Time to come home(!)

Already! It’s terrifying that I’ve been here just over one month. It’s gone by so fast! So yes, I’m about to come home for Toussaint which is a 13 day break which encompasses Halloween, or, All Saints Day. Or, dependent on internet, I may already be home…but it’s all the same really :)

What have I been up to...well, last time I had just tried snails for the second time, so this Saturday, Dana and I went to the market again (do you see a pattern here? :P) and this time I bought my veg for the week, as it’s cheaper and nicer than Carrefour. We saw figs. I’ve had a bit of fresh fig before and vaguely remember liking it, plus I like fig rolls (or Fig Newtons as they call them over the pond…strange Americans :P), so Dana bought one for us to try. After booking our tickets to Strasbourg in December (for the Christmas market – supposedly amazing, and the source for all my Christmas presents this year I think) we tried the fig. Figs are GOOD. They are sweet and yummy and make Nielle happy :D.

I’m currently in the middle of my first ‘full’ week of teaching as previously I’ve had either orientations or the joy that is Mercredi Liberé (once a month, the half day on Wednesday turns into a full day off :)) It’s pretty tiring – to the point that I managed to sleep for an hour and a half this afternoon! But it’s so enjoyable! The kids pretty much all love me – to the point of giving me the ‘bisous’ at the end of each lesson, and one girl of 8 came up to me and sais: “Tu es trop belle” – you are very beautiful. As you can guess, I blushed. A lot. I already have favourites in each class – is that bad? (*innocent eyes*) And thing is, it’s just increasing my desire to have my own class and to teach them everything (i.e. maths, English, science etc etc). So I think I’ve made the best decision to do this for my year abroad and a pretty good decision on my future career. Yay :)

We’re doing Halloween this week in class. This is fun. The kids get so excited, and we had our CE2 class of 8 (8-9 year olds) dress up today. They were so cute! Tomorrow (Thursday 25^th) we’re doing a whole day of Halloween with sweets, decorations in the classroom and games. At least it’s a nice easy day for us!

I’ve finally given in on the heating front. Basically I said that I wouldn’t turn the heating on until at least November, because it’s a) expensive and b) ridiculous. But Chartres (and I think England too) has taken on a cold snap and it’s bloody freezing! So I have my radiator on in one room (i.e. my bedroom) and it’s toasty warm now. I was at a point of wearing 5 layers, including a thick jumper, a duvet, gloves and a blanket around my shoulders! I thought that was getting silly, hence heater-y goodness. I have also taken to having candles, because they seem to provide a semblance of warmth, cost €1,89 (yes, I found my Euro sign key!) and smell gooood! So yay.

Dana and I are planning to take some random European trips; we’ve looked in to Marrakech (not Europe, I know, but just as cheap), Norway (for the Northern Lights) and maybe Greece or Spain. Probably not all as funds are pretty tight. However we do qualify for welfare here (!) which means that France pays for about 2/3 to ¾ of our rent! Which wins. Made of pure win in fact. This means I should be getting cheques for €200 plus at some point in the future when I actually get around to applying.

I’m not sure if there’s anything else…but I am very much looking forward to going home tomorrow – so I can communicate properly with everyone! And be properly warm! And have showers that don’t go cold half way through because the hot water tank is ridiculously small! ‘Tis all good.

Love to everyone

Nielle

xxxx