Have you ever driven a feesh!

So this week wasn't the most eventful, but it was fun nonetheless. On Monday, my friend Kelsey and I made dinner for my host family. The menu included: Meatless Chili, Cornbread, Hay Stacks, and Snickerdoodle cookies with ice cream. I couldn't find cream of tartar or shortening anywhere so we used substitutes that we learned about online. The cornbread was an epic fail- initially- and we decided to spare my family the shock. The rest of the food was great! The snickerdoodles didn't look the way they do at home because we used way to much butter to replace the shortening, but my family loved them! My host mom especially ate all the cookies she could get her hands on :) The meal was a success, everyone was happy and full, and my mom said it was so nice to come home and eat dinner without having to cook. Maybe I'll give it a try again sometime soon.

Tuesday I did my teaching internship and I got a new group of younger boys who were all 16. They were adorable! We did fill in the blanks to the lyrics with the song Don't Speak by No Doubt, and they loved it. Our second time listening to it, they were all singing along! It was great. We also played charades in English which was hilarious!!! My second group was the older boys that I've had for 2 weeks now. We did the same thing plus one other song: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. They all were already very familiar with the song but it was funny hearing them sing the words they hadn't known before! Being an English teacher in France is so fun!! At conversation club, we played Catchphrase which made me ultra happy!

Wednesday for my teaching internship class, we went to a school to observe some classes. I choose music and French class. The music class was ridiculous! The kids were playing the recorder and they had a "test" that day on their ability to play. The teacher had small groups play one at a time, so I heard the same song 50 times in 1 hour! It was painful, but watching the kids battle with their recorders as swords was pretty entertaining. Children really have no respect for their teachers in France. They talk the entire class and ignore her and she doesn't really try to demand respect either. In the French class, they were watching a movie called the Beauty of the Devil which is basically Faust. It was pretty interesting. The school was intensely huge and spread out. We had to go outside to get to certain class rooms.

Thursday is when all the real fun happened. A few girls and I went to the Tonus which is a student hosted dance party at a dance club that happens every Thursday night at 11 PM. This Thursday it was at this club called CooKoo. Each week has a different theme, and this week it was masquerade. Tickets in advance cost 9 euro which includes free coat and purse check and 2 drinks. The venue had two floors with a balcony on the top overlooking the first floor, and their were pillars you could dance on and comfy couches tucked away in corners and along the walls. The bouncer gave us each a mask, but they were cheapish so we didn't use them. Other people brought their own though. The music was techno for about 2 hours and I thought I was gonna die! We kept on screaming "Britany Spears!" The club got ultra crowded and the 6 of us were packed in tight while dancing. We stayed close because many guys kept on trying to pull us away from each other to dance with them but we weren't interested. One time while walking to the balcony, we were all holding hands an pulling each other along when this guy just put his arm around me and pulled me away from the girls. He didn't even say anything, he just held me and kept talking to his friends. It was bizarre, but my friend Megan saved me! That happened a few times throughout the course of the evening but I was not deterred. Finally, at 1:30 AM, the normal dance music came on. All the music they played was in English which surprised me! They played songs by Lady Gaga, Danity Kane, Britany Spears, the Spice Girls.... and then their were random songs like Summer Nights from Grease and a techno version of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie theme song. I had a blast! I really needed to go out and dance! Even though I had a 45 minute walk home and I didn't get back til 4:30 AM, it was worth it!

Friday I had to wake up early after 4 hours of sleep to go to grammar class, but I survived and we didn't really do much in class. I had done my homework way in advance because I knew I was going to go to the Tonus. My university class was once again canceled for the 5th week in a row so I went to the Machines De L'ile with a group from IES. It was incredible!! There is this humongous mechanical walking elephant that you can ride around the island and a gallery with many other mechanical animals. We only had tickets to the gallery, but it was so cool. There was a crab, a squid, one of those blind fish with the big light hanging in front of it (think the scary fish in Finding Nemo), a shrimp, a sting ray, and many more! It was incredible!! The tour guide choose people of different ages to ride each different animal. Multiple people on each animal have a speccific device they move whether its bike pedals with their feet or knobs or pulleys which make the animals blink, turn, rock, blow steam or water etc. The title of this blog is a direct quote from the tour guide who asked one of the girls form IES "Have you ever driven a fish" before commencing with the ride. But when he said "fish", it sounded like "feesh" which made it even funnier! There was also a boat with a simulated storm. Me and this guy Justin from IES got chosen to ride the boat and it was hilarious! We wore yellow sailing slickers and I had to control the utter as we tipped and rocked and water splashed on me and the wind blew! It felt real! Apparently there is this big plan to turn the island into this huge metal/plant tree with "branches" people can stand on to see all of Nantes "Herons" that people can ride. All of the mechanical animals we saw are going to be put in this 3 leved carousel that people can ride. Its going to be amazing! It won't be complete until 2011. I definitely want to come back to see it! We watched a video showing us how the animals were made and how the tree is being made, and then we got to walk on the branches that have already been complete. It is going to be awesome when its done! Next time I want to ride the elephant!

Saturday I saw the worst French film I've ever seen! Its called Le Premier Cercle and we thought it would be good because it has Gaspar Ulliel in it, but no! Mathilde, the French girl who organizes conversation club, told me he has never been the same since he came to the states to play Hannibal in Hannibal Rising. It was a horrible action flick with annoying music and a predictable plot. On our way back from the movies, this European man on the Tram -he's an immigrant from I dunno where- he called Megan and I FBI. We were like "No we are just students." Then he explained that in France FBI means fabulous, beautiful and intelligent! It was hilarious. We spilled out of the tram cracking up with Mathilde! That night, though, was very important because..... I HAD MY VERY FIRST HAMBURGER!!!! IN FRANCE!!!! Isn't that ironic? My friends were so shocked by the fact that I'd never had one, that they insisted on going to The Burger House- which is actually run by a guy from Seattle- and making me try one. I had a Bacon Cheese Burger which was actually pretty good! I dunno if I'll become a frequent hamburger eater, but at least I've covered the "milestone" haha. We shall see what waits in store for the future!!

Update:
I forgot to mention this but I wanted to add it so that at least I would remember it. So the day we went to the Machines De L'île, we all walked there from IES and saw a tram stopped on the tracks. As we walked closer and closer, to our horror, we saw a cluster of people surrounded by a man on the tracks in front of the tram. Apparently he had been hit!! We were so freaked out. It was such a nice day and we were all so excited about seeing the elephant, and then we see a potentially dead or soon to be dead man on the tracks! Not only was it a buzz kill, but it was pretty traumatic. That was one thing I didn't expect to see. Anyway, its not the best of news, but I wanted to include that in my blog because its important.