As I’ve spent more down time at this hostel than any other hostel I’ve ever stayed at andI’ve had time to observe and reflect on an ongoing phenomena of social interaction. It has to do with lonely single travelers who stay in hostels. Everyone knows that hostels are great places to meet other backpackers such as yourself and that passing on knowledge is all part of the hostel experience. Sometimes you find a connection with said backpacker and since YOU yourself are traveling alone you decide to visit whichever city you are in with your new companion. The problem is that maybe the only thing you two may have in common is that you are traveling and you are doing it alone! As you are walking down along the Champs de Mars you may realize that you have absolutely NOTHING in common with this person and that it was a big mistake to agree to visit the Eiffel Tower with each other.

You are then put in the dilemma of making up an excuse to ditch your new friend or being courteous and sticking through with it for the rest of the day, only to find out that he is staying in Paris just as long as you are. Sometimes the lonely backpacker tries to join another groups of travelers.

So far I’ve observed this twice since being in this hostel and once when I was Greece. In the case of the hostel here in Paris, I’ve watched a group of people talking together and then when one person leaves the group quickly discusses why they ever decided to let “that guy” join their group or how annoying said person is only to return to smiles when “that guy” returns. In Greece my friend, Diana, met a guy named Liam and they started hanging out and once Diana got to know Liam more and more she realized how much she really had nothing in common with him and even suggested ditching him a few times to Alissa and me. Liam was a nice guy but it was no secret that he was a little off and had weird ideas and wanted to talk about things that we weren’t so eager to discuss!

Just now I saw a guy here in the computer lab start the convo up by “Hey, where in the states are you from?” then moving to “Oh, you are going to the catacombs today? Me too, I’m scared to go alone, can I join you?” The girl he was talking to told him he had to ask another girl in their group and once he did the other girl said “Um, well we don’t know when we will be going, we have TONS of stuff to do before then, but, um, sure?” Luckily the guy took the hint and was like “that’s cool I’ll just brave it, it can’t be that scary, right?”

This obviously isn’t always the case and there are people who find each other in hostels and really connect and become life long friends if not lovers but I think this “lonely backpacker” phenomena is part of a bigger social “thing” where people always yearn to be part of a group and will use anything that is a common factor to place themselves in a group. Just because two Americans find themselves in Paris doesn’t mean they are going to get along based solely on the fact they come from the same country.

This social “thing”, which I have no idea what the technical term is, is also a good thing. I first noticed it when I was an exchange student in Belgium. No matter how much I disliked some of the other exchange students, if I was ever stranded in a town where one of them lived, I counted on them to help me out. This was based solely that we were foreign exchange students living in a strange country. I think because I’ve been so sensitive to this “phenomena” that I’ve never expected much of friendships I’ve made in hostels and I know that everyone has their own agenda!

This post is stored in the category of Made in France, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Backpacker, Backpacking, Diana Barger, Hostel, Paris, Travel

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I think that because I want to go into the field of linguistic anthropology (ethnography) and language documentation of endangered languages I’m going to gear my site towards focusing on the lesser known languages of the world and those that actually need learning! There are TONS of links to sites where one can learn French, German, Spanish, Japanese, etc., but how many links are there to materials for learning lesser known languages or even languages in danger of going extinct. In the next century half of the worlds languages will die and it is our job to do something. I love languages and anyone who knows me knows that. I love talking about languages and sharing them with other people. I really do want to build my website to be a resource where people can come and find links to websites, videos, audio, articles, book recommendations, and whatever else there is out there so that we can all pitch in and save cultures that are being lost and memories that are being forgotten. With the help of The Ethnologue I’ll be able to transform this website into my dream. One giant database for endangered languages and endangered language learning!

This post is stored in the category of Linguistic Post, Made in France and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: endangered languages, English, ethnography, French, German, Japanese, language, Linguistic Anthropology, Linguistic Post, Spanish, The Ethnologue

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So this afternoon I went into town to do a little grocery shopping and to go with Will, an assistant from Hawai’i to get a tattoo that he has been talking about getting ever since the beginning of the year. He ended up getting the Dax City Seal (Blason in French) on his left outter ankle/leg.

Anyway, after getting his tattoo we split ways and I went to the main bus depot at Place St. Pierre to wait for my bus in the rain to return home for the evening. As I was standing there waiting with three French ladies sitting next to me I noticed that a moped had tipped over not far from the bus depot. I couldn’t see the rider(s) as they were blocked by a big flower bed. I stood for a minute waiting for the bike to move and when it didn’t I dropped my stuff and started running over to the moped. I saw a woman half way under the moped and a guy strewn a few feet away off the bike. A car had stopped and a gentleman had gotten out and approached the couple at the same time. The lady was holding a plastic bottle that had some kind of liquid in it that was half drunk. The guy laid motionless and as I approached the lady started to correct herself by getting up trying to screw the lid on the bottle back on and pull the bike back up. I yelled out “ça va?” (everything ok?) and she looked at me and the other approaching man and held her hands out to keep us away stating that everything was ok. I noticed that she had scraped her chin and it was bleeding a little bit and also that when she spoke she slurred her words. As the smell of alcohol waifed over me I look to see the guy laying on the ground trying to get up. The other gentleman returned to his car and drove off. I watched the guy on the ground struggle to get up but he was really really drunk and could barely get his balance. The lady who was equally intoxicated straightened herself up on the bike and looked at me and told me everything was fine. I decided at that moment that it wasn’t any of my business and I walked back to the waiting women. They asked me what was going on and I informed them that I thought the couple had been drinking a little too much. I was wondering to myself it we should call the police or if we should stay out of it. The women expressed themselves in the typical French way with a lot of “oh la las” and “c’est malheureux!” None of them expressed the least bit of concern.

We watched as the man succeeded in getting up off the ground and he stumbled around trying to make his way back to the bike. Somehow he got himself back on the bike and they started off again, with the man leaning heavily and drunkenly to the right. After a few feet the bike almost came to a stumbling stop again. After more “oh las” and sarcastic remarks that “c’est l’heure d’apéro” the coupld finally rode off with the tiny moped swerving back and forth as it disappeared from sight.

As soon as they were gone I thought to myself how I should have done something. My phone had died a few hours before so it wasn’t like I could call anyone but I shouldn’t have let the couple get back on the bike and leave. When is it someone’s duty to protect the world from drunk drivers and even drunk drivers from themselves? This is when I realized that this wasn’t the first time I’ve seen people make fools of themselves in public due to alcohol here in France. It got me thinking period about alcohol in France. It wasn’t like this incident was an isolated incident to France or even to Europe and that one could definitely see this in the US. Alcoholism is everywhere! I just think that there must be a higher rate of alcoholism here in France than in the US. Why do I think this? Well, I think more alcohol is consumed here in France than in the US. More kids start drinking here in France earlier than most Americans.

I come from a family who doesn’t drink. My parents don’t drink and never have drunk. I don’t really know what the drinking culture is like in homes in the US as I was never around it. I know there are families in the US who, like the French, may drink wine with dinner almost every night, but I think it is less common than it is here. I’m not really sure how it all works, so this post is based purely on MY observations.

The French love to drink. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been walking through the street and have walked past and elderly gentleman who wreaks of booze, or an older woman who is sitting all alone at a café with a glass of wine. There are times when the local supermarket owner breaths a goodbye and you get a whiff of his breath that smells of alcohol. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been shocked to see the teachers pouring a glass or two of wine at lunch in the teachers lounge or sharing a bit of alcoholic cider. Alcohol is everywhere in France and you can’t get past it. I didn’t even mention the baraqués who, along with having their dogs constantly with them, have a bottle of alcohol with them as well.

I do see this being a problem as I feel the French kind of shrug this off as humorous. Today, when I saw that couple struggling to get going, obviously drunk, the three ladies next to me snickered and shook their heads in disapproval, yet they did nothing to stop it. If that couple were to go on and cause a fatal accident, who is responsible? I’d like to think that the bad decision of drinking and driving is responsible, yet I turned away and said nothing and minded my own business and let them go to manage for themselves when they obviously were not capable of doing so. I’m not judging anyone, Lord knows I’ve been intoxicated and have drunk irresponsibly, but I think that this is a serious problem plaguing this country and the French turn a blind eye to it. After looking into alcoholism in Europe I found out a few interesting facts.

* alcohol is the third greatest cause of avoidable deaths in France.
* Nearly all 15-16 year old students (>90%) have drunk alcohol at some point in their life, on average beginning to drink at 12 years of age, and getting drunk for the first time at 14 years.
* The heaviest drinkers account for a substantial amount of the alcohol drunk in a country, with the top 10% of the population consuming one-third to one-half of all the alcohol drunk.
* The EU is the heaviest drinking region of the world, although the 11 litres of pure alcohol drunk per adult each year is still a substantial fall from a recent peak of 15 litres in the mid-1970s.
* alcohol was directly responsible for 23,000 deaths a year in France, and indirectly responsible for a further 22,000.

I wonder to myself if a lot of the things I observe in the culture here are because I’m more out and about here than when I’m home in the US. In the US we are either at work, school, home, or with known friends in relatively known places. We don’t spend 5 out of the 7 days of the week in the grocery store, we don’t take public transportation as much, we aren’t in public as much and I wonder if this is why I see alcoholism a lot more here than I do at home. Sure, in college I used to see people beyond the stage of drinking responsibly but when it is 7 in the evening and I’m watching a guy stumble around who can barely walk on a Tuesday, I have to raise some questions. I guess I’m just feeling bad that I didn’t stop those people from getting back on the moped and leaving. Even if I had insited that somone call the police or something I’m sure I would have been told that it was none of my concern and to mind my own business, “they had just been drinking a little.”

What do you think? Comments?

This post is stored in the category of Made in France, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Alcoholism, Culture, Dax, Death, Drunk, Intoxicated, Motorbike, Seal, Tatto

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Wow! The internet is really really scary! By putting my name into google search I found two old blogs! One was going to be a Basque Tutorial blog but I deleted it and the other I’m working on trying to get rid of, but I need to figure out what e-mail I used to create it! The funny thing is some of the posts that I wrote on there. I wanted to copy and paste one particular post, Titled, “One year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds “.

”

Well, it has been one year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds (roughly) since I arrived home from the most amazing experience of my life. A lot of people were able to come home and forget Belgium ever happened. Some were able to hold it in their memory and move on with life. Some of them, like me, have thought about Belgium almost everyday of their life since coming home. How can I not? What has happened in the past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds to make Belgium only seem like a memroy? Nothing. When I got back from Belgium I had to start looking for a job. My third host sister came and stayed with us for a week and then went home. I found a job in a plastic molding factory where I worked about 6 weeks until I started school at Columbus State Community College. I got a job working at Abercrombie and Fitch Customer service and I lived about an hour away from both job and school. I have lived with my parents for the past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds. All of my highschool friends are gone at school and I lost touch with them while I was in Belgium. Life has not been so exciting this past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds. A lot has happened really. My parents and I have grown closer over the past few weeks and I lost my job at A&F two weeks ago. So now I am just sitting at home doing nothing with no real friends to do anything. I did get accepted to OSU which I knew I would and will be starting at the end of next month. On Tuesday I have to go to orientation and meet with and advisor and take my French and Spanish entry exams. The thing that is such a pain in the a** is that I am pretty sure I will test out of the prerequisite courses for both French and Spanish. So I will not really be able to schedule on Tuesday because I will still have to meet with both individual departments and apply for Majors. Then I will have to take the EM credit exams to get credit for the courses that I pass up! I am glad I am doing this now instead of waiting next fall to start with all the incoming Freshman. I need to find a job here quick because I cannot pay bills with my savings. I am definitely going to work at my dads factory this summer and will make a butt load of money there. I need it. It is going to get rough over the next few years paying for OSU. Plus I want to live on campus. I want to experience the REAL college dorm life. I mean come on. I have hardly any friends that I can actually do anything with on a regular basis. All of my friends live at least 45 minutes away and if I want to do anything it ends up costing a lot more than it has to. Maybe I am just going through a depression period and I suppose it feels good to write. I miss my Belgian mates. I miss Diana, Aaron, Katie, Drew, Heather, Mary, Karla, Victor, Caitlyn, Kate….I miss all ove them SO much especially Diana! Sorry guys…but Diana and I are soul mates! lol I really beleive that. I was reading my journal today and I was reading about how Diana and I wanted to learn Swedish and we went to Charleroi to look for a Teach Yourself Swedish book, what dorks! The thing I am really struggling with I cannot really discuss on a public blog that just anyone could read! It just would not be right! I am sure everything will work out fine I am just stressing a little because of school, because of this issue I am having with my parents, and plus being lonely!

Bueno voy a escribir un poco en español. Hace dos trimestres que comienzo a aprender el español. Es facil para me por que es como el francés. Ahora estoy tratando de estudiar el portugues que es como es español. Tengo que practicar mi francés, por que haces un año 6 meses 12 días 21 horas 18 minutos y 9 secundos que lo hablo courammente en una situación de todos los días!

Ben aujourd’hui on a fêté l’anniversaire de ma soeur. Mes granparents, mon nieve, mon beau frère et mes parents ont mangé du jambon avec des pommes de terres au fromage, des haricots, et du pain. Après on a pris du gâteau à la glace de Dairy Queen. Il fondait mais ça va on l’a tout mangé quand même. Putain, je travaille toujours sur mon livre des memoires de la Belgique. Je fais seulement les pages de ma première visite de Liège. J’ai encore 8 mois à faire! Je me suis dit que je l’aurai fini par le fin de mars!

Speaking of March I turn 21!! Yay I will be a real legal adult here in the US! I need to find some friends before then to go celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate dance to the music! Well anyway that is all for now.”

This post is stored in the category of Made in France, Made in USA, Personal Post, Written in English, Written in French, Written in Spanish and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Basque, Belgium, Diana Barger, Nostalgia, Old Blog, OSU, Spanish

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Well, I can never keep up with my blog and I’m really sick of only updating it like once a month! I need to be more disciplined and update it like every three days or something, at least once a week!

With that said, here we go!

Alissa and I had been planning a trip since December to Italy (specifically, Rome) and Greece! Well our vacation period started the 14th of February and we had to return to school on the 2nd of March. Alissa and I had bought out plane ticket from Paris to Rome back in December but stupid us didn’t reserve a train ticket from Dax to Paris ahead of time. We ended up doing in the night before we actually let. The cheapest ticket we could find was leaving das on Feb 14th at 12:07AM. It was a slow night train that would arrive in Paris at 7:10am

Here is alissa climbing into her bunk on the night train!

Both Alissa and I had planned on meeting up with people that day and spending the day with our respective friends in Paris and then meeting up later that day to take the bus to the city of Beauvais where the airport we were flying out of was located. We got breakfast at Le Petit Pont é, which was amazing. It was a buffet style breakfast with lots of fresh fruit, toasts and breads, hard boiled eggs, ham, juice, coffee, and tea. As we indulged ourselves a man arrived with a big plate of scrambled eggs and like 6-8 pieces of bacon each! It was ridiculous!

Breakfast at Le Petit Pont Café

I had planned on meeting up with my friend Kate Barry whom I actually met back in Belgium back in 2003. She was an exchange student with me and actually lived quite close to me in Belgium. She was considered my newy and it had been six years since we had seen each other. We spent the day mostly exploring Montmartre, the Marais, and the Centre Pompidou, chatting and having a lovely afternoon. I left Kate and I met up with my friend Aurore, who is French, and then I met up with Alissa and a friend of her sister’s. We all went to a café and had a drink before Alissa and I had to leave to take a bus to Beauvais to catch out plane.

Kate on the metro in Paris!

We arrived in Paris around 11pm at the airport called Ciampino and had to take a 45 minute bus ride to the city center. Luckily our hostel wasn’t far from the Station Termini where the bus dropped us off. When we found our hostel it seemed a little shady. The hostel was located on the fourth floor of this building and the doors were locked so you had to buzz to be let in. The people on the other end of the buzzer were really shady and wouldn’t let us in telling us they didn’t have any reservation for us. We finally convinced someone to come down and a Tamil guy finally came and let us in. We took the tiny (barely two person) elevator up to the 4th floor with our bags and knocked on the hostel door (the Tamily guy stayed down and said he would be up in a second). We were greeted by a guy on a computer that was sitting right next to the door. When we walked in we could see that the walls were completely covered by people who had stayed here. The hostel was tiny like a little apartment building with one small common room with a booth style table and doors, which lead to rooms. Finally the Tamil guy (who said he was from Africa the whole time we were there, jokingly) came up and checked us in. The hostel wasn’t the nicest and when the guy brought us our blankets I about croaked as they were absolutely disgusting. Alissa and I were completely drained from the day and prepared for bed. As we were preparing to go to bed these Polish people who were sharing our room with us asked if we would like to partake in some vodka drinking with them. We agreed even though I’m not much of a vodka drinker and let me just say it was absolutely the best vodka I have ever had in my life. Everyone was drinking it down with orange juice as a chaser but I drank it straight with no problem, it actually tasted really good!

The next morning we got up and started making our way down to the Colosseum. We passed the Santa Maria Maggiore and made our way to the Fori and around the huge Monumento e Vittorio Emanuele II and back do the Via dei Fori Imperiali towards the Colosseum. When we got to the Colosseum we were approached by people offering tours. We decided for the 5 euros more it was worth it and we didn’t have to wait in line to get inside! The Colosseum was everything you imagined it to be and much more! It doesn’t really come as a surprise to you as most people have studied it pretty intensively before ever seeing it! It is exactly how I’ve always imagined it was! The one thing that was really cool about the tour is that our tour guide had a book with him and would show us things how they looked in the past and then compared it to their current state. It makes you sad to think about!!

After seeing the Colosseum, Alissa and I went and ate and then decided that we were way to exhausted to trek anymore so we paid to go on a bus tour that we found out we could use the following day as well. Our plan was to take the bus tour and see as much as possible and then return to places of interest the next day on foot!

The next day we ended up seeing the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Piazza del Popolo, the Piazza Navona, the Castel Sant’ Angelo, the Pantheon, and the Colosseum at night! We went back to the Hostel and ate dinner there as it only cost a Euro and hung out with the Poles and the Dutch girl we met there. I started feeling ill at this point and I went to be early.

The next and final day in Rome we spent in the Vatican City touring St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum. It was quite and amazing experience. The Vatican City is beautiful but it makes me wonder if God would really want all that wealth to be kept in a city like that and not to other things like feeding the hungry throughout the world!

The fifth day of our trip was spent traveling from Rome to Athens via Milan. We took a plane from Rome to Milan and then sat in the Milano airport all day waiting to go to Greece. I was feeling tons worse that day and was coughing and sick and was going to the bathroom every two minutes because I drink the Rome water! (NB it’s ok to drink European water. I just think it didn’t agree with me!) When we got to greece we had to take a bus to the city center to Syntagma and then take the metro to near where our hostel was. My friend Diana Barger from my exchange in Belgium was already in Greece and waiting for us at our hostel/hotel. After some confusion and a few screaming phone calls to Diana we finally made it to the hostel. I was totally drained from the day’s travels and went to bed as soon as I could.

The next morning we all got ready and joined up with a friend that Diana had made, Liam, and made our way to the Archaeological Museum. Liam was really good with directions and ended up walking us there. From the time I had begun to get sick up to this point I was making regular visits to Pharmacies trying to make it through the day without feeling like total crap! After spending a few hours in the museum we made our way to the Agora and the Acropolis. Alissa and I split up from Diana and Liam to let them see the Agora has they had already visited the Acropolis. It was amazing to be up there next to the Parthenon and to see all of Athens below us!

After that we walked to Plaka and then made our way back to near the hostel where the train station was. Diana and I bought our tickets to Turkey and because I was feeling like complete crap I went back to the hostel and went to bed. The next morning Alissa, Diana, and I went to the Piraeus port and found a ferry to take us to the island of Aegina. We spent the whole day on the island. I was able to talk Alissa into renting mopeds and riding around the island! It was one of the best parts of the trip! The island was absolutely beautiful and it was great to get out of the city and to see a small town perse. I definitely need to go back to Greece and visit more of the islands!

The day after visiting Aegina we all got up early and made our way to the bus station to take a bus to Delphi! The trip took eight hours and it wound through the mountains until we reached a small mountain city called, Delphi where the ancient oracle of Apolo used to be. Walking around the ancient ruins was probably my favorite part of the Greece trip by far! Our bus ended up breaking down on the way back and we had to wait for another bus to come and get us, so we ended up getting home later than we thought. The last day in Greece we spent it walking around Athens. I ended up getting tired and going back to the hostel leaving Alissa and Diana to try and explore celebrating “Mardi Gras”! The trip in Greece was a lot of fun and there is so much more I’d love to go back and see!

The next morning Diana and I left Alissa in Athens and took a train from Athens to Thessolinki. We spent a few hours in Thessolinki (in a Starbucks) and then took a night train from Thessoliniki to Istanbul. We were woken up on multiple occasions at the border to purchase visas and such. Now that I think about it, I should not have been so trusting to hand over my passport like I did. Once we arrived in Istanbul we went to a McDonalds and got breakfast and looked up where the hostel was. We spent the next hour taking the tram to Sultanahmet and wondering around trying to find our hostel. A nice man who said he knew where it was pointed us in the completely wrong direction and so we realized that you had to ask unexpected people where things were if you wanted a straight answer. We finally found our Anzac Wooden House hostel which was basically a four story old wooden house that had NO heat! We were originally put in a room on the ground floor but then were moved to a private double room becuase they needed the other room for another reservation. The hostel was FREEZING and had NO heat, like I said, the only heaters were litter space heaters that did barely anything! We visited the Blue Mosque and Mosaic museum on the first day we arrived. The coolest thing was hearing the Adhans Call to Prayer, which we heard 5 times a day! We also ate at this place thinking it would be cheap but ended up costing 40 lira!

The next day we got up from our warm beds and went out into Instanbul and visited the Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar, which was really awesome! I used my bargaining skills and bought a Turkish flag and an evil eye for more then 75% the price I was first quoted on each thing!

A friend of mine from OSU, Lindsey, is studying in Turkey and we decided to meet up with her later that evening. We made our way over to Taksim and ended up waiting for her out of the rain in a little coffee shop. When Lindsey arrived she took us to a cool place to eat and then we went out for some drinks. We ended up meeting some other exchange students there in a bar and hanging out. We left before the trams and metro stopped running. The next day it was raining and freezing and because I had no coat, Diana and I decided to hang out all day in Starbucks. I definitely need to return to Istanbul and visit more of the Asian side and see the Topaki palace! I took a shuttle to the airport the next morning and flew to England. I stayed in a hotel and caught a plane back to France early the next morning. I was still ill (and still am to this day) with bronchitis and a cold but it was really good to get home as the trip was exhausting!

To see all the pictures from my 14 day trip go to the photo section of theglossophile.com! Sorry this post was not as concise as I had hoped it to be! It was definitely not detailed in anyway! I left so much out! Anyway, on to my next trip…Mom and Dad come to Europe!

This post is stored in the category of Made in France, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Alissa Morano, Athens, Cold, Delphi, Diana Barger, England, Greece, Istanbul, Italy, London, Milano, Rome, Sick, Sinus Infection, Turkey

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The end of yesterday marked the beginning of the spring vacation for Zone C, which include the Académies de Bordeaux, Paris, Créteil, and Versailles. Our vacation runs until the 27th of April when we must then return back to school to teach for the final 9 weeks. These final 9 weeks are only for those on a 9 month primary school contract. The IUFM assistants finished a month ago and the 7 month assistants will finish at the end of this month. This means that Dasia and Will will be returning home in early May, which is really sad!

I plan on using this first week of vacation to continue recovering from my bronchitis and sinus infection. I also plan on getting my website up to date to where I can begin designing and implementing the “Languages” and “Linguistics” pages, which are the two main pages for the website in the first place! I would like to finish documenting winter vacation in my blog post tomorrow and use the first week of this vacation to restart my Basque lessons and also to start reading the fifth Harry Potter book in French.

Next Friday I’m taking a night train from Dax to Paris and plan on visiting the Louvre and Versailles on Friday and Saturday before my parents arrive on Sunday. Below is a complete detailed itinerary of what we will do the second week of my vacation when my parents come to visit for a week!

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Sunday, April 19, 2009
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Mom & Dad Arrive at 10:10am

-Take RER B to Paris Gare du Nord
-Take Métro #4 to Strasbourg Saint-Denis (Dir-Portes Orléans)
-Take Metro #8 to La Tour Maubourg (Dir-Balard)
Walk to hotel, check-in, shower, etc.

Take Metro #8 to Madeliene (Dir-Créteil)
change to #12 and take to Pigalle (Dir- Porte de la Chapelle)
change to #2 and take to Anvers (Dir- Nation)
take Funiculaire
Visit Sacré Coeur and Montmartre

Take Metro #2 to Villiers (Dir Porte Dauphine)
switch to #3 (Dir- Gallieni) to Opéra
Look around Opéra (Palais Garnier)

Walk to Metro Station Havre Caumartin #9 and take to Trocadéro (Dir-Pont de Sèvres)
Walk from Trocadéro to Eiffel Tower
Visit and go up into Eiffel Tower

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Monday, April 20, 2009
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Get up!

Take #8 from La Tour Maubourg to Invalides (Dir-Créteil)
Take RER C to St. Michel/Notre Dame
Eat breakfast at Petit Pont Café
Walk to Notre Dame and visit

Walk to Louvre along the Seine and visit the Pyramid Courtyard

Walk towards La Défense and visiting the Tuileries Gardens and Place de Conorde
Walk along the Champs Elysées to Champs Elysées Clemenceau on the #1 and take Metro #1 to Charles de Gaule Etoile (Dir- La Défense)
Visit the Arc de Triomphe

Take Metro #1 to La Défense
Visit Grande Arche

Take Metro #1 to Châtelet and walk around get dinner and return home!

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
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Must bet at Metro Station by 6AM at the latest!

YOU MAY HAVE TO DO THIS ON YOUR OWN!

Take #8, Direction Créteil to Invalides
Take #13 to Montparnasse Bienvenüe (Dir- Châtillon-Montrouge)
Follow signs that say “Grandes Lignes” and “TGV”, which will guide you to the actual Gare de Montparnasses (you will have to walk a little ways underground on long conveyer belt type walkways)

Take the TGV at 7h15 (7:15am) to Dax and arrive at 11h30.
Take #14 bus at 12h55 to St. Pierre and walk to Hotel Ibis.
Take bags to hotel and check in.
Get lunch, and visit Dax and St-Paul-lès-Dax and my schools.
Hang out, relax, sit a café

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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Get up and take #3 bus to Gare at 9h25
Take train from Dax at 9h52 and arrive in Bayonne at 10h21
Walk around Bayonne for a couple of hours.
Take #2 STAB (Bus) from Bayonne Mairie (Côté Adour) to Biarritz Maire
Walk down to Casino area and beach (maybe to light house)
Take bus to Gare de Biarritz
Take Train back by 17h00 (5:00pm)

Get bags from Hotel (if they let us hold them, if not we can arrange to get them to my dorm before we leave)

Take bus #9 back to Gond to my residence hall and make dinner and pack stuff of mine that you will be taking home.

Get taxi around 11:15pm to go to Gare de Dax

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Thursday, April 23, 2009
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Take night train at 00h07 from Dax and arrive in Paris at 7h10.
Take Metro #4 to Gare du Nord (Dir- Porte de Clignancourt)
Get train at 7h58 at Gare du Nord and arrive in Lille-Flandres at 9h00
Take Belgian train at 9h30 from Lille-Flandres and arrive in Bruxelles-Central at 11h31
Put bags in lockers, meet up with Virginie and explore Brussels for the day.
When Virginie’s fiancée/boyfriend gets off work we will drive down to Nismes and have dinner with my third host family
We spend the night with my third host family

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Friday, April 24, 2009
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Get up and have breakfast and show you around the farm.
Look around Nismes for a little bit and then take bus to Couvin and then to Chimay.

(We may be able to take our luggage and put it at my first host dad’s office for the day.)

Once my host mom get’s off work she can pick us up in Chimay and we will go to my first host family’s house. (This is all tentative as I have yet to hear back from them and need to write them again)

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Saturday, April 25, 2009
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Virginie and her BF will take you to Zaventum Airport and my third host family will take me to Charleroi Airport.

I got a ticket on Ryanair from Charleroi to Pau on Saturday the 25th.

After vacation I really need to start studying on the GRE and working on my Résumé/Curriculum Vitæ and statement of purpose for grad school. I’ll make a separate post about my grad school search! There are so many things I want to blog about but I totally forget to do it! I’m going to work harder on blogging and keeping up with it, so don’t worry!

This post is stored in the category of Made in France, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Académie de Bordeaux, Assistants, Basque, Bayonne, Belgium, Biarritz, Blog, Bronchitis, Brussels, Charleroi, CV, Dad, Dasia Martinez, Dax, GRE, Harry Potter, Host Family, Louvre, Mom, Paris, Pau, Résumé, Ryanair, Sinus Infection, Vacation, Versailles, Website, Will Stinton

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So I haven’t written in forever and even though it’s been since, what, February, I am currently working on journaling my whole winter vacation to Italy, Greece, and Turkey. I’ve been busy being absolutely downright ill with bronchitis, allergies, and sinus infection. I went to the doctor last Friday and he gave me antibiotics, cough medicine, nasal spray, and steroids. I’m feeling a little bit better even though the storm coming in is causing a lot of pressure and giving me a headache.

Other than that I’ve been busy working on getting my application in to teach English in Spain next year. I finished the online application last Wednesday and sent in my hard copies today and paid €56 to have them expressed to New York. I better get that JOB! If I don’t get that job I’m going to have to hopefully try to become a substitute teacher! I’m trying to update my website and get all the loose ends worked out and finished before I start the bulk of it. For some reason it is really hard for me to sit down and accomplish one thing at a time as I have all my ideas running through my head. I see that I am this way and I know now that I could never write a book…well maybe I could…and hopefully some day I will…I know that I have to write a few theses at least.

I’m so unmotivated to work here and have missed a few more days than I should have but right now I’m at my last week until Easter vacation and then only nine weeks to go. I can’t wait to go home! I’m going to start studying for the GRE and getting the test taken and over with ASAP when I get home so that I can start working on applying for school. I really have my hopes set on going to the University of Hawai’i! I’m starting on my CV and my Statement of Purpose so it will be done and well revised by the time I get home and ask my professors for recommendations. I’ll write more about this later! I just wanted to update everyone and let everyone know that things are going well and that I can’t wait for two weeks to pass as I’ll be able to see my mom and dad again!

This post is stored in the category of Made in France, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Antibiotics, Bronchitis, CV, Dad, February, GRE, Greece, Made in Spain, Mom, Sinsus Infection, Statement of Purpose, Turkey, University of Hawai'i, Website

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