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- Volume VI: In My Own Words 2016/2017
- Shoot Your Shot
Shoot Your Shot
David Bethel
Arrivée à Paris (Arriving in Paris), May 29th
"Welcome to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, it is almost 9 a.m. local time with cloudy
skies and it is 14 degrees celsius."
I looked over my seat towards my French teacher, Madame Aldrich, who planned the entire
trip. "Can you believe that you're actually in France?", she asked a group of students
in front of me. They quickly awoke from their deep sleep and rushed to uncover the
window. It was almost as if they had thought that landing in Paris meant you could
see the Eiffel Tower already. All that could be seen were clouds, mist, and the airport
itself. The trip's build up had occurred over a span of nearly two years, and everyone
had been counting down the days until touchdown. I turned to look back at my friend
Ashley who was accompanied by her sister Emily. We looked at each other in awe. We
were in Europe.
It had not yet hit me that I was in France. This was likely due to the fact that I
had not slept in nearly 24 hours, and I was barely operating. I was in a group of
about 20 students, accompanied by three teachers, and two parent chaperones. Unfortunately
I only knew a handful of students, so I was a little concerned with how the trip would
go. One of my friends on the trip with me was Eyako Heh. Eyako and I had gotten to
know each other over the course of two years through high school soccer and French
class. My only other friends on the trip were the Clubb sisters. Ashley Clubb had
been one of my best friends since middle school, and had been in my French class for
three straight years. She had long red hair and looked nothing like her sister, Emily.
Emily had long dark hair, and we had become friends through a class that we shared
twice a week called "Focus".
What made our trip unique to other school trips was that we were not staying in beautiful
five star hotels along La Seine River. Instead, we were spread out at houses across
the neighboring region, Normandy. All 20 students had been paired up with a host family
through the school, and we wrote to them several times over the course of the school
year. We were all very nervous, and several students had even decided to drop the
homestay part of the trip. There were even times when I thought that I had made a
mistake by signing up for the homestay. I constantly questioned myself: "What if they
think I'm boring because I can't speak much", or "What if they all talk about me behind
my back?". I had never even met these people, and I was going to be living with them!?
Not to mention that I would be living primarily off of French, my second language.
I had originally been matched with five different students, so I was not even sure
where I was going to stay. It wasn't until about a month before the trip that I found
out that I would be staying with Tom Daric.
Tom was nothing like me at all. When I told him that I loved soccer, I had assumed
that, as a European, he would like soccer by default. I was flat out wrong. Tom did
not know much at all about soccer and said that he had never really played it before.
He was involved in music and theatre, which was not necessarily my forte. He even
told me that the entire week I would be attending his practices. This just added to
the growing mountain of concerns I had before I even stepped off of the plane. Then
I looked up and saw people shuffling out of their seats grabbing luggage. I straightened
up and tried to convince myself that I was never even worried.
Bernay, May 29th
I arrived in Bernay, Normandy around 11a.m. French time. This was after an hour long
drive from Paris. It was almost uncanny how quiet the bus ride through the barren
hills of Normandy was. Everyone was exhausted after nearly a full day of travel, and
we had barely even started our first actual day in France. Although all 20 students
were staying with families who had children attending the high school in Bernay, some
lived as far as 45 minutes from the high school. I was staying in central Bernay which
is, for lack of a better description, still the middle of nowhere. The closest mall
was nearly an hour away, and the only fast food restaurant in the town was McDonald's.
On top of that, in France none of the high school students can drive, so getting from
point A to point B usually meant walking.
As our bus pulled up to the curb outside their school, I tried to take in all the
scenery. Everything seemed so dim and colorless in comparison to the United States.
The streets were quiet and the ancient buildings looked like they were fighting for
space. As I was looking around I came across Tom waiting with his dad. Tom had previously
told me that his father was divorced and his brother was away at college, so I knew
that it would only be him and his father. Other students on the bus had already gotten
off and met their host families. At that moment my mind started racing. What was I
going to say? Do they even do handshakes here? One of the most awkward moments in
my life was about to occur and I was barely awake enough to think.
As I stepped off of the bus, I made distant eye contact with Tom. He was tall and
lanky with dark brown hair. We both knew each other from Instagram, but this was different.
This was real life. This was face to face. The first thing that I noticed when I got
off of the bus was that Tom was nearly 6 inches taller than me. He greeted me quickly
in flawless, likely rehearsed, English. It certainly calmed my nerves to hear English
spoken to me from the start. Tom's father, Didier, then came over and took all of
my bags from me. Didier was also quite a bit taller than me and had a distinct calming
manner. His father had limited English skills, but was willing to converse with me.
I could tell that their family was willing to do whatever they could to make my experience
in Bernay great. Didier then escorted me to his car, a shiny, black Ford Grand-C Max.
As I got into the car, Didier told me about how his car was better than other French
cars because it was an automatic. Before he even finished talking about it, we were
racing through the streets of Bernay. When I say racing... I literally mean racing.
It seemed as though we never stopped, let alone slowed down. The car veered down tight
alleyways that seemed to strangle the car, yet somehow we would always come out on
the other side unscathed. I looked at Tom and his father almost questioning why they
weren't as frightened as I was. After passing through the downtown region of Bernay,
we took a sharp turn directly into a small gap in the forest. The car bounced up and
down on the rocky "Chemin de la Cour Pitache", the shaded street that Tom lived on.
Suddenly, we halted in front of a gated property nestled into the side of a forest-
my new home.
Ma Nouvelle Maison (My New Home), May 29th
As we passed through the gate I could see an old, lofty, white house at the top of
a steep hill. Their yard was so steep that there was only one 10ft by 10ft area that
they could park. I stepped out of the car, collected my belongings, and walked towards
the front door. The door looked very old, and the paint was slightly eroded. It made
me question what I was getting into. It wasn't until Didier opened the door that my
preconception was quickly proved wrong.
The interior was so modern that it looked as though they designed it directly from
a catalog. The bright white walls contrasted with the glowing red accents all over
the house. Before I had a chance to see the full house, I was directed towards my
new room. It was right inside the front door, next to the only bathroom in the house.
It was a very empty room, with two low beds, and faded gray walls. Tom then pointed
towards the corner of the room where a white bag was sitting on a chair. Inside of
the bag was a new soccer ball. Tom told me that he knew they didn't have a ball in
the house, so they bought me one to make me feel more at home. Immediately, Tom's
father entered the room with another bag. It was full of pain au chocolat, or chocolate
croissants, my favorite french food.
The Daric family was treating me like royalty. After Tom had assisted me in unpacking,
he asked if I wanted to play Xbox with him. It was crazy how two very different people
could find common ground through playing an old Call of Duty game. We communicated
through both English and French, helping each other when necessary. As we spoke, we
realized we had a lot more in common than we had previously thought. We found out
that we were taking very similar school courses. We compared and contrasted our schedules
and pointed out the similarities. Also, I noticed that Tom listened to lots of American
music. He knew all of the songs from our radio stations, and played them freely in
his house. I distinctly remember hearing "Controlla", my favorite Drake song, echo
room to room from Tom's big speaker. So far everything had gone much better than I
had expected, but I still had to face my biggest challenge: assimilating into a French
high school.
Le Premier Matin (First Morning), May 30th
My bed shook as the alarm on my phone sounded. I had slept very well in my new bed
that first night in France. Actually, I slept a little too well. It was 7:30a.m. and
we had to leave by 7:45. I had previously set alarms for 7:00, 7:25 and 7:45 because
I knew how my mornings usually went back at home. I had promised myself that I wouldn't
let my hectic mornings travel to France with me, but here I was with less than 15
minutes remaining. I showered and got dressed within 10 minutes. I expected to walk
into a kitchen with Tom and his father waiting on me, but there was nobody in sight.
That's when Tom ran past me into the bathroom, and I realized that we weren't so different
yet again. His father then came downstairs and poured some orange juice and cut some
bread for me. I finished breakfast in world record setting time and headed for the
car. Although I didn't know it then, every morning in France was nearly an exact repeat
of this.
Tom's father drove us to the school before heading off to his work. I saw hundreds
of other kids and their parents doing the same thing, and they were all walking towards
a big gate. Behind the gate was a long pebble pathway that went up to a three-floor
building, The Augustin Fresnel High School. There was something I couldn't help but
notice right in front of the gate. It was a cloud, and more specifically a cloud of
smoke. There were about 50 kids smoking, and every one of them were staring at me
as I walked towards them. In France, students are allowed to smoke as long as it is
not on school grounds. There was only one entrance to the school, so I would inevitably
have to approach them at some point.
Interestingly, I had actually prepared for this. I wanted to fit in with the other
students in France, so I tailored all of my outfits to match trends in France. My
teacher Ms. Aldrich had warned me in the past about avoiding the 'American Look'.
This meant that a baggy sweatshirt, with shorts, and running shoes was not going to
help me avoid attention. For the first day, I wore a plain shirt, tight blue jeans,
a black Nike windbreaker, and black Nike shoes. When I walked through the gate, I
noticed that everybody was still staring at me. It did not matter how hard I tried.
Everybody knew that I was one of the Americans, and honestly I was okay with that.
Lycée (School), May 30th
When I first walked into the school I was relieved to see the puzzled faces of the
other Americans. We were all congregated in the front of their school in a room called
'le Hall'. This room was similar in purpose to a school rotunda, but it was much wider
in order to accommodate more people. All of the Americans were clustered around the
right side staircase. That's when I saw my three closest friends: Eyako, Ashley, Emily.
We all gossiped to each other about our families. We spoke about our cramped rooms,
sketchy bathrooms, and even the exact layouts of our dinners the night before. Ms.
Aldrich then walked in with two of the French teachers that were involved in the exchange
program from Bernay. They told us that we would be shadowing our student correspondents
for the whole school day. Suddenly, the bell rang. I found Tom, and tried to keep
up as he converged with other students and headed down the hall.
We stopped at the last room, a math room. The room had 30 or 40 desks evenly spaced
with a gap down the middle. It was very plain and reminded me more of a prison than
any classroom I had ever been in. As I walked past the rows of desks, I looked curiously
at Tom waiting for him to say "stop". I then found myself in the front row. The rest
of his class filled in behind me, and then a slender man walked in with a briefcase.
This was their teacher, Monsieur Scheuber.
Monsieur Scheuber passed out guided notes and began to teach. Tom was always the first
one to answer in the class. I realized quickly that he was more advanced than the
majority of the students in the room. As Monsieur Scheuber ended the lesson, he asked
me if I was able to get anything from the class. Peculiarly, I understood his French
math lesson better than anything taught in Mr. Avery's 4th period precalc class from
the year before.
Since we finished with time to spare, all of the attention in the class was shifted
to me. I was the alien, the thing that did not belong. I wanted to get out, but I
noticed that the students had good intentions. The same people that were giving me
dirty looks walking into the school were asking me questions; wanting to get to know
me. I knew I had a vast knowledge of French sports, so that was the first topic I
talked about. We talked about the best coaches, our favorite teams, and the most overrated
players. At some point the conversation branched out into a party invite from one
of the students. Some of my American friends had mentioned something about a party
earlier, and I had somewhat brushed off the idea. When Tom asked if I wanted to go,
my immediate reaction was no, but then my conscience came into play. I asked myself,
"Had anything gone wrong so far in France?". I figured I had nothing to lose. I quickly
turned to Tom and accepted the invite.
La Fête (The Party), June 3rd
We checked maps on our phone, cross referencing with the directions that we had heard
earlier. Myriam's mother, a friend of Tom, was driving us through winding roads in
her petite Renault. It was a cool rainy day, which is called June in Normandy. It
had actually rained so much that week that Paris was closing roads due to flooding
from the Seine River.
We were going to Moustache's house to meet up with other school kids. I still, to
this date, do not know his real name because all I ever heard was "Moustache". He
lived far out on the countryside near a town called Thiberville. When we pulled up
it was very dark and quiet, so we were a little concerned considering we were looking
for a party. That was when Eyako pulled up with his French host, Ronan. He led us
a little further down the street where we saw dozens of kids circled up around a soccer
goal.
Eyako and I walked up, and they asked us if we wanted to play. Nobody else seemed
to be in athletic apparel so we assumed it would be pretty relaxed. Tom and Ronan
decided that they would rather watch for the time being. Me and Eyako played alongside
a few other Americans, including Ashley and Emily, as well as a few French students.
The team that we were playing against was completely French, and the majority of them
actually played soccer. As the game began, I realized why Europe is home to the best
players and teams. Playing soccer was effortless to so many of the players. Luckily,
it was very laid back, so we were able to laugh at each others blunders as the French
students tore us apart. At the end of the game we circled up and taught each other
different tricks and skills. Tom even tried to do some juggling with the soccer ball
yet failed miserably. Everyone was having a great time, and the party hadn't even
started yet. As the rain started to pick up again, we headed into Moustache's house
to eat and dance.
The first thing I remember seeing was what seemed like a thousand different types
of juice lined up on a table. The different fruit juices and sodas were accompanied
by quiche, chips, cheese, and desserts. Charly, one of Moustache's friends, hooked
up speakers around the living room as we ate. Once the speakers were up, the music
started to electrify the whole house. Ashley and I got in the middle of the circle
and jumped up and down like nobody was watching us. Everybody else started to catch
on, and the house began to rock. We all had such a great time. At one point we made
a conga line that stretched through the entire house and out into the rain. I even
got to know some of the American students that I didn't know well before. Despite
the ongoing party, there was still the lingering thought in my mind: I would have
to leave Bernay in just a few days.
Le Départ (Departure), June 6th
Just as I had the Monday before, I woke up at 7:45. My phone alarm had sounded for
the last time in Bernay. Today was the day that I had to say 'Au revoir' to all of
my new friends. I ate my usual breakfast: plain bread and orange juice. I could see
the sorrow on Tom's face as he came downstairs to grab his stuff. I went back into
my room to get my charger, and I remembered that I wanted to write something for Tom.
In just a few minutes, I wrote a short paragraph in French thanking Tom for everything.
I stuck the note under a pillow, slipped on my tattered gray Vans, and walked out
of the room for the last time.
Didier had already put all of my stuff in the car, so we left right away. It was a
cool, misty morning. When we arrived at the school there was a large white charter
bus waiting by the curb. Even though all of the students were there, it was dead silent.
Nearly half of us had tears rolling down our cheeks. There was even a group hug that
had to have lasted at least five minutes. We were all trying to take pictures and
tell stories to stall time, but Ms. Aldrich made it explicit that we had to leave
by 8:30. Right before I went to get on the bus Tom and his father came over to me.
The last thing that they ever said to me was that whenever I was back in France they
would be there for me. I really wanted to just cancel the rest of the trip and stay
there. Who would have ever thought I would try to ditch Paris for a small farm town
in Normandy. I was one of the last people on the bus. As the driver started to move
we all leaned towards the curbside waving at our correspondents.
After leaving Bernay for Paris, our trip continued for two more weeks. We went from
Paris to the south of France. Then we crossed into Spain where we visited Barcelona
and Madrid. The cities and hotels were beautiful, but it could never amount to being
in Bernay. The whole time I was traveling throughout Europe I remained in constant
contact with Tom and his friends. Friends that didn't even know me a week ago. Friends
that I would have never made if I had opted out of the homestay like I had wanted
to. Everything that I had worried about before the trip had became obsolete. As an
athlete, I had always been told the famous Wayne Gretzky quote: "You miss 100% of
the shots you don't take". The homestay was my shot, and I certainly didn't miss it.