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!)