Brussels is...confused

I spent the first day and a half of my stay in Brussels trying to pin down a nice, fixed identity for it. Most of the other capitals I’ve been to have pretty well represented the stereotypes of the rest of the country. London was rainy, proper, and dignified. It also had lots of tea. Paris was full of couples, wine, food, and pastries. Rome was full of pizza, gelato, crazy people trying to steal purses, and Vespas.

Brussels did have the food it was supposed to have: waffles, chocolate, and fries (it’s possible they also had sprouts, but I have to say I didn’t look very hard for those). Beyond that, though, I could not figure out what image it was giving me of Belgium. Finally I figured it out—it’s giving me a conflicting message, because Belgium is a country with a lot of conflict right now. The northern, Flemish part of the country and the southern, French part of the country are not getting along so well, to put it lightly.

I finally decided that Brussels is the most comparable to Montréal. Random mix of old and new buildings? Check. Language confusion? Check. One part of the country wanting to be separate from the other part? Big check.

I took the train to Brussels and arrived in the early afternoon. I was couchsurfing for the first time—through a website, people can search for people who are willing to let them crash on a couch while they travel. I had been a bit wary of this when I heard about it (lots of friends have had great experiences, but I was pretty convinced I’d end up staying with a serial killer), but Amelia had been to Brussels just a few weeks before me, and she had stayed with the same woman. If Amelia said she was cool, I’d trust her on it, and it ended up being a great experience. Brigitte is in her 50s, and she first got interested in couchsurfing when she was looking to take a trip to Barcelona. She ended up not going, but she now hosts lots of couchsurfers who go to Brussels. She’s really interested in the environmental movement and in trying to eat organic, and she was absolutely wonderful to me while I was there.

I didn’t do much my first day there. I hadn’t been sleeping well the past few days, so I really did not have the motivation to go and explore. Instead, I helped Brigitte run some errands and I played with her grandson for a bit. Went to sleep quite early so that I could profiter from Day 2 in Brussels.

I set off the next morning for the Royal Africa Museum, which Lauren had recommended to me. One of my favorite things about traveling is getting the chance to peer a little more deeply into past (or current) interests. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m always learning about some new subject, getting fascinated with it, reading everything I can find about it, bringing it up in every conversation, and then letting it fall aside because I’ve found another new subject. My time here has already allowed me to revisit my love for impressionism (Musée d’Orsay, May 2008), ballet (Pacquita, October 2010), and several dozen places that I read about in books and always wanted to visit (I’ll do a separate post on that later). This time around, colonialism. Yay! I went through a short phase in high school and a longer phase in college where I loved reading everything I could grab about colonialism and post-colonialism. The initial interest into this stuff came from Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible which, fittingly enough, takes place in the Belgian Congo. Full circle!

Anyway, the museum was really interesting. I don’t think I’d recommend it if you don’t know French, since there were quite a few things that were in Flemish and French, but not English. That said, the newer pieces of the museum did have English translations. I liked all the anthropological sections, skipped over most of the animal stuff, had lots of fun with the colonialism stuff, and then got mad because they didn’t have any fun linguistics sections (despite mentioning throughout the museum how many linguistic studies had been done in the DRC). It was a lovely day out, and the park in front of the museum was gorgeous.

Post-museum, I headed off on a park mission. My first stop was Parc de Cinquantenaire, which was built in order to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Belgium’s independence. There’s a huge central monument at the park—supposedly the king at the time said his goal was to make Brussels a new Paris, so naturally, huge monuments were necessary. I bought myself a sandwich for lunch and since it was gorgeous out, I ate it while sitting on the lawn and admiring the monument.

Once I’d exhausted that park, I moved on to Leopold Park, which is located right next to the EU Parliament building. This park was smaller, but had a little pond, and I was sure to admire that, as well. The EU Parliament building was fun to see. It’s one of the examples of extremely modern architecture that doesn’t quite seem to match up with the rest of the city. Walked from there to the Royal Palace, which was quite impressive. There were even some handy Belgian guards in front of it to protect Belgium from…well, probably from itself. The palace was right next to the Parc de Bruxelles. I wandered that for a bit, but it was my third park of the day, so I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I should’ve. Stopped at Cathedral after that, and ended up just staring at it for fifteen minutes. I absolutely love the contrast of white stone with a bright blue sky, and lucky for me, that was what I had. Did some more wandering, stopped at the Grand Place, which was very cool, ate some food, and then met Caitlin when she got in.

Day 3, Caitlin and I met up near the Grand Place and then walked back to the train station to pick up Lauren, who was getting in that morning. Upon fetching Lauren, we walked to a brewery that Caitlin had heard about. They make beer the very, very old fashioned way, so it was interesting to see. I was much more interested in the process than in the tasting that came with the tour (I’m not exactly a fan of beer, and no, I still don’t know why I was allowed to live in Wisconsin for four years without liking beer). We tried two types of beer—the first was a gueze lambic, and it was not what I would call pleasing to the palate. To put it lightly. Ugh. Even Caitlin and Lauren, who do not share my distaste for beer, weren’t fans. The second was a raspberry lambic, which was much better because a) you couldn’t taste the beer as much, and b) there was raspberry, which makes everything delicious. Or, in the case of beer, relatively more delicious.

We still hadn’t eaten lunch, so we set out for the Grand Place, where we had some Belgian fries and waffles. YUM. Lauren’s Rick Steves travel guide informed us that the reason Belgian fries are delicious is that they fry them twice. That is one way to guarantee deliciousness. The waffles were also incredible—Klare had warned me that I’d never be able to eat another waffle after tasting these, and she was right. There was either a lot of sugar in the batter or a sugar coating, because it all carmelized on the outside, which was yummy. AND the chocolate on top of the waffle was real chocolate—none of this lame chocolate syrup stuff. Nope, this started to solidify into real chocolate as the waffle cooled, and it was super rich. My tummy was happy.

After eating, we made our way to an Automobile museum (located right in the Parc de Cinqantenaire). I know next to nothing about cars, but I enjoyed looking at all the old cars. There were a couple names that I recognized from various books, so it was nice to be able to put an image to the name. It was also just funny to see all the crazy car designs people have come up with over the ages—we got to see the first models with bumpers, a car that was even smaller than a Smart Car (it was about a third of my height), and some cars that were ridiculously huge (they looked like tanks, and I do not know how anyone parallel parked those things).

We hopped on the metro back into town and chilled at a café for a few hours. This place had the most amazing chai tea—it was incredible. Apparently some other people agreed, since they’d stuck a note on the wall next to the register saying “BEST CHAI TEA IN EUROPE.” I’ve noticed that most travel guides don’t seem to provide good café recommendations (mostly because they don’t provide any café recommendations). This is a void that must be filled, since one of my favorite parts of traveling is sitting in cafés with my travel journal and people watching. Anyway, I’ve decided that I’ll be working on my own travel guide series that simply highlights all the best cafés in the world. This one definitely makes the cut (I’ve already started to make a list of my favorites in other cities). We then moved on to dinner at an Irish pub, then I called it quits for the night.

Thursday morning we met at the train station to head to Bruges. It’s about a half hour train ride away from Brussels, but it’s firmly in the Flemish area of Belgium—no French here. Bruges is known as the Venice of Northern Europe, presumably because of all the canals (no gondolas, sadly—just speedboats). Like Brussels, it has lots of gorgeous Gothic architecture. Unlike Brussels, Bruges does not have all the new buildings. It’s much less confused. We stopped at a lovely tea shop pretty soon after we made it to Bruges—I wanted some caffeine. This place was EXCELLENT. At first I thought €3,50 was a bit steep for tea, but it turns out the tea comes with a pile of chocolates. Naturally, I was not opposed to this, and the price suddenly seemed quite reasonable. The chocolates were also accompanied by a large heap of whipped cream, which was quite delicious. If I lived in Bruges, I would probably spend way too much time in that tea house.

Anyway (I’m going to start paraphrasing a bit since I really want to finish this post), most of Bruges consisted of looking at pretty buildings and looking at chocolate. I bought some delicious champagne truffles, along with other varieties of chocolate, took lots of pictures, did not pay money to walk past a vial with Christ’s blood in it (I decided to listen to Jesus when he said that you weren’t supposed to turn churches into marketplaces), saw a sculpture by Michelangelo (‘twas excellent), and wandered a lot. There. Bruges in two paragraphs.

Friday Lauren, Caitlin and I met up for more chai tea in the morning, and then I had to head off for my train . I was on my own to Lille and then Paris, but Lauren was on the same train to Rennes with me. Caitlin, meanwhile was on the same train as Lauren from Brussels to Paris, but then she had a different one back to Brittany. Lauren and I chilled in the Starbucks at Montparnasse while waiting for our train, and then we had a relatively painless journey back.

Apologies for both the lateness and the paraphrase in this update (my English teachers would probably want more details and less summary), but it’s already been two weeks since I got back. It needed to get done!

I don’t have any more big travels planned until the end of April. I’m probably going to spend part of next weekend in Vitré with Caitlin, and then the weekend after that I’m going to stay with some assistants in Fougères. Hope all is well in the USA.

Nostalgia, Ahoy!

Last Thursday afternoon after working my first two morning classes, I had a quick hour to throw my life into a backpack and a messenger bag before taking off for the Gare. Unfortunately, it appears that I left during one of the few nice weekend Rennes has—it was gorgeous when I hopped on my train. I was able to get a direct train to Avignon and not have to switch in Paris, which was a nice treat. That said, there were still plenty of stops and it was not as high speed as it could’ve been, so it was nearly 9pm when I made it into Avignon.

When I first found out I’d be working in France (but not in Provence), I immediately decided that I had to go back to Avignon. It seems a little silly to return to a place where you lived for four months when there are still plenty of places around Brittany that I’ve yet to see. That said, I had such a wonderful time in Provence that I wanted to revisit it, and when I visited Amelia in October, she agreed, and we finally settled on last weekend as a good time to head there.

Amelia and her friend weren’t arriving until Friday, so I had a very low budget hotel right by the TGV station on my own for the first night. It was a bit sketchy, but no one tried to attack me, so it turned out okay. I entertained myself by watching Dirty Dancing dubbed in French, which was an excellent use of my time. I’m ashamed to admit it I noticed this, as that means I’m publically acknowledging the fact that I have most of the movie memorized, but there were several differences between the dubbing and the original words, and some of them were pretty significant. I did not approve—they even changed Baby’s real name to a typically French one.

Woke up earlier than I would’ve liked the next morning and hopped on the navette into town. It was gorgeous out, which made me quite happy—I’d have been disappointed to discover that Avignon’s weather wasn’t as lovely as I remember it. I grabbed myself a pain au chocolat from the boulangerie that I always remembered as being packed, and it was quite delicious. From there I walked to l’Institut, my old school, mostly out of habit. That was always a meeting spot, or just a place to check your email, so it seemed normal to stop by there first. Unfortunately, as of the end of January, the Avignon center is closed. I was pretty sad to hear the news—it’s been around for over thirty years, and it was a fantastic program. It’s associated with a program in Aix that’s still going on, but the Aix program doesn’t do homestays, which was one of the really fantastic things about the Avignon program. I’m not sure what they’re going to do with the building. It’s this gorgeous old 12^th century church, and it’ll be a shame if it can’t be used anymore.

After staring wistfully at the building for a bit, I decided to try and make my way to Place Pie, which was where I would grab my bus back in the day. Much to my delight, I took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up back on Rue de la Republique. So no, the streets in Avignon have not become any more orderly since I left. I was always getting lost there, and it felt terribly fitting to be getting lost there again. Finally found Place Pie, wandered around Les Halles, and then the lack of caffeine was starting to get to me. Stopped at a café and enjoyed a café au lait while reflecting a bit. By the time I finished, the stores were opening up, so I browsed some of them. Amelia’s train was late getting in, but I found out that Daniel, another student who did IAU with us, was also coming in for the day. Like us, he’s doing the teaching assistant program, and he actually got placed just an hour or two from Avignon. He came in with another assistant, and once I met up with them, we went to the Palais de Pape to luxuriate in the sun. They’ve added an upside down elephant statue there (for reasons I do not entirely understand)—the elephant is standing on its trunk. QUITE entertaining, especially when compared with the very classy residence behind it that used to host popes back in the day. Amelia joined us there, and we went off to grab some food.

We went to a tartine place Daniel remembered, and apparently it’s actually one that’s associated with the tartine place here in Rennes, and actually has an identical menu. Thus, I ordered my tomato, pesto, and mozzarella tartine that has never failed me, and we all split some wine. We sat outside and enjoyed the gorgeous weather—Amelia and I were particularly grateful for it, since we see so much rain up north. Post-lunch, we went to pick up Amelia’s friend, Emma, from the train station, and then the three of us went to check into our hotel for the night (I had, by this point, tired of carrying my backpack and messenger bag around).

Emma, Amelia, and I then went to rejoin Daniel and Odessa, and we searched out some old haunts. We also did a brief walk along the outside of the walls, but it was pretty blustery, so we decided to head back inside of them. We stopped at a tapas place to chill out for a bit, and we enjoyed sangria, fried zucchini, and an eggplanty-tomatoey-deliciousy thing until Daniel and Odessa had to catch their train (they were headed off to Nice for the weekend to see a lemon festival). Emma, Amelia and I lingered a bit longer before deciding to seek out a real place for dinner.

I would like to take a moment to apologize to Avignon. I’ve spent the last three years thinking that it was outrageously expensive, and even while in Brittany, I still had the idea that Avignon was more expensive. After all, I could never afford to eat out there, and even buying a kebab from a street vendor was a splurge. Well, it turns out that my memories were just tarnished by the following facts: 1) The exchange rate at the time was the worst it had ever been, 2) I had no income at the time, 3) What money I did have was in dollars, meaning that it was getting me nowhere, and 4) I was getting fed for free at Mireille’s. Amelia and I were laughing at the fact that a restaurant that she remembered as outrageously expensive had a menu (entrée+main+dessert) for 15€. So sorry, Avignon, for giving you a bad rep on the money front!

We ended up getting dinner at a place called Love & Epices (spices), which Amelia had tried and loved the last time we were in Avignon. It was absolutely delicious—one of those places where the menus are handwritten, since they change based on what is available. We ordered some rosé, since Provence is the place to do rosé, Amelia and Emma got quail, and I got Greek lasagna (which had feta cheese, ground beef, and lots of mushrooms). It was amazingly delicious. We all had dessert as well (crème brûlé for myself and Emma, and…oh dear, I forgot what Amelia got, but I’m pretty sure it was yummy) before we went back to the hotel and collapsed, because we are all grandmas and like our sleep. We were serenaded to sleep by the wonders of French VH1, which played such hits as “No Scrubs” and “In the Navy.”

The next morning, once we all made ourselves presentable, we grabbed pastries at the same boulangerie I’d hit up the day before, and we went to enjoy them at Rôcher des Doms—a chance for Amelia and I to relive our memories of Avignon, since that was one of the two preferred picnic spots at IAU. We wandered the area, still enamored of the sun, and ended up running into two Chinese girls trying to find a movie theater. We happened to know which movie theater they were looking for and where it was, but our ability to describe how to get there through the winding streets of Avignon was not up to snuff, so we decided to just walk them there. They briefly suggested we speak English when we told them we were American, but we soon discovered that English was not going to be an efficient means of communication. After asking them several questions about what they were doing in France and getting some very confusing responses, it appeared that French wasn’t that efficient of a means of communication, either. Anyway, we deposited them at Utopia, the theater, and then I headed to Place Pie so I could grab a bus to have lunch with Mireille, my host from when I studied in Avignon.

By some twisty turn of fate (expression © Paul Hetman), I actually remembered what bus to get on and what stop to get off at—quelle chance! Mireille’s first comment upon seeing me was “Ah! Tu n’as pas changé!” Question du jour: is it a good thing or a bad thing that I haven’t changed? She’d also invited one of her friends, Marie-Thérèse, to join us—I’d met Marie-Thérèse several times when I lived with Mireille, and she’d also hosted students from IAU. As she always did when I lived with her, Mireille stuffed me with food. We had some rice chips for an appetizer, along with a sweet nut wine. Then we moved on to quiche Lorraine (which is my favorite thing Mireille makes), followed by chili con carne (but sans spice, as this is, of course, France), followed by salad, followed by two desserts (chocolate flan and tarte aux pommes), followed by the cheese course. At this point I was ready to fall over from all the food, but it was all quite delicious. It was great to see her again and we had a wonderful conversation over the meal—movies, Barack Obama, Sarkozy (while Mireille used to think Sarkozy was an okay president, the retirement issue got her quite fired up and she is no longer a fan), and several dozen other things that I can no longer remember.

When I finally left (absolutely stuffed), I took the bus back in to Avignon and then walked over to the Ile, where Amelia and Emma were. It sadly had gotten rather cloudy, but cloudy by Avignon standards is practically sunny by Rennes standards. We sat around for a while and chatted, enjoying the view of the Pont and the Palais, and then we returned to wandering about the city. For dinner that night we went the thrifty route—an indoor picnic with dried sausage, cheese, bread, and fruit. It was lots of fun, and we followed it up by playing card games, which was also quite enjoyable. I headed to bed pretty early, since I had an early train back to Rennes, and that was that. It was a really nice weekend trip, and it was lots of fun to hang out with new and old friends.

A quick note on the quirks of school life in France—it just occurred to me today when I was talking to Anna, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet the ridiculous amount of PDA that goes on in my school hallways. The French clearly have no shame when it comes to making out in the hallways, and I find this seriously uncomfortable. It didn’t both me much before I knew any of my students, but now I do know them, and I really do not need to see them attached at the lips every time I try and walk down the hallway. It’s all made even more awkward by the French lack of a personal bubble—fine, make out, fine, do it in the hallways, but there is no need to do it THREE INCHES FROM MY FACE. In my lesson about the myriad meanings of the verb ‘to get,’ I clearly forgot to include the meaning of “get a room.” I’ve already done one lesson on social conceptions of personal space…it appears I’ll have to do another one on propriety. My country was founded by Puritans. We’re big on at least pretending to be quite proper.

Next time on la jeune fille Katrine: Mont St. Michel !

Britney Spears, the California team in the Super Bowl, and Jerry Cans

Here's what's been happening around here, along with some things that didn't make it into my last update.

Meat and Potatoes
One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, Lauren and I returned to Marché des Lices. Naturally, I bought a Kouign Amann, and I also made Lauren try the super rich super yummy chocolate fondant cake (which I can never buy again as it is the only thing in the world I’ve found that is too chocolatey for me), but before long my stomach demanded real food, and the smells from the pre-made food stalls were calling. They have rotisserie chickens, and since my protein intake is about nil (excluding what I get from hummus and nutella), I decided that would not be a terrible idea. Lauren said she’d go in on a chicken with me, so we bought a rotisserie chicken as well as a serving of the delicious potatoes they roast beneath the chickens (potatoes cooked in chicken fat=delicious). We headed back to Lauren’s to feast, and it was quite yummy.

Britney and the News
I don’t have a TV here, so I keep up on news with the radio. I enjoy the retro-ness of it. I have a radio in my kitchen, so I listen during breakfast in the mornings and dinner in the evenings. You can often get some pretty hilarious music combinations on French radio—and I heard one of my strangest ones Monday morning. There I was, half asleep and preparing two cups of tea, listening to the very serious morning news, when all of a sudden I heard the strains of something that reminded me of sixth grade.

Some person at Radio Rennes who speaks a trace amount of English thought it would be funny to make that the background music to a news piece about the justice system. I was laughing hysterically at first, figuring that it was just a random selection, when suddenly it dawned on me. The serious announcer was talking about determining culpability, and in the background, you suddenly hear Britney Spears wailing, “I’m not that innocent.” Ahhhhh. Enlightenment dawns.
I’m still not sure it was the most appropriate song choice, though.

On Dictionaries
I had a traumatic experience when studying in Avignon due to carrying my French-English dictionary in plain sight. Not a mistake I will make again. However, for some reason, that mistake made me decide not to bring my French-English dictionary with me AT ALL on this trip. Clearly my brain was addled by the shoe-selection process (and just for the record, I totally miss the few pairs of shoes I left behind—I comfort myself by browsing all the shoes on the DSW website, filling up a virtual shopping cart, and then closing out of the window to keep my bank account functioning). Anyway, a multilingual game of Apples to Apples made me realize how terrible my French vocabulary is, so I start reading Harry Potter in French in an attempt to solve that problem. While I have learned several useful words (including more than one word for owl), I officially regret not bringing my dictionary, because I can only look up words on the internet or at work. For future reference, bringing a dictionary to a foreign country is a very good idea.

California, here we come
When I start classes or end up with a few free minutes at the end I try to talk with the kids about pop culture, holidays, anything, really, as long as it’s in English. Last Wednesday I was surprised that several of them had actually heard about Christina Aguilera’s issues with the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, since the Super Bowl was not on the French radar. One guy then asked me who’d won the Super Bowl. “The Packers,” I said, with a fist pump to support my adopted state (and the only football team I care about at all).
“Where are they from?”
“Wisconsin,” I said, “which is where I went to University.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, shaking his head. “I wanted the team of California to win.” I gave him a perplexed look.
“There wasn’t a team from California playing in the Super Bowl,” I said, a bit confused.
“That’s too bad,” he repeated. “I like California.”
At this point I burst out laughing. People here are oddly obsessed with California.

The day the French knew more English than the American and Australian
Once upon a time (over a month ago, but post-Christmas) I was spending time with one of my classes of secondes. This particular class had an Australian exchange student here for three months (during Australia’s summer vacation), which meant that for a short amount of time I was not the only native English speaker in the school. The class was working on vocabulary to talk about what things they would want to have on a desert island with them. One of the options? A jerry can. Oddly enough, this was one of the few words the kids did not need translated for them—the teacher moved on quickly, until he was stopped by me and the Australian. “What on earth,” I asked, “is a jerry can?” The fact that Aussie had never heard of it either made me feel even more justified. According to Wikipedia, a jerry can is a robust fuel container made out of compressed steel. However, the teacher was unwilling to simply tell me that, and he instead made me guess the origins of the word for the class. Hmph. Curse that Socratic method.
There was another similar topic in the same class wherein the students were talking about fire lighters. While the Australian and I could easily guess what they were talking about, neither of us had ever heard of anything called a fire lighter before.

Because brunette chicken is not acceptable. And don’t even get me started on redheaded coffee.
When walking around Rennes one day, I received a flyer for a restaurant entitled BCC. What, you may ask, does BCC stand for? Blond Chicken Coffee. Fittingly, the first page of the flyer depicted lots of chicken and fries combo meals, and the second page showed various coffees. I did not know there was a difference between blond chicken and standard chicken, much less blond coffee and standard coffee, so the name of the restaurant confused me a bit. The best part of the flyer, though, was the logo. It was clearly ripped off of the Starbucks logo, only instead of a mermaid in the middle, there’s a random blonde woman looking over her shoulder, trying to seduce you so that you will come buy her chicken and coffee. Maybe only blondes are allowed in the restaurant?
Sometimes it’s best if the French just stick to speaking French.

Et voilà! The next update will discuss my soon to be had adventures in Avignon...and there will be pictures. I swear.

Of Baguettes and Bises

It’s been a while since we had a nice little cultural lesson, and since my week mostly consisted of work, I’ve decided to spare you the rundown on that in lieu of some cultural tidbits.

Our first subject of anthropological investigation is the baguette de tradition française. Slightly shorter and a tad bit stouter than the standard baguette (it also tends to run about 35 centimes more than your standard baguette), this variation of the baguette has a law dictating what can be put in it and what name it can be sold under. I’m not kidding. It can only be sold using the terms baguette, tradition, and français. Those can be in any combination, but if it uses those terms, it can contain nothing more than flour, yeast, salt, and water. On the side of the bag it comes in, it cites said law and informs you exactly where the flour comes from.

And it is delicious. This is the most important part. Don’t get me wrong, a standard 60 centime baguette over here is way better than any baguette you’ll get in the States (for the closest approximations in the Chicagoland area, see Devon Market on Devon and Granville or the French Nuns on the West Side who go from church to church selling baked deliciousness). But a baguette tradition…YUM. I could easily go through one on my own in a day, eating a some with salad, dipping a little in soup with dinner, having a bit with some goat cheese, and then having some with Nutella for dessert (not that I ever buy Nutella—nope, not me, I am far too health conscious for such things, right, Mom?).

Now, on to the bises, or kisses. Most people are well aware of the cheek kisses (one on each cheek) associated with the French. As I learned very quickly in Avignon, these greetings are not as straight forward as they seem—in Provence, you have to do three kisses (no matter how many, you ALWAYS start by bringing your right cheek to the other person’s right cheek—God help you if you start on the wrong side), and supposedly it’s four in areas of Northern France. Here in Bretagne, it’s only two, but I’ve also picked up many of the other similar social niceties.

First of all, les bises are not limited to adults, though they do depend on gender. Women will faire les bises when they meet other men or other women, but men only share them with women. When men meet other men, they shake hands and occasionally pat each other on the back. All of my lycée students do the exact thing that adults do, and I’m quite a fan. First of all, there is something adorable about boys who still look like they’re about twelve and who haven’t quite reached five feet tall when they shake hands to greet each other. So cute. Second, this is all SO much more refined than the way American teenagers greet each other. I was lucky if any guys I knew in high school grunted and slightly lifted their chin in my direction to indicate that they’d seen me. And even when I saw my close friends, we’d just smile and maybe wave if they were across the hall. Les bises are a very classy way to open and close interactions with people, and we need to find a way to introduce them in American high schools, stat.

Age does come into consideration for children. When children greet or say goodbye to an adult, they don’t do the full routine. Instead, they just give the adult one kiss on the cheek. Every time the grandchildren come over, they come find me and give me a kiss on the cheek. Again, highly adorable.

The only downside to all of this is that if I try to start using les bises when I’m back in the US I’m going to seem pretentious. Guess I’ll just have to stay here.

Before I end this, I’ll give you the entertaining student quotes of the past few weeks. First of all, one student informed me that, for Christmas, he’d given his sister red lips. My brain immediately started picturing a pair of red lips wrapped up with a bow on top until he gave me the French translation: rouge à levres. Lipstick. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That makes much more sense. We also had some fun geographical conversations—one student told me he wanted to live in the US when he was older. When I asked where in the US, he responded, “Canada.” “Canada’s not in the US,” I said, a bit perplexed. “Really?” He asked, quite taken aback. Today I had another student inform me that Chicago was in Michigan, which was news to me (I gently suggested that maybe he meant close to Lake Michigan, but he was pretty convinced it was in the state of Michigan). Geography classes clearly aren’t what they used to be.

I hope all is well wherever you are and that you’re making it through the winter without getting too cold. I’d tell you about the weather we’ve been having, but then all you people in the Midwest might try to kill me, so we’ll leave that little detail out. Bon courage!

On Social, Economic, and Political Issues in France OR How France Went Insane

Hello from France, land of insanity. Today we will have a lecture on the current crises plaguing France and how those crises interact with the life of a young American teaching assistant. We'll begin the lesson with some important terms: grève (a strike) and manif/manifestation (a protest). Take notes. Those words will reappear quite frequently in our discussion.

The first crisis, which is the least serious, is that of heightened terrorist warnings for Americans in France. For the time being this does not concern us all that much, since our teaching assistant is in farmland near Rennes, with mostly cows as neighbors, and she is not overly concerned about terrorists coming to get the cows. That said, she does hope to travel to both Paris and Strasbourg for her upcoming break, and while she'd rather not die, she is not going to stay among the cows for a week and a half with no work.

Crisis number two has already been discussed several times, but since the French just won't stop striking, we have to discuss it again. The French are still annoyed that Sarkozy wants to raise the retirement age by two years, Sarko is still planning to do it despite all the grèves and manifs, and since everyone's too stubborn to back down, the strikes continue. There was a very large one on Tuesday, there’s going to be a manif Saturday, and our teaching assistant’s school is talking about striking next Monday and Tuesday.

In addition to the fact that she will not be able to teach, the grèves also mean that the teaching assistant becomes rather stranded in farmland. The metro in Rennes continues to run since it’s automatic, but the buses pretty much stop, and if they work, they’re running late and are packed. So transportation becomes quite an issue, and as a result, socializing does as well (farmland is highly populated with cows but sparsely populated with twenty-somethings).

Crisis number two is not limited to those with jobs—in France, anyone who so chooses can go on strike, and this includes students. Yes, I know that you think you ought to have a job as the whole point of going on strike is to stop doing one’s job, usually as a means of getting more pay or better benefits. You are all wrong. Today all of the students at our teaching assistant’s school decided they were going to join in the party and go on strike, too. In today’s classes, she had one class with no students, one class with one student, and another class with a whopping nine students. According to the teachers there, the students will likely be on strike again tomorrow since it is a Friday and no one wants to go back to school on a Friday after striking on a Thursday. One teacher even suggested that they might grève all next week as well since there’s a vacation coming up at the end of next week. If that is the case, our teaching assistant would be very bored since she still has to go to school so she gets paid. And she wants to get paid. Plus she doesn’t think it would kill the French to work a little more, but she’s not going to say that since she might get shot if she did. But she does think it’s cool that high school kids care about this stuff, though she wishes they’d care a little more about their English classes.

Our third crisis stems from the second crisis. Petrol workers are among those striking (they’ve been on strike for a while, not just for a day here and there) and they’re not letting anyone get in to transport any gas out. So now people in France are starting to worry about running out of gas, and there are lines at gas stations. According to some spokesperson quoted in The New York Times, there are enough reserves to last a month, but the French people are panicking nonetheless.

Thankfully, this is one crisis that doesn’t worry our teaching assistant. Unless the buses run out of gas and stop running, as that would once again leave her stranded.

Crisis number four is actually an American problem, since the French are benefitting from it. The exchange rate between the dollar and the euro has the euro doing very, very well. The dollar was at its strongest against the euro in several years sometime in May. The euro gained on it a bit over the summer, but it held steady at about $1.30 to €1 until mid-September (the point at which our teaching assistant arrived in France). In the past month, the dollar’s lost over ten cents, and the exchange rate is now hovering around $1.41 to €1. The teaching assistant is seriously miffed, as her rent is costing more and more each month despite the cost in euros not changing at all. She looks forward to getting paid in euros at the end of October and thus not having to pay attention to the exchange rate again until she returns to the US, when she’ll change all her euros back into dollars. No doubt at that point the dollar will suddenly become ridiculously strong and she’ll lose money switching over her euros.

We'll now conclude with some personal anecdotes from our teaching assistant:

1) I tried to explain baseball to my host family two nights ago. It was exhausting. I'm pretty sure there are no translations for outfield, batter (l'homme qui frappe!), bases, home plate, home run, strikes, and a number of other terms. And if you hadn't spent your whole life hearing those terms, then they mean nothing when I try and use them to explain the game. I don't think I they quite got the idea of things. And then they wanted to know about American football, and I didn't even know where to start on that. They don't even know what a yard (the unit of measurement, not yard as in lawn) is...I told them football was like soccer except the points were different and you could use your hands, and you could tackle people. Very inaccurate, I know. Do you have a better explanation?

2) Apparently when there’s an inch of snow in the area life shuts down. Everyone’s been telling me that the metro stops, schools are shut down, and no one leaves the house. Also, it sounds like most people are scared to death to drive in the snow, so no one touches their cars. Essentially, everyone hibernates until the snow goes away. I’d suggest the US adopt this, but then those in Milwaukee would easily spend six months of the year without ever leaving their houses.

3) I had three terminales yesterday itching to ask me a question about what something meant in English. What was this phrase that had them so intrigued? Holla back, and specifically, hollaback girl. I'll take it. I even got all linguistic on them, explaining that holla comes from the verb to holler. They were excited to figure out what it meant, and I was excited that I could provide information that their teacher (a male in his upper fifties) could not. Everyone wins!

Au revoir from le pays aux foux.