I'm Baaaaaack

Hola Hola Hola. I have returned, refreshed, and ready to teach again. Woo-hoo!

I have to say, I was getting alittle disillusioned with TEFL before my two-week vacation. I felt ragged and used. Not a good way to feel :( For now, I'm rearing and ready to go.

Andorra and Paris were AWESOME.

I have officially learned to ski and I don't suck! The first day, we got up the mountain too late for me to sign up for lessons for that day, so the Seeley family endeavored to teach me. They did a wonderful job but despite all their good pedogogy, I fell a lot and was dead tired at the end of the day. On day 2, Victor from Argentina gave me a private lesson in Spanish, which was hilarious. I learned tons of new words and there was a lot of Ole-ing when I fell....especially when I fell off the rope pull thingy, to the amusement of a long line of Spaniards, hehe. After my lesson, I quickly improved and would often hear Victor's "Hola On-jay-la!" as I sped around the slopes. There was only one minor incident in which I took out Oli's mom, but we decided to say it was both our faults. By day 4, I was going down red slopes (and even the last bit of a black!) and by day 6 I was having high-speed snowball fights with Oli. He kicked my butt as he was snowboarding and had 2 hands free while I had to slap both poles in one hand and pick up snow in one over-sized glove...but it was all good fun.

Paris was a blur of sunburn. That's right, I got burnt, B-U-R-N-T in Paris while chilling in Luxombourg Park eating sandwiches and cheese. Cheese. The French love them some cheese. Virginie and her roommate Vanessa could tell me what part of France each type of cheese and wine we had was from. While dining out one night, I accidentally said I wanted "vino rosado-pink wine" with my cassoulet (a beany ducky sausagey dish) when I meant "vino tinto-red wine." Virgi looked at me like an insane-o; "You mean RED wine, right?!"

Otherwise, Paris is super beautiful and clean and extensive.....miles and miles of history and gorgeousness. The people were also not evil; no more than in any other city. In fact, they were quite nice. I had just gotten off the metro in my first hour in Paris and was orienting my map when some old man came up, took my map, put it in the right direction, smiled and said some French stuff, then walked away. Classic.

So thats that. Photos are on the web http://community.webshots.com/user/ajruiter .