Some people may disagree with me but I sincerely believe a universal hobby is going to the zoo. My relatives in Vietnam find it fascinating, Germans seem to enjoy it, I love going to the zoo…everyone loves going to the zoo. So, I went to the zoo with a friend last weekend because hallelujah, it was not raining nor was it under 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
Again, apologies for the lack of posting the week before last due to a plethora of technical difficulties. This week, however, I’ll be writing a couple of blogs. Even in post-grad life, make-up work has its place. Lucky you.
My observation period has almost come to a close. Last week, I spent two full days at the middle school in Orchies, which is about three times the size of my second school, located in the nearby Flines-les-Roches, where I’ve been observing classes this week. With 900 students, Orchies’ Collège du Pévèle is actually larger than my high school.
The kids in both of my schools are adorable, smart, and have a high level of interest in learning English. There, of course, exist the typical middle school delinquents and rebels, but they’re well in the minority. As I’m still technically in my observation period, I haven’t really started interacting with the students yet, save a couple of beginning English classes, when the kids gave me a basic interview, pulling interrogatory phrases from their grammar books: “what’s your name”, “where are you from”, “how old are you”, etc. A few of them asked me about my musical taste, throwing names like Rihanna, Eminem, and Justin Bieber at me, all of which I recognize, but none of whom I listen to. One boy asked me if I ate hamburgers all the time, to the amusement of the entire class, which sparked a “what do Americans eat” dialogue. They were all fairly confused to hear that I don’t really know how to cook, though I am attempting to learn. Last night, I made a fairly bland spaghetti sauce from scratch.
It’s strange being the foreigner. Having studied abroad in Dijon a year and a half ago, I somehow assumed that I was more than prepared to play the part of the American in France again. This experience is already entirely different. I’m becoming much more integrated into the culture, for one. I lunch with the other teachers, drink coffee and tea with them during our many breaks, exchanging bits of information about various students (a bizarre experience, in itself: I feel as if I’m in some elite society, going through doors labeled “for school personnel only”). In Lille, I shop with the locals, live in a dormitory largely populated by young French women, and go on weekend trips to the sea with French friends, exchanging a variety of key slang words from our respective languages. I’m constantly in the culture, though I’m not entirely a part of it. In Dijon, while I was living with a French family, which dramatically improved my French comprehension and speaking skills, I largely stayed within my American study abroad group, only socializing a bit with other study abroad students. And there, we were all foreigners. Another part of it is that a large portion of my job as an English assistant, other than helping the students improve their accents and oral fluidity, is to teach the students about American culture, making me feel like some low-level representative for the USA.
However, whatever my somewhat philosophical sentiments are concerning my existence as a foreigner in France, I’m loving it here. Lovely people, beautiful countryside, excellent food. One of the French teachers at my school told me that there’s a saying about Nord-pas-de-Calais, which roughly translates to: not many people come here, but those that are here, stay.
Last Thursday, I headed off on an adventure with my friend, Claire, to a town in western Ireland called Ennis, the capital of County Clare. I had not traveled outside of Dublin the previous two weekends (a mistake) and was feeling the need to escape the city and its accompanying stresses. We stayed in the Rowan Tree Hostel, voted best hostel in Ireland in 2009; it was right on the river and served us a complimentary breakfast of scones, toast, orange juice, and…real drip coffee! I don’t know if I have mentioned this yet, but the coffe here is absolutely terrible. I cringe every time I say this, but yes, I have been drinking instant coffee in the mornings. I know, it is a disgrace to coffe, but to be honest it is better than coffee I have had from some of the cafes here. So the drip coffee was a highlight.
The night we arrived at the hostel, we mentioned to the folks working that we intended on heading over to Lahinch, a tiny surfing town on the coast, in the morning and inquired about bus times. The man who was working, an American, probably in his early thirties and a bit timid, asked what time we would be going to Lahinch because he lives there and could give us a ride over in the morning. Claire and I looked at each other, taken aback by such a generous offer from a complete stranger, and gladly accepted the ride. The next morning when we arrived in Lahinch, I stepped out of the car and was instantly immersed in the salty, subtley fishy, delicious smell of the ocean. A wave of joy washed over me and I breathed deeply the scent, one of my favorites in the world. Once in the town of Lahinch, we spent some time in a cafe doing some writing and drinking some tea, waiting for the rain to stop. We then meandered around the town (one main street with side alley-ways and streets), frequently finding our way back to the lane that ran along the oceanfront. We could not stand looking at the ocean for long periods of time because the wind was blowing off the ocean at an incredible velocity. At one point we ventured up on a hilly cliff to gain a different vantage point of the ocean and I do not think I have ever been in a stronger wind.
We made our way back to Ennis in the afternoon and spent the remainder of our journey taking a walk along the river and relaxing in the town. The trip was a perfect escape from city life, exactly what I needed to be rejuvinated for the coming week.
(Apologies on the late posting. The internet has been utterly inaccessible up until now).
Well, here I am, established at a foyer in Lille. After a couple of weeks of apartment and house hunting, I opted to go down the easiest and most economical route: a foyer des jeunes travailleurs. These dormitory-like buildings exclusively house young adults, who are attending classes at the university, working, or looking for work. Much like a dormitory, the foyer is equipped with a communal lounge and kitchen, and additionally a small computer lab. My foyer is conveniently located next to a metro stop, and is only a few blocks away from Gambetta, one of the more popular neighborhoods in Lille, frequented mostly by college-aged students.
Every Sunday morning off of Rue de Gambetta, there’s a large, sprawling fresh food market, which I was finally able to scope out this morning. There, vendors sell everything from bouquets of roses, baguettes, cheese from local farms, fresh baked bread, homemade honey, vegetables, fruit, to household items, clothes, and various gadgets. Clusters of families, college students, older couples, and children meander from stall to stall, most with a marché-inspired smile on their faces. The enticing odors of spices, fresh herbs, candles, roast chicken, and fried pitas waft into the aisles. I walked away feeling quite the Lilloise, in the possession of a few apples, tomatoes, bread, and honey.
Tomorrow: I’m beginning the observation period at my school. I’m not really sure what it will entail, aside from my becoming better acquainted with the teachers, students, and class curriculums, but I’m ridiculously excited, nonetheless. Now is when it all really begins. And while I’ve enjoyed these last couple of weeks of wandering and adventuring around this drizzly region, I’m ready to get down to business.
The picture on the right is of the Berliner Dom (Cathedral) taken in August 2009.
I keep looking at my last post and berating myself over the length of it. About 1,000 words just about my lovely apartment. Sheesh. I’ll keep the posts much shorter than that one from now on. Well…I’ll try.
As I implied in my last entry, I’d like to touch upon a heavier subject material this time around; namely, the potential dangers that teaching assistants face. Nothing life-threatening nor terrifying on a heart-attack level, mind you. Continue reading
One thing that’s been making it difficult for me to get in a lot of cooking or learn many new recipes is the convenience of eating out in Taiwan. Eating out is so convenient, that a majority of the Taiwanese that I have met do not cook. Restaurants are ubiquitous in a way that is quite different than the US. It’s plain hard to not find a restaurant within sight. Maybe I haven’t lived in enough big cities back in the states, and my conception of eating out is too formed by a smaller town dynamic, but, eating out is just, well, ridiculously convenient here.
Vibrantly painted bodies. Rows upon rows of samba drummers. Confetti in the air. Children on stilts. A spectacular crowd dancing and winding their way through the hills from Plaza San Luis on Cerro Alegre. This is Mil Tambores (a thousand drums), an annual festival in Valparaiso, Chile.
Residents of Valparaiso and visitors from all over celebrate Mil Tambores all weekend long, beginning with “Cuerpos Pintados” (body painting) and a massive parade through the hills on Friday afternoon, and ending Sunday with another wild parade, with a number of lectures, concerts, etc. in between.
I was thrown into the fray by choice on Friday afternoon, having next to no idea where I was going to meet a group of friends since I was running late from a group project in a local elementary school on the other side of the city. The only directions I was going off were “we don’t really know how we got here, just take a taxi near the bar we were at last week and hopefully we’ll find each other in the crowd.”
Yet as things usually have worked out so far, it ended up being a piece of cake to get there (granted, text messaging eased the process). Just when I started to feel confused, I ended up meeting a couple of Chilean girls with bongo drums and colorful apparel who were headed to the same plaza, and we made our way to the beginning of the festivities together.
It’s hard to describe the level of bizarreness that occurs at this carnival. Basically, anything goes. Whether it’s an almost completely unclothed girl with her body painted so painstakingly she looks like live graffiti, or a dancing man passing around his bottle of rum while shouting “for the cold!”, people let it all out at Mil Tambores. There was some police control, but overall I had the impression that this giant party has few guidelines, other than the organization of the dancers and drummers. However, there was an important theme—this year, “Madre de la Tierra” (mother earth), represented most evidently by a group of tree branch clad and wild-haired men.
Amidst the performers in the middle of a lively parade, my friends and I danced and conversed our way throughout the hills of Valparaiso for a few hours, eventually ending up at a phenomenal vegetarian restaurant with extremely tired feet. And that was only Friday evening!
Sunday I returned to the spectacle on a mission to record a few videos for a course on the history, cinema, and literature of Valparaiso. This time I felt like more of an observer than a participant, and it was fascinating to play both roles in the same festival.
Yet again, getting there was an adventure in itself. Luckily this time I had a Chilean friend with me to help me navigate the mountainous streets of a completely different part of the city I’d never been to before. As we turned a corner at the top of a huge hill, we hear the drums beating and voices chanting and knew we’d finally arrived.
I enjoyed getting swept into the crowd for a while, having confetti sprinkled on my head, watching men on unicycles juggling, women dancing in a circle beating sticks together, and a myriad of other performances. Capoeira, a Brazilian art form combining dance and martial arts, drew a large crowd. Two men (and sometimes a man and a woman) participated, and it involved sort of a fake karate fight; those who do it well are extraordinarily graceful with their kicks, blows and evasive maneuvers.
Recollecting the sites of the weekend, I must say I’ve never seen anything so strange before in my life. Mil Tambores isn’t the sort of festival one can even begin to classify. However, in a sense the wild parades represent the energy of Chilean youth I’ve encountered so far in my time abroad here in Chile. This energy is intellectual, artistic, liberal, indigenous, environmentalist and the list goes on. What liveliness! What social movement!
The picture on the right was taken on the Saturday before last, which was the same day I had gone to see the Brandenburger Tor. I didn’t realize that the picture would come out so well.
I promised an extra post as well as something more light-hearted. I already know which topic I’m going to write about for the next post, so I’m very grateful that this one will not involve anything bureaucratic or any experiences remotely stressful.
I’d actually like to introduce you to my apartment. Although it’s set up as a student-living apartment, the process of securing this lovely room is by far one of my proudest achievements in my slow crawl towards true adulthood.
Last weekend, I took a train trip to Sorrento with eleven other students from my program. We arrived in the city on Friday night around midnight, after two exhausting train rides, and went to bed soon after locating our hostel. The next morning we got up bright and early in order to catch the ferry to Capri before too many other tourists would inevitably inundate the island.
Once we arrived in Capri, our group split. The majority of the group wished to go on a tour of the island by boat and to visit the famous Blue Grotto. I, put off by the 25 Euro expense, decided to make my way up the island with one other person from my program to the other destination of the day, the Palace of Emperor Tiberius, the second emperor of Rome. Instead of taking the tram most of the way up the island, he and I hiked it. This turned out to be a good decision. Since most tourists don’t have the stamina nor the interest to see the the ordinary neighborhoods of Capri, they pay an expensive fee to take a tram or even a bus to the main commercial area of the island, which is high up on the steep island.
Without breaking a sweat, he and I found ourselves at the top within thirty minutes. Hoping to further avoid the crowds, we left the commercial center and began the second leg of our journey toward the palace. After a second hike of the same rigor, we arrived at Tiberius’s palace. We payed 2 Euro, a fair price, and explored the incredibly well-preserved structures. We also were able to see some incredible views of the island’s many cliff faces and nearby islands.
After we were satisfied with our visit, we made our way back to the commercial center, found a quiet pizzeria, and enjoyed a well-earned lunch. We then returned to the dock to wait for our companions. I enjoyed the warm water at the beach while we waited. Once everyone was gathered together, we took the ferry back to Sorrento, returned to our hostel, and slept. Our return journey to Rome was pleasantly uneventful.
On Tuesday, as a part of our program, the students enjoyed a rare opportunity–exploration of Roman aqueducts. We climbed into two disused aqueducts, learned about aqueduct maintenance, encountered interesting insects, and enjoyed reading graffiti from various eras. Also, we visited a few hollowed out portions of the face of the cliff into which the aqueducts had been built. These had been turned into prayer centers for medieval monks and a few of them had religious paintings inside. It was quite an experience.
Last night I went to a professional football match between AS Roma and Inter Milan in Rome’s Stadio Olimpico. I went with fourteen other students from my program and we, in hopes of fitting in with the crowd, had all bought Roma jerseys or scarves. As a group of fifteen all sporting Roma’s maroon and orange, we received many compliments as we made our way to the stadium using two bus routes. At the stadium, we split into two groups and watched the match from different places. True to the tendency of Italian teams, we watched a very defensive game. We were a little disappointed when the match was minutes from ending with the score still 0 – 0. However, two minutes before the end of the game, a Roma player made an expert cross to his teammate who performed a diving header between two Inter defenders and drove the ball into the corner of the net. The Roma fans went crazy. If you’re aware of the stereotypes of European football fans, then you have a pretty good idea of how the fans reacted. We left the stadium during the downpour that began just after the game ended, after staying for some stadium-wide Roma chants. The fans were so excited that they were chanting even on the bus afterwards. It was quite an exciting night.
And we’re into week two of my stay in France. (What?)
This last week and a half has been a blur of touring the collèges (middle schools) where I’ll be acting as an English teaching assistant, meeting the twenty or so teachers with whom I’ll be working as well as some of the students, relocating my two immense bags from one couch to the next, meeting other assistants, getting lost in Lille and its suburbs, touring potential apartments, setting up a French bank account, registering with immigration, and sorting through (MORE) paperwork.
But, today, it’s Saturday. And while Sunday is truly the day of rest in this country, I decided to take today to hang around the house, catch up on correspondence, and read. It’s a perfect day for relaxed, cat-like behavior in Baisieux, a small town conveniently sandwiched between Lille and the Franco-Belgian border. A slow drizzle peppers my window, and the mute sounds of cars and feet splashing through puddles outside mingle with the dull crashes of pots, pans, and various utensils being pulled out and tossed around in the process of dinner preparation downstairs.
After spending the majority of my first week and a half wandering around Lille, and meeting various locals, and with my initial disorientation waning, I’ve begun to feel comfortable in this northern city. I actually gave someone directions yesterday when I was in Lille, which was a small victory for me. Now, my biggest priorities are: finding a more permanent place to live until April, and getting insurance. As the assistants don’t actually begin work until the first of October, I have all the time I need to accomplish the more practical (and scarily adult-like) items on my list, and, additionally, to continue exploring this beautiful region.
