my love/hate relationship with the morning news.

i watch wmur channel nine morning news every single day. i shuffle out of bed, to the shower, into whatever vaguely matching clothes i decide will camouflage the fact that i am trying desperately to play grown-up. or sometimes i just wear black. i justify this by spending two years in france, where black is the national uniform, but really because it's harder to mess up getting dressed before the sun comes up, and maybe because i am perpetually mourning the loss of endless summer days spent lazing on the beach wall, the cement soaking up the heat of the day like a sponge while i contemplate the very important passage of clouds and just how red the sunset might be as it falls over the ocean. instead i hiss angrily at the sliver of open window when the morning air rushes in and freezes the ends of my hair, because seasonally speaking, it's not even fall yet. 

kevin skarupa the weatherman is putting on a one-man show before me, a song and dance routine to entertain and inform while i mutely crunch my cereal. "first signs of frost in the north country," he announces gleefully, for his profession depends on the changing of seasons for survival, whereas i depend on sundresses and sunbleached hair. it is 5:57 am. i'm early today. i time my breakfast with the 6 o'clock broadcast, the news anchor lady shuffling her cue cards and laughing quietly at some bad joke, because no joke is actually funny before sunrise. i like to see if she's wearing some sort of outlandish jewelry that day, or a ridiculous dress that she chose to break up her routine, if only for one half-hour segment.  if i met her on the street, we would be on a first-name basis. "erin," i would say. "i wish i could get my bangs to look like yours every morning. how do you do it?" and i always wonder about the reporter who is perpetually on assignment in a far-flung corner of the granite state, battling wind or rain or curious bystanders as he repeats himself over police sirens. is he really that passionate about local news that he just can't bring himself to sit tight in the studio? or does he just really hate sports coats? 

this ensemble cast of characters is the soundtrack to brushing my teeth, packing my lunch, putting on my shoes, and it is simultaneously maddening and comforting. i know that the traffic always comes before the weather and after the economy, that baby animal or feel-good high school sports star stories are my cue to rush out to catch the train. every single morning i wonder how they do it, how they repeat the same lines every day off a tired script even when the plot changes by the minute. are they really not trapped in some perpetual deja vu, recorded on camera with microphones and fake smiles, "have a great morning" their cheery send-off becoming meaningless after the first two hundred takes? the routine of it all confounds me, even as it is my most trusted barometer to tell if i'm running late if i haven't put on mascara by the time the windshield replacement commercial starts to play.  i am sucked into their schedule, the complicated dance that is always transforming but yet never does, because if they can do it, why can't i? someday 5:27 will become old hat and i will go about my morning as effortlessly as the anchors, embracing the sameness in the face of the chaos of real life not prettily packaged in a news broadcast. 

this morning, during his topological tap-dance, the weatherman told me it was 38 degrees outside. i run to the relative warmth of the car, because i refuse to wear a jacket at this point in september, because i refuse to believe it's not still july, and i am slightly offended by the thermometer reading 50 degrees. "kevin skarupa," i say out loud. "you said it was going to be cold today. how dare you? i use you for all my temperature and wardrobe decisions." i feel cheated, as though the team of broadcasters narrating the hour from 5:30 to 6:30 has pulled a fast one on me, declining the role i gave them as my own personal morning commentators. but i ease out onto the road, not still dark, but not yet quite light, and the thermometer skyrockets downwards, settling at 38. i breathe a sigh of relief, knowing someday soon that that puff of air will be visible, cold crystallizing before the steering wheel. today is not the day channel nine will let me down. someday it will be me, grudgingly adapting to a new weatherman, a new anchor lady with different bangs, but for now, they are the team that gets me out the door when all i want to do is stay in bed. "maybe we'll change tomorrow," they seem to say. "maybe you will change tomorrow." but i have to tune in to find out.

meteor showers and polarfleece pants

"get up get up GET UP!" it is approximately 1:45am. beans barrels into my bedroom, complete disregard for the closed door and the late hour and the fact that i am dead asleep. what?! is the house on fire? did you bring me a strawberry frosted donut? is john mayer waiting for me in the driveway? all of the above? these questions translate to "mmmprfrgl go away i sleep now" as i roll over and put the blankets over my head. "but kimbo! the meteors, kimbo!" i crack open one eye and see her excited face, her hair piled wildly at the very top of her head like a classy sumo wrestler at fashion week, and she's bouncing from foot to foot and i know this is the one and only time she will ever be this excited about astronomy. absolutely worth it. we're going to see some meteors. 

naturally, because it is august, i put polarfleece pants on over my shorts, a jacket, and my ll bean wicked good slippers that make me look like dobby the house elf but are toastier than the mojave desert. beans wears neon gym shorts, because they are a beacon in the night, and also because she will forever wear gym shorts. (i not so secretly believe she picked her college major based on that fact alone.) beans grabs a pillow and the blanket off the couch, and we creep down the walkway like very poorly trained secret agents. neither of us will be sydney bristow for halloween. 

i am still blinking sleepily, my eyes trying hard to focus in the dark, the stars winking at me, saying "ha, sucker. you got out of bed for this." without a thought to the myriad of things that have been on our driveway (dogs, beer, motor oil, acid rain) she throws down the pillow and lays right down in the middle of the driveway in the middle of the night, dragging me down with her. we get comfortable, if that is even such a thing, digging pebbles from the small of my back and her hair from under my nose. the blanket is small and meant for one, so we burrow closer, pretending we are once again four and six years old, when a cardboard box was the perfect fort fit for the two of us. 

instead, we are terrifyingly older than that, twenty-one and twenty-three years old, scrunching ourselves under one blanket, sharing a pillow. if my toes are sticking out from the bottom, beans' shins must be glowing in the dark. even though we are far too big for that blanket, and now we occupy ourselves with scooping ice cream and filling the gas tank, searching for the perfect emoji and debating the best way to put on mascara and making emergency runs to the liquor store for margaritas at the kitchen table, it feels like we're kids again, trying to find the big dipper and the north star and whether or not that's an airplane or just a shooting star that occasionally blinks red. a rush of cold air seeps under the blanket as beans points up into the night, "see that, kimbo? did you see that one?" we try to keep a tally, but lose track of flashing meteors because the oohs and ahhs that escape our mouths are more important, and aren't shooting stars something too beautiful to be counted anyway?

a love letter to my french apartment

right after christmas, i moved out. after a year and a half of living with the most perfect french family imaginable, it was finally time to move out and brave the strange oddities of franceland all by my lonesome.  goodbye to three hour lunches (or in my case, breakfasts at 2pm… i have eaten far too many raw oysters and drank far too much red wine at "breakfast" that it has become frighteningly normal to swallow things that are still alive within an hour of waking up) and giant orange cats that sleep in the bathtub and adorable siblings with whom i had extremely in-depth conversations about both lego pirate ships and jared leto. knowing my time with them was limited, i ate everything on my plate and hung annoyingly around the kitchen like a sad puppy, trying to absorb nathalie's cooking skills through osmosis.  i lived in constant fear of being homeless after christmas, but after three months of stalking the french version of craigslist morning noon and night, i find two girls looking for a roommate via facebook, of all godforsaken internet things. i visit the apartment for the first time the day of thanksgiving, so i ditch the american profs' thanksgiving party and wander tipsily through winding streets and cafe tables. i ask for directions from three drunk students, and we play the game "where are you from?" after they give me shit for not even knowing my own city.  they're still shouting "south africa? the netherlands? iceland?" after me as i nervously ring the buzzer to hang out with the potential serial killers i met on the internet.  

the kitchen is minuscule: the stove is covered in pots and pans and questionably old pasta, the washing machine doubles as a cutting board and spice rack and mailbox and is home to seven bic lighters for the range and louise's cigarettes. wooden ikea bookshelves hold couscous and chickpeas and at least five bars of very expensive chocolate. good to see priorities are in order here at place du maucaillou. i think i'm going to fit right in. dishes are haphazardly piled in the sink; glasses blatantly stolen from the bar stand in line next to jelly jars that are now multipurpose wine glasses/espresso cups/ashtrays.  but by far the most impressive thing in the kitchen is the opposite wall: over one hundred post-it notes stick all the way to the ceiling, curling from the open window and months of international living.  the post-its are vocabulary words, quotes, toungue-twisters, and an extensive ongoing list of famous mustaches in history. the vocab is in french and spanish, accompanied by stick figure illustrations in various states of appropriateness, depending on the word.  the french girl is learning spanish from the spanish girl and vice versa, and i become the token american in the third bedroom. soon, english post-its fight for space, explaining tea and crumpets and swag and various obscenities that can't be repeated here but have become permanent fixtures while eating breakfast. "make a post-it!" becomes our catchphrase, and the guys upstairs think the girls on the fourth floor are certifiably insane, as they came to tell us to shut up one night when we were in a particularly loud post-it frenzy. 

rana is spanish, and is on exchange for a year in bordeaux. she is vegan and has longer dreadlocks than bob marley, and a "stop fracking" flag flies from her window. she has multiple piercings on her face, and every time she comes home with another one, we stare openly at it, in shock and horror and amazement.  she makes the most delicious walnut banana cake after finding the weirdest electric mixer at the flea market. we ponder its cleanliness until we try the cake, and say "to hell with questionable kitchen appliances, this is delicious." she makes most of our meals, a change from my meat and egg-loving host family, who ply me with protein every time i "pick up my mail," which is code word for "stay for dinner because you're looking a little skinny, what do you eat in that apartment anyway?" 

louise is french, and studies at the exclusive political science university. i learn this the hard way, when during my roommate interview, i tell a story of my own time at the university, where i am universally shamed for walking into a lecture hall carrying a little green child's notebook to take notes, and every other student is sitting behind a state-of-the-art macbook.  "next time, you should probably bring your computer," says a friend sardonically and rolls his eyes, meant to be both helpful and condescending at the same time. i tell this story, and louise bursts out laughing, telling me she goes to that exact university. as my eyes widen in horror and embarrassment and i calculate the closest escape route, she goes on to say she makes fun of the richy rich student population at least twice a day.  i quickly learn she is an anomaly in the regimented political science culture, arriving fifteen minutes late on a regular basis, "but never sixteen, because that's when they kick you out." her notes are strewn around the apartment, and i read about voltaire and education laws while brushing my teeth, because a lecture from november is permanently wedged behind the bathroom sink.  my morning routine isn't complete without hearing a crash from her bedroom, then her hopping around, talking to herself: "shit, louise, shit shit shit, where are your shoes? shit." one day, she almost runs to the corner store for cigarettes in her bra, and made it out the door until i catch her as i'm leaving for work, sending her back upstairs where she gets dressed and i return with her cigarettes. she is a mess, but the best kind, and we joke about how one day she'll be a swanky government official and make the front page of the paper, and i will absolutely know better than to believe it. 

the three of us spend far too much time drinking cheap wine and listening to gypsy jazz and ordering pizza from the moroccan place down the street, but hold the cheese on one, please.  the pizza guys know us by name, and see us in the city and yell our pizza toppings after us, which is either a sign of extreme customer loyalty, something to be proud of, or an extreme embarrassment, a clear sign from god to eat less pizza. we're still undecided at this juncture. rana and louise tell me it is perfectly acceptable and in fact necessary to be lazy, or "avoir la flemme." it is a unversal excuse, one that covers schoolwork procrastination to lesson plans to why we're eating pizza again to why showering today didn't happen. rana is in the middle of making a complicated hairpiece made of soda can tabs and bottlecaps, and throws it onto the table, exasperated. "la flemme!" she explains, rolling her eyes and sighing dramatically. i nod sagely, for it is sunday afternoon and i got up at 4pm and still have yet to plan my lessons. i understand.

it is quite a new concept for me, sleeping until 4pm in france, for i am used to my host brother sacha's recorder concerts, that only seem to happen at 8am on saturday and sunday mornings. though, there is no shortage of musical instruments in the apartment, for louise plays the saxophone, but conditionally. plays the saxophone conditionally. what does that mean exactly? exhibit a: i am sitting at the kitchen table when she comes home from school, bursts in the door, and throws her books all over the breadcrumbs and jelly and drops of espresso left over from breakfast. "putain de journée de merde!" she exclaims, which roughly translates to "what a terrible, horrible no good very bad day," with far more colorful language worthy of "the departed." "are you okay?" i venture, terrified of scary louise. she doesn't answer, just goes to her room and pulls out her saxophone, and proceeds to let out the most heinous, earsplitting noises i have ever heard. even to my untrained ears, there's no tune, no melody, just very loud noise. the saxophone is her stress relief, and after thirty minutes of what sounds like a herd of elephants committing suicide, she returns to the kitchen, a smile plastered to her face, as she asks "...and how was your day?"

there is a post-it on the back of the kitchen door that says "état des lieux 14h30" but means "kimberley moves into the apartment." it is the post-it note to remind us to clean our rooms because marzat the landlord is coming to make me official, and months later, once i am a permanent fixture in the apartment, we have a party and someone tries to take down the post-it. "what is this? wasn't this months ago?" he asks, and starts to pull it off the door. "NOOOO!" shout rana and louise, and louise tackles him into the stove while rana whips around and hits him in the face with her dreadlocks. "that's the post-it note for when kim moved in!" says rana. "that's never coming down, absolutely not," says louise, and at once i am hit with the realization that the three of us living in a subpar walkup where we have to shower in the dark because the light bulb blew one day and we make up ridiculous stories to piss off marzat the landlord and we eat reheated pasta at 1am has become my life; the realization that these girls i met on the internet will defend me from post-it note snatchers and practice their english with godforsaken accents and drag my suitcases to the train station at 6am, hungover from too much goodbye wine and running after my train as i leave france for the definitive future, waving and trying to follow me to paris on foot, if not for louise's pack a day habit that leaves her wheezing in bordeaux. banging on my window, a conductor is yelling at the two of them as they call "à la prochaine!" or "until we meet again!" i think of my vegan protein deficiency and the white blouse i lent louise that i'll never get back, and i sincerely hope we do indeed meet again, the girls at place du maucaillou.

march vacation!

spring break in france means two glorious weeks of vacation from the craziness of teaching, but in absolutely no means does it mean relaxing. this is my last free two weeks in europe for the foreseeable future, and i have to take advantage of it while I can. i embark on a whirlwind 12 day trip to portugal, the uk, norway, poland and sweden, because when else am i going to have the chance to go to warsaw for the weekend? probably never. planning this trip, we frantically search the lowcost airline ryanair’s website for ridiculously cheap routes, and somehow  find a fairly coherent itinerary that leaves us with no more than 48 hours in each city. short but sweet, considering our flight to poland cost approximately five dollars. 

ryanair is the low cost airline par excellence, and even though they are extremely popular in europe, I have absolutely no idea how they manage to stay in business with five dollar flights. luckily, i was not a business major and I don’t particularly care, so I lean back in my seat and try to get some rest before the whirlwind trip. with ryanair, in addition to the crying babies, revving engines and coughing passengers, you have to deal with being a constant consumer. flight attendants are of all nationalities, and they are incessantly parading around the plane selling sandwiches, vodka, perfume, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and train passes in various accents.  maybe this is how ryanair turns a profit – by selling cigarettes at 30 thousand feet to panicked europeans who will smoke them immediately after the cabin doors open.  ryanair also has one bag policy, meaning that you carryon does not mean carryon plus handbag, only carryon that must, furthermore, fit in the weird size cage before you get on the plane. otherwise you must unpack in front of everyone and wear approximately half your suitcase on the plane; it is in these moments I am extremely glad I don’t carry a giant pocketbook with a million things I don’t need because I would most certainly have to chuck it all to make my five dollar flight.

first stop, portugal. do i speak portuguese? absolutely not. after five days all I know is ‘obrigada’ which means ‘thank you’ which at the very least is better than knowing ‘you are terrible and so is your entire family’ because I believe that when you are walking into a store with a giant northface backpack like a very american bull in a china shop it is best not to blatantly insult the locals. city number one is Porto, home of port wine and lots of cats. our couchsurfing host, miguel, picks us up from the airport and immediately makes us a three course meal for dinner, as if we were dear friends he hasn’t seen in years. in reality, we met him fifteen minutes ago, wandering around the arrivals gate looking for a man with a black puma sweatshirt. side note on couchsurfing, especially for my mom: couchsurfing is an extremely european invention that I cannot imagine would ever work in the states. even after two weeks, it still seems a little strange to me; i’m waiting for somebody to tell me theres a catch, terms and conditions I didn’t read but accepted anyway, that the premise of sleeping on someones pullout couch or spare room for free is too good to be true. but its not; the only cost to you being an awesomely written profile on their website, polite requests to stay at someones apartment, and small talk with your host when you return to their place, completely exhausted after a day of traveling or touristing or trying to speak portuguese.

miguel is our host in porto, and he regales us with tales of his travels to iran, photo albums of waterfalls in the portugese countryside, and his side project of multilingual rap songs.  It is a lot to take in at once, but we have no idea, for next he takes us to a traditional portuguese folk dancing club, housed in a magnificent restored mansion that kept the gilded chandeliers and elegant winding staircase and fancy wallpaper. the DJ plays traditional portuguese folk songs, and no matter what he plays, every single dancer seems to know exactly what to do. It is an intricate, multi-person kaleidoscope of both young and old weaving in and out seamlessly, as if they all have the password and know the secret to being exquisite dancers and aren’t telling anyone else. i am absolutely terrified as i carefully cross the room, attaching myself to the wall and praying that no one will snatch me up and place me in the middle of this beautiful dance where everyone knows exactly what to do but me. i imagine the train wreck that would derail this entire operation if i had to dance, and never before have i wished so much that my hair was green paisley that blended seamlessly into the wallpaper, garden state style. thankfully, due to the sheer terror i'm sure was on my face at the prospect of organized dancing, a million times worse than the forced square dancing in high school gym class, i am spared from portuguese folk dancing and live to see another day. miguel brings us home and we trudge through his garden in the dark until there is a sharp crunching noise under my feet. uh oh. did I just step on a treasured possession? a portuguese traditional rock-flower that only appears once every seven years if the moon is full? i'm already deciding how difficult it would be to find a hostel at this time of night after miguel throws us out for violently destroying his great grandmothers garden gnome, a family heirloom passed down through generations. but he just laughs and says “don’t worry, you probably stepped on a snail.” what a relief. I did indeed step on a snail, for the evidence is smeared all over the sidewalk the next morning, the crime scene on the bottom of my birkenstocks.  

in the morning, miguel picks oranges from his garden and we make them into juice using an old school juicer that wouldn’t be out of place as a prize on the price is right in the 1970s. we eat another five course meal, breakfast with homemade bread and kiwi-pineapple jam while miguel pulls a sitar out of nowhere and closes his eyes and picks out a melody that would probably win a grammy if he was performing it in a recording studio instead of the kitchen in his pajamas. i try not to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, especially when after breakfast, he shows us his chicken coop-turned-steam sauna and we play with his cat named khakis (car keys? i'm still not sure) he drives us to the city and buys us deep-fried cod and i am still picking the tiny bones out of my teeth in a valiant effort to not choke and die in portugal, since the only word i know is thank you. “miss, we regret to inform you that you have pierced your esophagus with tiny fish bone spears.” “…thank you…?”  

we take a walking tour with andre, an interior design student who shows us gardens and where he buys 50 cent beer at university and the bookstore that inspired jk rowling for dumbledore's office.  apparently rowling lived in porto for a few years with her portuguese husband and the winding staircase in the bookstore librera lello immediately recalls dumbledore's turning stairs.  andre takes us down beautiful winding streets and up many staircases and through gardens so green you'd think you were in ireland if not for the fact that i'm still picking the goddamn cod bones out of my teeth.  suddenly in a surprising show of athleticism i don't expect from an interior design major who drinks 50 cent beers every thursday, he scales a ten-foot iron link fence so fast i don't think it's real. "ha," i literally say out loud, fake bravado to hide the fact that i really hope he's just doing this to be funny, "showoff. unlock the gate." "no can do," he replies easily. "you've got to climb it. it's the only way around." JESUS. i think to all of the climbing experience i have (spoiler alert: it's zero) then to my athletic ability (i literally can't remember the last time i went for a run… which side of the atlantic are my sneakers on?) and the wall seems worse than boot camp naked while reciting the periodic table. through some act of god, i climb the fence - not without a life flashing before my eyes moment when i heave my leg over the top and wonder what the hell i am actually doing - and proceed to brag about it for the rest of the day as if i just ran the boston marathon and beat all the kenyons through beacon hill. 

we meet miguel for dinner and he takes us to the ocean (no wait seriously, i know i climbed a fence today, and i'm badass now, but are you really going to make me fish for my dinner?) where we eat sardines and cod and squid in a hole-in-the-wall local place where the waitress speaks absolutely no english and puts an entire sardine on my plate - head and eyes and tail and how do i eat this? i grew up in new hampshire, i can open a lobster with the best of them, but this is an entire fish - and proceeds to cut it for me while making vaguely soothing noises as if i were two years old and she will then spear it with a fork and "airplane" it into my mouth.  the sardines are delicious, and by the end of dinner she proudly looks at my plate - a disgusting graveyard of fish vertebrae and eyes and tails - and gives me a thumbs up. that much is universal.

whoever thought going from portugal to norway at the beginning of march was a good idea obviously wasn't thinking (us) or broke (also us). in norway, we immediately put on all of our clothes so it is impossible to cross our legs or walk like we are not ralphie in his red snowsuit from "a christmas story." we are supposed to meet our couchsurfing host rakel at the train station, at the bottom of her stairs with her black and white dog.  but it is midnight, and she is exhausted, and texts us directions instead. easy enough, we think. we're good at adventures. bring it on! NOPE. we get off the train and she tells us to take the path with the trees until you come to a road and turn left… WHAT.  first off, there's nothing remotely resembling a path, but there are a trillion trees because we are actually in the norwegian forest. it is midnight and everything is covered in a foot of snow and the "path" (very loose definition) is completely iced over, making every blind step in the dark carrying all of my possessions a slippery gamble for my life.  obviously i fall down because my shoes are not ice picks and my tailbone absolutely hates me (you'd think all the cake and chocolate i eat would provide some semblance of padding in the off chance i ever go night walking in norway, but apparently not) so i take two advil every day for the rest of the trip because i'm 85 and need breakfast before my back pills. we finally arrive at rakel's apartment with a giant "beware of dog" sign on the door to find the friendliest dog i've ever met and go directly to bed, where i have constant nightmares of falling on my already bruised tailbone yet again and having to explain myself in norwegian to passing strangers while the theme song from deliverance plays on a constant loop. 

in the morning, rakel makes us an ikea crackers breakfast and we get ready for our hike. she puts on underarmor and a giant one-piece snowsuit, as well as giant black combat boots that could withstand nuclear winter, and i am immediately unprepared. my birkenstocks and classy wool coat from h&m absolutely do not make the cut.  rakel's friend tamam meets us, who i find out is a political refugee from syria (just add that to the list of the ridiculously bizarre things that are happening on this trip) and we start off.  we pick up vegetables to barbecue at the supermarket, and i make tam am hold my hand the entire way to the hiking trail because the roads are ice and death. the conversation goes something like this. "hi, i'm kim, i teach english in france and i am completely unprepared for what is about to happen. you, i met you approximately 20 minutes ago, but we're going to have to hold hands all day long. i hope you're down with that, because you don't really have a choice." thankfully, tamam doesn't mind, and helps me skate through the backwoods of oslo relatively unscathed.  the hiking is beautiful, and everything is clean and white with snow crunching under our feet. cross-country skiers pass us and so does a group of kindergarteners, looking like fluorescent pink and blue bubbles in their snowsuits, sliding along like baby penguins.  we make a campfire and cook our meals in tinfoil and whittle branches to host hot dogs, which are a huge thing in scandinavia, who knew? i can't remember the last time i made a campfire outside of girl scout camp, and it is either incredibly peaceful, to be in the wilderness after hopping from city to city to city like cockroaches, or my brain has partially frozen, which is a very distinct possibility.  i can no longer feel my feet, but i have eaten three hot dogs and some potatoes and grog (norwegian wassail spiked with red wine) so frostbite is merely an afterthought.

the next day we are off to poland, but rakel's apartment, if you haven't guessed it from the norwegian forests, is too far from the center of oslo to make our flight the next day.  we wander around the supermarket in the train station, killing time by looking at meat in tubes (think bacon paste with a twist-off cap… or better yet, don't think of it…) because we're taking the 3:45am train.  turns out the station closes at 1am, but the bus station does not, so we pack up and move camp to the bus station, where we play increasingly terrible games of would you rather until two men from the norwegian salvation army come around with chocolate rolls from the 7-11 across the street, and they are the most delicious things i have ever eaten at 2:30 am, every single halloween warning about taking candy from strangers (taking pastries from bearded norwegian men in a bus station?) immediately forgotten.

when does one day end and another begin if you don't sleep? these are the incredibly deep philosophical thoughts i write in my notebook as we are sitting in the norwegian airport, very much delirious, cracking up about bad children's tv in the 90s and characters from arthur and dust bunnies under the big comfy couch, effectively terrifying all the calm, collected europeans who can manage taking a flight at 7am after being up all night. we, as it is becoming very clear, cannot. poland is snowy and there are smoking lounges in the airport (are we in soviet russia? did we fly over the iron curtain?) and we cannot pronounce a single thing, because who in their right mind puts a g in between two z's and a k and calls it the name of a bus station? we pass the time making up complete bullshit about polish linguistics and why some vowels are crossed out and how do you really pronounce w, anyway? we are ten thousand percent exhausted, but power through poland, becoming catatonic eating pierogies in old town warsaw while the waitresses are dressed like german barmaids and don't understand why we are asleep sitting up at 8pm. 

last stop is sweden, where we can breathe because we have two and a half days, rather than 18 hours, so we take luxurious showers (hygiene is something that did not happen in warsaw… never have i ever showered in poland) in a completely ikea-furnished apartment, obviously.  we find out that ikea plays the political game, for sweden hates denmark so all the ikea things that go under beds and people step on constantly (bath mats, underbed storage, anything under two feet high, really) is named after a city in denmark, while all the fancy important things (beds, shelves, meatballs) are named after swedish cities because they're obviously letter. nice subliminal messaging, ikea. everyone in stockholm is ridiculously gorgeous it's unfair. the ferry operator walks by and we stare at him with our mouths open - he should be a sweater model in ll bean magazines, not wearing waders and driving a boat to old town. it is actually freezing in stockholm, and we continue our very chic trend of wearing every article of clothing we own because it is -17 celcius which is SO COLD in fahrenheit, if 0=32. we meet our couchsurfing host teresa at an english bar in sodermalm, stockholm's brooklyn, where we watch a stand-up comedy show of varying skill levels, but it is free, and i speak english, so it works. a very elderly man gets up on stage and holds up his hand like a puppet and starts mumbling schizophrenically at it in english? swedish? still unknown after a good ten minutes of trying to figure out if this guy is for real. after he finishes his set, he crosses in front of the state during every single comic that follows, because he's old and doesn't give a shit.

i return home via london with two hours between our plane landing and the departure of our night bus to paris.  i slap on my trusty knee brace that got us through speedy gonzalez first-class airport security last time i was in london, and hope for the best. we try and buy bus tickets, but i am so exhausted i no longer understand english. "nine pounds," says the frazzled guy working the ticket counter, definitely counting down the seconds until he's on break. what? i see his mouth moving but haven't the foggiest idea what is coming out of it. name plate? what the hell is that? name piece? i show him my passport, confused, as he gets increasingly more pissed off because this american girl doesn't even understand her native language, and repeats increasingly loudly "nine pounds! nine pounds! nine pounds!" until i give up in distress and look at melissa, who is yelling "PAY HIM" and it finally gets through my head that yes, i do indeed need to pay for a bus ticket.  the minutes tick by on the bus while we read british newspaper articles about people going to work in their pajamas and we take the scenic route, which would be much appreciated if we didn't need to be crossing the english channel approximately two hours from this exact moment, and we look at big ben and the london eye and westminster, a five-minute refresher course in case we forgot what london looked like back in november, all lit up at night.  

we get off the bus and sprint, amazing race style, to the bus terminal, as our international megabus leaves in approximately four minutes.  melissa is ahead of me, telling the bus driver to not leave without us, and i'm still wearing my knee brace, sprinting my best to keep up, all of my athleticism used up for the next ten years between this, the norwegian ice hiking and climbing gates in portugal.  the bus driver takes pity on us and checks our passports and tells us that we should show up a half hour early next time - HA - and we celebrate our last victory, making it onto the bus approximately 1 minute past departure time, starving and sweaty and forever wearing eighteen layers of clothes. at 2am we disembark the bus for passport control and a run to the convenience store, where we are warned we have ten minutes before getting on the ferry to cross the english channel, so we grab granola bars and kinderbuenos (always good in stressful situations) and run back to the bus, another deadline just barely accomplished. the ferry is apparently a party boat, and it smells like a bad college party, for it seems every 18 year old in london wants to arrive in paris at 7:30am, completely wasted. we are so old, and collapse in plastic chairs and try to sleep while animal house rages on while we are crossing the english channel at 3:30 in the morning. i guess this is what happens when you buy international megabus tickets. finally, FINALLY, we arrive in paris, a welcome respite where everyone speaks a language i understand, with a knowledge that my bed (and not someone's couch) is a mere three hours away in bordeaux.  the whirlwind european tour comes to an end, and so thankfully do the falling on ice nightmares and the pain in my tailbone, but the snow stains on my birkenstocks, the sleep-deprived inside jokes and hard-earned stamps on my passport remain.

i am back in bordeaux!! teaching middle school english with a giant backlog of blogs (how's that for alliteration?) scribbled crazily on the back of grocery receipts and train tickets and my little black notebook. here's just a bit of what i've been up to since i've been back in france. more to come!

october:

i have become an undisputed expert at the minute details of my own life. i am spelling my parents' names in my sleep, i know exactly how to pronounce "boston" so as to get "ah! les celtiques!" as a response, i can write my sister and my cat and my best friend on the board without even turning around.  (i have also spent approximately an hour teaching my kids the difference in pronunciation between "ellie" and "haley," because everyone thinks my cat is my best friend and laughs ridiculously)

 i have been teaching middle school in france for two weeks, and i have just finished the "who's the blonde girl?" presentations to my sixteen classes. normally, it begins as such: "hello everyone, my name is kim, i am the english assistant, i am american…" cue the fanfare, the audible gasps and whispers that are definitely not in a six inch voice. most english assistants come from england, as it is only a train ride away rather than a transatlantic voyage. the professors, as well, have all learned their english from semesters in london or leeds (except i do have one who spent a semester in indiana, of all godforsaken places, and there is a giant billboard of las vegas hanging precariously over the blackboard) so a real live american is quite the exciting prospect for kids in a rough and tumble suburb of bordeaux. 

in every single class, i am faced with twenty-two hands frantically waving at me as if they couldn't possibly make it through the day if they don't ask me their very pressing question.  this very pressing question, of course, completely escapes them as i pick one at random (though i have a soft spot for those wearing vintage american flag sweatshirts) and he looks at me with very big eyes, mouth open slightly, not expecting to actually be called on.  i can see the wheels turning in his head as if his brain were going through the x-ray machine at the airport, he turns to look at his friend, a desperate SOS call that is promptly dismissed because he doesn't know either, followed by wild pleas to the professor in rapid-fire french. "madame, i don't know, i don't remember, i don't understand" she shakes her head, no french here, and he looks at me again, and asks, "euhhh, what you happy day?" extremely pleased with himself, he leans back in the chair, crosses his arms, and smiles smugly at his friends - see? i can talk to the american teacher. now, it is my turn to be completely stupefied. what in the hell is he trying to say? i haven't the slightest idea. "pardon? can you repeat the question please?" i ask, desperately hoping a stroke of brilliance, or at least basic comprehension, will come over me in the next thirty seconds. "'appy birfday?" he offers sheepishly. "what you happy day?" "ohhhh, what is my birthday?" many eager nods. "april 8," i reply, happy that both he and i made it through one question relatively unscathed. 

then come the typical american questions: "do you live next to california?" absolutely not, the furthest west i've ever been is philadelphia and i'm pretty sure you can see the atlantic from there. "do you see famous people?" yeah, i have beyoncé on speed dial, let me call her up right now. "do you know barack obama?" yup. he lends me air force one sometimes. and my personal favorite: "did you come to france in a helicopter?" YES. yes i most definitely did. it's parked outside. take a look. some students don't say anything at all, as is the case of two girls in the back who don't say a word for the entire period. then, as the music plays signaling the change in classes, they shyly wander up to me, and ask in halting english, "can you take us back to america with you?" their faces, so hopeful, and their grammar, so confused, instantly make me regret all my snarky comments about beyoncé and helicopters. "sure," i say, just barely bending to their level, because they are eleven and almost as tall as i am, "i can fit you in my suitcase." they smile as if i just told them that one direction was going to be in the cafeteria, and run away, shouting "au revoir! euhhhh, non, good-bye!"

december:

i have never spent more time in a teacher's lounge in my entire life. the salle des profs is the spot for gossip and three-course lunches and drinking copious amounts of wine in the middle of the day.  i am completely serious about the wine, except sometimes it's champagne. week one, my second day of school, it was a teacher's birthday. the next time, a wedding anniversary. and the next, second semester schedules came out and nobody was happy, so therefore wine was necessary.  the last time, an angry mother wrote a nasty editorial about the middle school that was not true in the slightest, and everyone drank while it was read aloud.  the mini fridge in the room is stocked to the brim with alcohol.(i cannot even IMAGINE the uproar that would occur if this was happening in the states… granted i've never been a permanent fixture in an american teacher's lounge, so american teacher mini fridges might also be loaded with wine and i have no idea…) 

furthermore, it is essential to specify that this on-the-job drinking happens not at 5pm, when most teachers are done with class for the day, but rather 12 o'clock sharp.  the first time i was offered alcohol, my first week on the job, for corine's birthday, i refused the red wine in the little plastic flutes that hold permanent residence under the academic calendar and next to the printer paper.  trying desperately to make a good impression for my new colleagues, "oh no, i really shouldn't," i say, every inch the apologetic american, very focused on her work (and on the clock, currently reading 11:58) and then i let out what is surely the most appropriate, highly professional response, "i have class at 1." silence. everyone looks at me, stunned, and promptly bursts out laughing. "us too!" they cry. "don't worry about it, it's just one glass!" "…or maybe two…" mumbles the bald computer teacher in the back of the room, sneakily on his third glass.

february:

teaching in france really depends on the day. some days my lessons are meticulously planned down to the minute, and the kids understand perfectly, and they jump out of their seat wanting to write on the board and talk in front of the class. (side note: there is nothing fun about blackboards.  yes, they might be hipster and old-school for two seconds on  pinterest, but chalk gets all over my black clothes and coat and in my hair and i am faced with just how awful my handwriting is on a daily, very public basis and i dream at least once a week about whiteboards) 

other days, it is absolute crazy town.  i have received texts from professors thirty minutes before class, while i am on the tram on the way to school, asking me to prepare a lesson on a totally random subject i know absolutely nothing about.  once i gave an hour's presentation on immigration in the united states with absolutely no knowledge except that it cost $5 less for irish immigrants to sail to boston instead of new york city, a fact i learned from a bus driver in limerick and i still don't know if it's true. one terrifying day, i had to present the life of queen victoria of england armed only with the first paragraph of her wikipedia article. so it depends. mostly, my students are well-behaved, if chatty. i try to put myself in their shoes, at HAJH listening to some lady blabbering at me in a foreign language, and i would probably be chatty too. 

last week, however, was a different story.  first, full disclaimer, i don't know 90% of my students' names.  in my defense, i have 16 classes a week, with approximately 20 kids in each class, that i only see for an hour a week.  there's no possible way i could know all their names. it's just never going to happen.  it does, however, make me feel slightly like a baboon, because my preferred method of teaching is the point and "you!" …effective? not so much. regardless. i had one student last week who would not stop talking to the others and taking their pencil cases and tipping her chair and generally being a giant pain in my ass. she was an instigator and making everyone else mad and stumbling over themselves to tattle on her to me, entirely in french, bien sûr. "madame, she did this!" "madame, she took my eraser!" "madame, she called me this!" some days i feel more like a ringleader than a teacher, trying desperately to make sure my train wreck of a classroom doesn't derail into a catastrophe. sometimes the teachers aides come in to pick up the attendance slip at the exact moment i am trying to tame the zoo animals i call my students, and laugh knowingly, (and probably judging slightly, but i prefer to ignore that) tossing a "good luck" over their shoulders as they escape into the serenity of the hallway. 

now, let us speak of the hallway.  the girl creating a hurricane of chaos is remarkably deaf when i tell her to turn around and please read number three, but has superhero hearing when a boy in the back snickers and makes a snide comment.  she whirls around and starts yelling at him, arms in the air, hands and pg-13 rated curses flying liberally through the air (i would be much more accepting of this outburst if she yelled at him in english…) i rap on her desk and tell her once again to turn around and be quiet. she looks at me, eyes wild and thinking of her next insult, puts up her hand, and says "wait" in casual french, the tu form that should never be used with a teacher. yes, i realize i could pass for fourteen and most of the girls and all of the boys are taller than i am, but "wait" plus the hand? no way, girlfriend. that's not going to fly in my classroom. i tell her this, in english, and receive a glazed response.  they realize i'm mad, because i never shout, but i sound remarkably similar to the teacher in charlie brown (wah wah wah wah wah) to them.  i then perform the most magical of all the teacher tricks i have up my sleeve - i repeat everything i say to her in french.  now, i'm not supposed to use french in the classroom at all, in fact, i'm to pretend that i speak absolutely no french at all. this ruse worked better in september, as i have occasionally slipped up and laughed at a joke a student made in french, or responded to a teacher in french during a fire drill (in which only one out of twenty-five of my kids fell down the stairs and had to go to the nurse! success! but seriously kid, nothing is ACTUALLY on fire. cool your jets.) 

i speak sharply (i really hate the word "yell" but i'm sure it happens the days that there's no more tea and the tram is late and my kids are throwing paperclips at each other) to mariana, thanking god that she is the front row and i can see her name at the top of the paper so i can yell at her using her actual name and not just "you." i slip swiftly into teacher-mode, using words like disrespectful and un-called for and pointing very dramatically first at her, then the door, which is easily understandable in any language, and i send her out in the hallway, where there is a sliver of a window so i can make sure she doesn't use her newfound hallway freedom to escape the prison that is middle school (can you imagine the search party? all because the american teacher can't discipline her class? i shudder at the thought. multiple times a week.) the rest of the class continues swimmingly, for thirty blissful minutes and i metaphorically pat myself on the back for not being a completely dreadful teacher, until a small boy timidly asks "madame? is mariana going to stay out there the whole class?" OH MY GOD. I FORGOT ABOUT MARIANA. whooooops. i give the kids more work to do, and go find mariana in the hallway, where she's pouting impressively at her shoelaces and doesn't say another word when i bring her back to class, and instead finishes her work in record time, 100% correct. hmm. maybe i should send kids out in the hallway more often. and i won't forget about them. fingers crossed.