Tomorrow I am flying from Brussels to Casablanca where I will be picked up by Andrea and trained to her apartment in Rabat. For the next two weeks I will explore the wonders of Morocco from Marrakech to the Sahara desert to the coast from where you can see Spain in the distance. I am wildly excited to travel to a country outside of Europe for the first time. Not that I haven’t enjoyed my European adventures, I have so very much, I am just also looking forward to experiencing a country and culture that is much more different than my own. I will take many photos as I have promised many people. I might ride a camel or at the least see or touch one, maybe poke their hump? Anything goes.

While in Paris on New Year’s Eve in our lovely hotel room a few blocks away from the Champs-Elyseés full of people, Simon and I decided to get married. Not that night in Paris as my mom thought when I told her, but sometime in the 2007 year. The news probably isn’t that surprising considering that Simon and I have been together for five years, sharing many apartments and one cat for four, not to mention that we have been incredibly happy since way back in 2001 when he ended our first date with a high five.

I honestly can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. Simon has been an amazing partner and will continue to be for hundreds of years.

We decided to get off of the godforsaken train as soon as humanly possible. We ended up getting off at the Champs-Elyseés where the first thing we saw was a plume of smoke and Paris police in riot gear rushing into a crowd. Nearly everyone in Paris was on the street, drinking champagne, smashing bottles, shouting “Bonne Année!” We watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle, walked some more, and went back to our hotel for champagne and heart-shaped brie. Photos of said events can be viewed on my Flickr account as well as Simon’s.

December was the month of visitors. Megan’s sister Kendra, Andrea, and then Simon. Andrea was here for two weeks, the first of which we mostly stayed around here, walking in the park, going to the museum, and making crepes. The second week we went to Strasbourg to revisit my first French home at Christmas. It was as wonderful as everyone kept telling me, the lights, the hot wine, the market, the chandeliers hanging in the street. I was surprised and relieved to find that I still knew my way around like a champ. I led us around vieux Lille with all of its winding streets without getting lost or turned around once. I miss Strasbourg terribly, for all of its Stepford/German cleanliness and French hostility, I love it still.

We left Strasbourg and went to Basel where Megan and her uncle picked us up and drove us to Zurich where we spent Christmas with the Erskine-Cashin’s. It was an Erskine-Cashin, Erskine, Erskine, Swalec, Adams-Smart Christmas. Megan’s aunt and uncle cooked like nobody’s business and we ate nonstop goodness for three days, the highlight being goose on Christmas day. This Christmas season I ate roast chestnuts from a street vendor, drank hot wine (also on the street), and ate goose…oh and I’ve been wearing a top hat and spats and saying “Ye” a lot.

Happy New Year everyone!

I’ve tried making friends here and they are disasters. So I’ve decided to import interesting people into the city of Valenciennes.
Email me (said email address can be found at the very bottom of this page, scroll, scroll, until you see my full name), tell when you would like to visit, I’ll ready the bed and warm cookies.

I posted just a few photos on Flickr because I fogot my larger SD memory card. Megan took photos though and you can see them on her Flickr page. There you can see those amazing Dutch fries, more buildings, more canals, her cousins, and us making beautiful self portraits after too much cheese and beer.

The old lady was desperate to have the dog look into the camera. You may notice his denim vest, the stroller he delicately rests in, and of course the fact that he is sort of wrapped in bubble wrap.

At first the little poochie was just confused and stared at her at she frantically yelled to him in French “Look at the camera, look over there!”

He has this ease about him, the head tilt, the relaxed lounging pose. It’s as if he doen’t have a care in the world, as if he were a dog in bubble wrap being pushed in a stroller.

Additional, midly humorous commentary on the same three photos is on my Flickr page.

We are beginning our first chunk of paid vacation. For the next two weeks I will be freed from the yoke of a 12 hour work week. We are going to hang out with some of our younger teachers, make a trip to Ikea, and buy a broom…oh and master the French language. It should be great.

30 rue Comtesse
59300 Valenciennes
FRANCE

You can also send packages to that address…in case you were wondering.

In addition to all of that paperwork I have been busy opening a bank account, renting an apartment, and aranging to get paid sometime this month. We have been waking up early to go to school and observe classes on the days we are not dealing with the office of the Rectorat and the Ministry of Education in general. We will move into our apartment as soon as we find time to go to Ikea and minimally furnish it, by that I mean pillows and forks, very minimal.

Today we went to Somain where Megan is the assistant at a high school and I am an assistant at a middle school. We met her teachers and her sponsor if you will, a nice English fellow who will house us until we find a place, help us get an apartment, bank card, and answer any questions we have about all things French. He is very nice and bought us both lunch in the cafeteria which is good because our budget is tight so we stopped eating days ago. We are going to both of my schools, I am also placed at a middle school in Aniche, on Tuesday. We have an orientation with other assistants on Monday which will be comforting I’m sure. We have decided to look for an apartment in Valenciennes which is the second largest city in the north, after Lille. It is between our schools and Lille so we can easily go to both several times a week via Le TER. Our French is much more fearless this time which is great though grammatically wrong all over this land.

We have more apartments to look at this week and hopefully will find something soon so we can unpack seven months of clothes from our suitcases.

More Soon.