11.15.09
Toussaint vacances part 2
I’ve been so tired this week, so my blogging has slacked. *kicks self in the butt* Get back to it!
You may remember I went on vacation what now feels like a million years ago. The first post is here. The second post is the one you’re reading now 
It’s all meta and shit!
Part II
When David and I woke up on Friday, his roommates were already gone, having left on an early train for Paris where they were spending the next four days. David made us a Spanish-style omelette (tortilla) for breakfast.
After showering and getting dressed, we set off to explore the town of Vitré more thoroughly.
By the time we got to town it was nearly 2pm, so we sat at a Creperie and had dessert crepes. We like to eat dessert before our meals. I had chocolate and banana, of course, and David had caramel and butter.
Then it was exploring time! We started with the castle. We each bought a ticket to the museum that would allow us inside to explore the castle and would also allow us free entry to four other museums in the area. I was hoping to get to see Madame de Sevigné’s house, since I did a report on her a few years ago, but it was just too far away and there wasn’t enough time.
David in the chateau
Weird statue-thing
Where's David?
Mostly the castle was a museum for different paintings and tapestries, but it was still interesting to walk through. There was one turret that was swarming with flies crawling all over the windows — it was seriously creeping me out. Then there was a death room: dead insects, dead animals and even a dead baby skeleton. That was when the tour was over. WEIRD, Vitré.
We walked around to find the other museum that was close that we could get into when our friend Wes texted us that he’d gotten his pay advance and he could come up Sunday maybe. We called him and convinced him that he needed to come up tomorrow because it was Halloween and he should spend as much time as possible with us.
The other museum turned out to be a disappointment. It was a tiny catholic church with gorgeous stained glass, but they didn’t allow photography and the rest of the “museum” part was catholic relics from the 20th century.
We walked around the town some more….there was a lot of walking. We decided to finally have a late lunch — it was nearing 5pm by this point. We went into a bar and ordered steak haché with fries — the first time I’d had fries since Paris. The bartender made a point to tell us he only served us the food because we were Americans, normally he didn’t serve food at that time.
After eating, we walked through the local park.
Butterflies
I climbed trees.
Lots of low trees - great for climbing!
And then we walked to the grocery to get fixin’s for dinner before they closed at 7:30. We spent a looooong time in the store (it’s like a Meijer) because David kept remembering things he needed. We were going to make tacos, but they only had fajita seasonings. So we bought it.
We got home, and I cooked everything. It felt nice; it was my first time cooking in France.
Taco salad in France
Our little taco salads were actually quite delicious!
David wanted to go out dancing that night at a club that didn’t even open until midnight, so I took a nap about 10pm. He woke me at 1am, and we went to the club. It was small but nice, and we drank and danced and talked with French people in the smoking area outside while he smoked. We stayed until nearly 4am and then staggered home, where we watched an episode of 30 Rock and then I passed out from exhaustion.
We slept until nearly noon the next day and then showered fast, ran into town, grabbed food for lunch from the market in town and arrived at the train station just as Wes’s train was pulling in.
We walked him back to David’s apartment and had lunch. We took a late train into Rennes and explored a little more of this big town (but not as big as Bordeaux ;-p). David bought a Brittany (Bretagne) flag he’d been wanting from a stall at an open-air market and I bought a great pair of earrings. We went back to that same bar we’d had trouble finding Thursday night and had cafés.
David and Wes
We kept seeing little kids in costumes wandering around, and I remembered that in France kids don’t trick-or-treat from door-to-door but from shop-to-shop! They would go into any candy store or patisserie or grocery store and beg for treats. It was adorable. I tried to get pictures but couldn’t without looking stalkerish.
We decided Wes needed to try gallettes, so we sat down at a gallette place for dinner. I had the same type as Thursday, but it was just as good!
Halloween light display
Vitré at night was just gorgeous.
Vitré at night
The boys changed their clothes to get ready to go out to the club, but I hadn’t really brought any “club wear” since I was trying to pack lightly, so I caught up on some things on the internet.
Wes and me
Me
We stayed for maybe an hour and a half before David saw some of his students! He felt uncomfortable being in a party-type situation around them, so we left.
We came back, watched some more 30 Rock, and fell ASLEEP.
11.10.09
The rain in Spain falls mainly on France
If I could sum up Bordeaux in one word, that word would be: RAIN. Rain rain rain rain rain. Rain.
Bordeaux lured me in when I first arrived with 20 or so days of warmth and sunshine and not a drop from the sky.
“This isn’t bad at all!” I thought, as I walked around in tank tops and admired the bright blue skies.
And then….everything changed.
It has been raining nearly every day for over a week. Rain is forecasted for every day into the foreseeable future. Sometimes I’ll refresh the forecast and they’ll tease me and take the rain out for one day, but then I refresh again five minutes later and it’s back in. Rain. Every day. For the rest. of. my. life.
In school news, my students are already eager to talk about Christmas. I told them there’s another American holiday in between Halloween and Christmas that we’re going to start talking about beginning on Thursday.
I have sung “Where is Thumbkin” 16 times this week, and I’ll sing it 16 more before the end of the week. They love it.
Yesterday I asked one of my students, in English, “Have you glued it in your notebook already?” and he nodded and showed me, and I smiled and said to him in French “You understood a sentence in English!” and he looked so proud of himself.
11.07.09
Toussaint vacances – Part One
My vacation was so AMAZINGLY AWESOME it cannot be contained in one post. I have an idea it might be that way for all my vacations here.
I left Bordeaux early on Wednesday morning, October 28. I stopped to buy half a dozen Cannelés as a thank-you gift for my couchsurfing host.
Normally I love riding on trains, so I didn’t mind that the train from Bordeaux to Nantes was four hours. I had movies, books, music, and a travel pillow. Oh, and a screaming baby two rows behind me. The child screamed without ceasing for THREE HOURS of the trip. I was about to throw the kid off the train myself.
I was so happy to be off the train and in Nantes right on time (normally French trains are very punctual). I left the train station and went across the street to the tram stop to look at a map. I had vague plans for my day: I wanted to see the castle and the Jules Verne museum, and of course I wanted to see downtown Nantes! I studied the map for a few minutes and then promptly began walking the wrong way. Oops ^^;; Bad moment for Direction Man. I took the tram back the two stops to the castle.
Chateau Nantes
The castle was really impressive — not as big as other castles in France, but the first one I’ve seen on this visit to France! I did the self-guided tour and took lots of pictures which can all be seen on my Flickr
I took the tram to the stop for the Jules Verne museum and then walked up a GIANT HILL to get to the museum. I was mostly exploring it to see if my dad might like it when he comes to visit at the end of my stay in France, but it ended up being pretty cool and mostly about astronomy, which I love.
Musée Jules Verne
I still had time to kill, so I took the tram back to downtown Nantes and wandered in and out of the shops for awhile. They had a long pedestrian-only shopping street with the same stores as Bordeaux, so I was a little disappointed that the commercialism layout was the same as my own town.
A little before 8pm I made my way by tram to my host’s apartment. I got a little turned around, but thanks to my GPS and GoogleMaps App I found it! The other couchsurfer from Bordeaux was already there, and both she and the host were very nice. The host made us (vegetarian!) dinner of lentils and rice that was delicious, and we played a weird game that she’d invented. She gave up her bed to the two of us surfers, so I slept comfortably and soundly!
I woke up early, tried not to disturb the other two who were still sleeping, took a quick shower, got dressed and left for the train station. I had two more trains to ride today before I would be in Vitré. They were both fairly uneventful, though I did finish one of my books.
The last train pulled into Vitré (a small town in the Brittany region) right on time, and as soon as I stepped off I saw my friend David holding a welcome sign (and a baguette)!
Welcome to Vitré!
I was so happy to see him! I hadn’t seen him since we’d parted ways in Paris in September! His German roommate had come along too, so the three of us walked back through the town to their apartment. I met his other roommate, from Spain. I was too nervous to speak much Spanish to him yet — all this intensive French has erased a lot of my Spanish.
Cidre
Chicken curry
The boys put together a great apero and lunch spread — wine, cheese, bread and olives first and then chicken curry. It was my first time having chicken curry, and it was actually pretty good! Not too spicy.
Downtown Vitré
Downtown Vitré
After lunch David and I walked back downtown to show me the castle and the shops. Vitré is an absolutely gorgeous little town. Definitely in the northern part of France…I noticed immediately the lack of palm trees (and I already missed them) and the different styles of architecture.
We walked back to his apartment (I cannot adequately express to you what a hike it was from his apartment to downtown and vice versa….up a major hill each way, and a good 15-20 walk. We DEFINITELY exercised, which is good, because we definitely ATE) and hung out talking until his roommates were ready to go into Rennes — the major town about 45 minutes away by car. His roommate from Germany had driven (wouldn’t that have been easier? Someone build a bridge) so we piled into his car. It was definitely weird being in a car and on a highway. As we were coming into Rennes, David and I started pretending that we were coming into Dayton:
“Look, we’re just leaving Oakwood.”
“I know, can you see the Crowne Plaza up ahead?”
“Oh yeah! And look, there’s the Denny’s right there.”
“Yup.” We’re weird.
We wandered around downtown Rennes for a bit before deciding to have a traditional Brittany meal of gallettes for dinner. I had a gallette with spinach, crème fraiche and a fried egg. And of course, cidre. We had a lot of cidre. It was all really good!
Gallette and cidre
After eating, his roommates left to go to their heavy metal concert and David and I continued wandering around looking for cool bars. He texted a friend of his to find a fun bar, and we spent nearly an hour walking AROUND it, asking strangers on the street, getting close to it but never finding it until finally we stumbled upon it. It was nice with good techno music. We stayed there for awhile and met his friend. Then we went wandering and found another bar, had more drinks. I was freezing, and David kindly lent me his coat, since I’d decided not to pack my heavy coat and just had a hoodie.
We were about to sit at yet another place with his friends when his roommates texted him that the concert was over and they were coming to pick us up. Which of course said to us that it was the perfect time to get paninis. David had to repeat his order about 20 times, to the amusement of the other French people in line, but we finally got our order…mmmmm, tuna panini! We ate them as we rode back to Vitré.
My first two awesome days of vacation…I miss them already! All this stupid work is getting in the way of my having fun ;-p
11.06.09
They can’t all be good days
+ There was cold milk this morning
- Because I bought it myself — we’ve gone to I-buy-everything-I-use-except-dinners here
- The 8:27 bus never showed up
- I missed my first class
+ One of my students gave me a hug and a kiss
- Now I probably have the grippe
+ One of the teachers said she wanted to get together and practice French and English with me and visit museums and stuff, and we exchanged contact info
- It won’t start till she’s back from having surgery
- Another teacher had to come in and yell at one of my classes twice for being too disturbing because I couldn’t control them.
+ Bonding over A Fine Frenzy with one of my teachers at lunch
+ Hey, I like cauliflower! (with enough cream and cheese, sure)
- The sad looks from the class I missed as I walked out for the day without teaching their class
- WAITING AN TWO HOURS FOR A FRICKIN’ BUS
- Surprise strikes
+ Didn’t have to walk ALL the way home, just some of it.
+ Family left for the lake house!!
+ Solace!
More – than +, so I get to say it was a BAD DAY.
(posts and pictures about my WONDERFUL vacation are coming!)
10.26.09
Chez médecin
I woke up rather early, on this, my first real day of vacation, to call the doctor I’d selected from the “Pages Jaune” (Yellow Pages). I asked for an appointment, and a rather abrupt voice told me that the doctor had open office hours today beginning at 2pm.
I was nervous about having to go see a doctor, and I would have put it off if at all possible. I don’t have my Carte Vitale (health insurance card) yet, and I specifically decided I would NOT. GET. SICK this year! Clearly, my body was not listening.
The cause of all this distress? A urinary tract infection. Normally I’d spare you all such intimate details of my life, but in this case it does happen to relate directly to how I experience France and French culture. So we continue.
I began noticing the first symptoms Saturday night. I tried to deny them, but they haunted my dreams. Sunday I made up my mind that I would call the doctor. To put it off any more would only make my vacation miserable and put my body in more danger. I’m prone to UTIs and have been having them with greater and greater frequency over the last few years. Don’t get older, kids.
Around 1:30pm I set off for the doctor’s office. It ended up taking me much longer to find it than I’d thought, due to some bad directions from the online map, but I found her office. And five other people waiting outside to be seen. By that point, I already had to pee again. I asked a nice, elderly lady if we were all waiting for the doctor, to verify I was in the right place, and she said yes. And then started talking to me for the next hour, complaining about the wait.
The doctor didn’t show up until 2:30 (despite telling me to come at 2pm!) and after she unlocked the door to her office, we all filed into her tiny, closet-sized waiting room. After another 15 minutes of waiting with no patients being called, the elderly woman gave up and left, wishing me good luck. Only 4 people ahead of me!
I HAD TO PEE. There was a small bathroom, but I didn’t use it in case she needed a sample. I mean, at home my doctor always takes a sample and analyzes it in the same building. I wasn’t sure if this was the same. So I held it. And held it. And held it. For nearly two hours.
Finally it was my turn. The doctor was very nice. We sat at her desk first, while she listened to my symptoms. I told her, “It seems I have a UTI.” I mean, I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I’ve been through this and I know what it feels like. If you’ll just give me some drugs, we can all go home. I managed to explain all my symptoms and answer her questions in French. She had me hop up on the examining table while she poked at my kidneys (and I tried not to pee on her table), and then she took my blood pressure.
She complimented my French skills and accent, which pleased me. She said she had a neighbor who was American who had lived in France for years whose accent wasn’t as good as mine. I need to send that in an email to my former professors!
The doctor told me I would need to go to a lab to get a urinalysis done, but she was going to give me antibiotics now anyway. PHEW. She wrote the order for the lab test and the prescriptions, I paid her (22 euros) and thanked her, and then I USED THE BATHROOM. There was no way I could wait until I got to the lab. This proved to be a mistake.
Receipts and reimbursement form in hand (not having my Carte Vitale, I paid the full amount and will be reimbursed later…much later), I set off to find the lab. The doctor had been vague…”It’s on the street with the tram.” Yeah, that’s a really long street. I found a pharmacy on that street first, and got my prescriptions filled. Even using a generic antibiotic, it was still 23 euros for three boxes of pills! That’s expensive for France. The pharmacist also gave me a reimbursement slip, and then gave me more precise directions to the lab.
I was seen quickly at the lab, and I knew the drill. One problem: now I was empty! I sneaked back out to the sink and swallowed some water quickly. That did the trick. What an ordeal! I rewarded myself with Cadbury Chocolate Chip cookies from the market across the street.
I’m learning the ropes! Socialized medicine can definitely have it’s pluses and minuses. It seems that Mondays are the only “open office” days — if I’d gone another day I might have gotten a real appointment and not had to wait so long. But time was not on my side, since I leave on vacation Wednesday morning. It’s definitely not convenient to have to go all the way to a lab just for a urinalysis. But the doctor’s office was very intimate, and she was exceptionally nice and caring. Which I appreciated, being sick and scared in a foreign country!
10.25.09
Sunday morning musings
It’s hard to wake up from a dream where I’m home and holding my kittens again and snuggling them after so long. I like it here, but it’s so hard to believe I have to be away from them for another 9 months : ( Last night I dreamt I was holding Sabrina, and I was so happy to have her in my arms again, but she didn’t really remember me. : (
It's hard not to miss her!
I remember when I could just throw some clothes in the laundry two hours before going to work, and have them washed and dried by the time I needed to leave. No longer. The cleaning process is at least a two-day operation here. Hope you didn’t need that for tomorrow!
Absolutely no hope of throwing something in the dryer for a minute or two on a cold morning to warm it up. What a luxury!
I find it weird that my US phone and my US-based laptop computer both automatically updated themselves for Europe Daylight Saving Time, but my French phone didn’t. For the next week, I’m only 5 hours ahead of everyone on EST!
I was thinking of going out to the Jardin Public for a pique-nique today, but it’s been rainy, so the ground will be wet… And I’m not sure if I feel like going all the way into Bordeaux. Maybe I’ll just have a lazy day here in Talence. I have bread, cheese, and smoked salmon, anyway. What more do I need? (maybe some wine…)
I’ll be heading up north on Wednesday! I’m doing a whirlwind tour in a week. Bordeaux to Nantes to Vitré (with a day to visit Rennes) and then from Vitré to La Rochelle and then back down to Bordeaux!
10.22.09
Impractical boots
Woot, Bordeaux won the football match last night! It’s nice to be in a town that actually wins sporting events. Yeah, I’m totally looking at you, Cincinnati Reds and Bengals. And Dayton Dragons, while we’re at it.
Yesterday I went into Bordeaux and spent a good chunk of my savings (that I hadn’t already spent on tickets to London or Wicked tickets). First I bought some ridiculously impractical and expensive new boots. But I wanted them. I wanted them more than any of the other practical or cheap boots. Plus they were warm (the only impractical aspect is that they have 2-inch heels! Well, it doesn’t snow here…)
Impractical (but warm!) boots
I also bought a set of hand weights, so I can continue my workouts here. I’m getting in a lot of good walking, but my arm muscles are turning to jelly from lack of use!
I continued walking up rue Ste. Catherine, the major shopping street in Bordeaux, and entered the SNCF office. It was still an hour before they closed and the place was packed. Moments after I took a number, the manager locked the door and removed the number tickets so no one else could come in and get in line. I just made it! I waited nearly 45 minutes to buy train tickets from a very nice woman.
I needed lots of different tickets because I’m city-hopping instead of going directly from Bordeaux to Vitré. I needed a ticket from Bordeaux to Nantes and then from Nantes to Vitré, and on the way back I needed to go from Vitré to La Rochelle and then from La Rochelle to Bordeaux. She printed the tickets, I paid for them, and then she asked me if I planned to make a lot of trips around France. I said yes, and she asked me why I wasn’t using a discount card. I explained I was too old for the 12-25 discount card, and she told me about the Carte Escapades, which was only good on weekends. Which would normally be when I’d be traveling in France — when I’d want to make trips down to Pays-Basque or other close towns. She re-ran all my tickets with the new discount — even though they weren’t on weekend days. She was incredibly helpful, and I thanked her profusely as I was leaving.
I bought a croque-chevre from a patisserie for dinner and ate it in the square near where my language group meets. It was pretty much a chevre pizza on toast, but it was delicious. As I was eating, a little girl about 5 years old entered the square, pushing her family’s garbage can out so it could be emptied; it was taller than she was. She came over to talk to me. She told me about taking the garbage out and about her mother, and then she asked what I was eating. She asked if she could have it, and I laughed and said no, it was mine. She said, “Please, just a little?” So I relented and tore off a corner for her. She ate it and scampered off. She came back out several more times to talk to me, in-between running in to other places on the square. At one point I saw her run into a bar and come out with bread and cheese! I don’t think she was homeless, judging from the trash can and good coat she had on. She just wanted food!
I declined going out to the bar with the folks from the language group because I didn’t want to stay out too late and disturb my host family, plus I had to get up really early this morning. I got home a little before 10:30pm to find they were all already in bed with the shutters drawn and all lights off! Very odd, since sometimes we’ve only just barely finished dinner by that time! I climbed the stairs in complete darkness, not wanting to wake anyone.
Today was my last day with my secondary school until after the vacation! We worked on Halloween words, and I gave the two older classes a conversation to practice reading. They have real trouble reading English words right now, but that’s to be understood, since they’re completely unfamiliar with them. My older class (around 8 years old) did the best, and I was able to have two groups stand before the class and read the scenes in front of everyone.
They were very basic, but incorporated everything we’d learned:
“1: Hello.
2: Good morning.
1: What is your name?
2: My name is Dracula. I am a vampire.
1: Nice to meet you. I am a witch.
2: We are very scary!”
I showed several videos at the end of class; since it’s right before vacation, I can’t expect them to work too hard. They loved the video for the Monster Mash and also The Skeleton Dance; my youngest class wanted to watch the Skeleton Dance again instead of something new! And I’ve now heard the Monster Mash so many times it’s like I was home hearing it on the radio.
One more day of classes! And it may not even be a full day, since it’s at clusterfuck school, and I heard they’re planning a Halloween event in the afternoon, so I may not teach my afternoon classes! But of course no one’s told me anything yet!
10.20.09
Stickermania
Plans, they are being made! I just booked two tickets to see Wicked in London on December 21st, and I also booked a flight for myself from the Bordeaux airport to London from December 18 through the 22nd. As much as I’d really rather not fly again, it ended up being cheaper round trip to fly than to take trains.
I’m still in the process of confirming my plans for the upcoming break next week. I had really wanted to visit a couple of different cities, but my secondary plans keep falling through. Right now it looks like I’ll just be going to Vitré over Halloween weekend, with a stop in La Rochelle on the way back. I’m so excited to be traveling and seeing new sights!
I taught my kids a little about Halloween today. I showed them pictures from a few years ago of my uncle, my cousins and me on our annual voyage to Shaw Pumpkin Farm, and they LOVED IT. They loved seeing the giant pumpkins all over the place, they loved seeing me in America, they loved seeing my family. “Who’s that?” they asked over and over again, wanting to know every last detail. I showed them pictures I had of Jack O’Lanterns outside my old apartment in Centerville, and they had more questions. “Is that your house? Do you live there? It’s huge!”
Little kids also love stickers. I gave away stickers as a prize to bingo winners in a class today, and I thought the non-winners were going to start a riot. “Can we have stickers too?” they begged.
“Not today,” I said. “There will be plenty of chances to win stickers throughout the year.”
“Can we play another game now so we can get stickers?”
“No, the class is over.”
“Can’t you just give us a sticker?”
They were going crazy. HELP. SEND MOAR STICKERS.
I only have two more days of teaching before the break. I’m thinking the last days of class will be fun days, where we watch a bunch of videos and learn the words for Halloween terms like “witch,” “ghost,” and “spider.”
10.18.09
Happy French birthday!
So I had a birthday yesterday. In France. Happy French birthday to me! Thank you to everyone who wished me well ^_^ It really made me feel loved and helped me not feel so far away from home.
I’d been very worried about my birthday, since it was so soon after my arrival in France. I was worried I wouldn’t have made friends quickly enough to be able to spend day with anyone. I was worried I’d be all alone in a foreign country. And birthdays are a BIG DEAL to me…I feel like people should be treated special on their birthday and fussed over, and I was afraid I’d have no one to do that for me.
Several weeks ago my host family suggested that I invite some friends over, just for a soiree, and I suggested that I have them over for my birthday. I invited a few English assistants that I’d gotten to know and liked and my friend from Wright State, Wesley, who lives in La Rochelle, was going be coming down for the weekend.
Generally my host family leaves Talence around 6pm on Friday evenings for their lake house about 30 miles away, and they spend the whole weekend there. So I thought it was a great sacrifice they were making to spend the weekend in Talence for me. My host father once told me their real house is the lake house, and they’re just in Talence during the week for work and school.
On Saturday I woke up around 9am, showered, and went downstairs to see how I could help my host mother with the preparations. She told me she was already almost done! So I went back upstairs and puttered around on the computer, which was generally dull because everyone I wanted to talk to was still asleep. I had that excited “People are coming over!” feeling, which was nice to have; it made this place feel more like my house.
People were supposed to show up around 1pm. Around 11 I realized that my host family wasn’t going to be staying for the party — they were still going to the lake house! Around noon I wandered downstairs, and they were like “Well, have a great party, happy birthday, see you Sunday night!” and got the heck out of there. So…yay for having the house to myself right now.
My friends found the place with little trouble, and we mostly chatted about life as an assistant in France. People stayed several hours, and there was SO MUCH GOOD FOOD, so I think everyone had a good time! ^_^
French birthday party!
French birthday party!
Happy French birthday!
Happy French birthday!
After everyone else left, I took Wesley in to Bordeaux to show him around. We walked up the Rue Ste. Catherine, the major shopping street in town. We each got something at H&M — Wesley got a new French scarf and I got a new French hat.
New French hat
While we were wandering around downtown Bordeaux, I ran into a few people I knew. It’s really nice to start seeing people I know on the street, it really makes the town feel more like my home.
I introduced him to FNAC (giant book, music, movie, and computer store) and we spent a lot of time browsing French DVD titles. We walked out to the Place de la Bourse and the mirror lake and then began looking for dinner. I wanted both a salade de chevre chaude AND gateau basque, and it seemed that every prix fixe had one or the other, but then we found a great restaurant that had BOTH for only €12,90! I also had vegetarian penne pasta. It was all SOOOO good. I don’t think I’ve eaten this much food in weeks.
I walked Wesley down to his hostel and then took the tram back home, where I Skyped with my parents for a little bit and then went to bed.
Today I met Wes at Place Victoire and we walked to the flea market in front of St. Michel. Wes found two DVDs he’d been wanting yesterday at FNAC for only €2 each, and I found the Kyosphere DVD for only €2! YAY KYO!
We wandered around for awhile looking for a cafe, and then sat and enjoyed an espresso (him) and a hot chocolate (me). We sat by the river for awhile just laughing and talking and making plans to get together again. It was so good to see someone from home, someone that knows me and gets me. I dropped him off at the train station and we said goodbye 
It was a great French birthday!!
Wes and me in Bordeaux
10.16.09
Mute
I have completely lost my voice from yelling at French children for the last week. Today in one class I tried to yell “Hey!” and all that came out was a squeak. I sure hope my voice comes back by Monday afternoon, when the yelling resumes.
Today was supposed to be a long day, but my primary school has some German students visiting, so my last two classes were cancelled for some festivities. So I got to leave at 11:30! YAY! I told the director it was like an early birthday present, since my birthday is tomorrow. And if you think I didn’t make my classes sing “Happy Birthday” to me, we clearly haven’t been properly introduced.
It has been cold here the last two days. It came on very suddenly, so suddenly that I saw two dead birds on my walk to and from the bus stop today. One minute it was 70 degrees and then we’re waking up to 30 degree mornings. I got out my winter coat today! I need to buy gloves and a hat. It’s supposed to warm back up into the 70s and upper 60s next week, thankfully.
Tomorrow my host family is throwing a little fete for me for my birthday, and my friend Wes is coming to visit from La Rochelle. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high, but it sounds like it could potentially be a really wonderful day tomorrow ^_^ Still, I will miss seeing all my friends and family back home on my birthday
