Lycée Edward Steichen Orientation Day

So I set my alarms for 5:35 and 5:42 this morning, but I ended up actually waking up around 6:30. That was the time I initially planned to already be on the bus. Thankfully, it turned out to be a good thing because I got there right on time without having to sacrifice even more sleep. I had already picked out my outfit the night before, plus I packed my bag ahead of time as well.

Luxembourg Gare Centrale is a gorgeous train station that is quite large as well. I initially missed my turn to get to the station, but there was luckily an entrance on the street I continued down. The train was so easy after that, but what I didn't expect to be shaken up about was the weather. It gorgeously foggy for most of my train ride, and it turned out to be a brisk 51 degrees in Clervaux. I tried desperately to not shiver throughout the 6-minute walk from the train station to the school.

When I walked into the school, there were tons of people. I was disappointed to see there weren't any croissants as expected, and then thanked myself for making sure to grab a banana this morning. I made myself a nice cup of coffee and sat down a bit waiting for Rolf to find me. I had no service and the Wifi was password protected, so I felt a bit helpless. Eventually, I mustered up the courage to ask someone if he knew Rolf, and then he immediately spotted him and brought me over. He then introduced me to Vanessa, a sophomore from Taiwan who is teaching a Mandarin class all by herself! She is so kind and was very excited to meet me. Vanessa told me that Naomi showed her around when she first arrived in January, and was happy to be able to do the same for me.

To officially start the orientation/welcome day, we went to the English department meeting, where I met all of the English teachers. Their names are Charles, Angelo, Ben, Alexis, Zizinia, Anki, Maurice, and Rob. I was very excited to see that there are 3 different English classes per level of school: L1, L2, and L3. L1 means that it is the first foreign language learned by the student. L2 means that it is the second foreign language learned by the student. I'm hoping L3 doesn't need an explanation by this point lol. The curriculum is separated by classique (math(s), literacy, science etc.) and générale (music, art, etc.) In addition, there are national courses and European courses. The European courses are more rigorous than the national ones.

Once that meeting ended, Vanessa gave me a tour of the entire school. I have truly never seen such a beautiful school building/campus in my entire life. They have a heated swimming pool with diving boards, a huge gym with a full rock wall, a photo/video studio, a culinary classroom, and so much more. The students at this school have such amazing opportunities at their disposal that I never thought possible.

pictures

After the tour, we came back and chatted with the English teachers again for a bit before heading out for lunch. We went to a small fast food place, which took forever because I'm 99% sure they scrapped my order. I also tried to tell the cashier that I liked her nails, but she didn't understand in French. I kept pointing to her nails and my nails to try and explain, but she didn't get it until I said "pink"! The currywurst may not have been worth the wait, but I was hungry enough for it to be delicious.

Vanessa and I returned to LESC for the language teaching orientation, which had three presentations. The first was done by Charles from the English department and the other two were done completely in French. I finally took notes during these—since there wasn't much to write about earlier—and I'm happy to say that I wrote French notes for the French presentations. There was also a group activity that Rolf was a bit worried about me understanding at first, but then I proved myself a bit more. I was very shy about speaking French in front of teachers who all spoke at least 3 languages, but I eventually mustered up the courage to speak more French over English in front of everyone. At the end of the activity, Rolf even told me that my French was really good and I couldn't help but do cartwheels in my head. He then talked to me a bit about our plan for the upcoming weeks and reassured me that he wants me to get the most out of this experience. After my experience in Japan, I couldn't have been more relieved to hear him say that, and know he fully means it. I can tell this is going to be such an amazing school year.

The train/bus ride home was very easy since I just did the exact same steps from earlier, but in reverse. On my way out of the station, I saw a newspaper rack (I actually had to look this term up because I genuinely couldn't remember what it was called) with L'essentiel. I was excited for another Wordoku and other puzzles! I reallllllyyy had to use the restroom though, and the ones in the Luxembourg Gare Centrale cost money! Oh yeah, that's another thing I discovered. There are public bathrooms much like the ones in Paris, but they also have the same amount of cleanliness... Anyway, not only did these bathrooms cost money (0.70 €) but they didn't accept card. This was the first time I had encountered a place that only took cash/coins. Thankfully, the bus stop wasn't too far and it came as soon as I arrived. I read my newspaper on the bus and saw that there was an article about the guy who escaped from Chester County Prison inside! If you haven't heard of this, there was pretty much a guy who escaped and was on the run for two whole weeks before being caught. There was speculation that he was hiding in Longwood Gardens so he could eat the vegetation there, which is honestly a pretty good theory. Longwood Gardens actually closed during Memorial Day weekend just in case he was hiding there!

Tomorrow is a big day because I am going to the welcome day at the University of Luxembourg (UniLu) to both see the event and get my materials needed to process the titre de séjour afterward. I'm so excited to finally have my student ID and dorm key in hand!