Je me sauve*

*I'm outta here

Yesterday (July 4th), at around 4AM eastern standard time, I finally returned home to Annapolis, Maryland.

It is fitting that my journey should come to an end on the 4th of July, that my homecoming should coincide with our most Patriotic Holiday. More important than any other knowledge gained from my travels is the realization that America is an extraordinary country, one which I am proud to call my own. As the customs officer greeting me in JFK airport put it, "we may be broke, but there ain't no place like it."

My year in France was a mixture of contradictions - both exciting and boring, leisurely and frustrating, lonely and convivial, a dream and a nightmare. It was transformative, and I think utterly beneficial.

This morning I submitted my final report to the Henry Russell Shaw Fellowship Committee, and included in it a list of the highlights of my travels - which I'll now post here for your reading pleasure.

Thanks to all of you for following my blog! Sharing my adventures with friends and family in this way added an important dimension to my experience abroad, and now that I'm back I'd love to tell you about my travels in person! Give me a call on my new iPhone (347-224-8512) or shoot me an email (anna.reinert@gmail.com) to figure out a meet-up.


So here's the list. During my year in France, I...

- Lived for 9 months in a loft apartment with three 25 year old French boys

- Shopped for fruits and vegetables at my neighborhood outdoor market

- Learned to make brioche at a baker’s school in Paris during the Cuisine en Fete weekend

- Visited cultural and historic sites during the Journees de Patrimoine, and saw the formaldehyde-preserved brain with which neuroscientist Paul Broca discovered Broca’s area

- Spent a week at the Buddhist Sangha of Plum Village

- Presented at a conference of the EU Committee on Herbal Medicine (HMPC)

- Explored the Christmas markets of Strasbourg

- Attended Cannes as an accredited cinephile and crashed a party on a luxury yacht

- Worked my way into the French National library system

- Became familiar with the Maghrebian vendors at my market and corner grocery store

- Traversed the gardens of Versailles photographing fountain displays in the rain

- Viewed every room of paintings and sculptures in the Louvre.

- Did the January and June Soldes, waiting in the pre-dawn darkness in front of the Galeries Lafayette with hundreds of thrifty and fashion-crazed French women

- Obtained a French Carte de Sejour, opened a French Bank Account, and signed my first ever apartment lease with a French landlord in France (all this implies having dealt with a good deal of French bureaucracy)

- Received the cure, drinking and bathing in the curative waters at Vichy Spa

- Attended the 761^st celebration of a pagan bonfire festival in a small town in Northern France

- Sat in the cloister in Toulouse where Thomas Aquinas was buried

- Went clubbing on the Champs-Elysees

- Swam in my neighborhood pool, with it’s naturally warm water from an on-site hot spring

- Traveled to Grasse, Perfume Capital of the World, to attend an aromatherapy conference and tour the Fragonard perfume factory

- Spent the early hours of the morning listening to a jazz in the basement of a left-bank club

- Participated in the May 1^st manifestation which marched across Paris

- Swam in the Mediterranean along the French Riviera

- Bumped into Jacques Chirac at the huge annual Agricultural salon in Paris

- Made a pilgrimage to the abbey of Mont Saint Michel.

- Learned to samba at the Centre de Danse du Marais

- Watched promising young talent perform at the Paris circus festival

- Overindulged at the Salon du Chocolat

- Had my hair cut by students at the fashion training salons around Paris

- Looked down an ancient well once used by Celtics for sacrificial rituals, now located at the heart of Chartres, in the Cathédrale’s crypt

- Watched classic films at independent cinemas of the Latin Quarter and Montmartre (Night of the Iguana, Le Mepris, Paris vu Par, The French Connection, Manhattan, The Barefoot Contessa, Mata Hari, Zazie dans le Metro, Belle et la Bête, Les Enfants du Paradis, Jules et Jim, Hiroshima mon Amour, Cleo de 5 à 7, Pickpocket, A bout de Souffle)

- Attended an organ concert in Notre Dame de Paris

- Celebrated Le Jour du Macaron by gorging on 3 for 1 euro macarons from Pierre Hermé and Jean Paul Hévin (most interesting was a chocolate-foie gras creation from Pierre Hermé)

- Explored the subterranean ossuaries of the Paris Catacombs

- Ate chocolate mousse out of a paper cone from the mousse bar of the Galeries Lafayette

- Ice skated in front of the Hotel de Ville

- Made a pilgrimage to the D-Day beaches of Normandy and the nearby American Cemetery

- Viewed a Festival des Femmes photo exhibit at an Islamic cultural center in the Goutte d’Or

- Discovered orange blossom ice cream, violet pastry cream, and poppy-flavored macaron

- Frequented the legendary Crazy Horse cabaret on Avenue George V

- Was baffled by the elaborate decorated crypt in which Pasteur is buried at the Institut Pasteur

- Viewed Paris from the Eiffel Tower, the Towers of Notre Dame, and the roof of the Galeries Lafayette

- Paid my respects to the remains of French royalty at the Basilique Cathédrale de Saint Denis

- Was blown away by the interior of the Sorbonne, and realized that I was no different than all the tourist who ooh and ah over the buildings of Harvard

- Ate fresh, hand-churned coconut sorbet at gourmet food salons around Paris

- Admired the impressive orchid collection at the nursery of the Jardin de Luxembourg

- Missed the last Metro on Nuit Blanche and walked home all the way from the Bastille

Outside of France, I…

- Fell in love with Bernini Sculpture at the Villa Borghese in Rome

- Watched Flamenco dancers perform in Barcelona

- Crossed the snow-capped Pyrenees by train and bus

- Visited the Greek island of Nisyros, from which my great grandfather emigrated to America in the early 1900s

- Climbed a volcano and swam in volcanic hot springs at the crater of Santorini

- Cruised the canals of Venice and feted New Years Eve on St Mark’s Square

- Ate pasta with Bolognese sauce in Bologna

- Paid tribute to Hippocrates among the ruins of the first medical school, Asclepieion, on Kos

- Crossed over the Alps in an airplane 6 times.