En route to Amiens

A trembling American empties his pockets into the hands of a large Russian man in front of him, while a gang of foreigners looks on.  Sound like the opening of a mob movie?  In fact, this happened to me tonight.  But I’ll explain later in this post (in journalism, this is what is called a “hook.”)

I really should be sleeping right now but I just had one of those days, so I have to put down my thoughts now.  First of all, a recap of my last couple of days is in order.  I started teaching Monday, and it’s been going quite well!  On the whole the students are well-behaved, and some of them are even interested in what I have to say.  This week has been a series of introductions to the various classes, so I’ve gotten to show them pictures of my friends, family, hometown, etc., all the while highlighting differences between France and the US.  Of all the classes I’ve had so far (7 in total), I’ve only had one student who’s ever been to the US, which kind of surprised me.

I already have favorite students, too.  One of them was a delightful young lady who sat on the front row in a class of 10^th graders.  She smiled a lot, was well-behaved, and asked good questions, and when her turn came to answer my query (What is your favorite hobby?) she rattled off a paragraph-long sentence in nearly perfect English describing a swim competition two years ago.  The craziest thing: she didn’t have a French accent.  She was far above any of the other students I’ve met, of any level.  I found out later that she was a German exchange student.  But never fear, I also had a very strong native French girl in the BTS class I taught today.  The BTS is the rough equivalent of an Associate’s degree in the US; these students are learning about management, etc.  They’re a little older and more mature, and this girl was quite strong in English, too.  Overall, I think I’m really going to like teaching these classes.

Earlier this evening I left Soissons to make my journey to Amiens for the district-wide orientation.  I caught a train with Alex, one of the English assistants in town, and everything went smoothly.  Until our train stopped in the middle of the track in some small town.  I didn’t catch much of what the conductor said, but Alex thought he said something about running over a drunk person with the train.  I wasn’t sure if she was right until we went down the tracks a bit and the conductor hopped out, joined a group of policemen, and sprinted back to where we’d just been stopped.  I didn’t see anything, but I can’t think of any other explanation.  Odd.

So anyway, we finally arrived at Amiens and were immediately met by a crew of men who started scrubbing guts off the front of our train (okay, I might have made that last part up).  I caught a cab to my hotel, about 15 minutes outside the city center, and went to the automatic cashier machine that takes the place of the reception desk after hours.  I had no problem finding my reservation, but I met another problem: my American card wouldn’t work in the machine.  European bank cards have a microchip in them that American cards don’t, and this has started causing me problems (and my French card doesn’t get in for another few days).  So here I am stranded in the suburbs of Amiens, France, 15 minutes and 15 Euros away from anyone I know, with no access to my hotel room.  Fortunately, there was a man standing next to me who was having his own problems with the machine.  He had a large beard and wasn’t wearing deodorant, which screams “Russian” louder than a can of caviar.  He agreed to pay for my room on his card, and I payed him cash, hence me handing over money.  The foreigners: other people waiting for the machine.  Why was I trembling, you might ask, if I wasn’t being mugged?  My blood sugar was low.  So, all-in-all, my evening was a lot less exciting but a lot less dangerous than a mob movie.

In other news, Camille found me on Facebook and has started reading this blog (Hi Camille!).  I also cooked an American meal for the family yesterday (turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and sautéed zucchini), and it went over very well.  Kudos to my wonderful mother for the recipes!  Everything is going swimmingly.  But I must head off, a long day of orientation tomorrow.  And I think I left my iPhone at home, so no Angry Birds to distract me.