La Roche-sur-Yon

La Roche-sur-Yon

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Encore les ponts de mai

Coming back from the April break was not the easiest rentrée (back-to-school) I've had, mostly because I still had the stress of "What happens after May 31st?" looming over my head.  I'd been sending out my CV to dozens of universities all over France and had a few leads, but jobs are competitive.  My Skype interview for a university in Nancy went well but went nowhere.  My next project was a phone interview for the Université de Valenciennes, a school in the north of France near the Belgian border.  I came down with laryngitis that day, and my phone gracefully sent the interviewers' initial call to voicemail so that they had to call back later...so I mentally threw that possibility out.  At the end of April, I traveled to Clermont-Ferrand, a city in the Auvergne region a bit west of Lyon, for an in-person interview.  I had an inexplicably good feeling about everything - I loved the ambiance of the city, my potential colleagues, the musical opportunities, the surrounding volcanoes, and of course the proximity to Lyon and the south and east of France.  I felt calm leaving, certain I'd be staying in France, and certain I'd be returning to Clermont-Ferrand.

This was, of course, the point where life decided to throw a giant wrench in my hopes and plans.

The rejection email was a difficult one to receive; between that and the decent but failed job prospect in Nantes, I realized that I would either be back in the United States next year or be moving to and starting over in a completely new region of France with few friends nearby.  I was also quickly realizing that the university position I was seeking was much more competitive than I'd anticipated.

Around this time, I unexpectedly received an email from Valenciennes; I had been selected to advance to a Skype interview in May.

So, we arrive again at les ponts de mai; if you don't remember from last year, literally the bridges of May.  There are several bank holidays during the month that often fall on Tuesdays or Thursdays; if the holiday is on a Tuesday, most workers take Monday off; if it's Thursday, Friday is off too.  Thus, you should faire le pont (bridge the gap) between Thursday and Saturday.  This year, there was a bit of grumbling because we only eked out one three-day weekend and one four-day weekend out of the deal.

My four-day weekend was free for me; my host family headed up to the north of France for a baptism.  I kicked it off with my Valenciennes Skype interview, during which I simply tried to be honest and myself despite my stress about the following year.  Even though I wanted to stay in France more than anything, I finally couldn't bring myself to just say what I thought the interviewers wanted to hear in order to nail a position.  I came into the interview instead having thought out my answers over several sleepless nights and with a list of my own questions to ask in order to find out if the school and position would be a good fit.  I x-ed out of the Skype screen after twenty minutes, happy with how it had gone, maybe a little nervous about the honesty of some of my answers, but no longer allowing myself to have the overly upbeat delusions I had after Clermont-Ferrand.

I celebrated that evening attending la Fête de la Sardine in La Roche with friends.  Yes - our local Sardine Festival.  Quite literally smushed like sardines into a small town square, there is food (sardines, of course), drinks, and live music.  We unfortunately never got through the long line to try the sardines, but it was a nice time to unwind and connect with some friends I hadn't seen in awhile.  It's also one of the most hoppin' nights one can experience in La Roche.

The following day, Thursday, was one of the most beautiful weather days of the year in the Vendée, so I downloaded the Vendée Vélo (regional biking trail) app on my phone and decided on a tentative route.  This region is known for its biking trails, but because of the rain, it's been difficult to find an opportunity to go out and take advantage for a whole day.  I decided to go out to the Atlantic coast; there is a beautiful (paved and flat!) trail that extends from La Roche to Aizenay to Coëx to a seaside town called Saint Gilles Croix de Vie.  I had tentatively planned to bike south from there to Les Sables d'Olonne and take the train back in the evening, but the stretch of terrain between Coëx and Saint Gilles turned out to be more difficult than I expected.  It took about four hours to reach Saint Gilles, where I ate the best ice cream of my life and chugged water before going straight to the train station.  My only option to get home was to take a bus all the way up to Nantes and a train back down to La Roche, three and a half hours total.  A true adventure, but it was worth it to bike through all of the beautiful Vendéen farms that supply the fresh local produce that I eat daily; the fields of flowers in Aizenay were gorgeous as well.


On Friday, I decided to pick out a random nearby city to experience.  Vannes is in the (far) southern Bretagne region, accessible by a train connection in Nantes.  I was surprised at how "Bretagne" the town really felt to me; I recalled the salty sea air that I inhaled daily last summer in Saint Jacut, which is much further north.  Vannes has a romantic centre-ville with houses uniquely misshapen and outwardly colorfully boarded.  I walked its port to see a variety of boats and its opening to the Gulfe de Morbihan, which eventually opens to the Atlantic.  At lunch, I also tasted a tiramisu that beat what I had in Italy...  Your move, Italy.


I was too sore to move much Saturday, but on Sunday, a friend of my host family took me to a Vendéen gem that I'd only previously heard of: Puy du Fou.  I went twice during the month, again a few weeks later with a group of friends.  Puy du Fou is a massive, internationally-known award-winning attraction park located maybe forty minutes from La Roche.  It's a bit like a Renaissance Festival, but covers several ancient eras; instead of a bunch of crazy people in costume running around yelling at you, the focus is on several short, theatrical performances that you can attend around the park.  The story lines are often cheesy, but the special effects, stunts, and coordination are magnificent.  There is a show about the Vikings with a ship and pyrotechnics; one takes place in a Coliseum with real lions and other animals; some have horse stunts; one is a bird show; the new one this year is a giant indoor circular theatre in which the audience seats rotate so you can see different stages (I'm still searching for the soundtrack to this last one!).  We even caught a live Vendéen folk group.  The whole park is something to see several times, as you cannot make it to all performances in one day.  The main pull is a night show that runs during the summer only, but already at the beginning of May, tickets were sold out for the entire season.


I came back down to reality for my last couple of weeks as a language assistant and au pair (and potentially my last weeks in France).  Most of you reading this probably already know the next part of the story, but I'll tell it anyway because it's one of my favorite moments.  As I was walking to an orchestra rehearsal one mid-May evening, I received an email on my phone (on the rue Clemenceau, just under our stern Napoleon statue's watchful gaze).  I stopped in the middle of the street for a few seconds and blinked as I read and re-read, not a rejection email, but a position offer to teach at the ENSIAME engineering school, part of the university in Valenciennes, France, starting in September.  Though I had many other applications still in limbo, I knew I was ready to accept this one.

Many emotions and logistics and certainly endless stacks of paperwork will accompany this transition, but I am beyond thrilled to open up the next two years of my life to a new and unexplored region of a country I love, a professional change, and continued personal growth through a fresh slate of travel opportunities.  Tchin!