Vacances de Toussaint

France is great. Last Friday the Vacances de Toussaint (All Saints Vacation) began, and it lasts for about a week and a half. Since the vacation started cecil and I have been having a lot of fun. It actually started off on a very interesting note. I woke up on friday morning, was in the middle of taking a shower, and then my roomate cecil knocks on the bathroom door and says 'Uh tom, we have a new roomate'. I was pretty shocked, but just responded 'Uh OK!'. The school did not warn us but, apparently a spanish assistant was coming to live with us in our apartment. So Cecil and I spent the morning cleaning up and moving all of his stuff into my room - the apartment is a 2 bedroom, but they are squeezing 3 people into it. I don't mind too much, since the rent is really cheap, but it was definitely a surprise. The spanish assistant's name is Milena and she is 29, from Columbia. Her french is really good since she has already been an assistant last year, and has been living in France for a year now. She goes to university in Caen 3 days a week, and will be helping at the same school as me on the 2 other days. She is nice, but having 3 people share an apartment is a lot different/more difficult than just 2. The fridge is stuffed to the limit, the washing machine is going constantly, and the dishes get used up pretty quickly. But I suppose it's something everyone has to get used to; I'm learning how important the skill of living with people really is - especially in an apartment where english is not the language spoken most often.

About France...
So this week has been nice, because milena has been going to Caen (another big city 20 mins away) for university on monday and tuesday so we have had some time to ourselves. In fact on monday we decided we have to get out, so we went to deauville. It was only a 20 minute train ride (2.90 euros!) to the beach, and this city is basically a ritzy beach town. The thing was we didnt realize it was going to be the worst weather EVER. Instead we brought our swimsuits, a nice picnic lunch in our backpacks, and short-sleeve t-shirts. All of a sudden while we walking through town, it absolutety POURRRED and we got drenched! Out backpacks, our jeans, even the baguette that we were eating got soggy. But we just laughed and continued walking to beach. Nothing was going to stop us from swimming in the ocean. And so we did. AFter a quick baguette cheese and salami lunch, we changed into our swimsuit, and ran to the ocean and dove straight in! You can probably imagine - its very similar to the oregon coast in the winter. Something normal people just dont swim in, but we did and it was very memorable! and cold!

Just yesterday we decided to leave lisieux again and go into Caen, just me and cecil, because I discovered online that there was a soccer game on wednesday night - Caen vs. Nice. Although cecil doesnt love soccer, he was content to come along and we both got pretty into the game. Although the caen team is no where near as big as a soccer club as Liverpool, the atmosphere was still really great. We got tickets for 10 euros each, and got to sit right near the raucas crazy young hooligans who were standing up and singing songs the whole game, some with their shirts off. And it was COLLLD. I dont know how they did it. Im guessing alcohol could have been invovled. anyway the game ended 1-1 and i was very glad to watch my first european soccer game in a stadium. I hope there is many more...Since the game was late, there were no trains back to lisieux from cean. but we had already planned for that and reserved a 'cheap' hotel - it was 32 euros total, 16 each, but had only one bed and a shower in the room with no curtains. hahhaha. we opted not to shower, but the bed was fine cuz i have slept in a doulbe bed like that with 2 other guys before (college trips to san fransisco and lss vegas come to mind)!! It was a great trip, and we just got back to lisieux this morning. However, we reserved another night in the hotel for friday (tomorrow) becuase cecil bought two tickets to go to a pretty famous french/english musician who has a concert on friday night. Her name is Camille, you may have heard of her. It will be interesting because i think she makes music with her body parts, as well as of course singing, but I will just be glad to bet out of our apartment and explore more of caen again.

I guess thats it for now. Cecil and I have decided that we have to start planning trips to take and do in our 2 week vacations that we have free, because everyone says you can get really cheap tickets if you purchase in advance. since the next two week break is during the christmas holidays, i dont know if i can go anywhere with him, since i might be celebrating it in the alps with uncle john. But for februrary we our looking at train tickets to the south of france, specifically to NICE, which is supposed to be beautiful. We were thinking of spending 3 days exploring that area (day trips to Monaco and Antibes), then taking a train across the border into Italy (GENOVA). And from there,we would spend the rest of the week on this great hike that cecil found in his travel book. Its called cinque terre, and it's basically a hike (not too hard) through small Italian villages on the coast line and it looks absolutely beautiful, and it says since its not really a touristy place, its cheaper so that sounds great. Then were thinking of getting a ryan air from pisa back to paris at the end of the hike. We want to do at least one big trip each 2 week vacation (once every two months) and then smaller weekend trips via ryan air at least once a month. For the april trip we were thinking of going to scotland (edinbourgh) to visit his friend, but it could be nice to visit greece, or spain might be really beautiful. Theres plenty of time to decide though. That's it for now :). I have included some pictures.


Deauville, notice the gray clouds looming.



Cecil and me.


Behold La Manche (The Channel).


The beautiful harbor between deauville and trouville.

La vie est belle

So fixing up the internet at our apartment has been the most frustrating thing to set up ever. I dont kno why it really has to be this complicated in france, it's almost as if they enjoy it. i swear ive gone to that french telecom store 4 times and i'm still really confused. but yesterday it was nice because my favorite classof guys, who i eat lunch with in the cafeteria, walked with me at lunch time into the city so they could help me out with the fast speaking french emlpoyees at France Telecom. But we found out the store was closed until 2 pm which was the time the store re-opened after lunch. all of them had class at 2, but they stayed to help and skipped a class to help me which was really nice of them. i finally got my carte blue from my bank which is the credit card yesterday (which was the only thing holding me back from the internet), but after talking to the guy i discovered we have to re-open the phone line for 110 euros, then pay 40 euros a month for just internet and phone - which seems expensive, but then again internet in the apartment would be really helpful for creating lesson plans, keeping in touch with everyone, and buying plane/train tickets online. anyway it was confusing and the reason it takes so long is because the store is reallllly crowde and we dont understand everything at the stores! As of now, a technician is coming this week, but because its France, it will take a month before it actually works in the apartment!!!! Somethings about France really frustrate me like the customer service and the bureaucracy of opening any account (i had to sign and initial 20 pages before i could have a bank account).

But France is great in a lot of other ways too. I have been really enjoying our weekend adventures. Cecil and i have been finding cheap train rides and bus rides to nice normandy cities on the weekends. Last weekend we took a bus to Honfleur, which is this cute little fishing village on the coast. We hiked to the top of the biggest hill, and ate chesse, avocado, and ham baguette sandwhiches (i dont think i will ever get sick of french food), and admired the view. Then just this weekend we went to a much bigger city called Rouen, the city where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake! We saw the church dedicated to her, and we also visited the museum of Beaux Arts (fine arts) and got to see some Monet!!! I didnt think i was much of a museum/art guy, but i enjoyed the paintings a lot more than i thought i would. I wish i could have taken some of them home with me. Suffice it to say we have been loving the weekends. And guess what, at the end of this week, we have a 10 day vacation because its the vacances de Toussaints (all saints vacation). God I love the french school system.

Random story: My roomate Cecil says really funny things like the otehr day he was talking about the musical CATS and how ridiculous of idea it was. he was thinking...what do they do throughout the play? just lick temselves and meow a lot? well we found the dvd in FRENCH at the mediatheque (the library), and we spent a night watching the movie, drinking cidre (a local alcoholic specialty of normandy) and laughing at how ridiculous it was!!! we also love going to the supermarket and bakeries, so we make up lame excuses to go everyday or everyother day.

The night life in lisieux doesnt really exist. There is one club but I havent gone yet, and the students all tell me that its not that good in lisieux, and i should go to other cities for discotheques. it doesnt bother me too much, because cecil is not much of a partier and so i dont really feel the need, since we buy wine cidre and beer chez nous. Thats all for now.

Bikeride to DDay beaches

Last Friday was the best day i think we've had here. Me and my roomate cecil had the day off cuz i dont have work on fridays, and we took a train to bayeux - which is closer to the ocean but not right on the coast. it is the city that has this famous 70 meter long tapestry. so there are a lot of tourists for a town of only 13,000. but we were wanting a less touristy visit, plus we were cheap, so we didnt see the tapestry and instead rented bikes and biked all the way to the dday beaches. it took us about an hour, but we passed corn fields, small villages, cows, horses, french cafes, locals, and the sun was out and it was just gorgeous. i said ti cecil OUR WE REALLY DOING THIS, is this real? cuz it was just so beautiful, and we were biking in france to the beach! then we could see the blue ocean on the horizon, and we just zoomed down hill into this cute little village called arromanches. It was really an epic journey. We also brought baguettes, cheese, and salami in the bag, as well as yogurt and rice and we had a picnic just watching the waves and all the historic things on the dday beach like old boat parts. Then we put our swim suits on and went swimming - but we were the only ones, i think people thought we were a little crazy but thats alright. we had a sweet time, took so many videos and photos. Then we strolled around the small town for a bit, before riding back to bayeux. it was truly a memorable day - one i wont forget for a while. The nexy day we were tired from our epic journey, so we stayed in lisieux. This weekend we might go someplace, the people in caen want to see us, but cecil and i are quite content not to be around too many americans, and explore stuff on our own. we just laugh a lot - he cracks me up cuz he's really expressive in a sarcastic way. and together we are good cuz we will just dive right in and say hi to french people, try to start up conversations and laugh a lot when we mess up. they are pretty nice though once u try speaking french. anyway thats it for now, classes are nice. i like helping the french students. its really not too hard yet. im also lookin forward to going to london in november in a month, to see uncle john and all the people from christmas that i saw. oh yea an about internet, we found out from someone else that if we use a differnet company it would cost only 20euros for the installation, and 30 euros a month - oh yea plus it comes with phone service so i could call the us for cheap (maybe unlimited), and 30 mins for cellphones free. also comes with a few tv channels, hopefully some soccer! but most importantly internet. the only drawback is its a year contract so i would have to pay for months after i leave, but i think its worth it to get it. plus im thinking of staying til the end of june now, cuz thats when cecil is done with his contract and i could probably stay in our apartment with him til then, so i could still have internet. but im not sure, that would be 9 months instead of 7 months. But I am just loving France so much that i think i might stay, and maybe reapply for the same program next year. Maybe go to the south of france next time :). Bye for now...


The famous bayeux tapestry. We only walked passed the sign sadly. The next time in Bayeux I'm sure we will see it.


In the front you can see the two bikes we rented, and in the back of course 'La Manche' (the channel). This is the Dday beach of Arromanches


baguette + Normandy Beaches + Sun = awesome


Here's part of a huge ship left from the invasion.

Life in Normandy & in a High School!

Im sorry i've been so busy lately - i havent been able to get onto internet much for a long period of time. but now im in a cafe in lisieu, the only one open on sunday! but yea im hear with cecil and lizzi. Cecil my roomate is really really nice. hes really freindly - from washington, artsy and interested in museums, festivals, and traveling so I think our time in france is going to be very memorable. hes interested in things i do even if he doesnt like soccer hes like YEA lets go totally. and i would go with him to see a camille concert (french singer) so we're getting a long really well. and lizzi is the british girl (another assistaant in another high school, but she also lives in lisieux). She's nice so we 3 anglophones havee been hanging out together, but also speaking french with the locals. anyway what else. i went to the first day of classes - there were five of them. it was pretty simple i just sat in front of the class and they asked me questions about america, oregon, my hobbies, my music interests, if america was like American Pie the movie, if i have a girl friend etc. They were mostly pretty interested, but their english was really poor, at a low level. I liked the classes with more 16 17 18 year old guys cuz they were not as shy to ask questions, where as the girl classes asked very few qeustions! it was not bad at all. and then there was another class called BTS which are the people after lycee, aged 20, 21, some 22 but their english isnt that good either. the guys were asking me if i like clubs though, and gave me an address for a club they go to on thursdays haha, all were pretty helpful and friendly. i pretended i knew zero french so they were forced to try their english. Oh yea and the first class i was in the 16, 17 year old guys class, were the friendliest and funniest - they invited me afterward to have lunch with them in the cantine, or cafeteria, and one guy richard who had the best english was trying to communicate with me and ask me all these questions. their group is really nice. they know another girls group - and the girls were really shy to meet me in the cantine, but they did the bisous (kisses on the cheek) it was funny. but they like me and cecil, and play guitar on their breaks and are always eager to have lunch together and play the guitar with us in the hallways.

whatelse - k quickly... me and cecil decided to go to Caen (a much bigger city than lisieux!!) yesterday - we took a train in and met some of the elementary school assistants cecil met at orientation. a really freindly girl from new zealand emma had us over, and invited all the other assistants who were mostly american. there were about 7 of them. i think they had aparty last night were recovering from hangovers saturday haha but they were nice, one guy was from missouri, one girl from califronia, one from michigan, and another from alabama, newyork. it wouldd be nice to visit them from time to time, if we are in caen because caen is really a nice city. its a lot bigger than lisieux. and i wanted to watch the caen cs. marseille soccer game with cecil in the stadium but i discovered at the office de tourisme that it was an away game that night, playing in marseille. Oh Well, another time. ill post pictures when i get internet in the apartment, but still wont have a bank account til wednesday, so internet not til later.

im starting to like to explore a lot more though with cecil, we like to go around and travel so im happy about that. this weekend we want to go to Bayeux and also visit the D-Day beaches. Its perfect because i get fridays off, so i have 3 day weekends to travel and see as much as possible!! im liking our set up though, and the classes so far, so if i really like it i might decide to stay somehwere in france for the summer and reapply for this program next year, but yea that would be a lot of time in europe without coming back to the states, so i dont know if im gonna do that, there is still a lot of time. but part of me is thinking, why not, europe is so great, and while im young if i was in europe for two years it would be really cool. thats it for now. more to come...