Winter Wonderland

It finally snowed here! This is actually really unexpected and all the residents are talking about how many years it's been, as well as how terrified they are to drive their cars through on inch of snow.

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!