Everything Has Changed

What if we would have gone out to eat instead? Our decision to not blow an obscene amount eating but to have spaghetti for the third time that week in our studio-sans-stove certainly impacted the nature of our conversation. Reaching for another glass of sink water from her chair in the dining room kitchenette library, Annalise casually recalled that she had come to Europe to travel and was looking forward to our first vacation.

Within five minutes we had bought two two-month unlimited Eurorail passes, necessitating we quit our jobs. The impulse of it all belies how much our needs had changed. You can email us for more info, but this decision was nothing personal--strictly business. Nancy, accommodating and warm-hearted as she was, was also a gold-digging bitch. By grabbing all the money we still had and running in the night, we enabled a promiscuous 2-3 months with the rest of Europe, allowing ourselves also to forward our careers in a stoveful, couchful apartment in Chicago come winter, not to mention save for a wedding. Option two would have been fun but left us with 0 euro, which is one way to beat the exchange rate.

So, here we are in Paris. Next Belgium. Then Amsterdam. Then Portugal. That’s the first two weeks. It’ll be fun. We’ll keep you more posted than Raisin Bran.

A description of the teaching jobs. Charles taught at 3 different schools, 13 different classes, grades 1-4. Annalise taught one school, a few classes. We both kinda enjoyed it, though Charles was filled with dread going to class and likes the riddance of anxiety. Annalise was amused that half the students went to learn what wines were paired with what dishes and that learning a recipe for tiramisu was some serious homework, such is professional catering and hotel working school. Her profs spoke English and she never had more than six or seven students at a time. Charles was often left alone with 20+ and no one spoke English but him. With some first graders Charles played Hangman, so they could practice saying letters in English (H = “Accch,” n’est pas “Ahsh”), and so the category was names and he had put five placeholders for letters, and someone guessed “H.” There was an H.

_ _ _ _ H

And then they guessed Q, and B, and Q again and he had drawn individual nosehairs, but there would be no eleventh hour. The correct answer was S A R A H, but the hangman hung.

Sarah burst into tears, which was a surprise. Luckily, this teacher was in the classroom, because she, unlike a couple of others, knew it was illegal to leave her pupils alone with a foreigner with no teaching experience.

Nancy was nice, filled with people we’ll probably never see again.

M_NEY.

To you Chicagoans reading this: see you sometime after Jan. 9.