Brussels, Amsterdam, Dad, Paris, and you're caught up finally!

Okay, I know it has been awhile since I last posted, but I have been feeling particularly lazy lately.

My trip to Brussels and Amsterdam was great! Here it is in a nutshell for your reading convenience:

BRUSSELS -
-Mussels
-Lots of GOOD beer!
-Chocolates
-Naked peeing boy (Manneken Pis)
-Waffles topped with chocolate
-Lots of hot chocolate (because it was freezing the whole time!)
-Delirium Tremens (the café - it holds the world record for numbers of beers available, which happens to be 2004 different beers!)
-Cinquantenaire - natural history museum
-Open-air bus tour (did I mention it was freezing?)
-Musical instrument museum
-Hotel complete with refrigerator (we put our food outside on the windowsill because it was THAT cold.)

AMSTERDAM -
-It was very rainy and very cold the first day, mostly rainy and still very cold the second day
-Rijksmuseum
-Dutch history museum
-Torture museum
-Anne Frank House
-Red light district
-Taking the tram too far and walking back into the city...several times.
-Really good french fries
-Everyone spoke English
-Hostel with never ending hallway (it was literally two city blocks once inside our hostel to get to the room)

Travel:
We took the train to Metz, missed the bus to Brussels (the bus left early, NEVER use Eurolines!!!), took the train to Brussels, the bus to Amsterdam (our EUROLINES bus was an hour late arriving in Brussels), then it was a grueling 10-hour bus ride from Amsterdam to Metz, - with a bus crew that spoke only Spanish because the bus was returning to Barcelona, and with an incredibly unsanitary bathroom (I have never seen so much urine at one time in my life) which made the ride quite unpleasant. Then we got into Metz an hour early (the bus immediately left after it dropped us off, so I hope no one in Metz had intended to go on to Barcelona that night - did I mention Eurolines sucks?). After that we took the train back to BLD.

And that was my vacation!

Here are the pictures:

We did go to Brussels first, not Amsterdam, but Blogspot and I don't always get along...
AMSTERDAM -
On the way to Amsterdam...In Dam Square, the Royal Palace
One of the many canals...
A very long stretch of road...this was on one of the several walks back into the city after overshooting our tram stop.
Amsterdam...
A windmill
Rijksmuseum, unfortunately this was the only sunny day and we spent the entire day inside this building. But at least now I know more about Dutch history!A photo of some pretty canal houses as evidence of the sun
BRUSSELS -


Parc van Brussel
Tin Tin saves the day!The Cinquantenaire Arch in Cinquantenaire Park

The Arch up close
Manneken Pis! ...it is a lot smaller than I expected.
Brussels from a distance...
The Atomium! ...it is HUGE.
The musical instrument museum! It is a little disappointing because the museum isn't set up very well.
Brussels...
One of many churches...
Concorde de Congrès
Delirium Tremens Café!
Julia, Scott, Scott's friend from university (in Canada, mind you) who we ran into while walking in the street in Brussels, and me in Delirium Tremens CaféLa Maison du Roi in the Grand Place
L'hôtel de ville in the Grand Place


The day after I returned, I had to go to the doctor, a mandatory step in gaining temporary French citizenship. I stupidly forgot to bring my passport, which turned out not to be a problem at all. After being asked virtually no questions regarding my health, I passed with flying colors and now I am officially a temporary French citizen!

After the break, Dad came to visit me! He rented a car and drove from Paris, which allowed us to go exploring through the countryside, which was both beautiful and fun. We ate the first night in the Ville Haute at a restaurant called La Grille de la Tour - it was here that Dad and I split a HUGE cut of beef, which they grilled over coals in the fireplace. Very good. The second day after I finished work, Dad and I drove to Paris, where we went to visit the Sainte Chapelle, ate great food, and found my birthday present - a very beautiful Waterman fountain pen. Thank you Mom and Dad! :)

Inside Sainte Chapelle
More Sainte Chapelle...More Sainte Chapelle...
Dad and I in front of Notre Dame de Paris

This last week, I went to visit my third school, which I start working in tomorrow. And I finally got my fourth school as well. This bumps me up to 10 hours a week! When people ask me what I do with my free time, I really have no answer...I guess I draw/paint and watch movies. Occasionally I read. It is really a life of excitement and danger - but at least it is in French. Today I did my laundry, which entails me paying WAY too much money to inhale second hand smoke while I wait. Exciting, I know.

This past weekend was fun, I went with Thierry and his friends to a karaoke bar, where I "sang" in French and English (Why yes I did sing bohemian rhapsody to the French public). Saturday night, was a crémaillère for Fabrice, a.k.a. a house-warming party. It was a lot of fun, with lots of pasta carbonara for dinner and an amazing apple tart made by Hélène for dessert. It went late into the night/morning, and I definitely took a nap yesterday.

Here are a few of the highlights:


Nicolas is proving to us that he is indeed French.
Thierry, making a funny face as instructed.
Maxim, Fabrice's son, taking a moment away from shooting nazis to demonstrate his face-making skills.
The crewEnter: the wig.
Fabrice
Julie
Thierry!


So that is what has been going on lately, I will try not to be as lazy and keep you better updated from now on!

My First Real French Dinner Party!

So the other night, I went out for drinks with a colleague from école Edmond Laguerre named Thierry, because he wanted a chance to practice his English. After an hour of talking, he invited me to a dinner party he was going to at his friend's house in Louppy-le-Chateau...a town 20 minutes North of BLD by car. His roommate Julie drove, and we met up with their friends Hélène and Nicolas and one other man whose name escapes me at the moment.

The dinner was great, we had wild boar that had been shot by Nicolas' father who apparently likes to hunt, with mashed potatoes and homemade bread...YUM! They were very welcoming, when we sat down at the table, they immediately asked me what swear words I know in French. After answering, they 'filled in the blanks' of my vocabulary for me. The conversation was great all night, mostly in French, with a few sentences in English here and there, for both their benefit as well as mine. They had me try several different types of alcohol, including a Portugese white wine, orange liquor with beer, vodka mixed with homemade apple cider (SO tasty!) and two VERY nice, apparently expensive bottles of bordeaux (this was hands down one of the best wines I have ever had) - they opened 2 of the 3 bottles they had for "soirée Kathryn" - and I also tried a liquor named Suze. NEVER drink this!!! Its original purpose was to numb your mouth at the dentist!

After dinner, Nicolas brought out his electric guitar, and asked me to play what songs I knew...which is the three-note base line from 'Louie Louie'. So I played it, and everyone joined in singing and clapping to it. Then Nicolas taught me how to play 'Come as you Are' by Nirvana, and of course, 'Smoke on the Water' by Deep Purple. After that, out came the microphone and karaoke! Thierry and I wailed out a song by Celine Dion, and Knockin' on Heaven's Door, but unfortunately as I am sick at the moment and we were singing as loud as we could, my throat hurt too badly and I had to stop. We had coffee and talked for a long time, the party ended a little after 3, then Julie drove us home.

We discovered that Julie and I have a birthday a week apart, and they decided that a joint birthday party is in order! I will post again after I get back from my trip, we leave early tomorrow for Brussels, Bruges, and Amsterdam!

Thierry gave me all of the photos of the party today, so here are a few of my new friends!

Me, Thierry, Hélène, Nicholas, and Fabrice
Me, Julie, Hélène, Nicholas, and Fabrice
Thierry and Nicholas
Me and one of the puppies!
Nicholas...
Nicholas and I...

Hélène and Thierry...Me and the all of the suggestions of drinks to taste. The brown bottle is the Suze. DO NOT DRINK THIS!

An Update...

Things are going quite well here, my classes are getting easier to handle now that I am becoming more consistent about disciplining the students when they don't behave. This week we are focusing on the alphabet, counting, and colors. At the beginning of the week I was grilled on being American by two of my classes; questions included -
Have you ever met Micheal Jackson, Obama, or Clinton?
Do they have Subarus and Ferraris in the States?
Do they have Pokemon in the States? this lead into a discussion about favorite pokemons which lasted way too long
Do we have tornados, sharks, whales, dolphins, snow, etc. in the States?
Am I planning on going home every weekend to see my parents?


The most fun thing to explain to the students is that while we are all in class, my friends and family are all sleeping on the other side of the world. It gets them everytime!

So Cait, the assistant from Commercy, came to visit, so we further explored BLD and I have more pictures for you. Enjoy!

La Tour de l'horlage...built in the 1600's
La ville haute and the Renaissance quarter, the oldest part of BLD
un église in the ville haute, the name I don't remember
Our room that we use exclusively for defrosting chicken or drying our laundry.
The hours of masses at the churches. Mass rotates between churches, and they are all only open during mass hours. We want to go in the churches, so we're planning on attending mass...that's how they get you.
Paus Café, on the Bld de la Rochelle...best crepes EVER. My personal favorite is chorizo sausage with chevre and crème...
Can you say YUM?
Cait and I in the gazebo at the parc de l'hotel de ville...we learned all sorts of dirty words from the graffiti on the inside.
I smelled something very foul, and Julia happened to be taking a photograph at the exact time I turned around... that is the tour de l'horlage behind me.
The chateau at BLD
A poorly pieced together panorama of BLD
Panorama complete with hopefully visible labels for your convenience...
Me kickin' it with Napoleon's army...these guys were awesome.
Scott (the canadian assistant), Cait, and I on the Bld de la Rochelle...
The home in which Pierre Michaux, co-inventor of the bicycle peddle was born (1813)...The other inventor being his brother. This is BLD's main claim to fame...

La Nuit Blanche in Pictures

Okay, here are the pictures, in better order than last time!

Kat, the other American assistant.
Julia, the German assistant and I
The Seine from Pont Neuf
Our wonderful pub...which was so crowded inside that moving through it was physically impossible.
Julia and I on Pont Neuf, with the blue (?) Eiffel Tower in the background...

Note the time...Me... tired, a little drunk, walking through the Metro. I was very ready to sit down.
Waiting...
These are some of the singers of Hakuna Matata...
Note the chocolate spilled everywhere...including into my water which is now brown.
They were gone.
Martini Rosato! ...so good!
Julia and I - and one of my bottles of wine...
Us in the alley outside the pub!

La Nuit Blanche - a long post for a long night.

We are still recovering from La Nuit Blanche, which is a night of contemporary art installations and free concerts that go all night long across Paris...a.k.a., an excuse to drink in public!

5 pm-10 pm
The other American assistant Kat and the German assistant Julia and I took the train to Paris in the evening on Saturday, found some dinner (I really do eat liver at any chance I get now), and began to drink as cheaply as possible. This means after we each splurged and had a Leffe Brune (delicious but 5 Euros each), we decided to go to Monoprix and buy bottles of wine. Luckily, Kat had studied abroad for a year in Paris, and thought to bring a corkscrew.

11 pm - 2 am
The streets were packed with thousands of people, all of whom had some form of alcohol with them. We wandered around for awhile then settled in a very tiny densely packed alley outside the Frog and Princess Pub, where we sipped wine and talked for 3 hours.

Our people watching was very entertaining, and we came up with labels for most of the people. GIA = Gay In America, which refers to how stylish the straight men here are. TDH = Tall, Dark and Handsome, TDNSH = Tall, Dark, and Not-So-Handsome, etc. We met a very TDH man who was disappointed to find out our train left in 5 hours, so we did not end up hanging out with him and his friends who left when the bar closed.

2 am - 5 am
We then found a bar that had outside heaters, so we sat drinking outside for 3 hours with our French friends, two older women and and ex-boyfriend of theirs. Apparently I am much better at French when I have been drinking, because we talked almost the entire time and they understood and even complimented my French! Here we all had a wonderful experience with quite possibly the most disgusting bathroom any of us had ever had the misfortune to have to use.

5 am - 5:45 am
From the bar we took a lengthy, staggering walk from the bar all the way to the Metro (being tipsy, we decided a walk would do us good so we should just walk to a Metro stop that was much further away than was necessary). During this walk, I was picking up the rear behind my friends, when while crossing a crosswalk, a drunk man light-heartedly decided to pick me up and carry me for a ways, but because he was walking in the opposite direction and I was behind everyone, it took a moment for my friends to realize I was being swept away. Both the drunk man and I were having a laugh about it, and he set me down only a few feet later. We made it to the Metro and sat down to wait for the first train of the day, a total of 7.5 km walked throughout the night.

5:45 am - 10:30 am
We caught the first Metro train, along with lots of other drunk French people, who were smoking cigarettes on the train and singing Hakuna Matata in French the entire ride, which because we had walked so far, was almost the entire line. We got off at Gare de l'Est, and unfortunately our train was not until 8, and it was only a little after 6 and no food places were open yet. So we sat down on the floor and I slept for half an hour, then the food places opened and we were able to eat a croissant, spill a lot of hot chocolate (not alcohol related, the floors are marble and water had spilled, creating a very slippery surface), and I fell back asleep until 15 minutes before our train left. Kat and Julia slept on the train but I couldn't, and then we had to take a "navette" which is a tiny bouncy bus from the train station into BLD, which, after a night of drinks, is a very nauseating experience. We got home, showered, and went to bed at 10:30 am.

All in all, it was 26 sleepless hours, 12 of them spent drinking and walking, we heard very little music and only made it to a couple of the art installations, but we met lots of people and had a great time. Now we're in Chez MacDo once again, surprisingly not hung over at all!

First Day of Teaching

Today was my first day of classes at l'Ecole Edmond Laguerre. Wow.

I taught two classes today, one of students 10-11 years old, who have had 2 years of English, and one first year class of 8-9 years. The more advanced class was fun, the children respected me as their teacher even though I told them simply to address me as Kate. I was basically thrown in with no real idea of what to do...so I used some of the pictures I have been drawing to have them say basic sentences. Also, my classroom is the school's library, so I have 8 desks for 15 students, and no chalk/white board. I am going to have to remedy this somehow, because all of the students who sat on the floor had a difficult time paying attention.

The younger class was frustrating, to say the least. Afterward, the teacher informed me she had not explained what she wanted me to do well enough and apologized, apparently she could hear me yelling at the students to be quiet and sit down from her classroom! Tomorrow I go back and teach the other half of the classes (I teach half of the normal class each time).

At recess, a small boy came up to me dragging a girl behind him, and informed me in French that she had called him ugly. Not knowing exactly what to say, I told her that that word is not nice and should never be used. I think the boy was disappointed with her "scolding"...but oh well.

It is raining here, every few hours it downpours...no fun. This weekend I am going to Paris for the "nuit blanche" with my other assistant friends, the plan is to go Saturday afternoon, stay out all night, and take the first train back in the morning...we shall see how that goes!