Farewell, for realsies

Before I sign off for good, I’ll leave you with a quote I stumbled across from a French expat in LA:

C’est la différence entre le touriste et le résident : quand on se sent installé durablement un pays, on est moins pressé de le découvrir.

Roughly, That’s the difference between the tourist and the resident: when you feel permanently settled in a country, you’re in less of a hurry to discover it.

Taken my first time in Paris. Will never forget the wide-eyed wonder.

France, or foreign travel in general, is always an experience, even (and especially) the little things. The WCs with no toilet seats (or sometimes, just a hole in the floor). The incomparable zeal of the walk-across-the-street man. The no-frills autoroute signs. The magazines and newspapers at the newsstands, written in gibberish. The same for maps, menus, announcements on the train or metro, even snatches of passerbys’ conversations in the street, perhaps in French, or in Greek, or Italian, but most definitely not English.

I could go on. But I think it’s that that I’ll miss the most, perhaps even more than the actual places themselves. That sense, that promise, even, of the new and different. Of adventure.

Over time I’ve learned how California is a dream destination for so many Europeans and Caribbeaners alike. It always used to surprise me – I mean, I know we have some nice stuff here, but don’t these people realize that approximately 97 percent of the state is either farms, hick towns, or (as is our case) sprawling suburbia? Or just miles and miles of nothing, like Highway 5?

But now, I can finally appreciate that so, too, is France. How many of the train rides I took comprised uniquement grass, cows, telephone wires, warehouses, and fields of colza blowing in the wind? Punctuated, of course, with periodic stops at one-room, middle-of-nowhere gares? But quand même. When you’re abroad, you tend to overlook the mundane, or rather, you don’t see it as such. Deep down I know a cow is a cow is a cow, but the ones I so often beheld from the TGV window were French cows, and therefore immeasurably fascinating.

French cows. In Bretagne somewhere between Rennes and Mont Saint-Michel.

What’s old hat for the French is uncustomarily, uniquely thrilling for me because it’s not America. It sounds obvious, I know. But it took me awhile to really wrap my head around this fact. I know there are plenty of sights worth seeing in the dear old motherland, of course. But that I’m used to the very basic things here, the language, the signage, the way people behave, all I mentioned before, means visiting those places wouldn’t hold quite, quite the same wonderment. Or at least, you think it wouldn’t.

I’ve been all over the globe this year. The Caribbean islands, Virginia, New York, Hawaii, assorted airports across the United States, Europe. I haven’t bouge-d this much in this amount of time, ever. And now, as I say goodbye to our dear reader(s?) for the last time, I’m about to embark on a different sort of adventure.

I may not voyage again for quite some time. But I pledge before you, right here, right now, to remember the lessons I learned from being abroad. To be adventurous. To notice the mundane. To ask for help when you need it. To be humble in the face of the unfamiliar; to understand there’s more than one way to live life. To appreciate your country because, truly, there’s no place like home. And, of course, to pack light but never forget extra underwear. That one’s important.

Before I go, I’d like to extend a huge merci beaucoup to everyone that read. Your comments and support kept this project alive.

Bisous!

Wendy

New York

Passed in a whirlwind of seeing friends, sightseeing, and reveling in the novelty of America.

Some things, though, made me think of France.

Par exemple, the free guided tour of Grand Central Terminal. When I took it, the tourguide explained how many features of the building were carefully designed with the traveler in mind. Like how the width of the floor tiles is just the length of the average human-in-a-hurry stride, and how the main foyer entrance is ever so declined, subtly inviting you inside. The designers of the terminal believed that “travel should be enjoyable,” he repeated over and over.

I think that French people, or Europeans in general, know this better than we do. Efficient, smooth rides and (mostly) well-kept cars on the French TGVs certainly come to mind. (They’re superior to Amtrak at least, where the trains go thirty-five miles an hour and are bumpy to boot.) Also, on my AirFrance and AlItalia flights to and from Europe, respectively, I was fed an entire meal and one or two snacks, plus plenty of drinks. Even the two-hour flight from Switzerland to Rome was substantial enough for breakfast and coffee.

The museums were also a bit of a nostalgia-fest for me. Within the collections of both the Met and MoMA are works by numerous French impressionist painters who, of course, painted their own country. I was both happy and sad to recognize those tableaux of places I’d been, of Honfleur, of Rouen, the Gare Montparnasse in Paris, the beach towns of the French Riviera.

Second-floor foyer, MoMA.

Also in the MoMA, there’s a live exhibit called Wish Tree, created by Yoko Ono, wherein people are invited to write a wish, anonymously or not, on a tag and hang it on the tree in the MoMA garden. I didn’t do it, but I did nosily take a look at the ones already there. Little kids wished to be rich, or famous, or live in a mansion; one person wished for a job; one person wished for her friend to be cancer-free; one person wished to come back to New York again soon.

What would you wish for? Success? Happiness? World peace?

Plenty of people, young and old, were hovered around that tree, scribbling away. Everyone has a wish. The world is huge, but that much is universal.

For completeness’ sake

A quick photo summary of what happened after Alice Wang and I did the parting of the ways.

A VERY brief stop in Lyon. Again, a shame, because it seems like a cool city.

Annecy. It’s in the French Alps right next to the Swiss border, and is in the running to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Geneva. All in all a very agréable city.

The Jet d'Eau, by day and by night.

The UN. Conference room and gardens.

The gorgeous Jardin Botanique.

People sunning themselves along Lake Geneva.

The Horloge Fleurie, or Flower Clock, which apparently has the largest second hand in the world.

Life-size chess in the park.

Finally, Lausanne. It was a miserable day (rainy and very cold – I might as well have been back in Normandy), which probably affected my judgment of the place. I will say, though, that the coolest part of the city wasn’t the city at all. It was the hiking trails, like this one.

The trails traverse the hills in the northern part of the town and afford what are probably much nicer views than this when the sun is out.

Alice

And now, here is my homage to Alice Wang. I couldn’t possibly write one as nice as the one she wrote me, but I’ll try my best to do her justice.

First of all, she hosted me for a week. She’d gotten me a bus pass and a bar of chocolate (with hazelnuts!) for my arrival, which, let me tell you, ended up saving me during more than one snack attack during my forthcoming travels. And expert Toulonnaise that she is now, she knew all the best places to go and how to get there. All the aforementioned forays into the Côte d’Azur, to Cannes, Antibes, Hyères, Porquerolles, Sanary, were at her suggestion, and so any of the fun I had in those places was, really, grâce à her.

She’s also a veteran CouchSurfer, and I never would’ve been able to navigate the CouchSurfing system without her. In fact, she wrote my entire awesome profile for me. And she doesn’t freak out in the face of glitches, such as trying to get out of going clubbing with your hosts, the way I probably would have.

Alice Wang can appreciate nature and leisurely promenades, as on the banks of the Loire or the vineyards and falaises of Porquerolles, but also, art of all kinds. Even the ridiculous modern stuff in the Musée Fabre of Montpellier. “It just looks like a bunch of splotches,” I said. But Alice Wang proceeded to offer a description of the tableau as a seasoned art critic might, then kindly explained that it doesn’t matter how profound or ridiculous you find the interpretation, it’s really about whether you like the art.

Then there’re the intangibles. It’s hard to describe in words what exactly makes a good, compatible travel companion, but Alice Wang is. I know I can be indecisive, but usually it’s because I want to see it all when I go to a new place. And Alice Wang, I think you are adventurous in the same way. Some people are content to take it easy when voyage-ing, but if you paid all this money to come to a place, shouldn’t you experience it to the maximum? Which means being tired and dirty and full of grocery store food often, but also being spontaneous – going with the flow, roughing it, being open to new adventures every step of the way. Oh! A photo exhibition in Montpellier amidst this bio fair? Let’s check it out! Or, We could just hop on the train and go to Nîmes instead of shopping, it’s just eight euros and twenty minutes on the TGV, okay, let’s do it!

The girl can make a pretty mean nutella-pear pie. (See above photo.)

And ANYONE who’s seen Alice Wang in action in the face of Madame’s dogs knows that it’s she who really has the balls, not me.

From their very first trip to Normandy more than two years ago, Alice Wang and Wendy Shue have maintained a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT TRAVEL SUCCESS RATE. And that is indeed quite an accomplishment. Bon retour aux Etats-Unis, mon amie! I will see you soon!

Orléans

And now we come to Alice Wang’s and my last adventure.

We were reunited in Paris, my very last time there, and though we were at different hostels, we spent a very agréable evening on the steps of the Sacré Coeur looking at the Parisian skyscape.

The next morning, we embarked from the Gare d’Austerlitz to Orléans (the Old one), an hour from Paris. I had all my luggage with me, and the train was so crowded that Alice Wang and I had to sit on the floor in the corridor, unfortunately in very good company.

We met Alice Wang’s friend at the gare in Orléans, who’d kindly agreed to let us stay in her apartment for the night. After tea and a stroll through the under-construction église, we went to Carrefour to pick up some food and essentials (which, unfortunately, as Alice Wang mentioned before, did not include l’ibuprofène). For some reason I also received about six cardboard tokens with my purchase, to be used in what I suppose was a kind of French grocery-store slot machine.

Alice Wang, I’m stealing this photo from your Facebook. Even though I did not win a coveted Carrefour gift certificate, this was sans doute the most excitement I’ve ever experienced in a supermarket.

After the pause-déjeuner when all the musées reopened, Alice Wang and I visited the Maison de Jeanne d’Arc, where we learned all about Joan of Arc’s victory during the siege of Orléans.

We then checked out the Musée Historique Archéologique, where we saw some bronze stuff from Gallo-Roman times and a bunch more depictions of Joan of Arc in painting and sculpture. We also learned that every year the town commemorates the Orléans victory with festivals and activities, and that next year there’s a 600^th birthday celebration planned for Joan.

Statue of Joan of Arc in the main square of Orléans. In case you couldn’t tell, she’s kind of a big deal.

We paid a brief visit to the Musée de Beaux-Arts, and then visited the Vieux Hôtel (below), the former city hall of Orléans but now used to host wedding receptions.

We took a sympa walk on the banks of the Loire (below), after which we proceeded to get lost in another bookstore -- the children's section this time.

We got ice cream a bit later (and passed several jealous children, as Alice pointed out before), and reposed ourselves for the rest of the evening. We tried to stream “Saving Private Ryan” on my computer, in commemoration of our awesome trip to Normandy two years ago, but the connection was slow and we didn’t finish.

I had to leave early the next morning, so Alice Wang and I didn’t have a proper goodbye. But we’ll be reunited soon! And will tell you much more in person!

Normandy love

I’m not sure why – maybe it’s because of the smashing success of my first trip there with Alice Wang two years ago – but I’m totally in love with Normandy. Granted, the weather is absolutely abysmal – even in May, it was overcast and foggy every single moment of every single day, and I had to wear both of my (admittedly light, Caribbean-wardrobe) jackets over another shirt just to be moderately okay. But to me, Normandy is incredibly, incredibly beautiful. Places like the French Riviera and Martinique are gorgeous, of course, but in a stunning, in-your-face kind of way. Normandy’s beauty is more subtle, understated, rough around the edges. And though I was internally complaining about the wind and cold the whole time, there is something poetic about the perpetually grayish glow everything’s bathed in, especially contrasted with the brilliant green of the rain-soaked pastures you see when you pass through.

My trip to Normandy this time wasn’t as cool as my trip with Alice Wang, but I saw some new and different things nonetheless.

The beach at Trouville. It’s right next to the town of Deauville, which was completely shut down and barricaded by police officers that day due to the G8 conference.

Honfleur. I only got to spend about an hour there, which was a shame because it was ridiculously charming, in a very elegant, Normandy sort of way.

Le Havre. A shout-out to anyone who ever had to read Maupassant’s Pierre et Jean in AP French. The town’s in the midst of building a tramway, so everything was under construction and quite frankly, rather ugly. I walked all the way to the waterfront, where the wind was so strong I thought I’d literally be swept off my feet. The beach was covered with giant pebbles.

And finally, Rouen, the capital of Normandy. The cathedral Monet painted so prolifically is here (below), as well as several of his tableaux in the Musée de Beaux-Arts.

Other Rouen highlights:

The Gros-Horloge, a clocktower you can climb up.

Old abbey with lovely red coquelicots in the foreground.

The exact spot where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

Carcassonne

View from afar.

Carcassonne is another of those places where I’ll let the photos do the talking. The modern town is nothing special, but the Cité Médiévale, the medieval fortress, is more than worth seeing. It’s free to enter, and the inside is its own mini-town, complete with cobblestone streets, classy and not-so-classy restaurants, and souvenir shops.

I toured the castle and walked all the way around the ramparts. The place definitely begs to be compared with Mont Saint-Michel (below), an eleventh-century abbey on a pseudo-island in Normandy that I visited last time, if nothing else because of the similar influx of tourists and touristy stores within. I still can’t decide which I prefer.