Vacation travels part 1

Many things have happened over the past month. I visited three countries (France, the U.S., and Spain), entertained and was entertained by three visitors (my mom, my brother Eli, and Emma Johnson from Winsor), got a new job, went to a reunion for my Israel trip last summer, and realized how much has and hasn't changed when I went home for a week. As the new semester is starting tomorrow, I thought I should update before things change again.

I'll start roughly chronologically. I had a spate of work near the end of December, with about 30 pages of essays in French due during one week, and then another 15-20 pages due after vacation. Luckily, everything turned out very well. I hope that Harvard takes my credit next year. Around and after this work, my mom and I went to see Les Invalides, the Musee Rodin, the Musee de l'Armee, Deyrolle, and the Catacombes. Mom and I explored Paris intensely for a week, and then Eli arrived. He's 15 and this was his first time spending a length of time in Europe. He takes Spanish in school, but picked up a little French over the stay. My uncle Tom, who works in international finance, helping small enterprises grow in developing countries, stopped by from his post in Nigeria. All of us visited such classics as the Tour Eiffel, and occasionally the four of us split up so Eli could see some things that he specifically was interested in. Together, we did a lot of exploring, and made a significant dent in Paris's more than 200 museums. A partial list of things we saw includes: the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, Les Halles, rue Mouffetard, Arenes de Lutece, Musee Jacquemart-Andre, the Sacre-Coeur, Shakespeare and Company, Ste-Chapelle, and the Catacombes of Paris. The catacombes were especially creepy. They house the bones of over a million people who were excavated from various cemeteries when they became overcrowded and centers of disease, including many victims of the Guillotine during the French Revolution. After passing a door with the inscription, "C'est ici l'empire de la mort" (This is the empire of death), we walked along seemingly endless corridors of piled up femurs and neat rows of skulls, punctuated by plaques of morbid poetry and pictures of churches and skulls drawn with skulls among the other bones. I wasn't sure how to react, but I definitely did not want to smile. (See the picture- those are real people's skulls behind me. As my mom pointed out, it looks like a Rembrant painting with the light.) It was so nice to have my mom and brother here; it was a little strange to be taking care of the family, but I was glad to know that the role worked out.

My host family welcomed me in for their reveillon, or Christmas Eve dinner. I was a little confused about whether I was supposed to be there for dinner or not, so I hung out with Mom and Eli until 11 PM, when I thought they'd be finished, and then came back. Instead, they invited me to have some of the chocolate buche de Noel that they got from Laduree, the famous dessert maker. Then we exchanged presents under the tree; they gave me some chocolates, a necklace, and a Tintin comic book, "Tintin aux Ameriques". The book presents the US as a wild, untamed place populated mainly by Chicago gangsters and les peaux-rouges who live in Redskincity. Given the classic popularity of the series, it's interesting to see how that stereotype is played out. Camille, the Guichards' oldest daughter who lives in Berlin, and her father (Sophie's first husband) and his boyfriend were also there. Some time after Sophie and her first husband had Camille, he came out of the closet and the two got divorced, but he and his boyfriend still are close to Sophie and Jean-Marie, Sophie's second husband. In the picture, from left to right: the first husband's boyfriend, Paul my host brother, the first husband, Camille, Adele, Sophie, and me. Jean-Marie was taking the picture. Paul, who's taking a break from university this year, has decided to try his luck working in London for the rest of the school year. He's moving there in two weeks with a friend, and plans to look for a job and an apartment once he gets there. I'll miss him.

Then I went home for a week. I'm so glad that I was able to go back; being away from everyone for nine months would have been very lonely, and might have weakened the friendships that are so important to me. Given the length of time, I ran around a fair bit, having doctor's appointments, visiting Winsor, and seeing friends and family. It was interesting to see how things had subtly changed. It was nice to be back, but I missed the independence and the right to determine my life for myself. I also realized how much I depend on my friends and family to back me up, and that's why I've been feeling lonely here (which is dissipating as I spend more time with friends here). I had been worrying that people would have moved on a lot in my absence, but to my relief, although some things had changed, I'm still friends with my old friends and it's going to be ok. We had a Winsor reunion at Fire and Ice in Harvard Square, where I got up to date on people from my class's college experiences. It was a little strange having so little in common to talk about, so I mainly gathered information and told a couple of stock stories about Paris. I went to two parties, got back in touch with my hometowns of Brookline and Boston (especially for First Night), and visited Megan and Weslie at Harvard, which got me excited again for next year. The pictures are: my cousin Rachel and her daughter Ellie at her second daughter Jessica's naming ceremony; friends at Emma's house after the Winsor '06 reunion; and the W'06 reunion.