He cornered me with science?

I really like how I just happen to include Manuela on all my really interesting and adventurous plights. She doesn't see my really aweseomely boring days, but she is only present when there is something adventurous going on. She must think I'm some kind of nut case, which wouldn't be far from the truth. But anyway, here we go.

So. There's this chemistry teacher at my school.

Stop thinking what you're thinking cause it's not like that.

He's probably like 35-ish, balding, waay shorter than me and weighs as much as Dean. I could kill him with my bare hands. Wouldn't want to cause he could poison me, but whatev.

Regardless, he's the nicest, sweetest guy on the face of the earth. Aside from Dean, of course :-D. He's always like, "Oh, hi!!! How are you doing? Did you have a good weekend? Have you guys gotten internet yet? I hope things are going well for you!!!!" You can feel the four exclamation points in his voice. A few times he has said to Manuela and I, "You know, I live in Charleville so if you guys ever need ideas of where to go or anything I would be happy to take you around one night." After the third time he said that we decided that it was rude to ignore and so we took him up on his offer earlier tonight.

So earlier this week Manuela, I, and He was in the cafeteria eating our fantabulous lunch. This was the second day he sat with us directly. He said again that if we want ideas on where to go, just let him know and Manuela said, "Well, actually, that would be great! I think I would really like that!" and I said, "Oh yeah, that would be really great!!" And so he said, "Well, awesome! Just drop me a note in my box and we can figure it out." Then Manuela realized that while he told us his name neither of us either comprehended (me) or remembered (her). So, she said, "I would, but I'm sorry but I don't know your name." And then he said, immediately and with a straight face, "James Bond, my name is James Bond." Manuela is like, "Oh, ok great............wait a sec...." Everyone laughs and we figure out his name is Vito. Apparently he's Italian, Sicilian, and with connections to the Gotti family. Who knows.

So later on that night, Manuela and I are eating dinner and we're talking this over. We decide to leave him a note in his box addressed to James Bond and make it all spy-like. I think it would be good to note here that we are figuring this out after sharing most of a bottle of wine. So, instead of him being Agent 007, he is Agent 006.022x10^23 (Avogadro's number, depicting the number of moles in an atom...he's a chemistry teacher, get it?). I felt sooo smart after thinking that up. But anyway, the text of the letter read something like, "Hello James, how are you? Your mission, if you choose to accept it..." and then we put down the date and time and place, "You know who we are" We thought ourselves preeeettttyyy creative and were awesomely proud of ourselves for that one :-D. Mainly cause it was in English. Ha! I win!!

Manuela was the courrier for the hot message and dropped it in his box the next day. He got it later on, laughed, and suggested tonight (Friday) at 9. Manuela said she would check with me to make sure that's ok. She thought it was kinda late, but I said that this is France, the party doesn't start till like 2. She was like, "yeah, you're right..." So we accepted his offer for 9PM tonight.

Let me say that we mock him almost every single day. However, it's not a mean mock like we do to the guy that lives above me (Ah, Ah, I am ze most beautiful man in ze vorld and toute les femmes know it and vant to chouchez avec moi ce soir, mais c'est impossible because I am stupid et arrogante), but rather a "heeheehee...sillly prof de chimie" mock. All on the way to the central square we were mocking him and making fun of him, but we had to stop as soon as we got there because we didn't know if he would overhear or things like that. We were also mokcing the Monsieur qui lives above me quite loudly, so we had to stop that too. France is like one huge gossip column.

So we met him and we drove the 10 feet to this one bar-cafe which is on a barge on the river. It's a really cool place that I will take you guys when you come if you really want to come up to my fair city. But anyway, we all stayed there for a couple hours, had some mulled wine. He didn't drink because apparently the French DUI laws a really super strict. He said, "Oh, yeah, the limit is like .35" and I was like, "You mean .035" and he was like, "No, .35" and I said, "well, maybe in the US we have a different system because in my state thelimit is .08" and he said, "You mean .8" and I said, "No, .08" and I showed him my license 'a safer state with .08!' and he was like,"but that's much weaker than here!' and I was like, "right, and most of the time people can get away with 2 drinks and not reach the limit." Yay conversations about DUIs!!
Manuela did most of the talking here because I had yet to get into French mode and because it was loud I couldn't really hear or understand. She was sitting right next to him so it was easier for her.

After that bar we drove another 30 feet and ended up at this little English pub-like place. It's nice, has good food, and was much quieter. We all talked a bit more, I told them about my fantabulous Eurail pass and how sometimes it's good to not be a citizen of the EU. They said that it's really difficult to get into the US for tourism, and I don't believe them. I also explained why Bush was reelected in 2004. Awesomely fun stuff, I know. Finally, about 1215 we left and he drove us home, which was really nice of him cause he has a pretty nice car.

Speaking of his car he has this cloth covering the seats. It's not part of the seats, but a piece of cloth covering the seats and I don't understand a) why he would have such an ugly scrap of fabric, b) why it is there...is he worried about spills from his nonexistent children? or c) why the color...ecru when his interior is gray. But since I'm not familiar with car vocabulary and he was nice enough to drive us home on a cold night I figured it wouldn't be wise to criticize or literally get left out in the cold.

This prof de chimie is a fairly major character in the story of France. Like I said, we mock him almost every single day and now that we spent more than three hours with the man we have tooons of material. We also thought he was gay for a while but he told us he's not. We didn't ask, but we were talking about the only discotheque in town (which happens to be the gay one) and he said that you need a special member card to get in, but he doesn't have one cause he's straight. Not quite certain of his intentions but that's part of the adventure, n'est-ce pas? Aside from the fact that he's waaay older, balding, and I could crush him with my pinkie toe.
In any course, it's tres late, and I'm going to get going to beddy bye.

Nothing of note has happened of late, aside from that. This wekeend I am going to Brussels, so I am quite excited. Although it was a slight adventure making my reservations today at the train station because the lady had never seen a Eurail pass before and so she didn't quite know how to hande it. 40 minutes later I had my tickets so I guess it all works out, but 40 minutes later. Oy vey.

Thanksgiving Week Extravaganza!!

22 Nov. 2006

So this week is the first Thanksgiving week in my life that I have worked. Seriously. So, I have taken the liberty of actually not working throughout the entire week. I am going to classes and such, but all my classes are playing the same game and getting the same little lecture on the origins of Thanksgiving. That way I get to do as little work as humanly possible, yet still earn my keep. Not to mention I don't think anyone is going to call me on it, especially since it is a holiday and everything. In fact, I have made it well known throughout the teacher's lounge that my brain is taking a week holiday all this week and everyone has said so far, "Oh, that's nice." So I don't care.

The kids think it's awesomely fantabulous. I even got yelled at for them being too loud. Life is good. :-D

I will pick up the turkeys tomorrow at the bucher's and deliver one to Anne and another to our mini-four so I can cook it up before we leave. I also have to make some cranberry sauce tomorrow once I go to the store to get some orange juice. The question is, of course, what to do witht he mini-four considering it's like the little easy bake oven that could. Last week I made brownies in it and usually they take 45 minutes to get done. With our little easy bake oven that could, however, not only were they done but they were also burnt in 10 minutes. I don't know if there's a nuclear reactor or what in our oven, but it gets the job done really awesomely quickly.

It's really good that there are people here that I can celebrate Thanksgiving with because it would suck to be all alone in a little village somewhere. Granted, the only other American in the group is Anne, but we got the others all riled up and they will have their best first Thanksgiving ever!! Turkey, potatoes, cranberries, cookies, brownies, life is good.

IDEA!! I should make my kids write down what they are thankful for!! Excellent!! Now I don't have to play games with them anymore!! Hurrah!! I know, games are fun, but I was getting pretty tired of the game that we were all playing because they would cheat and fun stuff like that. Stupid French high schoolers. They suck.

In any course, I am thankful for my good friends, family, the people I have met here in France, and the opportunity to be here. Yay!

Adventure in Marseille!!

31 October 2006

So these past few days I went down with Manuela and a couple of her German friends, Michael (pronounced Mick-I-Ale) and Nina down to Marseille for a few days. They are still down there but because I leave for Ireland to visit Rina tomorrow I came back yesterday. Yay the TGV!! In any course, I had QUITE the adventure down there because of the crazy hi-jinks that went on.

Cast of Characters:
Me
Manuela
Michael- German boy that I didn’t meet until this trip. We rode down in his car
Nina- German girl that I met on the trip. Very nice. Studied abroad in the UK for a year so excellent English if even with a really awesomely heavy York accent. But understandable. She served as my translator for the group when my French and their English failed.



Day 1- Manuela and I get up at the buttcrack of dawn to catch our bus-yes bus not train- to Reims. They are starting work on the TGV line that will run from Paris to Charleville-Mezieres next June, so a pretty important section of track was basically completely missing from the earth so we had to take a bus. Relaxing ride through the French countryside, would have been better on the train because it would have been an hour shorter but can’t do anything about there not being tracks in the dirt. In Reims we had about an hour from the time we got there to our train to Chaumont so Manuela and I refunded part of our tickets (the lady sold us an extra leg), and because the money was refunded to me I bought her a coke in the bar. We had a nice conversation about the American train system (all three tracks there are) and how the French system is soooo convoluted compared to the German system. I could understand.

The French train system is very convoluted. If you don’t live in Paris, you can tack on an extra 2 hours to your transit time because to get anywhere you HAVE to go through Paris. The only exception I have seen is when I went into Belgium and I could go through Lille. To be honest, however, it would have been faster to go the 2.5 hours into Paris and then catch a bullet train to Lille. Ah well…

Caught our train and then had a nice little train ride to Chaumont. Manuela tried rice pudding for the first time. She bought it at the supermarket the day before as a snack on the train. She didn’t quite know what to make of it and the fact that it had not been refrigerated for at least 6 hours didn’t help matters. I thought it was alright, just warm rice pudding. She did not warm to the idea. Made myself sandwiches which was a super fantabulous idea because I could then have lunch and dinner the next day for free!! Yay freeness!! In our train compartment there was a boy about 16 years old traveling alone. It was cute because his mom waited outside the window and came into the compartment a few times while the train was still at the station to make sure he was alright. It seemed as though once we got in he was a bit annoyed at his mom being there. I mean, we are two quite attractive foreign ladies that he is being embarrassed in front of :-D
Arrived in Chaumont, which is a mid-sized city. The reason why we picked it was because it is right off the autoroute (interstate) and so it would be easy for Michael and Nina to pick us up.

Which they did, about an hour and a half late. It was alright, it’s not like we were on a schedule or anything, but it was kind of annoying waiting for a really awesomely late person that I never met and will spend the next 5 days with in their itsy bitsy german early model car which you know he will have. Gave me time to go to the ATM. They finally pulled up in his circa-1986 VW Polo coupe. If I were to lie down next to the car, I would be taller. However, somehow someway we fit all our luggage (Note: Germans don’t pack light, which I was surprised at) and all four of us as well as food and handluggage into this itsy bitsy car. Once we got on the autoroute I had second thoughts amounting to “If this big truck next to me blows the tire that is right in my window right now, this car will be blown completely off the road and I will die because my window doesn’t go down and the driver’s seat doesn’t go up and they won’t be able to get me out of this clown car.” Thankfully, everything turned out all right :-D

We stopped at a little Formula-One hotel just outside of Lyon, about four hours into our trip. We had dinner at the diner across the street, which was gross gross gross. But whatever. At first Manuela and I were going to share a room while Nina and Michael were going to be in the other room. The rooms had a double bed with a single bunk bed above it. Neither Michael nor Nina wanted the bunk so Manuela switched with Michael and Michael slept in my room and Manuela with Nina. Didn’t quite know exactly how to work the changing thing but then I thought, “I’m in Europe and this dorky German guy has probably slept with more girls than I know. He’s seen a bra before I’m sure.”

Day 2- We woke up and had breakfast. Apparently, in Germany it is customary to eat as much food as you possibly can at breakfast. Michael gave me a small lecture about how you want to eat as much as possible at breakfast so you have energy throughout the day. I told him that it’s too early for me to eat a lot and if we got on the road at 11 instead of 9 then he would have seen me eat a cow. Packed everything up again and headed down the road to Lyon. Lyon is the second largest city in France in terms of size, not population. It is a beautiful city and I think it is quite wealthy as well- there were many luxury cars and even SUV’s!! As much as I am anti-pollution and such, I felt really super awesomely unsafe in that little itsy bitsy car and probably won’t drive anything smaller than an accord for the rest of my life. Maybe a Civic, but not for road trips.

In Lyon there is this really beautiful basilica on the top of a hill and we took the funiculaire up to the top to have a looksy. The inside is absolutely gorgeous with ornaments all over the place. In a U starting on the left side of the church by the altar and ending on the right there are reliefs of the major stories in the Gospels starting with the Annunciation and ending with Mary going into Heaven. Absolutely gorgeous. Manuela didn’t get the reliefs but I attributed that to her studying protestant theology and not catholic theology. Not to mention the drilling of art and architectural history by Madame and the Jesuits.

After much debate we made it down to the bottom where we ended up in Old Lyon, this really picturesque part of the city. Imagine a postcard picture of an old European street and that is basically what you see after every corner. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant which was excellent excellent and our waiter was awesome.

Just a note: At this point, we do not have a hotel for our days in Marseille.

That fact caused us much stress and so we stopped at the tourist office on our way out to get a list of Hotels in Marseille, which we did. We found the cheaper ones and started calling once we got on the road. There was one that was a whole lot cheaper than the others and so we decided to stay there. It was in the vieux port, which is the older and touristy part of the city and it was going to be something like 13 euros a person.

Turns out the hotel was in the really awful part of the touristy part, the kind that all the immigrants with grudges go to hang out. The area was bad enough that even I wanted to get out of there- I could handle myself in that area after dark but not myself and three Germans from small villages who were more worried about the car getting stolen with our stuff inside than their wellbeing. The road the hotel was on was under construction so Manuela and I waited inside the car while Michael and Nina went to go find the hotel, a decision I was NOT privy to as it was made in German. Also a decision I DID NOT appreciate, as it left two fairly vulnerable white girls in a strange car with German plates on an empty street where people with grudges live. Manuela said that this is the first time she has been truly afraid of her surroundings. I said that I was really worried too, but not to worry because the people here don’t have guns so at least we probably won’t die before Michael and Nina get back.

Didn’t die, and checked into the hotel fine. Our hotel room was relatively large for a European hotel room, and it had two double beds. The bathroom was a different story entirely with mold all over the place. Curtains were half off their runners and there were cigarette burns in the blankets. We decided that it was actually a bordello and we should make sure that we don’t sleep in just our underwear. Got a few pizzas from down the street and called it a night.

Day 3- First thing we did after taking a shower was check out, load the car, and garage it. We were homeless yet again. However, found the hotel that Nina had stayed at before and now they had their quad room free! So we decided to book there and stay there, moved our bags, and then went out exploring for a bit. Because none of us slept very well the night before it was a pretty short day; after moving our stuff and then going out to eat we came back to the room, decompressed, and slowly got ready to go out again. That night we walked along the pier of the vieux port, or the old port. This part of Marseille dates back to the ancient Greeks and when they used to use Marseille as part of their shipping stuff. While walking around we noted good places to eat and drink and made mental notes. Early night, however. On the way home we stopped in at the Monoprix to buy wine and breakfast for the next day. Had quite the adventure deciding which kind of plastic cups to buy, which kind of wine, etc. Drank a couple glasses of wine, talked, and then went to bed.

Small adventure to note: As the day continues, I start scratching at what appears to be mosquito bites on my arms. I start taking my allergy medicine again as that usually makes the itch go away and the swelling to go down. As the day goes on I realize that if they are indeed mosquito bites than I am positively being eaten alive.

Day 4- Take a shower and look in the mirror to find huge red welts all along my arms and lower legs. At this point I realize that they are not indeed mosquito bites but rather an allergic reaction to something or other. Uncool. I get out of the shower and show Nina, who is in the room, and she says, “That’s not really mosquito bites. We should go to the pharmacy today for you definitely.” When Michael and Manuela return we decide to go to the pharmacy across the street. I tell the pharmacist, “So, I think I am having an allergic reaction…” take off my sweater so he can see my arms and he cringes and gasps at the same time. He asks if I am staying somewhere I don’t usually like a hotel. I say yeah, I’m visiting and I am staying here at a hotel. He says that it is probably an allergic reaction to the soap in the sheets or maybe the hotel really isn’t clean and I just got a really horrible reaction for it. Because I am already ODing on allergy medication he says he can’t give me antihistamines for it. Instead he gives me this non-soap antiseptic cleanser that he says to wash with. After the pharmacy, they all say, “Sarah, you are leaving tomorrow. What do you want to see? Make a decision,” which is bad because the entire trip I have been saying, “Whatever you like, I don’t mind, doesn’t matter to me, blahblahblah” and now that I am forced to make a decision I feel immense pressure!! What I really want to do is go back to the hotel and take a scalding shower with my new non-soap antiseptic cleanser, but I can’t possibly do that. So, I decide that we need to see Notre Dame des Gardes.

The church is a basilica on the top of this huge cliff overlooking the port and the sea. The view is absolutely gorgeous, which is your reward for trudging up the mountain to see it. It is also known for its mosaics, which unfortunately were being restored and thus under cloth so we couldn’t see them. However, it was beautiful up there! I took off my sweater and my arms felt soooooooo nice after being cooped up in my sweater so I don’t look like I escaped from the nearest leper colony. I figured a famous church for pilgrimages would be as safe a place as any to pretend to be a leper because the only people that matter are those I came with and they know what’s going on and if people think I’m a leper then I get sympathy points! We stay up at the top of the cliff for about an hour taking pictures and watching the nuns eat lunch.

We start to make our way down when we realize that we are all really super duper awesomely hungry. We stop in at a little smoky bar that has sandwiches and get some sandwiches for lunch. The TV in the bar is playing music videos and when Justin Timberlake’s “Rock your Body” comes on, we start rocking out. I ask them if they can understand what he’s saying and Michael is like, “I want to rock your body all night.” I say, “Yeah, but do you UNDERSTAND what he’s saying?” And he says, “He wants to dance all night long with someone.” I say, “Well, sort of kind of not really…..” and leave it. No sense in trying to explain the sexiness of Justin Timberlake in French when I don’t understand its power either.

After sandwiches, we head down to the forts. We go on the grounds of the St. Nicholas fort, which was built, in the English style: a star. It was actually quite interesting even though we couldn’t go in we could just look through the gates. After the forts, we were all actually really tired so we stopped in at a café and had some café au laits and cappuchinos. After returning to the hotel room for an hour or so we went back out to dinner. I had an excellent dinner of salmon tartare with duck confit for an entrée. However, I was apparently the only one who knew what they were ordering. Michael reads the menu and says, “Salade de mompres. What are mompres?” We say that we don’t know and he should ask. Here is the dialogue between Michael and the waiter:
Michael: What can you tell me about the salade de mompres?
Server: Um, what can I say? It’s a salad of mompres?
Michael: Right, but what about the mompres?
Server: Well, they’re mompres. I really don’t know what else I can say about them.
Michael: Well ok then, I’ll have that.

What Michael ends up getting is stir-fried baby octopi on a bed of spinach. Something that he was not expecting I know. He asked me to switch with him and I flat-out refused. I liked my samon tartare and I was not about to switch it for his octopus salad, for Manuela’s brown fish soup or for Nina’s dish which looked like octopus and oysters in a cream sauce. Because we are all very tired from walking up and down mountains earlier that day, we are all pretty silent during the meal. At one point they start talking about how there are student riots in Germany because some universities in some regions have started charging for courses. I keep my mouth shut until Michael says, “Sarah, how much do you have to pay?” I told him that my tuition was about $27,000 and at first he didn’t believe me and then he though I had said the wrong number. But no, $27,000 it is. Still couldn’t believe it. “But how do people pay it?” “That’s why God made banks with loans.”

After dinner we made our way back to the hotel and checked in for the night. We had had a pretty rough day and I was falling asleep at the dinner table. I wore my sweater and tucked my pants into my socks for the night because there was going to be no way I was taking chances with this one.

Day 5- I hopped the 1230 TGV out of there and back up to Paris. Finally came back to home sweet home!! Then I started to do laundry and pack for Dublin!!