I did what I promised myself I would never do. I gave the teacher speech--the "I work so hard on fun lessons, but you don't appreciate them." / "You disrespect me when you talk and don't pay attention to me"/ "I don't get paid enough for this," and I almost made it to, "I'm not doing this for my health," before I stopped myself. Then and there I transformed into every teacher I have disliked (and a few of them I did). But the kids were really out of hand. Maybe it's because everyone's antsy for the vacation next week or because the first fun introductory lessons are over and now we are having to get to the actual boring meaty business finance (or whatever subject it is) English. One of my French friends told me that it is normal for French students to be disrespectful and to send text messages during class or sleep or talk or whatever, but I have been spending too much time and energy on my lessons for that. Anyway, all that's to say that I am VERY ready for the vacation next week, and even though I've only been working 6 weeks, I feel that I have earned it.

"I will teach Kate Spanish, and you can teach her English," Elena, Carlos' little sister, told me the other day. She's pretty excited that I am coming, especially because she knows I will be bearing gifts. I can't wait for the vacation--I have plenty of class stuff to do the next few days and plenty of things to do before I leave so hopefully the next few days will fly by.

My flight is on Saturday morning, but I will be leaving on Friday night to go stay with Helen in Metz because my shuttle leaves from there at 5 a.m. It will be nice to get to see her and to spend a little time in Metz--we will probably also get to hang out with some other friends who are still there. My route to get to see Carlos is pretty complicated--shuttle from Metz to Frankfurthahn, flight to Sevilla, 5 hour train to Almeria. My way home is a little simpler. Sort of. I fly from Almeria to Madrid and then fly from Madrid to Paris. What I didn't realize, though, is that the airport Ryanair flys into in "Paris" is actually 60 kilometers outside of Paris, and there is a chance that I will miss the last train to Nancy on Monday night. I was pretty stressed when I learned this, but I will just spend a night in a hotel in Paris if I have to and enjoy an evening in the City of Lights. My co-workers are prepared to cover for me if I am late to work on Tuesday morning. Right now, I am officially stopping worrying about the stress of getting there and back and simply imagining myself on the beach.

Ruth and I went to Sarrebourg last weekend, a small town near Germany to go see a Marc Chagall exhibit. It seems kind of random that this tiny city should get a show by such a famous artist. At the tourist office, I asked the woman if there was anything else to see or do in the city, and she said that there were Marc Chagall windows, but that the chapel they were in was closed for construction. I was pretty upset to hear this because, come on, when would I ever go back to Sarrebourg? The exhibit itself was good--it was mostly his paintings for a book called Daphnis and Chloé, and they were not as impressive as the huge oil Biblical paintings of his that I saw in Nice, but they were good. Ruth and I were left the exhibit and were conspiring on a way to disguise ourselves as construction workers to get inside the chapel when we saw someone just walk in. We snuck in backs-against-the-wall Mission Impossible-style when we realized that there was a tour group who had gotten special permission to enter and that we crept in behind them. And wow. It is just one window, but it takes up one entire wall in the chapel. Et voilà!



The consequence of sneaking into the chapel was that the we almost got locked inside--but we did successfully escape and live to tell the tale.