After London, I spent a wonderful week in France with two of my good friends from Harvard, Eunice and Marion. We stayed at Marion's family home in Villeneuve-les-Bordes, in the province of Ile-de-France, a small village about an hour away from Paris.
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| The central courtyard of Marion's house. Whereas American houses are compact and then have yards to the outside, European houses are square-shaped and have inner courtyards, which allow for more privacy. |
Experiencing French rural life was fascinating - her village is so small, it doesn't even have a bakery for the fresh baguettes that French people can't survive for even a meal without, so we walked to the parish community center, where retired people sell pre-ordered baguettes for an hour every morning. It was a pretty relaxing week, on the whole, but one that was full of lots of new experiences. I walked a dog, touched a chicken, watched a
hilarious French movie while eating
macarons, visited the village fair, and even rode Marion's horses!
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| Marion and her dog near the well |
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| Marion leading the horse as I walk it |
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| Eunice is from Los Angeles and is a city girl through and through. To see her on a horse - and liking it! - was a huge surprise. |
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| Sunset at the gate separating Marion's family's property from that of their neighbors |
Living in Villeneuve-les-Bordes also made day trips to Paris possible, and the three of us made excellent traveling companions. Eunice, who wants to move to Paris when she graduates and has been a gustatory Francophile for the past three years, came up with a list of things for us to do (which included lots of chocolatiers, the universities that educated our
favorite social theorists, parks, and hipster neighborhoods). I, who am anal about planning things, assembled them into a coherent order and figured out the best way to navigate between them on the Metro and by foot. Marion, who is a native French speaker, took charge of the actual navigation and asked people for directions when we inevitably got lost. And things worked out wonderfully. Exploring the city with the two of them was a real pleasure.
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| Students enjoying the nice weather at the Jardin du Luxembourg |
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| A hidden park in the very hilly neighborhood of Montmartre |
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