And that's all she wrote.

I've been home for a week now and even after two days I wished I was back in France. However, as much as I would not like to be in the Sunshine State, I'm excited to take this time and find a job and start looking at grad schools. I'm ready to get back in the swing of things and start planning so that in the near future I can settle down some place above the Mason-Dixon Line and try to lead a lifestyle more like my European one. Until then it's looking like I'll be wasting away either in Orlando or Gainesville.

On a happier note, to properly close out my blog now that I'm back Stateside, here's a list of must do activities for any teaching assistant (or visitor) in Pau.

1) Have a drink on the Boulevard des Pyrénées. Try one of the trifecta of foreign bars, preferably The Galway or Café Russe. Whatever strikes your fancy will do, but I love a good Perrier Menthe on a sunny day.

2) Visit the château. It's only an hour-long guided visit (complete with a peek of Henri IV's legendary birth cradle oooo ahhhh), but even if you want to just hang out in the courtyard and see the façade, it's really beautiful.

3) Hang out in the park behind the château, and if you're feeling up to it, hike a bit in the forest behind it. I visited it literally my last weekend in Pau, and felt like I was back in the times of Henri IV seeing the château from that perspective.

4) Have a burger and drinks at Le Garage. Nice ambiance, though it can get crowded at night. Sorry no picture for this one. :/

5) Go for a hike in the Pyrénées. Seriously, take a bus, find a group going, do whatever it takes. It's absolutely worth it.

See the colors of the mountains? Incredible.

6) Check out the Basque coast if the weather is nice. If you're lucky enough to be in the area in the summer or early fall, you'll be in for a real treat (from what I hear).

In Biarritz. Note the coat. Definitely didn't visit during summer or early fall.

 7) Try some Basque and Béarnais specialities. Some of my favorites are garbure, gâteau basque, fromage de brebis (ewe's cheese, it's very good wtih black cherry jam!), axoa and jambon de Bayonne (Bayonne ham). Oh, and as for wine, it is a must to drink some sweet Jurançon.

Brebis with some bourret. Drink that too while you're at it!

 8) Go see the Section Paloise. Rugby's actually really cool. There, I said it.

9) Grab some hot chocolate and/or chocolate from L'Atelier du Chocolat and enjoy it in Place Clémenceau, the central meeting place in Pau. Their chocolate is incredible. The store originated in Bayonne, the first city in France to start making chocolate back in the day.

Hot chocolate and caramel chocolate

10) If you're gonna be living in Pau, stop by L'Atelier du Vélo and buy a refurbished bike (or get your bike fixed) from the best bike repairman in France.

Andor and I

We'll leave it at a top ten list, but if you find yourself in the SW corner of France, know that I have more suggestions for you. I hope you all have enjoyed reading this blog as much as I've enjoyed writing. A très bientôt!

So Here We Are

I leave Pau this evening and I am not doing well. Riding into town today to close my bank account, I started to tear up, thinking of how this would be my last bike ride down to Place Clemenceau. If circumstances were different, I would love to stay a bit longer, though as much as my heart is telling me that it's too soon and that I should stay, I know that it's time to go. As many frustrations as I have dealt with, and as AWFUL as the weather has been here in Pau from time to time, especially in the last month, the city and the region has treated me well.

This is just a quick update, as I'm hurriedly going through bags again, looking for clothes I can donate and putting my bags together. After this I'll be going back into town to say farewell to uncle Andor and hand off his bike, and then hopefully enjoy a few hours on the Boulevard with some friends and a Perrier Menthe. After, it's an evening train to Paris and then an afternoon flight tomorrow back to the U.S.A. Catch you all on the other side of the Atlantic, when I can write a proper blog post summing this all up. A très bientôt!

Andalusia and Morocco

Andria and I on the terrace of Abaco

Recently my friend Andria and I took a week-long trip to Malaga and Granada, Spain and Chefchaouen, Morocco. Now, this trip was organized with the intention of finding some sunny, warm weather which had been seriously lacking in cold, wet and rainy Pau. The trip met these expectations for the most part, except for our third day of vacation in Granada. It just hurts a bit when you're visiting the Alhambra, what should be a remarkable historical jem, under a constant cold rain and you have to decide whether it is more important to take photos or save your poor hands from the cold. To top it all off, this was in April. Highlight of Granada though: having delicious tea on the terrace of a cool cafe with a beautiful view. That's why it's the best to have friends who are from the area!

Chaouen- the blue city

From Granada, we traveled to Chaouen (as it is known by the locals), which was an experience in and of itself. It took pretty much a full day, leaving Granada at 7AM on a train to Algeciras, taking a ferry to Ceuta in Africa, and from Ceuta after getting our passports stamped at the border, carefully making our way to Tetouan and then Chefchaouen, after a very cosy taxi and a quiet but bumbling bus ride. When most people heard that my friend and I were travelling to Morocco, they assumed that we would be going to a larger, more touristy city such as Marrakech. When it came down to it, because we would only have about a day and a half there, we decided to go for a city easier to get to after crossing with the ferry, and a city that was tourist friendly, without being really touristy, if that makes sense. With the market that many visit Chaouen for, tourism definitely plays a role in the city, but you don't have to step out far from the main square to see parts of the city that really represent Morocco.

Can you spot the little white mosque on top of the hill?

Chaouen is a beautiful little blue city of marvelous scenery, good hiking, and markets with inhabitants eager to sell beautiful blankets, teapots, tea glasses and spices among other goods. Andria and I stayed in a beautifully decorated guest house with incredibly welcoming staff, eager to help us however they could from arranging to have breakfast served earlier for us when we left, to getting bus tickets for us ahead of time. One of the things that surprised me most about our quick stay in Morocco was that in Chaouen, most of the residents we interacted with spoke more Spanish than French. Even though Morocco was a former French colony, with Chefchaouen's proximity to Spanish Ceuta and the many Spanish tourists who visit, Spanish is more used than French there.

Sunny and warm Malaga :)

We reversed the intense bus, taxi, ferry process and ended up back in Malaga for the end of our trip. We really only visited Malaga because the cheapest flight from Toulouse landed in that airport, but when all was said and done, Malaga was a really charming beach city with some really famous former residents to its name, such as Pablo Picasso and Antonio Banderas. Who knew?

Antonio (unofficial statue)

Overall, I really loved our vacation. Andalusia was incredible. With the atmosphere, the ambiance, the food, the landscape, the language... it really is a little paradise. While I'm at home this summer, hopefully looking for a job and then working, figuring out what I want to do in terms of grad school, I would really like to work on my Spanish in my spare time. Being able to chat with people of the countries you visit really enriches your experience, and Spanish is a language that I would love to be more at ease with. With three days and three nights left in Pau faithful readers, on this note I will take my leave. A+

Picasso chillin' on a bench at Plaza de la Merced

Reality check

Bayonne

For the last month the assistants and I have been in denial. Last week was particularly difficult, with warm weather and gorgeous afternoons spent on the Boulevard drinking Perrier Menthe. With the first departure from our group of assistants on Sunday evening, my crazy, loveable roommate, reality has hit hard. Goodbyes to friends, students and teachers have been filling the last few weeks and will extend through the next month. A bucket list has been made with last meals and last visits to favorite places. Anyway, let's talk about other things. Here's hoping that this post will be more balanced than my other posts, a problem I alluded to in the last. What I've been up in the last few weeks:

Gâteau basque à la cerise, à la crême et au chocolat

1) Visit to Bayonne in Basque Country. My friend and I took a day-trip to see this cute little city. We went to the Basque museum there and learned more about Basque culture, visited the cathedral, walked around, and most importantly ate three kinds of gâteau basque.

Last time in the Pyrénées

 2) Bike issues. I quickly mentioned it in the last post, but to explain a bit more, my beautiful teal blue bike was stolen a few weeks ago. Someone destroyed the structure it was attached to, taking my bike along with it. The bike problems don't stop there however. Another friend had his bike stolen last week. Two friends have gotten into accidents with cars in the last week and I was "door checked" by someone yesterday (thanks for the term Jenna!). With our luck in the last few weeks I feel like the Palois are trying to tell us it's time to go and that we've overstayed our welcome, haha. In times like these though, you also see the goodness of people. Andor has been absolutely incredible. I've been borrowing one of his bikes which is great, so I didn't have to buy another one with only a bit over a month left. Also, after my little incident yesterday, he quickly fixed the chain and handlebars on my bike. I'll definitely be sad to say goodbye to Andor. He's been like an uncle to me during my time here in Pau and when I come back in the future, he'll definitely be someone I look up.

Bear footprints! And then we followed his crazy path up.

3) Celebrating my birthday in the Béarn! My cousin came to visit for a few days and celebrate my birthday with me here in Pau. My birthday weekend started with one last "sortie en montagne" with some of the teachers at my school. This time we went to the Vallée d'Aspe which was still covered with a good bit of snow as we hiked higher up the mountain. En route we saw some bear tracks as well, which was really cool, because there are only two bears in the whole valley.

After a refreshing, tiring and fulfilling day of hiking, I had dinner with some friends at a Lebanese and Amernian restaurant here for my birthday. It was a fun dinner, filled with good food and funny surprises, haha. It was a great way to kick off my birthday, which was actually on a Sunday, but here in France it's a tranquil day, with almost nothing open and not much going on. Regardless it was a nice day, having crêpes by the château with my cousin, enjoying the beautiful weather, having ice cream in the park and (typically French on Sundays) going to the movies where we saw The Artist. Also, changing it up, in the morning I was surprised with birthday cake for breakfast by friends. A wonderful treat to wake up to. :)

Saying goodbye to a roommate who fills your room with balloons for your birthday, c'est pas évident. :(

4) Understanding the expression "C'est pas évident." So, when I was over in the Southeast side of France, I didn't hear this expression tossed around as much as I have over here. "C'est évident" means "It's clear or obvious," so naturally, a French language learner would take it that "C'est pas évident" means that's it's not clear or not obvious. But oh no my friend, cette explication serait évidente. After hearing "C'est pas évident" used in situations that vary from talking about difficulty traveling to northern Spain to finding an extra job to how hard it is being away from friends and family, my friends and I have had fun hearing all of the various, dissimilar (according to us) ways that the Southwesterners use this phrase. Finally I learned that "C'est pas évident" actually means "It's not easy." After this revalation I felt like the blindfold was taken off. This expression that you could easily hear ten times in one evening at dinner finally made sense. And to me, that's huge news.

Basque style buildings in Hondarribia

5) Visiting la Côte Basque. This past Sunday, a teacher from my school let me tag along on a trip to the Basque coast with some of her friends. We visited glamorous, chic Biarritz which was beautiful even on a slightly cloudy, windy morning. Next up was Hendaye where we took a little boat over to Hondarribia in Spain for lunch. Yes, we went to Spain for lunch on a boat that took ten minutes to cross the river, if that. Even though Pau is far from everything else, some perks like this make it really sweet to live in this corner of France. Last we went to Saint-Jean-de-Luz where Louis XIV was married and where Maurice Ravel lived, a typical, beautiful little Basque town. Just when we arrived, a dance group of little boys and girls were performing Basque dances in traditional clothing. It was absolutely adorable.

Little Basque boys getting ready to bust a move in their berets and espadrilles

Bon ben euhhh, pour l'instant I think that's it! For the rest of the month it'll be soaking up everything Palois and traveling to southern Spain and Morocoo  (i.e. lands of warm weather, yay!!). A la prochaine.

Across the Atlantic, life is still just life.

I know what many of you reading this (outside of my parents) are thinking at this stage in my time abroad. What a shame that it's coming to an end. Living in Europe is so great. Janelle should try to stay longer. Why doesn't she try to renew her contract? If that's not an option for her, maybe she should try to stay for at least the summer. She could find a little job waitressing in a chic, super French brasserie and when she's not spending her days serving locals she could spend them soaking up the sun, nibbling on baguette and cheese, sipping a noisette while reading in a local café, making crêpes and quiches and enjoying good Bordeaux wine. Or if that doesn't suit her, maybe she could find a nice little au pair position and teach some cute French kiddies English.

No. Simply no. At this point in my séjour I find myself with very mixed feelings. I feel that I should want to stay. I should want to continue this adventure. The desire to keep working on my French skills and understanding and immersing myself in the culture should be so strong that leaving just couldn't be an option for me. Before coming, I really believed that I would renew my contract. It didn't take too long into my stay to realize that deep down, that isn't truly what I want.

It's easy to have a romanticized idea of an extended stay abroad, particularly in France. Yes, I have had a great six months. I've met great people and made some good friends. I've eaten amazing food. I've visited beautiful places. However, as incredible as parts of my stay have been, I think it's important to stress that life over here is just that--- life. Part of me feels that this blog has been presenting too rosy a view of life abroad. I guarantee that for every sweet moment I've enjoyed here, I have also had my share of trying ones.

Once you live somewhere else, you really become acquainted with the problems and imperfections in that city/country. I got a taste of difficulties and inconvieniences of living in France when I studied in Grenoble, but it wasn't until this time around that I was really aware of how difficult life over here can be. My life in France isn't just good eating and lazy Sundays. It's also having no car and having to ride my bike in the rain and the cold. It's not having central heating in my apartment. It's not having reliable Internet access. It's having to walk for 40 minutes because the bus drivers have gone on strike. It's having to cook on less than stellar and sometimes dangerous hot plates. It's having to grocery shop ahead of time or I won't be able to eat on Sunday. It's realizing I've bought too much at the grocery store and having to balance and/or carry much more than is safe while biking back home. It's having to wait for hours at the doctor's office because she only takes walk-ins and then once I've been seen, feeling like I haven't been well examined because there are too many people and not enough time in the day. It's having to visit offices for the CAF or the MGEN several times because I've been hearing twenty different things from ten different people. It's having to pay more than I ever thought possible for heating. It's not being able to buy shoes because any woman with feet larger than size 40 is an anomaly. It's having difficulty meeting people my own age and establishing roots in a community. It's figuring out how to make the most of a modest salary. It's having my bike, my baby, my main means of transportation taken from me and having to improvise (and luckily without too much trouble thanks to the kindness of friends) in the month I have left here in Pau.

The goal of this post is not to complain about life over here, that isn't it at all. My experience has been enjoyable not just because of the wonderful parts, but also because of the difficulties. It has made me stronger and more appreciative of certain aspects of my life back in the States. Life over here has been wonderful and I feel blessed to have had this opportunity, but honestly it's just life. It's having a good time hanging out with friends. It's having a rough day of classes. It's going on vacation and exploring a new place. After you live anywhere for an extended period of time you get used to day-to-day life. After living in France, you get used to walking down to the local boulangerie and buying a baguette. Visiting the outdoor markets are no longer a special novelty, but a fact of life. Hopping on the train and going to a new city is still fun and exciting, but not incredibly thrilling. If you get sick you realize that going to the doctor may not be that simple. If you submit an application for housing aid you'll probably hear a "yes, no, maybe so" as a response and are then left resubmitting pieces of information and waiting for months before you finally get word that everything is complete and has been approved.

As much as this has been a special experience, at this point in time, for me, is it worth extending? If I had truly integrated into this community and had a solid group of local friends who would be here next year, then I would probably look into it. As it is, I feel that to arrive at this point, you have to be a really particular person in a really particular community. If you're in a community with a certain demographic, no matter what your personality, you may not have the experience you were hoping for. I've seen that not just with my experience (to a certain point), but also from the experience of another friend in another area of France. On the other hand, if you're not as bold and not willing to put yourself out there, no matter how well-suited your community is for a young foreigner to really blend and become part of the mix, it's just not going to happen. To really have a perfect, straight out of a movie experience while living in Europe, it takes a lot of courage, the right setting and honestly, a good bit of luck.

I don't at all regret this experience. At this time of my life it was exactly what I needed and I would choose this again, ten times over. However at the same time I'm ready to go home. I'm ready to establish roots in a new city. I'm ready to find a more permanent job. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and family. I'm looking forward to recommencing life in the States from a new perspective with the knowledge that I've gained in my time here. I'm excited to continue travelling, exploring and learning, but in and/or from my home country. Is there anything wrong with that? I think not.

Carnaval in the Béarn, San Seb, Italia

Long time no see! For those who check regularly to see if I've updated, my apologies. This last month has been choc full of good fun, good food, good traveling, good times with friends... la vie quoi! So that I don't write a novel for this blog we're gonna try to just break it down into the last month's biggest happenings. Here we go!

Et la carnaval commence!

The weekend after my last update marked the beginning of the Carnaval Biarnés here in Pau. When I think of Carnaval, usually I think of huge parties in the Caribbean, with dancing and flashy costumes with lots of color. Here in Pau, Carnaval was a very particular experience. My friends and I experienced bits of Carnaval here and there.  We attended the opening event in Place Clémenceau where the king of the Carnaval here, Sent Pançard, comes down from the mountain to start his two weeks of heavy drinking, eating and partying before Lent begins. One night we went out of curiosity to check out the Caça a l'ours, a bear hunt of epic proportions which involved young male cross-dressers, "bears" who were very lonely after sleeping all winter (if you catch my drift) and hunters who tried to catch these love-deprived bears. It was one of the strangest things I've ever witnessed and I think it says a lot about what Carnaval is like down here in the Béarn. At the end of Carnaval my friends and I joined the crowd in capturing Sent Pançard, marching through the downtown streets (while skillfully dodging unstable, huge torches held by children and intoxicated adults) and "burning" him in the Place de Verdun. Overall, Carnaval was a cool experience. It really solidified the idea that I had of Pau and its surrouding villages, of a region with its own distinct culture, maintained today by events like Carnaval where we got to hear traditional music and see traditional dances, as well opportunities to see and hear Béarnese (a local dialect of Occitan).

Sent Pançard on the boulevard

Right in the middle of Carnaval celebrations and at the beginning of our two-week vacation, a few friends and I headed down south to Spain for a quick overnight trip (It's it great being just an hour from the Spanish border, no?). We spent a day and a half in beautiful San Sebastian on the beach. Even with rain for the first few hours, the city was gorgeous. Our hostel was in the old city and just a few minutes walk from the beach, which was still a nice perk, even during the winter. We spent a Sunday night there when Carnaval celebrations are a bit more low-key, but we were still able to catch some Spaniards dancing in the streets to classics like "Grease Lightning," see mini marching bands playing in the streets and gawk at huge marionettes parading around just as night fell.

La playa!

Other than exploring the city, we also got the opportunity to go to a pintxos (pronounced pinchos) bar. Pintxos are kind of like tapas, but how it works is that in these bars different appetizers, consisting of combinations of fish, meat, cheese and/or vegetables along with traditional tapas like tortilla, croquetas, etc. are sitting up on the bar, and customers come in, choose what they would like, enjoy, and pay later. Pintxos are common in Basque country in Spain and my friends and I were happy to get the chance to try this delicious tradition.

Pintxos, chorizo, tortilla and sangria! Mmmm.

After the end of Carnaval in Pau, my friends Sarah, Andria, Agnes and I headed to Italy for the last week of our vacation from school. Our plane left from Toulouse, so we headed to "la ville rose" the afternoon before our flight to just hang out for a bit. After fun times in a little park and trying out a wonderful café with delicious orange blossom hot chocolate, we left Toulouse for Milan on the second Saturday of vacation. Because we landed in Milan in the mid-afternoon, we decided to spend our first night there and then head to Venice on Sunday morning. After an interesting night in Milan with our first taste of wonderful (and cheap!) pizza and a precarious night spent in a bookcase bed, we headed by train to Venice.

The Rialto Bridge. This is for you Daddy and Regine! :)

Before visiting Venice I had heard a lot about the city from others. Many of the French I had talked to before visiting spoke wonders about the city. Friends I had talked to from outside of France told me it was dirty and unimpressive. Because of the vast differences of opinions I was exposed to, I went to Venice with an open mind, but not expecting a great deal at the same time. I was pleasantly surprised by the city and really enjoyed my time there. The canals, bridges and stair steps everywhere really set the city apart. It's true that there were some corners with graffiti and chipped paint that weren't the most appealing to the eye, but on the whole Venice really struck me as a city with a lot of character. For every corner with peeling paint, there were other corners of the city that were truly picturesque. Besides having lots of gelato, some pasta and LOTS of pizza, we visited Piazza San Marco, the Grand Canal, the Rialto Bridge and had fun hanging out around different corners of the city in beautiful weather.

Real pizza with eggplant and zucchini

Ohh Venice...

After a few days in Venice Florence was next on our list. For me, Florence was a bit of a disappointment, but still a really cool city. Every person I had talked to about Italy told me that Florence was an unbelievable city, so I had quite high expectations. It might have been the overcast days, but Florence just didn't charm me like I thought it would. However, what impressed me the most in Florence were the museums. We were able to the visit the Uffizi and see Michelangelo's David at Galleria dell'Accademia. Even though most would say that there's not much to the Galleria dell'Accademia outside of David, I preferred it to the Uffizi, because with the smaller size I felt that I could more fully appreciate the works in the museum.

Outside of the Uffizi

Some of the other parts of note that we saw of Florence were the Ponte Vecchio and the Boboli Gardens. Walking along the Ponte Vecchio was a little much for me with all of the shops and people, but the bridge was pretty interesting. The Boboli Gardens were quite pretty, and it did my heart good to finally see some grass and trees in Italy. When my roommate and I got to the top of the garden and looked at the view from the backside, we both said that we were finally seeing in person what came to mind when we thought of Tuscany.

Agnes and I at the back of the Boboli Gardens

Finally it was time to say goodbye to Florence and we headed back to Milan to spend a day in the city before flying back home. Just as with Venice, I was pleasantly surprised with Milan after spending a day there. Even though others had told me that there were many other cities in Italy which were more worthwhile to visit, I'm happy that we got the opportunity to pass through Milan. Yes, other than the Duomo which is the 4th oldest cathedral in Europe, the museum featuring The Last Supper and the Galleria Vittorio (which technically has swanky stores like Prada and Louis Vuitton inside), Milan is primarily a city founded on fashion. Even so, walking around the city with my friends I got a good feel from the city. The Duomo was very impressive from the outside and the Galleria Vittorio was a beautiful structure.

Inside of the Galleria Vittorio

After leaving our hostel at 8:30AM it was non-stop travel until we made it back to Pau around 5:30PM. First the metro, then the bus to the airport, then the plane, then the bus to the train station in Toulouse, then the train, then the 30-minute trek back the apartment. It wasn't until we settled in on the train to Pau that we all realized how beat we were. Except for the time we spent in Venice and Florence, I felt that my two weeks of vacation were all go-go-go, but I would do it all over again. The places I got to visit and the times spent with friends were well worth some fatigue.

Nap time!

I've been back for a week and now it's getting down into crunch time. When I was in Grenoble it was hard to believe and now it's even harder to believe that it's time to start getting things together to go back home. Buying a one-way ticket to Europe is exhilarating. Buying a one-way ticket back home is nice, but definitely does not inspire as many romantic sentiments. As excited as I am to see friends and family, it will be difficult to say goodbye to my life here and my friends, co-workers and students. I'll try to be better about writing and maybe do smaller entries so I can still keep up with the blog, but as the next few weeks go by, with my roomie leaving at the end of the month and my classes ending in mid-April, I really want to make the most of my time left here in Pau. For me I hope it means hanging out in the sun on the Boulevard des Pyrénées, laughing with my students, riding my bike to visit Andor, enjoying some sweet Jurançon, sharing meals and pastries with friends and much more. A+

Goofing off at the beach in San Seb

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Snow in Pau!

Winter has finally come to Pau, complete with a few days of snow! Last Thursday and Saturday we had some nice, snowy (yet cold days). Saturday snowed even harder than Thursday and my roommate and I spent a little time in the afternoon walking around, revisiting some of our favorite spots newly covered with a coat of white. Being a Floridian, it has been nice to experience some snow and cold weather. However, as a language assistant on a budget with no car, it's been a bit rough continuing life as normal. Because of safety I refuse to ride my bike in the snow, and when it's not snowing and I want to go out, going by bike is painful, especially in 20 degree (F) weather when the wind is moving. It's moments like these that I really miss my cute, reliable little car back home.

Our stable apartment under some snow. Check out the palm tree!

In spite of the snow, some of us assistants met up on Saturday night for a night of lots of wonderful Spanish food and good company. My roommate and I made a beautiful tortilla espagnola. Because we still have a bunch of potatoes (and because it's just so delicious) we made another one Tuesday night. The way we've been cranking them out, maybe it could be another source of income for us. Delicious homemade tortilla made by an American and a German. Nothing is impossible!

Señora Tortilla

This post is not at all in chronological order, but I'm gonna go with it. One of the English teachers invited me to chaperone and see David Copperfield with some students last Tuesday. It was fun, though the play (which was reworked to make it easier for students learning English as a foreign language to understand) was completely different from the book. It's been a while since I read it myself, so I don't completely remember the story, but the play focused more on the beginning of David's life and how he eventually found love with a childhood friend. Outside of the content of the play, it was interesting for me to see how adolescent French guys react to a pretty girl on stage. This also came up in Dracula, but these French teens are much more vocal (even in public places) than Americans guys of the same age when they see an attractive woman. Maybe guys were just pretty quiet and calm in Apopka, or maybe I didn't spend time around the right people to be witness to this, but even from what I've experienced in my classes, I would say that there's a pretty big difference between the States and here when it comes to reactions to women among adolescent guys.

The backyard last Saturday

Talking more about school, I've really been enjoying my job, even though from time to time you have the rough classes where students aren't listening to you and to each other, when they're talking or just don't care. A fun lesson I did a few weeks back was one on American football where I talked about the Gators and college football. I showed them a video clip, we went over vocabulary and then did a comparison of rugby and football. I did it with a class of guys (and one girl) and they loved it. I must admit though, getting pictures and a video together to prepare for it made me quite nostalgic. Even though I've lived longer in Apopka, from time to time I really find myself missing Gainesville a lot. Missing Krishna Lunch in the Plaza, walks down to Lake Alice to see the gators, incredible pizza with friends at Satchel's and the like. Anyway, getting a chance to visit the land of Orange and Blue just gives me another thing to look forward to when I come back in May.

Continuing about last week, while you all were celebrating Groundhog's Day I was celebrating a much more important, enjoyable day here with some friends-- la Chandeleur (Candlemas). It's the feast of when Jesus was presented at the temple as an infant and to celebrate it, here in France people eat crêpes and drink cider. It was fun celebrating over savory and sweet crêpes and I'm happy that I'm finally starting to feel like I've got the swing of crêpe making!

To end this post full circle, it is cold. Very cold. Yesterday was a rough day because it was so cold that the water was frozen in our pipes. That meant no water for almost the entire day. You really don't realize how much water you use until you don't have it. So, after an epic trip to the supermarket for water and supplies for croque-monsieur which ended up in a broken six-pack of 1.5L bottles of water, a long walk home in the cold with a backpack and arms full of water, and a faster more frustrated walk back to the supermarket to get my bike, some friends and I decided that a pastry day was in order. Around 8pm my roommate and I heard the sweet sound of running water after a repairman cleared out the pipes, just in time for croque-monsieur and a planning session for vacation in Italy in a few weeks. All's well that ends well, right?

One roulé au citron and two opéras. Yum!

Time to get down to business.

Jamaican Chicken Noodle Soup!

When January began I had these grandiose, lofty visions of weekly blog posts where I could leisurely and "petit à petit," describe my adventures in my last few months here. Unfortunately, with full weeks and weekends and less than stellar Internet access it hasn't been the case. Now it's almost February, but as January is coming to an end, I can say that I'm quite content with all that I've accomplished and experienced this month. I only have about three months left, and because I know how fast time flies when you're abroad, a friend and I have decided to make a list of things that we want to do before leaving. Some are simple, like trying a cool restaurant we've seen around town, some are more demanding like exploring Basque Country and going South of the border to Spain. In the last few weeks we've gotten a good bit done, and here's some of what I've been up to:

Part of the outside of the church.

1) Taking a day-trip to Lourdes. I didn't really know much about this town outside of the reference to it in the French film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," and I was surprised to discover that living in Pau I'm only about 30 minutes away by train. Lourdes is a pilgrimage destination for Catholics all over the world and as such, is also a very touristy, but religiously touristy little town. It's right next to the Pyrenees and quite cold right now. Anyway, here's the short story of why it's a holy town in case like me you had no idea. Back in 1858 a girl named Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary appear 18 times over the course of a few months, in this grotto in Lourdes. On March 25 (my birthday!) Mary said to her: "I am the Immaculate Conception."

Holy water jug

So now people from literally all over the world come to Lourdes to visit the beautiful church erected around the grotto, see where the appearance took place, drink, wash and collect Holy Water in jugs and bottles of various shapes and sizes, from the many spouts erected around the grotto. My friend Sarah and I went a few weeks ago and there were some people, but with the cold there weren't too many. I can only imagine the huge crowds during the spring and summertime. Even though it's a tiny town, I was astonished to see so many hotels all over the place, though most of them were vacant now during the low-season. Overall, Lourdes was a very unique, interesting experience. I consider myself to be a Christian, but at the same time I felt really distanced from everything around me. Maybe it's because of my Protestant upbringing, but I really felt like an outsider looking in during my day in Lourdes. Last thoughts: for me it was kind of sad to see a holy experience cheapened to something that store owners could profit from. I suppose though if pilgrims are getting an enriching experience from their time in Lourdes, that's what counts.

Pau's in the green. Check out the Gator referee!

2) Going to a rugby match! Football (or as I always say with my students to distinguish from soccer, American football)? Forget about it. Over here, especially in the southwest corner of France it's all about the rugbymen. Here in Pau the team is known as the Section Paloise, and a few weeks ago my friends and I saw a match they played against Aix-en-Provence (which we won, woot!). I know, I'm American and as a Gator grad I should say that I prefer football, but honestly watching a rugby game is much more riveting than a football game, in my opinion. The juxtaposition of grace and brute strength left my friends and I in awe during the match.

One of the concert posters. Cool, non?

3) Seeing the OPPB (Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn). My roomie and I went to a free student concert last Friday where Pau's orchestra played Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony. It was absolutely beautiful and what was really great was that before the orchestra played the symphony straight through, the conductor talked to the audience about the piece and different themes and melodies to listen for, having the orchestra play examples of what we could expect during the symphony. It was great to see a conductor take the time to make such beautiful music more accessible to the public.

The pastry days continue. A Paris Brest with tea.

4) Chatting with my new conversation partner. After chaperoning on a school field trip to see Dracula with some of my students, I ended up meeting another teacher at the school who knew someone looking for an English conversation partner. After a general meeting Caroline and I have been meeting a few times a week over coffee to spend half our time chatting in English and the other half chatting in French. She's really friendly and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to meet someone new and speak more French. I speak a good bit of French here, but with all of my work done in English I haven't been speaking as much as I would like.

Sewing supplies

5) Going to the Musée Bernadotte. So to add to Pau's list of elite inhabitants is an old general in the French army, Bernadotte. The museum here named after him is actually in his old, traditional Béarnais (referring to the old name of this region) -style house. Things to know about him is that he and Napoleon used to be pretty good pals before the French Revolution and through his travels and meeting the right people this French native ended up getting to be king of Norway and Sweden (Sweet, huh?) A friend and I went to this museum last week and right now they also have an exhibit from a Norwegian artist, created to raise awareness of the many women murdered in Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. This exhibit is basically a bright pink wall with the names of the victims sewed on small pieces of cloth. What's cool is that where this exhibit travels, visitors take a a hand in creating the exhibit, sewing the names of victims on these pieces of cloth (or sewing the word "unknown" in your native language, for the victims who are unidentified). After much longer than I would like to admit due to our less than stellar sewing skills, my friend and I managed to scrape out a very barebones "UNKNOWN" on one of the cloth pieces to add to the exhibit. 

Not the best pic, but the finished product.

Honestly, two weeks here is a lot of time, so it's hard to remember everything. Otherwise it's just been business as usual. Regular pastry days with friends, even in inclement weather. I got a flat on my bike one day and went to visit Andor at the bike workshop, and when I'm in the area I try to pass by and see him even when "tout va bien." It's sales time here (only happens twice a year!) so I picked up a nice, much-needed wallet and cute, not as much needed dress. I tried a Cameroonian restaurant with a friend last Saturday night which was so delicious. With the cooked chicken, rice and plantains it reminded me of the Jamaican food which when at home I use to complain about having all of the time, but now I miss so much!

Petits-fours à la confiture

I'm still trying to whip up some new dishes in the kitchen as well. Going back to my roots, a while back I made some Jamaican chicken noodle soup and on Sunday morning made some cornmeal porridge. Not as good as Mom's, but not bad all the same. At the beginning of this year I marked some of the simpler, more cost effective recipes I wanted to try from the recipe book that my host mom gave me back in Grenoble. I've been pretty good at doing a recipe or two a week. They've all been turning out great except for Sunday's little disaster. I tried to make a soup, and long story short I ended up with mushy, milky pumpkin I couldn't eat (but that my roommate loved). Let's just say that I discovered that regardless of what people here have been telling me, "potiron" and "citrouille" are NOT the same thing. No pictures of the failure, because I don't want to make you barf all over your computer. Instead, check out some of my successes. Until next time!

Sablés. Like shortbread cookies but yummier.

Pilaf à la créole