France trip 2007 part 1

Goin' way back. I've decided that I'm a terrible story teller. I can never remember those funny little moments in life, not just to laugh at while in the midst of dropping the kids off at the pool, but to share with others. Also, life is ridiculous, but sometimes I don't see the absurdity in the situation unless I reflect on it. But how would I remember it otherwise? I tend to abstract events big and small, removing the character and detail that makes these events meaningful.

So back in summer of 2007, my friend Theo and I somehow landed a gig in Bretagne, northern France. His grandfather had some part in a traveling science museum (called l'Abret) of sorts that thought it would be useful to have some American interns to spice up their life. Having just finished our first year of college, we were stoked, as it would surely be an awesome time living in France for a month while working on.... wait what were we supposed to do again? We had no idea. I'm not sure they knew what they had in mind for us either.

Prior to starting the internship, my parents and I decided to hang out in France and then Syria for a couple weeks. That will perhaps be the subject of another tale. But the point is, before going to France for this internship, I went to Syria. One thing you're sure to take away from Syria with is stomach problems, and this trip was no exception.

So I land in France, with nothing but my luggage (which had no wheels, and if you've seen Up in the Air you know that's a biiig mistake), diarrhea, and a raging fever. Theo and I were supposed to meet in Charles de Gaulle airport and take the metro to rest at his step-grandmother's place for the night before we moved to Bretagne. Unfortunately for us, her place was not close to the metro.

Let me tell you, not having wheels on my luggage was a big mistake. If you can imagine walking through Paris, trying to decipher street signs at midnight, changing directions and getting lost, please stop. I wouldn't want you to feel the same way. Point is, it sucked.

So we finally got to the grandmother's place at one in the morning (you can imagine her reaction...we felt pretty bad about coming that late), only to find that our parents were worried sick, because apparently we had been out of contact for 3 hours after landing. We pass out for the night, exhausted from traveling both the streets of Paris and the skies of Eurasia.

The next morning we left for Bretagne. I actually really enjoyed going on the TGV; I like public transportation in general. I feel like it forces you to remain in contact with people you otherwise would have no interaction with. After a while you stop talking and just look at the countryside pass by. It's sad that I feel this is the most effective way to communicate the imagery but it was a bit like riding on the Hogwarts Express. Particularly northern France, which even in the summer is sort of foggy, but lush, green, and expansive. Completely different from Paris, in other words.

Bretagne is not just northern France, but the on the coast. A quilt of sandy, tidal (yes, I forgot tides even existed!! hadn't seen that shit except in like bill nye) beaches, and lush green forest and farmland. In addition to the landscape, Bretagne is known for its crepes. I'm not sure if it's just here, or throughout France, but they have more than just dessert crepes. There are these like.. meal crepes, with ham, eggs, and cheese. When we landed in Bretagne we were picked up by Theo's grandparents, who immediately took us to get these crepes. It was fun talking to his grandparents, who were extremely kind, not to mention forgiving of my mediocre French. Still, we were able to hold conversations, with Theo being my babelfish when I didn't know a word or phrase.

On our first day at the job, we finally found out what exactly they wanted us to do: make flash animations to explain electromagnetic phenomena (stuff like waves, electric field, light, faraday's law) to the French public. The end goal was to give patrons an appreciation for the wireless technology available today. We weren't given much direction outside of this end goal and a few experiments, so it was up to us to flesh out the concept and how we wanted to present it. This was my favorite day of this internship, because we spent the rest of our first day figuring out how we wanted to communicate these ideas. I think this was one of the first times I realized how cool lesson planning is, and how interesting it is trying to think of the optimal way to express ideas to other people.

The next two weeks were extremely busy, as we had one month to first learn Flash (which we didn't have, nor did l'Abret provide for, which meant we pirated it, wooo!) and then make something presentable, so we needed to haul ass. Theo and I had very different learning styles, and it was cool seeing our strengths and weaknesses come into play. I was very focused on "learning the basics" of the language, so that when we needed to do something I would have some basis to work with, whereas Theo was more of the "learn as you go" style. He was the pioneer, finding the gold faster than anyone else could. I was making the supports. (Uh, trying to use more metaphors...uh-huh).

Okay this could go on longer but I will continue it in another post...