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 :)