Didn’t do too much during my post-Luxemburg vacation days. Caught up on the latest season of Project Runway and drank lots of hot bevs to stave off frostbite in my very cold room. On Monday though (we went back to school on Thursday oddly enough) Pascale, Alex’s teacher friend invited us to join her and her nephew Pierre for a little jaunt up to Epinal to go to some tour at the “Imagerie d’Epinal” and we happily accepted.
On the drive up, we learned that this Imagerie and the prints it created during its peak in the 19th century (historical events, schoolbook illustrations, fairytales, etc) is actually pretty famous throughout France, and the only reason why someone not from around here would have heard of Epinal. Apparently there’s even a French expression about it! When we got there, the place was pretty neat. Despite attempts to make it really hokey with people walking around in costumes and balloon animal-making magicians, the actual printing machines that were being exhibited were super cool. Pascale got chosen to use the Guttenberg press, and she gave the print to Alex—jealous!
Then we went down to the “modern-day” part of the Imagerie which was super bizarre. Lots of weird collages of random celebrities or corny themes like “children”.
Example of the cool stuff the imagerie did in the 19th century
Example of the stuff it produces today
But we went a little further and found a station where you could get personalized stationery, luckily in the more classic Epinal style as opposed to the funky-collage style. As much as I love stationery I don’t think I’d ever be tempted to have my own personalized Brigitte Bardot letters.
We made a detour on our way back as Pascale insisted on showing us Gerardmer, a very pretty town about 30km away from St. Die which has a nice lake and attracts a fair amount of tourists in the winter for its skiing. Because of the newly turned-back clocks though, it was getting darker faster than she had anticipated and she started panicking that we wouldn’t be able to see anything once we actually got there. This is when I learned that the French version of “put the pedal to the metal” is literally translated to “step on the mushroom” which we all agreed was funny. From then on, Pierre would every once in a while in a put-on, deep, serious voice say “Push the mushroom” which because of some combination of his voice, his accent, the ridiculousness of the phrase and it’s calming consonance, I just thought was the greatest thing ever.
After Gerardmer we went back to Pascale’s house and while she prepared dinner, Alex Pierre and I plopped down in front of the telly. And what did we find? Le Juste Prix, otherwise known as The Price is Right. OK: you’d think you could not get more inane than the American version, but then you go to France. I actually could not believe my eyes/ears. One of the hosts’ name was the equivalent of “Mr. Doofus” and it was basically the three stooges (though probably not as funny) with some classic guess-how-much-this-enormous-chess-set-costs games thrown in as an after-thought.
Pascale’s dinner was delish. And after the main course, I reveled in a cheese that had to be kept well sealed, apart from the normal cheese plate in it’s own private storage case because it smelled so strong. And, as the boys made a stink about it (no pun intended), I helped myself to a second helping.
My return to school was pretty painless. Highlight: in one class we are apparently having the kids memorize the song “We will Rock you” by Queen. I had to sing the first verse for them as an example and I felt pretty bad-ass.
After school I met up with Bertrand and the tech guy to venture a couple towns over and visit the school I’ll be video-conferencing with. Despite it being close (it took maybe 20 mintues to get there) this town was worlds apart from Saint Dié. It was a one-room school-house that shared a building with the Mairie and the view out of the window was a hill spotted with cows. Also, when the teacher left the class to come set-up skype with us, the kids didn’t make a peep! That would just never happen in my other schools. It’s making me feel a little better about the idea of running a class solo. Over the internet.
On my way home that afternoon, I saw the Saint Dié is starting to put up Christmas decorations already. There was even a guy selling roasted chestnuts out of a stand shaped like a train. I’m not sure if I’m happy or if I think it’s too soon. I think I’m leaning towards happy though. Then I remembered that I’d seen a street blocked off on my way to school earlier that day and decided to investigate. I don’t know if this has anything to do with Christmas decorations going up or not, but apparently there is a carnival in Saint Die. It’s strange, because no one said anything about it and there were no posters around for it, but sure enough, I turned the corner and there it was! Alex and I went back the next night to check it out. Here he is looking super happy to be at a carnival. 
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