Easy as tarte!

Started my day with a quick trip to my neighborhood bike shop to pick up my shiny, red, new (used) bicyclette. The man at the shop had cleaned it off, greased the gears, checked the brakes and made sure it was in tip-top shape. I took a quick spin around a couple of small streets, trying to avoid traffic, on my way back to the foyer. Fortunately, there's a bicycle garage for me to store it safe and dry, but unfortunately, it's not at the foyer location on my street, but down a block. Tomorrow I'm supposed to ask the woman at the welcome desk in my building if I'm allowed to lock my bike in the courtyard in my building. Apparently this caused problems in the past, but the really nice and helpful woman at the main building's welcome desk suggested I ask if I can keep it "discreetly" tucked away somewhere. That would be much more convenient that having to run down the hill, get the key to the garage, get my bike, return the key, and bike back up the hill to go toward town.

Next, in my ever-busy getting-settled period, I got my French bank account all set up this morning, after signing and dating about 50 different pieces of paper. Everything should be official tomorrow, although I won't be getting paid until the end of October.

Following a classic sandwich jambon fromage made by me, the other assistant who's here already and I set out to meet with our official contact person from the Ministry of Education office in this area. She turned out to be not a formidable French adminstrator, but a thoroughly hilarious, chatty and sharp character. She immediately spoke to us in very British-sounding English, and quickly apologized for what she said must sound to us (both Americans) like a horrible accent. She joked about the rediculousness of dealing with all the teachers in the district and how they all have the option to move from one school to another each year, so the paperwork that goes along with figuring out where everyone is is absolutely monumental. She said it's all supposed to be squared away by the beginning of July, but, of course, come the end of September, and it's still not all clear. Sometimes I think it's a wonder this country even functions, not to mention does pretty well for itself!

So she gave us our school assignments, and told us that we get to work out our own schedules with the schools, if we want to, or that since we were there and she had the time, she would call the schools and do it right away. She also let us know that she tells all the schools that we're not allowed to work on Friday afternoons, according to our contracts/the program. In reality, she said, she just wants us to have "a proper weekend." We both laughed and shook out heads in disbelief. In a similar vein, when "working out" the schedule with the schools, she called one, at which I will teach 2 classes, each twice a week, and found out they wanted me Tuesday and Friday mornings. They got first dibs. The other school, where I'll have 6 classes (also each twice a week), didn't answer the phone, so I get to go there tomorrow and tell them, that by decree of Madame Beatrice Star, I am to fulfill my time there on Mondays and Thursdays, full days. They need to arrange their schedules to accomodate me. She said, "you just have to be assertive, because they always want to make you change everything. Who cares if they have swimming class, it doesn't last all day!"

We'll see how it goes tomorrow!

This evening, the foyer hosted a little apéro, which is basically a snack-y meet-and-greet. There weren't too many people there, for the number that live here, but it was nice to meet some people anyway. There are several that are really excited some Americans are living here because they want to work on their English. Most who I met are working/teaching in this area, some as part of their formation for a degree in a certain field. The foyer likes it when residents propose different group activites to host, and there were resounding yeas for something like a soirée américaine or a dîner américain. Especially since, as one guy put it, "I read that Americans can cook now!" I'm not really sure what they'd want in an American dinner, but if I had an oven, I'd bake an apple pie!

...which gets me thinking, maybe we could do this as a Thanksgiving dinner... I don't think the French "do" pumpkin pie... That would certainly be a lot of fun! I'll have to work on this plan...