Sunday morning, I woke up to a French breakfast prepared by Antoine. It was nice to have on my last day in Nantes. We ate together and I said my goodbyes to Marco and Jackeline. I had to get to Paris but am running dangerously low on money so, at the last minute, I decided to hitchhike my way with antoine’s encouragement. As I quickly stuffed my possessions into a backpack, Antoine and Susana started making a sign for me on the back of a piece of cardboard that they’d used to get to Rennes. “I hope it brings you good luck,” he said before dropping me off at a rond point. We said goodbye and it wasn’t easy. I’ll really miss that guy.

Within 20 minutes, I was sitting in the passenger’s seat next to a Romanian guy who spoke neither English nor French. He was heading to Germany and could take me all the way to Paris, listening to glorious Romanian music all the way. We amused ourselves trying to communicate, but mostly listened to his mixed tapes. Unfortunately, he got pulled over for speeding about 25km outside of Le mans (a long way from Paris). He went into the police station while I waited in the car for an hour or two. Finally he emerged and said, “finished.”
“Finally,” I thought.
“Sorry,” he said. “Baggage?”
Oh. I gathered that he’d have to stay in the police station while waiting for a friend to drive there and pay his fine.

I was on my own again, but this time on the side of a highway where cars zoomed by and hitchhiking is illegal. Oh well. I tried getting a ride for a while but knew it was nearly impossible. Finally, I decided to walk 4-5 hours to Le Mans and sleep there to take a train in the morning. I walked along the highway with the sign held up behind me, just in case. To my surprise, a young attractive girl pulled over 15 minutes into the walk and offered to drive me to Le Mans. Gooz yeah. Jessica was friendly and a little naive, one might say. She picked me up because I looked friendly from the back and because I was walking, which showed an effort. If I were a young pretty girl, I wouldn’t pick up men walking along the highway. But thanks! She drove me to a Rond point right in front of a peage to Paris, which was perfect. I said goodbye and it wasn’t 10 minutes later before I was picked up again. This time it was a young, clean-cut, well-dressed handsome guy about my age. He was driving to Paris from his girlfriend’s house and was heading to Belgiun the next morning, where he works and spends his weeks. He had a nice car and seemed very well to do. He was also really friendly and taught me a bunch of French expressions like “Ça tisse des liens.” I was left at an RER station just a 3 euro ride to the center and, thanks to Laura, didn’t have to buy a metro ticket.

After 8 hours and 3 euros, I finally arrived in St. Denis, known as Paris’ most dangerous neighborhood, at 10:30. I waited in the metro station for Lisa, the girl who I’d just hosted and was returning the favor. To my surprise, the whole crew of 4 welcomed me. They introduced me to some other international students who were equally awesome and fed me spaghetti and wine. They were good hosts. They did learn from the best, afterall. Lisa gave up her bed for me and let me store my heavy nonessentials in her room. She woke up next morning to drive me to the beauvais airport, a ride that would cost 15 euros otherwise.

In this trip, I met a bunch of interesting people and might have made some friends along the way. I also paid a total of 10 euros for a trip that could have cost 150 otherwise. It’s not a bad way to travel. Thank you to the hosts and kind people who picked me up along the way, If you happen to stumble upon this.

September

• Spent several days in Reykjavik, never learning how to pronounce “Reykjavik”
• Ate a freekin whale
• OMG I GET TO SEE MY GIRLFRIEND EVERY DAY OMGOMGOMG SO HAPPY!!! Also, got used to eating well.
• Moved into the temple and got to know my roommates over many bottles of wine

October

• Started work on the 1st.
• One week of vacation, spent working. Miserable. MISERABLE. Students wrote “fuck” all over their papers. Who does that?
• Got paid. Celebrated over a crepe dinner (YUM) with Krista and the mouse.
• Very loud Halloween party at my host’s house. Slightly more crossdressers than in the US, a lot less whores. Also had a little Halloween outing of our own where we met Darryl the devil.
• Insulted my students with rude stereotypes of French people. Realized they were geniuses when they wrote about conversations they’d have with famous people.
• First shopping experience in France with the mousinator. Spent an hour trying to find the place in the rain, another hour trying to figure out how to unlock the shopping carts, another hour staring in disgust at the meats they sold, and the last hour marveling at the number of baguettes in each shopping cart.

November

• Another week of vacation. Seriously?
• Got excited about my first protest, annoyed by the 2nd, and outraged at every one after that.
• Hosted Antoine, a couchsurfer and one of my best friends in Nantes now. 3 nights turned into 3 months.

December

• Had an awesome Thanksgiving away from home in the form of a potluck dinner at our place, which also served as a wonderful birthday celebration. Cooked an amazing huge bird with the old lady.
• Another 2 weeks of amazing vacation for Christmas break spent with the family, Brian, Tracy and the mouse. Amazed with how much work I don’t do. Started with a long trip to Rome, sleeping in two airports along the way, drying my clothes at the airport then wearing them all to save space in my backpack.
• Spent a wonderful Christmas with those I love most in Italy. Dressed up like Santa and gave out cheap gifts. Took lotsa pictos.
• Slept in the Geneva underground with the drug addicts. And my mom.

January

• Spent New Years in Paris. The celebration stank, but it was great to be with my loved ones.
• Didn’t write many blog posts. I must have actually worked this month or something.

February

• Spent a weekend in Dublin, because tickets were cheaper than the price of a brownie. Stayed with awesome couchsurfers.
• Got dumped and spent one long lonely night in the Marseille airport, but it’s ok. Most depressed I’d been in a while, but looking back I already feel silly. Logic: I don’t want to be with this woman anyway because she’s clearly crazy because she doesn’t want to be with me. I don’t want to be with an insane person, she could kill me in my sleep.
• Lost myself in the labyrinth that is the medina of Fez, the ancient capital of Morocco
• Met a bunch of couchsurfers and had many good times in Marrakech, the Barcelona of Morocco.
• Experienced some beautiful and dangerous hiking in the countryside of Morocco.
• Played tourist in Tangier before saying goodbye to Morocco.
• Felt like regurgitated poop after taking the Foreign Service Officer Test in the US embassy in Paris.

March

• The single life inspired a streak of incredible productivity – started writing a book, learning guitar, and learning another language.
• Found out I passed the FSOT. Called my mom immediately out of excitement.
• Flew to Chicago for an interview with TFA. I at least thought it went incredibly. Had to buy two sets of tickets to get there because I’m an idiot.

April

• Had my first hitchhiking experience with Krista and went to Bordeaux with the Nantes family where I met Mathieu, a couchsurfer and possibly the coolest guy in the world.
• Had a very successful American food night with the help of Krista.
• Two weeks of vacation: Began a pilgrimage from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Had dreams of great adventures, spiritual awakenings and philosophical ponderings. Found that it was just a lot of walking and pain.
• Almost died in the mountains of Portugal. Didn’t.
• Hated Spain at first for a dozen reasons. Got my beautiful camera and pictures stolen.
• Thought the pigrimage was hell, ironically, but found it all worthwhile when I arrived in Santiago two weeks later.
• April 30th (this coming Friday) will mark the end of my contract and will also be the best party the Temple Protestant has ever seen. Saying goodbye to all of the wonderful friends I have here.

May

(coming soon)

• Nantes -> Paris
• Paris -> Madrid
• Madrid -> Istanbul, travel around Turkey
• Istanbul -> Madrid
• Madrid -> Canary Islands
• Canary Islands -> Madrid
• Madrid -> Paris
• Paris -> NYC

I’m here in Nantes for a few short days that include 4 days of work and 2 days of partying before travels. How did I get this life? Seriously, what the crap?

We had Monday off for Easter. It was just a regular weekend for me because I never work on Wednesdays, but my friends were all off so they wanted to travel. We decided we would go to BoRKH-deaux. I wasn’t interested in buying train tickets, though, and I had always wanted to try hitchhiking. I asked Krista if she’d be interested in hitching too, and so off we went. It was a fine experience. We took a bus out to a roundabout that had an exit towards Bordeaux, put a sign in the air, and waved our thumbs around until someone picked us up. We never had to wait more than 20 minutes. Actually, we ran into some guy that Krista knew and he drove us half way to Nantes, stopping at La Rochelle. Four different people picked us up and all were friendly. One guy even asked me to send him a message when we get to Bordeaux so he can know that we got there safely.

Antoine called us while we were eating lunch in La Rochelle to tell us that he was passing through at the time, so we just rode the rest of the way with him. OK, so we didn’t complete the entire ride. We tried it, though, and it was fun.

But I felt like a real loser when we arrived in Bordeaux and met our couchsurfing host, Mathieu. He had been hitchhiking all over the world for years, working odd jobs along the way and setting up tents on the side of the road while in transit. He’d even hitchhiked on boats around the Caribbean up into Florida. This guy was crazy in the coolest of ways. We all got to know each other over some drinks at his house before going out to do a bit of sightseeing and to meet the others (Marco, Teresa, Ivana and their host). We found a bar that appeared closed on the outside but actually stayed open all night. I’ve never seen this in Nantes. We got back at 6am and slept until noon.

The next day we did a bit more of sightseeing and snuck around some closed off ruins of a castle, because we are hoodlums. We ate, drank, and went out again with the others. Instead of staying out all night this time, though, we decided to come back for a late night snack and watched a movie together. I fell asleep in between Krista and a bearded Mathieu. When I woke up, I was only next to the bearded man. He invited me to continue sleeping as he went to the store to buy some bread for our breakfast. I obliged. After having a traditional French breakfast, Mathieu explained to us that something crazy had happened in his yard. We were all curious. “I saw a bunch of rabbits in my yard this morning,” he said. “Like 12 of those damn things. They were jumping around and then they hid and turned into chocolate. It was so crazy. You know I’m an animist, so we need to find these spirits in my yard.” This was adorable and hilarious. We went on an easter egg hunt and eventually found a dozen chocolate bunnies that had been hidden throughout the garden. They were delicious.

We walked around Bordeaux for a bit, trying in vain to find the others but discovering interesting areas along the way. We eventually got hungry and bought food for a picnic, which we had along the river in front of Place de la Bourse. This is a beautiful scene. On one side you have the river, and on the other side a stunning plaza reflecting off a water mirror. Couples, families, and the occasional juggler are scattered along the grass enjoying the perfect weather. Many are picnicking with their bottle of wine and baguette. Many others are rollerblading along the river. We all ate and laughed together, and I thought of how lucky I am. A friend of mine said it: “Fuck, you have the best life right now.” I have to agree. I realized at that picnic that my time was coming to an end and we’d all be saying goodbye soon. This part of my life will soon be behind me, and I may never have anything like it again. I felt a bit like Xavier in l’Auberge Espagnole, only without the beautiful French girlfriend.

On the way back, we stopped at a secluded beach near La Rochelle. We walked around and watched the sun set before returning to Nantes.

I only have 3 days left here before I leave for 2 weeks of vacation, and then another 4 days before my contract is over. While I’m happy to see my family, I’m really going to miss this.

So far I’ve only worked 1 hour this week because of strikes. In 2 days, I leave Nantes for Paris. I’ll spend the day and night in Paris before flying to Chicago the next morning for my interview with TFA (wish me luck!). I should also get my FSO Test results back around this time. I’ll spend several days in Chicago and fly back to Europe March 31st. April 1st will be a day trip in Rome before I head back to Nantes via Paris. I’ll work for 1 day and then head out for a three-day weekend in Bordeaux en stop. When I come back on Tuesday, I’ll work until Thursday and then head to Porto, Portugal where I’ll start my two-week pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I’ll walk for 2 weeks through Northern Portugal and Spain and, when I finish, I’ll fly to Paris where I’ll probably spend the night and the next day before taking a train to Nantes. I’ll work there for 4 days and then April is over, which also means my contract is over. So, after those 4 days of work, I’ll be traveling for all of May. Where? I don’t know, and am open to suggestions. I will almost definitely be traveling all month, though. May 29th I’ll be back in Paris for a flight to NYC, where I’ll probably spend several days before heading south to sweet Texas. If I have money, I’d love to drive South and stop in places along the way, but we’ll see about that. This is chaos of the best kind. I’ll miss it when it’s over.

I’m finally on a much needed vacation. Actually, my vacation was hardly needed and even less deserved. I’m still amazed at how little I work here. My official 12 hour schedule is, in reality, even lighter. I’ve never worked 12 hours in a week here, that I can remember. Take this week for example:

Monday - No work ever on Mondays
Tuesday - Students block the doors in protest. I ask one of my students why he’s blocking the door, and he says because he has 2 exams today.
Wednesday - Class cancelled
Thursday - Worked 1 hour, the other classes cancelled
Friday - Staff day, but I don’t work because I’m a lowly assistant

If you didn’t do the math, that’s a total of 1 hour worked this week. And now I’m on a 2-week vacation. Whaaa? I can’t tell where my vacations end and begin. The assistant life is a sweet one.

In my free time, I’ve been enjoying the city’s new festive atmosphere. The streets are lit up and there’s a big Christmas market in the center of the city, about a 10 minute walk from me. I thought we were unique and interesting for having a Christmas market but, from what I’ve seen in other assistant blogs, it looks like these are all over France. They all look the same, too. Oh well. I took pictures anyway and put them into a photosynth. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries before I could finish taking pictures of the market or take any interesting detailed shots. You get the idea, though. Check it out

As for my Christmas, I’ll be spending it in Italy with my family. For New Years, I’ll be in Paris. I don’t know if I have a place to stay in Paris from the 1st to the 4th, so I’m not completely at ease. If you know somebody who knows somebody, I’d appreciate the help. Any other assistants going to be in Rome, Florence, or Paris during the holidays?

If you’re looking for a funny Christmas movie, I highly recommend Le Père Noël est une Ordure. One of my French pro

In 22 years, this was the first time that I’ve spent Thanksgiving away from my family. I explained to my students that Thanksgiving is a time to be with your family and that I was sad to be away. Knowing that spending the holiday alone would suck, we had a potluck at my place. I was initially planning to have about 10 people over, but the group swelled to a crowded 40. Nearly everyone brought something to share, so it turned out fine. What worried more than anything was the Turkey. Fully aware that the success or failure of the entire holiday could depend on the turkey, I did not want to be on turkey duty. However, with Minh’s help, I made one damn good turkey. 40 people (half strangers) + 25 bottles of wine + 50 beers + 2 bowls of sangria + lots of food and my awesome turkey = a pretty good Thanksgiving party. I was delighted.
Minh tried surprising me for my birthday during the party. She tried getting in touch with everyone and tell them to show up 30 minutes late, so that I would think that all 30 confirmed attendees decided not to come. Unfortunately, the people I don’t know never got the message so I was sitting around with a bunch of strangers for 30 minutes. It was a relief to see everyone else finally show up, though. Minh and her friend made me a chocolate rum cake, which makes me very happy.
A couple of days later, my actual birthday came. I planned on going out for dinner and a movie with Minh because there was a film festival taking place at the time. When I headed out with Minh and Antoine, I found that Jackeline (roomie) had planned a surprise dinner for me but I wasn’t there to participate. I was kind of disappointed because I wanted to go out to dinner for my birthday rather than stay home, but I came back after the movie out of obligation. I was really surprised though and am glad I came back. Jackeline made me some delicious traditional birthday dish from Costa Rica and got me a huge box of chocolates that I promptly devoured. Minh gave me a handmade scarf, which meant that the next day I would wear a scarf for the first time in my life. The coolest gift of all, however, was from Antoine. He gave me a really nice raclette machine. Party time. I’ll be sad to see him go.
Speaking of holidays, we’ve decorated a bit. Minh and I surprised the roomies with stockings. Turns out that they’re not so common in France, while in Italy they’re not put up until January when a witch comes by to fill them up. That is, if I correctly understood the thick accent of my Italian roommate. We also got a Christmas tree and decorations to put up. I’m pumped.

I’ve been using this website for a couple years, nearly every time I travel now.  Multiple times, couchsurfing has been the highlight of my trip.  In New York, my stay with two middle aged brothers was something I’ll never forget.  Not only did I have a private bedroom with a garden view in the middle of Manhattan, but I was treated to some delicious food and met one of the coolest middle aged gay man I’d ever met.  Most recently, I stayed with a couple here in Nantes who I’m in love with.  I was staying in their living room on a couch with a possessed cat, but that only served to make the experience more memorable.  If you don’t get the idea, I’m recommending you go to couchsurfing.org, add me as a friend and leave me a reference so people know I’m not crazy.

Until this last week, I’d never hosted a couch surfer.  I was benefitting from everyone’s generosity without returning the favor.  Sure, I was gracing them with my wisdom and charm, but I never gave up my couch.  I had only ever received requests from people coming into Austin for the ACL music festival, anyway.  Finally, I’m in a city that attracts tourists and I have a spare bedroom to offer.

My first couch surfer is a 24 year old surfer from Rennes named Antoine, stopping in Nantes for a month en route to Chile where he’ll visit his girlfriend.  I was a little nervous about hosting someone for the first time, but he’s great company.  What’s more, he thinks the same of us.  He loves to sing, dance, surf, speak English in a funny accent, eat a ridiculous amount of tomatoes, and more fun things.  Antoine seems so excited to be at our apartment and reminds me of how great it is to be living in a flat with people from different countries.  We get along great and I’m excited about our new friendship.  In a few hours, he’s driving us to Rennes to show us his city.  Whoooooooooooo!  I love Nantes, but I’m happy to see another city.  Here’s Antoine surfing on our couch:

Some more exciting news: I’m going to Dublin.  Marco (my Italian roommate) discovered a deal on ryanair that offered tickets for 1 euro each.  Once again, I’m visiting a place I never thought I’d see.  It’ll be a big group of Marco, Antoine, Antoine’s girlfriend, Minh, me, and several others from the apartment next door.  We’re only going for the weekend, but for a price lower than a cup of coffee I can’t complain.  It’s crazy to think that a couple of days ago I didn’t know this guy, and now we’re traveling to Rennes and Dublin together.

We’ve had an Iranian night, Vietnamese night, and here are a few photos from Italian night:

The first one was minor: a 10 minute delay on the tram as a handful of people blocked the railway.  They wanted Nantes to return to being a part of Brittany, and understandably thought that making me late to my first day of work might help their cause.  It wasn’t too perturbed because it was my first French protest.  ”How exciting!” I thought.  The other passengers just rolled their eyes, said their “putains” and waited for the train to change its rail.

My next experience caused a lot more trouble but was also much more exciting.  I don’t fully understand what’s going on, unfortunately, but I do know that the farmers of France are pissed.  The price of milk and other goods has plummeted for some reason, so they’re pissed.  Farmers in France have literally flooded entire streets with milk in protest.  I didn’t get to experience the milky Venice, but I did see a massive line of tractors blocking the tram lines all day long, making it impossible for many people to travel.  In the morning, I saw a guy sitting in a tractor on the tram line by himself and I thought, “what the hell does this guy think he’s doing?”  A couple hours later, there were hundreds of them honking and blowing smoke, making noise, and kind of just hanging out in their tractors.

The most recent protest\strike combo I experienced was at my own school.  I was excited to hear the rumor that the students would block off the school on Tuesday to protest potential reformation in the school system.  This would mean that I’d get to see a real student strike and not have to work.  When I walked up to the school in the morning, I saw that the main entrance had a wire fence in front of it and trash cans piled nearly to the top to prevent anyone from entering.  I continued walking and saw that at the second and last entrance there was a crowd of students, the principal in the middle of them encouraging students to come on in.  Few obliged.  Still, I was a little disappointed that I was able to get into the school at all.  When I went to the staff room, I was surprised to see my colleagues working on a banner announcing that the school was on strike.

I went to my first class and found that nobody was there.  Not a single person showed up.  I guess some of them were taking this thing seriously.  After about 10 minutes of waiting, I decided that I’d walk home and spend a couple of hours there before my next class.  In that short amount of time, the students managed to completely block off the second entrance.  Instead of being locked out of the school, I was locked in.  For 4 hours.  As soon as it started sprinkling, the students scattered but left behind their barricades.  I had to escape outside of a private backdoor and climb over a garbage can obstacle course.  From what I gathered, most of the students weren’t sure what they were protesting.  They don’t seem to think they’re really making a difference.  I think they just do it because it’s in their blood.