The Venice of the North

This past weekend was spent exploring the canals of Amsterdam, which connect about 90 islands using some 1,500 bridges. Even though I left Louviers in plenty of time on Friday to make it to the airport, I hadn’t anticipated that the traffic in Paris would be so heavy. I was only waiting at the gate for 10 minutes before boarding started and the trip began. The flight was only 45 minutes (so glad I didn’t take the train, which was ~15€ cheaper, but takes 3 hours) and after a train and tram ride I dropped my stuff off at the hotel and headed back up to the train station to meet the others.
After everyone was checked in we set out to explore the infamous Red Light District, which to my surprise (and slight disappointment), was a lot tamer than I had anticipated. I’d imagined a street along the canal filled with seedy people, sex shops, and drug paraphernalia; and while it had all those things, it still wasn’t as wild as I’d expected.

On the way into the Red Light District.

The next day we wandered around the rest of the city. In lieu of the Anne Frank House, whose line was way too long only an hour after opening, and the over-priced van Gogh Museum, we headed back into the center of town to explore the rest of our options.

I amsterdam.

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Ice skating rink at the Winterplaza.

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All things considered it was a great trip.

And then it finally hit me.

I’m not sure what caused it because today started like any other. I didn’t have class until the afternoon, but I had to get up early to finish my Thanksgiving presentation. After speed-walking to the collège to print and make photocopies of Turkey Bingo and a Thanksgiving vocabulary worksheet, I was greeted with a gift from one of my students. Last week was Eid al-Adha, a Muslim religious holiday known as the “Festival of Sacrifice,” and Zerifa brought in a traditional cake that they eat to celebrate. She was not in school last Tuesday because of the holiday, and I’m not in that class on Thursdays, so she saved some for me and gave it to me today. It’s kind of like baklava, but so much better than any baklava I’ve ever had. I helped their teacher grade their presentations on William the Conqueror and after class was over, I spent the next hour discussing American food and prices with the teacher. I had a menu from my favorite deli in the Bronx and one in Orlando that I’m going to use for a presentation on American breakfast and lunch next week.

My Thanksgiving lesson with the 6èmes went really well - they were amazed that all that food goes on one table. They especially liked the floats and balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Maybe it was when an 11 year-old shouted “Wow! He’s so lucky!” or the sun setting on the walk home; maybe it was the swans in the canals that wind their way through Louviers, or The Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition” coming on at exactly the right moment. Or it could have been the fact that the only time I spoke English today was in the classroom. I don’t know what it was, but Gaëtan was right, I am really, really lucky. And while I will miss my family come Thursday, when I take a good look at where I am and what I’m doing there’s no point in being anything but happy - I have a lot to be thankful for. And I know I’ve already said it, but Happy Thanksgiving à tous! Enjoy a nice, long food coma for me!

Pa Panamericano!

Saturday night blew away 10/10/10. While in France I’ve realized I’m steadily breaking myself of an old habit and finally starting to put play before work. Yeah I haven’t done any of my lessons for this coming week, my ears are ringing and I still can’t hear, but would I have rather been home planning lessons or out in a club until 5.00 AM? Not a tough call.

After prelashing at James’ studio, we met up with some French kids and made our way to the discotheque on the Rive Gauche. We weren’t sure what to expect since it was free for everyone before 1.00 AM, but once we got to the door we realized that the bouncer was screening the people trying to get in. In this instance, speaking English worked in our favor because the bouncer was excited to talk to us. Considering the bizarre mélange of music on French radio, the DJ was actually really good, with only a couple of out of place songs.

Thankfully we were able to get a taxi back to Caoimhlin’s, who put Alex, Sam and I up for the night. After binging on brie and baguette, we managed to get to bed without waking up any of her other roommates. After a couple of frog-in-the-holes and tartines with nutella and peanut butter, everyone was good as new and we made our way back to Louviers.

This week is going to be another good one; Wednesday I’m going to see Harry Potter (in English!!!) and then Friday after classes I’m heading to Amsterdam for the weekend. If I don’t get on here to update this again before the holiday, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone at home!

Food Baby

I’m not one to congratulate myself often, but I was genuinely impressed with how everything turned out. The cranberry sauce was perfect, as was the stuffing and the Waldorf salad (which I had never eaten before I made it). The menu included: a rooster that served as the “fausse dinde” and gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and brown sugar (the kids’ favorite), green bean casserole, peas and carrots, corn, Waldorf salad, and cranberry sauce. For dessert, a fresh pumpkin pie (or some kind of squash that looked like it’d be a pumpkin) made by one of the British assistants and an apple tart made by my neighbor who kindly let me make a mess of her kitchen.

The spread.

The first helping.

Pumpkin (?) pie.

I don’t remember the last time I ate so much – it was actually painful and even unbuttoning my pants provided only minimal relief. I’m glad we spent a couple hours sitting at the table after the meal because I wouldn’t have been able to move comfortably anyway. At around 11.30 after cleaning up and doling out the leftovers, the British assistants and I worked our way through the wine that we hadn't drank at dinner. They headed home at 6.00 and now I’m up just in time for lunch to enjoy my chef-d'œuvre all over again.

The First Thanksgiving (with chicken)!

Thanksgiving is in the wrong season for turkey in France. After going to all the supermarkets within a 30 minute radius, I had to ultimately abandon my search for dinde. French turkeys don’t start appearing in supermarkets until December, and there aren’t frozen turkeys year-round like at home. Franchement, turkey is the scarcest meat in supermarkets – usually you can only find cutlets, but if you’re really lucky they’ll have a couple of legs. Corinne even called the local butcher for me, to see if he or any of his butcher friends had a turkey for me to buy. Pas de chance.

So, I’m going to have a Thanksgiving with chicken. The birds here are much smaller, more along the lines of a large pigeon, which means I’m probably going to have to buy at least two. I’m heading to the supermarket again in a couple of hours to buy the last of the ingredients. I’m surprised that I found cranberries, although they’re tiny and in liquid, so I have to buy pectin to try and make it into a jelly. Stuffing, gravy and pumpkin pie are likely going to be the biggest challenge…the pumpkin pie is probably going to be scratched altogether since even regular pumpkin is next to impossible to find.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a turkey at the last minute, but I’m not getting my hopes up. Of the 8 other people I’m cooking for, four are French and two are British so they don’t know what Thanksgiving is anyway, the only other American is a vegan and my Chinese neighbor has never even had turkey. Eh bien, je n’ai rien à perdre!

"Ouah! Ils sont massifs!"

Out of fifty some kids, mine were the biggest and most impressive ("magnifique," actually) pair that he’d seen all day. “He” being the doctor and my lungs being the source of all the excitement. I guess years of singing and cross country have left me blessed. On Thursday I had to go into Rouen for a chest X-ray and an immigration appointment so that I could get my titre de séjour and stay in the country legally. In ten minutes I had my X-ray in hand, and set out to see some more of Rouen before my immigration appointment at 12.45.

I arrived 20 minutes early, only to find that I was the last person in line. Thinking that I’d be in and out, just like my earlier appointment, I calmed down as the line started to move at a decent pace. When I finally got up to the receptionist and checked in, I was directed into an adjacent room where everyone that was just in front of me was now sitting. I soon found out that several of these people had been waiting since 10.00 or 11.00 to see the one doctor and get their titre de séjour. From what I’ve experienced so far, the French are remarkably efficient when they want to be (i.e. train and bus schedules when there’s not a grève), otherwise (at least when it comes to administrative procedures) they’re painfully inefficient. I ended up waiting 3 hours for a 10 minute visit with the doctor and a 45 second meeting to get a sticker put in my passport. I came in just after lunch and the sun was setting as I was walking back to the train station. It was a necessary visit, however, so I sucked it up and just went along with it. Admittedly, my day went more smoothly than for some of the others. At both offices the receptionists perked up at seeing my name and were noticeably nicer to me because of it. I didn’t even realize it until other assistants commented that they weren’t that nice to them. At the immigration office, the receptionist was so interested that while having a conversation with someone else on the phone she proceeded to ask me where I’m from, where my family is from in France, when they came over etc., recounting the details to whoever was on the other end.

Friday night I went into Rouen to meet up with some of the other assistants. Keeping it classy, we each white-plastic-bagged a bottle of wine and stationed ourselves in front of O’Kallaghan’s, which draws more of a crowd you’d expect to find in SoHo than at an Irish pub. We were caught by our waiter, but thankfully he didn’t really care, it was packed outside so he was busy, and we did actually order other drinks.

For the next two weeks I’ll only have a three-day week; this Thursday is a holiday and the following Thursday I’ll be in Rouen for yet another stage. Oh and just so you don't feel left out:

Scaled back to 62% and they keep going...don't act like you're not impressed.

Living in a Dreamworld

Vacation is coming to a close and I’m back chez moi for at least the next week or so. I’ve been pretty busy, but I’m going to do my best to try and recap the past week. After spending Tuesday afternoon exploring the traboules of Vieux Lyon, I went out with Katie and one of her roommates to a bar to meet up with some of their friends. It got late pretty quickly and since the métro stops running at midnight we biked home. The Vélo system is massively convenient, as there are 340 stations around the city where you can rent a bike to get you from one place to another for less than a single ride ticket on the métro. It’s free for less than a half hour, and 1€ for up to an hour. Even though it was cold, it was a great experience riding alongside the river illuminated by the occasional bridge or boat. It’s a shame a similar system doesn’t exist in the United States, although I’m not sure it’d work out even if it did.

I ended up leaving Lyon on Wednesday because I didn’t want to be stuck there and miss my immigration appointments. Thursday was a national manifestation, so there were no trains at all. The law raising the retirement age did pass, and thankfully the aftermath isn’t at all what I expected to be. I guess they realize that there really isn’t anything that they can do about it now, and thankfully things are predicted to be back to normal by the end of this week. Unfortunately, Wednesday was a travel nightmare once I got to Paris; my train (as well as every other one leaving from Saint Lazare) was delayed, so I ended up getting to Val-de-Reuil just in time to catch the last bus.

From Thursday to Saturday I hung around Louviers. I did some food shopping and some serious collaging, making posters for my classroom. I’ve got three done so far and I’ll probably work on some more before the week is through. Daylight saving time came a week early to France, and the extra hour was definitely appreciated. The mobile phones here don’t change automatically, so at 4.00 AM I had to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood the commercial that told me it was DST by turning on the TV and checking the news. On the 31st I headed to Fécamp, a town up along the coast, to visit and stay with some other assistants. I couldn’t help but look out the window the entire ride up, taking in the rolling hills, fall foliage and farm animals of the Norman countryside. I found myself occasionally laughing to myself and shaking my head as I appreciated that this is my life.

After an hour and a half layover at a train station literally in the middle of nowhere (there was no bathroom and only two platforms), I finally made it to Fécamp. Alexia and Elizabeth met me at the station and gave me a tour of their town. After checking out several churches, a palace from the 10th century, the beach, the cliffs, and a waterfall, we headed to the Bénédictine Palace where they make the stupidly delicious Bénédictine liquor. Smell-wise it kind of reminded me of Becherovka, in that it smells like Christmas, but it tastes so much better. Bénédictine was invented in the 19th century and based on a medicinal aromatic herbal beverage that the monks at the Benedictine Abbey of Fécamp used to make. Their recipe was lost when the abbey was destroyed during the French Revolution and while the recreation may not be exactly the same, it is delicious nonetheless.

The marina in Fécamp.

Les falaises de Fécamp.

After the tasting, I was thankful that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast because it made the Ithaca-esque 30 minute walk uphill more tolerable grâce à my buzz. We had planned to go to Étretat, a nearby town famous for its cliffs, the next day, but one of Elizabeth’s professors – Patricia – invited us to go with her to a town called Honfleur. I had never heard of it, but both Alexia and Elizabeth said that all of their teachers had told them they had to go there. Not knowing what to expect, the next morning Patricia drove us there, and as soon as we crossed the bridge into town, the fly catching began. My jaw dropped and I must have said “Oh wow!” a dozen times in fifteen minutes. Walking around in Honfleur was like being in a fairy tale, or a Copenhagen/Bruges hybrid. Unfortunately, it’s only accessible by car, so unless I get driven there it’s unlikely I’ll be able to make it back.

Patricia treated us to lunch after we left a museum dedicated to French composer and pianist Erik Satie. The museum itself was definitely a little bizarre (a little too avant-garde for me to understand or appreciate), but the music was good. After lunch we went our separate ways; Patricia headed to another museum and I explored some of the stores of Honfleur. I sampled calvados (apple brandy) almost as old as I am, and wandered in and out of other specialty shops. Patricia drove us back to Fécamp around 6.00 and I headed back to Louviers this morning.

In spite of my travel plans being disrupted early on in the vacances, in the end comme d’habitude everything worked out. Now I’ll be collaging again until my appointments on Thursday and then I’ll have two hours of lessons on Friday and it’ll be the weekend. Pinch me.