Paperwork and Protests

Greetings from MacDo!  Yes, I have found the local McDonald's, and am ashamed to say that I have already eaten here and have only been here for a couple weeks haha.  Mounia and I are just hanging out taking advantage of the free wifi (or weefee as they say in France).  I ordered a coffee and when the girl asked if I wanted a large coffee I hesitated a second thinking that I didn't really need very much.  I got a large coffee anyway and when she gave it to me I laughed cause it was teeny.  I'm pretty sure the large coffee is smaller than the small coffees back in the US.  But, good thing it was small cause Mounia just spilled it all over my stuff. :(  Oh well no big deal.
We've actually been here for a couple of hours now haha- eating, Mounia's been studying, I've been working on lesson plans (going to be doing some Halloween stuff this week.)  There's not too many people here now, but about a half an hour ago the place was packed.  There's a football match going on at the stadium right next door.  Le Racing Club de Lens is playing, yes the name of the team here is the Racing Club.
So, this week has been fairly busy.  Mostly it has consisted of frustrating paperwork and protests.  This week I went to la Caisse Secu (the Social Security office) 3 times to try to figure out what I have to do to get a social security number, which I need to have in order to get paid...well I guess I need the health insurance too.  Each time I have gone (twice with Jessica, and once by myself) they tell me the same thing, that I can't get a number until my visa is validated by L'OFII (office of immigration and integration of France)...but L'OFII won't be able to validate my visa for another month or so- they like to take their time in France.  Uhhggg.  It's just confusing because I have some people telling me to do one thing and others telling me another thing.  Oh well I guess it will get figured out.  Eventually I will get a social security number and eventually I will get paid, even if I do have to wait. 
Also, this week, as you may have heard, there have been a ridiculous amount of protests, even here in Lens.  Just little ones throughout the week...but it gets annoying to wake up every morning to people yelling in the street and cars honking their horns, and it was mostly high school kids protesting this week.  I doubt they even know what they're protesting, they just want to get out of class.  But this Saturday morning was a bigger "manifestation" in the square right outside my window lol.  Mounia told me to be careful and not go outside in case people started breaking windows or something, but it wasn't violent.  They were just loud, yelling stuff like "Sarko, dit non!"  and the police were blowing whistles and honking horns. There were probably a few hundred people, all protesting again the change in the retirement age.  Well we'll see what Sarkozy decides to do.

On fait la greve

Hello again everyone!  A lot of things have happened this week that I should tell you.  So, first of all, I went to Lille for the first time since I first got here.  Well, I was there last Wenesday for the orientation, but that wasn't really too exciting and I didn't get to see any of the city that day cause we spent the day in a high school auditorium.  It was nice to meet some more assistants, but all of the stuff that they talked about at the meeting was stuff that we already knew and so it was slightly boring.  But, last Saturday I went back to Lille with a friend of mine, Ruth, who is an assistant in Lievin (really close to Lens).  We took the train, and it wasn't too far, about 30 to 40 minutes, so hopefully I'll be able to go back a lot.  Lille is really nice, I'd love to live there- it's close but just too far to commute every day, and I'm happy in Lens.  It's kind of like a little Paris- the architecture is neat (both French and Flemish) and there are lots of shops, bars, restaurants, and a few museums.  We walked around vieux Lille, the oldest neighborhood and then stopped and had a Stella Artois at a cafe- Stella is everwhere here cause we are so close to Belgium.  Then we did some shopping and went to see the house where Charles de Gaulle was born.  I hope to go back soon to check out one of the art museums. 
Also, this week I joined a choir!  And it was probably one of the best choices I've made so far lol.  So, the directeur (principal) at the school sings in a choir and asked me if I'd like to join.  I went with him last Tuesday to the rehearsal, and guess what, the entire program is in English!  And, they haven't had anyone help them really with pronunciation, so they were happy and embarrassed that I was there to listen.  The songs that they picked just make it even more ridiculous- let me just tell you that it is fricken hilarious to hear French people trying to sing spirituals and Andrew Lloyd Weber!  I could barely keep from busting out laughing!  I'll definintely go back, cause the people in the choir are really nice, and I think they could use me to help with pronunciation.  It's just a group of amateurs that sing for fun, but we are going to have a concert in Lille in May, so hopefully I can stay for that.  I'll definitely go back next Tuesday- but we didn't have practice yesterday, this Tuesday, because of another greve.
So, I thought that the greve (strike) this week was trains and buses, since we didn't have choir practice.  I thought maybe that with trains and buses not running people wouldn't be able to make it to choir, so that's why practice was cancelled.  But, apparently not.  I'm pretty sure once again (second time so far since I've been here) it was a strike to protest the fact that Sarkozy wants to up the age of retirement.  I don't really know why we didn't have choir practice because of this lol.  But at school on Tuesday Jessica wasn't there- she was apparently on strike.  All the other teachers were there, so I was a bit confused.  I guess they have these arranged days of strikes which seems to be every other week haha and you can choose not to work if you want to protest.  I wonder if next time I could just do that too :) I mean, I'm not really a huge fan of raising the retirement age, even if I'm not French.

First Week in Lens

Hi again everyone, sorry that I haven't been able to post in awhile, if there is anyone out there following this besides my parents haha.  A lot has happened this first week that I've had an actual residence here in Lens.  So, last Monday I moved into my new appartment, and things have been going really well.  The appartment is like pretty much a house that the landlord once lived in and now rents out.  My two roomates and I each have our own room and then share a bathroom, dining room, kitchen, and internet corner.  We don't yet have our own internet connection, but for the past few days have been stealing someone else's wifi.  My roomates are really awesome.  Mounia, a girl, and Amine, a guy, are both students at two different small universities here in Lens.  They are both actually from Morocco, and speak French and Arabic and some English.  Mounia has been in France for about a year and a half, but Amine has only been here for about a month.  They are both really nice...they even keep paying for my dinner whenever we go out to eat lol- which you know is something you might do the first time we all go out together, but they keep doing it and I keep offering to pay them but I don't want to offend them so I'm not sure what to do.  I assume it will eventually stop.  And, Mounia has even invited me to go back to Morocco with her in February to visit her family in Casablanca which I think I will definitely have to take advantage of, haha maybe that means she'll pay for my plane ticket.  Mounia is really friendly and keeps introducing me to all of her friends so it's nice to meet a lot of French people, and Arab people too- she seems to know the entire Arab population in Lens, which means we've been eating at a lot of kebab restaurants lately.  And, we've been eating a lot of fries too.  Apparently it's a northern France thing to have these delicious friteries where I think they double deep fry the "frites."  I thought I would lose weight on my trip to France, but looks like that might not happen with a friterie literally right around the corner from my appartment.  Well there's always the local Curves I could go to which I came across while I was taking a walk today.
So, everything is going well with my appartment.  My roomates are really cool, and the appartment itself isn't too bad.  It's in a great location: 10 minute walk from the school where I work and like a 5 minute walk from the center of town, which has plenty of shops, restaurants, brasseries, cafes, and bars.  My room itself is pretty nice too, I'll have to put up some pics.  And the view from my room is nice of the trees that line the street and the people who hang out at Mc Ewan's across the street.  The only thing that is slightly annoying is the bathroom.  The shower, if you can even call it that, is not ideal- it's very European.  If you don't know what I mean just turn on House Hunters International.  I think I figured out the real reason why Europeans don't shower as much as us- it's not to save water, it's cause it's too much trouble.  Oh well, it could be worse I guess.  I don't have much to complain about, everything seems to be going really well so far.  This week I will continue to observe at school and then on Wednesday I'll go to Lille for an orientation for the assistants in the area, so I'll be sure to let you all know how that goes.  A tout a l'heure!