February 14, 2010
Well, I wouldn’t have said it’s actually been as long as it has since my last post, so it seems time just keeps flying by! To catch up on the last few weeks, here’s an overview-
Went out and had a great time for my birthday, there were about 8 of us that stayed out at a club until 4:30 in the morning- needless to say, I slept in on Sunday, my birthday. Later in the week the Weil family asked me to stay for dinner with them and Dorothée prepared a great meal for a birthday dinner, duck in a peach sauce with ice cream and galette des rois cake for dinner. This is a French tradition and the ‘cake’ is more like a really fluffy pastry with a small ‘fève’ baked into it as a prize. While cutting the cake up into slices, the youngest person in the group gets under the table and designates who each piece should go to, and then everyone eats tentatively for the first few bites until the small porcelain figurine is found, or the ‘fève.’ The person who finds the fève is declared king (or Roi), and then he or she designates their queen. The cakes are really popular in France and are eaten around Epiphany, and they are sold with a gold paper crown for the king to wear when he finds the fève. Before the porcelain figurines (which can be shaped as anything from food to comics characters to tableware), the fève used to be made out of metal, but that was stopped when people started heating the cakes up in the microwave, and even before that, it used to be a fava bean (thus the name fève, meaning fava bean). The same day we celebrated my birthday was also the day of celebration for Saint Paul, therefore Pauline (the 15 year old daughter) got a few small gifts as well to recognize it is the saint she was named after. I’m pretty sure that’s a Catholic tradition…
I still enjoy my teaching job every day. It’s amazing to see the kids take the initiative to go out and learn new words in English, and I am constantly bombarded with questions of, “What does ‘such and such’ mean in English,” usually words the students have heard through the media. One boy is especially interested in the WWF wrestling, which is called “catch” here, and his favorite person is Undertaker. He has asked me on more than one occasion if I know Undertaker personally and whether he is real or not. Can anyone enlighten me on who the guy even is? I also get numerous questions about how to pronounce certain tv show names, and the first 6 times I heard “Desprite Ows vive” it took me about 5 minutes to figure out they were talking about Desperate Housewives. I just gave a presentation on meals in the US to one of my older classes and they couldn’t believe how early we eat dinner, considering French tradition is to start dinner no earlier than 8:30pm. They also didn’t understand why we place so much emphasis on a big breakfast and how that practice started in the US- does anyone know and want to tell me? French aren’t into the whole scrambled eggs, toast, pancakes, waffles, bacon for breakfast idea.
I had a little houseguest a few weeks ago, a small, cute, fluffy, terrorizing, disease-carrying mouse. The Weil family said they had seen it around their apartment a few times, and there is a hole under their refrigerator where it lives. Well, considering how small my room is I hoped it wouldn’t pay me a visit- there’s literally no place it could be where it’s not within 5 feet of me, but alas, I was wrong. I noticed it one night poking around my shoes (ahh! It better not eat any of those), and then the rest of the night I heard it scampering around on my wooden floor. Because my bed is just a mattress on the ground, I didn’t sleep very well because I literally felt it running up and down alongside my mattress. EWW. I went out and bought a mouse trap the next day for my room and the Weil apartment, and was surprised that the Weil’s hadn’t bought one earlier, considering they had known about the mouse for at least 6 days. I never had to come home to see a mouse in my trap, nor did the Weil’s catch one, but I haven’t seen or heard it since. Fingers crossed it’s gone or someone else caught it, I still have the trap set up just in case.
It got cold again recently and has snowed 3 different times in the last week, which the French are going crazy over because it is so out of the ordinary. When it does snow it’s no more than 1-2 inches, but this last week it’s been cold enough for the snow to actually stick, which is really rare. I was bummed because the park I’ve been running in turned into an ice track, so I had to stick to the sidewalks which I don’t like to do; too many people, often inhaling second-hand smoke because 90% of France smokes, waiting at stoplights, the constant lookout for dog poop on the ground, and the weird looks I get because it is rare to see a female out jogging all make the run less enjoyable. But, I will say the one positive is running past amazing old churches and buildings that are all over the city, really reminds me that I’m living here!
I decided to stay out late on Sunday to watch the Superbowl with Leah and some of her classmates who aren’t from the US- I was really the only one who cared to watch the game. It didn’t start until 12:30am here due to the time difference, so I headed home after the first half. I was hoping that since it was being shown live I would also see the commercials, but turns out the channel broadcasting the game was British, so no American commercials :( I think things have been pretty normal around here, meaning I don’t have delays on my metro rides, the teachers aren’t on strike, I come home and buy a baguette everyday at the local boulangerie for the Weil’s to have as a snack, spend time helping the Weil kids with homework and English, and then I come up and attempt to make an appetizing meal on my stovetop in my tiny, currently freezing apartment. I’m still making mostly pasta… I have a two-week break from school coming up, February 20th to March 7th, I think I’ll try to get to Aix-en-Provence for a few days, and maybe will even go farther south into Spain. Haven’t really decided what I’m doing yet and most of my friends already had their plans set a month ago, so it’ll be a trip I take by myself. This can be good, I don’t have to conform to anyone else’s schedule, but the worst thing about traveling alone is eating meals alone in restaurants. That’s always the thing that upsets me. Seeing sites by myself or even staying in a room in a hostel with a bunch of strangers where I know no one is ok, but not having someone to talk with while I’m waiting for food is one of the loneliest feelings I’ve ever had. I learned that when I was here three years ago and took my 10 day vacation to Austria by myself, but ultimately, it’s worth it to sit and be uncomfortable for an hour every day in return for visiting new and exciting cities and experiencing different cultures.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
They showed up EARLY? Déguelasse...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wow, where to start. Today there was a teacher strike in France, and when that happens, the teachers all submit a paper a few days in advance saying whether they will choose to work or not. I found out about the strike Monday because the teachers at my Monday school were signing their papers (they did not choose to strike). I called my Thursday school to see if my teachers were going to be there, and it turns out three of the six teachers I work with were striking today, so I only taught three of my six classes. The strike was a protest against some changes taking place within the French education system- from what I could gather only 1 out of every 2 teachers who retire will be replaced and there is a new student teaching system being installed that costs the government less money to train new teachers, and puts more work on the current teachers. As it turns out, today was the perfect day for me to only have to teach half my classes because I was pretty tired- I went out with Leah last night to celebrate my birthday a few days early. We went to a bar in the Marais (the area used to be marshland 900 years ago, thus Marais=marsh). Today the area is located slightly east of the center of Paris and is a pretty cool place to go out and get coffee or grab a glass of wine. Leah and I ‘grabbed’ a full bottle of wine in a café that we both have wanted to go to for a while, but usually it’s too busy during the day to find a place to sit. We followed the customary tradition of arriving at 10pm and not leaving until 12:30am when the wine was gone and cheesecake was finished. We went out for my birthday yesterday because she will be out of town this weekend when my big birthday bash is scheduled. Another assistant turns 25 on Saturday, and I turn 24 on Sunday (yay for my Golden Birthday!), so we’re going to stay out all night Saturday at a club in true Parisian style. So far there aren’t too many of us that are gung-ho about making it the entire night, so we’ll see how long it actually lasts. In Paris the métro shuts down between 1:30am and 5:30am, so one of the reasons people stay out all night is they cannot take public transportation home- you leave the club when the métro starts running again in the morning :)
I was luckily able to take a quick nap after getting home from work- the two classes I usually finish with on Thursdays were two of the three that didn’t meet today due to the strike. I got home an hour earlier than normal and took a quick nap before picking up Antoine from school. He is a hoot and I love spending time with him- he literally cracks me up at least 3 times a day. We’ve been playing the game of Life ever since I gave it to the family for Christmas, and this has resulted in many quotes revealing his true, humorous personality and intelligence beyond his age. One time he landed on the space “Pay $50,000 per child to send them to college.” Well, Antoine had 4 kids that game, so when I told him how much he owed he said, “Oh no, my kids aren’t going to college! Are you crazy? No school for them!” Hahahaha. Today he landed on two different spaces for winning money- the first said “Won TV Idol show, earn $100,000.” The second space he hit that game said, “Win Dancing Reality Show, earn $100,000.” So after I explained to him that he had won money based on his singing and dancing skills, he said, “Wow, I’m the next Michael Jackson!” Maybe these particular quotes aren’t as funny if you weren’t there, and you have to remember he’s talking with a really strong French accent, but these comments coming from a 10 year old just get me. I’m laughing just writing about them now!
Dorothée had asked me a few days ago if I could give her some extra help today because she was hosting a dinner party for 18 people as a surprise 50th birthday party for a friend. I agreed- usually when she asks me to help it means I just set the table and get out the good silverware to make sure it’s clean and I can find matching sets (that is a whole different blog, but suffice it to say, she doesn’t have a very orderly kitchen or storage system…) Whoa, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into for tonight! First off, her table only seats 8 people max, and instead of being able to put a leaf in it, she has these plywood squares she lays on top to expand the table. So, I vacuumed the wood because it was dusty after sitting in storage, set the table up (and these sheets of wood hang off at least a foot in any direction, I was scared someone would press down too hard and flip an entire board off the table! Luckily, didn’t happen). Then I found enough plates, silverware, champagne glasses, wine glasses, and water glasses to serve 18 people, but none of it really matched because she doesn’t have 18 plates of the same pattern, 18 of the same wine glasses or champagne glasses, or 18 settings that match in her good silverware (you’d have to host a lot of really huge events to have at least 18 place settings that all match in my opinion). But, I was impressed that she even HAD 18 champagne glasses. Then I helped her: fold the table cloth correctly (took way longer than you’d think it would, this table was really big), iron said tablecloth, put all the appetizers in serving dishes, clean all her artsy glass pieces so they could be on display, arrange the appetizers and candles on the table in a nice array, quickly dumped an entire hot batch of rice into the trash can (literally in about 10 seconds, yes, it was messy) because she had a second batch of rice to pour into the colander- we had to dump the first batch because she didn’t like how it turned out, etc, and then I continued to refill appetizers and finish up the cooking throughout the appetizer portion of the party. I understood she asked me to help her because 1- Antoine could NEVER focus on a task for that long at 10 years old (she tried to get him to do a few things, didn’t happen), 2- Thibault and Pauline were in their guitar lessons when she started preparing, and 3- Thibault and Pauline then have homework to finish before school tomorrow. But, I know for a fact neither one was actually DOING homework in their room during the mad rush of preparation… In a very humble way, I would like to say I really was a lifesaver, I don’t know how Dorothée would have pulled it off without someone helping. In the end I was rewarded with an AMAZING French meal and both Dorothée and Bertrand really showed their appreciation that I stayed throughout the dinner party to help out. I was invited to have champagne, dine at their table, and the guests were all very nice. I literally didn’t even have time to run up one flight of stairs to my apartment to change out of jeans because we were so busy, but I had luckily worn a nice shirt and nice jeans to work today, so I wasn’t sloppy either.
And now some comments on their French dinner party-
-Two of the guests showed up at 8:20pm, but the party was supposed to start at 8:30pm. BAD MOVE, MAJOR FAUX PAS! Dorothée was ranting about, “How dare someone show up ten minutes early for a dinner party, they should know it’s not actually supposed to start until 8:45pm at the earliest!” So, of course nothing was finished and the kitchen and apartment were still hazard zones when the first couple entered.
-Most people brought something- wine, flowers, dessert. I think we probably do that in the US too, but it was still something I noticed.
-Dorothy and Bertrand are definitely in a pretty high social class. All of their friends are well-off businessmen or women with high-paying jobs. All 16 of the guests spoke English fluently, which I believe is not only a sign of intelligence but prosperity here, and they all spoke English to me until I replied back in French. Then when they realized I understood, they were not necessarily impressed, but more accepting of me.
-The man I sat next to at dinner is an extremely famous architect, didn’t catch his name, but he travels to New York monthly from Paris because that is where most of his business is located. (As a side note, Bertrand’s brother-in-law won the French national version of the Nobel Peace prize for science, so this family has some major connections).
-I learned (from the famous architect) that “Bon Appétit” isn’t really proper to say before eating dinner together. It is only said by ‘les peuples’, which roughly translates to peasants/lower class in the connotation he used, surely not anyone wealthy. The one acceptable time to say it is when someone who is not partaking in the meal but passes by offers a “Bon Appétit,” then it is not considered in poor taste.
Whew, long day. Glad tomorrow is Friday!
PS- Dégeulasse in the title of this blog post is not a good word. It’s not a swear word per se, but it literally translates to ‘that makes me want to throw up,’ so it’s a somewhat harsh slang word to express you don’t like something.
Wow, where to start. Today there was a teacher strike in France, and when that happens, the teachers all submit a paper a few days in advance saying whether they will choose to work or not. I found out about the strike Monday because the teachers at my Monday school were signing their papers (they did not choose to strike). I called my Thursday school to see if my teachers were going to be there, and it turns out three of the six teachers I work with were striking today, so I only taught three of my six classes. The strike was a protest against some changes taking place within the French education system- from what I could gather only 1 out of every 2 teachers who retire will be replaced and there is a new student teaching system being installed that costs the government less money to train new teachers, and puts more work on the current teachers. As it turns out, today was the perfect day for me to only have to teach half my classes because I was pretty tired- I went out with Leah last night to celebrate my birthday a few days early. We went to a bar in the Marais (the area used to be marshland 900 years ago, thus Marais=marsh). Today the area is located slightly east of the center of Paris and is a pretty cool place to go out and get coffee or grab a glass of wine. Leah and I ‘grabbed’ a full bottle of wine in a café that we both have wanted to go to for a while, but usually it’s too busy during the day to find a place to sit. We followed the customary tradition of arriving at 10pm and not leaving until 12:30am when the wine was gone and cheesecake was finished. We went out for my birthday yesterday because she will be out of town this weekend when my big birthday bash is scheduled. Another assistant turns 25 on Saturday, and I turn 24 on Sunday (yay for my Golden Birthday!), so we’re going to stay out all night Saturday at a club in true Parisian style. So far there aren’t too many of us that are gung-ho about making it the entire night, so we’ll see how long it actually lasts. In Paris the métro shuts down between 1:30am and 5:30am, so one of the reasons people stay out all night is they cannot take public transportation home- you leave the club when the métro starts running again in the morning :)
I was luckily able to take a quick nap after getting home from work- the two classes I usually finish with on Thursdays were two of the three that didn’t meet today due to the strike. I got home an hour earlier than normal and took a quick nap before picking up Antoine from school. He is a hoot and I love spending time with him- he literally cracks me up at least 3 times a day. We’ve been playing the game of Life ever since I gave it to the family for Christmas, and this has resulted in many quotes revealing his true, humorous personality and intelligence beyond his age. One time he landed on the space “Pay $50,000 per child to send them to college.” Well, Antoine had 4 kids that game, so when I told him how much he owed he said, “Oh no, my kids aren’t going to college! Are you crazy? No school for them!” Hahahaha. Today he landed on two different spaces for winning money- the first said “Won TV Idol show, earn $100,000.” The second space he hit that game said, “Win Dancing Reality Show, earn $100,000.” So after I explained to him that he had won money based on his singing and dancing skills, he said, “Wow, I’m the next Michael Jackson!” Maybe these particular quotes aren’t as funny if you weren’t there, and you have to remember he’s talking with a really strong French accent, but these comments coming from a 10 year old just get me. I’m laughing just writing about them now!
Dorothée had asked me a few days ago if I could give her some extra help today because she was hosting a dinner party for 18 people as a surprise 50th birthday party for a friend. I agreed- usually when she asks me to help it means I just set the table and get out the good silverware to make sure it’s clean and I can find matching sets (that is a whole different blog, but suffice it to say, she doesn’t have a very orderly kitchen or storage system…) Whoa, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into for tonight! First off, her table only seats 8 people max, and instead of being able to put a leaf in it, she has these plywood squares she lays on top to expand the table. So, I vacuumed the wood because it was dusty after sitting in storage, set the table up (and these sheets of wood hang off at least a foot in any direction, I was scared someone would press down too hard and flip an entire board off the table! Luckily, didn’t happen). Then I found enough plates, silverware, champagne glasses, wine glasses, and water glasses to serve 18 people, but none of it really matched because she doesn’t have 18 plates of the same pattern, 18 of the same wine glasses or champagne glasses, or 18 settings that match in her good silverware (you’d have to host a lot of really huge events to have at least 18 place settings that all match in my opinion). But, I was impressed that she even HAD 18 champagne glasses. Then I helped her: fold the table cloth correctly (took way longer than you’d think it would, this table was really big), iron said tablecloth, put all the appetizers in serving dishes, clean all her artsy glass pieces so they could be on display, arrange the appetizers and candles on the table in a nice array, quickly dumped an entire hot batch of rice into the trash can (literally in about 10 seconds, yes, it was messy) because she had a second batch of rice to pour into the colander- we had to dump the first batch because she didn’t like how it turned out, etc, and then I continued to refill appetizers and finish up the cooking throughout the appetizer portion of the party. I understood she asked me to help her because 1- Antoine could NEVER focus on a task for that long at 10 years old (she tried to get him to do a few things, didn’t happen), 2- Thibault and Pauline were in their guitar lessons when she started preparing, and 3- Thibault and Pauline then have homework to finish before school tomorrow. But, I know for a fact neither one was actually DOING homework in their room during the mad rush of preparation… In a very humble way, I would like to say I really was a lifesaver, I don’t know how Dorothée would have pulled it off without someone helping. In the end I was rewarded with an AMAZING French meal and both Dorothée and Bertrand really showed their appreciation that I stayed throughout the dinner party to help out. I was invited to have champagne, dine at their table, and the guests were all very nice. I literally didn’t even have time to run up one flight of stairs to my apartment to change out of jeans because we were so busy, but I had luckily worn a nice shirt and nice jeans to work today, so I wasn’t sloppy either.
And now some comments on their French dinner party-
-Two of the guests showed up at 8:20pm, but the party was supposed to start at 8:30pm. BAD MOVE, MAJOR FAUX PAS! Dorothée was ranting about, “How dare someone show up ten minutes early for a dinner party, they should know it’s not actually supposed to start until 8:45pm at the earliest!” So, of course nothing was finished and the kitchen and apartment were still hazard zones when the first couple entered.
-Most people brought something- wine, flowers, dessert. I think we probably do that in the US too, but it was still something I noticed.
-Dorothy and Bertrand are definitely in a pretty high social class. All of their friends are well-off businessmen or women with high-paying jobs. All 16 of the guests spoke English fluently, which I believe is not only a sign of intelligence but prosperity here, and they all spoke English to me until I replied back in French. Then when they realized I understood, they were not necessarily impressed, but more accepting of me.
-The man I sat next to at dinner is an extremely famous architect, didn’t catch his name, but he travels to New York monthly from Paris because that is where most of his business is located. (As a side note, Bertrand’s brother-in-law won the French national version of the Nobel Peace prize for science, so this family has some major connections).
-I learned (from the famous architect) that “Bon Appétit” isn’t really proper to say before eating dinner together. It is only said by ‘les peuples’, which roughly translates to peasants/lower class in the connotation he used, surely not anyone wealthy. The one acceptable time to say it is when someone who is not partaking in the meal but passes by offers a “Bon Appétit,” then it is not considered in poor taste.
Whew, long day. Glad tomorrow is Friday!
PS- Dégeulasse in the title of this blog post is not a good word. It’s not a swear word per se, but it literally translates to ‘that makes me want to throw up,’ so it’s a somewhat harsh slang word to express you don’t like something.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Brr, it's cold in Paris, but not really
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Well I’ve been back in France for 10 days and I am back in the swing of things again. It took me about a week to adjust to the time change; those first few days of teaching were rough because I hadn’t slept much the night before due to jetlag. I was excited to give my American Christmas presents to the Weil family- some CD’s for the kids, the game of Life for the family, and a potato masher because they love homemade mashed potatoes (before they used the instant kind where you add water to powder, which is popular in France). Antoine, the young superstar, loves singing along to his Lady Gaga CD, and Thibault enjoys playing guitar along with Jack Johnson. Dorothée, the mom, also loves the Jack Johnson CD, so that one was a hit over here. The family was excited to play the game of Life but didn’t completely understand the rules after reading the directions in English, so I taught Antoine how to play later in the week. We’ve now played 4 times in 6 days :) I didn’t realize the game had been updated, but if you haven’t seen a new version of the game, you can now go gambling, buy a second house, and sue other members for $100,000. I think they tried to update it to better reflect how ‘Life’ is today, although I can’t say I foresee myself going through multiple multi-thousand dollar lawsuits in my future. Hmm, I do want to be a doctor though...
For my school kids, I brought back pennies and made a card for each student that said “Make a wish on your penny for good luck in 2010!”, basing the cards on the American saying, “See a penny, pick it up, if you do you’ll have good luck.” The older children in 4th and 5th grade thought they were awesome, they couldn’t believe I had given them real money from the US. The younger kids thought it was neat too, but didn’t realize they couldn’t use the money in France. I got many questions wondering if they could go out and buy something with their penny here in France, but seeing as how a penny is worth LESS than one centime in Euros due to the exchange rate, I think they would have trouble with that.
My bathroom got redone while I was home in the US, I was a little surprised things happened so quickly during the 2 weeks I was gone! Now I have a better shower handle that doesn’t leak, and I don’t have to worry about turning the water off in the apartment every time I leave or go to sleep- major improvement. It’s been pretty cold here in Paris, a whopping -2 C some days (which is 28 deg F, so really not that bad for us Minnesotans or Wisconsinites). It’s very cold for Paris though, and everyone is complaining. The teachers can’t believe it when I walk through the school courtyard to go from one class to the next without a coat on, even though I’m only outside for 10 seconds. I think about times I’ve run outside to get the paper or fetch the cats in weather that is -12 C (10 F), and just respond that it’s warmer in Paris than what I’m used to this time of year. It has even snowed more than once, which is really rare here. We got a few inches last Thursday and my school in Boissy St. Léger practically shut down! Rather than taking 30 min for teachers to drive to school, it was a 2.5 hour commute because people don’t know how to drive in any kind of snow, so teachers called out because they didn’t want to make the drive. Three teachers called out and the school’s director, and there is no such thing as getting a substitute teacher the same day here, they have to be arranged way in advance. If a teacher has to take an unplanned absence, usually their 25 students get split up and distributed into other classrooms, but because three teachers didn’t come in, those students ended up not having to come to school at all that day. All the classes I work with were normal, the teachers showed up on time, but the school was only 2/3 full because so many students didn’t come to school that day. Incredible, considering it was due to 2 inches of snow.
The month after Christmas is the month of ‘soldes’ in Paris, so major sales and markdowns at practically every store. Sort of like our Black Friday after Thanksgiving, but this goes on for a month and is its own sort of holiday here. Dorothée went shopping with Pauline and came back loaded down with bags, and it is a hot topic of conversation during the lunch break at schools. I’ll probably check out a few stores, but I’m scared that if I buy too much in France, I won’t get everything back to the US with my regular luggage allowance because I was already maxed out when I came over here. I’ll probably have to pay to ship some things, or pay for an extra bag on the plane. My mom is coming at the end of April so hopefully I’ll be able to send things with her. I’m a little worried because my return flight in July goes from Paris to Toronto, then to Minneapolis, and after they tightened security, I read that flights from Canada to the US were not allowing any carry-on baggage, in which case I’m screwed… I’ll wait and see. Happy New Year, hope everyone has a great 2010!
PS- I have received a total of 3 pieces of mail since arriving, and one of those things was junk mail. Feel free to send me a note to say Hi!
Justine Newhouse
88 rue de Tocqueville
75017 Paris
FRANCE
Make sure to write AIRMAIL and PAR AVION on the envelope!
Well I’ve been back in France for 10 days and I am back in the swing of things again. It took me about a week to adjust to the time change; those first few days of teaching were rough because I hadn’t slept much the night before due to jetlag. I was excited to give my American Christmas presents to the Weil family- some CD’s for the kids, the game of Life for the family, and a potato masher because they love homemade mashed potatoes (before they used the instant kind where you add water to powder, which is popular in France). Antoine, the young superstar, loves singing along to his Lady Gaga CD, and Thibault enjoys playing guitar along with Jack Johnson. Dorothée, the mom, also loves the Jack Johnson CD, so that one was a hit over here. The family was excited to play the game of Life but didn’t completely understand the rules after reading the directions in English, so I taught Antoine how to play later in the week. We’ve now played 4 times in 6 days :) I didn’t realize the game had been updated, but if you haven’t seen a new version of the game, you can now go gambling, buy a second house, and sue other members for $100,000. I think they tried to update it to better reflect how ‘Life’ is today, although I can’t say I foresee myself going through multiple multi-thousand dollar lawsuits in my future. Hmm, I do want to be a doctor though...
For my school kids, I brought back pennies and made a card for each student that said “Make a wish on your penny for good luck in 2010!”, basing the cards on the American saying, “See a penny, pick it up, if you do you’ll have good luck.” The older children in 4th and 5th grade thought they were awesome, they couldn’t believe I had given them real money from the US. The younger kids thought it was neat too, but didn’t realize they couldn’t use the money in France. I got many questions wondering if they could go out and buy something with their penny here in France, but seeing as how a penny is worth LESS than one centime in Euros due to the exchange rate, I think they would have trouble with that.
My bathroom got redone while I was home in the US, I was a little surprised things happened so quickly during the 2 weeks I was gone! Now I have a better shower handle that doesn’t leak, and I don’t have to worry about turning the water off in the apartment every time I leave or go to sleep- major improvement. It’s been pretty cold here in Paris, a whopping -2 C some days (which is 28 deg F, so really not that bad for us Minnesotans or Wisconsinites). It’s very cold for Paris though, and everyone is complaining. The teachers can’t believe it when I walk through the school courtyard to go from one class to the next without a coat on, even though I’m only outside for 10 seconds. I think about times I’ve run outside to get the paper or fetch the cats in weather that is -12 C (10 F), and just respond that it’s warmer in Paris than what I’m used to this time of year. It has even snowed more than once, which is really rare here. We got a few inches last Thursday and my school in Boissy St. Léger practically shut down! Rather than taking 30 min for teachers to drive to school, it was a 2.5 hour commute because people don’t know how to drive in any kind of snow, so teachers called out because they didn’t want to make the drive. Three teachers called out and the school’s director, and there is no such thing as getting a substitute teacher the same day here, they have to be arranged way in advance. If a teacher has to take an unplanned absence, usually their 25 students get split up and distributed into other classrooms, but because three teachers didn’t come in, those students ended up not having to come to school at all that day. All the classes I work with were normal, the teachers showed up on time, but the school was only 2/3 full because so many students didn’t come to school that day. Incredible, considering it was due to 2 inches of snow.
The month after Christmas is the month of ‘soldes’ in Paris, so major sales and markdowns at practically every store. Sort of like our Black Friday after Thanksgiving, but this goes on for a month and is its own sort of holiday here. Dorothée went shopping with Pauline and came back loaded down with bags, and it is a hot topic of conversation during the lunch break at schools. I’ll probably check out a few stores, but I’m scared that if I buy too much in France, I won’t get everything back to the US with my regular luggage allowance because I was already maxed out when I came over here. I’ll probably have to pay to ship some things, or pay for an extra bag on the plane. My mom is coming at the end of April so hopefully I’ll be able to send things with her. I’m a little worried because my return flight in July goes from Paris to Toronto, then to Minneapolis, and after they tightened security, I read that flights from Canada to the US were not allowing any carry-on baggage, in which case I’m screwed… I’ll wait and see. Happy New Year, hope everyone has a great 2010!
PS- I have received a total of 3 pieces of mail since arriving, and one of those things was junk mail. Feel free to send me a note to say Hi!
Justine Newhouse
88 rue de Tocqueville
75017 Paris
FRANCE
Make sure to write AIRMAIL and PAR AVION on the envelope!
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