Yup, I got a black eye...

Hi all, again I am so sorry that I am a failure at blogging but meh what can I do!?  Haha, all is well over here in Angrytown, but I am way behind so I have a lot to catch up on!

First will start with the continuation of my trip to Holland even though that was almost a month ago haha!  So after spending time in Amsterdam with the cousins I journeyed to Tilburg where my second set of parents, Gijs and Jose, live.  It was so wonderful to feel like I was at home again!  It feels like I never left.  While I was there Jose took time off work to hang out with me which was super nice!  The first day we went and saw Middelburg, a town about 45 min by train from Tilburg.  This town was absolutely beautiful but what else can you expect from Zeeland (the region).  The most amazing thing to me is that this town was nearly completely destroyed by bombs during WWII, but has been rebuilt in the historic fashion so you can even tell.  Jose and I took a tour of the town hall and then we took a walking tour of the city.  All of it was in Dutch, but Jose was nice enough to translate for me and one of the guides spoke French so I got part of the tour in French which was a surreal experience to be speaking French in Holland.  We walked around and had lunch outside because it was such a lovely day and then made our way back to Tilburg.  The next day Jose and went to the museum of modern art in Tilburg which I didn't like too much but there were a few pieces that were good.  Overall I think that modern art is bullshit (excuse my french ;p).  I think that if anyone can do it, then it isn't special and I don't really care to see it, but maybe I just don't understand it haha!

Then Jose and I took the bikes that we were riding to a small town called Oisterwijk which is beautiful and we had an excellent lunch in this awesome restaurant.  We ended up biking a total of 25km that day, I was so tired by the end of it and of course it was nothing for Jose haha!  I got to have dinner with Tanne that night at her house which was lovely and a great time to catch up.

Getting home was a tricky situation all on its own.  I had ordered the tickets for my trip in France and had gone to the gare (train station) here to collect them before I left.  I stupidly didn’t check to see that they had given me all the tickets that I needed and of course they didn’t give me my tickets for the way home.  I realized this on the train on the way to Holland, and I figured it shouldn’t be a big deal and that I would be able to pick them up at a train station in Holland.  Oh boy was I wrong…apparently you can only get the tickets at a SNCF gare in France and if I wanted my tickets the people at the Dutch train station told me that I would have to go back to get my tickets to go back to France…awesome.  After much anger, hitting of my computer and 40 extra euros I was on the exact same train as I was supposed to be on before and made it home no problem.  Viva la France…

Getting back to Angers was back to work as usual, nothing really too exciting there except for the fact that I actually got to teach my own classes for once which was both terrifying and exciting and I am seeming to do pretty well because at the end of most of the classes the students seem sad to leave.  After a week back in Angers I got my first real bought of homesickness so I decided to take a trip to Nantes to visit my friend Lindsey who always makes me feel better.  Away I went and it was just what I needed.  It was a weekend of little sleep and lots of good times in which I met a lot of cool people and laughed until I cried!  We went out a couple of times in downtown Nantes which was fun, the only problem was that Lindsey lives 40 mins outside of Nantes and we missed the last tram, so we had to walk home in the rain, but it was worth it for a great of randomly talking to French people in a local pub.

            More to come in the next couple of days, I am too tired to keep writing!  Pictures will be added too!

Revenir d'une blogger perdue!

Hey everyone, as you can tell I have been horrible at actually blogging about my life here so I think that it is time for another update about my adventures, but first we have to go back to go forward.

First of all is an update about my birthday, which was totally last minute but ended up being really awesome (to all of you who sent me cards, thanks so much they were wonderful).  First my friend and neighbor Pierre-Henri took me to go play pool at this cool bowling/pool bar downtown and we hung out together for awhile and then me and 6 of my friends all went to this really cool international restaurant called the Coba Lodge.  It is located on the roop top of the Quai, one of the big music theaters in Angers.  It is a really cool modern building and you have to take an outdoor elevator in which you can see the city to get to the restaurant.  The coolest thing about this restaurant is that you can literally get whatever food you want which is great for a large group because everyone can get what they want.  I had the wok, which at first I made really bland on accident because I forgot that a little bit spicy in France means NO TASTE AT ALL.  So I went back to the wok man and took his chile sauce and poured it all over my food, the French people around me looked at me like I was crazy as usual.

This restaurant I guess tries to be really hip or what not because it is on the top of a theater or something because it has free entertainment that is different each night of the week.  Sadly our night was the most ridiculous entertainment I have ever seen.  It wasn't really a show or anything, but rather, yes you guessed it, an overly flamboyant, gay, French masseur!  Whoever told this man that he should give massages was LYING and or dead because it was so bad.  My friend Bekah decided to get her free massage and as the process began we all couldn't help but start to laugh as he started tapping up and down her body with his hands and lifting his legs in the air in some sort of weird massage dance trance.  

Bekah loves to play tricks on people, so of course she decided that it would be a wonderful idea to tell the masseur that it was my birthday and that I would LOVE a massage.  Therefore he pulled me over and gave me the longest and worst massage ever.  I had to stifle my laughs as I endured 20 min in awkward hell where he gently whispered "Je touche, je touche, je touche" in my ear.  Thanks Bekah.

At this time the grêve was still going on, so I was still not having to go to work and nothing much really happened until I went to Holland.  Which brings us up to date with my last post...sort of.

Well after the train debacle on the way to Amsterdam, I finally made it to Silva's house only 1 hour late but she was a sweetheart and came and got me at the train station anyways.  Her house and her roomates were lovely and it was like I had never left two years ago!  We ended up staying up all night talking and catching up which was probably not the best idea for Silva since she had to wake up at 7 am the next morning to go to work.

The next day while Silva was at work, Freekje came to entertain me and seeing her was like seeing my reflection as usual.  We decided to do what else but shopping!  The only problem is that we only had one bike so we had to do the thing where I sit on the thing that is over the back tire while she rides.  The only problem is that you have to get on when the bike is moving and I am horrible at this, but somehow we made it to where we were going without dying.
We then went to this really cool little store and bought some food to make a wonderful dinner of greek salad, hummus and bread, and homemade pumpkin soup (so good Freekje is an amazing cook)!  I decided to roast the pumpkin seeds since Freekje had no idea you could do that but she didn't end up liking them haha.

Later that night Freekje and I decided that we wanted to go out to a bar so she took me to this bar called Bubbles in the middle of town that doesn't really let in tourists so I had to pretend that I was Dutch which meant no talking and pretending to understand the bouncer.  Somehow I got in and experienced a crazy packed bar full of people dancing their asses off.  Apparently Amsterdam is the place to be because bars don't close until something like 6 am or something ridiculous like that.  Silva ended up meeting us and we partied all night until 5am.  Again we had one less bike than was necessary so I had to play the sit-on-the-back-of-the-bike game, but this time I was drunk so it was obviously a FAIL!  Silva's apartment is a good 30 min by bike from the pub and she biked ahead so that she could make a phone call.  That left me and Freekje to find our own way...again FAIL.  We are about half way into our journey and the bike completely breaks.  Freekje is pissed and throws the bike in the middle of the street and yells that she will pay anyone 10 euro to take the bike.  Needless to say no one wants our shitty bike and I am laughing up a storm so I try to pick up the bike and all that comes with me is the handle bars.  We start roaring in laughter and pick up the rest of the bike and start our trek home.

Freekje was a little upset still so she told me to tell her story to take her mind off of things.  For some reason the only thing that comes into my mind is a story about a bunny who is running away from a hunting party in the woods...bleak I know.  Some poor guy on his way to work (because remember it is now 5:30am) sees two girls walking their bike and talking about hunting bunnies and decides to stop.  Thankfully he did because Freekje and I had no idea where the hell we were going.  He walked us the rest of the 15min  home and we fell into bed not to wake up until 2:30 the next day.

The next day was less interesting, we woke up watched bad television and then Freekje had to leave back to Utrecht to study for exams so Silva and I decided to have a romantic fondue dinner date.

I then journied to Tilburg to see the rest of the fam, but I will update about that later since you have already read a lot. 

La grêve continue toujours

Hello all!  Sorry for the long time between posts, but I have been living my wonderful life here instead of writing about it!  I am feeling at home in Angers now, it doesn't feel like the last time I was here when I studied abroad in 2008.  Then it felt as though I was in just in a stage of my life, but now France feels permanent to me (this might be scary to some of you readers!).

I am sitting on the Thalys train to Holland right now to visit the family and thought that this is as good of time as any to update my blog since I have been oh so quiet over the last two weeks.

This is a pic from the local paper.

At this time, there is a massive grêve (strike) in France because the age of retirement has been raised from 60 to a whopping 62!  The country that works the least in the world is now complaining because they have to work a little more.  This strike is the biggest I have ever seen in France and has spread throughout all facets of life.  Transportation is down, schools are closed and public services such as trash collection have stopped.  Angers was in a bit of chaos during the last week.  The trash is just piling up in the streets and starting to smell really bad and the city was placing barriers around the mountains of trash in order to somewhat contain it.  Luckily the trash collectors have gone back to work but with the amount of trash that there was on the streets the collectors have still not caught up.  Therefore there are still huge piles of trash everywhere including outside of my house.  It got so bad that when I wanted to take out my trash, I no longer had to find a dumpster I could just throw my trash outside.  My friends lived right above one of the biggest trash piles and resorted to just throwing their trash out of the 3rd story window.  What is worse is that the kids who are on strike have gone to kicking and opening the bags of trash so now not only are there bags of trash everywhere, but there is litter partout!

The trash is not the only part of the strike that has affected me.  My students have also gone on strike which has prohibited me from working since I have gotten here.  I have yet to teach my own class and I won't be able to start until the 4th of November at the earliest!

When I say that my students are on strike I don't mean that they just stopped coming to school, no French kids take striking VERY seriously here.  Striking to the French is like baseball to Americans, it is the national past-time.  On the first day of the strike I unwittingly decided to go to my lycée anyways to see if there were any students there at all.  As I rounded to corner to the street on which my school was located I was met with the whole student population burning fires and barricading the door to the school.  I instantly turned around for fear of being recognized but I wasn't quick enough.  Some of my students tried to get me to join the strike, but it is not my battle so I just left.  After a few days I decided that I wanted to do something for my pay check so I returned to school and broke through the barricade to get to the door.  I wasn't met with very many happy looks or words when I did this.  The school was deserted except for a few teachers and the few boarding students who have been blockaded in and are unable to leave.  All in all, going to the school ended up being a waste of time.

The strike has also caused the transit across France to go absolutely haywire.  I was trying to take a TGV from Angers to Paris today and low and behold my train was canceled.  The only remedy to the situation was to hop on the next train with 100s of other people like me who didn't have a seat and stand in the corridor for the 2 hour train ride.  I made it but by the end I swear I was about to kill somebody!

My internet is about to go out because I will be entering Brussels soon so I will continue my update soon!  Miss you all!

Best weekend of my life!

Hey there all!  Life in France is going well as usual.  At this point I am pinching myself because I can't believe that it is real.  I received some great news!  My contact professor at my school told me that I have the opportunity to stay in France through the end of their school year, so of course I said yes.  Now instead of coming home at the end of April I will be coming home in the beginning of July.  I am so happy I can barely stand it!

Now for a little bit about my past weekend.  On Friday I went out about town with a few of my English speaking friends and met some of my friend's French friends who were super cool.  They apparently thought the same thing about me because the next day I was invited to a party at one of their houses.  The only thing was that the other American who was coming wasn't going to be able to arrive until around 12:30am so I would have to go alone.  I sucked it up and ignored the fear and went alone.  It turned out to be amazing!  I walked in and everyone was nice and wanted to have conversations with me (in French of course).  The next day I was invited to go hiking in a town 20min by car outside of Angers called Rochefort (where the bleu cheese is made).  Obviously I said yes so we all (there were 5 of us) hopped into the Nissan Cube and drove to the cute little town of Rochefort. 

The Cathedral at Rochefort

The town was absolutely beautiful and we went on an 8kn hike through the vineyards.  On the hike we saw a bunch of small, local French farms with animals.  It was absolutely picturesque.

After the beautiful hike we went to a small bar in Rochefort to buy some bottles of wine from the vineyards which by the way was excellent.  As we were sitting there having our wine and wonderful conversation the church bells began to ring.  Again, I can't believe that this is my life.  After awhile these two local older men sit down at the table next to us and we begin to discuss wine with them.  They told us that they had a cave de vin and that they made their own wine and that we should come back and taste some of it.  We said yes and all piled back into the Cube and were off.  The house was built in the 15th century and was absolutely beautiful.  The man let us try three of his wines which were all exquisite and he talked to us about the history of the area which was captivating.  Only three families had owned the house since it was built in the 1400s and at one time it had been a tannery.  He told us about the pirates that used to go down the Loire river and about the history of the wine in the area.  We ended up staying and talking until 11h00. 

We got back to Angers at 11h30 and STARTED to make our dinner which was a traditional French meal made from fresh local ingredients.  It was to die for and of course their was more wine.  Definitely the best Sunday of my life and we have all decided that le dimanche est le nouveau jeudi (Sunday is the new Thursday)! 


There is a large grêve (strike) in Angers and in all of France today concerning the rise in the required age for retirement.  As an American I find this absolutely hilarious that in the country where people work the least in the world they are striking because they might have to work a little more.  Anyways because of the strike the students at the lycée where I work also striked and barricaded the entrance so alas I did not have to work today.  I guess we will see what tomorrow brings.  

The Return of the Long-Awaited Blog Post!

Hello all, yes I know that it has been far too long and that you are all anxiously awaiting a new blog posts on your computer ;p, and some of you have even been asking me directly to make one (::cough:: mom ::cough::) but I did not have internet access at my place until yesterday so I was unable to make one!  Now I am back and have so much to tell you! 

The view from my apartment window

In my last post I told you all that after much work I was able to find an apartment right in the heart of the city that is absolutely fantastic.  I met my upstairs neighbor yesterday who speaks English pretty well which is cool and we had a good conversation about trips and traveling and such, so at least I know that one of my neighbors is cool!  I know that all of you have anxiously been waiting for photo documentation of my new digs, so without further adieu, here you go! 

So far France has been awesome, and I am pretty sure that it is going to stay that way.  I have already had some crazy adventures.  My other American friend Lindsey and I were hanging out in a bar speaking English and these two French boys came over and say with us because they wanted to speak English.  Alas they were horrible at it so in reality they butchered English and we responded in English and then had to translate into French because they didn't get it at all.  One of them even asked us if we could speak with a British accent because they could understand that better.  I responded curtly by asking him if he could speak with a southern French accent for me in return, I think he got my point because he dropped the idea of us speaking with British accents. 

It turns out that these guys were engineering students at a school in Angers called ENSAM and they invited us to come to a party at their school bar (because schools have bars in them here).  Probably wasn't the best idea but Lindsey and I agreed and our adventure began.  We were lead across the river to the school and taken down a back entrance, to an old monastery which serves as the dorms.  This is so crazy to me by the way because these people are living in a building built in the 14th century like it is no big thing.  We were lead through a room with this symbol painted on the floor and down a dark hallway (at this point Linds and I had a bad feeling) and then we turned a corner to find a bunch of drunk bearded nerds in robes.  All Lindsey and I could do was burst out laughing.  This was kind of like a fraternity for the school in which they all wear these decorated robes and don't shave for a year.  The boys that brought us left us to go get their robes and the everything got a LOT less creepy.  In the end it ended up being harmless fun and the boys thought we were hilarious and all they wanted to know was about the differences between American and French university.  Overall it was a very good night, and something that I have never seen or experienced in my life before. 

Bedroom/Main room...yes that's a futon!

 Over the next couple of days I started work at the Lycée David d'Angers which turned out to be very disorganized and stressful but fun nonetheless.  I work at this point with 5 different teachers in 12 different classes of about 30 students each.  I have no idea how I am going to learn my students name's there are so many to remember!  The school is huge and super confusing, I find myself getting lost all the time, and wandering around like a big idiot because I still don't have my schedule down pat yet.  The first week is primarily just observation in the classes.  I mostly come in and answer questions like what is my name, where I am from, and my favorite "why are you here?"  It is funny because every class that I go into I have experienced the same thing from the students.  All the boys are super interested and ask lots of questions (primarily about sports) while all the girls look me up and down and glare.  Hopefully the girls will warm up to me too or this is going to be a really long year. 

Two of the classes have been particularly interesting because I had to do more than just observe in them.  In the first one I had to take a group of students to my own classroom and teach them a lesson that the teacher had prepared for me.  It was pretty fun but a little overwhelming to just be thrown into things on day two.  The students were pretty engaged but one girl did most of the talking.  I will need to work on getting the other kids to talk even if they are shy and/or don't want to. 

In the other eventful class, I was put in front of a terminale class (the highest level) and they asked me questions.  I was preparing for the usual questions like where am I from and why did I choose to come to France.  Nope these kids decided to ask me extremely intense questions like "what do you think about the differences in social security in France versus in America" or "do you think that if there was stricter gun control things like Columbine could have been averted?" I was not expecting to have to answer questions on behalf or all Americans but that is what they asked me.  The teacher just stared at me waiting for a response just like her students.  My favorite question that I got in most of my classes that made me laugh was "do you own a gun?" These kids think that the average American has a gun and that it is normal for everyone to have a gun.  Without thinking I stupidly responded that I didn't but that my sister did which made them think that their assumptions were right that all Americans have guns.  They then asked me if she was a member of the NRA but when I tried to explain that it was because my grandfather is super into guns and got it for her and that she wasn't the stereotypical American they were lost.  So now I think that they think that I am a gun toting Republican.  Haaha, I guess there are worse things to be.

Wednesday was the stage, or orientation session for the program in Nantes.  I went the day before because my friend Lindsey lives there and I wanted to say hello.  I roll up to her foyer and meet a friend of her's who also has her stage the same day as me and knew when and where we were going because her school had given her a paper with all the information (mine had not).  I began talking to her about what she was doing at her school and began to realize that my school had just kind of left me out to dry and I had not completed any of the paperwork that I should have so I started to get nervous, but I thought that maybe she just had a particularly good school so I let it go and the next day we arranged to go to the stage together.  We left an hour before the stage started and hoped on a tram and then two buses.  We rode the bus to where we thought we were supposed to go but we were wrong and ended up getting lost and had to walk for 30min in the rain up hill.  Eventually we found the building (whose address was wrong and not on google maps) a half an hour late and I proceeded to rush into the meeting and tripped down the stairs in front of everyone.

As the meeting proceeded I realized the fears about my school were in fact correct because I was the only one that had to go get a bank account, find housing and all things like that without help from the school (thank god I had Sue) and I was the only one that had not signed payroll information because my contact person had not helped me at all.  I broke down and talked to the head of the program who was outraged and took down my information and told me that they would fix everything.  I am really glad there was this meeting or I wouldn't have even known about the paperwork that I had to do. 

On Thursday a woman who was at the meeting who represents a different school took me to my school and talked to people about how upset I was and everything got sorted out, but now it is a bit awkward because the teacher who was supposed to be in charge got a yelled at.  I hope that it all blows over and we can put this all behind us and work together in the future.  At this point I am nothing but optimistic!

Well, that brings you all up to date somewhat, I promise that I will blog more often now that I have internet access! 

Le Logement

Finding an apartment in Angers turned out to be super stressful, but all in all I am pleased to say that I have found an apartment in the middle of downtown Angers that is both beautiful and somewhat affordable.  In Angers, most apartments are found through an agency but that is both really expensive and almost impossible if you are not french.  After calling 12 people and looking at 3 ridiculously horrible apartments I was able to find this one.  The others that I found were in people's houses, though they were not advertised as such, and didn't have their own bathrooms or were really run down and far away.  So the minute I found this apartment I snagged it. 

The lady who owns the building was a little hesitant to give me the apartment because I don't have a co-signer in France and what not but she was nice and could tell that I really needed this apartment so she is going to let me have it!!!  Thank goodness because I have to be out of the place that I am staying in by the 28th which still poses a problem because the girl who is currently living in the apartment that I will be renting will not be leaving until the 30th of September and I am not allowed to move in until the 1st of October, but I am sure that I can figure something out.

In other news, today I went to the Lycée David d'Angers (the high school that I am teaching at) to meet the professors whose classes I will be in.  The picture to the right is the main courtyard of the high school.  It is absolutely huge and completely modern inside with every amenity.  The teachers that I will be under are super nice and were very excited to have me there.  I met some of the other professors of different classes and they babbled at me in French about America which was amusing.  One of the English teachers asked me to clarify something that one of her students said.  Apparently in the past a synonym for hobo was tramp and I had to tell her that this is no longer the case and the tramp meant someone who sleeps around.  Definitely an interesting moment to have on my first day.  I need to now get some lesson plans together so I am not completely useless. 

Well that is my life so far, busy busy busy and tomorrow it continues as I meet up with my old host family Annick and Michel and set up my very own bank account!!!  Excitement for sure!!!

Major Update After the Arrival

Hello again all!  I have made it to Angers after all which is fantastic but let us start from the beginning.  On the 21st I went my big adventure.  I had my two big (and overweight) suitcases and 2 more carry-ons.   Apparently you are not able to take a backpack and a bag onto an Icelandair plane but the guy was nice and checked my third bag through free of charge.  Yay for Icelandair. 

In the airport I met up with another TAPIF assistant who is from Washington and was on the same flight to Paris as me.  That was fun to pass the time.  I was sadly going to be in a middle seat so I took the advice of my wonderful mother and asked the guy at the counter to put me in either a window or an aisle if one was available, and lucky me not only did a window become available, but a window in an exit row with an empty seat next to it!

The flight started off as any normal flight does except that Icelandair does not feed you for free so I bought a sandwich and "authentic Icelandic beer" which tastes horrible.  About half way through the flight a man gets up to go to the bathroom and passes out in the isle and smacks his head really hard against the floor.  This guy was not doing well.  For the rest of the flight he had to lay on the floor with an oxygen mask on and be monitored by a doctor who happened to be on the plane.  I can relate to this sentiment because a little over two years ago the same thing happened to me on my way to France. 

Iceland is sparce and freezing, when we were landing I thought that we were just going to crash into water.  The food is interesting and the language is even stranger but overall it was a nice short layover and I have an Iceland stamp in the passport.  The second leg of the flight was less exciting and we landed in Paris on time.  The packet I received before I left stated that I needed to make sure that I got my passport stamped in Paris.  Well after looking around forever and dragging my heavy suitcases I was led out of the secure area and not allowed back in so I have no Paris stamp.  They apparently wouldn't give me one because I got searched in Iceland and therefore didn't need to go through customs or something.  Hopefully that won't be a problem in the future.

The trek to the gare (train station) is a long one but I managed and caught my train with time to spare.  Getting everything on and off the train in time during my transfer and ending points before the train left again however was nearly impossible.  I met Sue (one of my bosses) at the train station and she took me to the foyer where I will be staying until I can find an apartment which is nice however I un-knowingly left my backpack at the gare and inside were all of my important documents, my laptop, and my mp3 player.  When I finally realized what had happened it was too late to go back to the gare so I spent the night unable to sleep worrying about the outcome of my bag. 

Early in the morning I woke up and ran to the gare in search of my backpack.  Thankfully someone was able to track it down but they told me that I was lucky because any later and the backpack would have been "s'explosé" or exploded because of the terrorist threat left bags are disposed of this way.  I got an angry lecture and had to pay 9 euros but I got my bag back and all is well.

Today I started my job as the office assistant by meeting all of the students in the program already and helping Sue around the office.  I also began my exhausting search of housing calling everyone I could find who had a studio to rent.  I am going to go look at one tonight and two tomorrow, so hopefully one of them will yield a new arrangement for me.  Fingers crossed!!!

Well that is enough for now, more later when I find a house!

A plus!

Bon Voyage

Thursday was the long awaited Bon Voyage party at Teatro Zinzani!  It was fantastic of course.  Catlin came up from Oregon and all of the A-Team joined in for some amazing festivities.

As much fun as these festivities were it made me realize how much I am going to miss all of my friends and family when I am gone.  Now all that is left to do is pack!

A la prochaine!

My first blog post!

Hello all!  I am a horrible blogger, so let's hope that this little experiment goes well and that I am able to continue it throughout my adventure in France.

I just recently received my visa in the mail, purchased my one way plane ticket, and contemplated the fact that it will be nearly impossible to fit all of my clothes into two suitcases.

I will be moving to Angers, France, in northern France the same city in which I studied abroad two years ago.  There I will be teaching English in the Lycée (high school) David d'Angers and will be an office assistant the the wonderful and legendary Sue Crust in the AHA study abroad office at the Université Catholique de l'Ouest.

For those of you who are not familiar with the geography of France, Angers (pronounced On-Jay...not ANGER like Ashley Schultz would like to say) is in the northwest region of France in the Loire Valley, 1 1/2 hours southwest of Paris.

Nothing more exciting to be said at this moment just packing and getting ready to go!

A bientôt!