Day Tripping Part 3: Nîmes

On Thursday, Cathy, Dawn and I again went on a day trip. This time to Nîmes (pronounced "neem"). Nîmes is about a half hour west of Montpellier. Halfway between Montpellier and Avignon, you can find Nîmes, which is well-known as a Roman city. The emblem you see above is the city crest for Nîmes. Yes, it is a crocodile chained to a palm tree. It is supposed to symbolize the conquest of Egypt.

Our first stop on the super cloudy day, was the Arènes de Nîmes (Nîmes Arena or Colisseum) as seen here:
This was super huge and still in use today actually but for bullfighting, not for gladiators as was the case in olden times. We had another audio tour but this time the little electronic guides were on lanyards and looked like stopwatches. We got to walk all around inside, up a bunch of huge stairs outside and we sat in multiple locations within the arena as we took our little self-guided tour. There was so much information that we ended up skipping through some sections because each audio tour section was anywhere from 8-15 minutes long. We did learn a lot about the city and the fact that this is the best preserved exisiting Roman colisseum in the world!

Here I am in the huge arena:
While at the arena, we had purchased the 3 pack of tours in Nîmes which included the Arènes de Nîmes, the Maison Carrée (Square House) & La Tour Magne. After our long stay at the Arènes de Nîmes, we walked about 10 minutes to the Maison Carrée as seen here:
It turned out to be an ancient Roman temple where the priests would go for prophecies and consultations of the Gods. Unfortunately, due to what I can only assume was some upkeep of the monument since most of it was covered with tarps and whatnot, we didn't really get to see the Square House as you see in the picture. Inside, we had hoped to see this awesome temple and artifacts. Instead, there was only a super kinds of cheesy 3-D movie about the history of the people of Nîmes and how the great spirit of Nîmes will live on forever in the hearts of all Nîmois (people from Nîmes). My God was it cheesy but Dawn actually enjoyed it. Well, to each his own I suppose. It should also be noted that the children, who would NOT shut up during the entire 20 minute masterpiece, were constantly trying to grab the random crap coming out at us since it was an awesome 3-D spectacle. That didn't ever get annoying! However, we were pretty disappointed that we just got to watch this movie and didn't actually get to tour anywhere else in the temple.

After the Maison Carrée, we decided on a little lunch. It turned out to be one of the best lunches I have had since living in France and one of the longest. In two hours, we managed to have an appetizer, an entree, a dessert and a coffee plus a carafe of rosé wine. The lunch was exceptional. The other girls choose a various meat plate for their appetizer which looked yummy yet full of pork. I chose the liver salad which was actually really tasty. Our entrees were all the same since we ordered the "plat du jour" (plate of the day) in order to get the amazing 11 Euro price for our lunch. It was an andouille sausage with a great mustard sauce and grilled onions, sides of butter beans, small salad with great mustard based dressing and "pommes noisettes" (Think of balls of mashed potatoes dropped in a deep fryer). Dessert was many choices but both Dawn and I chose the "ile flottant" that I mentioned Cathy had in Sete, while Cathy chose a great raspberry mousse. After our obligatory French coffee (which is very much like a shot of espresso for us), we started the trek to La Tour Magne.

I say trek because we thought we could make it there in 15 minutes. It turns out that we were wrong. So horribly, horribly wrong. However, on our way to La Tour Magne, we ended up finding the Jardins de la Fontaine (Fountain Gardens) with the Diane Temple (which was just in ruins but awesome to see anyway). The gardens can be seen here:
This was such a beautiful discovery and place. I loved walking around and looking at all the statues, fountains and extravagant walkways that were designed all around this area.

After we took our fair share of photos, we began what seemed like the hike to nowhere to get to the Tour Magne. We figured out after we arrived that we took the REALLY long way to get there by kinda taking trails through the woodsy area of Nîmes but it's all in how you get there, right?

The Tour Magne seen below was a little less impressive than I had hoped.
There wasn't much to it except climbing 140 steps on spiral staircases to the very top. The view from the top was amazing. To see Nîmes from up above was quite amazing. Being in such an old tower was aw-inspiring. It was erected about 15 AD which is impressive to say the least. The inside was mostly hollowed out due to a somewhat crazy local gardener who took a Nostradamus prophecy to heart and thought there was silver and gold hidden under the tower. Fortunately, he was stopped before the tower collapsed. The Tour Magne is the highest point in the city and used to be part of a huge fortification of the entire city. The Tour is all that is left now.

After La Tour Magne, we stopped in the free city museums. The museum of Natural History and of Archaeology were pretty impressive for free museums. The Natural History museum, unfortunately, had some really sad looking taxidermy and we think we found the reject section of poorly stuffed cats. Many of them were in a cabinet in the very back of room and the faces were quite distorted and nightmare-inspiring. In the Archaeology museum, we saw a bunch of Roman statues that had been excavated and large tile mosaics that had been unearthed from roads in Nîmes.

I shall leave you with this funny image of a duck salt shaker that Nîmes was using as a promo ad for some festival in the city. The festival isn't important. Just the funny image is important.

Day Tripping Part 2: Avignon

On Wednesday, Dawn, Cathy and I went to Avignon (nicknamed the City of Popes) to do another day trip. Avignon is about an hour east of Montpellier by train. Avignon is in Provence which is famous for their lavender products and their herbs. In Avignon, we first visited the Palais des Papes (Popes' Palace). It was immense and very informative. There were at least 3 levels and we climbed all around the structure. It looked like an old world castle with little chambers for all the different popes that lived there as well as all the servants that lived for the pope. Many different popes lived there throughout the time that this castle was heavily in use in the 14th century. Once one pope settled there, many followed. It's one of the most important gothic palaces in the world, we learned. One of the most interesting parts of the castle was the gigantic dining hall and the vestment chamber (where the pope got all dressed up for special holidays). I did manage to fall down about 4 stone steps while on the tour which was really embarrassing since there were huge tour groups going around us at the time. I was not hurt but my butt did feel sore all day. We got free English audio guides which looked like giant 1980's style cell phones. All we had to do was push a number and we got information. Very ingenious indeed. Another super cool fact about the Palace is that it was built in a mere 20 years and it's one of the 10 most visited monuments in France. Parts of the Palace burnt down in a big fire in the 1300's so many of the original wooden ceilings and many of the artifacts inside were recreations or rebuilt from the original.

Since my camera is still out of commission, I have since started "borrowing" images from the visited places websites, but never fear, this is actually what I saw: le Palais des Papes:


Oh, it should be noted that in the really huge chapel, all the stained-glass windows were covered with big, thick, black cloths to block out all the light. This was for us to be able to see the strange projections of snake charmers all over the place in the huge hall. We had NO idea why the projections and TVs were all over this hall and there certainly weren't ANY signs in the place to tell us about it. I looked it up online afterwards and found out that it was a special exhibit by an artist (Douglas Gordon) to show the good and bad of Christianity by way of snakes and snake-charmers.

After the Palais, we walked around Avignon which was nice and chilly until we got to a huge church "Notre Dame de DOM". Notre Dame means our lady and DOM means what we assume is German for cathedral. Anyway, it was huge, very chrisitian with beautiful paintings and tapestries. The little vestibules were beautiful and the stained-glass windows were awe-inspiring. The organ was just huge and impressive and the ceilings were dozens of feet high.

After the church, we walked up a huge hill to see an amazing view of the city and the Avignon Bridge. It's pretty famous since there is a song written about it; "Le Pont d'Avignon" but honestly, we looked at it from afar and it serves no real purpose since it only juts out into the water halfway. It's not so much of a bridge as it is a monument at this point in time. After further web research, I discovered much of the original bridge was destroyed by the seige of Louis VIII to the city. You can pay extra to actually go on the bridge but due to the cold, windy conditions we decided that a view from afar was good enough.
Here is a picture to illustrate my point:
And here are Dawn and Cathy up high in the city:

And Here is Dawn and I up high in the city:

Lunch was hard found since I really wanted crepes and the creperie that was nice and affordable was full with some party. Instead, we had crepes at another restaurant which I am sure was just as good as the other, cuter creperie. I had a crepe with creme fraiche, smoked salmon and cheese. It was so delicious! Cathy and Dawn both had crepes with ham and cheese. I think Dawn's had mushrooms too.

After lunch, we checked out a free museum in the city called "la Musée Requien", which was a natural history museum. That was cool and they had a lot of displays on aquatic life and some really freaky looking taxidermy of random animals from all over the world. Avignon is surrounded, by the way, with a huge roman wall all the around the city. This was for protection, obviously, since Popes were living there. In all, Avignon is very rich in history and I am so happy to have gone and seen the city of Popes.

Your British word lesson of the day: when saying the individual letters j and z, instead of saying them as we do (jay and zee), they say jai and zed.

Day Tripping Part 1: Sète

During my week and a half vacation that officially started on Saturday morning, a few of the other assistants and I have banded together to go on short day trips within the near-Montpellier region. Today's destination was Sète, a huge fishing port in southern France. Sète is a 20 minute train ride from downtown Montpellier and actually, it is the next stop on the train from my city of Frontignan. Basically, if I stayed on my train to go to school for another 10 minutes, I would be in Sète (pronounced "set")

Anyway, Dawn, 3 other American assistants (Junko, Cathy, & Aleksey) and I went on our little trip. Once we arrived in Sète, we kind of realized we had no idea where to go. It should be noted that there is an assistant that we know that works in Sète so we knew that it was pretty and had a beautiful beach. Upon arrival, we set about walking to the Tourism Office which was downtown. Along the way, we saw the awesome canals as seen in this picture here:
After walking and finally finding the toursit office, we decided that we would take one of the cruise ships that goes all around the little isthmus of Sète however, that didn't leave until 3pm and we had many hours to kill until then. So we thought we would walk to the beach that we heard so much about. It turns out that it was a little too far to walk so we ended up at the Cimitière Marin seen in this photo here:



It's literally a cemetary overlooking the sea. It was really amazing and very old. The very famous French poet, Paul Valery, is buried here and yes, we did see his grave. It was one of the least impressive compared to all the large tombs that you see in the photo. Originally, this cemetary was called the Cemetary for Rich People but they eventually changed it to the Maritime Cemetary which is a little less mean to everyone in general, don't you think?

After the cemetary, we wandered for what seemed like forever back downtown to get some lunch before our 1-hour tour on the boat cruise. We finally settled on a place that had some great seafood specials. 3 of our group got muscles and fries which is very popular in Southern France. I got the shark steak and fries and Cathy got some really tender beef and fries. What can I say? We all love fries. I tried some of the muscles and they were very tasty to my surprise. The shark steak, on the other hand, just kinda tasted like bland fish. I don't know if it was the sauce that wasn't so tasty or just the fish itself. It wasn't terrible but it was not worth getting again. The cool thing about getting muscles here is that they are served in a huge black pot with a lid. You remove the lid to begin eating them and the lid then becomes your discard place for all the shells. It's really quite ingenious AND you get like 30-40 muscles. It's a huge meal for a normally quite small price. Our desserts were all pretty varied. We had: ice cream (chocolate and pistachio), crème au caramel (which was like flan basically but not as tasty), a lemony tart (which was really good) and an "ile flottant" (which translates to "floating island" and it was like a huge dollop of meringue floating in a sea of caramel and goodness all inside a big ice cream glass.) The "ile flottant" was amazing and I will definitely order that again.

Here we are at lunch:
(Aleksey, Dawn, Junko & I)

After lunch, it was time for the 1-hour tour of the harbor. We rode on the cruise line Aquarius as seen in the photos below:

We even got English translations on these little handheld speaker things for the tour so we didn't have to listen to the French guide. Basically, we got to see all of Sète from the waterside and learn a little about the city in general. We even stopped in harbor, out in the sea, and looked in the little viewing portals below deck for fish and whatnot. I only saw rocks and tiny fish but it was cool no less. My favorite part of the trip was when the captain came on the loud speaker and was talking about all the ships we saw around us. Then he just kind of randomly said, in French of course: "And to your right there is the boat TARZAN!" He literally yelled the boat name for no reason which made all of us laugh hysterically and we continued to yell it to each other for the remainder of the trip and our time in Sète.

After the cruise, we thought we could ride on the city train tour for only 1 Euro with our cruise pass because that is what it said on the back of our pass. It turns out that we only got a 1 Euro discount and it was still 4 Euros to take the train so Aleksey said "what a rip-off!" we all laughed and off we went to go home.

It was a great day trip and I can't wait for Day Tripping Part 2.

Your British word lesson of the day: smart = cool/good In a sentence: That sweater is really smart! (or) Are we going to the beach today? Smart!

Halloween week for the kids

Since we have vacation from Oct. 25- Nov. 5, I decided to teach the kids Halloween this week just for fun. So far, we have had a blast. All the kids kinda know what Halloween is since they sort of celebrate it here and they have seen it in movies. It's not the gigantic party as we have all come to know and love in the US, however, they do have some trick or treating, some costumes and some decorations. That's not really bad for a country that really doesn't like borrowing customs from other countries. At least the French acknowledge that Halloween exists for other countries. I think that there was a lot of pressure from the little French kids to finally institute Halloween in France for the free candy.

I did buy a very small baby-sized pumpkin here at the grocery store and carved it up in a couple minutes with the basic design of triangle eyes and a mouth with teeth. He was very cute. I took him to all the classes and lit a candle inside him. At the end of each class, I turned off all the lights and walked him around to all the awed children. They don't really carve pumpkins here so most of the kids were super impressed. I explained that normally our pumpkins are about 2 or 3 times bigger than the baby one I did but they don't really exist here. They can be found in France but I wasn't about to lug a 25 pound pumpkin around to 8 different classes in 2 different schools. So I settled on my little baby 2-3 pound pumpkin.

In school, I have taught some of the basic words of Halloween: vampire, bat, ghost, candy, pumpkin, jack o' lantern, devil, witch, & skeleton. Some of the kids knew some of the words which was encouraging and lots of fun. My favorite part of teaching the words was using the flashcards (that I colored myself thank-you-very-much) and then referring to my jack o' lantern. So the kids would repeat vampire and then I would point to the jack o' lantern and make them say that word. It was probably more fun for me to watch them say "vampire" and then run to the other side of the room and point and they would say "jack o' lantern". It was tons of fun. I was determined that they would remember jack o' lantern, if they remembered no other words from the lesson.

I also taught: "Trick or treat. Smell my feet. Give me something good to eat." The kids loved that once I explained what it meant.

For the final lesson tomorrow, we are all going to draw really cool jack o' lanterns, all the kids are going to trick or treat to me for some M&Ms, I am going to show a bunch of pumpkin patch pictures and already carved pumpkins and we will sing the part of the Trick or Treat song I taught. I feel like I might get more excited than the kids just because I love watching their faces light up when they know a word.

British word(s) lesson of the day: sweeties = candy & pumpkin = pumpkin and/or jack o' lantern. In a sentence: I went trick or treating and got a lot of sweeties. We saw a ton of pumpkins but my pumpkin had the best design of all.

French grocery stores

Some of the grocery stores here:






Here is a list of interesting things I have noticed about French grocery stores:

1. Milk is generally NOT kept in the cold section. It is left in the aisles and stored at room temperature. It also keeps for about a month, which is very odd and makes me a little leary of the milk but I drink it anyway. You can also only really get skim, 2% or whole milk here. 1% does not exist.
2. Tuna is very expensive compared to US prices. A small can of tuna is about $1.50 as opposed to 34-45 cents in the US.
3. Ready-made meals that are not frozen, but microwaveable, not only include the normal stuff like beef or chicken but also RABBIT, DUCK or FISH.
4. Spaghetti-O's do exist here. They are just called something else. But I have had them, cheap and spaghetti-O like.
5. Meat, in general, is very expensive. You can also get, in a normal meat section, duck and rabbit as well as chicken, turkey, pork and beef.
6. Lunch meat is very hard to come by if you don't eat pork products.
7. Pork is a VERY big part of food choices here.
8. Frozen TV dinners do exist here just like the US.
9. The yogurt/pudding selection here is HUGE! It's a whole aisle unto itself.
10. There is a whole aisle normally devoted to wine. Big surprise there, huh? You can also get some pretty good wine for less than 2 Euros.
11. There is a huge selection of hard cider in the alcohol section and very, very little American beer. The selection is mostly what we consider imports (obviously). I haven't even seen Budweiser or Bud Light in the store by my house.
    
12. Most grocery stores do not automatically give you paper nor plastic bags when checking out. You normally have to bring your own or buy them at the cash register. Sometimes you can't even buy them at the cash register, so I hope you came prepared.
13. Many people buy 3 or more baguettes at a time for whatever reason. It's super cheap (about 50 cents) at my grocery stores but it's stale in 24 hours so how much bread are you really eating?
14. There is a pretty big fish selection at most grocery stores and a lot of smoked salmon for lower prices that I am used to. I am taking advantage of that.
15. Bagels pretty much don't exist unless you are in a specialty store. Cream cheese is also pretty hard to come by as well as cottage cheese.
16. Flavored water is gross here. I haven't found any that I could stand. However, bottled water is super cheap if you buy the big bottles. Good thing too since the tap water at my place is so full of calcium, you can see the deposits in the pot if you ever boil water. That really deters me from drinking from the tap.
17. They translate "Mr. Clean" into the French equivalent. That is just hilarious to me. I love seeing English brand names translated for no apparent reason.
18. Cheese is everywhere and abundant but not cheddar cheese or what we consider block cheese. Think of brie and then imagine brie had 20 sisters and brothers. It's everywhere here and it's an epidemic.
19. Aisles are very narrow and grocery stores in general are pretty small in comparison to US stores. Many of the baskets on wheels (grocery carts are hard to come by) are a little too wide for the aisle and someone next to you. So you have to really pay attention when dragging your little basket behind you.
    

Le Roi Lear (King Lear)

(This is the promo poster for King Lear)

Yesterday, I dragged Dawn to see King Lear (the Shakesperian tragedy) completely translated in French. Needless to say, she was dragged and did not go willingly but I convinced her by saying that even if you don't understand everything, it will be worth it to see a classic play in French and what about the spectacle? I always think that even if a show is bad, sometimes the spectacle of it will reward you.

I understood about 60% of what was going on while Dawn seemed to understand nothing, unfortunately. I truly went to see the spectacle and enjoy some French theatre, even if I understood nothing. I did not know King Lear before I saw it and did a quick synopsis read of the show right before we went so my retention of said synopsis was poor at best. What I did understand was at least clear that this was a tragedy and everyone died at the end. :)

What I really enjoyed was seeing the stage, theatre, lights, sounds, costumes and special effects. At least I got my money's worth. Originally, the show was supposed to cost about $15 for students. While we were in line to get tickets, this random man just handed me a ticket for the show. It was a really discounted $7 ticket. I was like, ok, great! Thanks but we need 2. So when we got to the box office, I showed the woman the ticket I had just received and said we needed another. Ok, $7, she said! Yay! So both Dawn and I saw the show for the split cost of $3.50. It turns out that the ticket the man gave us was for a huge group of high school students and apparently, one of the kids didn't show so he just gave me the ticket for free. Due to assigned seats, Dawn and I had assumed we wouldn't be able to sit together. However, upon entry to the large 400+ seat capacity theatre, we noticed that the last 2 rows weren't really occupied. So we just sat in the back and hoped no one asked for our tickets.

I did really enjoy just the spectacle of the show. It was a raked stage that was high in the back and low in the front and it jutted out from the deck itself. It was a metal grid which was covered by some crappily painted cloth for the first scene. The actors from scene 1 removed the cloth and then the metal grid stage was revealed. The actors really used the space well by running through the house which was set up with stadium-style seating as well as the exits right off stage and the exits upstage. Oh, the stage had a trap door which is always awesome to see!

There were really 2 great parts of the show. The first part was when a man came out and covered himself with green body paint and then threw feathers all over himself. He became known as "chicken man" to me! I loved him. I didn't really understand what he was there for but he did at least entertain me.

The second really great part of the show was when they had a thunder and lightning sequence on stage and REAL water fell from the stage. The actors got all wet and it was very convincing. The sound was amazing and they projected funny raindrops and swirling clouds on the metal grid stage. I was very impressed.

In all, I wished I had understood it better but at least I understood that everyone was dying which is all you really need to know about a Shakesperian tragedy.

British word lesson of the day: Bonnet = hood of a car In a sentence: I couldn't get my bonnet closed by myself so I had to ask my neighbor for help. It was very embarrassing.

The day of seconds

Today was my second day of teaching and coincidentally, my second football (soccer) game.

I taught the weather (it's raining, it's sunny, it's cloudy, it's windy, it's snowing) and all of the days of the week. I really am enjoying teaching small children. I had a long day of teaching 5 classes today but didn't feel as exhausted today as I did on Tuesday. I felt much more comfortable and much less nervous. One of the teachers was really complimentary and said that I seem to have a really good report with the kids and can really keep them engaged and learning throughout the whole lesson. That put me on cloud 9 for the rest of the day. They all have thanked me for the work I have done and the principal wanted to make sure that I was having a good time too. I am having such a good time and even though it is challenging to teach in only English, I have given myself permission to use a few French words from time to time just to help the kids a little. Once again, I made a boy cry because he didn't understand me but this time I wouldn't let him put his head on his desk and sulk. I really kept him engaged. It's always a little scary to see that deer-in-a-headlights look on the kid's faces when they have NO idea what I just asked them to do but eventually, most of them understand what I am saying.

One of the funniest things about today, when teaching the days of the week, was when I had the kids fill in the letters for each day on a week grid (like I took a week from the calendar and drew it on the board). I started with Monday -Sunday since that is how they do it in Europe and I didn't want to try and really confuse the 2nd-4th graders. Anyway, while doing that exercise, one of the teachers said "I actually wonder if these kids can do this in French" since they had a hard time knowing what day it was today in French and finding it on the week grid. That really made me laugh. Those poor kids are getting tested all over the place. Not only do they not know it in English, they may not even know it in French.

Other than doing the same lesson 5 times, I really enjoy what I am doing and seeing the kids start to understand what I am desperately and with more hand gestures than you can imagine trying to teach them.

Tonight was another home game for the Montpellier football team so Dawn and I went to check it out. This time we actually had to pay but if you get general admission, it's only around $8. We played against Vannes (which is the SUPER west coast of France) and we WON again. 3-1!!! Yes, there were fans there cheering the whole time. I think that there is really one section you can buy seats for where you can cheer/chant with the group for the entire game. Otherwise, we are pretty quiet in the general admission section except for the occasional swearing and cheering as we either miss or score a goal.

Oh, it should be known that they do sell Coke and Beer somewhere in the stadium because we saw quite a few people with those drinks but we were, once again, unsuccessful in finding said vendors. Soon we shall locate these mysterious vendors and their hidden drinks!

British word lesson of the day: Scottish tablet = butter tablet. It's like fudge only instead of chocolate, it's made with butter. I call it "sugar coma" for short. :) In a sentence: Dawn gave me a Scottish tablet before the football game and I was hyper for hours.

My REAL first day

Since Monday was a bust, I was really hoping Tuesday would work out since I was teaching 5 classes in a row. It was truly a trail by fire!

After arriving about an hour early (I wasn't sure what train to take and I didn't want to be late), I walked around Frontignan trying to kill time and not be nervous. I finally went inside the school about 25 minutes early and was lead to the teacher's lounge where I put my little lunch in the fridge and had some coffee very awkardly with 2 other teachers that I wasn't working with.

Finally the time came for me to start. Boy, you would never imagine how hard it is to teach in English when the kids don't really speak it. I was told by all of the program directors to speak in English all the time, so I vowed to really only teach the class in English and really NOT use French at all. This was my lesson plan that I repeated 5 times in a row:

• I introduced myself as Miss K
• Told them I was from the US (not England as so many had guessed)
• Had kids try and guess where California was
• Taught them how to say "My Name is..."
• Played a little game where one kid went out of the room, meanwhile, we chose one kid in the room to lie about what his name was. Then the kid outside the room came in and had to ask all the other kids what their names were to find the liar. This actually proved to be very entertaining to the kids ONCE they figured out what I was trying to teach them.
• Did a little evaluation quiz game on colors, numbers, body parts, family, animals.

It turned out that the kids knew WAY more English than I expected them to. I had planned on having to teach "My Name Is..." for like the whole lesson. That only took about 15 minutes. After I ran out of the "My Name is..." game, I had to find something else to fill my time since I teach for 45 minutes at a time. So, I had kids come up to the front of the class and I quizzed their classmates on what color her shirt was, what color are her shoes, who is wearing red, how many people are up here, etc. Even though I felt like I hadn't really taught anything, this first lesson was really good for me to figure out what the kids already knew. I certainly didn't want to teach colors and numbers for 3 or 4 classes if they already knew them. It was also a good reminder for them so I didn't have to reteach them stuff they already knew but may have just forgotten over the summer.

The teachers all stayed in the classroom but at their desks or in the back of the class. They are actually required to stay in the classroom unless I specifically tell them that they can leave. It's a whole contract thing they sign so we aren't just abandoned in the class and they can help us keep control in the classroom if necessary.

Most of the classes were really good. I didn't really have any discipline problems and once the kids figured out what I was saying, they really got into it. Now, we were told over and over again to NOT speak French in class and this was to be an immersion lesson. I really took that to heart and didn't speak French in class at all. All instructions for the games were in English and you cannot even imagine how many hand gestures and ridiculous amounts of jumping up and down I did to try and get the kids to understand what I was trying to say.

I had one kid start crying because he didn't understand me, one girl colored a picture for me in my last class and generally, I think the kids really liked my lesson. It was very rewarding and EXTREMELY exhausting. I was so tired by the end of the day and couldn't really bring myself to do anything once I got home. I had to write myself a little note on each class I taught just so I would remember what we did since my brain was fried by the end of the day. I most definitely didn't expect the kids to know as much as they did and they all pretty much knew the same things even though they were 2nd-4th graders. I was pretty surprised that they knew all the basic colors, school supplies, numbers 1-12, some body parts, animals and some other random stuff when I asked what English words do you know.

It turned out that in 2 of my classes, I had one girl in each that had a British mom. They clearly already understood what I was saying and teaching and knew all the answers. Instead of feeling disappointed by that since I am not really going to teach them much this year, I have decided to use them as teacher helpers with games and such so they aren't too left out. Obviously, I can't call on them all the time since they know everything and the other kids need a chance to play and learn too.

All of the teachers were pretty cool. Some were nicer than others and all were pretty surprised that I taught the whole lesson in English. I certainly ran out of things to do by the end of the day since I had done it so many times, I didn't really want to watch them play the same game with 8 rounds, I stopped some games a little earlier than I did with other classes and really did run out of stuff with about 10 minutes to go. That was the most scary, panicky feeling when you have to fill time and you don't know what else to do. Thankfully, I just kinda continued with my little quiz game of who knows what until the time was up and I could leave.

Lunchtime is 2 hours long which would be nice if I had $$ to go out or was interested in going someplace during lunch. Instead, all of the teachers stay in the school and eat lunch which was nice so I wasn't in the staff room alone eating but 2 hours is an eternity. This is especially hard since I only work another hour and a half after lunch and then I go home. There is not much I can do about that. Everyone takes the 2 hour lunch break and most of the teachers really do sit in the staff room the whole time eating and chitchatting. I didn't really talk much (I know, I know, this is a HUGE surprise). Instead, I just listened to the other teachers who are all pretty amicable at least.

I have certainly tried to learn how to not take it personally if a game doesn't work out or if I get a lot of "deer-in-headlights" look from the kids when talking to them. I had a lot of kids just stare at me but really, once they figured out what was going on, everyone got into it. And when some kids didn't get it, the other kids would be so enthusiastically trying to help them that they would be falling out of their chairs explaining and yelling at the kids who didn't get it. My favorite was when the kid who was supposed to be lying about his name kept saying his real name and the kids in the class were like "Pierre, seriously, Don't say your real name! What's wrong with you? We have done this 3 times. How do you not get this? Just say Batman or whatever!" Having the kids teach each other is, in my opinion, one of the best things to see because then I know they really understand what they are learning.

A funny side note, popular names in my classes; Boys: Quentin, Valentin, Fabio. Girls: Oceane (which means Ocean in English). Also, when the kids were naming animals they knew in English, one kid said "green pig". I was like, what? A bunch of the other kids backed him up too. It was after talking to Dawn, she figured out that he probably meant "guinea pig".

In all, it was a pretty good day. It was rewarding, surprising and very exhausting. Thankfully, I only teach 2 days in a row at a time because otherwise, I would probably go crazy!

Your British word lesson of the day: laundrette = laundromat In a sentence: Since my roommate is too lazy/cheap to get a replacement washing machine, I had to go to the laundrette to wash all my clothes for the 2nd week in a row. (This is actually true for my apartment right now.)

My first day

My first day of teaching was a total and complete bust. Let me begin by saying that normally, on Mondays, I teach 3 classes in the afternoon at the Terres Blanches school. On Friday, when the principal called me to tell me my schedule for this week, she said that I would only get to teach one of the classes (the last one) today since the other 2 would be at the movies for God knows what reason. Anyway, I prepared for hours and days before today so as to be ready for whatever the class threw at me. I arrived very early to the school (about 45 minutes early) because the train from Montpellier to Frontignan is very infrequent and I would have been right on time otherwise which would have made me really nervous.

Anyway, after waiting around 45 minutes, I finally went in the school to find the principal so she could take me to the class and at the very least, introduce me to the teacher that I had never met. While waiting for the class time to begin (another 15 minutes), I sat outside in the chilly hallway because for whatever reason, I couldn't wait in the principal's office another 15 minutes for recess to end. Finally, class time came and we went up to the classroom. It was empty. Now, the principal had figured out that the class had gone somewhere offsite for some activity that I didn't catch and she assumed that they would be back in time. My class was supposed to be from 3:45 to 4:30pm. At about 4pm, we went back to the class and it was still empty. Finally, she had enough sense to ask one of the surrounding teachers what time my teacher and class would return. He said normally they return around 4:45pm. How nice! So, then the principal said that because of insurance reasons, I was not to be allowed off campus until my designated teaching time and that I had to stay around until 4:30pm even though that meant 25 minutes of just sitting in her office with her completely ignoring me. Finally after about 4 minutes of me just sitting there since she would only answer my questions with short, inconclusive sentences, she said I could go.

Now, when leaving, I asked if she was sure that they would be ready for me on Thursday morning at my return, and she said, well, they should be. How very, very warm and inviting, huh? Meanwhile, she at least apologized for me coming for absolutely nothing but said that it wasn't her fault and she would try and regulate it with the teacher. I said, yeah, that would be nice since I don't want to travel all the way out here (travel plus walking time is about an hour) for absolutely nothing again! As I was leaving, I asked if I was to come to her office on Thursday so she could at the very least, walk me to the classroom. She acted like it was a huge inconvenience but yes, she would do that. I mean, damn! I guess I was just too demanding. It's not like they ever gave me a tour of this school or a map or any idea of where to go.

In all, I was very disappointed in the day since I did nothing but feel really uncomfortable and unwelcome in this school. Hopefully, tomorrow, after a full day of teaching 5 classes at my other school, I will be in better spirits and I can at least post something in a positive light.

Your British word lesson of the day: tea = dinner. Tea is also used in reference to the actual drink. In a sentence: I will come over this evening but I won't stay for tea. I wouldn't want to intrude.

My schools

Just a quick update on my schools and my "tour" of schools. Here is the breakdown. I am teaching in 2 schools. One school is called "Les Terres Blanches" (white earth) and the other is called "Anatole France 2". I am teaching 5 classes in Anatole France 2 and 3 classes in Les Terres Blanches. My schedule, since I am actually only teaching 12 hours total a week, is pretty nice. I work Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings for 2 hours at Les Terres Blanches & Tuesdays and Fridays all day at Anatole France 2. Wednesdays are off for all primary schools, as well as Saturdays and Sundays. I am teaching ages 8-10. It's the equivalent to 2nd - 4th grade.

My "tour" was very lackluster and a little disappointing to be honest. My coordinator took both Marina (the Spanish girl teaching in the city near me) and myself on the tours of our schools. We went to Marina's schools first and spent about 2-1/2 hours at her 2 schools meeting all the teachers, meeting the principal and getting the full tour of the place including the staff rooms, cafeteria and copy machine. The only really scary and disappointing thing was that her schedule wasn't set so she didn't know what days or what times she was working. I had the growing suspicion that my schedule hadn't been set yet either. When we finally finished with Marina's schools, we got to mine.

On the way to my first school, we were in a little traffic accident. While waiting at a light, we got hit from behind by a scooter. It turns out that the scooter was hit from behind by a car and he, in turn, hit us. No damage was done to my coordinator's car and the guy on the scooter seemed ok so after we checked on him, we finally got to my school. My school, Anatole France 2 was really cool. Unfortunately, we got there right before lunch so the meeting was very quick and rushed. The principal was actually teaching a class so our meeting was even quicker than I could have imagined but I immediately got good vibes from her and am looking forward to being there all day on Tuesdays and Fridays. After this quick tour of the very old school, we went to Les Terres Blanches. By the time we arrived at this school, lunch was in full swing. By the way, we have 2 hours for lunch and all the students and most of the staff leaves for this lunchhour. We caught the principal right before she left for lunch so the meeting was very quick, I got no tour and basically was told that they would email me my schedule by Friday evening at some point. Finally, I received my schedule and it is as I mentioned above.

In all, the tours were barely helpful but at least I know how to walk to the schools from the train station, got to see what they looked like and at least got to meet the principals really quickly. I am trying to stay calm and actually look forward to teaching on Monday.

Your British word of the day lesson: fish fingers = fish sticks. In a sentence: Fish fingers were on sale at the grocery store today and they made a great dinner later.

Orientation day part 2

This is a little late but here you go nonetheless. On Monday, we had our final orientation day. I thought it would be helpful and it was for about an hour of the 7 hours that we were there. The first half of the day was devoted to describing the infrastructure of this program and the French school system on a whole. That was both informative and unnecessary, as we all had hoped that we would be guided through how to create a lesson plan and actually teach since most of us have never done this before.

After the hour and a half lunch break, the real information and help began. We spent an hour discussing ideas, games, how to run the class and any other suggestions from our leaders in the program. That was what I really wanted and though it was short, it did help ease my fears a bit. However, most of the "lesson" was spent reminding us that it is OUR responsibility to come up with games, figure out how to teach them and above all else, DO NOT SPEAK FRENCH IN CLASS.

We got some cool little schoolbags with schoolbooks for 2 levels of teaching (novice and intermediate level). They each had a teacher's book, student activity book, a CD and flashcards. I looked through the teacher's books and what I really wanted were games ideas since you have to do most of the teaching orally and unfortunately, games were not listed. It was mostly suggestions on what to teach: colors, numbers, clothes, body parts, simple conversations and introductions, etc. Writing is not at all stressed and not recommended for the lower levels of the primary school. Basically, I will be teaching anywhere from 1st to 4th grade. I will know on Thursday what my specific ages of each class in each school will be. FINALLY! The fact that I have not known what age I am teaching has been a huge stressor for me though most likely, I am teaching all age ranges since most of the other assistants are doing the same. So I don't really know why I was/am stressing about the age ranges in the first place. Having to teach so many levels is the scariest thing about teaching. If I could repeat the same lesson plan for all of my classes, I would be in heave. If I only had to create 2 lesson plans for each week, I would still be in the heaven. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, I will be creating tons of lesson plans because most of the classes will all be at different levels of knowledge. Therein lies the real challenge and my huge fear of the unknown.

One of the funniest things that we ran into during the training was when we were being advised on how the kids should refer to us. One of the leaders of our program suggested we have the kids call us "teacher". All of us looked at each other and we were like, "uh, I don't think so!" That's so ridiculous. I have decided to go by Miss K. They strongly discouraged the use of our first names to keep us a little more distant from the kids and continue to assert some authority. I know Kimpfbeck will be impossible and Miss Jennifer sounds really weird to me. I feel like a nanny or something if someone calls me Miss Jennifer. That or a Southern belle. I can't decide. I can't really go by Miss Jen either. Jen, when pronounced in the French fashion, translates into the verb for "to bother or annoy." I don't want to be confused as a bother or annoyance so Miss K it is. Though it does sounds rather short, don't you think? It should be known as well that we will never be alone in the class. The teacher will always be with us physically in the classroom but not up front teaching in tandem. They will just be there to supervise the class and deal with most of the disciplinary items if necessary.

My favorite part of training was looking through the flashcards, which were clearly developed by British people in 1990. The pictures were a bit silly though I am sure very good for the kids. This now leads me to your British word lesson of the day.

Your British Word Lesson of the Day: budgie = pet bird. In a sentence: I have 2 dogs, a cat and a budgie at home. (The reason that this particular British word is so funny to me is because when looking through our flashcards, I came upon the pet section. As I was flipping through all of them word-side-up, I can upon "budgie". I flipped it over and saw a bird. A little too loud, I said to Dawn, "what the f*#k is a budgie?" She looked at me like I was absolutely nuts and couldn't believe that I had never heard of using this word for "pet bird". I must add, in my defense, that other Americans were just as bewildered as I was when they came upon this word, so there!)

Aida or the weird French version of it

On Saturday, Dawn and I got to see Aida the Opera. It was good. It was really like an orchestra with opera singers in front of them. There was no stage, no set, no real lights, no real costumes...nothing. It was well sung but not at all acted. The lights were just white lights above the "stage" which was really like a lecture hall kind of stage. Don't get me wrong, for only paying like $7 for an opera, I got a good deal but it wasn't like real opera. The supertitles were in French (obviously) and way too small to read. My eyes were super strained by the intermission and I had a hard time staying focused because I could barely read the supertitles. We had great seats though. We were on the 2nd balcony on house right. Right below some great box seats. I can't really complain since I didn't pay much but I was for sure disappointed that it wasn't a spectacle like you come to expect of real opera. It was about 2 hours, 45 minutes long with another 20 minutes tacked on for bows.

This is the Opera Berlioz where we saw the show (view from the stage to the audience):

After the opera, we had a glass of wine at a cafe (very French I know and have I mentioned that wine is cheaper than getting a coke at a cafe?) and then went to Dawn's for pasta dinner (this is the 4th day in a row I have had pasta for at least one meal) and just some chatting. I got to talk to Dawn's boyfriend David on the phone today. Only because I heard his accent and I was like "ooh, boy Scottish accent, that's different from Dawn's girl Scottish accent." So she put me on the phone with him and it was so awkward. He thanked me for taking care of Dawn while she was here which was really touching.


British word lesson of the day: Scooty cream = whipped cream in a can. In a sentence: I love Scooty cream on my ice cream and even on my hot chocolate. (It should be noted that I don't think this is an actual British word but rather Scottish slang among Dawn and her friends. When asked if I could ask for "Scooty cream" in a grocery store and they would understand me, Dawn hesitated. I took that as her trying to teach me slang and trick me into embarrassing myself in a grocery store.)

Coldest night in France or My First Football Game

Last night was seriously the coldest night in Montpellier I have experienced so far. The temperature gauge said 54 degrees with the wind at 20mph at 40 degrees but I feel like it was a bold-faced lie. Even with my winter coat and hat, my poor nose was about to fall off. The wind was really the killer though.

Anyway, I went to my first professional French football (I can't say soccer here, I might get shot) game. Dawn and I got free tickets last Saturday at the Welcome to Montpellier tour. We actually got cool seats in the general admission section. Yes, people were chanting the whole time and singing. Very European indeed. Montpellier vs. Bastia was really fun. We won 2-1 so it was worth the cold.
A couple things I noticed about the football game. It is not like your typical professional game in the US. There were no snack bars, no drink stands, nothing. The bathrooms were almost non-existent even. I was a little surprised. I think that there was a bar right outside the stadium as you walk in but it looked really crowded and hard to access so we didn't go in. Besides nearly freezing to death, it was a a fun night. Next time we do not need to arrive so early. Apparently, the game didn't start til 8:30pm and we arrived at about 6:40pm. That was mistake number 1. Mistake number 2 was not bringing a blanket or warmer clothes.

Your British word lesson of the day: Tins = Cans. In a sentence: I got a tin of green beans tonight for dinner.

The program begins...

Today was our first day of orientation and it was filled with paperwork. I am trying to NOT freak out about all the administration duties of just being a non-European Union person. We have to fill out a ton of paperwork to have a visa, to have medical insurance, to have a social security number here (but for the life of me I can’t figure out what the hell for) and to get paid. We basically spent about 4 hours filling out paperwork together and getting a little information about our actual schools and dates we are working. The great news is that there is no primary school on Wednesdays so I will always have Sunday, Wednesday and Saturdays off. The bad news is that my city’s coordinator apparently couldn’t come to our orientation today so the Spanish girl Marina and I have no idea what schools we are working with, how many classes we are teaching, what days and at what times. Apparently, Vincent, our coordinator for our specific region is going to email us all of this information as well as set up a time next week for us to see and meet our school people. How nice that the guy couldn’t SHOW UP on the very first day. I have known for over 2 months that I needed to be at this first day of orientation but apparently, it wasn’t that important for my city’s coordinator. I was and still am NOT at all happy about that. While everyone else got to find out what days they work and how many schools and all that other cool stuff, Marina and I just sat there waiting for that portion of the day to be over.

Other than kind of waiting for this first day of orientation, I have not been up to much besides helping Dawn move into her new apartment and lugging 2 huge suitcases up 4 flights of spiral stairs. That was awesome and fun. Let me tell you….

Did you know that it is the norm here to have colored toilet paper? It is actually relatively difficult to find just plain old white (American) toilet paper.

Your British word of the day lesson: Tea towels = Kitchen towels. In a sentence: I have to buy some tea towels to dry the dishes.