Lazy yet Productive Weekend!

Hello everyone.  I haven’t been very good at posting but what else is new?  This week went by fast just like every week does.  One general observation that I think you should know: I am doing well.  I am proud of myself for being here and even prouder that I am happy about it.  I am beginning to feel comfortable (granted I often still feel like the awkward foreigner) with my daily life…French culture, food, speaking, my meal times, everything.  I feel like I am getting into a routine and I love routine.  Yes of course I like a little spontaneity in my life as times but I also like having a flexible game plan.  I’m not home sick or America-sick…not yet although I do miss certain things but that’s normal…family, friends, the boyfriend, and before I would have said that I missed normal life…but my life here is finally getting normal and it’s refreshing!

Teaching is going fine, nothing new to really report about that.  This week I am going to teach about Thanksgiving in one way or another (I probably should start planning)!

A funny story… so last Friday Jose and I went to lunch around 1.  Lunch starts at 12 and ends at 1:30, or at least so we though.  At 1 we went to go get some lunch at the cafeteria and the workers weren’t there.  So one of the servers comes and asks “D’où venez-vous?” which literally means “From where are you coming OR from where do you come.”  When people want to know where I am from they ask me this question the translation being ‘Where do you come from?’  So I told the worker I am from the United States, from New York State.  And he says ‘ok’ with a weird look on his face.  Then he continues to say well we close at 1, this is the last time you come right at 1.  We apologized and went to go sit down laughing the whole way back.  When the guy asked me “d’où venez-vous” he literally meant ‘where are you coming from’ NOT ‘where do you come from’…so he wanted to know why we were late and where we came from and I told him I was from the United States, from New York to be exact.  So technically I answered his question, just not with the answer that he wanted.  I was embarrassed but I also thought it was funny…and Jose thought it was hilarious and we made fun of me the entirety of lunch.  I felt like an idiot, but whatever, I was the dumb foreigner once again.  Oh well, it happens.

So this weekend was super relaxing for me.  It was the first weekend that I spent both nights in my own bed and didn’t visit another town!  Friday was super productive; I went to the post office to send my health care information in so soon I will have a French social security number and health insurance shortly.  I also went to the bank so I can sign up my French bank account with PayPal meaning that I can use PayPal to transfer money FOR FREE from my French bank account to my US bank account!  (A big shout out to Aunt Lori for telling me to check into using PayPal)!  I also went for a run and spoke to my dad on Skype (which doesn’t happen often because Skype doesn’t work after 4PM US time and he is just getting home from work at 4…and now its hunting season so he’s not home on the weekends either)!  Friday night I went to Bingo with Jose.  It was a fundraiser for a private middle school is Bellac.  It was a fail, neither of us won but of well.  The prizes were a little odd…a hair dryer, a digital camera, a crepe maker, a charcoal grill, a humidifier, some other things I didn’t understand and the grand prize being a dishwasher!  (WHAT?  Who has dishwashers as prizes?).  Regardless I had fun even though Bingo went until 11:30 and it got quite boring by the end!  I then got home and somehow got a second wind and watched what I thought was an “Private Practice,”  apparently it was a 2 hour episode so I didn’t get to bed until 3!  No biggie though seeing as I had nothing to do on Saturday!

Now moving on to Saturday…Saturday I woke up at 11:30 and started cleaning my room…hard core cleaning.  Wiping every surface, sweeping, mopping (including moving everything on the floor in the hallway, etc), I then went for a run, did CORE stuff, and showered.  By this time it was around 5 and at 6 I headed to Limoges with Jose to see a movie with him and some of his friends.  We went to see “Moneyball” the movie with Brad Pitt.  We met up with 2 Mexican girls and a French guy and about halfway through the movie, the screen went blank!  After waiting for 20 minutes we were told they had an electrical problem and that we can either get reimbursed or watch another movie.  So, we got reimbursed and decided to go to an Irish pub for a drink.  We then went to one of the Mexican girl and the French guy (later found out they just got married!) apartment for dinner and we had tacos with HOMEMADE MEXICAN TORTILLA!!!!   I watched the whole process and let me tell you, homemade tortilla is so much better than store bought tortillas!  By the time we finished dinner and stopped chatting we didn’t get home until around 2!  And that brings us to Sunday…

Sunday AKA today I didn’t do much.  I went to the grocery store and bought all of way too much.  I learned that as I was sweating and dying carrying 2 oversized, filled grocery bags back to my room.  The reason why I bought so much is that Jose and I went snooping and found some pots and pans so now I can use the hot plate that one of the teacher’s gave me!  So today was spent making lunch (pasta with pesto sauce and fresh bread dipped in olive oil with salt and pepper.  Delicious.  Then I made a bunch of pasta to last me through the week and then cooked some chicken to put on my salad.  For dinner, I then made 2 grilled cheese sandwiches, a delicious salad and had some of my bread/olive oil concoction.  By the time I ate my grilled cheese sandwiches I didn’t have room for my salad and am saving it for tomorrow.  Besides cooking, the only other thing I did today was Skype with my mommy for a while, went for a run, and showered.  I am really glad I had a chill weekend.  A weekends like this are just needed every once in a while.  And considering, I wasn’t even ‘chill’ or ‘lazy,’ I would say I was pretty productive!  I wasn’t just lying in bed or watching TV…I was mostly busy, just busy in my room as opposed to exploring another town.   Well I guess that’s all for now.  I am going to be posting pictures of my room (obviously post cleaning!) soon because I don’t think I’ve ever posted pictures of my room!  Hopefully I will write again soon and stay disciplined!