Come Wind, Come Rain

Back in the fall, Denise and Jean-Paul asked me if I had been to Mont St. Michel yet, and when I said I hadn’t, they told me they’d find a weekend when they could take me. It was incredibly nice of them to offer, and this past weekend they came through on it and told me to bring a friend. So, for once, I actually had something to do when Sunday came around (Sundays are super boring in France--nothing is open).

We picked Lauren up in town and then headed off to Mont St. Michel, which is about an hour away. It’s technically in Normandy, but it’s right on the border between Normandy and Brittany, so both regions like to claim it. The day, though rather windy, was quite gorgeous (an increasingly rare occasion in Brittany—we had a solid week of rain last week). Originally, Mont St. Michel was an island at high tide, and then when the tide went out, a land strip connecting it to the mainland would emerge. At the end of the 1900s that land strip was built up, so that now you can always access it by land. However, you could see some people making the trek across to the island in knee-deep water from other points along the mainland. They’re currently doing complicated engineering stuff with the water and sand to make it an island again within the next decade or so (for a more adept understanding of what they’re doing, go ask Klare, my college roommate—she no doubt actually understands it).

Anyway, we wandered around the town. It felt a lot like Carcassonne to me—super tiny streets and really touristy. The best part was really just the views, both of the Mont and of the surrounding area. The Abbey for which the islandything was named (I can’t decide what to call it—it’s not a city, it’s not an island…I guess I could go with peninsula) is built into the rocks on the high part, which is really striking. We didn’t go into the Abbey (9€? No, thank you), but just walking around it you could see gorgeous views. We ate a picnic lunch in a small park area, and then meandered our way out.

After the Mont, instead of driving straight back to Rennes, we drove along the coastline to St. Malo, and then from St. Malo we drove south to Rennes. We drove through Cancale, and we also stopped at Pointe de Grouin and walked along the coastline there. Right after we hopped back in the car after that little excursion, it started to pour. Welcome to Bretagne. We looked at a few other views from the car, but no one was courageous enough to get out of the car and brave the storm, so we then headed back to Rennes.

This past week has been the first of a two week break (it’s typically called the February vacation, but ours fell in March this year). It’s been a rather boring week, but it has allowed me to finally get caught up on the blog and go running a lot. On Monday I head off to Brussels, so I’ll be back in a week or so with updates about that. Happy March—the daffodils here have already bloomed!

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!