Le fin de mes jours en France

The end of my days in France have arrived. In just four days time, I will be stepping off a plane in Atlanta, walking straight into 80 degree heat after spending the past month shivering in 50 degrees or less. People often talk about experiencing culture shock when returning from living abroad, but I think I am more likely to experience weather shock. Especially since I will be wearing my giant winter coat as it does not fit in my suitcase, and quite possibly every sweater I own if I need to get under the 50 lb. limit.

Scottish coast

I will find out soon enough just how extreme I will need to be in order to get everything home. Though my time here is dwindling, I have yet to direct any of my energy toward actually packing and cleaning out my apartment. That will come tomorrow and Monday. Tuesday I take a train to Paris, stay with my friend Abby for the night, and then Wednesday it is off to the airport for my triumphant return home.

While I still must actually put my life in a suitcase, I have been quite busy in the past week erasing my presence here in Vannes. Between several goodbye lunches at school, small parties with colleagues, and countless phone calls and appointments with the bank, internet company, and electric company, I have managed to say au revoir to nearly everything and everyone I need to before I leave. And if I am permitted to pat myself on the back, I will say that starting the process before the holidays was a great move; there were only a handful of surprise letters to be sent, and overall the stress involved in moving quickly through the bureaucracy here has been minimized.

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent over half of this past month on vacation. Not bad for my last month in France. It started with my friend from camp-Asaf-coming to stay with me in Vannes. A few days later we flew to Leeds, England and spent two nights there at his friend's house and one night in Manchester at my friend Laura's. The following day, we took a bus up to Scotland, where we stayed for four nights at my friend Toby's house, about half an hour from Glasgow. Toby lives in the countryside, and I could not have imagined a better trip to Scotland. He and his girlfriend Louise, another close friend and fellow teaching assistant, did their best to show me and Asaf how wonderful their country is. And I fell in love. Between majestic coasts, beautiful mountains, and gorgeous lakes, as well as the picturesque city of Edinburgh, I was constantly in awe. Adding to my euphoria was the delicious Scottish food we ate, which was not that unlike food from home. Shepherd's pie, roast pork, sausages, eggs, and bacon-all things I severely missed in France. All in all, it was the perfect way to say goodbye to Toby, Louise, and Laura, three of my closest friends during my year in France and people I miss already.

Following Scotland, Asaf and I went to Amsterdam and met up with Eli, my old roommate. Eli and I spent just one night and two full days there, after which we took an overnight bus ( a miserable experience and one to be avoided at all costs) to Paris. Eli stayed with me in Vannes for a week, and I did my best to show him the wonderful nature this area of France has to offer. The end of his stay overlapped with the start of my last week of work, and it was wonderful to have an old friend around for the beginning of this difficult week.

I have often been asked to describe my feelings as I leave France. Am I happy, sad, excited to go home? The word I typically use is bittersweet. Every month that I have been here has been better than the last, and I do not feel tired of the experience or necessarily ready to go home. That said, I cannot mask my excitement to see friends, family, and a bit of familiar culture. And with many of my close friends either leaving or already gone, my job finishing, and the weather refusing to warm up, I do feel it is time to move on. Of course, leaving the friends behind that I have made here has been difficult, and I felt a surprising amount of attachment to the high school as I left. Leaving this country and continent gives me a sense of loss, as I do not know when I will return. So you can see my indecision, and as such, bittersweet seems to me to be the perfect word for my feelings at the moment.

For those of you that followed me over my time here, thank you. I hope you felt connected to me and my life in France and enjoyed my updates. I assume you read them because you were interested in what I had to say, and if not, I hope you became interested after reading them. Perhaps you learned a bit about me in the process. With that, I bid you a bittersweet goodbye, and wish myself a bon retour to Atlanta.

Au revoir
Tommy

Spring Break 2012!!

Spring Break '12! It is finally upon us! Can't wait to go to the beach and get my tan on in...Scotland. Yes, for my April vacation, rather than search a locale with balmy, tropical beaches, I've chosen to head thousands of miles north for one last blast of winter. I just could not get enough of that arctic air during this winter's record cold temperatures, so I thought I would search it out one more time.

Now while this is reason enough to go to Scotland, the real motivation for me is to stay at my friend Toby's house. He is another assistant here in Vannes and has graciously offered to move the party from Vannes to his house outside Glasgow. His girlfriend Louise, also an assistant in Vannes, and another assistant Laura, will all be there to welcome me and my friend from camp, Asaf. Asaf is arriving in Vannes this Saturday, and then we spend the next two weeks together trekking through France, England, and Scotland. At the end of our trip, we will swing over to Holland and meet up with Eli, my old college roommate, in Amsterdam. After spending one night and two full days there, Eli and I come back to Vannes. It is sure to be a whirlwind tour and a fantastic trip-provided I don't blow all my remaining paycheck during the festivities.

While I cannot be more excited for my trip, it does underscore the very sad fact that the end of my year in France is quickly drawing to its close. Toby and company will finish their work at the start of the vacation and are going home for good. So while this makes it possible to come visit them in the UK, it does mean that they are moving away from France. And while I look forward to our time together in the coming week, I dread the end of it shortly after. We have developed quite a close group of teaching assistants here. We are all each other's family in France, and weekends pass where we spend nearly all of our time together.

The past few weekends have been as such. With temperatures soaring to the mid-70s ( 20s for you Celsius users), we have spent as much time as possible enjoying the beautiful springtime sunshine. Eating outdoors, drinking beer outdoors, walking outdoors. But that's about as physical as it gets. This past weekend we took a day-long cruise around the scenic Gulf of Morbihan. Aside from the fact that we were the only participants under fifty, it was one of the best Saturdays I have spent here. Great company, beautiful weather, and a stop on a wonderful island community named Ile Aux Moines.

House on Ile aux Moines

All this time spent talking about my leisure time activities, and not a word about school. Perhaps you can see where my thoughts are at. The last few weeks at work have passed swiftly, though they have seemed more like time-fillers in between great weekends. That said, most of my time over this last work period has been spent in Terminale classes, who are the oldest students in the school. As part of their graduation requirements, they must take an English oral exam following strict criteria and administered by their teachers. So while the English teachers have been taking students one-on-one for this exam, I have been handling many of their classes. The results are mixed, and not surprisingly, my feelings about my position change after each hour of class, depending on how it went.

With my time in France winding down, and with my next two weeks spent on vacation, I have also started the incredibly complex process of closing down my life here in Vannes. As France is noted for its amazing grasp of bureaucracy, I have decided that I want no surprises during my last week here when I return from travelling. So this week I have spent my free time drawing up lists of every account that needs to be closed, and then visiting or calling each item on the list to determine what needs to be done. And as I feared, my life is going to be quite difficult to close up here but at least I am now forewarned and know what I am facing.

The Frisbee Team

After spending today knocking off items on my list, it is high time I go enjoy the start of my last vacation in France. My days of having two weeks off every eight weeks are disappearing before my eyes, so as the French say, "il faut profiter!" (roughly, "Get on it!") With that, I bid you au revoir, and I will check in at least one more time before I head back to America.

Tommy




P.S. Link to my last article for Like the Dew: http://likethedew.com/2012/03/30/mcdonalds-an-american-institution-in-france/