Last day in France (featuring two angels)

   Well, once again, where would I be without my friends?!  Dom arrived at 7:30 this morning to take me to the train station.  I hardly slept a wink last night so I was moving slowly.  The weather was already warm and humid too so hauling heavy suitcases was even less fun than I had imagined.  She helped me get everything onto the train, and then I had about two minutes to thank her again for all that she has done for me this year.  I will miss her tremendously!

    I had a three-hour train ride to relax before the next big move of the day.  When I arrived at the Gare de Lyon, Kristen showed up to help me navigate the métro.  We moved my gigantic luggage into the hotel and then had lunch outdoors in a cute café.  While we were there, Kristen got a text from Stephen saying that he was passing through and wanted to meet for coffee.  We quickly finished up lunch and rushed back to the Gare de Lyon for a brief rendez-vous.  The rest of our day was spent walking, trying on perfume and visiting a free exhibit about the deportation of Jewish children during WWII at the Hôtel de Ville.

If my back can handle it, I leave for the airport around 7:00 tomorrow morning.  I won't have my two angels to help me this time so I'll just take it very slowly.

Kristen and Stephen

In front of the Conciergerie before the arrival of a big rain storm  Can you see the Eiffel Tower in the background?

  

Party at the collège

On Thursday night, we had the end of the year party at my school.  Since the cafeteria is being remodeled, we met outside to eat and celebrate.  A lot of people were missing, but some of my favorites were there.  Mr. Galléa gave bouquets to all of the teachers leaving Cléon d'Andran this year and made a little speech about each one.  Brigitte gave everyone a gift that she had selected on behalf of the faculty.  Mine was a beautiful, colorful necklace.  Mr. Galléa said very nice things about my year, and then Brigitte and Caroline spoke as well.  It was extremely sweet and moving.  To top it off, all of the faculty and staff sang a song that Caroline had written about me.  I was a puddle of tears afterwards.

Here are a few of my wonderful colleagues at the Collège Olivier de Serres.

Aurélie (French), Sylvaine (art), Caroline (English)

Christine (assistant principal) and Anne (English)

Cyril and Henri, the history department

Michel (principal) with his newest grandson (one month old)

Chloe and Priscilla (German)

Solène (physics) and Margot

Sophie (French) and Raphaël

Yvan (physics) and his wife, Brigitte (PE)

Starbuck

I went to see a really good québecois movie with Caroline, Marie-Anne, and Christine tonight.  If you see it in your video store, rent Starbuck, a comedy about a sperm donor who discovers that he has fathered 533 children.  

Goodbye party with Bénédicte and Dominique

Bénédicte and Dom came over tonight for drinks, Mexican dip with tortilla chips and ranch dressing with carrots.  I cannot imagine what this year would have been like without their friendship and help.  I'm really going to miss them!  Here are two photos from our balcony photo shoot.

Two movies about school kids

Bénédicte has been loaning me movies to watch while I pack and clean this week.

L'élève Ducobu is a comedy about a really bad student. 

La Nouvelle Guerre des Boutons is a drama set in southern France during World War II.

two videos for Jed

On est là by M Pokora

Positif by Matt Houston---the number one video this week 

Dom's moving day

I helped Dom move into her new apartment today.  The other members of our team on this cold, rainy day were her parents and Olivier and Bertrand.  While Dom made one final check of her old place, I stayed behind and played with these two silly boys!  In thirty minutes, we played two board games and several rounds of hide-and-seek.  I had forgotten about the short attention span of three-year-olds!

Carrie's birthday

About forty adults and kids got together in Crest on Saturday night to celebrate Carrie's birthday.  We ate lamb chops and salad and beautiful desserts.

Fatima and her husband, Bruno, are two of Carrie's closest friends here.

Jeanne drove up from Narbonne for the festivities.

Mary was happy to have some girls to hang out with.  Most of the friends in Crest have teenage boys.

I'd love to kidnap Mary and make her into a southerner!  She's an excellent language student so she'd pick up our accent really quickly.

Sweet soul, Thierry, and his wife, Pascale, are Carrie's other close friends.  I have such a soft spot for these two that I cried when I said goodbye to them even though we've only seen each other at parties. 

What a small world!  My boss, Michel, was one of the guests.  

The evening was calmer than our last party here, but we had a wonderful time and went to bed way too late after swimming in the pool at 2:00 a.m.