Yesterday was a great day! I only had two classes, because the dreaded DP6 group were "en stage" (meaning they were basically shadowing someone in a profession like a baker). All the teachers were pretty much celebrating this fact. The two classes that I did have went well. One class even wished me a Merry Christmas and such, albeit in French until I said the English translation to them. Lunch was the "repas de fin d'annee" (end of the year meal). It was great! The cantine was packed, and more teachers came than usual. We actually got to choose what we wanted for our main dish and the dessert was a delicious butter cream cake! For the rest of the afternoon, I just hung out with Florence in the library, reading my book. It was peaceful. Katie and I then went into town so she could run some errands. We got hot chocolate at one of the brasseries and just sat chatting until dinner time.

Dinner was great as well! Lasagna! Seriously... best week of food here at the cantine yet. They must whip out all of their good meals right before the end of the year. We also had S. and G.'s great company. We also found out that S. is going to be a pompier (firefighter)! What is it with us and pompiers in this town? Though he'll be working in Tergnier and not Chauny, but no worries, we'll still see him because he's not leaving the school. The students kept having a fit that they were eating so slow (they can't leave without the supervision of one of the surveillants). They were like "Laissez les dames" (leave the women). First of all "les dames?"... wow. It's so weird for people to be thinking of us as adults. Of course, they just proceeded to eat slower.

Late in the evening, Katie and I decided that we wanted to go have some fun, so we went to the Cuban Cafe. We sat around talking for awhile before deciding to see if we could check out the party below. Of course, we were allowed to! And good thing we did! We walked in and there was a big shouting of "Whoa!" from a guy dressed as Santa as he got the crowd to welcome us. At first we were like "What in the world?" until we realized he was my student. We got drinks and got my student to sit with us and explain what was going on and what the deal was with the Santa costume and his plastic squeaky toy pig (better not to ask what the pig was about... the reasoning didn't even make much sense to me as he explained it). He also introduced us to the new DJ who turned out to be super nice (he even got us free drinks) and wants to practice his English with us. He spoke English to us, and we answered back in French. So we're calling it a successful night.

Today is my last day of classes! Only one more left to go! Then, it's vacation! I leave for Prague tomorrow morning. Tonight, Viany, Katie, and I are having dinner and then going out to the Cuban Cafe for our last night in Chauny together for two weeks. It should be fun!

Anyway, there probably won't be anymore posts from me until at least when I return to Barcelona if I have time before heading to Lyon. So, I hope that everyone has a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!