life in february

like i said at the beginning, i knew i would be terrible at keeping up with this. so here is a bit of a recap of the last two months or so- mostly traveling/visitors for 2 straight months aka AWESOME.
1) moroccans learn victorian english
in february, i went to morocco and spain for 2 weeks with four of my lady assistant friends. we spent almost a full week in marrakech, which every single person on this planet should go to because it is awesome. we stayed in a hostel that is an old riad (guesthouse) which was so beautiful and right off djamaa el fna, the main square in the old city. it was an insane week of couscous and donkey carts and bargaining for 2 euro jewelry and fresh squeezed orange juice and blasting chants and prayers from the mosques 5 times a day and amazing sunsets from the terrace of the hostel. but one of the funniest parts of the whole trip were the things that store owners/men in general would shout at us to try to get these 5 20 somethings (also i was the only nonblonde) to come into their shops or pay attention to them- things like "fish and chips! lovely jubbly! harrods! big behinds!" basically lots of hilariously antiquated phrases from england. in general morocco was wonderful, we went out into the desert for two days for a camel trek which was very different from marrakech which has a large modernish city outside the medina walls.
2) the spanish do not sleep
at least that is how it appeared to us. we went to granada, sevilla and madrid and had an awesome time running around cathedrals and moorish palaces and ancient cities during the day and celebrating carnaval at night. the low point came in madrid when i thought i had purchased a cat costume (aka ears, tail, and BOWTIE. because we all know cats wear bowties.) and later realized i was in fact a zebra. identity crisis which was only solved by spending the entire night at a private club with about 10 portuguese men all dressed either as the joker from batman or pirates. it was confusing.
3) having visitors is awesome
since february break, my parents, jane and molly from wash u, katie from england and my brother and sister have all come to visit. plus jane and i have started seeing our french guy friends from the program we did 3 years ago almost every weekend, so life feels like one big vacation slash party all rolled into one. being able to show my parents my favorite creperie or my brother and sister my favorite bar is a really cool way to semi wrap up my time here and has made me realize how much of a life i have in france. and how hard it will be to go back. but luckily there are still two more months before that happens...

stereotypes, vrai ou non

so one of the strange parts of living in a foreign country is constantly being confronted by stereotypes, whether about france, the us or even other countries. jane had a teacher tell her class "see, not all americans are fat! look at jane!" my kids ask me all the time if a) i only eat at mcdonalds; b) how many celebrities do i know and c) if gossip girl/desperate housewives/any other american show are actually true to life. i want to be like "guys. we are not all fat. and stupid. and lazy. and sleep around." except that last part is probably not appropriate to tell 13 year olds.
but the other side of it is the stereotypes about france. there are three main ones that i have been pondering this week.

1) french people smell bad.
okay at first i thought this was true. but then i realized i work in a middle school. and middle schoolers do smell bad. but as far as i can tell, french adults do not smell any worse than american ones so deal with that! especially because the next two stereotypes are totally true.

2) french people are always on strike.
this is just true. period. i think its one of those things you cant ever really understand unless you come from a place or live there for a long time, because i spend about half my time here asking people why they are going on strike and then they give me all the reasons, but i really mean "but why are you on STRIKE? not "WHY are you on strike" aka why a one day strike every month or so as opposed to a massive one once a year. but from what i can gather, its a national pastime/tradition/sport. today there is a strike that originates from the primary schools but the train workers, all the other levels of schools and PUBLIC RADIO are on strike. can you imagine if npr went on strike? anyways this means that about half the kids are here and maybe a fourth of the teachers- and since i only have class when teachers are here, i have one class from 9-10 and one from 4-5. lame. but despite the fact i dont really understand, it is pretty cool to see people actually getting involved in governmental decisions and protesting what is important to them- this time, it has to do with closing lots of preschools and getting rid of support staff in schools. so im all for it even if i dont really get what is going on.

3) french people love food.
this is the most true thing that has ever been said. french people love eating food, they love talking about it, they love recipes and ingredients and open air markets and chocolate and coffee and beef and cheese and bread. coincidentally, this is something we have in common. except the beef. but i have found this to be rather useful because if im in the teachers room and im sort of awkward because im about 10 years younger than any of the teachers and the only foreigner, plus i dont have kids and am not married and therefore this isnt always a ton in common that i can discuss with teachers, ill say "sooooo whats the difference between a chataigne and a marron?" which are two different kinds of chestnuts. then i will get an amazing discussion all about which is better for what and how to cook them and promises of recipes and then someone brings in examples the next day and all is right with the world. there are often homemade pastries and treats in the teachers' room, but i had never thought about the fact that maybe i could make something. until this week, when a class asked me to make a cinnamon twist recipe that i had been describing to them because my family makes it every year for christmas. so i brought in some extras for the teachers and all of a sudden, we were all best friends. everyone wanted the recipe and wanted to say something to me about them and teachers stopped me in the halls to tell me how much they liked them. if id known that was the way to their hearts, i would have done it months ago.

beyond all of that, everything is good in france- i went to strasbourg last weekend with jane and it was glorious and weirdly german/french. shes coming this weekend to angers, then the next weekend we are meeting up with molly in paris and then MOROCCO AND SPAIN FOR TWO WEEKS. estoy lista para viajar!

ps- the picture is the class post cinnamon twists