I got sick (again) a few days ago. This morning, after a grand total of one hour of sleep, I got up to go to work and the moment my feet touched the ground I thought "Nope, absolutely not." There was no way I would be able to function.
I called my school and the principle immediately ordered me to stay home (ahh the joys of being a French civil servant. I love being reminded that I'm in a country where taking days off when you're too sick to move is acceptable).
I don't know if it's the pollution (Grenoble has a lot) or my lifestyle (see: lazy) or lack of hippy food, but I've been getting sick a lot here. I got a really bad cold right before leaving for Spain which left me useless for nearly a week, when I was in Poland I caught something that made my stomach churn for days, when I first got here I immediately got sick... I think this is something like my fourth or fifth time laying in bed with a mountain of snotty tissues piling up on my floor (sorry, gross realities of the human experience).
You know what, now that I think about it, maybe it's because I work with children all day, and kids are gross. Sure they're cute, but they stick their hands everywhere and touch everything. Or it could be the insane amount of time I spend holding rails on public transportation. Or living in a small apartment with four other people. I don't know.
As I try to start organizing myself to go home, I'm torn between being happy to go back and sad to be leaving. But I'm definitely excited to go back and get healthy again. Maybe I'll even start moving my butt again and, what's the word again? Oh yeah, exercising.
Okay, enough self-pity. Time to go back to laying down and being useless.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Annecy Part Two
Nearly two months ago, when Ewelina was still here, her and I, along with my roommate, took a trip to Annecy, on of the few places that is of potential interest to tourists around Grenoble (add Lyon to that list and that's pretty much it) and I forgot to post the photos. I've said this before: it's a small town worthy of not more than three or four hours of your time, but it definitely knows how to pose for the camera.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Odd Translations
Sometimes American humor doesn't translate very well, and then I'm left looking like an idiot.
A while ago I was teaching a class and I don't remember exactly what I said, but I asked them a question and then I gave them the wrong answer by mistake. The teacher corrected me and I jokingly said "Oops, désolée j'ai menti" (oops, sorry I lied). She looked at me and chuckled "Tu t'es trompée, t'est pas menti!" (Haha, no, you were mistaken, you didn't lie!). I stood there... do I try to explain that gross exaggerations are often taken as a joke in English and that I meant to do that? Nah, too much work.
Yesterday I went into the kitchen and my roommate was there with one of her friends. They were arguing over whether prices for skiing were better during the weekend or weekdays, something like that, and she decided she would just check on her phone. "Okay, so what are we going to bet?" They went back and forth "a leaf of lettuce, 100 euros, suicide." And then I barged in "haha, your first born child." They stared at me... did I pronounce something wrong. "Child...the first one. The first baby."
It was straight out of a movie, both of them, blank faces. It was super awkward. I waved my hand, grabbed my tea and crackers and left.
I'm starting to miss being in a place where I can understand the humor and I understand social cues.
It's not just me making the mistakes though. I was trying to teach kids face vocabulary, and I said "touch your eyes!" One girl who had been repeating everything I said said "touch your ass."
A few days ago the school was having a spelling bee outside. I was standing in the sun, watching, when one of the teachers, the one who speaks pretty good English, walked by and said "are you having a sunbath?" I nearly burst out laughing, that was one of the weirdest questions I've ever been asked.
A while ago I was teaching a class and I don't remember exactly what I said, but I asked them a question and then I gave them the wrong answer by mistake. The teacher corrected me and I jokingly said "Oops, désolée j'ai menti" (oops, sorry I lied). She looked at me and chuckled "Tu t'es trompée, t'est pas menti!" (Haha, no, you were mistaken, you didn't lie!). I stood there... do I try to explain that gross exaggerations are often taken as a joke in English and that I meant to do that? Nah, too much work.
Yesterday I went into the kitchen and my roommate was there with one of her friends. They were arguing over whether prices for skiing were better during the weekend or weekdays, something like that, and she decided she would just check on her phone. "Okay, so what are we going to bet?" They went back and forth "a leaf of lettuce, 100 euros, suicide." And then I barged in "haha, your first born child." They stared at me... did I pronounce something wrong. "Child...the first one. The first baby."
It was straight out of a movie, both of them, blank faces. It was super awkward. I waved my hand, grabbed my tea and crackers and left.
I'm starting to miss being in a place where I can understand the humor and I understand social cues.
It's not just me making the mistakes though. I was trying to teach kids face vocabulary, and I said "touch your eyes!" One girl who had been repeating everything I said said "touch your ass."
A few days ago the school was having a spelling bee outside. I was standing in the sun, watching, when one of the teachers, the one who speaks pretty good English, walked by and said "are you having a sunbath?" I nearly burst out laughing, that was one of the weirdest questions I've ever been asked.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Nice and Monaco
A while ago I was wasting yet another weekend doing nothing, and somewhere between sleeping too long and watching too much Netflix I suddenly got angry at myself for wasting the short amount of time I have here. I needed to go somewhere. I posted a message on Facebook asking if anyone would be interested in going to Nice some weekend, as it was one of the places I regretted not going when I lived in Mont. Three people replied, and the four of us took a half hour plane ride down to the Mediterranean.
Overall the weekend was great. The group I went with was awesome, we were from everywhere: Me the 'Murcan, Chelsea the Aussi, Catia from Portugal, and Eloisa from Mexico. There was a lot of chocolate and laughter, a hostel cat named Victor, and lots of languages (mostly French but also Spanish and Japanese and Portuguese and I may have stuck in a Polish word here or there). It was a lot of fun. Nice itself, though, decided it wasn't going to welcome us with open arms, but with open skies: it rained the whole time. Nice just isn't Nice when you're spending your time hiding from wind and rain rather than beach-hopping and basking in the Mediterranean sun. On top of that the flight there was delayed for two hours, so we ended up playing Uno and eating cookies in the airport for nearly four hours. The good company made up for it though.
That first day we got in late, so we went out for Kebabs and then walked along the waterfront for a couple of hours before going back to the hostel to "sleep," or in my case, lay in bed until 3:00 am. (I've been having trouble sleeping lately). It was nice being back in the south, the palm trees reminded me of Montpellier. The beaches were different though, there was no sand, just rocks, and it didn't smell beach-ey, and it had a different vibe. So I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it actually wasn't like Mont. Sorry I lied.
The second day, like I said, was cold and rainy, so we didn't experience Nice in all it's glory. We saw the main sights, walked down the Promenade des Anglais, saw the main view from the hill, etc. We also ended up meeting up with one of my classmates from a couple French classes at UW who's studying abroad in Morocco and happened to be in the south of France for his vacation during the same weekend. Then we went back to the hostel where we sat in the kitchen and talked with the others for hours while eating too many M&Ms and drinking tea.
We spent the last day trying not to get blown away by the wind in Monaco, which is about an hour away by bus. It's a micro-state tax haven where you basically walk around staring at rich peoples' yachts and ask yourself who you have to sell your soul to to live like that. It's pretty fascinating, actually, a whole country, basically turned into a playground for the rich. Eventually we stopped for lunch, and it was so windy we ended up sitting on some stairs in some little street, huddling in a circle. It was an interesting contrast: being in the "country" with the highest GDP in the world, full of yachts and nice houses while eating our leftover-pasta-and-whatever-else-we-had-left sandwiches in a windy corner outside. We only spent about three or four hours there which was enough to see the Monte Carlo casino and the other main sights before heading back to Nice, deciding it was too cold, and then going straight to the airport.
Overall: a good, relaxed trip.
Probably about half of these I stole from Catia, whose pictures were great (I literally have a folder called "stolen from Catia"), hopefully she doesn't mind. I actually tried to cut down on the photos this time... I wasn't super successful, but there could have been more. Enjoy!
Nice:
Monaco:
Overall the weekend was great. The group I went with was awesome, we were from everywhere: Me the 'Murcan, Chelsea the Aussi, Catia from Portugal, and Eloisa from Mexico. There was a lot of chocolate and laughter, a hostel cat named Victor, and lots of languages (mostly French but also Spanish and Japanese and Portuguese and I may have stuck in a Polish word here or there). It was a lot of fun. Nice itself, though, decided it wasn't going to welcome us with open arms, but with open skies: it rained the whole time. Nice just isn't Nice when you're spending your time hiding from wind and rain rather than beach-hopping and basking in the Mediterranean sun. On top of that the flight there was delayed for two hours, so we ended up playing Uno and eating cookies in the airport for nearly four hours. The good company made up for it though.
That first day we got in late, so we went out for Kebabs and then walked along the waterfront for a couple of hours before going back to the hostel to "sleep," or in my case, lay in bed until 3:00 am. (I've been having trouble sleeping lately). It was nice being back in the south, the palm trees reminded me of Montpellier. The beaches were different though, there was no sand, just rocks, and it didn't smell beach-ey, and it had a different vibe. So I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it actually wasn't like Mont. Sorry I lied.
The second day, like I said, was cold and rainy, so we didn't experience Nice in all it's glory. We saw the main sights, walked down the Promenade des Anglais, saw the main view from the hill, etc. We also ended up meeting up with one of my classmates from a couple French classes at UW who's studying abroad in Morocco and happened to be in the south of France for his vacation during the same weekend. Then we went back to the hostel where we sat in the kitchen and talked with the others for hours while eating too many M&Ms and drinking tea.
We spent the last day trying not to get blown away by the wind in Monaco, which is about an hour away by bus. It's a micro-state tax haven where you basically walk around staring at rich peoples' yachts and ask yourself who you have to sell your soul to to live like that. It's pretty fascinating, actually, a whole country, basically turned into a playground for the rich. Eventually we stopped for lunch, and it was so windy we ended up sitting on some stairs in some little street, huddling in a circle. It was an interesting contrast: being in the "country" with the highest GDP in the world, full of yachts and nice houses while eating our leftover-pasta-and-whatever-else-we-had-left sandwiches in a windy corner outside. We only spent about three or four hours there which was enough to see the Monte Carlo casino and the other main sights before heading back to Nice, deciding it was too cold, and then going straight to the airport.
Overall: a good, relaxed trip.
Probably about half of these I stole from Catia, whose pictures were great (I literally have a folder called "stolen from Catia"), hopefully she doesn't mind. I actually tried to cut down on the photos this time... I wasn't super successful, but there could have been more. Enjoy!
Nice:
 |
| I think this is one of the French athletes who died in the recent helicopter crash (click here) |
At the market:
  |
| Remember when I said it was windy? Chelsea decided to wear a skirt and, well... this was the only thing we could think of to keep it from going all Marilyn Monroe on her |
 |
| This is basically what all my photos of Nice look like |
 |
| There's a hill in the middle of the city, on top is a big park where you can get the best view of the sea and see some less-than-impressive ruins. It's here that we, by some miracle, actually managed to find Martin, the old classmate we met up with |
 |
| And then we all went back and sat and ate chocolate and drank tea and tried to get Victor the cat off the table...not very successfully. |
 |
| And the Eloisa became everyone's favorite |
 |
| And then we walked around and I tried to learn some Spanish. Mostly I just eavesdropped on Catia and Eloisa though |
 |
| The Casino! Too poor, too poor. A main tourist activity, but actual residents are forbidden from playing. |
 |
| I mean... this basically sums up the whole city/country/principality/whatever |
 |
Right out of a storybook
|
 |
| Francois Grimaldi, he captured Monaco in the 13th century by disguising himself as a monk. Read the story here Technically the current royal family isn't blood-related to him, as he had no children, but they're still called the Grimaldis |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)