Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As you may have noticed I have not been updating this as frequently. I am working on getting better about that. I am finding myself less motivated to write at all. This frustrates me because I love to write and it is how I process things and I am just...going. Experiencing yes, but I don't know. So if you are reading this...thank you and any encouragement is greatly appreciated. 

May 15, 2016

     It has now been a full week. It doesn't feel like a whole week. Rather it feels substantially shorter and infinitely longer. This, while being a bit rough at times, has been a great weekend. The children are starting to behave better in pieces, and I am understanding things better...in pieces. You never realize your deficiencies in a language until you find yourself in a situation where you are desperately looking for the proper vocabulary to explain something you really need to a native speaker. However, and maybe it's because I haven't been to Paris yet, but the people here are not rude. Well, not if you're at least trying to speak the language. I am fairly fluent, but I struggle immensely. My vocabulary is not what it should be and my grammar is spotty.

     One example was Saturday, which was wonderful. After helping the kids with their homework until lunch I got to go to St. Germain for a few hours on my own. It was delightful. I just walked around (in my Stitch dress) and just explored. I needed a book for class so I actually stumbled upon the bookstore by accident. It was quite busy so it took a while for the man working there to be available. As soon as I started to explain what I needed I felt my face turn bright red because I was flustered. I tried repeating the name of the book, but sensing that I was struggling asked (in English) if it would be easier in English. Slightly defeated I said yes and even after I repeated it he didn't understand and quickly slid me a piece of paper and pen to me and asked if I could write it. As I did he stopped me after a few letters and (in French) apologized, saying that it was not my French, but simply that he thought that I was saying a different but very similar word and immediately said that he knew precisely the book and beckoned me to follow. That...that was incredibly encouraging.

     I was able to go to several stores and in somewhat broken French explain and obtain exactly what I was wanting. That felt good. I found a comic book store and drank a caffeinated milkshake on the steps of a beautiful church across from the chateau, I had a woman approach me randomly and then proceeded to tell me that she liked my dress and that summer would be soon, but not yet and that she hoped that it would be pleasant. I just...wandered around the city and it was pretty fantastic. The thing about France that takes a bit of getting used to is that the restaurants etc. only have certain times that they serve food. People typically eat out typically at the same time and dinner services is not until 7 in some places after their lunch ends at 2. So if you are hungry for dinner at 5 you are out of luck save for little sandwich shops. So instead I went to a pub for hot chocolate (because that's a thing here) hoping for a bit to eat, but I'd hit the in between time, so I enjoyed the hot chocolate, which was delicious, and returned to the house. It was a good day, such a good day.

     As I talked with my Apryl I told her that here I feel...right. Even though a part of me is in constant panic and I get flustered easily, but it's good. It's not real. Well, it doesn't feel real even though I know it is. Every day I stop and say to myself, "Je suis en France. Je suis en France. Je suis en France." I am in France. I am in France. I am in France. I feel that maybe if I repeat it enough times it will be more cemented in my head that I am really here. I am really doing it. Even in the small moments I freak out or a wave of missing my family hits me hard I have a simple mantra: "It's good. It's good. It's good." It is...good. Not easy. Not without its downfalls and moments of tiny terror, but it is good. C'est si bon.

-Alicia R. Farrar

June 13, 2016

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Monday May 9, 2016

     It's just a pastry...presumably. However, the iconography of its flaky deliciousness extends to a childhood filled with wonder at an animated depiction of a village where you could buy bread, still warm and fresh from the oven. I'm not expecting its inhabitants to burst into song (oh but wouldn't that be wonderful). So today the croissant was ordered for me alongside bread, titled 'Viking', that was for the family. "You always say 'bonjour' to everyone," my host mother, Rebecca, whispered to me. (Which of course made me think that maybe if I started the song they'd join in.) As they spoke, Rebecca and the shopkeeper I realize I am understanding more and more French. This does not change the fact that I have brought grammar books and dictionaries and struggle immensely whenever I have to speak to someone when it is their native language. I on the verge of panic, but I am getting better. It does not change the fact that I am taking a French class in "town" which for us is Saint Germain-En-Laye. There is a chateau in said town. It was when the Sun King wanted to live it down a little from Versailles and "slum" it a bit. 

     I look outside from the large window in my room. It is a window where I cannot bear to close the shutters because of both the natural light and the fact that the shutters are metal and the other bit is the view. My room looks out into "the garden". That it what they call it because the family I am staying with has an English mother and a German/ French father so a lot of very British vocabulary is slowly trickling into my vernacular. So it is not the backyard I see from my window, it is the garden and of course I have to giggle as I do so past the small Toothless figurines, Mjolnir, and the small "One Ring" I have on my windowsill. It's a backyard with trees and little flowers littering the grasses growing sporadically in tufts of white, yellow, and a glorious blue. However, it is not the backyard, it is the garden which we "pop into" and I am very grateful that their first language is English. Of course, we speak French with each other fairly frequently thus far. It was the highest praise when the twins' tennis instructor said that my French is very good, not even with the stipulation 'for an American' but simply 'very good'. Everything around here closes for lunch time in the village I am in. However, there are not many restaurants here, which actually really surprised me. Apparently, save for Paris, restaurants are not really something people frequent as they are quite expensive. Most people go home for lunch and cook a meal, so most businesses are closed for around two hours around lunch time.

     I saw my first chateau today in Saint Germain. It is so beautiful and the whole city is just incredible. People walk everywhere. Aside for the scarcity, parking is a logistical nightmare. All the streets are incredibly narrow, which makes me nervous about driving here. They are going to try to get me a new car to get the kids to school, but apparently driving a car is a ridiculous ordeal around here. There is so much that's so different, but it's good and I am so happy to be here. Today Benji (the oldest at 13) has informed me that I am the best Au Pair they have ever had by far.

I'll take it.

-Alicia R. Farrar
5/24/2016