Hello world,
I apologize for my lack of blogging recently. I made a personal resolution not to blog until I was not homeless anymore which means... dun dun dun.... I found an apartment! I'll spare you all the minute details but it is not the one that I originally thought I'd end up with, it's better! It's quite large for a French apartment, 35 m² with a real bedroom and a living room all to myself and it's completely furnished - it even has a TV! It's in a residential area near the Jardin des Prébendes. It's all mine legally and I move in tomorrow morning!!! I am SO relieved to finally stop living out of my suitcases and be able to settle in a little bit because let's be real - I'm much cuter when I'm not homeless!
But for the past few days I have been staying with Madame Colette Vavasseur, a sweet little old French lady who hosts students/foreigners such as myself in her home. I found out about her through the awesome Canadian German assistant at Choiseul (my school). Unfortunately, she couldn't rent me a room for a long time because there's another student coming to take the one I've been staying in for the past few days, but it has been a great place to stay during my awkward transition phase! She's very sweet and when I told her what my name was she said "comme ma fille!" or "like my daughter" en anglais. Too sweet. And she is a fantastic cook. If you've ever had a French person cook you a meal, you know they are quite talented in the kitchen and if you do not completely clean your plate they ask you if you didn't like it. Really. And their portions can be quite generous! A couple nights ago it was omelettes with potatoes, bread (of course, c'est la France!), cheese, a crepe with honey, AND a pear. And when I said I'd eaten too much (you can't say literally "i'm full" or "je suis pleine" here because it means "i'm pregnant" - french lesson o'the day!) her response was "already?" Oh la la! They sure know how to eat over here!
Work never fails to amuse me. One kid asked me what the word for "avion" was yesterday and when I replied "airplane" she repeated "hhhhairplane" without even flinching. Another one asked me to name some French movies for a skit they're doing. He asked me because he "only watches American movies." Kid is obsessed with Brooklyn. Probably thinks I'm a waste of an American since I've never been to New York! Spent an entire class period last week discussing the difference in pronunciation between "beaches" and "bitches" because really, if you go to a town and you tell the locals it's full of beautiful bitches, it's not quite the same as beautiful beaches. Only say it if you mean it!
France is starting to feel more and more like home every day. I have mastered the bus system and people have even asked me for directions lately! It's hard to believe I've already been here for almost 4 weeks. And I've only got one more week before I get a 2 week break for the Toussaint holiday! The French love to take breaks. I get six weeks paid vacation during the school year - not counting the summer. Vive la France. They also love to grève (strike for you Anglo-Saxons) just as much as their reputation leads one to believe. I've officially survived a bus strike and a school strike on the same day! Only in France. The school strike was actually quite impressive. The high schoolers must've stacked about 30 trash cans in front of the entrance. It looked a lot like this, only more impressive.
In other news, I have come down with what appears to be a common cold, a very rare occurrence for me! The unfortunate part about this is that in France you have to go to the pharmacy to get any kind of medicine at all and you have to describe to the pharmacist exactly what is wrong with you, which is great practice for my French, but this is the time that I just want to curl up in bed the most, not practice describing my cough! And as per usual in la France, pharmacies are closed on Sundays so it looks like I'll be making a trip there tomorrow!
After tomorrow I'm probably not going to have internet for a while because I have to sign up for it which could take weeks because let's be real, this is France! So I might disappear from the blogosphere for a while. À bientôt, mes amis!
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