I am in France!! I arrived in France last Tuesday and in Nantes last Wednesday, so I've been here for about a week now. I meant to post earlier than this, but at first I didn't have wifi then I became pretty busy. But better late than never! Since I have quite a bit to write about now, I'm going to divide my blog post into different topics so it's a little easier to follow.
My arrival in France/Paris:
My flight to Paris went by fairly quickly since I was sitting by other assistants on the plane and we chatted most of the time and I arrived in Paris without a problem. My time in Paris was a completely different story. I was traveling with another assistant going to Nantes, Nick, and we had decided upon staying with a French guy in Paris who offered us his apartment instead of staying in a hostel since we had so many suitcases with us. He picked us up from the airport which was very nice of him and somehow fit all of our suitcases into his tiny car. Then we got to his place which wasn't actually in Paris, but in Saint-Maur, which is sort of a suburb of Paris. His apartment was a lot smaller than we had thought it would be and he was also renovating it. Due to his renovations, there was no door to the bathroom, no working shower, and it was filthy with tools and plaster literally covering the entire floor. We started to get a little nervous because we had no idea how we were going to be able to sleep there.
As soon as we arrived, we wanted to go to Paris (actual downtown Paris) and we had plans to meet up with another assistant and visit the Eiffel Tower and the catacombs. Instead of just showing us how to get there and letting us go, we had to walk all over the French guy's town and for some reason we moved his car several times. By the time we got downtown, the catacombs were almost closed and we were exhausted, with no place to lie down or relax. We decided just to buy our cell phones and booked a hotel so that we could have actual beds to sleep in and a functioning bathroom.
Unfortunately, we had to return to the French guy's apartment to get all our stuff. We were hoping he wouldn't be there when we arrived so we could leave quietly, but he was. We didn't want him to feel bad because it was really nice of him to offer his place to us, so we told him we were staying with one of Nick's friends who lives near the train station. We called a cab, but he grabbed the phone and said it was too expensive and cancelled our cab. He told us we should take the metro and we vigorously refused since we had so many heavy suitcases it would have been extremely difficult. We kept trying to call a cab, but he wouldn't let us and finally he agreed to drive us. The only problem with that was we had to have him drive us to the train station instead of our hotel since he thought we were staying with Nick's friend. Basically it was a huge mess and we finally got free of him and made it to our hotel with all our luggage, but we didn't get to see a single thing in Paris and it was just a complete disaster. It definitely was not one of my better ideas.
My arrival in Nantes:
I met my contact, who is an English teacher at the school I work at, at the train station in Nantes. We went out to lunch, and afterwards he took me to my apartment at the high school and helped me with my bags. I felt bad because my apartment is on the 5th floor and there isn't an elevator so he carried my very heavy suitcases up 5 flights of stairs! He showed me around the school and introduced me to a lot of people, then I headed back to my apartment. The apartment is decently sized and has 3 bedrooms, a room with a toilet, a room with a shower and sink, a kitchen (with no oven sadly, just hot plates), and a big living room with a TV, couch, and table. It looks a bit empty because there's not a lot of furniture, but it's definitely not a bad setup! I will post some pictures of my apartment later.
As soon as I got to my apartment, all I wanted to do was nap because I was so exhausted from traveling, lugging my suitcases around in the 80 degree heat, and especially from the fiasco in Paris. I napped for a couple hours then woke up to unpack and use the internet to communicate with everyone back home. I was told that my apartment had wifi, but I couldn't connect to any networks and after contacting someone I found out no one had installed the router yet so I had to wait for internet. My roommates were not yet in Nantes so it was incredibly lonely the first night being all alone in my apartment in a different country with no one to talk to and no way to contact people from home except my extremely expensive cell phone. The thought "oh my God, what have I done?!?!" popped into my head a few times and I was really homesick my first few nights here.
Luckily, my roommates arrived the next night and the day after that we got wifi so I haven't been as homesick since then.
Life at the high school:
Like I mentioned before, my apartment is at the high school I teach at so luckily there are other assistants here to hang out with. I have 2 roommates; one is from England and the other is from Argentina and they're both very nice. There is also another apartment for assistants here and there is an assistant from Ireland, an assistant from Germany, and an assistant from India who live there. They're also all very nice and I think it's really great having friends from all over the world. It's also wonderful for my French since we only speak in French with each other. Even in my apartment where there is another anglophone, we very rarely speak English to each other. I also only speak French with all of the teachers here so I hope my French will be excellent by the time I'm back in the States!
The high school isn't very close to downtown, but fortunately it's right near the tram so centre ville is very accessible and the tram only takes about 10-15 minutes. I haven't been downtown a whole lot, but I've met up with assistants for dinner, drinks, and just to walk around and the city is just as wonderful as I remember! Now that I have my teaching schedule and am all settled in here, I hope to spend more time enjoying the city.
Speaking French:
I have been attempting to only speak French here and so far I've been successful. The other assistants who live at my high school are from all different countries so we speak in French to each other all the time. I also only speak French with all the teachers and staff here, and with people in stores, the bank, the bank, the post office, etc. It's been pretty difficult, but I'm hoping after a couple weeks it will start to get easier. It's a little easier speaking in French with my friends because none of us are native speakers, but the teachers all speak very quickly and sometimes it can be difficult understanding everything they say. I know this is the best way to improve my French though so I will keep with it! I haven't really met any French people my own age, so now that I'm settled in I am going to try to get involved with a language exchange or some kind of group or activity so that I can make some French friends as well.
Teaching:
This is my first week of classes, and so far they have gone well. As an assistant, I don't teach the classes on my own, but instead do special lessons with the teachers or with part of the class. This week, I created a power point presentation about myself and I've shown it to all the classes. For the most part, the students have been interested and have asked a lot of questions about me, where I'm from, why I'm in France, etc. My high school is a professional high school, which means the students are becoming mechanics and electricians (I think). This also means that most of my students are male. In fact, out of all my classes at the high school, I only have 2 female students. It was a little intimidating at first, but everyone has been nice so I'm a bit more at ease. I did have a student today, during introductions, tell meI will also work 4 hours a week at a nearby junior high, but I won't be starting there until next week.
Okay, that is all for now since it seems as though I've been writing this post for ages!! But I promise to create another post very soon and include some pictures!
