2 weeks. 2 weeks. what the hell??? i'm in that funny limbo situation, where i feel like i never left (ahem, at work), but things still freak me out. for instance, yesterday was SUNDAY and the comcast dude came and set up our wifi at like 9am. and im all WTF mate, you're supposed to be at home fair-ing the grasse matinee! a lie-in if you will! but not so much.
on the metro, i feel like i should have to ring for my stop; i still have the reflex to say hello and goodbye in shops; sometimes it's well received, mostly im ignored. salut/ca va/merde/quel...! are still the first things that come out of my mouth, but the kids at work (im managing the coffeehouse, for all y'all not in the loop) dont seem too annoyed. it's just who i am now. the light switches freak me out. the streets are enormous. and the cars. and the people. and i dont understand why we dont faire les bises with good friends - i keep leaning in, all awkward-like...im going to motion to bring bisous here, je crois.
but there are more bikers in DC than i remembered, so thats cool. and my new apartment is well located between 3 metro stops, 50-min walking from work, 10-min to a bus that goes directly to the shop...im living on puffed millet, roasted soynuts, veggie burgers, edamame, all these little vegetarian gems that i've missed. i am disappointed each time i take a slice of baguette at work - too soft and fluffy! i mean, it's good bread, but it's not french.
i'm tired of fielding the "why are you back here/whats your next plan of action/when and how are you getting back to france?" questions...i dont have the answers. i thought that time in france was going to help me figure out grad school and all that fun stuff, and i thought that after 8 months i'd have france out of my system. now i see that that's not the case. i want to be there NOW. so i think that this summer i'll have a lot more motivation to get my act together, find schools, jobs, network...enjoy DC, but formulate a real plan for escape. i know that the image and experience i have of france right now cannot be repeated, that the next time will be sans my assistant darlings and my valence friends, that there will be new hurdles to overcome and that the sucky days will happen again, but i still need french in my life on a more constant basis. i know i can find it here, too - and now that im finally unpacked and settled and with a bed and internet, i'll definitely use my time wisely to keep on top of my french...
it's just funny that after all those months of feeling only like i half-belonged in france, you know, with the frequent 'what are you doing here?' and i definitely dont have to explain myself to anyone here, i feel like more of an outsider than ever. my dc people have changed (still love them, but it's not like they were frozen in time, although that would have been soo much more convenient for me haha), i still dont love this city, but i just need to suck it up, make the most of this time, and get outta here ASAP :)
lundi 2 juin 2008
mercredi 21 mai 2008
all good things...
culture shock is a ridiculous thing, particularly if it happens when you're coming back to your home country. i mean, ive been back for just over a day, but i still cant wrap my mind around the fact that im stuck here indefinitely, that im not going to pop into tasse after working out and swooning over the singing man at the gym, that im not going to see mandy or julien or jessika for drinks at the PK, that i cant just get a great baguette wherever i want, and that i cant speak french to just anyone on the street. i have to catch myself in stores and on the street; pardon and ciao, ca va, but any more than that and i'll just attract unwanted attention to myself...
my last days in valence were emotionally intense, to say the least. mandy was awesome - insisted on fresh baguettes and pastries everyday bc you know i would've regretted that once back stateside...so thursday we had dinner in tain. friday i ran my heart out at the gym to try to purge myself of the increasing sense of dread that i had about the impending departure, chilled at tasse with mandy, and went out to PKs with calum, ced, julien (who got super pissed at ced bc ced likes my neck piercings and pinched my cheeks...so cute, ju's jaloux! hehe) , jess, and shazz as a final farewell to those kids...it was bittersweet.
saturday rained buckets, how appropriate. dragged myself to the gym while mandy was tutoring, then met up with the boy in the early afternoon. and the crying commenced. uuuugh. not cool, but at least he was sad, too...last tasse et glace date, almost started crying again at leaving my home away from home. manu was great, gave me a gift bag with my favorite tea and candies...i miss it there already, though. just such a perfect little cafe, and manu is so great and i dont know what we would've done without it! i mean, la bastille is nice, too, and of course im pro the waiter that's in love with me and the terasse, but still. tasse is like a little slice of heaven. that evening, julien took me out for dinner, to his friend Richard's resto in Romans. super cute place, richard was fantastic, smoked like 50 cigs in 30 seconds no joke, hopped in and out of the kitchen window to come hang out with us (we were sitting outside), super goofy...oh yah, and dinner was good, too. pain d'epice-fraise tiramisu, miam! then we headed back to valence, picked up mandy and went to the pub with jess and sophie. neil, the barman, gave us a round of shooters on the house bc i was leaving...there was goofy, bad music (heep heep!), mandy saw her mec louche from st patricks day (such a circular evening!), we were weepy and sad...no joke, i cried for hours at the end of the night. vrai bordel, moi.
and then it was the last day. and that was not ok. i couldnt sleep. i couldnt concentrate. had a bad feeling about apts back in DC, so i was scrambling to find housing...didnt want to think about actually saying bye to the girls and julien...the pub had organized a baseball game with the frenchies, so ironically enough we hung out being super american for a few hours before i started my journey back to the states. it was fairly awesome, though - ju, mandy and i got there after they'd started. after one inning, they broke for food, beer and cigs. neil and jenny had brought their tortoise, miles, who chilled and ate clover...we played amongst ourselves while the frenchies were reposing; i have kinda developed a wicked talent for hitting without really trying/looking and throwing pretty well, too. yaay gym class..? i dont know. anyway. said bye to jess, stopped by the apt to grab lunch and luggage, then went to the tgv station for my 15h train. prayed and hoped and hoped and prayed that the train would be lost or something, but to no avail. i havent been so sad and cried so much since i dont know when. truly. we were all three complete wrecks...and it was so sad, bc it was a gorgeous day! and i was leaving such good good good friends! i dont know, im just soo glad and grateful that jess, mouf and julien were part of my time in france, and i dont know how im going to get along without mouf and ju around whenever i want them. but i know that these are friends for life and i love them soo much, and while it sucked leaving, it's just a temporary situation.
the actual trip was fine, train to gare de lyon, navette to CDG then to the hotel, flights were on time...although as early as the layover in dublin i knew that reentry was going to be rough. the americans that were on my flight just made me want to die inside. i dont know why. im just not from here... was happily assumed to be french by a french couple at the airport and the girl checking me into my flights was soo pro my speaking french that even when she once started speaking english to me, she caught herself mid-sentence and started in french again. yesss. AND i only had to pay for 4kg overweight, even though i was more like 15kg over. yess. im black-and-blue from lugging that stuff all over, but my shoulders are relatively not stiff anymore, so thats good, right?
more on the culture shock later. this whole experience just leaves me drained and my eyes hurting. j'aime pas. la france me manque trop, et mouf et julien. zut zut zut
my last days in valence were emotionally intense, to say the least. mandy was awesome - insisted on fresh baguettes and pastries everyday bc you know i would've regretted that once back stateside...so thursday we had dinner in tain. friday i ran my heart out at the gym to try to purge myself of the increasing sense of dread that i had about the impending departure, chilled at tasse with mandy, and went out to PKs with calum, ced, julien (who got super pissed at ced bc ced likes my neck piercings and pinched my cheeks...so cute, ju's jaloux! hehe) , jess, and shazz as a final farewell to those kids...it was bittersweet.
saturday rained buckets, how appropriate. dragged myself to the gym while mandy was tutoring, then met up with the boy in the early afternoon. and the crying commenced. uuuugh. not cool, but at least he was sad, too...last tasse et glace date, almost started crying again at leaving my home away from home. manu was great, gave me a gift bag with my favorite tea and candies...i miss it there already, though. just such a perfect little cafe, and manu is so great and i dont know what we would've done without it! i mean, la bastille is nice, too, and of course im pro the waiter that's in love with me and the terasse, but still. tasse is like a little slice of heaven. that evening, julien took me out for dinner, to his friend Richard's resto in Romans. super cute place, richard was fantastic, smoked like 50 cigs in 30 seconds no joke, hopped in and out of the kitchen window to come hang out with us (we were sitting outside), super goofy...oh yah, and dinner was good, too. pain d'epice-fraise tiramisu, miam! then we headed back to valence, picked up mandy and went to the pub with jess and sophie. neil, the barman, gave us a round of shooters on the house bc i was leaving...there was goofy, bad music (heep heep!), mandy saw her mec louche from st patricks day (such a circular evening!), we were weepy and sad...no joke, i cried for hours at the end of the night. vrai bordel, moi.
and then it was the last day. and that was not ok. i couldnt sleep. i couldnt concentrate. had a bad feeling about apts back in DC, so i was scrambling to find housing...didnt want to think about actually saying bye to the girls and julien...the pub had organized a baseball game with the frenchies, so ironically enough we hung out being super american for a few hours before i started my journey back to the states. it was fairly awesome, though - ju, mandy and i got there after they'd started. after one inning, they broke for food, beer and cigs. neil and jenny had brought their tortoise, miles, who chilled and ate clover...we played amongst ourselves while the frenchies were reposing; i have kinda developed a wicked talent for hitting without really trying/looking and throwing pretty well, too. yaay gym class..? i dont know. anyway. said bye to jess, stopped by the apt to grab lunch and luggage, then went to the tgv station for my 15h train. prayed and hoped and hoped and prayed that the train would be lost or something, but to no avail. i havent been so sad and cried so much since i dont know when. truly. we were all three complete wrecks...and it was so sad, bc it was a gorgeous day! and i was leaving such good good good friends! i dont know, im just soo glad and grateful that jess, mouf and julien were part of my time in france, and i dont know how im going to get along without mouf and ju around whenever i want them. but i know that these are friends for life and i love them soo much, and while it sucked leaving, it's just a temporary situation.
the actual trip was fine, train to gare de lyon, navette to CDG then to the hotel, flights were on time...although as early as the layover in dublin i knew that reentry was going to be rough. the americans that were on my flight just made me want to die inside. i dont know why. im just not from here... was happily assumed to be french by a french couple at the airport and the girl checking me into my flights was soo pro my speaking french that even when she once started speaking english to me, she caught herself mid-sentence and started in french again. yesss. AND i only had to pay for 4kg overweight, even though i was more like 15kg over. yess. im black-and-blue from lugging that stuff all over, but my shoulders are relatively not stiff anymore, so thats good, right?
more on the culture shock later. this whole experience just leaves me drained and my eyes hurting. j'aime pas. la france me manque trop, et mouf et julien. zut zut zut
vendredi 16 mai 2008
things i do for an armoire, and the last day with a puce
last night mandy and i went over to julien's for dinner with his maman...(first time he's brought a girl over to meet his mother, PS) so we took the train out to tain to meet him, which was a big deal since normally he comes down to valence. so we're heading to the gare, you know, strolling as french time calls for, with the intention of stopping at a floriste before the 18h49 train. as it happened, we were rather short on time, just 10 minutes to grab a bouquet of gerbers and jump the train, right? i mean, i picked what i wanted, had the cash in hand, vite fait, n'est pas? non non mes amis, nothing is ever fast in france, and this time was no exception. i mean, it was the scene clear out of love actually when alan rickman is buying the necklace from mr. bean. no joke. added little green things. yellow raffia. trimmed the stems. plastic emballage. more ribbon, stickers...aie! it was hilarious really, and after all but throwing the money at the poor guy, we ran onto the train, which we only made because it was running a few minutes behind schedule.
so this is the train that we ride without tickets. i mean, it's a 10-minute ride and we always take last-minute excursions to the land of wine and rainbows, aka i dont generally have my carte 12-25, aka not worth a ticket. whatever. we're never stopped. BUT THIS TIME...well, there was a sncf lady handing out questionnaires about the quality of our voyage. we had great peur that she was going to nab us for being sans billet, but in fact she just asked us to fill out the survey. tant pis, mme, we're at our stop! hehe.i filled it out nevertheless, for the scrapbook, you know..
dinner was fun, his mom is super cute. she made a nice veg-friendly spread (along with good-natured, totally expected vegetarian ribbing) - salade composee (gr beans, radishes, tomatoes, corn, olives noires), an omlette-gateau-truc (eggs with veggies and tomato sauce, kinda like quiche sans crust), and gratin de ravioles avec courgette. trop bon. and fresh strawberries with creme chantilly a la maison for dessert. super generous of her. fun times. (PS they have a super cute, super fat cat AND 2 tortoises) (PPS i totally got a baby slug in my hair while we were outside looking at the tortoises. dont ask me how, im just really talented at getting nature in my hair. ohh me)
today, however, was a sad day - i closed my bank account. sniff sniff. ive been in the bank all week, the poor girls see me coming, with my questions of what to do, trying to make appointments with my adviser, all that. basically the even consisted of dropping off an official letter stating that i wanted to close the accounts. then someone was supposed to call me to turn in my card and chequier, but no one called. so yesterday i went in to ask what to do, and opted to go in this afternoon, drop off my stuff, withdraw some cash for the weekend, and leave them with the info to transfer my funds to DC later in the month, once they're established that no more transactions are going through the acct. so mandy and i went in...i wanted to keep a check, once again for a keepsake, but had forgotten to take one out at home. so im all trying to secretly take out a check before giving her my chequier. of course im not tres slick, and she was all 'what are you doing?' 'umm, je vais garder une cheque.' 'pourquoi?' 'pour l'addresse, au cas ou je dois vs envoyer de quoi de ma banque a DC..?' 'je vs donnerai un RIB plutot.' 'umm d'ac mais je vais la garder quand-meme. n'inquietez pas, je mettrai "VOID"'...they thought i was nuts. asked if i wanted to take a pic of them for the scrapbook, too. ohh those french! hehe ... soo my carte puce soo francais was cut in half *tear*and within a month my euros should be in my american acct. nul/triste/arrrgh it makes this all too real.
so this is the train that we ride without tickets. i mean, it's a 10-minute ride and we always take last-minute excursions to the land of wine and rainbows, aka i dont generally have my carte 12-25, aka not worth a ticket. whatever. we're never stopped. BUT THIS TIME...well, there was a sncf lady handing out questionnaires about the quality of our voyage. we had great peur that she was going to nab us for being sans billet, but in fact she just asked us to fill out the survey. tant pis, mme, we're at our stop! hehe.i filled it out nevertheless, for the scrapbook, you know..
dinner was fun, his mom is super cute. she made a nice veg-friendly spread (along with good-natured, totally expected vegetarian ribbing) - salade composee (gr beans, radishes, tomatoes, corn, olives noires), an omlette-gateau-truc (eggs with veggies and tomato sauce, kinda like quiche sans crust), and gratin de ravioles avec courgette. trop bon. and fresh strawberries with creme chantilly a la maison for dessert. super generous of her. fun times. (PS they have a super cute, super fat cat AND 2 tortoises) (PPS i totally got a baby slug in my hair while we were outside looking at the tortoises. dont ask me how, im just really talented at getting nature in my hair. ohh me)
today, however, was a sad day - i closed my bank account. sniff sniff. ive been in the bank all week, the poor girls see me coming, with my questions of what to do, trying to make appointments with my adviser, all that. basically the even consisted of dropping off an official letter stating that i wanted to close the accounts. then someone was supposed to call me to turn in my card and chequier, but no one called. so yesterday i went in to ask what to do, and opted to go in this afternoon, drop off my stuff, withdraw some cash for the weekend, and leave them with the info to transfer my funds to DC later in the month, once they're established that no more transactions are going through the acct. so mandy and i went in...i wanted to keep a check, once again for a keepsake, but had forgotten to take one out at home. so im all trying to secretly take out a check before giving her my chequier. of course im not tres slick, and she was all 'what are you doing?' 'umm, je vais garder une cheque.' 'pourquoi?' 'pour l'addresse, au cas ou je dois vs envoyer de quoi de ma banque a DC..?' 'je vs donnerai un RIB plutot.' 'umm d'ac mais je vais la garder quand-meme. n'inquietez pas, je mettrai "VOID"'...they thought i was nuts. asked if i wanted to take a pic of them for the scrapbook, too. ohh those french! hehe ... soo my carte puce soo francais was cut in half *tear*and within a month my euros should be in my american acct. nul/triste/arrrgh it makes this all too real.
jeudi 15 mai 2008
falafel, eggplant, tea, greves
mouf decided to participate in the national teachers' grève today, mainly to hang out with me (bien sur!), have our traditional jeudi lunch date at the armenian resto where we're regulars, chill out at tasse, and put up with my neuroitc whining about the big move coming up next week. this is what le gouvernement had to think about that:
Fonction publique : le gouvernement dénonce une grève "surannée", "datée" et "égoïste"
LEMONDE.FR | 15.05.08
LEMONDE.FR | 15.05.08
© 
mardi 13 mai 2008
attaque des flaques! or: the things we do that ellicit wonderous looks of confusion from the french
1) nutella and chevre tartines: jaws drop every time we say that we've tried it and it's good. they just dont like mixing the salty and the sweet
2) ranch dressing on pizza during nouvelle star parties
2.5) eating vegetables (ahem, broccoli) at such parties that are just cooked plain, aka not in creme et fromage, gratin-style. oh those french, just so wholesome and fresh.
2.75) grape bubble yum bubble-blowing contests. i mean, i dont know why we decide to do these things, but it's funny. and like cultural immersion for julien. dont judge us.
3) peanut butter and jelly, classic. i think it's gross too.
4) microwavable popcorn. i was in istanbul, but apparently mandy and jessika borrowed manu's microwave to pop some before watching a movie...long story short, there were 4 frenchies crowded around the micro., watching in fear and awe as the bag popped. it just doesnt exist here.
5) traveling for pastries, such as the best mille feuille in france. we (mouf, jess and I) went to livron, a town 20 min south of valence, since we had some time...it was totally worth the hike from the gare, the 1.5h wait until the patisserie reopened from lunch...but when we tell people here that we traveled to find a good pastry (bc a bad mille feuille is just a very very sad day), they look at us like we have 3 heads.
6) breakfast for dinner. food customs are set in stone and theres no changing them. asked julien once if he wanted a bowl of cereal bc we hadnt eaten dinner and he got all consternated-like, nevermind their reactions when we told ppl we were having a bfast for dinner party!
7) colorful clothing. i wore my patchwork plaid skirt to livron and apparently everyone and their mother was looking at me and giggling at the crazy in yellows and reds. while we were waiting for the bus, this kid shouted out of the window of his car, "vous avez vole ma nappe! c'est pas bon, ca!" (you stole my tablecloth! not cool!). at least he vouvoye'd me quand-meme.
8) my neck piercing still attract attention, esp since now that it's warm im not wearing my scarves as much. the server at the bastille is in love with them, and our friend ced decided it would be cool to lick them. although i guess on that count, it's more the things the french do that make me confused.
9) actually working up a sweat in the gym
10) bad american holiday candy: peeps. v-day hearts. cheap cvs chocolate things...
2) ranch dressing on pizza during nouvelle star parties
2.5) eating vegetables (ahem, broccoli) at such parties that are just cooked plain, aka not in creme et fromage, gratin-style. oh those french, just so wholesome and fresh.
2.75) grape bubble yum bubble-blowing contests. i mean, i dont know why we decide to do these things, but it's funny. and like cultural immersion for julien. dont judge us.
3) peanut butter and jelly, classic. i think it's gross too.
4) microwavable popcorn. i was in istanbul, but apparently mandy and jessika borrowed manu's microwave to pop some before watching a movie...long story short, there were 4 frenchies crowded around the micro., watching in fear and awe as the bag popped. it just doesnt exist here.
5) traveling for pastries, such as the best mille feuille in france. we (mouf, jess and I) went to livron, a town 20 min south of valence, since we had some time...it was totally worth the hike from the gare, the 1.5h wait until the patisserie reopened from lunch...but when we tell people here that we traveled to find a good pastry (bc a bad mille feuille is just a very very sad day), they look at us like we have 3 heads.
6) breakfast for dinner. food customs are set in stone and theres no changing them. asked julien once if he wanted a bowl of cereal bc we hadnt eaten dinner and he got all consternated-like, nevermind their reactions when we told ppl we were having a bfast for dinner party!
7) colorful clothing. i wore my patchwork plaid skirt to livron and apparently everyone and their mother was looking at me and giggling at the crazy in yellows and reds. while we were waiting for the bus, this kid shouted out of the window of his car, "vous avez vole ma nappe! c'est pas bon, ca!" (you stole my tablecloth! not cool!). at least he vouvoye'd me quand-meme.
8) my neck piercing still attract attention, esp since now that it's warm im not wearing my scarves as much. the server at the bastille is in love with them, and our friend ced decided it would be cool to lick them. although i guess on that count, it's more the things the french do that make me confused.
9) actually working up a sweat in the gym
10) bad american holiday candy: peeps. v-day hearts. cheap cvs chocolate things...
dimanche 11 mai 2008
la turquie, bis
more pictures, yaaaay...
Along with the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market, Paul and I stumbled upon a decently sized book market. Heaven, minus the fact that I can't read Turkish.
Hydration is the key to success and bottled water is the key to not getting sick...
Looking at the Bosporus and Asian Istanbul from the Topkapi Palace
Chillin on the Princes' Islands (here on Buyukada); took a 90-minute ferry ride to visit this island where cars are forbidden except for police and transport; people get around by bike or horse-drawn carriage. Too cute.
Market at Buyukada. The beauty of the fresh produce makes me want to cry, always.
Tiles at the Hagia Sophia, my personal obsession.
More Hagia Sophia, fountains, hammams...what more could you ask for, really?
Roses in our neighborhood.
vendredi 9 mai 2008
hummus field tripping
one last hurrah before leaving the european continent next week (ugh i dont want to talk about it!) - sara from AU and i flew out to istanbul for a few days. you know, to chill with some gorgeous old mosques and eat hummus and whatnot. it was pretty fantastic.
so for as much as i adore traveling, i always seem to forget that the actual process is not a fun time. this trip goes at the top of the list - each travel day was a solid 12 hrs at least of transit and WAITING to be displaced to a city that's about a 4 hr flight from lyon. groan on soo many levels. thurs 1st may i left valence on the tgv that runs directly to lyon st exupery airport, waited 4 hours til my flight to munich left, then waited 5 hours in munich plus a 30-min delay before actually leaving for istanbul. so i arrive, buy my visa (the guy saw the american passport, was all "$20", done and done, no muss no fuss. it should always be like that. ahem, russia), go through passport control, and see that sara's flight from london was delayed 2h15. aka she was due to arrive at 12:40. and it was only like 11pm. ouch. we'd arranged via the hotel to have a cab pick us up since it was so late; i walked into the arrivals terminal there was a kid holding a sign for "sarah bularszick" (her name is soo not spelled that way). i had to explain to him, then to his friend that while im not sara, i was the other half of the arriving party, sara was coming in late, so could they figure out how to wait for us? the friend (who was awesome) tried to convince me to just go ahead to the hostel, but i was like no way man, i wanna meet my friend! i havent seen her in ages! so we waited, chatted, and he teased me mercilessly when it took sara an hour to actually make it through passport control and all that. he was all "i dont think shes coming! it was all a joke!" not funny! but finally she came, it was happiness, we arrived at the hotel around 1:30am and stayed up til 4 catching up...and slept in to 10am. :)
basically our hostel was in a superb location. we were in sultanahmet, the "old" part of the city, aka 30 seconds from the blue mosque, topkapi palace, the hagia sophia...this also meant, however, that we were in tourist central. i mean, the street we were staying on looked like it could have been right out of a beach town in the states or something. 2 little markets, tourist offices, hostels, restaurants, cheers bar...aie. but it was ok, i mean the whole city had a very euro/tourist-friendly vibe, actually.
so for as much as i adore traveling, i always seem to forget that the actual process is not a fun time. this trip goes at the top of the list - each travel day was a solid 12 hrs at least of transit and WAITING to be displaced to a city that's about a 4 hr flight from lyon. groan on soo many levels. thurs 1st may i left valence on the tgv that runs directly to lyon st exupery airport, waited 4 hours til my flight to munich left, then waited 5 hours in munich plus a 30-min delay before actually leaving for istanbul. so i arrive, buy my visa (the guy saw the american passport, was all "$20", done and done, no muss no fuss. it should always be like that. ahem, russia), go through passport control, and see that sara's flight from london was delayed 2h15. aka she was due to arrive at 12:40. and it was only like 11pm. ouch. we'd arranged via the hotel to have a cab pick us up since it was so late; i walked into the arrivals terminal there was a kid holding a sign for "sarah bularszick" (her name is soo not spelled that way). i had to explain to him, then to his friend that while im not sara, i was the other half of the arriving party, sara was coming in late, so could they figure out how to wait for us? the friend (who was awesome) tried to convince me to just go ahead to the hostel, but i was like no way man, i wanna meet my friend! i havent seen her in ages! so we waited, chatted, and he teased me mercilessly when it took sara an hour to actually make it through passport control and all that. he was all "i dont think shes coming! it was all a joke!" not funny! but finally she came, it was happiness, we arrived at the hotel around 1:30am and stayed up til 4 catching up...and slept in to 10am. :)
basically our hostel was in a superb location. we were in sultanahmet, the "old" part of the city, aka 30 seconds from the blue mosque, topkapi palace, the hagia sophia...this also meant, however, that we were in tourist central. i mean, the street we were staying on looked like it could have been right out of a beach town in the states or something. 2 little markets, tourist offices, hostels, restaurants, cheers bar...aie. but it was ok, i mean the whole city had a very euro/tourist-friendly vibe, actually.
The Blue Mosque(Sultanhamet Camii), note it's 6 minarets; built in 1609-1616
The Hippodrome
The Hagia Spohia (Ayasofya), first a basilica in the 500s, then like saul to paul on hte road to damascus, it became a mosque in the 1450s when constantinople was conquered by the turks (-> istanbul yo), and it's currently a museum, thanks to President Ataturk. and rather run down.
view from the New Mosque (Yeni Camii) towards Beyoglu, the genoese Galata Tower, and Taksim
Interior of the Yeni Camii
The New Mosque (Yeni Camii), constructed between 1597 and 1663, looks over the Golden Horn and the Galata Bridge. It was my favorite of the 3 mosques I visited.
Parks surrounding the Topkapi Palace; strolled through here randomly on my last day, with Paul from CA, my adopted friend, since Sara had to leave early Monday morning and I didn;t leave til Tuesday.
lundi 28 avril 2008
le premier (et dernier) dimanche PAS BORING!! WOOHOOO
im just gonna put it out there: we FINALLY had a sunday that was so much fun, we didnt even realize it was sunday! yessss. long story short, this past weekend was "de ferme en ferme" - a program where farms in the Drome were open to the public with special activities and tours and product sampling and all that fin stuff. olivier, part of jessika's group of french friends that ive adopted, proposed going out to a few farms to check it out; the plan was to meet in town at 11am and hit up about 3 farms. of course french time is not always tres punctual, so we actually all rendez'ed vers 11:30 instead (me, mandy, jess, olivier, pierre, claire, and alex), loaded into 2 cars, and headed in the direction of Soau (sp?)/Crest, where we were going to have lunch first.
well we were nearly to Crest, singing and goofing around in alex's car, when pierre pulled over to pass along the message that the restaurant we'd be heading to was already fully reserved for the lunch hour. So we just drove to Crest to find something fast...riiiiight. lunch at a pizza place, after tromping around most of the town looking for something that was open, took almost 3 hours. but it was sunny and hot, so we got nice and pink and it was all good. however, after the lunch ordeal (the waiter was a real jerkface), we were too fatigued to do a bunch of farms. claire leafed through the program and noticed that there was an ostrich farm on the ride back to valence. yes my friends, ostriches. why the heck not? so we did that, learned about the elevage of these magnificent birds (FYI one ostrich egg = 24 reg eggs. grOSS), hung out in the campagne, then returned to valence. coffees at the PK to recharge and chat about maybe going to the beach once im back from istanbul, then off to a RUGBY GAME (bourg les valence v someone, dunno who) with pierre, olivier, another of pierre's friends, and the girls. i mean, suddenly it was 8pm and we were like dang! what a good day! sunburns, ostriches, rugby, french guys wearing man capris...all love
well we were nearly to Crest, singing and goofing around in alex's car, when pierre pulled over to pass along the message that the restaurant we'd be heading to was already fully reserved for the lunch hour. So we just drove to Crest to find something fast...riiiiight. lunch at a pizza place, after tromping around most of the town looking for something that was open, took almost 3 hours. but it was sunny and hot, so we got nice and pink and it was all good. however, after the lunch ordeal (the waiter was a real jerkface), we were too fatigued to do a bunch of farms. claire leafed through the program and noticed that there was an ostrich farm on the ride back to valence. yes my friends, ostriches. why the heck not? so we did that, learned about the elevage of these magnificent birds (FYI one ostrich egg = 24 reg eggs. grOSS), hung out in the campagne, then returned to valence. coffees at the PK to recharge and chat about maybe going to the beach once im back from istanbul, then off to a RUGBY GAME (bourg les valence v someone, dunno who) with pierre, olivier, another of pierre's friends, and the girls. i mean, suddenly it was 8pm and we were like dang! what a good day! sunburns, ostriches, rugby, french guys wearing man capris...all love
mercredi 23 avril 2008
taking it back to where it all began
got to play valence's finest tour guide yet again last week: my dad and bonne maman (g.parental) popped over to this side of the pond for a few days, and dad put it in his head that a visit to the bustling metropolis of valence was incontournable. Thus last monday i showed dad around my town - tasse (closed, bc mondays are almost as sad as sundays here), some church, shopping, the ardeche, etc. c'est a dire, pas grande chose. we had lunch at cafe victor hugo (awesome salads) and dinner with mandy at a creperie near the gym.
the next morning dad and i hopped the tgv - such vitesse, these trains! - up to paris. we stayed near the bastille...i hadnt really thought of the repercussions of staying in a neighborhood packed densely with bars, but we were able to sleep (relatively) well..eventually. regardless, we were in PARIS still all love on my part. we totally lucked out with the weather, it was sunshine all over the place and fairly warm, too. tuesday i successfully got us lost in the marais looking for this falafel place; after a solid 45minutes of wandering, i was forced to reconcile myself to the sad fact that my sense of direction in paris,after 3 years, has lost a bit of its edge. sad day. in any event, we wandered towards the centre popmpidou to get our modern art on, but of course it was closed on tuesdays. mince! so we grabbed crepes (sorry replacement for falafel, but pas mal quand meme.) and just spent the afternoon wandering around. my ideal afternoon, frankly. we had a dinner date with laurent and marie-astride david (fran's son) and their kids, Valentin, Alexandre and Capucin (sp?) out in the 'burbs, so we took the transilien train out to meet them at the end of the afternoon. they have an amaaaaazing house: luminous, surrounded by gnarly trees, sweet bright decorations, an enclosed patio where we ate...family dinner #1 down, soo many more to go, but it was a lot of fun.
wednesday we tried again to go to the museum. again we were defeated: after waiting in line for 20 minutes, there was an announcement that levels 4 &5 - aka permanent collection - were closed until further notice. so we moved outta there, grabbed a tea to go (ahhhhhhh), and decided to train it out to versailles to profite from the sun and loveliness. since ive toured the chateau before, i was content to wander the gardens, and dad wasnt terribly pro braving the ticket lines, so we just strolled about the town and along the gardens and the canal on the chateau grounds. i mean, the gardens are impressive on their own, what with the sculptures par tout and the intricately pruned shrubbery. intense. that evening we met antoine (of antoine and benedicte, marc, and maxime, dominique's daughter)at La Defense, a cold, soulless place where paris relegated all its modern buildings. first time ive been out there and i dont think ill make a point to go there again...in any event, dinner was tres fun once again. dom and francoise were there as well - i loooove these kids, they were so welcoming when i studied in paris and let me crash at theirs the summer i came over to talk to the fam for my capstone. whereas the night before my veggie habitudes caused a bit of a ruckus (marie astride was mortified that i just ate potatoes, cheese, salad, and dessert. clearly that was more than enough anyway!), the doms know tres bien about how i eat and they had veggie burgers waiting for me! ohh lovely day. we laughed a lot, as antoine practiced his english (where is brian??) and dom recounted tales of being arrested while roadtripping in the US.
thursday = third time's the charm = FINALLY got our culture on. thank goodness. i love pompidou. then we moved on out, up to le havre, where bonne maman had been chilling with her sibs. she was radiant, truly. i have to admit, i was a little nervous about seeing her for the first time since she got out of the hospital, but she looked like the trip was doing her good. i love spending time with my relatives over here - they are honestly some of the nicest people i know - and it was doubly awesome to see my grandma with them, too. and the french just flowed out of my mouth like it was nothing! i think dad got a little fatigued from the sudden language shift, but he def held his own throughout, and i was happy with myself that i kept it going from sunrise to sunset, you know, since most of my ppl in valence are parler-ing the (fr)anglais.
for our last evening in le havre, friday, dad and jean had collaborated to throw a cocktail party with all the david kids (minus dom and francoise) and laville cousins, as well as vero (dad's cousin) charlotte (dad's cousin nicolas' daughter, my age)...so we ran errands all morning, ate lunch chez vero with christophe, heloise and abel, then spent the afternoon prepping hors d'oeuvres and whatnot. i was in charge of veggies, grapes, hummus, olives...miam...the soiree porte-ouverte was super fun. there were 20-some attendees, the majority whom i didnt know. i mean, we're talking cousins that even my grandma hadnt seen in 15-some-odd years, so there was a lot of introductions, explanations of what im doing here, all that fun stuff. super hardcore french time. im quite glad that i was able to make it up to visit the fam in le havre with my dad and grandma, and it was a great experience to meet a bunch of random, outlying family members, too. by 21h most of the guests had left and jean's house was quiet once again. his cleaning lady had stayed on late to help serve food (she used to have a restaurant, so she's used to catering the party scene), so we helped her clean up, then sat around with mugs of tea and rehashed the night for a while, before retiring to our rooms. my train left le havre for paris at noon the following day, and then i changed gares and continued onto valence in FIRST CLASS (yaaay waiting til the derniere minute pour acheter les billets..ouch!).
voila les vacances!
the next morning dad and i hopped the tgv - such vitesse, these trains! - up to paris. we stayed near the bastille...i hadnt really thought of the repercussions of staying in a neighborhood packed densely with bars, but we were able to sleep (relatively) well..eventually. regardless, we were in PARIS still all love on my part. we totally lucked out with the weather, it was sunshine all over the place and fairly warm, too. tuesday i successfully got us lost in the marais looking for this falafel place; after a solid 45minutes of wandering, i was forced to reconcile myself to the sad fact that my sense of direction in paris,after 3 years, has lost a bit of its edge. sad day. in any event, we wandered towards the centre popmpidou to get our modern art on, but of course it was closed on tuesdays. mince! so we grabbed crepes (sorry replacement for falafel, but pas mal quand meme.) and just spent the afternoon wandering around. my ideal afternoon, frankly. we had a dinner date with laurent and marie-astride david (fran's son) and their kids, Valentin, Alexandre and Capucin (sp?) out in the 'burbs, so we took the transilien train out to meet them at the end of the afternoon. they have an amaaaaazing house: luminous, surrounded by gnarly trees, sweet bright decorations, an enclosed patio where we ate...family dinner #1 down, soo many more to go, but it was a lot of fun.
wednesday we tried again to go to the museum. again we were defeated: after waiting in line for 20 minutes, there was an announcement that levels 4 &5 - aka permanent collection - were closed until further notice. so we moved outta there, grabbed a tea to go (ahhhhhhh), and decided to train it out to versailles to profite from the sun and loveliness. since ive toured the chateau before, i was content to wander the gardens, and dad wasnt terribly pro braving the ticket lines, so we just strolled about the town and along the gardens and the canal on the chateau grounds. i mean, the gardens are impressive on their own, what with the sculptures par tout and the intricately pruned shrubbery. intense. that evening we met antoine (of antoine and benedicte, marc, and maxime, dominique's daughter)at La Defense, a cold, soulless place where paris relegated all its modern buildings. first time ive been out there and i dont think ill make a point to go there again...in any event, dinner was tres fun once again. dom and francoise were there as well - i loooove these kids, they were so welcoming when i studied in paris and let me crash at theirs the summer i came over to talk to the fam for my capstone. whereas the night before my veggie habitudes caused a bit of a ruckus (marie astride was mortified that i just ate potatoes, cheese, salad, and dessert. clearly that was more than enough anyway!), the doms know tres bien about how i eat and they had veggie burgers waiting for me! ohh lovely day. we laughed a lot, as antoine practiced his english (where is brian??) and dom recounted tales of being arrested while roadtripping in the US.
thursday = third time's the charm = FINALLY got our culture on. thank goodness. i love pompidou. then we moved on out, up to le havre, where bonne maman had been chilling with her sibs. she was radiant, truly. i have to admit, i was a little nervous about seeing her for the first time since she got out of the hospital, but she looked like the trip was doing her good. i love spending time with my relatives over here - they are honestly some of the nicest people i know - and it was doubly awesome to see my grandma with them, too. and the french just flowed out of my mouth like it was nothing! i think dad got a little fatigued from the sudden language shift, but he def held his own throughout, and i was happy with myself that i kept it going from sunrise to sunset, you know, since most of my ppl in valence are parler-ing the (fr)anglais.
for our last evening in le havre, friday, dad and jean had collaborated to throw a cocktail party with all the david kids (minus dom and francoise) and laville cousins, as well as vero (dad's cousin) charlotte (dad's cousin nicolas' daughter, my age)...so we ran errands all morning, ate lunch chez vero with christophe, heloise and abel, then spent the afternoon prepping hors d'oeuvres and whatnot. i was in charge of veggies, grapes, hummus, olives...miam...the soiree porte-ouverte was super fun. there were 20-some attendees, the majority whom i didnt know. i mean, we're talking cousins that even my grandma hadnt seen in 15-some-odd years, so there was a lot of introductions, explanations of what im doing here, all that fun stuff. super hardcore french time. im quite glad that i was able to make it up to visit the fam in le havre with my dad and grandma, and it was a great experience to meet a bunch of random, outlying family members, too. by 21h most of the guests had left and jean's house was quiet once again. his cleaning lady had stayed on late to help serve food (she used to have a restaurant, so she's used to catering the party scene), so we helped her clean up, then sat around with mugs of tea and rehashed the night for a while, before retiring to our rooms. my train left le havre for paris at noon the following day, and then i changed gares and continued onto valence in FIRST CLASS (yaaay waiting til the derniere minute pour acheter les billets..ouch!).
voila les vacances!
vendredi 11 avril 2008
our lives as assistants in moving pictures
Ryan, my ex-boss from modern times, sent me this months ago. im sure he had no idea that it would be the best thing in our lives. basically all year we've pranced around valence (and france in general) singing this song and every time we say "voila" it's followed by "mon passeport" under our breath...
apparently in france people learn english with this "where is brian" sketch. or at least they did back in the day, bc ive never heard any of my kids reference it, although that might just be bc theyre too dense to know whats going on ever. anywho, a bunch of the frenchies we know who are at least our age reference this sketch when they hear us speaking english...it's pretty much the best clip ever, and soo wonderful that we found it the other night. this french teaching story just feels so properly circular now.
Foux Fa Fa aka BEST THING EVER
Where is Brian?
***
apparently in france people learn english with this "where is brian" sketch. or at least they did back in the day, bc ive never heard any of my kids reference it, although that might just be bc theyre too dense to know whats going on ever. anywho, a bunch of the frenchies we know who are at least our age reference this sketch when they hear us speaking english...it's pretty much the best clip ever, and soo wonderful that we found it the other night. this french teaching story just feels so properly circular now.
Foux Fa Fa aka BEST THING EVER
Where is Brian?
***
lundi 7 avril 2008
indecision and dinner parties
im really not a fan of life right now. a grey drizzly chill has been hanging over valence all week, pretty much matching how my heart feels...(ohh emo, do you love it?) seriously though, technically im down to the last 4 weeks of my time here, and im having trouble wrapping my mind around coming back to the states. it's understandable - i mean, you remember all those times over vacation or at summer camp or whatnot, when time dragged in the middle of your visit and then BAM all kinds of fun, cool things happened at the end, and it's just like shooooot i cant leave now! well that's mas o menos the situation here. all of my teachers just shake their heads when i say im leaving on the 9th, since may/june is when france becomes vivacious and lovely once again. mandy'll be here teaching til mid-july, and she's sorta bummed out bc she's the only one with the 9-month contract, so she'll be here alone. BUT of course we've also made more local friends that she'll hang out with and i'll be jealous...
the job search in DC is pretty much shite at the moment, so if this summer im going to be working just to be working, aka n'importe quel type of job, why not stay in france for a little bit longer? soo im half-heartedly looking at au pair jobs or volunteering on a farm; changing my ticket wouldnt be too cher, so even just staying instead until the end of may is a possibility. i mean, i dont have an apt or job to go back to, and i feel like im happier here than i would be in dc, soo....and i really need to stop looking at dc as the only city to go back to, too..time to change it up.
annnyway. so i cant decide if i should stay or go. i want to stay. but i want a real job in dc, too...so for the moment im living it up as if im peacing out as planned, which means that i have very little time chez moi to look for jobs here or in the district, buuuut im ok with that. mandy, jessika and i have been having little dinner parties and theres been lots of just chilling entre assistants. last night was the "last supper" - we dressed up and went out to dinner at Bistrot des Clercs (faaancy) together for the last time before everyone splits off for vacation and heading off for the summer. it was pretty surreal. of course there are some tensions between certain people, the unfortunate side effect of spending soo much time with the same people, but i think i'll miss just about everyone.
ive started saying goodbye to my classes already. yesterday at Valery the teachers had an apero at lunch to thank me and Rebeka, the german assistant. i had 5 hours of class there, too, and it felt soo goood to leave and know that i just have one hour there this afternoon and then im finished with that school. for good. that being said, i will miss the teachers there. josette made me promise to keep in touch, esp if i stay in france a bit longer, since we didn't really have time to hangout outside of school. i spent 3 hours in class with olivier, who's probably my favorite teacher/friend, and we just mostly hung out chatting about briticims (i cant be bothered!) vs american phrases, while the kids played word games that i brought. it's funny, his classes have thought all year that im his girlfriend, ooh lord, noooo. today im meeting a class - probably the ONLY class that i havent worked with - just so they can see me and be sad that they didnt get to work with me (kidding, more like bc they dont have class the days that i was usually there, but are apparently good and cute, so they're going to interview me) and then it's vaaacaaaation AGAIN, then 3 days of teaching and thats all. shoot.
i was gonna write about why this was a good experience for me even if im leaving here without references and just generally stressed about what to do next, but i have to go profiter from yet another rainy day. i'll post again, dont fret, in between the gym and a teacher dinner and hanging out with the girls and Julien (french friend!! woohoo)...
the job search in DC is pretty much shite at the moment, so if this summer im going to be working just to be working, aka n'importe quel type of job, why not stay in france for a little bit longer? soo im half-heartedly looking at au pair jobs or volunteering on a farm; changing my ticket wouldnt be too cher, so even just staying instead until the end of may is a possibility. i mean, i dont have an apt or job to go back to, and i feel like im happier here than i would be in dc, soo....and i really need to stop looking at dc as the only city to go back to, too..time to change it up.
annnyway. so i cant decide if i should stay or go. i want to stay. but i want a real job in dc, too...so for the moment im living it up as if im peacing out as planned, which means that i have very little time chez moi to look for jobs here or in the district, buuuut im ok with that. mandy, jessika and i have been having little dinner parties and theres been lots of just chilling entre assistants. last night was the "last supper" - we dressed up and went out to dinner at Bistrot des Clercs (faaancy) together for the last time before everyone splits off for vacation and heading off for the summer. it was pretty surreal. of course there are some tensions between certain people, the unfortunate side effect of spending soo much time with the same people, but i think i'll miss just about everyone.
ive started saying goodbye to my classes already. yesterday at Valery the teachers had an apero at lunch to thank me and Rebeka, the german assistant. i had 5 hours of class there, too, and it felt soo goood to leave and know that i just have one hour there this afternoon and then im finished with that school. for good. that being said, i will miss the teachers there. josette made me promise to keep in touch, esp if i stay in france a bit longer, since we didn't really have time to hangout outside of school. i spent 3 hours in class with olivier, who's probably my favorite teacher/friend, and we just mostly hung out chatting about briticims (i cant be bothered!) vs american phrases, while the kids played word games that i brought. it's funny, his classes have thought all year that im his girlfriend, ooh lord, noooo. today im meeting a class - probably the ONLY class that i havent worked with - just so they can see me and be sad that they didnt get to work with me (kidding, more like bc they dont have class the days that i was usually there, but are apparently good and cute, so they're going to interview me) and then it's vaaacaaaation AGAIN, then 3 days of teaching and thats all. shoot.
i was gonna write about why this was a good experience for me even if im leaving here without references and just generally stressed about what to do next, but i have to go profiter from yet another rainy day. i'll post again, dont fret, in between the gym and a teacher dinner and hanging out with the girls and Julien (french friend!! woohoo)...
dimanche 30 mars 2008
peas and carrots
i forgot to add in my last post something that happened on thursday, but it's a fairly interesting example of what the kids i work with are like. So i arrived at Valery around 9h40, since i had a class at 10h, after recreation. so i was sitting in the staff room, chatting with Josette, one of my teachers, when a few other teachers close the doors and put on serious faces. they spent the rest of the break talking about how horrid the kids have become this year, mainly in their blatant lack of respect for the faculty and their habit of addressing teachers like they would their friends.
then the gym teacher stood up and told us about how earlier in the week a boy in 3e decided that he wanted to just goof off in class, and when she told him to grow up, his response was 'ta guele, prof de merde'(shut up, you shit teacher). she had apparently even gone to the police to start a file on the kid since the school has already taken every disciplinary action they can against the kid, but the cops just laughed at her.
soo the teachers called for solidarity and a tightening down on the shit kids and a possible "conseil de discipline" (dunno what that is, but it involves the principle...?) and at that moment, they wanted to take a stand in front of the kids. so we greved/did a "demande a la retrait" which basically amounted to us standing in the courtyard for 20 minutes at the end of recess. while the kids kept on playing. i asked olivier if this was going to have any impact on the kids, since as far as i could tell they were too dumb to even realize anything was going on and really, why would they be worried if they had a longer break? buuut he thought that it was going to be effective, that the kids would think that something was up and be a little concerned...i am doubtful. after the mini-greve was over, we went to class, each teacher explained the situation to the kids, and we carried on as usual.
let me just say, though, that that afternoon they were just as loud and obnoxious as ever. and my 6es (well,the boys), with whom i was working on "i like/dont like/love/hate" (i cut pix out of mags, like dif foods, activities, animals, etc) just talked about how they liked the girls in all the pictures. "yes, i love women a poil (naked)...i love big bottoms, i hate little bottoms." OMG these kids are like 11 yrs old!!! shooooot, talk about typical french. anywho, that was my day at P Valery last week...
so this article is wonderful, gotta love book snobbism: Oh literary dealbreakers
and i just dont understand the never-ending franco-american love-hate fascination/relations/whatever, but this article is cool: French Love
and finally, yesterday was sunny warm perfection, so a bunch of s went for a walk along the river. i dont know why we havent done that yet, but it was lovely. we saw ducks and river otters and found the valence marina. and then went for tea at a DIFFERENT tea house, les p'tit pois et carrottes, which is even CUTER than tasse and has more selection, but i still love tasse anyway.
then the gym teacher stood up and told us about how earlier in the week a boy in 3e decided that he wanted to just goof off in class, and when she told him to grow up, his response was 'ta guele, prof de merde'(shut up, you shit teacher). she had apparently even gone to the police to start a file on the kid since the school has already taken every disciplinary action they can against the kid, but the cops just laughed at her.
soo the teachers called for solidarity and a tightening down on the shit kids and a possible "conseil de discipline" (dunno what that is, but it involves the principle...?) and at that moment, they wanted to take a stand in front of the kids. so we greved/did a "demande a la retrait" which basically amounted to us standing in the courtyard for 20 minutes at the end of recess. while the kids kept on playing. i asked olivier if this was going to have any impact on the kids, since as far as i could tell they were too dumb to even realize anything was going on and really, why would they be worried if they had a longer break? buuut he thought that it was going to be effective, that the kids would think that something was up and be a little concerned...i am doubtful. after the mini-greve was over, we went to class, each teacher explained the situation to the kids, and we carried on as usual.
let me just say, though, that that afternoon they were just as loud and obnoxious as ever. and my 6es (well,the boys), with whom i was working on "i like/dont like/love/hate" (i cut pix out of mags, like dif foods, activities, animals, etc) just talked about how they liked the girls in all the pictures. "yes, i love women a poil (naked)...i love big bottoms, i hate little bottoms." OMG these kids are like 11 yrs old!!! shooooot, talk about typical french. anywho, that was my day at P Valery last week...
so this article is wonderful, gotta love book snobbism: Oh literary dealbreakers
and i just dont understand the never-ending franco-american love-hate fascination/relations/whatever, but this article is cool: French Love
and finally, yesterday was sunny warm perfection, so a bunch of s went for a walk along the river. i dont know why we havent done that yet, but it was lovely. we saw ducks and river otters and found the valence marina. and then went for tea at a DIFFERENT tea house, les p'tit pois et carrottes, which is even CUTER than tasse and has more selection, but i still love tasse anyway.
jeudi 27 mars 2008
le vent t'emportera: Montpellier pour Paques
i finally went to montpellier, one of the largest university cities in France, and a place i've been wanting to visit since i was here for study abroad. Mandy spent a semester there and has kept in touch with her host fam. She had asked them if we could stay at their house for the weekend of the 22nd, not realizing that it was easter weekend, but they are super awesome and invited us to stay anyway. it was a full house, though, what with their children and cousins in for the holiday. more on that later, though...so mandy and i drove down to montpellier on friday afternoon with her flatmate, Aziza (who is a little awesome and definitely a little crazy. she talked about how to improve traffic flow and avoid bouchons (traffic jams) 1h45 of the 2h ride. buut it was nice to take a road trip.
we arrived at Montferrier sur Lez, the village just outside Montpellier where we were going to be staying, around 19h. so the host parents - marc and clothilde - have 3 daughters and one son, from my age up to early 30s, as well as a hilarious dog, Toby, who likes to jump all over you and try to sit on your lap, never mind the fact that he is like, as big as me. highly entertaining. anyway, friday night the son and his girlfriend (and their toy poodle sheesps (?)) were staying there, as well as clothilde's sister. over the next two nights there would be additional cousins, daughters, i dont even know...but the house is huge and gorgeous and there was plenty of room and food and homemade breads and jam for breakfast (miammm)...friday night we just chilled with the fam, had aperos, homemade yogurt, these amazing olives from spain that tasted like berries, talked about our astrological signs, played with the dogs, and generally relished being in a house that actually felt homey.
saturday morning mandy and i headed into the city early, to profiter bien from the day. a few other assistants had randomly decided to come to montp. for the weekend, as well (jessika, shazz and andrea), so we planned to meet them in the afternoon when their train arrived. so sidebar: mandy is obsessed with this city (and understandably so, after having visited and met her host fam and all that) and has some pretty sweet stories, one that includes
Charles, her french grandpa. she apparently met this gentleman randomly on her bus - he advised her to put her purse messenger-bag-style so someone couldnt run off with it, asked her if she liked coffee, and pulled her off the tram and into a cafe. they had coffee dates whenever they happened to run into each other, Charles would give her his chocolate, it was all very cute and au hasard- and as such, she never had the chance to say good-bye when she left at the end of the semester.so ive heard this story, i know about Charles, and we get on the bus and there he is!! so of course she had to catch up with him, and of course he was heading into town, too, and of course we went for a coffee and he gave us all the chocolates he'd saved but hadn't eaten...and he recounted the local history of every stop on the tramway for me (...in one ear, out the other...), took us to see the highlights in the old town, told us local fables, off-color jokes, treated us to lunch (mmm crepes and cidre). it was an intense morning of french and grandpa-ness. quel coincidence!
after lunching with Charles, we went to pick up the girls and settle them in their hostel. unfortunately the afternoon was incredibly windy, with bursts of sun alternating with drizzle and grey. we buttoned up our coats and made the best of the afternoon, though, with mandy leading us to some of her favorite spots (and of course we doubled back to some of the sites Charles had taken us to).ooh and we had amazing coffee at Soho (?), it was wonderful and kitschy and all love. i have to admit, though, that after hanging out with Charles, the highlight of my day was dinner at the greek pite resto. ooooohhhmmmyyygod, hummus-baba-falafel pita with salad and tahini and eggplant and this spicy olive oil sauce for 5E. haaaaaappiness. we stocked up on easter chocolates and gourmandises, then went out to a few bars. ahh the novelty of seeing people our age out and about and people in the streets after 20h will take a while to wear off. the first bar was pretty sweet - Barbe Rousse: pirate-themed, specializing in fruity shooters and a bizarre mix of music (from disco to justin timberlake to latino). we met up with bill, a fellow assistant in perpignan who was in mandy's study abroad group, and one of his friends, too...sadly we were trop fatiguees after walking all day and a lot of people were out of town for the holiday, so we didnt stay out too late. the cabby on the ride back to mandy's house was fantastic though, he was totally entertained when we told him we were vegetarians (bc he was asking about american stereotypes, ie macDonalds etc, and as part of our cultural outreach we told him about vegetarianism....this is what we do...), but we reassured him that we would still be eating a lot of chocolate for paques.Sunday was just chill, two cups of tea in the morning, catching up on our vitamin D while dog-walking, then warming up from the wind next to the fire, while watching Ocean's 11 and Shrek (VF, sadly). we had a traditional, multi-course french dinner to celebrate marc's birthday and easter: champagne, olives, homemade bread and pate for the apero; salad fresh from the garden with shallots, grapefruit slices, and a balsamic dressing; sanglier et pommes de terre (wild boar and potatoes; apparently one daughter's boyfriend had caught the boar...i dont know...) for the main course - and zucchini tart for me and mandy; fromage; homemade bread; wine; fondant de marrons (chestnut cake), les poissons chocolat.....ohh man it was trop bon. everyone was super friendly, we clocked some significant french minutes...good times.
monday morning we went back into town to hang out until we had to meet Aziza to drive back to Valence. everything was still closed for easter, so we chilled in some parks, wandered around monoprix, and went for coffee once we'd had our fill of the wind. the drive back was longer - there was lots more traffic - but we had andrea and jessika with us, and we managed to keep entertained, mainly making fun of the people in the cars around us.
umm voila, c'est tout. i finally managed to catch up on my sleep this week - last week i was super insomniac (sendoug out cover letters...uugh), so it was nice to unwind over the weekend, but the house was noisy and i didnt sleep much, and then i had morning classes all week and went out every night (il faut profiter!!), and donc ive been quite sleepy. oh and theres this extra (loud) girl living with us for the moment. she's karine's friend, apparently her fam lost their apt somehow, so she's staying here until things are sorted out - but of course no one told ME anything, so it's just been a vrai bordel over here with all these screaming girlies running around and im all awkward and hating this place. it's been 3 weeks, gah! but we're finally on relatively friendly terms, i mean last night there were about 10 ppl over fir dinner and Anais (the girl) did ask if it was ok and they weren't being too noisy. i mean, not that i'd've said anything, but it was nice that she asked at least. meh. im outta here in a month OMG that's soo weird. i dont want to leave yet. i might switch my ticket. or 'miss' my flight. i mean, i love that it's 2 weeks and counting teaching-wise and this-house-wise, but of course it seems like all the fin things are happening now. new french friends. warmth to go hiking. festivals. warmth to take cafe outside. and im speaking so much more french now, i cant go back yet!!!!!!
dimanche 16 mars 2008
vendredi 14 mars 2008
fashion police
warmth = man capris = 7th heaven for me. i love them.
et demain on va a la 'big city' (aka grenoble, meme pas trop grande, mais...) pour faire du shopping! for mental health reasons and also bc i need an ensemble to wear back to the states. i cant look at my clothes that i brought here without wanting to cry.
finalement, be i have oodles of time, i finally started teaching myself how to type properly. not that it's improved much yet, or that im using the 'correct' method even as i type this entry, but still it makes me feel good about myself.
et demain on va a la 'big city' (aka grenoble, meme pas trop grande, mais...) pour faire du shopping! for mental health reasons and also bc i need an ensemble to wear back to the states. i cant look at my clothes that i brought here without wanting to cry.
finalement, be i have oodles of time, i finally started teaching myself how to type properly. not that it's improved much yet, or that im using the 'correct' method even as i type this entry, but still it makes me feel good about myself.
mercredi 5 mars 2008
yesterday you told me 'bout the blue blue sky
happiness comes in many forms, but it's in the little things
~ my kids at Zay, esp the fairy tale-writing 5es. one girl's writing about three pigs: jambonne, cochon et baconnette PTDR!
~ le navire (cinema) with VO american films and le printemps du cine (3E50 tickets!)
~ getting through the whole fessiers video at Keep Cool, aie! AND comment les gens disent "bonjour!" et "bon soir!" quand ils arrivent/partent, trop sympa ca
~ nytimes.com i love it more than i should; also salon.com, the sartorialist, alluc.org, lemonde.fr
~ gusting wind, cherry trees, mimosa, warmth
~ bouge'n p'tit j-star partout a valence, c'est vachement trop rigolo
~vanilla tea
~ dinner parties
~ being a Plastic Penny Band groupie, even though their repertoire is rather limited and sometimes they mess up the lyrics on the classics
~ the armenian resto where we finally found falafel and wooooonderful eggplant sandwiches
~ auchan and bulk items!!!!
~ mastery of the finer points of franglais (it's going to be rather impossible to cut the habit, je crois)
~ adopting briticisms like 'i can't be bothered!'
~ kate nash, renan luce, the dO
~ my kids at Zay, esp the fairy tale-writing 5es. one girl's writing about three pigs: jambonne, cochon et baconnette PTDR!
~ le navire (cinema) with VO american films and le printemps du cine (3E50 tickets!)
~ getting through the whole fessiers video at Keep Cool, aie! AND comment les gens disent "bonjour!" et "bon soir!" quand ils arrivent/partent, trop sympa ca
~ nytimes.com i love it more than i should; also salon.com, the sartorialist, alluc.org, lemonde.fr
~ gusting wind, cherry trees, mimosa, warmth
~ bouge'n p'tit j-star partout a valence, c'est vachement trop rigolo
~vanilla tea
~ dinner parties
~ being a Plastic Penny Band groupie, even though their repertoire is rather limited and sometimes they mess up the lyrics on the classics
~ the armenian resto where we finally found falafel and wooooonderful eggplant sandwiches
~ auchan and bulk items!!!!
~ mastery of the finer points of franglais (it's going to be rather impossible to cut the habit, je crois)
~ adopting briticisms like 'i can't be bothered!'
~ kate nash, renan luce, the dO
mercredi 27 février 2008
mesmerized by the water, awed by the mountains: bastia, l'ile rousse
yes, yet another vacation. what am i going to do once back in the states, with like 2 days of paid holiday? groan and regret whining so much about france, no doubt. but we'll deal with that later, non?for the first and only time, our entire little clan of the coolest assistants d'anglais (andrea, hannah, kate, mandy, sophie, et moi) succeeded in coordinating a trip together, striking out to explore corsica. prior to this trip i never really thought too much about going there, but now that i've been and have seen a smidge of the island, i definitely have to return. Feb is the off-season, so we scored awesome ferry tickets: Toulon to Bastia overnight (21h - 7h) in cabins for just 68E RT and a 3-star hotel in the vieux port for just 20E/nuit. sweeeetness. the only ferry i'd ever been on was the one from jersey to NYC, so when i saw our huge boat with 9 floors, restaurants, games rooms, escalators and elevators, well it was pretty much like being on the titanic. or something...our trip started off well, finding some native toulonais (?) to help us find the ferry (they're just so much nicer in the south!). of course we arrived justbefore the boat was due to leave port. aka we were our usual spectacle, this time 6 girls trying to run through the port and parking lots with huge hiking backpacks and duffles, over-stuffed on pizza and salad, kind of like a gaggle of laughing penguins or something. on the upside, the ferry people were super sympa and drove us out to the boat, showed us to our cabins, the whole nine.
luckily none of the motion-sickness prone girlies got sick that night, and i have to admit that the accommodations were much less sketchy than i was anticipating (i think after staying in so many hostels and traveling on a budget like a pro, i might just be easily impressed, though) and i slept pretty well. waking up was still hard, at 6h30, with announcements that the restaurant was open for breakfast being piped into the room...we straggled into the sleepy metropolis that is bastia and made our way slowly to the Hotel Posta Vecchia, stopping frequently to enjoy the sunrise and pink shadows on the shop facades. Dropped our bags in the luggage room at the hotel, took cafe and baguettes in the vieux port to fortify ourselves for a long morning stroll (we couldnt check in - and nap! - until noon).
We spent the morning exploring the ramparts of the citadel and climbing Bastia's hilly, picturesque streets. the sunlight on the Med is unlike anything ive ever seen before; the sky seems so close and so pure and the sun just makes you feel happy all over. although the weather was still too cool to swim, we sat along the sea walls and took in plenty of sunshine. the weather was perfect on Tuesday, our first day in Corsica, although the following 2 days were rather more cloudy and slightly chillier. Up in the citadel we discovered gardens with lemon trees, and while reestablishing our zen mentality on the ramparts, we planned out our future lives as fisher-women...and saw dolphins! for real, a dolphin couple, just out there chilling with the birds and fisherman. very cool. we then spent the better part of and hour trying to walk out to the lighthouses that guard the new port and offer a great view of the vieux port and the hills to the northwest of the city.
view from the top of a cliff en route to St Florent
instant regulars) and walking up hills, so we decided to rent a car for the second day and explore some neighboring towns. the original idea was to drive from St Florent all the way up the Cap Corse, stopping at beaches and vineyards as we went, but after considering how treacherous the roads in the hills are (uber uber tortuous twisty-turny) and the fact that we didnt want to go over the 250 km gratuit that came in the car deal, we decided instead to drive across the north to l'Ile Rousse, another beachy-port town. Mandy and i rented the car - well, she was the driver (i really do need to learn officially how to drive a shift) and i swiped for it...it was definitely a 5-passenger car that we squeezed all 6 of us into. not terribly comfy, but it was certainly a bonding experience or something. im proud to say that we worked well together to prevent any physical manifestations of motion sickness - not an easy feat considering the driving conditions - and also avoided being pulled over for not having seat belts or any of that jazz. the perk of driving and not taking a bus was that we could stop whenever we felt overcome by the beauty of corsica, meaning pretty much the whole time we were ohh-ing and ahh-ing. there are snow-capped mountains for skiiing in central-northern part of the island, turquoise seas with sandy beaches, weird semi-cacti-like vegetation and scrubby bushes, cows, boats, it's beautiful.
at Ile rousse we frolicked in the sea until we were numb up to our knees, then set out to the tour genoise, out on a little spit off the mainland, aww-ing at the fat boat cats lazing around the boats. walking out to the tour and the lighthouse, clambering around on the red rocks, marveling at the stoic majesty of the cliffs, i had a fit of nostalgie, remembered the fun times i had in St Malo with the Paris semester kids, and i also decided that i most certainly need to return to this place sometime, maybe chill out for a year or so. there is just so much to explore, 3 days was no where near enough time. i was grateful that we went over this holiday rather than in april, though,because the towns are just so tranquil without hoards of tourists...but i want to see flowers and green and go snorkeling sometime, too...
he stopped dead in his tracks and started serenading us: nice, grasse, cannes
after 3 days in bastia, we headed back to the continent via bateau, and trained it from toulon to nice. sophie left us in favor of italy *tear* nice is nice (hehe)...15th largest city, je crois, right on the sea, wonderful sunshine, so warm we didnt need jackets during the afternoon, pink and yellow-painted buildings...our hostel was undergoing renovations, but the staff was incredibly friendly and made sure that the free wifi was working for us, pointed out good neighborhoods, loved us bc we actually spoke french with them, as opposed to the other awful americans who were SO HEINOUS and loud and gross.i just stayed in nice for 2 nights, so we had to bouge quickly to profiter from the short stay...friday we wandered the vieille ville, climbed the colline du chateau (great views of the city), visited the marche de fleurs, ate some chouette gelatto at the baie des anges (beach), took some sun, found Rue de Jesus ET Place de Jesus (inside joke, but really, this city must love jesus or something), ambled along the promenade des anglais at sunset and then up to the russian cathedral (sadly closed bc we reached it after 18h). the highlight of the day was the random street performer we stumbled upon. this was no ordinary artsy-fartsy dude. this was not a tecktonik street battle. this was not a mime. oh nooo my friends. this was a flashdance wannabe crazy man, kicking his legs over his head and rocking out in all black, with red bandanna flourishes around his knees and a feathered headdress... he had the most delicate hands...he floated and shimmied like you wouldnt believe...in fact, he shimmied right on up the light pole and did a little pole dance up there...it was hypnotic. and hilarious. we were captivated for far longer than was appropriate, but it was just SO GOOD to people-watch the passers-by. oh lord. it was wonderful. go ahead, click on that photo right there...you'll see what was up...you know you wish you were there...
the view from the park up by the colline du chateau
art installation at the place masenna
to round out the visit, saturday we went to grasse, one of the perfume capitals of the world, and cannes. we toured the fragonard perfume factory in grasse, where they explained the intricacies of creating fragrances - it takes tons of flowers to make one litre of essence! crazy! fragonard uses a lot of locally-grown flowers, like roses, mimosa, jasmine, and tulips...and then we bought awesome fragrances at super bon marche prices! then i had a headache from all the smells, so i opted to go to cannes with hannah and andrea, rather than tour gallimard, another perfume house in grasse. Cannes was tacky and unimpressive - very commercial, very shishi, huuuuge yachts that blew my mind, rather nice beaches...we hung out for about 2 hours, then headed back to nice to cook dinner at the hostel. hmmm what else? it was caraval, so there was a huge parade sat night, that was semi-entertaining...and there were actually crowds of people out in the streets at night! it was amazing! soo not valence! voila. c'est tout.
mercredi 13 février 2008
for V-Day
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/210-french-kissing-map/
210 - French Kissing Map
Over 18.000 votes have been cast in a poll to determine once and for all the answer to the burning question: Combien de bises? That’s French for ‘How many kisses’, and kissing in France is a lot more complex the French’s somewhat overstated reputation for carefree libidinosity implies.
Unlike more reserved nationalities, the French greet each other with kisses on the cheek – but the practice varies to the point where one risks l’embarras social when the kisser has another number of pecks on the cheek in mind than the kissee. Suppose, for a moment, that you intend to give three kisses and the other person turns away after two. Ah, the humilitation!
This must have happened a few times to Gilles Debunne, because earlier in 2007 he set up a website to resolve the French kissing conundrum once and for all. Debunne asked his compatriotes to send in how many kisses were the rule in their particular département. The number, which varies from one to four (five is too much, even for the French), shows an interesting regional variability.
- One kiss is the preferred option in only two départements: Finistère at the western tip of Brittany and Deux-Sèvres in the Poitou-Charentes region.
- Elsewhere in Poitou-Charentes, three kisses are preferred: in the departments of Vienne and Charente. The largest block of three-kiss-départements is located in the southeast. Trois bises are the thing to do in Ardèche, Aveyron, Cantal, Drôme, Haute Loire, Hautes Alpes, Hérault, Gard, Lozère and Vaucluse.
- Four kisses are de rigueur in a large region in northeastern France. Apart from the isolated coastal département of Pas de Calais, this is a contiguous area, consisting of 22 départements from Normandy to the Belgian border: Ardennes, Aube, Calvados, Eure, Eure et Loire, Haute Marne, Indre, Indre et Loire, Loire et Cher, Loire Atlantique, Loiret, Maine et Loire, Manche, Marne, Mayenne, Orne, Sarthe, Seine et Marne, Seine-St-Denis, Val d’Oise, Vendée and Yonne.
- The rest of the country is two-kisses territory, apart from the same département in northeast Paris that stood out by turning Royal red amidst a sea of Sarkozy blue in the first round of the French presidential elections earlier this year (see entry #108).
Not visualised in this map is the confusion within the départements. Apparently, the quatre bises won out only just in Pas de Calais, narrowly defeating the almost 50% who said they preferred just deux. What happens when representatives of the former group meet someone from the latter one? A faux Pas de Calais? And that’s not even taking into account the class and age distinctions that may play a role in how many kisses are required – or even whether they are expected at all.
“If you are invited to a dinner party with people you don’t know, you’ll shake their hands when you arrive. At the end of the evening, you might kiss them but it’s probably better to hold out your hand and see what happens,” says Constance Rietzler, director of La Belle École in Paris, offering courses in art and hopefully also joie de vivre, and quoted in this article in The Times on Mr Debunne’s website.
The map was sent in by Romke Soldaat of the website Frogsmoke, which asks the question: “What makes France such an endearing and infuriating country at the same time? Why are the French a people that you love one day and hate the next?” And gives some pretty funny answers. Well worth a read.
dimanche 10 février 2008
food for thought
ok, i'll admit it, i DO miss fluffy, bounce-fresh towels and putting warm sheets on my bed. but france has the right idea with it's outside clotheslines and indoor drying racks:
Where's the Green?
also, this article is interesting - encore une fois on how americans live to eat and the french eat to live. im not particularly attached to either lifestyle - i like my whole foods healthy options and eating on the run, but it is nice to have ample lunch breaks to actually enjoy what you're eating... voila donc:
Where's the Green?
also, this article is interesting - encore une fois on how americans live to eat and the french eat to live. im not particularly attached to either lifestyle - i like my whole foods healthy options and eating on the run, but it is nice to have ample lunch breaks to actually enjoy what you're eating... voila donc:
jeudi 7 février 2008
non, on reste la,c'est trop genial!
primo: let's just have a quick reminder that this blog serves as a journal of sorts for me, so when i vent it's just that, nothing more. i am doing fine here! i mean, i might be slightly more crazy now than i was when i left the states in sept, but it's all good.
segundo: i just wrapped up the best teaching week ive had thus far. as ive mentioned, at least to the other assistants, my classes are rarely as bad as i make them out to be, and even when the lessons fall flat, it's all over in an hour, right? usually i have one or two good stories from the week, sometimes a raging headache, but nothing too terrible. but this week i feel like i might have finally hit my stride - and it's about time, non?
ive moved from relying on handouts to trying to play more games. jeopardy has been my cure-all savior, i love it, the kids love it, ive seen boys talk that usually dont so much as acknowledge my presence get into the lesson! none of the teachers have seen this type of game, but it goes without saying that as soon as 14-yr olds have something to be competitive about, they tend to get excited. it was simple - i just made 5 categories (food, clothing, countries, colors, sports/hobbies, and professions) with 5 questions each ($100 to $500), split the class into 2 teams, and away we went! it works on so many levels - i read the questions in english then gave them the card to read the question, they had to understand and make sure that they had the right vocab word, and then give the response in english. several questions had multiple responses, so there was the whole teamwork element of choosing the best answers, too. the best part was this afternoon, with some 3es at Valery - my worst school, where the 3es just dont care about annnnnnything - and we played for 30 min and they were supposed to switch with the other half of the class, but instead we got into an intense game of hangman, with the kids AcTuAlLy calling out the letters in english!!, and they were all like, nooo let's stay here, it's much better!! soo i kept them for an hour and i think they might have used more english in that hour than they have in the past month. i kid you not. (since it went to well, i might redo the game later on, using more grammar questions, too.)
so yah, ive played jeopardy with about half the classes i had this week, and the rest were fun, too. with the 5es i did clothing review - either describing pictures from magazines or doing a little color-cut-and-paste action, followed by a presentation to the class of "he is wearing a blue and green sweater," etc...and that was fun times because i gave them free reign to color however they wanted, they cold put skirts on the guys, add hats and outrageous hair-dos, whatever, just as long as they could describe it to me. we had a few aliens, some pom pom girls, a bum, you know, good times.
my last class today was some 6es - little ones, like 11 years old - and i had to review prepositions of place and house vocab. so i had my little house pic and i was going to have them draw in the members of the family and describe where they were located. pretty fun, drawing, yaay, but to warm them up (bc i realized that i dont really do enough pre-activity prep) i demonstrated the prepositions. ON the chair. and i stood on it. and they FREAKED out. and then i had them mime the prepositions. ON the chair. UNDER the table. IN the poubelle. BESIDE the assistant. it was a riot! it was hot and sunny, the door was wide open (luckily no one saw us...), we were laughing and then the settled down and wrote some realllllly good sentences!!! i was so impressed! and they didnt want to switch groups and go with the teacher (but they did, finally), and it was wonderful and funnn. and i left Valery smiling, which was a first and awesome!!
So i have a teacher that wants to steal my jeopardy game when im through with it! and my 4e at Zay said that i speak french very nicely : ) and oh! yes! with my super smart, on-point 3e at Zay i did an article on Obama/Clinton that linked back to the civil rights/women's rights movements. it was long. there were hard words. they did not think they would get through it. but we read slowly, and i translated a lot, and they had questions to answer, and it went really well! they had all kinds of interesting questions about US politics and the parties and how elections work and whatnot. we had some great discussions, half-english, half-french (it was a real workout for my french, all those fun past-tenses and the like, but i felt pretty comfortable with it, only had one correction!!) i love those kids. they are so bright. and wonderful. anyway, so my little milestone for the week/last 10 days was that many of my kids realized that they know more/can do more with english than they thought. and thats pretty freaking cool.
segundo: i just wrapped up the best teaching week ive had thus far. as ive mentioned, at least to the other assistants, my classes are rarely as bad as i make them out to be, and even when the lessons fall flat, it's all over in an hour, right? usually i have one or two good stories from the week, sometimes a raging headache, but nothing too terrible. but this week i feel like i might have finally hit my stride - and it's about time, non?
ive moved from relying on handouts to trying to play more games. jeopardy has been my cure-all savior, i love it, the kids love it, ive seen boys talk that usually dont so much as acknowledge my presence get into the lesson! none of the teachers have seen this type of game, but it goes without saying that as soon as 14-yr olds have something to be competitive about, they tend to get excited. it was simple - i just made 5 categories (food, clothing, countries, colors, sports/hobbies, and professions) with 5 questions each ($100 to $500), split the class into 2 teams, and away we went! it works on so many levels - i read the questions in english then gave them the card to read the question, they had to understand and make sure that they had the right vocab word, and then give the response in english. several questions had multiple responses, so there was the whole teamwork element of choosing the best answers, too. the best part was this afternoon, with some 3es at Valery - my worst school, where the 3es just dont care about annnnnnything - and we played for 30 min and they were supposed to switch with the other half of the class, but instead we got into an intense game of hangman, with the kids AcTuAlLy calling out the letters in english!!, and they were all like, nooo let's stay here, it's much better!! soo i kept them for an hour and i think they might have used more english in that hour than they have in the past month. i kid you not. (since it went to well, i might redo the game later on, using more grammar questions, too.)
so yah, ive played jeopardy with about half the classes i had this week, and the rest were fun, too. with the 5es i did clothing review - either describing pictures from magazines or doing a little color-cut-and-paste action, followed by a presentation to the class of "he is wearing a blue and green sweater," etc...and that was fun times because i gave them free reign to color however they wanted, they cold put skirts on the guys, add hats and outrageous hair-dos, whatever, just as long as they could describe it to me. we had a few aliens, some pom pom girls, a bum, you know, good times.
my last class today was some 6es - little ones, like 11 years old - and i had to review prepositions of place and house vocab. so i had my little house pic and i was going to have them draw in the members of the family and describe where they were located. pretty fun, drawing, yaay, but to warm them up (bc i realized that i dont really do enough pre-activity prep) i demonstrated the prepositions. ON the chair. and i stood on it. and they FREAKED out. and then i had them mime the prepositions. ON the chair. UNDER the table. IN the poubelle. BESIDE the assistant. it was a riot! it was hot and sunny, the door was wide open (luckily no one saw us...), we were laughing and then the settled down and wrote some realllllly good sentences!!! i was so impressed! and they didnt want to switch groups and go with the teacher (but they did, finally), and it was wonderful and funnn. and i left Valery smiling, which was a first and awesome!!
So i have a teacher that wants to steal my jeopardy game when im through with it! and my 4e at Zay said that i speak french very nicely : ) and oh! yes! with my super smart, on-point 3e at Zay i did an article on Obama/Clinton that linked back to the civil rights/women's rights movements. it was long. there were hard words. they did not think they would get through it. but we read slowly, and i translated a lot, and they had questions to answer, and it went really well! they had all kinds of interesting questions about US politics and the parties and how elections work and whatnot. we had some great discussions, half-english, half-french (it was a real workout for my french, all those fun past-tenses and the like, but i felt pretty comfortable with it, only had one correction!!) i love those kids. they are so bright. and wonderful. anyway, so my little milestone for the week/last 10 days was that many of my kids realized that they know more/can do more with english than they thought. and thats pretty freaking cool.
dimanche 3 février 2008
(i eat at mc donalds because) i like to feel international
Sarkozy has a new wife - Carla Bruni, formerly seen with such celebs as Mick Jagger and Donald Trump.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/02/AR2008020200730_2.html
Kiwi, my balding french cat, decided that she loves me best or something and will not leave my room anymore. It's 3/4 cute and 1/4 annoying - she has the most grating meow imaginable. But she likes to sit in the cubby hole in my desk, so that's entertaining.
Guiliana, my italian friend working in grenoble came down for the weekend to see me and mandy; finally the three mouflons were reunited! 2 feb. is le chandeleur (candlemas?), and the tradition is to make crepes (yumm) - if you can flip the crepe while holding a coin in your free hand, then you will become rich this year. and i got it on the first try!! first, housewife points. second, dolla$$! and crepe oeuf-fromage, c'est vachement trop bon!
i finished harry potter numero 7, finalement - really truly, i dont know why i let myself go all summer working at Politics and Prose and never buying/reading it. however, it actually quite nice to slip into that familiar, wonderful alternate universe over here - as close to going home as the real deal. shame that it's over now, though, but i am fairly satisfied with how it wrapped up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/02/AR2008020200730_2.html
Kiwi, my balding french cat, decided that she loves me best or something and will not leave my room anymore. It's 3/4 cute and 1/4 annoying - she has the most grating meow imaginable. But she likes to sit in the cubby hole in my desk, so that's entertaining.
Guiliana, my italian friend working in grenoble came down for the weekend to see me and mandy; finally the three mouflons were reunited! 2 feb. is le chandeleur (candlemas?), and the tradition is to make crepes (yumm) - if you can flip the crepe while holding a coin in your free hand, then you will become rich this year. and i got it on the first try!! first, housewife points. second, dolla$$! and crepe oeuf-fromage, c'est vachement trop bon!
i finished harry potter numero 7, finalement - really truly, i dont know why i let myself go all summer working at Politics and Prose and never buying/reading it. however, it actually quite nice to slip into that familiar, wonderful alternate universe over here - as close to going home as the real deal. shame that it's over now, though, but i am fairly satisfied with how it wrapped up.
jeudi 31 janvier 2008
at large
first off, thanks a million to everyone that sent my good vibes before and around the time of my peace corps interview this past monday, it really boosted my confidence to know that my fam is behind my endeavors. and so....ive been nominated!! woohooo what does that mean? well, ive passed all the preliminary hurdles - basic info, recommendations, fingerprinting at the french police station, transcripts, interview, all that fun stuff. i hope that someday i have the chance to interview people, because i seriously dont know what i said that convinced her that i was a qualified applicant, but my recruiter fortunately made sense of my ramblings and abhorrent franglais - understood the general message that i am open-minded, excited, and able to learn on the go - and nominated me. this means that i am now in a pool of applicants for a program - all the specifics that i have at this point is that it is to work on english teacher training in asia, leaving in august. not too much to go on, but the the PC is active in Mongolia, China, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines, so those are some pretty sweet options.
there are two things weighing heavily on my mind right now, regarding the prospect of actually receiving an assignment: 1) vegetarianism and 2) rural village/my recent breakdown over how "small" valence is. as far as vegetarianism is concerned, i had to fill out a separate questionnaire about my diet, my reasons for being veg (i decided that it would not be so appropriate to mention the fact that veggies are clearly more highly evolved than meat eaters, even though that goes without saying), whether i would be willing to modify my diet for health purposes, and what i would do in the event that my host family or community offered me a meal that was (entirely) meat-based. and as you likely know, vegetarianism has pretty much been the one constant in my life, and recently, after reading such awesome books as 'What we eat: why our food choices matter' and 'The omnivore's dilemma' (HIGHLY recommend both, and next on the list once im back in the states will be 'In defense of food'), ive become even more aware of what i eat and trying not to eat chemicals and choosing local produce when possible and all that fun stuff, and veganism is a real goal of mine....so the thought of putting all that aside is daunting. i know it sounds silly, but i really really dont WANT to eat meat. or fish. frankly, although i responded that i would keep an open mind and that integrating in the community takes precedence (which it does, clearly), i havent eaten dead flesh of any sort in more than 5 years - and even longer for meat and poultry - and i have NO idea how my body would react the first few times...and im sure that barfing would be just as insulting as refusing to eat...so thats an interesting thing to ponder.
the second issue is that i currently feel like im going insane in valence. because it is small. im a city person....so 2 years in a rural village where i am quite possibly going to be the only outsider? i mean, it's a typical thing to consider when applying, but i just feel more than a little shame due to my recent (and ongoing) meltdown. im sure that with the PC i will be so overwhelmed with work and trying to fit in and learning the language and all these things that it might not even become a problem, at least not as quickly as it's been a problem here, but still. i dont think it's a reason not to go - frankly, being a strict veg would be a better reason to not do this....but still, these are the questions and fears that im mulling over right now. just because, now that im nominated, it's a much more real possibility.
i still have to clear medical, aka doctor and dentist visits in la france, yippee! (it's good for my french/immersion over here, tho, so it's ok) and it's certainly not a done deal that i'm going anywhere, but teresa, my recruiter, said that i have a strong portfolio what with my french/language skills and the fact that im already living and working abroad. i'll keep you posted on as the process moves forward...keep your fingers crossed!!
there are two things weighing heavily on my mind right now, regarding the prospect of actually receiving an assignment: 1) vegetarianism and 2) rural village/my recent breakdown over how "small" valence is. as far as vegetarianism is concerned, i had to fill out a separate questionnaire about my diet, my reasons for being veg (i decided that it would not be so appropriate to mention the fact that veggies are clearly more highly evolved than meat eaters, even though that goes without saying), whether i would be willing to modify my diet for health purposes, and what i would do in the event that my host family or community offered me a meal that was (entirely) meat-based. and as you likely know, vegetarianism has pretty much been the one constant in my life, and recently, after reading such awesome books as 'What we eat: why our food choices matter' and 'The omnivore's dilemma' (HIGHLY recommend both, and next on the list once im back in the states will be 'In defense of food'), ive become even more aware of what i eat and trying not to eat chemicals and choosing local produce when possible and all that fun stuff, and veganism is a real goal of mine....so the thought of putting all that aside is daunting. i know it sounds silly, but i really really dont WANT to eat meat. or fish. frankly, although i responded that i would keep an open mind and that integrating in the community takes precedence (which it does, clearly), i havent eaten dead flesh of any sort in more than 5 years - and even longer for meat and poultry - and i have NO idea how my body would react the first few times...and im sure that barfing would be just as insulting as refusing to eat...so thats an interesting thing to ponder.
the second issue is that i currently feel like im going insane in valence. because it is small. im a city person....so 2 years in a rural village where i am quite possibly going to be the only outsider? i mean, it's a typical thing to consider when applying, but i just feel more than a little shame due to my recent (and ongoing) meltdown. im sure that with the PC i will be so overwhelmed with work and trying to fit in and learning the language and all these things that it might not even become a problem, at least not as quickly as it's been a problem here, but still. i dont think it's a reason not to go - frankly, being a strict veg would be a better reason to not do this....but still, these are the questions and fears that im mulling over right now. just because, now that im nominated, it's a much more real possibility.
i still have to clear medical, aka doctor and dentist visits in la france, yippee! (it's good for my french/immersion over here, tho, so it's ok) and it's certainly not a done deal that i'm going anywhere, but teresa, my recruiter, said that i have a strong portfolio what with my french/language skills and the fact that im already living and working abroad. i'll keep you posted on as the process moves forward...keep your fingers crossed!!
vendredi 25 janvier 2008
it must be the full moon
allo. tish came to visit this week and it was chouette. i hope she liked valence at least a little...i picked her up last wed in lyon and we just chilled in town all week. she saw the finest of valence shopping (yah soldes!), went to school with both me and mandy, ventured into the ardeche (departement across the river) not once but 2 times, climbed to the chateau du crussol, loved tasse as much as the rest of us, ate some moroccan couscous, had cooking parties chez mandy and rocked out to the Plastic Penny Band at the Penny Kenny Pub's one-year birthday party...fuuun times. really truly though, it was great to see someone from home and play translator. tish did pick up some essential francais: bonjour, merci, pardon j'adore le fromage, punaise...when she went to school with mandy, the teachers swore up and down that she wasnt american (high compliment) and my kiddos were just awed by her beauty. cuuuteness! and i miss having my mini-mouflon around now!! (and emmanuel - tasse owner - misses her, too!)
now that she's gone and i have to concentrate on school prepping and whatnot, with nothing to really look forward too, ive fallen into my first dire funk of this stint abroad. it basically boils down to the fact that im a city girl - we all know how eager i was to quit bingo-town - and since valence is about the same size as binghamton, well...it's a silly thing to complain about, but the fact remains that there is literally nothing to do. yesterday we walked around in circles. no joke. it was a greve day, we were all off school...i ended up going to the gym and to tasse et glace TWICE. i mean, i love tasse but i dont want to wear out my welcome! and this weekend, just as an indication of now nothing there is here - tout le monde is super psyched for the Monte Carlo car rally. wooooo..errr..non merci. so im reading tons, writing more than usual, and prepping for my Peace Corps interview THIS COMING MONDAY!!!! oh, and i dyed my hair back to super dark chestnut brown. when bored, hair modification is a decent way to spice life up. and running again - after a month off, what with vacances, la grippe (ooh that was a sad week) and tish's visite - helps, too.
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