Snow?! Again!?

Another weekend, and only one week until winter holidays! This past weekend, Emma (another assistant from Cary) and I visited Versailles to see Louis XIV playground and experience French monarchy at its most extravagant. It was crazy! Huge, excessive, and beautiful. The gardens were my favorite part, but as it was winter, the fountains were frozen (kinda cool) and the flowers weren't in bloom. But it was a sunny day, although a bit chilly. Luckily, the snow that was covering Chartres and Nogent did not make it all the way to Versailles, so there was only a light dusting in the area.

Then on Sunday, I woke up bright and early (well, not so bright...) at 6h30 to go with the running club to the regional championships of cross-country. It was in Onzain, about a 2 hour drive away, in a charter bus. It was pretty neat to see how a cross-country meet worked, and visit with some of the other members of the running club. Also got to do a little bit of hiking in the park area where the race was being held. And a quick drive-by of the Blois chateau, which looked absolutely stunning from the bus.

Luckily, after waking up so early on Sunday, I got to sleep in on Monday and all of my afternoon classes were canceled because of 'Courir en ville,' an event that has every primary student running around in town at a certain time. So, of course, I went and cheered on my students and they were all super cute! The giant snowflakes from this morning had stopped, so the kids had nice weather to run around and spend an afternoon outside.

Quel week-end!

This weekend was full of wonderful meals, spent in the company of good friends and new friends!

On Friday evening, I went to Le Gibet, a restaurant outside of Nogent, for a soiree with the running club. To understand the French, you must understand their meal schedule. A 7:30pm meeting time for dinner seems reasonable, right? Well, the running club's director (my ride) and I arrived at 7:30...and were the first ones there. The others slowly trickled in, we stood around chatting and everytime someone new arrived, of course, the obligatory 2 bises on the cheeks to say Bonsoir. That means it takes about 15 minutes to say hello to everyone! But it is nice to individually greet every person in the room. So around 8:30 or so, we sit down to....the aperitif. Then, the entree (a salad)...then the main course (a beef stew kinda thing with a creamy mushroom risotto side)...then the cheese course (mmm cheese!)...then dessert (galette de roi!)...then coffee. After the meal, sitting around the table talking is quite normal, and by the time we got up to leave, it was already midnight! What a night! On a side note, I met a man who spoke perfect English, due to his being a business man that knows UNC, and Michael Jordan. Crazy to run into someone that is familiar with North Carolina enough to be, oh you're from NC, that's Raleigh right? Crazy!

And then...Saturday was a nice lazy day, went to the market as do all the Nogentaise, then a friend from Chartres came to visit and see the chateau St-Jean, so I showed her around. Then, we both headed back for a Mexican fiesta, sponsored by the wonderful Spanish assistants in Chartres that are from Mexico. They cooked dinner, which was amazing!! Guacamole, pico de gallo, quesadillas, salsa, enchildas with mole sauce (a chocolate/chili sauce which is AMAZING). And of course, all of this was made from scratch! It's been a while since I've had Mexican food since it's near impossible to find in France (especially Nogent) so that was a welcome variation on the French bread and cheese diet.

After all this eating this weekend, it's a good thing I have the running club to go to on Monday night! I'll definitely be needing to keep that up if I hope to fit in my jeans in the future!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Well, made it back to Nogent safe and sound on Wed. Jan 6th. After dreading going back to a full day of teaching from 8:30 to 4:30 on Thursday, with jet lag and everything, my prayers were answered as it snowed about 10 inches on Wed night. Even though school was not cancelled, I did not have to go in to my early classes as the teachers couldn’t make it in through the snow. I went to my next class and there was a grand total of….6 students. So we made snowflakes...and colored them...again. Then for my next class, we played Pictionary and hangman since there was 14 students. For some reason, this class just decided to all show up even with the snow. The snow is really pretty, and everything looked so wintery! It’s also quite chilly- below freezing everyday, so the snow hasn’t really been going anywhere. But the gendarmes and snowplows have been hard at work, and now the roads look pretty good and the sidewalks are mostly shoveled. Just lots of piles of snow remaining on the side of the road.

There's no place like home for the holidays

Hello all. Sorry about the delays, I've been getting quite lazy about blogging. Anyhow, I am currently in good ole' North Carolina for Christmas and New Year's and am still a little shocked at how BIG everything is. Hah. It's been great to speak English, hear English, and see friends and family for the best season of the year.

Before leaving Nogent however, I did go on a weekend get-away to Strasbourg, the Capital of Christmas, with Emma, another assistant in Chartres. We had a great time browsing the hundreds of Christmas markets, eating way too much delicious French food, and attempting to stay warm. The city was decorated beautifully for Christmas, with a giant Christmas tree, lights on every street and all that. It really put me in the Christmas spirit and was a nice break from little Nogent.

On the Thursday of the last week before vacation, it also snowed! And I mean a good snow too, at least 2 inches, covering the streets and sidewalks and rooftops. It was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, school was not canceled so I still had to bike around to my schools, but everyone was in a festive mood and most of my kids made snowflakes instead of actually learning anything. "Fold here. Cut here. NO, here." They really enjoyed that and were amazed at how they could just fold some paper, cut a few times, and voila! a lovely snowflake.

Luckily, my flight out wasn't until Monday, so the travel delays and difficulties that the snow caused didn't affect me too much, other than stressing about it all Sunday night and slipping and sliding my way to the train station early Monday morning. But I made it home, on time and in one piece which was fantastic.

Bonnes fetes de fin d'annee a tous!

Ma classe de merde

Excuse my French, but that's almost the only way to describe my Friday class. Not listening, continually laughing and even making fun of me when I speak in English or in French. They were pretty bad today, and nothing I did helped. I even sent one kid out of the class, and they were quiet...for about 45 seconds. At least it's only one class that acts like this.

Teaching about Thanksgiving was really fun, the kids had never heard of it and I got all sorts of faces when I said we eat pumpkin pie! Definitely not a French food. My favorite scene from the week was, after telling the first Thanksgiving story about the pilgrims and Native Americans, one little girl asked "what's the name of this story?".... Actually, it's real history! So cute.

On a brighter note, the Christmas lights in Nogent have been turned on! Yay, now that Thanksgiving is passed, it's time to celebrate Noel! Pictures soon to come...

Time to put my mean face on.

At least, kind of. I have one class where the students don't listen to me at all, and this is because it's the only class where the real teacher is not in the room with me. After talking to the teacher, she said I just need to send the students out of my class and back to her. Time for the discipline to start! It just makes me feel like a terrible, terrible person if I yell at a kid to leave my classroom. We'll have to see how it goes next week...

Apart from that class, my other classes have been pretty good. The kids are cute, the teachers are mostly helpful and they're all excited to be speaking English. This week is Thanksgiving so I'm planning to do some fun activities with the kids, hopefully they'll learn something.

In other news, life in Nogent le Rotrou has been pretty chill, I've been hanging out with some other assistants in Chartres and eating some delicious food and in general just chilling out.

Au boulot!

Back to work for me! After a nice, relaxing two weeks it's time to return to reality and start teaching those youngsters some more English. But first, a rundown on my vacation in France...

During the vacation, I went on lots of day trips to places like Dreux, Paris, Chartres, and Tours.

Dinner party in Dreux with some other assistants. This is a "banlieu" of Paris, noted for its racial tensions and its former glory of being a classy, rich place to live. However, the centre ville is still really cute with lots of cafes and bakeries and shops, while the assistant there warned us against venturing farther outside of the center for fear of being "pebbled" (seriously...)

Paris is, of course, beautiful just to spend a day there and walk around, absorbing the people, language and culture. I spend a great day there, walking around Le Quartier Latin and seeing the sites a bit also. The real adventure begins once we miss the last train back home, and get the joy of spending the whole night in Paris. Luckily, there was a restaurant open 24h (rare in France) and since it was a Monday night, this was basically the only thing open. So after a "nuit blanche" in Paris, I caught up on sleep and relaxed in Nogent the next day.

I also traveled to Tours, a really cool university town about 3hr away from Nogent. The main attraction was Place Plumereau, the city's center square with tons of cafes and restaurants, and looks like a medieval town square. The cathedral was also amazing, as usual. We saw some university students dressed up for Halloween and selling clementines to raise money for something, so of course, we supported them. Speaking of Halloween, it's not really celebrated in France, but I did see a couple groups of kids going door to door as witches, ghosts, and skeletons at around 5pm (why so early?!) However, one old man at the door had no idea what they were doing and was like "non, I don't have any candy." So poor little kids had to keep on moving, in search of les bonbons.

I also spent a lot of time in Chartres over vacation, since that's where several other assistants are placed and there's a lot more to do in Chartres than Nogent. It's cathedral is also amazingly beautiful and the cafe scene is excellent as well. I seem to drink a lot of coffee here... oh well.

I also met my contact person's family and they were awesome! They invited me to lunch, and then insisted that I stay and go to Paris with them the next day. So we went to Paris and visited the Centre Pompidou to see some modern art then walked around Paris and Les Halles a little bit more. It was really fun, and her kids are super cute- the littlest one, who is 10, was really excited to meet an American and discuss "Friends" with me and to see if that's really what life is like in the US. I said, yes exactly. hah :)

Then after such a lovely, relaxing time, it was back to lesson planning and teaching, which is going pretty well right now. Hopefully, that'll continue!