Coming Soon

So the internet connection in the hotel in Bilbao is pretty slow, so I'm not so sure I'm going to post anything while we're here, but here's what I'll write about when I do have the chance (and the wifi capacity):

1. Christmas day
2. A cool bridge in a very ugly town
3. Chapels on a cliff
4. Bridget the GPS lady who is very bad at her job
5. 40,000 year old cave paintings
6. Spain

Perigueux and Sarlat 2.0

First off, Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noel one more time. I hope it's been great for anyone who's celebrating!

Now, time to catch up on what I've been doing for the last few days.

Mom, Dad, and Colleen arrived in Perigueux on Friday afternoon after a very long time of traveling. I spent Friday evening and Saturday morning showing them around the town, which they enjoyed. Maybe I feel a bit more charitable toward Perigueux now, since they had nice things to say about the town. We also did a lot of shopping, which is always a plus. I got some crazy shoes and ordered a purse from a cool leather shop that I like. Unfortunately, the weather was kind of gross and rainy, as it had been in Perigueux for about nine days.

The cathedral with holly berries in the foreground and the enormous manger scene set up inside.

We went to the Gallo-Roman history museum in Perigueux, a place I've been once before. You can walk amongst the ruins of an old mansion from Roman times, which is very cool. Dad, however, was more interested in the architect who designed the building (a famous guy, apparently) and spent a lot of time talking about the expanse of the roof.

It was funny to be in Perigueux but staying in a hotel instead of my apartment. But it was good, too. It made it feel like I had started my vacation, which I was definitely in need of.

After Perigueux we made our way over to Sarlat, a town I've written about before, which is where we still are tonight. Sarlat is very pretty, very cool, and very old, so it's not a bad place to have to visit twice.

I didn't take a ton of pictures in Sarlat because I got a ton the last time I was here. But we had pretty weather, so I did take some!

The weather was so nice in fact that we sat outside in a cafe and had drinks. It was definitely not Christmas-y weather!

Pretty, pretty!

Sitting with some geese. We tried to get Dad to take this picture but Colleen decided he's only good at taking pictures of buildings, so we had Mom take the picture instead.

I was going to write about/put up pictures of the other cities that we visited, but I'm really tired and the internet is slow to upload photos, so those will have to wait until tomorrow. We have a five hour drive to Spain tomorrow, so maybe I can draft a post while I'm in the car. Our goal is to stop to see some cave paintings (because this is the area of France that has lots of Cro-Magnon cave paintings) and maybe in Bordeaux for lunch, so hopefully all of that will happen as well, because that would be cool (particularly the cave paintings!) I'll also have more to say about the trip up to this point when I post the next post because I'll be able to talk about new stuff. I've already talked about Perigueux and Sarlat on this blog, so I don't have much else to say tonight - plus, like I said, I'm super tired!

Merry Christmas!

Joyeux Noel!

I'll probably start writing some real posts soon, but for now a quick update: family arrived Friday, we spent Friday and Saturday night in Perigueux and then came over to Sarlat, a Medieval town in the Dordogne, on Sunday. More details later!

Merry Christmas from France!!

Frenching up my hair

Yesterday I got my hair cut and highlighted by someone other than my stylist, Vivianna, for the first time in about 12 years. I was (overly) nervous that I was coming to come out of the salon with hair too blond, too short, too streaky, or just bad. I actually sat in the chair rationalizing that most people have a bad haircut at some point in their lives, so it would be okay if mine didn't look that good after the guy finished.

As you can probably guess, it all turned out fine. The guy actually did a great job and my hair doesn't look that much different than before. I still think Vivianna does it better, but I'm happy with what Nicolas did, and I'll definitely go back to him in the spring. (Plus he was nice and gave me the student deal on my haircut. Oh, and I got locked in the bathroom at the salon and couldn't get out for a few minutes. But that's just an aside.) So that was a huge relief. Now I know that I'll look normal in all my pictures with my family. I was dreading that we'd look back on the pictures in the future and everyone would laugh at my weird over-dyed hair, but it looks like I'm in the clear. Though Mark did tell me on Skype that it looks more French than normal. Maybe so.

There is only one class now standing between me and vacation. It should be okay because it's with middle schoolers, and they tend to be a happier bunch. This morning I had two classes with high school seniors - and they were extremely surly today. I guess mostly because everyone is ready to be on vacation.

Mom, Dad, and Colleen arrive in Perigueux tomorrow afternoon. I'm looking forward to it! I need to pack my clothes and make sure my apartment is clean before they get here, so I have lots to do this evening and tomorrow - but that's okay with me!

Dreaming of a rain-free Christmas

Just about four days until my family shows up! I'm so excited!

Also, it rains a lot in Perigueux.

I actually had a pretty good weekend. Karen came over from Villefranche which was fun, and we got a ton of Christmas shopping done with Marina on Saturday both in the shops in Perigueux and in the Christmas market.

Shopping in the market. For some reason I look utterly exhausted in this picture.

We actually had a really good night on Friday. After dinner with Cathi and Marina, we ended up at an English pub in town. I made a spectacle of myself by falling down some stairs in front of a room of people - but really the important part is that I neither broke the glass in my hand nor spilled a drop of the beer in my other hand. So people laughed but were also impressed. Anyway, after chatting for awhile, a guy came over to our table and asked us to join him and his friends; a couple, another French guy and an Argentinian girl. The girl had been an assistant in the past in Perigueux and had met her boyfriend while she was working here. Long story short, we talked to them for awhile and ended up having a big dinner with them and a few other friends on Saturday evening. We officially have some French friends in Perigueux now! More young people to hang out with - and the fact that some of them are French is great, cause now we can really speak real French! Anyway, we were really excited to have found some new friends and they were all a lot of fun and very nice, so we had a good time with them both nights. We're looking forward to hanging out with them in the future.

This week is the last week of classes, a fact that I am thrilled about. I'm doing a lesson on Christmas and New Year's traditions in the United States, so it's not too tough. I can't wait for Friday to come though! Though I do have a whole list of things I need to get done before my family shows up...

This evening we went to the English pub to see a couple of the assistants play Christmas carols. It was really nice! Unfortunately, the room was chock full of old British people so there were no tables for us to sit at, so we didn't stay too long. But it was nice all the same!

English pub sing-a-long!

I also used the opportunity of being out on the street in the evening to take pictures of the Christmas lights again. I tried to take a video of some of the particularly tacky lights but it didn't work out so well - so that will be a project for another time this week, maybe Thursday night when most of the other assistants will have already left Perigueux.

The street in front of the cathedral actually looked quite nice with the lights and everything - though I still think they would look nicer if they were yellow-ish rather than blue-white.

Giant round snowflakes on a tiny road.

These are the kind of lights that look like they're icicles and dripping. (They actually were dripping because it's been raining for about four days straight.) They're one of the only blinking effects that doesn't look totally tacky - or doesn't almost give you a seizure.

Pretty(ish) lights close to my street. Plus the nightly pile of garbage next to the Christmas tree! The garbage gets collected every night though, so the city is very clean during the day - and since no one is in the street at night, it's no big deal!

And this is my street. A dozen trees, forty strands of garland, tinsel, ornaments, flashing lights, and, for some inexplicable reason, a red carpet. Which has been sopping wet and disgusting for days. Walking down the street is like being in a snow globe - actually in a snow globe, with water and everything since the carpet squelches under your shoes.

I also tried to make my apartment a little festive and cheerier. I might keep the lights up even after Christmas because they do make the place happier. It's better in general as an apartment cause I have decorations up and I have a rug that covers part of the hideous floor - but, eh, it's still just okay!

So that is life in Perigueux at the moment. I'm hoping this week goes by quickly so I can see my family and travel and celebrate the holidays! And then Mark comes! I have lots of traveling and company for the next few weeks.

Also, the Redskins are in first place. What the heck.

Teaching in France

Tuesdays are my longest days of work but Wednesdays I only have one class – so here’s yesterday’s promised update.

The reason I haven’t talked much about the teaching job is because, well, it’s not easy. I’ve never been a teacher before – and probably won’t be a teacher again; I didn’t get the teacher gene from my mom. Unfortunately the job description implied that we would be assistants in France; at least the way I understood it was that we would be working alongside a teacher in his or her classroom or individually with very small groups. But that hasn’t been the case for me – or for many of my friends here. For nine of my twelve classes, I’m really a teacher, not an assistant, which has been frustrating (and exhausting!) for me because I was not at all prepared to be thrown into a teaching job.  I had no prior experience, and I’ve found myself preparing all my lessons alone and working by myself in a classroom with up to 18 students. The job is also doubly tiring because I have to spend at least half, if not more, of the time speaking in French with the students. In some ways that’s good because I’ve learned some new words from them – like the word for “creepy” (glauque) and the world for “octopus” (pieuvre) – and I’ve gotten to practice my French, which is always good. But when you’re already unprepared to be a teacher, it’s a bit unnerving, and utterly exhausting, to have to do the teaching in your second language. And as a kicker, the room I teach in isn’t equipped with any form of technology. I’ve been borrowing a projector from the library, but the computer that goes along with it (mine is too new to work with the projector) isn’t exactly stellar. I know that people learned without computers for years – but I never did, so it’s hard to come up with ideas for teaching that don’t require technology. And when you’re teaching about American culture, it’s tough not to need to show videos and pictures (and the printers at the school don’t print in color, so I can’t really just print pictures as an alternative). All that is just a bit of an added stressor.

In retrospect, I wouldn’t say that learning all this and dealing with all this means that I wouldn’t have done this program at all – but I do wish that the application had been clearer in describing the job. And, frankly, I don’t think they should accept people into this program who don’t have teaching experience if the schools are going to use us as teachers; it would be better for the students that way, too, to be learning from people who really know what they’re doing, or at least have the training and concepts.

Essentially all this means is that I’ve had to work pretty hard. Luckily I’ve come up with ideas to teach about (stereotypes, sports, American television, Christmas in the U.S.) – I just hope I don’t run out of ideas before the end of April. And, thankfully, a few of my classes are enjoyable. The middle school classes are my favorite - something that surprises me given how awful middle school was for me...and most of the world. But the middle schoolers are still pretty excited to learn and tend to want to participate. The high schoolers are much more difficult, particularly the tenth graders; I don't think 16 is a good age in any country.

It's all been quite a learning experience!

I'm also giving private lessons which I enjoy very much. Once a week I tutor two kids, a girl who is seven and a boy who is ten, who are wonderful. We have a lot of fun together and they love the lessons. I work with their mom also, and after the vacation I'll be starting with another student to help her with her conversation skills. Once a week I also meet up with a girl at the high school to practice conversation, though we split the time between French and English (so I can get some practice with a real-live young French person), and I don't get paid for that lesson. I'm glad that I've found all these lessons. Though, really, they've found me. Being one of the few native English speakers in a small French town has its advantages...

So that's my day-to-day life in a nutshell. Tomorrow I have a few classes and then it's only one week until my family gets here! Karen is visiting this weekend as well - so lots to look forward to!

Guilt trip

I started a blog post today all about teaching and my job here but didn't finish it. I'm posting this to say that I'll write about that tomorrow and give some updates on my life.

This is mostly just serving as a reminder to myself (a public to-do list with one bullet, if you will) to actually post something tomorrow. Because I'll feel guilty if I write this and then don't write one tomorrow. Particularly because I have precisely one class and then utter nothingness for the rest of the day. So I'll have no excuse; watching four episodes of Dexter will not count as an excuse and that's probably the likeliest thing to happen, particularly if it's raining tomorrow.

Anyway, thoughts on teaching tomorrow!

So about those lights...

Due to a super disappointing change of plans that was out of my control, I actually won't be going to Lyon this weekend. Very bummed out about that. It's now a major goal for the future to make it to the Fete des Lumieres.

But moving on.

I'm finally going to put up some pictures of those Perigueux Christmas lights. When I saw all the light strands going up around town, I was picturing that they'd let off this lovely soft yellow-gold glow when they were lit up. Weelll...not so much. Most of them glow a slightly painful bluish color - and about half of them blink on and off. They are delightfully tacky. They make me laugh every time I see them. They are quite simply not at all what I was expecting. But a lot of this experience has been, well, something new and not what I was expecting. And this town certainly has its weird quirks. So somehow these horrible tacky lights fit right in. Not to say that Perigueux is tacky, because it isn't in the least. But sometimes it seems like the city is shooting for the bull's eye and the arrow flies wide right. And that's pretty much what these lights are, too. But that makes them delightful in their own way.

First there were just lights on my street. Then this absurd amount of garland with hanging ornaments. Then several dozen Christmas trees appeared. And today they rolled out a red carpet. No joke. A red carpet just appeared down the center of the road. I'm expecting Santa any day now.

Some of the lights are the bluish color while some actually are yellowish. It has quite the effect on your eyes.

This is over one of the squares where the town holds the market. I really like these decorations actually.

Chandeliers and sparkly things. Also rain.

Entrance to the Christmas market (which I have yet to enter) which wasn't open the evening I wandered around. I don't know which evenings it's open actually. I should probably look into that. I should also get some more pictures. Those lights toward the back of the picture were all light fixtures in the shape of enormous insects. Cause I guess that puts everyone in the Christmas spirit...?

This probably gives the nicest image of the lights. Also I took these pictures at about 8pm - where are all the people?? Pretty much from 6pm on, this is Perigueux.

Some of the trees just have massive blue lights lighting them up. There are also a few enormous Christmas trees with blue lights on them. The lights blink so it looks like there is water dripping down them. Not such an eloquent description - but the top lights light up and then the lower ones so it looks like drops of water running down the tree. It's...unusual? Creative?

Despite me making fun of all the lights' tackiness, it's still fun to have them lit up. (Though I'm pretty sure the city turns them off at about 10:30 at night.) I'm really looking forward to seeing all the other displays in other towns when I travel with my family and then with Mark.

Happy Thursday. I'm off to get in bed and not set an alarm! Love having Fridays off - I'm sure these are the last few months I'll have that, so I need to cherish them.

I lied a little bit

I'm not actually going to make observations on Perigueux's Christmas decorations, because I didn't manage to take any pictures of the lights tonight. It was raining, I had to work on some stuff for classes (still not totally satisfied with them really), and I had to spend some time at the laundromat (22 euro to wash and dry a load of laundry and a comforter - fabulous!)

I am going to put up pictures from this past weekend though!

I had a great time in Villefranche with Karen. It was great to speak English and catch up and reminisce about UVA and watch too much TV. Villefranche is a tiny town! But it's very pretty. It's in the "Midi-Pyrennees," so it was a big change of scenery from Perigueux. Perigueux is in the Dordogne which is rolling hills and vineyards. The Midi-Pyrennees are the beginning of the Pyrennee mountain range, so the landscape is totally different. I actually didn't real at all on my train rides over (three trains to get to Villefranche!) because I was looking at the scenery. Though I was also falling asleep because I had gotten up at 4:30 in the morning. Anyway, here is Villefranche-de-Rouergue:

Karen's apartment building in the first one on the left with the brown shutters. Not a bad location!

Main shopping street - where we both successfully purchased a pair of shoes and chatted with a friendly French shopkeeper. (I guess I should have said "store owner" but for some reason "friendly French shopkeeper" just flowed better.)

Arches surrounding the central square for the market.

Bridge built in the 13th century in the center of Villefranche. Pretty cool. And sturdy.

Like I said, we didn't do a whole lot in Villefranche, but we did get some shopping in and watched a lot of TV and caught up and laid around. It was really very nice. But since it would have been unacceptable to do that for 48 straight hours, we also went out for a day trip on Saturday afternoon. We took the train to the next town over, an even smaller town called Najac.

It gets cooler than this picture.

When we first got off the train at Najac, we were a little concerned that we hadn't done our research because we were at the bottom of a small mountain and could only see the backs of houses way up on the mountain top. We ended up having to walk about two kilometers up a road that wound (winded?) up the mountain to the cathedral and castle.

We thought this was going to be the hardest walk of the day...we were wrong.

Cathedral in the center of town which was delightfully accompanied by "public restrooms" - or my first experience with using a hole in the ground as a toilet. It was lovely. I guess it's keeping in habit with the age of the cathedral. The Najacois were forced to build the castle in the 13th century as a punishment for being a religion that wasn't Catholicism.

Oh, hey.

The castle was on the left in this picture, but we couldn't actually see it because it was closed for the season. We walked all the way along this ridge past the castle through the main part of town.

Most of the town was closed up (like the other towns I visited the weekend before last) because it's mainly a vacation town. Almost all the buildings were original and from the 13th and 14th centuries - it was a pretty amazing place to see.

Unfortunately the light wasn't great - but what a view!

Many of the houses had grape vines growing on them. Leave it to France to have the makings for wine right there on the side of every other house!

Najac was a really gorgeous town. We both got a ton of great pictures. Because the town was fairly empty, you really got a good idea of what it must have looked like during the 13th century. It was really interesting! It's been a good experience seeing all of these tiny little towns.

Remember how I said that we were wrong about our first walk being the hardest? Well we took the "pedestrian route" back to the train station - which ended up being more of a hike down the side of the mountain. We were not dressed appropriately for a hike at all... And this was no mistake on our part, no "Megan and Karen didn't know enough French so they hiked down a mountain by mistake." No, no. The sign told us "This way to the pedestrian route to the train station." Hm...

Hooray! Picture together! (Which we took sitting in the middle of a road because we couldn't find a wall high enough to take our picture standing. And there definitely weren't many people around to take a picture of us!)

So that is Najac and Villefranche. Two more French villages added to the list.

I also keep saying that I'll talk about teaching - but I'm too tired to do that now. The only thing I can say right now is that I find it exhausting, and it also confirms that I have no interest in being a teacher as a permanent career. But I'm surviving! I'm teaching about American sports this week, so that means that as I've researched the topic, I've gotten to watch a lot of highlight reels and "This is SportsCenter" commercials. So that's always a plus. :-)

There are probably typos in this post. Too tired to fix them! Sorry!

Tomorrow's post

Weekend stories
Observations on Perigueux's Christmas lights
A few thoughts on teaching

Coming soon!