Hey all, sorry that I am so unbelievably lazy, well more so busy, but I really don't have the energy to write the croatia/slovenia blog. I wrote down bullet points to remember everything so maybe if I get really inspired I will try and actually do a blog about it.
In other more exciting news, I had an interview last Wednesday at a private collège (middle school) and lycée (high school) for a job doing the same thing that I am currently doing, assistante de langue. This job would be more hours, more money, longer time frame, ANNNND the icing on the cake....wait for it...I actually get to use what I learned in university.
While there I will be teaching (in english) a history class about globalization and the cold war, pretty much two of my most studied topics while I was in university. Pretty much awesome. I am waiting on the official call from the heads of the schools at this moment to determine the outcome of the job, but the interviewer said that I am as good as gold at this point. So fingers crossed.
Well, that's the big news for now. Miss you all!
Friday, March 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Meeting the Parents French Style
Hello all, sadly this post will not have any photos (well it will just none that I took myself) because I am a dumbass and left my camera at home! A couple of weeks ago I went with Julien to his family's house in the middle of nowhere Haute Normandie. Of course Julien always likes to have a little fun with me so he told me that his family only speaks Cauchois which is a weird form of French with old Norman English influences. This was only semi-true. His dad can speak Cauchois but he is the only one and didn't speak it with me, but for a good while I was seriously panicking and Julien was seriously laughing!
France has this really good idea called covoiturage which in English means carpool. In brief there is a website where you post what kind of car you have and where you are going and people take a ride with you and pay for the trip. All in all it is pretty cool. I have used it a lot when travelling around France. Since the trip is something like 3 hours Julien decided to put his car on covoiturage and pick up some randos to come along with us. Usually if you are doing a covioturage then you are willing to have conversation while in the car, if not you should just take the train. The first guy we picked up did not understand this point. Julien tried to start a coversation with him but it really didn't work. An hour into the journey we picked up another guy who tried with as much success as us to start a conversation with this douchebag. We ended up dropping the first guy off and started talking about how lame he was without realizing that the window was open and he was standing next to the car. Needless to say he didn't end up paying us very much money. After that it was smooth sailing with conversation, the one I have always since people think apparently that Americans are like aliens so they have a lot of dumb questions to ask me.
We arrived in the town which is so small it isn't even really on the map and Julien proceeded to give me a driving tour of the town which lasted about 30 seconds. He was like "this is the center of town"I was like where, and he replied back there you missed it. I am so not a podunk country girl. The town his parents live in isn't on the coast and is called Yvetot and is actually surprisingly on the map. They live in this cute country cottage. His parents are cute and they made a traditional dinner for me (I was worried it was going to be tripes, but thankfully it was not. Julien had a laugh on my behalf once again) and they of course are French so we drank a lot of wine. I was the first American that his family has ever met so of course the usual questions were asked, do I eat mcdonalds, do I have an SUV etc etc. Every time I answered his mom would repeat what I said in my accent and giggle to herself, she thinks it is cute when I talk haha.
Then halfway through dinner I did my wonderful sneeze which cause dinner to come to a hault as everyone except Julien who started laughing and shouting that it was SIX sneezes, just gawked at me! From then on it became a family game to count my sneezes and to bet on how many sneezes I would do next time. Exhausted from the adventure we went to sleep when dinner was over around 2 in the morning. I fell fast asleep only to be woken up with a start by an obnoxious rooster at 6 am. The dumb rooster did not seem to understand that it was not yet light out and that I was trying to sleep! They all seemed to think that it was hillarious that the chicken and the horse and the ducks and the sheep all woke me up throughout the morning but that I wasn't woken up by a siren that passed by. I guess it's the city girl in me!
That morning Julien and I decided to go for a run, and let me tell you it is much easier to go running when you have a beautiful countryside to look at. However the attack of the animals did not stop in the morning. As we were running I was accosted by a very loud and worrisome sheep. Julien was not alarmed at all but I must have jumped 4 feet when it baahhhed at me. He seemed to think that it was hillarious as well.
Thankfully we went running when we did because the weather in Normandie is crazy. One second it is beautiful, the sun is shinning, the birds are singing, and the next minute you are in the middle of a horrible and dark thunderstorm that is pouring rain like a shower. It is astonshing! We then had a family lunch which meant a lot of drinking of course and a lot of ketchup for Julien because he eats it like it is water. I have never seen someone eat so much ketchup in my life. His family thankfully also thinks that this is as weird as I do so for once we all had a laugh at Julien's expense.
It was Julien's younger brother's birthday his 25th to be exact so that night was a big family party at his bother's house. We all went and I met Julien's sister and his sister-in-law who is pregnant and due at the same time as Trida (which everyone thought was super cool and I got to talk about my little nephew for a while which made me happy). We then did the usual let's ask the extra terrestrail questions about the homeland game. They were all pretty interested though I think that his brother thought that I couldn't really speak French because he spoke super slowly to me at first and explained all the slang words to me. The dinner was actually an apero dinatoire meaning that it was a whole bunch of finger food. Damien (Julien's brother) took the time to explain to me what a quiche was since I guess no one but French people know this strange mystery food. It was funny and eventually he realized that I speak French when I made a joke about dinosaurs and handjobs in French. They also thought that is was super funny that I am an American because apparently Julien is known for not liking Americans. In fact he boycotts American things. I am sure that I will make him eat his words when he comes to the states this summer.
We stayed at his brother and sister-in-law's house that night and got to sleep in which was lovely. We spent the next day seeing all the beauty that Normandie has to offer. His brother lives in Yport which is right on the coast and is of course beautiful. It isn't the high tourist season yet so the town was a little dead but I kind of liked it like that. The beach is absolutely breathtaking and now I know why Julien loves Normandie so much, it really is amazing. We then went to another town called Etreat. This is a bigger tourist town but that is because the beach is way more awesome if you can believe it. We climbed around the cliffs and looked around. It is a little scary if you don't like heights because France does not believe in safety there are no railings, but that makes for better pictures. I really didn't want to leave but it was oh so cold so we packed up camp and went to his sister's home in Fécamp, Normandie!
His sister lives in an old fish factory that has been renovated into a modren apartment complex which was really cool and had an awesome view of the port. I was doing the usual talking about America and his sister's boyfriend pointed out a photo of a US city skyline, he thought it was DC and I didn't think anything of it until I looked closely and realized that it was actually Seattle! I didn't realize it at first because the Space Needle wasn't in it. OMG small world right!? We ended up talking and having dinner late into the night so we didn't get back to Angers until 3am. I definitely want to go back to Normandie. Next time with a camera.
More updates to come soon, the next blog post will be about the Croatian and Slovenian adventure!
France has this really good idea called covoiturage which in English means carpool. In brief there is a website where you post what kind of car you have and where you are going and people take a ride with you and pay for the trip. All in all it is pretty cool. I have used it a lot when travelling around France. Since the trip is something like 3 hours Julien decided to put his car on covoiturage and pick up some randos to come along with us. Usually if you are doing a covioturage then you are willing to have conversation while in the car, if not you should just take the train. The first guy we picked up did not understand this point. Julien tried to start a coversation with him but it really didn't work. An hour into the journey we picked up another guy who tried with as much success as us to start a conversation with this douchebag. We ended up dropping the first guy off and started talking about how lame he was without realizing that the window was open and he was standing next to the car. Needless to say he didn't end up paying us very much money. After that it was smooth sailing with conversation, the one I have always since people think apparently that Americans are like aliens so they have a lot of dumb questions to ask me.
Thankfully we went running when we did because the weather in Normandie is crazy. One second it is beautiful, the sun is shinning, the birds are singing, and the next minute you are in the middle of a horrible and dark thunderstorm that is pouring rain like a shower. It is astonshing! We then had a family lunch which meant a lot of drinking of course and a lot of ketchup for Julien because he eats it like it is water. I have never seen someone eat so much ketchup in my life. His family thankfully also thinks that this is as weird as I do so for once we all had a laugh at Julien's expense.
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| Beach at Yport |
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| Etreat, we were on top of this cliff! |
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| Fécamp |
More updates to come soon, the next blog post will be about the Croatian and Slovenian adventure!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Ridiculousness in Paris, what else?!
Hello all, can you believe that I am actually keeping up on this blog thing? I can't but whatever. This past weekend was fun. I spent it in Paris with four of my friends to go to a three person joint birthday party extravaganza!
Thankfully I have friends with cars in Angers so we didn't have to take the train. Me, Sam, Rebekah, and the friend with the car Tays piled into her tiny little car and started the journey to Paris, but not without a you guessed it, friendly stop at the MacDo. I know I know, why the hell am I eating at MacDo when I live in France, but what can I say when you are on a road trip you need fast food. We get to the MacDo and as usual it is ridiculously packed, French people love it like it is crack or something. The funniest thing is that they only have one size MacDo bags here, and that size is gianormous, like fit-a-baby-inside big. AND they give you one each for your teenie burger!!!
We ended up getting into to Paris around midnight utterly exhausted. The whole getting to our hostel was also a little complicated because we had to find somewhere to park the car that was not going to cost $12314353495. Sam's boyfriend Guillaume lives in a Paris suburb Massy so we drove there and parked. We had to hop an RER which is the suburb metro. Because it was late it also meant that the crazy banlieu boite breeders were out in full force in their see through leggins and see-through lace shorts. I felt like I was going to get an STD just being on the train with them, but it was good for a laugh and made me feel like I was back at my highschool on homecoming night. This train was seriously a party. Everyone had bottles of some sort of n'importe quoi and was getting hammered.
We finally departed the night club metro and walked to rue Moffetard which is a big bar street and happens to also be where our hostel was. This was a good decision becuase the bar our party was at on the Saturday was down the street so we could sloppily drag ourselves home, but a bad decision on the other hand because this meant that it was the party hostel. We discovered this lovely fact that night when we were trying to go to sleep and were kept awake by a group of American frat boys doing stomp and screaming mazeltof at the top of their lungs in the corridor until 5:30 am.
The next day we went to meet up with Sam's sister who lives in Germany at the moment but was in Paris with her boyfriend for the party. We got our butts out of bed by the 11 o'clock mandatory you have to leave time and went over to the Eiffle Tower cause Sam's sister had never seen it. Me and a few others are poor and didn't want to pay to go up so we killed time and walked around until it was time for lunch. We mosied on down to the Latin Quartier for one of those famous and oh-so-crappy 13 euro three-course meals with wine that tastes like water. The rest of the day wasn't too exciting. Me and Tays tried to go to the Musée d'Orsay for a few hours but we arrived there for her to tell me to my surprise, "Merde, j'ai une grande couteau dans mon sac!" (Shit I have a huge knife in my bag!) Needless to say we didn't get in haha!
The party was at a bar that we had reserved on the same rue as our hostel and started at around 8, so we got ready in the hostel and headed over. Our room thing was in the basement cave thing with a dancefloor. In the end something around 35 french people came and partied the night away and danced until I couldn't feel my feet. It was a great time except for when I got fiesty with the door man. He did the whole oh you are American I am going to ask you the same question everyone else does. "Where is Brian" to which I responded "in your mom" and then he made me stand outside for about 20 minutes, fail.
The next day we had to be out of the hostle at 11 again which was rough because I think I went to bed around 6:30 am. Somehow we all managed to get out and we ventured over to the Jewish district to eat some awesome falaffel! It was delicious. With full stomachs and smiles on our faces we decided to go to the most random museum ever. The Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature a.k.a. the museum of dead hunted shit and random animal poop. It kind of reminded me of my grandpa's house if my grandpa's house was on crack and he had about 100x more guns and a dead animal on every corner.
Really this was just some old dudes collection of stuff he killed like a rhino, cause that's normal. It was definitely a fun time.
After that stimulating experience we hopped back in the car and drove home just in time for Valentine's Day. Some of you may have noticed on my facebook that it now says in a relationship and yes it is true, and yes he is French, and no he doesn't speak English lol. His name is Julien and everything is going well. LOL now that that is out of the way and speaking of Valentine's Day I did a Valentine's Day lesson at work and it totally backfired. I wanted the students to write funny personal ads like the horrible ones you find in American newspapers. I gave them a list of common acronyms and some examples of real ads and told them to make a funny one up to share with the class. Well one of my students who is always a bit of a trouble maker wrote "I'm a boy who like himself, I'm hansom (spelled that way), blond, blue eyes, friendly, funny and I am a perfect gentleman. In my life, I would have and english teacher, ginger, older than me, friendly and funny to who could speak well French. This point is important because I speak bad English." OH LORDY. He wouldn't read it allowed and I thought that he was just being an ass so I took the paper and started reading it outloud to the class just until I said the part about the English teacher. Too late the whole class started laughing and he said he loved me and then told me to keep the paper. OH goodness. Teaching can sure be bizarre sometimes. Guess it is better than the blank stare of death eh!?
Until next time!
We ended up getting into to Paris around midnight utterly exhausted. The whole getting to our hostel was also a little complicated because we had to find somewhere to park the car that was not going to cost $12314353495. Sam's boyfriend Guillaume lives in a Paris suburb Massy so we drove there and parked. We had to hop an RER which is the suburb metro. Because it was late it also meant that the crazy banlieu boite breeders were out in full force in their see through leggins and see-through lace shorts. I felt like I was going to get an STD just being on the train with them, but it was good for a laugh and made me feel like I was back at my highschool on homecoming night. This train was seriously a party. Everyone had bottles of some sort of n'importe quoi and was getting hammered.
The next day we went to meet up with Sam's sister who lives in Germany at the moment but was in Paris with her boyfriend for the party. We got our butts out of bed by the 11 o'clock mandatory you have to leave time and went over to the Eiffle Tower cause Sam's sister had never seen it. Me and a few others are poor and didn't want to pay to go up so we killed time and walked around until it was time for lunch. We mosied on down to the Latin Quartier for one of those famous and oh-so-crappy 13 euro three-course meals with wine that tastes like water. The rest of the day wasn't too exciting. Me and Tays tried to go to the Musée d'Orsay for a few hours but we arrived there for her to tell me to my surprise, "Merde, j'ai une grande couteau dans mon sac!" (Shit I have a huge knife in my bag!) Needless to say we didn't get in haha!
The party was at a bar that we had reserved on the same rue as our hostel and started at around 8, so we got ready in the hostel and headed over. Our room thing was in the basement cave thing with a dancefloor. In the end something around 35 french people came and partied the night away and danced until I couldn't feel my feet. It was a great time except for when I got fiesty with the door man. He did the whole oh you are American I am going to ask you the same question everyone else does. "Where is Brian" to which I responded "in your mom" and then he made me stand outside for about 20 minutes, fail.
Really this was just some old dudes collection of stuff he killed like a rhino, cause that's normal. It was definitely a fun time.
After that stimulating experience we hopped back in the car and drove home just in time for Valentine's Day. Some of you may have noticed on my facebook that it now says in a relationship and yes it is true, and yes he is French, and no he doesn't speak English lol. His name is Julien and everything is going well. LOL now that that is out of the way and speaking of Valentine's Day I did a Valentine's Day lesson at work and it totally backfired. I wanted the students to write funny personal ads like the horrible ones you find in American newspapers. I gave them a list of common acronyms and some examples of real ads and told them to make a funny one up to share with the class. Well one of my students who is always a bit of a trouble maker wrote "I'm a boy who like himself, I'm hansom (spelled that way), blond, blue eyes, friendly, funny and I am a perfect gentleman. In my life, I would have and english teacher, ginger, older than me, friendly and funny to who could speak well French. This point is important because I speak bad English." OH LORDY. He wouldn't read it allowed and I thought that he was just being an ass so I took the paper and started reading it outloud to the class just until I said the part about the English teacher. Too late the whole class started laughing and he said he loved me and then told me to keep the paper. OH goodness. Teaching can sure be bizarre sometimes. Guess it is better than the blank stare of death eh!?
Until next time!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Is anyone still reading this?
Hello all again, I don't know if anyone is still reading this after my ridiculously long pause, but hey a girl can hope!
Right now life isn't too exciting--actually who I am kidding, I live in France, my life is more exciting than it has ever been in my life haha! I am loving it here and the weather is starting to turn for the better and the birds are singing so ya, everything is good.
Trying to think about the updates that you would all like to hear about. In the last month I submitted a CV and cover letter to a group of universities in hopes of finding a job for next year as a lectrice. This is pretty much the same job as I do now except I am with univeristy students, I will work a little more (can you believe it?! Who works more than 12 hours!!!!??? ;p) and I will get PAID a little more, which is double awesome. I also submitted a request to renew my current post for next year which would mean more high schoolers...ugh! Haha, you never really understand the drama that is high school until you are seeing it from the other side. I have never tripped over so many kids making out or had to deal with so many girls crying because their boyfriend said some innane thing about her nose. Also "fashion" (I use the word loosely) in high school is hillarious. They try SO hard to end up looking like idiots or baby prostitutes. Oh high school... But the crème de la crème is when one of the many 15-16 year old boys thinks that they have a shot at a university graduted 22 year old! REALLY? No, I do NOT love you, NO I don't want your phone number, and yes I DO know that France is the most romantic country in the world, but NO I do NOT want you to show me!
Other than the drama, school seems to be going really well. I seem to have gotten a real hang at this whole teaching thing and am really enjoying my job. Yes, sometimes there are bad days in which my students look at me with the blank stares of doom which tell me that today is going to be a looooong day, but then there are the days where they REALLY get into what I am teaching and suprise me with their enthusiasm and intelligence. In good American spirit my latest lesson was on the Super Bowl which I did stay up until 4 am to watch thank you very much. I showed the students some of the commercials and yes I recieved more of the coveted ostrich look.
Next week is personal ads in the spirit of Valentine's Day. I trial ran this lesson with one of my better groups and they seemed to find it absolutely hillarious. I just hope that I don't get in trouble by administration for it! They have to write a personal ad like the ones you can find in trashy American Newspapers. They have to use those God awful acronyms like BHM- big handsom man or my favorite, MBA- married but available. The one class I have done so far got hillariously creative so fingers crossed that I won't have a class full of ostriches.
In other news, I have started running again to counter act the amount of booze that I am drinking here. Joining a gym turned out to be far too expensive, and I was let down but then I remember that I live right next to a jogging path next to a beautiful river that over looks a castle. Apparently I am an idiot for not running before haha! I have found that running when you have a castle to look at is much easier however the french seem to think that it is super strange that I am working out IN PUBLIC! WHAT IS THIS MADNESS!?? but I don't care, flat abs here I come!!
I am sick, as usual at the moment, but at least I don't have tonsils anymore or it would be a total disaster! I do however have an ear infection because I am apparently 5 years old and never got the memo that as an adult you aren't supposed to get frequent ear infections. It was comforting however to know that French doctors and American doctors have the same "Oh mon Dieu" reaction when they see my ear. Speaking of doctors and medical stuff here! Love it, without insurance, my visit cost 23 euro and my perscription was 26, pretty damn good. The doctor that I went to is the one that I saw when I was surprise surprise...sick the last time I was here. His name is Dr. English and no he does not speak english but he is a touchy feely old man who would not stop asking me if I had a french lover etc etc. I was like UM GIVE ME DRUGS KTHX BAI!
Regardless of my illness my friends and I have been planning a weekend in Paris since before Christmas so this weekend that is where I will be going. It is going to be ridiculous, it is a 3 person joint birthday party and people are coming from all over France to celebrate. Right now there are 27 yes's to the party so we have rented out a bar which should be aweosme! I am excited. Hopefully I won't die, fingers crossed.
In two weeks is one of my many vacations because French people are allergic to work. Rebekah and I decided that we had to go somewhere and since Egypt has gone nuts that is out of the question we decided on a whim to go to beautiful Zagreb, Croatia! That's right next to Bosnia if you don't know. I thought that I would escape the danger of Egypt and go erm...to the...erm the comfort and saftey of Bosnia? The good news is that everything is ridiculously cheap there. Our plane tickets, round trip were a big fat 44 euro and we are couch surfing with a local so FREE beds! Wooo! We will be in Croatia for about 4 days and one of the days we are planning to go to the coast...be jealous!!!!
Well that's enough blabbing for now. Hopefully I will get my lazy ass to post again soon when I get back from Paris! Miss you all! Bisous
Right now life isn't too exciting--actually who I am kidding, I live in France, my life is more exciting than it has ever been in my life haha! I am loving it here and the weather is starting to turn for the better and the birds are singing so ya, everything is good.
Trying to think about the updates that you would all like to hear about. In the last month I submitted a CV and cover letter to a group of universities in hopes of finding a job for next year as a lectrice. This is pretty much the same job as I do now except I am with univeristy students, I will work a little more (can you believe it?! Who works more than 12 hours!!!!??? ;p) and I will get PAID a little more, which is double awesome. I also submitted a request to renew my current post for next year which would mean more high schoolers...ugh! Haha, you never really understand the drama that is high school until you are seeing it from the other side. I have never tripped over so many kids making out or had to deal with so many girls crying because their boyfriend said some innane thing about her nose. Also "fashion" (I use the word loosely) in high school is hillarious. They try SO hard to end up looking like idiots or baby prostitutes. Oh high school... But the crème de la crème is when one of the many 15-16 year old boys thinks that they have a shot at a university graduted 22 year old! REALLY? No, I do NOT love you, NO I don't want your phone number, and yes I DO know that France is the most romantic country in the world, but NO I do NOT want you to show me!
Next week is personal ads in the spirit of Valentine's Day. I trial ran this lesson with one of my better groups and they seemed to find it absolutely hillarious. I just hope that I don't get in trouble by administration for it! They have to write a personal ad like the ones you can find in trashy American Newspapers. They have to use those God awful acronyms like BHM- big handsom man or my favorite, MBA- married but available. The one class I have done so far got hillariously creative so fingers crossed that I won't have a class full of ostriches.
In other news, I have started running again to counter act the amount of booze that I am drinking here. Joining a gym turned out to be far too expensive, and I was let down but then I remember that I live right next to a jogging path next to a beautiful river that over looks a castle. Apparently I am an idiot for not running before haha! I have found that running when you have a castle to look at is much easier however the french seem to think that it is super strange that I am working out IN PUBLIC! WHAT IS THIS MADNESS!?? but I don't care, flat abs here I come!!
I am sick, as usual at the moment, but at least I don't have tonsils anymore or it would be a total disaster! I do however have an ear infection because I am apparently 5 years old and never got the memo that as an adult you aren't supposed to get frequent ear infections. It was comforting however to know that French doctors and American doctors have the same "Oh mon Dieu" reaction when they see my ear. Speaking of doctors and medical stuff here! Love it, without insurance, my visit cost 23 euro and my perscription was 26, pretty damn good. The doctor that I went to is the one that I saw when I was surprise surprise...sick the last time I was here. His name is Dr. English and no he does not speak english but he is a touchy feely old man who would not stop asking me if I had a french lover etc etc. I was like UM GIVE ME DRUGS KTHX BAI!
Regardless of my illness my friends and I have been planning a weekend in Paris since before Christmas so this weekend that is where I will be going. It is going to be ridiculous, it is a 3 person joint birthday party and people are coming from all over France to celebrate. Right now there are 27 yes's to the party so we have rented out a bar which should be aweosme! I am excited. Hopefully I won't die, fingers crossed.
In two weeks is one of my many vacations because French people are allergic to work. Rebekah and I decided that we had to go somewhere and since Egypt has gone nuts that is out of the question we decided on a whim to go to beautiful Zagreb, Croatia! That's right next to Bosnia if you don't know. I thought that I would escape the danger of Egypt and go erm...to the...erm the comfort and saftey of Bosnia? The good news is that everything is ridiculously cheap there. Our plane tickets, round trip were a big fat 44 euro and we are couch surfing with a local so FREE beds! Wooo! We will be in Croatia for about 4 days and one of the days we are planning to go to the coast...be jealous!!!!
Well that's enough blabbing for now. Hopefully I will get my lazy ass to post again soon when I get back from Paris! Miss you all! Bisous
Friday, January 21, 2011
Long time no post!
Hello there all! I'll bet that most people have given up on me and looking at my blog because I have been so bad at updating. In fact the truth of the matter is that I have been living my life and enjoying it so not writing!
But after much nagging by my mother I have decided to be a good girl and give it another shot. When we last left off I had gotten myself into a little trouble with some guys and had gotten myself a nice little shiner. The next big thing that happened was that my parents arrived in Angers which was wonderful to see them and absolutely bizarre to be the one who could actually speak the foreign language (usually it is dad with dutch). Mom and dad had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to the fact that everything in France is on a 3/4 scale to America like a land of little people.
I showed mom and dad around Angers and they seemed to like the city as much as I did. Mom seemed to feel at home because she thought that it was normal to go up to random people and start speaking in English, and after many tries I realized that no matter what mom was always going to speak English loudy, oh well. Dad had a little more skill in French than mom, however he could never grasp the idea that check please was not a French phrase.
After a week or so in Angers with fun times had by all and a little adventure in castle hunting in the Loire Valley we packed ourselves up and shipped out to Paris to a lovely bachelor pad in the 8eme arrondissement! Paris was fun and it was wonderful to see my sister again as well as the Dutch fam who brought us some wonderful cheese.
While we were in Paris we did the usual touristy stuff as well as had some random adventures like our old people cabaret by Sacre Coeur or when we went to the real cabaret in Paris and I was accosted by a cock roach mmm. The cabaret we went to was full of ridiculous costumes and way too much homosexuality between the men who were supposed to be going after the lovely topless women. IT was a gas but definitely bizarre.
After a few weeks away from home in the cold and balmy Paris air I was starting to get homesick (yes I said home) for Angers. Nothing feels better then coming back to your house after a long trip!
These days it is back to work, back to the same old shenanigans with a little vigilanty tourism thrown in here and there. As usual, I am attached at the hip to the other two musketeers, Bekah and Sam and we are taking over Angers.
We have these days called dream days in which one person has a so called "dream" and the others have to come along to help realize said dream. Sometimes these dreams are intense and overpowering, while other times they can be as simple as buying canvases, but it seems as though those are the ones that seem to turn into the grandest adventures. Including but not limited to breaking into a castle....yup did that....
Angers is cold and I am spending my time compiling my CV so that I can find a job for next year.
Miss you all and I will try to get better at keeping this updated!
But after much nagging by my mother I have decided to be a good girl and give it another shot. When we last left off I had gotten myself into a little trouble with some guys and had gotten myself a nice little shiner. The next big thing that happened was that my parents arrived in Angers which was wonderful to see them and absolutely bizarre to be the one who could actually speak the foreign language (usually it is dad with dutch). Mom and dad had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to the fact that everything in France is on a 3/4 scale to America like a land of little people.
I showed mom and dad around Angers and they seemed to like the city as much as I did. Mom seemed to feel at home because she thought that it was normal to go up to random people and start speaking in English, and after many tries I realized that no matter what mom was always going to speak English loudy, oh well. Dad had a little more skill in French than mom, however he could never grasp the idea that check please was not a French phrase.
After a week or so in Angers with fun times had by all and a little adventure in castle hunting in the Loire Valley we packed ourselves up and shipped out to Paris to a lovely bachelor pad in the 8eme arrondissement! Paris was fun and it was wonderful to see my sister again as well as the Dutch fam who brought us some wonderful cheese.
While we were in Paris we did the usual touristy stuff as well as had some random adventures like our old people cabaret by Sacre Coeur or when we went to the real cabaret in Paris and I was accosted by a cock roach mmm. The cabaret we went to was full of ridiculous costumes and way too much homosexuality between the men who were supposed to be going after the lovely topless women. IT was a gas but definitely bizarre.
After a few weeks away from home in the cold and balmy Paris air I was starting to get homesick (yes I said home) for Angers. Nothing feels better then coming back to your house after a long trip!
These days it is back to work, back to the same old shenanigans with a little vigilanty tourism thrown in here and there. As usual, I am attached at the hip to the other two musketeers, Bekah and Sam and we are taking over Angers.
We have these days called dream days in which one person has a so called "dream" and the others have to come along to help realize said dream. Sometimes these dreams are intense and overpowering, while other times they can be as simple as buying canvases, but it seems as though those are the ones that seem to turn into the grandest adventures. Including but not limited to breaking into a castle....yup did that....
Angers is cold and I am spending my time compiling my CV so that I can find a job for next year.
Miss you all and I will try to get better at keeping this updated!
Monday, November 29, 2010
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!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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.
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