Ireland!! (Lots of new pictures!)

I just got back yesterday from my trip to Ireland with Sophia. I have lots of stories and I hope I remember all of them. If not though, I'm sure Sophia will, so reading both our blogs should give you the full picture. Also, I've brought my laptop to an Internet cafe so I can load my pictures. There were several days that I forgot my camera but Sophia was a diligent picture taker and I'm sure she'll upload lots of pictures I can steal!
First and foremost, I started with a picture of Kilkenny which is a delicious creamy beer that must be made by Guinness since it's always served in a Guinness glass. It deserves its place at the top of this entry as it played an important role in our Irish Experience.

Our plqn flew out of Nantes and we got to the airport a very responsible 2 hours early. We stopped in the bookstore to look at some guidebooks of Ireland (since we hadn't done too much planning) and a little girl walked over to us and starting staring. Assuming that as a 6 year old she wasn't used to hearing people speak another language I greeted her with a friendly "Bonjour." She answered back "Hello" in perfect English. Her name was Cody and she and her parents and her brother Patrick were living in France now but we from England originally. Its especially funny because Patrick looks, well, like a Patrick and not at all like a French boy. I'd seen him early in the airport and wondered if maybe he spoke English (or maybe looked really Celtic because he was breton?) My Anglophone-dar turned out to be right and Patrick joined our conversation pretty soon, too. Cody was, as many 6 year olds are, very blunt and after telling her we were American she asked "Is that why you talk so weird?" After telling her we were English teachers she gave us her (tentative) blessing, saying "Yea, I guess you sort of speak English." I think Sophia and I really were destined to meet Patrick and Cody though because after telling them our names Cody informed us "My goat's called Sarah and we used to have one called Sophie too, but she drowned." (Sophia was only slightly put off by my suggestion that she was somehow the reincarnation of Sophie, the dead goat).
Oh yea, and we almost missed our plane. This was not our fault since the gate number was not listed on the departure screen and we were also given some bad directions by a cafe worker. Luckily Sophia's sharp ears recognized our names being called (pronounced terribly, of course) by the woman over the loud speaker. If Sophia hadn't been there I'd probably still be in Nantes, waiting in Hall 3, wondering when they'd get around to announcing our gate number.
Luckily, that wasn't the case and we made it Dublin just fine. Once there we checked into our hostel and went about finding something to eat. Note to travelers: Dublin is much more expensive than small town France, budget accordingly. Sophia and I managed to find an Indonesian place (Along with my stellar Anglophone-dar I also have developed Ethnic-food-dar) and split some serviceable vegetarian food. After that we found a really fun bar and after a couple of pints of Kilkenny pushed our way to the front of the crowd and sang along to the live music. The musician was really fun and played The Beatles, Oasis, Elvis, etc. We went home quite early that night because we were tired from traveling and Sophia was a little sick. We felt like we had gained an hour though because of the time change.


The next day we set about sight-seeing in Dublin and first we went to see Trinity College where the Book of Kells is housed. We decided to take a guided tour because it was only 2 Euros more than the admission to the Book of Kells exhibit and it was super interesting. For one thing, we learned that the library at Trinity contains the largest room of any library in the world. (It's only a tiny bit bigger than the library at Trinity College,Cambridge but as the tour guide said, "They treasure every centimeter.") We also learned that there's a bell that rings every day during term at 6:15 calling all the students to dinner. This dinner is mandatory and students need special permission to miss it. However, no one ever misses it because its free! (Not too surprising that the 2 facts I most remember about Trinity are about books and food . . .) This is a picture of us in front of the Commons (Dinner) Bell and next to it is a picture of me in front of a scupture just like the one we saw at the Vatican.


It was forbidden to take pictures of the Book of Kells so the ones up there are from the Internet to show you what it looks like. Before getting to Trinity all I knew was that the Book of Kells was a famous illuminated manuscript so I'll tell you what I learned to make it more interesting. The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript of the 4 Gospels created in the 9th century by monks in Scotland and brought to Kells, Ireland for safekeeping (the Vikings were beginning to raid the monasteries of the British Isles around this time). Apparently there are several theories about the origin of the Book of Kells but that is the one we were told at Trinity. The Book had a beautiful gold and gem-encrusted cover and therefore was quite valuable. Eventually it was stolen but it is hypothesized that the thief was so frightened once he realized he'd stolen a copy of the Gospels that he hid it in a field. (He wasn't too religious to take the priceless cover, however.) The farmer who owned the field eventually found it and returned it to the Church where it stayed until they turned it over to Trinity for proper preservation. It was extremely beautiful in person and so were the other illuminated manuscripts on display there.
After Trinity we had a delicious "cooked Irish breakfast" (it was 2pm but we weren't complaining about details) and then headed over to Christ Church Cathedral, which I was surprised to find out seeing as we were in Ireland, was a Protestant Cathedral. This is because, until the 1800s it was illegal to have Catholic Churches on major roads. So, although like every other 1000 year old Church, it started out Catholic; the English changed it to Anglican after the Reformation, and it remained that way. The only Catholic churches are on smaller roads. St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin is also Protestant for the same reason. Here is Christ Church:


After the Cathedral we went to Dublin Castle where we learned a ton about the history of Ireland, Northern Ireland and England. I'll spare you the gory details (pun intended) since I'm sure you know that it's a long story and would turn this into even more of a history lesson. One cool thing we learned, though, was about the Irish flag. The orange strip is for the Loyalists who wanted to remain a part of the UK, the green strip is for the Nationalists who wanted to separate from the UK and the white in between represents peace between these two groups. This picture is of Dublin Castle:

That night we went back to the same bar as the night before and after it closed we were making out way to (ahem) another bar when a drunken (probably) homeless woman, clutching a beer (in a glass!!) approached me and asked for a Euro so she could by another drink. I had to laugh, although I appreciated her honesty, and decline, telling her I needed my money for my own beers. She then told me I had ugly teeth and an ugly smile. At least I have teeth, lady.
This is the approximate location of our encounter with the drunk:

The next day we made our way to County Cork where we stayed in Cobh (cove). Cobh is a beautiful fishing village with the steepest hill in Ireland with beautiful, brightly colored houses along the road. Its called the Deck of Cards.

Cobh was also the last port of call for the Titanic and town where the very first person to be checked in on Ellis Island came from. Cobh also had a beautiful Cathedral which was Catholic, because it was built after the law passed allowing big, Catholic churches on main roads.
We looked around Cork City a little bit, too. It's a really cute city and it felt more Irish then Dublin, which is so international. Here it is!

Most importantly though, we saw Blarney castle and kissed the Blarney Stone!


The picture to the left is Blarney Castle and the one on the right is the view from the top. They really aren't kidding when they say Ireland is green! Apparently, since we've kissed the Blarney Stone, Sophia and I now have the gift of eloquence!

The picture is of me kissing the stone.


After visiting Blarney we headed back to Dublin in time to take a Halloween Ghost tour of the city led by Zazimus the blind street poet. Here he is:

We heard ghost stories about Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Audoen's Church (built in 1190!!) and the medieval city walls. It was really fun, pretty cheesy but a little spooky at the end, especially when we were in the graveyard at St. Audeon's. I'll just tell one ghost story:
The Church was going broke so they decided to rent out the crypt of Christ Church to whomever wanted it. The man who took them up on the deal starting running a brothel (I'm serious) out of the crypt. However, he had to close it during the winter months because it got so cold and damp down there. On the last night of the season he had a huge party at the crypt and at last call he threw everyone out. When he came back the next Spring he found the skeleton of a British officer with his sword drawn, surrounded by the skeletons of rats. The officer had been too drunk to realize it was last call and was locked in all winter with the rats who ATE HIM ALIVE before eventually starving to death themselves. The moral of the story is don't go to brothels, especially one in the basement of a church.

We flew out of Dublin the next day. We stayed two nights in Rennes with some friends from St. Brieuc and Rennes to celebrate Halloween and prolong the vacation (esp. because we all got paid on Friday!) and now I'm back in St. Brieuc having a post-vacation vacation!

This week has been fairly eventful. Last Friday my roommate, Maud, had 2 friends visiting from Brest. They were really fun and outgoing, corrected my pidgin French and got really excited to try to speak to me in English. Unfortunately, Maud usually goes home to Brest for the weekends so this was one of her few Friday nights in St. Brieuc. Probably the funniest part of the night was when we decided to go home around 2 and got a ride home from one of our friends who lives outside town and always drives (sober, don't get worried). Maud and her friends were going to go to this discothèque in town but decided not to at the last minute, after we had already filled the car. They said they didn't mind walking home so we left in the car. After dropping off one assistant we headed in my direction only to see Maud and her friends faisaient le stop (hitch hiking) on our street. Of course, we picked them up and took them home but they were really surprised when they saw it was us in the car! It was pretty funny.
One Tuesday night, I met my friend Jessica in a bar called Le Piano Bleu where they often have live music. Unfortunately, the music was truely terrible that night. Really cheesy. There was one singer and one keyboard but because they were using a synthesizer it sounded like they had a whole orchestra behind them. To make matters worse, the singer heard us speaking English and announced to the whole room that there were some beautiful Americans in the room. She also tried to speak to us in English. This made it really hard to leave when we wanted to because as soon as we got up she announced that we were leaving and said how sad she was. It was pretty annoying and made us think about how inappropriate that would be at home. Imagine some Spanish people came into a bar in Plymouth Meeting and the singer started saying. "Hola! Look everyone! Spanish people!" It would be so rude! Anyway, things like that happen all the time here and we often feel like we're on display. After that though, we met Maud and some of her friends from IUFM (teacher training college you attend after getting your Bachelor's Degree) at one of our favorite bars, O'Kenny (NOT O'Kenny's, I made that mistake only once). They were really fun and we had a great time. They all have to take a music class so they can work on music with the kids and so they were singing the songs they had learned in English to me. It was really funny to hear French voices singing spirituals!
I've also been wanting to go to the movies here but ALL the American movies are dubbed here. They almost never use sub-titles. However, this nice teacher just left me a schedule of movies in the version originale in my mail box! November is Documentary Month in his film club and so I can see Murderball in the original English if I want. I ahve been wanted to see it so I think I will.
Tonight, Sophia is coming to stay so we can take the train tomorrow to Nantes to catch our plane to Ireland!! I'm getting really excited to get there!


p.s. I'm still sans Internet chez moi!

My new roommate!

I have a new roommate! She sleeps in the same room as me but she's usually awake eating all night and sleeps all day. She's a mosquito! I would tell you her name but the things I call her aren't fit to publish. Last night she bit me on the end of my nose. I had never experienced the urge to mortally wound another creature until last night when I sat in bed, half asleep, at 4am waiting for her to fly by so I could kill her. Tomorrow one of my fellow teachers is going to give me a truc that emits some kind of sound only mosquitos can hear and keeps them away (supposedly). I really hope it works since she especially likes to bite my face and there's only so much that makeup can cover!

Other than that (and the lack of Internet) my new house is wonderful and my roommates are très sympa! It's SO nice to have a kitchen. La Dolce Vegan is getting a work out (especially since I discovered that sweet potatoes and squash are available at the market and that international and tofu type foods are available at the organic food store).

I'm sorry that I haven't been able to write in a while. We still don't have the Internet hooked up in my house and since I only work 3 days a week, Thursday through Monday I am basically without Internet.

This weekend was the semi-final for the Rugby World Cup and, unfortunately, France lost to England. I think the loss was especially painful because England and France have such a long standing rivalry. I also watched the other semi-final in which a very scrappy Argentinian team was badly beaten by South Africa. (A non-Anglophone country has never won the Rugby World Cup.) Argentina's team was really adorable, though, and they all cried during their national anthem (that was before they lost, so they are just an emotional group I guess).

In other news, yesterday I was in Rennes for my medical appt. (which all non-EU citizens must have to make sure we don't have tuberculosis or something). The appt. itself was uneventful but it was fun being back in Rennes (although, the nurse who checked my eyes did tell me I had the vision of a pilot!!). We ate lunch at a really good crêperie in the Place Sainte Anne where I had a ratatouille and egg crêpe. After that, we did a little shopping and headed home.

My classes have been going fairly well. Some better than others, of course, but for the most part, well. I did have one girl not understand the word "Paris", which was alarming since she'd been studying English for 4 years, but I have also had some students whose levels were surprisingly good.

Also, Sophia and I are going to Ireland for our Toussaint vacation!! Dublin and Cork! It should be very exciting.

Hopefully, someday before I leave France I'll have the internet in my very own home and I'll be able to load pictures. On verra. . .

Rugby!

This weekend was the rugby match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the French team (Les Bleus). I had to put aside my love of New Zealand for a night and root for France mostly for my own safety but also because they were the home team and the under dogs. We watched the match at a bar called L'Atalante where they had an outdoor projection screen set up. It was really exciting and intense and it was only the quarter finals! Rugby is fairly easy to follow if you're a fan of American football. If you see a guy running really fast to his end with the ball/kick it really far to his end that means that they're going to score a goal (don't say touchdown or the French boy next to you who speaks perfect English will laugh at you). They even have an extra point kick after they score a "touchdown" (except its really 2 extra points). Don't ask me to explain why they sometimes pick each other up by the shorts. I'll never get that. Probably the coolest part of the game was at the beginning when they were trying to initimidate each other and the All Blacks did a Maori war dance that I remembered from my time in New Zealand. In any event Les Bleus a gagné so everyone went wild and sang the Marseillaise and chanted "Allez Les Bleus!" It was very exciting.

In other news, 2 of my new found friends had birthdays recently which were both really fun. And Sophia was here this weekend which was also really fun and will hopefully be happening a lot. Yesterday I moved into my sweet new pad and got my room (sort of) set up. Today I'm going to try to cook dinner in my new kitchen!

I guess that's it for now. I'll add pictures when the wifi gets worked out in my new place (this weekend supposedly). In the mean time Sophia's been able to add lots so check her blog for those! I'm so amped for Saturdays rugby match against Angleterre!! I'll keep you posted on the results!

First Day of Teaching

Yesterday was my first day of classes. The first 2 classes went really well. I just talked about myself for a couple minutes. (It's actually kind of hard to speak slowly enough and to not use slang or Americanisms). I told them about where I am from and they all got excited when I sang the theme song from Fresh Prince of Belair to remind them that Philadelphia is where Will Smith is from. Some of them asked such serious questions too! One very small boy in the 2nde (10th grade) was so brave and was asking questions like if I was for or against the death penalty. It was really adorable. They were also very interested in Paris Hilton and Las Vegas.
After these two really cute classes I had a super awkward experience. I went to my next class and, besides the teacher and me, there were only 2 girls in the class and the boys were a little rowdy. I was there maybe 10 minutes when the teacher started screaming at the students that she was ashamed of them. Then she turned very nicely to me and said "Thank-you very much, Sarah. See you next time."
The next 3 classes were much better. I had 2 that were pretty standard (except in one a girl demonstrated a dancing style called techtonique that is sort of like raving/pretending you're losing your balance) and one where we watched David Letterman's interview with Paris Hilton. It was really funny but the humor and vocab were kind of advanced so I was the only one laughing. (The teacher had left me alone with the students.) I think after watching it twice and having me explain the hard words they pretty much got it, though.
In other news, Sophia is coming tonight!! She came to St. Brieuc on Wednesday for our orientation but it wasn't super relaxed because she had to catch the train home at 10. Tonight she is going to stay over in a spare dorm room that is unlocked for some reason so we can faire la fête!
Also, I found a place to live!! It's a colocation with 3 french girls! I'm moving on Monday! We will have wi-fi! Hurrah!

I'm in the Teachers' Lounge!

So, turns out, I can access the ENTIRE Internet IF I hide in the Salle des Profs. Apparently the computers here are not restricted at all. I had been using the computers in the library before. One of the librarians told me today that if I wanted to use AIM (well she said messagerie or something like that) I should go into the Teachers' Lounge because the kids will get jealous if they see me chatting away. So, I came in and Voilà! access to the whole Internet! Very exciting!
Another very exciting piece of news: Today, Michael (the other assistant) and I got our teaching schedules and not only will I only be teaching 12 hours a week but I don't have any classes on Mondays or Fridays! What's up four day weekend!? Also, Tues.,Wed., and Thurs. I don't start 'til 10! Sounds good to me! We start Thursday and I'm actually less nervous about that then most of the other things I need to do because teaching will be completely in English.
Last night I met a bunch of other assistants, both German and American and apparently there are even more to meet. We have our stage (orientation) on Wed. for the whole département so maybe then I'll meet even more. Also, since Lannion is in the same département as St. Brieuc, Sophia will be coming to town Wednesday! In the mean time the assistants I met last night seemed really fun. I'm really excited to hang out with them more.
I'm still in the process of finding an apartment. There were lots of cheap apartments advertised in the Saturday paper so I just have to work up the courage to call and pray that they don't mind leasing for only 8ish months. That's all for now!