Days since last round up: 14
Firsts: assignment submitted
Major achievements: Paris, somehow, has still not been locked down
Language update: after a week of really-not-feeling-it in those everyday functional encounters which I find the hardest thing about life in another country, my faith was a little bit restored this weekend in a more relaxed social setting where I actually felt like I was being myself ... in French!
Reading: La mulâtresse Solitude by André Schwartz-Bart
Weather: spring is in the air
I left off last time on the way out of Brittany, and after a changeover day to myself in Paris, the second week of school holidays got off to an exciting start, with a 5 hour train journey to Bourg St Maurice, a little town in the French alps just by the Italian border, followed by a bus to La Rosière ski resort, where the family had arrived by car a few hours before, and were settling into a chalet with a view of Mont Blanc.
We were staying for a week, and sharing with another family, childhood friends of the dad, which made six kids and five adults in total. It was a week of two extremes, from the chaos and, just, volume, of a house full of children, to extended periods of total peace, at times even extending to boredom, when they were at their morning and afternoon activities and we were left to chill in the chalet.
Living with the family for the week has its challenges (like sharing a room with an 8 year old who doesn’t want to sleep), but overall I think it was a really good bonding experience and I really started to have a lot of fun with the youngest - he’s only two and didn’t have as much on as the others, although he did have an hour of ski lessons each day which is at once utterly ridiculous and completely adorable. He’s actually a little angel and is really funny, especially tucked up in his all-body snow suit, and at the dinner table, when he refuses to eat anything but meat, and starts shouting for a yogurt as soon as he’s finished (not a very vegan-friendly child ...).
The big ski slopes are all closed because of COVID, so the adults couldn’t go out skiing, which was a shame because it would have been a fabulous opportunity to learn, but I did spend the week getting plenty of scenic mountain walks in. It was cold and snowy at the start of the week, but by the end I was walking around in a t-shirt, and it was so sunny that the snow had melted! The older girl’s birthday was on our last evening, and we celebrated with some mountain classics, boeuf à la picarde (courgette pour moi), pommes dauphinois, tarte aux myrtilles (neither vegan but more than worth the exception).
One slight downer in the week was the announcement that Paris was one of the 20 départments which had been put under ‘surveillance’, and was potentially going to be facing a weekend lockdown, or, even worse, a three-week-long lockdown, which was suggested by the mayor’s office at one point. A bit of a scare, but also a huge false alarm - over the course of the week the whole thing seemed to fizzle out a little, to the point where when I asked the mum and the other nanny if they thought we’d be locked down they didn’t even see it as a possibility. All this made me appreciate the freedom of being able to wander round Paris even more, so I got back to exploring as soon as we were back.
Turns out the week we were away was beautiful weather-wise, and the summer vibes lasted until early this week. I managed to cover a few new neighborhoods and some old favourites (all upcoming in favourite finds), sometimes with a lecture running in my earphones when days of online classes were getting a bit much.
Highlights including discovering Buttes-Chaumont park on Sunday, before walking all the way down Rue de Belleville, down through Marais to the river, with a little photoshoot for SolidariTee’s* social media ‘relaunch’ next week, and then crossing over to meet Oxford friends in the Latin Quarter for a look at the bouquinistes, and a drink on Place de la Contrescarpe. There were also a couple of wanders around Montmartre, and a solo trip into the 10th arrondissement; each new place I go is a slightly different side of Paris, but keeps adding to a picture of this simply splendid city which just makes me feel so blessed to be here. I think Paris is my happy place.
So, we’re not being locked down just for the moment, and in the last few days the French government seems to have gone crazy for vaccine plans, the sun is shining and things are looking good. I’ve struck gold with the family I’m working for, and the relationship with the mum, the grandma, and the other nanny is coming along really nicely. I write this once again on a train, heading back from the loveliest of weekends spent in a little village near Montargis, about an hour south of Paris, with the family that I spent a month au-pairing with in summer 2019. A get-together with quite a large extended family who all live nearby meant good food, good company, and lots of both. I can’t wait to be back in Paris but I also can’t wait to go and visit them again, it’s one of the few occasions on my year abroad when I’ve really felt like I’ve had a second family away from home, and I don’t think it does any harm to get out of the big city for a while. But not for too long!
*I might have made reference to SolidariTee in one or two other posts; for those who don’t know, it’s an international student-led charity which aims to raise awareness about the injustices faced by refugees and asylum seekers worldwide, and fundraise to provide grants to NGOs providing legal aid to asylum seekers in Greece. If you want to find out more about what they do, you can check it all out here, or feel free to get in touch with me directly via Facebook or Instagram <3
