ok, im cheating on this first entry and just posting the mass email i sent the first week...dommage, mais c'est bien plus facile pour moi!
sept to avril, j'suis:
10 F Rue Jean Vilar
26000 Valence France
011.33.6.42.74.16.58
Sept 22 was the day that was never supposed to come. i mean, i want to live in france for a nice chunk of time, but i dont really do cool things like that, right? and besides, i hardly know dc, ow can i leave now? and what about grad school apps? and the f-ing coffeeshop, that i love and hate so much it gives me a headache (or maybe thats the caffeine withdrawl kicking in...) but there it was, out of nowhere, time presses on, bla bla bla...and until next summers were said and i was way more drippy than i thought possible and then...the airport. here we go
i made it over in one piece, but my edges were frayed, im not going to lie. Seriously, this was one of the longest travel days ever - and there weren't even any real delays! the trip started with a good omen - i had basically been hyperventilating all saturday morning about my luggage and how it was over the 50 lb limit for free check-in baggage, (but truly i have no sense of weight) so i figured that of course if they were over 50 lbs then they were over 70 lbs, which is the absolute max weight for suitcases, and then i'd die...seriously, i never knew i was capable of freaking so much over such little things until this trip. BUT i got to the SAS check-in at Dulles, the entire family in tow (love and thanks for playing nice all day!) and the guy soo didnt charge me anything! awesome, because my dad and i had tracked down a ghetto-ass scale at cvs before heading to the airport, and while we determined that the suitcases were under 70 lbs, the were waay over 50, and at 10euro/kilo over, that was going to be annoying. as soon as my bags were out of my hands i started to breathe easier...but i had a nasty, fidgety drunk old guy sitting next to me on the flight from DC to Copenhagen; he read newspapers (well, more accurately he skimmed the headlines of at least 6 different papers) for the majority of the time, drinking heartily and elbowing me every 5 seconds. so that was awesome...
the transfer to geneva went without a hitch. my hour layover in Copenhagen was uneventful, but just so you all know, the first thing you see when you walk into the main terminal for transfers is a 7-11. Hilarious. The real fun started in Geneva (yet another airport that doesnt stamp passports. seriously kids), though, as I was officially on my own with my 2 monstrosities of suitcases. i had to hop a local train to the city center and then transfer at that station onto the TGV heading to Valence. At this point, i wanted to call the family im living with, since they'd offered to pick me up at the station...but the number i was calling wouldnt ring through, which was disconcerting. the train to Valence was supposed to take less than 3 hours...but. well, i actually got a little taste of DC on this train ride bc we randomly stopped on the tracks at least three times, a la Red Line: apparently the train was too cold? i dont know what happens, but eventually we made it to Valence, an awesome guy helped me with my bags, and i turned my attention back to not being able to call this family. Called Sara, and she found their # for me in my email, ,bc of course i had the wrong # in my address book. classic.
Karine (my roommate), Aurelie (older sister) and Sasha (cousine) came to get me, we crammed all my stuff into their tiny euro-car and drove me to the house. i met the parents, isabelle and bruno, who normally work in Paris and come back on holidays. they seem friendly (i just had dinner w them - crepes - yumm AND despite being unable to think coherently - or write, for that matter - they're all impressed w my french?! accent/comprehension/vocab...woohoo) Isabelle offered to drive me around the town in the morning (monday) before i head to Grenoble, just to get a sense of direction...according to Bruno at least 2 of my schools are characterized by their "difficult" kids (College M.Pagnol, esp - Bruno compared it to the Bronx. we'll see). as if 14-15 yr olds weren't hard enough...but whatever, it's only a few months.
The house where I'm staying is pretty sweet - i've finally had time this weekend to settle in, hang up some pictures (the decor in the room is uninspired pastel, but luckily i brought my own stuff for the walls) and unpack. it's perfect, really: the 2 bus lines that run in front of the house are the 2 that i need to get to my schools, i have wireless and my own bathroom, a tv (w cable!!) outside my room, and the town has two train stations, including a TGV (all love) stop. a
So monday i left for Grenoble, a city ive only heard the most lovely things about. I had been emailing with one of the other assistants in Valence, Mandy, throughout the summer, and we had planned to meet in the Grenoble train station - but neither of us knew when we'd be getting a train, so we were just going to wait until 17h30 to see if we crossed paths. My train got in at 15h30 (it's just over an hour ride), but there was a train coming in from Valence at 17h27, so i figured she'd be coming on that one - i chilled and read; the train was delayed half an hour, but i still waited bc i was so excited to see a semi-familiar face...it was funny, though - i couldnt remember how she had described herself, aside from short, reddish hair, so i scrutinized everyone that came off the train...a girl walked by that had the requisite hair-do, but i kid you not, she gave me such a nasty look that i literally took two deep breaths before going up to her and asking if she was mandy. .and it was! but seriously, she's super nice, and im glad i waited bc it was more confusing to find the hostel than id anticipated. so we ran around grenoble for a bit, trying to get to the hostel and find food (im in love w the city and will be going back a lot since we didnt really have time to explore)...the majority of the people staying in the hostel were other assistants; we were rooming with three others, and immediately made friends with an italian girl, giuliana, who'll be living in grenoble.
Tues to Thurs was orientation in Autran - i thought that was going to be a suburb of Grenoble, but turns out it's a teeny tiny village an hour away. Luckily id packed a sweater and scarf bc it was soo cold, and of course theres no heat anywhere in france. love it. we had an absurd three hour meeting tues afternoon, the had to wait on the curb for an hour before the buses came to drive us to autran. Overall orientation was rather a bust - we broke into groups by language (there were assistants for english, italian, spanish and german) and level (elementaire, college or lycee), and generally be area where we're teaching - but im the only college assistant in valence, so i was with other people at colleges that im basically never going to see again. so as far as networking, not terribly awesome. still met cool people, but im meeting valence people through mandy (she's teaching at the elementaire level and was actually in groups with people working here in town). we did get some fun ideas for what to do in class, but they were mostly games, and that will only work some of the time, you know? but whatever, we froze, sat in classes for 8 hours a day not really learning anything, ate bad cafeteria food and bonded over how much paperwork we (especially the americans) were going to have to do.
blonde moment #1: we arrived back in grenoble around 5 on thurs afternoon, and a bunch of us were going to be on the 18h20 train to valence...mandy, jonh (adorable mormon) and i grabbed some food and were chilling in the station when we saw that it was super timetogo. i hopped on the train at the first platform faster than those 2, since i just had a tote bag and they had proper suitcases, but before you know it, the doors are locking in my face and mandy's mouthing "this ones not for valence!!!" omg. and i so had her ticket in my bag, too. shit. so my train was heading to l'universite de grenoble gare, where i hopped off and waited around for an hour until the next train came through (the station manager and i soo bonded, he was amazing). i wasnt worried about myself (embarassed, yes), more so about mandy - what if my new friend ended up in sncf jail on my account?? i was holding my breath until 19h30, when their train arrived, and she texted me to let me know that they never even checked tickets on her train. thank the lord.
Since then, we've been settling in here in Valence. I met with a teacher in my main school, Clg Marcel Pagnol, and she seems excellent - she's young, energetic and wants me to work with the kids in the "Union Europeenne" group, which apparently are the kids that actually care about learning another language, since these groups meet for 2 extra hours of class a week. Im going tomorrow morning (7h45, wooooot) to meet one section...then on tues i have a meeting with another school, Clg Paul Valery. The principal totally called me to be like "Hey! We'd like to, you know, see you sometime?" But he seems nice, and the one teacher that took the time to email me this summer was from that school,so im excited. the third school, Jean Zay - still no word from them, so im thinking about just dropping in tues morning to see whats up. the other thing thats strange to me is that im basically in charge, or so it seems, of making my schedule - many of the other assistants had theirs done by the schools already, buut if im allowed to set up my hours myself, i think im going to try to have either friday afternoons or monday mornings off (weekend travels!), but of course since im only working 12 hous a week, i guess i shouldnt be too picky (seriously, teachers, like the real ones, have such a sweet deal:only 18 hrs/max with the kids/week. plus holidays, summer break, tout ca. oh man).
So the assistants here are pretty fantastic, which is a relief, even though i wont be working with them much, but the other best thing about valence is Happy People. honestly,i know, what am i doing associating with a group called happy anything? it's a group of random people, students, language assistants, au pairs, whatever, that was formed last jan so that people from all over could hang out/exchange cultures and get to know valence better. it's cute - we went ice skating on friday and last night was a soiree avec les crepes - there were about 30 people crammed into this tiny apartment, and just hung out, speaking french, english, spanish, german, polish...everyone's young, under 30 easily, and many have been in town for a while, so they'll be good resources, you know? les Happy People meet evey wed night, as well, at this cute bar,so we're planning on going as often as possible - speak some french, get to know the other assistants, esp the non-english ones, fun times. so yes, j'aime bien les Happy People.
Ok! long enough, but hey, it's sunday and thats the one thing i dont think i will ever learn to like about life not in the states: everything shutting down for the day. that, and the fact that the buses stop running here after 20h and there's only one taxi at the train station after 9, i kid you not. poop. luckily it's just a 25 min walk from the centre ville chez moi.
gros bises!
sept to avril, j'suis:
10 F Rue Jean Vilar
26000 Valence France
011.33.6.42.74.16.58
Sept 22 was the day that was never supposed to come. i mean, i want to live in france for a nice chunk of time, but i dont really do cool things like that, right? and besides, i hardly know dc, ow can i leave now? and what about grad school apps? and the f-ing coffeeshop, that i love and hate so much it gives me a headache (or maybe thats the caffeine withdrawl kicking in...) but there it was, out of nowhere, time presses on, bla bla bla...and until next summers were said and i was way more drippy than i thought possible and then...the airport. here we go
i made it over in one piece, but my edges were frayed, im not going to lie. Seriously, this was one of the longest travel days ever - and there weren't even any real delays! the trip started with a good omen - i had basically been hyperventilating all saturday morning about my luggage and how it was over the 50 lb limit for free check-in baggage, (but truly i have no sense of weight) so i figured that of course if they were over 50 lbs then they were over 70 lbs, which is the absolute max weight for suitcases, and then i'd die...seriously, i never knew i was capable of freaking so much over such little things until this trip. BUT i got to the SAS check-in at Dulles, the entire family in tow (love and thanks for playing nice all day!) and the guy soo didnt charge me anything! awesome, because my dad and i had tracked down a ghetto-ass scale at cvs before heading to the airport, and while we determined that the suitcases were under 70 lbs, the were waay over 50, and at 10euro/kilo over, that was going to be annoying. as soon as my bags were out of my hands i started to breathe easier...but i had a nasty, fidgety drunk old guy sitting next to me on the flight from DC to Copenhagen; he read newspapers (well, more accurately he skimmed the headlines of at least 6 different papers) for the majority of the time, drinking heartily and elbowing me every 5 seconds. so that was awesome...
the transfer to geneva went without a hitch. my hour layover in Copenhagen was uneventful, but just so you all know, the first thing you see when you walk into the main terminal for transfers is a 7-11. Hilarious. The real fun started in Geneva (yet another airport that doesnt stamp passports. seriously kids), though, as I was officially on my own with my 2 monstrosities of suitcases. i had to hop a local train to the city center and then transfer at that station onto the TGV heading to Valence. At this point, i wanted to call the family im living with, since they'd offered to pick me up at the station...but the number i was calling wouldnt ring through, which was disconcerting. the train to Valence was supposed to take less than 3 hours...but. well, i actually got a little taste of DC on this train ride bc we randomly stopped on the tracks at least three times, a la Red Line: apparently the train was too cold? i dont know what happens, but eventually we made it to Valence, an awesome guy helped me with my bags, and i turned my attention back to not being able to call this family. Called Sara, and she found their # for me in my email, ,bc of course i had the wrong # in my address book. classic.
Karine (my roommate), Aurelie (older sister) and Sasha (cousine) came to get me, we crammed all my stuff into their tiny euro-car and drove me to the house. i met the parents, isabelle and bruno, who normally work in Paris and come back on holidays. they seem friendly (i just had dinner w them - crepes - yumm AND despite being unable to think coherently - or write, for that matter - they're all impressed w my french?! accent/comprehension/vocab..
The house where I'm staying is pretty sweet - i've finally had time this weekend to settle in, hang up some pictures (the decor in the room is uninspired pastel, but luckily i brought my own stuff for the walls) and unpack. it's perfect, really: the 2 bus lines that run in front of the house are the 2 that i need to get to my schools, i have wireless and my own bathroom, a tv (w cable!!) outside my room, and the town has two train stations, including a TGV (all love) stop. a
So monday i left for Grenoble, a city ive only heard the most lovely things about. I had been emailing with one of the other assistants in Valence, Mandy, throughout the summer, and we had planned to meet in the Grenoble train station - but neither of us knew when we'd be getting a train, so we were just going to wait until 17h30 to see if we crossed paths. My train got in at 15h30 (it's just over an hour ride), but there was a train coming in from Valence at 17h27, so i figured she'd be coming on that one - i chilled and read; the train was delayed half an hour, but i still waited bc i was so excited to see a semi-familiar face...it was funny, though - i couldnt remember how she had described herself, aside from short, reddish hair, so i scrutinized everyone that came off the train...a girl walked by that had the requisite hair-do, but i kid you not, she gave me such a nasty look that i literally took two deep breaths before going up to her and asking if she was mandy. .and it was! but seriously, she's super nice, and im glad i waited bc it was more confusing to find the hostel than id anticipated. so we ran around grenoble for a bit, trying to get to the hostel and find food (im in love w the city and will be going back a lot since we didnt really have time to explore)...the majority of the people staying in the hostel were other assistants; we were rooming with three others, and immediately made friends with an italian girl, giuliana, who'll be living in grenoble.
Tues to Thurs was orientation in Autran - i thought that was going to be a suburb of Grenoble, but turns out it's a teeny tiny village an hour away. Luckily id packed a sweater and scarf bc it was soo cold, and of course theres no heat anywhere in france. love it. we had an absurd three hour meeting tues afternoon, the had to wait on the curb for an hour before the buses came to drive us to autran. Overall orientation was rather a bust - we broke into groups by language (there were assistants for english, italian, spanish and german) and level (elementaire, college or lycee), and generally be area where we're teaching - but im the only college assistant in valence, so i was with other people at colleges that im basically never going to see again. so as far as networking, not terribly awesome. still met cool people, but im meeting valence people through mandy (she's teaching at the elementaire level and was actually in groups with people working here in town). we did get some fun ideas for what to do in class, but they were mostly games, and that will only work some of the time, you know? but whatever, we froze, sat in classes for 8 hours a day not really learning anything, ate bad cafeteria food and bonded over how much paperwork we (especially the americans) were going to have to do.
blonde moment #1: we arrived back in grenoble around 5 on thurs afternoon, and a bunch of us were going to be on the 18h20 train to valence...mandy, jonh (adorable mormon) and i grabbed some food and were chilling in the station when we saw that it was super timetogo. i hopped on the train at the first platform faster than those 2, since i just had a tote bag and they had proper suitcases, but before you know it, the doors are locking in my face and mandy's mouthing "this ones not for valence!!!" omg. and i so had her ticket in my bag, too. shit. so my train was heading to l'universite de grenoble gare, where i hopped off and waited around for an hour until the next train came through (the station manager and i soo bonded, he was amazing). i wasnt worried about myself (embarassed, yes), more so about mandy - what if my new friend ended up in sncf jail on my account?? i was holding my breath until 19h30, when their train arrived, and she texted me to let me know that they never even checked tickets on her train. thank the lord.
Since then, we've been settling in here in Valence. I met with a teacher in my main school, Clg Marcel Pagnol, and she seems excellent - she's young, energetic and wants me to work with the kids in the "Union Europeenne" group, which apparently are the kids that actually care about learning another language, since these groups meet for 2 extra hours of class a week. Im going tomorrow morning (7h45, wooooot) to meet one section...then on tues i have a meeting with another school, Clg Paul Valery. The principal totally called me to be like "Hey! We'd like to, you know, see you sometime?" But he seems nice, and the one teacher that took the time to email me this summer was from that school,so im excited. the third school, Jean Zay - still no word from them, so im thinking about just dropping in tues morning to see whats up. the other thing thats strange to me is that im basically in charge, or so it seems, of making my schedule - many of the other assistants had theirs done by the schools already, buut if im allowed to set up my hours myself, i think im going to try to have either friday afternoons or monday mornings off (weekend travels!), but of course since im only working 12 hous a week, i guess i shouldnt be too picky (seriously, teachers, like the real ones, have such a sweet deal:only 18 hrs/max with the kids/week. plus holidays, summer break, tout ca. oh man).
So the assistants here are pretty fantastic, which is a relief, even though i wont be working with them much, but the other best thing about valence is Happy People. honestly,i know, what am i doing associating with a group called happy anything? it's a group of random people, students, language assistants, au pairs, whatever, that was formed last jan so that people from all over could hang out/exchange cultures and get to know valence better. it's cute - we went ice skating on friday and last night was a soiree avec les crepes - there were about 30 people crammed into this tiny apartment, and just hung out, speaking french, english, spanish, german, polish...everyone's young, under 30 easily, and many have been in town for a while, so they'll be good resources, you know? les Happy People meet evey wed night, as well, at this cute bar,so we're planning on going as often as possible - speak some french, get to know the other assistants, esp the non-english ones, fun times. so yes, j'aime bien les Happy People.
Ok! long enough, but hey, it's sunday and thats the one thing i dont think i will ever learn to like about life not in the states: everything shutting down for the day. that, and the fact that the buses stop running here after 20h and there's only one taxi at the train station after 9, i kid you not. poop. luckily it's just a 25 min walk from the centre ville chez moi.
gros bises!
3 commentaires:
j'aime les happy people aussi!! dont a Mercredi!! PS Im sorry about the mean look, i didnt mean it your like my MA (meillieur ami)!! So glad you didnt have to come bust be out of SNCF jail!
Bis.
je suis plu plee auuu mocha choca latte poo poo pee pee wee wee au he he hau mon'oeil or whatever you frenchie french
HIIIIIIII
i was just wondering which email i should email you with or through... uh like which one are you checking the most? like please tell me so i can like uh write you sweet emails!!
dani i miss you!
i am so jealous of you and i hope you are truly having a fabulous time!!
xoxoxooxoxox
with loveee tisher bean
Danno: Too cool! I didn't know that tisher bean knew french... actually, now that I read it, I see that she doesn't... !!! Hope all's going great! Love.
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