USA

It was a dreamy year in France.
I spent 9 months in public school with the little frenchies teaching them how to speak English.
I explored Germany, Austria, Turkey, Greece & England.
I drank good wine.
I made my first official French galfriends.
I ate good cheese.
I read a bunch of really great books.
I perfected my French.
I became a baguette snob.


It makes me smile to think about it all.


But, oh my word.
After 10 hours in a plane yesterday, 
I saw my parents at the airport.
I hugged Bojangles.
I drank a big cup of legitimate american coffee.
I slept like a baby in the room I grew up in.
& I feel like I am right where I want to be.




Everyone, this is adieu.
Thank you for tuning in.
I hope that my writing has made you smile & perhaps even inspired you to go where your heart desires.  


I did, and I am so glad.

Oh

dear.


I just woke up and my room is in absolute disarray.  I started packing yesterday.  You'd think it would be no problem as I came here with just two suitcases 10 months ago.

but it is.

how does a human accumulate so many things?

I know.

I had to have posters & candles & tons of post cards to decorate my room and make it cozy.

I bought a parka cause I was freezing in Berlin in December.

I got gifts for some people.

I had to buy plates & all that sort of stuff.

Plus, of course I got scarves in Istanbul, and leather sandals in Greece, etc., etc.

Today is just going to be getting all my stuff together and then I am heading to my French friend Mél's for my last night, half because I have to leave my place today at noon & half because I made her mixed cds and we are going to cry probably.


I am tired but it is easy to get out of bed because my comforter is already packed away with stuff that I am giving away and I am freezing.

Also, France is making it easy to leave.
It has rained the last 4 days, there is no hot water in my building, and my faucet is leaky.

Lyon & Annecy

I decided a while back that the week after I was done teaching, I would go someplace in France kind of far away that I hadn't been before.  I originally wanted to go to the Mediterranean but I chose the alps instead.

Everybody, forget Paris. Go to the Alps.

Just kidding, don't forget Paris but seriously consider the Alps as well.

Lyon, the second biggest city in France is the most high energy & livable city that I have ever been to.

There are two rivers, three really distinct downtown areas, and more markets than you could ever dream of.

I spent all four days that I was there biking from place to place with their awesome, really cheap bike rental system.  Plus, the bikes are red and they are smooth on the street.

There is a great musée des beaux arts, a clean metro, a gorgeous basilica, beautiful people,

this fabulous monument

and good restaurants where you can eat stuff like this...

Salade Lyonnaise

 Poached egg, bacon, huge croutons & vinaigrette

and you can be like me and add a glass of beaujolais

Tarte aux pralines roses 

A speciality in Lyon.  It was good.  The super chic lady next to me recommended it.

La Mère Jean, 5 Rue Des Marronniers.

Good place.

I also took a great walking tour with a lady named Annelise.  maybe 70 years old.  speaks five languages.  She showed us around the renaissance quarters of the city.  We explored the traboules, which are alleyways to maze through buildings to avoid the streets, which they used to help foot traffic starting in the 1500s. 

 Some of these traboules have pretty courtyards like this one.

After Lyon, I took a train to Annecy to spend three days.

Woah woah woah woah.

This is France's best kept secret apparently because the only way I know about it is from a cute family that comes to my mom's tearoom all the time that has a daughter named after the town.

If someone is named after a place, their parents must of had a really good time there, so I definitely wanted to check it out.

In fact, Annecy was in the running up until a week ago for the 2018 winter olympics but lost to a city in Korea.

Anyways, what a great spot. You have a gorgeous & clean lake, mountains, canals, a romantic old quarter, & a sweet hostel with a huge garden to hang out.

There is a building shaped like a boat in the middle of one of the canals in the old city that used to be a prison for many centuries.  They even used it during world war II for prisoners.

I swam a good amount in the lake.

I took another walking tour (I' m a fan) in Annecy with a guy named Pierre.  So french it hurt in his tunic with his loose curls and pointed leather shoes. 

Someone actually called me out in the hostel on how I reference tour guides a lot.  But you know what?  I'm not ashamed.  I think it's cool to know a lot of things.  

Pierre.

& the oldest trompe l'oeil in France.

It was a good time.  Definitely.

Like I said awesome hostel, look at this garden. 

Teacher Parties

At 23,

There are moments where I still feel like a teenager.

Then there are other moments where it hits me hard that I am a full on adult.

For instance, this week, I have three end of the year teacher parties.  Where everyone makes something and we talk about summer plans, how tiring the problem kids are, 

who is retiring next year, why Sarkozy is evil,  the humidity, who is a grandmother for the first time, poetry, gardens, the supermarket, etc.

!!!!!!!!

shocking.

Anyways, for one of these said parties I made a fantastic mango salsa.

one mango, two avocados, three tomatoes, some onion, some garlic, salt, & lime juice.

mmmm.

tasty american things & au revoir

It's the last week of school! Ahhhhh.
It is sad because even though my kids make a ton of noise, never stop playing with their rulers, always forget to put their little glasses on & still make fun of my accent- they're cuties.


Since I see each class twice a week- I planned a two part end of the year extravaganza.


The first class of the week, we are playing games like tic tac toe (with flashcards of course) which they ADORE, higher/lower with numbers (my oldest kids can count to 100!), and pictionary.  If they are good, I give out little stickers with english on them.  It is incredible how good a kid is when you say stickers are involved.


The second class of the week, we are doing a little United States geographical/culinary discovery.  peanut butter & maple syrup.  yes sir.
I prepared a little ditty.  First, I show a big world map with France and the US highlighted.  I tell them how it takes 8 hours in a plane from Paris to the airport closest to my house,  "WOOOOOOAAH!".  Then we remark about what there is between our two countries, "la mer!" (the sea).
Next, I show a map of the USofA.  We talk about how many states there are and the two stragglers- (Alaska & Hawaii, no offense).
Then I show little old New Jersey that I colored in my favorite gold pen and label it "chez moi" (my home).  
After that we talk about peanut butter.  I show Missouri highlighted on the map because it was there in the 1890s that there was a doctor who needed a protein substitute for his patients who had bad teeth and could no longer chew meat.  I then show Georgia and Texas highlighted because they are the two biggest peanut producers.  I then proceed to share some fun facts about PB like how January 24th is National Peanut Butter Day, how the average American child has eaten 1500 pb&j sandwiches by the time he/she graduates high school, and how every year we eat 500 million pounds as a country, enough to cover the floor of the Grand Canyon.
Next is maple syrup.  I point out Vermont, New York, and Maine on the map in highlighter (three biggest producers).  Then, fun facts of course.  Like how a tree must be at least 30 years old before being tapped for the sap,  how it takes around 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, and how instead of crepes- we do pancakes, and it's for breakfast- not dessert.

Then, I whip out my cut up baguettes that the nice bakery guy got ready for me and smear some pb on one slice and dribble some syrup on another for each kid.

I think I have heard a few "c'est dégueulasse!" (it's yucky!) 
But, overall, they are loving it.

Random Facts #8

1. I bought my ticket and I'm coming home (after a layover in Iceland- ha!) on July 19th.
2.  I am having to send numerous boxes home filled with my things.  This is what happens when you arrive with two full suitcases and buy things along the way. 
3.  This past Tuesday night, I went to Paris for la fête de la musique with Lauren and her adorable mom & sister.  We found the funkiest jazz band near Rue Mouffetard.  It was a lot of fun.  Litter everywhere though- pretty disgraceful.  There is a garbage can, I swear, every 30 feet in Paris, so I don't quite understand.  (Shout out to my environmentally friendly dad who taught me that it is disgusting to litter).  
4.  There is a teacher at school that had me over last Saturday.  She is fantastic!  She, her husband, and I (and their one year old daughter when she wasn't napping) spent 7. SEVEN. hours together.  We had a really intellectual discussion about the American and French education systems.  I think that they want to send the one year old to the US for school.  I warned them about frats & sororities.  Oh, and we drank some good 2005 wine (their favorite year for wine because there was gorgeous weather and the grapes were really sweet).
5.  I gave my older kids a test yesterday on the verbs "to be" and "to have"- some of them finished early and I told them they could do a drawing on the back of their tests until everyone finished.  Tao, one of my really smart ones, drew me, depicted with a dress, a scarf and big earrings.  So dead on.
6.  I am off to a music festival after school today in a forest outside of Paris for the weekend.  We are camping!  My ticket (60 something euros) goes to aids research, which I respect.  More on this little adventure later.  I am ill prepared to camp so it should be funny.

!! xoxo

Beauvais in Spring

I know that my town is no Paris.  I know that there are many other more magnificent parts of France.

But you know what?  I like my little town.  It's home and it's pretty, especially in Spring.  Plus, no one speaks English and I get to legitimately live my life in French- which sometimes gets a little frustrating but is usually rad.

Things I like about where I live...
1.  There is a really legit cathedral at the end of my street that has the highest gothic vault (arched ceiling) in all of the world.

2.  There are medieval looking buildings like this...

3. There are pretty gardens...

4.  that have lamp posts that look like this...

5.  There is a little restaurant that I go to sometimes with a bunch of the friendliest older ladies ever as waitresses.  I took my mom and aunt here when they were visiting and they were gems.  Plus, they have a huge area outside to sit (not to mention a killer chocolate banana tart).

6.  The fact that people's frontyards look like this...