On My First Week
Salut tout le monde! It has been a week since I’ve arrived in France and here we are. A week filled with tears, happiness, successes, failures, and everything in between.
It has not been an easy week, but I knew it wouldn’t be (I just don’t think I realized that as I spent my last month at home saying goodbye to friends, finishing my job, packing, and enjoying living in the comfort of my parents’ home). It has been filled with lots of tears and moments of questioning why I did this in general, and also why I did this in the middle of a pandemic. The hardest part for me is not knowing if my loved ones will be able to visit me while I am here, and I need to keep reminding myself to take it one day at a time. Everything is temporary, including this situation, therefore I should enjoy it as much as possible. When else in my life will I be living alone in the south of France and teaching a mere 12 hours a week (which I don’t have to start doing until November anyway….)
I had planned on spending my first week in the town where I am assigned to teach, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. It is a town famous for its vast Sunday market and antique fairs. It has many adorable shops, cute bistros, and little canals and pedestrian bridges over its waterways. My AirBnB is a little apartment that has everything I need to spend a couple of days, except other people. I felt very isolated the first few days because I knew no one in the town. Coming off of spending the past six months living in a condo with my entire family and seeing tons of people before I left, this was challenging. I realized I am not good at quiet. The mornings have been the hardest part of the day for me, when no one back home is awake. I listen to lots of podcasts because hearing English and the American accents calms me, and staying connected to the news makes me feel tied to home.
I move to a longer term AirBnB in the bigger city of Avignon this afternoon, and I am very excited for that. There are lots of other assistants de langue in Avignon, from the US and elsewhere (so far I have met assistants from the UK, Italy, Brazil, India, and Germany - with more to come I am sure). Avignon is a beautiful town filled with old city walls, ancient architecture, and winding streets full of little cafes to have un café ou un verre de vin. I am very excited to explore its secret alleyways and discover its hole-in-the-wall restaurants. My commute to my schools is about 25 minutes on the train, which runs somewhat randomly. I visited my schools and start my observation period Monday. They also are giving me Wednesdays and Fridays off - can’t complain about that.
I am in a truly beautiful region of France that I am excited to explore more of (as well as the rest of the country). The people here have been much nicer than many of the Parisians I’ve encountered in my life. The food is of course delicious, and the wine is very cheap, though I’ve also been drinking a fair amount of beer. While I am very homesick still and crave bits of America, I know with time I will start listening to French podcasts, getting to know French music, making French friends, and cooking French food. I am appreciative of everything in my life that has led me here, and I am trying my best to take full advantage of it. I find myself at times feeling regretful of my first few months of college, when I was miserably homesick and instead of joining clubs or making friends I sat in my room crying or calling my parents. I am older now, and I am a stronger person. I can do anything I set my mind to, whether that is getting out of bed in the morning, making it through a day without crying, or spending 7ish months in France.
Some observations from my first week:
- grapes here are not seedless. but that hasn’t stopped me from eating the seeds.
- french people are definitely trendy but it’s not because they wear these crazy fashionable things, it’s because they were simple clothes with confidence. that’s the difference.
- the attitude towards coronavirus is not like it was in the US. people wear masks, but no one social distances really. people see this as just a facet of life now, but are continuing as normal otherwise.
- french bureaucracy is no fun and rather confusing/overwhelming.
- i am no longer ashamed to be american which is ironic because now is the time to be most ashamed. when i was in geneva i did everything i could to appear not american. here i’m realizing, ok at this point i know that it’s fairly easy to pick us out of a lineup just because.
- specific to covid: surgical masks are much more popular than personal cloth masks here. but i love my cloth masks.
- french people don’t multitask. they don’t walk and talk on the phone, or walk and eat, or walk and drink coffee. they much prefer to do one thing at a time. i have gotten a lot of looks for walking around and being on the phone or texting. but i get those looks in the US sometimes too.
- the produce here is fresher, but that means it goes bad more easily. and they don’t refrigerate eggs! i remember this from geneva but i kinda forgot about it.
