Fast-Forward One Month

I cringe when I realize it's been nearly a month since my last blog post, but oh, what a month it's been!  My mom visited and we spent two fantastic weeks together as I showed her around northeast France (including a couple of ventures into Germany as well).  We somehow survived despite our perpetually sore feet, lack of sleep and dragging our suitcases back and forth across the country (and more horrifically, the Paris metro.)  Let's just say that my favorite day was our excursion to the thermal baths in Baden-Baden, Germany.  I had forgotten what it felt like to be relaxed. 

Saying goodbye to Bar-le-Duc turned out to be as easy as I thought it would be, thanks to dealing with infuriating last-minute bureaucracy and the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life crawling into my bedroom on the last night, causing both my mom and me to leap around screaming until we finally managed to suck it up with a vacuum, and then both of us remaining paranoid that it was actually hiding somewhere in the sheets.  It's a wonder either of us slept that night.  And while it was as hard to say goodbye to my mom as I thought it would be, it's reassuring to know that we'll be seeing each other again in just three months.  And then I'll be living at home and she'll be wondering how she'll ever get rid of me again. 

I've spent the last two weeks getting settled in with my au pair family in Brittany, a lovely region on the Atlantic Ocean.  I'm about as close to the U.S. as you can get while still being in France, and I'm only a ferry ride away from Ireland and England.  I comfort myself with these facts, in case France finally manages to crack me in my last month here and I have to make a quick escape to an English-speaking country before my mind is completely and permanently lost.  I say completely and permanently, because clearly my mind is already at least half-gone thanks to these past eight months, but it is most likely not permanently damaged.  Yet. 

My au pair family is very nice but I'm still trying to figure out why I'm here.  The kids are older (12, 16 and 18) and even the youngest of them wakes himself up in the morning, makes himself breakfast, and gets to school by himself.  They all do their homework without being asked, they keep their rooms clean, and since they don't have a TV they all either read or practice an instrument in their spare time.  If you can't find the 12 year old, it's because he's at the library next door.  It's a little freaky, actually.  I think that they keep an au pair out of habit (I'm their 19th, they like to say, as if I'm a trophy added to their collection), and yes, it's nice that they have someone to practice English with if they feel like it, or to cook them dinner when the parents aren't around (although they'd be perfectly capable of doing it themselves), but in general the kids are simply too old to have an au pair anymore.  Not that I'm complaining!  I'm getting paid to read books out on their sunny terrace, play their piano, bake cheesecakes in their huge kitchen and go tanning on the beach.  And while Quimperlé makes Bar-le-Duc look like a lively and thriving city of culture, I find that this small quaint town on the Atlantic coast feels like the perfect summer getaway. 

And let's be honest, I'm looking forward to Switzerland.  In one month, I'll be covered in dirt, campfire smell, markers and five year olds' snot, and I couldn't be any more excited.  What I find myself growing increasingly worried about is the whammy of a culture shock I'm going to find myself in.  It's not only Switzerland, but Italian-speaking Switzerland (have I mentioned I don't speak Italian, except for a few swear words?), at a summer camp (a culture in itself, with which I am very unfamiliar), surrounded by Americans.  And I don't know if I'm ready to be surrounded with my lively, outgoing and friendly compatriots, having spent the last eight months trying to assimilate into French culture by stamping out those same characteristics in myself.  I've finally broken the terrible habit of apologizing when I bump into someone on the street and now I expertly glare until that person apologizes to me.  I don't smile at strangers, and I can walk with my nose raised haughtily in the air without stepping in dog shit.  It seems a waste that I should have to be thrown back into American culture now!  I was just beginning to feel French!  (A blanket apology to my French friends.  Feel free to leave generalizing comments below about obese Americans who drive big cars and can't find Iraq on a map.)

Anyway, that's the last month for you.  Here's my empty promise that I'll be more diligent this month.