The Superiority of French Cuisine, How I Adore all of my Courses, and How I am Homesick None-the-less...

First, I will assure you that despite being slightly homesick I am enjoying myself a ridiculous amount.

I am constantly overwhelmed by my French dining experiences. Favorites:

1. It does not matter where or when you buy it, Pain au Chocolat is the best. The bread and chocolate seem to melt in a sweet heaven in your mouth. I have had Pain au Chocolate for 1euro that was less delicious than Pain au Chocolat for 2euro - regardless - even sub-par French Pain au Chocolate is better than just about any American desert had for the equivalent price.
2. Wine. With everything. And semi-locally grown. I have grown to love wine while here - especially "rose" wine. I love that you can buy it anywhere - any restaurant - any cafe - sells really excellent wine for really cheap prices.
3. Coffee! I love it. In my house we have a machine. You insert a little pretty capsule in the top, press a button and PRESTO out comes delicious espresso. I even had some 50cent coffee out of a vending machine that was heavenly.
   
4. Cream. In everything. BUT. Don't make the mistake of drinking the milk here plain. Its seriously disgusting because it is really more like half&half then real milk.
   
5. Pizza with cream sauce. Pizza here is seriously superior to American pizza. Last week, Hanna and I bought a 2euro frozen pizza that was seriously some of the best pizza I've ever had, all because they use cream sauce instead of just tomato sauce.
   
6. Yogurt. Vastly delicious. All sorts of varieties. My recent obsession is eating plain yogurt and then adding lots of sugar, like the rest of my homestay family does. It is seriously the best thing ever.
   
7. I love cafes. They have such good ambiance: people to watch, lots of interesting menu items, cheap prices, and frequently very lovely presentation of the food.
   
8. I love street vendors. Cheaper prices than cafes, really good sandwiches, really convenient locations.
   
9. Lots of delicious and unusual dishes: plumb pie, squash curry soup, croque Bergers (croque monsieurs + goat cheese), cold red pepper soup with olive oil, and on and on and on....
10. Mostly great that I can eat all of these things without gaining weight because I walk 5 miles a day (or more).
    

My schedule has finally been finalized, I have finally found all of my books (this was quite a chore, actually!) and finally started filling up my various cute French notebooks. I think that I am going to love this semester academically, even if it will be hard to squeeze all my work into days that I'm not traveling.

Classes include:

• Poetry of the turn of the Century: My professor, M. Postel, is a very little, petite and enthusiastic French man. He talks very quickly, is a little too obsessed with caesuras and rhythm, in my opinion, but none-the-less is so enthusiastic that its contagious. I am loving Baudelaire, who we are currently studying, and want to adopt for life the concept of "les fleurs du mal," which is essentially that there is beauty even in the grotesque, tragic, and quotidian.
• French Writers in Foreign Nations: So far this class has been a bit bizarre. We have been focusing on various French stories that describe trips taken to America. Out of the five stories we have read, only one could be said to have a favorable view of America. Most find it too ugly, too crowded, too materialistic, etc. The only story that depicted America in a way that I found accurate and in which the author actually liked America? L'Étudiant étranger by Philippe Labro which takes place in the American South! Excellent!
• Palestine: My professor, Mme de la Foye, is very funny, enthusiastic, and has written a very straightforward and informative book on the subject (which we were of course forced to purchase) called the United States and Islam. This class, like the French Author's class, is interesting because it talks about America frequently; I really am coming to feel that we are and have been on the wrong side of the Israel-Palestine crises, and it is difficult to hear all of the ways in which America has greatly messed up the situation. It is also a bit terrifying; the Muslim world really does hate America, with some cause, and the past and future ramifications of that hatred are terrifying to think on.
  
• Translation: This class is at the University. MY PROFESSOR'S NAME??? Michael Christian Faith. He made a joke about how he should probably have been a television evangelist instead of a professor. He is very dorky, very sweaty, but very sweet too. So far the translations haven't been too difficult, I'm still a bit worried that our final, which consists of two translations without the use of a dictionary, counts for 50% of our grade.
  
• Literature of the Strange: Taught by a very young M. Claudel, this class is going to be so excellent! I find it very exciting, so far we've been exploring the definition of the word 'fantastic' and the origins of its birth in literature in the 19th century. It is very interesting, and I think it will be really inspirational in terms of my writing.
  

Despite the fact that I am loving everything, I am still a bit homesick. I suppose it comes from it being fall now; Tennessee is always so beautiful in the autumn. I find myself longing for Nashville in the fall: for Belmont Blvd and the way the leaves stain the sidewalk with their prints, my backyard, full of birds, and all my Halloweens, pumpkin carving with my family, stuffing a "scare crow" for the front porch, Aunt Linda's house and all its bustle. I find myself also longing for Sewanee: for hikes - last year around now didn't we do Cedar Hollow Lake? - and Mountain Top Ball, and all the glorious, glorious trees, and chai tea, and snuggling in the morning with Jonathan and the windows all covered in frost and the earth outside sleeping in fog. And what seems strange to me is that I miss them both: Nashville and Sewanee, and can only suppose that when I have left here it will be the same, to a lesser extent, with Nantes, tagged on to my list of homes that I long for when I am away from them. It is one of those sad, sad aspects of growing older that I do not too much like, and I will be glad, I think, years from now, when I am settled in a more permanent fashion one way or another again.

And not to be dramatic, but it puts me in the mind of a terribly beautiful line from Kings of Convenience: "Homesick, cos I no longer know where home is."

Only I know that my home is Nashville and Sewanee both and that it is difficult for me to miss them both simultaneously instead of one at a time.

Not to mention my family and Jonathan and all my friends.