Une Vague Irrésolu

It’s been a little over a month since that first night I tossed and turned on my bed, unable to sleep. I was haunted by heavy shadows, frightened by unfamiliar noises, and my own mattress was a stranger. The excessive Provençal sun was not even warm enough to penetrate through the coldness of solitude.

The reality of it was I had no one. I was alone in a country in which the French I’d been learning for ten years was close to obsolete. Alone in a country of glaring eyes and pungent smells. Alone in a country in which you were more likely to find mouldy cheese and self-doubt than peanut butter and good customer service. Alone in a flat set high above the streets, higher than all the other tenants, away from anyone. Alone in my own personal bell tower.

I remember the first time I came home with the groceries. I remember my first sincere attempts at Provençal cuisine. I still remember the taste of the first ratatouille that I attempted as well as my first plate of moules frites. I wasn’t a bad cook. Sometimes, I was actually more than okay. But the fact of the matter was, I cooked recipes made for three people but I ate on my own...I shouldn’t be complaining; I can easily eat more than five pregnant women can.

So after being alone for several days, it was with apprehension that I showed up to the University of Avignon on September 11 to take a placement test with 60 other students (only five or six of whom were male) to gauge our knowledge of French. The results of the test would then allow us to be placed into groups corresponding to our level. A group would take the same courses and follow the same timetable throughout the semester.

The university was actually cool. Although it’s nowhere near as big as UBC (in all fairness, UBC is bigger than Avignon). There were

In Filipino time, late and punctual are synonymous, which makes me wonder if Filipinos are descended from the French. The French are horrible at punctuality, which is why the test didn’t start until 45 minutes after it was supposed to. Waiting around for the test to start, I would have to say I felt intimidated. In Canada, I was used to being top of the class in French...and it felt strange to hear so many French Foreign Language students speaking French better than I can. But once I started writing the test, I was in my element. After being grilled and roasted by UBC exams more than enough times, this was nothing. Surprisingly, I remembered more than I thought I’d remember, not having taken a French class for ten months. Mind you, I still didn’t get a lot of the crap. I actually didn’t want to do too well because I didn’t want to work as hard during the semester.

The day after, I was placed in a really small class of eight other students. The class was made up of Intermediate-Advanced students and not a day goes by when I don’t wonder how the hell I ended up in this class. I was sure I didn’t do that well on the exam. But it turned out that the class was pretty awesome. We were all on different levels. We all had different strengths. There were a lot of us who were really good at speaking and listening but not as much in writing, and vice versa. Personally, as someone who writes incessantly, I’m better at written French than oral French. We’re taking classes on grammar, culture, oral comprehension and creative writing (which, I think, is everyone’s favourite class).

We’re an interesting group of people...three American girls (later, four), two Russian girls, a Danish girl (who had to go back to Denmark), a Brazilian girl, a Chinese guy, and one Canadian. I personally think this is the funnest group ever. I think it’s definitely the smallest, but definitely the chattiest because a lot of the people in the group already speak French really well and it leads the rest of the class in. We take a lot of pictures in class and out.We already have a few inside jokes... I’ve gotten attached to these guys within the past few weeks and I’ll be really sad to leave at the end of the semester.

I also joined this student association that organizes parties, activities and trips for international students, exchange students and french students who wanna tag along with them. We have a soirée at a different bar every week…

And once a month, we have a trip to some part of France. In September, we went to the town of Cassis, a Mediterranean port known for its calanques...I’m not sure what they are in English because my dictionary fell off my bed and I’m not about to pick it up...but basically they’re sharp, white limestone inlets by the sea. We took a boat tour of the calanques and afterwards, we had a picnic on a large rock by the shore where we we had red wine and snacks. There was a little shelf above on a wall of rock and I spent some alone time there with the waves. I have a very close relationship with the sea. I miss it in Avignon. This was the first time I ever saw the Mediterranean. Just for me, the sea was my favourite shade of blue.

A funnier reason for why I stayed up on that shelf for a really long time was because I had to drink my red wine really quickly so I could have my hands free when I climbed the little cliff, so I go a little buzzed and couldn’t get down safely without slipping. Haha. Two versions of the same story, both of which are true. Haha. And then for the rest of the day we wandered around town.

This is a wicked candid shot that Caitlin took.

But a trip once a month is not enough for Gino Ruggiero, is it?

Within walking distance from Avignon is the nearby town of Villeneuve-Lez-Avignon. My first week in Avignon, I walked from my apartment to all the castles and towers in that town. It was actually pretty cool. I have a particular affinity for castles, having more than once attempted to study in a castle. In the sparsely-visited castles of Villeneuve, I spent a lot of time exploring the narrow passages and climbing stairless ramparts. The villages on the way to the castles are actually pretty cool too...

The French might just be incurably weird.

And every once in a while, I take a random trip to further away. Just last week I went with Caitlin, one of the only two other Canadians, on a random trip to Aix-en-Provence (we just hopped on the first train). But holy crap, it was stressful. We bought the ticket from a machine so it didn’t explain to us that after we got to Marseille, we would have to get off the train and take a bloody 45-minute bus to Aix. We literally ran to catch the bus and the only reason it stopped was because Caitlin tried to smash her way into the door. Aix-en-Provence was pretty cool though. There were a lot of fountains and a lot of little shops. Getting home was worse than getting there. We were supposed to take another shuttle to the TGV station but we were put into the wrong bus by the ticket lady. We ended up wandering around Marseille for hours. We were supposed to be home by seven, but we didn’t get home till after ten. We spent all our waiting time cursing the French. But I do not for one second regret that day.



But seeing France still wasn’t enough for me. After doing the same routine for about a month, I really badly needed to get out. So from Nîmes I got on a flight to London...
England was a breath of fresh air. You know that feeling you get when you go somewhere for the very first time? The feeling of freshness in everything, from the sights to the sounds to the smells. I just live for it...hence my URL.

My main purpose for visiting England was to see Kuya Joel, Ate Nats, Joey and my nephew Elliot whom I had never seen before. Tita Ma and Tito Jun were visiting there at the time so I thought it would be kinda nice to see all of them. They live up in Newcastle which meant that I would have to take the train there. My train didn’t leave until 7PM and I was in London by 3PM. I thought I would have lots of time to see London. WRONG.

I spent about two hours at Customs, thirty minutes trying to collect my tickets to and from Newcastle, another thirty minutes trying get out of the London Underground, and another thirty minutes trying to look for Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station. I daresay I found it. Haha. I spent my remaining 45 minutes walking along the river Thames, from St. Paul’s Cathedral to the Tower of London, with a camera that takes horrible pictures at night. When I talked to other people, I still caught myself trying to speak French. When cashiers asked me if I want a receipt, I kept answering Ouais, and I kept saying French words but conjugating them in English. For example, instead of saying “I bought it,” I’d say, “I achetéd it”. I was amused at myself.



At half-past-midnight, I got to Newcastle, took a taxi and got to Kuya Jo’s house in Killingworth. I texted Ana that, on the way there, I saw a cloud shaped like a Grim (big, black dog of bad omen) and I was, like, “Ooooh I’m about to meet the man who betrayed my parents to Lord Voldemort”. I was very sleepy and being in England put me in a very Harry Potter-y mood. Haha. Aren’t I always, though? Hahahaha. Honestly, don’t blame me; I’d just finished reading the final installment to the series for the fifth time and I had just started reading the series in French.

The morning after, I got to see Elliot for the first time. He’s only about six-months old and the first thing he did when he saw me was laugh at me...I just bet he was thinking, “What the heck is up with your hair, you fruit”. Haha. Elliot liked to look at me for some reason. And he was always smiling. Joey was still a little shy but was still very, very cute. Still looks like Ate Grace, though. Hehe.



Tita Ma and Tito Jun took me around the city centre that day. I would have to say I was pretty impressed. If I was to move permanently away from Vancouver, it might just be to Newcastle. It was a mixture of the old and the new. For example, there was a castle’s keep and monuments all over the city centre, but at the same time there were modern structures like the shapeless glass building at Gateshead and the just-plain-cool Millenium Bridge. The city centre was near the water, and it’s the one of the two features that that I could never live without.

The day after, I spent some time wandering about on my own. Everyone was sick at the time so I just took the Metro all over the place. My first stop was Wallsend, where the easternmost section of Hadrian’s Wall lies in ruins. It wasn’t much to look at, but I really appreciated it for its history, being an archaeology student.

My next stop was far more interesting. I was aching to be closer to the ocean so I got off at Tynemouth where I walked through a really charming little village by the sea. If I could pick one place to move to in Newcastle, it would be here. There were several small golden beaches. A particular highlight for me was Tynemouth Priory. It used to be Roman Catholic Church property but it was probably dissolved when Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of England. Ha, I can’t believe I remember that. I love Tudor history. The Priory is perched on a cliff by the sea and nothing is left of it but a chapel, a few stone walls, and a graveyard, enclosed within monumental castle walls. The priory was in ruins but the effect was nonetheless dramatic and nothing less than stunning.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the seaside...lighthouses, beaches. I watched a flock of seagulls chasing a fishing boat...I’m honestly so easily amused.

The day after was different. I went with Kuya Jo and Ate Nats to a recreation centre and we played badminton with their friends, most of whom were Filipino. I managed to give myself minor injuries, which I have to say I’m getting more prone to doing. I lost half the skin on one toe trying to run after the shuttlecock, I fell over trying to jump too high, and I got a faceful of a swinging racket. What can I say? I like to hustle. Afterwards, we went to one of their friends’ house and had food all day, Filipino-style.

I had a tendency to wake up really early in England. France was one hour ahead, and I’d gotten accustomed to being rudely waked up every morning by the French garbage men and their noise. So I’d wake up at around 4AM every morning in Newcastle. It was good though; that way I could make the most out of my vacation. I also have to add that it was really nice not to eat food that I didn’t cook. It brings me back to what food is supposed to taste like. Speaking of food, the following day, we ate at an English pub. I had roast beef and yorkshire pudding which, I have to say,was actually awesome. Afterwards, we went to see a large monument called the Angel of the North. It’s a large metal statue, on top of a hill, of a man with outstretched metal wings.

On the fifth day, God said, “Let there be Scottish accents for the amusement of Gino...and the Scots said ‘Aye’”. That morning, I took a train to Edinburgh. Tita Ma was still sick so I went on my own. But it turned out to be a good thing because I would have exhausted them. As soon as I got out of the train station, I was impressed...so impressed that I just had to walk everywhere. I found it easier to navigate than France. True, I was still confused by people driving the other way and I freaked out every time I was in a car because I’d keep thinking that the people driving the other way were gonna smash into us. I made my way around pretty easily because all the sites and monuments were usually set on hilltops so they were pretty easy to distinguish.

The first thing I went to see was Edinburgh Castle, which the brochure said is the “jewel of Scotland’s crown”. It was set on a high hill so it was pretty easy to follow. It looked far away because it was on a hilltop but it actually wasn’t. Edinburgh was quite the opposite of Paris where the sites look so close but it turns out that the monuments are only look close because they’re big.


The castle itself was pretty awesome. Someone wanna do me a favour and count how many times I’ve said “pretty awesome” in this blog? The ramparts gave very good views of the city. There were pretty impressive sculptures all over the place. The castle's keep housed exhibits of Scotland’s crown jewels and the ambiance was monumental. The castles in the UK just seemed more well-maintained than a lot of the French châteaux which were often falling apart and smog-stained. Aside from well-maintained, Edinburgh Castle also made use of its many rooms by turning them into giftshops that just wouldn’t quit. So I bought a couple of things, you happy?


In Edinburgh, when I saw sites in the distance, I had a tendency to follow them. I also had a worse tendency to climb them. There was this monument that looked like a cement-based Doric temple that I climbed (which was nothing short of an accomplishment as the stereobate alone was taller than me).

The next thing I saw in the distance wasn’t man-made. It was a ramp-shaped geological structure whose proper name I will not speak because of post-Geography-12 trauma. Anyway, this ramp thing was called Arthur’s Seat. At first I didn’t know if people can climb it but I found a trail at the base so I followed it despite the BEWARE OF FALLING ROCKS sign. I miss climbing up things. There aren’t any mountains close to where I live right now, so I made the most out of this one.



I eventually found a sign that said we were allowed to climb Arthur’s Seat but we were to stick to the trail and not climb up the side...well, a little too late for that. There were times when I stuck to the trail and times when I climbed the cliff wall to get a better shot. At the halfway point, I scratched my name onto the rock just as a souvenir for Scotland.

I eventually made my way to the top side of the ramp and on the way, I saw a really old man who walked with a cane but still walked faster than everyone else, a crow that wouldn’t leave me alone, and a really friendly stray dog that’s living proof that Sirius Black didn’t die in the Department of Mysteries. Haha, I’m still in a Harry Potter-y mood. I really couldn’t help it; JK Rowling lives in Edinburgh, and it was with great self-control that I didn’t try to find her house to bring back something from her front porch as a souvenir.

At the highest point, I sat at the edge of Arthur’s Seat for about ten minutes enjoying a view of the city, feeling good about myself and thinking, “I wonder if Arthur ever took a dump on this seat 'coz I gotta go”. Haha. I DIDN’T by the way. I was also thinking as I looked over the edge, “This has got to be my mom’s worst nightmare...cool”. The cliff was a sheer drop. I eventually got down, taking the road-less-taken: a steep, grassy hill that didn’t involve me walking around the entire mountain again.

Everything else that day was a blur. I remember walking by Holyrood Palace where the Royal Family stayed when they were in Scotland. I remember all the quaint little shops and pubs...Edinburgh is just plain awesome. Here’s another place that I’d actually consider moving to. I eventually got tired and took the train home.

The next day, I woke up from the Cupboard Under the Stairs went into the kitchen and found a letter adressed to me saying: “Dear Mr Canlas, you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...” Haha. Honestly, I went to Hogwarts that day.

Well, actually it was Alnwick Castle (pronounced Annick, or else)where they filmed Hogwarts scenes for the Harry Potter movies. It’s the home of the Duke of Northumbria, whom I am sincerely jealous of. The castle was so familiar to me because I’ve been watching it in movies since before I can remember. Two of my favourite movies were filmed here: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves and Elizabeth. There were really large courtyards and high walls. I just loved the entire place. I wandered around, climbed the ramparts, and just enjoyed myself. From the ramparts there were great views of the countryside.

Just outside of Alnwick Castle was Alnwick Gardens. I thought it would be a pretty quick detour before I went back to the town but I was impressed and stayed longer than I should have. The first thing you saw when you entered was a large, terraced water fountain. There were tunnels made out of plants, there were rose gardens, bamboo gardens, and lots of really cool vegetation.

There was a section of the gardens called the Poison Garden, which was an enclosed garden of toxic plants which you couldn’t go into without a guide. Much to my enjoyment, one of the first questions asked by the tour guide was, “Are any of you Harry Potter fans?” Well, a lot of the plants he showed were plants that were used for potions and stuff in the books, like Mandrake, Wolfsbane, and Wormwood. There were some plants that were so poisonous that they had to be caged. One of the caged plants was Cannabis, from which you made Marijuana. I bet it’s nowhere near as potent as BC Bud. Haha. There were also tobacco flowers...apparently, picking them for your whole life is the same as smoking them for your whole life because the Nicotene goes into your skin. I wish that the French would just pick these instead of smoking them everywhere.

After walking around the garden, I went back to the castle for a last look before going back to Newcastle. When I got back, it was raining so I couldn’t see out of the bus too well so I missed my stop. I’m pretty good at wandering around in a city centre, but I’m bollocks at trying to find my way around the burbs. After an hour of wet-wandering around brick houses that all looked alike, I just called Kuya Jo for a ride.

The next day, I took a really early train to London and then flew back to France. I didn’t wanna leave yet. I was having too much fun. I’d also like to add a further thanks to Kuya Jo and Ate Nats for making my visit enjoyable, and also for the several weeks’ supply of tea and biscuits. I actually miss being called Tito Gino. Hehe.

And now I’m back in France. The weather’s getting colder but it feels warmer than it did the first night I slept on my bed, upon which I’m writing this blog. I’ve really made this place my home. It’s gonna be hard to leave, firstly, because there are so many people I might not see again, and secondly, my flat is now a comfortable mess that I don’t wanna clean up.

So what’s next for Gino?

Well, I’m still going on trips around France, some planned, some random. But in about a week and a half, my mom’s coming to visit me. We’re gonna go to Florence and Venice during my vacation, and then later we’re going to Geneva, so I’m excited. That will be next month’s blog, so watch out for that.

As for now, je me suis bien installé.

*The rest of the pictures are on Facebook.