la nostalgie

 Well, I haven't even left yet, and I'm already getting super nostalgic about my time in France.  I've been focusing on soaking up every day so that I'll be prepared to leave in 2 and a half weeks!  I'm teaching my final class on April 22nd and hopping on a plane April 23rd to make it home for Easter!  Of course, when living in the Alps, the best way to "profiter" is to go skiing!  Two weekends ago, I went on a trip to Serre Chevalier with some of my French friends.  Duh, I made everyone do a jumping pic on the slopes!

 

 All 8 of us packed like sardines into the 2 tiny French cars with all of our ski equipment bright and early on Saturday morning and hit the slopes of the southern Alps around 10:30!  We got in a long day of skiing, and it was so warm and sunny that I took my jacket off during lunch and sported a t-shirt (and later a sunburn).  The snow was pretty good considering the springtime heat, but we tried to stay a little higher up on the mountain.

 

 

 

After a really late dinner in the historic town of Briançon and "sleeping" 3 girls to a bed in our apartment, I decided to send the others ahead in the morning and get some rest.  Let's be real, this girl has learned to take getting enough sleep seriously.  I took a walk up the mountain to the beautiful historic center of town and wandered around for a little bit before heading back to the apartment- just in time to beat the rain and my friends returning from the slopes.

 

beautiful Briançon, France- an old walled city

 

It was an awesome weekend, and it made me really thankful for the great friends that I've made here who have welcomed me into their lives for 7 months!

The past week at school has been good as well!  I adore my 2 elementary schools and have really gotten settled in at them (I can even finally keep some of my 250+ students' names straight now!) I will miss chit-chatting with the teachers during breaks and hearing choruses of "hello" every time I go anywhere in the school.  Here is a list of some of my favorite/my most popular student names:

Ludivine

Océane

Baptiste

Fannie

Inès

Thibault

Clementine

Enzo

Adjil (I have a high percentage of students of Muslim descent)

Shainez

Johann

Vincent

Giovanni

What do I do with all these French kiddies in the classroom?  Well, in one class this week we played Guess Who with caricature faces that I found, and then I started teaching them the Hokey Pokey.  You guessed it, we've been learning face and body vocabulary.  I always try to give them as many opportunities as possible to move around the room and talk.   With fun activities like that, they don't even realize they're learning!

After getting in another long run this weekend- the 1/2 marathon in Annecy is rapidly approaching- I went with some of my Valentinois friends to a superbly French event: Le Salon du Chocolat et des Gourmandises!  I found out that this was happening in Valence, so I got a group together to go.  Imagine: One room, 5 euros, and chocolate beyond your wildest dreams!  (or at least from all the local artisans).

 

Let's just say that we all got our 5 euros worth in free samples.   But they also won because we almost all purchased something...

 

 this cool product was a nutella-like spread with pop rocks in it

 

there was also chocolate sculpture

 

this was my favorite- is that really chocolate??

After our fill of chocolate, we went and laid out in Parc Jouvet for a couple of hours and soaked up the sun, along with about half of the rest of Valence.  EVERYONE was out and about on Saturday enjoying the weekend.  I am loving it now that spring is here because the smoothie hut and the ice cream hut have both opened back up on the main drag, and the fountains are running again in all the parks!  We closed out an awesome day with an American-made Mexican dinner outside dans "le jardin" at my friend Fiona's house.  Claire, Fiona, and I made the Mexican and the French folks brought wine and dessert (what else?!)

I can't let myself think about how I'm going to miss the food here yet- saying goodbye is going to hurt.  I'm hoping that at least a little French food wisdom has rubbed off on me.

Tomorrow, I'm taking a day trip to Paris!  I couldn't go back to the US without one more trip up to my favorite city!  What to do with no agenda in Paris?  This girl is planning to dress up, shop, walk and eat! 

le printemps!

Springtime!

Spring is here in Valence! The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and I've been soaking it up as much as possible. I'm running a half marathon in Annecy in 3 weeks, and now I can run outside in shorts! This week, I did a long run by the river and I came across a couple of swans...

As excited as I am about how beautiful Valence is these days, I have to back up to the second half of my vacation! As soon as Alex left France, I hopped on a plane myself and went to Spain to visit my friend Adair from Vandy! She's been living in Sevilla teaching English, and I couldn't miss this opportunity to go visit her there.

Everything worked out perfectly so that Adair didn't have to work while I was visiting, and we had almost 4 whole days to play together in Spain. She showed me all around the beautiful area where she's living and we had a blast hanging out with her friends! On my first night, we had tapas and she took me to a very authentic Spanish bar where we tasted cured ham straight off the pig's leg!

We decided to take a day trip to Cadiz on the second day of my trip with a couple of her girlfriends! Cadiz is right on the ocean and is the oldest city in Europe. It was the week of Mardi Gras while I was there, so a huge Carnival festival was happening! Everyone wears costumes and wanders the streets, so Adair and I went and bought some little Indian headbands for us so that we could get festive!

It was so great to just be in Sevilla with Adair and get to catch up! It was the perfect way to spend the second half of my vacation. Adair was the best hostess and showed me her favorite parts of the city, including the Plaza de Espana!

After a very well-spent vacation, I headed back to Valence to get myself together to start teaching again! I've loved my classes these past couple of weeks- we started in with some of my new material right after the break, and it's been really entertaining. We're doing faces, body parts, describing people, and giving directions- and you can find a lot of funny games and activities to use with these topics. Anyway, while I was getting this together, I took a break to go to my first professional bike race! The Paris-Nice is a big professional race that cyclists use to train for the Tour de France. The American RadioShack team (the one that Lance Armstrong was on) and the Garmin team were both there! The mountain stage always ends near Valence, so Fiona and I went with two of our German friends!

Another highlight was Fiona's birthday last weekend! I invited all of our best girlfriends over to my apartment and we had a total girls' night to celebrate! We went and picked up Chinese food, I made a cookie cake, we made Smores, and then we watched a chick flick. Unfortunately, I don't have any of the pictures from it just yet!

I've had the best couple of weeks hanging out with my roommates and friends here and soaking up the nice weather! I'm going to head to bed early tonight because I'm headed out bright and early tomorrow morning for a ski trip to Serre Chevalier for the weekend with some of my French and British buddies!

(almost) back in business

Today marks the final weekend of my 3rd stretch of 2 week paid vacations by the French government. Now that I've almost forgotten the actual reason that I'm being paid to be here, it's time to remember it again because class starts bright and early Monday morning! In the meantime, oh dear, I've fallen really behind on my blog updates!

Spring has just about sprung here in Valence, and that always means that people start buzzing and things get busy, especially for me because I've just had 2 HUGE weeks! In order to spare you from a blog entry that is a billion miles long, I'm going to reflect on the past several weeks in installments, so check back in the near future.

First, I have to issue a retraction: In my last post, I said that Valence doesn't do anything to celebrate Valentine's day, and I was wrong. Just a few days later, the entire Champ de Mars was decorated with red heart balloons, and the town government hosted Le Grand Baiser des Amoureux (the big lovers' kiss) at Kiosque Peynet. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, all the lovers in Valence gathered at the Kiosque and kissed at exactly the same time. Participants (which I was not) were all awarded a certificate of love.

Which leads me to some very exciting news about the past weeks: Alex came to visit France!! And since it was his first trip to France EVER, we had to do it up big. I don't know if I can adequately describe the anticipation that goes into a trip like this. After inter-country dating for 5 months (that's right, no big deal), this trip when he would finally be able to see where I live and meet my friends was a BIG DEAL. Much planning and preparation went into it on both our parts! Just about everyone I know in France knew about it and had taken to asking me about it on a regular basis before it happened. This trip was very rewarding for several reasons: 1. Alex and I got to play in France together 2. It'd been 2 months since we'd seen each other at Christmas 3. We'd gone 3 months without seeing each other before Christmas 4. It's only about 6 weeks until I move back to America. Hopefully this information helps set the tone!

Ok, THE TRIP!

Alex arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on Saturday, and we had arranged to meet at the revolving doors of the Sheraton Hotel located inside the terminal. I rode the train up from Valence and arrived an hour or so early and posted up in the lounge to read and look up at the door every couple of minutes. He finally arrived in great shape with all of his bags! We took the RER straight to drop off the bags at the hotel and get freshened up before hitting the city!

We spent his first afternoon in France walking around the Latin Quarter, visiting Notre Dame Cathedral (which was in the middle of a service with organ music and incense!),

And going to the top of the Eiffel Tower! This was a great way to see all the city lights from above! We rode the metro over to the neighborhood by the Louvre and had a delicious traditional French dinner at one place and delicious French desserts at another place just down the street.

On Sunday morning, we got on a train to head towards our second destination, skiing in Chamonix! We stopped in Annecy for an hour and a half, so I got to show Alex the beautiful town and the lake around which I'll be running a half marathon on April 17th! I accidentally overestimated the amount of time we had in Annecy, so our lunch was cut dramatically short as we had to run out of the restaurant, pizza flopping in hand, to catch a cab back to the train station. Oops! But we made it.

We spent all of the next two days skiing in Chamonix! Now, Alex is a really strong skiier, and I am really stubborn, so we managed to make it down the runs unscathed! Well, at the occasional expense of my pride and any unsuspecting younger people that my have been in my way. All told, we had a fantastic time!

The mountains in Chamonix are amazing! Really, the scenery was just too much to take in. I couldn't believe it the whole time I was skiing down runs. We were so thankful to have some good snow because it's been a bad year for snow here in France!

After 3 nights in the mountains, we hopped on the train to Valence! It was surreal to finally have Alex walk the streets of my hometown for the past 5 months! After seeing a little bit of the city and after all the skiing and travel, we relaxed on Wednesday night and made a pizza and watched a movie at my apartment. Alex got to experience 2 of my proudest accomplishments during my stay in France so far. 1: I finally like cheese, so I bought some really nice Compte (my favorite) at the market for him to try! 2: I've learned how to cook, so I actually knew what I was doing when we made dinner together!

The weather was really pleasant, so on Thursday Alex and I had a picnic in Parc Jouvet with some kebabs, and then we headed over to the Ardeche side of the river to hike to Chateau Crussol!

That night we got dressed up and went to dinner at the Sept Bistro at Maison Pic to sample such French delicacies as "vélouté d'haricot blanc" and "poitrine de cochon," (I'll let you wonder at what those beautiful words mean) then we went to a little pub near the esplanade and Alex got to meet some of my Valentinois friends!

On Friday morning, we got on a train headed back to Paris. On Alex's last afternoon in France, we saw the Louvre and walked all the way through the Tuileries, down rue de Rivoli, past Place de la Concorde, up the Champs Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe! It was a beautiful afternoon and sunset, and we had fun playing on the Champs Élysées before a delicious steak dinner (which I devoured because I never get red meat here!). I saw him off at the airport early on Saturday morning, and, after a perfect week, we said goodbye until the end of April!

Then I got on a plane to Spain...

To see all the pictures of Alex and my trip, click this link!: https://picasaweb.google.com/mary.a.hollis/MangePrieAime#

coucou!

my latest adventures in photo form: https://picasaweb.google.com/mary.a.hollis/MangePrieAime#

"coucou!" A friendly way to say hello!

Can you believe it? Here we are 4 days from Valentine's Day, and I have yet to hear one word about it! You'd think that the country of romance would be more interested in le Saint-Valentin, but you'd be wrong. I mean, girls actually refer to their boyfriends as "mon chèrie" in normal conversation. Mon chèrie this, mon chèrie that, "Mary, quand est-ce que ton chèrie va te rendre visite ici?" (Mary, when is your boyfriend going to visit you here?). But they don't fall for the candy hearts and cards.

I'll still probably try to throw it into a lesson plan. But we still have lots of other important work to do because I promised my kids that I'd prepare another Bingo for them, and they're still just now learning the necessary clothing vocab. Only one more of Rosine's English-German Breakfasts left, and then we'll be mostly uninterrupted (except for strikes).

Life has continued to be sweet here in Valence! We had a pretty miserable cold spell for a couple of weeks (no snow, just wind), but it finally seems to have lifted. During the hibernation period, my French friends introduced me to just about every form of indoor entertainment that you can find in Valence: ice skating, bowling, and go-karting. We watched movies and I went to see a couple in theaters (dubbed in French is not the way to go). Also, I spent one Saturday afternoon singing at a nursing home. My french friend Noémie invited me to come with her singing group, so I got busy learning 4 French songs, and we performed them! I think I'm going again this Sunday.

The past weeks have also been filled with some culinary adventures! This, clearly, is one of my favorite ways to spend my free time. I had a fantastic dinner at the 7 Bistro at Maison Pic for a friend's birthday, and I tried pig's stomach! It was served over mashed potatoes and was absolutely delicious. I went to talk to some of Cloé's friends in the kitchen after dinner and they informed me that they prepare the pig's stomach by cooking it for 27 hours! I've also had quite a bit of fun cooking for myself. Recently I've been inspired (by the sales at the grocery store) to try preparing regional cuisine such as raviole (tiny ravioli) and caillette (a kitchen sink sausage ball type thing). I balanced this out by later making my own hummus and pita chips and then having a fajita night, to give myself a taste of home. I also currently am loving making any recipe based with quinoa and any recipe in which I can throw in all the vegetables I get at the market. Look how beautiful it is:



The best part is that I've done very careful price comparisons, and shopping at the market is much cheaper! And you get to make delicious things like cinnamon roasted pumpkin (my new favorite). Other culinary adventures include the Tunisian treats that Fiona and I picked up in Marseille! This orange thing is called zlabia, and it is SO delicious! (but it does not contain oranges or carrots, as it's appearance might suggest)

Speaking of Marseille, I've been doing some day-tripping! Once the weather got a little bit milder, I started venturing out around the area. One Saturday Nicole and I went over to Grenoble to hang out for a while (hence the beautiful picture of the mountains at the beginning of this post). I saw on Twitter that this guy who paints using coffee as a medium was going to be presenting at a coffee shop in Grenoble, so Nicole and I decided to drop in. We spoke with him for a bit and it was very interesting! We also got to ride the bubble cars up the mountain to the Bastille and see a beautiful sunset on the mountains around Grenoble! This was a neat experience for me, because when I was trying to make up my mind about whether or not I'd come to France, I frequently looked at pictures of Grenoble online because I thought I'd be living there. It was neat to go and visit the city and reflect on how differently everything has turned out than I imagined during the decision-making process, but also how much better it is than I could have hoped for! Try as you might, you just can't plan for everything.

Also, yesterday, I had the distinct treat of going back Aix-en-Provence for the day! This is where I studied abroad 2 years ago, and I hadn't been back down to visit yet. My friend Fiona came with me and we took the train down south (passing through Marseille for a bit) to visit my old stomping grounds! Aix is every bit as beautiful as I remembered, and it was so much fun to walk around it again for the day! I even ran into someone I knew in the street. Fiona was sweet and humored my visit to the Vanderbilt-in-France center, where I caught up with the 2 wonderful program directors for half an hour or so! She also let me take her to my old apartment and all my favorite places in town, like Café la glacière and Bechard Patisserie!

quoi de neuf?

To see my lastest pics, click this link! http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.a.hollis/January#

"quoi de neuf?" = what's new?

Coming back after Christmas has been a neat experience, because while nothing here in Valence is particularly new for me, the fact that I'm still here is. When I studied abroad 2 years ago, we dove in, soaked it up, and did our very best to get situated for 4 months, and then finally, once we had our feet on the ground, we packed up our bags, said au revoir and got on the planes home. Now, here I am after Christmas, all settled in, continuing to live my live in Valence and deepen my friendships and my experiences. That, in and of itself, is a cool, new thing.

Last week, Cloé, Nicole, and I became heroes. How to become a hero? Save something. What did we save? Doggies. You may remember that I concluded my last blog with a little blurb about how we were afraid that our upstairs neighbor had abandoned his dogs in the apartment. None of us was too keen on just sitting around and waiting for the barking to stop, but when you call the police, or the rental agency, or whoever and complain about dogs, no one really jumps to attention. After several days of such frustrating phone calls, Cloé had an idea. She called the firemen and told them that she was concerned about our neighbor (I mean, no one had seen him in weeks, right?). 5 minutes later, 7 firemen showed up at our apartment. We explained what we knew about the situation, and we before we knew it they were all sitting in our kitchen, visiting, drinking coffee, and waiting for The Big Truck to arrive so they could break into the apartment upstairs. 2 hours, 7 firemen, 3 policeman, a giant truck, a closed street, and 1 animal protection services van later, the doggies were rescued from upstairs!

They had indeed been left tied up in the apartment for several weeks with limited food and water. Lucky for them, 3 tender-hearted girls who hang around the apartment a lot live downstairs.

We had phenomenal weather last week, so over the weekend, some of my girlfriends and I embarked on an 18 kilometer hike across the crest of the mountain that over looks Valence! We began by hiking up to Chateau Crussol, then we followed along the ridge, went down on the other side, and continued along some country roads until we reached the little village of Tournaud. This is not exactly where we intended to go, but it was a nice place to finally sit down and eat our sandwiches. After a quick break, we turned around and hiked back, trying to beat the sun before it went down! It was so nice outside that I wore shorts! You can't ever really predict the weather here. We did in fact beat the sun back to the start, but our bus did not. We stood in the dark at the bus stop for 40 minutes waiting for it to take us back over the river to Valence (it was not warm anymore). Still, it was a great day and a great way to get some exercise after the delicious traditional German dinner prepared for us by our German friends on Friday night!

This past week, Claire and I discovered that the one and only Usher was performing a concert in Lyon and that tickets were still available! I rushed to FNAC (the coolest French store ever! a dvd/cd/computer/office/bookstore, mixed with a ticketmaster and photo center) and got us 2 of the remaining tickets. After a full day of work on Tuesday, we darted home at 5:30 and got our stuff to hop on the train to Lyon! We made it to Halle Tony Garnier just in time to get an awesome spot on the floor to watch Usher perform all of his greatest songs (and more importantly his famous dance moves) on the OMG Tour 2011. To see the music video for his hip-hoppiest new song and the namesake of the tour, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD9Trx8D-8U&feature=fvst.

We stayed the night with one of Claire's friends in the center of town, and the next day, I went and met up with my friend Halley Anne for a beautiful day of shopping in Lyon! Or more appropriately, "lèche-vitrine," the french expression for window-shopping. (Literally translated, window licking. How appropriate). The "soldes" are an annual tradition of extreme sales that happen in France all during the month of January, and they are a great excuse to wander around the shopping hub of Lyon. To make the day even more enjoyable, Halley Anne took me to this place: http://www.bestbagels.fr/manger_des_bagels_a_lyon.html, where we ate delicious bagel sandwiches for lunch! They also sell rare American products such as Betty Crocker brownie mix, Heinz 57 sauce, Dr. Pepper, Carmex, Ben and Jerry's, and a whole plethora of other little delicacies that we may or may not have realized we were missing. It was so nice to catch up with such a sweet friend, and a great way to spend my day off!

At work this week, Nicole and I have been helping Rosine throw Anglo-German breakfasts for middle and elementary school kids, and it's been a nice change of pace. It's also been a fun weekend, but more on that later!