Hey guys,

So as of today, Liza and I started work at our English Immersion camp in France.  As many of you know, I am a camp person with lots of experience with my camp, so obviously there was going to be a slight camp-culture shock for me.

First of all, Liza and I were hired as activity staff.  This means that we would organize daily life and activities for the kids, not be in the classroom.  Upon our first planning session today, it was decided that we would now be language staff, meaning we are TEACHING ENGLISH to these kids, not that much younger than us.  Needless to say, we were not prepared for this.  So we had today to get our lesson plans together and stuff.  It was very different and kind of stressful, but there is this great guy that reminds me of Neil who helped us out a lot.  I think it will be okay, but it is definitely not the camp I am used to.

We had a really nice weekend in Paris.  We had a wonderful dinner with the Van Dams on Saturday night, which was definitely a highlight of Paris for me.  Sunday was pretty much spent traveling to camp.  We are only here for this week and then it’s off to Avingon with Susan!  This week might be a little rough, but we have some really great things to look forward to.

XOXOX Kati and Liza

Hey all,

Sorry it’s been so long since we last wrote.  Things have been so crazy and it’s a bit harder to write since we don’t have regular computers.  So we arrived in Paris on Monday and spent the first day just walking around and taking in the sights.  Very nice and relaxing after a lot of traveling.  On Tuesday we went to the Rodin Museum and the D’Orsay.  We also spent a lot of time just walking around and we finished the day with Nutella crepes in the Latin Quarter. 

On Wednesday we took the early train to Colmar; where we ended up being stranded without a place to stay.  We ended up meeting this guy from LA who has been living there for the past 20 years.  When he heard our situation, he invited us to stay with him!  He is a pastor and all three of his kids go to school in the US.  We were so grateful and the fa,ily was SO wonderful.  He showed us around and his wife made dinner; the whole thing was lovely.  We are so fortunate to have met them.

The next day we headed off to Tours, in the Loire Valley.  Pretty much the entire day was spent traveling.  But today was amazing!  We rented bikes for the day to ride around the valley and see the chateux.  We started our going to the gardebs of Villandry and with to directions we recieved, we ended up getting ont he highway.  With our bikes.  Think I-94.  It was very scary and really funny at the same time.  We finally got right and just ended up with a nice day of bike riding.  Then we had to run, actually run, to catch our train to Saumar, another town in the area.  After walking around there for a bit, we read the french signs wrong and missed our train back Tours, which is where our hotel and luggage was.  And it was the last train of the day.  We finally found another roundabout way to get back and are safely home.

Tomorrow we head back to Paris to see Versailles and then Sunday we are off for our week of work at French camp!  Can’t wait!  We will try to keep you updated.

XOXOXO Kati and Liza