I Found Hell Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean

Well, I am back in France again after taking a wonderful trip to Iowa! It was so nice to see all my friends and family again, I have missed you all so much!

Luckily I missed all of the snowstorms in both Europe and the United States, so I had no troubles at all in catching all of my planes (6 in total, whew).  My seat-neighbor on the overseas flight to France was, erm, interesting to say the least.  I think she was probably a very nice woman, but she did not speak a word of English and she spoke French with such a heavy accent that I couldn't understand that either.  I guess now I know how French people feel when they listen to me try to speak French. :) Anyway, this is probably rude and tactless to write about this in my blog...but whatever, I found the situation rather funny.  To be frank, this woman was huge--I'm talking anywhere from 375 lbs --425 lbs. The tray in front of her could only come down to a 45 degree angle.  And, I feel like a horrible person writing this, but she smelled like 2 week old Chinese food. So, there is me in the window seat and her in the aisle seat. Except this is inaccurate, because technically speaking she had about 1 2/5 of a seat, while I had about 3/5 of a seat.  I knew sleep was NOT happening, so I decided to just watch movies the whole time.  About that same time, she decided to open up her Bible for the remainder of the flight, which was fine except she held it in a way that covered up about 1/4 of my television screen. Can it get any worse than this?! Why yes, actually it can and it indeed did get worse. About a half an hour later, a baby started screaming about two rows behind me and did not stop for about 45 minutes.  (Btw, my sister always accuses me of not liking babies, but on 11 out of 14 overnight flights I have had a screaming baby within a 4 seat radius of me. I will not say if this accusation is true or not, but let's just say you won't see me with a baby anytime soon).  Anyway, at this point I wasn't even mad or upset, honestly I just thought it was funny.  I was sort of searching for the hidden cameras that would reveal that this was all a setup for a weird new European reality show. 

So after crossing Hell somewhere over the Atlantic, I arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport...or in another dimension, the suburbs of Hell (I was ALMOST out, but not quite). I arrived at passport control about the same time as 1,200 other people.  There was a tiny little gate (it reminded me those gates that cattle/pigs have to walk through to get on the trucks to the slaughterhouse after the 4-H fairs), that about 800 people were "lining up" at.  "Lining up" is used really, really, REALLY loosely here, because in reality it was a donnybrook (GRE vocab word that means "clusterfuck") of people trying to cut off the 500 people behind them who actually were trying to create order out of chaos by forming a sort of line.  I had to catch a train in 2 hours, and just as I was about ready to call to switch to a later time, an official yelled out "foreign passports follow me," so I moved faster than I have ever moved in my life to follow him to a new line that had just opened up, and within half an hour I left Hell and its suburbs and found myself back in France! Whew! Quite an adventure!

It is so nice to be back in France! My first weekend back I manage to drag myself out of my jetlag stupor to go to another assistant's apartment for a "galette des rois."  This is a French cake that you share with friends or family, for l'Épiphanie, a Christian holiday on January 6th.  Inside the cake there is a tiny figurine of a king, and whoever finds the figurine gets to be king for a day! The cutting of the cake is done with a lot secrecy, either under the table, or in another room to prevent people from cheating.  While I was not the king that day, I did find a tiny figurine of a lamb in my cake... 

A "Galette des Rois"

Last Friday I went out with a friend and met some of his friends at an Irish pub in Douai, and he pointed out that this was my first time being out with only French people! Haha this was quite a milestone for me, as I am used to having at least one other native English speaker for support in social situations.  Anyway, it was a really fun night, and everyone was very nice. 

Finally, last Wednesday "les soldes" (the sales) started.  If I am understanding correctly, sales in Europe are regulated by the government.  So every winter, in the middle of January all of the stores have massive sales (think Black Friday in the U.S.). They continue for about 5-6 weeks.  Today I couldn't resist having a look, so I went to my favorite shop to have a look around.  My favorite shop is "Couleur Framboise," and it has sort of eclectic jewelry, accessories, and some clothing.  Unfortunately, it is on the route that I take to the grocery store each week, so the woman who owns the store knows me well :)  She asked me how my sister liked her earrings, and then she even complimented me on my French, and people this is HUGE!! My first compliment EVER on my French! Yay!! Anyway, to my surprise everything in the store was 30% off, so I got a few Christmas presents for next year, as well as a very beautiful turquoise and silver necklace and earring set for myself. :)

Anyway, love you all and miss you lots! Have a great weekend! Go Bears!! :) 

'Tis the Season! An Overwhelming Amount of Christmas Activities

Well, no one could possibly accuse me of being a Grinch this Christmas season.  Never in my life have I ever done so much shopping, baking and other holiday activities. As I do every year, I saved up all of my shopping for one day—and I spent EIGHT HOURS shopping on Saturday.  Part of the day was enjoyable because I met up with some other assistants for a failed attempt to go to an arts and crafts festival (it didn’t open until 7:00pm –wtf sort of arts/crafts festival starts that late?).  But otherwise the size of the crowds walking through the tiny streets of Veiux Lille was unbearable at times.  I did find some good presents though, and my shopping is DONE (apart from the things I will pick up right before I leave so they will stay fresh…hint hint ;). 

Then on Sunday I stayed in all day and baked for another EIGHT HOURS.  I couldn’t believe it when I glanced at the clock and it said it was already 4:00pm.  I made over 200 sugar cookies for my students (frosted, with sprinkles, and all individually bagged with ribbon), plus 40 bags of puppy chow haha.  And—last week I made over 100 cookies for the students that I only see once every other week.   Whew.  But I think (I hope!) that the students really liked trying the cookies—most of them had never tried a sugar cookie before. I have already had some students come up to me in between classes to tell me they really liked my “cakes,” and others have asked for the recipe, as long as it wasn’t a “secret” recipe.   

Then, in all of my classes last week and this week I have been doing Santa Clause activities with them.  Depending on their level of English, we either play a game about Santa’s “Naughty or Nice list,” a vocabulary unscramble worksheet + game, and/or I read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” out loud to them and make them identify the vocabulary words.  They really seem to like this—I have to read it with a lot of expressions and actions so they can understand the story. This has been the ONLY activity I have ever done with the kids where the whole class is listening and no one is talking (this is nothing short of a miracle).  In one class I actually started laughing when I looked up at the end because they were all so enthralled and some had big grins on their faces—it was really cute.  I have seven classes tomorrow though, so we shall see if this holds true (I wouldn’t bet on it).  

If all this Christmas stuff hasn’t grossed you out yet, then wait until you read this.  Last night (Sunday) was a big night for Santa Clause in Douai.  He did his annual descent from the belfry and then handed out presents to all the little kids.  It was actually really cool to see.  First a bunch of “toys” descended from the belfry, and while they were climbing down they bounced around and danced a bit.  Then the crowd had to chant “Papa Noel, Papa Noel..” for Santa Clause to begin his descent.  There were so many people there.  Laura and I were in the middle of the crowd, and when Santa began distributing the presents we were right in the middle of the chaos.  It was actually really hilarious because mothers were using their strollers to fight their way through the madness so their child could get a present.  I don’t know how many times my foot was run over by these crazy mothers. 

Here are some pictures from last night (taken by Laura since I still don’t have a camera :(.

Walking through Douai to see Santa's descent from the belfry

The belfry in Douai

The "toys" descending from the belfry

And finally....PAPA NOEL!!

Let’s see…what else? Last week was a bit of a blur because on Wednesday night I went out in Lille for another assistant’s birthday party.  We went to a bar with some live music—the group was a Brazilian/French band, so it was a lot of fun.  Then we had a big slumber party in Lille because we all had our final day of training on Thursday.  I shared an air mattress with two other girls…and we literally had to huddle together for warmth because it was so damn cold.  Needless to say, eight hours of training after going out/not sleeping well was brutal, but well worth it.  That night was a lot of fun!

Also, on Friday night I went to my favorite step class at the gym. It is an advanced class, and the same people always show up so it’s always a lot of fun, plus a really good workout.  This time we did a “partner” workout where you use both your step and the step of the person next to you.  I have seen this done, and being a total step junkie I have always wanted to try it, so I was soooo excited! It was really fun—it required so much concentration and attention that you totally forgot that you were working out! I loved it and I can’t wait to do it again. Then afterward I went to a friend's place for dinner, and two people from Spain cooked a freaking delicious dinner for us.  We had a Spanish omelet and a quiche, as well as a few other things that I forget the name of.  Then we all played a board game--it was a really fun night!

Tonight my roommates and I got together for a “tea time” (we usually try to have a tea time and/or a dinner together once a week).  Today we also had a gift exchange for Christmas.  Again, today made me realize how lucky I am to have such wonderful roommates.  They gave such thoughtful gifts accompanied with really sweet cards.  I know I have said this before, but I often get the feeling that someday I am going to look back on this particular time of my life with a lot of happiness. I am learning so much being surrounded by people from all over the world.  It makes it even better that we are all learning about the French way of life (and education system!) together, and I cannot even begin to describe how much my roommates have helped me out here (as I speak the least amount of French in the group).  

My roommate and I went to a boxing class at our gym tonight, and I am proud to say that we have now graduated to the level of exchanging “bisous” (the kisses on the cheek) with the instructor—we have become “regulars” I guess).  Haha although I am still referred to as “l’americaine” by the staff members (in a nice way though--at least I think) and on Friday one of the the step instructors flat out asked me if I was French.  I replied “non,”and then she just walked away.  Now, two months ago I would have been offended and pissed off about this—what the hell does that mean?!  I have quickly realized that it seems at first that many French people have sort of abrasive personalities, but they are really nice people once you get to know them.  Actually I really like this woman.  She is really abrasive in her classes and will yell at you with a really serious look on her face, but then once everyone turns back around she smiles and winks at you and it’s actually really funny.  But anyway—back to my story about tonight—on the walk home, my roommate and I were talking about how some French people can be really hard on people who speak with an accent.  Because I have a rather thick American accent when I speak, some people don’t bother trying to understand what I am saying. It’s really frustrating.  But even worse, some people have flat you said things like, “I will try to understand what you are saying despite your horrible accent” or “you don’t speak French very well, do you?”  Well no shit, Sherlock.  That’s why I’m here.  This is something that really surprised me about France.   Whenever I hear someone with a thick accent or am interacting with someone who can't speak English very well, I always do my best to understand them and make them feel comfortable.  Saying “well your English really sucks, in fact it sucks so much that I’m not going to bother trying to understand you” would NEVER cross my mind!  I think the actual problem is that people who live in Douai and other small towns just don’t interact with many foreigners or with people who speak French as a foreign language.  In fact, today my Indian roommate was telling me how sometimes she feels like she is on display at a zoo because many people here have never met anyone from India.  It’s frustrating, but I feel like this is going to be an important life lesson for when I return to the States—I am going to freaking bend over backwards to help foreigners feel welcome and not embarrassed about their English skills.

Ok, I am starting to ramble and it is past my bedtime. I have to wake up at 6:45am for my classes, and as my Italian roommate would say, “oh the horror” (she also hates early mornings). 

I can’t wait to see many of you soon! I will be back from December 17^th through January 7^th! See you soon!!!  Much love to you all!!! :)

Merry Christmas to Me

Merry Christmas to me, indeed.  I have been spoiling myself rotten with Christmas presents this past week.  These are the presents I have given myself this week:

--A one way ticket from Rome to Barcelona (with Kel for our Feb/March trip)

--A one way ticket from Barcelona to Paris (with Kel for our Feb/March trip)

--A ticket to the Black Keys concert in Lille, France in late March

--A roundtrip ticket to Amsterdam (March 17^th--21^st) to visit Anna and Kay, my roommates when I studied abroad in Italy two years ago.   I got this ticket for only 26 EUROS, ROUND-TRIP!! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this price!

--A train ticket to Paris to catch my flight back to the United States on Dec 17^th

Ooh la la.  C’est beaucoup!  But give me a chance to defend my prodigal behavior this week.  First, I have not gone out in over FIVE WEEKS, and I have been spending only about 27 euros per week on groceries.  I know this is a weird number, but it seems to be the magic number in food budgeting because 25 euros is a bit too low and 30 euros is too much.  Second, I finally finished all of my blasted graduate school applications.  I felt like I was going to throw up with nervousness each time I clicked the “submit” button.  This week it has really started to sink in that my life has the potential to change pretty drastically in the next year.  I might be moving somewhere across the country next summer--yikes!!  What is most terrifying to me, however, is the idea that I will be living in this place for FIVE to SEVEN YEARS straight.  That is a huge commitment for me.  For the past 6 years now, I have never stayed in one place for more than 9 months (granted, I always returned to Iowa).  So, where I am going with this is that I realized I really need to enjoy my time in France—my last little taste of freedom.  I have so much independence and opportunities this year, and I intend on living it up for the rest of my time abroad.   

Yes, I really did up a pic of my ganglian cyst.

 And finally, the last reason that I deserved to be spoiled is because this week I discovered that a small mountain grew on the top of my foot overnight.  I googled it, and apparently it is a ganglion cyst.  I am hoping that it will go away on its own, but if it doesn’t then a minor surgery is required remove it (gross).  Actually, the circumstances of my finding this cyst are kind of funny.  As I was brushing my teeth, I thought to myself, “I am so lucky that I never have to have my wisdom teeth removed.   What if I can go my whole life without ever having to have any kind of surgery?  That would really be something to brag about."  Then ten minutes later I discovered the cyst.  Talk about karma….

Anyway, this weekend was pretty uneventful.  On Friday the weather was horrible, sort of a sleet/rain mix.  Miraculously, I was able to drag myself to the gym (it is a 25 minute walk one way.  Also, it was not a miracle that I went, it was by bribing myself with the promise of a pain au chocolat and a "ficelle picarde" at the patisserie next to the gym).

Ficelle Picarde: Cheeses, ham, mushrooms inside

Pain Au  Chocolat

 On Saturday I woke up to the smells of delicious food being baked.  I am doing a really good job of representing America  with my ability to sleep in whenever the chance appears (you are all very welcome), so I stumbled into the kitchen around 10:45am to see Laura making apple muffins, Saatvika making a delicious Indian dessert, Miriam making some butter cookie dough, and Guendalina making French toast. Being the wonderful roommates that they are, they all let me sample a bit of their creations. Gooooood morning!  Then, I went to Lille to meet up with some other assistants to go to the Marche de Noel and to do some Christmas shopping. 

The Marche de Noel was very cozy.  Since I am camera-less, I googled some pics of the Marche in Lille—so this is what it looked like.  I ate a delicious saucisse franfort avec choucrout (German sausage with saurkraut), then drank two glasses of vin chaud (hot wine with spices).  It was lovely.  Then we walked around Veuix Lille and did some Christmas shopping.  It was a very nice day and it was really nice to meet up with the other assistants—as I said earlier I have been a bit of a hermit for the past month.  I got back to Douai around 8:00pm, and then Miriam and I watched a movie together.  

A "vin chaud" stand at the Marche de Noel

Marche de Noel in Lille, France. Notice the ferris wheel in the background!

Sunday morning was another wonderful morning.  My two German roommates (Laura and Miriam) made the rest of us a traditional German breakfast.  We had scrambled eggs, a mozzarella/tomato dish, bread with caramel, honey, nutella, and chestnut spreads, a Christmas bread/cake, pineapple, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, ham (from Germany even!), and cheese.  It was a feast!  If there is ever a reason for getting out of bed before noon on a Sunday, this would be it.  I am so lucky to have such great roommates :)

Anyway, I miss you all lots and I can’t wait to see ya’ll soon!!!  See you in 12 days!!

Christy

The Resurrection of My Blog

At the urging of my mother, I am going to start writing in my blog again!  These past few months I have been obsessing over graduate school applications, resumes, and personal statements.  But today, I turned in the final application and I am DONE (that is, unless I change my mind about applying to the University of California at Irvine).  I just feel like a small part of me would die if I had to move to Los Angeles  (shudder). 

Trying escargot (snails)...and I liked it!

Anyway, now I have no excuses about writing in my blog! So much has happened in the past month (I went to Brussels and Sweden, I dressed up for Halloween, I spent a weekend in Paris, I was mugged, I taught lots of classes, I went to Berges and Dunkerque, I tried escargot, etc etc).  I am terribly sorry (not) but I am not going to write about all of these things.  I am just going to pick up with the events of this weekend and leave the past in the past.  Sorry ya’ll! To make up for my laziness, I will post some pictures from the past month.  The assholes who stole my purse also stole my camera, so I am living in one of the most beautiful countries sans the ability to take pictures right now.  So all of these photos are courtesy of my lovely roommates! Thanks ladies!! :)

My roommate Laura and I standing in front of the Louvre

The stairs inside Shakespeare and Company--easily my favorite place in Paris! Imagine how many literary geniuses have walked on these stairs!

In front of the Sacre Couer

The theme of the past few weeks has been “budget.”  In other words, I am flat on my ass broke right now.  Basically I am trying to spend about 30-40 euros per week (which may not sound too bad…but things add up quickly!).  This also means that I have not been having the crazy adventures that I had every weekend while I was studying abroad.  It does mean, however, that I am spending a lot of time getting to know the North of France and getting to know the people here. 

Last weekend Ashley and I went to a Ratatat concert in Lille.  It was a-maz-ing.  It was so much fun! And after the show, the guys came out and had some drinks with us. Ashley and I totally played up the "American girls working in France..oh so glamorous yet down to earth" card haha.  And that was my first night out in Lille since I was mugged...I was happy it was crime-free this time around.

On Wednesday night  two other American assistants and I made a Thanksgiving dinner for all of our European friends.  We decided that trying to find and prepare a turkey would be too difficult, so we opted for a couple poulet rotis (rotisserie chicken) instead.  I was in charge of making a pumpkin pie, my mother’s famous scalloped corn casserole, cranberry sauce and snicker salad.  Now, all of these dishes had the potential for complete disaster.  The main problem was that I could not find evaporated milk anywhere (I went to four different grocery stores in Douai)—and that was a key ingredient in both the pumpkin pie and the corn casserole. Luckily I evaded catastrophe and managed to make my own evaporated milk.  This takes about 2-3 hours by the way—not fun.  But I was really happy with how all the dishes turned out!  We had the dinner at Alex and Noellia’s apartment in Douai.  We had friends from the U.S., Germany, India, France and Spain show up for the dinner—it was such a fun night!

The wonderful people I got to spend Thanksgiving with!

Thanksgiving dinner sans the turkey, plus the chicken! Yummy!

  I also had some really good lessons with my students this past week.  I am really, really enjoying some of my classes.  The students are (for the most part) pretty enthusiastic about learning English, so it makes my job really easy.  I am trying to make my classes pretty relaxed so the students feel comfortable speaking English and will gain confidence in their abilities.  I have found that is very important to have when learning another language.  I always start the lesson by calling role, and I ask each of the students a question—so right off the bat they have to speak English.  I keep it simple, like “what did you have for breakfast this morning?” Or, “can you tell me a bit about your family?”  Last week, I played a game with my students where we said one true thing about ourselves and one false thing.  I started by giving an example about myself.  I said I either A) work in Alaska in the summertime, and that I live in a tent with no electricity or running water…or B) was a backup dancer for Lady GaGa in her New Year’s Eve concert in Times Square last year.  And guess what every single class always thought was “the lie??!!!”  They thought (A) was the lie and (B) was true!!! What in God’s name do these students think of me!!? It has made me very self conscious of how I am dressing and acting. Good Lord. 

Next week I am going to talk with the students about stereotypes that the French have for Americans, and vice versa.  I already discussed this topic with one of my classes on Friday, and it was really interesting! Here is the list of stereotypes they came up with:

How the French view Americans/the US (my students made this list)	How Americans view the French/France (I made this list)
Eat a lot of fast food, obesity is a big problem	Good Food
Lots of rich people	Fashionable
Lots of celebrities	Everyone wears berets and eats croissants
Everything is bigger	Moody
Education (high school, university) is easier	Beautiful women, handsome men
Americans are fun and open	Beautiful cities
Don’t travel very much	Can’t win wars
We drive everywhere/lazy

This is all I can remember for right now. I am sure I will add to the list as I teach this again next week! It was very interesting, and I laughed a lot during this class.  

On Friday night, I was boring and just went to some aerobics classes at my gym.  There is a really good step class on Friday nights that I really like going to.  Later Miriam, Saatvika and I watched “Bienvenue a Ch’tis.” This is a very famous movie in France.  It is about (coincidently) the stereotypes about people in the north and south.  People living in Southern France are supposed to be more intellectual and glamorous than people in the North.  They think that people in the North are intellectually slow and all speak with a thick incomprehensible accent.  It was a really funny movie, but I could hardly understand what was being said in the film, partly because they were talking very quickly with heavy accents.  My roommates were very nice and filled me in about every 10 minutes on what had just happened.  And on that note, I think that my French has improved a lot since I first arrived in France.  When I first arrived, I couldn’t understand anything at all.  Very slowly but surely I am becoming much better about following conversations, and sometimes I can even pipe in with my own two cents! 

On Saturday Saatvika, Miriam and I went to another small town in the North called Amiens.  There is a Notre Dome in Amiens that is bigger and (in my opinion) more beautiful than the Notre Dome in Paris.  There were enormous stained glass windows and beautiful wooden sculptures inside.  Another bonus—there weren’t 1243458928 people trying to walk through it at the same time, which is the problem you run into in Paris.  It was much more peaceful.  We also walked along the canal and found a nice park with some frozen gardens.  We had a nice budget-friendly lunch at a fast-food like pasta restaurant, and afterwards had some dessert at the Marche de Noel.  It was the opening weekend of the Marches des Noels in Europe (Christmas markets).  Basically they are these little wooden houses/stores set up in the middle of the city center.  There are tons of Christmas lights and music everywhere—it’s so cozy!  Some stands serve vin chaud (warm wine with spices) and chocolate and other delicious goodies.  We all gave in and had a dessert—Miriam had a waffle with nutella, Saatvika had a German dessert that was a ball with chocolate on the exterior, and a marshmallow base inside, and I had some churros!  I hadn’t had those in years, and they smelled too delicious to pass up! The minimum amount you could order was six, but after three I had to give up due to the protests my stomach was making.  

The Notre Dome in Amiens.  It is larger than the Notre Dome in Paris...and more beautiful too!

Inside the Notre Dome Cathedral

Walking the streets of Amiens

Miriam and I with the Notre Dome in the background

Our budget-friendly pasta lunch. 

Christmas Market in Amiens

Then, today I FINISHED my graduate school applications.  That was an enormous relief. Those damn things have been burdening me for the past three months.  Ahhh.  Now if just one school will accept me…

Anyway, I’m not going to worry about that until February-March.  Now I am just going to enjoy the Christmas season in Europe! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and found some good Black Friday deals! My family just got a 15 foot Christmas tree for our new house! I can’t wait to see it all lit up and decorated!

Miss you all so much! But see you soon!! (I’m home on Dec. 17^th).

And…who’s up for NYE party in Nevada/Ames/Des Moines/Iowa City??!!