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 !

The internet's back, and so am I

There were lots of technical difficulties in my life this week--no internet at home, plus my phone credit expired on Monday, and as we didn't get paid until yesterday, I was unable to buy more phone credit unless I wanted to use some of my American money. And I didn't.

However, the internet has made its return, I can call whoever I want, and today was the last day of work before a two week vacation. Life is good.

Due to aforementioned technological difficulties, I have not yet gotten around to writing anything about my nostalgia-filled trip to Avignon last weekend. However, I can tide you over with some pictures!

1) Chateau in Vitre (for all you francophones out there, please mentally insert accents where needed--I currently feel too lazy to copy and paste them into blogspot).


2) Remember that time Lauren and I bought a chicken? Voila. Photographic proof.


3) My lovely cousin Nicole sent me canned pumpkin and a highly entertaining book. Yay Nicole!


4) Avignon, where skies are apparently always blue. I don't think I've seen a sky without clouds since I was in the US last summer.



5) Le Pont d'Avignon revisited!

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.

Not dead, just busy

January, WHERE DID YOU GO? You were barely here, and you’re leaving already?

To all of you who were very concerned, I am not dead. Just busy. And no, the snowstorm that managed to cripple even Chicago did not make its way over here. Our highs have been bounced back from just below freezing a week ago (it was painfully cold, and confirmed to me that returning to Chicago winters is going to be difficult) to the mid-50s for the past few days. I went running in a t-shirt Friday. It was excellent—I’m just hoping that winter is gone and the temperatures steadily increase from now on.

Anyway, some updates on life. Teaching is going well. I have a new schedule for the second half of the year. I no longer have Tuesdays off, and I have to be up around 6:30 most days since I’m working a lot more mornings (I know, my life is SO hard—though I still think I need to make up for all of the sleep I lost in high school when staying up past midnight doing homework and then pulling myself out of bed to go skating at 4AM). It’s been fun meeting some new students, although I’m starting to lose hope that I will ever learn all of their names. Considering there are quite a few who I only see once every two weeks, and some even less frequently, I was just barely starting to remember the names of the first group of students. That said, I do finally have one class where I know everyone’s name (granted, said class only has 16 students in it, but still).

I’ve shifted teaching methods recently and started working more off of text based documents. On their big exam at the end of their high school careers (the bac), it’s more likely that they’ll have photos and cartoons, but articles tend to offer a lot more vocabulary, and it also gives them a more concrete subject to talk about. I’ve pulled some articles off of the Time for Kids website, and I’ve also been using articles from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (they’re a bit more comprehensible than articles from The Chicago Tribune or The New York Times). I’m pretty happy with how this has been going.

I’ve also started giving a private English lesson once a week to a 14 year old girl. It’s nice to get back to one on one tutoring since I did so much of that in college—it feels very familiar. She’s very nice and motivated, and it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a little extra money.

I’ve made a few trips to Vitré the past few weeks to visit Caitlin, who’s an assistant there. A few weeks ago Lauren and I did a mid-week trip there to make funfetti cupcakes (Caitlin has a full size oven, which is extremely rare for studios in France). Aside from our baking, we also walked around the town and explored their castle a bit—it’s still in use today, it just houses bureaucratic offices instead of Dukes and Duchesses. They’re doing a lot of excavation just around the castle, because about four or five years ago they somehow discovered that there were more ruins buried in the same area, some of which date back to Roman times.

This weekend we did another trip to Vitré, along with David and Amanda, who are assistants in Fougères. Lauren and I got in around five, and we accompanied Caitlin on her grocery shopping trip. David and Amanda got in right as we got back, and we all sat around being French and having afternoon coffee. One of Caitlin’s friends also showed up and we all headed off to an Indian restaurant for dinner. I can’t remember if I’ve gushed about Indian food here yet, but I only discovered it over Christmas, and it’s my newest addiction. I do not understand how I managed to miss out on it all my life. My house in Chicago is FOUR BLOCKS NORTH OF DEVON, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE! Anyway, the food was delicious, and I also had a semoule cake for dessert, which was amazing. We made our way back to Caitlin’s, and then we assembled a mushroom and sausage strata for breakfast the next morning. By that point it was about midnight. Caitlin’s friend had to head home, and I was not feeling up for the shenanigans that the others seemed to anticipate, so I decided to be true to my old lady self and crash early. It sounds like they had a fantastic time, but I do not regret my decision to sleep AT ALL, since they didn’t make it back until 5AM. The next morning (once they all pulled themselves out of bed), we enjoyed the delicious strata and sat around chatting until we all departed for our respective homes.

I’m afraid I don’t have much else to add. I’m trying to pin down my travel plans between now and May—I’m going to Avignon for the weekend in two weeks, and I’m going to Brussels with Caitlin the second week of March. We have the first two weeks of March off for vacation, but I’m hoping to get a position teaching at a language-intensive workshop for the first week (again, extra money=never bad). If I get that, I plan on splurging on a trip to Copenhagen for Easter (I LOVE SCANDINAVIA). Also trying to figure out if it’s at all feasible to do a weekend trip to Switzerland. At some point you just have to accept that you cannot get it all in and admit that Europe cannot be done in a year. I will do my best to be back within, say, a week, with an update (and potentially pictures). Good luck digging out of the snow!

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!

The long-awaited Christmas update

I’m still alive, I swear. Just suffering from the post-Christmas back to work syndrome. I haven’t dealt with this syndrome since I was in high school—in college you can ignore the fact that you’re going back to work and focus on the fact that you’re going to be in the same city as your friends again. Alas, after an even more exciting break than those I used to have in high school, getting back to work is even harder. However, the first week is almost over and it seems as though I’m going to survive, so it’s about time I got around to writing up my vacation.

Despite Eurostar’s fabulous breakdown, they managed to barely pull things together in time for my trip. I had a very long day, as I left my place at 7AM to catch a bus into Rennes, at which point I switched over to the metro to get to the train station. Hung out at the train station until getting on my train, which took me to Paris. I then got to take another train to get from the Montparnasse station to Gare du Nord, where I had a bit of down time before checking in for my Eurostar train. I was delighted about the fact that you do actually have to go through customs, meaning I got two more nifty stamps in my passport. Eurostar still wasn’t running at its normal speeds, but it got me to London in plenty of time to hop on the Tube (in case you’re counting, that’s vehicle number six of the day) to get from St. Pancras station to Paddington station. I then had some time to kill in Paddington before my train to Swansea left, so I treated myself to a lovely peppermint mocha from Starbucks. Mmmm. Delicious. I then had a train ride to Swansea before our family friend, Padraig, picked me up in his car. It took roughly thirteen hours and eight vehicles, but I made it. Huzzah!

Last time I was in England it was after spending about five or six weeks in France. At the time, as it was the most time I’d ever spent out of the US, six weeks felt like a TERRIBLE amount of time to go without my native language (because we did SO much speaking French among the IAU students, REALLY), and I was utterly delighted to be back in an Anglophone country. This time around I was mostly looking forward to getting a taste of Americana (thus starting off the trip with Starbucks) and seeing family friends. I wasn’t really thinking about the language, although it turned out I should’ve been, because I FORGOT ENGLISH. Not conversational English, but social niceties like sorry and excuse me and all that fun stuff. Anyway, apparently 3.5 months living with a French family, working with French people, and not using any language besides French on the streets means that even if you do write regular blog entries in English, read plenty of novels in English, and have a good number of friends in the area with whom you speak only English, you will lose your social fluency in English. I had a number of moments during my trip when I absolutely froze because I couldn’t remember the English equivalent of “je suis désolée pour vous deranger…” I also discovered during my stay in Wales that I could not for the life of me understand a lot of Welsh accents. I usually pride myself on understanding all accents of English, but it turns out that is no longer the case. I felt as if I was listening to rapid-fire Spanish, where I could pick out the occasional word, but I mostly just tried to nod and smile at the right points in the conversation. Thankfully I could handle the accents in London pretty well, which kept me from utter despair.

I stayed with our family friends, Ruth and Padraig, in Wales. It was wonderful to be in a home-like atmosphere for the holidays, and they made me feel so welcome. I was offered lots of delicious food, given a steady diet of tea, and there was even a fireplace for me to sit in front of. Even the weather was in on it, since there was a good four inches of snow on the ground. That’s not at all normal for the area, and as a result, no one shoveled. Apparently the normal idea is that it isn’t worth shoveling since the snow will melt soon anyone—the only problem was that the snow stuck around for a good week. I’m amazed I didn’t once fall flat on my face, despite wearing impractical (but adorable) shoes the entire trip.

The first day I was there Ruth and I went into Swansea’s city center to hit up a bookstore (YAY for books in English!) and stop in some other shops. I had a terrible time selecting books, as always, but finally picked out three (all three of which I finished before I made it back to Rennes—so much for restraint), and then we made our way to a lovely café near the river in Swansea. We had hot chocolate with Bailey’s (YUM). After popping in a few other stores (including Boots, so I could pick up my favorite hair gel which is sadly unavailable in France), we went to Tesco, an impressive supermarket (erm, grocery store, that is) that provided me with two things of utmost importance: oatmeal and brown sugar. My mornings have been absolutely fabulous since returning to Rennes and getting to eat that for breakfast. I don’t remember when I started eating oatmeal for breakfast (I think it was probably around age nine, the point at which my mom cut me off of Lucky Charms), but once I got started on it, it was my staple (aside from a brief foray my senior year of high school into Honey Nut Cheerios and from the five months I spent in France in 2008, when I had to resort to cold cereal). There is nothing better on a winter morning than tea and oatmeal with a bit of brown sugar. After I stocked up on my kilo of oatmeal and kilo of brown sugar, we headed back to Ruth and Padraig’s.

I went to Midnight Mass with Ruth and Padraig on Christmas Eve and discovered, much to my shock, that there are several Christmas carols that have different tunes in the UK than they do in the US. And they aren’t completely different songs—the lyrics are the same—but the tune is different enough to completely confuse you. The first song they sang I didn’t know, but when I saw that they next one would be “O Come Let Us Adore Him,” I figured I was good to go. Not! There was another one that again had the same lyrics, but apparently a more traditional tune, but I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, I was rather perplexed by the whole thing. It’s odd, because I’ve come to anticipate plenty of cultural differences, but there are always some that can’t be anticipated. Different tunes to Christmas carols? Who knew? Anyway, you’ll be happy to know that Silent Night has the same tune in the UK (probably because we all stole it from the Germans), and I just decided after mass that I’d have to do my own singing of “O Come Let Us Adore Him.”

I was able to skype with my family on Christmas day, which was fun. It was morning for them, so I got to watch them open all of their presents. The rest of the day was spent cozily inside (I’ll never be able to make it through another Chicago winter again), mostly watching movies.

On Boxing Day (which, apparently, has nothing to do with the actual sport of boxing), we went over to Mark’s, one of Ruth and Padraig’s friends. He had his sister, his aunt and uncle, and another family friend there (and Sasha, the one-eyed cat). We had a delicious meal around 2pm, which was my first meal of the day, and I ate enough to make sure that it would be my only meal of the day. I would just like to say that Yorkshire pudding drowned in gravy is kind of delicious and I think I may need to start making these for holiday meals. We also played Trivial Pursuit for several hours in the evening, but everyone else totally had an advantage, since it was the UK edition of the game. I had no idea what half of the events were that they referenced, let alone why certain things happened at those events. I was, however, able to supply some valuable information about what Disney duet Celine Dion sang.

On Monday the 27^th I bid farewell to the incredibly hospitable Ruth and Padraig, and I hopped on a train back to London to spend a day and a half there on my own before going back to France. I had even splurged on a hotel (though a very modest one with shared bathrooms) as a Christmas present to myself. My train was a little late getting in, and I naturally wandered around the station in circles for about ten minutes before I finally got my bearings, but after that I easily made my way to my hotel and checked in. I then set off in search of a cheap dinner (ended up grabbing assorted food from a grocery store and thus spending approximately 2 pounds, go me!), and then decided it was time to start profiter-ing. I wandered down Edgeware Road for no particular reason other than it was close to my hotel. It ended in a huge intersection near Hyde Park, and since I was a little wary of getting lost in Hyde Park (as I got lost last time I entered a British park), I decided to make my way down Oxford. The roads were SWARMED with people, very few of them actually speaking English. I heard more French than I probably do on the average work day (since my goal is always to make the kids speak English). It was a massive shopping day, and while I’d entertained ideas of buying a few things, I changed my mind after stepping two feet into a store and realizing just how packed it was. Turned around and decided to return to walking.

Once I was thoroughly exhausted, I turned around, headed back to my hotel, took a shower, and collapsed. I got up early, grabbed breakfast (yay for hotels that have breakfast included and bring you your own pot of tea!), and then headed off. I took the Tube to the Tower of London, which I had my heart set on seeing. It was a little pricey to get in, but it was absolutely worth it. Yeoman Wardours are traditionally the guards of the Tower, but they really function more as tour guides, and they are hilarious. Ours was cracking jokes about Scotland, Americans, French, Germans, men, and women, and asked at one point if there was anyone he had managed not to offend yet. He also pointed out that only Britain would have a monument to traitors to the crown—there was a monument to all the people who had been beheaded there, including Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, and Lady Jane Grey. There was another Yeoman Wardour doing a tour inside a chapel where most of those people are buried (I don’t understand what it is with the Brits and burying people under churches…first Westminster, now this), and he was also fantastic. I had the choice of going in to see the Crown Jewels, which I considered, but there was a line roughly two blocks long to do that, and I didn’t need to see some pretty stones THAT much. Instead I opted to walk around the outside walls, which had some gorgeous views of Tower Bridge.

Once I was all historied out, I left. I had no other big plans for the day, but I was determined to get more walking in. I ended up walking pretty much the entire central area of London, all the way back to my hotel, over the course of the afternoon and evening. I walked by St. Paul’s, got slightly lost (whoops), saw the Bank of London, figured out where I’d gotten turned around, walked by St. Paul’s again, made my way to Fleet Street (home of Sweeney Todd and the historical printing and publishing center of London), stopped near Somerset House (another large palace), walked to Covent Garden and meandered around there until I got sick of the crowds, then continued my way up Oxford. I stopped for dinner at Hummus Bros, the same restaurant I stopped at last time I was in London, since I knew it was both delicious and affordable. I took a slight detour to the theater district, which made me very jealous, and then I went back to Oxford and continued my way back to the hotel. Once again, I pretty much collapsed from exhaustion once I got there.

I left the next morning to head back to France. My last train from Paris to Rennes got diverted and arrived two hours late, which I was not happy about, but other than that the trip was fine. And what happened when I got back to my room? Yup, I collapsed. And slept about 13 hours.

OKAY. The Christmas entry is now done. I can go take care of some lesson planning, and you can go do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll be back in a week with a (hopefully) shorter post. Bonne année!