When gentlemen are gentlemen, ladies notice...

In some ways, the Europeans are more well-mannered than the Americans.

French ladies tend to wear skirts and very few people walk outside in their pajamas or sports clothes.  All the teachers instruct the students to say hello to me (individually) before class because it's a sign of politeness.  I have never seen a French child running through a store screaming (or screaming in public period).

The French teach their kids well: the other day I saw a daddy and his cute little girl (probably around 4-5) crossing a big intersection (with the tram) and like a typical French person, he started to cross the street while the light was still red.  The little girl didn't move and told him they couldn't cross yet--so. adorable.

On Thursday I went to visit a preschool (école maternelle) for a special one week project I'm doing (AHHH those babies are so cute!  They are babies too--ages 2.5 to 6 years old).  The other two assistants that are participating in the project are dudes from Italy and Spain--and they're super gentlemanly.  For instance, as we were touring the school, they would open all the doors for me and the other teachers and stand to the side so that we could pass in front of them going through doors and sitting down.  Not much, but to a girl who has had countless doors slammed in front of her face by American jocks, it felt really quite civilized.

La bise.  At first it creeped me out, but now I think it's quite sweet.   For those of you who do not have a French vocabulary, la bise is that kissing thing the French do when they greet each other: you do right cheeks first then left, lightly touching cheek to cheek and making a kissing sound--though some people actually smooch each cheek which can get a bit slobbery with a whole group.  I prefer the delicate, more elegant method.  When my teachers give me la bise I feel like I'm more integrated into society (they shook my hands at first).  Too bad it doesn't fly in America--I'm going to miss going to a social gathering and getting smooched by half a dozen cute French guys in rapid succession.  Ok, it doesn't happen that often...but it does happen :)

Living life in Lorraine...ça vous plaît?

Cheers!
~Laura

La Maison de Jeanne d' Arc

We arrived in Domremy-la-Pucelle around noon--and since everything in France is generally closed until 2 or 3pm we decided to check out the parish church.  And since a picture is worth a thousand words and since I don't put enough of them on this poor blog:

 

This is the statue of St. Margaret that St. Joan of Arc prayed  in front of when she was a little girl...awesome, right?

2012 was the 600th anniversary of her birth in Domremy-la-Pucelle.

We later found out that the replica of her house was closed for Christmas, but we saw the outside, and later found out that what we were standing in was actually her house:

Then we hiked over (ok, we drove because of the rain) to the Basilique du Bois Chenu--built on the site where St. Jeanne first heard the voices:

This last picture is of the sweet restaurant/pilgrim welcome center where we had lunch.  Ok, Domremy is a small town, and given our collective Parisian, Roman, and general American attitudes, we spent so much time in the parish church that we had forgotten that restaurants close at 2pm around here.  At about 2:30pm we arrived at this restaurant and were relieved to discover that they were open until 3pm.  So we knocked.  It was locked and there was no one in sight.  Going around the back we found someone to let us in... and yes, we were the only people in the restaurant.

They gave us a menu with just sandwiches and cold drinks...ham or cheese or ham and cheese...that sort of thing.  Mary and I were about ready to accept whatever food we could get, but Jonathan spoke up and asked the lady for their menu--which they didn't have because they stopped serving lunch at 2 (like everyone else!)  He must have looked really crestfallen because she took pity on us and offered us some roast chicken, salad and fried potatoes.  It was the best, most amazing country meal that we had ever had!  So warm, so delectable--quite the respite from the rain and the cold!  Besides, they had mayonnaise with mustard in it which was super tasty.  All five of us followed up the chicken with some warm mirabelle tart--the likes of which you've never had before!

It was a fine day!

Then, of course, we tried stopping at another small shrine which the sister told us was closed for Christmas...whatevs!  We drank the spring water, took pictures in the rain and went back to Verdun to eat a simple meal of sausage, bread, cheese and wine and to play Euchre until the wee hours of the morning--yes, we are all fanatics about that game...the wine didn't help either...  It was really quite splendid.

Cheers!

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