Our second (and final) teaching orientation was on Monday and Tuesday, so several other Drôme assistants and I decided to go a couple days early to visit Grenoble. I'm hoping to visit again soon because it's only 1.5 hours away by train.
On Saturday, a couple of us rented bikes and explored the city. Their bike system is AMAZING! It was only 3€ for 24 hours. If you live there, it looked like it was only 15€ per month.
Grenoble seemed to have a lot of Asian restaurants. On Saturday night, I went to a Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai restaurant with an Italian, a German and a Spaniard. At one point, we started naming everything in our languages and also in French.
Me: Fork, Spoon, Knife, Chopsticks
Spaniard: Tenedor, Cuchara, Cuchillo, etc...
(By the way, French for chopsticks is "les baguettes.")
The next day, we rode bikes again and went to an outdoor market to get food for the picnic planned for later that day. I saw an orange fruit that looked like a tomato called "kaki" and decided to buy some. I'd never heard of it before, and unfortunately they all got smushed into "kakisauce" before the picnic, so I still have no idea what it is! Maybe next time.
Bike ride courtesy of Métrovélo!
(I believe the aforementioned kakis are in the process of being smashed in that green bag.)
Later that day, we returned the bikes and took le téléphérique to the Bastille above Grenoble. It was a little scary, but definitely worth it! Once you get to the top, there's a great view of Grenoble, and then you can take a tunnel and walk through the mountain.
Before...
During! Trying to stay busy to forget where I am at this moment.
At the top! with my fellow villagers.
Path to the mountain
Looking Up
Looking Down
Not exactly sure where this tunnel is going; luckily there was a light at the end of it.
Went to a pizza restaurant for dinner, and met the other table of people there who happened to be assistants in nearby towns (Montélimar and Pierrelatte), and got drinks with them after. Ended up being a group of about 18 people!
Now the part about orientation. Usually, the orientation takes place right when the assistants arrive in France. This year, it should have been on October 3 and 4, but the rumor going around was that the meeting space wasn't available, so they scheduled it two weeks later on October 17 and 18. On Monday, the first day, all of the assistants in the Académie de Grenoble (approximately 275 of us) gathered in the auditorium of the district office and listened to various administrative details. Some of it was useful, but honestly, most of it was not because we've all been here for two weeks and have already opened a bank account, applied for social security and sent in our OFII papers (I'm still not exactly sure what that last thing is.... but I know I've done it!) The speaker also went through the organization of the French educational system. On one of the slides, he even went through a list of all of the people who work at a school (nurse, janitor, secretary, etc. I suppose it was a good French vocab lesson!)
Anyway, at 4 p.m., we all boarded buses to go to Autrans, a small town in the mountains. It was a 50 minute ride, and they dropped us off at a summer camp. Six people to a room. No locks on the doors. If you need more water at the dinner table, get it from the nearby bathroom sinks.
This photo doesn't really do it justice, but they dropped us off at the camp, and we had free time until dinner at 7:30. I would say more than half of the 275 language assistants walked into town where practically everything was closed at 5:30.
Taking over Autrans
The next day, we had our education sessions. I was in the Drôme/Ardèche primary group led by two French teachers. They gave us a lot of tips, and since we're primary school assistants we got to go outside a lot and play games. We also practiced techniques for leading workshops of French English teachers, since several of us will be leading conversation groups as part of our work contracts.
Overall, it was a fun trip!
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