Dernière Semaine Avant Les Vacances

I couldn't wait to be on my already second vacation of the year.  It was a really just a vacation within a vacation.  We must go deeper…

Basically on Monday I did what I usually did. You should have my Monday-Tuesday schedule down to the button by this point. Say it with me now!  Monday I worked with the chilluns, and afterwards I had a volleyball match.  That night sucked.  We played like garbage!  The good news is that after every match we always eat super well.  The bad news is that 7 hours later I had to wake up and go back to work.

Which I did, with flying colors.  I had been reading the kids "Twas the Night Before Christmas" for the last two weeks or so in preparation for the holidays, so that made lessons pretty easy.  They don't understand 95% of what I'm saying but we always talk about it after I'm done and I teach them some Christmas vocabulary and the kids think it's so funny.  Most of them are loving it!

I took some time out of my Christmas lesson to explain to the older kids something I've come across about a zillion times since I've been here.  I've come up with the four biggest pronunciation problems with the French speaking English - 1) pronouncing H's.  2) pronouncing TH's 3) pronouncing R's 4) pronouncing letters at the end of words. 

The problem with pronouncing the H isn't that they can't do it, but rather once they learn how to do it they put an H in front of almost every vowel, especially 'I'.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Hi ham happy!" instead of "I am happy!" I used that example to explain to the kids that they only have to pronounce the H when they see one at the beginning of a word, except for a couple words like hour.  When I tell them that when they say "hi ham happy" they're saying "bonjour jambon content" they crack up, but I think that really gets them to understand. 

The TH is a lot more difficult to explain, because they never use that sound here. Not ever.  I just do my best to explain that you have to put your tongue between your teeth and blow through it.  They can usually do that just fine, but when it comes to a THR or even THER word they struggle to go straight from the TH to putting their tongue back in their mouth to get the R.

If I thought explaining the TH was difficult, explaining an English R to the French is like trying to count your licks to the center of a lollypop.  It requires extreme concentration, dedication, and patience.  Basically, it's nearly impossible.  I just stand there and repeat myself about a hundred times until I decide we should probably move on to the next subject.

Anyway, I just wanted to include a little bit about what I've been doing at work because I know most of the time I just say I went to work and then went home without much detail!  I'm still working on getting a picture of the kids, but honestly I probably won't have one until the end of the year.

On Tuesday my last day before vacation, we made chocolate covered corn flakes most of the day, and it was really easy.  I explained some of the directions in English, but it was hard enough to explain how to make it in French so pretty much I just acted as assistant teacher that day.  Which, honestly, I prefer!  In Jean Luc's class we sang "We Wish You An Aussi Christmas" together with his guitar that he let me play and it was really fun.  I don't particularly like the song, and would have rather sang the real version, but it was still kinda funny.

Quick culture note! Chords in French aren't based on the letter notes like we do (C, D, E, F, G, A, and B) but rather the sounds of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, and Ti!  That made it a lot harder to learn the song, but luckily I have a decent enough ear and have playing guitar for long enough to be able to figure it out.  

Finally I was done!  It's not like I work really hard throughout the week and needed a vacation, I've been on one since I've been here…I just couldn't wait to go to Paris and to see Tiste!  I had the rest of the week to go through first, however, and I already also had several plans. 

Plan number one:  hang out with Ashley!  I hadn't seen her since the week before, and she was taking off for home on Thursday, so we decided to hang out before vacation.  I went over to her place after work to watch Run, Fat Boy, Run.  I love that movie!  Mostly I love Simon Pegg, but so far I haven't disliked anything he's been in.  

One ginormous hug later and I was biking back home to meet up with Thibaut and some of his friends to get some Chinese food at the buffet in Davézieux that I've wanted to go to for a long time.  I hadn't met the two other guys before, Darion and Jeremy, but they were pretty funny.  They ate enough to make any American impressed; I couldn't even keep up.  The food was way good though, and for 18€ I think I got my money's worth.  

On Wednesday, like usual I went to Thomas's for an English lesson, which can be difficult if he doesn't have homework from school to show me, which was the case that day.  I decided to just give him the same lesson I'd been giving the kids on "Twas The Night Before Christmas," but we did the lesson a little differently.  I would read a paragraph and he would dictate it, I would edit it, and then he would tell me what he thought it meant.  It went really well I thought, I could see progression in his work, which is the goal, right? 

All I have written after Thomas's house is Skyrim, so I'm guessing that's what I did for the rest of the day Wednesday, sorry to disappoint :P

Apparently I didn't get enough rest Wednesday, because all I did Thursday was play Skyrim and watch Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain before I went to an awesome volleyball practice.  Nothing like breaking the dull of a day by throwing yourself around a gym floor in order to push a synthetic rubber ball over the other side of a 274 cm high net.

I was walking down the road in front of my house about to check in for the night when Françoise, my host mom's friend who I play pétanque with sometimes, rolled up next to me to drop of some champagne for Isabelle.  She had just finished with a korfball match (weird basketball, remember? If not, look it up) and since I was there she invited me to have a drink and bite to eat with them in the lobby of the gym where they were playing.  I was starving.  Plus, like I've said before, I'm trying to be Yes Man over here in France, so I tagged along to meet back up with her teammates, who happen to be everybody else I play pétanque with (Gislenne, Alex, Jean Paul, Béa, Jérome, Anthony, etc.) for some fruit juice and cake and bread and cheese and paté and it was great.  I was home an hour and half so later and ready to hit the sack.  But I just went to bed instead.

Big plans for the weekend!  At least for Friday and Saturday.  I was up and eating lunch with Alex and his mom at the mall-like grocery store by Alex's work by noon on Friday, which his mom paid for.  She's so nice! I love the French haha.  After lunch Alex and I headed up to St. Étienne for another party at Romain's that night, but we went early so we could go to the mall and check some things out there.  

We stopped by the SFR phone store so Alex could ask them for a replacement since his as bugging out.  They took his phone to send in to HQ and gave him a brick as a replacement until he got his phone back in the mail, and made him write a 60€ cautionary check.  I wouldn't have paid four cents for the phone he was given as a replacement, but luckily it was only for 15 days or so.  Unluckily, that meant he wouldn't have it for his trip to Nantes to visit his family for Christmas and New Year's.  I felt bad because he's always taking pictures with his phone (it's a really nice camera) of his adventures too, and I couldn't imagine going to Tiste's without my camera! 

After SFR we went to check out some shoes.  I even decided to give the Adidas another look - still didn't want them.  But we did go up to this other sports store where they sell all sorts of other shoes, whether it be for running, tennis, volleyball, basketball, soccer, you get the idea. So we went up there, and I fell in love with this pair of red and black Nike running shoes.  There was another pair of sweet volleyball shoes that were BYU colors so…I decided to get those too.  Merry Christmas to me!

We left the mall for Romain's apartment, where we waited a while for people to show up.  I just realized we're always the first ones to the party haha.  Romain showed us some pictures of his new motorcycle which is really really nice, but locked up in a garage at his mom's place, so we couldn't see it.  When people eventually did show up, we played this fun counting game with them where someone starts with one and points to the next person, then that person says two with the objective of eventually reaching 20, but there are little twists in between like at 4 you have to point the other direction, and at then at 5 you point with both hands but the one on bottom is the direction you go next, and there were different rules but if you screwed up you had to drink.  I tried not to screw up too often.  Two liters of Coke doesn't feel very good in your system when it's taken in one sitting…

Things were pretty chill like that for a while, and we called it a night after a while.  Obviously.

The next morning we all got up to it snowingg outside!  It was the first snow I had seen here, and for some reason it was mesmerizing haha.  We were all hungry, so we left to get lunch at the Casino down the highway, and despite waiting in line for 10 minutes to reheat my food it was really good! 

Alex had told Guillemette he would help try to fix her computer that afternoon so we had to leave St. Étienne around 2 or so, and were at Guillemette's around 3:30.  Her computer was so bugged that she couldn't even get it to start up, so we went over to her older sister's house to help her figure out a Facebook page for her wedding store.  She's the one who made the dresses that my friends modeled for a couple months ago!  Holy geeze it's already been 3 months.  It's going by WAY too fast! :(

Well after we left Guillemette's sister's we went to Kiabi for a little bit because I wanted to check out the raincoats there.  Like the classy, French ones.  Two rows of buttons? Peacoat style.  Unfortunately they're like 100€ sooo I decided to check back later when maybe there would be a sale or more in stock, because they had the style I wanted but not my size unfortunately.  Anyway…

I got back home and probably derped around on the internet and on the xbox until I was ready to sleep.  

I have zero notes from Sunday…I have no idea what I did, but I know that it was the day before we left for Paris so I know I spent a good deal of the day packing and stuff.  But other than that, I'm blank! It's not the first time that's happened, which scares me.  What did I do?!?!

Either way…I'm still alive…and I still ended leaving the next day, so everything worked out! Onto Paris! (French accent Paris, not American. I'm still indecisive on how I will pronounce French words and cities and everything when I get back…do I say them how they're supposed to be said? Do I take it easy on my friends and family and just say them in English? I'll probably just do both. Who knows. Except Paris.  I'll always say that with a French accent. And chocolat.) 

La Fête des Lumières

After my night in Valence I headed straight back to Davézieux, looking forward to a chance to rest up, maybe take a much needed nap.  Unfortunately,  I totally forgot that I had a lunch date with the teachers of Vissenty, so after stowing away my overnight stuff I hopped on my bike and rode down to the school to carpool out to the restaurant with my coworkers.  No nap. 

We went to this sortof classy place in Annonay, where I think everybody but one person ordered the salmon (a very popular item throughout all the restaurants I would dare say).  About halfway through the meal I thought it would be nice if I anonymously picked up the tab, to the point where I started getting nervous.  It was kind of weird.  It's not like I don't do nice things for people and then I was getting nervous to do it for the first time or anything like that, but for some reason I was feeling…tingly.

So as soon and as discretely as I could I got up to 'look for the bathroom,' found the waitress and asked to pay for the bill.  In my haste I forgot to mention that I didn't want the others to know, so when I headed back to the table and someone asked for the check, the waitress just told them I had just paid for it.  I was so embarrassed!  My coworkers gave me a hard time about it, which made me feel worse, but I really wanted to do something nice for them all as a thank you for being so welcoming, helpful and friendly towards me so I pretty much begged them to let it go haha.  Tingly feeling gone.

They were really appreciative, but I could tell they were still a little…not bothered, but maybe just thought it was too much for me to take, so I wasn't surprised when, the following week, they all pitched in to get me a gift card to Intersport (a big sporting goods store).  It was really nice of them, but I'm still kicking myself for botching project Anonymous Amiable American.

After lunch, I biked back home and probably played guitar or xbox at home until I had to head back to the school to meet up with the boys I babysit.  Their mom was there, which I wasn't expecting since I was under the impression that I would just walk the kids home, but I guess she wanted to meet me and talk with me a little bit before she took off for work, which makes sense.  After making me feel even more comfortable in their house than I had been before by telling me her home was mine, she left me with the boys for the next couple hours.

I had made copies of some Christmas flash cards that I thought we could go over for our English lesson for the day, and after we went over all of them the boys brought me into the living room to play this game on their TV, which was actually pretty fun.  They think I am a legend because I helped them beat a few levels of their game haha, I love it.  I could play older brother forever!  And get paid for it?  In France?! Life complete.

After their mom came back, I biked back home and got ready for the big night in Lyon. The city of lights!  We had been planning the trip for a while, and I was really excited.  I had watched videos, heard people talk about it, seen pictures - I was ready to see it with mine own eyes!

Side note - do you know why they have the Illuminations? Not even a lot people in France know much about it, it's pretty much just the Rhône Alps region that puts on the show, and even more specifically Lyon.  Anyway, if understood correctly, either in the Medieval Times or around then there was a plague that swept through Lyon, and the people all gathered at the top of one of the mountains and prayed to the Virgin Mary to save everybody, and the plague miraculously ended!  

Since then they've given thanks to her by lighting up candles and putting them on their windowsills, and obviously it evolved from that.  They still have a big "Merci Mary" sign lit up at the bastille up on the mountain where they gathered hundreds of years ago.  The end!  

So, Alex, Guillemette, and I met up at my house and we were off.  An hour and a half or so later we rolled into town, along with about 2 million other people.  I think the greatest blessing of the day was that as we were circling around looking for parking, someone pulled out of their spot just in front of a hotel, so we parked there and the hotel attendant said that normally you had to be a customer to park there but for that night only we were allowed to stay there.  

It was right next to a train station, so it would be really easy to find on our back,  Plus, Guillemette had done some of her studies in Lyon, so she knew her way around really well.  We walked maybe a mile tops to get into the center of town, where it seemed the rest of the world was also gathered in celebration.  We walked around and admired some of the different set ups of lights and shops they had set up, and then met up with Océane and her friend to look at some other stuff.  Like McDonald's! Just kidding…we were hungry, so we stopped there to eat.  

After we were done ordering we split up with Océane and her friend to go see one of the coolest shows that night, which was this building that was all lit up on the side where the lights played out a pinball scene.  The windows lit up, the gargoyles 'moved,' the doors and the pillars were a part of the game, it was really impressive!  I think I have a video if no pictures...

We met up with more of our friends, Ana (from St. Ètienne) and her friend, where we saw a bunch of lit up eyes.  I didn't get it, but it was cool haha.

It wasn't longer after meeting up that we said bye to them, and went to go watch this big show that played on the side of several buildings surrounding a plaza, which was really cool except for the music which was actually kind of annoying haha.  I only have a video of it I think, so if you wanna know more about it you'll have to meet up with me in person!

We didn't get to stay for long because both Alex and Guillemette had to get up early the next morning to work, so we left around midnight after having been there for 2 hours or so.  On our way out of town Alex and I stopped for a crêpe, where we happened to run into Océane again! We chatted a little while before continuing on.

The car ride home was pretty quite, we were are really tired and ready to be home, where we rolled in around 1:30-2.  Friday and the rest of the weekend still had a lot in store in for me though!  Things don't ever really settle down for me haha, but I'm thankful for that.  How much would it suck if I just sat around all day?  I love my friends and their nonstop partying.

My Beats (by Dre.) came in the morning after the Illuminations, and I was in love at first…listen.  I put on Cinema (Skrillex remix) and literally teared up when the bass dropped.  These headphones are like nothing I've ever experienced.  I pick up different sounds and instruments that I've never heard in certain songs before. Not to mention the noise canceling feature is truly a lifesaver…

I plugged in and listened to music all Friday and worked on my blog (from weeks before) until that night when I got a text from Thibaut inviting me to go out to pizza with him and Alex.  We went to this little restaurant in Annonay that sells really good pizzas for like 5€, and you can rip off a ticket from the box and collect them to get free pizza!  

Have I talked much about the pizza here? It's not normal.  They make pizza out of everything, and it's superb.  Potatoes, ravioli, salmon, you name it.  I got a pizza made with kebab meat.  

Have I talked much about kebabs here?  It's a sandwich that is typically made from a big slab of lamb that has been cooked rotisserie style for hours that they hack off and throw in between bread and it's most delicious.  Here's the thing.  In some cities, there is a kebab shop literally 5 stores away from another one.  Down the whole street.  You could walk around town and cross 50 kebab shops, not even exaggerating!  They're 99% all run by Turks.  That's right! There's a surprising amount of Turkish people here.  I just typed in Valence Kebab in Google Maps and it came up with 1,039 results.  No joke.

Anyway, the kebab pizza I ordered was delicious.  I ate the whole thing :( I'm not gaining weight either, I've just been blessed with a metabolism equivalent to that of a Ferrari engine.  

We said our au revoirs, but had plans to meet up again for two parties the next day so it wasn't a tearful goodbye.  

I didn't have plans the next day and was ready to work more on my blog until our first party on Saturday night, but I got a text from Guillemette inviting me to visit her best friend in St. Vallier and then to go do some window shopping in Valence.  I've been trying to say yes to every invitation, and that was no exception.  An hour or two after waking up (around noon probably), I was in the car with my friend on our way to see her friend and her adorable three month old French Pitbull.

We all had lunch together before heading out to Valence.  My goal was to eventually get to the Foot Locker so I could snag those sweet Adidas I had seen in St. Étienne, but I would have to wait while the girls checked out the Sephora (perfume/cologne) and FNAC (a Best Buy of sorts).  While we were in the FNAC it pleased me to see my Beats (by Dre.) hanging on the wall for a mere 299€!  Did I mention I got them for 120€.  French Ebay. Love it.  

Anyway, eventually we got to the Foot Locker, and I saw the shoes.  That's when one of my infamous Casey Garland qualities came out, and real strong too.  I immediately didn't want them anymore.  I had spent at least an hour on the internet looking them up on Ebay, the Adidas website, all over.  Now, I would love to have them.  But for some reason sometimes when I get really into something that's kinda costly and finally arrive at the store to buy it, I back down 9 times out of 10.  I can't imagine how much money I've saved by doing that.  The end of the story is that I didn't buy the shoes and I don't regret it.

I had to be in St. Victor earlyish for Alex and Thibaut's friend Justine's birthday party, so I said ciao to Guillemette and company and caught a train up to Tournon where I would meet up with Thibaut and he would take me to St. Victor, where would we would wait for Alex to get done with work and meet us.

I can't remember what time we headed to Justine's party, but we were the first ones there.  It was hosted at this community center-like house thing, where there was a dance floor, a kitchen, and a stage for the DJ.  There were tables and enough seats for at least 80 people, and at least that many people came!  It was really fun to meet more people, and I saw Marion there too.  Justine's parents had a butt-ton of food ready for us - entrées, main dishes, desserts, etc.  I think we were there for 3 hours or so before we headed out to Guillemette's party!  We met her and some more friends at her place before we left for the Mykasa club, where we had a table reserved for us.  

After dancing and doing the whole clubbing thing for a while, which included picking up a free mustache tattoo, Alex, Thibaut and I called it a night and headed back home.  I had a lunch date with my host mom and her friend (who happens to be a co worker of mine at Van Gogh) at noon the next day so I needed to get some sleep.

I pretty much rolled out of bed and into the car the next day, I was so tired.  Evelyne, my co worker, had a great lunch lined up for us though, so that woke up me up pretty well.  Her husband is hilarious.  We chatted about soccer for a while over lunch and had laughs about a bunch of different things.  The French love to talk.  They will talk about anything, and they love to express their opinion, especially when they know more than your average Jean-Deau (pronounced John Doe.  Get it?! ha…)

I was hoping we'd have a chance to go home and take a nap before going to Anouk's orchestra concert that night, but turns out we were at Evelyne's for FOUR hours.  Lunch isn't just a drive through at MacDo here, especially if you're hosting it.  You start with an appetizer and something to drink, then you have an entrée, then you have the main dish, then you have cheese, and THEN you have dessert.  Yeah.  Four hours.

We left from Evelyne's and went straight to the concert.  I'm mad at myself for not bringing my camera, but I guess I wasn't expecting to be eating lunch for four hours either.  The concert was great!  Anouk's orchestra wasn't so big that you couldn't hear the flutes, which Isabelle says happens often, so we actually got to hear her play.  What's more, the concert was held in a beautiful church and the sound was incredible.  

There were some light refreshments served afterwards, and we were there for maybe 10 minutes before heading back home.  We got lost on the way back, but thanks to modern technology I was able to locate our position accurate to 3 meters on my phone and successfully guided us back to the right direction.  How about that? An American giving directions to French locals?  I thought it was funny…

On the way home we stopped at the home of a close family friend and their family, whose kids Anouk has been babysitting for the last several years.  It's the same family we'll be skiing with in February, they're so nice and kids are really cute.

We just stopped by to say hello but they insisted that we stay for a little while and to have drink.  I've learned not to to say no to an insisting Frenchman/woman.  You just can't ever win.  Also I didn't really have a choice since I was following Isabelle haha.

Finally, we made our way home.  I got to work on my blog a little more that night before cashing in and resting up for my last week of class before vacation! 

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…

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!

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!