French Schools, Take 2

I have even more pictures for you that I took at one of my schools.  They're to give you a better idea of what the inside of a French elementary school looks like, because I find them totally different from American ones.

Stairwell--not doing a good job of illustrating the great differences...

View from the school--look at all that mistletoe!

Mural painted on the side of the school--pretty awesome :)

Girls' bathrooms; there's no main door, but there's not even stalls in the boy's bathroom.  You can literally walk past and see your own students peeing.  Weeeiiirrrddd :|

Teacher's lounge--there's the radiator on which we balanced the plate o' cheese :)

Teacher's lounge fridge--we must be in France, huh?

View from the upstairs hallway

 There's something very different about the feel of the classrooms, too.  For instance, none of the walls are white--each classroom is painted entirely one pastel color, depending on the grade of the students in that room.  When you first walk into the room, there's a giant set of stairs leading up to the blackboard--they run the length of the blackboard, and it's almost like a soapbox for you to stand on and deliver your opinionated speeches-slash-English lessons.  There's no real teacher's desk, and if there is, its' often pushed right up against students' desks, so you can stare each other down while you work.  There's a "French alphabet," which is exactly the same as the American alphabet, except the letters are way fancier.  So fancy, in fact, that in some of the younger classes, the students can't recognize your less-fancy letters as "letters" at all--they literally can't read your handwriting because to them it looks like another language.  Perhaps most bizarrely, there are no world maps.  Maybe that's why French 5th graders still have a hard time realizing that Tennessee is not a department in France...

I Say "OUI!" to Champagne (and Baguettes and Raclette and...)

Last weekend I took the train after work on Friday to Épernay to visit a French friend of mine who spent the summer in Tennessee several years ago.  We've kept in touch, and she told me she'd be home from school for the weekend, so I packed a backpack and set out for adventure.  I also snuck into first class and stayed there for the whole trip...shhhh, don't tell SNCF...

I went with my new travel buddy, Mort ze Hedgehog

I arrived so late on Friday night that all I really wanted to do was sleep, so my friend and her boyfriend picked me up at the station and took me back to her parents' house where I fell asleep in the deepest, softest, cushiest, most comfortable bed I've ever slept in.  It was definitely worth the trip just for that bed, not to mention all the other fantastic things I got to do!

On Saturday morning, Aurélie informed me that we had a full day ahead of us.  We started with breakfast from the family boulangerie; it's literally on the ground floor of their apartment, and they had the best croissants, pain au chocolats, brioches, and baguettes I've ever tasted.  After breakfast they showed me around the bakery, and I got to take pictures and disturb people while they worked.  Yay, tourists! 

The little elves who make the much-celebrated baguettes.

We walked around the town of Épernay for a little while; it's a little smaller than Nevers, but it seems a lot better connected, as if people are more willing to interact with one another--there are more public squares and more pedestrian streets.  I loved it :) 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 We walked through the outdoor market and saw the outside of Boulangerie Danis-Ova; there was a line all the way around the block!  Must be the best place in town :)

After showing me the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), Théatre (you all know what that is), city park, and various other beautiful places, Aurélie took me to the Avenue de Champagne.  This avenue is considered the richest in the world because of the hundreds of thousands of bottles stored in the tens of kilometers of underground champagne caves. 

One of many maisons de champagne on the Avenue de Champagne

Dom Perignon, pimp daddy of champagne and mascot of Moët and Chandon.  Go team!

 We went on a guided tour (in English--so thoughtful!) inside the chalk caves of Maison Mercier, one of the champagne producers at the end of the Avenue de Champagne. It was a very chic place, with all sorts of expensive Mercier-emblazoned merchandise.  I almost bought a Mercier umbrella for 30€; I would never have been able to let myself live that one down. 

 They had a laser-guided train that took us through the caves to show us the aging process of the champagne, and at the end of the tour we had a free tasting.  Delicious :) 

For lunch we had la pierrade, something I've seen in France but have never known the name of.  Basically, it's a giant stone that you heat up and grill meat on.  You eat the meats with all kinds of sauces and mashed potatoes, of course followed by salad, cheese, and dessert. Yes, please :)

La pierrade, yet another way to play with your food in France.

In the afternoon we took a trip to la Cathédrale de Reims.  It was beautiful, as I imagined, even though the weather was terrible.  The cathedral is celebrating its 800th anniversary next year--800 years of being worshipped in, destroyed, rebuilt, 800 years of weddings, baptisms, funerals...it's incredible being in a country with such a rich and ancient history.  Makes me feel like I come from an infant country indeed! 

The beautiful cathedral, built in the style of Notre Dame de Paris

I hope I look this good when I turn 800.

We stopped by a wine fair on our way to Aurélie's boyfriend's dad's house for dinner; there were SO many vendors there selling their homemade wines, but we felt bad making every vendor believe we were going to buy their wine and then leaving without buying anything...so we only tried one.  Unfortunately, it was a terrible one.  Oh well, c'est la vie en France--not all wine is good wine, even in the country that specializes in it! 

For dinner we had la raclette.  Raclette is one of my favorite dishes in France; every person at the table gets his or her own personal skillet, and in it they melt raclette cheese in a special, tiny table-top oven.  When the cheese is melted, you pour it over cold cuts (ham and different kinds of sausages) and potatoes and serve it with tiny sour pickles.  It's so delicious, and making it is half (almost all) the fun :)

Mmmmmm, raclette.  [Drool]

The day I left to come back to Nevers, Aurélie took me to the top of the Mountain de Reims; it's not really a mountain, but compared to the valley in which Épernay sits, everything sure does look small from up there!  It was amazing--you could literally see patchworks of vineyards, made up of only champagne grapes, for miles in every direction.  

Vineyards, vineyards, everywhere!

The weekend seemed fantastically long because of all the different places we visited, foods we ate, and things we saw and did, but I was really on in Épernay for a day and a half.  Still, I had a great weekend (catastrophe free!) and spent some wonderful time with the nicest French people I've ever met.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more weekends like this one in my life :)  À bientôt!

À l'école...

Since I've been here I haven't really said much about the schools themselves.  I work in three different schools, two of which are 20 minutes away and one of which is literally next door.  The kids are all great, well-behaved for the most part, and very curious about my life Over There in that Faraway Land. 

I wanted to share with you some of the sweet/hilarious things they've said :)

•  The first week I visited the schools, I introduced myself, telling them my name, my age, where I'm from, and what I was doing in the classroom.  Then I asked them if they had any questions. 
        "Do you go back to your house in The Tennessee every night?"
        "Do you know Michael Jackson?"
        "Did you drive here from The Tennessee?"
        "Are there roads/pools/people in The Tennessee?  Do you wear shoes?"
  It was pretty funny to debunk all their misconceptions :)  Hooray for shooting down the dreams of little children!
• This past weekend I visited some friends in the Champagne region (which will come in the next post, promise!)  My friend's little sister is 12 years old, and she's learning English in school.  She showed me her English notebook, which had some astonishing facts about The States that even I didn't know!  My favorite was this:
          "Americans love hamburgers.  They eat at least 3 hamburgers per week." 
  They also had an English-language phrase book that Aurélie bought when she was going to spend the summer in The Tennessee.  Their pronunciation guide didn't take into account the proper way to say anything, just the French-accented way...and it was hysterical.  

"ouatss Ze néïm ov Ze lowkeul déïli niouzpéüpeu?"  :l

• When I visited the class of CE1 at one school (the equivalent of 1st grade), three little girls approached the teacher after class and started whispering to her.  She pointed to me and said, "Go tell her that yourself;" they all came up to me and said, "Kali, you're so pretty!"  "Kali, you're so beautiful like flowers!"  "Kali, you're beautiful, and your shoes are beautiful, and you have the same water bottle as my mommy." Too cute :) 
• One girl in CM1 (4th grade) spent the whole class doodling.  She had answered a couple of questions, and I knew she'd taken German up until now, so I let her be for the rest of the class because learning English is a lot harder for her than it is for the other kids.  Right before I left she ran up to me, smiled really big, and pushed something into my hand.  Turns out she'd spent the whole class period drawing this:

I don't even like cats....but this makes that fact not matter :)

•  While quizzing Halloween vocabulary with the CM1 at another school, I asked one girl (glasses, freckles, dark brown pigtails, super skinny) what the English word for vampire was.  She screwed up her face in trying to remember it and then pronounce it, and when she finally remembered and said the word, it came out "wampum."  I couldn't help but laugh (especially because the French word for vampire is literally the same word, just pronounced Vaaahhhhm-peeeer.)  That made my day--it's not every day you hear the word wampum. 
•  At the school I visit on Tuesdays (which I don't particularly like because the kids are so loud and disrespectful), one little boy came up to me and asked, "Will you be here every day Miss Kali?"  I told him no, that I only came on Tuesdays, but still he smiled really big and said, "I can't wait until next Tuesday." 
• Yesterday I visited a class that I only see on Mondays.  The teacher I work with, Nicolas, told me that during the kids' recess the teachers were going to have a snack of "vin et fromage fort"----"wine and strong cheese."  I helped him out in the kitchen while he cut up a baguette, spread a cheese-y sauce on it, and threw it in the oven to grill for a couple minutes.  As I poured the white wine into Dixie cups (and, yes, I did feel like I was back in college!), he told me that the cheese was from his region, Macôn (not far from here), and that he freezes it when he comes back from visiting his parents.  Basically, in the olden days, people would keep the ends of cheeses that they didn't finish, let them age for a LONG time, and when they had enough of them they'd add them all together in a big pot and add white wine over heat, thus coming up with what has always been known in Macôn as "fromage fort."  We balanced the plate of cheese on the radiator, opened up the window onto the playground, and passed it and the wine out the window to the other teachers.  It was one of those moments when I wish I'd had my camera, but instead of separating myself from the scene with a giant lens, I was really there, in the moment, and got to memorize all the details for myself.  Still, I wish I could share that vignette with all of you! 

I never thought I'd so enjoy being a teacher.  If you know me at all you know I have minimal patience for just about everything--children, obnoxious people, annoying animals, waiting for holidays to arrive, etc.--so for me to enjoy this job is really a surprise!  The lesson planning is pretty easy; most of the kids in each class are at about the same level of English, so I can plan one activity and change it slightly depending on how hard or easy I need it to be to suit them.  Plus, the job of the assistant is to make learning English fun once a week, so we usually play games or I'll teach them the words to a little song or read them a story.  All of the teachers I work with have been very accommodating--one of them drives me to school on Mondays and Thursdays!--and extremely helpful in the classroom (i.e. never leaving me to direct the wee hooligans all by myself.)  This just may be something I continue when I get back to the good ole US of A :)

Toussaint Part Three: SO Much Shorter Than the Other Two

While in Avignon, we took a day trip to Nîmes, home of the oldest and most intact Roman ruins in all of Europe--so cool :)

We started our day off on the wrong foot when we bought 2€ coffees that the bus driver wouldn't let us take on the bus.  We chugged two mouthfuls, then got sourly onto the bus with scalded tongues and still no energy.  It was a very short trip, and we arrived in Nîmes right as the skies let out a deluge like we'd never seen.

We--miserable, cranky, soaked, and caffeine-deprived--made our way toward les Arènes, the Roman ruins, and stopped in an adorable café on the way.  There, we had the most incredible food--and the most incredible service--we've ever had in France, and the timing was perfect--we were about to kill each other/ourselves :P

Mmmmmmmmm :)

After our fantastic lunch, we shopped around for a little bit (and bought more postcards than we thought humanly possible.  We've all just started this new program called PostCrossing.com where you send and receive postcards from all over the world.  For that, our postcard binge was almost justified....but not quite :P)

We finally made our way to the Roman ruins, but it was raining so hard that mostly we just swordfought with our broken umbrellas... 

...pretended we were bulls...

 
...and laughed at the well-endowed matador statue...

 

The other girls eventually made it up into the old Roman Arena, but since I'd already visited the one in Arles (and wanted to save 9€), I spent the next couple of hours reading and writing postcards in the most adorable café that sold the tiniest croissants I've ever seen!   

You can't tell, but they're only about an inch long.  (That's what she said?)

It was a fun day trip, and I'd love to go back when it's not flooding :)

Toussaint Part Two: the Debacle(s)

Lyon?  Question Mark? 

After we left Dijon, we took a train to Avignon via Lyon.  It was an evening train, which was a nice change from the incredibly early trains we’d caught during the rest of our vacation.  In a cruel twist of fate that was partially our fault but mostly the fault of French grèvists and their disruption of train schedules, we arrived in Lyon too late to catch our connecting train…which was the last train of the night.  After learning that the train station was about to shut down for the night, too, and that we couldn’t just stay there and play card games until the following morning, Maxine and I ventured out into the cold, wet night to find a last-minute, cheap hotel for 4 travel-weary, cranky American girls. 

Not an easy task.

We found an available room at one of the hotels next to the train station.  The man at the reception desk understood our plight (as he, too, had missed trains, grâce aux grèves) and told us that he could technically squeeze 4 people into a room for 2, but only if we were ultra quiet and out of the room before housekeeping came at 6 a.m.  We agreed to his explicit terms but wondered about the secrecy; turns out that putting more people in a room than that room can actually hold is against the law, and he could lose his hotel license. 

Needless to say, we didn’t make a sound.  We were grateful to have a bed (and two spaces on the floor) to sleep away our remaining 5 hours in Lyon. 

At 4:45 a.m., we woke up, got all our stuff together, and checked out of the hotel in time to catch our 5:38 train to Avignon. 

Basically, this is all we saw of Lyon.  

The futuristic train station at Lyon, alight in the reflection from our hotel's cheap neon sign.  (Don't forget you can click on the pictures to biggen them!)

  As soon as I get the bad taste out of my mouth, I’d love to go back and see more :)

Avignon, At Long Last!

We slept fitfully on the trains to Avignon; both of them were unheated, which seemed an inhumane insult to add to our injury.  Still, sunshine and blue skies greeted us in Avignon, and after a quick café we set out to find our hotel. 

Avignon's main gated entry--and the welcome sight of blue skies!

It was only about 5 minutes away on the main birch-lined road (which reminded me intensely and nostalgically of West Harpeth), and after we checked in to our room (a strange purple Gothic tower affair), we passed out for a long nap. 

Knowing that the day of our arrival was also our only day of sunshine, we only slept until noon, then got out of bed and went exploring.  We walked north along the main street until we reached a large plaza full of cafés and restaurants and even a carousel; we chose one restaurant at random and sat down for lunch, and though the service left a lot to be desired, the food was good and we were happy to finally be in the sunshine!  

The crowded plaza where we ate lunch.

 After lunch we walked toward the Palais des Papes in its huge, tree-lined courtyard dotted with souvenir shops and sculptures. 

Palais des Papes, built in 1335 and considered the most important Gothic palace in the world. 

Before we even got to the courtyard we heard accordion music; someone was playing the music from Amélie, which, if you know me at all, you know is my favorite French film of all time.  I had a transcendent moment in which all the trials and tribulations we encountered in getting to Avignon were all worth this one moment in the sun with my friends and an Amélie-esque soundtrack.  It was perfect :)

This quintessentially French woman absolutely *made* my vacation.  The Asian tourist next to her...not so much.

We continued up the hill behind the Palais des Papes and saw the WWII monument.  It’s such a humbling experience to see the engraved names of people from a particular city who died at the hands of the Nazis or the Vichy regime.  In the States it all seems so remote, but the French were truly at the center of that piece of history.  The memorials that they’ve set up so that people don’t forget what the country went through are really touching.

Further up the hill we could see the infamous Pont d’Avignon down below us; apparently it doesn’t even go anywhere anymore.  After a particularly destructive flood in the early 1600s, the bridge now only has 4 of its original 22 arches left, and it stops in the middle of the Rhône River.  Efficient, Frenchies.  Reeeaaallll efficient. 

The Pont d'Avignon on its ill-fated journey across the Rhône, plus vineyards in the foreground.  Mmmmm, wine :)

At the very top of the hill was the real treasure: Rochers des Doms, a hidden garden with fountains, statues, a café, and the most adorable pedal toys I’ve ever seen.  

 

Can you honestly tell me you've seen something cuter than this?  I'd like to see you try. 

We climbed to the top of this cool waterfall thing to have a gorgeous aerial view of the city and its surrounding geography.

I felt like Ariel in her undersea grotto!

 The day was so clear that we could see for miles in every direction.  And look, ma—fall foliage! 

 

  

We had an ice cream and bought SO many postcards at the café right next to the pool with the sculpture in it; the server was so much nicer than anyone we’d encountered in Nevers, and we attributed it to the fact that we were further south.  Also, the sun was out, and it was a beautiful day; maybe if Nevers got more of those, the people would be nicer!

Cassis (black currant) is my new favorite flavor of ice cream.  Plus, it comes with a pinwheel!

Instead of paying 15€ to walk out onto the Pont d’Avignon (which, need I remind you, doesn’t go anywhere?!), we decided to camp out on the banks of the Rhône just beside the bridge and change the lyrics of the famous song to reflect our amendment; instead of “Sur (on) le Pont d’Avignon,” we danced to “Pres (near) du Pont d’Avignon.”  It was pretty magical :)

We sat on the banks for hours, watching the sunset over the river.  A riverboat passed by us, all lit up, showing the other end of the bridge to (even more) paying customers.  A sweet old man came by with two bags full of baguette cubes that he threw to the ducks in the water below us.  He and I talked for a long time; he was really interesting, and had a lot of good stories to tell, and was obviously grateful for the company.  

He says the problem with young people is that they pretend to listen to his stories and don't retain anything.  I'm determined to prove him wrong.

By the time we left the bridge, it was dark.  We passed back through the plaza with the carousel where we ate lunch, and it, too, was all lit up.  You know I have a weakness for bright lights :)

The carousel and City Hall, all lit up at night.

 After that first day of sun, it poured for the rest of our trip.  We only left our hotel room to grab a quick café or chocolat chaud, or to pick up a couple of baguettes and some cheese and wine for our dinner.  Over the next four days, we took one day trip (a rainy debacle of its own, to be told in great detail in the next blog entry) and watched 3 movies and the entire first season of Glee. 

We spent Halloween in Avignon, which was a bit of a sobering experience.  We didn’t expect anything major to happen—at least not the way it happens in the states—but it was still raining and we couldn’t summon the energy to go to a nearby bar that was having Halloween karaoke, so instead we stayed in and watched the classics: Hocus Pocus, Young Frankenstein, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Also, Maxine’s awesome French phone let us know at midnight that it was Halloween by changing all our avatars to little pumpkins.  Adorable :)

Gives new meaning to the name Punkinhead, doesn't it, Dad?

There's only one more entry to include about les vacances de Toussaint, and that's our day trip to Nîmes.  This post has gotten far too long as it is, so expect it in the next one.  À très bientôt!

The Toussaint Debacle, Part One

The French educative system always catches me by surprise.  We arrived at the end of September, started working in the middle of October, and only worked for one full week before we left for a 10-day vacation.  It's certainly a system that I can get used to ;)

Early in the season we'd begun to make Toussaint vacation plans: our OFII (Office of Immigration) appointments were scheduled right in the middle of the Toussaint vacation, so we had to go to Dijon to take care of those.  After that we planned to spend a couple of days in Grenoble, then head to Avignon for a few days before returning to Nevers in time for classes to begin.

But then we were cruelly reminded of an age-old, yet amended, caveat: "If you want to make the French laugh, tell them your plans."  In response, they'll tell you, "There's a national strike.  You're not going anywhere."

Dijon

Our first train to Dijon was cancelled, but luckily there was another one immediately after it, so the girls whose OFII appointments were on Tuesday made it to the city in time.  While they were in their doctor's visit--which apparently involves some sort of lung scan, topless, against a metal plate with actual circles that indicate where to place your boobs...?--another friend and I explored the old city of Dijon.  It was so beautiful :)  My favorite square, Place François Rude, had this adorable Tudor-style building (renovated as a restaurant), a fountain/sculpture, and a carousel. One day we were there, it also had a group of kindergartners all eating cotton candy.  So cute!

Place François Rude

We revisited the same cathedral with the chouette (good luck owl statue) as we did the first time we were in Dijon; the sun was out and the sky was blue and full of puffy clouds, and we enjoyed several hot chocolates from several different salons de thé.  We decided the one from here was the best :)

Maison Milliere had the best hot chocolate...

...not to mention delicious crêpes!

 

We also went to the Musée des Beaux Arts, which was free to enter.  They had an impressive collection of Egyptian artifacts and a bunch of beautiful sculptures, which are a personal favorite of mine.  They also had a great exhibition by local artists, which is always fun to explore.  We eventually ran into this guy playing his accordion on the street; I imagine he's a local, too :)

From Dijon, we were on our way to Grenoble!  But our original train to Grenoble was cancelled (surprise!), so we decided to go straight to Avignon and just spend a few more days there.  That turned out to be much more difficult than we'd planned....

Tune in soon for Toussaint Debacle, Part Two!