Semaine de vacances

It's crazy to think that I have already been living in France for a month and a half! Especially since, honestly, it still feels like I haven't even started working in the school and doing what I came to France to do. I have started, but everything has been a little particular considering the strikes and vacations that have seemed almost constant since my first day going on a little tour of the school on October 1. I did one week of actual teaching the week before last and it went relatively well. It seems there was a minor misunderstanding between the students and the "vie scholaire" which is basically like the school office. For some reason there was a sign posted at the vie scholaire that said there would be no classes with the language assistant until after the "New Order." Some students thought that meant after the new year, others didn't know what it meant but just decided to not go to class. Coupled with the strike that was lingering from the previous week, my first week of work was rather uneventful. I was to start on Monday with one class. Not one student showed up. Tuesday I had several classes scheduled and no one showed up. Wednesday I had one class and a couple students actually did come to class! It was nice to actually have some students. Thursday, my first few classes were empty, then one student showed (and you're not allowed to give a class to just one student), then they seemed to have got the message and I had a couple full classes in the afternoon. Having never met most of the students before the class, not knowing their level of English, and having no clue what they were learning in their classes since every teacher sort of does their own thing, it was very hard to prepare a lesson ahead of time. I planned on just getting to know the students, asking questions, letting them ask me questions, and trying to help them realize that this year can actually be fun! Some of the classes responded very well to this lesson. They had questions and comments, they shared ideas and it was a genuinely interesting class. Other classes really could have cared less and the fifty five minutes I spent with them seemed to last forever. I managed to get a hold of some of the teachers who send me their students and they gave me a few recommendations of what they would like me to cover with their students. That will make it a lot easier.

After a day and a half of actually doing what I was meant to do in France, it was time for vacation! Since Thanksgiving is not celebrated in France, they make up for the lack of Thanksgiving break by celebrating a holiday called All Saints Day. I don't really understand the nature of the holiday, but from what I gather, it is similar to Presidents Day in America where we celebrate all the presidents in one day, but for them they are celebrating all the Catholic saints on one day. My wife and I took advantage of the week and a half of vacation time to head to Paris for a nice little visit. What an eye opener it was to be in Paris for five days. I have been to some big cities in France. I lived in Nice, I passed through Marseille a couple times, but these cities don't even compare to Paris. Paris is like a four story building and we spent time in all four.
The top floor is everything elevated above the ground. Our hotel was on the fifth floor (sixth by American counting since we call the ground floor 1 and the French call it 0, thus adding an extra floor to any building), which was even higher than our third floor apartment in Perigueux - which we thought was high in the first place! The top floor of Paris also includes the top of the Eiffel Tower, the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral, the top of the Arc de Triomphe, etc. Unfortunately most of these elevated locations all cost a lot of money to visit. Aside from our hotel, the only raised attraction we visited was the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The ground floor of Paris is obviously everything on ground level. The Eiffel Tower, all the Cathedrals, the monuments, the museums, statues, fountains, parks, roads, cafes, restaurants, everything you could possibly imagine. We loved seeing all the famous sights. The museums were more beautiful than I had even imagined. My very favorite visit was that of the Monet exhibit in the Grand Palais. Monet has always been my favorite painter, and he was French en plus! The exhibit had hundreds of his paintings from the most famous to many that were almost completely unknown. It went through basically chronologically which allowed the visitor to notice the changes Monet made as he grew and matured as an artist. We used the audio tour as we went along which also proved to be invaluable - explaining things that were going on in Monet's life at the time of each painting. If the only thing I had done in Paris was to visit that museum, it would have been worth the trip. I haven't been able to justify buying the official book of the exhibit because it costs 50 Euros, but I would love to have it and maybe after I start getting paid I will consider it. For now it is just a dream. The Louvre was amazing as well, but everything seemed so much darker, even bordering morbid, compared to the works of Monet. The pieces were incredible to say the least, it just isn't my favorite type of art - although that does not mean I respect it any less.

The next level of Paris was the transportation level - the metro. The metro was incredible. There were cars every 2 minutes most of the time, especially during the day. If you showed up and saw the metro car driving away, all you had to do was wait less than five minutes and the next one would pick you up. It was so easy to transfer from line to line and we could get anywhere in the entire city in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Our first metro ride was particularly nice as there was a group of accordion musicians on the tram with us playing what sounded like old time French music. It was quite nice. The only complaint about the metro is that it was always so crowded. I could count the number of times on a single hand that we were able to sit down in the car. Usually we were pushed up against a wall and hanging on to a railing so we wouldn't fall into the crowd and cause a major domino effect. Along with the crowds came the fear of pick pockets. I felt particularly conscious of this because I was carrying my favorite camera and all the cash we had with us. Not to mention I had a camera stolen from me in a train station in Marseille during my mission. A little extra vigilance and constantly feeling our pockets to make sure everything was still there helped us to make it through the entire trip without having anything stolen.

And the basement of Paris, one that probably many people don't actually know about and that isn't often mentioned when there is talk of Paris, is the Catacombs. Twenty meters even farther down under Paris than the metro is a giant set of tunnels and caves filled with nothing but human bones. It seems that there were some problems with some of the cemeteries in Paris so in the 1700s they decided to put all the bones from the cemeteries in these tunnels under Paris. They began by throwing them in at random, but later decided it would be better to organize the bones in a beautiful manner and allow people to come visit. They did get a little creative making designs in the walls, anything from hearts to doors to crosses. On many of the walls they had written messages to those who would be visiting, all of which were very morbid in nature. The first one, right above the entrance to the first hallway with bones, said "Stop, here is the Empire of Death." Later there were signs that said things such as, "If you have ever seen a man die, always keep present in your thoughts that the same end is waiting for you," or "Every morning when you wake up, remember that you may not make it to the evening, and when you lay down to sleep at night, keep in mind that you just may never wake up." I couldn't tell if this was done as somewhat of a joke to make the already eerie experience even more creepy, or if everything that was written on the walls was legitimately a belief they held at the time - that everyone should always be thinking about their impending death.

Living in the big city for a few days was a great experience, but it helped me to realize how much I appreciate my small town of Perigueux. I spent a fair amount of time thinking about Perigueux while I was there. Perigueux isn't even as large as on of the arrondissements of Paris, has no metro or tram and a mediocre bus system at best. There are no universities, no major museums, nothing of international appeal, and not a whole lot of people. It is hard to find a good kebab, there aren't many creperies along the roads, and you really only hear French as you walk around outside (compared to the Italian, Dutch, Arabic, German, English, Portuguese, Romanian, etc. that we heard in Paris). There is a much smaller risk of pick pockets, there are no beggers on every street corner, bus stop, or church entrance, no one trying to sell us five Eiffel Tower key chains for one euro, and no Romanians asking us if we dropped our gold ring then trying to sell it back to us for who knows how much. I haven't seen people walking around with their point-and-shoot digital cameras held at arms length or video cameras out trying to capture the greatness of their surroundings. From what I can tell, there are no officers dressed in military camo with machine guns around the major parts of town, but it doesn't feel like they should be here anyway. Yes, Perigueux is much smaller and there is a lot less in terms of Tourism. If you don't know how to enjoy yourself wherever you are, you might find yourself complaining that there is nothing to do here. Nonetheless, I love it here. Perigueux has made me feel at home already. People here are able to be nice, they have the time to go out of their way to help us because there isn't a line of people behind me waiting to do the exact same thing I'm trying to do. I understand why people in Paris are so... how to put it... rude? In a bad mood? It is because every single day there are thousands of people trying to take advantage of the service they provide. Even if they started with motives of helping people have an enjoyable experience in Paris, they are now overwhelmed by the constant visitors, the complaints, the theft, and all they can think about is protecting themselves and earning a living. That doesn't happen in Perigueux.
Well, now that I am risking to start rambling, I will end my speech/overflow of thought by saying I look forward to becoming a member of the society in Perigueux. I enjoyed my visit to Paris, but I'm glad to be back where I belong right now.