Dinner party, Belleville, baking

We've had a busy couple days! I'll start with Wednesday night... we made an appetizer tray,

baked spaghetti, a big salad with tomatoes and French radishes, and a plum galette for dessert.

Other assistants brought other sides, desserts, and drinks. The guest list seemed to grow and grow Wednesday afternoon, so I was nervous we might not have enough of everything. As I mentioned earlier, we only have 14 forks in the apartment, so it was a neat of example of God providing for us that there were EXACTLY 14 people at supper! Most assistants were from the midwest/eastern US, but there were also assistants from England, Australia, Germany, and France. It went really well and was interesting to meet and talk to other assistants and find out why each other decided to do the program.

Thursday morning we left the apartment at 8 and walked to the train station (about 12-15 min walk), and got on the 8:22 train to Belleville. When we arrived in Belleville at 9, we kind of felt like we had just arrived in the middle of nowhere. There was not much around at all... definitely nothing resembling a modern train station or signs indicating a city bus system. There was one attendant at the train station who gave us a map of the town, so we were able to find the school... it was a 15-20 minute walk, though! Fortunately there is a very clean (probably new) Carrefour right next to the school, so we were able to stop and get a drink and snack before meeting everyone. We first met with the assistant principal then met with all of the English teachers. They were very, very nice. They explained the curriculum and our roles, then took us on a school tour, explained all the technological equipment, introduced us to all the secretaries, got our lunch cards set up, took us to lunch in the "cantine," and then we observed one teacher's class after lunch. We headed back to Carrefour about 3 for another drink, then arrived at the train station about 3:40.

I told the woman behind the counter that we wanted to buy 2 tickets to Lyon at 4PM and she responded that there were no trains back to Lyon due to construction on the tracks. Before I could panic about getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, she told me there was a replacement bus that would be leaving at 4:16. Okay, not ideal, but not too bad- I mean the bus can't take that much longer than the train, right? So we waited for the bus.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally about 4:35, the bus arrived. We were on the bus for a total of about an hour and a half due to the HORRIBLE traffic due to TCL (Lyon's metro transportation system) strikes. We finally got back to our apartment about 6:30. We were completely exhausted! We ate leftovers from Wednesday night, watched a movie, and went to sleep. We decided to take it easy today (which we were kind of forced to do anyway since we can't go anywhere except within walking distance b/c of the strikes). We went to the mall to get a few groceries and to get a baby present for the Prewitts, then came back and I started baking. Tomorrow is a multimedia presentation at church on Revelation and refreshments are being provided, and Sunday there is a potluck. So, I have made another plum galette, 2 fresh apple cakes, and a plum nut loaf cake (which I just realized I still had not taken out of the oven and it is kind of burned...). Anyway, that is about all for now!