Bikes, Cabanes, Fire, Brunch-- just a typical weekend in Pau.

A lot has happened in the last few days. Even just the weekend was quite an eventful one. It started out Friday night with a relaxing dinner and drinks with some of the other assistants at "Le Garage," a pub and restaurant here in Pau. It's a really great place, with drinks that aren't super expensive and good food (I've never had burgers so good in France!)

During the week I heard about the rugby match between France and Wales on Saturday morning for the World Cup. Because I'm living in France and will be interacting a lot with students who love rugby, I figured that I should try to watch some of the game. So, I woke up at 10 to watch a game that I absolutely do not understand. France won though, so that was good! Rugby is really popular here in Pau, so I'm hoping to actually get to go to a local match and have someone explain to me how it works.

Anyway, after rugby my roomie and I hiked over to the university to meet our friend who has a car (woot!) so we could voyage out to Decathlon (a sporting goods store) to search for bikes. Saturday was the beginning of the "Trocathlon" where people can come with old sporting goods like skis, snowboards, bikes, hiking boots, etc. and sell them to Decathlon who then sells them to others for much lower prices. It was a little chaotic, but even so, my friends and I managed to find three bikes and each one was less than 50 euros. Success! However, the biggest success was that we managed to fit the three of us and the three bikes in a little VW Golf. (Needless to say, how we managed to do it wasn't the safest, but hey, especially when you're young, you've gotta do what you've gotta do.) Instead of explaining how we managed to do it, I'll show you.

Can you spot me underneath all that? My bike is the blue one. :)

So we drove back to our friend's university dorm where my roomie and I took our bikes on an inaugural ride back to our apartment. You know you live abroad when the sensation you get after buying a bike is similar to what you feel when you buy a car. It feels amazing to actually be mobile.

Because I was mobile, after we got back I went out to an event that a local suggested to me called "Mortel." Now when this guy first told me about this event, I had no idea what it was going to be-- he said that there would be some theatre, some art and fire as well. Even after having gone, I still can't really explain what it was, haha. It was definitely a creative, artistic, more liberal event.

Anyway, I rode out to the quartier Berlioz close to the university to attend this mysterious (and free!) event. The main part of this event involved various "cabanes," little huts decorated by a variety of people from the community in various ways. There were cabanes made from fruit, one was a huge hat, one was completely pink, one was a suspended ball made from twigs and leaves, one was like a spinning merry-go-round, etc. One of my favorites was a geometrical dome cabane that you had to lay on your back and roll into which was covered with "stars" on the inside and had really cool music going.

The Rotating "Cabane"

Outside of the "cabanes," when I first arrived a "game" started which according to the announcer is a game from ancient times in Pau (highly unlikely, but what do I know), with teams of two where the point is to throw insults at each other. This was absolutely hilarious. There are some insults I heard that it's probably best I keep to myself, but some of my favorites were: "Sarkoziste!" "Jean Marie le Pen!" "Croûte sans fromage!" (Rind without the cheese!) Teams lost points if they hesitated or repeated insults and won points if they delivered absolutely stinging remarks.

That older gentleman in the red vest was absolutely ruthless!

There were also some theatrical facets of this event. If I was there from the beginning of the event I would have seen more, but one thing I found amusing was a group of "protestors" who marched around, picketing with blank signs. I can't think of anything better to characterize what goes on here in France where there's always a "manifestataion" blocking the streets or a "grève" keeping you from using the bus or train.

The last part of the event involved burning some of the "cabanes." This wasn't just dropping a match on the cabanes either. This meant some of the workers (or volunteers? or actors?) running around around with torches (much too close to the spectators I might add), setting these huts ablaze. After that there was a percussion show with fireworks. All in all it was a really cool event. At the very least it was free and there was a lot to see and entertain.

The inside of another cabane.

Sunday was one of the most perfect Sundays I've ever spent in France. Some of us assistants decided to get together and make brunch at one of our apartments. We had pancakes, eggs and fruit salad and had a great late morning/afternoon cooking, eating, lazing around and chatting. 

  

After brunch we went and met a French guy around our age who was really good friends with the assistants who lived in Pau last year. He seems like a really friendly person, so hopefully we'll keep this contact this year. It was good getting to meet him, hang out at a cafe and then have some ice cream and walk down the Boulevard des Pyrenées in perfect weather.

That was my weekend. The least pleasant part was Sunday night, spending hours trying to figure out what to do with students at the beginning of this week, but I managed to put something together that the students seemed to enjoy. The beginning of this week has been pretty eventful too, but because this entry has already been painfully long, I'll stop here for now. Two more days of work and then vacation!

Shopping, cooking and eating. It's simple right?

Not necessarily. The last time I was in France I stayed with a host family, so my host mom did all of the shopping and cooking. After living here for three weeks on my own I am even more grateful for all of the great meals she made and the time she took to "faire des courses."

In Gainesville, I enjoyed grocery shopping. I was familiar with my local supermarkets and could move easily up and down the aisles. Not so here. To go grocery shopping means "faire des courses." "Course" means a few things, but in general it means running, racing, etc. I don't think it's a coincidence that this word is used to describe grocery shopping because that's really what it is over here-- a race to see who can grab items off the shelves and make it to the cash register the fastest.

Grocery shopping has been the worst at this huge supermarket over here called Auchan. My friends from study abroad know how much I hate Carrefour (France's version of Walmart on steroids), but compared to Auchan, Carrefour is heaven. As good as my French is, it's definitely not perfect, so for me, at least now at the beginning, it takes a little while to get my bearings in a grocery store (especially one as massive as Auchan) and make sure I'm picking up food that I'll enjoy. Having a mom almost run me over with her grocery cart because I'm spending a little more time looking over the 20 varieties of cow's milk available does not make my shopping experience very "tranquille."

Adding to the stress, when you buy groceries over here, the customer has to bring bags and bag the groceries him/herself. I have no problem bringing bags (I hate all that plastic anyway), but when you've bought a good amount of groceries and the cashier is scanning the items at rapid fire speed, throwing them to you to quickly bag so that you can pay and the next customer can start playing catch, this does not help make grocery shopping a less stressful experience either. Also, at least at some supermarkets here, you have to weigh fruits and vegetables and print out a barcode before you go to the cash register. Be grateful in the U.S. when you can just go up with a bag of apples and have the cashier weigh it for you, because it's not fun when you've forgotten and have to run across the store just to weigh two apples.

So, when I go grocery shopping you may wonder what I buy and what I make for myself. Even though France is a Western country, there are still a lot of different products here that we don't have in the U.S., so in my first few weeks I've found myself in the middle of a chaotic supermarket staring at the aisles and having no idea what to buy to cook for myself. After two such trips, I've learned to plan out or at least have an idea of what I want to eat before I go so I don't waste time (or money) at the store. One habit I've gotten into is picking up one new cheese every week to eat with dinner. So far I've had a goat cheese, cow's cheese and an ewe's cheese. Making them last the week has been the most difficult part. Mmmmm delicious.

So, meat over here is super expensive and at least when it comes to eating at home, most of my meals are probably going to be more vegetarian. I have no problem with this, I love vegetarian cuisine (though it's harder here where black beans don't seem to exist, but that's another story.) Anyway, after a much more successful grocery trip at the calmer supermarket Super U, I picked up a whole bunch of veggies last Saturday and made a delicious ratatouille Monday night.

While I'm over here and the ingredients are more easily available, I'll be trying my hand at more French dishes. I had to cut the quantity for this recipe in half and still ended up with too much eggplant, so I cut up the rest with tomatoes for pasta last night. As I get more used to how running the races works here, I'm enjoying cooking and trying new things. And if I can cook well on these "plaques éléctriques" found in most of the apartments here, I will indeed consider myself a chef.

First Week of My Contract

From how much I've been updating this week you can tell that I finally got Internet at my apartment, right? Hah, it's funny that now that I have almost unlimited access to the Internet I haven't been posting as many updates. I'll contribute part of that though to the fact that I was in and out of my school this week, gathering paperwork to send off to various places, spending time with people and still trying to get a bike.

We'll start with work. This was the first official week of my contract, so I only really observed classes. Over the course of the week I attended a variety of classes, with younger and older students, students who take more hours of English, others who take fewer, etc. I'm teaching at a "lycée général et technologique," which is a high school where students are pursuing studies in science and technology. Because of this, some students who have more tech heavy schedules take less foreign language classes than other students. In all of the classes I went to, the teacher had the students try to get to know me by asking me questions. Some of my favorite/the most popular questions were:

1)Why did you come to Pau?
2)Do you speak French really well?
3) What do Americans think of French people?
4) How do you make pancakes?
5)What is the toughest thing to get used to here in France?
6)Were you disappointed when you came to France for the first time?


It's a bit confusing, but I'm going to try to summarize how my job will work. All of the English teachers have a maximum of 30 students in their classes. During select hours during a week I'll take half of a particular teacher's class and then the following week take the other half of the class. Some classes I'll see less of because during a certain hour I'll have a different teacher's class depending on the week. Confusing, right? So basically, I'll be seeing a lot of different students during the course of a week or even a few weeks. When it comes to planning activities for the classes I have a feeling it might be a little confusing at first, but hopefully it should work out okay. I'll be doing my first solo classes tomorrow, so I'm excited (but a little nervous) to start!

On Tuesday there was an all-day meeting for all of the teaching assistants (for English, German, Spanish and Russian) in my area. Before going I heard that the purpose of the meeting was for us to meet other assistants in our area, though I must admit that it was a bit difficult because of how the activities and everything were organized. Still, the meeting was pretty useful for ideas in the classroom and help with sorting out paperwork. Bureaucracy is a nightmare in France and so it was good to have some clear instructions on what we should get together and send off to validate our "carte de séjour" and enroll in the healthcare program.

I'm still continuing my quest for a bike. My roommate, another assistant and I went out to the boonies to search for bikes at what I would describe as a flea market influenced by solidarity and the idea of social responsibility. From what I understand people donate items to this organization/people come with old used items and sell them to the community for lower prices. The bikes we saw were all in pretty rough shape so we left empty-handed. We did however see a colorfully decorated combination clothes washer/bike. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of that one!

I've been seeing from Facebook that the weather has been getting cooler in Florida. Unfortunately it's the case here too, though it's been much colder than Florida temperatures. Seriously, one day it was sunny and warm and the next it was overcast and rainy. I don't know what happened! Hopefully we'll have a few sunny days this week. Locals tell me that it rains quite a bit here and that days are either beautiful or gray and wet. We'll see!

I can't end this post talking about something as dull as the weather, so other than what I mentioned it's been a good week spending time with some of the other assistants. Last night one of the English language assistants invited us to her house for a housewarming party. Since she has four French roommates it was a good opportunity to meet some French people closer to our age and mingle for a bit. It was a good time, though as a foreigner it's always hard to strike up conversation with and meet people who are willing and interested in talking with you, especially among the young adult crowd. Still I had some good conversation with a few people and I'm hoping to have a lot more opportunities like this in the future.

*Oh, one last thing. Warm goat cheese and honey on toasted bread is quite possible one of the most divine combinations I've tasted. That is all.

Highlights of My First Week

So after the last more serious post, I promised that I would be more positive this time. So here's some of what I loved about my first week in Pau:

1)Sitting by the fountains at Place Clemenceau. This a large square downtown surrounded by a bunch of stores (including H&M, score!). Sitting by the fountains last Thursday I met a really friendly woman and her adorable two-year-old son (who she let loose to play naked in the fountains, haha). While sitting with her she told about some places I should definitely check out in Pau and even suggested a place for me to get a cheap bike. Lots of people think I'm crazy for this, but striking up a conversation with people I randomly meet is one of the things I live for. It happens much more often over here than in the U.S. and I love when it does. When it happens it shows me that there are some of us who still do pay attention to the people around us (outside of those who we already know).

2)Getting rosé sangria. Yes, rosé sangria. I've had red sangria, and I've seen white sangria, but rosé? Being really close to Spain (I'll try to do a post about Pau and it's location and all that soon), when I went out for tapas with some of the English language assistants I thought we were going to get the real deal, but no. Even so, it was still really good, haha.

3)Going to the L'Atelier du Vélo and riding a bike down one of the busiest roads in Pau. Like I mentioned earlier, the woman I met by the fountains told me about a really nice guy close to her apartment who repairs old bikes and sells them for cheap. I visited him last Friday and when I went to his "headquarters," he asked if I knew how to ride a bike (I hope so if I'm going to buy one I thought, lol.), said it would be faster if we went by bike, borrowed one of his friend's bikes, let me use one of his and we rode over to his garage so I could look at some. It was definitely an experience riding out on this busy road with this tiny older man ahead of me on his bike, moving smoothly around buses and cars without fear, looking back to see if I was still there, haha. I didn't find one last week but I'll be back to visit him this Thursday or Friday and see his new additions.

4)Hanging out around the university. Last Friday I went to put up fliers in search of a roommate (I even made a plea to a grad school class in French!). I picked up a campus newsletter, and the concert schedule for this cool place on campus called the Centrifugeuse, so I'm really excited to check out what will be going on there during the year.

5)Seeing my Mom. Or, I should say a French look-alike, haha. I got on the bus last Friday and this woman walked on who looked just like my Mom. If she didn't start speaking French I would have given her a huge hug and then proceeded to look like an idiot, haha.

6)Getting a café, noisette, etc. So, because I still don't have Internet I've been haunting the mall downtown, becoming a regular at the two cafés I've been able to find that have free wi-fi. What I love about getting coffee over here (even though people from outside of France complain about the size) is that it always comes with a little cookie or chocolate. Especially when you're having a rough day, it really hits the spot.

7)Getting a roommate! It's funny that right after I mentioned my problems with that in my last post I ended up getting a call from the assistant who was originally supposed to room with me, saying that she was still interested. So far it's been good! She's German and seems really nice so far. Even though she speaks some English, we pretty much only speak French in the apartment, which I like. Hopefully things will continue to go well there.

Well this is my first official week as an English teaching assistant. Tomorrow there's an all-day meeting with all of the assistants in the department and the rest of the week (including today), I'll just be observing English classes and introducing myself to students. I'm sure that by the end of the week I'll have plenty to report.