Adventures in Paris: November 2010

I'm terrible with updates. Hmm. Must work on that.

So I've now been here for one month and four days, done maybe half of the 12 hours of work per week that I was supposed to be doing, illegally traveled outside the country, and watched far too much American tv. Old episodes of shows I brought with me, of course, since my internet connection here is the saddest thing since the midterm elections, which I spent all of today (aka my last day of break) following. Totally should have gone to the laundromat instead.

The break was relatively uneventful, as my lazy self spent far too much time sleeping to actually get anything productive or interesting done. But I did go to Luxembourg with MA and her husband, despite our orders to not leave French territory until we get the tampon (a stamp, not the feminine hygiene product) in our passports. Luxembourg is easily one of the most confusing places I've ever been to. I'm pretty sure I heard 10 languages while walking down one not too long street, which proved to be too much for my already overwhelmed brain as I reverted to speaking Korean. But otherwise there wasn't too much that struck me as being truly unique to the area, although that's probably because I didn't spend too much time there. Oh, that and because there was a lot of fog that prevented me from being able to see much of anything. Still, I did see the ducal palace and get super excited seeing little flags at the registers (indicating which languages the attendants spoke) in a supermarche.

I also amused myself and most likely annoyed others while grading papers and trying to contain my laughter (kids these days are so creative!) in the mediatheque, a sort of library, before being kicked out at the completely unreasonable hour of 6 pm. Seriously, between libraries never being open and all the manifs, I don't understand how anyone gets anything done here. If you're a 5eme with a difficult oral exam coming up, you should probably be going to school so you can prepare for it instead of striking over the retirement age, no? How do people pass the concours?! On the plus side, more manifestations/greves = less work for me. The only annoying part is that I have to get up at 8 or 9 or whatever time I have class anyway in the highly unlikely case that enough students show up to get something done.

Then last weekend I managed to go out with T, who has been renamed "cute son" since I first met him through his mom (and yes, it was as awkward as it sounds) and met his much more talkative friend Q. Went to a bar, heard stories about people who get arrested every weekend or fall off 3rd floor balconies when they drink, explained kings and shotgunning, then learned that chivalry is not dead when the two walked me back to the school instead of letting me wait 48 minutes for the next tram. It was super nice of them considering they both live in the city center and I live, well, not in the city center. Or if you want to be really specific, a 45 minute walk from Place Stanislas, which is another 10 minutes from where they live. Went out again with Q the next night, met some of his hs friends, had a flamme nicolas or whatever the 3 step flaming drink is called with a 62 year old man, went to my first discotheque in Nancy, then was walked back again so I could stay up until an ungodly hour and skype with people.

The rest of the break involved more skype, sleep, and helping one of the teachers (the only one who's even remotely close to my age) pack/move, and fbing at teachers' houses. Not having facebook access complicates life so, so much when you're in a foreign country and all the other foreigners communicate/meet each other through it.