I don’t have to go to my classes tomorrow because they are watching a movie or something before the break, so I am finished teaching until March 12…SCORE!!
I also realized I am now just over halfway finished teaching in France. It has gone by quickly, but I think my French has really improved. My vocabulary has grown, and my listening comprehension is a lot better. I can now catch a part of someone’s conversation and understand it. When I first got here it was hard to understand when people were speaking directly at me, but now I can understand even if they are just passing by. Although there have been some improvements there are still times when I have to rack my brain to try to conjugate an irregular verb in the right tense, but I am starting to do that much quicker now. I hope I keep improving in the second half of my stay in France.
I leave for Paris on Saturday morning. I am really excited about the rugby game. I am excited to see what a real European sports fan is like. I like sports probably more than the next person, but I have a feeling I am not going to compare to the people over here!!
The weather has been so nice the past few days. Nothing but sunshine with the temps in the mid 50’s, but it is supposed to rain this weekend at the game. I hope it doesn’t rain too hard because the game doesn’t start until 9 pm, so it will be cold. But I guess that is just all part of the experience...so bring it on!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Just a few more days...
I have less than a week of teaching left before I have a two-week break. I am so excited!
I have just about every day of the two weeks planned out. Next Saturday I am going to Paris with Sarah, and we are going to watch a Six Nations Rugby game. It is between France and Wales at the Stade de France in Paris. I can’t say I know a whole lot about rugby, but I have been watching some on the TV. I am slowly catching on to the game.
We are then spending Sunday looking around Paris. Then Sarah leaves to go back to England on Monday. I will probably head back to Belfort until Thursday when I leave for the South of France.
I fly from Bale to Nice on Thursday to meet up with my other roommate, Mandy. We are staying in Nice for three nights and taking some day trips from there. On Friday we are going to Monte Carlo, and on Saturday we are headed to San Remo, Italy. On Sunday we head down the coast to Saint Tropez and Aix-en-Provence. Monday we are looking through Marseilles, and then we are then taking a night ferry to the island of Corsica. We will spend three days looking at some of the places on the island. Then we take another night ferry on the 8th back to Nice, and Friday night we fly back to Bale.
We are trying to fit in a lot of stuff on this trip! It will probably be scary the amount of photos I will take. I have 3 gigs of space on my memory cards. I hope that is enough! :)
Now I just have to make it through the next 5 days. I think I can…I think I can…
I have just about every day of the two weeks planned out. Next Saturday I am going to Paris with Sarah, and we are going to watch a Six Nations Rugby game. It is between France and Wales at the Stade de France in Paris. I can’t say I know a whole lot about rugby, but I have been watching some on the TV. I am slowly catching on to the game.
We are then spending Sunday looking around Paris. Then Sarah leaves to go back to England on Monday. I will probably head back to Belfort until Thursday when I leave for the South of France.
I fly from Bale to Nice on Thursday to meet up with my other roommate, Mandy. We are staying in Nice for three nights and taking some day trips from there. On Friday we are going to Monte Carlo, and on Saturday we are headed to San Remo, Italy. On Sunday we head down the coast to Saint Tropez and Aix-en-Provence. Monday we are looking through Marseilles, and then we are then taking a night ferry to the island of Corsica. We will spend three days looking at some of the places on the island. Then we take another night ferry on the 8th back to Nice, and Friday night we fly back to Bale.
We are trying to fit in a lot of stuff on this trip! It will probably be scary the amount of photos I will take. I have 3 gigs of space on my memory cards. I hope that is enough! :)
Now I just have to make it through the next 5 days. I think I can…I think I can…
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
In the Dark...
So we have been living without electricity for 5 whole days.
It all started last Friday when we got home from working. It turned out that when we moved in we were supposed to change the name on the account, but we never did it. We tried quite a few times, but we were given about three different numbers and either they didn’t work or no one answered. We should have continued, but of course we didn’t. In the end we made it 4 and half months without a problem.
We called our landlady and got a different number. When I called that one I finally got through. I changed all of information, and they told us that it would be 48 hours until it was turned back on.
Everything in our apartment is electric including the water heater and our stove, so we had no way to cook food or a place to store it. We put our refrigerated stuff out on the balcony to stay cool, and took very quick freezing cold showers. We were quite proud of ourselves on Sunday night because we had made it a whole weekend without electricity.
But by Monday morning we still didn’t have any electricity, so we called again and they told us that 48 hours does not include the weekend. (I am not sure why they didn’t tell us that before. I guess in France it is assumed that people don’t work on the weekend.) They said someone would come out and fix it by Tuesday afternoon. When we got home yesterday we still didn’t have any lights, so we called again and this time they said they didn’t have an open appointment until February 21, which didn’t go down too well with us. The poor lady got an earful from Sarah. She said she would put an urgent notice on our name, so hopefully it would get done faster.
Today a man called and said someone had come by yesterday and fixed the line downstairs, so there was something wrong with our apartment. We then had to call our landlady and she came by and called the people up again because there was nothing wrong with our fuse box. They then sent a repairman out, and they found that in fact when someone came by yesterday they didn’t actually turn the current back on…so they flipped the switch and just like that we had LIGHT!
It took 120 hours, 40 euros worth of phone calls, 16 candles, and lots of spoiled food but we made it through. It was such a headache. Granted we could have figured out the whole name change thing earlier, but it was still very drawn out.
In the end I also found I can still be creative when it comes to finding stuff to do, and that it is still possible to go five days without Internet. Difficult but still possible.
Playing Yahtzee by candle light.
It all started last Friday when we got home from working. It turned out that when we moved in we were supposed to change the name on the account, but we never did it. We tried quite a few times, but we were given about three different numbers and either they didn’t work or no one answered. We should have continued, but of course we didn’t. In the end we made it 4 and half months without a problem.
We called our landlady and got a different number. When I called that one I finally got through. I changed all of information, and they told us that it would be 48 hours until it was turned back on.
Everything in our apartment is electric including the water heater and our stove, so we had no way to cook food or a place to store it. We put our refrigerated stuff out on the balcony to stay cool, and took very quick freezing cold showers. We were quite proud of ourselves on Sunday night because we had made it a whole weekend without electricity.
But by Monday morning we still didn’t have any electricity, so we called again and they told us that 48 hours does not include the weekend. (I am not sure why they didn’t tell us that before. I guess in France it is assumed that people don’t work on the weekend.) They said someone would come out and fix it by Tuesday afternoon. When we got home yesterday we still didn’t have any lights, so we called again and this time they said they didn’t have an open appointment until February 21, which didn’t go down too well with us. The poor lady got an earful from Sarah. She said she would put an urgent notice on our name, so hopefully it would get done faster.
Today a man called and said someone had come by yesterday and fixed the line downstairs, so there was something wrong with our apartment. We then had to call our landlady and she came by and called the people up again because there was nothing wrong with our fuse box. They then sent a repairman out, and they found that in fact when someone came by yesterday they didn’t actually turn the current back on…so they flipped the switch and just like that we had LIGHT!
It took 120 hours, 40 euros worth of phone calls, 16 candles, and lots of spoiled food but we made it through. It was such a headache. Granted we could have figured out the whole name change thing earlier, but it was still very drawn out.
In the end I also found I can still be creative when it comes to finding stuff to do, and that it is still possible to go five days without Internet. Difficult but still possible.
Playing Yahtzee by candle light.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
"Cuz We're on Strike"
Tomorrow there is a teachers’ strike in France. I guess a couple of teachers wanted some more money and decided to strike. Then teachers all over the country decided to join in, so now it is pretty much in every school in France. Three out of the four classes I teach tomorrow will not be there because their teachers are participating. Then I talked to the other teacher who will still be there, and she said not to worry about coming in. Now I have another day off this week, but I still get paid. Not too bad…
I am sure the kids don’t mind too much either.
From what I heard the French like to go on strike a lot. In the four and a half months I have been here I have seen two train strikes and one in the schools. I think they like to go on strike because they are so effective. I read in a book that if one group goes on strike lots of other people will join in even if they are not directly affected by the strike. So sometimes if teachers go on strike then transportation workers will also strike.
I guess I will have to be careful and not plan on going anywhere tomorrow, or I might now end up getting back!
P.S. I have put up my pictures of Versailles on my Web site if you want to check them out.
I am sure the kids don’t mind too much either.
From what I heard the French like to go on strike a lot. In the four and a half months I have been here I have seen two train strikes and one in the schools. I think they like to go on strike because they are so effective. I read in a book that if one group goes on strike lots of other people will join in even if they are not directly affected by the strike. So sometimes if teachers go on strike then transportation workers will also strike.
I guess I will have to be careful and not plan on going anywhere tomorrow, or I might now end up getting back!
P.S. I have put up my pictures of Versailles on my Web site if you want to check them out.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Weekend in Paris
I had another busy weekend! We left at 6 pm from Belfort Friday night, and we got in to Paris at about 10 pm. Then we met up with a few of Sarah’s friends who are assistants there. We stayed in a hostel, which was not very nice…it was actually pretty disgusting! There were only three showers available to about 100 people, so they were just as dirty as you would think. It also looked like they didn’t clean them during the day, so the next night they were even worse. I decided I would rather have greasy hair than to shower in that thing.
Saturday we went to Disneyland Paris. It was interesting to see how much they blended French and English. There were a lot of things that were in both languages. For example on the Star Tours ride the little robot guy spoke French, but in the movie part on the screen they spoke English. I guess they couldn’t change everything because it would cost too much. All the cast members spoke both languages as well. I was disappointed to find that their Indiana Jones ride was only a little roller coaster. It was nothing like the ride at Disneyland where you go on the jeep tour. It had been almost 5 years since I went to Disneyland, so it was fun. I also screamed so much on the rides that I lost my voice!
Yesterday we went to Versailles. It is free on the first Sunday of every month, so there were quite a few people there. We had to wait in a really long line to get into the chateau, but it was worth it.
The line from HECK!!! This is only about ¾ of it too!
Inside everything was so elaborate. In the castle there is a two-story chapel, a theater and so many other rooms. It would have been really neat to be able to walk through on your own.
The grounds were the best part of the trip, even in winter. They didn’t have the fountains on though, so again a little disappointing. I guess that is what happens when you go to places in the middle of winter. The grounds are so large. It can take up to an hour to walk from one end to the other. There is also a huge canal where they have boats in the summer. It was so nice to walk around, and the weather was perfect. It was a little cool, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky the entire weekend.
We caught the 6 pm train back to Belfort, so we got home at about 10:15 pm. I was in bed by 11, completely exhausted.
I didn’t get to watch the Super Bowl because they are showing it tonight here, but it still doesn’t start until a quarter to midnight. After my classes this afternoon I think I will take a nap. I still want to watch even though I already know who won. It will be another long night!
Saturday we went to Disneyland Paris. It was interesting to see how much they blended French and English. There were a lot of things that were in both languages. For example on the Star Tours ride the little robot guy spoke French, but in the movie part on the screen they spoke English. I guess they couldn’t change everything because it would cost too much. All the cast members spoke both languages as well. I was disappointed to find that their Indiana Jones ride was only a little roller coaster. It was nothing like the ride at Disneyland where you go on the jeep tour. It had been almost 5 years since I went to Disneyland, so it was fun. I also screamed so much on the rides that I lost my voice!
Yesterday we went to Versailles. It is free on the first Sunday of every month, so there were quite a few people there. We had to wait in a really long line to get into the chateau, but it was worth it.
The line from HECK!!! This is only about ¾ of it too!
Inside everything was so elaborate. In the castle there is a two-story chapel, a theater and so many other rooms. It would have been really neat to be able to walk through on your own.
The grounds were the best part of the trip, even in winter. They didn’t have the fountains on though, so again a little disappointing. I guess that is what happens when you go to places in the middle of winter. The grounds are so large. It can take up to an hour to walk from one end to the other. There is also a huge canal where they have boats in the summer. It was so nice to walk around, and the weather was perfect. It was a little cool, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky the entire weekend.
We caught the 6 pm train back to Belfort, so we got home at about 10:15 pm. I was in bed by 11, completely exhausted.
I didn’t get to watch the Super Bowl because they are showing it tonight here, but it still doesn’t start until a quarter to midnight. After my classes this afternoon I think I will take a nap. I still want to watch even though I already know who won. It will be another long night!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
