I'm hoping that this will come off as a slightly more well thought through post given yesterday's which was done in an annoyed haste. So this morning I left Caen via a shuttle and arrived on the outskirts of the city at the Ardenne Abbey.
I first must make the incredibly ignorant and stupid comment that is still a valid thought running through my head: no one speaks English here. For little American me who is ridiculously used to being able to speak English, I can now see how much I take it for granted. I really like to hold small talk with random people I don't know; I do it all the time back home. Here, however, I find myself becoming incredibly self-conscious in my inability to speak fluent French...or perfect at least a halfway decent accent. I'm sure I'm playing a typical worrying game, but in the company of like-minded university scholars it is beyond embarrassing to barely be able to describe what it is I'm doing. Let me correct myself, I have less trouble conveying what I'm doing than what I'm thinking about it...higher level vocabulary and construction. In addition, I imagine my verbal foibles probably raise the question, “and you're here to read French documents because....?” Fun fact: I read and write French pretty well. I should just carry around a white board all day.
The setup of the Ardenne Abbey is by far one of the most unique I have ever seen. It was built in 1121 and used before monasteries even came into vogue. During World War II, the Germans used it as an outpost and the Allies...um...well we bombed the living crud out of it. Fast forward to 2011, the Abbey has been partially restored and the site has been converted into l'Institut Mémoires de l'édition contemporaine, or as Google Translate (which has become my new best friend) tells me means The Institute of Contemporary Editions Memoires. Basically, it has become a research library à la DaVinci Code. You think I'm kidding? Google “IMEC Caen” and click around. It is brilliantly understated, yet grand, and totally awesome.
I settled in after a bit of a linguistic bumpy road. They have lodging on site and fortunately one of the other “lecteurs” (I'm a lecteur now) helped translate a couple of the more difficult concepts. Of course, my wee netbook wasn't having any of this WPA2 wi fi internet, but I fixed that after some tinkering. The thought of being trapped in my room at night with no internet was...and this probably speaks to some contemporary addictive trend...not acceptable.
I'm here for four days and have a decent amount of material to get through in that time. I'm trying to desperately transcribe and translate what appears to be an important letter but André Mare's handwriting is beyond the messiest I have ever seen...EVER.
All the meals here are communal among the 7 lecteurs. Guess who the only American is? I'm sure that this is going to help my conversational French in ways I couldn't have dreamed of. Will get back to you on that.
So basically I get to be a monk for the next few days. Not sure if anything eventful-ish will happen. Will get back to you on that also.
Don't feel bad, it is actually incredibly normal for scholars, specifically historians, who study other languages to be able to read and write way better than they speak. Unfortunately I speak better than I read and write...and I don't speak well.
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