Bienvenue à Nevers

The french word for "welcome," bienvenue, translates to literally the same thing in English. Coming at the French language from an exterior perspective allows me to see the two parts of the word, in French as in English. These two parts, bien or "well" and venue or "to have come," express exactly my sentiments after my first 24 hours here in Nevers.

To explain the situation a bit, you must understand that one of the reasons the French life expectancy has recently breezed by the United States' by an average of two years is that they don't exert much energy in preparing things that will undoubtedly resolve themselves in due time. That said, a week before my departure, I had no idea where I would be living. I had spent more than a few hours trolling French real estate websites looking for an affordable and desirable studio apartment to no great avail. I was somewhat unmotivated to look, since I was slightly hesitant to leave, but much worse, the ads were all exactly the same and lacked what to me was an essential element- the address. Using googlemaps, etc. I was able to get a pretty good idea of what the city of Nevers is like and where its various neighborhoods are, but I can tell you that trying to choose between two 25-square meter apartments at the same price that are on opposite, yet unknown, parts of a city I've never visited was not a task I was willing to accomplish. Luckily, though, about a week before I left, I was finally able to speak to the secretary of my high shool, Lycée Raoul Follereau, who explained to me that the school, which accomodates boarding students (although more than half of the students live at their homes in Nevers), reserves an apartment for their foreign language assistants. They charge a very low rent of 100 euros a month for this apartment, where each occupant has a single bedroom and the three flatmates share a living room (salon), bathroom (toilettes et salle de bain) and kitchen (cuisine). Not sure that this apartment would turn out to be the most desirable place to live for a year but greatly relieved that I would have a direction to head once I arrived in Nevers, I accepted that I would be living at school at least until I could find another apartment elsewhere.

Getting to Nevers was an adventure in itself. I had planned a 5-day séjour (stay) in Paris during which I would catch up with a number of friends before diving right into a ville inconnue (unknown city). After my plane landed in France early on the morning of the 23rd, my good friend Guillaume Desjardins picked me up at the airport and drove me to the house where he lives with his parents in Domont, a city situated just North of Paris. I spent the first day setting myself correctly on the Eastern side of the Atlantic, taking the morning to catch up on the sleep that evaded me a bit on the plane ride, and the afternoon ambling about Paris buying a cell phone, completely missing a rendezvous, and visiting le jardin des Tuileries, where I had somehow never managed to go. The next three days at Guillaume's house were more or less pareil (the same), except depending on the day you could add one or two visiting infants, more or fewer hours spent me ballader à (walking in) Paris, and the inverse in hours spent en lecture de Du côté de chez Swann de Proust (reading Swann's Way by Marcel Proust).
While this leisurely pace certainly put me at ease physically and mentally, I was in no way prepared to confront the practicalities of my trip, seeing as Guillaume was experiencing a temporary panne d'internet (Internet outage). After spending the first few days with Guillaume, I had plans to meet Alice, the daughter of my Toulouse host family, and her boyfriend in Paris and spend two nights in their apartment. Yet I had nothing I needed to get in touch with her, such as a phone number, address, or means to e-mail. Luckily, another good friend of mine is working as a bilingual paralegal (or something like that) in Paris, and I was able to have her look up the contacts Alice had sent me in an e-mail. Just the day before meeting up with Alice, then, I called her to let her know I was still coming and that everything was going well for me. We arranged a time to meet on Saturday afternoon, and she agreed to help me get my luggage from the métro to her apartment. Great. Lugging my human-sized bags even just a few blocks to her apartment was a bit of an undertaking, especially since I had to move them by myself from the train station (Gare du nord) through the two lines of métro I had to take to get to our meeting spot. For going up and down stairs, parisians were more than willing to lend a hand- I asked for nothing, but I had one man insist on carrying my very heavy bag himself while I insisted on carrying at least the other one up two flights of stairs and around a corner as the train arrived. Alice and I were able to get the bags to her apartment on the deuxième étage (third floor) thanks to the great ascenseur (elevator) her building has. For two days, then, Alice and I giggled, played pranks, ran all over Paris some more, cooked dinner, went to the musée d'art contemporain de la ville de Paris (Museum of Contemporary Art of the City of Paris). Then, Sunday afternoon, before attending a going away party for one of Alice's friends who was leaving for Naples, Italy, Alice, Bruno and I were lounging on the pelousse (lawn) in between Trocadéro and le Champs de Mars (in front of a fountain and with the Eiffel Tower to our left), when I remembered that earlier in the afternoon I had looked up the cell number of my contact person in Nevers and had meant to call her during the day. So I called Laurence, mistaking her for a man, to let her know that I would be arriving in Nevers the following afternoon at 16h25 (4:25pm). Laurence is the head English teacher at R. Follereau, so she insisted on speaking to me on the phone in her very quick, nervous Irish accent. She told me that there had been some breaches in contact and that she had tried to send me an e-mail that I never got. In this e-mail, she supposedly explained that the information the school's secretary had given me on the phone was not correct and that instead of living in the school's apartment, which does exist albeit with only two bedrooms, I would be living with one of the French teachers who likes to take in the English assistant. Cool, I thought, no apartment but rather a house, with meals included and no need to buy furniture! Alice and I spent the rest of the sunny afternoon walking the Champs de Mars contemplating what to do with my newfound fortune (voyages, anyone?). Au revoir, Paris meant another huge cross-city trip with the monster bags, this time with Alice to help the entire time and station-switching maximized for the use of escalateurs (escalators).

Arriving in Nevers on the train was easy. As the train got farther from Paris, the towns got a bit smaller and prettier, and the stretches of farmland between towns extended with the relative distance from the capitale. I waited a bit at la gare (train station) for Laurence, the English teacher, to pick me up, and when she did, she drove me straight to the high school where Florence, the French teacher who is housing me, had a réunion (meeting) until 18h00 (6pm). When she came to meet us in the staff lounge, I observed what seems to be her normal operational pattern, busy busy busy, done with style and grace. Françoise was widowed three years ago (her husband met an untimely death in a car accident), has four children, the last of whom just went off to Classe préparatoire à Versailles (a specific kind of higher education preparation for private business schools in the like at a boarding school in the school district of Versailles), and a large and beautiful house. It turns out that two years ago, the high school’s English assistant spoke no French at all, so after the recent loss of her husband, Françoise took in the assistant to help her learn French. She liked the company, as did the assistant, so I’m benefitting from the system has was more or less established then. Françoise is very easygoing and has welcomed me into her house, although the room where I’ll be living is currently having new flooring installed, so I haven’t completely unpacked. Tomorrow the floor is coming, and once it’s here, Françoise and I will move the furniture back together so I can properly move in. The house is very nice, and there will be many pictures of it for you to ponder on this very site.

All the people I’ve met in Nevers so far have been very friendly. Yesterday Françoise took me out to dinner with a group of women associated with the Lion’s Club (before me, Françoise was the youngest at the table by at least 15 years, and she’s got a good 30 years or so on me…), I met many of the teachers at the school, and I already went to the local Conservatoire to sign up for the choir and perhaps for voice lessons. So, bienvenue à Nevers. I have come very well to be in Nevers and feel as though the people here (and the town itself, which is very beautiful and about which I will write in my next post) have made sure of that.

Bisous et à bientôt !

Welcome to Nevers Nevers Land, the blog where I will document my (school) year of life in Nevers, France. This year will be one of growth, of exploration, and above all giving myself the time to relish in those daily experiences that coalesce into my life's aesthetic. Here you will read about unexpected sightings, incidents, people, and other surprises that fill my days here in the very center of the most ethnocentric country I can think of, France. I will post pictures, write in both English and French, and tend toward more exterior than interior experiences. If you want to know how I'm doing or reacting, please send me an e-mail or arrange a Skype date (Skype account name: adienfrance12)! If you find something interesting, please leave a quick post, and always send me some smoke signals to let me know you're reading. I love and miss you all!

Grosses Bises, (literally "fat kisses" although I think huge, wet, and sloppy might better describe the ones I'm sending your way)

Mégane