Tag: teacher

A Year in France: the FAQ

Megan | Caffeine & A Carry OnLeave a comment

So, if you’ve been following along on social media, you’ve no doubt seen that we’ve been preparing for a trip abroad. There’s been no “formal” announcement, but as most of our friends and family know (and those who’ve been reading closely), this particular trip will last…about one year! Last October I was offered the opportunity to participate in my department’s international teaching exchange in Lyon, France; it’s always been a goal of mine to get back to France at some point, and at this stage of our lives – no kids, we’re not homeowners, not tied down by any one job – it just seemed like the right moment.

That said, we weren’t certain it would actually be happening until about two weeks before our scheduled departure date, as there was some drama with my visa application. Thankfully it all worked out for the best and we were able to leave as planned, with no delays or rescheduled flights or any of the other nightmare scenarios that ran through my head every night from May until…last Tuesday, when we were sitting at the airport and waiting for our flight to Paris.

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We made it down to Lyon yesterday afternoon after an unintentionally busy week in Paris and are just starting to settle in. Now that I have a little more free time to write, I thought I’d take a minute to address some of the questions that have kept popping up as we’ve told people about our new adventure!

Wait…what? You moved to France? Why?

Yep! Well, kind of – for a year. The university where I am doing my graduate work offers two year-long teaching exchanges in France – one in Strasbourg and one in Lyon. We happened to visit both cities in 2015 and we preferred Lyon (zero shade to Strasbourg though, which is a lovely place) and so when the time came, I applied to participate in the Lyon exchange.

What are you teaching?

Not French! For the first time in my career, I will be teaching English! My target audience is French university students. I’m not sure what variety of English classes I’ll be teaching just yet, but these exchanges usually involve helping students with their speaking.

Are you taking classes, too?

No. Participating in the exchange puts my degree progress on hold for one year, so this does not count toward my Master’s degree. I am expected to return to Pennsylvania at the end of my year in France to finish up my degree.

What will Dani do?

Dani is also here in France! Bringing her along made the process a little more challenging than it otherwise would have been, as we had to figure out a way to get her legally into the country for a year, but luckily she was able to sign up for some classes and obtain a student visa. She didn’t have any super solid things going on in Pennsylvania that she felt she couldn’t walk away from, and has always wanted to live abroad (though Australia, not France, would probably have been her target country if it were up to her) so…why not? Her plan is to take French classes during the week and do some remote work to make ends meet, and eat as many croissants as she can cram into her body.

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At the airport, waiting for her first flight!

What about Lucie?

Moving a dog to a foreign country for a year seems like a crazy idea, and we briefly considered leaving her in Michigan with her Nana and Puppa (Dani’s parents), but we just couldn’t do it. She’s a part of our family and we really hated the idea of being apart from her for so long, so we began the process of getting the paperwork in order to bring her to France. Luckily, France is pretty lenient – so lenient, in fact, that the border agent didn’t even ask to SEE the paperwork that we had to drive 2 hours to East Lansing to have endorsed by the USDA – and as long as she’s microchipped and up to date on her vaccinations, she’s good to go and doesn’t have to spend any time in quarantine. It made our initial travel arrangements a bit more expensive, as we had to find a direct flight to France; normally we don’t mind flights with layovers and flying through Dublin is pretty cheap, but as Lucie is not allowed into the UK or Ireland and entry regulations can vary from country to country within the EU, we thought it best to fly direct. She was a champ on the flight and on the train and has so far been adapting to life very well as a city dog!

What did you do with all of your stuff?

Dani’s parents are saints and helped us pack up and move most of our stuff from Pennsylvania back to Michigan (despite having just done the opposite trip a year prior), so most of it is currently living in their house. We did purge a TON, however, which felt really great.

Have you found a place to live?

We have! We were lucky enough to secure a place before we left the States, which we had hoped to do, but knew that the odds weren’t particularly in our favor. The rental market in Lyon is crazy – it moves quickly, and requires a ton of documents that are challenging for us to provide, particularly when it comes to income. Most landlords in Lyon require a French guarantor, who must also provide copies of their work contract, three most recent pay slips, three most recent tax returns, bank account verification…it’s really mind-boggling. Though we wanted to have our own place, we ended up finding an apartment with some roommates. The place is HUGE and is smack in the center of Lyon, with an amazing view and a rooftop terrace. It’s only been a day so it’s really too early to tell how it’s all going to turn out, but so far so good – both girls have been super welcoming and kind, and Lucie and the cat (“Mouette” is her name – it means seagull) have gotten along well.

That should cover it for now – we hope to post here regularly, so that we can keep everyone updated on our adventure in France. We can’t wait to see what unfolds!

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The view of Lyon from the terrace of our new place.
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The healing waters of Vichy, France

Megan | Caffeine & A Carry On4 Comments

France wasn’t really in my 2016 travel plans, but last year an opportunity came up that I knew I had to jump on. It was a scholarship for American French teachers, sponsored by the French Embassy in Washington D.C., for a two-week pedagogical “internship” at a language school in the city of Vichy. Very nearly all expenses paid – tuition for the language school, room and board with a host family, a round-trip train ticket from Paris to Vichy, a $600 allowance to defray the cost of a plane ticket, and 200 euros in spending money.

Um, yeah. Sign me up, please.

The only problem was that the scholarship is super competitive. Like, only 20-teachers-nationwide-competitive. Added to that, I didn’t even find about it until literally three days before the deadline Still, I figured I’d give it a shot (it didn’t cost anything to apply – but I did pay to overnight my materials to Chicago) so I cobbled together the application materials as best as I could (realizing that I had lost my passport in the process – thank goodness I had made a copy of the first page for my records!) and crossed my fingers until the day the notifications were to be sent out to the recipients (it was a Friday).

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CAVILAM – Alliance Française

Well, the day came and went and I hadn’t heard anything. I let myself feel disappointed but ultimately moved on – I had rushed to get the application together, after all, so I couldn’t be too surprised – when Wednesday arrived and so did the e-mail that started with Félicitations!

I may have cried a little in front of my students. They were nice about it though!

A few months later I was on a train from Paris to Vichy.

Vichy is an interesting place; it’s in the center of France, right in the midst of a chain of dormant volcanos called Puy-de-Dôme. For literally centuries, Vichy has been known as a place of healing and restoration – there are numerous natural springs that provide the city with mineral water. Some is freely drinkable, and you can fill up as you like at a couple of local wells. The water is naturally carbonated and tastes slightly salty. The others are found in a beautiful art nouveau building in the center of town and can only be drunk with a prescription from the doctor citing your specific ailments and what variety of mineral water you need to drink to cure them.

There are also hot springs and spas are in abundance. Likewise, outdoor activities are in abundance – rowing, biking, horseback racing at the Hippodrome, a lovely riverside park for jogging or rollerblading. It’s a place that values health, quietness and calm. It was lovely. I was surprised at how much I loved it there, particularly considering Vichy’s more recent history.

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La source des Célestins, just steps from my host family’s house

While Vichy has long been known as a sort of “resort town”, just slightly more than 70 years ago Vichy became known for something else. The French government, on the eve Germany’s invasion of Paris, packed up and left the City of Lights while simultaneously assuring her citizens that there was nothing to fear. Yet the Parisians awoke one day to bombardments, and also to find that their leaders had fled – to Vichy. Vichy became the new capital of France, and forevermore a symbol of the French government’s ultimate collaboration with the Nazi regime. Maréchal Pétain, the president of the Vichy regime, was complicit in the deportation of thousands of Jews – including children (originally denied by the Nazis, Petain sent them anyway) – to ghettos and ultimately, death camps such as Auschwitz.

 

In Vichy, there are no traces of the war years. No museums, no memorials, no commemorative plaques on any buildings as there are in Paris. The quiet calm of the city makes it hard to believe that such atrocious ugliness happened there. Yet I’m sure the citizens of Vichy – largely made up of elderly retirees – must carry the memory quietly within themselves.

Or perhaps, just as the water of Vichy has healed the many thousands of people who have come to drink from its springs, the city itself has been healed, too.