Nights One Through Ten

Le Début

I have, actually, been blogging. The problem is, there’s no internet in the internat (the internat is the high school dorm in which I am living. It’s not as bad as it sounds). And, upon rereading my earlier writings, I find that they already feel dated and irrelevant. “Do the French not know that they’re staring, or do they just not care?” Duh. It’s clearly the latter.

Also, I’m losing my English (I was helping another American assistant fill out a form and I said “Here goes your name, here goes your phone number.” What?) So, I’m going to scrap the writing for today and just put some up some pictures. Please enjoy.



This is the lovely, warm home of my father’s cousin Philippe and his wife Sylvie, who were kind enough to take me in on my second night in France and check in on me to make sure that I made it safely to Manosque, my new home. The most harrowing moment of the journey was when Sylvie dropped me off at the bus station (and, when I say “bus station,” I mean the side of the road in the middle of nowhere) in Meyrargues to catch the bus to Manosque. There I was, with my 70-pound suitcase, absolutely certain that the bus was never going to come and I was going to have to go to work in an olive orchard (which, y’know…worse fates). As Sylvie drove away, she leaned out the window and said “You may have to wave to get the bus to stop!” Uh huh. But, I needn’t have worried. I waved, it stopped, and I made it here:



Don’t worry. This is the before picture. Here’s the after picture:



Okay, let’s call this the in-progress picture. It’s a little spare, but it’s a roof and a bed, and the view from the balcony…



…is decent:



Here is the view looking down into the courtyard of the Lycée (high school) where we’re living:



And here, of course, are the teenagers. I can’t escape:



Okay, so I arrived. This is Friday. Linda, the German, was the first of my roommates to show up. She brought her parents, who stayed with us in la dortoir for nights, bless their souls. On Sunday we were joined by sweet Julianna, the Columbian. On Tuesday we got Carmen, the Italian, and we were complete. (There is, apparently, a British assistant who will be staying with us from time to time but living in Aix, about 40 minutes from here, and commuting).

This past Thursday and Friday we were required in Marseille for orientation. We spent most of our time running from appointment to appointment (we non-EU people had to get chest x-rays to prove that we aren’t tubercular), but I did manage to take a few pictures.





The American assistants were invited over for dinner at the home of the U.S. Consulate General in Marseille.



I didn’t get a good shot of her house, but here’s one from her balcony that shows the house next to her’s:



So, y’know. Nice neighborhood.

And here’s me in Marseille:



I look very serious, but I was just concentrating on the camera.

I realize that I haven’t posted many pictures of Manosque, my home town. I’ve been trying to avoid running around town with my camera out looking like a tourist, but here are a couple of pictures I’ve managed to take, with many more to come, I’m sure:





Okay, that's a start, right? More to come...