As I went out to meet some other fellow assistants on Sunday, typically the laziest day of the week in France, I had no idea that I would be witnessing a Christmas celebration unlike any other I have ever seen. The day started innocently enough, with me inviting a few friends to share a coffee before we all went on our separate ways for the holidays. So around 2:30, we met down by the port, and searched for a cafe to relax in.
This was where the fun began. Normally, Sunday is a quiet day here in Vannes. Few businesses, if any, are open and the streets are quiet. However, this being the Sunday before Christmas, it was not your usual Sunday. Already, I knew something was up as I walked to the port. When I passed city hall, there was a large outdoor ice skating rink that had been set up and was slowly melting away under the heat of the sun and the hundreds of children skating over it. Down by the port, the holiday festivities continued, with a makeshift putt putt course, various wooden children's games such as a form of wooden air hockey, and Christmas carolers. But the best surprise of all was a giant wooden, mechanical camel, some twenty feet tall, that paraded through the streets with Santa on his back. Now, I don't know if the French missed the memo about Santa's reindeer, but whatever the case may be, this camel was certainly big enough to haul Santa's sleigh all by himself.
The rest of the day was spent fighting through the crowds, as it seemed every resident of Vannes had made their way to the port to get a glimpse of this monstrous camel. Along the way, we passed multiple puppet shows, an ice sculptor, and eventually found ourselves waiting an hour in line for a taste of "chichi", which is basically a funnel cake type doughnut. And it was totally worth it. If you have ever had chichi, or funnel cake for that matter, you understand. So what commenced as a simple afternoon coffee, turned into a full day of Christmas miracles!
As you can probably guess by now, I am officially on vacation and have been since my last class on Thursday evening. I was tempted to post right when I got home, just to brag about finishing my work, but now I am glad I held off so that I could share this experience with you all. Unfortunately, me being the genius that I am, one who always learns from his mistakes, I failed to bring my camera with me to the port on Sunday. So I cannot visually share this day with you as I would like, and it is up to you to use your imagination to picture this camel. But it's good for you, imagination exercises the brain.
Tomorrow is my last day in Vannes, and then I am off for a big ten day trip for Christmas and New Years. First, I will be heading to London to spend Christmas and Boxing Day with my sister, Gabe, brother-in-law, Dave, and his family. Afterwards, I will be taking a bus to Brussels, where I will stay with my friend Ophir for four days and ring in the new year at his home! So with that, I will be leaving you until 2012. Have a safe and happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years! Till next year.
Tommy
Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Validated, just in time for the holidays
As you can see from my title, the Christmas holidays here are fast approaching. Now, this is not to be confused with winter break, as that happens in February. It might sound like the same thing, and if I was living in America, you would be right; but here, those are two separate vacations. So as I write to you on this Monday evening, I have three more days of work and then I am officially on holiday until school returns on January 3rd. In addition, I write to you tonight as a fully legal French resident, as of this past Thursday.
How did I obtain this honor? On Thursday I traveled to Rennes, which is the biggest city in Bretagne and the capital of the region. I was summoned to the French Office of Immigration and Integration, where I was thoroughly examined by a doctor and deemed to be fit and healthy enough to reside in France. This meant checking my immunization record, doing the usual tests that one gets at a physical, and randomly enough, taking a lung x-ray. Once this was all completed, my passport was labeled and my visa officially validated, enabling me to stay in France for the rest of my contract.
Since I was attending a compulsory appointment in Rennes I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to explore the city. I took a very early train and stayed much later than I needed so that I would have a full day to get my tourist urges out. The city reminded me of a smaller version of Lyon, where I lived two years ago in the opposite corner of France. Both are not nearly as large as Paris, yet each has its own metro system and is by all definitions a bustling city. However, Rennes is unique because of its wooden architecture. The buildings in the original city were all made of wood from the forests nearby, and while there was a huge fire in 1720 that destroyed much of the city, some of its wooden structures remain. The pictures posted on this blog are all from my day in Rennes.
In addition to walking the beaten tourist path in town, I stumbled upon a few holiday surprises. Two markets attracted my attention during the day; one was an artist's exposition, with anything from wooden to glass masterpieces while another was a traditional Christmas market. Most of my time was spent at the Christmas market, where I actually had a chance of affording what was being sold, which was mainly food for me. And I did not resist. I also did not want to miss a chance to buy myself a present, so I am now a part of the world of owners of cool Nepalese hats. For those of you left out, these are basically large beanies that cover your ears and have strings to tie at the bottom.
My holiday spirit was revved up a bit today at school as I showed "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" to a class. While they may not have understood much of what was said, I thoroughly enjoyed reliving my childhood. I forgot just how much of Dr. Seuss' writing is not actually English and is hard enough to understand when you are a native speaker. Nonetheless, the movie is easy enough to follow, and they enjoyed this taste of American pop culture.
My computer clock, still set on Eastern time for no good reason, tells me it is 12:40 pm which means it is time for me to make dinner here. So I leave you with those anecdotes, and I will check back in one more time before I leave for my holiday travels!
A bientot
T.A.B.
How did I obtain this honor? On Thursday I traveled to Rennes, which is the biggest city in Bretagne and the capital of the region. I was summoned to the French Office of Immigration and Integration, where I was thoroughly examined by a doctor and deemed to be fit and healthy enough to reside in France. This meant checking my immunization record, doing the usual tests that one gets at a physical, and randomly enough, taking a lung x-ray. Once this was all completed, my passport was labeled and my visa officially validated, enabling me to stay in France for the rest of my contract.
Since I was attending a compulsory appointment in Rennes I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to explore the city. I took a very early train and stayed much later than I needed so that I would have a full day to get my tourist urges out. The city reminded me of a smaller version of Lyon, where I lived two years ago in the opposite corner of France. Both are not nearly as large as Paris, yet each has its own metro system and is by all definitions a bustling city. However, Rennes is unique because of its wooden architecture. The buildings in the original city were all made of wood from the forests nearby, and while there was a huge fire in 1720 that destroyed much of the city, some of its wooden structures remain. The pictures posted on this blog are all from my day in Rennes.
In addition to walking the beaten tourist path in town, I stumbled upon a few holiday surprises. Two markets attracted my attention during the day; one was an artist's exposition, with anything from wooden to glass masterpieces while another was a traditional Christmas market. Most of my time was spent at the Christmas market, where I actually had a chance of affording what was being sold, which was mainly food for me. And I did not resist. I also did not want to miss a chance to buy myself a present, so I am now a part of the world of owners of cool Nepalese hats. For those of you left out, these are basically large beanies that cover your ears and have strings to tie at the bottom.
My holiday spirit was revved up a bit today at school as I showed "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" to a class. While they may not have understood much of what was said, I thoroughly enjoyed reliving my childhood. I forgot just how much of Dr. Seuss' writing is not actually English and is hard enough to understand when you are a native speaker. Nonetheless, the movie is easy enough to follow, and they enjoyed this taste of American pop culture.
My computer clock, still set on Eastern time for no good reason, tells me it is 12:40 pm which means it is time for me to make dinner here. So I leave you with those anecdotes, and I will check back in one more time before I leave for my holiday travels!
A bientot
T.A.B.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Post-birthday blues
This week's post comes at you from the other side of my 23rd birthday. It has been a few weeks since my last entry, and for that I truly am sorry. I had no intention of leaving you all hanging for so long, waiting with bated breath for the next installment of my tales, like, for example, the Walking Dead series finale. The past few weeks have been rather busy, but now time slows down for the next two weeks as I grind out the end of this semester of school.
As I wrote in my last post, I took a long weekend trip to Rome two weeks ago, where I met up with my friend Haley. This was a fantastic weekend, although it did have the obvious side-effect of making returning to school that much more difficult. I left Vannes on Wednesday, spent a night in Paris, and then flew to Rome on Thursday and returned Sunday. All in all, a whirlwind weekend, filled with scrumptious pizza, pasta, paninis, and, best of all, enough real-life history to satisfy a history major's cravings. From the Colosseum, to the Roman Forum, and of course, the Vatican, I was constantly trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing. As a result, this weekend, the one directly before my birthday, upstaged my excitement for my birthday weekend-but that should in no way be considered a complaint.
Now, I am sure you all are well aware that my birthday was last Friday, the 25th, and that you celebrated accordingly back home. If not, I will safely assume that while you may call the feast you ate on Thursday 'Thanksgiving,' it was in fact a giving of thanks for my arrival into this world. At any rate, my birthday was also filled with amazing food and good friends. I had a visitor-my friend Abby from Paris-as well as an Indian dinner with Francoise and a few other assistants here in Vannes. Meanwhile on Saturday we all celebrated Thanksgiving, and yours truly felt it his duty to out-eat everyone present. While the idea certainly seemed entirely logical and warranted at the time, three hours later, when none of this food had been digested, I began to question my decision. Still, the evening was a great success, and I was truly thankful to have a Thanksgiving celebration here in France.
Now for a quick beard update: many of you may have seen photos of me since my arrival here, and you will note that I have been growing out my facial hair. While most of the early reactions were quite positive, lately the mood has changed; rather than encouraging remarks about the beard, I received many polite expressions of dismay at the length that it had become. So with that in mind, my parents were kind enough to give me a set of clippers for my birthday, complete with more attachments, extensions, moving parts and capes than I know what to do with. But the bottom line is that I have trimmed back my facial hair extensively, with Abby's help, so that I hope it pleases the doubters out there. I will do my best to keep it in line.
This week at school I had another great cultural experience. On Tuesday I ate lunch at the school restaurant with the English teachers, the Assistant Principal and the Principal. This restaurant is where all of the cooking and serving students work and is open to the public. It is similar to getting a haircut at a beauty school, in that you get the quality and experience of eating at a fine restaurant for a fraction of the price. For less than 8 euros, I had an aperatif, fresh oysters, a delicious fried fish entree with salad, and a coffee. Of course, the experience means one must eat with the required etiquette, which was a bit foreign to me. A good portion of my meal was spent sharpening my peripheral vision to check out what my fellow diners were doing. But I made it through the meal without any faux-pas, and now I can add that to my list of experiences.
On the same day at school, I had what I consider to be a very typical French experience, though not nearly as positive. My classes finished at 5:30, which is the last hour of class for everyone. So naturally, I left my backpack in the teacher's lounge, as myself and other teachers do everyday, expecting to pick it up after class and leave. Only the school did not have the same plans, and they found it entirely logical to lock the doors to the teacher's lounge at the end of class before I had a chance to walk there from my classroom. However I am becoming a pro at handling these kinds of detours, as they seem to happen quite often here. Rather than get angry, I managed to find the one lady in the entire school with keys to the building. One person with access to the room, but again, why should that be surprising here? Luckily, I caught her just before she was on her way out, and persuaded her that my bag was indeed important enough to unlock the door again. So, no harm no foul, I left school that day with everything I came with, and a new anecdote to tell to you all!
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| Sistine chapel ceiling..shh don't report me |
Well, as this blog is dragging on, I will wrap it up with a glimpse of what is to come. I hope to spend this weekend booking travel plans for Christmas break. While the details are still up in the air, I will be heading to London to see Gabe, Dave, and his family for the holiday, with hopefully an extension of the trip either before or after they leave. More on that to come, once all is booked. Keep it real everyone, Go DAWGS this weekend, and enjoy the link I am posting below to my last article for National Geographic.
A plus friends,
Tommy
Tommy
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