Episode 6 - Normandy / Britannia 🌊
More rugby, northern France, the most beautiful city in the world, and a cute German girl 🇩🇪
I am amazed by how many different people I am meeting during this study abroad. I meet people from all over Europe and the world, and am always amazed by how much culture and diversity there are in such a small geographic area. In a continent the size of the US, you can be in a completely new land, with a completely new culture, history, and language in literally less than an hour.
A 5-hour flight in the US, and you’ll still be in the US. A 5-hour flight in Europe, and you can be in 50 other countries.
I love it
Thursday 10/5/2023
I woke up on Thursday in one of the comfiest beds I’ve ever been. The hotel was in Versailles, and it was my family’s final morning in France (they’re off to California today!).
I had packed everything the night before (look at me, Mr. Responsible) and said my goodbyes to my family. It was a great visit, and I already miss them!
I walked out of the hotel while it was still dark and headed toward the bus station to head to the train station to head toward Paris. It was 6:30 am, the bus was full of commuters, and they did not look happy about having to do this every day of the week.
I feel your pain.
It reminded me a lot of taking the BART in California a few summers ago when I worked in San Francisco. Or the subway in New York. Legions of workers taking the public transit to work every day. It beats you down after a while.
I was feeling proud of myself for getting to the train station on time, and began listening to my audiobook to pass the time. After around 15 minutes, I checked Google Maps to see how much further I had to go.
Update:
I got on the wrong train.
And was heading in the wrong direction. Lovely. For your reference, I should be heading from the “V” (where my dad is) to the center of Paris (ignore my 321401834 map pins). I am going south.
I switched trains at the next station (triple checking that I was on the right one) and got on a Velib bike once I made it to Paris. My bike had a broken pedal and the gears didn’t work, but I was in tremendously high spirits and found the entire situation was quite funny. I also saw a women biking in high heels and an elderly gentleman powerwalking with hiking poles in a full business suit. Not really sure what was up with that.
At this point in my life, so many random niche problems happen to me that I don’t even get fazed anymore. I get on the wrong train, get shitty bikes, electricity goes out, apartment key breaks. But I’ve found that I’m completely chill about these situations most of the time. It’s as if I’m sitting in a battlefield, drinking tea and reading a newspaper, while cannonballs are flying around me. Chaos is ensuing around and to me, but I don’t seem to mind. It’s honestly a liberating feeling. None of the cannonballs have hit me yet.
After arriving 30 minutes late to French class (train woes), I find myself surprisingly awake and excited about class. I participated a lot and asked my classmates about their favorite museums based on the grammatical structure we learned that day. One of the students presented with the most American accent possible and was promptly roasted by our French teacher. When I was struggling with a particular lesson, the teacher looked me directly in my eyes and said, “C'est très facile!”. It’s very easy!
Oof.
Needless to say, it was an exciting class.
After class, I apologized to the professor for being late and explained to her that I got on the wrong train (in French). I spent most of the train ride learning how to explain that I got on the wrong train. She thought it was hilarious, and was excited that I went to Versailles with my family (that’s where she’s from).
I then got a baguette, biked home on a (much better) Velib, did some work, ate the baguette with jam for lunch, and went back to Sciences Po for class.
My history course was particularly interesting today, as we learned about British and French imperialism in India and Algeria. We discussed how Algeria experienced a vicious genocide by the French, and eventually the Algerians successful escaped colonial rule from France. The most interesting part was when we compared this to American imperialism, an idea I had never considered before.
In the US, we call it “Manifest Destiny”.
Yet the idea is the same. We expanded westward, and the empire exists to this day. There simply is no one to give it back to anymore. Nearly all the Native Americans have been exterminated.
It was a humbling class.
On the way home, I FaceTimed a number of people, though everyone seemed to be busy. Emily was on a run, so I called her later! Time to listen to my Skippy audiobook instead!
At home, I went on a wonderful run to the forest 3 kilometers from my apartment with the most amazing lakes and views. I even found a secret cave. Shoutout to my neon orange fanny pack for saving the day and holding my keys and phone.
Around 7, Anna (my British mate) came over to make pelmeni with me! Pelmeni are these delicious pork dumplings common in Eastern European cooking. I make them often, and have the recipe memorized at this point! The dough and filling are super simple to make, and I love eating them.
Anna was super good at making the dumplings (one needs to wrap and seal them by hand, Anna was a natural after butchering the first few). I also loved our conversation — turns out she’s British by accent, half-Polish and half-Spanish by heritage, speaks fluent Spanish, and has a sister that works at RedBull in Austria.
Awesome.
Anna is super cool.
After she left to meet her friend for a pint (like I mentioned, she’s British), I reviewed some resumes for my consulting club back home. We’re going through fall recruitment now, and had over 300 people apply to join our club! I love reviewing the resumes of the applicants and providing feedback. The freshman this year are cracked, with crazy experience and stacked resumes. I definitely would not have gotten in this recruitment cycle as a freshman myself.
Headed off around 10 to meet up with the gang for a glass of wine. It had been a minute since I saw Annabel and Harry, so it was GREAT to catch up. Annabel and Gibs went to Amsterdam the previous weekend. Now that’s what I’m talking about!
I overhead a super drunk guy at a nearby table saying, “If you’re in civil rights, France is the place to be.” Not sure about the context there lol.
We all left, then Joe tried to find a Velib at a nearby station, even though the app said there were none nearby. I proceeded to laugh my ass off for the next 10 minutes as Joe tried unlocking every bike at the parking station that I could’ve told you from a mile away was broken.
Sometimes my genius it, it almost generates gravity.
Joe finally found one, I walked a bit to find my own Velib, biked home, FaceTimed Audrey, and did the dishes.
I went to bed thinking of the quote I came up with today: “Treat rules as if you’re the captain of the ECO long range patrol cruiser If You Know What I Mean.”
Call me Captain Octavio “Big Score” Scarandum.
If you know what I mean :)
Friday 10/6
Chill day today. Relatively speaking, of course.
Slept in and had my delicious yogurt breakfast, as usual!
I biked over to a Starbucks near the Eiffel Tower to do some schoolwork before meeting João at a nearby museum. At 2, I headed over to meet him at the sewer museum.
I’ll say that again.
The sewer museum.
“Dennis, did you really just say you went to a museum that is literally in the sewers that talked about the history of the Parisian sewer system and had literal sewerage flowing just feet below you?”
Why yes, perplexed reader. Yes, I did.
The museum is a small building next to the Eiffel Tower. After you get your ticket (free for students!), you get into a elevator and descend into the literally sewers of Paris. You can even see the apartment numbers of the different buildings underground and the pipes running from each building!
Turns out the Parisian sewer system is extremely robust and had to be constructed after severe urban health problems from Parisians literally dumping their waste into the Seine.
Talk about a shitty system.
*author steps away from his laptop and chuckles for a bit*
Ok, we’re back.
I actually thought the museum was super cool. We got to walk among the sewer system, learn about how it was built and operated, and see a sick rat mural in the process. It didn’t smell bad at all (by far the most common question I get about this museum when I explain my visit to others) because they use a lot of chemicals to block the smell. There was also a cool gift shop!
After our brief excursion underground, João and I headed back up to the surface and sat on a park bench. We just talked about life, politics, travel for about an hour. It was absolutely lovely. Somehow I mentioned “kill 2 birds with one stone”, and João told me that the Brazilian Portuguese version is “kill 2 rabbits with one swing of a shepherd’s stick.”
Brazilians are built different.
The phrase does sound a lot better in Brazilian Portuguese, I’ll tell you.
I headed over to the Babylangues office to pick up some teaching materials for my first tutoring session next week (where I teach the 6-year-old Eliana English!) and was planning on asking Varvara (my super cute interviewer from the week prior) for her number. Unfortunately, all of her coworkers were in the same room and I didn’t want to ask in front of everyone. I could’ve asked in Russian, but it would’ve been super awkward if it didn’t go well. Basically, the circumstances weren’t ideal.
Perhaps I just have no balls. That is a possibility as well.
At home, I cooked the leftover pelmeni, but had to thaw them first. Yesterday, I put the leftover pelmeni dumplings into a cup, then froze them.
That was a big mistake.
I could not get the frozen lump of pelmeni out of the cup. I considered smashing the cup and getting the pelmeni out that way, but didn’t want to explain to my landlord why there was a cup missing from the cupboard. I ended up just pouring hot water into the cup, which allowed me to take out the pelmeni. This caused the dough to effectively disintegrate all structured form, leaving me with raw dough and pork meat. Good enough for me. I put it in the boiling water, and ate them with delight.
Again, sitting in a field with cannonballs.
Joe came over at this point, and we went on the same run that I went on the day before. 7 km, feeling in great shape, no issues at all with running and biking many kilometers a day. I have absolutely no issue running 4+ miles at an 8-mile pace. Nice!
It was also wonderful to spend time with Joe. Joe is amazing. I love Joe. I love him so much.
He comforted me about the Varvara debacle, and told me that I’m not the only one who doesn’t shoot his shot sometimes. It’s ok, Joe! We all have off days!
After a lovely pint at a random pub we found (thanks Mr. GoodBeer!), I made dinner and biked over to the rugby viewing center to watch the Italy — France rugby game. Velib had set up a special parking for this event that literally had 200 spots for Velib bikes. It was a marvel to behold.
Joe and I waited in the long line to get in through security, and then we had to squeeze through dozens of people to get to a decent viewing spot. Joe ended up leaving early to meet up with his mum and sister.
Joe called it a car crash of an idea.
It wasn’t 100% a car crash for me. I got to see Ben! How could anything be a car crash of an idea if Ben is there?
Italy lost 7 - 60. *cries in Italian*
Biked home after halftime and heard about Tatiana absolutely crushing her Bain final-round interview. Now that’s what I’m talking about!!
Life is good. Super grateful :)
Saturday 10/7
“Hi, I hope you have good sleep!”
I heard this phrase, delivered in the most French accent imaginable, several times today.
It was time for the Erasmus trip to northern France!
Basically, a few weeks ago I signed up for a weekend trip for exchange students to go to Normandy and Brittany (the two northern French provinces). Today was the day! I woke up super early (we had to be at the bus at 7:45 a.m.) and took the metro across Paris. Got there right on time.
Call me the punctuality prince. Or the time wizard. My New Year's Resolution was to be more punctual. Let’s goooooo.
I started talking to this guy right next to me, a dude called Allen from Mozambique who studies in Lisbon. He’s sick.
David (from the orientation group a few weeks prior) also went on the trip, and met this German called Nikolai. He’s really funny.
We got on the bus (it was a double-decker travel bus) and we were off to northern France! I chatted a lot with Allen, who thought it was funny that I thought everything was so cool. I was saying “That’s so cool!” a ton, it’s at the top of my American vocabulary.
Our first stop was at Honfleur, a town right by the mouth of the Seine. This is where the Vikings sailed up hundreds of years ago to sack Paris, and there is now the longest cable suspension bridge in the world crossing the river.
The top was cute and quaint, with lots of shops and a medieval vibe. Nikolai, David, Allen, and I got baguettes and hiked up to the highest point in the city to overlook the river.
We walked back down the mountain and went to this shop that was giving out free cider samples (in Europe, all ciders have alcohol in them, so there’s no such thing as a “hard cider”). The genius marketing and delicious samples made us buy a couple of bottles of cider, one of which we chugged on the way back to the bus.
This is where something very interesting happened. There was an apple tree growing near the bus (in the public area) and I picked an apple and began eating.
Nikolai, the socialist German, was extremely shocked and slightly horrified. He thought I was stealing the apple, and I told him that the tree was in the middle of town and not in anyone’s backyard.
Apparently in Germany, you have to wait for the apple to fall from the public tree before you can take it.
My view was that the apple tree was growing in the middle of the city, so everyone should be able to grab an apple if they want, otherwise, they’ll just fall and rot quickly. Nikolai thought I stole the apple. He was pretty upset, so I ate the apple quickly and threw the core in the trash. It’s really interesting how your environment leads to completely different views of the exact same event.
The next stop on our bus tour was Deauville, a beach town along the English Channel. As soon as I got off the bus, I went straight for the beach, took a half-hour nap, and swam in the English Channel. I couldn’t believe I was there! The Channel that I had read about my entire life, the subject of so much history, and I got the chance to swim in it :)
There were a ton of seashells on the beach too, so I collected some and then walked back to the bus. Great vibes!
Our final stop of the day was perhaps my favorite place in all of Europe — Saint-Malo. Saint-Malo is a medieval French town right on the coast, surrounded by castle walls and with the most amazing beach I’ve ever been to. The streets were medieval and cobbled, the shops were amazing, there was the most delicious pastry I have ever eaten, and I was just absolutely blown away.
The beach was literally the coolest place I’ve ever been. You descend down from the castle walls onto smooth sand, and there’s an artificial pool built into the beach filled with seawater from the Channel. There’s also a diving board system, so naturally I dived off the highest one. It was magical.
Another awesome thing about Saint-Malo is that there are a ton of islands in the water around the main city, and each one has its own fort on it. You can walk to the forts when the tide is low, and Nikolai, David, and I headed over to one (we were lucky we came when the tide was low!). The experience was absolutely surreal. Amazing views, amazing conversation, it was truly a perfect moment :)
Back at the hotel, we all showered (not together, don’t worry) and got ready to go out for dinner (Europeans eat dinner super late). My roommates were Allen and Killian, a half-Irish, half-Austrian dude who was one of the best-dressed and coolest people I’ve ever met. We all went out for dinner, but Killian headed into town to catch the Ireland rugby game (that man bleeds green and orange). Ireland beat Scotland 💪
Our dinner restaurant was this cute restaurant inside the walls of Saint-Malo, and we had a fun table of 6: myself, Allen, David, Nikolai, Sarah (Canadian exchange), and this super intense (for no reason and not in the best way) Jewish girl from Boca Raton, Florida. Our conversations were super interesting, David and the Florida girl were debating fiercely and it was exciting to watch. The food was delicious!! Great company
Our bus tour leaders had organized for us to go out to a bar, so we headed over to the bar. It was super lame, so I left with a couple of people and we decided to walk up onto the city walls and walk around the entire city with a bottle of rosé. It was myself, the Florida girl, another American, and this half-French, half-British girl from Chelsea (what an accent). She knew where Twickenham was. Now that’s what I’m talking about!
We eventually made it to the club, but that was more lame than the bar. Bad music and a glass of whiskey were 13 EUROS!!!! They’re just stealing from you without even having the courtesy of calling it a robbery at that point. Somehow Killian made it to the club too, so we decided to go get a pint at an Irish pub in town instead.
But before that happened, I met this cute German girl (Sophia) who sat somewhere near me on the bus but I never said hi. We chatted for a bit and I promised we’d chat tomorrow. Killian and I had a pub to find!
The pub’s pints were kinda expensive, so Killian decided to share his Irish culture and showed me the wonders of Baby Guinness shots (they’re delicious and taste like coffee, yum!) We headed over to the beach where I swam earlier, and sat on the roof of a building, drinking whiskey from his flask and talking about life. I absolutely loved it :)
Sunday 10/8
We all woke up around 9 in a surprisingly comfy bed and grabbed a super fancy breakfast at the hotel with our group. Everyone was talking about the club the night before, but I could tell by the conversations that Killian and I dipping to the beach was definitely the right move.
After packing our stuff quickly, Killian and I headed back over to Saint-Malo (we had a few hours before our bus started heading back to Paris). Along the way, we found plaques from the winners of a sailing competition that happens every 4 years, where any sailor on any boat competes to sail from Saint-Malo to the Caribbean in the shortest time possible!
Killian and I walked back onto the city walls to get over to the beach again, and there was a piano player playing melancholy music while the sun was rising over the water. It was a storybook moment. You can’t plan these things, just need to seize the fleeting moments as they pass us by :)
Nikolai, David, Killian, and I swam some more in the ocean and I taught David how to dive correctly! He eventually dived off the low dive in the artificial pool. Saint-Malo is literally one of the prettiest places I’ve ever swam in. Nikolai and I also did some push-ups on the beach. Gotta get that morning pump in somehow!
We headed back to the bus, and I sat next to Killian this time (sorry Allen!). We had a super scenic drive over to Mt St Michel, which was mostly just me looking out the window looking at the beautiful countryside.
We eventually made it to Mt St Michel. It was also one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. Mt St Michel is an abbey (monk town, basically) that is built on this massive rock in the English Channel. When the tide is high, it’s an island. When the tide is low, it’s part of France. It was a super scenic walk over to Mt St Michel, with some guest appearances from seaweed-eating sheep!! I walked under the bridge in the mud to fully experience the crossing :)
The architecture of the streets of Mt St Michel was straight out of a medieval movie. Narrow, steep streets, lots of shops and wooden signs, I loved it. The views of the coast and ocean were amazing as well. Most of the group went for lunch before the abbey tour, but myself and two other German girls (including Sophia, the cute one from yesterday) headed up to the abbey immediately. The abbey was gorgeous, with so much history. Some form of the abbey had been standing there since the 700s. I love being in places older than the entire US, the amount of history is incredible. It was a beautiful place.
Sophia and I talked a lot in the abbey and it was honestly such a pleasure. She was very жизнерадостная — happy about life. She smiles easily, laughs often, and has this twinkle in her eyes that just makes everyone want to hang out around her. That is the kind of personality I want to bring to others, it was amazing to be with her for that afternoon. She had this certain je ne sais quoi. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know it’s there
We all headed back to the bus around 5, with the view of Mt St Michel fading behind us.
On the drive back to Paris, most of the bus was asleep, though I read Man’s Search for Meaning, an autobiography of a Holocaust survivor and a philosophical discussion on how to find purpose in a life full of suffering. It was one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read.
I recommend it highly.
Back in Paris, I exchanged phone numbers with everyone that I met on the trip, then biked over to Joe’s to plan our November break trip with our group! I bought my Interrail Pass and outsourced all the planning to them. Thank you all!
And just like that, one of the most wonderful weekends ever has come to an end. Thanks for tuning in :)
Some more pictures:
