Nantes

A week ago today, I found myself in France for the first time in my life, and after seven days in this country, I’m certain that it will not be the last time. It was about 9 o’clock in the morning, still dark in Parisian winter, when I stepped off my airplane; I felt like a Kennedy, descending a small flight of stairs directly onto the tarmac of Charles de Gaulle Airport. One of the girls from my program, Caroline, walked beside me, although I couldn’t see her through my short hair whipping in the wind. Thus began my four months in France.

Right now, I’m sitting in the living room, or le salon, of my house in Nantes. My host parents (Domitille and Frank) are out with friends right now, so I’m playing some refreshingly American music as I write with a pot of tea by my side. Honestly, it’s really difficult to figure out how to begin this article, so please be patient with me as I sort through the lifetimes that seem to have passed during this past week.

Nantes itself is absolutely gorgeous! My walk to the IES Abroad Center every morning takes me on local buses — which are incroyablement cleaner, faster, and pleasant-er than any public transportation I’ve ever seen in the States — and through grand plazas, fountains and all. The narrow roads are full of cyclists and tiny old cars. You would recognize the city as very European, but the most specifically French factor: beautiful white buildings line every street. Independently-owned boulangeries and hairdressers at eye-level are blanketed with several floors of apartments, lacy black gates covering their French windows, and les bâtiments are topped off with grey mansard roofs. They’re so picturesque that I find myself snapping photos every time I turn my head.

Only a few days after arriving, us 40-some students hopped on an early morning bus to Amboise, east of Nantes. Speaking of feeling like a Kennedy, we spent the weekend touring castles (yes, castles) decked out with original drapes, paintings, and canopy beds. We saw Clos Lucé, once the home of Leonardo Da Vinci, and les Châteaux de Chenonceaux, de Chambord, and d’Amboise (the resting place of Da Vinci). It was all like a bizarre dream: we dined within the walls of 500 year old castles, but exchanged typical teenager-y jokes and showed each other memes between bites of fancy cheese and pâté. But then again, that strange juxtaposition sums up how my friends and I all feel in this new place. We’re imperfect, goofy Americans trying our hands at notoriously beautiful French in a country that seems too good to be true. As I remarked in my last post, it’s hard to believe that this is real.

Besides my idyllic surroundings, another surreal factor is the language. Before leaving Milwaukee, I was completely freaking out about my French abilities, and I thought I’d be totally lost for words. As it turns out, the French that I’ve been learning since 6th grade, like… works! I can understand 95% of what my host family says, and we have fascinating, abstract conversations over the course of our nightly 2-hour long dinners. I think it’s because I simply don’t have the option to speak English, so in order to talk — which I really, truly, very much love to do — I have to shift my brain into fourth gear and just do it. It almost feels like a matter of survival. You either listen closely or you lose potentially vital information. You either speak freely and allow yourself to make mistakes, or you stay silent your speaking ability remains stagnant. Of course, this is easier said than done.

It’s hard to dedicate ourselves to speaking only in French to the other IES Abroad students, because we can’t be as funny in our second language. (To tell you the truth, we’ve been speaking a lot of English while getting to know each other, which isn’t allowed. I’m sure that soon, we’ll force ourselves to switch entirely to French, like we’re already meant to be. Please don’t tell the IES Abroad professionals!) I’m so happy to have found some friends here who not only are super down-to-earth, funny, and sweet, but are also at a similar level of French as me. We speak a lot of Franglish (80% French with some phrases and words in English, and vice versa), and it’s become difficult to just speak full English when I call my mom. I find myself thinking in French all the time. If we’ve only been here for a week and I’m already feeling really good about this whole immersion thing, I’m pretty sure we’re gong to have a fantastic semester.

My birthday is next week, too! I can’t say for sure how I’m going to celebrate, but since it’s on a Friday, the options are endless. J’aurai vingt ans le 24 janvier, as I’ve been repeating around the IES Abroad Center. I’ll be 20 years old! We’ll have just started previewing courses for the semester, and I can’t wait. This past has been super exhausting, but in a good way. (I swear, we’re all so tired that the phrase Je suis très fatigué is practically on a constant loop.) I definitely need to relax and destress from a full day of intensive grammar exercises. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go watch some Friends on Netflix, because you can take the girl out of America, but you can’t take America out of the girl.

In my experience, adult life (or at least college life) is generally characterized by constant fluctuation between feeling calm and prepared and feeling completely panicked. I was more on the “panicked” side of that spectrum when I initially tried to write this blog post, but after waiting a couple of days I feel more prepared than not. This is mostly due to the fact that the worst has already come to pass for the planning stage of my trip: my train from Paris to Nantes has been cancelled due to the strikes in Paris, and there is a good chance that the three-month supply of my most important medication will likely not arrive at my house in time for me to bring it with me. So instead of worrying about those things possibly happening, I’ve been able to take action by making new travel plans and mentally preparing myself to see a doctor in France sooner rather than later. Plus, the bright side of having to buy a new train ticket is that I was able to upgrade to first class for less money than my original second class ticket, allowing me to get a window seat on the second level (!!!) of the train.

Despite those issues and a certain level of apprehension about my ability to sleep on a plane, I’m mostly just excited that more than a year’s worth of planning is finally coming to fruition. I’m more than thrilled with my housing assignment, as I’ll be with a host family that has not only a cat, which is practically a necessity for me, but also an indoor pool as a very fun bonus. I’ll probably take at least three courses with IES, but I’m mainly hoping to take a translation class and an archaeology class of some kind at the Université de Nantes.

The main focus of most of my pre-departure research has been the best restaurants and markets in Nantes and how to travel inexpensively, efficiently, and safely in Europe. I’m a huge fan of basically anything related to cheese, bread, or fresh fruit, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how the food in France differs from that in the United States; I am, however, bringing some American food (i.e. peanut butter and a couple varieties of candy) for myself and as part of a thank you gift to my host family.

I only have one trip concretely planned so far for when my mom comes to visit me during her spring break, but I would love to spend one of my week-long breaks in Scotland and the other exploring other parts of Europe with a friend from college who’s in the same program as me. As for travelling with my mom, I come from a very Disney-oriented family, so my mom will be fighting off jet lag at Disneyland Paris (of her own volition) during her first two days in France.

Other than recounting my travel worries and plans I don’t have a lot of interesting stories to tell yet, but I’m sure that will definitely no longer be the case in a few days when I’ve arrived in Nantes and settled in with my host family.