I was at first thinking of writing two separate entries for these cities but then realized it would also make sense to write just one. But before I get around to doing that, l’d like to write a little about the present moment. I’m sitting in the Gare de Poitiers, waiting for a train that’ll take me to Bordeaux. I arrived here on Saturday evening so this isn’t the first time I’ve returned to this place, but to be here again, waiting to go somewhere by train, is something I had gotten so used to doing during my exchange that to be doing it again now only feels like routine and nothing super exciting. I think so far, a common theme of being back in France is that I fondly recognize so many things, but feel oddly separated from that time of my life. My memory hasn’t failed me too much, but as I sit here thinking of all the other things that happened in this very train station more than three years ago, I can’t help but feel these memories almost belonged to a different person. Maybe it’s also just the disbelief of being here again and still knowing exactly what to do and where to go but knowing that those memories will never be completely relived. It was here where I arrived with the Australian boy after having taken the TGV for the first time, and in the waiting room where we waited to take the TGV back after spending the day in Poitiers. It was here where the train that was supposed to take my Canadian friend and me back to her host town got delayed, and where we ended up eating one of the best burgers we had ever had in our lives at the restaurant on one end of the train station. How are these memories so clear in my mind yet I feel detached from them at the same time? Maybe it’s because of how much has happened since I left this country, but also how much must have happened in the lives of my friends since they left as well. I mean, here I am listening to Spotify’s Viva Latino playlist as I write this, thinking of Bolivia as always, when there’s no way I could have fathomed being here doing that the last time I was here. Here I am with my laptop that has a painting of Vienna in the 18th century as its desktop background.
Well, speaking of Vienna.
I apologize for not having written more about it on this blog besides in my obligatory German diary entries, but I really was quite busy during my time there with summer school and exploring the city (and other countries, lol). But now that it’s over and I have a long wait here at the train station, it merits a few words.
Vienna was a city I had been hearing about for as long as I can remember, since my dad studied there when he was young. The house in the Philippines where I grew up has a poster hung up of the Johann Strauss statue with the slogan, “Austria–Europe with a difference.” I suppose always hearing about Vienna made me interested in eventually learning German, which I started not so seriously when I was in 5th grade and continued 6 years later during my junior year in France. That same year, I finally visited Vienna for the first time and was excited to tell my dad I had set foot in that city, but we barely had an afternoon there, which was rather disappointing. However, I told myself I knew that I would go back and spend more time there at some point. (Literally like what I told myself about Kraków and yup, that happened too.) So when I saw that Harvard Summer School offered a new program that involved studying German in Vienna and taking a course about the city’s culture and history, it seemed too perfect. And when I got in with the tuition and flights fully paid for, I knew I had to do it, since when else in my life would I get the chance to get to know the city in that way? It was another “It’s there, I might as well take it” situation for me.
I’m happy to say that those two months I spent in Vienna (well, a month and a half, since almost two weeks was spent outside of it) were extremely fulfilling and I got more out of them than I could have imagined. Not only did my German improve greatly, but as part of the program I was able to experience its arts scene, watching concerts and plays. I remember the first time I entered the Musikverein and immediately recognized it as the building where the yearly New Year’s Eve concert takes place, a concert my family and I would watch on TV every year. What’s more, while in Vienna it was amazing to experience a place so important to my dad’s past. While I was there, my family visited me for two weeks, and it was the first time my dad had returned in 26 years. (Here I am in France after more than three years and I already thought that was a lot.) During their visit, we were able to meet with one of my dad’s best friends from the time he was here, a guy named Matthias. It was so funny to see how they both gave off that musician vibe and had similar haircuts, and how well they got along after all this time. Anyway, Matthias now plays in the Wiener Philharmoniker as a violist. He was actually performing at the opera my class watched, unbeknownst to me at the time. What’s more, that performance of Der Rosenkavalier that we watched happened to be the concertmaster’s last performance; he had been performing for more than 40 years, and what’s more, he was actually my dad’s violin professor for a year. Overall, it was amazing to see all of it connect in a city that was already magnificent in itself. There was nowhere else I was meant to be.
I felt like I could actually have had a life in Vienna. I got to know the U-Bahn really well, as well as the style of life and the language of living there. With my two roommates we shared a suite on the 7th floor that happened to have a rooftop terrace I became obsessed with, vowing to myself I would one day have an apartment with a similar place to look over the city from high above. I got to know some people from the Filipino community, and by chance became friends with a senior lecturer at the Anthropology Department of the Universität Wien, as well as a Syrian refugee. These encounters further affirmed that what I’ve chosen to study and do with my time at Harvard is what I really ought to be doing, and it made me happy to see that manifested in my time in Vienna this summer.
The thought of leaving Vienna didn’t pain me that much. After spending all that time there it was kind of hard to process, but all the same I accepted that it had to happen. It might be because I’m used to this lifestyle, having to constantly leave one place to move on to the next. Of course, the main reason I really felt that way was because I knew I would be returning to France once the program was over.
More than three years I waited, and the moment finally came on Saturday. I already wrote about what my first moments back in France were like, so now it’s time to say something about another adopted city of mine, Parthenay.
Unlike Vienna, I don’t see myself living in Parthenay again. But it was still so important for me to have been able to visit, to walk through those medieval streets again, to provide clarity to memories that had become vague. It was amazing to be able to walk into the houses I used to live in once again and find the same people, welcoming me back after my prolonged absence as if I had always belonged there. Of course, in the time I had been gone, things had changed in my families as well. My host brothers had both grown up considerably. Alcide, who was 11 when I left, was now a typical 14-year-old who had now grown taller than anyone in the family (we used to be around the same height haha) with a voice I couldn’t recognize. Paul, who was 14 when I left, used to be quite antisocial and whiny, was now done with high school and had matured noticeably, being chatty over meals and as we walked the dogs. It was a joy for me to see everyone again. But as for me, and how it must have been for them to see me again... When I returned to my second host family’s house, the first thing my host dad asked me was, “So Amanda, what have you become?”
It took me a while to process that question. I had a lame reply. I just laughed and said, “Well, I don’t know what I’ve become!” How could I possibly explain what had happened the past three years I wasn’t in Parthenay and what they did to me? Even though I’ve written the most notable things in this blog, which I started upon returning from France, reading it in full still wouldn’t be able to properly address that question, at least that’s what I think. Nonetheless, perhaps talking to me, they could have some idea of the girl I had become after everything I went through following my time with them. Oh what a joy it was to speak in French for all my daily interactions again. To speak in French about who I was, about my memories in France, about my life, about what I hope to do. I don’t know how it’s possible that funny sounds and grammar rules combined can mean so much to a person, but such is what the French language is to me. The beauty of it, the people I associate it with, its history, the life I associate with it. I’m very lucky to be able to speak it this way and to have the people I know that speak it as their native language be there for me and I’ll never stop being thankful for how lucky I am.
Besides my host family, I was able to see my counselor from the Rotary club again. It was he who picked me up my and first brought me to Parthenay from the beach orientation weekend I had, and it was he who dropped me off at the airport when I left. And it was he he completely ignored me when I saw him walk towards the café where we were going to meet when he saw some people in a neighboring café whom he had to greet first, LOL. No really, I got up from where I had been waiting and yelled, “FRANÇOIS !” and he just replied, “HOLD ON I’M COMING!” before turning and greeting his friends. Classic François, not taking any of my shit. It was funny how I used to have to always tell him about where I was going, give him all my routes and schedules, and let him know of any ticket changes, and now here I was, only passing through as part of a grand month-long voyage around Europe on my own. He’s used to it. He expects it of me. Things in his life had changed, but we were still able to speak like old friends, though I was very obviously not the 17-year-old girl who wanted to go everywhere and needed to constantly report her whereabouts to him. (If anything, my desire to go all over the place has intensified and it amused him to see how little that part of me had changed.) Another notable reunion was that with my English teacher, Christian. Well, while the class would learn their English, I would do the equivalent of their work but in French. He was a really important part of what made my French what it is today. What's more, he even wrote me a letter of recommendation during that abominable college application process. So yeah, part of the reason I got into Harvard. It was so nice to see him again and be able to thank him in person. Plus he treated me to a lovely French lunch (with praline crêpes for dessert), which was even better.
I only had one full day in Parthenay. It was enough for me to see my host families, François, Christian, and a few friends, as well as to take a nostalgic walk down little streets I had forgotten I knew. The place I knew I absolutely had to visit was the Hyper U, one of the main supermarkets of the town. I walked in and couldn’t help but feel a little giddy, as a flood of memories came rushing back into my head. (Really? In a supermarket? Yeah I’m weird.) I remembered the time in the last day of school, after all the classes were over, how a couple of friends and I ate at the little restaurant in the area by the entrance. I remembered volunteering during Christmas season with the outbound from Parthenay, who I would find out later would be placed in my district in Oregon. I remember going shopping with my first host family there before the first day of school, buying a blue pencil case with birds printed on it, a pencil case I still use to this day and have with me at the moment. I laughed to myself when I saw the shelves with clothing on sale, and remembered how I needed pajamas with sleeves and pants and got some from that aisle, with a ridiculous print–two hedgehogs, a little heart, and and the words “Still in love” (in English). Because I’m a sucker for school supplies, I couldn’t resist buying one of those beautiful French planners, and because I’d already known for a long time that I wanted to buy some, I bought myself shampoo and conditioner of the brand Le Petit Marseillais. Completely content, I left the Hyper U slowly to just take everything in, and then headed out towards my old high school.
Since it’s summer, it was clearly closed. But I just took a look around, and tried to see if I remembered the way back home from the school because I couldn’t recall a clear route in my head at all. Somehow, I did. It was a route I took more often on my bike because it took about half the time, but walking was the way to go then just so I could fully process it. After that, I felt satisfied. If there were more things to rediscover, they’d just be for another time.
I wasn’t too sad when I left Parthenay. It’ll always be there whenever I choose to pass by on some other grand voyage, or even better, when I end up living in France again. I know the way there by heart.
But now (after writing this entry on and off in different locations), I’m sitting by a pool in Bordeaux, and I should really put this laptop down and jump in because it’s been tempting me this entire time. A tout de suite !
Well, speaking of Vienna.
I apologize for not having written more about it on this blog besides in my obligatory German diary entries, but I really was quite busy during my time there with summer school and exploring the city (and other countries, lol). But now that it’s over and I have a long wait here at the train station, it merits a few words.
Vienna was a city I had been hearing about for as long as I can remember, since my dad studied there when he was young. The house in the Philippines where I grew up has a poster hung up of the Johann Strauss statue with the slogan, “Austria–Europe with a difference.” I suppose always hearing about Vienna made me interested in eventually learning German, which I started not so seriously when I was in 5th grade and continued 6 years later during my junior year in France. That same year, I finally visited Vienna for the first time and was excited to tell my dad I had set foot in that city, but we barely had an afternoon there, which was rather disappointing. However, I told myself I knew that I would go back and spend more time there at some point. (Literally like what I told myself about Kraków and yup, that happened too.) So when I saw that Harvard Summer School offered a new program that involved studying German in Vienna and taking a course about the city’s culture and history, it seemed too perfect. And when I got in with the tuition and flights fully paid for, I knew I had to do it, since when else in my life would I get the chance to get to know the city in that way? It was another “It’s there, I might as well take it” situation for me.
I’m happy to say that those two months I spent in Vienna (well, a month and a half, since almost two weeks was spent outside of it) were extremely fulfilling and I got more out of them than I could have imagined. Not only did my German improve greatly, but as part of the program I was able to experience its arts scene, watching concerts and plays. I remember the first time I entered the Musikverein and immediately recognized it as the building where the yearly New Year’s Eve concert takes place, a concert my family and I would watch on TV every year. What’s more, while in Vienna it was amazing to experience a place so important to my dad’s past. While I was there, my family visited me for two weeks, and it was the first time my dad had returned in 26 years. (Here I am in France after more than three years and I already thought that was a lot.) During their visit, we were able to meet with one of my dad’s best friends from the time he was here, a guy named Matthias. It was so funny to see how they both gave off that musician vibe and had similar haircuts, and how well they got along after all this time. Anyway, Matthias now plays in the Wiener Philharmoniker as a violist. He was actually performing at the opera my class watched, unbeknownst to me at the time. What’s more, that performance of Der Rosenkavalier that we watched happened to be the concertmaster’s last performance; he had been performing for more than 40 years, and what’s more, he was actually my dad’s violin professor for a year. Overall, it was amazing to see all of it connect in a city that was already magnificent in itself. There was nowhere else I was meant to be.
I felt like I could actually have had a life in Vienna. I got to know the U-Bahn really well, as well as the style of life and the language of living there. With my two roommates we shared a suite on the 7th floor that happened to have a rooftop terrace I became obsessed with, vowing to myself I would one day have an apartment with a similar place to look over the city from high above. I got to know some people from the Filipino community, and by chance became friends with a senior lecturer at the Anthropology Department of the Universität Wien, as well as a Syrian refugee. These encounters further affirmed that what I’ve chosen to study and do with my time at Harvard is what I really ought to be doing, and it made me happy to see that manifested in my time in Vienna this summer.
The thought of leaving Vienna didn’t pain me that much. After spending all that time there it was kind of hard to process, but all the same I accepted that it had to happen. It might be because I’m used to this lifestyle, having to constantly leave one place to move on to the next. Of course, the main reason I really felt that way was because I knew I would be returning to France once the program was over.
More than three years I waited, and the moment finally came on Saturday. I already wrote about what my first moments back in France were like, so now it’s time to say something about another adopted city of mine, Parthenay.
Unlike Vienna, I don’t see myself living in Parthenay again. But it was still so important for me to have been able to visit, to walk through those medieval streets again, to provide clarity to memories that had become vague. It was amazing to be able to walk into the houses I used to live in once again and find the same people, welcoming me back after my prolonged absence as if I had always belonged there. Of course, in the time I had been gone, things had changed in my families as well. My host brothers had both grown up considerably. Alcide, who was 11 when I left, was now a typical 14-year-old who had now grown taller than anyone in the family (we used to be around the same height haha) with a voice I couldn’t recognize. Paul, who was 14 when I left, used to be quite antisocial and whiny, was now done with high school and had matured noticeably, being chatty over meals and as we walked the dogs. It was a joy for me to see everyone again. But as for me, and how it must have been for them to see me again... When I returned to my second host family’s house, the first thing my host dad asked me was, “So Amanda, what have you become?”
It took me a while to process that question. I had a lame reply. I just laughed and said, “Well, I don’t know what I’ve become!” How could I possibly explain what had happened the past three years I wasn’t in Parthenay and what they did to me? Even though I’ve written the most notable things in this blog, which I started upon returning from France, reading it in full still wouldn’t be able to properly address that question, at least that’s what I think. Nonetheless, perhaps talking to me, they could have some idea of the girl I had become after everything I went through following my time with them. Oh what a joy it was to speak in French for all my daily interactions again. To speak in French about who I was, about my memories in France, about my life, about what I hope to do. I don’t know how it’s possible that funny sounds and grammar rules combined can mean so much to a person, but such is what the French language is to me. The beauty of it, the people I associate it with, its history, the life I associate with it. I’m very lucky to be able to speak it this way and to have the people I know that speak it as their native language be there for me and I’ll never stop being thankful for how lucky I am.
Besides my host family, I was able to see my counselor from the Rotary club again. It was he who picked me up my and first brought me to Parthenay from the beach orientation weekend I had, and it was he who dropped me off at the airport when I left. And it was he he completely ignored me when I saw him walk towards the café where we were going to meet when he saw some people in a neighboring café whom he had to greet first, LOL. No really, I got up from where I had been waiting and yelled, “FRANÇOIS !” and he just replied, “HOLD ON I’M COMING!” before turning and greeting his friends. Classic François, not taking any of my shit. It was funny how I used to have to always tell him about where I was going, give him all my routes and schedules, and let him know of any ticket changes, and now here I was, only passing through as part of a grand month-long voyage around Europe on my own. He’s used to it. He expects it of me. Things in his life had changed, but we were still able to speak like old friends, though I was very obviously not the 17-year-old girl who wanted to go everywhere and needed to constantly report her whereabouts to him. (If anything, my desire to go all over the place has intensified and it amused him to see how little that part of me had changed.) Another notable reunion was that with my English teacher, Christian. Well, while the class would learn their English, I would do the equivalent of their work but in French. He was a really important part of what made my French what it is today. What's more, he even wrote me a letter of recommendation during that abominable college application process. So yeah, part of the reason I got into Harvard. It was so nice to see him again and be able to thank him in person. Plus he treated me to a lovely French lunch (with praline crêpes for dessert), which was even better.
I only had one full day in Parthenay. It was enough for me to see my host families, François, Christian, and a few friends, as well as to take a nostalgic walk down little streets I had forgotten I knew. The place I knew I absolutely had to visit was the Hyper U, one of the main supermarkets of the town. I walked in and couldn’t help but feel a little giddy, as a flood of memories came rushing back into my head. (Really? In a supermarket? Yeah I’m weird.) I remembered the time in the last day of school, after all the classes were over, how a couple of friends and I ate at the little restaurant in the area by the entrance. I remembered volunteering during Christmas season with the outbound from Parthenay, who I would find out later would be placed in my district in Oregon. I remember going shopping with my first host family there before the first day of school, buying a blue pencil case with birds printed on it, a pencil case I still use to this day and have with me at the moment. I laughed to myself when I saw the shelves with clothing on sale, and remembered how I needed pajamas with sleeves and pants and got some from that aisle, with a ridiculous print–two hedgehogs, a little heart, and and the words “Still in love” (in English). Because I’m a sucker for school supplies, I couldn’t resist buying one of those beautiful French planners, and because I’d already known for a long time that I wanted to buy some, I bought myself shampoo and conditioner of the brand Le Petit Marseillais. Completely content, I left the Hyper U slowly to just take everything in, and then headed out towards my old high school.
Since it’s summer, it was clearly closed. But I just took a look around, and tried to see if I remembered the way back home from the school because I couldn’t recall a clear route in my head at all. Somehow, I did. It was a route I took more often on my bike because it took about half the time, but walking was the way to go then just so I could fully process it. After that, I felt satisfied. If there were more things to rediscover, they’d just be for another time.
I wasn’t too sad when I left Parthenay. It’ll always be there whenever I choose to pass by on some other grand voyage, or even better, when I end up living in France again. I know the way there by heart.
But now (after writing this entry on and off in different locations), I’m sitting by a pool in Bordeaux, and I should really put this laptop down and jump in because it’s been tempting me this entire time. A tout de suite !
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