January 2010

Sorry about not updating more regularly. Thankfully I keep a journal so I don't forget anything and you don't miss out on anything.

January 4th-10
My first week back from Spain, I was sick and tired so I basically just laid around trying to get better. I think all my traveling and partying across Spain had finally caught up to me. It snowed Monday night (January 4th) so all my classes were canceled for the week, so I basically had another week of vacation, which worked out great for me because it gave me time to lay around and get healthy again. It actually snowed a couple of times during the week, which is why my classes kept on getting canceled. I got to love the french for their inabilities to deal with even the littlest sprinkling of snow. The reason France shuts down when it snows is because it usually only snows once every 5 to 6 years and only a light sprinkle that melts off in two days, so they never bother to buy snow plows and salt. This year has been a weather anomaly with it snowing multiple times and lasting for more then a couple of days. I'm beginning to think global warming is a myth ;) During the first weekend back (January 8th-10th) Leidy had a Colombian friend who's living in the south of France (along the French/Spain border) come to visit. Unfortunately, since I was sick I didn't really get to do anything with them, but they did cook up an awesome Colombian dinner for me one night.

January 11th-14th
Monday night Leidy and me went to the local cinema and watched a french comedy with Dany Boone called "Micmacs A Tire-Larigot". I'm really not that big of a fan of french films, in fact Leidy flat out refuses to go and watch anymore, because we never enjoy them. This one was suppose to be a comedy, but honestly it was rather depressing and really strange. On Tuesday I started Spanish lessons with Leidy. So I'm hoping my Spanish will be pretty good by the time I head to Spain with Dad in April. We had a new roommate move in on Thursday. He's only going to be staying on Thursday nights (like our other roommate that we never see) and he has a car so he always drives us to the good/big grocery store on the other side of town to do our shopping. He's the sports teacher here at the school. For his first night in the apartment we cooked him a dinner (its not very often that we get to host people for dinner) and got to know him.

January 15th-17th - Weekend trip to Angouleme
Friday afternoon Leidy, Caroline (a Colombian friend of Leidy's who works as an assistant just north of Poitiers) and me went to Angouleme. Normally I take the train but this time we tried out a thing called "Co-voiturage" which is basically like couchsurfing, but with cars. Its a website to find someone that's headed to the same town as you and you catch a ride with them. Its a lot cheaper than the train and you get to make new friends. Friday night their was a house party at the boys' place so we all hungout there. I turned in around 2am (that's early in Europe) and headed to Michaele's house where I was staying for the weekend. Saturday morning Michaele and me spent the morning gossiping and catching up, before I headed into town to meet up with the other girls for a bit of shopping. Unfortunately I was the only one in the group that actually likes shopping, so it wasn't that enjoyable :( In the evening I met up with a friend from last year named Brittney and her husband Alex at a new bar that just opened up in Angouleme. We had a few drinks and caught up, before they retired for the night and I met back up with Leidy and Caroline. We were suppose to go to the boys' house to meet up with everyone, but we decided to head out to Kennedy's Irish Pub instead. About 30 minutes after we arrived at the bar, everyone from the boys' house (~15 people) decided to join us. I guess the party just follows me where ever I go :P We all stayed at the bar until it closed at 2am. Fortunately the owner of the bar loves me, so I asked her if she could call over to the club "La Moon" to get us all in for free. She made the call and the huge group headed to the club (normally the guys don't go out to the clubs with us because they don't want to pay to get in, but I worked my magic and everyone got in for free so we were a huge possy). Our numbers slowly started to dwindle around 3:30am, but Leidy, Caroline, Roman, Benoit and me kept dancing until the club closed a little after 5am. We returned to the boys' house but didn't sleep. We ended up staying up even later playing a "word association" game in french (its where someone says a word and you have to find a word that is similar, but not to closely related for example: if I say 'church', the next person might say 'religion' and the following person says 'crusades'). Anyways, it was a very long night like usual in Angouleme (ha! and I had originally planned on turning in early Saturday night) ;P Sunday morning we woke early (surprisingly enough) and Nalleli, Roman and I headed into town to find an open boulangerie (bakery) to buy croissants and pastries for breakfast for everyone. After our communal breakfast, Nalleli, Leidy, Caroline and me headed to Misty's house to visit and catch up before meeting up with our "co-voiturage" driver, who drove us back to Poitiers, thus ending our enjoyable weekend in Angouleme.

January 18th-24th
Monday was spent in Chauvigny like usual. Eric, the science teacher who drives us back and forth between the towns on Monday, has decided to have me give english lessons to his little daughter. So I'll be making a little extra money on the side tutoring. In the evening I was struck with a "bonne idee" (a good idea). When we'd driven from Spain to France we had stopped at the border and loaded up with cheap alcohol, which we had yet to consume. So around 11pm I was extremely bored and offered a glass of vodka and orange juice to Leidy. Pretty soon our "one glass" turned into one liter of Vodka. We stayed up all night drinking until 5:30am just chatting, watching YouTube videos, trying to learn the dance to the Thriller music video, etc (basically just being silly drunks). Unfortunately the next day my "bonne idee" didn't seem so great anymore. Leidy had class at 8:30am and ended up going to class with only 2.5 hours of sleep and still completely intoxicated. Fortunately my first and only class of the day wasn't until 4pm, but it still wasn't a very pleasant class since I was hungover and not feeling that awesome (I ended up releasing the kids 10 minutes early so I could return home and recuperate). Thursday there was a STRIKE in the schools so my classes were canceled! Leidy and me decided to go into Poitiers for the day and do some massive "Soldes" shopping. The "Soldes" are the time of year when all of France goes on SALE because they are trying to get rid of all of last years/seasons designs/collections. I don't think Leidy realized what she had volunteered herself to go through when agreed to go shopping with me (which is why my friends in Angouleme refuse to go with me, because they know I'm a hardcore shopaholic and they aren't that into it). First we hit up every store and I mean EVERY store just looking at what they had and prices, then we returned to the stores where I'd found things that I liked and tried everything on. Leidy had never seen anything like it as I walked into a changing room with 20 articles and end up leaving with half of them (she thought she'd bought a lot when she'd only purchased 3 little things and a pair of boots, I dropped around 200 euros!). We literally shopped all day from when the stores opened at 10:30am until around 6pm. After I finished shopping we met up with a couple of assistants who work in Poitiers for a coffee before heading to the train station to catch a ride back to Montmorillon. Ahhh, its amazing how a much better a little "retail therapy" can make you feel. Friday morning I ended up having a new group of students in my 2nde class (that's about the equivalent to juniors in high school). The are really great and actually try to speak in english, so I really like the new group, except there are a few students in it that are always hitting on me which is not only embarrassing, but extremely uncomfortable. Leidy was suppose to be heading to the south of France to see a friend and go skiing for the weekend but she was not feeling well so she ended up staying the weekend in Montmorillon with me. Saturday I hungout at the apartment cooking all day (shrimp, yum!) and in the evening Leidy and me went to our favorite bar here called "Le Buvard" to watch a live pop/rock band play. I randomly started talking to some french people at the bar and they invited us to go drink at their table with them. Yeah!! We finally made some french friends in Montmorillon!! We're all planning on getting together after the vacation and going to a club together. So I'm looking forward to hanging out with some new people. Sunday was spent cooking again. Beef egg drop soup: Success!

January 25th-31st
Monday I worked in Chauvigny like usual. One of the english teachers asked if I'd be willing to work more than my contract of 3 hours if they paid me more, I said "OF COURSE!" Tuesday my class was canceled because they were having a test, so I started a thorough cleaning and reorganizing of my room. Wednesday Leidy and me visited the 'Salon de The' (The Tearoom) for some tea and cake in the afternoon after my classes (we hadn't visited since before Christmas break and we were starting to have withdrawls). In the evening I made fish for dinner, yet another success in cooking. Thursday I made egg drop soup: success (did I mention that I've been doing lots of cooking lately?). Our new roommate took us shopping and then made us supper, which was very nice of him. Since he's the sports teacher he's offering to let us take a woman's self defense class that he's teaching in the evenings and he's also set up a workout machine in the living room for us. Yes! During the weekend Leidy left to go to Angouleme to see the Bande Dessinee, which is a huge comic book convention. I went last year and decided I'd rather stay in Montmorillon for the weekend, since I'll be in Angouleme next weekend to see Pamela and Celine who are flying in from Scotland and Switzerland to see us all. I didn't do much over the weekend except organize everything for my trip to Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Other than that, just a lot of cooking :)

I'll try to write again soon. Loveya! xxx