Friday, January 20, 2012

So I work a couple weeks and get a vacation...not a bad life.

**Correction I ate calf HEAD not feet. Oops.

So leading up to the end of October, the week of the 17th-21st. I started working on Halloween. Kids love Halloween, and French kids are no different. While they don't exactly celebrate Halloween like us Americans do, they sure do love to hear about it. Especially if candy is involved. Besides Candy, my students are in love with Bingo! Combine the two together and I am the coolest assistant ever (hey, their words not mine :-P )

It was a lot of fun teaching the students something that is so culturally different than their own. They love the idea of the costumes, the parties, the going door-to-door, the haunted houses, and of course all of the candy! And Halloween wouldn't be the same without candy, so of course I gave them candy. I tend to bring in a lot of candy to my kids... I spoil them.

So if you were following this story closely, (which I highly doubt because not even I am - I am writing this in a tired stupor so please expect my wittiest and best work ever. That last statement is dripping with sarcasm. How I wish there was a sarcasm font.) Anywho, if you were following closely, why would I talk about Halloween 2 weeks before it even happens? Well that is because of

VACATION!!! (If you actually read the title and knew this was coming, then this is where you give yourself brownie points)

Yes that is right. I worked a whole whopping THREE weeks and I got a whole 12 day vacation! My life is soooo hard, I know, I know. It kind of just came up on us, so we didn't have a lot of time to plan but I did manage to leave the country, which I will share in the next blog. The first part of the vacation was great! I got to sleep in and not plan lessons! Sounded like my first week here!

But! I also had my good friend Jackie come to Lyon on that Tuesday. She and I went to U of I together, and met sophomore year in an EIL class (English as an International Langauge) We happened to sit right next to each other on the first day of class and it was there that we found out we both wanted to teach English in France some day! Fast forward 2 years later and we are both now doing the same program. She is in Clermont-Ferrand another region right next to mine in France. She and two other assistants came to visit Lyon so we met up to go to dinner with another assistant, Rosie, who is from New Zealand. She is one of the sweetest people I have ever met! If everyone from New Zealand are like her then I am moving to New Zealand after this to live with the friendliest people on earth and of course to live in a hobbit home obvs.

Anyway, Rosie heard of this amazing "true" Bouchon in Lyon. What is a bouchon? well they are restaurants that serve typically Lyonnais food. A "true" bouchon has to have this weird puppet thing in the window. I don't get it, but Lyon is also known for these weird puppets, known as a "guignol" - >they kind of creep me out to be honest. I mean look at those things...do they not look kind of creepy? Apparently, there are only around 40 true bouchons in Lyon and they have to have a puppet like the one on the left to be considered it. Now, Lyon, unlike Paris, is a VERY meat driven place. They love there pork, sausage, chicken, sausage, livers, intestines, stomach, sausage, feet, brains, sausgage. I honestly think they think any part of the animal is perfectly acceptable to eat...which is kind of weird to me. With their meat, they eats lots of salads and lots of potatoes. If you are a meat and potatoes kind of person, then Lyon is the place for you to go. I ate andouillette which is a type of sausage. I didn't look up what it was made from until AFTER I ate it and found out it is made from stomach - awesome. It was served with a mustard sauce and it was quite good :) It was fun to hear about life in Clermont and I am excited to visit Jackie and her friends there! After, we decided to visit one of the Irish pubs for a drink before going home because they were leaving the next morning.

The next day, Wednesday, some of my teachers from my awesome school came to visit! Charlotte, my main English teacher, and her friend and her two adorable kids, Maxime and his adorable son, Mindy and I met up with them at this big square called Bellecour and walked to the train station Perrache. Right down the street is a very famous restaurant named called Brasserie Georges. It is HUGE and known for their good food and their beer - which they make and brew onsite. I ordered the menu, which gets me an entré (an appetizer kind of) and main dish and a dessert. I ordered this little dish with lentils, onions....and calf feet. CALF HEAD. It wasn't that bad... But the sauce had a bit of mayonnaise in it so I couldn't really stomach it. For the main dish I had a pistachio sausage (as I said there is a lot of sausage in Lyon!) Yes pistachio sausage and it was the best thing I have ever eaten here in Lyon. SO GOOD! I am salivating about it now. I ALSO drank a whole thing of beer AND a glass of red wine. ME. BEER. RED WINE. Who am I?! I am either getting old or getting classier here in France! Then for dessert I had this thing I cant even describe...it was chocolatey, crunchy, soft, craziness. As we were finishing up, Javier, the Spanish teacher at my school joined us, and we decided to visit Old Lyon. It was a lot of fun walking around the rivers and the older part of Lyon, speaking in French, and hanging out with my teachers! They are so nice, fun and always including me in everything. It has made my experience much more enjoyable just because they have helped me get situated and fill out paperwork. Over all, it was a really fun day!! Around 5, the teachers all headed home and Mindy and I headed back to pack for BARCELONA!!!

More to come on that later :)

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