Strasbourg etc. UPDATED W/ PICS!

Lord, its been too long! I haven't written about Strasbourg because I kept hoping and hoping that I would be able to write about it from my house! I'm sure no one is surprised that 39 Avenue Corneille is still without Internet. Maud and I got the livebox in the mail and set it up only to realise that our phone line had been disconnected. Normally, this wouldn't be that big of a deal. A simple call to your landlord and the problem is fixed, right? HAHA! You may remember that it took our landlord 2 months to cancel the Internet contract he had so that we could sign up for a new one. I'm anticipating a repeat of that situation. Although, it is Christmas so maybe we can all pray for a miracle. In any event, on Friday I'm returning to the States where I know that I have plenty of Internet so its nothing to worry about right now.

ALSO, I forgot the memory card for my camera (I'm sure that surprises no one) so Chantal has all the pictures from Strasbourg and I wanted to wait 'til she posted them. She hasn't yet but I have full confidence in her and I'm sure I'll be able to add them soon. Bref, Strasbourg is BEAUTIFUL. It's very different from any city in France that I've ever seen. The Christmas market was adorable and the cathedral is breathtaking! We were also fortunate enough to get to stay with some real live Strasbourgeois (Paul, a friend of Chantal and his roommate Etienne) They were really hospitable and took us to lots of parties hosted by their friends. They also provided us with late-night paella and all the Cocoa Krispies we could eat. It was a really fun weekend.

UPDATE: Chantal pulled through with the pictures.

Skinniest buildings ever:



Lovely view of cathedral:


Inside lovely cathedral:


Crazy clock in cathedral:


2 views from the tippy top of cathedral:


and:


Part of town called La Petite France:


Lovely friends with lovely beers:


After listening to Chantal and me talk about St. Brieuc, Paul became nostalgic for his childhood holidays spent in Brittany and so he decided to visit us this past weekend. The weekend could have gone more smoothly.

Let me list all the issues we had, note how all but one of them are directly related to my landlord and lady's incompetence:

1. Approx. 60% of my home had no heat. My very kind roommate, Blandine, volunteered to use her lunchbreak to wait for the chauffagiste at our house. When he got there they discovered that the door to the boiler room was locked and that the landlady had taken all the keys to Nice with her. The landlady had to FedEx us the key to the room and then (sans chauffagiste) we had to fix the heat 3 times during the weekend.

2. We lost electricity Saturday night. At about 8:30 or 9 Blandine called the landlady who, of course, had taken the key to the garage where the fusebox is. Lucklily she was in St. Brieuc for the weekend and promised to stop by. She didn't show up for a while. I called her wondering where she was. No answer. The electricity came back after a while so I tried to call her and tell her that, in fact, she no longer needed to come. No answer. She finally called at 12:30am! I told her that the power was back and she said, "Okay, I guess I won't come by then." As if it would've ever been okay to come by at 12:30!! I was in bed!!

3. The boiler room flooded.

4. The phone line situation

5. Paul had strep throat.


Quel week-end!! We did have a fun party Friday night at my place to celebrate Maud's 25th and yesterday Paul and I were able to visit some areas in Brittany I hadn't been to where he used to vacation as a child. (Pictures to come!!) Donc, despite the best efforts of my landlords (and streptococcus A) the weekend wasn't totally ruined!

Pictures of Brittany:

Pléneuf-Val-André's harbor/port/someone teach me the difference:


Beach at Erquy:


and again:


Cap d'Erquy (cap = cape, not hat):


and again:


2 Extremely Cold Top Models:


I thought I was cold on Cap d'Erquy, I was a fool. I have never been colder than I was at Cap Fréhel.

Cap Fréhel, the coldest/most beautiful place on Earth:


and again:


and again:


We also journeyed to Dinan, which is a super cute Medieval town near St. Brieuc. It was decorated for Christmas. Here is a pic of one little street:


This trip was made possible by Paul's sense of direction. As many of you know, if I'd been alone I'd still be trying to figure out how to get on the highway from my house (that's assuming, of course, that I'd found a car with an automatic transmission).


Merry Christmas to all and I'll see many of you soon!!

ça souffle!

I don't know how to make a capital "ç"

Have you ever experienced wind so strong you actually couldn't breath? If not, I suggest you move to Brittany because that happens here all the time. When it's blowing right in your face its like the air is moving so fast your nose can't catch it. Also, when it rains, there's really no point in bringing an umbrella because it will turn inside out as soon as you step outside.

This weekend I had another party. This one was a crémaillère (house warming party). The party was great and Maud's friends came too, which was also lots of fun. Here are some pictures:

This is Maud and this is her favorite pose:


This is Ben and Chantal laughing at a Québécois CD:


Me and Chantal:


Maud and Erwan deep in conversation:


Olivier, possibly asleep:


Hannah and Phillip:


There were other people at the party but I don't love taking pictures and so I only did it for about 5 minutes. If you were in the bathroom/getting a snack during those 5 minutes, sorry!


I have befriended one of the other English teachers at my school and sometimes on Wednesday afternoons, when neither of us work, she takes me to interesting places around Brittany. So far we've gone to Blinic and Paimpol. The beach near Paimpol was really beautiful. It looked like the beaches near Lannion except that the stones were less round and more jagged. They were still sort of pink though and so, especially since the tide was out, it looked like we could have been on Mars (except, obviously, for the English Channel just beyond the rocks; not very Martian). Before we went to Paimpol she had me over for lunch at her house where we had a lovely vegetable quiche and some delicious blue cheese afterwards. It's nice to feel like I have made a real friend at school who's nice to me because she likes me and not just to be polite.

Also, this weekend I am going to Strasbourg with my friend Chantal!!! I am really excited because it is one place in France I really wanted to make sure I visited. I wanted to go right before Christmas too becuase they have a Christmas market that is supposed to be the best in France. Here is a picture I stole from the Internet:


I am really excited and hope to find lots of good Christmas presents there!

That's all for now! Say a prayer to the Internet gods that the next time I write it will be from my very own home! The man is supposed to come this week . . .

death, riots, and a cabaret singer

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is, I killed the mosquito!

The bad news is, she wasn't alone.

Therefore, I've started to sleep coated in bug spray. My room smells like camp. I'm not sure why my little blue thing that I plugged in stopped working but it's really getting me down. I just thank God every day that I don't wake up with a bug bite on my eyelid (as my dedicated readers know, this as happened to me twice in my life) or on the tip of my nose (this has happened once). Alors, things could always be worse. I did figure out how to turn down the heat in my room. It's now less of a tropical swamp habitat and more of a temperate deciduous forest.

Today at my high school (about 2 days behnd the rest of the country) the students decided to go on strike. Now those less familiar with the French mindset might ask themselves, "What are they on strike from? They don't get paid nor do they produce any goods/provide any services" This would be a valid point if it weren't for the fact that French people aren't tied down to logic. There are host of reasons why various students across the country are on strike (the privitization of the univsersities, the riots in the South etc.) but it seems, from talking with my students, that lycéeans in St. Brieuc are mad because Sarkozy has proposed to shorten the length of time it takes to earn a bac pro. A bac pro is basically a vo-tech high school diploma. Now, a student first must complete a BEP (don't ask me what that is, its some kind of pre-bac pro), which takes 2 years and then moves on to 2 more years studying for the bac pro exam. Apparently, Sarkosy wants to get rid of the BEP all together and replace it with a 3 year bac pro. Don't ask me why a shorter vocational diploma made so many students so mad. As some of my students who didn't protest said "I think they love school." Maybe; I think its more like they don't like Sarkosy and so they are willing to protest any changes he tries to make. Also, they are probably in agreement with the more legitimate concerns of the university students and the fonctionaires. Who knows? The students here did brake some windows in their enthusiasm. That's dedication.

I also feel the need to tell the world about a special lady named Maman. Not my maman, who is also very special but whose actual name is Debbie, but a cabaret style singer at a local bar who calls herself Maman. Maman and her husband, Titi, who plays the piano, perform every Tuesday night at Le Piano Bleu. They sing French favorites in a truly cheesy fashion and they
sometimes play a name that tune style quiz! I have an advantage when they play American songs but since I know approx. 4 French songs I never get those right. Luckily our team is made up of French and American people so we have all of our bases covered. My friend Leah has convinced me a total of 3 times to sing with her when Maman needed a pause. Our perfomances have ranged from borderline catastrohic to mediocre but its been fun all the same. I've included one picture of Maman and one of me singing with Leah and this other girl who sings sometimes there. I don't remember her name but she is very nice. In that one you can also see Titi playing the keyboard.




P.S. My roommate Maud called our landlord the other day about the Internet. He had a new story of course. This time he said that we need to call the company and deal with getting it installed. We'll pay for it but he'll reimburse us for some of it. This new plan is fine with me since I know Maud will actually get the job done instead of lying about it for almost 2 months like the landlord.

Thanksgiving à la Française

Last Saturday several of us Americans went to Rennes because we had volunteered to cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for some French friends. (We all worked onThanksgiving Day, which is why we had to go on Saturday.) We got there around noon and ourfriends came and met us at the train station. We went to Carrefour to pick up the ingredients and then headed to our friend's place to start cooking. The French guys had managed to find a turkey (it cost 67€) but it was not sufficiently butchered for most North American tastes. That is to say, it still had a head and organs. Luckily some brave souls, who, afterwards, named themselves the Gutwrenchers, got in there and did what had to be done while the vegetarians hid in the living room.

We prepared a huge fest having been told that there would be about 10 hungry French people joining us. In addition to the turkey we had green bean casserole, herbed potatoes, roasted vegetables, salad, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, two pumpkin pies and an apple crumble. I am proud to say that the North Americans pulled their weight at the dinner table. To my great shame and disappointment, the same cannot be said for our French guests. Not only did they not indulge in the gluttony we expected after slaving in the kitchen all afternoon (only one serving each??), but some of them (sin of all sins) had eaten BEFORE THEY CAME! The North Americans tried to pick up the slack but, frankly, we were not expecting France to drop the ball like that and there were a lot of leftovers. (Which we happily consumed the next day for brunch.)

While the French people were very nice to let us take over their kitchen for the day and it was fun to spread our great holiday to an interested and curious new audience, the moral of the story is, North Americans have more robust appetites than French people and Thanksgiving just doesn't really translate.

p.s. I am also very disappointed to report that a slightly (read: perhaps more than slightly) immature Frenchmen drew a rude picture on our Thanksgiving (paper) table cloth, which we had decorated with bilingual Thanksgiving greetings, pictures of cornucopias and pumpkins, and hand-turkeys.

MAYDAY

My little friend the mosquito is back!! I thought mosquitos died in the cold but this seems to be some kind of genetically engineered super mosquito. I think she may be back because now I have heat in my room. It's possible that I have to make a choice between have a warm room and not being covered with mosquito bites. Maybe we can find a happy medium because right now my room is like a jungle. It's probably about 80° and I can't turn the knob on the radiator. I'll think I'll have to get my land lady back over to fix it so I can create a more temperate environment that is less conducive to mosquito life than the rainforest habitat I've got going on currently.

In other news, two of my classes were canceled today, unless any more are canceled that will bring my total to 8 hours of work this week! ahhh France . . .

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!!!


P.P.S. Update: Another class was canceled giving me a grand total of 7 hours of work this week.

Another Great Weekend

Thursday night was a very special day here in France. It was the day the Beaujolais Nouveau came out and all the bars in town had specials going on featuring it. A few of my friends and roommates went out to experience it together. It was pretty fun and the Beaujolais was good and reminded me of Thanksgiving! Friday night was nothing special but Saturday night a lot of the St. Brieuc assistants went to a party in Lannion chez Sophia. We had a lot of fun and the next day we were able to visit some of the Lannion beaches. See below:


My landlady came over today to help me with some paperwork so that the French government can start paying most of my rent (which is what they do for poor people, even foreigners). She also fixed the heat in my room (!) and told me that the Internet was coming very soon since they'd finally gotten a response from the Internet provider. Right now I'm supposed to be working on a translation as a favor for one of the teachers t my school so I'd better get on that!

Fun Weekend!

It's Monday afternoon after a really fun weekend. Friday night I had a party at my house for the assistants in St. Brieuc and Lannion. My excuse was that it was to celebrate that we were all back from our various vacations but really it was just because I like parties. I made chocolate covered pretzels and bought cheese and bread. I also found a bottle of wine for €1.20 and one of cidre for €1.50. They weren't good but I was still impressed. We had a good time and then went out to O'Kenny together for some Kilkenny (obviously). We also went to the worst (and only) night club in town. After that all the out of towners came back to my place to sleep on couches etc. Lot's of fun!
The next night we went to a Fest Noz (which means fête de nuit, or night party, in breton) in Lamballe. There were traditional musicians playing breton music and we all (tried) to learn the traditional dances. It was a really good time. It started at 9pm and I couldn't believe that by the time we were all ready to go at 2 there were lots of Grandmas and Grandpas still going strong. There were also lots of young people there, which was interesting because I don't think teenagers in the States would be interested in dancing in lines all night with their parents, holding on to each other by their pinkies but they were really into it. There was one huge guy in a kilt, which I later found out is not really traditional breton gear so I think maybe he was just insane, but he knew the words to all the songs and whenever the musicians tooks breaks he would sing songs along so people didn't have to stop dancing. I forgot my camera (of course) but I'll add pictures once someone sends me some!

p.s. By popular request I'll add that there was call and response singing, accordian, guitar, violin, bagpipes and some kind of recorder type instrument (maybe a clarinet or a bombarde). The music was really good and lively; similar to the feeling of Irish traditional music. The pictures are still in the works!