Back by popular demand

So it seems that I haven't been the most faithful blogger thus far in 2011.  In my defense, I got sick my first weekend back and things have been very busy ever since: teaching, translations, service d'anglais dinner invites, and the post June 30 job search.  Still, I apologize for my negligence.  

Until today we had been enjoying some unseasonably beautiful weather here in Deauville--blue skies and temperatures in the high 40s and low 50s.  We took advantage of this on Saturday afternoon by taking a nice hike around Beaumont en Auge, a small town around 20 minutes from here.  My pictures will tell you more than I can, but it was very pleasant walking alongside the haras (stud farms) and fields with cows wrinkling their brows at us.  

The view of the coast from Beaumont.  Deauville is in the little dip you see about 2/3 toward the right on the horizon.

Beaumont en Auge

Half timbered houses in Beaumont

One of the many happy farms we saw during our hike

The road ahead...

I'm not sure why these people had a huge barrel in their front yard, but I thought it was impressive.

Taken as we walked back up the hill to retrieve our car in Beaumont

A happy horse on a haras (stud farm)

Also of note is that this evening we attended the mayor's state of Deauville address (advertised as his New Year's wishes) at the CID--we were tempted by the enormous galette des rois that had been advertised as coming after M. Augier shared his wishes with us.  I'm not sure that we would have attended had we known that the wish sharing was going to take well over an hour (we were standing the whole time), but now that I'm seated I'm glad we attended because he specifically spoke about the service d'anglais and our work and mentioned all of our missions.  This was particularly neat because there were tons of other services that he didn't mention at all (for which I am very thankful) and because it shows that he knows what we do.  Our translations were specifically mentioned, which is gratifying because they're probably my least favorite part of the job because I feel like no one ever uses them.  Au contraire, apparement.  I wish I had my camera with me so that I could show you all how enormous the galette des rois was.  I would say it easily had a diameter of 6 feet.  I'd like to see the oven it was baked in!


Finally, a word about my students.  For some reason my CE1s have been very taken with me lately, whereas previously they were always nice but not particularly interested in engaging with me outside of class.  Now Romain asks me almost every day as we walk to lunch if we can hold hands ("On se donne la main?")  and they beg me to sit at their table at lunch.  [Note: the students typically hold hands when they line up to go someplace, and it's normal for us to hold the kid's hand who's next to us as we walk to class or lunch.]  They're really cute at lunch, all wanting to know how to say things like Obi Wan in English and asking me what my favorite Star Wars movie is, and today Alexis asked me if I was born in Paris like he was.  Nope!  I'm not going to take myself too seriously, though--the CP who was in love with me last semester, Marin, has pretty much forgotten about me, so I know that it's only a matter of time until ils se fichent de moi encore (they don't care about me anymore).