Mona, Napoleon, and More

Long time no posting! Sorry for the hiatus, but we're back in the game now because we're on Christmas break :) Let us remind you where we are in our story. We're in Paris, it's October, and we're on Wednesday of our trip. We woke up early (7h30) on Wednesday to get ready for our big day at the Louvre. Although we had the Museum pass, we still wanted to be there at a respectable hour, you know. On our way out of the hotel, we decided to wait until getting near the Louvre to stop for breakfast. So we descended the stairs to the metro. After about three stops, Derek realized that he had forgotten his Museum Pass back at the hotel. This incident not being a part of the plan, we were a little frustrated. At this point, we decided to look and see if there were any boulangeries (bakeries). Of course there were not, so this was a royal waste of about 15 minutes. Then we returned to the hotel and got the pass from the place Derek had hidden it (he hid it so that the cleaning people wouldn't steal it). On our way back to the metro we smelled something absolutely delicious. We stopped at the boulangerie and bought 5, count 'em 5, pain au chocolat (basically croissants with chocolate inside) for the price of 3! The day now looking up, we lifted our chins, worked our jaw muscles, and headed to the Louvre.

There's not much to say about the Louvre, so we'll mostly give you a short recap in pictures.  All we can say is, it is all it's cracked up to be, and you could spend days...maybe even years...in that place.  It's incredible.

The entrance to the Louvre

 

The famous pyramids! These are in the center of the Louvre, which is a sort of U-shape

We got some headsets for like 5 euros a piece, but they were such a pain to figure out!  You are supposed to be able to find where you are in the museum, click on a certain work that corresponds to a number, and hear information about it.  However, this was not so easily done for some pieces. For example, upon reaching the famous "Venus de Milo," we could not find the number and therefore have no clue why it's famous!  We have heard of it of course, but couldn't tell you anything about it... 

Don't mind the people in the background...it's hard to get a picture of just her...

Next we reached the one, the only, the famous--Mona Lisa!  We thought there would be no way we could get close enough to snap her pic, but in fact the room wasn't even half full!  There was certainly a crowd and some pushing and shoving, but all in all it wasn't too bad.

Kind of hard to get a good picture, because she's enclosed by glass

We dropped by to see the Code of Hammurabi and then headed for Napoleon III's quarters. Turns out, the Louvre used to be a palace and Napoleon's nephew lived there.  So, part of the Louvre is actually rooms of his palace, preserved.  The following pictures are views of the other side of the Louvre from Napoleon's chambers.

The Code of Hammurabi

This is inside the Louvre, and that is a lady dressed up as a statue and talking to the little kids.  So cute!

We'll spare you a picture overload, but here are a few examples of the majesty of the Napoleons:

After that, we went to the paintings section.  There were a few famous paintings we recognized, but not a whole lot.  So, for all intents and purposes, that's the end of the tour of the Louvre, roughly 5-6 hours later.

Our next mission for the day was to find some dinner.  Tonight we decided to go for a simple kebab. Kebab is a famous European food--okay, fast food--that is DELICIOUS!  It comes mainly from Turkey, but exists in Greece as a "gyro" and takes various forms in Europe.  Usually in France, a kebab is some type of crispy, thick bread, whether in sandwich form or pita form filled with meat, lettuce, onion, tomatoes, and some sort of sauce (and often served with fries).  Anyway, they are usually all over the place in the cities.  But for some reason on the night we were specifically looking for a kebab restaurant, we couldn't find one.  We walked fooorreeevvverrrr looking, and finally decided to go back towards the hotel where we knew we could find at least one kebab restaurant.  They are always pretty sketchy looking, but the food is worth it! We ate some yummy kebabs and then went around the corner to finish with nutella-filled crêpes :)

We know we've been slacking, but the rest of the Paris trip will come this week and then we can finally update you on the rest of our lives!

The Quest for the Forgotten Phone

Day 2: Mission: Find Derek's Phone

So, the first place we went on Tuesday morning was back to REX theater to find Derek's phone, hoping against hope that no one had stolen that 33 euro gem the night before.  We explained the situation to the man working, and he explained that we could return when the movie was over, a little longer than an hour.  After some debate, we chose a place to eat some lunch (which was comprised of baguette-style sandwiches and delicious chocolate desserts) and pass the time.  Finally it was time to return to the theater.  Derek asked the man if he could go look in the theater, only to find that he had said the wrong theater number earlier.  We were forced to wait again until the next showing had finished.

For the next two hours we walked up and down the street, browsed through a crappy bookstore, and stopped for a café au lait. We forgot to write down the name of the café, because we were so mad at the waiter. He was really rude. Most places we have gone, the people either wait until you ask for the check (which can be frustrating sometimes), or they bring it to you and don't come back for a while so that you have plenty of time to pay. This guy brought our check and stood there while we fumbled through our change purses searching frantically for exact change, cause you KNOW we were not about to leave that fool a tip. I'm sorry that we did not get the name of this place. But if you are ever near the REX theater in Paris, stay away from all cafés on this street, just to be sure.

After the café, we decided to start looking for boots for Brit (this was supposed to be our shopping day). We went into a shoe store and walked around the first level, but did not see anything that would work. It was at this time when we went back across the street for what seemed like the 100th time, and went into the correct theater. After about 10 minutes of searching in the dark, we began to give up hope. But we knew that the phone had to be here, this was the only place it could be. Unless, of course, someone had found it and taken it with them. Well, Derek started searching between the seat back and the seat cushion on the piece of curved metal that connected them underneath. Sure enough, on the second row of chairs he checked he found it! When we walked out of the theater all of the rain clouds parted, the sun came out, and it started to feel like a warm autumn day!

Because this was our shopping day, we immediately went to the metro to head for a certain part of town that we thought was supposed to be a shopping area for poor people. Turns out it's not. There were no stores that any poor people would ever consider shopping at, with the exception of Monoprix, but that does not count because it is a grocery store. Eventually we ran into American Apparel which almost lives up to the standards we try to set for ourselves. But we thought it would be ridiculous to buy "local California" clothes in Paris, not to mention they were even more expensive here than in the States.

So we gave up on clothes shopping for a bit and tried to find these two cool bookstores that were nearby. The thing is, when someone mentions the metro stop for a certain store, that is really not enough information to find your destination. The store could be located on any number of side streets connected to side streets connected to side streets that are connected to the Main street with the metro stop. The cherry on top was that it started pouring down rain in the midst of our searching. Immediately after giving up, we found the street that the bookstore should have been on. After walking this street twice with no luck, we decided to cross the bridge to go see Notre Dame.

We were not planning to activate our "Museum Passes"(valid for four consecutive days) until the next day, so we really only went to Notre Dame to find a bathroom. Well, we walked up and down the streets next to ND but don't find a single one. Then we spot this huge Port-a-John/Kiosk thing right across the street. This is great news, so we jump in line. The cool thing is that it is a FREE public restroom, and it cleans itself after each use. The unfortunate thing is that because of this, it takes about five minutes for each person's turn. We were about 8 people back. Derek was on the brink of wetting his pants. Brit stayed in line while Derek walked around the area. He found a sign that pointed towards the other free public restrooms so he grabbed Brittany and they went toward them. After following all the people down the stairs, we read the sign indicating that the restrooms were closed. We knew we were running out of options fast, so we decided to go to a café and relax for a bit, but mainly just to use the bathroom. We got to the café, took care of mother nature's business, then ordered. Brit got a chocolate crêpe and Derek got a beer. Surprise surprise. During this time, we let our feet rest, we reclaimed emotional control over ourselves and we enjoyed the break. After the very nice workers helped us to get a general idea of where the store "Shakespeare & Co." might be, we set off for what was left of the not-so-promising afternoon.

Brit sort of went on a taking-pictures-of-lampposts kick.

Side note. At Notre Dame, and all tourist locations, there are always people begging for money. Not just obviously homeless/mentally-ill people trying to eat, but serious money taking operations. Two years ago, these people, mostly young women, were telling various stories about a family member from some eastern European country who lost a limb and needed medical attention. This year there were young kids with clipboards and sign-up sheets. What were the tourists signing up for? To donate money to help a deaf/blind cause of some sort. Now, don't get me wrong...I am more than willing to give money to people when they need it- especially when this is a face-to-face conversation. But we are in France. Seriously. ANYONE can get medical attention if they REALLY need it. At the very least these organizations could have found a better way to fund-raise. They could get government grants and have more official looking flyers. They could all be wearing matching tee shirts. So obviously, this was not an official group. Now now all you hippies... I am not saying you need to be some sort of formal organization or NGO for me to support you. But here is my question: If these people are organized (and trust me, they are very organized), but are obviously not formally organized, then to whom do these kids answer? To whom do they give these donations? My only assumption is to someone who is taking advantage of them in some way or another. Furthermore, am I supporting their oppression by donating money? Or is it possible that by not donating money they may not reach their daily quota and will be punished by their lord? We decided not to give the money. End side note.

This is actually a picture from another day because we didn't have a camera on Tuesday. But, note the woman in the background who is an example of Derek's rant in the side note.  Also, you can't really tell, but here I am wearing my new boots which I will get in the future.  It's almost like time-travel gone wrong.

  

 

 

 

We went back towards the way we came and crossed over the bridge. We walked a block further down the road. We crossed the street, and guess what we saw...Shakespeare & Co.! Yes, it was on the correct street, it just so happens that this street was divided by another street and not connected in any logical sense. Upon arriving at S&C, we noticed the sign that said it was closed. So we left. We then wandered for quite some time. Honestly, we don't remember what we did for the next few hours. But it was Paris. It was the Latin Quarter. It could not have been that interesting...

Another future picture of when the store was actually open (cute, huh?)  We wanted to spice this post up with a few pics, so we had to cheat and steal from other days where we actually took pictures.

Next it was time to decide what to do for dinner. My first thought, "Crap. It's dinner again already"? We discussed the issue at hand then we set out for a hip, new pizza joint (recommended by the restaurant book from the tourist office) located somewhere on the other side of town. We hopped on the metro. Forty minutes and two metro changes later, we were at our stop. It was really dark at this point and the street was much creepier than expected. All the shops were closed, but this was obviously the place where we should have gone shopping. We had been walking all day, sometimes in the rain, and it was getting late. We were ready to have some good ZaZa- type pizza and then turn in. After the long walk to the the restaurant, we finally arrived. The place was tiny, it reeked of cannabis, and the only remaining seats were in the Volts Wagon Van they had stripped that was parked on the street. Derek was all about it. Brit was about to cry. We turned around and went back to the metro. We went back to area of the Opéra, where we had been the previous night. We spent slightly less time looking at all the menus posted outside the restaurants. Once Derek thinks he is going to have pizza for dinner, he will settle for nothing else. Luckily, this reduced our number of choices by about 50%.  So at 21:00 we went into an Italian place, and it was surprisingly nice on the inside. And, it had really good prices for being right down the street from the Opéra. By 22:00 we were finishing our delicious pizzas and brownie dessert, while other people were just coming in to order (French people eat waaaaay too late).

We were finally able to go back to our hotel; we were falling asleep on the metro (not a good idea by the way). It was high time to get some rest before we began the more cultural aspect of our vacation: museums.

On the Agenda for Wednesday: The Louvre

Things to buy before leaving Paris: Boots, a children's book, an apron, a magnet (we are collecting magnets of each city we visit), a menorah, a Tin Tin book.

Successful purchases: None.

Ode to the Pilgrims

We interrupt our previous program (the mystery of the missing phone) to give you this breaking news: We celebrated Thanksgiving this weekend! It must interrupt our Paris posts because it would just be ridiculous to write about Thanksgiving in December.

At the beginning of our friendship with Thomas and Marie-Lorraine (our two friends here in Chaumont), we told them that we should all celebrate Thanksgiving together.  So, the time finally came and we started thinking about what we could make and how we could find everything here in France.  The previous Saturday at the market, we saw what looked like a pumpkin, but was a bit smaller.  We decided to buy it and see if we could find a way to make a pie out of it.  That week, we began thinking about the menu. What should we cook?  How to make it homemade?  How to make a Thanksgiving meal with only two cooks?

After much deliberation and recipe-researching, we finally came up with the following menu:

Appetizer:
Pam's Taco Dip (as we named it)


Main Course:
Turkey (or chicken)
Rolls
Mashed Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole

And for Dessert:
Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie

The toughest part was figuring all that out, but the second toughest part was going shopping.  The day before our meal, which would take place on Friday, we went shopping during our lunch break.  This was also quite difficult, because ingredients that may seem basic to you such as "baking soda," "evaporated milk," "brown sugar," and others, are just nonexistent or very camouflaged in French supermarkets.  But most of all, we did not find a turkey.  We should have gone to a butcher to double check, but you know us, always waiting until the last minute!  So, since Casino only had turkey slices for sandwiches, we decided we should probably just stick with a chicken.  That night, we prepared the taco dip so that we could get straight to work in the morning.

"Kiri" is the cream cheese we used.  They don't have a lot of cream cheese options in France, so we chose this one because we knew of it.  There were 24 individually wrapped packets inside, and we unwrapped about 16 for the dip.

The finished product!  Kind of a boring picture because there's too much white in our kitchen...

Finally, the day of the Thanksgiving meal arrived (Friday).  We woke up nice and early (around 9:30) to get a head start on cooking.  Derek started the dough for the rolls while Brittany took a shower.  We then took a brief break for breakfast, because we knew we had a big day ahead of us.  Derek continued to work on the bread while Brittany began operating on the pumpkin.

The pumpkin, sliced and gutted.

Luckily, back-up was soon to arrive.  Thomas would be spending the day with us to help cook, and Marie was going to come later on in the afternoon due to a job interview.  Not only was Thomas another helping hand, but he also brought some much-needed materials which our poorly stocked kitchen lacks: a real cutting board, real knives, a puréer (if I may), a potato masher, and more.  After we cooked and peeled the pumpkins, Thomas did most of the tough work in mashing and puréeing the pumpkins.

Meanwhile, Derek was working hard on kneading the dough to prepare it to rise again (although we don't have proper documentation because we're terrible at taking pictures, we swear it was happening).  We also started the pecan pie at this time.  We had cut and toasted the pecans the day before, so really all we had to do was make the filling.  We had finally found a recipe that did not contain corn syrup (which we did not want to use and probably couldn't have found in France even if we did want to use it), and basically made a mixture of sugar and butter.  We also threw some chocolate chips on there as well (because, why not?).  We used pre-prepared pie crusts to save time, but Casino pretty much only offered flaky or non-flaky crusts that are for tarts or quiches.  So, not exactly what we wanted, but, when in France...

Next, Brittany had to leave to go teach for two hours.  Yuck.  But thankfully, Derek and Thomas would be working hard to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour in her absence...or would they? (She discovered later that they really were just playing games the whole time.)  Upon returning, she found that they had cooked...and cooked...and cooked...and cooked...the pies until they were ready.  Apparently our oven is crappy.  Not to mention there are pictures and the numbers 1-9 on the oven dials that we don't quite understand, which makes an instruction such as "Bake for 40 minutes at 325 degrees" difficult to follow properly.

So, it was 17:00 and we were left with the green bean casserole, the mashed potatoes, and the chicken.  Marie arrived shortly after and we all got to work rinsing, chopping, and stirring.  We also put the chicken in the oven, and prepared the rolls for their baking.  By preparing, I mean making 2 1/2 inch circles, dipping them in butter, and folding them to look like little Pacmans. Somewhere between 17:00 and 20:00 we finished baking the bread, cooking the chicken, creating homemade cream of mushroom soup, frying onions, assembling and baking the green bean casserole, and had dinner on the table (a little later than planned).  The good news is that we're in France, and so it's totally normal to eat dinner at 20:00 and finish at midnight.
**(We apologize for the fact that the picture here really doesn't give you any idea about what the prepared items looked like).

We were all pretty tired when we sat down to eat, but the work was worth it!  Everything was absolutely delicious.  We took a break before dessert and taught our friends how to play "Apples to Apples."  After a few rounds (approximately 22:00 or so), we decided we should probably have dessert.

Ok, so the consistency of the pumpkin pie was a little off, but the flavor was AWESOME!  The pecan pie was a bit runny, probably due to the lack of poison (a.k.a corn syrup) to hold it together.  But throw a little crème fouettée (French whipped cream, which is kind of weird) on there and you're good to go. At 11 o'clock, we were all getting pretty sleepy because of the tryptophan in the turkey, oh wait...Maybe it was just because it was 11 o'clock at night and we had been cooking all day...Either way, we decided to call it a night.

Thanksgiving in France: different, slightly difficult, but definitely doable!  We sure missed being with our families this year, but we are so thankful we have people to call friends here that could share the day with us!

Oh yeah, one more thing.  We performed the following poem for our friends as well, in honor of all the Samples out there:

Mr. Turk was up this mornin'

Eatin' like a glutton

His crrrraawww so full of yella' corn

It stuck out like a button.

"Stuff old bird, I'm watchin' you!

'Cause as sure as you're livin',

I'll do some stuffin' too,

Along about Thanksgivin'. "

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Paris during Toussaint (All Saints' Day): Procrastination

Okay! Here is what you have all been waiting for! A day by day account of our trip to/in Paris! Since some of us (I'm not going to mention any names here) are too busy lesson planning to write a post on Paris, I have decided to pick up the slack so that all of our avid readers will be filled with the joy of our news.

Day 1: We are never on time
Our journey began on Monday 24 October, but we had actually spent the last two days (skipping church included) trying to plan this blasted adventure. Note to self: Never, ever, wait until two days before leaving for vacation to try to plan it, especially not a vacation to Paris (unless you are going to Paris, TX, in which case you don't need to plan anything at all). It could probably go unmentioned that we were up late on Sunday night packing and whatnot, so we decided to skip the early train (around 10:30) and take the next one (12:30). Because we were going to be taking a big suitcase, we wanted to catch the bus to the Gare. Well, thank you public transportation, the only bus options would either put us at the Gare at 12:26, or at 11:20. Knowing we needed more than four minutes to buy our tickets (again a problem of not preparing ahead) we were forced to take the bus that would make us sit at the tiny Gare for one long hour.

Good news and bad news. Good news first. We actually did not have to wait at the Gare for more than 15 minutes. Bad news. We didn't have to wait long because we missed the bus and had to walk to the Gare. Luckily it was freezing outside so by the time we got to the Gare we were only sweating a little bit (and by we I mean Derek because he was being so sweet to carry the huge suitcase all the way).

How much did the train tickets cost? How was the train ride?  These are two very good questions to which I no longer remember the answer. My next memory of the trip is watching (and laughing to myself) while Derek struggled to carry the suitcase up and down all the steps in the metro stations just to get to the hotel and realize he would have to carry it up four flights of stairs.

Poor chap. Once we checked into the hotel, freshened up a bit, and saw that our hotel was not half as bad and nasty as we had been expecting, we headed out to visit the tourist office and find dinner!  At the tourist office, we picked up loads of brochures (mostly for events that we were too poor to attend but looked cool) and bought two 4-day museum passes which would get us into many museums, etc. for free.  It was also on this night that we discovered it is both a blessing and a curse that restaurants are required to post their menu outside. It is a blessing because you can choose a place that has decent options and not be caught off guard. It is a curse because it is quite possible that we are the slowest decision makers on earth. So we spent at least an hour checking out the menus/trying to decide on a place to eat, and an equal amount of time eating/waiting for the waiter to bring us the check. But THEN we made one of the quickest and easiest decisions we have ever made:

  

Compared to Chaumont (which has two super crappy theaters owned by the same guy and which we've never been to), Paris is like the movie theater capital of the world.  Actually, compared to anywhere it is.  There are movie theaters EVERYWHERE.  But since we just happened to be by this particular one, we decided to go there.  It was sort of a combination between old-timey classy with red carpets and relatively crappy.  But, we did get some M&Ms so it was okay (popcorn can be hard to come by in French theaters, oddly enough). For the record, this was a GREAT movie. I don't think it is in America, though. But you should request it at the local theater! After the movie, we returned to the hotel. As Derek was about to set the alarm on his phone for the next morning, he realized that he did not have it. Where could it be? Probably at the movie theater...

Chaumont: The Land of Dreamers

We are back in Chaumont! Which means, we are back to the blog and to uploading more pictures! We were in Paris for the past week, but we will get to that in the next post. For now, we shall return to where we left off.

Once we returned from Reims, we started at our schools the very next day. For the rest of the week, we met (most of) the classes that we will be teaching. The following two weeks we were actually in the classroom with our students. Derek has a room at the school where he meets with his students, usually about 10, sometimes more sometimes less. Brittany, however, is sometimes teaching by herself but is often teaching alongside the teacher.

The English lessons are difficult to plan because each class is at a different level, and each student in each class is at a different level. Because of this, Derek plans one lesson and uses it for every class despite their differences, and Brittany adapts her lessons for each class.

Derek works twelve hours each week. Brittany works 10 hours on "A" weeks and 14 hours on "B" weeks. Understandably, we are much happier during "A" weeks. Although 12 hours does not seem like a lot of time per week, there's also the time that we use to plan the lessons (well, the time Brittany spends planning, anyways). Lesson planning is our lot as teachers, so it is nice to have only 12 hours of classes a week compared to the 30-35 hours of classes the real teachers have. As for Derek, he spends his extra time on the bus. The bus ride itself is not very long, but it is about a 10 minute walk to the bus stop from our apartment, and he usually has to leave about an hour early. On the days when his schedule is split between the morning and afternoon, he is traveling for about 2-3 hours a day when the school is less than a 10 minute drive from our apartment. Welcome to the life of public transportation.

That's enough about work! After all, it's not the real reason we are in France! On our first Sunday in town we woke up and went to church. In France, they are very skeptical about protestant churches, so (we think) the "approved church" is called the Église Reformé de France (The reformed church of France). Anyways, in each town, the ERF meets at the Temple (it's not really a temple, but it is called the temple). So we show up and guess who we meet?! A young french couple that just spent three years in Montreal with a community that explores the question "What is the church". Also, they love Settlers of Catan (Last friday we were up till three playing with Thomas). The husband is a funny guy and the wife is super sweet. Basically, they are easy to get along with, they are really similar to us, they have the same interests as us (environmentalism, eating seasonally, etc.), and they, too, are stuck in Chaumont for about nine months. Thomas was stationed here because he is working as a missionary, kinda. All in all, we are incredibly lucky to have them and are really excited to get to know them better.

At Brit's school, there is a young French teacher who is dating an American who used to be an assistant in Chaumont. For about three weeks we have been planning to get coffee with her, because she is really nice and easy to talk to, but just haven't done it. BUT, she and her boyfriend took us to the market in Chaumont which is awesome! It's not huge, but it's about 4 times bigger than the Searcy market AND they have cheese :-D

And there is one more friend we made (that's four and counting!)... Another teacher at Brit's school, who is probably in her forties with two children, has been very welcoming and friendly.  One Sunday, she invited us over to have lunch with her and her kids.  It was all in French, so it was kind of difficult to follow the conversation at times (French young people are so hard to understand!), but she treated us to a full-fledged French meal.  We started with the "apératif," which can be any sort of alcoholic drink/cocktail-type thing, and then came the "hors-d'oeuvres," just chips and nuts in this case.  After we finished the apératif, we accepted the wine she offered to go with our meal (although that much alcohol for a Sunday lunch was a little hard to handle, we didn't want to be rude!) We then had a salad, complete with raw meat on it (probably ham)--French people love their raw meats on salads!  Next were the potatoes "au gratin" which were AMAZING, accompanied with a beautiful meat creation that we can't remember exactly.  It was some kind of meat wrapped in another kind of meat and held together by a string...and DELICIOUS!  She then served the traditional "fromage" platter with several cheese options along with bread.  And finally, "café" with the dessert of an apple tart.  Needless to say, we didn't eat any dinner that night!

Another exciting thing we did: the Theatre! Well, not the real theatre. There is an amateur theatre group which performs in Chaumont a few times a year and we were lucky enough to see their 30 year anniversary show. Unfortunately, this show was written specifically for the occasion and the only things we understood were the swearing and the sexual innuendos. I'm sure there was a plot, but we missed it. Oh yes, the best part about the show was to see Derek's supervising teacher (the president of the amateur theatre group) on stage wearing tighty-whities, and only tighty-whities.

Outside of working, making a few friends, and attending really great theatre, there is only one thing left to do in Chaumont: Eat! We plan to experiment/expand our cooking style/repertoire while in France. 

Okay, okay. With these chocolate-chip pancakes, we did not really experiment (although we did invent our own baking powder), but sometimes you just gotta have a little taste from home, ya know? But this second picture, it was DA BOMB DOT COM! Seriously, it may have not tasted anything like French Cordon Bleu, but it was absolutely fantastic, and we will be making it again. Can you imagine Emmantal cheese and ham wrapped in chicken breast, breaded, fried and smothered with a delicious white wine sauce? I can, and that is why we will cook this next one on a regular basis!

So that is what we have been doing for the past month. Tune in next time to read about our trip to Paris!

Okay, one last thing before I let you get back to something hopefully more interesting than this blog post that is way too long: Derek is officially addicted to a Japanese comic book series called Fullmetal Alchemist, which he reads in French. (And Brittany is stuck trying to decode Molière's "Le Tartuffe," which is not going very well...)

Life in the big cities(s)

After regaining consciousness from our long jetlag repose, we knew we would have to go to the store. Thankfully Brittany’s teacher, Jacky, had already bought us some food to start us out with  (“It’s just what we do,” he told us).  Excited to see some of the city and with beautiful weather conditions, we set off.  The road we needed was very close to our apartment, but as there was no street sign it took us some time to be sure.  We began walking down it admiring the new architecture, and within 10 minutes’ time (Jacky had said it would take about 10 minutes to walk), we arrived at a large building.  It was the back and so we couldn’t tell if this was our destination, so we walked around to the front.  It said “Géant” in large letters and underneath, “Casino”.  “Casino?” we thought to ourselves.  We looked around.  But this had to be it; there were no other buildings around that seemed to be likely candidates.  “Maybe there’s a Casino in the grocery store?” we thought again.  We moved closer.  It seemed as though people were coming out with bags.  We dared to get even closer, entered, and were amazed.  It was a HUGE supermarket!  And approximately 10 minutes by foot from our apartment …how amazing, seeing as we have to walk everywhere around here!  Now you probably know we're not the type to support big corporations like Walmart, and this sort of seemed like a France-style Walmart, but when you don’t have a car, desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.  By the way, it’s pronounced “Cazeeno” in French and probably does not bring to mind the idea of people gambling inside. We actually ended up making two Casino trips that night, and managed to get the majority of our essentials that were not already in the apartment. 

Tuesday came and we were not yet over jetlag, but on Sunday before leaving Jacky had arranged for Brittany to meet some of the students Tuesday afternoon (we could not communicate with Derek’s teacher due to lack of internet and phone).  So after meeting the students, Brittany and Jacky met up with Derek and we thus began the somewhat stressful task of paperwork/errand-running.  Throughout the week, Jacky took us to: The MGEN, the health insurance/social security office; MAIF, the home insurance company; Orange, the phone company where we bought our 30 euros-a-piece cell phones; another Orange store on the same street where we purchased our internet/telephone service; and he even threw in a little tour of the city (we’ll take some pictures soon)!  As everyone told us, and we found out to be true, the French LOVE their paperwork.  We had copies coming out of our ears and did paperwork for every occasion. 

After week one, we were feeling pretty overwhelmed.  We had to go to Reims, the capital of our “académie” (schools are divided in France by “académies,” of which there are 22), that weekend for our Assistant orientation.  Despite our busy week, we decided to go early to spend some time in the city.  We finally relocated the train station, which was more difficult being on foot and arriving from a different place, and bought two tickets for Friday night.  The ride to Reims was brilliant.  We boarded a TER train, which was about a million times nicer than the train on which we arrived in Chaumont, popped in our headphones, and listened to Harry Potter 7 the whole way there (roughly two and a half hours). 

Overall, Reims was a pretty good experience.  We had pictured it as a “town,” but it was actually a large city with a “Comédie” where they perform plays, etc., a beautiful Opéra, and an even more beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral.  Reims is, surprisingly, a tourist attraction because this cathedral is where all the kings of France used to be crowned, and where Napoleon crowned himself—lots of interesting history there!  We stayed at the hostel our académie had booked for us, which was a very nice one and mostly just ate out and went shopping.  Our first goal in France was to work on restocking our wardrobe so that we could try to be less obviously Americans.  Mission accomplished!  Especially for Derek, who invested in an awesome-looking man bag (VERY common here).  Other than that, we had our orientation that was mostly just boring and repetitive, but did meet a lot of cool people who are assistants in Reims as well.  Jacky had to come for the last day, so he and a Spanish teacher drove us home (though we slept most of the way).  That week we started officially teaching; Derek the next day, and Brittany the day after.  More details later about what teaching has been like! Slowly but surely, we’ll get you all up to date :)

From Searcy to Chaumont

After nearly two months of being on the run, we are finally settled into our new home. This was our journey:

On 30 August 2011 we left our apartment keys in Kevin’s new kitchen and climbed, sweating, into the car. It was 5pm and we had a 3 and a half hour drive to Fayetteville, AR where we would visit all the Lacys, Philips, Tennants and Samples we could find. The weather conditions were pleasant, for once, on our drive. The only problem was we had two bikes perched precariously onto the trunk of the car; although they were being held aloft by the bike rack, the rack was threatening to fall the entire trip. After watching the bikes more than the road, we finally arrived at the Tennant’s lodge. A few wonderful days passed (one in Grove, Oklahoma where we were blessed to attend the Samples Family Reunion) and then we were obliged to continue on our way.

Leaving our bikes and fears in AR, we set our headlights towards Flower Mound, TX. We passed the next week + 2 days sleeping in, going to appointments, and spending waaaaaaaaaaay too much money at REI. Our plane was scheduled out of Dallas for Pittsburgh on Tuesday 13 September, so we packed our bags Sunday night and repacked them Monday night, ditching kilograms of unnecessary clothing. The second week + 2 days (in Pittsburgh) passed as quickly as the first. Less sleeping in, more appointments, and not enough babysitting time filled our days. Thoroughly exhausted and emotionally drained, we left for DC where we would have the chance to visit some long lost friends and say even more good-byes.

The greyhound was an experience in itself. Our bus left at 9:00 sharp. Depositing two large 23kg bags a piece, we watched as others carried on to the bus their only possessions. We had forgotten that it is, generally, those who cannot afford plane tickets who take the bus. Feeling guilty and guiltily uncomfortable the entire trip, we finally arrived in DC at 16:00. We spent all the next day walking through the city, preparing for life without a car. On Saturday 24 September 2011, we said goodbye and took our shuttle to Dulles. Arriving obnoxiously early, we were through security by 17:30, our plane to depart at 20:30. We said our last goodbyes on the phone, went to the gate and boarded the plane.

Our plane landed safely in Iceland just as the sun was about to rise. We went through security again and learned that our next flight was delayed an hour. With the extra time, we decided to search the airport for the food court. We found a place that served a “hot” breakfast. Starving, we filled our plates with cold scrambled eggs, microwaved bacon and one juice box a piece. Five minutes and $44 later (Brittany's mouth literally dropped open when we heard the price), we were wishing we had chosen the bag of chips at the other end of the airport. So we boarded the plane with our pocket book bleeding and our ears delighted to hear the indiscernible French that was being spoken on every side of us. We both napped on and off through this flight and welcomed the late landing in Paris.

 

We found the toilets, then our bags (much more quickly and easily than we had expected). The first thing we did was take out our hiking packs, and stuff our plane backpacks into our other suitcases. This way, we only had three rolling bags and two packs to carry the remaining 343km to our destination. We met another assistant who was going a similar direction as us. So after stumbling through getting directions from an airport worker, and fighting with the ticket machine, we finally began our way to the RER.

We took the RER (the train system that connects the outskirts of Paris to either the center or other outskirts) to Gare du Nord (one of the major hubs of many metro lines, RER lines, and trains). From Gare du Nord we took the metro to Gare de l’Est. After buying our train tickets, we had 10 minutes to board. Unfortunately, there were not two seats together, so we and our five bags camped out in an area “between two cars” for the first hour and a half of our journey. This was quite an uncomfortable ride. Surprisingly, while sitting on the floor, Derek was able remain in that place somewhere between being asleep and being awake for the majority of this part of the ride. Two seats opened up eventually, so we abandoned our rollers and snatched them. An hour later, at 19:11, the brakes squeaked and we glided into Gare de Chaumont.

We were met by Brit’s supervisor who helped us with our bags, and drove us to our new apartment (pictures forthcoming). He took a few minutes to give us a tour of the apartment, show us the food he had bought for our first few days, and sketch out a map of Chaumont. On 25 September 2011, we climbed into bed at 20:30, delirious. On 26 September 2011, we woke up at 03:00. After about an hour or so, we fell back asleep. We finally woke up at 13:15 to a beautiful-sunshiny day in Chaumont, France.

Good Times and Good Byes

Salut everyone!  Sorry for our extremely long hiatus, but we have been without internet.  Finally, we are once again connected to the world!

It certainly is weird starting up with a routine again and having to work (okay, it's only 12 hours a week but between traveling to and from school and lesson planning--YUCK!--the hours start to add up), when we spent our last month in the States just spending time with all of you, our friends and family.  But, despite all the good times, it is tempting to never leave any of you again for the simple fact that saying goodbye is MISERABLE! The next post will describe more transportation-related details of our crazy travels across the country and world, but this post is mostly a tribute to you, to let you know how much we love you :)

In Searcy, we had a brief time to spend with those who returned for school before we had to leave, and this was just the beginning of our long list of goodbyes.  Brittany was sent off with wonderful gifts from the Kernodles, and there experienced one of the first official goodbyes.  Particularly after spending most weekdays there this summer, it was like saying goodbye to family (not to mention having to leave her favorite kids ever!)  We were both also lucky enough to spend an evening at the Latture's.  Of course, we were treated to the best food around (we are now cursed to always compare other meats to Freckle Face Farm's, and it never measures up [not to mention the milk, which we still refuse to consume here, except for in Cereal where the lack of flavor is drowned out by the ungodly amount of sugar]), but more importantly we got to spend some great quality time with our favorite farming family.  We had a day-long extravaganza with our "France friends" (your card is in our room on the window sill by the way), and thought how strange it was to be going to France without them.  We were treated to a gathering at the Elrod's, our home away from home, where we had to face the fact that we were all finally going our separate ways and really couldn't all live together for the rest of our lives. And then there's Kevin.  As we said goodbye to him on our last night in Searcy, the tears started to truly sneak out for the first time.

But alas, time was ticking away and so we hurried to Fayetteville where we had one of the best visits with Derek's relatives.  We saw his Dad/Aunt/Uncle's old high school, the farm where Derek's Dad and Aunt grew up, listened to hours of guitar at a family reunion, and got to play games with the cousins.  Once we arrived in Dallas, the reality that we were not just a few hours away and returning for Thanksgiving anymore truly began to set in.  Here we started to get down to business (as indicated in our earlier posts), but luckily we had much time together, especially at mealtimes! 

We were so busy in Pittsburgh that we hardly had time to notice we would be in France in merely a week.  We did probably have the longest visit with Sarah and Katie we've had for a while, and as a bonus we got to spend the night at the Jackson's!  Between the smores, the campfire songs, and The Pokey Dot, you could say our time there was magical. 

We definitely didn't get to see family as much as much as we would have liked to, but we are thankful for what we had, especially the addition of Aunt Bev to the mix!  We couldn't get enough of the babies of course, even after the few long days we got to spend with them. 

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, we said a teary goodbye to mom and dad and headed to D.C. We did get a wonderful visit of the city thanks to tour guide Courtney, got to see some famous people, and best of all, went to a chocolate bar (as in, a bar where there are chocolate drinks and desserts)!  But after two nights and with a rather anti-climatic departure (due to our characteristic tardiness), we hurried in the cab to leave for good (Rachael--you're adorable card is also on our windowsill!)

Though we had a fantastic time being with you all, it was so bittersweet.  We just want you to know that we LOVE you and we are not complete without you!  Luckily we have met some new people thus far, but it really is rather lonely when you are not surrounded by an awesome community of family and friends.  If you feel like traveling (hint hint), just let us know because we have a spare room in our apartment just waiting to be filled! Until next time, gros bisous <3 (kisses!)

P.S.-Sorry for the lack of pictures for the first half, that was the pre- new camera time, but we are ashamed we didn't take any pictures!

Samples Scramble Take 2

Welcome back everyone! Well, to be completely honest, the Samples Scramble has slowed down very little. The last week has been full of packing and preparing. We are now in Pittsburgh, and are therefore visiting Brit's family and doing all of her doctors/dentist appointments.

I guess since we are still on this side of the Atlantic, the easiest way to give an update would be to follow Brit's list from the last post. But before we can do that, we have to tell you about the most exciting thing about being in Pittsburgh.

That's right. The twins! Beautiful Zoey and Carter! We are the luckiest aunt and uncle on the planet! If you think you have a more precious niece or nephew, feel free to challenge us, but I guarantee you... you don't, so don't waste your time. Anyways, we got to spend ALL DAY Wednesday with them and on Monday we get to watch them all alone! It will be just the four of us, great bonding time before we head off to France. We'll post more pics on facebook, so check them out there.

It is official. We have everything we need in order to leave, and we heard back from Brit's supervisor. He will be able to pick us up from the gare (train station) on Sunday the 25th! He will then take us to our (barely) furnished apartment. We have a gas stove, a fridge, and beds.The rest is a surprise!

Now, on to the slightly less exciting parts of our lives.

1. Since last saturday, lens.com has finally shipped Brit's contacts here to Pittsburgh. Like our REI order, they had a difficult time clearing Brit's debit card with the bank because she changed her name at the bank, but the card still had her maiden name. Apparently that causes problems... because one week and several headaches later, we are still waiting.

2. I never thought I would see the day when I would get new eyeglass frames, but it happened. I no longer sport the Ray Bans. Have no fear, they are now Prescription Sunglasses!! I would post pictures, but we forgot to take these since we have had so many other exciting things to do (hang out with the twins). My new frames are brown and look kinda like the glasses I had before the RBs. They look really good with my hair and beard, if I do say so myself.

3. We bought a new camera! Its a Nikon Coolpix L120. The reviews seemed to be pretty good. The only people who thought they weren't super good quality were professionals, so we thought we were safe. Most reviews said its a good camera if you don't want to spend a ton of money, but still want some good quality photos. It has a pretty good zoom and so far we are pleased. The pictures you see now on the blog were taken with it and the ones on facebook are with this camera, too. Be patient, we are still learning!

4. After all of our checkups, we are cleared to leave! Brit has one last thing at the dentist tomorrow, then we will be off, healthy as can be!

5. Brit found a pair of shoes. They are pink.

Last but certainly not least, we FINALLY received our camping gear! We are super pumped. We set up our tent, got out our sleeping bags, inflated our sleeping pads with our own air, and we are planning to camp out on Sunday night! We will have to let you know how it goes. Here are a few pics just so that everyone can see what Brit and Derek look like in a tent.

The first picture is of us just chillin in the tent. Picture number two is us with our camping faces on. Picture number three is us from the foot side of our tent. Can you believe we both fit in there? It is quite roomy on the inside, though.

I think I have said enough for now. Au revoir!

Doing the Samples Scramble

Bienvenue to our new blog, "La Vie en Rose"!  We are anxiously anticipating our departure for France and doing a few...okay all...the last-minute preparations.  Being world-class procrastinators, and with a departure date of a mere two weeks away, we decided there were a few essentials we needed before heading out for a year.

1.  Year supply of contacts
2.  Glasses and sunglasses
3.  A decent camera
4.  All forms of medical appointments
5.  Shoes

And last but not least...camping gear.  For those of you who know us, you may wonder at this.  But, believe it or not, we have decided to attempt to backpack around France for as long as we can at the end of our journey abroad.  Unfortunately, we had not one single item that could contribute to our "camping gear" supply.  So, five hours and several hundred dollars later, we left REI feeling like we were pros.  We are currently awaiting our supplies in the mail and will have about a week to see if we can properly assemble a tent, sleep in it, and then fit everything into our bags.  Bonne chance!