Check out my sister's blog!

Credit where credit is due!

Head on over to Mary's blog to read other amusing tidbits about France (oh yes, she's funnier than I am)

I've put the link >>>>>>>>>>on the side so you can find it easily :)  And yes, she's had the blog for a very long while, and being the nice sister I am, I only remembered to post a link a few days ago...oops!

Still, now you have it!

Cheers!
~Laura

BTW, check out this new song by Celine Dion (ok, well it's not new, but I keep forgetting to post it--I heard it on a bus in Luxembourg)

I'm back!

Christmas was absolutely wonderful!  The group was comprised of some of the nicest guys and gals on the planet--we took this Christmas at neck-breaking speed, but I couldn't have had a better Christmas abroad :)

I can't go into details quite yet--still catching up on sleep from spending the night in Sacre Coeur!

Highlights that you will hear about:

--the ins and outs of visiting Domremy-la-Pucelle and St. Joan of Arc's house
--magnificent little restaurants in Paris :)  Though I can't take credit for this one; Jonathan was the expert
--WWI battlefields, destroyed villages, trenches
--how I got invited to a French family's house for a Christmas apperitif, which was more like a meal...
--my tour, interview, and feature article all about me and Mary and our visit to a lycée professionnel

Gotta run! Until later!

~L

Christmas preparations!

No time for pictures--they're still on my camera--but I wanted to quickly update about what we've been doing for Christmas here abroad!

Christmas in Verdun!  That's about the best way to describe it.  Not quite like home, but super fun and exciting and different.

On Friday I went with Mary to teach a few classes--first at the collège and then running really quickly up to the lycée to play some Christmas vocab games (so much fun! They're a lively bunch).  Then we had a tour of they lycée with the group of kids who write the journal--I imagine headlines reading something like: American Twins Visit Lycée.  We were like superstars--they took bunches of photos and we learned all kinds of French anatomy vocab from the medical assistants class.  Then they interviewed us about gun control in the US--snickering all the while at our grammar.  Whatevs.

Lesson learned: We went out to dinner with Jonathan at a restaurant that opens at 7pm.  Because we were starving, we went at 7:15pm--had the place to ourselves...until all the French people arrived at 8:30pm.  Never be early--for anything!  It was super amazing food, though!

Saturday we went to Mass with the guys--all the old people wanted to talk to us and find out where we were from and told us how much they hoped to see us at Christmas eve midnight Mass.  Very sweet.

My computer is running out of battery, so you will have to wait until later to read how we braved the rain to visit Domremy la Pucelle, ate at a restaurant that was locked and saw a church that was closed for Christmas!

Cheers!
~Laura

Christmas is almost here!

...and I'm super excited to be spending it with some of the coolest people on the planet!

So, what have I been doing this week?

--staring at skype for 45 minutes waiting for technological problems to cease so I could just talk to my kids :(  I don't know if I've mentioned my visioconferences that I do with rural schools...it's not worth mentioning, something always goes wrong somewhere.
--rejoicing that one of my visios was cancelled!  And, I get to go visit the school in January with another assistant--so I'm super excited!
--listening to my visios singing to me over skype "Santa claus is coming to town."  Super cute! (except for the fact that I couldn't hear the music very well and started clapping before it was over...whatevs, they forgave me.
--Ugly sweater party with the assistants....nuff said!  Another party tomorrow! woohoo!
--I have finally acquired a fountain pen. Joy abounds. Now I understand the French addiction...
--Didn't mean for this to be so far down on the list, I saw Le Hobbit: Un Voyage Inattendu :P  Luckily it was in English with subtitles (the translations were sometimes amusing!)  Sometimes we were the only ones laughing in the theater...awkward.  Some English humor is simply lost on the French :)
--Saw a French Christian music artist in concert--Julien Carton.  Check him out, he's pretty cool.  I saw another group too, but I can't remember what they were called :(
--Favorite part of the concert experience: When we got there, I couldn't hear everything the lady said--it was about a toy drive that they were doing--so I asked her to repeat and that I was American.  Then they all started practicing their English--slow French would have been better :)  It was cute.  The guys selling cds must have heard because when we went to go look at the cds, this one kid started explaining everything in English (bien effort!) and then said there wasn't anything in English...I reminded him that we spoke French--then he reexplained everything again in French.  It was fun and amusing!
--Met a young adult group at the Cathedral--and they're super awesome! And super international!  Not only did we have every continent covered (thanks to me being the North American!) we also had a bunch of Africans, and many different countries from Europe.  We had an intense discussion of Corinthians--which, let me tell you, is hard to do in French!  Then we had some potato pie thing made by the Spanish guys--it was really good, I only wish I could remember the name!

That's enough for now! Got a few more classes to teach about Christmas before I can go celebrate!

Cheers!
~Laura

To the guys shouting phone numbers...

...out of their car window last night--I can only say this: I don't do numbers that fast.  Lol, it might have been more flattering if it hadn't been so cold outside and the fact that Mary recognized the kids from her lycée!

I must be looking and acting more French these days--as we were walking past Notre Dame yesterday (yes, the one in Paris--more on this phenomenon later) a group of young adult tourists (probably from Britain) asked me to take their pictures.  The request was accompanied by all kinds of gestures and camera clicking noises--hysterical.  They didn't seem to catch on to verbal cues, such as "Sure" and "Are you ready?"  I finally broke down and told them I wasn't French (after they embarrassed themselves with awkward "merci"s).  Peals of laughter.

Apparently the current response for neglecting to speak French whilst in Paris is : I'm an American; I don't understand what you're saying--directly quoted from two dudes trying to avoid someone clipboarding.

Since I was visiting Mary this weekend, we took the opportunity to get up at 5am in order to see Paris for the day.  Here's what we did:

-Morning stroll along the Seine
-Seeing the Eiffel tower looking chipper in the mist
-Mass in Notre Dame on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (now how cool is that?)
-Bulldozing our way through the massive line in order to get to aforesaid Mass
-Visiting with great friends in Paris (the fact that I can say that so flippantly makes me feel like one of the "in"crowd--just sayin')
-Stroll along the Champs Élysée Christmas Markets sipping Vin Chaud (blanc, always blanc)
-Sampling "Le Mont Blanc" dessert at Angelina (a famous salon de thé)
-Getting squashed in the metro (though this isn't new!)

All in all, not bad!  Though our train didn't get back until 10... but luckily we spent more hours in the city than on the train, so I'm still grateful.  Nice weekend, but now I have to finish the 2 or 3 remaining lessons that I neglected this week.  Only two more weeks left to teach and only one week left to plan before Christmas--and WHAT a Christmas we're planning!  Can't wait!

Cheers!
~Laura