I actually made the 10:00 Sunday-morning rendez-vous just outside of the Gobelins Metro station, which rather surprised me (though I literally had to run more than half of the way). Once all three groups had made it, we began to walk north, towards the Parisian market on the Rue Monge, which Bruno had described as a very traditional Parisian market, somewhat more low-key and less ephemeral than the market I had visited with him.
Riddle: How is it possible that to walk down the entire length of the Rue Monge without passing a single fromagerie?
Answer: Bring your parents!
Really, the fromageries were quite wonderful looking, and could be smelled from several meters' distance. Not to say that the fresh fruits and vegetables weren't appetizing; far from it! Everything looked good, even the red meat and the crustaceans! However, it was a morning of touching only with our eyes (as the French say). We eventually sat down in a cafe for hot drinks, coffee for everyone else and cocoa for me.
After we were warm again, we continued north (it really was a gorgeous morning), and arrived at the Arenes de Lutece, the 2nd-century Roman arenas which I have already mentioned I visited with Nick. There was a soccer game going on at the moment, and we watched the players for a few minutes, from the upper levels of the arena. From there, we headed west, walking towards the famous Pantheon, which I had strongly recommended that my parents not leave without seeing. Just before entering, we stepped into the Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, a beautiful church which is right in the Place du Pantheon. The Pantheon itself did not fail to impress, and I felt like a real Pantheon expert, being able to show and explain to my Mother all of the scenes painted on the walls of the main floor, and the byzantine political process behind Pantheonization. We descended into the crypt, and that's where I let Bruno take over, who, understandably, knows French history much better than I do! It was nice to finally get a general idea of just who Leon Gambetta and Adolphe-Sylvestre-Felix Eboue were (among others). I really need to learn my contemporary history ("contemporary" means "since 1789" in France). I was very glad that Dad got to visit the Curies, and I know that Mom was very happy that she had the opportunity to visit the graves Dumas, Zola, and Hugo, who are all interred in the same vault.
Next stop was a monument with which I am quite familiar -- the Sorbonne! Although it was closed, there really isn't much to show, except the Cour d'Honneur, and the confusing corridors. To be honest, academically and physically, the Sorbonne is much more impressive from the outside than from the inside. We decided to stop for a late-afternoon lunch (although it sounds as if we barely did anything, it was already about 2:30 pm by this point), and Mom chose to eat one of the restaurants right in front of the Sorbonne. I hadn't realized quite how cold I had become, and I had completely lost my appetite because of the cold. I needed to put my hat and gloves on inside the restaurant, and borrow Bruno's coat, in order to warm up. I'm not normally cold when I'm outside, but our walking pace was far more leisurely than usual, which prevented my movement from warming my limbs. No serious harm done: it was a good lunch, and a good afternoon. I handed Mom a few of the books I had accumulated since then (I worry that I won't be able to fit everything in my suitcase) in the restaurant, and then the four of us headed to the closest Metro station. I was walking back to my dorm, and didn't want to become cold again: the goodbyes were necessarily short (unusual for our family), and I ran (literally) back to my dorm, where I stayed for the rest of the evening, mostly because of the rain.
~JD
Showing posts with label Cheese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cheese. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Un bon vin blanc
Fun fact: one of the easiest way to indicate that you are not a native-speaker of French is to compliment your host's white wine. The phrase un bon vin blanc, literally "a good white wine," contains all three of French's nasal sounds, which are unique to the language (the Danish equivalent of the phrase impossible for foreigners is rødgrød med fløde, a dessert as marvelous as its name). Monday night, I had some bon vin blanc, even though I couldn't pronounce it, at a wine tasting, not far from the National Archives. Organized by EDUCO, I left with a bit more oenological and viticultural knowledge than I had had when I entered, though I'm still going to refer all of my wine choices to a certain older brother of mine.
Before we even saw the first bottle, the instructor, who is a professional wine taster, explained to us a bit of how French geography and climate affect wine quality. In the EU, wine is designated according to its origin, not according to the variety of grape (although this is sometimes secondary). The instructor was very enthusiastic about the different characters, insisting that grapes are just like people; some are thin, some are wide, some are narrow, some are bitter, etc. As it turns out, France is just warm enough to grow grapevines, and there is a noticeable difference between the wines of the south (in Provence, Languedoc, etc), and the more central and northerly varieties (from the Loire valley, certain regions of the Atlantic coast, etc). The northern wines receive less sunlight, and thus tend to be thinner, more acidic, lighter, and longer; southern varieties fulfill all of the (silly) stereotypes of southern climes of 18th-century philosophy a la Montesquieu.
There are also right and wrong ways to taste and experience wine; that is, professional tasters use a different method than people like me. First there is the swirling of the wine glass, in order to test viscosity; depending on how quickly the residue adhering to the sides of the glass drips back towards the stem, the thicker the wine, and the closer together the drops (formally called "legs"), the sweeter. Next, there is the initial sniff, followed by the real one, which is accompanied by another swirl. Next, our featured presentation -- sipping the wine. After swishing the wine around one's mouth, in order to stimulate all of one's taste buds, one should inhale a bit (being careful not to drip), and either spit or swallow. This burst of oxygen makes a surprisingly large difference, for chemical reasons I would probably understand if I took a class with Prof. Regenstein.
The first wine (a white) was served in bottle with it's label covered, so that we would have to guess geographic origin. The wine was nearly transparent in the glass, and scored very low on the viscosity scale. The smell was sharp, and the taste was dry, without a hint of sweetness. In spite of all of this wonderful data, in a guided multiple choice question with two possible responses, I chose the wrong one (sorry, Sam). The wine was from Bordeaux (like my friend Guillaume), and was a sauvignon blanc.
Out came the cheese, and quite a lot of varieties, too! Too many to list and describe them all, but I took away one lesson from all the cheese, and that was the identity of two very tasty cheeses. The first was Saint-Marcellin, which I had never heard of. The second, the best cheese I have tasted since my arrival in France, was a humble compte -- but not just any compte. This compte had been aged for a very short amount of time, under 12 months, and I can still taste its mild sweetness. By the end of the night, with a bit more wine in my system, I began to refer to it as "Conde" by accident, this being the name of a 17th-century French general and prince, who gave Louis XIV both a lot of grief, and a lot of victories (see FB for a photo of a painting of him).
The next wine, also a white, was just a little bit thicker, and was also from the north. It was called Marsanne, and it really didn't do much for me. It was at this point, also, that small flasks of various scents were handed around the table; we tried to guess each fragrance, and, again, I failed miserably. Somewhat amusingly, I guessed that the lemon flavor was chamomile; this is because I instantly recognized its scent from herbal tea, of which there are mostly three kinds served in my house: mint, chamomile, and lemon. The power of association!
The next wine, a red, smelled heavily of raspberries, to me, at any rate. The instructor validated this, and added a few other flavors that I should have been smelling, but I could never really get past the crushed raspberries. It was a nice rich wine, from the southeast, known as the Coteaux du Languedoc (Longuedoc is right by Provence, on the Mediterranean coast). I refilled my glass once or twice with this one; I really liked it!
Last up was another bordellais wine, a white. Saint-Croix-du-Mont was it's name, and when I first sniffed it, I was immediately repulsed: it smelled of rotten fruit! I brought this up, and it looks as if my sense of smell wasn't misaligned; to manufacture this particular wine, the vineyard workers deliberately wait until the fruit has achieved an overripe flavor before they harvest it. I was at first hesitant to taste such a foul-smelling liquid (nobody else seemed bothered by it), but the taste was nothing like the smell: the taste was wonderfully sweet, that of a dessert wine.
Fun fact #2: There is no French word for "wine snob."
~JD
"Agenouillees, elles attendent qu'il passe, suivi de ses aumoniers; le premier medecin tient la tete du malade que le roi touche en repetant la formule" [Kneeling, they waited for the king to pass, followed by his chaplains; the chief physician held the head of the scrofulous supplicant, whom the king touched while repeating the phrase "the king touches and God heals you"] (Christophe Blanquie, Les institutions de la France des Bourbons, p. 27).
Before we even saw the first bottle, the instructor, who is a professional wine taster, explained to us a bit of how French geography and climate affect wine quality. In the EU, wine is designated according to its origin, not according to the variety of grape (although this is sometimes secondary). The instructor was very enthusiastic about the different characters, insisting that grapes are just like people; some are thin, some are wide, some are narrow, some are bitter, etc. As it turns out, France is just warm enough to grow grapevines, and there is a noticeable difference between the wines of the south (in Provence, Languedoc, etc), and the more central and northerly varieties (from the Loire valley, certain regions of the Atlantic coast, etc). The northern wines receive less sunlight, and thus tend to be thinner, more acidic, lighter, and longer; southern varieties fulfill all of the (silly) stereotypes of southern climes of 18th-century philosophy a la Montesquieu.
There are also right and wrong ways to taste and experience wine; that is, professional tasters use a different method than people like me. First there is the swirling of the wine glass, in order to test viscosity; depending on how quickly the residue adhering to the sides of the glass drips back towards the stem, the thicker the wine, and the closer together the drops (formally called "legs"), the sweeter. Next, there is the initial sniff, followed by the real one, which is accompanied by another swirl. Next, our featured presentation -- sipping the wine. After swishing the wine around one's mouth, in order to stimulate all of one's taste buds, one should inhale a bit (being careful not to drip), and either spit or swallow. This burst of oxygen makes a surprisingly large difference, for chemical reasons I would probably understand if I took a class with Prof. Regenstein.
The first wine (a white) was served in bottle with it's label covered, so that we would have to guess geographic origin. The wine was nearly transparent in the glass, and scored very low on the viscosity scale. The smell was sharp, and the taste was dry, without a hint of sweetness. In spite of all of this wonderful data, in a guided multiple choice question with two possible responses, I chose the wrong one (sorry, Sam). The wine was from Bordeaux (like my friend Guillaume), and was a sauvignon blanc.
Out came the cheese, and quite a lot of varieties, too! Too many to list and describe them all, but I took away one lesson from all the cheese, and that was the identity of two very tasty cheeses. The first was Saint-Marcellin, which I had never heard of. The second, the best cheese I have tasted since my arrival in France, was a humble compte -- but not just any compte. This compte had been aged for a very short amount of time, under 12 months, and I can still taste its mild sweetness. By the end of the night, with a bit more wine in my system, I began to refer to it as "Conde" by accident, this being the name of a 17th-century French general and prince, who gave Louis XIV both a lot of grief, and a lot of victories (see FB for a photo of a painting of him).
The next wine, also a white, was just a little bit thicker, and was also from the north. It was called Marsanne, and it really didn't do much for me. It was at this point, also, that small flasks of various scents were handed around the table; we tried to guess each fragrance, and, again, I failed miserably. Somewhat amusingly, I guessed that the lemon flavor was chamomile; this is because I instantly recognized its scent from herbal tea, of which there are mostly three kinds served in my house: mint, chamomile, and lemon. The power of association!
The next wine, a red, smelled heavily of raspberries, to me, at any rate. The instructor validated this, and added a few other flavors that I should have been smelling, but I could never really get past the crushed raspberries. It was a nice rich wine, from the southeast, known as the Coteaux du Languedoc (Longuedoc is right by Provence, on the Mediterranean coast). I refilled my glass once or twice with this one; I really liked it!
Last up was another bordellais wine, a white. Saint-Croix-du-Mont was it's name, and when I first sniffed it, I was immediately repulsed: it smelled of rotten fruit! I brought this up, and it looks as if my sense of smell wasn't misaligned; to manufacture this particular wine, the vineyard workers deliberately wait until the fruit has achieved an overripe flavor before they harvest it. I was at first hesitant to taste such a foul-smelling liquid (nobody else seemed bothered by it), but the taste was nothing like the smell: the taste was wonderfully sweet, that of a dessert wine.
Fun fact #2: There is no French word for "wine snob."
~JD
"Agenouillees, elles attendent qu'il passe, suivi de ses aumoniers; le premier medecin tient la tete du malade que le roi touche en repetant la formule" [Kneeling, they waited for the king to pass, followed by his chaplains; the chief physician held the head of the scrofulous supplicant, whom the king touched while repeating the phrase "the king touches and God heals you"] (Christophe Blanquie, Les institutions de la France des Bourbons, p. 27).
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Dans le Frigo
I'm going to take a moment to talk about normal food here. Yes, normal food, as in the kind of thing that I'm used to eating, and not the decadent repast that I wrote about two posts ago.
Fruits and veggies are pretty much the same in France. However, there are a few differences: tomatoes here are so far tastier here than they are in the U.S., and according to Bruno, Coeur de Boeuf tomatoes, which I haven't yet tried, are even better. A very common dish here (I've had it multiple times here) is sliced tomato in vinaigrette. Green beans, likewise; both common and excellent when served fresh, with just a little bit of sauce. On the other hand, the apples I am used to, cultivated in the Cornell Orchards, are much, much better than the apples I've eaten here, which are fairly boring. I miss the massive quantities of onions that I am used to consuming at home. Peaches and nectarines, while they are in season, are very, very common, whereas blueberries are exotic. I had only once eaten fresh figs before, and they might have been the tastiest fruit I had ever eaten -- but French figs, grown, I think, in the south of French, are less interesting than the tomatoes. The close proximity to North Africa and the Middle East makes the transport of such produce, such as dates (1.99 a kilo, from Libya) and so-called Barbary figs, which I had never seen before, much easier. Mangoes are a euro apiece, but I've barely seen any watermelon. Although OJ is common here, I don't think it's quite as ubiquitous as is in the states; and as I mentioned earlier, French people don't know what to do with their ripe bananas.
Oh, how the bread is good here! See an earlier entry for details. Sadly, no bagels. Interestingly, one buys just about all one's bread here fresh, and from a real boulangerie -- except sandwich bread. Even stranger, one of the biggest sandwich bread brands (the Avertins ate it every morning) is called "Harry's" and advertises itself as an "American Sandwich Loaf." According to the packaging, however, it's a German company...
Everybody in France eats Nutella.
Milk is more or less the same, although I had to learn that here, "skim" milk is called "creamed" (ecreme). This makes sense, when considering that "pitted" dates lack pits, "peeled" onions lack peels, and "cored" pears lack cores; however, it's very confusing, during one's first trip to the grocery store. Another confusing item at the grocery store is so-called fromage blanc (white cheese) which looks like, tastes like, and is situated next to yogurt (although yogurt is a little bit firmer). I'm still not 100% certain of the difference in production. According to a dairy vendor, yogurt undergoes boiling, while fromage blanc doesn't. According to a quick internet search, however, yogurt is fermented, while fromage blanc is curdled, and moreover, yaourt is an EU-controlled name, (just like champagne). Cheese ranges from the cheap to the gourmet; however, what I'll call the "workingman's cheese" is not cheddar (which, when you think about it, has to be imported from the UK), but Camembert. I had an amazing cheese the other day, Reblochon, made in Savoie, which is in the East, near the Italian border.
There's a student cafeteria, at which I receive a limited number of free meals, guaranteeing me a hot dinner four times a week. Not a bad deal, considering that I'm not living with a host family, a choice I am every day regretting (I choose to live in the dorms because I thought I would have a French roommate). In the U.S., every corridor in the dorm becomes a small community; here the Residence Lucien Paye, there is almost no contact with the others, though they are perfectly friendly (if somewhat distant) when I meet them.
One last interesting point; there are street vendors here who sell fruit at extremely low prices, who create small stall out of fruit crates, which one can find near or inside of metro stations. These vendors all appear to be of the same non-Francophone nationality. According to Bruno (who thinks they might be Afghan), they used to sell posters.
Next post, I will vent about French academics.
~JD
"Si le roi avait ete temoin de ce spectacle, il aurait lui-meme eteint les flammes. Il signa, du fond de son palais de Versailles et au milieu des plaisirs, la destruction de tout un pays, parce qu'il ne voyait dans cet ordre que son pouvoir et le malheureux droit de la guerre; mais de plus pres, il n'en eut vu que l'horreur" [If the king had witnessed this spectacle, he would have himself extinguished the flames. He signed, from the background of his Palace of Versailles and amidst its pleasures, the destruction of a whole country, because in this order he saw only his power and the wretched law of war; but had he been closer, he would have seen only the horror] (Voltaire, Le Siecle de Louis XIV p. 371).
Fruits and veggies are pretty much the same in France. However, there are a few differences: tomatoes here are so far tastier here than they are in the U.S., and according to Bruno, Coeur de Boeuf tomatoes, which I haven't yet tried, are even better. A very common dish here (I've had it multiple times here) is sliced tomato in vinaigrette. Green beans, likewise; both common and excellent when served fresh, with just a little bit of sauce. On the other hand, the apples I am used to, cultivated in the Cornell Orchards, are much, much better than the apples I've eaten here, which are fairly boring. I miss the massive quantities of onions that I am used to consuming at home. Peaches and nectarines, while they are in season, are very, very common, whereas blueberries are exotic. I had only once eaten fresh figs before, and they might have been the tastiest fruit I had ever eaten -- but French figs, grown, I think, in the south of French, are less interesting than the tomatoes. The close proximity to North Africa and the Middle East makes the transport of such produce, such as dates (1.99 a kilo, from Libya) and so-called Barbary figs, which I had never seen before, much easier. Mangoes are a euro apiece, but I've barely seen any watermelon. Although OJ is common here, I don't think it's quite as ubiquitous as is in the states; and as I mentioned earlier, French people don't know what to do with their ripe bananas.
Oh, how the bread is good here! See an earlier entry for details. Sadly, no bagels. Interestingly, one buys just about all one's bread here fresh, and from a real boulangerie -- except sandwich bread. Even stranger, one of the biggest sandwich bread brands (the Avertins ate it every morning) is called "Harry's" and advertises itself as an "American Sandwich Loaf." According to the packaging, however, it's a German company...
Everybody in France eats Nutella.
Milk is more or less the same, although I had to learn that here, "skim" milk is called "creamed" (ecreme). This makes sense, when considering that "pitted" dates lack pits, "peeled" onions lack peels, and "cored" pears lack cores; however, it's very confusing, during one's first trip to the grocery store. Another confusing item at the grocery store is so-called fromage blanc (white cheese) which looks like, tastes like, and is situated next to yogurt (although yogurt is a little bit firmer). I'm still not 100% certain of the difference in production. According to a dairy vendor, yogurt undergoes boiling, while fromage blanc doesn't. According to a quick internet search, however, yogurt is fermented, while fromage blanc is curdled, and moreover, yaourt is an EU-controlled name, (just like champagne). Cheese ranges from the cheap to the gourmet; however, what I'll call the "workingman's cheese" is not cheddar (which, when you think about it, has to be imported from the UK), but Camembert. I had an amazing cheese the other day, Reblochon, made in Savoie, which is in the East, near the Italian border.
There's a student cafeteria, at which I receive a limited number of free meals, guaranteeing me a hot dinner four times a week. Not a bad deal, considering that I'm not living with a host family, a choice I am every day regretting (I choose to live in the dorms because I thought I would have a French roommate). In the U.S., every corridor in the dorm becomes a small community; here the Residence Lucien Paye, there is almost no contact with the others, though they are perfectly friendly (if somewhat distant) when I meet them.
One last interesting point; there are street vendors here who sell fruit at extremely low prices, who create small stall out of fruit crates, which one can find near or inside of metro stations. These vendors all appear to be of the same non-Francophone nationality. According to Bruno (who thinks they might be Afghan), they used to sell posters.
Next post, I will vent about French academics.
~JD
"Si le roi avait ete temoin de ce spectacle, il aurait lui-meme eteint les flammes. Il signa, du fond de son palais de Versailles et au milieu des plaisirs, la destruction de tout un pays, parce qu'il ne voyait dans cet ordre que son pouvoir et le malheureux droit de la guerre; mais de plus pres, il n'en eut vu que l'horreur" [If the king had witnessed this spectacle, he would have himself extinguished the flames. He signed, from the background of his Palace of Versailles and amidst its pleasures, the destruction of a whole country, because in this order he saw only his power and the wretched law of war; but had he been closer, he would have seen only the horror] (Voltaire, Le Siecle de Louis XIV p. 371).
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Arrival in France
Somehow or another, I made it to Tours, all in one piece. The French equivalent of the English phrase "safe and sound" is "sain et sauf," which means "healthy and safe." Perhaps this indicates that to the French, arriving "sound," i.e., without serious jostling, is an unrealistic (or undesirable) goal? Although the journey from Ithaca to France was about as easy a one as I could have hoped for, I got a year and a half's worth of French jostling just getting my Visa from the French Consulate in New York City!
My first flight, from Ithaca to Philadelphia, does not deserve mention, save to say that I was nauseated for most of the flight.
I had a more-than-three-hour wait in the Philadelphia airport, which wasn't bad at all. Luckily, I had packed a selection of Euripides's plays, and the copy of Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here given to me by Matt Rosenspire. (Since my departure, I've had enough time to read "Hecuba," "Andromache," and about 110 pages of Lewis's 1935 novel.) I watched a French family eating french fries. The transatlantic flight was easy: happy Frenchmen and Frenchwomen and Frenchchildren chattered away in French, not a word of which I understood, which probably doesn't bode well for my chances at effective communication in the coming five months. I lost six hours on the flight, arriving in Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, at 7:30 AM local time, after having slept only about an hour and a half. Strangely, even though it's now 2:50 PM local time, I don't feel tired at all. Excitement? That's the word for what I feel in my veins.
After retrieving my suitcase from the baggage claim, I took the shuttle to the train station sector of Charles de Gaulle. A ticket machine gave me trouble, and despite the kind help from a French bystander (from whom I learned that"what the frick?" is the accepted way for French to swear in English), I needed to stand in a long, long line in order to purchase a train ticket. Even though I had begun with a two-and-a-half-hour window before my 10:01 AM train departed, I obtained my ticket with under 20 minutes to spare. The French Word of the Day has been "voie," which means "railroad platform" (among other definitions), a term that I have needed to use several times today, already. A couple of train rides later, after having helped a foreign student who spoke neither French nor English to find her host family, I arrived in Tours.
I found Mme. Avertin waiting for me, holding a small placard with my name on it. After we had "fait les baises" (that's that French cheek-kissing technique, in which each party receives three pecks apiece), she introduced me to her daughter, Stephanie, and her husband. They drove me to their apartment building, and showed me to my room, as well as to "les toilettes," a facility by then badly needed: it had been a long and hot ride, and I had become fairly dehydrated in the course of the travel. The apartment as a whole is beautiful, and tastefully decorated with a mixture of European and East Asian styles. It is a clean, well-lighted place, where electric lights are hardly needed at all, in the full heat and sunlight of the continental summer. While M. Avertin ran an errand, that seemed to have involved somebody's lost iPhone (I'm not quite clear on the course of events), I unpacked.
There is a list of residency rules in the room, instated by the Institut, available in both French and English. That is, it is available in French, with a half-hearted attempt to use an online translator. Here is a sample of the opening passage concerning telephone use:
"the phone family isn't use a student. Your family phone you."
The room is larger than my room at home, has a television (complete with VCR), a window, a closet, two bedside tables, and a bookshelf. Best of all, there is a large black desk, on which I have placed my computer in order to write this post, and which I will probably continue to use. The bookshelf contains books and movies left by the Avertins' son when he graduated high school: he seems to have been a fan of Parcel Pagnol, the great writer of Provence. There are also a pair of books about Native Americans, a few choose-your-own-adventure books ("Un Livre Dont Vous Etes Le Heros"), and a copy of Camus's L'Homme Revolte. Movies include several classic Disney films, in addition to "Le Professeur Foldingue" ("The Nutty Professor"), "Robin Des Bois" ("Robin Hood"), "Dragonball" (yes, that's what it's called in France), etc. I gave Mme. Avertin the gift I had brought the family, a photograph of an Ithacan waterfall, which, I think, she appreciated.
After M. Avertin returned, we had lunch, and I did my absolute best to engage in conversation. The Avertins are very convivial, and I began to describe, as best as I could, where I lived, what I do with my life, etc. They served me some of the best Camembert and Chevre I've ever tasted. The Camembert, as is legally required in the EU, came from Camembert, and the Chevre came from a real goat (I hope). M. Avertin is retired, and Mme. is in semi-retirement. Photos forthcoming.
After we had cleared the table, M. Avertin showed me the password to the Wi-Fi Network, and gave me a kind lesson in the use of the French verb "communiquer." After shooting off a quick e-mail to my parents, I typed up this blog post as quickly as possible.
~JD
"There in the house of Nereus, arm in arm, Goddess with god, we'll live the future out. And moving dry-shod over the foaming ocean, you'll see your son and mine, dearest Achilles, lording it in his island home." ~Thetis (from Euripides's Andromache)
My first flight, from Ithaca to Philadelphia, does not deserve mention, save to say that I was nauseated for most of the flight.
I had a more-than-three-hour wait in the Philadelphia airport, which wasn't bad at all. Luckily, I had packed a selection of Euripides's plays, and the copy of Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here given to me by Matt Rosenspire. (Since my departure, I've had enough time to read "Hecuba," "Andromache," and about 110 pages of Lewis's 1935 novel.) I watched a French family eating french fries. The transatlantic flight was easy: happy Frenchmen and Frenchwomen and Frenchchildren chattered away in French, not a word of which I understood, which probably doesn't bode well for my chances at effective communication in the coming five months. I lost six hours on the flight, arriving in Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, at 7:30 AM local time, after having slept only about an hour and a half. Strangely, even though it's now 2:50 PM local time, I don't feel tired at all. Excitement? That's the word for what I feel in my veins.
After retrieving my suitcase from the baggage claim, I took the shuttle to the train station sector of Charles de Gaulle. A ticket machine gave me trouble, and despite the kind help from a French bystander (from whom I learned that"what the frick?" is the accepted way for French to swear in English), I needed to stand in a long, long line in order to purchase a train ticket. Even though I had begun with a two-and-a-half-hour window before my 10:01 AM train departed, I obtained my ticket with under 20 minutes to spare. The French Word of the Day has been "voie," which means "railroad platform" (among other definitions), a term that I have needed to use several times today, already. A couple of train rides later, after having helped a foreign student who spoke neither French nor English to find her host family, I arrived in Tours.
I found Mme. Avertin waiting for me, holding a small placard with my name on it. After we had "fait les baises" (that's that French cheek-kissing technique, in which each party receives three pecks apiece), she introduced me to her daughter, Stephanie, and her husband. They drove me to their apartment building, and showed me to my room, as well as to "les toilettes," a facility by then badly needed: it had been a long and hot ride, and I had become fairly dehydrated in the course of the travel. The apartment as a whole is beautiful, and tastefully decorated with a mixture of European and East Asian styles. It is a clean, well-lighted place, where electric lights are hardly needed at all, in the full heat and sunlight of the continental summer. While M. Avertin ran an errand, that seemed to have involved somebody's lost iPhone (I'm not quite clear on the course of events), I unpacked.
There is a list of residency rules in the room, instated by the Institut, available in both French and English. That is, it is available in French, with a half-hearted attempt to use an online translator. Here is a sample of the opening passage concerning telephone use:
"the phone family isn't use a student. Your family phone you."
The room is larger than my room at home, has a television (complete with VCR), a window, a closet, two bedside tables, and a bookshelf. Best of all, there is a large black desk, on which I have placed my computer in order to write this post, and which I will probably continue to use. The bookshelf contains books and movies left by the Avertins' son when he graduated high school: he seems to have been a fan of Parcel Pagnol, the great writer of Provence. There are also a pair of books about Native Americans, a few choose-your-own-adventure books ("Un Livre Dont Vous Etes Le Heros"), and a copy of Camus's L'Homme Revolte. Movies include several classic Disney films, in addition to "Le Professeur Foldingue" ("The Nutty Professor"), "Robin Des Bois" ("Robin Hood"), "Dragonball" (yes, that's what it's called in France), etc. I gave Mme. Avertin the gift I had brought the family, a photograph of an Ithacan waterfall, which, I think, she appreciated.
After M. Avertin returned, we had lunch, and I did my absolute best to engage in conversation. The Avertins are very convivial, and I began to describe, as best as I could, where I lived, what I do with my life, etc. They served me some of the best Camembert and Chevre I've ever tasted. The Camembert, as is legally required in the EU, came from Camembert, and the Chevre came from a real goat (I hope). M. Avertin is retired, and Mme. is in semi-retirement. Photos forthcoming.
After we had cleared the table, M. Avertin showed me the password to the Wi-Fi Network, and gave me a kind lesson in the use of the French verb "communiquer." After shooting off a quick e-mail to my parents, I typed up this blog post as quickly as possible.
~JD
"There in the house of Nereus, arm in arm, Goddess with god, we'll live the future out. And moving dry-shod over the foaming ocean, you'll see your son and mine, dearest Achilles, lording it in his island home." ~Thetis (from Euripides's Andromache)
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