The life of a chômeurette...

As of 4:00 pm yesterday, I am a chômeurette (unemployed)! I had my last class as a teaching assistant (woo-hoo!!!)--showed a cute little powerpoint of my life in the U.S.--said goodbye to the kids and teachers, gave out baked goods, and peaced out. :) It was a little sad saying goodbye since I actually liked Collège Jean de Verrazane. The teachers even said I was their best assistant ever!!! I think it was the delicious chocolate chip banana bread I gave them though that really did the trick... Below are two pictures: the first is of my favorite kid, Maxime, on the left (even though he was a student at Jean Perrin), and the second is of one of my contact teacher's classes at Jean de Verrazane. My contact teacher, Evelyn, is second from the right in the back row. Super nice, but always super busy.

So yeah, a little sad, but honestly, I'm excited to be done. No more lesson planning, no more feeling invisible in the teacher's room, no more trying in vain to get 15-year-olds to care about English. Yay!!!!! AND, even more exciting is the fact that I'm off gallivanting to Prague tomorrow for a week and to Cinque Terre in Italy for four days after that!!! Culture and history in a city I've been dying to get to forever, followed by hiking and breathtaking villages built into mountains on the Italian coast. Sublime.

So, not that I've been super in touch on the good old blog recently, but I definitely won't be adding any more posts for a week and a half. :) Bon voyage to me!

Random musings on leaving

I just can't face another epic catch-up post at the moment so you'll have to wait for more backlogged stories. Here's a snapshot of what lies ahead...

4 days left of babysitting (don't even bother to call it tutoring anymore because I literally ONLY play games and watch movies with the kids...)

6 days left of teaching

1 month and 2 days left in France (including some time spent traveling in Prague and Cinqueterre in early June--yay!!!!)

3 months and 14 days until I once again join the ranks of the impoverished student world

Current mental state: borderline panic/excitement/terror

In spite of the fact that I really do love some of my students, I am beyond euphoric to be almost done teaching, if in fact you can call what I do teaching. The whole experience in the schools has just been so awkward for the most part, not really knowing what my purpose is or how I can best help out. In one of my schools, I actually have started to dread it so much that I avoid interaction with anyone at all besides my students. I go in the teacher's room only when I think no one I know will be in there, and I basically RUN out the door after my last class each day. Kind of sad. Not that the teachers have been mean to me really, but I would almost prefer that to feeling completely invisible. I do like the teachers in my other school, but they just seem so caught up in their lives and everything (which of course I understand) that I feel like I'm more of a burden than a help most of the time. Not that I regret doing the program. It's an amazing way to live in France. I just think with even a TINY bit of effort, us assistants could be a million times more useful and enjoy the whole teaching aspect a whole lot more.

Anyway. My other job, with the two Achard kids, has also been mildly annoying--mostly because it has often interfered with my social life. :) But I am seriously going to cry when I have to say goodbye to PE and Aurore. They are hilariously adorable, and I think I may be one of the few bright spots in their overly programmed and disciplined lives. Never did meet the dad and have still only met the mom twice. Ever. In 8 months. I wonder if they know that I do nothing with their kids except play Uno and hide-and-seek and a variety of ridiculous games yesterday with Philippe's yellow judo belt...

I still do a dictation in French with PE everyday, and I helped Aurore with an English worksheet once last week, but they basically pay me to play. Not too shabby.

And la belle France I will DEFINITELY miss. Maybe not the way everything is closed on Sundays and often Mondays too. And the ridiculous way you have to push or pull or ring something in order to get into and out of any building (got stuck in a building today because I couldn't find the little button that let the door open). And the never-ending strikes, although (KNOCK ON WOOD) they haven't been too problematic lately. But the food, the way of life that emphasizes who you are and what you like WAY more than what you do for a living, the ridiculously abundant vacation time, the ease with which I can travel to other countries, and above all, the friends I've made here. Yes, most of them are English speakers but not all! And no matter. They are an amazing, eclectic, fun-loving group without whom this year would have been seriously lacking.

Speaking of, going to run off to see them now--time for our regular Tuesday night n'importe quoi... Besides, wouldn't want to get too nostalgic yet. I still have a whole month left!

In case you're hungering for more...

I'm slowly trying to catch up, but in the meantime, if you just can't wait for me to finally get on the ball and update more regularly, here's the link to my friend's blog. Jill is (well, WAS--she left for a month of traveling this morning!) an assistant here in France too, and she's from the Boston area. Her blog is hilarious and might give you more insight into the trials and tribulations of us language assistants. What's more, she tends to be more caught up than I am, so you can read about the 31-km trek I did with her way before I'll have my own blog done about it... :) Enjoy!

http://ranawaytofrance.wordpress.com/

Josie and Emily's Adventures Abroad!

Oh dear, oh dear. I continue to be approximately two and a half months behind, which is stressful for me and perhaps frustrating for you (if there are still people even checking my poor neglected blog...) since it means I don't remember many of the good little anecdotes that make blogs actually interesting to follow. Ack! I apologize. But at least I haven't given up entirely!

As a little aside and glimpse into my life at the current moment, everyone and their mom (except me) is done with their teaching contract and leaving within the next week and it's semi-traumatizing. Who knew 7 months in France would just fly by? Oh wait, everyone. And there ARE actually several other people who prolonged their contracts too and are still working and several others who are done working but are staying to bum around. PLUS, I have finally succeeded in finding French friends and of course they're all still here too. So never fear, my social life here probably won't suffer too much after everyone leaves, but it's still sad. :( And my roommate is leaving on Monday morning, abandoning me in our apartment alone for the entire month of May. It just so happens that NO ONE is coming to visit to take advantage of my amazing luck at having an awesome 2-bedroom apartment all to myself for an entire month! Poor planning on your part... ;)

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Soooooooooooo. JOSIE!!!! A couple hours after my parents left on Saturday, February 20th (and after several mishaps at the train station at Charles de Gaulle airport because those Parisians just aren't helpful at all), Josie and I met up at the Lyon Part Dieu train station. YAY!!!!!! We hugged, speed chatted for an hour, ate some pastries, and promptly fell asleep on my couch for what was probably 4 hours. Feeling a little more lively on Sunday and because Josie brought gorgeous spring weather with her, we did a mini tour of Lyon and then took bikes and went to the park.

The next day, we were off to Barcelona!!! Smooth sailing on Easyjet from Lyon to Barcelona, where we easily found our cute little hostel, Mambo Tango, and were off exploring by early Monday afternoon. We hiked a huge hill to this big park right behind our hostel and wandered around the old Olympic stadium area. Then, just as we reached the peak overlooking the marina, the threatening rain clouds disappeared and the sun came out and it was spring in February!

After a quick nap at the hostel to refresh, we went off in search of a restaurant with some sort of vegetarian option for Josie. The few listed in our guidebook were all randomly closed (apparently Spain is like France in that everything is closed on Mondays), but then we stumbled on this adorable "locals" place where we miraculously deciphered the half-Spanish and half-Catalan menu and ended up with delicious salads and amazing little panini-type sandwiches. The one euro beers were an even better surprise! We took a midnight stroll to see the still unfinished Sagrada Familia lit up at night (Gaudi was awesome but CRAZY) and headed back to the hostel.

Tuesday was sunny and beautiful, so we headed downtown along Las Ramblas toward the beach. We walked along the length of the beach collecting shells, startling the lone naked sunbather (an old man who really should have kept his clothes on...), and wading in the cold but refreshing Mediterranean Sea. 

After getting harassed by some Spaniards one too many times, we headed back to town for an interesting if not entirely satisfying lunch of paella. Josie liked her veggie version, but my seafood paella was almost too intense for me with all sorts of unidentifiable seafood goodies hidden under the rice... :)

More wandering in the afternoon through the cutest little back streets where we found an awesome and very affordable jewelry shop to buy ourselves Barcelona mementos before touring the Picasso Museum and heading back to the hostel before dinner. We were a little early for dinner because we wanted to get to a bar to watch the Barcelona soccer team play, but we ended up at this amazing tapas place on Las Ramblas with perhaps the best sangria I have ever had. 

We eventually found a bar to watch the game, and then moved on to an Irish pub where the night degenerated a bit after we met some Brits who took it upon themselves to keep our glasses full. Unfortunately for you, I have decided that Barcelona is much like Vegas: What happens in Barcelona, stays in Barcelona. ;) Suffice it to say, the night was hilarious and long and neither of us moved from our beds until about noon the next day...

We slowly motivated our way to Park Guell, which is full of Gaudi buildings and sculptures, and with the hot summer weather, it was heaven lying in the grass soaking up the sun and listening to the hundreds of random musicians stationed all around the park.

Rounded out the day (and the trip) with one of the most amazing dinners I have ever eaten at a little hole-in-the-wall tapas place mentioned in our guidebook. The tapas were original and so beautifully presented that I almost didn't want to eat them. But I did, don't worry! 

Back to our hostel to go to bed early since we were still worn out from the previous night's escapades... Unfortunately, apparently the 11pm quiet hour at the hostel didn't apply to the hostel workers themselves because they had a huge dinner with 18,000 of their closest friends that BEGAN at 11:30pm in the lobby right below our first floor room. Awesome. Thanks a pantload, as my dad would say. Although, all in all, the hostel was really nice as far as hostels go, with linen included along with a really nice breakfast. 

But due to a poor night's sleep, I was not in a very good mood when we got to the airport the next morning to find out that French air traffic controllers were on strike for some reason or another meaning that the flights going into, out of, and over France were severely diminished and our flight was going to be delayed. First, it was two hours. Then it was three hours. Then it was just to be determined. Finally, at 3:30, they let us board the plane that was supposed to leave at 11:00am because if we were all boarded then perhaps we would get a sooner take-off time. No such luck. We sat in the plane on the runway until 5:30 without having eaten since the hostel breakfast at 8. Oh, good times.

But, like the troopers we are, we got back to Lyon, dropped our stuff off at my apartment, and headed off to meet up with my friends since most people were back from their vacation travel and I wanted Josie to meet everyone. Since we had brought the nice weather back with us, Josie got a taste of a typical Lyon night out with drinking beers outside on Place des Terreaux. The good weather stuck around the next day for our more thorough tour of Lyon and a walk along the river. Then on Saturday, we headed off to Grenoble and the Alps with Patrick and Ruth. Although it was beautiful and sunny in Lyon, the mountains around Grenoble had apparently trapped cold air and clouds around the city so the views weren't quite as amazing as they could have been. 

But the city was quaint, and the hike up to the old fort was awesome. There were little workout stations along the way to do pull-ups, sit-ups, etc., and of course we stopped at each of them. :) 

It was super windy at the top so we took the obligatory pictures, peered off in the direction of Mont Blanc to see if we could make out its outline (we couldn't) and then headed to these little caves for shelter.

We had brought a picnic lunch, and because it was so cold and windy, we were forced to drink a little more wine than we had planned on to keep warm. 

Probably good since the wine distracted us enough to not notice as much that pieces of the rock ceiling above us kept falling into our drinks and food, perhaps indicating that our little perch wasn't quite as stable as it looked... 

We took the little gondola balls down--a little disturbing since the wind was shaking them and the doors were kind of old and crusty and didn't even shut all the way! Stopped for some quick shopping and then caught the train back to Lyon in time to make an appearance at an apèro at Sara's house where Josie got to meet most of the rest of my crew here.

A bit more wandering and stuffing our faces with good food on Sunday before Josie left on Monday morning and I pulled myself together to go back to work.

3/4 of DEWN in France!!! (Part Two)

Since I'm now almost two months behind and just keep doing exciting things that I'm eventually going to have to document, I'd better get on this catching up.

So, after being shown the ropes by Jacques' parents, we headed off on our own on Sunday morning to explore Cap Corse, the northern tip of the island. 

The road started off relatively normal, curving along the coast through cute little towns with gorgeous houses basically hanging out over the water. 

But it soon morphed into one of the scariest roads I've ever been on in my life. Dad, being the Montana mountain man that he is, LOVED it. But Mom and I thought we might die what with the likelihood of rock slides on one side, an incredibly huge drop to the ocean on the other side, and a tiny little ridiculously windy road definitely not wide enough for two cars, or even one car and the occasional cow...

We stopped at a million little cute port towns with beautiful boats and beaches and even found a little hike to an old random windmill with a beautiful overlook.

I don't remember the name of our favorite little town along the route, but it had an adorable church, 

an old fortress thing completely surrounded by cacti (which definitely called for a kodak anniversary moment for the 'rents), and the cutest little streets that we went poking along through.

After a bit of confusion on how exactly to navigate getting back to Bastia, we made it to the other side of the Corsica point, had some chocolat chaud and crepes and drove across the mainland back to our hotel. Another nap (expended WAY too much energy freaking out about driving off a cliff on those crazy roads) and freshened up before heading off in search of a Valentine's Day meal. We found the perfect little place without too much of a ridiculously exorbitant prix fixe menu and had a lovely V-Day celebration.

We woke up on Monday to a beautiful blue sky day perfect for exploring Bastia before flying back to Lyon that afternoon.

Mom's favorite place in Bastia

Dad's favorite place in Bastia

My favorite place in Bastia

Some other cute pictures

Dad held back his tears after turning his spiffy little car back in, and we sadly boarded the plane back to cold, wintry Lyon.

The plane was a bit late so we hustled home to drop off our bags and change and then were off (via my tiny elevator that my parents couldn't get over) to Règis and Marie Christine's. 

They wined and dined us, and it was so cute to finally have my parents be able to meet them. Marie Christine had gone all out and served us a delicious dinner of soup and salmon and homemade beignets.

Tuesday dawned a little gray (compared to the glorious sunny blue sky of Bastia), but we were off on a proper Lyon tour. First stop: my little market. 

We stocked up on fruit, veggies, bread, cheese, and of course pastries for a true French-style picnic chez moi. 

Then we went off to explore the park with a bike that we all took turns riding. :) 

We looped back to see the Fourvière, Vieux Lyon, and the Roman ruins (which were closed due to ice), and then stopped by the Tissue and Decorative Arts Museum where Dad found something that looked familiar...

Headed home, exhausted, for a home-cooked meal of pasta with the freshest of fresh market veggies. Yum! 

Then to bed early so we could get up and head to Annecy the next day with Marie Christine and Règis!

We got to Annecy, about two hours from Lyon, at 12:30ish, and the sky was kind of cloudy and gray. It was still amazingly beautiful with breathtaking mountains encircling the most pristine lake I have ever seen. 

After a quick tour of the gardens behind the Imperial Hotel--a huge gorgeous white mansion hotel/restaurant on the lake--we went inside for a delicious three-course meal. And as we were gorging ourselves (salmon salad, a melt-in-your-mouth rice chicken entrée, and what must be France's best macarons), the sun burst out of the clouds and it turned into a PERFECT day. 

We could hardly wait to get outside and bask in it! 

We strolled around the lake until we reached the cute little old town with its adorable canals and buildings. 

We even stumbled on the good old family chocolate store!

We took the scenic route back as it got dark, and Marie Christine insisted we come back to their house for a dinner that she whipped up who knows when since we'd been with her all day. I swear she has kitchen elves...

Friday, my parent's last day in Lyon, we got a nice, lazy start to the day before meeting up with Jacques for lunch. My parents wanted to somehow repay a little bit of the kindness his parents had shown us in Corsica. 

We took him to a delicious lunch at one of my favorite restaurants on rue Mercière, and then he walked us around Lyon a bit in the drizzly rain talking a mile a minute in his hilarious English. I'm pretty sure Mom has us married...

He'd done pretty well holding it in all week, but on his last day in France, Dad couldn't resist a little making fun of the French. And right in middle of Place des Terreaux too! Or maybe he was imitating Nathaniel (with his short scarf when he visited in December) imitating him. Either way, nice, Dad.

Of course it wouldn't be a visit to France without some shopping so my mom stopped along rue de la République to buy some chic black French boots, which she's proudly holding up below in the church courtyard near my house. :) 

Home to pack and say goodbye before bundling them off with François, my favorite little taxi guy, at 5:00am on Saturday morning. Ouch.

Merci beaucoup for a FABULOUS visit, parentals!!!!!

3/4 of DEWN in France!!! (Part One)

At long last, I have a little bit of time and am attempting to begin my catch-up blogging. Don't hold your breath though--it's going to take awhile to fill in my adventures from the past month. Before I continue with the rest of my parents visit in France, I just want to reassure you that I did not, in fact, have to choose between a fun-filled weekend in the Haute Savoie with a bunch of Frenchies and playing in a soccer tournament with a bunch of Frenchies. The Haute Savoie trip was put on a perhaps permanent hold so I got to play in the tournament this past weekend and it was awesome. There were a couple drawbacks, including the fact that the games were only 12 minutes long in order to ensure that each team could play three games. Since we had 12 players show up, none of us got to play much. I ended up subbing for another team twice just to get some more playing time. But on the up side, I had been all worried about not being a student since it was the Lyon 3 University team and NO ONE checked or even asked. I had even gone to all the trouble of memorizing another student's name and number (I'm glad no one was checking because I was going under the guise of a student named Paloma De La Cruz who is Dominican...). Anyway, we won two games and lost two games, coming in fourth out of eight teams. Not great, not terrible. But it was really fun. We got to wear legit uniforms, got free t-shirts, managed to get four fans out to cheer us on (I think the fact that there was beer and music helped), and bonded a bunch as a team. 

There's another tournament at the end of May that I'm going to try to sneak into too, but it's in Paris against universities from all over France and I'm not sure my little trick of simply using another student's number will work since Lyon 3 pays for the train ride and everything. Riiiiiiiight.

Anyway, on to the real task at hand. So, as I mentioned in my birthday post, my parents came to visit in February right after my surgery. For those of you not in the know, this post title refers to our little family nickname, DEWN (the first letter in each of our names), which was originally created to be the name of our canoe many, many years ago and has since morphed into a much more general usage. :)

Following our running reunion by the metro and my birthday festivities, my parents proceeded to sleep for approximately one million hours. Which was fine with me since I was still recovering from the surgery and the anesthesia and had trouble going more than four hours at a time without a nap. So there was a whole lot of napping and reading leading up to my birthday present to my mom, which was a ticket (with me and Dad) to see a ballet at the Lyon Opera House on Thursday night. 

After a nice early dinner at my favorite pizza place (and the only place you can really eat before 7pm possibly in all of France), we went to see one of the most amazing modern dance pieces I have ever seen. Mom was enthralled with the movement and Dad was enthralled with the crazy scenery set-up and I love anything at all dance-related, so it was a hit all around.

On Friday, my parents and I were off to Corsica for four days (with me having thankfully gotten my last shot and bloodwork done on Thursday). It was a nice, easy flight, and another assistant, Zane, was actually on the flight with us since he was going to Corsica to visit a friend. We landed without a problem, managed to finally find our rental car (a slick Mercedes!!! with side mirrors that could be rotated inward for tight parking spaces!!! Dad was in love, seriously), and drove the 30 minutes from the airport into Bastia where our hotel was. 

Posta Vecchia Hotel turned out to be charming and perfect, and the Lonely Planet advice to splurge the extra 10 euros for an ocean view room was spot on. I had a little tiny corner room to myself, but my parents had an amazing room that looked right out on to the ocean (see Mom's movie star pic below...)

After a little nap, we ventured out and found an amazing Italian restaurant one block from our hotel. There was only one other person eating there, but the food was divine: tomato-mozzarella appetizer, pasta with lobster, pasta with pesto, steak, delicious wine. Corsica = the perfect melding of French and Italian cuisine. The language is another story. Corsican is supposedly a mix of the two, but it sounded a whole lot more like Italian to me...

The next day dawned beautiful and warm (a LOT warmer than freezing, snowy Lyon), and after a nice little breakfast at the hotel, we hopped in the car and headed inland to the mountainous heart of Corsica. We had sort of a vague plan to go to Corte in the middle of the island and then make our way to the northwest coast of the island to see several "chic" must-see towns. We got a little sidetracked by the ridiculousness of being NEXT to the ocean at one moment and then, 10 minutes later, basically being in snow-covered mountains. I think Corsica is perhaps one of the most unique geographical land masses in the world with its beautiful beaches just an hour's drive from 2000-meter in altitude legit mountains. We kept having to stop the car to take random pictures of mountains that really didn't come out well. The one below isn't a particularly good picture, but it does show a palm tree in stark contrast to the snow-covered mountain in the background. Kind of crazy.

As we were driving to Corte, I saw a sign for the town Soveria with an ad for a candy factory that Sara's roommate's family owns. Jacques, Sara's roommate, had called me right before we left on Friday and in his mile-a-minute French had given me his mom's phone number and told me to call her to get restaurant suggestions, etc. since his family has lived in Corsica forever. I was a little intimidated and had been putting off calling her, but when we literally drove by his town I decided I couldn't NOT call her. So we took a little detour and drove into Soveria while I called his mom's cell phone. The roads were icy and barely big enough for one car in good conditions so it was a little interesting. I kept losing cell phone service so we decided to just follow the signs to the candy factory. It being Saturday, the factory was closed, but the town was on top of a little hill set against beautiful mountains (as you can see in the picture below) so I finally had a bar of service. I called Jacques's mom, Angèle, and she answered right away. After finding out that we were literally next door, she invited us over for tea! The town only has 120 inhabitants and is the most adorable little place ever, so she said to just head for the church steeple and her house was next door. 

We parked and found it no problem and had a delicious little snack with Angèle and her husband, Marcel. They let us sample his amazing confections--his specialty being chocolate-covered fruit. 

They didn't speak much English so my translation skills were put to the test, but it was so cute! I felt a little weird since I had met Jacques approximately twice for 5 minutes each time and here I was in the house where he'd lived since he was born, but his parents were so welcoming and seemed genuinely happy to have us completely randomly drop in on them. They even invited us to meet them for dinner in Corte that night and gave us a new itinerary for our day. They walked us out to the car for a cute picture, and then we were back on our way.

We drove through more mountains before reaching the west coast of Corsica and ended up on a nice curving road by the ocean that wound through what must be divine resort towns in the summer. Things were really quiet with an almost abandoned air since it wasn't yet tourist season, but the quaint buildings and coastline were still beautiful. 

We stopped in Calvi and had a picnic lunch atop a wind-whipped hill near a big fort. We had bought bread, fruit, and Corsican cheese and charcuterie (sausage) at the market near our hotel in Bastia (I made best friends with a little market man who then convinced us to buy a HUGE hunk of charcuterie), but the charcuterie proved to be a tough match for the little plastic knives we had brought.

Luckily, we had had to buy a whole bag so we could afford to have several of them break during the cutting process. I ended up being the only one who liked the smelly cheese. In fact, Mom claimed that it was perhaps one of the worst lunches she had ever had, but it's hard to complain for long when you're eating bread and cheese by the ocean on an island in France... :)

On our way back towards Corte, we stopped in Ile de Rousse, another cute little coastal town, and took a little hike on the beach--had to touch the water, of course.

Even though it had gotten windy and a little cold, we stopped again for a little hike in the rocks to work up an appetite for some more Corsican culinary delights. We wanted a picture of all three of us, but since no one else was crazy enough to be out gallivanting around on the rocks, we had to take an infamous Flaschner-Meyer timed photo and couldn't really capture the view so the picture below looks like it could pretty much be taken in Maine. But it wasn't!

A bit chilled and definitely hungry, we made our way back through the mountains and to Corte, which is where Corsica's university is and where the supposed heart and soul of true Corsica is. We didn't have much time to explore since we were almost late for our 7:30 date with Angèle and Marcel, but it seemed like a cute little town. We were ushered off for an aperitif at a little bar where Jacques's sister's boyfriend was playing traditional Corsican music with his band and then went to a delicious, little hole-in-the-wall locals restaurant called Rivière des Vins. It had a stone fireplace in the dining room where they cooked all the meat so you could watch your meal as it cooked. Dad and I both got the Corsican platter, which included a little bit of everything Corsican that you could ever dream of. Kind of an overload of charcuterie but delicious all the same.

I struggled a bit with translating when the conversation turned to more complex topics like America's capitalist system and running a business, but Jacques's parents continued to be the most gracious and perfect hosts. They invited us out to another bar after dinner, but we were exhausted from our day out in the mountainy ocean air so we headed back to our Bastia base.

Clearly WAY more to come (considering I'm only up to day five of my parents 10-day visit), but I'm exhausted and off to bed so this will have to do for now...