Bienvenue à la fin (Welcome to the ending) of my magnificent trip to Bordeaux, as this fourth post makes up the last I have to tell you about this transformative opportunity.
During our three-week-long stay in Bordeaux I bore witness to sufficient monuments, artifacts, and cultural experiences to fill out a lifetime. Likewise in a broad-reaching scope, I forged friendships I expect to last a lifetime too. The community among students on the trip was parfait (perfect). Led sweetly and charismatically by our professor and his friend who had both grown up in the city, we embarked on unending cultural excursions during those French weeks, on cruises and tours, and so much more. Our community of Oberlin students in Bordeaux (who the professor called “Bordobies”) formed an eclectic, irrepressible, mostly ingenuous (mostly queer) group of explorers to weather every contour of our odyssey. I sometimes reflected, as when we took a cruise on the river Garonne at the end of our stay, on how there was perhaps no better place for our group to be living nor exploring at that time. We ate up every bit of the French culture we could find.
While I know I cannot capture the experience of every cultural excursion our France trip included, I’ll attempt to capture the essential gist of our goings-out through examples. On our very first weekend, we wandered reverently through the Basins de Lumières (basins of lights), where an abandoned submarine base had become fine art. Early one morning, we went by bus to the Dune of Pilat, where we wondered at the sea and gorged ourselves on oysters so alive that they shriveled when we squeezed lemon juice onto them. We went in turns (for the stairway was narrow) to climb a massive cathedral bell tower in the city, from which we saw Bordeaux’s valiant skyline stretching in every direction. We sat in convivial fervor around a table where our wine and cheese tasting took place, alike to when we got to taste wines aboard our aforementioned cruise, and were privileged enough to drink from a special selection at our trip to a real chateau (literally meaning castle, but which has come to mean an esteemed estate for wine-making, as can be found plentifully in the Bordeaux countryside). This is still just to name a few of the things that we did as a group, which all were in addition to our enjoyment of the city and surrounding area we did on our own schedules as well.
I and two other trip members formed a tight-knit group in which we trekked to every corner of the city. We visited churches and museums and many a frippery (the French name for a thrift or consignment store). We stopped by all manner of charming bakeries and street-corner venders and frolicked (I would say this applied quite literally) through all the city’s most exquisite plazas. One weekend, my friends and I even took a trip by train to the nearby city of Saint-Émilion, where the medieval architecture was the best preserved I had ever witnessed. We climbed a tower there where we kept nearly hitting our heads but were rewarded with a view to stick in our minds unceasingly.
With those close friends I made on the trip, I still share a bond that has changed, but not really faltered, even in the months after. With the others from the trip I still will exchange a friendly wave or quick word whenever we see each other on campus because, even ensconced anew in our own friend groups, we share a collective bond around the time of unprecedented enjoyment and learning we passed through in community.
What will I take forward from my time spent away in France? A solid foundation in the language is one thing I can guarantee, even though I still have much to learn. The community bonds we formed between students and professors as detailed in this installment certainly make up another thing I’ll take into my future. Besides just this, though, I do believe I’ll carry forward a broadened international experience. Whereas with Guadalajara, my first study away experience, I always felt I was visiting and foreign (though fascinated by all I got to experience) in the city, in Bordeaux I ended up feeling a bit more settled. The climate was like the cool rainy days of my home and the well-classed culture was an air I came to embrace. France welcomed me with truly joyous arms and yet also, I came to welcome it the same.
What my future holds with my French experience is uncertain. I could want to return to the country for a longer time as life goes on, or I could never see the soil again (though that might make me sad). What is certain is that I now carry a special place in my heart for Bordeaux, beautifully forged from the love of my classmates, and my host family, and my language teacher, and each resident of that city themselves. I will remember this from time to time, maybe when I catch the eye of a former Bordobie or perhaps when I hear utterances of French words from croissant to bouquet. In any case, I think when that place in my heart is brought up it will fill me with loveliness. In a moment of bliss I will feel completed by the peace and flow of the place I’ve left behind and, when I am feeling this way about the wonders of Bordeaux even far later on, I think I will smile.
Thanks for checking in on my Bordeaux trip! This concludes this series of blogs and I’ll be excited to bring you the next ones! Until then, au revoir ! (Goodbye!)
