Wow! This trip just keeps getting better! I spent the morning feeling dirty from the night train, and trying to catch up on all that is happening in the news. I haven't had a chance to watch the debate, but as soon as I have some down time, its on.

I committed sacrilege this morning: I went to Starbucks and had English breakfast tea and sat on my computer. Notre Dame was out the window, but I just had to indulge myself a little in preparation of actually starting my year here. Because, lets face it, up until now it has been a crazy vacation with one of my best girls.

My friend Mady, the girl I went to Africa with, is studying in Paris this semester and arrived there yesterday after spending two weeks in Cannes. Poor her. So, I met Mady at La Fontaine St. Michel, a place I always met up with friends when I was studying at the Sorbonne. She brought her roommate, Lauren, a cute girl from San Diego, and we all three went to lunch together.

Mady is away from her language and food for the first time ever, and it is pooping her out! She is living with Lauren in an apartment in the 5th arrondissement. It is a homestay situation and her famille d'acceuil is an older Jewish widower who keeps kosher, which means the girls have to, too. Ouch.

The girls accompanied me to fetch my luggage and to Gare Austerlitz. It was so great to witness Lauren's first viewing of the Eiffel Tower. We were walking down the street from the Pantheon, the Jardin Luxembourg in front of us and just the tip of the tower in sight, she gasps and says "Oh! I think I just died a little!" What a magical moment for her, Mady was slightly amused :)

Mady and I spent the rest of the afternoon together at a cafe outside of the station and caught up, talked and made plans to visit each other this semester. I'm looking forward to becoming familiar with this region so that I can properly introduce it to everyone who is planning on visiting me.

I took a train from Paris to a city that starts with a V but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it is. Honest to God, I would look at the ticket, close it, and immediately forget the city name. I kept saying viognier, or vazeer, or va va voom. I waiting on the platform and V-ville for an hour and caught another train to La Souterraine.

Evelyne, the program director picked me up and whisked me off to her house, introduced me to her husband and had dinner ready for me. There's a woodburning stove in the house, the kitchen reminds me of Grandma Nita's farm kitchen, and I immediately felt at home.

Tomorrow, I will go meet my "boss," get settled in a living situation that is for teachers in training, meet another assistant teacher and get to know Gueret! Wednesday, Kendra from Michigan (the other assistant) and I will do some tourism in Gueret and get to know each other, and Thursday I get to go to school!

I was talking about the job and the students with Evelyne tonight at dinner, and it just seems like the best situation I could think of. I will be with 7,8, and 9 year olds and spend the first week or so observing different schools and classrooms to get a feel for how the education system works here. After that I will be teaching on my own, though the French teacher will always be in the room with me. All I can say is bladow!

Another amendment to previously assumed information about my year abroad: according to Evylene, the city of Gueret is 30,000 in size, so not as small as originally thought, but it is the smallest prefecture in France. She has two daughters, one who teaches in Gueret and one who lives in Clermont-Ferrand (the city where all the music is happening). Apparently I can just hitch a ride there with her daughter, how cool is that?

I am obviously being well taken care of, and it feels nice to be winding down my traveling and on my way to settling into this great thing. I can't wait to wake up tomorrow and see my new home!

Mama Pajama

Oy! My week in Italy with Rachel has ended too quickly and with a few tears. Our time in Florence was full of adventure, including, but not limited to, theft, inebriation, "cultural experiences" (at least two a day!), shopping, dancing to Simon and Garfunkel in a Piazza at 9 in the morning AND at the train station, a carousel, Irish pub(s), funeral arrangements, and midnight mass. We made the glorious mistake of getting a hotel room all to ourselves and spent a good part of the day and night in it, drinking champagne, washing our undies in the sink, unpacking and repacking our stinky bags, and generally attempting to recover the previous three days.

We went to a restaurant on the other side of the River Arno, where Laura had spent some time when she was studying here in Florence. Ristorante Celestino was delicious and I think Britches and I barely made it home we were so full. I was surprised and intrigued to find horse meat and calf brains on the menu. Because Rachel and I were planning to share, and her face turned a pale shade of green at the thought of those particular dishes, I decided I'd have to come back for my gastronomical adventure.

We went to our "last supper" together where the waiter was a pro-McCain pro-Texas Italian man named Franco, and the restaurant was large enough to house the entire Italian mob. I had a dish with wild boar, and we finished our meal with a shot of Limoncello. We toasted our fathers and mothers, and in all forms.

We didn't go see the David, but we did take a lewd picture or two in front of the replica which stands in the original place of the real thing; outside in a piazza. We made it inside the beautiful Duomo, which is almost more impressive from the outside. Inside, there were votive trees where we each lit some candles: one for us, one for all the people who have helped us to be who we are, and one for our future. On our way out we heard drums and a canon going off and, as Rachel calls them, "mount-me's," or mounted officers. We stumbled smack dab in to the middle of a funky little parade. The men were wearing tights and cute shoes and funny hats, and they kept shooting a canon in the air.


Perhaps its because Rachel comes from the Dougherty funeral family, and my man is a mortician, but all day every day we would remember something that we wanted to have happen at our funerals and tell each other. It started with our processional song: The Body Electric from Fame for Rachel, and, of course, Me and Julio by Simon and Garfunkel for me. This conversation turned into what we would be buried with, what would be consumed at our services... I suppose when you're so blissfully happy with everything in your life, the idea of dying isn't so terrifying.

Traveling with a friend is a true testament to the strength of the relationship, as anyone knows you can not just travel with ANYONE. I have been blessed with a friend I can not only travel with, but have a damn good time with too!

What a day! Rachel and I have been having a great time in Rome. We saw the Colosseum, Pantheon, and even got ourselves onto an open bus/boat tour of the city. Note to would-be travelers SKIP THE BOAT. The river is so much lower than the city that all we could see was the bottom of bridges through the cracked windows of the tour boat, and the smell of old Italian biddies was less than appetizing at 9 in the morning. We spent all of 15 minutes inside of the Colosseum before deciding that having a snack on the outside watching tourists was way more worth our time and money. We met a boy from Oregon in our hostel who turned out to be our entertainment for the day, and in the end our demise. The three of us started the day at an Irish pub... It had free WiFi, and we had to do some travel planning. Unfortunately we ended back at this Irish pub two more times, and it progressively got worse. At 3 in the morning it was like walking into any college campus bar, the theme to Ghost Busters blaring, and all the study abroad kids humping each other or trying not to vomit in the streets. Honestly, we just wanted an Irish coffee to warm us up on the way home...

We arrived in Florence yesterday and spent about an hour finding our charming hostel that we decided to vacate as soon as we woke up. We literally put our jackets on over our pajamas and left. The plan is to stay at a hotel tonight to avoid having hard feelings towards the beautiful Firenze. Tonight is our last night together, and tomorrow I head to Paris. Time flies with Little Britches. Arrivaderci à Roma!

Today was definitely the day to go out exploring. Chatelet is one of the metro stops in Paris and often has live music playing in the tunnels. This video is a little taste of what I saw, though I promise, it sounded better in person:


After emerging from the metro, passing the Fontaine de St. Michel, I ran into a few dudes bustin' some moves







I went to Shakespeare & Co., an English language bookstore that is a fairy tale tree house fort. There was a table of Americans outside the store will all the information necessary for citizens abroad to register and vote. So cool!












After all of this, I went to the Centre Georges Pompidou which rises 7 stories high and has one gorgeous view of Paris. Montmartre is just out of the picture to the right, and the Eiffel Tower is likewise to the left.

Tomorrow, Roma!