Poisson d'Avril!

If people were wondering at what age kids seem to enjoy April Fools related pranks most, I can give them the answer: 9-10. In France, they call the "holiday" Poisson d'Avril, though nobody could tell me how fish got involved. My older kiddos were going crazy cracking themselves up with hilarious and clever pranks such as taking the notebooks of another class, switching seats while the teachers weren't looking, etc. The classic French prank is to take a paper fish and tape it to an unsuspecting citizen's back. One of my students got me with this one, which made me really happy, actually. I like being able to participate in their kid world.

I only have 2 weeks left in the classroom, which is something of a shock, because it doesn't feel like it's ending, since for everyone else at my schools, it's not. The kids are in school until June so nobody seems super aware of the fact that I stop getting paid pretty soon. In an ideal world, the teachers I work with would be informed by my contact person of the dates when our contracts end. In fact, I'm 99.99999% certain that this falls under her umbrella of responsibilities. Surprise, surprise, this hasn't happened. Luckily, I discovered this the traditional 2 weeks in advance, so I've been telling my teachers. Otherwise, I'm realizing that I would have just been disappearing without notice.

Before thinking about what's next, I will fill you in on what happened since my last posting. I went to Lyon with my friend Michael, from Wash U. He is living in Madrid right now doing the same program as me. I had visited Lyon once before with my parents and sister, and I remembered really enjoying it, so I was anxious to go back. Lyon is known as the gastronomic capital of France, which I think we'd all agree is an impressive title to carry. Michael and I made sure to take advantage of this by tasting all kids of weird animal dishes. Ok, that sounds disgusting. But it wasn't! Lyonnais cuisine just happens to be filled (in a good way) with organs you don't find very often on the menus of restaurants in America. We also rented bikes one day and rode along the Rhone river and through the big city park. The highlight/weirdest part must have been when we stumbled upon the Miniature museum. Yep, this is a museum filled with miniature dioramas. Miniature chairs, miniature desks, miniature food, miniature 70s style living rooms, miniature dilapidated theaters. Worth forgoing the Musée des Beaux Arts? Probably. If nothing else, it was definitely the weirdest museum I've been to in a long time. I recommend it.