The holidays begin

It is December in France and the holidays are upon us full swing. The Christmas markets both in Sarreguemines and in Saarbrucken give us something to do all the time, complete with vin chaud or gluhwein in the respective countries. My roommate and I have been doing a lot during the week and the weekend. We have been meeting a lot of great people and we are never bored. Here are some tales of some of our adventures.

For Halloween we went to a haunted house in a citadel. It was great and they didn't have to do much to make it feel haunted since it was in the basement of a really old building. Halloween isn't largely celebrated over here, but some places do some things. We also carved a jack-o-lantern that turned out pretty nice if I do say so myself. :-P








We celebrated Thanksgiving twice, once in Germany with many people and once in France with less people but more Americans:





My roommate and I both like eating and sometimes we'll just go to a cafe and get a drink and a little somethin to eat. This was one such day at a tea house.



I haven't taken many pictures of the other stuff we do but we have gone to museums, made cookies at a friends house, had a few dinners with people, gone to the movies, discovered some of the 'night life' of Sarreguemines, done a little Christmas market shopping, decorated the house for Christmas and much more. We like keeping busy.


The ceramics museum in Sarreguemines

I have also been traveling around a little bit. Since I have been here I have been around near Strasbourg with some friends, to Belgium with another friend, and to Metz and Nancy. Its been a lot of fun.


The Pompidou Museum in Metz


The ocean as seen from Belgium. In the far distance is England but it cannot be seen with weather we had.


The car rally I went to with my friend in Belgium

Besides that, I have started running with a running group. We run at nights which is good for me and even better that I finally have people to run with. I get to speak French and get exercise :-D.

Also it is becoming more and more like winter. It rained this whole weekend but it was still a great weekend in general, complete with ice skating, italian food, christmas market, and fireworks with a friend :-)

Cheese, Fromage, Queso, Käse, Formaggio ...

... you get the picture

One thing I love about France is the number of cheeses there are to choose from. We are all familiar with the popular French cheeses: Bleu cheese, Chèvre, Camembert, Brie, Boursin etc. But what I love is that there are enough cheeses and brands of cheeses here to try a new one every day!! Not necessarily only French cheeses either. Now, I don't quite have the funds for a new cheese every day, but I have been trying at least one a week since I got to France. Now I have decided to share some of these new cheeses I try so you can all follow along on my wondrous journey through cheeseland. Let's begin with the two most recent ones I bought:

Le Tomme de Savoie
This is a French cheese whose origins date back to before the 16th century when the peasants of the Savoie region (in the Alps in the east of France) started making cheese out of the skim milk left over after making butter. The word "tomme" is slang and it means 'cheese made in the high mountain regions'. Each household would make their own tomme, resulting in many different varieties. Even today, many different varieties still exist and the cheese can be found classified from 'light' to 'fatty'. The one I tried is great. The smell threw me off at first, it's a little strong, but the taste is smooth and a has a little bite to it. I would give it a 7 out of 10.








Le Rustique
This brand of Camembert is a newer cheese, dating all the way from 1992. It is also a French cheese and is made from pasteurized milk. Camembert in general is one of the most well known French cheese. It is smooth and creamy on the inside with a rind around the whole cheese that is rough and waxy. Some choose to eat the rind, some do not. My number one choice would be to put it in the oven for a little while and then eat the gooey cheese with some bread. But cold it works just as well. This specific brand was very nice, better than the last Camembert I had which was more generic. I would give it a 7 out of 10 as well.




Now these are only a fraction of the goodness to come this year. And of course no cheese is complete without bread or wine (or both) so be prepared for some fun. There will be more cheeses to come soon I'm sure.

As for the rest of life, it is going well. The weather has made another turn towards the cold (though it was really nice again this past weekend) and I am fearful for when it gets into the negatives. But I am prepared with my scarves and boots and extra pounds I will put on if I keep eating this much cheese... :-P

Oh Germany

What a strange feeling to be surrounded by a language I know nothing of. German, though slightly similar to English, is proving to be difficult for me. Yes I am taking a course, I live with a German speaker, the German border is a 2 minute walk away, and I go a few times a week across the border, but still I am floundering.
Example: Last night, at a bar in Saarbrucken I decided to overcome my fear of ordering in German. I went to the bar, ordered 2 beers for my friend and me and went back to the table to wait for my order, satisfied with myself and excited for my beer. A couple minutes later, what I had ACTUALLY ordered arrived: One beer and a croissant.... At least I got the one beer, unfortunately for my friend. :-/ I didn't even know bars had croissants!...welcome to Europe. Better work double hard on the German this week.

As for work, it is going well. I have started teaching, and my experiences are completely different every day, especially between the Collège and the Lycée. It has been fun playing games and talking about things like American recipes, music, and Halloween. I sometimes feel like a celebrity walking around town and hearing shouts of "Hello!" from people on the street who are my students. It really is a small town and I usually see them around semi often, however I have about 12 different classes so I don't know all the students yet.

I have found the forest, and I love it. It is beautiful this time of year, with the leaves changing colors and the early morning fog. The trails are perfect for hiking, biking, running. I have been running and going to the pool pretty often to cancel out the amount of bread and cheese I eat and just to get in shape again. Last weekend there was a 10k run in Sarreguemines. At the Collège we had a "team" of people who all participated and there was an all around good ambiance. I'm sure the good weather that day helped. :-)

Next week the school has a vacation in celebration of All Saints Day. We get a week and a half off, so I will be doing a little exploring and traveling!

As I woke up I looked out the window of the plane. Everything I could see was so flat in the early morning haze. However, in the middle of that haze, barley visible at first, stood a tiny triangular figure. And I realized that I awoke over Paris. The airport was less romantic, as they often are and the train station even less so. Nonetheless, I got to the city, found a hostel and called up some friends. I spent a few days in Paris before heading to what was to me my home for the next few months: Sarreguemines.

My first impression of Sarreguemines: It is adorable.

The main river near downtown

Here is a little bit of information about the town: Sarreguemines is a city in the North East of France in the Lorraine region. It is in between the cities of Strasbourg, Nancy and Metz but along the German border, north of all those towns. The nearest big town is Saarbrucken in Germany and Sarreguemines has gone back and forth between being a French and German city throughout history. There are about 25,000 people who live here.
It reminds me a lot of Chico in many ways: The small city feel, the fact that everyone is so nice, it has two rivers running through it (though the first day I crossed one of them and realized 20 minutes later that I was in Germany haha), there are great running and biking paths that at this moment are covered with colorful leaves that have fallen off the trees, and everyone knows each other.

Downtown on a Sunday, when everything is closed

I am here to be a language assistant, basically to speak English to Jr. High and High School students and make sure they understand what is being taught by the English professors. The first couple weeks I will only be observing, but after that I get to have my own groups of students and try to pretend that I speak no French.

The Jr High.

When I first got here, I was welcomed by one of the teachers at my school and he explained a lot about the city and hosted me for the night with his family. The next day I was reminded about French grocery stores and how much I love French cheese. :-) I also got to move into my apartment and meet my roommate, who is from Turkey / Austria and is the German language assistant. The apartment is amazing, with windows that let in plenty of natural light (unlike my dungeon in Aix) and it is spacious with a large living room and kitchen, great for dinner parties :-) It is also right on the Jr High campus so I have to walk a total of about 2 minutes to get to work, depending on which classroom I am in. That will come in handy in the rainy season, which is apparently all the time though right now we are in a very unusual sunny time.


Our living room

My room, well half of it.

It has been really nice outside, we have been very lucky.

A race with kayaks the weekend I got here

A really cute garden next to the river

The main river, The Saar.

Since we are so close to the German border, I decided to sign up for a German course at a local College. Sometimes I feel like I am not in France, by the amount of German that I hear around me. Most of the people here speak at least a little bit of German, though French is still spoken everywhere. I have not heard any English around town, which I am very happy about.

The differences between Sarreguemines and Aix-en-Provence are many, but I feel that this will be just as great of an experience though a completely different one.

It is also completely different from Club Med, where I have been living and working for the past year. I have missed cooking dinner and having a glass of wine while preparing the meal. I missed being able to go to sleep early and get up early and have a cup of tea. I missed having the time to read at least 1 book per week. All of these will be done many times throughout this year I hope. I am looking forward to perfecting my French, learning a new language and culture by being so close to Germany, and progressing personally in many aspects.