Portland, ME in the paper! And the cutest French baby ever :)

This has to be quick because I need to get up in like 5 hours to give two hour-long presentations on the American holiday season to 14-year-olds who don't speak much English. 

BUT, I have three important things to report:

1) I opened up the Metro newspaper on the metro Tuesday morning on the way to school and almost died when I found the following article: http://www.metrofrance.com/ma-vie/la-mecque-de-la-gastronomie-americaine/mikD!6I5DraYlvYJYg/. Not enough time to translate it (plus it wouldn't be THAT interesting for those of you non-Mainers), but basically it's all about how Portland, MAINE is the mecca for cuisine in the United States!!!!! Kind of amazing. Who knew?!?!? So someone who lives in or near Portland should go check out the restaurants listed and let me know if they're good. Apparently, there are around 230 restaurants in Maine, which makes a ratio of restaurant per inhabitant that is higher than most American cities. Go Maine!

2) The Velo'v saved my butt (again) on Tuesday night but not because I was out again past the time when the metro stops running. Apparently, someone tried to commit suicide on Line D near my apartment, and the whole line stopped running for over an hour at rush hour. One of the teachers I worked with was stuck for 45 minutes and had to be evacuated from one of the tunnels... I tried to get on the metro to go babysit at 5:20ish, but there was an announcement that it wouldn't be moving for another 45 minutes. I freaked out because I was already running late and have to pick PE up at school at 5:45. Then I raced outside, jumped on a bike (in the cold, almost rain), and pedaled furiously from my house in the 8th arrondissement to PE's school in the 6th arrondissement. I know this won't mean anything to most of you, but this trip takes 30 minutes on the metro and an hour and  a half to walk. I got on a bike at 5:29 and, even with traffic and lights and everything, I was off the bike and at his school door at 5:44. It was basically a miracle.

3) One of the teachers I work with at Collège de Vaise, Elsa, invited me to her apartment this evening to chat and hang out. I went over at 5:00 and proceeded to talk in French for three hours with her and her amazingly nice husband. They complimented me on my French and we talked about a million things and I miraculously understood 85% of what they said (which is a HUGE percentage for me) and they were soooooooooooooooo nice. But the best part of the night was their adorable 15-month-old daughter, Eloise. (So French!) She's this little nugget of a baby with huge cheeks. Apparently, she never lets anyone pick her up and always cries when strangers touch her, but she immediately loved me and was crawling all over me and letting me pick her up and feed her her dinner and I wanted to steal her then and there. She's being raised bilingual since Elsa is fluent in English, and she is one of the most adorable babies ever. Her parents were completely blown away by the fact that she liked me and let me hold her. She's been sick and had to get the swine flu vaccination yesterday so she's been cranky, and on top of that, she hadn't taken her nap today, but she was a perfect little angel while I was there. I think her parents might ask me to babysit in the future, which would be cute. :) They live pretty close to me and have relatives in Paris (right near my host family!) and in Chamonix so I am all about strengthening this relationship! Even better, they're actually my age! They don't seem it since they're married and have this little adorable little person and are working and have "real" lives, but maybe they're my in to French people my age... :)

Now two scary things to wish me luck on:

1) My PowerPoint holiday presentations tomorrow morning.

2) My brutal doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon to make sure I don't have TB and can legally stay in France--conducted all in French and with me completely bare on top for the majority of the visit...

And one SUPER important thing to share that I discovered this week:

1) For some reason, even the worst behaved kids in my most awful classes will sit down and shut up for long periods of time when I give them word searches. I have finally found my secret weapon...