Heading Out

It's 1 pm on Saturday.  I just woke up because the blind in my room is so good that you can actually believe it is night at anytime in the day.

I finished my classes yesterday and now we have break until November 4th.  I know, I just got here.  I don't feel like I earned it either.   Oh well!

Last week Cecilia and I planned our trip and we decided to go to Normandy & Brittany in northwestern France.  We planned to leave today to go to Paris in the morning to spend the day and night, and then train to Bayeux tomorrow morning- stay three nights- then train to St. Malo on Wednesday morning & stay for three nights.  Both towns were highly recommended from my awesome guide to France book that Marlene, a waitress at Teaberry's whom I love, got me.  Bayeux is in Normandy and houses what is apparently a tapestry that is a HUGE DEAL, and makes an awesome place to stay to make a trip to the D-Day beaches-- our friend, Lauren, is joining us for this.  St. Malo is supposed to be a very charming, walled in city on the coast- right near Mont St. Michel, which is a small town/abbey built on a mountain looking over the ocean.

Pretty awesome.

Well.

Last night Ceci & I were informed that the only train going to Paris was at 6:21 am, because of these insane strikes going on.  Well, we weren't packed yet & we were getting to bed pretty late.  So we made the decision to cancel our hostel and sleep in and pack today and leave for Bayeux on Sunday.  I was proud of us because we actually realized that if we didn't sleep and we had to rush that we would be pissed off and not into doing Paris things.  We both get a little funky when we are hungry/ tired- so it was a good choice.  Plus, it's raining today- which just puts a damper on things.  We wanted to catch the Impressionism exhibit at the Grand Palais and go out but we can do that another time.  Paris is only one hour on the train from Beauvais and it only costs 6 euros.

By the way, The Grand Palais is, in my opinion, one of the best museums in Paris.  Why?  Because it is a special exhibit space that changes probably around three times a year.  So it is full out and gets all of these really wonderful pieces because it is only temporary.  I went for a Warhol exhibit a couple of years ago and it was enormous and almost every notable piece was there.

I am such a Paris snob, it is hilarious.

I always say... I don't care about your religion, your skin color, your sexual orientation, etc.--- but if you don't like Paris-

I will judge you.

:)

My Halloween Class Lesson

Halloween is my favorite.
the evidence--
1.  I usually have about 3 different costumes.
2.  The last two years of college my roommates and I had sweet costume parties complete with my delicious red wine cider, tons of candles, creepy decorations- like a Freddy Krugar that was on our bathroom door until we moved out, and solid halloween music- with the start of the playlist just being sounds like creaky doors, bats and cackles.
3.  My mom got me into it because it's her favorite holiday.  I always had the best costumes growing up because she would hand make them ((my gold belle dress from beauty & the beast was extraordinary).  Also, everyone wanted to trick or treat at my house because my dad would put on a ridiculously realistic and terrifying old man mask and my mom would be a spooky witch and the porch had crazy jars of weird stuff labeled "toad's feet", "witch's hair"--- with stuff inside to feel! of course with music playing and scary jack-o-lanterns all over.

yyyeah.
well, halloween doesn't exist in France.
So it clearly makes for perfect subject matter from an American teacher.

So, because I have my first two week vacation starting this Friday- I am not going to have my classes the last week of October.

Therefore, this week I am dedicating one lesson in each class solely to Halloween.

Today I had my 10 year olds from 8:30 to 9:15.  We started out with picture flashcards of a bat, black cat, skeleton, witch and ghost.

Then we sang this song that I found online.
"Witches, witches, skeletons and bats
Scary ghosts and big black cats
Wooohh, woooh what a fright
It's scary, scary on halloween night"

Which they loved.  Then we did a word search with the vocabulary- even throwing in "pumpkin".

Here comes the best part--

At the end, I played "purple people eater" and "monster mash".

&&&
showed this picture of myself two halloweens ago

From their faces it seemed like they were a mixture of scared/confused, some even jealous that they can't get away with this type of behavior in France.

They think I'm a little out of my mind.  But, I'm just trying to keep things authentic.

Social Life

So, this past week was pretty solid.  I had a bunch of really good classes and did some fun stuff.  My living quarters are thirty times cozier now that I hung up my tapestry and pictures and a Gustav Klimt poster that I found.  Although it is a bit mismatched.  Sadly, my duvet cover is of the New York skyline- haha!!  I bought rainbow sheets at the market in town on the second day I was here because I was depressed by all of the white in my room.  Then, I went shopping for duvet covers and the only neutral choice was a black and white New York skyline print - which doesn't seem that bad.  Until you are an American girl, who actually lives sort of near there and it looks like you are obsessed with yourself. :o), sweet.

Last weekend, we went to Paris and stayed over Saturday night.  Ceci and I went to all our favorite places and the weather was absolute perfection- 70 and sunny.  We met the most adorable American couple from Baltimore in our favorite quiche restaurant.  They take a month a year to go to Paris together and rent an apartment on the left bank.  They each got a coffee and a lemon tart and you could tell they just loved being together.  So we all went on and on about how much we love Paris and then they left holding hands. Wonderful.

We did some shopping and Ceci bought super euro kicks with little stars on them, which I offered to remove, hahaha. Then for dinner we got fondue at this great place where they serve wine in baby bottles- where mine was actually an inverted nipple so I had to get a replacement bottle, no joke.  After that, we went to Rue Princesse for some hanging out and then to Le Mix- where it was gay night, unbeknownst to us.   We danced to the likes of Madonna's "Holiday" and Britney Spears' "Crazy".   Very, very interesting experience.  There was a lady there making balloon hats for everyone, which was a little added bonus.

Cecilia came here this weekend and we did some exploring.  As it turns out, Beauvais has some secret gems for meeting people/live music/ tasty drinks.  Like an Irish Pub called "After Hours" which plays really loud taped live shows all night like Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers--- and a Harry Potter bar/restaurant with live music on the weekends complete with a full out themed menu including a drink named, "Vous savez qui" in English, "you know who"- yes, yes- voldemort.  too funny.

On Friday, we met some British guys who were in town filming a video for what they described to be "The John Deere of France", which I laughed at for probably too long && on Saturday we met some interesting French characters at the harry potter joint.  

There was a beautiful artisan market that was in town for just this weekend- with red and white striped tents in the town square near the carousel- so picturesque. Yet SO impractical.  This nice Belgian man was describing to us about this dehydrated, not dried, fruit- which keeps in all of the natural vitamins and sweetness.  Well, we were pretty impressed by the sample he gave us.  Annnnd we each picked up a little box to fill- pears, strawberries, mango, kiwi, ginger, etc.

Mine cost 11 euros.  Cecilia's was 7 euros.

I decided after that, that I need to familiarize myself better with the metric system.

Bon Appetit!

Bonjour blogosphere!

I decided I wanted to blog over the summer but of course didn't get my act together until now, now that I've been in France for two weeks. 

So yeah! I'm in France.  I am a language assistant, teaching English to 6-10 year olds in public school.  I teach 12 hours a week and I'm going to be doing this for nine months.  I am in Northern France, in a small city called Beauvais.  There is a sweet downtown, a beautiful cathedral that my street opens up onto, and an airport- which is very cool because ryanair flies out of Beauvais to pretty much anywhere in Europe for really, really cheap. So yeah, on these flights people may sometimes clap when you land but that can be overlooked.

I live in a foyer thing which exists in France for young, working people to live in sort of grown up dorms, which may seem unbearably awkward- but it's really not.   I have a room and a big bathroom and we share a kitchen on the floor. There is a huge window in my room that looks out onto this massive French tree, which is pretty.  Sorry, for some reason I love to state something that normally occurs and put French in front of it.  For example, "Oh my gosh look at that French squirrel! It's so cute!" ahahahah. I digress.  

There is a first floor and big basement with a library, coffee machine, washing machines and some other stuff.  Not to mention two really nice older ladies, Isa and Dina who work at the desk at the front of the building- who already love me.  Bahaha.  No but they love me- Isa tells me all of her secrets about living in France like how she puts the detergent in a ball first because it just works better that way and how to get places by bus using crazy shortcuts.  

Sorry, excuse me while I open my 2 euro bottle of wine entitled, "Domaine Saint Pierre le haut, vin de pays de la vallée du paradis".  Beautiful.

Anyways,  these last two weeks have been absolutely nuts.  I left all my packing until the day I was leaving because that's what I do and I legitimately thought my father was going to wring my neck as we were leaving.  Then I thought I forgot something and I had to get out of the car to look in my suitcase in the trunk, when all of my vitamins came spilling out of my backpack onto the street.  My vitamins were in my backpack because I stuffed them in there last minute.  A 200 pack of vitamins in my backpack, WHAT?  It was chaos.  I couldn't even bear saying goodbye to my cat Bojangles because that's just not my style.

 I arrived on September 28th- so jet lagged because instead of sleeping on the plane I met this awesome lady named Angie.  Angie is from Philly and she was going to Paris for the week with her two daughters.  Turns out that she is the coolest mom in the entire world because she takes international students into her house every year- from a different country.  So, she has seen the world because then these students invite her to their country- I'm talking Australia, Korea, Belgium, etc., etc.  Awesome.  When she fell asleep her feet were literally on me but I let it slide because she rocks.

When I got into my room.  I had no sheets or toilet paper- so the first couple of days I was just buying everything I need for my room --kettle for tea (obviously), plates, silverware, soap, candles (necessary.) --- etc.

The first week summed up-  My first dinner out in France was Chinese food finished with a banana split (I don't transition well.)  I met my two schools and all of the students, quickly learning that basically all they know how to say in English is "good morning"- which has proven to be interesting.  I made friends with some other assistants --- 2 Americans, 2 English gals, and 1 Scottish -who I love but I struggle to understand.  We went to Amiens, a city further north, for orientation where I finally met up with Cecilia.  Cecilia is one of my favorite people in the world and I met her in Paris when we were there for the semester.  She is from Wisconsin and we requested to be in the same place for this program we're doing.  Weeellll, our schools are actually an hour apart but we have all the same breaks and we visit on the weekends for party time, which is the best.

Last week I started teaching.  I have 7 different classes divided between two schools.  My youngest class is kindergarten level and my oldest class is 3rd-4th grade level.  It'sss... interesting.  I like it but it's really hard.  I just make everything fun.  We learned "One, Two buckle my shoe" and played Bingo for numbers (I gave out pennies as prizes which was a HUGE hit) and we played Simon says when I was trying to teach them things like "Listen!" and "Be quiet!"for which I made up silly gestures.   I have each class two times a week for 45 minutes and I can teach whatever I want, because I got the hardcore contract of nine months where you are in charge.  Which is pretty sweet.

This is so long.  wooooah.  I am going to sign off now with this last thought- 

 Is it ok to have a cat on a leash as several French people do in this town?  Debatable.