wrapping up

To see all my most recent pics from Thanksgiving, the snow, and Strasbourg, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.a.hollis/ThanksgivingSnowStrasbourg#

Phew! It's already the end of December, and I'm wrapping things up to come home over Christmas break! This is everyone's last week of class before vacation, so we're obviously learning Christmas vocabulary and listening to songs. I'm using all my free time to get myself packed, shop for those few remaining Christmas presents, and go to Christmas parties! On Saturday morning, I'm heading to Lyon early in the morning, and by 8:30 at night (give or take a time difference of 7 hours) I'll finally be back in Nashville! After 3 months here in Valence, I'm so excited to see my family, Alex, and all my friends in the US!

Here is my friend Carey and me being a little touristy in Valence after a night out for dessert. After taking care of classrooms full of 7 and 8 year olds for hours, you have to treat yourself to a little glace (ice cream) or mousse au chocolat from time to time. That photo was taken before everything changed here in Valence for about a week, and after....

My little little, Kate, came to visit with another Vandy girl for two nights, and they brought the snow with them! On the evening they arrived, it had just started to fall, and by the next morning we were covered in over a foot! We went out with several of my assistant friends and played in it for as long as we could stand, then we had to come home and warm up and dry out. It was so great to have the girls here visiting- we had a relaxing time, and it was the perfect taste of home!
Here's a pic of Kate and me sharing a little TriDelta love in Valence and another in front of the Kiosque with Margaret!

And my assistant girlfriends:

On Friday after the girls left, I hopped in the car with Cloé, Nicole, and two of Cloé's friends (Franck and Dimitri) to go to Strasbourg for the weekend! Strasbourg, FR is in the very northeast of the country right next to Germany, and my friend Susan is an assistant there. Being so close to Germany (and at several points in recent history, belonging to Germany), Strasbourg has a different feel and architecture from the rest of France, but more importantly, it's home to some world famous Christmas markets! Here's a picture of Susan and me at the entrance to one of them:

Strasbourg explodes with Christmas during the holidays! Seriously, every street is filled with decorations, lights, and people too. It's a beautiful city, especially when it's dark and all lit up for Christmas. There is even one street that has actual Baccarat Crystal chandeliers hung in huge mesh cages every 20 feet or so! It was an awesome weekend because I got to spend some quality time with my roommates and with Susan. We packed 5 people into a tiny french car on Friday afternoon and made the 5 hour road trip up there. We went directly to a restaurant that Franck's brother owns. He set us up with a great table in the front and some desserts so that we could rest for a while after our trip. After that, my friends dropped me at a crémaillère (or house-warming party) for one of Susan's friends. The next day, Susan and I explored a bunch of the markets, drank vin chaud (hot mulled wine) to stay warm and had a huge lunch with my friends at a traditional Alsatian restaurant!

I took the train home on Sunday, and we had a pretty run-of-the-mill week here at rue de la Cécile. On Friday, I headed over to Lyon to see my friend Halley Anne and the city's famous Fêtes des Lumières (Festival of Lights)! We spent the afternoon Christmas shopping, and once it was dark, a few of my other girlfriends from Valence arrived and we wandered around the city watching all the light shows!

I've seen some spectacular things over the past couple of months, but nothing will be like Nashville when I get off that airplane!

Zanksgiving

Zanksgiving. That is how I most commonly heard Thanksgiving pronounced last week, but the French were totally interested in celebrating our delicious holiday! Technically, the Thanksgiving celebration began last Saturday when I visited my friend Halley Anne in Lyon and found sweet potatoes! I bought the place out, and we toted our sacks back to Halley Anne's place to drop them off before continuing our fun. She and I treated ourselves out to a long and traditional Lyonaise lunch in the heart of the old city, shopped around a bit, and we met up with a few of her assistant friends for dinner!

On Tuesday, I had a "formation" or training all day with some other assistants in my program to work on recording ourselves and making videos for classroom purposes. But then, Wednesday and Thursday were totally devoted to Thanksgiving! I went on Wednesday morning and got a ton of fresh Thanksgiving ingredients from the market, and I put them to good use over the next couple of days. On Wednesday night, my bible study threw a big Thanksgiving party, so I brought a sweet potato casserole with marshmallows! My friend Claire bought and stuffed 2 huge turkeys, and with all of our efforts combined, we had a pretty spectacular Thanksgiving for our French friends! It was cool because none of them had ever really tasted the majority of traditional Thanksgiving food.

On Thursday, I, like almost every other woman in America, spent my day slaving away in the kitchen (except in France)! Except for a quick trip to la piscine (the pool) for a swim with my friend Susannah (a very French activity), the rest of the day was totally dedicated to being as American as possible. Cloé, Nicole, and I threw a big thanksgiving party at our apartment that night for our both our French and assistant friends. Somehow the theme changed from simply Thanksgiving to Yay America. We encouraged all of our guests to come "dressed like Americans," and we did our best to look the part as well. This being the first time that I'd ever actually made Thanksgiving food on my own (I have such respect for you now, Mom), I was super proud of myself for the results. I turned out a pumpkin pie (made from an actual pumpkin that I bought at the market), another sweet potato casserole, regular mashed potatoes, a green bean casserole, and 10 oven baked turkey breasts! Once all the other guests came with their contributions, we had quite a spread of food and wine for the occasion!

After a big week, I was really happy to hang out and enjoy Valence over the weekend. On Friday night, my friend Carey came over and we made some chicken salad together. Carey is from Columbus, Ga, so we can share in missing the south from time to time. Then, we hopped over to our friend Pierre's apartment to watch the Iron Bowl- living in France can be so much like living in America! Saturday I went out to lunch with some girlfriends and enjoyed doing a little shopping around Valence! All the Christmas decorations are going up and you can totally feel the atmosphere changing for the holidays!

This will be another busy week! My little little from TriDelta and another Vandy girl are coming to stay with me for two nights on their tour through Europe! I'm planning to take them out to eat in Valence tomorrow night, then we're road-tripping to Geneva for the day on Wednesday. On Friday, I'm headed to Strasbourg for the weekend to see Susan and the world-famous Christmas markets!

Surprised!

One of my recent popular activities with the kiddies involves me acting out expressions and having them tell me how I'm feeling. They love watching me feign surprised, angry, hungry, happy, tired, etc. And in return, I get to enjoy calling something out- "SHOW ME" (remember, simple commands here)- and having 27 little 8-year-olds act back to me. We've also recently been loving alphabet bingo, complete with sucettes (suckers) for prizes, and literally ANY song in English.

I got a fun surprise this week!

I don't know exactly what this device is called in English, but it's called a ULM in French. We'll just go with ultra-light flying machine, or the thing from that movie Fly Away Home about the geese. Anyway, yes, I flew in one of these!

Last Thursday was a national holiday here so no one had to work, and my friend Pauline invited a couple of us to come over and make crême de marron out of some chestnuts that she'd picked. Instead, she took us to a hanger in the middle of the countryside where our friend Lionel surprised us with rides in his ULM! It was a beautiful day with awesome views of the mountains, and we got to fly over the river. Obviously, Lionel drove, but I did get to steer for a minute!

This day really reminded me of how blessed I've been during my time here. The French people that I've met everywhere have been so welcoming and generous to me, even though I don't have a lot to offer them back. It's humbling and wonderful at the same time, and I'm doing my best to learn how to accept people's kindness gracefully and gratefully! Here's me with the captain, Lionel, and the other girls, Pauline and Susanna:

Another cool thing that happened this week was that I led the French bible study that I've been going to! One of the leaders asked if I could talk about the passage for the next week, and I invited my friend Carey to help me with it. We had kind of a tough passage, and we were a little nervous about how it would go in French, but it turned out so well!

As we've continued to have awesome weather, my French friends decided to capitalize on the recent spike of Americans around here, and we had an American football session on Saturday! Much to the amusement of my family and others who know me well, I taught a bunch of Frenchies how to play football! Hey, I may not be an expert, but I have enough sorority flag football experience to teach the basics, even in French. They really got the hang of it, and we had some pretty cool plays going by the end of the afternoon!

I'm looking forward to figuring out how to bring Thanksgiving to France next week!

La vie en rose, the sweet life

New pics from my hiking trips to Crussol and Crest! http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.a.hollis/CrussolAndCrest#
I've also added pictures from my trip to Bordeaux! http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.a.hollis/ToussaintsParisEtBordeaux#

I'm feeling especially lucky, because I lost my computer yesterday and I found it this morning! I realized I'd misplaced it yesterday, and I was certain I'd left it on the bus on the way to school. After a wild goose chase to the central bus office, the bus depot, and then the commissariat, I returned home last night feeling pretty discouraged. While eating sympathy crêpes prepared for me by my sweet roommates, I remembered that I'd stopped in a little Tabac by my school to buy candy prizes for my students before class. Cloé drove me there this morning, and sure enough the nice lady working there had my laptop waiting for me behind the counter!

Also, after a chest x-ray, a medical exam, and a meeting with the office of immigration, I now officially hold a validated visa and am free to travel in and out of France as I please! Looks like I'll make it home for Christmas!

I've been up to a lot since my last trip! I've got a nice routine here in Valence, and we always find fun things to sprinkle in. Halloween is not widely celebrated in France, but my friend Carey and I bought a little pumpkin at the market and had a fun afternoon carving it, turning it into pumpkin muffins, and of course doing my Biggest Loser workout video (which has become SO popular here, especially with Cloé! It was super funny trying to explain the premise of Biggest Loser to her because there are practically no obese people in France and, therefore, no need for a reality weight loss show). We capped off our Halloween celebration by going to our French friend's house to watch, quite literally, the worst english Halloween movie of all time, but, hey, our options were limited.

Another highlight was my friend Susan's visit to Valence! She's an assistant in Strasbourg this year, but she came to visit for a couple of days and we went hiking with some other girls to the ruins of Château Crussol that overlook Valence. These ruins are at the top of the mountain across the river and are easily seen from most places in the city. We had a little bit of trouble finding the way up the mountain, but after a couple failed attempts through a vineyard and a forest, and a run in with some donkeys, we made it to the summit!

The next holiday that we celebrated was the 5 of November, courtesy of our British assistant friends. This day, a British tribute to the brutal death of the traitor Guy Fawkes, involves bonfires and fireworks! Our friend Fiona had lots of people over, and we celebrated with smores, sparklers, pommes d'amour (caramel apples), and bien sûr les feux d'artifice (fireworks)!

We're continuing to have pretty weather over here, so Carey and I went to the nearby town of Crest one Saturday to do some exploring! Crest, confusingly pronounced "cray," is a tiny little place about an hour away that is home to a famous tower that was used as a dungeon for hundreds of years.

We have a couple of assistant friends there from all over the world, so we spent the day wandering around, making lunch, exploring the tower, and playing down by the river! We got beautiful views of the surrounding countryside.

Teaching has started back, and time is just flying by until Christmas! I've been continuing to make friends through tennis, running, and church, and I'm always adding new recipes to my repertoire. Some of my recent projects include chicken teriyaki, baked pumpkin pasta, and mustard chicken. AND I invested in a purée machine! French people purée everything, and I've never had mashed potatoes so good. À bientôt!

Paris and Bordeaux!

To see some pictures from Paris and Bordeaux last weekend, click this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.a.hollis/ToussaintsParisEtBordeaux#
I did some camera sharing with the other girls, so more pictures will be coming later!

Beautiful Paris in the Latin Quarter! I think this is my favorite neighborhood of one of my favorite cities in the world. It's pretty and everyone speaks French, what's not to like? One of my friends from church, Pierre, offered to drive a couple of us assistants up to Paris for the weekend because he was going for work! On Friday afternoon we hopped in the car, and made the 5 hour road trip through the pretty countryside into the city! We stayed for free in his friends' flat and spent a couple of days playing around the city.

This is my assistant friend Anna, who's a student at Durham in England! Together with our friend Claire, we wandered around Paris and saw some of the sights. We toured Victor Hugo's apartment, visited Notre Dame, and went in Paris' newest Museum called Quai Branley. Pierre met us for dinner at one of his favorite restaurants in the Marais, and then we got to ride around the city in his car to see everything at night!

Sunday morning, I got to meet up with a younger Vandy TriDelta who's studying abroad in Paris! We had a traditional French breakfast together at a cafe and had a great time visiting.

Then I hopped on a train over to Bordeaux to meet up with another TriDelta friend, Whitney Anderson, who's also doing the assistant program there! Along with her cute roommate from Wales, we stayed in the city for a couple of nights and saw the sights in Bordeaux. All day on Monday, we did a wine tour of the St. Émilion wine district!

We went with a small group of other people and a private tour guide and got driven to several different vineyards in the morning to tour the châteaux and taste the wine! The wine regions that make up Bordeaux are stunning. Every couple of miles there is a beautiful château surrounded by huge fields of grape vines! At the second vineyard we visited, we were treated to a delicious lunch to taste the wine with.

From there, we went to the actual historic town of St. Émilion! We had a tour of this very well-preserved medieval village and then spent an hour in a little cafe getting crêpes and coffee.

After two great days and fantastic dinners in Bordeaux with Whitney and Jen, I headed back home. I realized through traveling how much I love my little apartment and Valence! I was happy to get back to my normal routine at home for a couple of days. Cloé picked me up at the train station, and we went out for dinner and drinks with a couple of her friends. I've been hanging out around town for the past day or so enjoying my vacation. I went to my bible study as usual, and I went for the first time to run in a nearby park with people from church who go weekly! It makes such a difference, when settling into a place, to have so many weekly opportunities to get together with people! I feel very lucky in my situation, and I know it hasn't been quite so easy for assistants in other places.

On Sunday, my friend Susan, who's an assistant in Strasbourg, is coming to visit for a couple of days! I'm planning a day hike for us on Monday with a couple of other girls, and I'm so exited get to hang out with her and see what else our vacation has in store for us!

Les Vacances!

Vacation has already arrived! Starting today, I'm on vacation for 2 weeks thanks to la Toussaint which is observed by all the schools. This kicks off the first of my 5 weeks of paid vacation during the program- the French system has its perks. Strikes still caused several of my classes to be canceled this week, but those that I did have were wonderful! We worked a lot on Halloween, and I had the kids color their own jack-0-lanterns so that they could learn the shapes! They thought this was super cool, and I showed them a bunch of neat pictures of jack-o-lanterns online and me dressed up in Halloween costumes when I was little. The kids love when I come to their classes, and they're always really excited to see me around the school. Provided I continue to come up with interesting things for us to talk about, I think we'll have a great time in the class together!

Strikes translate into beaucoups of free time for me! (got to love a french word turned english) I've had plenty of opportunity to wander and (window) shop with girlfriends around town, play tennis, plan my vacation time, and do whatever I want. I even met with a lady at Maison Pic this week to get things straightened out so that I can translate for a cooking class here and there. The great thing about my program here in Valence is that all of us assistants have loads of free time, so we're able to plan things together, invite each other over for gatherings, etc. This week's culinary adventures include Vichy carrots, cauliflower au gratin, and homemade pizza with market ingredients! I also went to a crêpe party with people from church (NUTELLA CRÊPES), and last night I tried out another cool restaurant and bar with my roommates, our Argentinian assistant friend, and Cloé's childhood friend Pierre-Julien. It's been awesome to get to know some of Cloé's friends and hang out completely en français. As a general rule, I always speak French unless I'm teaching or interacting with another assistant where French isn't really possible or practical. I can already tell loads of improvement, and I'm even getting familiar with some slang. It's always encouraging to hear compliments from the French people I meet about how I speak. I know my accent will always prevent me from sounding like a native, but people mostly seem to be finding me easy to understand.

This weekend I'm headed to Paris with a couple of girlfriends! One of our friends from church is driving up there for business and offered us a ride in his car and a flat to stay in for free! Then I'm going to take the train over to Bordeaux for a couple of nights to visit my friend Whitney (Vandy TriDelta love over homecoming weekend), then head back to Valence on Tuesday night. After that I still have a week left of vacation, so I think I might try to do a little hiking around the area before it gets too cold and hopefully entertain assistant friends from other cities who pass through!

The art of leisure

Some cool graffiti that I found on the back of a building

In case you've heard anything on the news, not to worry, the strikes here in France have only affected me in the most convenient ways! For instance, I only worked Monday and Friday this week, and a deviated bus route precipitated my being dropped off right at the door to my apartment with all my groceries! Nicole and heard that there will be a demonstration in centre ville tomorrow, so we're going to check it out.

It's been another full and wonderful week! I haven't exactly been working (thank you Sarkozy), but I've been busy not being busy. There seem to be plenty of things to get involved in around here, and two of my projects are cooking and exploring. After a week full of both of these activities, there are two myths about French people that I'd like to address:

1. French people are serious about food. TRUE. At one of my schools, I eat lunch in the teacher's lounge with some of the other faculty (they are so nice!). On my first day, I experienced some serious shame about the baguette, apple, and cheese that I brought for lunch. Each of the French ladies brought a beautiful 3 course meal. She would bring out something, eat it, then disappear back into the kitchen and bring out something else, etc. I decided then and there that if keeping myself alive wasn't reason enough to really learn to cook for myself, then pride was. I posted my email address and told all the teachers to email me if they had easy recipes. I feel that great strides have already been made! At the moment, I'm eating a lunch of homemade ratatouille (made from vegetables I bought at the market) with gnocchi and chicken. Apparently, French people love to potluck, so I've been both giving and receiving a lot of free food recently. Night before last, I had the special treat of eating dinner with some of Cloé's friends from work (which included a sous chef at Maison Pic!) Cloé created a foundation for Maison Pic, and sometimes they go to hospitals and give cooking classes to sick kids and their families. There are usually lots of leftovers, and Nicole and I were included in the post hospital visit dinner at our apartment. The theme was autumn fruits and vegetables (heaven).

2. French people don't exercise. FALSE. Especially in the Drôme where the outdoors is so beautiful! This place is teeming with parks. Every time I go out exploring I find a new beautiful park or path to run on. I think my favorite might be the one I tried most recently that runs north along the river. French people do exercise, they just usually don't do it publicly. They prefer the privacy of a tree-shrouded park, such as this one, complete with outdoor exercise equipment.

Or, they LOVE the pool. With the anonymity of swimming caps and goggles, you can sign up for a water aerobics class any time of day: they can't seem to offer enough. And, more exciting for me, there is great tennis in Valence! I heard about a club with a ton of indoor courts from a friend at church, so I went this week and checked it out. I hit around for about an hour one day with one of the pros, and he introduced me to a cute girl giving lessons who wants to play with me. I ended up getting the numbers of several good girl players, two of whom are English professors! And even better, nobody seems to be expecting me to pay anything.

Three Brides, Three French Bulldogs, and a Ferret

Just a typical weekend in Valence. On Saturday morning, I got up and set out on a jog in search of one of the public pools- no such luck. After viewing a lovely residential area and yet another park, I set out in defeat back towards centre ville. I spent an hour or so walking around the little streets, poking around in stores and trying to get some sort of mental picture of how everything spread out. I came across some very beautiful things and places! If I had all the money in the world and didn't have to ship back to America- I could get a place looking pretty nice with what they have over here. I also came across no less than 3 French Bulldogs in the course of about an hour. Definitely the dog of choice here, that or some sort of terrier. Unless you're a homeless youth, in which case you have a mutt that weighs no less that 70 lbs. If anyone has interest in having an actual French French Bulldog (French^2 Bulldog), let me know.

After making a quick lunch with Nicole back at the apartment, I set out with another assistant to play tennis in the park! The tennis courts are tucked back over on one side of Park Jouvet, near one of the entrances. While we were playing, some sort of wedding procession began taking place along the path that ran by our court into the park. Over the span of about an hour, three 3 brides decked out in their white dresses with their whole wedding parties paraded past our court. Some of the posses had musical instruments and drums, and all of them were shouting and chanting. Although the brides were dressed in a very typical western fashion with poofy white strapless dresses, a lot of the other women around them were wearing head coverings, and their chanting was in a language that I didn't recognize. Someone mentioned to me that there happen to be a lot of Armenians in Valence, so that could be an explanation. The groups would walk about 10 feet, stop and sing and dance and cheer, then walk another 10 feet, etc.

At one point, I also saw a crowd of small children gather around a woman on the path. I went over to the fence to try to get a look at what they were all looking at, and I saw that this lady had a ferret on a leash. She was walking- or, more appropriately, dragging- this ferret around, and all the kids had gathered to observe this bizarre occurrence. Is it a terrier? Is is a cat?...

I came home and got cleaned up and decided to act on an email I had received about a young people's night (offering pizza) that was sponsored by the church that my friends have gotten involved in. I walked about 5 minutes down my street and found the group, which turned out to pretty much be a youth group! It's for 13-25 year olds, but there were only about 5 of us over 20. I knew two German guys from a free french class, and I recognized the two guys who were programming activities from the bible study I went to. I made small talk with them, then we all ate pizza together and then broke into small groups for an activity. It was such a neat experience to hang out with tween-age french girls and take part in a night like that. This morning, I tried out the church myself, and everyone was so welcoming to all of us assistants. An older French couple invited me and two other girls over for lunch and proceeded to serve us the most amazing 5 course meal!

The Wild and Wonderful World of Valence

I have become totally enchanted with my new city! I've decided that the best way to see a place is to jog it. I've started taking my camera with me on runs because I always see the most wonderful things then: old french couples strolling the park holding hands, children playing, and just plain old pretty scenery. View my pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.a.hollis/TheWildAndWonderfulWorldOfValence# and expect me to add to this album throughout my stay!

In France, everything feels unexpected! When I got back from training in Autrans, I ate dessert with Cloé and her married friends and their baby who are visiting from Germany, then an Argentinian assistant spent the night with us while she searched for apartments. Last night, I went to a French gymnastics arena and got to jump on the hot trampolines! One of Cloé's friends is a male gymnast, and he invited us to come use the equipment and then he gave us all dinner afterwards. We did a song exchange, and I taught all the Frenchies how to line dance and introduced them to Achey Breakey Heart- which they went CRAZY over.





Today I didn't have training or work, so I ran some errands with Nicole and the girls down the street, and we got ice cream and ate it in the park. Then I came home and Nicole taught me yoga, then I went to an awesome French bible study for college students!

Teacher Time!

Yesterday I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar aloud to a French elementary school class. How my life is different in such a sort time! I've spent the past week or so getting all sorts of training on how to be an elementary school teacher. At the end of last week, my coordinator took me on a tour of both my elementary schools to meet the 11 teachers I'll be working with this year. All of them seem really nice, and I got to meet a lot of the precious students as well! There's much to learn about how to teach foreign languages to small children, and France is pretty progressive in their techniques. Teachers speak no French during English time, and it's amazing what level of meaning you can learn to convey using simple vocabulary and gestures.

Last weekend, all the Grenoble Academy teaching assistants went on a retreat to the mountains in Autrans for training! There are people from all over the world participating in this program for various languages. I met people from Germany, England, India, Italy, Jamaica, Spain, Argentina and even Trinidad and Tobago! Although our accommodations were a little rustic, this was the view, complete with hot air balloons over the Alps!


I feel very lucky because I became friends with a bunch of really nice people who are living in Valence! There are more assistants here than any other city in the region. There are some great girls living right down the street and plenty of other people nearby! Here's a pic of some of my new Valence friends and another pic of our night out in Autrans:



My coordinator, Rosine, has actually done quite a bit to prepare us Valence primary school assistants for success. She planned further training for us at a university in Valence two days this week to practice, observe classrooms around Valence (where I got called upon to read to the children), meet with all the other coordinators and the Academic Inspectrice, and get more help with our paperwork. All the coordinators made a delicious lunch for us on the second day, and Rosine got us access to the library at the university for free. Tomorrow and Friday I'm spending all day observing my classes, and then Monday I begin officially!