What is the United States made of?

Just finished my first week of teaching! And now I'm on vacation, because this job is awesome. For the moment, I leave you with some of the best questions I was asked by the French kiddies this week:

What is the US made of? Like...brick? Or wood?
Could you not have taken a bus to get here?
Do you have candy in the US? What color is it?
And my personal favorite: Are there toilets in the US?

Back in France!

So I made it back to France. After way too much time in an embassy waiting room, packing stress, and annoying airport security, I landed safe and sound in Lyon almost 3 weeks ago. About a week and a half ago, I moved to Clermont-Ferrand for my orientation. Next Tuesday, I officially begin as an English language teacher (teaching assistant, technically, but I'm really going to be for realz teaching).

Here's a brief resume of the past 3 weeks:
I have played 2 ultimate tournaments and will play a 3rd next weekend.
I have a place to live! Which might be about 10 square meters. I move in this week, but meanwhile...
I live with French frisbee friends! Who are adorable and make me dinner and drive me places.
I eat McDonald's and ride trams and wish people would stop smoking on me.

Random rant fest

Okay, so I really just can't take this anymore and I need to let it out, so this medium is just gonna have to do. I don't know when this fad became so popular, but WHY is everyone suddenly freaking out about the misuse of the word "literally"??? Why is this suddenly a big deal? Why are people so offended by this particular word evolving a new usage? I don't think these same people wander around bitchslapping strangers for using hopefully in sentences like "hopefully she'll be here on Thursday", so why is "literally" so different? Are these Literally Nazis saying things like "From where are you?" to avoid ending sentences with prepositions? Are they using whom and who correctly? I'm sure a few of them are...but the vast majority have just gotten swept up in this truly weird fad that I cannot comprehend.

And then here's the other thing that really gets me: after some asshat crusader calls someone out on their misuse of "literally", the accused always seems to say "oh yeah, I know I use that word wrongly sometimes, it's a bad habit, hehehe". No one stands up to these pricks and says "hey, I'm sorry that you're a conceited bitch, but DEAL WITH IT". And frankly, that's what pisses me off the most. Because if you dare to correct someone's who/whom mistakes, you get "omg calm down no one cares about that stuff!" Well listen up, newest stupid fad to sweep the nation: NO ONE CARES ABOUT THAT STUFF. Unless it *literally* makes you incapable of understanding my sentence (see: mistakes likes 'eats, shoots and leaves'), GET OVER YOURSELF.

I feel better now.

Back in Atlanta

Things that I have thought in the past week that are not true:

1) It's the weekend. In fact, it's Sunday. No store is going to be open.
2) Not only is it Sunday, it's a national holiday. No store is going to be open.
3) Sales don't happen except twice a year, thus there are no sales right now.
4) It's almost noon. I shouldn't go anywhere for two hours in case they close for lunch.
5) The price that is listed on the tag or menu is the price I'm going to pay, because tax is included.

Clearly, I have not left France entirely behind.

If you don't love the French countryside, you don't have a soul

So, I traipsed off to the French countryside again from Monday until Thursday last week. I was near a town called Albi, which is basically in the midst of this region that's something like Tuscany, but in France. To give you an idea of how gorgeous this place is, I give you a street in Cordes-sur-ciel, which translates to "Cordes above heaven", thus named because when it's cloudy the town (which is on a hill, obvi) is above the clouds.


This town is one of the most beautiful towns in France. I don't know who decided that, but it's a widely known fact. It's also 20 minutes from where I was staying. Which was also 15 minutes on foot from a vineyard. The countryside looks, in general, like this:


Clearly, pictures can't do this place justice. For the second time in the past month, I was living in a dream in the French countryside. I don't know how anyone can leave this.

Oh, I am also one of the champions of the university division of my first beach tourney. Don't ask how many teams were our competition, the number would only blow you away.

What's wrong with starting a lemonade stand business in France?

So, I just made lemonade from scratch here. This was born from a conversation I had two days ago with a guy on my frisbee team:

Me: Man, I'd really like some lemonade right now.
Cédric: What? Why?
Me: Well, it's such a summer drink.
Cédric: Yeah, it's cool, it's refreshing, it's carbonated...
Me: It's carbonated?! What?
Cédric: Uhhh...duh. Wait...it's not carbonated in the US?

Thus we discovered that "limonade" and lemonade are not in fact the same drink. And so we bought some limonade so that I could understand what this weird (clear) bubbly French drink was, and then we made lemonade from scratch. This is why I love my life here.

Let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France

I spent the weekend in the French countryside, celebrating the 25th birthday of a guy on the frisbee team. It was a dream: it was sunny and hot, there was a little river we went to and threw discs in, and even though there were a lot of houses around there weren't that many people. Well, excluding the partiers, anyway...there were 30 of us. The party went from Friday night to Sunday afternoon, and I know at least a few people stayed up past 7am both days. I sang, I danced, I did a tequila shot with 30 year olds (my favorite thing ever is drinking with people who party like they're in their 20s but are actually 33). I dressed up as a Care Bear (Bedtime Bear, which in French is "Gros Dodo"). I ate burgers and sausages to my heart's content. I played a game that I need to find in the States so that I can take it to college...it's the ultimate college game. I watched card games that I didn't understand in the slightest.

I could spend every weekend out there and never get tired of it. Oh, and now I eat cherries. And drink coffee. And drink beer (which I feel is maybe not the accomplishment I'm the most proud of on this trip). 3 1/2 weeks is not enough time to spend here with these people.