Halloween Spirit!

Hello Everyone! I hope you are all doing well on this fine Halloween afternoon…well morning for you. It’s actually not that fine here, either. It’s realllly cloudy and a little windy, but it’s ok nevertheless. And that’s because I am sitting on the beach as I am writing this to you. As are lots of other people, and I am guessing it’s because of the national holiday tomorrow (All Saint’s Day), which I am guessing brings people to Nice for their day off.

But anyway, I am sure I had hundreds of stories to tell you since the last e-mail, but frankly, I can remember not-a-one. So let me start with the formalities. There is no school for me, because I am on vacation until the 4th of November. So I have no school stories for you. Except one that I neglected to mention in the previous e-mail (I think). So, I think I told you all that I bought the little French Fries candy to commemorate Halloween, since that was the focus of my lesson. But before I would give them the candy, each student had to say “Trick-or-Treat”, which I am sure they had no idea what it meant. But anyway, they had to say that to get the candy from me. And it was so damn cute!! They could NOT get it. Most of them would say “Trick-or-Treak”. It gave me a good laugh (which I always feel badly about when I am in their presence and laughing). But they know I am laughing with them!

So that was my classroom story. OH! And the other night I was using the free internet at McDonald’s, and I look over and I see this girl whispering something to her mom and she is pointing at me. But when I really looked, I recognized her as one of my students. So she was eating at McDonald’s pretty much sitting across from me, and staring at me while I used the computer. So I waved to her, and she just said “Heylo” and then quickly looked away. And then I said goodbye to her as I was leaving, but her mom was staring at me a little too much while I was talking to her daughter, so I figured that was my cue to leave. So I did.

So what else? The last few days has been a mission for me and Sapna to get our Halloween costumes. We decided to go with the devil/angel theme. I opted for Devil, since I hate wearing white . But seriously, the French DO NOT know how to do Halloween. Not yet at least. I was told that it is a relatively new holiday here, and more of a commercial holiday, than anything. It was probably adopted at most 10 years ago, but seriously, by the things they carry in stores and stuff, you would think they decided to adopt Halloween yesterday. All the places have like a mask, a witch hat, and maybe some face paint. But I really needed some horns, and Sapna really needed some wings and a halo. Soooo, on a top by a worker at one of the shops we checked out, we were told that there was a store called “Halloween” on la rue Diables Bleues. And that’s all we got. So we headed out to that direction, and somehow found that street, by chance. But no store. So we randomly asked some people walking by, and everyone looked at us as if we were crazy! So here we were, sans half our costume, trying to find some supposed store, which we were thinking didn’t even exist. So then we asked these people in the street one more time, and they knew what we were talking about! So they told us where it was, and we thanked them, but then as we were leaving, Sapna turned to me and her roommate and asked us if any of us understood what they were saying. None of us did! Thus, we were back to point A, but now we knew that it did, in fact, exist.
A few blocks later, I went into a Deli, and asked the guy working there if he happened to know where the store was. And he did, and was nice enough to come out of the store to point it out to us. So, with his aid, we finally found the store. But it was well worth the time spent in search of it! It was like a goldmine of Halloween stuff.. Costumes, wigs, make-up, jewelry, props, EVERYTHING. Think Party City in NJ for Halloween times 5. It was that much stuff. So Sapna and I found exactly what we needed and then made the trek back. I was exhausted, but quite pleased with my purchase!

So that was my big adventure for the last couple of days. I have the apartment all to myself , which is kind of nice, because I can play my music as loud as I want when I want, but it’s also eerily quiet. But that does remind me of a story, that my roommate better never read anywhere. But the other day I had something in my teeth (sexy, I know!) But anyway, I tried brushing my teeth, but to no avail. So then I look over, and I see my roomie’s dental floss sitting there on the shelf. So, I figure, she wouldn’t miss a tiny little piece, and my teeth certainly wouldn’t miss the little piece of food stuck between them. So I go to steal a tiny piece of floss, but in doing so, pull out the last tiny piece of floss from the package! There is no way she would “forget” using the last piece of floss herself, so I couldn’t try telling her that she must have used it without remembering. And I couldn’t leave it there empty. So, here I am, trying to thread the tiny piece of dental floss back into the hole where it feeds from, cursing my luck and karma at the same time. But I am trying to put it in the little hole and then loop it around the spool, to make it look like it was never used (because it’s a translucent box). So, needless to say, it took awhile, and it’s still not perfect, but she hasn’t said anything yet, but she hasn’t appeared to have tried using it yet either. So wish me luck. Eep.

Anyway, I am going to go, because there is a busload of little kids that just made it to the beach, and they are throwing rocks all around me. And that one almost hit me. Who throws a rock backwards?!?

Happy Halloween to all!! I will be sure to let you know how the Halloween celebrating is here. Hopefully, it is better than the shopping for Halloween is.

Miss you all!!

MUAH!
XOXOX,
Dina