C'mon, France.

So, unfortunately, today has been pretty much rotten.  One of the best things that happened was I found out I'll be getting back all of my 100€ security deposit on my apartment.  Also, I had a lovely chat with Amy and she sang me a song - that girl has a goooood voice. And I talked to my mom which was quite lovely.

But, I shouldn't have had time for those conversations, really I shouldn't have.  Because I should have been on my way to London today, arriving right around now, actually, in my hostel.

Alas, it is not so.  I am still in Rouen.  All of the Eurostar trains (the train that runs between Paris and London) have been canceled.  Annulé.  Luckily, my friend Ben was also scheduled to take the train in today and he got to Paris early.  And he called me to let me know that I shouldn't bother coming into Paris today, all the trains were canceled.  Good to know but WHAT?!?  Seriously, France, you can't handle 1/8" of snow?  I get it, this is rare.  But snow happens, let's make some progress.

OK, fine, trains canceled all day today, tomorrow too, now, and maybe Monday?!????!!!!  I am flying out of London Heathrow on Tuesday morning at 9:40 am.  I sure better arrive there by Monday night or there's no way I'll make my flight.

So we'll see what happens.  I have decided, with Donnie's help, to go into Paris tomorrow anyways.  I'll have my bags with me, I'll go to the train station and I'll try my darndest to make my way onto these non-existent trains.  If they announce that they'll be back running on Monday, I'll get a hostel and go to London the next day.  If not, I'll make my way out to Charles de Gaulle and try to get on a flight to London.  And if that doesn't exist, well... I'll get home to my family somehow.

Wish me luck guys, send positive thoughts, prayers, anything that you can to guide me home.  I need it real bad.

I am apparently doing anything in my power to NOT pack but that is a bad idea...

 OK, so, tomorrow, I have to move out of my current apartment (triste) and get all my stuff to my new apartment.  I'm going to end my lease here, at this apartment, tomorrow, and begin my new lease on January 5th, when I return from America.  My stuff is going to be hanging out in M-S's house until then.

Here's my problem: I am depending heavily on public transportation to make this happen, right?  My new apartment is two metro stops away, easy enough (maybe a bit complicated still but much easier, at least) to get there.  That said, there is a Rouen-wide transportation strike tomorrow.  GREAT, France.  I need the metro to get to and from the new apartment, and also to get to the train station to go to London tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Additionally, with the 1/8" of snow in Northern France, the SNCF website has prévued delays for all trains of 10 minutes to 1 1/2 hours.  I have exactly 1 1/2 hours between trains in Paris in which I have to change train stations AND get there at least half an hour early because if I don't check in 1/2 hour early, they won't let me on the train.  Wish me luck, folks!

And with that, I need to go bake a banana bread with my 2 mushy bananas and an egg, throw in a load of laundry, and clean clean CLEAN!

It's SO PRETTY outside!

You guys.  It snowed.  Life is so good.

I had two classes this morning, one at 8:30 and one at 9:30.  When I woke up, I was grumpy and exhausted on only almost-5 hours of sleep.  Then, I remembered that it was supposed to snow overnight.  However, at 2:30 am, it had not snowed, so I didn't have my hopes up.  Then, I opened the shutters: SNOW EVERYWHERE!  It was a winter wonderland and I could not be more happy.

As a result, most people are WIMPS and aren't going to class today.  However, I require about 7 seconds to walk to my school so I didn't have the excuse.  That meant, though, that I spent the entire day grinning about the snow and yelling a little about how happy I was to the students.  I think they think I'm a little crazy, but they like it, so I'm totally fine being "Zat crazy American assistant 'oo yells all ze time and somtimees dansees."  Totally fine.

I made my students sing today and I recorded it: they had to sing Jingle Bells Batman Smells, etc.  It was a hit!  And then, some people were selling chocolate in the teachers' lounge.  And Rouen has been beautiful lately, snow or otherwise.  Christmas carols on the radio, girls' night planned for tonight: life is Good.

These are the sunsets we've been having lately.  I can't wait to see what it will look like tonight, with the snow covering everything.  I <3 Snow.










And now, some pictures of Lille!

Right when I got off the train, I saw this collège (middle school).  I am pretty sure that it was covered in solar panels, right?  So anyways, that's COOL.

There were some animated animals.  I liked them.

Christmas tree and ferris wheel in the center of Lille!

I loved this family's music.  They were quite lovely.  Also, the little kid in the front wasn't really playing but just kind of danced around with his accordion.  Then he gave me a thumbs up.

I almost bought this sweatshirt for Donnie because I knew he would love it, since he loves everything from H&M, and their clothes are the best.  But I figured he would never forgive me.  :)

Il y avait DU MONDE.  Seriously, most of the time to walk around, it was a complete stand-still.  I think I would have hated it usually (or if I lived in Lille), but I was perfectly content to be surrounded by festive people for a day.

My delicious dinner: Vodka pasta at a "fast food" pasta place.  Yum!

Another EPIC band.  I guess French bands like to dress up in costumes.  I don't mind. :)

Just as it started getting dark, the rest of the world showed up.  It was lovely and crowded and lit up and beautiful.

FIN.

I'm a little silly.

So, inspired by another assistant in Lille, I bought Skittles™ today at the grocery store. Turns out in France, Skittles don't have gelatin. What?!? So, I bought my first packet at a train station in Lille on my way back from the Christmas Market. They were good. I looked for them in LeClerc today and there were no red bags to be found. BUT there was a big pack of Fun Size Crazy Sour Skittles. I didn't hesitate.

Now I'm sitting at my computer and I opened my first pack. I poured them out on my keyboard and ate them in order of worst (orange) to best (pink). Then, I opened another pack. There were about twice as many in this one! What is that all about, I thought? Well, turns out I was trying to ration them out and only poured out half of the first pack, so now I have two open and half eaten packs of Skittles on my desk.

I think it won't be a problem.

In other news, I was stressed about bringing home all my Christmas presents for people in my one suitcase (oops, I maybe bought a lot of things but it's just because I love them!) so I was considering getting a little carry-on suitcase to help out the situation. But then, no, those are too expensive, next plan, etc. UNTIL tonight in LeClerc (I love that place) I discovered rolling suitcases for TWENTY EUROS. Done and done. So I am now the proud owner of a snazzy new rolly suitcase. And it has a built in compass which will help me when I inevitably get lost! Except, I don't really know how to use a compass so maybe not? I mean, I vaguely know how to use one but I wouldn't be able to start a fire or tie a knot with it -- guess I was never a boyscout.

Anyways, I'm starting to move stuff into the new apartment tonight, hopefully. We'll see how it goes. Details on my new living situation soon, hopefully. This is long enough for now.

xoxo.

OK, I promise I'll put pictures of Lille up soon...

... but in the meantime, this cute teacher story!

Today, I did a presentation on the US high school system. I explained Prom, Homecoming, Football vs Soccer, and showed my yearbook. And in both classes (I did the same lesson twice in a row), the students were appalled when I told them about "Pajama Day" during Spirit Week in America. I showed them some pictures of kids in the hallways, wearing PJs and the kids all GASPED. And then noticed that one kid was wearing Homer Simpson™ slippers and the kids were immediately okay with the situation.

But even the teacher turns to her students and goes, "Can you imagine?!"

Lille!

Hi Friends,

In the middle of last week, I decided that I needed to go to a Christmas market this weekend. I contemplated lots of different options, but ended up finding 32 euro (round trip) tickets to Lille. Then, I toyed with the idea of staying over night, but most of the hotels were booked and I didn't want to pay 40€ extra just to sleep somewhere and that was all that was left. So, it was decided -- I would go to Lille for the day.

I left on a train at 8 am, arriving in Lille at 11. The train had this super fancy bathroom system involving buttons you had to push (and hold down, it turns out) to open, close, and lock the door. But there was hardly logic associated with the buttons and no descriptions to be found. I ended up just kind of... pressing buttons until the door seemed to be closes. An adventure to start out my adventure.

I had exactly 7 hours until my 6 pm train was to leave. Nothing but time and no specific plans except that I wanted to go to the Christmas market. So, I got some chestnuts (Yes, they were roasting over an open fire. Really.) and walked off towards the Office de Tourisme. I never made it there though, because as I was approaching it, I ran into the market. There was the world there! Literally, thousands of people were filling the streets of Lille. The market was rather large (much bigger than Rouen's) and it was packed. I spent a long time walking from booth to booth, trying to decide which food to eat next, which things to buy for Christmas presents.

And then, of course, in a town of 400,000 some people, I would run into the one person I know in Lille, who is also an assistant, and she's from Chicago. We met when I was up in Chicago for Visa stuff, or maybe I was just visiting Donnie, actually. Anyways, I met her friends and we walked around for a while, stopping to get some hot pear cider. Amazing. Then, a bit before two, they left to go catch trains, and I resumed my market wanderings.

I got some Christmas presents for people, and periodically ducked into real stores (rather than the open-air market) to warm up. And I accidentally spent way too much money at H&M. I can't help it- it still feels like such a novelty to me, since we don't have one in CU.

I stopped for dinner at this cute "fast food" pasta place that reminded me of Za's, actually. The pasta was super tasty and I managed to break into the upstairs seating that was apparently closed. Oops. But it was much warmer up there and I felt that I deserved some defrosting time. I guess the lights out and the chairs upside down on the tables should have clued me in, but the cold does funny things to people!

Somehow, I managed to spend the rest of the time in the city -- 7 hours is a lot longer than you might think, especially with a lack of free public bathrooms. My strategy is basically to always use the bathrooms on the trains and then wait until I'm either at someone's house, my hotel, or back on another train. It has worked so far and I'm planning to continue doing this until I am persuaded to do otherwise. :)

What a successful day it was. I need to take advantage of being in France more and go on little day trips -- I won't be living here forever, so it's time to en profiter!

An Idea for the New Year

I found this posted on someone's blog and I was intrigued. I have been wanting to read more, and I think this could be a great way for me to read things that I wouldn't normally read. Except I'm going to put a twist on it -- at a minimum, one of these books will be written in French. And without further ado, here is the activity...

Between January 1 and December 31, 2010, read one book in each of the following categories:

A book with a food in the title.
A book with a body of water in the title.
A book with a title (queen, president) in the title.
A book with a plant in the title.
A book with a place name (city, country) in the title.
A book with a music term in the title.


Does anyone have a recommendation for a book in any of these categories?

I did not leave my apartment today.

It was raining and I am still in my sweatpants. It's not a decision I make a lot but I needed a day to myself. I had a skype date with Donnie (we watched The Princess Bride and it was even better than I didn't remember it) and lounged around all day.

I talked to my mom for over an hour, and in the span of the conversation, we talked on the phone, then switched to skype, then skype cut out so I called her back, and then the phone cut out (the long distance gods were not on our sides today), so we began skyping again, and the internet froze so I called one last time. It was a bit silly but well worth it to catch up on the last few days.

Back to teaching tomorrow. Only eight more days of class in 2009. What?!

Two really great days

I have had two amazing days. Because of this surprising social life, it is currently 5 am and I need to go to sleep, but I know myself, and if I don't write about it now, I will never get around to it. And these are two days I want to remember.

Yesterday was the English language assistants training day #4. We had classes all day, a vaguely bad lunch, but at least we got to talk about our classes and pick up some tips. After training, we went to O'Callaghan's for a beer, and then on to my favorite (and only I've been to so far) Indian restaurant, which is near my home. The dude there knows me now, as it's where we went for my birthday. He says he likes me because I always bring an inappropriate number of people with me. On my birthday, there were 9 of us. Last night, 14. No warning, no reservation. Surprise! They deal with it remarkably well.

Then I had the assistants over to my apartment, and part of the group stayed til 1:30 or so when I kicked them out, and then I had a lovely Skype™ with Gram and Donnie.

Today, I slept til 1:30. Rawr. Then I putzed around, and went ice skating at 3:30. It was AMAZING. Free ice skating rink, outside, open the rest of December. You literally get to skate around outside the Hotel de Ville and you can see the Cathedral in the background. I was skating around with my friends, looking at the Cathedral, catching little kids who ran into me (er, I might have run into them too, sometimes) -- and I couldn't believe how lucky I was, and am. Truly, whatever force or energy or chance placed me here in Rouen with these amazing people -- I am the luckiest pup in the world.

We split up for dinner, but then met up for a rock opera that our friend was crewing. It was PHENOMENAL. Mind blowing, confusing at times, but overall incredibly successful and I was so glad to have gone. The lead singer reminded me of Mikey, Ryan D.S., and Johnny Depp all rolled into one. I wish anyone but two of you out there knew who all three of these people were because... it is the only way I can describe him. So good. EDIT: I found the site for the group. You should watch some of the videos to get a sense for what we saw last night. "Run to the IT" is a good sample of their style, their projections, etc. Get ready to be amazed, and to wait a long time for the videos to load.

Then we went to La Boite à Bière and had some delicious beers and wonderful company, and then said goodbye to each other multiple times, continuing to talk for an hour after each goodbye, not leaving with any success. Eventually, we parted ways. It has been a glorious, social, pleasant two days. And there are beautiful Christmas lights up everywhere. Rouen is getting into the Christmas spirit and I could not be any happier about it.

OK. Done and done. Good night.

"C'est l'hiver/ C'est l'hiver/ C'est l'hiver!"

Guys, I think I'm accro à Christmas Carols. I have found an iTunes Christmas station called "La Radio du Père Noel from Paris" and I literally have it on all the time. This is perhaps logical, because this silly boyfriend of mine apparently (how did I not know this before?!) does not like Christmas music, or at least most of it. So I'm planning on getting it out of my system in the next three weeks until I go home for Christmas/New Year's. But anyways, the last song that was one was "Let it Snow" and it was all in French and at the end, instead of "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow," they said, "C'est l'hiver, c'est l'hiver, c'est l'hiver" (it's winter! it's winter! it's winter!)

It has certainly become more winter-like here, these days. I think my family experienced the very beginning of it while they were here. We spent some lovely days walking around Rouen with good weather and fairly occasional sunshine. But then, during our lovely weekend in Yvetot it got a lot chillier. Paris was a bit cold, and then I came back to a frigid Rouen. This is, of course, relatively speaking, because it's still upper 40s but ... with the wind and sometimes rain, I's cold! Time to transition, it seems, from my Gram Coat (black, water proof goodness) to my Gramma Coat (white fluffy wintery goodness).

I taught a class all by myself today, which I accepted under certain conditions. I'm technically not supposed to act as a substitute teacher but in this case, I only have three classes left with these kids who are in one of my favorite classes, and the teacher is gone the next two. So I'm using her lesson plan with them and they are great. It went very well, and they all told me that I was very good at teaching at the end of class. Thanks, Frenchies!

Hmmm, there was something else that I specifically came here to write about but I got distracted by my Xmas tunes. Oh well. I guess this is important: I'm moving out of my apartment before I come home for Christmas. I'm moving into an apartment near the train station (a short metro ride away) for the rest of my time here, including the three months that Donnie lives here with me. My current apartment, while it is accessorized with my AMAZING roommates and best friends in France, Xiao Lu and Fabi, is a little unfortunate because I cannot have people stay over. And boys are not allowed. So, I had to find a new place to live, which I have done. It's a really cute little one room apartment, with a separate kitchen and bathroom. I'm super excited to live there. I'm working out the details to get the clic clac delivered that I bought using leboncoin.

La la la. I'm going to make some food and then take a nap, I do believe.

With love,


EDIT: I REMEMBER WHAT I FORGOT TO WRITE ABOUT! A bloggy friend reminded me that advent started yesterday, which reminded me that I need to start my Advent Calendar! So I opened it up and behind door #1: NO CHOCOLATE. What a rip off! But luckily, door 2 had a little square behind it so I got my fix. I think I need to have a little talk with Le Mutant. This is a problem.

Class today

So, in class today, my students were having to describe their ideal robots. Most of the groups were saying things like, "My robot would make my homework for me," "My robot would play guitar like Bob Marley." It was pretty cute and most things (except for maybe the Bob Marley answer) were fairly predictable. Then I asked them what the robot would look like? Many people said it would look like a robot in the picture, some said they would have it look like them so it could go to school in their place...

But one student said he would have it look like his girlfried, who was sitting next to him. Then she said, "Oh, mine would look like him too." The boy said, "That way, we can always be together, and we can send our robots to school in place of the other." It was pretty darn adorable.

And then, I asked the last kid in the group what his robot would look like. He said, "Bah, ché pas, moi... Euhhhh, oui ché pas." So I was like, THINK! JUST THINK OF ANYTHING!! And he goes (get ready), "I would 'ave eet look like you."

I think the French boy likes me. How nice.