Home for the holidays

After traveling for exactly 24 hours I finally made it home safely. It was a long trip, but I didn’t have any big problems. I was pretty lucky.

Now I have until January 4 until I have to go the 6000 miles back to Belfort. In that time I will probably be watching lots of football and eating lots of good Mexican food to get me through the next 6 months.

I had a good Christmas. I received a new macro lens for my camera. I am so excited to use it in my travels next year. The macro lens allows you to get really close up shots. It should be fun to mess around with it.

Jet lag has not been my friend the last two days. On Christmas morning I woke up at 6 am. Then last night we were watching a movie. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I went to bed at 8:30. Then this morning I was wide awake at 5:30 am, so I had to sit around waiting for everyone else to get up.

I am definitely not looking forward to it again when I go back to France. It really throws you off for a few days! O-well it has been more than worth it to see my family for Christmas!

Let's Party!!!!!

I am finished teaching for the next two weeks. I am so excited that I don’t have to deal with the little French kiddies for a while.

Tonight we had a Christmas celebration at our place. We made a really good dinner and opened our presents. Mandy had brought over some crackers (which I found out are not like the ones you eat!!!). They are a tradition in England at Christmas. They are little popper type things, and inside is a terrible joke, a toy and a really goofy hat. We wore our hats the whole time, and I can say that I am glad we don’t have them in the US!

We had a good time and here are some pictures.

Here we are after we opend all our presents. (I made them the scarfs they are wearing.)




Now you see what I mean about the hats!




I am leaving early Sunday morning to make my way back home. I am catching the train at 2 am from Belfort to Paris. Then I have to catch the metro to another train station in Paris to take the train to the airport. My plane leaves at 11:30 am. Then it is a 12 hour flight, and I get into LAX at 2:30 pm because of the time change. I am then taking the SuperShuttle to my Grandparents’ house where we are celebrating Christmas Eve.

All said and done it will be about 22 hours of traveling!!! It will be a really long trip, but well worth. It will be so nice to be back in the US for a while!!!! I will just have to work on getting out of my French mode!

Christmas in Belfort

Yesterday I went on the little tourist train that goes around town. In the summer it goes up to the castle, but in December it just goes through the town, so you can look at all the Christmas lights. It was absolutely freezing, and we went so slow!!!! The train went through the pedestrian area, and people were passing us on foot. It was one of those times when it would have been nice to just get out and push.

Despite the cold and slow pace it was still fun to see all the town decorated. It took them about a month to put all of the lights up, but I think their hard work paid off!

Here are a few of the pictures I took.

This is the pedistrian area. I can see these lights from my apartment.



This is the town hall.


Here the gazebo in the "Old Town"


All the buildings in town have yellow and red lights, so everything matches. It looks pretty amazing.

The craziness that is French television

We finally have a working TV. The TV connection is included in our Internet cost, so we were looking for a cheap TV for a while. Then last week our neighbor, who just bought a new TV, let us borrow his old, crappy one. It was really nice of him. The power button doesn’t stay on, so I had to use like 8 pieces of tape to keep it in place. Then just as you get settled and into a show it will come lose, so you will have to walk back over and try it again. It still has a good picture, so it really isn’t too bad considering it was free.

There is not a whole lot to watch. A lot of the shows are ones that were cancelled a long time ago in the United States, and after watching about 5 minutes of them it is apparent why. They do have “Friends” though. It is a lot of fun to hear the dubbing voices because it sounds nothing like the actual person. Ross actually sounds like he is a little bit Japanese to me.

I have caught a cold, so last night I didn’t want to do anything. I turned on the TV and watched a little of “Alert A Malibu,” which is the French name for “Baywatch.” I could only stand it for a while because I remembered just how bad that show is. (In this episode there was some kind of huge octopus thing that was attacking people!) I heard that at one time “Baywatch” was the most popular show in the world because it gets so much play all around the world. Go figure…

This afternoon they had actual American football on TV. I couldn’t believe it! Sure it was only a thirty-minute recap from a few of the games last week, but it is the most I have watched in three months. Maybe this means that I will be able to watch the Superbowl at like 3 am come February. I can’t wait.

I am going to be doing Christmas stuff with all my classes this week. It should be a lot of fun. I think I am going to teach them Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” Then I am going to have them make Christmas cards with the new vocabulary words I am going to teach them. It should make the week go by really fast if they are all well behaved. I am thinking that will not be the case, but I am hoping for the best.

I think I am making progress….

Today I had to call a delivery place because my I am waiting for a package, and I had to set up a time for them to deliver it. I was so proud of myself because the conversation went really well. I understood everything she said, and more importantly she understood everything I said. When I first got here I hated talking to people on the phone because it is so difficult, and I used to write everything I was going to say down before hand. Now I can just call them up and talk…I guess I have improved my French in the last three months!! (I can’t believe it has been that long)

We had a good time when Sarah’s first group of friends was here. They left on Sunday. There were three of them, so we had 6 girls here. It definitely got a little tight at times. I was also amazed at how much toilet paper we went through in about 4 days!! Anyway they were all really nice. I am still amazed that there are so many different accents from a county that is so small!! You can tell a difference with every one.

She has another friend who arrived here today and is leaving Friday. Then she has two more friends coming on Saturday, and they are staying until next Wednesday. So we will have a full house until about the time we all leave for Christmas.

Yesterday was also a really good day because I bought plane tickets to travel in March on our next break from school. On March 1 I am flying down to Nice to meet up with Mandy. I think we are going to try to see Corsica, Monte Carlo, Marseille, and Saint-Tropez in the nine days we have down there. I fly in and out of Bale, Switzerland. The tickets were only 65 euros roundtrip. It was such a good deal I just couldn’t pass it up. I have never been to the South of France, so I am really looking forward to it.

I am also looking forward to going back home to California for a while. I leave in exactly 11 days...YEA!

The Crazy Little French Kids

I don’t know what has gotten into all the French kiddies, but they have been a riot the past few days. In one of my young classes there is this little boy named Hugo who is always causing problems. When we did Thanksgiving he raised his hand, and proceeded to tell me that he “hated the United States.” Not quite sure why he felt it was necessary to tell an American that, but he did it anyway. He is always causing problems, so I am constantly moving him and sending him out of class.

Well, yesterday he came up to me with a piece of paper all wrapped up. He told me it was a gift and to open it. Inside was a pen that said New York. He then told me that he loved New York, and I wanted to ask him if he knew that it was in the United States. I know the pen was just to get on my good side, but I don’t know how long it will last with him.

Anyway so the rest of the kids saw him give me the pen, so they started to rummage through their pencil cases to find something to give me as well. In the end I came home with a pens, two colored pencils, a little stub of a pencil and what I think is a crayon pen thing. I haven’t quite figured it out yet.

Then today in another class, some kids start making noise and yelling because someone farted in class, and it smelled. They then all denied it was them, and started accusing someone else. It took me forever to get them settled again. A little later I was reading a book, and one little boy, Jeremy, another troublemaker, moved to another seat. I turned the page, and when I looked up every kid sitting next to him was covering his or her nose and pointing right at Jeremy…so we had finally found the culprit! I started laughing so hard because the look on all the other kids’ faces was so amusing. They all had looks of pure disgust...it was that bad. I couldn’t even discipline Jeremy because all I could do was laugh. In the process all the kids started to laugh at me. I am glad the class was almost over because we weren’t going to get much more done. I am still laughing about it as I write this. There are just some things that are always funny!!!!

I guess kids are the same wherever you go, no matter what language they speak!

I have been really dragging the last two days. I think my trip to Germany really wore me out last weekend, but I am still happy I went. It was worth it. I also think part of the problem is that all of the kids have been really wound up. I can't wait to see how bad it is going to be in the next two weeks especially Friday afternoon on December 22!

Tomorrow we are going to the Christmas market in Bale, Switzerland because Sarah has some friends flying in. They are coming to the Bale airport, so we are going to go meet them. I went to Bale one time before, but it was a Sunday, so everything was closed. Now I will get to see what it is really like.

Then I think we are going to another Christmas market on Saturday in Montbeliard. It is only about 15 minutes on the train from Belfort, so that will be a quick trip. I am going to be a veteran of Christmas markets by the time I go home. They are all so different, so there is always new stuff to see.

I updated my Web site with the Germany pictures, so head on over there and check them out.

Germany

Well, Germany was a real whirlwind trip. We went through three countries in the 2 ½ hour trip…there and back.

We got into Freiburg at about 11 am. After we dropped out stuff off at the hostel, we did a walking tour of the city. Freiburg was a really great town. It is really beautiful, and it has a huge cathedral that is known as the Munster. I think it is the biggest cathedral I have seen. Also, the town had up all its Christmas decorations, so it was very festive.

That night we went to the Christmas market. The Christmas markets started in Germany, so they really get into it. They had lots of handmade ornaments. They were really amazing. They also had a place where you could make your own candles, so we all made one. Mine ended up a little crooked, but at least I can say I made it in Germany.

There were so many people at the market, so it was difficult to move in the crowd. I also found out that German people don’t like to wait in lines, so they will just cut in front of you. Sarah warned us about that before we got there, but it is still surprising to see everyone do it.

We stayed at the Black Forest Hostel. It was a clean place. We had three beds in an eleven-bed room. Sarah and Mandy didn’t seem to mind, but I didn’t sleep very well. I don’t think hostels are made for light sleepers. The showers were also crazy. They looked like big metal space ship things. They were round and tall, and when you got in there was a little window that you could see out (and others could look in which was a little weird). I just squatted down and took the fastest shower ever. Anyway I made it through my first hostel experience, and it only set me back 19 euros.

This morning we went to the Black Forest. It was only about 20 minutes out of town by tram and bus. We took the cable car up the mountain. It took about 20 minutes, and the views were incredible. Then we hiked up the mountain to the very top, which was about 3,800 feet (so really it was just a hill to me). The views were once again amazing, but it was so windy that it felt like we were going to blow away.

After we had something hot to drink, we decided to WALK back down the mountain. It was about 6 miles down because it took us 2 ½ hours. It was on a marked train, but it was still really rocky and steep. We stumbled quite a bit, but we still had a great time. It was nice for me to back near some trees and mountains. I really miss that.

After our long day we caught the train back to Belfort and got home at 7:30 pm. It was a quick trip, but loads of fun. I am still glad to be back in France where I can speak the language. It was the first time I had been in a country where I didn’t speak the language. It can be a little tricky, but luckily for me Sarah speaks German so it was a little easier.

I will be working on the pictures in the next few days. Now I am going to fito bed because I am exhausted, and I have to teach 120 kids tomorrow.