Provence Teaser

We had a whirlwind tour of Provence, the southern province on the Mediterranean. We took the train down to Marseille yesterday morning, then zipped up to Aix-en-Provence last night and spent the day there. Got back into Paris about an hour ago.

My internet runs out in about 20 minutes, but I wanted to get a teaser post up for you all before then!

Cultural Short: Dogs

There are a lot of dogs in Paris (and the rest of France, as I can now attest). Generally of the smaller variety, but all kinds. People take them in stores, on the Metro, everywhere. This is not what is really strange about French dogs. What is strange is that they are... well... French.

These dogs are incredibly well-behaved. If their owner is not actively talking to you, they won't talk to you. They won't come up to you on the street, they won't even sniff an offered hand. You never see dogs tied up outside of stores, but you will frequently see the dog hanging out, unsecured, waiting for Daddy. One girl swears she saw one actually holding its own leash in its mouth as it waited. 

Random Tidbits

Just thought I'd swing by and give you guys an update on some upcoming travels:

• Doing a whistle-stop tour of the South of France this weekend. Dad, I'll make sure to at least dip my toes in the Mediterranean for you!
• Spending my first three nights in Scotland roaming about the countryside with Clarissa. Scottish highlands!! And then almost a week of wandering around the capital of Scotland, seeing castles and listening to Scottish accents. I'm a happy girl.

And now a bunch of random pictures, because I feel like I've been neglecting you...

The alligator I made at my benevolat. Yay for Friday being arts and crafts day!

The extremely suspicious statue in the Tuileries

Little motorized sailboats in the Tuileries

If I'm getting my monuments right, I believe you can see straight down the Champs Elysee to the l'Arc de Triomphe from the Tuileries

This is one of my favorite pigeons thus far

The Louvre Palace/Museum, complete w/ Pyramid

The Seine

Little Moments: Little Horses

I have pretty much renounced the Metro due to all of the creepers who ride it, and instead budget in the extra time for the bus. It allows me to see more of Paris, as well! 

Yesterday, it was fortunate that I had left early, because we were at almost a stand-still for a few blocks because these guys were walking down the street:

Three little ponies and a little donkey. So cute!!

Someone told me later that apparently they have pony rides in the Luxembourg Gardens every day, so that is where these kiddos were headed. 

Little Moments: Love on the Seine

I was walking along the Seine to grab a bus home after stalking the last day of Paris Fashion Week outside the Louvre, and I came upon this scene:

Aren't they adorable??? I'm guessing mid-70s?

Benevole a Paris

Thought I would update you all on my volunteer activities here in Paris. I wasn't aware when I signed up for my program that the "Service Learning" was mandatory, but it's actually turned out to be pretty cool. It's not really what I would choose to do with my Friday evenings, but I'm coming to enjoy it.

We are all assigned, in groupings of 2-3 of us (Central Folk), to various community centers in the poorer neighborhoods of Paris. I myself am in the 19th arrondissement, in Belleville. Which appears to be Chinatown. It's a heavily immigrant neighborhood, emphasis on the Asian influx. All of our centers involve working with children.

[Side note: I forgot to mention this in my London updates, but there is an incredibly large Middle Eastern influence in London. Part of it was probably just the area I was travelling through, but I don't think I have ever seen so many hijab and business signs in Arabic in my life. I wonder what the history and politics are behind that?]

I have been assigned to a good age group- 7-9 years old, mostly girls. This makes me incredibly happy, because at this age, they are still cute and easily cowed by authority, but they are old enough to have a sense of reasoning and logic. They haven't learned how to gang up or be malicious yet. Working with kids always scares me- I always feel like I don't have the knack for it. Generally I attribute this to always being the baby in every situation. I'm still not a Kid Whisperer, but as it turns out I'm not a Kid Repeller either!

I help them with their homework for about an hour. This is where I appear to have my knack with kids, if I do indeed have one. Somewhere along the line I seem to have picked up the concept of "teaching." I don't just give the kids answers, I show them why, and new tricks. Thus far, I can claim to have taught one girl the concept of subtraction (in French, than you very much), and another girl the concept of 100 cents in a Euro. It took about ten minutes of me going through various examples (and they were probably very annoyed that I wasn't just confirming their correct answers), when suddenly the light of comprehension would explode onto their face and they would suddenly rush through and finish everything else, beaming. There's a bit of a high that comes with that. I guess the program director has noticed, because apparently he has already given my program director glowing reviews, when normally they say nothing or offer critiques.

After homework, the kids play for the rest of the time, and I sort of watch to make sure nothing goes wrong, and chat with other benevoles.

Benevole: A volunteer. Etre benevole: to be a volunteer, or, essentially, to volunteer. 

There is one guy who tends to volunteer on the same day as I do who is great fun. His name is Daniel, and he is a retired grandpa type who is an absolute sweetheart. He speaks very little English, but my French is improving, and he is very good at adapting to my level, so we are able to hold quite lengthy conversations with relative ease. I continue to get little thrills whenever I realize that I have successfully functioned solely in French for a length of time- at the end of one of my language classes, or after an hour-long conversation with Daniel about travel- where we both had been, where we would like to go, the wall in Mexico, etc. 

I have just passed the 1/3rd of the way through mark, and it is amazing how much my French has improved. I find myself using all of the grammar and vocabulary I learned at Etole (the little language school we were at for the first month) without a thought. I can follow my history class (though I do a little double-checking online in English later). I still have a long way to go, but I'm starting to feel the effects of total immersion, the way I wanted to before I came. It was so frustrating, the first few weeks, when nothing was happening. Now, I still have twice this amount of time to go, and I've already come this far. I sometimes have to consciously stop having my mental conversations in French, because I realize that whenever it is I have them, I will be someplace where they speak English. As it is, my mind has gotten used to the fact that everything is in French now, and automatically gets to work on translating anything that comes into my mind as potential speech (i.e. imagining future emails, future conversations, etc.). 

So, nothing too exciting from a tourist standpoint, but some nice little personal victories. I hope to update you soon with some plans I am making for Scotland, once they become more concrete! 

Zen and Future Travel

I've come to a new philosophy just over the past couple of days, and I'm pleased with it. I'm no longer going to stress out over getting to all of the places in Europe I want to go before June. I'm only twenty. I will be back in Europe. This means that my Spring Break will be much more relaxed (also likely cheaper, which is a bonus), and the rest of my time in Paris will be more relaxed.

This weekend, I am not biking the Loire Valley. This is mostly due to the random foot injury of London Day One , but I'm actually very okay with the decision. I am certain there will be a few regrets when I see all of the pictures of chateaus that the girls will post, but it means I am not gone two weekends in a row. I've done that before, and it is very tiring.

This is how Spring Break is shaping up:

After my classes that Thursday (I have no Friday classes), I am going to take the Eurostar up to London again, then catch the overnight bus to Edinburgh. The other option was an overnight train, and this is much less expensive and apparently not sketchy. I will be sleeping on Clarissa's floor for a few of the nights, but then Katie will be arriving and booting me, as she made her plans first. So I'll move into an excellent hostel I found nearby. Need to confirm the exact nights I'll be doing that....

While in Edinburgh, my plans are to laze about and sight-see and enjoy the city for several days, then take a trip to the Highlands (probably the first weekend, with Clarissa, but that part is still in the planning stages) for a day or two, and I think I will also take a day trip to Glasgow, the coast, or a good castle on a different day. I doubt I will do all of them, because I'm finding that I like having slightly extended vacations places, rather than jumping about like crazy. Spring Break freshman year, I spent the entire week within the city boundaries of Dublin, and had a wonderful time.

Then, in the wee hours of the following Sunday (a little over a week later), I will fly first to London and then to Athens via EasyJet, and meet up with a group of Central Folk who are doing Greece together. I'm not sure of the exact timetables, but I think we have a night in Athens (Sunday night), then 4 or 5 nights on Santorini, then another 1 or 2 in Athens. So, I'll have time to see some sights in Athens, but spend most of my time lazing on a Greek island and swimming in the Mediterranean!

I think it sounds like excellent times.

That all starts up in a little more than a month, and in the meantime, I have a weekend in the South of France coming up in about two weeks, I think. I think any additional traveling might take place the week after classes end, if I can find someplace to stash my stuff in Paris, or taking an extended layover in Iceland on my way home, or just the next time I travel to Europe! I'm no longer stressing about hitting Barcelona and Italy and Prague and Amsterdam and Berlin and somewhere in Scandinavia and... even making the list gets me tired and stressed.

Really, when you think about it, this is the way people approach being anywhere except Europe on study abroad. In New Zealand or Australia, it would be very expensive to go most anywhere else. I don't hear too much of people doing inter-Latin American travelling. If they do, it is one place, for one week, on Spring Break, and that's it. And it's a big deal. Whereas, by the time I fly home at the end of May/early June, I can be assured of having done the following:

1. Walked across the Thames
2. Walked across the Seine
3. Hiked the Scottish Highlands
4. Swum (swam? I honestly have no idea which goes here) in the Mediterranean
5. Eaten a crepe in front of Notre Dame
6. Visited the Parthenon 
7. Seen castles
8. Lived in Paris!

4 countries, the capital cities of all. Not too shabby. I am counting Scotland and Great Britain as different countries, but I'm not really sure how that works. And this is assuming no final week of traveling. 

I predict that this will lead to a significantly less stressful rest of the semester. And I'm not really missing anything- I'm just not smashing it all into the next three months. As previously mentioned, I like having longer periods of time places. Time to develop a favorite restaurant, to see all of the little things to see, to not feel guilty when I want to spend an evening in. I was able to see a really impressive amount in London, but let's face it- most places don't have those tour buses. I tried to look for something comparable in Paris, and they all run over 100 euro each. For a day tour! Ridiculous. [Side: I did find some English-language walking tours though, which I am excited to try as soon as I buy some flats that aren't flip flops] And I didn't get to see plenty of places in London- Greenwich, Notting Hill, or the insides of most of the places we passed. So not running around for more 2-day stays in major cities works for me. Yes, it would be nice to have a list 12-strong of countries I visited when I fly home, but I think I've found a nice mix of stretching my boundaries and comfort level and doing what will make me happy and keep me zen. I value my zen. 

Thoughts?

To finish, the formatting was being weird when I was finishing up London Day Three, so a few pictures got left out. Once we made our way to Trafalgar Square, we wandered the National Gallery for about an hour, mainly in the Impressionists, and then she departed for her train and I spent my last free hour walking around the Tower of London (though not actually in it). Behold:

Soaking wet and lugging an extremely large backpack in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square

Can you see Big Ben in the background?? From the steps of the National Gallery

   

Inside St. Pancras. It seems so wonderfully International Traveller, doesn't it? I felt very grown up and glamorous.