Ups and Downs

So today I woke up feeling down. Nowhere near college dorm second semester depressed, but I was not at my best. Despite that, or perhaps because being crippled by depression last year actually taught me something, I got up, got dressed and went down to the brocante. Getting out of the apartment and leaving my French hosts still asleep at 10:30, I just tried to breathe in the crisp air and enjoy the sights and sounds of markets.

Markets are the ultimate loneliness killer because everyone treats you like you've been best friends for ages. Of course, they're all trying to sell you stuff, but I challenge you to live in a foreign country for three months and not get a little lonely for all those American things we take for granted. Like being able to strike up a random conversation with anyone at any time and being completely sure of what you're saying, and that you'll be able to understand your new acquaintance.

Today though, not even all of my market friends and a tresse chocolat (braided pain chocolat with a glaze) lifted my spirits more than marginally. I dashed down for a conversation with the friendly metro worker to reload my Navigo Pass. The magic smiles of others weren't even working for me. The end of my market cheer up plan came when I heard the strains of a familiar song being played by a very familiar sound. Closing my eyes and inhaling the fall scent I could almost feel the crowd around me turn into my classmates, alumni, and other cheering fans. The bleachers would be cold if we sat, so we stand and huddle for warmth as we cheer on the home team. There was a marching band just like the one back in high school.

I could feel the tears trying to leak free right there in the middle of the market, and I knew it was time to call it. Back in the apartment, I woke a slightly disgruntled host to let me back in before he promptly fell back asleep. Slipping through my temporary room and trying not to wake my temporary roommate, I took a book onto the balcony and read. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a great book, one of my new favorites, but it's not exactly a fairy tale to help conquer dark thoughts.

Finally, after a few hours more of moping and pestering my mother via Skype with my need for reassuring words, I gave in to her sage advice: "take a book, go to Starbucks and get a mocha."

In our world, a mocha heals everything. I never really understood how true that was until after snagging a seat in the crowded cafe, 'grande mocha blanc' in hand, I could finally feel those dark clouds lifting. It probably helped that I made something of a friend with a student desperately searching for a place to finish a paper and letting him sit at my table. And the Christmas cups and music and decorations in the background probably had something to do with it. Or maybe it was being able to leave the foreign world I live in and just for the next hour or two, be transported to a familiar place not so far from the world I've known since I was born.

Saturday Snapshot

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books.Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. how much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

Today, I made a trip out to the Trocadero. If you've ever seen pictures where people are posed to be holding, squishing, the same size as, etc, with the Eiffel Tower, this is where it's taken. It's a crush of humanity, but still pleasant with the pipe music of the Peruvian band that was playing in the background. And of course there was the eclectic mix of those people who think it's amusing to have their picture taken as if squishing a French monument, mostly British and German tourists.

What I liked best about the Trocadero is the pool of fountains below. Unfortunately on this trip I wasn't able to get spectacular photos of the water, I'll have to go back. That and the metro ride there. It's one of the few lines where you aren't underground, instead you float (read: bump) along above Paris, cross the Seine and see the Statue of Liberty, French style.

Magic Smiles

I was going to write a post today about my new home, the location, the people, etc. Then I had a "Stupid French Day" that I was going to write about, complete from the point where I thought I was going to be murdered, to finally making it home and breaking down in tears because somewhere along this stupid French day, the charm broke off my new favorite necklace that I picked up in Aix at a little craft/brocante/antique place, and now I can't find it anywhere.

Somewhere in the tears and frustration, my mind decided it needed chocolate in order to cope, or we just weren't going to be able to handle all of this any more. I gave in and blindly stumbled out of the apartment as it was getting dark in my quest for instant gratification and mood

enhancement drug of choice.

This wasn't the familiar, family oriented arrondisment where you couldn't walk a block without seeing a Carrefour, Fanprix, Lidl, or any other market chain where they sell everything for prices akin to American grocery stores, but everything looks cheaper because it's in euros. This arrondisment is old, and full of students and older folks, not many families to be seen. It has boulangerie after boucherie after vegetable market, but no such thing as a grocery. I guess they have something against those establishments whose names don't end with the requisite "ie".

Finally, I saw a metro station, and descended into the city to buy the Navigo Pass that would help prevent my having another stupid French day. The employee behind the ticket counter

smiled at me. Just smiled, and I couldn't help but smile back even though my world was falling apart and I still had no chocolate, and I was about to spend more money on this stupid pass. Still, that smile made everything look brighter, and once I had my pass in possession, I climbed what I thought was the entrance I had used to get down into the metro.

A grocery. Someone had put a place where they had chocolate at not exorbitant prices, right outside the metro for me. Never mind that I ended up quite a ways away from where I actually wanted to be, there was a sort of mea culpa from Paris, apologizing for the stupid French day. "Yeah, we didn't actually mean that. It was just sorta a test to see how much you really loved me. Here's some chocolate to make up for it."

Chocolate in hand, I started back what I thought was they way home. I ended up walking in the wrong direction, could have carried on that way for ages too, but the very nice old man who was walking his dog very slowly stopped in front of me to give his canine friend a pat. That's when I looked up at the street sign and saw my mistake. I even knew how to correct it. The old man and his dog smiled at me and I smiled back and altered my course.

A light misty rain began to fall and in the dark if I ignored all the French signs and made the voices a hum, it took me back to some of my favorite childhood memories. Going to the ballet with my parents when I must have only been four or five, skipping along in my new dress and asking if they thought the people around us thought that I could be playing Clara in the Nutcracker. That magical night when I saw my first opera, Rigoletto, with my dad and how the wet pavement outside seemed to take on an entirely different look, it sparkled. As I saw the smiling parents and children skipping along the damp streets, it was no longer misting rain, it was sprinkling happy memories.

First Night before every new year with my best friend and our two families, and the snow never stuck but melted on contact with the concrete downtown. Halloweens with friends when it was really too cold and wet to go trick or treating, but we all went anyway and then sipped hot apple cider with cinnamon and had chili when we got back home. Those nights when we went to meet Daddy for dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant downtown near his office. Going to the ballet, the opera, a musical, with friends and family.

I felt like that child again as I walked through the glittering streets. It was cold enough for everyone to be wrapped in jackets and scarves and hats, but not bitterly so. It erased the stupid French day from my mind, and proved to me once more that everything is better with a magic smile.

November

November.

It marks the beginning of the second full month I've been in France. This experience has been terrifying, horrible, cold, hot, brilliant, stupid, fantastic, amazing, and beautiful. And above all so far completely worth it.

It also marks the beginning of NaNoWriMo which I'm going to participate in. Problem is, I don't have a story, and I don't want to write my own trip to France story because I might actually want to publish it someday. So I'm down a story idea, and we're nine hours and fifteen minutes into November as I write this.

And because when I'm unprepared and unorganized, I'm really unprepared and unorganized, I'm supposed to be attending a costume party on Saturday. Guess what. I don't have a costume. All the shops are closed here today because it's All Saints Day, and yesterday was Monday which means that not all the shops are open. Oh, here's the kicker: not only do I have to find a costume idea by the 5th, it has to start with either M or I.

Moulin Rouge dancer

French Maid

Indian

Irish

Miss America

Marianne

Match

iPod

All of these are suggestions I've received, each one has merit of its own I suppose, but how do I pick and what do I wear? I'm probably stressing out over this more than I should, but that's because I don't want to think about the other thing I really need to be stressing over which is a completely different blog post.

I promise I'll get it together and post pictures and write about my fantastic time in the Alps, and get you up to speed with what's happening now and the hilarious time I've been having with Delana@http://delana-dujour.blogspot.com/>duJour (that's a whole new story that we have to get into). I've decided that November is my month to have a post every day, so get ready for some that are mostly pictures.

Meantime, brainstorm some ideas for me? I need a costume by Saturday and a novel idea by...a week ago.

Ready? GO!