France Ruins Everything, and My First Day of School

In the past 2 weeks, the country of France has inconvenienced me in not one but 2 ways. This is more than it has ever inconvenienced me before, unless you count the time I missed my flight to Paris, but technically, we were in Madrid, so not sure if I can count that.

The first time France inconvenienced me was when Amy's flight to Spain was canceled because of air traffic controllers in France going on strike.

The second time was today when we decided we wanted to try going to Biarritz (a bit over the border from Spain) for our long weekend off of school and discovered there would be ANOTHER strike affecting transportation in France. So, in short, we could get to Biarritz, but there would be questionable transportation running on Tuesday, the day we would return. I know they love their strikes here in Europe, but this seems a little gratuitous.

In other news, I had my first day of school with the students today. It was great. I had 2 classes, one was 4th ESO (14-15 years old), the last year of required school, and the other was 2nd Bachillerato (17-18 years old), the last year of optional schooling before college.

Today, all I did was do a little presentation about myself and where I'm from. Then the students asked me questions. I was pretty impressed with their English, as I was expecting a lot worse. My tutor had told me they were very badly behaved and to expect the worst from them, so I was pleasantly surprised. 

Here are some of the best questions I was asked:

-"Do you like Jacob or Edward?"

-"Do you have Wendy's in Wisconsin?" (This was from a girl who lived in the States for the past 3 years)

-"What is it like between Muslims and non-Muslims in America?"

-"Were you a cheerleader?"

-"Do you have a gun?" (This, I hear, is a very common question for American English teachers to be asked.)

-"Giggle giggle giggle giggle" (the 14-year-old girls when I showed a picture of my brother)

-"How many famous people have you met?"

Stay tuned for what I'm sure will be more hilariousness in my classes (and for what we will end up doing this weekend, since every hostel in Northern Spain seems to be booked)

originally published 10.8.2010