last week in france. for now.

Well, last week was again filled with French Administration… Monday I had my medical visit in Orléans! Wednesday I went back to Chartres to file my Roundtrip VISA application. The man who “helps” me in Chartres is full of baloney. Luckily, I met a professor this week who married an Australian woman, so he and I could talk at length about French bureaucracy.

I had a wonderful weekend - I spent Saturday in Paris with an English professor and her family. It was quite an adventure, to say the least! First of all, I thought I was going to be picked up by Patricia (the prof), we would pick up her son, go to Paris for a few hours, and be back in Nogent by 10 at the latest. Oh, how wrong I was… First, I was picked up by Patricia and her husband, Dan. Not a big deal, but unexpected nonetheless. We eventually picked up their son, Théo from the university, took a driving tour of his town, and ended back at his apartment for lunch. Mind you, the French love to enjoy their meals, so we enjoyed for 2.5 hours! It was lovely – baguette sticks, mushrooms Dan collected from the countryside, salad, cheese, strawberries, grapes, chocolate cake, and wine. As soon as we were done we packed up and got in the car. Unfortunately, they had gotten a ticket. So instead of heading into Paris we went to the police station to contest the ticket – on the basis that Théo has a broken leg. True. Eventually we got to Paris, we dropped of Patricia to do some shopping and Théo and I were dropped off at Virgin Records. We spent two hours between Virgin Records and fnac (the French version of Virgin). If you know me at all, you know that I didn’t know any of the music or movies or tv series in the stores. But somehow Théo and I managed to make conversation. He was mostly teaching me about French satire. When we (read:he) exhausted all pop culture knowledge we met Dan for a beer on the Champs Elysées. He had already finished his beer so he sat next to us trying to use his new toy – it is a piece of plastic you can put on your tongue and blow through to make bird songs. Imagine a full-grown man very seriously trying to whistle for the first time… Changing the shape of his mouth, blowing, spitting, coughing… it was a riot! Théo and I just laughed for a half hour. When we left the café we found Patricia, picked up Théo’s girlfriend and drove back to his apartment. Because Saturday night was the final match of the Rugby World Cup, we were stuck in traffic for hours!!! We finally got to Théo’s place at 10:30, ate a three-course dinner, and got back to Nogent at 2am! Woah. Then I slept hard for eight hours. It was exhausting, but wonderful, to concentrate in French for 16 hours. I don’t know if I have ever done that before.

This week I have been teaching high school students about US geography and physical descriptions. Exhilarating stuff. I am getting familiar with their level of English for now – but the next lesson we will start to have some fun. I hope.

Tomorrow I will go back to Chartres to get my Roundtrip VISA and then I will go to Paris for the night. Thursday morning I will get on a plane to Madison, via Chicago!

My next post should include pictures from Travis’s wedding!

Take good care,
Molly