Tis the season…

France is pretty serious about the holidays. Shops are allowed to be open on Sundays two weeks before Christmas, which is kind of a big deal. As aforementioned, there is a cute little Christmas market in the center of town. Stalls selling food exhibited their wares of foie gras, assorted sausages (bull and deer meat sausages; hazelnut or mushroom flavored sausage, anyone?), tartiflette (cheese, potatoes, bacon served up hot), vin chaud (hot, spiced wine), churros, crepes, waffles, candy, and chestnuts (yes, roasted over an open fire, how cute). Hand-made jewelry, pottery, and trinkets are also sold at the market. I got many Christmas gifts here. The center of town is packed, as can be imagined. It’s not much different from the states, with the sole exception being the total exclusion of religion in the holiday festivities. In Winston, on Reynolda road, there is always a nativity scene set-up at a major intersection. I have yet to see a nativity scene and was hard pressed to find a card that said “Merry Christmas” instead of the secular “best wishes.” I have several Muslim students in my classes and a few weeks ago, many were absent. They were allowed to miss school to celebrate the end of Ramadan, eid-el-fitr. When we discussed Christmas in class, I asked some of the Muslim girls if they had it at their home. They said no, they got presents at their fete at the end of Ramadan. I thought it was interesting that they were allowed to miss school; I don’t know what the policy is in the US but I think it certainly meshes well with the French education system, reserving Wednesdays for “religious education” so that it doesn’t occur in the schools and treating everyone equal, even to the extent of religious holidays. Staying with this secular notion, I haven’t seen a single Jesus around. In teaching about Christmas, I discovered that Christmas dinner is quite different from in the states. The one commonality: turkey. The French accompany that with oysters, smoked salmon, foie gras, and escargots. They wash that all down with Champagne and eat a buche (log) of chocolate ice cream/crème as dessert. And they eat this the 24th, 25th, and 31st. And they call thanksgiving the food holiday, yeah right. Some families might eat frog legs, but surprisingly, that whole idea is a false stereotype. I know many Frenchies that have never tried them.
This next comment is completely un-related to Christmas, but I found it interesting recently. In the US, we make a lot of movies and they are in English, obviously. When we get another country’s films, it’s pretty rare that we dub it and thus we are used to watching foreign films with subtitles. Foreign films, however, are not that popular in the US, so maybe that’s why we don’t have a huge dubbing industry. France loves to dub movies and French people love dub films. In fact, I had a French person tell me that they preferred the dubbed Harrison Ford voice to the original (blasphemy). “Version Francaise (VF),” as these films are called, are beyond annoying. First, the voices don’t match up with the mouths. Second, you lose a lot of the character when you take away their voice. Third, I understand dubbed films much better than original French movies, and I think it’s because they dumb down the translations or something. I ask French people how can they watch classics like Forrest Gump in French? It’s appalling. Maybe it’s my American pride coming out, but I refuse to watch a VF. Luckily, there is a theatre that plays the films in VO (version orignale). But in the French people’s defense, it would get annoying reading all the time, since a lot of the movies do come from the states.
I am ready for the vacation; Morocco and Paris here I come!

Bienvenue, l’hiver (welcome, winter)

So I have officially been here for two months and have really gotten into the hang of things. Routine consists of going to the schools and teaching, hanging out with the Americans, going to this cute gym I just discovered, spending time with my French friends, rinse, and repeat. And so far I like it, a lot. Teaching of course has its ups and downs, but for only 12 hours a week, I can make it through. The one detestable thing is the constant drizzle that makes me want to scream (I swear it’s like Chinese water torture). I would love a huge storm, with lightning and thunder, but all we get is a day of a constant mist that ruins my hair and leaves me all moist and gross. Did I say “a day?” I meant every day. Some days there is no sun. It’s starting to get a bit colder now (it has snowed twice), but I have a nice, big warm coat. When it’s sunny and cold, I am content. Cold and rainy, I don’t want to get out of the bed. Speaking of, apparently the IUFM shuts the heat off between 8pm and 5am, so it’s extremely cold in my room. I will have to complain.

So what’s been going on here since the last time I wrote (click on the links for pictures!!):

I went to Toulouse the weekend before Veteran’s day. Toulouse is in Southern France, about a 6 hour drive from here. I went with my French friends, Julien, Clara, and Foufoush. We left late on Friday night because they had to work, so we got to Toulouse around 3am, went to a party until around 5am and then finally slept. The next day we checked out Toulouse, dubbed the rose city because of the color of the bricks on all its buildings, which was pretty cool to see. We then went to a friend’s house for a birthday party (before that we helped him pick out a motorcycle jacket for his birthday). Unfortunately, Clara and I both had to work Monday (the others were taking off Monday and making a four day weekend until Veteran’s day, lucky) so we took the train back to Orleans on Sunday. It was a quick trip, but I had a really good time. I got to hear a “southern” accent in French, which was cool (Orleans is supposed to have the most neutral accent in the country, whereas the north and south have very strong accents).

Two weeks ago, my friend from high school, Christina, came to visit from London. We went to Chambord, a chateau about an hour from here, with two other Americans and a handful of French friends. It was cold, but gorgeous and really fun to see. We also had a raclette party (very popular here; it’s easy to accommodate a lot of people with unlimited amounts of ham, cheese, and potatoes). It was a good weekend, full of reminiscing about Winston-Salem good times.

Thanksgiving was an absolute hoot. We decided that we Americans would cook up a real thanksgiving dinner. There were 5 Americans that participated, and we made loads of macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and green beans. It’s a good thing we made a lot of food, because 25 French and other nationalities came to eat with us. We barely had enough space in the kitchen to accommodate everyone. No, we didn’t get a whole turkey, but we loaded up on breasts and legs and baked them. After dinner, we all made hand turkeys describing all that we were grateful for. It was awesome, having all my friends there, American and French, enjoying our lovely “food” holiday.

Christmas here looks promising. They started decorating the streets in the middle of October, and apparently the Joan of Arc statue will be surrounded by an ice skating rink to open soon. Additionally, tons of little stalls are going up that will sell Christmas wares. Every street has huge lights hanging across, wishing everyone happy holidays. The commercial center has bright lights and Christmas trees that are already lit.

As for me, the residence is shutting down for the holidays, but no worries, I am going to Morocco! It was kind of a spur of the moment decision, as I desperately searched for somewhere warm to spend the holidays (though Morocco isn’t that much warmer, it’s in the 50s). I will be going the 22^nd through the 26^th with a friend (Lizzie, I went on spring break with her in Senegal) and coming back to Paris to meet Dad and Aaron the 27^th through the 2^nd. I am very excited about the holidays, but I gotta teach the students Rudolph and other Christmas stories/songs over the next two weeks first.

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