On Thursday I went to visit my schools. I hadn't been able to get in touch with anyone before - the email address I got for one of the schools was apparently defunct, and I wasn't given anything for the second. I had phone numbers, but I'm totally at sea here when I can't avail myself of gestures and facial expressions, so I was pretty sure it would cause more confusion than enlightenment.

Getting there was kind of an adventure. Thursday was day 1 of a somewhat open-ended transit strike here, but I decided to brave it and set out anyway. It's not a full strike - apparently not everyone is part of the union, so about half the buses run and a few of the métro lines, but everything is less frequent and hugely crowded. Everything, that is, except the métro line I take: it runs exactly the same as always, for the simple reason that it has no drivers at all. That one line, and none of the others, is completely automated and doesn't even have transit employees on board as a backup plan. After DC's summer disaster this leaves me somewhat nervous, but the métro here is in much, much better repair, so it's probably fine. I guess. I don't have much choice anyway, so I'm not thinking about it too much.

To get to my schools from here I take a métro and a bus, and the bus was totally insane. To have fit any more people, some of them would have had to be crowd-surfing. On the plus side, they had just given up and turned off the ticket-taking machines, so I've been riding free for the past four days. I have no idea how long things will go on like that - apparently they're threatening to strike for 99 days, and although the strikers probably can't afford to stay completely home during that whole time, I've been told that their phase 2 consists of working half days, and staying home during rush hours for maximum inconvenience. Weirdly, no one I've talked to seems to have any idea what the strikers are demanding - if I understand correctly, the discussions happen behind closed doors, so all the public really knows is whether there are strikes or not. And of course, during the strike the schedule of what runs and when changes every single day, so you just have to check the transit site and cross your fingers that your bus isn't canceled for the day.

Eventually I made it to my main school, and wandered around until I found someone to introduce myself to. She took me to the main secretary, who is really sweet and has a great smile and spoke to me slowly and gave me some papers to fill out while she went to look for one of the English teachers. I can't remember her last name - I have it written down somewhere - but I think her first name is Patricia. Conversation moved pretty fluidly in and out of French and English, but I followed most of it pretty well. She seemed really happy to meet me and she showed me all around the school and showed me some of the powerpoint things previous assistants have done. My first day is Thursday, so earlier in the week she'll work with the kids so they have questions to ask me on the first day, about where I'm from and my hobbies etc. So that should be pretty easy and non-stressful. It sounds like there are four English teachers, so I guess I'll meet the rest sometime this week or next. I was hoping that the school had another assistant or two assigned for the other languages, but apparently I'm the only one. Still, it seems like it should work pretty well, especially if the rest of the teachers are anywhere near as nice as they ones I met.

Afterward I walked over to my 2nd school, which is about half an hour's walk away (there are buses, but it didn't seem worth it to fight my way onto one). This was a less successful visit - one English teacher was rushing out the door, and it seemed from the schedule that the one I really needed to meet had a free period, but when I went by to say hi she had a class. I left my email address with the secretary (who was just as friendly as the other and gave me a big packet of information with my name on it, so she did know who I was) but I haven't heard anything yet. Since it's not my main school, I have no idea how I'm supposed to find out when to go there - the only official instructions I've had are to turn up at my main school at 9a on October 1st, so maybe they'll have my 2nd school's schedule ready for me then, too. I can hope.

I had originally planned to meet up with a couple other assistants from the UK in the afternoon, but was foiled by the strike. My bus out to the schools left right when I expected, but that was apparently just a ploy to lull me into a false sense of security. The bus back to the city center is supposed to run every 8 minutes, but I knew things were off-kilter, so it wasn't really until 45 minutes in - when I saw the third bus pass by in the opposite direction - that I really started to get concerned. Surely they wouldn't run a bus in one direction only and just strand people, right? Right??

Well, right. It did come eventually. I managed to get the last open seat, and two stops past where I got on it was, once again, so full that they just started passing by people waiting to get on. That has to be infuriating, to wait 45 min for a bus that doesn't even stop for you. Hopefully this will end before too long. In the meantime, I seem to be less frustrated about the whole thing than most people - partly because I'm lucky enough not to have anywhere urgent to be just yet, but also because I don't mind long walks to get places. I'm getting to know the city better than I otherwise would, which I appreciate right now. I'm hoping to more or less know my way around by the time it gets cold and I'm in less of a mood to explore.

By the time I made it back downtown I was pretty hungry, so I decided to grab a "sandwich kebab" (also known in Germany as Döner). As far as I can tell, the US is the only place where "kebab" is short for "shish kebab," small pieces of meat and/or veggies on a stick. Everywhere else, kebab is meat shaved off of a huge upright cone of meat with a metal pole through the middle, which turns slowly in front of a heating element, like so (picture is not mine):

You eat it in a sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes and sauce. It's kind of like a gyro, but for some reason that entirely escapes me, it's so much better. I've never had anything like it in the States and it's definitely on my list of top 10 things that are awesome about living in Europe. Side benefits are the fact that it's cheaper than any other food, kebab shops are on every corner, and they're open longer than other restaurants. All of which might help explain why I've been eating them all the time, as in sometimes more than once a day. (That having been said, I've been having mine "sans sauce" for the simple reason that I have no idea what any of the sauces are. Now that I've finally learned the French word for "spicy" and can thus ensure that I get something that isn't, I'll probably start trying them. The names are mostly in Turkish or Arabic, except one: "sauce blanche," or "white sauce." Descriptive, that.)


Friday was more apartment-hunting, and I might actually have found something. I'm going to visit it tomorrow, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, but it really would be perfect if it worked out. More on that later, hopefully. In the afternoon I walked over to check out its neighborhood, which is pretty nice and also right in front of a park. You have to climb a pretty steep hill, but then there are really good views. I took some pictures. (Click on them to see bigger versions.)

My new camera doesn't tell me when I've taken a blurry picture, which is a shame. Even so, I love this shot. A courtyard a few blocks away from the park.

View of the city from the top of the park.

View in a different direction. I kind of like that it's just hewn out of rock.

Apparently it has been illegal to throw projectiles onto the lower properties since March 2, 1874.

Afterward I walked over to the opera building to meet up with Hannah and Jack. After wandering around for a bit (that area of town has a truly epic number of kebab shops per capita), we wound up heading back to the same place as before on the banks of the Rhône.

But this time, I saw the elephant! In case you didn't get it before, here is a terrible explanatory drawing:

(Drinking and discussing elephants led to an attempted explanation of "seeing pink elephants," so pink seemed appropriate.) By the end of the evening Hannah was able to see it too, but Jack is still in a benighted state of elephant-denial. He'll come round eventually.

It's late, so that's it for now. Hopefully by the next time I write, I'll have a place to call home. :)