Come to Collioure

A week before beginning my employment at an American English immersion camp as an English teacher, I went on a weekend of my own bit of French immersion with my good friends Corentin and Laura, and their friend Karine. We went camping and hiking in the sweet French seaside towns of Collioure and Banyuls-sur-Mer.

After a few hours of snoozing in the car, we arrived at the campground. Corentin assured me it was time for me to have my first French dream. I assured him that if I couldn't understand his simple request to pass the toilet paper, I was not ready for a full out slumbering adventure.

A bit of graffiti we found

We awoke for a French camp-style breakfast of pain au chocolates and juice. And chocolate milk for Corentin. Soon after, we were off to hike the vineyard-dappled shoreline mountains and breathe in the crisp air wafting from the close Spanish border.

The transparent Mediterranean allowed us to see the shapes of the boulders in the green blue water from the view of the high cliffs, reminded me of the iceburg in that motivation poster.

We found a rocky private beach and climbed down to munch on some cheese, sausage and couscous before taking a siesta.

This was the day I hitch-hiked for the first time. And it was so easy. The first car stopped. He was a little friendly French man, and Corentin happily chatted with him while I sat in the back of the car, admiring the view of the sea.

The lost trio

My three French friends discussed, negotiated, agreed, muttered, yelled, and joked in their native language, and I...listened. Many times I could only wonder when we were leaving, or why we were suddenly walking in a different direction (to which I would quickly scurry). But they patiently explained when I asked, and I patiently corrected their English explanation. At the end of our dinner (and the Crema Catalunya, which was superb), I could sense a tiring of the English explanations, and I demanded we end the English for the rest of the trip. This was only mildly successful, but I certainly practiced the vocab I knew, and learned the useful French verb 'to forget'.

This made my eyes well up in tears of happiness

Karine & 'la vie est belle en France'

After a very windy night in a tent, we packed up to go to a lovely wildlife conservation beach known for being popular for scuba diving, or 'plongée', and in our case (snorkling), 'plongée avec le mask et tuba'. Magnificent. The first few times I ducked my head underwater, I came up nervously spluttering and giggling. I gradually gained more nerve and began to swim with the fish. Every so often a big one would swim by and glare at the intruder in his water, which would bring me up laughing and choking.

We rewarded our snorkling and tanning efforts with some gelato before jumping in the car back to Toulouse. That evening I had my first French dream. However limited it was on vocabulary. I quickly emailed Corentin with the good news.