Changes, AGAIN

Hey guys!

I'm still in Paris, but I am blogging about lifestyle design + creating your own rules for lost twenty-somethings.

If that interests you,

find me at www.rulebreakersclub.com!

Welcome to Courtney in France!

This blog recounts my adventures as an English Teaching Assistant in Paris.

If you're a current or prospective assistant, reading this blog is a great way to learn about the program. However, there is so much to share that I didn't share on my blog.

If you have any questions about my experience or the program in general, please do not hesitate to email me at Courtney@filleamericaine.com. I adore connecting to people who share my passion for French culture and would love to hear from you!

Consider visiting my current website: www.filleamericaine.com, where I write about culture, language, and lifestyle... with a heavy French influence. I even have some tips for moving abroad.

I think you'll find even more useful information there! I look forward to hearing from you!

Bisous,

Courtney

New Blog

Hey, y'all. This adventure is over, but you can check out my new blog at www.americourt.blogspot.com which will be full of observations as a repatriated American. Enjoy :)

And my even better site, www.filleamericaine.com, which launched May 1, 2011.

America the strange

Dear faithful readers,

As most of you know, I have successfully made it to the States, something that has been both exciting and difficult for me this past week. I'm still in the process of setting myself up here in Michigan, but I am eager to begin blogging again once things become a bit less hectic! Don't lose faith, I still have plenty of things to say, haha.

Love lots,

Courty

Cher Paris,

MERCI.

Paris is DEAD

There is quite literally no one in this city. Okay, that's a gross exaggeration, but let me put it this way, I had to walk to five (yes, FIVE) different pharmacies today before finding one that was open. I was about to give up after number four, but something inside of me told me that it's not physically possible to have no open pharmacies in a city. Where are these Parisians getting their perscriptions?! Oh wait, they're not... they're all on vacation in the south.

This week has presented me with a strange combination of laziness and stress. Did you see that damn ticker on the left of this page? TWELVE DAYS left in Paris. That's it! I figured with two weeks to go I should probably start packing my stuff. I wanted to make sure that everything that I have accumulated in the past year (which is an astonishing amout of affairs) would fit into my four suitcases. Moving is always an unpleasent experience, made twenty times more so when constrained to Air France baggage restrictions. When I checked the Air France website I learned to my dismay that I am only allowed to check two suitcases, which means that my lovely backpack will be hanging out in Paris until I come back to get it.

I read an article in the New York Times today which discussed the newly accepted life stage of "emerging adult", a stage that one goes through during their twenties. Apparently us new millenium twenty somethings like to put of adulthood as long as possible in the self indulgent hope of "finding ourselves"-- or at least that's how someone put it. We don't want to get jobs, spouses, have children, or buy houses. Apparently we just want to move to Europe and have a glorious, soul-searching helluva time. Given my current lifestyle, I had to laugh while reading the article.

Though I can't lie, sometimes I wish I had less choices as far as careers and graduate school programs are concerned because the world of endless possibilites is extremely exhausting, and it's hard to deal with all of these choices from across the Atlantic. Sometimes I think it would be easier to live the traditional way and spend no time figuring out who you are...  but then I remember how much I have profited from this year abroad, how much it has changed me, and how boring life would be without more similar experiences.

a little somethin' somethin'

28 days-ish. Currently in Bretagne enjoying the best crepes in the world. I ate lobster and oysters for the first time. Enjoyed the lobster, not so much the oyster. These next 28 days are going to go by so fast. This most incredible, LIFE CHANGING year is about to end.

I'll update about vacation more when I'm, well, not on vacation. I feel far too lazy right now!

Sorry for the neglect!

It's been more than two weeks since I last updated, and if anyone cares, I am deeply sorry for my apparent laziness, I've just been enjoying my last couple of months here!

Next week is my last week working full-time for the American family because they are moving back to America after four years in Paris. Then I'm off to Britany with the coolest and nicest Parisan lady ever... her and her son are in Philedalphia right now and she just sent me a text message to say "Hi from America, Courtney!" I'll definitely have to stay in touch with her. I'm also trying to upload a super cute video that I took of her son while he was playing with blocks. It may or may not work.

Boy oh boy could I use a break from this city... especially after the kind of week I had, which was filled with personal dilemmas about a job in Paris for next year (which I decided against), and a failed attempt to watch the Bastille day fireworks at the Eiffel Tower (and by failed I mean that I listened to the fireworks from the back of an ambulance... don't worry, I was the support rather than the victim and everyone is o.k.).

To top off my experience with French beaurocracy, I'd like to remind my faithful readers that after TEN months in this country I have not yet recieved any information from the social security office about my medical insurance (which I was supposed to recieve within the first three months in France). Secondly, for some insane reason I decided to attempt depositing cash into my bank account at my bank (the exact branch where I opened my account) at 4:00 on a Wednesday. I so innocently believed that I would encounter no problems doing so, but apparently (and with no explination) it is not possible to deposit money into my bank account at 4:00 on a Wednesday, or so I was told by the bank employee who looked like he was counting down the minutes until the end of the day and his next cigarette. Ulitmately, I would just like to say that I have yet to have a successful experience at the bank!

Hmm, what else has happened since I last graced this blog with recounts of my adventures? Oh, I watched the World Cup final between Holland and Spain at the "Fifa Fan Fest" by the Eiffel Tower. It was NUTS. There were people everywhere and my minor case of claustrophobia definitely reared its ugly head. When the game hit overtime we decided to walk away from the crowd and ended up sitting in the middle of the road outside of a cafe to watch the rest of the match on their flat screen tvs. About 30 people joined on the street, and every so often we reluctantly let a car pass by. Finally Spain won and we went home! Go Spain!

So I've uploaded a few pictures from work and sitting in the street (don't think the video of the cute kid worked but maybe I'll try again later). Oh, and FYI I was waiting on a metro platform and I saw the guy who plays Natalie Portman's blind boyfriend in the movie "Paris t'aime". My first spotting! I'd much rather see him than Lindsey Lohan.

Sorry I've been neglecting you, blog! But now that I'm not living the fantasy life of 12 hour work weeks and sticking around Paris (aka no traveling) and all of my friends are leaving one by one it makes things seem less interesting. Saying goodbye to Alexis last week was hard because her and Julie were my first and closest friends here and now they're both MIA. I'm starting to get really excited to come home!

Hot tamale: the Parisian chaleur

The passing of time has given me a painful whiplash. During the third week of June I suddenly became busier than I have been since before graduating from college. My 50+ hours-a-week of nannying and babysitting is making me loads of money, and is thankfully keeping me busy enough to not spend it all (though I did take advantage of the twice-a-year sales that started on Wednesday). My babysitting skills have become in such high demand that I may start raising my prices! And I'm digging the benefits: moms giving me old purses (as in really chic French purses) and buying me Bisquick and syrup in Belgium.

The heat. The heat in Paris is an unbearable 90 degrees. If it weren't for the four showers that I take every day I'd probably have already died of heat stroke on the metro. Speaking of which, I feel like I'm descending into the depths of Hell every time I enter the Metro's mysterious underground tunnels. I spend a couple of hours a day trapped inside of the barely ventelated train cars drowning in a pool of my own sweat and smelling the pools of sweat and overpriced perfume coming from other passangers. Welcome to the city of love.

Any freetime I've had I have spent trying to make the most of these past two months and taking naps to catch up on sleep (oh, and avoiding the metro). A couple of nights ago, us Paris leftovers went to a bar on a boat in the river to celebrate our friend Marni's last week in Paris and to say goodbye.

I plan on spending this fourth of July weekend recuperating from a long couple of weeks, watching football, and celebrating the birthdays of two of my close friends, Kelsy and Jen!

Here are a couple of pictures from when I took the girls who I nanny to a park in Boulogne (just outside of Paris) on a beautiful day!

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAL!!!!

USA WINS! So proud of my country's team! I watched this game live in a bar full of Algerians.

I love this city. This city frustrates me, stresses me out, and has even given me gray hair (no, I'm not kidding, I've plucked at least a dozen of those little buggers out of my scalp since the new year. They are all shorter than my normal hair, the exact length they should be if they started growing when I arrived in France in September), but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this city. I love how, depending on the day, I either feel like I live in a small town or one of the most miraculous cities on earth. When in the neighborhoods in which I live, work, and spend free time, I always see the same people, the same dogs, the same grocery store clerks, even the same homeless people. While the regularity is comforting, I enjoy that whenever I go outside of the places I know by heart I find the most fascinating things. For instance, last night I walked past an old 16th century hotel on my way to work, but I always see the same black woman on the subway singing "Heal the World" and "One Love". She wears huge silver hoop earrings. Maybe the next time I will give her some change because she actually sings pretty well, and I'm a tough critic.

I will have a break from the city during the first week of August, when I will go to Britany with one of the mom's I work for and her son (the one who understands English but only speaks French and looks like Dennis the Menace). They are taking me to their country home on the beach for the week. I get to see a part of France that I have never seen all the while being paid to do it. Fabulous!

So I'm happy that I could take a break from my new obsession, World Cup Football, to update my blog. The French team is a complete mess, and the U.S. got robbed by a horrid referee, but I'm having a blast watching!

Mid-year crisis

I'm not sure how it became the 11th of June so ridiculously fast. I suppose this is what adulthood is like, lots of time passing very quickly and the feeling that you're not sure where it went. Though, in reflecting on the first half of 2010 I have realized that it has already been an eventful year. Even though it's been over a year since I graduated from college, I'm still used to measuring my success with grades and the quality of my term papers, but I guess those methods are a lot more concrete than measuring with lessons learned and experiences..uhh... experienced.

But ladies and gentlemen, I have officially taken the plunge. Last weekend I acquired my plane ticket back to the one and only Detroit, Michigan for September 1st (my little brother's 19th birthday). Despite the two-and-a-half months that I have left with this incredibly dynamic adventure, I must say that I'm not entirely sure that it will give me enough time to mentally prepare myself for repatriation. I will, however, have no trouble with seeing those smiling American faces that I miss so dearly! I plan to immediately dive face-first into a plate of greasy Mexican food. I had a dream about nachos and soft tacos a couple of nights ago that still has my mouth watering.

Today, though, marks the beginning of a very special European experience: the opening day of the World Cup. With a new appreciation for "foot" I hope to actually follow the tournament, not because I wish to become a die-hard football fan, but because I fear for my life if I don't know how "Les Bleus" are doing... though no one seems to have much faith in them this year. I'm also afraid I won't be able to carry on a conversation if I have nothing South African-oriented to say.

But I can begin working towards that goal another time, because as girls we are, tonight Jen and I are ignoring the football match and sharing some wine on the river bank. Maybe it will be less crowded? Or is that wishful thinking...

No matter... the weather is beautiful and life is good!

I love when...

J'adore when the subway doors let out their "doors are closing" alert signal and a couple of lucky latecomers rush through, just in time to miss the final clenching. If the victorious latecomer is foreign, they will sit and grin in amazement at their skills for the next couple of stops. If they are Parisian they will continue looking pissed off as if to say, "Putain! How dare the metro doors close before I'm ready to board!"

On the other hand, I also love watching people miss the subway completely. In that case, the victory is all mine!!!

Babysitting, repatriation, denial, lack of euchre players.

I wrote this blog entry by hand while babysitting. Don’t worry, the baby was asleep and it was 11:00 at night:

Since Lawrence went to sleep I have been spending my time reading one of the thousands of old books sitting in perfectly messy piles around this very chic Parisian flat on boulevard St. Germain. The family who lives here treats me very well. The dad is a Midwestern American just like me, the mom is French. Lawrence, while he understands everything I say to him in English, only responds to me in French. Sandra, the mom, is very laid back and sweet and asked me to come with her and Lawrence to their house in Normandy for a week in August. Nothing is for sure yet, but I hope it all works out!

Apart from my sporadic babysitting gigs, the atmosphere is slowly changing in Paris. The streets are significantly more packed with tourists—none of which seem to know how to use sunscreen, which is evident from their farmer’s tans. Most importantly, the people who have become some of my closest friends over the past eight months have begun their slow repatriation to the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Me, I think I’ve adequately stated that I’m not ready to deal with that yet. Actually, I’m in some serious denial that this whirlwind of a year will ever end, mostly because I haven’t even taken the massive step of buying a plane ticket home. From watching my friends wrapping up their Parisian adventure, I have learned that I must accept the fact that there are things in this city that I won’t be able to do before I leave, but that’s okay because I’ve got three months left and I’m sure I’ll be back someday soon!

The beginning of summer weather and the toll of eight months in a foreign country has also shown me the things that I miss about home (besides family and friends which I hope is obvious). I miss being able to print unlimited amounts of personal documents at GVSU computer labs, having all of my own belongings (which are currently boxed up in my mom’s basement), private transportation (only because of the recent accumulation of unpleasant stenches on hot days in the métro and a lack of ventilation), being around people who know how to play euchre, being able to see stars at night (or any non man-made form of nature for that matter. Sorry Paris, but square-shaped trees and imported farm crops on the Champs Elysées is not going to cut it), and barbeques.

A plus!

Ruckus

Bonjour, folks... due to a busy schedule accompanied by an overwhelming lethargy I have not properly updated my blog in the past couple of weeks, nor have I taken the time to organize the photos that follow. They are from Lauren's visit in Paris!

Courtney and Lauren at Big Ben

Courtney and Lauren at the Tour Eiffel

Courtney and Lauren at Versailles

Courtney and Lauren at the Moulin Rouge!

Courtney and Lauren at the Notre Dame of Paris cathedral

Kelsy and Courtney at the "Refuge des fondus" restaurant in Montmartre where they serve wine in baby bottles to avoid paying a tax on wine served in glasses.

Quoi de neuf?

The month that has passed since I finished teaching English at Jean Mace has been very dynamic to say the least.

I have had two of my good friends come to visit me, Sarah and Lauren (at separate times), I went to London for the second time, and I have been a babysitting machine... juggling work with four families. Babysitting in Paris has actually been much more lucrative than my teaching job.

Working with all of these kids has made me think a lot about second language acquisition. I find languages so fascinating... and it's so important to start learning a second language at a young age because after a certain age you can no longer learn a second language to the same capacity that you can learn a first language. This leads me to believe that us adult language learners will never become truly bilingual.

In the meantime I'm working on getting in with the nannies of Paris. I met this Filipino nanny who was BFFs with Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis's nanny and got to meet them last weekend. I don't mean that I want to BECOME a nanny, I just want to get in the inner circle. I'll have to learn some nanny street cred.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend some time with the three American girls who I will be babysitting full-time in July. They are fantastic! The family, the parents of which are American diplomats in Paris, drove to the American base in Belgium and bought me some American groceries unavailable (or way too expensive) in France: peanut butter (of which I now have plenty!), pancake mix, syrup, taco seasoning, and bagels and cream cheese. YUMMY!

Anyway, the girls are super independent, responsible, and smart which I believe is going to make the month of July much more pleasant for me.

Il y a un an

Realization:

I have changed so drastically in the past year since I graduated from GVSU I can barely even wrap my mind around all of the things that have happened to me. As my dear friend Sarah told me this week during her visit, that means that I am doing this whole European adventure thing the right way.

News:

I landed a babysitting gig for the month of July which was the final piece of the "How to stay in France through August" puzzle. Tomorrow Lauren arrives, and next week we go to London!

Closing thought:

I remember sitting on the plane on the way to Paris last September wondering "Who will I be when I am sitting on the plane on the way back to America?" Though this adventure still has some steam left, I am already amazed in the difference between that girl and this one.

The week's happenings

Prepare yourselves for a really stupid metaphor (or simile I suppose):

This week I feel like a hot air balloon whose ropes have been snipped and is merely floating around in the sky without an anchor or a purpose. I'm going where the wind takes me, baby!

I warned you it was bad, but it’s the only way I can find right now to accurately describe my sentiments.

I also find myself using weird terms like “sentiments”. Normally I would refrain from the word sentiment to avoid sounding like I used the “find synonym” button on the word processor, but it’s not my fault! The French language has set-up camp in my brain and has taken my English hostage. AIDEZ-MOI!

So finally, after seven plus months of living in this city, I became self-motivated enough to visit a couple of museums this week. On Sunday, I spent the afternoon writing in a bustling and sunny park at Chatêlet (not a museum, I understand, but definitely some world-class people watching).

On Monday, I took advantage of my age and country of residency (national museums are free for European residents under 26 years-old) and visited Monsieur Napoléon Bonaparte at les Invalides. I learned quite a bit about French military history (by my own choosing, might I add).

On Tuesday, after my first spring trip to the open-air market by my apartment, I went to the musée Carnavalet (also free entry), which stuffed me full of nonsense about the French revolution.

Yestearday, after babysitting two non-English-speaking kids who live in spitting distance from la tour Eiffel, I wandered to the NYU in Paris “campus” because I am interested in applying to their “Teaching French as a Second Language” program. The campus consisted of a townhouse hidden in a garden behind a building and is ridiculously adorable.

On my way to the campus, an 80 year-old Parisian man stopped me on the street, told me I had a nice smile, and then asked me to sit and have a coffee with him. He seemed pretty harmless and so I said “oui, pourquoi pas?” During the next twenty or so minutes I endured his stories about old Paris and about how he used to own a famous café called “L’Ombibus” in Montmartre (the neighborhood where one finds the Moulin Rouge, Sacre Coeur, and all that jazz). He was difficult to understand, but I enjoyed his stories nonetheless.

On today’s menu: article writing and apartment cleaning. Nothing worth talking about, but the weather is beautiful, I’m in a Bobo café, and the overall mood in Paris is good. I couldn’t ask for more.

Entering the Abyss

Bye bye Jean Mace!

I felt so incredibly sad when leaving the school after my last day of work this morning. I didn't realize in the slightest how attached I had become to those kids and the teachers. They were all so cute and sad today, and it really meant a lot to me. I was there to teach them English, but they taught me more French and enriched my experience here more than they will ever know. Yes, I did waste a lot of time inside of that building... but I'm realizing now that I learned a lot in the process. Maybe it wasn't a waste of time after all.

So that's all I had planned for life after college... now what? This is a weird feeling...

Stay tuned.

The End of Life as a Teaching Assistant

I have not been feeling very funny or witty lately, so I apologize for my recent lack of anything remotely interesting to say. Actually, I did spend time writing a new post a couple days ago and then accidentally exited from the screen, consequentially losing all of my hard work. It was a big bummer mostly because I was entirely too lazy to type anything else until now.

I suppose a lot is new, though maybe the reason I haven't been writing or taking pictures as frequently is because most things have become so normal here. I have made the official decision to try to stay here until my visa expires in September, and I have been a busy little bee looking for babysitting gigs to keep me afloat until that fateful time comes.

This is my last week of work at JM! The principal gave me yellow roses last week, and one of my classes collectively wrote me a poem in English that has nothing to do with me. This is what it looks like:

(You can click on the image to blow it up and read the poem. It's quite hilarious, actually, and was written by what would be the equivalent of 2nd and 3rd graders. It was pointed out to me that at the bottom someone had written "A love you" and erased it. These kids are priceless.)

In other news, I really hurt my foot this weekend and could barely walk until today, which was good because I had to babysit this afternoon at the park. Speaking of which, I have found quite a few babysitting gigs to keep me busy this summer. I'm still not sure how this whole living-on-a-whim-in-Paris thing is going to work out, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will because I know in my gut that it's what I need to do. I'm just not ready to leave this country yet, and when I do, I know I will just be trying to find a way to come back.

My dearest friend Sarah is coming to visit in two weeks for a few days an I can't wait to have her here. And then in the beginning of May miss Lauren will be coming for a visit. I'm so excited to share Paris with her that I made a spreadsheet breaking down the days and what we are going to do for each part of every day that she is here.

The most boring tidbit of news that I have to share is the fact that I have been taking the bus instead of the subway more recently, and I must say that it provides much better views of the city. I mean, not that complete darkness complimented by intermittent florescent lit white tiled tunnels isn't interesting, but I happen to prefer ground-level.

No sooner is the rage of hunger appeased than it becomes difficult to comprehend the meaning of starvation. It is only when you suffer that you really understand.

-Jules Vern

Remembering...

It's been a sobering weekend. Today I learned that a boy from my high school class died in a fire, and even though I didn't know him that well, it really bothered me. It made me think about the loved ones who I have lost. Sometimes I need to think about them to gain perspective...

RIP Fred, Grandma Rosie, Grandpa Johnston, Uncle Mike and Renden.

Your loved ones miss you every day.