Sponge Bath Fas

May 12, 2008

I’m on the night train to Florence and my couchette-mates are two American girls and an older French woman named Monique. The light streaming through the window gives the cabin a golden glow as the sun sinks into the horizon. There’s something very special about traveling by train, perhaps it’s just nostalgia or the fact that I always think better as I watch the countryside speed by.

After six weeks in Paris and especially the last few days filled with trips to the park, concerts, patanque, goodbye drinks, and goodbye dinners, I feel much like I did upon leaving Seattle—sad to go, excited about my next destination, and in desperate need of sensory deprivation, not to mention a little detox.

I’m also immensely happy that for the next week I won’t have to travel across town to take a shower, although I have to admit, it’s made for a very interesting experience and I realize more than ever that I’m so fortunate to have such generous friends. In the last 6 weeks, I’ve slept in 7 different apartments and showered in almost as many places—hmm…perhaps more if you include the semi-sponge bath I did in Starbucks. Yeah, so don’t knock the Starbucks—they’ve got the cleanest bathrooms in all of Paris!

I got into the habit of just carrying bathroom toiletries around with me as my first lesson in Paris was: never turn down an opportunity to take a shower. The second was: French is a very difficult language, especially if you’ve studied a language like Italian, where you normally pronounce everything.

This past Friday marked the completion of a 5-week super intensive French language program that pretty much sucked my brain dry—in a good way. My day typically started at 7:30am, as the courses were held Monday through Friday, 9am to 6:15pm, with a variety of different professors. The courses were conducted completely in French and we were forbidden to use any English, even to each other. Some of the professors focus solely on working with beginners, others teach a theatre class once a week, there are also a variety of workshops that cover written exercises, audio drills, supervised study hours, and group exercises that focus on oral proficiency. I was pretty skeptical at first, but overall was pretty impressed with the level of professionalism that’s devoted to teaching and it’s pretty surprising how much I’ve learned in such a short time. Plus, it’s damn satisfying to be able to have small talk with Monique in French and then switch to Italian when the conductor comes by, so what if I speak like a toddler.

The classes were made up of students from all over the world and of varying age ranges. The largest nationality represented in my class was Swedish, but there were also Spaniards, Italians, Mexicans, Germans, Brazilians, Portuguese, Chileans, Dutch, British, Australians, Americans, Turkish, and a surprising amount of Koreans. If you’re traveling alone it’s a great way to meet people, as you automatically have something in common with everyone there: learning French.

I'm incredibly excited about seeing Karina and Juice as well as Capt Lew & Nick in Italy and being in Florence again after four years. I've never returned from Italy unchanged so it will be interesting to see what this trip brings. Already the conductor has checked in on us for the 8th time...ah...viva italia!