Summer Abroad Part I:

Ease in the South of France

Hello dear readers! Shortly after beginning my Substack, I started up again with another project and felt like I had to put my writing aside. I’ve come to realize though that sidelining all the things that make me, me – writing, reading, running – does more harm than good. So, I am back to it this summer, with a three-partner on my three summers living abroad.

Today’s essay will be about my three weeks in Toulon – a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France, on the French Riviera – when I was fifteen, the summer after my sophomore year of high school. Later in July, I’ll tell you about interning for a firm in Belo Horizonte, Brazil where I was my boss’s sister’s “going out” intern as well. In August, I’ll write about my summer internship in Vienna where I was trying to emulate the “Austrian Woman” while trying to manage a chronic illness.

First, some larger context in which I went to the South of France. The trip was about a year after my family and I moved to the States. We struggled financially each time we immigrated, so I was surprised my parents sent me. In speaking to my mom for this essay, she said the trip would be very worthwhile to send me on because so many factors came together – I’d get to immerse myself in French which I had been learning ever since we moved to Canada; I’d be living with two families and see what real life in yet another country was like; and I would travel with a group of my classmates from high school which would be a great social activity for me since I was technically still the new kid.

Being the new kid in Colorado played a big role in how I felt during my time in France. I had already immigrated once, from Russia to Canada, and now had to start all over again – make new friends, establish myself as a strong student, figure out a new urban environment. Luckily, by the time I went on the trip, I had a solid group of girlfriends, a kind and popular boyfriend who plucked me out of my obscurity, and I was indeed a strong student…but I still felt like a newcomer in many ways. Sometimes the girls would get together and forget to invite me, my relationship was still very fresh and playing out in public, and I was anxious all the time about making good grades to make sure to get into a highly ranked architecture program.

For my summer in France, I stayed with two families over the course of three weeks. In this essay, I will write about the first as it had a bigger impact on me; my stay with my second family was wonderful, but very close to my experience with my own family and my little brother back home. With my first host family though, and what made that part of my summer so electric, is that I spent most of my time with my eighteen-year-old host sister Heloise and her friends, mostly a group of boys who were all eighteen or nineteen, and who to me were the coolest people on the planet. They were all tan, fit, attractive, and social, but what stood out the most is how incredibly comfortable they were around each other, and with themselves – a type of comfort I hadn’t felt myself since I left Siberia at age eight.

Heloise’s mom was an artist, which was why I was matched with them – I indicated that art was a big interest in my application to this summer trip. Heloise and her parents lived in a house made of pink clay, very characteristic of the south-of-France. A gravel path lined with trees led from the street to the house, wrapped around left of the front porch, and led to a second little white stucco two-story house a few yards away, which is where I stayed, in Heloise’s room. She slept in her sister’s room in the main house that summer.

Heloise and me moments after my arrival.

By day, Heloise and I would hang out by the pools at her friends’ parents’ houses in the mountains, each pool and interior more impressive than the last. Most of the get-togethers were potlucks; Heloise’s friends would either bring or cook food – healthy salads, grilled meats – which seemed beyond mature for these cool teenagers. We would eat, talk, drink and listen to music for hours. At night, we drove around to and from various activities – bowling, pool, going out for drinks (which you did not do in the US as a fifteen year old). They even took me to a club. “Gabriel” by Najoua Belyzel and “Maneater” by Nelly Furtado were the top summer hits then, and I remember daydreaming – about one of the boys in particular, which I’ll get to shortly – in the car when those songs were playing.

Me and the boy band.

One of my favorite memories was swimming in the Mediterranean Sea with Heloise, while the boys climbed the surrounding cliffs and jumped back into the water next to us. We then explored the caves inside the cliffs – one of the older boys, Vivien, took my hand to guide me through the dark and slippery surfaces, which you can imagine was very exciting for fifteen-year-old me.

I of course spent time with Heloise’s family too – there were family beach days, a day trip to an island nearby, sculpting in Heloise’s mom’s studio, and dinners out. The Raffins were wonderful to me.

Beach day with the Raffin family.

Biking around on an island visit.

My very first party was in France that summer, at one of the boys’ houses, and it was maybe the best first party experience a young girl can have. No one acted like having alcohol there was a big deal and I don’t remember any irresponsible drinking. The funniest part for me was when I saw Heloise’s best friend Dimitry making his rounds telling all the guys there that I was only fifteen. I can still remember him shouting over the music with his French accent at a British boy, who spoke English and with whom I talked for a while: “Sheee iz FEEFTEEN,” his hand gestures bordering on Italian to emphasize the message. He didn’t have to worry — everyone was very sweet and respectful. When I was the very first one to get sleepy, Heloise’s friends made a little bed of blankets on the floor for me upstairs, away from the party. No one guilted me or asked me to stay up and out later; they just tucked me in.

The boy whose house we were at for the party, Hugo, is the boy in the group that I had a crush on. He had slightly longer surfer-like dirty blonde hair, was very tan, and was a little quieter than the rest of the boys. The night after the party, we were all at another boy, Xavier’s, amazing house, watching the highly anticipated 2026 World Cup finals between France and Italy where Zidane did the infamous headbutt. France lost but everyone kept hanging out and celebrating anyway. There were going to be fireworks in the city, and Heloise, the boys and I sat on the ledge of a masonry wall with a grassy hill under it to watch them. I didn’t imagine any of these boys thought anything of me, because I felt so little and they were older and cooler. But then, Hugo got up from his spot on the wall on the other side of the friend group…and walked all the way over to sit with me! I was in disbelief – the boy that I thought was the cutest was making a special effort to be next to me. I didn’t say anything to anyone about him, so he couldn’t have known. I was insanely flattered and realized that I could be a newcomer and not speak the language and still be likeable and attractive. Unfortunately, the spot next to me had a tree right in front of it, and when he sat down, he realized he couldn’t see anything. All the other boys noticed and started heckling him, and he got flustered and walked back to his old spot as everyone laughed. I was so frustrated and wished we had more time together, but just knowing that the attraction was probably mutual was enough for me.

I never felt self-conscious about myself on the trip the way I did being a newcomer in the States. The only time was when I once asked Heloise, in front of everyone, to repeat something she said to me as their French was so fast. As she did, the boys started laughing. I thought they were laughing at me, but they were laughing at Heloise because apparently when Heloise would repeat something for me in slower French, she also did so with a funny English accent.

What was so incredible to me about Heloise and her friends is that they treated me like I fully belonged. I was an outsider, but I suppose being an expected and invited outsider is very different from being an unexpected one. I was made space for and completely embraced for that week-and-a-half, a huge contrast to showing up to a new school in the States, where I wasn’t invited, having to be proactive about making friends, expressing interest, or trying to find things for myself to do to combat my loneliness. The boys holding my hand as we navigated dark caves, or making a little blanket bed for me, or making sure I was drinking enough water in the south-of-France summer heat, was the kind of attention and care I hadn’t experienced from my peers while building a new life for myself.

With Dimitry and Vivien.

My first beach club!

This group of teenagers also seemed worlds away from my less self-assured American peers. I will never forget my host sister taking out her birth control when we were together with three of the boys and casually taking it in front of them. No secrecy, no shame – just, “This is my life, and these are my people.” Back home in America, I felt like so many of my classmates were hyper self-aware and posturing – I remember overhearing some conversations amongst the girls on the cross-country team, the girls so focused on how they were perceived (by boys of course) and striving hard for a certain effect…and I didn’t get that sense at all with this group of French kids. Granted, they were older, on their summer break, and hanging out with their best friends, but even still, the difference was palpable.

I witnessed a lot of ease, comfort, and care in France that summer – people living and enjoying their lives. How I yearned to have that too, after trying so hard to integrate and also feeling split between three identities – Russian, Canadian, now apparently an American in France. My new French friends gave me a feeling to strive for, as opposed to accomplishments, like the grades I wanted, or the admission to the college I was gunning for.

As I write this nineteen years later, I find myself almost in disbelief as what I observed that summer and what felt so far away for me at the time, I now have – in my city and with my people. I wondered recently why I craved writing this essay – and writing it now – and I realized it’s because the energy of that summer closely mirrors my current state. Those poolside hangouts in the South of France have turned into picnics with friends in Central Park. Driving around Toulon at night turned into hopping from bar to bar after a celebratory evening. And feeling safe at my first party has turned into feeling safe with the people I choose to be around. Despite the fact that New York City is not an easy city to live in, I do have the feeling of ease now in my life – of knowing who I am and who my people are. And having that foundation is really comforting so that instead of focusing on striving or establishing myself, I can focus more on writing and creating, on impact, and on others.