'Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis'

It has come to my attention that Picardy is the Midwest of France. In the U.S., people on the East and West coasts tend to have preconceived notions about each other, some not very positive (i.e., West coasters are pot smoking hippies, East coasters are uptight and unfriendly). However, both groups tend to agree that they are both better off than Midwesterners inhabiting the "flyover states". In France, people in the South are the equivalent of the West coast's pot smoking hippies, stereotypically spending all their time lounging on the Riviera in the blazing Mediterranean sun. Parisians might be roughly similar to your cliché East coasters, dressing fashionably for a colder climate in a big city. Both groups, however, are terrified of 'les Ch'tis' or THE NORTH- namely the regions of Picardy and Nord Pas de Calais. This is the land of COLD, gray skies, small towns, and big farms. Most French people I've met so far have reacted the same way to my coming to Picardy as Midwesterners reacted to my moving to Iowa for college- "You come from California? And you CHOSE to come here??"

For a funny perspective on France's collective and stereotypical fear of LE NORD, you should check out the film 'Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis', (roughly translated as 'Welcome to the Sticks',) which tells the story of a guy who is transferred from a job in Montpellier to Beurgues, a small town in the very Northernmost part of France.
Here's a link to the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLRTtHByPn4

Luckily (for me, I guess) I like farms and snow and small towns, and have had some cool opportunities to find out what makes les Ch'tis awesome. Last week I spent two nights in a town called Laon, which is about a half an hour drive from Tergnier. Laon is one of the oldest towns in France, boasting medieval architecture, including ancient ramparts that completely surround the original town, which is situated on a plateau. I stayed with a man named Rémy who works with my contact person Marie-Ange. He was born and raised in Laon, and lives there with his wife in a house constructed for American pilots during WW2 at the bottom of the plateau, where they raised their three daughters.

Rémy and his wife Nicole were very welcoming, and treated me to a couple exquisite meals featuring specialties of Picardy. My first night we had wild boar pâté (!!) a potato-green-onion dish, an assortment of delicious cheeses, salad (lettuce from their CSA share!) and of course wine. Rémy and I share an Oct. 13 birthday, so the night of the 12th we really went all out- cantaloupe with prosciutto, tarte aux maroilles (a very notorious, stinky, delicious cheese made in le Nord), another tarte with onions and tomatoes, salad, champagne! and ice cream for dessert. :) :) :) A veritable birthday feast!

Laon is a neat place; it's got a Gothic cathedral of its own, that isn't as big as the one in Amiens, but is older. It also has some pretty awesome animal decoration going on- I spied several dozen cows, and a hippopotamus! Wonder how medieval sculptors ever saw one of those.

Cathedral pics!!!
Hippo gargoyle:




Creepy man with knife and young scared looking tied up boy statue:

A shot of the cathedral's spire from a path that runs along the outside of Laon's ramparts.

Two of four original gates to the city. I tried to wait for the truck to leave for a better photo op, but it was parked there for a while! alas!


One thing I love about France so far is the juxtaposition of really old with new. Like cathedral and garbage truck.


I came back to Tergnier the morning of my birthday, after a checkup at the doctor's required by France's immigration authorities. That's the first time I've ever gotten a chest xray on my birthday! And I got to keep the xray! Tabea bought me some beautiful flowers and petites gateaux, and I had a couple wonderful packages waiting for me in the mail when I got home. Thanks everyone for the birthday well-wishes! In the evening Tabea and I took a train to Chauny, a nearby town where 3 other language assistants are living- one from England, one from Germany, and one from Argentina. We had dinner together at an Italian restaurant; it was nice to get out of the house and do something different for a birthday treat.
Birthday goodies, including chest xray


post birthday dinner in front of la Mairie in Chauny

The rest of last week, and the first few days of this one, have been dedicated to figuring out my schedule and observing classes. I've gotten a little (actually a lot) frustrated with my contact person Marie-Ange, who was supposed to have figured out what schools I would work in before I arrived in France, but didn't start contacting schools until I got here. So until the middle of last week I wasn't sure where I would be working, or for how many hours, and had very little to do during the day. The good news is, after Marie-Ange canceled our appointment to meet with la Directrice of one school, and forgot about me several times, I insisted that I go talk to la Directrice myself, and finally have my schedule sorted out! (Sort of!) I'll be working Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings at a small primary school called Condren. I spent one day last week and one this week observing classes, and I like the teachers, la Directrice, and the kids there very much. Today I sorted out my hours at a second primary school called Blériot. I'll be working there all day on Tuesdays, but my schedule is subject to change depending on the English competency of a new teacher who will arrive after the Toussaints holiday. La Directrice, who's name is Mme Blondi (she is indeed blonde,) is very kind, and I sat in on an English lesson with 7-9 year olds who were learning the numbers 11-15. The highlight of the class was #13, which is very difficult to learn to pronounce- the kids were all saying "ffffirteen" until the teacher told them to rest their tongues on their front teeth, 'make a face like something smells bad,' and push out the "ttthhhh" sound- "thhirteen!" This is the last week before the first vacation, Toussaints, but I'm looking forward to having a set schedule and getting to know the kids at Condren and Blériot when I get back.

I'm also looking forward to the having some adventures during Toussaints. This coming weekend is Tabea's 25th birthday, and her family is driving down from Germany! She invited me to spend the weekend with them; we will spend one day at the Atlantic coast, and one day in Reims, a city in the Champagne region where they make a lot of bubbly. I've also made plans to visit Hannah Deming's friend Hilary in a small town in Brittany (near Caen) for four nights after Tabea goes back to Germany, and then I'll head up to Lille to see one of my favorite French musicians perform! (Her name is YELLE, here's a music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHB9epBQxlI) So it might be a while before my next post, but hopefully I'll have lots to tell!

Orientation in Amiens

On Wednesday, I took a train to Amiens, the largest city in Picardie. Orientation for language assistants (all language assistants, not just English) was in Amiens on Thursday. Amiens is about an hour from Tergnier by train, and the trains here are beautiful! They are clean, fast, on time, and they go almost everywhere in France. Rules about missing trains/deciding when you want to come and go are also very flexible. I was supposed to catch a train at 8am on Wednesday, but then decided I needed to sleep, and went to the station around noon expecting that I would have to buy another ticket; instead the ticket taker said I could get on the next train no problem! (Amtrak eat your heart out.) Also, Tabea and I bought discount cards for the SNCF (that's France's trains) last week (Carte 12-25), which give us 25%-50% discounts on all train travel. I love France's trains!

I amused myself on the train watching the passing scenery- fields of mustard and beets, peppered with wind turbines- and photographing some ambiguous signs on the train, like this one:
"If you have no arms and a big gut, or are pregnant, you should probably lean back. If you are in good shape and have arms, feel free to lean forward."

Once I arrived in Amiens, I met up with one of the girls I shared a hotel room with that night, and we went to check out the CATHEDRAL.

La cathèdrale de Notre Dame d'Amiens is the largest gothic cathedral in France, built between 1220-1270. The cathedral was built to house the (alleged) head of John the Baptist, brought to Amiens during the 4th Crusade. I've never in my life seen anything that grand and big and detailed and OLD- I played über tourist and rented an audio tour and took about 367 picutres. It's a breath-taking building, and mind-boggling to imagine people building something like that almost 1000 years ago!
The main entrance:

The nave:

The pulpit! (How'd you like to thunder from that pulpit, eh dad?)

Beautiful stained glass partout (most of it isn't original- the cathedral was damaged in a fire in the 13th century, and during the World Wars):





This is a statue of a weeping angel over a tomb behind the high altar. It's one of the most famous sculptures in the cathedral, depicting a cherub leaning on a skull and an hourglass- my audioguide told me that he is contemplating the inevitability of the passage of time, and of death. Postcards of this optimistic little guy were really popular amongst soldiers stationed in Amiens during WWI.

The head of John the Baptist!! (My favorite Neko Case song kept running through my head while I was looking at this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peHVjXcdzc4 I felt a little weird taking pictures of it, but ... how could I resist?? I felt a little less skeezy than the guys taking multiple photos of it on their iPhones, anyway.)


The founders' stone and center of the labyrinth in the nave:



Thursday was orientation. It wasn't too terribly interesting; it was basically a string of people explaining in rapid French the mountains of paperwork we all have to fill out to get paid, open a bank account, enroll in Social Security, get health insurance, walk down the street, etc. I did learn that there are 158 language assistants in l'académie d'Amiens, and got to meet some really nice ones who live nearby- a couple assistants from England and Trinidad, one Spanish assistant from Bolivia, and several American assistants.

Thursday night I stayed with Mme Brutus' (my contact person, the lady who helps me with paperwork and is arranging my work in French schools,) children Cécile and Guihome. The are 18 and 20 years old, and are both studying law at the university in Amiens. We went out for a drink with two of their friends, and I struggled to keep up with their conversation. My only really embarrassing moment was when Guihome was trying to tell me something about l'Austriche, as in Austria the country, and I said "oh yes! an ostrich!" and did a pretty lame impression of a bird. Like I said, my French is a little rusty!

Friday morning I intended to return to Tergnier by train, but something very French threw a monkey wrench in my plans- LA GRÈVE! For those of you who don't know, the French are notorious for striking all the time, for any reason. On Thursday, a SNCF train conductor was assaulted in Strasbourg, France, and in solidarity (? or something?) all SNCF conductors went on strike, and 80% of trains were canceled for 2 days. We actually encountered two strikes that day: all the language assistants were supposed to have a free lunch at the University cantine, but the cantine workers were also on strike! In the end la grève didn't throw off my plans too badly, I was able to take two buses and made it back to Tergnier later in the afternoon.

Besides orientation, the past week was mostly filling out paperwork (bleh) and applying for a bank account for Marie-Ange Brutus, who is nice and patient in explaining all that is going on. One other cool thing that happened was that I played basketball on Friday night! There is a very nice secretary who works in the office with Mme. Brutus whose name is Stéfanie. For whatever reason I tower over most people in this town, and the first thing she said to me was, "You're very tall! Do you play basketball?" She was excited to learn that I did in fact play basketball, and invited me to watch her husband coach a group of 7-9 year olds play in a town called Gauchy, (I might help coach them every Friday,) and told me that I could also practice with a group of women who play in the same town. France has a neat network of regional basketball teams for adults- the team from Gauchy has regular practice twice a week and plays games every weekend against teams from all over the region. I definitely felt out of shape/practice playing with the womens' team on Friday, and was having trouble understanding French basketball lingo, but I'm definitely going to try it again next.

One final observation: somehow French people know that I'm American on sight, before I utter one word, and I'm curious to know how! For example, on Friday on my walk back from the train station, an older man stopped me in the street and shouted "YOU SPEAK EENGLISH?! 2 year ago, I go to Philadelphia!!" and then told me in broken English about his career as a barber on a military base, and his sister who lives in PA, and his visit to Philly. Stéfanie told me that I have "an American face," but I'm determined to trick most people into thinking I'm French. At least until I start speaking.

That's all for now! Tomorrow morning I'll be observing classes at a primary school nearby called Condren. Marie-Ange has yet to find out where I'll be teaching the other half of the week, but hopefully that will get sorted out this week. (Or at least before our first vacation, which is already fast approaching. :)

Bisous!

WARNING::::POST ENTITLED 'TABEA' CONTAINS FALSE INFORMATION

My ACTUAL address is:

32 Blvd Jean de la Fontaine
02700 Tergnier, FRANCE

I wish blogger had an edit post button?? sorry guys.

TABEA

OK I've lost my touch with this whole blog thing!
Completely forgot to mention that TABEA arrived day before yesterday, and is very sweet! She is from a small town in Germany, is 24, and studied French and Protestant theology. Her boyfriend Johnathan drove here with her and hung out for the weekend- he knows more about American TV than I do. He was explaining an episode of "Breaking Bad" to me and referred to one of characters as the "chief drug master." If I ever go into drug manufacturing/dealing, I'm going to insist that everyone refer to ME as Chief Drug Master, for sure.
Tabea brought extra tea cups, so don't worry about BYOTC!! She also brought a hot plate, which was crucial, and extra bedding, which was also crucial because I was sleeping on a pile of clothes before she arrived. She loves candles and flowers, and I think we'll get along just fine, knock wood :)
I ALSO forgot to mention that I know my address now:
32 Blvd de la Fontaine
02100 Tergnier FRANCE
And I got a cell phone today!
011 + 33 + 06.60.87.61.98
I can't really make calls or text to the U.S. except on occasion, but you can certainly callmebeepme and tell me to hop on skype or what have you.
OK I'm probably forgetting lots of other really important details, but it's bed time!

Quelques photos :)

Our apartment building! We live in #10, the top left hand unit. The metal grate things slide to cover up the orange windows- très moderne!
The dining room...


La cuisine...




View from 1 of our 2 (!!!) balconies!
Ma chambre! for those of you who have been in my room over the past 4 years, you now know that I haven't gotten any new posters&things for a long while :) I rather like having one set of decorations to put up no matter where I am, be it Grinnell, or Kansas City, or Tergnier; it makes it easier to make a place my own.
The view from my very large bedroom window, and a tiny plant that I bought at a floriste.

French toilet paper is awesome. My options in Auchan were this pack, or hot pink. Luckily I chose this pack- one roll has hangers that say "Do Not Disturb," another has a floral pattern, another has ornate urns on it, and then there are my two personal favorites: one is scrawled with complicated-looking math equations, and the other has really gross bugs on it? A mosquito, a house fly, and a cockroach for example.

Bisous! xxx

Je suis arrivée!

BONJOUR from Tergnier!
You will all be unhappy to hear that I am currently sitting in un MacDo. BUT, this is apparently the only place in town that has WiFi, so please forgive me.

Before I left home, I imagined that Tergnier would be like the Grinnell of France- a small town in an agricultural region. That was a pretty accurate estimate, except Tergnier has no college. The area is really flat, and if you walk 10 minutes out of town on the one highway that runs through it (=146 in Grinnell,) you're surrounded by fields (crops to be identified later.) Not corn though, so that's different. There's even the French equivalent of Walmart, an "hypermarché" called Auchan, a little ways out of town- just a little bit farther than you'd like to walk (=Walmart shopping center, Grinnell!) The MacDo I'm in right now is right next to Auchan.

Backtrack to yesterday. I got into Charles de Gaulle at around 10:30am and had just the right amount of time to take the métro into Paris to Gare du Nord, where I hopped on a train that went north and dropped me in Tergnier a little less than two hours later (a train runs through this town too! Spot on Grinnell.) The woman I've been emailing this summer who works at the school where I'll be met me on the platform. Her name is Marie-Ange Brutus, and she is very small, round, and funny. She drove me to the office of the collège where I'll be working and showed me my apartment, which is only a block away. The apartment building is modern, and reminds me a little bit of the house from 'Mon Oncle':

(I'll post my own pictures soon!)

Mme Brutus very kindly invited me out to dinner with her and her two children, who are both studying law in Amiens, and are 18 and 20 years old. They were very patient while I asked what almost every single ingredient on the menu was, though Mme Brutus finally decided she would order for me (spaghetti with meat sauce. lol.) (We were at a pizzeria, and a lot of the pizzas had eggs on them! intéressant.) They also accompanied me on a mini shopping trip in Auchan, where I plan to go for a longer visit in a few minutes. The weirdest thing I saw there was milk jelly, which Mme Brutus' daughter Cécile described only as "strange". Got to try that too.

Today I've puttered around the apartment, napped, and walked around town a bit- one thing I've noticed so far is that French people loooove florists- there are at least 4 of them in town! and a nursery! and this is a small town! Also, French people eat a ton of baguettes, that's a fact, not a stereotype. Also, my French is pretty rusty. But I will have plenty of opportunities to practice.

For now, I will say AU REVOIR and head into Auchan. Tabea should be arriving at any time, she is driving here with her boyfriend from Germany today! I miss you all, and send many bisous.