La Vie d'Emily

She's baaaaaack

2008-07-09T05:00:00.003+02:00

Guess what time zone I'm in!

Yes, that's right, good ol' ET. I made it here to NYC safe and sound today, thanks to Lufthansa, a most enjoyable international airline.

I am writing a quick note at 11:00pm ET while my body thinks it's 5:00am. That's what time I woke up this morning. In France. Which means I've pulled another all-nighter and I didn't sleep at all today. Things are getting a little hazy now and hallucinations might soon set in so I think it's best if I get to bed.

But I'm in New York. In my 'new apartment.' It is awesome. I went to Park Slope for the first time today and saw Rachel Paneth-Pollak! wtf? Awesome.

TIME FOR BED. Vive la France and vive mon retour!

In 24 hours I'll be sittin' at the airport

2008-07-07T08:31:00.003+02:00

It's my last day in France.

I'm sittin' in the Brasserie de Conservatoire, chattin' it up with my cafe man. Turns out he's done three (3) three-month tours of the South of the US. Whatthebananas! His favorite state? Arizona. His favorite city? New Orleans. He rocks. Also he just made me the most chocolatey hot chocolate I have ever tasted... I can't even finish it (THIS, we all know, is HUGE)

Moving on...

Yesterday I went to the Mediterranean one last time. Specifically, I hung out at the Calanques (remember? The place with all the rocks and the water is this beautiful blue-green and everyone gets naked? Yup. There). I decided on a day-trip to Marseille to visit Emilie (daughter of Francoise, sister of Sandy) and Robyn and Brian who were finishing up their bike-tour of Provence there. Emilie took me to the beach where we se bronzered and then Robyn/Brian/I said adieu from their hostel.

I'm no good at goodbyes and I have been doing them since May. It's so weird to hear "au revoir" instead of "a toute a l'heure" or "a bientot." Because, nope, I won't be seeing anyone later or "till next time." I'm bouncing out, peace-ing from la France and everyone's wishing me a "bon voyage" and a "bon retour."

Luckily, with a few people I've been able to say "quand tu viens aux Etats-Unis on va..." ("when you come to the US we will...") because, for them, a future trip (hopefully in the near-future) is possible and in the plans. Emilie wants to study for a year in the US and if she does, it would be GREAT if her mom and sister visited and I could see them again. One of my students is going to do a tour of the Northern states of the US but he has no idea if Michigan is in his plans. Everyone I've met here knows I'm moving to NYC so I think I'll be getting hit up with CouchSurfing requests pretty soon/often :)

It's been amazing. Tonight's my last Red Sky night and I hope to drop some new covers and to sing with my fave guitarist. Fingers crossed that Celine and I sing together and that it's a good time.

Ok, I'm going to go start crying my eyes out now (mind you, I'm still at the cafe... I'm so classy). Catch you latah.

C'est QUOI ca?

2008-07-05T23:57:00.005+02:00

It's midnight on Saturday. I'm not sure when was the last time I slept... Thursday night, I think?

Yup.

Why is it that, when you're just starting to wrap something up somewhere, things actually start going? C'est quoi ca?

First off, last weekend I went to Grenoble (a beautiful town surrounded by mountains). It was a beautiful and wonderful and super fun weekend and I'm glad I took a chance and went. It further confirms the fact that I have had the chance to meet some of the greatest people around.

Yesterday I went to a concert with a friend who was playing with his 20-piece orchestra at an outdoor concert/cookout thing.

This is the part where I tell you what we ate!
On the menu? Sardines, mussels, and french fries, natch.

The music? Medleys of everyone from Celine Dion to hard rock, music of Frank Sinatra to Michael Buble, Yannick Noa, Josh Groban, etc. It was an AWESOME concert and I didn't get back to Avignon till... 3 o'clock? At which point I did not sleep like normal people would. Instead, I made pancakes and walked around my lil' walled-city, waiting for it to wake up. I absolutely could not fall asleep after all of that so I've been fueled on adrenaline/caffeine the rest of the day.

I have just come from a Provencal BBQ at Francoise's house. Ahhhh I love that family. I keep meeting the most amazing people and then dang, I gotta bounce. Watched some "Prison Break" with French sous-titres and then sat down to a delicious meal.

This is the part where I tell you what we ate!

Whte rice, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, onions
Grilled chicken (I gave up the vegetarianism for a night - didn't want to be rude and it was SO GOOD. I have a feeling this will have MAJORLY horrible consqeuences tomorrow)
ratatouille (vive les legumes!)
apricot sorbet (made from apricots from her friend's garden)

Francoise is an amazing cook.

It was all delicious, of course. What I loved was just sitting around with everyone, catching different conversations here and there (due partly to my questionable comprehension of spoken familial French and due to the fact that there was a lot going on), piping in when I had something to say, and watching the Provencal life roll on.

Tomorrow is a day-trip to Marseille. Monday is holycrapthedaybeforeileave Day. I shall spend it freaking out, closing my bank account, chanign money, packing, guitar, and Red Skying.

It's all ending. As sad as I am, I'm totally geeked for the return to the States!

I wish I had a food blog

2008-07-01T11:54:00.006+02:00

Not that this France blog isn't fun, it's just... 101cookbooks.com has stolen my heart! As has postpunkkitchen.com! And so many others!

This post's for Jenny Yee.

Since I've stopped working and I have mucho free time on my hands, I've been surfing the internet for recipes that look delicious/might be vegan (ok, stop freaking out, everyone - I'm not vegan, I just like toying with the idea.)

Anyway! I've been cookin'! And here's what I did the other day:

This would be my 1/2 and 1/2 pizza I made the other day for myself and Amy. Left side: black beans, corn, red onion, red pepper, cheese. Right side: the same but no cheese. The crust: homemade! It was DELICIOUS, even if I accidentally undercooked the crust a little bit.

Dough is hard to make

And then I just had to make M&M/oatmeal (nothing-vegan-about-em) cookies.

Ooh but the other day I made the greatest breakfast cookies: vegan oatmeal/almond cookies.

Countdown to the US: one week.

the French healthcare system

2008-06-26T01:35:00.003+02:00

I went to the doctor the other day (don't worry, it's all good in the hood) and I just got most of my money back. Deposited directly into my account. How's THAT for socialized medicine? Makes me feel pretty great about paying all these taxes!

Ah, question: should this blog end 1) when I return to the US - july 8th - or 2) when I return to Michigan - july 10th - ? You get to decide!!

Last day of school!

2008-06-24T18:09:00.005+02:00

Ok. I am now done with work here in France.

WHAT.

It is June 24th and I am finished teaching at Elsa Triolet and Mistral. I will no longer take the bus to Sorgues on Monday and Tuesday, with a stomach full of knots and butterflies, and I'll no longer wake up at 5am on those mornings, panicking about lessons.

I took pictures with my students. The teachers were so nice. I got so many bisous and lots of cards that say things like "emilieeeeee je t'aime." Email addresses were given to me, but without the names of the students attached, so I have no idea to whom I'll be writing. Oh, and these students are convinced we will talk on MSN.

It has been a crazy ride, this whole teaching experience. I'm so glad I did it. Et... voila.

Lyon, Toulouse, ferris wheel

2008-06-20T11:36:00.005+02:00

So I'm trying to carpe diem my remaining time here. It's june 20th... I'll be in Michigan in exactly three weeks from today!! As much as this excites me (and it definitely definitely does) I know there's tons here that I need to so/do so here goes...

This past weekend I went to Lyon (France's second largest city) for Gay Pride. I am bummed because I missed NY's and Chicago's and Paris's is next weekend but far too expensive for me to get to (Berlin's is next weekend, too, and I wish I could go there (it being my favorite European city and all)). So to Lyon's GP I went. I CouchSurfed with a Canadian, a German, and Robyn at the house of a really nice French engineer and her friend from Grenoble. Once again, CouchSurfing proves to be an amazing project, connecting us all for a weekend of sightseeing and fun. The gays in Lyon were having a great time but, I have to say, nothing quite matches NYC's. Ooooh and it was Brooklyn's GP the same day as Lyon's... wish i coulda been there. Hell, I wish I could have been all over the world this month, as it's Gay Pride month and everyone is going all out everywhere to have fantastic parades and parties and all of that.

Moving on...

Teaching this week was PHENOMENAL. I realize that it's been awhile since I last wrote about the actual teaching I do and here's this: thanks to Nicole's idea, I had the most successful song/learning session with most of my kids. We sang "Hello, Goodbye" and learned opposites! They are now all obsessed with the song and they now think it's hilarious to, when I say 'goodbye' as I leave the classroom, respond with 'hello!' So much laughter and enthusiasm and it was so encouraging. I'm here to give the end of my year a little boost and it's so good to know that, despite the occasional bad day, I've had a great time with (the majority of) my students and they've (actually!) learned.
Ooh I get to take my camera to school next week so I hope to get lots of video (don't you want to hear them sing 'The Weather Song'?) and cute pictures.

After Lyon and teaching I went to Toulouse (a big city west of me) and it was pretty good. I learned how to bake THE MOST MAGNIFICENT THING IN THE WORLD and there will be a few lucky people in the States who will get to taste this fantastic creation when I get out the $$ for all the ingredients.

Upon my return from Toulouse, I hit up a picnic organized by the Anglaises who are all leaving quite soon (I cannot stand all these endings) and we all sat and ate overlooking the river. Oh MAN I'm going to miss the Jardins de Palais and all of that. Hell, I'm going to miss this whole city at sunset.

Annnnnnd so, the ferris wheel is GREAT and it's one of the cheaper things in this city! Only 5 euros!! Granted, for 5 euros you get to go on it for approximately 5 minutes (and at breakneck speed which was very curious) but we managed to convince the Roule Man to let us go on for longer.

Normandy, continued...

2008-06-13T19:29:00.006+02:00

Ok so I just got back from an incredibly stressful day of sitting at the local cafe, sipping on pacalo (that's lemon syrup and water... aka, lemonade but... better) and reading a new book.

Where were we?

Ah, the Pointe-du-Hoc. V. cool.

Next on the stop was Omaha Beach. My apologies, but I will now be lazy on all the history because I don't know it all well enough and I feel that you can go wikipedia it to get a better idea. I wouldn't want to misinform you or just copy and paste from that fave wiki of ours. So basically, Omaha Beach = v. important. The sea ran red. It's known as "Bloody Omaha." (to the left is the beach, to the right is the memorial sculpture)

Then Omaha Beach Museum
Aaaaaand next we hit up the Omaha Beach Museum which was very small but completely packed with replicas from the battle. That is, replicas of uniforms, replicas of machinery, replicas of newspaper articles/letters/etc. A lot of primary documents, too, which makes the history geek in me freak out a lot.
On a sidenote, I also got a deeeeeelicious vanilla coffee there which just made it a very good way to continue the afternoon. Oh how I love flavored coffee.

We ended with the American Cemetery. Just as you've seen it in the museums. Rows upon rows of white crosses. And white stars of David. Perfectly aligned. The white markers stood out on the fields of green, people milling about, placing flowers, taking pictures. It was every bit as moving as I expected it to be and I'm so glad I got an opportunity to see it up close and personal.

So that's that, my friends. Beauty, history history history, great day.

Ok Bayeux and Normandy with Mom and Dad for real

2008-06-13T10:37:00.007+02:00

I'm back!

I am on a huge internet kick this morning so I figure while the computer is burning my thighs, I can get away from the numerous blogs I read and I can post for you all. Y'all. So here I go.

Friday of last week was June 6th, 2008. June 6th, 2008 happens to be the 64th anniversary of D-Day (aka "Jour J" if you're francais) and guess what. I was on the Normandy beaches. This was an incredible experience for me - not just to be on the beaches themselves (Pointe-du-Hoc, Omaha) but on the 64th anniversary. The history geek in me was, for lack of better words, flipping out all afternoon, as our tour guide gave us an in-depth look at the day and I saw, first-hand, the destruction and reconstruction of the area. It was wonderful.

But first! Before we did our wonderful Normandy tour, we went to Bayeux, a town a few kilometers away from the beaches. Bayeux is famous for its tapestry which was made a gajillion years ago and explains the Norman invasion of England and the conquest of William the... Conquerer. It is extremely well-preserved and really interesting. I'm still surprised it wasn't destroyed in WWII but it made it out alive thanks to being hid in the basement of the Louvre (awesome).

Bayeux is a beautiful little town and, while we were walking around it, we encountered not just tourists, but WWII veterans of the English and French variety. Men and women in uniform, some with children and grandchildren, sitting in cafes, checking out postcards, sporting their medals. I felt so lucky to be around them and just be in their efforts and their history. (this picture is meant to show you all the flags that were flown all along the streets. sorry that it's bad picture)

After a stroll around the Bayeux cathedral and a lunch on the canal, we headed to Normandy with our tour group.

We did an afternoon tour: Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, Omaha Beach Memorial Museum, American Cemetery, German Cemetery. I will now describe the tour for you through pictures...

The German Cemetery was our first stop. There are over 20,000 German soldiers buried here.
I don't know why it was designed like this - to have 5 crosses grouped here and there among the headstones of the graves. Apparently German schoolchildren tend to the graves during the summer months, as work on the cemetery is voluntary.

Our next stop was a visit to Pointe-du-Hoc. This was the first point of attack by US Rangers whose attack did not go as originally planned - the soldiers initially landed on a different part of the Normandy beaches and were thus delayed 40 minutes for their attack. Interesting, eh? Anyway, Pointe-du-Hoc was really the beginning of D-Day.

This picture on the left shows craters where bombs fell. On the right we have the Pointe-du-Hoc.

I interrupt this blogpost to go to the gym. MORE LATER!!

Mom and Dad up North, Bayeux and Normandy... or not

2008-06-13T09:56:00.007+02:00

Hello!! Sorry it's taking me so long to update on the amazingness that was going up North with Mom and Dad. Life has gotten in the way. What has "life" consisted of? Well, you see, I got a haircut. And I saw the SATC movie. But, um, that was dubbed so it was all "VF" (version francaise) and so I didn't catch all of it. But I got most of it. And it was good. And last night there was a delicious dinner soiree at Celine's. And I have had to catch up on teh seasons of SATC before I could see the movie. And I had to teach. And on Wednesday I took a gorgeous walk to Villeneuve to check out a really old fort that's there (ok, who looks at a pile of rocks and says "Sweet. I'm going to move these rocks to the top of that hill there.") Avignon is getting more and more beautiful and so it's necessary to "profiter" and be outside as much as possible, whether that means walking to nearby towns or sitting at Red Sky, people watching, and pretend-flirting with the bartender (he's about 55 years old, very flirty with everyone and one time gave me medicine for my stomach which wasn't feeling too hot and he gave me a head massage. Rrrrrandom).

So there's been all of that.

Ooh! And on Wednesday night I went to a friend's house for a color and makeup consulting thing. Kinda like a tupperware party but not. Apparently I'm an "Autumn" who should wear "warm" colors and the white tank top I was wearing on Wednesday was "too white." So there's that. All year I've been annoying my friends (who are all very beautiful, of course) and asking them to "make me pretty" because I am verymuch lacking in the makeup department. On Wednesday I got a free consultation! On the left we have a picture of me with the pre-makeup, headband look.

And here I am getting my eyelashes curled. You cannot see the fear that was in my eyes but, believe me, it was there.

And the final look. Of course I cannot take a proper picture so I have to be all freaky looking. Apologies.

This post was meant to be an update on my parents' visit but I got distracted. I swear, I will get to that SOON. Embrace the day.

"We saw nothing, we ate everything."

2008-06-10T23:43:00.011+02:00

These are the words with which my mother, Nicola Jane Findley, ended our day in Brugges.

What are the four things you MUST HAVE while in Belgium? Waffle, Fries, Beer, Chocolate, of course. Not necessarily in that order. As much of each thing as you desire. The more, the better. The greater variety, the better. Think excess. That's the way to go in Belgium.

So let me tell you what the day was like...

Course one: Belgian waffle, natch. Mine was of the whipped cream and chocolate sauce variety

Mom's was whipped cream and strawberries. We combined ours to make plates of deliciousness.

Success: in the form of Belgian beer and Belgian fries at the restaurant where we ate our lunch. I tried to have something balanced, as I ordered a salad with tuna but they basically piled enough fish on the plate to give me the world's highest mercury levels on the planet.

Alas, my friends, I have no pictures of the chocolates we ate, of the enormous plate of fries we ordered, of the other chocolates we inhaled. Forgive mem but their deliciousness was just too tempting and so the chocolates and fries were devoured hastily, lovingly, with no thought to photos for the kiddies.

Please take a moment to reflect on the wonder that is amazing food. Specifically of the dark chocolate and fried goodness kind.

The rest of Brugges was really good, too! Turns out that it's a beautiful town, even in the rain and, despite our misgivings after stepping off the train, we ended up having a lovely day there! I climbed the 366 steps to the top of the town's towery thing (I no longer remember what it's called) and felt all "little town, little quiet village" (name that song!) as I wandered through with M & D.

I definitely think that Saturday was a great day in Brugges to "see nothing and eat everything." This might become quite the motto for me.

Mom and Dad wrapping it up in Provence

2008-06-10T15:40:00.005+02:00

For our last few days together in Provence, Mom and Dad and I kept it low-key chill. Ok, barring my insane nervousness about having the Towers watch me teach, everything was very chill post-weekend. On Sunday night, after an extremely lazy day (um, hi, I took a NAP. I cannot remember the last time I successfully napped) we set out in the evening for a vehicle 'stroll' through the Luberon region. Right through the mountains. Beautiful, natch, and we hit on Bonnieux and Lacoste, to name a few of the villages. Dad has the photos because I got reallllly lazy with my camera at this point but I can tell you: all very pretty. We happened upon a castle (of course, there's a billion here) with a wine degustation place inside it and, as tempted as I was to say "pop open that Chateauneuf du Pape!" we left it to go mange our picnic under a tree on the side of the road. And that rocked, too.

On Monday, as you all know, I played "Take Your Parents to Work Day" and it was wondefully spledidly successful. My kids were obsessed with my parents ("ooh la la! la reine anglaise! le roi americain!") and my parents were willing and great participants in class as we reviewed the thrilling subject matter of clothing. Yannick, my directrice, spoke with them (she lived in Chicago and in Hawaii!) and was so nice and welcoming. My parents also met Francoise, a woman with whom I'm friends and so it all rocked. To top off my amazing class that they witnessed, Mom later got to see my littlest kids, the kindergarteners, sing two songs! "The Rainbow Song" and "The Weather Song" (we sure are original with our titles). It was so cute.

And in the afternoon after I was done teaching? We went to Orange, a pretty large town that's not too far from Sorgues. What's the big deal about Orange? Well, Wikipedia tells me that it was once the capital of the northern part of Provence. It has the oldest and best preserved Roman theater in all of Western Europe and it is now a World Heritage Site. Very cool. Dad and I went in and felt all Gladiator-like as Dad got pictures and we trembled at the mightiness of it all.

Tuesday was my parents' last day in Avignon. They spent the day wandering around the city while I taught. But then I got off work early! So I went and ran errands and chilled and did some other wrapping-up-type stuff here in the city. I then went to Micaela's for dinner. Chez Micaela.

And oh man, what a dinner.

This is the part where I tell you what we ate!!
Or I might just put it for you in easy, picture form...
On the left... a zoom-in of: lima beans, grean beans, magret de canard (duck breast) and vegetarian pate!
On the right... the table. Witness the French-style taboule, the eighteen pounds of bread, the red wine (of course), and the radishes. Delish.

Here I am with the chef, herself:

The food was stunning and I have to say, I'm impressed - my parents rock at being social. It was 11 o'clock and I was falling asleep into my amazing mousse au chocolat and strawberry shortcake (sorry, no pictures... ate 'em too fast) and they were sharing stories with Micaela and Philip (the other dinner guest for the evening) back and forth. Fabulous.

Wednesday morning we set out for Paris, the three of us. I do believe M & D had a good time at Micaela's and I've got a picture right here...

Red Sky yeah buddy

2008-06-03T00:44:00.005+02:00

I wish I weren't in the same room as my shoes right now.

Red Sky was brilliant tonight - it was great to have my parents/friends meet again, it was great to sit around and socialize, the musicians were great, the songs were great, everything was just... great.

Oh, and the bartender and I happen to be in <3 and that is cool.

"Killing Me Softly," as suggested to me by Sessily, is a HUGE hit and there shall be a repeat performance of it at sometime.
When Dad and I are back on the musical scene together you know it'll be "Old Love" sung like whoa from the mountaintops. I'm just sayin'

C'est fini!

2008-06-02T18:10:00.004+02:00

My mother, the Professor of Education, watched me teach this morning.

I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my entire life.

It was like eighteen hundred piano exams all rolled into one on top of the SAT, a job phone interview, AND approaching a girl and asking her to dance.

My mother's assessment of my teaching? She says, and I quote, "Emily, you're a natural!"

I just about died and went to heaven. Seriously. If I hadn't had to teach right after that, I think I would have burst into tears. Eight months of stress and confusion, frustration and nervousness... gone. My parents both thought I did a great job (thanks, Celine! (yeah, I used part of her lesson plan)) and they were both really impressed.

This means so much to me. I could get hit by a bus (as I almost am every single day) and I would die happy.

More on this later. I'm going to go to the gym to work off the cookies I had post-work and all the stress and nervousness that I've let built up.

Mom and Dad roadtrip, 3

2008-05-31T23:57:00.009+02:00

So last night Mom and Dad went to l'Opera, a fancy shmancy restaurant here in Avignon and I'm going to admit it - I'm a lil' jealous. I mean, it's really great that I stayed in and organized/cleaned/packed up my life but dang, they had a really great meal at a restaurant that people I know have recommended. Ohhhhh well it's all good. I'm glad they had a nice (romantic?) birthday dinner for Mom and that I got a chance to start wrapping up my life here at 5 rue Saint Thomas d'Aquin.

Today we went to Cassis! Every time I've called home in the past month and asked my parents the question "So what do you want to DO in Provence?" my mother has responded with "Well, your dad just wants to go to the beach. Get him to the sea." And today... mission accomplished. We hit up both Cassis and Marseille, basking in the sun (ahemgettingsunburnedahem) and chilling, eating picnics and pastries, having a wonderful Saturday on the water.

In fact, I don't have too many pictures from today because we spent 3 hours lying on the beach in Cassis and then we went and pastry-ed ourselves in Marseille. Not too much picture-worthy but it was relaxing and a perfect way to pass our time together, I feel. Tonight I showed the 'rents Place Pie which was, as usual, hoppin with life and then I went to the Bal de Teinturiers (a street here in the 'non) that had free music, cheap beers, and a ton of dancing. And! The dancing! Was done in an emptied-out pool! Like in "It's a Wonderful Life." Raise your hand if you think that's cool!

So tomorrow I reveal to them the glories of Les Halles and we'll pick up and send ourselves somewhere else, somewhere new. Guaranteed to be a good time. M & D are coming with me on Monday to school which, although it shouldn't't, is kinda stressing me out (hi, whose mom is a professor of education? and, hello, teaching in front of my parents) but it's going to be good and Mom's offered to 'be used' during class time with the kids so that I feel no pressure and she can participate and the kids can hear her speak. It'll be good.

Mom and Dad roadtrips, 1 and 2

2008-05-30T19:02:00.009+02:00

But first things first:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Here we have my ridiculously good-looking parents in a town called Roussillon, which we visited yesterday. I love 'em.

So far we've had 2 roadtrip days! I don't know why, but the Rain Gods are making their presence known here in Provence and it has poured, off and on, since my parents got here. Where's the Provencal weather everyone raves about? We're expecting sun, blue skies, beautiful fields, windows down in the car, and smooth travels. Instead it's been, mostly, rain rain rain rain, grey skies, thunder, lightning, puddles, and nastiness. What the bleep.

But hey, that's ok! Because we're still "profiter-ing" and it's been wonderful. Yesterday we headed east to some little towns, at my suggestion. The itinerary? L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Fontaine de Vaucluse, Roussillon, and Gordes. Roussillon was new to me and it is as gorgeous as everyone says it is. Et voila. It's nice, eh? That's ochre... reminds us all of Colorado, I think. It is amazing to think that, down the road from where I live (ahemcitywithapalaceahem) there are these colors! My eyes exploded and it was all very nice.

Today we went to La Camargue! National park hollah! Flamingos, bulls, rice patties, oh my. So here are some pics:

Looks boring? Definitely not!

Ok so maybe I fell asleep a little. But that was ok because this was followed by flamingo-watching. Flamingos. In southern France?

Yes, flamingos. Flamingi?

And we took a nap at the Mediterranean. Oh man.

They're here!

2008-05-29T05:54:00.004+02:00

Hullo.
My parents are here!

I'm so excited about it that I can't sleep! Ok, well, it's 6:00 am and it's pouring with rain and the wind is crazy and so I'm just up and (almost) ready for the day. The plan is to pick up the rental car and do a tour of Provence over the next few days but OY rain is expected for the next few days so... what are we going to do? Me? I'm just happy to get in a car and go places, I hope that's cool with M & D. They're staying chez Micaela and I'm still with la vieille dame. We'll meet up for breakfast and start our day and who knows what'll happen?

But the part where we were reunited? At the train station? I felt like Micaela and I were one minute late and I'd told Dad I was going to meet them on the platform at the train station so they would have nothing to worry about. I ran out of Micaela's car, I ran into the station, and I started running to the TV screens to watch for their arrival but I heard Mom's voice. I looked up, saw her and Dad at the top of the stairs, and bolted straight for them. Eighteen minutes later, our hugging was done and we were downstairs with Micaela, riding to Avignon.

Basically, I am so so happy right now.

(if you could all make a plea to the weathergods to make this rain go away, I would really appreciate it. I mean, teaching "It's raining, it's pouring" to the kids at school is fun, but I don't need an example at the moment!

This one's from December

2008-05-23T18:37:00.002+02:00

I love my family a LOT.

And we love the silly hats.

Merry Christmas!

This is what I did in Germany

2008-05-23T09:59:00.001+02:00

In Munich, we put on some music and I DANCED...

Enjoy!

Today I swam in the Mediterranean

2008-05-22T00:38:00.004+02:00

wonderful.

not gonna lie

2008-05-20T23:07:00.003+02:00

yesterday was a bad day.

but today was SO GOOD!

It comes down to two things

1: I tried giving three fifteen year-old girls English lessons to help them review for their exam tomorrow. Turns out I learned probably as much as they did (you know, what verb tenses we have and all of that) but I think I explained what they needed pretty well so *phew* am not total failure in my own language.

2: I saw my kids perform in their "conte musical" ce soir (after five minutes of not remember what we call that in English, it was pointed out to me that a 'conte musical' is, indeed, a musical). These kids have been working on this shindig for TWO YEARS, writing the story, the lyrics, the instrumental parts. Their music teacher wrote the accompaniment and the kids just sang with such gusto. I, of course, understood not a word because hi, sung French? Really hard to understand. Mumbly sung little-kid French? Even harder. And yeah, my comprehension isn't where it needs to be. But that's ok! Because it was all just so cute! I knew every single kid on the stage - I have interacted with each and every one of them. I know I have gotten at least one smile out of each student. As insane as they are, they're also eager little kids who just want to play and have fun and make their parents proud and joke around with each other.

That was great.

Tomorrow? Road trip!!

Community Events

2008-05-18T17:50:00.002+02:00

What up, what up!
It's May 18th. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.
Hours till I wake up: 12.
Hours till I start teaching: 15.
Hours I'll stay awake tonight thinking about how I have to teach in the morning: 3.
Hours of sleep I'll get: 4?
Days till my parents get here: 10!
Days my parents are visiting: 14!

Ok so.
In the past few days I have been ALL UP in various communities. What, pray tell, does that mean? Well, Friday night, my Dad managed to Skype me into the All Saints May Coffeehouse that he organized... It was AWESOME. At 1:30 am I signed online, it was 7:30 their time, I was able to see my church family via computer and they all saw me on the GIANT SCREEN Dad apparently put up in the undercroft. I'm imagining Star Trek and being beamed in, are you?
So I said hello to all my church family that I've been missing since I've been here and then I sang for them. How sweet is that? Three years ago? Not possible. Today? Totally possible. I sang for them my new song and then Dad turned the camera on him and I got to hear him and Lisa sing some Van Morrison and it was, all around, so very cool. Made me even more excited to go home and see everyone. It was also just sweet to participate in the first international All Saints Coffeehouse. Hurrah technology!
That was Friday.
Last night (Saturday) was La Nuit des Musees here in Avignon: many Avignonnaise museums were open to the public for free/reduced rates from 8pm-midnight. How cool is that!? This little city was hoppin' and boppin' and everyone (gmas and lil' kids alike) were rollin' around town checking out old stuff. I went into la Musee Lapidinaire and saw hierorglypics. Raise your hand if you can spell that word on the first try! Anyone? Anyone?
But I'd only gotten 4 hours of sleep on Friday night so I didn't make it to any other museum. But what a cool community event!
Today was one of the cooler things I've done in Avignon: free kayak/canoe thing on Le Rhone! All of Avignon was invited! All we had to do was get ourselves to the island, get a life jacket and get into a kayak! Robyn and I double-kayaked our way back and forth between the two bridges for an hour and it was awesome on multiple levels. Awesome for the tan, awesome for the arms, awesome for the community.

It's stuff like this that makes me really happy - people being out and about, doing (free) stuff that benefits everyone and it's all just for the experience. No profit, nothing really to gain except a good time.

Hurrah!

And on the sixth day, I ate snails.

2008-05-15T17:30:00.003+02:00

Plural. More than one snail.

So I don't think I mentioned that last week Alice was here visiting! It was a grand time. Somehow, someway, the two of us manage to meet, literally, all over the world. Last summer it was D.C. when I was living in New York and this year it's been Cannes in January, when she first got here, then Paris, when I was visiting with the Yee, and then last week, Alice made it down to Avignon for some R&R and a LOT of lying around. On the bank. Of the river. Checking out Avignon.

This is what Avignon looks like from the island (you go sit on the island to check out the city in all its splendor. Minus Celine's head. Not that her head isn't splendid but... right):

ANYYYYYYWAY Alice and I did a lot of tanning and staring at Avignon and all of that. It was blissful. But after two days of that, the plan was to go to Aix-en-Provence because Friend Kylie sings nothing but its praises and hey, two days in Avignon? Ca suffit. So we bouged our way to Aix.

While in line at the TGV station, we met two New Yorkers. Of course I went off on my "Holy whoa, I'm moving to NYC in August!" spiel which turned into them telling us that they have no idea what to see in Aix which turned into me telling them that I can show them how to get around the city etc. which turned into them inviting us to lunch.

So at noon on Saturday, Alice and I sat down with two very nice people that we had just met at Les Deux Garcons and we ate snails. And oysters. And I had an enormous steak de thon with some peppers on the side. It was fantastic and random and bling bling and a lot of fun. Oh MAN the things that happen when you travel.

currently thinking...

2008-05-15T01:05:00.003+02:00

current thoughts on life here in france?
Seriously, who knows what's going to happen tomorrow?
And that's good.

For instance, last night I had no idea that this afternoon I'd be walking around in grottes (big rock cave-y things) that were lived in up until 1580. Or that I'd be driving through Les Alpilles. Or that Robyn would provide me with some fantastico bean/rice burgers for dinner.

On Friday night I had no idea that on Saturday I'd be eating a ridiculously expensive meal with two strangers and Alice.*

Tuesday night of last week I had no idea that the English Challenge on Wednesday would go so well for my little kids. I'm so proud of them! They stepped up to the plate and remembered words like "Halloween" and "witch" and "sister" and "brother!" I think I've taught them a little something!

So that's my attempt at a mini-update right now. Carpe the diem out of this place because, when I return, it's: "Find a freaking job!" time and, well, that's a lot to handle.

I'm wishing you all giggles and cheese,
emfin

*remind me to expand on that

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-12T00:04:00.002+02:00

K, so I'm posting this at 12:05 on Monday morning... but in the US it is still Sunday! so...

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

May 10th

2008-05-10T08:40:00.002+02:00

Hi, it's May 10th.

So what's the big deal about that?

Well, two days ago I realized that two months from now I will be landing in the United States. July 8th, 2008, I'll be stepping off a plane in LaGuardia. At 4:00 in the afternoon. With all my suitcases. With culture shock, a craving for bread, and a need to hit up Koronet's as soon as possible.

Time has been FLYING since the month began and, while there's nothing wrong with that, it is starting to scare me. There are three more Saturdays in May. Then June hits. Then BAM the festival here in Avignon starts and then I bounce out.

And then this blog will come to an end. "emilieausud" will no longer work and I'll be wrapping things up here. I hope I've managed to write well about my adventures and such here. The French bureaucracy, the educational system, the bread and cheese, the wine festivals. The traveling, the people I've met, the music I've heard, the strange phrases I've learned.

So what do I have lined up for the next few weeks?

Saturday, May 17th: nuit des musees: all the museums in Avignon will be free for one night!
May 28th-June 10th: my parents will be here!
week one: driving around Provence
week two: head up North, stay in Paris, do daytrips to cool places!
June 14th: Gay Pride in Lyon
June 21st: tour of the lavender fields!
June 28th: (here's hoping) Paris Gay Pride
June 6th: Avignon festival starts
June 8th: bye bye France

In the meantime, people will be leaving and that is just straight up weird. And sad.

But, people... I'm so excited to come home. I cannot wait to see everyone and my hometown. It's going to be good.

this is the part where...

2008-04-28T19:53:00.002+02:00

i tell you what I'm eating!

It's a LIVE BLOGGING session of me telling you what i'm eating RIGHT NOW.

who's excited!?

fruit salad
of an unusual variety:
kiwi, banana, raisins, fitness fruit & fiber cereal (guess who's random!), walnuts

soooooooo good

that's all!

p.s.
open mike
Red Sky
9:30 tonight
come rock out
i hope people throw their underroos at me

Sing-a-ling

2008-04-25T23:57:00.002+02:00

So Monday night I went to Red Sky for the open mike with, I swear, no plans to play. But then the (super cute!) guy was singing and had a band backing him up and everything adn I was, essentially, itching to get up there and play/sing. So...

I did. And it was awesome. And my peeps were there and we all sang songs that had us throwback to the olden days of Natalie Imbruglia, Alanis Morrissette and the Four Non Blondes, comme d'hab. The best part of it? Besides the fact that the whole place was singing along and swaying at the appropriate moments and, in general, just looking really happy? The best part after all that was that I played with a drummer. and a bassist. and a guy who sang backup harmonies. For three songs... I was in a band. And it sounded so good!

So exciting!

And also, the bartender at Red Sky is great and, when I ordered my friend's beer (nope, not for me!) he was dancing like a maniac (on the dancefloor) and it put me in a really good mood. I decided on Monday night that we should be bffs.
So in the SIX HOURS that I spent sitting outside Red Sky today, I made multiple trips inside, natch. Def not for beer every time (hi, I had like 18 liters of water... I had to, you know, go) but one time I did go in for beer (again! for a friend!) and I came out with a free one!

Mais, comment, Emilie!?

He was playing Faith Hill (hi, literally in seven months I have not heard a single Faith Hill song) and I decided to sing along. Again, natch. So I hammed it up with him after I ordered the demi blanche and sang to him (lounge cantoring, anyone?*) and he had me follow him up the step to his turn table. Oh MAN he's a DJ, too? Then he handed me a mike, turned the song to the beginning, and had me personally karaoke him that song "You'll Be" (i think that's what it's called?)

can you say rrrrrrrrrandom!
And then these various mecs were like "bravo!" and I think one of them wanted to bise me (yup, that means give me the bises on the cheek, nothing more!) and I was awkward because I didn't realize and so I ducked out and Monsieur le Bartender gave me my beer, free of charge.

HOLLAH!
And he's like "woohoo! see you on Monday night! you're going to sing again, girl with the pretty voice!"

That was an awesomely random part of my day.

*inside church joke!

So the South is BEAUTIFUL

2008-04-23T22:47:00.007+02:00

Hi, everyone.

Today I went to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the Fontaine de Vaucluse, and the Abbaye de Senanque. I would like to share my favorite pictures of the day with you. So that you will all fall in love with the beauty that is this place and... come over!

Our first stop of the day: Isle-sur-la-Sorgue
In the car on the way to destination two
Fontaine de Vaucluse!Gordes!
Abbaye de Senanque

Today is a "Vive la France" kind of day.

2008-04-23T07:30:00.002+02:00

a run-down of the past two days would show how I have been home for approximately two seconds each day except for the whole sleeping thing. On Monday I went straight to Emilie's after school to help her with her homework (all of a sudden I feel like I'm in "saved by the bell" or something) and then got asked to give her sister English lessons each Monday (to which I said yes, despite the fact that I can barely move after Monday's teaching) and then went to Red Sky, sang some more (woohoo! Four Non Blondes, Alanis, Natalie Imbruglia - crowd PLEASERS), and then to O'Neill's for some parler-ing in French.
Tuesday was more school and then straight to Emily's because I couldn't fathom gyming it up and then out to Cubanito's to watch mes amis dance (wow, they have MOVES) and then home. to bed. because I am an old lady.

In short, I've actually been busy for the past two days!? And today I am going on a road trip!? Whoa! Hopefully pictures to come

no need for a title because...

2008-04-22T07:37:00.002+02:00

I'm currently downloading Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love." I am SO excited.

Monday Monday

2008-04-22T07:16:00.004+02:00

So Fenouil is closed until May 7th.

WHY oh WHY!?

Y'day was ridiculous. Called in sick in the morning so I could round out seventeen and a half hours curled up in the fetal position in my bed. Went in to work for the afternoon and then over to a co-worker's house to help her daughter with English. It was there that I ended up agreeing to help the other daughter with her English every Monday after school. Am I CRAZY!? On Mondays I'm usually dead by three p.m. Way to go, Emily. Oh well, I think this'll be cool - they have a GIANT t.v. ecran and, since I haven't seen real tv in like seven months, methinks they'll let me stick around to watch the news! In French!

Post-English lesson I returned chez moi to reunite and dine with Robyn and my colocatrice, Darija (omg Darija leaves in like two weeks. I tot cannot handle that). Robyn and I bounced to Red Sky to hear some open mike-ing and I ended up singing and getting the crowd all crazy like! I do believe that Celine and Katie and Emily and I will all be sharing a stage in the very near future singing everything from Jason Mraz to Lisa Loeb to Girlyman to Joshua Radin. Should be a VERY good time. Meanwhile, I had me some awkward moments with a French guy who fell in love with me one time but that's a whole other story.

Then we went to Melting Potes and it was like "oh hi, hello WORLD" because everyone plus their mom and their mom's mom was there. So many new anglophones. I forgot that Erasmus continues throughout the year even though last season's batch went home so now every week there are more people to meet. I also forget that on Mondays I should at least attempt a teeny bit to look good because I spent from 9 onwards meeting new people, bise-ing, singing/talking/etc and it is no good if I look like crud.

So yeah, Mondays are my busiest and most exhausting days and now they just got a lil' more hectic. Let's get this party started, y'all.

In other news, I just applied for the World's Most Random Job. Will keep you posted.
In other other news, only eleven more weeks of me being here, I do believe.

Things that make me happy: cinnamon and raisins in my cereal in the morning.
Being greeted by my little kids yesterday and jumpin' some rope with them.
Water

mais tu n'es pas venue ce matin?

2008-04-21T19:15:00.004+02:00

This morning I called in sick because I had to spend seventeen and a half hours in bed due to monstrous stomach ache (whoops! cooked with oil! and by "cooked with oil" i mean that I tried to make homemade tortilla chips so was frying them and thena te one before it was fully cooked so it was like I just up and licked the pan. NOT a bonne idee, I tell you what). But I said I'd come in for the afternoon so I'd get to see at least a few of my kiddies.

I get there at the end of lunch and am swarmed by little kids

"AHHHHHHH EMILIE WHERE WERE YOUUUUUUUUUU?" was the general question I was getting asked when I stepped out to watch the kids at recreation.

Oh man... THAT is why I made my teachers let me make up my hours on Thursday.

they say it's yo' burfday

2008-04-21T11:06:00.004+02:00

HAPPY HALF-BIRTHDAY, HEATHER!

lots o' love,
emily

Berlin, 2008. Day three. Part deux

2008-04-19T20:01:00.008+02:00

So we left off at Hitler's bunker and we walked to the Luftwaffe HQ. But we, of course, had to take note of these crazy giant pumps coming out of the ground. It looked like those connect-y sticks we play with when we're kids. And they're so pretty! Pink and purple! What, praytell, is in those giant pipes? Well, the city's sewage, of course!
Yup, Berlin's built on a swamp so if the city wants to do any work underground (hi, they also have an AWESOME metro), they use the giant pumps to pump that sh*t out, literally.

To the Luftwaffe HQ! The Air Force Headquarters! This urgly building was built for Nazi Luftwaffe and is now the home of... Germany's IRS! Ah yes, this most hated building (former Nazi Air Force HQ-turned GDR center-turned IRS) is now the place where Germans file their taxes. It is also the site of a tribute to...

June 17, 1953.

Praytell, what is the importance of that!? (why do I keep putting the words pray and tell together? )

It's the worker's uprising of 1953! East Germans were mad as WHOA that the government decided to screw them over. I mean, the GDR in 1953 wanted to revamp their system and so they increased production quotas, increase hours in the work week, and did nothing for the workers themselves. So on June 17, Germans went out onto the street in an organized protest of the thousands saying "um, what, this isn't fair." What does the GDR do? You know, they call MotherRussia and hae the Soviets bring in their tanks and the Soviets use force to bring the protest down. It's the first and last organized protest by East Germans agains the GDR until 1989. Interressant. This tribute is set at the Luftwaffe HQ and there is still a mural depicting the awesomeness of communism in the GDR on the wall of the building. (picture on the left is a picture of East Germans protesting. Picture on the right is the mural, obvi)

We followed the ENORMOUS Luftwaffe HQ to the

Berlin Wall.

Holycrow, I have seen the Berlin Wall. For those of you who know how I roll, you know that I'm a HistoryGeek and a Cold War HistoryGeek for SURE. So for me, little ol' Emily, to see the Berlin wall after fanatically studying this time period/society/etc for so long was like history heaven for me, I kid you not.

The wall still stands there. Behind the Wall is the former SS headquarters. I mean, dang.

Aaaaand then we went to Checkpoint Charlie which is the infamous stop in the wall between East and West, between the American sector of Berlin and the East (remember how Berlin was divided into four parts originally!? crazy!) This is, as George told us, sort of the "Disneyland" of Berlin because it's a complete reconstruction of Checkpoint Charlie. A picture of a real US soldier faces to the East and a picture of a Soviet soldier faces West. It was weird as WHAT to see this checkpoint... Weird is the only word I have for that right now... I'll try to come up with something later.

Then we walked through the former Red Light District and Gendarmenmarkt (supposedly the most beautiful plaza in the world).
And we got to Bebelplatz.

I'm freakin' out. I mean Bebelplatz! Ahhhhh! Over 20,000 books were burned here by Nazi students and teachers alike. Now there is a quiet memorial in the center of the Platz... in the ground there's a piece of glass and looking into it, you see empty bookshelves. Across the street is the University and outside of the University there is a book sale (I think) every day. This book sale is a way of commemorating the book burning and a way of giving back, I do believe.

Theeeeeen we get to Neue Wache which is a memorial to war. It is a very simple memorial - a class dome in the ceiling lets light shine down on to a sculpture of a mother holding her child. When it's sunny, the sun shines on it. When it snows, the snow covers the dome, keeping the memorial dark. And when it rains, it looks as if the mother is crying. Powerful.

Just beyond the Neue Wache is the TV Tower that the GDR had built in order to prove their technological strength. Turns out they didn't build it properly so they had Swedes come in and finish the job. Whoops.

We ended our tour on Museum Island.
That's it, folks! No more history lesson for the day!
George finale-d with the fall of the wall, David Hasselhoff, and the crowd cheering in 1989. We clapped and cheered for George, tipped the man, and then bounced OUT because we three (me, EmTrav, and Katie) had a rendez-vous for swing dancing!

Best. Tour. Ever.
Turns out I knew prob like 87% of the information given but I am SO GLAD I went on it. They also have the Third Reich Tour, the Cold War Tour, and a tour of the concentration camp right outside of Berlin. If I get back to Berlin (which I hope I do) I'm going to do one of them because that. Will be awesome.

Berlin, 2008. Day three.

2008-04-19T08:39:00.012+02:00

Hey dudes again.
So I'm going to write about Berlin, day Three today because it is going to be about our walking tour and I want to write about that before I forget any of the history/pictures/order that things happened/la dee dah.

On Day Three in Berlin, we decided to take a free walking tour of the city. Goodness! A free walking tour!? Yes, a FREE walking tour because I am a baller on a budget. dang, i totally just said that.

There's this company called Sandeman's Free Walking Tours, which operates in Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, London, Paris and... another place... can't remember where. This German-based company gives free tours in English with the idea that every traveler should be able to go to one of these cities and experience its history/architecture/art/monuments/etc for free in one afternoon because, well, no one should be deprived of that based on budget. Instead of paying up front for the tour, you tip the tour guide at the end. I think it is a fabulous idea and it was one of the best ideas we had all vacation because it was SO worth it.

Our tour was lead by George from Missouri. George From Missouri is 28, decided to move to Berlin for three years because "that seemed like long enough to... live in Berlin" (for real, that was his reasoning) and, prior to Sandeman's Walking Tours, was working as a server at his sister's restaurant just outside of St. Louis and at a video game store. Don't know what school he went to, don't know what he did before all of that, but now he's in Berlin (since September) walking around the city every day for at least 4 hours giving the same spiel on the history of Berlin. Tall, skinny, personable, and sort of a va! va! voom! jazz hands! kind of guy - kept our attention, made us laugh, knew a lot of stuff, and did a good job.

So what the heck did we see on the tour!? EVERYTHING. George started with a three-minute section that gave us 800 years of Berlin history because we really wanted to start our tour in the 20th-century, no? Yes.

We started at Pariser Platz. A Platz named after a city in France? In Germany's capitol? WTJ? (what the junk!?) Yup. We started there. Because Pariser Platz has the Brandenburg Tor (Brandenburg Gate) on it and the Hotel Adler on it. What's so cool about the Brandenburg Gate? Not much except it has been there FOREVER and has survived multiple wars and occupations and has seen the city through the Industrial Revolution, Hitler's ascension to power, the Cold War, Hannah Montana, and Michael Jackson's baby-hanging extravaganaza.
What!? Michael Jackson's baby-hanging extravaganza!?
yes, that's right, folks: It was from the balcony on the third floor of the Hotel Adler that Mr. Jackson held his kid out the window for all the world to see and woops! nearly dropped him! Yes, that's right - that hotel right therrrrre. Oh and other famous peeps stay there all the time, too.

So we walked through the Tor and we're told to look to our right and BAM it's The Reichstag, capital T, capital R. At this point my heart's pounding and I'm freaking out because helloooooo the Reichstag is only one of the most important buildings/events in history in the twentieth century and the HistoryGeek in me is just flippin. For real. (Reichstag: German Parliament. Although the Kaiser was always in charge so "Parliament" was really a word for "guys who came to this building to do whatever the junk they felt like doing. Maybe they played ping pong. Maybe they played go fish. But leading the country? Doing what the people asked them to do? Not so high on their list of priorities) (Reichstag: 1933. After Hitler gains power through his election (remember! not voted in with a majority! Only 37% of the vote!) he gets even MORE power after the Reichstag "mysteriously burns to the ground" one night. Blames this on a (legally insane) Dutchman. Uses this to go to the Kaiser and say "hey, what up, I think I should have all the power in the land" and, thus, becomes Supreme Chancellor of the Third Reich). Aaaaaand that is why the Reichstag is important.
Today the Reichstag has a glass dome at the top up on which anyone can go walking. The idea is that Germans can go to the top and look down on their Parliament to make sure they're doing what they've voted them in to do. And then those in Parliament can always look up to that glass ceiling and see the people for whom they are working. I think it's a beautiful idea, spurred by an ugly history.

Taking a left, we walk a little ways following oh, I don't know, the bleeping BERLIN WALL to the new Holocaust Memorial, officially called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is right off the main street in Berlin (just steps away from Brandenburg Tor and the Reichstag is just further down the street) and it is made up of concrete slabs of different sizes on sloping land. Whoops, I don't think that description was any good. The land slopes, the concrete slabs follow the shape of the land and are of different heights so you walk through a maze of grey from one end of the Memorial to the other. The slabs start out small and gradually get larger so that, when you're in the center of the Memorial, you are lost in a sea of grey. It is disorienting, just as it's meant to be. The land slants and slopes as does the concrete so every step is a little more unfocused and every time you turn your head you can get lost a little more. It's a powerful thing to see from the street (as in, on a regular day going to the office, you pass a memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe) and it's a powerful thing to walk through.

Once we walked through the Memorial, we crossed the street and went a little ways to a parking lot. A parking lot surrounded by some uuuuugly apartments. What's the big deal about the apartments and the parking lot? Oh yeah. Hitler's bunker was here.
That is correct - Hitler spent his last few months (January-April, 1945) hiding out and going insane underground here at this parking lot. (ooh here's something I didn't know! He was hiding out with his lovah Eva Braun and his dog and Goebbels (and Goebbels' fam) and his doctor and his doctor was giving him cocaine droplets in his eyeballs. WHOA) From 1945-1989, this apartments around said parking lot were priiiiime real estate because these apartments were the closest housing to West Berlin anyone could get and only the most loyal and high-up East Germans could live there. Interesting fact!: world-famous skater, Katerina Witt (always one of my faves) was offered an apartment there. I'm pretty sure she said no thanks.
Nowadays the apartments continue to be ugly and Hitler's bunker is a parking lot where majllions of people every year bring their dogs to do their thang. There is a solitary poster just off of the lot giving the history of the area - not bringing too much attention to it but making sure people know.

Bleep. This post is hella long. I'm going to cut it into two for your viewing pleasah.

it was just a dinner but...

2008-04-19T08:31:00.003+02:00

Hey dudes.
I know this is weird, but I have to devote a blog entry to the meal I ate last night because, uh, yes, it was fanTAStic!
So here goes.

This is the part where I tell you what I ate!
(ooh - we went to The Grand Cafe* here in Avignon which is attached to the Utopia theater and v. classy)

Entree:
ragout with artichokes
I was thinking: "artichokes? Really!?" And yes, really. I would like to say that my taste buds were DANCING to the artichokes in the tomato sauce.
Plat:
duck with a honey sauce and mashed potatoes.
Here's my review: the mashed potatoes were underwhelming but the duck HOLYCROW SO DELICIOUS. Who knew I'd like duck? Heck, who knew I'd EAT duck!? Yup. And now that I live here I'm all obssede (accent aigu) with honey so it all marches and it was deliciousness on a plate. Although there were a few times when I thought about feeding the ducks at the Potter Park Zoo but I let those thoughts pass and I enjoyed.
Dessert:
Apple crumble in a light cream sauce.
I know, I know. "light. cream. sauce?" Yup. It was creamy but light! I learned how to say "fluffy/easygoing" in German last week and I think it's "lookah." Or something. (EmTrav, help me out here). So that's how I would describe the cream sauce. Fluffy and easygoing.

SO GOOD. Ahhhhhhh my stomach is STILL celebrating

*warning: Mom, Dad, I might try to convince us to come here!!!!

pictures!

2008-04-17T11:23:00.001+02:00

Lisa has saved the day! I have pictures from Dachau and Salzburg now stashed away on my computer and I'm putting 'em up. Look for edited Dachau and Salzburg posts (I wrote 'em yesterday, and putting up the pics today).

Enjoy!

the tea party continued!

2008-04-16T15:41:00.002+02:00

So remember how we did the Amis de Violette tea party soiree for the language exchangers? And we ate provencal food and sang songs and I got all choked up when I looked at Darija because hi, my roommate of 7 months is leaving and that makes me really sad? OK well I have a new picture of that soiree and I'm going to post it here. I apologize for my giant forehead and the scariness that is that guitr picture. but everyone else is really nice!

So now I present you... les Amis de Violette

Munich, 2008!

2008-04-16T13:54:00.010+02:00

On Thursday, Lisa and I got our very own tour of Munich by Chaka Khan. There's nothing quite like exploring a new city with the local and it was GREAT.

First things first: Schloss Nympehnburg. Unfortunately, my pictures of this are on my other memory card so I can't show you it. But trust me, it's cool. I'll give you what my Let's Go Europe! book has to say about it:

After a decade spent trying for an heir, Ludwig I celebraetd the birth of his son in 1662 by erecting an elaborate summer playground northwest of the city. Today, the swans of Schloss nympenburg have bome camera fodder for the hundreds of tourists flocking for the perfect shot.

True, I got some good shots of the swans. Too bad you can't see 'em!

After that we went to Marienplatz to check out the Glockenspiel! I'll admit, I was excited to be there just so I could say glockenspiel a bunch of times. Tourists were everywhere (obvi) and we watched jousting knights and dancing coopers up in the tower when the clock struck twelve. (Frak! This is an aerial view of the Marienplatz and the Mariensaule (1683 monument ot the Virgin mary, commemorating hte city's surivval of the Thirty Years' War) Why Frak? Because I don't have my pictures of the Glockenspiel after all because they are on the faulty memory card! Ahhhhh!)

Post jousting knights and toursity pictures Chaka took us to the Viktualian Markt, the giant market that is filled with the beeeeest food. Chaka took us to her italian friend's stand who hooked us up with delicious paninis (in Germany we ate Italian? No prob!) and drank fruit juices and got energized for our...

Climb up the Alter Peter (St. Peter) church. DANG. 306 steps. And because I was going with Chaka the Athlete, I felt like I sprinted up it. Getting up to the top gave us a great view of Munich and the Alps in the distance. It also gave us a hot sec of exercise and a new way to view the city. (Oooh guidbeook says it's the 12-th century Peterskirche which is the city's oldest parish church. fyi.) (check out the Alps in the background!)

I like to put myself in tiny places so I did that.

We continued with our personalized walking tour around Munich, dipping into Dalmyr, Munich's super ritzy AMAZING department store. We also searched the city for a decent pair of jeans for me. The current problem is that my jeans are a little too big, as are my belts, so things just kinda slide off and show a little too much a little too often. Thus the hunt for jeans. Couldn't find any (affordable) jeans so I started wearing to pairs of jeans for the rest of my time in Germany. Turns out that when it's cold, that's a really good thing!

Um after the jeans tour we went back to Chaka's and I got dressed. In leder hosen. YAYYYYYY. I seriously looked like a lil' German boy. So here's a pic or two:

Thank you. Thankyouverymuch.

Post-tour of Munich we went to Hofbrauhaus, aka the full Biergarten experience. As the guidebook says, It's as "jolly, as festive, and as loud as it gets." Yes, yes, and yes. Jolly, yummy food, giant beers, live music (with tubas and everything!) and a great great great atmosphere. It was so touristy but so much fun. We sat next to some Italians and some Brits had a good time.

Ooh! I learned some of a German drinking song! It's written in my lil' book and I'll try to write it down accurately:
"Heil prosit, heil prosit
der germutlichkeit
heil prosit, heil prosit
der gemuuutlichkeit

oins, zwei, drei - gsuffa!"

Ok, I'm pretty sure that NONE of that was right - I forgot that I'm reading the German writing of a doctor! Of course I can't read it! Haha, but you get the point and we sang that a bunch of times throughout our night.

That was Munich! An amazing time! Hopefully I'll get up more pictures soon, y'all!

Salzburg and Munich, 2008!

2008-04-16T13:34:00.003+02:00

So that was Dachau! And my first night in Munich!
On Wednesday Lisa and I made it out to a whole other country... Austria.

The hills were SO alive because we went to Salzburg.
We solved a problem like Maria.
We tea-ed, a drink with jam and bread.
And we eidelweissed.

So great.

Well, first off, I have to blame my host, Chaka Khan, for getting me RIDICULOUSLY even further addicted to caffeine in the few short days I had at her house. It's just that DANG that espresso machine was so shiny and sleek and so of course I had to use it a bunch of times. A BUNCH of times. I now definitely cannot sleep past 8:00 and must have espresso immediatement. oh well.

Lisa and I made it to Salzburg for a lunch at the Heart of Joy Cafe - a vegetarian/vegan bagel/breakfast place.

This is the part where I tell you what I ate!
A seitan bagel with lettuce, tomato, adn mustard. A mango yogurt drink. Deliciousness!
I thought seitan was mushroom? Nope, turns out it's fake meat. So when she brings me this awesome-looking bagel with friggin' ham on it i'm like you gotta be KIDDING me! and I don't know how to say ANYthing in German! So I just pointed and said "meat? seitan?" to which she replied, yup it's fake meat. Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I have a long way to go learning about veganism, apparently

Then Lisa and I decided to do our very own Sound of Music Tour. I'd done some research earlier and the two tours offered in Salzburg are 35 euros, 4 hours each, and on TripAdvisor.com, they didn't get the greatest reviews. So LIsa and I went cheap-o and made our own! Meaning we ran around the city pointing at things and saying "I think this is where they marched across the square! This is defnitely it! No wait, THIS is it! Let's sing!"

Seriously we frolicked and the one song that was in my head teh whole time was "I have confidence." Freaking sweet.

We walked up to the abbey - you know, where "when G-d closes the door, somewhere he opens a window." And we saw the Alps which are beautiful and they're so stunning they lookkinda fake.

We also saw Mozart-y stuff! I mean, the guy did live there. We saw his birth place, his residence, a museum, a giant statue, Mozartplatz... I got in on a French tour of Mozart-ia and I understood what the guide was saying! I couldn't believe it. That was great.

Salzburg is beautiful! The flowers were GORGEOUS. I felt like I was channeling Julie Andrews for REAL and now, of course, I have to see SOM as soon as possible.

Back to Munich for the night - Chaka took us to Chinese food and we had a nighttime tour of Munich via her Jeep. Very cool

Dachau and Munich, 2008

2008-04-16T13:15:00.004+02:00

(Thank you to Lisa for providing me with these pictures)

Dachau.
What can I say about Dachau? It was opened in 1933, one of the first camps opened. 1933 was an important year, why? Burning of the Reichstag (German parliament) = Hitler was able to say to the Kaiser "yo, give me all the power and make me Supreme Chancellor." The Nazi Party rose to power with only 37% of the vote. not. even. a. majority. Hitler becomes Supreme Chancellor and opens up Dachau and a few other camps as work camps. These are for political prisoners... death camps like Auschwitz aren't in full swing yet. The most important thing at the time was to get the political dissidents out of the way and working for the war machine.

Lisa and I went to Dachau straight from the train station. For any of you planning on going, I highly recommend the audio guide! So informative and it's cheap and just SO worth it.
It was really really cold in Dachau. Really really cold. And one of the things I remember from the first books I read on the Holocaust (you know, like Night and some others) is always talking about the cold. So to have a freezing cold day in Dachau just as a visitor... it was chilling in more than one way, you know?

We saw a short film the museum puts on.
We walked through barracks. We learned about medical experiments. We learned that Dachau was a work camp for men and a brothel was created at the far end of the camp to bring in women from another camp for the workers who 'earned' a visit to the women. We learned about roll call. We saw the gas chambers. We saw the showers.
It was stunning. I walked around in silence. I couldn't help but feel dark and heavy the whole time, despite the blue skies.
Lisa, thanks for going with me. It was good to be able to hold your hand while walking around!

After approx 3 hours in Dachau we were ready to head back to Munich.

I'm just going to put it out there that Lisa and I had an awesome time with our host in Munich. She's smart and funny, has GREAT taste in music, is probably the most generous person I've ever met, owner of an awesome espresso machine, and is a vegetarian! Oh MAN. I will dub her Chaka. For Chaka Khan for absolutely no reason at all. (this picture shows the stairs to Chaka's apartment. there were a LOT of stairs. a LOT).

So Chaka picked up Lisa and I from a coffeeshop and drove us to her amazing apartment that she has decorated herself. It's beautiful and SO how I would love to have an apartment for myself, should I ever be able to live successfully (affordably) without roommates. Chaka whipped us up a dinner of spicy mushroom pasta and introduced me to prosecco. We listened to Brandi Carlisle, we built a fire, we had grappa (whoa, how do you spell that?). We sat around talking about evvvverything eating delicious noodles and getting to know each other. Great first night in Munich!

Lisa's visit!

2008-04-16T12:07:00.006+02:00

Hello, everyone!
I got back yesterday from my Germany Tour '08. It was AMAZING and I can't wait to share it all with you. But before I do that, I'm going to tell you about Lisa's visit to Avignon which rocked.

Unfortunately, Lisa had a difficult time getting here to the 'non. Lots of stuff with plane complications and trains and cell phones and all of that but, in end, Lisa made it here safe and sound and only approximately 18 hours behind schedule. Woohoo!

Lisa arrived on Saturday afternoon. First thing we did? PASTRY. What was the first one she had in my town? A sancristain. Those ones are freaking out of this world. Then we giddily headed back home to settle down to lunch and exhaustion.

Lisa's a little surprised that 1) I dont' really eat cheese and 2) I don't have a bottle of wine sitting at my house all the time. Ahh! For a hot sec there I was vegan and so cheese is just something I don't buy anymore and I don't buy wine except for when I'm going to someone else's house. I like to drink soymilk. So I'm not really French? Nope. But we got Boursin and some Cotes du Rhone to have a Frenchified lunch.

We walked around town and went to the palace and it was beautiful. Went to the MakeOutCenter of the City because that's what French people here do. The amours walk to the otp of the Jardins de Papes and go and make babies. Makes for an interesting walk for families and little kids. We saw the city, waved to the Pont d'Avignon, and headed to Robyn's for the amazing soiree she had organized.

A night of chaos ensued with Lisa, me, Robyn, Nicole, Emily, and Amy. Robyn made an AWESOME dinner with an aperitif, a main meal, dessert, wine, AND cheese and it was awesome. Hours and hours of talking and eating and laughing and everything. I am SO GLAD that my friends here have met my sisters and that my sisters have met my friends. The joining of the two worlds, you might say. And I think it has gone splendidly!

On Sunday Lisa and I did a list of things that are awesome to do on Sundays here because they are FREE! WOOHOO. We went on the Pont d'Avignon and sang the eponymous song, freaked out some tourists. We went to l'Ile de la Bartelesse and checked out the city and the palace, and, yeah, we took the little tourist train around the town.

Then Lisa and I went to her birthday dinner at a nice (unfortunately, tourist-y) restaurant right by Place Pie.

This is the part where I tell you what we ate!
Lisa had duck with a honey glaze, pureed carrots, and red wine. I had chicken in a tomato sauce, mixed salad, and french fries (random to have french fries on my classy plate, but whatevs)

Then we met up with my peeps at Lalogene and Amy convinced us to do... karaoke! It was at karaoke where I finally got up the courage to pledge my undying love to the DJ. We started out with a rocky relationship but something akin to amour has grown between us... he has the voice of a freakin' French ANGEL and he can slow down time with his rendition of "The Show Must go On." We have an agreement - we speak with our eyes when I request "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" and we bring the house down with whatever song we do harmonies on. Ahhhh, Mr. DJ, I do not know your name, but I know that we are connected.

On Monday Lisa and I had a lazy day. We went to the Palace because we had free tickets (something for free in France!? You gotta be kidding me!) and so we wandered around and went "ooh la la" at all of the old stuff. K, then we passed out for a supah long nap. Woke up for dinner and Melting Potes! Oh man, Melting Potes is getting better and better. I have to remember that going to it means that 1) I speak french 2) I see my friends 3) I meet new people.

Ok, Lisa and I were leaving for Munich on Tuesday morning with a flight at 7:00 from Marseille. Ladies and gentlemen, this is IMPOSSIBLE to do unless you are very very close to Marseille. And I am not. So Lisa and I arranged with my friend, Emilie (hear that!? I have a French friend named Emilie!) who comes to Melting Potes now with her friends. Woohoo! more opportunities to speak French and hang out with cool French girls. Then Emilie took Lisa and I to her awesome apartment in marseille (arriving at 2:00 am) to get up at 4:30am to get to the airport! How amazingly nice is this girl? She chauffeured us, had her stay at her apartment, AND took us to the airport. Incredible!

Then Lisa and I set off for a whirlwind tour of Germany. The memory card that has my pictures of Dachau and Salzburg is acting whacky and might be broken. This is making me SO SAD. As in, I might not have any pictures from those two places and ahhhhhh that stinks so much.

Am going to work on the posts of everything else from the past week. It's been PACKED and it has been AMAZING and I am all smiles right now.

2008-04-03T11:04:00.002+02:00

yay

A Tea Party!

2008-04-03T10:47:00.006+02:00

Last night I went to a tea party thrown for some of the assistants by Les Amis de Violette. Who are Les Amis de Violette? They're a group of Avignonnais who meet every week with Micaela to learn English from her. They range in age from 40 to 80, and they range in skill level, too. They threw us (Darija, me, Robyn, Marius, Ciaran, Renee) a tea party because we have all been to their English lass, invited by Micaela, to introduce ourselves and talk about our respective countries (United States: Darija, me, Robyn; Taiwan: Marius; Ireland: Ciaran; Jamaica: Renee) and to hear our different accents as we all speak English. When I went we ended up talking about French and American politics (!!!) which was pretty difficult for me because... um... I'm not the greatest, at the moment, at keeping up with current events. Ew, I hate admitting that. I also ended up singing a cappella for them because, when they asked me "what do you REALLY want to do in your life?" and I responded with "I'd like to be a singer/songwriter" they were all like "ooh la la! sing! sing!" and so I did.

ANYway, they threw us this tea party chez Micaela and it was great because it was like Auberge Espagnole again but with old people. We all sat around speaking in English and French, practicing, stumbling over our words and tenses, piecing together sentences, etc. Micaela invited me to sing a few songs for them, since I'd already done it and they wanted to hear the songs in English again. This time I wrote out the lyrics for them beforehand so they could 'etudier' and follow along. I sang "For You" (they wanted to hear stuff I'd written myself) and the one phrase they didn't understand and kept asking about was "I am standing on my lover's leap." I had fun explaining my attempts at poetry for them.

I also sang "Leaving on a Jet Plane" because I wanted to sing a song about departures and I took one look at Darija (my roommate) and I got hella choked up and... well, crud. 2/3 of the people I know here are leaving and I haven't taken too much time yet to think about that and I started last night when I sang the song and... I'm going to miss everyone.

Then, of course, there was food and we all stuffed ourselves on olive tampanade (whoa, how do you spell that?), chocolates, cakes, cookies (little navettes which are all provencale-y and stuff), Taiwanese tea thanks to Marius, champagne, wine, quiche, and other goodness. Awesome. Gotta remember to taste everything native to Provence before I go home.

It was so nice to have this tea party because: Les Amis de Violette are really nice, it gave me a chance to see the other assistants again before they leave (AHHHHH), and I love being around the good ol' melange of languages. I am so impressed by these Amis because they're all learning English at an older age and I think that's brave and fabulous. Makes me braver, en fait, knowing that there are people, young and old, going out and practicing, making mistakes, stumbling over things, to communicate. And it also reminded me that I'm not actually awful at French and I'm grateful for that reminder.
pictured: Robyn, Renee, Ciaran, Marius, Darija, me

Woohoo! I'm off to start the day and holycrow LISA WILL BE HERE TOMORROW.

Some positives

2008-04-01T00:49:00.002+02:00

Tonight Avignon was really beautiful. The smell of freshly fallen rain combined with the beauty of the darkened city with street lamps lighting the palace walls... reminded me of my first nights here. It sort of helped me fall in love with this city again and that was a nice feeling.

Today, one teacher in my school told me that I've improved a lot since I first got here. This was earth-shattering news to me and VERY welcome, indeed. She supported this fact by saying that the kids used not to like English but now they all bounce for joy whenever we have it which is a great thing. Their enthusiasm increases my enthusiasm which increases their enthusiasm and it's... a great cycle. So I feel really great about that.

In other news, it's April 1st. That means I have exactly three weeks and one week left here on this side of the ocean. Weirrrrrrd.

And then we went to Monaco!

2008-03-25T23:00:00.008+01:00

After our happy hour shindig at the Irish Pub, Heather and I completed our one and only night in Nice with a stroll through town back to our hostel. Before arriving at Hotel Pastoral we made one very important stop: Monoprix. And we went. to. town. I had decided that I was gonna let it alllll go (and by 'let it all go' I mean the work I've been doing at the gym for a few months... I might actually be a little stronger and fitter now than I was when I got here) and I bought the cookie aisle. I kid you not. We bought Petit Ecolier and madeleines and I don't think Heather or I are the same people because of the eating spree. It was splendid, delicious and TOTALLY worth it. Even the stomachache the next morning. And the stomachache with which I woke up only three hours after hitting the hay. Girl gotta let loose sometime!

We awoke Friday morning to grey skies but good times because we were making our day trip to Monaco!

Helpful things for the Cote d'Azur traveler: get the bus at the Gare Routiere in Nice to get to Monaco. The bus takes 45 minutes, runs every 15 minutes, and costs only one euro. How amazing is that!?!?!

So we arrived in the City of Glitz and, I have to admit, I was feeling very Ocean's Eleven. And twelve and thirteen. Ready to gamble.

But the Monte-Carlo has a HUGE entrance fee and wasn't open, anyway. So we hit up the casino next door to it. After getting looked up adn down by the doorman, and being asked to check our coats, we walked into the glittery casino of slots and wandered around.

Monaco? Not a lot to do except look at excess amounts of wealth and marvel at how people can spend spend spend. So our mini-tour of Monaco didn't take too long and after just a few hours we hopped on our one euro bus and went back to Nice. We spent our remaining time on the Cote d'Azur walking around Nice and taking in some last sights before our train pulled out of the station at 3:55.

I could go into how everything was great until the controle woman came and checked our tickets. This was when she made us pay 35 extra euros due to the fact that I had reduced-rate tickets for a train time I was not allowed to have them for. Buuuuuut that would just get me all riled up inside. Kind of how maybe it's almost like the girl who sold me the tickets wasn't doing her job and giving me the full information on carte blanche and all that. I could also go into how ridiculous it is that their controle machine did not accept 1) my credit card or 2) my debit card (that is French) and then the took all my cash. That was a bad. time. my friend. Go fig that'll happen the one and only time my sister (whom I'm trying to impress with my French language skills and my ability to get around in this country) is here. Arrrgh like whoa.

Then we got back to Avignon, met up with Nicole and we had our last night together in Avignon.
Saturday morning I took Heather to the airport. Not much in life has been harder than watching Heather go through security and walk to her gate.

In conclusion, Heather's visit was amazing and I couldn't have asked for a better time.
Heath, I miss you
lots of love,
emily

omgiwishicouldbethereforhuuuuugsrightnow

2008-03-24T14:24:00.005+01:00

Attention:

I have the coolest and most successful sisters in the world.

I might be doing a lot of raising the roof here in France right now. Hollahhhhh, Heather! She's been accepted into the Social Work with Families certification program! Which means she's amazing (duh) and now totally going to reach her goal of being a AP29DF and a 1IJR0FNI in five years! I mean a LMFT and LMSW! A Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist AND she'll be a Licensed Masters Social Work(er).

And Lisa lives in Chicago and is in publishing and works in a giant building and is amazing and she is totally going on a round-the-world trip in a few years and she regularly blows my mind.

Yeah, this is an Ode to My Sisters.
Gotta love 'em.

just some thoughts

2008-03-24T09:32:00.002+01:00

I have been listening to "The Mercy of the Fallen" by Dar Williams pretty much on repeat and it takes a ton of effort to get through that and "The Beauty of the Rain" without falling.

I've been on www.goodreads.com all morning obsessively going through every book I have ever read and every book I want to read. I'm desperately trying to be well-read and super cool like my sister, her friends, and everyone I know. Here's hoping!

I went on the Umich website to check out the book lists of old professors. And then it made me REALLY want to be back in college for a hot sec just so I can sit in history classes of Matthew Lassiter and soak up his genius and listen to Clay Howard as he GSI's a discussion of mine. Some fave classes of college?: History of American religion (it's why I became a history major), history of the vietnam war, history of europe in the era of total war, history of europe post-1945, history of the american family, history of the US post 1945, etc. etc.

Anyone want to go to Shaman Drum for me and get me allllll the books written by my old history professors? K, that'd be way cool.

Easter was yesterday and I'm just going to put it out there that, despite the delicious and very fun brunch I had with my friends, I missed going to church with my fam and having our enormous brunch post-service. I missed "Hail Thee Festival Day" and all the joy and the colors (um, even on Easter the French wear black and gray to church!) and everything. Oh well.

Am hoping to do a mini-trip to Aix-en-Provence soon. Will keep you posted...

THIS ONE TIME HEATHER CAME TO VISIT AND IT WAS LIKE WHOA!!!!!!

2008-03-23T19:19:00.011+01:00

Hey everyone!

So Heather visited me a few weeks ago and, because I am the world's biggest punk, I haven't quite gotten 'round to writing about her AMAZING visit yet. So here I go. But I can't really go in chronological order because I don't have all the pictures of the whole week so we will start with the end of the week and work our way back, k? K.thx.bye.

So...
HEATHER CAME TO VISIT ME DURING HER SPRING BREAK. omg. She bounced from East Lansing, MI to Marseille, France, all by herself and holy crow that's scary and I'm way impressed that she did it. Raise your hand if crossing an ocean by yourself is kinda daunting. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Well, anyway, I'm impressed.

She got here, I cried at the airport, she cried at the airport, we both cried at the airport. We're Findleys. We cry. Oh, here's a picture that I have of Heather and Emily because they were like instant BFFs. Hello perezhilton.com instant connection plus talky mctalkertons plus they're awesome and bonded and all of that and it was honky and dory. honkey and dorey? ummmm...

But wait! That's the beginning of the week! I am now going to skip ahead to... Nice and Monaco!

SKIP
SKIP
SKIP

NICE AND MONACOOOOOOOOO
So Heath was all like "Let's go somewhere supafly while I'm in France!" to which I replied "true story, Avignon can get a little old after a few days, a voyage somewhere would be splendid" (yes, after living here for six months, I talk like that now? Um, whatevs).
So we decided on the Cote d'Azur. GOOOOOD CHOICE. On Thursday of Heather's holycrapican'tbelievemysisterissittinghereRIGHTNEXTTOME week vacation, we took the train (everyone all together: yay public transportation) to Nice and it was, for lack of better words, nice. It was better than nice. I discovered a new city with my twin and holy crap I just might cry as I reminisce.

There are things that make Heather and I really great twins. We both have really small and exceptionally cute ears. We have similar smiles. There are times when I know exactly what she's going to say and she doesn't have to finish her sentence and vice versa. There's our mutual love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There's our ability to eat a bag of Smartfood popcorn no problem. There's the way our voices meld when we sing "Galileo" and "Closer to Fine." There's our gestures and mannerisms which are exactly the same and it took five months apart from her to realize just how EXACTLY THE SAME we can be. And there's our... LOVE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. We love just chillin', watching things go by, taking pictures, sleeping on each other's shoulders, etc. etc. Hurrah France and the TGV, hurrah France and the TER, hurrah.

This makes me so happy. As do our tiny ears.

Annnnnyyyyyywayyyyyyyy
We got off the train in Nice around 3:00 on Thursday. The skies were kinda cloudy and we knew it was going to get dark soon but we carpe diemed it anyway. We signed in to our hostel (HOTEL PASTORAL: IT IS SO AWESOME AND IT'S REALLY CHEAP SO IF ANY OF YOU ARE GOING TO NICE ANY TIME SOON, LOOK THEM UP!) and immediately went to go find my twin some food.

A word on Heather's week and food: I made it my personal mission to feed Heather as many pastries as possible in our 6 and a half days together. I was pretty successful. But, as important as the pastries are, it is also incredibly important to eat a kebab while here because kebaberies are everywhere and kebabs are so good and omg I may be salivating as I write this.

So yeah, got Heather a kabab. What's in a kebab? Well, the meat (chicken and turkey) comes on a giant stick and rotates in front of a heater thingy and they shave off the meat onto a grill and then they shovel that into a giant wrap into which they have already put lettuce, tomato, onion, and white sauce that is heavy on the garlic. WHAT COULD NOT BE GOOD ABOUT THAT!? Kebabs, in general, prob change lives. The woman who served us the kebab told us that her husband is a Bostonian and she intends to move to Boston with him someday and OPEN A KEBABERIE. Amazing. One more reason to move there!

Um I just devoted a paragraph to a kebab. Is that cool? Check one: yes no.

Soooooo Heather got full up on kebab and then we walked around Nice. Nice is definitely a biiiig city and I was so excited to be in a city among so many people, just wandering around, checking things out with Heather. We did our touristy "let's take pictures here and here and here!" which is always fun because dang, we're cute, and we had fun and Nice is beautiful.

Then we went to the sea.
Pardon?
Yes, we went to the sea. And it as awesome.

We walked along the water and then sat on a bench, watching the sun go down. So wonderful. Can I just say that getting six and a half days with my other half was freaking sweet? And being able to travel with her and discover Nice and sit along the water and people watch and nature watch and eat and eat and just be around her it was... perfect.

Ok, moving on!

Post-sundown, Heather and I walked around Nice taking in the shops and restaurants and tourists and gelateria (ok, I TOTALLY regret not buying gelato in that one shop, Heather! We need to go back!) and we found ourselves eating a loaf of bread (umm... thatw as just me eating a loaf of bread) and enjoying Happy Hour at an Irish pub. Yum Guinness. Rugby was on the television, a French guy started singing folk songs in English... it was a good time.

So that's Nice, day 1. Stay tuned for Monaco and the rest of my amazing week with my sister.

Florence, Italy!! Friday, February 15th

2008-03-15T18:20:00.004+01:00

I begin this post by saying that we arrived in Florence, Italy, on February 14th. That’s right. Valentine’s Day. Awesome. My crew were my valentines, that’s fo sho.

Because my amazing CouchSurfing hosts gave me a map, a list of their “bests of the best” and keys to their apartment, I was able to wander around Florence to seek-and-find that which the city had to offer. On my morning stroll I found myself at Cassiope’s favorite café, home of the giant cappuccino that costs only one euro. It was here that I learned that in Italy it costs more to sit at the table than it does to order at the bar. From then on, I did all of my ordering standing up, leaning on the counter. What an excellent and frothy and giant cappuccino!

After meeting up with Amy and Emily (and, coincidentally enough, seeing the two American women we had met at the gelato place in Pisa only the day before… when asked if they were looking for gelato yet (mind you, it was only 10:45 am) they said they were looking for the David. I chose to go for gelato before the statue, of course)) we started our wlaking tour of Florence. We found our way to Mercato Centrale, my “home” for the stay, where we thriftily spent 3.50 each on a splendid picnic. At the market we found ourselves buying from the fruit stand, the nut stand, and from a baker/butcher. Said baker/butcher started joking around with us, nicknamed the three of us, and I tried my Italian phrases. What do I know in Italian? Some compliments, “nice to meet you” and some swear words. Ok, I didn’t try out the latter on him but I worked in the rest into an awkwardly hilarious conversation that was part Italian, part French, part English and mostly giggles.

This is the part where I tell you what I ate!
Banana (woohoo potassium), cashews (woohoo, protein) and a sandwich consisting of the world’s greatest bread, red pepper, and an amazing pork whose name I forget.
YUM

We ate our picnic in the square and people-watched as swarms of pigeons attempted to take our sandwiches. Have any of you seen the picture of Heather and I covered at Trafalgar Square in London? The one where we’re covered in pigeons? Yeah, it was kind of like that. We did a fantastic job of avoiding Florence pigeon poo… go us!

Post-lunch we made our way through the beautiful city. Naturally, after the success of gelato in Pisa, we had to have our first taste of gelato in Florence. We made our away to the famous Gelateria de Neri, as suggested in my Let’s Go Europe! Tourbook. This LGE has it right: the gelato they suggested, the crema giotto, is as off the hook as they described. What’s grema giotto? Coconut, almond, hazelnut gelato. Complete heaven.

Stuffed, we walked across the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge that used to support the artists and geniuses of long ago. Now the Ponte is home to jewelers and tourist stands. Kind of reminded me of Koreantown in NYC.

On the other side of the river, we walked up Piazzola Michaelangelo. It is from the PIazzola that visitors get the most stunning view of Florence. It was so stunning, in fact, that Amy fell asleep as we basked in the glow of the sun. There is a fake David (a “Favid,” if you will) at Piazzola Michaelangelo and, having seen this, we decided that we did not need to go to the museum, The Academia, where the real David is held. Remember how it was Valentine's season when we were in Florence? The Italians were feeling it. I wasn't. (see picture to left)

After giggling at the Daivid and taking tons of pictures, we walked back to the city center. Amy, Emily, and I met up with Darija again and the four of us set out to find dinner, a la the suggestion of LGE. We spent a half hour searching for one specific restaurant but to no avail. Instead, we ended up at Il Borgo Antico, another LGE-recommended restaurant and sat down to giant meals of pizza and pasta.

Post dinner, we rolled our way to the JJ Cathedral, an American bar kiddie corner from the Duomo. It was our intention to “go out” on the town but, one 5 euro Bailey’s later, we decided to call it a night.

Florence, Italy!! (part one: haircut 'n stuff)

2008-03-13T18:25:00.007+01:00

So post-Pisa we took the train into Florence. Darija, Sasha, Emily, Amy, and myself all landed in Florence and then I split off. Why? Because I was heading to meet my CouchSurfing hosts and they were headed off to their hostel.

As I met up with my host, Cassiope, I stepped off the platform and landed in a hole! Next to porta potties! The hole was filled with dirt and pee! Welcome to Firenze!

But other than that, my first night in Florence was awesome.
Cassiope and Holly-Marie were my two CouchSurfing hosts. What's CouchSurfing? Ok, it might sound sketchy but I don't think it is: It's an online community of travelers from all over the world who want to 1) have free places to stay on their travels and 2) have cultural exchanges. Ok, it's probably the other way around. But yeah, you go somewhere you send emails to people saying "Hey, I'm coming to Bulgaria, can you host me?" And then they'll write back with a yes or no. Even if they can't host you, some people will say "hey, let's meet up for coffee or a drink" which I think is great because you still get to meet amazing new people (who are, hopefully, interesting) and you get to see the city/town/village from a local's perspective.

Basically I got to stay at their place, in Florence, for free, for two nights. These are two 20 year old girls in the same program, from the US, living in Italy to learn Italian. They are two amazing girls who fed me and gave me a place to stay, gave me a "best of the best" list of Florence, a map, and a kickass vegan dinner. While I was there, they were also hosting another girl, Lucy, from a tiny town in southern California.

So Cassiope picked me up at the train station, after my graceful plummet into the hole of pee and mud, and took me to her house which was right above the Mercato Centrale, the giant market of Florence. Even at 6 o'clock at night it was hopping and everyone was selling leather leather leather everywhere. Leather wallets, belts, bags, jackets, everything. We climbed the eight hundred floors to their house, met Lucy, and started making dinner for Holly-Marie, who was coming back from work.

Once we got to the kitchen, we split up. Cassiope and Holly-Marie were on vegan-vegetable-pasta duty and Lucy was going to... cut my hair.

Yup, I had a girl whom I'd never met cut my hair with the kind of scissors you use for making snowflakes out of computer paper. It was AWESOME.

As was the vegan vegetable pasta.

Post-dinner, I met up with the girls who were stayin gin the hostel to do a little walk-around of Florence. Turns out it was FREEZING so we all bounce back and I returned to the CouchSurfing house and hung out with my hosts for the night. Good times. CouchSurfing was REALLY great for me. I'll trust Lucy with my hair anytime (although, I must admit, it did come out a lil' lopsided but whatevs) and if you want vegan recipes, just call up C or H-M. Frick yes.

Le Printemps

2008-03-12T23:05:00.002+01:00

It is most DEFinitely spring-like out there. Oh maaaaaaaan.
Lapins. That's all I'm gonna say about that. Lapins.

This afternoon I had something to do! On a Wednesday! After a fantastic lunch of lentils on lettuce and vegetable soup (I'm a rabbit?) with Robyn, I went to a local bar called Le Hippone to meet up with the owner, Hocine. I gave an English lesson to Hocine! He's learning English so that he can communicate with his grandson (Hocine's son is married to an Irish woman, they live in Scotland, there's a lot of English spoken therrrrrre) and so today we started with "Hello, good bye, see you next Thursday at three o'clock" and Bar Conversation. You know, like "Good afternoon, what do you want?" ["May I have a coffee, please?"] "Yes, here you go." ["Thank you very much."] "You're welcome."

We are going to have some good times. Hecks yes.

Heather Spring Break 2008

2008-03-12T18:24:00.003+01:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you The Twins.
lurve.

Heather

2008-03-11T00:52:00.001+01:00

Heather was here for a week.
A week wasn't long enough.

Dear Heather,
Wanna come back?
love
emily

*nightnightloveyou

A Saturday night in Avignon

2008-03-09T13:15:00.002+01:00

Hello again!
I just wanted to blog about my night last night.
A few of us met at Robyn's to drink some wine (thank you, Cote du Rhone) and chat before heading out to a gay bar "Le Repere (insert accent grave on the second e)." This would be my first gay bar experience in Avignon and I was PUMPED. The idea was that on Saturday nights this bar has drag of some sort so I was even MORE pumped because my eyes are starved for drag kings and queens.
After learning how to do the "bridge" with cards upside down (the cards were upside down, not me), we aller-ed there and found a rather empty bar and a poster saying "Loto." There was a beautiful drag queen all in black (duh, we're in France) walking around and there looked to be about 5 customers. We all sat down, Slawa ordered a kiwi beer (what!?) and we chatted for awhile.

Um, Loto is like the American Bingo.
So what did I do last night?

I played Bingo at a gay bar in Avignon with the city's gay men and drag queens. There were prizes offered! On a table before us, as incentive for buying our Loto cards and spending more time there, were stuff to win such as a giant thing of toilet paper, a fryer, a coffee maker (dammit I bought one this week!), a package of waffles (yum, gaufres!), a can of sardines, some laundry detergent, etc. The first person who won received the classiness that is a box of milk (yup, we box it here AND we don't sell it from the fridge!) and the can of sardines. Woohoo. Chris went home with the fryer so methinks we'll be having a fried goods night at some point.

That was my Saturday night in Avignon. Kiwi beer, toilet paper prizes, drag queens, and bingo. Bienvenue!

Pisa, Italy!

2008-03-09T08:44:00.006+01:00

Buongiorno!

Ok, in case you haven't guessed, I have NO IDEA how to spell that. Apologies!

So here's a little round-up of the rest of the time in Spain...
post-Cordoba we took the bus (say YES to public transportation!) back to Sevilla and I, once again, met up with Sydney and Chelsea. We may have gone to Starbucks (yes, yes we did... there were just SO MANY) and then wayyyyy later that night I was whisked away to the most amazing vegetarian restaurant in the world.

And this is the part where I tell you what I ate!

starters: hummus on toast. It has been FIVE MONTHS since I had mashed up chick peas with tahini and garlic. It was SO GOOD.
plat principal: tofu skewers with balsamic dressing. And french fries. And mayo. Which Sydney HAD TO EAT. And a little bit of asparagus.
dessert: vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. And a few bites of the richest chocolate cake I have ever had.
and of course, red wine.

I'd just like to give a huge shout out holler THANK YOU to Chelsea for that meal because I STILL remember it and it was fantastico and I think she's still recovering from her cream of cauliflower soup.
We finished off our night watching the L-Word. Viva YouTube.

The next morning WAY TOO EARLY Darija, Sasha and I all went to the airport and flew to Pisa. I freaking LOVE ryanair because it's all so easy.

Got off the plane in Pisa, took the bus into town (all together now: say YES to public transportation!) and fell into the arms of Amy and Emily! Our group of three now made five and we head off to our first Italian restaurant.

Don't forget, everyone, that I had bought my garden back in Sevilla so while everyone was eating raviolis in creamy garlic sauces (I may have had a bite or two) I was eating a red pepper sandwich. Yes, that is indeed a piece of red pepper in between two pieces of bread. And it was deLISH.

We then made our way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Guess what... It is TOTALLY LEANING and no matter how many times you nod your head and say things like "duh" to that, it's still TOTALLY WEIRD to see it lean like that. I mean it just LEANS.

ISN'T THAT THE CRAZIEST.

So we proceeded to take a majillion touristy pictures. Pushing the tower. Leaning on the leaning tower. Cartwheels, etc. I'd like to put the following picture of my friend, Emily, up here on my blog for the whole world to see because I think it shows the strength of our relationship. Or something.

Following our Leaning Tower of Pisa adventures we went and found our first gelato experience. For the three minutes it took me to eat my first gelato, I was without words. I, Emily Findley, was speechless. And I didn't even get the tiramisu mousse! (which, by the way, I totally regreat because we could not find tiramisu mousse anywhere else in Italy (we found tiramisu but not the mousse combination)). IT WAS SO GOOD. I ate it so fast I didn't even have time to take a picture of my first cone (which was Fiesta! (a chocoalte-orange combination) and straccioldfdfaaadf (ummmmm the italian word for vanilla and chocolate chip)).

Post-gelato we got on the train (all together... say YES to public transportation) and headed to Florence. More on Florence later.

Leaning Tower: A+ because WHOA IT REALLY LEANS like that
Gelato: again, I have no words.

Ahhhhhh!

2008-03-09T08:37:00.001+01:00

All riiiiiiiiiight so I'm a little overwhelemed right now, everybody.

1) Why can't I sleep past 7:15 am EVER? Seriously this is beginning to be a problem
2) Heather left yesterday after a week vacation here. It was the MOST AMAZING WEEK and she met all my friends, saw how I roll here in France, and we went to Nice and Monaco! I miss her so freaking much already!
3) I think I owe the US government 300 dollars so helloooooo money stress how are you today?
4) assorted other stresses that are always there

OY. I'm going to go try to blog about Italy/Heather.

Cordoba, Spain!

2008-02-28T21:30:00.008+01:00

So after the wild craziness of Sevilla, a daytrip to Cordoba was the thing to do.

Once again: PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION from Sevilla to Cordoba. Love Love Love it. This means I've seen a lot of southern Spain which is v. pretty.

Why is Cordoba cool? Well, Darija studied it like whoa back in school and here's what I learned:
It was, at one time, the largest city in Western Europe. It's its own World Heritage Site because it's freakishly important historically, culturally, politically, and economically. Basically, Cordoba was the center of Muslim life in Spain for awhile until the Reconquista by Catholics. (to the left: Arabic script now behind glass) What did this mean? The Catholics did their best to eradicate the Muslim presence all over Spain, working especially hard in Cordoba because of the Mezquita, the incredible and breathtaking mosque begun by Muslims in 784 and officially ended by Christians in the 18th century. The Christians came in a re-conquered Cordoba for the Christians and literally constructed a Cathedral around the mosque. Crazyyyyyyyyyyy! (to the right: Catholic altar). Post-Mezquita (the mosque/cathedral) I took a walk around the town, soaking up the beautiful architecture, the oranges, the food, etc. I made it a point to sit down and eat churros and drink Spanish hot chocolate - Darija drilled it into me that I HAD to consume these before leaving the country. Ummmmmm she was SO RIGHT. Heaven.

Took the bus (yay! public transportation!) back to Sevilla and I had my last night there. Met up with Hannah from U of M and we powerwalked around that city which was nice. Saw her neighborhood, saw Sevilla at night, good times.

And here's another time when I'll tell you about the food I ate while on vacation!
Met up with Chelsea and crew again for vegetarian dinner at the world's greatest vegetarian restaurant (ok, when I get back to Ann Arbor I will go back to Seva and let you know which is better)
Chelsea treated me to SO MUCH amazing food. THe menu?
Appetizer: hummus on toast. I hadn't had hummus in five months. It was about damn time!
Main: tofu skewers in balsamic dressing, french fries, asparagus
Dessert: Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.

SO. GOOD. Viva Espana!

Chelsea and I finished my last night in Sevilla catching up on that Sunday night's L-Word. I left bright and early in the morning to catch my flight to Italy.

Spain was awesome.

Sevilla, Spain!

2008-02-27T09:48:00.010+01:00

So while on my Trip of Awesomeness 2008 I bought postcards in every city and wrote down the day's activities in them. This was to record my every movement and my every meal (ok, this second one was REALLY important... I had every intention of eating my way through Spain and Italy). This, I must say, was a stellar idea because we all know I have the memory of Dory from "Finding Nemo." So I now give you some stellar bullet points...

arrived in Sevilla @ 3pm
picked up by Chelsea @ bus stop, met her roomie, Sydney, adn their Italian roommate
found tea with D
met up with Chelsea, Syndey, Will Findk, and hostel-guy Chris

Ok! That got boring! So I'll try to spice it up a little bit...

DAY ONE SEVILLA
We parted Granada for Sevilla at noon on Monday. D and I had a lovely pre-bus walk through the city as we got maps for our upcoming cities (Sevilla and Cordoba) at the tourist office. Can I say that I learned to say "Can I please have a map for ____" in Spanish!? Holler I totally did. I even went back TWICE to say that sentence. I was quaking in my smelly Adidas the whole time. We also spent the morning finding the WORLD'S CHEAPEST espresso shot at only 88 cents. Gracias, Granada, gracias!

Bus rides through Spain? Easy as pie. I love public transportation.

Arrived in Sevilla to this red-headed girl I know named Chelsea running for me. AWESOME. We embraced, despite the bus-smells emanating me. I can't really explain how amazing it is to see people from home while I've been here. For me, reunions started in December with me seeing my English family (hi, guy!) and then there was Alice in Cannes (remember our New York Times wedding photo?) and then there was Chelsea. Chelsea, my former co-worker and friend. This girl is awesome with a mop and boxed wine. Skillz like whoa.

After my tea with Darija and her cousin, I returned to Chelsea and her roommate and a few others to find a typical Spanish meal. And by typical Spanish meal I mean a meal after 10 pm. Ok, I love learning about new cultures as much as the next person (read: a lot) but holy crap I was freaking starving! But ca vaut la peine, though, my friends, because we hit up a vegetarian restaurant and ate amazingness.

This is the part where I tell you about what I ate for my first meal in Sevilla!

Appetizer: FALAFEL. omg.
meal: cornmeal roll with black beans.
drink: red wine. yes.

Then the group of us set off in Sevilla for a night of debauchery. Didn't get home till way late and much, much fun was had.

DAY TWO SEVILLA
Before leaving for Spain, I made it a point to contact a friend from U of M who had lived in Sevilla a few years ago on her study abroad to make sure I knew what to check out from the city and the area in general (all the peeps in Sevilla make day trips to Granada and Cordoba, my two other Spanish cities). She promptly wrote me with a list of things to do and see and each sentence ended with exclamation points because she was excited for my adventures and all of that. So I tried to be true to Lisa's agenda and I checked out what she said...

Stumbled out of bed and met Darija and her cousin at the STARBUCKS NEXT TO THE CATHEDRAL. I swear, that's blasphemous. 1) A Starbucks in Spain. 2) next to a Cathedral. 3) A STARBUCKS IN SPAIN NEXT TO A CATHEDRAL. Um yeah, that's how I feel about that.
(make no mistake, though: I did indeed go to this Starbucks and get a mocha frapp. That's the American in me coming out like whoa).
The three of us went to this enormous Plaza de Espana which is all beautiful and the Parque de Maria Luisa. Took our touristy pictures and wandered around looking at orange trees. Sevilla's oranges are sent to England every year for marmalade-making purposes. Cubca uses 'em so I was more obsessed than the average Michiganian would be, shocked at seeing oranges on trees in February. ORANGES. Yum.
Parted ways after a stop at Starbucks (I swear, the corporation will NOT be in every paragraph about Sevilla) and I met back up with Chelsea and crew to go to their local market. It's like Les Halles here in Avignon but smaller. And so amazing. 3 kilos of ORANGES for ONE EURO. Have you heard anything better than that in your entire life? Heck no. I took it upon myself to "profiter" from this adventure because I felt like all my money was leaving me too early so I bought a garden to feed myself over the next days. And by garden I mean like 4 apples, three kiwis, two pears, two carrots, one red pepper, two bananas, etc. I went all out and it was amazing. I really feel like I could rock a raw food diet for a little while and be totally content.

This is another time where I tell you about what I ate in Sevilla!
Our post-market lunch was: vegetarian sandwiches!
Sauteed onions and garlic with seta mushrooms. Avocado spread on the bread, lettuce, tomato, adn balsamic vinegar. Does anything sound better than that? HECK NO.

After we got through our food coma post-sandwich, Chelsea and Sydney gave me a personalized tour of Sevilla. We checked out the Alcazar (famous cathedral and surrounding area), we walked down by the river, saw the famous tower that commemorates the return of conquistadors with their booty (pictured with the palm tree), took some pictures, and discussed plans for Amsterdam. (pictured: Sydney, Chelsea, me)

That night? Went to a FLAMENCO SHOW. It was a special night of combo Arab-Spanish music so there was a guy rocking the guitar, another guy singing in Spanish, another guy singing in Arabic and playing the violin like it's a cello, and a male flamenco dancer.

I have to say, the hour-long show was STUNning. The flamenco dancer was how we (I) imagine Spanish men: long-ish curly dark hair, deep, myserious eyes, etc. He was amazing. I didn't know human legs and feet could do what his did and DAMN was he gorgeous. So that was fun.

Day 3 in the land of Sevilla was actually to be a day-trip to Cordoba which I will write about in the next post.

it's February 25th...

2008-02-25T07:44:00.002+01:00

And there is a freaking huge mosquito in my room. What the bananas.

Ok it's been a day since I got back from Spain-Ital '08 so updates on the vacation will be coming soon, I hope. I'm gonna wow you with photos and witty anecdotes and all that, too.

As soon as I'm done teaching. Ugh.

Granadaaaaaaa, Spain

2008-02-15T17:07:00.005+01:00

Greetings from Firenze! It is beautiful here! But right now I'm giong to tell you all a lil' about Spain before I forget...
(oh, and pictures will come LATER because I don't have the option of putting them up right now. but trust me. they are gorgeous)

I have now been traveling for a week. Ok, to all the peeps (coughLisacough) who can travel for six week stretches, I applaud you. It is exHAUSting! Ok so maybe I didn't sleep very much in Granada because that city NEVER sleeps and maybe I didn't sleep in Sevilla because I was having WAY too much fun with Chelsea and her roommate (more on that later) and now in Florence I haven't slept much because I'm CouchSurfing and there's too much to talk about with people. Ok so not sleeping is not a big deal at this point because cappuccinos in Florence are only a euro (!!) and I'm way sugared up on gelato (!!!) Oh MAN it's all happening... (morning looking out onto Granada)

GRANADA
Left for Granada, Spain, a week ago with Darija, the roomie. 7:20 train on a Friday? Awwwesome. Headed to Marseille, took Ryainair to Madrid.
One thing: I freakin' love Ryanair. They are CHILL. Down side? They haven't really entered the 21st century yet (um, they work with pen and paper, no computers, etc.). But updsides abound! Bright blue uniforms! Super cheap flights! Really easy check-in! Etc. Etc.
In Madrid we hopped on a bus down to Granada. The bus system in Spain is the bomb! We bought our tickets only half an hour before the bus was scheduled to leave and they only cost 15 euros to traverse the country. Ok, so it was a 5.5 hour bus trip but no biggie because it was cheap and that was awesome.
Arrived in Granada sometime around 9. Took the bus into town and went straight to our hostel which was run by this really nice guy (well, I'm assuming he's nice because he smiled a lot and gave us a map for free and circled the city's highlights for us but hey, I don't speak Spanish, so he could also have been talkin' smack right to my face and I would have just said "bueno." Like the aewsomely cultured American that I am). I'd like to say that Darija and I went out on our first night in Granada and partied it up (like all the Granada-ians do) but um no. We went straight to bed. Forgive me - we traveled for like 12 hours that day! And we got up at 6:00 am on Saturday for our...
Trip to the Alhambra. So amazing. Met up with Darija's cousin, Sasha, in line. She's traveling with us all this week. She lives in Dubai and has wanted to visit Darija while she's on this side of the world and it turns out that our week of travel workec for her schedule so we've been a threesome for awhile. Back to the Alhambra: I think it's one o the 7 wonders of the world and it TOTALLY deserves it. It is stunning. Got the (totally worth it) audio guide and wandered around the thing all morning. Learned a lot and saw a lot and took a lot of pictures.
Post Alhambra was an afternoon of wandering and enjoying Granada. The sun was shining and it was gorgeous so we sat outside and listened to local musicians play. Saw the world's greatest unibrow on a guy and, um, had to take a pic. That thing didn't separate for even one hair! Amazing! Viva Espana!
In the evening we went to a tapas bar. I drank Alhambra beer (I mean, how could I NOT?) and ate tortilla and chorizo and gloried in the grease. We then took a long walk up in the city (the city goes up a giant hill) so that we could see the Alhambra all lit up but we went to the wrong Mirador (look-out place) and ended up seeing Granada from way up high. That was beautiful, too!
Day 2 in Granada:
I ended up wandering all through Granada by myself as Darija and her cousin took a walking tour. I got lost, I found out where I was, I walked up, I walked down, I saw a church, I walked through the Arab markets, I smelled good food, I people-watched... it was great. Granada is a beautiful and happenin' city and there's so much history and culture there that it was awesome. Ooh! On day 1 of Granada (sorry, forgot to mention this) I was walking down the street with Darija and what should happen? I bumped into a girl with whom I went to middle and high school AND college. Craaaaazy.

Ok so that's what I can remember (for now) about Granada. I've done Sevilla and Cordoba since then, and I'm currently in Florence. Will be updating as soon as I can!

"i am the entertainer/been all around the world"

2008-02-05T06:42:00.000+01:00

WHAT UP

Just a quick post here to say...

I finally played an open mike in Avignon! And it only took me five months to get up and do it! So now, the guitar that my friends bought me for my birthday has really been put to good use - new song AND I have finally performed!

Hopefully pictures to post soon!

Happy Mardi Gras, y'all

omgeeeee a care package for meeeee!

2008-02-04T17:50:00.000+01:00

Ok so we sang a song by the Muppets in class today. I thought it was a fabulous idea, of course, and it took me on a throwback to my youth. My kids didn't quite get the significance of "No One Like You" but that's ok. They still poked their eyes and noses and mouths at the appropriate times during the song.

What IS it about my students in that one class* being INSANE and the teacher not doing anything about it?! At least in the other classes the teachers scream their heads off and the kids calm down.

So the reason of this post is because I GOT AN AMAZING CARE PACKAGE FROM ANNA AND LACIE.
The contents?
~ Two packages of DoubleStuf Oreos: one regular, one mint
~ Two containers of Rainbow Chip frosting, whose greatness cannot be exaggerated
~ Tootsie Rolls and Dots and suckers (it's like Halloween exploded in the box)
~ One box of butter microwave popcorn
~ One box of Kraft Mac and Cheese

Clearly these women know the way to my heart. I love them to pieces and I need to get out to Oregon somehow, someway RUL soon.

Which leads me to a point:
I'd really like to do a roadtrip of America. I realize that I now have the most amazing chance to see Europe and I'm really carpe diem-ing that (In just four days I will be in Spain, then Italy, then Monaco, then Germany, then Austria... ok so that's over the next few months) and I really want to see America.
I want to see America for multiple reasons. Right now I'm all homesick and America-sick. I want to see America because of Girlyman's song, "Amaze Me." I want to see America because I want to be able to get in a car and drive. Drive across it, drive up and down it, anything. It'd be so awesome to follow hte Mississippi down or to take that one famous highway all the way across (sorry, don't remember which one it is!). And right now I am realizing how many people I know who have started lives all over the place. EVERYONE IS EVERYWHERE. So awesome.

But uuuuuum that's not gonna happen because I have to go get a job and be a real person and figure out some stuff about life.

*teacher's name and students' names withheld for privacy. the blogging world is crazy!

A lil' update

2008-01-31T08:18:00.000+01:00

So there are good days and there are bad days here in the 'non.

Bad days? Like that one time when I was teaching colors of the rainbow to my littlest (ages 6 and 7) kids and I had to walk around a little girl's puddle of throw as I was saying "bluuuuuuuue" and "orrrrrrange." Not so cool. Or like that one time when I made a little girl cry when we were doing family. Or like that one time when I got sent to the principal's office during class.

What the heck?

Yeah, during my awesome mcgee CM1 class, the teacher's aide pulled me in and was like "the principal wants to see you!" So immediately my heart started pounding. Thank the lo'd I'm not prone to flop sweat or I woulda been a puddle fo' sho. So I went to the principal and she's all wild-eye and crazy-lookin' and proceeded to ask me if I had my carte de sejour (the card that says I'm legal to stay and work in France b/c I have a job). Um, no I didn't have my card on me. "Well you need it!" "Um, ok, why?" "You need to fax it! Can you fax it? W e need to fax it right away! Fax it!" "uh, ok." "The Academie needs it as soon as possible! As soon as possible! Can you fax it today or tomorrow?" "Sure." (at this point my heart has pounded out of my chest because I'm thinking that I'm going to get deported or something.) Then I was allowed to return to class. Where we played xylophones and it was awesome.

Did I fax my carte de sejour?

Of course I didn't. I completely forgot.

Crud. I swear, it'll get done today!

And life in Avignon has really good days, too.

Like the fact that yesterday after my amazing breakfast (I intend to someday dedicate an entire post to how much I like breakfast) and my (way too much) time in front of the comp, I went and saw "Into the Wild" with Robyn and then we went and spent the rest of the afternoon together, eating a delicious lunch and chillin' in the kitchen drinking coffee and tea and laughing it up with Darija (that's me and the D in the pic).

Like the fact that yesterday was Nicole's birthday and holy crow I love that woman and her crepe dinner was the bomb (despite Avignon's most annoying waiter? Yeah, he wins that prize) and the company was awesome. And a post-crepe prendre of un verre at Liptzik (anyone read that as Lipstick? Or Lipzit? ) with the rest of the assistants was good, too. (L to R: Emily, katie, Amy, Robyn)

Like the fact that in one week and a day I'll be embarking on a ridiculously long vacation to Spain and Italy and it's guaranteed to be awesome. I'll hostel it, I'll CouchSurf, I'll eat tapas and pasta till I explode and I'll see amaaaaazing things. Then I'll come back and HEATHER WILL BE HERE and whoa I nearly cried from excitement just writing that and... yeah. Life has its ups, eh?

Was informed yesterday that the 4th markdown for sales has happened at this one store that I pass every day and it will take every ounce of willpower that I have not to go buy something. So I probably will. Ahhhhh.

Oohh Oooh! Am about to embark on a music thing with some peeps that should be amazing. Three women. Three-part harmony. Cover songs. Suggestions? So far we have...
The Shape I Found you In (duh)
Say Goodbye (duh again)
Angel from Montgomery
You and I Both

Keep 'em coming!

k.thx.bye.

but...

2008-01-28T21:52:00.000+01:00

We used xylophones in class today. We used "doh" "fah" and "sol." SOL? SOL? What the bleep is that? Hoolie Andrews would need to lay the smack down.

the good, the bad, and the frickity crap i'm so stupid!

2008-01-28T17:45:00.000+01:00

Hello.

So today has been a mixture of highs and lows and, as Homer Simpson would put it, "D'oh!"s

- First things first, I could NOT sleep last night. I was definitely awake till three and then woke up at five so my energy level today has been... well, I've been running on less than a full tank, basically. But the coffee was a-flowin' at work today so that's allll good.

+ As soon as I walked into work, I was greeted with "Emilie Emilie Emilie" (imagine little mice squeaking out your name. But in a really really cute way). I cannot handle how cute it is to hear their little choruses of my name. And, you know "Es-tu un garcon ou une fille?" (yes, they still ask me this)

+ One of my teachers took her kids skiing this week so I didn't have to go to a class!

- Boo, absolutely no control during my first class of the day. So disheartening, made me want to give up. Like a Negative Nelly (do people say that?).

+ My CM2 kids are really smart and I always forget how much they know and they like to show off and it's great because I think we might actually be getting somewhere on a weekly basis!

- Ok, here's a BIG BIG minus: In that very same (awesome) CM2 class, we were going over "How many?," family, and "to have." That means I ask "How many brothers do you have?" And they respond with a complete sentence (which is v. v. hard), "I have 3 brothers." So I was trying to go through all the family members that we've learned (from g-rents down to cousins) and I asked one quiet girl, who usually gives me maj probs, "How many mothers do you have?" When it took her way too long to answer I should have stopped. But no, I kept asking. DANG DANG DANG. If you had been in my head, you would have said "Turn around, Emily, run away!" But no, I didn't. I kept on asking. Eventually she started crying.
----- <-beaucoup de negatifs, mes amis: So then she left the roomw ith the teacher and I was like "qu'est-ce qui se passe?" and all the other kids told me that her mom died. FRICK. I felt SO BAD. SO SO bad. And so we tried to continue with the lesson but I was just horrified with myself. Eventually class ended and I busted out of there, not knowing what to say to E*.
------ <- MORE negative: Then the teacher met up with me after class and was like "Don't worry about it, Emily, you didn't know. But just so you do, you might want to know that E is adopted and her biological mother has died. And her adoptive mother just died too. She's now living with a classmate."
FRIIIIIIIIIICK. I had no idea. This is my worst nightmare. And it happened.
Well, in conclusion, it's going to be ok, but I sort of couldn't stop hating myself and my big pushy mouth for the rest of the day. Blugh.

+ During lunch I chatted for an hour with a teacher and another woman. And the other woman (ok, she works at the school but I don't really know what her job is) has a 21 year-old daughter who goes to school in Marseille and we've exchanged numbers so that when she's in town we can meet up and I can practice my French with her and she can practice her English. Holler! Also, it'd be cool if I had a connection with someone so I could CouchSurf in Marseille!

+ I finally did something right with the teacher who kinda scrres me! Yayyyy. In most of my classes today we sang "family Tree" which is a song by Tom Chapin that I grew up on - so we can practice family members in English. Of course in most of the classes we didn't even get through the chorus but that's all good. We'll refaire it next week and then sing "No One Like You" for Valentine's Day!

- I think this is the last negative thing of the day: I was harassed for hte first time today at the bus stop. What does that mean? It means that a guy asked me for a cigarette or something, I responded with no (ok, I don't remember how we started talking), he noticed my accent, I told him I'm American and he then proceeded to tell me he hates America and he asked me why America attacked Iraq. Awesome. Such a comfortable position to be in! I then told him I didn't want to have this conversation and did my best to ignore him as I sat there waiting for the bus. Too bad there was nowhere to go as this dude would not shut up. Luckily, the bus came five minutes later and then I had a nice chat with the driver.

Wooeee what a day!

*E: name has been protected for privacy

thoughts at 6:00 am

2008-01-28T06:00:00.000+01:00

Frick!

Dang!

There's no hot water in the house! I can't shower!

That's only going to really hurt those living at 5 rue Saint Thomas d'Aquin tonight, post-gym.

Here are a few more things about life:
Today I'm singing a Tom Chapin song in one of my classes! ("we're a family and we're a tree/our roots grow deep down in history...")
And we're going to sing the Hokey Pokey (I'm told that this is very challenging). I'm going to teach exciting things like "left" "right" "in" "out." I'm particularly excited for next week - we are going to Valentine's Day it all UP in Sorgues.
the Mistral will blow me down today.
Michael Pollan, of The Omnivore's Dilemma, ROCKS and I wish I had his new book.
This weekend was full of Serbian food and I'm like hollah hey whoa. Serbian soup (key ingredient: paprika) and moussakah (frick, I know I spelled that wrong) (key ingredient: potatoes. and meat).

Anyone know how to play Happy Families?

hmm

2008-01-27T10:21:00.000+01:00

So I just sat down, took out a pen and paper, and wrote half a sentence in a letter to m gma (the Cubs, if you will).

And I realized that I've gotten so accustomed to the computer that I think my real handwriting is Times New Roman. Or sometimes Beagle. Whoa.

Welcome back, l'ecriture d'Emily!

2008-01-26T09:26:00.000+01:00

A MONTH AND A HALF.

thankyouverymuch.

Cannes!

2008-01-22T05:58:00.000+01:00

"Riiiiiiiise and shiiiiiiiiiine and give God your glory glory! Riiiiiiise and shiiiiiiine and give God your gl-"

You're right. It's a little too early for that.

This morning I'm listening to a French CD of Celine Dion's in order to feel more French as the day begins. And, um, if my iTunes happens to play "That's the Way it Is" because that comes after the CD then... well... so be it. And I may or may not get really happy when it comes on.

So this weekend I went to Cannes! To visit Alice! And it was beautiful, just like my homegirrrrl.

This is our New York Times wedding photo. They might list us as Tall and Small in it. Or like Venti and Grande. Or Awesome McGee and the homie. Something like that. That in the background... that's a real sunset. In real-live Cannes. That was on the real beach. We are for real not wearing gloves or hats or scarves (sacre bleu!) in January.

JANUARY.

Whoa.

Left for Cannes yesterday Friday afternoon. As the train pulled into the station I couldn't help but start tearing up... here's my first connection to Home all up here in France. Yes, I know I had ma famille in England, but it's different because Alice is completely connected to my whole life all up in the States. After some miscommunication over where I was arriving (bus station? train station? bus? train?) we had a lovely reunion on the streets of the city.

And then we went directly to the grocery store. Do not pass go, do not collect 200, we went and bought some cookies. And cheese. And a lil wine. But mostly cookies and cheese.

And we spent the weekend eating, walking around, taking pictures of ourselves being beautiful, and just straight chillin'. I met tons of the people in her very cool-sounding program (she'll be living in Paris till June, taking classes to learn French and taking art history classes... I want to do that!) and they're from all over the country with allt heir different stories so there was lots of bavarder-ing all around.

So I'm pretty sure that Cannes doesn't have too much to offer other than the Film Festival, which is in May, and the beach. So the fact that Alice and I spent Saturday afternoon weaving in and out of stores looking for jeans and shoes is not a big deal and totally worth it, right? Because yes, I found a pair of jeans and they're not the skinny jeans, they're not 800 meters long, they're not gothic cargo... so they're perf! Hollah!

(Look! They're not wearing any pants! Vive la France!)

Did I tell you about that time that Alice and I were walking along the pier at eleven o'clock in the morning and we stumbled upon a black lacy thong? And I giggled hysterically and said something like "Vive la France." And the guy walking past me said "Vive les filles." Hahahaha. I think that's funny. Anyone else? Oh p.s. I think there's a thong-leaving epidemic here... just saw one yesterday morning on Rue Carnot!

And here's today's final picture of the Cannes-man taking his morning jog. Clearly this guy is fit and knows just how to rock it in January...

Raise your hand if you're shaking from too much caffeine!

Parlez-vous francais? Um, apparently not.

2008-01-17T19:19:00.000+01:00

*this post may not be suitable for children under the age 15. Or for my parents. Sorry.

So today I went to the movies with mes amies, Emily and Amy. Hello, Utopia plays movies at noon every single day for only 3.50 euros! And since I'm all ballin' it right now I'm like hey girl hey hollahhhhh to going and spending those precious E's for some screen time. So yeah, yesterday I saw a British movie (which totally p'ed me off**) and today I saw the French film, Un baiser, s’il vous plait.

My understanding of the title? "A f***, please."

Sounded intriguing enough.

But, um, I was totally wrong. And, thus, I spent the entire film totally confused. All the way till the very end. All the way till when Amy and I were walking home for spaghetti and I was explaining how I didn't understand what happened en fin and she explained that "un baiser" is a kiss. Not a f***. OOOOOOOOOOOOH. So now the whole movie makes sense. And I want to re-watch it. But I feel too dumb.

So yeah. I was so proud of myself for getting through a French movie whose plot I (mostly) understood, whose dialogue I could decipher but then... yeah... BIG difference in the definition of baiser and my understanding of it.

**The film from yesterday? The British one? Death at a Funeral, that's its name. Ok the idea is that all these people with all these different stories get together at one funeral for an old guy. His sons throw the funeral, his widow is there, the whole town is there... The sons are strapped for cash, one woman shows up with her fiance high on hallucinogens, etc. etc. The whole premise? The one son, who pays for the funeral, is blackmailed by a guy who used to be the dead guy's lover. As in, if they don't pay up, said-guy will announce the homosexual affair to all those at the funeral and include in his announcement, a picture slide show of himself with his lover in rather compromising positions. Oh no! What are they to do! They don't have much money! But they bust out the checkbook immediately and chaos ensues.
I have so many problems with this. So many that I ended up shutting my eyes for some of the movie because I was so annoyed.
1) Lover of dead guy (ok, just to make it easier for the story-telling: he's a midget. So I will call him M) blackmails the two sons for 15,000 pounds. Why is it that M's blackmailing is almost a sure-deal? Because he's gay? Because the two sons don't want anyone to find out that their father was having a homosexual affair? Um yeah. The fact that it's a gay affair is more shocking, therefore more horrifying to the sons and they start writing the check. Would it have been as urgent to write the check if the affair had been a heterosexual one? I think not. Not at all. Grrrrrrrrr.
2) Why the hell is the gay lover using his relationship as blackmail anyway? What does that say to his relationship? I mean, basically this says that M isn't the best guy but it also doesn't do anything for the way gay relationships are shown in the media.
So yeah, I was really really frustrated with the movie. I will probably delete all this commentary in a few minutes but for now I'll put it out there.

Ooh, I will give the movie this: high naked guy on a roof is a pretty funny idea.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-01-16T16:37:00.000+01:00

PRAISE CHEESES!

Life is so so so so so so working out right now that I'm almost speechless.

Almost.

You: But Emily, what the frak is happening to have you all exclamation pointy today?

Me: Yo holler hey girl hey I got the CAF!

You: The CAF? What the bananas is that?

Me: It's like housing welfare money for people in France! They just... give you money!

You: Wait - I don't understand. The country of France just up and hands out money?

Me: Yeah - weird, isn't it? I mean, where does the money come from ? Heck if I know! All I had to do was fill out some forms saying I'm an English teaching assistant, telling them where I live and how much money I make and how much money I made last year, then my landlady had to sign some stuff and a month and a half later... BAM. Bling bling straight into my account!

You: Well hollah! Pound... and explode! So what does that mean? What are you doing now? What are you going to do?

Me: You mean since I don't have to survive on oatmeal like I thought I was going to have to do in order to pay for my amazing trip I have planned for Spain and Italy? Well first of all, it's the "soldes" all up in here in Avignon which means... stuff's on sale. And, um, I might buy some stuff. Don't worry! Just like... hand lotion and jeans. And maybe a coat. Oh wait, maybe I already bought one. But yeah! Besides that, I can now have a stress-free vacation AND I can travel travel travel and show Heather and Lisa a really good time here which is like priority number one and then I can buy my plane ticket back to the States and then I can just... sleep better at night.

You: Well hollah to that. Have a great time in Cannes this weekend visiting Alice!

Me: Thanks! I fo sho will!

And... scene.

Christmas Vacay Part Two

2008-01-14T21:16:00.000+01:00

The mullet is growing back, my friends.
And I, at present time, cannot afford to get it cut.
So let it grow, let it grow.

Also, I am watching "Aladdin" with my nearest and dearest houseroomie, Darija. It's been awhile. The tupperware fart joke still makes me laugh.

Moving on...

So I didn't fill you all in on the rest of my Christmas vacation 2007! England what what! Well let's see...

After arriving in England after an exhausting night/morning, I got picked up at the airport by my way-too adorable cousins and their mom (whom I call Auntie Boo. yes, Auntie)(and who is awesome but not adorable because she is not under the age of 15 but I'm sure she certainly was adorable and... so yeah...)
They were holding a sign that had my name written on it. It was like the Rent-a-Car Service for the Price/Findleys. It was a really good way to arrive on the island.

We then all drove together to a service station somewhere in England (I should tell you that my knowledge of British geography is, like, negative a million. We would go to all these places when I was a kid and I would never ever look at a map. I only recently (within the past four years) found out where London really is. Shoot I just admitted that on the internet)). Anyyyyway, we went to a service station and met up with Cubca, my grandma (aka Cubs, Cubbie, the Cubster). She treated us to the world's most amazing service station food. I know, you're thinking Big Gulp, a hot dog off that rolly thing, and some Doritos. Heck no! I'm talking chicken tikka masala with rice and a muffin and a diet coke and e'erything! ohhhhhh man.

Then Cubca and I parted ways from AB and clan and headed to Bewdley. This is where my grandma lives in the coachhouse of a palace. On the top of a hill. In a small town. In England. Down the hill? The town church. Down farther from the church? The river. And a bridge. It's a beautiful place.

We stayed in Tickenhill for two days. We made mince pies and treacle tart and then I had to eat them. Dang. We went to an hors d'oeuvres party (oh crap I live in France and is that how you spell hors d'oeuvres? we'll pretend....) with my grandma to meet 'n greet her friends and say Joyeux Noel to everyone. Cubs wore a nice dress and I wore khakis and a sweater with a button-down shirt. Guess what,e veryone? I looked like every. single. (not-in-my-age-range) man. there.

My bad!

But hey, we were all stylin'. I'll repeat: Khakis, black sweater (ok, some wore dark blue), collared shirt = me and the guys!

Then we went to Auntie Boo's for Christmas! We arrived on Christmas Eve in Crowland. There's a bridge in the town that has three arches... we sang carols underneath it. Of course we were a little late and didn't get the book of lyrics so I did a lot of "la la la la la"-ing. But it was great. Did the descant, too, even though I was really sick.

Really really sick. Like, Cubca and I were dead on Christmas. Hackhackcoughcoughleakyeyes blowyournosehackhackcoughcoughcough.

It was like that.

But despite it all, I still managed to get really great pictures with my holycrapsupercute cousins. Here we go:
<-------- Natasha! And yours truly!

Ummmmm "Aladdin" is making me laugh out loud. For sure.

Christmas Day?
Was woken upa t 7:00am by Alex who greeted me at my bed with a tiny stocking with little Xmas knick and knacks. Through my couchs and nose-blows I managed to thank him and get out of bed. Grabbed some much-needed instant coffee from the aunt's and uncle's new kitchen (soooo pretty) and headed upstairs for the stockings.

The stockings my cousins have are bigger than their own bodies. I kid you not. That was truly amazing.

Then downstairs to get changed and prepared for service at the Methodist Church. It was a very chill affair, complete with hymns I, disappointingly, had never heard or seen before, but we had a cool part where the pastor put a map of the world out on the floor, gave us all petites bougies (little candles) and told us to place them on an area of the world where we have people we're thinking about. Those candles were e'erywhere.

Then of course back to PECAN House (Phil, Elizabeth, Caroline, Alex, Natasha <-- the names of the Dormor clan) for more presents. It was so great to see everyone opening everything. Especially the kiddlewinks. I waited to open mine because I wanted to watch everyone go ahead and I wanted to save them till nearer the end. Cubca got me this really amazing book called "New Europe" by Michael Palin all about Southern Eastern Europe. Basically it shows all these countries post-Cold War and I want to go to alllllll of them but for now I can look at hte pretty pictures and read the captions. It's all good. For Xmas I also got kicka$$ DVDs to watch in my spare time (I mean, we know that I have a lot of that :) ) and a gift cert to Apple because we all know I'm addicted and then I opened my gift from my Mom and Dad.

I'm just going to take a moment right here to say this: Christmas was way hard without my Findley fam (yes, Lisa, I just said fam). First Christmas away from home. And not just "away from home." I mean, I'm like 6000 miles away from home. So that was hard. But hey, I did have my British family which was so so so good and in no way am I saying that it wasn't. It was just... different. And yeah, I was homesick on Xmas.

So I opened my present from my Mom and my Dad. When I felt hte package it felt like one of those jumbo bags of candy that you get from Hershey's/Cadbury's for Halloween. YouknowwhatI'msayin'? So I was like "sweet! Candy!" But then I opened it and the room got a little more quiet and I immediately teared up. What did I find? My stocking. My mom had brought my stocking over from the US when she and Dad went to England in the fall. And what was in the stocking? A bunch of stuff to remind me of home. Stuff about Mackinaw Island, U of M, MSU, EL, Lansing, a really cute Michigan t-shirt, etc. etc. etc. I tried really hard not to cry in front o' my cousins but I couldn't help it - it was just ovewhelmingly perfect. I couldn't call the Findleys, though, because It was only 7 am there time so I just sat there, teared up, fanned my hand in front of my face (you know how I do) and grinned my face off.

Then we ate Christmas dinner!
Turkey, parsnips, cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts (I think there were 130 sprouts?), carrots, roasted potatoes... a feast fo' sho.
Then we ate Christmas pudding!
Yeah, I had real Christmas pudding. We tried to set it on fire (you know, brandy + flame = flambe) but we just ended up soaking the cake in brandy and we couldn't get it to light. And what would Christmas pudding be without brandy cream? Yeah, had that too.

Whoa. Stuffed. In the stomach and in the head from the disastrous cold that continued to live inside my body. Emotionally drained. But really happy. Homesick, happy. It was a great Christmas.

We also did the most amazing whistling tune thing from teh crackers and I know that doesn't make too much sense here but I will try to get a video up on YouTube so stay tuned!

We took the traditional Christmas walk whose sole purpose is to walk off about 5 of the calories consumed during Christmas dinner. We then watched Finding Nemo. And we watched "Doctor No." British people: I do NOT understand your obsession with that show. But then again, maybe I didn't get the full effect of it because I was knitting next to Cubca the entire time and trying to keep my head from floating off my neck.

Christmas was really good. Auntie Boo, Uncle Phil, Caroline, Natasha, Alex, Cubca... it was amazing to be with them.

I'm sorry I didn't get more pictures.

What to do? What to do?

2008-01-13T14:22:00.000+01:00

I'd like to give a huge shoutout to the Frenchie who left a used, full diaper smack-dab in the middle of the street on Saturday night. Merci!

Also, today I am so nervous about money that I could definitely throw up.

I don't have a plane ticket home to the States yet because hello? planning nine months in advance is a little too much for me and now every ticket home is around the 1000 dollar mark and I have a mini heart attack whenever I go onto Orbitz or Travelocity or kayak. Questions to consider: should I fly Paris to New York since that's the cheaper option and then stay in New York for a few days, say hi to my peeps, volunteer at God's Love, and then go home? Or should I pay 400 more to fly straight to Detroit? Or should I fly to New York for the cheaper price, get a Spirit Airlines flight to Detroit for the same day and not say hi to anyone or do anything cool in that city that I love? Also, how many days afte rmy contract expires should I bounce out of France? Also, are there any jobs anywhere that I can do? Also, why are my two pinky toenails split in two?

Clearly I want to get home to ma famille, mes amis, l'eglise and my life back in Michigan. CLEARLY. I am so homesick right now I could just... eat chocolate (In about 3 minutes I'm going to go eat a chocolate-covered madeleine... No, not you, Madeleine - its a baked good). But if flying to New York is the more economically-savvy option, then should I fly there? And if I'm in New York and I don't know when I'll be back in New York, shouldn't I stay there for a few days? I think I know enough people to have that fun thing known as Free Housing while I'm around town which would be great but, let's also be honest, I wont have a penny to spend inside the World's Most Expensive City. Ok, I'll walk everywhere. Brooklyn to Manhattan? No problem. Do I want to go to a bar? I'll... flirt my way in? Toss my way-too short hair back and get a drink? Umm... yeah. See, that all sounds fun.

So yeah, this Homesick Emily who Really Wants to See New York Again isn't so sure what to do.

More on that later! Chocolate time!

Oh, high school

2008-01-13T01:42:00.000+01:00

So I've been harking back to the Days of Yore recently and rehashing high school with certain people. High school? Yes, the period of my life during which I ate HoHo's for breakfast, sat by the garbage can and played guitar before school in the morning, and wrote a song to "Ozymandius" to get an A in English. This was also the time in my life when I wore a blue and BRIGHT ORANGE track suit to school as an outfit because I am cool like that, I discovered The Indigo Girls while being driven home by Lisa one afternoon, I was "the universe" for Halloween, and I left orchestra to go to the bathroom every single day at the exact same time.

It was a glorious period, clearly.

And in high school we took the PSATs. Oh, standardized tests... you're more terrifying than walking through the Commons. Standardized tests... I will never conquer you. I will never be an amazing test taker, I will never put enough effort into tests, I will never... Oh yeah! I'm done with school! I don't have to do that ever again!

I believe I have tried to erase the memories of these pre-college tests. Let' see... for the SAT the most I remember was driving all the way to Battle Creek at the buttcrack o' dawn for it (thanks, Dad!) and seeing Courtney Minifee there (what up, Courtney! Kindergarten to tests for college!). For the ACT I remember breezing through the English parts and getting to the science section and very seriously considering just leaving it blank. I mean, I know what a tree is, I know the words "nucleus" and "inertia" but don't ask me to put them in context! Science? Not my thing.

I don't really remember the PSAT whatsoever. Ooh, I remember filling in the bubbles of my name ("ok, emily, don't forget that in your full name there are two y's and those are the white bubbles... make sure you have two white bubbles at the end!) and the date and John Hancock-ing the sheet. I remember answering a few questions like "Do you like to organize your things?" and "When you ask a question to a group do you feel confident you will get an answer?" and stupid things like that. I remember thinking the PSAT was stupid. A test to see what I'm supposed to do with my life? How the crap are bubbles A through D going to pick that for me? Who's the oracle behind my scantron?

So I took my hour and a half, dutifully filled in each bubble to the best of my ability and a few weeks later we got our results. I felt a little nervous and a little giddy as I flipped to the page with my future job.

Ladies and gentlemen, what was I, Emily oohIhopeIcanbeasingersongwriterbutifnotiwouldlovetoownmyownbusiness Findley, going to be in life?

A meatpacker.

A meatpacker.

A meatpacker.

So I think part of the reason that I live in France right now is to prove that dang PSAT wrong and go and speak the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of French and eat the animal products, not stand among them.

"est-ce que vous avez bien dormi hier soir?"

2008-01-11T07:03:00.000+01:00

"NON, Madame, NON!"

I got out of bed at 5:45 this morning, unable to sleep. Madame, the matelas you have given me to sleep on it... like sleeping on a carré de bois. It is as if someone took the door off its hinges, put it down on some 'springs' and said "Voila, bonne nuit!" Heck no, sleeping on this mattress is not working out for me. Sure, stress makes me sleep less, as does the fact that my stomach gets hungry and wakes me up (should I admit that all over the internet?) but, for the most part, it's this stupiddumb mattress.

But HEY girl HEY Lisa just bought her plane ticket for France and we are going to have a great time! Yayyyyyyyy! I've purchased Marseille-Madrid and today I've got to do Sevilla-Florence and Rome-Paris and then I will weep a little bit. Bye bye, life savings. But hellllooooo cultural experiences and seizing the moment. I am feeling SO positive about all this traveling... I can't wait!

The song? Ah yes, the song. I figure the more I sing it the more I'll listen to myself, the more I'll internalize what I've written down. Once I do that things'll be better. Silvia found an open mic night thing here in Avignon on January 31st so I'm going to hit that up. Hopefully a video will happen!

If only I could sleep. If only if only if only.

2008-01-09T21:33:00.001+01:00

Wrote a song today hollah hollahhhhhhhh
xox,
emily

First day back post-Christmas

2008-01-07T23:50:00.000+01:00

I think I ate fish eggs tonight.

Take a minute. Think about that.

Today was my first day back with the kids and it was an AWESOME time. Seriously, the most fun I've had at school in awhile - my kids just had me cracking up. They were all so excited about the new year and dang they are still so good with my ego - I hear "Emily Jolie" all day long. This one little girl in particular keeps telling me I'm trop belle which is great and the next time I go to Angleterre, they all want to go with me. They'll fit into my suitcase.

My little kids? Remembered "Must Be Santa" that we sang TWO WEEKS AGO. They can barely remember their own names but they remembered Raffi's hit (in my childhood home) of 1989 or who knows when. They also remember "belly button" and "red" but they can't remember "brown" or "feet." We'll get there. Eventually.

Oh so my day was really awesome and upbeat and encouraging all the way until the end. When I got to the bus stop. You know how there's that bus driver who always breezes right past me? Well there's always another bus that comes approximately one minute after him and that's the bus I take to get home from Sorgues to Avignon. Today there was no second bus. This translates into NOT awesome. What did this mean? I had to wait for another bus and the buses only run once every hour so... I had to wait. An extra hour. In Sorgues. Which is kinda like a pit stop on the way to hell? Oh yeah - not to do a TMI or anything but... I really had to pee. And finding a toilette that's free in Sorgues? Impossible. Was everything but creepy bars shut at 5:00? Yup. Did I have to go into a creepy bar filled with only creepy men to ask about the bathroom? Yup. Did I order a coffee just to look 'chill' and then go check out the bathroom and OH it was a hole in the ground? YUP.

First hole-in-the-ground toilette I've had since I moved here. Fabulous.

Got the bus back to Avignon and went to an eight million course dinner at Micaela's for Darija's Christmas. That's when I ate fish eggs. Fish eggs on guacamole on fish on pumpkin. I felt like I was on "Top Chef" like whoa. And then of course there was turkey and stuffing. And then there was salad. And then there was chocolate freakin' fondue with fruit. Brilliant!

With that, I bid you good night. May you all arrive at sleep like whoa!

"Between the Lines" and "Gravity." Download them. Now.

2008-01-07T05:27:00.000+01:00

It's 5:30 am and I am about to leave my house to go have an Eastern Orthodox Christmas breakfast.

Amazing!

And I've been up since 4:00 and I couldn't sleep at all last night... school stress keeps the sleep at bay, unfortunately. No idea if my kids are learning anything, no idea what my teachers think of me, no idea how their end-of-year challenge will go.

Current favorite music? Sara Bareilles. I'm pretty sure she's already a little famous in the States? Ok, as usual, I have no clue. Over here in France we're STILL listening to "Beautiful Girls" on repeat. On Sky Rrrrrrrock!

Holy whoa it is 2008

2008-01-03T01:00:00.000+01:00

Howdy ho.

It's 2008. I'm going to turn 24 this year, I'm going to move back to the States, I'm going to (hopefully) find a good job, I'm going to spend (way too much) time on Facebook, I'm going to...

who the hell knows.

I just got back from 10 days of vacation in England! And I have some bad news: I have no pictures.
Why!?
It kinda totally slipped my mind.

I concentrated on the fun and awesomeness of being around family I haven't seen in 4 years and I forgot to capture it all on 'film.' So no one here can see how cute my little cousins are, how tall Caroline has gotten, how Rob and Alison and Jonny are all so grown up. No one can see how identical Auntie Boo looks to my mom, how Uncle Mike's smile is so freaking sweet and how big Uncle Andrew's head is and no one can see the smile of my gma, aka Cubca, as she hugs her dog, Jessye, or shows me a new stitch for knitting.

Oh man it was a good time. I think I will blog about it in chunks.

Chapter One: Getting to England!
*I realize the last post was a little bit of a downer. Apologies. I know it seems like life here in Avignon is all fun 'n games all the time but early December was kind of hard for me. Homesickness, stuff going on in Avignon... it all kind of hit at the beginning of the month. But things got better bit by bit and now I'm here in 2008 with a pretty positive outlook on it all so we'll see how it goes!*
On Friday the 21st I left Avignon, via train, at 4:15 in the morning headed for Nice. FOUR FIFTEEN IN THE MORNING. Yup. Instead of going to bed like a normal person would, I decided to stay up all night. I mean, I was going to have to wake up at 3:30 anyway, right? Ok BAD IDEA. NEVER TO REPEAT. I drank so much pop and coffee and ate so many sugar cookies that once 2 am hit my stomach attacked me and I had the worst stomach ache of my entire life. It really felt like someone put my stomach through a pasta-maker... flattening it into all sorts of nood. So unfortunate. But other than that, my night was really really good, I thought.
Four fifteen train ride? No problem. Arrived at the train station just before four o'clock which was the hour the station was to open so everyone was hanging outside. And by 'everyone' I mean 'all the shady people of Avignon.' Don't worry, Mom and Dad, it was all good. Got to the platform, drank a little hot chocolate (again, not so good for the stomach at that point) and got on the train. Hugged and kissed Avignon goodbye and sat down in the dark train car for a 4 hour journey to Nice, from where I'd be getting the plane to England.
But of COURSE as soon as I sat down in seat 11, these two French women started speaking REALLY LOUDLY to each other for the next forty-five minutes. Again, that's at 4:15. From 4:15 to 5:00 am these women would not. shut. up. What the bananas. In my caffeine-crazed state I could not stammer out any words in English or in French for "please, shut the bleep up" but oh how I wish I had.
At 5:00 both women exited the train. Praise the lo'd. I managed to get around an hour and a half of sleep after that until French Woman #2 decided to get on her cell phone and speak, really loudly, to French Friend about getting a taxi. For, like, a good 20 minutes. This was while our train was stopped at a random place somewhere between Avignon and Nice... an unscheduled stop. So French Woman #2 spoke to French Friend for the time we were stopped, making us late for our arrival in Nice. Keep in mind that I only had an hour and a half between arriving at the Nice train station and getting to the Nice airport to check in with EasyJet. I was panicking a little. Nah, a LOT.
Did we make it to the train station on time? We rolled in at 9:30 am. I had to check in by 10:00 am! The airport is a 15 minute bus ride away! My thoughts? "Oh HELL no!" So I befriended the girl next to me (Irish - very sweet) and we decided to split a taxi to the airport. I was overcharged (um twenty euros for a 7 minute car ride? Thanks!) but got to the airport at 9:52. Ran to EasyJet and what do I find? My flight was delayed by forty minutes! Awesome. So I checked in, paid an additional 12 euros to check my bag (awesome again), mailed my pocketknife to myself (of course I forgot to pack that in my checked baggage) and make some hasty calls to Avignon to get my Englanders informed that I'd be late. I'd say the hour from 9:30 to 10:30 on that Friday morning was one anxiety-riddled one.

So yeah, the plane took off, I landed at London Luton, and it was all good. My cousins and my aunt greeted me at the airport with a sign with "Emily" printed on it. Too freaking cute. I saw that family just two years ago when they made a trip to the US. My then-8-year-old cousin and I formed a band called Utter Dung and I wrote them a very catchy tune with the title "We're in America" (clearly, I'm an original).
My family then drove me down the road to meet up with my grandma, aka Cubca, who was my hostess for the next ten days. Family reunions all around are amazing and it was so good to see Cubca with her little blue car and her dog in the backseat. Cubca and I said goodbye to Boo 'n co. and set off for the little town of Bewdley to really begin Christmas Vacation 2007.

Reminders to self in 2008: Traveling early in the morning isn't so bad but REALLY make sure you get some sleep beforehand. EasyJet people are not as helpful as they look, even though they are wearing bright orange. The taxi driver might overcharge you if he hears you speaking any English - try to haggle? Next time speak up to annoying ladies on the train... you have every right to sleep!

i'm going to turn so emo

2007-12-12T22:08:00.000+01:00

I think this is my first downer post.
It's just that things aren't so hot right now.

But I know they'll get better. I just have to sit with me and my brain and a cup of tea and think. And then I should knit and listen to Christmas music and think some more.

I also plan on drinking copious amounts of egg nog and eating millions of Christmas cookies in the next few weeks. And listening to "Feliz Navidad" always makes me feel good.

In other news, I wrote this really awesome Christmas letter and I also made homemade Christmas cards (read: me and artistic abilities? notsomuch). Last weekend I enthusiastically went to the post office and sent off my stuff to all my peeps out there and then I realized that I forgot the Christmas letters. I sent only the (reallyreallycrappy) homemade Christmas cards. Am hoping for round-two of holycrapican'tbelieveitcoststhatmuchtomailthisstuff Christmas mailing v. soon.

Also, I finished my g-ma's Christmas present and must now shop for my English family members, one of whom I haven't seen since he was like 2 weeks old and the other I've never met. Should be interesting, eh?
In 10 days I'll be in England. Holllerrrrrrrrr

embarassing things I did today

2007-12-04T17:52:00.000+01:00

Number One: I just finished up the most random and confusing IM conversation of my life, thinking I was talking to one friend but really not talking to her at all. I could have been talking to someone in Papua New Guinea for all I know. How'd I do it? Well, I thought I'd added my friend's IM name onto my buddylist correctly but... guess what... I didn't. So I started talking to her and for a hot sec it was making sense b/c I think these two peeps might be kinda similar (random and weird AGAIN!) and then she was like "did you get the math homework?" and I'm like WHAT the bananas? And THEN the friend who i THOUGHT I was talking to showed up on GChat and started talking to me THERE and I was like huh? but I thought we were just doing a double-communication thing. We weren't.
what the heck.

Number Two: Got back from work at school number two today and realized that I'd left my teaching book there. This teaching book contains notes from every class that I teach describing what we did for the day and what we should do next week. It also has random notes like "why the bleep does this teacher leave this class?" "oh my god, she took out her cell phone in the middle of class! oh no she didn't!" and "[bleep] she just saw me texting. [bleep]"

It's been an awesome day.

how to get little kids to love you

2007-11-26T07:31:00.001+01:00

1) mention "High School Musical" as much as possible

2) do the Macarena in class.

We did some of the Macarena last week just for fun (as in: I got to class and completely BLANKED. I couldn't remember my own name, let alone remember what I was supposed to do for class. So I turned on my computer and we danced the macarena). Turned the Macarena into a numbers-song: "One maca two maca three macarena." I'm going to try it with body parts, too: "hand maca hand maca hand macarena maca arm maca arm maca something macarena."

One little girl didn't know the song and she felt pretty left out. After class, our exchange went like this:
"emilie, emilie, peux tu m'apprendre le macarena la semaine prochaine?"

OK YOU ARE SO CUTE I LOVE YOU LITTLE KID

aaaaand see y'all later!

cultural things in 'n around Avignon

2007-11-26T06:28:00.000+01:00

Good morning.

The Mistral is blowing something FIERCE right now - so much that it kept me awake most of the night - well, that and my intense fear of teaching. But yeah - the Mistral is laying the smack down and taking names.

So I've done some very cool cultural things around Avignon and I figure I better write them down before I forget. Forgive me for this list-y trip I've been on. Eventually I'll get around to writing in an eloquent way (let's hope) and it'll be more fun for your eyeballs and brains!

1) Avignon is the new Ann Arbor
What does that mean? Well, Avignon has its very own food co-op! On Wednesday night after our French class we all went to what we thought was going to be a pizzeria (and can I just tell you that if I don't have a pepperoni pizza STAT I might go freakin' crazy! - oh yeah - there's a Domino's here. And it may or may not be true that one of the assistants here has a discount card because she's a frequent customer... yeah buddy) and it turns out it's a food co-op kinda thing. Ca veut dire: it's open three nights a week, I think, and people sign up to provide food for the night. Ok, that's not clear, is it? Shoot, it's 6:30 am! What I mean is that you can sign up with a group of homies and present a menu to the people who own the place and say "Bonjour, on veut faire ca, s'il vous plait." And then you go rock that stuff in the kitchen. You can sign up as a group or individually so you get to meet Frenchies and all of that! And by Frenchies I mean the "let's all get our instruments and have band practice in the room over"-dreadlocks-hemp clothing-coop-peaceloving-AnnArborite Frenchies. I was feeling very at home. Almost like I was in Lester co-op or chilling on the diag. So I hope we do that sometime! And then I can go have French friends, too!

2) Church. Les deux.
Went to a Catholic church last Sunday.
Whoa.
I'm not going to go again. I'm glad I went because I got to hear church music and I got to hear liturgy (French) but I realized that it's definitely not what I'm looking for, no matter how church-y it is. Our plans for Protestant church-going had fallen through so we went to Catholic mass and we decided that it's not for us so...

Went to Protestant church yesterday.
It rocked.
It was so so simple. There was one celebrant and no one else up at the front. The church itself was like how Avignon usually rolls - you know, stone, tall, 'fortified'-like, old, etc. etc. The service was an hour long with a sermon that I could follow when I wasn't daydreaming (sorry, guys, my mind wanders no matter where I am) and it was beautiful saying the Lord's Prayer and the Nicene Creed in French. One problem: only three hymns! What the bananas? I go to church to sing! No matter, though - I'm glad I went.

3) Piano concert at the Opera Theater House on Saturday night.
Saw a concert pianist play and it only cost me 3 euros. He was stunning. The Opera House is bautiful and majestic and there are so many reasons that I'm glad I went. What's extra awesome is how there's still so much left to discover here (cue violins for this cheesy part) and I have so much time to really hunker down and live the Avignonnaise life... makes me happy.

4) Ice Skating
AssocEchanges is going ice skating on Friday night! Yeahhhhhhhh buddy!

In other news, I found Sarah McLachlan's "Wintersong" CD and I've been listening to it on repeat. It's the only holiday music I have on my computer! I mean, it rocks, but I can't wait for more from home :)

REALLY GOOD THINGS!

2007-11-24T18:10:00.000+01:00

This is my excited voice:

OHMYGOSHYESTERDAYWASTHEFIRSTTIMEI'VEEVERSKYPEDMYFAMILY
ANDISAWALLTHEIRFACESANDITALKEDTOEVERYONEANDITWASAMAZING
BECAUSEIMISSTHEMALLANDISAWTHEIRSMILESINSTEADOFJUSTHEARINGTHEM
ANDTHEYAREWONDERFULANDIMISSTHEMALOT

ahem.

ANDIFOUNDOUTTHATHEATHERBOUGHTHERPLANETICKETTOCOMETOFRANCE
ANDSHEISCOMINGONSUNDAYMARCHSECOND,FLYINGINTOMARSEILLEANDSHEIS
STAYINGUNTILSATURDAYANDSHEISGOINGTOMEETEVERYONEANDITWILLBEAWESOME

And my Dad's going to send me Christmas music!
And I bought my plane tickets for my England Christmas!
And I'll be in Avignon for New Year's!
And my family knows how to Skype!
And I had this awesome cake at a cafe today!

And more good things...
Thanksgiving this year was a little weird - it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving time because I'm not getting time off from school, I'm not making the trajet from Ann Arbor to East Lansing, I'm not in a land of snow or (tremendous) cold, and I'm not around my fam. I missed out on Buffy marathons, I missed out on my yearly turnip consumption and I missed out on Pajama Day. But I made do and ended up having a really good Thanksgiving anyway!

The American assistants decided to have a lil' Thanksgiving of their own. Twelve of us got together at Celine's and rocked the hell out of Turkey Day, I kid you not. Amy and I spent the afternoon cooking stuffing (great recipe, Mom! it was a huge hit!) and a corn/pepper souffle (heaven in your mouth - good one, Amy!) and Nicole made to-die-for mashed potatoes. We hurried through the rain to Celine's and were greeted by pots and pots and pans and plates of food. It was an enormous spread. The twelve of us managed to put together a delicious meal - who knew we could all be such gourmet chefs? And I think we're all gourmands now, too! Turkey, stuffing, corn souffle, mashed potatoes, green beans, Serbia soup (we made Darija make it even though it is, in no way, a part of Thanksgiving), mashed sweet potatoes (Emily went out and found marshmallows - they exist here!), quiche, cookies (praise everything! They were off the HOOK), salads like whoa, apple crumble and ice cream, aaaaand six baguettes. Because you really can'th ave a meal here without a baguette. Good gravy it was all amazing.

I ate so much that I had a stomachache alllllll day on Friday. In fact, I might still be recovering.

But it was great - we ate, we drank wine, we played guitar and sang songs. It was homey and comfortable and it was really really nice to be in such good company. We're all missing home on varying levels and in different ways and I couldn't have asked for a better Thanksgiving Abroad than the one I had on Thursday.

I'd like to give another shoutout to all my postcard pen pals: Thanks, guys, for sending me all the postcards! I think I get at least two a week and it does wonders for my mood and ego - I'm feelin' pretty popular all up I here :) Haha, it's just really nice to have these things from home. I miss y'all.

I hope your Thanksgivings were awesome and family- and friends- and fun- and smiles-filled. I hope you're all preparing your stomachs for the holiday season. Don't forget the egg nog!

love,
emily

p.s. Saved by the Bell, Seasons 1 and 2 are sale on Amazon.com. Yeah buddy.

Vive la France!

2007-11-20T08:47:00.000+01:00

My teachers are all on strike today so I don't have to teach!

Wheeeeeeeeee!

i'm going to go embrace my day!

xox

2007-11-20T00:23:00.000+01:00

Today I got my first bisous from my students.

I melted.

Vacayyyy de la Toussaint, Part Two

2007-11-17T17:55:00.001+01:00

PARIS

Yes, mesdames et messieurs, I hit up Paris. And it was beautiful.

Thursday, arrived from Tours. Nicole, Amy, Emily, Darija and I got into our little Hotel Printemps, turns out we were to stay on the top floor. Ok, I know the French are all into being skinny and buff and stuff but good lorde, could you please put an elevator in your VERY TALL building so I don't lose die every time I ascend your stairs? Just a few things to consider: premature death by respiratory failure, fire hazards, death by falling (wobbly banisters like WHOA) and over all death by fatigue. Yes, my friends, making that ascent with our eight hundred-pound valises was not a pretty sight. But hey, I just figured every time I walked up I got to reward myself with a pain au chocolat, right?

Hotel Printemps worked nicely for us, though. We were right by the subway stop so, as soon as we'd put down our bags, we we headed for the Eiffel Tower.

No, just kidding, we headed to Starbucks. Seriously. Starbucks.

Now, before you write me off as a coffee-crazed, addicted and slightly pathetic American, hear me out: I haven't had a coffee larger than a shot glass here. Ever. I pay a euro fifty once a week for a teeeeeeeny tiiiiiiiiny coffee and knowing that Starbucks was in Paris was like knowing that the Cadbury Chocolate Superstore is in your hometown. We just HAD to go. And go, we did. I will neither confirm nor deny that I went to Starbucks a (truly satisfying) four times while in Paris. I own that! I loved every single over-priced sip! I savored the sugary syrup of my latte, the four pounds of butter in each muffin, the stares I got from the Parisians as I took out my knitting to do what any American does in a coffeeshop - stop, put her feet up, and people-watch . I leafed through their "We're environmentally-friendly and we're humanitarians, we swear!" leaflets and I browsed through their beautiful shiny thermoses (thermoses is a weird-looking word, eh?) and I salivated over their caramel macchiatos, their chocolats chaud and their regular old coffee. Holy whoa, who knew I could write such a long paragraph dedicated to Starbucks? I think I'm longing for some America back in my life.

After Starbucks, our first stop on our Paris-tour was Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur. It was a Thursday afternoon, grey and dreary - reminded me of England. Amy had scuttled off to meet with her friends so it was just me, the D(arija, my colocatrice), Emily, and Nicole. We saw the stairs. The stairs were intimidating. We took the stairs by storm.

Yeahhhhh buddy.

Once we got to the top we got to look out over all of Paris while simultaneously getting to listen to some dudes sing Bob Marley. It was like a flashback to college except I wasn't eating ramen and no one was locked out of the bathroom. It was beautiful, it was breathtaking, it was exciting. We posed for pictures for approximately eight million hours and then headed back down to wander the streets of Paris. I decided to start a photo shoot of me looking like a fool at every grand Paris monument. I'm pretty sure I succeded!

Next stop on Paris Tour was the Champs-Elysees. I'd like to give a shout out and a hollah to Madame Weltzer, who put me through French 2-4 at East Lansing High and had us sing "Au Champs-Elysees" a million times. Hollah! Thanks to you, I know the song and I know how singing can really help in a class with foreign languages (heads up: I taught my kids "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" the other day and it was one of the greatest moments in my life). We walked down the street, we checked out l'Arc de Triomph, we strolled down the Avenue. I couldn't help but feel a little like I was in New York walking up 5th Avenue and then I got all nostalgic for New York but I was in Paris so what was I doing thinking about New York but hey , homesickness is hitting me a little bit at the moment so it makes sense.

ANYway. I made a video. On the Champs-Elysees. And it goes a little like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKHLd9jwy-Q

Next stop was... the Eiffel Tower! It went a little like this:

"Hey guys, let's take the metro to the Eiffel Tower!"
"Ok!"
yaddayaddayaddachattingonthemetromakingfoolsofourselveslookingreallyamericanlaughingourbuttsoffmakingdarijacringewitheveryhugeloudguffawandthen
BAM
the freaking Eiffel Tower. Out the window.

Good gravy that was amazing!
I seriously was very very close to crying. Not sure why - it's not like I have a history with the Tower or anything but it was just like WHOA I was not expecting that. Emily and I fumbled around on the metro for our cameras, as we wanted to get a shot of the Tower as we whizzed by, but we couldn't do it. Nice-looking Parisians (say WHAT!) smiled at our touristy-efforts and we basically ran off the metro at our stop trying to get to the monument AFAP.

Photos photos photos. I went to the Tower a total of three times during the trip wait maybe more and I took artsty ones, stupid ones, fun ones, ugly ones, blurry ones, night ones, I got 'em all. So good to go with four girls who all realize how important it is to get everysingleangle for everysinglecamera for everysinglepersoninthegroup. I'm surprised our cameras didn't all run out of batts there! Oh yeah - I too my "Hi I'm Emily the crazy American tourist" shot at the Tower, too.

Amy had gone off earlier in the day to go meet up with her British Uni friends and Nicole took Thursday afternoon off for herself so it was just me, the D, and Emily who then went to the Louvre. It should be said that we're all ballers on budgets and were trying to do Paris on the cheap so we didn't acutally go into anything. Seriously. Photo ops on the outside were just fiiiiine by me. Some day when I am famous and make a million dollars makign stilly videos on YouTube or singing covers of Girlyman I will be able to go back to Paris and live it up but for now... outside-of-important-buildings shots are a-ok with me. And holycrapican'tbelievewe'reinparislet'slookreallyshockedandhappy shots are also ok.

So we went to the Louvre and went all DaVinci Code on it and took pictures of the giant triangle thing. That was cool.

I just realized that I think I've gotten my days mixed up. Or I've made my Paris experience into one long adventure, like the sun didn't set on my vacation. But, uh, I just can't remember when one day ended (Eiffel Tower at night) and the next day began (obligatory Starbucks). So bear with me, it'll make sense or something.

Ahhhhh I think I remember. I went to the Louvre on Friday. Ok who the hell knows. We'll just say that's what happened.

Friday was my day with just me, Darija, and Emily. We went to the Louvre (on the outside - hells no were we gonna pay to go in! Ciao, Mona Lisa) and we went to the Notre Dame and we went and ate ice cream at the best ice cream place in all of Paris and we walked on the Seine and took artsy fartsy photos and we went to this really famous square but I can't remember what it's called. That night Darija left to go party with her fam out in Lyon and Nicole and I took an amazing repose back at the hotel that consisted of us watching Scrubs for a lil' bit. That night we met up with Nicole and her friend, Lorraine, and had a delicious Menu meal (you know, like 14 euros for an entree, plat, and dessert) and I drank, literally, 7 carafes de l'eau - j'ai soif like WHOA here in France!

Aaaaaaand we went back to the Eiffel Tower for some night shots. Holler!
Found a lil' art exposition on the Seine as we finished up at the Tower. Very very cool.

And of course we had to go to the Moulin Rouge! At night!
Crazy sketch.
I've never seen so many sex shops in my life. Here in Europe they're called "sexy shops" and, for some reason, that makes them sound dirtier than usual to me.
I hunted around for Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman but, alas, they weren't there. Instead, the group of us were whistled at, men gave me confused look (the garcon ou fille? look) and there was all that whistling and hollering that comes with being young (totally beautiful) women in France. The guys who do all the catcalling are called drageurs and they're everywhere. And annoying. Luckily, I don't get much of that.

Anyway, we were pretty excited to be on the street of Lights 'n Filth. Elysia met up with us that night (ok i remember! This was Saturday night!) and she had her first Paris crepe and it was all merry and stuff.

Sunday was our last day in Paris. I'd left Avignon at 5:00 am on Tuesday and, being the homebody that I am, by Saturday night I was ready to be back in my fortified walled city, back at the Lalogene, back at Place Pie, back at 5 rue Saint Thomas d'Aquin, back on Rue de la Republique, back at the Palais, back to everything that's familiar. But just because I was feeling like I wanted my Avignon home didn't mean we didn't live up Paris for our last day!

We checked out of Hotel Printemps in the morning, took all our bags to the train station for the day. For those of you who are doing international travel and all of that, i totally recommend it! Useful and not too pricey and useful!

After the Gare me and Emily and Elysia took off for the Louvre again, to give Elysia a few sights to see. This time we went IN the Louvre because guess what! All museums in Paris are free to the public on the first Sunday of every month! And we were there on the first Sunday of November! Woohoo!!! But someone shoulda given me a whistle or something to blow because I got lost in the Louvre and I couldn't Marco/Polo my way to my friends. Oh well - found 'em and then we went and saw the Mona Lisa.
And then I saw a bunch of statues.
And then I saw a bunch of paintings.
And then I saw a lot of African art.
And then I wished I knew more about art. I couldn't fully appreciate the Louvre. But it was still freaking cool.

Sunday was our first and only beautiful day in Paris but we really took advantage of it. We went to Place de la Concord, we went to the Louvre, we went to l'Arc de Triomph. It was all beautiful. And we went UP l'Arc de Triomph because guess what oh yeah it as open to the public and it was AWESOME. I looked out onto Paris from its center - it was breathtaking. That was an wesome moment.

Ok, so I think that ends my Paris Tour. Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, Moulin Rouge, Champs-Elysees, Montmartre... I feel like I did it all! Of course I didn't and I need to go back a million times to get the city in its entirety but it was a nice entree to a plat, I feel. And I was with these really freaking sweet people the whole time. I wish Parisians wore color. I wish they picked up after their dogs. I wish they smiled more. Makes me miss home :)

Paris was an awesome time!

Attention: email is DOWN!

2007-11-14T13:59:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone!

I wanted to apologize: I haven't been in contact too much recently and I've been trying to write e-mails back alllllll day but my e-mail is down for some reason, although I can blog and I can do other things. I think gmail is having some sort of hiccup. Hiccup is a weird word to see.

Anyway, please know that I am trying to get back to you. Internet here is ALWAYS iffy and for some reason I can access IM sometimes, sometimes not, I can access e-mail sometimes, sometimes not. I see it as a part of France - doing what it wants to do and not letting you in on the game.

So yes - I am here, things are nice... I joined a gym (hollerrrrrr), I listen to Joshua Radin on repeat and I am still discovering Avignon. Next week is Thanksgiving! I hope I can find some turkey other than the pre-sliced dinde meant for my baguette. Fingers crossed!

Montpellier and Nimes!

2007-11-13T22:21:00.000+01:00

So this past weekend I went to Montpellier and Nimes.
I took a trip with the Association Echanges, a group from the University of Avignon that works to bring all the foreign kids together and tries to get them with Frenchies so we can all live in multilingual harmony. I'm going to become a member of AssocEchanges so I can get all their e-mails and get hooked up on other amazing trips - next month we're going to Lyon to see a festival of lights! Or something. Ok, I'm not really sure what's going on but it's guaranteed to be cool and cheap and cultural and stuff.

Thursday night I went to a soiree for the AssocEchanges which is where I had conversations with Frenchies (this is hard for me to do because I get so nervous and, unfortunately, I don't do it enough (but, Mom and Dad, know that I'm speaking lots of French every day!)) and learned about the trip. I wasn't going to go because I didn't want to give up a weekend of extremely thrilling lesson planning but then oh wait people started talking sense in to me ("Emily, you gotta go, why would you NOT go to Montpellier and Nimes with a bunch of foreign kids for only 25 euro for the whole weekend?"). At 8:30 on Saturday morning I dragged my booty to the University bus stop and was whisked away to the coast of la France. On our itinerary was: the Pont du Gard, drive to Montpellier, stay in Montpellier for the night, and head to Nimes on Sunday. Awesome.

Besides the fact that we didn't leave the bus stop precisely at 8:30, the trip was the most organized I have ever seen in France. More organized than the French educational system, than our disastrous orientation in Marseille, more organized than the circonscription in which I work, more organized than the bank to which I (unfortunately) belong. Simply brilliant! I just want to give a hollah and a shout out to the organizers of AssocEchanges for being amazing and actually making things happen! Hollah!

Here's a rundown of each part of our trip:

Pont du Gard... wow. Everyone, please forgive my ignorance about the area of France I live in (and, unfortunately, my general ignorance of the country/of life at the moment)... I didn't know there were a bunch of Roman ruins chillin' all around us. Well, there are. In Arles there's the giant arena, in Nimes there's another one, and halfway between Avignon and Nimes is the Pont du Gard, an freaking huge. How bleeping amazing. So we took lots o' pics and I tried to be all artsy and stuff but it didn't really work out. I also spent a lot of time chatting up other foreign kids, attempting French, and figuring out how we can all be friends. Because this is something I need to do - I need to put myself out there more with people outside this 'posse' I've jumped into in Avignon and hell, we were spending the weekend together so why not!?

Then we all piled back into our bus and went to Montpellier. Montpellier's a big city on the coast. We were supposed to meet up with Montpellier's AssocEchanges but they didn't show up (vive la France!) so we all just dispersed within the city to go explore and discover it for ourselves. I spent the afternoon with the world's two greatest Italians and what did we do? We got to rent bikes and take them around town. It only cost 1 euro for 4 hours! Oh man, that's the ONE good deal I've found here in France! Aaaaand so we took it and it was so much fun. Highlights of our stay in the Mont? Jardin des Plants, conquering the hilly tiny roads of Montpellier, watching the leaves change color and thinking of Michigan, and happening upon a "wishing tree" (passersby have written tons of hopes and wishes on pieces of paper and left them in the little cracks of this tree). We also witnessed this little kid just JAM on a bongo drum at the town's center and I saw a street protest. All in all, an eventful day!

Saturday night was a chill evening of kabab-eating. Somehow, at the end of the night we found ourselves at a reggae-DJ-rock bar with a bunch of dreadheads. I, of course, was wearing my American/French combination of my pink Northface winter coat (very chic, non?) and my H & M hat... I don't think I've ever looked more out of place. But the music was great and it was nice to see a little bit of Montpellier's nightlife - they're pretty renowned here for it.

We spent the night in Montpellier's giant youth hostel. Yeahhhhhh buddy! It was my first time in a youth hostel and it was a good time. It reminded me of ASB and of youth group trips and stuff - tons of people crowded into not-so-awesome bathrooms and sleeping in bunk beds and all of that. I don't know why but I chose the room with ten beds. So I spent the night with two Italians, three Germans, two Spaniards, one other American and a Brit. That is why I love it here - I meet so many people from everywhere. We all had polite chit chat in French throughout the evening but as the night wore on we all just gave up and spoke to one another in our native tongues. Phew! I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes to slip into the good ol' comfort zone of speaking in my langue maternelle.

Sunday we woke up, ate a giant breakfast of bread, bread, and more bread and headed to Nimes.

I'd like to make an announcement? I freaking love public transportation. I mean, I could ride the bus or the train all freaking day. I really think I've regressed or something. You know how I love having the ceiling fan on at night so I can hear the sound of the blades moving in the air and I can watch the fan if I have trouble falling asleep? Well that makes me feel like I'm four, as does my love of public transportation. But no matter! So everytime we got on the bus I was really sad to get off it. No matter, though, because everything we did rocked.

In Nimes we had the chance to walk all around and take in all the sites of the city but I ended up passing out at the town's fountain with Amy and Emily, after a visit to the church (it was Sunday, after all) and feeling a little overwhelmed at the sound of church music. I need to find myself an Anglican church here, that's fo ho. Nothing compares to All Saints, but I want the music and the liturgy and the community.

So after our nap we went and had our giant lunch that was included in the price of only 25 bones for the weekend!

Then we went and saw the Arena of Nimes. Giant giant Roman ruin in town and we got to go in it (for free!) and I took so many pictures. I also was the coolest foreigner around as I walked up and down the ruin singing "The Top of the World" by the Carpenters. THat made me rul popular, fo sho.

All in all, a great weekend. I am so glad I decided to up and go - two more French cities under my belt, I saw the Pont du Gard which is bleeping fantastic, and I met a million new people and had tons o' fun with my usual homies. But don't let me go on a trip like this again without doing a little lesson plan before hand!

Vocabulary

2007-11-09T15:11:00.001+01:00

So we all know that my knowledge of French vocabulary is pretty crud. In an attempt to ameliorate it, I bought a book full o' helpful words in helpful list-form at a bookstore in Paris. Uh-oh, repetition of helpful... need a thesaurus, too.

QUAND même...

I was with my friend, Alice, yesterday at our new favorite Avignon cafe, "francoise," and we busted out the book to learn a few words. I am telling you, dear readers, that I can now say: “Quotidiennement je télécharge des images des cafards.”

This of course means:
"Daily I download images of cockroaches"

Merci.

Vacayyyy de la Toussaint, Part One

2007-11-09T09:01:00.001+01:00

Vacances de la Toussaint started for me, Emily Findley, on Wednesday, October 24th. My vacation ends on Sunday, November 11th. There is seriously something wrong with that. Vive la France!

After a rockin' bday weekend, I went back to work on Monday the 22nd and I did some Halloween stuff. By "did some Halloween stuff" I mean that I'd completely panicked the night before teaching and couldn't come up with anything except a coloring worksheet. Not my brightest or proudest moment. It was pretty much like I'd procrastinated the heck out of studying for a big exam and then BAM the multiple choice were way harder than I thought they'd be. Actually, I currently feel that's how teaching is - one big ol' test that I freak out about every week b/c I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how to prepare and I procrastinate a bit too much. Hmm...

ANYway, after my two days of work for the week, I found myself in vacation. I was actually kind of surprised on Wednesday when I realized I didn't have to go back to work for two and a half weeks. Surprised, overjoyed, etc. So it was time to get my vacay-on. And I fo sho did!

I spent the first few days of vacation in Avignon. While I'm currently trying to turn myself into a fancy shmancy world traveler who's seen everything and is all cultured and amazing like that, we all know how much of a homebody I am. So staying home in Avignon for a few days in vacation was still vacation and still fun and homebody-ish - just how I like it. I'm really glad I stayed in Avignon because I hung out with other assistants with whom I spend less time, usually, like Marius, Neil, Ciaran, Robyn, etc. All of these people are amazing, of course, and I had a freaking sweet time chillin', playing cards, going on a picnic, going on a bike ride through the French countryside, eatin' candy, and talking with all of them. I am always smiling here because I am always always happy with the company I get to keep. I feel so lucky.

Then on Tuesday I left Avignon. At 5:00 am.

At 5:06 am on Tuesday morning, my TGV train left Avignon Centre for Tours. My first train took me to Paris, I cabbed my way to Gare Austerlitz and took another train from Paris to Tours. On the second train I sat next to a really sweet girl who brought her cats with her (oh man, peeps and their pets!) and I tried to have conversation with her but she was really shy and quiet and when she did speak, I could not understand a word she said because she mumbled like WHOA and, of course, my French isn't that good yet. So I sat, loving public transportation, knitting and smiling to myself as I listened to my iPod and watched the French landscape zip by.

I interrupt this blog post to state that it smells like burning in my bedroom but I have no idea why. Hmmmm...

Back to Tours. I was met at the train station by Emily and Amy and it was like we hadn't seen each other in ages. Everyone remember the movie "Love Actually"? And how, at the film's beginning and end, the narrator person says that Love Actually is all around and the film montage is all about how you can see love in all its forms at the airport and all of that? Well I don't think there's anything quite like being picked up at the train station. It rocks. So Amy and Emily swept me up in their arms and we headed back to our Hotel Foch (everyone pronounce that however you want) and then we went to a castle with Nicole and Darija. I'm ashamed b/c I can't remember the name of the castle but I can tell you that it was beautiful and very castle-y. My camera was without battery, unfortunately, so I couldn't take any pics but I think there are tons of them on facebook and Nicole and Emily both have pics up, prob, so y'all can see. There was a maze, there was a super long walk up to the castle, the leaves were perfect shades of red and orange, it was a beautiful day... picture perfect, really! Also, that night I had my first crepe in France (the first of my time here) and I died from happiness. Ok, so I had two crepes: a dinner one and a dessert one and it was all amazing.
Me and the D(arija)
Emily and Amy

That was Tours, day 1.

Tours, day 2, was a day for Nicole and I to hang out in the city while the others went off and castled all day long. I think they say five of them or something like that. Oh, I should mention that Tours is in the part of France that's known for its castles so that's the reason for going. Nicole and I hung out in Tours and took pics and had a grand old time. Very chill, very beautiful. It was nice to be in a bigger city. Good preparation for...

PARIS.

I've been to Paris. And OMG it's exactly how I thought it'd be. Yeahhhhhhh buddy!

But more on Paris later. I currently have to go into my room and clean it up so my landlady doesn't yell at me. Yay.

Champs-Elysees like WHAT

2007-11-08T16:01:00.000+01:00

I think I just updated my first-ever video onto YouTube! Click on the link below and get whisked away to the whackiness of singing "Au Champs-Elysees" in Paris. It was a beautiful day, I was with my amazing friends, and of course I had to sing the song. Oh p.s. - that's the Arc de Triomph behind us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKHLd9jwy-Q

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T17:31:00.000+01:00

Happy Halloween!

Nicole and I were walking through the streets of Tours today, avoiding the patisseries, looking longingly at croissant after croissant, and we passed by two little kids with their mom.

One kid was a witch and the other kid was a ghosty-monster thing.

And they were decked out in their costumes.

So of course Nicole and I freaked out and basically screamed "Happy Halloween" at them. Their mom said "merci" and the kids just looked terrified as they walked (read: ran) away.

Happy Halloween anyway!

Awwww shoot!

2007-10-30T00:32:00.000+01:00

Hey everyone!
Once again, sorry it's taken me so long to get back here. This past week has been ridiiiiiiiiic and I am now processing it.

1) I GOT A GUITAR
bleep yeah!
I went to this place outside the walls with super friendly French guys (who, by the way, told me that I speak well in French) and they sold me a second-hand guitar for only 70 euros. Amazing. It is an acoustic/electric but the electric part is broken which is, I'm assuming, why the guitar was sold to the store. Add a capo and a case to that and my total was around 100 - just what I got from my peeps for my bday for guitar-purchasing! So freaking sweet. I have played "You Took me by Surprise," "Both Hands," and "Stay" multiple times for people since I got the guitar. I am so so so happy with it. Oh AND my friend, Silvia, asked a local restaurant/open mike guy if I could play at his place sometime... he's booked through January but after that, I'm good to go! Of course I still consider busking like I did in New York but, just like in New York, I'm too scared, so I won't do that. But I could definitely use the euros!

2) I bought a bike!
Went to Decathalon, a giant sports good store like Dunham's, which is prob like 7 km away. Maybe more. Anyway, they were having a second-hand bike sale all week and I found a beautiful racing bike for only 45 euros. Yay aGAIN. Too bad I couldn't put the bike on the bus on the way back so I had to ride it home. Actually that was awesome because I was tailing the bus the entire way and it felt hella good to ride a bike again. And to get some exercise. Because walking to get a baguette every day isn't really workin' out for me.
On Sunday I took a long bike ride with a few assistants away from Avignon and into the French countryside. It was beautiful and peaceful and I definitely had to pause and take a moment as I thought what I always think here: "I can't believe I'm here, that I'm doing this, that my life is like this." It's always surprising and always amazing.

3) I leave for vacation tomorrow at 5:00 am! yes, that's right - my train for Tours leaves the Avignon Centre station at 5:06. It's quarter to 1 right now and I'm going to wake up just before four so... I should go to bed. But I just had tea and I have a lot to think about so I'm pretty wired right now. I am going to Tours for Tuesday and Wednesday and then I will arrive in Paris on Thursday! Holy crow I am so so so excited. It's my first major trip outside of Avignon (besides Marseille which was for orientation so it kinda doesn't count even though it was fun and cool... anything associated with orientation/Monique Lheman/French bureaucratic incompetence is NOT cool...) and I am ready to see more of France. I'm also ready to see my peeps who left on vacay before me - Nicole, Darija, Emily, and Amy are already in Tours and I'm kinda itchin' to see 'em. Definitely am.

4) We got paid! With real money! Like, it was in my bank account! But not it's not really there b/c I paid rent, I paid Micaela, and I did a lil' shopping. But still! I got paid! And I finally went to the CAF office (gives you $$ help with lodging) to get started on that whole process and they gave me all the papers so maybe I'll get mya ct together some day so I'll get money back in January. When I get back from vacation I gotta remember to go to the cell phone store and the CAF place again.

5) Avignon is amazing. Avignon at night is amazing. Avignon with all my peeps is amazing. I love Italian coffee, baguettes at any time of day, the 'petit gout,' running into assistants from Germany or El Salvador on the street, drinkin' a beer with my French teacher, walking around the walls, picnics on Le Rhone, bike rides in the countryside, guitar singalongs with Anglophones and Francophones, dancing and singing at karaoke, chocolate after every meal (yes, even breakfast, sometimes), awkward times with my landlady, fighting with the bank (more on that later, I'm sure), pasta pasta pasta, Dano, Celine Dion in French on the radio, and everything. I love it all. I love that now I love tomato and mozzarella, that I love salad with balsamic vinaigrette, and that the tofu here is amazing. I love that I turned on the radio last night and I heard amazing French church music that made me miss home and made me listen to French. I love that there's an old guy who walks around minstrel-like with his guitar on sunny afternoons in Place Pie serenading/bugging the people sitting at the cafe. I love that I can have five days of vacation and be non-stop busy, non-stop involved with everyone here. There is always someone to talk to, always someone to cook with, always more to learn about everyone. I love conversations in three languages. I love the little bubble (bulle) that's been created here in Avignon. It sounds cheesy, and it probably is, but it's just freaking fantastic.

So I have to go to bed. Must be up in 3 hours. Bueno nolta! (I'm going to try to learn a few Italian phrases for y'all).

I'm hungry.

Birthday. like WHOA.

2007-10-21T23:46:00.000+02:00

Greetings!

I know I know I know it has been way too long since I last updated (thanks, Nicole!) and I am sure that all of you are waiting with bated breath to hear the amazing goings-on of my life. Well, I would love to tell you now but I have to finish lesson planning so I will try to tell you in a few pictures.

Words cannot properly express the emotions that were all up in my head for the weekend. My friends here in Avignon threw me the most amazing birthday party EVER. I kid you not. My face hurts from smiling so much. I've tried explaining it in English and in French to my friends and family and so far I think all the words I've chosen have fallen short.

Ok I'll try for a little description:
I love my birthday. Love love love it. Birthdays are big in the Findley family - we take 'em very seriously. I guess I've been talking about my bday pretty much... ever since I got here (sorry, everyone!) because I was so excited but also because it was going to be my first bday without ma jumelle and that was really weird and sad as was being without my family. So that's where these awesome Avignon friends stepped in.

On Friday afternoon I spent the day chillin' and drinking coffee and walking outside the walls (the shock! the horror!) to find Avignon's guitar shop. And find it, I did. It was beautiful. I could feel my body react to being around so many musical instruments - it's very apparent that I NEED to have something to play around me all the time. Guess I didn't realize how much I missed the guitar. I think I've been talking about wanting a guitar to play for as long as I've been talking about my b-day. And, um, my friends put 'em together.

Saturday was the night we chose to properly celebrate the birthday of moi because having one on the actual day (today) woulda been harder for congregating and also very silly, considering I teach tomorrow. So a bunch of us decided it'd be cool to have a picnic and go sing karoake. I just wanted an excuse to get as many of my friends together. It worked!

I was expecting a get-together of like 20 peeps, everyone eating baguettes and cheese, chillin' and waiting to go to karaoke. Well, I walked into a room of a bunch of people, a smorgasboard of food spread out, and the good times were rollin'. We had pastas and salads and chocolates and wines and cakes and so many people game: the English, the Italians, the Americans... freaking amazing. And peeps brought prezzies! I'm like WHAT!

So I ran around like a crazy person getting pictures with everyone. EVERYone. So many people, so much food, great music (French pop music is a little behind the times so "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston is v. popular here - AWESOME), so much good, great music, amazing amazing amazing friends. Amazing.

Then, while I was in between bites of something spectacular, my friends stopped all the talking and frolicing that was happening and made everyone focus on me (yay). Celine presented me with a 3-D cut-out/card of a guitar. What's that, you might ask? Well, as it was put to me "Emily, you've been talking about playing the guitar ever since we got here and we would like to hear you play. We were gonna have it ready for you but then we thought that you should pick it out yourself." And inside my guitar-card was enough $$ to buy a guitar here in Avignon.

I was speechless. I was speechless.

So of course I did a "Findley" and started tearing up immediately. Had to go into the hallway to compose myself - freaking brilliant. Oh my good gravy - toDAY I can go buy a guitar! I will have an instrument in my hands! I can't wait! a;lskajdf;alskdjfas;dj I am so so so excited.

THEN the lights went out and "Happy Birthday" was sung to me in multiple languages and Amy presented me with four gateaux with candles in them and the party recommenced in full swing. Oh! I gave an "I thank you and I think you all are amazing" speech in French but I was so freaking caught up and so happy that I don't think I made much sense. Putting words together to form coherent sentences in any language was way too difficult at that point.

It was after all the feasting and presents-giving and after I composed myself well enough to be presentable was that many of us set off on a walk to L'Americain to sing karaoke for the rest of the night. And sing we did! And we finally got the Frenchies to lighten up!

Amazing.

Amazing amazing amazing.

So that was Saturday night. I still can't believe it.

I very very much had a joyeux anniversaire. Merci.

predicate, ink

2007-10-19T10:37:00.000+02:00

www.predicateink.com

www.predicateink.com

www.predicateink.com

Ok all, here's an explanation for the above links:
My friend, Tessa, from high school and middle school and Kehillat Israel and all that has had her own business for awhile (um, she's amazing and started it while studying art history at Barnard in NYC). She designs t-shirts/tote bags and she and her products are all amazing. So this is a plug for my dear T3P2 because she's got her own website, her own business and she's only 22. Holler!

I can vouch for her stuff because I own practically all of it. Yay.

And here's a picture of me wearing one of her shirts at the Louvre. yeahhhhhh buddy! I'm taking her merch around the world!

American Idol (that's me!)

2007-10-17T04:48:00.001+02:00

"Es-tu une fille ou un garçon ?"
(Are you a girl or a boy?)

I was asked this at school yesterday by my 8 year olds. Thanks, guys.

I realized yesterday that I'm pretty much a pop star in my schools. Remember how all the little kids are obsessed with "High School Musical"? Well, I happened to mention to them, after they started asking me (again) if I had ever met "Troy" or "Gabriella," that I had seen HSM both 1 and 2 and they all flipped out. Then a group of four girls split into "filles" and "garçons" to act out the finale from the second one. Really freaking cute. They then asked me to sing a song from one of the movies. Luckily I watched the movie on repeat during one week this summer so I knew the tunes of a few of the songs. So I sang a few songs for all the kids and they were freakin' out. Then of course they kept asking me to sing and sing and sing. They wanted me to sing in English and in French and then they wanted to know if I'd ever met J.Lo.

And then they asked if I'm a boy or a girl, if I'm married, and if I have kids.

Gotta love 'em!

Here's what I taught yesterday (drum roll, please):

the alphabet!
I taught it five different times!
I never want to hear the alphabet song EVER again!

I also taught the sounds "h" "m" "n" "r" and "th"
Tryin' to make it fun, I told them that "r" is like the "aaaaargh" a pirate makes like Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean" - that went over well :) "Th" is fun because the kids get to stick out their langues to make the sound. A lot of them have lost their two front teeth so I think the "th" sound is even harder. So there was a lot of spitting, which all the kids enjoyed.
The "h" has become a classic/favorite in all of my classes because I have them pant like dogs. Comme les chiens. I'm sure their parents would be so proud.

Did I get beyond the alphabet? Not really. Well we did 'pant' to say "Hello" and "Happy Halloween," but, other than that, no. So far we've done a little self-presentation but that's about it. Next week is "Halloween" week ("No, kids, not Appy Alloween! Happy Halloween!") so hopefully I'll be able to bring in lots of fun vocabulary that they will (maybe?) retain and we'll have a ton of fun.

And I might bring in a CD of High School Musical so we can all sing "We're All in this Together." Ain't nothin' like American pop songs to get my kiddies going!

Avignon is drunk

2007-10-14T01:29:00.001+02:00

I think that France just lost the giant Rugby World Cup to good ol' l'Angleterre so the French are pissed in every sense of the word - angry and drunk like whoa. Avignon est torchée ! Haha.

I have almost finished my first five-day weekend. I gotta tell you, folks, I'm not sure if I'll want to return to the States after having experienced the reverse of the average person's work week - two days on, five days off. It's been pretty incredible. I've cooked myself amazing food (look, Mom, veggies!) and I've hung out with awesome people and I've chilled myself out like whoa. Unfortunately all this chillin' has coincided with (and caused) procrastination of a new degree (unlike that time I wrote the 10 page paper the night before it was due with Jenna and I curled up on the floor of East Quad's ResComp trying to come up with thesis statements at 2 am) to which now I must own up tomorrow. Because tomorrow is Sunday. And on Monday I teach seven classes, I'm prepared for none, and I can't, for the life of me, remember at which levels all my students are. So tomorrow is the "take a deep breath and pray that you do it right" kind of planning day. Tomorrow also marks the 'week before my birthday' talk that I like to do every year. Look, Heath, only a week till our birthday!

On this here Saturday the 13, 2007, I spoke a ton of French. "Emily, you live in France - no duh." Ah, thank you. However, let me say that it's far too easy not to speak French here because I live with an anglophone, I don't really have to leave my house five days out of the week (again - I must repeat that I have a five day vacation chaque semaine), and I hang out with American/English assistants.

J'aime "le petit gout" en France. It means I get to eat whenever I want. I mean... "whenever I want."