Boston needs Velo'v!!!

So it's been awhile (again), and I apologize, but things have just been too busy and exciting here. :) The most exciting thing being that I rode my first Velo'v!!!! Velo'v is the bike system here in Lyon, and there are 343 stations around the city where you can get a bike for 30 minutes for 1 euro, which is generally enough time to get anywhere in the city (unless you're trying to bike up the ginormous Fourvière hill). It's incredible how great this system works here! And it was especially nice this past Friday when we were out at a disco until way past the time when the metro stopped running, so we all just swiped our bank cards (the only annoying thing is that you need a French bank card to use the bike stations and you have to have 150 euros in your account...) and got bikes, and I was home in like 10 minutes. It was awesome. I sent in my Velo'v subscription the very next day--it's 15 euros for the whole year, and you can get a bike free for the first hour. Boston needs to get on it in a big way. As does every other major city in the world!

Anyway, let's see, what else have I been up to in the past week? Monday's classes went okay. One of the teachers found me 5 minutes before the class started and thrust a sheet of paper at me that covered superlatives (the smartest, the most intelligent, etc.) and asked me to teach that. Seeing how I don't actually know HOW to teach, particularly the fine points of English grammar that I was never taught myself, I kind of freaked out a little bit. On top of that, I was supposed to have them read aloud a passage from their textbook. I don't actually have a copy of their book, and only one of the six students had his book with him so the seven of us tried to share one book to read a dialogue. Needless to say, it wasn't the most successful lesson. The six kids aren't the most respectful and well-behaved kids either and REALLY aren't impressed with school at all. But I finally cracked their shell a little, first when I made a couple of them move because they were blatantly not paying any attention to me, and second when I saw that they had gotten their class pictures that day (basically exactly the same as class pictures in the U.S.) so I grabbed a class picture and started asking them to describe their classmates: who was the tallest? the most popular? the funniest? Not sure they actually learned how to construct sentences using superlatives, but at least they were paying attention to me for the majority of the class and were (kind of) speaking English. I call that a success!

Tuesday, I hadn't heard from my contact at Collège Jean Perrin so I had e-mailed her saying I wasn't planning on coming unless I heard from her that my classes were organized. She finally e-mailed me back Monday night (after I got

home pretty late from a fun trivia night with a bunch of other assistants at an English pub--we tied with two other teams for first place!) saying that no, I shouldn't come because those classes weren't organized yet. Thanks for the advance warning... So on Tuesday, two assistants met me at the farmer's market near my house and we bought delicious veggies and cheese and random Indian food for a picnic lunch at my apartment. I love the market! I finally found this amazingly smelly cheese that I've been searching for, and on a baguette, it's heaven. :) I have also become obsessed with frying up onions, mushrooms, and zucchini and throwing it into whatever main dish I'm making (pasta, omelette, etc.) so the market provides all the fresh veggies for that that I could ever want.

I decided to stay in on Tuesday night because it was freezing and I was tired, but there was a huge soccer match, Lyon vs. Liverpool, and I hadn't realized that you have to pay for the channel to watch it on TV. I REALLY wanted to see it, and it ended up being an amazing game with Lyon scoring an unbelievable diving header goal in the 93rd minute to beat Liverpool at the Liverpool stadium for the first time ever, I think, and I had to watch it on the equivalent of Game Day on-line. So frustrating. But worse is the fact that Liverpool comes here to play Lyon on Nov. 4th, and the game is completely sold out now! At least I know to go out and watch it at a bar this time...

Wednesday, I actually taught my first "real" classes at Collège Jean Perrin. Kind of exciting. Kind of scary. I had 10 kids at 8am for 55 minutes, and we played Two Truths and A Lie, which they seemed to know and yet they all kept giving two lies and a truth instead. Not sure why, although it IS more fun to make things up... So they had fun with that, but I think it's going to be really hard to come up with things to do with them for FIFTY-FIVE minutes that aren't too challenging for those of them with limited English skills and that are still exciting and engaging AND that are mostly oral activities that don't need too much prep or photocopying, etc. Any and all ideas are welcome!

Wednesday afternoon, I went with a couple other assistants to the Institut Lumière, which is basically next door to me and is where the first movie was made! (The picture shows what's at my metro stop...and some velo'v bikes!) The museum is in the old Lumière household, and it's a HUGE house with all kinds of crazy movie-making paraphernalia. I'm not sure how much I really learned about making movies, but it was neat to see some of the first ones made. Then, to keep the movie theme going, I went to see Inglorious Basterds, which was amazing. Really hard to watch in some parts but still awesome. And kind of cool to see here because almost half of it was actually in French! The sad part was that I felt like I could understand the German parts at times better than the French... Sigh.

Thursday was my last day of teaching before vacation, and it was relatively uneventful. I'm still meeting with the students two at a time to get to know them a little better. The only problem was that the heat in the school didn't seem to be working, and it was freezing! Came home for a nice, warm nap to celebrate vacation, and then to see Le Petit Nicholas with Marie-Christine after babysitting. It's a movie based on a famous children's book character here, and Phillipe-Emmanuel loaned me the first book. It's hilarious--very french--and I loved the movie. Apparently the books have already been translated into English, but I've never seen any English editions and think Houghton should get on it...

My first day of vacation, I relaxed before going over to see Aurore early. Her mom wants me to come for an extra 2 hours on Fridays before P-E is done with school so I can work with Aurore just on English. In fact, I finally saw the mom on Thursday night and she gave me a 20-minute long lecture on how to teach English grammar. She doesn't actually KNOW any English and apparently doesn't realize that I don't actually KNOW anything about grammar so it was a very interesting (one-sided) discussion. I tried to teach myself English grammar on Friday morning using the one grammar book I bought and brought with me, but when I got to Aurore's house, she called her mom and begged to not have to do that since it was the start of vacation. So instead we basically hung out and played with their guinea pig, who I'm miraculously starting to have a soft spot in my heart for. Who knew? Then I went to get P-E and did a little bit of French homework with him and then we played poker the rest of the time. I love that I get paid 100 euros a week to play poker with a nine-year-old and putz around with a huge, bright orange guinea pig... J'ai la chance, as they say en français (I'm lucky).

Off to meet up with some people to see a bizarre play (saw the same troupe in a play last Friday too--they're hilarious) and then out on the town. As I mentioned, we finally found a disco that was open late and it was awesome. There was a back room playing French techno music (filled with gay frenchmen) and a PACKED front room playing American songs (filled with Americans and Brits). Ah, good times.

Spent most of Saturday sleeping to make up for the late night and didn't really venture back out until going for a run in the park on Sunday. It had been WAY too long since I'd exercised--it felt so good. Must remember that when I'm feeling lazy and bread-and-cheese-filled...

Had a friend for breakfast today and then went to meet the Eléonore, the niece of my host mom when I studied abroad in Paris. I was so nervous about speaking French, but she's SOOOOOO nice and I understood most of what she said and I love her! We had tea at her house and then went for a walk because it was a gorgeous day. We talked (in French!) for three hours about who knows what and even stopped at several bookstores because she loves books and I gave her the names of a bunch of books to read. We talked about my host family, and she invited me to visit her parent's house in Bourgogne for some wine festival in November. Yay!!! French friends!!!

Back home to meet Rachel's mom who is visiting for our break and out for a delicious dinner near our apartment. Getting ready now for a busy day tomorrow before leaving for Amsterdam on Wednesday--YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!