chauny style

Two weekends ago, the girls who are currently assistants in Chauny came up to Valenciennes for the weekend. Despite the arctic temperatures, we had a really great time. The girls arrived late that Friday night, and I took them to one of the coolest bars in town. I know that's not saying much when it comes to Val, but it is a chill place with great Belgian beers at decent prices. Something that Chauny is lacking by far. While there, my friend invited us over to another friend's place. Knowing that the girls don't often get the chance to do something of the sort, I jumped at the opportunity. We had a good time, but it did not make my tutoring the following morning the easiest thing in the world...

The next day, we braved the cold and headed to Lille. We didn't last too long in our explorations and ended up meeting two of my friends who live in the city for a drink. That was a good time. Not to mention warm! Back in Val, we had some people over before heading to another friend's place. A good time was had by all though thoroughly impressing the girls with Valenciennes.

The following afternoon, I put the girls on a train back to Chauny and met up with Denise for a walk and to visit the museum. Finally, after a year and a half of living here, I visited the Musee des Beaux Arts. Yes, it took me awhile to get there. That said, I quickly lost interest while there. Hence the reason why I was never to into going there in the first place. In the evening, I got a yummy treat with hamburgers at a friend's decked out American style (he spent a year in Oklahoma and brought back quite a few things) apartment.

The week after flew by. Denise and I made bagels and had a few of our friends over to treat them to some bagel sandwiches and bagels smothered with Philadelphia cream cheese. Brazilian brought back some strange goodies for me to try from his travels... some sort of chocolate banana cherry treat thing and some weird milk straws. I think the bagels won as the best non-French food. Although the following evening, after a delicious Thai/Chinese inspired meal, I introduced Brazilian to the ultra disgusting Conversation Hearts. While we both kept making faces at how gross they were, we couldn't stop eating.

The next day, I pulled myself out of bed at a ridiculous hour after far too little sleep and headed down to Chauny for part of the weekend. I spent the afternoon at the lycee, catching up with Claude and some others (including a great big American hug from C. when he saw me) and torturing the students in English. It was just like old times.

Afterward, Kathleen (one of the girls) and I headed into town for a snack and a few drinks at my favorite cafe before going to Claude's for a Soiree fromage. He had bought over 20 different types of cheese and 7 types of bread, and then he made us try all of them as we were the only foreigners at this soiree. I think we were in a lot of pain by the end of the evening which concluded in dessert crepes and homemade liqueur. I don't know how Kathleen and I survived.

Saturday was spent wandering around Chauny, grabbing coffees, and shopping. It was a nice time. It seemed like it took me forever to get back to Valenciennes, but when I finally did, I joined Denise and a friend's for a nice dinner together complete with homemade waffles and some games.

Once again, this week flew by. Classes went very well this week. I'm really liking one of my groups of 2nd year students. We had a really good discussion this past week.

This weekend is going to be a big one. Tomorrow, I'm going to my school's Gala. It's a huge formal affair at a casino with a fancy dinner, a show, and dancing. It goes until 4am. I'm hoping we don't stay quite that late as Brazilian and I are supposed to meet a friend at 9am to head to Binche in Belgium for the Carnaval celebration there. Something tells me that morning is going to be killer. In any case, I'll be sure to take pictures at both!