Germany - Life Is No Pony Ranch

Tuesday, December 21st 2010

 Things I love about Heidelberg:

1. Steffi
2. Everyone is really, really nice
3. The castle
4. All-you-can-eat breakfast buffets
5. Steffi
6. Biking in the snow
7. Hot wine
Things I don't care for:

1. The weather

This is funny, because apparently Heidelberg is known for getting the most sun in Germany, yet my entire stay here has not seen a single ray of light. I arrived on a cloudy day and have seen nothing but since.

The first day I finally went out to actually see Germany, it was snowing so thickly that I saw nothing but flashes of snowflakes before they found permanent residence in my eyes. I was also biking with Steffi in this weather, meaning that I was blinking the bits of snow out of my eyes a fair amount more than they were open. It was remarkable how many people were out biking in this weather. They also have traffic lights for bikes just like they do for cars.

While Steffi was taking her last exam, I walked along the river to the old bridge, admiring the beautiful homes along the way.

Walking along the river

Some fancy homes along the river

The old bridge that leads to downtown.
The castle is in the middle hidden by fog.

That night, we had delicious lemon chicken with rice for dinner at her apartment with two of her flatmates, where they spoiled me with English and hot wine and an overall great time.

All I need to say about the next morning: All-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. It was also here that I learned that the color of my dirty blonde hair in German translates as “Street-dog blonde.” I love this place.

While it was rather dreary and rainy day, it was oddly fitting for going to see the Heidelberg castle, which is mostly in ruins but quite beautiful. I felt like I had walked back in time, walking through the mist and looking over at the city down below with the old church sticking up in the middle, the surrounding hills not entirely visible because of the clouds, a slightly gloomy feel to everything because of the semi-darkness.

The Heidelberg Castle and view of the Old Town

We walked around in the old town and the main street was probably my favorite – it and the people contrasted enormously with the gray, dull weather: the buildings were various shades of red and yellow, green and blue and purple, orange and white and pink...the people were a swirl of colors as well, with some actually carrying rainbow umbrellas, others with bright blues and yellows and reds. As much as I love France and its various shades of soft blues, greens and grays, the brightness of Heidelberg really does something to lift your spirit. 

Old Town

Love,

Katie

Wednesday, December 22nd 2010

Steffi and I arrive by train in Schwabisch Hall around 4 or 5pm where her mom and their 13-year-old brother, Christian, greet us at the station. Her mother gives me a hug and bisous's and I can instantly tell she's wonderful. Christian mumbles hello and then buries himself in his jacket so he doesn't have to speak more English. I've always wanted a little brother!

We wait for Carolin's train to arrive from Konstanz, and not too long after she arrives, and it's great to see her in “her” environment. What I mean is that I got to know her in English in America over 5 months, and I felt like I got to know her pretty well, but now there is a different air about her, seeing her completely at ease and comfortable because there are no possibilities of cultural missteps. I suppose I'm a bit more like how she was in the US now being abroad here, where you automatically act a bit more polite and a bit more cautiously, as you're not entirely sure how things work and are aware of how much easier it is to make one of these cultural missteps. They're typically small and relatively uninteresting, but to the foreigner, any form of embarrassment is magnified ten-fold, as you think it sticks out a great more deal than it actually does. This explains why a handful of my French friends thought me to be shy in the beginning when in fact I was just pretty nervous and it manifested in shyness as I wasn't willing to speak nearly as often, preferring to listen a more until I was more used to things.

Anyway, after hugs were exchanged, we drove to their home in Westheim, a small village of 3,000 just outside of Schwabisch Hall. It was dark during the drive so I couldn't see much of anything outside, but the inside of their home was cozy and warm and beautiful, and Mrs. Klose made me feel at home immediately, serving us home-cooked chili that tasted anything like the chili I've had back home (which is very little) because it was not heavy at all, rather, light and fresh with lots and lots of vegetables. We then had hot wine with a plate of Christmas treats and played a board game where the goal is to build railways connecting major cities in the US. I did the worst.

The Klose family! (save Mr. Klose)

The railways we built. Mine is the green-
lost in circles in the mid-west...

It's good to be here.

Love,

Katie

Thursday, December 23rd 2010

I got up around 8:30 the next morning and had a wonderful breakfast of coffee and fresh-baked bread from the bakery, with all sorts of jam and honey to try on it. It was a wonderful, relaxing day. I knitted Carolin's Christmas scarf (which could no longer stay a surprise if it wanted to get finished before the new year...) while she croched and Steffi and Christian alternately held and entertained Louis, their nephew who is about 7 months old. Steffi tried to read “A Short History of Everything” to Louis in English in her lap, but all he wanted to do was eat the book so it didn't really work out.

Steffi and Louis

Later that day we went into Schwabisch hall, and it was still just light enough to see it was quite picturesque, with old buildings lining the river that ran through it.

Schwabisch Hall

I was giddy, hopping around with excitement while the others just walked on towards the stores like it was just any other day in an ordinary place, which I guess makes sense since it is to them, but every little thing was special and new and interesting to me. I kept up a string of exclamations such as What's that?! Look at that!! Oh la la! Look at that building! for a while, which everyone found amusing.

Shopping downtown

We shopped for some last-minute presents and bought some wool and later that evening Carolin taught us all how to crochet (or re-taught, as I techinically learned a long time ago from my Mimi). We were all in a crochet-trance for the rest of the evening, sitting in the living room with the whole family and doing nothing but crocheting for hours while her dad watched an American movie in German on TV. At midnight, Carolin and I had finished a whole hat and the others were really close. It was time for bed though.

I don't really like my hat.

Love,

Katie

Friday, December 24th 2010


Note to self: Never, ever give a whistle to a 4-year-old for any reason. Ever.

Note to self #2: If ever peeved at anyone in the future, give their children whistles.

I have just met Carolin and Steffi's other nephew, Carlo, who is 4 and blowing non-stop on a whistle. It's kind of cute, for about 3 seconds, and then it's not cute. He and Nina, Carolin and Steffi's half-sister, live upstairs with the rest of their family and have stopped by to say hello. Actually I'm not sure what she stopped by to say as I don't speak German, so maybe they were talking about Jupiter or The Beatles, I don't know.

It's another really relaxing day where we all do practically nothing but crochet and read. We have pea soup and bread for lunch and then get back to the serious business of crocheting and reading.
Christmas Eve in Germany is basically the day to celebrate Christmas with your immediate family, so today is the big day, despite a rather normal start to the morning and afternoon. Turns out, presents are opened at night, and after church, which is at 4pm. They are Protestant, and the service is a play of The Christmas Story mixed with songs that I attempted to sing, and was grateful that nobody could hear me over the music.
Church has never been my thing. I don't like it, and I mean no disrespect to those who do. It turns out it's no different in Germany or a Protestant church, as a friendly elbow to the ribs from Carolin tells me, since I've let the 'o' in “Gloria” turn into a big yawn and have consequently stopped singing. I think to myself how this would be great language practice for someone learning German, though.

The play is cute, though it was slightly unsettling for a moment to see a 9-year-old girl playing Mary with a big pillow-pregnant belly. They're acting out the story and I can't help laughing along with the rest when they toss baby Jesus roughly into bed, blanket covering his face. A sheepish Mary reacts to the laughter by trying to make him a bit more comfortable by rearranging his blankets. Another forgets his lines, there's awkward and panicked glances among the children, someone remembers the lines, and the show goes on. The man in front of me in the pews is holding a young toddler, who won't stop staring at me, so I point the nativity scene to get him to turn around, whispering, “Look! It's Jesus!” and of course he doesn't look, so I stick out my tongue, and then have to hold in my laughter as I realized I just played out a scene exactly from a rather hilarious movie, as you can see here:

We then go home and sing Christmas carols while Mrs. Klose plays the guitar and Christian plays the French horn, while I butcher the lyrics again.

We have raclette again for dinner, and I'm convinced I need to own one of these in the future.

Christmas dinner with my German family :)

Racelette - meats with cheese and vegetables to create your own meal.

We then play games. I love games. I've never seen as many games in my life as I've seen in the Klose household. There is a stack on a chair upstairs and a cupboard stuffed full downstairs, with the odd game lying here or there. We play a couple that don't really require a language, so they're mainly card games, and that is okay with me. My favorite is Phase 10, mostly because I do the best at first, but it's also just a cool game overall.

There are so many little things like this that I want to remember, whether it's a new game or meal or even habit. This is one of the reasons why I love traveling so much; you see the way people do essentially the same thing but in different ways, and you can choose for yourself what you like best. Do you want to continue eating cereal with toast for breakast? Or did you like the toasted baguette with chopped tomatoes and oil, salt and pepper from Spain better? Or did you prefer the pretzel croissant with butter and honey and jam, or the roll with swiss cheese and salami from Germany? I could use a change from the baguette and butter in France, though I'm not complaining.
I feel like I am constantly creating a mental list in my head of things to try to remember forever, which often feels futile as there's too much, too many little things, to remember. Maybe I should start keeping it here and consolidate it from time to time?

Lifelong List of Things to Remember:

• Acquire more board games. Preferably from garage sales or Salvation Army. Check to make sure there are all the pieces. Play regularly (Germany)
• Go hiking at least once a week (France, Switzerland)
• Go on a walk, even a short one, at least once after lunch or dinner (Germany)
• Previously described Spanish breakfast (...Spain)
• Eat fruit for dessert (France and Germany)
• RACLETTE! Own one! (Germany)

We have over a foot of snow here.

Mr. Klose, “I live here 27 years, never see snow this much.”

In retrospect, I probably should've helped Mrs. Klose
shovel the driveway instead of taking a picture of it...

Lucky me!
Love,

Katie



Germany - "Beautifulness!"

For the Christmas holidays I will be visiting my friend Carolin and her family in Germany! Here is a map of where I'll be travelling (starting with Besancon). as I will first spend 4 days in Heidelberg with her twin sister Steffi, then a week in Schwabisch Hall with their family, then New Year's in Konstanz with Carolin.

You can zoom in/out to get a better look:


View Germany Trip in a larger map

I left Besancon with the two German language assistants who live near or in Heidelberg, and arrived around 3:30pm to couchsurf with Daniel, a German student studying law here.

Daniel was incredibly welcoming - he took my suitcase up a few flights of stairs for me and I was immediately comfortable with him, but perhaps it was the Australian accent (he just got back from a year of studying abroad there). But no really, he was incredibly friendly from the start. He and I drank some sort of bubbly apple juice for a couple hours while we talked and exchanged stories, and he and his two flatmates answered my plethora of questions about Germany during dinner whilst eating raclette; an impossible-to-describe sort of mini-oven where you make little plates of food and put it inside of the thing to cook, and while you wait you have a bit of a chat.

I asked them to tell me about Germans since I knew/know virtually nothing about Germany, and we had a great evening discussing and trading cultural tid-bits that ended in me watching them play some pretty competitive darts for 30 minutes and the movie "The Departed," which was surprisingly good.

After a wonderful morning of sleeping in, we had what I like to think is German toast with German jelly/syrup, and Daniel and his flatmate were incredibly kind and gave me a ride to Steffi's apartment (Carolin's twin sister whom I've never met). We got a bit turned around, but finally we saw her waiting outside and it was really bizarre seeing and talking to her for the first time as she looks and talks and even acts like Carolin, but isn't, but we hit it off wonderfully and had a great laugh at the fact that she knew Daniel's flatmate. Small world!

I am now enjoying the beautifulness of Steffi's hospitality and the new usage of the word "beautifulness" that I learned while she was translating a German poem for me while cleaning dishes together after a late lunch/early dinner. If she reads this though, she might throw another pillow at me for continuing to mention it...

Her apartment is so charming and her room is big and orange and red with all the signs of someone who has lived and actually nested somewhere, which brings me such a warm and cozy feeling at the same time that I feel a pang of tiny sadness that I can't exactly nest at this time, but I didn't harp over it and instead spent a wonderful afternoon drinking coffee with Steffi, exchanging stories and laughing at a hundred little nothings. She is as warm and kind and funny as her sister and I feel so grateful to know them both.

I alreadly feel like I've known her as long as Carolin, though our stories are only just beginning, and it's beautifulness :)

I'm currently enjoying a warm cup of Christmas tea in an overly large Starbucks mug in a cozy orange chair under soft and cozy yellow lights with the cozy smell of cinnamon coming from a cozy red candle, and I don't mind for a moment that I've been in Germany two days and have seen virtually nothing of Germany yet...I feel like I've snuck into the lives of those I've met here in this midst of their living normally, and I'm experiencing a kind of happiness and excitement that has nothing to do with big castles or old historic towns or hot wine. It's about people, always has been and always will be.

Still gonna see the castle, though.

Love and beautifulness,
Katie

The result of a month's frustration

Okay.

Imagine an alien journalist from the not-planet Pluto who was assigned to write about his experience to the planet Earth. He's so stoked! He starts a blog. The first entry is something like, “Wow! It's so blue and green and there are billions of people to meet!” It wasn't too hard to write, it was interesting and easy for his fellow Pluto-ians to read, and he was happy to write it.

Now imagine his assignment for the second blog is to describe everything in detail – the countries, the people, the topography, and all the knowledge that exists on Earth. He isn't looking as forward to that entry, so he keeps putting it off, but each moment he does so he learns enough to write a hundred more pages...and ladies and gentleman, this is a somewhat exaggerated and entirely unnecessary description of how I feel right now trying to figure out where to start and where to end up in this blog post, because my life has grown by such large amounts that leaving out any details would feel blasphemous, yet trying to include them all would result in dozens of newly-created and slightly incomprehensible adjectives from yours truly in an effort to justly describe my life here.

If I ever write a book one day, I think I could rightly entitle it, “Run-On Sentence.”

I have been here two months and two weeks. Or has it been a day? Or ten years? Depending on the day, it can feel like either.

To my credit, “BLOG!!!!!!” has been at the top of the last 17 or so to-do list's I've made.

Notice how I'm not-so-subtley talking about everything and anything not-blog-worthy.

Okay. Let's just keep it simple for once and go with the direct approach:

A Typical Tuesday in Real Time

5:30am - Wake up. Very grudgingly, mind you.

5:31am - Small victory as feet meet slippers.

5:45am – Drink greasy coffee from ancient coffee machine, chew cereal, stare out balcony window feeling slightly grumpy.

6:20am – Realize I have 5 minutes to do 15 minutes worth of stuff because I over-enjoyed coffee.

6:26am – Leave apartment at brisk pace to make 6:33 bus.

6:27am – Slip on ice because of brisk pace.

6:33am – Barely make bus. Stare out window for 11 minutes.

6:44am – Wait at corner in ugly part of town to carpool with Nathalie, one of the English professors at my school.

6:51am – Commence 45 minute drive to school, which turns into 1 hour 15 due to fresh snow on roads.

8:06am – Arrive at school. Spend 24 minutes making copies and putting last touches on lesson. I have 6 classes today (compared to the two I normally I have on Mondays and zero on Wednesdays, as I never work Wednesdays).

8:30am to noon – First three classes. All sorts of success this morning. Marie stayed after first hour to ask in an adorably thick French accent if “You uhhh...stay for uhh... always? Beecuhz uhh... I like yoo!” with the sweetest embarrassed smile and emphasis in all the wrong places, making for a warm and fuzzy teacher feeling. Continue riding on this happy wave as Hugo stays after second hour for the second time to talk about studying in the US, asking questions and impressing me with his English. Third hour was pretty standard; they're chatty but they enjoy my quirkiness, which is rare as most classes don't understand enough English to understand I'm being quirky.

12:00-1:00pm – LUNCH! Also known as the time I sit in the cantine among real teachers feeling slightly inadequate and embarrassed of my French, which sounds much less French when my mouth is full of baguette and cheese. Today there were fancy desserts brought out from kitchen staff because apparently an important person was supposed to come, and I don't know if they did or not, but I do know I (and most of the teachers) ate 4 tarts/little cakes/almond thing/cream puff followed by a cup of awful coffee, which almost tastes less awful when you discuss its awfulness with others, who gulp it down with a grimace.

1:01pm – Regretting the tarts and coffee. Too much energy, too little stomach space.

1:01 to 2:00pm – No class; odds and ends, chat with Aurelie (another English teacher and my personal savior, as she's been sort of in charge of me before and during my time here and has helped me out enormously).

2:00 to 5:30pm – Last three classes. Much less successful. After the second one, a student told me they had already had this lesson with another teacher. It was the same with the last class, though nobody told me. Turns out the next class would've been the same too, but I had a few minutes to hastily put something else together. They're at such different levels that by the end of the third class I had the impression it was dead boring for several students because it was too easy, while a girl in the back (who copied two full pages of notes) lets me know she didn't understand a single thing, making the more advanced students roll their eyes, while I sadly clutch my piece of purple chalk and wish the board would erase itself.

5:31pm – Reflect on the insanity that is the life of a teacher, and I'm just an assistant and only two months deep into the experience.

5:32pm – Tell me 5:31pm-self to shut up and remember the first part of the day was good and that I'm silly if I expect there to ever be any form of consistency in this job.

5:33 to 5:54pm – Respond frantically to as many emails as possible while waiting for Nathalie to drive back.

6:00 to 6:47pm – A comfortable drive back in the dark – the roads are much better – discussing the highlights of our day, switching from French to English as fluidly as a ping-pong ball bounces back and forth across a table. These days I literally have no idea what language will come out of my mouth when I open it.

6:47pm – Dropped off at bus stop, wait for bus.

6:53pm – Flag down bus. Get on, sit down.

6:54pm – Daydream about bagels.

7:05pm – Get off bus. Walk home at not-brisk pace.

7:10pm - Climb 5 flights of stairs. Think about how this is why French people aren't fat.

7:25pm – Eat dinner of pasta and ham, couscous, grated carrots. Cheese, check. Semi-stale baguette, check. Chocolate for dessert, duh. Check check check.

8:00pm to midnight – Go downstairs. Hang out with Alberto. Watch “Into the Wild.” Makes me want to go into the wild. Reflect on impulsiveness.

Midnight – Look at the knitting thrown all about my bed, begging to be finished before Saturday. Decide against it. Sleep.

I love and miss you all,

Katie

PS: I'm going to Germany for 2 weeks this Saturday!

Blog Backup

October 15th 2010
THERE'S POOP EVERYWHERE.

Well, on the sidewalks at least. Which, you know, are just about on every street. Which, as you may know, are just about everywhere. French people like little dogs but not the little presents they leave behind, it appears.

This makes for a fun sidewalk dance, though. Instead of walking, you're half-looking at what's in front of you and half-protecting the bottom of your poopless-so-far shoes, resulting in a sort of poop-hop-walk-dance. When you're walking with someone trying to have a conversation, it's something I wish I could bottle up and save for a rainy day, it's so funny. For example, this morning Clara and I were trying to have a heart-to-heart on the way to the bus stop. We were trying to explain to each other our hopes and challenges for our experience here, but it was awkwardly interrupted as Clara actually pulled me to her side of the sidewalk in a saving-me-from-stepping-in-poo-hug, because I dared to take my eyes off the ground for a moment. She's such a hero (and at least I got some form of a hug).
Life is getting cozy here. The other night, we invited our neighbors Ivan (from Spain) and Matiec (from Poland) to have dinner with us, and you forget after a few minutes that nobody's speaking their native tongue and you're laughing at grammatically-incorrect jokes and all the hand gestures that go along with them to make up for the vocabulary that we all don't know. We're becoming a little multicultural family in our bare-bones salmon-pink/speckled apartment, though Clara and I bought a tablecloth today! I feel so domestic.

French food actually makes sense. Every meal I eat consists of 2 or 3 sides, a main dish, bread and cheese and always a dessert, and the reason you get so much is because everything is small or moderately portioned. I was told by the Spanish professor where I work that I “eat in a very curious manner” because I would eat a little of everything, and in no particular order. Once I started paying attention, it turns out you start with one of the sides, THEN move on to the main dish (and the side it's served with) THEN the cheese and bread, THEN the dessert. For fun I'm trying to mimic this as well, and now I feel like I go on a little food adventure every time I sit down to eat, because I find I get really excited when I get something else to move onto. So I'm practicing patience every time I eat, not jumping to the bread like I always want to, or mixing the sides and main dish. Dessert it about ten times better now because of this simple little process. I'm practically giddy by the time I get my chocolate mousse.

Speaking of chocolate mousse – just about everything in France is a LOT more expensive than in America, EXCEPT chocolate mousse! I found myself standing in front of a WALL of it at the grocery store, and everything was just a dollar or two.
Laundry's done bye!

Love,
Katie


Saturday, October 16th 2010

I broke the law today!

But, I did it in the best way possible: Today I climbed over the French alps into Switzerland, though technically illegally since I do not yet have my visa validation.

I set off with a group of French and foreign exchange students on a chilly morning from a tiny little town, where we spent more time looking at the ground to avoid the cow poo than up at the so-called alps, so-called because they were so swallowed in clouds that we could have been climbing a mountain or the stairs to heaven.

Turns out, we were climbing to the first snow of the season. Not 10 minutes into our soggy trudging did the flakes start to fall. Far from being a bad thing, I felt like I was in a snowglobe and it was really quite magical. In every direction, everything is softened by the fog and snow and feels utterly unreal.

At the summit!

We spent the next 6 hours hiking over and then back across the Swiss border, but not before I made a friend, Noemie, who also had to pee so badly that we both took the first chance we had to dash in the woods, only to re-emerge in our own little personal world of white, with no idea where the rest of the group went. I didn't panic or anything.

“MARCOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed.

…

K, no big deal. Just lost in the alps where it's snowing and you can't see more than a few dozen yards in any direction...

“Mar....co?” I try again.

…

We decide to hike a ways in the direction we were going, but as there are no trails (we had a guide) we don't have a clue if we're close or not.

So, thinking it better to stop, we yell out a few more times, and while I'm contemplating the nearest cow pie to pass the time, we finally hear some noise, hike toward it, and are sucked back up in the pack like nothing scary at all happened. However, peeing and then getting lost in the woods on a mountain in the snow is kind of like an instant recipe for friendship, so Noemie and I are bonded now and spend the next few hours becoming best friends and set up a day that we're going to meet from now on where I'll help her with English and she'll help me with French. She's awesome.

This place is magical.

SOMEONE HUG ME!

Sunday, October 10th 2010

Living in France for me is like a buying and wearing a brand new pair of shoes...sort of.

Imagine you've been waiting for your shoes to come in the mail, as you bought them off Ebay, of course, and every day you wonder what they'll look like in real life, how they'll match your outfits, who will notice them, and so on. You are very excited and anxious to wear them.

They arrive, and you are overwhelmed with their shoe-beauty, and put them on right away. For a brief period, all is well and you go out to strut your stuff, only to find several minutes is all is takes for them to cause you extreme discomfort, and you go through phases of wanting to return them to hoping they break in soon so you can stop being in so much pain. You wonder if they're worth it sometimes.

Shoe analogy!

Regardless of where I go or for how long, the first week is always the most difficult, no matter how great things can be, and I did indeed have a great first week. But, just like the shoes, you have to wear in the new life (or lifestyle) you've chosen so that it's a bit more comfortable, so that every time you move, you're not wishing to just go back to the old pair of loafers you're used to, because those loafers are great and comfortable for around the house, but they sure aren't going to get you far once you leave home. For me, sticking to what is comfortable will not allow me to get to where I want to be nor have the kind of experiences that I want.

It's a dangerous thing, comfort. As nice as it is, it can hold you back if you let it. Of course this depends entirely on who we are, what we want and where we are in our life, but as for me, I want to punch comfort in the face and get past it. Sure, I'd like it eventually, and I will apologize most sincerely to it later on when I want it back. But for now, craving the comfort of familiarity and for what I'm used to will get me nowhere.

That's not to say that 12 days into my life in France that I don't still feel the pull of it when I don't know where to buy hangers or when I don't know how to use kilograms. That's not to say that when I'm lost downtown that I don't wish for the the familiarity of my hometown streets, or when I don't know how the bus system works that I don't wish for the comfort of my car. But, it's my choice to let this bring me down or not as it has in the past, and this time, I'm doing better, and will be much better for it.

These small details are individually no great matters, yet when virtually every detail like this changes and you have to re-learn them all, it can feel like spikes have been places on the inside of your shoes and sometimes we want to stop walking.

I may have run a bit far with this one (haha, get it?) but the point is that I feel as though I've walked far enough to where this life is starting to feel more comfortable, albeit some blisters, and I'm starting to feel at home here. I've re-learned many of the little details that we take for granted, and I've made some great friends to help me along the way. Things are coming together little by little, and I'd say I'm wearing in this life pretty good so far.

Besides, can't return this pair of shoes.

- -

Tuesday, October 12th

I guess I should talk about some real events in this post.

I started working at my high school yesterday, which was like a cocktail of disaster and tequila...if there's really a difference between the two.

Slight exaggeration aside, it was truly just 1 out of 5 classes that was terrible, the other 4 consisted mostly of politely bored French teenagers. There were a handful of exceptions, consisting mostly of the students who came to my new English Club and enthusiastically asked about McDonald's and fat people in the United States.

Anyway, my schedule is fairly complicated, but I teach 12 individual classes a week, which alternate; there's week A and week B, so I'm meeting quite a lot of new students (there are typically 10-12 in each class of mine). However, after this first month, my entire schedule changes again, though it goes until the end of my work here, which is in mid-April. I still don't entirely understand why...

Well, once again, nothing worthwhile comes easily, and I repeat this to myself when I'm wondering why people even bother trying to teach teenagers at all. It's like locking a hundred angry bees into a small room with a good-intended human who would like to make them stop buzzing. Basically you just end up stung, but if you're lucky, you get some honey to take home.

Turns out, a combination of English slang and PowerPoint presentation's with interesting pictures can distract them long enough so that you're just occasionally swatting at them distractedly as you teach all the others “What's up?” because that, apparently, is much cooler than, “How are you?” I'm learning.

I'm only onto day 2 now and I think that not only will every day be incredibly different, but every class will vary hour to hour. One bad bee and you're stung and swollen which can affect you for the rest of the day, causing you to not to give your best to the other bees. Of course, having a good attitude and not letting this happen is like having an epipen, or whatever they're called...need to buy one of those...

The staff in general are friendly, and the English teachers are especially great and wonderfully helpful. Les Haberges is a rather small school, with about 800 students, in a rather small city of about 20,000, but it's pleasant and I'm learning the ropes and hoping to establish good rapports with everyone, especially with the students. It's one of the reasons why I offered to do an English Club, in order to know them better, as well as to have a bit more of a presence in the school. Yesterday was the first meeting, and 5 amazing girls attended, and we talked about stereotypes and I shared some pictures of my life.

The one thing that I frankly cannot get used to though is the hours: I finish at either 5 or 6pm every day I work, and it's about 45-50 minutes to get back, with an additional 15-30 minute walk (depending on who drives me back) or probably a 10 minute bus ride, if I could only learn how those work...

Basically, I get back, exhausted, and it's too late to really do much except have dinner with Erwan and Lucie (or Simon and Benjamin if they're here...most everyone here is working or doing some kind of internship which requires them to spend some time here and some time in another city).

After dinner, we either go out downtown to walk around and have a drink, or sometimes we stay in and have tea and chat (just taught “Erwan” how to play “Speed” the card game!) or we all just slump back to our rooms, exhausted from day, going to bed "as early as a grandmother," as Clara says (my flatmate, remember?)

So in this way, I'm wearing in my shoes. All of us are sort of establishing a routine, and with that brings familiarity, which brings a new kind of comfort.

However...

NOBODY HUGS HERE. I'm starving for affection. These bisous just don't cut it.

Hugs,
Katie

The first week...

(The first few days)

Thursday, September 31st 2010

“So, when you're sad, you can just go smell some garbage.”

We're driving to Besancon from Vesoul, about a 45 minute trip, and Jerome (Aurelie's husband) has just replied to my comment on how the smell of air pollution and garbage sometimes makes me fondly remember Senegal (due to the pollution from heavy traffic and litter in certain areas).

I'm jet-lagged, disoriented, but perfectly content to stare soundlessly out the window at the green and hilly French countryside. I'll have this 45 minute or so commute to make a few days a week to work, but I wanted to live in Besancon since it's a fair amount bigger and I figured there might be a bit more to see and do, as well as more people to meet.

We arrive in Besancon, and it is indeed quite huge-feeling compared to the teeny town of Vesoul we briefly toured, though still small by comparison to most other major cities in France. I vaguely wonder how many times I'll get lost my first few days as we make our way to the Foyer de Jeunes Travailleurs, where I'll be living for the next 7 months. It serves as a youth hostel as well as long-term housing, typically for young French people working, looking for work, or doing internships, though there are some foreigners. It's very convenient, as it offers furnished individual rooms or apartments, as well as having a small restaurant attached that is similar to a college cafeteria, but the food is actually good here, and cheap! They even have a bar and lounge area, where there are some games and lots of places to sit and drink and/or socialize. The foyer also puts on a lot of activities and shows movies frequently. Not gonna lie though, it's very pastel-colored...

Anyway, I have no idea what would have happened if it wasn't for Aurelie and Jerome – they were able to help me with virtually every detail that evening, from explaining my deposit to the way the canteen/restaurant works, to taking me shopping for some essentials I'd be needing right away.

All too soon, I'm being talked to in a very sweet and parental way by Aurelie, as she can tell I'm quite overwhelmed with everything, including having just been told I'd be living in an apartment with someone, and not in an individual room as I was told I'd have. Despite the initial typical worries of everything that could go wrong, I was kind of excited about the opportunity to live with someone and be able to speak French more and possibly have more social opportunities; if we didn't hate each other, that is.

Turns out, Clara is wonderful. My new apartment-mate is from Spain and studying French here until April, and right away I got a wonderful feeling from her. It was late and we didn't have much time to talk, but she was very open from the beginning about hopefully getting a chance to talk more soon and do things together.

With 3 suitcases spread across my pastel-colored room, I'm utterly exhausted and sleep like a log until morning, telling myself there's plenty of time tomorrow to realize I'm in France and get appropriately excited about it.

-

Sunday, October 3rd 2010

"KATIE, I LOVE YOU! SHUT UP, SIT DOWN, THANK YOU, PLEASE!!”

bursts out Barbara, a new French friend who decided to semi-scream out all of the English she knew in one breath over dinner, side-tracked from our original conversation about what each language steals from another (We snatched “rendez-vous,” for example).

I can't believe how quickly and easily I've made friends here so far, and I know it's entirely due to my previous experiences in both France and Senegal; everything from actually being able to speak enough French to knowing better than to not cloister myself up when I'm feeling sad, overwhelmed, or just too tired.

Barbara and I hit it off from the beginning. Within just a couple hours, it feels like we've been friends for years, acting goofy in ways that I haven't since I was at the playground in elementary school. She's gorgeous, and has an internship/works at a chocolate shop, and has a quirky personality to match mine. My third night here, Friday night, consisted of running/climbing around the FJT imitating James Bond with our hands pressed together like guns, as the place was nearly empty as everyone had basically left for the weekend. We continued from there to the balcony outside, and with arms outstretched we belted our, “My heart will go on,” from Titanic, and I practically died from laughter from Barbara's chorus of “ZAIRS NUUUH-SING TO FEEEERUH...!” But her favorite part was when I tried to hide behind a very scanty bush from the one other person in the foyer, who could obviously see me, but I was a secret agent so of course he couldn't.

Anyway, to go back a couple days...

My first day at FJT I met Erwan; I was trying to figure out where to put my tray, and once again, looking lost and confused has its advantages. He showed me where to put it, and that was enough to strike up a conversation, as he was able to tell right away that I must be new.

Erwan is from the other side of France, as I soon found out, working as an apprentice in Besancon as an electrician and hoping that his girlfriend can soon move from Paris so that they can find an apartment here together. He was very easy to talk to, and almost right away offered to help with anything he could do to help me adjust to life here. We spent the next hour or so talking, and it was through him that I was able to meet a handful of people the next day at dinner, all French, which is fantastic, as my biggest goal was to meet and talk to French people as much as possible, and it has happened much quicker (and more easily) than I expected. They're all around my age, and incredibly friendly.

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

I forgot how hard blogging is.

I could not have asked for a better week. Besides semi-drowning in paperwork that France throws at you from all sides, I've had nothing but support and help from new friends and Aurelie and the rest of the staff at Les Haberges, the high school I'll be working at in Vesoul, who have all been incredibly helpful.

I had my first day of observation at the school, which consists of just about 800 students (close to how many people in my graduating class alone!) It went well, there are 6 English teachers (all women) who seem amazing, and it looks like I'll rarely have to take the bus as there are several who live in and commute from Besancon with whom I can carpool. Right on.

The kids seem like typical high schoolers, and I'm excited to work with them. When I introduced myself to each class (around 5 I think) I asked them all what questions or stereotypes did they have of the US, and the first question in every class was, "Do zey all eeat Meek-dohnalds in zee US?" This is going to be fun. I offered to do a little English club too, so I hope that works out as well.

I'm also very happy with choosing to live at the FJT. Had I not, I would not have woken up to a beautiful Clara, who was in the kitchen cutting up fresh banana's and mangos, telling me to have a seat and eat. We chatted in our accented French, as the fresh air blew in from the open door to our petite balcony, just big enough to stand on to enjoy the view and feel the breeze.

Also, had I not chosen this place, I would not have found myself in an Irish Pub downtown with some friends, feeling right at home in the bar that not only looked just like an Irish Pub in America, but with American tunes to boot. I was with Erwan, as well as Simon and Benjamin from the FJT. Both Erwan and Benjamin work with an electric company, and Simon works for a gas company, so the conversation was thrilling, to say the least. And, on the way home, I even got a special presentation from Benjamin, who stopped in the middle of the road to inspect a pothole-thing, whatever they're called, and then he proceeded to show and explain to me a tiny plaque near the sidewalk with lots of arrows and numbers explaining stuff and things, while a very tipsy Simon was trying to enter a very closed bank to get money from an ATM, while Erwan shook his head in dismay that one Guiness could make them both so goofy. It was their first time ever trying it! Needless to say, it was an amusing evening, and we were back before 10pm.

Welcome to my new life in France.

Love,
Katie

Back to France!

Wednesday, September 29th 2010

BONJOUR family! (and friends who might also peek at this).

First, boring stuff:

I am alive and well in France, finally about to embark on the final leg of my journey to Besancon, where I'll be living for the next 7 months. I'll be teaching conversational English in a high school called Les Haberges in a small town called Vesoul until April, and then farting around in France/Europe until I have to come back to grad school in Minnesota in August.

Now, fun stuff:

I made it through my two flights with no problems and was rewarded with a pleasant tram ride in Paris that included a nice chat with a tiny old French woman who recognized me from our flight and a man who stepped on board with an accordion and continued to play several songs that would cheer up even the most jet-lagged traveler.

And then I got gloriously and impossibly lost as soon as I set foot off the tram. But who's surprised, really?

However! There is no great loss without some small gain, right? So what if I missed my first train and had to wait three hours til the next? So what if I had 3 pieces of luggage to carry up and down steps? And so what if one of the handles broke and I had to carry them up and down stairs one at a time?

If these miserable events hadn't happened to my grimy, greasy, bad-breath self, I would have never met my new friend Joel, an easy-going, kind, ready-to-help-the-lost-American kind of Parisian (WHOMP to your stereotypes!).

Turns out, Joel saw me attempting to carry my bags up the stairs and decided to take pity on me, overwhelming me with his kindness, and consequently I burst into tears in underground Paris. Awesome.

After assuring him that I was simply a baby and not in moral peril, he not only helped me up the multiple sets of stairs (where did the escalators go?!), but continued with me on the metro and to the train station I was headed for, going out of his way to ask people several times if we were at the right place (making me feel better that even a Frenchie had to ask for directions).

Oh yea – some of you may be remembering some horror stories from Senegal that included strange men following me or acting suspicious, but the entire time Joel was a gentleman and did not ask me to marry him, as you may recall happened frequently in Dakar. He did show me his rosary, though.

Turns out, Joel has lived in Paris for 12 years, and wouldn't you know it, he also studied in Dakar, for 3 years! He's some kind of business man, and was on vacation, hence being able to drop everything and spend the next 2 hours helping and hanging out with me.

I bought my new friend lunch as a thanks-for-saving-my-ass, and we sat next to a window with the glories of Paris just beyond our reach and ate teeny tiny sandwiches and chocolate tarts with too-expensive beverages, discussing our philosophies on life and both being surprised that my French was up to par for that kind of conversation. We exchanged our condensed soup-version life stories and before boarding, admired the view from outside by stepping out, almost instantly regretting it because about half of Paris was smoking before getting on their trains and I practically felt my lungs shrivel from the smoke cloud.

Joel was a hero to the very last minute. I had lost my contact's number (Aurelie, who will be picking me up in Besancon) and he called a help line, got her number, and connected me so I could tell her when the train will now be arriving.

Then, he made sure I got on the right car and loaded up my bags for me, and with my first French goodbye bisous (kisses on the cheek) we said farewell.

I'm so ready to pay it forward.

I am currently passing beautiful French farmland and being charmed out of my pants by the cute little clusters of French homes and farms that look a thousand years old.

Love,
Katie