Time speeds up

Time speeds up! I'm going to be back in 6 weeks--weird huh? I feel like these last couple months have been like a badly knitted scarf; parts of it seem all bunched up and other parts are drawn out and seem like they have taken forever. I guess because I still have 6 weeks left I shouldn't get too sentimental; it isn't over yet, is it?

In general March has been one of those months that has flown by. I have seen lots of people, travelled lots of places, and not done a whole lot of teaching (strikes+students in a slump means that things have been going slowly). I have also spent a lot of time worrying about what I will be doing after this experience is over... I still don't know.

I think the underlying theme in all my experiences this month has been a general revelation at how nice people can be.

During my last post I mentioned that I had already had some trouble with traveling during my last vacation. I also mentioned that I hoped that they would get better. To put it simply: they didn't. When I went to take my flight from Paris to Madrid, my flight was delayed by 3 hours because of a French air traffic controller strike (I guess it wouldn't really have been a true stay in France if I hadn't been hampered by one strike or the other right). This meant that I also missed my connecting flight from Madrid to Tenerife and because I was flying RyanAir, I was going to have to buy a new ticket. All in all, I was in quite a state at the Madrid airport, because I either had to buy another ticket, or I had to wait around in Madrid until my return flight four days later. On top of this, my French may be pretty good, but it is at the expense of neglecting my Spanish... the thought of having to navigate this felt simply overwhelming.

I was standing in the RyanAir line, talking rather hysterically on the phone with my dad and trying to explain the situation and when I hung up the phone, a girl who was standing in front of me in line happened to glance at my ticket (probably because I was making a bit of a scene). "Oh! We're going to the same place!", she said. It then turned out that we were even going to the same tournament, and so she offered to help figure out how where we should buy new tickets and generally hang out together (it turned out that she was French, but that she had studied abroad in Tenerife and spoke Spanish). We ended up having to buy a ticket for the next morning and spent most of the rest of the day together, and it was as if we'd been friends for quite a while. The next morning, we took our flight and arrived in Tenerife and she offered to show me around the island and I gladly accepted. Without Christelle, I would never have seen any of the volcano that crowns the island, and I would have missed out on a lot. I think my whole experience of Tenerife would have been quite different. I couldn't believe how helpful she had been to a complete stranger.

On top of this, there is, of course, the constant example of how wonderful my host family is. Right when I got back from Tenerife, Josh came out and visited me for a week, and not only did they have no problem with him staying in the house, they also figured out what we were going to do during the week.

I was having tea with Nathy, and she said to me, "Nell, you have Wednesdays off, right?"
I replied that I usually do.
"Well," she said, "On Wednesday, you will take the car and show Josh Mont St. Michel--it's not that far away and he would really like it".
I replied that that was a wonderful idea and informed Josh that the family had decided that we would be headed to Mont St. Michel on Wednesday (For those of you who don't know, Mont St. Michel is a big rocky hill that is an island at high tide and accessible by land at low tide. Somewhere in the 11th century or so, someone thought this would be a good idea to put and abbey. It is quite pretty). It ended up be a great trip, and we never would have gone if they had offered, because I never would have asked to borrow the car to go so far away. It was really wonderful of them.

On top of that, my parents came and visited me a week after Josh left, and my host family welcomed them with a meal of French pork products. I don't think my parents could have been happier (I'm not joking).

Of course, sometimes people are just nice off the bat. Sometimes you need to know how to work the system, how to approach them with the right tone. I feel like this is something I have gotten much better at doing in French this year, and I would consider the following experience my magnum opus in this domain.

Because my parents were in town, I managed to get my Tuesday cleared. Normally I have Wednesdays off, but I have gotten this job doing discussion session with French teachers who teach other subjects in English, and I had to do one on Wednesday. The problem was that we had decided to see Mont St. Michel (again) and St. Malo on Tuesday and I had to be in Sablé-sur-Sarthe on Wednesday at 9 for my discussion session. We blythely went on to Mont St. Michel and continued on to St. Malo and had a wonderful time at both places (including nearly being washed away by the tide!). My parents are big admirers of French food, and one of their goals was to have as many excellent meals as possible; we therefore decided that staying in St. Malo for dinner was the best option because they had the best restaurants. What ensued was an excellent meal, at the end of which my parents decided that it would be best to continue on to Sablé that night. It was, at the time about 9:15. It takes about 2 and a half hours to get to Sablé. I was pretty certain that most things in rural France close at the latest around 10:30, so I knew that we had to start calling hotels to ensure that we didn't have to sleep in the car.

As we head off, I started to call hotels. To start off with, there weren't that many in the town. The first three were either closed or not actually hotels, so when I called the fourth one, I was starting to feel a wee bit nervous. When a man answered saying "Hotel Marmotte, how may I help you?" I felt immensely relieved.
"Yes," I said "I'd like to make a reservation for tonight, for three people"
"I'm sorry m'am, we don't have any rooms for three people"

The first rule that I have learned in negotiating deals with French people is that nothing is impossible (I have taken a leaf out of the book of the guy in my last entry).

"Ah," I replied, "Well we must absolutely be in Sablé tonight. Do you not have anything? Not even a roll-away bed?"
"No"
"Could we rent two rooms perhaps?"
This had obviously not occurred to the man. "Yes, I can rent you two rooms" he said (I gave a fist-pump in celebration), "but Madame, when will you be arriving?"

I had an idea of what was coming. I looked at the clock. It was 9:30. We still had a good 2+ hours to go. "In around an hour, an hour and a half" I said, with some authority.
"Well, Madame, you should know that we close at 10:30"
"Oh, well, it'll be a close shave for us to arrive then--is there nothing you can do?"
"I'll tell you what," he said, "call us again if you're not going to arrive by 10:30, and we'll give you the entrance code"

And with that, he took my reservation (double fist pump!). The first half of my task was done.

At around 10:15, I called back. A different woman answered the phone.
"Hello," I said, "I have a reservation for McCallum and we're not going to be able to arrive on time. Those were the magic words (rather, "reservation" was the magic word). She happily informed us where we were going to find our keys for the next morning.

I sometimes feel like figuring things like this out in France is like a cryptic crossword. Once you have one key word. Everything else falls into place.

As one last example, my mom and I went into a wine cellar to buy some bottles of wine. And my mom, being the wonderful chatty person she is, manages to strike up a conversation the man selling us the wine. We chatted about everything. French politics (Sarkozy), American politics (health care), French people (uninterested in the world), Americans (overconsumeristic) etc. He gave me recommendations for the region. I'd say we ended up being there for about an hour. In the end, he ended up giving us a nice bottle of white wine for free, just because he enjoyed the company. People can be quite generous.

And French people get a bad reputation. I can see where it comes from (the aren't immediately as warm as Americans--a behavior that they view as "fake"), but I have met just as many happy and generous people here as I have in the US. And I would have missed out on a volcano and delicious bottle of wine and so many other thing if it wasn't for them.

Slackety Slack Slacken

Right. As you can tell from the title, I have been slacking. My apologies... I know that everyone has been waiting with baited breath for my next entry (tee hee, I like to make little jokes).

In the month of February we get a 2 week break. This is ostensibly because it is the winter and all of France would like to go skiing at some point. As such, this break is called the "Winter sports break". They even change the dates of the break among the three different scholastic regions in France so that everyone doesn't go charging up into the alps at once (I love how France likes to organize everything).

I am a rebel. I have decided that I will not go skiing during this break ("surely not!" "what does she think she's doing?!!"). Instead, I have spent the last week hanging out with some family friends in the Netherlands. Originally, I had planned to do things like go into Amsterdam and explore things on bicycle and generally try out all things Dutch. The problem with this is that one of the things that is very Dutch is rain. And it has been raining steadily since I arrived. In any case, I scratched my plans for general exploration and decided instead for general relaxation. The family I am staying with is American, so they have lots of books in English; I have been reading books, taking baths, and taking every opportunity to eat as many vegetables as I can. (I have officially gone insane. Karen asked me what I would like to eat while I was here and all I could think was "whole grain and vegetables". My idea of comfort food has gotten a little wonky"). Despite the rain, I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay, and Karen is an excellent hostess despite the her protestations.

In fact, just getting here was probably the most exciting thing that has happened to me in a while...

The train system in France is one of the things that actually works pretty well in France. The trains are generally on time and they very rarely break down. Nonetheless, I don't live in Paris. I live in the boonies. This means that anytime I want to go anywhere a fair amount of traveling has to be done because I have to get to an international hub (Paris). Anyhow, my plan of attack for this trip was to get to Paris, and then take a direct train to Rotterdam, and then take regional trains to Geldermasen, the nearest stop to where the family lives, which really isn't that bad considering the distance traveled. Additionally, on the way to Paris I   got to ride first class, which is a great place to do people watching.

When you ride on a TGV in France, you will be checked for your ticket. This is a guarantee. I have never ridden one and not been checked. As such, I have always been very careful about my tickets. In my case, I not only need to present my ticket, but I also need the card that shows that I have to right to an under-25 discount. The one time I did not have this card, they fined the price of the full ticket plus ten euros--luckily I got most of it refunded by visiting a station later on showing that I did, in fact have a card. Still, they take it pretty seriously.

There reason I am explaining this is that the guy who was sitting caddy-corner to me--an executive, important looking man in his late fifties, did not have the correct ticket. I guess he had bought a ticket for the day before without realizing it. When the conductor came through asking for tickets, he pointed this out to the man and told him his ticket was not valid and that he was going to have to pay the full price for the ticket to be in his spot. Now, if I had been in his situation (like I was the time I had forgotten my ticket), I would have dutifully paid the fine, assuming that if an important ticket-collector tells me I have to pay a fine I have no option but to do so. This is terribly American of me.

Here is what he did:
Ticket collector: You are going to have to pay the full price for your seat, sir.
Man: No, I won't. I refuse. (laughing sarcastically, shaking his head and looking around at the rest of us for support--everyone in the booth resolutely avoiding eye contact)
Ticket collector: But sir, you do not have a ticket for this seat. You must pay for the ticket.
Man: Well I absolutely refuse.
Ticket colllector: Well you will have to file a complaint the blah-blah desk with this form and do blabitty-blah if you don't want to pay...

What I find so astonishing, as I have in other situations in France, is that there was, in fact, another option to paying. The man had to create quite a fuss to find it, but there was another option. I probably could have done the same thing the time I was fined, but it just didn't occur to me. It just drove home the point that, in France at least, if you want something, all you have to do is make a scene.

Anyhow, after this incident, the train did eventually pull in the station in Paris. I then had to take the metro to get to a different station from which my train to Rotterdam was leaving. When I got to this station, the first thing I saw was a big sign that said "ATTENTION: Due to blah blah blah... all trains going to the Netherlands have been cancelled... blah blah blah", which was great. Trying to figure out what to do, I went to the desk to stand in line, but before I got the front, a man wearing a uniform but somehow still managing to look a little untrustworthy came up to me (I think it was the dreds halfway down his back and the fact that he still somehow managed to look like an elf at the same time). "Can I help you?" He asked.
I told him that I needed to get to Rotterdam but that all the trains had been cancelled and that I was wondering how long until they would start running again.
"Not to worry!" he said, "there is a train that leaves for Brussels at 18:01."
"Ok, that's great." I said, "But I'm going to Rotterdam"
"There will be a connecting train. Not to worry"
"but my tickets... they won't be for this train.."
"Not to worry, not to worry," he hurried off.
Somewhat confused, I suddenly had 3 hours in train station and only fairly shady direction with what to do next. I decided that I should probably get a coffee and clear my mind. While doing this, I realized that I really had no idea where this supposed train was leaving, or whether I would be stranded in Brussels or not, or pretty much anything, so I decided to see if there was someone else I could talk to. I went back to where I was before to investigate further.

I ended up running into the same man. He said "Not to worry! Not to worry! The train will leave at 18:01, it's certain. And as long as you wait right here, we'll be able to give you the information for it when we have it."

Several things were running through my mind. First of all, I wasn't so concerned with whether or not the train would leave. I was more concerned with whether it would leave with me on the train. Also, I checked my watch, it was 15:31. "So we have to wait right here until you know?" I asked.
"Right here, no need to worry!"
There were no benches even remotely nearby. But I know French bureaucracy and organization, and I knew the only chance I had of getting on that train was if I waited right there. Because they sure as hell weren't going to make an announcement or anything.

In fact, I have a deep mistrust of French organization, so I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to get anywhere. So I stood there, feeling disgruntled for about two hours.

The truly weird thing was that was that it all actually happened as he said it would. at about 17:30, they told us where the train would be and we all got on it--and I even actually got a seat! The train left exactly at 18:01. And when I got into Brussels, there was indeed a connecting train to Rotterdam 10 minutes later. It was surreal.

Now I am off to the Canary Islands. I am super-excited, but also pretty sure something will go wrong with my plans. We shall see.

Ruminations on January

After such a nice vacation, this month has been a little hard for me. I would say that it definitely involved the least of amount of travelling around and the most staying put--mainly because said vacation was a little pricey.

As a result I feel like I finally took some time to breathe and get a better feel for the rhythm of life in Mayenne. The main thing being that it's extremely calm. This can be a good thing. I like the fact that sit in my room and not do much and that I don't feel rushed about much. I like the fact that my family's idea of an outing is to walk to the center of town and look around and that this almost always happens on a Tuesday. There are familiar and comforting routines that you don't notice if you aren't around to observe them.

I think I have been thinking about this more, because, for three weeks of this month, my host brother Simon came home from Martinique to visit and see all his friends and family. It was his first time back since he left in October (I am kind of his replacement in the house) and it was weird seeing him as a mirror to my own experience; to see him coming home to a place that is my place away from home.  It made me realize that the what is comforting and homey is very hard to define.

I'm going to be honest, there are lots of things that I don't like about Mayenne. There are lots of things that I miss about Tucson (I'm sure some of you find this surprising). I'm also sure that someone new to Tucson would fail to notice these things.  Primary among these things is the heat (ok, I'm pretty sure they'd notice that...). I do not like being cold. It makes me grumpy. I also miss Mexican food, ultimate, wild spaces, the Buffet, Che's and Mt. Lemmon. I miss the smell of creosote after the rain and I miss the dusky green of the desert. Oh yeah, and I also miss all you lovely folk.

So it was interesting to see someone come to here, and see all the things, the little strange things, that Simon was missing about Mayenne, and that I was sure that I had failed to notice.

Whenever I go home, the first thing I want my mom (or dad) to cook me is Rosemary Chicken. I guess you could say it's one of my comfort foods, and my parents cook it like nobody else. Simon's comfort food was Tartifilette, which speaks to France's love of all things cheesy and porky (Tartifillete is potatoes, bacon and cheese all cooked together in an oven).

Because I live in the same house, he often invited me out with his friends, so I also got to see some of the places he liked to go to. The two main locations were a poor imitation of an Irish pub called the Ray Vaughan (didn't even have Guiness) and McDonald's. The interesting thing about the Ray Vaughan was that despite it lack of Irishness, it was clearly a bar that attracted all different age groups and all different crowds. I ran into my high school students, and the same night a group of older men waited grumpily for us novices to finish our round of pool at the table. When we were done, the took out their own cue that they had brought with them and started a match. In generally, I've found that in this town there is a lot more generational mixing and that people are a lot more ok with it.

The other place that Simon (and French people in general) really enjoyed going to was MacDonald's (or MacDo, as they call it). As someone who has actively avoided MacDonald's and all other fast food chains for most of my adult life, I have had a hard time understanding this desire. However, one evening, in the name of trying to hang out with some French people, I allowed myself into being coerced to go MacDo. And here is my verdict: is it better than American MacDonald's? Yes (but let's be honest, this isn't saying much. It's like affirming that gum you buy in the store is in fact better than chewed up gum you find on the sidewalk), I had a hamburger which I enjoyed. the fries, no so much. Is it worth the obsession? No. And I won't, for the life of me understand why French people go here when they could be eating Tartifilette.

Other than these two locations, Simon spent most of his time seeing friends. This is understandable; what I miss most in Tucson is the people. This all culminated in a party that we threw at my host family's house. It was ostensibly because I had been rooting for a margarita party for a while now, but in the end it was really just a party for Simon and his friends, though, the margaritas were a big hit. The funny thing about it was, once again, how multigenerational the whole thing was. There was Nathy and Pascal (the parents), all the kids, and Mimi (the grandmother), and yet every drank and had fun together and the whole thing turned into this big, multigenerational dance party. It was a good time.

I guess the whole point of this story is that watching Simon come home and have a great time has made miss my home.

On the bright side, I'm going to be helping teaching ultimate soon, and a break is coming up. Woohoo!

Ze gym

This morning I pulled up to the front of the gym and I have been going to, and Ian, one of the trainer who works there was out but his car. He gave me a sheepish grin as he watched me pull in. I, in a somewhat self-conscious way, assumed that this grin had something to do with something I had done and immediately check to make sure I had indeed parked the car correctly, that I had nothing on my face, and that my backpack didn't have my underwear poking out of it or anything. Once I had confirmed that I had indeed done everything correctly, I got out of the car.

"Ne rigoler pas, Eleanor" he said. "Il faut absoluement pas rigoler" ("Don't laugh, you absolutely can't laugh) (Ian calls me Eleanor because I have a rule that I will remind someone to call me Nell once, and if they don't remember I figure it's not worth it to remind them).
Ian was standing by his car, and as I approached I saw that his hands were covered in grease and in one them he had one of those tools that you use to open your car when you have locked your keys in the car. He looked exceedingly sheepish.
"It happens to me all the time", he said "but normally it takes me about five minutes to get the door open and I've been here for about twenty minutes and the keys to the car are in the gym so I can't open the gym"
I couldn't help but giggle a little.
Luckily for him, the owner of the gym didn't live that far away, so I gave him a ride there so that he cold go borrow the keys so that he could open up the gym. He then went back to his car and after about 10 more minutes he managed to get his car open. I know this because he came in to announce to every one in the gym in a cheerful manner.

I wasn't so sure it was a good idea when I decided to sign up for a 3 month membership to a gym because I have always had an exceeding high level of scorn for "working out". A lot of my scorn about the gym has to do with my own personal experiences. To me, a gym has always been place you go to if you want to if you want to see a lot a of douchebags wearing muscle shirts and a lot of girls who seem to care more about their appearance at the gym than they care about working out and if you want to feel alienated and inferior while you are using the machines because other people can probably use them better than you. Yeah, I pretty much avoided the gym as much as I could.

And I'm not sure if its this gym in particular, or if its being in France, or if its the fact that I never gave gyms in the US a chance, but I have actually been really enjoying going to the one here in Mayenne. There are several reasons for this. One is that this gym is a lot smaller than any of the other ones I have ever been to and it is also a lot less crowded than any gym I have been to. This means that you never feel overwhelmed or crowded, which is really nice. Another reason is that the staff here will make you a workout plan and explain to you what the hell you're supposed to be doing, so that you don't feel stupid while you muck around wondering if anyone has noticed that you have no clue what you're doing. Finally, when people come in, they actually go around and say "hi" to everyone in the facility, which is nice, but alarming (the first time this happened to me, I spent quite some time wondering how the hell I knew the guy before I realized that he was saying hi to everyone). This explains Ian coming in and cheerfully announcing to everyone that there was no need to worry, because he had found his keys.
On top of all that, and probably more importantly, it is probably has some of the best people watching I have ever experienced in one place. In general gyms are good people-watching places, but I feel that the vacuum created by the lack of frat-boy meat-head types has allowed for all sorts of other interesting types to appear.
My personal favorite is Mullet-Man (this is what I call him in my head). This man, has quite possibly, one of the most impressive mullets I have ever seen in my life. This is how impressive it is: the first time I saw him, I did not realize he had a mullet, because it is a short crew cut in the front and the back, which is long tumbling brown hair down to his mid back, was tied into a ponytail. This was my train of thought "oh look, there is someone with a normal hair cut" (he turns sideways) "... (the ellipses represent my speechless awe)". I am fascinated by it, and have to try and not stare when he is in the gym.
Another interesting trend is the penchant that the men seem to have to wear tight running short/capris for pretty much any workout. For some reason, this trend is especially popular among the middle aged, slightly nerdy-looking crowd. My personal favorite example of this group is the guy who combines this look with a tiger striped towel, although I think he got the wrong idea when he intercepted my look of silent incredulity the first time I ever saw him and now I have to be very careful not to people-watch him.

I could go on--there are all sorts of wonderful people. Those, however, are my favorite so I think I will stop for now. For the time being, I am enjoying the gym and the new experience of learning how to lift and whatnot. Once the novelty wears off, we'll see how I feel, but for the moment I am entertained.

Tradition

It snowed on Wednesday. This was the first time in a long time that I have been a place where it has snowed extensively for a long period of time. It was beautiful, and it was the first time I’ve noticed the magical silence that goes along with a snowfall—it’s a combination of the fact that a lot of snow means that people tend to stay indoors and watch rather than go outside and make noise and the fact that snow has a muffling effect on noise in general. I thought of it as the sound of watching.
The snow had lots of different effects on the second half of the week. A lot of students couldn’t get to the schools because they come from smaller villages further away, so I had several classes that were canceled or with only a few students. It made for a nice easy transition back to work.

We had snow before Christmas, but it didn’t really cover everything and was at most 2 or 3 inches. This time we had around 8 or 9 and it was absolutely gorgeous to see the way it covered everything in a blanket (those of you from the East coast are probably laughing at my awe, but to someone who isn’t accustomed to it, it really is magical). On top of that, we have continued to have below freezing temperatures all week so the for the most part the snow has stayed (except in town where it has been pounded into ice by people’s feet and now makes walking a fun will-you-break-your-face sort of game).

All of this means that when a colleague asked me if I would like to go running with me and his wife today, the ground in most places where people weren’t constantly walking was still covered in a blanket of snow. I was really excited to go running with them because they know a whole bunch of trails that I don’t and it would be nice to do something a little different. The run was beautiful—I’ve never run on snow before, and it was through a part of the countryside I hadn’t really explored before. There is something quietly spectacular about the skinny ragged skeletons of trees with a coating of snow. Brilliant white clinging impossibly to skinny so-dark-gray-it’s-almost-black spindly branches. Beautiful.

Another highlight is that we ran along a trail that the teacher explained could have well be around since the middle ages (he was probably exaggerating, but the thought is still fascinating fodder for imagination). The trails are called “sunken trails” because they actually are at lower levels than the surrounding farmland, ostensibly because they have been so well used over the last several hundred years.


This is one thing that does not cease to boggle my imagination here in France. The time depth of the place is simply on another level than that of Tucson, the Southwest, or quite frankly, anything barring Native American sites in the United States. So even if, the trail, instead of being from the middle ages was from the Renaissance or the Reformation, I am still impressed. Hell, even if it is only from the 1800s, I’m impressed.

You can see the effect of time depth on the adherence that people have to traditions and ways here. During Christmas, I was surprised to see decorations go up in all the towns that I went to, including small hamlets of only several hundred people. I was surprised by the overt Christianity of the decorations (them being town decorations after all) and by the fact that it was pretty much universally done. Only this last week I was surprised by another tradition that I had pretty much completely forgotten about.

It all happened on January 5th. January 5th is what is known in France as the “Fête des Rois” or the “King’s festival”—it celebrates something about the three kings which I don’t know anything about, having not ever read a bible. (feel free to explain if you do know). The tradition in France on this day is to ear something called the “Galette des Rois”, which is a flaky pastry cakey thing. Inside the cake is a porcelain figurine. Everyone gets a piece of cake and one person is lucky enough to get a piece of cake without breaking their teeth. As a reward, they get to keep the figurine, and they get to be king—meaning that they get a paper crown. I’m not clear on whether being king actually gives you any other rights besides these two things; the whole tradition is a little mysterious to me.
Besides the tradition itself, the thing that really surprised me was the fact that they made it into a little celebration for teachers at the school. I think one classes was shortened so that all the teachers could be there. We all assembled in the cafeteria and the Principal gave a little speech and then everyone got a piece of galette and—more surprisingly—a glass of hard cider.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because, as I think I have mentioned, you can have a glass of wine with your lunch in the cafeteria if you like. I think what surprised me is the respect the French give traditions, and, in this case, how often they are associated with food.

I don’t think I blogged about this, but a big event at the school right before Christmas was the Repas de Noel—the Christmas Dinner—the school pulled out all the stops and we had a three-course meal that included such delicacies as foie gras and scallops. My point in bringing this up was that it is another example of the way that food an tradition are tied together so strongly that you see them in even in such a sterile environment as French high school.

It is true, for the most part I have found French high school incredibly sterile—what I mean by this is devoid of anything but the tools for education. There are very few cultural activities, and almost nothing that can be described as extra-curricular. This is, of course, in comparison to American high school, which is so non-sterile that in a lot of ways it verges on kitsch.

In American high schools there are lots of activities and traditions that have nothing to do with education: sports, band, homecoming, student council, prom—I could go on. One may argue that these activities serve no real purpose (and in some ways they would be correct). What this tradition—this kitsch—does is keep students involved (even if they are very unwillingly involved). It serves as a way of tricking student into being a participant. In French school, I feel like I see a lot more exhausted, burned-out students who could really care less. Although there are also no jocks and no cheerleaders, which is also a welcome change.

The exception to this lack of enthusiasm is in the school cafeteria. The food is usually exceptional and completely incomparable to anything you would find in an American high school. I find it fascinating that France excels in the exact area that American high schools fail, and also that America takes so little interest in food that were are able to stomach what is available, when it is clearer possible to have school cafeterias that actually serve digestible food.

Part Deux

French Food is Going to Kill Me.
 This is an observation that doesn't directly have to do with the holidays, although the point has definitely been driven home over the last couple weeks. I am going to be honest. I have gained some weight while I have been and I do find this somewhat upsetting. I am going to try and explain why the food here has so many alluring qualities, and why I am somewhat surprised that there aren't that many obese French people

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it isn't good. The problem is quite the opposite. Or rather, part of the problem is. It is true that everything here has a different flavor or quality than in the US. This is partially because many people in France have such a focus on regional specialties and and on locally made food. This leaves me with no choice but to try everything. The bread is delicious, so is the butter, so is the regional cheese and the locally made rilletes, and the locally raised chicken, the home made jam, the pastries from the patisserie down the street--are you starting to see my problem here? It's really hard to resist when your host mother calls you down for an apératif (glorified pre-meal snack) saying "I've made home made paté that you have to try", or "look! I bought you all éclairs from the bakery!". I think it is easier to eat healthy in the US because, quite frankly, the food is more boring.

This isn't to say that I don't like healthy food. Actually, I am quite a fan of healthy food. I actually really enjoy vegetables. I would eat them if I could. The problem is that no one else seems to really care for them (not just my family, I feel that the entire country of France seems to be in agreement on this point). In my family, it is rare to have them as a side dish, and when they appear I get really excited. One of the saddest days of my stay here was when my host mom was preparing steak with spinach--I wasn't too excited about the steak, but about the spinach, yes. Unfortunately, 10 minutes later I smell a burning smell. I was heartbroken when she announced that she had burned the spinach and that she would be serving potatoes instead.

In contrast to the usual delicious food, despite the lack of vegetable matter, there are somethings that I sometimes get in my family that seem absurd, and, quite frankly just wrong. The most egregious example of this is sometime when my host mom is in a rush so that she just cooks up a bunch of pasta. This in itself is not wrong. What is wrong is when she gets out the bottle of ketchup and puts it next to the pasta. When this happens I feel like standing up and making a speech:
Hello. My Name is Nell. I come from the USA, which could be considered the birthplace of ketchup. Let me clarify something. Ketchup is not tomato sauce. You put ketchup on hamburgers and fries and maybe chicken nuggets. You don't put it on pasta.
I can't explain why this seem like a horrible violation of the codes ofhumanity, but it does. And there you go.

Ok, so this wasn't about my break at all. My apologies. I think I just needed to get this off my chest.


More General Reasons France is Out to Get Me
Because it is perverse and likes its little jokes.

It all started on the 31st of December, when Josh and I were setting off to get back to Paris.
The car didn't start. It turns out we'd left an ipod charger in the outlet and it had drained our battery. Whoop dee doo. Anyhow, the problem wasn't that hard to solve--all we had to do was find someone with jumper cables right?

Right. Picture us, 7 in the morning in Chamonix, where it is just cold enough to alternate between a heavy drizzle of snow and rain. We went back to the hotel to ask if anyone had jumper cables. No. We went to another hotel to see: "Yes, madame we have someone who has jumper cables, but he is not here right now, and it is possible he may never show up". Awesome. I started polling random strangers (incidentally, jumper cable in French is pince), and no one had them, although one nice man offered to push our car down the hill to give us a hill start. No one. Chamonix is a very crowded tourist town full of people under 30 who drive nice cars, hence, no jumper cables. We finally called a mechanic and were on the verge of paying 113 Euros just to have our car jumped, when the only lady in the town over the age of 30 showed up in the hotel and lo-and behold, she had jumper cables. Thank God. We managed to get off on the road to Paris.

The rest of the day was uneventful until we got into Paris and had to return our car to the Gare du Nord. Driving in Paris is a nightmare. Driving in Paris when you are unsure of where you are going is even more of a nightmare. Anyhow, after finally navigating our way to the general area of Gare du Nord, we had the problem of finding where exactly to put our car. We blindly drove around the station and eventually found an unmarked Parking garage. On a whim, we decided to enter it, and as we were going in, I saw the logo of 4 rental car companies posted on a post that was conveniently out of sight of the entrance. The French definitely win at clear signage.

Fast forward to the morning of the New Years morning, when we are trying to get Josh onto his airplane. We had left his luggage at a hotel my uncle and aunt were staying at, and had gone off to experience New Years. It was only on our way back to hotel in the early morning that we realized that some of the trains were starting a little later than expected--we were not going to be able to get back to the hotel to get his luggage. We decided to try and take a taxi. We exited on to the street only to find 5 other people with the same thought in mind and no taxis to be found. Finally, we realized that he could still catch his flight if we just left directly for the airport without his luggage, which is what we did--he barely made his flight.

I then went back to the hotel and had to figure out what to do now that I had his bag and my bags. I ended up lugging both of them on to a train to Laval(this was hard because my bag is a piece of crap that over balance any time you let go). When I got to Laval, I knew there might be some problem with the buses, it being January 1st. However, I checked the bus schedule and there was, supposedly one running, so I sat down to wait on a park bench for an hour for it to come. It did not come. I called my host family to see if they could help me out. They did not answer. I called again. They still didn't answer. I realized that all of the people I knew in Laval were not currently in Laval, and I realized that there was a good chance that I was stranded. Then, being overtired and stressed, I did what anyone would do. I started bawling.

This did not help the situation, because I still had to find a way home and this involved calling people. It is very hard to call people and communicated when your voice is wracked by sobs. Now imagine doing this in French. Luckily for me, I remembered that I knew some Americans in a nearby town who I had met occasionally and had dinner with them a few times. They came and picked me up, and I think I was weepy until I finally got some sleep.

That is why France is out to get me.

Now all I have to do is to figure out what I am going to do with this extra bag.

Happy New Years everybody! (part 1)

And err... you may have noticed that I haven't posted in a while. I took a break. Sorry.

You may be wondering what I did during that break. Well. You're still going to have to wonder. A little. In any case, a play by play recount of the last three weeks isn't going to interest anyone. So instead I am going to regale you with insightful observations that I have learned during my travels. Well, that's the plan anyways. First, here are some photos of my break to make you feel jealous and curious:

Ha ha! Wonder away... although, if you guessed "Alps", you've done a very good job.

Now, prepare to be regaled by my observations.

Mayenne is not like the rest of France.
And for that, I am grateful.

When I tell someone in France where I live, they say one of two things, they usually try and correct my grammar, and then they ask me one of two questions:
1) Where is that ?
2) Why?
The reason they try and correct my grammar is because the town of Mayenne is located in the department (a department is a little bit like a county) of Mayenne. In French, when you say "I live in Mayenne" the preposition (in) changes depending whether you are talking about a town or a region (à versus en). So when I say "J'habite à Mayenne" they think that I have made a mistake because I am foreign and because they do not even know there is a town called Mayenne.

I think the best way to describe Mayenne is to say that it is the French equivalent of rural midwestern town in the US. The problem with this statement is that I am not sure I can legitimately claim to have ever been to a small midwestern town, so I'm really just making everything up. In any case what I mean by this statement is that when I meet people in Mayenne, they seem to be a little surprised that I have an accent. When I say I am from the US, they are even more surprised. They tend to be very locally minded and farm minded. And they all speak French all the time. I have never had anyone try and speak English to me. I have some to realize that I appreciate this remoteness.

In Chamonix, I often found myself confused because I would go to speak French, the way I always do and it would turn out that the waiter was actually English and would really prefer it if I spoke in that language. I would prepare something to say in my head only to find out I was speaking the wrong language.

Eventually, I found myself getting irritated with the tourists and the waitstaff who were speaking the wrong language and found myself wondering why everyone couldn't just speak French. I think I have been in the provinces too long. I'm starting to sound a little bit country-bumpkin-ish. I realized that in most cases the tourists can't help it, but I still got all grumbly. If I don't get out here soon, I'm going to start complaining about how frosts this time of year are no good for growing zucchini in the fall or some such other local wisdom.

Alrighty. I'm tired, you're going to have to wait for further observations until tomorrow night.