Getting to Know La ville de Nantes
Wow! What a productive day it’s been; I can hardly believe it. This has been a great week, and I just keep feeling more and more settled as the days go by. I got to talk to my Mom and Dad yesterday, which was really nice. For one reason or another I just feel the need for a little contact from home. I also got my first 2 pieces of mail today (: which made me really happy. One was just from the bank- not too exciting, but the other was from Auntie Susan. Thank you for the note and beautiful bookmark!! I actually brought the turtle one you’d made me, which of course makes me think of Costa Rica.
I woke up this morning around 10 (sooo nice) and took a shower and headed across the St. to my school. I don’t have set rooms to hold my classes in which makes things difficult, so I needed to see what could be done about that. It was my 3rd time trying to get this sorted out and I think I was only 75% successful. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Other than the classrooms, things are going well. I devoted a couple of hours the past 2 days researching possible lesson plans and teaching tips online, so I feel pretty good about that. I have 4 hours of class tomorrow: 2 one hour classes and a 2 hour class where we’ll watch Rear Window at the teacher’s request… sweet! I was online at school when I got a text message from Courtney and decided to meet up with her to do some errands.
We both had to go to our banks to pick up our ATM cards and checks etc… I wanted to get a library card and explore that. I got my 12-25 (youth discount card for trains, good for one year) and booked a round-trip ticket to Paris for the upcoming Toussaint vacation. If you buy the tickets in advance you can get a 50% reduction on the price. If you wait too long, you’re still guaranteed 25% off but not necessarily 50%. The lady who helped me was really nice and explained that even if I change these dates, I will still be guaranteed the 50% rate. So it seemed like the best idea. The card cost 49 Euro but has already paid itself off. Then we headed to the tourism office and I got a pamphlet of all the public pools in Nantes with their hours and rates, so I’ll be swimming pretty soon. Jesse swam in High School, I think, so I’m pretty sure we’ll go together some of the time. It was a gorgeous day, so it was nice to be able to spend it walking around outside.
Yesterday we had miserable weather; it’s funny how it can change so drastically so quickly. It wasn’t cold, so I went for a 40 min jog at the park but got drenched. It was a real thunderstorm. I used the computer lab at school to look up train prices etc… which is when I learned that it will probably be cheaper to fly to Italy rather than taking the train. At 4:30 Jesse had us over for goute (a late afternoon snack), and then I had plans to meet Liz (another assistant who did was here in Nantes last year) at 7 to chat. She’s really sweet and knows the area well. At 9 we meet up with 2 other assistants and just hung out and chatted. It was fun. I walked home by myself around 11PM and was surprised to see how many people (even little old ladies!) were our and about so late on a Wed. night.
Even though I’m only working 12 hours a week, I still manage to fill the days up completely. It’s nice to have some downtime and just get things together. I plan on putting up flyers to advertise babysitting/tutoring after the break for some supplemental income. Liz said she tutored two teenage girls for 2 families last year and that they always made her a huge wonderful lunch and were great to work for. Her schedule this year won’t allow her to do this, so she’s going to try and put me in contact with them. She says it’s a sweet deal, 20 Euro for an hour with a great lunch included! That would be perfect. I signed up to do the Yoga classes here at the foyer, but we need 11 ppl to enroll in order for them to run the class. I think I was # 8. Hopefully we’ll have enough participants to warrant holding the class.
Not much else to report. I don’t know what’s up for the weekend, but a swim sounds good. I’d also like to explore the library a little and maybe read up on the cinque terre. I have a feeling that I will be tired tomorrow, so maybe I’ll stay in…. but you never know. Hugs to you all. Hopefully I’ll have some cool pics to post soon; I just haven’t been taking my camera out with me too much. Have a great weekend!
-Elizabeth
I woke up this morning around 10 (sooo nice) and took a shower and headed across the St. to my school. I don’t have set rooms to hold my classes in which makes things difficult, so I needed to see what could be done about that. It was my 3rd time trying to get this sorted out and I think I was only 75% successful. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Other than the classrooms, things are going well. I devoted a couple of hours the past 2 days researching possible lesson plans and teaching tips online, so I feel pretty good about that. I have 4 hours of class tomorrow: 2 one hour classes and a 2 hour class where we’ll watch Rear Window at the teacher’s request… sweet! I was online at school when I got a text message from Courtney and decided to meet up with her to do some errands.
We both had to go to our banks to pick up our ATM cards and checks etc… I wanted to get a library card and explore that. I got my 12-25 (youth discount card for trains, good for one year) and booked a round-trip ticket to Paris for the upcoming Toussaint vacation. If you buy the tickets in advance you can get a 50% reduction on the price. If you wait too long, you’re still guaranteed 25% off but not necessarily 50%. The lady who helped me was really nice and explained that even if I change these dates, I will still be guaranteed the 50% rate. So it seemed like the best idea. The card cost 49 Euro but has already paid itself off. Then we headed to the tourism office and I got a pamphlet of all the public pools in Nantes with their hours and rates, so I’ll be swimming pretty soon. Jesse swam in High School, I think, so I’m pretty sure we’ll go together some of the time. It was a gorgeous day, so it was nice to be able to spend it walking around outside.
Yesterday we had miserable weather; it’s funny how it can change so drastically so quickly. It wasn’t cold, so I went for a 40 min jog at the park but got drenched. It was a real thunderstorm. I used the computer lab at school to look up train prices etc… which is when I learned that it will probably be cheaper to fly to Italy rather than taking the train. At 4:30 Jesse had us over for goute (a late afternoon snack), and then I had plans to meet Liz (another assistant who did was here in Nantes last year) at 7 to chat. She’s really sweet and knows the area well. At 9 we meet up with 2 other assistants and just hung out and chatted. It was fun. I walked home by myself around 11PM and was surprised to see how many people (even little old ladies!) were our and about so late on a Wed. night.
Even though I’m only working 12 hours a week, I still manage to fill the days up completely. It’s nice to have some downtime and just get things together. I plan on putting up flyers to advertise babysitting/tutoring after the break for some supplemental income. Liz said she tutored two teenage girls for 2 families last year and that they always made her a huge wonderful lunch and were great to work for. Her schedule this year won’t allow her to do this, so she’s going to try and put me in contact with them. She says it’s a sweet deal, 20 Euro for an hour with a great lunch included! That would be perfect. I signed up to do the Yoga classes here at the foyer, but we need 11 ppl to enroll in order for them to run the class. I think I was # 8. Hopefully we’ll have enough participants to warrant holding the class.
Not much else to report. I don’t know what’s up for the weekend, but a swim sounds good. I’d also like to explore the library a little and maybe read up on the cinque terre. I have a feeling that I will be tired tomorrow, so maybe I’ll stay in…. but you never know. Hugs to you all. Hopefully I’ll have some cool pics to post soon; I just haven’t been taking my camera out with me too much. Have a great weekend!
-Elizabeth
posted by ecloern | Thursday, October 12, 2006
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