10/11 MON ANNIVERSAIRE et l'anniversaire de mon frère aussi

So it's my birthday and it’s was also my first day observing classes at my school. The teachers are all really nice. I spent the morning with Myriam, the principal of the school. Myriam teaches CM1, the children are around 10 years old, so I'm guessing that would be equivalent to 4th or 5th grade. During the lessons I actually learned a lot of French and some more vocab. Many of the assistants who are teaching at Lycees (high schools) are actually taking French grammar classes with their students to help them work on their French. I'm considering the same thing but only in my elementary school. hahaha. I met up with Laura to grab a bite to eat for lunch. Laura's teaches at a primary school that is only a few blocks away from mine and we usually commute together. So I decided to have a costume party for my birthday and during my lunch break I planned to get some decorations and help Laura find a costume, so we just assumed we would eat quickly and then shop for a costume. For the majority of the school here in France there is a 2 hour lunch break for the students and faculty. The children and the teachers have the option to either go home to have lunch or eat lunch on the school grounds. Considering the long lunch break we thought we would have plenty of time to find a costume and decorations.  We did forget however everyone else has a 2 hour lunch break in France. Not one shop was open, even some of the restaurants were closed too, which makes no sense to me but c'est la vie. After searching for an open store we gave up and found a café. That afternoon I went to two other classes, one class with 7 year olds and the other one was another CM1. I'm not sure how many classes are at Marcel Pagnol but I believe there are about 6. Still haven't seen the whole school, but the school grounds are quite large. After observing for the day Laura and I went to the Carrefour and we picked up some treats for the party.

Side note about Laure: Not only is there a language barrier with the French sometimes but there is also a language barrier when speaking with someone from the UK. Case in point, when I first told Laura that I was having a costume party for my birthday. She then said, oh a fancy dress party, in her cute english accent. i wasn't sure if she was confused, maybe she thought she had to actually find a cocktail dress because she thought the party might be formal. So i repeated myself and said costume party but to make a long story short, English/ Scottish folk call costume parties "fancy dress parties". There are many other differences, it’s almost like it’s another language. Fries are chips. Chips are crisps. A hot guy is usually called dishy. Trashy girl is a tart.

But after the Carrefour i cleaned my room and got my costume together. Everyone here is very poor and we all had to think of costumes on a tight budget. I bought yellow paper mache at the Carrefour and tape them to a black dress… So I was a bumble bee. (bourdon en Français) I invited all the assistants and some of my new French friends who live at the Foyer. Everyone dressed up in their costumes and looked great. There was a lumberjack, a geek, hula girl, 2 cats, Amy Winehouse, batman, and a few others. The party was hopping. I finally had to kick the last few stragglers out at 2am. Everyone was supper creative with their costumes. My favorite was between Anna (the geek) and Robin (lumberjack). But all in all my 24^th birthday was great in France.

Happy Birthday Danny!