Ducks are native to Africa, aren’t they?

 To everyone who checked this blog on Sunday, I’m terribly sorry.  I know that I had promised a Sunday reading section, but since I just found out definitively that we don’t have the interwebs on Sunday, it really prohibited any such post.

A LOT has happened since my last post.  We’ll start with the other assistant who arrived on Wednesday.  Kirsty Campbell is from outside of Glasgow, Scotland.  She is in her third year of uni at University of Glasgow and this is essentially her study abroad.  She could have gone to uni in France or taught and who’s not up for making some cash money?  Since she has been living at home and going to university, this is Kirsty’s first time being away from home for more than a week.  I will report back on Thursday what it has really been like for her.  She studies Geography and French (which she has been learning for 9 years), watches American television, and is frightened of dogs and spiders.  She also doesn’t like peanut butter (which doesn’t make a lick of sense.  But people have had to deal with shams of peanut butter, so I’ll allow it… but still be confounded by it.).  Kirsty will be working at the lycée professionnel and the collège, which means she’s working at the vocational-focused school and the middle school.  Sorry I can’t be more specific about how the French school system works; even though we spent at least a week on it in my “How Does One Be French: Communication, Conversation, and Culture” class at Wash U, I have no idea how everything functions.

            So Kirsty and I went for a walk about Belley, which was nice.  We went to library, which was closed as usual.  So we went to the Macdo (McDonald’s) to get some interwebs.  I had looked at my map and discovered that the Macdo is by the Carrefour.  But, since it’s on the other side of the roundabout, one has to strangely walk along the side of a highway-ish street and roundabout to reach it.  (The things I go through for Facebook…)  We made it and it is the fanciest McDonald’s I have ever seen.  None of the painfully bright reds and yellows of America.  It was all natural colors with low, hanging overhead lighting.  Not industrial white lights.  Since we were there to scam on the information superhighway, Kirsty and I both got coffees.  I got a cappuccino for 1.70, and it wasn’t half bad.  (I am in no position to pass judgment on coffee as I don’t particularly care for it, and so I will leave it to the experts.)  Before we left, I stopped in at the toilet and in the handicapped stall they had the TINIEST toilet I have ever seen.  I was super bummed that I had left my camera at home because I SO wanted to show all of you how ridiculous it was.  It was like a training toilet.  (Please realize that this was in addition to the regular sized toilet.  I wasn’t squatting over a half-pint sized toilet.) 

            That night Kirsty, Carine, and I watched The Mentalist in French (what's actually crazy is that that is the exact episode that I watched), which was tough, but I did my very best to keep up.  Kirsty watches it regularly and had seen those episodes in English, so I had thought she was totally getting what was going on.  She later divulged her secret to me.  Carine was complaining about the publicités/commercials, which I thought was funny because they only had 1 break.  Or maybe they were all shown at the end?  In any event, there were hardly any, and she said it was dégeulasse that we had so many per hour.  Also, I realized that The Mentalist is just like Psych only not funny.  (Big ups to Idil for making me watch Psych.)

On Friday, I was to go to the lycée to get my observation schedule for this week, and I was able to carry on 3 conversations in French without feeling like a ridiculous poseur.  I talked to Marc about the bank accounts we’ll be opening on Tuesday.  I talked to Sabine about women’s rights and the recent resurgence of feminists in the youth of France (but who hate to be called the F word—it’s not a bad thing!  As Sarah would say, “I don’t hate it”)  Then I went to the principal’s office, and I really do thing that she will be my PAL.  Madame Buer talked to me about renting a car, internet, Belley vs. Los Angeles vs. San Francisco.  I left on such a crazy French high! 

            In other news, before we switched to French, Sabine asked what my heritage is.  The night before, Carine had said that my parents must be foreign, and I said, “No.  They were both born in the United States.”  She seemed confused and asked when my parents were.  I said, “My mom is Irish and Scottish.”  And she seemed to understand from there.  I couldn’t get out what Dad is.  I mean that I couldn’t get it out in two ways: 1) She didn’t ask me to continue.  2) I don’t actually know how to say Dad’s ethnic makeup in French.  Moving on, though, Sabine asked about my background.  “Is there any Asian in your heritage?”  No.  My mom is white and my dad is Native American and black.  (Remember this is Sabine and we’re in English.)  “Oh?  I thought maybe you were Indian.”  Yeah.  That happens a lot.  “It’s so funny to hear about the racial difficulties in America and then you come here…”  And then she didn’t finish her sentence!  I have NO idea what she was going to say or what she was talking about…  So, it’s a mystery to perhaps be solved a different day.

Later, Kirsty and I went for yet another walk about town.  We had actually gone out with the express purpose of finding the market to which Kirsty’s contact had taken her after she arrived at the Lyon airport.  We walked up and down hills backwards and forwards and everywhere in between because she couldn’t recall where it was.  Meanwhile, every market that we passed, I would go inside to see if they had peanut butter—I’m concerned about getting my protein.  When we passed a bio (organic) store, Kirsty said we should go inside because maybe they’d have it.  No offense to organic stuff, but your peanut butter is wack.  Since I kind of like the Trader Joe’s organic peanut butter (even though it’s crazy sweet), I went inside hoping to get lucky.  And, would you believe it, they did have some.  It’s Rapunzel peanut butter, which should have tipped me off straight away.  Rapunzel has no connection to peanuts or butter.  She has ties to hair.  So I wasn’t going to get it at all but then I thought maybe I’d better get used to something new.  And so I dropped the 3.71 for a baby sized jar of peanut butter.  We continued on our market tour of Belley until we found the Simply to which Kirsty had gone.  We went inside and I started walking around and, without thinking about it, I found myself in the Nutella aisle.  (Because without peanut butter, all France sells in these sections is the cookie spread, Nutella and its imposters, and jelly.)  But, WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT!?  They had Skippy peanut butter.  Now, I have done a fair amount of peanut butter taste testing in my day, and Skippy is just inferior to Jif.  No offense to anyone who is a staunch supporter of Skippy, but you’re just wrong.  But, for some reason, Skippy seems to be all that is sold abroad of American brands.  I don’t know why.  Maybe this is why Kirsty doesn’t like peanut butter.  (She calls it “dry.”)  I was all a dither to find it and so wanted to purchase it.  But since it was the exact same size and same price as the other jar I had just purchased (which, I’ll mention is way less than it goes for in Britain), I couldn’t justify it.  I decided that as soon as I finish my organic tripe, I’ll go back for it.  And tripe it is, my friends.  Because the German company that manufactures Rapunzel uses whatever the original recipe was for peanut butter (so the jar says), and let me tell you that evolution happened for a reason!

            After we came home for lunch, Kirsty and I went to the library because we felt certain that it would be open.  Third try’s a charm!  We went in and perused the shelves for a bit and I was about to check out a book when I decided to venture into an adjacent room, and lo and behold, they have a section in English!  It’s quite an odd collection, actually.  With Virginia Woolf alongside Bridget Jones’s Diary.  So, I took out Orlando, which I’m sure will not be as good as the movie.  I’m going to work my way up to reading in French.  I also looked at the library’s DVD and CD collection and am veritably impressed.  It has Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love AND 2046.  Wash U’s Olin library couldn’t even be bothered to get 2046, which is the sequel to the former.  On top of that, though, the Belley library also has the soundtrack to In the Mood for Love (which one of my professors called “objectively, the most beautiful film ever made”), Amélie, My Fair Lady, and so many others.  Not to mention Ennio Morricone!  I already have a bunch of these soundtracks (I had a radio show to do!), but it really spoke to the quality of the library.  So much of what I just said goes out to Stephi.  Respect.  Anyway, I joined the library so that I can check stuff out nonstop.  What’s annoying, though, is that it costs to be a member.  13€/year!  Which isn’t that bad considering one book costs about 20€ for keepsies.  It says that I can check out 6 books and 2 CDs or something like that.  I read this as that’s all I can do for the whole year, but Kirsty thinks it’s at a time.  I hope it’s the former because 6 books/year is a crime.  

            Friday night, Kirsty and I went out to some bars.  I asked Natasha (who did the program last year in Belley—did I mention her before?) for some recommendations.  And she mentioned all three bars in Belley.  We went to Le Télégraphe, which, as she predicted, is a student bar.  We had some of the sparkling wine for which Belley is known (at least, what we guessed its famous wine is) and then sat around for a bit before going to Bar des Aigles.  They were playing crazy techno music when we went in—kind of like THIS.  We were speaking English, so the bartender knew that we were the new assistants.  (I guess Belley isn’t as big as I had thought..)  Anyway, we were enjoying the tunes (“Like a G6” came on and I went Cataracs crazy for a minute) and drinking some white wine.  Then this animated fellow next to us turned to us and started asking what we were doing in Belley.  (This conversation goes down in French.) I told him we were teaching at the high school using the verb enseigner, which means to teach.  He kept on saying apprendre in response, which made me think that he thought that we were learning English.  I kept on trying to explain that we were doing the opposite.  But since I don’t know the word for opposite, it took about 15 minutes to understand that we were actually saying the same thing.  He was just using a different meaning of apprendre.  Then he said that he is a paysagiste.  Having never heard the word before (and not really being sure which word he had even said), he took at least 5 minutes to explain that he’s a gardener.  Then he stepped outside for a smoke, which is when Kirsty and I decided we had better get going because it was nearly midnight and we had to be on a bus at 8 a.m.  Anyway, the bartender at Bar des Aigles was really nice and gave us free refills.  We left him 2€ and he said, “Qu’est que c’est ça?” (A.k.a. “What’s that?”)  I told him it was for him and he said no but we left it there anyway.  He’ll surely remember us when we go back. 

            Yesterday (Saturday as I write this), Kirsty and I got up at 6:45 to be at the bus stop (for there’s only one in Belley) at 8:15 so that we could be in Lyon at noon for a picnic for all of the Lyon assistants.  I was up early enough to see the sunrise.  

We made it to Chambéry at 9:00.  There was a train leaving for Lyon at 9:01, but since we didn’t already have our tickets, we had to wait in line and missed it.  Since the next train to Lyon was at 10:01 (and this was the one that we had planned on taking anyway as it would get us to the city at 11:16), we had an hour to kill.  We had our photos taken so that we could get the 12-25 discount card for the train system.  We then got on the train and waited for the next leg of our adventure.  Then there was an announcement that the train would be 5 minutes late.  Since we were already going to be arriving 45 minutes early, I didn’t mind.  Then it was 10 minutes.  Then 15.  Then 30.  Then 50.  Then they told us to get on a different train.  But as we were getting of, another announcement said to stay on the train.  At this point, this blonde girl hears Kirsty and me talking confusedly and starts kind of hanging around but not saying anything.  Kirsty asks me what’s going on and I say I don’t know and go ask the SNCF (French trains) guy what’s up en français, bien sur.  He says to go to the other platform.  The blonde girl continues with us and then starts talking to us in English.  She’s here from Nebraska spending a year in a French high school.  She sits with us on the train and then when we arrive in Lyon at 12:22, she says, “Au revoir.” 

            When Kirsty and I get off the train, I realize that we didn’t know where the parc actually is in relation to the train station and that I didn’t recall what time we needed to be back at the train to get back to Chambéry for our bus (because, naturally, the last bus to Belley leaves at 5:30 p.m.  And there is no bus service on Sundays.  And Kirsty has a class at 9:00 a.m. on Monday.).  So Kirsty goes to the toilet and I look at the map outside of the station and see that the Parc Tête d’Or is not on the map.  Awesome.  I wait for Kirsty to get back because I can’t go anywhere or I’d lose her.  When she gets back I ask her if she knows when we need to be back at the station.  She didn’t note it either.  So we go to the info desk and when I tell her to get in line while I go look for the train schedule, she gets panicked and says, “Shouldn’t you?  Since you’ll be the one talking anyway..”  The line is practically out the door, so I tell her to just wait in line because I can search fast enough to still make it back in time to talk to the person behind the desk as well, which I do.  Because I can’t find a map of Lyon.  There’s a map of Paris in the Lyon train station.  But none of Lyon.  Makes sense.  (I know I sound really bossy right now.  But, I’d been doing nearly all of the talking for Kirsty and I since she arrived.  Including talking to her teller while she was buying her 12-25 SNCF card.  So, at this point, I kind of am the boss?  Sorry, Tony Danza.)  The woman at the desk says to get a bus from out front to the parc.  She can’t be more helpful than that.  When we get outside, I start looking at the public transit maps to figure out how to get there.  It seems to be about 2 stops away but I’m all a dither because we’re already so late at this point, and Kirsty wants to walk.  So, I ask an older, jolly woman who’s waiting at the bus stop where the parc is and she says it’s 20 minutes away.  And to just stay à droit à droit à droit (to the right to the right to the right).  When she asks if we’re walking, I say yes and she makes a face like, “Okay.  You crazy,” but repeats her directions.  And we’re off!

              We walk for about 25 minutes, and come into an entrance and look at the map of the parc.  Of course, we’ve come through the gates on the opposite side of the parc from where all of the other assistants were meeting.  We keep walking.  At one point, we see a large group of people on the grass and start walking towards them—tentatively, of course.  We stop about 15 feet away when we realize that they’re speaking French.  Not our group.  We keep going towards the intended entrance and come upon another mass of people.  We hesitate to make sure they’re speaking English, which they are.  I am suddenly unsure of what to do and feel awkward walking up to these people nearly an hour late and can’t decide which group to sit with.  Luckily, a girl with dreadlocks, two small arm tattoos, and three lip rings beckons us with both arms to sit in her group.  We sit down and a blonde girl, Sophie, asks us our names, where we’re from, and where we’re teaching.  We tell her and she responds with her information.  She goes to Oxford but is studying abroad here, is teaching near Lyon’s center, and is studying French and German. 

The conversation continues and Sophie starts talking about how the climate has been wreaking havoc on her hair: “It’s been quite tuggy."

That’s when the girl with the dreadlocks says of her inability to contribute to the conversation, “I haven’t combed my hair in four years.”  And that, essentially, is my introduction to Bo.  She is also here for study abroad.  Living in Lyon proper.  Is from Scotland, though I can’t recall her university.  Bo apologizes for being so loopy but she was pumped full of morphine the day before.  (The title of this post comes from her reaction to seeing ducks swimming in the water around flamingos while we were in the African Plain section of the zoo.)  Honestly, I’m not sure why she was morphined the day before, but I think it made for excellent hijinx.  Near the park’s lake, there is a woman feeding the geese and Bo asks if anyone wants to feed them with her.  I say I’ll do it because prête à tout means “up for anything,” and this was really the first test, wasn’t it?  So we go over and feed them.  She offers me her loaf of bread and I tear off a hunk and actually eat some of it because Kirsty and I didn’t have time to get any food for this picnic before throwing it to the geese.  In case you’re wondering, feeding geese is kind of terrifying.  Bo had said she wanted to be bitten by one and I told her that dreams can come true.  As we start feeding them, it kind of becomes overwhelming and they all swarm you and they stare you in the eye kind of menacingly.  Suddenly Bo doesn’t want any of it and she throws the loaf of bread, nearly taking out a pigeon, and turns and runs back to the group.  I don’t take any animals down, but I do go back.

When we’re seated again she says, “Feeding an animal gives you like 12000 wondrous lives in Buddhism, so I’ll probably be a god or something.”  I ask if that happens even if you nearly kill a pigeon.  And she says, “I would never mean to hurt them.  I’m vegan.”  Bo then starts getting impatient about going to the zoo.  “I want to see some giraffes!”

Eventually, we all start moseying along the path, and Bo starts rhapsodizing about how beautiful everything is.  Another girl, Emily, says, “It is beautiful.  But I bet it’s even better for you since you’re high.”

                                      

The walk along the lake.

            

This reminded me of Ferngully.  I didn't touch it, but I felt like I could feel its pain.

 In case you’re wondering, we do make it to the zoo.  Bo is mightily disappointed by the size of all of the animals at the Lyon zoo. This is her first time at a zoo because her parents are Buddhist and don’t believe in the caging of animals.  I agree that the animals are puny (they must all be babies, or something), but am not as bothered by it as she is.  (I’ve been to many zoos.  Thank you, parents, for a fulfilling childhood.)  “The destruction of a childhood dream” is what she terms this afternoon.  As we walk, though, Bo has tons of facts about the zoo animals.  Nearly Bert Bernacchi status.  (Bert and her family are wonks when it comes to animals.  Srsly, though.  Ask her about any of them.)

We walk back and sit down with some people who came even later than we did, including Becky from Britain who got so lost meeting up with Trudi from Jamaica that she had to call her mom back home to get her directions on GoogleMaps.  Unfortunately, though, Becky’s mom was giving her driving directions so she ended up walking along a motorway and then had to restart.  Leila from Ireland was there as well.  They seemed very friendly, but since it was already 3:00, Kirsty and I could only spend a few minutes with them before we left again.  We had to be back at the train station at 3:41 in order to make it on time for our bus. 

As we were walking, there was a group of Frenchmen.  One was in a pink tutu and a blonde wig.  The others were all in sombreros.  I turned to take a picture and, because I’m so devastatingly gorgeous (hai, sarcasm), this man on a bicycle fell over his daughter on her bike.  It was a really awful collision, and so I have no photo.  And we couldn’t help because we were running late.  I felt ghastly.

We made it back to Belley without issue.

Today (Sunday) the weather was beautiful, and I spent it sitting outside eating my first pre-prepared meal (a pizza chèvre/goat cheese pizza.  Sorry, Katelyn.) from the only boulangerie open on Sunday and reading.  (And then writing this inside.)

This is on the lycée campus.  What I looked at while eating my lunch.

Pizza from the boulangerie                                              

Nom noms,

Jessica

P.S. Sorry this post is so long.