How practical are French showers, really?

First of all, why is nothing open on Sundays? Secondly, why do I still have no internet?

I moved into my new apartment finally!! Big plus there. Except it’s not finished yet because they guy who’s doing it over (we don’t actually know his name, but we’ll call him Jean-Philippe) only works from 9-12. … He said our closets would be done on Monday, and our Internet would be set up in 1-2 weeks. Is he joking? Lisa and I are both glued to our Internet, thus this came as a bit of a shock to us. Luckily we still have 30 Rock on my external hard drive to keep us occupied. The salon (living room) is huge, and we have a fabulous balcony. We were pleasantly surprised with things we had no idea came with the apartment, such as a plethora of kitchenware, a washing machine, and desk lamps. Jean-Philippe certainly covered all the bases, (that’s what she said, heyo), so we definitely lucked out. I also somehow was on the same wavelength as Jean-Philippe, because the color scheme I chose for my bedding matches his color scheme for the entire apartment: black and white with red accents. PERF. All in all, it’s a wonderful apartment that will be even more amazing when finished. My only complaint is the shower. It is one where you have to hold the nozzle, and there’s nowhere to hang it up on the wall. In my first shower this morning I was awkwardly trying to do everything one-handed, and in my attempt to rest the nozzle down, I sprayed water all over the bathroom. I hate not being able to just stand in the shower for unnecessary long periods of time wasting every last drop of hot water. We also get to meet our French roommate soon! From stalking her stuff, it looks like she’s an art student!! Cooooool.

I went to my first French party!! A fellow assistant’s French boyfriend was going to a Hollywood themed party that a friend and I thought would be a great idea. Though we live in a French-speaking country, we rarely speak French. I spend all my time with English-speaking creatures, most of whom don’t feel ready/comfortable/whatevs to speak French conversationally. Myself included. We all really want to get there, and we are able to get by in stores, mild small talk, but at least for me, it still always comes with a blank stare and a few “quoi’s?” from both parties. At this party, it was the first time I truly felt “wtf am I doing here.” I could not keep up with conversation for the life of me. I could understand most of what was being said, but I just haven’t had the practice and opportunities for French conversation in all the years of studying the language. I find it so unfortunate how my education was centered on reading and writing. I know I can’t expect myself to speak French fluently after the first time trying, but this experience inspired me even more to go out there and find ways to engage myself in French conversation. I need to take advantage of the fact that this is the best possible opportunity I have to work on my French, and I want to make sure that happens!

On Saturday I ventured to Nîmes. Nîmes is a smaller city known for its Roman Arena, a coliseum look-a-like where bullfighting still takes place. There was a plan to go see an actual bullfight, but I was like helll no. I brought a book just in case, but fortunately there wasn’t one happening that day. As much as I want to immerse myself into French culture, I get no satisfaction watching a helpless animal get massacred for entertainment. Overall the city was really cute; there just wasn’t a whole lot to do. The girls ended up going shopping for a bit and we left the men to fend for themselves – they wandered into FNAC (ha, pronounced Funack) to watch a rugby game. Major plus of the day: when everyone wanted a snack/pastry break, I found a dessert I could eat! Meringue! Pure sugar and egg whites. But mostly pure sugar. It was like a giant blob of sugar.

I want a French child

Montpellier, je t'aime.

On Tuesday, Lisa and I went to Béziers to visit our schools. We did not anticipate the long day ahead of us, not realizing we would be visiting every class in every school we will be teaching in. As I teach in 3 schools, and 9 classes, and Lisa teaches 13 classes in 4 schools, it was one of the longest days ever. Our contact lady Patricia, a genuinely kind, yet eccentric woman, picked us up at the train station where we began our 9 hour trek around Beziers. Fortunately, my schools are in walking distance of each other, so I can easily maneuver between my morning and afternoon classes. Also, French primary schools are adorable. The schools, at least in Béziers are very small, and very old (and old-fashioned). Interestingly, they felt very casual and laid-back. Teachers wore jeans and sneakers, the atmosphere just felt very relaxed to me, which is the opposite of what I was expecting. I actually felt overdressed, with my cute blue floral print H&M teacher dress that I was planning for this occasion. For some reason I thought the schools would be very strict and traditional, but we’ll see. I was introduced to each class, saying, “Hello, this is Stephanie, and she’s from the United States. (In French). The looks on the kids faces when they heard I was from the US of A were priceless. They obviously aren’t old enough to understand French hostility towards Americans, thus their excitement to learn English was beyond palpable. My favorite moment though, was when a boy raised his hand to ask me, “Mais elle connait QUOI?!” Meaning, “But what does she know?!” I loved it. I actually felt my maternal instinct kicking in, to take in my sheep under my wing, to guide them with my mother tongue, and I got a bit teary eyed. The whole prospect of teaching English, the reason for my big move to France, was beyond my mental capacity for the time when I was trying to find housing, and acclimating to a new city. It was just not on my radar. But when I saw their faces, and mind you, I have 7-10 year olds, so they get points for being cute, I thought, this is so much of why I’m here. Call it cliché, but I do believe the disposition for teaching runs in my family, thus it’s in my blood. Sometimes I feel I have a calling to be a teacher, or at least a mentor of some kind, and every time I get into these types of situations, the way I feel confirms it. Never do I feel more connected, engaged, excited, committed, and rewarded as I do in positions of teaching and guidance. Dear God I’m becoming my mother. (Just kidding Mom!!!)

Enough of that, this blog is too funny for the dramatic exposure of my feelings. Some other cool stuff going on: Lisa, Wes, and I did some Montpellier sightseeing that I had been meaning to do. We went to the jardin des plantes, a really pretty recluse in Montpellier full of exotic plants where we saw frogs mating. We then saw a few churches that were really beautiful and insanely old. As the years pass and my ties to religion are as weak as my digestive system, I do feel a sense of comfort/peace walking in these churches. I got surprisingly homesick, more so than I had been since I got here. I think I was thinking how much I can’t wait my family to come visit, knowing how much they would like to see this too. I got over it pretty quickly when we walked out and I found a cute café that was selling sorbet.

And then, after that, it was time for our daily 30 Rock and naptime. I made a delicious dinner of mashed potatoes (the real kind), hummus, lentils, and roasted red peppers. We went out for drinks with a bunch of people, which was fun, I just feel super lame for getting tired at like 12. I do love being social, but all I wanted was to watch tv with a bowl of cereal. So when I got back, that’s what I did, with my new gluten free chocolate rice ball cereal. SO GOOODDD.

Today Lisa and I got up early to meet people for breakfast, and we went to this great, hole in the wall British bookstore that I am slightly in love with. I don’t usually like spending money on books, because I refuse to buy anything I can get free (legally or illegally), but I caved and bought the second Twilight. I have plenty of time to leisurely read here, and finishing Twilight saga has been a project I’ve wanted to finish since last year. I aim high. We then went to give our deposit to the guy working on our apartment, and it’s official! We move in Saturday morning! That’s in less than 2 days!!! AHHHH SO HAPPY! In celebration, we went to Odysseum, this giant outside mall, and bought bedding/sheets/pillows at Ikea.

At Odysseum, we found the French version of Target -> Géant Casino. I cannot wait to go browse. I can’t wait to shop for that matter. Do you know the will power I have gained from living in a city full of amazing French fashion? The streets are lined with stores, none of which I have walked into yet. It’s just something to look forward to, right? I can’t buy anything until I have an actual closet. So starting Saturday, it’s all going downhill.

Time to shower, the rain and humidity is doing horrendous things to my already out of control hair. I’m getting dinner with people to plan a trip to Spain for our first vacation, which is only a week after we start teaching. Have I mentioned I love France?

Markets and Mashed Potato Imposters

WE HAVE AN APARTMENT! YESSSS!

Lisa and I met with a guy who is renovating an apartment, and we decided it was too good to pass up. It’s a 3-bedroom place (so we’re going to have a French roommate!), complete with kitchen, bathroom, living room, only for 350 Euros a month. That also includes Internet, water, electricity, and cable. And we haven’t even applied up for the CAF yet, which will most likely give us at least half of our rent back each month. It’s a 15-20 minute walk from the center of the city, which isn’t our ideal location (and it doesn't even look French, but you can faintly see the ocean from our giant window and balcony), but it is a beautiful apartment and it will be newly furnished within a week, so we took it! We can’t move in for another week though, so we’re now couch surfing at our life saving friend Erbin’s amazing apartment in la centre ville! Yay

Funny story. As a thank you gesture for Erbin, I wanted to cook him dinner. I bought gluten-free pasta, sauce, a green leaf spinach lookalike, excited to finally eat a homemade meal. I know most of you are skeptical of my gluten-free cooking, as 90% of the time something goes wrong, but pasta is something that always comes out right. As soon as I put the pasta in the boiling water, it instantaneously began to mush into a cheese-sauce consistency that eventually molded into mashed potato consistency. The questionable spinach was also not spinach, and tasted pretty grody. Fortunately my friends are very gracious and desperately tried to salvage the pasta/potato clump, throwing in olive oil, basil, garlic, cheese…. We toasted and ate the mush in unison – it was a unanimous decision that the mashed potato lookalike was disgusting. We are still unsure as to how pasta transformed into another food so quickly.

So now that I’m settling in to Montpellier, my usual European behaviors are starting to kick in. I’ve begun my sorbet/gelato tasting endeavors, which in itself is a dangerous. So far my favorite is strawberry, only because I got it from a beautiful French man at a vendor who made mild small talk with me, clearly interested in my exotic American appeal.

European favorite #2: Markets. Yesterday, a Sunday, the day of the week when all of France shuts down, a bunch of us decided to bike down to the beach. (That’s right Americans, still beach weather). Mind you, because all of France shuts down, where do they decide to go? The beach. And by what means of vehicle? Bike. Right. All the bikes in the city were rented out, thus we tried for the bus. The bus was full. My friend Wesley told us of a great junk market all the way at the end of Tram 1, so we thought that was a cool alternative. We have plenty more days to go the beach. We got to Mosson in the afternoon only to find that the market was closed. Apparently it’s just a morning market. Feeling slightly downtrodden, we headed back on the tram for a while hoping to find something exciting, only to see a market at Port Marianne! This market was a moment I had been waiting for since I arrived…all secondhand, junky kind of stuff. You could buy pretty much anything, which is how I ended up buying a cute dress that Lisa and I are going to share (2 Euros), a hair straightener that I badly needed (10 Euros), and a cute bag (.50 Euros). Then we had a lovely dinner, and came back to the Noria (for our last night!!) and watched a bunch of 30 Rock. This is the life.

We had orientation part 2 today where we learned how to be teaching assistants, which was thankfully very beneficial. I feel much more prepared on how to plan lessons, methods of teaching, and now have a great amount of resources. I really like that we approach this with the children learning English through complete immersion – we aren’t allowed to speak French to them at all, and even rarely write anything. Apparently there are issues with words like “Wednesday,” and children will pronounce it like it’s written, but if they never know how it’s spelled, they’ll learn it how we actually say it. The day went on far too long, and I was definitely drifting off towards the end (luckily a game of MASH with Wes kept me awake for some of it – it’s no wonder they put me in primary school with the little ones).

Someone thought I was from Italy today. I was a bit miffed as I find Italian fashion to be more than questionable, but I suppose that means I look Mediterranean, and by default attractive. Or it could have been my oily skin.

I’m so happy to be in an actual apartment right now, even if it isn’t mine. I still have to live out of a suitcase, but at least I have unlimited internet, clean facilities, and a KITCHEN! I went food shopping, cooked an actual meal tonight (that didn’t magically turn into mashed potato consistency), and found sabra hummus!!!!! (That’s for you, Liz and Sasha). I’m somewhat struggling with finding a good selection of Steph-friendly food in the supermarkets, even in the organic store I found. They have like one option for cereal. And it’s corn flakes that get mushy really quickly. Does France know exactly the relationship I have with cereal? That we’ve woken up together for the past decade, and how I get overly and pathetically excited to try new cereals each week? The US of A certainly has a leg up on France for gluten free food. I’m still hunting though; Google has provided me some more store options to try, a project for this week.

Well I’m off, I really need to get to bed early tonight. Lisa and I are finally going to Béziers tomorrow to see our schools (yes, schools. Lisa has 4 schools and I have 3. Absurd). We’re not used to having obligations early 2 days in a row, so this is kind of stressful for us. I am excited to see Béziers though and meet my children!

Bisous, ciao :)

Go socialism?

Allo mes americains.

Lisa and I caved. We decided to go to an agency (Espace Location) to aid us in our appartement pursuit, costing us 90 euros each. The price is for unlimited help until we find a home; however, who knows how long that could be. Despite that, the woman helping us is going far beyond her duties to help us limited French-speaking Americans, so we are very appreciative of that. I have faith that we will have an address by the weekend. Dear France, I'm going broke going out to eat all the time, and my futzy stomach does not appreciate it. Thanks, Steph.

We had orientation yesterday with our dear JOUVE Fabien, where we filled out paperwork, learned a bit about our duties as teaching assistants, and filled out more paperwork. The French really like paperwork. We need social security, a carte de sejour (another visa), a medical visit, and the CAF (la caisse d'allocations families) to subsidize our rent because with our assistant's salary, we're considered to be somewhat on welfare. Point for you France and your socialism!

We continue to meet more and more people, which has been one of my favorite parts of the program thus far. I am learning so much already about other people, where they come from, what they're doing here....I know I have said this before, but I find it so important to get out there and learn about others and their cultures to get a more wide perspective of the world. It's just fascinating to me. We met a great Canadian couple last night in the Noria, and seriously, after learning more and more about Canada's economy, health care, welfare, education, living there certainly seems appealing. Besides the cold weather, of course.

For some good news, Lisa and I finally got blankets from our dorm, so now we don't have to use our coats anymore to sleep. That was a major bonus. We christened them yesterday after getting take-out and watching a bit of 30 Rock, then proceeding to nap for a few hours before we realized we should go out into civilization. There was a guitar hero event in La Comédie where they set up a stage and screen; Wesley and I signed up to go but we left before our turn came. Yes, the French like guitar hero. We went to an Irish pub after, but couldn't stay long, because the tram closes really early on week nights.

We just got kicked out of McDonalds. Apparently buying drinks and "le fruit croquer" isn't enough during the lunch hours, as loads of children and adults come to McDo during this time. Yes, I mean hours. Not a typo. I don't think people in Montpellier actually work; I never see anyone in a suit, and la Comédie is always packed with people.

Oh! And we figured out the protests. In actuality, they aren't protests. It's like initiation for med students at the university.

Lisa and I are off to the agency to see what they have for us today! Wish us luck!