"And on his farm, he had a ... butterfly" - teaching (plus Paris)!

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.

Vacation by the Sea

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!

A little French apartment

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!

Vacation updates soon to come!