Hands down, this past weekend was my best in France -- ok vacation in Tours was great, but this was different and more special.
After already speaking in French and eating food immensely yesterday, today continued on that same theme. But this time I hopped on the train to Toulon where some friends of family friends (confusing, huh?) drove me 30 minutes into the Provence countryside in a little village called Forcalqueiret. There, said family friends have a large eight-bedroom house that's been converted into a hotel. The second Sunday of every month, they invite all their friends over for an insanely large meal, with the principle of bringing friends together to enjoy French culture, gastronomie (of course!), and philosophy.
They'd invited me to the Galère in October, but I was too busy with moving in and sorting my life out to attend. So I picked November to come and I'm really glad I decided to. Interestingly enough, the guest speaker this month -- the philosophy part of the meeting -- was a fairly well-known and published lecturer on the degradation of the French language. Figures that his assigned seat was directly across from mine. A subtle hint on Jean-Claude's part?? But before I ever opened my mouth, he started talking about how foreign words were infiltrating the French language, mainly from the Internet and English vocabulary. I don't think he intended it in a rude way, then again he's French so he probably did, but he's very proud of his country and language and holds firmly to the old-school thought that it's necessary to preserve one's history through language. He actually took to me quite quickly the more I spoke because he's fluent in English, though not a single word was exchanged in English the entire day -- aside from his examples of words infiltrating the language.
One of his friends also latched onto my conversation very quickly because he had plenty of questions about the United States and my opinions on the comparisons between France and the U.S. Oh yeah, did I mention that the age of this group ranged from 55 to 98? So hence a lot of the very proud opinions on display in that room. Again though, they fondly labeled me "la petite Américaine," from which I could detect a hint of compassion in their voices.
Where I'm getting with this though, is the 98 year-old -- my great-aunt Yvonne. This is the fifth time I've visited her in France, however it was the first time I'd seen her in a wheel chair. She was another example of the elder French generation that I remember so vividly who was very proud of herself and her autonomy.
Me and my great-aunt, just after having stuffed our faces with white cake filled with fruit chunks and frosted with a maple-chocolate glaze, mmmmm. The cake was for another member's 80th birthday. To which Jean-Claude joked, "No one is allowed to die until after April 2009" (Yvonne's 100th birthday).
Every time I have to reintroduce myself to her, because she has a hard time remembering my family. She takes to my dad quickly because he's usually the one taking care of her and speaking to her the most. But today was my turn; I looked after her during lunch and tried to get her to speak a little bit when everyone else started having their own side conversations amongst themselves. Yvonne also is a regular attendee at these gatherings and supposedly she'd been a little down over the last few months. When I was leaving, they told me that she looked the happiest since her recent "pouty-period" and when I left to catch my train, she kept looking for me. That's really touching.
Speaking of touching, it really hurt to reintroduce myself this time because after Patrick seemed to have exhausted every connection between us, he finally remembered to tell her that I'm the granddaughter of her sister, Thérèse. Then Yvonne looked a little upset in that older-sister way I know all too well and asked, "How is she? She hasn't written me in a very long time."
I looked at Patrick blankly and was at a loss for words. We've told her time and time again that she passed away but it's a concept that she just hasn't been able to grasp. He could tell that I was kind of shocked by the question and quickly picked up the ball saying, "She's well," looking at me to follow suit. Feebly I replied, "She says to tell you 'hi.'"
And that was it. I even felt my eyes start to sting and well up a little bit during that moment. Even as they're starting to now.
But it was a great time and I can't stress enough how glad I was to have been invited. It's just really making me realize how much I miss my family.
After already speaking in French and eating food immensely yesterday, today continued on that same theme. But this time I hopped on the train to Toulon where some friends of family friends (confusing, huh?) drove me 30 minutes into the Provence countryside in a little village called Forcalqueiret. There, said family friends have a large eight-bedroom house that's been converted into a hotel. The second Sunday of every month, they invite all their friends over for an insanely large meal, with the principle of bringing friends together to enjoy French culture, gastronomie (of course!), and philosophy.
They'd invited me to the Galère in October, but I was too busy with moving in and sorting my life out to attend. So I picked November to come and I'm really glad I decided to. Interestingly enough, the guest speaker this month -- the philosophy part of the meeting -- was a fairly well-known and published lecturer on the degradation of the French language. Figures that his assigned seat was directly across from mine. A subtle hint on Jean-Claude's part?? But before I ever opened my mouth, he started talking about how foreign words were infiltrating the French language, mainly from the Internet and English vocabulary. I don't think he intended it in a rude way, then again he's French so he probably did, but he's very proud of his country and language and holds firmly to the old-school thought that it's necessary to preserve one's history through language. He actually took to me quite quickly the more I spoke because he's fluent in English, though not a single word was exchanged in English the entire day -- aside from his examples of words infiltrating the language.
One of his friends also latched onto my conversation very quickly because he had plenty of questions about the United States and my opinions on the comparisons between France and the U.S. Oh yeah, did I mention that the age of this group ranged from 55 to 98? So hence a lot of the very proud opinions on display in that room. Again though, they fondly labeled me "la petite Américaine," from which I could detect a hint of compassion in their voices.
Where I'm getting with this though, is the 98 year-old -- my great-aunt Yvonne. This is the fifth time I've visited her in France, however it was the first time I'd seen her in a wheel chair. She was another example of the elder French generation that I remember so vividly who was very proud of herself and her autonomy.
Me and my great-aunt, just after having stuffed our faces with white cake filled with fruit chunks and frosted with a maple-chocolate glaze, mmmmm. The cake was for another member's 80th birthday. To which Jean-Claude joked, "No one is allowed to die until after April 2009" (Yvonne's 100th birthday).Every time I have to reintroduce myself to her, because she has a hard time remembering my family. She takes to my dad quickly because he's usually the one taking care of her and speaking to her the most. But today was my turn; I looked after her during lunch and tried to get her to speak a little bit when everyone else started having their own side conversations amongst themselves. Yvonne also is a regular attendee at these gatherings and supposedly she'd been a little down over the last few months. When I was leaving, they told me that she looked the happiest since her recent "pouty-period" and when I left to catch my train, she kept looking for me. That's really touching.
Speaking of touching, it really hurt to reintroduce myself this time because after Patrick seemed to have exhausted every connection between us, he finally remembered to tell her that I'm the granddaughter of her sister, Thérèse. Then Yvonne looked a little upset in that older-sister way I know all too well and asked, "How is she? She hasn't written me in a very long time."
I looked at Patrick blankly and was at a loss for words. We've told her time and time again that she passed away but it's a concept that she just hasn't been able to grasp. He could tell that I was kind of shocked by the question and quickly picked up the ball saying, "She's well," looking at me to follow suit. Feebly I replied, "She says to tell you 'hi.'"
And that was it. I even felt my eyes start to sting and well up a little bit during that moment. Even as they're starting to now.
But it was a great time and I can't stress enough how glad I was to have been invited. It's just really making me realize how much I miss my family.
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