...But I'll update anyway.
Though Kay and Bryan’s stay was very short, it was long enough for them to have an authentic northern France experience. This entails eating regional cheeses, baguettes, French fries, foie gras, and beef; drinking red wine or Belgian beer; and oogling (This isn’t a word? This should be a word) the adorable Flemish architecture. The brasserie we went to for dinner allowed us to check off every food-related item: Kay got a flank steak, I got a gigantic serving of mussels, and Bryan and Carson got what was basically called “the plate of the north.” This consisted of a triangular cheese quiche accompanied by a circular cheese quiche. Now we know. And of course, everything came with French fries.
My favorite part of the visit was the fact that everyone could speak French other than Bryan, because I feel like Bryan is the type of person who avoids being entirely at the mercy of others. He’s lucky that Carson doesn’t hold grudges (See: Carson’s first beach trip with Mike’s friends otherwise known as the time Carson lost hope in human compassion), because we basically had control over all of his meals and life in general.
Moving on...this week I had the important realization that there was one week last year during which I was sick and tired and yelled (often) needlessly at pretty much every class I had. These weren’t even bad classes; I was just so exhausted that even the faintest whisper in the back of the room enraged me. Displaying my wrath, of course, just drained even more of my energy and made me seem weirdly and unreasonably mean.
I see these specific classes either every 2, 3, or 4 weeks depending on if the professor divided the students into groups of 2, 3, or 4, and I always wondered why one group from the same class could be so unresponsive/indifferent and the other so awesome and willing to participate. The classes I never yelled at and am probably too lenient with treat me, ironically, with a ton of respect. Like, I don’t even have to tell kids to be quiet anymore because the rest of the class will shush them before I get around to it. On the other hand, the unlucky students that caught me on a super off-week are now extremely wary of me and much less inclined to defend my honor and participate in class.
So, now I’m going to try to go back and see what groups I had during unnecessary-no-nonsense-Rachel-week so I can make a concerted effort to be extra fun and prove that I’m not a life ruiner next time I see them.
Hope that everyone is safe with all of this winter storm stuff. I’m seeing a lot of snow pics on Facebook and am simultaneously horrified and jealous of how magical it looks. Keep me updated so I know you all are living and didn't starve over the weekend!
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Ween and Daddy Jim's frenchventure
(Annndd pretending I posted this yesterday)
Surprisingly enough, the France portion of Ween and Daddy Jim’s trip went just as smoothly as the London part. Here are some highlights:
Dinner #1 at the gourmet burger bar: We had been wanting to try this place since moving in because it’s right next to our apartment and looks amazing. I initially chose it for Friday night thinking that I was taking solely Daddy Jim’s interests—his interests being burgers)—in mind. However, when we arrived and I saw the menu again, I realized that this place was essentially Daddy Jim’s nightmare for several reasons.
1. They take one of the purest, most American things in the world—the simple, unassuming, humble, occasionally self-effacing hamburger—and make it into a gigantic tower of French gourmet-ness, complete with foie gras, apricots, eggplant, and other things that have historically not been put on hamburgers.
2. You can’t even eat them like a normal hamburger due to their extreme size and precariously stacked toppings—forks are necessary and in the end it essentially becomes a burger bowl.*
3. Half of the items weren’t really burgers...they were just fancy sandwiches using the alias of burger and often had no beef at all. Examples: my burger was a Tandoori chicken sandwich and Ween’s was essentially a gigantic tuna steak topped with Chinese noodles.**
4. And most upsetting of all, instead of French fries, they give you sautéed potatoes and spinach in an adorable little mason jar.***
It’s clear whom I really had in mind when choosing that restaurant (surprise: it’s me)... Regardless, it was FANTASTIC and Daddy Jim was able to get a classic hamburger with bacon.
Unfortunately, bacon in France is really just a slice of ham. Strike 5.
*Well, this is a good idea.
**Both were truly beautiful works of art.
***Of course, Daddy Jim was a wonderful sport about everything and never would have said any of these things but I like to think that this was happening in his head.
Tour around Lille: We did what we do with everyone who visits, except this time we had grandparent street cred so we could actually go into stores and be treated like valued customers. Many free samples were had that day and it was magical indeed. Even at Meert (the really important/fancy/expensive pastry/chocolate store that normally frowns upon our obvious youth and poverty) the cashier let us try as many types of chocolate as we wanted. Then, a woman at a nice French food product store gave us wine and smoked salmon. Just cuz. This is not typically how we are interacted with on a daily basis.
Message received, universe: Travel with grandparents, get free stuff.
Dinner #2 at a traditional French restaurant: This was another restaurant we really wanted to try because the outside of it is so mysterious. It’s shrouded in greenery, and there’s a brick wall hiding the interior, and it has a whimsical archway entrance...It’s one of those places where you can FEEL the radiation of awesomeness yet it remains just out of reach of your plebeian hands.
Anyway, it lived up to our very high expectations and we will probably be taking almost everyone who comes to visit us because it’s just that cool. Even Daddy Jim said something like: “This was one of the best dining experiences.” ...Okay that doesn’t really sound like him, but I SWEAR he said something along those lines. Point is: If Daddy Jim is impressed with something, it would blow a regular person’s mind.
Charles de Gaulle’s house: This was very cool but I naturally have much less to say about it.
All in all, it was a truly wonderful vacation and we miss them already. We’ve just been getting back into our normal schedules, which has been nice but far less exciting.
Luckily/weirdly enough, tonight Bryan and Kay (Michael and Kelsey’s good friends that I guess I am now stealing) are coming to Lille to make our lives interesting again. They’re here for less than 24 hours, but it should be a lovely time nonetheless and something to look forward to today as I try to make French kids speak English for 7 consecutive hours.
Hope everyone is having a great week!
Surprisingly enough, the France portion of Ween and Daddy Jim’s trip went just as smoothly as the London part. Here are some highlights:
Dinner #1 at the gourmet burger bar: We had been wanting to try this place since moving in because it’s right next to our apartment and looks amazing. I initially chose it for Friday night thinking that I was taking solely Daddy Jim’s interests—his interests being burgers)—in mind. However, when we arrived and I saw the menu again, I realized that this place was essentially Daddy Jim’s nightmare for several reasons.
1. They take one of the purest, most American things in the world—the simple, unassuming, humble, occasionally self-effacing hamburger—and make it into a gigantic tower of French gourmet-ness, complete with foie gras, apricots, eggplant, and other things that have historically not been put on hamburgers.
2. You can’t even eat them like a normal hamburger due to their extreme size and precariously stacked toppings—forks are necessary and in the end it essentially becomes a burger bowl.*
3. Half of the items weren’t really burgers...they were just fancy sandwiches using the alias of burger and often had no beef at all. Examples: my burger was a Tandoori chicken sandwich and Ween’s was essentially a gigantic tuna steak topped with Chinese noodles.**
4. And most upsetting of all, instead of French fries, they give you sautéed potatoes and spinach in an adorable little mason jar.***
It’s clear whom I really had in mind when choosing that restaurant (surprise: it’s me)... Regardless, it was FANTASTIC and Daddy Jim was able to get a classic hamburger with bacon.
Unfortunately, bacon in France is really just a slice of ham. Strike 5.
*Well, this is a good idea.
**Both were truly beautiful works of art.
***Of course, Daddy Jim was a wonderful sport about everything and never would have said any of these things but I like to think that this was happening in his head.
Tour around Lille: We did what we do with everyone who visits, except this time we had grandparent street cred so we could actually go into stores and be treated like valued customers. Many free samples were had that day and it was magical indeed. Even at Meert (the really important/fancy/expensive pastry/chocolate store that normally frowns upon our obvious youth and poverty) the cashier let us try as many types of chocolate as we wanted. Then, a woman at a nice French food product store gave us wine and smoked salmon. Just cuz. This is not typically how we are interacted with on a daily basis.
Message received, universe: Travel with grandparents, get free stuff.
Dinner #2 at a traditional French restaurant: This was another restaurant we really wanted to try because the outside of it is so mysterious. It’s shrouded in greenery, and there’s a brick wall hiding the interior, and it has a whimsical archway entrance...It’s one of those places where you can FEEL the radiation of awesomeness yet it remains just out of reach of your plebeian hands.
Anyway, it lived up to our very high expectations and we will probably be taking almost everyone who comes to visit us because it’s just that cool. Even Daddy Jim said something like: “This was one of the best dining experiences.” ...Okay that doesn’t really sound like him, but I SWEAR he said something along those lines. Point is: If Daddy Jim is impressed with something, it would blow a regular person’s mind.
Charles de Gaulle’s house: This was very cool but I naturally have much less to say about it.
All in all, it was a truly wonderful vacation and we miss them already. We’ve just been getting back into our normal schedules, which has been nice but far less exciting.
Luckily/weirdly enough, tonight Bryan and Kay (Michael and Kelsey’s good friends that I guess I am now stealing) are coming to Lille to make our lives interesting again. They’re here for less than 24 hours, but it should be a lovely time nonetheless and something to look forward to today as I try to make French kids speak English for 7 consecutive hours.
Hope everyone is having a great week!
Saturday, January 9, 2016
New Years, London, and Fish Genitalia
(We’re going to pretend that I posted this on Friday)
Our last week of vacation was spent hosting Carmen, one of my best friends from childhood. We had a great time doing our normal tour of Lille and, since we were with Carmen, ended up finding some awesome new spots/bars/etc.
Weirdly enough, everything went very smoothly during Carmen’s visit. It was a pretty questionable plan to begin with: Carmen + New Year’s Eve + no way of communicating without wifi + Carmen being unable to communicate with anyone, would usually = my worst nightmare. I was expecting this post to be comprised entirely of stories about things going horribly wrong and/or apologizing for Carmen’s mysterious (but not totally unexpected) disappearance in France. Turns out, neither of those subjects will be necessary.
Maybe this means we’re becoming more competent and mature or maybe we just got lucky. Either way, I’m super glad that she came for a visit and that we were able to spend yet another New Year’s Eve together.
Right after Carmen left, Carson and I took the Chunnel over to London to meet my grandparents. For some reason, I thought that I was indifferent to London and that it wouldn’t be my “thing.” Of course, I was very wrong and London is the BEST. British people are delightful; they all know everything that has ever happened in Britain and have an inherent need to share their knowledge with every passing foreigner.
Anyway, we had an AMAZING time—truly perfect. Ween and Daddy Jim planned a fantastic itinerary, and here are the highlights:
1. The British Museum: I don’t always like spending time in museums, but this one had, like, a million mummies and other ancient Egypt-related exhibits. Questionable how they got there, but super interesting to look at.
2. The first restaurant we went to: this was one of those places (that I had never previously been to but had seen in movies) where the staff goes hilariously overboard to make your dining experience perfect. For instance, when I squeezed my whole lime on my fish, a guy immediately ran to our table with a tiny pitcher of freshly squeezed lime juice and, just in case I preferred a more rustic approach, two whole limes. I already had more than enough lime on my plate, but used the pitcher anyway because it felt like the fancy thing to do. The food was incredible and I know that the waiters were probably distressed by how much salt I put on everything and my 20 minutes of extreme uncertainty about the choice of dessert.
3. Adorable pubs: Pubs are adorable. Not much else to say here.
4. Overly helpful/generous British people (but mostly just to me and Daddy Jim): It seemed like every time we were in a cab or buying tickets to something, the person helping us would pull me or Daddy Jim over and say something like: “I’ll tell you what, I’ll make you a deal.” And then they would inexplicably give us a huge discount or reduced cab fare or extra desserts that weren’t listed on the menu. Seriously, everyone was absurdly nice and helpful. Example: when Daddy Jim and I were getting tickets for a bus tour, the guy gave us all a reduced price and then made the pass for 48 hours instead of 24 after no soliciting on our part whatsoever. It’s not that they were mean to Ween and Carson, they just were especially nice to us. Unsurprisingly, Daddy Jim and I were more than okay with this.
5. The Book of Mormon: I would be lying if I said I wasn’t mildly to hideously terrified by the idea of seeing The Book of Mormon—a musical thought up by the creators of South Park aka the two most vulgar writers of my generation—with my grandparents. However, what actually turned out to be terrifying was how much I wasn’t terrified after the show (which was amazing in everyway/the cast was impeccable and now it’s probably my favorite show in the world and everyone should go see it immediately).
So, I guess this means either my sense of shame is officially nonexistent or I have really cool grandparents.
Just kidding. Both of these things are obviously true.
6. Westminster Abby/The Tower of London/A bus tour: All fun, necessary tourist activities that I don’t need to explicitly recommend or explain because you probably know what the deal is.
7. The best dinner of my short lifetime: I don’t know how to start on this one. The food, service, atmosphere, insanely friendly manager, etc, etc, were actually perfect. I can’t oversell this place (called Maze) or overstate its incredibleness (but you know I’m going to try).
After raving about it for hours and days after, Daddy Jim even said: “Well I don’t even want to know how you’re going to describe this on your blog.” ...as if my writing is dramatic or something.
Let’s just say my life can now best be understood in two periods: Pre-best dinner ever, when there was still potential and hope in every restaurant, and Post, where my single-minded goal will forever be to return to the same restaurant and try nothing new ever again.
Clearly, it was an amazing experience that I will forever cherish and I am glad beyond glad to have been able to do it all with my grandparents. (And Carson).
Luckily, Ween and Daddy Jim are heading to Lille today for part two of the trip, which I imagine will be remembered as Part Two: Realizing how difficult it is to do anything in France after being in wonderful, efficient London.
Just kidding. But not really. Well, we’ll see.
In entirely unrelated news, today I had the most hilarious misunderstanding with a student yet. This poor young man was reading a nice story his group wrote about a chicken and a fish aloud. When he got to the last sentence, I heard him say without any doubt in my mind: “zen ze fish danced weeth a penis.”
Me: “Wait...danced with...a penis?” Didn’t this kid ask me what the word for “with” is in English, like, five minutes ago? And yet he knows the word penis? Is this really the most complex vocabulary term that I’m going to hear today?
Student: “Yes, danced weeth a penis.”
Me: Guess so *Looking around, trying to decipher if others think this is funny/if my authority is actually being undermined* “But...a penis?”
The class then decided to try to help him out, and I was suddenly engulfed in a chorus of high schoolers repeating the phrase “with a penis,” each time with a slightly different inflection or stresse.
Me: “Sh, shh, SHHHHHHHH.”
I realized there was an English teacher directly next door to me, and had no intention of earning...whatever reputation you get when you let a class chant the word “penis” repeatedly without repercussion.
I decided to go to the source and grabbed the paper he was reading off of, where I immediately saw written: “Then the fish danced with happiness.”
Oh, right. Well...hopefully they don’t look that up later. On that note, happy weekend, everyone!
Our last week of vacation was spent hosting Carmen, one of my best friends from childhood. We had a great time doing our normal tour of Lille and, since we were with Carmen, ended up finding some awesome new spots/bars/etc.
Weirdly enough, everything went very smoothly during Carmen’s visit. It was a pretty questionable plan to begin with: Carmen + New Year’s Eve + no way of communicating without wifi + Carmen being unable to communicate with anyone, would usually = my worst nightmare. I was expecting this post to be comprised entirely of stories about things going horribly wrong and/or apologizing for Carmen’s mysterious (but not totally unexpected) disappearance in France. Turns out, neither of those subjects will be necessary.
Maybe this means we’re becoming more competent and mature or maybe we just got lucky. Either way, I’m super glad that she came for a visit and that we were able to spend yet another New Year’s Eve together.
Right after Carmen left, Carson and I took the Chunnel over to London to meet my grandparents. For some reason, I thought that I was indifferent to London and that it wouldn’t be my “thing.” Of course, I was very wrong and London is the BEST. British people are delightful; they all know everything that has ever happened in Britain and have an inherent need to share their knowledge with every passing foreigner.
Anyway, we had an AMAZING time—truly perfect. Ween and Daddy Jim planned a fantastic itinerary, and here are the highlights:
1. The British Museum: I don’t always like spending time in museums, but this one had, like, a million mummies and other ancient Egypt-related exhibits. Questionable how they got there, but super interesting to look at.
2. The first restaurant we went to: this was one of those places (that I had never previously been to but had seen in movies) where the staff goes hilariously overboard to make your dining experience perfect. For instance, when I squeezed my whole lime on my fish, a guy immediately ran to our table with a tiny pitcher of freshly squeezed lime juice and, just in case I preferred a more rustic approach, two whole limes. I already had more than enough lime on my plate, but used the pitcher anyway because it felt like the fancy thing to do. The food was incredible and I know that the waiters were probably distressed by how much salt I put on everything and my 20 minutes of extreme uncertainty about the choice of dessert.
3. Adorable pubs: Pubs are adorable. Not much else to say here.
4. Overly helpful/generous British people (but mostly just to me and Daddy Jim): It seemed like every time we were in a cab or buying tickets to something, the person helping us would pull me or Daddy Jim over and say something like: “I’ll tell you what, I’ll make you a deal.” And then they would inexplicably give us a huge discount or reduced cab fare or extra desserts that weren’t listed on the menu. Seriously, everyone was absurdly nice and helpful. Example: when Daddy Jim and I were getting tickets for a bus tour, the guy gave us all a reduced price and then made the pass for 48 hours instead of 24 after no soliciting on our part whatsoever. It’s not that they were mean to Ween and Carson, they just were especially nice to us. Unsurprisingly, Daddy Jim and I were more than okay with this.
5. The Book of Mormon: I would be lying if I said I wasn’t mildly to hideously terrified by the idea of seeing The Book of Mormon—a musical thought up by the creators of South Park aka the two most vulgar writers of my generation—with my grandparents. However, what actually turned out to be terrifying was how much I wasn’t terrified after the show (which was amazing in everyway/the cast was impeccable and now it’s probably my favorite show in the world and everyone should go see it immediately).
So, I guess this means either my sense of shame is officially nonexistent or I have really cool grandparents.
Just kidding. Both of these things are obviously true.
6. Westminster Abby/The Tower of London/A bus tour: All fun, necessary tourist activities that I don’t need to explicitly recommend or explain because you probably know what the deal is.
7. The best dinner of my short lifetime: I don’t know how to start on this one. The food, service, atmosphere, insanely friendly manager, etc, etc, were actually perfect. I can’t oversell this place (called Maze) or overstate its incredibleness (but you know I’m going to try).
After raving about it for hours and days after, Daddy Jim even said: “Well I don’t even want to know how you’re going to describe this on your blog.” ...as if my writing is dramatic or something.
Let’s just say my life can now best be understood in two periods: Pre-best dinner ever, when there was still potential and hope in every restaurant, and Post, where my single-minded goal will forever be to return to the same restaurant and try nothing new ever again.
Clearly, it was an amazing experience that I will forever cherish and I am glad beyond glad to have been able to do it all with my grandparents. (And Carson).
Luckily, Ween and Daddy Jim are heading to Lille today for part two of the trip, which I imagine will be remembered as Part Two: Realizing how difficult it is to do anything in France after being in wonderful, efficient London.
Just kidding. But not really. Well, we’ll see.
In entirely unrelated news, today I had the most hilarious misunderstanding with a student yet. This poor young man was reading a nice story his group wrote about a chicken and a fish aloud. When he got to the last sentence, I heard him say without any doubt in my mind: “zen ze fish danced weeth a penis.”
Me: “Wait...danced with...a penis?” Didn’t this kid ask me what the word for “with” is in English, like, five minutes ago? And yet he knows the word penis? Is this really the most complex vocabulary term that I’m going to hear today?
Student: “Yes, danced weeth a penis.”
Me: Guess so *Looking around, trying to decipher if others think this is funny/if my authority is actually being undermined* “But...a penis?”
The class then decided to try to help him out, and I was suddenly engulfed in a chorus of high schoolers repeating the phrase “with a penis,” each time with a slightly different inflection or stresse.
Me: “Sh, shh, SHHHHHHHH.”
I realized there was an English teacher directly next door to me, and had no intention of earning...whatever reputation you get when you let a class chant the word “penis” repeatedly without repercussion.
I decided to go to the source and grabbed the paper he was reading off of, where I immediately saw written: “Then the fish danced with happiness.”
Oh, right. Well...hopefully they don’t look that up later. On that note, happy weekend, everyone!
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