Noël

Vermont, the real life version of a Norman Rockwell painting, is beautiful at Christmas. But since we couldn't easily be there, we settled on Paris instead. So on the 23rd, we hopped a train bound for the city and began a wonderful few days in the City of Love. Our first order of business was to get lost. Since we'd neglected to look up the address of the hotel before leaving, and I'm only useful for finding directions when I see familiar things, we ended up having to call a friend who could look it up for us. Thankfully, that worked, and we found our way to the same cute little hotel we'd stayed in during my April visit. We checked in, got cleaned up and changed, and went out to the best little restaurant in the world. It's called Le jardin d'en face and it's the size of your mother's closet. Seriously, it seats 26, but any time someone sitting against the wall wants to get up, all 5 tables have to slide one way or the other so there's enough space to get out. It' very cute and charming, it's run by two people at a time, and it's incredibly reasonably priced for Paris. We were the first people in, at 8:05. Shortly afterward, a large group (6 people) came in so it was a little noisier and more fun. The menu is written on a chalkboard on the wall, so we eventually ordered our dinners and waited. Lisa had a oeuf cocotte au foie gras, which I have had before. It's like an egg custard with foie gras and little toast sticks that you dip into it. Fantastic. I had a pumpkin and chestnut soup, with garlic croutons and creme fraiche. Delicious. We'd also purchased a bottle of cider, so we were drinking that throughout the meal. I had a wonderful meal of pork filet mignon, cut into small slices with the most amazing sauce. It's gooseberry-porto and I could eat it forever and ever and ever. It also came with salad and mashed potatoes. Lisa had tartiflette, which is cheese and potatoes and onions covered with smoked duck and walnuts on top. We had dessert as well, since you have to splurge every now and then. Lisa had wild strawberry and blueberry sorbet, while I had green apple sorbet drizzled with Calvados, which is apple brandy. Drizzled doesn't seem to translate well into French though, since I ended up with about two shots worth of brandy in a bowl with the sorbet. Tasted fine though, if a bit stronger than I was expecting. And after that, we had the requisite coffee. About 3 hours and 15 minutes after entering the jardin, we paid and left. Not bad for our first night there.

The next day was Christmas Eve, and quite a few places were open. As assistants, we are entitled to free entry at all French national museums, so we hit up the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay. After hours of art and sculptures and metal work, we decided to head off to Orsay; we figured we'd seen perhaps 10-15% of all the exhibits in the Louvre. It's a large museum. By my calculations, it's just under 15 acres. I did see the most famous bits, Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, stuff like that. Too much trouble to get good pictures of though, as they're always mobbed. Here are a few pictures though:

Inside the pyramid



Hammurabi's Code



Napoleon always wanted to eat when it was nice out, so he had the roof and walls painted to be a gorgeous day. Genius!



We marched on to the Musee d'Orsay for the last hour or so that they were open. Since Lisa has been to most of these, she could show me the more interesting works and we could get more for our 0 Euro entry fee. They had an awesome model of part of downtown Paris, and it was under a glass floor so you could walk around on it and look at it from above. I felt like I was in Wonka's glass elevator.



After we got kicked out, we stopped by the Christmas markets to get some food and then headed back to the hotel since it was raining. Around 10, we headed up to Sacré Cœur for the singing and midnight mass.



The singing was very beautiful, and the mass was nice despite not understanding quite a bit of it. I did learn some obscure French religious terms though, and I got to sing (badly) in French and Latin as well. All in all a very nice service, and we even managed to catch the last metro back to the hotel. Being sometime after 2AM, we crashed pretty soon after getting back.

CHRISTMAS! And there we were, with no presents or tree or family. But we did have each other, so we just went skating instead. The Hotel de Ville had a nice rink and skates to rent, so we did that for about an hour. Good fun.



We stopped by the Marais or Jewish district for lunch, since stores and food vendors were actually still open. We bought falafels from a world famous falafel vendor, and they are indeed tasty. Plus, you get this kind of face when you take pictures:



We poked around a few shops in the Marais, then headed towards the Petit Palais and Champs-Elysees. Quite a few shops were open there but we spent most of our time in car dealers. The Toyota store had the coolest stuff, including two race cars, a new super small model (the iQ), and a prototype chair/personal transportation device.



They also had buttons you could make, so we did. Unfortunately, the man operating the button device was incompetent and messed up Lisa's button. He messed mine up as well, but I demanded it back and fixed it once we got back to the hotel. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped to take pictures of the pretty sunset and silhouettes. It's really hard not to take lots of pictures in Paris, with the end result that over the course of 4 days I shot more than 400 photos. I'm leaving you with this one, as it's perhaps my favorite from the whole weekend. Everything just came out perfectly.



We also bought a delicious crepe and some cheap cider and champagne. After drinking the cider and eating the crepe and watching part of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights on TV, we headed out to our date with the Eiffel Tower. It was pretty busy, as expected, but the tower was open later than normal so we managed to get up to the top by around 10PM. The views are GORGEOUS at night, since you're nearly 1000 feet above Paris and everything is lit up.



It's not easy to take clear pictures since it's windy, cold, and my camera isn't good at night shots anyway.



So that's about as clear as they come. Just imagine looking around and seeing the rest of Paris. Lisa had brought bubbles to the top, though the wind did all the work of blowing and popping the bubbles. Thankfully, part of the top is enclosed so it's not all freezing. We enjoyed the views, looking for places we'd been and wanted to go. After about an hour, we took the elevator down and walked down the last part of the tower, perhaps 300 feet. Then it was back to the hotel for some champagne! Perhaps not the most traditional of Christmas celebrations, but we made do.

The 26th was our last day, so we went to a museum that we'd tried to go to in the spring. It was also free, so we had no problem with that. It's a museum about the middle ages, and for extra cool bonus points they had an exhibit on Asterix and Obelix! Lots of original drawings, idea storyboards, history, things like that. Plus, they had parodies of famous artwork using Asterix characters.



As a last hurrah for Paris, we got crepes and then headed to the hotel to pick up our stuff and go take the train home. And now for something completely different:

The cold has broken my brain

So I forgot to post the pictures of the snow and ice that I've found. This is out my window.



I was downtown one day and saw these fountains, filled with ice but still fountaining along nicely.



So that's the extent of winter here. I think a white Christmas is just a dream. :(

Holidays, Traveling, and some other stuff

So I'm officially on vacation. No more lessons, no more kids, no more droopy, sleepy eyelids. It's nice to not have to worry about being places at certain times, having all of my work done, papers printed out and copied, taking attendance, dealing with noisy kids, and keeping track of everything every class has done. I will say I was pleasantly surprised at how good some of my classes were, given the stories I'd heard from teachers and other assistants. I remember well the days leading up to vacation (in high school, since college was final exams) and how hard it was to get work done. So props to some of my classes for that. Enough about school.

It snowed! This is not a common thing in Normandy, so of course all the kids were excited and throwing snowballs and getting soaking wet. It'll most likely be gone by the end of the weekend, since it rains and it's not really very cold here. But it was nice to have some white on the ground to make me feel like it's winter. I don't know how I'll be able to deal with a green Christmas.

But on the more fun side, we went to Germany last weekend! Left on Saturday from Rouen, dark and early in the morning, to go to Paris and catch the high speed train to Frankfurt. A 4 hour train ride isn't bad for that distance, and the tickets were cheap. Plus, look who we found!



Austin! What are you doing in Germany, silly man? Oh, work? Oh, we'd planned to meet up with you? Well, OK. So after we dropped our stuff off in the hotel room, Austin brought us to the Christmas market. It is amazing. It's festive, it's pretty, there are tons of people, and lots of hot delicious food and drink. As Austin had been several times already, he knew the best places to get wursts and glühwein. So I got a currywurst, Lisa got bratwurst, and Austin had a bratwurst too. They're hot and fresh and they come in a little roll. So yummy. We wandered through the booths looking at all the crafts and food and clothing that you can buy. Lisa bought some gifts to send home, whereas us men just ate food. We bought some candied nuts, which were also amazing. There's a trend with the foods you can buy at the market, in case you hadn't noticed. There is nothing bad to be had. Nothing. After some shopping, we got some glühwein in little Frankfurt Christmas market 2009 mugs. You have to pay for the mugs but you can reuse them anytime after. We saved them for souvenirs. It's totally worth a couple euros to have 25cL of hot wine, especially when it's cold. After getting our fill of market and wursts and wine, we headed back to the hotel to watch curling.

Later that evening we headed out to an Irish pub to watch the football game and have some drinks. No pictures, but we definitely had a good time and found that we could speak English and no one cared. They actually have bartenders from Ireland come down to work at the pub, which is nice. They also had a great selection of English and Irish drinks, so we enjoyed those. A good day, all things considered.

On Sunday, we had breakfast at a little cafe, and I bought some chocolates. We then wandered though some of the other parts of Frankfurt. It's full of skyscrapers, nice cars, and open squares and parks. Somehow, we managed to find ourselves back in the Christmas market, eating wursts and sweets and drinking wine. Funny how that happens. Early in the afternoon, Austin had to head to the airport to catch his flight, so we saw him off at the Hauptbahnhof. We did a little bit of window shopping, and some real shopping, then took naps at the hotel. And again to the Christmas market for dinner, some more pictures, and even a ride on the carousel. We saw some ridiculously German people, heard a few people from other places, and generally enjoyed ourselves.

On Monday, for a change in our routine, we went to the Christmas market! Just kidding, that's all we did in Frankfurt. It being our last day there, we had to go spend our few remaining euros, so we did. Well worth it in our opinion. We took the train back to Paris, and had an amazing run through Paris to catch an earlier train back to Rouen. 22 minutes from Gare Est to Gare St. Lazare. We rocked it!

My weekend in Frankfurt set a good precedent for the amount of awesomeness I plan to have on all of my future travel weekends. Let's just hope I can live up to it.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

The Christmas market in the evening. So pretty.



Lisa riding on the carousel. That crazy girl!



There are some gorgeous half-timbered houses that surround one of the market squares.



Just a pretty picture of the tree that overlooks the main market area.

I'm So Paid (but most of this was prior to that)

Lots of things have changed since I last posted here: I've taught some classes, I've had some time to explore Le Havre, I've definitely gotten settled in, and yes, I finally got paid so I'm not living off the French equivalent of ramen noodles.

Classes. First thing you notice is that French kids never shut up. It's very different from anything I've experienced in the US, but it's one of those things I guess I'll just have to deal with. I typically teach half the class for half the period and then switch, although some professeurs do prefer to take half the class for the whole hour and switch the next week. That makes planning lessons a bit more difficult as I have to keep track of which class has done which lesson. I teach Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at the high school, and Thursday and Friday at the middle school. I'm on my own with the students in the high school, but the teacher stays with me in the middle school classes. The students may not know all the vocabulary for any given lesson, so it is very handy to have the teachers around. I've talked with most classes about myself, where I come from, my family, and so on. I've shown pictures of Vermont, my high school, and drawn some crude representations of my family on the board. Last week, I talked about Thanksgiving in all but one of my classes. I put together a little slideshow that went over the history of Thanksgiving, how it is celebrated, what we eat, and some of the cultural events associated with it. I did a few activities with the students as well, which they often have difficulty with. Many are nervous, so I usually give the marker to one of them and make them go. It's easier that way. But that's enough about work, no one wants to hear that.

We had a training day on Friday; we did some administrative stuff in the morning and swapped ideas with other assistants, and then had more specialized sessions in the afternoon. All in all it was more useful than the first session, and now we have no more so that’s good. Afterwards, a bunch of the assistants went out for beers, and then we got some Indian food which was delicious. I had an amazing curry, though portions were smaller than I had hoped. Lisa had chicken with some coconut and other stuff, which was very tasty as well. We then went to the apartment of another assistant and hung out until the early hours of the morning. A good time was had by all. Today (Saturday), we’re planning to get together and go skating; they’ve made a small rink in front of the Hotel de Ville and you can rent skates and have fun. I’m sure there will be pictures later.

So, I've been doing a bit of exploring around Le Havre when I've had nice (light rain or better) weather and some free time. Most often, this is weekends with Lisa, but I do occasionally get out and about during the week. Picture time! Enjoy!

This was taken before I got paid, so I had to use a lot of willpower not to go in here. I'll probably stop in and buy some overpriced yet delicious piece of sugary confection. This picture is mostly for Paul.



This is the Notre Dame church in Le Havre. We went in on Sunday to a free organ concert. The music was great but some old guy spent half the time explaining everything about the piece before the organist (who was younger than me) got to play it and that was a bit annoying. I think this is the oldest building in Le Havre, 16th century maybe? Fairly young as far as France goes.



There are lots of stained glass windows and arches and columns and other typical church things.



On Wednesday, which in France is always a half day, I had some sunshine so I decided I'd go down and check out the docks and shoreline and whatever else happened to catch my interest. Sadly I cannot show you all of these photos now but a few will give you a taste. The sun and clouds looked amazing; the colors here, while pretty, are but a shadow of what you could see with your own eyes.



There was a giant freighter coming in, and I happened to catch the sunlight glinting off the containers. I adore this picture.



This giant church is probably the most visible landmark in downtown Le Havre. Shame it's so ugly.



The inside is almost completely open and all of the windows are stained glass. It's pretty cool, and yes, that is a spiral staircase going up the tower. I have resolved to climb that staircase one way or another.



That weekend, Lisa came up and we did some more exploring. Le Havre seems to have an unusually high number of cool bridges in random spots throughout the city.



As it got darker, the bridge lights came on and made for more fun pictures. It was very windy and as near to a bitter cold as you can get here in Le Havre, so we didn't stay too long.



Yeah, OK, last photo of the bridge.



I took this picture on the bus home. It was just awesome.



We bought some Christmas lights to festivize my prison cell. One 10 metre string of rope lights and a 10 metre loop of blue lights. The rope lights run along two walls, through my closet, and across my window.



We also bought a 1.5 metre fake tree (I know, I KNOW!) for Lisa's apartment, and some lights and ornaments. We put it up and it's really not bad considering that it only cost 7 euros. It even sheds needles like a real tree! There are some presents under it already and it's in the window in the living room so people outside can see our pretty tree! Pictures will come later.

That's about all I've got for now.

I Like Rouen but I Hate Birds

The birds in Rouen are really annoying. Tonight (Sunday), they were making the shrillest noise imaginable near the cathedral. Last night, one crapped on my head. Go ahead, laugh. It's funny, especially since it happened to me and not you. It wasn't all that bad though, it was easy to clean and we were on our way back home when it happened. Stupid bird.

So, as this is a weekend and Rouen is infinitely more exciting and fun than Le Havre, I began my journey after signing some paperwork on Friday. I took a full train away from Le Havre (I'm clearly not the only person who wants out) and arrived in Rouen around 8. Lisa and I went out with Ben and Razim to a gay bar. Drinks were expensive but we got a "stick fluo" and were being filmed for something we didn't know much about. We also got some fries on the way home, which wrapped up a fun night.

Saturday was spent mostly around the house. We did some shopping in Rouen; Lisa got a necklace and I picked up a couple of black sweaters and a long sleeve polo. I think I've got the European look down. You be the judge!

Polo:



Button down and V-neck sweater:



Other sweater:




Having a sugar momma is a definite bonus. I get nice clothes and she gets a pretty boy toy on her arm. It's a win-win!

The sweaters have already been great. It's pretty cool here in Normandy and it's nice to have layers. I will also be able to wear both to school, with t-shirts or button downs.

Saturday night we went to a dinner party at the house of one of the teachers at Lisa's school. I was invited along, and we had quite a mix of nationalities: two Americans, two Norwegians, and four French. We snacked and drank until dinner at 9:30, then had a fabulous dinner. Asparagus and chives frittata, pork filet mignon, mashed potatoes and pumpkins, then cheese (three kinds) and bread, and finally pear and chocolate tart and apple tart. And some cognac to top it all off. I think we finally rolled out of the house at 1 or 1:30 in the morning. We discussed sheeps and deers and mooses on the way home. A good night, if a bit straining on my French abilities. I didn't talk much but I was often able to pick up on the topic of discussion, with some help from Lisa or her teacher Michele as needed. Lots of fun; I'm hoping to have a repeat in the spring when I can understand and contribute more.

Sunday was slightly more productive, cheaper, and just as fun. Lisa and I went to the market to pick up some fresh vegetables, and ended up with some clementines as well. We then partook in that oh-so-European pastime of sitting in the sun on a street cafe, drinking coffee and watching the world go by. Life is pretty good here in Rouen. Around 4, one of Lisa's assistant friends met up with us to go for a walk. We stopped into one of the myriad of churches, only to find it contained an exposition on old restored machines. There were steam engines, printing presses, bandsaws, and dynamos. Very cool stuff. We then walked around the cathedral (different from the church), where we saw some girl scream back at the shrill birds, to the amusement and delight of the nearby passersby. We goofed around taking pictures of each other at the cathedral, as you can see below.





I'm sure there will be a lot more similar adventures in the future.

There was some building getting rebuilt and the half-timbering was visible. Cool.



Lisa and I made some delicious Mexican stuff out of a failed enchilada kit. Just the right amount of spice and yum. We then headed off to the fair, which runs for an entire month. It's situated right along the Rive Gauche (south side of the Seine) and the rides offer incredible views of Rouen. We went on the ferris wheel, then wandered through the fairway and had some gooey candy stuff and fried balls of incredible yumminess. I think all fairs share the same overpriced food, rides, and tacky-as-hell decorations. All part of the charm. Here I am on the ferris wheel; you can see the cathedral in the background:



That's about it for this weekend. I've definitely gotten more settled in, dealt with quite a bit on my own, and am ready to kick the fun up a notch (once I get paid). Hooray!

I Like Sunsets but I Hate Communism

And this is why. Here's the view west from the beach:



And this is the view back towards Le Havre:



Since Le Havre was basically destroyed in WWII (funny story about this later) and one architect did most of the design work, his admiration of communist architecture is very evident. There are very few buildings here worth taking pictures of. Supposedly, the interiors of these buildings are very customizable and have lots of natural light. So much so that they have been classified as national historical monuments. Let's keep this as a reminder to not play around with communism anymore.

I've settled in about as much as one can in a prison cell. Some of the buildings aren't any better on the inside, like the one I live in. It's concrete, it's square, and the only decoration is the dirt on the tiles. That has since been removed (thank you Lisa) so I pretty much live in the most boring place ever. But it's free, so I can't complain too much. And I can come visit Lisa in her extravagant capitalist pig apartment. She has to pay utilities though, so I guess I've got at least one thing going for me. No internet though, or phone, or anything else you might want. Like an oven. Or a fridge. I have to share a minifridge with a couple of other people. So yeah, I'm excited about that.

I've been observing my classes at school this week. Well, yesterday, since I don't have to teach on Mondays (YEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH) and today is Armistice Day so I'm in Rouen. I'll be at both the high school and middle school tomorrow, and Friday I'm at the middle school only. Then I'll be back in Rouen, because honestly, the section of Le Havre that I live in is not what you'd call the highlight of Norman nightlife.

I've also been getting a few things in order, like getting a prepaid cell phone and shopping for food and baguettes and things like that. There's a nice little bakery about 10 minutes from where I live that has great sandwiches, so I'll probably grab a bite there when I can. Nothing exciting, I know, but it's all stuff I have to do now or later. My teacher has been more than helpful in getting me set up with a bank account and learning the bus system and making my schedule and all sorts of other things. She's very good even though this is her first year doing this.

So, that story. After discovering that the bank, like everything else in France, was closed at lunchtime, she invited me down to her house to grab a bite to eat. We discussed a lot of things over lunch, Le Havre being one of them. She said that her mother disliked the British more for bombing Le Havre than the Germans for occupying France. Funny priorities, I suppose. The bank gave me 30 euros for opening an account, and I can't wait to get paid for this month. It's hard having to shop incredibly frugally and having to borrow money from my sugar momma. Life's hard, right?

Here's a picture of Le Havre from the hilly section of St. Adresse, looking south across the end of the Seine:



That's all I've got. More to come later.