Dark Blue/Grey

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I’m not sure what my problem is today, but I for the life of me cannot finish the simple task of packing my one tiny little suitcase for my Eastern European adventure. I washed and folded all of my clothes earlier this week. I neatly arranged all of my options on my bed between classes this morning. So why can’t I just pick out what I want and put it in that damn purple bag?! One of my main hang ups seems to be choosing between my dark blue and my light grey jeans. This is probably the dumbest problem anyone has ever had. It seems to be symbolic of my life: easy and comfortable but often made “difficult” by trivial choices that I often overanalyze. My indecisiveness is clearly one of my more attractive qualities.

It’s also probably somewhat the result of my current “limbo” state of being. Not knowing when I’ll be heading home. Not knowing if I’ll be hired for the most amazing summer job of my life. Having absolutely no backup to said wonderful summer job. Having no future projections past said wonderful summer job. Feeling so unbelievably ready to be done with teaching and return to Minnesota/feeling an overwhelming surge of jealousy at the sight of five friends posting joyful facebook statuses of their acceptance as teaching assistants for the fall. Wanting to go out and enjoy the last Friday before vacation/wanting to stay in to shake off the lasting dregs of yet another cold. Flurgh. Boy needs to get it together.

On a much happier note… I’M GOING TO POLAND TOMORROW AND I COULD NOT BE MORE JAZZED! My friend Victoria and I have planned a stellar tour of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, mostly with the intent to make headlines by running all of Eastern Europe into a terrible food crisis by eating anything and everything they have to offer. Watch out Slavs – one dynamic digestion duo is coming for your provisions. As Tina Fey so aptly described Slavic food in her book Bossypants (which I highly recommend you read/listen to on audiobook) “… it’s buttery and delicious. It’s just potatoes, rice, meat, and cabbage in an endless series of combinations.” I fully intend to eat my entire body weight in pierogi. Every night. This may actually be possible since Eastern European currency is worth approximately nothing compared to the Euro. It’s going to be fabulously gluttonous, and I can’t wait!

Because of this wonderful 13 day voyage, I probably won’t be posting anything new until I get back. At that point, be ready for me to lay it on thick. Like Polish butter thick. Or thin if all we end up doing is eating and I have nothing else to describe but the appetizing confections I have consumed. Since I’ll be missing two photo sundays, I’m going to get a head start and show you what I’ve been up to over the past five days (I had to retype that 4 times to keep myself from saying “fast pive days”). It hasn’t been a whole lot since I caught myself  a lovely cold on Sunday and have been pretty bummed about the fact that Alex had to head home to Germany on Wednesday… That being said, here are some pix for your viewing displeasure:

Day 19: sick and sleepy

Day 20: sickness continued. my ever so lovely tonsils.

Day 21: Alex left today. The house feels rather empty without her here. Bisous ma chérie!

Day 22: Day trip to Binic. Taken with the assistance of Kate P!

Day 23: sunny afternoon spent reading "Le Neveu Du Magicien" by C.S. Lewis in my favorite reading tree

Must go to sleep now! Travel day tomorrow! Bisous xoxoxoxoxoxo

P.S. For those of your concerned, I decided on the dark blue over the grey.

How Stephen Got His Groove Back

Well shit. Looks like another month has come and gone without much notice, and without much commentary on my behalf. I’d like to say that I barely wrote anything during the second half of January because I was out and about, busy beyond belief without a second to spare and never on the internet, but that would be a blatant lie. The truth is quite the opposite to be perfectly honest. As I mentioned before, I had gotten myself into a bit of a mid-year slump after the holidays, and though I tried to pull myself out of it as quickly as possible, these things take some time. Cooking and baking and blogging have all been helpful tools, but being stuck in Saint-Brieuc for the the entire month of January was a bit of a road block. When I wasn’t preoccupied with the oven, I found myself in my room watching things like Downton Abbey (which, by the way, is an amazing show that I highly recommend watching if you haven’t yet) and eating more than my fair share of desserts. I was far from being clinically depressed, but was still highly unmotivated thanks to a bout cold weather, the unglamorous ‘city’ of Saint-Brieuc, and an ever impending sense of doom looming over my undecided future. Dramatic much? Oui.

Luckily, February has thus far been a breath of fresh air and the rest of the month is full of promise. Out of nowhere, there seems to be so much to do and see! Being too busy to write has become a legitimate excuse over the past week, and the fun of February isn’t even half over! With a road trip to Normandy and a pseudo-weekend in Rennes already under my belt, I still have a week long trip to Picardie followed by an Italian tour to look forward to! My mind has been a little all over the place lately trying to keep the travel plans straight for all four of these trips, but it’s kept me busy and anxious in an excited way. Places to go! People to see! Much better than brooding in my bed. Who ever would’ve thought February could be so grand?

As I headed out to Normandy this past weekend in a nine person “mini-bus” with my Franco-American crew, I couldn’t help but recall another voyage made not so long ago. Last January during interim break, I headed South with my friends Sarah, Clara, Ann, and Laurel for an Arkansan adventure that I’ll never forget. The week we spent in Conway was by far one of the most hilarious and enjoyable times of my conscious life, both extremely exciting and incredibly relaxing. Being in warm weather, going on mountainous walks, singing show tunes at the dinner table, drinking $1.99 margarita’s at JJ’s, giving into/falling in love with country music, cave diving, curling up on couches, learning about places like Pickle’s Gap and Toad Suck, baking buttloads of cookies and decorating a staggering number of Valentine’s Day cards made for a welcome recess from freezing/studying our asses off at Olaf. Breaking routine, visiting somewhere new, and being surrounded by wonderful people gave everything a new light. There was a sense of comfort and openness with my friends after being together day and night for the entirety of break. It’s so easy to get caught up in the stresses of life, but weeks like that help you notice how happy things can be when you let go and have some uninhibited fun. #clichécentralbutwhateveritstrue #ewijustusedahashtag

The beginning of something beautiful

happy beings behind falsely angry façades

hot potatoes make the world go round and cause awkward photographic reactions

The MOST Valentine's Arkansas has ever seen

The weekend at my friend Leslie’s in Normandy essentially served the same revitalizing purpose as the week in Arkansas but in a much more urgently-needed and heightened sense. Getting the heck out of St-B. and letting things loose in the country shook things up and made me giddy. Making homemade pizza in a giant brick oven, sipping on cidre and wine, cuddling with an adorable dog, seeing the tragically beautiful beaches of Normandy, visiting the epic tapestry of Bayeux, gathering around a raclette, wandering around the countryside, playing charades and trivial pursuit, watching the Superbowl (for the sake of Madonna), getting snowed-in and missing a full day of work (snow days do still exist!), and marveling at Le Mont Saint-Michel made for a memorable weekend that has given me a firm shove out of my previous slump status. My life is nuts, in a good way. I’m sending out a MILLION thanks to Leslie and Allie for making this weekend happen! You two are the bomb.

Kate presenting Leslie's cozy little home

HOMEMADE PIZZA

Raclette Dinner chez Leslie

Le Mont St-Michel

Even though the characters and settings of my life continue to change, there are certain things that remain true:

• traveling with someone is one of the best ways to really get to know them
• cold weather is relative
• snow days are always the best days
• road trips are always the best trips
• food brings people together, namely potatoes
• charades requires more skill than you think
• sleeping between two people is starts out as a wonderful idea until you become a fiery hot mess
• 90s jams alway make the perfect car ride soundtrack

My upgraded emotional status stuck with me throughout this week as more classes were canceled (making this a four-day-work-MONTH) and as I headed to Rennes on Tuesday afternoon for a mid-week weekend. Our last-minute-guest-conductor-turned-new-found-friend from last year’s orchestra tour, Tito Munoz, was in town directing Bejamin Britten’s opera,  The Turn of the Screw. I got to see the show with my resident Rennes friends (Mary Claire, Berit, and most recently relocated Steph!), and got a chance to hang out/catch up with Tito after the show which was great! Talking about last year’s tour made me freshly miss orchestra, but there was a welcomed sense of nostalgia and plenty of other things to talk about to keep us from focusing too heavily on the past. My days off gave me plenty of time to get in some good one-on-one time with Steph and Berit as well, nicely rounding off my time in Rennes.

So that’s more or less where my life is at. There’s still plenty to worry about (and a mouthful of canker sores to prove it), with my sister out of commission thanks to her gallbladder, open-ended travel plans, unplanned lessons to teach, and my future continuing to be 100% uncertain, but present life is pretty good with trips on either side of me. My chin is up, and I’m ready for more fun. Come and join my party! Catch ya on the other side of Italy!

Bisous bisous xoxo

Ready or not

As a twenty-two year old liberal arts graduate spending a year teaching abroad in France, of all places, a blog seems practically obligatory in this day and age. All the cool kids are doing it. I’m quite the twenty-first century cliché, I know. While I don’t expect anyone other than my mother to read this on a regular basis, a blog seems like a good way to cope with the current transitions in my life, organize my thoughts, and stay connected with those far away. If nothing else, it will exist as a souvenir to aid my less than perfect memory in recalling this time away.

My optimistic side hopes that I will have hilarious anecdotes and beautiful, serendipitous moments to share with everyone, while my cynical side worries that I will have to rely on my creative writing skills to come up with interesting falsehoods to keep you all reading. Reality may find me somewhere in between the two, forcing myself to shade real life events with more colorful details. We’ll see. My inner student sadistically mourns the loss of writing assignments, so blogging will also act as a friendly replacement for research papers and rédactions. I am doubtful that the things I write about will amount to the side-splitting hilarity of Lindsay Berg’s From Russia With Love, or the thoughtful insight of Clara’s Second Set of Baby Steps, but I do anticipate having things worth writing about! If not, I can always post a pretty picture to make up for it.

But enough about blogging. The more important thing here… I’M MOVING TO FRANCE! It has taken awhile to really set in thanks to the emotional rollercoaster of graduation, the move back home for the summer, a rather unfortunate job as a barista at a highly unsuccessful café in the ‘burbs, and some fun summer activities with friends to distract me. With the move creeping up so quickly, however, it is finally starting to hit me: I’m not packing the van and heading back to St. Olaf. I’m packing my suitcase and flying to France. This last summer has definitely had its highs and lows, and I’m feeling quite ready for it to be over. Peace out America, I’m heading to Franceland. Exchanging the red, white, and blue for the bleu, blanc, et rouge, trading out cold weather beanies for fashion-forward berets, and bracing myself for an abundance of cheese and wine. Though the two teeter back and forth constantly on a not so stable scale, excitement is outweighing anxiety at this point. In spite of the myriad of stresses of moving and my never-ending to-do list, life seems pretty great right now.

La vie en France seems like such a romantic idea, and having been there before, I’m well aware of its beauty and charm. There are countless things about Minnesota that will be dearly missed such as my family, friends, pets, and brown sugar to mention a few, but I am pumped beyond belief for what awaits overseas! While I was originally hoping for my teaching assignment to be in a larger city like Rennes, Lyon or Paris, I have fully embraced the idea of life in a smaller French town. I anticipate my life in Saint-Brieuc to be something like this:

Not really. But kind of. One can hope, right? Won’t know until I get there, I suppose. I would surely appreciate this kind of provincial life more than Belle ever did. With a population of approximately 46,000 (more than double that of Northfield!) it probably won’t be the quant village life of Belle I’m imagining, but it still seems quite charming. In all seriousness, though, as long as there is a boulangerie nearby with fresh baguettes, coastal views, and people to speak French with, I will be more than happy.

Time to return to the aforementioned to-do list. Next up: Garage sale.

Grosses bises (xoxo)