SOLDES SOLDES SOLDES

Since I first learned about the famous French “soldes” (sales) in my 8^th grade French class I have always imagined what participating in them would be like.  Throughout the year, there are two government-regulated sales in France: in the winter and in the summer.  But these are not your typical sales- they are similar to America’s Black Friday but the deals are better and last for 5 weeks!  You can buy amazing clothes, appliances, accessories, shoes, electronics, and more for ridiculously low prices.  It’s fantastic!  The winter soldes this year are from January 11^th to February 14^th but, as a rookie soldes shopper I took my time in making a purchase. I attempted to go shopping on the first day of the soldes but found this to be a massive mistake- the entire world seemed to be in every store!  I walked in to H&M, was overwhelmed first by all the people, and next by the brightly colored signs reading “20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%” and so on to alert shoppers of the markdowns.  I attempted to go into a few other stores but felt a bit out of my league. 

In the following weeks I had done some serious window shopping and popped into a few stores to check out the sales on shoes.  Finally, yesterday morning I decided to go to a shoe store and make a purchase.  I knew the stores would be quiet after the festival all weekend, and most people are at work on Monday mornings so I had a good feeling.  As luck would have it the store I went to was empty AND the pair of shoes I’ve had my eye on was still there- only one left in my size!  I tried them on and fell in love at once.  I happily brought my shoes to the register excited to make my first official soldes purchase.

Where I bought my shoes from! (and yes, they were 50% off!)

This picture doesn't make them look as cute as they truly are.
Love, love, love them!

Shopping during the soldes was a full circle moment for me: I have gone from a young girl reading about French culture to a young woman living in it.  I thought back to my 8th grade-self and wondered: did that young girl have any idea just how greatly her French studies would shape her life?


Word of the Post: faire du shopping -- to go shopping

St-Vincent: the Patron Saint of Winegrowers

Every year on the last weekend of January, the winegrowers of Burgundy celebrate and give thanks to Saint Vincent, the patron saint of winegrowers.  There are various legends of how this celebration started but the most popular is that one day St Vincent stopped at a vineyard in Burgundy to talk to one of the wine growers. His donkey started nibbling at the young grape vine with the result that the following year, the crop was extremely productive.  The belief is that Saint Vincen’ts donkey helped to create a more plentiful crop for the winegrower.  This tradition of honoring Saint Vincent dates back to the middle ages and only takes place in Burgundy.

The venue for the festival rotates each year throughout Burgundy and being chosen as host is a highly prestigious honor.  Usually only one city or town hosts the festival but this year tradition was broken and there were three host venues: Dijon, Beaune, and Nuits-St-Georges.  This was to honor Burgundy’s application for the 'climats' (specific vineyards to the Burgundy region) to be included as a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Info on the ‘climats’ can be found here: climats of Burgundy)  The host venues each had different events planned, but the main event was a large wine tasting.

Dijon had spent the last few weeks decorating the city for the festival so as colorful flags and banners rose, so did my excitement!

Saturday:

"St Vincent: Weekend celebration in Dijon"

On Saturday Dijon was packed- I’ve never seen it so crowded. I opted out of wine tasting in order to take in some other festivities that were planned.  I spent some of the morning taking pictures of the city (one of the few weekends you don’t stick out by having a camera!) and then met up with some friends later in the afternoon.  We went to the Fine Arts museum for a few hours because the museum had highlighted special pieces that related to Saint Vincent which was cool.  While I had been briefly once before, it’s a large museum and I still have yet to explore all of it so I'll have to go back and really spend a full afternoon there!  After our time in the museum we needed some coffee to re-energize for the parade that was to start at 5.  After our java-fix we lined up on Rue de la Liberté eager to see what was in store. 

The parade consisted of two groups of drummers and 3 giant, singing ladies: 

We quickly found out that the French do not neatly line up and wait for the parade to pass by- they stand in the street without a care! At first we stayed on the sidewalk but after a bit we decided we may as well join everyone in the street!  Boy did we get an experience by joining in: one group of drummers completely surrounded my friends and I- drumming loudly and pushing us back and forth.  It was hilarious!  I can only imagine the ridiculous photos strangers have us being engulfed by drummers!  A moment I’ll never forget!

The parade finished with a show at Place de la Liberation where the giant ladies sang some more, sparklers went off, and the drummers hung from a crane.  No, really:

Yes, those are drummers!

Saturday was such a lovely day that I went to bed even more excited to continue celebrating the festival again the next day!

Sunday:

"St-Vincent: Another day to celebrate"

Sunday my friends and I met at noon to take part in the famous wine tasting.  How could we honor St Vincent and not drink wine!?  There was a “wine set” for 15 euros which included a wine glass, a pouch, and seven glasses of wine (one glass per tasting station). Pretty great, in my opinion.

Me and my set:

On Rue de la Liberté- aren't all the flags great?!
The tan pouch has my wine glass in it :)

It was so cold out that there were constant snow flurries throughout the afternoon but the wine was delicious!  Each tasting stop represented a different region/climat which was a nice way to get to know the different wines of Burgundy. I even got an extra glass for free from the cremant de Bourgogne (a sparkling white wine similar to champagne) when my pourer found out I was American!  The best part was that all the wine stations were set up throughout the city center so you could just sip on your wine as you walked the streets to the next station.  St Vincent had truly taken over Dijon and I was all for it:

Just loving life, wandering the streets of Dijon, wine in hand...

This weekend was the coldest it has been so far but I was more than happy to have been out and about in the 30 degree weather.  It was one of those weekends where I truly felt alive- simply living in the moment and the only thing of importance was having a good time.  I’m so thrilled to have experienced Dijon’s first time as a host venue for St-Vincent and highly recommend a trip to Burgundy for this festival to any and all lovers of wine!

Word of the Post: le vin -- wine

A new tradition

This week I had my first galette des rois, or "King’s Cake"!  It is a cake made to celebrate January 6^th, or Epiphany/Little Christmas, but has become an major tradition/celebration in France no matter how religious one is.  It is served throughout the month of January and the boulangeries here have many displays that look like this:

Galettes des rois boulangerie display

(I was lucky enough to have a homemade one, though!)

Each cake has a fève (trinket) in it, and whoever gets the piece of cake with the fève "becomes" the king or queen.

Here is the full process of the galette des rois:

Someone cuts the cake into equal size pieces according to the number of people eating the cake.  Then the youngest person in the group must go underneath the table where everyone is sitting and randomly decide who gets which piece of cake when.  (The point of this is that the person underneath the table cannot see what the pieces look like incase the fève is visible.) Once everyone has their piece one must eat it carefully, in hopes that you have the fève!  Whoever has the fève is given a little crown to wear and is named the king or queen.  The new royal then chooses someone else in the group to be their king or queen to “rule” aside them.

At age 23 this tradition was a lot of fun so I can only imagine how exciting it must be to become king or queen when you are younger!  There’s even a song about the cake: “J’aime la galette, savez vous comment.  Quand elle est bien faite, avec du beurre dedans…” (I love cake, you know how. When it’s well made, with butter inside…”) Trust me, it sounds better in French.

I really hope to make this tradition a part of my life no matter what country I live in.  I love the holiday season so any excuse to keep it going a bit longer is okay in my book.  It makes the cold of January a little less bitter, and while it won’t have quite the same effect in the U.S. as it does here in France (for example, we won’t have boulangeries on every corner with fun displays), I think it is well worth attempting to bring back across the pond. (Plus, the cake is delicious.)  So, depending on where I am living next January I will host a dinner and attempt to create a galette des rois in order to keep my new, adopted tradition going. (I’ll even sing the song, promise.)

Word of the Post: une nouvelle tradition -- a new tradition

Belated New Year's Resolution

During the past few weeks at school I have been working on writing resolutions with my students.  It has been one of my favorite lessons so far: the students had to come up with at least two resolutions for each of the following categories: school, family/home, friends, and health.  Then we would go around the room and read out loud our resolutions to compare and contrast each other's goals.  This not only allowed for students to be a creative and funny, but helped them to practice writing, speaking, and listening in English.  For the more advanced classes we could even get into a discussion about resolutions which was great.  All this resolution chatter has had me thinking about what I want to accomplish in 2012.

So,  I have a little update concerning the Paris Half Marathon: I will not be running it. Now, I do not like to “quit” or “give up” on things but this is a matter I have no control over.  When I went home for Christmas break I had some blood work done to check out my mono levels and they still aren’t quite as low as they should be, which explains why I am still easily fatigued.  Granted, I’m much better than this summer and fall but I am still not “back to normal” and in order to be as healthy as possible, training for/running a half marathon just isn’t in the cards for me right now.  I am most definitely disappointed that I won’t be able to run 13.1 miles in my favorite city but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.  On the up side, it allows for an extra full day in Paris to spend with my parents when my parents come to visit so I can’t be too upset about that.  While going on runs here tends to make me more tired in the days that follow I have been walking more and avoiding the bus to try and get some low-impact cardio in when I can.  (You know I’m never sad to miss out on riding the bus! Haha)  And Santa brought me these cool earmuffs with headphones in them so I can listen to my iPod and stay warm while walking in the colder weather!  I also hope to use the great winter running gear I received for Christmas in the coming months for shorter runs if I'm feeling up to it. And while I can’t run any races in the immediate future, I hope that by the end of this year I’ll be somewhat back in action to run some shorter races once I’m Stateside! It’s almost been a year since I’ve been able to run so I guess I can’t be too hard on myself…health comes first!

This year my New Year’s resolution is to allow myself the time I need to heal, not feel guilty about it, and re-commit to running once I’m stronger and healthier.  If there’s a will, there’s a way, right?!

Word of the Post: la santé -- health

Lesson learned

I am sorry for the almost two week-long lack of blogging. I have many things to write about (and promise to post them soon!) but since arriving back in France things were a bit hectic.  Firstly, the lack of sleep on the airplane & jet lag/time-change really did a number on me and I was quite out of it and very fatigued for the first week or so this month. (Thanks, mono. More on that in a different post, though.)  While I was excited to be back in Dijon and see everyone again, it was a bit difficult after spending two fantastic weeks at home.  (It sort of felt like I was ripping off the “moving across the ocean” band-aid again.)  But, luckily, many of my friends here felt similar and so we were lucky in the sense that although it is never fun to say goodbye to friends and family, we knew we now had our own sort of family in Dijon, too. Unfortunately for me, my lycée had been going through some major changes this year and it has been very stressful for the full time teachers to adjust and keep up with.  This added stress caused continuous disorganization and lack of communication between the profs and I which was present from my arrival until about a week ago.  This lack of communication at school in addition to just coming back from home, made for a rough combination.  Finally, I spoke to one of my teachers and we arranged for a meeting to discuss some things with the three other teachers I have mainly been working with.  I created a list of things that had either made me feel uncomfortable, confused, or frustrated in hopes to express my concerns in a professional way.  To my surprise, at our meeting, the teachers profusely apologized before I could even really start to express how I had felt.  They acknowledged all the points on my list (before I even said them!) and explained that there had been many changes at the lycée and as they were trying to adapt to them, they felt that had not properly welcomed me in the process.  (Their words, not mine.) They also told me that the students love working with me and always enjoy what I plan for lessons and that as profs, they are very pleased with my work. This information made me really happy as I have been planning and teaching lessons completely on my own from the start, and honestly enjoy the majority of my students—very nice to hear both the students and teachers appreciate it!  This meeting was the biggest relief!  Our communication has already significantly improved, I feel much more comfortable asking them questions about the school and classes, and feel so much more at ease while in the Salle des Profs (teacher’s room).

As this is my first year in the “working world” I learned an important lesson: it is always important to keep communication open within the work environment.  At first, I did not want to “rock the boat” by bothering my profs with certain concerns, but, as they were so stressed and busy without my saying something they did not know exactly how I felt.  So, even though this had created some frustrating and difficult times in a way I am grateful for it and what I have learned from it.

Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends at home, as well as my new friends here, for their advice, support, and listening ears as I went through the ups and downs of these first few months at  school.

Word of the Post: la communication -- communication (same spelling, different pronunciation)

Happy 2012!

Let me just start this post with thanking my friends and family for a wonderful two weeks at home.  I had a lovely time and enjoyed seeing you all during my short stay in the States!  Thanks for reminding me just how special the good, old USA is!

So, after my fabulous two weeks at home, I left Logan Airport once more to return to France on December 30^th.  I finally landed in Paris, after a layover in Frankfurt, early on December 31^st and made my way from the airport to the hotel to  meet up with my friend, Melinda.  Melinda is one my good friends that I met while studying abroad together back in 2009!  She’s from Colorado so this was the first time we had seen each other since leaving Paris two years ago.  Her parents recently moved to Denmark so she was already in Europe for the holiday season and a few months back we made plans to spend New Year’s together in our favorite city!  Although we’ve kept in touch thanks to Facebook, Skype, and all other sorts of technology I was very excited to finally see her again in person!

Melinda & I back in 2009 on a carrousel by the Louvre

I arrived at the hotel a few hours before Melinda so I settled in and chatted with the concierge to find out some info about New Year’s in Paris.  He informed me, to my surprise, that there are no firework displays and the police will be handing out 300+ euro fines to people with open alcoholic containers.  Needless to say my visions of drinking champagne as fireworks lit up the Parisian sky near the Eiffel Tower came to a screeching halt.  As if that info wasn’t enough of a buzz kill, he went on to warn that streets are beyond crowded (expected) with mainly tourists and pickpockets but also that it gets very sketchy, very quickly after midnight so it’s best not to stay out too late. (At first I thought he was saying this to me because I’m younger but he was saying it to everyone.)  I was feeling a bit dejected at this point but went on to ask what the French typically do for New Year’s Eve and he informed me that they stay in and have a long dinner with either friends or family and very rarely go out.   I thanked him for his advice and soon after he informed me that the room was ready. 

Our hotel
(Same place I stay with my Mom in 2007!)

Our room was on the 7^th floor giving a lovely view of the city- the top of Notre Dame, the top of the Pantheon, and the Eiffel Tower could all be seen!  After checking out the view, I relaxed for a little in the room and before I knew it Melinda had arrived!  It was so nice to finally be reunited!  After chatting for a bit we went out and wandered around the City of Light.  It was so nice to just walk the streets of Paris with no agenda- we could really just take it all in and enjoy simply being in Paris.  We visited some touristy places (and quickly left due to the insane number of people), discovered new places we hadn’t seen before, and reunited with the smelly metro!  Paris was cloudy and rainy as usual but Melinda and I both agreed that this city looks beautiful in any weather.  It was such a treat to roam about Paris with someone who also understands how you feel for it- there’s no rush to go see a certain site, no need to take five thousand pictures- you just get to be there in the moment.

So, as we finished up our day of walking all over we were both quite tired, (she woke up very early to catch her trains; I was jetlagged) we decided that since there were no fireworks or light shows maybe it’d be best to have our own version of a French New Year’s and just stay in.  As quasi-Parisians at one point in our life this suited both of us quite well.  We returned to our hotel and then set out to a couple of boulangeries to get dinner and treats.  We ended up getting quiches for dinner and a buchette de Noël for dessert! Melinda had brought some champagne so we had everything we needed- dinner, dessert, champagne, good company, oh, and a view of the Eiffel Tower!  Our hotel room had a nice TV so we watched the news and saw New Year’s around the world until it was finally our turn to countdown in French.  At midnight we opened our windows to hear the excitement on the streets, and we even wore little New Year’s crowns while doing so!  We were a bit disappointed that the Eiffel Tower did not do anything spectacular at midnight (just simply sparked like it does at the beginning of every hour) however, we were still happy to be able to see it! Then as luck would have it one of the TV channels was showing Britney Spears’ Femme Fatale tour so we continued to drink our champagne and watch/critique Britney lip sync and struggle to dance. (We still love her, of course.)  It was one of the most relaxed New Year’s I’ve had- but with out a doubt one of my favorites.

Champagne & New Year's nonsense!

On New Year’s Day we got up and wandered around a bit more before we each had to leave the city.  This time we went down memory lane and visited our former university, the cafés we used to frequent, the St Sulpice area, and more!  We even stopped in a café by school to have a coffee just for old times sake.  To our dismay they had remodeled the exterior and interior décor and it had lost its charm by looking so modern.  The coffee and tea were still delicious but as we were finishing up we noticed the table next to us, a husband wife and their son, had ordered what looked like American club sandwiches.  Why were these in Paris!? (Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with club sandwiches except that they should just stay in the U.S.)  So, as we were getting up to leave I noticed the little boy was struggling with his Heinz 57 bottle and decided to break all French social codes and offer some advice.  I told them, in French, that if they hit the little 57s on the bottle then the ketchup would come out better and quickly added that I was American and this little trick has helped me.  At first the father was very confused as to why I approached them but once the ketchup came out with ease the mom was laughing the dad was all smiles and the little boy was happily munching away--  we were wishing each other happy new year like we had known each other for years. And while I was a bit sad they were eating club sandwiches and using Heinz 57 I was still happy to share a little bit of American "culture" with them! After that we walked around a bit more just enjoying the cobblestone streets and the smells of the boulangeries we passed.  Paris may be massive, and the metro may be one of the world’s best, but walking is by far the most enjoyable way to get around the city.  We finally ended up in my old neighborhood, Bastille. Here we had lunch and reminisced about all the fun we had during our semester abroad as well as the need to have a reunion with everyone. (Seriously Fall '09 girls- it needs to happen.) Before we knew it, we both needed to head to our different train stations- our New Year’s in Paris had come to a close.

Bastille!

Now, this is probably not what you expected to read about for a New Year’s in Paris but isn’t that the way it goes with New Year’s no matter what country you are in?  So much hype often leads to disappointment so it was very refreshing to have a simple, enjoyable New Year’s with such a great friend!  It’s not very often you get to begin the new year in your favorite city in the world, and with such a fabulous start I imagine that 2012 will bring so many great things!

Word of the Post: Bonne année! -- Happy New Year!