The First Thanksgiving

Spending the holidays away from family and friends could very easily go wrong. Celebrating your first Thanksgiving somewhere that isn’t America could have easily been horrible. I’m glad to say that nothing went wrong, and nothing was horrible. I had a great Thanksgiving.

Wednesday night, about a dozen Americans from Sciences Po and other programs threw a potluck Thanksgiving for our international friends. Americans brought traditional Thanksgiving dishes, and everyone else brought food from their country or just something to contribute. This was the first Thanksgiving that I had really made food. I enjoy cooking and consider myself quite competent with a stove, but never really got assigned much for Thanksgiving at home. This year, I cooked up a bunch of chicken (because turkey was too expensive), cornbread (mix courtesy of a carepackage from the US), and cranberry sauce to contribute on behalf of myself and two of my American friends. I did a damn good job. Part of me wished I was just cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner myself because then I could feel completely accomplished, instead of just partially. But we’ll save that for next year or so.

Held in a large party room at the dorms, there were probably about 50 people who showed up. It was insane, as was the obscene amount of food we had to feast on. For the majority of the people in the room, it was their first American Thanksgiving and everyone was very eager to try all the strange food we cooked up. My cranberry sauce seemed to confuse people. They kept asking what they were supposed to put it on, probably because it was a sauce. Yeah I know it’s called a “sauce” but you don’t HAVE to put it on something…you can just eat it. The sweet potato casserole also perplexed some, due to the marshmallows on top. Fortunately by the end of the night, everyone tried a little bit of everything and I heard no complaints. Job well done, everyone.

At the end of the evening, some people had been asking what the story behind Thanksgiving was. I told everyone that if they wanted to hear the story of Thanksgiving to meet me on the other side of the room so I would only have to tell the story once. This quickly turned into “story time” when some people decided to sit cross legged in a semi circle around me, and then inspired the majority of the group to do the same. It was adorable. My ability to tell a good story combined with my bullshitting powers teamed up to tell a version of the story that 80% resembled what we teach kindergarteners, but with a little profanity mixed in. In the end, everyone had a great time. I love cooking for people. I love sharing the better aspects of American culture with other people. I love spending time with friends. I love telling people bullshit stories. It was the perfect storm of awesome.

As for Thanksgiving Day itself, the fun only continued. I decided ahead of time that the day would be heavily focused on Skype so that I didn’t have to feel like I was missing anything. This was the first Thanksgiving that my entire family hasn’t been together, and it was strange. To make the separation seem smaller, I figured my family could just open up their laptop, call me on Skype, and they could just leave me on the counter all day while they hung out and ate. The plan worked perfectly.

With the time difference of seven hours, it made the schedule a little tricky, but I wholeheartedly committed to it. I talked to my mom, stepdad, siblings, and pets for a while at my house. Later, I followed my siblings to the next location for festivities and spent some time with them, my dad, my stepmom. Eventually, they left for the next location…and so did I. I said goodbye to my siblings as they were leaving my father’s house, and greeted them as they arrived at my aunt’s house. From 5,000 miles away I still found a way to beat them to the party…at least digitally.

And so I hung out on the counter at my Aunt June’s house for a while. InitiallIy, I was just briefing my family on what I’ve been up to lately, since I haven’t spoken with some people in a few months. After a while though, I was just kind of hanging out like I was actually there. Thankfully at her house, most of the people sit at the table and just hang out for extended periods of time so I had a good stationary place to take in all the action. Towards the end of the night, I saw that my brother, who was in the living room, had posted a quote from Elf to facebook. I then demanded that someone please carry my laptop into the living room so that I could watch the movie with my siblings. They kept forgetting I was there, and would be startled when all the sudden I would comment on something or join the conversation. It was hilarious. Before the night ended, I even made it into the group photo, as a floating head on the kitchen table. I didn’t hang up the Skype call until my family was leaving to finally go home for the night, and I made it to bed around 4am.

I didn’t even have to miss a Thanksgiving meal. Between all of my Skype sessions, my program took our group out for the dinner we all needed at a nice restaurant. We all got our fix of turkey, stuffing, mashed potaters, and pumpkin pie. It was lovely.

In all, I had a great Thanksgiving. Between festivities with friends, and still being able to take part in everything that was happening at home with my family, I couldn’t be happier. The cherry on top is the fact that I’m currently sitting in the south of France, and not slaving away at Target during Black Friday right now. I'm thankful that I occasionally have ideas as good as my solution to holiday homesickness, and look forward to repeating the process come Christmas.

Photos...since I have real internet and can upload them to posts now:

Let the feast begin.

"Raise your hand if it's your first Thanksgiving!"

Story time.

Hanging out, watching the Packer game with my siblings....and Travis.

A less angry post about things I’ve been doing.

Here are some updates:

I made my first batch of chocolate chip cookies here. The ingredients posed some slight issues, aside from the basics.

· Brown sugar does not exist in its processed, American form, instead they have something called Cassonade. It’s closer to that “Sugar in the Raw” stuff than it is brown sugar…big ol’ grains of sugar…but at least it’s brown.

· They have vanilla extract, but I didn’t buy it because it’s expensive. Instead I bought these packets of vanilla something. I don’t know specifically what they are, other than the fact that it’s poor man’s vanilla flavor.

· Baking soda doesn’t really exist, instead they have something called leveur chimique, or chemical riser? That’s a shitty translation, but this stuff does the job.

· Chocolate chips exist…but they’re expensive and come in small quantities. I substituted M&Ms for one batch and crushed up a dark chocolate bar for another, with the latter being tastier.

· Crisco, the secret ingredient to my cookies (I can tell you the secret ingredient because I know you’ll never be able to duplicate them, unless I teach you how to make them), doesn’t EXACTLY exist here. Instead they have something called grasse a frire that is pure vegetable oil like Crisco…but hard like a brick. Cue some time in the microwave, and I can convince it to behave like I want to.

· So…essentially all that was the same was white sugar, flour, eggs, margarine, and salt. Hey look…you have all the ingredients. You still won’t be able to make them. Just ask Chris Sewalish.

Next challenge, mixing all this stuff together. My mother was kind enough to mail me some measuring cups and spoons, so I don’t have to worry about that. But I had never made cookies without an electric mixer before. So I spent some time fighting with a wooden spoon, the cheapass whisk I bought, and a fork. Eventually I showed the dough who was boss. After some time going through batch by batch to see which pan from my cupboard worked to bake them on, I eventually remembered that I had a metal cake pan that was the closest I’d get to a cookie sheet. It worked beautifully, and the cookies turned out well. As you may know, I have very high standards for my chocolate chip cookies. Given the circumstances, I did a very good job. But perfection can only be obtained with an electric mixer and 100% American ingredients.

Aside from testing out the recipe, I was preparing these cookies for the next life update I have. Through my program, I’ve started volunteering a few hours a week at a center where adults go to take intense English classes. Everyone who goes there is trying to learn English because they’re unemployed and want to be more marketable to employers. Each class focuses on a specific job sector, such as hotel/restaurant, tourism, sales/business, etc. It’s a bit of a somber mood when you realize why all these people are in a room together, but they have fun with it. So I show up there twice a week for two hours and speak English with these people. In exchange, they’re encouraged to invite me out to do things and speak French with them or if they want to practice their English more, we can speak English. Everyone there is super nice, and took down my information (and were impressed that I possessed personal business cards) and said they’d contact me in the future.

Today, I went in to have some discussion with the groups and brought them the cookies I made. They were too excited. I had mentioned that the colorful cookies were made with M&Ms because chocolate chips were too expensive. Then, one of the students mentioned that she has a stockpile of chocolate chips at home because she used to own a bakery and would be willing to trade chocolate chips for cookies. Then another student says that she would be willing to pay me to make cookies for her family and friends, and another agreed. So now it looks like I need to go through my receipts and see how much it costs me to make cookies in France. Because I think I just found another part time job. And this is all just proving the fact that I totally have a pretty sweet backup life plan if politics fails me.

After that, I went out for lunch with a group of eight people from the class who are learning English to find jobs related to tourism. They were very impressed when I said I could understand 95% of what they were saying during the table wide discussion and that my French sounded very good. My French is just better than their English, let’s be real. My French has a long way to go. But it was a very fun environment for all of us to practice in, and I look forward to joining them in the future.

Smaller updates:

· Contrary to popular belief due to the tone of my blog, I’m having fun here.

· If you’re reading this blog, then you should probably know me. If you know me, then you know I can be an asshole most of the time. But I mean well. Usually.

· I love it here. I don’t want to come home. At least not until June. I am very happy with my choice to come to this city, this school, and to stay for a year. My life is magical, goddamn it. I’m living in the south of France. I miss some things about home, but the things I find here that I can’t find back home combined with the “once in a lifetime opportunity effect” are doing a good job at fighting off most homesickness.

· I still don’t have internet. I’m still angry about it. My roommates and I are still working on it. This is giving me some practice with my Angry French, something I insist on mastering before I leave this country. If I got home not speaking normal French any better but could argue and rip someone a new one like nobody’s business, I’d be totally content. This is what’s important to me.

· I remain upset about a lack of contact with friends from back home. The only time I have reliable, long term internet time is my afternoon/your morning. And you people (what do you mean you people) are all getting ready for, and going to class then. I miss all of you. So I know we haven’t talked in a while, but please don’t forget about me. As a point of reference, American Central Time and I are seven hours apart. I have some great friends here in France, but they will never replace the ones I left in America.

· My friends and I had taco night the other day. The only thing missing was margaritas. But it was still great. I still miss real Mexican food though.

More updates to come as my life continues to get more interesting.

I spent Halloween weekend in Paris.

I’ve been learning French since 2002, and Paris is pretty much the cornerstone of all things French. So I’ve learned about it two or three times. Seen a couple movies that took place there. Seen a few pictures in a book. I don’t travel much. Traveling would require more money or a stronger US dollar in the global currency markets. I’ve never been blessed with either, so I’ve been waiting for this for a while.

I’m a city girl. After spending the summer in Washginton, I had been experiencing a bit of an itch to get back to a real urban environment. Aix-en-Provence is lovely and I fully support my decision to study here, but it is in no way shape or form Paris. I love having tons of people around. I love being able to take a train across the city and pop up somewhere completely different. I always have a strange sense of being “at home” whenever I’m zigzagging through the streets of Chicago or DC, and can only imagine the same for New York. Paris satisfied my need for some city time.

Paris was pretty much every photo and movie I had ever seen coming to life. It looked exactly like I expected it to, but I was just so excited to finally be there that it seemed better. The first place we went when we arrived was a neighborhood called Montmartre. As we turned around a corner and got to the Sacré Coeur and all I could think was, “Oh my god I’m at Amélie”.

I went to the Louvre. I climbed stairs halfway up the Eiffel Tower and then took an elevator up the rest of the way. I sat on a bench inside the Arc de Triomphe wishing I remembered why/when they built it and wondered how you get your name written on its walls. I saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle at night. I enjoyed a picnic dinner of bread, wine, and cheese along the banks of the Seine. I wandered through Notre Dame. I walked down the Champs Elysees. All things Paris.

I also saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show in a small movie theater with a shadow cast, which is actually the only theater in France that is licensed to play it. The amount of continuity that film adds to my life is almost disturbing. I’d say I’m not ashamed to say how many times I’ve seen it in a theater, but it’s too many to count. Many of my life’s adventures revolve around going to see that movie in Milwaukee and it clearly holds a special place in my heart. So the fact that I was seeing it 5,000 miles away from home made me feel pretty good.

Three days in Paris to be a mega tourist proved to be a proper amount of time. I was very happy to return to Aix. Things are simpler here, and that is what I need in life right now. I look forward to visiting Paris again in the spring and hopefully having a different kind of visit. In the meantime, I’ll just ask that you continue to be jealous of my life. I know I would be.

Miss you all. Give yourself a hug, from me.

This post is full of profanity. You have been warned.

Fuck this country.
Fuck the internet.
Fuck Orange Telecommunications.
Fuck my 400 year old basement apartment.
Fuck everything.

Since my arrival in France, I have been telling everyone that I don’t have internet. The ultimate irony in the situation is that I can’t communicate with any of you without the internet. So if I’m posting on Facebook, sending emails, or putting up blogposts…how can I not have internet?

For the first month that I was in France, a public network would “float” into my room most of the time. The only catch was I needed to have my computer resting on the wide window ledge above my desk. It was uncomfortable to lean over my desk, and it was a terribly weak and almost useless signal, but if it connected me to the outside world and was a temporary solution…I’d oblige. One of my friends was kind enough to give me a password to said network, since it was already included in her rent. Between that temporary fix and having internet access at my program’s office, I could get by. My roommates and I were in the process of figuring out all the information we needed to set up a connection and what company we were going to use. All of us had some tiny stolen internet connection, so it wasn’t an especially pressing issue.

Unfortunately, as I enter month three in France, I haven’t seen this public network floating into my windowsill in weeks with the exception of a handful of moments. Somehow, every bedroom in my apartment can grab stolen signal…except mine. It’s not available in the kitchen or the living room. The tables and chairs that were in my private garden have long since disappeared (apparently it’s winter here now?). I’m relying on the schedule and goodwill of others to contact the outside world for short periods of time.

Enter my household’s ongoing fight with the phone company.

Since this is France; the land where apparently up is down, black is white, and every piece of paperwork needs an identity photo paper clipped to it—getting an internet connection is unnecessarily complicated. We needed the name of whoever used our telephone line last in order to avoid a 50 euro fee to set up a new phone line. We checked with our landlady, who didn’t have anything to tell us. I’m not even going to expand on that because I think its crazy speaks for itself. The company was able to give us a list of people who had at least used our number in the past, which we cross referenced with the list of former students from my program (remember that my program works with the same landlords every year…so one of these people lived in my apartment and used the same line and got internet because no one wants to live in 1993 again). One of the names matched up, we passed it onto the company, and they said it would take about 2 weeks for us to get the box and get the line activated.

That was 5 weeks ago. What has happened between now and then? We received the box in a timely fashion…but it wouldn’t activate. After waiting three weeks post signing the contract, giving them the benefit of the doubt, we finally went and had our program staff contact the company. Orange said that they never received the name of the girl who used the line before, so they couldn’t set up the line. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT, ORANGE. YOU HAD THE NAME. After re-giving them the name, they said we would have to wait a few more days and then they box would be activated. Again, BULLSHIT…but okay, it looks like this is almost over.

While in Paris last weekend, a blogpost that will make it up here eventually, we found out that the line was activated. And there was much rejoicing. Until we got home only to see that it wasn’t activated. We went into our office to get help dealing with the company again, and they were supposed to call my roommate yesterday to start dealing with this again. They never did. Repeat the same process today, and she finally received the call. The company asked what our problem was, even though it has been explained to them a thousand times, they do their thing, and reply that there’s a problem with our line. NO SHIT SHERLOCK. I HADN’T NOTICED. So they’re going to call my roommate back on Sunday to set up an appointment for a technician to come out later in the week. That last part is too ridiculous for me to even expand on.

It is the year 2011. I am living in a decent sized city with 50,000 other college students. It is a goddamn right for me to have an internet connection. It hit me this week that I have been away from home for five months, because I’m not counting the ten hectic days between France and DC. I miss everyone. I feel super disconnected. I haven’t skyped with a single friend. I can count the number of good facebook chat conversations on one hand. I’m starting to go crazy. I bought George W Bush’s autobiography to have something to read. This is what happens when I don’t have access to the internet.


Please send love, notes, internet, and help to:
Carly Danger Wilson, Academic Program in Aix
30 Avenue Victor Hugo
13100 Aix-en-Provence

If your love, notes, internet, and help don’t fit in an envelope…please write “sans valeur commercial” on the box…or else I’ll have to pay import taxes.
=========================================================

I want to take the goddamn internet box and do this with it. All day everyday.

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.