Thanksgiving à Grenoble

Bonjour tout le monde,


Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I was at work on the 27th but i was able to celebrate on the 29th with 50 other people.


Stephanie and I spend all day saturday cooking for the party. we had so much fun cooking. We thought it will be a great idea to cook for my host family, but Béa said it will be fun to share the night with some of her friends. She send invitations out, and 40+ said they will come. Mom i know you would of been proud to see me in action.
We had a blast saturday night.
A bientot

Wonderful Week- end in St Rémy and les Baux de Provence

Bonjour,


My host family invited me to pass a week-end with them in the Provence, its was a great week-end. Béa ( my host mom)took her time to show around and taught me about the history of St. Rémy. For those of you who love art, a lot of Vincent Van Gogh tableaux are of St. Rémy, also the hospital where he stayed is in St. Rémy.

Les Beaux de Provence, another beautiful town full of history. If any one plans to come to France you most visit both places.
Take your time and enjoys the pictures.
Bises

Since the last post.....till Nov12th

I know it’s been a while since i post on my page. Sorry.
On october 27- nov 5th i was on vacation... don’t be jealous didn’t do much. I decided to take that time to finish with all my paper nightmares, but that didn’t happen. I had a doctor appointment to get a medical cerficate so i can get my residency card, when i got there the nurse told me they need to reschedule because the X-ray machine is out of film and they didn't know when exatly i could come back.
The week-end before i went back to work my host fam asked me if its ok if Celeste stayed home with me. We had fun relaxing.
Celeste plays the piano so on Saturday night i had a concert at home.
Went back to work on Thursday 6th, and the big subject when i got in the classroom “ tu as voté” and “ pour qui?” ( did you vote and who did you vote for). It was so fun to see how much interest they had in hearing about election (my students are 7-11 years old). And on friday i got sick, bad cold, headache body ache.
On Tuesday 11th, I got up at 7:30am to go hiking (still sick). I know it was going to be a long and hard day; I try really hard to get out of it. We took the bus; it was a 30 minutes ride to get to our destination. It started raining, and no we didn’t back out. By we, myself, Stephanie and 2 of Stephanie friends. We got and kaurel showed us where we were going exactly. I was shocked but couldn’t back out, because the bus left and the next one was coming at 2. During the hike i got hurt... don’t worry i am ok. I am proud to say that i hiked a total of 10 km in 8 hours even though i was sick. The view was great. Oh yes the place that we hiked was Mount st. Eynard. I didn’t get home until 6pm.



That night i paid for it, my cold got worse and my knees where burning like crazy. I feel better now. I will try to be better at posting. Bonne journée
A plus.

Updates (12th-18th)

Salut,

After being here for almost a month, i started to miss my friends from home. Its hard to meet French people my age especially when i am not taking classes. My first day in Grenoble i met another assistant and we have been hanging out and do things around Grenoble together. I was getting tired of not hanging out with people my age (don’t get me wrong i like hanging out with people that are older then me). So on Sunday (the 12th) I went to church and my way to church i saw one of my friends from Bethel and she was on her way to the same church. As soon as i enter the door, people can tell i was new. The church is pretty small compare to Woodland Hills. It was so great; the church band sings some of my favorite songs that i know in English in French. After church, couple of the young adults came over and talked to me, and that day i met so many people that i needed to write names down so i can remember everyone. They invited me to go eat lunch with them. You won’t believe where we went... ok you can stop guessing, we went to KFC. I couldn’t believe it, my friend from Bethel asked if they were a KFC when i was here 2 years ago and the answer was no. So we spend most of the afternoon together, they also invited me to join them on Saturdays for the young adult group.
On Tuesday i was invited to le FEU (Foyer Evangélique Universitaire) for a concert. I met more people there. The concert was great, oh yes i listen to Zhbruno
My friend from Bethel was there also

Saturday (18th), my friend Stephanie and i decided to do some tourist stuff. We took le petit train de Grenoble and learned more about Grenoble. It was a 45 minutes ride around town. Enjoy the pictures.




Also the same day i went to see a play with my host family. It was so funny and i couldn’t stop laughing. After the play we went out to eat to a Moroccan restaurant.... the food was great.
The following day after church we decided to hike the Bastille. When i was here in 2006, we took the boules up and hiked down. This time we hike up and down. I kept telling Stephanie that I couldn’t do it, she wouldn’t take no for an answer so I DID IT. Let me tell you it was hard. But when I got up there the view was amazing. Now we decided to hike to the Bastille twice a week.








Later

First week at work

Monday was my first day at work, i did my first three hours at "Ecole Pasteur", where I'll teach on Thursday afternoons. I am assisting two teachers there. After a two hour lunch break, I head over to my other school “ Ecole Thevenon”, where I teach Thursday mornings and Friday all day. So far I like the teachers and the students are so cute and nice. One of the little girls said to me “ tu es jolie comme un coeur”, ( you are pretty like a heart). They are so welcoming!! Now I am learning a lot about the French education system. The school system is so different than MN.
I had the opportunity to visit the pre-school, and there i met a little one who look so much like Gabe. They are so cute, a group of them would’nt play they just stay around me and asked me questions. They sang a little song for me and i taught them ‘old McDonald’, i had fun.
I can’t believe i have 2 hrs for lunch and in two weeks i'll have my first break ( 2 weeks off). One of the teachers told me “ in France we work to live, we don’t live for work”, and i have no problem with that life. I love the french way of thinking ... i do.... you never know i might stay longer. ( jk auntie Wendy. Even though i like it here, i miss home. I miss my babies ( Helen, Gabe and Loulou), no one to call me “sheshe” and also i miss calling my mom everyday ( love u mommy).
Well...
Bonne journée tout le monde
Gros Bises

Randonnée ( Vercor)

Believe it or not i went hicking on Sunday with a group of three artists from England and two friends of my host mom. The artists are in Grenoble for a big art expo and one them is staying with us. It was so much fun and i have pictures to prove it, the view was great. Enjoy the pictures

My Crazy day

Thursday was a crazy day. I had to meet with my supervisor to go over my job description and sign papers. Directions to get there were not clear so between taking the train, wrong streets and the pouring rain I finally made it surprisingly on time to my first meeting.

Then I went to visit both schools and met the teachers, principals and students. They were welcoming and jovial. It will take me 45 minutes by train from Grenoble to reach the first school... not bad at all. The second school is a 20 minute walk from the other school.

I then got all my paper work in order and headed back home. Took 3 hour nap and it felt good. Had a wonderful evening with my host family we played game and tell jokes, so my evening made up for my long and crazy morning.

A bientôt