An Excursion

My very first day of class was yesterday. I enjoyed it thoroughly! 

More on all that to come at a later date. For now, I shall attempt to provide you with a brief account of my excursion this afternoon during lunch break!

Lunch break in France is much longer than just a break - two hours in between the morning and the afternoon are given to you to do whatever you please whether it be stay at home and take a nap, or roam the city aimlessly, or go out to a little café to eat! This is quite a foreign idea to me after four years of approximately 25 minute long lunch breaks where all the students were confined to one cafeteria and carefully supervised by big men with guns.

Today, I determined to go on my very first excursion out into the beautiful city of Albertville all by my lonesome self! I needed to go to the bank, and also planned on making a stop at the grocery store to get a food item to bring to the youth group potluck tomorrow.

After morning class, I meticulously bundled up in the necessary items, and stepped out the door onto the very slushy streets of France. It has been snowing on and off for the past twenty-four hours or so, but it has also been raining on and off for the past twenty-four hours or so, and the sky was unfortunately occupied with the latter activity when I began my expedition. And when I ended my expedition too. And everything in between the beginning and the end of my expedition as well. Not a nice rain, either. Rain in the midst of winter never is. But it did naught to dampen the mood of adventure as I sloshed through ocean-sized, mud-filled, freezing cold puddles with sleet rain pounding my face.

I kept on repeating to myself directions in my head for how to get to the bank - "on the same street where we had lunch yesterday, on the right, a few blocks down, green sign, BNP...same street, on the right, a few blocks down, green sign, BNP..." Eyes, ears, and nose, must have been trembling (as indeed they have been all this past week!) with excitement at all the new sights, sounds, and smells came rushing in and out at a million miles an hour. Everything here feels somewhat antiquated, well-used, very established, from the colorful, shuttered-window, quintessential apartment buildings to the little cottages surrounded by snow-dusted pines and nestled in the crook of the mountains.

On and on I continued to march through the slush until at last I reached the BNP with the green sign on the same street as the café where we had lunch yesterday on the right side of the street! I had successfully honed in on the correct location. But I dared not be overly confident until I had conquered the ATM. A daunting thought to be sure. The only other time I had used an ATM machine had been in the states, with my mother overseeing, and I was making a deposit, not a withdrawal.

It ate my debit card. I followed the procedures correctly. It spit my debit card back out. And then it spit out a pile of euros and a receipt. I somewhat apprehensively reached inside this biting, spitting machine, and claimed my stack of bills. At not a moment to late, for seconds later, the biting spitting machine chomped back down right where my hand had been. Full of relief quickly morphing to massive feelings of accomplishment, I cordially thanked the machine (in French, of course), wished it a nice day, and triumphantly paraded back into the slush and cold rain!

The water by now had seeped all the way through my boots, and the lovely sensation of having no sensation whatsoever due to numbness of toes soon spread from just toes to whole feet. Undeterred by numb feet, I actually truly did smile condescendingly at the sign that read, "Office de Tourisme". Maybe for some Americans, but pas moi! And then I remembered that I had, in fact, chosen English as the language for the spitting-biting machine to speak, and not French. My accomplishment, therefore, was not a purely French accomplishment. It was a simple transaction any American adult easily could've accomplished on their own. I consoled myself by reasoning that I most likely could have very easily manuevered the machine en français, but it had surely been a wise decision to use English the first time rather than a language that likely could have led me to do something quite awful like have the biting-spitting machine bite and consume all my finances for the rest of forever.

Then I determined that to rectify this franglais excursion, I must complete a transaction with a live human being in seulement le français (only French). I have done this before, now multiple times, but of course that does naught to mitigate the delight of such interactions, and to accomplish another human interaction with a native French speaker was a fabulous excuse to make a delectable purchase at the bakery, conveniently located on the right side of the same street where we had lunch yesterday.

A baguette and a lemon tarte were successfully purchased. Here I am, in this beautiful country, living in the Alps, with a baguette and lemon tarte in tow. The triumphant euphoria could now return. But it did not. Because as I walked across the street from the bakery, I saw a lonely man, standing on the corner, in the muddy slush and sleety rain, looking down at the ground where his hat lay, hoping for some euros. I slowed down, said hello to him, and then continued to walk. I had been very close, very very close indeed to handing him my baguette, but I didn't. I kept on walking.

The thought process of Kathryn G. Wong went accordingly....I don't need a baguette, I don't need a baguette at all, I just bought it because I'm in France and there was a bakery with baguettes and I enjoy feeling incorrigible after successful French interactions. He does need a baguette. He looked so cold, so pathetically cold, and hungry too. He had a friendly face, a very friendly face. But maybe in France it's against the law to give homeless people food. I mean it probably is...they have so many laws in this country! And even if it's not, maybe people just don't do that here! I don't know anything about the homeless population in France, much less in Albertville. Maybe me giving him a baguette has horrible implications that will overall negatively impact all of French society, kind of like how rich, ignorant Americans giving t-shirts to Africa can be disaster and not help anyone or anything at all. Of course I'm not going to give him money, but maybe he knows that the baguette just across the street from where he's begging only cost me forty-five cents and he'll be mortally offended by that! What if a French person sees me, knows I'm an American, and is extraordinarily appalled that I would presume to try to take their societal problems into my own hands! Kathryn - you're absurd, just turn around and give him that baguette! But I'm almost home, almost back to the school! Okay, fine, sit down in your room, eat your lemon tarte, then turn around and go back to where he's standing and if he's still there, give him the baguette. Okay? Okay.

Which is exactly what I did. After consuming a very delectable tarte, I turned right around, went back to the same spot, and in French, asked him if he might like to have a baguette. He smiled, a big, radiant smile, and said quite a few nice sounding things in his language that I didn't entirely catch, but they sounded just grand! Then I said goodbye to him, and turned back for home, with feet thoroughly soaked, thoroughly numbed, and happy once more. I was so entertained by the sight of a terrified looking blonde girl clutching a steering wheel with a big yellow "Auto-Ecole" sign on the top of the car she was driving, that I didn't even notice the Centre, and walked right past! Eventually I figured out that I had gone too far, turned around, and came back to my room. And now it's time for class. Au revoir!