Vacation Time!

All packed and ready to go!

So I'm just wrapping up week number 2 of working at the school and it's already time to set off for a 2 week vacation starting tonight! All schools get a two-week break for La Toussaint (All Saint's Day) - France used to be very religious and although it is much more secular now, the tradition of taking a break at the end of October still stands...I'm not complaining!

Consequently, I'll be on a temporary blogging hiatus while I enjoy my time off - but fear not, I'll post all about it when I return!

I'm leaving Forbach tonight and heading to Paris, where I'll stay with my friend Kasey for the night until we set off for the city of Toulouse in southwestern France tomorrow morning.  There, we'll meet up with Eric and explore the area (including taking a day trip to Bordeaux to do some wine tasting on Sunday) until Tuesday morning when we'll take a train south of the border to Girona, Spain. Thursday night we head to Nimes, where Eric lives, to spend a few days seeing the sights there, and finally we'll travel back up to Paris next Saturday night to end our trip.  Eric and I are spending a few days with Kasey at her apartment and then we get to crash with our former host family for a couple nights before parting ways on Halloween.  

Trains, trains and more trains

I'm really looking forward to some warm, sunny weather down south, as in Forbach we've been stuck in the low 50's with overcast skies everyday - temperatures should be topping out right around 80 where we'll be this week, which is a much welcomed change!

Nevertheless, I was ecstatic to find pumpkins in our local supermarket, so I bought one to decorate our apartment & am hoping it will still be good to carve once I return to Forbach! As someone once said, you can take a girl out of New England, but you can't take New England out of the girl!  

Ma citrouille - my pumpkin!

Glück auf!

They say you learn something every day, and today, I learned a lot.

Yay, coal! Welcome to Eastern France!

While I love travelling and seeing new places - often in different countries - I also think it's important to get to know the area where you live as well.  Thus, my roommate Meike, Rudi (the other English assistant in Forbach) and I set off for a day of driving around to explore the part of France we now call home.

First on our list: the Lorraine American Cemetery in St-Avold.  This is Europe's largest American cemetery, and after being thoroughly impressed with the American cemetery next to the D-Day beaches in Normandy during my last stay in France, I figured this place would be of great interest to me.  After a quick 20-minute drive to St-Avold, we meandered unsuccessfully throughout the town and finally ended up at the Office de Tourisme, knowing that they'd surely be able to point us in the right direction.  There, we learned two things: the American cemetery was located 1 kilometer down the road from us, and it was closed thanks to the US government shutdown.

US Government Shutdown: Impacting European Tourists

How can that be, my fellow teaching assistants asked?  I hadn't thought about it beforehand, but I know that the American cemetery in Normandy is technically located on "US soil" that has been given to America by France in order for us to inter our fallen war heroes, and is consequently staffed by US park rangers and military officials (just like the one here in St-Avold)...who are currently out of a job due to current events back home, and thus have been furloughed here, nearly 4,000 miles away as well.  Assuming the government shutdown doesn't last for 8 more months, we'll have to make a return visit when we can actually visit the monuments here. Nonetheless, it was a slightly disappointing start to our morning.

Next up: the Musée des Mineurs Wendel, a museum about the Wendel coal mine and the miners who worked there.  The region of Lorraine has been involved in coal mining ever since Napoleon had his surveyors inspect the area for natural resources, and the Wendel family opened up the coal vein here in 1853 and successfully mined up until 2001.  Because of its bounty of valuable natural resources, Lorraine has been fought over throughout history, belonging to Germany during both World Wars and finally returning to French control after the armistice in 1945.  

This map shows all of the coal mines on the French side of the Sarrolorrain region (the blue represents German territory)

Before getting to the museum, however, we had a bit of a mix-up regarding its actual whereabouts.  For some reason, whenever you research a museum or cultural point of interest in the area online, you're provided only with the name of the street on which it's located - no specific number or anything that would help you actually locate it in person.  Long story short, we drove to the town of Stiring-Wendel, and after roaming the streets and asking random people where their mining museum might be hiding, we discovered it is actually situated in the town of Petite-Rosselle, a mere 15 minutes away...whoops! But after walking through Stiring-Wendel, we learned that there does exist a sleepier town than Forbach, and that we have no reason to ever waste gas again to go exploring in it!

Back in Petite-Rosselle, we finally arrived at the Wendel mining site and museum.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as I knew nothing about mining, but we were pleasantly surprised. It's been a few years since I last learned about the formation of coal, so I needed a quick refresher (see below if you do too!)...

The formation of coal

Millions of years ago when Earth was home to the super-continent called Pangea, France was located a lot closer to the equator where it was hot, humid, and prime territory for tons of vegetation to prosper.  As the plant matter died and sunk to the bottom of ponds and lakes, peat formed and gradually became buried under lots of rocks, dirt and sediment.  Over the next 300 millennia, all the matter on top of the peat exerted lots of pressure and heat, turning it into coal.  And there you have it: the continents drifted apart, bringing their coal deposits with them, and that's how so much coal got to be all the way up here in France.

Continental drift

Back in 1853, Charles de Wendel founded a steel factory in the town of Stiring (where we thought the museum was located...) which used iron ore from Lorraine, coke from the German Saarland, and later coal from Lorraine.  He built a large worker's village called Stiring-Wendel in 1857 to house all the men who worked in his factory, and later built up larger settlements to house the miners once the coal mines began functioning.  

Aerial view of one of the planned mining villages constructed near the coal mines

Boys went to mining school at age 13, and after 4 years of training they were eligible to start working in the mines at the age of 17.  Girls also attended special home-ec classes at 13 to train them to be the perfect miners' wives, with courses which taught them how to do laundry, sew, iron, cook, and run a household perfectly synchronized around the different shifts at the mine.

Young girls attending "Miners' Wives School"

Although mining was and continues to be a very dangerous line of work, the French government recognized this and thus developed a system of perks to working as a miner or being married to one.  As this region of France was ravaged by many wars, the mining of coal was of the utmost importance to fuel the production of the steel which was needed to rebuild the country, and thus miners were in high demand.  In order to entice men into working in the mines, free housing, heating, and transportation to and from the mine were provided.  There were commissaries for the miners to buy their food at reduced prices, free daycare was provided to children of miners, and retirement benefits were quite tempting.  If a miner were to die either in the mine or due to health complications from mining (like black lung disease), his widow and children would continue to receive free housing/heating, etc, as well as a monetary death benefit.

Houses built for mining families in my area (they still stand and are occupied today)

The museum did a great job explaining the origins of coal mining in Lorraine and provided an inside view of daily life as a miner.  The museum is located inside one of the mine's buildings, with exhibits in the shower room (where 150 soot-covered workers could bathe simultaneously), the locker rooms (where miners' clothes still hang from the ceiling), and various equipment rooms housing headlamps, helmets, tools and ID badges.

"La Salle des Pendus" (The Hanging Room), where the miners' day clothes hung while they worked

Each miner had his own chain instead of a locker

Dirty mining clothes suspended outside the shower room

Then it was time for our guided tour of the "mine" itself.  Our guide led us around some of the abandoned mine buildings as we made our way over to the building containing the simulated mine.  Before entering the mine, the miners would wish each other "Glück auf!"  Recognized as the "miners' greeting" and still used between former miners even today, this German phrase means "good luck getting out of the mine!" as one never knew what sorts of dangers might befall him that day.  A statue of St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners and firefighters, stood outside the mine shaft as well, in hopes that she would protect the workers from harm.  

Saint Barbara (Sainte-Barbe, in French) was locked in a tower by her father for wanting to convert to Christianity. After a priest disguised as a doctor snuck into the tower and successfully converted her, her father was furious and set fire to the building.  Saint-Barbe survived the flames, and is thus the patron saint of those who work with fire today.

After hopping into the (simulated) cage which brought us down 1200 meters into the coal mine, we stepped into an underground tunnel filled with massive machines used to mine the coal.  The miners would dig the first 150 meters of the tunnels by hand, and then bring all the machines down piece by piece over the course of a couple weeks and assemble them underground.  Saying that the miners were "hard-working" is an understatement!

Dujardin compressed air locomotive, used to navigate inside the mines from the 1920s until 2000. Compressed air was safer to use than electricity, due to fire hazards.

We learned about the dangers of working in the mines as well - from cave-ins to firedamp and coal dust explosions.  Throughout the decades, many types of materials were used to hold up the walls of the mine in order to prevent them from caving in and crushing the miners; wooden beams, metal poles, and ultimately pneumatic pistons did the job.  Interestingly, in the era of wooden beams, the miners preferred to use pine timbers, which aren't nearly as strong as some other woods like oak, but will audibly crack up to 5 times before snapping (unlike oak which just snaps in two without any notice), giving the miners a warning and thus time to erect new supports or exit the mine before catastrophe struck.  

Standing before Puits Wendel 1 & Wendel 2, the first two mines to be opened at this site

It is impossible to mine coal without releasing methane gas (referred to as 'firedamp' when it's in a mine) from the ground, which proves to be a major hazard for those working underground in the tunnels as it is highly flammable.  With no odor or taste, firedamp was extremely difficult to detect before the advent of modern technology.  I was already familiar with the practice of lowering a cage of canaries down into the mine shaft to check for methane - if the cage came back up and the birds were alive, it was safe for humans to enter the mine - but our guide explained a slightly more gruesome procedure which was also used.  

A large cylindrical wash tub for coal still stands next to the museum's entrance

After all the wars in France, there were many prisoners of war who were ultimately sentenced to death for whatever reason, and it was becoming expensive to keep all of them alive until their date with the guillotine (which was still used in France until 1977).  Thus it was decided that prisoners could volunteer to become pénitents (those looking to atone for their sins).  The pénitent would be lowered into the mine much like the canary, but given a torch.  If there was a dangerous amount of methane in the air, the prisoner's torch would ignite the air and BOOM, an explosion would occur, killing the prisoner (and eliminating another government expense) and alerting the miners at the top of the shaft that it wasn't safe to enter the mine.  If the pénitent survived two weeks of this dangerous task, then he earned his freedom and was released back into society (and was thus one less mouth for the government to feed in prison).

The pénitent, checking the mine for methane

There are two types of explosions that occur in mines: firedamp explosions (coup de grisou) and coal dust explosions (coup de poussière).  The firedamp explosion always comes first, and when it happens the coal dust is shaken from the walls and can ignite, causing a second explosion within a fraction of a second. The video below was shown at the museum and does a good job showing just how dangerous these explosions can be, devastating multiple kilometers of mine tunnels and all the miners located inside them within seconds.  Since the video is in French, here's a quick overview of what happens:

• beginning to 2:00 mark: The worker spreads coal dust inside the simulated mine shaft, at the center of which is a stick of dynamite to simulate the primary firedamp explosion, which then ignites the coal dust, causing the second explosion - shown first in normal time, and a second time in slow-motion.
• 2:00 to 3:20: The narrator explains that to avoid this second explosion, you need to prevent the coal dust from igniting. The worker then spreads a mixture of coal dust and pulverized chalk in the mine shaft, and the dynamite is once again lit to simulate the firedamp explosion, but this time no flames are produced because the second explosion was prevented, as the chalk powder coats the coal dust and keeps it from igniting.
• 3:20 to end: Instead of putting chalk dust in the tunnel, trays of water are suspended inside the mine to act as sprinklers to snuff out the coal dust explosion. No more flames! The chalk dust method and the trays of water are often combined inside the mines in an effort to improve safety.

While the video is a bit cheesy, it really gives you a good idea of just how powerful and devastating explosions inside the mine can be.

While there isn't a whole lot to see around Forbach, I highly recommend the Musée Les Mineurs Wendel - all signs, exhibits, audio and video clips, and the tour of the mine are presented in French, German and English, making the content readily accessible to lots of people.  I didn't have high expectations for our tour, but I was very intrigued and think my visit here will help me to better understand the former mining community I'm now a part of.

The remains of the Wendel coal mine facility and museum as they stand today

Settling In & A Trip to Metz

My teaching contract officially started on Tuesday, October 1, but I didn't have to start observing classes until Thursday the 3rd because all of the language assistants in the Nancy-Metz school district had to attend an orientation seminar on Wednesday in Nancy. Located about 110 kilometers (70 miles) from Forbach, Meike, Rudi and I had been planning on taking the train to Nancy, which costs about 13€ each way, but I had been chatting with one of the English teachers here who said he was going to be a presenter at the orientation, so we were more than welcome to ride there and back with him - score!  

We hopped in the car with him at 7:15 am and headed off to Nancy.  The car ride gave us plenty of time to chat and get to know each other better in 3 different languages - Rudi, Meike and Manuel (the English teacher) all speak English, French and German, so we swapped stories in an interesting mix of franglais (French & English) and frallemand (French & German), with a few breaks of English thrown in there too!  Though I don't know more than a handful of phrases in German, I'm getting better at recognizing words here and there and have high hopes that I'll improve my German lexicon by the end of the year.

During our day-long seminar, we listened to multiple presenters speak about a myriad of topics, from learning statistics about our school district (there are 92 language assistants this year from 15 countries, of whom 46 are English assistants), to information about applying to La Sécurité Sociale, buying additional health insurance, and getting tips on pedagogical methods for interacting with kids in the classroom.  The day was split up with lunch at Le Grand Sauvoy, during which I was able to catch up with one of my fellow Sweet Briar Paris students who I had randomly bumped into during the seminar.  I had no idea that Sarah was doing TAPIF, nevermind that she got placed in the same school district as me, so when we saw each other in the hallway we had a good laugh!  It's always nice to see a familiar face so far from home.

Sarah and I - Sweet Briar Paris reunion!

Also, I finally bit the bullet and went to the bank to open an account - which is necessary for me to be paid monthly and to receive reimbursements for any medical expenses through Social Security.  This is no quick task! Meike and I went to open our accounts together, and it took us a combined total of 2 hours, versus the 10 minutes it might take per person back in the USA.  Thankfully the lady who waited on us was very nice and extremely helpful - she spoke German as well, so Meike was able to clear up any questions we might have had problems with in French. The bank asks you a lot of very personal questions (not just in casual conversation with the agent), many of which I'm not quite sure how they're related to banking or why it even matters: how many kids do you have? Which religion do you adhere to? Are you married? Do you have a car? How much is it worth?  Anyways, after jumping through their hoops and literally signing 30 papers, I now have a bank account and renter's insurance through BNP Paribas!  I'm looking forward to getting paid at the end of the month because I'll finally be earning Euro, which is much more valuable to me than paying out of my American bank account, where I essentially pay 1/3 more for everything because of the exchange rate (today, for example, 1 Euro = $1.36, and $1 is only worth 0.74 Euro - not good for Americans!).

Since I now had a bank account, I could finally finish filling out all my other paperwork and turn it in.  I happy submitted my Social Security application, multiple forms to my school, mailed out my immigration paperwork and essentially washed my hands of all the bureaucratic matters that needed my immediate attention.  I still have to work on getting my birth certificate translated, but apparently that isn't as urgent as these other papers, and I'm still waiting to hear back from some local translators to get that ball rolling.

Friday began my week of classroom observations.  I was glad that I had had some free days in order to get all my paperwork done and appointments out of the way, but I was getting antsy to see how English classes here work and was interested to see what the students would think of me.  The classes I observe usually start off with the teacher reviewing the homework and teaching a short lesson, then having me come to the front of the class so that students can ask me all sorts of questions in order to find out who I am, all while practicing their spoken English. Let's just say I've been thoroughly entertained!  Some of my favorite questions and comments are as follows: Since you're American, how many hamburgers do you eat in a week? How many celebrities do you personally know? Do you know Obama or 50 Cent? How many TVs do Americans have in their houses?  Are you related to Walter White (the protagonist in Breaking Bad)? Are you sure you're American, because I thought Americans are supposed to be really fat?...the list goes on!

So far I've found that everyone's level of English varies greatly in each class, and I've also noted that the kids in middle school are much less apprehensive about speaking English in front of me than the high schoolers.  The younger kids just want to ask all sorts of questions, while some of the older ones are just too worried that they'll make a mistake when talking to me and will feel dumb if they mess up. I remember feeling like that when I first moved to Paris - I was very apprehensive about speaking in French to the locals, but I also knew that it was the only way for me to gain confidence and improve.  Everybody makes mistakes when they speak - for example, in English, when someone asks "how are you doing today?" how many people answer "I'm good" instead of saying "I'm well"?  Nobody's perfect, whether we're speaking our mother tongue or a second language, so I think the sooner the students realize that, the quicker they can start improving their skills.

My roommate Meike's boyfriend, Simon, came from Germany to visit this weekend, so we decided to take a day trip to Metz on Saturday.  In addition to the TGV train, we're lucky to have the TER as well, which is a smaller train serving many cities in the region of Lorraine.  We paid 6€ each way to take the local train to Metz, the capital city of both Lorraine and of the Moselle département.  Steeped in both Roman and Germanic culture, Metz has an extremely rich 3,000 year history and is really an amazing city.

After a 40 minute ride, we stepped off the train into the rain and headed straight for Cathédrale Saint-Etienne. Interesting side-note: churches designated as 'cathedrals' are home to the bishop, from the Latin cathedra, meaning "seat," and they literally contain a special chair for the bishop to sit upon.

 Cathédrale Saint-Etienne

Built in the Gothic style between 1220 and 1522 AD and nicknamed "La Lanterne du Bon Dieu" ("the Good Lord's Lantern"), the Metz cathedral houses the world's largest ensemble of stained glass windows, a staggering 69,920 square feet! Tall, airy cathedrals such as St-Etienne are only able to have such vast expanses of stained glass windows thanks to the innovation of flying buttresses, which channel the downward force from the roof out and away from the walls/windows of the church, through the buttresses, and down into the ground below.

Thrust from the weight of the roof is channeled out away from the fragile windows, thanks to flying buttresses

Plan of the cathedral, with each 'X' representing the intricate ceiling vaults

Constructed from locally quarried yellow limestone, the cathedral's nave soars to a height of 136 feet, one of the tallest in the world.  As you step through the main portal into the church, you can't help but look up, and everyone walks around the cathedral with their chins up and mouths agape.  We spent about an hour roaming about and taking pictures of the church's gorgeous interior - while it was stunning even in the rain, I can only imagine what the inside must look like when sunshine filters through all the windows, projecting a multicolored spectacle throughout the building.  A return trip is a must!

View down the nave of the cathedral towards the altar

Behind the altar, looking back towards the Rose Window

The church's modern organ

So much stained glass!!

Absolutely gorgeous

The windows in the chapel are works by the modernist Marc Chagall

Looking back down the nave to the beautiful Rose Window

Next, we explored the market taking place on the square surrounding the cathedral.  From fresh fish to flowers, hand-crafted cheeses and hot crêpes, bolts of fabric and antique books, you could find pretty much everything for sale here.  After grabbing a quick snack, we walked over to the Musée de la Cour d'Or, a museum of the history of Metz.  

Meike and her boyfriend Simon enjoying some fresh-baked pretzels from the market

The façade of the cathedral looms over the market

Fresh squash, yum!

As I had said, Metz has been inhabited for nearly 3000 years, and thus has a lot of history for visitors to explore.  It began as a Celtic settlement inhabited by the Mediomatrici tribe, was later incorporated into the Roman Empire under the name Divodorum, got renamed Mettis under the Franks and later became Metz.  Former residence of the Merovingian kings of Austrasia, the city became a part of the Holy Roman Empire and was passed back to the Kings of France in 1552.  More recently, the city fell under German control during World War I, after which it returned to France, only to later be annexed by the Third Reich during World War II. Finally, in 1944, the US Army attacked the German-controlled city, freeing it and returning it to French control.  Needless to say, the history of Lorraine is very complicated and has been influenced by many cultures throughout the centuries.

Gargoyles on the cathedral doing their gargly downspout job

La Cour d'Or does a great job highlighting Metz's diverse past, leading visitors chronologically through exhibits showcasing everything from Roman baths and graves, to medieval weaponry and household goods, architectural remnants from all eras, and even rooms filled with paintings from the Renaissance through modern day. I highly recommend this museum to any history buff!

Two Romans, buried together with some weapons and other personal effects - the graves have been left where they were discovered, so while you're walking along through the museum, every once in a while you'll see a glass pane on the floor exposing the graves discovered below!

Extensive remains of a large Roman thermal bath house were excavated next to the museum when they were trying to build an addition, thus the museum has left the ruins intact and constructed exhibits all around them - cool!

After grabbing some delicious pizza for lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant, the rain had finally stopped and we trekked over to see la Porte des Allemands (literally "the Germans' gateway").  Once part of the Medieval ramparts enclosing Metz, the fortified bridge and gateway to the city spans the Seille river and has multiple towers, crenelations and meurtrières (slit-like windows through which arrows could be fired, literally "murderers"), all key to defending the city from invaders. Some parts of the monument were closed for renovations, but the parts we were able to explore were quite impressive.

Meike and I in front of La Porte des Allemands

La Seille River running under the Porte des Allemands

All in all, Metz is a really lively town (much better than Forbach!) with lots of history, cultural events, restaurants and shopping, so I have a feeling Meike and I will be back quite often to get our dose of excitement every now and again! 

Quick side note: apparently people from Forbach go to Metz quite often - and this was quite the source of confusion for me when I first arrived...I learned the hard way that "Metz" isn't pronounced the same in French as it is in English.  In English (and in German for that matter), we pronounce it just as it sounds : METZ.  But in French, it's pronounced MESS. Everyone was always saying "je vais à Metz" (I'm going to Metz), but I thought they were meaning to say "je vais à la messe" (I'm going to Mass) and being lazy by leaving out a word, which is common in French.  I was surprised that the people of Forbach were so holy and talked about going to church so very often...only to realize they just go to Metz when they're bored - whoops!

Random flash-mob dancing to Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" in front of the train station in Metz

First Days in Forbach

Thankfully Eric, Kasey and I had gained some sort of super-human strength from lugging all of our bags throughout the city, because I enlisted them to help me one last time – I needed to maneuver my two suitcases and overstuffed computer bag from our 5^th floor apartment down into the bowels of the metro, across the city and onto my awaiting train to Forbach.  It’s a good thing I decided to take the train on Sunday morning, because not too much is open in France on Sundays, and therefore there aren't too many people out and about crowding the metro.  

With some more blood, sweat and tears (ok, maybe just sweat!) we made it to Gare de l’Est, the train station in which you board trains that are headed eastbound.  After boarding the train and saying my good-byes, I had a nerve-wracking 1:40 ride to my new home in Forbach.  The train I took is part of the French TGV system – meaning train de grande vitesse, or simply “high-speed train.”  And let me tell you, it goes so fast!! The computer screen in my car told me that we were cruising along at speeds topping out at 310 kilometers/hour (nearly 195 mph!) – normally this journey would take between 3 ½ to 4 hours by car.

Welcome to Forbach! 

As I struggled to the door of the train with my luggage, two nice Frenchies offered to help take them off the train for me – there is a God!  They kind of laughed at me because I had so much stuff with me, but wished me good luck as I rolled away into the station. 

BUSTED!!

[Ok, “rolled away” isn't entirely accurate because one of the wheels on one suitcase cracked in half and no longer rolled, and the whole wheel casing on the other suitcase snapped into 3 pieces and was hanging on by a thread…but needless to say I made it inside.]

Up to this point I had been a little unnerved because I hadn't successfully been able to firm up a plan with my contact person at the school where I’d be working, didn't have a working cellphone or WiFi connection to check my email, and basically was stepping into no-man’s land with 150 pounds of baggage and a giant knot in my stomach.  But within seconds, a man approached me to ask if I was Rachael, the English teaching assistant (What gave it away? The look of terror on my face?!), and it was indeed my contact person, Clément, an English teacher at the school.  He helped load my bags into his car and we headed off into the city of Forbach.

I had been under the impression that I was going to be able to get the keys to my apartment at the school that afternoon and would be able to move in that day – and quite honestly, I was looking forward to laying down and de-stressing a bit!  Unfortunately, or so I thought at the time, no one works in the school’s office on Sunday, so I was out of luck.  Fortunately, Clément had arranged for me to spend the night at his friend Doris’ house and told me we’d be able to get into the apartment the next afternoon.  That kind of burst my bubble because my first thought was about how I’d have to open up and rifle through my suitcases AGAIN to find clothes for the next day, then repack and move one more time.  Thankfully I was just tired and being momentarily selfish, because the day turned out great.

Clément took me to a little café on a sunshiny terrace where we spent an hour or so talking about where I was from, what I studied in college, etc. I’m pretty sure that the little bit of caffeine I ingested at that point was all that was keeping me awake!  We then went for a preliminary stroll down the main drag of Forbach (strolling: a common theme of life in France), and again, not much was open because it was a Sunday, but we ended up at a Moroccan restaurant for lunch.  Lamb kebabs, steaming hot couscous and a bowl full of roasted veggies really hit the spot! 

Mining monument in downtown Forbach

Re-energized, Clément drove me around the rest of Forbach and some of the surrounding towns like Stiring-Wendel to show me all the buildings that had been constructed to house the coal miners who worked in this area.  I learned that there were certain types of lodging for regular workers and fancier ones for foremen and their families.  Tragically, the mines all closed about 10 years ago, and as people need to work to survive, Forbach and the surrounding communities saw a massive population decline as people moved away to find work; the region consequently fell into economic turmoil.  It’s not all bad though – many of the once-abandoned mining villages are being refurbished and lived in, and the region is slowly starting to climb out of its deep recession. 

Memorial to the Puits Simon catastrophe in 1985

During our drive, we stopped at a memorial to the 1985 tragedy in the Puits Simon (puits meaning “mine”). Apparently there had been an explosion of firedamp, a mixture of gases found in mines (including methane), which caused part of the mine to collapse, crushing 19 miners and asphyxiating 3 more as they tried to escape.  Clément explained that his father had worked in the local mines and re-emphasized just how dangerous that line of work can be.  That being said, the French government recognizes the risks involved in mining and does provide benefits to miners and their families, such as extremely low-cost (if not free) housing, medical coverage, free utilities, etc.  Some of the metalwork which served to bring coal up out of the mines has been left still standing, so the landscape in this area is interesting.  When you look around you see these big metallic skeletons looming over the horizon, serving as a painful reminder of the tragedies (both in terms of lives lost and economic decline) which have fallen on this once-booming industrial area. 

Abandoned mining infrastructure, as seen from my bedroom window

On a happier note, the German city of Saarbrücken (Sarrebruck, in French), which lies just over the German border and touches Forbach, is alive and thriving – and was also our next destination.  I thought it was pretty cool that I had just arrived in my new city and was already taking a trip abroad for the afternoon!  Like Forbach, a good chunk of Saarbrücken was destroyed during World War II, so the city is split between the historic district (that which survived the war, most of it from the 18^th century) and the modern district (all circa 1950).  We walked around the shopping district, spent an hour or so having drinks and people-watching in one of the main squares, and then walked up to the historic district to get some cool views of the city.  The city has museums, malls, movie theaters and other cultural attractions – many of which Forbach is lacking – and it’s nice to know that there’s a bus route from Forbach to Saarbrücken that only takes 20 minutes!  Clément told me that pretty much everyone in this area of Germany speaks both German and French (and many of them also speak English), so I should have no problem communicating with them whenever I choose to visit.  Also of note: cosmetics and household items are cheaper here due to differences in tax systems, and both clothes and shoe sizes are one size larger than their French equivalent.  You learn something every day!

View from a café in one of Saarbrücken's main squares

Saarbrücken's City Hall

Historisches Museum Saar - the Museum of the History of the Saarland, on my to-do list!

View of tour boats on the Saar River

Saar River

A view into modern downtown Saarbrücken

Pretty petunias on the bridge over the Saar

Upon returning to France, we met up with Doris, a sweet, peppy and very welcoming dame d’un certaine âge (the polite way of referring to an older woman) at whose home I’d be spending the evening.  The three of us went out to a restaurant specializing in the regional cuisine of Alsace-Lorraine, my new home, and we each enjoyed a mouth-watering flammekueche gratinée (or flamm’ as it’s commonly referred to), paired with a local pinot grigio.  Flammekueche is essentially a puffy thin-crust pizza with a base of cream sauce, topped with ham and emmental (pretty much Swiss cheese).  A delicious end to an interesting day.

It was nice to sleep in the next morning, and I awoke to a spread of all the donuts, baguettes, jams and butter that you could ever imagine!  Clément arrived shortly afterwards to pick me up and finally take me to my apartment.  I got to meet a few of the English teachers in the teachers’ room, and then we headed off to have lunch at the school’s cafeteria.  Quite impressive, if you ask me! No pizza and French fries here – we dined on pork roast, au gratin potatoes, salad, bread, cheese and yogurt.  And the best part? They have wine in the teachers’ dining room!  

I was quite impressed with it all and later found out that it only costs me 3,15€ to eat here (under $4.20!), so I consequently pre-paid for 10 meals so I can swipe into the caf for lunch or dinner anytime I don’t feel like cooking.  Conveniently located 100 feet from the entrance to my building, this French high school’s dining hall beats out any public school lunch I've ever eaten in the US.

At 2 pm it was finally time to bring all my bags upstairs and cautiously open the door to my apartment... 

Located on the 4^th floor (5^th floor in the US) and with no elevator, I put my muscles to good use once again and got all my bags into my new home with Clément’s help.  I’m hoping this will be the last time I have to move that amount of bags until I head home in May!  Much bigger and much more well-furnished than I had been envisioning (especially after moving into a jail cell-like room when I was a freshman in college), I was pleasantly surprised and will let the pictures I took do the talking…

Our door! Complete with working doorbell

Our living room/dining room/kitchen area

Living room view into WC and my room

More of the common room

My armoire, which is totally jam-packed!

My desk area, slowly but surely getting more decorated

My bed

My cute little owl from Paris is feeling right at home in my new room!

The view from one of my windows...

...and the view from the other window (the smoke rising in the background is in Germany)

Our cute little bathroom with a shower curtain which reminds me of the Paris metro map...

Our pantry was pretty well-stocked when we got here

Our oven/stovetop, view into the hallway with a closet, leading to the bathroom and spare bedroom

Spare bedroom! Come visit us!

Meike's room - although it looks much better now that she's here and decorated it! 

After a quick trip to Super U (the French version of Big Y?) to stock up on food and buy some bedding, I settled in for an evening of finally unpacking all my suitcases and setting up my new home.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful - I had a lot of stressful bureaucratic stuff to get done, and I needed to work on setting up my cute little apartment!  The best part about living at the school is that it doesn't cost me anything - no rent, no utilities - I just had to pay an 80€ deposit in case of damage to the apartment, pretty sweet deal if you ask me!  I live in the old dormitory building at the school in the equivalent of what would be the RA suite.  There is a computer lab and one French classroom on the lower floors of the building, and then there's just one apartment each on the second, third and fourth floors.  I've yet to see who lives in the two apartments below us, but hopefully we'll meet them someday!

Janitors from the school supposedly "cleaned" the apartment before I arrived, but I'm not quite sure whose cleanliness standards they were trying to meet, because the place was pretty dirty when I got there!  So me and Monsieur Propre (the French version of Mr Clean! and yes, he's bald and has an earring here in France, too) got to know each other pretty well, and with a little elbow grease and a grungy old mop I found laying around I got the place up to snuff.

Then, I met up with Clément and we ventured off to Orange, a phone/internet/cable provider, in order to get me set up with all of the above.  Let me tell you, trying to negotiate technological terms and contracts in a foreign language is a bit daunting - especially when you're less-than-literate in all that nonsense in English to begin with!  Thankfully the guy there was wicked nice and good at explaining it all in layman's terms, so I walked out of there with a pretty great set-up: I got cable, wireless internet (le wifi, pronounced wee-fee, en français), and a landline phone (including unlimited calls to the USA, France, and 98 other countries) for 42€ per month - which I split with my roommate - so I only end up paying $25 a month for all that!  He handed me a bag containing the cable and internet boxes I needed to hook up and wished me good luck.

Technology: go!

Thankfully, after some wine, color-coded directions for dummies and a bit of head scratching, everything was hooked up and looked just like the diagrams in the manuals - success?  Maybe.  I honestly had no idea if it was connected properly because the services weren't set to be activated for 3 more days, so I crossed my fingers and waited...

On Wednesday I ventured back to Orange to try to sort out a cell phone plan for myself - one can only take so much stress in one day!  Thankfully I was waited on by the same nice guy who had helped me out the day before - he even remember I was Mademoiselle White!  I ended up with a Samsung Galaxy Trend, which is pretty similar to the Samsung Stratosphere that I had back at home, and for 20€ per month I get unlimited calls, texts and picture messages to anyone in France, as well as 150 megabytes of internet - which doesn't hold a candle to the 4 gigabytes of data I have back in the US...but at least I can use apps and the internet on my phone over wifi while I'm in my apartment.  I decided to splurge a bit on my phone and opted for a smartphone - since I don't have to worry about paying rent, I figured why not treat myself?  I had now left the Stone Age and was well on my way to being fully re-connected with the modern world!  

Some people say it's nice to take a break from technology, not needing to worry about getting text messages and emails every 15 seconds, and not yearning to log onto Facebook just one more time to make sure you aren't missing out on the next twerking scandal or shocking break-up...and I have to admit that for the first couple of days that was great.  But after a week and a half of living in a foreign land with very limited means to contact anyone back home or even look up directions to the nearest grocery store, my technology cleanse was really getting to me.

Finally, on Thursday afternoon, I got a bit of a diversion when my roommate Meike (pronounced MY-kuh) arrived from Germany! She is a student at the University of Stuttgart who will be spending her time in France working as the German teaching assistant, both here at Lycée Jean Moulin and at the high school in neighboring Behren-les-Forbach.  I helped her unload her car (a Ford Fiesta, imagine that!) and bring all of her bags up to our apartment...my super-human ability for hauling luggage was once again put to good use!  We did some quick errands and I was able to show her how to get to the grocery store and to the main street in town - that was as much exploring as I had been previously willing to do without a map or internet! 

My roommate, Meike!

Friday morning, hallelujah! The internet/TV/phone began to work! This was proof that all of our boxes were properly connected, and while it may seem like a small victory, I was so overly relieved to be once again connected to the rest of the world.

Since Meike only lives a couple hours away in Germany, it's great that she drove here, because as we all know, doing errands is much easier when you can tote your heavy bags around in a car instead of dragging them down the sidewalk!  After a delicious lunch of Turkish kebab downtown, we ventured over to Cora together (the closest thing I can imagine to the French version of Super Walmart) to stock up on some food and load up the car with more household supplies.  It's nice peace of mind knowing that Meike has her car here and thus we are not trapped in this pretty sleepy town relying solely on buses or the train for the whole school year - we're looking forward to exploring the Lorraine region of France!

Saturday we went on a little hike up to the Schlossberg in Forbach - I learned that means "hill with a castle" in German.  Conveniently located right behind our school, the ruins of the castle sit perched atop a hill in the middle of a tranquil park.  We took a nice stroll through the paths in the forest which spiral up the hill towards the ruins and admired the scenery of the town sprawling away from us far below as we climbed.

Entrance to Parc Schlossberg

First mentioned in 1257 AD, the castle grounds included a square dungeon (tower), a palace, and a surrounding defensive rampart.  The famous Cardinal Richelieu ordered the leveling of the castle in 1634 during the Thirty Years' War as revenge for the insubordination of the Prince of Lorraine, who was a member of the Holy Roman Empire, against Louis XIII.  During the French Revolution the remains of the castle, along with a few newly constructed fortified buildings, then became known as la Montagne de Fraternité (the "Mountain of Brotherhood").  All of these structures and the surrounding land were later purchased by a rich industrial baron named Gustave Adt in 1886, who funded vast excavations of the ruins.  Adt continued on to restore the site, creating a park around the castle and reconstructing the 28 meter (92 ft) tall tower which stands as a symbol of the city today.  Unfortunately the tower (and most of Forbach itself, for that matter) was badly damaged during the siege of Forbach at the end of World War II, but the city scraped up funds to completely restore it once again in 1951.  Visitors to the Parc Schlossberg today can stroll through vast expanses of forest, picnic in the fields, enjoy fountains and flowers in the garden, and hike up to the top of the hill to explore the grounds surrounding the tower.  The tower is open occasionally for tours, so a return visit is on our to-do list!

Check out those guns!

View of Forbach from halfway up the Schlossberg

Ancient fortifications of the Schlossberg

The reconstructed tower atop the hill, the symbol of Forbach

Bonjour!

I was happy to find a restaurant serving moules-frites not too far from my school! Essentially a large pot of mussels served with a plate of fries, I developed an appreciation for this dish during my stay in Paris - these were cooked in a sauce of cream, bacon and onions...mmm!  We're lucky to have a kitchen in our apartment, equipped with a small oven and stovetop, so Meike and I have been cooking up a storm lately.  So far we've made pizza (with dough from scratch!), baked a flan, and prepared a delicious dinner of turkey cutlets, rice, salad and green beans. I love to cook, and it definitely beats paying money to eat out all the time, so I'm looking forward to more adventures in haute cuisine!

There is a third teaching assistant in Forbach who lives and works at the Blaise Pascal high school on the other side of town - his name is Rudi and he's from the UK.  We invited him over to hang out the other night and had fun getting to know each other and chatting about where the heck we'll have to go in order to find some excitement around this place!  

Rudi and Meike, representing Team Forbach with me!

Thankfully I had a lot of free time during the week so I was able to catch up on some TV shows I had missed out on since I left home...namely Breaking Bad!  It's by far my favorite show and as I had missed two episodes already, which led up to the series finale this past Sunday, I wanted to be caught up before hearing any spoilers online!  Excellent episodes, as per usual, and boy did they tie up all the loose ends during the final show - it was a great program to look forward to every Sunday night, so now I'll have to find some new French series with which to occupy my time.

Love this Breaking Bad quote! Walter White's words to live by

The rest of my week was spent filling out various forms for the school (I have a veritable mountain of paperwork cluttering my desk at the moment!) and waiting for the school's secretary to draw up other documents for me, like my attestation de logement which confirms that I am lodged at the school, so that I could use these papers to complete other tasks, like opening a bank account and applying to the national Sécurité Sociale system.  I've been playing the waiting game ever since I got here - all the paperwork forms a chain, so you can't complete one part without having the previous part done first - but it's been frustrating since none of the school officials seem to be in too much of a hurry to get anything accomplished.  I have a lot on my plate at the moment, but my hands are essentially tied until they pick up the slack!  Hopefully I'll be able to report that my paperwork has been sorted out in the not-too-distant future!

La Salle des Profs (Teachers' Room) in the school where I work

That's right - my very own mailbox in the teachers' room :)

I am, however, happy to report that I now know how the laundromat in town functions.  This was a slightly daunting task, as I'm used to doing my laundry either at home or at college in a laundry room attached to my dorm, so the fact that I had to lug 9 days worth of clothes down into town with me was a little annoying - can't wait to be doing that in the dead of winter!  But I successfully figured out yet another part of daily living here in Forbach, and thus removed one more stressor from my list of day-to-day activities.  It might seem like something small, but life runs much more smoothly once you iron out all the little bumps along the road (pardon the laundry metaphor!)...    

Our bread knife is sheathed in a carved wooden baguette, how French! Good for slicing bread and/or clubbing intruders.