Adventures Abroad

New Year’s resolution numba one: post more blogs.

I somehow managed to go blog-less throughout the entirety of December. Ouch. Well, here begins Part A of my Sparknotes version of late November and December 2010. (Yes, Sparknotes, not Cliffnotes. Sparknotes has pictures, and is thus infinitely superior).

The week after Thanksgiving, my friend and I decorated the pastel walls of our rooms in the foyer with tacky Christmas decorations, baked lots n’ lots of cookies, watched fabulously cheesy Christmas movies, and found ways to work detours to the local Christmas market into all of our outings.

Ah, the Christmas market: a typical Christmas tradition in France, drawn largely from Germanic culture. The typical Christmas market, in its full glory, is a collection of vending stalls shaped like miniature snow-topped cabins, selling everything from vin chaud (the most delicious beverage I’ve ever tasted: red wine mixed with a variety of spices, and orange peels), roasted chestnuts, crepes, waffles, paninis, regional sweets, chocolates, jewelry, pottery, and  Santa hats. Adorable. Yesterday, only the skeletons of the vending booths remained.

During the past month, I like to think that I’ve become quite the Christmas market master. Over the course of the Christmas season, I visited the market in Lille more times than I can recall, brushing elbows with the many British tourists who frequent Christmas markets in Northern France, and riding the nearby market Ferris wheel at least four times, enjoying several postcard moments, perched at the top of the wheel with all of Lille sprawled out beneath me. In Strasbourg, the beautiful capital of the Alsace region, sandwiched perfectly between France and Germany, my friends and I managed to run into almost every Christmas market multiple times. Strasbourg, aptly entitled the Christmas capitol, has been hosting Christmas markets since the 16^th century, and consequently has a multitude of markets spread across the city, which range in size, products, and entertainment (accordion-players, drummers, and guitarists, oh my). Lastly, we visited the market in Paris, which runs along the Champs Elysées. Out of all of the markets I visited, this was, unsurprisingly, the most touristy. I managed to get grossly ripped off for a waffle, and elbowed in the side by a few unapologetic Parisians and tourists before I finally conceded, realizing that even I wasn’t up for the Paris Christmas market experience.

Essentially, post-Thanksgiving, I went Christmas-crazy. Outside of class, I became a decorating, baking, Christmas market fiend. In class, as a Teaching Assistant, I gave presentations on American Christmas traditions, introduced the higher-level students to classic movies and music, and taught as many Christmas carols as time permitted. Translating “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” into French for my 6ème students proved to be one of the most entertaining and challenging procedures I’ve ever undertaken.

To come: December Sparknotes Part B: Edinburgh, Dusseldorf, Strasbourg, and Paris. Oh la.

Turkey Day having come and gone, I feel it my blogging duty to recapitulate my French experience of this most American of holidays.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, I caught the TER down to Valenciennes, about 40 minutes away by the slower, regional train, where a group of American assistants had organized a weekend-long turkey day bash, complete with a big dinner, games, and a night full of dancing.

The afternoon began tamely enough, with an impressive spread of chicken (a necessary substitute as in France, turkey isn’t kept in stock year-round; here, it’s more of a Christmas specialty), garlic mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, candied sweet potatoes (scrumptious), multiple salads, green bean casserole (with homemade fried onions), a Spanish corn tortilla dish (delicious), and for dessert, chocolate cake, apple crumble, and cheesecake.

As the French guests politely nibbled at their first plates, the American assistants gobbled down firsts, and promptly hopped up for seconds, much to the astonishment of a few party-goers.

The evening wore on, and without a Thanksgiving Day parade or football game to distract us, we sat, slumped over and comatose, as the other guests bustled about, going out for walks, cleaning up house, and even, preparing dinner (a shocking and confusing concept to most Americans, including myself, whose Thanksgiving dinners consist of fridge-grazing and third pieces of pumpkin pie).

As darkness fell, more guests arrived, and the festivities really took off. Music was put on, and quite soon we had a full-on ragin’ Franglais house party, complete with American and French kids dancing and singing along to a variety of American pop songs.

All in all, a lovely, memorable turkey-less turkey day.

Due to a combination of procrastination, internet failure, and general business, I kind of stopped posting there for a while. Sorry ’bout that. Here’s one of two posts I wrote back in November:

Things have picked up quite a bit over here in France-land. I’m becoming more and more involved in my classes at school. Last week, I was asked to do a couple of lessons on Thanksgiving, being what one of the profs at the Collège du Pévèle calls a “real-life specimen of American culture,” which dually inspires feelings of stardom and freakdom. It was great fun explaining Thanksgiving to the kids, most of whom had either only heard the word itself, or at the best had a vague concept of the holiday. “No, I can’t explain the relationship between American football and the Native Americans and Pilgrims.” “Yes, I suppose it is funny that America’s biggest holiday is essentially about eating.” “Yes, we do, in fact, make a pie out of a vegetable. Yup, we’re pretty weird, huh?”

Throughout the course of the week, I managed to get my 6ème’s pretty psyched about a Thanksgiving song called “Mr. Turkey,” about a poor turkey that needs to hide to avoid getting eaten. I definitely heard a few of them singing it to their friends in the schoolyard, as I made my way to the break-room for lunch. If that’s not success, I don’t know what is.

In other less thrilling news, I was finally called in by the Office of Immigration for my state-required medical exam. I waited, along with twenty-some other, mostly American, non EU English assistants. One by one, we filed up to the reception desk, handed over paperwork, and were summoned back to rooms, where we were weighed, measured, x-rayed, vaguely questioned, then shooed back into the lobby, to hand over more paperwork, and finally, triumphantly, to receive the OFii stamp of approval (i.e. legal temporary residence)! We all celebrated by going out for a coffee, toting along with us giant copies of our lung x-rays, which had been benevolently handed over to us by the doctor for “future use.” Okay. In any case, I’m officially done with my administrative details checklist, and it only took me two months…

A bientôt.