Hi all,

So this week seems to have flown by–as all the weeks seem to do here. Even though I want to take advantage of every moment here in France, I am very excited to say that I have booked tickets for my vacation to Scotland!!! I’m hoping that the landscape is as pretty in real life as it is in the Harry Potter films and I hope that my friends at St. Andrews can tolerate my touristic, camera-carrying self for a week 😉 I’ve been watching youtube videos in preparation and googling like crazy.

Speaking of videos….

Pour changer un peu, je vais écrire en français… A la place de vous raconter tout ce qui s’est passé cette semaine, je voudrais vous poser une question philosophique, sur laquelle le film que j’ai vu avec ma famille d’accueil ce soir est basé. Le film s’appelle “Le Tout Nouveau Testament.” Dans ce film, il s’agit de la fille de Dieu, qui a donné à chaque personne la date de leur mort. Alors, la question s’impose…que fais-je lorsque je connais le jour où je mourrai? Il y a des gens qui ne changent rien du tout–c’est-à-dire que continuer la vie comme avant vaut mieux que commencer à chercher le bonheur perdu. Il y a certains qui se lâchent complètement, s’engageant dans une liberté complète. Et après, il y a ceux qui ont fait le choix de deviner la différence entre être vivant et vivre. L’intrigue traite ces questions en se concentrant sur la vie de six personnes et leur mort éventuelle.

(Back to English) In any case, the movie is surprisingly funny, with absurd images and relationships (including the famous Catherine Deneuve and a gorilla) to lighten the somber mood. The production is great and there are many subtle, and not-so-subtle references to the bible and to religion. Overall, it made for an entertaining and enjoyable Sunday afternoon.

Sorry to pose such a heavy question on a Sunday night, but I think that it’s important to consider how to take advantage of each day, whether in France, at Holy Cross or elsewhere!

A la prochaine, 

Tom

Shoutout to my friends at Holy Cross and abroad whose shoes mark them as francophiles!

Hi all!

So classes have started, and so far I’m surviving! Despite a couple of hiccups in my schedule (last-minute changes of the rooms and times), I think I’m going to enjoy my classes, which include, among others, sociology, history of French cinema and a class on Richard Aldington’s novel The Death of a Hero.

What I really want to tell you about, however, is my last-minute trip to the Vosges mountains this weekend. This trip was organized by the Erasmus Student Network of the University of Burgundy, and it included Erasmus students from Dijon and Nancy. Although I knew that I was the only American student from Dijon, I was sure that there would be other Americans from Nancy…not the case. Turns out on the first night (where each student brought a traditional dish from their country of origin) my chocolate-chip cookies were alone next to an image of the American flag.

After everyone had a taste of my cookies (which were a hit, ~thank you Nestle TollHouse~), we spent the night dancing to multi-lingual songs and artists, which lasted until about 3:00 a.m. Needless to say, the next morning was a difficult wake-up, but the sights were worth it. We spent the early afternoon wandering around Haut-Kœnigsbourg, a medieval castle in Alsace (shoutout to everyone studying at the University of Strasbourg!), followed by a trip to something completely unexpected in France–a forest that serves as a reserve for Barbary Macaque monkeys! After feeding some popcorn to the disquietingly human-like animals, we were off once again to a wine tasting from a local vintner, and were finally taken back to the hotel around 7 p.m. A brief dinner was followed by the resumption of the previous night’s festivities. Today, we spent the afternoon at Lake Gérardmer, where we picnicked and strolled along the paths that branched out from the central beach.

Château de Haut-Kœnigsburg

As you can tell, I had a packed weekend, but what you can’t tell from a resumé of activities is how many amazing experiences I had getting to know people from all around the world. Whether it was an impromptu recital of the Italian national anthem after telling a group of Italian girls my family comes from Calabria, dancing while a Brazilian tapped rhythms on his castanets, or talking about the Great British Bake Off with a guy from England, I was so happy to be able to exchange with so many different cultures. I don’t know if it was the beautiful natural setting or the set of new faces that refreshed me, but I feel reenergized to tackle this second week of classes! (hopefully I’ll go to the right rooms this time…)

À la prochaine!

Tom

Lake Gérardmer

French monkeys love popcorn

Hi all,

This past Friday was my 20^th birthday, which I celebrated in true French fashion by going out to dinner and trying classic dishes (including escargots and coq au vin!). As I have yet to start classes, the week leading up to my birthday was not as eventful as I had hoped; I was often left to explore the city on my own for the better part of each day. In order to make the most of these afternoons, I signed up for four guided visits of the city, organized by the office of tourism. My Monday morning optimism slowly dwindled after each visit and by Thursday I had been to more mustard tastings and hôtels particuliers than I could have ever expected. Apart from these visits and a couple of administrative meetings (which take hours in France), I was free to do what I wanted.

After only a day of aimless wandering around the streets and a solo lunch, I felt deeply alone. I was in a new city with nothing to do besides walk. Though I can’t say that this feeling of loneliness was unexpected, it was still disheartening.

However, amidst my time wandering around Dijon, I realized that for the past 7 weeks I had left behind two things I do at Holy Cross and at home that have always comforted me and helped me to establish a healthy, daily routine.

These two things are cooking and exercising.

So, that same day I went home and researched gyms in Dijon, while simultaneously looking up recipes. After my first French spinning class and an apple tart, I felt worlds away from the loneliness.

I think it’s fitting then that I celebrated the start of my twenties here in Dijon, France. As I left my teenage years behind, many people congratulated me on entering into the years of independence and of opportunity. They told me that my twenties would be the time to build the life that I want to live. My year abroad here is like this much-celebrated decade; there is boundless independence and opportunity, yet it comes with the responsibility to establish roots and create a life that feels normal to me.

P.S. Classes finally start tomorrow! There will probably be some aimless wandering as I search for classrooms, which are, as my advisor put it, “arbitrarily and illogically numbered.” Can’t wait.

À la prochaine,

Tom

Snails and a smile

The more I cook, the more I need to exercise…

“Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, Administration”

Hi all,

As I mentioned in my last post, this week I had the unique opportunity to participate in the annual tradition of les vendanges here in Burgundy, and I got some sweet instagrams to boot. However, I want to tell you what my Instagram feed cannot. Few experiences have made me feel as uncomfortable, and I want to explain to you why I’m happy to have felt my comfort zone being stretched to the limit.

The very first day, I woke up at 6 a.m. with no idea of what I was going to be doing for the day and after a short drive, small coffee, and brief greeting with all the other vendangeurs, we were packed into trucks filled with buckets, secateurs, and bottles of red wine and shipped up to the vineyards. We started on a beautiful vineyard in the shadow of a centuries old chateau, and, before I knew it, I was clipping each low-hanging cluster of deep-purple grapes from the gnarly vines. Sounds surreal right? It was, just until about 6 p.m. on that same day when I was sticky from head to toe with dried grape juice, had a sore back from bending over the entire day and cuts on my fingers and arms from my secateurs. After the first day, I went home, showered, ate dinner, and immediately went to bed, only to wake up and repeat this grueling process for the rest of the week. Despite the exhausting work, this past week working in the vignes helped me to understand something fundamental about any abroad experience.

(Disclaimer: English major metaphorical analysis beginning)

Arriving to the domain, I was stunned by its beauty, yet overwhelmed with the amount of cheeks I had to kiss and the anxiety of meeting people from completely different walks of life. The first grapes that I excitedly picked were beautiful; my eyes widened at each plump cluster that hung heavily from the vines. As the day wore on, I could feel my body beginning to tire; my knees were cracking and my back ached from the constant work of being bent over, searching for grapes. Not all the vines were as fruitful as the first; in fact, there were some that had completely dry and hardened grapes, barely even worth my bending down to clip them, and I quickly learned to spot the browning leaves of a dead vine. The most difficult kind to clip were those that required searching behind layers of leaves, which meant more time bent over and more effort exhausted. However, the grapes that were hidden behind the broad leaves were often the most beautifully ripe and their harvest is essential to create a perfect bottle of Pinot Noir.

Can you tell where I am going with this?

Really what the grape harvest taught me is that living abroad is an active process. Like in the first vineyard, passivity combined with wide-eyed naivety may lead to some fruitful memories, yet opportunities do not always present themselves easily to you. Some experiences might be terrible, and you’ll feel like you’ve wasted your time in pursuing them, yet you have to remind yourself that you will learn immensely from these disappointments. You will get tired and you will feel defeated. But, most importantly, it is the experiences that you weren’t expecting, but made the conscious effort to be open to, that often yield the sweetest and richest memories.

With that in mind, I’m open to everything that awaits me over the course of the next year here in Dijon. Cheers!

À la prochaine,

Tom

The beautiful Côte de Nuits

Heading out into the vines bright and early

Even though I don’t want to see another grape for a while, they still make for a pretty picture.

Clearly very happy to have a break from clipping

Hi all,

After five weeks in Tours, I’ve finally made the move to Dijon where I will be spending the next nine months. Dijon is the capital of Burgundy, a region of France praised for its historic and excellent wines. In a nod to the ancient tradition of Burgundian wine-making I will be participating in the “vendanges,” an annual opportunity for university students pick grapes in the vineyards and gain a little bit of money before going back to school. From what I hear, picking the grapes is hard work and I’m hoping I won’t have to do any cardio for the week (fingers crossed). I’ll update you on how that turns out, but the six a.m. wake up call isn’t looking so appealing as of right now.

What is appealing right now, however, is being able to start looking at classes and programs at the University of Burgundy. In Tours, I was explaining to my host-mother that I was feeling a little bit worried about not knowing what classes I was going to take because, at Holy Cross, we normally enroll in classes months in avance. I told her I felt like I was walking completely blind into a bureaucracy whose inner-workings are complex and convoluted and she quickly replied, “bah, oui, c’est la France quoi.” At least I’m reassured that everyone goes through this period of uncertainty, even the French.

Even though I can finally start establishing a routine here in Dijon, I still don’t know: anybody expect my host family, where to buy more deodorant (which needs to happen very soon), how to navigate the city, what classes are available for me to take, how I would go about enrolling in those classes, or even when the first day of school is. C’est la France?…

A la prochaine, 

Tom

Hi all,

This past Friday I had to say goodbye to all of the other 14 students from Holy Cross as they made their way towards Strasbourg. As for me, I have one more week here in Tours before I leave for Dijon. So, since I’m staying in my language program, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about the complexities of French that have been plaguing me since I arrived here.

• Whenever you think you know how to say something, there is always a more precise way to say it. My instructor for the first month would employ the lovely technique of saying “POUBELLE” (which means trashcan) whenever we uttered the phrase “Il y a” (meaning there is or there are). She insisted on using more precise terms like “Il existe” or “On trouve” to refine our sentences. We even learned words for the different winds of the world…which I certainly wouldn’t be able to name in English.
• All those rules you think you’ve nailed down? yeah probably not… Surely, there are fundamental rules in French that never change, yet there are also some very fluid rules that can be pretty confusing. For instance the word for “thing” is “chose” in French, a feminine noun. Naturally, you’d assume that a noun would maintain its gender in all its permutations. However, when you want to say “something” the expression changes to “quelque chose,” which is masculine, changing the structure of the adjectives as well. Coming from English, which is a non-gendered language, keeping up with accords between nouns and adjectives is hard enough (so dealing with those that switch unexpectedly is that much harder). Also, the liaisons that are made between certain words when speaking (making “les amis” pronounced lay-zami) are sometimes optional, sometimes required and sometimes forbidden. So it’s not fun to try to figure out what sounds to make when you have to read aloud in front of the class.
• French idioms are hard to get a handle of. Take for instance the phrase “Simple comme Bonjour” used to describe something that is simple or fundamental. But in reality, saying hello in France is not very easy at all. When greeting someone, you are presented with a myriad of expressions, but also a myriad of physical gestures. There’s the standard wave and handshake, yet there is also the quintessentially French “bise” or kiss. How many kisses on the cheek you give and receive, which cheek you start on, and who you do it with are all engrained into French culture and it is very difficult for a foreigner to grasp it perfectly. Few things are more startling than someone leaning in close to you upon first meeting them. So even the logic of idioms can be challenging, let alone pronouncing them correctly (that could be a whole other blog post…).

Despite all these challenges and problems, I still relish every opportunity I have to put my French into real life practice and I really do think that encountering all these challenges while in Tours is better than struggling to get by in Dijon. Nevertheless, chances are I will still make a fool of myself as I stumble through French in Dijon… well “c’est la vie.”

À la prochaine,

Tom

P.S. Seeing as classes start at Holy Cross this week, I wish everyone a successful and wonderful year back in Worcester. I especially want to wish all the members of the Class of 2019 and their families the best of luck as they start their futures at Holy Cross.

Even though learning French is hard sometimes, eating macarons is never hard.

Hi all,

I feel #blessed and a little bit guilty to say that this was a week of culinary awakening for me.

It all started with an impromptu trip to the Musée-des-Beaux-Arts in Tours with some Holy Cross friends, which clearly worked up an appetite because we were on the hunt for a patisserie afterwards (and by we, I mean I was). Luckily, we found an amazing pastry and chocolate shop, where I bought a praline cream filled éclair that I ate later while sitting on the banks of the Loire River.

Though you’d think I’d be satisfied by that quintessentially French experience, the very next day I found a cookie shop and an ice cream shop adjacent to one another, both giving out samples. Naturally, I had to try both and I was disappointed by neither. I treated myself to a chocolate shortbread cookie and a scoop each of hazelnut and salted caramel ice cream.

Now that I know of these places and their free samples, I’m sure that I won’t be able to resist while walking home. In light of that knowledge, I should feel more guilty but, frankly, not treating yourself to the food in France calls for much more guilt. I wish I could give you some enlightening metaphor about how these places represent some tangible link to French cultural and national identity, but I just really like to eat and that seemed to be enough basis for a blog post… Sorry.

P.S. Unfortunately, I finished all these treats before I could even think about taking a picture!

À la prochaine, 

Tom

Hi all,

So I have officially been in France for one week, which seems strange to say considering that everyday feels as if it were a week long itself. My arrival on Sunday went very smoothly with hardly any hang-ups besides a little bit of confusion about how to receive my train ticket. Regardless, I made it safely to Tours and started classes at the Institut de Touraine the very next day. So, I thought I’d tell you a bit about my life thus far here in France!

School- Having jumped right into classes at the Institut de Touraine, the transition from my summer state-of-mind (read not even thinking to pack any school supplies) to intense and long schooldays has been difficult. Operating all day in French and training your brain to think in French is exhausting, but also very exciting. Thus far, I have met people from all over the world who have come to study at the Institut de Touraine, and the international perspectives that the students in my class bring to current issues in France is wonderfully refreshing.

Home- My host family here in Tours has been excellent thus far. Isabelle, my host mother, is a great cook and is always asking if I’ve had enough to eat or if I would like her to pack me a snack for school. Dinners are usually delicious, and Isabelle and I like to talk about her family recipes along with some of the traditional French recipes that I have heard of through my obsession with the Food Network. The other student living with me, David, is from Mexico and is learning French at another language school in Tours.

Excursions- On Wednesday and Saturday this past week, all the Holy Cross students (and other students from the institute) took day trips to Chenonceau Château and Mont St. Michel, respectively. Chenonceau is a gorgeous castle built over the Cher river, and its history of the tumultuous love triangle between Henry II, his favorite mistress (Diane de Poitiers), and his wife (Catherine de Medici) made the visit even more interesting.

Chenonceau

The much longer drive to Normandy to see Mont St. Michel on Saturday was well worth the early wake up time. The 13th century abbey was magnificent, least of all because of the natural location, where the tides rush in to isolate it and its tiny town from the mainland. Centuries ago, only very few pilgrims could get onto the island. On Saturday, however, tourists flooded the narrow streets while vendors competed to see who could sell more postcards and other trinkets. Naturally, I was incited by a small stand selling Nutella covered waffles. Just to paint the picture again: warm, melting Nutella, on a waffle, at a UNESCO world heritage sight in France. After Mont St. Michel, we went to St. Malo, a beach town with crystal clear waters, soft sand, and street performers, which rounded out a long day of touring.

Mont St. Michel

St. Malo!

So, as you can tell, life in France is great thus far! Stay tuned for more to come.

À la prochaine,

Tom