Hello,
I know it’s been a while, but I
have to tell you honestly that I’m glad to see you again. The best explanation
I have for you is that the homesickness hit me at the same time I figured out
how to articulate what I’d discovered in relation to nationality and ethnicity.
Wallowing apparently takes an inordinate amount of energy; so much energy in
fact that posting blogs is wildly unappetizing. It’s terrible, I don’t suggest
it. Turns out there is an idiot-proof way to deal with homesickness and general
disappointment with the world: be busy.
And I don’t mean putter around
the house cleaning, I mean like… be busy! Last Monday (July 8th,
my birthday) was the first day of my DELF language preparation course. I went
from having a very large amount of time to mope, to having nearly none. I
should back up and explain a few things though. First, the DELF is the French
language equivalent of the TOEFL, which are standardized language exams with standardized
levels. Once you write this exam and pass a grade, you’ve got an international
certificate stating that you are a beginner, independent user or expert in that
language. Being as I’ll have spent four months here by the time I finish, I should
definitely have something on my resume, right? Well, once I started the DELF
prep I got busy. I went from 20 minutes of homework each night (as a
maximum) to like… nearly 2 hours. I’m not even exaggerating that.
… Surprise?
On the bright side after two weeks of being forced to concentrate on
things that had nothing to do with being homesick, and exercising, and eating
food that makes me happy, and going to the beach, I feel much better.
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| Jump pictures are the best. |
Better enough, in fact, that I
even remembered to take a picture of Poisson (ligne 3, the fish tram), which is
the tram that takes you to the beach.
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| Ligne 3, Poisson. The prettiest of the four tram lines in Montpellier. |
Better enough that I started to
smile when I saw silly things in the street, like the SDF helping their dogs
into the fountains on hot days so that they could cool off.
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| He actually had to pick up the third dog (who was smaller) and lift him into the fountain. It was adorable. |
Better enough that I went to
Estivales with Frank (from Saskatoon )
and Laura, and actually enjoyed myself. You see, every Friday in Montpellier there’s an
event called ‘les Estivales’, which is a summer wine festival. Every Friday 35
different local wine producers come into town, set up a booth, and showcase a
red, rose, and white wine each. For 5 Euros you get a wine glass, and tickets
for tasting 3 different wines of your choice. It’s really the most inexpensive
way to wine taste I’ve ever encountered. However… there is a dark side to these
Estivales… and I don’t mean that the youth turn into wild things and
brawl/shout/be drunk, but that should be considered too. No no, I mean that for
the amazing price of 5 Euros for three half-glasses of wine, you run the very
real risk of tasting some seriously terrible wine.
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| The only picture I have of Frank. We were all at the American bagel shop, eating pecan pie after lunch. |
Herein begins the story of the
most terrible wine I have ever attempted to drink.
The first two wines the three of
us tasted were actually pretty good. I enjoyed the red wine we tried first, and
the white that we had second I really liked. I should have cut my losses at
that white and just bought a bottle. Past-Kenna… you foolish, foolish creature.
Unfortunately for Past-Kenna, she didn’t stop at the second glass, and tasted a
third. We went to the Pic-St.-Loup booth and lined up, I believe it was Laura
and I who tried the white, and Frank who tried the rose. Mon dieu, the white
was terrible. It hit your tongue as fresh, dry, and a little fruity… but then
this aftertaste came at you. It started at the back of your mouth and crept up
along your gums like something alive. I sat in the center of your tongue and
beat your taste buds into cruel submission. It got stronger!
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| http://www.montpellier.fr/2317-les-estivales.htm |
Ok, I’m exaggerating slightly for
dramatic effect, but honestly! The aftertaste did get stronger in your mouth
the longer you left it, and it was seriously bad. Think: stale pile of leaves
on a moist fall day. Wine should be a delight to drink! Wine should make you
happy. Some are heady, some are zesty, some are crisp, some are smooth… this
one came out to Estivales because Pic-St.-Loup realized that the best way to get
rid of it was by practically giving it away. Laura - trooper that she is – stated
that there was no such thing as bad wine and finished it. I – who believe that
life is too short to drink bad wine – dumped it.
Turns out that was the best
choice I made all evening.
Estivales is crowded, so we found
ourselves one of the big trees along the Esplanade Charles deGaulle (where it’s
held) and figured that would be the most polite place to dispose of the rank
wine. It felt wrong to just dump or throw the wine at the base of the tree
though, for some reason my tipsy mind decided that was much too crass a
treatment, even for this particular wine. You’ll have to just roll with me on
this one… I thought it would be best to distribute the wine equally around the
trunk, and that that would be somehow less crass than just splashing it
all messily in one spot. So with (what I’m told was) a look of great
concentration, I poured a neat little trail of wine around the tree in a
perfect circle. Once I’d finished, I looked up at Frank and Laura (who were
staring at me like I was insane) and smiled, all proud of myself. Then the two
of them caught sight of something behind me and started to laugh so hard they
nearly spilled their wine.
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| This was the Sacrificial Tree. Now it's where we pour bad wine all the time. Potentially this tree will be dead by the end of the summer, and I will feel terribly guilty for killing it with bad wine. |
I checked behind me. Next to the
tree was a random French man, about my age, dressed in a grey zip-up sweater
and sweatpants, with his ballcap on backwards, giving me the most incredulous
look I’ve encountered in this country to date. He was understandably a little
shocked and confused about what he’d just witnessed, mostly (Frank tells me)
because it looked kind of like I was doing some sort of occult ritual. (If
anyone knows anything about occult rituals it’s Frank, who studies that sort of
thing for a living, so I’m going to have to trust him on this one) The look on
the random French man’s face also conveyed his intense curiosity as to what I
was drinking, and if maybe he should be doing what I was doing too, because he’d
missed something somewhere.
Once we’d explained our encounter
with the bad wine he laughed too, nodded, and then kind of slid away; because
sometimes the crazy is contagious, clearly.
I laughed so hard I cried.
That’s my solution for you, when
homesickness hits. Sign up for something that forces you to do something (ex: lots of homework), exercise,
and drink bad wine until you laugh so hard you cry. It probably won’t work
every time, but it’s a solid start.
… go easy on the occult rituals
though. I have a feeling those are outlawed in most countries.
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