Bwana living with my Amayi

I just took my mom to the airport and got teary after two amazing weeks of living like a boss (cue Lonely Island). The highlight reel:

Kiboko Town Hotel
The bwana ("boss" or "rich person") living started as soon as my mom stepped off the plane into Malawi. I had made reservations at Kiboko Town Hotel, a place I can't afford to stay at on my own. We lounged around in their gorgeous lounge, sipping on Carlsberg or, right before bed every night, Amarula, catching up and all that jazz. Well, the first thing we did was open her ginormous suitcase full of presents for me! A headlamp, batteries, flip flops, chocolate, magazines, books, Gatorade, school supplies, and on and on! I am definitely spoiled. My quality of life will go up 100-fold. The second night we went out to dinner with Dr. John. We smoked hookah and I ate a steak. Who knew this level of bliss was available in Malawi? Not on my salary, of course, but it was incredible to forget where I was for a hot second.

On Safari! (A.K.A. the Lion King live-action adventure)
So we drove over to Zambia for a few days (another country checked off the list, I think I'm up to 20 now, no big deal) to look at some animals. And look at some animals we did! We saw:

hippos
crocodiles
elephants
giraffes
zebras
lions!
leopards (yeah, 2!)
impala
buffalo
puku
bushbacks
waterbucks
a civet
a jenet (genet?)
violet-breasted rollers
African spoonbills
fish eagles
herons
mongoose
a porcupine
German tourists
and a whole lotta other stuff I'm forgetting right now

In a word: magical. We even saw an elephant about 50 feet away from our tent one night! We ate good food, ran up a bar tab, swam in a pool, gazed at African sunsets (which really are as red and dramatic as the Lion King makes them out to be); basically just woke up and showed up and were shuffled around. I never thought I'd appreciate transport in Malawi, but the road to South Luangwa National Park was under construction so it made for a pretty bumpy ride. Half-decent roads; say what you want about Malawi, but at least it's got those!

Weekend at the lake(house!)
Arriving back in Lilongwe, we wished our two Dutch friends well on their journey to the north and rented a car. Silly mom, getting her license and passport out as if they actually wanted photocopies of these things! Have credit card, will travel, no questions asked. We then went to Game, Malawi's version of Wal-Mart, and loaded up. I felt like I was on a gameshow, running up and down the aisles, filling the cart with things I can usually only dream about. We couldn't pay with credit card (of course), so we walked across the parking lot to the ATM, where we took out so much kwach I felt like a drug dealer girl (cue Mike Posner). Then we went to Spar and it's not an exaggeration to say we bought approximately $100 worth of CHEESE! A bottle of Amarula and Captain Morgans, added to the three boxes of wine we'd gotten at Game, rounded out the smorgasbord. We drove to Salima where we picked up 4 of my closest friends (including Sally, Ellie & Esther) and crammed them and their bags in with us, our stuff, and the cheese, (did I mention our car was a tiny hatchback?), and proceeded the 20k to Senga Bay and the best weekend ever!!

We ate cheese, drank beer and wine, Amarula and rum, chatted, slept, lounged on the beach, bobbed in the lake, Allegra joined us on Saturday, we made spaghetti, gave the leftover spaghetti to some monkeys, lounged some more...it was paradise. We didn't ever want to leave, but work and real life were calling, which takes us to Act IV:

Village Living
Next we went to my town, where my mom got to meet my friends, neighbors and coworkers, and experience life as a celebrity for a few days. We were in Thavite for 3 days, which was 2 days too many, but she was a trooper and stuck it out with a smile on her face. She helped teach some of my classes and was the guest speaker at the first ever Girls Club meeting. [Sidebar: this has been driving me crazy: is it Girls Club, Girl's Club, or Girls' Club? Shawn? Grammar aficionados? A little help here?] 22 girls showed up!! I'm so excited, and I'm like "take that!" to the other teachers, who don't always see the value in, let's just say GC, or maybe they're just playing devil's advocate. Last year 12 students failed the JCE: 11 girls, 1 boy. Who do you think needs more help?

My mom politely ate nsima with my watchman and his family, sat on mats on the ground, and amid all that, drove me to Salima and helped me outfit my house. We picked up some furniture I had ordered (a wicker chair and loveseat and coffee table), bought some foodstuffs and sticky tack, more plates and buckets, cushions for my new seats, and more furniture: 2 corner shelves and 2 basket things. My house is so comfortable and bwana now! Bring it on, stack of exams a mile high I still need to mark: at least my ass will be comfortable, even if I will want to scoop my eyes out with spoons. The last night my mom was like "fuck this, we're bwana!" although not in those exact words, and she drove me to Salima where we took Sally out to dinner and drinks. She couldn't do nsima (or handle my over-helpful watchman) for one more minute. We had chambo (a fish). It was delish.

LLW, round 2
We finally escaped the village and came back to civilization, er, Lilongwe yesterday. We bought a few more things for me (wicks for my paraffin stove, a mug, lavender-scented candles, you know, essentials), and went out to dinner at Chili Pepper, the closest thing to Mexican food around. Let's just say the chicken enchilada was doing it for me, and our drinks tab added up to more than our food bill (hell YES margaritas!). Then a few rounds of Amarula with the fine and upstanding Chris & Erin Murphy was a lovely end to a pretty great day.

This morning of course was weird and sad, (cue cheesy yearbook quote: Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. I'm fucking lucky-I have the best mom ever, coming out here to see me in the Africa at 60 years young!) This week is going to be rough, I can already tell everyone right now. No mom, no more bwana life (back to the Peace Corps salary), back to work, ugh. Zimachitika ("it happens"). At least I've got GC to look forward to, and my headteacher and I figured out that for the next month or so I'll be teaching literature to all the forms (1-4). This is actually GREAT news for me, because it means I won't have to deal with clauses or any of that grammar shit I don't seem to know much about. And I know Sally and some combination of awesome people and I will be meeting up at the lake sometime soon and often, as hot season is coming on stronger everyday. And in October I'm going to go count game in Liwonde National Park, so don't worry about me!

Ode. To Niger

Leg 1: 26.01.11, 11:28AM. Casablanca MOROCCO to Lisbon SPAIN

We used our last dirham(s) to buy beers (at 10:45AM!) before getting on the plane, the first leg of this insane journey. Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. Shit. I was supposed to do this and that in Matameye, live there for 21 more months, start projects, build a life there (and I was already getting surprisingly sucked in and considering extending). Now I've got to throw myself into Malawi, 100%, no holding back, my heart or anything. Where am I going, ultimately, career- and other-wise? Are there answers in Malawi?

"Everything happens for a reason," said Lisa.
"Yeah? Well I better find my fucking husband in Malawi, because this has been bullshit!" said I.

Fuck. Esther and I are going to win this shit!

Leg 3: 26.01.11, late that evening. Frankfurt GERMANY to Addis Ababa ETHIOPIA (waiting onboard for 3 hours at the gate before it took off because of "technical difficulties")

We're doing this! Two bottles of wine in Portugal and two glasses on the flight to Frankfurt mean I'm better than okay right now. Bring it on, Malawi! We ate hotdogs on moving sidewalks, rock rock on! Here's hoping that Malawi means all sorts of good shit. Not that I deserve it any more than the next, but c'mon! Niger I miss you but if I didn't believe that Malawi holds great things for me I'd be a broken-down mess, still needing to be mopped up in Rabat.

Niger, my love letter: your are in my heart for always, no one or nothing could remove you from that special place. So I'm moving on much sooner than either of us thought. Don't worry, I'll be back. I don't know when, but c'est la vie, and life's funny like that--I gotta believe it will work out well or else my heart would break right now. Niger you were amazing and I don't think I can know fully yet what effect you had on me. Here's to what Malawi will mean to me in the future. Moving forward, because we have to. MWAH!

Live 100%, all the way, because you may get evacuated tomorrow, someone may die, plans will change.

Layover the third: now 21.01.11. Addis Ababa Airport ETHIOPIA

I'm in Ethiopia right now, for crying out loud! They just served us drinks and cake, at the gate, which I think is a bad sign (addendum: we boarded our next and final flight just a few minutes later, leading me to conclude only that Ethiopians are extremely nice, but I could have told you that from knowing Biiftu and Sebia). At least we didn't miss this flight, and I'm running on reserves of irrational optimism that our bags will make it to Lilongwe with us, because there is no other option. For now I'm just trying to be: patient, calm, ready for the next step.

29.01.11. Lilongwe MALAWI

So far so good. Even though this whole thing has sucked I'm fairly certain I couldn't have asked for a better place to transfer to. I'm excited about the work possibilities. Also nervous. And the other volunteers have been so nice and welcoming. I teared up a little when I saw the welcome committee at the airport, waving American and Peace Corps flags. (Note: someone won a bet, and someone else lost, when all 4 of Esther and my checked bags showed up in Lilongwe. Yawwa!) I'm not so worried anymore--this is going to be great. Different, yes, and loving Malawi all the more doesn't take away the fact that my heart broke for Niger. Chichewa is hard but so was Hausa.

Mwadzuka bwanji? (Ina kwana?)

Ndadzuka bwino. (Lahiya lau.)

It will come slowly, and that's okay. Esther and I went for a run today. I need to get back into that. We ate Korean food tonight. (!!) Education volunteers here are the ones in the bush posts, but whatever. So I won't have the cushiest post with 2 showers and electricity (and will be lucky to have more than an open fire on which to cook), but that will just make this experience all the more different from Niger. Esther keeps exclaiming about the smell here: flowering plants. Is this paradise? Do people retire here? ...I have a feeling daily reality will be slightly different once out at site though. We'll see.

I'm grateful for everything here: delicious restaurants; nice PCVs; a friendly staff; green plants; an amazing partner-in-crime in Esther; this opportunity to continue my service and learn so much from everyone; my supportive family; my PC Niger friends, as scattered as we all are now; the time I had in Niger and the friends I made there. I learned a lot about my own strength and capabilities, about Niger, human relations, and I think I'm just beginning my journey in the development world.

We're in this thing to win it. This thing called life. (We're also in this thing to make sure Malawi PCVs know how good they have it and how lucky they are. Seriously, this place is awesome!)

30.01.11

We ran today. We 'sightsaw' (walked around the muddy streets and dirty market and Wal-Mart owned superstore of Lilongwe, gaping at the big screen TVs). We watched DVDs, lounged by the pool, and generally marveled at our situation here in 'the warm heart of Africa.'

31.01.11

Fuck January 2011. Seriously. Esther and I toasted it away as we drained two bottles of wine while watching Troy this evening. Good-bye worst month ever, and hello February, new site (whose name I still don't know), new country, new stuff (Wal-Mart?!? Really?!?), new possibilities for...anything, everything. Work, jobs, careers, friends, stories for the grandchildren, satisfaction, etc. etc. etc. Fuck this life, in every sense of the word: fuck it hard, fuck it good, may it be awesome, may it be delicious, may it be damned, may it peace out and not bother us anymore at some point. Where will we be then? Fuck if I know, and fuck if I'll be losing any sleep over that any time soon. Fuck. Here's to losing ourselves in Africa. Incha'allah. Al hamdillilaye.

Niger to Morocco to Malawi

So here's what's been going on: due to security concerns, all Peace Corps Volunteers were evacuated from Niger last week. 'Security concerns' mean that when two French guys were kidnapped from a bar in Niamey that was just a few hundred meters away from the president's house and our hostel (and one which volunteers have often frequented in the past), Washington (DC) decided it was time to get us out of there. I was at training in Hamdallaye when we were told, and thankfully we were allowed to go back to our villages to say good-bye. A few of us flew a plane to Zinder (2 hours vs. 14 hour bus ride) and headed out to our towns. It was one of the worst days of my life, saying good-bye to my new friends (who I'd become a lot closer to than I had realized) probably forever, though I've promised to visit when I can, somewhere 2-10 years from now. I realized It's more final than most good-byes because none of my Nigerien friends have facebook or email addresses, and calling them is about the only way I can contact most of them.

For the past week we've been in a nice hotel in Morocco, and I wish I could say I've been sightseeing all over the place but I've been too sick and stressed to get out of the hotel much, not even to buy cute scarves, jeans and jackets like many of my friends (although I'm sure I'll get around to it in the next few days). We've been agonizing over the decisions we would have to make (stay in Peace Corps and transfer to another country immediately? Go home for 2-6 months while we waited to re-enroll in Peace Corps, in which case we would have preferential treatment? Etc.) and finally two days ago our options were laid out to us, and they were very limited. I was lucky to qualify for a position in Malawi teaching English in a high school and was even more lucky to be selected to go, along with my friend Esther. So far so good medically speaking: as of right now I'm cleared to go. This means that some time next week Esther and I will be boarding a plane for Malawi, which isn't French-speaking but is beautiful, according to a Google image search. It may not be my first choice but hell, neither would Niger have been, and I ended up falling hard for that place. I don't have details about how long I will serve in Malawi, but it will be closer to two years, which I'm happy about. Esther and I will have a 2-week or so training (where we will hopefully start learning one of the local languages...Chichewa??) before heading out to our posts. It's a whirlwind but I feel really lucky that the next step of my adventure is happening so soon (not everyone got this chance).

I can't even begin to describe how emotionally wrenching the last two weeks have been (it has been a steady sustained awful). Not a day has gone by that I haven't cried or freaked out or both, and I have to thank my fellow volunteers and my mom for keeping me as sane and level as circumstances could permit. Another thank you to Aunt Beth, Miles and Sarah Krasnow, and the mom again, whose packages I picked up from the post office on my last day in my town and whose goodies I shared with friends to help make our parting of ways a little sweeter. Also thank you to everyone at home in America (Seattle, Santa Cruz, Kansas, San Juan Capistrano, I'm talking to you!) who offer their love and couches to me whenever I require...I've said it before and I'll say it again: I couldn't be such a globetrotter without such an amazing solid support team back at home. I will miss Niger so much, and my fellow volunteer-friends, many of whom left for America last night. I know I will get back to Niger, someday, though most likely not as a Peace Corps Volunteer. As John Lennon penned: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Or as they say in Niger, "Haka duniya take!"

Get excited, Malawi!

Sunny Scenicville

Cambodia is a complete mindf*ck. Everything, from how poor the people are, to the beautiful countryside, to the crazy barangs (foreigners) you meet, (seriously, why and how do people find themselves in Cambodia, of all places? The stories are usually fairly interesting), to the extremely f*cked up history of the country, to my dad and his 'girlfriend' and I sharing a hotel here in Scenicville (that's how Shianoukville is pronounced)...collective shudder. 'He really loves you' My told me, in reference to my dad. What would she know, anyways? He seems a little lonely, although he's got a pretty sweet life out here in Cambodia, as far as fixed-income lifes can be. He does seem to want me to come live here, but a 2-bedroom apartment sounds a bit...crazy. I like Cambodia, and for as hard as it would be for a single barang lady to live here (as 2 English-speaking dudes at the Freebird were discussing the other night), I could totally rock it. I think. It's the most different place I've ever been in my traveling, and the people are so nice, and the countryside is so beautiful, and my dad's here (which I'm trying to convince myself is a point in it's favor...support network?), and it would be an adventure, and a challenge. It's already been very challenging, and I've been numb most of the time as a self-defence mechanism, but most of that was related to my dad and his dirty ol' lifestyle (but to be fair, he is a dirty ol' man, so it's not like it's anything out of character or unexpected or anything).

We got a flyer last night for a bar on the beach with sweet drink deals and a dancefloor (we didn't check it out...maybe tonight?), and on the back it said they're looking to hire Western staff...hey hey! And today I met a German guy and a French girl who are living the sweet life of Emma: divemastering it up in amazingly beautiful, tropical locales. The bitches. Note to self: get divemaster certification. First get SCUBA certified. But the point is, it's possible. It's possible to live the dream and lead a most amazing and adventurous life, out and about in the world.

So the body of water I was floating in earlier today is the Gulf of Thailand. Yesterday we took a bus from Phnom Penh to Shianoukville, a beach town in the SW of the country. I ate some BBQ squid today and it was good! I've been eating lots of good weird fruit ('greens' which are oranges but completely lime green on the outside, and my favorite so far has got to be the dragonfruit, pink on the outside and white with black spots on the inside), but trying to stay away from the street food (at one bus stop they had trays of cooked tarantulas, and buckets of live ones...no thanks). We've eaten a lot of Mexican food, but whatevs, it's good! Khmer food is pretty good...lots of rice, veggies, meat, coconut...once my meal even came in a coconut! Last night I drank beer, (sometimes as cheap as 25 cents!), a banana daquiri, a mango daquiri, a shot of tequila, a margarita...the good life. I got a ride on the back of a Khmai's scooter to a sweet club where they actually played good dance music (even if they weren't actually dancing to it as they should), but shortly after we arrived a live band started playing Cambodian music. Ugh. It's not that good. In fact, it's awful. 5 songs. 5 songs later, just as I was getting ready to dance some more, the dude had to take me home because he had had a total of TWO Heinekens and was drunk. Sigh, little Asians...

...And that isn't even the HALF of it!...

The day after I fly into Portland, I hit the road to California, Arizona, Texas, Alabama, Florida, and the places inbetween for what promises to be a truly awesome roadtrip with my brother and 2 of his good friends. Actually, I couldn't have planned a better way to come back to the US after a year abroad, the last few weeks of which were in Cambodia. Might as well hit the ground running into the Heartland...if I've learned anything it's that I am capable of anything. Bring. It. ON!

Water buffalo, landmines, massages-the highlights!

OMG! The temples have been great (the last 2 days I've been jetting around on the back of Long Seng's motorbike)...I can't believe how old and amazing they are. So intricate, so advanced, and some of them were made in the 900s! Riding through the rice paddied countryside is an amazing experience...I can TOTALLY see why my dad has been coming here to motorcycle around for the past 10 or so years. It's hot, beautiful, with cheap food, friendly people, and water buffalo! At one point yesterday, driving back from one of the temples, some water buffalo ran full speed across the road! Cars and motorbikes (including us) had to screech to a halt and I was just thankful we weren't a few seconds ahead and in their way! I have no idea if they were running to or from something...crazy!

Yesterday was September 11th. I noticed this fact while I was at a landmine museum. I got to see all sorts of landmines and anti-personnel devices. There are still millions out there, and thousands of people are maimed and killed every year. I learned that the US hasn't signed the landmine treaty (sing me a new song! The Kyoto Protocols, the Equal Rights Amendment...we suck at being cool), because we want to reserve the right to use these effective tools at the DMZ (de-militarized zone) between N. and S. Korea. We are ridiculous. So on a day when I should have been (and was) thinking about a terrible atrocity inflicted on the US, I was learning about the horrible things we have a hand in.

I also got to witness some good ol' Cambodian corruption: the police pulled us over and I just stood there by the bike while I watched Long Seng slip a few dollars into the guy's hand. 'What was that all about?' I hadn't noticed before, but his motorbike didn't have lights like it was supposed to. Cool.

After I got back to Siem Reap yesterday, I found a massage parlor I had read about in Lonely Planet (I am such a yuppy). Seeing Hands trains blind people to be masseurs and masseuses. I got a great massage (I was 75% asleep throughout), and got to feel good about helping out blind people. I felt like Mira Sorvino in At First Sight with Val Kilmer, except I'm not about to fall in love with my blind Cambodian masseur! I only dealt with blind people there, and it was funny...it was $5 and I gave her a $10 and asked for change...I could have given her a $1 bill and told her it was a tenner, but I'm not so evil as to rip off blind people! C'mon!

Last night I went out drinking and dancing with my dad. We went to Pub Street, and the drinks must have been watered down, because I had 2 margaritas with dinner, a tequila sunrise, an 'Oh my Buddha!', 2 Long Island Iced Teas, and at least 3-5 beers after that. We went to a Mexican place for dinner, hopped over to a Khmer place for 2 drinks (happy hour special), back to Temple Bar for drinking and dancing (where we met some cool Americans I'm hoping to see again in a few days in Phnom Penh...she's doing the Peace Corps in Thailand, and her boyfriend is visiting her...they thankfully rescued me when they were the only white non-prostitutes dancing and my dad was getting talked up by...well, you know). My dad left, they left, and then I crossed the street to Angkor What? which was playing some great music and was full of 'barong' ('white' people, or at least tourists), and a few Khmer drinking mixed drinks out of buckets (they shared!). Then I caught a touk-touk home at 1-something.

Tomorrow we're busing back to Phnom Penh. And the adventure continues!

Hanging with Hookers

Disassociation. When you can’t even believe what is going on around you, and to cope you pretend to remove yourself from your body as you go along for the ride. That was last night for me.

Ladies, let me ask you this: while getting all dolled up to go out drinking and dancing of an evening, have you ever had to think, “Maybe I shouldn’t whore it up too much, as I’ll be hanging with actual whores later on this evening?” Yep, my dad and I headed out on the wackiest ‘double date’ scenario I hope I ever go on in my life…his friend ‘My’ (the one who’s a few days younger than me) and her brother ‘Tongue’ (apparently spelled Tom, but pronounced like the body part) joined us to go to Martini, notorious Phnom Penh bar at which to pick up hookers, and where my dad and his friends have many times before, he overshared with me. If only that had been the only (and mildest!) overshare of the evening. Naturally, I had already drank 2 beers beforehand, and got another at the club. After downing it pretty quickly, I got a Singapore Sling for myself and offered to buy a drink for My. Although she demurred at first, she ended up ordering a B52 and drank it through a straw while it was on fire. Rock on. The dance floor was pretty quiet-the first thing out there was a cockroach, and then some hookers (still so weird to say seriously about women in this very real profession) checking themselves out in the mirror. We were in the disco part of the bar, and I had to periodically leave to breathe and convince myself that I could and would live through this strangest of experiences, under the auspices of buying more drinks, going to the bathroom, or rounding up a hair tie. As it turns out, hookers are really nice, showing me where to pee and even finding hair ties (I paid her 200 reil, or 1/22 of a dollar for the favor). Finally, the dance floor was hopping enough, (and I was drunk enough) to hit it. Hookers are also really fun to dance with, at least for the only ‘barong’ (white) woman in the building. They’re not the best dancers, but they’re friendly, and make me look better by comparison. One was almost as tall as me in my heels, and looked kind of like a man. A tranny! Later my dad told me that he was going to warn me to watch out for the ‘kitoy’ (tranny), but he didn’t get around to it. But I love trannies, and after all, cutting it up to the Black Eyed Peas with ‘whores’ and trannies isn’t really that different from my usual nights out!

And here’s where it gets really interesting (you thought you’d heard it all)! I’m the only one dancing at this point, (my dad’s old, My was hanging with him, and her brother was shy, could speak as much English as I can speak Khmer, and is half my size, so I forgive him for being intimidated), and I’m informed that the group is splitting up and peacing out shortly, My and her brother to the airport, and my dad and I to a traditional Cambodian club. A customer of My’s was flying in from Korea. What?!? This was a development I hadn’t expected. Am I a bad person if I was a tad bit relieved to find out that she’s just a hooker too, and not a potential future stepmom (which the Cambodian concierge of our hotel jokingly called her every time she and I walked by yesterday)? So my dad has no settling down plans after all (his vague reference to possible future children in an email turns out to have been an allusion to a condom breaking…classy…). A year or two ago, I thought I was being pretty forward-thinking and crazy when I went to a strip club with my brother and his friends. Little did I know I’d be hanging with hookers in Cambodia with my DAD! Good thing I didn’t have much of a relationship with him when I was younger…it’d be 100 times more awkward if this whole adventure was killing any admiration or respect I had had for him since childhood. Learning that the childhood hero who raised you was a womanizing dirty old bastard I’m sure would be quite traumatic. Learning that some dude I’ve barely known my whole life prefers Vietnamese to Khmer girls isn’t all that bad, relatively. I’m doing my best to laugh along with this (who but David Sedaris has as fucked up stories as these?), but even so, I think I’m going to get back to the states and have to curl up in a ball watching Disney movies in a semi-conscious stupor for a week.

As if learning that a ‘mamasan’ (or Madame) once offered my dad a 9 year old (which he was…gentleman enough? not to accept) wasn’t enough, we went to Touol Sleng today, the prison where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed thousands of men, women and children in the ‘70’s. Cheery and uplifting it wasn’t. It was shocking and numbing, but I don’t think it really hit me as much as it would have if I hadn’t already been so shocked and numbed by the events of the previous evening.

Tomorrow we’re headed to the fantastic Angkor Wat. I’m hoping and planning on seeing some incredible temples and riding an elephant or two, immersing myself in old old culture and not thinking about hookers or genocide for at least a few days (though we didn’t get to the Killing Fields today and will be hitting those up once we get back to Phnom Penh in 5 days). Breathe, relax, think about home in a few short days…Lord give me strength!

Cambodia!

I was sad to say good-bye to Normandy and the family where I was au pairing, but excited to see friends, Paris, and London! Damir (in Paris) is a great cook with an awesome apartment-it's in the 2nd arrondisement (a pretty snazzy address) and it came stocked with books, lots of classic French literature. I was drooling. Then I saw my godmother, my godfather, my cousins, one of their boyfriends (from Brazil) in Hampshire...one day we decided to hop over to Stonehenge, you know, as you do. Incredible. London was everything it always has been: gray, expensive, intelligent, classy. Simon, Ruth, Stacy and I flitted through museums, and met up with Lauren at the Ritz Club. Honest! A 12 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, a hop up to Phnom Penh, and here I am, in a completely different world! I'm eating and seeing and doing amazing things. Hopefully I will meet some cool people and get a read on the English teaching scene here. Gotta go, but a quick sampling of what I've done in just a day here: rode in some tuk tuks, ate some Mexican food, drank Thai and Cambodian beer, hung out with hookers at a bar, saw geckos, had a $7 hour-long Thai massage, slept! More later, but I'm off to the market and more adventures now!

Stimulating Conversation

Aunt Robin and Reid came to France, and I was lucky enough to spend about 3 days with them, tourist-ing it up in Normandy. Besides the WWII beaches and museums and history, the Bayeux tapestry (depicting William the Conqueror's conquest of England in 1066), the delicious cuisine (I ate duck, pork, cod, a camembert pie, Ile Flottante, creme brulée, a few apple tarts, not to mention what I drank! rosé & red wine, cider, kir, Normandy kir, which is cider plus calvados...), I was blessed with stimulating conversation! My aunt is one of the most amazing people I know, and Reid is the most well-read 15 yr old I've ever met (better-read than I was at that age, and probably even better-read than I am now), so we were able to talk about history, politics, current affairs, and of course, family gossip! I love those conversations, because the only conclusion I ever reach is that I come from crazies, all of whom I love the more for it, for keeping things interesting (and making me look good)!

I've been starved for thought-provoking discourse of late, which I attribute to 3 main reasons; 1. I've been spending a lot of time lately with a 20-month-old. As you can imagine, topics of conversation range from horses to cows to eating and bathing, and back again. Exciting. 2. I've been surrounded by francophones. I focus on being understood, and trying to understand. Correct grammar and simpler ideas are the goal of this short and sweet interactions. And 3. I haven't been around inspiring people anyways. I'm sure these Frenchies have convictions about some important things, but I'm 'the help' right now, doing my job, trying to do it well, and beyond that, who cares? It's fine, but being with Aunt Robin and Reid made me miss people who read The New Yorker...(and drink wine...I was a thirsty girl when they found me, and thankfully a little reliving last summer helped)!

This month I've become proficient and confident in changing diapers, feeding a kid, entertaining him, and making sure he doesn't die or kill himself (well, I still have a week to go, better not speak too soon...) I don't want a screaming crying eating pooping irrational little beast of my own. I don't want to be a nanny for any extended period of time, but babysitting here and there is definitely something I can handle. Go me, living up (or down?) to gender stereotypes. It is what it is. I can be nurturing and caring, if I must.

This time next Friday I'm going to be on a train to Paris! I'm stoked to get on with it, and get to the next thing! Paris, London, Phnom Penh...bring it on! I'm in a good traveling place right now...I'm super excited about where I'm going and what I'm doing the next few weeks, but I'm also really excited to be headed home shortly. I'm already making a list of things to do once home. So far, it's:

• eat Mexican! lots of it!
• drink spiced rum! Sailor Jerry, I've missed you! (real-life Jerry, not so much)
• see Miles!
• see family!
• see friends! (I miss you, Mr. Quinn, Hannah, Megan, Alison, Alisha, Danny, Yuliya, et al!)
• get drunk with you all!
• be on a boat!
• go to some idealist.org sponsored career & college fairs in October!
• bike!
• run!
• swim!
• triathlon?
• take micro and macro! (youpie!)
• take the GRE! (things just keep getting more exciting!)
• visit Corvallis
• visit Santa Cruz
• visit Seattle
• visit Utah
• discover Portland (hipster hangouts, watering holes, free fun stuff, local businesses, and what have you-a 'rediscovering-my-roots-reunion-tour/bonanza!)
• apply to...the next big thing (whatever that ends up being)
• have a kick-ass Christmas...somewhere! ;)
• get out by...September 22, 2010 at the latest! I'm not moving home or anything, just visiting for a calendar year MAX!

Switzerland!

After my rambling tour of the south of France (I should call it 'There and Back Again,' as I went to Biarritz/Bayonne/Seignosse and promptly came back to Provence), I find myself in Geneva, and I'm in love! Absolutely no night life to speak of, (though my Malaysian-via-London friend and I tried to go out on a Sunday night, granted), but it's gorgeous and soooo international! I went to the UN today and jizzed my pants over the assembly rooms, the art, and the totally cute Uruguayan tour guide/Ph.D student in int'l law (he led the English tour, of all crazy things). I can see myself there, on at least an internship, rocking the international scene and brainsolving the solutions to all the world's problems, or something along those lines. As these things go...

I hiked around a 'hill' (we'll call it that, since the Alps were in the background and 1000-something meters just doesn't quite compare) yesterday with Fwi Mee, the Malaysian woman I met at breakfast. She's amazing! Works 9 months in London and then travels 3 months every year, everywhere, a.k.a. living the dream! The hill was technically in France, so we crossed the border, rode the cable car/funicular thing up the side, and at the top saw parasailers taking off and hiked around. We even saw a 4 and a half year old Heidi!

Last night at the dead Irish pub we went to, we met a Thai girl who married a Swiss man. They both said to go to Thailand, so I think SE Asia is my 'next big thing.' I hope I run into Fwi Mee again someday, somewhere...she was too fun not to!

Today I also went to the Red Cross Museum, which they should seriously warn you about. Shit! Did you know that since it was started in 1850-something, not a year has gone by without at least a couple armed conflicts somewhere in the world that resulted in at least 10,000 deaths?!?!?!? Either wars, civil wars, takeovers, genocides, or my favorite, "internal troubles," as it said in French, and that's not to mention any disease outbreaks or natural disasters...there should have been a sign outside saying: "Expect to cry. This is holocaust museum-level shit here."

In brief...

Biarritz: wandered around this 'Nice-of-the-west' as I've christened it, for 8 hours. Beautiful (but too small and crowded) beaches, nice shopping, &c, &c, &c. Saw a sweet Lipschitz exhibit, (he was a sculptor, friend of Picasso, and if you can find pictures of 'The couple' also known as 'The Cry,' look it up and prepare to be blown away!), the best part of which was that I saved a bunch of money saying I was a student and getting the discounted ticket price. I'm continuing with that theme, as I'm A. young enough to be a student, and B. planning on being a student again, someday, C. poorish at the moment, and D. and most importantly, I am and always will be a 'student of life,' as it were.

Sète: little known on-the-Med French town that was breathtakingly gorgeous and boring. The hostel was full of old people or un-fun youngins, and was miles away from the train station...thanks to a nice French woman on the way there and a Belgian guy on the way back, both with cars, I was spared the worst part of the hill with all of my crap.

Pertuis: small typical French town whose best claim to fame is that my good friends Whitney and Jen live there. It's also cool that it's just a half hour bus ride out of Aix-en-Provence, a shishy wanna-be Paris near Marseille.

Avignon: since I was in the neighborhood, I had to make a stop. In less than 24 hours, I saw some of my best friends in France, Sarah and Steve, and another play (festival's still on, you know; this one was Tim Burton-esque). Perfection.

The Whole Story. The Month of Crazy

I knew this month was going to be exciting, but I didn't quite realize how exciting. It began with moving out of the apartment I had lived in for the past 9 months, throwing stuff, giving some away, and hanging on to more than I should. The family in Seignosse who I would be au pairing for contacted me via email and said they didn't need me until the 11^th of July. No problem. I stuck around Avignon until then and caught the beginning of the world-famous Avignon theater festival, of which I'd been hearing since the day I arrived on the scene, late last September.

I saw 6 plays and only paid for one of them (now that's the way to see a theater festival)! Two of them were final dress rehearsals at the Theatre Etincelle, the theater where Sarah has an internship this month. One of them wasn't all that good (a period piece about convincing a beautiful country girl to fall out of love with the foolish nobody who had won her heart and into love with the local prince...uninspired, dreary, and all the actors were too old...one of the love interests was balding!), and one of them was pretty decent (three guys, talking about and doing random shit). In one line, they gushed about what a fate it would be to spend an eternity in a theater seat! In another, they urged one to be the creaky floorboard on the stage. It resonates, it dares, you can dance and sing... The director of the theater asked us to stay afterwards and congratulate the actors, as some audience members had left halfway through the performance (and being that the audience was only a handful of people, it was noticeable).

Zandra, Sarah and I paid to see a play called Ronald, the clown of McDonald's & I bought a shovel at Ikea to dig my grave, or something along those lines. Three actors, kooky commentary on consumer culture. It was dark and delicious and yeah, we've heard it all before. Then Sarah snuck us into two shows at her theater on the opening day (by now Zandra and I were familiar faces around there). We saw an adaptation of Romeo & Juliet that would try to be funny, but never quite got there, and would always pull back to being serious. They stuck too close to the original, in my opinion, and the final scene was them lying there, dead. No wrap-up speeches or nothing. AND, I'm sorry, but practically every man in the play was tolerably cute except Romeo! He was sweaty and goofy and looked about 12 years old. I was careful not to be too critical, though, as the writer of the thing was there in the audience! The best part was when a gel fell from a light onto an audience member...classic!

My favorite show at Sarah's theater was called The Operation of the Holy Spirit. Set in Heaven, Mary full of grace was played by a man in drag, Jesus was SOOO gay, and Gabriel ran around singing and squeaking in a very high-pitched voice. At one point God gives the angels penises to lower their voices, and Gabriel starts chasing Mary, so he takes them back. It was kooky and awesome, in a very good way.

One of the best parts of the festival is walking around the streets during the day. You see all sorts of troupes of actors singing and demonstrating and handing out fliers to come see their show. One of the fliers I got was actually a free invitation for two people. So Jeff and I went and saw Rockstar, an amazing one man show about...everything and nothing, as these things go. For part of the time the dude was in his own brain, meeting different people on the different levels. It was awesome, and totally worth the price!

On Monday, July 6^th Jeff convinced Zandra and I to ride our bikes to Les Beaux de Provence to catch Stage 3 of the Tour de France! He estimates we rode about 60-75 km round trip, all told. Which is really nothing compared to the almost 200km Lance et al rode that day, when you think that it's still going on and they're still riding up mountains and crazy shit! We met some American army dudes who are stationed in Germany right now, and I got lured into being interviewed by some dudes with a camera and microphone who asked leading questions about whether I thought Lance dopes or not. I ended up comparing him to Batman, training himself to physical perfection and all that. We got some free shit in the parade that comes around before the racers (sausages, crackers, candy, beer opener, stupid hats, glasses wipe) and we looked ridiculously awesome with Jeff's 6-foot American flag. I know I saw Lance, (he was in the peleton), but I couldn't pick him out as I tried to take a picture and it was all over in a matter of seconds. Overall, a pretty good day (even though my butt was really sore afterwards).

Continuing my typical French experiences, on July 10^th I headed to Carcassonne, one of the coolest castle/fortresses in Europe. Very touristy, very awesome. I was going to take myself out to a nice dinner to celebrate my getting paid finally by the commie French government to help out with my rent for the past 6 months, but instead I ended up staying at the hostel and drinking my dinner with a rag-tag bunch of 'Europeans' late into the night. There was John from England, the hostel barkeep, Mathias from Germany, Cairan from Ireland, (pronounced Kir-on), Vincente from Spain (who was going to do part of the Santiago de Compostollo pilgrimage and was trying to convince me to join him...in hindsight I should have said yes), two Belgians who were also pilgrims (although they were more serious about it), two other Belgians who looked like twins, matching blue shirts and shiny bald heads, and later on a Danish guy and Nick from Canada joined us for awhile. It was one of the best hostel times I've ever had, and made me fall in love with 'the Europe' even more (they made fun of me, referring to Europe as we Americans tend to do, as one entity). I need to get one of them to marry me, if only for the treasured EU citizenship!

The next day I headed to Seignosse, outside of Bayonne, which is outside of Biarritz, to be an au pair. Marnie is 2 and adorable, Stephanie (the mom) is gorgeous and pregnant, and Stu (the dad) is English/South African and owns a hip little surfer joint called the Cream Cafe, right off the beach. Well, there was a miscommunication about September (I changed my departure from the 14^th to the 4^th without telling them until I got here), which was apparently a deal breaker for Stephanie, so she found another au pair and told me two days ago that the new au pair was coming yesterday. Yeah, she gave me 24 hours notice that I was jobless and homeless for the next two months. I freaked out and started desperately looking around (I even called John from Carcassonne about any leads in the hostel biz, and called the hostel in Sete and said my friend John told me they might need someone...unfortunately the dude wasn't looking for anymore foreigners...damn I need that EU citizenship)! Within hours I had many welcoming friends with many couches and one au pair gig for the month of August. I've decided to take it, so I'm going to be an au pair in Normandy for a 20 month old boy...ah! A little young, but I (hopefully!) can handle it. I was hurt and mad at first, but actually I think it's for the best. Stephanie was kind of a bitch and very particular (I had to iron Stu's t-shirts so he 'wouldn't look like a gypsy' according to her), and I think I'm going to be happier with my new plans. Which are?

I'm in a hotel in Bayonne for two more nights (the weather is gray and gross and windy and rainy right now...I think I'm going to go to a movie by myself tonight...sad!), then off to Sete for two nights, and that hostel I tried to get a job at (hopefully they forgot that an 'Annette' called them a few days ago...). I've heard Sete is nice, and it looks pretty...then to see Whitney in Pertuis, (which is good...it would have been sad to go back to the states without seeing her again), back to Avignon for probably half a day (where my deposit check for my apartment will hopefully be waiting for me with Sarah), then to Geneva to visit my old roommate Xuan from China, who's currently doing an internship with the World Health Organization! I've never been to Switzerland, and it's about darn time! As the saying goes...when life gives you lemons, find someone whose life gave them vodka. I'm making martinis out of these lemons! July 2009 will forever be known as 'The Month of Crazy' by me and my close associates.

Then I'll head to Normandy (I don't even know exactly where yet...I'll talk to the woman on the phone later today) for a month of hanging with a baby. Somewhere in there Aunt Robin and my cousin Reid will swing through. After that, around my mom's birthday (the 25^th of August), I'm planning on heading up to the UK, to hang with my pals Ruth and Simon and party our asses off until my flight on September 4^th to Cambodia to visit my dad! So you see, as my godmother Irene always says: it all works out when you let it!

A Slow Ride to Lyon, Part 1

A joint entry! A few weekends back, my friend Steve and I took the slow regional train to Lyon to visit our friend Alicia. Because we're cheap. Being the adventurers we are, interesting people gravitate to our awesomeness. So we decided to write a blog entry together to google docs-ument our encounters, (haha). Et voila! Steve's black, I'm red. This could be the start of something very, very scary...scary awesome!

It all started with a great deal, the five o'clock train to Lyon at the unbelievably low price of 19 euros. Then Europe had to come and trip up some perfect trip planning with its functional efficiency, ironic in the same country where banks and public offices spend more time lunching than working. We all know that they've gotten rid of inches and feet, replacing clunky units of twelve in favor of the easily-plugged-into-any-math-equation metric system. In the same spirit, "The Europeans" have semi-abolished the 12 hour a.m./p.m. in favor of its military reincarnation, the 24 hour clock. Of the many things I've learned in this new language, it's one of the hardest things to get along by telling people that it's fifteen twenty o'clock when it's really 3:20 p.m. Therein lies the secret of a cheap trip to Lyon: try to go anywhere before the sun comes up and you'll pay in yawns not euros. What I had assumed was a 5 o'clock post-meridiem train was actually a brisk 0500 and there we stood in the Avignon Central station, sweating from our power-walk through the sun, wondering why our train had not been posted. Perhaps it was posted somewhere, perhaps in Paris by then, perhaps I felt unworthy of all those stamps in my passport for having booked a train that left twelve hours ago.

Annette filled me in that perhaps I should have acquired some 17 o'clock tickets, but since there were some more trains she wouldn't kill me for my novice traveler mistake. We took our newly issued tickets and sat down in the bar in the station. I ordered a coffee. Annette ordered hers with whiskey. Unfortunately, the barman didn't have any whiskey on hand (I suspect that he really did, but was in his late afternoon slump, or was not going to do anything outside of 'on-the-rocks' with whiskey, or was just not going to serve a flitty young American hard-A, or 'spirits' as the English say, or, what is most probable, just hadn't understood my request in the stilted French I speak).

What started as a mistake (Steve's total amateur move with the tickets) turned into possibly the coolest part of the whole weekend. Let's call it a gift. Luck favors the procrastinators in the world and good company comes to meet those who don't really seem to know where they are yet. Also: compartments! The trains we're usually taking around the PACA (Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur) region have boring, uninspiring seat configurations. All they inspire me to do is...talk really loudly in English and avoid looking other passengers in the eyes. Geez, all they inspire me to do is talk to old ladies about their sons and how they speak fabulous Anglais. But compartments! They're so old-school, so Hitchcock, so Anastasia (the animated Fox film, an old mild obsession of mine). I say it looked like the orient express. Exactly! If we were going to take the slow train to Lyon (3 hours versus 1 hour...consider it 'taking the scenic route'), we were going to sit in compartments!

Before we got to take in the scenery from our old school 8-seat compartment, the train rolled in like Chinese New Year, all fire-crackers and hell... louder than my American friends. I have never heard such an unnecessarily loud and obnoxious racket in my life (well, apart from me and Zandra chatting...anywhere...we are helplessly loud, and American, two points against us)! Apparently we were celebrating the final trip of our trusty conductor, we thank him for getting us here and there safely on those iron rails, and for bursting our eardrums while coming into the station. Getting to blow the horn for as loud and long as he liked, like a final 'fuck you!' to the man (and us). He was on a personal grève, maybe, but soon the racket died down and we climbed in, searching for a place to talk loud 'Merican and see the sights. The only unoccupied compartment had a single bag sitting on the bench. As the 'orange alert' airport lady played in my head to report the unattended baggage, I thought to myself, je m'en fou and we took up residence in our very own cabin. Yeah, and what's a bomb exploding in return for our very own corner sans Frenchies? If the owner ever did come back, I was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to stand being in such a cramped space with two loud (and awesome!) étrangers.

Soon enough the mysterious bag's owner came back to claim his spot, one of those guys that wears his 'does-everything' phone on a band around his neck. We clammed up and committed faux pas number one in France. That is, to not greet every single person in the room you enter is just so uncultivated. He stared in return at us aliens. Actually, more at Annette than me. I wonder if his "This is so much better than an iPhone" phone slung round his neck got a few good pictures of my traveling companion... it sure looked like he wanted one. It was a little disconcerting, but 9 months in L'Isle sur la Sorgue has gotten me used to pervy guys staring and making unwelcome comments...just practice for when I'm famous someday! Finally the staring became too obvious not to ignore, so one of us (probably Steve) opened the floodgates.

It went something like, "Bonjour, vous-etes d'Avignon?"

"No, I'm from the town where they bottle Vittel water." I wondered, is it like being from a town where they bottle a famous wine? I guess I'll never know. Well, you do live just a few kilometers away from Chateuneuf de Pape... Oh heavens, bring me my tire-bouchon, toot sweet! But back to our story. . .

"But I know where all the cool clubs are in Montpellier and I'll take you there!
"And you can meet my friends, they're famous footbal players!
"Look at my phone!"

If I know anything about pro soccer players and cool nightclubs in Montpellier (which I don't), I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be as eager to entertain us as this guy was. The last time we tried to get into a club with a dresscode they gave us the once over scan and decided the club was full. They had opened 15 minutes prior. Maybe it was the felt flowers I had attached to my lapels. Or my $7 Goodwill dress from the '70's! Which should have been an instant 'get in free' card if you ask me! No. Somebody in the group was wearing. . . des baskets! Rubber soles are death to cool.

As it turns out, this Sylvain (I'm only guessing from the email address he gave us) was a very chatty fellow. I'm currently using his email address as a bookmark...forecast for ever getting around to actually emailing him? Unlikely. We talked our way down the tracks as I worried we were on the wrong train (some inexplicable signs proclaimed loudly that our destination was Marseille, the opposite direction).

"I'm going to Miami!" For what he was (obviously cool and important enough to wear his social life around his neck like an Olympic gold), Sylvan was an easy going fellow. He loves his clubs, he loves playing dress up to go visit said clubs, and he loves Miami (which he's going to go visit this summer with his ex-girlfriend, he made sure to point out). IMHO, Miami is an imaginary town, whose population is 1/2 Cuban, 1/2 French, from what I've heard. I will believe it when I see it.

Fortunately Sylvain's stop came up about a half hour into the journey.

Tune in some other time for part deux: The Foreign Legionnaire OR Where The Hell Did You Pick Up an Accent Like That?

Christmas in the Northwest/Traveling vs. Living

There's this really cheesy song my brother and I love to make fun of...the chorus says "Christmas in the Northwest, it's a gift God wraps in green." Well, it's true. While I was running (who are we kidding? jogging slightly faster than normal people walk) around L'Isle today I noticed a LOT of trees and plants and bushes and things that are much greener and fuller than 2 weeks ago, let alone 2 months ago. Winter gets pretty bleak and bare around here, even though it's sunny *most* of the time...don't let them fool you! Provence can still be ugly...mistraaaaaaaaal!!!! (accompanied by an angry-old-man-fist-shake) I realized that I'm used to green winters...when you're surrounded by coniferous trees, they stay green, even when it's cloudy and rainy for almost 9 months of the year. I guess it's give-and-take: sun and bare trees, clouds and full trees. I don't know which I prefer, I just know what I'm used to.

On another note I'm SUPER stoked to be heading to Cambodia in September to visit my dad, who retired there a few months ago (and not, as I had believed, in Thailand...apparently they're like, 2 different countries?!?!?). I'm a little disappointed that I'm only going to have 2 weeks and 2 days there, and then I was like: "Shut up Annette! You're going to BE there at least, you whore!"

I think I've realized in this that I prefer 'living abroad' to 'traveling.' Traveling usually involves lugging a lot of luggage around, rushing, stress. Living somewhere usually means you get MORE of everything. Recent examples include but are not limited to: random hiking adventure with some teachers once, getting to know the GREAT American baker in town, tutoring, free kayaking with Steve, meeting the US Consul General in Marseille (and NOT when she's having to negotiate me out of jail or something...that would just be awkward), sunning by the rivers, becoming regulars at the hippy co-op cantine and getting shushed every time we go, oh and did I mention almost all the under-12s in my town worship me? It's a rough life...

Why Americans are in France...why am I here?

There are different reasons why young college-aged and/or 20-something Americans come to France, and maybe I'm being unfair but I've noticed a few stereotypes running about (note--there are dozens of other reasons older-than-20-something Americans find themselves in France too...marriage, retirement, what have you, but I don't care about them here and now...they're old!):

• the art/history student - Western Europe is where it all happened, so of course they would flock here, but sometimes they're too obsessed with the Middle Ages, Gothic architecture, the Impressionists, or 16th century this-that-or-the-other-thing to realize that France is also a modern, 21st century power player on the world stage. They are enchanted by the chateaus, cathedrals, art and little villages from literature and Disney movies they came here to see, but are shocked and disenchanted by factories, blue-collar-people, autoroutes, immigrants, inefficient bureaucracy and sometimes-uncomfortable-politics (if and when they ever bother to pay attention). Also consumer culture (McDo, familiar brand names in the supermarket for sometimes double or triple the price) they find too imitative of America and somehow diluting of the 'Frenchness' of France.
  
• the language student - These people are the ones who, when given a 'choice' between French or Spanish back in middle school, (where was the Japanese, German, Latin, or hell, nowadays, Mandarin?) picked the prettier, higher-cultured option, such as they perceived at the time. French is the language of love, great literature (Hugo, Dumas, Flaubert, Balzac, Zola), and intellectuals (Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Proust?), while Spanish is (or was, by a stupid pre-pubescent me) stereotyped as a language for the working class, maids in hotels and produce-pickers in fields and orchards. How could Spanish ever come in handy on the West Coast of the United States? (HA!) These people were stubborn, and now find themselves working towards or having earned a college degree in French, which, unless they have their sights set on teaching French (and some of them do), they are at a complete loss as to what to do with it. They're hoping to figure this out in a French-speaking country, where they use their mad language skills to get directions, buy groceries, and every once in awhile, discourse with an actual Frenchy on life, the universe, and everything, or just the best music out there.
• the backpacker - Armed with a best friend or two, a backpack, their 'Europe on a shoestring' Lonely Planet, a Eurail pass, and an overly-ambitious itinerary, these people come through 'Europe!' usually in the spring or summer for anywhere from 2 weeks to a few months. These people sometimes have conversational French under their belt, but most of the time rely on their mastery of English (the new lingua franca!) to get them by. These people are annoying to those of us lucky enough (or proactive enough, or brave enough, what have you) to be staying in one place for more than 3 nights. They spend their time getting drunk with the new international friends they've made in their hostel, and hardly ever get the chance (or make the effort) to connect with 'locals' as they're rushing about checking off sites, sights, and whole countries from their To-Do Lists. If they're female, they usually do their part perpetuating the commonly-held belief that 'American girls are easy,' and if they're male, they usually do their best to get as much 'exotic' European tail as possible.
• the Hollywood starlet, hotel heiress, or chart-topping diva (Natalie Portman, Paris Hilton, Beyonce, do I really have to spell it out people?) - swinging through Paris or the Cotes d'Azur for a film festival or just a fab weekend, on their yacht and with their entourage and paparazzi in tow, and really, who am I kidding? Like I'm rubbing elbows with them, or believe they're experiencing any more than the 'amusement park' version of La France (I can talk about it like this, because I'm a resident). Anyways, they're kind of off my (and any) radar, really.
  

Sometimes you can tell some things about people by the length of time and reason that they're here, or that they've stayed here; study abroad students, language assistants (read: temporary underpaid workers, on weird temporary visas), married or PACS'd or divorced ones (but they came, or stayed, for some loved one), U.S. Foreign Service Officers, working here in an official, well-paid capacity, (has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?), and other random reasons...

Of course these categories are fluid, and not exclusive. An individual can identify with multiple caricatures simultaneously or at different points in their life/Europe experience. In fact, I hope it's become clear that I have been at one point or 'tother a little bit of each of the aforementioned caricatures. So what do I think sets me apart from these 2-dimensional stereotypes? I've usually gone with the idea that I'm only in France because French just happens to be the language I studied, through high school and college, par hazard, and that if I had studied something else and stuck with it, I'd be in that (those) countries (and when I studied Spanish, which I'm planning on picking up again someday, I did go live in Chile for 3 months). But what if there's more to it: what if (gasp!) I actually do feel some sort of connection/affinity to this country? Not that that would be the end of the world, it's just not how I have understood my relationship to this place to date.

It is easy, natural, nay, perhaps even impossible not to fall in love with France (bias, bias!): for all the reasons above, plus the wine, the cheese, the bread, the joie de vivre, the fashion!, the seemingly never-ending parade of (often Catholic) holidays from work, even the social welfare state (depending on whether you're paying tons of taxes or benefiting from said taxes...I'm hoping to be on the receiving end...come on CAF and the aide a logement!). It is a deeper and purer, realer affection I and some close American friends (Whitney, Steve, Zandra, Jennifer) have for France. We love it for the obvious reasons, and the not-so-obvious ones, and in spite of the hassles that arise: even when French lovers are faaaaaaaar less than fantastic (or too persistent when their attentions are unwelcome), even when incompetent whores keep you running around for months for your carte de sejour (green card), even when old ladies on the bus refuse to even try to understand what you're asking them, even when it's raining and mistral-y (read: really windy) in Provence (which was supposed to be sunny and gorgeous 24/7/365, wasn't it?), even when the majority of music on the radio is bad French 80's, or cheesy English/American 80's (seriously, when it comes to some things, the French seem to be culturally 20 years behind), even when restlessness and worrying about the future threatens to overtake your present contentment, even when your accent's laughed at and your kids are making you feel guilty for sleeping through class the week before!

I also think I've actively resisted "loving" France, just like I used to resist improving my French accent...I spoke horrible French because I'm American, why deny the fact? But just as Jay and a fabulous Phonetics class convinced me to at least try (even though I still have an accent tres fort), I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I love France...even if that superficially lumps me in with all the aforementioned yahoos at whom I look down my nose. But now the question becomes: do I love it so much I feel the need to stay? Do I love it just enough to return and retire here someday? Or will it just be a favorite vacation spot throughout the years? In that vein, is the way I feel about France the same or similar to how I feel about the US, and my family and friends there? I love it and them, but that doesn't mean I feel the urge to settle down there, or see my family everyday, or even every month, yet. I've got many more international adventures in me yet...

Provence and the Cote d'Azur with my mom

A whirlwind 9 days, involving many adventures, including (why do I always 'devolve' into lists? Or maybe I'm just being efficient and organized...whatever, it works for me, so, why mess with a good thing, right?):

• Cheap Chinese with friends! Who can argue with a delicious 5 euro meal, surrounded by the people you love?
• Ancient Greek theatre in Orange (one of only 3 in the world that still has its stage wall...the other 2 are in Syria and...somewhere else...)
• Buying WAY-too-expensive-wine in Chateauneuf-du-Pape (the classic "we were had!" tourist moment of which I always make sure to have at least one on any given trip...hey, the woman said her friend was friends with Sharon Stone and George Clooney!)
• Falling in love (on my part) with a strip of road inbetween Orange and Vaison la Romaine. OMG, I think I'll live there someday, humbly tending my hectares upon hectares of vineyard, with my big buff rugged vignoblier of a husband running around doing all the actual work, while I drink near half our product!
• The 'Infamous' Kayak trip from Fontaine de Vaucluse to L'Isle sur la Sorgue. Infamous because my mom and I fell in, and when we did (we didn't realize until later), the keys to the rental car fell OUT of my mom's swimsuit...we were stranded, no money, no food, no nothing, for hours, while we waited for a replacement car...hey, at least we were in a beautiful locale and got some sun!
• Massages at a super swanky spa in Aix-en-Provence. Bringing my mom's total experience of Aix to: a super swanky spa. And mine: one night out, never seeing the city in daylight, and the super swanky spa. Even though it was dripping with swank, the jacuzzi was tepid at best. We rocked the sauna, hammam, and chillaxing lounge (complete with headsets of calming music, comfy couches, a waterfall, a tank of fish, girly magazines, and handwipes(?)) before getting one of the best massages of my life. An iPod shuffle kept the chillaxing music going, and we smelled all coconutty when we were done.
• Nice! A cheese-meat-crackers-buckets of wine picnic in our hotel room with Colleen and Steve the first night, the three corniches the next! We zipped all over, including over the very same twists and turns where Grace Kelly crashed and died. We pealed out of Monaco (literally, burned rubber and made some police turn around and see what was going on), saw an old Roman monument, ate paninis in Cap Ferrat, a droolingly gorgeous 'almost-island' (presque-ile), and picked up some perfume from Grasse.
• The drive that would never end! Nice to Marseille, all along the coast. It took about 8 hours. It was all...GORGEOUS! The Cote d'Azur is where I was meant to live, I think.
• The Chateau d'If (of Count of Monte Cristo fame) wasn't open (bad weather conditions), so we took the ferry out to the other islands and had a pretty typical sunny-day-on-an-island afternoon: we ate sandwiches and spread my grandparents' ashes. All in a day's...vacation!
• Notre Dame de la Garde. In hindsight, we should have just taken a taxi (my mom's no spring chicken, after all). But, I was evil and made her hike all the way up! The views and the amazing mosaics were that much sweeter for it.
• More wine!

It was a fabulous good time! I was EXHAUSTED, and completely NOT ready to return to crazy little kids. Oh well, I'm keepin' on keepin' on, (even though I got my computer fixed yesterday, to the tune of 75 euros, and absolutely NONE of the files could be saved...6 years of college papers, pictures, and music...gone. I'm not as devastated as you might expect...I look on it as a cleansing, really...and I've got some hard-A on hand for when it really sinks in), and trying to make summer plans (I'm thinking: au pair for a cool family, by the beach somewhere...oh yeah...)

Zandra Annette Barcelona

Scene 1. Fenouil a vapeur, (a hippy "association," not a restaurant, that serves organic foods and is only open Wednesday and Sunday nights) the night before the trip. Zandra and I are eating, drinking wine (at least I am), hanging with friends and listening to great music.

Scene 2. The bus, Day 1 of the Barcelona adventure. Our bus driver, a long-haired, earringed Spanish Jesus figure drives us through pretty towns like Beziers and Girona, when he's not taking a 40 minute lunch break. That shit would NEVER happen in Chile. There's always 2-3 drivers who take turns driving and sleeping in the creepy little bed underneath.

Scene 3. The bus, at the Spanish/French border. Stupid Annette, thinking the EU was now a borderless zone, forgetting her passport! The French police scare her at first, threatening that she may have to stay there. In the end, the American card worked for her, and she was allowed into Spain for a weekend of debauchery. Correction, it's not just the American card, it's the white-American-girl card. If I had been black or middle eastern, I would probably have been kicked to the curb at that point. It's not fair, but I'm going to keep using that card as long as I can. One of these days it's not going to work, and as in Russian Roulette, I'm going to be shit out of luck. Thankfully, that day was not Thursday.

Scene 4. Super swanky hostel, Barcelona (except our room smells like vomit, thanks to a 16-yr-old Belgian the night before, we learned...I will forever after have a prejudice against Belgians who brag that they can hold their beer, but can't). Enter old friend Simon-from-Wales, and his friend, Allye-from-England. Enter Tim-the-Australian, and 2 Italians (though they really come into the picture the next day). Five of us (Zandra, me, Simon, Allye, Tim) and 2 bottles of wine, meet Paul from San Diego, a 21-yr-old pub crawler (well, I guess his official title is "Tour Guide"). We decide to go on his pub crawl, which involved one cool bar, (called Nevermind, with skateboards on the wall, chalk writing on the ceiling, flaming shots called jagstangs, and empanadas), 3 dead ones, and a "club" (Paul's definition of a club does not coincide with my own. In his definition, a "club" = a bar + really loud music + huge area for dancing + 4-5 other patrons, most over the age of 50). Also, somewhere in there I bought some street beers, and felt good for getting a deal (3 for 2 euro). The guys who sell street beers will also sell you other things (hash, coke), if you have the money. I MEAN, if you're into that kind of thing. Sheesh! At some point I also smoked a whole cigarette by myself. Which is not normal, or good. Oh well, when in Barcelona! We all get very drunk, and then proceed to take pictures of ourselves on a "roundabout" (Australian speak for merry-go-round). No kebabs were to be found at 6am, so we had to settle for gas station "food." On the way to the gas station, Zandra got in a fight with a tranny, and has a shiner and a bruise on her chin to show for it. Spanish trannies!!! (accompanied by an angry-old-man-fist-shake)

Scene 5. The next day (Friday). Eau-de-puke scented hostel room. The day consisted of sleeping, Zandra being sick, and chatting with Tim. We didn't leave the room until 7pm. (I didn't see Barcelona in the daylight until the third day I was there. Living it up Spanish-style. Or vampire-style). We head to a tapas restaurant for typical tapas, and plenty of sangria. The 2 Italians in our room come and join us. Simone and Matteo, bio-medical engineering students, or some such nonsense. Then we meet up with Pedro, a Portuguese dude who couldn't couchsurf host Zandra and I, but could take us to a few cool bars, including one where I had my first pisco sour in years. In Chile we would pay $2 for a pisco sour. Here I paid 6 euro. It was nostalgic. Then we went back to Nevermind, for flaming shots, and two French bitches were bitches. I wanted to punch them, but I didn't. We called it an early night, catching the last metro home at 2am-ish.

Scene 6. Saturday. Zandra and I wander around the neighborhood around our hostel. We eat some tapas on the street (and I have some sangria, of course). We see La Sagrada Familia, but hell no was I going to pay 11 euro to go inside it. Then we catch a train to Salou, where Simon and Allye got a sweet off-season deal on a resort. We drink sangria on the beach, then make a dent in a 5-liter jug of wine, as we watched the Spanish competition to determine who would be Spain's entry in Eurovision (read: completely and utterly ridiculous)! The next morning we sleep for awhile, wander around the town, then eat paella and baby octopuses. Then Zandra and I catch the train back to Barcelona, and in true stupid American girl fashion, get the train ride for free, because we couldn't buy the tickets beforehand and the conductor would only take cash, and the woman in the station pretty much just let us go. 11 euro saved! We found the Magic Fountain that Simon had told us about, but in the winter it doesn't do its magic on Sunday nights. Bastards. Zandra and I wander around the city for awhile, then eat more tapas, where exactly half the bill were our overpriced sangrias. Then we wander into our hostel at midnight, because we're cool like that. Then the French skaters return to the room at 2am (SO not as hardcore as us), and start kicking the lights (which automatically turn off at 10:30pm, and since they had been there all weekend, they should have figured this out).

Scene 7. Monday. The bus. Again. So uncool it's hardly worth mentioning, as it took a few hours more than it was supposed to. And this busdriver was a major chode.

So there we go. Barcelona. Didn't see much, but I had a great time!

Moving to France

my mailing address:

Annette McFarland
9 Rue Autheman
Studio Nº 4
84800 L’Isle sur la Sorgue PACA
FRANCE

I have been in France for just over two weeks. In that time I have accomplished many things, had many fabulous unforgettable experiences, and had some crappy ones too.

Upon arrival, I was very proud that I was able to navigate a huge backpack, a suitcase, a purse and myself from the Charles De Gaulle airport onto the RER train, transfer to the metro, and make it to the Place d’Italie stop before calling William. The last time I was in France I paid too much for a taxi to an overpriced hostel. I stayed with William, his sister Aimee, brother-in-law Julien, and 1 ½ year old nephew Max. For two days I hung out at Aimee’s tea shop (in the 13^th arrondisement, it’s called L’Oisive Thé, a play on l’oisiveté which means leisurely). Then I bought a 12-25 card (to get discounts on trains) and a ticket to Lyon, where I stayed with my friend Maren for a night, eating bread and cheese and drinking wine and tea. Then on to Avignon and Steve, who is a dear. I ended up staying with him for over a week as I looked for an apartment in L’Isle sur la Sorgue and thought of options. My first day in Avignon was magical: the centre ville is completely surrounded by an old city wall, and anyone who’s anyone lives intramurales (Steve and I are afraid to go extramurales too often)... We saw a woman akin to Esmeralda singing opera outside of the Pope’s Palace.

One day Steve and I rode his scooter to Saint Remy (evidently a very posh area of France...Brad and Angelina just bought a house there), which is about 20 km southwest of Avignon. We went to see bullfighting, or rather “bull bothering” (they didn’t kill them). A dozen or so men would take turns running at the bull, trying to grab prizes off his horns. If the bull was chasing them they would vault themselves over a fence to get away from him. One bull kept leaping over the fence into the alley between the ring and the spectators. Everyone in the alley would jump into the ring until the bull was led back in. He did this about 10 times. One man yelled “Saucisson!” which means “Turn him into sausage!”

A few days later we had some meetings in Marseille. Steve had to be there a night before I did. I was hoping to get my apartment that day, but the process moved a little slower than I realized, so I was essentially homeless. As I was preparing myself to sleep on a park bench, I texted the one other person whose number I had. Megan from Wales was able to give me the phone number of another assistant, Raina, who without hesitation, without having met me, agreed to house me for the evening. As it turns out, Raina went to Reed, in Portland, and is amazing.

The most incredible experience I’ve had thus far was when the US Consulate General in Marseille hosted the American assistants from the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region for a multi-course buffet at her home overlooking the bay and the Chateau d’If, the prison in my favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. I scarfed down one plate of food and then jumped up to talk with the consulate general. She was amazing! I asked her dozens of questions about her career, her education, her life. She’s done tours in Haiti, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, among other places, and couldn’t really talk about Brad and Angelina, although she did say that after hobnobbing with Arabian princes, American movie stars seemed like small potatoes. I also chatted it up with her intern Jonathan, from Puerto Rico. Watching the sunset from the Consulate General’s house, drinking good wine (some of which, Steve noticed, was from Napa Valley) really made me excited for a career in the Foreign Service!

I have visited my schools, but I haven’t met the kids yet (that will come Monday). I’m hoping to get a bike, so I can bike around the region, but I’ve been going one day, one step at a time. I also want to try to find a way to play soccer (or at the very least use the municipal pool). Zandra (another assistant) and I found out today that the kayaking in my town is only for the club in the winter, and it’s now too late to join the club...whatever. I have a pet cat. Well, practically. My first night in my apartment it was hanging out on the roof outside one of my windows...it even came in once! This morning it came in and hid under the bed and wouldn’t leave...maybe that’s because I gave it some cream last night...my hallway stinks because the owner lets it poop in there, but it just needs some love. I don’t have an oven or a microwave, just a range, so I’m going to HAVE to learn how to cook, and where better to do it than Provence? The cheap version of Herbes de Provence that I bought at the grocery store (which are apparently for BBQing) include the following ingredients: sarriette, romarin, serpolet, marjolaine, origan, basilica and thym in variable proportions.

I’ve been alternately lonely and happy, excited and nervous, and wanted to run away a few times, but really, it’s just 9 months! I’ve made some good friends, including some assistants in Avignon and Marseille, and Ruth, the other assistant in my town. She’s from England. I don’t have internet in my apartment, but it may be too expensive. We will see...I may think it’s worth it...I may decide that just like learning how to cook, reading, and learning French, living without internet is just going to be one of my challenges this year.

I love and miss a lot of you fabulous people in my life.

I have arrived!

No thanks to the customs bitches at Frankfurt Airport. I was second in line and they closed it and told us all to join another line. I integrated into the line next to me and got up to second again and they closed that one! I went to the end of another line, just to watch them open the one they originally closed and see everyone just move over to that one. And I had a really short layover anyways. I follow the signs to where I need to go and there's another security check! I calmly showed my ticket and asked for a faster line, since my plane was (supposedly) currently boarding. The fast line involved getting felt up by a security woman (joke's on her: she had to touch my very sweaty armpits)! I basically ran a 1/2 mile to the gate only to find it slightly delayed and everyone just standing around. But other than that, no problems. Paris is awesome, and Aimee's teahouse, L'Oisive The, is SO CUTE! If you're ever in the 13th arrondisement of Paris...look it up!

Off to Lyon tomorrow, Avignon the next day, and maybe L'Isle sur la Sorgue the next. Rock on.