Thank God This Town is Flat

Good gravy I'm pooped.

Everything went fine this afternoon; better than I expected actually. (Thanks for the happy thoughts, whoever thought them.)

So, I left at quarter after four, and had only a minor problem on my 35 minute walk across town: close to the bus depot (at least I think it's a bus depot... there's a lot of buses there, anyway), a couple of guys tried to get my attention. The first was an older guy with a beard (rather reminiscent of a post-spider hole Sadaam, now that I think about it) and the second was a younger guy in his very nice and clean rugby jumper/matching shorts & tennis shoes. Both, I suspect, wanted money, as they faded behind me when I kept walking and didnt give either the time of day. I wouldn't call myself a big city girl, but it felt vaguely of New York City. (my mantra: goawaygoawaygoawaygoaway. It worked.)

So I collected the children and got them home with no problems. After two hours of three children going wild in their own home, including snacks, a french jump rope game and a screaming four year old, Carine finally arrived. After my report (oh sure, the kids were great! *eye roll*), she told me that her school is looking for an assistant english teacher, and if I was interested she would mention me to the director of the school.

*blink* yes please!

I was so frazzled by that point that I hope she wasn't discouraged by the fact that I didn't jump up and down in excitement, but it would be amazing (and too damn good to be true, really) if something came of it. We'll see tomorrow.

I started my half hour trek home at 7pm, and found a slightly shorter/safer way home, through the construction* and really cool downtown area. Came home and died.

Stéph was waiting for me, and he had news of the mysterious UPS package from Maman Uté: we're supposed to have some kind of a customs number before we can confirm and have it delivered. They provided a website but it proved to be completely unhelpful. Stéph will get up a little early to call back himself and figure out what the problem is. He also informed me that his mom gave him grief because the living room wasn't in perfect order (it is tidied up, I swear she was nit-picking!!!), but after just arriving home after a 12 hour day, he wasn't having it so he kicked her out.

My god I love this man. *silly grin*

*A note on construction
Various parts of town are always undergoing some kind of construction or another. The area I walked through today is one end of the downtown area, and it seems they are paving the road, so the whole road for about 4 blocks has been ripped up with gravel thrown down, but it's not a problem for pedestrian traffic. The real problem is this town is so unbelieveably old, that if something that could be of historical importance is found, all construction must stop and an archaelogical team must be brought in. Case in point: the little park in front of the Prefecture was recently razed to put in a new parking lot, but they found an ancient graveyard (little wonder with a matching ancient church not a block away). The archaeological team has been called in, and god knows when they'll be done, so in the mean time it's even worse getting around there than it was when it was just a park. C'est la vie!

The Funniest Thing I Saw Today, part deux:
This isn't really funny as much as a comment on the current fashion, at least for the high school/university set. Seems the latest in tennis shoe fashion is a high top in blaring colors (usually red), which greatly resembles a boxing shoe. Pants are pulled above the top of the shoe so the whole shoe can be seen and envied. Think I'll pass on this one, thanks.

Sorry for any errors in this edition, but I'm absolutely knackered, to borrow a phrase from our english friends. More tomorrow, I'm sure.