Un Coup de Main

Back home in Missouri, life has the tendency to go a bit slower, and I've also lost track of the days sometimes. Especially when one is technically unemployed. There are things I've been doing to keep me occupied in addition to my endless task of applying to jobs. The first of these starts with a sad tale...

On May 22nd, I was at my grandparents' house in Northern Missouri. There were bad storms rolling through that stretched in a diagonal line from Southwest Missouri to St. Louis in the Northeast. We had the TV tuned to the news, ready to go down into their cellar if necessary. My cousins even showed up to use the cellar if a tornado were predicted to come by us. To those of you not in tornado alley, you know to dread the sound of tornado sirens. Since my grandparents live in the middle of the country on their farm, there are no sirens to be heard, so you have to rely on the tv for tornado warnings until the signal is lost due to the storm, and then switch over to a weather radio, if you have one. Well, that night, we were not directly in the path of a tornado that touched down about 30 miles from us, but we soon learned of the devastation that had fallen on Joplin. An EF-5 tornado blasted through that city, with a 3/4 mile wide track that went on for 6 miles. We watched the television as a storm chaser from The Weather Channel checked cars for anyone he could help in the parking lot of the St. John's hospital, and it was hard to imagine the destruction.

Soon, the storm had passed, giving way to a beautiful sunset on the farm, along with a faint double rainbow. Turns out, double rainbows were seen all along the path of the storm, even in the devastated Joplin. It's such an odd reminder that out of the ruins terrible beauty can be found.

Joplin is close enough to where I live that I could drive there in about an hour and a half. So, I decided to give a helping hand, un coup de main, when I could. When I drove through the city for the first time, my heart broke. So many people perished, so many more had no place to live, and so many had lost their jobs because of this act of nature. The majority of the time I've sorted clothes or helped people through one of the many food banks set up around the town for the thousands that found themselves homeless. One woman had given space in her home to over 10 people she knew that had been left without a place to live after the tornado. The outpouring of compassion for this town has also been amazing to me. There have been many days when I have felt useless because there are so many volunteers, which I think is an incredible thing. Talking to people, you can see that everyone wants to help: boy scout troops, youth groups, people even dedicate their family vacations to helping Joplin. So, in this case, it's a good thing to not be needed!

One day in early June, my mom and I both went to volunteer. We started the day by helping to remove the rubble of a destroyed neighborhood. We came prepared with work gloves, sunscreen, water, and we were given a face mask that turned out to be very necessary due to the smells of the rotting wood and other items in the ruins. There was really no good or bad place to start, so we just dug into the pile of mulch that had once been someone's home. I was pulling up pieces of ventilation, and underneath I found a purple teddy bear. He was pretty dirty, but he was still in one piece. I placed him among the items that could be salvaged from that home, and I hope that he has made his way back to the child that loved him.

One day, I was very touched by a pillow that was left on the curb by a tree that had been cut down in front of a home that would soon need to be demolished. The words etched on the pillow summed up how this community is pulling itself back together. It is the love that people feel for their neighbors that guided so many people to help in Joplin. I know that there is still a lot of work to be done in this city, but if people continue to share their time and compassion, then I think that there will be a bright future ahead for these people who have gone through so much.

Au revoir, France. Hello, unemployment.

I've probably been so slow at getting this blog up to date because I'm a bit nostalgic. I have things to write about from the time since I've been home, but this is the last post about France. I'm sure that there will be other France-related posts in the future, but for now, this is it. No more baguettes, Navigo, UGC, EuroDisney, pain suisse (aka drop, pavé bastille (près de chez-moi), ou gourmandise), Eiffel tower, Nôtre Dame, Montmartre, random areas of Paris. No more BIA, Crèperie Josselin, Maraichères, friends hanging out on Ile St Louis. No more guilt over not going to enough (or any) museums, no more green parks, no more uncomfortable train rides, no more commuting (reading) for 3 hours, no more two day work weeks. And while I'm very sentimental over this, I can't help but add No More Teaching!

Overall, I had a much better experience this past year in the classroom. The kids were better behaved (for the most part, I only really had one 'incident' where a student exposed himself to another student), and the teachers were more considerate in letting me know what was going on and how I could be more effective at practicing what they knew. But, every class was just a little bit different, and every teacher used me in different ways, that I never really got the hang of what they wanted from me. I think that I met or exceeded their expectations, but I still have anxiety over the fact that I wasn't doing the job well since I wasn't sure what they wanted.

In the weeks leading up to the end, I was invited on a few field trips with the students. I went to a couple of science exhibits, and learned that France is an area where there was once sea, and that there have been quite a few pre-history organisms found in the area. The main thing I gained from the field trips, though, was that I got to visit the Château de Fontainebleau, which was gorgeous. I think I might even prefer it to Versailles. The bus to go there was a rickety old thing, and we ate lunch in the gardens on the grounds. Even though we were on a field trip, lunch was still two hours, and the kids got to run around and play a form of tag that had to do with putting people in the dungeons, very appropriate since we were at a castle. We visited the castle in groups of 6-10, and after the tour of the castle, we waited outside for the rest of the groups. To keep the kids from being too restless, they were given pencils and paper to draw the castle. However, there were still kids running around trying to roughhouse.

The last day in class, one of the teachers asked her students how many of them liked English at the beginning of the year. Two raised their hands. Then, she asked them how many liked English now, and every single student had their hand in the air. She then sat me down in front of the classroom, and I said I felt like I was sitting on a throne, so a kid pulled out a cardboard crown he'd had from a play they did recently as a class, and I wore it while they went around the room and thanked me for teaching English. Now, that was really sweet! Some of the students got a little bit out of hand, saying that the regular teacher didn't speak English (even though she spoke VERY well), and that he wouldn't have learned anything if not for me. Well, it wasn't so great saying bad stuff about his teacher, but it was nice to know that he had a good time when I was in the class with them.

Other teachers used the last day for their students to draw me pictures to say goodbye. Some were generic, but others you could tell had a lot of heart in them. I also left an email address with the students, and I have about 10 that email me occasionally to see what's new.

In the rest of my life, things were a bit disconnected for the last couple of months. I visited a few places, like La Defense, just to visit them. I went to see the opera of Romeo and Juliet with my assistant friends. I had my friend Sarah from London stay with me for a night when she was in Paris. My fellow Spanish auxiliar, Sara, also came for a visit at the beginning of April and we visited EuroDisney. I wandered new areas of Paris, like the Parc de Bercy, which was quite near where I lived but where I had never been before. I went to the Musée de Rodin since I had never been, but I'd heard wonderful things, and I got in free due to my teacher discount.

Then, there was the last trip I took. Kelly, a friend who works at HEC now, accompanied me to Orléans for the Fête Medievale. I had wanted to go to this since I went to Orléans the first time in 2009. This is basically a two week festival, commemorating Joan of Arc's arrival and eventual liberation of Orléans. I had a colleague that was from the city, and she told me that it would have been better to have gone the weekend of May 8th, but I guess I'll just have to go back someday. As it was, Kelly and I went on May 1st, a Sunday. I had not really been able to find online where the festival was at, so we had to just walk and try to find it. We went by the cathedral, by the Loire, and around to different places. We narrowly avoided a protest, and we saw evidence of Joan's ride through the city earlier in the day. With all of this, it took us forever to find the festival.

Once we got there, it wasn't quite what I expected. It was held across the river, overlooking Orléans. It's cool that this is where the French camped out, back in the day when they were trying to liberate the city, but it was so far to walk to get there. The fête seemed more like an excuse for people to camp out for the weekend and pretend they lived during the 1400s. There were a few demonstrations going on, a few items for sale, but mostly it was people living their lives as it would have been over half a millenia ago. There were a few food stands, but the people staying there for the weekends had their pigs roasting on spits. There were a few hands-on demonstrations, like teaching kids how to shoot a bow and arrow, but there were also guys preparing for battle in their encampments (never mind that they were being taped by tons of cameras). Kelly and I wandered, and ended up laying in the grass for a while relaxing in the sun before the big joust began.

About 15 minutes before the joust, some performers came out. I guess the best way to describe them would be as animal tamers. The animals, however, were sort of dragon-like, and walking around on stilts. I was one of their unfortunate victims - as they walked around, they went to areas where people were sitting and tried to trap them between their arms and legs.... I guess instead of trying to get out I took the 'play dead' course of action. Part of me was thinking I'd knock the person over if I tried to get out, though. Pretty soon they went on to another group of unsuspecting victims.

The joust was all right. The theme was something to do with King Arthur and his knights trying to win Excalibur. I wondered if they were the same group I had seen in Tours in 2009, but there's not really a way to be sure. The most eventful part, in my mind, was that the center line had fire, and it caught the cloth on fire. There were people running to the railings every time the horses went by trying to stop the fire with sand, but it didn't do much good.

After the joust, I rushed Kelly to get back to the center of town. Joan of Arc was parading through the city again, and we caught up with her finally. The parade was full of boy and girl scouts, and once Joan got to the center of the city, she stopped and each troop came up to salute her. It was a pretty interesting ritual, in my opinion. When it was all over, Kelly and I went to a restaurant on the square, one of the only ones in town that appeared to be open. We then walked back to the train station, and I exchanged my ticket for an earlier train, but Kelly was unable to do change her ticket, too. So, we parted ways at the train station.

I then used the rest of my time to pack up, really. I cleaned my apartment (which was a waste, since my landlord still charged me for cleaning and took it out of my deposit), and I left Paris. It was bittersweet, really. I am ready to enter a new chapter in my life, but I was sad to leave this wonderful city and the friends I've made there, even if they've moved on to other places, too. Now I'm looking to start a career, and I hope that my experiences these past three years in Spain and France will count toward finding a position that will be a good fit. Until then, hello unemployment!

Amsterdam

Most backpackers would contend that a trip through Europe is nothing without a stop in Amsterdam. However, I think I went there with different intentions than most of those people: I wanted to see the tulips.

I guess I missed it in history class, or at least forgot it, but Holland is famous for its tulips, and it Keukenhof Garden is one of the most photographed spots in the world. With only about two weeks left in France, I decided that I needed to stop by Holland before I left.

I traveled by train to the city on the Thalys, which has an addicting commercial before movies in UGC cinemas right now:

Unfortunately, I didn't see a green glitter lobster on the train, but the ride went off without a hitch.

I arrived in Amsterdam and walked to my hotel, which was about a mile from the train station. I only had one minor hiccup along the way, and I got to cross over so many canals! After checking in at my hotel, I went to Burger King for supper, very typical, right? I guess I was most fascinated by the fact that everywhere, even fast food places, the employees greeted customers in English. It was somewhat as though Flemish didn't even exist.

The next day I started out fairly early and took my time walking to the pickup point for my tulip tour. Along the way, I came across a fair set up in Dam Square by the palace. I paid an arm and a leg for tickets to get on the Ferris Wheel, but then i got a few good aerial views of the city. I shared my carousel with a Hungarian woman whose husband was from Amsterdam, and we switched sides so that we each could get the different views of the city. She also gave me a few suggestions on what to do in Amsterdam, and I followed some of her advice the next day. Then, though, I was off to see the tulips!

On the bus to the Keukenhof Gardens, I got quite a bit of trivia. There are more bikes in Amsterdam than people. The canals in Amsterdam are 3 meters deep: 1 meter water, 1 meter bikes, and 1 meter mud (which might be true - there are plenty of youtube videos showing bikes being pulled out of the canal by huge cranes). Flemish is a language that no one wants to learn. There used to be a lot more windmills than there are today. The tulips fields are not in existence to cultivate the tulips themselves, but rather to cut off the blooms and harvest the bulbs for sale. We even drove by some old Sugar Silos that have been renovated into apartments, and now they're called Sugar City.

When we arrived at the gardens, it was packed! Il y avait du monde! It was a free day to get in, so I suppose maybe it would have been cheaper to not take a tour bus there, but you know hindsight. I decided to just wander the gardens. I took my time meandering through the colorful blooms, and I got a few snacks along the way (fresh strawberries, yum!). It was pretty hot, and I tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. Throughout the gardens there were many things to see and do in addition to looking at the flowers: a windmill to be visited, a petting zoo, a playground area for kids, and places to see more flowers indoors. They even had some clogs and clog craftsmanship demonstrations!

After about six hours, I had had a beautiful day wandering, but it took a lot out of me. One of the things I shoulda coulda woulda done was the boat rides on the canals through nearby tulip fields. I got to the ticket booth a couple of hours into my time there, and their tickets were already sold out until a half hour before I would have to leave, so it just didn't happen. I did get to see the fields from across the canal, though.

When I got back to Amsterdam, I decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for supper. It was fairly near my hotel, and I felt that I could get back to that area without a map. Well, I took a wrong turn along the way, and I got sooooo lost! With all of the canals, each section of the city was a bit like a little island, and I was on the right 'island', but I was on the opposite side of where I needed to be. So, after a lot of walking, I finally made it to the restaurant.

I had noticed that there was seating on the water, so I requested to go back there. It was a bit freaky - there was only about two feet of walking room between the table edge and the water, and my waiter told me that he had a buddy that worked there that had fallen into the water twice. Talk about job benefits! Anyway, I ended up staying a lot longer than I intended since my food never came out. The perk of that was that I got apple strudel and chamomile tea for free after my meal finally arrived. I wasn't really paying attention to the time between reading and people watching, but I'd hazard a guess that I was waiting for about an hour. It was rather fun sitting right on the water. There were 'party' boats that came by every once in a while, blasting music, trying to get attention, and it was fun to see all of the attention they received. At one point, a girl got onto one of the boats pretty near the restaurant. It's anyone's guess whether she was spontaneously joining them or if they had planned to meet her there.

My third and last day, I checked out early and went to do the canal 'taxi', or rather, the hop-on hop-off bus in boat version. It was nice to see the city this way, going past the house boats, and when my only real hop off was at the Anne Frank house.

The house has been renovated with the houses on either side of it so that you can walk up through the house like through a museum, and then walk back down through a real museum about the holocaust. The house is left unfurnished in respect of Otto Frank's wishes, but he allowed the house to be re-created with all of the furniture he had and there were pictures of how it once was in each of the rooms. The stairs were something that I was not expecting since they were so narrow and steep that it was like climbing a ladder. The hidden section of the house was hidden by a bookcase, and one had to duck down and step up to get past the low wall and up the stairs. The hidden part of the house was quite large, but at the same time, it was tiny for all of the people that were staying there.

It was heartbreaking to think about the devastation that came from the holocaust, and the struggles of this one family in particular. It is a miracle that Anne's diaries even survived, and we're fortunate that her father was willing to read them and remember her and share her with the world. Her diary is one of the most translated books of all time, and it was clear that people loved her just by how many people were at the museum. I believe I waited for over an hour just to get inside the house, it was that packed, and it wasn't even really a vacation time, so I can't imagine how many people visit it in the summer.

To brighten my day afterwards, I went to a nearby stand and got an order of fries along with a Dr. Pepper (score!). I ate that as my lunch as I waited for the next canal taxi, and I stayed on it throughout the rest of the city. I decided to get off at a place on the canal route map called the Sea Palace, which I thought might be an aquarium but turned out to be a floating Chinese restaurant.

From there, I walked back to the train station across a man-made island that is being built up into high-end apartments, cafes, and restaurants. I had a few minutes to kill before my train, and I realized I forgot to buy playing cards. I tried the tourist office first without any luck, then I went into a tourist shop of ill repute that mainly had racy or mj playing cards, but they also had one pack of innocent looking ones with the countryside on them. I went for the ones with the countryside. Then, I was going back to Paris!