: if she's speaking in English when I meet her for lunch, than that is the language I speak as well. Sometimes halfway through our meal we switch to French, and sometimes not. We're doing the best we can, but it's unbelievably difficult to sit there, struggling to find the correct vocabulary and grammar to express each and every one of your thoughts, to a person who you know speaks your native tongue fluently. 

I've actually gotten into the bad habit of saying phrases or questions that are composed of mostly French along with one or two English words whose translations I don't know. I'm a somewhat-proud (and somewhat-embarrassed) speaker of Franglais over here in France!

Another Opera

With my second opera experience, the novelty of it all had worn off a bit and I saw the opera for what it really was: completely bizarre. 

A week ago, I went to the Strasbourg Opera with Malou, Ariana, Kat, and Kat's mom (who was visiting for the week). And honestly, Kat and I were highly amused by the performance. I'm sure the story of King Arthur was meant to be tragic, but I couldn't stop laughing. (Trust me, I received a lot of glares for my chuckling). 

We saw Le Roi Arthur, which was luckily performed in French. The title characters were obviously Lancelot, King Arthur, and Guinevere, but the director of the opera seems to have taken a lot of creative license because there were a lot of changes made to the original story. First of all, instead of taking place in sixth-century England, the opera was set in France. The time period must have been changed to modern times, as well, for unless I'm mistaken, there were no nuclear weapons in the sixth century. And the singing of the entire second act took place on a stage full of nukes and guns, something that Kat and I found hilarious as well as historically inaccurate.

To summarize: Lancelot falls in love with Guinevere (who's married to King Arthur); they promise to love each other; Lancelot almost murders a guy; everyone goes off to war, Guinevere has abandonment issues (and sings about them for a good 30 minutes straight); King Arthur begs Merlin to help him defeat the French (?) Saxons; an upside-down tree descends from the roof of the stage; Merlin (in a lime green suit), throws an apple at King Arthur, tell him that he's going to die soon, and disappears; Guinevere--still singing about being abandoned--hangs herself from the French flag; Lancelot (who looks a little like Jesus) returns from war gravely wounded; he begs King Arthur to forgive him for the fling with Guinevere and dies; King Arthur has the nurses remove his uniform and dress him in armor; ....and the opera ends with this shiny-armored Arthur walking through a graveyard with flower petals falling down onto the stage. 

All of this lasted three-and-a-half hours. And despite how hilarious Le Roi Arthur turned out to be, I've decided that operas aren't my favorite form of entertainment. 

Switzerland II: Snowshoeing

Contrary to my prior silly belief, snowshoes are a little more sophisticated than tennis rackets strapped to your shoes. That, however, is a revelation that comes into play a little later.

Picking up from where I left off... Saturday morning, my mother and I were met by my mom's fellow chemistry friends--Phan and Raphael--in Aigle. The four of us went to Lausanne for the afternoon to walk around the harbor, stopping for a delicious lunch of crêpes. Saturday was the cloudiest day of the weekend, meaning that even standing at the edge of the water with the lake nearly lapping our shoes, none of us could see the mighty mountains that rose up from the opposite shore just 8 miles away. Honestly, it was the best day for the clouds to roll in, and they happily rolled right back out of sight for Sunday's snowshoeing. 

Phan, Raphy, my mom, and I also walked around Vevey's shores for a while before and after dinner. I've been to Vevey twice (since Phan and Raphy live there, and my family has visited), and it is a truly beautiful place. In fact, Vevey and its surrounding countryside is what I associate (quite fondly) with the word "Switzerland." Apparently, though, my previous visits to the city have missed an important landmark: the giant metal fork! Yes, there is a 26-foot steel fork stuck just off of Vevey's shores, and my mom and I couldn't stop chuckling about it. This bizarre piece of Swiss artwork is actually meant to be "advertising" of sorts for Vevey's Alimentarium Museum, which features exhibits about food, cooking, and the history of Nestle (whose headquarters are located in Vevey). 

Isn't that giant fork ridiculous? My mom and I loved it. Anyway, Sunday dawned much sunnier, and after a slightly strange breakfast of bread, cheese, and dried sausage, the Phan and Raphy drove us up a local mountain to go snowshoeing. My mom and I rented snowshoes (brightly colored plastic with buckles: no tennis rackets here!) and the four of us started off! 

Revelations during the experience: snowshoeing is a pretty good workout, especially when going uphill! Uneven terrain can make you fall sideways into the snow, so it's a balancing act as well. And my favorite thought: snowshoeing is just like taking a walk with bigger, clumsier feet. 

Since Europe has had a global-warming winter, there were quite a few patches of the walk where the four of us had to snowshoe through the mud or take them off. The guy at the snowshoe rental told us that Sunday was the last day of the season due to the warm weather. Phan and Raphy, who had snowshoed the very same route two weeks prior, said that they had never seen so little snow so early in the year. Granted, there were many shaded parts of the route where the snow was still pretty deep; I found this out for certain when I removed my showshoes a little too early, causing me to sink almost knee-deep into the snow with every snowshoe-less step. 

After about two hours of snowshoeing, the four of us returned to Phan and Raphy's house in Vevey, where we were joined by another couple that my mom knew from her post-doc years in Switzerland: Christiane and Reinhart. Seeing as both Swiss couples are fluent in French and that both my mom and I can communicate somewhat effectively in the language, it was decided that French was the official language during the time we spent at Phan and Raphy's.The six of us had a wonderful Raclette lunch (toasted cheese slices over boiled potatoes), made with the best cheese I have ever tasted in my life. A couple of bottles of wine later, the six of us were sitting out in the warm afternoon sun on Phan's patio, admiring the absolutely unbelievable view of Lake Geneva and the mountains and chatting along in French. I couldn't imagine a sweeter Sunday in Switzerland. 

My mom and I left Vevey early on Monday morning: I was headed back to Strasbourg, and she was on to visit friends in Neuchatel. I absolutely loved seeing my mom, and I'm so glad that she was able to visit me once more while I was in Europe! And as she reminded me, my study abroad experience will be over in less than three months, and I'll be back home in the US! 

Switzerland I: Six Trains and a Taxi to Ski

Although it was the worst luck that I've had with public transportation so far, the seven hours of switching trains was totally worth it. Because after all that maddening time on public transportation, I was in Switzerland, of course!

So my mom and I have been talking about skiing in Switzerland for years now, and it finally finally happened! One of her Swiss friends suggested the tiny town of Champéry as a destination, and everything fell into place. 

I set off last Wednesday afternoon, following my last class. Unfortunately, train #1 (from Strasbourg to Basel, Switzerland) started the afternoon's bad luck when it decided to break down in Colmar. Everyone was ushered off to wait on the platform for the next train heading to Basel to arrive (train #2)... and it showed up an hour later. So of course, I missed my connecting train in Basel, and had to take a completely different route. Train #3 was from Basel to Bern, and it arrived a full seven minutes late, giving me only one minute to run to my connecting train. Train #4 (from Bern to Lausanne) was so full that after walking through 8 different train cars without finding a single empty seat, I just gave up and sat on the floor near the exit doors. Train #5 (from Lausanne to Aigle) was also late, and I almost missed it. Then I had a 40 minute wait in Aigle for the tiny mountain train that was to take me to Champéry. Unfortunately, this little two-car train decided to stop for 10 or 15 minute "breaks" several times throughout the trip--making it almost an hour late--and, finally, it broke down for good about 4 towns away from Champéry. The conductor apologized and called a taxi for us -- me and four other cheerfully confused passengers. 

The taxi dropped me right off at the hotel (Le National) at 9:30 Wednesday night, where I met my mom nearly eight hours after I had left Strasbourg. She had arrived in Champéry much earlier on Wednesday, and had already picked out a restaurant for us to eat at... less than a minute's walk from our hotel! We had a fantastic dinner: salad (with a tiny cherry tomato rabbit), mushroom risotto, and wine. 

Thursday morning was when we hit the slopes, but not very early. First came a long, leisurely breakfast, an hour of figuring out what to wear, and a ski rental. Although it's quite a small village, the best part about Champéry is that it is located in the heart of what is known as Les Portes du Soleil, the second-largest ski area in the world, encompassing 14 valleys, 400 miles of slopes, and 200 ski lifts and spreading across two countries--France and Switzerland. There was a cable car onto the slopes just a three-minute bus ride away from our hotel, bringing us up 2,000 meters into the mountains for immediate access to the slopes. 

And the views from every slope were absolutely incredible.

I've been skiing before (in Vermont and Pennsylvania), but neither can even begin to compare to skiing in Switzerland. The views were jaw-dropping--I took over 100 photos the first day of skiing alone--and the trails were long, sometimes 20 minutes to get back to the chair lift! And the weather... it wasn't even remotely cold! Seriously, my mom and I were dressed way too warmly for skiing: we were both sweating! I saw people skiing in snow pants and long-sleeved shirts, and that's it! I didn't wear my gloves once, there was honestly no need to do so. How different that is from Vermont skiing, where I remember icy biting winds, freezing on every chairlift despite wearing six layers, and sucking all the warmth from my hand warmers within minutes! In fact, the threat of becoming sun-burnt was a much more realistic worry than being cold!

What's more is that my mom and I ate outside for every lunch! We were on top of mountains, 6,000+ feet up, surrounded by snow and eating on the outside decks of all the cafes, not even a bit chilly! Totally normal occurance in Swiss skiing, apparently. For goodness' sake, everyone else was eating outside as well, splitting bottles of their favorite red wine (of course) and eating fancy cheese plates or fondues! That was my favorite part, the eating outside. 

Snow quality was icy in the mornings and a little mushy by mid-afternoon, especially near the bottom of every slope, but for the most part, it was lovely. However, les Portes du Soleil were definitely not created for beginners! I've been skiing since I was 5 years old, and I had trouble on some of the blue slopes (the easiest ones!). Granted, I haven't skied at all in the past 3 or 4 years, so I was a little shaky in the beginning and my form was atrocious, but by the second day I was a little easier on my skis and the slopes were still difficult. We did try some icier red slopes with slushy moguls near the bottom, and I didn't fall once during the two days, but it was still hard! 

On the Friday morning, my mom and I discovered a nice long blue slope that was absolutely lovely--definitely my favorite. It took us at least three miles through gently sloping mountain passes encrusted with pine tree forests, and we ended up in Morgins, a little Swiss village located very far away from both the cable car and from Champéry. My mom and I spent the rest of the morning (and well into the afternoon) zig-zagging our way up and down slopes to get back to the slopes near Champéry. On the plus side, we were able to ski a whole new area of the Portes du Soleil that we hadn't even touched on Thursday. Unfortunately, these slopes were in full sunlight, which meant that the snow was very wet and heavy, and it tired both of us out. As soon as we had made it back to our starting point, we ate lunch, took that very same long blue slope down (arriving 20 minutes later back in Morgins), then hopped on a bus back to  Champéry. 

I haven't even mentioned the village of Champéry, but it was gorgeous. It's a tiny, cute little town, filled with ski chalets and restaurants serving fondues and racklettes. It's also nestled deep in a mountain valley, which means that we were constantly surrounded by towering snow capped mountains. So it all boils down to be my type of town. My mom and I took long strolls through the village after skiing every night, and I don't know how many times I exclaimed to her, "I love it here! Look at these mountains! It's all so beautiful!" 

From our hotel, we had a balcony that faced the town and the church's bell tower, which rang on the hour at all hours of the day and night. Luckily, my mom and I are sound sleepers, so it didn't bother us at all -- instead, it made the little village even more picturesque! 

Friday night, after our walk, we dined at the hotel (delicious raviolis and wine, followed by tarte tatin for me!). And Saturday morning, following another leisurely breakfast, we packed up all our bags and headed for the train station. It was a short little ski holiday, it's true, by my long weekend in Switzerland didn't end there! Next, my mother and I headed to Vevey, but that is for another blog post.