Skiing in the Alps

Okay.... I said I was going to try and catch up on my blog, and I meant it!  

Since returning from the States, we have been traveling around France and its neighboring countries on our free weekends.  So here is the story of our first weekend excursion of 2013.

Let me start by saying that Paul (along with about 97% of the people I've met in France) is an avid skier.  He started when he was something like 5 years old and has loved it ever since.  I didn't start skiing until I was about 14 (thank you Katie B for taking 2 hours to get down the slope with me a single time all those years ago....), so my skills are not nearly what Paul's are.  He's a black diamond kind of guy, and I'm really more of a nice blue circle kind of girl.  (Note: The difficulty scale is different here -- there is a red level below black and no double blacks.  Also there are no shapes involved, just colors).  

Not surprisingly, this discrepancy in our skill levels makes me a little nervous about ski trips.  Really everyone is a much better skier than I am (even the 4 year olds who come whizzing down the mountain past me), so I'm afraid I'll either break myself trying to keep up with them or get left behind on the easy slopes and lost all day.  (Both a little dramatic, I know, but worries often are...)  Also, while Paul's friends are SUPER nice and welcoming, it's still a bit daunting to go on weekend trips with a big group of French speakers.  

That being said, the weekend turned out to be really lovely.  We stayed in a city called Chambéry at the home of two of Paul's good friends and took day trips to the slopes.  We also celebrated the birthday of another friend who was there -- lots of fun things going on!  I was really happy to notice that my French has improved enough for me to be able to keep up with (most of) what's going on around me so I could enjoy the fun too!

When it came time to go skiing, I was a little surprised by what I saw.  In the US, the biggest ski resort I have visited is Killington in Vermont.  Other than that, I've stuck to the relatively small ski mountains in Central New York.  In my limited experience in the US, you choose a ski resort.  That ski resort has ski/snowboard rentals, it runs the ski lifts, it offers a few restaurants or bars, and it usually has some sort of lounge area where people can come inside for a little while.  (This lounge area usually smells like sweaty people and feet.  Just saying).  But in general, when you go to a ski resort, it is completely owned by one big company.  

Well, that's not how it worked in the Alps.  As far as I could tell, the lift belongs to the town or village in which it is located.  So we went to go get our lift passes (which were deeply discounted because the weather was less than ideal) at a little office that was (I think) run by the town's tourism office.  That was it.  Then there was a little plaza, much like those in other small towns, that had restaurants, shops where you could rent ski gear, and I even saw a grocery store a little further from the lift.  The shape of the town was a little bit different and seemed to center around the ski lift with parking lots a little bit further away.  (The picture is from where we parked our car... that part in the upper left side should be another mountain across the valley from where we were, but it was snowing too hard to really see it).  But to me this concept was craziness... I didn't feel like I was trapped into ridiculous prices by a big resort's monopoly on my day.  (Maybe in reality I was trapped by the town's monopoly, but it at least gave me the impression of more freedom).  THEN -- I think this is really cool -- as we were riding up the lift, I saw some apartments on the mountain.  As in... you can own or rent an apartment that is on the slopes.  So in the morning you wake up, walk out your door, and ski down the mountain.  And in the evening you ride up the lift, ski halfway down the mountain, and go into your apartment.  How cool is that?!?  I've never seen that in the US.

The next day was really my favorite of the weekend.  Paul was sweet enough to take a day off from skiing and go snowshoeing with me.  This was really amazing in the Alps.  I absolutely think that snowshoeing is more of a workout than skiing, but when there's a scenic overlook at the end of the trail, all that work is completely worth it!  For our snowshoeing afternoon, it's probably easiest to tell the story in pictures.

Our snowshoeing path started here, at the edge of the little ski town.

It took us through the snow-covered forest which, aside from the occasional snowshoer, cross country skier, or dog sled (!) was completely silent and serene.  

Snowshoeing is a serious workout, so we started to peel off our hats, scarves, gloves, and even open our jackets a little bit.

And at the end of the trail (major credit to Paul who convinced me to keep going when I was tired and wanted to go back into the village for a hot chocolate!) we found this:

So all in all, it was an amazing weekend in Chambéry and the Alps.  Turns out I'm not as horrible a skier as I thought I was, and Paul was giving me some tips on how to improve.  We ate crêpes and raclette and drank some vin chaud (mulled wine) to warm back up at the end of our days.  

Also, if you are able to procure a bottle, I highly recommend you try Chartreuse, which is a local liqueur from the region.  If it helps convince you, Quentin Tarantino thinks it is a tasty beverage.  (Warning- F Bombs dropped in that clip!)  I recommend you sip it and maybe drop an ice cube in there to make it even better. 

Bilingual Babysitting

Okay... I know.  I stink at this whole "regular updates" thing.  Je suis très désolée!  But the past month of being back in Paris has been very busy and very exciting!  As such, I'll do my best to rapid fire a few posts on what we've been up to now that I'm officially a Visa-toting resident of France!

I guess the first point of interest would be that I found a job!  I'll back up a bit to tell the story...

After being in the US for the New Year, I arrived in France on a Thursday at the end of January and spent that weekend chilling out with Paul and readjusting to la vie française.  When Monday morning rolled around, I was still hanging out in my pajamas, contemplating where and how to begin my job search when Hark!  My telephone was ringing!  I was surprised and very pleased when I realized it was the woman who runs an English-speaking babysitting agency here in Paris.  I had interviewed with her in October, but since I did not yet have a working Visa at that time, she couldn't assign me to a family.  Now there I was, having only been in France and able to work for two business days, and someone was calling to offer me a job!  Not bad!!

Since then, I've been babysitting a little girl who is four years old and whose parents want her to learn English.  I pick her up at school 4 days per week, bring her home, give her a bath, and all the while I speak English to her.  In total it's about 2 hours per day.

To be completely honest, I'm not 100% convinced this method for teaching your child English is completely effective.  Or, what might be more to the point, it might be very effective, but it will drive the babysitter and the child crazy for a while!  I'm only supposed to speak English to the little girl.  Absolutely, 100% of the time, all English, no French.  This is to encourage her to work hard on her English skills.  If she has to speak English for me to understand, she will, right?

This totally makes sense... except the only vocabulary the little girl knows in English are the colors and animals.  If I need her to act like a snake and play around making a "sssssssss" sound -- no problem.  (It's kind of weird... she really likes snakes!)  However, when I'm trying to, you know, explain why she can't have another piece of candy, or why she needs to stop coloring and take her bath, this becomes a problem.  Thus, I caved and explained some of these things in French.  (Though I have to say, she learned the word "candy" quickly.  She also started throwing "please" around all the time when she realized it was necessary to say that before she could have said candy).  

Aside from the logistical issues of the language barrier, it's actually impressive to see how quickly she learns English at such a young age.  As we walk to the bus stop every day, I point at the cars and she tells me what color they are.  (This gets complicated when the white cars are dirty and look beige, and the silver-gray line is a bit tough to define.  We manage, though).  I also realized that I say "good job!" a lot, because occasionally she will take our flash cards from me and begin to quiz me on words, and she always says "good job!"  Also, when I tell her she's a good girl, she says, "No!  Good JOB!"  Yes okay... that too.  Right now I'm trying to work on things like "cold" and "thirsty," but what really happens is she speaks to me in French and I respond in English.  Quite often she gets testy when I encourage her to say the word in English, and with things like "cold," I certainly don't want to let her remain too cold outside while I give her an English lesson.

A couple other fun anecdotes:  Don't try to sing the alphabet in English to a kid who is just learning it in French.  She approaches melt-down levels when I try to explain to her that "e" in English is pronounced like "i" in French.  Can not compute!  Abort! Abort!  Since the first week I've avoided the alphabet all together.  Also, it's the funniest thing when I tell her a word in English, and she looks at me as if to say, "How could you possibly be that stupid," and repeats it to me in French over and over again.  I think she hopes that some day I'll learn.  Who knows... maybe someday I will.  Until then, we're teaching each other quite a few things!

PS- Sorry no pictures with this one... I'll make up for it in the next few!