My Summer Vacation

I'm not much of beach person. I don't enjoy baking in the hot sand (faire la crêpe they call it in French) and I can only spend so much time in the water. So my ideal vacation does not involve going to a super-touristy beach resort, along with almost the entire French population which vacates to one of the three coasts in the summer.

And yet, here I am in a small Mediterranean town called Leucate, about 40 minutes from the Spanish border. My partner's father lives here, so during the summer Kevin comes down to sell his massages to tourists on the beach. It's actually a pretty sweet set-up:




I've come here mostly to drop off the cats and hang out with Kevin for a few days before I leave him to his work and start my own vacation. Last year I was here for a week, but frankly the setting was wasted on me. I hardly even went to the beach, and though I fixed up an old bike with the idea of riding around, the sweltering sun quickly sent me back indoors. Besides, the vegetation is almost non-existent; it's so dry and barren that there is not much to see besides the sea. And the heat here is beyond oppressive, the wind intense and chaotic (much to the delight of windsurfers ).



But even if you do like the beach, at any given moment the wind can pick up and start whipping around, which makes laying in the sand more than a bit unpleasant. For all these reasons, when I was here last summer I was pretty much glued to the TV watching the Olympics and barely left the house.

So let's just say I'm not in my element, and I would much rather head to the Pyrenees mountains which I can gaze at longingly in the distance. Here's the view from Kevin's dad's house - directly in front is a big pond where they cultivate oysters, and the Mediterranean is to the left:




But despite my lack of enthusiasm, I'm here now; and for only 3 days this time. So I'm trying to make the most of it - I haven't turned the TV on even once! On the first day I played a little with a body board; mostly I watched Kevin repeatedly fall off his skim board in a spectacular and of course comical manner. Then we had a romantic dinner at a restaurant on the beach, where we ate and drank to the sound of waves crashing under a three quarter moon. That's pretty hard to beat.

I pretty much stayed in the house yesterday nursing my poor pinkie toe, which I broke on Friday coming out of the shower. But today I went back to beach where Kevin works, and since the wild wind kept the tourists away he had time to give me a massage - my second in two days! Yes, I know, I am a very lucky girl. But I have to say that you if you ever have the opportunity to get a massage on the beach, you shouldn't think twice. It's hard to imagine anything more relaxing than receiving a massage with the sound of surf as a lullaby. Then I took my last swim, and I have to admit there is something pretty magical about the vastness of the sea. Rather than complaining about swallowing salt water, I decided just to roll with it and enjoy what the sea has to offer. I came out invigorated and thankful.

Tonight we're having crèpes, and then tomorrow I head back to Lyon before I set off on the next leg of my summer vacation. I think I found the right solution for a beach holiday: short and sweet. Either that or take up windsurfing.

Trains, Trains, and Automobiles

Before even getting on the train yesterday I was already thinking of writing a post about how great the rail network in France is - only to be delayed for an hour and half with engine trouble. It was the first time I've been on a train more than 5 minutes off schedule, and I was a bit stressed only because I had my cats with me and I'd deliberately chosen the shortest possible trip to minimize the time they spent in their carrying case. Not the best time for the train to be so late. On the bright side, the staff came around and gave out bottles of water, which I thought was really sweet. But I felt so bad for the cats that I let them out of their case once Kevin arrived to pick up us, and Lucky ended up relieving himself both ways in the car. Desperation or revenge? I'll never know.

So yesterday's train experience admittedly wasn't ideal. But I still love trains, especially the French ones. They're clean and pretty stylish, almost always on time, go just about everywhere in the country and Europe, and are pretty reasonably priced if you get your tickets early enough. The TGVs (Train Grande Vitesse or high speed train) are also super fast - they set the world speed record in 2007 of 274.9 mph and average speeds are around 186 mph. For example, the distance between Lyon, where I live, and Paris is 285 miles. By car that takes about 5 hours if you don't hit too much traffic. But on the TGV, you go from city center to city center in 2 hours! One of my neighbors actually works in Paris, which is a hell of a commute, but still doable. For me it's just nice to be able to go to Paris for a quick visit, and for many destinations it's actually much quicker than driving. The only drawback: the not-infrequent strikes the French are famous for. But you can't have everything, can you?

Here I am on the TGV from Paris to Lyon when my brother came for a visit. You can tell from that huge smile how much I love riding trains, right?



I've always loved trains, I'm not sure why exactly. But since I always request a window seat I think it big part of it is just watching the landscape roll by. Or maybe the freedom of being able to wander around the aisles, or hang out in the dining car for a change of scenery. Once when I was 20 and on an Amtrak from Michigan to Massachusetts, I was seated in the dining car with a very handsome Australian vet who was traveling around the US. We talked (ok, flirted) for hours and he gave me his address in Australia. Not sure if I kept it, but that was a very exciting moment for me - maybe that's where the positive association with trains comes from!

Admittedly, I love planes too; for the bird's eye view especially. One of the most breathtaking things I've seen was flying towards Lyon with the Alps so close I felt like I could reach out the window and caress the snow-tipped peaks. But my ecological conscience has issues with flying, though it's hard to resist sometimes given the super cheap fares you can find nowadays. I was able to go to Rome and Berlin last summer for outrageously low prices, and to assuage my conscience I checked the box to offset my carbon consumption with a donation to some kind of forest in Ecuador. I felt a little less guilty, and I loved those trips. But in an effort to reduce my carbon footprint I've been trying to take the train whenever possible rather than being seduced by the cheap fares. Besides, flying the low-cost airlines hasn't ever been a great experience, so in the end I'm not sure it's worth the extra hassle and the carbon emissions to save a few bucks.

I'm really happy about my summer plans in that sense, because I'm traveling only by train to Amsterdam, London, and several different places in France, with just a little bit of driving. That's part of what's great about Europe: you can go pretty short distances and find yourself in a completely different country and culture. And since they built the tunnel under the English Channel, you can even go to England via Eurostar. I'm a little freaked out at the idea of being underwater, and I definitely won't have much of a view. But I'm excited to be able to ride the train to an island!

So trains are just another thing to love about France, and I really hope that someday people in the US will know the joys of a fast, efficient, and affordable rail system. I've read that Obama is really interested in the French TGV and will invest lots of dough in rail lines, so perhaps that's in the cards. If you do ever get the TGV in the US, you'll know where to find me!

Funny Things French People Say

In my work as an English teacher and even in my daily interactions with the French, I'm exposed to a never-ending stream of hilarious malapropisms. I always say that I'll write them down but usually forget. So for the sake of adding a little laughter to your day and mine, I've decided to keep track of some of that funny stuff in this blog.

A typical example involves misuse of prepositions: In response to my amusement at one of his English mistakes, my partner says to me, "Stop laughing on me!" Of course that just makes me laugh even harder...

Pronunciation also causes some problems: During an activity where my students had to make up lies in order to give a negative response to their partner's questions, one student asked the other, "So I hear you ate children." As if hating children isn't bad enough, she's accusing her of eating them!

Of course she meant to say hate, but French people tend to make the h silent when they see it, and to pronounce it when they shouldn't. For example, one of my students couldn't say the word "I"; she would say things like "Hi like pizza, Hi went to the movies," etc. Or they'll say "I hate lunch" instead of "I ate lunch." "I'm very hungry at him" instead of "I'm very angry at him." So I spend a fair bit of my class time working on the h sound, and of course laughing my butt off - luckily my students are pretty good natured about it all!

One last anecdote for today comes from another teacher, with of mix of pronunciation issues and general vocabulary confusion: One of his students recently asked him if he was a "cheese gamer." Hunh? After much confusion, they finally realized he meant to say "chess player." Ahhhh.

Speaking English with the French can take a fair amount of detective skills to uncover the hidden midden in the incomprehensible stuff they sometimes come up with. But that's part of the fun, and it's true in any foreign language I suppose; I make plenty of mistakes myself when I speak French. And when I lived in Ecuador as a college student, I said so many ridiculous things in Spanish that my host family started calling me "payasa" (clown). The important thing is to have a sense of humor about it all!

In that spririt, stay tuned for the next installment of "funny things french people say. " :-)

Today's Moment

I came home for lunch today since I had a long break in between classes, and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather to sit on my “terrace.” I’m using quotation marks because I don’t think it really qualifies as a terrace; it’s just a bit of concrete in between two hydrangea bushes. But the previous tenants left a rusty table and some dirty plastic chairs, which I am very thankful for since I’m sure we never would have bought them ourselves. When you put a tablecloth down it’s actually quite presentable:

The problem, however, is that our mini-terrace gives onto the driveway for all the tenants. So whenever our neighbors return home, they see us eating and always say ‘bon appétit!’ and make a random comment about something. (Seriously, this a compulsion among the French; it’s impossible for them to see anyone eating without saying ‘bon appétit!’, even if they are just passing by and have nothing to do with your meal).

For me this felt a bit weird, almost as if these folks were walking across our dining room to get to their apartments. So for a long time I didn’t think much of our terrace, especially because our view is onto the parking spaces in front of the house. Compared to the neighbors behind us who have an enormous garden all to themselves, our little parking lot terrace seemed a bit lame (nul as they say in French).

Here is our view of the parking lot, our garage is on the far right:

But then I started to wonder why I was so attached to my privacy that I resented my neighbors’ intrusion into my meal. All of them are nice people, so the more I think of it, the more I think it’s actually great that we do interact with our neighbors a bit, considering how isolated most people are these days. And yes, we sit right next to a driveway. But there are only 8 apartments in this house, so it’s not like there is constant traffic. And as you can see in the picture our view is not just of parking spots but also of big beautiful trees, lavender bushes, climbing vines, roses. For living in the city, we’re actually lucky to have a terrace at all, especially one surrounded by such greenery.

So today my moment of mindfulness came as I was eating my lunch on my little terrace, breathing deeply and gazing at the trees, feeling grateful that I have good food and a beautiful place where I can eat it. And though I didn’t actually see any of my neighbors, I think I would have been happy if I had.

Dreams Do Come True - And Then What?

"Are you happier in France?" a visiting American friend once asked as we strolled along the banks of the Rhone River in Lyon.

I had to laugh, because my life in France was anything but dreamy, despite my expectation that I would indeed be happier once settled on French soil.

"Actually," I replied, "what I've learned is that I'm really good at being unhappy wherever I go!"

This should have come as no surprise to me; I've moved so many times in my life that I know well that the initial excitement eventually wears off. And yet, I'd continued to cultivate the fantasy that relocating to France and moving in with my boyfriend would mark the end to most of my troubles.

Surprisingly (for me at least), this is not what happened. I did leave some problems behind, but many new ones emerged, as they will.

At dinner the other night with a few other Anglophone expatriates, we talked about how pervasive that French fantasy is, and how people back home often tell us how lucky we are. Yet we still have to go to work, do the shopping, cook and clean and do all the other mundane things we did back in our own countries, but now in a context that can be quite confusing and alienating. It's no accident that many of my friends are expats, despite my initial determination to seek out French friendships. I think we develop a fellowship over shared trials and tribulations, of constantly dealing with things that make no sense and having to negotiate our cross-cultural relationships. We compare notes about our French partners, and often end up saying “Oh, I thought it was just him, but maybe it’s a French thing!”

What do you do once the fantasy fades, when your dream comes true but it's not at all what you expected? How do you deal with the reality of daily life in France, which is frustrating and downright infuriating more often than it is blissful and beautiful?

We agreed that we do get so caught up in our everyday routine that we take for granted living in a country so many people dream of. And we concluded that we could appreciate where we are a little more, even naming some of the things we liked best about Lyon. In fact, this blog is part of my effort to keep that sense of appreciation going, because it's true there are so many things to love about this city and this country.

But ultimately, for me it’s not just about appreciating France; it's about being in the present moment, wherever I am. I know I have a tendency to search outside of myself for solutions to my dissatisfaction, and to move on when things get either rough or boring. Now that I’ve been in France for 3 years and the doldrums have set in, it would be so tempting to pine after another fantasy destination. If I were single, I'm sure I would already have left in search of greener pastures.

But my partner is here, and needs to be in Lyon for at least 2 more years. So for now my life is here too. What's a restless soul to do?

This is where my mindfulness practice comes in (see sidebar if you haven't already). I’m beginning to understand that part of living mindfully is also being present where I am; seeing the beauty around me instead of fantasizing about other places or getting caught up in all that bothers me here. So from now on my goal is to bring my practice to where I live, so that I can learn to love where I am, moment by moment.