Hometown Heroes

Before I close out this blog (which, I promise, I'm getting ready to do soon-ish), I wanted to say thank you to a certain group of people.

That group of people is my Hometown Heroes.

Let me back up. It can be daunting to move to another continent by yourself. You know what makes that easier? Moving to another continent by yourself with the support of your #squad. Just because I did this by myself, doesn't mean I did it independently. I would never have been able to do this without my people "back home." (And by "back home," I mean in Texas, in Louisiana, and all over the States.)

So here's where I get to make my shout outs. Because guys? Guess what. I love ya.

My family: I remember the day that I told my parents and brothers (over Brandon's 17th birthday dinner at Hoffbrau) "I'm going to try to move to France next year." They didn't even bat an eye. We solved the one issue (what to do with Nolie*) within a few minutes over appetizers. They were just as supportive throughout the whole process. They never questioned my somewhat questionable decision of quitting my full-time job with benefits for a one-year penny-paying gig across the ocean without any certainty of regaining employment upon my return. They didn't blink when I moved in for three months before I left and seven months when I got back.** They lent me money at the end of the year so I could finish my travels. They not only supported me, but never stopped encouraging me that I had made a great decision. I could never thank them enough for this. I love y'all!

My best friends: I am convinced I have the best best friends in the world. I'm not kidding. I'm not just saying that. I am certain of it in my heart. The reasons might take an entire other blog, so I won't list them all here. I have somehow found all the good people, guys. Here's the thing: I left with the full knowledge that my close friendships would be intact when I returned. I have the kind of friends who still love me when I disappear for college, or grad school, or endless stretches of "can't come to the surface to breathe" non-stop teacher work. They understand and I am so thankful. They know I always come back. I knew that I would leave and our relationships would pick right up where we left off upon my return. (It didn't hurt that it was 2012-2013 and there was Skype, Facebook, email, and my FreeMobile phone plan.) But truly, they were so loving and so supportive and, just like I knew we would, we picked right up where we left off and kept going strong. I love y'all 5ever.

All of my friends and followers: I had SO much fun telling my stories on this blog. And the crazy part? Some people actually read it! Like you! You're reading this right now! Interacting with y'all, both on SYTYCF and on Facebook, made sharing so much more fun. It was an absolute joy to have you guys along for the ride and I hope that I sent a little joy back to you, too. I know this is two and a half years late, but thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking some of your precious time to read even a little of this blog. I am flattered and honored. (And, if you really did enjoy reading, stay tuned for my new blog, coming soon! Think less chronological, detailed, and temporary, more free-flowing, impressionistic, and long-term. It really is coming. I'm already writing. Expect it on an Internet near your summer 2016. Updated April 2016: New blog is now available! Come find me at www.katyontheroad.com.)

Basically, everyone I know was so supportive from the very beginning to the very end, and I feel so #blessed because of it.

announcement post on Facebook from April 4, 2012

(There was much rejoicing. Seriously, y'all were THE BEST part of getting to make that announcement. Also the mad sense of liberation. You know. It was all GREAT fun.)

Also, a HUGE special shout out to those of y'all who actually sent me things in France! From cards to packages, I appreciate the time, money, and effort that it takes to send something abroad. Y'all lit up my life (and decorated my room), and it made things so much easier to have a near-constant stream of love from home. Y'all are the BEST.

Now for the pictures. And the memories. On y va!

my very first package... from my parents! Deodorant and Reese's pumpkins are important, y'all. (And apparently other stuff, too, judging by the size of that package. I can't remember just now.)

from Amy & fam, Kara & fam, & Irene

from my parents... I still wear those white snowflake pajama leggings. (Only at home. You're welcome, world.)

again, parents

from Mattie & Matt

from Mattie & Matt... this was in the winter when I was sick as usual. Also Reese's! I still have those socks. :)

My friend Blake sent me this comic giving Harley Quinn's backstory. I love it and still read it. (Also? I'm a Batman girl, if you're curious.) Blake I miss you and I NEED TO CALL YOU. I am the worst and I'm sorry.

from Shannon & fam

a BIG shout out to Nakia, my only visitor from home! Granted, she was already in France visiting friends, but STILL it was so great to see her!

We went to Montpellier for the day.

... and she brought me my favorite gum!

(Also, I'll remind y'all that Irene did come and visit me in Narbonne, too! But Nakia was my only transatlantic visitor.)

French Aaron & Cristie

(ps: Cristie I'm still sorry I missed your wedding because of the whole living in France thing... but it looked beautiful!)

ALL OF THE SKYPES

And, of course, thank God for Skype. (I didn't have an iPhone at the time, so no FaceTime.) Also, my album for Skypes was called (just like above) "All of the Skypes," and I get the accompanying song "All of the Lights Skypes" in my head whenever I see it.

French Aaron

YES I WAS SKYPING MY BROKEN DOG. Don't worry about it. Also MeeMaw and my mom were there so there were people too. Chilllll.

But I also sent her a postcard. So maybe you can unchill about that. 

Whatever, it's fine. Don't worry about it.

This was actually with my family, but they were showing me the snow on Christmas day. (Yes, for those of you who may not know, it snowed in Fort Worth on Christmas for the first time during my lifetime on the year I happened to be spending Christmas near the Alps. Where it was, by the way, 50°, if you were curious. This? Right here? Is Katy Dubya luck.)

Kara & baby Jake!

This one makes me laugh. ALSO HE WAS SO TINY.

B & Nolie Mae

Vitaly and his ridiculous moustache

................................

Please notice my cabinet and wall, which were decorated exclusively with cards from you beautiful people. It made me very, very happy. 

♥

................................

So, to all of you who played ANY part in my year abroad, from home or from afar, just know that I am so thankful to and for you. It meant so much to me. It still does. You're all my heroes. And I love ya.

♥

*The answer? She stayed with them. I accidentally haven't gotten her back. It's okay, I think they like her better than me anyway.

**Holy cow. I just realized that was seven months just now when I counted on my fingers. Wow. That happened.

Time for a BREAK!

Most of you are in the loop, but just in case you haven't gotten the memo... I'm on vacation. Again.

That's right, mes amis. It's time for the THIRD (and final) two-week long school break of the year. This time, it's our vacances d'hiver (winter vacation).

Listen, a girl can only take so many 12-hour work weeks before she needs a break.

And by "so many" I mean seven. It's been seven weeks since my last vacation.

What adventures await me this time, you may ask?!

You have no idea how many attempts it took us to get a couple good ones of these.

For the FOURTH time in a calendar year (March '12 - Texas, September & December '12 - Germany, February '13 - France), I am getting to spend time with Irene. She is spending a week with me in southern France, just hanging out, fighting the wind, trying to soak up the sun (when we're not being blown away), watching movies, eating pastries, drinking tea, riding trains, meeting my friends, and generally having the fun. So far? Narbonne, Carcassonne, Montpellier, Sète. Coming soon? Perpignan & Toulouse. We're trying to profite au maximum from our time together - the most time we've been able to spend just relaxing together since 2009. 

And then...

That's right. Both photos feature alliteration. Get on board.

YES. On Saturday, I am heading with several other Narbonne assistants to MOROCCO. As in AFRICA. As in I'll be on a whole brand-new continent within the week. (!!!!!!)

I know Morocco is kind of cheating when it comes to traveling to Africa as it's comparatively westernized, but hey, it's a start. And this is the most adventurous/"different" place I'll ever have been. HERE. WE. GO.

Lottie & Emily (two other English assistants in Narbo) and I will be joining Carmen and Violeta in Marrakesh. We'll also meet up with Zack (the Canadian assistant of recent kebab fame) and his girlfriend Lyndsay. It's going to be a smashing good time, and our #1 goal is to ride camels, so stay tuned.

Tons upon tons of pictures will be showing up at some point. That point is not today.

Adventure awaits!

ps: It is someone very special's 8TH birthday today! Maddie, you officially have my permission to turn 8! JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE!

Meanwhile at Magic Jump

So this one time, Violeta and I went to a French 10-year-old's birthday party.

At Magic Jump.

Which is basically a giant room full of bounce houses/bouncy castles/Jupiter jumps/awesomeness.

It went a little something like this...

Easy for them to say.

The left off the from ?? to ?? years old. This is what happens when you don't make limits, people.

... and then we had crêpes. I mean, let's not forget we're in France, y'all.

This is all courtesy of Cathy, one of the fantastic teachers I work with, remember? We were invited to her son's 10th birthday. (How adorable is THAT?!) The day basically consisted of her 6-year-old daughter and her BFF pulling me and Violeta by the hand and running from house to castle to obstacle course to harder obstacle course. It took us on average about 4x longer to arrive, and just as we arrived, we'd be grabbed by the hands as little two little French voices cried happily "Un autre! Un autre!" (Another! Another!) and we'd "run" (fall) off again. We laughed harder than should be humanly possible, and eventually got so tired we had to hide in a hidden bounce house for the last 20 minutes of the jumping portion of the day.

And then Cathy took us home for lunch, where we had delicious chicken tagine and met her parents and 92-year-old grandmother.

Basically, it was the best day. I mean... seriously. Ma vie française.

Super Bowl Sunday

This title's a little misleading, because secretly my weekend had nothing to do with the Super Bowl (as very few Europeans care much at all about American football, I have no access to a television, and it started at midnight my time). However, here are my opinions on the Super Bowl:

1) Beyoncé. Just, Beyoncé. Yes, I saw (online the next day).

2) Of course the power went out in the Superdome. It's Louisiana.* Power outages are practically a weekly occurrence. (Did they think ahead to do rolling blackouts in advance to conserve power for the Super Bowl, à la DFW in 2011?)

Now here's the skinny on MY Super Bowl Weekend:

vendredi / Friday: Yet another soirée internationale with my lovely fellow assistants narbonnais (and some of our friends we've collected along the way... We get together, we cook, we laugh, we eat, we dance,** we sing, we speak different languages, we learn, we have the best times. This is undoubtedly my favorite part of my experience here: Our ever-growing group of (international) friends!

Spanish tortilla, croquetas, chicken, mozzarella salad, salmon toast things, fried brie, lentil/carrot/spinach salad, curry, and of course, wine!

Seriously, how gorgeous is this plate of deliciousness?!

This particular evening we were 11 people (and 6 nationalities)!

me, Anais (Spanish), Corentin (French), Vincent (French), Charley (English), Dörte (German), Alice (Venezuelan), Zack (Canadian), Violeta (Spanish), Carmen (Spanish)

(The picture's missing Lottie (English), who's taking the picture.) 

My contribution was real American (GOOEY) chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven. Cookies here are not that common and when they do exist, they're dry and brittle. More than one European was delightfully surprised by these little pieces of heaven (read: minds were blown). And I'm glad, as the ingredients were a bit of a search (baking soda at the pharmacy, not the store!) and conversions are never fun. (me + math = ??? I don't know, something bad.)

What better way is there to work off all the food than dancing? We danced the night away, first at the house, and then at the only place to go out at night in Narbonne, Botafogo. Hopefully we took care of a few of those calories!

samedi / Saturday: Lazy day, headed back over the the maison orange to recuperate my cell phone (which I constantly leave everywhere), made crêpes for lunch to somewhat accidentally celebrate Chandeleur. Except that you're apparently only supposed to eat them after 8:00 pm. Oh well. Really, it was kind of just a coincidence, because we just wanted crêpes.

dimanche / Sunday: Super Bowlllll! JK. Sunday I got up early (for me) to go with Anais (Spanish assistant) and Corentin (her French housemate) to go on a little excursion. We first headed to L'Abbaye de Fontfroide, an abbey located about 15 minutes from Narbonne. 

The abbey was first Benedictine (1093-1444) and then became Sisterian. There were two sorts of people who lived there, the moines, or actual monks, and the frères convers, or lay brothers. The lay brothers were men who were housed and fed by the abbey and in return they did the manual labor. The abbey was also a key player in the crusade against the Cathars, members a religious movement during the 10th-13th centuries. More about the Cathars a bit later.

This dining hall was for the frères convers.

courtyard

main door back in the day

cloister

This was formerly the dining room for les moines, the monks. However, in 1908, the painter Gustave Fayet and his wife bought the abbey (so that it wouldn't be sold brick-by-brick to the United States, actually) and moved in. They redecorated the part they lived in, including this room.

These tapestries represent different stories from mythology all over the world.

The Queen herself dined in this room with the Fayets - the menu from the evening is displayed on the right (too bad the picture's too fuzzy to see).

the dining room where the Queen ate with the fam

the "modernized" kitchen (I guess compared to the 11th century, most kitchens are modern.)

more cloister - if you look at the arches from across the way compared with the arch through which the picture is being taken, you can see the difference. There was an earthquake at some point and they decided to redo the destroyed arches in a simpler way.

view from the Chapter Room to the cloister

The church is an example of transitional architecture, at the end of the Romanesque period and the beginning of Gothic architecture. Romanesque architecture features round arches, while Gothic features pointed arches. If you look at the arched ceiling, you can see the beginning of the Gothic arch.

The original stained-glass windows were in all grey and blue, to retain the somber and pious atmosphere for the monks. However, when the Fayet family moved in, they redid all of the windows.

The facade definitely looks all Romanesque.

Self-timer pictures are always interesting. :)

After Fontfroide, we headed out to find the village of Minerve, which had been recommended to Anais and Corentin. Here's a view pictures of what it looks like to drive around down here in Languedoc-Rousillon, which is characterized by shrubbery, small rocky mountains called Corbières, and some small cliffs and canyons. (And, of course, sun and wind!) 

Minerve! The river Cesse made a gorge here, and Minerve stands in the middle of the gorge. It's basically got a natural moat.

more of the gorge

Minerve

... plus me

"One of the most beautiful villages of France"

The only cars allowed across this bridge and into the village are those owned by the residents (of which there are fewer than 150)!

You can see the river Cesse in this picture.

Get ready for lots of pictures of picturesque narrow streets, because I LOVE them.

... and doors. I've been noticing doors as of late.

children's books in a closed shop's window

This little monument is in honor of the 140 Cathars who were burned in the year 1210 for heresy. During the crusade against the Cathars, there was a massacre in nearby Béziers. Many Cathars saught refuge in nearby Minerve, which fell under siege. After six weeks, it fell, and the Cathars who refused to deny their faith were burned.

The Cathars were hated by the Catholic church because, well, their beliefs weren't exactly what the Catholic church believed. Included in their doctrine were the beliefs that Holy Communion/the Eucharist is symbolic rather than literal (wine to blood, bread to flesh), that you should not get married/reproduce (I guess the only way to become a Cathar was to convert?), that you shouldn't eat anything that comes as a result of sexual reproduction (read: animal products), and that the sacrament of Penance cannot occur after Baptism (meaning most waited until the end of their life to be baptized - no sinning after baptism! - what happens if you die suddenly?). The Languedoc-Rousillon region is the region of the Cathars - most of the Cathars in France were in this region. They call this region le pays cathare (Cathar country) and there are lots of castles, villages, etc. with Cathar history.

... And then I found this baby "cave." Which kind of hid me from the WIND.

Anais & Corentin

We actually ate lunch in this cave because it was the only place we could find that had any shelter from the wind. #languedocproblemes

...Then we made these dog friends, particularly the one on the right. Everytime I meet a dog I want to instantly become best friends/cuddle, until I remember that wandering French dogs are generally kind of dirty. Sidenote, I miss my Nolers.

See the fish hardware on the doors?

You can see the catapult across the way, which is one of the catapults used to attack the city.

Au revoir, lovely, quiet, picturesque Minerve!

Annnnnd now a few pictures of the drive home...

It was a lovely, cold, windy day kickin' it with Anais & Corentin and seeing a little bit more of the region. I've made it a point to profite (make the best of) my current situation and see some more of France this semester. (Which means YOU'LL see more of France!)

We wrapped it up with jeux de société (social games, like cards and board games), played in French/Spanish, and then a French-Swedish film Rendez-vous à Kiruna. (Trying to make a habit of catching foreign films while I have the chance!)

A little somewhat-related shout out: My friends Desiree' & Brandon welcomed little Titus to the world the same day - Super Bowl Sunday! (Which is perfect seeing as Brandon played college football and has also been a football coach!) He is so handsome, and I can't wait to hold him when I get home. It's also his beautiful momma's birthday today - Happy Birthday Desiree'!

*Which, don't get me wrong, I LOVE. But, you know. Real talk.

**This particular night, we even Cupid Shuffled. That's right.