roundtrip to the United States!

let’s start right where I left off.
wednesday afternoon (October 24) I trained to chartres, waited for the “helpful” man at the prefecture to create the round-trip visa in my passport – a series of ink stamps, hand-written text, paper stamps, and a final certifying signature. I got back on the train, arrived in paris and relaxed, finally. I visited one of my favorite sites, the sacre coeur, and said a quiet prayer of thanks for everything working out while I stood at the back of a packed église. the next morning I got on a plane, which incidentally left an hour earlier than scheduled. I had to say another prayer of thanks: I didn’t miss my plane home!

my trip home was good (October 25-November 4). quite emotional and too fast, but good. I arrived home thursday night and the festivities started immediately. I drove to Milwaukee friday for a day at the spa with sara, bride-to-be, attended a celebration dinner, went for a drink at the Flemings house, and ended in the hotel lobby bar, exhausted and jet-lagged. then there was saturday!! busy. fun. fast! it was fabulous to see people I hold dear for a whole night. the hard part is that it was only for the one night. tant pis. I can’t do the wedding justice in words so I have included the few pictures that I took. I will post more when I can.

back in france:
well, it wasn’t exactly the most glamorous homecoming. I was coming back to a place where I only know seven people, and three of them can’t remember my name! I got home to my French house and didn’t feel like I was home at all. for the first time in my life, I had that terrible, bottomless feeling called homesickness. it stuck with my for a full week before I saw any hope of enjoying this city again. then I started to meet more people at the school and I got reconnected with my only friend at the school – fabrice. he is a first-year chemistry teacher at the high school and evidently feels just as alone as I do at the school. we shared a few lunches, we met up with a small group of first-year teachers for dinner last week. we had so much fun that we made hopeful plans to meet for a drink this week, and planned to go bowling next week. us new teachers have to stick together! I finally feel like a community is forming, and I feel like I have met some people I can laugh with and confide in. aaahhhhhh, what a relief.

last weekend I stayed in nogent by choice. I needed to go to the market, walk around the medieval part of town, visit the chateau and remember what it is that I like about living here. this weekend I also stayed in nogent, but not by choice. yet another French rail strike kept me from visiting the Spanish assistant who lives in the booming city of tours. only two hours away there is a city of 270,000 people with plenty of things to visit and people to meet. instead, we took up an offer to go to chartres via car. our new friend, Anthony picked us up on his way to chartres saturday morning, took us on a tour of the city and took us back to nogent before dinner. we met some of his friends and caught up with some of the other language assistants from our region. and we got to spend a whole day outside on one of the first sunny days in weeks! I feel like I am living in the northwest right now! I don’t think I could live in a gray, rainy climate for an extended period of time – I’m too affected by the sunshine – or absence of sunshine.

this week will go quickly – I will teach my students about thanksgiving and we will discuss tradition. and at the end of the week I will travel to Strasbourg with my roommates to meet some other language assistants for the most famous Christmas markets in Europe! Strasbourg has hosted these markets since 1540! I’ll be sure to share some pictures of the weekend.

before I leave though, we will have a “traditional American Thanksgiving meal.” since my host mom doesn’t know what squash is, I am interested to see what she will prepare! for now, I am going to concentrate on the meaning of Thanksgiving! I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

gobble gobble,
molly

(more pictures will come...)