France is amazing!

First of all, it's snowed the last two nights. So cool! This is the first time in, literally, years that I've seen snowfall around Christmas time.

Second, Seamus, Caitlin and her cousin and I all took an unplanned trip to Paris on Saturday. The city at Christmas? Simply amazing! But the highlight, by far and away was this:

Ice skating in front of the Eiffel Tower.

So awesome I can't even describe it.

Someone’s excited for Christmas!

This cat is in love with the tree.  He literally spends hours each day just staring at it.  It’s like his new best friend.  I might not ever take it down - I think he’d be too depressed!

Welcome to Chez-moi!

Well after many promises - I’ve finally taken pictures of my lovely apartment! I was going to include some pictures of my street and the street side view of my building, but for safety reasons I’ve decided against it (you never know who’s reading!)

But just imagine a really cute French street with cute buildings all different colors (in the beige family), now imagine you’ve reaching a nice, 3 story brown building -- that’s me!

So after you send me a text (my buzzer thing doesn’t work) I’d come down the crazy stairs open the door:

(Question: take a good look at this picture - how many hands do you think you’d need to open this door? Answer: a minimum of two.)

I’d meet you at the door, lead you down a hallway that always smells chemically, into a courtyard. Now look up, that top window belongs to me!

(No, I don’t have a ghost, that’s just Seamus looking out the window)

Next we’d go through this crazy door:

(no, I don't live in the tool shed)

And up these stairs:

(these are the nice stairs)

And then after we’d climbed the second set of stairs you would look down and see this:

(oh yes, everyday is an adventure)

This is my front door, all decorated with my amazing peacock feather wreath (thank you 2 euro store!):

Opening the door, this is my apartment!

Here’s my bed:

(complete with cat)

Bookcase:

View into the kitchen:

Stove, sink and window/skylight thing:

(During the day, it’s a lovely view of the back of a church.)

Kitchen table + oven:

Bathroom, well all you can see from a single angle -- you can kinda see the (rather small) hot water heater that makes it impossible to see a better view of the rest of the bathroom:

View looking out of the kitchen back into the main room:


Not pictured - toilet room (because, well, it’s the size of a closet and only has a toilet in it ... so you can just imagine that one).

And that’s it! I love this place!

The last ten days...

... have been insanely busy and yet, not a whole lot has really happened. I got applications off to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Michigan State University (both of which required a lot of paperwork to be sent in ... so they involved a lot of running around and time spent in the post office.

[Random tangent: when I went to the post office last Monday to send these things it took me 40 minutes! I went to a totally empty post office and asked a very nice man for help, was handed 2 envelopes and 4 packing slips along with 2 other forms, and by the time I had filled everything out there was literally a line out the door. Why did all of Orléans feel the need to mail something at 3 in the afternoon on Monday? Who knows. But I had to wait in the damn line too ... grrr.]

I still have two more to complete - but they are almost done and all online (yay!).

Two Sundays ago we had a lovely, large, Thanksgiving celebration. A lot of people came to celebrate and brought all kinds of food! A lot of it was the traditional American fare, but the two Spaniards made a Spanish omelet (which is a very delicious potato, ham and cheese thing), and the Germans brought a very delicious cheese dip and there were all kinds of amazing treats! The food was delicious, the company was amazing and it was an all around good time! I got there at 4:45 and finally left at 9 - it was really fun to see everyone and share a great meal together. For most of the people there it was their first Thanksgiving - so it was really cool to watch so many first timers stuff themselves silly! What an awesome tradition.

On Tuesday the Marche de Nöel (Christmas market) opened - and it’s amazing! We’ve been watching this thing being built for the last month - so to see everything finally open and lit up was awesome! In the middle is a big ice skating rink set up around my favorite monument - the Joan of Ark statue and all around it is little wooden booths filled with stuff! Some booths sell food (i.e. a lot of sausages, churros and vin chaud (essentially mulled wine)). Some booths sell little nativity figurines while others sell sweaters and jewelry. It’s pretty amazing. I was expecting a lot more traditional or craft products, but it’s still cool. Next week an artisanal market opens up (which I think will be a lot of craft products - I hope there are ornaments!) and after that a fair trade market opens up. There’s also a little Santa’s village - which Caitlin, Seamus and I were really excited to see ... but Santa is a creeper! He looks like the scariest, most uninviting guy ever! Needless to say, we did not sit on Santa’s lap.

Wednesday I woke up feeling pretty awful. I had noticed a sore throat creeping up and my voice was a bit shaky on Tuesday, but I thought it would be fine. Well, surprise, surprise, it turned into a pretty nasty cold. Wednesday I only teach two classes - one that I love and one that feels like torture. My first group is the painful one - they are terminals (high school seniors) and they could care less. There are several students who are great, but there are 3 boys who really throw off the dynamic. Well, my teacher death stare has been improving as of late - and they got the full works last Wednesday. I had to threaten to throw two of them out - but they did finally settle down. The second group is just adorable. I look forward to this class every week. They are an age that I just click with (secondes). I get them - they get me. And we have a lot of fun. Wednesday afternoon my friend Jenny came over to make her delicious pumpkin bread/cake in my oven and we spent a lovely afternoon hanging out.

Thursday I woke up and felt really awful - so I stayed home from work. I hate doing it, but with Christmas coming up and my parents visit (so excited!) I just can’t afford to get worse. So I stayed in bed all day, made chicken soup and went to the doctor (turns out I had a cold and mild bronchitis). Friday I felt worse - so I stayed home again. The medicine from the doctor really helped AND I got a box from my parents! I got a pair of my own shoes, as well as some Christmas socks and a favorite sweater I didn’t have room for! Along with all that I got some adorable ornaments, a book and DVD and so many American goodies! Ah, even in the land of amazing food - I still really miss Trader Joe’s. So it was so nice to see those labels and some of my favorite goodies - I do really love those peanut butter granola bars. Something that always amazes me, is how much you miss food that you rarely ate at home. My mom threw in some spice packets - seasoning for tacos, enchiladas, chili and SLOPPY JOES! I never thought I’d miss them - but oh my goodness! They are so good!

Saturday I stayed home again - I had made plans to go on an adventure for the day, but I just didn’t feel up to it. I did manage, however, to get a subscription at the library (which is awesome!) so I now have access to a ton of books and CDs and DVDs. And I did laundry - which may not seem like a major accomplishment, but it takes forever in France! Things just take so damn long to dry and I just don’t have a place in my apartment to line dry much. So, essentially, 3 loads took me 5 hours. Awesome.

Sunday I finally felt a lot better - I suppose that crazy French medicine finally started working (they gave me one thing, a nasal spray, that literally smells like a combination of glue and B.O., which I have to squirt up my nose 3 times a day). I cleaned my apartment and, as usual, had a really nice Sunday dinner with Caitlin and Seamus. We had enchiladas and a southwestern salad and then watched Life of Brian.

Today I’m feeling pretty normal, but I taking it easy. I’ll have my weekly meeting with one of my students - we do a language exchange (she talks in English and I talk in French) but that’s about it.

Sometime this week I’m going ice skating and having a little Christmas party and finishing my grad school apps. Should be another strangely busy and mostly unproductive week in France!

good morning!

This morning I woke up to see cute little Razu all cuddled up on the floor pillows that I bought:

But the noise of the camera woke him up - so then I got to listen to the meows of a hungry cat for a bit.

On my way to feed him I noticed that the views out of my kitchen window/skylight (it's shaped like a skylight, but it's only about 6 feet up and it opens - so I don't really know what it is ... ah the joys of living in the top apartment) were really amazing this morning. The light was very orange and there were zero grey clouds and no fog:


This is a better view of the church behind me. It was taken from my bathroom window/skylight:


I love living in France and I love my apartment oh, so much!

p.s. real pictures of the apartment coming as soon as I clean ...

Being a scab and Thanksgiving lessons

So today is a national strike for teachers (except no one told me, so I came to work all happy as usual). As I was walking toward the front door of my school, one of my students stops me and says, "Madame? La Grève?" Translation, "Madame? The strike?" My response: "comment, uh, what?" So apparently there is a stike, but it's optional. Some teachers are here, but most aren't - and all the kids have to come to class. So it's not really very exciting - but I do kinda feel like a scab. Technically I could strike if I wanted to, but I really have no idea what it's about and I really don't think that I should be getting involved in national politics (god knows, my own country's politics are exciting enough). So the thanksgiving lesson went on...

My first class - who are chatterboxes - didn't seem very interested ... but they got to hear me talk about thanksgiving anyways. I explained the holiday and then asked them what kinds of foods they would bring if there was a French Thanksgiving (oh yes, I am secretly doing research). The answer? Chocolate cake and foie gras. Yeah... So then I asked them to think of something they were thankful for. I explained how at thanksgiving people usually say something nice - I gave the example of "this year, I'm thankful for all the nice French people I've met and my great students." What did I get in return? "I'm thankful for my friends," times 14. Cool. So then I asked them what they usually do for a holiday meal (I try to avoid referencing religion in any way) and I got into a nice conversation with two students about how they think France is too materialistic and how holidays should be about family etc etc. It was such a thoughtful sentiment and really nice to hear about what they really think. I let the group go a few minutes early - it's a strike and Thanksgiving, really why keep them? - and then started prepping for my afternoon groups.

The groups that I have on Tuesday afternoons are some of my favorite - they can be a bit wild, but they interact, they like to have fun, and they really make an effort to speak -- you can't ask for more! I downloaded a nice worksheet where they change the verbs in a thanksgiving story from present to past tense and a nice short story of thanksgiving with a recipe for pumpkin pie at the bottom - thanks to former Assistant Jennie for both! Then I went and bought a bag of candy - it's thanksgiving! The lesson went really well - we talked about thanksgiving, did the work sheet and I gave out candy for each right answer. Then we talked about a French Thanksgiving - they would've had foie gras, roast beef, oysters, escargots, baguettes, cake and lots of wine (I'm going to that Thanksgiving!) and what they were thankful for - friends, faily, pets, health. And one students said he was thankful for me because I made English class really fun and that everyone likes me (brown nosing? totally. did I eat it up completely? totally.) After that we played Thanksgiving themed hangman (a good chance for them to practice the words they just learned) and I let them leave early. All in all, an amazing lesson!

I love Thanksgiving!

So, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone at home! I hope the Turkey is crispy and moist, the potatoes are lump free and that the stuffing is beautiful (which it always is) and that the pumpkin pie is perfection! I'm celebrating the occasion with a meal out and a big Thanksgiving day celebration Sunday with all the assistants and friends - I'm bringing Rice Balls.