People

With my dear friend Julia

Since last Saturday when Julia and Parkie began their 24 hour journey back to Brisbane,  an empty feeling comes over me, sometimes when the light is right for a nice sit and chat, other times when the magpies are in evening vespers, and often when unpacking my my new place, spoiled by hand me downs.  It's a funny thing to have a friendship with someone so young, but she's old beyond her years, despite her puppy-like enthusiasm for the Harry Potter store, which was hard for me to understand. 

We met through Facebook, which is funny because neither of us uses it. This sunny Aussie girl asked me out to lunch, and that first time together cemented things immediately. Julia moved to Aix here to be with Parkie while he was on a contract with Airbus in Marseille. For someone so young to have only minimal responsibilities must have been a little disorienting and at first, she was unmoored, painfully missing her family and life back in Brisbane. But gradually, they both grew a friend group who went indoor climbing on Friday nights, then she joined a pool and got back to swimming and became a barista at the volunteer coffee shop, meeting another friend for life from South Africa. So by the time last week rolled around and the two of them finally put a lid on a month of goodbyes, although she was finally going back to her family, I believe she felt a bit torn away from a life she had grown to love.  She taught me words like yabby and brekkie and chook, but really it was that instant and very deep connection we shared that was what mattered. Julia taught me to be warm yet unapologetic with everyone, even French waiters, I can't think of anyone who is engages unfamiliar people more easily.

She's about to start med school in Perth, and plans to take her fellowship year in the bush, from which she anticipates never returning. Interesting, doctors who work there need to be trained as a GP, as well as in general  surgery, OB/GYN and even some dental.  So, happy trails, you two, as your lives open up to the next chapter. You left your mark and are missed.

First night of Advent at Cathedral Sainte Saveur

English language carols were held on the first night of Advent, and two of us got some of the last seats in this cavernous place. I had to squeeze by an older woman "from the region" as my friend Ank has taught me, meaning from the countryside, on a trip into the city.  Her perfectly rounded helmet of jet black hair was the first giveaway, and sitting next to her, I could see how tightly she grasped her faux leather handbag. When the choir was doing the equivalent of orchestral tuning, running scales, she began shushing those around her, fortunately not me.

I was pumped up for a big old carol singalong and there were many and the little American girls were singing the 12 days of Christmas at the top of their lungs and dancing, which was lovely. At some point, an very fair American, who likely stayed on the train that had deposed the Mormons I had seen the prior week, went on about how awful we humans were and did begin talking about burning in hell at which point the woman I was with and I rolled our eyes at each other. At the same time, my French friend on the other side of me, who endearingly had been following along with the English language carols with her finger underneath each word, remarked that this man was talking too much and why would he do that when there were French people in the audience who couldn't understand? I told her she wouldn't want to understand. And then we were friends.  When finally it was time for Silent Night, she used her finger and sang for the first time, a voice rich and beautiful and moving. When the song was over and I had teared up, I passed on my appreciation, embarrassed that she'd had to listen to me for the last hour. She told me she'd been a singer in her thirties, but now that she was 89, her voice was "horrible". I complemented her on how young she looked and was delighted to see the way she jumped up from the pews, and later outside, saw her talking on speaker, her phone covered with a  brash flower design. Something about her made my day and I topped it by finally trying a coronet of châtaignes grillées, or roasted chestnuts, eating them while I roamed around Aix on a Sunday night, full of people and lights and happiness.

Dutchland

I'm going to have a separate post about moving and my new place, which I love, but the whole process has had me thinking so much about unspoken cultural agreements, generalizing, which I believe usually comes from collecting a fair amount of data. As I've mentioned before, this apartment hunting process has often left me feeling misaligned as a foreigner, nay American, which I fear is even worse. Here are two stories Nat has recently shared with me about Dutch people.

The first takes place at the food coop where she works, Dutch people are more focused on Sinterklaas than Christmas, one of the traditions being to give chocolate in the shape of the letter with which the recipients name begins. Apparently her store, Odin,  had been written up in the Dutch version of the New York Times as the purveyor of the best chocolate letters. Nat's words "so a flurry of people whipped through yesterday and wiped the store out in a matter of hours...Today all these adults came in asking please please if we had any more chocolate letters and would they be coming back in stock. all ended up leaving with those droopy forlorn shoulders." To me the Dutch are stoic and tough and bike in the windy rain. Yet here you have it. If you want to get some really funny views about Dutch culture, check out Double Dutch, this guy is really funny too.

The other is a story that was also in that NYT about how international companies in the Netherlands had started providing free cafeteria style lunches for employees. As Nat said "Everyone was understandably excited but there was some culture clash because Dutch people would take their lunch, and then bring extra Tupperware and pile up to bring home leftovers for their families. They apparently were just scooping and scooping until they reached the bottom, no regard for others. And then the international people would go get their lunch, and there would be not a crumb of food left. And so they got upset that there wasn’t enough left for them to even eat lunch and the Dutch people just Dutch shrugged and ...said "Well, it’s too bad you’re too late! You should have thought to come sooner."  I asked Nat if she thought that there would be a different outcome should a sign be placed saying that people should take only what they can eat in the cafeteria, and she said she wasn't sure, as the Dutch are particular, but don't like being told what to do.

I love both stories, but the second especially because it makes me laugh without even being there. But also because it's clearly a clash of mores. And yeah, it's a thing, will talk about it in the next post and how hard it is to navigate.