Boring week

I haven't posted in a few days because I haven't really had anything to post about! It was a pretty boring week...nothing too out of the ordinary. It's been cold and dreary and gray.

I got a new private tutoring lesson this week, so that's a good thing. I have several now, which is nice. It gives me something else to do with my time and I enjoy it a whole lot more than the job itself! (For instance, Tuesday evening after my lesson with the two little kids I stayed for dinner and played video games with them on the Wii in French - we all got a big kick out of that.) Plus the lessons help fund my travel plans, as I've said before!

Speaking of travel plans, my first big trip is only two weeks away! Milan! I've also started brainstorming for my trip at the end of the program...the south of Spain and Berlin are definitely on the short list, to see both Marina and Cathi. And I talked to Michelle about meeting me somewhere in May and she gave the suggestion of Sweden...which is actually absurdly cheap to get to from Berlin/London. So we'll see how all this pans out...

Karen will be here this weekend - she arrives this evening - so maybe I'll have more to report on Sunday evening!

More snow

The people of Perigueux keep telling us that it doesn't snow much here, but it snowed again last night and it might snow again this week. Yuck. The snow today was much like it was last week - wet and slushy and icky!

I will admit that it was pretty on some of the old houses and the hills around Perigueux. But in general, I'm no fan of snow, so I wasn't too pleased with it. Plus we walked to a teacher's house about twenty minutes away and the French don't shovel their sidewalks or anything (not just me being stereotypical - confirmed to me by several French people), so it was slippery and snowy. Nevertheless, I took a few pictures with my phone to show you what it looks like. I would have taken more but I only had my iPhone, and I didn't want to trek around taking pictures of it. Next time it snows I'll go out with my camera.

Snowy, snowy, snowy. Not the prettiest view of the river - but oh well, this is where I happened to have a view of it.

A couple views of the city and the main road of Perigueux.

It's a little hard to tell, but the river was so swollen. Benches that you can normally sit on were underwater and the water came right up to the path along the river (normally there are a few yards between the bath and the river). I took this to show that the river came right up to the bottom of this pedestrian bridge; usually there is at least a four foot drop!

As I said earlier, we went to have lunch at an English teacher's house this afternoon. It was really nice! We had a real French meal - meaning there was a drink and snacks before, then an appetizer, an entree, a dessert (and wine with all of that), cider to follow, and finally coffee. I am not so sure that I'm going to eat this evening. We are spent about three hours eating, soooo I'm still pretty full. But it was very nice - we had a nice time and it was good (as it always is) to speak French with real French people. You always learn something. For instance, in French you can't literally translate the sentence "I'm full." You have to say, "J'en peux plus," which is essentially "I've had enough," because if you say, "Je suis plein" (the literal translation of "I'm full") you're saying, "I'm drunk." Oops.

This evening I'm going to chat with a few friends and make sure I'm ready for classes this week. We're going to play a version of Jeopardy with questions about the U.S. Hopefully that will be entertaining enough for an entire hour of class! We shall see...

Food I miss

Cheddar cheese
Root beer
Multi-grain sliced bread
Sliced turkey (that isn't disgusting)
Good beer (that doesn't cost five euro a pint)
Bagels

I also, in general, really miss being able to eat a variety of food. In France, or at least in a small town like Perigueux, there aren't exactly many options. It's French food or it's no food. I miss being able to eat Mexican food, Italian food, American food, Thai food, etc., and having all those options any time I go out to eat or go to the grocery store. I ate "Chinese" food the other night - and it was awful.

I do, however, appreciate two euro bottles of wine and the super fresh market vegetables and fruits.

But when I go home, I'm going out for Sunday brunch and making quesadillas with non-French cheese and ordering a sandwich from a sandwich shop as often as possible. All on Sunday. Well, maybe not, but I'm doing a lot of stuff on Sundays because that is definitely high on the list of things that drive me absolutely insane about Europe: everything being completely shut down on Sunday. Also everything being shut down at 7pm.

It snowed this week. Not much - at least I didn't think it was much. Apparently an inch of snow is enough to shut down the Dordogne. Maybe half of the students showed up to school. Maybe. Admittedly, the snow/ice was probably worse on the country roads...but if they had put down some sand or salt, everyone would have been fine. It wasn't very nice as snow; it was barely cold enough, so it was very wet and slushy and gross. I also had to walk to the grocery store in it, and it was less than pleasant.

The weather has been pretty ugly since it snowed. But I've been fairly productive and worked on my resume and cleaned my apartment and read some books. Tomorrow I'll have to plan my classes for the week. This evening we're going to a movie; it's the first time we've gone to the movies in Perigueux! We're going to go see Amour, which I think has been popular in the U.S. lately as well.

And, saving the best for last, I went and picked up a purse this morning that I ordered when my family was here. I got it at this great little leather shop - everything in the store is handmade by the owner. I had seen a purse in the window and told him I was going to buy it, and then it got sold. But he remembered which one it was and made me my own! Verrrry exciting.

So pretty! And the leather is so nice.

Also, these are my crazy shoes I bought while I was here. (I've bought three pairs of shoes so far - not too bad considering my track record.) I loooove these. I don't have much of a reason to wear them here, but they'll go to use when I come back to the U.S.

Nothing else too interesting going on right now. I spent much of yesterday worrying about finding affordable shipping for my luggage. I'm going to have to ship home a couple of my bags, partly because I don't want to cart them all over Europe with me before I come home (I'm probably going to travel for a couple weeks) and partly because I've bought stuff and they're probably going to be pretty heavy. I wasn't having too much luck finding anything remotely affordable. I'll probably start calling a few places and see what I can find...

And that's all for now!

This thing called productivity

Usually when I have a break in the middle of the day I come home and just watch TV for the hour or so that I'm at home. But today I decided I would come home and write a blog post and put some pictures up on Facebook, therefore freeing up more time this evening to do productive stuff like prepare for classes or update my resume. I also have an extra hour today because one of my classes was canceled. I usually have no idea if my classes will be canceled, but if the teacher doesn't show up, the students don't usually come to my class. This happened yesterday, too. In fact, I'm not sure if I've ever gotten through a full week without having at least one class canceled. I'm not complaining though...

I don't know if I've mentioned before, but substitute teachers aren't really a thing here. If a teacher is going to be gone for a long time, yes, there is a sub, but in general if a teacher is absent, there just isn't class. The kids have to go to the library or the study lounge, but they don't have class. Totally different than most schools in the States...

So yesterday's blog post was super long, and I don't think today's will be quite as long. But I want to mention the last couple days of Mark being here along with the day trip (or at least part of the day trip) I took on Saturday with Cathi and Azahara.

Mark and I came back to Perigueux on the last day of the vacation and that evening we met up with my friends here, including the girls and the French/Argentinian friends we made before vacation (we hang out with them a decent amount). It was nice because Mark was able to meet everyone that I talk about and also practice his French a bit. We saw my friends a couple times, so that was good.

The last night Mark was here we went out for a really good dinner at a traditional Perigordien restaurant (so traditional local food) and then we had most of the next day to walk around Perigueux and see the city before Mark had to take the train up to Paris. It was very sad to say goodbye. :-(

Stereotypical photo of the two of us...

And a nice picture from the last evening before we went out to dinner.

So I readjusted to being back in Perigueux after Mark left and then luckily on Saturday I went out on a day trip with the girls to see some small towns in the area. I say "luckily" because it was probably good that I went out and did something fun otherwise I probably would have felt pretty bummed. We picked a few villages that we'd read about in guidebooks and that were located fairly close to Perigueux; it's easy when you have a friend with a car!

Also, on our way out we passed this house:

(I stole this photo from the internet because we saw it from the car and there wasn't anywhere to pull over. We hadn't made a plan to see it, I just spotted it.)

Look familiar? I had heard of this "White House" before, from one of the teachers at the school. The story goes that when Jefferson was in France, he saw the plans for this house, which had not yet been built at the time, and liked them so much that he took a copy home with him to suggest for the future White House in Washington. I don't know how true that story is, but there's no denying that they look almost exactly the same!

Our first stop was in a town called Brive-la-Gaillarde. We only stopped cause it was on the way. It's a decent-sized city (bigger than Perigueux), but it's not particularly pretty or exciting. But we stopped and walked around the center of town, which wasn't unattractive!

There were these big reindeer decorations still all over the town.

The back of the cathedral and some of the old buildings in the center of town.

After Brive we went to one of our main destinations, which was a town called Collanges-La-Rouge. It's a tiny town in the countryside with gorgeous views of the country and the hills (which are really the foothills of the Pyrenees) that is constructed entirely out of red sandstone. So the entire town is the color of brick, but the buildings are made out of big stones. It was very interesting and very pretty. It's also a vacation town, so it was pretty much completely empty. A lot of the towns that we visit are empty. But it was still really cool and interesting to walk around and see.

The town just felt old. Apparently there's evidence that it has existed since the eighth century. That's pretty old. I'd love to see what it's like when there are people there!

The cathedral (which was unfortunately locked) and a few old manor homes.

 

Small streets and an inn/garden.

Old-timey tractor next to someone's house!

Just some more shots of the small streets and buildings of the town.

I really liked this little town. It was really interesting and really pretty. It was also in a really gorgeous setting, but it's hard to show that because a. the lighting wasn't good and b. it was kind of overcast. But it's right in the heart of the foothills of the Pyrenees, like I said. Very gorgeous and very cool.

Next we went over to a town called Turenne, which was only about 10 km away. (Uh oh, I'm starting to talk in kilometers. Even though I still only have a vague idea of kilometer distances in comparison to mile distances.) Turenne was another small and very ancient town built on a hill. Since it was built on a hill (with an old fortified castle at the top) it had incredible views of the surrounding hills and valleys. Even though it was a bit overcast and hazy, we could still see for miles and it was really gorgeous. The sun even deigned to come out for about twenty minutes, so we got some good views. Again, it was a very small town and a vacation spot, so it was pretty much empty. I think we saw about five people. But it was still cool to see and wander around. Plus we got some exercise walking up to the top of the hill.

Sheep on the hill as we drove up to find the town. We took a bit of a detour on the way there. And I would hardly count what we drove on as "roads." Just kind of dirt paths.

Looking out toward one of the churches and the countryside.

 

Some of the small streets of Turenne. It was interesting to see another tiny town not far from the first - but that looked completely different.

A decent view of the countryside and the tops of some of the houses in the town.

The ruins of the old castle and the walls at the top of the hill that the town sat on. There was more to see of the castle - but of course it was closed, so we couldn't go check it out. Still cool from the outside though.

 

I really like this picture. Kind of cool with all the pigeons taking off at once. Even though I can't stand pigeons! 

Like I said - itty, bitty little roads. Very pretty, very old, very French.

It was a nice little trip for the day, and I've managed to see a lot of the area already. I'm lucky that Cathi has a car and is interested in driving out to see new places. If I wasn't friends with her, I definitely would have seen less of the region! And I definitely would have felt more trapped in Perigueux!

It's getting to be time to go back to school, so I need to wrap this up. My class this morning was on Civil Rights and important minorities in the U.S., and it actually went pretty well. We'll see how the rest of the afternoon goes. Unfortunately my last class of the day is almost a disaster because the students are tired and just refuse to talk and participate, so even if I have enough prepared...we end up running out of stuff to do because they refuse to talk. It's not very enjoyable. So we'll see how my other classes go. The other two classes that I have this afternoon are usually fine, so it's really just that last one.

Also, we'll see how I do about continuing to post regularly! I will make an attempt. But I'm going to need to go do some more stuff so I still have pictures to post! Otherwise it will just be words, and that's not quite as interesting.

The last winter vacation post!

Well. Not quite. But almost.

I'm currently listening to a podcast of French news. I had totally forgotten that I had started downloading them to try to get myself to listen to the news in French most days. If I had a TV in my apartment I would put the news on, but I don't, so this was my alternative. Except I totally forgot about it. I had about 20 podcasts sitting in my iTunes; they just kind of went to waste because I wasn't going to listen to news from three weeks ago. I'm going to try to start listening to them more regularly. Is it too late to make New Year's Resolutions?

So the second part of my vacation was with Mark. We spent an extra day in Paris because it was January 1 and most stuff was closed - plus we knew Mark would be jet-lagged. I have no evidence of this extra day in Paris because basically all we did was eat in a cafe, sleep, watch TV, eat paninis, and sleep again. We probably should have taken advantage of being in Paris but, like I said, all the museums and monuments were closed, and we were exhausted. Mark and I are also lucky enough to have been to Paris together before. So it was okay.

The next morning we got up super early to take the train down to Toulouse. Five-and-a-half hours on the high-speed train; Toulouse is very far south. Neither of us had ever been to Toulouse before, so it was a new place to go!

Toulouse is called "la ville rose," literally "the pink city" but it's better translated as "the red city." It is called such because it is built almost entirely in brick. Sometime during the Middle Ages it was much cheaper to build all the buildings out of brick - and then after all the buildings were brick, they decided they'd just make brick a rule. So most of the city is brick, which is pretty unique to Europe. In Europe you usually see beige and brown stones, so it's very strange to see cathedrals built out of brick.

Most of the streets in Toulouse were surprisingly narrow. Since it's a decent-sized city (400,000+), I think I was expecting big boulevards and more open space. But it has much more of a small-city feel. (P.S. Totally just realized I can make my pictures bigger - maybe I'll go back now and re-size my other photos.)

Central square of town. The area in front of the city hall and other government buildings. There was a big market there the first day we were there.

Voila. Here's the market!

One of the little shopping streets.

Marina studied in Toulouse for nine months, so she gave us a bunch of suggestions of things to do and places to eat while we were there. We went to a couple of her restaurant suggestions - and ate delicious Argentinian empanadas and good French crepes as a result.

Of course another big part of this vacation was just seeing Mark again. Nearly four months was a long time not to see each other! We did a lot of sight-seeing, but we also just talked a lot. And watched the entire season of Modern Family that he had brought for me. Every evening in Toulouse we just bought food and cooked in the tiny kitchen that was in our hotel room and watched Modern Family. It was a little like being back at UVA!

If only.

Anyway, here are some more pictures of Toulouse and it's brick-ness.

Old abbey. There were actually several towers in Toulouse that looked like that. Sometimes we would see one above the buildings and think we knew where we were...but we would usually be wrong about which tower it was.

It was interesting to see the inside of a cathedral in brick! 

The back of the abbey. It had an almost Mediterranean feel to it. It was very different than most cathedrals that I've seen.

A cool, colorful (and very narrow) street that we saw as we were walking around.

We also ventured into the town hall which has a few rooms open to the public. The rooms are covered from floor to ceiling in very elaborate paintings. They were pretty cool to see. Very fancy.

At this point, I don't have a great concept of when exactly we went to all these places. Just over the course of about three days we visited a bunch of stuff in Toulouse. I'm just going by the order that my pictures are in. I think the second day we went to a museum of antiquities that was housed in an old monastery. That's the thing about Europe, they can just take really old buildings and churches and turn them into whatever they want them to be. Granted, turning an old monastery into a museum isn't too off-the-wall, but still. It's quite different than the United States. The museum was pretty cool as far as old things go, though I would say the setting itself was probably the coolest part.

Gargoyles that had been placed down on the ground so they were visible. I'm not sure what kind of animals they were, tough the second one in looks a bit like a monkey.

Basically you just walked around the courtyard and went into little rooms off this outdoor hallway to see statues and paintings. It was a nice set up. The courtyard was filled with an enormous vegetable garden; it's probably gorgeous during the spring. Mark and I had fun going around and seeing if we knew what all the vegetables were. We also learned that beets look disgusting when they start growing up out of the ground.

One of the interiors of the museum. 

Shot of the monastery and another funky brick tower.

The main cathedral of Toulouse was one of the weirder ones that I've been it. It was pretty unimpressive from the outside; frankly it was just kind of bizarre. You'll see in pictures, but it just looked strange and crooked and not all that imposing. After checking out that cathedral we went to go look at some arch in honor of WWI soldiers and, after taking a long and unintentional detour, we found it and I did not take any pictures of it. I should have to show how weird it was, but it creeped me out. Basically there was an enormous carving on the arch of a soldier but with the head of Marianne, who is known as the embodiment of France (kind of like their patron saint, except not religious), so it was very strange. On another part of the arch were carved heads of soldiers, but they looked trapped in the rock and in pain. Too creepy for pictures, though in retrospect I should have taken some. Mark got a few so I'll steal them from him later.

Weird cathedral, right?

A picture of the main bridge in Toulouse. Not a great shot because of the sun, but worth putting up. This was also one of the few days we had real sunlight.

I also promise that I do have some pictures of people, we just didn't take any together while in Toulouse. But we did in Albi!

Albi is a small city about an hour outside of Toulouse. It's a very old city that was the site of some serious Catholics-defeating-the-pagans battles way back when. Similarly to Toulouse, it's built mostly of brick, so it was another unique city. Mark and I took the train from Toulouse to Albi (it's so easy to travel by train in France) and experienced a fairly typical sensation that comes when you get to a town by train. That sensation is: "Uh oh. Was this a mistake?" Because train stations are never in the center of town and train stations are never surrounded by pretty buildings. So of course when we got off the train it didn't look like the most appealing city. But luckily the monstrous fortress of a castle that dominates Albi was in sight, so we just wandered up toward it.

Seriously. Fortress.

And made out of bricks. This cathedral was totally bizarre as well - but in a good way. It was this monstrous structure from the outside (built like that pretty much to protect the Catholics from the pagans who they had forced to build the cathedral) but on the inside it was unbelievably elaborate and delicately decorated. I was expecting it to be pretty forbidding on the inside as well - but I was definitely wrong!

Back of the fortress/cathedral.

Proof that we were both actually in these places.

Examples of the elaborate stonework and paintings in the cathedral.

And more.... 

And some more! Pretty incredible.

Albi also had, as you can see in the background of that picture of Mark and me, a big fortress-like castle with gardens overlooking the river. This castle had been turned into an art museum (see what I said about France just turning old things into museums for other old things?), which we didn't go in, but we did walk around the gardens which were pretty even though they weren't in bloom.

All the buildings making up the castle were pretty cool. This was walking through one of the interior areas within the castle walls.

Castle gardens and the river.

Walkway and Mark pretending to be a statue. He's shooting an arrow in case you couldn't guess.

Another serious brick fortress!

And finally, after wandering around the gardens and the cathedral, we walked down to the river and saw the Old Bridge (I think most French towns have a bridge called "The Old Bridge") which was built in the 1300s and at one point had houses and a chapel on it. I don't know why you need a chapel in the middle of the bridge, but, hey, I don't know what it was like to live in the Middle Ages. Also, I was once again amazed by wondering how on earth they built bridges in the 1300s. Seriously, how did they get the pylons down into the ground underwater? Think about it.

A shot of the bridge (which still allows cars to drive over it) and the main part of the city. Brick, brick, brick!

Albi was really cool. It was definitely worth heading over there for a day because we got to see some really interesting stuff. We also drank tea in a tea house that Mark didn't want to go into because it had a half-sized electronic dancing Santa Claus with a saxophone outside; Mark thought it was creepy. Which it was.

And, wow, this blog post has gotten way longer than I intended it to (so many pictures to put up!) and it is also way later than I wanted it to be. I had plans to get a lot more stuff done tonight and instead spent a ton of time on this blog post. I have a really long day of teaching tomorrow, so I want to go to relax and try to get a good night's sleep. I'll finish up the last couple days of the trip (not a whole lot to say because we just came back to Perigueux) tomorrow.