From Paris with Love?

Alright, our internet goes in today...hopefully so blogs will be at least weekly from now on. Right now i'm at Costa Coffee hopefully for the last time using the internet and catching up on my Blazers basketball. Well before our half-term break things got quite crazy for a bit. I had all the same issues to deal with, with the students but add to that reports for the kids for the term 1. Here its a bit different, instead of just reporting what they got on their reports i have to predict where i think they will end up on their standardized tests at the end of their key stage. This is easy for year 8's who are in the last year of their key stage but significantly tougher with year 9's. Its like talking a freshman and grading them on where you think they will be at the end of their senior year...its weird to say the least. Kelly and i just got back from 5 days and 4 nights in Paris which was amazing. We met up with some teacher friends and even had dinner with Jason Brown and Celeste and their ever expanding brood of increasingly cute kids. It was awesome to say the least and great to see some old friends. Ill tell the story in pictures. First off we decided to save some money and take the bus which was fine going to Paris, not so much coming back. Chris and Carly also decided to take the bus so we all took the same one. We arrived at the bus station and stood in line to get on board when the driver told us we would have to go get a physical ticket (all we had were ticket print-outs) and we lost our place in line, and therefor didn't get to sit together. It was alright though because i ended up sitting next to another young teacher from Northern England and we chatted for quite a while during the trip. I thought we were taking the ferry but was shocked to find out they were loading up the bus onto a train car and taking the Chunnel. We got out of the bus and had a little picnic in front of the bus. So picnic, in a train car, in front of a bus, under the English channel...weird.

Bus on the train

Strangest picnic ever.

Well after we arrived we split up from our friends and went and found our hotel which i remind you was an extremely good deal and we soon found out why. It was nice, clean, and centrally located in a nice neighborhood close to a metro stop,  which is all you can ask from a budget room. There were small things that let us know the deal wasn't that good. Like no toilet seat, a constantly dripping shower that was super loud, a shaky lift, the heat wouldn't turn off, and we slept on a couch bed. All in all though for the price, i would stay there again. Ive definitely had worse. So that night we went to a restaurant and each got sandwiches and coffee and we were painfully reminded at just how expensive Paris is and we determined to eat for cheaper on the street from now on. No more cafe's or restaurants. Food was good though and our waiter was excellent in recognizing we were clearly not locals and spoke to us very nicely in English. After dinner we met back up with Chris and Carly to take a long walk along the Seine from the Champs Elyse to the Notre Dame.

City of love?

Good Views

The Notre Dame was pretty amazing as per usual and was actually still open when we got there. It was strange though, there was a video playing on a projector and no other lights on inside except for the candles. It felt really cool and let us know what it might have been like a few centuries ago, minus the projector of course. We walked to the Latin Quarter after that and found a nice little pub, had a glass of local French wine and then split for home. Slept really good that night and the sofa bed was actually pretty comfortable. Woke up and got ready in the morning and went to find something to eat with Kelly. We found a little street market close to our hotel and a bread shop where we got water, ham and butter sandwiches on fresh baked bread, and a chocolate croissant on the cheap and it was all amazing. Paris may be expensive but bread and pastries are dirt cheap and so good. 

Cheap amazing breakfast.

After breakfast we walked up to the Sacre Cour (sacred heart) church on top of the hill in Montmarre. The church really isn't that old, but it its beautiful on the inside and the views during the day (or at night) are stunning. We were here 6 years ago but only saw the night views so we wanted to get up here during the day.

I wish Kel and i had a tripod so we could be in a picture together.

Stellar Views.

Beautiful girl on the beautiful walk down.

Kelly then expressed an interest in finding where the Moulin Rouge was to which i replied,"I don't think that that's a real place". I don't know why i thought that but i kind of thought it was more of a district in Paris rather than a place, also i thought maybe the movie had made it up. Oh, how wrong i was and oh how i didn't hear the end of it for quite a while. We happened to walk down into the seedy side of Paris which was lined with strip clubs and sex shops, mostly because we were looking for a Starbucks. We hadn't found one but we were debating going into McDonald's for coffee, when Kelly spied a used Starbucks cup on the ground and she thought it was a sign there must be one close. We kept walking and eventually found it, in front of the Moulin Rouge. I didnt hear the end of it for a while, i had doubted the existence of a Starbucks and the famous club and they were across the street from each other.

It was hard to take this picture with my foot wedged firmly in my mouth, especially because it was bleeding from where i  had shot it earlier.

We took the metro home to the Rome stop and relaxed for a bit in the room and read, and took a nap and then decided to go to for a long walk from the Arc de Triomphe to the Eiffel Tower and back which is about a 4-5 mile journey and we had a really good time. Nice relaxing stroll through Paris...theres nothing else quite like it. We finished up the night with a little more French Wine and some card games in our room. Great day.

Our Metro stop close to our hotel.

We had someone take this picture that is a replica of the one we took almost 6 years ago when we were here for New Years Eve 2005. 

Walking up to the tower.

Good end to the day.

On Monday we knew we were meeting up with all of the teachers in Paris later so we decided to go to the Luxembourg Gardens and read our books. After some minor mishaps in finding the gardens and trying to get food, Kelly and i found them. We had remembered them from our previous trip but i had forgotten just how incredibly beautiful they are. I think that these gardens is one of my top 5 places on the face of the Earth. We spent about 2 hours there reading in the sun before the chilly wind and our commitments to meet up with friends drove us back to our hotel to get ready for the evening.

Surprisingly every one met up at the Notre Dame at the correct time and everyone was on time. We met up with most of the Langley Science dept. and Chris of course. But Peter Brozny, Roger and Romina, and Chris and Carly were all there. We sat and chatted outside the Notre Dame for a bit and then went and found an awesome Crepe place where they gave you a dinner crepe, a dessert crepe, and a soda for only 7.50 Euros. Great deal, good food, will definitely go back there. After that we took another stroll and found a little bar that was having a quiz night. We didn't win but it was fun none the less. Everyone had a great time and we all went home for the night, not too terribly late.

Headless saints at the Notre Dame

The crew right after meeting up.

Roger and Brozny in front of the Notre Dame.

In America Roshambo is a very different thing.

The last day of our trip we again decided to go out to the Gardens and read. It was a warmer day and we spent even more time reading there after a breakfast of Crepes and Coffee. I really cant express how amazing it is there, i don't know why i love it so much, but for some reason it just strikes me with the old-world style beauty.

As we were leaving the park for the day we had some problems getting out of the park due to the fact that a major protest was going on outside. Basically all of France is upset that they are pushing back the retirement age from 60 to 62 in order to collect their version of Social Security. Its an unfortunate circumstance but all the protesting in the world isn't gonna stop this bill from passing. Luckily the protest we got caught in was peaceful and it was interesting to see.

After the protest we went and met up with our friend Jason Brown and his wife and had an amazing meal in their sleepy little town outside of Paris. It was amazing and their kids were very well behaved and yet hilarious, at least Javen was, the 5 month old just kind of sat there. We stayed up and had wine and coffee and talked about all sorts of stuff and it was great to see some familiar faces abroad. Begrudgingly we had to leave and get back home to pack since our bus was leaving early in the morning. The trip back seemed way longer than the trip there and we had to take the ferry. Altogether it took over 12 hours. We went from walking, to the subway, to the bus, to the ferry, to the bus, to the subway, to the train, to walking home. Also i got seasick on the ferry and did not have a very good time. But all in all a great time was had by Kel and I and also the internet worked when i got home so that was exciting. I will say this, i am not really looking forward to work all that much tomorrow. 7 weeks until Christmas break when Kelly and i are most likely going to Berlin. It seems so far away though. Alright thanks for reading and i promise a more frequent blog from now on. Hope you enjoyed the long post. Later, i miss you all.

Long time no see.

Alright. Perhaps a short post to give you some updates. School is getting marginally better, or i might be getting more numb, or my expectations are lower, or my soul is dying...whatever it is things do feel better here. My fellow teachers continue to struggle as i do and i don't think theres any magic tricks to dealing with these kids you just have to show up. Although my flatmate did get called a #$%#@% retard by a student on Friday, that was a highlight. Sometimes though i wish the kids would just swear at me so i could kick them out straightaway rather than have to wait until they amount 4 warnings to get them out of there. Oh, i did have a student try to get physically aggressive on Friday, but the student was small so it really wasn't that big of a deal. Apparently he thought it was unfair that he got a warning for hitting another student in the chest (hard) and tried to get in my face. To be fair though, i'm pretty sure the kid that he socked did in fact have it coming in a big way, but alas i have to be fair and enforce a general no hitting policy. On more fun and positive notes Kelly and I went into London last weekend and had a great time. We went to the Portobello Market in Notting Hill which was pretty awesome and when you get past all of the touristy junk they have some pretty cool stuff. Totally reminds me of Portland Saturday Market.

After we browsed around for a while we met up with our Canadian teacher friends Chris and Carly. It trips me out to be friends with them because they are the same age as the first year of students i taught 5 years ago...but alas, i guess i just am not the youngest teacher on the block anymore. We went with them to Belgo which is a great little restaurant recommended to us by Stewart and Stephanie (our friends from Glendora), who spent some time here a year or so ago. It was great, good prices and not horrible service. After that it started to rain but we ventured to the London Museum of Natural History to try and check it out in the two hours before it closed.

The building is amazing and you would probably need about 2 full days to check everything out. We went straight to see all of the dinosaur fossils which in hindsight might of been a mistake. They were cool, but since the museum is free, and it was a rainy Saturday afternoon, it was slammed with people. Of course in the dinosaur wing it was crawling with kids and pretty backed up especially to see the life size animatronic T-Rex which was very underwhelming, who cares, im interested in real stuff, not this Disneyland stuff. All in all it was cool but once we made it to other halls it was far less crowded and way cooler. We did think we saw another one of the new Canadian teachers and even yelled out Peter.... Brozny....but he didnt turn around so we thought it must be a case of mistaken identity. I texted him a bit later and he said he was at the Natural History museum. He must have been in his own world.

By far the coolest stuff what just how much stuff they have on hand for research purposes. They have millions upon millions of pinned insects and had a few out on display. I was particularly interested in the Deaths Head moth which has a human skull on its back. Mostly i thought it was cool because it was the moth from Silence of the Lambs, which has of late become one of my all time favorite movies. Seriously, if you haven't watched that in a while, there is a reason it won all of those Oscars. Its a timeless thriller that still holds up today on the strength of an airtight plot, but i digress.

The other amazing thing, the most amazing in my opinion is all of the 'wet' species samples. Over 22 million creatures preserved in jars filled with alcohol. They probably only have a few hundred on display including the first every portion of a giant squid that was ever found and alerted the scientific community of the existence of a giant squid. This particular portion was found in the belly of a sperm whale and partially decomposed (pic below). Pretty amazing stuff. They also have a huge tank of alcohol that has the full body of an 8 meter long giant squid that was caught about 5 years ago but they are unable to display it properly to the public. We did however find out that you can go on a behind the scenes tour called the 'Spirit Tour' which is free but you have to get there early in the morning to get on the list because it fills up quick. Besides the squid you can see specimen samples that were collected and preserved by Darwin himself. Many of the specimens they have date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. As you can tell i am fascinated by wet preservation but for some reason it just fascinates me to see stuff in jars, i mean i checked out the head of an elephant fetus in a jar that was put there over a 100 years ago, how cool is that.

They also have this massive cocoon model that you can tour through and it's huge. Here you can see Kelly and i next to it.

The other cool stuff they have is in the hall of mammals and they just have tons of mounted creatures like this Grizzly Bear. I tried to make the picture below look like i was saying, "What do you mean theres a grizzly behind me? Are you crazy?". I think i succeeded in capturing that sentiment.

Also, Narwhal skull with 2 horns FTW. Yeah it doesn't get much better than that. If a zombie apocalypse ever happens and i survive i will break into the museum and steal this to turn it into some sort of undead killing machine. Sometimes i wonder why i think about this stuff, but thats what ran through my head when i saw it, and im not all that embarrassed to say so. Im delirious right now.

Alright, well thats pretty much all thats been happening with Kelly and i. We are anxiously awaiting for our cable, phone, and internet to be installed which has taken over 6 weeks now, but its supposed to happen on this Sunday. Here's hoping. Thank you all for reading and i promise not to miss another week of Blogging and once we get internet i can post even more. Later friends and family, i miss you all.