Corndogs + Avocados

So I have one of the best jobs on the planet. I love teaching Spanish and my students are phenomenal. To top it all off, over Easter break I got to chaperon our school’s trip to France. Wahoo!

One of the chaperons who was originally slated to go couldn’t in the end and I was asked if I would be interested. I was going to say “Does the pope wear a funny hat?!”, but I work at a Catholic school and thought that might be in poor taste.

There were 27 students (none of them mine), two adults (parents of a student who wanted to tag along as a way of celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary), and four teachers. Only one of the teachers actually speaks/teaches French (she is Swiss), two teach Spanish and one teaches physics. We were pretty useless to our swiss colleague for everything except crowd control.

As you can imagine, I took many photos. Exactly 470. And 3 videos. I’ll not subject you to them all.

I used to be sort of a snob when it came to France. What I mean is that I thought it was waaaaaaay overrated, even though I had a wonderful time when I was there briefly in college. I don’t know what my problem was. But now that I’ve learned a little French and had the chance to go back and see it through students’ eyes it’s a whole different story. Better late than never, right?

We started in Paris with truly awful weather, cold cold cold! It hailed twice while we were there and the wind rarely stilled. But even so, Paris is wonderful.

Even Pizza Hut is pretty here.

We had some free time near the beautiful Place De L’Opera (pictured below). The Galeries Lafayette are also here, but I’m not much of a shopper.

The students were in groups of 3 or more and each group had a cell phone and an hour and a half to shop and site-see until we met again for dinner. The adults got to wander solo of course. It was awfully cold and I wanted some really good hot chocolate.

I strolled up Blvd Des Italiens looking at every cafe awning and menu sign for some signal that inside I would find the world’s best hot chocolate. Nothing stood out. A man stopped smoking long enough to ask me in French what I needed. “Je voudrais…” (I would like…). I suddenly realized that I had no idea how to say “hot chocolate.” I could say “the king and queen cook together” and “one two three four five…” and “Marie is not a good friend. She is a formidable adversary.” Frustratingly, none of these useful phrases was going to get me my cocoa fix. So I said, “Je voudrais… milk… chocolate… hot” and blushed a little I’m sure. How embarrassing.

The man dropped his cig and said “follow me” (in French). He sat me down and handed me a menu. 31 flavors of hot chocolate!! I ordered what you see below, one of the best cups I’ve had anywhere, orange and cinnamon hot chocolate. Judging by the mug it must have been the Italian Eraclea brand. Must have more…

The moment I was done I handed the nice man my euros and j-walked directly across the street to a book store where I bought a copy of “Instant French” much to the eternal amusement of our tour leader.

The next drippy, cold, wet, overcast day? Versailles.

Disturbingly, these peasants are being turned into frogs and turtles by Jupiter (according to Ovid’s “Metamorphoses“).

And dear Louis XIV, the Sun King, was a remarkable leader and really rather fond of himself. The palace is drenched in images of the king portrayed as a Roman hero, or a Greek philosopher, but mostly clad in tights and wearing that ridiculous wig. Sorry Louis!

Versailles is a sumptuous palace, almost exhausting in the busyness of its decor. I’ll only post a few pics here.

Well that’s enough for today. More France tomorrow.