J'aime vraiment les Français! (I truly love the French people!)

We're finally back home in Lincoln after our trip to the Land of Lincoln (small world, huh?), so now it's time to get back to the food and travel and revisit my very favorite place: France!

The light of the sinking sun over the fields of Provence.

I studied photography in Provence, France in the summer of 2008, and it was, by far, the best thing I did during my time in college (okay, okay, besides meet my husband). I had studied French for a good chunk of my life, and had always wanted to talk with the French in their native tongue. Provence is the area in the south-central part of France, and you can liken it and its people to, say, us Nebraskans or our friendly neighbors in Kansas. Just stick with me on this.

We stayed with a young Frenchman, Vincent, and his American girlfriend in their villa in the tiny Provencal town of St. Cécile. What a life, huh? It took me a while to get used to the French way of life in our tiny little town: stone-paved roads, daily trips to the boulangerie for some croissants for breakfast, unreliable store hours (the storekeepers will open when they damn well please, thank you very much!), and most of all...no 24-hour conveniences. I recall one particular incident when, at 10 p.m., we students realized that we had run out of toilet paper. It was a Friday night, and there was no guarantee that the stores would be open the next morning. I had never missed Walmart before, and I never will again, but that night, I wished for nothing more than its dingy lighting and cranky cashiers.

Americans seem to have developed a pretty negative opinion of the French, and I think that's very unfortunate. Perhaps the inverse is also true, and so while I was there (as is true whenever I go abroad) I tried my best to be a good delegate for my country. The people of Provence may very well be different than their fast-paced city neighbors to the north, but they'll always be what I remember of France.

It wasn't hard to fall in love with the French. They are kind and welcoming, and they find as much joy in a good meal, glass of wine, and good conversation as we get in a pay raise. They find such joy in life, and they seem to have a sort of beautiful rhythm to how they live. After I got over the initial shock of the fact that the French don't run on any sort of deadlines and got used to the concept of "French time," I found myself utterly enchanted by the French way of life. I wandered around the marketplace of each little town we went, and instead of looking at the pretty jewelry or the delicate linens or the ceramics in every color, I found myself much more interested in the people, their conversations, and their gestures (okay, I was pretty mesmerized by the fruits and veggies, too!). In fact, I soon came to realize that I enjoyed talking with complete strangers than talking with most of the students in my group; for some reason, I was very shy around the American students but quite outgoing with the French. C'est la vie.

My French market friend.

One day, our assignment was to walk through the market and take candid photos of people to try to capture that French essence. The concept isn't as impossible as you might think, since everything the French do oozes with a kind of style that isn't too hard to capture on film. However, I was very uncomfortable creeping around and snapping photos of strangers, especially after I had a conversation--in French--with a merchant selling linens who, after watching my classmates snap photos of everything that breathed, told me that it's very rude to take photos of the merchants and their products with no intent to buy anything. Heeding his warning, I bought a few products from a few vendors and tried as best as I could to discretely catch a few photos. I think I only got four photos the entire day, but right when I was about to give up, I decided to give it one last shot and just turn around and snap a photo of whatever the camera came to be pointing at. When I looked at the image I'd captured, I saw a man standing there, arms open, smiling. I looked up, and the man was still standing there with that big smile. He said had seen me walking around the market all day and knew that I was supposed to be taking pictures but knew that I was too shy, so he thought he'd help me out. See what I mean? These people are something special.

The photo of this man will always be very special to me. I'll never forget him, or the elderly woman who leaned out of her apartment window to talk to me about her cats, or the funky, tan, blonde man selling clothing out of his old Volkswagen at the market who looked more like a California surfer dude than a Frenchman. When I walked by, he took one look at my (then) tan skin and equally fake blonde hair and started to sing, "I wish we all could be California girrrrrllllssss!" with a heavy French accent. We talked for some time, and I told him about Nebraska (surprisingly, he'd never heard of it), and enjoyed his company so much that I bought perhaps the silliest outfit I have ever purchased in my life: a one-piece camouflage zip-up dress (military-esque badges included) that I've only ever worn for Halloween because it's so gawdy.

My Halloween costume, thanks to my French buddy. I have dubbed it: Colonel Major Sexy. I don't think I quite pull it off!