Our house is great; Caitlyn and I were lucky to find such wonderful rooms. But we don't have a shower, just a bathtub (with claws) and a shower head. Since the place is so old, if we let water run out of the tub it'll drip onto the floor below, which means we have come up with a new word: shower-bathe. Since we have to shower while staying below the rim of the bath tub.
We also have a really crusty kitchen, complete with flies. I blame the three boys that live here. The burners we have, instead of stoves, can only be turned on or off. You can't decide how hot they get.
In France they don't really have dryers. Even at the local laundromat I scoped out they charge you to dry by the minute. I think hanging laundry is great in principle. But if the space you have for hanging laundry is the damp basement, you have a problem. Jeans take about two days and no matter how much I Febreeze everything, I can't get the mildew-y smell out of my clothes.
We get two hour lunch breaks here. It makes me pretty antsy, finishing my food and then having another hour and a half before I have to be anywhere. I'm sure once I get used to it I'll love it, but for now the American in me wants me to go go go. Except nothing is open during lunch hours so it's not like you can use the time to run errands! You actually have to just relax. Weird.
I've been doing some observations in elementary schools (I actually start teaching tomorrow). Their daily schedule and school grades are organized really differently, but the classroom dynamic is not so unfamiliar. It was fun hearing their French lesson; they went over masculine and feminine nouns and I was like, "I need that!" I enjoyed watching them go out for recess and lunch; it's been a long time since I've had bells.
Boy is this program unorganized. There are so many levels of command, I guess you could say, and none of them really communicate with each other. Last Friday they gave us all the information on paperwork we had to do to get paid, which included opening a bank account. On Wednesday they expected us to have it all done. That would be reasonable, if they hadn't scheduled observation and training during all the banking hours, and if dealing with banks in France didn't involve it's own folder worth of paperwork.
A lot of people in France, strangers on the bus or the kids in my class for example, assume I am Chinese or Japanese because I'm asian. I'm like no, I'm from California.
There are a lot of mosquitos here.
Like I said, I'm still very happy to be here; I just don't want to sugar-coat anything. I was worried I wouldn't fit in with the other assistants but they're a really great group and we've already had some dinner parties and fun outings. Yesterday we went to the top of Mont Faron and hung out at the beach after.
The télépherique to Mont Faron
View of Toulon and surroundings
Assistants hanging out at the beach
Dude, I feel you about the smelly clothes...
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