It just snowed!
Now normally, I am very opposed to the idea of snow.
It's cold. It makes your shoes and pant-hems soggy. It makes getting around by bike a little more dangerous. It's cold. It turns dirty in a couple of days. It's cold.
But this snow did not stick. Not even a little bit.
And it was all fluffy, fat flakes, drifting gently down through the street lights.
Today was also the first day of the Christmas Market, and the first day that all of the christmas lights got turned on, so as long as it doesn't become a regular thing, it was quite nice.
I may have also felt a little less angry about it just because people got so excited. It doesn't usually snow here, so when it began to fall, there was a kind of collective excitement and a city-wide gasp. "Waaoah. Il neige!"
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
I Am Developing a Twitch...
in my left eye.
Seriously though... it was pretty bad for a while, and it is all the fault of France.
I know that I haven't written for quite a while (a really, really long while) which is bad of me, and there's quite a lot that's happened since last I wrote. It was, after all, about a month ago. I'm going to try my best to tell the most complete tale possible, without having this blog stretch out into eternity, because lets face it, you don't really want to read something that long.
The most important thing that you need to know is that, even though I have been in this country for almost two months now, I have JUST started actually working in my schools.
This is because France lied to me a couple of times.
The first lie was in July when they sent me the paperwork for my contract telling me that I needed to be ready to start working on October 1st. This is why I scheduled my flight for the middle of September, so that I could have a week or two to figure out my living situation, get settled in and be well prepared for the first day of work.
The second lie came to me a couple weeks before I left for New York, when France told me that the first meeting would be October 7th. I thought, "Geez France, you could've told me earlier, now I'm going to have 3 weeks in France with nothing to do...oh well."
Well, there WAS a meeting on October 7th, and I guess that technically my contract DID start on October 1st... but at that first meeting, I was informed that I wouldn't actually start teaching until after Halloween. HALLOWEEN!? And while I did spend a couple afternoons each week chasing down instructors and trying to build a schedule, this meant that essentially I was supposed to just hang out for a month and a half with no money and nothing to keep me busy. Grrrrrrr.
Lucky for me, France always keeps itself busy, and what with all the social unrest lately, there were more than a few protests to check out.
I know that in the news they made it sound very bad and potentially dangerous, but personally, whenever I hear that there's going to be a strike, I associate it with free entertainment. Seriously! What is more fun that watching people take to the streets en masse?! And since I wasn't working or studying, and I don't use any gasoline-powered vehicles, I was absolutely not affected by the strikes.
(check out this video!)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf7k2i_retraites-les-lyceens-maintiennent_news
Okay, maybe a little affected, because whenever there are strikes people block the tramways (what kind of stupid city has Trams anyway?! They have to wait for traffic, they are easily blocked by protesters and they are really easy to ride without paying. Metros and subways are definitely the way to go.) but I usually ride my bike to work, so for me, this was just one big spectacle! My friend's sister was driving up from the south with her boyfriend and they got stuck in Nantes because they ran out of gas and all of the stations were empty. Apparently there is a big Gasoline reserve in Saint-Nazaire, which is only about 40 minutes away, but the streets surrounding it had been barricaded by burning tires (not too savvy, if you ask me... for several reasons). I myself had to cross a fire-barricade that had been set across a tramline to keep people from reaching the gas station once gasoline had finally been re-distributed... I had to cross it THREE TIMES, which, by the end, was not necessarily fun, because people were starting to get a bit cranky.
That was the day the aforementioned eye-twitch really started.
It was the end of a week spent trying to get my teachers to commit to a schedule, and as I work at two schools, and apparently nothing in France can be organized by email or conference call, I was having to bike back and forth between schools (both of which are about 25 minutes from my house) trying to create a schedule that worked for both groups... and then, as soon as I thought that I had everything figured out, one of the schools decided that that wouldn't quite work for them, so I had to start hopping back and forth again.
On the day of the fire-line crossing, while listening to some more wishy-washy non-committal "well maybe on this day..." planning, my eye started twitching like-a-crazy!
This was irritating, because I like to think that, in general, I am a pretty easy-going person. I am perhaps a bit particular about certain things, I may be mildly stressed, but I am certainly not tightly-wound and I am definitely not an organization freak.
And despite all of this, France gave me a twitchy eye!
Those jerks.
Don't worry though! It has since stopped twitching.
This may have been, in part, due to the two week vacation (yes, a vacation from doing practically nothing, haha) surrounding the Halloween weekend.
Jonathan Driggers came to visit me, and we had many, many grand adventures, including, but not limited to exploring the lovely and historically important Chateau d'Anne de Bretagne, celebrating Halloween in a properly American way, with costumes and drinks and candy, and we introduced several French friends to the joy of my favorite holiday. They even got dressed up and bobbed for apples!!
Jonathan and I also ventured to Niort to visit Katie again (Montana solidarity, yo!) ate more bread and cheese than was healthy, and went to see the Machines de l'Ile in Nantes, the MOST MAGICAL place EVER!
It's all Jules Verne-inspired steam-punked Animals made from beautifully carved wood and fashioned together with gears and designed to carry people! I am in love with every project these people have in the works. I want very badly to develop some machinist skillz and join their ranks!
Jonathan also had the good fortune to experience the beauty of French strikes. Not only did I drag him to see a protest:
(Seriously! Free entertainment!)
but he arrived at the very zenith of the three-plus week Garbageman strike. Haha.
I spend a lot of time telling everyone how beautiful and lovely and clean France is. (Even when it smells like a toilet, the streets are clean) I like to talk it up and romanticize it, maybe just a little, but when Jonathan stepped out of the train station, he was greeted by mountains of trash. Huge piles of food and garbage and recycling that had been mounding up over the course of almost a month. In some places, protesters had even helped themselves to a bit of the refuse to use as tender for their fires. So not only was it just generally really dirty, but there were the melted, twisted ashes of trash fires here and there. And the SMELL! I'm just going to say that we were lucky it was a cool fall, because if October had been a hot month, Nantes would have been unbearable. As it was, the city was starting to get pretty ripe.
It was not France's classiest moment...
And moving on...
So, my classes have started (finally!) and so far, I've really only met the kids; oh man-alive, are they cute! No jokes, French children are Adorable (with a capital A). And mostly they have a lot of questions for me.
The questions start out pretty standardized: What's your name? How old are you? Where are you from? Do you have brothers and sisters? Do you have pets? Do you like animals? etc.
But if they are given enough time, the questions get really special. Here are a few of my favorites:
"Is Hannah Montana from Montana?"
"What do American Policemen look like?"
"Do you only eat Hamburgers?"
"Have you met Michael Jackson?"
(this was my favorite question, because I laughed, said "No, and what's more, he's dead." and then, about 5 minutes later, I was asked THE SAME THING. Apparently, they reeeeally wanted me to have met the Prince of Pop.
And... I think that may be it. I have officially caught you up on all news strike and-or school related.
I shall try to keep this blog a little more up to date from now on.
Bisous
Seriously though... it was pretty bad for a while, and it is all the fault of France.
I know that I haven't written for quite a while (a really, really long while) which is bad of me, and there's quite a lot that's happened since last I wrote. It was, after all, about a month ago. I'm going to try my best to tell the most complete tale possible, without having this blog stretch out into eternity, because lets face it, you don't really want to read something that long.
The most important thing that you need to know is that, even though I have been in this country for almost two months now, I have JUST started actually working in my schools.
This is because France lied to me a couple of times.
The first lie was in July when they sent me the paperwork for my contract telling me that I needed to be ready to start working on October 1st. This is why I scheduled my flight for the middle of September, so that I could have a week or two to figure out my living situation, get settled in and be well prepared for the first day of work.
The second lie came to me a couple weeks before I left for New York, when France told me that the first meeting would be October 7th. I thought, "Geez France, you could've told me earlier, now I'm going to have 3 weeks in France with nothing to do...oh well."
Well, there WAS a meeting on October 7th, and I guess that technically my contract DID start on October 1st... but at that first meeting, I was informed that I wouldn't actually start teaching until after Halloween. HALLOWEEN!? And while I did spend a couple afternoons each week chasing down instructors and trying to build a schedule, this meant that essentially I was supposed to just hang out for a month and a half with no money and nothing to keep me busy. Grrrrrrr.
Lucky for me, France always keeps itself busy, and what with all the social unrest lately, there were more than a few protests to check out.
I know that in the news they made it sound very bad and potentially dangerous, but personally, whenever I hear that there's going to be a strike, I associate it with free entertainment. Seriously! What is more fun that watching people take to the streets en masse?! And since I wasn't working or studying, and I don't use any gasoline-powered vehicles, I was absolutely not affected by the strikes.
(check out this video!)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf7k2i_retraites-les-lyceens-maintiennent_news
Okay, maybe a little affected, because whenever there are strikes people block the tramways (what kind of stupid city has Trams anyway?! They have to wait for traffic, they are easily blocked by protesters and they are really easy to ride without paying. Metros and subways are definitely the way to go.) but I usually ride my bike to work, so for me, this was just one big spectacle! My friend's sister was driving up from the south with her boyfriend and they got stuck in Nantes because they ran out of gas and all of the stations were empty. Apparently there is a big Gasoline reserve in Saint-Nazaire, which is only about 40 minutes away, but the streets surrounding it had been barricaded by burning tires (not too savvy, if you ask me... for several reasons). I myself had to cross a fire-barricade that had been set across a tramline to keep people from reaching the gas station once gasoline had finally been re-distributed... I had to cross it THREE TIMES, which, by the end, was not necessarily fun, because people were starting to get a bit cranky.
That was the day the aforementioned eye-twitch really started.
It was the end of a week spent trying to get my teachers to commit to a schedule, and as I work at two schools, and apparently nothing in France can be organized by email or conference call, I was having to bike back and forth between schools (both of which are about 25 minutes from my house) trying to create a schedule that worked for both groups... and then, as soon as I thought that I had everything figured out, one of the schools decided that that wouldn't quite work for them, so I had to start hopping back and forth again.
On the day of the fire-line crossing, while listening to some more wishy-washy non-committal "well maybe on this day..." planning, my eye started twitching like-a-crazy!
This was irritating, because I like to think that, in general, I am a pretty easy-going person. I am perhaps a bit particular about certain things, I may be mildly stressed, but I am certainly not tightly-wound and I am definitely not an organization freak.
And despite all of this, France gave me a twitchy eye!
Those jerks.
Don't worry though! It has since stopped twitching.
This may have been, in part, due to the two week vacation (yes, a vacation from doing practically nothing, haha) surrounding the Halloween weekend.
Jonathan Driggers came to visit me, and we had many, many grand adventures, including, but not limited to exploring the lovely and historically important Chateau d'Anne de Bretagne, celebrating Halloween in a properly American way, with costumes and drinks and candy, and we introduced several French friends to the joy of my favorite holiday. They even got dressed up and bobbed for apples!!
Jonathan and I also ventured to Niort to visit Katie again (Montana solidarity, yo!) ate more bread and cheese than was healthy, and went to see the Machines de l'Ile in Nantes, the MOST MAGICAL place EVER!
It's all Jules Verne-inspired steam-punked Animals made from beautifully carved wood and fashioned together with gears and designed to carry people! I am in love with every project these people have in the works. I want very badly to develop some machinist skillz and join their ranks!
Jonathan also had the good fortune to experience the beauty of French strikes. Not only did I drag him to see a protest:
(Seriously! Free entertainment!)
but he arrived at the very zenith of the three-plus week Garbageman strike. Haha.
I spend a lot of time telling everyone how beautiful and lovely and clean France is. (Even when it smells like a toilet, the streets are clean) I like to talk it up and romanticize it, maybe just a little, but when Jonathan stepped out of the train station, he was greeted by mountains of trash. Huge piles of food and garbage and recycling that had been mounding up over the course of almost a month. In some places, protesters had even helped themselves to a bit of the refuse to use as tender for their fires. So not only was it just generally really dirty, but there were the melted, twisted ashes of trash fires here and there. And the SMELL! I'm just going to say that we were lucky it was a cool fall, because if October had been a hot month, Nantes would have been unbearable. As it was, the city was starting to get pretty ripe.
It was not France's classiest moment...
And moving on...
So, my classes have started (finally!) and so far, I've really only met the kids; oh man-alive, are they cute! No jokes, French children are Adorable (with a capital A). And mostly they have a lot of questions for me.
The questions start out pretty standardized: What's your name? How old are you? Where are you from? Do you have brothers and sisters? Do you have pets? Do you like animals? etc.
But if they are given enough time, the questions get really special. Here are a few of my favorites:
"Is Hannah Montana from Montana?"
"What do American Policemen look like?"
"Do you only eat Hamburgers?"
"Have you met Michael Jackson?"
(this was my favorite question, because I laughed, said "No, and what's more, he's dead." and then, about 5 minutes later, I was asked THE SAME THING. Apparently, they reeeeally wanted me to have met the Prince of Pop.
And... I think that may be it. I have officially caught you up on all news strike and-or school related.
I shall try to keep this blog a little more up to date from now on.
Bisous
Monday, October 11, 2010
What Grand Adventures We May Find
I have just returned from the most wonderful of weekends!
I hopped a train on Friday to take me to Niort, a lovely town about 80 miles south of Nantes, to visit my friend Katie, who is working there as an assistant. I wasn't sure what the trip held in store, but I figured that it would be fun to travel a little bit, since I am doing so very little work here, and I was really looking forward to seeing Katie, since gosh, when is a little Montanan solidarity not a good thing?
She greeted me at the train station with that familiar, beautiful, blue, Montana flag and walked me back to her house (which is adorable!) where we were almost immediately joined by the landlord's 7-year old daughter. She's great! I love talking with kids because our vocabulary is very similar!
All this was good and dandy, but good and dandy escalated to Friggin Fantastic when, that evening, we went to go see a concert by a group called MORIARTY who I'd listened to a bit before and knew I liked but really didn't know that much about them.
All you need to know is that they are amazing (and yes, they sing in english, so fear not) and the show was really powerful and moving; a Rock&Roll religious experience, if you will.
Seeing music live is always something special, but there exists a certain kind of passion that, when added into the mix, can reach directly into you soul.
They had that passion.
Also, they're opening band had a ukulele player as the lead singer, a girl who played the singing-saw and the violin and a pianist who also played a horse's jaw-bone.
It was all like some sort of gypsy fantasy!
I had assumed, as one is inclined to do after an amazing show, that that would probably be the highlight of the weekend, but gosh! Was I ever wrong!
Waking up early Saturday morning, after getting only a few hours of sleep, we walked down to the cathedral to meet up with one of Katie's friends and a brother and sister, Alex and Marie) that they had met through couch surfing who were kind enough to drive us to the nearby town of La Rochelle and it's neighboring island, L'ile de Ré. They took us to an open-air market, showed us around the town and we spent the day on the beach, picnicking, wading into the chilly water, watching waves crash over the dikes protecting the town, and of course, trading vocab and linguistic lessons back and forth, speaking a happy mixture of French and English.
The ocean always makes me feel better – peaceful, calm, pensive etc – and so I was ready to call it a day, but as it turned out, Alex and Marie have some friends who were hosting a party, and they had decided to take us along.
Now, I was expecting a house party, maybe, MAYBE, a cook-out, but what we got was SO much better.
There's a group of people who live in yurts all year long, and during the summer they organize camps for kids, to teach them about nature and how to live outdoors etc, but staring this week, they are moving their camp to higher grounds and so this was their farewell-until-next-summer party, complete with carneval-esque lights, a theater performance based on several of Mark Twain's writings, and musicians that were still going strong by the time we left at 3am!
It really was this magical sort of dreamland that can only exist at very specific moments in very specific places and with just the perfect mixture of people.
I simply could not have been happier.
(also, here is a video of the most amazing violin-playing 10-year old ever! Holding his own with the big dogs...)
The next day, Katie and I slept until noon and lazed around the house until it was time for dinner, at which point we pulled ourselves together and went to eat at a really great Asian restaurant and then wandered the deserted warmly-lit streets of Niort.
All in all, as bout as much happiness and adventure that one could hope to fit in to 48 hours.
I hopped a train on Friday to take me to Niort, a lovely town about 80 miles south of Nantes, to visit my friend Katie, who is working there as an assistant. I wasn't sure what the trip held in store, but I figured that it would be fun to travel a little bit, since I am doing so very little work here, and I was really looking forward to seeing Katie, since gosh, when is a little Montanan solidarity not a good thing?
She greeted me at the train station with that familiar, beautiful, blue, Montana flag and walked me back to her house (which is adorable!) where we were almost immediately joined by the landlord's 7-year old daughter. She's great! I love talking with kids because our vocabulary is very similar!
All this was good and dandy, but good and dandy escalated to Friggin Fantastic when, that evening, we went to go see a concert by a group called MORIARTY who I'd listened to a bit before and knew I liked but really didn't know that much about them.
All you need to know is that they are amazing (and yes, they sing in english, so fear not) and the show was really powerful and moving; a Rock&Roll religious experience, if you will.
Seeing music live is always something special, but there exists a certain kind of passion that, when added into the mix, can reach directly into you soul.
They had that passion.
Also, they're opening band had a ukulele player as the lead singer, a girl who played the singing-saw and the violin and a pianist who also played a horse's jaw-bone.
It was all like some sort of gypsy fantasy!
I had assumed, as one is inclined to do after an amazing show, that that would probably be the highlight of the weekend, but gosh! Was I ever wrong!
Waking up early Saturday morning, after getting only a few hours of sleep, we walked down to the cathedral to meet up with one of Katie's friends and a brother and sister, Alex and Marie) that they had met through couch surfing who were kind enough to drive us to the nearby town of La Rochelle and it's neighboring island, L'ile de Ré. They took us to an open-air market, showed us around the town and we spent the day on the beach, picnicking, wading into the chilly water, watching waves crash over the dikes protecting the town, and of course, trading vocab and linguistic lessons back and forth, speaking a happy mixture of French and English.
The ocean always makes me feel better – peaceful, calm, pensive etc – and so I was ready to call it a day, but as it turned out, Alex and Marie have some friends who were hosting a party, and they had decided to take us along.
Now, I was expecting a house party, maybe, MAYBE, a cook-out, but what we got was SO much better.
There's a group of people who live in yurts all year long, and during the summer they organize camps for kids, to teach them about nature and how to live outdoors etc, but staring this week, they are moving their camp to higher grounds and so this was their farewell-until-next-summer party, complete with carneval-esque lights, a theater performance based on several of Mark Twain's writings, and musicians that were still going strong by the time we left at 3am!
It really was this magical sort of dreamland that can only exist at very specific moments in very specific places and with just the perfect mixture of people.
I simply could not have been happier.
(also, here is a video of the most amazing violin-playing 10-year old ever! Holding his own with the big dogs...)
The next day, Katie and I slept until noon and lazed around the house until it was time for dinner, at which point we pulled ourselves together and went to eat at a really great Asian restaurant and then wandered the deserted warmly-lit streets of Niort.
All in all, as bout as much happiness and adventure that one could hope to fit in to 48 hours.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
I Started Drawing Again Today
I am, needless to say, happy about this.
They're really just doodles on notecards, but It's been so, SO long since I've really drawn anything.
They're really just doodles on notecards, but It's been so, SO long since I've really drawn anything.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
France Hates Trees
Today is Tuesday and I am determined to stick with this blog and be better about updating than I was the last time I was in France.
Unfortunately, given that my job doesn't start for a whole week and a half, and that you can only wander aimlessly through the streets for so many days in a row before your feet scream in protest, I have become a little bit of a pile. Now don't get me wrong, I make sure to leave the house every single day. Yesterday I went grocery shopping and walked along the southern bank of the island (did I mention that I'm living on an island!? I am! It is largely an industrial, unromantic, ugly kind of island in the middle of a muddy, muddy river, but if you don't know that, walking along the edge of an island, staring across the banks of the Loire sounds veeeery poetic). The day before that I.... um... okay, I didn't leave the house on Sunday, but nobody else did either! ... The day before that I found an open-air farmers market, an amazing flea market (anyone who knows me or has ever seen my room will understand how hard it was to walk through all of those antique machines and books and toys and not leave with one single thing) and a bike sale, bought a bike and rode it, so I think that all of that productivity makes up for Sunday.
Today I was especially motivated to be productive, because my roommates have started classes, and I'm not gonna lie, I feel like a total waste of space watching them come and go, getting work done while I whittle away the hours, doing nothing much in particular. So today, after some obligatory time with the internet, I grabbed all of my important documents, hopped on my swish new ride, and peddled myself across the river and into downtown, looking for a bank with which I could open an account.
Upon finding that bank, and after realizing that I really need to do more aerobics and then walking around a few blocks to catch my breath before I trying to conduct business, I got down to it with my new friend at the bank, Emélie.
This brings me to the title of the post.
I remember opening my checking account in Montana; if these memories are accurate, I went in with my drivers license, spoke to the woman behind the desk, signed a couple sheets of paper and entered my pin number into a machine that my brand new shiny debit card was swiped through, and voilà! I had an account! It took about fifteen minutes and was relatively painless.
Well today was pretty painless too, but it was a lot less efficient.
My new banking buddy Emélie was very friendly, took my passport, entered that information, my address, my phone number and hit print. She then made two photocopies of my passport and started stapling together immense packets of paper.
"Did you remember that in France we use a lot of paper?" she asked laughing.
I smiled back, telling her that as soon as I arrived, I was reminded. Though truthfully I was reminded the moment I started receiving information about my future job in the mail, letters requiring me to respond with forms filled out in triplicate,being sent contracts and photocopies of contracts and instructions on how to read the contracts... it's crazy!
Even today I walked away from the bank with One folder full of information, one giant packet – one of three copies that I had to go through and sign, writing on each page "read and approved" before putting down my ol' john hancock.
I did not, however, walk away from the bank with a shiny new card. That I will get in the mail in around 8 days, maybe, depending on how I understood things. In 8 days, there will someone delivering something to me, that only I can sign for... either this will be my card and some paperwork, or it will just be some paperwork and I will have to return to the bank to pick up my card. Either way, it is a bit more complicated than I think it needs to be (ans I am, of course, an authority on banking practices).
Complication aside, the only real reason I can imagine for such an extensive use papers and documentation, is that France hates trees.
This is just their sneaky, backdoor way of killing all the trees in the world.
Someday, when there are no more trees left, someone will turn to France, staring at it with big, watery eyes, and this person will ask "Why France? Why did you kill all of the trees?"
And France will reply, shrugging, as it nonchalantly puts out its cigarette on its italian leather boot, "well, obviously, people needed bank accounts, what was to be done?"
...
At least that is my theory.
In totally unrelated news, today was the worst possible day to go for a bike ride and forget my camera. It was beautiful and sunny and I stumbled upon some really lovely streets.
I am also determined to go to this place:
http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/english/machines.html
It looks like a wonderful sort of dream!/I am a little bit jealous that I was not involved.
I promise not to forget my camera when I go.
.
Unfortunately, given that my job doesn't start for a whole week and a half, and that you can only wander aimlessly through the streets for so many days in a row before your feet scream in protest, I have become a little bit of a pile. Now don't get me wrong, I make sure to leave the house every single day. Yesterday I went grocery shopping and walked along the southern bank of the island (did I mention that I'm living on an island!? I am! It is largely an industrial, unromantic, ugly kind of island in the middle of a muddy, muddy river, but if you don't know that, walking along the edge of an island, staring across the banks of the Loire sounds veeeery poetic). The day before that I.... um... okay, I didn't leave the house on Sunday, but nobody else did either! ... The day before that I found an open-air farmers market, an amazing flea market (anyone who knows me or has ever seen my room will understand how hard it was to walk through all of those antique machines and books and toys and not leave with one single thing) and a bike sale, bought a bike and rode it, so I think that all of that productivity makes up for Sunday.
Today I was especially motivated to be productive, because my roommates have started classes, and I'm not gonna lie, I feel like a total waste of space watching them come and go, getting work done while I whittle away the hours, doing nothing much in particular. So today, after some obligatory time with the internet, I grabbed all of my important documents, hopped on my swish new ride, and peddled myself across the river and into downtown, looking for a bank with which I could open an account.
Upon finding that bank, and after realizing that I really need to do more aerobics and then walking around a few blocks to catch my breath before I trying to conduct business, I got down to it with my new friend at the bank, Emélie.
This brings me to the title of the post.
I remember opening my checking account in Montana; if these memories are accurate, I went in with my drivers license, spoke to the woman behind the desk, signed a couple sheets of paper and entered my pin number into a machine that my brand new shiny debit card was swiped through, and voilà! I had an account! It took about fifteen minutes and was relatively painless.
Well today was pretty painless too, but it was a lot less efficient.
My new banking buddy Emélie was very friendly, took my passport, entered that information, my address, my phone number and hit print. She then made two photocopies of my passport and started stapling together immense packets of paper.
"Did you remember that in France we use a lot of paper?" she asked laughing.
I smiled back, telling her that as soon as I arrived, I was reminded. Though truthfully I was reminded the moment I started receiving information about my future job in the mail, letters requiring me to respond with forms filled out in triplicate,being sent contracts and photocopies of contracts and instructions on how to read the contracts... it's crazy!
Even today I walked away from the bank with One folder full of information, one giant packet – one of three copies that I had to go through and sign, writing on each page "read and approved" before putting down my ol' john hancock.
I did not, however, walk away from the bank with a shiny new card. That I will get in the mail in around 8 days, maybe, depending on how I understood things. In 8 days, there will someone delivering something to me, that only I can sign for... either this will be my card and some paperwork, or it will just be some paperwork and I will have to return to the bank to pick up my card. Either way, it is a bit more complicated than I think it needs to be (ans I am, of course, an authority on banking practices).
Complication aside, the only real reason I can imagine for such an extensive use papers and documentation, is that France hates trees.
This is just their sneaky, backdoor way of killing all the trees in the world.
Someday, when there are no more trees left, someone will turn to France, staring at it with big, watery eyes, and this person will ask "Why France? Why did you kill all of the trees?"
And France will reply, shrugging, as it nonchalantly puts out its cigarette on its italian leather boot, "well, obviously, people needed bank accounts, what was to be done?"
...
At least that is my theory.
In totally unrelated news, today was the worst possible day to go for a bike ride and forget my camera. It was beautiful and sunny and I stumbled upon some really lovely streets.
I am also determined to go to this place:
http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/english/machines.html
It looks like a wonderful sort of dream!/I am a little bit jealous that I was not involved.
I promise not to forget my camera when I go.
.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
First Week Down - check
Last night I made homemade french fries. In France!
...I'm still not all that crazy about fries, but gosh, it's the novelty of the thing that counts.
Today I bought a bike for 20€ ! It's black, and almost tall enough for me (which is a big deal) and it only needs some minor repairs.
I am officially mobile!
...I'm still not all that crazy about fries, but gosh, it's the novelty of the thing that counts.
Today I bought a bike for 20€ ! It's black, and almost tall enough for me (which is a big deal) and it only needs some minor repairs.
I am officially mobile!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Getting There Is Half the Fun
What a crazy summer it has been – running (and hiking, and floating) all over the great state of Montana, getting stalled by tornadoes in Chicago, cruising up and down the west coast and driving through trees. I really couldn't have asked for more. I was able to spend time with family and with friends and now that I am in a far and distant land, that time spent with my loved ones is what I'm holding onto most dearly.
Okay. Enough sappy stuff.
As wonderful and wild as it was, summer is over and I am writing this from my apartment in Nantes, listening to the sound of rain patter against the windows, trying to decide if I should go for that 4th cup of tea.
It sounds quaint, doesn't it. But oh man alive, was it ever a lot of work to get here.
First, I must say, that I started my travels a week before actually leaving the country
– Don't get me wrong, I had the most amazing time visiting friends in New York that I hadn't seen for a year. It was like a family reunion! I can't express how wonderful it was to spend time with everyone, and on nights when we organized the whole gang, it made me think for brief moments that I was still in Bozeman, in film school, and that we were just waiting for the rest of the group to fish class and come join us.
And in addition to being very cozy and nostalgic, New York is a pretty nifty place!
I walked around a lot, tried to visit most of the neighborhoods in Manhattan, pointed at hipsters in Williamsburg, I even braved Times Square (but only because I thought of the taunting I would receive if I went to the Big Apple and didn't at least peak at it) and I did pretty much get off the subway, step into the swarming crowds and the flashing lights, mutter "oh gross" to myself and then decide to get a picture of the Atlas statue from the 30 Rock credits (which by the way, is surprisingly difficult to locate. I almost gave up.) and then go back down to one of the quieter areas.
Voilà, the much-sought Atlas photo:
The highlight of the "Big City" experience was going to a rooftop party at the Met with Maddie and watching the sun set on the skyline.
But even as the city was luring me in, it's beguiling bustle convincing me to stay and set up house, I had to get on a plane and leave.
But I missed that plane (tell you what, rush-hour traffic in New York is NO Joke) and had to spend one more night in New York (got to spend one more night with friends) while insanely trying to rebook train tickets and coordinate with people along the way.
After one pretty long flight, a twelve hour layover in Dusseldörf and one shorter flight, I finally landed in Paris.
When my flight changed, I ended up having to spend one night in Paris and then catching a train to Nantes the next morning; now, the average traveller would chalk this up as yet another fee to add on to the mounting expenses of missing one's flight, but not me!
Firstly, I really doubt that I could have found a hotel on such short notice… perhaps I could have gotten ahold of a friend who may still be living in Paris, but I didn't have much time to coordinate anything.
Secondly, I fancy myself quite the conditioned toughie… though I really doubt that this is true…
Anyway, I decided that I would just stay up aaaaall night, wandering the streets of Paris. It sounded kind of romantic in my head, a little bit daring, with a touch of the poetic… and maybe it was for the first couple of hours, walking through the quiet, softly lit streets… but I had already been awake for about 24 hours and it was a little bit chilly in Paris that night.
My first move – indeed, probably my smartest move was to head directly to the nearest movie theater upon checking my luggage at the train station. I decided to watch "Inception" again, since it was the longest film screening. I saw parts of the movie for the second time, the rest of it, I slept through, which I'm not gonna lie, was REALLY nice.
Even with my brilliant cinematic break, I found myself once again on the streets of Paris at about midnight, a little bit cold and very tired.
What was most interesting is that the ol' city of lights has more or less stayed with me. I stepped out of the train station and knew exactly which way to start walking to reach the latin quarter, where I thought there might be a little bit more of a nightlife. I found my way around without any real trouble, bought a pannini, drank two cokes (my quota for the year, yuck) I sat by Notre Dame and read a book. I walked across Pont Neuf, and then back again across Le Pont des Arts, I read again under a street lamp by Luxembourg Gardens, and finally, I found a 24 hour cafe not far from the train where I consumed two coffees (very slowly… slowly enough to justify my sitting there reading for three hours).
Finally I staggered, with all of my possessions for the year, onto the train that would take me Nantes.
I couldn't even sleep because of all the stupid caffeine in my system. I mostly just sat there with my eyes closed, feeling a little bit nauseous.
When I did finally get to Nantes, there were the parents of my new roommate, waiting for me with a sign. I've never had a sign before! And they wouldn't even let me touch my bags. They carried all of my stuff (and it was A LOT of stuff) up the stairs, got me settled in, made up my bed, and then, while I was taking a shower, they bought me a bunch of groceries!
It was so good, after being more or less awake for about 3 days to have someone coddling me, stepping in as my proxy parents. I love them.
I haven't met their son yet (he's been a-travellin' and gets back tomorrow) but if he is anything like them, it is going to be a great year!
This is already getting a bit long, so I think I will cut it off here.
But know that I am happy, I am safe, and I have already made some friends, so everything is grand!
I'll meet with the coordinator for my schools next week and am settling in pretty well.
This may sound weird, but it feels kind of normal to be here. It might be because I've been traveling so much this summer and I'm still in jump-around mode, but I was expecting some sort of culture shock, and I haven't had that at all. There have been a few moments, like remembering that France smells like a toilet sometimes, that you have to ask for your bill at restaurants, or that everyone dresses with more style than I may ever manage in my whole life… but all in all, I feel pretty well settled in.
I definitely need to practice my French, but that will come.
For now, here are some pictures:
The view from my kitchen window
The Chateau
The Solarium in the Garden
A charming little French street
Okay. Enough sappy stuff.
As wonderful and wild as it was, summer is over and I am writing this from my apartment in Nantes, listening to the sound of rain patter against the windows, trying to decide if I should go for that 4th cup of tea.
It sounds quaint, doesn't it. But oh man alive, was it ever a lot of work to get here.
First, I must say, that I started my travels a week before actually leaving the country
– Don't get me wrong, I had the most amazing time visiting friends in New York that I hadn't seen for a year. It was like a family reunion! I can't express how wonderful it was to spend time with everyone, and on nights when we organized the whole gang, it made me think for brief moments that I was still in Bozeman, in film school, and that we were just waiting for the rest of the group to fish class and come join us.
And in addition to being very cozy and nostalgic, New York is a pretty nifty place!
I walked around a lot, tried to visit most of the neighborhoods in Manhattan, pointed at hipsters in Williamsburg, I even braved Times Square (but only because I thought of the taunting I would receive if I went to the Big Apple and didn't at least peak at it) and I did pretty much get off the subway, step into the swarming crowds and the flashing lights, mutter "oh gross" to myself and then decide to get a picture of the Atlas statue from the 30 Rock credits (which by the way, is surprisingly difficult to locate. I almost gave up.) and then go back down to one of the quieter areas.
Voilà, the much-sought Atlas photo:
The highlight of the "Big City" experience was going to a rooftop party at the Met with Maddie and watching the sun set on the skyline.
But even as the city was luring me in, it's beguiling bustle convincing me to stay and set up house, I had to get on a plane and leave.
But I missed that plane (tell you what, rush-hour traffic in New York is NO Joke) and had to spend one more night in New York (got to spend one more night with friends) while insanely trying to rebook train tickets and coordinate with people along the way.
After one pretty long flight, a twelve hour layover in Dusseldörf and one shorter flight, I finally landed in Paris.
When my flight changed, I ended up having to spend one night in Paris and then catching a train to Nantes the next morning; now, the average traveller would chalk this up as yet another fee to add on to the mounting expenses of missing one's flight, but not me!
Firstly, I really doubt that I could have found a hotel on such short notice… perhaps I could have gotten ahold of a friend who may still be living in Paris, but I didn't have much time to coordinate anything.
Secondly, I fancy myself quite the conditioned toughie… though I really doubt that this is true…
Anyway, I decided that I would just stay up aaaaall night, wandering the streets of Paris. It sounded kind of romantic in my head, a little bit daring, with a touch of the poetic… and maybe it was for the first couple of hours, walking through the quiet, softly lit streets… but I had already been awake for about 24 hours and it was a little bit chilly in Paris that night.
My first move – indeed, probably my smartest move was to head directly to the nearest movie theater upon checking my luggage at the train station. I decided to watch "Inception" again, since it was the longest film screening. I saw parts of the movie for the second time, the rest of it, I slept through, which I'm not gonna lie, was REALLY nice.
Even with my brilliant cinematic break, I found myself once again on the streets of Paris at about midnight, a little bit cold and very tired.
What was most interesting is that the ol' city of lights has more or less stayed with me. I stepped out of the train station and knew exactly which way to start walking to reach the latin quarter, where I thought there might be a little bit more of a nightlife. I found my way around without any real trouble, bought a pannini, drank two cokes (my quota for the year, yuck) I sat by Notre Dame and read a book. I walked across Pont Neuf, and then back again across Le Pont des Arts, I read again under a street lamp by Luxembourg Gardens, and finally, I found a 24 hour cafe not far from the train where I consumed two coffees (very slowly… slowly enough to justify my sitting there reading for three hours).
Finally I staggered, with all of my possessions for the year, onto the train that would take me Nantes.
I couldn't even sleep because of all the stupid caffeine in my system. I mostly just sat there with my eyes closed, feeling a little bit nauseous.
When I did finally get to Nantes, there were the parents of my new roommate, waiting for me with a sign. I've never had a sign before! And they wouldn't even let me touch my bags. They carried all of my stuff (and it was A LOT of stuff) up the stairs, got me settled in, made up my bed, and then, while I was taking a shower, they bought me a bunch of groceries!
It was so good, after being more or less awake for about 3 days to have someone coddling me, stepping in as my proxy parents. I love them.
I haven't met their son yet (he's been a-travellin' and gets back tomorrow) but if he is anything like them, it is going to be a great year!
This is already getting a bit long, so I think I will cut it off here.
But know that I am happy, I am safe, and I have already made some friends, so everything is grand!
I'll meet with the coordinator for my schools next week and am settling in pretty well.
This may sound weird, but it feels kind of normal to be here. It might be because I've been traveling so much this summer and I'm still in jump-around mode, but I was expecting some sort of culture shock, and I haven't had that at all. There have been a few moments, like remembering that France smells like a toilet sometimes, that you have to ask for your bill at restaurants, or that everyone dresses with more style than I may ever manage in my whole life… but all in all, I feel pretty well settled in.
I definitely need to practice my French, but that will come.
For now, here are some pictures:
The view from my kitchen window
The Chateau
The Solarium in the Garden
A charming little French street
And They're Off!
After 2 years (and a little bit) of absolutely no blogging, I am back!
Updates soon to follow!
Updates soon to follow!
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