Feeling 22 in France!

What better way to start the next year of your life in a foreign country! Birthday week kicked off with a 5:45 am wakeup call to prendre le bus with the students to go to school. I even managed to sleep (I think) for a bit on the hour and a half ride up. I arrived at school and learned I would be observing some more classes this week – one of my profs joked that I could do my All About Me powerpoint in my sleep and that was pretty accurate. Mondays are a rough and early start but apparently, the teachers like to make sweets on Sunday and bring them in! Pas mal!

looks like a Bob Ross painting

Not going to sugar coat it, the first night in the internat or boarding school was a little lonely. I hung out in my internet-less room and had dinner alone in the teacher’s lounge. Things turned around when my “roommate” aka another professor who stayed over Monday night came back and we ended up talking for about an hour about food, differences in France, places to travel too … très sympa !

  

Raving about the ravioli // Ex-couscous the food puns!

Caught a ride down the next day with a French professor (if that’s not intimidating when trying to speak French after a day of speaking in English in classes I don’t know what is!). and was about to hop on the tram home when it seemed a little too quiet. La grève !  The strike! I had forgotten there was a transportation and school strike and only about 6 bus lines were running, none of which were headed in the direction of my apartment, of course. So I trekked home with my winter-mountain clothes and joked about it with the housemates before crashing early.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent trying to convince different banks to give me an appointment ASAP. Turns out when you say it is très urgent the soonest they can help you is a week. Again, gotta love French bureaucracy.

we were Russian around all week! (jk this church is 5 min from our apt)

Friday rolled around and Melissa and I woke up and went for a birthday run (and then grabbed a pain au chocolat) on the way back because pourquoi pas. Then I taught for a little bit before Katie and I headed to the beach for a birthday beer. We met back up with Melissa for a kir and planned the evening. Katie’s professor had invited her to a wine tasting so we tagged along and tant mieux! There was some good wine and cheese but the star was truffle ham! I want to go back and eat about 2 kilos worth of it! Katie went with her prof to dinner and Melissa, our friend Abby and I headed back to the Old Town to find some cheap eats. We stumbled upon a strange Italian street food place with calzones? But French? Anyways it was good and we got to practice our Grazis! We ended up at Fenocchio (love of my life!) and I finally got my pistache ice cream before we went to a bar in the Old Town called Wayne’s. The live music was good and we ended up chatting with a British guy on vacation.

    

Cass-Is this real life? // Birthday run on the beach ended with a photoshoot thanks to a stranger

     

Pist-ask me how good this day way! // Jambon + fromage + foccacia = italian heaven 

The next morning Melissa and I headed to the beach for our assistant de langue beach picnic! We posted on Facebook and quite a few assistants showed up which was fun. Who can complain when there’s wine, cheese, snacks and even a little birthday cake! We went out that night to a tapas bar with a group of assistants.

   

Birthdays are the perfect excuse for a pique-nique! // 6 bottles of wines is an accomplishment

   

Merci beacoup to these lovely ladies for making birthday weekend the best! 

Currently I’m back at Le Lycée de la Montagne, chilling in the Teacher’s Lounge after dinner with two Euro-volunteers from Germany and Italy who are here for the year at the school too. Had my first classes today and it was wild trying to match schedules with profs, students and myself and I have some things to switch around demain. Besides that, this week will be spent relaxing and working before 2 weeks of vacation! It feels like we just got here and we’re already going on break. I mean no complaints … il faut profiter !

     

Din-donnez moi all the food! // Internat views!

À toute à l'heure, 

Lele xx

Orienting myself ...

... aka Monday was our first "official" day of orientation! Les filles de Châteauneuf woke up nice and early and managed to get halfway to the rectorat (French school board building) without morning coffee. Our second bus was a little late but we managed to get to the rectorat and hand in most of our forms and sign in without too much trouble.

The rest of the morning was mostly presentations by various school officials on the paperwork we need to fill out and some information about French schooling. We also took a super fun group picture (which they managed to print in 30 minutes to give each of us a copy*)
*Side note - French bureaucracy is très fou but somehow they can successfully & quickly print a photo

Lunch was some hors d'œuvres and some good desserts! Then we split into groups to talk about French high schools and how we should teach - my head teacher actually led the session! Fun surprise for me, apparently I was supposed to bring my First-Day-Presentation to introduce myself to orientation so I had to present myself and a video I found on Google Drive to the other assistants. Not super ideal ...

Wednesday, I was en route to my (second) bank appointment when my head teacher called and said she could pick me up and take me to school! So I hurried back home, quickly finished my potato, spinach, and goat cheese quiche and threw my clothes in a bag to meet her and 2 other teachers. I spent the night at her house in a small village south of school and helped her make a tarte tatin and pizza for dinner.

tarte me up!

The next morning was my (second) first day of high school! And let me tell you, it felt a little bit like the first, first day. The windy mountain roads got even skinnier and even windier as we got to school and I even peeped the last fort on the Maginot Line during WWII - which wasn't actually used. We pulled up to school - Lycée de la Montagne and I was promptly left to introduce myself to the doorman and secretaries!

school route! don't look down!

I observed various classes during the day and one student even asked a teacher if I was a new student - felt a little like one tbh. I even presented my First-Day-Presentation (which I remembered to bring with me - you only make that mistake once!!) and did a chart on different stereotypes and/or clichés of France and the States. I was super wiped once the day was over but I carpooled back with some other teachers and we spoke French and English on the 1h30 drive back down to Nice.

Some highs were that the staff and teachers all seem very nice and they complimented my French and accent which was a boost! Lows are that high school students are (still) super intimidating and it's all new and a little nervewracking. I'm still en train de open a bank account so hopefully that falls into place soon and I can get paid!

(as they said many times at school) Ciao Ciao!
Xx,
Lele