Les assistants

01.10.10

Today we spent most the day in Orléans having orientation for all of the language assistants (not just English speakers) in our region of Orléans-Tours.

Surprise!  There are other English speakers here too!  I met some assistants from the UK and Canada.  There are 6 other American English assistants in Blois (all girls!) in addition to one British guy, one guy from Jordan (Arabic assistant), one Spanish assistant girl from Venezuela, and one guy German assistant.  There might be more but that’s everyone that we know of.

Anyway, the orientation was nice to meet people but wasn’t that helpful in the teaching or foreign sense.  They only talked about the OFII form and CAF form which have officially stressed me out (basically, the epitome of French bureaucracy directed at non-EU citizens).  There is so much to do when you set up a life here.  Bank account, insurance, housing help, immigration laws, visa approval, etc..

Next week, we start our real training for how to teach English aux enfants.

After the orientation, I went out to a couple bars with some other assistants.  Walking around town tonight showed more of this sleepy city.  It was not even ten o’clock and I only passed one person on the way into town.  Maura, Sharae, Harry, and I made it to one bar called “Le singe vert” (the green monkey) which was very dead but had great deals on drinks!  We all got a huge pitcher sized cocktail EACH for 8 Euro.  It wasn’t the best drink but it was hilarious because we didn’t know that the drinks were that big!  I mean, we’re in France – nothing here is that big!

Then we went another bar called the Velvet Jazz Lounge which had a cool cave feel.  It was nice talking to the other assistants.  I asked them if there are any late night crêpe places or anything like that because Aix had Paul!  Paul was a great crêpe maker who sold crêpes from about 10pm to midnight almost every night on the Cours Mirabeau.  Anyway, Blois has nothing like that here.  The city is asleep on a Friday night, long before midnight.  From now on, I may just have to have my Nutella chez moi.

Have yet to have my first French crêpe in Blois..