Bonjour, salut, guten Tag, hola, hej...
Well here goes my first attempt at writing a blog. Maintaining it will be another issue...
The goal of this blog is essentially so all of you out there in the internet world reading this can live vicariously through me as I go off on another whirlwind adventure, leaving everything familiar behind me. So I hope to share all my crazy (mis)adventures, photos, rants, etc. so that A) you know I'm still alive and B) I haven't completely lost my marbles. Should plan B fail, refer back to A, at least. I'm still working on the C.
You still there?
Well if you are, you've probably lost your B as well. Hm, what was I talking about?
Oh ya, this blog. So, off to France I go (again). But, as most of you want to know (or do know, but have just forgotten and feel too bad to ask again), is how the hell did I get here in the first place?
It all started 3 years ago, when a series of (mis?)fortunate events landed me in Toulouse without any direction which was up or down or if a chocolatine was the same as a pain au chocolat. Left to fend for myself in a foreign country at the age of 20 without any contacts or help from my lacking international advisor back home, I somehow managed to live a cramped, derelict student residence known as Chapou (or "Crap-poo Chapou" as we called it) without internet, a clean bathroom or any sort of creature comfort in the middle of Toulouse's suburban nowhere, take 3 weeks to get my classes figured out and 1 month to open a bank account. Oh, and my French sucked. As it turns out, "arachides" in Canada are "cacahuettes" in France. (Peanuts, for you Anglophones...oh boy, the store clerk looked at me like I was growing a pineapple from my ear when I asked for "beurre d'arachides"). And yet, I managed to have the best year of my life, met the most amazing friends, had incredible (mis)adventures, and ended up never wanting to go home.
Which leads me to my last year of university, when I stumbled upon a certain program called "CIEP", foreign language assistants in France, run through the French Embassies. Essentially, you get placed in a French "primaire, collège, or lycée" (elementary school, middle school and high school) for 7 months, and work 12 hours a week assisting the teacher of your particular mother tongue. For me, that's English. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Get some teaching experience, have a crapload of freetime to travel, go broke from your crappy salary...a dream come true for any wannabe frenchie!
After talking to a number of fellow Laurier language students having done the program, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to get me back in my beloved l'Hexagone. (slang the french use for their own country, which, oddly, resembles the shape of a Hexagon).
So here I sit and wait for my Arrête de Nomination to arrive in the mail so I can take my next steps in securing a Visa and going bald pulling my hair out from the stress of it all. And packing. If anyone knows how to cram an entire wardrobe into a suitcase, please feel free to enlighten me! In the meantime, I'm looking up everything there is to know about the lovely city of Nancy and its surrounding areas, only a hop, skip and a croissant away from Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany. And searching flights. So far Icelandair seems to be the cheapest. Hmm, I wonder why...
I can't believe I'm actually doing this again. I have a certain "wanderlust", a taste for travel, adventure... or a serious case of poor judgement. Not to be confused with poor hygiene.
Not looking forward to the 3 weeks of bureaucratic hell that is La France. I hope I have better luck opening a bank account this time. BUT, I will be within walking distance of many bakeries. I can feel my arteries squeezing shut in anticipation already...mmm, moelleux du chocolat...
For a first post, this is way too long. Anyone still reading? Oh, that's nice of you. You must really be bored, eh?
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