Long time no blog, eh? While I would like to say I've been busy, we all know that would be a massive lie with my 12-hour work week. Working hard or hardly working? As a friend from home put it in one of our recent skype dates, "are you actually working over there or are you just hanging out?" The answer is mostly hanging out.
However I have managed to squeeze some productivity into my life lately. A couple of weekends ago I went to Lyon with Lucy, Carys, and Rachel, one of Lucy's friends from Edinburgh for St. Patty's day. Lyon is in the Alps and is the 2nd largest city in France as well as the gastronomical capital of France. We arrived in Lyon early Friday evening and spent the night enjoying the view from our hostel and then explored the town a little bit before we had dinner in a "bouchon" - the local lyonnais restaurants that serve traditional French food. Not entirely sure what the word bouchon means but I do know a tire-bouchon is a corkscrew so I guess it either means cork or screw? Hoping for the former! We spent St. Patty's day walking around the town with Carys as our tour guide since she lived there a couple of years ago. After a little stroll we decided to rent bikes to ride through the parc tête d'or which has a free zoo! We then spent the afternoon in a pub watching the Six Nations rugby tournament, the first rugby game I've ever watched! The Brits have introduced me to so much! That next night we were determined to faire la fete French-style, but contrary to my previous beliefs about St. Patty's Day à la French, it is a HUGE celebration here and it was so crowded we could barely get our feet in the bar doors, so the evening was cut a bit short. Still had a lovely time though! Defs made me reminiscent for my times in the south of France. Le sigh.Also on the subject of travel, the students at my school have been going on lots of field trips lately to really exotic locations. They've gone to Belgium, Italy, and England since I've been here. Not that I'm jealous or anything, but when I was a senior in high school, the only field trip I took was with my environmental science class to the local waste treatment facility, which, as you can imagine, was pretty shitty. Har har. These kids don't know how good they have it!
Today marks the one year anniversary that I found out my admissions decision for this program. I had said that if I got accepted I would literally go anywhere in France even if I had never heard of it, and I did. I knew absolutely nothing about my town and to say I was terrified when I got here would be a massive understatement. It's pretty scary being fresh out of college leaving your country and everything and everyone you've ever known, but I wouldn't trade this experience for the world. Two years ago, I had never been to France, and only out of the country once really. Though living here has been my dream, I never in a million years thought it would actually happen. And it's hard to believe, but my time here is coming to a close. Though my contract technically goes through April 30, the French have another vacation coming up (shocking I know) so my last day teaching is actually April 19, just two weeks from tomorrow! And Steph, the Canadian German assistant and my dear friend from school, has already left! The German assistants have a contract that is one month shorter than the English assistants so last week was her final one. Things never really sink in with me until they've actually happened, so I'm not quite in freak-out mode about leaving, but as much as I sometimes complain about things here, I will definitely miss it. I've had some really good times here and made some absolutely wonderful friends! I am excited to go home soon though and hopefully find a job where I won't be quite as poor as I am now, because though learning to make pasta 25,000 different ways has been both entertaining and educational, I'm ready to eat something that cost more than a euro. Speaking of money, the CAF has finally decided to give me some! In typical French fashion, though I applied in January they waited until April to give it to me. But hey, I can't complain, that money will be financing some traveling, though I haven't decided where yet. And in case you haven't heard me talk about the CAF, all you need to know is that it's basically money that we assistants are getting for being so goddamn poor and I'm finally getting it now that I don't have to pay my rent anymore. How convenient.
And, last but not least, a completely irrelevant yet hilarious story about my run-in with a French waiter (and the law) on what would have otherwise been a completely ordinary Sunday afternoon. On Sunday Carys, Lucy, and I decided to have lunch at one of the restaurants we frequent. I thought ordering a calzone would be a safe choice, but about midway through it I noticed some clear liquid seeping out of the middle. I opened it up to find a completely raw egg inside. Literally, no exaggeration, there was no white in it. Naturally I was not OK with this, so I caught our already-rude waiter's attention and said "Um, excuse me, this egg isn't cooked at all." Before I could even finish my sentence he snatched my plate up from the table without apologizing, knocking my fork onto my lap and said "attention," which basically means something to the effect of "look out." Clearly I was a little bit insulted, because if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have had to faire attention in the first place! I then had raw egg on my jeans, which was not ideal. After a couple of minutes he finally acknowledged my existence and told me they were bringing another one. I told him that I didn't want another one because I had completely lost my appetite at this point and that it was "dégueulasse," which I thought only meant disgusting, but after a quick browse of wordreference.com post-incident I learned that it a whole slew of things including but not limited to: barf, yucky, lousy, crappy, vulgar, despicable, icky, spew, throw up, and finally the word I was actually going for - disgusting. Oops. Also learned it is a rude/insulting word, and so I think the lesson to be learned here is that a quick browse of word reference never hurt anyone. However, I maintain that statement that the egg was indeed "throw-up." Oh well, it at least provided comedy value. Anyway, upon hearing me say that it was dégueulasse, the waiter had the gall to laugh at me, which really got my blood boiling! He never even apologized! After about 10 minutes Carys and Lucy had finished their food and we asked for the bill. At first the waiter tried to pull a bit of a trick and just tell us the amount as opposed to giving us the itemized receipt like usual. However he eventually gave it to us and instead of breaking down the cost of everything it simply said "3 complete meals." Obviously he was not prepared for us to fight in French. So I caught his attention and said "um, excuse me, but this says three meals and we only received two cooked meals." He then told me that if you eat you pay and I told him that I had only eaten until I had found the mysterious clear liquid in the middle and that it was "dégoutant," which is the more mild/polite version of disgusting, and that it's unhealthy to eat raw eggs (defs lacked the vocab to say it can give you salmonella). He continues on about how it's not a lack of respect, it's just that when you eat you pay and I missed out on the little bit in the middle, but the end of the sentence was "anglais," so he either said that he wasn't being disrespectful because my friends and I were speaking English to one another or that he wasn't being disrespectful because I am an English man (English woman would be anglaise with an e at the end) in which case I would be doubly offended! I insist that I'm not paying for that and he storms off and comes back a couple of minutes later threatening to - no joke - call the police! My response to this was probably a bit brash looking back now, but I apparently rolled my eyes and said "ah, franchement?" which means "oh, really?" Again, oops. But seriously, I think the police have better things to do than worry about someone paying for a calzone considering the shooting a couple of weeks ago. After talking very loudly about it to his coworkers for a couple of minutes he comes back and takes Carys' and Lucy's money and demonstrates his concession by hanging his head and avoiding eye contact. I had just won an argument with a Frenchman! You have no idea how proud I am. I literally felt (and still feel 3 days later) like I can take on the world! Once you've won an argument with the French you can do anything. Though I'll admit this wasn't my finest moment, I did also learn that I am capable of doing this entirely in French! I think my French is a little better than I thought! Though if I had had the quick wit or the vocabulary my response to him saying "you eat, you pay" would've been "you don't give me salmonella, I pay." I'm finally getting the hang of just how assertive you have to be to get things done in France, just in time to leave. Because not to compare France to the US, but quite frankly, I NEVER would have had to be so assertive/rude if that had happened in America because they would have been worried about me suing them for getting me sick! Not to mention the fact that in the States waiters depend on tips, whereas in France tip is already included in the bill so if they're not a good waiter, they sometimes feel they don't have to work as hard. I think it's safe to say I can never go back to that restaurant, but it was the principle of the matter that I cared so much about in the first place.
Phew, that was a short novel! À bientôt, mes amis!
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