Hello everyone! Hope all is stillll well with everyone. This e-mail is going to be a good one. I feel it in my left knee. It projects good things to come.
So, first off, I will start by mentioning how today was monumental for me, in that I washed my first pair of jeans by hand today. I know what you are all thinking. 1) Dina, that's so gross considering you've been there a month already and only have 2 pairs of jeans you like to wear. And by said logic, you're just unclean. 2) Dina, it's only handwashing. You're dumb.
But hear me out. It took me so long because I was scared to wash them. Yes, scared. So many things could have gone wrong, you see. I could have stained them with the detergent, I could have displaced so much water in the sink because of the weight of the jeans that the water could have overflowed. But scariest of all...I could have been hanging them up to dry, and my hand could have slipped or the heaviness could have made them fall the 5 stories onto a poor unsuspecting French walkers head. In which case, I could have gotten yelled at in French. Scary!
But I promised goodness, in this e-mail. So I will deliver.
First off, was my day yesterday. It was the last day of work before vacation for both me and my little French Fries (AKA students). I know, this is a rough life I lead. After 3 days of work, I get a 10 day vacation. It really stinks. But I digress. So yesterday I wanted to make it a Halloween oriented class, so I made them little picture cutouts of witches and ghosts and haunted houses, and so on. So I drag myself out of bed by 7 to make it out the door by 7:15, and then I get to work a half hour early. After waiting for someone to show up to open the door, I learn that I wasn't actually really needed until 10. So I thought that was a little annoying, but it turned out to be good, because I wanted to get the kiddies some candy for Halloween. So I asked the Director and he was all for the idea offering to reimburse my purchase. So I walked my tush to the grocery store and bought them some candy taffey stuff. It should be noted though, that a normal bag of candy at home that you can get on any given day in the States, is considered the JUMBO Halloween sized bag in France. So I had to buy many bags.
So teaching was good, then. It's always nice to have some candy for leverage to get them to stop talking. I wish they would reimburse me for candy every week. But anyway, at lunch time, I get two hours to try to figure out what to do with myself. So this time, in hopes to save some money, I brought a can of tuna to eat, and our ghetto can opener, and found a bench somewhere. So, as I was eating and minding my own business, something falls on me. With a thud, too. And when I looked at what it was, I was surprised to see that a bee had fallen from the sky right onto my arm. So that was to set the precident for the chain of events that were about to ensue. So as I am trying to get the fallen bee of my arm, I look over to my left and I see that a lady was trying to get a little water out of the fire hydrant-like thing on the street. But instead of a steady stream, WHOOSH, out comes out gallons of water...all over her. So what do I do? I quickly swallow my tuna so I can begin laughing. BUT THEN, instant Karma. While I am mid-laughter, I drop the agenda book from my hand onto the ground, only to see it had fallen next to my bag, which incidentally had fallen into dog poop...the dog poop, that i now noticed, was all over my shoe. Yup, I was a stinky laughing Poo Shoe. (By the way, they powerwash the streets here at least twice daily to try to get rid of all the hundred of dog poops that deface the sidewalks and streets). So that was just all sorts of gross.
Fortunately, that was the last of the incidents that occurred in that span of time. With my Poo Shoe, and my Crap Sack, I headed back to work and took the roll of toilet paper and douced my bag with water. And then I threw away my tuna can that was in a ziplock, as was the ghetto can opener (which I realized hours later). So a lesson can be learned from this. A ghetto can opener is better than no can opener.
So last night, me and the girls went to a bar and just hung out and chatted with each other. On the way home, however, we ran into some really drunk guys (a couple of them), and the best thing to do in France, is to ignore the aggressive guys. Sometimes even fake not understanding them is good work, too. So, these two guys start talking to us, and I wanted to take the sign language route and pretend we couldn't hear them but Angelique for some reason, went against the cardinal rule, and started speaking to them. So they start speaking in English with us, and then one of them pulls out a bottle of vodka from his jacket (which was like a magic trick in itself) to try to intice us to hang out with them, thinking that free alcohol was the ticket for us. So right after they show off their bottle to us, the guy holding it proceeds to drop it on Sapna's foot. So their supposed enticement goes down in flames. Or at least in pieces. So after that debacle, we just start walking away. They walk after us, and keep talking to us. And so I just say under my breath "Angelique, don't talk to them". But under my breath still meant audible, I guess, at which the other guy goes (In broken English) "Excuse me Miss. I am sorry. But you are not so nice. Zee French are nice, but you are not." And then he walked away. And then I laughed.
So then this brings us to today. We all went to the Prefecture today to get our Carte De Sejour, which is a card that French Citizens receive. It's like an ID card, and it's important for traveling, for banking, for lots of things. So we got part 1 of that taken care of today. And on the way home, Sharleen, the coordinator for us assistants who lives in our building, asks us if we heard the news? She told us that yesterday the police stormed into our building onto her floor at 6 AM, and took the 'extremely nice' neighbor out in handcuffs. So, it turns out, there is this big news story here that involves a bunch of people who work at the Nice Airport being arrested for stealing baggage and reselling them. The neighbor was one of the heads of the operation, and the items he seized were actually just chilling in our basement. So that was kind of crazy.
And then if that's not enough for crazy, as I was coming here to use the internet today, I was walking down the street and I look to the opposite side of the street, and I see a crowd of people, and a man on the ground. My first reaction was that he was hurt, but as I looked closer, there was a guy sitting on top of the man restraining him, by holding his arm behind his back. And the guy on the ground was yelling. I can't imagine the events that lead up to that scene, but a minute later the police arrived, and took the man for themselves. Nice is Nuts.
And that brings me to this moment in time. I very much want to use the bathroom, but this McDonald's is all high tech (even moreso than the fact that they have WiFi), and I have to buy something to get a receipt which has a code that I need to enter to get into the bathroom. Heck no. I will not give into the McMan. So there. That's all I got for you today. I hope my left knee was right!
I miss you all very much!
XOXO,
Dina
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