In the morning, I took the tram to visit L’Église Sainte Thérèse named after my favorite saint. When I told Catherine's niece Cécile that I wanted to visit the town Liseaux where Thérèse grew up, she responded perplexed. "You want to visit the church there? It's a small town; that's really all there is." Liseaux is a town far north from where I am located, so it may or may not happen, but I at least would love to visit Lourdes, since my grandfather described his visit as very moving, seeing many abandoned crutches lining the grotto from people having been healed by its holy water. Places like these I want to investigate for myself, to take in the legend of the space and the energy. The church I visited, though closed, was beautiful from the exterior. My guidebook describes the symbolic design of red bricks representing the shower of roses Saint Thérèse promised to send down from Heaven. During the war, the church was bombed in 1943 and only the statue of Saint Thérèse remained intact from the rest of the ruins.
L'Église de Sainte Thérèse
My future travel mates:
Morgan & Azelia at La Place Royale
After class, Azelia, Morgan, and me bought our train tickets together to Paris for our November vacation. We will be spending time in Rabat, Morocco for three days, which unfortunately isn't very long, but it's an incredible opportunity and I've always wanted to visit this country. I can't wait to visit even just the exterior of the historic mosques, the marketplaces, and try the coffee. I will certainly have plenty to write about!
I showed Azelia a French bookstore where I had come across Edwidge Danticat's recent book, Claire of the Sea Light in French. I chanced upon one of my all-time favorite books, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho in French. It's a small, timeless, treasure that my friend Saurja described best as having a mystic quality in its storytelling. So, naturally, of course, I had to buy it. We enjoyed exploring the bookstore, sharing our author recommendations, speaking quietly to each other mostly in English. "Did you hear the store lady?" Azelia asked me. "She's British. It's really weird hearing English here. It's no wonder people stare. They're like quoi?" But we are not in Paris, so I feel everyone is more friendly and patient in general, like the lady at SCNF who helped us buy our train tickets. I was amazed how patient she was with us. Maybe I cringe too much at the thought of some annoyed French person rolling their eyes at our American French accents, but alas, that hasn't happened yet. I think I've got into this strange mindset that if I don't speak the language of the country I'm visiting, I'm going to offend someone. I think I'm going to be confused and lost if I don't speak Castilian Spanish in Espagne, or German in Allemania. A friend, Jinshil, from Puget Sound and Mme. Fouré kindly reminded me that's just the French way. I can get by with English in a lot of places. I remember Jinshil, laughing, "You've been in France too long,"
This evening I realized at every French family table I've eaten dinner, later, or near the end of the meal, inevitably political conversation always comes up. I told Catherine's niece Cécile who is staying with us for a few days, that I prefer political conversations with the French. It is so much easier for me to say my opinion, because the French are very direct, they are not as sensitive about being politically correct. When politics comes up in discussion in the U.S. I always wonder who I might offend. I never worry about that in France. People have strong opinions and they expect you to have one too and to not be afraid to share it. I realize now I can follow the gist of conversations really well in French, especially if I listen carefully, and be able to make a comment that's within the topic of discussion. I wasn't able to do this as well during my last two visits in France. It feels like a minor miracle breakthrough. Immersion has been really helping sharpen my listening and pronunciation skills (the latter, of course, needs a bit of work), but all in good time.
"There is no question that learning a foreign language is different to learning other subjects...This is mainly because of the social nature. Language belongs to a person's identity. It involves far more than simply learning skills, or a system of rules, or a grammar; it involves an alteration in self-image, the adoption of new behaviors. If language is arguably what makes us human, then learning one has to be, by definition, messy, fustrating, glorious cause for despair, unnerving in how it obscures itself and also for what it reveals." -Dreaming in Hindi, Katharine Russell Rich
Looks like this amazing dancing violinist is coming to France!
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