Le temps file (time flies)...

Already halfway through February! Not only is the month flying by, but my time in France is too. Tomorrow marks my 5 month anniversary of being here...holy crap, where has the time gone? I'm just hovering around the halfway point (over the halfway point for teaching, but a little less than halfway for being here in Europe), and I can hardly believe it.

I have two more days of teaching before I'm off for February breaks. This time I'm heading to Colchester, England to visit a good friend of mine (who is actually French...go figure). I'll make day trips into London and Cambridge and wherever else the wind takes me from her place, and am thoroughly looking forward to being back in an anglophone country. Not that I don't like France, but after 5 months, it'll be nice to have a little break...

Which leads me to a few comments on language...after five months here, I feel as if I should be well on my way to fluency - especially since I also have a degree in French. In reality, I live with several other native English speakers and if I don't force myself don't end up speaking a ton of French on a daily basis. At first, this really bothered me, as my sole goal in coming back to France was to improve my language skills. However, day by day, I'm realizing how much my language as actually improved, despite not being completely immersed in it. A few examples:

- The other day I walked into a store wearing a skirt from the GAP that I had worn several times before. As I walked through the security scanners, I set them off. Having just bought a pair of jeans at another store, I assumed they had forgotten to take off the security tags. Turns out there was a security tag still inside my skirt that had never gone off in any other store as along as I've had it, which has been at least eight or nine months. The woman working at the front counter came over and made me go in and out of the scanner several times, and it took the both of us several tries to narrow down what was causing the problem. Without thinking too much, the French was flying off my tongue as she literally got on her knees with scissors to cut the tag out of my skirt - it was awkward, but at least I held my own in the language department.

- Yesterday some punk kid stole my phone, my watch and 10 euros from my locker while I was at the pool (ok, ok, so I didn't lock it...but still!). I was pissed off, and sad to lose the watch, which was a graduation gift from the family I nannied for in Bellingham. After calming down, I was mostly just annoyed that I'd have to go sort out the phone thing (and that I'd have to spend at least another 30 euros to get a new one...). I'm past the point of panicking when I have to conduct business in French, but there's always still a bit of anxiety that something will come up that I don't understood and I'll be caught dumbfounded like a deer in the headlights. I went to the phone provider's shop today, explained my situation, asked some questions and walked away with my new phone in about 10 minutes - no problem! It wasn't by any means perfect, but it was more or less fluid and I walked out of the store feeling just a bit more French than when I entered.

So, moral of the story is that I had some pretty high expectations of myself and of what my situation would be like when I arrived here in France; expectations which made me feel like I wasn't making any progress in improving my French skills. In reality, when I stop thinking about it and just go for it, turns out I'm not doing all that badly. If it wasn't for the little everyday annoyances like the embaressment of having a store clerk's hand up my skirt and the inconvenience of having my phone stolen, I might never realize the progress I'm actually making - go figure.

I'll leave you all with a few amazing pictures of the Brittany coast, taken on a little day trip last weekend with one of the teacher's I work with and her husband. I thought I'd be hard pressed to find places that rivaled NW Washington in terms of natural beauty, but it seems that la Bretagne might be a solid competitor.

Remembering Buster

Buster Arbuckle
June 1998 - January 26th, 2008

We'll miss you Busty.

France in January

This is my first January in France, and it seems to me that this month is mostly reserved for three things:

- galette des rois
- les soldes
- New Year's greetings

Galette des rois is a traditional cake, meant to commemorate Epiphany (galette des rois roughly equals cake of kings). There is a little figurine baked into the cake and whoever gets it in their piece becomes the king or queen for the day (theses cakes are always sold with little paper crowns). It also serves as an excuse to eat cake. I've had four "galette des rois" celebrations this month, not one of which fell on Epiphany!

"Les soldes" are the huge yearly sales that sweep France every year after Christmas. Yes, the gov't regulates when stores can have sales. Things can, of course, go on sale during other times, but "les soldes" are really a free-for-all, lasting for about a month, in which EVERY SINGLE STORE has huge markdowns on nearly all of their merchandise.

New Year's greetings...it might seem weird that I cited this as being particular to France, but France has a particular way of delivering it's New Years wishes. Not particular weird, but particular as in specific. The first time you see someone you know after New Years, even if it's one, two, three weeks after the fact - you MUST wish them "Bonne Année" and fais le bise (the kiss on the cheek thing). However, most people don't stop there. It's "Happy New Year and best wishes for you and all your family. I hope that this new year brings health and all the happiness you desire" and on and on and on. Not at all a bad tradition, kind of nice actually - but it does get slightly awkward when you've forgotten who you've seen already and who you haven't. Or when all you said was "Happy New Year" and you receive a 10 minute disseratation as a response.

Anyway, that's January in France. I'll let you know what February's like in a few weeks. Ciao!

A much deserved update...

Let me start off this post by saying that I am currently enjoying the most DELICIOUS chocolate muffin. I know, I know - not exactly a hallmark of the french pastry repetoire...but at this particular café where I write to you today, they serve divine muffins to rival the best I've had back home.

Muffin updates aside, let me move on to the REAL point of this post - the rundown of what I did over the Christmas holidays. Christmas itself and the days both leading up to and following were spent with family friends in Paris. If it's possible, I fell even more in love with the city this time around than on my other visists. I think this is due to the fact that Paris is fabulous at Christmas time, and the fact that there are more cultural opportunities in one square block of Paris than there are in the whole of Quimper. Well, that's probably an exaggeration. But Paris makes it its job to nourish its inhabitants and visitors with rich and varied cultural opportunities, while Quimper prefers to stash them in secret locations (and even once found it's likely that the median age of participants is about 50). Then again, I'm pretty sure Paris makes just about any city (at least in France) dim in comparison of it's cultural offerings. But, I digress. The point of all of this is that being in Paris was both beautiful and fantastically intellectually stimulating.

The time that wasn't spent taking in museums and momunments was spent in the company of the fantastic Salomon-Corlobé family. They are my "family" here in France and make me feel nothing but welcomed when I'm at their home. I enjoyed a fabulous spread of food and an abudance of American movies and TV shows on DVD. It was fabulous. :)


Here's a little something to give you an idea of the beauty that is Paris at Christmas (and this was literally taken 30 seconds down the street from where the S-C family live).



After six days in Paris, I headed down to Barcelona for New Years on an 11 hour overnight train. It was actually a much better way to travel than I imagined! After a nice seven hours of sleep in the "couchette" I woke up in time to watch the sunrise over the Mediterranean as we chugged through southern France and into northern Spain. Here's a little taste:



Once in Barcelona, I had several hours to kill before being able to check into my hostel, and almost twice as long to wait for the friend I was meeting to arrive. I spent a long time sitting around the train station before venturing into town and eventually finding the hostel. Turns out the girl who checked me in was from Nantes, a city about two hours from Quimper, so we had a nice little chat in French as she showed me to the apartment (this hostel had one centrally located office and then several lofts throughout the city, each with three or four private rooms and communal bathrooms, kitchens and living spaces). It was nice to have a little French in my life as I felt rather overwhelmed by my lack of Spanish knowledge!

Once Rebecca, my travelling buddy, arrived, we got to business and started to take in all that Bacelona has to offer. Among some of the highlights were Gaudi's "Sagrada Familia", a massive cathedral started in 1882 which is still nowhere near completion, and Guëll Park, another Gaudi creation. Gaudi was a hugely influencial Barcelonan artist with really modern ideas about his art. His work is all bright, intricate and noticably lacking in straight lines. Very cool. Here's a pic. of La Sagrada Familia:



For New Years itself, Rebecca and I wondered for a long time before finally finding a restaurant that had enough room to let us in. We finally got seated around 11, which was perfect as it provided us a place to bring in the New Year. We had a lovely three course meal and about 15 minutes before midnight received our "goody bags". The waitresses brought around little bags full of noismakers, streamers, hats and grapes for use once the clock struck 12. The grapes are a Spanish things. It's a tradition to eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight, one for each toll of the clock. I was told the tradition started one year as a way for Spain to get rid of it's surplus grape crop, but it stuck and apparently is done every year all over the country.

The restaurant was a fun place to be, everyone singing and yelling and making noise long after midnight struck. We finally left the restaurant around 1 am, to find that the streets were packed with people. We spent a good hour wandering, at first in search of a bar to settle into, but finally just decided to take in the craziness that surrounded us. It was good times! Here's a pic from the restaurant:



After a few more days of taking in the beaches (just the scenery, it was cold!), former Olympic stadiums and a few churches, it was back on the train for nearly 24 hours of travel back to Quimper (11 hours to Paris, 4 and a half from Paris to Quimper with about 8 hours of waiting in train stations in between...) The rest of the vacation was spent doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and it was wonderful.

I hope you all had wonderful Christmases and New Years! Thanks for being patient with my posting...I'm really liking this internet café that I'm writing from...maybe I'll make it my weekly routine to come here and write (I seem to be more productive here than at home). Until next time, take care!

Un gros bisous a tous mes chèrs amis :)

Blocked blogger...

Happy 2008! I arrived back in Quimper not long ago, only to discover that the wireless network I normally use at my house has mysteriously disappeared and that the other one available to me blocks blogger. So...I'll try and get an update out soon, in the meantime, I hope all is off to a fantastic start in the New Year for all of you!

Quelle rêve...

I did my last minute Christmas shopping on the Champs-Elysées...while sipping my first Starbucks coffee in three months. I could see the spires of Notre Dame and the Eiffel tower as I walked back to the apartment where I'm staying.

Is this for real?...I must be dreaming...

Certainly a Christmas Eve to be remembered. :)

Merry Christmas!

Oh my! It's been exactly one month since I last posted - apologies to you, my faithful readers! December has been a crazy month and has truly flown by. Let's do a quick rundown:

- second group training for all of us primary assitants in the area in nearby Brest
- wonderful dinner at for all of the assistants I live with and I at the house of one of my very favorite teachers
- lesson planning like mad
- Christmas shopping like mad
- watching Quimper turn into the equivalent of a Christmas village with lights EVERYWHERE and an ice skating rink outside the Cathedral
- visiting a good friend from Western who is also an assistant in the nearby town of Nantes (so amazingly good to see somebody from home!)
- stuffing myself on the abundance of Christmas sweets in this country

That was a very quick summary, but it gives a little glimpse into the goings on in my life.

I leave today to spend Christmas in Paris, then if all goes according to plan, will be in Barcelona for New Years. It'll be very strange to be away from home for the holidays (it already has), but I think Paris is a pretty good runner up to being in the NW for Christmas. :)

Wishing you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR. Much love, and I'll see you all in 2008!