le Tour de France passes through Besançon!

The day that I've been waiting for finally arrived today; the Tour de France came to Besançon! The whole event of watching the cyclists pass by took only a few minutes but it was still really cool. My parents recorded the tour today so that I'll get to see it when I come home in 10 days! Maybe I'll be able to see myself? Here are a few pictures that we took:



Tomorrow we are leaving to go camping in a village called Biganos which is right near the Atlantic and is not far from Bordeaux. I'm really hoping to have nice weather because this whole month has been very strange weather-wise. We're also going to bring the used bikes we just bought to bike around the area and to go to the beach. A day trip to Bordeaux will also be in order.

Then finally the day after we come back, I'll be leaving for the states! I'm soo excited to go home! It's been almost a year since I've seen my family and friends, and for certain friends, it's been a year and a half! I'm leaving plenty of room in my suitcase to bring back tons of American goodies to France. I probably won't have time to write an entry before I go back home so the next post will be sometime back in the states. A bientôt!

Bastille Day!

Happy 14 juillet to everyone out there! I was hoping to have a picnic or watch the fireworks tonight in Besançon but with this rainy weather, I'm not sure I'll be able to leave my apartment today :(
Oh well, I'll just watch the parade live from Paris on TV. It'll be almost like I'm there in real life! No, not really...

A CDI in sight?

I had my third interview yesterday with an international enterprise that is looking for native English speakers to work with their clients on learning English and it went really really well! After a disappointing interview the day before, this job offer really brightened my day. They said that they'd offer a CDI (aka a permanent contract) and that there are a lot of hours available. So, I would be able to make a decent salary at a real job. I would also get in-job training and regular raises every time I passed a new diploma! The only problem is that I'm currently only able to work in Besançon because I don't have a car to drive to their other work locations. However, since I wanted to try and learn to drive by myself officially this year, this is the real motivation to do it. I'm going to sign up for driving hours and possibly look to buy a used car. But I'll do all of this of course, if this job actually does work out in the end. I would be starting in September which is perfect. I'll be teaching at the other school the last week of August and then I won't have anything else. When I come back from the US then I'll be going back to for a following interview and teaching exam. I better start brushing up on my English grammar!

In addition, I already know someone who works there and she likes it as well. Things are really looking up! Hopefully we can finally move out of this apartment and we are even talking about getting a dog...but we'll see. That's for a later discussion.

Great News!

I have awesome news to annouce: Christophe passed his concours!!! Which means that he'll officially be a professor in a lycée in the fall! We were both sooo shocked when we checked the website. He was certain that he didn't pass and was in a foul mood all weekend. I wanted to wait for the results but he was sure that he didn't pass. But on the website glaring at us in the face was: Vous êtes admis! A huge shock to both of us!

Woo-hoo!! I'm sooo proud of him! He worked so hard this year and he really deserves this! Now our financial problems are a thing of the past! Tonight we're going out to eat to celebrate this great news!

Vacances dans le sud here we come!

The début of summer!

Sorry, I'm a day late but Happy 4th of July to everyone!

Unfortunately I didn't do anything special like roast marshmallows or have a barbeque, or set off fireworks. But I did do some fun marker-tatooing, with a fellow british friend, of our respective flags. I apologize for the following ridiculous picture:
Friday night was the Eurockéennes festival at Belfort and it was a lot of fun! Though we arrived rather late (it started at 4pm and we got there at 8pm) we stayed until (almost) the end. Among the groups we saw: The prodigy, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Cyprus Hill. The Ting Tings came on too late and we decided to leave before they came on to avoid the long line of cars at the end of the festival. It was nice getting out of Besançon for a night especially to see some good, live music. It's been forever since I've been to a concert. Here's a photo of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's in concert:

Officially unemployed

I'm on day two of unemployment and oh my god, I'm already bored.
So far, I've baked cookies, cleaned the apartment, sent out more resumes to language schools and watched a whole lot of tv with the laptop glued to my lap.
But just now, I got a phone call from one of the languages schools that I applied to yesterday! And I've got an interview for next week!
However, I'm a little worried because she asked me right away if I had a car or a french driver's license and I had to reply "no" to both of those questions. So that might eventually count against me in some way.
This year I'm going to learn how to drive a manual car and I'm going to get a french driver's license. But, as long as I have no money, I'm not buying a car.

Christophe is away in Lyon taking his test. We won't know if he passes or not until next week. I'm trying not to stress about it but I know that he is. We'll just have to wait and see.

For the last day of work, I went with one of my schools to have a picnic in the park and to watch the kids play. It was a nice way to end the year. However, I was hoping to get a little something since afterall I was at the school for two years, but nope, nothing. Not even a card. Oh well, no use getting upset over it. But at one of my other schools where I had the demon classes, the other teachers went out a bought me a cute tunic! It was really sweet and I felt really appreciated for the work that I had done this year.
Tonight I have my one and only end of the year dinner at my troubled school and I'm really excited about going. I don't know if they will get me anything but if not, I don't mind. I enjoyed working at that school because the kids were really sweet, though it was difficult at times. I also got along really well with my co-workers.

So the question in, what am I going to do all month?? I need to be extremly frugal but I've already started spending more money that I should have.

Tomorrow if Christophe is up for it, we might go to a festival in Belfort called Les Eurockéennes. Every year this music festival is held for 3 days and ton of well known groups come from all over the world. If we go tomorrow, this is the line up: Cyprus Hill, The Prodigy, The Tings Tings, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Noisettes, and other groups.
NTM, the notorious french rap group was also supposed to be there Friday night, but Joey Starr, one of the rappers, got sent to prison.

The other nights, Saturday and Sunday, Kanye West and Slipnot will be performing. I'm not a big fan of them so I'd rather go Friday night. For more info, go to the official website: Here
Tickets are still on sale!