Getting used to the time difference

So one of the most annoying things about having no WiFi is that often when I can actually get access to WiFi, no one in the States is awake yet, so I either don't have e-mails to respond to or I have no one to talk to online. Hopefully it won't be for too much longer that this is a problem - cause it makes me feel pretty lonely. Tomorrow afternoon Marina and I are going to go the youth information center in town. Apparently the people who work there are very friendly and will even set up appointments for us to see apartments. Which means I won't have to worry about making phone calls; it's so much harder to understand someone in a foreign language on the phone than in person.

After hanging out in the bar yesterday afternoon (which is what I'm doing again now), I went and met some English speakers who are also assistants, although they are all teaching at the primary level. One girl was American, one British, and one was from Canada, but she was actually Mexican and Salvadoran. It was a bit of relief to speak English; it gave me a break from the brain-strain that is speaking French 24-7. We grabbed a drink at an outdoor bar and then wandered until we found a restaurant. I was finally hungry for the first time in days and had an amazing crepe full of different types of cheese, walnuts, and raisins. This morning  I wandered around with Daniela, the Mexican assistant at Bertran de Born, and ended up back at this bar which, thank goodness, bucks the French stereotype of being closed on Sundays.

But here's some more interesting stuff: pictures!

Here's a good view of the cathedral and the town from across the river. I live on the same side as the cathedral, but there's a great walking path along the river on the opposite side - and I even saw people running, so maybe I can run over there and not be weird and conspicuously American while I'm doing so!

I've been really lucky that the weather has been so nice so far. It has definitely helped me in thinking more positively about the next seven months here. I think if the weather had been nasty on top of my crappy room and my lack of a steady connection to the outside world, I really would have been in bad shape. Did I mention that the shower is just a curtain-ed off corner of a big tiled room with a drain in the corner? And that you have to push a button to get the water to turn on - and it only stays on for 20 seconds (I know it's that long, I counted)? So I spend my showers pressing the button every 10 seconds to keep it from turning off.

This was the main church for Perigueux from the 1100s until about 1575. Then the wars of religion happened and a lot of stuff got destroyed. It apparently used to have a lot more domes. It's very plain inside - but they still have mass there on most days.

These are the ruins of a castle that was owned by the Catholics for centuries until the wars of religion (again) when the Protestants came and destroyed it just because some Catholics lived there - and had lived there for several centuries.

The town has this amazing mix of Medieval and Roman history. The building in this picture is Medieval while the archway in the forefront is one of the last standing gates from the ancient Roman wall that used to surround the city. It's pretty amazing that within a mile radius you can see building from the first century to the 12th century to the 21st century.

Just an old tower. That's all. You can't go in it, and there's no informational sign outside of it to explain what it is. But it's kind of a landmark - as in someone will tell you "go to the big tower and turn right."

Standing on one of the narrow streets! Which is incredibly empty because this picture was taken on a Sunday. I don't know what the French do all day on Sundays. I guess they just hang out at home. But pretty much everything is closed, so unless they want to go for a walk, there's not really anything to do in town besides church.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but these are the ruins of the Roman amphitheater. It's fenced off and surrounded by a very pretty park with a fountain and a playground. It's just not a big deal that there are these 2000 year-old ruins in the middle of town. It's a totally different world than in the U.S...

So that's a run-down on what I know about the town so far. This is just stuff I've learned by wandering around by myself or with other assistants. I assume I'll learn more details as I live here longer.

Tomorrow I start "teaching," though really I'll just be sitting in and observing classes and introducing myself to the students. After I do that in the morning I'm heading out to start looking for apartments. And then Wednesday we have an orientation day with all the other assistants. I'm hoping by the end of this week I'll feel much more settled and comfortable here.

I'm here! But my internet connection isn't.

Just a quick post to say yes, I am alive. I'm in Périgueux.

Good things

• The town is gorgeous, old, Roman ruin-y, Medieval, super-French
• Everyone is incredibly friendly, both the people in the town and the people at the school (Bertran de Born) where I'll be working
• I've met a few other assistants who are also working at Bertran de Born who are very friendly

Bad things

• I don't have an internet connection in my room at the school (no WiFi, no cable hook-up) - which is why I am currently looking for an apartment
• And the bathroom is icky. So no WiFi plus no kitchen (and the cafeteria at the school is closed from Friday afternoon to Monday afternoon) plus gross bathroom totally cancels out the benefits of "free housing"
• It's really hard to get to know people when you have to speak French all the time!

I'm writing this from a bar that has WiFi. The French don't mind if you buy a drink and then sit around and mooch off their WiFi for several hours (which is what I've been doing this afternoon with the two other girls who will be working at Bertran de Born). I'm researching apartment options with one of the girls, Marina. (She's from Spain and way better at French than I am. She has studied abroad a few times already - and for much longer periods of time than I have.) I think if I can find an apartment - and apartments are much cheaper here than you'd think - I will feel much more comfortable, cause it's been quite a rough adjustment!

I have lots more to tell but right now I don't have enough battery on my laptop. I promise a real update and pictures as soon as I'm able!

I don't remember how to blog

After being thoroughly confused by Blogger's new and "improved" settings, I've figured out how to reincarnate last summer's blog - with new colors and fonts! It may, however, take considerably longer before I remember what exactly I'm supposed to write about while blogging. I need to get readjusted to this concept of writing a summary of my current life and then shooting said summary out into cyberspace. Luckily, I have a jumping off point.

For those of you who don't know, on Wednesday, AKA today, I'll be moving to Périgueux, France (that's waaay down in the southwest of France, close to Bordeaux) for the next seven months to teach English/American culture in a French high school. I'm doing this program through the French government; basically the French Ministry of Education hires young people from the US, Spain, Germany, Italy, Australia, [insert country here] to come and work as assistant teachers in public schools all over France, both at the secondary level and the primary level. From here on out, I'll refer to it as TAPIF, the Teaching Assistant Program in France. (Didn't make that up - it came with that name.) We work alongside teachers of our respective languages to give a perspective on the cultures of our countries. It's a pretty sweet gig: 12 hours of work a week, a decent monthly stipend, vacation whenever the schools are off, and (in my case) free housing.

Now you know about as much about my job as I do, but after I start next Monday (and have orientation next Wednesday) I'll hopefully be able to tell you a heck of a lot more.

This link might also be useful for anyone who doesn't speak French - and even for people who do, because "Périgueux" is not the simplest word in the French language. And here's the link to the Wikipedia article itself. Hopefully that will tide everyone over until I get there myself and can go exploring. Assuming that I have better internet connection than I did in the Villemanzy last summer, the blog will actually include pictures this time around.

I fly from DC to Paris Wednesday evening with my friend from UVA, Karen, who is also doing TAPIF. She's in an even more French-sounding town, Villefranche-de-Rouergue, about two hours southeast(ish) of me. From there I'll hop on a train to Bordeaux and then transfer to one to Périgueux. Except I won't be hopping, I'll be lugging. It's not easy to cram seven months worth of stuff into three suitcases, something I've been learning over the last few days of packing. One suitcase is weighing in at a risky 49 lbs, a fact I know thanks to the luggage scale I've been searching for for a week and which, thanks to some karma gods smiling down on me for some reason, I found in a bag at the eleventh hour of my packing stress fest. I'd add a picture here to prove how efficiently I've packed but A. the suitcase that is still open would be putting my undergarments on display and B. my camera is packed in the depths of one of the three bags, so digging it out would ruin the efficient packing and defeat the whole point.

And, to be clear, it's more like two-and-a-half suitcases. Cause I'm just not going to count the small one as a full bag. It's not willingly that I'm not taking a single pair of high heels with me.