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

Thanksgiving!

Because everyone worked on Thursday, all the assistants from Nancy and the surrounding towns got together yesterday to celebrate thanksgiving--and boy did we celebrate in style!  Take a look:

All 20 of us had a fabulous time--there were American assistants, of course, as well as the assistants from Australia, Jamaica, England, Scotland, Germany, Canada, and a Frenchman! It remained traditional with an international feel (those of you  who are sharp might have noticed the oodles of Haribo that the German assistants brought! Yum!)

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Cheers!
~Laura

The Hitchhiker's Guide to...Lorraine!

I really must apologize for the lack of posting.  Internet here is terrible at night so blogger won't even load for me to write something.  Yeah, even Google won't load sometimes...

I should go into some recent facts/stories, but first, pictures from Dijon:

Bourgogne is all about wine and mustard--which my sister and I purchased in large quantities :)

Lessons that I have learned in the two months that I've been here:
Fact:
--When someone tells you that there is only one train per day, believe them.
Story:
--My friends and I missed the train from Verdun, and between making frantic phone calls to the German assistant's mother, attempting to hitchhike, and asking random people for help, we found ourselves in Bar-le-duc for the day.

Fact:
--When you drag a suitcase all around town with you, someone is bound to think you're foreign.  And when they find out you are, everyone else in town knows.
Story:
--Everyone in Bar-le-duc knew that we were the three foreigners wandering around town (they must have!)  Everyone was talking to us...especially the guy who owned the couscous shop where we said we'd come back for lunch, but didn't, and whom we randomly ran into in another cafe..after we had already eaten lunch.  In typical French style, we were all offered language lessons by the gentlemen in the cafe--the attitude must be learned too, because my students are just starting to try it out on me...cheeky!

Cheers for now!  Don't forget your towel!

Toussaint!

Time has been flying by!

These past couple of weeks were vacation (I keep having bad dreams about having to go back and teach sooner--I've never had a break that was this long before!).  Toussaint means All Saints--so when people talk about France being secular, they still, in fact, keep certain religious holidays.  For example, on Toussaint, I wanted (actually needed) to buy food.  Couldn't.  Nothing was open--zero, nada.  It's the same policy on Sundays--everyone likes to be with their family, so shops close up.  Weird, but super cool!

Anyway, I spend a week in Luxembourg and a few days in Dijon.  Here are some photos, and maybe I'll post some stories about adventures later (remember, I'm on vacation!)

Luxembourg:

Royal Wedding!

Today I saw the royal families and heads of state from Denmark, Norway, Jordan, Luxembourg, and Belgium because I visited Luxembourg today--which was the wedding day of Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg to Countess Stephanie of Belgium (now Princess Stephanie)!

This was my first time seeing royalty--and it was quite the experience!  We waited outside the Cathedral for a while, waiting for the ceremony to end--the civil ceremony was yesterday, and because the Grand Ducal family of Luxembourg is Catholic, they had a religious ceremony today.

I wasn't in a good place for getting pictures (I did get a picture of the bride, but from far away with a car door across her face) so here are some from the internet:

(Can you believe I was just across the street?)

I did, however, get some pictures of the other royal guests, as well as a ton from the army as they paraded past--quite impressive!

Here are some photos of the beautiful little country of Luxembourg--I shall definitely be coming back!!

 Every little shop and restaurant had a picture of the newlyweds with flowers and congratulations!  It was so charming!  Everyone seemed genuinely happy--without all the media hype!  Apparently the Grand Duke takes walks around town and talks to his subjects--I'm so glad to have been a part of this glorious day!

Teaching!

Bonjour!

Yes, I know it's been far too long, my friends!  I've been so busy this week, I hardly had time to breathe--ok, maybe not, but you get the idea :)

I have 14 classes each week, which means a lot of preparation, and a lot of energy.  Did I mention it's thoroughly rewarding?  The kids love me--before school starts, I hang out in the school yard and usually a group forms around where I'm standing, and they all begin to pester me with questions and correct my grammar :)

Today I taught "les petits"--a group of the youngest (probably 1st grade by American comparison).  I gave them American flags to color and they kept asking me what color stripe came next, red or white, or if they could color the stars green and yellow.  They didn't know much about geography or even about France--but at least they knew that les Etats-Unis is really far away :)

As much as I love working with kids, the one drawback is that they are always sick.  Now, me too.  I think I've been staying up too late doing lesson plans...and whatever...I knew I was going to get sick.  It's inevitable.  One lesson I learned from Study Abroad is that everyone gets sick--better get it over with quickly before it mutates into the Black Death.  I don't begrudge the kids though--it's kinda cute to see about half the class get up every five minutes for a tissue at one end of the room and clamber over backpacks to throw it in the trash at the other side of the room until la maîtresse starts yelling at them--yep, they yell over here.  At first I was surprised, but the kids don't seem to mind--so I guess they've become used to it.

For now I'm just going to lay low, get better, and starting thinking about what I'm teaching next week.  I'm hoping I'll start a rhythm and a pattern for re-using some of the materials (did I neglect to mention that each class is DIFFERENT?)  So far, so good.

By the way, I saw a film recently: Asterix et Obélix--a traditional French comic turned into a live-action film.  Totally hilarious and I was able to understand big chunks of it (not perfectly, by any means). 

Ok, back to my tea!

Cheers!