Danger Proof

A few days ago, the director for my program posted in our Facebook group that she was interested in doing some hiking through the calanques of Cassis (a town just outside of Aix) and she had room in her car for a few students. Having no plans and a desire to visit the area, I decided to tag along. It was probably in the mid 60s today…by no means warm, but still nice by Wisconsin standards. We trekked across town to the calanques. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, calanques are these little Mediterranean bays surrounded by high limestone cliffs—and they pretty much only exist in my region. They’re also totally awesome.

This adventure quickly changed courses for me. At the beginning of October while at the beach in La Ciotat, my friends started to really understand how crazy I was as I dragged them through the woods to mysterious beaches and crept towards the edge of cliffs for “cooler pictures”. They quickly decided that should a career in politics fail for me, reality TV is a viable option.

My show would be called ‘Danger Proof’ and it would entail any number of dangerous adventures, and the winner would be deemed…danger proof. Between what I put my friends through that day, and my trip to Mt. Sainte Victoire, this trip was episode three. I almost gave our director Kelly many a heart attacks, and I’m sure once my parents see the pictures from today they might too. Ma and Pa, if you see a photo of me standing in front of a cool background, don’t worry…I’m probably standing on the edge of a cliff. So I’m pretty much a chaperon’s worse nightmare, because not only am I running around doing crazy shit, I was inspiring my friends on the trip to try it after I did. No one was hurt in the making of this blog post, except me. I might have a few bruises that are all my fault.

Anyhow, after a few hours of hiking up and down the rocky slopes of the hills surrounding the calanques, we made it to a lovely beach. Our director told us to bring a swim suit and towel, just in case. In all honesty I thought she was crazy, but a practice suit and a sports bra are practically the same thing, so I figured why not. Upon arrival at the beach, I was glad I had a suit on because there was no way I was not going swimming. The air was almost chilly. The water was cold. However, spending a decade as a competitive swimmer with 7am practices outside during cool Wisconsin summers; this wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I still can’t believe that I went swimming at the end of October. Shit’s crazy. It was all fun until I realized that there was a jellyfish swimming right next to me. Lacking goggles to see where his family was hiding; I decided that was enough swimming for me.

I’ve seen more nature during my two months in the south of France than I’ve seen my past several years in Wisconsin. Then again, Provence is different kinds and amounts of beautiful than Wisconsin is. But hiking and I are on much better terms than we were this summer in rural Virginia. I will admit I am no longer anti hiking. I’ll still pass on the sleeping in the woods thing, though.

I watch too much Seinfeld.

As you might have seen on Facebook, some of my friends and I are involved in a bit of a contest. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and early in the morning last week an idea came to me. We all wish we were speaking more French, but we’re just so damn good at English. I’m pretty sure humans are lazy by nature, which is why we invented the wheel. There’s nothing wrong with being lazy, because without that motivation to make life easier, we never would have built the society we have today. Unfortunately being lazy isn’t going to help me get better at French.

Like most of life’s situations, I quickly realized there was an episode of Seinfeld that dealt with this very similarly. The episode is called “The Contest” and I’m not going to lie, it’s hilarious. The Seinfeld four all throw down some money to see how long they can go abstaining from a certain activity. Since I know my Grandma reads this blog, I’m not going to talk about what that is. So my friends and I have all thrown down a small sum of money (just 3€ each) to see how long we can go without speaking English.

There are obviously exceptions to this rule. We all have armies of family and friends back home who don’t speak French. One can’t expect themselves to bar communication with the outside world for the sake of competition. That’s just stupid. So we can use our computers in English. We can speak English during specified English speaking periods (courses taught in English, language exchange dinner, and English tutoring). There are a few more exceptions that I won’t spell out, but the point is that they exist. Attn France folk blog creepin’: if you want a copy of the contract I can email it to you.

We even set up a court system for when a contestant wants a fair trial, if they think they can make their case that they should still be allowed in the system. All judgments made by this court will set precedent and become contract law, should future problems arise. I guess someone in my group had to be the nerd who thinks of all of these things. Of course that someone is me.

(Oh no, she thinks she’s a lawyer again…)

We’re playing by the honor system. That might seem farfetched to some people, but I’m fine with it. I trust my friends not to break the rules, and I know they trust me too. That’s how this system works. I might be a bitch, but I’m not a liar.

If I make it a week I’ll be happy. If I win I’ll be even happier. And if I wasn’t already filing papers to have my middle name legally changed to Danger, I’d make a joke here about how winning was my middle name. Mind games are my specialty. Anyone who has played Circle of Death with me while I was ‘Quizmaster’ can attest to that.

Duh, #winning.

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Update: Since I still don’t have internet, there’s a bit of a delay between when these things are written and when they are posted. I wrote this yesterday, and was going to post it this morning. I knocked on my roommate’s door and asked her for the papers that came with the internet box to try and figure it out, and we had a brief exchange. We went back to doing our own activities, and then I paused,

“Dru…we’re speaking English.”
“Shit.”
“I think we both just lost.”
“Yup.”

I could edit this post and go back and remove that cocky paragraph, but I won’t. I made it two full days, and failed without even realizing it right away. This is hard. Turns out when you spend the first part of the morning alone in your room, and then go talk to another English speaker, odds are you’re both very likely to revert back to your natural tendencies. I know I said I’d be happy if I made it a week, and I clearly didn’t last that long. But I’m not upset, because it’s just too damn funny.

Better luck next time, Wilson.

I has job.

I officially have a job as an English tutor/teaching assistant! An English professor at the Economics school in town is not only American, but an alumnus from the very study abroad program that I’m here with. So for the past couple years she has been letting students from my program interview for spots as TAs for the discussion sections of her English classes. We lead them in listening/speaking activities and grade them on their participation. I’m only able to do it for one hour a week right now based on the course’s enrollment, but hey…money is money.

I was also super excited to update my resume before I interviewed. Just being able to add “the Office of Congresswoman Gwen Moore—Washington, DC” still seemed way too cool. I’m sorry if it seems like I’ve developed a complex because of it….but I still think it’s way too awesome. That internship was pretty damn close to the top of the ladder for opportunities I can get in my field at this level in my career. I’d say I can’t believe I was able to do it, but I also have high expectations for myself. If you were to tell me five years ago that I’d be where I am today…I’d say that sounds about right.

But having an updated resume, some very official writing samples, and a new job makes me a pretty happy camper right now. I figured I could take this job not only because it’s one of the only sources of income I can nab while I’m here (it’s this or babysitting—and I think you know my thoughts on children), but it’s a good thing to have for my future. The Peace Corps is on my list of 10 things I could do in my mid-range future, so a little English teaching experience could never hurt…since if I wanted to enlist, that’s what I would be doing. Or you know, a little work experience abroad never hurt anyone’s resume, either.

Thankfully my previous experience working with students will come in handy. It seems to me that running a discussion section will be like leading an educational program. I’ve done plenty of those. The other day I was going through all the old pictures I had on my computer, and I saw a photo of my residents from last year. It’s a photo from a program where I told my group “my boss told me to take pictures at my programs for some blog, so please put on a big fake smile so it looks like I’m doing my job”. I miss my residents, but I don’t miss that job. It solved a lot of my financial problems, for which I’m eternally thankful, but I’m very happy that I have moved on.


Other fun things of lately:

-Friday afternoon I went to a dog rescue center outside of town with the faculty director for my program and two other girls. We helped them with some chores (dishes, dog poo, brushing) in exchange for playing with everybody. They probably have 100 dogs. There are different sections of the property all fenced off into large play areas, and the dogs are divided up by size and temperament. They were all super nice and just wanted some love. I went into one of the kennel buildings and got assigned a real cute moppy looking guy named Balto to brush. He was such a sweetie. I’d kneel down, and he’d just come right up to me and put his head in my armpit. He just wanted a dog hug. It was a good time.

-I added a new class to my schedule, ‘Politics of the European Union’. It’s taught in English, and is only open to international students. It sounds super interesting. I’m going to try and bullshit UWM into counting it as something else I need for my major. Those people WILL give me what I need. Don’t worry about me not being able to graduate at the end of this year though—I’ve got this under control. My four year degree will be completed in four years flat.

-I’ve been having fun cooking. My friends are lucky, because I like to cook and have a real kitchen, and they like to eat. A few of us get together for dinner/meal once a week or so and everyone chips in with ingredients or just money. This morning I made crepes for the group. Nutella crepe is exactly as amazing in the States as it is in France.

-This isn’t so much a thing as it is a discovery. My friends and I discovered Lay’s cheeseburger flavored potato chips yesterday. WHY DON’T THESE THINGS EXIST IN AMERICA. I don’t even eat chips back home, but I’m having to implement a policy of moderation because these things are too good.


Life is good. Miss you all.

BEACH BEACH BEACH

Yesterday, my friends and I finally made it to the beach. The faculty director for our program had suggested to the students that we take the bus to a town called “La Ciotat” because it was easy to get to and was beautiful. We took her advice, but I of course did plenty of research before getting there, comparing the beaches and looking exactly where the bus could drop us off. In my search, I saw that there was a small island just off the coast of La Ciotat that you could get to by a 10€ round trip ferry boat.

In English, this place was called Green Island—and for good reason. Apparently this place is the only wooded island in the department of Bouches de Rhone, which is the department in which I live. Side note—departments are kind of like states, but not. The government is totally centralized, there are no “departmental laws” or any form of real government in the departments. There are specifically drawn regions; I live in the Provence-Alps-Cote D’Azur region. Whatever that means, because I know those don’t have any specific powers either. I’ll have to look this up later. But back to the beach. It’s a little tiny uninhabited island. There are hiking trails (it takes about an hour to circle the island) two small beaches, a little pier for the boats to dock at, and then a small restaurant.

Thanks to my research, I was able to see that the bus was dropping us off right next to the tourism office, and also right next to the old port where the website said the ferry boat left from. We got off our bus, stopped by the tourism office to ask specifically where the boat leaves from, and then within a half hour we had found the boat, and crossed over to the island. After a short hike, we found the first beach. The water was a little chilly, but totally tolerable. I think it was warmer than the Atlantic I swam in over the summer. A few weeks back when we began planning our beach trip, we picked up some $3 goggles at French Walmart because we were told that this island was GREAT for snorkeling, but they don’t rent equipment. That was the best decision ever. The water was so incredibly clear, and there were tons of fish, plants, and other sea things on the bottom. I was literally swimming through schools of fish. It was awesome. Being poor and not having traveled much, this was exponentially more exciting than swimming in Lake Michigan, some other tiny Sconnie lake, or the Atlantic Ocean in Delaware. For those who are wondering, I did see dudes in Speedos and some boobs. I don’t think this was a nude beach, but there were only a dozen or so people there so it didn’t really matter. We all kept our tops on.

After that, we hiked around the island for a bit. The Mediterranean coast where I live is famous or a geological feature called “calanques” which means ‘inlet’ or something. In a nutshell, it pretty much means little coves surrounded by large cliffs. It’s awesome.

Eventually, we made it to the second beach. Fun fact, beaches here are mostly rocks. If you find a beach that’s sand, it’s because it’s not natural and they trucked the sand in. Before we went swimming, I dragged my group down some not steep rocky cliff next to the beach. We layed out on the end of that little point for a while and nibbled some more on our lunches. We were so prepared and brought lunches and snacks.

We thought that it would be cool to take Little Mermaid style photos of us propped up on the rocks in front of us. Being the adventurous one, I started to crawl down the rocks and get into the water to swim a bit, and then attempt this feat. I should have turned around right away. Being on a point, and not in a protected beach cove, there were some small waves coming in that were just large enough to try to move me from my perch on the rocks. Also important, the rocks were both slippery/slimy and sharp/pointy. So getting comfortable on them was not easy, and even less easy when being hit by waves every 20 seconds. The ensuing scene, which lasted for about 10 minutes, was me trying to crawl out of the water while yelling about how much these rocks hurt, and how this was such a bad idea. Since my friends sat safely on dry land and watched the whole thing while laughing, there are photos of this. I will not post them. You need to go onto facebook to find them. I promise it’s hilarious.


After all of that, we went to the real beach right next to the dangerous rocks, and did some more swimming. Then, it was time to head back to the pier, catch a ferry boat back to La Ciotat, and then catch a bus back to Aix. The bus ride was about an hour and a half, but we were only like 30 miles away from Aix. It had to make lots of stops. But for 2€ round trip, I’m not going to complain.

It was a wonderful day at the beach. I only burned a little bit in a few places, and I’ve been informed that I look rather tan. Thus goes to show that I am only a half-blooded Ginger. It might seem crazy to be going to the beach in October, but there might still be one more beach weather weekend left here.

Is it snowing in Wisconsin yet?

Reason’s I’m spoiled.

1). The weather.
I’ve been here over a month and I can think of three, maybe four days that haven’t been 70 or 80 and sunny without a cloud in the sky. In the winter, the high temperatures are supposed to be in the mid 50’s, with the lows in the upper 30’s. Coming from Milwaukee, WI, that seems pretty unreal. Provence is sunny 300 days out of the year, and apparently the rain/clouds are concentrated in fall and spring…so if it makes you feel better it will start raining on my parade soon.

2). The food
This should come as no surprise. Every day in the center of town, there’s a farmer’s market where I can go and get whatever fresh fruits and vegetables I might need for today or tomorrow. I found a good bakery a few blocks from my apartment where I go and get bread every few days for .70€. But it’s not just the fresh things—even a lot of the packaged stuff at the grocery store is phenomenal. The fruit juice here comes in unseen flavors, like pear or peach, and then it’s essentially just a bunch of pears or peaches blended up and bottled in much higher concentrations than US juice. The French also have some weird knack for serving way too many things in mini yogurt containers, which I’m still figuring out. But I do know what I have developed a taste for chocolate mousse that comes in these little plastic cups and has nutritional content far too similar to yogurt, so I don’t feel bad having one.

3). The wine
Again, this should come as no surprise. France is world famous for their wine for good reasons. Being a cheapass, I haven’t spent much on a bottle yet. For one special dinner I got a 7€ bottle, otherwise I hover around 4€ and under. I haven’t taken a class or gone to a wine tasting yet, but it’s on my list of things to do. Anyhow, a lot of the stuff sold here is grown and produced nearby. Provence is famous for their rosé wines. I’ve tried probably 10 or 12 different kinds and most of them have been good.

4). My school

I love Sciences Po. It’s a 10 minute walk from my apartment (straight through the adorable center of town) and all my classes are centered in their main, yet still small, building located in the center of town right across from an awesome old cathedral. I’ve met some really nice people from all over the world because the school is 30% international students, and a lot of the French students are also very nice. All my classes meet once a week for two hours, and there’s a break halfway through for people to get coffee and/or smoke. I have one class on Monday and Thursday, and two classes back to back Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and that’s it. Twelve credits, the minimum for my program. The list of classes I have to choose from each semester is two pages long, instead of ¼ page.

*This post was initially titled “Five Reasons I’m spoiled” but I couldn’t think of a 5^th one, so I’ll have to come back to this and update it as I realize how much I love life. Stay tuned, and be prepared to get jealous.

France is everything you want it to be.

I have officially been gone for just over a month. And status report—I love it here. France is everything you want it to be. People walking around carrying baguettes? Plenty. People drinking Perrier? Of course. Couples awkwardly rolling around on top of each other in the park? Welcome to Europe.

I don’t think I have any real complaints. Everything is a little different, but if you’re not expecting that to happen, you’re an idiot. I’m just really enjoying doing something different with my life. For the past three years, I was juggling full time school, one full time job on breaks, one part time job on breaks, summer classes, winter classes, and one “part time job” during school that took up way too much of my time/energy/sanity. So I haven’t had a real break in a long time. Even though I got dressed up every day this summer and went into an office, it never felt like work. The Capitol was too magical a place for it to feel real.

So this is my vacation. I get back to the States a college graduate who has no plans to go on to graduate school (unless someone reading this has $40,000 laying around that they’d like to send my way, then—yes, please!). I need to find a real job and start earning real money. But that’s a scary topic to handle another day. In a nutshell, I’m returning home to another crazy schedule where I know I won’t get a real break for some time. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to Europe…politics and fighting for people’s rights doesn’t pay very well. And I’m totally fine with that, it just means I really need to enjoy it extra while I’m here.

My classes are all going well. I can understand most of what the professor says, which helps a lot. Sometimes I forget my lectures are in French. Then all the sudden I look around and realize that I’m going to school at a French university sitting side by side with French students and I’m happy. If anyone is curious, I’m taking French as a foreign language, comparative political institutions, history of the European Union, political sociology, American political society, and comparative law. They’re all super interesting.

With the exception of my mandatory French class, it’s really awesome that all my classes are poli sci. Students here don’t have to put up with the bullshit that the American system puts people through. They don’t have to take art, cultural diversity, science, etc. They just take what their program is. I told some other foreign students that I could have finished my degrees in two and a half years if I hadn’t had to deal with the stupid general education requirements and they were astounded. Maybe that’s nice for students who need to figure out what they want to do, but I would have preferred another two years of heavy poli sci training.

Either way, it’s done. I’m done with the American system, but not America. Don’t worry about that. I will be coming home in a few months. I’ve started to get a little homesick, but there are ways to make it better. Last night some friends came over and we cooked American breakfast for dinner, which consisted of chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, and orange juice. It was amazing. Ketchup, even though it didn’t have red dye or preservatives in it, still tasted like America. We also had a meeting with the study abroad advisors from the offices in Indiana and Madison yesterday, who were in town to check out the program and evaluate it. Those nice people brought bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups with them. Pretty sure I squealed when I entered the room and saw them. It’s the little things such as those that can make all the difference.

No more updates for now. Maybe later this week.

I fought a mountain today.

Nature and I have a complicated relationship. I’m injured very easily due to no one’s fault but my own. I’m half ginger, so I burn easily. The combination of these things, but mainly the first one, makes mountain climbing quite the feat.

During orientation week, I read that the international association at my school was organizing a trip to climb the local mountain, Monte Sainte Victoire. The mountain hangs out just a half hour north of Aix, and gained international fame thanks to an impressionist painter named Paul Cezanne, a native of Aix. Cezanne gained much fame after his death, and apparently the US got into him before the French did. This means that the US has more of his work than France does, which they don’t like. But Aix loves their Cezanne. He has a little bit of everything named after him, including the larger university I attend (of which Sciences Po is just a part). There are bronze squares in the ground with his name on them all over town, taking you from one Cezanne landmark to the next (I live right around the corner from his middle school). But back to the mountain…he painted it like a gajillion times. If you run a Google image search of “monte sainte victoire” you get more pictures of Cezanne’s work than you do photos of the mountain.

Being quite the local landmark, I told myself early on that this was something I had to do while I was here. It worked out nicely that the association was organizing a trip. I pay them four euro, they reserve buses, feed me breakfast, and find 70 or so other students to struggle up the mountain with me.

After meeting up a few blocks from my house, we departed on the chartered coach buses. We definitely drove past a vineyard during our 30 minute ride. Welcome to France. They dropped us off in a parking lot, and we were in dismay. Are we supposed to walk all the way over there? And up that high? Yes. This is literally what I signed up for. Why am I doing this to myself? Is there a lift? Is there a slide on the way back down?

We trekked over a large dam was apparently constructed with funds received from the Marshal Plan, for people who think that’s cool. Then began the zig sagging through the woods, down some hills, and then up some much larger ones. The terrain ranged from dirt, to large gravel, to hopping from one rock to the next. I wore real tennis shoes this time, and brought water, and brought food. Try explaining to someone how you accidentally went hiking over the summer, and learned not to wear Converse in the woods/on a mountain. Apparently it’s a strange thing to have happened to you, but this is my life.

After a hike of about three hours, we finally reached the top. At many points I could have easily died. There was no shortage of steep cliffs to fall off of, especially when you’re stumbling and exhausted. Thankfully that didn’t happen. There’s a monastery at the top where I think you can spend the night. We actually climbed a bit higher than the monastery, to the true top. Everyone brought out their picnic lunch, and relaxed for an hour or so. After a much easier two hour climb back down, I was never so happy to see a parking lot in my life.

I didn’t twist an ankle. I didn’t dislocate a knee. I technically fell on my butt once, but no harm done. Some bushes tried to eat me, but I made it out alive. I made it to the top, and then back down to the bottom. I fought the mountain, and I won.