Voilà Sarah, she comes from the USA.

           For the first time in 18 years I got ready for my first day of school not as a student, but as a teacher. I woke up early, and like a civilized human being, showered, had my breakfast, and made the commute to work. For those of you who know me well, or at least my sleeping patterns, you should know that my early-morning wake-up was not the easiest. I am the girl who schedules all of her classes after noon, sleeps in until the last minute, and often goes to class looking like a slob because she hasn’t left herself enough time to properly get dressed. Well, not anymore! Last Friday, my first day of school, I actually showered, dried my hair, and put on make-up. Now this is big.

As my school is not in the city of Strasbourg itself, I have to take multiple forms of public transportation to get there. I take the tram five stops, switch to a different line, go two more stops to the train station, and then hop a train to the little town of Saverne. From there, it’s a ten-minute walk to Lycée Général Leclerc. In all, the journey probably takes me about an hour, but with my Ipod on and a good book for the train, I hardly notice the time. En plus, the town of Saverne is adorable. It is incredibly picturesque, with small winding roads, little Alsacian houses, and flower boxes on every windowsill. It is one of the most authentic French “villages” I have seen. 

Downtown Saverne

          I made my way to the school around 9:45am. I was to meet one of the 9 English teachers in the “salle des profs” (teachers’ lounge) to begin my introduction to the school. It wasn’t until a few minutes into my conversation with Mme Girard, when we switched from French to English, that she realized I was American. “We were supposed to get a British assistant,” she said, “I am SO glad you are American!” Apparently all of the other teachers went through a similar state of shock upon hearing my accent. Luckily, they were all as pleased as Mme Girard.

Lycée Général Leclerc

        While I was meeting the other professors and getting shown around the school, I happened to meet the German assistant, Nadine. She speaks great English and seems really nice! (Dressed a bit like that guy in the Matrix though, all in black…) She’s renting an apartment in Saverne for the year (have no idea what she is going to do with her free time there, as there really is nothing to do), right down the street from the school. She is fresh from studying at Oxford for the past few years, so needless to say, I will not be needing to learn German to communicate with her. Phew. That language is much harder than it looks.

         Before going off to my first class, the English teachers had a few questions for me. Did I speak French? Yes. For how long? 20 years. Okay, well it’s safe to say that you speak well? Yes. Can you please pretend not to speak or understand French while you are in the classes? Sure...That way the kids will only approach you in English. If they know you know French, you will never teacher them English. Good to know.

         At exactly 10 o’clock the bell rang – time for my first class! I followed Mme Willé to Salle 11 to meet some of the “Terminales” I would be working with. As you might have guessed, they are in their last year of high school, mostly 17-18 year olds. My job is to help prepare them for their baccalauréat, the exam that all French students take upon their exit from high school. How well you do on this exam determines where you can go to university and what kind of jobs you will be eligible for in the future. Basically, if you fail, you are, for lack of a better word, screwed. I will be helping my students prepare for the oral part of their English exam, the part that French students seemingly have the most trouble with. If you’ve ever taken an AP language exam, then you know kind of what this part of the exam entails. You write about a text you’ve previously studied (in this case, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and then speak for 10 minutes about an unknown document that is presented to you right before the exam. This “document” could range from anything from a small text, to a picture, poster, or comic strip.

        In this first class, all of the students went around and introduced the person sitting next to them. To say the least, my ears were not at all prepared for the abominable English that trickled from their mouths. Not only the accents, which made the “English” practically impossible to understand, but also the way they formed phrases and sentences. They made a TON of mistakes. Well, I guess that’s why I am here. After they went around the room, it was my turn to introduce myself. I said where I am from, a bit about my family, what my hobbies are, etc. I’m not sure a single one of them understood everything I said, but hopefully that will improve. The second part of the class was devoted to the topic of immigration. Pertinent to discussions of the US right now, I suppose. The class had previously done a listening exercise in which two Americans, one an immigrant, and one from “immigrant stock”, talked about immigration in America today. The woman, who came from an immigrant family that had lived in the US for many generations, believed that new immigration was bad. The man, an Irish immigrant himself, believed that immigration was good. The class discussed the different viewpoints and they asked me a bit about immigration in America. I talked about where different groups of immigrants tended to go (Irish to Boston, Latinos to Miami, etc), and how the US was incredibly culturally diverse. The professor then asked if I would share my personal cultural heritage. When I said that I was English, Irish, Scottish, and German, the class burst out laughing. How could I be so many things? they wanted to know. Pretty much everyone in France is, well, French. They thought it was really strange that my family came from so many places. Oh, and to add to it, the teacher made them write down exactly where I was from and who came from where because they would later be tested on my heritage! Glad I did a little family research with mom before I came over…

        The second class was “Secondes”, mostly 15-year-olds, in their first year of high school. For the most part, they just don’t speak English. This might be the most difficult class of all. When Mme Girard introduced me to the class she said, “Voilà Sarah, she is our language assistant for the year. That is all I am going to tell you. If you want to know anything more, you’ll have to ask her yourself.” I must admit, this was a good way of getting them to actually put up their hands and ask questions, but what ensued what a jumble of English vocab words put into French grammatical context with the end result being something along the lines of gibberish. The first girl who raised her hand, in an effort to find out where I was from, asked, “Where live you?” This was followed by similar questions like, “Speak you French?” or “How long study you French?” Only one out of the 27 students in the class had ever been to the US. Most haven’t even been to Paris. They wanted to know how long my plane flight was to Paris, and when I got there, if I thought it was beautiful. I told them that indeed it is. Really the only things they know about the US are Obama, Johnny Depp and Eva Longoria, with a few more celebrities scattered in there, I'm sure. For the rest of the class, I attempted to decode their half-formed questions and give answers as to what my family was like, if I had pets, how long I will be in France, how many languages I speak, what other countries I have visited, etc. Needless to say, the list from Semester at Sea had a few jaws dropping in the classroom…           

        This exercise was followed by one about trends in the US. Today’s trendy topic? Crocs. Which, if I’m not mistaken, are on the way out in the US? Well, everyone in France loves them. They consider them trendy and expensive shoes. The exercise about the Crocs was pretty basic. What is this a picture of? What are Crocs? How many pairs of Crocs are there? Are there many colors? What colors are there? But getting the answers was like pulling teeth. I left already feeling overwhelmed that I would soon have these children on my plate for one hour a day.

But overall, I really love my new job! I left the school with a big smile on my face, eager to return this week. I like all of the teachers I work with, and I think I’ll find the experience rewarding.

Okay, so you remember how on my last post I said I wasn’t having beer again for a very long time? Well, that idea went down the tubes (and the beer down my throat) when my roommate Chrissy invited me to the Oktoberfest in Stuttgart, where her parents live. I couldn’t very well say no! I would just have to suck it up and go eat more French fries, bretzel, and beer. My life is very difficult, I know. So Friday after work, I set out from Kehl with my other roommate, Laura, to take the train to Stuttgart. In order to get the most inexpensive ticket, we had to take only the regional trains. So how long did it take us by train to go what is normally one and half hours by car? 5 hours. No, I kid you not.

We got on the first train from Kehl to Appenwier. A 10-minute ride. In Appenwier, also known as the complete middle of nowhere, Germany, we had a bit of a layover before taking another train to Karlsrhue. This one was a 40-minute ride. Felt like a year though because our car was infiltrated by a big German bachelor party. 25 men carrying crates of beer and partying it up on the train. Good choice guys, the Deutsche Bahn regional train. However, I must admit, if I was them, I’d think a party on a train was preferable to one in Appenwier as well. In Karlsrhue we switched one last time before the one and half hour ride to Echterdingen, where Chrissy’s parents live (short ride from Stuttgart). After our 5-hour-long journey (including tram, train, layovers, etc), we met Chrissy and her dad on the platform, walked a few minutes to their house, and were warmly greeted by Chrissy’s mom with a couple of glasses of champagne.

On Saturday we woke up late, had a home-cooked meal for breakfast, and then went with Chrissy and her mom to explore the American military base in Stuttgart. Chrissy's dad works as a civilian employed by the military here. The base was really pretty cool! We went into the BX/PX, essentially the Walmart of the whole place. They sell food, clothes, electronics, cookware, etc. Complete with a full rack of dirndls, lest you should need one for Oktoberfest. You name it, they have it, along with 30 different versions of the mini deep fat fryer. The one thing I didn’t expect though, was that everything is paid for in dollars, not euros. Makes sense, but I never would have thought of that!

Dirndl display

I must admit that I was most intrigued by the food. I wanted to see what American products these military men and woman just couldn’t live without. And what did I find? Well first off, ChexMix, for which I totally applaud these men and women – you have good taste. I miss ChexMix too. The other major culprits you’d expect to find – Doritios, Cheetos, Combos, etc – all adorned the aisles of the snack shelves. On the wine and champagne shelf, none other than my best friend from college, Andre. Oh how I did love those $6 bottles of champagne. On the toothpaste and deodorant aisle I was surprised to see over 30 different kinds of Crest toothpaste. I didn’t even know Crest made this many varieties, and yet here they were. The other things hard to come by in Germany? Halloween costumes. They don’t dress up for Halloween here, so the BX imported costumes from the US to sell to the kids and adults on base.

For a whiter smile

After our trip to the BX, it was time to go to the fest. Chrissy’s parents had a table reserved in their favorite tent, and we were meeting some of their friends there around 4pm. I told myself I was only going to drink one masskrug (each one liter), you know, nurse my beer the whole night? Yeah right. But we don't need to go there, do we?

Working on beer #1

We ordered plates of French fries and big roasted chickens, sang along with the band, and danced on tables. We also met a nice group of Italians (who believe I am their new best friend, I can’t tell you how many times I was invited to Bologna) at the table next to us, and played a few drinking games with them. 

My favorite t-shirt ever: I'm not 40, I'm 18 with 22 years of experience.

I think perhaps I might even like the Stuttgart fest more than Oktoberfest in Munich because it’s still so much fun, but it is more intimate and relaxed. There are less people crowding the tents, which makes trips to the bathroom, drink orders, and moving around the tent much easier. But the music is equally good, and the people are just as entertaining!

Chrissy and I at the fest!

Sunday morning rolled around way too quickly and we were off on the five-hour journey home. When we got in, all tired, dirty, and ready for bed, we barely even said goodnight before hitting the sack. It was an early morning this morning when I got up for day 2 of work, but that’s a story for next time…