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[nic-and-annie-in-france]

French Class at the Croix Rouge

In December, after much effort, I finally signed up for a French class through the Red Cross in our town. In October, after a couple of weeks of settling in, we decided that it was time for me to sign up. We looked up the opening hours of the Red Cross and planned to go on Thursday morning just as Annie left school for lunch. 

On Thursday morning, we found a room of second-hand clothes for sale, but no classes. It turned out that their store space and meeting space had two separate entrances. The room for classes was dark and empty. To sign up for a class, according to the cashier in the store, we would need to come back next Thursday before 11:00. Annie works Thursday until 11:00. Since that wasn’t an option for Annie, we decided to try going back the following Wednesday evening, the other time period listed on the Red Cross website. The building was dark and locked, again, on Wednesday evening.

Two weeks had now passed since our decision to try to get me signed up, and the next week was the last week before fall break. Even if I signed up that first week, I would have to miss the next two because we would be traveling. I talked Annie into putting it off until after we get back from break.

We went to the Red Cross for a third time after our break. We approached the building and the lights were on. That was a good sign. There were people inside. That was an even better sign. We timidly opened the door and offered our bonjours to the two older ladies sitting inside. Annie explained that I’m wanting to sign up for a French Class. One of the ladies informed us that the person in charge of adding new people to classes was not there that day but she gave us the number of the person we needed to contact and took down Annie’s number to pass it along to the right person.

A week went by. We waited. We didn’t hear anything. It was decided that I will go alone on Thursday to sign up while Annie was at work. I psyched myself up. I wrote a script. I went over the script again and again. I was feeling confident. I set off for the Red Cross.

The person in charge was there! I explained in broken French that I wanted to sign up for a French class. I was warmly received and placed in a weekly class with a few people from Brazil. The instructor herself is Brazilian, but has lived in France for the past 15 years. She speaks both Brazilian Portuguese and English (in addition to French)!

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It’s a beginner course. While I already know a lot of what we’re covering, it’s helpful to go over it again and practice my pronunciation, especially those tricky Us and Rs. One surprisingly helpful thing I learned was the phrase, “Et avec ceci ?” which literally means, “And with this?” but is used by a vendor to verify that you are ready to be rung up. The week I learned “Et avec ceci ?”, Annie and I went to the farmer’s market in town to buy groceries for the first time.

We found some wonderful sweet potatoes that were the just right serving size and still covered in dirt. The vendor weighed the potatoes and asked, “Et avec ceci ?” Annie, who was unfamiliar with this expression, was visibly thrown off guard and asked the man to repeat himself. I knew what he meant! But Annie was handling the interactions with each vendor and I was not expecting to have to speak any French other than the compulsory bonjour or pardon. So when the opportunity arose for me to engage in the conversation, I clammed up. But hey, at least I understood what was going on!

The class isn’t intensive by any means, but it’s nice to have something to look forward to each week. Everyone is really friendly and despite our three different languages, we laugh a lot. With the lockdown and uncertainty of the coronavirus, I’m not sure if we’ll have class again before Annie and I leave France, but I’m happy to have had the experience all the same. I am proud to have carved out a little place for me in Aix.

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Confinement, Day 1

Hello from Day 1 of confinement in France! We are both very safe and healthy at the moment. We have at least two weeks of food stocked up and we are in good spirits. Although today is the beginning of the strictest confinement rules so far, we have been practicing social distancing since Friday, March 13. So, not a ton has changed in the way we spend each day, but because the rules are for at least fifteen days and enforced by police and monetary fines, it feels more permanent and more serious.

All the schools in the country have been closed since Monday, and will be closed until further notice. This means there’s no more work for me to do, at least in a classroom setting. Nevertheless, the school systems are maintaining our contracts unless we (language assistants) individually decide to resign and then leave the country. So, I am making myself available to teachers who would like my help coming up with English lessons that the kids can do at home. I’ve had one such request already, and it was a welcome change to spend my time on something constructive!

Nicolas’ Red Cross class is cancelled until further notice, so between the two of us the only reason we have to leave the house is to get groceries or take a short walk. Both of these things are still permitted with the rules as they currently stand, but we have to do so in keeping at least one meter apart from each other and from other people on the street. 

Yesterday morning, when social distancing was still recommended and not required, we went to the grocery and stocked up with as much food as we could carry. We got enough definitely for at least two weeks. I was happiest about the purchase of ten four-serving packets of dehydrated soups. They were pretty cheap, super small and lightweight to carry, and they make up to twenty light lunches for the two of us! We’ve tried two so far and they have been pretty tasty. It’s funny how our definition of stockpiling is different over here. Two weeks worth of food is my typical grocery run in the US!

Our supermarket was a little busier and understocked than usual, but it doesn’t compare to the pictures of Krogers in central Kentucky that I’ve seen in the past few days. The most picked-over section was the boxed pasta, but even that wasn’t so bad.

From here on out, when we go to the grocery we have to handwrite and sign a form attesting that we are going outside to do essential shopping and for no other reason. We have to do the same thing when we go outside for physical activity, and when we do that we have to stay within 1km of our apartment.

To keep ourselves busy, we have been working on our hobbies. I keep a bullet-journal-style chart of healthy habits that I want to try to do regularly, like getting out of bed by 9am, practicing French, doing something social, doing my spiritual disciplines, journaling, drawing/painting, getting physical activity, and reading. This gives me a sense of achievement and helps me maintain a routine, both of which, I’ve learned, are pretty vital to my mental health. I also plan to catch up on the blogging that has gone undone since the beginning of February. Of course, we have things to do that are purely fun, too. We have a long Netflix list to tackle, we’ve been spending a lot of time on our Stardew Valley farms, and we made sure to stock up on snack foods as if they were one of the essential food groups.

We are incredibly thankful that we have our patio, which is pretty huge by French apartment standards. The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous lately, so we have spent as much time as possible outside, soaking up the sun. It makes a world of difference in keeping us happy and staving off the claustrophobia. Birds and lizards even visit from time to time. I snapped the photo below as I was writing this post.

So, so much has changed in less than a week. It was really giving us whiplash for a while, and I had a stressful couple of days trying to decide whether we should scramble to leave the country or try to ride it out here. Riding it out is basically the only option left at this point, but we feel much calmer about it now. We still don’t know what the situation will look like in May when it’s time to leave (does anyone?), but at least for now, we have what we need to survive the next 15+ days.

I don’t pretend to know what the future holds, but I know that the announcement that nonessential businesses were closing happened on Saturday night, and our confinement has started the following Tuesday. So I think Kentuckians should at least be prepared for a similar confinement soon. Bon courage, y’all!

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Chandeleur

While today the US celebrates a combination Groundhog Day/Super Bowl Sunday, today in France is Chandeleur, or Candlemas. According to Wikipedia, the holiday has its roots in the Catholic church calendar; the 40th day after Christmas traditionally commemorates the presentation of baby Jesus in the Temple.  Today, the French celebrate it more as a secular holiday. It’s an occasion to eat crêpes and to anticipate the end of winter and the return of good weather. 

I love that there is a holiday marking the transition period between winter and spring because it’s such a hard time of year for everyone. For us, we spent our Christmas vacation and my birthday by ourselves in our studio, we were prevented from leaving our town for two months because of the strike, I started back at work, and then I got sick for a week. Our Christmas vacation was very restful, but I was getting lonely and bored towards the end of it, so it actually felt good to go back to work. The sickness got me down, though, and the only occasion I’ve had to go anywhere was yesterday when I had to attend an unpaid training in a town two hours away (on my day off, no less). The newness of France has worn off, we don’t see much sun, and we still have three months until we can return home. So it’s been a challenging winter. But today is the perfect occasion to focus on the fact that spring is coming, slowly but surely.

In talking to my language partner this morning, it occurred to me that this is essentially the point of Groundhog Day, too. I explained to her what a groundhog is and what his shadow has to do with the beginning of spring. It’s silly and superstitious, but we look to the groundhog to decide whether we need to be getting excited about springtime sooner rather than later. It gives me a new appreciation for Groundhog Day!

She invited me to make crêpes with her so that I could take some home to share with Nicolas. I had the impression that crêpes were hard to make, or that you needed special flour or equipment, but she assured me it was really easy. She did have a special pan for crêpe-making, but she said a normal pan will do just fine too. She demonstrated the first one for me, and told me that when you flip the crêpe, you do so without a spatula, just kind of flipping the crêpe up in the air with the pan. When you hold the handle of the pan, you also keep a coin in your hand. If you succeed in flipping the crêpe with a coin in your hand, then that means you will have good fortune in the year to come. I was able to flip my crêpe successfully, but pouring the batter into the pan to cook was where I failed. Instead of pancake batter which is poured into the center of the pan and spreads out on its own, the crêpe batter has to be ladled into the pan while you tilt the pan so that it spreads thinly and evenly. I was really bad at this and my crêpes had holes all over. But we had a good laugh about it, and she assured me that my lack of pouring skills doesn’t disqualify me from the good fortune part.

Wishing you a happy Chandeleur and a speedy return to good weather and good vibes.

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

The market

We have heard good things from a few different people about the open-air market that Aix has on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Up to this point, we have stayed in our pajamas well past noon on those days because we haven’t been obligated to leave the house. But in the name of thriving and not just surviving, we forced ourselves to venture out last Wednesday, and it was actually one of the better markets I’ve seen in France. There’s a ton of variety in things you can buy there (even in winter!), and lots of locally grown or otherwise interesting products. On this first trip to the market, we didn’t buy anything because we didn’t know what they would have, and because we feel uncomfortable shopping without a list. Instead, we looked around at all the booths, making mental notes of things we might want to buy in the future.

We came back to the market yesterday with a list in hand, and had a really pleasant time. Along with the carnation I wrote about before, we bought yogurt (made at a farm nearby), sweet potatoes (local, with fresh dirt still on them), persimmons (which I’ve never tried), local carrots, bell peppers, and a banana pepper (which are “exotic” and virtually unknown here). The guy who sold me the banana pepper saw it in my bag and said with concern, “This is really spicy, you know,” and when I said, “I know, that doesn’t bother me,” the lady behind me laughed. We plan to chop it up and put it on a pizza soon.

So far, we’ve tried the carrots, the yogurt, and one persimmon. The carrots are nothing special, but the yogurt definitely doesn’t taste like what you get in the store. There’s no nutrition facts on the label so I don’t know how it compares health-wise, but it was tasty, and it’s still kind of cool to know that it came from cows that live about a 20-minute drive from here. The persimmon was delicious, kind of like a honey-flavored mango. I’d be happy to eat more of them.

We look forward to going back regularly to the market. I have my eye on some artisanal bread, fresh pasta, and some herbal tea blends to try next. Maybe we’ll even try a weird cheese, who knows!

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

On Housefires and Houseplants

One summer in college, my apartment building caught fire, and although my unit was unharmed, everyone had to move out of the building. It was definitely an inconvenience, but not a huge one, because I had friends and family to support me, a car to pack my things into, and my mom’s house to crash in for a while. UK even let me, my roommates, and our neighbors stay in dorms rent-free for the rest of the summer. Within a matter of days, the fire was mostly just an interesting story to tell.

If the same thing were to happen to us in France, though, it would feel like the world was ending. I would immediately have to find a hotel for us to stay in. Even just getting our possessions to the hotel would be an ordeal. If we would be entitled to any assistance from insurance or some social organization, I wouldn’t know anything about it, or even who to ask. All the other parts of daily life—where to eat, where to wash clothes, where to get wifi, where to catch the bus—would immediately be cast into doubt again. And of course, the language barrier would make me do it all “backwards and in heels”: people helping me would talk too fast, use unfamiliar abbreviations for organizations I’ve never heard of, I’d have to ask them to repeat themselves several times over the phone, always doubting whether I understood properly or not. I’d be extremely tempted to hop on the next plane back to the States.

It’s hard to communicate how precarious our life in France feels. On the one hand, we have our basic needs all met, and have had them met for a long time. We have gainful employment and we have entertainment. We even have a few people we could call on if we ever had a problem. With all this in mind, I feel like I ought to be happier or less worried than I am. But what I’ve come to realize is that the sense of precariousness is what keeps me from feeling completely at ease here. Things that would be minor misfortunes and inconveniences at home, like my phone getting stolen or the power going out, are constant worries in the back of my mind because if one of those things were to happen, it would feel like the entire house of cards was coming down. Even though we’re surviving just fine, I still feel like I’m in survival mode. We haven’t taken many opportunities to enrich our lifestyles or add to our responsibilities because we haven’t had the energy to spare.

But now, I feel like that’s starting to change. Already we’ve made important steps in that direction, like Nicolas’ French class and my weekly meetups with my language partner(s). And as we get used to those new parts of our routine, we are trying out still more things we wouldn’t have had had the energy for before. For example, I love caring for plants, but the thought of (1) having to pay unnecessary money for and (2) having to talk to a salesperson about a plant was too much for me for a long time. 

My first attempt at acquiring a houseplant was creative but unsuccessful. On my way home from work, I pass a small hotel with big rosemary bushes in front of it. A couple of weeks ago, someone trimmed back the rosemary and left the clippings on the sidewalk. Impulsively, I grabbed a piece of the clippings and took it home to try to propagate my own rosemary. Nicolas called it “our orphan child.” Our orphan child, unfortunately, didn’t make it—the only thing that grew in its pot was mold. But yesterday when we went to the market, I went with the intention of buying a cheap plant from one of the stalls. I came home with a cute little carnation. I know it seems silly to be this excited about a plant, but having it to look at and care for is something that felt unattainable a few weeks ago. It’s extra precious to me because it’s a symbol of the fact that we’re starting to thrive here, rather than just survive. Keep it up, little planty.

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Christmas in the room

It’s my last day of work before Christmas break, I just finished assisting in my last class, and I am waiting in the lobby for school to let out for lunch. My experience of the Christmas season has been pretty different here compared to last year, and I have learned a lot more about French Christmas traditions.

First of all, this year I have learned about papillotes. They are chocolate candies that come in distinct shiny wrappers, and when you unwrap them there is a little quote or joke inside. Children and teachers have given them to me, they are often available in the break room at school, and Nicolas even got some from his teacher at the Croix Rouge. We have nearly a dozen stocked up for Christmas in our kitchen. I enjoy the quotes, and trying to translate them for Nicolas. In the picture, the top one says, “Man should put as much effort into simplifying his life as he does complicating it,” and the bottom one says, “One pinch of gaiety seasons everything.”

I’ve had a lot of fun practicing my French over tea at my language partner’s house, and we have talked a lot about the similarities and differences in our Christmas traditions. She was shocked to hear that I had never tried roasted chestnuts before. However, I told her that chestnuts are kind of like buckeye nuts at home, and although buckeyes are inedible, we make candy made to resemble them. Peanut butter and chocolate are not a common combination here, so that was strange to her. She had also never heard of sweet potato casserole, and she looked equal parts fascinated and disgusted when I said that some people put marshmallows on their casserole. As members of her family would pass through the kitchen, she would say to them, “Hey, Ann’s got a new recipe for us for Christmas: it’s sweet potatoes…[pause for effect]…with marshmallows on top.” Each and every member of her family looked very skeptical about this, but she insisted I gave her a recipe so they could all try it this year. I’m anxious to find out what they think of it!

I also learned from my language partner that their traditional Christmas dessert is a bûche de Noël, literally, a Christmas log. It’s basically a big Swiss roll made to look like a log, usually with some Christmasy-looking decorations on top. I still don’t know why it’s a log, of all things—I asked some second graders and they said, “You know, like, it’s a log, which is kind of like a Christmas tree, so it makes sense.” Somehow I don’t think that’s it. It’s pretty wild to me to think that in the French mind, the perfect ending to a big Christmas feast is a Swiss roll, but different strokes for different folks I guess. We plan to buy one this year just to see what all the fuss is about. 

Aside from these differences in sweet foods, it seems to me that French Christmas is basically the same as the American one. This is mostly because either (1) our traditions both stem from European ones, or (2) the newer American traditions have been exported to other parts of the world. Stockings, for example, are a fairly recent import from America here—some families hang them up but not all. One teacher had me help her class write letters to Santa, and the picture below is the result. It made me feel super old to hear the names of some of these toys and not know what in the world they were!

One way we celebrated the Christmas season was by eating chili. Beans just aren’t really a thing here, and generally the only kinds they have are red beans and white beans. But in the international aisle of the grocery store one day, we spotted one single stack of canned black beans, hidden behind a support beam. We were so excited to finally find some black beans, which are such a staple for us back home. We quickly made plans to make a big pot of chili, and Nicolas spent nearly a whole afternoon browning beef and chopping up a ton of tomatoes and peppers. Nicolas agrees that it was well worth all the effort, though—we ate on the chili for a whole week, and it was perfect for dinner on cold nights.

We plan mostly just to take it easy on Christmas break. We did buy tickets to see the new Star Wars in Chambéry this weekend. They only have showings in English every other day, and super late at night, so we are having to spend the night in Chambéry. We rented an Airbnb for a couple of nights, one that has the ~luxuries~ of a bathtub and a kitchen with an oven. I’m looking forward to a bubble bath and a frozen pizza way more than I ever thought I would! 

In thinking about this holiday season, the song “Christmas in the Room” by Sufjan Stevens comes to mind:

“No travel bags, no shopping malls

No candy canes, no Santa Claus

For as the day of rest draws near

It's just the two of us this year

No silver bells or mistletoe

We'll kiss and watch our TV show

I'll come to you, I'll sing to you

Like it's Christmas in the room

I'll dance with you, I'll laugh with you

'Til it's Christmas in the room”

I know it sounds sad to be away from loved ones for Christmas, but instead of focusing on the loneliness, we’re trying to concentrate on the peace, simplicity, and “just us”-ness of it all this year. We wish a merry Christmas and happy new year to our friends and family at home. ❤️

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Christmastime in Chambéry

Last Wednesday was the first day of my super-long weekend and was also the last day before the huge transportation strike. We decided to make the most of it and check out Chambéry’s Christmas market. I had already heard that they had an ice rink set up around the iconic elephant obelisk in the middle of town, and I was looking forward to the first hot wine of the season. We took the train over after lunch and wandered around town. We stopped in some bookshops and board game stores, as those are some of our favorite places to browse. And of course, we looked around the little “chalets” selling hot drinks, giant pretzels, handmade toys and other gifts. Once it got dark (which is around 4 or 4:30 these days), we admired the Christmas lights. Later in the evening, we heard singing in the distance, and followed the sound until we found a free outdoor Christmas concert and stayed to listen to a few carols. It was the choir’s cheer and enthusiasm (rather than their musical skill) that made it enjoyable for us. The melodies were the same as the familiar English carols but the words were different; I learned that “O Holy Night” in French is called “Noël chrétien” or “Christian Christmas.”

After that, we returned to the chalets where we found that karaoke was taking place. We bought some freshly roasted chestnuts and watched people in varying states of sobriety sing Christmas carols and other songs. My favorite performance was a tipsy college student’s rendition of a song called “Ta Katie t’a quitté” (Translation: “Your Katie has left you”). Here’s a link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brt3f-jlrao. Even if you don’t understand a word of French, I think you can probably tell that the song is just a huge tongue-twister! The college guy couldn’t keep up with the song to save his life, but the crowd loved him.  The festive and convivial atmosphere made for a good beginning of the Christmas season for us.

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Counting my blessings 💝

Recent purchases that have made me happy:

The new Beaujolais. Beaujolais is a kind of wine that is only fermented for a few weeks before it is sold, and each year’s batch is released on the third Thursday of November. We grabbed a bottle the day after it came out. I don’t like wine too much so I didn’t care for it, but it felt like a rite of passage for us to try.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream. There are only ever five or fewer flavors to choose from at the grocery, and aside from chocolate, they are mediocre at best. We spotted the mint chip this time and just had to buy it.

Chicken noodle soup. I’m not sure why we never discovered or bought this last year, but we found a carton of soup called “poule au pot” or “hen in the pot,” which is basically the French version of chicken noodle soup. I think the name of it is so cute, and it makes a wonderful comfort food as the weather gets chillier!

Fig bread. Figs and fig-related products are more common in France, and I’ve been loving it. I spotted a loaf of fig spice bread in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, hidden among rows and rows of foie gras. I wanted it to be akin to pumpkin bread or banana bread, but was afraid it would be more like a fruitcake. We took a risk on it and it tastes just like a Fig Newton but in cake form. So good.

Roasted chestnuts. All the Christmas markets we went to last year seemed to have tons of roasted chestnut vendors. I decided I finally wanted to try them, since they were so popular. We got some at the Chambéry Christmas market. In my opinion, they were just okay, and tasted more like potatoes than I was expecting. I was glad to have tried them, even if I didn’t like them. 

Our Thanksgiving dinner. The holiday for us consisted of an American-ish Thanksgiving meal and watching TV in bed. Nicolas cooked us a rotisserie chicken, green beans, baked sweet potatoes, bread, and squash soup. For dessert we had an apple pastry with vanilla ice cream. It was only a rough approximation of turkey and pumpkin pie, but it was enough for us.

Air freshener. Our apartment is small and has no ventilation to speak of, even in the kitchen and the bathroom. We finally got around to buying a lavender-scented spray, and it does so much to freshen up our little studio.

Social interactions that have brightened my day:

Kindnesses from teachers. I’ve had no problems with my teachers so far this year, and a few of them have gone the extra mile to make me feel welcome. A few highlights: 

One teacher, M, requested a lesson on Thanksgiving. I did the lesson, and then the next week, three other teachers said to me, “We heard you did a lesson on Thanksgiving with M, could you do that with my class next lesson?” From this I gather that M liked my lesson enough to speak highly of it to the other teachers when I wasn’t there. 

I was reading a graphic novel in the break room during a free period when a teacher who was walking by asked what I was reading. I showed him the book, and he told me that he really liked that author. He told me about another book the author wrote and offered to let me borrow it.

I have to take a bus to and from one of my schools each week, and one of the teachers at that school has organized a ride home for me several times so I don’t have to ride the bus.

Most of the time everyone calls me Ann and pronounces it the French way, but I have one teacher who tries his hardest to pronounce it the American way, and has gotten all his kids to do that too. The way they say Ann rhymes with “rain” and “Spain,” but I appreciate the effort anyway. This teacher has also asked if I like it here, given me the rundown of the fun things to do in the area, and told me that he’s available to help if I ever need anything.

A dinner invitation. Another teacher invited me to his house to work on lesson plans and to have dinner last weekend. With my stranger danger instincts kicking in, I said, “I’ll have to check with my husband and see when I’m free,” to which he replied, “Bring him too!” So last Saturday Nicolas and I had dinner with the teacher and his family. I was anxious about it, but it was a lot of fun and the family was really gracious. They served us a dinner in several courses, as is more common in France. This was a special treat for us, because our budget doesn’t allow us to eat multi-course meals in restaurants. They served wine and crackers as an apéritif, chicken tajine (a North African dish that is really common here) with an endive salad, a cheese plate (we even tried the stinky ones!), a homemade after-dinner beverage called génépi that tasted like alcoholic mouthwash (it was better than it sounds), a Spanish version of crème brûlée, and an herbal tea. One of the teacher’s sons speaks good English and he and I were both able to translate for Nicolas. So often we only get to see French culture from the outside, but our evening at their house felt like one of those rare opportunities to see it from the inside.

Bumping into a fellow assistant. During training and orientation, I met an assistant, B, who is working in three other primary schools in Aix. I hadn’t seen him since then, so I was curious how his school year was going. I happened to see him from across the street as I walked home for my lunch break on Tuesday, so I called over to him to say hi. We only chatted for a minute, but as I had just had a rough morning at school, it was really nice to talk to an English speaker, trade complaints, and trade encouragement.

Crafting with fifth graders. One of my classes is making Christmas decorations to sell at the Christmas market in order to raise funds for a field trip. Even though this meant my English lessons were canceled, the teacher told me to come anyway and I could speak English with them while they worked. When I got there, she put me in charge of a glue gun. I didn’t speak too much English really, but it was fun to just make stuff with the kids. And they were super polite: “Ann, could you put a little bit of hot glue there, please? Yes, that’s good. Thank you!”

Things we’ve crossed off the to-do list:

Finding a routine. I finally feel like I have my work schedule down, and I feel much more comfortable walking into each classroom. Now that I know what to expect in each class, it’s not so scary to go to work each day.

Getting Nicolas signed up for a French class. We went to the Red Cross three times in an attempt to get Nicolas signed up for the free French lessons they have. The first two times they were closed, and on the third time it was open but the person in charge of signup wasn’t there. On the fourth attempt, Nicolas had to go by himself because I was at work, but the person in charge was finally there to get him signed up. He can tell you all about it in his upcoming post.

Finding a language partner for me. One of my big goals for the year was to find someone to practice French with on a regular basis, so that I could have a safe, designated time to really practice my conversation skills without feeling like I am imposing on someone at work or at a social gathering. In a conversation before class with one teacher, I mentioned that I had this goal, and she said, “Well, why not me?” And that was all it took! She takes me to her house, talks to me for an hour in French, and then I talk with her daughter (who is in high school) in English for an hour in exchange. I was so worried that it would be awkward, or that I would say something embarrassing, but it has turned out to be very pleasant and I feel like I get a lot of good practice.

Medical visits. A couple of weeks ago, we each had to go to two medical appointments as part of the visa validation process. We were able to go at the same time to both of them, which saved a lot of hassle as we had to go to Chambéry for one and to Grenoble for the other. I was able to do some of the talking for both of us, but Nicolas did fine in the parts he had to do by himself. We both got to see X-rays of our lungs and got screened for a few diseases (all negative), and our visas are now validated! 

Other happy things:

A day off work. Yesterday was the first day of a multi-industry strike protesting some proposed reforms to the retirement system in France. The public bus and train systems are striking for an undetermined amount of time—some people guess it will only last for the weekend, while others think it could go on until Christmas. Many teachers were on strike yesterday as well (and yesterday only, they don’t plan to continue), and my school was closed as a result. So, I’m excited to have an extra-long weekend, and I’m grateful we don’t have any travel planned for the immediate future.

Christmas decorations. Storefronts in our town are now decorated with Christmas trees and fake snow, and men have been out in cherrypickers stringing lights across the cute pedestrian streets. The Christmas market opened on Sunday so we hope to check it out soon too.

Two thrift shops on my to-visit list. On one of our visits to the Red Cross, we discovered that our local branch also functions as a thrift shop. We looked around  the store briefly as we tried to find an employee to talk to, but I’m eager to go back and see if they have any good bargains. There’s also a similar place called Emmaüs I’d like to explore soon. I know that eventually I’m going to feel the urge to browse around a Goodwill, so I’m glad that I’ll have those two places to scratch that itch.

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

School

I’ve been in school for twenty years straight. Someone let me out!

I have Veterans’ Day off from school today, which gives me a good opportunity to write about how school is going so far compared to last year. At my old school, I was pretty much left to my own devices when it came to planning, prepping, and executing my English lessons. This year, my level of responsibility for the lessons varies widely from class to class. On the one hand, I have less responsibility overall, which is nice. On the other hand, I often have no idea what I’ll be doing before I walk in the classroom, and I sometimes feel a bit useless during the lesson.

Four teachers have me teach the whole class with basically no input from them, so for them I operate much like I did last year. Although these are the classes I fret about most on my Sunday nights, they have been successful so far. My main worry in these classes is whether the teachers are satisfied with my lessons or not.

My favorite lessons are the ones where the teachers email me their lesson plan beforehand so I know what I’ll be doing ahead of time. I have two teachers who do this for me, and apart from little surprises like a schoolwide electricity outage throwing a wrench into things (and yes, that has happened already), these lessons usually go well.

Two teachers have me do small group/pair work, which I enjoy. I can wrangle 4-10 kids a lot easier than I can 30. For one of these classes, the teacher has me conference with kids on dialogues they prepared beforehand, improving their grammar and pronunciation. For the other, I cycle through three groups of kids for 15 minutes apiece. The teacher told me she didn’t care what I worked on with them, so I made a small set of flashcards and I do some vocabulary-building activities with them. 15 minutes goes by in no time at all, so I don’t have to prepare much.

For the remaining seven teachers, I show up to class and then they tell me what they had in mind for the lesson. Most of the time, it’s still the regular teacher who tells the kids what to do, and I am there to model pronunciation, correct mistakes, or answer the odd question about grammar or a word’s definition. Sometimes the teacher has me take the lead on a small activity, like Bingo or Simon Says. It’s in these classes that I worry that I’m not doing enough to make myself useful, but I think it’s up to the teacher to decide how they want to use me. If a little pronunciation is all they want from me, I can do that!

Overall, I feel more comfortable working this year than I did at the same time last year. Even if I’m not really any more self-assured than I was in my first year, I have at least gotten pretty good at appearing self-assured in front of the kids. That makes all the difference!

My only other worry is that I’m going to go crazy from hearing, saying, and teaching the same handful of English phrases a million times. No matter what grade level, no matter how many times they’ve done it before, it feels like I am always working on “What’s your name? How old are you? What’s the weather like?” Sometimes I envy the secondary assistants who get to discuss pop music and politics with their students. God, grant me the patience to sing the alphabet song again.

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

UK/Ireland photos

For a better idea of what each area is like, here are some more pictures from our trip:

The Cotswolds, England. Flat (and muddy 😅) farmland dotted with charming villages.

The Peak District, England. Still farmland, with a few bald peaks.

The Lake District, England. Our favorite. Even more peaks than the Peak District, plus several lakes. Rugged in the most beautiful way.

Scottish Highlands, Scotland. Rugged in a bit spookier way. It felt like the beginning of winter there already.

Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland. Home of the peculiar naturally-formed hexagons jutting out of the coastline.

Connemara National Park, Ireland. Coastal peat bogs and very windy hilltops.

Cliffs of Moher, Ireland. Also known as the Cliffs of Despair from The Princess Bride. Nice, but not as nice as the white cliffs in Étretat.

Killarney National Park, Ireland. Lakes and castles and knotty woods.

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

October Break: Hiking in UK and Ireland

Since we had kind of reached our fill of big cities, museums, and palaces last year, the trip I planned for our first vacation this year mostly focused on hiking and sightseeing in nature. Did you know that the British usually say “walking” when Americans would say “hiking”? I think they’re just being modest.

It was nice to be around our fellow English-speakers for a change. However, in Scotland and Ireland, I sometimes had more difficulty understanding English spoken with the regional accents than I would have understanding French!

This was our itinerary:

Day 1: Traveling Aix-les-Bains > Chambéry > Geneva > London Luton Airport > Oxford

Day 2: The Cotswolds AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty)

Day 3: Sightseeing in Oxford, traveling Oxford > Manchester

Day 4: The Peak District

Day 5: Traveling Manchester > Kendal, Sightseeing in the Lake District

Day 6: The Lake District

Day 7: Traveling Kendal > Glasgow, lunch with K+A, relaxing (I had planned for us to visit Loch Lomond but a combination of lack of planning, gloomy weather, and fatigue made us nix it)

Day 8: Scottish Highlands

Day 9: Sightseeing in Edinburgh, traveling Glasgow > Belfast (via ferry)

Day 10: Giant’s Causeway

Day 11: Traveling Belfast > Dublin > Galway, sightseeing in Galway

Day 12: Connemara National Park

Day 13: Cliffs of Moher, traveling Galway > Cork

Day 14: Killarney National Park

Day 15: Traveling Cork > London Heathrow > Geneva > Culoz > Aix-les-Bains

And here are our miles walked over that time:

The weather/the season. The extended forecast for the UK and Ireland before we left showed rain every single day. However, we only got rained on less than half the time! I knew it was too much to ask for a repeat of the miraculously sunny vacation we had in Paris/Normandy in February, but I was still happy with the amount of dry weather we had. We also had the good fortune of being there to see the fall colors at their very best. Even our rainy and foggy days were enjoyable because of the cozy autumn ambiance.

Going car-less. I was worried that we would have trouble getting out to the trailheads if we relied solely on public buses and trains, but it mostly turned out to be fine. Let’s just say that in our experience, the British transport systems are much more punctual than the Irish ones! Riding instead of driving gave us both the opportunity to relax and enjoy the scenery as we traveled from place to place. Buses and trains in the area almost always had wifi or USB charging onboard (or both), which was an extra bonus because it alleviated my anxieties about missing our stop (we could follow the bus on Google Maps) and/or about my phone dying.

Walkers’ rights and public rights of way. In planning for the trip, I learned that in England, walkers/hikers have organized into formal clubs and won the legal right to have public footpaths and “rights of way” all over the country. I’m still kind of unclear on how this works legally (I googled “Can you just walk anywhere in England,” it didn’t help much), but we took full advantage of these walkers’ rights during our time in the region. We took paths that went through practically infinite sheep pastures, climbing over stiles or letting ourselves through cattle gates as necessary. I think it’s so nice that the country allows people to access the natural beauty of the countryside in a way that really doesn’t harm people’s private property much at all. The sheep never seemed to mind us, after all. It was great to have access to all these places, but even better was the way the English culture has helped to facilitate and accommodate walkers on their journeys. On several different websites I was able to find not only maps of hiking routes, but detailed turn-by-turn instructions for the routes which kept me, a navigationally challenged person, on the right path every time.

No buses in the Cotswolds. Blackberries. Our first hiking day was a Sunday, and no public buses run in the Cotswolds AONB on Sundays. We therefore had to rely on trains alone to reach a trailhead, so our options for starting and ending points were limited. We found a suitable out-and-back trail running from a village called Moreton-in-Marsh to another one called Stow-on-the-Wold. The map and instructions I found for it listed everything in kilometers instead of miles, so when I saw the distance involved, I assumed it wouldn’t be that much in miles without ever actually bothering to do the calculation. By the time we got back to our Airbnb in the evening, we had walked about 17 miles. Oops. Fortunately, our route that day had us pass by lots of hedgerows, and lots of those hedgerows had blackberries growing in them. At first we were hesitant to eat any of them, but as we walked further and further, and our stomachs got hungrier and hungrier, we were eating them by the handful. I’m still not sure whether to feel guilty about this; the blackberries didn’t belong to us, but the sheep in the adjacent pasture could never have reached them, and it seemed pretty unlikely that anyone was growing them on purpose. All I know is that these possibly-sinful blackberries sustained us on our accidentally super long trek that day, and we were both very thankful for them.

The bus at the Lake District. Bus tickets in the Lake District were not sold per ride, but per day, and they were pretty expensive. I was sad we had to pay so much just to get from one town to the next. They turned out to be one of the best value parts of our whole trip! First of all, a ride that is only 25 miles as the crow flies takes an hour and a half. Make it round trip and that makes three whole hours of your day. This sounds like the ride would be tedious and boring, but with the jaw-dropping scenery to look at the whole time, it was so much fun. I listened to The Prisoner of Azkaban on audiobook the whole time and tried to take pictures out the dirty bus window, nudging Nicolas every 30 seconds to show him another beautiful mountainside or lake. The icing on the cake was that the bus driver on the second day gave us a discount for our tickets!

Lunch with K+A. K and I usually check in with each other at the beginning of each school break to see what the other one’s plans are. On our second night, K texted me saying they were in Ireland and planned to go to Scotland later in the week. I told her it sounded like we were doing the same trip, just traveling in opposite directions. Sure enough, we realized that we would all be in Glasgow at the same time, so we planned to have lunch together. K suggested a restaurant where we could eat a three-course meal for £10 apiece, so we went there and caught up on our school years so far and compared notes on our travel itineraries. They had to catch a train soon after their meal, so we didn’t get to hang out for long, but it was nice to see some friendly faces in an unexpected place.

The ferry. We opted to take a ferry instead of a plane from Glasgow to Belfast. I expected that we would have to stand out in the dark and cold for two hours as we waited to arrive in Northern Ireland. The ferry turned out to be more like a cruise ship than the little Valley View ferry I’m used to. We sat in a huge lounge with lots of comfy armchairs and took a nap as we waited to reach the other side of the sea. There were at least two restaurants on board, and there was one room with a large TV where we were warned not to sit because the ferry was expecting four hundred soccer hooligans to come watch a game there. I also saw a sign for a Swedish spa on a different deck. It was a really cool way to travel—I wished the ride had been a bit longer!

Molly the pub dog and George the hostel cat. One of the things we miss most about home is the availability of our friends’ and families’ pets to play with and snuggle. It’s rare that we feel comfortable enough to interact with a stranger’s cat or dog over here. But after another hike in poor weather in Ireland, we stopped in a pub that happened to have a border collie named Molly curled up in front of the fire. As we sipped our coffee, Molly periodically got up from her spot by the fire and visited the tables of the people in the pub. We showered her with so much affection that she laid down under our table and let us rub her belly (excuse the poor quality picture). One of the hostels we stayed at had a permanent resident in George, the ginger cat who was usually found curled up on a window seat in the hallway. Whenever we came across him we gave him a quick pat too.

Traditional foods. Since Great Britain and Ireland are typically colder and rainier than France, their food is typically cozier and heartier. We had bangers and mash, scotch pie, haggis, fish and chips, English breakfasts, Irish stew, black pudding, and steak and ale pie. Yum on all counts.

Non-traditional foods. We were walking to our Airbnb in Manchester when a poster for Taco Bell caught our eye. Although McDonald’s, KFC, and Burger King are commonplace in Europe, we’ve never seen a Taco Bell. We immediately made plans to locate the TB and give it a try, and our dinner there the next evening didn’t disappoint. Although we had to pay about twice as much for it as we do at home, it was worth it to taste our favorite American comfort food so far from home. We also ate an entire Domino’s pizza in a public bus station. I felt like a criminal the whole time, but it was tasty.

Irish music. I love traditional Irish music. In grad school, I had a Spotify playlist of jigs and reels that was perfect for studying to because it was upbeat enough to keep me awake but instrumental enough that the lyrics wouldn’t distract me. We spent the last night of the trip in an Irish bar in Cork where musicians had gathered to play trad music. Music in a cheery pub was a nice complement to a day spent on a cold, rainy walk, as well as a perfect conclusion to our whole vacation. 

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Two Weekends

It has been a while since our last update. That’s partly because we have been so busy in the past month, mostly with happy things! Here’s how we spent two of our weekends in our new area.

At the beginning of October we spent a Saturday in Chambéry to go to the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée, a festival celebrating comic books and graphic novels. Comics are way more popular in France than they are in the US—at our preferred branch of the Lexington Public Library, there is about one tall bookshelf full of graphic novels. At our library in France, which is much smaller overall, there are about three times more shelves dedicated to bandes dessinées (or BDs for short). After taking a French class at UK dedicated to studying BDs, I have grown to enjoy reading them. I don’t care much for the DC- or Marvel-style serial comics, but I’ve found and read quite a few memoirs and novels where the narratives are enhanced by their stunning artwork and visual storytelling. Nicolas prefers reading sci-fi and fantasy, so comics are a favorite genre of his, too. When we had the opportunity to celebrate the graphic novel at the third-largest BD festival in France, we took it.

One of the things on the schedule for the day was a “spectacle"; based on the brief description of it, I gathered that it was a blend of live theater and a comic book. I had trouble imagining what that might be like, but it sounded interesting. However, our train was 45 minutes late arriving to Chambéry, so we missed it. I was disappointed, but later we found out that you had to pay extra to go to the spectacle, so we probably would have opted out anyway. 

The rest of the festival was basically a ComicCon (I’ve never been to a “-Con,” but from what I’ve heard about them, this was similar). There were several rooms where you could buy new and used comic books, and there was a large room set up with rows and rows of booths. At each booth there were authors and artists there to meet their fans and sign copies of their books. We had no book for them to sign, and I hadn’t heard of any of the authors anyway, so we only walked around this area and watched. We saw lots of artists draw pictures on the cover pages of people’s books, which seems like a logical thing for an artist to do at a book signing. But I was shocked to see the level of time, attention, and detail going into these drawings. Each picture we saw looked like it took, at the bare minimum, 20 minutes to draw and/or ink. Even though we didn’t enough about any of the artists to get anything signed, it was really cool to walk around and see so many artists working, and in such diverse styles. We were also glad that we weren’t among the poor souls waiting in line for hours to get their books signed.

The other thing we particularly wanted to see was the screening of a short documentary about an illustrator’s work, start to finish, on one page of a comic book. The artist in the documentary was in his eighties, and he had been illustrating for decades. Over the course of a week, he read the author’s manuscript for the page, considered what needed to be drawn, drafted the panels in pencil, refined and finished them in ink, then presented them to the author for approval. It was amazing to see him draft each picture with what looked like no effort at all—he was clearly a master of his craft. It was also funny to see how critical he was of his own work—after two days of working on the first panel, he scrapped it because he didn’t like how he had laid it out. The documentary was in French, obviously, so I whispered summaries of the things the artist said in English in Nicolas’ ear. Luckily he only spoke in the short pauses he took from drawing, otherwise Nicolas and I would both have been lost.

______

The following weekend was the Descente des Alpages in Annecy. During the summers in this region, there are livestock grazing on the mountainsides. In the fall, they come down from the mountains to spend the winter in the stables in the valleys. And in Annecy, they have a festival to celebrate this event. As I talked about this event with other English-speaking assistants, the best English translations we could come up with for this event were “cattle descent” and “cow parade.” It sounds a lot less bizarre in French (at least I hope it does).

Nicolas and I went to Annecy with a group of fifteen assistants in our area to check out the cow parade. It was our first time going to Annecy this year, so it was nice to visit a familiar place. All through the narrow streets of the old quarter of Annecy, there were street vendors selling meats, cheeses, drinks, souvenirs, and tartiflette, the faux-traditional ham/potato/cheese casserole we tried for the first time last year. They ladled the tartiflette out of comically large pans, which was quite a sight to see. Our party of fifteen weaved its way through the packed streets and took in the sights, and even better, the smells. 

After we had eaten our fill of tartiflette, we found a place to stand along the parade route. Soon, there were people dressed in traditional alpine clothing dancing, waving, or riding in wagons down the street. There were also a few groups singing and playing instruments like horns (the Ricola kind), accordions, and some instruments I can’t even name. The real stars of the show, though, were the animals. There were packs of Saint Bernards (with the barrels on their collars, of course), flocks of sheep, herds of cows with flower crowns and huge bells around their necks, and even a flock of geese! I had read earlier that geese would be part of the parade, and I wondered how you could ever get geese to walk along a specified route, but they were very well-behaved and didn’t even honk! 

The most memorable part of the parade was the sheep. They were escorted by a horse-pulled cart, a few shepherds, and a sheepdog. The cart stopped right in front of us, and then the sheepdog and shepherds got the sheep to start running in frantic circles around the cart. The sheep and the sheepdog brushed our legs as they ran by, and they left quite a bit of poop on the street when they finally moved on. I was a little bit startled by all this, and I could only imagine how alarmed a toddler standing too close to the action might be! In all, it was lots of fun to celebrate all those farmers and farm animals!

Just like I was surprised that a cheesy potato casserole was considered a “traditional” regional delicacy over here, I was kind of amazed that this cow parade was happening in France of all places. Apart from the traditional European clothing, the exact same thing could have taken place very easily in Kentucky as some kind of FFA-sponsored event. I’m starting to realize that there’s a fine line between “elegant” or “sophisticated” French culture and the things that go on in the holler!

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Orientation

During the past week, I attended a two-day orientation with all the primary assistants in my area. As a returning assistant, I didn’t expect to learn much during the orientation, but I knew that this was my opportunity to meet and befriend my fellow assistants. I met people from the US, England, Canada, India, and Italy, some of whom are young enough to still be in undergrad and some of whom are old enough to be taking a year off from their career as a social worker. I enjoyed getting to know them, comparing cultures, and telling stories about our experiences in France.

On Friday, I met with the person I’ll be reporting to this year, as well as the other assistant who will be teaching in my district, though not at the same schools. After doing some paperwork, we got our schedules, toured our schools, and introduced ourselves to the teachers and classes that we’ll be working with. I’ll be working at three schools this year: a large one in the middle of town, a medium-sized one in the suburbs, and a small one that is one town away. I’ll be observing this coming week, so I’ll know more about the personalities and styles of each class after I get to watch them a while.

My schedule still isn’t 100% finalized, but here’s what it looks like so far:

I’ll be working on Mondays, Tuesdays, and half-day Thursdays this year. I will have a mix of ages from 1st to 5th grades. I’ll see each class once per week for 45 minutes. Recess got counted into my working hours this time, which means I’ll be spending less time teaching compared to last year. I’ll be spending Mondays and Thursdays at the big school, Tuesday mornings at the medium-sized school, and Tuesday afternoons at the small school.

Below my schedule, my boss wrote a note for the teachers I’ll be working with, explaining that I am an assistant and not a substitute teacher. It specifies that lessons are supposed to be a joint effort between me and the normal teacher, and that things like discipline and making copies are not my responsibility. I’m very happy that my boss is communicating this to the teachers from the very beginning, because I sometimes got the impression last year that my sole job in certain classrooms was to give the teachers a 30-minute break from the kids. My boss also told me that if I have any trouble with teachers on this matter that I can let her know and she’ll discuss it with the teacher on my behalf.

My boss can make all the difference in whether I have a good year or a bad year. And in all of our interactions so far, she seems extremely helpful and supportive. I’m happy to have her in my corner!

Even though I’m only observing next week, I’m still a little anxious about going to the schools by myself. Mostly, it’s the practical things that worry me. Which door do I go in, and do I knock/ring first? Where do I go when it’s recess time and I don’t have a class to go to? Where are the bathrooms? What if someone sends me away when I come in to observe (which I wouldn’t normally be worried about, but it happened last year)? I think the first day of school is so much scarier as an adult than it is as a student!

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Settling in

I’m writing from our studio in Aix-les-Bains, which we have been moved into for about a week. The settling-in process has been much, much easier than it was last year. I never dreamed that our second year would contrast so sharply with our first, but I’m so glad that it does.

The studio

The “good lead” we had a couple weeks ago turned out to be the only one we needed. The utilities (even wifi!) are all taken care of by the landlady, and there are free laundry facilities in the building. It’s really small (around 250 square feet), but we get lots of natural light and we have a huge balcony. The location is pretty great too. Just up the hill from us is a beautiful view of the city, and we’re within 10 minutes of a park, a couple of grocery stores, and library. If the apartment starts to feel too small, we’ll have plenty of places to go outside.

Another little point of pride about our apartment: not only is our town featured in a travel book about France, the picture of Aix-les-Bains in the book has our apartment building in it! Ours is one of the ones in the foreground.

The bank

I was able to keep my bank account from last year with no extra trouble. I needed to switch home branches, change my address, and get a new debit card, but that was all done in one appointment.

Old friends

When we were still staying in the Airbnb in Chambéry, our friends K and A from last year visited us. K will be an assistant in a school on the Atlantic coast, so they stopped by Chambéry on their cross-country move. The four of us walked around the old part of town, filling each other in on our summers and what we know about our new placements so far. We ate at a restaurant where we tried escargots and quenelle for the first time. Escargots gets a thumbs-up from us. I’m not sure I’d have quenelle again.

New friends

Last weekend, France celebrated the Journées du Patrimoine, which is essentially a festival to celebrate French history and heritage. I used the event as an excuse to try to make some new assistant friends in the area, and sent an open invitation on a group chat for Chambéry assistants. We had one taker: a first time assistant, L, from Alabama. We went with her to an art museum, a castle, and an “everything is 2€” store. The highlights of the day were the organ concert and book-repairing demonstration that we went to. As more assistants arrive in the area we hope to meet some more people we can hang out with.

Exploring Aix-les-Bains

Little by little, we’ve been discovering what Aix has to offer. There’s a cute little park not far from our apartment, and there are always lots of people reading on park benches or walking their dogs. There’s also someone playing accordion about 50% of the time. The park has an amphitheater, and during the heritage festival, there were people teaching and learning popular dances from the Belle Époque. I like the idea of having a public event space so close by.

The lake is a 30-minute walk away, so it’s not someplace we’ll just go casually, but we went one afternoon last week and had a really pleasant time. It was a warm day when we went, so there were people swimming and tanning. It felt nice to put my feet in after the long walk. We sat in the shade and people-watched, then we walked a little ways down the pedestrian path along the lake.

This afternoon, we went to a second park that is essentially a small forest right in the middle of town. We could still hear the sounds of traffic and construction nearby, but it looked like we were at Raven Run or the Pinnacles. The path we took was mostly uphill, but we were rewarded with a really nice view of the city at the top. I look forward to going back there again whenever I start to miss the more rural parts of Kentucky.

Yesterday, I signed up for a library card. In France, you have to pay a yearly subscription to the library to check books out, but the man who sold me mine gave me the student price even though I told him I’m not a student. The library is smaller than the ones we are used to, but it has a huge collection of graphic novels, which are really popular with French kids and adults alike. I got two books for me (both graphic novels/memoirs) and two for Nicolas (one graphic novel version of The Iliad and one parallel French/English version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). There was a library in our town last year, but I never had the courage to go to it. Maybe it’s all in my head, but Aix feels like a much more accommodating environment for us and for our assimilation into French culture. Tomorrow we are going to try to sign Nicolas up for a French class, and see if I can find a conversation partner while we’re at it. Onward and upward!

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

No news is good news

We don’t have much to report, except that we have arrived in our area and are taking the first steps to settling in. We had a loooooong, uneventful day of travel to get to our Airbnb in Chambéry, and as soon as we arrived we slept for 12 hours straight.

On our first day on the ground, we got a new (and cheaper) phone plan for me, bought a few days’ worth of groceries, and picked out a handful of apartments to inquire about the next day. Today, I made those inquiries, and we seem to have a pretty good lead on one of the apartments.

By this time last year, we had trouble contacting our Airbnb host, got our luggage stuck in an elevator, and missed a train. By comparison, we are very happy to have had an uneventful first 48 hours!

We haven’t done too much exploring, but we really like what we have seen of Aix and Chambéry. 

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

It’s time for round 2!

After a long, glorious, restful summer at home, it’s about time for us to leave for France again.

This time I will be working in a town called Aix-les-Bains (pronounced “ex-lay-BAH,” where the last syllable has one of those hard-to-make nasal vowel sounds).

We had a lot of conversations about what our next placement would have to be like in order for us to go back next year. We knew that we wanted to live in a city with a larger population, and all the things that come with a larger population. We also wanted to live somewhere with greater ease of transportation without a car, more stores/restaurants (especially ones that are open later at night), a park or two, and a larger population of people our age. Aix-les-Bains has a population of approximately 30,000, so while it’s no Paris, it’s still over four times larger than our previous town! After doing some more research into the town, we decided that I would take the job.

As you can see from the picture above, Aix-les-Bains is located between a giant lake and a good-sized mountain. I’m hoping that there’ll be more opportunities for us to spend time outdoors to enjoy the landscape. Aix-les-Bains is also known for its thermal baths. The ancient Romans had a settlement there, and more recently, famous people from Queen Victoria to Victor Hugo visited for spa vacations. I doubt we will do much spa-ing, but we’ll definitely enjoy the history and Belle Époque architecture.

A still larger town, Chambéry (pop. 60,000), is a 15-minute train ride South from Aix. It has a university, so it will probably also have more opportunities for both housing and fun stuff to do. We may end up living here, or at least visiting here frequently.

Possibly the best thing about our placement is that a high-speed train runs through our town. It’ll only take us 3-4 hours to get to Paris! Lyon and Marseille are also short train rides away. Instead of staying a whole weekend in those places, we can just take day trips if we want.

As far as work goes, I’ve been in contact with my boss, and she’s already been very helpful as far as my schedule, housing, and integration into the schools work. I’ll be teaching at three different schools this year, not just one, so that will be a change from last year that I’ll have to get used to.

We’ve got our visas and plane tickets, and we fly out on September 9. We’re sad to part with our Old Kentucky Home again, but we are looking forward to our next adventure.

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Headed home. (That’s Mont Blanc peeking up over the clouds.)