Al Abroad

Public Transportation

2011-08-15T06:06:00.002+02:00

I'm in Lake Charles. At the end of July, I took a week-long trip to Memphis. It was a nice trip, but too hot. It's too hot in Lake Charles too. Really it's just miserable everywhere in the South right now. I had the air-conditioner blasting during my drive back, and I think poor little Zeus still may have gotten over-heated.

Since my move to Lake Charles, going back home always brings up one major frustration: Travel Time. Lake Charles may be a frustrating place in many ways, but I absolutely love the fact that I can get just about anywhere in less than 15 minutes, usually less than 10. In the greater Memphis area, I usually have to allot at least 30 minutes to get most places, and I hate it. Living in a small city has ruined any desire for a long car trip. And there's something just awfully tiring about driving a car, especially in temperatures of 90 and higher. Not to mention Memphis drivers are rude, aggressive, and careless; they drive huge SUVs and tailgate like all hell. Basically, after a day of running around town, I have to go back to my parents' house and sit and be quiet to de-stress from the day.

This has a point: why don't Southern cities invest in decent public transport? Yes Memphis has the MATA buses, which are as about as efficient as walking. I realize that Memphis may be more spread out than the typical large city and probably doesn't have enough tax revenue to keep the city from sliding into anarchy, much less build something as exotic as an underground metro system. But let's dream a little.

You may remember my love affair with the bus drivers of Angers. The system just worked so well. Rarely do commuters have to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus, and the bus drivers were just so damn nice. (Unless you were riding without a ticket -- I am ashamed to say I was caught riding dirty exactly once.)

Why don't many American cities have the super-efficient, awesome, and mostly friendly bus system like their European counterparts? Yeah, it is super annoying when people idealize Europe like it's some model of high civilization while America is dismissed as some kind of flailing barbarian of a nation. And there are plenty of things America does very well, but, man, wouldn't it be nice to have decent public transport in places other than NY and DC?

This post is mostly a complaint; I apologize for the lack of reasonable analysis.

In other news, I have obsessively listening to the Freakonomics Podcast. A while ago they had an interesting episode about Why Cities Rock. Essentially, Harvard economist Ed Glaeser explains why (according to his data) city-living makes people "richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and happier."

Abroad is back.

2011-07-24T19:18:00.000+02:00

I am subject to my whims. I've decided to change the heading back to Abroad.

Any thoughts?

On the radio

2011-07-24T19:06:00.001+02:00

Something I love about Lake Charles (and SWLA) is the local public radio station, KRVS. Radio Acadie has great programming, all the time. (No, this post is not brought to you by their underwriters, or anything like that.)
At home, in Memphis, I started listening to MPB. That's right, Mississippi Public Radio has better programming than the whole grand *cough* city of Memphis. I'd love to listen to WKNO Memphis, but other than the weekday news and some of the weekend broadcasting, it primarily plays classical music. Not that there's anything wrong with classical: I enjoy a bit of Mozart and Bach here and there, but unless it's Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (that's pt. 1, pt. 2 here), classical is not my preferred driving music. And somehow even MPB's classical radio is better.

Anyway, KRVS has awesome music, almost all of the time. And when it's not awesome music, it's sweet talk radio. Radio Acadie plays plenty of Cajun and Zydeco, and there's even some programming in French. They also broadcast tons of different folk, bluegrass, and blues music, David Dye's World Café, a baller Monday night opera show, and quite a bit of jazz. On the talk side, there's the usual Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Fresh Air, as well as This American Life, BBC (at a reasonable hour!), and all sorts of Louisiana Arts programs, including From the Poet's Bookshelf.
If you're in LA, here's a schedule. If you're not, hopefully your state likes public radio more than west TN.

Louisiana may lag on all sorts of state ranking lists; however, the Sportsman's Paradise has managed to provide one of my favorite public services.

Here's a song (kind of) about the radio. Sure, Courtney Love might be a horrible human being, but love her or hate her, this song is pretty awesome.

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Explanations and Pink Dolphins

2011-07-14T00:28:00.000+02:00

Al Abroad has been on a bit of a hiatus. This is due to two things:
1. Grad School is hard. Really, it is. This semester kicked my ass. 12 hours of classes + teaching + tutoring hours + eating/sleeping/taking care of the dog.... There just aren't enough hours in the day.
2. My perspective is off. The easy thing about blogging from France is that everything was so novel. There was always some quirky or annoying or bat-shit-crazy thing to write about. Plus, I was always on the go, meeting new people, seeing new places. Louisiana is also quirky, sometimes annoying, and definitely bat-shit-crazy. But it also looks, in a lot of ways, just like home. And I go about my day-to-day much like I would at home. Recognizing, processing, and analyzing the aforementioned quirky/annoying/bat-shit-crazy stuff can fall by the wayside.
However, I've been following more blogs than I used to, both those by friends and total strangers, and reading those blogs has reminded me that writing in a non-academic way can be really fun. My friend Crystel recently mentioned how it's a different kind of creative outlet that really gives her a break from her job in non-profit. And reading Elvynia's blog makes me nostalgic both for our time as tea-chairs and traveling.

There are definitely things I can share about Lake Charles and my day-to-day experiences. I could talk about the people who want to tell me everything about their lives while I'm standing in line at the store, or I could write about all the fascinating books I flagged for "weeding" in the reference section of the library. I can complain about the humidity, rather than the cold. Or recount the absolutely absurd moment I experienced in the American McDonald's. Or I could share this bizarre image, which I found in a Google Image search for Lake Charles:

Read about this pink dolphin here.

A note on the name...

2011-02-02T05:55:00.001+01:00

I changed things up a little.
Al, abroad ---> Al, a broad

Why?
I think referring to myself as "a broad" is funny, even though "broad" is technically a derogatory word for a woman. I am taking it and owning it. Kind of.
"Abroad" means many things, including just being away from home, but now the play on words is still there in a different way.
Why not?

There goes the sun...

2011-02-02T05:49:00.000+01:00

So this post was supposed to be "Here Comes the Sun," but then the whole country decided to freeze over...
(Bro. Dave -- you're totally right; there are so many things to talk about any place in the world!)

The most wonderful thing about living in Louisiana is living in Louisiana in January. Last week we had temperatures in the 70s (21C). I spent several days outside, at different parks, jogging and walking Zeus.
It's easy to take nice weather for granted. Our lives are busy; my life, as a grad student, is full of papers to write and books to write and classes to plan. However, after spending last winter with less sunlight than I can ever remember experiencing in my entire life, sunny, warm temperatures in January should not be ignored. It should be celebrated, and how better to celebrate than a Thursday jog along the lake front with a Zeus?

Anyway, we continued to celebrate the beautiful weather on Friday. A few friends and I enjoyed a delicious meal on the patio of a local bar. Then, Zeus, Mila and I sat in my friend Danielle's backyard and watched Zeus play with his friends, Clementine and Winston. They enjoyed the sun too.

The best thing about all of this was the sunburn I got on my face and neck. I'm not even kidding! It's already faded away, but I think a person in the northern hemisphere should consider herself luck if she can get a sunburn in January.

Now, however, the cold weather has struck. This once sunny city will hit low temperatures of 29F (-2C) tonight. In honor of the cold weather, I blew a fuse in the living room, knocking out any chance of heating the front part of the house, as well as shutting down the internet. Because I did not think that was enough trouble, I managed to plug a heater into a bathroom socket (to try and get just a tiny bit of heat in the rest of the house) and create a small explosion. The heater shot sparks at me and Lauren (who was trimming my hair) and surged all of the outlets in Kelly's room.

Long story short, we don't have the circuit breaker box in our part of the house. Also, our 80-year-old landlords, The Johnsons, are out of town for the next two weeks.

I had to call a friend to have her email their grandson (Dr. Blevins, also head of the English department, professor of one of the classes I'm taking, and for all intents and purposes my boss) to let him know we were cold. He ended up coming by, getting things fixed up (and showing us the stupid circuit box on the side of the house, i.e. totally accessibly by us), and checking out a few other minor maintenance matters. It was only slightly embarassing and ended up taking care of some issues we've been having for months.

Anywho, there went the sun...

Kevin and I are flying to DC tomorrow -- that is if none of our flights are cancelled! It will be freezing there too, so everyone should enjoy this nice sunny music video.
They like sitting in the sun with animals as much as me!

Dear Readers

2011-01-21T23:08:00.000+01:00

Well I haven't posted in 5 months, I guess it's about time for an update.

I've been thinking about where I should go with this blog. Should I keep posting? Should I start something completely different? What should I focus on? What is life? Who am I?

Seriously though, there is cartharsis in telling stories, and last year I found this to be a wonderful way to share stories with lots of people. My idea is to shift towards a more general focus of "stories about people." That sounds interesting, right? Everyone loves story. And people are always interesting.

For example, Kevin and I have gone down to the lake several times recently with Zeus. There's a man who hangs around down there (I honestly don't know if he's homeless or what), and he LOVES zeus. The first time we were there, he just yelled at Zeus, "Hey Black! Hey Black!"
More recently, he's told me about his sister's dog, which apparently looks exactly like Zeus. According to might-be-homeless man, both his sister's dog and Zeus are a breed of dog called "curry" or "kurry." I like "kurry" better. We had a very confusing conversation about this. I can't find any such breed of dog, so if anyone has a lead (ha, isn't that kind of a dog joke?) let me know!
Since then, this man has insisted upon showing Zeus to any of many random men who also hang around the lake with him.

Alright, I'm going to think about the future of Al Abroad...

Christmas Kurry Dogs

Save a horse, ride a cowboy...

2010-08-02T17:12:00.000+02:00

I have been back in the US since the evening of July 14th... So that's about 2 weeks and 5 days. It's been kind of a free-for-all of seeing people, unpacking, visiting what will be my new home in Lake Charles, eating, driving, contemplating re-packing, walking the dogs... etc etc.

The weirdest thing about being home: all of the people in stores speak English, and I have to understand everything they're saying, which means I have to hear all the mindless things I was able to tune out for a year.

The best thing about being home: (apart from boyfriend, family, and friends) customer service!! I ordered some pants offline, but I somehow ordered the wrong size. I was able to call on a SATURDAY and have the problem fixed IMMEDIATELY. God Bless America.

Anywho, there's plenty to say about all of that, but I think this will best illustrate coming back to America (and I suppose, in particular, the American South).

I have been going back to the YMCA to work off the 8ish lbs I gained during my near month of travel. My lovely friend Lauren invited me to a class she's been going to, Zumba. Zumba is, as the link explains, a latin-infused dance style workout. It's pretty fun, and the instructor was cute and kept the class moving. The music was mostly latin-y dance music with the occasional world dance beat, including the Slumdog Millionaire hit song, Jai Ho. Here is a link to the video to the original song, not the horrible Pusscat Dolls version and video.

So in the midst of this rather world-musicky vibe pops up something just completely out there. To set the scene, the class was composed of a LOT of middle-aged Collierville women. For those of you not from Collierville, this means upper-middle class white women with blonde hair, matching workout gear, and lots of makeup. (yes, I am guilty of a couple of these... I'm just telling, not judging). Although, this was one of the more diverse classes I have attended. There was a pretty significant attendance of African-American women, as well as females under 40, some even under 30. There was one male. We can't be that diverse.

So, there we all are, shaking our little (some not so little) asses away, shedding the pounds, when a song I couldn't quite recognize came on. The country sound didn't quite match the world sound, but it was catchy and easy to move to. I was only able to identify the song at the chorus.... And let me tell you, there is nothing quite like watching 40 or so diverse Collierville citizens imitate wrangling wild mustangs and shake their booties to Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.

Welcome to America!

BIG & RICH | SAVE A HORSE (RIDE A COWBOY) @ Yahoo! Video

Last night in Europe

2010-07-14T02:24:00.000+02:00

Tonight is my absolute last night in Europe.

I am not looking forward to the long day tomorrow, a day which will have 6 hours added to it, and a day during which I should really stay awake if I want to feel kind of normal when I get home.

I am looking forward to seeing Kirsten's lovely face in Charlotte, the roadtrip to Memphis, and everyone else's lovely faces in Collierville.

But, at the moment, I feel a bit sad. Being alone in a hotel room probably isn't helping, especially after being in a nice, full house in Scotland for the last three nights. I spent a few days in Ireland with my sister and Lee. We wandered the city, took a tour to the opposite coast to see the Cliffs of Moher, watched some football (soccer), and drank some guiness. Then I took a solo ryanair flight to London. I will admit, I was a bit overambitious with my plans for this last week and a half. I spent two nights in London. Two nights dying of the heat in a worse-than-average hostel that had neither the free towels nor the free lock (to lock up my valuables) that was promised. Without a cell phone (ooo I haven't gone into this wonderful example of French-ness and frustration), I felt a little lost in the giant former capital of the world. (I am referring to the British Empire; I don't think that was a particularly good reference.)

Luckily, I met up with splendid Sheena without too much trouble. Sheena and I had an excellent day in London. It was a full day, but it seemed too short. We walked in Hyde Park, went to the V&A museum, had ice cream, went to Oxford Circus and shopped, and speed walked to Brick Lane for a "proper curry." All of this was done in the British equivalent of a heatwave, an event in which temperatures soared so high (maybe mid-80s?) the nice lady who makes announcements on the underground reminded passengers to carry water and to sit down if they feel faint. I will admit, I was sweating myself.
It was really great to see Sheena after leaving Angers, and we had a great time. Walking down Brick Lane was quite the experience, all of the restaurant people were trying to get us to choose their restaurant and making us offers like "two glasses of wine, rice and a main course £10." We followed our stomachs and went for the guys who offered "two starters, rice AND naan, a main course AND a bottle of wine" for £10 each. It was delicious, and we were stuffed. We then ran to the train station, so she could catch her train. And I made one of my many genius moves of the trip left my camera in Sheena's purse.

Saturday, I flew into Glasgow where I met lovely Katie RRRundle. We poked around some shops in the kind of miserable rain then met a couple of her friends for dinner. Then we drove out into the country side, into the wee village of Haugh of Urr to be exact. I hope Katie reads this and rolls her eyes at my typing "wee." Anyway, the village of Haugh of Urr is wonderful in that it is not a major city. There are lots of fields and hills and trees and cows, and I just absolutely loved it. We mostly drove around the countryside and to the coast. We also ate the best ice cream I have ever eaten at Cream O' Galloway.
I tried Haggis and Black Pudding, which I liked. But I may have difficulty eating them again, now that I know what's in them.

It was really nice staying with Katie and her family and just relaxing in my own big bed and not doing much for a couple days. They were really great hosts, and I hope I'll have the chance to visit again! I just loved Scotland.

And now, I need to sleep, so that I can stay awake during the long haul between Dublin and JFK tomorrow.

Aurevoir l'europe!

Au revoir

2010-07-07T19:57:00.000+02:00

I have been in Dublin since Monday afternoon. Sunday and Monday were horribly difficult days that involved lots of packing, re-packing, weighing luggage, eating, and crying.

It's kind of hard to believe I've left continental Europe, France, and Angers for the forseeable future. I'm pretty sure I've been a miserable travel companion for my sister and her boyfriend Lee, and I am now making an effort not to be the permanent grumpy person. But it's really heartbreaking to know I won't be seeing my home of the last nine months again. I mean, I will see it again, but at the moment that is a distant speck in the future. Saying goodbye to Christophe, Karine, and Luz was probably the hardest part of leaving Angers. They have become my adopted French family, and I can't even begin to describe how much that means to me. As much as I like traveling and going from place to place, I also love being home around people I love. And being with them was very much like being home; they are definitely people I love. I guess that just means I'll have to figure out a way to come back to France and keep bugging them about visiting the states!

My favorite French family:
(I hope they don't mind being posted on the internet!)

My favorite French kid:

The wonderful thing about aurevoir is that revoir means "to see again," so it's not really a goodbye.

Things fall apart

2010-07-03T00:08:00.002+02:00

The post immediately before this one was written quite a while ago, and I'm not sure why I didn't finish it...

I also don't have a very good reason for not updating. There's just been so much going on.

Some things I have done:

About a month ago, I spent the weekend with Karine & Christophe at Karine's parent's home in the countryside near the city of Bourge. They have a beautiful home with a nice yard. They also have a huge cherry tree that was full to the brim with ripe cherries, which we ate morning, noon, and night. We also saw the Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Bourges, a UNESCO world heritage site, and one of the largest cathedrals in France. We were also there when the evening light festival thingy was taking place. Many of the street lights were replaced with blue lightbulbs and there were images of famous works of art projected on some of the buildings in the city. Hard to explain, but pretty awesome to see.

I've been stressing about packing and leaving, the date of which is now upon me. I will leave France on Monday.

My sister is now in France. I met her and her boyfriend Lee last Wednesday in Paris where they adjusted to time change, and I dealt with the typical train drama that comes with a strike. Then we went to the Netherlands for the weekend to stay with our wonderful host Victor. We enjoyed the perfect weather, watched Holland beat Slovakia, and rocked out to the Black Keys. The Black Keys rocked.

Now I'm trying to pack. I'm also in somewhat of a battle against my fabulous phone company who has decided to charge me lots of money for no reason.

Hou la la....

It's quittin' time...

2010-07-02T23:50:00.000+02:00

In French the verb quitter means "to leave, quit, depart..." There's actually many instances in which it can be used. It is also a verb I have been using frequently. Je vais quitter le pays le 5 juillet. I am going to leave the country the 5 of July.

Quitter seems to imply a sort of finality to my time here, as opposed to partir, which I think of as a more day-to-day verb. For example, if someone asked what time I was leaving a party, or when I would leave for vacation, or how to get from one place to another, I would use partir. In all actuality, they are probably pretty interchangeable verbs, but I like the sound of quitter in the sentence. It sounds like I'm quitting the country, which I am.

But what does it mean to me to be quittin' the country? It's such a mishmash of emotion and stress and packing and sending cancellation letters and printing tickets and squaring of edges and dotting i's and crossing t's that I can't even begin to describe how I feel about it all. Well, I can begin... but it won't do it justice.

Many many people have asked what I will miss about France, and my responses always seem so inadequate.
Sure, I'll miss two hour lunches and lots of vacation days and baguettes and delicious pastries and safely riding my bike on the highway and housing assistance. I won't miss living in a small room with (*cough* sparkling clean) community bathrooms. I won't miss the language barrier between me and bank employees, shops closing early, the rights (and lack of rights) to do any various and random sorts of things.
I find myself stuck in a rather difficult emotion. I'm so excited to see Kevin and my friends and my family. I'm excited to start my masters, to live in a new place. At the same time, I'm incredibly sad that this is the end (for now) of my life in France. The things I'll miss most about living here are more abstract than food and vacation time....

Because Christophe helped me find the real video...

2010-06-16T18:49:00.000+02:00

Sur la route de Memphis

2010-06-15T15:59:00.000+02:00

here's a song in French about Memphis.

The Things You Miss

2010-06-09T12:47:00.002+02:00

It's easiest to just say it: my aunt Becky passed away yesterday. It was sudden, unexpected. It was not something anyone was prepared to deal with.

When you leave home for an extended amount of time, there's always that little voice that reminds you what you will be missing. In my case, when I left in September, I knew I would be missing a year of family gatherings, a year of birthdays, of dinners with friends... christmas programs, dance performances, game nights, coffee dates, movie nights, long directionless drives, walks in the park, and so on and so on, all of those events small and large that string together and define the year. Those events anchor our lives; they balance out the drudgery of the everyday and establish the moments of pleasure that define our existence.
Those are the things that you miss, that you trade for a new adventure. And I was and am glad that I did. I know that there are years and years ahead, that this one year contained a different set of events to anchor me. This year away includes its own small, normal events and big, important holidays - with a change in the cast.

I don't mean to sound sentimental. But I am sentimental. And I knew that a small part of me would regret those things I have missed, the things I am missing.

There's also the tiny, tiny voice that worries you will miss something else. Something that you don't want to happen. You don't often voice that fear. But the fear that you will miss some tragedy stays with you as well.

My Aunt Becky was 53 years old. She has four children: Emily, Walt, Lauren, and Sara and her husband, Scott. She has a brother, Robert, his wife, Mariel, and a sister, Merry, and her husband Andrew. She has a mother, Alice. And, on this side of the family, one nephew, Stephen. And two nieces, my sister and me. I wish more than anything I could be with those people right now.
I can only imagine how they all feel right now because the physical distance makes it seem less real. My heart positively aches for my cousins.

And while I don't want to sound self-centered, the best thing I can do to commemorate my aunt is to recount a personal memory, one of the most affecting that I have of her: my Aunt, as one of the most enthusiastic about my homecomings.
When I left Memphis for Washington D.C. as a college freshman, I was excited and terrified. Nearly a year later I made the decision to transfer back to Memphis; it was one of the most difficult, conflicted decisions I have made. The decision carried with it all of the usual second-guessing: Would I regret it later? Would I like the University of Memphis even less? And the more self-deprecating: Am I a failure?

I have never forgotten what my aunt said to me when I came home that summer in 2006, "I know your mama's glad you're coming home. We're all so proud of you, and we're so glad you're home."

That is familial love at it's finest, and it has stuck with me ever since. I have never regretted the decision to come home, and I have certainly never regretted the decision to be closer to my family. The hardest thing for me to comprehend, to realize, is that she will not be there to say "We've missed you! We're so glad you're home."
My aunt loved her children and kept them close. That's how I remember Aunt Becky, never so glad as to have her family around her.

all the cousins (back of stephen's and my heads):

A Modest Proposal

2010-06-03T18:48:00.001+02:00

I just booked my final tickets for my final jaunt about Europe (well, for this year anyway). I will be going to Ireland, among other places. Therefore, in honor of Jonathan Swift, I have named this post after his famous essay on the plight of the Irish. Although this has nothing to with a starving nation of people, I'm still annoyed:

A couple of rhetorical questions:

In a communal setting should each person be required to clean up after herself?

What are the limits of a "greater good" mentality?

And, is it logical, fair, and reasonable (not to mention hygienic) to punish members of a community for a dirty bathroom, by locking it up?

Ok, what the hell am I talking about? I am talking about the foyer. I am talking about the foyer and its direction's ridiculous approach to cleanliness. I am talking about the foyer, its direction's ridiculous approach to cleanliness, and the manifestation of that approach in my everyday life.

I have learned to live without the frivolity of toilet seats. I managed to make it through the winter with rationed hours of heat and air-leaking windows. I have even re-adjusted to sleeping with ear plugs to combat the ridiculous all-hours kerfluffle of living in an all-female residence.

But I cannot get used to the disgusting state of the communal spaces. In particular, the atrocious spaces referred to as les salles de bains and la cuisine. Yes, that would be the bathrooms and kitchen. Here's the thing: we have a full-time cleaning lady. Kind of.

Typically, the cleaning lady cleans the bathrooms and kitchen. This is a reasonable considering the foyer is designed to house around 100 women, and, to answer two of those rhetorical questions: yes people should be expected to clean up after themselves and the limits are not definable. But, it is best to have a designated cleaning person to maintain order in 100-person chaos.

What happens when the cleaning lady, say, doesn't show up for a week or so?

I'll tell you what happens: all hell lets loose, people do not clean up after themselves, and you discover how absolutely disgusting the human race actually is.

At the end of February, the former cleaning lady went on vacation. The bathrooms became so disgusting that the women who work at the foyer closed down the bathrooms. I mean, they were reasonable about it (if you can call denying someone the fundamental right to a toilet reasonable in any way), they didn't shut them all down at once. The shut down one for a week. Then they opened it back up and shut down another. This resulted in a very unhappy me, lugging my bag of shampoo and soap to another floor in order to take a shower.

Let's re-examine this approach for a moment: what exactly did locking up the bathrooms do? Nothing. The mess just moved, so other bathrooms became inordinately messy and disgusting. Those bathrooms were, in turn, shut down for their own one-week period.

The absolute, best part in all of this is that the women who work here actually called it a punition, a punishment!

When the cleaning lady finally did return, the bathrooms stopped being disgusting, and the kitchen trash was taken out again.

But, the foyer has reached another level of ridiculousness.

I noticed, over a week ago, that the kitchen was looking pretty bad. Someone had cooked something in our mini-oven (which I fondly refer to as our easy-bake oven) and left food spilled all over the inside, on the grill, on the bottom, everywhere. In addition, the counters were covered in food particles, and the electric burners had more spillage than usual around them.

And, I've refrained from too much detail in reference to the toilets until now, but one of the toilets on my floor had the persistent, lingering scent of vomit.

Even my hallway, a fairly neutral smelling zone had taken on a really horrible, humid, funky smell. (My room, I assure you, does not smell funky in anyway. I regularly open the windows and have a couple of vanilla candles I burn from time to time.)

It turns out the new cleaning lady hadn't come to clean in a week. To date, as I write this, she still hasn't come in. Apparently, she's ill. And that's fine. I do not begrudge anyone their sick time when they are ill. But, honestly, people, two plus weeks in a living area without a proper cleaning?

That is wrong.

This is what I think:

1. Residents should try to pick up a little more after themselves. It's not difficult to wipe down a counter when you've sprinkled lettuce and rice bits all over it.

2. There is a limit to looking after the greater good, and that limit has been reached. When one person leaves a small mess, another person becomes a little more lax in her cleaning routine. Before you know it, you've got a bona fide mess.

3. This is why we have a freaking cleaning lady. If the cleaning lady cannot come, it is not only reasonable, it is necessary and humane that they find a back up.

I mean, good grief!

Ouais Spik Inglesch

2010-05-29T13:17:00.000+02:00

The title is actually something I saw on a sign outside of a restaurant in Nantes. I didn't take a picture, but I wish I had. If you are confused, it is a French phoenetic-ish spelling of "We speak English."

So, I've been meaning to give an update on my master-y (I'm laughing heartily at my own word choice) of the French language. And by master-y I mean my ability to communicate at all. If anything, I have learned a great deal about the nuances of translation and developed my own theory on learning a second (or third, or fourth) language.

First of all, I will say my comprehension has skyrocketed, I understand most everything people say, unless they are speaking directly to me. In those cases, I am so taken aback at being addressed that whatever they've said takes a couple extra laps around my brain before it transforms from sounds to words to meaning. But, I seriously enjoy my new ability to eavesdrop on an exponentially larger group of people.

Secondly, to contradict what I've just said about being spoken to, I can actually carry on a conversation. Once the shock of being spoken to wears off, I can get into a rhythm and talk to some people. I am probably my own worst enemy when it comes to conversing, though. What I have learned about myself: I absolutely detest being misunderstood. This goes for English as well. And in English, I have a wonderful breadth of vocabulary at my immediate disposal, which allows me to be specific and express my thoughts and emotions accurately. In French, I have a decent vocabulary, but not one that is comparable to my English. And that frustrates me immensely. When I express thoughts and feelings, it sounds shallower, which makes me prefer listening to speaking.

However, things like buying food, going to the post office, asking the teachers a question, etc. no longer give me the anxiety I first encountered in October. The other day I went to the post office to ask about shipping a box by boat (yes, you can, and yes, it's a very cheap option), and the man and I had a nice conversation about shipping by boat. I don't think he even knew it was possible before I asked him about it, and he looked on his computer. One of my teachers and I talk about the TV show the Big Bang Theory, which I have never seen, but he tells me about "le sarcasme." I talk about food and work and movies and whatever with the girls at the foyer.

For me, the most difficult part of French is the pronunciation. I don't have a very strong foundation in pronunciation. Every French teacher/professor that I have had - except Dr. Grélé in my final year at Memphis - was not a native speaker. While their pronunciation was fine, probably even great, it wasn't something that I spent any amount of time perfecting. Being here has helped me re-examine how I pronounce things and how to think about pronunciation. A great example is the pronunciation of the neighborhood I work in. The neighborhood is called La Roseraie. And when people asked where my schools were, I would tell them, and without fail they would have no idea what I was talking about. And although eventually we could reach an understanding, and they would tell me the correct way to say it, I couldn't quite get my mouth around it. Finally, though, it clicked and while this may mean nothing to many of you, I realized I was pronouncing it more like : rozairey and it should be more like rose-uh-ray. Linguists and phoneticians out there, please forgive my made-up phonetic spellings.

What I have been thinking about the most, though, is the art of translation. This may seem a banal revelation, but I honestly believe most people don't think about language this way: no matter what you do, speaking another language cannot be a translation of your own.

Yes, many nouns and verbs have direct counterparts between - and amongst - languages. But, if you keep a "translation" mentality when speaking another language, you will not master a language. So many words have more than one meaning and meaning is never a direct translation. For example, the word "toujours" translates most frequently to "always." But it can also mean "still," as in il travaille toujours? which means "he's still working?" Maybe this isn't the best example, but what I've been thinking about is that because the French have just the one word that can be used in both senses, they aren't thinking of it as "always" vs. "still." The sentence makes sense to them without having to address both meanings of the word.

My point is this: when learning another language, you obviously must begin with every word as a direct translation from your mother tongue. But when trying to gain fluency, the translation should be left by the wayside. Rather, it is best to think of words in terms of the sense in the language.

I am going to think more about this because I think it can be better expressed, and I am having difficulty with it.

This is a picture of Angers.

This is what "la manifestation" looks like

2010-05-29T12:14:00.000+02:00

Oh la la! si français...

2010-05-27T15:52:00.001+02:00

I had a "so French" moment a week or so ago that really needs to be shared. I was riding home on my bike from one of my schools. My schedule has changed, so now I don't leave Marcel Pagnol until school lets out at 4:45. (I should mention that I go to Marcel Pagnol on Friday afternoon, so my schedule has become even more fabulous: my only late day is Friday.) Anyway, one of my other schools, Jacques Prévert, is on my way home, so I rode past when all of the kids were just leaving school with their parents.

As soon as I turned the corner I started hearing, "Ms. Allie, Ms. Allie!" (French children pronounce my name like aa-LEE). I smiled and waved and kept riding. Then one of the little CP girls started chasing after me.
"Allie! Allie!" she yelled, running down the sidewalk and across the crosswalk.

It was windy, and my hair streamed behind me in the wind. And I laughed to myself because it was so cliché that it was awesome.

In other news, Franzi came to France, and we pretty much had a terrific time.
This is what we did: walked around and sat in the parks of Angers, had a curry that I made, went to a super fun party chez Max, slept in, went to the beach at Lac de Maine, had a delicious dinner out-to-eat, went to a quieter but still fun party, slept in some more, went to Gallerie David d'Angers, had some pastries.
Franziska couldn't have timed her visit more perfectly. It was a three-day weekend, and although she left Sunday, neither of us had to rush too much; we knew we could get stuff done on the Monday. The weather was perfect. Actually it was warm then it was hot. I don't think I've been that hot since I've been in Europe. It was like being home, and I loved it.
Not to mention, it was really great to hang out with her. I have been rather melancholy as of late, which is the result of a strange vacillation between wanting to go home and see my boyfriend and friends and mourning the end of my year in France. So, it was great to have a good friend around to distract me. Plus, she did the whole year abroad thing - that would be in Memphis - so she's probably the best person with whom I can commiserate the mixed emotions of imminent departure.

In other news, everyone in France decided to strike today. Buses, trains, and teachers are all exercising their right to stike (on a la droit de faire la grève: n'importe où, n'importe quand). It doesn't bother me too much because I take my bike to work anyway. But this morning, I went to my first school, and there was absolutely no one there. I didn't even realize it at first because the doors were unlocked, so I just went into the teacher's lounge and did the things I normally do to get ready. It was very quiet, but it didn't register until I walked to the wing where my classes are. I'm not even sure those teachers were striking. At my other school, my dreaded CP class's teacher was striking, so I only helped with CM1 and left for the day.
I did get to see la manifestation, a parade of sorts with all sorts of people with flags and a guy with a bullhorn. They marched down Avenue Foch yelling some things. They didn't all seem to be from the same group. It was strange.

Oh la la!

Things to do before you die:

2010-05-17T16:08:00.000+02:00

See the pope √

I'm not Catholic. Most of you know that. I was baptized Catholic, then my family moved to Memphis, and we switched to what my Dad calls "Catholic Light," i.e. Methodist. I like Methodists; they're nice people.

Anyway, this past weekend was a long weekend. Thursday was Jour de l'Ascension, and to make a long weekend out of it, the primary schools faire le pont d'ascension. They "make the Ascension bridge" and move the Friday schedule to Wednesday. So Elvynia and I made the best of the long weekend and went to a place where we thought it would be warm and sunny.

Did I mention that Angers had a second winter? After all that talk of the great weather, Mother Nature decided we didn't deserve sun and warmth, and it was freaking cold for another week and a half. It was like it was February again, and I was miserable. And off we flew to Porto.

Porto is a nice city. Our Ryan Air flight was, of course, delayed, so we didn't arrive until after midnight, so we were unable to take public transport to our hostel. We took a cab and, thankfully, were not screwed over. We stayed in a pretty nice hostel in Porto, the Andarilho Oporto Hostel. Well it was nice except for the beds and the lack of heating. I guess I can't complain since it was about €15/night.
Friday morning, we asked the guy who ran the hostel what we should do, he told us to avoid a large section of the city because... the Pope was there. I suppose he was trying to be helpful and advise us to avoid the crowd, but, seriously, why would we pass up an opportunity to see the Pope? Even if you hate him, you have to admit he's kind of a big deal. So to the Pope we went.

It was pretty much what you'd expect in a Catholic country. Lots and lots of people filled the streets, waving flags with the his face on them. They were singing hymns (or whatever they're called if they're called something different in the Catholic church.) We didn't get very close, but I could see lots of the red-robed bishop people, and I could kind of make out the main dude amongst them. There was a big screen next to them, however, and I definitely saw the Pope - in his hat - on the screen.

Then we wandered away. We had some requisite cheap Portuguese food, fish sandwiches and the delicious Nata pastry. We wandered some more; we went to the river side and had an awkward interaction with a port wine seller, which resulted in us buying a mini-bottle and drinking it on a bench. It was pretty good. Then we climbed a million steps back up to the city and got a bit lost, but we found the hostel.
The thing about Porto is there just doesn't seem to be a ton going on. In Lisbon, there were lots of people and restaurants and bars and pastry shops. In Porto, it was difficult to find things that were open. We weren't sure if it was the Pope's fault or not. Friday night we went on a long, long quest to find dinner and ended up eating around 10pm. It was good: salmon with potatoes and vegetables. It was also cheap. Each of us paid just under €8 for quite a bit of food. That night we started talking to some other people at the hostel, and we all went for a drink, which was fun.

On Saturday, after some unintentional, preemptive shopping, we took an afternoon train to Espinho to see the ocean! It was a little too chilly and waaayy too windy to do much, so we sat on some rocks in the sun for a while then went on a quest for fresh seafood. We ended up at a nice restaurant where we sat upstairs and had an ocean view. We ended up getting a menu that included bread with butter and anchovy spread, olives, vegetable soup, fish stew, desert, and either half or a whole bottle of wine. It was delicious. (And again very cheap... a meal of those proportions in France would be at least €20/person. We paid €12.50 each. I love Portugal.)
The stew came in a HUGE pot for the two of us to share. We did not finish it. We barely ate half of it; it was just a ton of food. The wine was a little confusing, as he left a whole bottle on the table, and we had thought it included half a bottle. We didn't drink all of it, but it was, apparently, included in the price.

After sitting a long time to digest, we walked back along the beach to take a train to Porto. We did a little more shopping around, then went back to the hostel to rest. We grabbed a couple more pastries to say farewell to the land of cheap and delicious food and then retired to pack...

Sunday we spent entirely too long traveling back to Angers. When I am old and rich, I will buy direct flights everywhere, regardless of price. Until then, traveling goes something like it did Sunday: metro to Airport: 30 minutes. Sitting in airport: 1-2 hours, Flight: 2 hours, Bus from Beauvais Airport to Paris: 1 hours 20 minutes, Metro from bus station to train station: 20 minutes, Sitting around train station: 1.5 hours, Cheap train to Angers: 2.5 hours to Le Mans then 40 minutes to Angers, Walk from train station to the Foyer of Good Advice: 10 minutes.
It was a long day, but I spent a lot of that time reading. And a day spent reading is never a waste.

The conclusion: even though Porto wasn't as exciting as Lisbon, it had it's appeal. Plus, we are tired teachairs, so sitting next to the river and the ocean and drinking and eating were major highlights of the trip, as far as I'm concerned.

Next on the agenda: Franzi does France! She's coming next weekend! I'm so excited.

The 1st of May: Attitude Readjustment.

2010-05-01T13:13:00.002+02:00

(photo by the amazing Elvynia)

It is the the 1st of May. Do you know what that means? We have made it through 1/3 of the year. ONE THIRD?!?! Doesn't that seem crazy? When did time suddenly start flying by all the time?
What does that mean for me and La Vie Française?
Well I have exactly 2 months left on my contract, and approximately 2 and a half months left in Europe. I haven't bought a ticket home yet, which I probably should do soon.

Anyway, I'm also trying to approach teaching with a better attitude. It's a little late, Allie, you might say. But hear me out: I started with a good attitude. And at times, I've really enjoyed those little (cough cough) kids. Though by about mid-January, I would say, I was just worn out, along with all the other teachers. And in Mid-January, there's not much to cheer you up. The weather sucks. You don't see the sun for weeks. It's cold. Your room is so poorly insulated that you sleep in several layers, socks, slippers, and a wool sweater, and you have to put duct tape over the cracks in your window to lessen the wind tunnel effect your room has.... Then you have to go to work and deal with children who are stir-crazy for the same reasons.
Now, however, it is May, and it is beautiful out.

(A note about April: In April, French people feel that almost anything can be explained by the fact that it's April. For example: the weather was crazy and would go from sunny and cold to pouring rain to not as cold to hailing back to sunny in a matter of minutes. The explanation: It's April. There were train strikes making transportation in France the most frustrating and stressful experience ever. It's April. There seemed to be more absurd things that were answered with "It's April," but I can't think of them now. Therefore, Allie's reason for not updating her blog: It was April.)

And because it is May and beautiful and sunny, I have decided to change my attitude, I am going to come to school each day with a sense of humor. This worked out pretty well this week. I just laughed when the kids said ridiculous things. We're learning how to say "Where are you from?" "I am from..."
The cool thing is that at one of my schools, my kids are from lots of places. So it was kind of fun to hear where they (or their parents) were from, and they got a kick out of the Anglicized pronunciation.
Here's where I have kids from: France, Algeria, Morocco, Cameroon, Chad, Turkey, Italy, Reunion, Congo, New Caledonia, India, Russia, Chechnya, and I think there's more.
More than one kid was convinced that Marseille was somewhere other than France. They ignored me when I tried to explain that it was, in fact, a city IN France. Although, I will give them credit and say it is very different from Angers. It is also on my to-do list for places to go back to before I leave.

This good humor thing lasted pretty well too. Until Friday afternoon when I was tired, and I started threatening my last class with copying lines if they didn't shut up. I can handle a bit of chattering, but there's this one kid in the front row of my CE1/CE2 class that just talks and talks. The teacher even moved the kid next to him, so he wouldn't have anyone to talk to. And he continued to talk, just right in front of my face. I will admit I cut loose a little on him, in English. I basically said, "Would you stop talking, you're driving me insane!" And I hit his desk. He didn't seem to mind too much, as he started talking again about 3 and half minutes later. I prefer it if they're talking in the back, so I can ignore them.

Also, although I've told most people what I'm doing next year, I thought I should share on here, for those people I'm not in constant email conversation with.

I will be attending McNeese State University next year. I will be in the MFA program for creative writing in fiction, and I will, over the course of the three year program, also receive an MA in English Literature.
Now, this is exciting for a number of reason. The first and foremost being that I am incredibly excited to start my masters. But reason 1a is that this is the same program as Kevin.
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but MFA programs are competitive because if they provide funding, there's just not a ton of spots available. So, to get into the same program as Kevin was pretty damn cool.
The other reasons I am excited: living in a new place, being in a program where I can write, eating fresh seafood.

There is funding involved in the form of a teaching assistantship, so I'll be teaching two sections of remedial English in the fall and living off of a stipend.

Finally, this Wednesday, I had the best day ever. I'm learning if you make yourself have a great day, it will happen. I got a run in the day before, so I didn't have to deal with that. I didn't have any tutoring engagements. So what did I do?
I went to a café and had coffee and sat in the sun with my notebook. I sat in the park and read. I went to the library and checked out 3 books. I had a delicious galette for lunch. Then I went to the river with Sam and Elvynia and sat for a long time.
Lauren said this sounded very European. I hate to say I was living the cliché, but I sure did enjoy the hell out of it

Sooo woohoo for May! I'm ready to face the next month of insane children with a laugh.

(note: picture at the top of the post was taken by Elvynia in the Keukenhof in the Netherlands, which I will talk about next time.)

Bienvenue en France, il y a une grève!

2010-04-28T12:40:00.007+02:00

Hello there everyone. Yes, it's been a little while. Thanks to the wonderful academic scheduling of France, I have been on vacation yet again.
It does seem a bit excessive, doesn't it?

But I'm not complaining, espcially since before this break, a bunch of 6 year olds made me cry. It was time for a break. The fabulous thing about this break was that my parents came!

They arrived in France on Wednesday April 7 and were immediately immersed in a true French experience: an SNCF strike. (Learn French! bienvenue = welcome, grève = strike, il y a = there is) SNCF is the train company in France. France has a very intricate and well-connected train system. I'm not sure, but it may be the most utilized system of transportation. So when the good people at SNCF decide to strike -- which they do somewhat regularly -- pretty much all hell breaks loose.
So my parents made it to the Charles de Gaulle airport, only to discover that there were no TGV trains leaving from the airport, and they would have to take a Paris RER train to Montparnasse in the center of Paris in order to catch a train to Angers.
The thing about train strikes in France is that they are simultaneously the most organized and most insanely unorganized thing ever. For example: there are still trains running. They even tell you how many are running, what percent that is of normal train traffic, and what alternate forms of transportation SNCF is providing (mostly just coach buses).
But what that also means is that while less trains are running, the same amount of people are attempting to travel on those trains. The result: very very crowded high-speed trains, full of very very over-heated and annoyed French people.
Trains will also be delayed and/or cancelled.
The story of me and the train strikes goes on, but for now I will say I was very proud of my parents for making it to Angers amongst the, pardon my language, cluster**** that was the Paris train stations that day.

When they got here, we did a lot of walking around Angers and visiting the tourist-y things and eating and drinking. It was nice. I got to visit the castle, which I hadn't actually done yet. My parents visited one of my schools (the good one). They met my friends. We had afternoon snack/tea with Christophe, Karine, and baby Luz. We walked around my favorite parks. My friend Katie's family was visiting too, so our Dads bonded over being fathers in France or something.
The hotel was nice, and I enjoyed sleeping in a bed that was marginally better than my own and didn't make me wake up with a backache everyday.
I guess there's not too much to say about seeing them, other than it was great and I miss them!
We ate at a brasserie near the hotel, and I had Coq au vin, a very traditional French dish involving chicken, red wine, and vegetables. There were very buttery and fresh green beans on the side. It was delicious.

We went to Nantes, which I think was maybe not the most interesting place to take them. We had a nice time, but our hotel was kind of ... um... Well, the guy at the desk was the most friendly unhelpful person I've ever met. We couldn't connect to the internet and his response was "Oh, really? It's working on my computer. I'm very sorry."
He also had a pet turtle wandering around the lobby. Yes, a turtle.
When I asked him about it he said, "Oh yes, she is from Spain. I was in Spain, and my friends had turtles, so I took her home with me." And apparently let her wander wherever she pleased.

We did get to see a pretty cool art installation at Le Lieu Unique in Nantes. Last time I went, it was a art/video installation that all had to do with music. This time it was called Tanguy et La Biscuiterie.
Le Lieu Unique is a former biscuit (i.e. hard butter cookies, American folks) factory that has been redesigned as a art venue/bar/café/restaurant/bookstore place. It is rather industrial looking, which is the appeal. Tanguy et La Biscuiterie kind of played on the LU's history as a former cookie factory. It's hard to explain, but it was set up kind of like a palace with all these cardboard walls just covered in images. Mostly they looked like framed picture in a palace, but they were somewhat grotesque/disturbing. Many of the people were Tanguy (the artist himself) done up in lots of makeup and looking like a crazy person. There was a lot of sexual imagery as well as violent/warlike scens and pictures of food. If you click on the link above you will get a rough idea of what I'm talking about. Click on the video, even if you can't understand you can get an even better idea.

Cedric Tanguy présente son expo au Lieu unique
envoyé par presseocean. - Découvrez plus de vidéos créatives.
It was really intricate, though, and interesting to look at. At the end, there was a video interview with him. He basically said it was about our over-consumptive culture, and in an over-the-top kind of way he totally acheived a representation of it. Although it was so self-promoting itself it was hard to tell if that was the irony or if he had fallen prey to the draw of over consumption. And that is my art review for the day.

We also ate at this mussel restaurant that I ate at the last time I was in Nantes. It did not disappoint in anyway. I had mine with Roquefort sauce, and we had a huge plate of shared fries. The dish, Moules Frites, (mussels and fries), is very typical in coastal France and Belgium.
When I was in Lille, we learned the appropriate way to eat your mussels.
This is how:
The mussels are all still in their shells, so you eat one then you use the shell as a kind of fork-tongs and proceed to pull the rest of the mussels out of their shells and insert them in your mouth. Yum.

Also in Nantes, we went to see the Elephant, which continues to be impressive. The elephant is housed in this massive former warehouse looking place.

Nantes has a history as an industrial city, and in recent years that industrial element has been played up in places like Le Lieu Unique and Les Machînes de l'Île. In my opinion, it's working out well for the city, giving it a kind of funky post-industrial feel.
Just now I read the wikipedia article on Nântes, which mentions something I had never heard before: a form of execution supposedly practiced in the city during the French Revolution called a Republican Marriage. I'll let you click the link and read the wikipedia article.

Well, I'm waiting for my parents to send/post pictures from their vacation, so that I can remember what else we did. I'm going to sign off for now and enjoy the AWESOMELY beautiful day:
High of 78˚F (26˚C) perfectly sunny skies...

A night at the Opera...

2010-04-03T15:58:00.000+02:00

(to be said in an affected British accent)

Last Friday night, I went to the Opera.

Going to the Opera is something that you hear about other people doing, or you see people on TV do, or you see Looney Toons making fun of the fat lady.
Sometimes when (if??) you flip through radio stations while driving, you're lucky enough to hit the classical station when a fat lady somewhere is hitting some ungodly octave of "Figaro, figaro, FIGARO!"

But when do normal people ever actually go to the opera? Where does the opera occur? What motivates them to go?
Well, I went to the opera Friday, March 26th at the Grand Théâtre d'Angers because my friend Anne who also lives in the foyer asked me to go. Student tickets were only €10, and it sounded like something different to do on a Friday night.
A very brief history of opera: The first operas were written and performed in Italy toward the end of the 1500s. The art form caught on in the rest of Europe, with Lully (someone who I vaguely remember from a special topics: Versailles class) a composer, courtesan, and friend of Louis XIV, spearheading the establishment of opera in France. Blah blah blah.
If you've heard of anyone in the opera world, however, you've definitely heard of Mozart. He wrote the opera that I saw, Lucio Silla. It was one of his earliest pieces.
I love wikipedia's plot synopsis: The story concerns the Roman dictator Lucio Silla (Lucius Silla) who lusts after Giunia, the daughter of his enemy Caius Marius. Giunia, on the other hand, loves the exiled senator Cecilio.
That, really, is pretty much it. Giunia is held captive by Lucio Silla. Cecilio plots with his friend Lucio Cinna. At the end Lucio Silla surprises everyone and relinquishes Giunna, and everyone lives happily ever after. Seriously.

Things that were interesting:
Cecilio and his friend Lucio (not the evil Lucio) were both played by women. The two parts are written for Soprano. Anne's theory on this is that Mozart was a young man when he wrote the opera, and traditionally young men are played by women (perhaps to distinguish their age by their voice?). And Cecilio and Lucio C. are young in contrast to the evil dictating Lucio S.

The artistic director went super modern for the set, and it worked surprisingly well. On the stage there was this giant rotating semi-circular thing. On one side it was a stone wall with stairs curved around it. When it turned, the inside was white screens with which they did some cool shadow-y things with light and candle light. The costume was very 18th century; the male characters were wearing coats with tails, and the women were wearing long dresses with bell shaped sleeves. It was beautifully put together. A lot was done with lighting and the color white, which made the stark set interesting. At one point Giunia was going kind of mad from captivity and the screens behind her lit up with the shadows of people moving around while she was singing. There was another part where Giunia and Cecilio met in a cemetery. She was with 15 other women, all wearing white dresses and holding candles. Very eery and cool.

The singing itself was impressive. There's not much else I can say about that. They are all professional singers, and the appropriate emotions were spectacularly conveyed. Of note, however, was that the opera was in Italian. So, the theater actually had a subtitle screen above the stage with the French translation. This was great because I don't think I would have understood what they were saying, even if I spoke Italian. And the lyrics in opera (or at least this one) are surprisingly simple. Mostly they say things like "You are always my love; I will love you forever..." over and over again. This made the story very easy to follow.

Finally, it was a whopping 3 hours long. I really didn't even notice. There was so much to take in, to see, to hear, that I didn't get restless at all.

On a blogging note: I tried to embed a Looney Toons, Merrie Melodies** video from youtube on this page. Apparently youtube disabled embedding for that particular video. You can click on "Looney Toons" at the beginning of the post or here is the link for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJAXJWm8G4A

the fat lady sings.

**My fabulous friend Lauren recently shared a Merrie Melodies video with me; I had forgotten all about such things. I'm glad she reminded me about it because it made this post much better. Plus who doesn't miss the good old days of Looney Toons dropping anvils on each other's heads?

What happens in Toulouse...

2010-03-31T23:17:00.000+02:00

So, I feel like I should at least give a brief run down of what I did in Toulouse because, well, because I have pictures. And I want to show those. And somebody, somewhere might be interested....
Sinon, tant pis!

Basically, one of our traveling companions with whom we had booked the hotel in Toulouse, dropped out at the last minute (the last minute being at the train station in Paris). I had booked the hotel through hostelworld.com, which I will probably no longer use. In short, I tried to cancel through the website. They said I had to contact the hotel. I tried to contact the hotel; they didn't answer. So we arrived at the hotel on Friday Feb 19th (Elvynia's birthday) where we were told that if we didn't cancel through hostelworld, we would have to pay for the entirety of the four nights. There was no way to contact hostelworld. Finally the lady let us cancel nights 2-4, but we lost the booking fee. We were tired, so we walked to a nearby boulangerie, bought sandwiches, and had a quiet night in, watching BBC.
The next day we planned to couchsurf.

Saturday we wandered around Toulouse, had a fabulous lunch at an Indian restaurant, and saw this:

Then we met our couchsurfer who, honestly, didn't seem to know what was going on and told us that we could sleep in one of his roommates beds that night, but there were people coming the next day. And he didn't know where exactly we would sleep. We talked for an awkward while and then played Mario Kart then he and one of his roommates made "dinner," which was just a huge thing of pasta with shredded cheese we could put on it if we wanted. They did have a tasty looking baguette on the table, but they didn't eat any, nor did they offer it to us. So we made do with the pasta. After that we met Elvynia's friend Remy for a belated birthday drink (or three). Then we went back to the couch surfer's and slept sideways on the roommate's bed. I did not trust the sheets and slept on my coat.

The next day when we finally got up we got lunch at a very cute little tea house/crêperie: I had a very good green salad with green olives and pesto dressing and a nice little crêpe buerre et sucre.

Then a miracle occurred. Elvynia's friend Yva who she met when she studied in Toulouse met us and chatted for a while. We, without going into too much detail, explained our couchsurfing plight. Then she said "Oh! You can stay in my boyfriend's apartment. He's never there (they were about to get a new apartment together); he stays at my place. It's clean and there's a washing machine. How lucky we were!

It was a really nice, little apartment. It was clean and comfortable. Thank you Yva!

That night Elvynia went to eat with Remy's family. Meanwhile Sheena and I had comfortable night in with some strange but tasty pasta that I made. (It was Sunday, and the only thing open was a night Épicerie with overpriced pasta and tomato sauce. I included a kind of chopped ham called lardon fumé and canned mushrooms in the sauce. Yes, it was weird, but it was good.)

Monday we planned to go to Carcassonne. Per usual, it took us a while to get ready, and by the time we got to the train station, we found out we would have to wait a while for the next train. We went and sat in a café. It was nice. There was also a crazy man/drunk sitting at the table behind us who made quacking noises. Carcassonne was cool. Before going I wasn't sure if I had been there before (during my high school trip to France and Spain) or not. Well, I have definitely been there before. It was nice the second time around, except the sky was gray and overcast, and we were tired. We wandered around.
Elvynia took this picture of me:

I took this picture of some pigeons:

We wandered around the medieval city, which would be impressive if it hadn't been so overcast and hadn't been made into complete tourist trap with overpriced restaurants and doo-dad shops galore.
We walked back to the new city and found a café where we sat and had hot chocolate.
Back in Toulouse we met Remy and a couple of his friends for dinner at this Chinese restaurant. The food was very disappointing, but the guy who owned the place was almost entertaining enough to make up for it. We went to the main student bar that was so packed that we couldn't even buy drinks. Sheena and I decided to rentrer chez nous. (go home), and Elvynia and Remy came back a little while later. Sheena had an early train back to Angers, and we had a later one to La Rochelle.

We had planned to stay two days in La Rochelle, but we were so tired. We ended up just staying one night with couchsurfers Justine and Justine who were roommates and friends and both studied Chinese. They were super nice and welcoming, and it would have been a great place to see. I think we'll go back. It's a very pretty little city, smaller than Angers and a port. Here are some pictures:

We also had some tasty galettes (savory crêpes). Then we came home.

And that was what happened in Toulouse.

A Midspring Night's Schizophrenic Episode

2010-03-21T20:23:00.001+01:00

Coolest thing to happen recently: On Thursday, Meredith asked me if I was interested in going to a dinner theater. A Midsummer Night's Dream was this weekends show, and she thought it would be a fun, different thing to do in Angers. So we went last night, Saturday.
Meredith, Elvynia, and I arrived at the Restau-Theater a little after 7:30. We weren't sure what to expect. It was a restaurant with a small stage decorated with bright red, pink, and white plastic flowers and paper leaves. The food was excellent, three courses.
Here's what I ate:
Entrée (appetizer): Grilled Shrimp with something-Provençal, which was like a cold Ratatouille.
Plat (main course): Duck with some kind of dried berry. It said sec airelles. "Sec" means dry, and "airelles" means bilberry, blueberry, OR cranberry. It tasted closest to cranberry, but cranberries do not grow in Europe. On the side were cooked peas, carrots, mushrooms, and potatoes; they were plain but good.
Dessert: Mille-feuilles de pancake avec fraises et chantilly. I thought this was going to be a Mille-feuilles like I had in Paris. Mille-feuilles literally means "a thousand sheets." It's typically a tall, flaky pastry with a custart cream in it. This was not that. This was pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, which was also good.

Anywho, we enjoyed having a semi-fancy meal. Before the show, I commented on the bright scenery, saying that I hoped it was a moderny-interpretation.
It was better than that.

It was one woman. One woman with her hair in crazy braids, sticking out all over her head with a pink dress and stripey witch tights and crazy pink makeup. She came into the center of the dining room and strew paper leaves all over the floor while a kind of electro-rock song played on the speakers. Then she started the play. We knew ahead of time that it was going to be a French translation, but I think the fact that it was in French tripped me up at first. I knew she was saying Puck's lines. Then she put on crazy white hoop skirt and changed the tone of her voice, which I didn't pick up on immediately. I kept waiting for more actors and actresses to show up. They didn't.
There were two skirts, which she put on to play the female characters. She crouched and looked mischevious when she was Puck, and she stood under a blue spotlight to be Oberon, king of the fairies. She did this kind of jumping/creeping dance to switch between characters, which was amusing when two characters were conversing.
She looked like a crazy person.
But, it was impressive. And it was definitely interesting. After getting over the initial shock of what she was doing, I enjoyed it. I understood much of what she said, and she gave us all balloon flowers at the end.

A cute kid story: One little girl asked me Friday, comment tu es née? "How were you born?" I pretended I didn't understand, but she was persistant, so I just told her I didn't know. Then she asked, Comment ta mère t'a appris anglais? How did your mom teach you English? I explained that that was the language we speak at home. Then I asked her what language she speaks at home. She told me "sometimes Morroccan, sometimes Turkish." But she still didn't seem to grasp that I also spoke another language at home. It was very cute, though.

In other news, there is a teacher's strike Tuesday. What does that mean for me?? I don't have to work! I am so unreasonable excited about the strike. I'm not striking; I don't think I even can strike. But because all the teachers I work with on Tuesdays won't be there, the kids won't be there either.
The teachers do not get paid for the days they strike. Christophe told me this amounts to about €60. The strike is for hiring more teachers and changing some benefits.

I have another theory on why they are striking. They, too, are tired teachairs. I've had several classes cancelled in the last couple weeks because teachers were absent for one reason or another. It's almost spring. The weather is nicer, and the kids have spring fever. They are getting crazier every day, and the teachers are just plain tired of dealing with them.
But, I could be totally wrong.

We interupt this broadcast for an update...

2010-03-16T13:00:00.002+01:00

Ok, I continue to be remiss in updating on my vacation, but there are some great things happening here.

First of all, it stopped being freaking cold. It's only regular cold, with some warmish tendencies!

Last week, it was sunny, but below 0˚ every single day, and it was also windy. In fact, it was so windy that due to the horrible nature of my windows, I could feel the wind through the KEYHOLE of my door when standing in the hallway. Today's high is 12˚C (54˚F), and tomorrow's is 16˚C (60˚F). It's absolutely lovely, and I am about to go for a much-needed jog.

Second of all, Elvynia and I went to Paris for the day on Saturday. We went to an exhibition at the Musée Maillol called Vanité (yes, vanity). It was entirely made up of artwork that included skulls in some capacity. Some of you might know about my affinity for skulls. It's just a funny thing I like, but the exhibit was awesome. There was everything from paintings to installations, from classical to contemporary. Picasso, Warhol, Cézanne, canes with ivory skull tops, fruit carved into skull shapes, diamond encrusted skull rings, grim reapers, skeletons with the crucifix.... It was a little expensive; the student rate was €9, but it was really worth it to see a different kind of exhibit.

After the exhibit, we were starving, so we found a brasserie with a €10.50 lunch menu, which included a plat du jour, a glass of wine, and a dessert. I had steak frites, which was was too much food and totally worth it. I didn't even finish the fries, a rare thing for me.

Afterward we did a lot of walking and a little shopping. I have to brag that I found a cropped black winter jacket with a large collar at Zara for €5.99. It was very exciting.

It was just a really nice day despite the cold and depressingly overcast skies.

Finally, I need to report on my kids. I think some of them are getting more insane as the school year continues. One kid (I wasn't there when it happened) apparently pulled down his pants and crapped during recess one day. This kid is pretty bad, and he drives me crazy in class. He's usually anywhere but his seat, and often that means he is rolling on the floor or hitting another kid or climbing on the radiator. Christophe told me he was scared to go to the bathroom, so he just went on the blacktop.

Another kid said something vulgar in Arabic yesterday. Neither the teacher nor I speak Arabic, but most of the kids in that class do. It was clear it wasn't nice when all the kids started shouting and laughing. One girl kindly shared with the class that what he said was le truc entre les cuisses des filles. That translates to: the thing between a girl's thighs. Lovely. The teacher sent him out of the room.

Today, we finished drawing monsters in CE1 at Jacques Prévert. The activity goes like this: I say something like My monster has two heads. My monster has 5 arms. etc. The kids have to understand and draw the monster. Today I gave the body parts colors: My monster has yellow feet. My monster has green eyes. They actually did really well. But...

Well, have I mentioned Muhammad Ali? Yes, there is a kid named Muhammad Ali, and he has a pretty appropriate personality for his name. He's a pint-sized little demon. Today he decided to draw penises, four to be exact, on his monster.

C'est le sexe du monstre? Jean-Marie, the teacher asked him. Oui said Muhammad Ali, coloring diligently. At least he didn't go around showing everyone.

Good grief. Everyday I gain more respect for elementary school teachers, and I become more and more sure that elementary education is not my calling.

And one more thing: Yesterday was Zeus' birthday! We don't know Zeus' exact birth date, but one vet said he was about 6 months old when I ended up with him in September 2008. In our family, we tend to give our pets birthdays that coincide with holidays, so we can remember them. (We don't really do anything crazy for them like presents or cakes; it's more of a marker to keep track of their ages... That being said, Zeus had an awesome birthday part last year, which means my friends and I had a party, and Zeus was there. There was also a very snippy little Chihuahua. He had to be shut in Drew's bedroom.) Anyway, the estimate that Zeus was 6 months old put his birthday in March, so I went with the 15th. Not a big holiday, but who could forget the Ides of March? Well, apparently, me. I didn't even think about it yesterday.

My monster has four legs.

... and go awry and go awry and go awry...

2010-03-11T00:33:00.001+01:00

Dear Readers, I am so sorry that I am tardy in updating my blog. Every time I think about my vacation, it makes me very tired! Isn't that horrible? I mean, I am freaking lucky. I work for 6 weeks, then I get two weeks off, paid! Not to mention the huge amount of discounts that I can get just for being under 26 and having a student card. I'm not bragging; I really feel like I am absurdly tired. I have a theory, though, which I will expound upon in my next post.

So here's the plan:
I work best in outline form, but I already started writing more about Lisbon. *Update: I attempted to reduce it all to outline form, but that didn't work.... Now it's day-by-day, which helped me organize my thoughts... Hopefully this will convey the incredibly ridiculous amount of things we attempted to do and the multitude of snafus we encountered. (I don't think that's the correct usage of "snafu"... oh well.)

So the next day I woke up, and I was sick. Sick sick sick. But, I was in Lisbon! And I wanted to see it.

I put on my many layers, in anticipation of cold and rain, and we headed for Belém. Except before leaving, I decided I was too hot. So I took off a layer. We took the tram, and about halfway there, the tram stopped, and the driver said something in Portuguese. A couple people got off the train. The rest of us idiot tourists just sat there and looked at each other. After several minutes, every one, us included, kind of dribbled off the tram. It shut its doors and took off. We had no idea where we were, and why it left us there. But, lucky for us, we were with tons of tourists! (Who would ever think that was lucky?) So we all stood by the tram stop for a while until another one came, which we hopped on and headed to Belém. While we were waiting, I started feeling much much colder than I had before we left.

And de la chance! It was free to enter the monastery on Sunday afternoons.
Jerónimos Monastery is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Really. The cathedral part is nice, but when you go to the cloister... It's really like nothing I've ever seen. Pictures are better. This one was taken by my fabulous photographer friend, Elvynia:

Here's one of mine:

After seeing the Cloister, I was about at the point of having chills. I needed food and a warm place to sit.
Luckily everyone else was in agreement, and we went to a sandwich shop where I had the cheapest and most satisfying meal I can remember: a thick kind of potato and vegetable soup and bread, for €1.90.
It was delicious and wonderful.

I considered heading back and skipping the tower, but I didn't. The tower is also impressive. We also saw it during something like a wind storm. It was freezing and raining and wind-ing. A lot. And most of what there is to see in the tower is outside. I was pretty much miserable, but I guess I'm glad I saw it. Plus, Elvynia took this cool picture of me:

Outline:
Monday Feb 15th: Lisbon Aquarium, which was impressive with its humungous central aquarium with hundreds of fish. The Lisbon Oceanarium is supposed to be one of the best in Europe, and I think I had my hopes up a little too high. It was really cool, but I guess I expected something a little flashier. All of that, however, was made up for by the Big Ugly Fish. The appeal of the Big Ugly Fish can only be explained by clicking that link. There were also some pretty damn cute otters of whom I also took a video, but that, sadly, will not upload for some unknown reason. After the aquarium we went to this huge mall that was close by. Meredith did some shopping, but I think the rest of us were just exhausted. After eating we walked slowly, in a daze, then just found another place to sit down in the food court.

Mistah Crab?

Tuesday Feb 16th: We walked around and took one of Lisbon's "elevators," which is actually a trolley car that goes up a hill. We were somewhat tricked by one of our companions into going to a Basilica. It was pretty, as Basilicas are apt to be. I did have a lot on my mind, so I just sat down and took the quiet time to think. Then we went to a cute restaurant café where I had a much needed Irish coffee.
That night there was a "party" at the hostel, which was fun until we found out the other rooms had heaters and one of these Australian boys got a little too friendly with Elvynia. She and I then befriended the Polish guy working at the desk who gave us bottles of water for free.

Wednesday Feb 17th: Of course, for our last day in Lisbon, the sun came out. Meredith had a mid-day flight back to Paris, and the rest of us were heading for Madrid. We just made our way back to the water and sat and looked out at the ocean. We found a weird burger place to eat lunch then we wandered back to the water and just sat some more. Sitting became a recurring theme throughout the rest of our trip. I think being sick just totally took the energy out of me. I don't know if the others felt the same, but I was glad other people were into sitting.

Evening of Wednesday Feb 17th: With all of our things gathered, we arrived to the airport - like the good little travelers we were - just under two hours early. We sat a while. Then we found out our flight was delayed. And delayed and delayed. The flight left two hours late, and we did not get to Spain until after 1:00 am. This is were our trip got interesting. Elvynia and I had planned to Couchsurf in Madrid. (I will talk about couchsurfing later) But, the metro closed at 1:30, and we were not going to make it. We decided it would be easiest and safest to share a taxi with Gloria and Sheena to the hostel in the city center. So we thought. One hour and €60 later, he finally dropped us off at the hostel. It should have been a 20 minute €20 ride, but it was 2am. And we didn't speak Spanish.
The hostel was near the Gran Via metro stop, which, we discovered, is also where some prostitutes hang out. An imposing man stood at the door to the hostel. He said something in Spanish, which we didn't get. Then he asked in English where we were going. "The hostel," Sheena said.
"What is it called?" he asked. At this point, we were exhausted, we had been cheated by an evil taxi driver, and we were surrounded by Spanish prostitutes. We did not feel like being interrogated by a scary Russian-looking Spanish doorman.
Sheena looked at him. She looked at the sign on the wall next to him and read it. He did not look impressed, but he said something into a walkie talkie and let us in. We should have couchsurfed, I thought. Inside, the deskman was nice, and Elvynia and I ended up with a private double room for the price of a dorm. Sheena and Gloria went straight away to their room. But while we were getting ours reserved, some of the freakiest looking people started coming in. Shiny-pleather-jacket man, bleached-hair-with-black-eyebrows girl. It was like some kind of creepy meeting of people that only come out after midnight. We hurried to our room and promptly went to bed.

Thursday Feb 18th: We woke up and met Gloria and Sheena for breakfast. The hostel was decidedly less creepy in the day light, and I had some very good bread and coffee. Elvynia and I checked out, and the four of us headed out into the great city of Madrid.
It was overcast and dreary, and Madrid, I am sorry to say, is not one of the prettiest of European cities. We walked by the Grand Palace, saw some statues, and went to the Plaza del Sol. Then, Elvynia and I set out to our couchsurfing place: chez Rafael. We hopped on the metro and arrived a ways out of the city. We then walked for a good 15 minutes along a busy road. There was a "sanatorium" across the street. I will admit, I was a little scared. The neighborhood looked alright, and when we got to his building I was relieved. It was nice-looking and a friendly neighbor woman let us in.
Rafael let us in where we met hi parents and his dog, Pipo. Even after being told that we didn't speak Spanish, Rafael's father continued to talk to us and point at the dog. I'm sure whatever he was saying was very interesting.
For our first time couchsurfing, we were spoiled. Rafael and Miguel have a small third bedroom where they host couchsurfers. There were two twin beds with clean sheets. They even had a map and small tourist guide set out for us. Rafael had to go back to work. We made plans to meet for drinks and tapas, and he dropped us off at the metro station. Back in Madrid, we went to the Museo Reina Sofia of Contemporary Art. It was great. There are a number of paintings by Picasso and Dalì, as well as one of my favorites, Miró. The main attraction is Picasso's Guernica, and it is impressive. You also are not allowed to take pictures of it, but I managed this one from the next room over:

I think this picture beautifully captures both Picasso's magnificent work and the modern aesthetic of nazi-esque museum volunteers. (While at the Reina Sofia, I was told to step away from a Dalí paint -- which I have to add was BEHIND GLASS. What is the point of seeing a painting in person if you can't get close enough to see the detail? ESPECIALLY WITH SALVADOR DALÍ. )

After the Reina Sofia, we spent entirely too long finding a place to go and sit for a while. I am not pointing fingers. But sit we did. After a bit, we went to meet up with Rafael and his roommate Miguel. Rafael and Miguel are awesome. They didn't know us. We were only staying one night, and it was a Thursday. Yet, they took us to three cool tapas bars where we had good food and drinks and fun conversation. They have hosted over 100 couchsurfers and are both very interested in traveling. We traded stories and had a really nice time. Elvynia and I headed back with them and had a nice, full night's sleep.
We didn't bother and try to see Madrid on Friday. We slept in and headed to the airport. Did I mention earlier how fabulous the Lisbon airport was? Well, it was awesome. Very clean and modern with lots of food options and comfortable places to sit. The very opposite of Charles de Gaulle. Madrid's airport was in between, and all of the food was overpriced. Luckily, our flight was only delayed by a few minutes, and we were on our way back to France.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

2010-03-05T00:48:00.000+01:00

... do often go awry*.

Yes, I am back from Winter Vacation. In fact, I've been back for almost a week, and I think I've spent the days since then vacationing from my vacation. It was a good vacation, but... well you'll see:

Our comedy of errors began, oh, so, long ago on Friday February 12th when we took the last train to Paris.

(Actually, my comedy of "errors" began the day before when Professor Connelly from McNeese State University emailed me to say he really liked the manuscript I submitted for the MFA program and would there be a good time to chat on the phone. That is another story, which I shall relate later.)

The quote does say "the BEST laid plans," but I'll go ahead and admit our plans were perhaps not the best laid. One might say they were moderately well-conceived and rather sloppishly put together.

So the last train to Paris left at about 9:40 on Friday night, and we arrived at Paris Montparnasse around 11:15 or so. The really great idea we had -- in order to save money -- was to arrive at Montparnasse, rather than Charles de Gaulle, then catch the last RER train to the airport. This probably saved us less than €20. Investing that €20 in the train directly to the airport would have saved us from kicking off our trip with confusion and panic. In Paris, we found out that part of the tracks between Montparnasse and CDG were under construction. According to the signs, there was a shuttle between another station and the airport. (Without pointing any fingers, we should have known about this.)

We ended up taking the train to the stop we thought was the right one. When we got off the train, we were at what could be any anonymous station somewhere within Paris' banlieues. We stood with several other luggage-carrying foreigners until our savior arrived in a blue coveralls and a yellow reflective safety vest.

"Charles de Gaulle?" he yelled.

"Oui, yes!" the crowd of us said.

"Zis way!"

And we followed him. He led us down the stairs out of the metro and to a coach bus waiting for us.

This brings me to the real genius part of our plan. We had 6am flights to Lisbon. Again, they were cheap. Our brilliant idea was to stay the night in the airport. Yes, it can be and is done by many people all over the world every second of every day. But, that is often either done by the involuntary or homeless. A recap of our night at CDG: it was cold, and it was uncomfortable. And we were hungry.
I didn't sleep at all in the airport, and it was a relief to board the plane and pass out for the entirety of the three hour flight. The plane nap somehow revived us, and we arrived in sunny Lisbon. Despite warnings of sneaky cab drivers, we took a cab to the hostel, and he did not gyp us. The hostel was very nice and very cheap. Giddy -- probably from both lack of sleep and the sun, which we haven't seen in ages -- we set off to explore Lisbon. We almost immediately headed for the water. We made a pit stop at a corner grocer, mostly because it had an appealing fruit stand outside. The woman at the counter saw us looking at the bottles of port wine and proceeded to let us sample several of the wines. That little shot of alcohol only improved our spirits, so when we found ourselves at a rather dingy area of the port (meaning the water, not the wine), we decided to take inordinately silly pictures in which we look a little worse for the wear. Or, at least, I look very worse for the wear because that 24 hours without sleep had taken its toll on my immune system. I didn't know then, but I was about to develop a very bad cold.

Then, we went to the Castle of São Jorge. This meant an uphill hike through Lisbon's Alfama district, one of the most visually interesting parts of the city. The Alfama district is the only part of the city that wasn't destroyed in the 1755 earthquake. It was historically the Moorish part of the city and was just beautiful to walk through.

Then we saw the castle. The thing with castles in Europe is: well, they're everywhere. So castles kind of become a moot tourist attraction. The Lisbon castle, however, is cool. According to Wikipedia the Moors also did their thing on this castle, which makes it different from a lot of the more medieval-knights-in-shining-armor castles.
After the castle, it was much-needed nap time. I think we tried the famous Lisbon pastries at some point too. Lisbon is know for these pastries that are one of the best things I've ever eaten. The Pastéis de Nata are like flaky little quiches with custard filling. We proceeded to eat one or so of these fabulous pastries every day that we were there.
Anywho, we ended our first evening with the best dinner ever. Seriously. Meredith has a friend from Lisbon who reserved us a table at this random little restaurant. It was crowded. When I saw the drab looking trays that the food came on, I knew we were in for something good. It just screamed home cooking. I had cod, apparently something you are supposed to eat in Lisbon. I asked the waitress "It's good?" "Si, si" she said, nodding enthusiastically. And it was. In fact, I don't think a single meal on our trip could rival that first night. My cod was cooked in butter and garlic with a side of potatoes and a green salad. Plus we has a carafe of wine and cheese and bread before the meal. They charged for the bread, and we still only paid like €11 each, which, when you have been living in France, is downright cheap.

We ate well, and we headed back "Home" (literally, the name of our foyer) where we made a wonderful discovery. Our room had no form of heating! At all! We had to request extra blankets, and I quickly discovered that once I had optimized the position of the blankets and my layers not to move and to go to sleep.

I am going to publish here for now! I know that is very anti-climactic because nothing too terrible has happened yet! But I am very tired, and I am having a hard time gathering my thoughts. Just thinking about everything we did makes me exhausted. I promise more soon. Here's a quick preview to whet your appetite: delays! missed rendez-vous! prostitutes! liars and cheats! a nasty cold!

Bonne nuit tout le monde!

*Quote from Robert Burns's Poem "To a Mouse" later became the title of one of the most famous novels in American Literature. Of Mice and Men, which I am embarassed to say I own but have not read. I added "do" because I think it adds a nice emphasis on the predicate. Plans do, quite often, go to hell.

Will Travel

2010-02-11T21:17:00.002+01:00

Well, in a little over 24 hours I will be hitting the road again. This time we're heading south to Lisbon, Portugal, then a brief stop in Madrid, Spain, a few days in Toulouse, France, and another short stop in La Rochelle.

Here are two songs that I have stuck in my head, pretty good traveling songs, the two of them:
"Have Love, Will Travel" is originally by Richard Berry ("Louie, Louie" anecdote: when I was a very very small child I looooved the song "Louie, Louie." So much so, in fact, that I called the record player the "Ooey-Ooey.")
This version is by the Black Keys and is also fabulous:
Have Love, Will Travel
"Silver Stallion" was originally by the Highwaymen (wikipedia refers to them as the American country supergroup). The version of "Silver Stallion" stuck in my head is also a cover, but I found the video of the Country Supergroup playing it, and it is a requirement that you watch it too:
Supergroup's Silver Stallion The best part is Jenning's little dance at around 1:45.
The cover that, I must admit, I heard before the original is by Cat Power. Much more mellow, but excellent nonetheless:
Cat Power's Silver Stallion

Yay for traveling music!

I'm really excited about this trip, especially Lisbon because 1. it will be my first time in Portugal and 2. there is supposed to be really good, really cheap food in Portugal.
But, even though this vacation will begin at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon when I leave Marcel Pagnol, I've found myself more fervently counting down the weeks and days until April. Why?

My parents are supposed to visit. No tickets have been purchased yet (Mom, get on it!!), but it's pretty much decided. And I can't wait. Recently I've been thinking how nice it would be to take a weekend trip home, which, unfortunately, is totally impossible. It's not like I'm ready to move home -- or anywhere else, for that matter -- but the familiarity of home is much missed. Seeing my parents is as close as I'll get to Memphis until sometime in July. And as much of my life as I've wished to be away from Memphis, I always catch myself being insanely nostalgic for it when away. I had a conversation with a girl I met from Vancouver. Someone asked if she missed it (vancouver, in particular, i think, because it's supposed to be a nice place to live), and she said "well, it's usually the people isn't it? not the place." I guess that is a given, but it's a great way to look at it.

For now, however, I do love living here.

All of this is probably compounded by the fact that I'm anxiously awaiting grad school decisions, which will determine where I live for the next two to three years. I guess this is good as a place as any to announce that Memphis accepted me into their MFA program. One of my professors sent me a very nice email that said I was accepted with a unanimous "yes." It was a nice way to kick off the week.

Anywho, blog readers, if you're there, I'm again traveling sans computer, so I'll be in touch when I return from the vacances!
À bientôt!

(my will-travel picture)

Qui a la droite? C'est moi!

2010-02-07T22:41:00.001+01:00

So after a somewhat tongue-in-cheek analysis of the French obsession with doling out rights like disproportionate war-time rations, I can now stick my foot in my mouth, right there next to my tongue.

Why?

Well, I received a letter Friday from the friendly neighborhood CAF office. I receive letters from the CAF office about twice a month. Usually the letter requests that I provide some sort of official government document/proof of income or residence/vials of blood so that they can continue reviewing my case for another few weeks until they realize they need clippings of my hair and the impossible-to-receive stamp from the Office of Immigration. Then they send me another letter requesting such items.

Although I've probably explained it, I'll bring you up to date: as a young person with a low income, I am eligible for government housing assistant to ease the burden of paying rent. As this is France and as the CAF is a shining example of French bureaucracy, I expected the process would be slow and tedious. Then, the immigration officials changed the rules for people like me living in France. In years past, I would have received a carte de séjour, a residency permit to prove I was allowed to stay in France for a certain period of time. But the Office of Immigration, OFii, no longer requires it. Instead, I have to get a stamp from the office in Nantes on my visa. But I cannot get the stamp without first having a medical examination with OFii. A medical visit, that is, that I cannot schedule. I have to wait for them to send me a letter with a date, which I have not received. Confused yet? What does this have to do with the CAF? Well, no one bothered to update the CAF about the changes, and it continued to demand the carte de séjour. In fact, one conversation with a CAF employee went like this:
"Ms, you can get the CAF when you have a carte de séjour."
"Mam, the carte de séjour no longer exists for me. They changed the rules."
"No. Without the carte de séjour, you DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to the CAF."

But, someone finally updated the CAF, now they know that we are waiting for OFii stamps on our visas, which basically means nothing except our conversations with the CAF are now slightly more polite. And I continue to receive letters requesting information, and I continue to send in that information.

Then, this week, Elvynia received a letter notifying her that she would receive a fairly large sum of back pay from November to December. And she did. It was deposited directly into her bank account.

Then, a day or so later, I received a letter from the CAF. Per usual, I expected a request for several documents that I didn't have. Mais, non!! It was a similar letter with the following sentence:
Vous avez droit à €686.79. You have the right to €686.79.

The amount is back-pay from October to December, and because I live in a foyer it won't be directly deposited into my account. But, I talked to the girls who work here, and it's the real deal. I'm getting financial assistance. Of course, the whole process continues to be convoluted, and it is paid in a sort of credit to the foyer where I will only pay the difference in rent (which should be zilch).
The funny thing is: I still don't have the OFii stamp.
But who cares! My monthly net income is now at a level where I won't cringe after purchasing each plane/train/bus/boat/hot air balloon ticket!

A final thing: all of this having the right/not having the right, reminded me of my favorite children's books, Eloise by Kay Thompson. Eloise in Moscow is probably one of the most hilarious children's books you'll ever read. It was published in 1951 when the Cold War was just getting going, and Eloise gets to shake up the Soviets a little. Their fabulous tour guide takes them around the city and explains "Is possible to see...." "Is not possible to go" here, here, and here. It's not that funny here, but read it. Trust me, it's hilarious.

You gotta fight, for your right...

2010-02-04T18:09:00.004+01:00

One thing that French people love to define is what one does and does not have the right to do. For example, the French have the right to 30 days of paid vacation per year, housing assistance (if at a certain income level), and a 35 hour work week. They have the right to eat baguettes whenever the mood strikes, to drink wine at lunch, and to drive like crazy people.

But even with all of these clearly defined rights, here is one of the phrases that any one should/will learn quickly when living in France: On n'a pas la droite - One does not have the right, on means one, but really it is used more like English speakers use you to refer to people in general. To what does one not have the right? Lots of things: You do not have the right to sit in the grass in the park. The police do not have the right to enter private property without a warrant. You do not have the right to the CAF (Caisse d'Allocation Familiales - government aid, for me, this means housing assistance) without furnishing the proper documents. (Unless you're Elvynia, who just miraculously received her money!) All of this having/ not having the right to do such and such permeates even the minutiae of French existence. So much so, in fact, that school children often try to tell each other what they do and do not have the right to do. For example, "take out your colored pencils," I say to the 7 year olds. "Color the apple red. The apple is red." (Draw out the words for emphasis, accompany them by a coloring motion, and you'll have an idea what I look and sound like.) Almost instantly, there are choruses of: "Cassandra/Lyed/Farouk elle a dit les crayons couleurs, tu n'a pas la droite! Allie!!! il/elle le fait avec les feutres!!!" That's to say: So-and-so, she said with colored pencils, you don't have the right! Allie!!! he/she's doing it with markers!!!" It sounds so funny translated from the mouths of those small children. I guess it's the equivalent of English speakers saying "you're supposed to/ not supposed to do such and such."

The point: Do you know what else one does not have the right to do? One does not have the right to leave L'École Primaire de Jacques Prévert through the cafeteria.

Yes, that's right, on n'a pas la droite de sortir l'école par le cantine. But why? I haven't a clue. Today, my horrible CP class was cancelled without any warning, which was great. Dominique, the CP teacher and directeur de l'école (the principal), had a meeting, and the CPs were distributed throughout the other classrooms. I got to leave work 40 minutes early. But, since Dominique was not there, and the elusive secretary was, as usual, nowhere to be found, I thought I'd leave through the cafeteria. Why would I think such a crazy thing? Well, first of all to leave through the front gate you have to have either a key or have someone (Dominique or elusive secretary) buzz you out. Second of all, the bike rack is next to the cafeteria, so there's the ease of getting my bike without leaving through one gate and re-entering through another. And I have entered the school through the cafeteria. So, I went to the cafeteria and opened the door, where I was greeted by three disgruntled cafeteria ladies who sat eating what I presumed was their own lunch. To be polite, I asked if it was okay if I left through the cafeteria, expecting a friendly bien sûr, pas de soucis. Instead I got:

Normalement, on n'a pas la droite, mais vous êtes déja entrée, allez-y.

Basically, "normally, no, you do not have the right to go out through the cafeteria, but seeing as you've already entered, go on." I was a little shocked and thus made a beeline for the door. Only after I left did I stop to wonder, BUT WHY? Why doesn't one have the right to leave the building through the cafeteria? The door is unlocked. I am not a student. Next time, I'll ask why.

Another endearing thing that I forgot in my last post, although this was not with one of my students:

I was jogging in the promenade behind my building, and I saw this little boy looking worriedly into some bushes. I slowed down a little, and he said something about his ball, so I stopped and looked. His ball was stuck in a prickly bush. Ça pique! He said. -- Piquer is a fabulous word that means to sting, bite, or prick. It can be used in reference to an insect, a spicy dish, or even a prickly bush. I love the word and its multifunctionalness (I also enjoy creating nouns, like multifunctionalness). -- Anyway, I tried to get the ball out for him, but it was too far on the other side. So the two of us went around into the courtyard of the building, and I was able to pull it out. Merci, madame, he said. I don't know, sometimes things like that just make you feel good. It was also hilarious that he called me "madame."

Also, the days are getting longer! Wherever you are reading this, unless maybe you live in the Southern Hemisphere -- amy, are you there?? :) -- I guess your days are getting longer too. Every year my mom tells me that, during the winter, she always looks forward to being able to tell that the days are getting a little bit longer. For some reason it seems like the days have been unreasonably short this winter. But now they're starting to get a little longer, which is great. We've also had a couple days of sunshine, which has been even better. It's still cold, but it's nice to know the winter won't last forever. AND according to my book on the Loire Valley, spring is one of the best times to visit -- it's supposed to be beautiful here.

I tried to get a really cool picture of the trees outside my window. The buildings block all but the very tops of the trees from the sun, and the sun was shining brightly yesterday afternoon. The tops of the trees were bright orange while the rest was normal looking. Anyway, here are pictures, even though it didn't turn out quite as cool as it looked in real life. Proof that the sun has graced Angers with its presence, at least for a little while:

Finally, there 5 working days left until my next vacation! We leave Saturday, Feb 13th for Lisbon, Portugal. Then we'll make our way up the Iberian peninsula to Madrid, followed by Toulouse, with a final stop in La Rochelle. Elvynia and I have been counting down the days religiously. I guess we've become rather French, expecting all of this vacation time. The vacation time to which, I might add, we do have the right.

The brats can endear to the tired Tea-chair.

2010-02-02T23:58:00.000+01:00

So, I continue to be a tired tea-chair, and I have decided I do not have a long term career in child education.

For example, my CPs just entirely wear me out. In that class, there are 3 or 4 horribly disruptive children, then there are 6 or 7 incredibly chatty kids, then there are between 3 and 5 who cannot stay in their seat, in a class of 20 kids, that is a problem. The teacher himself has no real control. It is a circus. I leave that class each Tuesday and Thursday with some form of a headache.

But, every once and a while, one of those kids does something that kind of surprises you and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. (Not to be totally lame or anything)

One of my favorite kids, Walid (who was describing his salty sweet chichi snack to me) moved suddenly. The teacher didn't know he was going to be changing schools. So one day he was at Marcel Pagnol, and the next he was not. But, he was at Jacques Prévert, the same day that I teach there. I said hi, and he looked a little wild-eyed and confused (being only 7 and being left at a new place without anyone familiar). But he looked really happy to see me and asked me to say "bonjour" to Madame Goupille's class.

When I saw Mme. Goupille's class, I said "Bonjour from Walid." She said to the class "Walid is at Allie's other school, so we can send him messages through her!"

One little boy, Farouk, said "Dit à Walid que je suis toujours son ami." (Tell Walid that I am still/always his friend.)

Then the whole class made illustrations for him, which I delivered. When Walid heard Farouk's message, he gave me one of his marbles to give to Farouk.

How absolutely adorable! He asked me today if I had given him the marble yet. I hadn't because I hadn't been to the school yet, and he wanted me to show it to him to make sure I still had it!

Another great story:

One of the boys in CE2 at Marcel Pagnol gave me a folded up piece of paper, which I promptly unfolded:

I had to laugh. M. Beauvais took it and looked at it, and he laughed. He gave an approximate translation, and the poor kid turned red and covered his face! But, I told him I'd keep it, and I have! I tacked to the wall above my desk.

I just want to know why all the CE2s want to draw American flags for me!

In other news, the sun came out Sunday. Meredith and I went for a walk, which was really nice. I took some pictures of Angers, and we stopped at a café and had a coffee. The café was small and had nice burnt-orange colored walls. It was a clean, well-lighted place. There is a Hemingway story called "A Clean Well-Lighted Place." It is one of my favorites. I recommend it.

When we left the café, we stopped in one of the very very few little shops open on Sundays, and as we headed back toward, someone called after us. Another assistant, Ben, who we've seen very little of was on his way to see Le Cercle Rouge a Jean-Pierre Melville movie (this meant nothing to me, but apparently he is one of THE French film directors to know.) The movie was made in 1970, and it is awesome. It is French and thus has some very French moments and a rather French ending. But, it begins with some amazing cinematography, wide shots of fields, close shots of this convict being escorted on a train, an intense chase in the woods; it includes a cabaret with excellent dancers, a jewelry heist, and a drunk's hallucinations; it ends with intensity. There is surprisingly little dialogue, which was helpful in that I didn't have to focus all my energies on comprehending the French. Anyway, check it out.
There's always more... for now, here's winter in Anger:

Who needs sleep?

2010-01-25T08:20:00.005+01:00

Most of the time, it is awesome to live within a 10 minute walking distance of the city center. It's easy to meet up with people, get emergency chocolate, and decide to see a movie 10 minutes before it starts.

Other times, you wonder exactly why a full choir has installed itself right outside your window at 10pm. Yes, at about 10:00 on Sunday night, I heard singing. My next door neighbor had had her television on at an ungodly volume, so initially it sounded like she had switched from the murder movie of the week to the Mass channel. Then I realized it was coming from the other side of my room, the window side. The choir proceeded to sing church-style arrangements until nearly midnight. It would have been nice, but it was late and kept me from concentrating on my lesson plans. Towards the end it sounded like some of the audience got a little rowdy: there was yelling and what may have been bawdy lyrics sung back to the choir. Then there were some very strange noises that, for some reason, made me think of a sacrifical gang initiation.

I can have an overactive imagination, though.

Anyway, it suffices to say that while I am not one to oppose free and public arts events, I will always oppose them if it interferes with what I believe to be a reasonable sleeping schedule.

My frustration was probably magnified by the fact that I have had very few nights of decent sleep since I returned from vacation. I have a new neighbor in the room above me. The first week that she was here it sounded like she was rolling her suitcase around her room (which is not exactly a large space) beginning at about midnight every night. She also likes to slam her shutters open and closed about 15 times perday.

Actually, at the moment it's 8:30 in the morning, and she might be hammering.

My next door neighbor has also taken to late-night movie watching in 2010. Last week I finally knocked on her door at about 2:00 in the morning, after which she did kindly switch it off.

But, I have to ask, what is wrong with these people? Am I the only one that likes to have more than 5 hours of sleep before work?

I will also mention here that these are not French girls, they are international students. So, this complaint cannot be with any of the authorities who pay me. I do need to complain to the foyer; they might stick a note under everyone's door.

All of this reminds me of the Barenaked Ladies' song, Who needs sleep?, which I never realized features such a prominently awesomely 90s flute solo. Ha, beautiful!

New Year. New Look

2010-01-25T08:11:00.003+01:00

So, I made some pretty obvious changes to my blog. I might continue to mess with it over the next week or so, but just so everyone knows: This is still Al Abroad, and it will continue to be Al Abroad. So if you are still interesting in my European Adventures/Maladventures, keep reading!

The blue background just got too busy for me. If you know anything about HTML, changing backgrounds, making pretty colors, please please please tell me. I know nothing about this, and my blog would probably benefit from fidgeting. A lot.

Here's a picture from Amsterdam:

we can edit blogs, yes we can!!

querstion

2010-01-23T01:57:00.001+01:00

Does anyone have any yeas or nays against changing the background?

I'm tired of it.

Teach, eat, sleep, repeat

2010-01-18T12:23:00.007+01:00

I have been eating like the very hungry caterpillar!

After three weeks of composing an entry on Food both in my head and in a draft on here, I've decided to go ahead and post part of it and do another one as ideas occur.

Food has been on my brain a lot lately; I've just been really hungry. Not sure why. Perhaps the two main reasons are:

1. I just read Julia Child's My Life in France

2. I made my kids watch The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Actually, this morning, my last two classes watched the movie. I have been sick and even missed work yesterday. I just found out, however, that Luc DANIEL (conseilleur pédagogique) and Lydie MORANGE (resident crazy french lady at the inspection academique who is most of the time incredibly useless and waited until december to provide useful information about registering with the office of immigration, getting social security, and other slightly necessary to-dos) will observe my classes next week at Marcel Pagnol, so it seemed best that I should work this Friday in order to make sure those kids can say some English words come next Thursday.

Anywho, my morning school is Jules Verne, which is also, I have to say, my least favorite. Why? The kids are pretty bad. They talk constantly; they don't listen. They've probably retained the least of all my kids at all my schools.

This morning, however, my least favorite class (M. LeCompte's) at my least favorite school surprised the hell out of me. They remembered the words for fruit that we have been doing. They watched the movie with rapt attention and responded when I paused and asked them to repeat what the narrator was saying en Anglais!! It was just great. After the movie, with just a little prompting, they raised their hands and told me the story as it progressed. And they remembered it! It really made my day...

...especially since I've been run down and tired since last Friday, which finally resulted in a sore throat and slight fever this Tuesday. After lots of rest on Wednesday and Thursday, I'm feeling better, although my throat's still sore, and I'm still a bit tired. I really can't imagine being a full-time elementary school teacher. At least in France, it's pretty acceptable to call in sick. They don't seem to be as caught up in working-at-all-costs. Rather, if you're ill, you should take the time off to rest and keep others well too.

Soo, On y va! La nourriture! (Let's go! The food!)

I recently finished reading Julia Child's book My Life in France, which my mom sent me for Christmas. The book is fabulous; it's well-written and interesting, and it paints a beautiful portrait of France, particularly from the culinary point of view. Additionally, Julia Child herself is fascinating. She loved food but had no real background in it before coming to France. She enrolled in the Cordon Bleu in Paris and learned the basics of cooking, from there she took it upon herself to sample and create anything and everything having to do with French cooking. But above all, the best thing about Mrs. Child was her attitude. Even in her book, written in her 90s, she positively exudes life. She was passionate about food and had unabated energy. The book is worth reading simply for her outlook.

The book also made me very hungry and wish I had Julia Child around to cook French cuisine for me. Unfortunately, I don't, and I can't really afford to eat out every night in order to sample the minutiae of French food. I do, however, have some commentary on food and grocery shopping and just plain old shopping.

Here are some moments as a eater and shopper in France:

1. Cheese -- one of the first things I bought upon my return to France was Camembert cheese. Camembert is one of those cheeses that takes a little getting used to, especially if your idea of cheese is mild American cheddar (or worse, American cheese). It makes your whole refrigerator stink and has a funny-textured rind. But it is absolutely delicious.

In France, cheese is consumed after the main course, usually with fruit. Most cheese that you buy even suggests that you remove it from the fridge at the start of the meal in order for it to warm to room temperature and thus reach its flavor-potential.

I'm trying to buy a new cheese on each grocery expedition. It's difficult not to buy the same things that I know that I love, but living here is an adventure. And, yes, even buying cheese qualifies as an adventure. I have no real basis for selection, so I just find one that says "Special Offer!" and go for it. Recently this ignorant purchasing procured Saint Marcellin, a cheese which came in a package as two small 80g rounds. It appeared to be a softer cheese, but I didn't know how soft! Each round was in its own plastic ramekin, not just nice packaging, but a preventative measure against the mess it makes. At room temperature Saint Marcellin practically melts. It's quite good and very creamy, but rich. Who knows if I know what I'm doing, but I ate it with bread, which was delicious. The strangest cheese I've tried recently, also on sale at Carrefour, is Gouda with Cumin seed in it. I'm pretty sure it's actually a Dutch cheese, but it's pretty good. The cumin gives the cheese an interesting kind of round spicy taste. I don't have any kind of master palate, so that's the best description I can give!

Interesting fact: there are traditionally 4 or 5 hundred types of French cheeses, but to-date one can find over 1000!

camembert

2. Chocolate - It is a fact, not an opinion, that chocolate in Europe is better than chocolate in the United States. Now, many of you who know me well know that I do not like chocolate. And it's true that when I was a kid and in school, I didn't like chocolate. It gave me headaches and left a bitter taste in my mouth. My mom and sister LOVE chocolate, but I never really knew what all the fuss was about. I did like Reeses and Snickers, usually because of the ingredients other than chocolate. Now, I'm about to sound like a snob, but bear with me: I love chocolate in Europe. In fact, around November, I started to crave it like a crazy person. I actually bought a bar of chocolate when I went grocery shopping. I don't think I've ever in my entire life bought a bar of chocolate. I'm serious. I went through that bar and bought another. What was wrong with me?? It did taste better, but I've never been big on sweets in general. It was a mystery.

Then I went to Germany and hung out with Franzi to whom I mentioned my bizarre cravings. According to her, a lot of people crave chocolate around November because they start missing the sun. The chocolate gives you the endorphins that help you feel better when you're lacking sunlight. I consider this a full endorsement of eating as much chocolate as I like. She's right, though, and the lack of sun is totally depressing.

3. Fruit - Produce, due to our shrinking world, seems to be pretty universal. But I've had the opportunity to try some things here that I may not have tried at home.

Most boringly, apples. At home, every fall, I look forward to McIntosh Apples. Not the computer, though I love my mac too... McIntosh Apples are also a real fruit, and one of my favorite. Wikipedia says they originated in Canada. They're small, red, and crispy. The insides are very white, and McIntosh have a sweet tartness. Delicious. This fall, I discovered the European near-equivalent, Elstar. The texture is very similar, although the skin has more green in it, and they might be a little sweeter. They were so good that I kept buying them past season, which resulted in some very disappointing lunches.

Franzi has introduced me to a couple fruits that probably exist at home, but I would never think to buy and try them. One of these she called a "Sharon" fruit, which took me over a year and a half to identify as a Persimmon. Both names are nice, and perhaps you've tried it. It's very sweet and has a really strange texture: it's kind of like a very firm tomato. Also, I just read that there is medical precaution against eating the fruit unripened, apparently it can

"contain the soluble tannin, shibuol, which, upon contact with a weak acid, polymerizes in the stomach and forms a gluey coagulum that can affix with other stomach matter. The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy notes that consumption of persimmons has been known to cause bezoars that require surgery in over 90% of cases." Interesting. haha.

The second fruit was something I ate over Christmas at the Roth's; it is called Physalis fruit. It is small with a husk and also kind of looks like a tomato, a orange cherry tomato. It's sweet, kind of like a berry. I also bought some when I was in the Netherlands, and we maturely referred to them as the Syphilis fruit.

physalis fruit

4. The French celebrate Epiphany on January 6 with a cake called gallette des rois, king cake. Like the King Cakes during Mardi Gras, there is a small trinket inside and whoever receives that piece is king for the day. I guess I should say the Mardi Gras cake is like French gallette, surely the Louisianan tradition comes from the French, non? Mme. Goupille, whom I think I am allowed to call by her first name, Geraldine, made one for Epiphany and brought it to Marcel Pagnol. It was flaky like a pastry and had a kind of almond paste in the middle; it was, of course, buttery and delicious. It was also a mess; I struggled not to spill any crumbs and watched in sheer astonishment as none of the female teachers dropped a single flake of the cake! However, the men were not so neat, and I was glad because I made a little bit of a mess. Just a little.

That's all on food for now. It's the weekend, and I plan to do a lot of sleeping. My body is still telling me it's not entirely well, which is a shame since I just got back into the habit of running... c'est la vie!

Oh, and a final moment in the life a Teachair:

I mentioned that I missed the first Monday of school after winter vacation. The next day, some of my kids were asking where I had been. J'avais mal à la tête - I had a headache, I said. One audacious little CE1 at Jacques Prévert (who, I will add, never NEVER pays attention, at all.) said to me Quand on a mal à la tête, on doit aller à l'école - When you have a headache, you have to go to school. I didn't really know what to say back to him, so I just told him to stop standing in his chair, which is what he was doing. Oh, children.

Trains, planes, and automobiles pt III [i need to get on with the new year, huh?]

2010-01-12T16:36:00.009+01:00

(another of E's pics, that's her and victor on the evening of the 30th; when we saw it during the day time, there were a million people all over, so it was impossible to get a picture without someone else in it. we beat the system.)

Before I begin the last part of my trip, I have to tell you about the weird bus ride and old lady SMACKDOWN I witnessed on the bus today.

I boarded the number 4 bus back to my bus stop. I walked through the entire bus, where there were approximately 6 seats available, but, due to crotchety old French ladies, I could not sit down. For some reason -- and this is almost only older women, men and students are normal about it -- older women sit only on the aisle seat, which prevents other people from sitting in the window seat. It's annoying, and when you look at them like, hi so sorry to inconvenience you but i'd like to sit down, they only stare coldly back at you. So, I made my way to the very back back seat where I had to sit by a strange man. Another thing about these crotchety ladies: (I realize this represents only portion of old French ladies, there's a large portion of perfectly amicable women who smile and move over, or get up so you can sit on the inside) the crotchety ones are terribly unapologetic. They'll push you over to get a good seat and whack you with a cane to get off the bus first.

The 4's route has recently changed a little due to tramway construction in the city, so I didn't notice when he went the old way, rather than the new way. Neither did anyone else, I imagine, just until the point when Mr. Bus driver swerved around a roundabout and went back in the direction we came from. We all kind of looked around -- by this point one crotchety lady had gotten up to get ready to get off the bus and I had taken her seat. I wasn't too worried about his crazy driving because I got out of work a little early and was up for an adventure.

Anyway, Mr. Bus driver got back on route and picked up some people at stop. Then, we were riding along Foch, crazily swerving bus all but forgotten, when a man who looked like he was probably a drunk boarded the bus. He was old and had a red face and dirty looking brown hair. He kind of stumbled on the bus and fell this way and that until he sat down, across from another crotchety old lady. The old lady got up at the next stop, and I'm not sure what happened, but it looked like the drunk was trying to help her. She had a cane. He kind of grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the door, but by the time she had shaken him off of her, the door had started to close. She pushed the button, but it wouldn't work.

"La PORTE!!" she yelled at Mr. Bus driver. "La PORRRTE!!" (la porte = the door)

The bus driver said something that I couldn't hear; I may have caught the words deux fois. Maybe he was trying to say he had pushed the button two times. I dunno.

Well, he did stop the bus, but this other old lady who I had assumed was another crotchety old lady, as she was sitting in an aisle seat with no one next to her, said to the first lady, "C'est pas difficile à dire s'il vous plaît!" (It's not too hard to say please.) I was like yeah! crotchety old lady #2, you tell her! She kind of repeated it to herself, and the first crotchety old lady got off the bus very huffily, and everything carried on as usual. It was a sight.

So, Amsterrrdahm Centrrraal:

In Dutch, there's a kind of roll-y "r" sound you're supposed to make. Victor told us about this at some point. But, a couple days earlier, on my train to Amsterdam from Köln, the conductor said everything in three languages: German, Dutch, and English. And every time he said the Dutch bit, he rolled his Rs in the most extravagant manner, so we all laughed whenever he would say Amsterdam Central, because it sounded like Amsterrrdahm Centrrraal!

So after the trip of a museum, Electric Lady Land, we were supposed to meet another friend of mine, Florie, for dinner. I met Florie when I studied in Lille, but we were having a hell of time getting in touch. I kept losing my signal, and my phone died. So I sent her Victor's number, and we went into a bar and had a couple of beers and played pool, only to discover that Victor didn't have a signal the whole time we were there. Luckily, I called her as she was boarding a train back to her parents'. She hopped off, and we waited in the main square for her. Meanwhile Victor's friend K tried to convince us that he knew about this awesome restaurant not too far away. "Convince" because he couldn't remember the name or what kind of food it served, and while he claimed he did know where it was, we couldn't help but remember our 40 minute out-of-the-way walk to Electric Lady Land. As we were waiting, a homeless looking lady did convince us to give her change for something or another.

Florie found us, and we decided to give K's suggestion a go and headed toward a side street. We found ourselves outside a standard-looking pub-ish type place, and Florie thought it was cool because she had wanted to take us somewhere nearby. We went in and up and found a cozy table for 5.

Then I had one of the best meals I've had in Europe.

Four of the five of us ordered chicken skewers covered in peanut sauce. It came with a side salad and shared fries. It was delicious. Among the many interesting facts that I read in my Let's Go Amsterdam travel book was a sidebar about Indonesian food in the Netherlands. The short version: due to Dutch colonialism, there is awesome Indonesian food in the Netherlands. We weren't at an Indonesian restaurant, but it was tasty and totally worth the €10ish it cost. We had a nice time discussing whether or not prostitutes are paid enough. Florie had to catch a train back home, so she headed out. The restaurant had board games, so we attempted Trivial Pursuit in Dutch for about 30 seconds before switching to Jenga.

(Picture courtesy of the lovely Elvynia! don't want to be too narcissistic, but I thought it was a good one.)

It had been a lovely, if not totally packed, day in Amsterdam. So after a little Jenga, we braved the cold back to the car. Back at the apartment, we blasted the heat and played some Uno before hitting the sack. One thing I haven't mentioned: I had this terrific sleeping bag in Baarn. I guess it was Victor's family's arctic camping sleeping bag of awesomeness. As long as I kept my entire body within its confines, I slept well and warmly. I almost stole it. Almost.

On the 31st we slept in. Our goal for the day: buy chocolate. We weren't really looking for Dutch chocolate in particular, just chocolate. I had noticed a recent surge in my craving chocolate (from zero to all the time) and had been given the okay by Franziska (to be discussed in a future entry) to eat it constantly when I was in Germany. So Victor, Elvynia, and I finally rolled out the door around 3pm to enjoy our last hour of sunlight (sunlight-ish, it was very overcast) of 2009. We went to the grocery store in Baarn where we sipped on free coffee like real Dutch people. We also didn't pay too much attention to the man standing next to us. Elvynia and I bought chocolate and stroopwafels and other snack-foods for our bus ride on Saturday because we figured nothing would be open the 1st. As the last sun of 2009 set, E and V bought long underwear, and I bought a warm fleece scarf. Nothing says a New Year's Party like long underwear.

Back at the apartment, we got ready to go to V's friend's apartment to commence the New Year festivities. While E and I were keeping warm in the living room, the door bell rang. V went to get it and had a discussion with the person. When he came back, he said that it was the same man who had been standing by us at the free coffee place in the grocery store. He wanted bread. V said he had given him some, and the man left. E and I were a little freaked out by that and hid our valuables in our suitcases, in case the man should decide to enter after we left.

Then we met V's friends at their apartment, drank a little wine, and ate a little (too little) pizza.

Next stop: the Red Light District.

We had plans to go to a bar with a 90s cover band, but I insisted that as true tourists we had to at least see the red light district. Plus, we weren't planning on going back into Amsterdam until our bus on the 2nd.

So, as intrepid as the millions of other Brit and American tourists in the city, we headed for the Red Light district. I have to admit here that I had had a little to drink, so the whole thing has a kind of hazy dream-like quality to it. But here it goes:

We walked through the red light district, holding onto one another, pushing through the crowds, and saw the prostitutes in their windows. We were like kindergartners holding hands and looking at boobs.

Seriously, though, the streets were packed. And there were all these windows with these scantily-clad women in them. The buildings were tall and brick, and there were just tons of people, mostly guys, coming at us, and mostly wearing those winter hats with braids on the sides and theirs had Amsterdam printed on them in big letters. (I was sh**-talking those hats to Fabiola when I got back. Apparently, she bought one. Oops. She loves me.) There were sex shops in between the brothels. We went down one street called something like "Alice in Wonderland," The path gets more and more narrow because the buildings' walls are kind of at an angle, and, again, all of these people were just coming at us.

Semi-interesting fact that may not be entirely accurate: These days there is a push against the legalized prostitution in the Netherlands. Apparently one manifestation of this is the reduction of actual brothels, rather the prostitutes are self-run. Another thing to know is you have to knock on the windows to ask the prices. I joked about doing it, but I was too scared of the prostitutes. Fabiola told me that when she was there, only a couple days after us, her friend was taking pictures, which is totally not allowed. One of the prostitutes went after her!

Then we left and went to the bar. We had a lot of fun; the band didn't play a single 90s song. But we danced as it was. I tried to help the band out by singing a little on their break, but the stage guy didn't like that. At midnight, we went outside to scream in the New Year, but it was freaking freezing, so we went back inside. We finished the night with some fries and took the train back out of town.

(The only picture I have of the six of us, sorry Elvynia! Not really too flattering of me either)

I rang in my first morning (afternoon) of the New Year by not feeling too well and laying under my super sleeping bag much too long. V's parents had invited us over for a New Years chili, so we slowly made our way over there. Mrs. Van Ommen offered us some mulled wine, and my face must have said something like "God, no, anything but that." So, she offered us some sparkling water (frisky water, as Carolyn would say), and we had a nice afternoon of chili and cheese and other tasty things. After that it was a quiet night in, so we could make sure to get up early for....

the BUS!! (planes, trains, and AUTOMOBILES!) Elvynia and I booked a eurolines bus from Amsterdam to Paris for the whopping price of €44. We were kind of excited because, well, I've never really traveled by bus before, and I don't think she has either.

Anywho, V drove us to the station where a lady yelled at us for lying about how many bags we had (we didn't mean to); then we gave V a hug and thanked him for being a superb host and boarded our first ever inter-European bus! From Amsterdam to Brussels, there were only a handful of people, so we took advantage and spread ourselves out a little. It also started snowing, a lot, which was really cool to see. All of the sudden in Brussels, a million people boarded the bus; we didn't even have time to move together. The ride was easy and uneventful. We got to the Gallini station around 4:45 pm and made our way to Montparnasse for our final train of the holiday. Sigh.

We got to Angers where it was a balmy 4˚C, lovely compared to the Netherlands. It was nice to be at foyer du bon conseil in my own space, but, honestly, I had had such a great holiday I wished I was still traveling. The semi-real world of work did not appeal at all.

(Thank you so much again, Roth family, Franziska, and Victor. It was awesome.)

Next up: food shopping in France and maybe some regular shopping too.

Trains, planes, and automobiles pt II [or too many trains to Amsterdam]

2010-01-05T22:03:00.008+01:00

How's the New Year going for everyone?

I kicked off 2010 by calling in sick to work on Monday. Then I forgot it was Tuesday, the only day I have to leave for work at 8:30, and I missed my first class. The beautiful thing: no one seemed to care in the least. Christophe practically scoffed when I mentioned I felt bad about it.

Vive la France!

So Germany for Christmas... It was the perfect combination of resting and having fun. I didn't want to leave. Especially not at 8am or at whatever god-awful hour I booked my first train. Someday I will realize I am not a morning person, and I will pay more for later tickets. This will be after I marry a rich man.

So with a heavy heart and happy tummy, I ate a final breakfast in Melsungen before the sun even rose. Franziska and her dad took me to the train station where I immediately got nervous about all of my connections.

A tip on booking trains: always familiarize yourself with the geography of the region you're traveling in before booking trains. The journey could have been shorter.

Then again, happy mistakes can often give you the most beautiful view.

In this case, I went on a little bit of a German tour before heading on to the Netherlands, you can see an approximation of the route here: Allie's convoluted German travel. But, I saw some of the most beautiful landscape in Germany. The train from Frankfurt to Köln was not ICE; it was IC, which meant it was quite a bit slower. Buuuuut, this train travels along the Rhine river, and if you ever have to travel from Frankfurt to Köln, TAKE THE IC TRAIN. It is hill-y with vineyard after vineyard after quaint village after castle. The sun even came out from hiding and shone on the fairy tale landscape. Unfortunately, my seat was on the inland side of the train, so I spent most of the journey craning my neck to see across my neighbor. I also didn't take any pictures. But, believe me, you, it was gorgeous. A feast for the eyes: I'm trying to figure out when I'll have to take a train from Frankfurt to Köln again, just to sit on the waterfront side of the train. But I digress.

I took the ICE train from Köln to Amsterdam, which was only slightly eventful. First this family kept sitting in all these other people's seats (including mine) thus backing up the boarding process. My seat was awesome, though, because it was a window seat AND by itself. I had lots of room to spread out. The train also stopped about an hour away from Amsterdam Centraal due to "fnadnf akdjnfjknd." The speakers cut out when he said it in English. The problem was resolved, but we ended up sitting on the tracks another 30 minutes because another train was stopped in front of us. The conductor said, "We are stopped. We don't really know when we'll move again." Awesome. But, we moved again not too long later.

In Amsterdam, I caught a local train to Baarn where my friend Victor lives. Baarn is 30-ish minutes from Amsterdam. It is also adorable. Small streets and quaint buildings. I think I will now stop using the word quaint, even though it applies to many things I saw. (Carolyn, you still use that word incorrectly.)

Victor picked me up at the train station, and we rode a car to his apartment, his very cold apartment, with the strangest (really just old and outdated -- sorry Victor, it is) heating and hot water system I've ever experienced. I was so glad to hang with another Memphis friend so far from home. We caught up and set up mine and Elvynia's camp in the living room then headed out to pick her up at the Amersfoort train station. Victor made a fabulous spaghetti accompanied by a Dutch cheese the name of which translates to "Old." We gobbled it up, formulated a tourist-tastic plan for the Netherlands, and crashed.

The 29th we rose early (11am) had some scrambled up eggs and headed out and up. North, that is, to the quaint (oops) Zaanse Schans. A quote from the website:

"This enchanting village has been lovingly established by relocating local houses,windmills, storehouses and barns to form a remarkable replica of a typical Zaanse village of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Apart from the cluster of windmills, characteristic wooden houses and delightful shops to visit there are intriguing traditional Dutch crafts such as wooden shoes, pewter and cheese making, several fascinating museums..."

Yes it is probably one of the most tourist-y locations in the entire country. And we loved every minute of it. There is a museum you have to pay for, and three that you don't have to pay for. Ignoring the advice of the welcome man, we skipped the obsenely-priced museum and headed straight for what he called the more "commercial" museums. Well, he wasn't lying, but we got to see someone make a wooden clog. With a handy whittling-y/carving-y machine, a wooden shoe was created in 5 minutes flat, before our very eyes. One man in attendance was wearing his own wooden shoes. Victor talked to him -- in Dutch so we made him translate afterward. Apparently he wears them everyday because he works with horses. According to horse-and-wooden-shoe man, they are warmer and more comfortable than regular shoes. We took his word for it and made a beeline for the Cheesefarm Museum, rumored (clearly printed in the brochure) to have cheese samples. Museum it was not. When you enter Zaanse Schans' Cheesefarm building, you see a glass wall with cheese-making-looking apparatuses (I really wanted to use apparati just then, but I looked it up. It's not the correct plural form) and some wheels of Gouda. There was no explanation. No helpful museum guide. Just some cheese behing a glass wall. Oh well, in the cheese store, many times the size of the museum, there were plenty of samples. And sample we did.

Next we went to the Sawmill Windmill. We paid €3 to get in and watched the least informative documentary on the making of a windmill. ever. Then we explored! We read about the history of the logging history, learned how to tell trees apart (look at the bark and leaves of course), and climbed up the windmill. It wasn't that tall, but it was cool to climb around in it for a bit. A good bit of climbing around is healthy.

We wandered around the area a bit more, then headed back to Baarn where Victor made Indonesian chicken and rice something. It was tasty. We met some of his friends in the next town, which was very fun. We made friends with these two guys -- c'est à dire that they sat down at our table and kind of forced their friendship upon us. Elvynia and I became Stephanie and Claire, and I tried to force the life story out of one of the guys. The other one was wearing a Yankees hat.

Then we learned a very interesting Dutch fact.

In bars, all over the Netherlands, there are bells. If you ring the bell, you have to buy everyone in the bar a drink, a tradition taken very seriously. Yankees fan did, of which we reaped the benefits.

It began to snow. On the walk home, Elvnia, Victor, and I enjoyed sliding in Baarn's cobblestone streets.

On the 30th we rose earlier and went to Amsterdam! We had every intention of going to a free piano concert at the city's concert hall, but we had to wait in a very long line for a parking garage. I entertained everyone by reading out of my Amsterdam guide book. I say "entertained." They might use a different word. Anywho, we parked at the 1928 Olympic Stadium, so we kind of saw that.

Here's what we did in Amsterdam: wandered freezingly through a market and bought freshly made stroopwafels, took a boat tour through the canals, went to the Van Gogh museum, ate Burger King, went to Electric Lady Land, saw a coffee shop, went to a bar, had a delicious dinner, played Jenga.

Stroopwafels are two flat layers of waffle-y deliciousness with syrup in the middle. The boat tour was heated and covered, and we learned more interesting facts. For instance, all along the canal there are low metal bars installed by insurance companies to keep cars from just driving on into the canal. Very often these metal bars are not effective. Victor also contributed his share of facts. Among the many sites, we saw the bridge where he met Dave Grohl one time. Elvynia took some awesome pictures. Here's one of them:

The Van Gogh museum was totally packed. But I saw lots and lots of his paintings, including Branches of an Almond Tree, Wheatfield with Crows, and Vase with 12 Sunflowers. I was quite happy.

We then met V's friend Krijn (?). I don't know how to pronounce his name. K took us on a roundabout tour of the city with the goal of reaching Electric Lady Land. Electric Lady Land, not only a Jimi Hendrix album, but also the first museum of fluorescent art. Basically, we paid a crazy French hippie €5 to take us into a basement to interact with fluorescent art. We didn't understand a word she said, and at one point she turned off the lights to get us out of the interactive exhibit. This same woman also has spent a great deal of her life living under a black light and has a plastic skull that she found on the street the day she heard that Jerry Garcia had died. We also saw some rocks glow under UV lights and some freaky pictures of animals genetically altered to glow. It was toally worth it.

(this picture also courtesy of elvynia... well, actually the crazy french hippie took the pic, but it was e's awesome camera)

There's lots more to say, but I'll leave off here for now.

Trains, planes, and automobiles

2010-01-04T22:42:00.006+01:00

Happy New Year!

I am back in France after a whirlwind of a vacation that was both totally awesome and way too short.

I'd like to begin this story with another story... of long long ago:

On November 27, 1987, my parents went to see the movie, Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, starring Steve Martin and John Candy. The next day I was born. It was a beautiful day.

Anyway, having heard that story a number of times, I've developed a bit of an affinity for the phrase trains, planes, and automobiles, if not for the movie itself, most assuredly for the idea of taking every means of transportation possible from one place to the next.

So, thanks to the ridiculous cost of air travel to the United States, I booked a Christmas-New Years extravaganza, which included more trains than I care to mention, one plane, and one giant bus. I also managed to ride in a couple cars, a taxi, a roller coaster simulator thingy, and a tram or two.

So, without further ado, Trains! Planes! Automobiles!

Setting the scene: December 22, in desperate need of new music for my journey, I downloaded the album Up From Below by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. (I am typically against downloading from itunes, but... I was desperate.) The song "Home" was on a free playlist I had previously downloaded, and the album's awesome opening song "40 Day Dream" became the official anthem for my jouney. Click on either song to listen while you read! (I, by the way, am obsessed with random hyperlinks. If you haven't noticed, look through my previous posts.)

On December 23rd I took a 6:45am train to Paris, in order to make a 3:30pm flight. I arrived not-so-bright but very early, around 8:30. The sun was not yet out. I did what any reasonable person would do in Paris at 9 in the morning in the freezing cold. Walked around Paris. Saw the Louvre. Saw the bazillion other tourists at the Louvre. Left the Louvre. Sat in a café. Went in some shops. Went out of some shops. Nearly died of frostbite.

I probably should have spent the extra €20 on a later train. Oh well.

I made it to CDG with time to spare. Here it comes: Planes! It was cheaper for me to fly to Frankfurt than to take a train. The plane ride was run-of-the-mill as can be, and praise be to God, I made it to the train station 30 minutes before departure. The train was the ICE, the German equivalent of the TGV, and it was also packed. There were people sitting in every seat, people making other people get out of their seats, people sitting on luggage, people napping in the aisles, people standing in the doorways, luggage lying all over the place. It was a mess, and it made me nervous. But again, praise be to God, I got off at the right stop and caught the local train to Melsungen.

I'd like to mention here that I was extraordinarily lucky, throughout this trip. Virtually none of my trains were delayed, and as such I didn't miss I single connection. Oh yeah, did I mention that trains and planes were being cancelled out the wazoo the 21st and 22nd? They were. I am knocking on wood as I write this.

Anywho, at about 9:00 pm, I arrived at Melsungen where Franziska was waiting at the station. After over 15 hours travel time, I was never so glad to see anyone.

Now, I know Franzi is reading/will read this, so I'd like to address a couple German stereotypes: Germans drink beer all the time while wearing lederhosen and praying to David Hasselhoff. Keeeding. (We drank wine and champagne, mostly wore pajamas, and went to the regular church with the hymns and the baby Jesus.)

Here's what I will say about Germany (and this is 100% a compliment): If I didn't know the Roths, I would have thought they were trying to fatten me up to cook me for New Year's dinner.

Here's what I ate: potato soup, cheese, bread, vodka-soaked fruit, bread, cheese, fish platter, lobster, star-shaped ice cream, champagne, bread, cheese, a dutch farmer's pancake, champagne, roast apple, bread, cheese, deer, pork roast, polenta (franzi's fave hehe), knoedel, red cabbage-y stuff, wine, salad, petit-fours, raspberry desert, champagne, roast apples with star-shaped ice cream, bread, cheese, salami, salmon with broccoli and peppers, rice, lemon desert, black forest cake, wine, champagne, roast apples with star-shaped ice cream, bread.

I loved every minute of it. Franziska's mom loves to cook, and I think she was glad to have three daughters to (and someone can correct my german) bemuttern. In addition to me and Franzi, her older sister Juliana was staying for the holidays.

Here's what else happened: a lot of speaking German. Here's a habit I've developed: pretending to understand languages I do not speak. Usually I could pick up a word or two that indicated the general theme of the conversation, from there I'd invent the dialogue as I saw fit. This made for an entertaining, if not completely false interpretation of the world around me.

Then, someone would explain what they were actually saying. It was kind of fun. By the end of it, I amazed everyone by answering yes or no to questions posed in German. It's all about the key words, baby.

A run down of the events: the 23rd we met some of her friends and drank a very tasty vodka fruity thing. The 24th, we slept in, and I learned that my French migraine medecine also functions as the perfect hangover cure. (Paracetamol, Caffeine, and a pinch of Codeine, how could you go wrong?) We went to the Christmas Eve service, where Mr. Roth ended up being the minister because the minister was sick. For dinner we had a platter of assorted fishes, a tradition in their family, drank real French Champagne -- it was really good -- and opened presents. The Roths in their unending hospitality had a few for me, which was a really nice surprise. And the cinnamon pecans from my family were a hit.

Christmas day we took a CAR the 1.5 hour trip to visit their oldest sister and her family at a family vacation home place. We visited with the kids who ripped through their presents then had dinner at the Centerpark, which I can only describe as a mall with lots of different restaurants, no shops, a couple small arcade-y things, a jungle gym, and a pool. We also went on a virtual roller coaster with Franziska's nephew.

The 26th we ate and hung around. Then Franzi and I went out with her friends in Kassel. When we left, the ground had frozen, and I got to slide on the ice with my heels. On accident.

The 27th we ate and hung around. We also went into Melsungen and walked around. A picture will do it more justice than I can:

The thing about Christmas in Germany, or maybe just Christmas with the Roths, was that we didn't run around like chickens with our heads cut off. Really. We just sat and talked and ate and relaxed. I won't say it was better than being home, but it came damn near close. I would have loved to be with my family and Kevin for the holidays. But, with as much running around as I tend to do, spending the holiday doing nothing was wonderful. The Roths were so hospitable and welcoming to the weird American. Plus, I got to hang out with one of my favorite people for 5 days and do nothing, who could ask for more?

I'm tired, this post will have to have a part two: too many trains to Amsterdam. For now, I'll leave you with this:

'Zat You Santa Claus?

2009-12-18T16:03:00.006+01:00

'Zat You Santa Claus?

Today was the last day of school before the breaks, and it seemed like a lot of strange things happened. Or not strange, but funny. Funny tiny happenings.

Anyway, one kid gave me a drawing, which I think he was instructing me to pass on to the American Indians. It's a kind of, well... it's a drawing of a circular shape with a kind of patchwork design inside of it. No idea what it's supposed to be and at the top it says, "C'est un bouguiser." It might be bouquiser, but neither of these are words. I googled them. I'm very curious what it is, and why he wanted me to give it to the Indians. Too bad he got in trouble and didn't get to finish explaining.

It snowed yesterday and last night. It stuck, and school was not cancelled. I'm so used to people being like "AHHHH SNOW, I'm going to stock up apocalypse-style at Wal-mart" and everything being closed. I still had to go to school. There was no pomp; there was no circumstance. It made me miss home a little.

The cool thing about it was... Actually this requires a small preface: I have been keeping cheese and juice on my window sill outside, which reading it now sounds a little like something out of a David Sedaris book. (If you haven't read Me Talk Pretty One Day, I highly recommend it.) Anywho, I've been keeping it there because it's freaking cold outside, and the window sill is more convenient than going down the hallway and three flights of stairs to the kitchen.

The cool thing was there was snow on my cheese this morning. Actually, that's not cool it all. But it is kind of funny. I hope you've enjoyed this pointless story.

(does this look familiar?)

In my morning classes, I reflected on the fact that my French is still very limited. For example, we were cutting out shapes: triangles, squares, circles that became a Christmas Tree. By the way, the kids loved this. There were seemingly random shapes on the page, and I told them what colors to color them, in English of course. When they cut them out, they were more enthusiastic than I could have possibly imagined. Anywho, they also made a complete mess cutting up the paper, so I tried to get one kid to walk around with the recycling bin. I tried. That's the limiting part. I wanted to say, "Hey, kid whose name I can't remember, walk around with that recycling bin because your classmates are making a complete mess with the paper they've cut up." But many of those words do not come to me immediately, and I'm not entirely sure what the word for recycling bin is. So, I have to get by by pointing at the bin, calling it a trashcan, and pointing around the class. Luckily, kids think on this level, so he understood and obliged.

I went to my afternoon classes (I think I am the ONLY assistant who didn't have a SINGLE class cancelled this week.) In the first one I received the Indian drawing. There were also two little girls bleeding. One had a very painful looking something on her arm; it didn't look like a cut, more like a sore, but she was dabbing it with a tissue, and the tissue had blood on it. Another little girl had blood that was, in my opinion, gushing from her finger. The teacher just said, go rinse it off and wrap a tissue around it. Bleeding is one reason I could never teach elementary school.

My first afternoon class ended early due to some kind of program the school was going to have later, so I went to the teacher for my second class and asked if we would still have English. He said a lot of things I didn't understand. Finally, after a second and third interrogation, he said something like, "We haven't done a thing except for a little math this morning. The teachers had a holiday lunch with a lot of rosé. We drank a lot of rosé, so we haven't really done anything. I guess you don't do that in the U.S. In France, we drink a lot of wine..." and so on. This is when I realized he was still tipsy/drunk from lunch.

I said, "So, I can go?"

"If you want... something something something, hit by a car, ok?" he said. What?? Why was he telling me about getting hit by a car? I finally got him to explain slowly, "It's fine if you go, but don't get in an accident or anything because you're supposed to be in my class. If something does happen, they'll be like 'she was supposed to be in your class!!' You're my responsability." HA, that pretty much cracked me up.

"I won't die," I said. "Merry Christmas!" And away I was like the down on a thistle.

Also, I have recently discovered that many tired-out over-used adages are actually necessary, important, even. For example, "never run with scissors." In my CP class (kindergarten), we were doing the same Christmas Trees from random shapes project. The CPs do not have their own scissors, so I had to pass them out. Now, to adults, "do not run with scissors" is logical. It seems overcautious in its warning. But, do not be fooled. Six-year-olds will run with scissors in their hands, probably nine times out of ten. I'm not kidding. One kid came running toward me, scissors flailing, while I was leaning over to help another kid. As the scissors almost grazed my eyeball, I yelled "Attention, attention!" and grabbed his scissors. Attention means watch out in French. It was quite the revelatory experience.

In other news, I received a box of Christmas Cheer from ma mère. It's all I can do to keep from opening it all right now. Her suggestion was to put on Christmas music, drink some cocoa and open them... This Christmas will be my first without my family. It's kind of strange to think about. So, any family out there, I will miss you mucho during Christmas!

A food fight in the streets of Nântes

2009-12-15T12:50:00.006+01:00

The cold has set in. It's the cold that makes me come for lunch time, grab something edible off my shelf in my room, crawl in bed, and lay quiescent (yes! who'da thunk i could work that word into my blog!) until I have to re-apply the layers of clothing necessary to brave the 3 minute walk to the bus stop. Lucky for me, my parents send me peanut butter and easy mac with my birthday presents. As a general rule, I do not consume easy mac, and I prefer macaroni and cheese the homemade way, but with my fabulous electric tea kettle I can have a semi-edible meal in minutes without having to go to the kitchen and socialize.

I do not like cold. At all.

In other news, I procured a bike a couple weeks ago. The city of Angers loans them out for free. You just have to provide a million documents and a bicycle has to be available. My friend Katie happened to be there when two were returned, and in her infinite awesomeness she reserved me one as well. It's amazing how much quicker it is to bike than to take the bus. But the last couple days of freezing temperatures have forced me to choose the less-green way to work. I love you, earth. Just not enough to arrive at school with a frozen face.

This past weekend, I visited Nântes, the nearest large city. It is the 6th largest city in France. Nântes is on the Loire river, and it is 30 miles from the Atlantic coast. In 2004, Time magazine named it "the most livable city in all of Europe."

Last week, I was really regretting my agreement to go, but I had told my friend Sam that I would. Her friend, Rachel who lives in Nântes was having a party Saturday, and I did want to see the city.

So we went. The thing is, Sam lost her phone about a month ago, so she sent Rachel a facebook message before we left with our arrival time and my phone number. Unfortunately, Rachel's internet had stopped working. We arrived, unaware of the adventure that was in store for us. We waited at the station for about 45 minutes, then Sam decided she could probably remember the way. We walked. And we walked. And we walked. We circled what later turned out to be Rachel's street for about an hour. Then we walked to a different part of town, uphill. A drunk started to follow us, asking us to come out with him. We ignored him, but he then started talking in "english." This was the most persistent cat-calling drunk I have ever encountered in my entire life.

"You do not, uh, lika mee because aye, uh, 'ave zis bier in my handz?" he said, as we kicked into high-speed, power walk mode. (Later we joked, "yes, that is one of the many many reasons we do not, uh, lika you.") In one last, desperate attempt to win us over he gestured toward his chest, "Aye, uh, 'ave veree nice, uh, . . . pectorals." ("Oh, ok," I wanted to say, "none of that other stuff was working for you, but now that I know about your PECTORALS...") After about 10 minutes, he finally got tired of high speed-power walk-stalking, and he dropped off by a tram stop. We got the next tram back to the center of town and made our way to a pub that was probably near Rachel's apartment. As soon as we got drinks, she finally called and met us at the pub. She had had her own adventures trying to find my phone number. I did get a good look at part of Nântes, though. It was really pretty with its Christmas lights, and there were lots of people out and about.

We went back to her apartment where her friend, boy Sam, and his friend, Adria, were waiting to eat. And we ate some delicious potatoes au gratin. We went dancing somewhere called the banana hanger. There was much confusion as to what the banana hanger actually referred to, but dance we did. Then we crashed and slept-in mightily.

Around 1:00 pm on Saturday, Rachel shooed us out, so she could get ready for her party. We wandered through Nântes' Christmas markets and made our way to what I believe to be the most bizarre and appealing tourist attraction in Nântes: Les Machines d l'Ile de Nântes. <--Check out the website. It will explain better than I can.

In particular we went to see The Great Elephant. I'll have to go back to Nântes in the spring to really check out the other machines, but the elephant was cool. People can ride on it, but in the interest of saving money, we just watched it. The whole thing is in a former shipbuilding warehouse, which was pretty neat. We kind of hung around for a while and took pictures and danced and did yoga and climbed. My camera needs new batteries, so I'm going to have to search for the pictures that Adria took.

After the Island of Machines, we headed toward another interesting location in Nântes. In fact it's called Le Lieu Unique, The Unique Place. It's a gallery/bar/café/restaurant/bookstore/boutique, but it's also really cool. Another semi-industrial building, it has a nice ambience. We sat in the café for a while and just talked about important things like which we would rather have, if we had to decide: a beak or an elephant trunk. I missed Drew and his equally probing What-if questions.

The current exhibit at Le Lieu Unique is a bunch of small rooms with movies playing inside of them. They were, I will admit, artsy and weird, but it wouldn't have been fun if they weren't. We settled on a musical that covered the lives of a couple people in the porn industry. It was ridiculous; I'll tell you more if you ask.

We ended the day with the absolutely best restaurant experience I have ever had in France. It was a seafood restaurant, which specialized in mussels (do you say specialized about a restaurant menu?). I was starving. We ordered wine, then all of us ordered Moules Frites (mussels and fries, a very popular meal in coastal areas of France). Literally minutes after we ordered, the waitress brought our wine. Then another 30 seconds and our huge plate of shared fries arrived; they were definitely handmade in the restaurant. Then, I'm not kidding, another minute or two later, and each of us had a huge plate of mussels (mine with sauce Roquefort, a bleu cheese). I cannot remember a time I have been so hungry and had that hunger so instantly gratified. It was delicious.

By the time we got back to Rachel's, around 8:30, her party had already started and we had to get ourselves cleaned up and presentable. The party was fun, and there were French people with whom I could speak French. I know I've made progress when I can carry on a thirty minute to hour long conversation. I may sound like an idiot, but I am heard.

The night progressed; people wanted to go out, but because it was a large group it took too long. And bars and clubs in France usually close around 3am. We didn't go in anywhere, but we heard music coming from a second-story apartment and began an impromptu dance party in the street. The French people in the party liked this and offered to through beer to anyone who danced on this ledge-thing. Some people did. They obliged with the beer.

Then, I saw something green fly through the air. Then another. The French people were throwing brussels sprouts at us! And carrots! And leeks! I picked some up and threw them back. The food fight carried on for a while until a beer bottle was broken and one of our party was hit with an egg. It was time to go back to the apartment. Unfortunately for me, having vegetables thrown at them did not quell many of the invitees party-spirits. I crashed, crampedly, with some others in the back room until the over-enthusiastic party-goers left...

Around 6 am.

I'm not sure about Nântes being the most livable city in all of Europe, but it is certainly fun. It is somewhere I will most definitely visit again.

Back in Angers, it is the week before Christmas vacation, and the kids are making sure that I, and every other teacher, is aware. They are restless. This week we are making Christmas trees out of shapes. I dictated the colors in English, and they cut them out and glue them together as a Christmas tree. Fabiola found the worksheet, and it is really quite ingenious. It takes them a good 30-40 minutes to complete, and it involves markers, scissors, and glue, which keeps them properly occupied.

My patience has been wearing thin. I've run out of steam to come up with new activities and lesson plans, and I'm worried that we've spent too long on colors and numbers. I have managed to incorporate a number of other things: some animals, age, names, some simple questions and answers... I don't know, most of my kids are 7 and 8. I am just supposed to be introducing them to the language, right?

One more thing, I am on a reading frenzy. If anyone would like to suggest one of their favorite books, I am open to any and all suggestions. Angers has a fabulous English Language library with an impressive collection. Sooo, comment! I like books.

Some other things

2009-12-04T17:44:00.005+01:00

(drawings from some of my kids)

Today, I went to the train station, only I no longer call train stations train stations. I call them gares. Gare is the French word. I am not trying to be pretentious, it's seriously the first word that comes to my head. There are words that are slowly becoming "french only." Words like maybe and sometimes, pop into my head as peut-être and quelquefois.

Anyway, today at the train station, I walked up to the lady and said, "I would like a ticket for Paris." And she said, "Very good. You speak very good French, but it would be better to say 'I would like a ticket to go to Paris.'" Actually, it boosted my confidence, we finished the transaction in French, and because there was no one else in line, she told me about her daughter who is 17 and want to go to Los Angeles. I told her I was born in San Francisco, and she was surprised I was American. I'm not sure why.

Apparently, French people LOVE Los Angeles, I swear every person I talk to wants to go to LA. I don't have any theories on this, it's just an observation.

Today, we started to learn "Jingle Bells." As I've said, most of my classes are CE1, 7 and 8 year olds. On Friday afternoons at Marcel Pagnol, I have my one class of CE2s.

I like them better.

Lucky for me, they are not my children, so I do not have to love them all equally. The CE2s pick up on things faster, so we have more fun. The teacher is youngish, younger than the other ones I work with, so I don't feel like he's constantly judging my (lack of) teaching skills. He also jokes with me, rather than ignores my existence, as some teachers do.

Today, for instance, as we were "singing" (yelling) "jingle bells" (jingr boells), he and I laughed at their pronunciation. I made them listen to the song, then I would say a line and make them repeat it. Then, I would say a line word by word, with them repeating. However, no matter what I did, it sounded something like "Jingr Boells, Jingr Boells, Jinghh aww d'NOEL."

I figured they were saying Noel because the French lyrics to the same tune are completely different. BUT, I just looked it up, and there's nothing about Noel in the song. At all. HAHAHA

Because the song is, for them, only a series of songs, they kind of assert any thing they feel like fits.

And I digress.

What I was going to say about the CE2s: The class consists of the more-advanced 8 year olds, and 9 year olds, and I guess that is when children start becoming people. I probably sound like a horrible person, and it might have a lot to do with the fact that the smaller children don't deal as well with my accent. But, the CE2s pick up things quickly. So when we play a game, I don't spend 10 minutes explaining and re-explaining and making other children explain. They get it.

They still think fart jokes are funny, however.

Speaking of fart jokes, I was at Jules Verne this morning, and it was picture day. I ended up being in the picture with M. Lecompte's class. My second class is Mlle. Rondeau (Marie). She teaches two different classes, so she asked if I would mind if she left for a few minutes to be in the photo with the other class. I figured I could handle them for a few minutes.

As soon as she left the class, there was more shouting, making fun of, and armpit farting than I have heard since I started. Kids kept knocking over chairs, so I said that the next kid who did would leave the classroom -- a common punishment for kids who are being really bad. Another kid did. He left. Then, a girl said another kid was calling her a pig, so I told him to stop. He made a VERY rude gesture involving a pelvic thrust at the little girl. He was told to leave as well. A third kid was making farting noises with his hand in his armpit, while another one told on him, repeatedly, while yelling. The fart-noise kid also had taken his shirt halfway off.

When Marie returned, she was none pleased to find two students in the hall. After a couple of words from her, the kids snapped into shape, immediately.

I meant to mention, in my last post, the title, "... a Tired Teachair," is what one of my other kids calls me. He is from Senegal and picks up English very quickly. When they learned the word teacher, he decided that was what he would call me. It is rather endearing.

The Life of the Tired Teachair

2009-11-23T20:49:00.011+01:00

I can't believe it's been over two week since I last posted. Time flies when you're having fun (unless you're frog, then time's fun when you're have flies - Coach Dawson, junior physics… It wasn't funny when he said it either, which was often. The other thing he liked to say was “It’s 5:00 somewhere.” Remembering that now makes me wonder what exactly he was trying to encourage among the 16 and 17 year olds in his classes).
What’s happened since November 15^th:

I took a couple yoga classes, which were very relaxing and required me to think in French (or just watch other people inconspicuously).

Fabiola and I had an afternoon snack with two teachers that we work with that turned into a 6-hour visit complete with dinner. I work with Christophe, and Fabiola works with Karine; both of whom teach English in our schools. They also happened to live in New Orleans for a couple years until Katrina screwed them over. The invited us to have cake (individual chocolate cakes with a gooey center), and then let us use their phone because they have FREE calls to the United States. By the time Fabiola and I had phoned boyfriends and family, they asked if we want to stay for dinner. We had the best quiche I’ve ever eaten with salad then cheese and fruit after dinner. It was so nice to get to have dinner with people who were familiar with the “living abroad” experience. They also have a 15-month-old baby whose name I can’t quite decipher.

Then came the week of Thanksgiving!

I was looking for information in French about Thanksgiving. I realized, in researching on google.fr, that whatever I intended to tell the kids, it was primarily about food. How often, on Thanksgiving, do you really think about pilgrims and American Indians?

Moi, non plus (me neither).

Anyway, they didn’t care about it; the kids are 7. They talk while I'm talking and only pay attention when I give them something to color. So, in the tradition of American school children everywhere, we drew hand turkeys, i.e. they traced their hands and attempted to draw turkeys. It was glorious.

Also read this: Thanksgiving. One of the other assistants posted it, and it's funnier if you know some French, but still.

After Actual Thanksgiving, we celebrated my birthday!

My birthday was fun, as fun as it could be without my bestest of friends and family (I don’t mean I don’t like my friends here, I do). We went out to dinner to a Senegalese restaurant called Daara, which was très bien. We kind of crowded the place; it was pretty small. Then we had drinks at Sam’s, then we went to a pub. We met the band for the French singer Alain Souchon http://www.alainsouchon.net/ . They were a funny bunch of guys, and it made for a funny birthday. If you want the full story, send me an email. :D

On Saturday, the assistants had Thanksgiving! It turned out to be a pretty awesome event:

First of all, all of the assistants there were girls. American, Mexican, British, and New Zealand. And somehow, we’ve all managed to befriend French guys. So the entire night was a battle of the sexes and cultures! We did pretty well for making the meal with French ingredients. Sam bought a turkey breast and turkey legs. The Brits brought bread cheese and two chickens. I made cornbread dressing (in Christophe and Karine’s nicely loaned baking dishes); it turned out really good! Meredith and Fabiola brought broccoli and potatoes, respectively. We had lots of deserts. All in all, it was great, and we were properly stuffed afterward.

There were probably 14 of us crammed into Sam’s apartment, and after dinner we played “Celebrity.” This is a game that some of Kevin’s friends claim to have invented, but it’s a fabulous mélange of guess the celebrity without saying the name and charades.

We had a marvelous time.

Stories about my kids:

French children have a snack at both recesses. This must be universal because every child at each of my schools has some kind of sweet snack-y cake (as Carolyn would say) or, less often, an apple. Some kids have a mystery snack wrapped in aluminum foil. Anyway, a week ago as I was walking out of Mme. Goupille's class before morning recess, the kids were excitedly putting on their coats and screaming. One kid, Walid, who is absolutely adorable because he is smaller and baby-fattier than the other kids, waved his snack-y cake in my face. Well, not in my face, per se, as he is less than two feet tall, but he waved his snack-y cake at me. "C'est de chichi!" he said. (sounded like shee shee). I responded as I usually do when they tell me non-school related things: "Je comprends pas" (I do not understand.) And he said, "C'est quelque chose qui est un petit peu sucré et un petit peu selé." Which means, it's something that is a little bit sugary and a little bit salty.

Adorable. Yesterday, the same little kid told me he was going to teach his mother English. Well, he said "Je vais apprendre l'anglais à ma mére," which translates more accurately to "I'm going to learn my mother English." This is okay in French, however, as the verb apprendre can be used both to mean "to learn" and "to teach"

At another school, I have a class of CPs (basically, kindergarten), and everytime I arrive or leave they're like "bisous! bisous!" And I kind of give them little hugs because I just really don't want to get kissed from all of those kids.
Also, if anyone knows how to fix formatting in the input box in blogspot, let me know. I'm having a bit of a formatting crisis.

Old Men

Language

2009-11-15T22:32:00.007+01:00

I got lost yesterday. At night. I had a general idea of direction I wanted to go in, but I was not sure. Usually, I write down directions, and once I've gone a certain places, I rarely forget how to get there. But last night, I tried out a yoga class, which was in a residential area I hadn't been to before. It was a 15 minute walk, but I got lost on the way there. So I decided to take a different route back. I walked toward what I thought was Foch, one of the main streets in Angers. It was well-lit enough, but a little creepy as the buildings are tall and are right next to the curb. It was about 9:30 on a Wednesday, so there weren't many people out and about.

I looked down street after street, they could have been perspective drawings from an art class, all buildings in straight lines, with no one and nothing down them. It also reminded me of that Red Hot Chili Peppers music video that's all in black and white, and they sit on top of buildings and whatnot. It might be Californication. (Update: it's otherside from Californication.) I saw a church that I had never seen before. It had a banner in front that said "950 years, 1059-2009." How cool is that? Most churches at home are like, "We've been around 10 years? We need a bigger building. With lots of useless extra rooms. And a pool."

Anyway, I finally saw a Pizza Hut, which I knew was on Carnot. Pretty far from Foch, but I found it and knew where I was. I walked by a café where people were watching a soccer game, I'm not sure who was playing, but when I got to Foch someone had won because the fans had decided to drive crazily around the roundabout waving a flag (couldn't tell which) and honking their horns and screaming.

It was interesting to be lost at night in a place I thought I knew. I didn't feel unsafe, and I really wasn't. It was quiet and calm and kind of like a small adventure.

Some Commentary on Language: (with stories!)

Language is interesting to me. I have never really thought about it before, despite the fact I studied English and French. At the time, it seemed more like the study of literature, not a language. And, in many ways, it was. In all of my classes, I read. It was assumed (and I guess rightly so) that I possessed the vocabulary, the grammatical rules, the intellect to take the words on the page and make them mean something other than JUST the word.

For instance, "the dog is black" doesn't just signify a black dog, the image that comes to mind, it also references many other black dogs, the type of dogs that are black, the instances in which you or I have encountered a black dog. It can be broadened to encompass what we know about the history of many and dog, and in the context of the text it can carry many other meanings: it could be a symbol for something dark to come, or it could simply be the portrait of the American family with the trusty lab at its side.

(I have a point)

But all of this meaning, codification, is assumed, taken for granted. So, when learning a new language, there are vast gaps in your knowledge because you cannot possibly be aware of all the significations a word could possess.

All of that goes to say, I've learned some words, and I'm learning to speak, but I can't ever beFrench. That is obvious, but it's difficult to realize that as much as I learn there will always be something missing that will make the language totally click.

Maybe I'll change my mind about this in 8 months. (Can you believe I've been here almost 2 months?!)

So, when I say that language is interesting to me; I find facts like this fascinating:

The students at my schools all of these things called "les ardoises," which translates to slate.

Imagine the stories of one room school houses with the school marm at the front calling out sums, which the students furiously write on mini-chalkboards. Yes, children in France still have those. It's mostly to practice mathematics, and maybe spelling. Many of the boards are of the white board variety, with expo markers.

I had never heard the word before, so one of the teachers explained that Ardoise means slate, as in the slate used to make the roofs on French houses. I think she said that in the olden days (whenever that was) the students actually used slates from the roof for class. Anyway, they kept the name even though many students have white boards now.

They also love using them. Maybe it's because they get to wave them in the air to show me the answer.

Another language thing:

Would you refer to elementary school kids as students? I would.

In French, the word for students is "les étudiants." But you cannot refer to primary school children as les étudiants. You must use the word "les élèves," which translates to pupils. When I made this mistake, someone laughed and said "you can't call them students, they aren't studying anything." I had never even thought about the fact that student means "one who studies," nor had I considered the fact that elementary school children don't really study.

For the British assistants, this makes perfect sense as they use the word "pupils," but I'm almost 100% positive that I had elementary school teachers who referred to the class as "students."

There is a French verb for which the infinitive is "faire." When you learn French, it's one of the first irregular verbs that you learn. It is almost always translated as "to make or to do," like that: both English words with "or" between them. One can faire les vaisselles, do the dishes, orfaire un gateau, make a cake, but one can also faire un fête, make or do a party? While it's amusing when foreign people say things like "let's make a party," it wouldn't really be an accurate translation, would it? I think that's the problem with translation, and again with learning a language.

A final language thing:

In France, you're pretty much required to say "bonjour" to everyone you meet. Once you know someone well (I think) you are allowed to say "salut." Additionally, once you know someone really well, you can greet them with "coucou." But, at one school, there is a teacher who always says "Salut" to me, I guess because we're close-ish to the same age. There is another teacher who invited me to a party (another story for another day), and when he texted me he said "coucou." Some of the girls in the foyer say "coucou" to me, some say "Salut". I said "Salut" to someone in the foyer, out of habit, but I don't really know her. She responded "Bonjour" rather coldly. None of this makes sense to me, and I think "coucou" sounds dumb.

I'm going to go ahead and post this, I have more stories, esp of the kids (!), but I feel like I need to churn out some kind of writing, even if it's just this blog!

The dog is black:

Part Trois: Aix-en-Provence/Halloween en France

2009-11-12T16:12:00.007+01:00

Dear BNP Paribas,

I hate you. You are the worst bank ever. Why do you suck so much?

Thank you,

Allie

Yeah, I hate my bank. Or maybe it's just the banking system here; I couldn't tell you because this is the first French bank account I've ever had. Okay, there was the bit where they forced me to have insurance in case I "hurt a child or broke someone's glasses." Apparently, it is a required type of insurance, and because I was so confused my bank lady reimbursed me half of it.

Then, they wouldn't give me my card because my account was negative, why was it negative? you might ask...

Because they charged me for insurance, and I hadn't been paid yet. Then I was paid, and my card worked and all was right. And I decided I should probably book tickets for Christmas. So I did.

My tickets from Frankfurt to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Paris are €105 all together, pretty good. But for some reason, the bank has charged me twice, FOR BOTH OF THEM.

I know I did not buy multiple tickets because I was being very careful when clicking through because of our horrible internet. So, I was VERY careful, when purchasing, not to click anything twice.

I discovered the charges Wednesday, and of course it was a bank holiday. So, nothing was to be done. I went Thursday, and my bank boyfriend (he laughs every time he sees me because I'm always having problems.) asked me if I was sure I hadn't bought anything on Monday. Yes, I was pretty damn sure.

"Are you sure," he asked, "that you didn't buy gas or something?"

I very nicely explained that I do not have a CAR!

Anyway, he got this other lady who asked if it was a carte electron, which it is. Then she said, "C'est bloqué, pas de soucie, t'inquiète pas"

And the there was something else that might have been "you're not being charged." When I got home, I looked up bloqué: in terms of money it usually means "frozen." So she said, "It's frozen, no worries, don't worry" And she might have said, "you're not being charged." Either way, my account is in the negative, so I'm just going to keep checking it... I should have made an appointment with my bank lady.

I think I'm doing pretty well, considering I can't access my money. At home, I would be freaking out a million times more; I would be on the phone with everyone from my bank. Here, I'm just kind of annoyed and am making myself wait until the week's up to see what happens.

So, the story continues!

In the last episode, Allie, Meredith, Kelly, and Andrew were running through the streets of Marseilles with entirely too much baggage in tow. We arrived at the station, out of breath, and unsure of which platform to go to. Two minutes to departure, I ran up to some French train worker people who were hanging out on one of the platforms. "Bonjour" I yelled, out of breath.

They looked at me and chuckled, one conductor said, "Bonsoir (at this point I realized my horrible gaffe, one does not say bonjour at 19h00- 7pm)..." He smiled, "yeees?" I threw aside an attempt at parlaying en français, "Is this the train to Aix?"

He looked at the train, then back at me. "Yeees"

Andrew attempted to mock me for not bother with French, but it was more important to bid him adieu and throw (seriously) our baggage on the train.

We did both, and Meredith and I collapsed heavily on the first seats we found.

The train ride was 10 minutes, so we arrived at Aix and Katie, my friend who was already there, informed us we would have to catch the bus into town.

It was dark. We were hungry, and the bus stop appeared to be under a bridge, so we stood by what also appeared to be a major highway, waiting for what we hoped was the bus... for about 40 minutes.

It came, and then we got off at the bus stop where we waited another long long while for Katie and her friend Stevie, with whom we were staying, came to get us.

We really didn't do much in Aix. I think we were so worn out from everything else we had done. On Friday, we had grand aspirations. The plan was to rent bikes and cycle around Aix, so we did. But not until 2 pm. We went to the rental place and decided to plan on a two hour trip; Meredith told the guy, "We want something pretty and easy. Very easy."

"Oh yes," he said, "it's easy, definitely can do in 2 hours. Very pretty."

So we were off.

Now at home, as many of you may know, I enjoy riding my bike; I probably ride it once a week. I jog, I do yoga. I am not unfit.

I also live in flatlands.

The path (or should I say road, because we were on the road with the cars. French people are also bad drivers) took us out of the city, into a kind of forest-y winding road. Then the two-lane road turned into a one-lane road. With huge hills.

HUGE. Going up those hills was one of the most strenuous things I've ever done. In the distance, we could see Mount Saint-Victoire, which was a frequent subject of the painter Cézanne who is from Aix.

It was so hard. I just can't even explain. My quads ached.

We did make it home in two hours, and I'm really glad I did it. The country side was beautiful, and the biking was an experience. You do have to give French drivers credit; they're used to bikers being on the road and know how not to hit them.

Saturday in Aix was spent sleeping in and deciding what to dress up as for Halloween. Katie's friend Stevie had a halloween party (did I mention his awesome apartment. HUGE. 10 foot ceilings. giant bedrooms. they're also paying a ton for it.) I bought an Indian headdress at the one costume shop in Aix, so I was an Indian. French people don't really celebrate Halloween, so it was this huge party of Brits and Americans with a couple Spaniards, an Italian, and two French guys. It was pretty cool, and everyone had to be creative with their costumes because there weren't really many options. My favorite was Freddie Krueger with cardboard fingernails. We went to a club, which was funny because not many people there were in costumes. It was a nice Halloween.

On Sunday, I woke up early. For no reason, at all. So I made the most of it, and walked down the Cours Mirabeau, which is famous and has expensive stores. On Sunday, though, these stores are closed, but there was a Provençal market with leather goods, soap from Marseille, Provençal lavender, jewelry, macaroons, and more. It was cute.

Then, I went to a café and had a café (coffee) and did some writing. I felt like a cliché, but it was one of my favorite things I did on the whole vacation. It was relaxing to be on my own and meditate on my own thoughts for a while.

That afternoon we walked around the city, which was pretty much like every other Sunday in France, completely dead. We went to a pizzeria then rented Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which is a good movie! I recommend it.

And that was Aix. It's a small city, but well known, I guess, for it's pretty buildings. It is very pretty although October probably isn't the best time to go. The trees were loosing their leaves, and it was overcast.

Other than that, I have to admit: I'm more anxious to return to Marseilles and see what it has to offer. It seemed like a place where something was always happening. Aix was pretty, and I've seen it. I think Provence (the region in which Aix is located -- Marseille kind of is too, but it's considered part of the Côte d'Azur) might have more to offer in visiting the countryside. It looked beautiful on the train ride home. Katie and I tried to take pictures out of the train windows while we sped away on the TGV, but it was not successful.

It really was such an interesting vacation. I got to see parts of France I had never seen before, and the weather was beautiful almost the whole time. For the most part, my companions were nice, too.

At the end, though, I found myself ready to return to my bumpy mattress, rationed heating, and seatless toilets. Sometimes, staying in one place is nice too!

By the way, I've reorganized my room. And it is very nice. I switched my dresser and shelves with my bed, which made my room seem a lot bigger. Sometimes you just need to shake things up a little!

Part Deux: Marseilles

2009-11-08T22:46:00.004+01:00

To begin more random France things:

They turned the heat on in our foyer. Yay! But wait, it has to be difficult. The heat is only on from 5 pm to midnight and 5 am to 9 am. If you are home during the day, you must freeze.

I guess that, in truth, I am not paying the heating bill, so I cannot complain.

Also, I booked my holiday tickets! I'm not going home, but I am going to Germany and the Netherlands! I will be staying with my fabulous friend Franzi and her fabulous family who are so nice to have me over for the holidays... then I will be in Amsterdam with another assistant and we will be crashing with another good friend, Victor.

So, I'm excited to do something different for the holidays, although I will miss my family and Kevin and all of you so much.

One more thing, I was having a horrible time with my hair. (I mean other than my lifelong battle with it because it does not do what I want it to.) Anyway, it was like tangly and frizzy and just generally disagreeable. So, I bought some French shampoo because I was still using some from home. It has made all the difference! I can't even tell you!

Maybe French shampoo has a different make up because French water is different? No clue.

Okay, and now for stories of the Mediterranean!

We left Bordeaux on Wednesday at around 11:30 and took the longest train ride, EVER. It was 7 hours, but that's what you get when you buy the cheapest ticket. Instead of riding on France's fabulous TGV (le train à grand vitesse, i.e. the really fast train), we were on the "local" train, which stops more frequently and doesn't even touch the TGV's supersonic (ish) speeds.

Interesting fact(s): The TGV was originally going to be a gas tubine powered train, but after the gas crisis of 1973, gaspowering was deemed inefficient and expensive. So the French switched to electric powered trains. They are powered by Nuclear Power. The fastest recorded TGV reached 357 mph in test conditions, and I think, but am not sure, that the average speed of a TGV train is between 150 and 190 mph.

Anywho, NOT riding the TGV, I had a window seat, which I enjoyed!

Interesting fact about Allie: she loves the window seat! Seriously, I always request it when I book transport (hahaha, book transport). I just want to SEE!

And see, I did. The country side was beautiful; I caught a glimpse of the ocean.

When we arrived in Marseille that evening, Meredith and Kelly's friend Andrew met us at the train station. He was really nice and helped us carry our (too much) stuff back to his apartment. Andrew has a really nice apartment with a shower that has... a wall-mounted shower head! The little things you learn to appreciate.

We went out to dinner to a Tunisian restaurant per the recommendation of Andrew's friend who works at the hostel in Marseille. I had vegetables and couscous, which was delicious.

I also received my first month's pay that evening, which was wonderful! We had some wine back at Andrew's, and Meredith and I crashed on the couches.

Marseille is the second largest city in France, and as a port city, it attracts a large number of immigrants. So Marseille is kind of known as this hodge-podge crazy place of lots of people. My France guide book describes a kind of rivalry between Marseille and Aix (our next stop). The rivalry can be broken down into very simple terms. Dirty/Clean. Poor/Rich. My book also said that people tend to love one and hate the other and that Marseille is a little gritty.

I also think the person who wrote my book is a douche.

Marseilles is kind of dirty. And there are a lot of immigrants. And there are lots of kebap shops and Middle Eastern restaurants and people walking around and broken glass and on and on.

I have to say that I really loved Marseille. We spent the least amount of time there, but I think out of everywhere, that's where I'd want to go back. We only walked around a very small portion of it, and there was just so much to see. So many people! We went into one area to get lunch, and there were all these little grocery stores with all the fruit outside in these stands and one shop with pots and pans and purses and pizza stands (there's also many people of Italian origin in Marseille).

Then we walked down to the pier to wait for our boat. I just had fries to eat, but I had a bit of someone's kepab (fabulous!).

At the pier, there's all these people selling fresh caught fish. My dad would have loved it.

Then we hopped on this boat for two islands off the coast of Marseille: If and Frioul.

Chateau d'If is most famous as the setting for the Count of Monte Cristo. The castle is really even though the count is not. Many people were locked up there and eventually went crazy, died, or both. I kind of poked around the castle, but it was just worth it to be on the island. The weather was perfect; the water was clear; the sun shone...

Then we caught the boat to Frioul, which was bigger and didn't have a castle. It did have some hills and fortresses, so we hiked around for a good bit. And I stuck my feel in the Mediterranean!

Then, we went to catch the boat (it was like a big tour boat, not so big as the one you take on the Mississippi, but it probably could hold a good 150 people), and the French boat person wouldn't let us on. He just cut off the line, and the boat was not full at all. We waited for like 45 minutes for the next one, at the boarding area, so we would be first. We got on the boat, but the stupid man cut the line off again, and there was tons of room available!

We went back to the apartment and had spaghetti. Someone bought wine again, which I didn't think was such a good idea. Then, we had to catch our train. We ran.

I mean, we RAN. We got to the platform with probably a minute to spare, but we boarded the train for the 10 minute TGV to Aix!

To be continued!

Reflecting on the holidays: Part 1: Bordeaux

2009-11-04T22:08:00.007+01:00

Before I begin reflecting, two things:

1. A bazillion birds (or bats?) were flying around my building this afternoon. It was kind of ridiculous, but also very cool looking.

2. I taped some of the pictures my kids have drawn for me on my wall. On kid, Valentin, drew me a picture of the American flag (kind of). Funny thing is: that one keeps falling off... weird.

So, Toussaint is over! I was traveling for 7 days, which is much longer than you think it is. I'm going to talk about it in 3 parts because we visited 3 major cities, and there's so much to say!

We arrived in Bordeaux around 2:30 on Sunday afternoon with plans (and tickets) to a 3:00 ballet. The thing is, we had to change, then Fabiola's friend who lives in Bordeaux and was taking us to the ballet didn't know her way around the train station, so we arrived at the Grand Théâtre at 3:10. They would not let us in. Apparently, the French are serious about their ballet, and that means no interruptions after the curtain rises.

We walked around found some food, and we went into the ballet during intermission.

Interesting things about the ballet:

They were short(ish) pieces, and I think they were choreographed by different people.

The first piece was Afternoon of the Faun, which I played several years ago on the flute!

It's a really beautiful piece of music, but the choreography was kind of blah and had some bizarre sexual undertones.

The second piece was beautiful: Le Spectre de la Rose, I'm not sure if this translates to Ghost of the Rose or the Rose Ghost. It was a pas de deux, and absolutely beautiful! The male dancer was the rose ghost, and he did some amazing leaping and turning, all while wearing a pink full body unitard thing. He was also the most muscular male ballet dancer that I've ever seen, which is saying a lot. Most male dancers are incredibly muscular; he was more so.

The third piece was Russian and strange.

In addition, the theater itself is gorgeous, and I will post pictures. It was definitely worth the experience.

On Monday, we did an all day wine tour in the town of St. Emilion, which is 30 minutes from Bordeaux. We visited two vineyards, tasted (drank several glasses of) three wines, and had a "country lunch." (If any of my kids from peer power are reading this, I will remind you that alcohol is to be consumed legally and responsibly. We had a bus to drive us around.)

The country lunch included several kinds of ham, a duck paté, sausage, salad, bread, fruit, cheese, and a macaroon. We had two of the vineyard's wines at the table.

I don't know what you know about wines; I don't know much, but the wine we drank was red. In St. Emilion, the reds are usually some combination of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, with some Cabernet Sauvignon. French wines are almost always (maybe always) a combination of a couple grapes.

The wine was good.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the town, which was as quaint as it was supposed to be. I drank a nice cup of coffee in the main square.

On Tuesday, we did a walking tour, kind of. I bought a €1 map that listed the sights, and we kind of followed it. Everyone seemed bored, so we skipped ahead and saw the Cathédrale Saint-André, also beautiful. We packed a lot into two and a half days, so we turned in pretty early to pack on Tuesday.

Bordeaux is essentially a beautiful city. The architecture is all 18th century. It has a kind of decadence to it; it's reservedly baroque. That makes no sense, but you can look at my pictures.

Trains, trains, and trains

2009-10-24T11:15:00.002+02:00

Toussaint is a fabulous holiday in France that recognizes all the saints by giving all of the students a week and a half off from school.

Friday was a long day at work. The kids knew that they were about to have a break, so I planned ahead. We reviewed colors by coloring pumpkins! They do not really have Halloween, so we talked a little about that and then we colored! There's something fabulous about working with an age group where it's totally acceptable to have a lesson centered on coloring. I, however, still cannot pronounce the French word for pumpkin, une citrouille. (It's something like sit-royAH, kind of. The teachers all laughed when I pronounced it)

I almost brought candy, but I forgot, and in the end, it was for the best. They were already psycho-hyped for the holidays.

Anyway, I'm going to be doing some traveling, which is really exciting. There's a kind of restlessness that only a train ride can cure. A few other assistants and I are going to Bordeaux and Aix-en-Provence. We have a hostel/hotel in Bordeaux, and Fabiola's friend who lives there is going to take us around. Already on the itinerary: a ballet at the Grand Théâtre, and an all day wine tour! In Aix-en-Provence, our friend Katie has a friend who we are going to stay with. I'm not sure yet what we'll do there.

I'll update after I return; I'm not bringing my computer, which is kind of a huge deal for me. I'm totally dependant on it.

Bon vacances, tout le monde!

Oh! One more thing, just another funny snippet of France: On Wednesday, my beloved busdrivers striked. It didn't affect me because I wasn't working, and I wasn't in a rush, so I walked everywhere.

But this is how the strike works: everyone knew ahead of time; it was posted on all the buses.

It was only from 11:30 to 1:00, which is also lunchtime! After 1:00, the buses resumed their schedules as normal. Was it effective? No idea, I don't even know what they were demanding.

Was it French? In every possible way.

En France

2009-10-20T15:15:00.004+02:00

I just wanted to provide some snippets of life here. This isn't a set theme or anything, I just kind of wanted to write about some funny/frustrating/interesting tidbits.

This morning I woke up at 6:30 *cough* (7:09)... in order to catch the 8:11 bus to my school. The bus takes about 17 minutes, and I had to make some copies of the Halloween worksheet.

At 8:00 when I arrived at the bus stop, it was still dark out. The sun was just beginning to lighten the sky, but it was actually really nice. It made the morning a little more calm. The Jardin du Mail, which I've only taken a million pictures of, was right across the street, and the fountain was still lit. It was just kind of beautiful.

I listened to The Black Keys, Rubber Factory, which Carolyn bought for me as a going-away present. Just fyi, the album is fabulous. Listen to 10A.M. Automatic: here

I also want to talk about the bus driver's. It is amazing to me how friendly they are. Probably 8 out of 10 happily say, "Bonjour" when you board the train. Now, that might not seem strange to Americans, but for the French, I'd say it's one greeting short of asking you to dinner. Let me clarify: Everyone says, "Bonjour." All the time. It's pretty much rude not to. But usually it's a kind of "bnjr," quickly and without expression.

The bus drivers are just happy. I'm not kidding. They smile (this is unheard of) at you. If you ask them in very poor French if the bus passes by a certain stop, they will tell you. They even offer to tell you when you've arrived at the stop.

They seem to change drivers often on the buses, so you'll often see multiple bus drivers standing at a stop, chatting, smoking, waiting for their next bus. They exchange spots seamlessly and the bus almost always leaves on time.

I really love bus drivers.

The kids at my schools are something else. At Marcel Pagnol, all of my students learned some English last year. When I played the "Hello Song," they all joined in cheerfully. The teachers at this school are really really helpful. They basically help me teach the class even though neither really speaks English. M. Beauvais did say "no worries*" to me once. But they realize I am not a certified teacher, and I am there to introduce my language. They help the kids understand my instructions

At Jules Verne, the kids are, as the teachers say "plus agités." They are kind of bad. They talk a lot. They don't listen. Games become free-for-alls. One of the teachers is pretty helpful, she's young, and she knows I haven't really taught before. The other teacher does nothing. He sits in the back and grades papers and ignores me. Yesterday, he did bother to tell me that the thingy I printed off (it looked like a "Hello My name is" name badge, they had to glue them on the front of their notebooks) would be better if it had lines, because, effectively, in his mind, the kids CANNOT write without lines to guide them. But yesterday, I also received a bouquet of kind of smelly leaves from some of the girls in CE1.

At Jacques Prévert, the teachers help me out a ton, and one speaks English. He is nice because he checks on me from time to time, and today, after my bank worries (explained in a moment), he offered to go with me to the bank. That's true kindness. He lived in the US for a couple years, and he just said, "I dealt with this in a foreign country, it's hard."

Additionally, the kids at Jacques Prévert love me. I mean really. I haven't even done anything that exciting. I've received about 20 drawings, and everyone wants to hug me and say " 'Ehlo." It's just so funny. I'm swarmed if I arrive during recreation.

Here's something bizarre. Another assistant here works in Saumur, which is a tiny town, maybe 30 minutes away. She decided to live in Angers because, well, there's nothing in Saumur besides vineyards. Great for a day trip and wine tasting, not so good if you want to keep yourself busy. Anyway, she takes the local train into Saumur.

Twice last week, people committed suicide on the train tracks and her train was delayed and/or cancelled. It was totally bizarre. One of the teachers that she works with said, "oh, it happens a lot." A lot!? It seems like they'd try to take care of something like that.

Anyway, as luck would have it, there was a train strike yesterday and today. So I think she had to stay in Saumur last night. I can't imagine having to deal with that.

The bank: still no bank card. I went today, and the lady just said, "it's not ready yet." And I said, "It's been over 2 weeks." So she made me an appointment to talk to my bank person tomorrow, no explanation. Je ne comprends pas! I do not understand. Also, I checked my online account, and there's a mysterious €50 charge. Of course, I haven't been paid yet, so my account is a -€50.

(I just figured out how to make the euro sign! € shift+option+2).

So, with the bank stuff... I do not know. I'm going to make someone come with me tomorrow, and if that is not fruitful, Christophe, that teacher, offered to go with me Thursday.

*The French love to say "no worries" to me. Both in French and English. In French, it is "pas de soucis." This is the first phrase that I think I really learned here. They like to use the phrase in reference to due dates and the like. For instance, my rent is due today. I haven't actually been paid yet, so I told one of the women who works here. She was like, "no problem, pas de soucis." Just like that. I guess they assume that I will pay eventually, and I will. I don't want to come back to changed locks and my stuff in the courtyard. But the French seem to treat everything this way. It will work out, no need to worry right now.

McDonald's

2009-10-13T13:50:00.005+02:00

+ =

Well, I just did something that some people might consider horrible.

I ate lunch at McDonald's.

I was at the supermarket, Carrefour, which is similar to Wal-Mart, but nicer, and my friend wanted to stop at McD to eat. To be fair, I tried the Croque McDo, McDonald's take on the Croque Monsieur. A Croque Monsieur is a fabulous mixture of creamy cheese, ham, and good bread.

McDonald's Croque McDo was... well it wasn't the most horrible thing I've ever eaten. It wasn't great either. It was kind of like a white American cheese and Oscar Myer ham sandwich, melted.

At €1.60, I didn't feel too bad about paying for it... I also ordered a side of potatoes (not fries), but the lady thought I said water... By the time I got my order, it was too late. I guess it was better for me anyway.

But this brings me to a bigger dilemma. My schools are pretty far from everything useful.

There might be a library, but it also might be closed. And hours on French libraries are like:

Some afternoons (but never Sunday or Monday), Some mornings and afternoons, and sometimes just closed because we feel like it.

My work schedule has some very long breaks, but there's no sense in going back into town, a 20-25 minute bus trip each way.

There is, however, a McDonald's, which with a small purchase also has free wifi.

Hanging out in McD seems kind of horrible to me, but it would also be 1. warmer than being outside 2. safer than being outside 3. free internet.

I'm curious, what do you guys think? Should I hang there when I need to get away from my schools?

Or, is that silly?

Take the poll on the left of the screen!

Does anyone remember France and Spain 2004? One of our friends (cough justin) was determined to eat at a McDonald's in every new city. Oh, high school.

Parade of Humankind

2009-10-10T13:12:00.000+02:00

Here I am in France. And I am keeping myself busy. I've been on the go almost constantly since I arrived because 1. I have to distract myself from the fact that all the people I love the most are pretty much a million miles away, and 2. It's probably the only way I'll get a good night's sleep.

Today I went to the Saturday Market. I wish I had brought my camera. It's kind of a beautiful thing, and it was really nice out today.

From my direction, the market starts out as this huge parking lot, which has been taken entirely over by people selling fruits and vegetables. I bought much more fruit than I probably should have, but I think I was practical enough. An apple a day. A clementine a day. Some broccoli. Some grapes. A red bell pepper. This should get me through at least the week.

Today, I went further along. The market extends from the parking lot alongside the main stretch of road, Boulevard Foch. After the fruits and veggies comes cheese and other dairy products, then various meats... including horse! This is something people say is very good. I don't think I could eat it. Maybe, not sure. There's pork and a million kind of sausages, beef, chicken, duck. You name it. You keep going, and there's fish, crab, mussels, shrimp, squid...

Everything.

And, like I said, it's beautiful. People are all over the place, stopping and buying food, talking to friends. Waiting for some one to weigh out their squid. Children, babies in strollers, dogs!

Zeus, tu me manques! (jake too) And everyone is there to get fresh food, and I'm sure they'll cook something fabulous with it. (I am trying to figure out how to get a French person to invite me to dinner. I want home cooked French food.)

All in all, it's just this fabulous parade of humankind.

The people in Angers are so friendly too. If they realize you don't understand, they try to explain. Some people speak English, and, for now, I let them. The girls at my foyer are included in that. The speak to me in French even though many of them speak English. They know I'm here to learn, and it makes it a really good learning place.

The fluency has not arrived! But, I find myself thinking through conversations in French. Simple phrases are becoming easier.

Although, I did have an incident at the post office. French people love love love paper work. This is something I had heard, but not taken too seriously.

Let me repeat. They love paperwork. They love to have a copy of everything. They love to have papers to sign, to send you papers to be signed, to have you come back in to sign more papers. It's just different. I have opened a bank account... I think. I'm waiting for them to let me have my debit card. I say "let me have" because they will NOT send you this in the mail. No, first the have to send you some papers. Then, they send you a paper with the postman that he must see you sign. If you are not there, then you must go to the post office and sign it.

I did this.

I went back to the bank.

My account was not ready.

Let's just say the guy at the desk at the bank laughs when he sees me, albeit a friendly laugh.

Still no bank card.

I will let you know.

I don't mean to complain, because really it's all very funny. But, our coordinator at the US embassy said it best, "Many of you will essentially be entering the “real world” this year, and this world will be French. You will be faced with new experiences and challenges that you may not have had to deal with yet on your own and you will have to do this all in French!"

For now, there's just many hurddles to jump. In a month, it will be nothing. I hope.

I'm going to end with the best thing that happened recently. I went to one of my schools to observe. I've met all of my teachers, and I had one last class to watch.

In France, there is not k-5, rather it is CP, CE1, CE2, CM1, and CM2. They are approximately 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10-year-olds, respectively.

So this last class was CPs. They are babies. And they are sooooo excited to learn English, or maybe they're just excited that somebody young that talked funny was in the room.

One girl drew me a picture, then a second picture. Before I knew it, I had about 7 pictures from various children.

One little girl, who I met the first time I went to the school, is smitten. She is already hanging onto me and asking me questions about everything.

When it was time to leave, she was like "Bisous!" Then she kissed me on the cheek.

Then 25 small children surrounded me to kiss me on the cheek.

France is something else.

Sacrifice the Chickens!

2009-10-05T00:22:00.000+02:00

Things I learned last week.

Lack of sleep catches up with you.

You cannot buy sheets at all hours like you can in Amerrika

How to say fart (péter)

I got sick last week, probably because I was averaging 3 hours of sleep a night. I almost changed foyers, but decided the other one was too expensive. I'm starting to settle here. I got a better room. It's on a corner and has two windows. But, I got this cold and my nose was running terribly and I had to go to this orientation business. It was miserable. I couldn't concentrate, and of course, this man was speaking in French for a long time. I listened for a while, and the next thing he said was, "And we'll start with you..." He was looking right at me.

My friends laughed, and I stuttered. Someone whispered, "introduce yourself."

Fabulous

After I moved to my new room, I finally bought sheets. You'd think, "oh, bedding, I can get that anytime." Well, unless it's before 7:00 pm and not Sunday, you cannot buy sheets. And when you're on the go, after 7:00 and Sunday is about the only true free time there is. The French like their time off. I believe 24-hour Wal-marts and Krogers would disgust them. On Saturday I went to Carrefour, which is a bit like Wal-mart and bought sheets and a nice blanket that is super warm. Saturday night I slept a good 9 hours. The best since I've been here.

On Friday Oct 2, I observed two of my schools. French primary school (age 5ish to 11ish) goes something like this:

1.5 hours of class

15 minute recess

1.5 hours of class

1.5 hours lunch/recess (where students can go home if they so choose)

1.5 hours class

15 minute recess

1.5 hours of class

They only go Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

The breaks seem excessive to an American who spent 7 hours a day, 5 days a week in elementary school. I'm not sure if it is superior, persay. But it does provide a different way of approaching learning. Kids need frequent breaks to wear themselves out.

My schools are a little ways out of town, about a 30 minute bus ride. Another interesting thing about France is the socio-economic distribution of population. While in the US many of the city centers contain the lowest on the Economic scale, in France, the banlieues, or suburbs, are usually concentrated areas of lower income individuals.

The kids seem, for the most part, great. Many of them were so excited I would be the English teacher. As far as, I can tell there a lot of immigrants. Turkish immigrants probably count among the highest in France. Maybe this will help, the fact that many of the students speak another language at home.

At one of my schools, two girls spent their entire recess asking me what certain words were in English. Necklace, wall, square, star... I made them tell me the French word first to check my own vocab. Anyway, the crowning moment was when one little girl said a word I didn't understand... "Un moment, un moment," she said, sliding her hand into her shirt and under her armpit. She tried several times to make the noise. "Un moment, un moment" I didn't tell them, though. It might be too inappropriate, but I did learn the word "péter"

Have you ever seen the show Prison Break? It's terrible. Do not watch it, expecially in French. I'm pretty sure the plot is terrible. The only thing I understood was something about "sacrifier les poulets" as in, "You have been sacrificing the chickens." Otherwise, I saw people shoot people, a woman jump out of a truck, and other various, bizarre occurences.

Fabiola and I cracked up. There were no chickens in the show, and, as far as I could tell, it was more about government secrets than sacrificing anything.

Finally, does anyone want to donate some money to fly me home for Christmas?!?

The lowest price I've found is $813, and prices are rising as I type. I really would like to spend Christmas with my family, Kevin, and my friends. I don't know what I'll do otherwise.

Any suggestions?

There's more. There's always more. But, I will save it for next time.

Eeek!

2009-09-30T23:37:00.000+02:00

There is just something great about a country that takes two hour lunch breaks everywhere, everyday. Everyone sits around at a cafe or stands around with a baguette sandwich, and they talk. It's just what you do.

There is also something great about a country in which a pregnant woman, who despite being pregnant looks like a supermodel, would wear a full unitard with a cardigan, just out and about.

France is very laissez faire. Not economically, mind you, there seems to be plent of regulations, but socially it is a free for all. Kind of.

That doesn't really do it justice either. It's just all about sitting around and talking for a 3 hour dinner that begins around 8, and having time to go home and cook yourself a lunch, or buying a sandwich and really taking the time to enjoy it in the park.

I was walking home this evening, and I just really liked France. I don't know if I like my job or if I have any really new best friends for life, but I really like the idea of taking time. It is important here to be relaxed. For instance, I still haven't paid for the place I'm staying. No one seems to care; I'm worried I'll come back to find my stuff in the street. But I don't think it'll happen. They seem to trust I'll get around to it, and I will.

Angers is really beautiful, and we've had what the British girls call "holiday weather" since I've arrived. Even though I'm stressed and tired and a little homesick for familiar things; I have occasional bouts of loving being here. This must be a good thing.

Today, I talked to the other foyer; they have a room open. I have until Friday to decide. Let's just say: private bathroom and nice beds. Plus, they have meals included.

So after an afternoon of walking and my visit with the other foyer, I had dinner with some other girls at a restaurant. I had a small glass of wine, and we had a nice chat. Mostly about being away from boyfriend and crying. It was good.

Afterward was my walk home where I decided how much I love France. It's cool, but not too cool. Various people sat at outdoor cafes, drink or coffee in hand. When two guys sitting at an outdoor café were approached for a cigarette, they didn't hesitate, and everyone involved wished each other a bon soirée.

I reached my foyer and began getting things together for the trek to the shower when I saw this:

Papers will be signed tomorrow.

Good night, all!

I never thought I'd be so glad to see a toilet seat...

2009-09-27T20:42:00.000+02:00

http://angerspictures.shutterfly.com/

So, here I am in France. I know my last post was fairly positive, but let me tell you the true story.

And, in true literary form, though maybe not as subtle, I'll give you some foreshadowing: it gets better.

Jet lag sucks. I've never had it this bad, but here's a sample of my sleeping schedule.

I arrived Thursday.

Thursday: went to sleep at 10:00, woke up at 4:00 am Friday.

Friday: didn't fall asleep.

Saturday. Slept from 7:00am to 8:00 am, the went running, walked around all day, went out with some people and had wine. Didn't fall asleep.

Sunday: Fell asleep around 6:45am and woke up at 10:30 am.

So, you can imagine how I feel.

This next bit I have emailed to someone who is following the blog. So, sorry for that.

On top of the lack of sleep, I basically have the room/living situation from Hades.

I am staying at a foyer, which is similar to a dormitory, though not associated with a particular university. I won't type the french name because I think anyone can look at this, but it's called the Foyer of Good Advice.

The foyer looks beautiful from the outside. It's an older building with Ivy on the walls, there's a gated entrance. (I'll post pictures later). The flowerbed is manicured, and there are flower post on the doorstoop. The entrance way and inner doors have stained glass windows.

Inside it become a bit darker and the lovely dark, old wood takes on a creepier feel. It's a very old house with a huge appendage. Inside this newer, attached building it looks like a hospital.

But, I live in the old building.

My room is hidden in a corner on the 2nd highest floor, you wouldn't know my room was there until after peeking around a staircase. Ah, yes there it is; one might also lock a princess here in a fairy tale. Although it is purely an aesthetic complaint, the wallpaper is faded and stained and reminiscent of a house in a horror film. Every ceiling is cracked and stained.

I have a very nice tall window with a nice view of the trees. But, the bed.

The bed might have been a hospital bed... in the 20s. It has a metal frame and a kind of metal webbing that holds the mattress. It is smaller than the twin bed I slept in as a child, and it sinks distinctly in the middle. Maybe, this is the good advice? Something about roughing it out?

I have a closet with a sink in it.

You'd think there'd be a bathroom somewhere nearby, but that is not the case. Down one flight of stairs and into the "hospital wing" and down the hall, you'll find the closest bathroom.

Now here's the strange thing. The foyer is all-female. There are no men here except for the director, and I think he has a private bathroom.

Not a single toilet in the entire place has a toilet seat. It's just a bowl. And it's not like they were simply made with out seats, you can see on the toilet bowl exactly where a seat is supposed to connect. What became of these toilet seats? Were they stolen one by one years ago? Did they take them off because there was something unsafe about them? Presumbly, sitting on a seat would be safer. Is this good advice? Maybe they're telling me, be a man, pee standing up, life will be easier. Which reminds me, I saw a story on this on the news when I was staying in Lake Charles, and Kevin was in class. Go Girl!

Additionally, the shower heads are not mounted on the wall, so you have to hold it the entire time or put it down and freeze while you shampoo your hair.

I'm not going to mention how little I've showered since I've been here, which leads to an interesting point.

French people are not as obsessed about covering body odor as Americans. This is a fact.

Maybe, they all have horrible bathrooms like mine, and they can't be bothered to deal with them.

I'm not trying to sound like a pity party. I just think this is a very important part of the new place I'm in.

On top of the room, the first two nights were miserable because the other assistants weren't here, or I had no way to contact them.

Saturday, however, I went from being a lonely, crying, miserable princess in the attack who could barely speak to her mom without sobbing to an assistant de langue with 3 new British friends and 2 new Americans friends.

I finally got a French phone, so if anyone wants to call long distance, I'll send it to you!

I get free incoming calls.

So I hooked up with these girls, we shopped Saturday afternoon and went out last night. It was fun and a relief after my 48 hours of sleepless in solitude. We went to a bar the American girls went to last year... They were both here last year. I must mention that this bar is also toilet-seat-less. The evening was topped off by this ridiculously dancing French man. I can't even explain it. One girl got a video. If she posts it, I'll totally put up the link.

One of them, stays in another foyer. It is a clean, newish building with painted walls, no faded florals there. Her furniture is matching, and it has a meal hall included. She has a private bathroom with a toilet and shower. I peed there today.

I've never been so glad to sit on a toilet seat.

Tomorrow, I'm going to see if they have a room open.

Arrival

2009-09-25T18:04:00.000+02:00

Bonjour tout le monde, et bienvenue au monde francophone!

Ici on parle le français trop vite et sans respiration.

Do you understand? No? Well, that is how I feel. :D

Everyone speaks very fast, and when they realize you speak English they revert to incomprehensibe English. Not that I'm complaing; I just haven't ever been in a situation where everything was in French.

Some people speak English to me, but not many...

Le voyage

(Interesting fact the word, "la journée" does not mean the journey, but "the day" in English. "Le voyage" is the best translation. Maybe that's not very interesting.)

I arrived at the Memphis airport at about 12:15 in the afternoon. I arrived in Angers at 6:41 the next day, making my trip just 35 minutes short of 24 hours.

The most awesome thing that happened during the whole trip was sitting next to these two Bohemian looking women. I thought they were mother and daughter, and when the younger woman went to grab some food, another woman asked her mother if it was India Arie. I ended up talking to her mother for a while. They were in Memphis because India was the entertainment for the Dalai Lama when he received a civil rights award on Wednesday. The Dalai Lama also spoke at the Cannon Center that evening. Her mom showed me the pictures of India Arie and the Dalai Lama. She was really friendly and pretty much awesome.

I flew into Minneapolis, which was uneventful

The least awesome thing was my 6 hour flight to Reykjavik. My seat was in front of the emergency exit and did not recline. I slept, but I also got a migraine.

Also, there was no free food on that flight.

In Paris, I ran into some other assistants at the baggage claim, none of them were headed to Angers or Nantes, but it was nice to meet them. It's nice to know other people are also terrified.

Then, the next worst part -- and this is totally my fault -- ... my bags. They were so heavy. I'm talking 85 lbs. together. I lugged them from Charles de Gaulle to the Train Station, to Le Mans, where I changed trains, to Angers. C'était terrible!

My arms still ache.

In Angers, a very nice man, M. Daniel, met me and took me to the foyer where I am staying. He did not speak very much English, but I probably had my best French conversation to date with him -- probably because I had to...

The people here are nice. M. Daniel was unbelievably friendly, gave me his telephone number; he will be the person who coordinates my schedule among the (apparently, they don't bother to tell you all of the schools where you will work) 3 schools where I will work. Mme. Morange took me around today and visited a couple banks with me. And the people who work here for the most part are very friendly. But, the French girls who stay at this foyer are not particularly warm and fuzzy.

It's one of those things that (international) people always tell you, Americans smile too much. I wouldn't say I am über friendly to everyone I see, but French have a different way about them.

I haven't put my finger on it yet, but I will explain it when I do.

I'm tired. I think this all I will say for now. I will try to make future posts more interesting.

Bonne chance tout le monde!

Departure

2009-09-23T15:58:00.001+02:00

I leave at 2:16 today. Here is a bit of hope from the fabulous people at Rough Guides travel books: "Angers and Around: ANGERS, capital of the ancient county of Anjou, is an oddly depressing place. Although undoubtedly majestic, dominated by its monolithic château, the town seems a less welcoming and friendly destination than many others around it. The main reason for coming here is to see its two stunning tapestry series, the fourteenth-century Apocalypse and the twentieth-century Le Chant du Monde." (488)

As exciting as that makes Angers seem, I'm not really worried. I'm sure for a site-happy tourist Angers may fail to deliver, but I'm not there to see the sites. Other people have said it's a fun little city, and as long as there are nice people, I will be fine. Plus, what could be bad about apocalyptic tapestries.

I wish everyone the best of luck in the coming year; of course, with the internet it's hard not to stay in touch, so I'm sure I'll be in nearly constant touch with anyone and everyone. But for now, aurevoir!

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime... And other stuff (Un mélange*)

2009-09-09T23:12:00.000+02:00

Okay, departure is two weeks from today. Most things are in order. (Kind of) I have plane ticket, passport, visa, a place to stay, and a person to meet me at the train station in Angers. But I don't have a train ticket from Paris to Angers. Hopefully, this will resolve itself.

Packing is number one on my to-do list. So is emailing Mme. Morange, the girl at the foyer, etc etc.

The other thing is:

I'm also applying for grad school. I have to meet with professors before I leave to ensure good recommendation letters. I might have a panic attack about this stuff.

The list of schools I am applying to changes on a daily basis.

Enough of the boring stuff!

I watched the movie Il y a longtemps que je t'aime. (I've loved you so long)

Watch this movie. In short, Kristen Scott- Thomas plays a French woman who has been released from jail, after 15 years. She stays with her sister (Elsa Zylberstein) as she adjusts to living in the real world. Both women perform beautifully, and the film won some nine awards.

Stick with the movie until the end; it's just great.

When I was younger, my dad had a job in which he travelled frequently. He would often go to India and Algeria. There are many things I could say about these trips, and they will probably pop up again in my monologues. But, for now, I remember him telling me that his Indian friends learned to speak English by watching American/British (I guess it was probably more British than American) television.

Obviously, language classes, reading, and writing contribute markedly to one's education, but the importance of hearing someone speak, conversationally, is crucial to gaining fluency.

Watching the movie reminded me how far I am achieving any semblance of fluency. Sure, I can understand a lot of French. And sure, I can conjugate a verb or two. But the overwhelming prospect of conducting every social transaction in French is weighing down on me. It will be sudden and irrevocable submersion.

These are the things on my mind.

*mélange = mixture

Preparations

2009-07-26T18:20:00.000+02:00

I'm leaving in 2 months, minus 3 days.

So, between then and now I have to:

1. Get my visa. Erica and I are going to Atlanta on August 17.

2. Contact my contact person. I am putting this off because I have to contact her in French. Yes, I majored in French. Yes, I have studied the language for more years than I would like to admit. But, for some reason, the prospect of emailing someone that I do not know is terrifying. When you speak to someone, to their face, you can express a lot more through facial expression, gestures, or you can just smile when you don't know what's going on. But in an email, the person might misunderstand my question and reply in a way that doesn't make sense, and then it's back and forth, back and forth.

3. Figure out what I'm packing, in particular, HOW I'm packing. I don't want to run around Charles de Gaulle with four huge, heavy bags, attempt to catch a train, then, be unable to actually board the train due to aforementioned bags. I also do not want to freeze in December because I didn't pack my boots and winter coat.

4. Attempt to find housing, not an easy task as the French are not as "online" as Americans. The chances of finding a legit apartment or foyer is pretty slim.

A foyer - pronounced like the entryway to houses (foy-yay) - is something like a dormitory for anyone over 18, but it is not necessarily attached to a university. There are typically single rooms, and there can be private or community baths and a community kitchen. This can be a good idea for someone with no furniture, like me.

Here is something else really interesting about living in France: As a teaching assistant making a bit less than €1000/month, I will be applicable for government housing aid. The amount seems to be around €160/month, which could be a huge help. Although I don't get anything until I have an address.

5. Mentally prepare. This is a combination of "Ahhhhhhhh! I'm leaving the country for 9+ months" and "Yeeeeeeaaaaaaa! I'm leaving the country for 9+ months!"

Now, onto contacting this person, in the best French possible.

Plane Ticket!

2009-07-19T18:19:00.000+02:00

Welcome to this blog:

The next year of my life will be spent in France with, I'm sure, as many Euro-Afro-Middle Eastern-Asian excursions as I can afford. Read on if you're interested.

I plan for this to comprise a sort of journal of my experiences, any interesting, funny, or strange things that I encounter, and a bit of commentary on the bigger picture. (Although which bigger picture is not something I've quite put my finger on yet.)

Another goal is to keep the number of "I"s to a minimum, as it can grow tiring. Buuut, this may prove difficult, so bear with me!

Bill Sehnert, my boss at Peer Power, recommended that I start a blog to document the year, and, more importantly, to provide my kids insight into life abroad. Hopefully, some of the Lester kids will have a chance to read it.

Anywho, allons enfants & mes amis!

So, I received my "arrête de nomination" on July 9 and had only 6 days (including the weekend) to get my contract mailed back to Nântes. As you can see, France is already trying to make my experience as exciting as possible.

I will be teaching (or assisting, not really sure yet) at the primary school in Angers, France. The name of the school is école élémentaire publique JULES VERNE, which makes me inordinately excited. I am, however, terrified at the prospect of teaching small, screaming French children who may not understand a word I say. Or they could love me. Either one.

The big news: I bought a plane ticket! Having a plane ticket makes the whole prospect much more concrete. Also, it makes it scary. I will leave September 23 and fly from Memphis to Minneapolis on Northwest. Then I will fly IcelandAir to Reykjavik, Iceland and, finally, arrive in Paris on the 24th. It will be a very long day.

Up next, trying to acquire a Visa... which will be either $135 or free. Both prices are listed on the website. Yay, clarity! The best part about this will be the road trip with my mom.

*Finally, I need to credit Kev and Dev (or maybe just Dev) with naming this blog. They said, "Al Abroad is kind of like All Abroad." Actually, that is not a direct quote.