The Ultimate Wlog

Good things come to an end. Here I sit in the Minneapolis airport, finished with it all and not entirely sure what it all meant, or means. Discovering the profound wisdoms unearthed over the course of four months in France will be a lengthy process; I don’t expect to get to the end of it. At the very least, I know that fruit kefir does not take well to milk, chocolate mousse is surprisingly easy to make and the air whooshes on your face when a Paris metro car is accelerating. Be sure to keep asking for updates, I expect information to keep rolling in over the course of the next few months. Do be warned, however; when asked about France I tend to hem and haw and appear very indecisive, which I am. How do you condense four months down into 30 seconds? I would very much like to tell you about the music on the Poitiers bus (varied), the peculiarities of the French computer science world or the smoky fellow from the cafeteria who filled me in on US foreign policy in Cyprus. But at any given moment I can only remember a handful of these stories, and the Wlog is equally susceptible to my fickle memory. So please, ask me about France, frequently; or at least be in range when a random detail runs into my brain, finds a related memory and drags it out into the open.


Really, though, my French adventure continues; for this Wlog is not yet over, and so long as I have a story to tell the adventure lives on in the hearts of my readers! I begin with a quirk of French culture that came to me shortly before departure. In French, as in many romance languages, there are two forms of “you”. One is formal, one is not. The rules behind when to use the formal and informal form are, heh, informal. So much so that one Frenchman I talked to said that sometimes it was so unclear which form to use they would speak to someone in such a way as to avoid addressing them. For instance, “when do you want to leave tomorrow?” becomes “when are we leaving tomorrow?” Which makes for a very collaboritive conversation. The social significance of the two forms is such that, in many French movies I watched, I could track the progression of romance between two lovers by whether they started using the informal version of “you”. Sometimes they would be explicit, saying, “can we use the informal version of ‘you’ with one another?” This can be a fraught question; in one instance a heroine replied “not yet,” which was of course very dramatic. Formal and informal versions of “you” may be somewhat pedestrian, but I find them fascinating; they create a fundamental cultural difference between France and the United States: in France, the distance between strangers is made explicit when they address one another, since strangers always use the formal version of “you” (with a few exceptions, such as with colleagues). It makes me wonder how, when speaking English, I keep my social distance with strangers without such an obvious flag as a formal version of “you”. Perhaps we should bring back “thou”. That would be interesting*.

I digress. At the time I wrote the Penultimate Wlog, I was sitting in the library studying furiously for my final exams. The exams went well, as many of my professors offered me the option of an oral exam, knowing I had to take their exams early. Had I been the slick young tadpole of yesteryear, the prospect of an oral exam would have terrified me. In fact, the oral exam format turned a four-hour exam into a 20 minute one, and I was much the better for it. Following this period of intense testing came a period of intense goodbying, for I met a lot of cool people in France. Never have I said as many seemingly permanent farewells. I like to think they weren’t definitive, but some certainly are. After testing and goodbying came the traveling. Due to the retirement strike (which continues, making it the longest since 1986), there were very few trains available. I took the next best thing: a bus! The four-hour ride to Paris passed by in a bit of a reflective haze, which was understandable; never have I so ingrained myself in a community only to leave it. But I will return. Upon arriving in Paris, I realized the hotel I was sharing with a friend was a good 3 mile walk from the bus station. Planning was never my strong suit, but I am quite skilled at walking. Luggage in hands, I made the trek. It was very pleasant, and there were a great deal of people walking, as there was very little in the way of public transportation. Magisterial intersections gave way to mysterious corridors, hole-in-the-wall McDonalds to bustling sidewalk cafés. I enjoyed the smallness of Poitiers, but Paris, in its gargantuan size and diversity, has a certain otherworldly-ness to it, as if each road is a link to another dimension. Or perhaps my supernatural feelings were due to exercise-induced hallucinations. I did get a little sweaty.

Following the whispered directions of my phone, without which I would have been catastrophically lost, I made it to the hotel; an Ibis budget, for which the best adjective is “optimized”. There is one room. The shower looks out on the entryway, and the toilet has a swinging panel whose lock is only as good as the power of one’s foot. Nevertheless, we were lucky to have it; otherwise it was a night at the airport. The next morning, after a nutritious breakfast of vaguely donut-like pastries, I said farewell to my friend (an excellent fellow) and set out for Charles de Gaulle. I had a vague idea of where the train station was and a half-certainty that there was a train, as the strike was ongoing. Seeing a two mile walk ahead of me, I initially tried to find a bus, but none ever came, so I set out once again. Then I realized I still had my host family’s key with me, which entailed a frantic search for a stamp and an envelope. It being Sunday, nothing was open save, miraculously, for a sports bar that sold stamps and envelopes alongside bets on horse races. Key sent, I found the train station, and a train, whose destination I was relatively sure was Charles de Gaulle. I verified this with four or five people on the train. If we weren’t going to Charles de Gaulle, we would be lost together, and this was enough to quiet my anxieties.

Finally, after moderate concern when the train appeared to be turning in the wrong heading, I arrived at Charles de Gaulle. Being ignorant in the ways of the checked bag, I walked all the way to the security line before realizing that I could not, in fact, check my bag there. Turning around, I was briefly lost in a series of enclosed conveyor-belt tubes that web the Charles de Gaulle airport. Realizing I had wandered all the way to baggage claim, I briefly exited the airport, then re-entered to find the glorious Icelandair check-in desk. I had an approximate hour until boarding at this point, and it was a thirty-minute line. I wasn’t too anxious, though, since I realized everybody else in line was on the same flight. Either they make us all miss the flight as a show of force and an example to the other customers, or we would make the plane. The flight from Paris to Iceland was uneventful. Iceland is as charming as ever. It feels a bit like going to a clubhouse, since their language is enormously complex and operates similarly to a secret code. Boarding the plane to Seattle, I turned around and caught the remnants of a brilliant pink-hued sunset over the jagged peaks of the Icelandic wilds. I want to return to Iceland, but there are many things I want to do.


Over the course of seven hours, I read the Icelandair magazine cover to cover, brainstormed Dungeon and Dragons storylines, wrote a resume of an article, fiddled with the screen in front of me and gazed into the distance. With a bump and a squeak, the plane touched down, and I was once more in the United States. I left Iceland at 5:00pm and arrived in Seattle at 5:05pm, a mildly amusing quirk of time zones. Around 5:25, I found my family again, which was nice, since I had missed them.

Now, my goal from the beginning was to write a personalized account of France that would link me to those interested in my endeavors. Having returned, so concludes my task, and my tale. I imagine this to be the last Wlog for a good while, at least until another adventure arises. Attached are several photos that I believe worthy of the Wlog, some of which may have already been posted. In that case, they are doubly worthy of the Wlog. An excellent 2020 to you all, and thank you for reading.