Don Julio

This, I’m sure, is what Rory is most interested in hearing about. So, my dear friends, let me relate this torrid tale from the beginning. It’s actually not torrid at all, I’m just shit with preamble. In fact, all of this is quite innocent, and I'm sure you will all laugh at me.

Wednesday after the meeting, Augustus received a text message from Don Julio requesting my phone number; I was going to the language assistant orientation the next day, and it happened to be in DJ's hometown. He called up -well tried to. Our phones kept getting disconnected, and when he spoke I had a hard time understanding his accent on the phone. 'Je parle mal!' he said. Eventually I made out that if I was going to be there in the afternoon he could pick me up and show me around, and maybe get something to eat. A perfectly friendly and nice thing for another teacher to do, right? I, of course, flipped a shit. How was I possibly going to be normal around this person for such a long period of time?

I ended up being more nervous about meeting him after orientation than about the orientation itself, but I kept it together pretty well during. A really pleasant man with a bright smile, and infectious good spirits drove me to the adjacent city that morning – it turns out he’s one of my supervisors, and essentially the man who will be deciding which schools I’ll be working at. The orientation itself was long, boring, and mostly confusing. Half the time they themselves had no idea what to do with our paperwork, so I spent a lot of the day being frustrated. There are only eight other assistants, and save a dude from the British Isles, everyone seems pretty genuine about working hard. I like them, and if I ever get back on facebook, I’ll be sure to friend them. Haha.

The only truly memorable moment was one of poorly spoken English. Remember that cake scene in Father of the Bride? (I know you do, E-Beth) They were impressing on us the importance of speaking vocabulary words long before you give out written handouts. “If not, they will pronounce things incorrectly,” the meeting leader was saying, “For example, many French children pronounce, ‘cake,’ like ‘cock.’” We all kept a lid on our chuckles, but the woman forged on, and just kept bloody well saying it. It all culminated in one middle aged woman saying with a grin ‘I vant a cock!’ I started laughing, which she took as encouragement to say the same sentence loudly and repeatedly: “I VANT A COCK.” I and one other girl completely lost it. “Yes, it sounds funny, yes?” The meeting leader commented. “Oui,” I gasped “Très marrant.” There were a few other things, like a segment called 'EAT IT' but most of us were laughing out of exhaustion, so I'm not sure how much of it will be funny after the fact.

I waited around afterwards, trying to alleviate my nerves by stretching in a small courtyard. Being slightly weird in public makes me feel more comfortable. He pulled up in his car, disembarking with a warm smile and errands to run, and his air of calm instantly relieved my tension. He strode over and paused, stooping slightly over me, holding the position for a few odd seconds before saying something to the effect of “uh…hello?” and then I remembered I was supposed kiss him on both cheeks. You know, like French people do.

Besides my trademark awkward beginning, conversation was relatively easy with him. He laughs at most things I say, often only politely, but I appreciate it. We took a quick walk around the ramparts, where he explained some basic history I already knew. I kept getting excited about silly things like turrets and 16th century architecture and he just smiled at me.

One good thing about not being able to speak the language is the general capacity to hide how terribly nerdy I am. He was delighted I even knew about the templar knights and could point out Napoleon in a store-window line-up. “Ah, you know some French history!” He tapped me enthusiastically between the shoulder blades, “That pleases me a bunch!” He was more pleased when he found out I liked beer, especially since a friend of his had just brought him back a bunch of types from Belgium. “My fridge is filled with beer,” he warned. “Ah, party animal, huh?” When I looked in his fridge later, I realized my parents must be pretty absurd party animals, because it did not look like much beer to me.

I’ll be honest; I feel strange writing a lot of this down. I’m struggling with a desire to be accurate and the fear that I'm too focused on individual movements or words spoken. It’s no less than what I’d share with a lot of you in person, but writing it all down in block print makes it oddly surreal. A story I’m creating, rather than a life I’m recording. My life. I’m sure I’ll go more metaphysical about this shit later, but for now, my mind is overflowing with details, and I need to give them to someone else to worry over.

To resume: We sat at a café drinking orangina, where he bumped into a friend who was expecting a new baby, which starting me talking about Charles and Anna and friends that were getting married. He assured me that none of it got any less weird at 29. He thought it was particularly funny that I waved at people I didn’t know very well, and I started talking to him about how intimate Americans thought kissing people’s cheeks were, while he agreed that French people found hugging much more so. (It still takes me a few weeks to get used to greeting in the French style, and I've been here quite a lot) We eventually made it back to his apartment, which he warned me was a mess, and wasn’t lying about it. I started to help him clear some cups, and I had to shake my head at his overall décor: bright red and purple walls, black accents, and a wide cushioned, red plush sofa that almost forces one to recline. It was a bachelor pad engineered to entrap woman.

Guess who fell for it? This guy!

Okay, not quite. Basically we started sharing music with each other, and he’d never heard of Neil Young, which I found astonishing. He started showing me a bunch of french artists on you tube, and we both got absorbed in searching and explaining various favorite artists.

He’d long missed his badminton practice, and after showing him a clip of Eddie Izzard talking about learning French, and watching a pretty hilarious French woman talk about the Barbie airplane, I pointed out the late hour and asked him to take me home. He seemed a little taken aback, but I'd said it and there was nothing to be done. It was like waking from a reverie, and he told me he’d call me to hang out on Sunday.

As he pulled up to my gate, I didn’t really know what to do. My impulse was to hug him, but I didn’t know whether I was supposed to fait les bises or not. So I just weakly tapped my hand on his shoulder, said ‘thank you very much’, and with a smile darted out the door. I felt stupid. I mean, I could have at least said good night, right? I wasn’t angry at myself exactly, I just felt weird. So I ruminated about it for half an hour, glaring at myself in the mirror, and wondering whether I even deserved to brush my teeth, and lo, as I change into my PJs, I receive a text message from Don Julio in English telling me it was a pleasure.

Why, how nice is that?