Davézieux

Davézieux

Sunday, December 18, 2011

La Vie Continue - Valence Vite Visité


Life here doesn't give me too much to complain about.  I have so much to be thankful for!  Sometimes I don't have a lot to do, but that's when I try to rest from being crazy busy during the rest of week.  Anyway, like every week, on Monday I went to work, and then after a bit of rest I went to play in a volleyball game which we lost 2-3 to a team of oldies.  We even won the first two games, making it even more aggravating...

On Tuesday things went like normal except that a mom from one of the kids at Vissenty wanted me to come teach her older daughter a private English lesson that night, so right after work Isabelle took me to her house.  I met Maurine, a girl about Anouk's age, and helped her a little bit with a story she had to write on her own just using some random pictures the teacher had given them.  The story was...how you would expect it to be haha.  I wasn't about to rewrite the whole thing though, so I corrected the grammar and did my best to have it make any sense.  I'm not 100% that I succeeded...

Otherwise, the lesson went great, and her mom said Maurine really appreciated it and liked my 'methods,' so that's comforting!  I like to think these people aren't just paying me for nothing.  That wrapped up my Tuesday though, so not much more to talk about...

Mercredi! Wednesday was a blast.  On Tuesday night I got a call from Fabienne to tell me that Thomas couldn't do a lesson Wednesday, so I woke up as late as I wanted and lazied about for a while, got on Facebook and three minutes later had made plans to go down to Valence for the day!  

Turns out Ashley (one of my English friends who lives in Annonay) was planning on going down there to go ice skating and go out to dinner with some of the other assistants and she invited me to come with!  I didn't have any plans at all for the day, and as tempting as it was to stay in my room slaying dragons all day, I can always do that back in the States.  So I said yes!  

After a quick bite to eat I walked down to the gare (which takes the better part of an hour) to meet Ashley at 14h00 to take the bus up to Péage de Roussillon where we would catch a train down to Valence around 15h00.  Well turns out our train from Péage was about 20 minutes late, and we were ten minutes early anyway, so we walked down to a bar in town and sat down for a cup of quite tasty hot cocao : 2€ (remember this for later).  Fun fact : the French serve their hot chocolate with cubes of sugar on the side - in case you want to add sugar to your cup of liquid chocolate...yo dawg...! meme comes to mind...look it up :P Anyway I had to try it of course, and honestly it doesn't really taste any different. I think I'll stick to my already not-so-healthy-so-not-gonna-make-it-worse hot choclate. Merci.
Thirty minutes later we headed back to the station and hide a peaceful ride down to Valence.  Ashley is a pro being familiar with Valence, so we headed out from the station and walked around (at the first corner I was lost) and made our way to our friend Jess's (another rad English girl who's an assistant in Valence) apartment.  We hung out there for a little bit and got in touch with the other assistants in the area who were waiting for us to show up so we could all go ice skating.

Another English girl, our friend Emily, lives down the way from Jess so we walked down to her place and then we all headed out towards to rink to meet up with everyone else.  It was too bad our train was really late, because we lost a lot of time of skating and they closed like 30 minutes after we got there.  We had fun though.  I didn't learn anything new, but it's comforting to know I can still skate - kindof.  I can go really fast, that's it.  I can't stop, can barely turn, and every once in a while can pull a full spin.  The good news is that I only fell once!  The bad news is that for the next 3 weeks I would have burns a little above my ankles where the skates were rubbing against my skin.  

More of our friends met up with us at the rink, but didn't skate with us because it was too late.  We all walked away from the rink to a bar to get some drinks and fries before meeting up with MORE people for dinner at the Vodka Steakhouse that was right in front of the train station.  I had another hot chocolate - 3.50€ (big city prices are typically a lot higher than the smaller cities like Péage, where my cocoa only cost 2€. Bah, humbug!).  

The girls ordered either wine or beer, which was all cheaper than my drink, AND they had more to drink. We were there for maybe an hour being joyous and whatnot, and the fries were really teasing and I got really hungry so eventually we left to the restaurant to at least find our seats and so we could munch on some bread while we waited for the rest of the party.

I forget how many we were that night...after some quick thinking and reanimating the night in my head I think we were 11.  I would draw out the table for you but I don't have a pencil, and also that would suck for my computer screen.  Also I suck at drawing.  Also I don't think I took any pictures of the whole group...we'll see after I'm done writing (that's when I go look for pictures to add). ANYway.

Dinner was amazing.  Straight up.  A lot of us ordered the same thing - the entrecôte, which is a cut of beef.  Not quite sure where it comes from...it was quite tasty though!  I topped it with some kind of onion sauce that I forgot the name of.

For dessert I had to get this 'marron glacé' dish, which was chestnut ice cream.  I don't know if I've mentioned this on here before...but I am obsessed with chestnuts now.  There's a smaller chestnut called 'châtaigne' but it's basically the same, and they're WAY good.  I've had crêpes de marron, gateau de châtaigne, crème de châtaigne mixed with fromage blanc, and now marron glacé.  I could eat the stuff all day. All. Day. Long. Out of a chestnut bowl with a chestnut spoon.  So good.

Basically I stuffed myself.  Most everyone did.  Some of the girls were a little silly by the end of two carafes of wine, but we were all having a lot of fun so we went from the restaurant to another bar for...more drinks! Haha I'm still getting used to the night life here... 

We parted ways after another hour or so, after convincing our Puerto Rican friend that our English friend was of royal blood and knew the Queen and everybody.  That was hilarious.  Jess, Ashley, and I all headed back to Jess's for the night, only to get up a few hours later to catch a train back to Annonay where Ashley had to work.  I couldn't imagine having the strength to do what she does! A powerhouse, that one.  The force must be strong with her.

This would be a good break point for my next post about the Fête des Lumières, which was an adventure in itself! 

Continue straight on to the next post if you wish…

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Nouveau Travail Et Spectacle De Téléthon


For some reason I wrote notes on this week backwards, and I think it was because I didn't start making notes until that Saturday...from the looks of it, it wasn't an especially eventful week.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I have zero pictures for you. Sorry!  This is where I find out (not really) if you're a true fan or just came for the pictures.  If you are reading on, I'll try to make this is quick and painless as possible!

So needless to say, waking up Monday morning for work was pretty difficult.  I was still really tired from the weekend, and just about the last thing I wanted to do was go hang out with a bunch of eight year olds.  How do you teachers do it all week and all year?!  Thankfully my Mondays are actually the better days.  Kindof.  I have my preschool class first thing, and there's not a lot I can do for them so I sing for them like once or twice and then just act as an assistant teacher.  One of the kids is crazy.  Mathis.  I have an automatic prejudice against all other children named Mathis now...anyway.

We had volleyball that week, like every other week, except this time we lost!  And it sucked because we play the best of five matches and we won the first two, and then they came back and won the next three.  It was pretty embarrassing. 


Tuesday I worked like usual, and I don't think anything exciting happened...


On Wednesday I worked with Thomas again, annnd I'm pretty sure that's all that happened...


Thursday, however, was more eventful.  I had been in contact with a mom of some of my students, and she wanted me to come babysit the kids after school on Thursdays for a couple hours while she worked at her flower boutique.  So that Thursday, after school (obvi) I met the dad outside the school.  The guy is super nice.  He flies airplanes, hang gliders, and is a snowmobile guide.  


Anyway, he drove us just down the hill to their beautiful house that looks over a canyon.  We walked in and he showed me around the house, including opening about every drawer and cabinet in the kitchen telling me I could eat or make anything whenever I wanted.  I had a glass of apple juice and a really good butter cookie with a strawberry spread, and then they all drove me back up to the hill where I grabbed my bike and headed back home.


That evening I had volleyball practice, which wasn't the best I've had since I got here, but I guess that happens sometimes.  I had a better night when I skyped my family until like 4 in the morning.  Since I have nothing to do on Fridays I can stay up as late as I want without consequence, so I was happy to chat with them because it had been a while since we had last talked.


On Friday I went and visited Ashley in Annonay for a little while before she headed off to Valence, which is when I went back home to go with Isabelle and Anouk to another pétanque party at the same place we had the first one.  


It was just as fun as the last time, except there was no cake at the end.  Not that it matters, the cake is a lie.
I'd love to come home my own set of pétanque balls, but there would be no where to play and no one to play against haha, so I guess I'll just leave that hobby here.  We didn't get home too late, probably midnightish, and then I was off to sleep.  


Saturday was a lot more fun! I slept in and skipped breakfast to go meet Alex for lunch, after which I had major heartburn.  Word of advice : don't eat pasta and a pound of ham and a raspberry tarte for breakfast.  A couple hours later, after Alex had gotten off work, Thibaut drove us three down to Annonay where we bought some Tum-like pills that immediately cured me of my heartburn. It was like magic! 


We ate paninis at a pizza/sandwich restaurant next door to the theater in Annonay where we were waiting to see Guillemette perform in a big dance performance.  It was a charity event to raise money for research to help the sick and afflicted.  The cool the thing is that events like these were taking place simultaneously around France for the same cause, like the kids at one of the schools I work at holding a bake sale.  It's called Téléthon, and it's a huge event they hold every year! 


They had a TV program going all day, showing different events going around the country, people who were going to be helped with the money, and an active count of how much money was being donated.  You could go online and make a donation there, or you could call in and go from there.  It's a really great idea, and this year they raised over 86 million euros!


Well anyway, after dinner we still had some time to wait, so we bought our tickets in the theater to avoid the inevitable huge line that would come later and went to the mall to get some dessert.  First, however, Alex let me drive his car around the parking lot.  Have I mention that EVERY car here is a stick shift?  Good thing McKenzi trained me over the summer, so when I got behind the wheel I made it around the whole lot without stalling even once!  I was so proud, and I think Mac B would've been as well.


We picked up a tub of chocolate mousse and a box of cat tongues to munch on in the theater.  Oh, sorry, did that weird you out?  Didn't know cat tongues were a French delicacy did you?!  Well, it's...not true. Sorry to be misleading, 'langue de chat' is just an oval shaped butter cookie that they often eat with coffee and chocolate mousse :) 


I would say we had about 50 cookies and about two pounds of chocolate mousse that we devoured within the next 3 hours.  It was somewhat disturbing, especially considering I'm pretty sure I ate most of it...here's the weird thing.  I haven't gained or lost a pound since I got here.  Ok it's not so weird that I haven't lost any weight, but I figured I would've picked up a little something extra from what I've been eating. I guess I just have a Grade A metabolism, and I'm trying to make use of it while I can!


We finally sat down center stage a couple rows back in probably the most perfect seats, and then it started! There were maybe...10 dances, starting with a little boy who danced to a Michael Jackson medley in an MJ getup, he was really good!  Then there was a group of 3 or 4 year olds, and the next several dances continued like that, increasing in age every dance until Guillemette's group finally came out!


All the dances were really impressive.  Except for the 3 year olds, mostly it was just them holding hands and running around a Christmas tree.  It could've been better organized. Haha totally kidding, but really...
Anyway, after our friend danced there was a couple of guys who did some break dancing, and THAT was super impressive.  There was a magician after them.  He was...subpar, at best.  Porr guy.  Finally, after three hours we left and went to St. Victor to watch Paul (in French), after which we finally went to bed, at about 3:30.


In the morning Thibaut had bought us all fresh croissants and other goodies from the bakery, and after we had all eaten our fill we headed back to Annonay, where I think I got some more sleep and spent a peaceful day in my room doing something that I don't remember and didn't write down...


Another week down.  It's definitely starting to feel more and more like home here.  I know because the weeks are starting to blur together, and I'm starting to develop a routine!  I know quite a few people pretty well, and I know almost all my student's names.  Ok not really, but I do know practically every face.  


It's currently December 16th, which means I have two weeks to catch up on, which I should do soon because in three days I'm leaving for Paris and in a week I leave for Bordeaux to spend Christmas with Tiste! 


 I'll save an explanation for later. Bye!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Thanksgiving En France Et Les Gorges De L'Ardèche


Mondays and Tuesdays have become a blur of children and volleyball.  Not a great combination when put together, but when you spend time with them separately it's a lot more fun.  So like the week before and weeks to come, I spent Monday working with kids (also the teachers) and at the end of the day I went off to play in our second match, which we won again!  My coach (Rémy, the guy who makes his own apple and apricot juice who I saw at the Gourmandises), asked me after the game if I would come play with his team on Wednesday, which I of course agreed to!


On Tuesday all I have written is "work" haha, so apparently nothing interesting happened that day, and if something did and I forgot and you were a part of it I'm really sorry and must be on drugs...


Anyway, on Wednesday I was with Thomas again for a private lesson and Fabienne (his mom) dropped me off at the train office in Annonay (even though there are no trains) to meet with Isabelle to buy train tickets to Paris and Bordeaux.  I'm officially visiting Baptiste from the 23rd to the 3rd! So pumped.  Look forward to pictures!


That night I followed Rémy and his squad out towards where I was on Monday, and I had an awesome time with them.  They play a lot more competitively than the I play against, so it was actually a lot more fun.  Also, winning is a lot more satisfying haha.  I've been lucky to only travel super far away on Wednesdays, when I don't have anything to do the next day.  So when we did eventually get home around 1 a.m. I was happy to know I could sleep as much as I wanted.


Eventually I woke up to go get groceries with Alex for that night - Thanksgiving!!!  My meal plan looked like this - turkey, creamy garlic mashed potatoes, spinach artichoke dip, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie.  The idea was to keep it cheap and simple so my friends could have a small idea about what we do in the States.  


We only picked up a few things in Davézieux and planned on getting the rest in Lyon where we would meet up with Océane.  Guillemette, Alex, and I all took off Lyon bound and got in around 7.  We didn't leave the grocery store until close to 9 I think, because guess what? It's a lot harder to translate ingredients than you would think.  I couldn't find half the things I needed.  The mayonnaise had mustard in it.  There wasn't a pumpkin anywhere in the store, nor canned pumpkin.  So there would be no pumpkin pie :/


I got what I thought most closely resembled the ingredients I needed for everything else though, and we all headed back to Océane's apartment.  By the time we ate it was probably 11.  I tried the best I could with what I had to ace the recipe's I had, but I came short on pretty much everything...


There aren't turkeys in the markets or grocery stores until closer to Christmas, so we had to buy a rotisserie chicken (please don't hate). The dip was too mayonaissey, the garlic in the mashed potatoes was too chunky, the green bean casserole didn't even taste like a green bean casserole. That would be due to the lack of dried onion rings and cream of mushroom soup...overall, I was a little disappointed in myself.  Either my friends are all really good at hiding their disgust or they actually enjoyed it! Hoping it was the latter...


At the worst, we got to spend some quality time together.  Also, before we ate I made everybody say something they were thankful for haha.  Anyway, Alex and Guillemette had to work the next morning so we left a little after midnight I think and got home around 1 or so.


Ok.  Big weekend.  We had made plans to go hike in les Gorges de l'Ardèche three weeks before, and to prepare for our adventure I got up Friday and went and got my hair cut.  That was an experience.  The hairdresser was very professional and quick, I was in awe pretty much the whole time she was working on my hair.  For 20€ (including a tip) I was really happy!  Content, even! 


Instead of waking up super early Saturday morning and heading south we decided to go down Friday night so we could get a good night's sleep and then get up whenever we wanted to go hiking.  We hit up McDonald's and then Thibaut drove Alex, Guillemette and me out to Guillemette's little cottage-like home on a camp ground.  We got there pretty late, so I didn't get a good look at where we were exactly, but in the morning I was pleasantly surprised!


It was beautiful outside.  The weather was really, really nice.  Sunny and practically warm.  The cottage was super charming, with the one downside being placed right after the take off/landing of a local airway...they were just little two seater planes, but we all had the pleasure of hearing three of them pass right over the house.


We ate a quick breakfast of fresh croissants and pain au chocolat (that's chocolate bread, not chocolate pain).  The town was called Ruons, and turns out one of my colleague's parents live there! I never saw them.  That'd be weird. Anyway, while we were in town we decided to walk around the "vielle ville" which is like the old part of town.  It was really pretty with all the old architecture and structures, even though small, it was very peaceful.  Afterwards we and went to get groceries for the lunch. 


We were loaded up and ready for an energy boost.  Above the parking lot there was this rock formation that we climbed up and ate on top of.  Not the most comfortable setting for a lunch, but the view was beautiful.  


From there we hiked down through another little town called Labeaume, across a bridge, and into the wilderness.  It wasn't a very difficult path, but there was an occasional rocky part that you had to be wary of.  We walked passed several clusters of summer homes that people rent out, and also a few farms.  What a life that would be!  I can't imagine it.  The simplicity would be too much for me.  Ha!


We saw goats, dogs, cows, and pony's, which we fed, which was fun.  On our way to see a castle that turned out to be off limits to the public, we passed by this fruit tree that looked like it was growing tomatoes.  They even felt like tomatoes.  I'd never seen or tasted anything like that, so I plucked one off the tree and Thibaut cut it up.  It was SO good.  After a quick Google search I figured out it's called persimmon, in French "kaki".  Fun fact: it's what the Greek referred to when they talked about the nectar of the gods!  It tasted like a plum mixed with a fig or a date.  In fact, "persimmon" is derived from the Persian word خرمالو which literally means "date plum" (stolen directly off of wikipedia)!  Can I just accent how good they are? So. Good. 




We walked this loop of about 10 or 11 km, and headed back to the cottage for dinner.  Before eating, Alex pulled a great prank on me.  I was completely unaware the French were capable of such things, but was soon at the receiving end of an ice bath.  There was lavender under the deck in front of the cottage, and when we got back he was like "hey you should smell that lavender!" When I bent down to smell it, he pushed up on the awning over the deck that had collected a bunch of water and it all came down on my back - ice. cold.  It took me a couple seconds to recuperate, but when I did I laughed and had them take a picture, with my camera that had been around my neck at the time of the soaking but was luckily protected from the water as I bent over it.  We all shared a laugh and Thibaut offered me a new shirt to wear for the night.

taking a picture!
alex taking a picture of me...
It had been a while since we had eaten, so we prepared dinner - pasta and cheese and hotdogs.  It was delicious, and not far from home!  After we were well filled we watched the French version of Dinner For Schmucks, which I only understand about half of.  It was still really funny though!


Sunday morning we all woke up and ate breakfast like we had the day before, cleaned up a bit, and headed up to climb up to this radio tower that looks over the area.  It was pretty fun; I got some good pictures, and Alex got some pictures of me taking pictures!  We found a little cave, and played with death on the edge of a cliff.  


We drove back down and headed towards this giant monument of southern France called the Pont d'Arc, which is an enormous land bridge that the river l'Ardèche carved through erosion (obviously it wasn't dynamite or lasers) thousands of years ago.  Its size and beauty is, like most things here, impossible to just take a picture of and say "get it?!" You have to go and see for yourself.  I will gladly be your tour guide!


After dining on the beaches of the Pont d'Arc we walked up the street and found a path that we thought we lead us to a look out point over the area, but we ended up just walking into the middle of nowhere, so we turned upwards towards this rock slide and sat down for a while before turning around and going back to the car.  Everyone was pretty satisfied with the day's hike, and by satisfied I mean whipped.


We got back to the cottage, cleaned up completely and packed everything before we said our goodbyes.  To the cottage, that is.  I got back that night totally drained, and wasn't too excited to get up and work the next morning.  Alas, I don't really have a choice in the matter, and it's not half as bad as I make it out to be.  That concludes that week though, so I'm off to bed!  I'm almost caught up, there's just the week after this and now this week (5/12 - 11/12) and then it's all good.  Awesome.  Ok bye!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Oh My Update... 1/3

Week one of three I have to catch the world up one...here goes...the only downside of not updating regularly is that after a while I decide it's not worth the pain of editing any pictures and so I just post them raw.  Can't even explain the advantage in boosting levels, even just a little makes such a difference.

ANYway.

This week (from what I remember) was pretty legendary.  Starting from Wednesday.  On Monday I went to school and then that night was looking forward to getting my license to play volleyball, only to show up and them not have it.  We had a match that Wednesday, so I was a little worried I wouldn't get to play. A quick chat with my capitan (Maddy) put my ease - she would have it for when I showed up for the match.

I would've stuck around to watch the rest of the match but I was already tired and knew it wouldn't finish till late, so I headed home and probably got on Facebook until late anyway.  Tuesdays for me are getting harder and harder to remember because there isn't really anything special about them except that it's my Friday.  But because I have to work on Wednesdays I don't ever go out or leave town on Tuesday so I usually just keep it pretty relaxed.

headhot. twice.
Wednesday was great.  Thomas and I had as much fun as we usually do, and afterwards I went home to find Skyrim waiting for me.  Fun fact : import tax of a video game from the U.S. are about 33€.  That brought my grand total from a $60 game plus a $30 shipping fee to $134 with the $44 import tax. The good news is that I'm rolling in the dough over here so I can afford to drop that kind of money on a game - even if I really wasn't expecting to and am still a little pissed about it.

Anyway, like I said earlier we had a match that night so I didn't get to play all night like I was hoping to. We had an awesome time at the match though, I didn't play too bad for my first time. I even finished the game with a left handed kill!  Afterwards, like usual, we all changed and showered and headed out to the lobby where they fed us.  By then it was already 10:30, and we didn't even up leaving until probably after 12 and didn't get home until 1 ish.  Good thing I don't work Thursdays!

From my Cliff Notes on what I did Thursday apparently all I did was play Skyrim until I had volleyball practice at 8 that night.  Wouldn't surprise me.

Friday was a lot more productive.  Alex and I were planning on going to this Musée de l'Alambic, a distillery in St. Désirat, just 20 minutes or so down into the valley.  There's a free tour you walk yourself through where you see really old parts of the distillery (which is still in production by the way), and then at the end you can buy products and whatnot.  They make a really strong alcohol called eau de vie, which you drink a little bit of after a meal.  There were a million different shaped bottles and holders and it was really impressive, including sealed bottles with whole fruits in them!

We walked around, saw this little video, and continued on our way until we were in the gift shop. Wall to wall bottles of alcohol.  It was really fun, but we didn't buy anything.

I was really excited to put pictures up from the musée the next day. So excited, in fact, that I left my camera on all night instead of turning it off after I was done transferring the pictures.  Which only takes like 2 minutes, max.  So the next day, when Alex, Thibaut, and I all went hiking in Pilat I was pissed because my camera dead.  I managed to get a couple pictures before it completely died, so here are those. I'll just steal some Alex's and hope he doesn't sue me :)

The hike was great, with a wide range of difficulty of trails.  When we first started, we were just walking on pretty much flat dirt into the forest.  As soon as we passed the tree line, however, we were walking straight rocks the size of...large potatoes.  Our first hike took us the highest point in Ardèche, where we could see several cities and villages in the surrounding area.  We even saw Mt. Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe, but no one was successful in capturing it on film.  Or digitally, for that matter.

We came back to where we had parked for a little picnic.  I feel like I should clarify though.  It was freezing cold, and the wind was blowing like no one's business.  So when I say we "picnicked," I mean we sat in the shelter of a barn on a large wooden pallet and huddled together to keep warm while we split a baguette and some fruit juice.  Just had to throw that out there.

After lunch we started our second hike.  This one was about 23 times harder than the first one.  We pretty much hiked straight down a set of stairs made of jagged rocks and tree roots.  It was awesome.  When we reached the bottom, we followed a stream up to this beautiful waterfall.  We goofed off a little bite in front of it and then instead of climbing back up from where we came we took an even harder route up this rock slide of giant, moss covered limestone.  Then we had to climb back up the vertical trail of death.  Basically I died, but it was really nice to be outside after having playing Skyrim already for hours in my cave of a bedroom.

We parted ways with Thibaut unfortunately, and Alex and I headed to St. Étienne to party it up at Romain's place. Which we did quite well, I might add.  I think something crazy happens every time I go there, it's great.  On that night, I met an LDS girl who happens to be friends with Romain and them and she came.  Small world! She went home early so we didn't get to talk much, but she's way cool.

On Sunday I followed my friends to this warehouse like building where a bunch of universities and companies had booths set up to advertise themselves.  We went home after a while and I'm pretty sure I just kicked back and tried to recover from the combination of lack of sleep and extreme boulder climbing.

On to the next week!