Dragon*Con 2009

Hey, the internet. It's been a while, I guess - I hadn't been doing anything particularly interesting, but then I went to Dragon*Con in Atlanta, which was my first con, and I thought I might commemorate the occasion by writing way too much about it.

Holy frak, you guys. Epic weekend was epic.

A short list of things I learned at D*Con:

• The cast of BSG are just as gorgeous and warm as you could hope.
• It's possible to make EasyMac in a tupperware container with only a hotpot.
• Don't bother taking workout clothes to con - you walk everywhere anyway and you don't remember to eat, especially when all your food is in a hotel room that's a good 45 minutes away by public transit.
• Get in line for BSG panels at least an hour and a half ahead of time if you want to be anywhere near the front.
• Line wank is best avoided by heading to the bar for booze and mockery.
• Aaron Douglas needs a job.
• Clothing is a social construct.
• Finally meeting all my fangirls was incredible.

Thursday afternoon I piled into the car with Erin, Rani, and Jess and we drove the three hours downstate to pick up Becca and then down to Atlanta! It only took about 12.5 hours all told, with stops for bathroom breaks and gas, which was pretty good time. The best thing about driving all night was that there was very little traffic. I found the secret back way around the boring part of Birmingham with no problem (for future reference, on the way back, it's Exit 264, but off Highway 65, not 20/59 - no wonder I couldn't find it). Unfortunately, I got about twenty minutes of catnapping at best in the back of the car - the morning traffic into Atlanta was kind of harrowing.

We got into the city about 5.30 or so and cruised around looking for a parking garage near the Sheraton. By 6.15, we were in line, nibbling on granola bars and sipping our juice boxes. It was a good thing, too: by 7, the line was all the way around the building. And who should wander past but Dasha and Adrienne? "Hey," I thought to myself, "I think I know those people" and then "Holy frak, I DO know those people!" There were many hugs. At 8 they let people in and we got our badges with a minimum of confusion and headed upstairs to wait for the Mary McDonnell panel that was supposed to be about the Adama/Roslin relationship before EJO canceled. It was fine, though, because I had my fangirls. I saw Angie from down the hall and we shrieked and ran toward each other like we were in a field with romantic music playing. So many hugs, you guys. It was a smallish panel, so there was plenty of room. Dasha and Erin and I decided to sit in the third row, which meant that Mary didn't high-five us like she did Rani when she came in with Michael Hogan, but that was all right: her glory filled the room.

Seriously, you guys: whatever good opinion I had of her before, I love her even more now. In addition to being incredibly gorgeous, she was warm and eloquent and sweet and thoughtful and silly. She asked where everyone was from and said she had been afraid that no one would show up, because 10 a.m. was so early and she was across from the Shatner & Nimoy panel. "But you're here!" she said, and threw up her hands in joy. "It's because we love you!" I shouted like the That Kid I am, and she said back, "Awww, I love you guys too." WIN. She called EJO to try to wake him up to talk to us, and she kept getting confused about her phone, and it was adorable. She got his voicemail and had us leave him a message that just said "So Say We All!" I didn't even know that few people could make that much noise.

She and Hogan had amazing bantering chemistry together. She kept playing with her hair and messing with her glasses, and when someone asked a question she couldn't hear because of the noise of the line waiting for the Torchwood panel, she got up and stalked over to the doors and closed them herself all presidential instead of getting her handler to do it. She talked about her favorite line ("I'm coming for all of you!") and reiterated that she thinks Roslin fell in love with Adama in "Resurrection Ship II", which is the only scene she can bear to watch. I got up (nervous and exhausted and shaking) and asked questions about Saul Tigh's perspective on A/R and about Roslin's ideal retribution when it came to Gaius Baltar, and they both had lovely answers, and Mary said she'd think about it even more and get back to us, which was sweet. I was absolutely hypnotized while she was speaking: I couldn't move at all. Her handler started whispering to her from behind the curtain about the time limit and she got up and stuck her head through and said, "But we're having so much fun!" Sadly, we had to leave to make room for the next panel.

Selected favorite quotations from the panel (from memory, not verbatim):

Mary: *coyly* I won't tell you what Laura and Bill did during their private times.

Mary, on a question about whether she has Laura Roslin's "I'm coming for all of you" attitude: Would I do that if someone came after my family? YEAH, I WOULD.

Hogan: Better say something fast if [EJO] picks up the phone. He's likely to say something [suggestive].

Mary: *picks up her water glass and puts it to her ear like a phone* I don't know why I did that!

Mary: I think I broke my phone!

Mary, on a question about the wedding ring dream sequence and the actual ring scene: You know, I think I AM the only character to get married twice after I died. Maybe the only person ever! That was really emotional, because, you know, Eddie would put the ring on my finger, and he'd start crying, and his tears would fall on my hand, and then I'd get all emotional and my eyes would start tearing up and fluttering, and then they'd yell "CUT!" Yeah, we shot that scene a lot of times. (She told this story a couple of times.)

Mary: I want President Obama, because I love him, to announce in the next few days that he has a comprehensive solution to health care reform. (She mentioned health care reform pretty much every panel; I found it kind of precious.)

Hogan: How did I feel about Adama and Roslin? *significant pause* I was happy for the old man.

Mary: I've always been a hair girl. I'm one of those girls where my hair comes into the room and then, a few hours later, I do. I should have been born in Texas.

Hogan: I went to Los Angeles (pronounced "Ann-gel-ease") for my first audition AND I GOT THE JOB! *fistpump*

Mary: *double peace sign of victory*

After that, Jess and Nina and Becca went to the Torchwood panel and Erin and I went to the food court with Aidy and Meryl, but we were kind of too tired to eat. At that point, we'd been awake for about 37 hours. There was a girl cosplaying dressed in an abbreviated collection of leather straps (including a leather thong) who got kicked out while we were there, much to the consternation of the business men. We collected the TW girls and drove to Nina's other hotel to pick up her bags and then out to our hotel in Decatur. Fortunately, Rani was awake enough to drive, and Caprica the GPS unit was very obliging, apart from her demands to have a baby. We got to the hotel around 2, were checked in and showered by 3ish, and then slept until 5.30 when Lizzy and Hayley showed up, to much rejoicing. That meant we missed the BSG panel at 5.30 where Trucco and Kandyse almost made out and Hogan actually got EJO to answer the phone, but we needed that two hours of sleep by that point. Erin and I got dressed and cabbed it back into Atlanta for Dasha and Aidy's party while the others slept.

It was a great party! Meryl successfully pulled off the fake hand prank, which was hilarious, since Aidy didn't notice she had a big old zombie hand for about ten minutes. I met a number of lovely Laura fangirls, discussed the ridiculousness of the end of the series, talked about Laura (of course), and learned that someone got stuck in an elevator with Hogan and Trucco (which caused much jealousy, as I hadn't so much as glimpsed him yet). We gathered up Nina midway through the party and bowed out to go seek soup, which we found in a rather noisy pub where we ate soup and sandwiches and drank Sweetwater 420, a local beer.

After that we cabbed it back to the hotel, terrified that we were going to die and/or get lost, as our driver was on his phone the entire time and also completely reckless and couldn't remember which street we'd told him. Finally we got back, made it up to our rooms, and fell into bed, only to have some STUPID MOTHERFRAKKER pull the fire alarm TWICE at 4.34 a.m., causing us all to jump out of our respective skins. It was a false alarm, fortunately, so we all just grumbled and curled up in our beds again for some well-deserved snoozing.

Whew! And that was just ONE DAY of con, you guys. Hold onto your socks - I haven't even gotten to the parts about meeting Mary McAwesome, Hogan, Alessandro Juliani, and Trucco yet. SO MUCH TO COME.

+ + + +

Saturday! We had a panel to get to at 11.30 and we just barely made it, due to some sleeping in and the fact that once you get any group bigger than 3 people or so, getting out the door becomes more and more like herding cats, whether you're the cats or the herder, and I've obviously been both. It didn't help that it was our first time on the MARTA, but hey, we made it! And there I had my first glimpse of the stunning vision that is Michael Trucco. Even though we were far away, I nearly swooned.

[Sidenote: Mostly I'm not all ♥_♥ about celebrities in person. We went to con for the fangirls, not for the stars. I mean, I worship and squeak over them from afar, but up close, they're just people and I try to respect that. Mary was gorgeous and Hogan was hilarious, but I was able to talk to them without any problem. Trucco's another case: he's so pretty I'm rendered speechless, and the fact that Sam is my favorite-favorite character doesn't really help. In less than six months, I went from loathing Sam to adoring him, and a lot of that was the way Trucco played him, so I've got nothing but respect and appreciation there.]

It was a nice panel with a pretty good mix of questions. Mary talked about health care again; Hogan talked about Saul Tigh and Caprica Six and Ellen; Trucco talked about how much he loves the "See you on the other side" line and Sam and Kara's relationship; Kevin Grazier babbled about his twenty rats and everyone wondered why he was even there. In the middle of the panel, somebody said, "Hey, I have a question. Does anybody remember a young, handsome actor named Aaron Douglas?" It was, of course, Aaron himself, crashing the panel - he said the bar ran out of booze, which seemed believable, given his little beer gut (and his horrible facial hair).

After the panel, we went down and across the way to Starbucks for our caffeine fix. Tori found me in line and gave me Kinder things, which was great. It was fun to be in line with Hogwarts students and Imperial stormtroopers and all manner of generally fictional things. Gandalf kept walking by outside. It's the little things, you know? In a way, con people are my people. In a way, a good number of them are not - I'm not that dedicated, I'm not that into celebrities (except maybe Trucco, and even then I wouldn't confront him if I saw him on the street past maybe a wave). Still, it felt comfortable and fun. After that we let Erin go wreak some havoc on the vendor booths while the rest of us headed down to the Froggy table so that Rani and I could sign up for a photo with Trucco and Alessandro Juliani. Dad had given me some extra money and I figured there was no better way to blow it than in the name of ridiculous self-indulgent photos. We dragged Nina along and convinced her to sign up for her own photo with Aaron Douglas, because the only thing better than ridiculousness is more ridiculousness! Besides, how could we pass up the chance to meet the people behind our favorite characters? We had to sign up for Sunday's session, because Saturday's was already over, but that was fine. Jess let herself be browbeaten into taking a photo with Gareth David-Lloyd, which was precious, and then we were free for a while.

After that, we wandered up to the Walk Of Fame, as I was inspired by Kait's text saying she'd be there. I glimpsed Jason Momoa, Rachel Luttrell, Claudia Black, James Marsters, and Dean Haglund (and later, Felicia Day) and found a bunch of Mary fangirls. I had to use the restroom, so Becca and I slipped out of the room and across the hall, where I saw two women coming out of the bathroom. One had curly hair and was sort of nondescript, and I glanced at the other. Hmm, I thought, nice legs, somehow familiar red skirt, keep going up: HOLY SHIT MARY MCDONNELL. "Oh!" I said, very startled, "Um, hi!" She gave me a vague smile and said hi back. After I hyperventilated to Becca for a second, I texted Dasha and Aidy and got in line so that Becca could get an autograph. Met all sorts of lovely fangirls there whose names I hadn't caught at the RememberLaura party.

While I was in that line, Kait found me (bringing with her Jen and Jenna). It was amazing to finally meet her after all these years; I recognized her immediately. She asked after Erin, as everyone does, who then showed up, and we all hung out and chatted in the line until the line guy made everybody shuffle over and be organized, at which point they went to find some other famous people. Angie went past with her awesome signed photo and said she hadn't asked about the cookbook we put together for Mary in February, so I resolved to ask. Mary was talking to Ron Glass at one point and Becca wanted to take a photo, but the line guy prevented her.

Trucco was right next to Mary, and AJ next to him. His line was short, sometimes almost non-existent, and I felt bad for him, but eventually he had some people. At last it was our turn to meet Mary, and Becca got a signed photo. Rani asked if Mary thought we might have great legs like hers when we were older and she said, "Honestly? I got them from my mother. It's genetics! I don't do anything. My daughter complains about it because she got her father's legs. She has great legs, but she always tells me, 'I wanted Grandmother's legs!'" That wasn't terribly encouraging, but it was still cute. I asked her about the cookbook and she lit up and said she loved it, and that it was on the shelf with her other cookbooks, and she looked at it all the time, and thank us again! We had pretty even odds that she was lying about it, but even if she was, it was still very sweet, and the way she just lit up was great. She is lovely, lovely, lovely, even if her clothing choices are sometimes odd.

After that, we got in Trucco's line, because I had decided I wanted him to sign my "Gives a whole new meaning to 'frakking toasters'" shirt. His line was pretty short again, thanks to the organizer guy who was sorting people out, and we didn't have to wait long. I went up to the table (lords, he's beautiful) and his handler kind of glared at us for coming up all in a bunch. He grinned, though, with those gorgeous blue eyes, all leaning on the table. He had a bunch of photos displayed across the front of the table, all of Sam as far as I remember.

Trucco: Hey!
Me: Hey! Will you sign my shirt, or do I need to buy a photograph?
Trucco: Sure! That's fine.
Me: Um, okay. *pays and takes off shoulder bag*
Trucco: Oh, the one you've got on?
Me: Yeah...
Trucco: Okay, what color? Black? It might bleed through onto your skin.
Me: That's okay, I'll take a shower later anyway. (Nobody is smoother than I am.) *turns around, backs up awkwardly into the little space between the tables*
Trucco: *reads shirt, apparently does double take* Is this legal? I mean, I know it'd fly in LA, but we're in Georgia.
Me: That's okay. We're from Arkansas, and I'm pretty sure I'm old enough for you to sign my shirt.
Trucco: *gets up, smooths shirt over my shoulders* Hmmm, where should I sign?
Me: Oh, anywhere.
Trucco: Hmmmmm. *patting my back in deliberation*
Handler: *grumpy* JUST SIGN UNDER THE TOASTER.
Trucco: *signs*
Me: Thanks!
Trucco: *clearly amused* No problem!
We start to walk away.
Trucco: That was my most enjoyable signing experience of the day. *pauses* Maybe ever.
Me: *dies quietly*




NB: Erin heard "memorable", but I heard "enjoyable", and that's what I'd like to remember. Either way, he was really sweet, and clearly good-humored to put up with my silly request.

After that we circled around (glimpsed Tom Felton) to take a photo with Michael Hogan, because Erin wanted one, and he was charming and hilarious and slightly pervy, but in a totally non-threatening way. He put his chin on my head, which cracked me up, and his shirt was open a lot more in the front than you would have thought. His table was next to Kate Vernon's, so I told her I'd liked her on the morning panel, because she looked so sweet and expectant and we weren't actually getting anything from her. Rani was vacillating about talking to Alessandro Juliani, so I grabbed her hand and dragged her up to the table. "We promise not to ask you about the Barbie movie," I told him, but then it was all he talked about, practically. He did this little falsetto "OMG BARBIE!" thing that was funny. He signed Rani's photo with a Barbie quote, and we all bit our tongues on telling him that it was funny that he talked about being a princess when her name means "queen". I asked him if he and the cast would be at the Colonial Fleet party, as Jamie and Mark Sheppard and Aaron had all been in years past, and very deadpan, he said, "Oh, yeah, we'll be there. En masse." I thought he was blowing me off, so I teased him a little about it, but he said they'd show up at some point, and then we thanked him and left.

Really, the best part was when we all sat down to take stock of ourselves and start breathing properly again and Rani said, "Oh, man, I totally thought Hogan was making a blowjob joke when he said lower, lower, but it couldn't be!" and we all looked at her and said, "Oh, honey, that's exactly what he was doing."

Then it was back to the hotel to scrounge up some food and get changed for the Colonial Fleet party. We'd already made plans to pre-party with Dasha and Aidy and to skip out for the Stargate NC-17 Slash panel with Hayley and Lizzy. The Westin was a very cozy little gathering; we each had a drink or two and then Dasha kicked us all out and made us go to the party. Sauntering down the sidewalk to the Sheraton, some people told us we should go to the World of Warcraft party instead - I've never been flirted with so much in one weekend. We stood in line for an age to get into the party, which was then kind of lame. It was great to see the fangirls and the people in costume (some v. good Baltars!), but no one was dancing, the drinks line was three miles long, and the music was bad. The best part was the girl with the Gaius Baltar shrine on her head. Eventually Erin and I made our apologies and slipped out to make sure we got to the SG panel in plenty of time. We were walking through the skywalk to the Marriott when I saw Alessandro Juliani wearing glasses and right behind him, Trucco. It's a fairly accurate measure of the fact that I can't look away from him that I didn't even see Luciana (Kat), Kandyse (Dee), Kate Vernon, or Hogan at all, and that I didn't notice that Trucco's arm was around Mary McDonnell until I turned around to look at him and noticed her hair. They were clearly all tipsy and jolly and fond of each other and it was just a really nice moment to get to witness, especially since we didn't get to see them at the party. It's good to know that the people who made the show that means so much to me enjoy each other's company.

We got to the panel a little early and waited outside, where someone else awkwardly hit on us. "So...are you best friends?" Yeah, we are, bugger off. The panel would have been okay if the moderators weren't full-of-themselves BNFs, and if it hadn't been for the men in the audience who were clearly there to pick a fight. "Do you think that as a woman, you write slash to exert control over men?" for instance. Eventually we just walked out. When the much braver Hayley and Lizzy returned, we cabbed it back to Decatur, where, thankfully, we did not die in traffic and no one pulled the fire alarm.

And guess what? There's still Sunday!

+ + + +

Sunday! Day of win. We slept in a little, lazed around a little, showered and got cleaned up. I put on my "Charter Member of the Laura Roslin Nymph Squad" button from the generous Avery too. She was kind enough to give me one at the Colonial Fleet party in the few minutes we were there (it's now on my messenger bag, advertising my space harlotry to the world and my workplace. Oops.).

Erin, Hayley, and Lizzy were all going to the Supergate panel at 2:30 to see Momoa and Joe Flanigan's Hair and I wanted to go too, but I had my photo with Rani, Trucco, and AJ at 3, so I just waited in line with them for a while. The Jens were there sans Kait, so I talked to them for a while before grooving on down to the Marriott. I still had some time, so I hit the merchandise and picked up some majors' pins for Dad and a copy of Fluxx for myself. I loved that card game when I played it with Julia and the H3 crowd, and I'd not seen it since, except online, and at $12 instead of $20, it was a bargain. I wanted some patches, but that'll wait. I barely made the rounds before it was time to meet Rani and Nina for photos! We kept joking that it was like a space prom, since they were using that same school-photos-nondescript background, and some of the poses were so entertaining.

We waited in the room for a long time - all the Mary photos were first, and the groups, but that meant we had a nice long time to talk to people, admire somebody's Starbuck flight suit that must have been hot as hell, and take little peeks at the cast through the open doorway. Trucco's hair was very visible, because he is a taaaaaaaaaaaall drink of water. Kandyse is so precious I want to put her in my pocket, seriously. Nina skipped in for her Chiefy photo and we were still standing there waiting. Here's the part where you need to know that I brought my cardboard cutout of David Duchovny with me and forgot him in the room every single day as we left. Fortunately, Becca had left her badge at the hotel, so she had to go back anyway, and I pleaded with her to bring David with her. She agreed and we scampered back into the room, fortunately not having missed our chance. The girls in front of us, who also had Trucco and AJ, had their photo done and the woman took our bags and let wander in, and Trucco almost had his arm around me before the photographer said, "Nope! They blinked!" so the other girls had to do their photo twice more, for blinking. AJ was joking that they were doing it on purpose.

They were both grinning when we came in again for our second try. I really wanted the ridiculous prom pose (you know, like this photo of John Krasinski) for maximum ridiculousness, but I got all shy around him (partly because I was a little leery that he'd be all, "Oh, the shirt girl!" and think I was creepy, although on reflection I'm sure he's gotten creepier, and also I though AJ might not like me after I'd teased him about the party), and just sort of went and stood next to Trucco while Rani grabbed AJ around the waist. He slung his big old arm around me and I put my arm around him, but had nothing to do with my other hand, and the photographer was impatient, so I ended up just kind of resting it on my stomach, because I didn't want to put my arm around Rani and disturb her hug.

We were their last photo, so they walked out when we did, and Trucco turned and looked right at me with those blue, blue eyes and said, "Take care." I nearly melted. So maybe he did remember me, who knows? After all, he'd said liked the shirt.

After the photos, we went upstairs to stand in line, and found Aidy and Tracy standing with Erin, having been there since 3 (it was about 3.45 at that point). There wasn't a line for the 5.30 panel - it was more of a mob, but we were standing near the front (not as close as Angie). They wouldn't let us line up for some reason. Finally, a little after four, they started shoving people into a single-file line, and nobody would let us in, so we were going to have to go down the hall, out the doors, across the walkway, and down the stairs. We all looked at each other.

"You want to just go to the bar and get drunk? Skip all the linewank?"

It was genius. I saw Tara briefly on our way in and gave her a hug. We headed up to the balcony bar with Dasha and Rani for some drinks and people-watching and chatted to random con people in the bar. Finally the line started moving, so we went down and found Becca and Nina and took silly photos with David.

Because we were at the end of the line, we were in the back row of the panel, and we cheered really loudly for the cast as they came out, incurring the ire of the people in front of us, who first took their four year old to another row (which, okay, I felt a little bad about that) and then complained a lot and moved themselves. Seriously, though, we weren't being lewd or super obnoxious: we were just cheering loudly because we were in the back, and they were introducing everyone. Plus we were tipsy. But I swear the whole cast were tipsy too, the way they were giggling, so that's all right. They answered a lot of questions they'd answered before, but it was nice to hear. I was standing in the question line talking to somebody dressed as Bill Adama, but neither of us actually got to ask anything, though Nina did. Mary McDonnell talked about Bill reading very slowly and Laura liking it very much, basically talking about the private times she refused to address when Aidy asked at the Friday panel. Hoges and Kate Vernon bantered. Luciana revealed that she'll be in Caprica wearing high heels. Trucco said that The Plan involved some of the older costumes from S2 (I cheered extremely loudly - C-Bucks rule!). Richard Hatch is one skeevy motherfrakker with all his "why didn't I ever get a sex scene?" comments, let me tell you: I'm not ashamed that I booed him at one point when he was trying to pretend that terrorism is a valid method of petition and protest, and I'm not ashamed that I kept quiet during his SSWA, which the whole cast did one by one at the end, except for AJ, who was last, and deadpanned, "Line?" Brilliant.

After the panel was sushi! We lured Hayley and Lizzy over to us by holding up David (he's better than an airport sign). Ten of us went to the Pacific Rim Bistro and stuffed ourselves, and it was delightful. I showed cardboard David to some woman who was taking photos of con people from her car. Shannon talked a bit about being an XF BNF. Rani talked about how great Alessandro Juliani and right after that HE WALKED PAST. Oh, we could have died in case he'd overheard. But he just wandered into our restaurant and stood at the bar until a table of fans asked him to sit down with them, which made us crabby that we hadn't thought of it first, but apparently they kind of knew him. Also crabby-making: we had to say goodbye to Hayley, who had to troop on home so she could get to class. Fortunately, there were photos to fetch, and soup to take to the poor working stiff Nina in the Daily Dragon office, where she was interviewing Kevin Grazier. We glanced at a bunch of the photos on the table while we were there: James Marsters will seriously do any pose you want, but obviously ours was the best, despite the fact that I looked kind of like an idiot with my hand on my stomach, as you can see:



We grabbed Nina's photo too, which was lovely: when she saw it, she squealed like a stereotypical fangirl, to the affectionate amusement of her coworkers. Then we crashed Dasha and Aidy's room at the Westin for one last round of fangirl time before heading back to the hotel to pack (lame).

Seriously, I was thrilled to meet every single person I encountered over the course of the weekend, but it was so special to get to spend time with Dasha and Aidy and my Arkansas posse, and to meet the cast, who were all so great. I didn't get to see nearly enough of the European fangirls, which was sad, but really, I didn't get to see enough of anybody. There just wasn't time, despite the fact that it felt like we spent half the con waiting for things. The whole drive back, we just talked about how we were going to miss people and how soon we could see them again. The Year of the Fangirl has completely lived up to its promise and then some, and I can't wait for the next time we have some kind of magical fangirl party.

Another side benefit of the con: I've forgiven 4.5 for the way it ended. I was so furious and so sad after the finale, what with Kara vanishing into nothingness and Laura dying (at least that I expected) and Sam flying into the sun, and Lee sending the rest of humanity off to perish of cholera and the common cold with no shelter and no tools. I felt like the finale betrayed the ideals of cooperation and fighting until you couldn't and learning from the past so that you wouldn't destroy the future. I felt like I'd been wrong about what the show was about all along: instead of cooperation, division. Instead of the lessons of history, the futility of history. The finale told me that the whole thing would happen again, when I thought the show and the characters were saying that the cycle of violence stopped with them, and I was hurt. But after hearing the cast talk and listening to the other fans, I miss it. I miss the early days when I didn't know that things would go wrong. Dana used an icon from "Unfinished Business" the other day of Kara looking slightly pained and half-happy, and gods, all of the sudden, I just missed her. I miss when Kara was the center of my world, and Kara/Lee, and then Adama/Roslin, and then OMG SAM. So I think I'm finally ready to rewatch, which I haven't been since the finale, and knowing what I know about the characters and how I feel about the way their stories played out will only make my rewatch richer and more poignant. Oh, how I love this show for bringing us all together. In the less-than-a-year since I started watching it, I've fallen in love with three-quarters of the characters, had some really interesting debates, and made so many friends. I've gone from someone who swore she'd never use the word "frak" to someone who has custom dog tags, and all because I told Dad I'd heard it was good and he should buy the DVDs. So thank you, Dragon*Con and internet friends and BSG cast, for making me believe again ♥

can't stop writing.

It's become a force of habit to write a weekly email, so even though it's late and I've not really got internet, I'm sitting here writing. There would be a nice view over the valley if I hadn't drawn the curtains to keep out the bugs - we're in a rather posh hotel in Cortano because there weren't any openings anywhere, though tomorrow we move to a convent where our accomodations will be a bit more austere and a bit more reasonably priced. It's eleven and we've just come back from an excellent dinner and a ramble around town, up hill and down dale, cones of gelato melting about as fast as we could eat them.


It's been a long week with lots of traveling. First there was the sleeper train from Paris to Rome, which was nice. I hadn't been on a sleeper train since India, and I have to say, as a whole, I preferred them, though this train was certainly generally more comfortable. Less character, though, and no calls of "chai! Chai chaiyya chai!" or "teeeeeeea. Kaaaaaaappi. Kappi, tea" and no channa or sweet curd to buy. No families pulling feasts out of stacked metal containers. No barred windows to prop open, just lots of air conditioning that made my throat sore. But a pleasant train nonetheless, and we met some friendly people. Went to sleep in France, woke up briefly when the train stopped in Switzerland (but it was dark, nothing to see here), and woke up again to sunshine and square houses with red-tiled roofs and hills that were definitely nothing to do with Northern France.


I'm plugged into the tiny iPod, soaking up some music and just relaxing. Our posh room has a nice tub and I had a bath earlier and scrubbed away the lingering dirt of Rome and Sorrento and Capri and Pompeii. Sorrento was the first place we stopped: we caught a train from Rome to Napoli and then from Napoli to Sorrento, to stay at a little place in Sant Agnello, next to Sorrento. It's a hotel/hostel/cooking school called Mami Camilla's, and it was delightful. First, the food was great, and cheap. Because you can go and sign up for a week long cooking course, the lunches and dinners are student-cooked (with help from the excellent chefs), and so you can get a four-course meal in great company for fifteen Euro. The people that came and went were all so interesting: we met some Swedes, a bunch of English people, some Aussies, and of course a few fellow Americans, including two young tv-industry types on their honeymoon who told us a bit about what it's like to work at NBC or write for Prison Break. Second, the dorms were clean and homey, recently decorated and really well done. Not much street noise at night, either, and our roommates weren't too bad. Altogether a comfortable and highly-recommendable place.


We used Mami Camilla's as a base for the three days we were there. The first day was just getting there and settling in: they had hammock chairs that I made good use of, and Dad sampled the local wines, and everyone sat about and chatted and taunted the dogs (one enormous mastiff named Spike who had too much tongue for his muzzle and was gentle as anything, and then a fiesty Chihuahua called Lola). Sorrento's a sweet little place, all sunshine and citrus trees, and Mami Camilla's has its own small groves of lemon and orange trees, which meant there was always fresh-squeezed orange juice at breakfast. The second day we were going to head out to Capri, but it was a bit cloudy, so we ended up going to Pompeii instead, where a guide offered his services for "less than a thousand Euros. Ninety-five!", so we eschewed his help and just rambled around the ruins ourselves with the maps and explanatory pamphlets. It was an interesting place to see, even without the history laid out for us. The ruins are really extensive, and there's always the mountain glowering. We tramped about for hours and I took about two hundred photographs of doorways and archways and alleyways and shrines and statues and more archways and windows. I'm noticing some trends in my photography, I have to say. Very grateful for Saurabh's gift of the digital camera, though - otherwise I'd go through a billion rolls of film and have not much to show for it. These I can download and tidy up and upload so that you can all see them that much faster (in fact, they've been up for a few days already at my Picasa album along with the photos of my students and Cambrai).


The second day was clear and lovely, so we caught the hydrofoil out to Capri with a bunch of French students (mostly because we were too late for the ferry, but it was a great ride, very fast through the perfect navy blue water with its perfectly white crests of foam). I stood on the back of the boat and put my sunscreen on and licked the salt off my lips, listening to the students chattering.

"Where are you from?" I asked one of them (in French, of course).

"France!" she said.

"Yes, I know," I said, "but where?"

"Northern France."

"Where?" I asked, all a-tingle.

"Sin-le-Noble. Do you know it?"

"Yes!" And I do - it's one of the stops on the way to Douai, not so many towns over. Anna and I always joked that we really liked the name, even though Sin has nothing to do with sin, and is really pronounced more like "San", and there aren't so many nobles around. So that was nice, to meet some people from the area where I am. Was. Whichever.


We took a boat tour around Capri, Capri with its cliffs and its rocks and its greeny plants. The cliffs are so high that they catch or make clouds, even on a clear day: all around was sunshine and then the one scud of fog over the cliffs. We paid for the long tour all around the island because it was only three Euro more than the tour that only went to the Blue Grotto, where you have to pay again to get in, and it was definitely worth it. Two hours of tooling around in the beautiful water, listening to the boatman talk in English and Italian about whatever it is we happened to be seeing, avoiding the seagulls, taking a thousand photographs of rock formations and boats and lighthouses and villas and statues. We got around to the grotto and waited about half an hour to clamber out of our boats into tiny rowboats, pay nine Euro each, and squeeze through the passageway into the grotto, which really is lovely. The sunlight reflects off the water and off the rocks on the bottom and filters into the cave from underneath and just lights the place up with this perfect blue glow. Very calm, floating in the little boats with the boatmen singing that song about the moon over Capri (except ours was rather sullen, and the only song he sang was "and now you give me a tip for my good work").


After that, we took the funicular up from the beach to the town of Capri and had lunch with a couple from Chicago whom we met on the boat (also on their honeymoon - 'tis perhaps the season). Capri is posh too, mostly for the rich and famous despite its small size and accessibility, but fortunately it was the off season, and the narrow roads weren't choked with people, though it was rough when the students from various countries and schools would all try to cram through the same alleyway. Then it was gelato in the square and people-watching, since we didn't have enough cash for the chair ride to the top of the cliffs and we'd had a lot of sun anyway, and then we sat on the beach for a bit and then caught the hydrofoil back to Sorrento, and took a bus back to Sant Agnello so as to avoid the long hike up the hill from the marina. I met some French people and talked Italian buses with them, and then met some English and Australian people and talked cricket.


Tourists are interesting. The more I see them, the less I like them, generally, even though I am one. Self-hating, sure, but at least I'm not one of those tourists with an agenda. "I must see this, I must do that!" Maybe I'm no better than any of the others, but I'm content to wander. I don't expect a place to be my end-all, to answer all my questions. I'm not looking for ultimate peace, or for the perfect view of anything. Capri is beautiful. It didn't change my life. Maybe a place will, but that's not what I'm looking for when I go there. I come to the world and I let the world come to me. A cappuccino in Italy is good. A cappuccino in America is good, maybe not quite as good, but you can get a lot of different things in the U.S., and I'm sure Italy would quail at the thought of a gingerbread latte. Things are different everywhere and I refuse to rank them. Dad tonight was complaining about how there's no good food in Fayetteville, as compared to Cortano or Italy in general, and that's just not true. No place is going to solve all your problems and save you forever. Not even Paris, city of lovers.


Paris, city of keys. Roma, city of clocks, where I found a watchface in the road. I had Indian food in Rome too: there was a little place near the Colosseum that had a nice menu, so we went back after circumnavigating the Colosseum and the nearby ruins. "I wish they had South Indian food," I said, and then looked closely at the other menu, and it turned out that on Saturdays and Sundays at lunch, they did! So I introduced Dad to the joys of dosai and idli, sambar and chutney, vadai and lassi. Dad used his knife and fork and I used my fingers (thinking of Jaya beaming and Saurabh wincing) and basking in the sounds of Hindi and Italian from where the boss lady was talking to her son about menu formatting. Then I ended up talking India and Bollywood for at least half an hour with the boss lady, and that was nice. Wherever you go, there you are. She said that family in Italy, at least, is like India, though the Indian communities are better in London and the U.S., and we agreed that Bombay is a strange place with odd customs (people are getting into cohabitation and everything there) and she offered us pan parag, which Dad had to pretend he wasn't running to the bathroom to spit out.


I liked Rome. Rome was after Sorrento and Capri. The most surprising thing about Rome is that it's so small - there are some buses and a rather rudimentary metro with only two lines, but it's very walkable. We walked to Republicca and we were almost at Trajan's Column, and from the Column and the Wedding Cake, the Colosseum is visible. If there weren't so many buildings in the way, you'd be able to see the Trevi fountain as well. But there are plenty of little alleyways full of gelato, including San Crispino's, the best I've had so far (bergamot sorbetto and then a ginger-cinnamon ice cream: no wonder Let's Go calls it the best gelato in Rome). Lots of trinkets, lots of things to see and do in Rome, and it feels so friendly. There was sunshine and more sunshine, and some very nice restaurants (I forced Dad to try Ethiopian food and he liked it).


I've been reading a lot as well, with all these trains and long waits and early nights in hotel rooms because we don't always want to be out after dark when we don't know a place well. Julia sent me the first two books of the His Dark Materials trilogy, which meant I had to buy the third one, and I picked up Wicked as well. Lots of stuff about good and evil: might as well go on that theme. When in Rome, as they say, and if any place is going to lecture about sin, it might as well be there, all cozied up to the Vatican. We tried to go to the Vatican museum but didn't realize it was one of the days when it closed exceptionally early, so all we got from that was a nice ride on the metro.


Been missing my girls and the folk from Cambrai, so I'll probably skip home for a couple of days (and I can do my laundry!) to curl up on the couch and drink hot chocolate, even though it's getting too hot for hot chocolate and cuddling. I'll relate to them my few words of Italian and they'll correct me, since they were able to take Italian classes at Fenelon (pity Jacquard was too little to teach Italian, and that I wasn't around for half the classes at Fenelon and therefore couldn't take it, otherwise I'd be a bit more useful here). But I'm glad I came to Cortona - it's a little walled city perched up on a hill, all small windy streets and cobbled slopes, and as I've said, the views are very nice. It's quite peaceful here, since not many cars are allowed in the city, and the food's been wonderful. We ate twice at the same restaurant. I had two different kinds of gnocchi (and although one of them looked suspiciously like scallops, it's been nice to be in Italy where there are more things I can actually eat). Tomorrow we'll walk up the Citadel and I'll take another too many photos and eat a lot of gelato, and then Tuesday hopefully I'll catch a train to Paris and soak up a bit of the North before I head back south to meet Dad in Provence before coming back to Cambrai for the last time to finish up the packing. I'm anxious about the results of the French election, and about leaving, because it's finally sinking in that I have to leave my girls and Matthias, that Steffen and Katie and Anna have already left, that the little white house will be empty, that I won't have text messages to look forward to.

Oh, France.

Home now for a couple of days, soaking in my girls and the lovely spring air. Oh, Cambrai. I wish we had time to walk out to the hotel where Max works one more time, to take tea in the dining room that makes us want to take a turn about the room Eliza-Bennett style. Hotels built in castles, courts built on top of castles, surprises around every corner. I will miss the place, with the three spires.

Anyway, I'm off before I get maudlin. We had train adventures last night and I'm tired - remind me for the next email.

The last update from Cambrai

Hallo, all.

As Dad and I are leaving on a train at 1.15, this is probably the last update from Cambrai. It's been a good seven months. A fantastic seven months, really, no major tragedies or disappointments, and lots and lots of joys to balance out any tedium.

The colza is in bloom (so Amélie tells me), and the fields that aren't green or dun or cream are preternaturally yellow, so bright that it almost hurts to look at them. It hurts to look at them anyway, given that I won't be seeing them for much longer. No more bus rides. No more waiting in the growing light and watching the buses uncurl like caterpillars. "J'aime me laisser conduire sur les chemins du cambrésis", they say on the sides: I love to let myself be driven along the roads of the Cambrésis. And it's true. But not any longer. I never did get off the bus on a random afternoon to play with the two dancing chocolate labs behind somebody's gate. Never got a photo of the chicken statue. Never ended up going to the lace museum after all.

But I did take my two favorite students to a café for their last class, and we had a very nice conversation, and then when I was going to pay, Virgil insisted on paying, like a gentleman. He'll do well in the U.S., and Astrid will do well wherever she goes. My wistful girl, hoping for so many good things. I gave her my Jane Austen seven-novels-in-one, because that was the best I could do to reassure her. And the teachers threw me a lovely little party on Thursday afternoon, soda and presents and the cookies I'd made and all the naughtiest kids, mostly on their best behavior. I nearly cried. They got me a book about the architecture and geography of the North, a little journal, and a comic about teaching and teachers, and I looked at everyone and thought how dull my weeks at home will seem at first, without these people to occupy me. I'll miss riding home with Christine or Amélie, and chatting with Virginie and Romain and Nathalie and Adrien and Marie Claude and Marie André and Stéphane and Stéphan and all the others.

The American-hating philosophy teacher never did say a word to me, though.

Sometimes I think I'll be lost without the spire of St. Géry to pull me home. It's visible from so far out of town, rising over the roofs, over the rolling fields. It's my landmark. It's home. Dad and I walked out along the canal today and ended up in a part of Cambrai I'd never been in, but I found St. Géry and then it was easy to get back. It's so beautiful, this town, and even though I've lived here for a while, it still startles me sometimes. There are big fancy beautiful things like the cathedral and the belfry and the chateau, and then there are the gardens with their elaborate planning. And simple things, even, like walking through the place with a cone full of sorbet, pear and blackcurrant. There was a wedding going on on the steps of the town hall, and everyone else was out at the tables of the cafés, stretching their legs into the sunshine and calling out to friends who walked past. There are a lot of delights in a small town. We went to the posh bakery for one last round of pastries and carefully avoided making coffee with Cata's filter that seems to be made from a sock.

Here are some photos of Cambrai, and the colza, and my students. I may continue to update this blog later, when the reverse culture shock hits, and I feel it's probably going to hit really hard. How will I go to the grocery store in English? What a strange thought. How will I find anything? How will I order in restaurants? When we were in England for a few days, I kept wanting to order in French.

No more lemon yellow kitchen. No more blue room (though my room at home is just as blue). No more cranky stove that wants to kill us and crazy washer that takes two and a half hours to do a load if you don't put it on the fast cycle. No more leaving clothes to dry on the rack. No more bags and bags of stale baguettes so that we have to invent recipes to use them all up. And it will be all right, but it's hard to know that now, even though I know it. On the plus side, no more French bureaucracy.

I've made a lot of friends here and had a wonderful time. I'm sure that if I could stay longer, it would only get better. But my students and a lot of the teachers have my email address.

I'll be glad to have a dryer again, and Mexican food and vegetarian food, and I'll be glad to see family and friends and the dog, but life in France is easy and sweet and I will miss it a lot. And for all the things I didn't do, there were plenty of things I did do. I went to Belgium, Sweden, and England (and will have gone to Italy). I picked up a bit of German and some Spanish. I learned how to cross the street (pretend you don't care if the cars hit you) and how to give guys in bars the brush off (grab someone else). I can navigate the Paris metro and the aboveground Paris, or really any Metro you throw at me.

And who can be sad when there is Italy, and sunshine? Not me. Or at least, I'll try.

not France but Sweden!

Hello, all!

This is my last day in Stockholm with Angie! It's been a great vacation. Extremely relaxing. We've just been wandering around the city, eating vegetarian food, talking about our favorite tv shows, and comparing the various countries we've visited. Last night we went out to a sports bar to watch some song competition having to do with Eurovision and free slots left. There was a lot of cheering and a lot of hissing going on. The place was packed! And then we did karaoke. I have learned some important Swedish phrases from watching this and some random television, such as "jag måste kyssa dig" (I must kiss you) and the words for "naked", "wonderful", and "for king and country". So that will serve me well. But I can also say "I don't speak Swedish!" and "Do you speak English?" so that's all right.

Today I think we're going to visit some gardeny place and I'll teach Angie how to use the newly augmented contents of her spice collection. The weather hasn't really been the best for sightseeing - rather slushy and cloudy - but it's been pretty mild. The girls were afraid I would freeze, but it's so much warmer than Iowa was. Colder than Cambrai, but often enough above freezing, so I am toasty as a little piece of toast in my coat and scarf. No problems. But their concern was cute. It's so nice to actually find vegetarian food in Sweden. In the restaurants, in the grocery stores, wherever you go, there's always some vegetarian option, and it isn't a salad with the meat hastily taken off. Plus, there's lingon jam everywhere, and that's almost as tasty as cranberry sauce. Mmmmm. I approve of Sweden, yes, I do. It is clean and fairly friendly and easy to navigate. Expensive, though. I keep trying to divide kronor by rupees instead of Euro, and that's bad news for my bank account. But! In general everything is lovely.

It's been strange to come to a place where it's dark at six again. In Cambrai it's been so light that I don't wake up to church bells anymore: starting at 3.30 or so, I can wake up to the chirrup of birds in the trees and on the theatre, and some of the trees are budding and blooming. Hopefully the frost won't kill the blossoms. But here in Stockholm, it's still brown and bare, except for the snow and slush. This is the farthest north I've ever been! How exciting.

I had some more things to relate, but they've slipped my mind for now. The rest of vacation looks to be incredibly relaxing. The girls and I have been cleaning the house and cooking a lot. There's fruit in the maison blanche again, which is good, and we've all been paid, which is excellent. I have some writing to do when I get home. It's so strange to think that after break, there are only five more weeks of school and then it's over. I can't believe it's March already. At least I've got birthday plans to distract me. Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors, is having a book signing in Paris on the 24th, so I think I'll play the birthday card until someone comes with me. It'll be great.

and it isn't even spring

It's winter break, but it feels like it ought to be spring break. All these vacations have spoiled me; after only eight weeks of work, I was pining for a respite. Been a bit sniffly since we got back from England; apparently I picked up a proper cold. But it's all good. It's vacation, we're getting paid in the next few days, and I'm going to Sweden on Wednesday for five days. Hooray! I'll visit my friend Angie in Stockholm and eat a lot of lingonberry jam and get a new stamp in my passport (although I never got one on reentering France, so for all the governments know, I could still be in England). At least I have my carte de séjour now, so I officially live in France. They don't notify you that you can come and pick it up, but Max was going to Lille in the car, so Cata and I thought I'd try. We took our numbers and sat at the prefecture for three hours, doing a little gratis babysitting to amuse ourselves, folding paper airplanes for bored children who liked us so much that their frustrated parents brought them back to us when they wouldn't keep quiet in the room where actual business goes on. Then when it was our turn, the woman interrogated me as I handed over my receipt. "Have you had your medical visit?" Yes, clearly, otherwise I never would have gotten the receipt in the first place. "Have you done this?" I've done everything. "Are you sure it's ready?" Yes? And then I got my card! This whole incident has reinforced the idea that it's okay to tell white lies to bureaucrats, which I'm sure is exactly the lesson I was supposed to have learned.

It was a pretty good week with the students. No one wants to work before vacation and I'd run out of teacher-mandated activities, so we just did the opinion cards and traded tonguetwisters (French children see the words "three free throws" and panic; meanwhile I work my way competently through rhymes about six saucissons qui coutent six sous). I had some sassy ones, but they bent to my iron will. The little brats in seconde 3 insisted they didn't want to read aloud, but they did when I made them do it, so that was an improvement on the last time I had them and I had to send one of them out for boundless exuberance (they bent to my will then, but it was kind of a travesty). They really are so funny sometimes, and their clothes are too. Half of them follow the chav fashions of sports wear (okay, mostly the boys), and the girls are tiny fashion plates. Here are two things that never should have come back into fashion in France: fanny packs and mullets. I swear, the haircuts some of these kids have are straight-up mullets. I have to muffle my giggles every time I see them. "You're not young enough to remember the 80s," I want to tell them, and "your small town isn't the right kind of small town for you to have this haircut." But alas, the hairdressers of France persist in inflicting fashionable, razored, feathered mullets on the teenage girls of France with their jeans tucked into their boots and their bangs swept across their foreheads.

You know you've been in France a while when you develop firm preferences about the bises, the little cheek kisses. I was thinking about this this week because I got the bises from a student for the first time - not one of mine, but one who was in my group for the England trip. I was in the library with my student and we saw him and he kissed her and them me, quite cordial. He had a decent style. What I don't like is when people come over to kiss you and don't even bother to put their cheek to yours, or when they don't make the little noises. My favorite is when the young Moroccan prof comes over and puts both hands on my shoulders and actually kisses my cheeks. But then there's the problem of having to pay attention. I was reading the news the other day when he came over to me and almost turned my face too far and really kissed him. That might have been awkward. It's an interesting phenomenon, the bises. I don't generally do them when it's me coming into a room, and they forgive me my American froideur. There are some people who are good friends of mine whom I hardly ever kiss (all of the assistants, some of the profs) and some people whose names I still don't know who kiss me religiously. Tricky! I'd say they were going out of fashion, except that the schoolgirls are always kissing everyone on the bus and clogging up the aisles.

So after this two weeks of vacation, there are only five more weeks of school. And then Steffen goes back to Germany, and Michelle goes back to England to prepare for going to Spain, and Anna goes back to the U.S., and Katie goes who knows where, and I try to get in a bit more traveling before heading back to the U.S., and Matthias and Cata stay here for a bit longer and then go back to Austria and Costa Rica. And the little white house will be empty. Sad to think about. But for now we're making spinach lasagna and I'm subtly influencing the television preferences of the house by watching West Wing and X-Files and Sports Night, and getting the girls hooked on Bollywood. I win the culture war! Although Michelle had a head start - I already love British tv. So perhaps she wins.

The weather here's been really typical Northern France lately: chilly and rainy and foggy. Yesterday half the sky was storms (dark, foreboding storms), and the other bit was bright bright sunshine. And then it all clouded over uniformly, and then around 11 it started raining like a crazy thing. Today it's just cloudy and cold. But at least it's tending towards spring. It's light now when I leave the house at 6.45, or lightening, anyway, and by the time I get to school at 7.30, the sun is almost all the way up. When I come home at 6.30, there's still some illumination for the green fields left fallow or planted with winter crops and the rich brown of the plowed furrows. That's a lot nicer than leaving in the cold dark and coming home in the cold dark past the posh bakery with its beautiful cakes that we will never be able to justify buying. By my birthday, I'm sure it will be light all the time.

Now back to arguing with my computer and trying to convince the programs that aren't quite compatible with Windows Vista that yes, they really are. Technology, eh?

les agneaux égarés

Sorry for the lateness of this email, family, etc. I woke up late because I'm a bit sick and then went out and about, so that took a good chunk of my day, and then I made an early dinner for myself and the girls and worked through some interpersonal drama, but here is the email now.

I am typing on my new laptop! Which still smells like new laptop, and the battery works, and it's not hot enough to cook an egg on, and all of this is rampantly exciting. Also exciting: having gotten back from England! Though really it was more fun to be in England. It's a bit tough getting used to the touchpad on this laptop actually working: I keep closing windows and selecting things by accident.

We spent most of our time in Cambridge. The kids were in host families and so were we, thus neatly circumventing the problems of a bunch of teenagers staying a hotel. Divide and conquer, that's the strategy. And it seemed like the students behaved very well, and most of the host families were really good, except the ones who didn't come to pick up their students on time, or the family that let their kids walk home alone on the second day in the dark, leading to the kids getting lost for two hours and us almost going to the police before we found them. That was stressful, let me say. I was sick that day, just aching and sitting on the couch in a haze while Virginie and Marie-Claude tried and tried to make calls, and then I had to get in the faces of the cranky English people who kept making things worse by shouting and talking about how problems with the students were causing them personal problems in their relationships. Seriously, things we don't need to know about. They kept suggesting that the two boys had gone off to a party or a pub or were out painting the town, and we kept explaining that no, these boys wouldn't do that, they're tall but they're just scared kids right now, in a country where they don't really speak the language, in a neighborhood they don't know at all, and they're cold and hungry.

Fortunately, we found them eventually and that was good. The next morning, two of the girls got lost on the way to the bus stop, but that didn't take nearly two hours to resolve, and there weren't really any problems after that. It's tough to travel with forty-five eleventh and twelfth graders and only four teachers/responsible people (for the record: me, Virginie, who is my responsable and arranges things for me, Marie-Claude, who teaches English in the professional high school, and Gautier, the adorable surveillant who tends a bit to discipline). They do have a tendancy to want to wander off, and then you really feel bad for them when they wander off by accident and end up frightened and confused. None of them seemed to have realized they needed adapters to be able to charge their phones, so we couldn't even call them.

So the first day was the Duxford War Museum, which is lots and lots of little old airplanes, some of which fly through the air in horrifying loops. It was a nice museum, but really too many planes for the students, who had been on a bus approximately forever. I had a group of ten kids, about half of whom I knew and half of whom I didn't, and I sheparded them all around and felt like an actual factual grownup for the first time in a school setting. We watched the engineers restoring the old planes and we looked at the tank museum. Adrian set off an alarm (not that I knew his name at the time; he was just number Seven). We rode the tiny tram for a long time just for kicks and then went to the café, where four of the boys tried to escape from my silken clutches, but I showed them my iron fist and they settled down. Then it was on to Cambridge to meet the families.

Wednesday (the night that Maxime and Florent got lost) we spent in Norwich, looking at the castle and the cathedral and exploring the village. There's a nice museum made out of part of the old castle. I had to keep dragging Nicolas and Laurent back to my group when they would wander off to the main room to eat their sandwiches, but for the most part, everyone behaved really well (except for the bit where they started knocking over each other's block castles, but the fact that they were playing with blocks in the first place was ridiculously endearing). Then we had free time, which meant I went off with the teachers to have actual lunch instead of the pathetic bag lunches our families had made (seriously, they were not tasty, though it was kind of the family to make them) and the kids went off to stuff themselves with sugar and try to find posh clothes on sale. There are all these twisty little medieval lanes around the cathedral in Norwich (Norrich, as Virginie and Marie-Claude took great pride in pronouncing after our host family had corrected us).

Thursday we had a nice guided tour of bits of Cambridge (in French). We saw King's Chapel, King's College, and then Clare College, Trinity College, and St. John's in passing. Sadly, our guide wasn't very interesting, and the kids just aren't always fascinated by Stephen Hawking and J.M. Keynes (I was, but with the French school system, only a small group of them are studying sciences, and only a small group are studying economics, so there was always a large percentage of clueless students). The architecture was lovely, though, and it was nice to see so many students on bicycles. By this point, seven kids of my group had decided we were best friends, which was sweet. The boys would come to me to translate song lyrics and things they'd heard other drivers shouting (being a French bus, the door opened on the wrong side, and so we'd get people angry at us for standing on the shoulder of the road in the path of traffic waiting for the students to debark). In the afternoon we went to see Gainsborough's house and a funny little village called Lavenham where all the houses are crooked wattle and daub painted in picturesque colors.

Friday we left! To a chorus of blame from some cranky host parents, whom I sorted out. It was funny: they were praising the kids at the same time they were yelling at us for being late (we weren't, except that the parents were). Two of the biggest, sassiest boys from the professional side of the high school got kissed on the cheek by their host mom and praised up and down (and they are sweet when they want to be: one of them carried my bags in London just to be nice). We hit the Museum of London on the way and walked up and down Piccadilly Circus. I spent too much money buying delicious vegetarian food and a big block of cheddar cheese, but it was worth it. Virginie had predicted that the kids would all sleep on the bus on the way home, but instead they were awake and singing. A couple of my kids started serenading me, which was sweet. The ones in the back of the bus kept standing up and shuffling around too, which was strictly not allowed. I shouted at one of the worst ones at one point and got an ovation for it. It's like they forget I can speak French, even though I speak French with them all the time when we're not in class. I don't whip out the discipline so often, really, so it's weird to them when I do. A couple of them have started saluting me when I make them behave. I am entertained.

And you know what? It was sunny most of the time we were in England. How weird is that? Plus, once I got there, all I wanted to do was speak French to everyone, even though all the people around me were speaking English.

Today I went to the Cambrai Museum with Anna and her friend Laura, and it was surprisingly large, modern, and well-stocked. There was, of course, a lot of stuff from the old cathedral that got destroyed in the Revolution (too bad: it was apparently the jewel of the Pays Bas and the finest cathedral in all Christendom) and a plan relief of how the city used to look in the 18th century, and a lot of history about how important Cambrai has been (really important! Surprisingly enough!) and then art, art, art from everywhere, and a bunch of bones from the tombs they've discovered by Cambrai. There's a nice bust of Hugo by Rodin, and a piece by Camille Claudel, and a few other vaguely famous things by vaguely famous people. It was very lovely. A nice thing to do on a Sunday. And then when we left, the woman at the desk gave us free stuff. Yes!

So tomorrow it's back to school.

By the by, these are my students singing on the bus.