So much to write about, and so many technical problems!!!
This will be short, as I'm writing from the médiathèque de tergnier, because at the moment my laptop charger is broken, so I cant use my computer. I ordered another one, but it might not arrive for a month :( I'll be praying that it arrives sooner, because that's a long time to go without skype and blog and modern family. I did find the first twilight book in french yesterday, which has been very entertaining so far. Should broaden my vampire-werewolf vocab significantly!
A lot of really awesome things have happened in the past few weeks, and a lot of them happened with awesome grinnellians. Two weekends ago my friend Libby came to tergnier for one night from Santander, Spain, where she is living for a year as a fulbright fellow. The night she arrived Tabea and I threw a small xmas party, and invited our friends from Chauny, coworkers, and neighbors- Tabea made mulled wine, I made egg nog, and people brought wonderful French speciqlties like tarte aux maroilles and the 13 traditional desserts of xmas. The night ended with a Claude François dance party- Libby introduced me to CloClo, who you should check out on youtube if you don't know him already. Two of my favorites are 'Belles, Belles, Belles' and 'Alexandra, Alexandrie'. The next day Libby and I went to Paris and saw the catacombs, took a boat trip on the Seine, and met up with a friend of hers for coffee (pictures when my charger arrives!!) I was sad to bid adieu to Libby, it was so nice to spend time with a Grinnellian who was as excited as I was to walk around a maze of underground tunnels filled with human bones stacked to eye-level (catacombs!! awesome!)

On Thursday of this past week, I made my way into Paris again to meet up with 3 more grinnellians from the class of 2013- Zoe, who I waitressed with at the phoenix, and Hannah and Carla, two frisbee players who I had never met before but am very happy to know now. Hannah is finishing up a semester abroad in Paris, so she graciously hosted us all and showed us around- Zoe and Carla had just gotten off a plane from Tanzania when I met up with the group on Thurs- they studied abroad there last semester, and were tanned and full of parasites (literally). I stayed with them for 2 nights, in which time we saw a photo exhibition, the xmas market on the champs-elysee, saw a fantastic exhibition called 'the invention of the savage' at a museum near la tour eiffel, climbed the eiffel tower, saw the louvre, and went dancing til 4am. phew! Was sad to say goodbye so soon to such great people, but I hope our paths will cross again soon.

On Saturday morning, I went to Gare du Nord to meet up with my mom; (!!!) we had made a pretty straight forward plan, which was to meet at a certain platform at a certain time, and which, unfortunately, went wrong. My moms flight was late 2 hours and she was 3 hours late meeting me, and had no way to contact me, nor I her. Long story short, I spent several hours frantically trying to figure out what the deal was with her plane (didnt know airline or flight info), and started crying after armed guards roped off half the train station because someone left a suitcase unattended, which they BLEW UP after about 20 minutes (I had no clue what was going on), and then miraculously! my mom appeared! and now we are together, making our plans to spend christmas in london and new years in geneva. Looking back over the past few weeks and forward to the holidays, I am overwhelmed with THANKS for the good fortune I have to be here and have the opportunity to see so much (and so grateful that I found my mom. good grief.)

Oh yes, and the last few weeks of work were great as well, high points being a christmas pageant at bleriot where the preschoolers I work with sang 'we wish you a merry christmas' and 'if you're happy and you know it', and making gingerbreadmen at condren.

Missing you all, much love to you at the end of the year! will post pictures asap when charger arrives (unless world ends jan 2012; hope not INSHALLAH)

Compiègne, Thanksgiving, et les Souris Vertes

Some cool things have happened over the past week and a half!

1) I visited Compiègne twice, two Satudays in a row. Compiègne is a city about 45 minutes from Tergnier on the train, on the way to Paris. For my first visit, I met up with Alejandra and Kiersten, two assistants from Noyon, a town 20 minutes from Tergnier, and Corinne, who is living in Compiègne. In the morning, we walked around the Christmas market and the farmer's market. One wonderful thing about this time of year is Christmas markets- in most of Europe, moderately sized towns set up Christmas markets as early as late November. The markets feature knick knacks you can buy as gifts, sometimes carousels and ice skating, and of course special Christmas food and drink, like roasted chestnuts (tried those for the first time in Compiègne!), vin chaud (mulled wine), mousse filled chocolates, waffles with all sorts of toppings, cakes, and special meats... YUMMMM! After the markets, we visited Compiègne's royal palace! Louis XIV once said of the château de Compiègne: "At Versailles, I am lodged like a king; at Fontainebleau, like a prince; and at Compiègne, like a peasant." Le pauvre!! It was really fun to walk around les Grands Apartements (malheureusement no pictures allowed!) and imagine Marie Antoinette or Napoleon Bonaparte or various Louis walking the same hallways, sitting in the beautifully upholstered chairs or sleeping in the extravagant beds. The palace also has huge gardens, and the day I visited it was clear and beautiful!

L'Hôtel de Ville de Compiègne, and the Christmas market
Christmas market meats

Le palais!
Corinne & I on the stairs that lead to the Queen's apartments

The palace grounds

Compiègne's cathedral
Alejandra & Kiersten in front of "the oldest known example of a circular tower", constructed in the 12th century. This tower was the spot where Jeanne d'Arc was captured in 1430!
A view from my bedroom window in Tergnier the other day. Beautiful sunsets, but it's getting dark here just before 5pm! :(
2. Thanksgiving!! A very kind English teacher at the collège here in Tergnier invited me to his place for Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday Nov. 27. I had a bit of trouble getting there, as the train Tabea and I were planning on taking back to Tergnier was cancelled after we spent a second day in Compiègne last weekend. I ended up having to take a bus straight from Compiègne to Saint Quentin, which meant that I wasn't able to bring the casserole of candied sweet potatoes I made for the occasion. (Tabea doesn't like sweet potatoes, and I think was scared by the marshmallows, so this means I've been working on finishing the entire pan of candied sweet potatoes solo this past week. They make a good breakfast, kinda.) I also had to go to the bathroom so badly on the bus ride that I had to ask the bus driver to stop the mostly full bus by the side of the road, which was embarrassing. But! I did make it to Thanksgiving in Saint Quentin eventually, and though much of the conversation was very fast and about video games (beyond my comprehension on two counts) I did add some important words to my vocabulary, like "grateful" and "urinary tract infection" (we discussed the merits of cranberries over dinner- they're pretty much unknown here in France). And the food was great. :) Pascal, our host, made the turkey, stuffing, corn, gravy, and cranberry(ish) sauce himself, and friends brought mashed sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. I was very reconnaissante (grateful) to have Thanksgiving here in France!

Turkey = la dinde, en français. C'est la dinde de Pascal.
Franksgiving! Pascal is the guy in green on the right.
Eliza carving la dinde, Camille supervising. These two are also teachers at the collège in Tergnier.
Thanksgiving also meant that I spent most of my English classes last week explaining the holiday. At Condren, la Directrice Lucille suggested we make a pumpkin pie with the kids! It was pretty chaotic, but really fun, and though I was worried I got some of the conversions from cups to grams wrong, the pies turned out great.

Mixing les ingrédients. The lady with the red heart shirt is la Directrice, Lucille.
WAAAAH PUMPKIN PIE!!!!!!!!
3. Adorable French children, take II. At both schools where I work, Blériot and Condren, children in Maternelle have been working on various projects about les Souris Vertes (Green Mice). La Souris Verte is a classic French children's book and song. Here's a link to the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hyPpfzm84I&feature=related
Roughly translated, the song goes "A little green mouse, running through the grass/I catch him by the tail/I show it to some men/ These men tell me, dip it in oil, dip it in water/ It will make a hot little snail!/ I put it in my drawer, it says 'it's too dark!'/I put it in my hat, it says 'it's too hot!'/ I put it in my drawer, it leaves me three little poops." (It's waaaay better in French.) This week the kids in Maternelle at Condren finished up their Souris Verte masks and took pictures!


Also at Condren last week, I worked with older kids on colors. I would say a color in English and they would try to spell it out on their whiteboards; la maîtresse Hélène and I were pretty amused by some original spellings, including oued (red), iélo (yellow), and gouene (green). :) The next few weeks will be pretty busy, as well- this weekend I'm heading to Reims for a day, and to Soissons for a basketball game, the two weekends after that I'll be in Paris, and my mom arrives Dec. 17! hurrah!

Happy late Thanksgiving to everyone again, I miss you all very much! It was very nice to skype with the Demings and the Lincolns and the Pattersons on Thanksgiving, and with my mom and Sylvia the night before. Sending much love to everyone reading this!