Mexican Food and Mont Saint Michel!

I had an absolutely fabulous weekend. The internet went out Saturday morning, but luckily that was the only bad thing to happen.

Saturday Lydia took the train out, and Michelle and Alison drove out from Ouistreham in a rented car to come visit me in Coutances. Anthony brought me salsa over Christmas break, and a big bottle of it. I figured that 1. I could never finish on my own and 2. It's more fun to share with others anyway so 3. A nacho party would be perfect. 

I showed them around Coutances- all those famous sights such as the cathedral, gardens and.... well, we also went to the movies. We've lucked out with beautiful weather, it's usually around 40-50 degrees, with a bit of wind, but that's a huge improvement over the December weather- or any of the MI weather for that matter, so I've really been trying to enjoy it.

Since we had the car, we took a trip out to Agon-Coutainville- In order: Lydia, Alison and Michelle

We got cookin' and made fajita style chicken, beans, rice, nachos, guacamole and salad, accompanied by several bottles of wines and cider :)  Michelle hosted Thanksgiving- and there's a reason. She is an absolutely amazing cook. We all helped with prep but I let her take the reigns when it came to real cooking because she does it up right. I also bought waaaaaaaayyy too much food so I'll get to enjoy her great cooking for a while. Huimin, Meike and Vika also joined us (Chinese assistant, German assistant, and Belarus environmental volunteer) so it was a full house in that tiny kitchen. It was absolutely fantastic though, added bonus, there were even enough plates and almost enough utensils for everyone!

Meike, Vika and Lydia

Michelle, Alison and Huimin

Lydia, Michelle and Alison camped out on my floor overnight, and despite some sore backs, we headed to Mont Saint Michel Sunday morning.

When my parents visit in a few weeks, we are also planning to go to Mont Saint Michel. I don't mind the repeat visits though because I have a tendency to see/ visit cool places and then learn about them afterward, wishing I could go back with a better understanding. Now I get that opportunity- especially with the children's books I got in the gift shop!

Mont Saint-Michel is so cool! I'll let the pictures do the majority of the talking, and wikipedia can probably do a better job than me on history.

Alison, Michelle and Lydia

These are only a few of the many many steps we climbed up. Mont Saint Michel is 90% stairs and 10% monks

One of the rooms inside

Looking out over the bay. The large flats flood quickly during high tide, providing a natural moat for the Mont

Mere Poulard is heavily advertised throughout. According to legend she started out selling omelets to weary pilgrim making the trip to Mont Saint Michel. You can buy that brand, and many different types of cookies as well throughout Normandy.

Me and Mont Saint Michel!

We knew we would need sustenance on our trip, and it being Sunday and a tourist destination would only have overpriced options, so we brought along some of the leftover Mexican food for a picnic in the parking lot. I don't have tupperwear or paper plates, so we had our mexican picnic in france and ate african style. It was one of my favorite meals I've had so far :D

Our picnic in the parking lot

A fantastic weekend, with some great friends that I'm hoping to see more and more of over the coming weeks, despite crappy train schedules and distance.

I really need to learn the metric system

I bought 500 grams of cheese today (I have people coming over tomorrow).



I bought it at the deli counter, so I didn't really realize how much freaking cheese it was until she was handing it all over. And she had just cut into a new wheel, so I couldn't really but like --uh thanks but no thanks.

On the plus side- I now have 500 grams of cheese.

Petit à petit l'oiseau fait son nid

CAWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!

Sucky Sunday Starts Succumb to Sunsets

Sorry, I went a little overboard on the alliteration

Sunday started of rather poorly, but it was nice weather out so I figured it was high time I finally found that hiking trail I had seen before. Things seemed to be working out pretty well when I found it rather quickly and headed out on my way. The ground was damp and muddy (this is Normandy) so basically I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I started walking along and decided to go right on the fork, however this quickly led me into an area with lots of tire marks and steep hills. I decided I didn't want to be killed by a mountain biker since I haven't gotten my health insurance card from the French government yet, so I headed back to the beginning to take the other path. However my path back was slick with dead leaves from the fall, on top of muddy soil, so rather than walking back I slide on the side of my leg.

This walk was really doing an awesome job of cheering me up, huh?

The jeans were wearing through in the thighs, which I might was tried to squeeze a few more weeks out of in college, but doesn't really fly here. Once I got back I just threw them in the garbage, mud and all.

My day improved when in the afternoon/evening I met up with Meike and we drove out ot the beach to watch the sunset. It's always hard to guess what will be a really beautiful, it's an odd combination of some clouds but not too many. We saw a decent sunset- not the best here, but the smell of the ocean made up for it anyway. Then we headed back to her place where we made pizza and watched "La Vie en Rose," with a bottle of cheap red wine, bringing a much better ending than start to my day.

My Shepard Moment

When I was in Senegal, one of the most pivotal points for me came when someone asked the room of people what "bergère" meant. I responded "shepard" and then stopped. I looked around the room, entirely composed of people who spoke French better than me, and realized I had been the one to answer. I was finally making it somewhere, and not completely lost.

I've been waiting for similar moments since arriving here, though it's been complicated by the fact that my French is better now, so I'm not quite so easily impressed. In addition, I don't speak a whole lot of French in my day, so I've had fewer opportunities for such a moment.

Today at swim practice, as the coach quickly rattled off our instructions (300 meters: 50 meters crawl, 50 meters crawl "rattraper")* one boy asked "what's rattraper?" In my head I quickly answered it's where you keep one hand in front until the other one catches up and touches it.

I looked around and realized that I was surrounded by native French speakers, and the boy asking was French. And for once I had the answer.


*for those of you thinking "hey, 50 + 50 doesn't equal 300" it means do this activity until you hit three hundred. So you could also be given the instructions "300 meters: 50 crawl, 50 backstroke, 50 breaststroke" so in that case you do it twice. In addition I now have a really random vocabulary of swimming terms.

Mail!

You know what I love getting? Mail! It makes me sooooooooo happy and increases my happiness quotient by 10 fold! Perhaps that can be your New Year's resolution- to send me more mail. I'm sure you would get some fun Frenchy postcards in return! Oh! and how convenient- my address is in the sidebar to the left!

Happy New Year!

Sorry I've been a little absent, and I still have to finish the blog posts from Vienna. I'm safe and back in Coutances, I got in Saturday which gave me some settling in time and a chance to buy groceries. I'm back to "the grind" but so far happier about classes. During and before the break I had really been freaking out about my lessons, mostly because I felt they were horrible, directionless, not beneficial and off target.

Some of the teachers don't tell me what to do with their students, some are easy to figure out, others tell me exactly what to do and others it's a surprise each time. I felt like all my lessons were crap and I was mostly just being hard on myself. Having never taken any classes on how to teach, or teaching anything other than swimming lessons (I can however teach you how to do a great dive) it's been kind of difficult to figure out what to teach and what is level appropriate. Some classes it's like teaching a lifeguard course while also teaching kids to blow bubbles. I got really down on myself about it, and each night before classes would be spent with my stomach in knots hoping for it all to be over already, starting again on Sunday afternoons.

So far my classes have been going well enough, and Anthony reminded me of something important over the break- "Have any of your classes seriously crashed and burned?" "No" "Then why are you so worried, things are working fine."

I'm trying to create a schedule for myself where I'm actually getting things done during the day, rather than waking up for class and then taking naps after. This new year is bringing quite a few resolutions, some going hand in hand with each other, some to get the most out of this experience, some for when I get back to the States. It's hard not having many friends here, but I'm here so I need to make the best and take full advantage of it.


I hope 2011 brings the best for everyone!