Two Cups of Coffee and Two Glasses of Wine

For those of you who find this blog entry title disconcerting (probably my parents), I am happy to assure you that I have not become a caffeine addict nor a wine-o (although I guess I probably wouldn't admit it if I had). But nonetheless, this blog title comes from the two very interesting conversations I had recently: one yesterday afternoon and the other evening.

Yesterday was Wednesday and as I "work" (I put it in quotes because I don't actually start teaching until next Thursday, so it still doesn't feel like real work yet) in the elementary school system, I have Wednesdays off. So I woke up bright and early to go to the CAF (Caisse des Allocations Familiales -- the bureau which offers reimbursements to young workers who don't get paid very much, like me) to pick up some forms. Then I made some serious progress in Au Bonheur des Dammes -- only 95 pages to go, out of the original 495! I had just made some lunch when I got a phone call from my downstairs neighbor.

A little backstory: last week I wrote a letter to each of the two families who live on the bottom two floors. Steph and Charly told me that they both have kids and that the English teaching assistant who lived with them last year, Anna, would babysit for these kids occasionally. Having your babysitting job in the same building seems like a pretty sweet deal to me, so I dropped a note in each of their mailboxes explaining who I was, how long I would be here, and that I would be more than willing to babysit. I ran into the first-floor neighbor last Saturday and he told me that his family doesn't use babysitters very often -- no luck there. So it was Mr. Oldendorf, whose family lives on the second floor, who called yesterday to say that they would love to have me babysit occasionally for their two daughters and invited me down for a cup of coffee. Since I happened to be in the building and didn't have any other plans, I accepted. Mr. Oldendorf is German, but his wife Corinne is French. Their two daughters (the one who was home yesterday appeared to be about 6 and was very shy, and the other is apparently 11) speak both French and German. He is an artist/professor at the art school at the university here and she works for the French ministry of culture.

Mr. Oldendorf brewed us both a cup of very strong but very delicious coffee and we talked for quite a while about Besançon, Bern (the area where he grew up), and Paris. Then his daughter's friend came over for a playdate, so he brewed some more coffee for the playdate's father, and it turned into quite an extensive conversation about the United States, 9/11, and many other things. Afterward, I reflected upon whether this conversation could have taken place in another context. For instance, was the interaction only interesting because it involved two (later three) people from two (later three) different countries who were interested to hear the opinions of someone from another country? For instance, even if I was the "new neighbor" at home, another American would probably be less inclined to ask how I felt the US had changed in the aftermath of September 11th. I am positive that my sending the letter offering to babysit was what prompted the invitation for coffee -- otherwise I might have gone the whole 8 months here never meeting or having a real conversation with my neighbors. Maybe part of it too is that this conversation took longer because it involved translation -- Mr. Oldendorf speaks fluent German and French and his English is fairly fluent (I would probably classify it as fluent, even if there were a few words he asked me to explain or define). My French is certainly fluent by American standards, but not quite there when compared to the speech of a local. Or maybe it's because I'm not yet incredibly busy, the way I often become when I'm at home or when I was at Wake. It made me wonder if I ever missed out on conversations like this, because I was zealous in filling my schedule with activities...

And now for the two glasses of wine. So Charly, the second half of the couple with whom I share this apartment, has been in Bordeaux for the past week. He is working on his PhD in archeology and part of his thesis research involves analyzing soil cores from Greenland. Apparently there are some scientific devices at the university in Bordeaux which they don't have here in Besançon, because he had to drive some of the cores there this week to analyze them using said equipment. I noticed earier this week that Steph hasn't been cooking as much as she normally does when he's home, so I offered to cook dinner for the two of us tonight.

The entree itself was pretty simple: peppers stuffed with a combination of rice, chickpeas, tomatoes, onions, and cheese. But along with that we had a simple salad, some whole-grain bread from a local boulangerie, a bottle of Pinot Noir from Bourgogne, and for dessert some chocolat noir noisette (dark chocolate with hazelnuts) made by Cote d'Or, a brand which is available in the grocery store but which I selected at random my second week here and found to be absolutely delicious. The stuffed peppers turned out to be quite good -- I made quite a few substitutions and sort of guessed for the measurements, since it was an American recipe, so I was particularly pleased that they worked out. This picture doesn't quite do the meal justice... I took it somewhat hastily, I promise it was much more appetizing than it appears here:

But the best part of the evening was the conversation. I didn't really note what time we started eating... it was probably about 8:30pm (I got back from observing in the schools around 5:45pm after running a few quick errands on the way home, went for a run, showered, then started cooking). But we didn't finish until nearly 11:45pm! We didn't talk about anything earth-shattering, but all sorts of things both banal and personal. It was very pleasant to take the whole evening preparing dinner and enjoying the meal -- I wasn't wearing a watch and had no reason to consult the time outside of cooking times. I know that my schedule will not always be this free-form, and so I'm glad the Type A that dominates my personality was able to take a backseat tonight, even if it was just for an evening.

Well now it's well past my bedtime! Bon soir!

First Day in the Schools

So yesterday was my first day observing in the schools. I woke up bright and early so that I could catch the #10 bus before 7:30am, to guarantee I would be at Ecole Champagne in Planoise before 8:15am. Classes start at 8:30am, but I wanted to make sure that I got there early so I could meet some of the other teachers and figure out which classes I would be observing.

Waking up that early was a bit of a jolt, to be honest. I've been waking up around 8:15am for the past 2 weeks, because that's the time sunlight comes streaming through my window and floods the room with light. And the #10 was packed. But it only took 22 minutes from my stop to the one in Planoise, and less than ten minutes to walk to the school. I went first to the Directeur's office and he showed me to the salle de maîtres (teachers' lounge). I got to meet most of the teachers (about 10 in total, 8 of them women and mostly of the same height and with brown hair -- remembering their names is going to be an issue). I was surprised at how young the teachers were -- all of them seemed only a few years older than me, at most. Maybe this is because Planoise is seen as sort of a "difficult" area, so veteran teachers move on to schools in more desirable neighborhoods? At 8:30am the teachers went out into the cour (schoolyard) and collected their students, who were lined up by class. First I shadowed Caroline, the English referent (point person) for Ecole Champagne. Her class consists of twenty-two CP students. CP is the equivalent of first grade in the US (six year-olds).

Here's the terminology:

1st grade, 6 years old   ==> Cours préparatoire (CP)
2nd grade, 7 years old ==> Cours élémentaire 1re année (CE1)
3rd grade, 8 years old ==> Cours élémentaire 2e année (CE2)
4th grade, 9 years old ==> Cours moyen 1re année (CM1)
5th grade, 10 years old == Cours moyen 2e année (CM2)

Twenty-two students doesn't sound like a lot for someone coming from the context of college seminars. But twenty-two 6 year-olds? Yikes! After only 15 minutes I started to get a headache just from all of the constant motion coming from the little bodies in my field of vision. Caroline wasn't teaching any English on Monday morning -- she told me they reserve the mornings for the core subjects of French and Math -- but it was helpful to see how she conducted the class. I will be assisting in one class at Ecole Champagne which has CP students in it. It's actually a class of CP and CPE (6 and 8-year olds together). Fabienne, my liaison, explained that this is due to budget/hiring cuts, but I'm still not sure why they would put kids two grades apart together. I'm definitely going to request to observe that class when I go in on Thursday.

I spent all morning at Ecole Champagne and ate lunch with the teachers there, then walked over to Ecole Bourgogne. The walk took about 10 minutes -- I'm positive there is a faster way than the one I took, but I didn't want to get lost on my first day and the way I took followed a main road/sidewalk.

At Ecole Bourgogne I followed a teacher named Annette who speaks very fluent British English. I was able to observe her CM2 class for their English lesson, than another CM2 class Annette instructed (while her class was learning German), and then Annette's class again during their history/writing class. I found the CM2 kids to be much more manageable. Maybe that's not the right word -- but the teacher's role in those classes seemed less like babysitting and more like teaching. The two classes were both full (22 kids in each) of exuberant, eager little ones. They were awkstruck when Annette told them that I came from the US. At the beginning of the history/writing lesson, she let her class ask me some questions about myself and the United States. Here were some of the memorable ones:

• Do you know any famous "pop stars"? (in quotes because that's the term the girl used in French)
• Do you know President Obama?
• Have you ever stayed in the White House?
• Do you know David Guetta?
• Were you there on September 11th when the twin towers (les tours jumelles) fell?
• Do you really use dollars and not euros?

There were a couple of other ones like: "Was your school like ours?" and "Where do you live?" For this last question, I whipped out the quick sketch of the US that I made when the teachers at Ecole Champagne asked where Ohio is located. I labeled my horribly-inaccurate sketch with the places I thought they might recognize: NYC, California, and Texas. I also added North Carolina, so I could show them where I went to college. Here's my sketch, just to give you a few laughs (yes, note that Texas's border problem is a fiction as it does not share a border with Mexico):

Also, when I named my home state, quite a few teachers immediately referenced a relatively famous French song whose title is the same name. Isabelle Adjani, a French actress from the 1970s, sang "Ohio" (click to hear it on YouTube). I remember Sabrina and Yohan, the French ex-pat couple who helped me out when I was stranded in Casablanca three summers ago, told me this too, but at the time I was too weary to process it. Other French people have mentioned it to me again since, but this was the first time I wrote down the singer's name.

So overall my first day of observing was highly successful. The teachers were very welcoming, and seemed to lead their classes effectively. One thing that struck me was how long it took to get the students from one place to another: walking from the schoolyard to the classroom took forever because the kids were perpetually wandering out of line and talking too loudly. Despite being in what people keep referring to as a "difficult area," the schools seemed to be well-equipped and well-maintained.

Another word on that: I feel like my blogs haven't done Planoise justice. Yes, it's a neighborhood consisting of high-rise, low-cost apartment buildings built in the 1960s and 1970s for new immigrants. The apartment buildings' architecture reflects their vintage (that is to say, they are ugly). But the area, at least the part I'm in, doesn't seem anything like what I would consider a "rough neighborhood." Maybe it's because there are trees everywhere. Despite all of the buildings, Planoise is just as verdant as the rest of Besançon, maybe even more because it's more spread out than the c-v. It's hard to tell to what extent Planoise's reputation comes from general French phobia of foreigners, particularly those from its former colonies.... But I'll let you know as I spend time there regularly!

Today was our stage d'accueil (orientation), tomorrow no school, then observing again on Thursday. Friday I have a journée pédagogique (teachers' workshop). Last night I went to another Ultimate practice and tomorrow night I'm playing in a mini-tournament at the university! That's all for now!

Une Journee Chez La Famille Coudel

Whew, this has been quite the weekend!

Friday evening I had my second UC Visontin practice (the name of the Ultimate team). My arrival at the practice was complicated by the fact that the car belonging to Fred, my ride, broke down right after he arrived around the corner from my apartment. We had to call the team captains and they brought a handful of people to help push the car into an actual parking space. As of this evening the car was still there (I think Fred said his mechanic doesn't work on the weekends). But we got there eventually! This practice is inside a gym. In Europe, there are two seasons of Ultimate: indoor and outdoor. Personally I don't really like playing inside, but I guess winter is so cold and so long that most parts of Europe wouldn't get to play without an indoor league.

After practice about half of the team (we were only 15 or so on Friday evening, but you play 5 v. 5 indoor) went to a bar/brasserie. Someone explained to me that there are really only 2 big bars in the c-v, so whenever they go out it's to one of those. Luckily both are only a short walk from where I live. The special of the night was Maredsous 10, a Belgian beer which is sweet but also very strong. One was plenty! I had a great time though -- it was good to see that I could hang out and chat easily with people from the team outside of playing Ultimate (where there is a lot less talking required).

Then Saturday was the big apple festival at the Coudel's (see blog title: "A Day at the Coudel's")! I arrived in Leisle around noon and, a bit to my chagrin, they were already well into the process. Apparently they picked most of the apples on Friday and started pressing them very early on Saturday morning. So while I got to participate for about 2 hours, that was only a small percentage of the total. Here are some pictures:

Adding apples to the slicing/mashing component. To me the apple-mashing machine appeared to be identical to the machine the Davey Tree people use to cut up branches that fall in the street, just smaller.

Diced/mashed apple bits spurting out into the tubs below:

The pressing element: you heap handfuls of the mashed apples into a mold, lay a piece of cheese-cloth on top, then add another layer. The metal bar at the top has a winch attached, so that the bar descends and presses the apple bits down tightly, extracting all of the juice:  

Turning the winch below. The cheese cloth is brown, which is why you can't see the layers of mashed apples:

And the juice flows into the waiting buckets: 

 

And then the contents of the bucket are poured into these:

So my contribution was to work on the team checking the apples for rotten spots, and cutting them open if they appeared to have any flaws. I got to chat with some of the other people there: most of them were friends of Jeremy (the Coudels' oldest son), either people he met in high school/college or people he works with now. Most of them were about my age, maybe a little older.

Then around 3pm we went back to the house (this whole process was taking place in the yard and barn of a house-turned-hostel on the other side of the village) for a giant meal. 19 people necessitated two tables, and we had a sumptuous meal including a salad of beets, endives, apples, and pine nuts, then a lamb, apricot, and fig tajine over couscous, then the requisite cheese, bread, coffee, and cake.

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon just lazing around the house, chatting, playing games, reading. A little later some people went back to start pasteurizing the juice (all but a few of the 400 bottles would be pasteurized so that they could be drunk throughout the year, not just in the next two weeks). The pasteurizing process really only required three people, so we couldn't all work there at once, but I got to see it before I left (it just meant heating the apple juice, small barrels at a time, to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time).

I took a train back to Besançon a little before 7pm and turned in early. Then this morning I went to a service at the Église Reformée de Besançon (a protestant church). It's in the c-v, right by art museum in the Place de la Republique. It's a really neat chapel: probably about the same size as my church at home's sanctuary (without the balcony), but made of stone with vaulted ceilings. I'll have to find out more, but I bet the chapel itself was once a Catholic church.

I was really surprised by how many young people there were there! I went to church once in Dijon and was wholly unimpressed by how dingy the space was and how cryptic the service seemed to be (although possibly it was my own shortcomings in comprehension that made it so). There were probably 45-50 people there this morning and the majority appeared to be under 40 years old. This is certainly unusual for churches in France, at least based on everything I've ever heard. We sang probably 8-9 hymns throughout the service -- they were much shorter than hymns I've sung at services in the US. At home I've often thought the hymns have too many verses, but today I saw the value in having 4-5 versus instead of 2-3. It takes about two for the congregation to get a hang of the rhythm, and with these hymns they were over before we really ever sang them in unison. The sermon was on the victory at Jericho (Joshua 6) and how the "peaceful" victory can be a metaphor for approaching the problems we encounter in our own lives. Don't ask me to go any further into detail than that, not only did I have a bit of trouble following the sermon, but there was a baby two rows behind me that squawked intermittently throughout the service (they did invite the children to go to Sunday school but either that's not available for infants or these parents didn't want to go that route, because the crying definitely lasted the whole service). Despite the small-child wailing, I really enjoyed the service and will definitely go back again.

After church, I spent about 2 hours reading Au Bonheur des Dammes in Parc Micaud (I posted pictures of it in an earlier entry, it's the one right by the banks of the Doubs). I really like that park a lot!

Then at 3pm I met up with Candice and Laurie, two other assistants who are living together, at the Musee du Temps (Museum of Time) for a tour of the Palais de Granvelle, the building in which the museum is located. It was the "palace" (I put it in quotes because it's closer to my idea of a French chateau than a palace) of Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle who became an advisor for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth. The palais is remarkable because it was built in 1534 and reflects a style of architecture which was then unknown in the region. Nicolas Perrenot traveled extensively on behalf of Charles Quint, including to Spain and Italy, where he saw the new styles of architecture and art which would come to be known as the Renaissance period. 

His palais is an adoption of those styles, with some modifications to make it work in Franche-Compte (the region where Besançon is located). For instance, it has severely angled roofs, to help channel the snow and rain which fall regularly. You can see too that the roof tiles were done in the toit bourguignon style (the patterned roof tiles which are commonly found in Bourgogne, the name of the region where Dijon is located). I'm sure that the roof tiles are more recent than 1534, but they're still cool. You can see from these pictures (to the left and right of this paragraph) that the attempt at Renaissance-inspired symmetrical design didn't last very long -- look at the photo on the left and follow the lines up from the columns on the ground floor to the inset columns on the floor above. Now look at the picture on the right -- oops! In fact none of the four "corners" of the building are set at right angles either, because of flaws in the execution of the design or because the foundations shifted after the building was constructed. The visite (tour) was really informative. It blows my mind that this structure has been in Besançon for nearly 500 years! 


After the tour we went up to the tower and I got to take some cool pictures of the city:

St. Jean's Cathedral! (and the construction cranes for the Citadel):

Looking down Grande Rue ("Big Street," or Main Street), past the toit bourguignon roof of the Palais de Granvelle:

A closer look down the same street:

And then the afternoon/evening turned into a series of (unexpected) social occaisons: one with Janice, an American and former assistant who now lives in Besançon with her French husband and two kids (don't worry Mom and Dad, I will come back). Candice had arranged to meet with her just to hear her advice and suggestions, and Laurie and I ended up tagging along. Then after dinner I met up with Pierre, the guy I sat next to on the train from Paris to Besançon. He was home again this weekend and sent me a message earlier today asking if I'd like to meet him for coffee during the time between when he arrived in Besançon from Pontarlier (the town about an hour away where his family lives) and when his train left for Paris. Traffic delays on his way to Besançon meant that we only chatted briefly in the gare café, but it was kind of cool to see him again. It's weird to think that it's only been two weeks since I arrived; it feels like I have been here forever -- and at the same time like I moved in with Steph and Charly last night. Then, when I got back from the gare, Steph and Charly asked if I would like to join them in their Sunday evening beer. I keep forgetting to write down the name... they've invited me to join them once before and we had the same beer; it's definitely a German variety but I can't recall the name. We also had some of the apple cake Steph made this afternoon -- it was quite good! Charly leaves tomorrow for Bordeaux. He'll be there for a week using the lab equipment at the university to analyze his soil cores in other ways than he can here.

And now I am off to bed! I'm not even going to check the word count as I most certainly over 1200 works, but thanks for sticking it out to the end! Tomorrow is my "first day of school" (observing) and I'm very excited! Bonne nuit (goodnight)!

Aujourd'hui etait formidable

I figured if I'm not going to be keeping a separate French blog anymore, I might as well integrate more French into my English blog... This entry's title means "Today was great!"

Here are three reasons why:

1. I got to see the two schools where I will be teaching.
2. I had a really decadent (well, by my recent standards) lunch.
3. I found a barn / equestrian center where I will be able to ride!

So here are the details:

This morning I met with Fabienne, my liaison and she drove me to Planoise to introduce me to the principals at the two schools where I will be an assistant. We also met up with Nicola and Kirstie, two other assistants who will also be teaching in elementary schools in Planoise. They're both from England and as of this morning were both without housing.

When I arrived about a week and a half ago, it seemed a little silly to have gotten here so early. But now I am incredibly glad that I did. I ended up finding housing very quickly, but everyone else I have talked to has had a lot more trouble; either the housing they had arranged didn't turn out to be what they planned, or they didn't make any arrangements at all and now can't find anything. I feel both very lucky, and very glad that I got here early.

Anyway, the three of us plus Fabienne went on a little mini tour of Planoise, which is a fairly large neighborhood. It is full of high-rise apartment buildings, "slum" is way too harsh to describe the area, but "low-income housing" definitely fits. The streets are very confusing and I was having a hard time maintaining a sense of direction with the tall buildings. But Fabienne showed us exactly which bus stops we could use and how to get to each of our schools. Mine (Ecole Bourgogne and Ecole Champagne) are a 5-minute walk from each other. I'm going to take the bus there tomorrow morning to get an idea of how long it will take when I start on Monday. The principals at my two schools were very different: one was very friendly and organized, the other seemed a little disinterested. But the disinterested one works at a school where I was introduced to a very warm and friendly teacher who happens to speak very good English, so she can be my go-to person if I have a problem.

After Fabienne dropped us off in the c-v, I made a quick stop home to get some papers (this was in preparation for going to the phone store so I could start the monthly plan in October, but it turns out they need another form from the bank which will take a week -- I'm discovering it's always a week with the bank). It was on the walk home that I succumbed to temptation, in pastry form.

So far I have been very economical and very healthy -- I think the only meal I've had "out" was a salad I ate in a cafe my second full day here (plus the Indian food Steph and Charly treated me to last week). I haven't *gasp* had a single French pastry yet. So, I ducked into a patisserie on my way home and picked up a tartlette saumon et epinard (small quiche with salmon and spinach) and a chocolate eclair. Here's the photo:

Pretty yummy looking, huh? The best part of the day was yet to come though. After lunch I did a little research and figured out which bus line to take to get to the nearest centre equestre I found on the city website. It turns out that the barn itself is a bit of a walk from the bus stop (15-20 minutes), but I got there just fine. It's called Les Ecuries de Chateau Galland and they have quite an extensive facility. When I first walked up the main barn area and office was totally empty. The horses all looked healthy and well-kept, and I wandered a little bit trying to find someone who could give me more information. I made it all the way out to the area, where there were 5-6 people riding. There was a woman in the far paddock bringing in 3 horses, and when she approached I ascertained that she was the director.

After she explained all about the operation to me in her office, she showed me around and introduced me to some of the cavaliers (riders) and the horses. She was very friendly and down-to-earth and seemed willing to accomodate my particular situation (arriving a little after the "season" had started and leaving early). She said that the she has had other foreign riders before, and that in her experience the most difficult part for the Americans especially, is the difference in the style of riding, not in the lack of vocabulary. This could be problematic because I found myself a bit overwhelmed at how few horse-related words I knew in French. These words would come as easily as breathing in English, but I was totally nonplussed when Marie, the director, presented me with an item of tack or started elaborating on the lessons. She showed me a "Learn About Horses" book for young children which I might borrow -- it has all of the basic vocabulary that I'm seriously lacking.

So it looks like I'm going to be able to take lessons once per week for the rest of the time I'm here (except vacations)!! I'm going to ask my family to ship over my riding things so I can get started right away. The barn is sort of far away (25 minute bus ride + 15-20 minute walk), but Marie assured me that some of the others who ride during the Friday 3pm lesson slot live near the c-v and could give me a ride. She actually asked one of the cavaliers who was on their way out to give me a ride today, so I wouldn't have to walk/wait for the bus. Natalie, the woman who dropped me off near the gare, told me that she started riding at Chateau Galland when her daughter was taking lessons there. She said that Marie runs the barn very well and that she has always been pleased with it. I think riding there will be a great opportunity! Not just to ride, which of course would be enough, but Marie mentioned how the same riders come at the same time each week, and so they get to know each other well. I hadn't thought of this as a way to make French friends, but it might just work out that way!

Oh, and one more positive: I had yet another pleasant evening with Steph and Charly. It wasn't anything earth-shattering; we watched the news and a couple of other TV shows together, but we had fun laughing at the spoofs and they explained the linguistic jokes and puns which were a bit beyond my reach. My interaction with them has been very positive so far, and I hope it continues that way!

I hope your day was just as good! A bientôt! (until sometime soon)

Lots of Meandering and A Cool Clock

Hello all! So I didn't quite get to everything today... There were some organizational difficulties getting everyone to not Carrefour, but Casino Géant (which materially is the same thing, sort of the difference between Wal-mart and Meijer). Group shopping is never efficient, and with some people still uncertain about their living situation, decisiveness was not running high. But I did get the things I needed: a few toiletries, toilet paper (we're not out, but I wanted to demonstrate that I'll be providing my half of the communal supplies), and, most importantly, a pillow -- see pictures below. 

From this angle, the pillow enclosed in a purple case (the new one, plus new case) certainly looks brighter:

But it's really only from this angle that you get a full understanding of how excited I am to sleep on my new pillow tonight:

It seems comical now, but originally I was totally prepared to tough it out with the doubled-over psuedo-pillow. But after bringing home my new one, I'm convinced I made the right choice. 

In the afternoon we (a few other assistants and I) had planned to go to the citadel. Unfortunately, the logistics of everyone returning home with their shopping and meeting up again meant we would only have a few hours, which, from what I've heard, would not be enough time. So I offered to show them St. Jean's Cathedral. 

Luck was on our side here, because we arrived just in time to get a tour/explanation of the famous astrological clock located in the cathedral. Here are some of the pictures:

The clock dates from 1860 and has a fantastical number of complications. You can see from these pictures below how the figures (representing hope, faith and charity) were moving as the clock struck 3pm.

Compare these two pictures. Note that before 3pm, the Jesus figure in the top center is standing up with his arms outstretched. As part of the clock's movement at 3pm, the Jesus figure "descends to the grave," and two guards appear on either side (you can sort of see them coming forward in the pic on the right). Then at midnight he will "rise" again.

 

This is one of the many miniature clocks which line each side of the face; they record the time in various cities around the world. This one was labeled "Mexico/Amerique." The numbers in blue on the bottom indicate night-time.

This face records the date of Easter for this calendar year (obviously the year labels have been updated since 1860, but the mechanism itself has not).

These pictures (4 on each side of the clock, I believe) are bordered by dials which offer the time of the tides in the various cities. The really cool part is that the picture moves just like a storybook!

The back of the clock. Surprisingly not as complicated as I expected for something so enormous!

Our group wandering the streets behind the cathedral (Laurie, Candice, Gemma, and Sean). This was before we ran into two other assistants, Kirstie and Nicola, totally by coincidence.

We hiked part of the way up to the Citadel and I got to take some cool shots:

Graffiti is everywhere, unfortunately. It's such a shame to see such beautiful old structures marred by such thoughtless behavior.

This bee has bright blue wings! I thought it was unusual...

The view from my kitchen window. It's not terribly obvious, but you can see the WWII memorial in front of the gare in the middle of the picture, toward the back.

Tomorrow I'm meeting with my liaison to see the schools where I will be teaching. Wish me luck!

PS I have officially abandoned my attempt to keep up a translation of my blog in French. It was a worthy endeavor, but between this blog and my personal journal (which I am writing in French), I need to make sure I'm spending more time living here than recording my life here. Thanks to those of you who humored me for those few brief entries!

New Friends and a Walk in the Countryside

Today was another productive and enjoyable day, but my "run" this morning certainly wasn't the productive part. After the Ultimate practice last night my legs were pretty shot, there was a significant amount of walking during the 35 minutes I was gone this morning...

At 11am I met up with my liaison for the schools where I will be teaching (not to be confused with the advisor from the CIEP (Centre international d'etudes pedagogiques)). The liaison is responsible for the langues vivantes (modern languages) program at a number of schools in the city. The advisor is in charge of the logistics for the assistants (making sure we have places to stay, helping us figure out how to get around the city, etc). All of this is to say that this morning I got to find out more about my schedule and the kids I will be teaching from the woman who knows these things:

#1: No class on Wednesdays or Friday afternoons. Wednesdays because in France younger kids don't go to school on Wednesdays, and Friday afternoons because my liaison wanted me to have the option to take an earlier train if I was going somewhere for the weekend (very considerate).

#2 : Definitely will be teaching kids ages 6-10 years old, in two different schools. I'll be helping in 7 different classrooms, each two times per week, and two other classrooms each once per week. Each class lasts for 45 minutes.

#3 : I will never be the only teacher in the room. But I may be the only teacher in the room who knows any English, and therefore, I'll be responsible for most of the teaching. YIKES! I was very much excited about the "assistant" part, but being the primary teacher intimidates me quite a bit. Luckily the first two weeks are solely observation, and hopefully between that and leaning heavily on my education-major friends, I'll be ready to go once called upon for active duty.

The liaison is also going to take me to the schools on Thursday to show me around and introduce me to the director of each school and the teachers, so I know where to go on my first day (this coming Monday).

After that meeting I hiked up to the gare to catch my train to Liesle (pronounced, wait for it, "Lee-el," trust me, of all of the pronunciations I attempted, none of them was that). A quick 20 minutes later I descended from the train and met Susan, who was waiting with her Cairn terrier Sparky. We walked down to her house, only a few minutes from the train stop. It's a beautiful home -- exactly what I would picture if someone told me they lived in French countryside. She, her husband and I ate lunch on their back patio (surrounded by tressles covered in grape vines). First we started with homemade apple juice (more on that later) and pistachios and then dined on a quintessentially French meal: a salad of fresh greens, potatoes, pieces of chicken, lardons (they sound funny, but they're sort of cross between ham and bacon), tomatoes and cucumber, plus homemade bread and three kinds of cheese. For dessert Susan made an apple and raspberry tarte. Yum!! It was all delicious. Susan and Emmanuel met while they were both at UPenn -- he's French and they moved here after living in Algeria for two years where he was teaching as part of what was then required military service.

Now he works as a consultant for the development of national parks (turning them into visitor-friendly spaces while respecting the environment) and she is a counselor at a private middle school. The original plan was to go for a walk in the forest very near their house -- one of the largest complete forests in France. But Emmanuel had to scout out a site in Mouthe in order to turn in a proposal in less than 48 hours, and he invited us to join him. So we all piled in the car (Sparky included) and drove about an hour to this national park. The map below gives you an idea of how close we were to the border (Mouthe is circled at the bottom left, the part labeled CH = Switzerland):

Even if we had just driven there and driven back, it would have been worth it for the view. But fortunately, we were able to get out and hike around. Emmanuel took pictures of the three buildings on the site (hopefully he'll be able to turn one into a nature center). The landscape was very hilly and exceptionally green. There were lots of coniferous trees, with some deciduous ones sprinkled in too. The elevation was nearly 4,000 ft, so this area gets lots of snow in the winter. For now, there were cows grazing and the tinkle of their bells sounded like wind chimes. Susan told me that the different tones come from differently-sized bells, and the cows are assigned the bells based on the relative rank in the herd (the top dog gets the lowest-toned bell). There were also some horses in a pasture connected to one of the barns: three mares and their foals -- it looked like they were all born this past spring. It was cute how exactly the babies matched their mothers' coloring. We hiked in a big loop for about an hour, then drove back. It was really neat to see so much of the countryside -- the leaves haven't started to change yet, but the autumn sunlight cast a magnificent golden hue over everything.

So, I mentioned homemade apple juice earlier. Apparently every year the Coudels have an day-long apple festival which involves picking bushels of apples from a nearby orchard and using a masher/press/pasteurizer to make over 500 bottles of apple juice and apple cider. This family event has come to include friends too, and they invited me to come to this year's incarnation, which is taking place on Saturday. It's going to be great! And I promise to take my camera this time.

I hope you all are doing well! Tomorrow's plan is to make a quick trip to Carrefour (the French equivalent of Wal-mart, but don't tell them I said that) and then off to explore the citadel and some museums with other assistants.

A demain! (Until tomorrow!)

Flea Markets and Frisbee

Hello all! The past two days have been great -- I've met lots of new people and seen/done a few new things. First, for Sunday:

On Saturday afternoon Charly asked if I would be interested in accompanying him to the vide-greniers (collective garage sale/flea market) the following morning. He and Steph had already mentioned that they frequently go to the ones which are held on Sundays in and around Besançon to look for video games and books, respectively. I obviously have nothing to offer in the video games-advice department, but I thought it might be an interesting experience, so I agreed to tag along. I actually ended up buying a book, Le Premier Jour by Marc Levy. I also bought a set of Allemand pour les Nuls (German for Dummies) CDs. The set was new (still in the wrapping) and I thought it might be a neat way to complete my "learn a third language in a second language" goal. Obviously this one is a bit humbler than my original, world-famous-language-institute plan, but at 2 euros, you really can't beat the price!

So we left our house around 8am (Charly and I, Steph was at her family's house) and drove east for about 10 minutes. There were about 50 vendors set up selling all of the typical flea market items: clothes, books, jewelry, sundry electronics. There were also a few less-predictable items: a giant donkey statue, tires, headlights from a car (but not at the same table as the tires), board games, boat keychain fobs, and more. Charly suggested we go methodically down one side and return by the other. About halfway there was a food vendor's table set up and we each bought a piece of gâteau au ménage, which is apparently a regional pastry. It's a sweet bread, a cross between cake and bread, with a thin layer of sugary glaze on top. Very tasty! We continued, and eventually Charly found what for him constituted a jackpot: a Sega console and 10 games. He bought the console for 25 euros, pleased because he is planning to sell it online for 40.

We were at the first vide-grenier for about 45 minutes, and then drove to another on the other side of Besançon (but equidistant from our house, about 10 minutes). The vendors were much more concentrated here, but I didn't find anything and Charly bought only one game, a Lemmings game. We also ran into Charly's uncle, who lives near by and collects stamps. Sort of an interesting mix of people at the vide-grenier: lots of families, some older people, but mostly younger ones. Charly pointed out one professional vendor, but most of the people there appeared to be locals just trying to clean out their closets and basements.

Sunday afternoon I also got to meet up with some other assistants -- Gemma (from Southampton, England) and Sean (from Helena, Montana), who are both assistants at the same high school in Planoise. I had coffee with these two on Saturday. At that point they were the 4rd and 5th people I knew in Besançon, so I was pretty excited. And then Sunday we met up with Candice (from Michigan). It's sort of nice getting to know people as they trickle in, rather than all at once as we will at the stage d'accueil (orientation) next Tuesday.

And then Monday: I had hoped to check out the horseback riding opportunities today, since so many other things are closed, but alas, the centres équestres (stables) were closed as well. Zut! So, it was pretty much the standard: run in the morning, breakfast, errands, reading, etc. But then I got some good news: details of the practice times/locations for the local Ultimate team. They have practice on Monday and Friday evenings and both locations are sort of in the middle of nowhere, so I asked if someone could give me a ride. Gaëtan, the club president, volunteered to pick me up on his way, at 7:45pm outside the gare. It took about 15 minutes to get there, and the practice took place on what they call terrain stabilisé. I could in no way find a translation for this, and I'd never seen sports intentionally played on gravel before, but that's basically what it was like. Smaller than gravel though, and dustier.

The club is called UC-Vesontio and there were about 18 of us there tonight (including 3 other girls and me). Apparently the club is 5 years old, but most of the team members haven't been playing that long. Gaëtan told me on the way over that they recently lost a lot of veteran players and have acquired a bunch of rookies, so there's a pretty big disparity amongst different players in terms of knowledge of the game. The practice was similar to any I've ever done: warm-up, drills and then a scrimmage. 

Between the drills and the scrimmage though, the two captains called everyone over and began describing some of the basics. However, instead of using a dry-erase board, they used .... Lego men. Seriously! Someone set down cones in a not-at-all-to-scale representation of the field, they plopped down a Frisbee (with one of the handlers' tiny tiny hands touching it) and proceeded to explain a vertical stack, cutting, etc. I can't remember the last time I wanted my camera so badly... the two captains crouched around these little Lego men was hilarious! It was actually pretty effective though, or at least I thought the explanation was clear. 


So then we played!! It was a perfect evening -- in fact pretty much since last Monday, when it rained all day, the weather has been unbelievably great. It's cool, around 55 degrees in the morning, gets up to about 70 at noon, then slowly cools down again. The air is crisp with little humidity. So despite the less than desirable surface, the conditions were really great.


And the players were very friendly! When they heard I was from the US everyone assumed I was studying at the fac (short for faculté, meaning university). I know the 3 other girls are still in school, and I would guess lots of the other players are too. There was one older guy there, but the average age was probably early 20s. Overall, the evening was a huge success. It felt great to play again; although I was really tired by the end. We did drills, then 3v3, then a scrimmage for about an hour with 2 subs for each team, and I'm out of shape! I'm definitely going to go back for the indoor practice on Friday. 

I'm worried that I'm going to be awfully sore tomorrow. The only reason it might be unpleasant is that walking is actually one of my scheduled activities: around noon I'm taking a train to Leisle, a little town only about 20 minutes away. There I'm meeting up with the family of my high school physics teacher's sister (yes, a little tenuous, I know). She invited me over for lunch and a "walk in the forest." I'm very excited! Before that, I'm meeting with my liaison for the school where I'll be teaching, she's the woman who will introduce me to the proper people on Monday when I start. All this adds up to a busy day, so I'd better go to bed.

(PS I know I fudged a little on the word count, I hope you'll forgive me!)