Time to go...The Journey Over: Sept 26th-27th

Bags are packed, it's time to go

And away I go to France once again…Hello, my name is Mary and this is my attempt at actually trying to write about my experience being an English Language teaching assistant in France.   I’m not a professional writer by any means so don’t expect thought provoking stories that make you want to laugh and cry at the same time, or even perfect grammar.  I simply want to recount my adventures so that maybe one day when I’m too old to remember them on my own, I will have this to remind me of the good times. 

I have been to France before for an extended about of time.  Last time was in the Spring of 2010.  I lived in Avignon for 4 months, from Jan until about April, studying French language while in College.  One reason I am super excited to be coming back to France is I feel it gives me the chance to do all the things I wasn’t able to do, or maybe was too afraid to do last time I was here.  In particular, some of my goals are

1.       Try more new food:  I tended to stick to the same things I knew I liked when I was in Avignon.  This time I want to try new restaurants, new pastries, new cooking, everything. 

2.       Speak more French:  I was in a study program with all Americans last time, so we tended to not speak French very much.  I don’t have too many English speaking friends here so far I want to try speaking more French, even if the person knows English, and I especially want to learn more informal speech and slang. 

3.       Travel more:  I didn’t have that much time due to studying, nor too much money to go to a bunch of different cities in France or countries.  Last time I only went to Paris, Nice, and some small cities around Avignon, plus I went to Ireland for Spring break.  This year I want to go see more of France, as well as places like Italy and Spain.  I already have plans to go to Amsterdam with a friend from my college who is also an assistant near Grenoble. 

4.       Not watch as much TV: I tended to keep myself hold up in my room watching my favorite TV shows in English since it was too much work to watch TV in French.  This time I was to get off my ass and go out exploring or out with friends.  I will inevitable watch quite a bit a TV some days, like Sunday, since nothing is open in France on Sunday, 

So now that we have reviewed my past and my new goals for this year, lets get started with how my journey started…with many tears and goodbyes. 

Thursday Sept 26th: Saying Goodbye

So today was the big day, the day I left for France for over 7 months.  My flight left at 12:55pm and Matt of course came to the airport to see my off.  I guess airports aren’t as bad as they use to be because I arrived 3 hours early as usual for international flights and could have done with just 2.  There was literally no one in line for the security check.  I had already said goodbye to Matt when I got to the line, and when I saw how quick it would take and I just wanted to run back out just to be with him for 30 more mins.  We had already spend a good 15 mins hugging each other saying goodbye, and of course plenty of crying, on both our ends. 

I know me leaving will be way worse on him than me.  It’s always easier being the one to go off on a new adventure and experience new things than it is to the be the one who is left behind to go on with life.  He’ll be alone for a coupe weeks before his new room mate Erick arrives.  Hopefully then the house won’t feel so lonely, but until them he only has the rats to keep him company.  It’s always hard enough for me to be alone when he travels for work for a few days, I can’t imagine how he felt when he came home after work only to realize I really wasn’t coming back for a long time.  If Erick wasn't moving in I would have encouraged him to get a dog or something to keep him company.  Being alone is the worse, especially being in a new town with not many friends.  At least when he was alone in Bloomington he had the people at school who he was pretty good friends with.  Heck I wish I could have a cat or something to cuddle with while I'm gone. 

After I got to the waiting area for the plane and Matt had left he still called me within a few minutes, saying he already missed me.  I wanted to start crying all over again.  I’m leaving my best friend behind.  Even though I know I will enjoy my trip and get to do tons of cool stuff, I would much rather be doing it with him.  He’s been my best friend for the past two years, the person I tell everything and do everything with.  I really do feel we chose the right song for our first dance at the wedding when we chose Lucky by Jason Mraz.  I always thought it was so sweet and wished I could have the same thing when people would say I married my best friend and now I honestly can say it too (well soon I can: )  I know there will be many lonely nights where I cry because he’s not laying next to me, but he’ll be coming for Christmas and we can have fun adventures together.  I just hope I don’t want to jump back on the plane with him and come home early.  Hopefully I’ll make some friends that will make my time without him a bit easier.   

Friday, Sept 27th:  Finally Here

All in all, my flight wasn't too bad.  I sat next to some very nice people (I forget where they were from) who were going to France for vacation.  They were going on a cruise in the Mediterranean and then going to Paris, so I was telling them all my favorite places to go.  I really do feel I would make a great travel agent or guide, or a writer like Rick Steves.  I so want his job.  I would love to plan vacations for people who have a lot of money to spend so I don’t have to find all the best deals.  I dream of the day I can go on vacation and not feel the need to stay in a hostel for the savings and track everything I spend to make sure we’re on budget.   Hopefully Matt and I can do something less budget conscious for out honeymoon.  Plus once I get back and have a job we’ll have some more money and can hopefully save up plenty for both the wedding and honeymoon. 

The plane ride wasn't too rough either, only a few times did I feel the need to grip the seat arms for dear life, convinced we were all going to die or end up like the people in Lost.  I took some Tylenol PM and managed to maybe get 2-3 hours of sleep, which is a record for me. 

I arrived at about 9am and had a fun filled day of dragging 3 bags around the airport and numerous metro and train station.  Thankfully, and quite luckily, when I got to the baggage claim I actually met another assistant who was going to be in my region named Megan.  We was very nice and we traveled together to Gare Austerlitz in Paris.  I had to take a metro from Charles de Gaulle, which is way outside Paris city centre, to the middle of the city to Austerlitz (about a 45 min metro ride) where my train was leaving, but there was also one station change as well.  I have to find a way to mail one of my bags back home because there is no way I can drag all my stuff that far again.  If it weren’t for Megan and some very nice French people helping me get my bags up the escalecators and on and off the trains I would have never made it alive.  When you’re just taking the TGV directly from Charles de Gaulle to whatever city you it’s not too bad.  But taking the metros as well is murder.  If all else fails Megan was saying there is also a shuttle that goes from Austerlitz to De Gaulle as well, so that would at least be a bit easier than take all those metros.  When the French say a station is handicap accessible, they don’t mean elevators, they mean escalators only.  Not sure what people in wheelchairs do. 

Once I finally got to Austerlitz's Megan and I had lunch together.  I got to have 2 of my favorite thing in France: Fanta and a pain au chocolate.   The wrap I had was pretty tasteless but everything else was good.  Then she caught a train around 1pm to her city.  I however had to sit around until 6pm for mine, because the person from my school who was picking me up wasn't free until after then.  I tried catching some sleep in the station waiting room, but those had to be the hardest seats ever.  I think I maybe dosed off for about 20 mins at a time before I was forced to wake up due to neck pain and choose a different position.  I actually avoided using the bathroom just because I didn’t feel like dragging my bags other there with me.  I would have just left them, but knowing my luck someone would have thought I was a terrorist. 

Once I got on my train I knocked out.  I can always sleep on trains like a baby, but planes never work for me.  Not sure what the difference is because the seats aren’t much better on trains.  Maybe it’s the smooth swaying of the train versus the heart wrenching turbulence of planes.  And might I just say, terrible as it may be, that I will never understand why more terrorist don’t bomb trains instead of planes.  There is no security, no real people watching for suspicious behavior or anything.  Heck you don’t even have to do a suicide bomb, just walk on a train, leave a suitcase in it, and walk away.  I started thinking this when a woman asked me to watch her bag on the train when she forgot to stamp her ticket.  Why are planes so popular to bomb when trains are just as effective and much easier to get away with.  Even when there is an attack, like I think there was when I was in Germany visiting my dad when I was in high school, they don’t do like Americans and never forget what happened and have crazy extravagant security systems installed and do “random” searches.  They might crack down on security for a while, but when nothing else happens they go back to the way things were.  The French, and actually all of Europe, are just too trusting when it comes to trains. 

Once I arrived I was greeted by one of the English teachers at my school, Sophie.  When I first communicated with her via email she seemed very nice and helpful.  But once I had arrived and tried talking with her (though my French was terrible at this point) my overall impression of her is someone who is somewhat cold, and finds me more of a bother than anything.  Her accent was very hard to understand and she spoke very fast.  I asked if she could speak slower and she tended to forget and go back to talking fast.  I think people tend to think I’m fluent in French since I got a degree in it.  I guess they don’t realize that in the US, just because you have a degree in something, doesn’t make you an expert in it.  I understand much more than the last time I was in France, but I’m still not fluent and people need to speak a bit slower with me or at least enunciate more.  I stayed with Sophie for a couple days before I moved into the Foyer de Jeune Travilleur du Colombier on Saturday.  I got that feeling once again of being an annoyance for someone, as I did when I stayed with my host family in Avignon.  Only difference is my host family never did anything to make me feel unwelcome, I just wanted to give them their space.  Sophie, however always had this air of interacting with me like it was a chore.  

Since I hard pretty much been up for over 24 hours straight I didn't stay up too late on Thursday.  I ate dinner with Sophie and her children (though she didn't make it very obvious I was welcome to eat with them).  Then I used their wifi for a bit to check Facebook so I could let me parent know I made it over alive.  And finally I chatted with Matt for a bit on Skype.  I can tell the time difference is going to make things interesting.  I ended up passing out at about 10:00 and slept awesome even though the bed wasn't too comfy and I didn't have my fan to make noise like I always do.  usually I have trouble sleeping in weird places, but my body was so tired sleeping under a bridge would seem nice.  So long as I could lay down instead of sit up.  But I don't get to sleep in long.  I had to meet Sophie at the school to be showed around and introduced.