Wednesday I ran into one of the teachers I worked with in Metz in centre ville in Nancy, and upon seeing me she almost had a heart attack from surprise.  I guess when I didn't come back to Metz, everyone assumed I went back to the US.  I was under the impression that language exchange Carlos with whom I am still in touch, would have informed everyone, but apparently not.  She was most excited to hear that Carlos and I are still together (jumping and down and clapping), and she encouraged me to come back to Metz to hang out with the teachers from Cormontaigne since I was pretty close to a lot of them.  Running into someone I have known for a while definitely makes me feel less like I am a foreign culture.  That is not to say that I feel out of place here, but that seeing someone I know makes me feel a little less transitional.

Thursday was my friend JP's birthday so we all got together and had a big birthday dinner for him, which was lovely, but I was out a little late despite my early class.  Had class all day Friday and then had to run home and get ready for Thanksgiving.  It was a potluck so I didn't have TOO much work to prepare for it.  I prepared the sweet potato casserole and the turkey.  I am probably going to Thanksgiving hell.  It was bad enough when I bought pre-seasoned frozen turkey breasts, but then when the guest list got out of control last minute I ran to the store and had to get frozen turkey nuggets.  My profoundest apologies to the pilgrims and Indians currently rolling in their graves.  We had a turn out of about 16 people, representatives of 5 countries, I think.  It was a lot of fun, although parties are always a little bit less fun when you are playing hostess.  I bought construction paper and made everyone make Indian headdresses, because in my opinion, you can't dive right into the holiday without understanding all of the arts and crafts and pilgrim and Indian pageants we had wearing decorated brown paper bags that we underwent as children.  The party was very festive with lots of good food, and of course we all said what we were thankful for.  The only casualty of the evening was my bed which broke (well it was already sort of broken) under the weight of a lot of people sitting on it.  At the end of the party, my friend S  (half French half Ghanan but grew up in London) told me how much they enjoyed it and really appreciated the premise of the holiday and intends to continue to celebrate it in the future.

My alarm went off early on Saturday, and at first I thought I'd set it on accident, but then remembered that it was for my trip to Trier.  My three closest friends were slated to go as well, but I felt sure that after we all stayed out late Thursday and Friday that someone wasn't going to make it to the train station.  Surprisingly we all made it and had a lovely day abroad.  Trier is the oldest city in Germany so there are some interesting Roman ruins and a lot of things that date from emperor Constantine.  In the gorgeous cathedral there is what is supposedly Jesus' seamless cloak is kept, which I was not able to really see since they only take it out every 50 years or so.  I did however, see the thingy that it is kept in, which was pretty neat.

We spent most of the day at the Christmas markets, which were really impressive and hold their place as my favorites thus far (better than Strasbourg, Colmar, Metz, and Nancy).  We even ran into the king of Ghana who made an appearance at the markets.  The funniest thing about being in Germany was for the first time in a long time I was almost completely linguistically unequipped.  I had made the faulty assumption that among the four of us cultured people we would have enough German to get by, but all we were able to muster was "hello" "goodbye" "excuse me" "I have a little table" "my name is..." "applesauce with prunes" numbers through ten and a few other useless expressions.   I know that a lot of Germans speak English, but we didn't seem to find any of them, which left us (rather comically) struggling to communicate.  It's funny because even in Spain I am able to communicate although maybe not smoothly, though usually in public I don't need to since I have Carlos.  It was just kind of shocking after dedicating so much of my time to language learning (and teaching!) to suddenly be somewhere without a single word.

I will try to publish some pictures from Tgiving and Germany soon!

ça tombe...

Et voilà...the snow is falling and has been since yesterday morning.  It has just started to stick a little.  I dislike the cold and the snow, but there is something intriguing about watching it fall from the chaleur of my apartment, since I have only seen it a few times in my life.  I can only remember it snowing a few times in Metz, and that was really in the heart of winter.  Several people have told me that this winter will be a doozie, but I don't know if they were being serious or just teasing me.  

I have really been missing Metz lately, and at first I thought I was just missing all of my wonderful friends there, but I have good friends and plenty of fun here, and I've finally figured out what it is.  You cannot recreate your first year living abroad.  Everything is a mystery and a surprise, and it's all frustrating and exciting to unravel.  Learning about French traditions and holidays and discovering the culture for the first time was wonderful.  This year knowing the ropes has its own advantages of course.  I have felt less lost and more in control.  But I am missing the discovery of my first year-first taste of brie, first fête du nouveau beaujolais, etc.  Maybe next year I will move to a new country so I can have that again...

Yesterday I cooked Mexican food for all of my friends.  The last three weekends have resulted in me cooking for my friends, and after my lasagne of last week, and my tabouli and spinach pies of last year, no one believes that I am not a good cook.  I might not be a lost cause after all.  

'Tis the season...

of strikes.  I was reading one American writing about living in France who noted that every year the French strike about the same things.  Usually the most annoying ones are the transportation ones, but I have yet to witness a garbage strikes.  This year the plane strikes have been worse than the train ones. I am hoping that this is all resolved before my holiday travels . My poor roommate Bérèngere's teachers and the people who give her internships are all on strike.  This is her last year of speech therapy school, and she doesn't know if she will be able to graduate.  

Tis also the beginning of holiday season.  The Christmas markets open this week, and like Metz, Nancy is covered in lights and decorations.  It seems strange to me that the energy-conscious French would waste so much electricity, but then I remember that cities close to Germany like Nancy, Metz, and Strasbourg do a good tourism business this time of year with the Xmas markets and festive atmosphere.

Friday I am having a Thanksgiving meal for my friends like last year.  Making sweet potato casserole.  Last year Carlos mashed all of the potatoes. This year I will have to do it myself.  Pooh.

The good news is that things are winding down at work, although I am having to make up some exams which isn't easy.  Still, I should have more time to relax which is pretty needed.

Snow  is predicted this weekend. Ugh.

"Mister O"--Peut-il changer le monde?

I feel the need to say something profound about the elections. It does not need to be said that I am ecstatic about the result. On Tuesday I didn't plan to stay awake to watch the results--but at 6 a.m. on Wednesday I was woken up by people honking through the streets in excitement. The reaction here isn't what expected, though. I thought that people would be simply happy that the Bush's terms were over--that the war in Iraq will end sooner rather than later and that the United States will be more cooperative on the international front.

But the election means a lot more than that over here. A LOT of my non-American friends cried when Barack Obama was declared the winner. Last night I watched a television show with a bunch of pundits discussing whether or not "Mister O" can change the world. It sounds strange, but people think that the election in the US will somehow have direct impacts upon their own lives.

There is also the racial significance. My own reaction is to be pessimistic about the "racial revolution" of his election. Bush made it really easy for a Democrat to get elected, and Obama's strength in economics helped a lot too. But just because a majority of Americans voted for a candidate of African origins doesn't mean that the politics of race have changed a lot in the US. But people here of all origins have interpreted this as hope for better relations between people of all nationalities. My own hope (after hearing friends and family telling me about people in Mississippi saying that Obama is the antichrist and threatening to move to South America or wherever...) is that people in the US who do not believe in racial equality will change their attitudes once Obama's policies and changes start positively affecting them. Maybe as people here hope--this will somehow ameliorate race relations worldwide too.

In light of the elections peoples' reactions to me have changed too. I was at a Middle Eastern grocery store the other day, and (as always, no matter how good my French is...) my accent attracted attention, and he asked where I was from. "Oh!! We are all SO HAPPY about the election! Even the children!" It strikes me as strange that people are so quick to forget the hostilities they had towards Americans during the Bush administration, and their reaction has changed into something closer to praise---as if I personally have done something to better their lives. I can't tell you how many times since the election I have heard people say the word "revolution" and have talked about how the world is now moving in a positive direction.

My initial reaction to all of this is that Barack Obama cannot live up to the hype. BUT I have been reading a lot about how he is trying to immediately reverse a lot of Bush's policies that were moving the country backwards so I am hopeful that he will be able to change a lot. As for how much he can change on the world stage--I am not sure. I think that at least there will be a different world atmosphere. The US domination of international foreign policy caused a lot of uneasiness over here, and I think at the very least a great international spirit of cooperation will be at least one positive affect for people here.

Anyway that's all I will say about politics for now. It is not my intention to put up a politicized blog, but to give you the reactions of people in France about what's going on...

There is really not a whole lot to tell about the rest of my trip to Almeria. Carlos and I didn't even end up celebrating our anniversary at all because it was too rainy to go anywhere. We ate more tapas, watched a bunch of movies and bummed around town--normal stuff.

I did make it back to Nancy without having to spend the night in Paris, but it took a whole day of planning to succeed at this. I knew I wouldn't have time to check my bag so I had to be very sneaky about how to get my too big backpack on the plane. This involved making sure not to go to the desk of the woman who made everyone check their bag for size, walking sideways or backwards so the airline workers couldn't see how enormous my backpack was, etc. It also included running through Paris (again!) from one station to another--but I did it!

I told my friends that when I got back from Spain that we would need to hang out a lot so that I could surmount my inevitable post-vacation depression--and they have followed through. We have gone out almost every night for the past week. Friday night we went to a symphony concert which featured a famous violinist. I met some American girls in the bathroom who joined us, and later Ruth came with a friend who was visiting her who--turns out I went to high school with (proving once again that it is a small world--a tiny world in fact). Saturday one friend decided we should all get together for a big Lebanese meal so I cooked tabouli and spinch pies and collaboratively with my friend Kat--falafel. I must say I am proud of of the way everything turned out--especially after my many many recent cooking failures. Maybe there's hope for my cooking future after all.

Friday was my meeting at the Prefecture in order to deliver all of my paperwork to get my carte de sejour. The woman I talked to was unbelievably friendly, nice, and efficient. This almost makes up for the fact that they asked me for a paper which was not on the list of needed papers, and now I have to back and spend all day in the waiting room just to give it to them. In any case, the demarche to get my carte de sejour is started, and once I deliver the last paper, all that will be left for me to do is wait.

Today is a public holiday--Armistice Day, and, and I don't work tomorrow. Off to "profiter" from my free time. Hasta luego