Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Last day in Paris

Ok that's a lie, but tomorrow is.  Triste!  Why do I have to leave right when the weather gets gorgeous?
You win yet again, France.
I would be extremely distressed/upset if I didn't have so much to look forward to..  I would go on about it again, but I will just point you to this.  Anyways, today was my last day of teaching and it was bittersweet...or according to WordReference.com 'aigre-doux'.  I love kids I don't have to babysit, and I will really miss their enthusiasm and my celeb status.  I will especially miss their accents.  Actually in a broader scope (that's not English is it? fuck), accents are what I will miss most when I move back to orange county.  Merde.  And my freedom.  MErde!  And exciting things happening every day...and working 2 days a week.  And the metro.  And seeing lightbulbs going off in my little students brains.  And the frequency and length of French holidays.  And the Cheeese!!  And the wine.  And the normalcy of drinking outside in the sunshine with friends.  I will miss food always being fresh and real.  I will miss being able to walk places.  I will miss speaking French.  And I will miss hearing people speak French.

I will not miss every little thing being unnecessarily difficult and expensive.  Or the lack of toilet seats..or paying to pee for that matter.  I won't miss people smoking cigarettes inside.  I will not miss old men harassing me in the streets.

I will have to get used to not speaking broken English like it's normal.  My French has gotten pretty good, despite what looks like my best effort at surrounding myself with people who don't speak it, however, my English has totally regressed.  It's a joke.  I can't hear anymore if things are right.  I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well but, before I came here I could tell by the sound of something if it was correct.  Unfortunately, that appears to be a skill of the past.  I can't tell what's real anymore!
My Franglais on the other hand:  fantastic.  I will definitely miss being able to communicate with it.

So, my last day was kind of anti-climactic.  I'm quite positive I was above the legal driving limit for my first class (another thing I will miss about the metro), grâce à notre petit pique-nique we had on the canal last night.  So I don't even know.  Fun.  My second school (with my favorite kiddies!) forgot that I was teaching and had a movie-outing scheduled!  Luckily, I still had one class to teach and I was able to say Adieu to the others before they went off for their fieldtrip.  So adorable.  All the little gangsters shook my hand, which I loved, they were my favorites.  And the little girls shyly giggled.
On Adieu:  I love that the French have a word for 'goodbye forever'.  You only say it if you are never going to see the person again, or if the person is going to die.  Or..if you live in the country in some region.  So quaint.

Yesterday I had a very French moment that I want to remember.  I was trying to recharge my metro pass for the week and get rid of all my change at the same time.  The Euro involes wayy too much change.  There is a coin not only for 1 euro, but also a coin for 2 euros.  It keeps your wallet pretty fucking heavy, and difficult to close.  So, I wanted to get rid of it.  The 'rechargement' was 18.35.  so I put in a 10 euro bill and then proceeded to use my coins.  I am putting the last euro coin in AND THE MACHINE SPEWS IT ALL BACK AT ME!!!  Saying that it does not accept more than 20 coins at a time.  Fucking asshole!  So I had to re-do the whole thing with one less coin!  Merci, France, mare-fucken-si.
So that was just silly.  Many things in France are

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