Month: December 2018

When my older sister studied abroad in Madrid, she got to live with a host family. While she said it was sometimes challenging to fit in with them and abide by their rules, it pushed her language skills and showed her how the Spanish really live. I had been hoping to have a similar experience and live with a French family, but, unfortunately, the University of Limoges only offers dorms to its students.

To make up for this, there is a program called Familles d’Accueil de Limoges, wherein French families volunteer to adopt international students during their stays. The group was poorly advertised, and I showed up to the first meeting, a matching event for students to pair with families, with very little information. It was unorganized and chaotic. We were supposed to mingle and find French people that we hit it off with, pairing ourselves off with little help. It felt like speed dating, and I was very conscious of how boring and unintelligent I probably sounded in my mediocre French.

Fortunately, I met an older couple who were specifically hoping to pair with an American student. Monique and Lucien are in their late sixties and have friends who live in Wisconsin, only about 40 minutes down the road from where I grew up! They have visited Wisconsin several times, and we instantly bonded, chatting about the Milwaukee Art Museum and the University of Wisconsin. While most French people couldn’t find Wisconsin on a map, I’d found people who personally knew the place I call home.

We spent several days together over the course of the semester. On my favorite adventure, we drove to the countryside outside Limoges to an old stone cottage that had belonged to Lucien’s parents. We picked apples and walnuts from their orchard, filling old milk crates to the brim, and walked along a path lined with golden-orange trees that lead down to a chateau on the river. We spoke exclusively in French, which was quite a struggle while driving out to the property, the radio on and the windows rolled down. By the end of the day I felt like I’d been pushed to my limit linguistically, and I went home exhausted but smiling.

Besides France, Italy has always been on the top of my travel bucket list. We had a weeklong break from classes at the end of October, so I decided to get out of the country! One of my best friends from OU, Riley (another Global Engagement Fellow!), was studying abroad in Spain, and he also had a few days off. Our breaks didn’t line up exactly, so I had to choose between only traveling for a few days with him, or going somewhere by myself first. While my parents were nervous at the prospect of me traveling alone, and I found it a little daunting, I knew I’d regret it if I had the chance to explore more of Italy and didn’t take it.

My least favorite part about traveling is having to figure out transportation. I hate the confusion of train stations and airports and the stress of worrying about missing connections or getting lost. Fortunately, my arrangements to get to Florence went off without a hitch. I took a bus from Limoges to Paris, shared a cab with some old Italian women to the airport, and caught my flight with plenty of time to spare.

My first morning in Florence was overwhelming. I had been so stressed about the logistics of getting there that I hadn’t really planned out anything else. Fortunately, Florence is a small enough city that all the main tourist sites are close together and easily accessible. I spent an hour sitting outside at a cafe, watching a mix of tourists and locals stream across Ponte Vecchio, using the free wifi to figure out where everything I wanted to see was and when it was open.

I managed to fit quite a bit into my long weekend there. I saw “The Birth of Venus” at the Uffizi (and waited in line for three hours to do so), greeted Michelangelo’s “David,” climbed to the top of the Duomo, spent a leisurely afternoon in the Boboli gardens, went to the oldest food market in Florence, and attended a prayer service in gregorian chant at a monastery high above the city.

Traveling alone was both more challenging and satisfying than I’d expected. I loved getting to make my own schedule, spend as long as I wanted in the museums, and linger in front of street musicians without feeling like I was holding anyone up. It was nice to sit alone with my thoughts and take in the beautiful surroundings, not having to worry about making conversation. But it was also exhausting to have to make every decision alone, especially when my plans didn’t work out and I was scrambling to figure out how to salvage the day.

By the time I got to Rome (after taking a brief pit-stop in Pisa!), I was ecstatic to see a friendly face. Florence had been the perfect city for solo travel– small, clean, and safe, I’d never felt too intimidated. It was a good thing I had a buddy in Rome. The city is huge, the metro is confusing, and there’s an overwhelming amount of fabulous things to see, far too many to be fit into five days.

Riley and I hit all the major sites I had wanted to see, including the Trevi fountain, the Spanish steps, the Forum, the Colosseum, the Vatican, and the catacombs. We also spent a lot of time just wandering around the city. Riley was an ideal travel companion because he shares my affinity for old churches, Renaissance art, and cheap food. On our last night, we went to an old bohemian neighborhood known for its authentic restaurants and splurged on a four-course meal. It was surreal to be with a friend from home in such a wonderful, foreign place. The combination of incredible pasta and lovely company made it one of the nicest evenings of my time abroad.

While things academically were kind of a mess, I fortunately made some lovely friends. The international student community is very tight, and it didn’t take me long to meet people I knew I could become close with. A few days after I arrived in Limoges, we had an official welcome meeting at the university. Nayyifa (the other student from OU) and I walked in together and sat behind a group of three girls. Hearing us speak English, they excitedly turned around and asked in the sweetest British accents where we were from. I’m so grateful we sat together by chance, because becoming friends with them was the highlight of my semester.

A few days later, Annelise, Megan, and Charlotte (or the British Gals, as I began calling them) and I went out for dinner at a cute Italian restaurant in the center of town. We sat at a table outside and split a bottle of wine, and, unlike with a lot of the other students I’d met in the last few days, we had no problem making conversation.

Annelise and Megan initially intimidated me– they seemed untouchably beautiful and confident, and they regaled our table with wild stories about the boys they’d dated and trips they’d been on. Charlotte seemed more like me. She was quieter and more proper, and we bonded when she told me that she was majoring in literature. In the following months, my initial impressions of them were complicated. Annelise is brash and loud and distinctly less polished than I’d thought, in the best way. She usually wore men’s jeans and huge hoop earrings and told the funniest stories. While Megan usually looked glamorous and seemed too fun to be substantive, she turned out to be incredibly considerate and protective. The four of us spent dozens of nights at her apartment, stuffed onto the couch in our pajamas, watching Harry Potter and having tea and cookies.  

While I will always remember the exciting parts of studying abroad– exploring new cities and countries, seeing beautiful art and monuments, speaking another language–I will treasure even more the people who enabled me to feel at home in France.