Snowboarding!

Take a good look at this picture... This is what I did this weekend! Granted, it wasn't EXACTLY like this picture. Imagine less of a jump and more of a flat-on-the-back lightning-fast ground slam, or sometimes the ultra classic flat-on-the-face 90° freefall. But other than our varied choices of popular snowboarder moves, I looked just like the dude in this picture, really. And today I look more like this:

So, yes; I had a snowboarding adventure in which I was incabale of breaking, turning, or staying upright. This isn't at all unusal for beginners, however what is unusual is when someone takes you litterally to the top of a mountain on a course labeled for experienced skiers only (translation: red) and then askes you to descend. I got off the ski lift and looked around and realized that it was several MILES to get back to the lodge. Most people take about 10-15 minutes to go down this slope. After a long, long two hours later, I was finished for the day and in a lot of pain. Fortunately, this pain is located mainly in the knees, ankles, wrists, thighs, calves, arms, back, and shoulders. However, this has not discouraged me from wanting try again some day soon, preferably on the GREEN beginners slope, which is more of a hill rather than a whole flipping mountain!

Sanksgeeving

This week saw thanksgiving come and go. I must say that I had a very lovely time with some friends up in Bordeaux. We were at an American friend's apartment with about twenty people. Of this group, I think only 4 were American, but hey, celebration knows no nationality! Everyone brought a dish which made for a rather untraditional Thanksgiving dinner. I brought mashed potatoes, which were apparently 'super bon' (hooray), and instead of a Turkey Chenoa, the American hostess had three chickens, there was stuffing, provided by an American couple, and then there was eggplant parmasean, a quiche, Indian lentil soup, spiced Indian yogurt, stir fry, and probably other things that generally don't accompany this particular holiday, but were still very delicious!

I would say the definite highlight of the evening was when we went around the room and made everyone say what they were thankful for in English. All but one person managed to do so in English, and while some were more gramatically correct than others, it was really interesting to hear everyone's version of 'thankful.' Laurent gave thanks to my family for letting me move to France with him! The night eventually ended with karoke to 80's French songs, and while I didn't recognize a single one, they eventually did play the Saved by the Bell theme song so everyone was appeased.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Spain is a crazy place

My birthday has come and gone, and it was a lovely celebration in Toulouse with Laurent's mom, sister, and aunt. We had three birthdays to celebrate at once so it was a very compact weekend! We went and saw the city as well as spent an afternoon in the country at a house we rented out to fit everybody.

This weekend, Laurent, his Dad and I went on a little visit to Spain. We ate at a restaurant unlike any I'd ever seen! The tables were set up like a cafeteria and the food was served family style. However, the really unusual aspect was that they had eight ENORMOUS barrels of wine built into the walls with a tap. You turn on the faucet from where the wine shoots out like a fountain, finally landing in a bucket about four feet from the wall. Then, you catch the stream of wine with your glass and fill your cup. This was an 'all you can drink' concept. Laurent's dad ended up plastered which left him grabbing at Laurent's step mom a little more than we would have liked to have seen, but in the end it was entertaining! After that, with Laurent at the wheel, we continued our tour of San Sebastian by visiting the port and then the shops downtown. By this time, everyone had returned to normal, which was a relief.

Today is a terrible day weatherwise, but that's probably good because I have to prepare some lessons for my students who will be coming tomorrow!

I heart computer geeks

This week, I got more tutoring students! One of Laurent's co-workers has a son who apparently is terrible at English, so he agreed to send the boy to me to see if I could fix him. He came over on Tuesday for an hour and a half and it went rather well. He and his parents seemed pretty happy. The next day I get a phone call from a mom with a daughter who is also terrible at English, saying that I had been recomended by the other mom. Turns out, the mom of the first student is a hairdresser and spent all the next day gabbing about her awesome new English tutor! Yay! So, this morning I had my first session with this girl. Hopefully I'll be getting some more phone calls when school is back in session in another week.

Right now, I'm in Pau being an innocent bystander to a Lan Party in Pau. For those who are not familiar with a Lan Party, it is where a bunch of people (in this case about 500) who love computers and the accompanying games drag their computers to a giant room where they exchange ideas and above all try to kill eachother in their little vitual worlds. I have no real interest in this weekend-long event, so I brought two books and hopefully it will stop raining long enough for me to take a walk downtown tomorrow!

Random Pictures

Here, I've got some pictures from the fasion show our little cousin was in and a day we went for a walk along the coast. This is not a very cohesive or even time-linear blog entry, but you know, these things happen.

Traipsing around

This weekend Laurent's sister came in from Toulouse. There was eating. Lots and lots of it. Then, we went out for a walk around a lake that was origionally created by Napoleon the 3rd as an irrigation source/diversion of flood waters. Apparently the origional pump with the crest of Napoleon was recently sold off to some collector, which the whole town already regrets, don't know who made that decision!

Last night we went down to Biarritz to see the grandparents where we had some yummy shushi. I've tried my hand at making sushi myself, but I must say the restaurants always make the Japanese rice better than me!

Today, the beautiful weather continued so we took advantage of that with a little walk to the lake that is just a little ways away and then come 7:30ish, we went to the dunes at the beach to watch the sunset.

This week I'll be starting up with my tutoring and I'll be dropping off my resume for a receptionist postion at a sports rehabilitation center for the injured athletes of this part of Europe. This could certainly be an interesting place to work, even though I know I'm not all that employable for the moment. I did have one break through this week - I think I've figured out what I'd like to end up doing! I've decided that I like the idea of teaching English to foreign adults in the setting of a private company. I think my problem with the idea of teaching has always been two-fold, one being the discipline aspect when working with children, another problem being the pandemic apathy found amongst students learning a foreign language. However, if I work with adults who have opted to return to the classroom, I think these problems might be resolved. So, my path will be to get a certificate in teaching English as a Foreign Language through a month-long course in Paris. We'll see how this works out for me!

Back in the Landes

Some of you may remember that I swore to never take British Airways again because they make you change airports. Well, I also remembered this as I booked my tickets, but it was hard to argue with a price so cheap. Alas, I re-declare: I will never take British Airways again. This time I probably mean it.

Our first day back was spent sleeping, but then we went out and explored the town of Montauban. Cute place really. Laurent and I were staying with his sister and it got a little bit crowded as his mom and her boyfriend joined us all out near Toulouse. We had a lovely time and now I'm back on the coast.

And the teaching continues

Last week I started teaching a three year old English. I was a little unsure if she was going to be interested or not, but she seems to enjoy it. I'm using a book that came with a CD. After two lessons, she knows a few animals and likes to say 'What a noise in the zoo!' Hopefully some of this will stick even after I've left the country....

Spain pics

We stayed here one night. Not bad for a view!
This is a big chuch in Barcelona. It's been under construction since 18something and it's architect (Gaudi) was runover by a tramway in 1920 somethingafter having been on it for forty years. They're still working on it!
This is Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. It makes a great hat.
Laurent immitating the flamenco dancers we just saw.
Me on a bike in Barcelona. Aren't I pretty?

Vroom vroom!

Just got back from a little vacation in an RV. We spent a couple beautiful days in Bordeaux, but it was a holiday so none of the trams were running. This was very convenient as we could take the bicycles through the city on the tramway without having to worry about traffic or pedestrians. After Bordeaux, stayed in Foix and saw an enormous old castle. It was preserved extremely well, not at all in ruins even though the first foundation stones were laid sometime in the 11th century. I wondered how this could be, but it turned out that this castle was never attacked. It cost tons of money and time but it was never used. Haha!

After Foix, we went to Andorra. It is a tiny little country in the Pyrenees. The lanscape is so rugged it was easy to see why neither France or Spain wanted it! Let the Andorrans dig themselves out the avalanches! It's a good place to go to stamp a passport because it is not a part of the Schengeun States. That was handy for me, even though all I got was tourist stamp, so I doubt it will count as valid. Hopefully I don't get deported. We also bought gas for about 40 cents less per liter (this is a BIG difference, what, a euro fifty per gallon?) We left Andorra on the Spain side which was good because Laurent had bought tons of tax free cigarettes in Andorra and wanted to avoid French custums. He plans on reselling them in France . In Andorra it was fifteen euros per carton while in France it's fifty. OUCH!

Soon we were in Barcelona where we toured a bit on our bicycles. The highlight was definately the Flaminco dancers! We didn't spend time on the beach as we had planned because it was RAINY. We headed a little north where I saw the Salvador Dali museum. It was amazing to see the diversity of his talents, but I was a little disappointed when I realized many of his most famous works (or at least many of the ones I'm familiar with) weren't there. But never fear, there were plenty of melting clocks. Unfortunately, Laurent got kind of sick and he wanted to come home, and with the rain it made sense. So, here I am back in Capbreton where there isn't a cloud in the sky! Not too shabby!

Andrew's here!!

Found him!!

We spent some time in Paris and now we're in Capbreton. It's really nice to have him here. AND he's eaten things. Everything's pretty much been some variety of ham and cheese for him, but hey, he's found something. And the hamburgers are edible!

We got some good pictures in Paris, so he'll be putting those up when he gets home. Yay!

la sncf == sorry andrew

carolyn's train is delayed at list two hours
if you read this, buy a calling card and call me

temps de merde, quoi!

Everybody's been cooped up inside the past couple days as the sky has mercilessly hammered the region with wind and rain. Not a big fan. Andrew is coming soon, and, by the way, eight AM is not a convenient time for me to be in Paris!!!!! I'm thinking I might make him get on a train and meet me in Bordeaux and then we'll have our Paris adventure at the end of the week instead of the beginning. I wonder what he thinks of that....

100 days before the Bac...

This is my last day at school, but it is definately eclipsed by the fact that the seniors are all dressed up....as chickens, Native Americans, candy bars, Robin Hood, n'importe quoi. 100 days from now they will take the big test that determines whether or not they have the future they want or not. It's kind of the equivalent of the ACT/SATs, except everyone takes one form or another of it and it decides whether or not they graduate high school. If they don't pass this test, many of them will come back for a second year senoir year or they will not have the option to pursue certain tracts of higher learning. Sooooo, this is kind of the last day for the next hundred days that they get to play around, supposedly now the studying begins.

I've got to clean the apartment today before 3:30, That's what, a good five and a half hours from now? I should be fine. Maybe.

Last week of classes

As the title of this entry suggests, this is my last week in Aire sur l'Adour! I'm gonna miss the guys, but not so much that I want to stick around and teach for free.....

It was really cute when one of my students offered me bisous on the last day of class, something usually not given to teachers (bisous= those little kisses on the cheek French people use to say hello and goodbye).

What happens on strike days....

Thursday, the students were on strike to protest this whole teacher reduction measure that Sarkozy has taken. The only class where there weren't enough students to hold class was at 8AM. Funny how that works. However, the highschoolers seemed to take this as an opportunity to be hooligans. They smashed in fire alarms and fflipped off the switch for the electricity trying to get everyone to participate. Sigh. My students are in a post-highschool degree program, so for the most part they did not participate in the strike, and they were very annoyed to be disturbed by the younger kids banging on doors in the hallway. These older students only have a few classes left before they take their big exams that will determine whether or not they will get their diplomas.

Lourdes, HEAVY!

This week, I drove down to Lourdes to visit a friend in the hospital there. Seeing as though he was alternating between states of excrutiating pain and disorientation from morphine, I thought it would be highly inappropriate not to commemorate April Fools Day. So, I kept calling him along the way telling him I was getting more and more hopelessly lost making him explain to me what would be the way back to the right roads. I am thoroughly impressed with his knowledge of the region. Walking down his hospital hallway, I told him I was in Tarbes. It was a relief for him when I walked through the door and he didn't have to give me any more directions. Hahahaha.

Car painting

So, I learned how to repaint a car this weekend. Pretty exciting stuff, let me tell you. Fortunately it was a beautiful day, so it was nice to be outside sanding, priming, painting, you know.

I went to see Angles d'Attaque, I think the English title was Vantage Point, with Forest Whitaker and probably some other famous dudes I should have recognized. It was a good film, but it definately villainized Arabs, as if that's what either of these countries needs!

The young'uns

Today, I had my first day with the 7th graders. This is a supplementary project in addition to my normal hours that I work. But seeing as how many of my classes get cancelled for various reasons (strikes, tests, personal vacations), it really doesn't hurt to show up a few extra hours.

They are working on short plays in small groups, so the teacher needs help in order to give personal attention to each group. I took two of the plays today. They were supposed to have all their roles memorized, but when we read through the plays, it was obvious they weren't. My favorite 'oops' was a girl who was supposed to say 'I'm not interested' several times, but ended up saying 'I'm not interesting.' So, I sent them to study their lines for 10 minutes, and I was so impressed when they stayed quiet and actually learned them. I then asked the students if they understood what they were saying, and I was surprised to find that while they understood the jist of the story line, the meaning of each sentance was very fuzzy, which says to me they had mostly memorized syllables of sounds, which could NOT have been easy! So, we spent the last half of the hour translating. All in all, the middle schoolers were nice kids!

Tomorrow I go back to the big'uns. It will be a very different environment!

On strike again tomorrow

Well, just found out the good news. More strikes.

Back from break

Break was really fun! My friend and fellow English assistant Danielle and I went to Paris where we met up with one of my friends from home, Hana Katsenes. It was Hana's first time in Paris, so we did the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomph, Sacré Coeur, and the Louvre. The weather on the first day was HORRIBLE, we even got hailed on during our 3 hour walking tour of Paris. If you could mentally get past the wind and celestial vomit, the tour was very interesting. The hostel we stayed in was kind of like 'Little America' where half the staff were native English speakers and about 75% of the guests were from the US. However, the facilities were very clean and very new so the comfort was well worth the 'inauthenticity.' We stayed in Paris for 3 days before heading down to Capbreton where I showed Hana a little of the southwest coast of France.

In Capbreton, after walking along the beach a little, we saw the old Nazi bunkers that have been left to the mercy of the ocean and time. The town seems to have no desire to spend the money to either maintain them or take them out, and the shape of the coast has changed ever so slightly so that high tide washes up past them. They are just now a decrepit peice of history that has become part of the coast. Then, we spent 5 hours in a resaurant sipping our coffees and watching the sun set. After two days in Capbreton, we went to Bordeaux and stayed with Danielle for a night. It was a good thing Danielle and Hana hit it off because I had to leave Sunday evening to get back to my town whereas Hana left Monday morning. Yay for my friends meeting eachother!

My trip back was not a lot of fun because I didn't plan well for it so I had to take a train and then wait 4 hours for a bus and then walk nearly two miles in 40° rain toting a suitcase back up the hill to my place. Next time I will DEFINATELY be talking with potential rides long before leaving Aire sur l'Adour!
Here are some pictures for your enjoyment. Better late than never, right?
Hana and the Nazi barracks
Me, the Louvre, and the wind

Danielle, probably in some famous garden that is very pretty between the months of April and October.
Me, Danielle, and the German guy in front of Sacré Coeur
At the restaurant where Hana and I spent the whole afternoon, we asked for a wine list. They didn't have one in print so rather than rattling them off to me, he pulled the sign off the wall. We found this hilarious.

Vacation time

This week has been relaxing (a polite word for boring), lots of sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. Actually, I'm working my way up to running a 5K. While this isn't exactly my idea of fun, with all of this free time and such beautiful weather I really don't have an excuse not to leave the house. And it's free. Maybe that's what I'll do when I come back to the US: start a new career in running, running, running.

I found this picture on Facebook of myself that my friend Danielle took when we went down to Biarritz together, I thought I'd steal it and put it on my blog.

And yet another.

Yet another 8AM encountered for nothing

Today, once again, the teacher was not present and failed to tell me about it. There was one student there who missed the memo. Sigh. On the bright side, I have been awake for the entirety of my unexpected day off, whereas if I had known, I might have slept at least until, oh, I don't know, say, UNTIL THE SUN WAS UP.

I heart my job.

Last week, my week started at 4 PM on Monday and finished at 4PM the following day. I took the opportunity to get out of dodge and run around in Pau with other assistants as well as the teacher who escorted me around Paris. Cool!

I'm back at school awaiting the end of the week which marks the beginning of a two week vacation. Yay! My official return to the United States is now June 20th. See you then!

Today in one of my classes, my students spent 10 minutes describing the type of odor that comes from one of their classmates. 'He smell of cheese' or, 'Stand at 2 meters and your face become red, white, green, blue,' and, 'He and shower, not friends.' 'We are with him for two years now. We are (insert the French motion for 'had it up to here' which is more like our motion for 'better be quiet, the person you're badmouthing just walked in the room behind you'),' 'At first, we try to explain him, Take a shower!, but he not listen and change nothing.' I told them they were mean, but it was a good oportunity to teach them some expressions, not to mention hilarious to listen to them trying to articulate it in Engligh, so I let them go at it. I suggested maybe it was a medical problem and they should give him a break, but they insisted it was a simple not showering problem. Fortunately, this student was not in the room.

Today, I am going grocery shopping. HOOORAY. Yesterday, I topped my speghetti noodles with an egg.

Just another weekend.

I ran into the Dorm Nazi today, and I have decided she doesn't hear very well. I had just come in from a jog and I was red in the face and still huffing from the stairs. This is how our conversation went:
Me: 'Bonjour, Madam,'
Dorm Nazi (DM): 'You look hot.'
Me: 'Yes, you're right, I've just come from running a rather long distance.'
DM: 'Actually, I didn't mop up to your door, just in this hallway.'
Me: With bewildered look, 'Ok, thanks.'

She is the only person who can't understand a SINGLE word that I say, EVER. Frequently, she'll engage me in conversation and when I respond, she responds with something completely out of left field. At first, I was a bit distraught and it actually inspired me to visit one of my neighbors and say, 'Just tell me if you can understand me,' and then repeat whatever sentence it was I said to 'La Femme' to see if it was me or her that was somehow causing the communication breakdown. Each time, it was decided that even though I may have made a minor gramatical error, in general the phrase was valid and effectively communicated what I was trying to say! My conclusion is that she is half deaf, and of course she is going to be cranky when the world is spinning around her in half silence. Poor Dorm Nazi.

Hey Mom- could you get Mark to look for my resume on my computer? I really need it. The sooner the better! Thanks!

The Dorm Nazi

This week, every teacher was where they were supposed to be -- no strikes, no conferences, no 'oops I forgot I had class.' It was a little trying, but I got through it!

The other day I had my first unpleasant run in with 'La Femme,' otherwise known as the Dorm Nazi. She used to love me, but apparently her loyalty is fleeting. One of the gentlemen down the hallway had a big party last Thursday night that lasted until 4AM and someone complained. I had been there for an hour or two at the beginning, but I'm sort of a teacher, so I make it a policy not to stay too long. Well, the woman knocked on my door Tuesday night and asked about this party. She seemed convinced that it had been in my room. (?) After I assured her it was not, she asked me if I had been with them, and since I had been for a little while, I said yes. So, she began what is probably her typical speech about quiet hours starting at 10PM and 'no partying' in the dorm. Ok, fine. As she left, my very quiet neighbor returned home, so I took the opportunity to say 'Désolée Benoît' to apologize if we had bothered him. 'La Femme' heard me say this, or rather heard me say something, and did a 180° turn and came back and went into Phase Two Reprimand Mode. 'I can call the head director to come talk to you if you would like, and if you don't like the rules you can move out. Besides that, you are responsible for these boys.' I honestly could not even begin to explain where this hostility was coming from, or for that matter how it is at all my job to be responsible for the 20 somethings living in my hallway. Then she stormed off and hopefully this is the end of this story!

This weekend I'm going to a tractor festival. Woo!

New Classes

I've got some new classes this semester now, and it is always interesting to see what sort of things they ask me. This time, there was no 'how tall are you?' just 'how old are you?' questions. When I told them 23, they all looked shocked, aparently I look 13 now with my haircut. Huh. That's just great.

Tuesday afternoons are always interesting because the room which was assigned to me by the school is nearly always taken by another teacher. I have to wander around the English hallway and hope to find an empty classroom. Today, no such luck, so I went down to the office where this type of logistical planning is supposed to managed. I had 9 students following me around like ducklings. 20 minutes later, we finally got a room in the basement that seriously resembled a prison. Fortunately, I was holding the keys.

PS- Mom- I went ahead and changed the language to English and changed the security on the comments link so that you do not have to have a gmail account to leave a few words!

Yummy Sushi

Had some good sushi in Biaritz, galavanted around with my friend Danielle from Bordeaux. Not too much. The weather was weird, though. It went from 65 degrees and sunny to 50 degrees and foggy in a time span of maybe 30 seconds. I've never seen the weather change like that! Fortunately, Danielle and I had already gotten in our café by the beach time. It was around 4 on a Sunday, so lots of people were just beginning to come out of their homes to enjoy the day. Imagine everyone's dispointment when the sun went away...permanently. muahahahaha!

Today is the first day of the new semester and I completely forgot about a class. I work 10 hours a week and I can't even be responsable for all of them. How will I ever work 40hrs/week again!?

Another early weekend

So, I worked 3 hours this week, finish by 4 PM on Tuesday. This left plently of time to do absolutely nothing. However, I did manage to squeeze a haircut into these prolonged days of nothing. I went from having quite possibly my longest hair ever to putting it comfortably right back around my shoulders.

The reason I'm not working today is because once again, I'm on strike! Yay! This time it's to protest the reduction of the number of teachers in France. The gov't is only replacing one out of every two teachers who retire. This could be fun for classroom size and new teachers looking for jobs!

I've been eating 'regional cuisine' lately, and let me warn you, it's not what you imgine French food to be. In the Southwest, there are a lot of duck parts used VERY creatively. Bofore coming to France, I was kind of a difficult eater, but I was really trying to expand my palate. However now that I'm here, there is no try, only do. There's nothing like an extreme sense of expectation mixed with a linguistic incapability to tactfully decline to coax me into eating things I normally wouldn't TOUCH much less put into my mouth. And, apparently wine made in the earely 90's is fairly common here and not impossibly expensive. Who'd of thunk it?

Not bad for a place to eat Oreo's and peppered sausage

Yummy sketchy Spanish peppered sausage.
Oreo- taste like Oreo's, look like Oreo's, must be Oreo's. Only in Spanish. Oh yeah, that and some white nugget stuff. Far less American.
Sunset at Biaritz
More sunset at Biaritz
Our little picnic area.

This one's for grandpa, notice the complete coverage of leather (where possible) plus helmet, not to mention the Pyranees in the background. We're probably about 45 minutes from Spain here.
We're in Biaritz here, on our way to find a good place to sit down and eat some of the random crap we bought tax free in Spain maybe an hour previously.
This is a misty view of the Pyranees, where it becomes Spain is blocked by the fog, but it is what is in the other direction of the photo taken of me above.
This is just plain pretty, we've found our place to eat!
This is the Rock of the Virgin. You'll notice on top of the rock with the brigde going to it, there is a statue of Mary on top.

I'm legal!

FINALLY got my carte de séjour, thank you France.

This weekend, I went to the Calypso Spa in Dax, it is a natural hot spring discovered by the Romans a thousand or two years ago that is now being used Jimmy Carter style as indoor/outdoor swimming pools of different temperatures with a the whole sauna and whatnot experience. Not bad, I must say!

The following day was absolutely beautiful so we went for a MOTORCYLE séjour to SPAIN. Yay! My first time across the border! I brought my passport and all that thinking someone would be looking at it, but the only thing that marked the change of county was an abandoned customs office. Lots of people from France go to Spain to take advantage of the tax-free gasoline, cigarettes, and alcohol. It is kind of like how at the border between one state that allows fireworks and one that doesn't, there are always massive fireworks stands on the legal side. All the signs for the stores were in French because that's the only clientelle they have there, so it wasn't exactly what I'd call an authentic experience, but I was in Spain, and I think I heard a couple of employees in the store speaking Spanish with eachother. Good enough! The real joy of the experience was the motorcycle ride, mid 60s and sunny. On the way back, we stopped at the coastal town of Biaritz and I caught some pictures of the sunset. That's one thing I like about the west coast of anywhere...if you want to see a beautiful horizon, you don't have to literaly wake up at the crack of dawn to take pictures of it, you get to wait until the sun sets.

I'm back to work today, there is always such a big contrast between wherever I spend my weeken and Aire. I've decided I really, really like the coast in the southwest of France, very beautiful.

More pictures

Here are some pictures of Paris that one of my friends took on his cell phone. This is on the Champs Elylées with the Arche de Triomph in the background.
This is the biology teacher who invited me with her and her husband, and we are trying on dresses we could never afford in the Galaries Lafayette in Paris. I don't think the dressing room attendant like having a man take pictures in the woman's changing area, but she can just deal with it!
This is the Hôtel des Invalides, where Napolean is burried.
Notre Dame, enough said.
Sacré Coeur

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Addressing your concerns:1) Food. You can very, very easily come and eat nothing but bread. In fact, I would prefer not to have to share my yogurt and cereal with you.
2) Cost. I live on about $75 per week. Considering you do not plan on eating fruit, you can manage with $6.
3) Language. I hang out with anglophones. We can go to the English sandwhich shop, contintue for a soda at the English café, and then spend the evening in the English night-time establishment with my American friends and the English bartender.
4) Looking funny. French people are skinny with light skin and dark brown hair. They wear jeans and sneakers and polo shirts. Sound familiar? GET YOUR PASSPORT NOW. IT TAKES 2 MONTHS. TELL ME WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR TICKETS.

Ugly Pattern Party!

Welcome to New Years Eve in France! We all went to Toulouse for a party where everyone was required to wear Stripes, polka dots, or flowers. As you can see, we got rather creative with our choices. In the picture with four of us, it is my friends Céline, Arnaud, Laurent (another one) and me. Then, my dear friends and family, is the plate we had to eat. It consists of: Smear of 3 Fish, Duck Liver Paste, Imitation Crab Circle, and Breaded Hotdog Pâté. YUMMMMY! I think this is the real reason Andrew will not come and visit me. I don't really know the guy in the last pic, but his costume was just so fantastic I had to show you.

I heart being a bum.

So, Paris finished up nicely as I finally got to the top of the Eiffel Tower after 23 years of waiting! Whew! We went to Cirque d'Hiver (like Cirque de Soleil but for the winter instead of summer) for free because the French couple had a friend whose girlfriend was dancing in it. How's that for a shaky connection for free tickets?

Earlier that day, I just happened to bump into my friend Mitch, who is another assistant I met while over here in France. It was very surprising to find someone I know on a corner in Paris! So, that night we went to a restaurant together and had smoothies. Yum!

After Paris, I spent the week of Christmas in Bordeaux with assistants. It was a nice time, all week we pretty much stayed on the Anglophone circuit- sandwhich shop, café, and night time establishment all run by English speakers. It did not do good things for all the progress I had made with my French in Paris!

This week, I have been with some French friends in Capbreton. It is a beach town on the Atlantic that is famous for its surf. We are staying in a sea side apartment that belongs to one of their grandparents. How EVER did I get so lucky???????

Back to school tomorrow after almost 3 weeks of being away from home. What am I doing here again? Teaching? Huh. Could have fooled me.