Le 30 novembre 2004.
The first winter cold of the season is making its rounds through the foyer, and in particular, the assistants. Both Wienke and Jennifer have already been sick, and possibly Louise Plaid too- and now I woke up this morning with my little sniffles and sore throat going into overdrive. It’s quite annoying to be feeling under the weather in the first place, and then to just keep feeling weaker and tired makes it all that worse. The worst bit is how you just seem to lose your head in addition to feeling awful. Walking to pick up my new student card for the regional bus system of Moselle, I completely forgot I was in France and the office would be closed for the requisite two hours at lunch. But il faut profiter, and so I did. I used the time to stroll –as my walking speed is not much more than a stroll today- through the marché de Noël at Place St. Louis; there I picked out ideas for Christmas presents to send home and tried a huge bowl of tartifoulette, or something like that, a Franco-Swiss dish from the Alps, made of potatoes, onions, bits of ham, and about five pounds of cheese (usually gruyere!) per serving. The guy serving up the dish was a funny guy, but super nice. He listened to my accent as I asked for some of the … stuff, and laughingly wouldn’t start scooping up some hot food for me until I properly pronounced the name of the dish. (What a throw back to yesterday and making my kids pronounce fifty properly- as in fifty, not something almost like fifteen. Oh, pronunciation!) It’s such a heavy dish I couldn’t even finish half of it, so I suppose I should have just gotten a monster pretzel, they’re about the size of my face and very thick. I also wanted to ride on the gorgeous antique carousal, but decided to wait until I had a crowd of twenty-somethings to ride with me, so as not to look quite so bizarre.
In a land of such bureaucracy as France, I’ve often commented that they should be more organized than they truly are; yet this disorganization is what makes it so easy to get what you want in France. For instance, a student pass for the regional bus system will get me either fifty or seventy-five percent of the price of my bus back from Ste. Marie on the days I can’t get a ride back into town. The problem being that I can only be classed as a student of life at the moment, hence my ‘student card’ doesn’t have the school years printed on it. Luckily, there existed another card with the school year dates printed on it, and that in combination with my student card were enough to qualify me for the student pass. So hooray for yet another identification card in my wallet! I think I’m up to four cards for some reason of discount or another. But I have found a wallet that I am going to buy, so then I’ll have an actual wallet!
In addition, as I was walking back to Republique to pick up my student bus pass from the hopefully opened TIM office at 2pm, I noticed that the scene of Republique in front of me, at the end of Rue des Clercs, looked rather familiar. In the end I decided it looked like Paris’ wide avenues lined with numerous sycamores, and with all the dappled sunlight coming through the clouds today, it was a really beautiful scene- like a watercolor painting that you’d buy on the street in Paris.
Marie-Pierre is one of the dear-est woman who has ever lived. (Forgive my grammatical errors there! And I’m teaching English, I know!) Besides just being such a sweet lady, she has lent me an entire kitchen—mugs, bowls, soup plates, plates, silverware, glasses, beer mugs, corkscrew, bottle opener, and pots and pans. I couldn’t believe it! I can now cook in my kitchen! It’s so beautiful now too, not just half empty shelves!
Terri has just reminded me that I never mentioned the glorious things that happened on Thanksgiving. After the sad and untimely demise of our pumpkin pie on the Wednesday before, Victoria’s sister arrived from the East Coast on Thursday and they made delicious mashed potatoes and … the best part!... pumpkin pie filling, so we got to have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, just without the crust! But it was so delicious!
On a final note, I think I’ll have to invite the residence handyman to tea one day; for even though it’s his job at the foyer to fix things, I feel between my room and my studio, he has seen me more often than most of the other residents. But yay for a new faucet head tomorrow!
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Monday, November 29, 2004
Ça va mieux…
Le 28 novembre 2004.
After a glorious weekend, I’m truly tempted to write in French tonight- but will not for two reasons, it wouldn’t be that good and it would be hard for non-francophiles to read. My last entry was from the afternoon of Thanksgiving, before things really got moving. But my entire day was superb- had fun making handprint turkeys with my kids (even though they’re 10-15 years old), bought my tickets to visit Kristen, took a nap, had a good afternoon in the computer lab, talked with Kristen, had a marvelous conversation with Kim, and geared up for Thanksgiving with 15 other assistants or friends. As much as we were leary of a possible disaster, even with a few false starts towards that, things came off wonderfully! Really, with 16 people, it’s remarkable that people were only about 45 minutes late and there was the usual amount of confusion, but chickens were picked up, potatoes arrived, bread was bought, and decorations were provided by the unsuspecting hands of little potential English-speakers. The feast was quite marvelous, conversation was good and varied, and entertainment was provided by a re-enactment by Bobby of his self-impersonation of in-class discipline, “J’attends le silence.” (Please see Amelia’s blog and reference photo on this blog.) Cat, Victoria’s sister, arrived on Thursday to spend the day cooking for dinner and to spend four days with Victoria before returning to classes on the east coast. Thanksgiving abroad has proven itself yet again as a fascinating opportunity to enjoy the company of some unique people.
The train system in France is quite an amazing thing. Living in Europe for me means the happy opportunity to travel by train. However, it becomes quite annoying when one is trying to visit a friend for the weekend, who lives about an hour and forty minutes away, and actual time spent on a train is about one hour and forty minutes, but it still takes a duration of three and a half hours to get there and five and a half hours to get back. It’s simply great to be able to get on and off the train as needed, it’s simply those hours of time between the three trains it takes to get to and from a little town. The main issue arises from the fact that Metz and St. Dizier aren’t on major lines anyway, let along on major lines corresponding to each other. Other than the trip to and from, the past weekend was quite brilliant. Visiting Kristen was a wonderful way to spend the extended part of the Thanksgiving holiday, and it was good to see Shannon again. Our dinner reminded me of how much I miss French family dinners on Friday nights in Toulouse. Such good food, wonderful people to meet, and great and varied conversation arose from the mix of people. Kristen’s stuffing recipe from her great-aunt went over extremely well, with the majority of people asking for the recipe and one French lady promising to make it for Christmas with her family. Shannon couldn’t get enough, and Antoine took what remained of the stuffing to get him through the week. ‘Le Stuff’ succeeded greatly at a French Thanksgiving. In addition, Preciosa made the pumpkin pies, but in a style French, meaning that they tasted more in a sense like pumpkin flan than the traditional American pumpkin pie- yet it was really quite tasty. Kristen truly has the luck to have met the people she has and befriended during her time already in St. Dizier.
It’s also reassuring to have Thanh Ly and her sister, Kim, who are both a few years older than Kristen and I, and are still just starting to ‘settle’ a bit into their lives. They both have traveled and studied abroad in Canada and the US. They do not fear receiving the yellow and green hat of St. Catherine, even though they should have already. For French legend says that if a woman is not married by a certain age, than she is to receive a paper hat make with yellow for the sadness of being unmarried, but also of green to give hope that she won’t be long an ‘old maid’. Kristen, Shannon, and I are quite relieved that they have no worries about receiving the hat, hence we have hope still. Plus Thanh Ly and Kim are just so sweet. On their return to Reims, they dropped me off at the train station in Vitry Le François, so I didn’t have to leave St. Dizier so early and then wait two hours and twenty minutes there. The best part being that I got to chat with them a bit more and also they like country music, especially bluegrass!
Happiness comes from having the opportunity to realize appreciation for the things you have or the comforts of home, because you go away for a bit of time.
Accomplishments of the weekend: didn’t shower or wash my hair today and have yet to feel gross; learned how to cut veggies en style à la française, and have begun to speak a fabulous version of franglais because of amount of French spoken this weekend, ie: Even if it’s not a vrai apartment, I love my petit studio.
After a glorious weekend, I’m truly tempted to write in French tonight- but will not for two reasons, it wouldn’t be that good and it would be hard for non-francophiles to read. My last entry was from the afternoon of Thanksgiving, before things really got moving. But my entire day was superb- had fun making handprint turkeys with my kids (even though they’re 10-15 years old), bought my tickets to visit Kristen, took a nap, had a good afternoon in the computer lab, talked with Kristen, had a marvelous conversation with Kim, and geared up for Thanksgiving with 15 other assistants or friends. As much as we were leary of a possible disaster, even with a few false starts towards that, things came off wonderfully! Really, with 16 people, it’s remarkable that people were only about 45 minutes late and there was the usual amount of confusion, but chickens were picked up, potatoes arrived, bread was bought, and decorations were provided by the unsuspecting hands of little potential English-speakers. The feast was quite marvelous, conversation was good and varied, and entertainment was provided by a re-enactment by Bobby of his self-impersonation of in-class discipline, “J’attends le silence.” (Please see Amelia’s blog and reference photo on this blog.) Cat, Victoria’s sister, arrived on Thursday to spend the day cooking for dinner and to spend four days with Victoria before returning to classes on the east coast. Thanksgiving abroad has proven itself yet again as a fascinating opportunity to enjoy the company of some unique people.
The train system in France is quite an amazing thing. Living in Europe for me means the happy opportunity to travel by train. However, it becomes quite annoying when one is trying to visit a friend for the weekend, who lives about an hour and forty minutes away, and actual time spent on a train is about one hour and forty minutes, but it still takes a duration of three and a half hours to get there and five and a half hours to get back. It’s simply great to be able to get on and off the train as needed, it’s simply those hours of time between the three trains it takes to get to and from a little town. The main issue arises from the fact that Metz and St. Dizier aren’t on major lines anyway, let along on major lines corresponding to each other. Other than the trip to and from, the past weekend was quite brilliant. Visiting Kristen was a wonderful way to spend the extended part of the Thanksgiving holiday, and it was good to see Shannon again. Our dinner reminded me of how much I miss French family dinners on Friday nights in Toulouse. Such good food, wonderful people to meet, and great and varied conversation arose from the mix of people. Kristen’s stuffing recipe from her great-aunt went over extremely well, with the majority of people asking for the recipe and one French lady promising to make it for Christmas with her family. Shannon couldn’t get enough, and Antoine took what remained of the stuffing to get him through the week. ‘Le Stuff’ succeeded greatly at a French Thanksgiving. In addition, Preciosa made the pumpkin pies, but in a style French, meaning that they tasted more in a sense like pumpkin flan than the traditional American pumpkin pie- yet it was really quite tasty. Kristen truly has the luck to have met the people she has and befriended during her time already in St. Dizier.
It’s also reassuring to have Thanh Ly and her sister, Kim, who are both a few years older than Kristen and I, and are still just starting to ‘settle’ a bit into their lives. They both have traveled and studied abroad in Canada and the US. They do not fear receiving the yellow and green hat of St. Catherine, even though they should have already. For French legend says that if a woman is not married by a certain age, than she is to receive a paper hat make with yellow for the sadness of being unmarried, but also of green to give hope that she won’t be long an ‘old maid’. Kristen, Shannon, and I are quite relieved that they have no worries about receiving the hat, hence we have hope still. Plus Thanh Ly and Kim are just so sweet. On their return to Reims, they dropped me off at the train station in Vitry Le François, so I didn’t have to leave St. Dizier so early and then wait two hours and twenty minutes there. The best part being that I got to chat with them a bit more and also they like country music, especially bluegrass!
Happiness comes from having the opportunity to realize appreciation for the things you have or the comforts of home, because you go away for a bit of time.
Accomplishments of the weekend: didn’t shower or wash my hair today and have yet to feel gross; learned how to cut veggies en style à la française, and have begun to speak a fabulous version of franglais because of amount of French spoken this weekend, ie: Even if it’s not a vrai apartment, I love my petit studio.
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