De Paris À Nancy

More insomnia – I didn’t get up until 9:30 am today. Normally, this would be fine on vacation, but I was leaving the city at 12:15 and wanted to see the Cluny Museum of Medieval History. By the time I ate and was on the metro, it was already 10:20 and I decided to turn around at 10:50. Good decision – I made it back to the hotel at 11:35, dragged my luggage down to the metro, and rode the subway to the Gare de l’Est (Station of the East). With 4 minutes to spare, I made it onto the train bound for Nancy but could not find the correct car of seat. A nice woman informed me that no one really cared about seating until after the first stop and that I would be fine as long as I had a ticket. One wonderful program that the French national rail service SNCF has is the Carte 12-25, a discount card for 12-25 year olds. It cost me a one-time fee of 45€ and I bought my ticket for 40€ instead of 70€.

At the station, I drank an Orangina soda and looked around for V, the English teacher was coming to pick me up. She was indeed there with 15 high school girls – her class for that hour. After the short walk to the lycée (high school), they tried to ask my questions like “Where are you from?” “How tall are you?” “Do you know any celebrities?” Though they had been taking English for at least 4 years, many could not manage with these simple questions. It will be quite an interesting year!

Then, V showed me around the school and took me to a local shopping mall so that I could buy a sandwich. She was very welcoming and willing to share any information that I asked of her. When we returned to the lycée, she had a French class to teach, so I hung out with the assistant principal. She is hilarious and loves to pepper her conversation with well-placed sarcasm. We had an hour-long discussion in French about the different solutions to social problems our two countries had implemented. A very interesting conversation, but a tiring one.

Since my room at the other lycée was not ready, I spent the night at the secretary’s home with her and her husband, a primary school teacher. They live in a country home which is more Sleeping Beauty’s castle (complete with spinning wheel) than the cute cottage I was expecting. We had a delicious meal of veal , potatoes, and carrots with a yummy sauce. They and their adult son were very chatty and asked my opinion of many things. I’m afraid my explanations began to become less clear as the night wore on and more wine was drunk by all. My first real day at work is tomorrow, as is the move to my new place.