Homeless in France

I'm not sure where to start. I haven't blogged in forever, but my life has
been non-stop for the past three weeks. In addition, the past few days have
been the most dramatic in my entire life. Exaggeration? Nope. I had an amazing
time in Berlin, which I will probably never post about, and Missy just came to
visit me in France, and hopefully I will get details about that up soon, but I
would like to dedicate this blog to my experience with my host family that has
literally left Leah and me with no permanent residence for the next two months.
It started last Tuesday, March 15th. Leah, Missy and I were invited to a wine
and cheese party at our friends, Julia and Claire's apartment. It was a going
well and we were having a lot of fun, when I started talking to Claire about
how I still wasn't happy living with Anne. After talking for a while, Claire
looked at me and said, "You know we have an extra room here right?"
One thing led to another and they ended up offering the extra room in their
apartment for Leah and I to share, split rent, and move in as soon as possible.
It was too good to be true. Literally. We'll get to that in a second. So we
left that night positive that it would work out and thinking we had new
roommates. They thought after we left that it was a strong possibility but not
for certain. So we were planning on just riding out living with Anne and
putting up with it for the next two months, but since such an awesome
opportunity to get out had arisen, we of course jumped at the chance to get
out. We talked about it and realized that we should probably give her a month's
notice that we were moving out, but we didn't want to talk to her until we
talked with the school. That Friday, Leah and I talked to John, the man in
charge of all the foreign students, and asked him if we were allowed to move
out. He told us that we could technically move out at any moment because all we
had done was made e-mail agreements and technically those weren't contracts. He
also said that we should probably tell her as soon as possible to allow her
time to potentially find other people to take our places. We were leaving for a
beach house that night, and we wanted to give her as much notice as possible
that we were planning on moving out at the end of the month, so when we got home
from school on Friday, we asked Anne if we could talk to her. As nicely as we
could manage, we told her that a new opportunity had come up to live with our
French friends for cheaper, and that we weren't happy living in her house. Long
story short, she was furious. She went off about how we were young, uneducated,
flitty American girls that didn't understand the real world. She said how it
wasn't a surprise that I was doing this to her but she couldn't understand why
Leah would do it too. She completely denied that there were any problems
between me and the family (which is not true as Leah and I compiled a list of
36 reasons as to why we wanted to remove ourselves from her house). She then
turned to threatening to go to our bank and withdraw money from our bank
accounts. Of course that's not possible, but it was still scary to see her
telling us we were breaking the law and she could take our money, etc. After
talking at us for a little over a half hour, she left Leah's room fuming. We
tried to handle it as maturely as possible and sat there calmly while she
insulted us and told us exactly the opposite as John had told us, but it was
hard to not be completely shaken up. We had to meet our friend, a different
Claire, because she was driving us and her friend, Remy, up to her beach house
for the weekend. Since that whole incident had just occured, we never had the
chance to tell Anne that we were leaving for the weekend, and we weren't about
to go find her again, so we just left. The drive was about 1 1/2 hours long and
we arrived at this 3 story house that can comfortably sleep 15 people and the
front of the house is literally ten steps from the beginning of the sand.
Basically to die for. The next morning we woke up to two missed calls from
Anne. We sent her a text saying that we were sorry we didn't tell her and that
we would be home Sunday night. She responded saying that she had our emails and
she wanted to talk again when we got back. Oh joy. The weekend was perfect
though. I took a nap on her front porch for an hour right next to the beach. We
went for walks and I got to journal and even took a bath. yess. I was/still am
sick though with a nasty cold, but minor details. Leah and I also had to hole
up in a bar/cafe for one night because the house didn't have internet, so I
skyped my parents in the corner of a bar. Gotta do what you gotta do. However,
this wonderful weekend was interrupted with a call from Julia saying she had
talked to her landlord and that he had said that we weren't allowed to move in.
Leah and I literally sat there and had nothing to say. It was no one's fault
that this happened, it was just a miscommunication as we thought there was no
problem and they hadn't checked earlier because they weren't sure we were
coming. However, at this point there was no way we could stay at Anne's, hence
the having no place to live for the next two months. Small problem. Sunday
night we got back to Anne's and had to go up to her room and ask her if she
still wanted to talk as she was sitting in bed and not making any effort to
initiate the conversation she wanted to have in the first place. Previously to
coming home, Leah and I had agreed that we would say little to nothing except
that we had to talk to John again to sort out all the facts for certain, because
if we legally didn't have to pay her an extra 900 euros, we weren't going to.
So of course Anne starts out with her usual spiel about how we were young and
didn't have a good education and we didn't understand how things were in the
real world etc. I want everyone to know that I understand it wasn't the best of
us to move out in two weeks and not give her a full month, but I literally
hated living there. I wasn't treated with any amount of respect, I was either
ignored or yelled at, there was no inbetween, and no matter how hard I made an
effort to talk or be nice, I was given the impression I was unwanted and a
burden. Anyways, she told us that legally she could take our emails to the
authorities and that we would have to pay her through May, however, she was
willing to cut us a deal and only make us pay all of April. One, this was not
at all what John had told us and two, Anne is the type of person who would
never ever give up money if she could legally obtain it. Leah and I weren't
buying it though, and towards the end of the conversation she was getting so
angry that we weren't agreeing to pay her the full month of April until we
talked to John that she started talking about how she had good friends in
Audencia and that this wasn't between us and the school, it was between us and
her. I believe this is a direct quote from Anne, "You decide to leave?
Fine. I decide you pay. That is how it works." Sounds super legit right?
mmhm. no. Then she proceeded to tell me she had called the school in Feburary
to complain about me and ask for more information on my background. I asked her
what were her complaints and she brought up the time within the first month of
living there that I had accidently spilled coffee in my bedroom because I
didn't know we weren't allowed to have drinks up there. Sounds like a serious
problem to me too, Anne. Good thinking on making sure I don't have a criminal
background or something. After our lovely talk was over, Leah and I ran over to
the residence to return our friends suitcase, and when we returned we decided
that on the next day (Monday) we would either pay her the money or we wouldn't,
but either way we couldn't live in the house anymore. So we spent all Sunday
night packing up all of our things and cleaning out our rooms. We also agreed
that we didn't want to run into the family the next morning, so to avoid any
awkward encounters, we would get to school early and try to talk to John first
thing. I went to bed at 3 that morning at got up at 6:15. Love getting no
sleep. We ended up leaving the house unnoticed at 7 and were on our way to
school when I realized I had forgotten something. Leah waited outside while I
ran up to the door and opened it. Literally the instant I turned around from
quietly closing the door, I see Anne running up the stairs from Leah's basement
room, screaming her head off at me. I have never been more thrown off and
scared in my entire life. This woman was waving her arms, screaming about how
we were trying to leave while the family was all asleep, and to top it off, she
definitely had no pants on. (that detail is of little importance other than it
added to the messy hair and no make-up - just to give a visual of the crazy
mom). This is something of what she was yelling, "YOU LEAVE NOW? NOT
POSSIBLE! YOU PAY ME THIS INSTANT. YOU PAY NOW. I AM FED UP! I AM FED UP WITH
YOU!" This continued for a while as I couldn't form words because I was
still trying to recover from her scaring me when I closed the door. So I opened
the front door and called Leah's name to try and get backup. Unfortunately,
Leah didn't hear me and Anne proceeded to slam the door in my face and scream
that she was going to call the police. At this piece of information, I found
words and had to tell her multiple times that we were just going to school and
we weren't leaving. Ultimately she wouldn't stop yelling at me so I just opened
the front door and left. It took me about 15 minutes for my heart to stop
pounding. We went to the computer lab and printed off our list of reasons why
we didn't want to live with our family anymore, all of our emails, and then
waited outside of John's office until he came in at 9. We told him the whole
story and he advised us to go back to the house immediately and move all of our
stuff out while she was at work for the morning. He also agreed with my dad's
suggestion of paying her half of April to cover the full month's notice
"moral contract". We decided to take Julia, the French girl we were
going to move in with, in case someone was home she could explain in French as
it's hard to communicate effectively with them in English. We also brought our
German friend Peter to help us carry our suitcases out as we had four heavey
ones plus backpacks, etc. I have never been so nervous as I was going to her
house. When we got there Leah and Peter went downstairs to get her things and I
took Julia with me in case Camille was home. Lucky us, she was, and the second
she saw us coming up the stairs she called my name and came barging out of her
room. I walked right by her into my room to get my stuff around and thank God
Julia was there as she intervened and occupied her while I zipped up my suitcase.
As I heard later, Camille just stood there and complained about me mostly but
told Julia she didn't understand why we were leaving as they (the family) had
done nothing but take care of us and how all we did were break rules etc. I'm
not sure what universe she lives in but it's not the same as me. I was so
nervous though, not sure why, as she couldn't really do anything, but I didn't
know what they were saying so it just made me more antsy. Peter came up to grab
my suitcases and as we were leaving, Camille stopped me and said that it was
custom to say goodbye in France. I think I must have looked at her like she was
crazy unconsciously because she then proceeded to ask me why I had never made
an effort to be her friend. I almost laughed outloud but refrained. I wanted to
say because she scared the poop out of me but I said that I was sorry we were
never friends, that I truly wanted to be. Odd but I said goodbye and we got out
of that house as fast as we could. The whole trip took about ten minutes and
honestly I don't know that I would have lasted much longer. After dropping off
our stuff at Julia and Claire's apartment, we had to go to class. During the
break we went up to talk to John, but we heard Anne's voice before we got there
and literally turned around and ran out of the office. That night Julia called
us into the living room - apparently Anne had felt the need to stalk our
facebooks and find our mutual friends and she had sent Julia a facebook
message. This woman is crazy. It said something to the effect of, "Hello,
my name is Mme Roger and my daughter informed me that you were in my house
without my permission and with the knowledge that I was not home. I demand a
full explanation and apology. I also have all your contact information and will
be getting in touch with your parents." Who does that? Julia just laughed
but Leah and I were just amazed at the lengths Anne was taking to intimidate
us. I talked with John the next day about how Anne hadn’t sent in my insurance
for my doctor’s visit, therefore costing me money, and Julia told him about her
message. He said he would get in contact with her and tell her the school told
us to take friends with us. It was really great of him. I guess the only other
semi-exciting news with Anne is that she sent Leah a text yesterday morning
saying something to the effect of, “Leah, I am waiting on an apology letter and
the second half of April’s rent from you and Jessica. If you do not do these
things, I will be forced to take action.” Yeaa. Not sure what that means, but
we were assured again today by the school that she could not take legal action
against us, so at the moment, we believe this issue has been resolved. We wrote
her an apology letter and now must focus on finding a place to live. Please
pray that nothing more happens with Anne, and that we can find a place within
our price range soon. Sorry for writing a small novel.

I'm a fan of friends

I have no idea where to begin. Potentially I should start with the very beginning of Berlin and work my way through the week to today..but I think between everything I did and all the details I would want to include, it would be virtually impossibly to hold anyone's attention that long. Sad. Perhaps I will make two blogs tonight (yes I have homework, no I probably won't do it). I'll write this short one first to warm you up for the massive piece of literature that will follow describing my trip to Berlin. I arrived back to my house from Berlin about 1:30 pm on Monday. My host mom briefly said hi to me and then went back to watching TV. Sounds about right. I did homework, aka made a powerpoint about Scarlett Johansson and her role in the marketing campaign of Moet and Chandon (not an all around uninteresting topic), and then went to meet my group to go over everything I had done. When I got back to the house I immediately went to Leah's room where we caught up on each other's trips. She went to Italy this past week and had some awesome stories..mostly I just sat there jealous of all the gelato she got to eat :) So here's the twist. Anne had a friend over that night. Whatt? Anne has friends! Ok, sorry that's mean, and I can see why she does; she was a completely different person with her friend there - I actually enjoyed her company. PLUS we had an amazing meal! Her friend can move in as far as I'm concerned if it means we get something other than frozen foods. So we had a dinner of rice and then some meat thing in a tomato and it was baked with a really good sauce. We also had bread and cheese andddd...a glass of wine. That is the second time I've ever had wine in her house. I told my pseudo-host dad, Werner (Katie's host dad in Berlin) that my French host family never drank wine and he couldn't get over it the whole week. Hilarious. More on that to come. All the kids weren't there so Leah, Anne, Anne's friend, and I had a pleasant meal and a banana for dessert. Can't complain at all. Today we had class all day. I learned that I would live in a castle in California, married at the age of 26 to a male model with our two kids, an Audi, and I would be a stay-at-home mom. (No, the teacher did not predict everyone's future..although amusing to think about. Leah taught me a game and then everyone in our row 'found out' how our lives would turn out. It was more amusing than the lecture so it's what I retained.) We gave our presentation on Moet and Chandon (the teacher wanted to know where the samples were) and then I hung out in Leah's room for a bit before dinner. SURPRISE! Friend was here again! It even offset Cammie being back. We each had pasta with a full chicken breast and some really good sauce, yogurt for dessert of course. The friend made eye contact with us and smiled and spoke to us and it was nice, I like her.

For Lent I've been thinking. I think I am going to join forces with my mom and give up chocolate for Lent. This will be especially hard as Missy wants to visit a famous chocolatier in Paris. Hmm. But I am so excited to give up something that means a lot to me..probably more than it should actually :) However, in addition to taking something away, I also want to add something to my daily routine. I brought my prayer journal with me to France and I haven't written in it nearly as much as I should. So starting tomorrow I will write in it everyday. God has provided so much for me here and I was absolutely overwhelmed by his love while in Berlin. It was so refreshing for every aspect of my life and I am excited about Lent because it will help keep my focus exactly where it needs to be. So, hopefully an update on Berlin soon! Missy comes in 4 DAYS!!!

Ich LEIBE diese Familie

I am completely overwhelmed. I don't mean that lightly either. Katie's host family in Germany has made me feel more at home here in less than a day then I have ever come close to feeling with my family in France. Before I tell you how much I already love her family though, I will start with Monday. Anne took me to the doctors, which was very kind of her, I really appreciated her coming along with me to help translate. Doctors offices here are really odd. We walked into a waiting room, no receptionist desk or anything, and just sat there with some magazines. There were two doors, each with a different doctor's name on them. Then whenever they were done with a patient, they would walk them out to the waiting room and call the next person back. No nurses, no secretaries, just the doctor. We finally got called back and the door led straight into this big office. It has two chairs facing a big desk and the doctor just sat behind it. It was like a business meeting. It was odd because he didn't take any notes or weigh me or take my height or ask previous medical history or anything really that US doctors always make sure to do every time. So I just told him about my foot (thank you google translate and my jank note I wrote describing my symptoms) and then he took me back through a door where it looked like a regular doctor's room. He then took a brief look at it, made me walk back and forth, and then we went back to the office. No idea what he said or anything, but I'm assuming I just strained or twisted it etc. What I thought was funny though was to write my prescription, he pulled out a piece of computer paper, wrote down crutches and two different kinds of drugs, stamped the paper and handed it to me. I'm telling you what, anyone could have extensive access to all drugs with that one stamp he used. So that was my interesting experience at the doctors.

I left for Berlin early Tuesday morning. Longest walk of my life to the tram stop with my crutches and bag. Anne was up but she didn't bother to say goodbye or safe travels or anything, not like I expected it but just making a note. I got to the bus to take me to the airport and arrived at my gate about an hour before my flight. I was one of 3 people there haha the rest of the flight showed up about ten minutes to boarding. Oh man. Sat next to a cutie lady who was going to NYC with her family for a week. She was the only one out of all five of them who could speak English, so she was excited to practice before they got there. Getting through the Paris airport was kind of horrible, not going to lie. I regretted packing so much as a one strap bag digs into your shoulder after a while, especially since it took me a pretty long time to get everywhere. But all the flight attendants and workers spoke English and were very nice in offering me help, I was just too cheap to accept it. :) Got to my gait with plenty of time to spare and listened in on a conversation some Americans were having behind me (it was nice to hear that's all). I had the pleasure of sitting in the very last seat in the last row of the plane, but I did sit next to a really nice guy named Christian. He is from Germany and is studying geography. It was cool because we talked the whole flight and I asked him questions about German/Germany and he asked me about English/America. I just love seeing the differences between cultures and meeting new people. Oh! And AirFrance serves cappuccinos and the best little cookies! So delicious. Finding Katie and her host dad, Werner, was so easy. I just walked right off the plane and the baggage area was right there (I think it's a much better system than having to go to an area to find everything) and Katie was standing just on the other side of a glass wall. All in all, traveling could not have gone better and I was so blessed with flights and finding everything alright.

But now I must talk about this family. I am staying with Katie's host mom and dad, Sabine and Werner, and their son, Connie. They have three other kids but they don't live in the house. Werner offered to come pick me up at the airport after he learned I was on crutches. He is the most darling man I have ever met. I have forgotten a lot of the German I have learned, but the whole ride back to his house he would talk slowly to me and when I didn't know a word, he would tell me in English and then I would say it back to him in German. He and Katie were fun to watch interact as well. They were joking and laughing together and it was just great. Then he offered to take us sightseeing on Saturday because I probably wouldn't make it through the walking tour we had planned. AHH he is so great. We had dinner right away when we got back. The mom introduced herself to me and then left to play cards, so it was Werner, Connie, Katie and I eating a delicious dinner of some sort of pork and potatoes covered in sauce, and cheesy broccoli. Then for dessert we had a vanilla and red berries pudding-ish thing. It was all fantastic. Werner is a great cook. Then we sat around the table talking and such. After being ignored at dinner for the past two months, it was refreshing to have interest taken in me. I had to speak in German and so much came back to me so quickly and everyone was so great about helping say what I wanted to say. Katie and I are planning to cook for them tomorrow night, and since they are housing and feeding me for free, I want to make them something awesome. Katie and I hung out and talked the rest of the night. She put together a welcome display on her desk for me which consisted of peanut butter (yumm), Finding Nemo (auf Deutsch of course), a coffee mug, two books, a magazine about Berlin, a German dictionary, a cold compress for my foot, and coupons to a chocolate store in town. I do not deserve a friend like her. Thanks to everything set out for me I have definitely not been lacking in things to do today. I am trying to brush up on my German because this family makes me want to learn so I can speak to them. Plus I remember how much I actually love the language. I also have been doing French homework (my brain is not handling switching back and forth from languages very well). Katie gets back tonight around 7:30 and we'll have dinner around then. Werner came and talked to me about what he's going to make tonight. I couldn't understand at all, but I'm sure it will be wonderful. I might go out and do my homework at the kitchen table. Sounds nice to me. I have already been blessed beyond belief with meeting everyone here. This came at the perfect time and it's so refreshing to know that some families aren't hosting for the money. Thank you Jesus for hospitality and generosity.