bah, oui

From my window, I have an awesome view of the moon tonight. It’s almost full, which is kind of fun. There’s something about full moons and leaves on the ground that makes it really seem like fall. If only I had doughnuts and cider…

On Friday, I got a few welcome additions to my apartment here in Carentan. Anne, one of our contact teachers at the middle school, managed to find both a telephone and a TV for me. So I have a phone, though I still need to finish setting up an account so that it actually works. They go about it in what I consider a pretty asinine way here-I have to know the name of the former resident, so they can reactivate the right account, instead of just setting up a new number and everything. Well, I don’t know their name, so I asked
Anne to call my landlord, because I he talks a lot and I don’t think I would understand him. The teacher who’s lending me a TV also forgot to bring it on Friday, but I hope to have everything and be in business by Tuesday.

My most welcome addition, though, was that my friend Jen came to visit from Caen this weekend! We finally see the Chilean assistant, Yasmin, at school, so we’ve started talking to her and she invited us over for dinner on Friday since her friend Francisca was also visiting from Caen. I think it would be pretty funny to watch a tape of our dinner, though, especially for a French person. Yasmin and Francisca only speak a few words of English, and between Jen, Evan, and I, we speak a few words of Spanish, so we all have to talk in French. I love it, because it gives me a chance to practice without feeling as intimated, since they’re learning too. (Yasmin’s only been studying French for 5 months, and now she’s here-I can’t imagine!) Still, there’s times when we don’t know how to say what we mean, plus I know we’re making mistakes all over the place, plus we don’t always understand what each other is trying to say, so needless to say it made for a pretty interesting evening. Fun times, though, and I can tell that my French is getting better, because I was able to speak much more quickly than normal, and that’s a good sign.

On Saturday, we decided to go on a tour of the D-Day beaches. Evan had really wanted to see them before he left, and the weather was some of the best we’ve seen since we’ve been here, so it worked out perfectly. We took a train to Bayeux, where we got on a bus full of Americans and went to see the American cemetery, Omaha Beach, Pointe du Hoc, Utah Beach, and Sainte Mère Eglise. Some of the places I had been to in high school, but I didn’t remember any of them terribly well, except maybe the American cemetery. Our tour guide knew more about World War II than I ever will, so I learned a lot. He did talk a bit more than I would have liked, since I like time to walk around the places on my own, but oh well. It’s almost surreal to imagine what the beaches must have looked like on that day, and actually seeing some of the sites makes you wonder how they ever managed to pull it off. I’m putting some pictures on my site, and I’ll put some stuff I learned on there too. I did find out, though, that Carentan was considered an important occupation town during the war because of it’s position on the main highway, and about 70% of its buildings were destroyed. Unreal.

Today was church, relaxing, and good eating. I just got back from Evan’s, and he was starting to pack, so that was kind of sad. Tomorrow we have to go to some training in St. Lo, and then teaching the rest of the week. Last week before break-I leave for Britain this weekend!!