Thanksgiving à la française

Last week I celebrated my first Thanksgiving away from home. Hannah (the other American living here) and I were invited to another foyer in town where they were having a big Thanksgiving meal. The American assistants living there (Amy, Andy, Rocky & Virginia) had organized this huge dinner and done most of the cooking and they asked if we could come along since there wouldn't be a Thanksgiving celebration in our foyer. There was turkey, mashed potatoes,stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, pumpkin pie, apple pie, etc. It was the most typically American Thanksgiving meal I'd ever had - and I had to come all the way to France for it!
The American assistants did a whole presentation for the French people about Thanksgiving and told them about how you eat everything together at once. I think the French people were weirded out by this concept but they played along. It was a nice long meal except for the one guy who kept making jokes about putting gravy on everything, about hamburgers, McDonalds,and about his general dislike for Americans.

Later on that night we went out to celebrate Jenny's 21st birthday. The group consisted of all of us English Assistants from this foyer and about 6 of our French friends (who are not surprisingly all male). The French guys always peer pressure us into staying out later than we want to since almost all of us have to be at work at 8 or 8:30, so we ended up at "La Petite Cabane" which is the only "club" in town. For some odd reason I got stopped by no fewer than 3 guys who were really excited to practice their English with me "I euhhh speak euhhh eeenglish! You euhh speak euhh eenglish?" I usually humored them for a few minutes or so before finding a nice way to get out of it. The evening ended with an impromptu rendition of Mariah Carey's "I Can't Live (If Living is Without You)" since the DJ actually played that. In the club. Don't ask.

The next morning (as most Friday mornings usually are) was especially painful to be at school. I decided that the only way I could put a stop to my Friday morning yawning sessions in school was to a. eat a bigger breakfast and b. walk to school in the cold weather to get my blood flowing. So I ate and I walked up the HUGE hill and at some point it started snowing! The snow lasted on and off all morning but didn't accumulate much and was gone by that night. Here's the view of the snow from my room:

Friday afternoon - it goes without saying - is prime nap time. Other assistants and I send text messages all morning to each other about how we can't wait to get out of school so we can nap in the afternoon. I won't lie, I slept from 2-5pm. I know one day it will catch up to me, but for now I'm enjoying my naps guilt-free!