MacDOH

This week we had a rather... how to word it... ironic experience.  From the first day I started interacting with students, I have been asking them what they think of when they think of America.  Probably the number one response among students is "MacDoh!" which is their affectionate title for the American franchise McDonald's.  Actually, "McDonald's" is just too hard for them to pronounce so "Macdoh" is the best they can do.  Anyway, back to the story.  So it seems like the only thing most of the younger students know about America is McDonald's.  They all ask me what the differences are between the French and American McDonald's.  It was a little hard for me to answer those questions because I honestly haven't eaten at McDonald's for years (except for occasionally for a breakfast biscuit, but those aren't even served here so I hardly find it fair to count that).  In one of my BTS (post graduate) classes, I asked the students what they had done during their break off school and one of the students told me he had worked the entire time.  I asked him where he worked and he told me he worked at Macdoh.  This prompted a class discussion about McDonald's in America and France.  Several minutes later the discussion moved on to another topic.  When I asked the students if they had any questions for me, one of the raised his hand and asked, "Do you want to come to Macdoh with us next Tuesday?  With the whole class?"  Of course I wanted to go!  The irony, in my opinion, comes from the fact that they all think Americans can't get enough of McDonald's, but it took me coming to France to finally go eat there.  Another interesting thing is that the day they invited me to go was a Wednesday.  They had planned a trip to McDonald's an entire week in advance, which is evidence of their different opinion of the fast food chain.  If I were to go to McDonald's, or any other fast food restaurant for that matter, in America, I would definitely not plan on it a week in advance.  In fact, I usually don't decide where I want to eat for lunch until I'm already driving around looking for a nice place to eat and my decision usually comes from whatever restaurant is closest/cheapest.  To top off the irony of the situation, one of the students mentioned to me that Macdoh was hosting a Monopoly game, peel the pieces off the food and hope to win.  All the students had been participating, collecting pieces hoping to win the grand prize.  This particular student told me that in the past two weeks, fourteen days, he had eaten at McDonald's ten times hoping to win.  During our meal, someone came up to our table asking if we would be willing to give him our pieces.  I suppose I had always just assumed that those peel and collect games that the restaurants hosted were rigged and there was no way I could ever win.  Looks like the marketing tactic works a little better in France than in Utah - I guess I can't vouch for the rest of the country, but I don't know anyone who has ever collected game pieces hoping to win.
Despite the irony and the fact that we were eating at McDonald's, we managed to have a great night.  The restaurant itself was much nicer than any McDonald's I've been to in Utah, they had employees walking around taking orders with their little hand held computers so you could get your food faster at the front of the line.  There was modern art hanging on the walls.  Plus we had pretty good company.  After the meal we all went and played bowling.  Everyone assumed that Ariel and I would be amazing at bowling since we are Americans.  It seems they weren't let down!  Ariel and I are not great bowlers.  I played a lot of bowling when I was a little younger, playing on teams and doing some tournaments and such, but that was quite a while ago and I'm really not that good anymore.  Ariel is consistent, but again, not state champion quality.  Well, based on their reactions to some of our shots, you'd think we were bowling celebrities.  Every frame they would all clap for us and make comments about how amazing we are at bowling.  They could not believe the way I made the ball curve to knock over pins in the corners.  It seems to me that the French struggle with things that require your hands.  This is completely off the topic, but we played ultimate with some other friends a couple weeks ago and they all really struggled throwing and catching the frisbee.  Not to mention their struggles with basketball as well.  Bowling seems to fit in the category of sports with hands that the French are not naturally good at.
I have really grown to like working with the BTS students.  They seem more invested in their studies.  They seem more serious and generally they are more mature.  I think this comes from the fact that they have chosen to be in school rather than having it forced on them.  They are also more interested in me, in where I come from, why I am here, America in general, school systems in America, etc.  That makes it easier for me to talk to them, I get more excited about telling them things because they seem to appreciate it more.  I have been struggling a little bit with the younger 14 and 15 year old students.  They all come in larger groups so when I am not addressing certain students, they talk to their friends.  They don't want to try, they don't care about America, and really, coming to my class just means another hour of class that they don't want to do.  They are disrespectful to me sometimes, nearly always disrespectful to the other students.  Some of them are well behaved, but the ones that don't behave make it harder to help the ones that do behave.  Because of all this, I have come to hate Thursdays.  On Tuesday and Wednesday I have mostly BTS kids.  On Thursday I have five hours of young kids and only one hour of BTS.  It's nice knowing that after Thursday I have a long weekend starting on Friday!
The weekends are always nice.  We spend a lot of time with the members of the church on Saturday and Sunday.  We play sports Saturday morning (when it is raining we play Ping-pong), and because of that we became pretty good friends with some of the youth from the branch.  Then on Sunday we go to church and I was asked to teach the Sunday school lesson to the youth, which has made our friendship with them even stronger.  Ariel is really starting to get along with the relief society and her French is improving immensely.  She is getting more and more brave when speaking French to them.  We study French for almost an hour pretty much every day then spend a lot of time talking to each other in French so that has made a huge difference.  After church on Sunday, we have our Institute class, which is about eternal marriage.  That is fun but sometimes kinda weird since we are the only married ones in the class.  Last Friday, the ward held a great big Thanksgiving party.  Everyone brought some food and a dessert.  We made sweet potatoes with marshmallows.  Everyone looked at it and said something like, "that is weird, that's just not right, I don't know about this..." but after they tried it, they went crazy about it.  Everyone wanted more and they ran out almost immediately.  The next day Ariel made some Gingersnaps and a green onion food that they often have for Christmas in her family.  Everyone loved those too!  It seems the French really love American food (everything from McDonald's to home made specialties), just like we tend to love French food!
The one complaint we have had is that it really hasn't stopped raining for the past few weeks.  We had one nice, warm day last week and spent it exploring the Gallo-Roman area of the city and some buildings/ruins that came from the first century up to the twelfth century.  That was incredible and I will have to put some pictures of those buildings up.  It was crazy to see ruins of a first century arena and imagining the movie Gladiator taking place right here in Perigueux.  We are planning on going to the museum of the Gallo-Roman time one of these days to learn a little more.