First Riding Lesson and Some Pastries

Hello all! Yesterday (Friday) afternoon was my first riding lesson at Les Ecuries de Chateau-Galland! It was a very nice day outside: probably about 55 degrees and sunny, but with lots of wind. In the morning I taught three classes, which all went fairly well. The best so far has still been Magali's CM2s. I'm teaching another CM2 class on Monday (their English lessons will be Mondays and Tuesdays, which is why I didn't have them this week), and I'm hoping they will be just as attentive and fun to teach as Magali's class. At this point I'm planning to do one curriculum for the CM2s, and another curriculum for everyone else. But we'll see how lesson #2 (a review of "What's your name?" and learning the numbers) goes.

So around 1:45pm I boarded the #6 bus in the direction of Tilleroyes. It took about 35 minutes in the bus, plus a 10 minute walk to get to the barn. When I got there Beatrice (the daughter of Marie, the directrice) was putting a bridle on a 6-year old they had just purchased at a stock sale of a Hanovarian farm. The mare has never been ridden before, and as of yesterday they were just working on voice signals (whoa, walk, trot, canter, etc) on a lunge line (for those of you who don't speak horse, this is a long "leash" usually made of fabric or nylon that the rider or trainer holds as the horse moves around them in a circle). Upon my arrival Marie noted that I was taller than she remembered, and that the "horse" (my quotes, not hers) Beatrice had assigned to me was probably going to be too small. She didn't change my mount though: I rode a pony (yes, a pony) named Quenotte. His name is a familiar term for a baby tooth, which I assume comes from his white (technically gray) coat. Quenotte is a Connemara, and a large pony, but still greatly resembled Jeremiah Bullfrog, the very first pony I ever rode in a horse show .... at age 6.5.

So you can imagine this lesson was not the most pleasant riding experience of my life. I have ridden worse ponies before, but I have also definitely ridden better. I can say one thing, it was easy to get on! I assume they assigned me the bombproof pony because they had never seen me ride before and wanted to play it safe. Despite the mismatch, I got to jump with the others (just a cross-rail with a vertical behind it, it couldn't have been more than 2-2.5 feet tall). There were two other people in my lesson: a man named Cedric and a woman named Emmanuel. We spent a lot of time in equilibre (two-point), which was sort of rough on my quads/thighs. I was already sore last night during Ultimate practice.

I had a really hard time understanding what Beatrice was asking us to do, and the heavy wind only made it harder to hear. I tried to follow what the other two were doing, and if I really wasn't getting it, Beatrice would mime what I was supposed to do. There is so much equestrian-specific vocabulary for me to learn; it's really intimidating. And a little frustrating too, because I come off as incompetent or uninformed in an area where I really do have a lot of experience. But everyone was very patient and Beatrice seemed pleased with my equitation. It seems like they carry their hands much further back than we do in American hunter-jumpers, because she kept telling me to put mine down and back. And I learned the term for "heels down!": baissez les talons! 

At my request, Marie loaned me a horsemanship book for beginners so I could learn all of the vocabulary. Steph and Charly were teasing me about it last night because most of the words are fairly common; but I think it will be really helpful for me, because I didn't even know the word for saddle!

So now for the food. Last Friday when Charly got back from Bordeaux he brought back with him six little cannelés, a Bordelais specialty. The cake itself is moist and slightly spongy and is flavored with cinnamon, vanilla, and rum. Charly bought them the day before he left (and the trip took a whole day), so he claimed these weren't as good as they would be fresh, but I thought they were pretty tasty:

Yesterday after my lesson I stopped at a boulangerie and picked up some multi-grain bread and two tiny pastries. This bakery, Le Moulin des Pains, was recommended to me by Gaël, one of the guys from the Ultimate team. It's one of the 3-4 bakeries near my apartment, and I asked him which of those is the best (he also lives nearby). I was pleased with his recommendation -- the multi-grain bread was quite good, and slightly less expensive than some of the others I've tried (although the loaf was pretty small). Anyway, I thought you might appreciate some photos:

These are the two mini-pastries, a Paris-Brest and a lemon tart. I had never heard of a Paris-Brest before and discovered it's sort of like a re-arranged eclair: the same eclair pastry and filling, but shaped more like an Orea. Lemon tarts happen to be one of my very favorite pastries, but the miniature format of this one meant that the ratio of crust-to-lemon filling was off: too much crust and not enough filling. Too bad!

Close-up of the Paris-Brest: it had both chocolate and regular cream filling, yum. 

And the multi-grain bread. I'm going to try their cornmeal bread next time, Moulin des Pains is the only one I've seen which advertises it. 

Now I'm off to make the long bus ride on the #1 to Chateaufarine, the grandes surfaces center (for us, those shopping plazas with Sam's, Best Buy, Rack Room Shoes, etc). I'm going to Casino Geant to try and find oatmeal and look at the prices for things like a hairdryer. I'm almost finished with Au Bonheur du Dammes and I'm definitely going to read it on the bus. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

First Day of Teaching!!

So today was my first day "intervening" in the classes (that's a literal translation of the French word for what I'm doing), and it was a success! I taught four different classes, two at Ecole Champagne in the morning and then two in the afternoon at Ecole Bourgogne. Normally I would have three at Ecole Bourgogne but one class was on a field trip to the library. I'm glad I got a bit of a break -- four classes was enough for one day.

The first one was definitely the hardest. It's a class of CP/CE2 (I've mentioned it earlier, it's a mix of 1st graders and 3rd graders) and their level of English was pretty much nonexistent. I knew that it was going to be harder to teach the littler ones, but I think I'm going to have to go even slower than I expected. After today, I'm planning on sticking just to sing-alongs. I found that teaching "what's your name...?," "my name is ______," and "your name is _______" can be incredibly difficult if you don't take great care distinguish, beyond just intonation, between which is the question and which is the response (something I was careful to do in the following three classes). We sang the alphabet song quite a few times, and will probably do so again many times before moving onto something else.

But despite the slightly rocky start, the next three classes went really well. The best was undoubtedly Magali's CM2s (5th grade). Of course it helps that all of them had some foundation in English, so distinguishing between "What's your name?" and "My name is _________" was a lot easier. And this class was particularly attentive and eager to learn. After an introduction to the question and response, I presented them with flashcards with people or characters I thought they would recognize -- Spiderman, Dora the Explorer, Spongebob Squarepants, President Sarkozy, President Obama. The first three I picked based on what I had seen on their t-shirts, bookbags, and pencil cases while I was observing. I also added the two presidents and some other characters like Asterix and Obelix, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and Santa Claus. Next we moved on to a chant. 

The chant came from a book authored by Carolyn Graham, who apparently is famous in the pedagogical world for creating a serious of language-learning tools based on songs and chants. After today I could see why she's famous, the "Hank/Frank" chant I used worked really well and seemed to help the kids both understand the vocabulary it introduced (some American names and the words bank, hill, bike, candy) and some practice with asking each other their names (each kid received a piece of paper with a name on it, they had to find a partner whose name rhymed with his or her name -- as in Jill/Phil, Hank/Frank, etc). Then, after reviewing the alphabet, we played Hangman using the names and vocabulary in the chant. And, at another teacher's suggestion, I wrapped up each session by asking the students to summarize what we had learned that day (in French).

I repeated essentially the same lesson for the next two classes, although I omitted the Hank/Frank game for Myriam's CE1 class (2nd grade) because it seemed too complicated. The game didn't work quite as well for Michele's CM1 class, and I'm not sure if it's because there were more of them (25 versus 21), or because they were younger, or because they were generally less attentive. I'll know more after a few more classes, I think.

So I arrived at school at 9:20am or so to make some photocopies and do final preparations for my lesson, and I didn't end up leaving until nearly 5pm because the last class (Myrian's CE1s) were celebrating a birthday! One of the little girls turned 9 today and her mom brought in a magnificent cake decked out in bright pink frosting and glitter, and topped with fruit-shaped candies. We had a little party in the préau (the term for the big open interior space in an elementary school where the kids have recess if the weather is really bad and is sometimes used for the kinds of games we would play in gym class at home). We sang Happy Birthday in five languages (all of us sang in French and English, then another student sang it in German, and another in Persian, and another in Jamaican Patois) and ate the cake with Orangina and orange soda to drink.

So although technically I was only teaching for 2 2/3 hours today (the class with the littlest ones was only 25 minutes instead of the typical 45 minutes), I actually spent 7 hours at the school. And usually I won't have to stay that late, but ithe job will definitely entail more than 12 hours per week. The two-hour lunch break in the middle puts sort of a dent in things, because from door-to-door my commute is about 40 minutes, too long to merit the trip home and back. But it's nice to eat lunch at school, because I get to chat with the other instituts (short for instituteurs, which means teachers). So far I've only been eating at Ecole Champagne, because I'm there in the mornings and put my lunch in the refrigerator there when I arrive. But I think I'm going to split the lunches with Ecole Bourgogne, because I want to get to know the teachers there too. At Bourgogne, most of the teachers gather in the salle des maîtres during the afternoon recess for coffee or tea and a quick treat, if someone brought something to share. But I'd like to get to know them a little more beyond those 15-20 minutes. One of the teachers at Bourgogne invited me to a dinner for all of the teachers the Friday of the Toussaint vacation (a week from tomorrow). And a professor at Champagne invited me over for dinner at her house next Tuesday. I've been really lucky to encounter so many friendly people here!

Two more brief but exciting things: 1) Today I got an email regarding the flyers I put up offering English tutoring! The process was a bit of an ordeal, because once I figured out the standard size/format and had the flyers printed up, I got a new phone number (I'm finally on the monthly plan) and had to have them all reprinted. At home it wouldn't be a big deal, but since I have to go to the CRIJ (regional youth center) in the c-v (only about a 15 minute walk from my apartment, but still), during their business hours, it took a bit longer. But I spent quite a bit of time Wednesday afternoon walking around and asking local merchants if I could put up my petit pub (advertisement) in their window or by the cash register (a fairly common practice). I distributed about a dozen to a few bakeries, two tabacs (sort of like a newspaper stand, but a store and with cigarettes too), a fish merchant, a florist, a cafe, and the local supermarket. I also hung them up in the Fac des lettres (Arts and Sciences College in the c-v) on the notice boards there. But even though I distributed so many, I was still uncertain as to whether I'd get any responses... so it's nice to have even one!

2) Both yesterday and today I went for 45-minute runs, which represents a serious improvement in my fitness level from when I first arrived. At Claire's suggestion, I researched the marathon schedule in Europe and found quite a few in France in March and April. So I've drawn up a workout schedule and am hoping to be ready by that time, despite the much-dreaded cold/snow. And it's definitely been easier to run the past few weeks when I wasn't really teaching yet. But hopefully I'll be able to keep it up.

That's all for now!

Rain, Cold, and, of course, Ultimate

Yes, indeed, the warm weather and sunshine is gone. The transformation took place overnight: I went to bed Thursday after yet another day of 80-ish degrees and bright sunshine, and woke up to 40 degrees and rain. Yuck! And it's been like that ever since. I think it's supposed to get at least a little warmer tomorrow (hopefully we didn't skip fall entirely), but the skirts-and-t-shirts phase is definitely over. Boo!

But the bad weather didn't stop my weekend plans: Friday night was the annual UC-Vesontio team elections / team meeting. This meeting was both to elect new leadership and to act as a formal start of the new year: the first half of which consists of the indoor league through January and the second half of which consists of the outdoor league, which ends in April/May. It was held in the Besançon Sport Nautique club (rowing, canoeing, kayaking, swimming) club house, which is conveniently very close to where I live. We were all instructed to bring some munchies and/or beverages to share for the socializing part after. I figured the fare would be the chips/pretzels/popcorn variety, so I ate dinner before the meeting at 8pm. I'm both glad and sorry I did so -- the "meeting" part itself lasted nearly 2 hours!!

Now, in the past I have sat through some long team elections (any Ruckus player reading this will know what I'm talking about), but in this case it wasn't even the elections part that took long! It was the summary / vision for the future bit that went on forever. But once that was over (and I was pleased that I understood everything that was said), we had a feast! There was in fact one bag of chips, but besides that there were sausages, four kinds of cheese -- two types each of Conté and Concoillotte (all local, all in massive quantities), many many baguettes, lots of loaves of what looked like banana or zucchini bread but was savory rather than sweet, biscuits, mini cream puffs, three kinds of chocolate cake, even homemade M&M cookies! And of course, local wine and Belgian beer in serious quantities. What started as sort of a tedious meeting turned into a really excellent social evening!

Saturday afternoon Candice and I took a bus to Ornans to see the recently-renovated and now quite fancy Gustave Courbet museum. Courbet, the 19th century painter, became famous for a number of reasons: his realistic style, the "real life" scenes he painted on a scale previously used only for religious or historical scenes, his scandalous The Origin of the World (Google Image at your own peril). But he came from humble little Ornans, a village on the Loue river about a 30-minute bus ride south-east of Besançon. The museum is small but state-of-the-art; I was quite impressed.

Here's a cool example: an early Courbet portrait, with a picture of the screen that was displayed next to it. Many of his paintings have darkened due to age (he started with a foundation of black covering the entire canvas and the chemicals in that paint have started to seep through the color he painted on top). So, for a few of the paintings, the museum curators used intense back-light to recreate the original colors, took pictures of the painting, then displayed those pictures on the video screen next to it, along with a brief description of why that section is interesting.

Unfortunately all of Courbet's really famous paintings are in much bigger museums: the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, the Musee de Beaux Arts in Lyon, etc. But it was cool to see such a broad sampling of his work, and to get a fuller sense of the cultural changes that were going on at the time and why his art was provocative. It's a shame that the weather was so yucky on Saturday, because Ornans is an adorable little village and the scenery is breath-taking, even in the chilly drizzle.

Even more unfortunately, almost every single shop and restaurant in the town was closed. And since the only bus back to Besançon wasn't coming until 7:35pm (we got there around 1:30pm), we had to spend 3 hours reading the newspaper in the only brasserie which was open. So what started off as a fun adventure turned into sort of a long afternoon/evening. But I'm glad we did it!

And then on Sunday, up early for a one-day Ultimate tournament in Vesoul. Until Friday evening I wasn't planning to go to the tournament (I'm a little worried that my life in France is turning into nothing but Frisbee...), but during the team soirée I was convinced. It was then too that I found out that the Discjontes, the team I played with in Dijon, would be there. It was so cool (and really bizarre) to see them again! Pretty much everyone I played with is still there, and they looked exactly the same. I guess 2 years isn't a long time....

So this tournament was indoor, which resembles outdoor Ultimate even less than you would think. The most basic difference is that everything is truncated: 5 players on each side versus 7, shorter field, shorter stall count (8 seconds instead of 10). But even more than that, there are no natural elements to get in the way of really absurd passes. One team consistently threw straight blades (not even hammers, these were more like knives); that sort of thing would never work with even the slightest breeze. But, seeing as it was again 40 degrees and raining, indoors turned out to be sort of a good idea.

Vesoul is about a 45-minute drive north of Besançon. We took two teams: les vieux (the veterans, literally, the old people) et les jeunes (those who haven't been around since the club was founded 5 years ago). I played with the jeunes, obviously, and our team included two guys who just started playing Ultimate around the time I arrived in Besançon. Luckily we also had Gael, Thomas and GuiGui (Jean-Guillaume), who are very athletic and good handlers. Our combination of youth and skill managed to beat out age and treachery: not only did we win our pool, but we beat les vieux on universe point in the semi-final. It was pretty exciting, we were down 5-8 and came back to win 9-8. And although I had a couple of bad throws / drops, overall I was really pleased with how I played. We played five games, each about 25 minutes long. In between our matches we cheered on les vieux. There were 11 teams total, all local to the region. Apparently lots of the players on our team are good friends with the team from Strasbourg, and both Besançon teams lost to Pontarlier, the tournament champions. They play exclusively indoor, and it was they who threw all of those blades.

The atmosphere at the tournament was really convivial -- it's more of a local event than a serious tournament. I certainly found it to be more casual than any tournament I've been to in the U.S. And the food was a lot better too! Never have I ever eaten so well at any Ultimate tournament (and it wasn't expensive either). We went out for dinner as a team after, so it turned into a really long day (7am to 11:30pm), but it was a great one. I'm so glad that I went!

So that's all of the news, except for one more thing:


I have finalized my plans for the Toussaint holiday! I know, I know, I haven't really done any work yet, let alone enough to merit a vacation -- but it's the public school system's schedule, and if they want to give me a vacation, so be it. As of about a week ago I was planning to do a little tour of the south of France with Grace and Mary-Kate, two other Wake grads who are also assistants in France (Grace is in a tiny town outside of Tours and Mary-Kate is in Lyon). But the logistics were too complicated, so I looked into other options. And fortunately Brooke has gotten all settled in with her family (she's going to be an au pair in Vienna for a year) and was eager to have me come visit. So I'm going to Vienna, by way of Lyon! I'll leave Saturday morning, spend the weekend with Mary-Kate and get to see Lyon (one of the major cities in France after Paris, and I've never been there), then on Monday evening I'm taking a flight to Vienna, where I'll be staying with Brooke until the following Monday morning! If all goes according to plan I'll be back in Besançon by that Monday night and have all of Tuesday and Wednesday to get organized before school recommences on Thursday!

At first it did seem a little silly to go to Vienna, considering I have been there before and there are so many other places in Europe I haven't been yet. But since Brooke has been there now for about 6 months total (2ish in the summer of 2010 and 4ish this past summer), she's become sort of an expert on the city. And between a cheap flight, free lodging, and the chance to catch up with a good friend, it just seemed like the right choice. And by flying through Lyon rather than Paris, I'll get to see another friend, and a new city! I'm quite excited about it all. Bed time now!