Kristin and I couldn’t believe our luck as we bounced and swayed through the foothills of the Pyrenees in Cyril’s little Frenchy car. This is not reality, I though. No, I’ve seen this somewhere before only to wake up next to window screens and stale sheets. But it’s true, I’m totally here. I eat Nutella on baguettes for breakfast.

I wasn’t proactive about meeting people at first (and you have to meet people to make the whole thing work) but I didn’t have to be because Kristin and I were, by some means of fate or luck, plopped down right next-door to real live French people, and we got the deluxe package because they came with a personality and a sense of humor, too - golly!

Cyril is the one who includes us the most in his daily life. He comes to talk with us or invites us for juice, he giggles and smiles and listens intently as we stumble our way through the language. He’s the Roberto Benini type goofy European that might make a better cartoon character than a real person. At this point, I’m still not convinced everything over here is real, so let’s steer clear of that word from now on, hmm?

Did I mention he has a car? Because he has a car. Which means that Kristin and Bonnie get to see the countryside, the Pyrenees, the beach, the town, anything he decides we should see. And today? We went rock climbing.

Kristin and I worked at the high school and after returned to Nitot to change and meet Cyril. He had his gear ready and off we went, into the green hills, over little streams and in front of great ancient estates, more beautiful for their chipping paint. On the way we engaged in a very in-depth linguistic conversation, the three of us, about the sounds that animals make in French vs. English, requiring us to demonstrate with finesse our best chimpanzee impression. We cried out like roosters, pigs, dogs and cats, of course, then goats and sheep, which Cyril suggested “speak the same language but perhaps do not understand each other because they have a different accent.”

You may have seen it before in a movie or a dream – I have – the stone houses with ivy growing up the sides, with blue wooden shutters and a black cat slinking about. Flowers on the kitchen table and long yellow curtains on 9ft windows with iron latches, that sort of thing was all over the place. We parked on a little road between farms and hiked to the site, where I remembered how to belay and wear a harness. It’s been a while. Soon I felt myself filling up with the childhood glee that I consistently associate with the sight of ropes and carabineers and that shaky leg you get when you’re halfway up the rock. The autumn sun had the whole blue sky to itself and lazily spread out across, dipping down into trees just beginning to turn. All of my apprehension about teaching and dealing with students’ crude comments melted away in buttery afternoon light and fresh air. That’s all I need sometimes, really.

When our fingers began to fail us we all raced each other back through the woods, Kristin and Cyril dousing one another with water and turning their faces to the sky to laugh like recess time. We marched together then, singing children’s songs, and I fell behind to soak in my surroundings. I picked a stalk of dandelions because I like to be whimsical and make wishes and you know what? All of the seeds flew off on the breeze, not one of them left clumped on the stalk like they usually do. It’s very important to pay attention to these things because if they clump on there, your wish doesn’t come true. Well I looked at those five little empty dandelion heads, brimming with wish potential, and I tossed them over the fence with laugh. I wish for this right here right now, I wish for this.

And that’s a first.