Une colline

"Une colline" is the french word for hill. There are a couple of hills in Paris, and, for example, Montmartre is built on one of them. Today, though, I went to Meudon, a suburb outside of Paris which is the highest point around for miles -- in fact it's apparently as high as the second story of the Eiffel Tower. Now Hannah, what were you doing in Meudon, you may be asking yourself. And the answer to that is...speaking English! I got a  job spending about an hour and a half per week hanging out with this 12 year old boy in Meudon and speaking English with him, and today was my first day! I had been out there last week to meet his parents, etc., but today was our first official hang out. His parents were just looking for someone he could talk with once a week to work on his English because, like most language instruction in schools, there's not really that much time set aside where you can practice speaking -- it's mostly comprehension, reading, and writing. So basically I'm just there to hang out with a 12 year old, speak my native language, and get paid for it. COULDN'T BE BETTER.

The observatory of Meudon -- as you can see, we are up quite high on that colline! What a view.

I can get to Meudon from the Gare Montparnasse for approximately 2 euros and 40 centimes and it's a 10 minute train ride. It's incredibly simple to get most places in France thanks to the vast train system. I've taken at least 4 types since I've been here -- the metro, the RER (commuter train), the suburban train, and the TGV (high speed train). Anyway, I showed up at the train station and Samson, the boy, comes and picks me up on his skateboard. This kid is allll about skateboarding, much like I imagine most 12 year old boys are. He lights up when I mention Tony Hawk and asks if he can do an ollie (he can't). From there we pretty much talk about anything and everything. We talked about school and the subjects he likes, we talked about cricket, we talked about cats, we talked about swim team. He took me for a little tour of Meudon and showed me the house where Louis XIV's son, the dauphin, lived. We walked up to the observatory and he showed me his elementary school. While I don't think he understood every word of what I said, I was impressed at the amount of English he knows. His vocabulary is pretty good, and he has a good command of verbs but struggles with the future/past tense (don't we all). He showed me his English notebooks and the work his class did on the World Trade Center. He had a labeled map of the US and a really detailed map of Manhattan, along with a short story about a boy and his sister going to a football game. I showed him Iowa and Virginia and California, which he knew because of Hollywood. He seemed to know the most about New York, which I guess makes sense, seeing as how there are so many relationships between NYC and Paris. He also showed me a set of comic books in English about cowboys and indians, which is hilarious because the French have this very strange obsession with the cowboy/indian theme. The best example is a chain of bars in Paris called "Indiana" -- which serves "Tex-Mex" food and has fake indian headdresses hung up everywhere and pictures of the wild west. Trying to explain to a Parisian that Indiana the state has very little to do with tee-pees and buffalo hunting would be inconceivable, although one day I want to bring in a picture of a corn field and be like, "See people, THIS is Indiana. Not the bluffs/mountains/plains of actual Indian territory!" Someday.

The "Potager du Dauphin" in Meudon - the house that Louis XIV built for his son.

Anyway, after an hour and a half we wrapped things up and I got back to the train station and headed back into the city. I have a feeling that these Friday afternoon "teaching" sessions will be really fun and a great way to interact with real French people. Samson and I talk mainly in English but every now and then there's a moment where I throw in a French word to make sure he understands or he'll use a French word for an English one he doesn't know -- like "colline." While walking up the hill to the observatory today he was trying to explain that Meudon is built on a hill, and so we had to do a couple of hand-gestures/code-switching to figure it out. Being able to have the opportunity to use and help teach English to someone is so great because it allows me to realize things not just about my own language but also my relationship with French. I sometimes get hung up on the fact that I don't know how to say something in French or get frustrated when people can recognize by my accent that I'm not a native speaker and that gets me pretty discouraged sometimes. But something that Samson has already taught me is that it's not embarrassing to be learning a language! It's not awkward if you don't know how to say something, and people aren't going to look down on you if you don't use the correct verb tense. I am not a native French speaker, and so I need to stop expecting myself to sound like one every time I open my mouth. One of the things I love about Europe is that learning other languages is just so common here, and so everyone's a beginner in something -- whether it be their fifth language or their second. The important thing is to try, to smile, and laugh at your own mistakes, because lord knows there will be a lot of them!