Well Christmas Break has begun! Finally… this is how every teacher everywhere must feel. It is actually impossible to do anything with children before break (did anyone else know this??). I am soooo getting what I deserve for talking all the time (I’m sure) in school. That said, I can’t complain too much since there have been many joyous moments in all this chaos as well. I made “reindeer antlers” with my 6/7 year olds and taught them about Rudolph. This led to one boy, ironically his name is Angel, going around shooting all the reindeers because he was hunting them and of course all the other kids are joining in, falling on the floor, crawling in the last gasping moments of life. Quite dramatic and unruly. Also, I received a Santa Claus clothesline pin from one class (um… cute!), taught “We wish you a Merry Christmas” and made paper snowflakes, plus explained, or at least tried explaining, eggnog (its eggs, milk, cinnamon and some alcohol… delicious right?? They asked if I was going to make it by hand… right). Plus I had the occasional student asking if I’m going back to England for the holidays. For the last time, I am not from England. We have covered the main Anglo-countries but I still get entertaining responses about the US and Canada, and what the heck is Alaska?? Still they are just so adorable – my Chloés, Manons, and Enzos… Coralies, Théos, and Hugos. I am obsessed with (most) all of them. It’s a little hard to describe. But really, what’s better than students running up saying “eelloo Sarra, fait calin” (aka give me a hug).
I’ve also started volunteering at the Anglo library, channeling a little Gma and Aunt Nancy while in France. They love us naturally because we are native English speakers. There is Game Night (playing Scattegories AND free pizza for volunteers… fantastic) and a coffee hour, where we just meet and greet. It’s a great way to meet a range of people and “network” a little (ohhhhhh the job search starts again!).
My friends and I had a mini-cheap-extra-limited gift exchange, while enjoying Breakfast for Dinner (my Canadian friend Alex has REAL maple syrup to share). I’m lucky to have three such wonderful friends here (who are all as equally obsessed with Christmas). Then it’s packing for Morocco! Christmas Day I shall be on the train between Marrakech and Casablanca. Its not home, but at least I’ll be on the train ☺ Thinking of Dad, Mom and maybe even Ben. Then New Year’s in Fez, it will certainly be my most adventurous Christmas holiday so far.
Christmas markets. The best.
I just thought this picture was funny...
And of course, a Madmen themed holiday party. My friend and I decided our outfits didn't really fit the whole "Madmen" attire so instead we were Andy Warhol's factory girls... much more our style :)
Joyeux Noël, bonnes fêtes et bonne année!
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Oh so many good holiday treats to write about. And I don’t just mean the vin chaud (hot wine) and churros (not sure why we’re having churros??) at the Christmas market.
Quick intro into some differences between the French and American Christmas:
-Santa does not say “Ho Ho Ho” … I think this probably because the French “h” is silent. As my friend put it, “So what creepy silent Santa just sneaks down your chimney??”
-Rudolph is not really a big deal, no red nose or anything. Basically the song “Must Be Santa” which my Grandma plays every year at Christmas is becoming totally irrelevant
-They do not do stockings, and are mildly confused by why we leave our socks for Santa (though they do sometimes leave wooden shoes)
-Ummmm sandess, they do not leave milk and cookies for Santa!
My American friends and I have been totally confused because, since there is no Thanksgiving, Christmas celebrations don’t start until December 1st. I’ve been listening to Christmas music like crack and waiting for them to turn on all the lights. That being said yesterday was December 1st and … goodness, it was magical. The city was invited to the main square to see Santa turn on the Christmas lights with the Mayor (fancy!). Oh right, I forgot to mention the whole reason I knew that Santa was coming to Angers was because Remi, this adorable 10 year old in one of my classes, invited me to go see Santa with him. Heck yeah, you know you’re liked when the kids invite you to see Santa! And so yes, we arrived to see Santa (pulled by sleigh dogs!) giving the “key” to the Mayor to turn on all the Christmas lights. It was awesome, with snow falling (which is a rarity in Angers), skinny French Santa working alongside the mayor and a few lucky kids. All the lights illuminated including a 35-foot Christmas tree, then Santa and the Mayor naturally threw out candy. It was really everything I could have hoped for from my French town at Christmas, and now it all stays around until the end of the year.
Last week I was lucky enough to celebrate not just one, but TWO, American Thanksgivings. My friend Sean came up from Grenoble and we enjoyed a potluck Thanksgiving with other assistants which was rockin’. Its amazing how the food alone can make you feel so at home (and so homesick). I mean I had to work all day but I brought the joyous event of making hand turkeys to French schools, so all is well. Then over the weekend, my friends and I made a delicious gourmet Thanksgiving to show our French friends how America does cooking (gravy with two sticks of butter, duh!). All in all, it was impressive considering French supermarkets don’t really sell turkeys, or cranberries (my cranberry sauce was shockingly delicious and consisted of dried cranberries, Ocean Spray cranberry cocktail [found in the foreign section of course], raisins, and oranges all boiled together… thank you Mommy Niemann for teaching me how to improvise!). We had four small chickens, mashed potatoes, veggies, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mushroom gravy, pecan and pumpkin pie. ALL FROM SCRATCH, from four girls who mostly didn’t cook for themselves before this year. And we got to introduce our Australian friend to sweet pumpkin pie. Culture all around! Our friends were surprised that we served everything at once and naturally the Americans thought … well duh that way you can mix it all together, eat way too quickly, and feel ridiculsouly full all afternoon… isn’t that Thanksgiving? And we also made them hold hands and say the things they were thankful for. Really, I couldn’t have pictured it any better.
That’s it for me now! Time to get some real work done – aka drawing pictures for our classroom advent calendar, sometimes being a teacher is FUN!
I think I promised a few stories about teaching since… I guess… that’s my official job over here (though in reality my actual job is sipping café while eating croissants and chattering away in French… right, maybe this is my dream, but it’s not far from reality… I chatter in French in my apartment because I’m too poor to each croissants and drink coffee everyday ☺). Teaching is getting better and better. I really like my children, they are crazy but I suspect this is the case all over the world. I have seven classes total at three schools and around 150 students (and I’ve almost got all their names memorized). For my littlest ones (about 6 yrs old) we just learn nouns, sing songs and read books. They love it. I have a wizard hand puppet (Wizard Eric!) who only speaks English. I suspect in total these kids say about five English words per session but they understand the concept of questions and responses so we practice asking each other things like “What’s your name?”, “How old are you?”, etc. Last week I taught them animals, which was glorious because we sing Old McDonald and they LOVE LOVE LOVE making the sounds when I point to different animals. Plus sometimes I let them choose so we also did the sounds for butterfly (??), dolphin, and hamster. Very cute.
My older kids, about 8-11 yr olds, are more work. They need more of a challenge but they really don’t speak English. So they know the basic nouns but anything more complicated and they don’t understand… and thus don’t pay attention and talk nonstop. It’s getting better as I discover their capabilities but it’s still shocking how worlds apart my classes are. Some students are so good and others can hardly do anything. I have one mehhhhhhhhh not very nice director who told me to make the kids speak more… except there are 33 kids in this class and I have 40 minutes with them. I’m actually at a loss on how she expects that to happen. I had another teacher point out to me … in the dictionary… in front of the class… that Sunday is the seventh, not first, day of the week (as I was teaching that the week commences with Sunday in the US). He then proceeded to explain that its fine if we say it that way but the children need to understand that it’s not correct (true, but I believe an American dictionary would say differently… anyone know for sure? G’ma this seems like your realm of work). Ahhh the French, I love ‘em. Overall I enjoy it, its just terrifying to be up there and realize that your lesson is not working and you look out over 30 ten year olds fearing the chaos that will probably ensue for the next 10 minutes.
Now lets talk about the good stuff… Paris! Last weekend I got to go to Paris with four of my friends. What a treat. Paris is only about 1.5 hours away on the TGV – which I love taking (I wonder where I got that love for trains… thanks Poppy ☺). When I’ve been to Paris in the summer, I’m just kind of over it. There are sooooo many people, its hot, vendors selling so much stuff, blah blah blah. But in the gray cloudy overhang of November, it was magical. Our hostel was about a fifteen-minute walk from the Eiffel Tower so we started our day there, proceeded to the Champs-Elysees. I bought a lovely WARM winter coat (I will be saving that receipt for the scrapbook), enjoyed a tall Starbucks coffee(!!), and had delicious pizza for lunch (exceedingly overpriced but worth it). We headed up to Montmartre, though by this point the only recorded actual hurricane to hit Paris was happening (maybe a slight exaggeration but not by much). After the monsoon calmed a bit, we headed up to Sacre Coeur for a beautiful sunset view of the city, ice cream (!), and general sparkly merriment. Sunday we headed to Notre Dame, had some lunch with the meanest French woman I’ve met as our server (and we had to actual French citizens with us, so that just proves that Parisian servers aren’t just being rude to us American tourists… they’re rude to everyone, take comfort) and the Centre Pompidou to see some modern art (Yves Klein, Kandinsky, Chagall all in one place… stop it). Finally we headed home exhausted but in a wonderful way. It’s the idea that so many wonderful people have found Paris as an inspiration (the brasserie where de Beauvoir and Hemingway used to hang out was about 10 minutes from our hostel) and finally I got to see it in that same light. Just lovely.
J’adore les vacances. So a few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to have a nice ten day vacation (thank you, France – seven weeks paid holidays) in Bretagne. My friends and I first visited St. Malo which is a beautiful seaside town. You can imagine it as the place that actual French people flock to during the summers. Its less touristy than Nice but equally as beautiful with that more rustic, northern feel. We were lucky enough to be there during the Route de Rhum, a catamarn race that happens once ever four years. It rrecreates the original route taken to bring rhum into France from Gaudeloupe. There were lots of skipper’esque people and traditional Gaudeloupe dancers in the streets. We quickly discovered Kouign Amann which is a delicious buttery pastry, fried or something and then rolled in sugar. Ohhhhh my life changed.
The next day we visited Mont St Michel which was overwhelming from afar and underwhelming upon arrival. It’s a beautiful place but overrun with touristy trash and overpriced coffees. The abbey was beautiful with spectacular views - it makes you amazed people could accomplish such things without the help of modern machinery.
The following day we decided to ride horses on the beach! Quite frightening and exciting. The tide was very far out but it was spectacular view that took us away from the city. Plus there were countless moments of trying to convince our horses to follow along and stop eating the grass ("Mange pas l'herbe!"). My horse Lulu was so good until he ran me into a truck in the end… that was not as fun.
We spent an evening in Rennes with our new friends which included an incredibly late night dinner starting around 10:30. Still these boys can cook up random delicious pastry treats that I am seriously impressed with.
I went on to Grenoble, on the opposite side of the country, to visit my friend. Grenoble is the mountain town we all wish existed in Colorado. A beautiful mix of Italian and French buildings, with jagged mountains coming straight out of the ground. Incroyable! We went to a spectacular Halloween party in a cave. A cave! What?? We were the worst Americans (the only ones who actually celebrate the holiday) and didn’t have costumes but it was wonderful all the same. A DJ plus dozens of French people in serious costumes (dinosaurs, Kenny from Southpark, cowboys, a rabbit) made it a night to remember.
And now back in Angers its things as usual. Teaching is getting easier, but still a challenge every day to keep those kids interested enough. I’ll make sure to tell some of the best stories in my next update. A la prochaine!
Because my Mommy keeps asking me when I'm going to put photos up. Here they are, my adorable little apartment in the cleanest state it will ever see. Including my lovely little kitchen and chic French table cloth (chic = bought on sale for an awesomely low price), my boho bed on the floor and my surprisingly large bathroom (though it doesn't really seem that way in the photo). 30 sq meters feel like so much space!
Thanks for all your wonderful comments. It’s so nice to know there are people at home actually reading this!
Once again I feel like I can barely describe how wonderful things are, I feel so lucky. I am settled into my apartment (and managed to hit up a rockin’ home décor store sale to get some home-y touches) and also started teaching full time. I can fully say I had no idea how hard teaching would be, despite the fact that my mother is a teacher. I had no idea! Kids never sit still and they’re ALWAYS talking. I had five kids coloring their fingernails with highlighters the other day (I just casually walked past, I’m not supposed to “discipline” the children, the actual teacher is supposed to be vaguely watching for troublemakers). I am alone with anywhere from 14 to 31 students for fourteen 45-minute classes per week. My kids range from 6-10 years old and some are brilliant, some not so brilliant. This system here is based heavily on structure, rules, and, in my opinion, negative reinforcement. Thus the children love me because I’m always saying some version of “good job”, “very good”, or “that’s awesome”. I can gesture and speak mostly English with the oldest kids but the youngest ones are a struggle. Even going over things for three or four classes in a row, they still can’t remember the basics like counting to 10 and English ABC’s. I need some creativity; I did buy a wizard hand puppet that “only speaks English” (he is appropriately named Wizard Eric ☺). I’m starting to figure it out and it’s becoming a little more fun each day.
Last weekend my two friends (Amy from NJ and Alex from Ottawa) and I were invited to our new friend’s home in Le Mans. It was such a beautiful little French house out in the suburban country surrounded by fields and about 10 minutes out of the city. Our friends Guillaume and Antione took us out for a truly French dinner (reservations for 9:45pm… I am practically dozing into my wine at this point) and then out with some of their friends. We had possibly the best meal I’ve ever had with Antione’s parents the next day. I feel comfortable saying it was six courses – pre-lunch wine and chips (they are weirdly obsessed with chips here), carrots and pickled beets (which was amusing because they asked us how to say beets in English and in French the word “bite” pronounced like beet is a significantly inappropriate sexual term so the parents are just holding in their laughter as my friends and I continue to repeat it for them), curried chicken, salad and cheese, prune sauce(!!!) and ice cream, and finally coffee and chocolate. I thought I might fall over. It was three hours long and I enjoyed every second of it.
Ahhh yes and the strikes. Oh the French love their strikes. The decision has been passed to raise the retirement age so we shall see what happens. So far Angers is pretty unaffected. There are naturally the high school children “protesting” (I think they probably just want to skip class) and I live in a prime location to watch them stomp through the streets. There were some high schoolers in Le Mans who burned down their school and everyone is hearing about the gas situation in Paris but those are more the extremes. Buses and trains are a little messed up but all in all it’s not so bad. Except garbage, which was not collected for about 10 days. That kind of stunk (haha, get it??). The article below sums it up just in case you’re interested.
This next week I have the first of my seven weeks of vacation. I’m headed to Mont St. Michel, Saint Malo, and Rennes, on a little tour of Bretagne with my friends from here plus my old roommate from Dijon, Nikki! Seven girls trekking through the French countryside sounds like a blast. I’ll take lots of pictures (and hopefully figure out how to load them on this blog).
A plus tard (loosely translated, talk to you later)!
This week I spent a few days observing students in their home classrooms. I will be teaching the equivalent of 1st through 5th graders. They are ADORABLE. I finally understand the pull towards teaching; I barely know their names but I want to do my very best to help them so they can all be successful little English speakers. The French school system is a little different from ours – I learned that full time for teachers is 25 hours plus planning per week, there is ALWAYS espresso for us teachers when the kids go to recess (its glorious, there’s also usually a stash of wine or champagne for important occasions), schools are small with only one class of each level, teachers are friendly, though reserved, with me but very strict (and loud) with the kids. I begin teaching on Monday and I’m in general quite terrified. Some of my students have never had English, and even the most advanced can really only form simple sentences. It will be an adventure.
I’ve started moving into my apartment, which I am wholly in love with. It is perfect! OK so perfect might be a stretch, there is not a lot of furniture; luckily France has plenty of IKEA’esque stores so I might pick up a few things to add some cheer. It is located on the 6th floor – no elevator, aka I can continue to eat baguettes, wine, cheese and Nutella at an alarming rate because I’ll be working it all off on the climb to the top. It is in the heart of centre ville, perfectly surrounded by boulangeries, cafes, the cathedral, le chateau d’Angers, and Maine river. I couldn’t ask for more!
Also this week, probably most importantly, I discovered croissants aux amandes – croissants filled with almond pasty deliciousness topped with almonds. It changed my life.
I have safely arrived in Angers! It is so beautiful and enchanting with lots of history to be explored and wine to be tasted. I didn’t think I could fall so instantly in love with a city.
My arrival went rather smoothly. As smoothly as can be when one person is carrying two 50+ lb bags, a backpack and a shoulder bag. It seems I managed to bring so much and yet I forgot some key essentials (sheets, towels, utensils, etc). My first night was very interesting as I slept in my flannel PJ’s (thanks Mom!), thermals and a sweatshirt.
I’m staying at the Foyer de Notre Dame Bon Conseil, which is ironically enough an all-womens Catholic foyer. Foyers are basically long stay hostels for younger people. Its not bad, I can touch the walls in my room if I stand in the middle and I have one fork, knife, spoon, bowl, plate, pot to cook with which the directors were nice enough to loan me. But… there are wonderful people here and five other “assistantes” like myself.
My French has skyrocketed… beyond skyrocketed. There is no longer time to be embarrassed or shy about speaking French. When I first arrived, I didn’t speak English for about three days (except when cursing myself for embarrassing errors). My list of proud accomplishments includes: finding an apartment (finally, this happened about 2 hours ago!), getting a bank account with BNP Paribas (!), and getting a cell phone. It is terrifying but wonderful; finally after eight years of study, I can speak French!
