In my admittedly-not-all-that-long life, I’ve consistently found traveling to be an incredibly educational experience, and our MLHS exchange program did not fail to bring forth a wealth of knowledge. I learned that escargot is kind of awesome, that raw herring is kind of not, that both France and the Netherlands are ridiculously impressive in their widespread knowledge of English, and that paying for bathrooms is not fun. Perhaps most importantly, I learned that French people actually do greet each other with a kiss on each cheek.
The first leg of the exchange was technically Chaville, France, but the ordeal that it took to get there felt like an event in itself. With the help of my trusty Batman wristwatch, I calculated our time in transit to be almost exactly 24 hours–from the moment we left the school to the moment we came into contact with our French hosts (1 pm NJ time to 7 pm Chaville time the next day, with a 6-hour time difference).
Excited but exhausted, we met our French host families. While we Lakers in the program were all familiar with the Dutch group, after their visit to New Jersey this past fall, we’d only contacted our French hosts through social media. I can speak for us all, though, when I say that it’s hard to imagine a warmer reception. We were welcomed into the homes of some incredibly kind people; my own host family humored my fumbling attempts to speak to them in French and showed me the joys of French espresso, for which they will always hold a place in my heart.
We spent Friday touring the world’s coolest vacation home, popularly known as the Palace of Versailles. Earlier, we’d visited the location of the Tennis Court Oath, which looked unfit for Serena Williams’ use but was still pretty interesting. We stuck out like sore Americans with our cameras and lack of volume control, but to be fair, it’s difficult not to be overwhelmed by the luxury of Louis XIV’s maison.
Saturday was our trip to Paris. Notre Dame was awe-inspiring enough to merit contemplation about whether its builders suspected the irony its name would acquire as the years went on, and the upscaled train station that is the Orsay museum was a makeover to put HGTV to shame. The evening brought a Rocky-esque ascendance of the steps of Montmartre, and we closed out our day in Paris watching the lights of the Eiffel Tower under the stars.
We were designated to begin the Holland leg of the exchange on Easter Sunday, so we bid au revoir to our host families, who we’d grown extremely close with in such a short period of time. What’s cool about the French language is that “au revoir” translates literally to “until the seeing again,” so when it came time to say goodbye, it was more like a see you later. We were incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful experience, complete with such wonderful people.
What immediately strikes a person upon entering the Netherlands is that it is a country of windows. Kampen (the hometown of our hosts) is a maze of roundabout roads and houses whose front rooms are visible from the street, physically demonstrating the wonderfully Dutch sense of openness. The roads are lined with bike lanes and the terrain is flat and green, with a river never all that far from view.
We reached Kampen in a very exciting, very loud reunion. It’s difficult having friends 3,684 miles away, who eat lunch while you’re still asleep, and the collective excitement at being together again was the culmination of about four months’ anticipation.
Monday was a full day in Amsterdam, the Anne Frank house and a canal tour being some of our classically tourist-y experiences. Amsterdam is a city unlike any other, with the crowded buildings and the ubiquity of old things combined with the canals and the bells of bicycles passing by. The environment that this creates is so specific and full of life that it’s impossible to compare to New York, Paris, or anywhere but exactly where you are.
Stroopwafels were consumed, Dutch phrases were attempted, memories were made. It seems surprising that we were all able to grow so close with our Dutch hosts after so little time, considering the geographical, cultural, and linguistic differences standing in the way of bonding. As George Carlin said, though: “everyone smiles in the same language.” It also didn’t hurt that our friends in Kampen speak English flawlessly.
We attended a couple of days of Dutch school, where we gave presentations to classes about Mountain Lakes, New York City, and aspects of American culture. We were permitted to leave school when our hosts didn’t have class, and took full advantage of that opportunity, loading up on inexpensive pastries (four croissants for one euro!) and biking into the city–we biked everywhere we went.
Towards the end of the week, we visited Simonehoeve cheese farm and clog factory, where we all dressed up like antiquated Dutch farmers and tried lots of interesting cheeses. It was an experience that–I feel confident in saying–left us all convinced of the superiority of clogs to any other footwear. Later in the day, we tried raw herring in Volendam…no further comment on that front.
Our Dutch-American group had all grown so close by the end of our stay that the timing of Friday’s 5 am goodbye was actually less painful than the thought of the goodbye itself. My host had told me that we’d see each other again, though, so “it’s not a goodbye, it’s a see you later.” Maybe there’s something European in the idea of impermanent farewells, but the similarity of her promise to the idea of the French au revoir felt like something important.
We Americans set out for home with sharpened biking skills, far too many souvenirs, a new interest in the French paradox, and a twinge of sadness for joys gone by. We saw and did and ate and learned so many new things in our travels, and we were all the better for it. We had been places and met people that we knew, even then, that we would never forget.
Marcel Proust said that “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes,” and to that I can only say that I’ll certainly be seeing my ophthalmologist about an updated prescription in the near future.
ML Kids with French hosts
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It was a wonderful experience and we want to thank all the students who participated hosting and returning to Europe! Great memories for all.