Winter Vacation, Pt. 2

Berlin (taken with a new camera that I like way better than my old one)!

Winter Vacation, Pt. 1

After being in France for over four months, I FINALLY have had a chance to see a family member!  My Dad arrived in Guingamp on Thursday, February 10, and my vacation started around noon on Friday.  We spent Thursday evening and Friday afternoon exploring Guingamp, then picked up our rental car and headed to our adorable rental cottage.  The cottage is located in the countryside and is made of stone.  My room is a loft with a spiral staircase and the window faces the sunrise.  I wish we could stay longer, and spend more time here, but we had lots to see!  This entry will be about our week in Brittany, but I’m going to keep it very short, because we saw a lot of different things!

Day 1:  Binic, St. Quay Pontrieux, Paimpol, an attempt at Plougrescant, Ploumenac’h, Trébeurden

This part of the coast is closest to where I live, and it’s beautiful!  There are many beaches, and some of the sites that I wrote about in October.  We saw the pink granite coast, the beach I went to my second day in France, and some other beaches I hadn’t seen yet!  It was a chilly day, but very sunny.  On the way back to our cottage we went shopping at the grocery store, which allowed Dad to see the differences between a French and American grocery store, plus we picked up some steak and duck for our upcoming dinners!

Day 2:  Carnac and Quiberon

            Most things in France are closed on Sunday, so we decided to take a trip to the southern coast of Brittany.  We had a beautiful drive through the countryside and arrived in Carnac around lunchtime.  Carnac is a seaside resort town, but it is also known for its Alignments.  We ate an excellent lunch at a crêperie, saw the Atlantic Ocean, and then headed in search of the Alignments.  The Alignments are rows and rows of megaliths (standing stones) in fields.  There are three or four main sets in Carnac and the surrounding towns, plus singular ones on their own in the countryside.  It was something I had never seen before and I would definitely recommend going there! 

            Next we got in the car and headed towards Quiberon, which is a “presqu’île”, or almost island.  It juts down into the Atlantic and reminded us a lot of the Outer Banks.  We drove back to the mainland via the “Savage Coast” and it was beautiful!  During our entire trip we spent a lot of time getting in and out of the car to walk on paths along the coast, and the views were impressive each time!

Day 3:  Fréhel and St. Malo

            This time we decided to drive along the coast in the other direction in Côtes d’Armor.  This included a stop at Fréhel and Cap Fréhel.  This part of the coast is called the Emerald Coast and it is also very beautiful!  Cap Fréhel is a cape that sticks out into the Channel with two lighthouses on the end, and a fort to one side.  After spending some time at Fréhel, we headed towards St. Malo (via the coast of course!).  Even though it was a Monday, we had a difficult time finding a place that was open for lunch, and ended up getting a terrible baguette to share in one of the towns (I didn’t know it was possible to have a bad baguette, but it is). 

            We finally arrived in St. Malo, and there I was able to show Dad all the things that I saw while I was there, plus we were able to have the amazing Kouing Aman they sell at one of the stands there.  It was cold and cloudy, but the sea was calm.  After picking out some chocolates at a shop I read about, we decided to head for home.  That night I made duck with orange shallot sauce for dinner, and it was delicious.

Day 4:  Presqu’île de Crozon and Pointe du Raz

            These are two of the three parts that stick out at the end of Brittany.  We saw many amazing views of the Atlantic Ocean and the bays surrounding the peninsulas.  There are great hiking trails all around the points, but we only walked a little way on a few of them, it was very cold, and very windy!  We also saw some more Alignments near Crozon, only these ones are right next to where the land drops off into the ocean.  Next we drove along the coast to the Pointe du Raz, which is the point the furthest West on the French mainland!  I really enjoyed walking out onto the point, some people were much braver than we were though and were near where the water was hitting the rocks!

Day 5:  Plougrescant and Sillon de Talebert

            Plougrescant is the site of the Gouffre, which is one of the places I wrote about in October.  We couldn’t find it on Saturday, so I was determined to get it right this time, and we did!  It was somewhat stormy, so the waves were crashing against all the rocks.  Next we drove to the Sillon de Talbert, which is a 3km long arm of sand that reaches out into the Channel.  They think that two rivers heading inland on either side of the “presqu’île”, which pushes the sand up to form the Sillon.  When we went it was low tide, so it didn’t have the same effect as official pictures, and we found that the sand is pretty difficult to walk on, even with good shoes.  Hopefully I’ll be able to take another trip there at high tide.

Day 6: ???

            We decided to have a quiet day and enjoyed the cottage in the morning, I finally read a little bit, and then we took a drive through the countryside.  We didn’t really have a plan, and were a little lost.  Not too exciting, but we were able to find a dolmen and a few megaliths near Guingamp. 

Day 7:  Paris, with a side trip to Cancale and Mt. St. Michel

            Today we drove to Paris, and stopped at Mt. St. Michel on the way.  I had read about the coastal road leading from St. Malo to Mt. St. Michel, so we opted to take the time doing the extra drive instead of actually visiting Mt. St. Michel.  The drive included a few walks and a stop at Pointe du Grouin.  If it had been a clear day, we would have been able to see the Mont from the point.  We got lost a few times along the trip, but saw a lot of interesting sites in Brittany and Normandy.  Also, we learned that if you want to travel to Paris and not pay tolls, it’s slow going sometimes, and I appreciate being able to take public transportation to the airport much more now, it wasn’t too much fun driving around the edge of Paris on a Friday afternoon!  Now I am sitting in my hotel, getting ready for the next leg of our trip: Berlin (which means more updates are coming)!!

I'm still here!

January has already come and gone and I barely wrote in my blog!  I think I’ve just been settling in to life here and don’t really feel like I have very many exciting things to write about.  Hopefully that will change soon since I have a vacation coming up.  My dad is coming to visit me for two weeks, and he arrives one week from today!  We will be spending a week in Brittany visiting the coast/everything that you need a car to see, and then we are heading to Berlin for four days!  I’m really looking forward to having a break; the one elementary school that I work at on Monday’s has been very frustrating the last five weeks.  I feel as though nothing is getting accomplished there and I don’t have the teaching experience/training to know how to fix it. 

Now, I think the best way to play catch up for January is to list the main things I’ve done.

1.    My boss observed me at the Monday school, and it didn’t go very well.  The good news is that she recognized all the problems weren’t because of me, and gave me some tips to get things to go more smoothly.

2.    I visited Paris again!  I did another day trip in Paris like the one in November.  It was a lot of fun, and I got some cool stuff from Deyrolle, an interesting store near Saint-Germain-de-Près.  They are known for all of their taxidermy animals and their maps of French products.  I also visited the Opera and the Post Office Museum, and enjoyed both!

3.     One big thing in January in France is the Galette des Rois, or King Cake.  We had a King Cake in our apartment and I won the fève, the porcelain statuette that is baked into the cake.  This meant that I was “queen” and got to keep the crown that comes with the cake and the fève.  Our boulangerie’s fèves are firemen, but I’ve also seen Scooby Doo, TinTin, and the Laughing Cow. 

4.     My voice will now be used in elementary English lessons in the Côtes d’Armor.  Two fellow Primary Assistants and I went to Saint-Brieuc last Wednesday to record our voices reading stories and skits for the teachers to use in the future.  This will help them a lot because unfortunately there will be no more Primary Assistants next year.

5.     I  received my first gift from a student.  It was a piece of candy, but it was super cute when he gave it to me!

6.     I’ve been a little bored lately so I’ve started knitting again… and finally finished a project!  It’s a grey cowl/scarf and I really like it.  I’ve also been reading a lot, applying for jobs, and doing Sudoku and word searches to keep myself busy.

7.     I have plans for my first week of April break!  I’ve been accepted into a volunteer program through a company called Vaughan Town where I will be helping Spanish business people with their English conversational skills.  I just found out that I was accepted on Monday night, and have been doing lots of travel planning since then!

8.     After being paid last Friday, I finally got up the courage to get a hair cut in France.  I went yesterday, and I survived!

Prague Pt. 2 and getting back to the real world...

I realized in my last blog I didn’t define “we”!  I traveled and stayed with a fellow Susquehanna alum and English teaching assistant, Shayna and was also able to meet up with a fellow Académie de Rennes assistant, Erica!  It was great to have company and see some familiar faces when we were so far away from home for Christmas.

Monday was our second to last day in Prague, and we decided to take a day trip out of town to Kutna Hora, a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The main attraction there is the Ossuary, a church that is decorated with over 40,000 human bones.  The town is also known for its wine, and silver mines.  The first coins for the Austro-Hungarian Empire were coined in Kutna Hora because of the abundance of silver.  On the day that we visited Kutna Hora was like a ghost town, but it was definitely worth a visit to see the Ossuary. 

A bone-crest in the Ossuary (it was at least 5 feet tall!).

Tuesday we visited a few things that we had been meaning to see, including watching the Astronomical clock one more time.  This was the one day where we made our tourist mistake and ended up paying more for a slice of ham at the Christmas market than we paid for our delicious Christmas dinner!  To remedy this mistake we headed back to the Globe for dinner where I had peach juice (it was more like a smoothie than juice) and a burrito.  It was probably the only chance I’ll have to eat some tex-mex while in Europe and it was worth it!  We also took a piece of carrot cake to go (with real cream cheese frosting!).  The Globe is definitely worth a visit if you’re in Prague.

We started our long voyage home on Wednesday morning, and I finally arrived in Guingamp on Thursday night (it was a LONG day and a half!).  I was then able to spend New Year’s with one of the teachers that I work with at the middle school and her family, along with their friends.  It was fantastic!  We ate wonderful food and drank great wine and champagne.  This morning I learned that it is a tradition in France for the youngest people in the family to call the older family members and wish them a Happy New Year.  Although I like the idea of that tradition, I won’t be taking part in it this year, so this blog will have to suffice!  Work starts again on Tuesday so it's back to teaching until my Dad's visit in February.

Happy New Year and here’s hoping that 2012 is as amazing as (or better than) 2011!

Czech-ing In

I’m more than halfway through my Christmas vacation in Prague and so far it has been wonderful!  We flew in this past Wednesday.  After checking into our hotel, we immediately left for the center of the city to see the Christmas markets.  There are several Christmas markets in Prague and most of them have similar gifts and food.  You can easily find sausages, a Czech version of spatzel, cinnamon and sugar covered dough circles, gingerbread, wine, and grog.  Each tree has a wooden crèche below it, and there are Christmas lights everywhere.  The markets run until January 8, so we can enjoy them for our entire trip.  Christmas in the Czech Republic is celebrated on the 24^th, and families traditionally eat carp for Christmas.  Due to this tradition there were many large plastic pools around the city full of fish for people to buy. 

The Christmas Market in Old Town Square

Our trip also comes at an interesting time because it follows the death of Vaclava Havla (Havel) who was the first post-communism President here.  He is an extremely important to the Czech people and they were in mourning for the first few days of our trip.  Havel’s body was lying in state in Prague castle, so we were unable to visit until Christmas day because it would have been rude to go as a tour group while people were saying their goodbyes.  Friday the 23^rd was the funeral and national day of morning.  We were able to watch some of the funeral at the Globe, an expat hang out in Prague 2, and during that time there was also a national moment of silence.  There are memorials set up all around the city to honor Havel, including homemade signs and billboards put up by the city.  Following the funeral, there was a concert at night to honor Havel, which was projected on a giant screen in Wenceslas Square.   Many people stayed in the square to enjoy the concert and it is obvious that he was very well loved here.

Prague Castle

On a lighter note, the food here is fabulous, and cheap.  We have free breakfast at our hotel, which includes bread, cheese, cold cuts, eggs, and assorted fruits and salads.  We’ve enjoyed bagels TWICE at Bohemia Bagel (the first, and probably last time I’ve been able to have a bagel and Philadelphia cream cheese in Europe), market foods that I described above, Czech fried cheese and bacon dumplings with beer, Svickova (beef tenderloin in a carrot cream sauce with cranberries and dumplings), cheeseburgers, and apple strudel.  In Prague, beer is cheaper than water and my current favorite is a Czech beer called Staropramen.  We also visited a local microbrewery where we tasted eight beers (light, dark, wheat, banana, sour cherry, nettle, vanilla, and coffee).  Finally we had Thai food at a restaurant called the Lemon Leaf and it was delicious!  We are looking forward to more food adventures before we head back to France.

The Astrological Clock in Old Town Square

Stay tuned for more updates from Prague!

Obligatory OFII Post

As of this past Tuesday, I officially have a validated work visa and can stay in France until May.  Although I applied for my visa in August, and received it in September, the process was not over.  I also had to attend an appointment at the OFII (French Office of Immigration and Integration) to validate the visa.  This appointment consists of a medical exam and x-ray, and a short meeting to give the government more paperwork.

I was assigned the same appointment as three other assistants at 9AM in Rennes (the capital of Brittany).  I arrived about an hour early and made my way to the office.  After checking in you have to work your way through an assembly line of nurses and doctors.  First they check for tuberculosis by taking a chest x-ray.  Of course France isn't like America in the sense that there is now gown to cover yourself when you have to be undressed from the waist up (it wasn't nearly as awkward or embarrassing as I thought it would be though).  Then I was told to sit and wait in a chair in the hallway, x-ray in hand, until the nurse called me in.  The nurse asked the usual questions, and preformed an eye and blood sugar test.  I had low blood sugar, so she asked if I had eaten breakfast.  When I said no she insisted I eat a "pain au chocolat" immediately after the appointment.  Next was the doctor who asked a few more questions and then looked at the x-ray (in case you were wondering, I am TB free).  She signed some papers and then sent me to the next office where I showed proof of residence, proof that my visit was paid for by the government, and gave her a photograph.  I then received another sticker in my passport and was free to go!

After the appointment I was able to spend some time in Rennes before heading back to Guingamp.  It is starting to look like Christmas in France (minus the snow), there are Christmas lights up everywhere and there are many Christmas markets around.  I also only work four more days before our vacation starts on the 17th!

Learning about the American flag..

Today I was asked to bring a document into class to work with three small groups for.  While sifting through materials looking for something to use, I found a few pages on rules regarding the American flag in a book that my grandparents sent me…it was perfect!  The book listed some flag vocabulary, and I talked with the students about what the stars and stripes stand for.  Then we started reading the rules, and I allowed them to translate them so that all the students understood. 

The rules included:

•       the flag must be raised swiftly but lowered slowly
•       you can’t fly the flag in bad weather (unless it’s an all-weather flag)/at night (unless illuminated)
•       the flag can’t touch the ground
•       rules about where the flag is flown/how high in relation to other flags
•       rules about flying the flag at half-staff
•       flying the flag upside down
•       why we fold the flag in a triangle (because of the tricorn hats during the Revolution!)

I then asked the students if there were any rules regarding the French flag (they said no) and if it symbolized anything (they didn’t know).  They told me that they thought that some rules were strict, and some were strange, but that others were “good.”  Finally one girl asked why it was a big deal if the flag touches the ground.

This is not as easy to answer as I thought, because as I was explaining that, to Americans, a flag is more than a piece of material and that it represents the ideals of our nation, I began to understand why it sounds strict and strange to others.  I am not the most outwardly patriotic person, which made it increasingly difficult to explain what the flag means to Americans.  Thankfully I had to simplify the English, and had the book to help me.  The students told their teacher that they really enjoyed the lesson...and so did I, even after repeating it three times.

Now I’m left to wonder…why are these symbols of patriotism so important to Americans?  Why aren’t they as important in France?  Probably for the same reason that the teachers thought it was hilarious that President Obama, the “leader of the free world,” spent his Thanksgiving pardoning a turkey when there are so many problems in the government...cultural differences (that’s the easy answer anyway)!

(Thanks to Grammy and Papa for all the new materials to use at school!)