I am LIVING in France . . .

It's been 10 days now since I arrived in France. Contrary to the title of this post, I do still feel like it is a vacation, not that I am living here. Perhaps in a couple of weeks I'll feel it more. [I started this when I had been here for 10 days, but because of internet glitches, I lost the entry and it is now a few days later.)
So, let me tell you about my school. I am in a small village about 45 minutes (by train) east of Paris. the school is on a small estate that has two buildings. One is the main house which is the director's and the other is a combination of our living quarters and the classroom. There are four of us living in the house - an English woman, an English man, a Canadian woman and me. There are three other students, all Americans, but they live in Paris and commute daily. My room is upstairs with a window overlooking the parklike setting of the property.
The village is small and quaint. There are a few restaurants, Indian, Italian, and a great French one which is only open for lunch. There is a grocery sore, 3 patisseries (bakeries) and 3 bars and a church.
We began our teaching practically right away. The first two days were classroom work and the third day, we met with the students and observed a couple of lessons. On Thursday, we taught our first lessons. Our schedule is that we start every day at 10 am with classroom schedules. On Monday and Tuesday, we are done around 3pm. (In reality, we are not done because we have to prepare lessons, which takes HOURS, and so we work all afternoon and evening.) On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we finish classroom lessons at 1:30 and then work the rest of the afternoon on the lessons. From 6 - 8 pm, we teach up at the little community center. After the classes, we have a critique period until 9 pm. Then we head back to the house and usually work a little more before bed. That pretty much constitutes my day. This past weekend I spent the day in Paris with two other students. It was nice to get away after our first week of lessons. We went to the Grand Arch in La Defence, where you can stand at the top of the stairs and have a straight view to the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs E'lysée. It was a brilliant, sunny day and we took the boat trip down the Seine (at least the 4th time for me). We finished up the day by strolling down the rue St. Honoré, where there are tons of clothing stores, stopping into cafés on our way back to the train station (this took HOURS!).
I've added a couple of photos of our little classroom and my room. Pictures of the vllage to come later. Ciao!