spying on the babysitter...

Here's a church we visited in Joigny.  I just fell in love with that purple door.  

Chateau de Fontainebleau

Inside the chateau.  

One thing I really appreciate over in France is the widespread use (and usual convenience) of trains.  I know i've complained about the train company here before, SNCF, and their great love of strikes.  But this week,  j'en ai profité- I took advantage.  I don't work Wednesdays or Thursdays, so this week I hopped on a train to Fontainebleau with an English assistant here who also had the day free.  She'd been there once before when she was young, and I've been wanting to visit the chateau for years, so it was perfect!  

We were lucky, with this little 'carte professional' we received from the lycée we have free entrances to several museums and patrimony sites throughout France.  We decided to pay the extra euro for an audio tour as well, even though I usually hate being tagged as a tourist walking around with a telephone contraption, listening to people with funny accents telling me to look at various corners of the room.  But it was worth it, we heard a lot about the castle.  It was used by several French kings, among them François 1er and Henri II.  Both left their trademarks ALL over the chateau.  François 1er (the first), was renowned for leaving little salamanders all over the place, whether painted or carved.  Henri II left a great big 'H' wherever he lived or vacationed, but he was even more sly.  Imagine an 'H' intertwined with a 'C' in the middle.  The C stands for his wife, Catherine de Medici.  But when those letters are placed one over the other, you can also make out a 'D', standing for none other than Diane de Poitiers, Henri II's lover.  And these initials are absolutely everywhere, covering the walls and ceilings of the rooms he had specially decorated.  Sure, he could plead innocence and say it was meant to be an H and C together, but I'm sure everyone knew.  Sly fellow.  

After our tour of the chateau we enjoyed our lunch in the park/grounds surrounding the castle, and took a walk through the forest.  Wasn't too crowded, as it was freezing.  Before heading back to Sens we warmed up with some tea in a cute little café where we also didn't have to fight for space.  

Last night over dinner we were trying to decide what to do today, since not much was happening here in Sens.  We know 3 other language assistants that live in a town called Joigny which is only about 20 minutes by train.  We called them up to see if they wanted to spend the day together, and it worked out perfectly in every sense of the word.  Like us they make up a multicultural group of assistants- there is a German, a Columbian, and an Australian.  Although we spoke in French the majority of time, it was nice to slip into our mother languages, nos langues maternelles, every so often.  And to hear the accents too!  It also just so happened that they were in the middle of a two part welcoming tour/party for people who had just arrived in their city.  We were warmly welcomed to join in the tour, and walked around the city with a guide explaining the history.  A lady in our group asked all of us where were from, and when we gave her a list of 6 countries (Columbia, Chile, Germany, Australia, England, and America) she replied, 'Je ne suis plus en France!' 'It's like I'm not even in France anymore!'  The group was incredibly friendly, and we ended the tour with delicious vin chaud (a spicy warm wine) and gateau (cakes and candies).  Afterwards we chatted for awhile in a café, marveling at how cool it was that we come from all over the world and how we can communicate with each other using a common language (a language that is not our mother tongue!).  It's moments like those that the world becomes just a bit smaller, in a positive way.  It gives me a certain kind of hope and excitement to learn other languages so I can continue to meet people from all over.  If I can say so, I was so proud of each one of us : )

Another fun thing that happened to me this week, is that I found the bibliothèque municipale the public library in Sens.  I perused their shelves of romans, novels, bands dessinés, comic books, and history and travel guides.  But what was really exciting I have to say, was a little sign that caught my eye : romans étrangers version originale.  Books in English !  I know, it's a bit silly to come all the way over to France and want to read American books.  I can't quite explain it myself, except to say that after seeing the amazing university library in Berlin... well I was a little jealous.  SO I picked out 3 books, and threw in a French one as well for good taste.  When I signed up for my library card I asked the very friendly lady at the front desk if I could take out interlibrary loans for other English books from local libraries.  She had her friend and coworker from another section come explain to me.  And I swear, when you meet friendly French people, they just go all out.  The librarian told me that besides the shelf of English books, they also have a storage area in the basement of books they haven't put out yet, that she could let me look at.  And if that didn't suffice she has an ample personal collection of English books, and I would be the most welcome to borrow those as well.  Alright !   

I guess I'll throw in a teaching story from the end of my week, since it's usually at least half of what I do every week.... : D

So I end every week with a Friday afternoon class with Gilles and his BTS students.  To remind everyone, these classes are majority 19-22 year old guys.  An entertainment in and of itself.  Last week Gilles gave me an article to go over with my half of the students, no more than 15 minutes before the class.  Although I was a bit panicked having not even read the article myself, it went smoothly.  This week was the same, only Gilles and I reversed groups.  He always picks articles that are a bit... particulier.  For the past two weeks we've been talking about home automation systems that some Americans have installed in their houses.  And just as a sidenote, I find it doesn't give quite the great impression of Americans when you read about people spending thousands of dollars to install these systems.  For example, a button in a 3 year old girls' bedroom that she can push that will read her a bedtime story/play music and dim the lights automatically after 30 minutes ? Are we honestly so busy that we can't afford the time to put our 3 year old children to bed anymore ?  A little problematique if you ask me.  I decided to ask the guys if something like that would be useful to them.  "When you have a daughter, is this something you would use?"  After half of them scoffed/choked/gasped/exclaimed, I had to change the 'When' to 'If'.  If you ever had a daughter.  Good grief.  

Anyhow.  I was trying to get the guys to tell me about what they read the last week.  I got short stubby sentences from them, some were ok.  When I went on to ask them some advantages of an automation system, one of them brought up how the article mentions 'spying on the babysitter'.  Alright, I asked, how could that be an advantage ?  Duh, Alli.  One of the particularly ballsy students smiled at me, I could just see the thought forming.  'Uh, eef ze babysitt-er is takes show-er, zees is an advahn-teege'.  The class erupted in laughter and it was all I could do to not laugh/collapse in semi-frustration.  And a possible disadvantage to the system ?  One of the students raised his hand and asked me 'comment dit-on', how do you say... and he proceeded to breathe on the window next to him to show me the fog on the window.  I was truly confused at this point, and wrote the word 'fog' on the board.  'Fog ?  Is that what you mean?' I asked.  'Yes, like fahg on zee show-er doors.  Zhat eez a dees advahn-teege'.  Meaning if you want to spy on the babysitter and the windows are foggy, well.  Should have known that's exactly what I was going to get from that class.  It was hard to be exasperated for how absolutely ridiculous it was.  At least they're speaking in English, right ?  Well, kind of.  When I told all of this to Gilles he thought it was absolutely the funniest thing of his week.  I mean it, he laughed for a solid 5 minutes.  While we were talking, one of the students I had in my group felt obliged to pop around the corner and share with Gilles one of his 'innovative ideas' for his own home automation system, which he had shared in my class earlier.  Instead of using the bedtime story button for his daughter (ahem, hypothetical daughter) he would use it instead to play Barry White when his girlfriend was over.  Quelle charme.  

Even though it was a bit trying at moments, it wasn't a bad way to end the week.  The entertainment... geez oh man.  So there are a couple tidbits of my week and my adventures... Hope everyone is doing well.  As usual, comme d'habitude, I love hearing all your news !  

A bientôt,

alli