Watertown is absolutely gorgeous this time of year

I feel like being in an elementary school in the suburbs of Paris has awarded me a really unique opportunity to see a different side of French life, different especially from what I encounter just by walking around Paris, going to museums, going to bars, or anything else. I work in coordination with French primary school teachers, I sit and eat with them for an hour and a half at lunch, and I of course get to deal with French children. The children are adorable for all the expected reasons. Whenever they see me they immediately shout "hello!" and four or five of them will try to hug me all at once. They are all incredibly eager to try out any English words I say in class, and are always repeating whatever I say to the point where I have to hold up a sign with a question mark on it to indicate that I'm asking a question that they have to actually answer, as opposed to saying something for them to repeat. I couldn't be happier to be with elementary school children, their excitement and ability to just soak things up keeps me on my toes and always keeps it fun. I don't envy high school teachers for one second.

What I've also come to appreciate is my time with the teachers, either planning lessons or sitting and eating lunch for an hour and a half. They are all incredibly welcoming, even the ones I don't work with. I love speaking French with them, it is hard at first to follow their conversations when they are just relaxing during lunch. I mostly just nod and smile when they are all talking together, because I don't know the students they're talking about or don't understand exactly what they are saying. At each school they seem to be very tight-knit, despite their different ages and different teaching styles. Especially at one school, I feel like I have something fundamental in common with them, and I have even worked up enough courage to chime in the conversation every once in awhile. We talked about iPhones the other day (and how people are usually either staunch Apple fans or diehard PC advocates), about the movie "Taken" (and "Taken 2"), the election of course, and the hurricane that hit NYC (they were all very concerned about my family, so I had to explain that where I live hardly got touched by the storm).

Sitting around talking with these teachers, some not much older than me, I get a wholly different taste of French people and French life from what I experience in Paris. The atmosphere of aloofness that many people associate with Parisians has no place in this school, with these teachers. They stop at nothing to find common threads with me, and to bring my world into theirs. One teacher who has traveled pretty extensively in the U.S. even knew a little bit about Upstate New York; she said her favorite area is Watertown. Yeah, you read that right. She said, direct quote (translated obviously), "I love Watertown. Absolutely gorgeous". At first I thought she was joking, but then had to turn my snorting laugh into a fake cough. Not a point of view I have a lot to say about, but I appreciate the connection she is trying to make (and that she is the one French person who, when I say I live four hours north of NYC, doesn't think I live in Canada). All in all, I am really excited to see how my relationships with all these teachers grow in the next few months. And yes, I am unabashedly desperate for French friends, which may have something to do with my gushing for this entire blog post.