Bela Arwen - France 2018

The Journey to France

Our journey began early in the morning of the twentieth of May in a nearly empty airport, waiting to go through security. Aden, Owen, and I all said goodbye to our families and then received a final farewell from Mr. Trotter before embarking on one of the most riveting traveling experiences of our lives. To begin with, the flight to JFK, the first stop in our journey, was delayed by weather and the flight itself took an additional hour to arrive because the flight first took a detour south to avoid the weather that had just delayed us. When we finally arrived in New York, we had no more than forty-five minutes to make it to our next flight and still had to make it through security again. Aden and Owen had both checked their luggage in Nashville, but I had brought mine with me, meaning that as we were running through the airport to our gate, I was carrying both my carry on with all my summer reading books and all the clothes I would be needing for the next five weeks. In the end, I gave my luggage to Owen who then proceeded to beat both Aden and me to the gate and persuade the flight attendant to let us on the flight. The flight itself went smoothly enough apart from the fact that I had an aisle seat and every time I was about to fall asleep the flight attendant would walk by and knock my shoulder. Once in Paris, we had missed the flight to Bordeaux but easily rescheduled for the next flight.

Bordeaux

Once we arrived in Bordeaux, we went to baggage claim, but, after waiting for a while and not seeing either Owen or Aden’s bag, we sat down with an Air France representative and had our first true French-speaking experience to see what had gone wrong. When we had rushed to our flight to Paris and barely made it, our luggage, Owen and Aden’s, had not been so lucky. Nonetheless, we left the airport and met up with our hosts and spent the rest of the day with our hosts. As for Owen and me, since our true hosts lived so far away from Bordeaux, we were put with two other hosts families for the night. I was with Quentin, who lived in the area. He lived in a small house that reminded me a lot of the style typically seen in southern California with red tile roofing and a big open common area that was open on both sides by large ceiling to floor windows and had the other rooms branching off the adjacent sides. Since it was only noon but to me felt like 5 in the morning after not having really slept for twenty hours, I did not really have any drive to do anything. Even so, we played a few rounds of ping pong, in which I lost everyone, and talked about our interests. Once we got bored of ping pong, we decided to go on a bike ride to see the area he lived in. We biked into a forest near his house where he had been working with a few friends in a tree house over a river. We then went to a nearby park and went on the mountain biking path with plethora jumps and turns. Muddy and even more tired than before, we returned home. At this point, I was not able to do anything other than taking a nap, which I did. Once I had awoken from my nap, Quentin’s mom had arrived home and his father was preparing dinner. We had a wonderful, simple dinner of tomatoes, rice, and meat, for me in the form of a tofu chicken fillet. Though simple, the dinner was delicious and afterward, I went right to sleep.

For the next two weeks, I spent my time at La Sauque, spending time with different grade levels, learning and taking classes with the seniors and eating lunch and spending my free time with the sophomores. Because I was going to be a senior, the classes that the sophomores were taking were not at the level where I was used to studying so I was allowed to take classes with the seniors. I became good friends with a few of them but my true friend group was with the the sophomores, with whom I stayed in the dorms every night. My true host was Abel, who was a sophomore at the school. I only found out the day I arrived that he was to be the one who was to be hosting me. I would even spend nearly a week with him at the end of my time at La Sauque, but the begin of the week was disrupted by complications his father had had in dealing with Parkinson’s. Because of the complications, for the first few days of the week we had in Bordeaux after our time at La Sauque was over, I stayed with a good friend I had made at La Sauque who was there in a similar program to that which I was. Her name was Faye and she was from Ireland but had a house in Bergerac. She would be staying in France too, and generously offered me a place to stay. I stayed with Faye until she went back to Ireland, at which point I returned to Abel's house.

Paris
After having been in Bordeaux for three weeks now, it was time to head to Paris. We, being only Owen and myself at this point since Aden had left for debate camp, and headed to Paris where we met up with Mr. Trotter. We went to the hotel, dropped off our bags and immediately went out into Paris to go exploring. We ended up at the Musee D'Orsay where we spent a good while looking at artwork and we even got to see some singing being performed for the "Fête de la Musique", which was a festival of music being held all over France. Then we dined at the lovely restaurant in the museum itself. The food was incredible and at some point Mr. Trotter and I, being so amused by a man sitting next to us, burst into uncontrollable laughter.

The next few days were spent exploring the many corners of Paris, traveling from everywhere by subway. We visited magnificent art museum such as the Louvre, saw a multitude of glorious monuments, such as the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, and ate at fantastic restaurants, my favorite of which was "La Fontaine de Mars" (former President Barak Obama had eaten here when he was in Paris). Sadly, on the last day I was to be with Owen and Mr. Trotter, we were scheduled to have a night out at the Opera but it was canceled due to strikes. Though this was to be highpoint of the trip, there was no reason at all to be complaining since we had already been so lucky just to have been in Paris.

After my time with Mr. Trotter, I was able to continue my stay in Paris with my grandfather which was a great gift. It would not have been very likely I would ever had been able to enjoy such a wonderful city with a person I so dearly care for if not for this opportunity I had.

Challenges I Overcame

One of the most prominent challenges that I had to overcome was trying to be vegan in France. I have been vegan for nearly two years and vegetarian for all of my life. Being vegan in most places other than the united states is usually quite difficult and I was well aware of this before embarking. I had planned to try and continue to be vegan throughout my time in France and did pretty well until arriving in Paris. In Bordeaux, the only places I ever ate were at my host family’s house and La Sauque, both places where vegan options were easy to find. This changed however in Paris where most every meal was eaten out at a restaurant. Most restaurants understood the concept of vegetarian but rarely any understood veganism. The first meal that I had in Paris was at the Musee d’Orsay, and once I looked at the menu and realized I was not going to find anything vegan, I gave in. This is a decision I do not regret. From that meal on, I was able to take part in the wonderful world of French cheeses and pastries that I would have missed as a vegan. That first meal at the Musee d’Orsay was hands down the best-tasting meal I had had in a long time and I regret nothing about my decision.

The most interesting thing about my trip was how little a problem the language turned out to be for me. Yes, there were times that I could not find the right word or stumbled through a difficult sentence but for the most part, I felt quite comfortable in my abilities and that feeling only grew over my time in France. In the beginning, I did not think that I would be as communicative as I turned out to be, something I can accredit to how much understanding I already had gained from Mr. Trotter over the past three years. I believe that has a lot to say about the language department at MBA, giving me the comfort to immerse myself in a culture I knew nothing about three years before.

Things That I Have Learned

One thing I tell people every time they ask me, “What's your biggest take away” or something along those lines, I always reply the same way. For me, the most striking contrast I could find when I returned back to the States was the French sense of efficiency. I like to give the example that “French people know how to use escalators” which is true. It is a generally understood concept that if you are not moving on an escalator than you are to move to the right. This way people in a hurry do not have to ask you to move out of the way so that they can pass you on the left. Though I had little chance to travel by car while I France, I did notice that this went for the roadways as well. The left lane was rarely ever used unless someone, presumably in a hurry, wanted to pass you. Other than that, nearly everyone used the left few lanes. The difference was not hard to notice when I got back to the united states when I was trying to get to a connecting flight in Denver on my way to Seattle where I nearly missed my flight because I could not make it up the escalator because of the cross hatch of people dotting each side like a lattice.

Merci!

I would like to extend my full and sincere gratitude to the Wilson for making this whole experience possible and for allowing me to grow so much as a French student but also a learning young adult. The experiences I have had this summer have made me more confident not only in French but also in my ability to travel the world with a clearer mindset and more ease now that I was able to do it by myself (in part). For this, I am truly thankful. I would like to thank Madame LeClercq and Mr. Chassagne from La Sauque for their hospitality in inviting MBA to their campus for the past 6 years. Finally I would like to thank Mr. Trotter who has prepared me for the last 3 years for this journey and was able to show me Paris for the first time, helping me understand the city in a way no guided tour ever could and only a hands-on experience lead by an expert of the city could come close to rival.