The Night We Invited the Firefighters to Dinner ... Seriously

On our second night in Dinard we decided to stay in and just have a quiet dinner at the apartment … or so we thought! Our apartment is on the top floor of a building in the middle of the town square, with a realty office and restaurant on the ground floor. We were sitting at our table eating, and the phone/buzzer rang several times. I tried to pick it up but there was no dial-tone or voice, so we just ignored it. Then my mom noticed that there were flames shooting out of something right beside our balcony/window; it looked like part of our building’s roof was on fire. It turns out the buzzer was ringing because other residents were trying to tell us that the building was on fire! So we all started freaking out, grabbed jackets & the computer, and ran down the stairs. Outside there were a bunch of people in the street saying that the chimney from the restaurant below us was on fire. It took about 15 minutes for the fire department to get there, and we were getting a little nervous; basically, the chimney was right next to the balcony off of our apartment. The firemen got it put out pretty quickly but wouldn’t let us back into our apartment for about an hour. So of course my parents kept making me go up to the firefighters/policemen, explain our situation, and try to convince them that we could go back in; that was fun! Finally we got back up there and discovered 3 firemen on the balcony in our apartment. They were using the balcony to make sure that everything was okay with the chimney. It didn’t look like they were leaving anytime soon, so we just went ahead and started eating dinner again. Each time a different firefight would enter the apartment, he’d just look at us, say “Bonsoir,” and laugh a little bit. So of course we got a picture with them! Hopefully that will be the most eventful evening we have here!

Christmas in Bordeaux

My Chilean roommate has several Chilean friends who are also assistants in France, and since none of them are going home for the holidays, they all met up in Bordeaux for the week. She invited me and the Russian assistant to come along since neither of us were going home, either. It was a bit strange at times not being home for Christmas, but it was a really fun and unique way to spend the holiday … and it obviously helped knowing that my family was going to arrive on the 26th, anyway! So there were 11 of us (one Bolivian, one Colombian, the rest Chilean) staying in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment … a bit tight at times, but the atmosphere was very lively, to say the least! And his apartment was located right in the main street of Bordeaux, full of shops and restaurants. It was one of those apartments that I’ve always wanted to have in a city … located above a seedy ethnic restaurant, with huge windows that open from the front room over the main street … very cool. And Bordeaux is a larger, more interesting city than I originally thought. The first night we went to a little bar where a Chilean band performed and then continued the party back at the apartment. After that we didn’t wake up until the late afternoon and then checked out the Christmas market downtown for the night. On Christmas Eve I did some last minute shopping with my Russian friend and then came back to the apartment to rest up for an all-night Christmas celebration! We didn’t eat dinner until about midnight, then they exchanged their Secret Santa gifts (and a couple of people who I had only known for 2 days even gave me a gift – just says a little something about their open hospitality!), and we danced/partied/played a little soccer until 7am! Quite a Christmas Eve night! The food was really good – several different types of salad, chicken, sausage, pork, beef, plenty of beer, and some Chilean liquor. Each night ended with tons of music, dancing, singing … and an attempt to teach me how to dance. Just another reminder that I will never remotely approach having the natural rhythm of South Americans J I’d like to tell you that I came away from 3 days of being surrounded by “Spanophones” with a few new vocab words, but nope, I just know a few bad words in Chilean, haha. But it was really a nice way to spend Christmas … it’s comforting to spend such a family-oriented holiday with other people who can’t be at home, either … and was such a good reminder how genuinely kind and generous people can be.

Pictures to come later because they are on my friend's camera ...

Most Random Train Trip Ever

On the Saturday before Christmas, I took a train from Rennes to Bordeaux with the Chilean and Russian assistants, to spend Christmas with a group of Chileans who live in Bordeaux. We got to the train station in Rennes plenty of time before our train left, only to find that there were about 100 people too-many to fit in the train! I understand that it’s the holiday season, and everything is busy … but what I don’t understand is how SNCF sells 100+ too many reservations for the size of a train. Everyone was trying to cram on, but it was impossible, so they actually had to add 3 cars to the back of the train to fit us all in. Then the second leg was just as packed and we were luckily able to find seats in first class. We ended up sitting next to an 8 year old French kid and his mom, and this kid was probably the craziest little 8 year old I’ve ever met. His mom had absolutely no control over him, and he performed several ghetto French rap songs in the middle of the aisle for everyone. Then he asked me to marry him by offering me a wedge of a Clementine as a ring … yes, it sounds cute, but he had so much attitude that it really wasn’t charming. Once as he was hugging his mother to “apologize” for his behavior, he looked at me behind her back, made a vulgar kissing motion, and mouthed “Je t’aime.” Seriously … an 8 year old. Then he heard my accent and decided to share an American joke with me; it didn’t make sense, but I’ll tell you anyway. In a hot air balloon there are an Italian, a Chinese, a French, and an American; the Italian balanced a pizza, the Chinese balanced chopsticks, and the French balanced a baguette. Ok, so what did the American balance? “Everybody!” Yeah, so it doesn’t make sense to me either, and I asked him why … “Because you are zeeeee bessst in zee world.” Yep, the little brat yelled that in front of the whole train … suuuper, it’s pretty fun being mocked by an 8 year old! Then his mom started yelling at him for being so obnoxious, and he pointed at me and yelled that it was my fault for “having excited him.” Ok, so it was a little entertaining for a long train ride, but I couldn’t wait to get off at the end.

James Bond Prom 2007 ... a Success!

I can’t believe that it actually happened, but everything came together perfectly for Prom. I really had my doubts about how this would come together because we had had so many meetings that didn’t seem very productive … but the week of Prom, all of this awesome music/lighting/stage equipment showed up out of nowhere, and students pulled together to get everything done. In true Molly-fashion, my decoration committee procrastinated and did everything the day before/day of the Prom. The day before about 8 of us blew up (manually, no helium allowed!) 350 balloons and made a rockin’ balloon arch! It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, and it was so fun to spend some time getting to know a few of my favorite students. The night before we had a quick rehearsal to practice the speeches, set up the music & lighting equipment, etc. Then on the day of Prom, teachers kept bringing their classes to the gym to help out, so the decorations/carpeting/lights/etc were all set up under two hours! It was amazing how many people helped out … I ended up not really doing too much, but as the only American here, I just like to think of myself as the “Prom consultant” haha, whatever value that may have. So the decorations ended up being: one massive balloon arch over the door, a small stage for the DJ and band, a “fresco” on the wall with a lifesize James Bond/Prom 2007 logo (painted by students – very good!), lots of random balloons, and ongoing projections on the wall of various James Bond movie clips; we also had a VIP section for the prom committee members, of course! Sounds random but it worked!

So, onto the night of the Prom. It took about an hour for all the students to actually get into the gym. Had I already mentioned that the teachers and I made name badges with photos for each of the 400 students? Yeah, tight security … so it took a while for the teachers to identify each student and give them their badges at the door. The other English assistant and I, along with the president of the student association, officially “opened” the ball with a little speech. He spoke in English and we translated in French … not super fun to speak French in a microphone in front of everyone, but it was pretty quick! Then the Prom committee was invited to the dance floor to do the “Madison,” a line dance that we all learned together. After that there were random contests, lots of dancing (including a group of students who formed a huge circle to dance “Techtonic”, the newest dance among French teenagers), and a student band that performed at the end. Clean-up also went really quickly, and we were out of there by 11pm. Then some of the students invited us to the Prom After-Party (!!) but that didn’t work out and I just met up with friends downtown for the end of the night. It was quite the success, and at the end of the evening the principal said that they could for sure do it again next year, with the addition of a real dance floor, as well! Most random Prom ever … it actually didn’t end up really resembling your typical Prom, but that’s what’s so great about the French – they can take an idea from another culture, but it gets so “frenchified” that it ends up becoming something completely different … and just French. This was a great example of the way that the French go out of their way to think through little details for everything … from the photo/name badges for all the students to the scene-specific film projections, to the 100+ cakes made by students and sold at the prom, etc etc. It would take all day to tell you about all of the little, random things that we discussed at the meetings leading up to it. But it was a very fun activity to have for the semester and gave me something to do in addition to my whopping 12 hours of weekly work.

Secret Santa Gift Exchange and Raclette Dinner

Ah, yes, last night was the exciting culmination to our roommate Secret Santa exchange … and exciting it was! For the most part, we actually did a good job keeping the secrets. The random gifts ranged from a bath towel to a hand-painted Russian hair clip … never a dull moment! We had traditional French raclette for dinner… melted raclette cheese over potatoes, smoked ham, pancetta, saucisson, and bread. The raclette machine is a square, dual-level, electric grill; each person has a little “shovel” (for lack of a better word, but that’s basically what they are) on which that they put a slice of cheese and then place it on the bottom level to melt. On the top level of the grill you can put potatoes, veggies, etc. Then when your cheese has melted, you scoop it off of the little shovel and eat it with the meat & potatoes. It’s a really fun way to eat and was perfect for our Christmas dinner! We also had a traditional Breton apéritif drink – a liquor made from honey. We are all definitely going to miss each other over the holiday break, but I know that everyone is also looking forward to a change of pace.

Vitre and Fougeres

A few weeks ago, five of us drove to the nearby towns of Vitre and Fougeres just to explore for the afternoon. Each town had a chateau, so those were basically the highlights! Here are a few pictures, all from the chateau in Vitre. My favorite picture is the one with four of my roommates in it ... I told them to strike their "national pose" and this is what they ended up with! From the left we have the Russian stare-down, the friendly Portugese, "long live the Queen" English, and I think Italy explains itself!

Our Fave Cafe in Rennes

Just a quick word on L'Haricot Rouge ... a very cute little cafe in Rennes that specializes in different flavors of homemade hot chocolate. My roommates and I found this place a month ago and usually end up going there about once a week together, just to chill, play games, hang out outside of our little high school dorm. And there are board games to play there .... playing Taboo in French actually does wonders for your vocabulary! Here is a picture of us all there together (order of assistants: Italian, English, Russian, Chilean, Portugese, me)

Update on Prom Planning

This is just to give you an update on where we are in the prom-planning stages! We’ve been having weekly meetings with the interested teachers and students to make sure that things are actually getting taken care of. We just heard back from the administration at the “City Hall,” and they confirmed that we are, in fact, allowed to have up to 450 people in the school gym for the Prom. That’s perfect because about 420 students are coming. That’s just one piece of all of the red tape that we’ve gone through while planning! The actual date of the “Prom” (which is being called either “Le Ball” or “La Fete de Noel” at the school) is on Thursday, Dec 20^th right after school gets out at 6:30. I think I’ve already said that the theme is a random combo of James Bond, the 1960’s, and Hollywood Glamour. But the head teachers are making sure that everyone understands the dress code is a suit/tie for the boys and a nice dress for the girls … supposedly if anyone shows up as a hippie from the 1960’s, they won’t be allowed to enter!

I have been working with the Decorations Committee and am basically just letting the students take care of most of it. We are paying one of the student’s friends to paint a big logo sign with Prom 2007 and a lifesize picture of James Bond on it … this will be the backdrop for the pictures. The students bought streamers and 350 balloons last week in the color theme of black, gold, and “Bordeaux.” We’re not allowed to use helium, so we still haven’t discussed how exactly we will get the 350 balloons inflated … maybe I will make each student blow up 5 balloons in each of my classes next Wednesday and Thursday, who knows! So our budget-friendly decorations basically consist of the James Bond poster, two big balloon arches, and streamers.

The other English assistant is in charge of the “Animations/Entertainment” committee, and from her I have heard that there will be: a band, a DJ, one student who’s going to sing an Alicia Keys song in English, a music trivia game, and the presentation of the winners of the student contest to decorate the school’s language lab. Most random prom that you’ve heard of, right??? I can’t wait to see how it all goes!

Oh, and the best part, I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention this! The teachers all passed our parental permission slips for the students to turn back in. The questionnaire was fairly simple …

1) Yes / No I will or will not attend Prom.

2) Yes / No I can bake a cake for the Prom.

CAN I BRING A CAKE TO THE PROM? Not your typical follow-up question on Prom attendance ... I somehow missed this part of the planning but was delightfully surprised when I saw this on the form! So we have over 100 students who are each bringing a cake that we will sell during the Prom! Only in France, I love it!!

Secret Santa Chez Nous

My roommates and I all agreed to do a 10-euro Secret Santa gift exchange, so we picked random names last week and are going to exchange gifts/have a Christmas dinner next Thursday. It’s funny because the tradition exists in each of our countries, but we all have different names for it … but none of us really know what it’s called in French! So we’ve resorted to referring to it as “des amis secrets” = secret friends. But when you’re only playing with 7 people who all live together/generally go downtown together/shop together … it’s not too difficult to figure out everyone’s secret! So we will see what elements of surprise are still there when we finally exchange gifts!

Weekend Trip to Poitiers

Last weekend I went with 5 of my assistant roommates into the region of Poitou-Charentes, an area about four hours (by car) southwest of Brétagne. My Chilean roommate has family who live in Chatellerault, a really small country town near Poitiers, so we stayed in their house. It was really cool – a large, old stone house in the middle of the countryside. We spent all of Saturday just hanging out around the house, lounging around in the living room that had a huge, open fireplace … very cozy! Saturday night we went into Poitiers for about an hour to just check out the downtown; it was really cute & festively decorated for Christmas. I really love the Christmas decorations here … there are always lights strung up all over the old, cobblestoned parts of the cities. Then we went back to the house because they were having a small party with friends on Saturday night. Several of their friends brought their children along, so there ended up being about 8 little French girls under the age of 10 … they were so cute! I had bought a bag of marshmallows because I’d told my friends about our tradition of roasting marshmallows in the fireplace, and they were a big hit with the French kids! So I showed them how to roast marshmallows, and they loved it … sooo cute!! Then Sunday we just headed back to Rennes … it was good to get away for a weekend.

Classes ... the Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Ugly

Luckily I am writing this after having just returned from a solid morning of good classes. Even though I’ve been doing this for over two months now, each class session can really just be hit or miss. And it’s a little difficult because I work with really different types of students: one class only has only 2 students; another has about 12 who are pretty advanced at English; group of about 20 guys who are anywhere from 19-22 years old & are studying mechanical engineering/electronics; group of psychologically challenged students at a medical/rehab center; oh, yes, and I also work with a calculus class in English … that’s a fun one! Here’s a quick overview of some failed attempts and success stories:
1) The Harry Potter overview lesson was a miserable failure. The teacher recommended I do it to tie in with their previous lesson on Roald Dahl short stories. But unfortunately only a few of the students had actually read HP, and the others were totally lost. My HP vocab matching-exercise was pretty bad, as well!
2) Several teachers have asked me to talk about after-school jobs in the US. It is very uncommon for teenagers to have part-time jobs here since most of them stay at school until 6pm everyday, so they think the American schedule is pretty interesting. So I put together a worksheet with common teenage jobs, pictures, and useful vocab words … and even though I’ve done this lesson with a few different groups, it has been kinda boring each time. I’m still trying to think of ways to spice it up a bit.
3) I did a lesson on the retail industry in the US … specifically focused on Target, obviously! I brought a few circulars from the US paper and emphasized the contrast between US promotions (how we advertise different prices weekly, always have sales & clearance, etc) and those of France (there are only two official “sale periods” per year, regulated by the government). I’m not sure if they understood too much, but it was kinda fun to do.
4) I have a group of just 2 students who I work with individually each week. Since they chose to take this in addition to their normal English classes, they are pretty advanced & motivated; so I can choose some pretty interesting topics to discuss with them. Usually I find an article related to a current event or debate and then discuss it with them; for example, we discussed the entry of Starbucks to France three years ago, how the company had to adapt to the culture, the status of American brands abroad, etc. If you’re interested … after 3 years Starbucks has close to 50 locations in the Paris area, beating their initial projections … J
5) My lesson on all of the different American holidays has gone over pretty well. Groundhog’s Day consistently gets a good reaction from the students, naturally!
6) I’ve also used a few different songs and lyrics with some classes … just Elton John and Bob Dylan so far, but I’ve had a few requests for Christmas carols, so I can’t wait to whip out Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You! Oh, if I can get the students to sing that, I will pretty much be the happiest assistant in the world, haha!
7) GAMES ALWAYS WORK! Playing Jeopardy after we’ve discussed a certain topic always goes over well, but I’m not sure how many times I can re-create Jeopardy on different topics without losing their interest! I’ve also played Scrabble, the 20 Question electronic game, and am thinking about doing Catchphrase as well.
8) I think I’ve played “Two Truths and a Lie” about 10 times already. I can obviously only play it once with each different group of students, but it has consistently been a lifesaver when I have 15 minutes left in class and nothing left to do. My example usually goes:
a. I was born in California (False)
b. I have run a marathon (True)
c. I have traveled to India (True)

Can’t wait until I make them play “Never Have I Ever” … pg version, of course!

Dinard for Christmas!

My parents and Alec will be flying into Paris on December 26th, driving to Rennes to pick me up, and then heading out to our rental place. We spent a few weeks looking online at different houses/apartments in several coastal areas and finally decided on one in Dinard, a town on the central, northern coast of Brittany. I’ve never been to Dinard, but the guidebooks describe it as “a turn-of-the-century resort with striped bathing tents, seaside carnival rides, and pinnacled belle époque mansions perched about the water.” Well, keep in mind that it will be January while we’re there, so the summer/seaside atmosphere will be lacking a bit … but I am excited about it! We ended up finding a 3-bedroom apartment on the VRBO website. I don’t think we will even be in the apartment too much, since our plan is to take day trips to check out lots of other small Brittany towns along the coasts. I’ll try to put in a link to our place.

A Few Words on my French Gym

I think I could probably write a blog entry about this every time I come back from the gym. The interesting dress code never ceases to amaze me. The other day the guy on the treadmill next to me was wearing velour pants and Ked’s-style slip-on shoes; don’t ask me how you’re supposed to run effectively in that! Last night I was waiting for a girl wearing huge gold hoop earrings to finish on the treadmill … that was a little annoying. There are also a lot of white (why?!?) pants, short t-shirts, board shorts, and Puma street shoes. I think that I’ve actually seen a couple of guys in collared shirts, come to think of it … ?? And sports bras for the ladies? Totally optional … and often not bothered with. So whenever I show up to work out in my running shorts, t-shirt or tank, and running shoes … I think I look a little too “sporty.”
Lately I’ve been timing my workouts to coincide with the various group aerobic classes that are offered. Since it’s a small gym with no TVs or anything, the treadmill gets pretty monotonous sometimes. But not if there’s a French aerobics class to watch in front of me!! The owner of the gym is a big, burly guy (Alec, you’ll be happy to know, he was wearing a Gold’s Gym sweatshirt the other day!), and he leads a lot of the classes. Something about him yelling the instructions, punctuated with short motivational lines, in French, is really entertaining. Maybe I will work up the nerve to join a class someday, but for now I just enjoy being a spectator.

La Fete

So we finally decided to have a party at our place, and it ended up being awesome! First of all, we kindof know that we’re not allowed to have guests or alcohol in our hallway, but technically no one ever told us the official rules of the place … so we figured we would just give it a whirl! Due to the fact that we only have one small common area (the kitchen), we thought we would keep it small. Well, that doesn’t work because everyone brings friends of friends, etc. There were several of the other English assistants, some friends of the Chilean assistants, a group of Spanish exchange students that we’ve just met, and then just random friends. The Spanish kids all showed up with homemade bottles of their specialty drink, which is a 50/50 mix of red wine & Coke; think I found a new fave drink!

There ended up being around 40 people here at some point, all crammed into our kitchen & shower room. It sounds like an awkward space for a party, which it was, but it was really fun! Then around 2am the “surveillant” showed up, very angry, and told us that we couldn’t have alcohol here. He even found the stash of boxes/bottles that we had tried to hide in the shower, woops :) He got on his phone to call the principal, yes that’s right!, and everyone emptied out. The principal didn’t show up, but another person from school administration did. We all ran into one room, but she obviously found us, and we explained to her that it was just a small gathering of assistants from other schools in the area. She was actually somewhat nice about it, but we will see if anything happens this week … it feels like freshman year all over again!! The only sour part to the evening is that my camera is missing … have no idea what happened to it, and maybe it could still turn up, but I’m pretty sure that will be #1 on my Christmas list this year.

I Joined a French Gym ...

… and it’s called Flex Time. I got a good deal for a 6 month membership, and it’s only a 15 minute walk from where I live. It’s pretty simple, just a large room with cardo & weight machines all around the perimeter. In the middle is a big open floor where they have the aerobic classes. It’s pretty funny to hear the aerobic instructions/motivations in French, so I prefer to run on the treadmill while classes are going on. As a gym, it is pretty simple but has what I need. However, I do have one small complaint, and that is the smell!! I realize that it’s a gym and that people sweat a lot, but even in gyms in the US it is unheard of to smell that bad while working out! I have never really criticized French people for their stereotype of smelling bad … until now. I seriously plan my workout times around the low-peak hours, so that the body-odor factor will be less evident.

Happy Thanksgiving :)

After giving a lesson to the students on American holidays (I actually threw in Groundhog's Day, which was their favorite!), it was finally time to actually celebrate Thanksgiving! One of the other American assistants hosted dinner at her apartment Friday night, and there were about 15 of us there ... a few Americans, English, Irish, Australian, and French ... celebrating about the most American of all American holidays. We had tons of wine & baguettes, of course, but the highlights included: green bean casserole, cranberry sauce (which was my contribution), pumpkin bread, mashed potatoes & gravy, roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and homemade pumpkin pie. What about the turkey, you might be thinking ... ? We actually had roasted chicken instead because that was a lot easier to buy than a huge turkey from a butcher here. Even though I wasn't at home with family, it was a really enjoyable Thanksgiving! We even went around the table and shared our "thanks" with each other ... a nice combination of serious/funny contributions by everyone.

Mail!

I got my first piece of mail last week, very exciting! Thanks to Jessi, Camille, and Danielle for sending the best card ever! They also sent a Chicago magnet which is on proud display on our fridge! I tried to translate this in French to explain to my friends, but it's so awesomely cheesy Americana that it's impossible to translate!

Approaching Fluency?!?! (False alarm ... )

You know your English is bad when … I just tried to type “inevative” for innovative … wow, well I just hope this decline in English grammar will be supplemented by a boost in my French comprehension, yiiikes. Apparently my chances for ever becoming bilingual are slim to none.

Cooking a l'Americain, woo yeah!

Almost all of my roommates have shared some type of food or drink specialty from their native countries, so I decided last weekend it was time for me to introduce them to some good, ‘ole Southern USA cookin … well not a very thorough introduction, but I did my best. If you know me even remotely well, you should have easily guessed that the first thing I made was PANCAKES!! That’s right, we’re not talking French-style crepes, but hearty, thick, butter & syrup pancakes! Although that was my goal, the final results sadly ended up being very similar to crepes. In the international food section of a French grocery store, I found a box of “Recette Americaine” pancake mix; the only instructions were to add water and melted butter, but this produced the lumpiest (yet too thin & watery) pancake mixture that I’ve ever seen. So they actually ended up resembling crepes much more than traditional pancakes. And my thriftiness, coupled with my lack of love towards Canada, prevented me from buying the Canadian Maple Syrup (which would have cost about $8.50 for a small bottle), so they really didn’t come close to experiencing the real thing. I have promised the roommates an encore pancake feast in January, so hopefully I can persuade Mama Wynn to bring Bisquick and Log Cabin in December when she comes :)
I did slightly redeem myself last night by making American hamburgers for my roommates. I found ground beef patties, authentic Heinz ketchup and “hamburger bread” … and it was a much more successful meal! My Italian friend apparently knew an American family who made homemade cinnamon donuts, so he is convinced that, as a good American, I should also be able to make donuts … but I’m obviously not even going to attempt that one!

School Lunches!!

I’m not sure that I have really talked about the lunches we get in the school cafeteria, but after seeing the reactions of both Adam & Heather when they visited me in Rennes, I think it is worth a blog entry. First off, it’s great because we get to eat in the teachers’ section & rarely have to wait in line. Each meal only costs 2.10 euro (use pre-loaded cards) and we get an appetizer (usually a cold salad or warm pastry), a main entrée (some type of vegetable/pasta/rice with either meat/fish), the choice of cheese or yogurt, the choice of fruit or baked dessert, a piece of bread, and either espresso or tea. So if I end up somehow maintaining a semi-balanced diet here, it will be thanks to my high school cafeteria lunches … since my cooking at home continues to be rather basic and uninspiring. I will try to find an appropriate time to take a picture of the aforementioned, glorious spread on my lunch tray, but I think that might be frowned upon in the caf … will keep you posted.

Le Break-up en Francais

So I normally don’t talk about actually semi-personal things in the blog updates, but I figured this one was worth mentioning … and might be therapeutic to write?? Haha, we’ll see. So I met a French guy my age, in grad school here, through one of the other American assistants. I actually met him the first night I went out here … yes, good timing, I know, since there was a lot of joking, pre-departure speculation that I was coming to France to find a boyfriend/husband. To put that speculation to rest, that definitely wasn’t my priority in coming … but we all know that I wouldn’t stray from any potential opportunities to meet some quality French garcons, haha. Anyway, we hung out pretty consistently for the first month I was here, and it was great because I got to know a lot of his French friends whom I wouldn’t have otherwise met. However, this short-lived liaison reminded me, as I learned the first time I spent time in France, that the concept of dating simply doesn’t exist here. You are either together from, essentially, day 1 of meeting/expressing interest in each other … or you’re not together. I tried to explain to him that in the US it is normal to date for an extended period of time, see if there is enough mutual interest to pursue a legit relationship, etc … and that it would be pretty absurd to declare someone your boyfriend/girlfriend before at least a month or two of seeing each other. Well, he was pretty offended by the idea, and I guess that is why the French think it is normal to have a new bf/gf after knowing someone for just a couple of days. In one sense, this is a good thing because it does demonstrate a very loyal, dedicated (and romantic?) side to the culture …but on the other hand, it probably leads to a lot of unnecessary beginning & endings to relationships, in my opinion. Once both of us realized that the “relationship” (which would have been recognized, in good ‘ole US culture, as the initial dating period that just fizzles out & requires no formal break-up awkwardness) wasn’t going to work, we met up one afternoon to basically go through the break-up convo. It’s true, I actually consulted my French-English dictionary before going because I’m not exactly eloquent in English in such a situation, let alone in French. So if nothing else, at least I have learned some new French vocab in the romance/relationship domain, haha. And, yes, I have left out some details in the above synopsis, but I just wanted to voice my slight frustration with the Franco-American cultural differences in relationship styles/meaning. And I have started reading Eat, Pray, Love again, a significant feat because I rarely re-read anything … I think this will become my post-breakup book for life :) Thanks for listening …

Clubbing in Germany on Halloween

I found a few pictures online, posted by a random German party site, of Camille & Co from our night of Halloween clubbing in Munich. Fun discovery!

L'Arrivee de Camille!

Heather, Camille, and I spent 2 days together in Paris … toured Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, the Latin Quarter, St. Germain area, etc. Heather flew out on Monday (sad to say goodbye, but we had an awesome time together!) and Camille & I tried to find train tickets to Munich to meet up with her friend Bérengère (German family friend). We were plagued once again by a strike - Air France this time, which made the trains much busier. The only remotely affordable option was a 10-hr night train to Munich, so we went for it. We shared a 6-seat compartment with 4 other people; the trip was pretty much sleepless and unremarkable … except when the confused Gypsy woman in the compartment woke everyone up around 3am because she thought she had missed her stop. She didn’t speak much French or German, so no one could really help her; after 15 minutes of her shouting the name of the German city she wanted to find, she left the compartment and hopefully got off at her stop … who knows! We met up with Camille’s friend Bérengère in Munich and walked around the city for the day. The highlight was the English Garden, a huge intercity park bigger than Central Park in NYC; we had lunch outside at a beer garden in the park. That night we went out to a huge complex of 30+ clubs for Halloween night; it was fun, but the club scene wasn’t too spectacular … however, both Camille & I were happy to remark that the Germans have improved their dancing & music selection since we both studied abroad 4 years ago!
On Thursday we took a train further south to meet Béregnère’s parents and little brother Max, who were on vacation in the Algau Alps in southern Bavaria. They welcomed us with incredible hospitality: got the 3 of us our own room in the resort, greeted us with a champagne apéritif toast, and invited us to eat with them that night in the resort. We woke up Friday to meet them for breakfast in the resort’s restaurant … since it was dark when we arrived, I hadn’t yet seen the spectacular views from our hotel. We were in a valley surrounded by rolling green hills and snow-capped peaks of the German Alps. We took a chair-lift up one of the mountains and spent the afternoon hiking; it was sunny & warm, and I think I now prefer hiking to snow-skiing! We had lunch at a cute little chatelet on top of the mountain … a pretty unbeatable afternoon! Camille and I unfortunately had to take another night train back to Paris, but this one started off much better. For the first few hours of the trip, we were the only 2 in our compartment for 6, so we watched a movie, listened to music, even danced a bit (anything to try to make ourselves tired & able to sleep for the rest of the trip). But our luck ran out halfway through the trip, and 3 people got into our car at one of the stops, resulting in another sleepless and uncomfortable trip. We got to Paris at 7am, and since we couldn’t get into our hotel until 2pm, we spent the morning & afternoon hopping from cafés to bakeries, and ultimately to Starbucks where we spent several hours reading/sleeping … what a way to spend an afternoon in Paris, haha! We found a really cute organic restaurant for lunch and decided to have dinner in our room instead of going out to eat. We ended Camille’s stay with a traditional French picnic of baguette, saucission, Camembert cheese, yogurt, dessert tartes, and wine … très bien!
Camille left on Sunday morning, and I took a train back to Rennes to finish out the school break here. It has been really quiet since I’ve been back since some of the assistants are still gone on vacation … and especially since I don’t have some of best friends with me anymore!! Merci beaucoup to Heather, Adam, and Camille for their wonderful visits - you guys are awesome, and I had such a great time with each of you!!!

Heather's Whirlwind Intro to France

I told Heather that I’d meet her at the airport when she got in, but due to the stike I couldn’t get to the airport at all. She was a champ … found a bus into the city, got some maps, and hit lots of the Parisian landmarks before meeting me at Montparnasse station that night! We barely said hello to each other before jumping on the metro to get to another station to try to buy tickets to Switzerland for the weekend. We were unable to get tickets to Geneva that night, but we did find a train going to Lyon (southeast France, close to the Swiss border). This was the most ridiculous train ride I’ve been on because an earlier train to Lyon was cancelled, but they put the people from that train on ours, as well! It was a TGV, which are the nice, top-speed French trains where everyone has reserved seats. Well, all of those rules got thrown out the window, and people were sitting anywhere they could … on the steps to the 2nd level, in the hallways, on the luggage racks … seriously crazy. We spent the night in Lyon and then got a train in the morning to Geneva. We stayed at a really cute hostel in the old-city part of Geneva, in a square right across from the cathedral. After buying winter jackets (a necessary purchase since we were unprepared for the cold & wind!), we explored the old city … quaint, cobbled streets with galleries, shops, cafés, and the original Hotel de Ville where the Geneva Convention was signed. That night we watched South Africa beat England in the Rugby World Cup final; along with the French spectators, we cheered for South Africa (the French were all against the English since they eliminated France last week … and for some reason use the derogatory term “roast beef” when referring to the English & their rugby team). The next day we checked out the other side of the city and Lake Geneva before getting the train back to Rennes, via Lyon.

Unfortunately, I had classes everyday the week that Heather was in Rennes, but she spent time exploring Rennes and even took a train to another city in Bretagne by herself! We enjoyed some fun meals out, had an impromptu bar crawl of a night, and had fun hanging out with my roommates & French friends. One afternoon we went to St. Malo, a northern coastal resort town on the English Channel; the whole city is surrounded by old stone walls and has a long pier out into the ocean. It was a little touristy, but we were glad that we went. Then on Friday afternoon we took a train/bus combo to see Mont St. Michel, a 1,000 year old Gothic abbey on a tidal island. The most impressive part was the initial drive up the causeway, when we essentially saw the huge church appear out of nowhere, surrounded by sand and water further out. During high tides, it becomes surrounded by water and is inaccessible because there are no bridges, etc linking it to the mainland. We paid to go through the abbey and tried to follow a tour in French, but eventually gave up on that; the tour guide had the craziest voice inflection and dramatization that I’ve ever heard, so I could barely understand anything – let alone try to translate for Heather! And he actually started to make fun of us a bit since we couldn’t understand everything (and kept referring to us as “les petites anglaises”). I clarified that we were, in fact, American, not English, and we decided to part from the tour group. We preferred to give the tour to ourselves; making up stories about each room and taking fun pictures proved to be more interesting than the guide. Saturday morning we woke up early to take the train to Paris, checked into our hotel, and then met Camille as she arrived from the airport!

Adam's Visit and the Train Strike

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates the past few weeks … computer time has been limited due to travel, etc … but that just means I’ve been having that much more fun J I have already had 3 American guests!!! Adam (we studied together in Rouen 4 years ago and then discovered last summer that we were both living in Minneapolis!) came to Rennes a couple of weeks ago as a stop in his 10-day French tour. He was brave enough to come to a few classes with me, and the students loved when he told them that he was from the same place as “Little House on the Prairie,” which has apparently been playing in France for years. Unfortunately, a large part of his time in Rennes was spent by us tracking the “progress” of the French train strike. Most trains (and all of those going from Rennes to Paris) were stopped for a couple of days … REALLY bad timing because Adam had to get back to Paris to see friends before his flight, and I was supposed to meet Heather at the airport! But we made the most of the strike and basically camped out at the café across from the train station to await the news … a marathon-like afternoon of coffee and beer in the sun. It’s not like you need an excuse in France to sit outside at a café for hours, but we’ll go ahead and blame this one on the strike! If you know anything about French culture/politics, then you know that la grève (strike) is an established and common practice in most professions here. I’m still not really sure what it accomplishes, but when it affects something as integral as the country’s train system, it disrupts a lot of people and activities. But after a day and a half, most trains started running normally again. Adam got back to Paris, and I was finally able to meet Heather (8 hours later than I promised her!)

Blogging on McDonald's Wireless, woohoo!

Yessss ... I caved and agreed to get some food at the McDonald's drive-through last night (last time I was in France, I waited at least a month before going to a McDonalds), but as luck would have it, I noticed that they have free wifi internet access. This McDonald's is only a 15 minute walk from my place, so it might just become a regular hangout for me and the other assistants, as we are still all craving more regular internet access with our computers. It's not bad ... clean, bright Halloween decorations everywhere, and they play the latest music. So I'll take it!

The Coupe du Monde de Rugby has been going on in France for the past few weeks, and the French team made it to the semi-finals and played England last night. As is common with any country/sport in the finals of a tournament, new rugby fans (including myself!) have definitely started popping out of the woodwork. I went with a group of French fans downtown to watch the game last night, and even though we got there 2 hours in advance, we couldn't find a seat in a bar. But tons of bars had outdoor seating, and we watched the game on a big-screen outside a bar in a plaza; there were hundreds of people watching at each bar, and most had beer tents outside since getting inside was near impossible. The atmosphere was really fun, and it was a pretty close game until the last 10 minutes or so ... when it became pretty clear that England was going to win. We were supposed to go to a party afterwards, but everyone was so disappointed that the Saturday night atmopshere pretty much died out; guess that's how I ended up at McDonald's! I don't understand all of the rules to rugby, but I must agree somewhat with the French who say that it is more interesting to watch than American football; the action doesn't stop as frequently, and the brute strength of the players (and lack of equipment/padding!) does make American football look a little less hardcore in comparison. (Sorry, Alec, if you are reading this post!) So England will play the winner of South Africa-Argentina next weekend in the championship, if you're interested.

The Efficiency of French "Bureaucrazy" ughhg

Ok, I’ll try to keep this just a minor rant about all of the paperwork that I have been going through, but it has gotten slightly frustrating! First I need to get a residence permit that will validate my visa for a year; in order to get the residence permit, I need several letters from my school attesting to the fact that I work here, live here, have opened a French bank account, have an official French translation of my birth certificate, etc etc. So once I gathered all of this info, I went to the government office an hour before it opened to join the line of people already there … and it still took about an hour and a half to get it all done. However, this was just the first step in the process … next I have to send a letter requesting a medical visit; I will supposedly receive a date for this, and then will take my medical letter back to get one step further in the process. I think it will probably take about a month or so to get it all done. I also had to apply for a French social security number, in order to actually get paid for teaching; however, this is just a temporary number until I actually receive the residence permit. Basically, it is frustrating because to get one thing, you need several documents, which may or may not be available until you have finished applying for something else. And I just found out that to get my cell phone & plan, I have to have my permanent residence card, which based on all of the above info, probably won’t be ready for another month. But I will find a loophole for the cell phone and get it taken care of!

Good Day of French Conversations

There are definitely days where I feel like absolutely no one understands me in French … and then there are good days with little frustration stemming from the language barrier. But I had a day of solid, although random, French conversations, and that’s worth writing about! I was at the bus stop, and a man asked me a question about the schedule; when I responded he noticed the accent and asked if I was German. It turns out he was a reporter on assignment from the Congo, and we had a pretty interesting conversation about politics, culture in the US, etc.
The next conversation was with a French professor at the high school; when he found out I was American, he was enthralled and told me all of the places he loves in the US! I’ve never met anyone that excited about the US; he said that he thinks Americans are more friendly & open than the French, and his favorite place is Las Vegas, haha!!
The next interaction happened when I was walking to a party and got completely lost, so I stopped a couple to ask for help. There were super nice and went all the way back to their car to give me a map. I told them I was an English assistant at my school, and they thought that was great; another perk of working at the most well-reputed high school in the area … people respond pretty favorably when I tell them what school it is, so that always helps!
Ah, and I might as well throw in an example of a not-so-smooth French convo. I went to the little market nearby to buy some liquor for a party, and as I was buying Jack Daniels, I tried to explain to him the significance of me taking that to the party (I’m from Tennessee, etc etc). Well apparently he didn’t understand much because he asked me, in both French and English, if I was drunk! It was like Wednesday afternoon, and no, I was not drunk. Then he was really interested in knowing if American men are better looking than French men. Not my place to generalize on that one … J

Fun with the Assistants

We have all continued to hang out and enjoy each other a lot. Usually during the day we don’t see other too much, but try to go to lunch together at the school’s cafeteria; we eat in the professors’ section of the cafeteria, and it’s a bit more comfortable to go with another assistant! We haven’t all gone out together yet, but have enjoyed just staying at our place at night, hanging out, talking, drinking, etc. The Russian’s first night did end up being pretty fun; we didn’t know him too well at that point since he had just arrived, but he walked into the kitchen after dinner and put a bottle of vodka on the table. Then he proceeded to cut up a huge bowl of pickles and bread, and also made a big glass of pickle juice. Then he said he would teach us how to drink vodka properly … basically just take a shot and then follow it with a cup of pickle juice or a pickle, to mask the flavor. We ended up each doing 4 or 5 shots, with each person toasting to one of them. Quality bonding, for sure J
I also found out that the Chilean assistant plays soccer and both of us brought cleats & stuff, so hopefully we can play sometime!The other night the school hosted a small champagne reception to welcome us, introduce us to the language staff, etc. It was really nice AND allowed us a chance to talk to the principal about a few concerns we have with our housing; they were really receptive to our little list of requests and said they would look into them. This includes: potentially buying us a washer & dryer (!!), fixing the stove so that we have more than the microwave for cooking, maybe turning on some heat, and trying to figure out how we can get internet here. So we’ll see what may come of that … J After the reception we went to a Breton creperie and then to a bar downtown.

"Welcome to Bacon Country"

Strange title, huh? Well, this is a direct quote – and actually the only thing said to us in English – by the academic director of the Rennes region at our Assistant Orientation on Monday. I didn’t take notes on the specifics, but I think the quote refers to the fact that the region produces a large percentage of French meat/sausage/etc. Fun to know, I guess. Anyway, the orientation was actually pretty cool; there were about 60 assistants there total, from all over – Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, India, Russia, Austria, Ireland, England, Canada, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, etc etc. First we all just introduced ourselves, got lots of administrative info, had lunch, and then split into language workshops where they gave us some teaching advice. In general the orientation was really helpful, but I left there a bit overwhelmed with all of the admin paperwork that needed to be done in the next few days.

Fun Stuff in Rennes

I live about a 10 minute bus ride from the city’s downtown area and have been down there a few times already. It is a REALLY cute city with lots of shops, restaurants, gardens, parks, bars, creperies, cafés; I love it! I already had a Breton galette at one of the creperies … super good. There are tons of different plazas around the city where it’s easy to meet up with people/hang out/etc. There is one main street with tons of bars on it, and I saw one called Le Tennessee Bar, so I’ll have to check that out soon. Apparently Thursday night is the big soirée night in the city since lots of students go home for the weekends. There was supposed to be a barbecue for foreigners my first Thursday, but it got rained out; but I was still able to meet up with a few American, English, and Irish assistants at a bar downtown. There are a couple of American assistants who lived here last year, so they are really good about organizing stuff for us all to do. But until I get a cell phone/have consistent Internet access, it will be difficult to get in touch with anyone besides my suite-mates. There’s an American assistant who has a French boyfriend (of 5 years – they met in high school & have been together since!) in Rennes, so she invited me to hang out with her bf and his friends on Friday night. It has always been pretty difficult for me to follow quick conversations among young French people (all of the young slang, etc), but after a few drinks it turned into a fun night! We ended up at an English rugby bar that had a very lively atmosphere since le Coupe du Monde du Rugby is going on in France right now. It was a great night until I walked home and realized that I was locked out of my school/dorm! No one has really given us clear information as to what gates/doors get locked at what times, and since most of the French students leave on the weekends, almost everything is closed around here on weekends. Luckily I was with some of the French people that I knew through the other American assistant, so I just stayed at their place. The next day I explored the area around the school and think I found a gate that will be open all of the time … hopefully!!

I actually opened up a bank account on my second day, since I need a French bankcard in order to get a cell phone plan. So my bankcard should arrive next week and then I can hopefully get the cell phone! Will keep you posted as soon as I get a phone number, address, etc, etc.

Intro to My Schools & Teaching

For the first few days at school, I just met all of the English teachers and observed some of their classes. From what I can tell, the coursework will be pretty random. In one class I just introduced myself and had them ask me questions about American life/teenagers. Some of my favorite questions: “Did you have fun at your Prom? … Did you have an after-school job? … Do you know Green Day? … Is San Francisco a nice city?” I LOVE the random facts that they know about the US, and it’s pretty fun to be a representative of young-American culture. The second day I was here the school held a race for all the students at a nearby park; they had to get sponsors in advance who agreed to pay $ for each lap of the track that they completed … going to benefit education in Mali. It was a bit strange since I didn’t know anyone, but I ran with one of the groups anyway. Apparently the principal is a runner and was out there in full spandex running gear, something we probably wouldn’t see at an American high school. As assistants we are supposed to work 12 hours a week total in the classroom, so I’ve been told that I’ll have 4 hours at my high school, 6 hours at the technical high school next door, and 2 hours at a school for handicapped students. I think it will be great because all 3 schools will be very different; the school where I’m living, in the picture above, is the top public high school in the area so the students should be pretty motivated; at the technical school, I think the level of English will be a little bit lower but I’m not sure; and I really have no idea what to expect at the school for the impaired students. We still have a full week of classroom observation before our schedules are determined and we start teaching. However, one teacher already told me that she would like me to organize a PROM in December for 400 students!! When they teach lessons about the differences between French & American teenagers, the topic of prom always comes up and apparently they are very intrigued by it. So that is my big project for the semester … feel free to send me ideas!!

First Impressions

The TGV from Paris to Rennes was super easy, and then I took a cab to my high school where I was supposed to meet one of the English teachers. I felt a bit awkward sitting outside the school for a half hour with all of my bags, but that pretty much describes all of my initial encounters at the school! The English teachers are all really nice and spent the afternoon showing me around the school’s campus; there are 3 or 4 main buildings in addition to what look like temporary classrooms, almost like sheds. I think there are about 1,000 students at the school, and there are dorms for some of the boarding students. In the dorm, myself and the other assistants (7 of us total) live in one corridor by ourselves; we each have private bedrooms with bed/sink/closet/wardrobe, and then we share a kitchen, 2 showers, and 2 toilets. It is very modest, but we have no complaints since it’s free! In the kitchen we have a microwave, 2 small fridges, and one stove burner that works, no oven … food choices will be interesting based on what we have to cook with. The only problem is that the heat will (potentially) not be turned on until the end of October, and it has gotten pretty cold at night; after two nights of sleeping in all of my heaviest clothes, I bought a huge comforter which will hopefully help. Oh, and the other problem is Internet … at this point it looks like we won’t be able to get access in our rooms, even though we all have laptops here, but we might be able to work something out. Will keep you posted! However, I can’t justify too many complaints since my accommodation is free. I lived in the hall by myself for the first few days, not very exciting, but the others finally arrived a few days after me. Ah, now onto the other assistants … I am so excited about all of them and think they’ll be an awesome group of people to share this experience with! So I’m living with an English girl (Vicky, student at Oxford), Italian guy (Simoné, student from Milan), Chilean girl (Andrea, student), Portugese girl (Sarah, already graduated, professor), and Spanish girl (Maria, used to teach Spanish at Penn State). There is a Russian guy who still hasn’t arrived, but he will round out the mix! And it’s great because we all primarily speak French together, as it’s the most fluent/common language among us. I think their French is all better than mine (particularly the native Romance-language speakers), but they say that I’m not bad. Anyway, it’s good practice because I shouldn’t be intimidated to try saying anything around non-native French speakers, right?? We still haven’t hung out tons since they all just got here, but we’re going to go grocery shopping/cook dinner/explore Rennes together this weekend. If you’ve seen the movie l’Auberge Espangole (random group of Erasmus students living together in Barcelona) … that’s kindof the atmosphere around here, which is awesome! We’ve already had several conversations about language, European history, impressions of each other’s countries, etc etc … needless to say, I’m going to learn a lot from them!

Arrival, Etc

Arrival Etc
I don’t have anything too exciting to say about the trip over, but in general it was a lot easier to manage my bags than I thought it would be. On my flight from Philadelphia to Paris, I started talking to the guy next to me, and it turns out that he was going to Paris to be an assistant through the same program … definitely a fun small-world occurrence. Unfortunately his school didn’t provide him with housing, so he had a week to find a place to live in Paris, yikes. So although I was nervous about my dorm-style accommodations, I realized how lucky I was to have a free room provided by my school!
I took a cab from the airport (definitely NOT the most cost-effective way!) to the train station. Although expensive, the hour long drive into Paris was pretty cool … I was falling asleep on & off and then suddenly realized that we were circling the roundabout under l’Arc de Triomphe … I think that was finally my “Je suis arriveé en France” moment. From there, my stage of fatigued giddiness took over and pretty much lasted throughout my first week.