red light district

so the christmas decorations have been going up slowly for at least the last 3 weeks here in valence, but im going to write it off as cozy cheerfulness rather than obnoxious commercialism. tomorrow is our "fete de lumiere," followed next weekend by the renowned fete in Lyon, which is to say that for the last 10 days, some intense light installations have been going up, including huge tube-like trees and towering calla-lily-ish flowers (pix to follow in a few days)...valance leaves it's christmas lights up in the streets year-round, but tonight was the first night that i saw most of them turned on, and i have to say there's something about the white icicle lights that will never get old. it's just more cheerful with them up! white lights aside, though, there are some superb valence specialties, particularly the cute little christmas trees that shopkeepers have set up outside their stores (apparently only the members of some "valence assoc" put up the trees; tasse et glace isnt part of this assoc, hence no xmas tree, but i think im going to bring emmanuel a christmas ornament for his moss ball anyway) annd the red-paper-covered streetlights. seriously, our charming little rues have been transformed into a red-light district, and the effect is more creepy than christmas. ooh how i love me some valence. this evening mandy and i stumbled upon this very...progressive performance art installation in a square next to the church and the valence museum (i didnt know until tonight that we had a museum. learn something new everyday, non?). freaky noises, huge moving light fixtures, a fountain within which a woman was sweeping water, film projections onto the side of the museum, guys "unpainting" a painting...very interesting. and creepy. and awesome. two points for valence. oh, and add a point for my ghetto gare: its christmas decos consist of super tacky red tube lights strung haphazardly across the doorway and white and blue triangle trees in the driveway. trop moche.

vraiment?

sometimes i hate this job...like this morning, i was up at 6h15 to be to school a bit before 8h, because Emily told me "oh yah, come for sure, the kids would love to work with you." but this morning she was all, "oh desolee, we're a bit behind (ps. that was the reason i didnt work with them LAST week), can you come next week instead?" you couldnt send an email, emily, really? hers was the only class i was suppose to work with today, so i had to grit my teeth and force a smile as i said "oui,oui, pas de probleme." bc i wake up at disgustingly early hours and walk in the driving wind only to be turned out again for fun. yup. right. i know im not here to save the world and that this job is mostly a joke, but really, a little politesse/professionalism would be appreciated. it's just more considerate.

i want harry potter #7, yerba, bikram and a new camera. and i kinda want it to be april already.

officially ready to be a housewife

i am growing soo much here in france. i am, like, totally ready to be a housewife! oh my god! why? because thanksgiving is awesome and rocks my socks (but only here in la france, chez moi i could generally care less about football and turkeys).

so of course teaching about turkey day is obligatoire for us assistants, since it's something super typical-american. again my Jean Zay angels were the most interested, or at least the most receptive to my lessons, which consist of a brief history, vocab, and various games. we played hangman with thanksgiving words and i have never seen such excitement. they were shouting cornucopia and wampanoag like nobody's business! they think pumpkin pie and stuffing are nasty ideas, that black friday sounds divine, and were very concerned about my being away from home on the holiday. one girl was asked if i felt funny...i was confused, and she elaborated "well, you must be very sad, being here instead. but maybe you can have a party with some of your friends to feel better?" and she breathed a sigh of relief when i said that in fact a bunch of us were going to cook together on saturday. thanksgiving day i had 2 classes to teach, and then i got to chaperone a trip to the cinema to see "North by Northwest," so that made up for having to work on the holiday.

as for our american-in-france turkey day....it was pretty much the best thing ever. (how many times have i said that?) the idea was conceived in a bar in strasbourg, when will, mandy and i were waxing nostalgic about what we would do fend off homesickness during the holidays, and we decided that we ought to have an get-together for the americans. luckily mandy's renters were all too willing to let her host, and we put together the invite-list, with 6 of us assistants, plus Sophie (mandy's renter), in attendance.

sat morning i work up at the crack of dawn, aka 8am, to go for a run before heading to the market. Bruno, my renter, was already up and working and said i was crazy for getting up so early, and laughed when i explained that it was bc we'd be eating a ton for our belated thanksgiving celebration. when i left the house at 10am, isabelle and bruno were amused to see me dressed up for a change (new shoes!! usually they only see me on the weekend = cords and tee shirts), and wished me a happy thxgiving. i met mandy in town to buy fresh veggies, flowers and some kind of poultry. i thought it was pretty hilarious that i, the vegetarian, was a constant presence in the search for a turkey (the french eat turkey for noel, so no luck finding it in the stores this early)/chicken...and of course in france they leave everything attached, so we had to ask the lady to chop the head off (BERK!!) - and i (!!) pulled out the innards (heart, gizzard, liver, kidneys) at home!!! omg. it was like AP bio all over again...and awesome. of course before going back to mandy's to cook we had to stop at t et g for some holiday coffee and consultation on the finer points of cooking a bird. what can i say? theres no time to learn how to host thanksgiving like when youre living in france, non?

so we prepped the bird, mandy buttered it up, and popped it in the oven...all the while, her renters were being super sweet - they cleaned the apartment, brought in extra an table and some chairs, candles...dominique, who's starting a new career as a chef, helped me slice the mushrooms (i made salad with roasted FRESH walnuts - aka, cracked all those buggers open myself, blue cheese and pears, classic, as well as sauteed mushrooms and green beans), and sophie took copious notes on the traditions, history, and food of thanksgiving. and Webby, the cat, kept a watchful eye on the chicken.

so the bulk of the afternoon was spent in the kitchen, as per the best way to spend any dinner party...kelly came over around 14h, and mary and andrea came over around 16h30...we had warned sophie not to eat lunch, and she was super cute and kept asking when we were going to eat...finally around 17h everything was prepped and we had our apero (muscat), and then piled all the food onto the table and served buffet-style. we did a pretty good
job - we had the chicken ("tastes like turkey!"), stuffing (some cooked in the bird, the rest just veg-friendly), green bean casserole, ocean spray canned cranberry sauce, my veggies, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggie quiche, corn bread, baguette...wine...fromage...apple pie, tarte au citron, vanilla bean ice cream...eating a real, homemade meal was exceptional, and eating with a bunch of great friends (oh, will finally dragged his butt over from romans around 17h30) and music a la andrea was even better.

the evening stretched out until midnight, since we HAD to watch a movie, since there was no football. kelly and will had to leave early to catch trains home, loaded up with leftovers, but the rest of us hung out and watched "Love Actually" to get into the holiday spirit. super fun, super proud that i co-hosted a successful thanksgiving far away from home, and super excited that i have housewife potential. i mean, i pulled that nastiness out of the chicken like nobody's business!

only in the hexagon

the past week has been fun and games and everything en greve. for the most part, that means the trains and the paris metro have been running at significantly reduced rates, but the teachers marched against the suppression of posts next year, university students are outraged at the idea of paying for their education, and the tabac owners protested for the right to smoke (France is going smoke-free 1 Jan).

A Paris, les buralistes défilent pour l'assouplissement de la loi sur l'interdiction de fumer dans les lieux publics
LEMONDE.FR | 21.11.07

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Nicolas Sarkozy ne s'exprimera pas sur le pouvoir d'achat avant la fin de la grève
LEMONDE.FR | 22.11.07

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Pour l'UNEF, "la ministre doit apporter des réponses" aux revendications des étudiants
LEMONDE.FR | 22.11.07

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if you need a reason as to why youre here...epanouissement

travels aside, my day-to-day life here is kinda interesting, i suppose, but honestly, i dont know where the last two months have gone. each day drags in the morning, yet it's over so quickly, especially now that darkness drops in by 18h or so...

i still have not really fallen into a daily rhythm, so it's hard to talk about 'a day in the life' for me. one of the biggest frustrations the first month was that my teachers, while very friendly, were not all that helpful in regards to planning my lessons. they know that im not a teacher and that i ahe no prior experience, but they were all just like "do whatever you want!" which im sure thay thought was what i wanted to hear - but in fact that was the exact opposite of what i needed! the levels of each section vary enormously, and in some of the schools i see different sections every week. although im only in the schools for about 12 hours/week, i spend at least 2 hours a day musing over what i can do with them that interesting and educational and off-beat and wishing for some consistency.

VALERY: 4 groups of new faces every week -> last week, after coming back from the holiday, i put my foot down, though, and insisted that the teachers either give me the same group for a few weeks in a row, so that i can actually recognize the kids and make some progress, or else be more forthcoming with what they're working on and how i can better support their lesson plans. and it's working - ive actually gotten some emails with ideas and i think ive succeeded in having at least on section every week from now until the christmas break. i mean, one day last week a student that i vaguely recognized said 'Hello!' to me on the bus and i had no idea what school she was from! it was a little awkward, and it took me 2 days to place her as a student from Valery.the teachers are very easy to talk to - this morning i had a good talk with Olivier, another young teacher that i'll start working with in the next few weeks - but they arent very strict in the classroom, so im plagued with students that talk all through class, even when the teacher is there, which is unfortunate, because there are always at least a handful of students that are really interested.

ZAY: slice of heaven -> ultimately it's interesting to see the classroom from the teacher's point of view, and i understand now how disheartening it can be to see kids that understand the lesson but are too shy to speak up and how exhausting it is to try to quiet the chatterboxes. another challenge is that my kids at Zay are in the "European" program, which means they have 5 hours of english/week, rather than just 3 - and even my youngest there, the 5e (12 years old) are more advanced than the 3e (15 yrs) at Valery! Zay is pretty much my fave - the teachers are nice (i had dinner with 2 of them right before Toussaint) and give me lesson ideas and the kids are polite and actually speak english! luckily i work there tues/wed, so it gives me a much needed boost midway through the week and reminds me that some of my students care about what im doing and are actually making the most of my time! my lessons with this school don't always work in the other schools, since i can do more advanced things - i mean, i can prep something for the 5es here and use it with the 3e at Valery... this week was awesome. i did DC monument stuff with the 5e, just 2 articles about the Lincoln and Washington monuments, since im a little homesick (been watching the west wing in french, which is enough to make anyone want to be in the district) and the kids were SO EXCITED about each reading a paragraph! and they asked great vocab questions and we worked on numbers (like the hard ones, like 15,506 and stuff) and decimals and all that. it was great. and the next day, with the 4e, i did NYS stuff - a map, a crossword and a reading about the statue of liberty - as they were walking into the room, they were already speaking english and asking to read. which also looked great for me, since i was in there talking to another english teacher! so yah, Zay makes me happy all-around.

that all being said, i just got back from my classes at Valery, and i had a lot of fun today. i had 6e and 5e, and they were pretty decent...we did some thanksgiving activities and they got really into it and i just got to joke around the whole time. here you eat turkey for noel, so they thought thanksgiving was christmas...they kept getting sidetracked with questions about me and my lotus tattoo, but ive decided as long as they speak in english i dont really care what we talk about...the lesson was to divide vocab words into people, places and foods, but there were also trick words that didnt fit into any category, ie thankful - but i totally had a semi-philosophical conversation with a girl who wanted to put thankful as a place, since your sentiments are in your heart and mind...it was too cute. others put turkey as a place, since they were thinking of the country, which i thought was generally fantastic. with another section i just did introduction questions; they were psyched with the, like, 4 photos i brought in (i havent brought pix to my other classes, i dunno why - they love it!) - they'd been asking if my "sister that has 18 years has the same face as me" (brittness! they like you since youre kinda the same-ish age!) and get this. when the groups switched (i had each half for 25 min),they were so excited to tell the teacher about me that even 2 kids that have never spoken voluntarily wouldnt stop talking. amazing. everyone asked when i was going to work with them again...so right now im feeling good about teaching....but it still gives me butterflies before each class....

of course im not really just teaching, even though it feels like im always thinking about it...one of my faves is going for tea at tasse et glace a few times a week. i usually meet mandy, since we're joined at the hip apparently, or i run into the other assistants, who have all fallen in love with t et g as well. i miss the MT insanity, but it's such an easy little pleasure to go for a tea or cappuccino (really, it's the only place that doesnt wreck a cap but doing burnt coffee with a spoon of foam) and just chat or read...apparently the owner, emmanuel, thought i was english (score!) and knows me as"the one that reads." accurate. every time we travel, i seek out the best coffee joint - found one in the 'bourg that i love, as well as one in Kehl, Germany....and i love those coffee machines in the gares and at school like nothing else. really. last week i had 1h30 between classes, and since the school is near the train station, i almost went there just to get my cheap ghetto coffee. but i resisted the urge, it seemed too weird.

the wind here is more intense than i ever thought possible. i have wind-swept hair and pink cheeks permanently. this morning i was waiting for the bus, watching some birds trying to fly into the wind and they couldnt. this afternoon walking home, the wind knocked me over a bit. went out for lunch and i was still shivering when we left; it's that kind of in-your-bones cold. and it's just nov. but i like to find the silver lining when i can, and at least walking in the wind is a double workout! after a month of tired/lazy/scared of getting lost, ive finally started running and the wind makes that super intense, too. i need a fleece headband...but i have my awesome coldgear pants that are the most comfortable amazingness ever and there are 5 nice hills behind my house and flat roads that are fairly country-ish, so i can make kind of a star-shaped tour in an hour and by then my ankles are screaming and im back home! so that works well...as for the bike that i bought, well...it's in the garage. valence is kinda too small to take the bike out and have to find somewhere to lock it up (i can walk anywhere i need in under 30 min), and i havent looked for good roads to just ride for exercise, but my goal is to do that before winter sets in. but it will be good to have in the spring, and in life in general.

living in other houses that arent my own is not my favorite thing, although the free wifi is pretty nice...so my mantra is find a job toute de suite that allows me to live sans roommates. it's not that they're not nice - they are, although i rarely talk to them - but theres just a persistant feeling of unease...it was the same in paris: nice people, nice set-up, but it's not mine. they think im funny bc i dont like to cook and just make soup and vegetables everyday...whatever. i watch the news every night since i cant seem to find the time to read the paper anymore (i think my attn span has become shorter over here) and sometimes i watch the shows that come on afterwards...mtv in french is hilarious and good for learning slang...i found the west wing dubbed, which made me smile for 2 days, and the other night Freaky Friday "Dans le peau de ma mere" was on. looooooooove it. i still like the excuse that watching tv is good for my listening comp, but it's true! i think my french is getting better, i def feel comfortable speaking almost all the time, and ive learned more random vocab..i mean, it's understanding weird accents and kids that speak really poorly, really quickly, and learning words like "courge" (bone marrow) and "meduse" (jellyfish) that equal fluent, you know? it's also encouraging when people tell me that i speak well and express their happiness/surprise that an american would take the time to learn another language and PREFER to speak french rather than english. my kids like helping my pronunciation, too (i got a whole tutorial on how i need to role the "r" in "greve"). i think it's kinda encouraging for them to see that i make mistakes sometimes too, but that learning another language isnt impossible. i mean, sometimes i want to crawl under the table when i hear the teachers speaking english, it's that wrong...and ive learned not to mind when they mimic the american accent. the first time that happened i was annoyed and thought the girl was mocking me, but now i get that it actually is different - and difficult - for them.

what else? i dunno...im reading in french more...trying not to worry too much about what im going to do this summer...enjoying free time and goofing around with the other assistants...window-shopping for new shoes...generally i think it's pretty cool what im doing, at least the whole becoming french thing, and i love just savoring the experience and meeting people and noticing the little differences between life here and life in paris and life in the district. i need to go to the movies. i want to take a class (writing, drawing, dance...whatever. now that i have money, i just need to be decisive). i want to ride my bike!

oh yah, and i started working in the wine store in Tain, with Georges. i'll post about that later on, if it actually works out...

manging cheese in the CH

jet-setter that ive become, this weekend mandy and i swung out to la suisse to see le suisse, avant son depart pour les etats unis. translation: we went to see ivan's town, Lausanne (olympic capital), before he peaces out on the 21st to go sell wine on long island. ivan, in case i havent mentioned him yet, worked for Georges, our wine man in Tains, and we've hung out with him a few times. he's swiss-american - his dad is from the Bronx, so he speaks perfect english (and we sadly default into english most of the time with him), and he's our age, chill, and very generously invited us to see him before he left. of course we couldnt pass up a local contact, so we went on yet another trip, despite the fact that vacation just ended.

mandy almost missed our 8h15 train from valence sat morning, but luckily she ran onto the platform just in time, and we settled in for the 3-hour ride through the mountains to geneva. it has just turned cold enough that there is a dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains. i was glued to the window, the sun half-whiting out my view, the scenery was that stunning. i never had real mountains in my life, with the exception of our trip this spring to NM, and i think that this might have to be a more permanent part of my life. beautiful.

sadly, once we passed the french alps and reached geneva, the weather turned grey and drizzly. Lausanne (30 min from geneva) sits on Lac Lemans (Lake Geneva), but we didnt have much of a view, since it was too hazy.

Nevertheless, mandy and i took to the streets, found a pizza joint for lunch - and made friends yet again with the italian servers. this time was more intense than our previous random friend stories, bc basically the whole place knew that we were the beautiful american english teachers, the servers kept talking to us in italian even though they spoke french,...and i 'married' our server. you know, these things happen. Ivan met us downtown and gave us a brief insiders' tour: the little old shopping streets, gaufres (waffles, local specialty), a cathedral overlooking the city, the special clock that tells the story of how the Swiss chased out the Swiss-Germans back in the day (every hour, on the hour, it tells the story and little mechanical dolls act it out - a fave for the local enfants, including Ivan when he was younger). freezing from the rain, we opted to hole up in a pub and watch the liverpool-fulham football game. there we also met denton (sp?), another american (yaay Pittsburgh) who works in the wine biz. Denton actually worked for the same firm that Ivan's going to work for on Long Island before he transferred over here in Feb. He's cool.

then it was fondue dinner. my first time with fondue - again, typical suisse fare - but i have to say, im not a huge fan. buuut dinner was fantastic. first, the guys picked a great, light white wine that went well with the fromage (benefits of boys that know what theyre doing) AND it was senior dance party night or something - we dubbed it "bouge ta booty" night - for real, the 70+ population was out in full force, dancing to really really BAD the techno-latino-polka infusion that senor guapisimo with the silk shirt was playing on the keyboard...omg, we died laughing. i mean, as soon as we arrived and saw the disco ball and the mic set-up, and the old folks started wandering in, some in pairs, some solo but hopeful, all dressed up and drinking their Perrier, we knew we were in for a treat. incredible. ivan tried to incite mandy and denton to bust it out on the dance floor, and they were almost convinced, but alas, none of us had had enough to drink...so instead we were entertained by the atmosphere for a while, then peaced out to find crowds more our age.

ivan led us to a few local hangouts, and mandy and i had to fight the guys to let us pay for their drinks - denton had bought dinner, ivan has bought us i dont know how many rounds, but they're very insistent on the whole gentleman thing! it's crazy talk! my excuse for paying was that ivan's moving to the states, where us liberal, feminist-minded girls like to pay too...but really, even good ol' american denton showed more class than ive ever seen.. funniest moment for me: we were leaving the pub to go to dinner, and i grabbed my jacket and put it on my stool while i was putting on my scarf. denton takes my jacket from me, and im all like "no dude, thats my coat" - thinking he'd thought i was handing him his coat, but he was taking it to put it on for me! he just smirked and i laughed...and then he pulled out my chair and everything at the restaurant. quelle classe! soo, long story short, it was yet another wonderful night, mandy and i just in awe of how lucky we've been to keep running into fantastic, amazingly friendly people. hopefully i'll see ivan in the states sometime, and who knows, we might go visit denton in suisse again!
on the way home we had an hour stop in geneve, so we wandered to the lake to see the jette d'eau...i'll have to come back to see geneve for real, now that ive passed through it twice without really stopping...and we found a tea stand in the lausanne gare that had tea a emporter! really, that is one american thing that i cant find fault with. when it's cold outside, you should be always be able to take 12 oz of warmth with you.

gare - colline - radiographie: toussaint bis

the second half of the toussaint holiday was spent in lyon, the third largest city in france, aka the paris of the south. i loved it.

so the day after will peaced out, mandy and i bid adieu to the 'bourg and headed to Belfort, a small town in between the 'bourg and lyon, where we were planning to spend the night and taste the local specialty, a raspberry tart thingy. however, we failed to connect the date - 1 nov, toussaint - and the french style of totally shutting down for the day - which translated to: we arrived in belfort, walked (it was more of a hike, but it was a nice day, so thats fine) out to the hostel, only to find the reception was empty. they knew we were coming around noon, but failed to mention that the desk was closed during the day, so our options were either hang out in the sketch hostel (it was in a foyer de jeunes travailleurs = less than awesome anyway) until 16h or catch a train to lyon. we opted for the latter, even though that meant that we had to wait until 18h45 for the next train. soo we spent all saints day in a coffee shop, a kebab joint and in the gare, drinking instant cappuccinos. (love those things, so much happiness for 1E) it wasnt that bad, though - we caught up on our journals, wrote postcards and made friends with some old dudes in the kabab place. i love our random friendly encounters! in the month that ive been here, ive chatted with more locals all over the place than i did during the entire semester i was in paris. it's the little things that make this stay totally worthwhile - and the compliments on my french and the shocked faces when they learn that we're AMERICANS speaking french, no less!

so we finally arrived in lyon and decided to splurge on a taxi, since it was late and we didnt know too much about finding the hostel from the metro. the ride was beautiful - lyon is situated between the Rhone and the Saone, and all the old buildings were lit up and magical at night. i instantly fell in love.

the hostel was fine, although the girl that checked us in was pretty rude and there wasnt much hot water...but it's located in the vieille ville, atop a steep hill, with an amazing view of the city.
we ran into another eng assistant, Matt, that we'd met at orientation - he works in Privas, a tiny town in the Ardeche, but was also vacationing in Lyon, so it was nice to swap teaching stories with him.

sooo lyon was chill - on friday, mandy and i walked pretty much all over the city, starting with a market that was open everyday and was perfection - minus the shockingly revolting pigs' heads that were just hanging for sale in the stalls and the full chickens, heads and tail feathers included. we bought fresh groceries nearly everyday and either cooked at the hostel or picnicked. we also made friends with the dried-fruit-tapendae vendor (he gave us moroccan candies bc we're cool) and a wine maker from St.Emillion, near bordeaux. friday afternoon we met guiliana at the gare and went out for dinner and drinks in the vieille ville. and trekked up our hill. sat was chill (guili taked forever to get ready, but we love her anyway!): a walk in the old town, more markets (books!), big city shopping (H&M, Zara, all love), chocolate shops and italian cooking, grace a guili. that night we met some other italian guys in the hostel and just stayed in, chatting with them. sunday was grey and quiet, but the musees were open, so after picnicking in a park and playing on a jungle gym (me), we checked out the Musee des Tissus et Arts Decoratifs (lyon was a major player in the french silk industry) and le Musee des Beaux Arts (gratuit!). i went for a walk to see the city lights at night, guili cooked for us again, and then one of her friends from grenoble, an arabic assistant from syria, met us at the hostel and we chilled and talked french lit.

monday was the dreaded visite medicale day, but first mandy and i went to check out the roman ruins and a cathedral (known locally as the upside-down elephant) that were near the hostel. i never received the convocation from my school, but i knew that all the other valence kids had their visites, so on friday mandy and i found the office and i confirmed that i was in the system and had my visite on monday, as well (i guess my letter got lost in the mail or something...*tear*) so there was a mini Drome reunion party of all the assistants not from the EU - americans, new zealanders, canadians, mexicans, fun times. we were in and out very quickly, surprisingly, since everything else seems to take forever here...the exam consisted of eyes, height, weight, fam history of diabetes, vaccination record, breathing/pulse, and ... the mysterious x-ray. naked. ugh. i have no clue what they were looking for, the doctor hardly glanced at it for more than 5 seconds. but it was random and now i have a funny souvenir. and it's totally hanging on my wall, never mind whether it's creepy or not.

so will was part of the reunion, and the three of us (guili had taken a train back to grenoble that morning) separated from the rest of the group, who were being indecisive about getting food or shopping, and went to grab quiches and hang in a park. will busted out his guitar and we entertained some french kids with johnny cash, green day, oasis...and of course some improv en francais, a propos de la visite medicale. it was probably the highlight of the entire trip, and i almost peed my pants laughing at, like, three points. the train to valence was super crowded, but will and i managed to sneak into a first class cabin (!) and watch the first half of "Superbad" on his laptop. wonderfulness comes in the little things.

soo toussaint traveling was good times, internet withdrawl, doctors, markets, and randomness. the best kind of traveling!

Roule ma poule! toussaint pt. uno

whenever i start to complain about how im not a fan of teaching, just remind me that for the year i have the sweetest deal - 5 weeks of work, 10-14 days of paid vacation - and i'll shut up.

for Toussiant (all saints day) i traveled to Stasbourg and Lyon. mandy and i were together the whole trip; will joined us on the leg to the 'bourg (sunday til wed) and guiliana met us in Lyon (fri to mon). Monday afternoon there was an assistant party at the ANAEM office in Lyon, as we (americains, canadienne, nouveau zelandienne?, mexicaine) all had to pass a medical exam for our cartes de sejour. funtimes - seriously.

my lovelies in strasbourg. we're v. mature.

STRASBOURG...is too charming for words. mandy and i were too girly for our own good, cooing "ooh thats soo cuute" every other second. we came close to driving will away, but he knows that we rock...anyway, mandy and i took the train to strasbourg from valence on sunday, 29 oct - about a 6h trip, with a transfer in lyon. ooph. but we had cute (ugh, see? bad habit!) cabin seats and got a lot of reading and journaling done, and of course we enjoyed some AWEsome vending machine cappuccinos in the gare in lyon (no joke, that instant coffee is some of the best stuff around, unless you like the taste of burn a la french roast)Will met us in strasbourg, since he was coming in from Paris, where he'd been visiting friends, and we walked out to our hostel, which was just a few minutes from the gare. the hostel was surprisingly nice for 20E/night - we had a private, 3-bed room (i got to play summer camp in the top bunk) with a shower and really good croissants for breakfast, AND the hostel was very close to the center of the city. we went out for dinner and then just chilled in the hostel, since theres not much open on sundays.

the three of us make for very chill tourists - we were happy to just wander and take pictures, especially since we were all trying to be good about not spending money (we didnt realize that we'd been paid, since none of our schools had told us anything before the break)...we visited the cathedral de Notre Dame and its astrological clock (it's hundred of years old, but the pieces still move on the hour and at noon a rooster crows and the saints go for a walk), la petite france, le musee alsacien (bc it was free. omg, it was the never-ending museum, i kid you not. v cool bc it was in a reconstructed Alsacian house and it was free, but it just kept going and going...we did see some sweet, typical hats and fireplaces, though.), a lot of beautiful canals and bridges, some art galleries...there was a lot of coffee and people-watching, yummy cheese from the best cheese shop ever - complete with an owner that had those curly-cue handlebar mustaches. on tuesday, we toured the Kronenbourg facility and got to taste a bunch of beer, including nice, light girly ones for me and mandy. that afternoon we also met Brett, another american who's studying in Aix - he was traveling alone during the holiday, so we took him under our wing, taught him some key french phrases and hung out for the rest of the afternoon. it was good timing, since will was in desperate need of some manlove. dinner that night was baguette, cheese and a bottle of gewürztraminer by the river - absolute perfection. if there had been accordion music,we would have been a movie. then we went back to the creepy tunnel we'd found that morning - it's this long covered bridge that overlooks the river Ile, but the inside is used as some kind of storage facility for decrepit church statues or something. i couldnt get any good pix bc the lighting was so strange and my camera is a piece of poop, but trust me, it was something out of a low-budget horror flick = great.

wednesday will left us to go dog-sit in paris (ooh paris), but first we took a nice little stroll over to germany. ya know, since it's there. it wasnt too far from the metro, just an interminable bridge over the Rhone. once we got there, though, we felt a little bit of culture shock. unlike strasbourg, where everything was bilingual (and thats not counting the english that permeates everything), Kehl was seulement allemand. or at least, the shops that we visited were. so we floundered our way through ordering coffees (very good, btw) and buying post cards and then we headed back to france. the best part of my german experience was the merry-go-round thingy that was in the middle of the street, that i of course had to play on. will pushed me around and then i pretty much fell off on my face. classy.

once we were without the boy, mandy and i just aww cute'd it up, grabbed tea in THE BEST COFFEESHOP ever (it was jeanette et les cycleurs ou qqch comme ca) - oh! and the 'bourg has the best bikes ever, they are all vintage and lovely and i want one, but my bike is modern. *le sigh* - and went to the movies since it was cold. we saw "le coeur des hommes 2" a manlove comedy, which is to say it was a chick flick for guys. i havent seen the first installation, but judging by the sequel, im not feeling too pressed to do so. hmm, what else? we had trick-or-treaters in our restaurant. strasbourg is a perfect fall-halloween ghost-christmas town, and the little kids running around in their ghost costumes were priceless. for our last night in a decent hostel, we celebrated with a hair dying party - im back to dark, but not nearly dark enough, so there will have to be an encore tres bientot. mandy's, like, professional with the hair-coloring procedure.

view from the top of the creepy covered bridge. too wonderful.