Come tomorrow morning, I will have been home again in Pennsylvania for one whole week.
I haven't kept up with posting here very well, recently -- at the end of the semester, events came fast and all the IAU students were eager not to miss any of them. We had a goodbye picnic in a park, at which everyone finally met all the different host families; the Marchutz art school held its end-of-the-semester exposition; my Creative Writing class published a little book of our best essays and held a little reception in tandem with the photography class and their photos; I received an award for Academic Excellence in the French Language at the official awards ceremony in IAU's town hall; we had three days of finals; etc. During the last week, it didn't stop raining in Aix. The weather matched the mood among the students. Goodbyes were rushed, in between packing and studying for exams, but we exchanged real phone numbers (how funny, to think that after four months, my new friends had never actually texted me at my actual number from home, but only the temporary French number I maintained). Immediately after finals, nearly everyone was gone.
I was fortunate enough to be able to stay an extra week in France, and a few other students did, too. I came across them now and then, when I wandered into town to take a few last pictures and say my goodbyes to the streets and fountains. It's funny; it didn't even feel like the same city once most people I knew had gone. It felt again like how it had been during Early Arrival week, before the dozens of other students had suddenly appeared. It's lonely, not to know anyone in a place. It made me ready to come home.
The goodbye to my host mom was the hardest. My friends are mostly Americans, and though their homes are scattered across the country, I know that I will have opportunities to see them again. Josy made me a part of her family for four months, fed me, and taught me much, but I don't know when I will ever see her again. We can email. The next time I find myself in Europe (there will be a next time, this I know), I will definitely stop through Aix and say Bonjour! I would like to introduce my parents to Josy, this woman who was, in a way, their surrogate for a semester. Still, she's part of not only a different culture from me, but a different generation -- in some ways, that's the bigger obstacle, as she doesn't have Skype or know her way around Facebook. It'll be difficult to stay in touch, and she will have a new student in a few short weeks. But I owe her a lot of gratitude.
Perhaps the most telling sign of what these four months have meant can be found in how much more smoothly went my return to the States, compared to my trip to Aix in the beginning. Josy's daughter was kind enough to drive me to the TGV station with my suitcases. Where I once wandered, confused and sleep-deprived, I instead calmly met a friend and boarded my train to Paris without incident. I spent a week in Paris, managing metro rides and finding my way to tourist sites and eateries without any trouble at all. The maps I used where easy to read, as were the signs for attractions. If I had to ask for directions, it wasn't that big a deal, and I understood the conversations happening around me in public places without consciously thinking about which language the strangers spoke.
My friend from IAU and I had a few discussions over the semester about how we feared that being home again would feel like a continuation of life before France, as though we had never left home in the first place. I've been home for almost a week, and I no longer worry about that. For the first few days, there was reverse culture shock: I was startled to see sweatpants in public, I seemed to have way more things in my room than I could ever possibly use or want, and words like Merci and A tes souhaites leapt to my mind much faster than their English equivalents (Thank you, and To your wishes -- what you say when someone sneezes, the equivalent of Bless you). That's begun to fade, now. I'm slowly re-assmilating into American culture; heaven knows it's too familiar to me to be foreign for long, even after four months away. But I sense changes in myself that go deeper, and those show no signs of changing back. For example, talking to strangers is easier. For the last four months, everyone has been a stranger, and I haven't known what to say to them in French, but I have figured it out, person by person, conversation by conversation. Now I'm back, and with the language barrier gone, I feel like I can talk to anyone! It's easy as breathing. Everything, from making small talk with cashiers and waitresses, to sending emails and leaving voicemails, is suddenly one hundred times easier than it was in France -- and even easier than it was before I left America, because I know now that I can do it when it's more difficult. I'm just a little bit more confident and used to figuring things out on my own than I was when I left. That's what I was hoping for, and I'm glad for it.
I haven't kept up with posting here very well, recently -- at the end of the semester, events came fast and all the IAU students were eager not to miss any of them. We had a goodbye picnic in a park, at which everyone finally met all the different host families; the Marchutz art school held its end-of-the-semester exposition; my Creative Writing class published a little book of our best essays and held a little reception in tandem with the photography class and their photos; I received an award for Academic Excellence in the French Language at the official awards ceremony in IAU's town hall; we had three days of finals; etc. During the last week, it didn't stop raining in Aix. The weather matched the mood among the students. Goodbyes were rushed, in between packing and studying for exams, but we exchanged real phone numbers (how funny, to think that after four months, my new friends had never actually texted me at my actual number from home, but only the temporary French number I maintained). Immediately after finals, nearly everyone was gone.
I was fortunate enough to be able to stay an extra week in France, and a few other students did, too. I came across them now and then, when I wandered into town to take a few last pictures and say my goodbyes to the streets and fountains. It's funny; it didn't even feel like the same city once most people I knew had gone. It felt again like how it had been during Early Arrival week, before the dozens of other students had suddenly appeared. It's lonely, not to know anyone in a place. It made me ready to come home.
The goodbye to my host mom was the hardest. My friends are mostly Americans, and though their homes are scattered across the country, I know that I will have opportunities to see them again. Josy made me a part of her family for four months, fed me, and taught me much, but I don't know when I will ever see her again. We can email. The next time I find myself in Europe (there will be a next time, this I know), I will definitely stop through Aix and say Bonjour! I would like to introduce my parents to Josy, this woman who was, in a way, their surrogate for a semester. Still, she's part of not only a different culture from me, but a different generation -- in some ways, that's the bigger obstacle, as she doesn't have Skype or know her way around Facebook. It'll be difficult to stay in touch, and she will have a new student in a few short weeks. But I owe her a lot of gratitude.
Perhaps the most telling sign of what these four months have meant can be found in how much more smoothly went my return to the States, compared to my trip to Aix in the beginning. Josy's daughter was kind enough to drive me to the TGV station with my suitcases. Where I once wandered, confused and sleep-deprived, I instead calmly met a friend and boarded my train to Paris without incident. I spent a week in Paris, managing metro rides and finding my way to tourist sites and eateries without any trouble at all. The maps I used where easy to read, as were the signs for attractions. If I had to ask for directions, it wasn't that big a deal, and I understood the conversations happening around me in public places without consciously thinking about which language the strangers spoke.
My friend from IAU and I had a few discussions over the semester about how we feared that being home again would feel like a continuation of life before France, as though we had never left home in the first place. I've been home for almost a week, and I no longer worry about that. For the first few days, there was reverse culture shock: I was startled to see sweatpants in public, I seemed to have way more things in my room than I could ever possibly use or want, and words like Merci and A tes souhaites leapt to my mind much faster than their English equivalents (Thank you, and To your wishes -- what you say when someone sneezes, the equivalent of Bless you). That's begun to fade, now. I'm slowly re-assmilating into American culture; heaven knows it's too familiar to me to be foreign for long, even after four months away. But I sense changes in myself that go deeper, and those show no signs of changing back. For example, talking to strangers is easier. For the last four months, everyone has been a stranger, and I haven't known what to say to them in French, but I have figured it out, person by person, conversation by conversation. Now I'm back, and with the language barrier gone, I feel like I can talk to anyone! It's easy as breathing. Everything, from making small talk with cashiers and waitresses, to sending emails and leaving voicemails, is suddenly one hundred times easier than it was in France -- and even easier than it was before I left America, because I know now that I can do it when it's more difficult. I'm just a little bit more confident and used to figuring things out on my own than I was when I left. That's what I was hoping for, and I'm glad for it.