Pourquoi "Pourquoi"?

Like every cognizant, major life decision I’ve made in my twenty-four years on this planet, I made the decision to teach English in France for a year on a complete whim.  In the past, I chose my college because it had a speech team (an activity that, at the time, I technically could have lived without); I studied abroad in France because the English pound made my wallet weep; and I’m pretty sure I would have kept adding majors and minors forever if my adviser hadn’t started tacking on years to my graduation date.  I could boil all these choices down to one question: why not?

Hence the title of this blog.  “Pourquoi Pas” means “why not” in French.  A fitting title for my life, really.

But I had sworn that this decision would not be the same.  Sworn, sworn, sworn.  I agonized over the application for nearly two years, my cursor hovering over the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) link before darting away and closing the tab.  Instead, I logically plotted out my con list.  Teaching has never been an ambition of mine, mostly because I can’t see myself repeating the same lesson plans year after year without wanting to dropkick something breakable.  Why should I leave my current job?  I had spent six years of my life working at Target, and granted, five of those were part time while I attended school.  And business was the exact opposite of everything I wanted to do in life.  And I heard the miniscule scream as each brain cell died a slow, terrible death at the hands of humanity’s inane stupidity.  But still!  I was actively applying for positions in the publishing industry; one of them would pan out one day, right?  Right?  TEFL would remain a back-up choice but not a main contender.  There was no guarantee that I would be accepted, either; what with the exorbitant unemployment rate (especially for those newly-graduated), a billion and a half people must have been applying for the same three or so slots.  And even if I were offered the position, the contract extended for a set length of time.  I would land back in Chicago a mere seven months later and plunk myself into the same situation as before I left, only this time, I wouldn’t even have a fallback job to support myself.  The entire state of affairs smacked of irresponsibility.  It’d just be putting off life for a year while I piddled away my savings.

I still remember the exact moment I made the decision to apply.  In the midst of abducting my friend Rachel for a day of shopping, she asked whatever had become of my teaching-in-France-thing.  I sighed and patiently explained my desire to be logical for once and not just follow my wanderlust wherever it led, and she said something I will never in my life forget.  While waiting to turn left at the stoplight at Indian Trail Road and Farnsworth Avenue in Aurora, Illinois, she stared straight ahead and said, “It’ll look better on your resume than another year at Target.”

Whoa.  Wait.  What.

I had never felt so exhilarated and so dumb at the same time.

Of course I should teach in France!  I had been so intent on the non-rhetorical ‘why not’ that I completely overlooked why I should take this opportunity.  This choice was the logical one!  Besides, I couldn’t burn out from teaching too much of the same thing; my brain cells could multiply again; I could package my love for the two languages, literature, and communication to successfully market myself; and I could spend that entire seven-month span applying for Big Kid Jobs with a sparkly new addition to my resume.  And, you know, I’d be living in France for a year.

In conclusion, why the eff not?

Sigh.  So much for that promise.

Thus this blog, which I also started on a whim.  A blog featuring pictures, decorating and recipes on a what’s-a-shoestring budget, history lessons, travel tips, the always-entertaining awkward situations into which I perpetually plop myself, and general hijinks seems somehow more personal than a mass email.  Which I would probably forget to write anyway.  In the same vein, while I cringe at this stereotype, I really do suffer from an artist/writer’s penchant for ADD.  My lack of follow-through should be legendary: from my perch in bed, I can see at this moment an incomplete skirt, knitted blanket, purse project, writing project, editing project, and stack of books to read, not to mention the collage of pictures waiting to be printed from my laptop or the half-painted jewelry box in my basement.  What does that mean for you, dear reader?  Like King Henry VIII or politicians of late, I may be a little less than faithful.  But under this new leaf I seem to be turning over, I think I spy some fidelity, so there’s reason to hope.  Meanwhile, I’ll catch you up on what has happened since that morning at the intersection of Indian Trail and Farnsworth Avenue.

The Real Date-ing Game

The last seven months or so have aged me so much that I’ve started using eye cream.  Whenever one deals with governmental agencies, one knows the process will involve more hurdles than straightaways, but add a second government into the mix and be prepared for more than one pit-stop.  (Holy mixed metaphors, Batman.)  They warn you on the application’s website that the entire process takes a hefty chunk of time, but until you’ve lived four months of “so have you heard anything yet?” you have no idea how long 100 days feel.  After I sent in the application on January 1^st (the deadline; I spent an entire week proofing my French.  Also, unintentional symbolism!), I hunkered down to wait until April, zippering any mouth that dared try to jinx my chances by speculating on my success.

During that time, I felt like I couldn’t apply for any more jobs.  The website made it clear that if they offered an applicant a position, said applicant was pretty much obliged to take it, and I really didn’t want to piss of the French government.  I felt trapped: floating in this zero-gravity purgatory where I couldn’t move for fear of actually getting somewhere.  But no panicked dashes to the mailbox: the website said we’d be notified sometime in April, and with my luck, it would be April 30^th.  In the middle of April, however, came speech nationals, and my not-insubstantial pride really wanted to be able to boast about something meaningful for once other than, “I cleaned up a spill all by myself yesterday, aw shucks!”  Perhaps I gave a longer glare than usual at the mailbox when it didn’t cough up any fat envelopes.

Then on one ordinary day after work, after exercising, lounging on the couch in my room before dinner, I checked my email.  In all my experience dealing with . . . anything French, I never expected an electronic response and actually looked forward to that anticipatory thrill that spikes the blood before one opens an envelope that could potentially change the future forever.

The subject line ruined that for me.  “Acceptance to the 2011-2012 TAPIF Program - Académie de Nantes.”

Boo.  But yay!  But still a little boo.

I’d been accepted to my first choice of regions, or académies, in which to teach.  The Nantes académie in the Loire valley is about two-three hours southwest of Paris and includes Angers, the city in which I studied abroad in 2007.  They supposedly speak with the clearest accent there, and as I’ve suffered through trying to decipher Provençal-tinged French, I tend to agree.  So, since I’ve learned from the whole con-without-a-pro list, let’s look at the positives: I know the region; it’s not too far from Paris and an embassy if I need to get there for some reason; and even at it’s most rural, it’s not as isolated as the south of France.  Con: I know the region — it’s not a new adventure.  Though, as Rachel pointed out, living by myself abroad with absolutely no safety net should be adventurous enough; let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  All in all, I think I lucked out with my académie.

Now I had to wait again for my school placement (arrêté de nomination).  Another three months, to be precise.

Yay.

All of this waiting seems to be a symptom of the very French aversion to technology.  They distrust it, pure and simple.  Most adults in France that I’ve run into and that others have described do not check their email with any sort of regularity, let alone compulsively like most American adults.  When I studied abroad, my 70-something host mother had limited Internet and even responded to me by email when I first contacted her, but during my entire three-month stay, I only saw her use the computer once.  Rumor has it that the French prefer face-to-face interactions and, barring that, telephone conversations or letters over anything that takes the “person” out of the equation.  Paper documents, physical copies, and snail mail abound.  Which makes for very slow conversations when you’re communicating from over 5,000 miles apart.

And thus my fears began to take over.  The longer I waited, the more I began to detest silence, and the more I began to question whether or not I wrote my address wrong on one of the five hundred forms I filled out, and my arrêté was languishing in the inbox in the only post office in Wyoming.  I only had three requirements of wherever the government happened to place me: a train station, public transportation, and some form of kitchen.  All pretty reasonable, right?  Then I had a nightmare in which I was assigned to the fictional town of Toque-sur-Chel which comprised of only one family and whose two children wanted to learn English.  The next morning, I vividly remember waking up with damp clothing and “can I help you find something”-ing in a clammy haze.  As I have never been an extremely lucky person, I’ve learned to plan for the worst and hope for better.  If I planned like I’d be placed in a hamlet with ten people and only their dog wanted to learn English, then I’d be pleasantly surprised upon being placed in a town with a population in four digits.

Good thing I planned.

Where in the World is . . .

My letter came on a Saturday while I was at work, and my mom texted me while I exercised: “looks like u have some mail!!!”  Why hello, stomach butterflies.  She then offered to read it to me over the phone, but I figured trying to decipher her mangled French would be more frustrating than just waiting an hour.  So of course I happily crushed the speed limit, skidded into my driveway, leapt upon the kitchen table, and tore into the envelope.

According to the paperwork, I was placed in a single high school, Lycée d’Estournelles de Constant, in La Flèche.

Whatever you’re thinking, whatever your face looks like at this moment, that’s probably exactly how I thought/looked when I read that.  However, I was entirely too adrenaline-fueled to linger on the city; I really wanted to know the state of my housing.  After rifling through the papers more than once, I found one that looked rather form-like with lots of boxes, like someone had filled out a questionnaire about my school, and hey!  At the top?  “Fiche de Renseignements Pratiques, Relative aux conditions d’accueil et d’hébergement,” or Paper That Tells You Everything You Wanted To Know, Stupid.  And at the top of that?  A description of my housing.

The possibility of lodging at the heart of the school with the Spanish assistant and probably another English assistant.  With a fully-equipped kitchen.  Furnished.  And . . . wait for it . . . FREE.  All at my fingertips.

Yes.  Please.

They’re even letting me eat in the cafeteria during the school week!

Aaaand then I read further.  No public transportation in La Flèche.  That was my first indicator that I could have trouble on my hands.  Like any good Generation X/Y/Z/Pepsi-er, I immediately Wikipedia’ed the town, and my heart sank like an anvil.  Town’s population?  Less than 17,000.  And no train station; only a bus station with at least an hour’s ride to the nearest city (Le Mans).

What?  How could this happen?!  I know I prepared myself for the worst, and at least there was more than one family in the town, but seriously?  No public transit and no train station?  How would I get anywhere?  A bike can only get you so far, and as much as I’d like to one day bike through the chateaux of the Loire valley, I draw the line at biking an hour to and from work every day.  And while Winfield, my home town, has a population of only about 9,000 people and a downtown loosely congregated around the town’s largest bar, I have a car.  And next to that bar is a train station.  All in all, one out of three ain’t . . .  bad. . . .

Needless to say, I hyperventilated for a bit.  When I finally pulled my head from underneath my pillow after trying to suffocate myself, I noticed a link to the “city’s” website at the bottom of the French Wikipédia page.  Wait, what.  A website?  Could this backwater hamlet have, gasp, the Interwebz?

Why yes, yes it does, and a rather well-organized website at that.  In fact, La Flèche seems to be the immediate region’s tourism hotspot, complete with an office of tourism and a handful of hotels in centre ville.  On most maps of France, La Flèche is even slightly kinda bolded.   

See? Bolded! (Google)

The more I putzed around on the website, the more settled I became.  It seemed as normal as the Chicago suburbs from which I hail, featuring a community center, movie theater, local festivals, sports teams, and more schools than probably necessary for a population that small.  Maybe I wouldn’t waste away in the middle of Bumfuddle Nowhere (or the French equivalent thereof).  Here’s a quick recap of the town:

La Flèche, Sarthe, Pays de la Loire: pop. ~17,000

~ It’s on the Prime Meridian and is situated an hour either way between Le Mans and Angers (where I studied abroad!) and about three hours from Paris, including a two-hour train ride and hour bus ride.

~ The town straddles the Loir River.*

~ It has an unemployment rate of 6.5%, which is less than the national average (second job, maybe?).

~ Philosopher René Descartes attended the Collège Royal Henri IV in La Flèche.  In fact, many things are attributed to Henri IV. . . .

~ La Flèche can claim one of the six military schools in the country, Prytanée National Militaire which, you guessed it, was created by Henri IV.  Apparently, it’s open for tours during school vacations.

Allons enfants de la patrie...! (Wiki)

~ The zoo boasts 1,200 animals (I’m betting the majority are frogs and birds caught by local six-year-olds).

I wonder if this one's still alive (RIP Knut). (Wiki)

~ There’s a handful of churches that date from the 12^th century.  Why not.

~ A windmill harnesses the power of the Loir, and it’s the last working icehouse in the nation.

~ And, like any other French town ever, there’s a castle.  She dates from the 11^th century but, like any other French castle ever, has been burned and rebuilt and Revolution’ed and rebuilt and repurposed just about every century since.

It's now City Hall. Yes. (Wiki)

So.  I’ve never been in small-town France before.  Here’s hoping the free, furnished housing is worth it.  Tchin-tchin.

* There’s a huge difference between La Loire and Le Loir.  The Loire River is the longest river in France and flows from the mountainous middle of the country, curves up through Angers and Nantes, and tumbles into the Atlantic Ocean.  It’s a wide powerhouse whose valley is one of the most famous in Europe for its more-than-modest cache of fairytale castles.  It’s also feminine, what with the “la” and all.  The masculine Loir, on the other hand, is a mere tributary to his extra e-toting sister.  This Loir plays home to family-owned castles perfect for moving into when they accept my offer of five dollars U.S. and pocket lint, and starts around Chartres before merging with big sis around Angers.  And apparently, there’s some good fishing to be had.  So there’s that.

Well That’s Unfortunate

I’d like to take a moment to apologize to the EPA, black bears, my future grandchildren, and air breathers around the world.  The reason that hole in the ozone is increasing by the minute?  My visa application process.

As aforementioned, the French love paper copies, and since it would take weeks to replace all the paperwork I need for this whole shindig, I have made copies out the wazoo of every single document I ever received, and I don’t even know where my wazoo is.  The requirements for my language assistant (and therefore long stay) visa were very straightforward: the arrêté plus one copy to prove that I have a job, an OFII/Immigration form, a residency form, my passport plus a copy of the identification pages, a passport photo, and a self-addressed prepaid express mail envelope in which to mail my passport back to me.  Since all TEFL assistants go through the French government and don’t have to be sponsored, I didn’t have to pay for the visa or jump through all their company hoops: just survive the governmental obstacle course.  From what I hear from friends who are teaching in Japan and Korea, the requirements vary widely; in fact, the friend teaching in Japan says that her organization didn’t require a solid knowledge of Japanese!  To me, that’s beyond terrifying: showing up in a country and not knowing how to get around, get out of (and into) trouble.  I was regretful enough when I traveled to Germany and Italy without speaking more than a handful of words in either language.  She regrets not boning up on her Japanese, and wishes the organization had been more forthright, but again, I would be pissing myself every time someone asked me for my drink order.  In fact, I’d probably avoid all restaurants.  Or conversations in general.

Anyways.

With copies of everything from the aforementioned wazoo secured in a folder, I was all set for my visa appointment.  I stayed with a friend who lived in downtown Chicago the night before my appointment — partly for the convenience, partly for the free margarita — and triple-checked that folder in the morning . . . only to realize that I’d forgotten to buy the stamp for the prepaid self-addressed stamped express mail envelope.  Face, meet palm; I’m sure you remember each other from our last collective trip to the French consulate.

See, I have a history of . . . unfortunate happenings when I visit the French consulate.  I last needed a visa when I studied abroad in 2007, and my trip to the consulate was marked by two such events.

First, I subliminally decided to follow the French tradition and ignore the society-imposed dictates of time.  In other words, I was running late.  As I was about to squeak into the building one minute before my appointment time, the nice lady at the front desk informed me that the address provided by North Central College happened to be about ten years old, and the consulate moved from the 700-block of Michigan Avenue to the 200-block.  Knowing that even I couldn’t make a run for it in heels, I hopped a cab for the five-block, thirty-second ride, shoved a twenty in the general direction of the cabby, and beamed myself to the thirty-seventh floor.  Second, I had ignored the consulate website’s dictate that we fill out forms with CampusFrance, the French student housing authorities, because North Central never said anything about registering with that agency.

Guess you don’t ignore the consulate’s website.  After arguing in franglais with the lady behind the bulletproof glass, she finally waved me away to lick my wounds and tear the International Studies department at NCC a new one.  Which I did, but it didn’t end up mattering anyway: the same franglais lady gave me my visa without the CampusFrance attestation upon my next visit.  This situation is not the first time I’ve heard of the infamous French reluctance.  Pester them enough (politely, please; don’t be American), and they’ll more than likely give in to your demand if it’s within their power.  That horse don’t look so dead after you poke it about fifty times.

This time, I promised myself, no such series of unfortunate events.

Well, we saw how swimmingly things go when I promise myself something.

I thought the missing stamp was my unfortunate event, and considering what I could’ve forgotten, that one was easily rectified.  On my way to another friend’s apartment to drop off my overnight bag, I breezed by the nearest post office and purchased said stamp.  Yay.  Problem solved.

Until God said, “Gotcha!” and dumped eight inches right onto my umbrella-less head.  Of course the day with the largest daily rainfall total in the history of Chicago recordkeeping coincides with the one day I decide to believe the weatherman’s prediction of a rain-free day.

My friend Manda met me at her El stop with a large Ziplock bag for my visa paperwork (“I don’t care about me!  Save my future!”), and we hightailed it to the Walgreens on the corner so I could buy a cheap umbrella, which ended up keeping only my hair dry.  By the time we made it to her apartment, I was already being French/running late, so as I tried to blow-dry my outfit — my shoes were a lost cause — we discussed our plans for after my appointment, and then I flew out the door, clutching the Ziplock bag practically under my shirt.

Of course, the Red Line was late, and by the time I arrived back in the Loop, I had about ten minutes to walk five blocks and not seem frazzled.  While thanking the Powers That Be that I wasn’t wearing heels this time, I vaulted over puddles deeper than I am tall while nearly running towards Michigan Avenue.  I spun through the revolving doors, nabbed a security badge, and even had time to go to the wrong section of floor 37 before plopping down into one of the cushy chairs in the visa office’s waiting room exactly on time.

I then waited for a half hour while everyone else had their unfortunate events.  The French consulate’s visa application office doesn’t afford much privacy.  The two staffers are behind bulletproof glass, and the only shielding the applicant receives from the rest of the waiting room is twin glass panels overlaid with twin photo screens.  The “waiting room” lies just beyond those demi-walls, the chairs in a circle along the walls and glass so that we can awkwardly stare at each other and pretend not to be irrationally nervous.  My fellow applicants were at the same time a cross-section of society and a hilarious handful of stereotypes.  Next to me to my right sat a forty-something man of Indian descent, well-organized with his leather trapper open on his lap, just like my own folder.  Like the creeper I am, I snuck a look at his paperwork and discovered that a company was sponsoring his work visa, but as he struck me as both nervous and irritated, I didn’t ask him about it.

Across from him perched possibly my favorite people to watch in the history of people watching: an overprotective mom and her meek daughter.  The slim, spiky-haired mom leaned over her daughter’s lap and opened a folder stuffed full of paper and binder clips, pulling out one packet at a time and smoothing it as she slowly re-explained its purpose.  “This is your letter from CampusFrance and your letter saying that you have housing. . . .  Here’s your passport and your extra copy. . . .  And here’s a copy of your travel itinerary in case they ask for it. . . .”  I bit back my smile.  My own mother reacts with similar anal retentive neatness when faced with change, and therefore I would never allow her within a mile of my visa appointment.  Also, I pitied the girl when it came time for packing: “these are your underwear.  I put them in R-O-Y-G-B-I-V order and wrote your name on the waistband.”

Next to them across the aisle and across from me, an Asian teenager clutched the loose papers of his visa application in white-knuckled fists.  He spoke with an eccentrically-dressed African American twentysomething, her equally black brother, and their very white mother and grandmother.  The young woman was in the middle of recounting her summer to the lone Asian, dominating the conversation with patronizing nicety, and she alone ruptured the subdued murmuring that settled over the waiting room.  She boomed, “Oh, I tried to go to the consulate in New York, where I volunteer teach, but they sent me back.  So I had to fly home to Chicago, do all this, then fly back to New York to finish out the summer semester.  But there’s this little girl in my class — she’s blind and has the cutest red hair, and she’s so smart it hurts. . . .”  You know the type of people, the ones who are so proud of being philanthropic that they just have to share it with complete strangers.

That’s the main cast of characters.  Let the play begin.

Helicopter Mom and Accessory were called first, and their appointment ran and concluded well . . . until Accessory nervously walked back into the office, interrupted an ongoing appointment, and pointed out that her name had been spelled wrong on her receipt.  The worker bade her take a seat while she finished the current applicant and then had to run Accessory’s paperwork all over again.  I’m 90% sure Helicopter Mom was in view leaning against the wall in the hallway, subliminally reminding Accessory to smile and nod.

After those two left, another dark-skinned twentysomething female took their spot, borrowed a pen from a side table, and finished filling out some paperwork.

Philanthropic Polly was called next, and she promptly spilled her entire life story to the visa agent starting with her New York-Chicago-New York conundrum, and when the agent asked where she taught, I could feel her eager smile from my seat.  “I’m at a summer camp for disabled and underprivileged kids, and I absolutely love it. . . .”

And she kept up an unending stream of small talk right up until her agent asked, “Do you have your envelope?”

Finally a pause.  “I was told you’d send me to the post office anyway, so I didn’t get one.”

Wha-huh?  Why in the world would a consulate send you on a scavenger hunt?

So she and mom traipsed off to the nearest post office.

They called Asian Kid next, and I was just praying I would be next because, though I did have questions, I knew what they were and I was prepared to ask them quickly and adapt to whatever answers came.  While one agent forced Asian Kid to redo his fingerprints three times, the second agent called the other African American woman who meekly handed over all her paperwork, and everyone waited while the agent shuffled it.  The shuffling slowed.  “You don’t have a valid U.S. visa.”

“No, I don’t,” the applicant answered, upper body shielded from me by a photo screen.

The papers slid back under the bulletproof glass.  “Then I can’t give you a visa.”

The woman’s feet shifted.  “But I have a valid U.K. visa.”

Well guess where you’re not, hon.

“I’m sorry.”

Oh.  My.  God.  No really.  Couldn’t they just call me?  I had my shit together!

After they sent away Non-American, and the computer finally accepted Asian Kid’s fingerprints, one of the agents called, “Rebecca?”  I shot up out of that seat like an entire barge of fireworks blew up underneath it.  I approached the counter with my folder proffered.  “Ihavetwoquestions,” I blurted, arms surrendering.  She answered them quickly, and my appointment went smoothly.

Moral of the story?  Dear God, have your shit together.  Also be a citizen of the country in which you’re applying for a visa from another country.

I guess I just have unfortunate events when they don’t matter.  I can definitely live with that.

Planes, Trains, and Anjou Bus

With all of that settled, I could finally buy transportation tickets.  From past experience, I knew the train was the way to go inside France, so while flying into Nantes might have been more convenient, flying to Paris and then taking the train would actually be more economical.

The train system in the U.S. only wishes it could be like the SNCF in France.  Despite the numerous and inconvenient strikes, the SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, or French National Railway Corporation) is the state-run rail service, and it’s a great case for a government-run system — when you have the right government, of course.  It’s on-time 99% of the time; its lines clear and precise; and it’s beyond speedy.  What most people recognize is the TGV lines, or the trains à grand vitesse/super über fast trains, which run both nationally and continent-wide.  Even the Loire valley-local TER isn’t like Chicago’s Metra; while its trains are slower than the TGV, they’re still on time and comparatively cushier.  The view alone makes it preferable to a plane.  Mostly ‘cause I hate flying.

Planes, to me, are like aluminum torture tubes that come complete with bonus torture both before and after the main event: long check-in lines, security that pokes in places where no one should go without dinner included, and cramped quarters where I invariably end up with the passenger in front of me reclining in my lap.  My ears have a habit of popping and then never popping back, so I spend days afterwards walking around feeling like I have entire cotton plants sprouting out my ears.  And not many people on a flight can appreciate the charm of my restless nature.  Unless I’m saving beaucoup time and money, I’d rather train it up.

Unfortunately, no known train lines exist between the United States and France, so I had to buy a plane ticket.

While I don’t mind the idea of traveling alone, I had met someone through the Académie de Nantes Facebook group (which no doubt coalesced seconds after the government sent out acceptance emails) who lived in Paletine and will teach in Angers, and who wouldn’t mind being my travel buddy.  We traded emails back and forth before we received our arrêtés, and when I was placed in La Flèche, she offered her as-yet-to-be-located floor for any weekends I wanted to spend in Angers.  My exact response was, “After two weeks [of biking everywhere] I’ll want to hug a bus.”

So we teamed up to transport ourselves via multiple media to our respective destinations.  Because of La Flèche’s remote-ish location, I have to take a bus from one of the bigger cites in the region in order to get there.  La Flèche’s website offered multiple options.  From Le Mans, I could take the SNCF bus that travels back and forth with a bunch of intermediate stops multiple times per day.  (I would think about commuting if one, my housing weren’t free, and two, the ride weren’t an hour each way.)  There’s a Le Mans-La Flèche-Saumur line whose PDF schedule dislikes my computer.  And there’s also a line on the tritely-named Anjou Bus — pronounced Ahn-joo Boose; go on, say it! — that runs back and forth from Angers to La Flèche about three times per day.  Thus, we could fly into Paris-Charles de Gaulle, take the train to Le Mans together, and then part ways, she to Angers by train, me to La Flèche by bus.

Easier said than done, my friends.  Best laid plans and whatnot.

Anyways, I’m getting slightly ahead of myself.

Amy and I became acquainted like most young people do in this day and age.  After connecting through a massive (read: 77-person long) email, we nearly simultaneously friended each other on the Almighty Facebook and made plans to meet at a Starbucks in Schaumburg exactly mid-way between our towns.  And granted, we’ve had a handful of online conversations and the one face-to-face meeting, but I think we’ll get along pretty well together.  She seems rather go with the flow, and while I’d theoretically love to be that laid back, I like solid plans.  And lists.  She’s just flexible enough to put me at ease, but not so much so that we’d find ourselves in Reykjavik in the bat of an eyelash.  At that Starbucks, we curled up into side-by-side armchairs and commenced our research.  We began with airfare at Student Universe, a site we discovered through that Facebook group.  It offers discount transportation to students — and I heard those under 26, though that ended up untrue — with the assumption that Amy had to arrive a few days earlier than our October 1^st start date so that she could search for housing without pressure.  We chose Student Universe and later STA Travel because of their deeper discounts than other similar sites and my previous experience with said sites.

When I studied abroad, my college’s International Studies department did not guide us very well in terms of how to make travel arrangements, so my fellow study abroader and I booked flights at CheapTickets: $1500 a piece round trip with a layover on each flight.  The first leg played out swimmingly, what with our flights being consolidated to non-stop and all.  However, CheapTickets/Continental never warned me that they’d cancelled our return flights; they merely emailed my friend.  If she hadn’t told me, I would’ve been stuck in Charles de Gaulle a week before Christmas, just praying for a passing pigeon strong enough to carry two overweight suitcases.

Now change “Charles de Gaulle” to Newark, and you have my reality.

They rebooked my friend just fine, but I made six calls to CheapTickets/Continental six separate times plus one trip to CDG to change my flight.  Then when we landed in Newark for our separate flights back to O’Hare, the nice man directing people with connections informed me that my flight didn’t exist.  Again.  They placed me on standby for my friend’s flight, but through another series of unfortunate events that included a snowstorm in the Midwest and Newark being ghet-to, the flight was delayed and overbooked, leaving me in tears but still stranded in Newark for the night with only a backpack full of books.

What have we learned from this, boys and girls?

~ Don’t book with CheapTickets.

~ Check multiple times to see if your return flight exists.

~ Don’t necessarily book round-trip.

~ For the sake of chocolate, always pack a change of clothes in your carry-on!  Don’t spend $20 on a Newark t-shirt!

Ahem.  Student Universe/STA Travel, for the win.  While one of us researched prices for one day, the other went backwards in time to see if we could get a better price.  Surprise, not traveling on a weekend gets you better prices and more flexibility because transportation is plentiful and not packed.  Also, since most of Europe slows on Saturdays and completely shuts down on Sundays, finding convenient trains was easier during the week.  I shared my initial plan, and Amy agreed.  We found one great train that left CDG with enough time to spare, but by the time I’d get to La Flèche, it would’ve been well into the six o’clock hour, and I would rather have arrived earlier in the afternoon to allow for prime navigating conditions.

I think it was about that time when a large, tall man with fly-away black hair approached us and asked what class we were studying for.  We exchanged glances, mostly because it was the beginning of August; what kind of school did he think we attended?  I gently corrected him, saying that in fact, we were planning a trip abroad.  His face positively lit up, and he proceeded to tell us all he knew about traveling in Europe, which thankfully wasn’t much.  We said, yes, we knew it was high season, thank you very much, and subtly excluded him from the conversation.

After nixing our first plan, we opted to try taking the train together to Angers and part ways there, but that resulted in the same situation as Plan A.  Then Amy struck an Einstein pose; what if we both rode the train to Angers, stayed in a hostel overnight, and then I took the Anjou Bus (!) the next day.

I panicked.  What?  Pay for a hostel?  Spread my travelling over two days?  Shouldn’t I just get it over with; close my eyes, think of England, and whatnot?

But Amy soothed.  Wouldn’t it be better to not travel 24 hours straight?  Plus, we could get some of the essentials out of the way, like shopping for cell phones.  Double plus, it’s Angers.  I would get to visit everything I miss about France!  Kebab!

I was sold.  We found two hostels, one of which I remembered being completely inconvenient, and the other I thought had been a "hotel" but clearly wasn’t.  Just in case, I searched for hotels that could match that same 36-Euro price of the second hostel, Hotel Univers.  Most of what I remembered in Angers couldn’t be touched by our student budget like the Hotel Ibis or the three-star Best Western (I know).  But then I stumbled upon a gem.  In the middle of centre ville, or downtown, in Place Ralliment stands Hotel St. Julien which charges 70 Euros for a two-bed room, and when split between two people, it squeaks in under Hotel Univers’s price.  And while Univers is directly across from the gare (train station), I don’t mind walking/taking the bus in a city I know if I can save money and have a private bathroom.  I must like monkey wrenches, because a few weeks later, I found a third option: Hotel Iéna which is closer to the gare but only costs 57 Euros a night!

Keep your options open when you travel, folks.  I’ll add my voice to the chorus praising the experiences hostelling can provide; in fact, I’m sure I’ll chronicle them more than once.  But don’t limit yourself to them.  Sometimes an out-of-the-way hotel can offer the same ambiance of a hostel but with the privacy (and bathroom; can you tell I like private potties?) of a hotel.  Hostels aren’t always the best deal, and even if they are, sometimes it’s worth the extra handful of Euros to be in a more convenient locale.  And, with a pinch of luck (ha!), you may wind up with both.

Done, done, and done.  We simultaneously booked a non-stop overnight flight from Chicago-O’Hare to Paris-Charles de Gaulle on September 21 for less than $500.  Then we’ll take the TGV to Angers on the 22^nd for les than 30 Euros and stay in  . . . a place that has beds, theoretically, and then I’ll move on to La Flèche the next say.  Strangely, I’m rather glad that our plans aren’t 100% set in stone.  Never in a billion years thought I would ever put that idea out into the universe, but traveling with someone who seems flexible is making me flexible.  We have multiple options, and what we don’t have nailed down, doesn’t have to be.  This whole thing is an adventure, right?  It follows that it should kick off with a spin of Fortune’s wheel.

Because really, why not?

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Don’t Own, Don’t Sue, Blah-Blah

Nitty-gritty legal stuff to cover my ass and hopefully throw Interpol off my very enticing scent once and for all.

I don’t own and am not affiliated with any brands, chains, products, etc that I reference in this blog; these are all my opinions, and I’m making zero dollars/Euros from writing about my experiences.  Boo.  The aforementioned opinions are just that and should not be taken as fact.  Double-check prices and availability before blindly trusting my addled brain.  I am not responsible for any monetary losses or scenic routes that may result from following in my footsteps.  Please don’t sue; I make a centime less than a pittance, so pocket lint is your highest hope.  No infringement is intended.

Similarly, these are my words and my pictures, unless otherwise noted; please don’t take them without my express consent.  Your mom will totally know.  Feel free to spread links far and wide, but don’t spam me — it’s not polite.  Also feel free to comment or ask questions.  I can’t guarantee to be timely, but I will respond.

By the way, I can have a potty mouth.  I semi-apologize in advance.

Enjoy!