The Little Things

Sorry about the lack of blogging recently...I will try to do better.
Just a quick comment about how the French (and Europeans in general) take care in the design of the little things. For example, streetlights and glasses.
The streetlights here all have interesting, modern designs. Highways included. Each little town has a different style of streetlights, some colored, some very sleek. I never realized how careless the streetlights are in the US, and how much it makes a difference. Its the little details that effect the overall impression. I wish I could include some photos but its a little hard to snap a picture from the car.
Next....Europeans know how to wear glasses. I kindof wish I had to wear glasses b/c they are so pretty here. Lots of different colors, interesting designs. Also, old people's glasses are just as cool as the young peoples!
Quick life update: I'm on vacation and Romaric comes Thursday...(many pics to come). We went on a short trip to Cedric's sister's house. I helped my new roomate move into the apartment. I move to the apartment on Nov. 1st!!!!
Check out my old roomate's blog (on the right) she is awesome!
Also...Cristal is the coolest girl in France!!!!

Tarama

Very strange but very delicous food encounter:

First you take a very small pancake (not a crepe, a true american, bisquick pancake). Then put tarama on it which is like caviar but from a different type of fish...basically pink fish eggs. Then put drops of lemon juice on top and eat!! DELICIOUS!

Pizza Party

After we got home from Brugge, Abby came to Noyelles-G with me. We went to someone's house for a pizza party. There were little ovens in the middle of the table and little mini pizza crusts. Each person made thier own pizza with the toppings and cheeses and then cooked them in the ovens. SO cool and delicious!!! There was also kareoke which was hillarious.

What is cool about France is that there is so much popular French music. Everyone can't beleive that we have never heard of the French stars. Of course there is the popular American music that is all over the world but even the radio stations are required to play a certain percentage of French music. I like it.

It was really cool for Abby to get to hang out with a group of French ppl. Also everyone is SO nice here. All of thier friends really make an effort to help us understand and to talk to us...they are really awesome. I am soooo lucky! They say that the people in the north are much nicer than anywhere else in France and I believe it. None of the French 'snob' steryotypes hold true here. The saying goes that the south has the sun in the sky but the north has the sun in thier hearts....cheezy but cute!

Here are some pictures of my freinds at the pizza party:

R.I.P and Brugge

Tragic news...the anenome died this weekend! Nemo has no home so we hope he will survive the shock.
This weekend my friend Abby (from Ch. Hill) and I went on a day trip to Brugge, Belgium. It only took an hour and a half to get to another country and the ticket was only 20euro...LOVE Europe!! It was so bizzarre because half way through the trip, all the digital signs switched languages from French to Flemish and the people who got on the train weren't speaking French. Its so cool how close and accessable everything is! We walked around the cute cobblestone streets and ate delicious foods. We even climbed the Belfrois tower through the narrowest staircase I've ever been on...it was practically a ladder! There were horse-drawn carriages and it was so warm and sunny we could wear T-shirts!!!!!! Here are some photos:

Aquarium Update!

Getting ready for the move...it pulled off of the rock on Oct. 7















You can see it in the upper left of the picture here. Oct. 7














On Oct. 9th, it moved down the rock in the morning.















In the evening of Oct. 9th it had moved toward the back of the aquarium.

Pizza

Cool Pizzas we had last night:

• potatoe slices, ham, and onion...instead of tomatoe sauce, a white cream-cheese/creme fraiche mix sauce
• ground beef and mushroom
• 'supreme' style pizza with egg as a topping
• 3 cheese-very strong cheeses

The best part about the pizza was that the cheese portion was 3x thicker than the toppings or crust!

School

I finished my first week of 'work.' For the first two weeks I'm just observing in the classes. Overall it was good, the teachers are all really nice and young and I only had to go 3 hours for 3 days. There are 4 English teachers and the kids range from age 11-15. They take English 3 times a week and some also take German. Interesting (at least I think) things about French 'college' (middle school in the US).
1. School starts and ends at different times each day for each class. For example: the class I was in today had school Monday 8-5:30, Tuesday 8-4:30, Wednesday 8-11, Thursday 9-5:30, etc.
2. The kids get 1.5 hours for lunch since lunch is the biggest meal and most of the kids go home for lunch. Also, kids go to school until 5:30 but don't eat dinner until 9-10pm.
3. Inbetween classes, the kids line up outside and wait for thier teacher. The teacher goes outside and gets thier class and then leads them to the classroom.
4. Classroom doors are locked all the time.
5. Every kid has an ID book that has thier schedule, picture, dicipline record, absences, and test grades in it. The parents have to sign off on everything in the book.
6. Most of the kids write with blue fountain pens.
7. They call grades out loud in front of the whole class. In one of my classes they had just gotten a test back and passed around a sheet with everyone's grade beside thier name. In another class, when the kid finished thier presentation, the teacher called the grade out loud.
8. I have seen 5-10 little girls (age 11-13) with thier lips and noses pierced.
9. You aren't allowed to wear coats, scarves, or hats in the classroom and sometimes its cold.
10. I have only had one black student all week long.
I think thats all for now....school is really different here but I like it. Most of the kids are really eager and excited in class. If anything they are a little roudy...but seem nice and want to learn English!

Groceries

Tonight we are having a party at the house (its a Monday!). We just went grocery shopping for the party and the grocery store was soooo great. There was an entire aisle for chocolate and 2 aisles for cheese!!! For the party we are having a chocolate fountain for dessert with fruit and marshmallows. For dinner there are these small 'ovens' on the table where you heat up chese and then you pour it on your potatoes and meat. Its going to be great...there are 12 people all together for dinner. The only bad part is I have work at 8 tomorow! Warning: I may be a little heavier when I come home for Christmas.

Orientation

I had orietation for the program on Wednesday at 9am. Hono and I left at 7:30 because traffic is bad in the morning in Lille. We didn't get there until 10!!! It took us 2.5 hours to make a 15min. drive!!! That is how great my roommates are...they will drive me 2.5 hours in the car so I don't get lost on the train!
At our orientaton were about 10 boys and 200 girls! There were sooo many of us and we could speak English!!!! The group is almost half Americans that have just graduated college and don't know what they want to do and half British students studying French at "uni." Brittish foreign language majors are required to spend a year abroad working/studying before they can graduate.
It was really great to meet some other confused Americans and speak English for a little. Also, everyone is in the same boat going through the same things. I met some cool girls that live in Lille as well!
Thursday was training where we had a crash course in education. We learned lots of fun games to play with the kids and how to speak to them. They taught us how to deal with festivities too. In the US, schools respect religion by recognizing 'all' religions...where as here they respect it by celebrating no religions. If you are Muslim, you cannot cover your head at school. If you are a Christian, you cannot wear a cross on your T shirt...they are completely neutral at school. Also, we are not allowed to bring food for the children to eat.
Its going to be a little harder than I thought because we have to use only simple words that they will know. We can't just speak naturally. Also, we have to use the British vocabulary that they are taughts. Some examples:
Lift instead of Elevator
to Ring someone on the phone instead of Call them
Toillet instead of Bathroom
Flat instead of Apartment
Its really interested hanging out with the British students because its so different for them here. One of the girls teaching in Calais can get on a ferry and be home in 30min! All the others are at most 2 hours from home. They are all of course going home for Christmas...where as the Americans aren't (except me). Also, I never noticed just HOW different the language is! Its not just the slang and the accent, there is so much that is different! The cadence of their speach is very different and the speed. Its cool!!!

Champaigne Region

I appologize for the delay in info...but it has gotten busy over here! Monday and Tuesday Honorine and I went to the tiny village where her sister and mom live. It was a 3 hour drive south through flat wheat fields. The town has 2 streets and a population of less than 50. Her sister lives in a huge old farm house with her husband and 3 young boys (soooo cute!). The youngest one has just started walking! They have a cocker spaniel that just had 2 puppies, hens, a donkey, and sheep. The boys ride around on the donkey like its a horse! Everything was so cute and exactly how you would imagine a small rural French village.




On Monday we went to meet her mom and then went searching through the vineyards to find the rest of the family. They were all there for a week doing the 'vendange' or wine harvest. We finally found them after driving 2 hours through the beautiful hills and small villages, getting lost a few times.









Then we spent the afternoon with her sister's family. The oldest boy (5) Francois said his numbers for me in English! We finished with a big dinner (we have dinner around 9 or 10) at Hono's mom's house...delicous!




The next day we took the 2 older boys to the bus stop where they wait in a little wodden 'house' for the bus with all the neighborhood kids. We did some shopping until the hunt for the family in the vineyards began again! Since it was the last day, there is a tradition to decorate the van with wildflowers and then parade around the town honking the horn. They decorated our car too and we all drove around to celebrate the end of the harvest!



Hono with some champaigne grapes!





Hono's sister picking flowers for the cars.





The Van decorated.

After the parade, everyone had some coffee (it was cold out there) and took home some champaigne from the vineyard. If you see this bottle (first picture) in a store somewhere I am very interested at how much it costs state-side. At the harvest the bottles were only 12euro!

It was such a great trip and I got to see an entire different region of France, and experience a bit of the country life. I also got a chance to be with a big family here which was the best part...everyone was so nice and happy and we had a lot of fun!

Interesting TV note: Cedric and Hono LOVE Grey's Anatomy so we watched the "new" season premier which is actually 1 or 2 seasons behind the US (for translating and dubbing). The greatest part is that they show it with only one commercial break in the middle AND they show 3 new episodes in a row. Its so cool because you don't have to wait a whole week for the next show!