Give Good Energy, Get Good Energy

Week 27: 03/16 – 03/23

Welcome to /miel/, a written account of my life and what my days hold here in France. Thank you for coming to read today.

*Quick announcement: Please do NOT send any mail beginning April 1, unless it is GUARANTEED to arrive before April 14. I will not be at my French address after April 14.*

Okay, let's get into it!

Thursday night, Nicole, Maru and I met up in Paris so we could take an overnight bus to the south of France! After catching up at a café in Paris, we went to the Flixbus bus station to catch our bus leaving at 10 pm. It was packed, but luckily we got to sit together. The ride took a total of TEN hours! So we arrived in Toulouse around 8 am on Friday. I realized how lucky it is to be able to sleep on public transport like that, as I got a full 5-6 hours of sleep, whereas Maru and Nicole got maybe an hour or two. It definitely was not as comfy as preferred, but it’ll do. We had the option to take a train or even to fly, but these options were much more expensive.

We spent the day in Toulouse, and while we were expecting warmth and sunshine (because it’s the south), we were unfortunately met with grey skies, rain, and extremely powerful wind. After having a much needed coffee, brushing our teeth in the restaurant, and applying lotion and makeup at the table, we mustered up the will to brave the wind and rain.

First stop, we went to the Capitol building, as it was said to be very pretty and the reviews were right! We entered, and it was filled with paintings and frescos and murals, and we also got to see the municipal room where the governmental meetings are held. In this building, it is also very common to get married, and it was evident why, because it was so beautiful and big. That’s something I love about a lot of the buildings here, especially government buildings, is that they always have HUGE windows and they have so much natural light, that they rarely have the lights on.

We wandered around some more, before heading to the train station to head to our lodging for the night. As we crossed the bridge over the river to get to the train station, we thought we might get blown off the bridge the wind was so strong! Luckily we made it safely across, but our hair was a bit frizzy afterwards.

Nicole’s school director offered to us her house in Carcassonne (about one hour east of Toulouse) for the weekend, which is why we decided to go here in the south anyway!

Due to a lot of the strikes, we had to take the last train to Carcassonne at 4:30 pm, but it worked for us because we were tired by about 2/3 pm anyway. The house was perfect! We had two rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room and all. The house was placed perfectly, right across from a boulangerie. That night, we made pesto pasta for dinner while we watched Shrek 4 (dubbed in French of course), and we went to bed early around 10/11:00.

Saturday, we stayed in Carcassonne for the day, which is one of my favorite towns I have seen so far. It is smaller than Toulouse, and it has a huge citadelle! I don’t know exactly what a citadelle is, but it’s some type of military fortress used in the old, old days . However the one in Carcassonne isn’t just one building (like the one I previously saw in Lille). It is an entire town inside the fortified walls! There are hotels, shops, restaurants, bars, everything, including a castle! We were able to tour the castle, the exterior a bit, and ended our day with a nice cold beer at a bar inside the citadelle. If you’ve seen Lord of the Rings, picture the castle in the second movie, Two Towers, and that is a good representation of what we were seeing! It was really neat, and our favorite part of the trip.

We visited the cathedral inside the citadelle as well, where I saw the MOST beautiful stained glass I have ever seen. It took my breath away. It was so unique, so bright, so beautiful. It is attached to the bottom of this post.

We took a bus back to the house, and had a girls night in. More pesto pasta, some wine, and just having genuine and heartfelt conversation. These are two of my best friends here, and I feel so blessed every time I get to see them and hang out with them. It’s easy, it’s simple, and it’s warm.

Sunday morning, we packed up, and had to take a bus from our house to the train station, so we could take a train back to Toulouse. However, in France, many things don’t work on Sundays. Shops aren’t open, very limited hours, a lot of public transport is limited, including buses. So, we walked 30 minutes to the nearest bus stop that was on this special Sunday bus route. Unfortunately we didn’t have a nice pedestrian sidewalk, nor a bike lane, but rather we walked on the side of a major highway. We tried to hitchhike, but gave up about 20 minutes into the walk. We made it safely to the bus stop, we caught the bus, and made it back to the train station.

Riding back into Toulouse was easy, and we had the entire day since our bus back to Paris wasn’t until 9 pm (another night bus). This day, we had our packed lunch down at the pier, while we looked at the oldest bridge in Toulouse, Pont Neuf, and soaked up the sun that we were lucky enough to have on Sunday! We decided we needed a coffee afterwards, so we hit a café and sat on the patio for a couple hours. We soaked up the sun some more, even though there were a couple downpours in between the sunbathing. A woman next to us ended up being from Baltimore, but lives in London, and was visiting a friend in Toulouse. We talked with her a bit, as she was going to Portugal next, so Nicole gave her all the tips from her past vacation trip, and in exchange we got London tips for our trip in a couple weeks.

We finally ventured to the cathedral/basilica, which is the largest Romanesque church in Europe (or France, I’m not sure now). It was beautiful! Not my favorite I have seen, but it was definitely beautiful.

We then went to the Ancient History Museum, where we saw all of the Greek and Roman influence that has been represented in Toulouse and in France nationwide. It isn’t usually my favorite type of museum, but it was cool to see of course.

Finally, it was dinner time. Toulouse is known for their cassoulet, a dish with white beans, duck, and pork. Duck is a HUGE thing in Toulouse. Nicole and I knew that we had to try it (Maru doesn’t eat meat), so we split the dish and it was good! I tried it all, and the sauce was delicious, the beans were perfect, the pork sausage was decent, and the duck was… good but not my thing. I have never really cared for duck, but I tried it anyway. Nicole really likes duck and she said it was very good, so you can take her opinion over mine.

Around 8:30 pm, we went to the bus station, said goodbye to Maru (she was on a different bus), and took it all the way back to Paris. We arrived at 6 am, where Nicole and I got on the first train back to Noyon because I had to teach at 10 am! It was a little daring of me to do this, and I did get nervous because of the train delays and cancellations due to the strike, but we made it! I was on time for class, with plenty of time to spare.

Everyone was SO NICE here in the south, we were continually impressed by the kindness of the bus drivers, the servers, the random people we talked to. The servers were especially nice, as they spoke French with us and were much nicer and more patient than those in Paris. So, I think it's true, a lot of people are nicer in the south of France! The joke here is that they are nicer because they have more sunshine than us who live in the Picardie up in the north where it's grey every day... Apparently this remains true!

The rest of the week has been good and mostly uneventful.

Monday was a rest day after class, and Tuesday was my big work day with 6 hours (I know, so long right?) Wednesday night, we hosted some colleagues over for dinner. We had some different cakes, bread, cheese, wine, and Nicole and I made a salad with spinach, arugula, pomegranate, feta, green apple, and a delicious lemon vinaigrette. It was SO GOOD, I want more just thinking about it.

It’s always fun to have a dinner with these people, and it also tests your French knowledge a LOT. There’s always about 3 conversations going on at the same time, and the amount of slang used makes you have to focus really hard. They are nice with us and if we are confused, they will slow down, explain and make sure we know how to use the new vocabulary. They’re the best.

Today is Friday (when I wrote this), and I am headed to Amsterdam to see our old foreign exchange student, Jessika! She is actually Finnish, but she is currently living in Amsterdam with her boyfriend. It has been a long time since we’ve seen each other, so we’re excited! We will be going to a concert tonight, visiting a bunch of museums, and hopefully there will be a little bit of sun.

I only have three weeks left of work. It’s weird, it has passed so quickly. While I’m ready to be home, I know that I will miss certain things about Noyon, about France, about Europe. Even though my contract ends in three weeks, I will be exploring much more of Europe until the end of May when I’ll fly back home. I’m still planning all of that, but it is coming together.

TL:DR

High: Visiting Toulouse and Carcassonne with my best friends here.

High #2: Travelling a bunch, and always seeing new things with good people.

Low: Not enough sun in the south last weekend!

New French Word:

extrenuant – strenuous

Lesson(s) Learned:

1. It’s not always sunny in the south, but with good people, it feels like it anyway.

2. I am going to miss having public transportation.

3. Having hope and being optimistic is very rarely a bad thing (dare I say never?)

4. It’s possible to travel with a 26L backpack for 6 weeks, let’s see if I can really do it.

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Until next week, I wish you all well. I miss you all incredibly much. Please send me a message, an email, some snail mail, whatever suits you best.

All the love,

Abigail

Below: Saint Nazaire Cathedral - the most beautiful stained glass I've ever seen!