Tourist in My Own Town

Finally, I’ve been granted a vacation ! After a WHOLE WEEK of labor and toil, I’ve earned the right to a little R&R. Oh France, how I love thee at times. One week of work followed by 10 days of paid vacation ? Who’s making fun of my salary now ??

A lot of people, assistants especially, take advantage of the « Toussaint » to travel. I probably would too, under different circumstances. When you live in Europe, you’re never far from an incredibly interesting destination. And given that there are so many, it seems almost inexcusable not to use every spare minute checking them out. That’s what I told myself, at least. But as I sat at my computer, huffing and puffing and willing the SNCF website to work just a bit faster (and perhaps churn out some more palatable prices ?) I remembered that part of travel that is so easy to forget : the stress. And for perhaps the first time in life, the idea of taking off somewhere caused me to groan inwardly.

I’ve only just gotten to unpack my bags. The last thing I want to do is pack them again.

Hence the reason I decided to stay, a decision I was initially unsure about but now, one week into my vacation, find myself very happy with. I knew that I needed some time to get to know the city better. I needed to see it in a new light, untainted by the cloud of soucis that has been hanging over my head ever since I arrived. Here are some of my top discoveries.

1) Le Samovar

This Salon du The near the Eglise St. Michel is one of those places that makes me idiotically happy. I say idiotically because the grin that spreads across my face the minute I enter it can only be the size of an idiots. I’m pretty sure the owners are in equal parts flattered and terrified by my rapture. But I can’t help it. All I can feel for this place, with its comfy furniture, book-plastered walls, hippy clientele and extensive tea menu is sheer gratitude. It’s a writer’s paradise. Also, if you go on Saturday afternoon, you can read to the loll of ukuleles—there’s a group that comes to practice. And yes, I secretly want to join them !

As a side note, can I mention that my favorite word in French is « bouquiner ». It means « to read » but refers exclusively to books. I love this word because it distinguishes book-reading from other types of reading, gives it a renewed importance, as if to say « reading books is an entirely different kind of reading entirely. »

2) The Club des Crevettes

Yes, French speakers—that means exactly what you think it does : « Shrimp Club. » Though I am thinking I may want to change the name to « Societe des Crevettes » since The Shrimp Society has a nice alliterative ring. I have the authority to do this, of course, because it is my own creation. Well, mine and a couple of my friends, who shared my desire to indulge in the seafood platters offered up at the Marche des Capucins. Reasoning that 6 euros wasn’t a bad price for a plate of oysters, a bread basket, and a glass of white wine, we agreed to meet up and give it a shot. There’s something so fun and playful about eating seafood—sucking the oysters out of their shells, tearing the heads off of shrimp, dumping the inedibles in a plastic pail afterward—that mandates that you do it in company. Good company ! In my view, there’s no better way to start the weekend.

3) Cinema Utopia

I finally went ! For a film, not just the free WiFi. And though we were a bit late and therefore wound up with nosebleed seats, and the film was in German with French subtitles, therefore demanding a concentration that seemed a bit rigorous after two glasses of cider, I did quite enjoy myself. « Le Ruban Blanc » was a dark and creepy film, however, the comic relief it lacked was most definitely made up by the spectator that was audibly snoring ten minutes in. This is when I came to the conclusion that, as unrefined as our American popcorn-and-soda habit may be, it does a good job keeping you awake !

4) Steack Frippes

When I saw the name of the sign for this place, I thought it was a restaurant. Not so much. It’s actually the niftiest thrift store I’ve ever been to—full of wonderfully eccentric, well-made, and very reasonably priced clothing. That said, it may well cause my financial undoing !

5) Bibliotheque de Meriadeck

I’ve also found myself in the paradox of loving books but hating libraries, but this is one that I think I could spend all day in—its huge windows let in lots of natural sunlight and its got plenty of comfortable chairs to lounge in. At 10 euros for an annual membership, it’s a little pricier than the library back home. But considering all the films and books and music I’ll be able to enjoy as a result, it’s well worth it.

6) Le Grand Theatre

Thanks to one of the English professors at my school, I learned that this place hosts very affordable concerts the first Sunday of every month. So even lowly language assistants like myself can enjoy a show in this stunning venue. Warning to everyone else, however : show up early or you’ll be confined to the top-most level, where you have to slouch over the banister to see the stage. Fortunately the enjoyment of tango music doesn’t necessitate being able to see the musicians. Still. There was also a chocolate tasting afterward, an idea that struck me as random yet fantastic. You had to pay 4 euros extra to participate, but my friend and I decided that this was most certainly worth it for unrestricted access to gourmet chocolate. In case « chocolate tasting » calls forth the same image for you as it does for me, that’s to say : a few elegantly dressed people standing around nibbling on high-quality morsels of chocolate and murmuring prim evaluations of it in between barely perceptible chewing motions— let’s just say : no. Think more along the lines of a tense, salivating mass greedily elbowing their way up to a table. I was one among them, wondering just how much my contribution entitled me to. I don’t know who invented passionfruit and blood orange flavored chocolate, but I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

7) A boulangerie called « A la Recherche du Pain Perdu » Never in my life have I so regretted not having a camera with me !

And speaking of pictures, or lack thereof, I should tell all of you that I’ve had the grave misfortune of my camera suddenly and inexplicably dying on me. Chloe was nice enough to let me take hers to St. Emilion, and I’ve been asking other friends to e-mail photos of our various excursions, but still…it hurts. Especially because I feel like I’ve only just started to develop any remote sensibility for good photo ops. I see them every day but can do nothing (except buy a new camera, of course. But forking over half my monthly salary would, I’m sure, be more painful than letting photo ops slide…right ?)

So with my days consisting of chocolate tasting, aperitifs by the riverside, shopping, concerts, and several long, aimless walks, I feel like I can confidently say I’ve had a vacation. Tomorrow I start school again. Or do I ? I e-mailed one of the teachers asking her if she’d prefer to send a small group of students to me or have me come to the classroom, and she gave me a puzzled reply. Hadn’t I heard about the schedule change ? The students were going to be following Friday’s schedule this Wednesday. I’d be taking Friday’s classes, but only some of them.

Back to Kafka-land !

Chagrin d'école

The last time I was in France, I was a student. I remember the first time I showed up to class with my notebook and my oh-so-american conviction that the professor would show up, too. I remember my self-righteous disgust when he/she (we’ll never know) did not. I was sitting in the front row of the auditorium with a few other exchange students who shared my dismay. After years of ditching classes, or showing up late to class, or dozing through class, the tables had finally been turned. Now we were the ones being stood up !

I kept casting inquisitive, hopeful glances towards the back of the auditorium, where the French students, who didn’t need to sit within five feet of the professor to understand, sat. I remember thinking If anything can make the wall between exchange students and French students crumble, this is it—a common enemy—shared contempt for that twat of a Professor who decided his lunch was more important than our education ! Sadly, my fantasy of solidarity quickly revealed itself to be just that—a fantasy. The students were decidedly, and mysteriously, non-plussed. They continued to talk and joke amongst themselves as though there were, in fact, no class at all. If even one of them had displayed the faintest sign of distress, I would have been reassured. This was not the case. Meanwhile, us exchange students tittered, our helplessness gnawing away at us. What we were waiting for was clear—a French student to take charge of the situation. Because we had absolutely no idea what to do.

It’s moments like this, when you can’t, despite all attempts, make sense of what’s happening that exemplify, for me, the experience of being a foreigner. You feel that you’re missing some very crucial piece to the puzzle and that, until you find it, reality will continue to feel…unreal.

Being a foreigner in France is strange, yes, but being a foreigner in the French school system is a whole new level of a strange. The word that comes to mind is : Kafkaesque. You get assigned classes in rooms that don’t exist. You get assigned classes in rooms that exist, but that, when you get there, are locked. You go to a class on romantic poetry and find yourself in a seminar on prehistoric cave painting. You’re not on the roll for classes that you’ve enrolled in, but you are on the roll for classes that you haven’t enrolled in, let alone heard of.

You’re confused.

What I didn’t realize beforehand, is that this confusion isn’t unique to students. My general impression, when teachers failed to show up to class, was that they were technologically impaired airheads who couldn’t use e-mail if their life depended on it and as such had no idea where or when their classes were taking place. Or that they had decided their various leisure activities were more important than their jobs. At any rate, it never occurred to me that they might be as confused and misinformed as I, the student, was. That is, until I became a teacher myself.

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that being a teacher in a France is every bit as Kafkaesque as being a student, but minus the comfort of being « in the same boat » with many. Sure, there are other teaching assistants, and we do have opportunities to commiserate when we run into each other. But they aren’t there when I’m standing in front of an empty set of desks and chairs, wondering whether it’s worth it to write « Miss Fish » on the board or just laisse tomber.

The image of a dozen exchange students waiting impatiently in an auditorium has now been complemented by the image of an adjacent auditorium, in which a lonely professor sits before rows upon rows of empty desks, thinking, inevitably : « here we go again. »

The first day of school as a teacher is not unlike one’s first day of school as a student—there’s this robust enthusiasm that builds and builds as you choose your cute outfit and neatly arrange your school supplies in your backpack. Only when you walk through the doors of the school itself does reality start to hit. A thought dashed through my mind : this can’t go smoothly…it’s France. And as I lingered by the door of my classroom, casting those same hopeful, inquistive glances at the students who passed by, I got a sinking feeling. No one would come into my classroom.

The various miscommunications that led to this are not interesting. I will only say that I repeated this experience at least four times throughout the week, and have, as a result, become great buddies with everyone at the vie scolaire (the office that takes care of classes, schedules etc). When I am teaching, it proves to be a terrific experience. Awkward ? Absolutely. Standing in front of a small group of students whose faces range from bashful to sullen to defiant to just plain confused as you give your simplified-yet-nuanced-so-as-not-to-be-patronizing opinion on Barack Obama isn’t exactly easy. And all the while thinking can they see how nervous I am ?

But it’s amazing how much insight a simple week of teaching has given me. All those « funny » teachers ? The ones that seemed so cool ? They were, in reality, the most nervous of all ! Nothing will send your brain into quip-mode faster than an awkward silence. I’m also starting to regret how shy I was as a student—always intimidated by the teachers I admired, afraid of looking stupid. If only I’d known what a joy it is to come across an enthusiastic student. And there are some here—kids that want to meet up and practice speaking outside of the classroom, who approach me in the hallways to talk.

What I do have, at least, is the experience of being a student not so far behind me. And a language student at that. I know how intimidating it can be to speak another language and I really admire those that have the courage to strike up a conversation even when their grade doesn’t depend on it. I want to do everything I can to encourage this. As far as I understand, the French education system isn’t exactly great at fostering self-esteem. Here, for example, it is completely acceptable for a teacher to call a student something pejorative in front of the whole class—lazy, idiot, hopeless—what have you. Add to this an incredible pressure and workload typical of a lycée and you’ve got a recipe for some pretty miserable students. I find this problematic on a number of levels, but particularly so in terms of language learning. Anyone who’s had to speak a second language will tell you that confidence is an absolutely essential part of the process. It’s why non-native speakers often feel they speak better amongst each other than with native speakers—the decreased judgment puts you at ease and voila suddenly you’re more talkative than ever ! (It might incidentally, also be why so many people claim that alcohol aids their foreign language abilities—lack of inhibitions ?) How can you expect a student to be confident if you’re constantly degrading him/her ?

As part of the introduction lesson, I asked students to describe themselves in three words. What surprised me was that more often than not, the words were either pejorative or neutral—lazy, shy, impatient, messy etc. Granted, nobody wants to brag about themselves, but I’m sure I recall doing this kind of thing in high school and most of the students saying things like : friendly, funny, creative…One thing is clear : these kids don’t seem to feel all that great about themselves.

Which might explain an interesting phenomenon—that the French, more than most European countries, have a reputation for being reluctant to speak English. When I traveled in Spain and Italy, I was surprised to discover that every time someone found out I was an anglophone, they immediately started practicing their English on me. Rarely is this the case in France, with the exception of Paris, perhaps. Although I get asked where I’m from all the time, I never get so much as attempted English in response. To be clear, I don’t think I should, I just think it’s interesting. A lot of people chalk this reticence up to snobbery—which is easy enough to do. But I’m beginning to think there’s more to it. If you’d been humiliated in front of a group of high schoolers the last time you’d tried to speak a language, would you be chomping at the bit to do it again ? In front of a native speaker no less ? My guess is no.

All of which is to say that, while I’m not exactly a proponent of babying students, I do try to be as gentle as possible with these kids. I want them to be at ease, to feel free to express themselves and make mistakes. Unfortunately, when it comes to French, they feel more than ready to express themselves, so I’ve had to make it clear that speaking in French, to me, will elicit nothing more than exaggeratedly furrowed eyebrows.

I'm going to peace out now, but I do promise some photos of St. Emilion in the very near future ;-) Bisous to all!

More Photos

"Evento" is a week of art expositions all around the city. They called this exposition "Chairway to Heaven."


You climb up the "chairway" and...read. Yeah, I was bemused, too.

La France...Part Deux

Why France Makes Me Schizo

Oh France, land of liberty, equality and fraternity! Land of snobbery, drudgery and bureaucracy. Wine abounds! Toilets are scarce. You’ll never find better croissants. But if it’s breakfast, you might never find anything but croissants. Then there’s the language—the sexy, seductive language—it’s sleek, it’s slick. It’s impossible. Please tell me exactly who decided that everything should have a gender?

I think back to a quote, the author of whom now eludes me, something along the lines of: “in order to survive the 20^th century, man must be able to hold two contradictory ideas in his head at once.” You could easily replace “20^th century” with “France.” My decision to return to this county has, I’m sure, transformed me into a bona fide Francophile in the eyes of many. But the reality is much more complex. The truth is that my relationship to France is more of the love-hate variety. C’est normal. I think. At least, this is the general impression I’ve garnered from conversations with fellow ex-pats. We’re drawn to this country, enchanted and enthralled by it. We admire its customs, its way of life. We’re impressed, further, by its dedication to preserving that way of life. Then comes the inevitable flip-side. Flip-side is the correct term, I believe, because the things we love also happen to be the things that irk us incessantly. Yes France, we admire your dedication to savoring the pleasures of life, but we don’t like the…rather unpleasant ways in which this manifests itself; namely—long lines, insane opening hours and a general inefficiency that culminates in the virtual guarantee that you will never succeed in running an errand on your first try.

If you’re a foreigner trying to live in France there are, in my opinion, two key phrases you really can’t live with out.

1. C’est chiant! = It’s bloody annoying!

2. Tant pis= Oh well.

* Note: The second generally follows the first. Repeat ad nauseum.

A sculpture outside Hotel de Ville...RAWR!

Arrival Anxiety

I find arrivals by train to be especially lonely. You descend, and watch all the other passengers as they nonchalantly scamper off. They always seem to be headed towards someone and their self-assurance only serves to re-enforce your disorientation. In a bad moment, this is enough to make me want to turn around and head back home. But I’d come way too far (i.e. three planes, two customs desks and an uncomfortably long train ride) to do that.

Luckily I’d arranged for Chloe to pick me up. Chloe is a French grad student, from Marseille, whose just recently moved to Bordeaux to pursue a master’s in journalism. She contacted me over the summer after coming across my profile on couchsurfing.com, and after a few brief exchanges, we decided to look for an apartment together. She’s studied in Canada and speaks English so we figured it would be a good opportunity for both of us to improve our language skills.

And by a stroke of good fortune, Chloe has a cousin with a studio apartment in the center of the city, and said cousin happens to not be occupying that apartment—meaning we have a place to stay while we do the impossible: find an apartment in Bordeaux!

I was dizzy with fatigue and jet-leg and as such, my memory of that night is somewhat gauzy and surreal. Chloe was nothing short of an angel, helping me port my two wobbly suitcases all the way from the gloomy train station to the city center, feeding me and giving me a place to sleep. But the whole time I had the panicky sensation of having become suddenly, horribly, handicapped. I opened my mouth to speak and n’importe quoi tumbled out.

What had happened to my vocabulary? My accent? My mouth, had forgotten how to make those sounds! To be unable to communicate is unsettling to say the least. Whenever it happens, I get this vision of myself trapped in a kind of bubble—a very sheer, almost transparent, but nonetheless impermeable bubble.

I fell asleep quickly and woke up just as quickly. I’m grateful for the invention of the airplane. All the same, I do sometimes think about how unnatural it is—this rapid displacement. It creates an undeniable rupture between the body and the mind—the body has been transported and the mind can’t catch up. I think this may be why I always, invariably, feel such acute anxiety the night after I cross an ocean. Some part of me can’t comprehend the reality of my environment changing so quickly. The sudden loss of control makes me want desperately to be back where I was, my comfort zone. Fortunately, I know this about myself and can take it for what it is. I lay there in bed, in the dark, letting myself cry a little, telling myself I’ll feel better when morning comes. And I do.

La Vie

Thanks to Chloe, my life is automatically and incredibly French. We go to the market on Saturday and I watch her forge her way through the stalls. She’s so much more confident than me, seems to have an intuition for which stands to solicit. I love the markets but I always feel overwhelmed by them—how are you supposed to tell that the grapes at that stand are better than the one at this one? I don’t know how to say no to people either, so I usually end up buying things I don’t want or need. But together, we manage to buy a garden’s worth of vegetable and some bread and cheese to boot. Then we go “home” and make a delicious lunch with the limited crockery in her cousin’s studio.

Then again, there are some things about Chloe that are not so French. She doesn’t drink wine or smoke, but she is a vegetarian and she does work out. Living with her is good for my health. It’s also good for my French, since that’s what we speak in most of the time. We watch the news together, and she lends me her copies of Le Courrier International, which she has a subscription to. Our discussions range from the serious (racism, politics) to the less-than-serious (youtube videos, boys) to the practical (how we are going to make our apartment habitable). She explains French grammar to me, and I help her write her English papers. At times, I definitely feel lost, outside of my comfort zone, exhausted from all the French. Plus being around someone who knows the system can make you feel incompetent by comparison. But I have no regrets because I’m convinced that the experience I’ve chosen is richer than say, that of living with another teaching assistant.

Les Bordelais

I’ve been told the Bordelais aren’t nice, but I’ve yet to see much evidence of this. In Lyon, it was so rare to find anyone who had a sense of humor. The Bordelais, on the other hand, are always joking around, smiling, laughing…it’s not some kind of grandiose joie de vivre, just a general hum of happiness that seems to run through the city. What a nice surprise!

Note: general hum ends at the Prefecture, but they’re REQUIRED to be rude, right?

My Favorite Bordelais(e)

1. The little boy (le gamin, one would say) that ran into the Café Utopia the other day, from god only knows where (heaven, maybe?) and gleefully asked the server “est-ce que vous etes content?” (are you happy?) To which the rather bemused server responded “bah…oui?”

“Et pourquoi?” (and why?)

“Parce qu’il fait beau, la vie est belle…” (It’s nice out, life is good).

2. The old man (le petit vieux, I believe, is what they call them) who sells tomatoes at the Marche de Capucins. I’m pretty sure, judging from his hands, that this man picks the tomatoes the morning of and comes directly from the farm to the market. He stands there in his overalls and cap, stoic as can be, unfazed by the line that is slowly stretching out into the street. He bags and weighs your tomatoes as though he has another 90 years ahead of him. And why shouldn’t he? He knows you’ll wait.

3. My new French friend, Elise, who I had the fortune of meeting rather randomly at Café Utopia my first week in Bordeaux. She’s an art student so we bonded instantly over our unfortunate predisposal to things that entail no professional prospects. Elise wears funky clothes that she bashfully admits to buying at a store un peu hippie, plays the didgeridoo with her friends by the quay at night, and hardly ever uses the internet. Our only means of communication is via cell phone, so let’s hope neither of us lose ours!

Elise, holding some pear gelato (highly recommended!)

La Vendange

I receive an invitation to the countryside—Chloe has family there, an uncle who owns a vineyard and is willing to give us a little dough in exchange for some hard labor. Strikes me as the perfect opportunity to authentically experience the French countryside so of course, I’m down. The town was just a short train ride from Bordeaux so we left at 7:30 and arrive just in time for dinner. Even though I’ve only been in Bordeaux 10 days, I find myself grateful for this break. I sit in the backseat of her Chloe’s aunt’s car as we drive to the house, drowsy, watching the sun set over the miles upon miles of vineyards. The house too, is beautiful. Her relatives are warm, charming—they compliment my terrible French and fill me with delicious food. But it’s only when her aunt begins to talk to me about Maupassant that I really begin to wonder if I’m dreaming up some kind of French fantasy. I go to bed slightly tipsy from a few glasses of red wine and sleep incredibly well.

We have to get up early to pick grapes—before sunrise early. I have the same experience as the night before but in reverse, sitting in the backseat of the car, drowsy, watching the sun rise over the vineyards. It’s neat to think I’m going to be part of the wine-making process. There is, as it turns out, a whole group of us—mostly people my age. We don’t say much to each other but all the same, there's that kind of conviviality in the atmosphere that comes from working together. A few rows down, I hear someone belting out “Ahhh Savvinga” in a French accent. Pierre, our “porteur” declares that frankly, he woke up this morning like a flower. I’m taken aback by the poeticism of his speech. Imagine an American guy saying that!

Everyone’s patient with me even though I’m clearly the #1 candidate for “least efficient grape-picker.” I don’t know why, but every time the porters come around I have about half the amount of grapes in my basket as everyone else.

By 5pm, I kaput. My back and butt and thighs are so sore I think I’ll keel over. I’m also sunburnt. Chloe’s aunt puts it perfectly when she says: L’idée de travailler dans la nature est assez romantique mais la réalité est un peu différente. It’s an experience I’m glad to have had, but I can’t imagine doing it every day.

That night we make up all the calories that we’ve burnt off and then some, stuffing ourselves with cheese and bread and jam and cheese and shrimp and wine and cheese and beef and cake and cheese and oh, did I mention, cheese? Chloe drinks tea and her relatives tease her for it, asking her if she is sick. We have a discussion about religion and religious cults—I explain Mormonism to them and even succeed at making a few jokes, which makes me happy, since most of my attempts to be funny in French fail miserably.

The next day we take a walk in the countryside and eat lunch under the shady tree in their front yard, overlooking the vineyards. The temperature is so perfect, the breeze so gentle, the tomato and mozzarella salad so fresh, that I literally, sincerely want to cry. But before I know it, we’re back in Bordeaux, boarding a crowded bus. I give Chloe a wan smile.

“Back to reality,” I say.

“C’est clair.”

Le Oiseau Fait Son Nid

Early on, Chloe taught me a French expression: petit par petit, le oiseau fait son nid (little by little, the bird makes its nest). Ok, so it’s corny. But it’s also frighteningly applicable to my life right now. Especially the petit par petit. Living here requires an extraordinary amount of patience because I just want to be settled and yet, I have to accept that there’s no fast way to do it. Especially when you find an apartment that wasn’t oh…left in the best condition (En revanche, I taught Chloe the expression “fixer-upper.”) The advantages of our place are that it’s a) very central b) cheap. The disadvantages are numerous, ranging from the smell to the broken toilet to the apparent inability of the former tenants to clean. But we’re working hard to improve it and have already made considerable progress.

When I told the (somewhat eccentric and outspoken) Spanish teacher at my high school how much my apartment cost he shot this question back at me:

Qu’est-ce que tu appelles un apartment? (What do you call an apartment?)

This question rings in my ears every time I bang my head on the ceiling while accidentally trying to (gasp) stand up straight in my mezzanine bedroom, or when I have to go use the public toilets (ours is broken), or when my roommate pulls a wad of hair out of the bathroom drain to de-clog it.

Tant pis.

Work? Oh Yeah…Work…

Certain readers of this blog may find themselves perplexed to read only the slightest mention of what I actually came here to in the first place, meaning, my work as an English-teaching assistant. That’d be because I haven’t, um, started? Yes, I’ve been to the school, met the administration and most of the English faculty, including my advisor. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, which was a relief since I’ve heard other assistants haven’t had the same experience. I work (?) at Lycee Michel Montaigne, which is right in the city center. It’s also the oldest high school in France, built during the Napoleon era. So that’s cool. Six languages are offered (English, Spanish, German, Arabic, Chinese and Italian) and students are required to take two. There will also be an assistant for each language and apparently we’re all supposed to get together and hang out sometimes. All in all I got a very positive vibe, even after being thrown unexpectedly in front of a class (no big deal, just introduced myself and told a kid that yes, indeed, I had seen Mount Rushmore and no, it was in South Dakota not California—then was promptly saved by the bell).

My job (?) is basically to provide a kind of cultural (think: fun) component to their curriculum. So I can give a lesson on Halloween, for example, or immigration politics (which do you think they’re going to prefer?) I’ve got lots of ideas though I’m afraid they’re probably a bit idealistic. But hey!

The professor who oversees me is older, and, as one of the Spanish teachers told me “fatigue” which is evidenced by the fact that two weeks later I am still waiting for my schedule. In the meantime, my fellow assistants have started work. But how can I complain? Besides, it’s not as though I’m wanting for things to do—bureaucratic nightmares keep me occupied. But I think it’s just that, actually—I want a distraction from all the mind-numbing paperwork and errands.

Quant a la ville…(As for the city)

Bordeaux excited me at first—I found the infamous Utopia (cinema) and it’s nice café very quickly, took pleasure in wandering through its smaller side streets, ate pear gelato while sloshing through the Miroir d’Eau. All these things I did with the sense that I hadn’t really had time to actually discover the city. I figured I had only scratched its surface, and a pretty surface it was!

But as the days go by, I’m beginning to realize that this place is quite small. I talked about this smallness with another assistant and she agreed—you can’t really get lost here. All roads lead to Rue St. Catherine, Bordeaux’s main street, a garishly commercial, long and soulless strip. That said, Bordeaux doesn’t exactly have a small-town feel. It feels strangely disjointed—aggressively chic in some areas, then, right around the corner, dirty and run-down.

I’ll be totally honest and admit that I find myself missing

Lyon sometimes. Whether this feeling is spawned out of the something genuine or simple, rose-tinted nostalgia

remains unclear. But I do feel that Bordeaux, while perfectly beautiful, lacks the bewitching je ne sais quoi of Lyon—there’s no Basilica on a hilltop, casting its reflection on the river.

There is, in fact, a slight feeling of claustrophobia here—such

that I often find myself heading out for the quay just to breathe a little. I wander the streets disoriented but I never feel lost, in the sense that some great discovery is right around the corner. I know I’m casting judgments too quickly. These are just first impressions. But I get nervous when I think back to our next door neighbor who told us why she was moving. Franchement, Bordeaux et moi... and her voice trailed off in the kind of wistful, confused way one might speak of an actual friendship that just fell apart. I get nervous thinking back to the night I talked to a French girl about Bordealais politics.

“Isn’t Bordeaux a bit right-wing?” I asked.

She laughed and responded “a bit!”

I suppose only time will tell if Bordeaux et moi get along.

…but you must see that whatever you do, this time you are living now will count for you one day. You will look back on this desert as you describe it and discover that it was not empty at all, but full of people. You will not escape it. You think this time has not begun, and it has begun. You think you are doing nothing and in reality you are doing something. You think you are moving towards a solution and when you look round you find it’s behind you. In just this sense I did not fully appreciate that city I mentioned…Nothing was waiting me in this city except the city itself, and imagine for a moment what an enormous city, completely preoccupied with its own affairs, can be for a weary traveler seeing it for the first time…You’re well aware that only after it’s all over does one know that he has visited this or that town.

- Marguerite Duras