From Louviers, with love

I have to write this now 1) before I forget everything and 2) because my parents are coming tomorrow and I won’t have the chance to update in the next 9 days. Last week may have been the best week of the assistantship, although it’s hard to choose a favorite considering everything I’ve done. It was my last “official” week, but I told all the teachers that I like that if they’d like me to come in again before the school year is over, I’d be more than happy to. After all, I will be here until July and there’s only so much eating, sleeping, and sightseeing that I can do.

Monday I had a great day of tennis on the clay. It was the first time the weather has been nice enough for us to play outside since I got here, and I was anxious to get going. Things started off a little rough, mostly because I was afraid to move too quickly for fear of falling; think of playing on clay as trying to run on ice, not exactly the easiest movement to master. But as we kept playing I started to get the hang of sliding, and actually started to play better than I do indoors. Enigmatic American, playing better on clay, with a penchant for raw-milk cheese, the list goes on. It was the best I’ve ever played against Jean-François (score wise), but that was mostly due to the fact that the day before he was out refereeing a doubleheader.

Tuesday marked the first of the goodbyes. In my morning classes at the lycée after hearing about their trip to London, I gave my last lesson on American television. Five minutes before the bell rang, all the kids thanked me, one told me “je te kiffe” and another, “you is BCBG, beau cul beau gosse!” I let the grammar mistake slide, since I was getting a complement after all, and all of the guys in the class shook my hand before they left – a nice touch I thought – not sure you’d see that happening in America. In the afternoon at the collège, I showed some movie trailers and political propaganda to my class of 3ème Euro, and they made me an impromptu card when they found out it was my last day. Class with my 6ème ended 20 minutes early so that we could go have a little party, during which my students gave me the cards that they had made while everyone was eating their snacks. One girl even bought me a gift herself, a book, a bag of bubble gum (they think that Americans are obsessed with gum) and a petit camembert.

Tuesday evening was “The Last Supper.” I wanted to do something special with all of my assistant friends, so a couple weeks before I had organized a meal at the restaurant d’application that I’d eaten at earlier in the year. It went really, really well – the food was absolutely incredible and everyone was dressed so nice – I honestly could not have asked for a better evening or a nicer sendoff for all of us. For the meal the menu consisted of: Moules et écrevisses en nage safranée, Mignon de veau farci, poires aux algues vertes, Soupe de fruits rouges, Mignardises. What exactly does all this mean? Well check out these photos and try and taste the wonder (also keep in mind that all this food is prepared by kids 16-22):

This was the mise en bouche: on the left is an escargot wrapped in puff pastry, in the middle is a dumpling with an aioli-salsa concoction and on the right is a vegetable purée that was supposed to be poured on the snail, but I ate the snail before I knew what to do with it.

Next came the soup, kind of like a bisque, but not exactly, with mussels and crayfish.

For the main, what had to be the most delicious veal that I've ever tasted, so tender and juicy with an incredible sauce. It was served with a carrot, pear and herb concoction, and seaweed. When all three were in your mouth at the same time - epic mouthgasm.

Of course, at the end of any French meal you have cheese. The only one I knew for sure was the Roquefort, and there was probably a Camembert in there too, since I am in Normandy after all. These were served with a pine nut, pistachio and hazelnut garnish.

And for dessert, a red fruit soup, made with strawberries, raspberries, currants, garnished with mint and served with a rose sorbet and fresh fruit.

After all of this came coffee and tea, with some additional little pastries, and throughout the meal they came around with some excellent wines from Sancerre, one pouilly fuisse and the other a pinot noir. Perhaps the most shocking thing of the entire meal was the price: for 10 of us, only 220 €.This made absolutely no sense since everyone had the cocktail with their mise en bouche, and that was 2,90 €, and the meal itself was 25 €. Basically, what all the other assistants decided was that I got a discount because franchement, je suis trop fort comme assistant. Everyone chipped in 25 € so we left them a nice tip, mais quand même it was a nice surprise.

Afterwards we hung out for a bit back at mine before everyone headed to bed. We spent our last Wednesday afternoon together in Rouen, where we made a stop at Dame Cakes, a tea salon that reminded me of being in a life size version of a little girl's dream dollhouse. Ignore the corny pun if you will, but it really wasn't my cup of tea, and I can't say that I'd ever pay 4,00 € for a cup of tea again. Live and learn.

Thursday afternoon was sad, but a lot of fun at the same time. My first class of 6ème didn't know that it was my last day (even my résponsable didn't realize that it was my last week until I told her on Tuesday). A group of them came up to me after class was over and asked me if I'll be back next year, and that they hope I'll come back soon. I even got a "thank you kind sire" again from one girl and some handshakes from the boys.

My last class with Françoise and her 6ème was really nice, the kids brought in a bunch of different kinds of snacks and drinks, and after they'd given me their cards and Carambar (candy with jokes on the wrapper), we played the French version of Scategories. The students had to answer in English for each of the categories (food, brand, celebrity, famous historical figure, city, film) and the team that I was playing with had to answer the questions in French, and rather than relating to English-speaking countries, ours had to do with Francophone countries. After I led my team to victory twice in a row, the other teams started to get jealous so I rotated. At the end of the class we took a group picture, and all the kids who had cameras on their phones made sure to get a photo with me too. Then on the way home I had a group of randoms should "'ello! You are beautiful!" What a celebrity I've become. And I'd want to leave France why? Exactly.

That evening Qunxing and I had raclette chez Jean-François and Sylviane, which was amazing, yet deceptively filling. I thought I'd finish no problem after I conquered the fondue bourguignonne, but I ended up taking the leftovers home. Even the "trou Normand" (a shot of calva (apple brandy) mid-meal) didn't help make space in my gullet! It might have been that I oversampled the aperitifs, but when you're presented with some authentic punch from Cape Verde, pommeau, muscat, and vin d'orange, you don't let it slip by.

Friday brought with it a much needed excuse to clean my room, since Katie was coming to visit. After some technical difficulties with missing trains and buses (typical French style, messing up travel plans right at the beginning of vacation), I got on a bus to Rouen with the help of one of my students and met Katie at the train station. After wandering around for a bit trying to find our extremely well-hidden hotel, we settled in, grabbed some food at Monoprix, and set off to see Yann Tiersen in concert. For those of you who don't know Yann Tiersen he wrote the music for the film Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. I was expecting music more like that found in Amélie and on his other CD that I have, Les Retrouvailles, but it was more rock than anything. Even though his, and some of the opening act's (NestorIsBianca) songs were kind of weird, overall the concert was really good. One thing I noticed though, was that French people do not move at all at concerts. They're like statues, just standing there. Some even had their hands on their chin like "The Thinker." It was hard for both Katies (Katie my cousin and Katie an assistant friend from Manchester) and I to stand still. After NestorIsBianca was finished we were lucky enough to find a place on the steps for the rest of the show.

Yann did end up playing a song from Amélie at the end, during the encore, which was the perfect way to end the show. Once the concert was over, we headed back into the center of town and met up with some of the others for our last drinks together in Rouen. I said my goodbyes to everyone, but none of them were too serious because I'll be seeing everyone I said goodbye to in May or June.

Saturday was devoted to sightseeing in Rouen. Our first stop was to climb the tower where Joan of Arc was imprisoned before she was sent to be burned at the stake, only to be told by the man at the front desk that it's a ripoff because the tower she was actually in was destroyed along with most of the castle. It didn't matter that much because we didn't have to pay anyway (all the attractions in Rouen are free from the 15th to the end of the month; bravo on that perfect timing Mom and Dad). After that we visited each of the cathedrals/churches here in Rouen before heading back to mine for a tasty curry dinner. Originally we had planned to go to Deauville for the day, but the weather wasn't so great, yet the alternative wasn't too shabby.

Sunday, Katie had the brilliant idea to go to Giverny (I think I'd mentioned to her that it was nearby before, but I never knew how to get there), and after she found that it was really easy to get to we decided to go. We had an absolutely perfect day weather-wise, sunny skies, not too hot, and it was a good thing because the hour walk from the train station to Monet's house might have been not-so-nice otherwise. The gardens were spectacular even if there were hundreds of people there. I'll let you see for yourself:

Monday I had the chance to get back on the clay, but only for an hour because there's a tennis tournament here this week and there's only one court available for club members. Today, Qunxing treated Jean-François, Sylviane and I to an amazing Chinese buffet. She was nice enough to show me how to make pork dumplings, so I had a hand at them while she was cooking up the rest of the spread. After we finished our lunch on the terrace, we set out on our last adventure together back to Monet's garden and to Château Gaillard, a medieval fortress built in the 12th century under Richard the Lionheart and completed in one year! How they managed to build it in a single year is beyond me, especially when you see the surrounding landscape. I haven't put the pictures from today on my computer yet, but here's a photo I found online to give you an idea of what it looks like:

So now you're up to speed, I'm off tomorrow morning to meet my parents in Paris before bringing them to Rouen, Louviers, back to Paris, and then on to Carcassonne. I'm ready for lots of laughs at the account of one of my visitors, I'm sure many of you readers will be able to guess which one. Wish me luck!