Autrans

After a week of sulking and wasting away in France, the arrival of October meant that it was finally time for work to begin.  "Work" of course being a three day orientation in a ski resort town in the Alps, where the entire weekend was spent speaking English, exchanging phone numbers, and getting so plastered that the enitre camp suffered a collective massive hangover the next morning.

What, did you expect any less?  I mean, I am in France after all!

Autrans (oh-trahn) is the Alpine foothill town where all this drunken debauchery took place.  While this quiet village once hosted numerous Olympic events during the 1968 Winter Games, I'm pretty sure the surge of international language assistants into the local liquor store the other night was probably the most excitement this town had seen since... well, 1968.  But the town certainly is beautiful!  Spiked mountains surround the area like massive soldiers, and the lush green pastures in the town's valley still have plenty of promise left before they're blanketed with snow and become heavily trafficked ski runs in a month's time.

Unfortunately, the youth camp (not the fascist dictator kind of youth camp, but something strikingly reminiscent) where all the language assistants were being housed for two nights didn't seem to reflect much of the region's beauty.  The camp was a mix between a run-down youth hostel and a summer camp horror film (not what I expected out of la belle France, thank you).  All the food was some sort of variety of beige, and the fact that I was a vegetarian seemed to annoy the chef so much that he could only muster up the effort to make me half of an omelet... for every single meal.  True to the stereotypical French bureaucratic style, every activity was disorganized, even to the point of bed arrangements: I was misplaced in my room and spent both nights trying to fall asleep next to the sounds and smells of five drunken males.  Thankfully, all the guys were really nice so I actually lucked out.

Despite the less-than-romantic appeal of the place, the weekend itself turned out to be genial (geen-ee-al: brilliant).  I met lots of really friendly people from all over the world who had come to Grenoble for the same exact reason I had: to learn and fall in love with la culture française (la kwul-tuur frahn-saiz: French culture).

Comparing notes with other assistants in the area, I learned that I'm not the only one stuck in a small village in the French campagne (cohmp-an-yah: countryside).  Far from it, in fact.  This, for some bizarre reason, made me re-think the whole "move to Grenoble" bit and give living in La Côte St. André another shot.  Of course, learning that my town is famous for its chocolate didn't hurt either.  All-in-all, good news for the official start of my life en français (on frahn-sayz: in French).