Home sweet (new) home!

So... I got off the train in Avignon, and was greeted immediately by Steve and Joëlle Patris, the couple with whom I'll be living for the next 7+ months.  They were so nice to pick me up at the TGV station!  With the additional items I had bought in Paris, the larger of my two bags must have weighed at least 70 pounds... it would have been a pain to have to find the bus station and then take the bus to Carpentras!  Unfortunately, since it was in the afternoon, the traffic was a little bit bad, which mean that it took us a little less than an hour to get from Avignon (a city of ~100,000) to Carpentras (a city of ~25,000).  

They brought me back to their home and showed me my apartment, which is the gite that they usually rent out to tourists and travelers.  I'm very lucky to have such a spacious, beautiful place to live!  Usually apartments in France are very expensive and very tiny, but I lucked out due to the kindness of the family and the fact that Carpentras is a little more in the country than other places where I could have worked.  I've learned that it's a lot easier to keep things neat and tidy when you don't have as many things!  I've added a few little touches to make it more "my" place and less like a hotel :)  

One thing that I learned that I didn't know before- the Patris family has three sons, who all live at home.  Amoury, the youngest, is 17, and I'm not sure how old Renaud and Cédric are, but they're both older than I am.  Maybe 26 and 29ish?  I have to admit that the first dinner with the family was a little bit overwhelming.  Learning French in the U.S. and actually spending time with a French family in France is very very different!  They speak much more quickly than I'm used to and use a lot of words that I don't necessarily know... so I do my best to keep up.  My first day, I mostly just listened, but I'm gradually getting to the point where I can actually add to the conversation.  They have a phone plan that gives them unlimited minutes to call to the US, so I was able to talk to my parents, which was nice!  It's good to know I have that option if my internet connection isn't working well so I can't skype.  

Steve and Joëlle are both members of a France- Etats Unis association, which promotes good relationships between the US and France and does programs with American foreign exchange students.  There was a réunion on Saturday morning at a rose garden not far away, and they brought me with to meet the members of the group.  I'll be helping them this year by conducting some conversation tables, where I'll help people practice their English.  I met lots of people, including two women from Texas who told me that I need to s'amuser bien ("enjoy myself") with the French men ;)  We then went on a brief tour of Carpentras, and I picked up some helpful information at the tourist information building.  Steve and Joëlle had a beer and tea, respectively, at their friend Paul's restaurant which is right across from the Palais de Justice in Carpentras.  We returned home and had dinner all together, and afterward, the parents left to go see Michel Boujenah, who is apparently a famous comedian?  I followed the gamecast as the Badgers whomped on Austin Peay 70-3.  

Alors, ça suffit for maintenant- I'll keep writing later! :)

  

We get all this?! Fo' Free?!

Sorry for the delay in my postings... there's been a lot going on here!  To make up for it, I'll post about our last few days in Paris now and my time so far in Carpentras later today, and then you'll be all caught up on my life!

Me at Versailles- literally blinded :)

Our first view of the... modern art

On Wednesday, we woke up bright and early (and were apparently too excited, to the chagrin of our next-door neighbors, who pounded on the too-thin walls to let us know that) in order to head to Versailles.  Hannah and I were both a little anxious because we had to take a different type of train (the RER) rather than just the normal metro since Versailles isn't in Paris proper.  However, all went well in getting our tickets since Hannah had 12 euros in coins (the machine didn't take paper money!).  We arrived at Versailles, passing MacDo on the way and making a mental note to return for lunch.  First of all... Versailles is gorgeous.  It literally shines as you walk up, as it's coated in gold.  For anyone who needs a refresher, Versailles was the king's palace, and as Hannah said, you can see why the French people were pissed off- they were living in squalor and the king was kickin' it in paradise.  :)  We were surprised, however, when we turned the corner and instead of seeing more 18th century splendor... saw a modern art exhibit by an asian sculptor.  It was... interesting to say the least.  There was a big difference between the levels of class between Versailles and its new additions.  The exhibit will be there until December, and I probably won't go back before then.  I understand that it's a 'cool' thing to have exhibits in places where there are striking differences between the place and the art, but it was just too strange for me.  I did enjoy Hannah's ultimate disgust with the sculptures. As an avid history and art buff, she hated the display with a passion.  We went for a walk and enjoyed a box of mini cereal in the gardens behind Versailles, which seem to extend almost endlessly.  

Enjoying the gardens at Versailles!

After that, we made a quick trip to MacDo, since the Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches we'd packed on dry bread weren't going to cut it.  We were surprised to find that the RER station we'd taken to get to Versailles was broken, and had to go on a detour to find a different station.  The woman told us to take two rights and we would be there, but it was actually quite a walk!  Unfortunately, the RER there was much much much more confusing than either the other RER or the other metro stations we'd used.  (Who names their trains things like 'Elba' anyway?!)  We talked with a group from Quebec (resorting to English since they couldn't understand our French accent and we couldn't understand theirs...) but ended up just getting on a train without a real idea where we were headed.  Luckily, we ended up back in central Paris as we had hoped and we were able to take the 'normal' metro from there!

Arc de Triomphe

We headed to the Jardin de Tuileries, where we spent probably a good hour enjoying some ice cream (for me) and iced tea (for Hannah) while making up stories about the lives of the people we watched walk by.  If anyone's seen Date Night, you should know what we mean.  If not- feel free to ask me if you're confused!  We then walked down to the Arc de Triomphe and spent some time scoping out theaters and shops on the Champs-Elysées.

Hannah and I split up for the evening so that she could go meet a friend for dinner, and I went to check out Galleries Lafayette and Printemps, two famous department stores that are kind of like Bloomingdale's or Macy's.  They're both ENORMOUS-each floor of Galleries Lafayette reminded me of a mall in itself, and there were SEVEN floors.  I savoured a crêpe with nutella and banana from a street vendor (check, Aunt Dagney!) for dinner and listened to the bells of a beautiful cathedral before I was displaced by two smokers who sat on the other side of my bench.  When we were both back at our temporary hotel home, we watched the new episodes of Castle and Glee before heading to bed.  

On Thursday, our last full day in Paris, we started the day by becoming international spies.  What do I mean? We went to buy short-term, pay-as-you-go cell phones with cash.  Sound sketchy?  I thought so.  Anyway, we both now have cell phones that we can use here, adding euros/minutes as we go.  We get free incoming calls and text messages, so if you have an international plan, let me know and I'll give you my numba!  

Chocolat chaud- mmm

We decided to hit up Angelina's before going to the Louvre.  Angelina's is a fancy-schmancy restaurant just on the side of the Louvre, and is famous for their hot chocolate.  The reason?  It's literally just that- hot and chocolate.  I'm not sure how they do it, but it's got to be some sort of melted down fudge and it's so thick you can almost eat it.  So good!  Hannah had a croque monsieur for our friend Madhuri and we were pleased that our hosts spoke to us in French, and the other groups on both sides of us in English.  

Just a little fun!

Le liberte guidant le peuple- my favorite!

After finishing our deeee-lish hot chocolates, we went to the Louvre.  It's only arguably the biggest, most famous, most awesome museum in the world- no big deal or anything ;)  And you know what they told us?  Yeah, that's right- since we have long-stay visas and are under 26, it was FREE!  Sweet.  I don't know that I can really say much about the Louvre, since it really speaks for itself if you have ever been there or plan to go.  The only downside of the day was that the 2nd floor was closed because of strikes in France that meant that they didn't have enough people to staff the exhibits, and the Egyptian exhibit was closed for one day for maintenance.  We'll definitely be going back.  I mean, why wouldn't we?  It's free!  We saw the Mona Lisa (La Joconde en français) of course and also had some fun posing with some of the other displays.  We rrounded out the day by heading back over to the Notre Dame to an area where there are a ton of tourist shops to pick up some souvenirs.  They have these sweet prints of different Parisian landmarks, and not buying more of them is my only regrest from my two-week trip to France 5 years ago.  I'm putting them up in my room to decorate and you'll see them when I put up pics of my room.  We ate crêpes on the side of the street  before heading back over to the Champs-Elysées to buy tickets to Mange. Prie. Aime. (Eat. Pray. Love. in English!) We were very excited that the film was "version originale" and in English with French subtitles, becase neither Hannah nor I wanted to see Julia Roberts dubbed.  We loved the movie and took the metro to get back to our hotel room one last time, finishing our Paris adventure in excellent fashion.  

The real end of our trip came the next morning, when we re-packed all of our things (oh.em.gee. my bag weighed a ton) and called a taxi to come pick us up.  That might not sound very hard, but we were very proud that we succeeded- both in using one of our new "spy" phones and for completing the whole conversation in French without a problem.  In case you can't imagine, it's much more difficult to understand people on the phone and also much easier to upset them by asking them to repeat themselves.  Our taxi driver was much less entertaining, but nevertheless managed to get us to the train station quickly.  We waited for our TGV to arrive and had an extremely difficult time loading our kajillion pounds of luggage onto the train.  A nice Canadian couple from Vancouver sat across from us on the train and we had a great conversation.  I got off the train at Avignon, bidding Hannah goodbye and starting my brand-new adventure!  More details to come later, I promise :)  For now, bonne journée!  

J'aime beaucoup rire. I hope you do too!

Today's entry isn't going to be a long one, but should provide you with some entertainment.  Today we hit up Versailles and then the Champs-Elysees again, but I'll talk more about that later.  What I will share is:

I don't mean to be sacrilegious, honest.

1)  Père Lachaise Cimetière (which literally translates to Father the Chair Cemetery... just a side note) is actually ridiculously cool.  However, I couldn't shake the fact that some of the tomb reminded me of rows of port-a-potties... check out the photo to see if you understand what I mean.

Kitty!

Hello

2)  The French love Hello Kitty.  More than I ever thought was possible.  I bet those of you back in the US that have intense Hello Kitty fetishes (Kara, you know this is for you...) are super jealous, so I'm adding pics of that too.

Je. le. deteste.

3)  There's this ad that I really hate.  Problem?  It's EVERYWHERE.  "Ne Vieillissez Pas Trop Vite" means "Don't get old too quickly" and they have these awful ads where it's a girl whose face is old.  They drive me up the wall.  Like I said, EVERYWHERE.

Haha haha haha

4)  We almost ate at this takeout restaurant yesterday, but I told Hannah that I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  The French word for plate is "assiette," so they advertised plates of "Ass Grec, Ass Chicken, Ass Poulet, Ass Steak, Ass Merguez, Ass Boulette, Ass Omelette, Ass Brochette, and Ass Mixte."  I think something was lost in translation.

Anyway... hope you've enjoyed my brief French entertainment.  Bisous!

What would possess someone to drink warm Heineken?

So... I'm going to do my best not to bore you all in summarizing the past two days, which have been absolutely AMAZING!  Yesterday we walked pretty much all over Paris- that is not a joke.  I went to mapmyrun.com to look up approximately how far we traveled, and it was at the very least 12 miles.  Some highlights:

1)  Starting off our morning with a french breakfast- croissants, chocolat chaud, and jus d'orange (hot chocolate and orange juice, respectively, in case you didn't catch that...) and then met a wonderful Parisian woman who gave us directions and told us that we spoke French very well.
2)  Walked to the monument commemorating the Bastille- a symbol of the French revolution (the actual building was destroyed in 1789 and if you're interested, you can look up more info on wikipedia!)

One of my favorites @ Notre Dame

3)  Saw the Notre Dame inside and out... what a beautiful building.  I absolutely love the stained glass windows :)
4)  McDonald's for lunch- you'll just have to trust me on this one!  McDonald's (MacDo) in France isn't at all the same as in the U.S.  It was actually pretty classy!  (Even more than the 50s theme in Rice Lake, for those of you that have had the good fortune to visit... haha)
5)  Shopped at H & M... Hannah found two nice coats that will serve her well when it gets a little colder and I bought a couple of sweaters to layer with and some adorable purple flats.
6)  Bought TGV (the fast train) tickets to get us down to the south of France at the end of the week, as well as a "Carte 12-25" which guarantees us discounts of at least 25 and up to 60% on all future train rides for being between the ages of 12 and 25.  The ticket counter man told us our French was very good... which we thought was an excellent compliment, since we're sure he deals with a lot of foreigners.

Hannah and Me- Champs de Mars!

7)  The EIFFEL TOWER!! It never gets old.  We got there right as the sun was setting and walked down the whole Champs de Mars to arrive at the bottom.  The first light show actually happened while we were ascending and we watched the second light show from the ground after we got back down. The ascenseur (elevator) was packed and we would have had to wait forever to get on another one (there's one from the 3rd level to the 2nd and one from the 2nd to the ground) so we just walked.  It was a very long walk down, as you might imagine.  But it's the Eiffel Tower, so it's mandatory to love every minute of it :)
8)  Classy classy (actual class, not like our McDonald's lunch) dinner at a French restaurant, where we ate penne pasta with delicious tomato sauce and fresh parmesan cheese and baguettes and split a half-bottle of rosé wine.
9)  Our first experience with the French metro, since our feet hurt much too much to walk one step further.  Conclusions:  the Parisian metro's like the metro in London... extremely user-friendly and ridiculously easy to get anywhere you want.  (Not like in Rome, where the metro's practically useless.)
10)  Talked to family, friends, and each other... and staying up til 4 in the morning (sorry, mom and dad!) about how much fun we are having.
11)  Slept in til after noon (yes, you did read that correctly!) and then heading out for another beautiful day.
12)  Picked up pre-packaged sandwiches and fruit for a picnic lunch in la cimetière Père Lachaise.  While there, we managed to get lost and avoid seeing any of the famous people buried there that we had planned to search for... but we had a wonderful time anyway and saw a lot of really cool- and really sad- family tombs.
13)  Fulfilled Hannah's lifelong (well... important, anyway...) dream of seeing where Lafayette is buried, in a very secretive hidden cemetery full of other important people.

Sacre- Coeur

14)  Visited the wonderful, beautiful, amazing Sacre- Cœur, which is the highest place in Paris.  It's famous for having someone continuously praying since 1885 and is thus currently celebrating its 125th anniversary of continuous prayer.  It's also the site of some really exciting street performances and vendors that practically assault you to try to sell you a bracelet that they'll wrap on your wrist.  This is also the origin of today's title.  Some of the other vendors (not the ones with bracelets) sell drinks for people who want to sit and enjoy the view on the steps.  They carry around 6-packs of Heineken, but no ice or anything.  I want to know... why Heineken?  And who likes warm beer?  Any input would be much appreciated.
16)  Ate delicious gelato and checked out local artistes' work at Montmartre.  We were asked if we wanted our portraits drawn and, when we turned down that offer, were also asked if we were "looking for boys" for the evening.  The three all offered themselves and even told us they were "free!" but we managed to turn down that offer too.  :)
17)  Took the metro back to our hotel at rush hour and had to wait for an extra train because there were so many people that we couldn't even get on the first one.  No problems other than that, though!
18)  Last but certainly not least, bought dinner at the supermarket down the street- an "awful white bread packaged sandwich with .026 oz of ham" for Hannah and French off-brand mini cereal boxes with the worst (whole) milk that I have ever tasted in my life (which ended up getting dumped down the toilet) for me.  On the bright side, we split a very tasty 4-euro bottle of wine, which is now empty.

On that note, I'm going to hit the hay and bid you all bonsoir!  More fun and exciting news to come tomorrow :)

Leht's Goh. Leht's Goh!

Hannah et Moi- Starting our year of adventures in Paris!

Bonjour, tout le monde!  (Hello everyone for you anglophones)


I am writing from Hotel Ermitage en France!  I'm in Paris, to be exact.  Just a really quick briefing for those of you who haven't been following my activities... I'll be spending the next seven and a half months in France, working as an "Assistant Etrangere d'Anglais."  I'll be teaching English at a high school, working with students between the ages of 16 and 19 years old, most likely in conversational groups.  My good friend Hannah is also an assistant and will be working with little kids (6-11) in Marseille.  Side note:  to see how adorable little French kids are, you should check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM35grvNkss because she makes me smile even on a bad day.  I'm going to have a hard time not stealing a French baby to bring back to the states!

An Icelandic Lullaby that was on our pillows

Anyway, Hannah and I left the Minneapolis airport at 7pm on Saturday, flew to Reykjavik, Iceland, where we had a (very) brief layover and then boarded a different plane to fly to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.  From there, we went to go get our bags and sent off a couple of quick emails to let our parents know that we had arrived safely :) and then moved on to go get a taxi.  Our taxi driver was quite the character, to say the least!  He's the origin of the blog title... he spoke very little English, but was excited to try it out for us, and his favorite phrase was "Leht's Goh.  Let's Goh!" which he probably said to us 20+ times during our trip.  He took us on a bit of a roundabout trip and we eventually arrived at our hotel, which is in the 20th arrondissement.  (Paris is broken down into arrondissements... kind of like neighborhoods... I'm not sure exactly how!)

La lumiere... triste.

We unloaded our things into our hotel room, which is tiny tiny tiny tiny.  To put things in perspective: when I stand in the bathroom, I can touch both walls at the same time... in the "long" direction.  The short direction is maaaybe 2.5 feet?  Just enough room for the toilet.  When brushing my teeth, the door has to be open because my rear end sticks out the door :)  And the shower?  Don't even get me started.  Hannah's theory on why the French women don't always shave their legs is because they can't reach them, since you barely fit in the shower standing straight up.  Our towels are hand towels- just large enough to cover the essentials ;)  We also have a "suicide balcony" named because... it'd be easy to trip on the ledge and it's a very long fall (though there is a gnome at the bottom that Hannah thinks might save us...), a TV with six stations (three French and three German), two lights that are literally falling off of the wall, and one plugin.  But it's clean and very cheap and very French and we love that we're here!


It's late where we are (seven hours ahead of Madison/Central Time Zone), so I'm going to post this and head to bed.  Updates from our marathon day and hopefully picture posting tomorrow!

Je t'aime.