Angers . . . I’m Ba-ack!

This flight was the first time I’d ever laughed freely in a security line.  One of the TSA guys was telling jokes while giving us safety instructions.  He would pace back and forth in front of the new image scanners, and he said to no one in particular, “How many of you smoke?”  Silence.  “Well some of you are lying, because studies say at least one in five of you do, and after this checkpoint, you can’t just step outside to light up.  So if you’re jonesing, too bad for you.”  After surviving the scanners (I really wanted to opt for the pat-down instead, but I thought I’d better not make a scene), we sat in O’Hare for a couple hours before boarding the flight.  This waiting period was the most extensive amount of time we spent together without having a preplanned topic of conversation in place.  Let’s just say we definitely earned our merit badges in Small Talk that day.  We also tested our oral comprehension, as we happened to choose seats next to a French couple.

When we rose to gather bottles of water for the flight, we inadvertently began our penchant for food hoarding.  During any sort of travel, one never really knows when the next meal will come, or of what it will consist.  Both Amy and I knew first-hand of this uncertainty, and so we came prepared.  Rather, she came prepared, and I followed behind by inventing ways to gather food in pouches like a hamster.  The empty seat between us became our footrest/food shelf, and when the flight attendants gave us an extra bag of “snack mix” or we didn’t particularly feel like eating the roll that came with dinner, we’d pitch it onto the food shelf.  All in all, I think we ended up with Amy’s two extra bags of trail mix, a crushed Payday bar, an even more crushed Reese’s pumpkin, two rolls, a blonde brownie, two bottles of water, and the aforementioned extra package of “snack mix.”  More than one of these items would serve as breakfast in the coming days.

The flight was probably the most comfortable one on which I’ve ever flown.  We checked in online together while on the phone with each other so we could coordinate seating arrangements, and I had spied a middle row of three entirely empty.  We chose that row on the off chance that no one chose that third seat.  Moral of the story: I’m clairvoyant.  Our feet shared that extra middle seat with the food, and we both slept for a sizeable amount of time.  A travel note: if you’re flying a long distance and are banking on catching some z’s, invest in ear plugs and an eye mask.  I know it seems like one of those tips that only middle-aged backpackers trying to recapture their youth (or Rick Steves) use, but I swear to God it works.  (Also, I swear that’s not the one I have, but I thought it was hysterical.)  On an 8ish-hour flight, I believe I managed a solid three hours of sleep with another couple hours of semi-consciousness.  It may not seem like a lot, but for someone who one, hates flying and two, cannot manage any rest on a flight, a couple hours’ sleep seems like a godsend.

We touched down, and for the first time in . . . ever, I felt nonplused.  The morning sunlight still shone the same.  It still slanted beneath the blinds cracked by passengers who wanted to stare at a French airport.  (By the way, they look pretty much the same.)  Sure, the cars on the highway next to Charles de Gaulle were smaller and rounder, Peugeots and Renaults instead of Fords and GMCs, but I’d seen them before.  Maybe the feeling settling in the pit of my stomach wasn’t complacency but familiarity.  Maybe, in a way, I felt like I was returning home.

All the paperwork we received from the TEFL people said we had, had, HAD to get our passports stamped by border control as soon as we entered the country, so I watched my (really super hot) French guy like a hawk as he took my passport.  I was totally making sure I could read the date on the stamp; I totally wasn’t drooling on him at all.  Nope.  Innocent.  Then Amy and I trekked off to the luggage carousel, where we looked like typical American tourists while trying to load two giant suitcases, two not-as-giant ones, and four personal bags onto a single trolley while at the same time trying to figure out if we needed to go through customs.  (Answer: Totally Not Hot Guy was customs.  Hot damn — pun totally intended.)  We heard an elderly American couple commenting snidely about our massive amount of luggage, and I may have remarked to Amy more loudly than strictly necessary, “Can you tell we’re moving to France?”  That shut them the hell up.

On the platform at CDG-Roissy

Charles de Gaulle Airport in France is one of the longest airports in the history of airports. Terminal 2 is separated into four different subterminals, so even though we arrived in Terminal 2A, it seemed like it took five years to cross all of Terminal 2 to get to the SNCF train station.  Not that I’m complaining: considering that at one point we had wanted to schlep all of our belongings onto the RER/metro, I was pretty happy with walking a half-marathon to the TGV station connected to CDG.  After a couple minutes of “wait, we can’t bring the trolley down to the train station?  But—but how. . . ?!” we made it to the main hub at Charles de Gaulle-Roissy train station.

I swear it feels bigger than it looks.

French train tickets are a bit different than they are in the States.  You can buy them at any time (you buy a reservation, really), but before you board the train, you must stamp (composter) the ticket at a yellow machine (boȋte) with the date and time to validate it.  If you’re caught without a validated ticket or, gasp, no ticket at all, you can pay fines up to 300 or so Euros.  Since the first time I travelled in France, this whole process has been drilled into my head to the point where if I’m in a French train station, I immediately search out the boȋtes.  So when our train tickets printed from the Internet said that we didn’t need to stamp them, I didn’t entirely believe them.  I asked the nice lady at the SNCF info booth, a different lady at the same booth an hour later, and then a guy while we were standing on the platform, and they all agreed with my piece of paper.  Okay.  Awesome.  Fabulous.  I stopped darting looks at the yellow machines.

This train trip contradicted a handful of previous conceptions about French people.

1) They more than enjoy their privacy.  French homes look like French homes because they are barricaded enough to be able to withstand a nuclear holocaust complete with sturdy fences, gates, and imposing shutters.  They don’t normally talk to strangers because, well, they’re strange.  This train ride challenged both of these precedents.  In the process of getting onto and off of the train while lugging our lives with us, I don’t think either of us ended up lifting more than one suitcase each time.  Whether or not they helped to expedite the process is neither here nor there; my point is that more than one person stepped up to help out two struggling girls, and we were very vocal in our appreciation.

Subpoint B: Amy and I had been vacillating between nodding off and conversing softly in English throughout the train ride.  One of the conductors came around to check tickets, and we had to hand over our passports as a form of identification.  The young woman sitting across from us rose from her iPod-induced stupor to hand over her own ticket, saw our U.S. passports, and cocked her head.  As soon as the conductor moved on, she asked us in English where we were from and why we were in France.  Amy and I glanced at each other, answering back in French that we were posted as English assistants in the region for the school year.  Maybe she sparked the conversation because we all look around the same age, but I still found it refreshingly . . . refreshing.

2) The French know how to handle their children.  Like aforementioned, usually French people are very serious about how children should behave in public spaces: seen and not heard for the win.  However, there was a Maghreb couple (from the French colonies) with two little boys both under the age of three, and those children were literally climbing the walls, wailing like they were being beaten, for nearly the entire two-hour train ride.  While entirely adorable when they weren’t inducing ear bleeding, the kids were the antithesis of everything I’d ever seen before in France — or rather their parents were.  The latter shh’d them from time to time, or took them into the “talking zone” between cars, but they tolerated far more than even an oblivious American parent would have.  Again, maybe this whole thing happened because the parents could have been foreign-born or because they were raised within a French subculture.

Both events taken in conjunction could indicate a shift in French culture.  I saw a quick news piece a couple days later that spoke of a study in which French parents declared they thought raising kids today was harder than it was twenty years ago.  While most parents think they have it tougher than their parents, modern (in)conveniences may play some role.  However, the more likely culprit in my opinion, is the infiltration of other cultures into the French psyche.  More and more American TV shows and movies are popping up on French screens while the relatively recent success of the European Union/Euro has encouraged free travel of people (and ideas) across national borders.  Just like in America, with this free exchange comes either a backlash against or absorption of these new and shiny ways of living.  Sometimes, they fight back: the 2005 law against “ostentatious” religious symbols that supposedly protected the French laïcité, or secular, state while also happening to target Muslims who immigrated from the Maghreb.  Other times, they roll with it: helping two poor Americans on and off a train.

Or it just shows how generalizations don’t apply to everyone.

Well, in any case, we made it Angers in one piece, and when we finally exited the train station, familiarity ran up and slapped me in the face.  Yes, there were changes — the brand spanking new tramline for one — but on the whole, everything looked and felt the same.  Because the walk from the gare to Place du Ralliment, where Hotel St. Julien was located, wasn’t too terribly taxing, I made the executive decision to hoof it.

Bad.  Choice.

We may have made it into Angers in one piece, but our luggage didn’t survive the walk down the street without falling apart.  While I waxed poetic about the Chateau, Falstaff, the crêperie by Ralliment, and T’Chips, Amy struggled to tug her overweight suitcase down the cobbled sidewalks.  What should have been an easy ten-minute walk turned into a half-hour struggle against gravity and historic city elements.  We switched off for a block, and I completely understood her plight: I felt like I was literally dragging a dead adult behind me.  Normally, people dragging suitcases down the street wouldn’t draw that much attention; but when said people stop every ten feet, swear, and start kicking one of those suitcases, you kinda draw attention.

Eventually we made it to the hotel, and I guess we made a pretty big ruckus (or someone ran ahead to warn of the approaching Americans), because the proprietess came out to meet us and help us up the front steps.  (Yes, stairs.  Ouch.)  Then, after seeing and experiencing our luggage, she put us on the top floor — French fourth, American fifth.  And then she stepped aside to reveal the elevator.

Angels cried, I swear.

The bathroom was almost as big as the bedroom; I seriously contemplated a dance party.  The room itself was basic but pretty with views over the Place du Ralliment as well as out the back.  Exposed beams, two double beds with another twin fold-out, a TV with satellite. . . !  We were in heaven!

The orange suitcase is the traitor.

View onto Place du Ralliment from our hotel room!

Yup. Five flights.

First thing we did, of course, was properly wash our faces.  Then we set out with the aim of (re)discovering Angers.

Surprisingly, not much had changed in the past four years since I’d been to Angers, but the changes had been big ones.  Last time I was in town, there had been rumblings about a tram, and now a shiny new one glided down the center of town.  The gare, Grignotine, T’Chips, and Tati all still stood, but Falstaff had closed its doors for good.  (I shed a quick tear.)  We were exhausted, so we didn’t venture much farther than Ralliment and environs, and so we grabbed a quick baguette sandwich to eat in our room and hit the hay.

Only to be awoken an hour later by a 9:30 PM Zumba class happening across the place.  Bienvenue à France?

The next day, we attempted the supposedly free Wi-Fi, but as it was coded, and we lived on the fifth floor, we were too lazy to get that code, and we ended up using the 3G on our Kindles to check out email.  Amy found out that Ben, one of her prospective roommates, was already in town with a couple friends and wanted to meet up for lunch.  But before any of that fun stuff, we had things to accomplish: namely getting a French phone and buying a Carte 12-25.

1) Phone.  While technically I believed my phone was unlocked, and I could therefore use it internationally, it was kinda old, and I didn’t want anything to happen to it, leaving me without any phone whatsoever.  Plus, pay-as-you-go phones in France are way easier than they are in the States, if a bit more expensive.  I chose SFR because I thought it was the only carrier in La Flèche.

2) A Carte 12-25 is a discount card given through the SNCF for people between the ages of 12 and 25.  You can get up to 60% off on most second-class train tickets.  Sometimes I love being young.

The lady at the first SFR store was super helpful and, upon recognizing our foreignness, spoke slowly and clearly.  We didn’t end up buying anything from her, though, because they didn’t have our desired phone in stock.  So, after a trek to SFR store #2, and buying Amy’s phone, we motored back to Place du Ralliment to meet a group of fellow assistants.  Late.  Because we were totally trying to be French.

I met Ben for the first time, and Amy and I met Jay (a fellow Angers assistant) and Ashley (an assistant visiting from Chôlet.  I think), who had both been CIDEF students at UCO, where I studied in Angers.  We ate lunch at a tiny crêperie and had our first experience with bill-paying-at-the-counter.  We had waited for a long time before someone finally asked how to pay, and the nice waitress laughed and pointed to the register on the bar.  Oh yeah.  Duh.  I quickly learned to look for the sign that said “service au comptoir” or service at the counter.

After lunch, we went our separate ways, and I bought my phone, we both bought 12-25 cards, and we went window shopping for a bit.  After dinner with Ben — and moving him into our room, in which suitcases outnumbered people 2:1 — we accidentally joined up with Jay and Ashley at McDonald’s, not to eat, but for the infamous free Wi-Fi.

What with Internet in such high demand, finding a reliable hotspot with a comfortable atmosphere is great; finding one that’s free is like a four-leaf clover.  Most people gravitate towards well-known Wi-Fi providers like McDonald’s and Starbucks even in the States; why should France be any different?

So I updated my Facebook page, sent a few emails, and slid my computer over to Amy when her Mac wouldn’t play nice with McDo’s Interwebz.

Sleep that night came easier.  Guess Zumba is only Thursday nights.

All of Angers was busy the next morning for two reasons: Saturday is market day, and France’s rugby team was playing one of their archrivals, New Zealand, or the All Blacks.  We wandered around the marché in the center of town near the Jardin du Mail, and I couldn’t remember that thing being so huge.  After a quick gander, I was literally dragged away from the new-to-me antique section, and we all headed to lunch at the aforementioned T’Chips, my favorite kebab place in Angers.

It took me four years to figure out that "sauce blanche" is ranch. [facepalm]

Kebab is like the Greeks’ gyros only with different meat and spices.  In fact, I’m not quite sure what type of meat it is, and when I asked around, everyone gave different answers.  Not very reassuring, but I supposed it’s like sausage or hot dogs: it doesn’t matter what’s in there as long as it tastes delicious.  Kebab led to more wandering, which lead to coming across Jay and Ashley again.  We split up because Ashley needed to exchange train tickets at the gare, and Amy and I circled around the chateau for a while before they joined us so we all could wander together.

Chateau d'Angers: not just a bus stop.

Moral of the story: assistants with nothing to do will wander at will.

I was basically wasting time until Muriel, my contact, called me to tell me she was ready to pick me up.  We picked a café with free Wi-Fi, ordered a couple drinks, and squatted to watch the French people shop.  There was some sort of free board game festival going on, so children were crawling everywhere, begin generally cute French children.  For a Saturday afternoon, though, it was rather crowded, and being outside let alone practically in the middle of a pedestrian highway caused no small level of near-misses and bag checks.

When my phone finally rang, I panicked.  Anyone who has French as a second language (those of other languages can probably relate as well) can tell you that speaking in French on the phone with a native is a beyond harrowing experience.  You can’t lip read; there aren’t gestures to help out; and then static or a bad connection can interrupt just when you think you’ve got the hang of this thing.  So I answered and walked as quickly and far away from the street as humanly possible.

Thank God Muriel spoke in Franglais, ‘cause I was terrified.  She was already in Angers and wanted to know where to meet me, and when I said I could be back in Place du Ralliment in five minutes, she reassured me that she loved shopping, and that she could wait until the next hour.  So we finished our drinks/tore ourselves away from the Wi-Fi.  I recruited everyone in our little group to help with my luggage (no really, it was that heavy), and we stood next to the tram stop in a little circle around the giant purple bags, speaking of regional American differences in cuisine, until I received my first glimpse of a Flèchoise.