The day after Lauren left (last Wednesday witnessed our very (melo)dramatic parting at the train station), I hopped on a train to Paris to meet up with my friend Julie and her boyfriend Mathieu.  We had a picnic dinner in her tiiiiiiiny Parisian apartment and then got in the car and drove to her parents' house in Normandy for the weekend.  Her parents have spent the last month organizing une rallye: imagine The Amazing Race meets family reunion meets Fourth of July barbeque.  

(side note:  this post might not be too coherent as this is what I'm doing on the side...)

(I think I mentioned in my last post that I'm currently living with one of the teachers I work with - Pascale - and her family.  Pictured above: Ceasar and Zoe who find my computer enormously amusing.)

Anyhow, Julie, Mathieu and I arrived in Normandy a day before the rest of the gang to help prepare a bit.  This was our contribution:

tiramisu (and, not picured, mousse au chocolat) for 40.  (Don't worry, I've got the recipe!)

Both sides of Julie's family came from all over France.  While family members got to stay in hotels and B&B's, we les jeunes set up tents in Julie's back yard.  The next morning formed a massive assembly line and successfully made 120 sandwiches in less than 30 minutes.

After packing up the picnic lunches, we all assembled outside for the start of the scavenger hunt.  Each team of six got a map of the route through the forest, a sheet of photos to reproduce and a set of questionnaires.  I had a blast romping through the forrest, but when it came to the questionnaire (French trivia, French plays on words, French measurements, French history...) I probably should have been on the kids' team.  I didn't even know the answer to the one question intended for me:  What are the names of Obama's daughters?  I could only remember Sasha....evidence I think of how much of a bubble I've been living in this year!

After the scavenger hunt we ate our picnic and then went on a bike/train-track excursion.  The "bikes" have two pedaling seats and four stationary seats and the wheels run along an old train track that meanders through the forrest and crosses bridges over rivers.

And, if that was adventurous enough...

For those of us with more daring spirits, Julie's parents even organized a paragliding outing!  Ever since my dad and I were foiled by the disappearing wind on the coast of Peru a year ago, I've been dying to try it.  Lauren and I were going to go on our vacation in Switzerland as well, but the weather put its foot down again: clouds clouds clouds.  The time the sky was as blue as the Mediterranean and the view below was stunning.  Though Normandy is not the Swiss Alps nor the jagged cliff-lined coast of Lima, this time of year the fields are filled with blooming colza flowers (bright yellow) and dotted here and there with tiny, old villages and churches (especially tiny at 200 meters!).  I thought I would be at least a little afraid, but it was actually one of the most zen experiences of my life, a combination between floating and flying, all you hear is air.  Look how excited I was when I landed!  Ok, well, Blogger is refusing to let me add any more pictures at the moment (Laureeeeeeeeen, I need technical support!)

Anyhow, the weekend was lovely.  Julie's parents were generous beyond belief and, of course, it's always a treat to get to spend quality time with dear friends.  

From here on out I'm barreling toward the end at top speed.  I've gone back to organizing my life with a calendar as there are so many people to see and places to eat.  This weekend I'm heading to Germany to see Verena and then spending the next week in Switzerland, then it's back to Nantes for 5 short days before Paris then the South of France then HOME.

I can't wait to see all your luminous faces and I especially can't wait for hugs.   

Recently one of my least proactive friends reprimanded me (through Lauren on gchat) for how little I update my blog. This is a person who, after accidentally leaving his backpack full of his things at the Grand Rapids airport, refused to call claiming it was lost forever, gone. Needless to say, his teasing hit its mark (well, that and the fact that Lauren included a hyperlink on her post to my "post" so her friends and family could see more pictures) (and, of course, I actually do want to tell you all about my fabulous recent vacation). So, here we go....

Well, I'm going to start by backing up just a tad. When Lauren and I got back at the end of February from our two week winter vacation, we were dreading what a loooooong month March was going to be. We were looking ahead at 5 straight weeks of "work" with no vacation and on top of that, packing up and moving out of our darling apartment. But, March was full of sunshine and the time flew by as we played outside, sat at cafes philosophizing, sat in our windowsills sipping wine. Suddenly the end of the month was upon us, and in the span of a long weekend we packed, cleaned, packed, cleaned, organized, and moved out of our little place and back in with our friend Julie where we started the year (Most Generous Friend Award!!). The next day we left on a two week vacation that turned out to be one of the most beautiful, adventurous, and utterly goofy two weeks I've ever spent!

To start vacation off with a B-A-N-G, Lauren and I and our two Kiwi friends Juliette and Dmitriy went to Euro-Disney where we spent the day frolicking around like little kids and laughing at the goofy translations on some of the rides!!


After Disney, Lauren and I headed to the south of France for a week. Neither of us had ever been and both of us would have kicked ourselves in the seat if we lived in France for the second time without going. We started off by exploring a handful of costal villages around Nice (our base city which is sprawling and, in fact, not very nice) like this one:
And this one:

The beach was actually made of small pebbles that Lauren and I spent almost two hours digging around in collecting sea glass much to the amusement of the other sunbathers and much to the envy of passing children.

After two days bopping around Nice, we boarded a ferry and headed south to the island of Corsica (just north of the Italian island Sardinia). In my imagination, the ferry looked something like the flat 6-car raft that nudges its way across Lake Charlevoix attached to a chain, so needless to say I was rather flabbergasted when we ended up on a this:

If the cruise ship crossing was a surprise, the landscape that awaited me on the island was speach-stealing (hmmm, not actually a phrase we use in the English language??). The island had alp-like snow covered peaks, vineyards, sloping hills and valleys, brightly colored Mediterranean-style villages, jagged chalk cliffs, and cerulean water lapping on white sand beaches. I am still stunned. We arrived in the port town Ajaccio and took the bus early the next morning to the picturesque city of Bonifacio where we spent the next couple of days (including my birthday... which just means that pretty much all birthdays from here on out are going to be pretty anti-climatic).

Here you might think that it can’t possible get any better....but it does!! From Bonifacia, we decided to take a boat trip to a tiny island/nature reserve just off the coast. Normaly the boat drops you off on the island to explore for about an hour, and, if you want, you can wait for the second boat later in the afternoon and spend 5 hours on the island. Because the morning we went was a bit blustery, everyone but us and two friends we’d made at the campsite decided to leave. So, to sum it up, we spent the entire day on a private island scampering over rock formations, peering into tide pools, taking pictures of wild flowers, and swimming in water cold enough to keep a popsicle from melting...


At the end of our stay in Bonifacio, we headed back to Ajaccio for a day and night before returning to mainland France on the ferry/cruise-ship. We were returning with the friends we had made at the campsite (two students: a guy from Columbia and a woman from Brazil) and we were supposed to take the early bus at 6am. But, instead of a bus, a little shuttle thing came and picked us up and then proceeded to drop us off on the side of the road about 10 minutes outside of town promising that a bus would come along to get us in a little while. As a semi-joke, our Columbian friend stuck out his thumb and before we knew it, we were climbing into the van of a half-American half-French wine maker who drove us all to Ajaccio while discussing the differences between French and American wine and wine-making processes. Lauren and I ended up finding his wine in a local food market where we also bought a delicious all-Corsican picnic to have on the “terrace” of our hotel.


During the second week of vacations, things took a turn for the, er, ridiculous. With our Kiwi friends, we rented a chateau (castle) complete with canopy beds, spiral stair cases, and a knight in shining armor.


The castle is in the middle of French farmland, so we spent our days cooking with fresh eggs from the neighbors


playing lawn ball


practicing our archery skills


visiting the French version of Medieval Times (an experience so bizarre that it merits its own blog post)


and of course filming a mocumentary of the history of the castle complete with medieval weapons (hatchet, sword, giant pan, log) and a narrated text translated into English by the previous French owner of the castle with the most hilarious structural and grammatical errors ever. (if you know what’s good for you, you should probably avoid ever bringing this up again in order to avoid sitting through it multiple times while Lauren and I laugh at and explain every inside joke...)

Well, whew, this has gotten unreasonably long... but the vacation was so extraordinary that I feel like even this hasn’t done it justice. It’s hard for me to imagine a better vacation than one that combines stunning landscapes, delicious food, good friends, and of course extreme goofiness!


Now things are starting to wind to a close. Lauren leaves to go back home in just one week and I only have one month left of work (with two three-day weekends and one week off...what is the official benefit again of extending my contract??). I’ve got lots of fun week-end trips planned for May and the first week of June I’m going back to the south of France with some British friends...then it’s back to sweet Michigan for a summer full of friends, family and fun!

Well, the time since I last wrote has been filled with a whirlwind of visits, vacations, and several existential crises. Most of you have probably forgotten that I even have a blog, some of you may miss it (blood relations), but all of you should really be glad that I haven't kept you up to date. In the span of 8 weeks, Lauren and I have gone from moving to South America, to China, to South Korea, to the US, to New Zealand, to India.... and the delicious thing is, we actually believed we had decided For Sure each time. I'll refer you to Lauren's blog so you can hear about her plans from her: www.interestinglyno.blogspot.com (also a useful link since she updates her blog much more frequently than I do and usually adds more pictures!)

So, briefly, here are my plans for the coming year (I still think and write in terms of academic years, so don't be confused :) Originally my contract in France was supposed to be over at the end of April, but my schools asked me to stay for another month to help the students prepare for their oral exams. I'll be leaving France for the US in the beginning of June. Summer plans include: US roadtrip to see friend Allison in Seattle complete with national parks stops and books on tape; numerous weekend trips to Holland to see friends, mentors, professors; some time Up North (for my non-Michiganian followers, that means in the northern part of Michigan, usually in a cabin/cottage on some lake); camping trip with my sis; summer camp with my mom (as volunteers. haha, gotcha!); loads of family time and maybe taking the GRE. I'll be heading back to Europe sometime in August to start a job as an au pair

in Switzerland! 

I'll be living in charming Luzern

surrounded by the Swiss Alps  

(but unfortunately not by the SWS:ALPS)

and just down the street from this guy... 

The family I'm working for is paying for me to take intensive German classes

(This is how excited I am about that.  Also - less obviously perhaps - the picture was taken in Germany)

and they want me to speak only French with their children!

(Look how qualified I am!)

So, there's the whirl-wind tour.  I am looking forward to seeing many of you this summer and catching-up/filling-in in more detail.

Also, I'm hoping to put up pictures (and anecdotes) from mine and Lauren's recent vacation to Poland soon!  But for now, it's getting way past my adult bedtime (10:30-11pm) and I have to teach class for a whole entire hour tomorrow morning, so I had better get my rest ;)

Bisous to all!

Joyeux Noel to all from the sprawling Hampster Cage that is Charles de Gaulle Airport. For some reason, my friend Lisa from Arizona who is coming to visit me for the holidays, got routed through Midwest Winter Wonderland (ie: Detroit). Her plane is indefinitely delayed, so here I sit listening to repeating announcements about unattended luggage getting exploded, getting sniffed by the occasional customs dog accompanied by armed customs agent, and watching frazzled travelers gripe at their even more frazzled children. I'm secretly waiting for John Candy and his polka band to show up and offer me a spot on their private Atlantic Barge (because that's the oceanic equivalent of an unheated van, right??)

Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Kirkpatrick, Mrs. Mary Elizabet Kirkpatrick is kindly invited to got sit the visitor desk gate 3. Mrs. Mary Elizabth Kirkpatrick.

(This lady is apparently no where to be found).

Anyhow, I think I have about 3.4 minutes left on this internet connection. What I really want to say is Merry Christmas to you all! And Happy New Year! Though I do so wish I could be hugging you all in person, I am happy to get the chance to spend Christmas in France. (aaah, getting passed by fatigued soldiers with automatic weapons!! jeeze Louise, France). Hopefully Lisa will be here soon, so we can head off downtown to see all of the fabulous lights lining the Champs Elyesee and of course the twinkling Eiffel Tower. We'll be spending Christmas day in Nantes, and I've successfully gathered all of the people I could find who would have otherwise been alone for Christmas and having them over on the 25th. Then on the 26th we'll be going to my host family's house on the beach for a full day of festive French family fun.

I hope you all cherish being where you are and with whom you are.

Very Merriest,

Brianne

The absence of Thanksgiving combined with the nearly tropical weather in Nantes has my normally way-too-Christmasy spirit confused. This years’ “Christmas decorations” have me even more muddled. The city started putting up huge light fixtures about two weeks ago, but saved the grand reveal until the 28th of November (almost the first of December). When unlit, they look quite like feathery angle wings. I had high hopes. In my imagination, they’d light up all gold and twinkly, maybe with some flecks of red here and there. I thought, “Maybe if I focus on the lights, I’ll forget that I’m wearing capris.” So, I went downtown this weekend with my child-spirit on my shirtsleeves only to find the center turned into some Hope College Halloween party. The lights are ORANGE and BLUE. And, if that isn’t bad enough, big light bulbs, which are sprinkled amongst the tiny twinklers, flash intermittently with the enthusiasm of Princess Diana’s paparazzi. Some light posts have two “angle wings” attached to them that, when lit, look like evil winking demon faces with horns. Happy Holidays!

“Well,” I thought, “so the decorations are ridiculous. But at least there’s an outside Christmas market that is sure to feel deliciously festive!” I went to the market expecting Germany: stalls of handmade decorations and toys, spiced wine, old ladies selling home-made gingerbread. From afar it looked promising: raw pine stalls trimmed with garland and twinkling white lights. But, surprise! Imagine the love child of Centennial Park’s annual Midwest craft show and a rest stop gift shop somewhere in New Mexico and you’ve got it. If anyone wants a resin fairy, a miniature Buddha head fountain, a fish tank shaped like a house, a sand painting that recasts itself every time you turn it over, or a miniature ceramic sheep, just let me know. I’d be happy to make your Christmas wish come true. If the merchandise isn’t random enough, the music and the people advertising various things fill in the gaps. When I first arrived Justin Timberlake’s voice filled the air with gender confusion, but it was soon replaced by an upbeat-translated version of “Jingle Bells” that went something like this…. “Dingle dong, dingle dong, tous les dingle dong.” Then a person trapped inside a giant clear plastic beach ball wearing glowing pink and green alien suit rolled in front of me advertising some concert. I’ll have to make sure not to miss that one.

Bound and determined to have my holly jolly Christmas one way or another, I decided that what I really needed was a Christmas tree. That way at least the holiday spirit would fill my apartment, even if it wasn’t filling the streets. Thankfully an IKEA advertisement stopped me from sneaking stealth-style in to my neighbors’ garden in the middle of the night and hacking of the top four feet of one of their bushes with a butter knife. This year, IKEA is selling real Christmas trees for 20 euro and if you bring the tree back after the holiday, you get back 17 euro as store credit, the other three get donated to some charity, and the trees get composted. This way you get to pretend that you’re not the typical Christmas consumer. The trees arrived December 1st, so after I got out of class, I hopped onto the tram that leaves the French-looking part of Nantes and heads to a sprawling shopping complex that could be anywhere suburbia USA. I spent the tram ride repeating to myself, “mixing bowl, towel, decorations, christmas tree. mixing bowl, towel, decorations, christmas tree,” but - this happens every time - as soon as I crossed the border from sanity into the insanity that is the IKEA display floor-set maze (family, do you remember the Amazing Maize Maze??…) I instantly forgot why I had come and what I was looking for. Did I come to buy a set of decorative pillows? Did I come to buy an alphabetical laundry organizer? No, I know, I came for this oven mitt that also looks like a hedgehog puppet! By the time I made it to the part of the store where you can actually buy things, I was totally frazzled. I think I stood in front of one of the kitchen displays for about seven minutes trying to determine whether or not I needed a tart pan...and the miserable thing about IKEA is that, somehow, the combination of fluorescent lighting, high ceilings and random Swedish vocabulary words incapacitates any decision-making ability you might possess. I finally made it to the special Christmas display and the giant pile of pines wrapped in what appeared to be white fishnet pantyhose. With their needles poking out, they looked like a pile of French women’s legs in wintertime. (I present this stereotype only to avoid making you feel uncomfortable by saying that they looked like my legs in wintertime.) While this type of tree-packaging is practical for transportation, it keeps you from determining the shape of the tree. Since I couldn’t bear the thought of getting home, unwrapping my tree, and finding that I’d gotten stuck with a true Charlie Brown, I ended up choosing a tree that someone had already completely unwrapped because it was leaps and branches better than the rest.

If my tree and I got in a fight in a dark alley, I’m not sure who would win...I’ve got a good 8 inches on it, but its girth easily octuples mine. I left IKEA with one bag on each shoulder and my tree precariously balanced in my arms. The entrance to IKEA is about 4 blocks and 5 intersections away from the nearest tram stop. During this brief jaunt I learned that, the next time I’m in a dumpy self-depreciating mood, I need just walk around carrying a giant plant. Some women try to attract men’s attention by wearing high heels or short skirts or lots of shadowy eye makeup, but, as it turns out, what men are really attracted to is trees (maybe someday I’ll do a “study” to see if this pertains to all men or just French men). Me and my tree, we got waved at, honked at, whistled at, yelled at. “Beau sapin!” (“Nice tree!” Well, technically “nice evergreen of the sap producing variety,” but that doesn’t seem integral to the translation). All of this attention had me anticipating an eventful and hilarious ride home, but most of the tram passengers we encountered insisted on being ridiculously French. Apart from the woman who asked me if Christmas trees are expensive in Nantes, a woman who stroked some lower branches and said it smelled good, a homeless couple who said they’d never had a real tree, and a man who backed into it and proceeded to apologize (to me or the tree, I wasn’t sure. I was in such a jovial mood that I wanted to pretend to asked the tree if it was ok and then assure the man that he hadn’t offended/hurt it, but by the time I’d mustered up my French wit, he had already replaced his earbuds) the ride was typically uneventful, which made it even more hilarious. There I was, crammed into the back end of the tram with a giant live tree for goodness sake ready to share an “isn’t this quaint” smile with anyone who acknowledged me, but the other passengers would get on, give me one glance and say with their eyes, “What? Zo you are on zee tram wiz a sapin? Ziss ees very normal. I am French. I am shocked by nozing. Ze laces of my shoes ees just as interesting.”

One of the major, or at least most noticeable, differences between French and American culture is the way in which people create personal space in public situations. In the US, we establish distance and decrease tension between ourselves and others by speaking. If you’re in a crowded waiting room at the orthopedics office or in a post-Thanksgiving Khols’ line, you’d probably small talk with the person next to you. You’re more comfortable if the people around you aren’t “strangers.” It’s not that you are really all that interested in the details of how wee Harvard broke his tibia skim boarding backwards at the DeVooker side family barbeque on Lake Michigan, but you’re more at ease being around people you don’t know if you have the impression that you do. It’s basically the opposite here in France. Speaking to someone you don’t know adds tension to almost any situation. Conversation invades privacy rather than creating it. This difference is probably responsible for roughly 86% of the stereotypes about French people. The other 14% - such as men wearing scarves, 14 year olds riding around on mopeds, people walking about with baguettes, and the superiority of cheese and wine - is mostly true.

Anyhow, me and my tree, we finally made it to 3, rue du 3eme Dragons, and it suddenly looked a whole lot bigger in my 55 square meter apartment than it did in the hangar sized IKEA warehouse. For the last seven or so years - ever since my mom watched an especially heart-wrenching episode of Rescue 911 - our Christmas tree has come out of a box. Thanks to Dad Inc., who color-coded the various length branches with my sister’s and my leftover multicolored fingernail polish from the late 90’s, setting up the tree is a pretty simple affair. Having forgotten that real trees don’t come with snap-on intersecting plastic feet, I failed to buy any sort of tree stand at IKEA. The poor thing looked thirsty and I didn’t like the idea of scraping sap of my hardwood floors, so I declared that it was time to get creative. By this I mean that I literally say out loud to myself, “Ok, Brianne. Get creative.” The end solution to my tree stand experiments involves one plastic IKEA trash can, three wine bottles filled with water, and one rotisserie chicken attachment to a small oven (what would we have done if we weren’t vegetarians?!). It’s been four days and the tree is still standing…

Lauren and I decided to make a whole evening out of decorating the tree. We had an American friend and a New Zealander over for a make-shift Christmas dinner (fyi: turns out green bean casserole’s “French onions” are in no way French. I tried to make the delicious crunchy topping by battering and panfrying dehydrated onion flakes, which, unsurprisingly, didn’t come out quite right). We then spent hours decorating the tree with homemade popcorn garlands (tedious), paper snowflakes (also tedious), some random Santa’s from my host family, a handful of red and blue balls that we decorated with paint pens, and a bunch of the mini candy canes that my mom sent me in a Christmas package. I had my heart set on white lights, but the only ones they had at the store were rainbow colored. Lauren and I convinced ourselves that rainbow lights were better than no lights. I plugged them in when we got home and by the second second of our “Oooooooh” they had started flashing. No way. When I read the back of the box, I found that I had indeed accidently bought flashing lights but, the box assured me, of the non-musical nature...what?! I can hardly imagine anything more annoying than a Christmas tree whose snow-cone colors blink on and off to the tempo of “Dingle dong, Dingle dong.” In the end, without lights, the tree looks like a real life model of the cover to an American Girl Doll’s book called “Kirstin Saves Christmas.” I absolutely love it! The only down side is that we had to unwrap the candy canes in order to tie them to the tree, and now, since Nantes is about as humid as Houston, TX, instead of scraping sap of the wood floors, I have to wipe up pink peppermint puddles. The candy canes are literally melting off the tree. No more pretty red and white stripes. At the moment, they’re all solid pink and, judging by the sugar pools each morning, I anticipate they’ll have gone completely white by the 15th.

If you’ve made it this far, I congratulate you. I also add my apologies for having just read David Sedaris’ Holidays on Ice (Thanks Jeremy!) and therefore having tried to match his wit, tone, and humor. I guess you can be thankful at least that I didn’t just finish one of the farmer-peasant episodes in Anna Karenina….

I miss you all, and I miss the land of snowflakes and 24 hour Christmas carols (except for the 6-9 pm segment that’s hosted by Delilah…)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Between the presidential elections and the plethora of specifically American holidays since my arrival in France, I've never been at a loss for material for my classes. I've been teaching classes on Thanksgiving all week, and by "teaching classes" I mean playing bingo and talking about what we have to be thankful for. Considering my students' level of English (and maturity) I've avoided Thanksgiving vocabulary words like "colonization," "small pox," and "genocide," preferring to stick instead to words like "pumpkin pie" and "cranberry sauce" (which, for the French, may actually be more inconceivable...)

How would you answer the nearly existential question, "What is a cranberry?"

How would you convince a person from a country lauded for its fine cuisine that, indeed, a pie made of squash and cinnamon and cream is delicious?

The lessons have been some of the most fun that I've taught so far. I start class by showing them some pictures that I took last Thanksgiving of all of the traditional dishes. The video clip I have of Thanksgiving a couple years ago with some of my extended family around a Huge table yelling "Happy Thanksgiving" has been the big hit. My girls today said: "Oh! It's just like Little House on the Prairie!" and "Mademoiselle, you really do that? You're sure that your family isn't acting? It's just sooo cute!"

Then I have them push all of the tables together to make one big table and I hand out slips of paper with names of my family members on them. Much to Lauren's dismay, I've taken all of our empty tupperware dishes, the salt and pepper shakers, our decorative gourds, pie pans, cake pans, the ladle, etc., and labeled them with the names of different dishes. We all sit down at the table and play act Thanksgiving dinner chez Brianne. "Sandi, uuuu, Mum, can yoo please pass zee gravy?" "Yes, of couse! 'ere you go." "Zank you" 'You're welcome" ... Everyone speaks, everyone laughs, and, somehow magically, pretending to be a family makes everyone less shy and more willing to participate. At first they're all shocked when I begin rearranging the classroom, when I ask them to sit in a circle facing each other, when I join them. It's as if, by disrupting the physical organization of the classroom, the French magisterial mentality gets broken too.

For the last fifteen minutes of class, we go around the table and each person says one thing that she or he is thankful for. Responses include: family, friends, having enough to eat, Barack Obama, and..... dolloping whip cream on my day ....
"I am sankful for zat Brianne comes to France." :)

Of course, what they actually mean by that is that they're thankful that they didn't have to do any real work for a whole class period....but my ego would rather bask in the warmth of being liked (undeniably one of my biggest faults)! It is encouraging though to see students who normally sit with their arms folded, eyes rolled, and cell phones out actually excited to participate.
Technically (so they tell me) my 'job' is to improve my students' conversational English, but I feel successful if I've made them think (if even for a fleeting second) "hey, English is fun."

So, this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for a year of fun and rest. I'm thankful to be in France with good friends and loads of Christmas decorations (hey, since there isn't any Thanksgiving to mark the transition to Christmas, they're allowed to be out here!) And, I'm thankful for you (since you are most likely a family member or close friend ;)

I hope you all bask in togetherness, gravy, and afternoon naps.

I really wanted to take you all on a photo tour, but, of course, this server won't let me upload photos. Although your first reaction might be disappointment, you might reconsider when you find out that I took over 500 pictures in Switzerland... The narration to half the would-be slide show goes something like, "Here's a beautiful fall tree next to a beautiful turquoise river with the Alps in the background" .... "Here's the beautiful orange tree from the left" .... "Here's the tree from the right with a boat in the foreground" .... "Here's a leaf from the tree floating in the river by the boat" .... "Here's a self-portrait of me with the tree and the boat and the mountains" etc etc. You know it's bad when you suspect that you would lose the attention of your own parents!

I've been bad again and I can't possible cover all that's happened since the last time I posted. A brief re-cap: paperwork, teaching, vacation. Lauren and I just returned from the first of our four paid vacations :) We spent a week and a half traveling through Switzerland and it was absolutely stunning. A country full of mountains where in autumn you can go back and forth between gorgeous fall and North Pole Narnia, famous for chocolate and cheese, where the people (at least in the French part) speak French but are organized more like Germany ... yes please. It also a country where scientists have constructed a massive proton accelerator in hopes of capturing on film what exactly happens when two isolate protons smash into each other at ridiculous speeds, a side effect of which could be the accidental creation of a "minor" black hole. Haha. But, I think I'd still move there in a heartbeat if anyone gave me an opportunity, or lots and lots of Swiss Francs.

Lauren and I traveled with CouchSurfing (which sounds really sketchy utnil you try it). It's basically a website like Facebook where you can contact people who live in the area where you want to go and stay with them for free. Obviously it's great for the budget, but the real reason I love it is because of the cultural exchange. As a tourist, you rarely get the opportunity to see a place from the perspective of someone who lives there, which is what couchsurfing allows you to do. This time Lauren and I had a fabulous host in Luzern, Remo, who took us to meet his mom in the village where he's from and then drove us above the clouds so we could actually see the mountains. And, in St. Gallen, we stayed in a sweet converted farm-house with Sebastian and his family. We went hiking to a nearby mountain and we got to meet his darling Grandparents who live just up the hill from his family.


It was a super trip...but I do laugh when I realize that basically I took a vacation from vacation. Sigh. I will never be able to do "real life" after this.

Sorry for the abrupt ending, but the cafe where I'm using the internet is closing so I have to run! Hopefully I'll be able to put up some picture sometime soon and also write about what my day to day life is like!

bisous to you all!