So East it's Ouest

When I watched the movie 'Bienvenue chez les Chit'is' (Welcome to Chit'is country){chit'is is the dialect/culture up here by Belgium}I laughed at the stereotype of the Siberia styled Nord-Pas-de-Calais and inwardly made a note to bring rainproof gear. I'm from Indiana it snows, it gets below zero; I know what it feels like when your nose hairs freeze when you breathe in a glacial winter blast but this Midwestern girl now knows that yes it's actually cold here.  Rain, humidity, grey, windy...cold.  Now that winter is here it is rare for it to go a day without raining. Many people here live in old brick buildings with only a fireplace in one room.  They are tough.  I see old ladies with water dripping off their hair outside in ja ckets in the rain weeding when it's 40F outside.  I asked some locals why the older people don't move somewhere warmer because it's so tough to live here in the winter, the answer that they don't realize that the

So what's been happening since last week?  Things have calmed down a tad although France is still under a state of emergency and Belgium had a serious scare but now the news has refocused on the climate summit in Paris.  Everything around here is decorated for Christmas (Noël) and St.Nicolas was celebrated last weekend.  All around here are pop up Christmas markets with mulled wine and h andmade goods.  Lucia has taught me the simplest most delicious way to roast vegetables.  I've spent some time with new adoptive Italian family as well as a young couple (Russian/Argentinan) and any free time is used out in service or going to the grocery store to buy groceries before Lucia does.  Every Wednesday I do a long day in service with a sister from Valenciennes, sometimes taking the train into town early in the morning, we going in service and have lunch at her house (I make guacamole) and I have a few return visits which is awesome. Teaching has been going okay.  Some days are really

No I do not live in Paris, I'm about 2 hours away.  Wow things can change so quickly.  The recent events on Friday night (November 13) prove that. I keep hearing "I'm not going to let this make me fearful" but the change is palpable.  People are afraid, they are angry, they are dazed.  The national pride is so thick you could cut it with a knife.  For the past week the news has been playing the events in a loop.  The implications are going to be complexe and long lasting.  It's everything people want to hear about and nothing they want to think about.  No one wants to talk about religion and a few have even been agressive.  I live right smack dab in the middle between Brussels and Paris so yes many people are worried and there have even been rumors of future attacks in small villages.  There no way you can 'be careful' in this kind of event but I'm trying to keep my eyes open and stay close to the friends.  Thanks for all your texts/thoughts/prayers (A

This is late in coming since I am now surrounded by delicious beer rather than delicious wine; however seeing as I have just recently been enlightened I will share my new found knowledge.  Do you drink wine?  Have you ever drunk French wine?  If so you may have noticed something special about the cork of a French bottle, well not exactly the cork but the foil.   In French this is usually called: la capsule (CRD) Aka'F: l'opercule, la pastille, le sceau, la capsule-congé This is the thing that covers up the cork and in France it has the symbol of Marianne (the female symbol of the French Republic) stamped onto it.  Ok so we have the symbol of France but why is it on the bottle of wine in the first place and why is it important?   First if you have seen this symbol you have just drunk a wine that was made in France and technically destined for French people because this cap means that it has been taxed as an alcohol in France, wines from France that do not have this stamp cap

My dear friends I can now breath in this country called France.  My social security papers are filled out, my rental agreement is filled out, my bank account is up and running, my school paperwork is filled out, my medical visit is scheduled for next week, I have my school lunch cards, I have all my goods in order to save a few bucks (youth card, grocery store loyalty card, carnets for bus/metro), a French cell phone, etc etc.  I bought some panier bags for my bike to make it a real workhorse transportation vehicle.  I got some warm clothes, started  really teaching and preparing lessons, I have two new return visits👍🏼 ok I'm told they might have been charmed by my accent so what?  I know when the trash gets picked up, where to park my bike, where to grocery shop, I know some of the good beers of the region, I brought in a mug/tea/and snacks for my school cubby, yeah I'm feeling at home.   I feel like this is the first time in France that I've ever felt comfortable.  I

I got to visit my friends (aka my people=aka my French family) in Avignon!  🎶Reunited and it feels so good🎶.  The word relief comes from the old French word to raise up or alleviate and that's exactly how I feel when I'm with them.  It's great with these people, even with a 1½ year break we just picked right back up where we had left off.  I spent just about a week with them down in the south.  I got to take off a layer or two and enjoy some of the nice weather; made it for both of the meetings, went out in service a few days (which in this beautiful corner of the earth is basically preaching/sight seeing) but mostly we ate together, my favorite type of vacation 👌🏼😉.  There is no such thing as too many cloves of roasted garlic.  With this lot lunch will always end at 6:00pm and include conversations of architecture in paradise.  I managed to bring down some 'maroille' cheese and beer from the north with out any accidents or stinky cheese clothes and my America

  🎼Well thought out letters and Merino wool sweaters       Macintosh apples and French sounding better       My morning coffee and reading 1 Kings       These are a few of my favorite things🎶. Ok so that was just me subconsciously conciously thinking about another newly added favorite thing of mine.   -LILLE  - Oh Lille, is it possible to love a city?  I mean come on it's just a place; a place where jazz is heard in the square and Thai restaurants are flourishing, where bicyclists have no need to fear, the metro is always a step away, trains trains trains, Flemish architecture, art museums, where you can find cilantro at the Wazemmes market, tea rooms and estaminets, Maroille the STINKIEST cheese in FRANCE, people smile at each other, the boutiques are quirky , the title artisanal beer stands for something and hosts not only the international festival of soup but the largest antique/flea market in France once a year.  It's not like it's a person or an animal it's only

  Ahh so it's only been 4 days but 4 days of a massive amount of change.  So let's see...  First off may I say again Lucia {loo chee ah} (the Italian sister I'm staying with) is amazing, if this system continues I hope I'm as hard working, selfless, positive, classy (cough and as good of a cook cough) as her, she really is a gem.  She could say 'tonight we are going to eat boiled shoes' and I would say 'yum sounds delicious, I wonder how she is going make that', it's like she walks into any kitchen (other people's houses included) and walks out with a 5 course meal and a patisserie style apple tarte.   She is actually in the process of working out how to rent this house to 'curistes', people coming here for the spa, the thermal springs, and she is going to move in with her sister in Sicily.  This is the family's longtime home and the home she shared with her husband who died a few years back, you can tell it's super hard on her to

Thank you everyone for supporting me as I got ready for this trip, including silencing me as I pondered aircraft disasters.  I hate goodbyyyyes.  Either way my trip started today flying from the Fort to Philly.  The pope arrives tomorrow and everything is a souvenir for his visit.  And I thought that Mary had lots of statues...  There are several priests walking around in the terminals looking forward to pope Francis visit.  I will say that the Philly airport has some good taste in music none of that dentist office stuff, I was helping older ladies with the hydration stations so they could save a few bucks and walking around trying to keep my legs a' moving.  The Brussels flight was originally scheduled to be nearly an hour early ended up leaving 30mins late because of a poor girl that kept getting sick in the back of the plane, she had to be let off as well as a flight attendant that was caught in the line of fire.  😁   I sat next to a Belgian man who grumbled (somewhat good natu

I finally have more news.  I received my 'arrêté de nomination' aka 'work contract' from my school district.  This single sheet of paper withheld vital information, what town I would be living in!  I will be living in a small town called Saint-Amand-Les-Eaux (sant-amon-lehz-oh) close to the Belgian border about 30mins by car from Lille.  It's a town of about 17,000 known for its natural springs, including hot springs.  They still bottle their mineral water and are known as a type of old style spa town.  It's in the middle of a regional forest park.  I'm going to be teaching at two middle schools in the town, ranging from 11-15 years old.  In France the grades count down instead of up and finish with a serious sounding 'termination year', the kids I will be teaching are in 'levels' 6-3.  I'm trying to stock up on cool American style teaching supplies, ones I know I won't find over there like Dr.Suess themed items and fake US currency.

Hello everyone, The news is true, I accepted (and was accepted for) an English teaching assistant position in France.  Here is a link for more info about what I'll be doing.  I decided that since I like vineyards and lavender fields so much I would once again go to... the very northernmost corner of France!  You'll get the joke later on.  I was offered the position in the Nord-pas-de-Calais region right along the border with Belgium.  I've only just recieved the news so ALL the paperwork will follow this summer (visa, work contract, contacting the congregation, apartment, new credit card, health care...etc da di da di da.).  I will begin teaching the 1st of October and finish April 30, so I'll probably leave sometime mid-September.  I'm hoping to land in Lille the capital of the region, some reasons I think Lille would be awesome: 1)  They have the reputation of being friendly  2)  Flemish-language/architecture  3)  The food looks yummy 4)  It seems lik