One of the rite-of-passage films for all French majors and Francophiles, beyond “Amélie” and “A bout de souffle,” is “L’auberge espagnole.” Though the movie mostly takes place in Spain, it is one of the best examples I’ve seen on French bureaucracy and how studying abroad and living internationally changes you, especially how hard it is to go home after. No one at home remembers that one tear-inducing day where you forgot to make a photocopy or the stupid mistake you made at a boulangerie before you had really grasped the language. Just you, with your memories, your mistakes, and your dreams in French.
“When you first arrive in a new city, nothing makes sense. Everything’s unknown, virgin. After you’ve lived here, walked these streets, you’ll know them inside out. You’ll know these people. Once you’ve lived here, crossed this street 10, 20, 1000 times…it’ll belong to you because you’ve lived there. That was about to happen to me, but I didn’t know it yet.”
I re-watched “L’auberge espagnole” in preparation for my trip to Spain a few months ago and found myself resonating more and more with Romain Duris’ character than I had ever before. Like him, I had grown up and not even realized it.
Everyone who knows me knows that I have wanted to live in France my whole life, maybe due to a slightly unhealthy obsession with “Moulin Rouge!” when I was 11 or maybe because I have always held bread and cheese and chocolate and coffee and wine close to my heart. For some reason, it just makes sense. It makes me feel like I’m home despite any remaining language or cultural barriers.
At the end of the movie, Xavier (Duris) has an enlightenment. He realizes he doesn’t want to sell out for the high-paying job in finance and that deep down, he has always known his life’s passion. And he can’t let the kid inside of him, the kid who always dreamed of being a writer, down.
I am so excited to finally tell you all that I’m not letting the little Madeline inside of me down, either. In September, I’ll be moving back to Paris for an M.A. in Global Communication at the American University of Paris. I’ll post more details later on, because now I get to re-start the super fun process of Photomaton pictures and visa appointments and health care registration, but it’s always worth it. Always. France can’t get rid of me just yet. ♦
I’m happy to know we are going to meet us again next year in Paris or in Aix Anne…
So, I love “l’auberge espagnol” movie , Klapish ‘s films and R Duris to….It, funny, touchy , close to reality …..
I can’t wait to see you next year either! 🙂 It is a really good movie.
Such a lovely post!
Great good luck sweetie. It is exciting to think about the wonderful possibilities that will open up to you.
Thank you! & thanks for all your support 🙂
Congratulations on this big decision Anne. May it be all you hope for!
thanks!!
Congratulations Anne! I am so excited and happy for you.
eek thank you! ditto 😉
Hoorayyyyy!!!!!!
my thoughts exactly!!!
Awesome!
I have cousins that live in Montesson, which is about 30mins. NW of Paris.
If you would like to meet them, just let me know and I can contact them about you moving to Paris.
Their names are Corinne & Didier LeGoff and her parents, Baptiste & Lucienne Annovazzi
I also have a cousin that lives in Italy in Montichiari, which is about halfway between Milan & Venice.
Her name is Loredana Zavanella and she runs a beautiful Bed & Breakfast.
Here is the link to the facebook page of her Bed & Breakfast
https://www.facebook.com/Monticlaris
Wow, congratulations! That is fantastic! I’m so happy for you and excite to read more about your adventures post TAPIF!
Mille mercis!!
Congrats! How exciting for you!!
Great news about your upcoming return to Paris! Let me know more when you have a chance.
That’s incredible! Congratulations and keep the posts coming…I’d like to live the Parisian life vicariously through you!
thank you!! I am so excited to be back, mainly because of the swoon-worthy instas 😉
Congratulations and good luck!! And yay for inner Madelines! ; )
So that’s the case? Quite a reeltavion that is.
How exciting! Congratulations, Anne!
Living in a foreign country is one of those things that you can’t truly explain to people. The experience of learning a new culture, making friends in a different language that requires sign language and understanding of the heart, the confidence that is built as a result, the fabulous expansion of boundaries and global understanding of so much more than a single town or accent…Katie and I cried for 6 months when we moved back from Japan. Not because we weren’t happy to be back in the states but because we were grieving for all we had to leave behind, the dear friends , the Navy people who had become our everything, our family away from home, our help in time of need or when Chuck was deployed, the food ,the travel the wonder of something new around every corner. Going back to visit after we had been home for a year was like looking thru a window into our previous life where so many of the people and places were the same but our presence was no longer there. It was hoped to be a wonderful trip and ended up one of the most painful of my life. Something that almost no one here understands.