Tuesday, February 14, 2012

My Own Personal GiggleFest

Today, class, I'm not going to teach you anything that I learned on the field trip except that the US was involved in WW1 but we came really late to the party and no one really bothers telling anyone that we were here.  I have lots of pictures and I can bore you with my interpretation of history, but I'd rather show you what made me laugh today.

So first, this is a mall, but it's what you have to go through to get to the big grocery store.  They have lots of small convenience stores on corners and they have some small grocery stores in town, but if you want absolutely everything you can get your hands on in one place, you have to drive out to Leclerc or Carrefour.  This was where we went to Leclerc which is like a super Walmart or a super Target.


Only in France have I seen people sit down when they scan your groceries.  And they don't bag them for you.  It's your job, not theirs.


This was from the war museum today.  There were lots of posters from of war propaganda from France, Germany and the Brits.  This made me laugh because there's a song called It's a Long Long Way to Tipperary but there's also a funny joke in my family about it because of a Mary Tyler Moore episode and a joke about a rary.


At the museum today, you were not allowed to bring your bags into the museum, so everyone had to put them in a special. place.  This cave, actually.  They had all brought their lunches and had them in bags, so they brought them into this cave and then when it was lunch time, they opened the door and I was shocked to find tables, lights and heat.  I know of nothing like this situation in the US and can only say it's just one of those French things:  you bring your lunch on a field trip and eat it in a cave.


While your teachers pour a glass of wine for themselves during lunch.  So French!


Since we were out the country to look at trenches from WW1, I should not have been surprised to see a tractor driving down the road.  But I was.


And it appears that rednecks are everywhere.


This horse had me cracking up because when the whole group of students was walking down the road, he came CHARGING over to us where there was only a barbed wire fence to keep him in and he was happy to let people pat him.  I thought I got a video of him racing over to us, but no such luck.


The best part of the day was when we had to walk through some mud which was all limestoney and slick and thick and sticky.  I have never seen mud like this.  There was no alternative once we were walking through it and people went bananas.  Screaming, shrieking, flailing, and of course, someone had to fall and get covered all down one side with mud.   There is nothing better to cause hysteria than to make teenagers, French and American alike, get their nice shoes/uggs/sneakers stuck in mud and potentially ruined.


Angry French feet.  And maybe some American ones.  At this point, they had mostly scraped their shoes but they spent te next 20 minutes not listening to the guide and instead, trying to find leaves and sticks to  clean their shoes.  Mine were quite mud spattered too but I was wearing shoes that were ok to get dirty.  The bus driver must have loved us when we got off.


And after all of my raving about the beauty of the French pastries, I had to laugh when j-ster showed us this.  She didn't go on today's field trip because she had the other half of our kids here in town and they learned more about where we are.  They were done around 4, so she made supper for us working women who dragged our muddy feet home at 7:30.  She bought a pastry for dessert that is sort of like strawberry shortcake with a little pudding like substance and there are 2 macaroons on top.  She wasn't especially careful as she brought it home and this is what happened.  Doesn't look so pretty now, does it?  I had no trouble digging my fork into this one since it had already been blemished!


Ok, you can go now.  Bring your notebooks tomorrow for a serious history lesson,  sparkling style. Finding the Funny

2 comments:

  1. Enjoying the pix! Happy belated valentine's day! Flew home yesterday. Saw the hawk again by fire station. Keep up the posts!
    L, Mom

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  2. This was so great! I loved reading how the French sit down to check out your groceries (but not bag them!) and loved the part about rednecks being everywhere. Ha! Loved the pictures. So glad you linked them up with #findingthefunny!

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