Life in Angouleme

Hello. So I've been keeping busy but I'll try to fill you all in.

Friday April 10th Anna and Dad arrived in Angouleme for the weekend. They arrived in the evening so I quickly checked them into thier hotel, so that we'd make it in time to watch the french film festival at the Espece Franquin (the Espece Franquin is a large community hall where different exhibits and exhibitions are held). The show was suppose to start at 7pm, but i should have known that we needn't have rushed to make it there on time. We were almost ten minutes late and they still hadn't started it yet. We have named this phenomenon "french time". Meaning that if a french person tells you to meet them at a certain time (for a drink, dinner, shopping, ect) always add at least fifteen minutes onto that time, because they are always late. The film festival ended up starting at 7:25pm instead of 7pm. We stayed and watched the first half of it before leaving to get dinner. They were so amusing that even though Dad and Anna who don't speak french still enjoyed them all. From there we ate dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant (we had to eat Italian because french put meat into everything and it was sabbath or something so they being good catholics couldn't eat meat). My roommates and I found this restaurant back in January its got great food and even better ambiance. We ended up eating and drinking wine there until almost midnight. The french tend to eat late dinners (and large ones that consist of lots of alcohol and at least three courses and ending in a cup of coffee to help with digestion), so lots of restaurants don't start serving food until after 8:30 at night and don't close until 1am, so its very normal to go out all night just for a dinner. Dad and Anna still haven't got used to this trend.

Saturday April 11th I gave dad and Anna a tour of Angouleme in the morning and in the afternoon we picked up Michaele and Pamela to go to the roman-gallo theater ruins which are 20mins outside of town. Yes, the Romans conquered France back near 1AD (there are also some roman baths nearby, but we didn't go to see those) and decided to build a huge amphitheater on the "Via Agrippa" which is the old roman trading route that connected Lyon to the Atlantic coast. In the evening we went out to dinner at a new restaurant that I hadn't tried yet but specializes in seafood and traditional Alsace regional dishes (the Alsace region is in Northern France and is very cold and mountainous...I believe it's near or in the Alps). Dad and Anna dropped me of at the LISA and we said our farewells because they were leaving the following morning really early to head to Bordeaux.

Sunday April 12th was a really uneventful Easter. We laid around all day and did nothing because the weather was terrible and rainy. In the morning I made pancakes for everyone, but other then that there were no festivities.

Tuesday April 14th I had classes like usual and then I went to a conference on "How Americans living in France view the European Union". I was just going to to support a friend who had to do the question and answer part of the conference and little did I know that the moment they heard I was an American living in France they were going to throw me into the conference too. They made me sit in front of a room full of close to 40 people with the local press snapping pictures and videoing. I was so terrified and as everyone probably knows I have a huge fear of public speaking (I thought I was going to throw-up or passout the whole time). The entire thing was in French. By the time they passed me the microphone to speak my mind drew a blank on how to speak french to where I could barely say "my name is (je m'appelle)" which is the first thing I ever learned in French. But thankfully I was able to stutter my way through it after a couple of minutes of complete silence and internal panic. The conference ended 90 minutes later with me only having to speak 2 more times (thankfully the other americans who had actually volunteered to speak at the conference did most of the commentary and answering of questions). Honestly it was more like a hour and a half bash on America and "us causing a global depression", so I wasn't too impressed with the conference. In fact I had a lot to say on the subject so I'm very sorry my french isn't good enough to hold a heated debate with the main instigator (some snotty 50 something year old french man who was born in the USA so he thinks he knows everything and can bash the USA as much as he wants since he was born there...I would have put him in his place if my french was better). So needless to say my nerves were pretty rattled after the conference so us Americans went out and grabbed some drinks to reflect and rant.

Friday April 17th was our last Friday night all together in Angouleme. Everyone is leaving soon so I'll soon have this entire tower to myself for two months. I think its going to be quite lonely, but thankfully I still have quite a few friends around town so I'll still have people to go do stuff with. Pamela leaves Monday. Celine and Carly on Wednesday. Nalleli, Misty and Kena are leaving for a road trip on Wednesday which leaves me all by myself for a week starting Wednesday. Thankfully Nalleli and Kena will be returning until the 14th of May, so I won't be all alone until then. So Friday night we all went downtown to celebrate together. We grabbed some drinks at one of our favorite pubs "le Girafe" and then stopped by a grocery store to buy some champagne before heading to the "Marche Square" where a live band was playing. After watching the band for a while and meeting some new french people we went to "L'havana" to dance.

Saturday April 18th I awoke surprisingly early and got dressed in order to join Nalleli who was going into town to do some shopping. I bought two new dresses and a pair of capris. By the time we returned to the LISA I was exhausted and went back to bed. In the evening we had a huge group dinner with lots of homemade traditional french food, before heading into town to meet up with some other assistants who will also be leaving soon. We decided that we'd hit-up all our favorite bars, so the evening began at the first bar we ever went to in Angouleme the "Kennedy's Irish Pub", then "l'Havana" and finally "le Girafe" where we met some new friends. our new friends are from Mexico, Brazil and France and go to University here. They accompanied us back to the LISA and we drank and talked until the wee hours of the morning (I actually went to bed at 4am because I was tired, but everyone else was up until 7am...theyz crazy).

Sunday April 19th is a sad day because it's our last night all together. Pamela leaves tomorrow morning, but we're trying to make the most of our last night all together. So this evening we are taking all the mattresses out of our rooms and putting them in the common room and we're going to have a huge slumber party. It should be a lot of fun.

So right now we are on vacation again. School doesn't start again until the 5th of May (I love having random two week breaks every couple of months). You might be wondering why I'm not joining the others on their roadtrip or off to explore some other area of Europe by myself. The reason is because I'm teaching at " le Stage" next week. Which is kind of like a week long english camp during the vacation. I'll be working 3 hours everyday this week from 9am to 12pm teaching oral english to high schoolers. I agreed to do this because they are paying me 30 euros a hour for helping them out, so I couldn't really resist. Another reason I'm not planning on doing much this vacation is because my travel funds are very low, but taking on these courses will give me a little extra spending money so the weekend of May 1st to May 4th I'm probably going to Barcelona with a friend to hangout for the weekend. So that will add another country under my belt (I live close to Spain, but I still haven't visited it yet). Also the following weekend Nalleli, Matt, Noreen, Nicholas, Elodie, me and a few others are headed to Vannes in Brittany which is in northwest France. We are going to crash at her grandma's house which is along the Atlantic Ocean, so we'll spend the weekend lounging and sunbathing by the ocean. I'll make sure to write and let everyone know how the vacations go.