end o' march update.

well what can i say?
it's been a month of celebrations - my birthday was a blast, as i previously mentioned. since most of the assistants are leaving at the end of april, i've been trying to maximize my fun time with them while they're here. although i have now made friends with some urasmus students who will be here until mid-june, but as simo pointed out, i'm still the last one here. oh well. i spent easter with the same crew of people for about three nights straight. friday was a kareoke night, which moved into dancin with the french, italian, and germans that i know here, along with the few americans who were around. saturday night i joined up with thomas, elise, and franck for a delicious dinner chez thomas (elise cooked - quite delicious), party that the italian crew invited us to, back out dancing - piggy back ride from simo, heart to heart with bryan, simo trying to convince american girls he's from san francisco (have i mentioned he's an italian), the bartender who is on the dance floor recognizing me now (i had a chat with him one night about the states, he spent some time in philly) and ignoring other patrons to give me my drinks (i'm such a cutie he can't resist), long walk home with bryan and malek. easter sunday we have dinner at the italians, franck and thomas serenade all of us with songs about each and every one of us, maria's crazy but unbelievably nice and genuine boyfriend federico (he's going to be in a james bond movie - the next 007 keep an eye out for a ginormous italian man) teaching me each accent from each major area of italy, having federico and simone talk to me in italian accents from naples forever, dying of laughter about this, half falling asleep there, dome and pascal drive me home. we dont work monday here in france after easter, and monday is pasquetta in italy (literally meaning little easter) which is spent eating good food and drinking a special italian pasquetta wine with friends (see left), so i did, chez franck with thomas, elise, dome, pascal, barbara, and simo. it was a good day. and it's been a good weekend of celebration.
which leads me to the week - yesterday was teaching which wasn't too bad at all, five classes. last night i couldn't sleep well... but whatever. i updated my myspace page which now looks awesome. today i met with my landlord, he's willing to cut me a deal on the apartment, it's normally 750 a month, alyson and i are getting it for 620, and he's giving it to me by myself for 510. it's only 200 euro more a month than i'm paying now, and for two months - i figure it's worth it to not deal with the hassle of moving and changing address, and i get this big nice space to myself. i will also still get reimbursed from the gov't so that's a good thing. i can transfer savings from my us acct to my french one and be set :)
i re-did my hair - it's more red this time, although there's more color washing out when i wash my hair this time round and it's making me nervous...
it's also my mother's birthday (and my uncle's) so happy birthday to you both.
i got all of my worksheets and plans done for the rest of this week and next week, so i'm looking forward to a weekend of no worries before heading home next friday.

twenty three!

yes! that's how old i am now folks. and i must say, although there were some special people from home missing in my life here in france, i had quite a wonderful birthday. the day of my birthday i spent in chinon with alyson and bryan. chinon is a town not too far from me, which has a castle, and some very, very good wine. it also is home to another assistant friend of ours, who joined us for a birthday lunch in a cafe called "le cafe de la paix" the peace cafe! lovely! so after that we headed up to the castle - up quite a few stairs to get there - to find that it's 3 euros to get in due to the fact that they're doing renovations and restorations to many parts of the castle. so we got a nice little tour from a woman (the tour was in english! we figured why not?) and then pranced around the parts of the castle that weren't under construction, up to a seriously tall bell tower with a view of the rivier (la vienne) and discovered that both bryan and i are not okay with heights. oh well.
we then went to a special little wine store, where alyson bought me a birthday bottle of red which was labelled "elegance". we figured that was fitting for the birthday. we then sampled some other chinon wines at a cafe, grabbed some baguette and cheese, and headed back to the train so i could come back for a birthday dinner with whit, jen, and aly at one of my favorite restaurants in tours. it was a good birthday. good food, good friends, good wine, and a castle! how lovely.
the next day was a nice lazy saturday, which included some lesson planning, grocery shopping, the arrival of tim (with pastries!) and my birthday party. i decided to do something with a black and white theme. i had 30 people in my apartment. have i mentioned that my apartment is about the size of... well. studio b at dancers' corner. and one part of that is alyson's room which we weren't allowing people into. so it was crowded. i had to turn the heat off (which is insane because i'm always freezing in here) due to the number of people. countries represented include: USA, england, ireland, scotland, russia, germany, italy, france, greece, yemin, south africa columbia, poland, portugal. states represented from the USA: VT, PA, NH/GA (she moved), TX, RI, CA, FL, NC. quite a diverse crowd. it was a wonderful party. pic to the left is a USA/italy moment. hooray. and yes, i shot all pictures in black and white - that's all people were wearing! cause everybody stuck to my theme!
so for those of you who haven't heard - i will be coming home in april for about 12 days. i plan on doing nothing during this time. by nothing i do mean head down to mhc and get my rec letters in line for grad school and see my girls briefly. but in vt/nh... i'll be takin it easy. soakin up my parents and my dog and my dance studio and my restaurants and my bed and my room and my bathroom and shower and the view and the river and all of that. i've been doing some thinking about after france options (mom, dad, when i have a better organized list i can totally give you a solid power point presentation. i have ideas and plans and options. vous inquietez pas!). there are far too many options. but i'm now aware of what i don't want to do. HOORAY!
so i leave you with some lovely images of my birthday weekend.
left: 8 million people in my apartment
right: view of chinon from the bell tower.