Bonnes fetes du Paques!!

Happy Easter everyone!!! And that really does apply pretty well in French because I learned this week that the French word for Easter, "Paques" is in fact derived from Pesach (the Hebrew word for passover) and that Paques means both Easter and Passover. Even though they are not at the same time this year, which makes no sense to me but I suppose it is futile to try to make sense of the Catholic Church all of the time. Easter is not as big a deal here as it seems to be in the US, however, Monday or "Lundi Paques" is a national holiday (i.e. everything is closed) and people seem to get really into that.

This weekend, I celebrated a strangely long week during which I did some normal work and gave a talk to some of the people in the department here. It was supposed to be a talk to explain to people why I'm in France (since they don't understand the idea that someone could do research with out a PhD) and describe my research to faculty members. But due to some scheduling conflicts (hehe, won't really discuss on blog), there weren't that many people there and it really was like a practice one. I almost did the whole thing in French (45 minutes) but Carmela, the English teacher, convinced me that it would benefit everyone else more if I did it in English. So I only introduced things in French. I practiced it in French though and it made me proud just knowing that I was capable of it.

On Saturday, I relaxed, went to the market and cleaned my apartment. I needed that after my weird week. I also decided to make burritos for some of my French friends who were still in town. It was the first time that I really made them by myself but I had to soak and boil the beans and everything. They turned out pretty well too!! I think so, at least. My friends also bought chocolate and hid chocolate eggs in my apartment to introduce me to the French Easter tradition. It was really cool. We played with Kinder Surprise for about half of the night which are like the coolest things ever. My friends gave them to me for Christmas too and it was when I started thinking that maybe these people understand me more than I knew. And here's why: kinder surprise is a cheap chocolate egg with a cool plastic eggshaped container inside which contains a cool toy or game. It's just a fun egg of entertainment!!! Perfect for my ADHD self!! So that was Saturday night.

Sunday, I went to Easter Mass with all of my foreign friends at Notre Dame. It was pretty cool and I think I criticize the church less when the mass is in another language. However, it did bring up some interesting questions, such as, what were masses like pre-Vatican 2 when they were still in Latin? Why is Easter always on Sunday when Passover changes? And what city in Southern France is the priest from? (he had a pretty strong southern accent). Afterwards, Katie showed us a little bit of her family tradition which includes a huge brunch and mimosas. So she made great omelettes from eggs I bought at the market on Saturday and we hate delicious bread. It was quite a nice Easter morning. That afternoon I saw a pretty good film with my friend Philippe and that was pretty much my weekend.

Now, I'm back to working and ruminating in my apartment until I continue my adventures in Dijon, France and beyond...

Ok, that sounds stupid but I'm tired and don't have too much to write at the moment.

So, until next time...

Superstar!!!

I hope that everyone imagines Molly Shannon doing that! That was the goal at least. This post will primarily be about my adventures running a 10K last weekend in wine country as Supergirl. I was actually running with a whole team of Supermen and we kicked ass. We won a real award (a huge cup trophy called a coup, that must be brought back next year) for being the best group of people who were dressed up (deguiser, en francais) and it was pretty hilarious. My friend Corinne and I got the idea to dress up for this race and then we decided it would be easier for everyone to be the same. Superman was what we decided on because I made flying a requirement. It is the coolest superpower, in my opinion. So everyone put all of their mental energy together and we conjured up really awesome costumes complete with capes and everything. It was pretty hilarious.


I ran with my friend Angeline for most of the time. We did pretty well together and it is really fun running with someone else. I'm including pictures, both of the group and me because they are pretty fun. Unfortunately, we took off our costumes before we knew that we won that award so we don't have a picture of us up on the podium. If it weren't for the fact that one person left the shirt on, we may not have been given the grand "coup" and our bottles of frou frou champagne (really the name). By the end of the race I had accumulated 3 bottles of alcohol. It's amazing how that happens when you hang out in wine country.

So that was really fun. The rest of the weekend I spent hanging out with people and relaxing because for some reason I've been very tired lately and I have a lot of work. Last Thursday, I learned that a presentation I'm giving on Friday, which I originally thought was for just a few people, was in fact for the whole department here. I did so much English teaching last week and then when I learned that it just made me a little crazy. Luckily, most people will not be able to come due to a scheduling complication and the fact that Easter is this weekend. So now I will do it on Friday and then again in about 10 days. So Friday will be like practice. I still need to do it for more people because most people still don't understand what I'm doing here. Lots of people still think I'm a postdoctoral student and we need to clear things up and explain what this crazy American girl is doing here (that's what they want to know at least).

So that is an update for now. Life is not too exciting at the moment besides the super awesome race we did. Easter weekend should be relatively calm since a lot of people will be going home. And then my friend Anna is coming to visit next week. So that should be really nice!!

Well, until next time...

Hello Dali and other adventures with Sasha Bilow

So I kind of stole the title of my post from Sasha but it was just so catchy. I know I haven't posted for a bit but that is because for a little bit my life was pretty stable here. And I knew that visiting in Sasha in Perpignan would provide tons of good material for the blog so I decided to wait (plus I was busy). But I was right and I now have tons of things to tell, although only Sasha and I may think that most of it is funny. The whole weekend started out with a bang when my first train was "supprimé" (suppressed or erased). I managed to get on another train and by complete chance, made my train change by 1 minute. I get on my train heading south and I found a really nice train neighbor sitting next to me; it was a dog! So yah, dogs have more rights in France then in the US but this dog was just sitting on the chair (the seat) like it was a person. It kind of smelled and was in general super amusing situation!

So I got off the train in Perpignan (8 hours after I left Dijon) and am greeted by one of my favorite people in all of France, my dear Sasha! We then proceeded to fight the wonderful wind that Perpignan and Montpellier are famous for. I met her friends at the "auberge espagnol", which is a play on a classic French comedy about a student apartment with people from all different places. Most of the people only speak Spanish and a little French and it was really like being in a different world. After our brief repose from the wind at the "auberge espagnol" we walked the 30 minutes or so to Sasha's humble abode (a.k.a. a dorm room in a lycee, high school, outside of the center of the city). She does have an extra bed due to the fact that her roommate moved into the "auberge" so all was good.

The next day, I saw Sasha's world, complete with wind, tons of high school kids and adventures trying to teach English. We spent most of that day at her lycee helping out and exploring. Then that evening, we ventured out into the city of Perpignan. It was really a completely different world then in northern France. It was more like being in Spain (the main place was completely Spanish), or Catalonia since that is where I technically was. In Perpignan and much of northern Spain many people speak Catalan which is a mix between French and Spanish (but more like Spanish), it was very confusing. It was really fun exploring with Sasha...we always find new cool things to do. We ended up eating at this hippie restaurant and then going to Sasha's favorite bar, which really is quite awesome, called "la divine comedie". They play great music and it really is weird everyone hangs out there. All of the other teaching Assistant's in Perpignan, converged there and it was cool to meet some of them.

The next day we ventured off to Figueres, Spain (and Catalonia). First we stopped in Portbou which is just over the border of Spain and we got to go to the beach for about 20 minutes! We ran into a friend of the "auberge espagnol" there and it was so random. Figueres was pretty awesome to go to Spain. I had a great time. We went to this insane Dali museum where Sasha and I tried to unravel the mystery that is Salvador Dali. We didn't really have much luck but we definitely had fun. For the afternoon, the time when everything in Spain closes, we took a little walk around the largest fortress in Europe (still unconfirmed) but it was still cool. It was pretty big and on one side you could see the ocean, on the other the Pyrenees. After that, we were pretty much beat and headed back to Sasha's for a night watching a rediculous French movie and going to bed early.

The next day we attempted the almost impossible, we climbed the big rope pyramid across the street from Sasha's school. She had been waiting for me to visit to try this so it was kind of a lot of pressure (despite the fact that kids climb it every day). In the end, we surmounted the obstable thanks to team work and our cool sunglasses and we managed to chronicle most of it on my camera. However, the videos were too big to put on my blog so you will have to wait to view the whole journey. For now, I'll just give you a short preview.

After mounting the great pyramid, we headed into town for me to catch my train and return to the dark and cold north. It was a sad moment but I managed not to cry on the train by making a train friend. We had coffee in Lyon and then I headed home to start my week. It's nice to be back despite the busy week I have. I should probably actually try to work.


Adéu. Fins ara,
(Goodbye, see you in Catalan),
Sarah