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!