Tours, France

Thursday, August 24th – Departure through Sunday, August 27
After a week of visiting friends, my mom and I left Pearl and Sanjeev’s in the morning of the 24th for a 4-hour long shuttle to the JFK airport, followed by a day of waiting, passive-aggressive “Academic Arrangements Abroad” procedures, airplane delays, bad cell phone service (at inopportune times), etc. Mom finished her book 1776, though, bravo! On the plane, I managed to sit next to Ali Retson, a friend from Georgetown, and we both ordered red wine (free on Air France) to help us sleep; if you know me, that doesn’t really take much. The movies on the plane were pretty disappointing – I ended up watching one about a family that takes in a housekeeper who ends up being the murderous mother of the female head of the household. It was a drama, if you can believe that, and pretty much just not very interesting. It was British, but Patrick Swayze played the mother’s lover. Anyway, we landed on time in Paris despite an almost two-hour wait on the runway for take-off. At baggage claim, I started talking to a girl named Sara, who is an Amherst college Sociology major whose dad is from Algeria. Oddly enough, we are rooming together in Tours, which is almost impossible (there are about 70-some students).

We met our Tours host father, François, on Thursday, but his wife, Nathalie, was visiting her mother outside of Paris with her children. Nathalie grew up in Lebanon and was there with her kids when the war started; the military got them out at the end of July. I finally met her today (Sunday), and she speaks Arabic, French, and some English (maybe not as much as François thinks). She is very animated, dynamic, and I can already see some parts of the “Cultural Misunderstandings” Anthropology book present; for example, she argues with François a lot, usually about intellectual subjects or even things like how badly he cooked the chicken, and these disagreements occur in front of their children and Sara and me. In the US, I think that this would make for an uncomfortable situation; here, within French culture, couples who argue as such are seen to be healthy. People who have a good relationship can freely criticize each other without others assuming they are having problems.

The food that we have had has also been good, and it is kind of nice to be back to the somewhat familiar pattern of eating: fruit/salad or both, then always bread with the entrée, followed by fruit/cheese, then sometimes yogurt, and coffee/tea if desired. I also have to say that I hate diet coke here – Coca-Cola light – it tastes different.

I am sleeping in the daughter, Amadine’s, room, and Sara is sleeping in a guest room connected to mine.

Today, the family came home (Nathalie and the kids), so I met them all for the first time. Amadine is 13, Thibault is 11, and Eliot is 6/7 (?). They are all really cute, and they argue just like American kids, but it’s good to practice listening to them – that’s why I may request a family with young kids if I live with a family in Paris.

As for shopping, I bought a cell phone (my number, from the US, is 0033613651786 – that includes the country code). It is really expensive to make calls (over half a dollar a minute, normally), but it is free to receive calls. Text messages are much cheaper, so I may be doing that instead, which is difficult since I never do that at home and it takes me a long time to punch in the correct letters…!

Throughout the weekend, Sara and I have had some really animated discussions with François about Anthropology, Sociology, culture, ‘social code,’ etc. He is really a smart man and he thinks a lot about very anthropological/sociological topics. He made a really fascinating comparison – he said that the conception of an atom extends all the way through our ‘cultures’ to the laws of the planets. First, he says, there is a stable center – the nucleus, a set of laws or normalities for a culture, and finally the sun for the planets (in our galaxy). Then there are electrons that swirl around outside, interacting with each other, all bound to circle the center nucleus. Those that do not manage to stay within the path cause a fissure in the case of an atom, are eliminated in the case of a culture (or break off to form another culture, perhaps with their own nucleus), or join another galaxy in the case of the planets. Anyway, he explained it a bit more eloquently and it was very well-said. He is really fascinating to talk to, but now that the kids are back I wouldn’t be surprised if he talks less and they speak more!

Today, Sunday, I went to a vide-grenier, a garage sale, with Amandine. I bought two bags – a black one that says ‘Cet été, je lis’ (This summer, I’m reading) on it, and a brown one that I like a lot, and that I thought I might be able to fit my computer inside (but to no avail). I also bought something else, but it’s a secret present so I can’t reveal that yet. We also had nutella crêpes, which everyone knows are delicious, and I guess they merited the almost half-hour long wait – two older women were making them, and some women with a little boy on a bike cut in front of us when it was just our turn. Earlier, Amandine had told us - when a woman gave me a bracelet for free when I bought a gorgeous necklace from her for 2 euros - "The French are kind like that." When the woman with the young boy cut in front of us - seriously, we had been waiting for almost 30 minutes - Amandine said, "Some French are like that, too."