Saturday, December 21, 2013

What A Week

Saying that I'm happy it's finally Christmas vacation couldn't be more of an understatement.  After a very trying week, I'm finally done teaching and eager to begin travelling once again for my two-week break!

Angsty high school students, problems with the bank and a general lack of empathy from anyone I went to looking for help made this week one to remember, but unfortunately not for good reasons!

...to be an English Teaching Assistant in Forbach!!
I had the difficult task of trying to keep classes of students who were all too eager for school vacation to start under control - if you all could see what goes on in French classrooms, you'd be amazed.  I thought that my bad experiences at the Université de Paris III two years ago were just a fluke, thinking I had been put in classes with rowdy kids who misbehaved all through the lesson and couldn't care less what the teacher was saying.  Now, I can confidently say that behavior like this (general animosity, talking over others, throwing things during class) is omnipresent in all French classrooms, regardless of the kids' age or grade.  Every day here is an adventure: the second I turn my back to write something on the board, I brace myself for the worst.  I've been hit in the head with a flying pencil case, told I was ugly when I asked someone 3 times to spit out his gum, and am generally just disrespected by a vast majority of my students...and it's driving me crazy!!!  When I look back on all of these incidents, I can generally laugh it off, but simply cannot imagine what American teachers would do if they were transplanted into a classroom of animals here in France!

No, I didn't make this...someone else in the world just happens to share my same sentiments!
Thankfully, I'm not the only teaching assistant I know who's facing these same problems - in fact, every teaching assistant I talk to is having the same issues. Daily frustration in the classroom compounded with weekly bureaucratic hassles are really becoming a pain.  For instance, La Sécu, the French Social Security office, has been sending me nasty letters requesting a copy of my paystub from October...since the end of October...and as of this past Thursday (over halfway through the month of December), I had still yet to receive it.  Every time I would go to ask about it, I'd just get brushed off and told that things here just take a little extra time - if we're talking about a mid-afternoon wine break taking extra time, I'm all for it, but when important things just seem to get ignored time and time again, I really start to get annoyed.

[Side note: my paystub finally appeared on Friday! One more thing to cross off my bureaucratic to-do list!]

To top it all off, I happened to notice a mysterious 120€ charge on my debit card early Thursday morning...hello hackers! So I had the pleasure of going to the bank to try to straighten out the matter and getting stuck with an uptight banker who told me that in all his years of banking, he'd never heard of such a thing...was I sure I hadn't forgotten I'd gone out to lunch that day and spent a lot of money without realizing it?? 

"BNP Paribas: The bank for a changing world"...one which has apparently never heard of hacking!
Back at home, I know these problems can usually be corrected within minutes, as I had a similar problem a few years ago that was taken care of over the phone in under 5 minutes. Not in France! After being laughed at by the banker, I got to trudge through the pouring rain to the police station where I sat in the waiting room for 45 minutes (coffee break apparently takes precedence over customer service! "Things take time here," remember?) before I got to explain my whole story once again to a policier while he typed up a report for me. I was the second person before noon that day with the same hacked bank card problem, yet the man at the bank had never, ever heard of such an occurrence...Back to the bank I went with my 12-page report, only to be told that they'd have to launch an investigation to try to figure out who took my money, and if they could figure out who it was, maybe I'd get my money back, but it'd take at least two to four months! All this would be stressful enough back home, never mind trying to sort all this out here in a second language…

To top it all off, I had to cancel my French debit card and go without it for a few days until I get my new one in the mail sometime early next week. Conveniently, I leave for Christmas break in Geneva & Germany on Sunday, so I won't get my card back/have access to my account (where my month's salary was just deposited yesterday) until January 6th when I return. What a nightmare!!

[Second side note: Yesterday morning, the mystery charge was strangely deleted from my account, and my balance was restored to normal...so much for that taking 4 months, but at least I got my money back!]

The Swiss Flag
But, on a happy note, it is officially Christmas vacation now! I leave early Sunday morning on a train bound for Geneva (the land of fondue and world-famous Swiss chocolates!), where I'll meet up with Eric for a Christmas adventure on the scenic banks of Lake Geneva. The day after Christmas, I'm heading up to Germany to spend the rest of my break at my roommate Meike's house with her and her family (with the prospect of a ski trip to the Black Forest included!).  I'm very much looking forward to getting away from Forbach for a couple weeks and doing some more exploring, and by the time I get back, I'll be halfway through my stint as a foreign language assistant - hallelujah! Although the second half of my time here will be more exciting, as I'll have a good number of visitors coming and a few fun adventures up my sleeve.  

So, as we say in France, Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année! Here's hoping that 2014 is a fresh start to my last 4 months in Forbach!  

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Strasbourg & Les Marchés de Noël

Christmas cookies at the Strasbourg market
Always eager to immerse ourselves in Christmas cheer, Meike and I took a mid-week trip to the city of Strasbourg, the self-proclaimed "Capital of Christmas."  Home to France's oldest marché de Noël, the
Christkindelsmärik (Market of the Child Jesus), Strasbourg's Christmas markets are a festive holiday tradition begun all the way back in 1570 (2013 marks its 443th year!).  The city is situated about 2 hours south of Forbach and we had been banking on spending a weekend there to enjoy the festivities...apparently everyone else in the area had the same idea! All the hotels in the area were booked for every weekend of December - unless we felt like coughing up half of our monthly salary to stay in a ritzy place - so instead we opted to arrive in the city on a Tuesday night so we could spend all day Wednesday (our day off) wandering the town.

Strasbourg is the capital of the Alsace region of Eastern France, as well as the country's 9th largest city
We didn't arrive until nearly 9pm, a full hour after the markets close for the day, but we wanted to take advantage of the bright moonlit night to explore the city and admire all of the Christmas lights and decorations - we sure weren't disappointed!  

Strasbourg's giant sapin de Noël at Place Kléber
An illuminated model of the city sits below the tree
A modern take on the traditional manger scene: chainsaw-carved statues
The awe-inspiring Gothic cathédrale de Strasbourg
Basically, the entire city looked like a giant version of Bright Nights
Spectacle son et lumière: animations light up Place Kléber with light and sound

After being thoroughly chilled to the bone thanks to our late-night stroll in the sub-zero weather, we headed back to the hotel for the night, eager to see what the city had to offer by daylight...

La Petite France, a section of Strasbourg filled with half-timber houses sitting along the canals of the River Ill
Strasbourg is actually like a giant fairy-tale village, as its streets are lined with half-timber houses, all sporting vibrantly colored shutters and really giving the city a medieval feel.  Add about a million Christmas lights to that and you've got yourself the perfect kitschy Christmas paradise.

As is typical, I couldn't pass up a peek inside the city's cathedral - one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture still standing today.  Soaring an impressive 466 feet into the heavens, it was actually the world's tallest building for 277 years (from 1647-1874) and today stands as the world's sixth tallest church.  That's quite impressive considering the building was begun in 1015 (in a time of rudimentary tools but obviously extremely precise architectural calculations), standing as a testament to the power of faith, perseverance and mind-boggling craftsmanship.  It's hard to put it all into perspective when computer programs today could spit out a blueprint for this edifice without a problem, but when you take a minute to really think about it, it's actually really impressive that people were even capable of creating such beautiful works of art like this 1000 years ago with such basic tools.

The cathedral's amazingly detailed facade
Radiant stained glass windows illuminate the church's interior
The cathedral's astronomical clock, very impressive to watch all its parts whirring around
The cathedral towers over one of Strasbourg's eleven marchés de Noël, serving as an impressive backdrop for the dozens of vendors peddling their wares in the square below.  What can you find at the Christmas markets, you ask? A better question is what can't you find there...

Artisans tempt those strolling through the markets with hand-crafted ornaments, figures for the Nativity scene, fine Alsatian lace, candles, Santa hats...you name it, you can probably find it there! 

And then there's the food. Cheap, delicious, made with local ingredients, and cooked to order while you wait. 

My delicious lunch: sauerkraut and spaetzle mixed with bacon, onions, cheese and a white wine sauce, topped off with two bratwursts
Hungry for lunch? How about some local choucroute (grilled sausages garnished with a heaping portion of barrel-cured sauerkraut)? Cheese-covered pretzels? Freshly-shucked oysters with a squeeze of lemon? What about some deep-fried frogs' legs? Pizza? Maybe even a tarte flambée smothered in crème fraîche and topped with all the bacon, cheese and onions you could dream of... 

Quite possibly the World's Largest Pretzel - all for only 3€!
Thirsty? Grab a mug of vin chaud, France's famous mulled wine - you can get it in red or white. Christmas beer is popular here too, thanks to the region's German influence. Or if you don't feel like stumbling home from the markets, try a glass of hot spiced orange juice sweetened with a touch of honey.

One of the many vin chaud vendors with it huge kettles of simmering wine
What about dessert? Crêpes, deep fried beignets filled with Nutella, hot waffles topped with whipped cream, Alsatian nougat, Christmas cookies (of both the French and German varieties), chocolate-dipped pretzels...is your mouth watering yet?

1/3 liter of hot wine for 3€, quite the bargain!
The food portion of les marchés de Noël is a double-edged sword: everything's pretty cheap so you don't feel bad trying something...and then the next thing that catches your eye...and the next. Two hours and twenty pounds later you're rolling yourself back to your hotel wondering where your 20€ went...but it's totally worth it!

The Christmas market at Place de la Cathédrale
You'd think we would have had our fill of Christmas cheer after our shopping/eating extravaganza in Strasbourg, but no! Meike and I headed up to Metz along with one of her friends who was visiting to see what was going on during the Christmas season there...but unfortunately there wasn't much!  In any case, we enjoyed another day of shopping (and eating), and I finally got my Christmas shopping finished up.

In other news: we decorated our little Christmas tree (with popcorn garland and a batch of those amazing smelling homemade cinnamon ornaments) and Santa delivered me a box of presents from home! I couldn't have been more excited to open the box and find my stocking from home as well as some pint-sized presents to put under the tree. All that's left is to wait 2 more weeks to open them...the countdown continues... 

Our little sapin de Noël and some presents from home!