Sara va parisienne

Les vacances

2008-03-16T15:04:00.011-06:00

D and I just returned from a trip to Morocco and Spain, and here's what how it went. This, without a doubt, will become extremely verbose, so I may have to break this into a several posts. Be patient. And enjoy the photos.

Day One: We woke up at 4a to catch two nightbusses in Paris to get to Porte Maillot to catch the 5:45a bus that would take us to Paris Beauvais airport. The airport is a very small one, about an hour and a half northwest of actual Paris. From there we had our Ryanair flight to Barcelona, and then another Ryanair to Fes, Morocco. After about 12 hours of travelling, we finally reached the tiny Fes Siad Airport around 2p Moroccan time. The airport was soooo small - I should have taken a picture but we didn't, so just imagine a building about the size of an average DMV office. One door for entering passengers, and one more for leaving. A passport control was set up to welcome travellers, and for the first time ever, my passport was scrutinized and my information was entered into a computer. Leave it to the least developed country I've ever visited to hold the most developed passport control. Anyhow, they stamped a Morocco entry stamp along with a long number onto my passport and sent us on our way.

After changing our money to a wonderfully low exchange rate of 11 dirhams to a euro, we stepped outside into the sun and immediately were accosted by a taxi driver. I expected the hounding, but was pleasantly surprised when, after we refused his offer, he left us alone really quickly. Instead, we took a city bus through the outskirts of Fes to downtown. I'm sure the countryside of Morocco probably resembles the countryside in Mexico, but having never travelled to anywhere but Europe and Canada, this was my first real foray into a much poorer region. The roads and architecture were almost exactly as I expected (thanks to my addiction to the Amazing Race) - the bus stops and little homes were very dilapidated, and lots of people were roaming around, seemingly, randomly.

Inside the actual city is much more modern of course, but still overwhelming as the majority of signs are in Arabic only, and depending on where you stand, people were always trying to sell you something. As soon as we stepped off the bus, a few men tried to pick the tourists (a very easy task) and offer their guide services to the hotels, but we decided to follow a British group that happened to be going to our same hotel. They picked up a gregarious young Moroccan kid who showed them the way for free. (The picture below is when a baker on the side of the street pulled me down to see the underground oven. He completely set up this photo op, yelling "tiens!" *hold!* The smile on my face is hiding the fact that I just about burnt off my fingertips from holding the bread for a second...it was HOT!)

Some people think tourists stand out in France, but I have to say you ain't seen nothin' if you haven't experienced a place like Morocco. Even if we knew the city backwards and forwards and could play ourselves off like we owned the place, there was NO hiding. Anybody with fairer skin was immediately regarded as different, and in most cases, obviously not Moroccan. It was warmer during our stay - probably around 75 degreees Fahrenheit - but I kept on a jacket everytime we were out, just in case we happened to go someplace a bit more traditional. Morocco, in general, is actually a fairly secular and Western-y country for a developing Muslim nation, so I never felt too scandalous, but I figured I wanted to try to limit the attention. However, as a young white woman in more Western clothing, in a country where probably 80% of people outside are men, we could tell I was constantly being stared at. I never really felt unsafe, but I was glad to have D with me - though I did consider a few times that maybe we should have worn some faux wedding rings or something to further avoid scandal. Still, it didn't matter I don't think. Most Moroccans we came in contact with were extremely welcoming and kind. (To the right is a zealous kid who jumped into our picture of a gate to a mosque in the medina.)

After we reached our hotel, we kind of collapsed in mental exhaustion. I don't think I've ever had culture shock the way I got it from my first few hours in Morocco. An hour or so later, we gathered the courage to venture out again and check out the train station, which was BEAUTIFUL. Then we walked around the 'ville nouvelle' looking for a place to eat dinner. We found a few markets to buy cheaper lunch items, which also was a bit of a shock to me, b/c they all basically resembled small garages. The floor was cement, and the shelving was your basic wood shelving. Prices were posted, handwritten on small index card type of paper. We walked up and down a main road outside our hotel, and I have to admit, were a bit intimidated by a. the lack of people eating and b. the amount of men drinking in sidewalk cafes, staring out at the roads (a la the French style) at us walking. The intimidation won out and we decided to minimize the shock by eating at the hotel restaurant.

The restaurant itself turned out to be a bit of a shock too, mostly because we hadn't realized later that our phones had not adjusted to the time change and we couldn't figure out why no one was eating at what we thought was 8p. We waited a bit til people arrived, and then tried a bit of Moroccan cuisine, albeit at the hotel. D had the chicken tagine (ew) and I tried some lamb (pretty good). I was still a bit overwhelmed b/c the dining room was full of ONLY men, but then another couple came in, so at least I had another female partner in crime. I know I sound a bit...closed minded?...when I talk about being so surrounded by men, but it really was a strange feeling. You should try it.

Morocco's national language is Arabic, however they also speak French, so I was able to somewhat communicate with them in French. The man who served us dinner though heard our accent and asked where we came from - we told him honestly that we were Americans, and he grinned and said "Big welcome." I thought it was nice. But after that, from some advice we had received before we left, we decided to become Canadian, and told everyone we were from Vancouver. :-)

Day Two: We woke up somewhat early and asked the front desk where we could find the Tourist Office. We wanted to visit the old medina - we had heard that it's impossible to navigate by ourselves and that you definitely want an 'official guide.' The front desk responded that it was "just straight down this road, ten minutes" so we figured it would be easy enough to find. Fifteen minutes later, we had no clue where we were. I asked a few taxis to take us; one didn't know what I was talking about, the next said it was only a few minutes by foot and we didn't need a taxi. So we set off again, but fifteen minutes later, we had no clue where we were again. Finally we found this street, Avenue Hassan, which was beautiful, but still not what we were looking for. We did see a group of four white guys, so we followed them to the medina.

At the entrance, there was a beautiful palace, in front of which we saw a threesome of French guys with a very friendly Moroccan 'guide.' We decided we wanted a guide like him, and again asked the taxis to take us to the tourist office. Again, no one knew what I was talking about. So, defeated, we kept on to the entrance of the small streets of the old medina. Here, as we stand out horrendously, a young guy asked us if we wanted an 'official guide.' Again, we felt incredibly defeated, and even though we knew the chances of this guy's guide being 'official' were as likely as us winning the lottery, we conceded.

Our guide was a young guy, maybe 25 or 26, and navigated the confusing streets very well. I don't really have any idea what we were looking at half the time, but it still was amazing to be deep inside the walls of the medina and walking through streets like this. At first, we followed him rather carefully, and I think both of us were keeping one eye on him and another on the nearest escape route at any given moment. We had a bit of a scare when he took us to this plaza, and still walking a few feet ahead of us, veered off the right and started to walk back the way we had come. He called to us that he "would meet up with us," which was confusing as we had no idea where we were supposed to continue walking. This is a moment where the movies and the scenes I saw in Bourne Ultimatum started making my imagination run wild, though the back of my mind was trying to comprehend why a Moroccan guy would want to hurt two innocent Canadians! What did we ever do to anyone except create a silly sport like hockey eh?!?! Anyway, jokes aside, it was a little nerveracking, and we did consider literally running the heck out of there. He returned about 5 minutes later, with some vague excuse about searching for a taxi, and we decided to trust him, though now I'd say we were definitely ready at any moment for a frantic escape.

He took us into a casbah, where he seemed to know everyone. Then we grabbed a taxi to a pottery place outside of the medina, which was amazing because we saw them working and carefully sculpting and hammering out mosaics for all their pottery items. At the shop, we faced the least amount of sales pressure we would face (though we didn't know it at the time), and I bought a few pieces. After that we returned to the medina and saw a traditional Moroccan house.

We then were transferred to an older Moroccan man who took us to see the tanneries (see next picture below), where they dye and fabricate leather products. The smell of the place was a bit much, but again it was cool to see so much done by hand. On the terrace overlooking the workers, a shopowner came to us and answered a few questions, then asked if we'd like to look in his shop. We told him, sure we'll look.

BIG MISTAKE! Once there, he began inundating us with prices and leather qualities of his handicrafts. We repeatedly told him we didn't want to buy anything, and he responded by showing us a different type of product. He finally berated us enough that we considered buying a pair of leather slippers ("they last 100,000 kilometers, no problem!") When we tried to explain that we didn't have the money, he offered to come to our hotel. When we didn't give him the name of our hotel, he started becoming irate, telling us that we're bad people to be travelling in Morocco and not supporting the workers. He told us he didn't want our money ("it's no good to me") and that he wanted us to buy a product. As stubborn as I am, I was not going to be guilted into buying something from this guy. I told Devon that we should just go, and the shopowner frantically yelled at Devon to stay ("Because she says go, you go?!?!") This only infuriated me more, and I turned to leave. The shopowner followed us out, mumbling intentionally audibly that he wanted his business card back and that he was going to save it for "the French who will buy things with their money." Then, of course, as we were on our way out, a random big Moroccan guy came out of nowhere and told us we needed to pay since we took pictures. (If this had been the US I so could have sued for false advertising!!!) So we gave them some money (about 40 dirhams, or a little less than 4€, which now I think was a grossly over-pay, but I just wanted to leave then.)

This incident really shook us up because until then we hadn't felt all that intimidated, even by our sketchy tour guide. We told our guide that we were done, but of course, we had no idea where we were, so we were taken to two more shops - a silk one and a rug one. I bought silk, from a pressuring but pleasant owner who let me bargain the price, and then we were even able to walk out of the rug shop without buying anything (though, they did try to persuade us into making a purchase, but let us go peacefully, even wishing us a "big welcome.") My faith was restored in the pushy but welcoming Moroccans, although I definitely stayed on a resilient lookout for more overwhelmingly unpleasant shopowners.

After getting swindled out of more money because our tour guide "didn't have" the change, we took a taxi back to the ville nouvelle and collapsed in our hotel room from mental exhaustion. I believe this was the night where we gladly welcomed the TV in our room, and watched both Paycheck and 28 Days. We had also discovered a pizzeria and bought a couple of cheap pizzas from another pleasantly helpful Moroccan, and found a little market with Coke and Sprite, and bought those from YET ANOTHER pleasantly nice Moroccan. I know this is probably extremely "American" of us to do, but our day was intense and we needed a break.

As do I now. And I'm only on Day 2. Lordy. More later.

Just missed!

2008-02-21T14:37:00.002-07:00

Last night around 12:30a I received a text message from an English teacher telling me that she was having a test in her class and that I didn't need to come in. Since on Thursday I only have that class at 10:30 and another one at 2, I was very happy to sleep in. However, it's not fun knowing that I then have to commute for 3 1/2 hours just to work for one. But I'll take it.

When D and I first got to Paris, we had that whole runaround when we missed our Chicago-Paris flight by minutes. I think that was an omen as I continuously seem to miss my transportation by a matter of minutes.

Today, on my afternoon of one hour of work, was no exception. At the end of my one class, the girls stayed around just to finish up our conversation, and being the nice person you all know me to be, I complied. Then, knowing the bus came at 3:04 to take me to the train station and it was 3:01, I tried to power walk my way through the crowded halls. Not an easy task in any high school, but made even the more difficult while trying to dodge the bisous and the 'bahhh oui's'from every direction. I made it to the street with the bus stop at 3:05, just in time to see the bus pulling out from the stop. So, so much for that. I'll walk.

I reached the train station at 3:20, and saw my train on the middle platform, due for a 3:21 departure. I ran down the stairs, under the platform, and made my way about halfway up the other stairs when I heard the door alarm sound and the train departing. So, so much for that.

I went back inside the station as there were no screens on the platform displaying subsequent train times. To see the right screens, I had to leave through the little turnstile. Once out, I saw that the next RER to Paris was "supprimé"d. So, in actuality, the next train to Paris was a good 27 minutes wait. And, I had to wait in the station another 10 minutes as my transport pass had been "déjà validé" and I couldn't get back through the doors of death.

Sidenote: On the train to Paris, we stopped on the tracks at a station for 11 minutes due to an unspecified "incident technique."

Once I got to my metro stop in Paris, I discovered that I had just missed the 13 and now had to wait 8 minutes for the next. While this is a rather long waiting period for rush hour on an already overcrowded metro line, of course when the train actually arrived we were stuffed in there like cattle.

Then, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and my total came to 12,33. If you've ever used the euro currency, you probably try as much as I do to lessen the amount of coins you carry by paying with exact change. Guess how much I had. Just guess.

20,32.

This one hour of work ended up costing me 4 1/2 hours of nerve wracking train commuting and a heavy pocket full of euro change. Those four girls in my one class better have learned something from me!

Le Bureau

2008-02-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

I came across some clips of Le Bureau, which is the French version of The Office. I thought I'd share one clip with you, as it is just so.....French. Here is the original (yes, the British, not American):

As you may or may not know, the American version recreated this scene almost verbatim. So did the French, only they decided against jello and instead used a different food item. I'm sorry I don't have a translation or subtitles for the clip, but all you really need to know is that the dialogue is seriously almost the same.

FROMAGE!! (cheese!) So French.

Voyage à la région haute normandie

2008-01-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, D and I day-tripped a few hours west of Paris. First stop was Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake here:
Behind this was a really cool Japanese-looking church, of which I didn't get a good enough picture to post. But it was really cool, because usually all the churches in western Europe look the exact same. We also checked out a small Joan of Arc museum, located in a cold dungeon close to the site she was burnt. Of course, the little musée was completely outfitted with numerous scenes of the requisite eerie wax figures used throughout the entirety of European museum life. So I hurried through there, and am still unclear about the whole story of Joan of Arc. Oh well.

We also found a little playground secluded by huge green trees next to the Musée des Beaux Arts, so of course I had to stop off there. I left my backpack on the bench and was up checking out the playground, and saw another guy come into the area, so, completely oblivious to the implications, just commented nonchalantly to D that someone else was there. D silently turned and walked straight the bench where I had left my backpack, and curious as to why he was such a poor sport and had left me enjoying the playground by myself, I followed him. It was then that D explained that the guy was holding a beer and was walking toward my bag, then stopped when D reached it first and walked away. It was also then that I realized what an idiot I was. This was the first time I've ever had a little theft scare in the whole of my travels. Hopefully I won't be that oblivious again, and luckily D had the great sense to keep an eye on my bag, or I would have been out my apartment keys, my Navigo, both of our passports, and the kicker, our lunch for the day!

We wandered around the city in the frigid fog for a few hours, then caught a train another hour west to Le Havre. We found another cool church - this modern church was basically a hollowed out tower, probably forty stories high, and the entire walls were covered in stained glass. It was really beautiful, but of course my camera allowed me no decent pictures to post. After that, we walked down to the coast, as this was the main reason for our excursion:
La plage, of course! Nevermind the awkward plethora of odd-shaped rocks and the mid 40's temperatures, it was so refreshing to get to the edge of the country and listen to the waves. In case you desire an image of the sunset without my silly face obstructing, here's another shot:

Oops.

2008-01-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

So I disappeared off the face of the blog-planet for over a month. Apologies.

Since my last post, I went to Disneyland Paris, went to Strasbourg, and discovered Parisian Christmas. I also helped a good friend (yes, I do occasionally stray from my solitary life with D) to scurry around Paris and do everything she wanted to do all at once before she quit France and returned for good to Boston. The talk of December for R was a Parisian discotheque with our Italian and Indian friends. After braving the freezing cold and then climbing five flights of stairs to meet at R's apt before, I don't think it can surprise anyone that all four of us sheepishly admitted that the allure of cookies and wine in a Parisian apartment instead of flashing lights, awkward dancing, and a 20€ cover charge was too much to stand.

So the discotheque never happened. I did have my lost-Sara moment that evening though, as N and I took the same night bus to place de la concorde, at which point I was supposed to connect to a different one. I couldn't find it though, and ended up walking along the Champs Elysees at 3:30 am desperately seeking a cab. It was actually really cool - still plenty of people around so as to feel safe, but comparatively deserted. The Eiffel Tower was completely dark save a red light at the top for the planes to see.

Returned home to Colorado for two weeks, still dislike United Airlines and am torn on my status about Air Canada. The first flight was great, the second - the flight attendants were rather rude. One accosted D as we were boarding, claiming that he absolutely HAD to show his boarding pass getting on the plane (I mean, literally stepping onto the plane), as this apparently is a new "pro-cess" developed during our four hour layover in Toronto. I have never once had to show my boarding pass on the plane, but I guess those Canadians are sticklers for fake "pro-cesses."

Also, the little screen on my seat was completely worthless - nothing would work. They kept restarting it, but eventually it was just annoying, so I didn't watch much. Later, when my on demand TV screen just completely froze, I called the flight attendants via the little button, and no one showed up for THIRTY MINUTES! Then, a flight attendant stops by and says "Can I get you to turn off that call button?" I told her that actually, I had pushed it for a reason, my screen was completely frozen and I was wondering if she could turn it of b/c I had asked another attendant and she hadn't done it, and the new woman responds, "First of all, you don't know that she didn't do it. Secondly, I've been very busy. We've been coming through with water." I told her, that, yes, someone had come by with water an hour earlier and that was the lady I had asked. She continued to argue, at which point I think I may have been affected by the hour of a frozen screen burned into my eyes and two (TWO) crying babies directly to our left in the aisle, so I asked the flight attendant why she was getting an attitude with me, all I wanted was for the screen to be turned off b/c it had been malfunctioning the entire time, and couldn't she please just turn it off? (I know you are all rolling your eyes, wondering if perhaps it was ME with the attitude, but I promise you, I was well-behaved up until this point.) She disappeared at that, and five minutes later a DIFFERENT f.a. showed up to try to turn the screen off herself. She looked surprised that, wow, I must have been right, b/c she couldn't turn the screen off either. Really. I must have been the talk of the plane. The same plane in which some drunk Greek guy kept bothering people before takeoff, and the same flight attendants had to deal with him. Priorities, people.

So anyway my trip home was pretty good and I'm glad it snowed, even if it may have caused some driving difficulties for some. I'm selfish that way I guess.

Also, I love my Navigo. Anybody who's ever used those little paper tickets in the Paris metro has to understand my love for this magnetic masterpiece. It's the small things in life....

Funny French kids

2007-11-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

Trying my best to stay positive while the French bureaucracy continuously runs my emotions into the ground, I'll give you some examples of cool French people who make me smile. (They exist.)

1. The other day I skipped lunch at school, trying to wait it out til I got home to save money. I got into gare du nord and saw the first Subway I've seen in Paris across the street - nope couldn't wait. So I went in, and following a British couple who blatantly spoke no French at all, ordered everything in French (except for cucumbers, which I didn't realize were concombres). Anyway, the worker understood me and everything, and I think she mostly was just happy to hear someone try to speak her language, so she said to me "vous parlez bien le francais." (you speak French well). This of course made me respond in sentences, which is not as easy for me to fake as simply as words like sandwich du jambon et dinde). But it was still nice to have someone compliment my attempt, let alone humor me.

2. Another day this week, I was on the metro during a rather crowded time, and a lady behind me tried to "pardon" her way out of the train at her stop. As I was in her way, I stepped out onto the platform to let her through, and she stared at me in amazement, like she was shocked to see someone do a considerate thing. She recovered, looked me straight in the eye, and said "merci!" Hmmm...maybe I'm the nice French person in this situation?

3. Today I was waiting for the bus outside my school and a girl came up to me asking if the 3010 had already gone by. Again, the sentences and I - it just doesn't work. I tried to spit out some explanation like "no it's coming in just a few minutes" but it didn't happen. The point of the story is there were five other French people around us and this girl took the time to deal with my slow comprehension and even slower response times instead of doing something much more French, which is staring incredously at you for a half second, then moving to the next person, not wanting to wait for you to figure anything out. I'm learning here in France that I really have to appreciate the small things in life.

4. The German assistant at my school, Tanja, is well aware of my debacle with the stupid bank and has been asking me all week how things were going. (Long story short, the bank took two months to "regularize" my account b/c I had to prove I lived in Paris, meaning I haven't been able to take any money out of my account, ie. pay rent. Finally we got the address thing settled and the banker says, ok should be good to go. Then last week he says they need my residency card, which I don't have yet, due to the runaround I faced for that and now the wait time for its issue. So I gave them the receipt proving I'm just waiting for one - which I know for a fact has been fine for other assistants at other BNP's but no, this bank has apparently decided not to deal with me anymore. The director actually told me "Comme vous avez le droit, nous avons le droit a choisir"- Just like you have the right, we have the right to choose. So I had to withdraw my cash and now I'm starting the process all over again.) SOOOO anyhow, Tanja knows of this, and today at school, she offered to come into Paris and go with me to find a bank as moral (and language) support. I realize Tanja is German and therefore shouldn't necessarily count as one of those nice French people, but I met her in France and we communicate in French, so that's that.

And 5. Today I completely went to the wrong room for my first class, didn't realize it, and started trying to unlock the door. It opened from the inside and - whoops, I interrupted an entire class. I didn't recognize any faces, but as soon as the teacher opened the door (who I also didn't recognize) I heard a chorus of (in English): "Hello!" "Hi Sara!" "Good morning!"

Not sure why so many of my posts are about the metro, but here's another.

2007-11-21T05:18:00.001-07:00

Today, I am so overwhelmed with frustration for France and its worthless runaround bureaucracy, and basically feel like the thing that's keeping me from calling it quits, jumping on a plane, and going back to Colorado to get a dog is this ridiculous cold/flu thing I have, that I think I'm going to skip filling you in on the angst I'm feeling right now and go straight for a funny story:

So the other day I was leisurely riding the metro (way before the silly strike, since then I'd say I just shove and push my way onto the metro and somehow sometimes I get where I want to go) to meet some friends downtown, and suddenly two guys jump on board and declare "nous avons une programme pour vous!" They have the essentials - one with a microphone and a speaker, and the other with a saxophone. And they began playing, very well in fact, this timeless classic:

I tried so hard to keep from laughing, but I couldn't help it. It was the funniest thing I'd seen in awhile, and for that, these guys were the first metro performers I gave money to.

Le métro

2007-11-08T16:17:00.000-07:00

So D and I had a little complaining session tonight. Both of us are just overwhelmed with the price of plane tickets, the plummeting dollar value, the amount of cat puke at N's, and the lack of organization at my school, and the French. We were feeling pretty down and out about living in Paris. I left N's apartment (where D has to say to care for aforementioned puking kitties) at 11:30. Suddenly, my feelings for Paris were completely changed.

I made it to the métro station right when the train was there. I heard it as I was trying to push my way through the turnstile and figured my luck was not good today and I probably would miss it by seconds. So I didn't really hurry down the stairs. But as I reached the third to last stair, I heard the buzzing sound that announces the doors are about to close so I picked up my pace. I jumped onto the platform just as the train doors closed - but only halfway. (The métro doors here shut about halfway and then all the way, all of this in matter of a second or two, so when the doors start to close I usually don't risk my life.) But this night, the doors stayed open halfway for a good three seconds. So I jumped in and right after I was through, the doors shut the whole way. Ok so this turned into a real deep explanation of the door closing process which I'm sure isn't the most interesting read, but I was amazed - I really think the train driver saw me and kept the doors open for me. They have mirrors that reflect the whole platform. Then two stops later, almost the same thing happened for another guy. But every other station, the doors closed much faster. So, my deduction is that this was the perfect time for a Frenchman (or woman) to be nice. Whoever it was completely restored my faith in France and the Parisians.

After that, on my way home, I passed an ultra busy bar playing some Spanish music, which typically puts me in a good mood, and then I looked down the hill over a clear sky and saw Paris lit up in all its "city of lights" glory.

For me, alot of the time Paris can be too much, with its size and smells and amount of French people, but some times it's very easy to remember why Paris is such a great city to live in.

Plus de greves?!

2007-11-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

American TV is striking? What is this - France???

Chocolat chaud avec une francaise

2007-11-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Today I took a big step in possibly furthering my miniscule knowledge of this stupid language. I met a language exchange partner. She just got back a few months ago from living in Seattle for two years. So she speaks English pretty well but is still really patient when I try to speak French. So that's good I think.

The end of the Toussaints break is Wednesday and sadly I didn't really do anything special the whole time. I did make myself a lot more social though so that's a plus. I went to an assistant's "flat party"on Friday, which was bizarre. When I first got there, it was just a few friends I knew (very chic friends, the type who dress nice and speak French really well and eat fancy food) and then a French guy, an Italian girl, and an Indian girl, all of whom spoke at least two languages fluently which in my mind automatically makes them ten times more sophisticated than me. I was feeling very out of place with this small group of 6 or 7 fancy people until pockets of 3 or 4 American/Canadian/British assistants started showing up, most of them with two or three bottles of wine in tow, and suddenly this gathering went from sophisticated dinner gathering to full fledged Erasmus style wine induced party. It was pretty overwhelming. But not as overwhelming as when all 30 of us made our way to the metro to go to a bar downtown. Luckily I instantly made a friend when this girl announced she wanted to go to a bar near Pigalle (ie. near me!) so I went with her and a few others. This girl turned out to be from Tucson, a graduate of Colorado College, and a friend of a friend of mine from CU. So, small world. But you all should be proud of me because I made an attempt to be social and it sort of worked, as I came out of it with a handful of new friends. And one more funny story - this girl Ernestine was visting my friend Becca and so she had plenty of American money on her and the Italian girl noticed this and was purely amazed to be seeing an American dollar. Ernestine gave her a dollar (since it's hardly worth anything anyway here, especially) and the French guy, the Indian girl, and the Italian girl exclaimed over it for about 10 minutes, gawking at how much it reminded them of Monopoly money. Which makes no sense, b/c Monopoly money is multicolored, and so is the euro, not the dollar. So, foreigners are kinda dumb. :-)

Also, Devon and I went to a tennis tournament on Wednesday and got to see him really close:

Sadly my camera is relatively worthless in this age of digital greatness so poor Marcos Baghdatis is very blurry. We also got to see my other favorite, Novak Djokovic, and then a handful of other cool people like Roger Federer, James Blake, and Rafa Nadal. We sat in on a doubles match and after that match they brought on some players to practice. We were almost out the door when I saw on the other side of the court a yellow racket - Rafa! So that was cool since we actually missed his match.

Anyhow what else. Ate lamb last night at a friend's house. It was really good. And her apartment is pretty cool b/c it's right off the Boulevard de Grandes Armées (c'est à dire, in between the Grande Arche and the Arc de Triomphe.) So it was a pretty cool walk at night with both arches lit up. And I really miss my cat. Not to be the crazy cat lady but I found this video on my computer and I think it's really funny and I'm also very proud of the fact I've discovered how to post things in my blog. So here is my cat watching herself on video. (At the bottom of the tv screen you'll see two little cat ears.) That's all for now.

phenoneme tecktonik

2007-10-29T11:47:00.000-06:00

So a few posts ago I mentioned how the first class I talked to, a full class, three boys jumped up and demonstrated a very popular French club dance for me. Click on the youtube link to fully enjoy it. Plus, you get lots of views of Paris landmarks.

Carmelo comes to France

2007-10-25T13:04:00.000-06:00

Warning: This is long. Very long. Entertaining, but you might want a snack for intermission. Also, I am aware of the run on sentences I have created.

My school has nine English teachers, and no one can decide when I should be helping them. Today I went back to school after a week off thanks to the French greve (that, ps, is still affecting some trains – since last Thursday!) I had classes (as far as I knew, because my schedule seems to change by the minute) at 1030, 1130, 2, and 3. So I had made the hour and fifteen minute commute to Taverny this morning armed with silly Halloween-themed activities for the day. It was the most prepared I’ve been for anything since I arrived in France.

As soon as I entered the school, I ran into M. Herpin (the teacher with who I’d emailed before leaving Colorado and whose first name is Dominique and who I, up until the day I met him, had assumed falsely was a woman). M. Herpin told me that he will not be here Friday and thus I won’t have to work those hours. So far so good – I am prepared for today and informed for the future.

Then at approximately 10:28, Mme Burnside (whose class is at 10:30) tells me that her students are finishing a film and thus will not need me. Fine by me. I slapped through some emails and then waited for the teacher of the 11:30 class (Mme. Pallin) to tell me what was going on for today. No sign of her at 11:35, I made my way to the assistant’s room anyhow to learn that students were there waiting for me, having been told their teacher was gone today but they were to still meet with me. So fine, I don’t need a teacher to hold my hand obviously but since my schedule changes so much I do like to confirm the hours I’m supposed to be working.

Anyhow, that hour went fine and then I broke to the teacher’s lounge to rest for lunch. I still haven’t figured out how or where to buy meal tickets so I don’t eat unless invited by colleagues – which usually happens but not today. I was to wait from 12:30 til 2 for my next class. D called at 1 to frantically tell me that he was locked inside my apartment. I had locked it from the outside while he was still inside and apparently France is so safe because it allows for the criminals to be locked INSIDE the apt – yeah I don’t know either. In horribly broken French (il est ferme dans l’appartement!) I called the landlord who said I have the only keys and maybe if D has a key he can throw it to someone outside on the ground. I was just about to get my courage up to ask my teachers if I could leave early to help him out, when he called me and said that he had found some English tourists who were willing to help a strange guy locked inside an apartment leaning out a third floor window and open the door for him. Problem solved. Humorously.

At 1:45 I ran downstairs at school to make some more copies for my class and on my way back was stopped by a Spanish teacher (who speaks better English than most of the English teachers do but apparently doesn’t “feel qualified” to teach the language) and she tells me she sent her Spanish assistant home because the language teachers all have an orientation of sorts in the afternoon. I corner M. Herpin, whose class I was to have at 3 (and who, I may remind you, had ample opportunity in the morning when he told me I wasn’t needed Friday for his class that I also wasn’t needed for this afternoon) who informed me that, why no, I wasn’t needed for the afternoon. I was “free to go!” He was sitting with about six other English teachers (4 of whom I knew, 2 of whom I still hadn’t met) and this exchange led them to all shout at the same time the days and hours in which they would need me, and also to lecture me about the importance of speaking French so I can learn. I might add here that many times I do pass English teachers in the hallways and I always say “bonjour” and nine of ten times they respond with “hi” and then continue in English. So then there’s some halfhearted joking about how disorganized the English teachers are, and a new acquaintance by the name of Mme. Northram (who reeks horribly of cigarette smoke, and thus was also very difficult to talk with for the sake of my own respiratory system) says “Oh, let’s give you our email addresses so if there’s a problem you can let us know. Because, you know, we do count on you to be here and we plan your days into our lessons and so if you’re not here….”

I kind of stopped listening because I was thinking, ‘Is this some sort of passive aggressive attack on my absences during the greve?’

I responded with “Yeah I wanted to ask you all for them because of what happened last week with the greve – I called the secretary and she said she’d tell you I’d be out – Did she tell you?”

Mme. Northram shook her head, so, yes, it was some sort of passive aggressive attack on my absences during the greve.

So whatever, all that is cleared up, and another English teacher I can’t seem to remember asks me where my housing is. I tell her, everybody breathes in deeply, one says “oh that’s an expensive area,” and suddenly I have 7 French faces staring at me judging me and 7 French accents asking “how much? How much?” repeating it over and over like those dodos in Ice Age.

There’s an English teacher, Mme Pausz, who I originally thought was the nicest little thing. She met me and immediately began introducing me to people, offering me her phone number, saying she’d invite me over for dinner and showing me around Taverny. But the more I get to know her the less I believe she’s genuine. There was the other day, when she argued with me because I said I didn’t like a cartoon they had given me to discuss with the students. This cartoon is a teacher who says “What does the USA stand for?” and the students who respond “Unlimited semi automatics.” Of any American stereotype, this one bothers me the most. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I can fit most of the American stereotypes – only fluent in one language, lazy, like to eat big greasy meals, can be demanding. But I don’t fit this one, and I don’t like that, to foreigners (or at least the French) guns seem to be an integral part of understanding American culture. I know a lot of Americans have guns, and yes I know we’re one of the, if not the, most heavily armed countries in the world. So anyhow I’m trying to explain this to Mme Pausz, who exclaims “But it’s true!” (Which by the way is why I hate stereotypes – people don’t seem to see the difference between a stereotype and a truth). She went on to say, “Have you been to Virginia? No? I’ve been to Virginia. We stayed with people who had guns and they said they had them in case those n*ggers came around.”

Um ok a. France is probably 3 times more racist than the US and b. yes there are pockets of Americans who are racist and who do arm themselves in case a race of the wrong color shows up on their doorstep. Still, I just do not like the stereotype, I do not like guns, and I don’t own, nor do I know of anyone who owns, a gun. (Although since this post, my crusader for the truth -D- has listed a number of people I know who do in fact have guns - but the point is, I don.) I think another reason I’m aggravated by this stereotype is people seem to love Bowling for Columbine here, and referencing to it as one of the reasons why they think it’s *true* that all Americans have guns. (Case in point: Mme Pausz, in middle of our argument, said “Did you see what Michael Moore did? Did you see that movie?”) Yes, I did see that movie, and I saw that it made my hometown look like a place where a n*gger-hating redneck would live, toting rifles around to shoot up the next high school.

Anyway off that subject. Pausz was also the one who corrected me in front of her class, saying I should enunciate the two t’s in “better.”

SO, back to the original story, which was the English teachers hounding me to know my financial situation. Pausz had already hounded me last week, and I had already quaked under the pressure, and therefore she already knew what I was paying and apparently had already judged me because she remembered this conversation and therefore she answered their question for me.

Okay, now here’s where most of my rage in this post stems from. Here’s why:

A. These teachers don’t know anything about me. They don’t know my financial situation. Do they know that I saved up quite a bit of money the last year and a half by working full time and before that by working 60 hours a week the summer after college graduation? Do they realize I’m only here seven months and even 100€ a month makes a world of a difference of living standards here in Paris and really if it’s only for seven months why not? Do they know I have budgeted ways for me to handle the rent and still return home with a good chunk of change? Do they know I have parents who are incredibly supportive and are willing to help out when needed to assure I’m not living under le pont alexandre III? (Although there are worse bridges than alexandre to live under. Alexandre’s very nice, and actually I’d probably even have to pay rent there.)

B. Don’t they know I spent almost a full month searching, responding, visiting apartments in Paris? (Not to mention the few weeks before leaving Colorado I spent responding to ads.) Don’t they realize I felt lucky to even receive a simple response? I felt lucky even to hear the apartment had been rented! Don’t they know they each apartment (even the ones in the 300€/month range and basically are the size of my closet) elicited a list of 20, average, wannabe renters, many of whom are French and therefore are much more likely to be desired as a tenant?

C. Most importantly, why on earth is it any of their business? Are they paying me out of their own pocket? Am I stealing from them and giving to my housing fund?

Frankly I was very unhappy in my living situation in Strasbourg and this time around if I’m already spending several thousand on a 8 month exchange to France I might as well spend just a bit more and enjoy it, dammit. I have the money, I have the support, so why can’t I do what I’d like and why do I feel like I have to justify it to the teachers with whom my housing shouldn’t even be a concern in the first place. Now before you go thinking I have a mansion, I don’t. I have a nice apartment for a decent price. It’s expensive for my budget yes, but is doable. I love it, I love the neighborhood, and really, considering the endless search I was on just a matter of days ago, I feel incredibly lucky just to have found something.

That’s it for justifying my apartment. Maybe I should print out this post and hang it in the teacher’s room. Jerks.

Today in my one class I actually did teach, I had the kids read a story about Halloween, went over some of the vocab, and had them create an ending of their own. (Though I forgot how limited you can get in a different language, so the endings weren’t all that creative. Except one did make everyone laugh – “We saw a light walking down the hallway, so we left, because we had fear.”)

The kids enjoyed it all right, but really came alive at the end of the class when we had five minutes to spare. (Aside: these kids are amazing. A couple of times I’ve finished just a few minutes before the bell and I tell them they can go ahead and leave because all the teachers have said that’s okay to do, several times, in several down phrases so I’m sure they understand, but they still won’t leave until they hear the bell ring.) They barraged me as usual, with questions about TV shows. And by questions, I mean they just constantly yell out names of TV shows to see if I know any of them. Among them were Prison Break (of course), 24, Lost, Malcolm (which after a long discussion of them trying to explain what it is, they finally explained to me that it’s Malcolm in the middle), and Desperate Housewives. They all suffered from the usual shock they display when I say I don’t watch any of them. Then (this exact situation happened the other day too) the girl in the class spoke up and squeaked “Friends?!?!” and when I said “oh yeah, I love Friends!” she leaned back in her seat, completely validated, as if I had just confirmed my status as an American because I like “Friends.”

Anyway this one kid whose name I can’t remember was quiet most of the class, mostly I think because he was years behind the other kids’ English and couldn’t really understand everything, looked at me and asked, “Do you know the Denver Nuggets?” I might add here that I had not told them where I am from - only that I'm American.

I don’t think I can explain in words the level of astonishment I had for being asked this question. A kid in the back explained he loves the Denver Nuggets because of Carmelo Anthony. It made my day. So instead of leaving you on the indignant note of dealing with judgmental teachers, I’ll leave you with the discussion of the one Denverite who has an international footprint.

Greve'd

2007-10-18T06:10:00.000-06:00

I've been here almost a month. In response, the French are holding a greve. A strike. Busses, metros, trains, trams, oh and schools (yeah I don't know the correlation either) - no one wants to work. So I don't want to work either. Rather, I can't. I have to take, au minimum, three forms of transport to my school. I called the secretary today who speaks no English and the conversation went something like this:

"Bonjour, Lycee Jacques Prevert."
"Bonjour Madame. Je suis l'assistante d'angalis, et je ne peut pas venir au lycee aujourd'hui a cause du greve."
"Ah oui. Je vais vous marquer absente."
"Ok, merci."
Silence.
Secretary: "Allo?"
Phone cuts out. So just to be sure she knows I'm out and she'll tell my teachers, I call her back:

She says: "Ah oui j'ai compris!" And then follows that with a bunch of French gibberish. I had no idea what she was saying, so I asked to repeat herself. She says, "Oh, non, c'est bon, c'est bon, a demain."

Whatever. The point of the story is the greve-ing here in France is like a national pastime, leading to numerous French versions of snow days. A newspaper yesterday spent two full pages talking about what the French think about the greves, and then published a little blurb about what one can do to avoid the greve problems. They include:
1. Telecommute to work
2. Bicycle
3. Carpool
4. Sleep at a coworker's house that is closer to work
and 5. Enjoy the day! Do the things you've always meant to do!

So I'm doing the latter. I found a very quaint little square a few minutes from my apartment with free wireless. My neighborhood is profoundly quiet, due to the large numbers of tourists who can't get up here via the metro.

Speaking of my apartment, I have one! I love it. I will post pics as soon as I know how to post pics. The area I live in is great, exactly what I think of when I think of Paris. Except that I can't find a supermarche. Only little marches, that charge 5€ for a box of cereal. So, it's a pricey area.

The other day in one of my classes, a kid raised his hand and said *imagine thick French accent* "My favorite actor is Matt Damon. And Wesley Snipes. And Denzel Washington. And Arnold Schwarzenegger." I loved that.

The first day I "taught," a few teachers took me to their classes and put me on display like an American monkey. One literally said, "This is Sara, she's American, ask her questions." Three different classes asked me about "Prison Break" and before I could even say anything, the kids all broke into numerous giddy side conversations about how much they love Prison Break. Another class exclaimed over the differences in the accents between the Simpsons and the French-dubbed "Les Simpsons." At the end of this conversation, they erupted into the "spiderpig" song from the movie - in French. And in another class, three boys demonstrated for me the phenomenon tectonique, which is apparently very popular here in France and seems to be a mix of krumping and the dances the crazy people do with lights at raves. I also was lectured about saying the word "better" without enunciating the 't' sound - because that's how the British do it.

Awkward

2007-10-11T05:36:00.000-06:00

There are two things in the French language that repeatedly leave me tongue-tied.

-The question: Tu viens d'ou? (Where are you from?) When they say it quickly, it always throws me off, and my general response is a blank look. No matter how many times I've heard that question (which is quite a few), I cannot register it quick enough without looking pretty dumb.

-The response: Merci. Of all things in a language, I should be able to respond to a simple "thank you." But I can't. I have responses in the back of my head (je vous emprui, pas de probleme, di rien) but I can never act quick enough to say them. In English, if someone thanks me for saying, I usually say "sure" or "yep." So I suppose I could respond with oui here but I just don't. Instead, it comes out more like a gutteral grunt, or even a "meh."

Pas d'appartement

2007-10-08T06:45:00.000-06:00

So I almost had an apartment today. I saw it Saturday. It was through an agency (bad) but very close to everything and it was cute enough. The guy told me how much I would have to pay and said come back Monday. I asked him if I needed money, he said not yet. I came back Monday. Suddenly, I was thrown a one year lease, 300€ extra he didn't tell me about, a move in date a week later than what was agreed on, and I had to put 4500€ in the bank and not touch it for the next year. I told them I was not informed of the 300€ and I was worried about what other charges they'd tack on, one lady argued for me, the rest argued against, and then I stared straight into four French faces, all with that stupid French expression, you know the one, the I'm-trying-to-look-like-I-care-but-I-really-don't-and-what-I-really-want-is-
another-vacation-and-frankly-I-don't-care-if-I-help-you-
or-not-because-our-country-unlike-your-stupid-country-
does-not-base-itself-on-customer-service look. They said I had to put down 930€ today (remember this part of the story: "I asked him if I needed money, he said not yet.") to hold the apartment until I could get enough money transferred over and if I changed my mind, they would keep the cash. To which I said, "Fine I'll go withdraw the money and come back," left the office, and didn't go back. I researched two other agency options, then heard that another apartment I looked at on Saturday was still available. Thus, provided everything this time goes smoothly, I will sharing an apartment down by Jardin de Luxembourg in the 6th. Far away from everything, but at this point I don't care. It's not through an agency, and it has a washer/dryer. (This is very exciting to me.) It's technically a one bedroom so we'll have to be creative building a second bedroom, but there's more than enough room to accomplish this. What I've learned though from my few weeks in France is that you should never count on anything. So I will wait til I get concrete evidence that I have an apartment (which in France still doesn't mean much.)

In other news, I washed my carte d'orange (metro pass). In the washing machine. So that's fun. I went around Saturday asking if anyone would replace it. I was repeatedly told it was impossible, though I really fail to understand how it's impossible to give me another coupon when I have the coupon and the receipt to prove I'm not making it up. They told me that I have to go to the ticket counter everytime I go through the metro and ask them to let me through. Til November. Um....no, thank you.

In other other news, I was supposed to start teaching tomorrow but the academie scheduled my medical exam for my carte de sejour at 1:30. So I called the school and said I'm supposed to teach 10:30 til 4 tomorrow but my medical exam is at 1:30, and the lady responded, "Ok so you cannot work tomorrow, I will tell the English teachers." Simple as pie here, calling in sick. (Though, yes, it wasn't really 'calling in sick' b/c I have to go to this exam.)

Anyway I don't know. France stands for frustrating. But in my numerous confrontations with French people I can already feel myself picking up the language faster than I did the whole time in Strasbourg. And apparently I carry myself so well that people think I know everything. Just during this last week I was asked:
1. if I knew where the sugar was at the market
2. if I knew anything about white wine and if I could help pick a good kind out
3. if I knew the neighborhood very well
4. which direction is Barbes Rochechouart...or however you spell it.

And with the exception of the last question, when I responded "non je ne sais pas, desolee," I was met with equally sour looks of disappointment slash anger.

This post is probably not making people jump off their couches to come to France, I realize. But maybe in a few months I will have more posts that will.

Les choses amusants

2007-10-07T12:06:00.000-06:00

Two funny things I've seen in Paris and its surroundings:

1. A full grown businessman in suit and tie with briefcase riding a bicycle from the velib program - a rented bike with a basket and a little rented helmet complete with flashing lights atop the head.

2. One side of a building with a sign that read: "association regarde." The other side of the building, being too small, had the same sign, only couldn't fit the whole phrase, so read: "ass. regarde."

Triste

2007-10-03T12:45:00.001-06:00

I'm feeling very not happy right now. Not angry though. I guess I would call it, disappointed. This apartment hunt has been much more than I anticipated, and really the thing that's most pushing my buttons is how unresponsive even the agencies are. On top of that, building friendships in this city is hard. It seems that assistants in smaller towns/academies bond quickly - but in Paris, it's so massive that it's hard to get yourself thrown into a situation where we can easily be together. If that makes sense. So I guess why I'm feeling this way is one big mixture of disappointment with having no home, confusion with what's to come, loneliness from not having a little group of friends to swap stories with, and most of all hunger yet boredom with eating the same meals over and over again b/c D's kitchen is basically a sink and a burner. There's no oven or microwave with which to cook anything. We have discovered some meals we're capable of with only a burner, but frankly it doesn't seem like much fun to be simultaneously cooking and stepping over all my crap that has yet to be taken out of a suitcase......

Sigh. All of this just makes me want to crawl into bed and watch bad TV.

The Colorado Rockies made it into the playoffs. First time since 1995. And the Avs missed the playoffs earlier this year - first time since they came to Colorado in 1996. Strange things are a-happenin'.

Lycee Jacques Prevert

2007-10-01T10:17:00.000-06:00

Come with me and imagine, if you will, walking down a street in suburban France, thirty minutes north of Paris. As you approach what looks to be a school, you notice a large basketball court to your left and a few kids leaning against the fences. Past them is a wall completely covered in various forms of graffiti. A sign ahead notes that a visitor's entrance is the second gate so you past the first one, a very solid white gate seemingly preventing anyone from ever leaving. Next is the visitor's gate, surrounded by several loitering French high schoolers, all dressed in thug-type clothing a la 1995, smoking cigarettes, and chatting furiously before classes resume. Oh and imagine being in inner city Philadelphia b/c that's what it felt like. Now quit imagining yourself and imagine me and my infinite American suburban wisdom trying to weasel past ethnicities of all types and voluntarily past the gigantic gate closing all from humanity, simultaneously attempting unsuccessfully to ignore the graffiti to my left and the probable dozens of eyes staring curiously at the back of my head. I present to you, my very own "Dangerous Minds" experience.

Ok this might be an exaggeration (but really, only a very slight one). I went to my school today to see what in the heck I was to be doing. I was completely out of my element. As soon as I said I was an assistante, I was thrown to the no-English-speaking-not-even-hello secretary. Which was fine except that even as I repeatedly reminded her my French was very bad, she kept speaking at the speed of sound. Though most of it was her constantly berating me for having no apartment yet, it was overwhelming. And the hardest part to swallow was that I spent a good 20 minutes in her office, staring at her running at the mouth in the last ditch effort to understand what she was saying and formulating sentences and then spitting them out in horrible American fashion - but we got by. Papers were signed, the lack of apartment was discussed (to no end), and I was informed of what else I need to bring her before I can get paid. And yet, when she took me to who I like to call 'god', she proceeded to berate me even more.

God said: "Elle a bien compris le francais?" (She understood French?)
Angry secretary: "Pas du tout! Je repete et je repete..." (Not at all! I repeat and I repeat...)

Sigh. Luckily I did prove to god that I do speak a few words of French (frankly, much better than god herself speaks English) to which god replied "Ah, tu comprends francais." Validated.

On to god. Before meeting her, angry secretary took me up to the teacher's lounge to find an English speaker. English speakers be many at this school. But most of them expressed shock at the lack of apartment and relayed this to angry secretary who then reititerated that she too was shocked I have no apartment. I mean, really. Happily, the English teachers all seem very nice, which makes it seem alright to overlook they're blatant lack of organization skills.

Anyhow, like I said, on to god. Why do I call her this? In the midst of these English teachers, one after the other kept saying "Oh you need to see Madame Autefeuil" (or something like that.) Then when angry secretary lady asked if I had any questions, I asked, hey do I have some kind of schedule? To which she replied "ah oui, on va visiter Mme Autefeuil." God did not provide with me said schedule and instead asked if I could stay til 4 to meet some more English professeurs, and then in horribly punctuated English, declared, "Ok. We wait. In room...with....teachers? We wait. Upstair. Right. We wait." I said ok I'll wait, and she ushered me upstairs, never to be seen again. God works in mysterious ways. I still have no idea what she does. And she doesn't always have all the answers. Quite thematic, aren't I?

So, basically, not much at all has been accomplished. One teacher gave me a pseudo-schedule, but then kept shrugging everytime I asked her questions about it, which makes me think she just drew it up because she was bored. But it looks like they're keen to put most of my hours in to only a few days so that's good.

And now back to my housing search.

Non, je ne parle pas anglais

2007-09-27T10:03:00.001-06:00

Alas, we've arrived! I'm not going to state that it's fantastique, because simply, it is not - yet. Hopefully that "yet" will kick in and things around here will start moving. But let me start from the beginning.

So my last few days in Colorado are boring, except that I saw Spamalot and that was pretty funny, though I'm still euphoric from seeing The Drowsy Chaperone in New York and nothing compares. We got to the airport on time, bags under the limit, nothing forgotten (except the quintessential anglais-francais dictionnaire - quite the mistake) but otherwise everything's good and life's rolling. We have lots of time to kill but we head to the gate anyway, thinking we'll need to deal with our biggest adversary - convincing the flight attendants to let us carry D's guitar on board.

This will be a long post that many people will probably decide to skip, but for those who are interested in why United is no longer seen by me as a decent airline, please proceed.

Alors, we camp out at the gate, our flight is due to leave at 1:20, arrive at 4:45, and our connecting Paris flight will leave Chicago at 6:07.
12:45: announcement that due to a mechanical problem, our plane is delayed a half hour
Fine by me, just fix the plane!
1:15: announcement that the plane is still in the hanger, problem is being addressed, but we'll be taking off at 2
Ok, we'll just run to our connection. Fix it!
1:30: subtle change on the board that there is now no specific departure time. Mad dash to the counter by all. I say, let's just eat lunch there's nothing we can do.
1:35: Umm wait we should call. So we call United. The lady says just try to get your connection.
2:10: The door on the plane is broken and that's the problem. A door. They will put a door from another plane on our plane. Flight is leaving at 3:15 will arrive in Chicago 6:09 p. (Aside: Our connection to Paris leaves Chicago at 6:07.)
PANIC! Call United, stand in ridiculously long line. D succeeds in reserving us seats to London, leaving Chicago at 9:30 which is all fine and dandy except London won't let us take two carryons and we'll have to check them NOW if we want D's guitar to reach Paris. I finally get up to the counter just as the final boarding call is being announced and the guy says things like "Well, we have a flight to Frankfurt tonight at 8..." pause for hopeful glance b/t D and I "...but that's full." So I say "which is better - stay here and see if we can find something or fly to Chicago and see if we can find something?" The guy says "I don't know." Thanks. So we fly to Chicago. Make up tons of time in the air. Land at 6:10. See "gate closed" for the Paris flight. RUUNNNN as fast as we can!!!! Just to see the plane backing out of the gate. So much for that plan. If only we had the video camera on us - such a perfect Amazing Race moment for an Amazing Race audition tape!

We find a customer service lady who confirms our flight to Paris and says, "yes, you can take two carryons if you're in transit." Great, let's go to London! But she can't give us seats. I say "well is the flight very full?" She replies "oh no, not close." We find the gate, ask them to give us seats and they say "okyou're on the flight and your bags are checked still to Paris but you might not sit together - the flights over booked by 15 people. Oh and is that two carryons, you can't take those through London. " So we decide to stay in Chicago and wait for the next direct flight to Paris - until we find out that we've been given two seats together in Economy Plus (RECLINING CHAIRS WITH FOOTRESTS?!?!? WHAT?!) and we decide to take our chances in London.

So, London. No one cares that we have a guitar. (Or two bottles of hand sanitizer, for D's matter.) But, our flight is delayed an hour. Finally we get to board and are stopped b/c they don't believe our tickets (that have "boarding pass" written across the top) are actual tickets. So, that's a little runaround until one guy takes all our info and calls the mysterious know-all man who confirms that indeed we have tickets and yes our bags are checked on the plane to Paris. On we go to a silly little 45 minute flight, during which you can see both England and France separated by the Channel with one haphazard glance out the window. Pretty cool.

Nous sommes arrives a la France! Bienvenue! We go to the luggage, wait there for a long time, no bags. Alors, head to the lost luggage people, who confirm that they've been trying to page us to tell us our bags are in London. "Don't panic, give me your address, there are four more flights tonight from London, you'll probably have them tonight." Fantastique.

No, they didn't arrive that night. We call Sunday morning - they'll be delivered b/t 4 and 8. They are en route from the States. Not London. Au Champs Elysees we receive a call that all bags are in and they'll be delivered at 3. We run back to the apartment....and receive our bags at 7:30 that night.

Summary: Due to a broken door (A DOOR, people! Anyone else see the absurdity of the situation?!?!) we miss our Paris flight by 10 minutes, are sent on numerous runarounds for correct information, given the third degree by London gate attendants for not actually having tickets that were actually tickets, delayed on yet another flight, arrived at 7p when we were due to arrive at 9:30a, and spent four hours on a Sunday waiting inside for our bags. But yet, the thing we were most concerned about, D's guitar, posed no tangible problem for not one, not two, but all three of our flights.

Ok, too much info. More later. Ciao.

Nice French people?!?!

2007-09-14T11:35:00.000-06:00

I emailed my school last night to introduce myself and have already received a response. Good response - they have a plan for me (no housing, but I really didn't expect it), and she reassured me that my "francais est excellent"! She also said I am basically to just talk with groups of 4 to 5 kids, and it's all very informal. I know this program doesn't leave me very well endowed monetarily, but it sure seems awfully generous for the amount of work they (well at least my school) expect us to do.

I don't know - just having a French woman respond to my email and tell me that my French is good....that's enough for me to be ecstatic. (I don't know if you've heard, but the French don't have the best reputation for being too sympathique.) Of course, she hasn't heard me butcher it out loud yet.

Good day.

East coast update

2007-09-12T09:29:00.000-06:00

So major setback in my east coast plans. Basically, the night before I was to leave for Toronto, I had a major breakdown thinking that would be the last time I saw Buffy, our dog. It really bothered me and in between sobs and piercing headaches caused by the sobs, I decided I would go to the east coast a different time. I know it might sound stupid, since it's a dog, but it was more than just that. I felt guilty leaving her, but I also felt guilty leaving Devon to deal with it on his own. I ended up still going out to New York for the weekend since I had US Open tickets and great friends I really wanted to see, and although I'm sad I wasn't there for Buffy's last few days, I had a great time. I stayed with a great friend from Strasbourg who lives in Long Island, and later met up with two other friends from Strasbourg. It was the first time I'd seen them since Strasbourg - almost two years ago. It was fantastic, and they are great people. I was in New York for a few days, and while there I hung out in Central Park for a bit and then went to the American Museum of Natural History and saw a great planetarium show on cosmic collisions narrated by Robert Redford (that wasn't what made it interesting). Then Patricia showed me around the South Street and Financial District areas and treated me to a great Italian dinner off Wall Street. The next day I went to the US Open - by myself. It actually was really cool b/c I could just go wherever I wanted and saw some great matches. The only professional matches that day were the men's double final and the women's singles semifinals, but I also checked out some junior matches and even wheelchair matches! That's talent right there, being able to play tennis better than alot of people while in a wheelchair. That night Matt and Patricia and I went to a great pub in midtown for dinner and then to a little bar called Redemption for drinks. By the end of the night I was ready to fall over - not from drinks, but from utter heat exhaustion from the day.
On Saturday Patricia and I met Alana at Penn Station and walked down around NYU. In Washington Square Park we came across a group of volunteers performing reiki for free - a destressing kind of ritual. It's a little weird, but we figured, why not. Basically, they try to rid you of negative or stressed energy. It was pretty interesting. After that, we met up with Matt and took the subway up to Central Park and ate lunch at Cafe d'Alsace, a great Alsation restaurant, which only brought back more memories from our time in Strasbourg. That afternoon we caught the matinee of "The Drowsy Chaperone," a fantastically funny musical in Times Square. We got a few drinks after that and reminisced some more before I had to leave to catch my flight home. I really had a great time. And I realize now how I say "fantastic" and "great" way too much - I'll work on that.

That part of the weekend was great - the second part wasn't. My parents drove me to Monument after my flight arrived where D picked me up and took me back to his parents' house. I spent some time with Buffy before passing out (it WAS almost 4am New York time, after all). The next morning, we took her for a quick walk before the vet arrived. In a way, it was great, because we were able to put her down outside (instead of a bland vet's office) with D's whole family there. It was obvious how much we all cared for her, and the process was very peaceful. After helplessly watching my dog die on his own 6 or 7 years ago, this was a beautiful way to go. It was still very sad and it's still very weird not to have her around. Maybe I should have written about this first because now I'm ending on a sad note. But whatever, I still miss Buffy.

Two days

2007-08-22T14:55:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I get pretty bored at work and it leads me to blog entries.
We bought our tickets last night, I think. STA really isn't the most efficient group to work with, but definitely the cheapest. So, it's official. We are leaving for Paris on September 21.

Tres heureuse

2007-08-20T15:32:00.000-06:00

After a minor setback with Canada, my plans are finally coming into place for the east coast. My friend who I would have visited in Toronto was transferred back to Denver, but I figured the cost and headache of rearranging my trip would be too much for little old me to handle. So, now I am just flying out of the country to hang out by myself. Which, I suppose, is sort of normal. I am really excited to see Toronto, and as much as I'm bummed I won't have a built-in host, I think it will be pretty good for me. I will be there for two days instead of three, which actually builds in a bit more time to be able to see a friend of mine in DC.

In terms of France, there's a babysitting job I'm interested in, but the downside is I have next to no babysitting experience. And there's also an apartment I'm interested in, but I would have to correspond with the landlady in French, and that intimidates me. So, really, nothing new on the French front to report.

I have four days left of work, and I'm rather anxious to get them done. There's a lot to be finished up, and it can get a little overwhelming when I'm constantly thinking about all the other things I have to do before I leave next Thursday for Toronto. Also, I think I'm pretty mentally ready to move on.

I'm legal!

2007-08-17T16:01:00.000-06:00

I got my visa yesterday!

Still in Colorado

2007-08-15T11:34:00.001-06:00

So this blog has to start somewhere right?
We'll start with now.

Here's what's done:

Mailed application for French visa

Mailed confirmations to France about assistantship

Quit my day job - maybe I should say resigned so I don't sound like a quitter

Bought my plane ticket to the east coast

Alerted east coasters that I'm coming to bug them

Confirmed that the boyfriend who will here on out be affectionately known as D will be accompanying me to Paris

Here's what needs to be done:

Finish working my notice period

Receive my French visa

Buy plane ticket(s?) to Paris

Move out of my house (this deserves several bullet points, but I'll just let you imagine how daunting that task is)

Contact my lycee

Plan in detail my ideas for the east coast shenanigans

Hang out with lots of people

Listing what needs to be done makes it sound less stressful - only if I don't think about what goes into each in order to accomplish what I need to.

So, I'm taking this year to live abroad, in Paris, France. I will be teaching at lycee Jacques Prevert in a northern Parisian suburb called Taverny. The family D is working for has never heard of Taverny. But this is their website. http://www.ville-taverny.fr/ And for those who don't speak French, here is a wikipedia article about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taverny

D is coming along. He has secured a 'job' that his friend had over the past year. I say 'job' because he won't be getting paid in money, but in housing, a metro card, and some other stuff. I can hardly consider my 'job' a job either, but at least I'll be getting a paycheck. How much of it will remain at the end of each month is based on what kind of apartment I find though.

I think the most I'm nervous about is a. the language and b. meeting people. I hope to find outlets that will improve both things. Maybe I should improve my English too - I think since I've been out of school my intellect has spiralled downward.

I have so many expectations of myself but the biggest one is to not expect much. I usually get too involved painting a picture of what I want things to be like while not enjoying what I have. So I think this year will be a challenge of trying to lay low and take things as they come. Or, I should say, enjoy things as they come. Maybe Paris isn't the best place for me to go to try this, but I'm really trying to look at things more positively.

Anyway, another expectation is that I won't turn simple blog posts into small novels. This one is an exception.