L'arrivée

After two long days of no sleep and lost luggage, flirtatious immigration officers and cobblestone streets, I arrived on Wednesday afternoon a bit shell-shocked.  I was in France, but my feelings were a bit numb...

But let me back up a little.  The whole reason I'm in France is to be an English assistant for junior high and high school students in La Côte St. André and Le Grand Lemps, two tiny towns in the Rhône-Alpes region of France ( that's on the lower-right side of the map, for those of you who want to know).  I knew when I Googled these towns that they would be small and I might not like them, but I figured I'd give living on campus a shot, given the fact that looking blindly for housing in French didn't exactly appeal to me as a golden travel experience.

On the ride to the town the teacher, Claudie ( a sweet femme (feh-mm: woman) in her fifties who invited me to dejeuner (deh-juhn-eh: lunch) at her place on Sunday) told me how depressing the town was, how quiet, how isolated... I wonder if she could see my chest pounding with terror.  Walking around, though, I realized there was no denying it: La Côte St. André really was a true petite ville française (puh-teet veel frahn-sayz: small French town) where everyone may know your name, but what does that matter when everyone is locked up in their houses by sundown?

Alright, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic (note: alone in big apartment in small French town make Leith go crazy)  but after carefully surveying my options I'm secretly looking for another housing situation.  I can't deny it: I'm a city girl and the beautiful Alpine dirt, noise, and inflated prices of Grenoble are calling to me like a scene from The Sound of Music.  I can't wait until the Italian assistant arrives on Monday.  Maybe she can talk me down from the ledge.  You never know, maybe in a month I'll fall in love with this town.  It could happen...

In the meantime, I'm really enjoying speaking rudimentary, bastardized French to the locals.  You say you're from California and they're willing to forget the fact that you accidentally just asked if you could hump their goat.  In fact, mention you voted for Obama and they're willing to throw a cookie into your purchase for free.