All apologies, I've been everywhere but the internet...
I’m sorry I’ve neglected my blog for so long. I’ve been busy with vacations, guests, and generally enjoying the life of the teaching assistant in France. Considering how jocular I find children and the few hours a week I’m actually responsible for them, I consider my job play. Outside of work, I play. So my life adds up to all play and little work. In the midst of all this play, I manage to never find time to use the internet. I will give a précis of the last months activities.
On April 20th Annie and I flew from Paris to Tunisia. She researched some agencies and found us a good deal with one of these all inclusive packages. Neither of us had ever travelled like that before. Our one hope was to keep a tighter budget than we had in Turkey.
The arrival to Tunis was much smoother than that to Istanbul. We were together for sleeping in the airport and we were both on the same planned flight, for example. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the departure from Tunisia was also much smoother than the snowstorm, windshield wiper, small-Italian-border-town, debacled, return from Istanbul.
Immediately upon our arrival, I worried that the bathing suits, tang-tops, skirts and shorts were a major packing error. Although, clearly degrees warmer than Paris, I had expected less clouds and less wind. The agency swept us up at the airport and ushered us onto a bus. Everything was easy as pie. The bus drive took a few hours and Annie and I kept making, we’re in Africa jokes, and enjoying ourselves more than everybody else, which was a continued theme of the trip.
The bus pulled up to the El Mouradi Club Selima in Port El Kantaoui near Monastir. A woman who worked for the agency ran us through all the available excursions, regular cab rates and whatever else we needed to know.
The agency, by the way, is a French company and therefore, everyone was French but us. No one really seemed to notice, and we didn’t mind.
Our room was in one of many smaller buildings that made up our hotel. Looking at a scaled model in the main building, we realized that in the height of tourist season, guests might have quite a long walk to the clubhouse, if they were placed in say Block 52. Annie and I were in 11. Five minutes from the beach. We had red wrist bands on our wrists that gave us carte-blanche at the hotel.
Main meals had allotted times but there was no time of day that you couldn’t at least get some pizza and you could get coffee, beer, soda, wine, cocktails, bottles of water, etc whenever you wanted.
Fortunately, the next morning, my fears for the weather were repudiated with a sunny, warm, beautiful sky that was with us for the entire week. We were red as lobsters by the end of the first day when we signed up for a 2-day excursion to the south.
We left the hotel for 2 full, long days, mostly spent on a bus, but offering us sights like nothing I’d ever seen before. We drove to the desert, the wasteland, and then we arrived at The Sahara. It was like the other desert was the beach and the Sahara was the sea. Annie and I decided to ditch the camels and jump around on our own terms filming videos and taking pictures, dressed like real African desert people.
The next day we saw a perfectly timed sunrise and took loads of pictures, including ones of the other tourists taking pictures. We rode jeeps over smaller roads and even off-roads to reach Oasis’, canyons, and other villages.
Listless from our trip to the south we spent the rest of the week on the tennis courts, sitting on the beach, playing backgammon, drinking beers, and getting tan. We were famous around the hotel, because no one wanted to believe we were American. We did take a taxi into Soux one afternoon and met an old man who showed us around the city for a few Dinar.
There’s a lot I’m leaving out, as far as impressions, and feelings about stuff so you’ll have to ask me another time. It was an incredibly relaxing week, in a beautiful place, with friendly people and amazing weather. Annie came back to Pamiers with me for the week and we just reposed. I finally saw Carcassonne, which is truly impressive.
After the holidays, school was slow to get back on track considering there are 3 bank holidays in May and France likes to bridge the gaps, Thursday to Sunday for example and then the next week Thursday to Monday. So I decided to take the bigger bridge, skip Monday and Tuesday and go to Barcelona for my birthday. Barcelona is also an impressive city. We visited the Gaudi buildings, Catalunya Museum, sat on the beach, ate Tapas, and generally had a good time.
Jude was visiting last week. It was good to see him and we had some good talks as usual. Since mid-April now, I’ve been slowly watching all my friends leave. There are only a few of us on 9 month contracts and now almost all of the 7 monthers in the Ariege are gone. I’ve come full circle, having felt lonely and bored for the first few months here, now I will also spend my last 5 weeks lonely and bored. Fortunately, I don’t mind. I now have many side projects keeping me busy, (GRE vocab words, if you haven’t noticed. Please point out if I’ve used any of them incorrectly).
The only sure thing about the beginning of my 25th year as Emily Fredricks Tully is my ticket to Manchester on June 22 and catching the train to Yorkshire where I’ll be working another 7 weeks with Village Camps. I hope I don’t run into Heathcliff in the moors. I'm very happy to have abeyed real-life responsibility for so long. Perhaps I can go another 24 years. But please don't tell my Squaw Mama I said that.
Salut, Hasta Luego, A bien tot, Ciao, Ahoy, Sayonara, Peace out...
P.S. In case you didn't believe me...
There should be a video there but im having a bit of trouble and now I'm out of time.
On April 20th Annie and I flew from Paris to Tunisia. She researched some agencies and found us a good deal with one of these all inclusive packages. Neither of us had ever travelled like that before. Our one hope was to keep a tighter budget than we had in Turkey.
The arrival to Tunis was much smoother than that to Istanbul. We were together for sleeping in the airport and we were both on the same planned flight, for example. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the departure from Tunisia was also much smoother than the snowstorm, windshield wiper, small-Italian-border-town, debacled, return from Istanbul.
Immediately upon our arrival, I worried that the bathing suits, tang-tops, skirts and shorts were a major packing error. Although, clearly degrees warmer than Paris, I had expected less clouds and less wind. The agency swept us up at the airport and ushered us onto a bus. Everything was easy as pie. The bus drive took a few hours and Annie and I kept making, we’re in Africa jokes, and enjoying ourselves more than everybody else, which was a continued theme of the trip.
The bus pulled up to the El Mouradi Club Selima in Port El Kantaoui near Monastir. A woman who worked for the agency ran us through all the available excursions, regular cab rates and whatever else we needed to know.
The agency, by the way, is a French company and therefore, everyone was French but us. No one really seemed to notice, and we didn’t mind.
Our room was in one of many smaller buildings that made up our hotel. Looking at a scaled model in the main building, we realized that in the height of tourist season, guests might have quite a long walk to the clubhouse, if they were placed in say Block 52. Annie and I were in 11. Five minutes from the beach. We had red wrist bands on our wrists that gave us carte-blanche at the hotel.
Main meals had allotted times but there was no time of day that you couldn’t at least get some pizza and you could get coffee, beer, soda, wine, cocktails, bottles of water, etc whenever you wanted.
Fortunately, the next morning, my fears for the weather were repudiated with a sunny, warm, beautiful sky that was with us for the entire week. We were red as lobsters by the end of the first day when we signed up for a 2-day excursion to the south.
We left the hotel for 2 full, long days, mostly spent on a bus, but offering us sights like nothing I’d ever seen before. We drove to the desert, the wasteland, and then we arrived at The Sahara. It was like the other desert was the beach and the Sahara was the sea. Annie and I decided to ditch the camels and jump around on our own terms filming videos and taking pictures, dressed like real African desert people.
The next day we saw a perfectly timed sunrise and took loads of pictures, including ones of the other tourists taking pictures. We rode jeeps over smaller roads and even off-roads to reach Oasis’, canyons, and other villages.
Listless from our trip to the south we spent the rest of the week on the tennis courts, sitting on the beach, playing backgammon, drinking beers, and getting tan. We were famous around the hotel, because no one wanted to believe we were American. We did take a taxi into Soux one afternoon and met an old man who showed us around the city for a few Dinar.
There’s a lot I’m leaving out, as far as impressions, and feelings about stuff so you’ll have to ask me another time. It was an incredibly relaxing week, in a beautiful place, with friendly people and amazing weather. Annie came back to Pamiers with me for the week and we just reposed. I finally saw Carcassonne, which is truly impressive.
After the holidays, school was slow to get back on track considering there are 3 bank holidays in May and France likes to bridge the gaps, Thursday to Sunday for example and then the next week Thursday to Monday. So I decided to take the bigger bridge, skip Monday and Tuesday and go to Barcelona for my birthday. Barcelona is also an impressive city. We visited the Gaudi buildings, Catalunya Museum, sat on the beach, ate Tapas, and generally had a good time.
Jude was visiting last week. It was good to see him and we had some good talks as usual. Since mid-April now, I’ve been slowly watching all my friends leave. There are only a few of us on 9 month contracts and now almost all of the 7 monthers in the Ariege are gone. I’ve come full circle, having felt lonely and bored for the first few months here, now I will also spend my last 5 weeks lonely and bored. Fortunately, I don’t mind. I now have many side projects keeping me busy, (GRE vocab words, if you haven’t noticed. Please point out if I’ve used any of them incorrectly).
The only sure thing about the beginning of my 25th year as Emily Fredricks Tully is my ticket to Manchester on June 22 and catching the train to Yorkshire where I’ll be working another 7 weeks with Village Camps. I hope I don’t run into Heathcliff in the moors. I'm very happy to have abeyed real-life responsibility for so long. Perhaps I can go another 24 years. But please don't tell my Squaw Mama I said that.
Salut, Hasta Luego, A bien tot, Ciao, Ahoy, Sayonara, Peace out...
P.S. In case you didn't believe me...
There should be a video there but im having a bit of trouble and now I'm out of time.
posted by emily at 9:59 AM
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