Hello From Nice, Version 4.1

Helllllo Everyone! I am here in Nice. Still. I guess I am nearing week 2 here. It's still beautiful here. I had an observation today at a different school, which was pretty cool, but I didn't get to really interact with teh kids at all today. Although they were all curious about my name. And I am learning people here have a tough time with the name Dina. They all prefer Tina. So in France, I am Tina.

Anyway, after my observation, I went to the beach in my work clothes and sat on a bench overlooking the beach for a good hour and a half. I couldn't believe I could be entertained just sitting there. But it is so calming, I couldn't remove myself. And it is great for people watching (AKA making snap judgements of everyone I see).

And now I am at a NEW bar trying to use their internet cause La Sansas is mysteriously closed today. I don't like this bar as much. It's too official with the WiFi deal. I like my free things to be simple. What's the fun in being a Mooch who needs a password. Nah uh.

So, let's see. What is new and fun since I last sent an e-mail?

ICE CREAM! Oh yeah! So, you know how people who travel sometimes keep a log of the restaurants and fancy food they've tried in different places? Well, on a much less sophisticated note, I am going to become a connaisseur of the different flavors of ice cream. And I can honestly say, that when it comes to French ice cream terminology, I am learning it quickly. Une boule = 1 scoop, Parfum = flavor, Gouter = to taste, Je ne suis pas gros = I am not fat. So, so far I have tried Three Chocolates, Kinder, Tiramisu, plain old Chocolate x 2, and crap, there was definitely another one, but i forget the flavor now. I will get back to you on that!

So what else? Wow, I am really having a hard time thinking of some anecdotes from France. What's going on here? Maybe it's cause all my time is spent on the beach! So let me tell you some things I saw on the beach recently. No poo, thankfully. That joke already got old 5 minutes after I made that discovery. And no Megan, I am sure they weren't mini baby ruths :p.

OH! Here's something dandy to talk about. They shut off the gas in our apartment. And no, I am not talking about that old man downstairs who has a bad case of flatulence. I mean, walk in the shower in the AM ready to get rejuvenated by a steaming shower only to realize all too late that the only thing that's steaming is your anger at the spray of frigid water hitting your body. Not that I am speaking from experience or anythign >:\. The only good thing about the no gas thing is that I know have a free pass to make everything in the microwave instead of trying to make the roommate think I know how to cook (which is actually me just boiling water, anyway), and I don't have to fear burning off my eyebrows each time I strike a match to light the stove. I value my eyebrows.

So that's about it. I am lucky enough to be looking out at the beach right now, in fact, and it is quite foggy here. THe one day I attempt to straighten my hair...Oh yeah, and I also went to go for my medical visit yesterday, and they let me keep my chest XRay as a souvenir, I guess, or a giant placemat. So if anyone is into Modern art, and that plays nicely into your furturistic living room set up, let me know, and my chest is yours for free.

I hope all is well with everyone. I miss you all still very much!!! And to those of you sending me letters and e-mails, I appreciate it very very much!!!!!

LOVE XOXOXOX,
Dina

It's Nice in Nice!

Bonjour!

I hope all is well back home. And if it's not, then you are in luck, cause it's about to get better upon reading my third e-mail. Duh duh duh duh...

So where to start? I guess I will begin by talking about my first observation at one of the primary schools here. I was really nervous about it, for some reason. And for whatever reason, they are making me do my observations at schools other than the one I will be working at. So I arrived at St. Roch 1, the school I was observing in, and I guess the children were in recess cause all i saw was a whole big mess of little Frenchies. They were very cute though,. which made me a little less nervous.

Soon after, I was in my first class. That teacher offered to have the children introduce themselves to me, and then ask me questions. The questions started out really sweet and innocent like 'how do you like America', 'how long are you here?', 'do you have family here?', etc. But then they took a turn for the weird with 'Have you ever been arrested?', and 'Have you ever killed anyone?'. I guess their perceptions of Americans are a little skewed. When I think of France, I just think of Grey Goose and surrendering. Not that they are trouble making murderers. But hey, to each his own. Anyway, at that point the teacher nervous giggled and just asked me to sit in the back of the room to observe. A few minutes later this girl in the front told her teacher she had something to tell me. So she makes her way to the back of the room and says "Eexcuuse mee miss, you are verry beeutiful. You are zee angel." It was really really cute.

Then I went to my next class, where the teacher was the opposite of the first one. She was like the English teaching Nazi. But you could tell the kids were going to learn much more English from her, than from the previous teacher. So it was bittersweet for those students. Afterwards, I was very proud of myself, cause I found my way home from some random place in Nice. So i rewarded myself with some ice cream. I seem to do that a lot here.

Yesterday night a bunch of the assistants were told to meet up at the beach...I could not believe that the beach could look any more beautiful, but at night it just takes on a whole new level of beauty. We met up with the others, and just sat and drank some wine on the beach for a little while, and then the group split up, and went their separate ways. I went out with a couple of the girls that i went out with on Tuesday. We went to a bar called Waynes, and there was a British cover band playing there. They were pretty good, just hard to dance to, cause they played things like the Beatles and CCR. But I still had a good time, nevertheless.

Which brings me to today. The weather was perfect again, so I went to the beach with Alix. It was sooo nice layiong out on the beach. And the water was a little chilly, but so clear today. That is until I noticed some weird brown plant floating towards me. Which was fine....until I noticed they weren't plants. They weren't living things at all. However, they once did belong to a living thing. Yeah, they were floaters, but in a giant toilet known as the Mediterranean Sea. So that put a damper on my beach day for about a minute...until I redirected them towards some other unsuspecting swimmer. Enter evil laugh.

So now I am in my usual bar, where the workers all roll their eyes when I walk in, knowing full well that they are going to have to see me for the next couple of hours plugging away a the keys, and laughing to myself when I read my funny conversations. Oh well. They love me, they just don't know it yet.

I will try to e-mail you all again soon! I still miss peanut butter, but I miss you all more!

XOXO

Au revoir!
Dina

You lucky ducks...Update number 2

Bonjour everyone!

It's me, Dina, reaching out to you from the French Riviera ;). Um, there is so much that has happened since my last e-mail...

Let's do a mini recap, shall we? Hmmm?

Ok, Saturday...I went to the beach again. As you will see, this pattern will be repeated numerous times throughout this e-mail. It was a pretty good time. I decided to fly it solo that day, just to make sure, if all else fails, I can find my way to the beach. So after a trip to the bank, and the post office, I ventured downwards to the water. Sure enough, I found my way, and to reward myself, I bought myself an ice cream. It was chocolate, and it was delicious!!

That night Alix and I were both pretty tired, so we decided to stay in.

Then Sunday, they have this deal in Nice where the first and third Sundays in Nice are free at all the museums. So Alix and I decided to take advantage of this deal, and we went to the Musee des Beaux Arts. It was choc full o' paintings from the different time periods. It was pretty cool. Not too many names I recognized, but I suppose those are reserved for the Louvre.

After spending some time at the museum, Alix and I went to the beach. Surprise, surprise. We then had to head back to the apartment to get ready to go to the hostel for the evening.

So after a quick shower, and a quick packing job, Alix and I were given a ride to the Relais de la Jeunesse, by Sharleen (she's the coordinator of the program, but conveniently lives the floor above us). At the hostel we got the opportunity to meet a bunch of other people in our school district, but unlike the United States, a school district here has schools in Nice and in other cities that can be up to 2 hours away. So after some mingling, we were treated to some hostel dinner. It was pretty good. Everything always tastes better when it's free though somehow. I am not sure how that works. But it does.

After dinner, we did some more mingling with some espresso, beer, or hot tea. I chose neither, because I was mentally preparing my senses for the forecoming night spent in a room with 8 girls. I met a really cool girl that I actually talked to before the trip through e-mail, and so I finally got to meet her in person. I promised her that I would take her to the beach the next day (i think it was more of a selfish thing than an altrustic act), since she is staying in Toulon, one of the cities that's 2 hours away. So after a few hours of talking with some of the others, we called it a 'night', which was more like an extension of the day, since it was nearly impossible to get some sleep with all the noise. At one point during the night I decided to reposition in my 1 foot by 2 foot bed, but for some reason i couldn't do a slight turn, I had to do practically a complete 180 turn, and bellyflop onto my mattress. Unfortunately, the mattresses were reallllly squeeky, and upon turning, I awoke to hear the German chick in the room (who I didn't know spoke English) yell "Zyou arr beeeing ztoo loud!" So I was now the loud one in the room. Who knew that turning could be so dangerous?!?

In the morning, we were treated to breakfast, at 7:00 AM, which was more like a wake up hour before we had to go to a bunch of meetings. Since Sharleen calls us neighbors, she also asked us (me and Alix) to lead a group of people to the Rectorat from the Hostel. I was responsible for the non English speaking group. It was quite funny leading the group of 100 people across the street. If you could see the faces of the people stopped in cars at the crosswalk....priceless.

Anyway, after some standard 'welcome' meetings, we were given yet more food. It was one of those buffets, though, where you can't really tell what anything is. They were all finger foods, but half the fun was just guessing what you were eating.

After that, Mieko (the cool girl from Toulon) and I headed back and we went onward to the beach. When we got there (way later than we hoped), the sky was pretty cloudy, so it wasn't as awesome as it usually is, but Mieko really liked the water, so we swam for awhile and then headed back where we found a bus stop so she could head back to Toulon.

Afterwards, I called me mums, and was starving so i went to the little grocery store. Tomorrow is Alix's birthday, so I decided to buy some delicious looking ravioli, and treat her to a pre birthday dinner. It was pretty good, but would have been delicious if it were free...

That brings me to now. I am just chilling, once again with my glass of rose wine, watching two germans chickies get their dance on to a remake of C&C music factory's "Everybody Dance Now" (I noticed that the music here is all American music...i am listening to Shakira now, and all over is Justin Timberlake and the Pussycat Dolls).

I still miss you all, and think you should all visit. I would also love if anyone has any pics from home to send them to me!! Also, if you want to keep me entertained with mail, my address here is:

Chez Mme CRAIGHERO
Re: Dina Berkovits
54 Avenue Bellevue
06100 NICE France


XOXO MUAH XOXO,
Dina

I'm here!

Bonjour everyone!

I am writing to let you all know that i made it to France safe and sound. I already met some pretty neat people, but only one of which i will see again ;). I met a really cool lady on the plane. She was going to France with her college roommates to celebrate their 50th birthdays. I thought to the future, and I think I like that idea. Next was the patient Taxi driver, who was the first victim of my broken French. He was very very nice though, and even understood what I said!! He brought me to my apartment (which is very cool, but could use some pics on the walls...hint, hint:send pics), where i met Alix, my roommate. She is very nice and also extremely patient with showing me around. Those that know me well know that my sense of direction is subpar, and she has been really nice about taking me places.

Yesterday, we went to one of the castles and climbed up the landscape and from the top could see all of Nice. It was quite beautiful and incredibly peaceful! I wish I had a picture, but alas, I was lazy and neglected to bring my camera. Then, after the long ass walk (it's fair to say I walked about 4 miles), Alix and I got dinner at a quaint little restaurant. I had some vegetable soup which was delicious, and we were packed in really close to the other patrons, so the ones next to us started to speak to us. They were an older couple from Australia (you better believe I mentioned you, Megan) who talked nonstop, but were very friendly.

Afterwards, we went back to the apartment where I couldn't sleep, but entertained myself with some French TV....I was sort of hooked on this teen drama about this guy who gets dishonorably discharged from the military and afterwards goes to Vietnam in search of his love, who he finds out isn't in search of his. Wah wah.

Today I opened my first official bank account in France...again, with a very patient bank teller. It's not as cool as a Swiss account, but it's still pretty neat. After that we went to the beach, which was BEAUTIFUL. Unfortunately, the beaches aren't sandy, but instead rocky...and they aren't pebbles, either. They are big fatty rocks, which you better believe I fell on while trying to get to the ocean. The water was beautiful, though...It was a clear bluish green color, but you could see right through it. And no seaweed in sight. But i did see a jellyfish which prompted me to run in the opposite direction. Refer back to falling incident. I also sat next to these old women, and I was just sitting their minding my business, and I sat up for a second to put some suntan lotion on, only to lay down and see the ladies had also layed down, and had their old lady feet right in my face. It made me want to throw up a little...and it also made me giggle a little, and quickly face the other way. I also talked to some Frenchmen, and they offered to take us around France, but it was hard to give them our numbers when we lack cell phones. So we will have to wait until someone offers us while in the possession of cells.

Afterwards, I did my first little grocery shopping excursion where I bought some french chocolate, of course. (to the parents: they are so much cheaper here). I also bought some cheese (how french!) and some other random goodies for myself. I want some peanut butter though:(.

Then I went back to the apt. where i opted to watch an Italian gameshow...i figure this way I can knock two birds (languages) out with one stone (2 TV shows). The roomie and I were dying for some internet htough, so now we are taking advantage of a bar, and I am drinking my first glass of wine (rose) in order to obtain their wifi security code. I can't really complain too much about that though...

Anyway, I know this is crazy long and goes into some inane details, but it's my first e-mail so I need the practice to get it down to an art. Send me some mail :) I miss you all very much already, and I can't wait until I figure out a better way to get some internet access, so I can talk to you all more often. Hugs and kisses!

Missing you,
Dina