Advertisement
Published: November 14th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Well, the French have been back from vacation for almost a week now, which means it’s just about time for them to go on strike! Seriously, it’s getting a little ridiculous over here. The students at the university are on strike, the transportation industry is on strike, the electricians are on strike, the professors are on strike….I think you get the picture.
Sadly, I’m not on strike, which means it was back to work for me on Thursday. However, I guess I could be on strike if I wanted to be, because I’ve finally gotten my “be French” card from the prefecture. For my Thursday class with my 3eme Europeans, I had them tell me about how they spent their vacation and told them how I spent mine in Corsica. I taught them phrases like “sleep in” and “goof off” and had them describe what their perfect vacation would be like. Mathieu said he would tan on the beach with Veronica Mars. Virginie’s list included shopping, shopping, and more shopping. I really love my 3eme’s at Clermont, because they just seem to have so much fun learning.
I did have to do some clarification on a couple vocabulary words.
my "artistic" photo
really just the product of glaring sunlight.... I told them I’d bought a keychain in Corsica. They didn’t know what this was, so they heard “kitchen”. They also confused Ham and Jam. With my 4eme’s I did a lesson on parts of the body, and they complained that too many of the English words started with H (head, heel, hand, heart, hair). I guess this seems especially mean to the French because they don’t pronounce the letter H….ever.
After my one grueling day of work, it was the weekend again. On Friday I finally got my “carte bleue”, or debit card, for my bank account. No more standing in those never ending teller lines. Now I can use the ATM like a normal person. I’d told Sabine I was going into town to go to the bank, and she said she was going to be at the library researching a paper. We decided to meet up for a café. As I was leaving the bank, I realized I didn’t have my wallet. Panicked, I texted Sabine that I was running back to the house to get it, and that I’d be a little longer. She replied “I’ll meet you there, I forgot mine too!” Once we
both had adequate means of payment, we went to the Bd des Pyrenees and had a café.
Sunday was my long anticipated trip across the border to Spain with the Canterot family. I was excited, but also a bit unnerved about being somewhere that I couldn’t speak the language. Turns out it really didn’t matter, since I spent the day surrounded by French people anyways. We went to the beautiful town of St. Sebastian to cheer on Patrick as he ran a demi-marathon in just over 1 hour and 30 minutes. He came in at 400 something out of 14,000 runners, so overall I’d call the race a success. Speaking of races, earlier this week Clermont had their annual school wide race, and Elsa won for her grade, which means she gets to compete at the district level. Laurence came in 6th for the 3emes, also very impressive. I’m pretty much the only one in the house who doesn’t run, I think.
Anyways, St. Sebastian is absolutely breathtaking, but you won’t be able to tell from my pictures. Why? Because there aren’t any. I was an idiot and forgot my camera at the house. Oh well, it just
gives me a reason to go back, I guess. The town is right on a bay that opens out into the Atlantic, and you can just see blue for miles and miles. The day was sunny, but absolutely frigid, so we spent most of the morning trying to find the sunniest café in town until it was time to head towards the finish line. After we congratulated Patrick and his running buddies, it was time to head to a restaurant for lunch….at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The Spaniards have a very different timetable, to put it mildly. Lunch is at 2 or 3, and then dinner is at 10 or 11 o’clock at night. We had a reservation for 23 at a restaurant where the Canterots go for all their family celebrations.
The meal started with Tapas, which in this case meant Serrano ham, shrimp “a la plancha”, calamari, and red basque peppers stuffed with cheese and fish and then fried. For the main course, I took Christine’s recommendation and went with the merlu a la sauce verte, which is a local fish cooked with clams and white asparagus and a sauce made from parsley and garlic. It
was absolutely delicious, as all the food in Europe tends to be. Before the tapas started, Patrick leaned over and told me “We’re waiting for Esmerelda.” “Is that the owner of the restaurant?” I asked, clueless. “No,” he answered, “it’s the wine!” Of course, silly me. As most of you know, I’m a bit of a white wine snob, but this was actually very good. The meal lasted a good 3 and a half hours, during which time Laurence and Elsa declared the waitresses “mean” for failing to give them enough bread. Are they French or what?
Monday marked the start of a student strike at the University that should last until Friday. Sabine said there was a huge meeting about it with over 2,000 students, and that it was pretty much split right down the middle as to whether they should strike or not, but the slim majority in favor won out. They’re angry with a law Sarkozy has passed that would allow privatization of the universities. The transportation industry, the SNCF, is also indefinitely on strike, and the middle and high school professors are supposed to go on strike on the 20th.
In more uplifting news,
Napoleon
The little Corsican that could work is flying along on the studio the Canterots are building, and once it’s finished, I get to move in. It’ll have its own bathroom, and a mini kitchen and desk and such. I’m super excited, and I don’t mind all the extra noise around the house as electricians and plumbers come and go. Be expecting a moving day post by the end of the month!
Since I don’t have any new photos from St. Sebastian this week, I’ll just leave you with some more of Corsica….because really, it’s just that amazing.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0482s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb