Holy Crap

We just saw santa clause repel himself down the facade of an 11th century cathedral!!!!!

Armed with 4 brown ropes and a weird little harness, a rather skinny santa made a GRAND (slooow and clumsy) entrance into the christmas market last night. Getting stuck at the top, flailing about and kicking bits of the ancient facade into the crowd on his way down, and landing squarely on top of some decorative Christmas trees at the bottom...It was the most amazing hilarious highlight of the month. Dead serious. I've never seen something quite so funny. Megan..pictures..stat! :) (I think you can just edit this entry and add in whatever you want, right?)

 

Favorite French Moment of the Week, #1

While teaching my youngest students colors, one of the bounced up excitedly and started saying something to me about Chinese people. After an embarrassingly long time I realized he was asking me if I knew how to write like a Chinese person. Confused, I said no, and then showed him how I write. At which point all of the kids jumped up and started laughing and saying "That's how a Chinese person writes!" French kids are only taught to write in cursive. When copying phrases from the board my older students take forever, trying unsuccessfully to mimic my script. Evidently it's gotten around the school that I write like a weirdo, and the 5 year olds decided that meant I knew how to write Chinese. I should have lied to them.

Lesson on Stereotypes

So I taught a lesson on symbols vs stereotypes the other week...to my seconde level class...15ish years old... It involved a 5 miinute drawing or sketch...and describing, comparing, contrasting, and discussing...and well... I present you: what they think of you...

...and a few of my favorite french ones as well..although you can see they were much more interested in drawing and discussing americans...

love always,

Brielle

Peer Pressure

A limerick for my fellow assistants who so effectively chastised me for not contributing to this collective journal until now:

There once were some girls named Brie,
Megan and Kate and me
Sitting around
Drinking wine down
And so here this blog je l'ai écrit

I do not know quite what to write
Tonight we all did share a bite
I made some soup
Fed it to the group
France Friends, let's no longer fight.

Now that I've posted this poem
Y'all can now leave me alone
I promise to post
(not as often as most)
'Cause I'm glad we call Laon our home.

Thanksgiving in Soissons

Assistants in Soissons, a town about 30 minutes from Laon, generously invited us to spend the Saturday after Thanksgiving celebrating with them. Though we all missed loved ones at home, it was as warm and definitely as tasty as any Thanksgiving as I've had back in the states. In total there were about 20 of us; American assistants from Laon, Soisson, Hirsonand Crapy-en-Valois, French friends, a Bolivian, Canadian, Brit, Korean, and an Irish girl. We introduced those who were new to the holiday to hand-turkeys.

Of course, we also went around to say what we were thankful for. Cliches about home, food, and friends pack more of a punch when you are working to make a new one, when traditional food is hard to come by, and your friends are the people you are depending the most on. It doesn't hurt that everything sounds more elegant in French.              

Traditional, hand-made Thanksgiving pinata

 

 

Lindsay had a birthday.

We drank champagne, ate kebab (duh), and bestowed upon her a (timeless) token of our newly found friendships....the best board game ever....Passion Picardie!!!

Afterall only the best gifts can be purchased directly from the office of tourism... right?

ooooh Picardie....

Shortly after, Maria's (German) boyfriend Jonathan was visiting and brought us a FULL case of freaking amaaaazing German beer for our first gamenight, we battled head to head in rediculous drawings and charades, and of course we all learned....well...practically nothing about the Picardie region... but it was FUN!!

Megan's Trip to Ireland, Part 2

For everyone who hasn't been, Dublin is a fantastic city. The people are super funny and welcoming, there's tons of really interesting history, the museums are free, the downtown area is all within an easy 30 minute walking distance, and they have coffee shops devoted entirely to variations of hot chocolate.

Our first day in Dublin we pretended like we were in America. It was so nice to be around an old friend, we took advantage of it. We bought these crazy elaborate milk shakes (mine had a slice of cheesecake blended into it) and snuck them into a movie. Afterwards we sat in a pub, drank good Irish beer and listened to music.

Our second day, we took the day trip (See Part 1). That night we went out with three American girls we met in our hostel. They'd just come from Amsterdam and had lots of good stories. We spent another evening in a pub, listening to music and meeting people who spoke our language. 

Our third day we moved in with someone we'd met in a bar. His name was Marty, and he's getting his phD in marketing. He was super hospitable and let us crash in his place for the last few nights. That day we went to the Chester Beatty library to look at very old books. Chester Beatty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Beatty) was an American who made a fortune mining copper and collected rare books. He eventually settled in Dublin, where he built a beautiful museum to exhibit his collection. We toured the religious texts room, where there were manuscripts of the bible from 200 ad! Afterwards we went to the National Museum, spent the evening drinking hot chocolate and walking around a shopping district, and ended the night once again in a pub. 

These pictures are of "bog men." There are from around 300 bc and were human sacrifices, thrown into the swamps near Dublin. The bogs there have weird chemicals that tend to preserve organic matter. Archeologists also found edible butter with these bog men! 

Our favorite bar, taking during the quiet day hours

Our last day, we took a free walking tour. Students from Trinity College give them daily. Evidently there are free walking tours in most big European cities (http://www.neweuropetours.eu/). We learned a lot about the fight for Irish independence. I hadn't realized how long and bloody the struggle had been. Oh, and we heard a lot about Bono.

That evening we watched our first rugby match. That game makes no sense to me. We met tons of South Africans who had come to watch their national team compete. Despite the fact that Ireland lost the pubs were jolly as ever.

Irish pub culture starts and ends super early; everyone is out by 8 and only a few bars stay open past midnight.  There is positively nothing open after 3 am. The crowds are also unusual. People of all ages hang out in the same bars. Everyone is super friendly and there's almost always live music.

Amazing, deluxe and cheap hot cocoa

Trinity College 

A castle built so that Queen Victoria wouldn't have to see the slums
during her visit to Dublin

Megan's Trip to Ireland, Part 1

Caroline, one of my best friends from college, and I spent 6 days in Dublin. After debating between all of Ryanair's cheap destinations we settled on a the place where people spoke English. I can't tell you how nice it was to be perfectly understood at all times. That said, I didn't always understand what was being said to me. After some confusion in a pub one night, a jolly middle-aged Irish man said to me "Listen faster lass."

Below are pictures from our day trip through the Mountains and to Kilkenny, a small village south of Dublin. The hostel we stayed in gave you a free day trip if you stayed for two nights. Well worth it. The countryside was incredible, even if the weather was awful. 

The tower in the background is part of the monastery founded by St. Keven in the 500's. St. Keven is famous for throwing a beautiful, naked virgin off a cliff. He believed that she was the devil tempting him.

This is the top of a burial chamber which predates the pyramids!

Kilkenny Castle

Kilkenny Castle was originally built by Strong-Bow, the infamous Norman Invader of Ireland, in the 12th century. Strong-Bow's real name is Richard de Clare, which just sounds so much less intimidating than his English name. His ancestors, the Butlers, lived there until the 1930's. Today they've renovated the inside to look how it did in the 1800's. Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

A drawing of Kilkenny from the 1800's, borrowed from wikipedia

To come: Pictures and Stories from Dublin

Soisson

 Over our first of four two week paid vacations we took a day trip to Soisson. Soisson is about 30 minutes away from us by train. Although it's the same size as Laon, it has a very different feel. First of all it's flat, so less impressive when you first approach it. Secondly, 80% of it was destroyed in the first world war. Thus it has a much more modern feel.

Hilights of the day include meeting up with Haley, who graduated from my college a few years ago, and other Soisson assistants. Also, Chinese food for the first time since being in Europe! All you can eat Chinese food...

The Cathedral, burned first by the protestant Huguenots in the 1600's and later by the Germans. Below, pictures of the inside. 

allo!!

Hey world of mainly Megans friends. I'm Brielle. For better or worse I was just given access to be a co-conspirator for this blog along with the other assts and I thought I'd type a little something today..just a short hello.

I thought it was really awesome of Megan (Queen Megan, if you happen to be a primary student under her authority that doesn't know any better) to introduce me as the founder of free wifi :) . I live in la ville basse de Laon ...le quartier champagne. Basically lower Laon, at the bottom of the plateau instead of up in the bourgeois FANCY PANTS medieval city with the others. One day at the very start of this whole adventure, I was meeting everyone uptown for a picnic and while we were gallantly looking out over the ramparts at teeny tiny lower Laon, someone mentioned how 'peasantville' looked nice on said day ... peasantville... lower Laon...mmm my home... and since the eternal caste of peasant and the jokes that come with it.. have stuck.


I love being in France. This is my first time teaching. My french is funny.
This adventure is hilariously rad from absolutely every angle.


Anyway, I'll get my camera working and try to be charismatic and funny next time...


Yours truly,

Our Town Fortress

On top of the plateau in our town is the amazing park. There's an old fortress, although we have no idea exactly how old. There are no signs explaining it anywhere, but I do know that our town has been fortified since at least the 400's. Since it's Europe, you're allowed to climb all over the fortress and through it's tunnels. There is also super fun and dangerous playground equipment to play on. The last time we went, we ran into 7 year old students of Lindsay who were lighting matches and pretending to smoke them.