Hockey game, and lots of pictures

Going into this weekend I had very little planned, but it ended up being quite busy. After my successful shopping excursion to Chateaufarine, I took my time getting back and some time finishing Au Bonheur des Dammes in a little park I discovered on the c-v side of the Doubs, facing Pont de la Republique (Republic Bridge). I really enjoyed it at the end... the conclusion wasn't exactly a surprise, but the heroine had overcome such incredible strife that I was quite content for it to end happily ever after for at least one person. I didn't bother with the spoiler alert since I'm confident none of you are eager to read a Zola novel which focuses on the rise of department stores in 19th century Paris...

Then at 5:30pm, I joined some of the Ultimate team members who were going to watch a hockey match! The Besancon Remparts (ramparts) are in Division III and Saturday they played Luxembourg. The match took place at a rink in Planoise and I'd say there was a crowd of about 100 people or so. GuiGui (Jean Guillaume) works with one of the players, and Gaeten, another friend from Ultimate, is a big hockey fan. I got a ride with Fred and his son Benjamin, and Gaëtan's friend Marion came too. I haven't seen a hockey game in person since I went to a Cincinnati Mighty Ducks game when I was about 10, and this one was pretty exciting. There were two fights, but both were brief. We ended up winning 6-5, although I'm not sure we deserved it. The Luxembourg goalie was much better than ours, and their team was much more aggressive. It was pretty funny how riled up the fans got, despite the relatively low-key setting. And I learned some new vocabulary: le palet (the puck), la crosse (hockey stick), and hors-jeu (off-sides). Despite the small size of the "arena" they had a concession stand selling hot wine and hot dogs. Knacki is the brand of hot-dogs which has market dominance in France -- here the name has replaced 'hot-dog' the way Kleenex has replaced tissue (or whatever the real term is). I think it's so funny to see people eating hot dogs in baguette halves... and usually slathered with mayonnaise. French people think ketchup is silly, but I find mayonnaise pretty much revolting, let alone on a hot dog!

Saturday night there was a birthday party for Alex (team captain), hosted by him and his girlfriend Lucie (who also plays on the team). It included everyone from the hockey game, and maybe another 6 or so people. It's a good thing it was a small party because there wasn't any more room in the apartment. I tasted the much-acclaimed Pontarlier Anis, but found it about as appetizing as anything else licorice flavored, which is to say not very much. I had an easier time following the conversation (and contributing to it) on Saturday evening than I did when we went out after practice on Friday. It's really frustrating sometimes because I know I come across as dumb when I can't articulate what I'm trying to say. And usually I know what's being said, I just can't formulate a contribution quickly enough before the conversation changes. Or someone asks my opinion during one of the times I don't know what's going on... I'm sure it will get better, but it makes ordinary conversation a lot more of a challenge.

And sometimes, I find myself getting a little metaphysical about the whole thing. I'll catch myself thinking about how I'm living my life in a different language, and try to catch myself when I'm really fully immersed in it and my thoughts come fluidly, without me thinking. I haven't dreamed in French yet since I've arrived, but I'm hoping it will happen soon.

Sunday I went to church at the Eglise Reformee, which was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the "Scoutisme Unioniste" (what appears to be the equivalent of the Boy Scouts for the Reformed Protestant Church in France). The pastor was wearing his scout scarves and they had past and current members participate in the service. We sang lots of songs, as we did when I went two weeks ago. I think it's interesting too how much other members of the congregation participate in the service. Both this Sunday and the time before, the pastor called upon several adults and children to come forward to read passages or prayers. After the service I was looking at some of the materials, and the pastor came up and introduced himself to me. He told me about the group they have for students (ages 18-25) and gave me the email address of the group leader. Apparently they meet every two weeks or so, usually for a meal. I haven't heard back yet, but I'm definitely going to check it out.

Here's a pic of the church from the outside:

After a long run -- the weather this weekend was spectacular -- I went back to the c-v for a free guided tour of the Musee Beaux Arts et Archéologie (Fine Arts and Archeology Museum). This one was entitled "Chefs d'oeuvres du musée" (the museum's masterpieces) and I was particularly interested in attending because the museum is slowly being dismantled, in anticipation of closing for renovations in 2013. That's sort of a long way away, but apparently the museum's most famous painting, a Courbet, is already gone. So sooner is better! This tour focused on five works: the Mesuda mosaic, which was the floor of a giant Roman domus located on the site of the c-v, a Bronzino which was originally comissioned for the personal chapel of the Medici family of Venice, a painting from the workshop of George de la Tour, a Courbet, and two paintings by Pierre Bonnard, which were commissioned to hang in someone's home facing each other. Here are the pictures:

This picture is to give you a sense of the size of the Medusa mosaic... the whole thing is 6 square meters (64 square feet):

 And it's namesake:

 It's amazing to me that a 2,000+ year old mosaic can be this well-preserved...

Can you spot the anatomical mistake in this representation of Poseidon? (answer at the end of the post)

"Saint Joseph" from Georges De La Tour's workshop (I had never heard of him before this tour, but the lighting in the picture really is quite remarkable -- check out how the glow permeats the young Jesus's hand):

The Courbet. This painting's 'realism' caused a scandal because the pig is in the primary plane and thus given lots of visual importance:

Place Clichy by Pierre Bonnard. I absolutely love this painting, I can't believe someone once got to keep it in their living room:

Oh, the Rhodenbaughs, it was so nice of you to have this picture of B placed in the museum to remind me of home (when I saw it I thought instantly of him):

And finally, here are some pictures from the Ultimate tournament in Vesoul a few weekends ago, as taken by Lucas (pronounced "Lucca" in French), Gaetan's brother. He's a photography major and took some really neat shots -- here are a few.

The whole team (both vieux and jeunes):

"Comtois, rend-moi! Nenni ma foi!" -- our cheer

 

 Fred about to make an excellent catch in the endzone:

GuiGui for the jeunes in our game against the vieux (Gaeten guarding):

 

Face-off in that same match. Bob (real name, Yves, in the blue) is significantly taller than Gaël (in the red), but Gaël has some serious hops. I don't remember who came out victorious in this instance: 

Team Jeunes (L to R: Colin, me, GuiGui, Tete, Erik, Gaël, Thomas in the back)

Okay, time for bed for me. The answer to the question about the Poseidon mosaic -- he has two right hands!

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!

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)!