More dinner parties, more wine, more strikes

I forgot to mention in my last entry the celebration of the Nouveau Beaujolais. Each year people celebrate when the new Beaujolais wine becomes available. Someone told me that Beaujolais isn’t very good (and indeed Bethany compared it to the taste of fake banana), but that they just decided to have a festival on the day when the new wine came out every year to sell more, and the French were on board for another celebration so people celebrate all throughout France. I walked into the teacher’s lunchroom to have lunch, and there were wine bottles of Beaujolais on every table. I love this country. That evening there was another Beaujolais tasting at school, and I dragged Carlos along. It was fun, though slightly embarrassing because somehow the entire group that was lost in the woods together (me, Carlos, the school nurse, her daughter, and the math teacher Roger) were reunited. They were all astonished that Carlos and I are dating, and Roger made quite a display about it. “They met at my house! The wedding will have to be at my house...and then another one in Mississippi and another one in Spain!”....Hmm... Anyway, the Beaujolais tradition was fun, and all of the teachers at school were really sweet about sharing the tradition with me.

Tuesday was the teacher strike, and it was less stressful than I thought it would be. I had two out of three of my classes. One of the groups was a little mad because their original teacher was on strike, but their portion of the class still had to come to class because they were with me. Later that afternoon I accidentally ran into the protest in the streets and stopped to watch for a little while. I ran into one of my teachers, who ironically, stopped to talk to make sure that class had gone well that day. I wished her a “bonne manifestation” (“have a good protest”), which I meant somewhat sarcastically, but she happily thanked me and continued to march. Thursday I was told just to have a discussion with one of my classes so I picked the topic of attitudes towards work, just so that I could satisfy my own curiosity about how my students feel about the strikes. Several of them admitted that the French are a lazy people. From what I gather,they thought that the teacher strikes were justified but the transportation ones were not. I did not really understand why they made this distinction. I realize that I sound pretty critical of the French strikes, but I am. I think that there must be more constructive ways of making the government listen.

Saturday I had a potluck Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of my friends. I really wanted to share the holiday with my non-American friends. Plus, being in France where people don’t really celebrate it made me suddenly miss this holiday which I usually don’t care much about. I cooked all day. I made some sweet potato casserole (do not ask me how long it took me to find marshmallows in the French supermarket! I was seriously worried since I obviously couldn’t have Thanksgiving without sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top), which turned out pretty well and some turkey pasta. I had about 15 people show up, representing 10 different countries. It was a lot of fun, though I didn’t know what else to say about what we do in America other than that we eat too much and watch football then eat turkey leftovers for weeks afterwards.

The following day I enjoyed another elaborate meal, though the circumstances were much much stranger. There is a program which links up international students and French families so that the students get a home cooked meal, and the families get to make friends with people from another culture. Carlos had arranged to meet with a French family and asked them if I could come along (and boy is he lucky that I did! otherwise he would have had to face these bizarre people alone!). The woman, who seemed nice enough, came and picked us up and drove us out to the small town that they live in. When we got there, she left us alone with her husband while she cooked. Within a few minutes I was on the phone with his cousin because I had mentioned that I would like to find a job in the United States. The cousin works for the U.S. embassy or something, but thankfully he did not answer, though the man did force me to leave a message with my cell phone number in it. Later on in the meal, the wife was telling me about where she is from in Provence, and I mentioned that I would like to visit Provence one of these days (just to be polite!), and the husband ran to get the phone to call his mother-in-law to ask her if we could come and stay with her. “She lives alone; she won’t mind,” he insisted. Normally, I get a little nervous on the phone with real French people, but this situation was so outlandish that it did not even seem real. So I talked to this man’s mother-in-law and told her that I wanted to visit Provence sometime, I didn’t know when and that I might call her and ask to stay with her. She seemed confused, but I didn’t really care because I figured I would never talk to her again. “Aren’t you lucky that you have a met a French person with so many contacts?” the husband said smugly after the conversation. The meal lasted many many hours through many many courses like all French meals, and the man got crazier and crazier. I would have to say that he is an actual French redneck. He went on a long rant about how much he loved his guns and many other rants about the things he had learned from informational television programs. Interestingly, because of these television programs, he was under the impression that the two biggest religious groups in the US are Mormons and Quakers. I responded by saying, “Oh, Quakers still exist?” Eventually, the couple sent us home....with several pounds of walnuts, the phone number of everyone in their family (after making us promise that we would call them for different sorts of favors), and a promise that they would invite us over again soon. Now we have to figure out if we would rather go through this again or risk offending them. I sort of enjoyed myself, but the whole affair was pretty high on the bizarre scale.

The Christmas Market opened this weekend, and I would have to compare it to the state fair (minus the carnies). They have a few carnival rides and booths with unhealthy food and horrible looking home decorations (the sort of things that you see in peoples’ houses and say “where on earth do you buy something like that?”) They also have some nice things, though, and the festive atmosphere is nice.

Saturday one of my teachers had me and Carlos over for dinner. He was nervous after all of the strange dinners we have had with French people, but this one turned out to be normal, and it was cool to get a picture of normal family life. Sunday we went to the flea market, which was marvelous, of course.

It is usually rainy here...I am starting to forget what the sun looks like

"Je ne veux plus travailler." Some French grafiti I saw..."I don't want to work anymore."

I am very sorry that I have not updated my blog in so long. It has been a weird, complicated few weeks. I am finally in my apartment with internet, but for some reason I can’t update my blog from my room, which means I have to drag my computer to the train station in order to update. Anyway, here’s the run-down of the past few weeks...

The move to my new apartment was, well stressful. I scrubbed every inch of my room in the Foyer Carrefour(partially because when Shamiran moved out they threatened to fine her for a speck of dust left in the room) and then when they checked my room, the guy hardly looked at it and didn’t care. The original friendly luggage helper from Carrefour helped me get a load of luggage across town, which was very very wonderful of her. Then when we got here, the horrible landlord said he didn’t realize I was moving in that day, even though I had made an appointment with him, and I had made sure that I should come “avec mes valises, pour demanager.” With my suitcases, to move in. There was only one room available, and since Helen had paid her deposit, and I hadn’t, she got a room, and I didn’t. And I was very mad...even though the man said he’d put me up in a hotel for a week until my room is ready. But then, I saw my hotel, and it’s very nice. Comfy bed, television, kitchen, bathtub...so even though I am sad that I couldn’t spend the vacation getting settled or traveling like I’d planned, I spent it watching television and luxuriating in my room.

Saturday I went to a nearby city called Nancy with some of my foyer friends. Nancy is Metz’s rival, and it is very pretty and very “French” while Metz is very staunch and German. Place Stanislaus is the historic center of the city with beautiful statued buildings and nice gardens (even the bushes in this area twirl...I think it’s because they feel pretty...or maybe because they are on rotating wheels, who knows). I went some museums and saw lots of pretty Art Nouveau stained glass windows and furniture. Random funny thing in the city--As we were walking along a street full of stores, we saw a bunch of random stuff on the street--fresh shrimp scattered all over the sidewalk power tools, and some items of mens clothing--the result of a domestic dispute above.

Carlos spent most of the week in Paris with his family, but he sent me an email every night he was gone, and I met him at the train station when he got home, and we spent a lot of the vacation together after that. We are dating exclusively now. I am not saying anything else about this because he found the link to my blog...

Last week I finally got moved into my apartment. I like it, even though the location is not the best, and the apartment is small. The street I am on is loud, and I can hear the trains come, but the apartment itself is nice, and I finally have internet! I am not fully unpacked, but it feels really nice to have a place of my own. I will put up pictures as soon as I clean up...

Last weekend I went to a party that some assistants had in Verdun, and I have to say it felt really weird to go to a city known for an enormous number of WWI casualties in order to go to a party. The party was fun, and I got to know some more assistants, especially some who are stationed a little bit further away from Metz.

Last Wednesday we had our second day of orientation, which was good because I got a few lesson ideas from everyone else and because I was reunited with some of my assistant friends I hadn’t seen in a while (though the turnout was smaller than at the last orientation, presumably because of the transportation strikes). We convinced our Welsh friend Jemma who teaches in the middle of nowhere to come back this weekend, so last night Jemma, Nabila, and Bethany, and I hung out and laughed so hard that we all lost our voices and felt ill , and hopefully tonight is going to be similar.

There have been about a bazillion strikes lately...maybe you have been hearing about them in the states? The most annoying ones are the transportation strikes, though these haven’t really affected me much because I don’t take trains for buses very often--I just walk everywhere. But I have had to watch my friends, especially ones who live in tiny towns outside of Metz really struggle getting where they need to go. In case you aren’t aware, the reason that the public sector is striking is because the government has proposed changing the retirement system. Right now, people with certain “high stress” jobs are allowed to retire early (as early as 50), but the government wants to change this, and I really think it’s because it can’t sustain such a heavy system. On Tuesday, the teachers are striking, which will be interesting. It has been so strange to sit in the teacher’s lounge and hear them so casually discuss if they are going to strike or not. I am required to show up to work, or else they will think I’m striking too. I’m just hoping that I don’t have to teach for any of the teachers who are striking.

Currently the university students are also on strike because the universities might be privatized(every division except for Carlos’ so he still has to go to class, ha). I am having trouble understanding how the student strikes actually really affect anyone other than themselves, though I do understand that striking does bring attention to their cause. I was at the university a few days ago, and I saw how the students had piled up furniture in behind the doors so no one can get in. When I asked language exchange Carlos about the strikes, he told me that he thought that the number of French strikes is blown out of proportion by the media, but I definitely disagree. There are strikes all of the time. There has got to be a better way for