la gueule de bois qui a duré une pleine semaine

Whoa, doods. A serious whoa.

Last week I was so incredibly lucky to have a full-week off which also happened to coincide with my birthday which also happened to coincide with a week of amazing weather. So, naturally, I spent the week in Biarritz where one of Isaias' roommates (Charlie) also had a birthday during the same week. Whereas I was celebrating my "twen-teenth-third" birthday (gulp), Charlie was celebrating his 21st which I guess is as big a deal in England as it is in the U.S. So, for the occasion, he invited all of his good friends to stay -- in total, there were eight people in the apartment. Eight insanely crazy hilarious awesome people.

Before all of Charlie's guests arrived, we celebrated my birthday low-key style : a day on the beach, champagne, Italian ice cream, and an absolutely gorgeous and legit Mexican meal. I had no idea how much I missed the spicy!

ooo laaaaaaa siiiiighh

played lots and lots and lots of cards

even swam in the atlantic a little

the amazing chefs, Isaias, Charlie & Tabo. Yeah, I mostly sat back and drank, as per the norm.

On Tuesday, people started arriving for la grande fête we were going to have on Wednesday evening (Charlie's parents even drove down from northern England due to the Icelandic volcano which disrupted the flights out of England) and the next six days are a complete blur of drinking, eating, partying, beaching and celebrating. I didn't even used to be that into the party scene in college, honestly. But we stayed out until four, five, six in the morning every single night. Lemme tell you, these English doods seriously... seriously know how to party.

After spending so much time literally surrounded by people (we slept three people to a bed...oof), it felt so strange coming back to my little studio, all by myself. Plus, I hate saying goodbye to people. No, I don't hate it. I mega-loathe it!

Now I have a week with the parents here, which I'm sure will be the absolute anti-party week that I just had and I'm totally ok with that. The time is also coming for me to make a decision about my future here in France and this is something that I've been continually putting off.... and putting off... and putting off.

Here are the options with some pros (+) and cons (-) that I've added.

· Stay in France and find a real job with more structure and dependability.
    + Improve my French
    + Experience la belle vie
    + No student debt
     - ....uhhh....
· Relocate to England for a masters.
     + Get to be a student again, which I love
     + Experience life in the motherland! 
     - Two words: student loans.
     -  Friggin' freezing cold weather
     - The bad weather counts for two negatives, I think.
· Go back to the U.S. and do.... something.
     + See my friends who have moved on with their lives and/or are engaged/married/knocked up
    - This seems like an altogether terrible idea.



Ummmmmm... Decisions. Help?

xoxo biz biz biz

on peut dire que je suis BAMF

I feel it necessary to share the awesomeness that was 75% of yesterday. One of my student's friends whom I've met once before invited me to play soccer with a group of doods that get together every Saturday just to play casually. I said heeeell yes, but in my head I was thinking "omfg. Am I insane?" Playing with guys is hard enough, but not only that -- I'm foreign and struggle with french... Merde!

I was really nervous when we got there, everyone looked at me incredulously, like "oh, here we go. Some fool decided to bring some dumb broad to play." I should note as well that it is very, very unusual for a french girl to enjoy soccer, let alone play it. I tried to be as enthusiastic as possible, and it helped that my friend let me borrow an old pair of cleats, making it easier to play in.

Well, we got going, and soon after I proved I wasn't completely incompetent, the guys were actually passing the ball to me, for reals. In America, (in my experience) when a girl plays with a group of guys, they all tend to be ball-hogs and real trou des culs because they think they're better. But these guys were really cool! I was also a bit worried about them being more aggressive than I'm used to, but I was shocked because whenever I fell down (which as I'm sure you all know, happens a lot even off the soccer field), they stopped outright and said, "pardon, pardon! Ça va?" and would help me up. Which was great, because while they were apologizing, someone could easily nick the ball off them.

With so many people there, we played 6-on-6 with two games going on at once. Halfway through, we switched teams and took a break and as I was making my way across the field, I overheard someone from  the other side say "that team can use 7 people since they're playing with a girl!" and the doods from my team were like, "no, no! She is really a good player!"

And at that moment, I was so incredibly stoked, so awesomely thrilled, felt like such a BAMF because I actually managed to impress these french guys, that I looked over and gave them the dick-in-a-box gesture -- which, if you're unfamiliar with it, looks a little something like this...

It was a really, really fun day for me, not only because I haven't played soccer in such a long time, but it was such a gorgeous day outside and I felt a sense of belonging, against all odds. I don't mean to sound like an arrogant ass, but that is pretty f-wording AWESOME.

However, if you recall, I said that 75% totally rocked. The other 25%.... was rough. I went out for dinner and drinks later that night with two of my students and their friends and while we were sitting at the bar, I felt my ankle really starting to swell and, by the time we left to go to another location, it was so swollen that I couldn't even stand on it. I really don't remember rolling it during the day, but we did play for three and a half hours, so it's entirely possible. I felt bad, I didn't want to go home but I was in some serious pain. I ended up being driven home early and completely passing out after taking a heavy dose of ibuprofen with some frozen veg on my foot.

Needless to say, today I'm a bit sore. But I'm leaving in a few hours for Biarritz because it's vacation time, nerds.

xoxo biiiiiisous.

putain, i'm so nul.

I guess we're all entitled to days of complete and total inadequacy. I had one of those days, where every single person in this city could speak english better than I could speak french. It started when I met with one of my students, who, after an hour of speaking english, asked if we could speak in french. I said yes, despite the fact that, for whatever reason, I find it really difficult to transition from english to french with my students -- I think it has to do with the change in dynamic because for that one hour in our little English lesson bubble, I get to be the one who understands everything. But as soon as the bubble pops, I go back to being the foreigner who struggles to keep up.

Anyways, so he starts asking me about the U.S. and the differences in lifestyle to France, a subject which I have been able to speak about rather easily in the past. But now, even stringing together a coherent sentence was like trying to do calculus; my brain was just not having it. It was super embarrassing, because he knows I studied in Aix, that I have a minor in french. And I completely bombed. I felt like such a nul because here I am, a degree holding certified TEACHER for goodness sake, with nearly three years on my student, having lived in this stupid country for nearly six months unable to say things that a student in french 101 could say.

I was completely boffed for the rest of the day, even in my next lesson, I had a hard time even being able to speak in English. It was such an ego blow. Though, I'm aware that, as my lovely sister eloquently put it, "there are bound to be plenty of days where the brain is particularly flatulent." But talk about STOOPID.

Thank goodness the weekend ended up being a lot better -- and it certainly didn't hurt that the weather was absolutely gorgeous; it got up to 22°C on Saturday, which is close to 72°F. One of the teachers at the school put on a chasse de trésor (treasure hunt) on Saturday, which was really fun. She invited a whole bunch of people from the three language schools where she works and put together a team of foreigners (two Americans, an English dood, and a Mexican) against a group of local Toulousains and we were super stoked to have won! But it was a great day to be in and around the city and meeting people. We had a petit goût in the park afterward where everyone brought food or drink, so I made some last-minute chocolate chip and hazelnut cookies and the french sure loved 'em. Mmm, to be American.

The following day, I spent most of the morning sunning myself on the balcony, listening to my french podcasts (due to the lack of confidence instilled by the aforementioned language disaster) and then later got a text from a student telling me he had an extra ticket to the international expo and if I wanted to join. Of course, I said bien sûr! The expo itself was weird, there was a lot of furniture being sold and not really a lot of international things... But we ended up just drinking some local beer and chilling in the sunshine, and I think it's safe to say that it was pretty sweet. I persuaded him to speak in french most of the time, which we did and man, cela m'a mis en confiance. So, now, I can go back to just being bad at french and not really fucking terrible (f-word for emphasis).

:)  biz biz

je crois que je me suis bien adaptée à la culture française.

SPRING! How glorious. This means that every morning I can sit outside with my freshly brewed PG Tips, two slices of brioche and jam, sunglasses on and watch Monsieur DuChamps in his workshop or Jean-Pierre pacing and smoking his cigarettes outside, which has quickly become my favorite part of the day. I can do this, y'know when it's not raining outside. Apparently, for most places in the world, spring means rain... News to me.

(side-note: while those people are real, their names are not... I don't know them, I'm just a creep and watch them and create fictitious lives for them... I swear I'm not a loser)

While Isaias was here visiting this last weekend, I think we did justice to the french lifestyle indeed -- on Friday, we went out with every intention of strolling around the city, but within the first few minutes, we decided to stop at the Carrefour to get some lunch supplies, including a bottle of rosé (that's blush wine for you nerds) and headed back to my balcony to enjoy it on a table we fashioned out of a discarded piece of plywood and a bucket. It pains me how classy we are. After two hours of drinking, eating and chatting, plus a bottle of wine between us, it was time for a siesta. So, we brought the air mattress outside and took a nap for about an hour, basking in the sunshine. OH, how lovely indeed.

 

Monday (lundi de Pâques) was a bank holiday and gorgeous, so we hired bikes for 1€ and took them all around the city, which might have been one of the best things I've done so far in Toulouse. We took them along the canal, all the way around to the north of the city, through the city center, then stopped at a café for something to drink near the Garonne and enjoyed the sunshine. Then we adventured into the city center to see if there were any good films playing. It was glorious, so calm and so nice. Et si je ne me trompe pas, c'était très français.

In fact, this weather is so great, I kinda dread to think what it would be like any hotter... There definitely isn't A/C in the metro nor in my apartment... Woof.

In other news, someone in my apartment building decided to share with world some intimate details using the side of the mailboxes as his (her?) medium of choice. Wonderful how people here choose to invite the world to their lover's quarrels, whether it be through vandalism or the terrifying shouting that takes place through the thin apartment walls. I'll let those of you interested enough to wordreference "niquer." Yikes.

bisous xoxo