When I exited the metro this morning at Bellevue on my first morning back after vacation I was relieved to not be greeted by angst-y high schoolers on strike, make-shift trash bin and duct tape obstacles or the French SWAT team as I was in the preceding weeks. While the national strike against the retirement reform isn’t officially over, I guess the kids have had their fun and dropped it like last season’s Benismons. Here, even striking goes out of style. I am still very much liking work but wish it was a bit more regular. When I made my introductions to all the classes in the first few weeks all the students seemed very excited and interested in coming to my classes, however my attendance has been way low and I’m not altogether sure they know what classrooms we meet in either. I tried explaining this to one of my colleagues today, and how I felt that it was difficult to get in the rhythm of teaching, knowing the students and their differing language levels and formulate productive lessons what with recent "irregularities." She waved her hand and rolled her eyes at that, as if having the school literally barricaded and half the staff and even less students show up for weeks on end, the French police surrounding the place at 7am, then everyone taking a 10 day vacation (for no apparent reason) was, though slightly disruptive, an otherwise normal October for them, and told me not to worry about it. Geez, I remember being stressed out about missing one period of high school. I can’t even imagine what would happen if this occured in the States, the Superintendent would probably declare some sort of Educational Marshall Law and hold 12 hour school days 7 days a week. I digress.
Vacation was really nice. I stayed in Toulouse for the first few days, (starting last Friday,) then my friend Emma (who I mentioned I studied abroad with in Rennes and who is now teaching there as well) came to Toulouse with her friend who she went to college with in Maine who happened to study abroad here in Toulouse. Got all that? So we spend Wednesday to Saturday in Toulouse and Emma’s friend Sarah introduced me to some French friends she had made when she studied here which was great as I’m always trying to expand my Froggie network. Saturday morning Emma and I took the TGV up to Rennes with relatively no problems, by French-on-strike living standards. As sad as it is, I never really believe a train is coming until I see it pull up. We took a really nice TGV to Nantes then changed to a sort of commuter rail that runs throughout Brittany. On that second train we were not guaranteed seats, and since some of the other trains had been cancelled because of the strike, it was also overpopulated; (As it is if you train here suddenly goes on strike, you can use your already paid for ticket to enter any other train,) there were people all over the aisles, stairs and doorways. Luckily this train was only an hour as the atmosphere was less than calm cool and collected. Mothers were climbing over appendages and suitcases, bouncing their babies up and down the aisles trying to keep them occupied and comfortable One particular lady got into a dispute (to put it nicely) with one of the conductors going around validating tickets. I didn’t start actively listening till it really started getting interesting and thus missed the point of contention. I’m pretty sure the woman was screaming (yes, screaming) about paying 50 euros for her ticket and having to sit on the floor without a seat. She had to have been in the wrong about something though because the conductor wrote her a citation at the end of the ordeal which by that time lasted a good ten minutes, and I’m pretty sure you can’t get a citation for arguing as that is something of the national sport here. The kicker was that at then end once the conductor had left the train car, the woman exclaimed “Sorry to the nonsmokers, but I’m having a cigarette” and proceeded to light up in the train car. That at least cleared the mothers and children out. Only in France.
Rennes was a ton of fun, Emma and I went out to all the old bars and restaurants we hung out at when we studied there and it felt like no time had passed. Saturday night we sort of hit the ground running and went to our favorite bar on Rue de la Soif (literally “Street of Thirst,” a pedestrian road crammed full of bars which Rennes, who to be frank has a reputation as a city of alcoholics, is infamous for). After the bar closed, our friend who works there took Emma and I to this really cool concert venue where there was a battle of the DJ’s happening complete with lasers and strobe lights. Pretty cool. Halloween passed pretty uneventfully, there was a costume party thrown by one of the teaching assistants in Rennes which Emma and I went to for a bit. It just wasn’t the same as American Halloween although I still requisitely ate enough candy corn to make me want to be sick the next day and thus hold me over until next season. Monday was Touissaint and therefore a jour fériér or holiday, and I spent the entire day with my old host family at their house. Emma and I headed over at noon for “lunch” with my host parents, their 2 daughters Margaux and Mathilde, and the new student they’re hosting. I’m definitely getting the hang of these 7-hour lunches and didn’t plan anything else for the rest of the day. It was so wonderful to see them again and I definitely got a little choked up when they opened the door to my old house! I was extremely nervous for some reason walking over there up my old street from the metro stop. I didn’t know if my French was going to be good enough to keep conversation flowing, or if it would feel weird coming back, I was also hoping my language had improved since I had stayed with them. I quickly realized how ridiculous the worrying was because as soon as I saw them I felt immediately at home. The girls are obviously two years older but still have the same dynamic personalities and they weren’t shy at all with me. My host mom made an amazing meal that we ate outside (unheard of for Brittany in November). We then went for a walk and threw a Frisbee around a nearby park, then came back for tea and more chatting, it was dark by the time Emma and I left.
I took the train back Wednesday bright and early and was not deprived of yet another conductor-customer dispute. I guess tensions are running high.
Last night one of the assistants in Toulouse threw a costume birthday party for Marie Antoinette whose actually birthday was on Election Day (ironic?), the 2nd. It was funny and nice to get in touch with everyone again after vacation. A lot of the Spanish assistants had gone back home to Spain as it is so close, some people traveled in France, some farmed on local farms nearby through the organization WWOOF (something I really want to do), and some more adventurous assistants went to other countries. I have neither the funds or desire to leave so soon, not when there’s so much to see in Too-loose!
That’s all for now. Bisous!
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