One Month!

Wow, I can't believe it. Already it has been one month that I have been here! Less than a month to go - 28 days left in La France! I can't decide whether I am happy, sad, or anxious!

Marine Life!

So, every Tuesday there is a soirée in the restaurant called "moules-frites." I believe I've already mentioned this but it is where you pay a set price for a bottomless (but not really because we never have enough) plate of mussels and french fries. It also comes with a house made dessert (usually made by my roommate Léa).

Each time it is followed by a dance floor party, for about 4 hours (SO LONG). The animation team (which I'm part of) helps out with the soirées sometimes by helping serve and clean up, but mostly just playing games with the guests throughout their dining experience. Usually we wear marine colors and stripes to fit in but yesterday we wanted to have more fun.

I was dressed up and made up by my boss like a mermaid and Jason was a pirate. We gave all of the diners peices of paper with 4 options of multiple chocie answers. The question was as follows;

Teles is a mermaid who comes from the United States. How many miles/kilometers did she have to swim to get from New York to the port of St. Raphael?

OK I know.
1) I wanted a mermaid name. We looked on wikipedia, obvi, most reliable source. I chose Télès because it means "the perfect one." ;)
2) We had to say from NY because MI doesn't have an ocean border.

It was so fun and some girls really believed in mermaids. And I got to sit on a barrel half the night and look pretty. So that was fun. Here are some pictures :)

Lazy Weekend

BEFORE I FORGET: New buttons on the right ----> - you can now follow me by email. You enter your email in the box and you will get updated everytime I make a new post. Yep, this one is for you, mom.

Anyway....
Today my boss said she was taking my hours of work for me so I got a second day off in a row - yahoo!!! No idea why she did this but don't ask questions, right!!

Yesterday I didn't do much of anything all day. I was pretty tired out from our big day Friday. I wanted to hang out in my room and work on updating my blog and doing other stuff (finally I am caught up - seven posts in two days - man!!). I went to the grocery store with Pascal, another girl who is new whose name I forget (She is the director's daughter) and Quintin. It was good. I might have enough food now to last me forever! At least the non-perishables. It is hard to put 5 people in one fridge. We try not to buy a ton of fridge/freezer stuff. Anyway after the grocery store we were about to leave but the chef called someone and asked them to buy him porc and tomatoes so we had to wait. Then Quintin anted to go to LiDL, a different grocery store because he thought it was cheaper. Then the Director called us because she ran out of gas so we had to go to another store to find her and pick her up and take her back with us. haha what a trip! I keep trying to buy different kinds of French cheeses but I am buying all the wrong kinds - stinky and strong!! I kind of like them a little but can't eat a lot.

You know they don't have bags at grocery stores - you have to bring your own or buy them there. I have two I've bought, only a euro each, but they are nice good bags! They are big too! Also they don't have people that put your stuff in your bags for you, you do it yourself. It is hard and stressful to finish before the cashier is ready - i'm still learning!

We came back to the house and had a girls' night where Pascal Marine and I sat around the table and just talked and drank some aperitifs. There were Belgian families that stayed for two weeks that we really got to know and love. When they left, they came over and gave us all of the extra food and alcohol that they had bought while they were here - so nice! It is still lasting! We ended up having a great conversation about religion and political/religious tensions in France vs. Us. It was so cool and really engaging!

I have started to go to Aqua Gym - a class my housemate Pascal teaches twice a day when I can. Usually this means Friday-Sunday. There is also a fitness class but it is only offered on weekdays so I am going to try to make myself go every Friday (my day off). It's at 10 am though and I usually stay up late the nights when I don't have to work the next day! Anyway Aqua Crazy was cancelled Friday and Saturday because the other lifeguard had a day and a half off and we need two lifeguards to have the class (one to teach, the other to surveil the pool). I have been feeling bad and wanting to work out more so I was really bummed when it was cancelled twice.

Chris calls me everyday and reminds me I should do my situps and jumping jacks (because I can not force myself to do squats like I should it is just TOO BORING) and I ignored it for a long time but now I am on my grind and I started. I did them yesterday and today and went to aqua gym today. It was especially good today i am not sure why.

Lastly I remembered something I never wrote about  I don't think - karaoke!! We have karaoke once a week for the guests and I LOVE IT! When I am not working it, I come anyway because it is fun! I sing a bunch of American songs but I have learned SOOOO many classic French songs this way too! It is HILARIOUS becuase they have taken American songs and changed the words to French but kept the song and the tune the exact same and they French have no idea there is an American version. My favorite is the "Oh, What a Night" which changed to "Cette année là." The subject matter of the song is completely different as well! I put a link in the R-sidebar to a page with all of the new songs and video's I've learned on the side bar on the right. That way I can update it and you can always click in the same spot instead of scrolling back to find this post and click something. Hope you are more cultured when you finish and you find the songs as amusing as I do!  Also I put my updated new vocab list over there. It is hard to remember all the new words I'm learning because there are so many and sometimes I use the new ones so much I forget they are new!

Sorry if my writing has gotten sloppy and boring - I am ready to be done updating the past and updating more frequently so I don't have to do a purge like this again! Makes me tired! haha! Thank you so much for reading, seriously. It makes me SO happy to see comments and I am so thankful to my mom and K-Lars and Rachel for commenting already. THANK YOU! :) All of my love!

First time at the Sea!

This weekend was so much fun!

Friday my roommate Léa and I both had the day off. We were going to take the bus to the beach but convinced our housemate and friend Marine to come with us - She only had a 4 hour break between shifts and the beach is 30 mins away but she came! We spent the day swimming in the Mediterranean. It was my first time in a sea! Immediately I could feel something was different. You may ot believe me but the water was softer. It was clear. You could see the bottom. There weren't large waves with an undertoe picking up all of the rocks and sand and jellyfish and throwing them back on the beach like in the oceans I've been in. It was calm and you could see the bottom and there was nothing mixed in with the water just water. It was so soft!

léa would kill me if she know this was on here

toes in the mediterranean!

map of where we were

Léa and I being silly

This day was also the first time I had every seen someone topless on a beach! AND IT WAS MY FRIEND haha! I told her I can not believe you are doing that! She didn't care and thought it was normal. Man, what a different world!

Marine left and Léa and I went shopping. I got a skirt for work that I really needed, some black sandals also for work and some sunglasses since I broke mine at the beach. I spent the whole day looking for presents for my family and friends but couldn't find any. We convinced Marine to come back after work to watch fireworks on the beach with us. This was great because it meant we could stay longer, watch the fireworks, and not have to worry about finding the bus home!

For the whole summer, Frejus has fireworks on the beach. Not everyday but often. It is supposedly because this summer is the deca-versary of the beginning of WWI. Sitting in the sand with my friends and watching fireworks over the mediterranean was magical, but again I felt a bit uneasy as I thought about the tension in the middle east.

Fireworks!

Before the fireworks, however, we ate dinner. Marine got mussels, which are a huge thing here apparently. We have a special mussels and fries dinner every Tuesday and all of the restarants on the beach had them too. I got chicken and rice and curry. We had ice cream in the beginning of the afternoon and again after dinner. You can not even imagine the ice cream here. I'm so upset I didn't take a picture but I am sure I will go back. It is unreal. You can't walk by without getting some because it is just SO CREAMY AND LARGE AND DELICIOUS. just wait. you will see.

Awww! This is the Coke I got at dinner -
It says to share it with your brother (Frère)!
Cheers to you, Josh!!

Also that night we found out there was a nocturnal market! This happens often in the summer in France because everyone is on vacation for July/August. There is an outdoor market, kind of like art fair in AA (which I am so bummed I am not at) where they close off the roads from 9pm to 2am and all of these vendors come out and sell their things. I did finally find one thing for Chris :) but I am still reflecting on what to buy for the rest of you. I did end up getting myself a new watch because my other one broke while dancing with the kids - grr!

A cool clock I saw while downtown

Right under the clock -
an essie ad! I'm home.

On the way home we saw a beam of light in the sky. Marine is very adventurous and always wants to know where the party is at so we followed it. It turns out a nightclub or "boite de nuit" just opened not far from our resort. It is the only one near us at all so that is cool but I have no idea how they will survive since as I stated the majority age here is senior citizen. We asked the bouncer what it was blah blah and the owner lady said that night was ladies night so we could get in free and she would give us a free drink for trying it out. We went in and there was maybe 10 people there so it wasn't very poppin but it was cool for the night! I think we will have to try it again in the future....

Our free drinks!

This is how I feel about today

An Exciting Evening

Things have been going much better here. I am spending a lot of time with my friends and after work I don't just go home by myself - we always all meet up at the bar or go to the guys house with everybody. I have been missing Mathilde and Tatyana in my house, but really loving living with Léa. She is wonderful.

I only had one free night (off of work) this week, which was today, Wednesday. Mathilde and I went to Frejus to have dinner with her grandparents. They live 6 hours away from Fayence but they are visiting their friends who live 2 hours from Fayence. We both drove a ways to get to Frejus to have dinner. We didn't have much time before we had to leave so we showered and got dressed super fast. In the end, her grandparents got extremely lost so we ended up waiting an hour for them anyway hahaha. We ate at a seafood place and I TRIED CALAMARI AKA SQUID EWWWWW! and now i am looking at a pic of it on google images and i want to barf yuck. i didn't like it. just so you know.

Where we were in Frejus
Yacht city!

Another shot of Frejus

When we were done we were both extremely tired and walked back to the car. We started to drive but heard a loud screeching sound .... flat tire. Oh no! We both worked on it and I even called my dad for help - big girls doing it right! Turns out we were too weak to even budge it hah! A man in a porsche drove by and then reversed. His wife talked him into helping us. They had a flat tire earlier that day. In the end everything worked out all right.

Mathilde trying to change the tire

Actually, everything worked out more than all right because something else amazing happened that night when I checked my email...... Drumroll please...... thank you, Josh.... I GOT MY FIRST JOB OFFER!!! :) I haven't accepted nor declined yet so I will keep you updated on that front as we go along. I don't want to give away too much info on here until it is for sure but the possibility is there! I may soon be a full time employed French teacher! YAHOO!

Thank you for all of the prayers you have already sent and keep them coming! My experiences here are very valuable, I know, and I am really improving in my French. Additionally - this job offer oh my goodness!! What a blessing eek! Happinessssss!

Random pic of the day:

In the city of Fayence by Mathildes -
A place to wash your hands! So pretty!

Sunshiney Day

I am feeling much better. I've gotten a lot closer with the people who are here and I love hanging out with them. I spend most of my time with Léa my roommate, AnneSolane who works at the bar, and Quintin the lifeguard. I think I start missing home the most when I have time off and nothing to do. Good news though - they said we can use the pool! I also finished my book so I am feeling like I am missing something.

Something Mehdi the chef made
me - chocolate lava cake!

Quitin ironing my sweatshirt -
who knows?

In fact. I finished the divergent series and now I am stuck with nothing. Does anyone have any good recommendations for books?? Please leave them in the comment section!!

Also it is helping that noone has left in a week from here. We have retained employees for once haha!

Kid's club, where I work here, started and it is extremely fun! The kids are sooo cute and I love to cuddle them and play with them. There is a game here called the game of 7 families and it is kind of like go fish but I don't really remember the rules to Go Fish so... ayway the point is that there are 7 families with 6 people in each one. We have a bunch of different versions of the game, one has two kids, two parents and two grandparents for different types of animal families. Another type is an ecology version with seven different habitats and the pollution within them. The kids decided to make a version of 7 families for the people that work here so the 7 families are the different teams: animation, kitchen, bar/restaurant, spa, front desk, cleaning, and technical. The kids drew cartoons of all of the 6 employees within each group and we laminated them and can now play with them! It is too cool!

My favorite child

My two favorites together

Strawberry tarte made by the chef

In other news, today is Bastille Day and I am really sad I could't go with my friends to watch fireworks. This is my first bastille day in France and I had to work! However, while working at the bar, the fireworks in the neighboring town of Fayence started and everyone went out onto the terrace to watch them. They really were beautiful and it made it okay that I couldn't be with my friends. There were even ones that came out in spheres of red, white and blue! It put me right back at home. However, I started to feel weird while watching them. I don't know if anyone else experienced this on 4th of July when you had fireworks but I feel guilty watching them with pleasure when the war going on in Israel makes people hide underground to get away from the same sounds and bursts of light. Just something to keep in mind and think about.... What a different life it is.

Here are some random things for you to laugh at....

My first pear cake! yum!

This was Thibault before he left trying to sing Iggy... bwahahahah

Sadness.

I don't know what it is about today but I'm really upset. I don't want to be here because I am not getting the experience I so wanted. I am stuck inside a box that is the Domaine de Fayence. There is no way to get out without a car. Today is my day off but I have nothing to do besides sit in my bed and stare at the wall. The employees don't have the right to use the pool or the spa (even though we did that one time) so I don't have anything to do. It's depressing. Everyone wants to quit, or has already. Today, I found out that another person who has been here since I started, the bar/restaurant supervisor, is quitting. He can't do it anymore. Cédric will take his place. Cédric is very square, he is always doing everything exactly the way it should be and is very professional. I haven't gotten to know him just yet but he seems like he will be good for the job. All of my friends are left or trying to leave and though I like the people that are here now I am afraid they too will leave and I will be left here alone. I am really missing home and I'm so upset that I paid a ton of money to come here and be stuck in a resort. I am not getting the "cultural" experience I wanted at all. Yes, I am really improving my language skills but the other part is lacking and I am feeling very cheated. At Quintin's other site, and at the site Axel is now at they said everything is/was so much better. The workers are happier, they are more like a family, and they don't have 16 people leave in 2.5 weeks. Yep. I emailed the man that got me the job and asked to change sites. I don't think it will happen but there is no harm in asking I guess. I'm anxious about that because then I will be leaving the friends I have made but I guess if I want the cultural experience I have to be open to new things, places, and friends. PRAYERS WELCOME.

New Friends?

Yesterday, everyone moved. Mathilde moved the rest of her stuff to the apartment and together we went to pick up my new roommate.... who is also named Léa! Now in my house I will share a room with Léa. The other people coming were living in a villa in the domaine but now the villa is rented out the customers so they have to move in here. Downstairs, my boss Sabrina will be taking Mathilde's room. She is a level above everyone else here because she is the head of a team (specifically she is the head of the animation team). She will have her room to herself. The other room upstairs is going to be Pascal, a lifeguard, and Marine, the cabana girl. (The cabana is a little hut that sells paninis, crepes, drinks, chips, etc. at the pool). Now, our house is all girls, and it feels a lot different. I am really missing Tatyana but I hope I get close with everyone again.

Also, a few more people came to work here that don't live in the house yet. Quintin is a guy that got transferred here from another site. He had an American friend at the other site who he was very close to so he already wants to be my friend haha. All Americans are the same, right? Also a girl named Wendy and a guy named Cédric came here to work for the bar. They will both be living in the apartment with Mathilde in Fayence.

Tonight, Marine, Quintin and I did some friendly bonding at McDonald's. Marine has a car so she drove us and we all got ice cream. The food at McDonald's in France is really bizarre - they have alcohol here! Pop is over 2 euros (which is like 2.50 in dollars) and you can't refill it. They have salads with arugula and romaine lettuce - so weird but I love it. It's like actual food. They also don't have a dollar menu - nor a euro menu. It was a bit depressing though because the entire time they were looking at other employment websites because they already want to leave. They have nly been here for a day and can see how unhappy everyone is and want to get jobs elsewhere. They say it will be nearly impossible because the hiring season is over and now all the places have employees but I am scared. I don't want my only new friends to leave already!

All my friends left

WOW. It has been a long time since I have written a blog post. What I am going to do is update with a bunch now in the time sequence it would have been in if I wrote them in real time. I don't want to overwhelm you with one giant one so I'll break it up for you. In fact, I am going to set the date back so you can see when this would've happened.

Well, all my friends left. Not really, but the people I was closest to are now not here anymore for many various reasons.

My roommate Tatyana wanted to switch sites. She had problems with the management and also wanted to be closer to her boyfriend who lives in south west France. The director did not permit her to change sites, so she left on Sunday morning and went to be closer to him. We talk often on Facebook and as far as I know she is doing well. We all miss her here though! I'm really nervous for a new roommate.

This is Tatyana! 

Drinks at the bar at our resort one night

Additionally, Monday (yesterday), Axel, a bartender, left. He got luckier than Tatyana and got a change of site. He now works in Frejus (only 30 mins away) on a campsite sort of. It is where people come with tents and RVs and he works in the bar there. He likes it much better and he's very glad he left because he wasn't happy here.

This is Axel - he let us put makeup on him and dress him up one night haha!

We knew we had to celebrate both of their last nights in town! The last night Tatyana was here Mathilde, Jason, Tatyana and I went into the city of Fayence. We got ice cream (YUM!) and you can see a picture of Jason here eating his 5 scoops + whipped cream. We ate it and went to a lookout point where you can see the entire city. We watched the sunset into the Alps. What a dream. Then, we went to a jazz festival in the city. It was highly publicized and upon arrival there were a lot of cops! We thought it would be poppin! We were wrong. Only thing that was popping was probably the joints of some elderly folk becuase everyone there definitely got the senior citizen discount. We even got "sush"ed for talking during the break between songs. We stayed for a bit but it didn't take long for us to have our fill.

driving into Fayence

The building behind where the jazz festival was

A beautiful fountain in the city

Jason with 5 scoops!

Looking out over the city

Me with the jazz festival behind me

Tatyana

Axel's last night we tried to go bowling. I thought it was crazy that they had bowling in France and I was so excited! Until we found the bowling alley... well half of it. It had burned down in an accident and had never been renovated again. That put the end to that. Instead we went to a restaurant and had a couple beers with basically everyone that works with us.

The good news is there is an ice cream place with BAGELS next door to her!

Today, Mathilde, who lives in my house, is moving out. The resort doesn't have enough room to house all of the employees on site so they bought an apartment in the city. It is a 3 story apartment which starts on the 3rd floor of a building - you get so high up you can see the ENTIRE city from the kitchen. It is beautiful. Mathilde is really sad because Axel and Tatyana have been here with her since she started. She feels like she is the only one left and that it wouldn't be the same here without them. She is able to move to the apartment because she has a car and can drive to work every day.

It will be a lot different in our house without the two of them, with a new roommate, and living with all new people. Everyone that lived in the house when I moved in no longer lives here and I feel weird about it. I will keep you updated.

Random Collection of Pictures

These were all taken at different times by different people and I didn't put them in posts and now I don't know where they go so I am mixing all of them together here for you.

The gang!
From L to R Michael (dishwasher), Elise (Client) me, Mathilde, Mehdi (cook), Axel in the front

All names above but Jason hopped in the back

A client I got very close with - my karaoke partner in crime!

Axel, Jason and I. Group hug!

Tatyana and I in Fayence

Overlooking Fayence

Overlooking Fayence

Taken unexpectedly on our climb down from the lookout point

GIRLS DAY AT THE SPA :) TATYANA MATHILDE AND I

Animators doing our daily dance at the pool at noon! You can see Jason in the purple and me in the pink behind him.