Here and Home

As my time in Grenoble starts to come to it's end, I find myself more and more sentimental. It's a complex mix of thoughts and feelings.

I miss home.

I'm anxious about finals.

I'm ready to be done with classes.

I'm excited to go to Morocco.

I know I'm going to miss my life in Grenoble.

I made a list of the things I miss from home:

backrubs, easily expressing myself, my family, my other family (co-workers, friends, Sunday School, the CDC, etc), my sister's bridal preparations, working, Seattle University, simplicity, doing my own laundry.

At the same time I made a list of the things I'm going to miss from Grenoble:

Claire and the whole family, day-to-day use of French (I need to find French books to read over the summer), a cafe et chocolat after lunch, doing something different with my life, Samira (my prof), the kids I babysit here, public transportation, reading in the garden, comic books.

Some of the things in each of the lists are silly, and some are more profound. For example, who would miss doing the laundry?! but it's the independence which that simple act represents that I miss. And my French professeur, Samira: she is, hands down, one of, if not the best, professors from which I have had the pleasure of learning.

I have to say, the outlook of "This is where I'm going to live for the next five months." is much different from that of "This is where I have lived for the last five months." (Okay, at this point it's only been four, but that's still significant!)

In just over one month, I'll be back in Seattle. While I know things there will have changed, and I know that I will have changed, it's tempting to think that life will go back to "normal" - not that "normal" actually exists! But I think I would be denying myself these five months if I were to say that. In reality, I'm going back, but to a new life. After-all, every morning we awake to a new day and new opportunities, whether we take the time to realize it or not.

Here's yer sign...

I can totally tell that our time here in Grenoble is winding down. The most obvious sign: I'm getting sick and tired of everyone around me! Okay, not really my host family, I'm actually growing more and more fond of them - leaving them will be difficult. It's the other American's with whom I spend so many hours of so many days - I've just had enough and need a change of pace. I'll be happy to be back in Seattle where I have a much larger social circle!

The second most obvious sign: FINALS!!! Starting very very soon - way too soon in my opinion - final exams will be upon us. This is not exciting (of course, I don't know anyone who likes tests) and rather frightening.

Sign number three is not as obvious, but at the same time, the most exciting of everything going on right now. Victor has arrived, and we've started talking about our trip to Morocco. This trip in the carrot dangling on the far side of the three weeks of testing. Once May 19 hits, that's all I'll have to think about, and that will be a very happy day!

France on lock down

I think most people have heard about the volcano which erupted in Iceland. I haven't heard of any injuries resulting directly from the eruption, but the resulting cloud of ash has shut down air-traffic all across Europe. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8625813.stm visuals from BBC News) Add to that the rail syndicate strike in France, and nobody is getting very far very fast.

My host parents drove all the way from Grenoble to Toulouse and back so that their son, Jean, could spend part of his vacation at home. I have friends away on vacation in Scotland, Ireland, even the Canary Islands; none of them can get flights back into France, because there aren't any flights into or around Europe. Victor (our other SU prof) was supposed to get into Grenoble tomorrow, but I don’t even know if he’s been about to get into the country, or even the continent! Maybe it's much better that I didn't go anywhere for this vacation - I don't know when I'd get home!

And in fact, I've been very pleased with my week off - j'avais bien reposé! Plenty of sleeping in, films most nights, reading out in the sunny garden during the day, and I even got to call my parents a couple times! Starting tomorrow, it’ll be back to the grinding stone, right up through May 5. Then, à partir du 6 mai, les examens finaux! Not looking forward to finals… but that’s how I’m going to get my grades, so I’d better’d buck up and get it done when the time comes.
Afterwards, I can look forward to spending a week and a half in Morroco with Victor and everyone else. That will be fantastic!

We’ll be looking at Moroccan, Francophone (refers to other French-speaking countries) literature with Victor (whenever he happens to arrive) beforehand, and potentially meeting up with some North African writers while we’re in the area.

Springtime!

I realize that, once again, I've been falling behind on posting. To catch everyone up to date, not much of anything in particular has happened in the last week or two!

Last weekend was Easter. My host family celebrated by attending the Easter Vigil (veillé de Pâques) with hot chocolate to follow. Easter morning we didn’t go to mass, though our record until then was complete (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday). Instead we all slept in and had our breakfast together, complete with special sweet breads and crèpes. Of course, there was plenty of chocolate! Claire put together a very cute plate: a chocolate hen surrounded by chocolate eggs and the marshmallow Peeps the Easter Bunny gave me to share. (Thanks “Easter Buuny” – Marguerite especially liked the Peeps!)

The next day was Easter Monday, still a bank holiday here in France, thus no work (for most) and no school. It was a beautiful day! I’ve been spending more and more time in the garden, as the weather is tending to be more and more often agreeable; I finished a book sitting outside in the sun that particular day.

Our four day week pasted quickly, though every week seems to past faster than the last regardless. Thursday afternoon I went to the OFII (Office Français de l’Immigration et l’Integration –Office of French Immigration and Integration). As of September 2009, a student visa by itself does not suffice to legally study in France. My student visa is labeled: legal 60%. We had to turn in all sorts of documents proving our identity, lodgment, and health. Thursday I presented the final paperwork to the officials, who in turn put a carte de séjour (residence permit, like a green card) in my passport. My documents will be filled at the Préfecuture de Grenoble (the city’s administrative center) as a legal French resident. What does this mean? Basically I jumped through a bunch of hoops so that I won’t get in trouble trying to reenter the country in the future, because I didn’t do what the bureaucracy told me to…

In any case, that is behind me, and I’m looking out into a week of vacation! I don’t have anything specific planned; funds are a bit too tight to do anything very exotic. But the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and my host family doesn’t mind that I’m staying. Plus, I have yet to get much of a chance to check out the hiking trails around Grenoble – we’ll see what kind of trail heads I can find within walking/bussing distance of my house. I’m not about to go on any multiday expositions by myself, if I had a couple other people with me I’d love too, but solo is just asking for trouble!

Oh, and I cleaned my room yesterday, and am doing laundry this afternoon. I can be productive every-once-and-a-while!

Dimanche des Rameaux

I was busy the end of last week! Thursday night I went with API to the cinéma. Most of us saw “La Rafle,” but a few of us saw it with their class, so there was an alternate, “L’Anacœur.” Friday night I finally made it to Kelly’s house for dinner. Saturday was our excursion to Lyon with API. This morning our clocks lost an hour just in time for Palm Sunday. Oh, and the Easter bunny dropped off my box shaped Easter Basket a week early, since it was a special delivery.

“La Rafle” is a film portrayal of real life people and events: July 16, 1942, 13,000 Parisian Jews, men, women, and children, were taken captive by the Vichy government on Nazi orders and placed in Paris’s Vélodrome d’hiver (indoor bicycle racetrack), before being shipped off to the French camp, Beaune-La-Rolande, and later to their deaths. The movie was very difficult; we were emotionally exhausted by the end, crying before it was halfway through. And yet, it did not leave us with the impression that the world is evil. Instead, it reminded us that some people struggled against the persecution and terrors of the Holocaust, and, while thousands of people were beyond their grasp, they reached some people, and those few people were worth it! I feel that this film ties in appropriately with the celebration of remembrance and determination: the film’s opening falls in-between, International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27) and Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) (April 11).

Getting myself to the movie theater was a practice run for finding my way to Kelly’s house the next night – I have to take the C tram, instead of the B, aka she lives on the other side of town! Kelly is a former student of Paul and Victor – she came to Grenoble 10 years ago with the same Seattle University program I am currently following. She met a French guy, and ended up getting married, having three French-American children and living in Grenoble. (I believe this situation is my parents’ worst fear, so I would like to assure everyone now that I miss home too much not to come back. Seattle is my home.) Kelly would like to expose her children to as much English as possible, since they are surrounded by French, so she asked Paul if he would recommend one of his current students in Grenoble as a babysitter – he introduced me to her as his response. I went to dinner Friday night as a way of meeting the family (Kelly and Eddie plus two boys and a girl) and getting to know everyone. It was quite delightful, and I’m going back to play with the kids/play support troops for Kelly who will have hers plus two all afternoon by herself. Hopefully it won’t be pouring down rain, so we can go to the park across the street and play!

Speaking of rain, it rained all day Saturday. We left at 8:30 from Grenoble to spend the day in Lyon. It was raining while we were on the bus, then stopped as we drove into Lyon, but was drizzling a bit on our tour guided by some French students. For lunch and the afternoon, we were set free. Luckily for me, Michelle, and Christian, who picnicked on a bench, we had about a half an hour of dry, before it started pouring! We didn’t really know where to go, and we didn’t have a ton of money to spend on museums and restaurants, so we spent quite a bit of time in le Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste. We visited two churches in Lyon: St. John’s, which has an astrological clock, and la Basilique de, Notre-Dame de Fourvière, the interior of which is covered in mosaic. I didn’t really take many photos – between the rain and the cold, I was not inspired. Plus I kept getting rain drops on the lens of my camera the few times I tried.

France observed the switch to Daylight savings the next morning, so I am once again 9 hours ahead of Seattle. Palm Sunday evidently is almost as big as Easter here in France, at least for the church goers. The church I go to with my host family was packed! We started outside, and processed in, with our rameaux (branches). They don’t use actual palm fronds here; I guess they would have to ship them in from too far away. Instead, parishioners clip greens from their gardens – it looked to me as though everyone had clippings of boxwood, but I might have been mistaken. Claire gave me a piece afterwards, to put in my room. She told me that she always puts a piece of the rameaux in each of the four corners of the house. My sprig is hanging above the head of my bed.