When the rain falls, you run & hide your head…

Today in a nutshell:

Down: Woke up and the hot water heater was broken. Felt extremely French as I had not truly showered in 3 days and now have 6 types of cheese in the fridge. Walked two miles (nearly!) to the laundermat to dry my clothes before I packed them. Although the place is open 7j/7, dimaches et fêtes, the door was closed and no one was in sight. I turned the handle, nothing. I pulled and pulled, nothing. It started to rain. I put up my hood and shoved my bag of wet laundry in a doorway and steamed a bit at how obnoxious it is that French people just close things at random times with no explanation or consideration for people who might need desperately to get their laundry dried before they leave tomorrow, it’s just so typically French! The owner probably just slept in or was out for an early lunch or a beer in a tabac, typical, typical, then a random guy turns the handle, pushes the door, and gets his blankets out of the drier.

Up: My clothes got dried.

Up: The winter sky here is incredible. It’s so golden and warm, (even though it’s freezing out) and all the old buildings just glow.

Down: Christmas decorations are going up and this makes me sad as I’m still not sure what I am doing for Christmas, and I’m having a hard time deciding but I need to soon.

Up: Walked by the merry-go-round beside the hotel-de-ville, and there was one little kid going wheeeee! wheeeeeee! wheeeee! the whole time.

Down: Near the supermarket, this gang of teenage guys all descended on me at once and faked grabbing me in places that if hehad succeeded in touching me I would have had to punch him. Ugh.

Up: When looking at granola bars and things to pack in my pack for tomorrow I heard “Catherine! Cathy!” coming from the end of the aisle and it was one of my students from St. Maurice. Made me feel like a real person! A celebrity, even.

Down: Walked by the Beffroi (how Picards say bell tower I guess?) on my way back and it plays whole songs on the hour and made me think of Christmas again.

Up: Random manifestation in front of the post office, bullhorns and banners and leading the crowd was…the extremely elusive academic advisor for all assistants in the department of the Somme! A good story to tell all the other assistants.

Down/Up: Even though it’s sad to walk around a city and not really feel like you fit in, French people are wonderful to watch – they have a certain flair to them, and the way they talk and dress and interact will never cease to interest me, whether it be in admiration or something less nice.

Up: Got an apple tart for dinner at the patisserie across from my house. 1 euro. Drank up the last of my milk that has a distinct brownish tinge to it I’m noticing, maybe because the shelf life of milk here is eternity. But the French wrote the book on pasteurization so I’ll go with it. The taste is actually really growing on me.

Here a few glimpses of Amiens; this is a long post because I leave for Ireland tomorrow and won’t post again for over a week. Hopefully Ireland will be everything I dream it will be…i.e. green, lush, scenic, and full of Irish people and pubs. Something tells me it’s going to be great.

Can you see the rainbow?
(not a cheesy rhetorical question, there actually is one. Look closer!)

Reunion!

One of the assistants here had a birthday and this Saturday was the bash. It was wonderful to see everyone from the stage and hear that they were indeed surviving life in the boonies. It's still strange for people to talk about how big Amiens is, because you can walk everywhere on foot or take a bus, it's nothing like Seattle. But I guess compared to the 6 families and a cow kind of towns, it's a bustling metropolis.


In other news, I realized just how french I am becoming when I looked in my refrigerator and saw that even though I don't have any food and really need to go shopping, I still had 4 varieties of cheese: cambert, gouda, emmental and le vache qui rire :-) I think one of the things I'll miss most when I leave France is the abundance of cheese and fresh bread.


It's good, though. I've been here for over a month, and things are starting to settle down just a bit. It's still majorly emotionally draining but my french is improving! And I was told that my accent isn't too bad, and that it's charming. Yay! This is ostly thanks to convo lessons from my friend Khar, from Senegal. She is also an amazing cook!

Well, tomorrow I go back to classes, I haven't seen these particular ones for over a week so I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing. Tuesday is pumpkin carving day at St. Maurice, and then Wednesday is the start of the Touissant vacation! Vive la France. I am going up to Ireland with another assistant who has family in Cork. I still am not sure how to thank her for letting me stay with them! I wish I had more European connections, I guess I will just have to forge them as I go.

I guess the only other news is bad news, I'm still feeling pretty sick and half of my neck is unsightly and swollen. Reeeeally don't want to go to the doctor though, so maybe the fresh sea air of Ireland will cure my ills. One can hope! But if not that'll be another paperwork inferno story when I get back. Oh joy.

beautiful spaces, loud empty places

look at the way that we live…wasting our time on cheap talk and wine. Okay, so it was cider and the talk wasn’t bad and we actually weren’t listening to the Eagles, it was Oasis and Green Day at the local hangout My Goodness (an Irish pub that actually has an Irish bartender! youpi!) that caused us to break into song.

But I might add that I have become a major Eagles fan while in France. Go figure!

Well, the designs are coming back for my pumpkin contest. Here are two of the winners I think:

Romain is actually kind of a punk, he’s really really smart/quick to grasp things, but there isn’t one day he doesn’t get kicked out of the classroom for having a rotten attitude. I like him though. Punk.

And here are some designs that are v. creative, even though they’re not terribly practical for actual pumpkin carving.

Other funny thing, when I whipped out the pumpkin for my classes today, this is what they ALL said:

Punks: On va le manger?

Moi: No kids, we are not going to eat the pumpkin. We’re going to make a jack-o-latern.

Punks: Le soup? On va manger le soup?

Moi: No, if we were going to eat it we’d eat a pie. Un tarte.

Punks: Buerk!!! Une tarte du citrouielle!?! ahahaha buerk!
[and other ridiculously Gallic expressions of disgust]

These kids ain't got no taste.

I just may save the pumpkin innards in an attempt to make a pie, though. I have a pan now. I’ll be sure to post pictures of any attempts. :-)

punkins

Well, today I bought and carried home a 9 kg pumpkin for 9 euros. 9 kg probably isn't that heavy but it was a 2 mi walk back from the florists. My arms are still shaking! Note: In France, you don't buy pumpkins at the grocery store, unless you're at an open air market and buying them by the slice. You only find them in florist shops, and sometimes even they won't sell them to you (because as I was told today by one prissy florist, they're for decor, not for sale, duh. humph!)

I finally found a suitably big pumpkin and lugged it home, and tomorrow I am announcing a contest to my kids. First we're going to learn emotions, and then whoever designs the best jack'o'latern face gets their design carved into the pumpkin next week (by me, these children are straight thug and cannot be trusted with knives). Hopefully they will be excited. I am! And with 3 classes at St. Maurice, that's 3 faces in the pumpkin. I think it's big enough though.

I would tell you what pumpkin is in French, but my dictionary says potiron and that's NOT what the florists were calling it. Something like citrouille or something with a lot of vowels at the end. I did find out today that a cold is a rhume, and a stuffed up nose is un nez bouché. Soon I will learn "backache" and "allergy to France". Meanwhile it's time to write out the extended version of "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands" and hit the hay.

If you're sad and you know it say boo-hoo,

If you're angry and you know it stamp your feet

If you're confused and you know it scratch your head

If you're surprised and you know it say "oh my!"

If you're allergic to France and you know it... well... tough.

souvenez-moi ?

grrr, i am still sick! my nose is like a dripping faucet. classes are going pretty well except for 1 in which i can't make myself heard over the din to tell them to shut up & listen. apparently the french teachers have about the same luck with them, so i don't feel too bad.

it's been a tough week, though. i knew it would be lonely at times, especially considering how much free time i have and how little money, but i didn't expect it would be this difficult to make french friends. it's cultural...relationships here are really tight-knit because they start forming at age 2 or 3. and the idea of just randomly making a new friend isn't really on people's minds. so i know everyone at home is busy busy busy with classes and work and actually having a life but if you could please just give me a call sometime, or send me a card, or drop me a line, etc., at this point it would pretty much make my week, if not month. the other assistants i've talked to kind of have the same thing going on. so up and down! every single day.

i may start baking again, even though i'm not sure if i can afford it. also i'm looking at going to ireland over our fall break, but once again finances pose a problem as i have no clue when i get my first paycheck. but another assistant has family and cork so she might join me for part of the time, which would be great. now about to go buy some shoes that i'm not sure i can afford either (noticing a theme?) but my sneakers are shot and they're all i've got. and then make chocolate chip bar cookies or something. & hopefully not eat the whole pan.

c'est la réalité

Woke up this morning at 5 to go wait outside the Préfécture. I got there at 5h45 and there was already a line. Sat and waited in the pre-dawn October cold just until 8h15 when they let everyone (mainly immigrants and refugees) in. It was crazy. They only give out 40 numbers a day to foreigners (I received the 5th one) but way more than 40 people were in line.

Towards the end of the wait some crazy woman from Eastern Europe decided she would try to cut in front of the line. Unfortunately for her a man from Gabon took charge and established who was premier, deuxieme, troisieme, etc. About 5 minutes before the door opened the lady behind me grabbed my shoulders and I was forced into the woman in front of me, forming something resembling an impermeable congo line. (Ironically several people there were from the Congo.)The huge doors opened and in we ran, and crazy lady had the good sense to give up and go home. Although, two guys got in a real fistfight behind me about whose turn it was. I don’t blame them either, if someone had tried to cut in front of me at that point I would have laid down the smack myself.

It’s scary how serious this is for some people. All I want is a récipéssé, a little piece of paper I will slip into my passport that lets me back into the country should I ever leave France (haha I hope I will?) I couldn’t care about the rest. But some of these people didn’t have a country, and I really don’t envy them in their choice of France as a new home.

And what did I get for all of that? An appointment for 16 Oct at 11h, and a list of papers I need to bring with me.

On a happier note, I have a new friend to introduce:


This is Zelda. She is a type of Cyclamen but I couldn’t understand what the plant lady said. She wanted me to get an orchid but at 20 euro that was a bit above my meager budget, plus, I assured her I would kill it (even though she assured me that I was not, as I claimed, a murderer of plants). Maybe if all goes well with Zelda I’ll buy her a buddy.

Tomorrow I start observing my classes. Went to the Inspection Academique (long story short—in France, there are two jobs for every one job we have in America…one to do the job and one to inspect that is done correctly…I swear the sole reason you have to composte (stamp) your train tickets at the station is to give the man who comes through the cabins to check a job. That’s called socialism, I think?) Anyway I don’t want to bore you with more stories about paperwork but I got my Process Verbale d’Installation that I was waiting on in order to fill out other paperwork. I wish I were making this up! But as the man from Gabon was expounding earlier this morning, this is France. C’est la vie dans ce monde, c’est la réalité.

Hoping some country bumpkin assistants will come up for the nuit blanche this weekend. Need to buy groceries and do laundry, but I’m feeling kind of stingy these days. Sorry do disappoint anyone living vicariously through this. I’ll try and have tales of romance and exotic adventure sometime soon. But first there’s this form I’ve got to fill out…

Il pleut sur mon coeur comme il pleut sur la ville… trying to figure out Amien’s weather patterns is proving difficult. It was a warm Saturday so I didn’t take a jacket or umbrella when I explored the canal district w/another assistant that night, and then we got caught in a ridiculously cold downpour, and had to hide in a dubious alley for almost 20 minutes before it stopped just as abruptly as it had started. The good news is we did find an acceptably Irish Irish pub…true I think I was the most Irish of anyone there (all French students) but they did have cider. Yay!



Sunday Matt (the other assistant) and I went to Paris, I got a book at Shakespeare and Co. and the Pompidou Center had a free exhibit that was too artsy for me really, but at least it was free. And there was a street magician outside that was pretty cool. He stuffed three children in a box and thrust flaming spears through it. Not sure how the trick worked, or how European mothers are so relaxed about handing their children over to anyone with an audience, much less flaming spears.

Today went around and visited all my schools and met the teachers. Had the quintessentially French administrative conversation… “Have you signed your contract yet?” “I was told you were supposed to give me the contract.” “No, we haven’t heard anything about your contract.” Arghhhhh. And another bummer, STILL waiting for my French bankcard and checks to come so I can buy the cell phone plan I want. I decided, if it doesn’t come tomorrow I’m going to break down and buy a pay-as-you-go plan, even if it is more expensive in the long run.

All the kids at my schools were fun though. I like the CE2s best, they’re only 7-8 and were totally amazed to have a real American standing in the middle of their classroom. I didn’t realize I was such a rare quantity. Off now in search of smaller blue jeans, (and an umbrella) and all the bus plans I can get my hands on as two of my schools are waaaay north of where I live. The other is 2 blocks down the street. Of course I spend 1h30 there and 10h30 at the other two. (That’s how we roll in France.)