Shaving Cream and Odds and Ends

Someone was kind enough to remind me today that I have been neglectful in my blogging, and since I'm leaving tomorrow evening to begin my trek to ESPANA to see the lovely Molly and Alejandro I thought I'd take the hint lest my blog die of neglect.  

1) The title:  Katherine bought shaving cream the other day so that we could channel our youth by spraying it on the table and drawing in it.  I won't tell you how long we spent this evening drawing where we're going on vacation, our patronuses, various animals, men with beards, our names, strange shapes...but it was fun.  


2) I have an amoureux.  Lalou, one of my favorite 1st graders (the one who I've been helping illustrate his book) ran up to me at lunch recess today and gave me a big hug, and then at afternoon recess hugged me around my leg and told me I was his amoureuse, or girlfriend.  I said oh? but you don't argue with Lalou because he's pretty sassy.  Our love affair has thus far consisted of us dancing around holding hands and of him sharing his snack with me (he insisted), except for his chocolate milk because he told me he didn't want to get my microbes.  I'm not his only girlfriend, though--he later informed his married teacher that she was his amoureuse, too.  We should probably make a club.

3) I have a sore throat and an earache.  I think it's just from a cold, but the timing's not very good.  I don't have a fever, so I'm not particularly concerned, but it's still annoying and kind of painful.  I don't feel like taking the time to go to the doctor so instead I went to the pharmacy, a delightful little place in France where you walk in, tell them your symptoms, and they give you drugs.  This isn't too different from the US, because here they give you the drugs that you can just pluck off the shelves in the US.  Anyway, I am now going to bank on some unknown pills and lozenges to cure me.  Let's keep our figners crossed, because I want to be able to enjoy Spain!

Talk to you in a few weeks!

Norman invasions

As the title of this post suggests, my travels this weekend centered around Norman invasions, though in opposite directions.  Katherine's cousin Mariel visited us this weekend, and we took her to Bayeux to see the tapestry and the town in general.  I had visited Bayeux two years ago on an excursion with CIEE, but I'm a total nerd so visiting a tapestry (that's really an embroidery, incidentally) that chronicles the events surrounding William the Conqueror's invasion of England makes my heart go pitter-pat.  Since the tapestry is almost 1000 years old and has already had a pretty rough history (being stored for 700 years in a chest in a drafty church that liked to catch on fire, being used as a wagon cover in a war, being chopped up, etc isn't very good for textiles, from what I gather) no photos are allowed, but here's one of my favorite scenes: 

Here we see Harold's tragic demise.  Beware of arrows to the eye, children!

From this (probably illegally copied) image you can maybe see why this tapestry interests me so much.  It's essentially an early-day comic book, with bright colors, lots of action, plenty of detail, and some nifty images in the top and bottom panels.  What is there not to love?

After viewing the tapestry and the museum Cathya, Katherine, Mariel, and I visited the cathedral.  

Aren't we cute?

A good case for cleaning out your gutters/gargoyles: they might turn into chia pets.

Facade of the cathedral

On Sunday we visited a site relating to another Norman invasion.  Here's a hint: It came from the other side of the Channel and occurred in 1944.  Our garderie buddy Lydia and her husband Patrick took us to the Coteau (a hillier, older part of Deauville) to walk around an area where the German army had some of its bunkers.  It's easy to forget (at least, for me) because Deauville is amazingly safe (the lady I babysit for left her car unlocked with her keys in the ignition for a few days AND IT WAS STILL THERE when she realized her mistake!!!) but 70ish years ago it was probably considered to be a possible place for the Allied invasion.  Also of note is that Patrick, who works in construction, pointed out a house to us where they found bombs left over from the war as they were building it.  Kind of scary!

It's difficult to distinguish, but here are some of the bunkers.

Patrick and Lydia check out the view.

The coast!  I think right now you're looking at Blonville and Villers sur Mer.

Entrance into a pretty extensive bunker.  I doubt the handrails date back to the war, though.

Holes in the ground from bombs.

Deauville! The white roof you see on the right of the picture is the roof of the pool, and my house is probably a little up and to the right of that.

Stained glass window from the church in Villers-sur-Mer. 

Not to be sacrilegious or anything, but does it look like the small child is hold the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch to any of you?  (that was a Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference)

Lydia, Cathya, Mariel, Katherine, and me

And would any Sunday afternoon walk be complete without a visit from the mouettes??

La fête des amoureux

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  My students at Fracasse asked me today at lunch if I had an amoureux (boyfriend) to which I responded no, of course, and shocked them since they each seem to have a handful.  One of the kids I was eating with, Matthias, told me had had 4 girlfriends.  No mean feat for a second grader.  I shouldn't feel too sorry for myself, though, because I got a card in the mail from my mom today, one via email from my dad, and one from one of my CPs, Elie (French for Elijah, incidentally).  We made cards in lunchtime activities today, and he gave his to me afterward.  How sweet!

Can you guess which one is from Mom and which is from Elie?

My frigo

I thought you all might be interested in seeing how my French fridge is decorated...or rather, the new decoration I just added.  Hint: It's brown and on the right side of the fridge.  As usual, you can double-click the image to make it bigger.

 

Retour en arrière: Angers

Because I am a negligent blogger, I just now realized that I never shared my EXCELLENT weekend in Angers with you, my avid (haha) audience.  Lest I forget, here is some photographic excellence of the fun I had catching up with Bayou, my middle school penpal, his incredibly welcoming family, AND the most lovely and charming of French teachers, JoAnn.  We won't discuss how long ago she was my middle school teacher, for both of our sakes!

I got into Angers pretty late Friday evening, but there was still enough time before bed to sit around with JoAnn, Anne-Catherine, Bayou, and his girlfriend Laureen discussing school (A-C teaches middle school English and is in charge of the English assistants in Angers) and the different noises that French animals make (co-cor-ico instead of cock-a-doodle-doo, for example).  And we got to hang out with monsieur, pictured below:

Ratcliff, the family dog, on HIS couch.  He's a very friendly and well behaved dog, and he's also gifted: somehow he knows when it's Sunday--the only day he's taken for a walk in the morning--and waits at the bottom of the stairs.

Saturday morning was fun.  JoAnn and I chatted over breakfast and then went with Anne-Catherine to tour the high school where Jean-François teaches music.  We also sat in on his orchestra rehearsal for a bit.

Next was the market, where JoAnn and I enjoyed peering at the wares, including delicious cheeses and spices.  YUM!

I love how colorful spice vendors' stands always are.

In our attempts to make it back chez our hosts, we passed by this lovely park and fountain.  Perfect for photos...

Seeing people with sailboats in a park always reminds me of Stuart Little.

The Palais de Justice, another site we passed by on the way home.

Once we made it back, we had a lovely meal of pot au feu with the family and significant others.  Just hanging out with everyone around the dining room table was one of my favorite parts of the weekend.  It's fun to be with good conversationalists!  Afterwards I went out shopping to take advantage of the soldes (sales!).

Jean-François, Ratcliff, and  Anne-Catherine

A-C, JoAnn, Bayou, and Laureen in front of the theatre, taken while we were shopping.

Sunday morning was spent chatting with the family and going to church with JoAnn.  After returning from our unsuccessful search for tarte aux pommes (guess we just weren't in the right region!) we ate a delicious Alsacian meal of sauerkraut and sausages.  2.30 came far too soon, though, and it was time for me to go to the gare to return to Deauville.  Anne-Catherine offered to call Ivan to tell him that I had gotten the gastro and was too sick to return, but I decided that I wanted to keep my job so I turned down her proposal.

JoAnn and me in front of the Angers train station.

Bayou and me in front of my train.  It's lovely that the former penpals can meet up on occasion!

Chocolate and the view from Trouville

Yesterday Cathya, Katherine, and I went to nearby Lisieux (home of our famed boss) to check out the Salon de la Gastronomie that was going on at the expo center there.  France has quite a few of these salons that take place all over the country; the concept is that chocolate makers, cheesemakers, winemakers, sausagemakers, etc will set up booths at an expo center and to peddle their products, and at the end of the event prizes are awarded for the best quality products.  I don't think the Lisieux salon is on the upper end of these,  but we still had a good time sampling people's wares [everything from olives to cheese to cakes to sausages to wine to chocolate...] and chatting with the vendors.  The latter could be a bit delicate because we didn't always want to buy their products (particularly the chocolate wine.  Berk!) but it was still interesting to learn more about their processes. 

This is the dark chocolate with candied orange slices that I got at the salon. 

After the salon we went to the Basilique in Lisieux, a very impressive church that towers over us every time we switch trains in Lisieux.  I didn't take my camera with me, so I don't have any photos of the church, but I thought it was very pretty.  The inside is very colorful with mosaics of various saints and stained glass windows with lines from a psalm.  It was different from pretty much every other French church I've been into, but I see that as a good thing--they've all started to look the same to me.  

I have spent most of the day today relaxing after a busy few weeks, but I also took a long walk through Trouville, as well as the beach at Deauville.  Here are some photos from my meanderings.

The view of Deauville from one of the hills in Trouville.  Much of the beach and town is blocked by houses, but it's still pretty impressive to see it all in front of you.

It was pretty overcast today, but there were still lots of breaks in the clouds where the sun would shine through.  It made for an interesting sky.

I hiked up a bit further and found the path to country Normandy.

I think the contrast between the crowdedness of Deauville and Trouville and the openness of the countryside just a bit further back to be quite interesting.

One of the schools in Trouville.  I like the art for their book fair.

Pretty.

At the port in Deauville.  Note the seagull--it's cute when you see it like this, but its enormous older brothers that squawk outside of our windows every morning, afternoon, and night are slightly less endearing.