last week before la reprise

Last weekend was Hannah's last weekend in Valenciennes, and I was coming down with a cold. Nothing says "party" like a sore throat and stuffy nose, but still, a good time was had. We even got to check out the Fete de Binbin, Valenciennes resident huge wooden character. Probably best just to leave it at that. I also met Hannah's dad who was really nice and had some great stories to share with us from the time he spent in the US.

Monday morning, I accompanied Hannah to her dad's hotel before heading to the tram to go tutor. Since we weren't fully awake and we had a schedule to keep, it was a bit of a rushed goodbye. Still, tears were streaming down my face by the time I was on the tram, and I hadn't had the forethought to bring tissues or a mirror (for running mascara checks) with me, so who knows the state of my face by the time I arrived at my lesson. I'm sad to not have Hannah here for our conversations over coffee and internet trolling, but I'm also excited to go see her in Strasbourg in a month or so.

Monday afternoon, I went out to the university for the first time since July to meet up with Jane and our new colleague Catherine to talk about lessons some. Catherine seems really nice, really nervous, but nice. I think it will be a good year. She will definitely be more involved than Rene ever was.

The rest of the week was spent tutoring and helping Denise with her apartment search. We even went to Lille to visit one, and then we met up with a new lectrice in her department. Tutoring is going to become a bit of a pain. Well, it has nothing to do with the tutoring itself - the kids are adorable and the lessons fly by, it's just the parents that our the pain. They all want Wednesday mornings, and there are not that many hours in a morning. I'm really hoping that the one person who has Wednesday (she's the first person who I started with) has an evening that is free. She's pretty flexible and I know her last tutor did evenings, so I'm hoping she's willing to change, because that seems to be the only thing that will ever work. I'll ask her this week when I see her. I'm not going to bug her by email.

Yesterday, we headed off to the Braderie de Lille - the biggest braderie in Europe. A braderie is like a big huge flea market (or garage sale) that is out in the streets of the town. Like a million people go to this thing. It is insane! The trains are packed as are the streets. We met up with Brazilian and some friends (almost an impossible feat) and wandered the streets, drank a few beers, and had a dinner of some specialties du Nord. I avoided the moules frites (mussels and fries), the official dish of the braderie and opted for a sausage and fries. On our way to a free concert, we noticed that the braderie was supposedly called off at 10pm (it was 9pm), because of an arriving storm. We sort of just shrugged it off -the sky was clear after all, but as we got closer to where the concert was, we noticed people streaming towards us. Sure enough, the concert was canceled due to the impending storm. Feeling exhausted, we decided to just catch a train home. As luck would have it, a train was an hour late, so we didn't have to wait for the one leaving in over an hour. Unfortunately, we sat on this train for another hour and fifteen minutes before it finally left. On the way home, the last minute storm (it had been sunny all day and no rain in the forecast at all) started up, and we had to walk home in it without any umbrellas. Needless to say, I was drenched. Not fun.

Today, Brazilian made a Brazilian meal for a bunch of us to celebrate his national holiday as well as his vacation there coming up this week. The food was yummy, and the company was good. I quite enjoyed myself.

Tomorrow, it's back to work. Yes, yet again my first day of work is the American Labor Day. Not fair. The secretary finally sent out our lists of students yesterday, and I recognize most of the names. Unfortunately, I have a lot of students who never came or just sat there silently. Great. I jokingly said they'd probably cut up the groups alphabetically, and that is exactly what happened. If the list had been cut just one person further, I would have had a very chatty student. Damn. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. Wish me luck!

In other news, I sent Claude an email just to catch up with him. He replied back in under 10 minutes, and I hadn't even asked any questions! My jaw about dropped to the floor! It usually takes him days or weeks to respond or it just goes unanswered, and that's when I usually ask him a question or two! He said to let him no in advance whenever I come to Chauny, and he'll have me over for dinner. Can't wait!