I had a "so French" moment a week or so ago that really needs to be shared. I was riding home on my bike from one of my schools. My schedule has changed, so now I don't leave Marcel Pagnol until school lets out at 4:45. (I should mention that I go to Marcel Pagnol on Friday afternoon, so my schedule has become even more fabulous: my only late day is Friday.) Anyway, one of my other schools, Jacques Prévert, is on my way home, so I rode past when all of the kids were just leaving school with their parents.
As soon as I turned the corner I started hearing, "Ms. Allie, Ms. Allie!" (French children pronounce my name like aa-LEE). I smiled and waved and kept riding. Then one of the little CP girls started chasing after me.
"Allie! Allie!" she yelled, running down the sidewalk and across the crosswalk.
It was windy, and my hair streamed behind me in the wind. And I laughed to myself because it was so cliché that it was awesome.
In other news, Franzi came to France, and we pretty much had a terrific time.
This is what we did: walked around and sat in the parks of Angers, had a curry that I made, went to a super fun party chez Max, slept in, went to the beach at Lac de Maine, had a delicious dinner out-to-eat, went to a quieter but still fun party, slept in some more, went to Gallerie David d'Angers, had some pastries.
Franziska couldn't have timed her visit more perfectly. It was a three-day weekend, and although she left Sunday, neither of us had to rush too much; we knew we could get stuff done on the Monday. The weather was perfect. Actually it was warm then it was hot. I don't think I've been that hot since I've been in Europe. It was like being home, and I loved it.
Not to mention, it was really great to hang out with her. I have been rather melancholy as of late, which is the result of a strange vacillation between wanting to go home and see my boyfriend and friends and mourning the end of my year in France. So, it was great to have a good friend around to distract me. Plus, she did the whole year abroad thing - that would be in Memphis - so she's probably the best person with whom I can commiserate the mixed emotions of imminent departure.
In other news, everyone in France decided to strike today. Buses, trains, and teachers are all exercising their right to stike (on a la droit de faire la grève: n'importe où, n'importe quand). It doesn't bother me too much because I take my bike to work anyway. But this morning, I went to my first school, and there was absolutely no one there. I didn't even realize it at first because the doors were unlocked, so I just went into the teacher's lounge and did the things I normally do to get ready. It was very quiet, but it didn't register until I walked to the wing where my classes are. I'm not even sure those teachers were striking. At my other school, my dreaded CP class's teacher was striking, so I only helped with CM1 and left for the day.
I did get to see la manifestation, a parade of sorts with all sorts of people with flags and a guy with a bullhorn. They marched down Avenue Foch yelling some things. They didn't all seem to be from the same group. It was strange.
I'm not Catholic. Most of you know that. I was baptized Catholic, then my family moved to Memphis, and we switched to what my Dad calls "Catholic Light," i.e. Methodist. I like Methodists; they're nice people.
Anyway, this past weekend was a long weekend. Thursday was Jour de l'Ascension, and to make a long weekend out of it, the primary schools faire le pont d'ascension. They "make the Ascension bridge" and move the Friday schedule to Wednesday. So Elvynia and I made the best of the long weekend and went to a place where we thought it would be warm and sunny.
Did I mention that Angers had a second winter? After all that talk of the great weather, Mother Nature decided we didn't deserve sun and warmth, and it was freaking cold for another week and a half. It was like it was February again, and I was miserable. And off we flew to Porto.
Porto is a nice city. Our Ryan Air flight was, of course, delayed, so we didn't arrive until after midnight, so we were unable to take public transport to our hostel. We took a cab and, thankfully, were not screwed over. We stayed in a pretty nice hostel in Porto, the Andarilho Oporto Hostel. Well it was nice except for the beds and the lack of heating. I guess I can't complain since it was about €15/night.
Friday morning, we asked the guy who ran the hostel what we should do, he told us to avoid a large section of the city because... the Pope was there. I suppose he was trying to be helpful and advise us to avoid the crowd, but, seriously, why would we pass up an opportunity to see the Pope? Even if you hate him, you have to admit he's kind of a big deal. So to the Pope we went.
It was pretty much what you'd expect in a Catholic country. Lots and lots of people filled the streets, waving flags with the his face on them. They were singing hymns (or whatever they're called if they're called something different in the Catholic church.) We didn't get very close, but I could see lots of the red-robed bishop people, and I could kind of make out the main dude amongst them. There was a big screen next to them, however, and I definitely saw the Pope - in his hat - on the screen.
Then we wandered away. We had some requisite cheap Portuguese food, fish sandwiches and the delicious Nata pastry. We wandered some more; we went to the river side and had an awkward interaction with a port wine seller, which resulted in us buying a mini-bottle and drinking it on a bench. It was pretty good. Then we climbed a million steps back up to the city and got a bit lost, but we found the hostel.
The thing about Porto is there just doesn't seem to be a ton going on. In Lisbon, there were lots of people and restaurants and bars and pastry shops. In Porto, it was difficult to find things that were open. We weren't sure if it was the Pope's fault or not. Friday night we went on a long, long quest to find dinner and ended up eating around 10pm. It was good: salmon with potatoes and vegetables. It was also cheap. Each of us paid just under €8 for quite a bit of food. That night we started talking to some other people at the hostel, and we all went for a drink, which was fun.
On Saturday, after some unintentional, preemptive shopping, we took an afternoon train to Espinho to see the ocean! It was a little too chilly and waaayy too windy to do much, so we sat on some rocks in the sun for a while then went on a quest for fresh seafood. We ended up at a nice restaurant where we sat upstairs and had an ocean view. We ended up getting a menu that included bread with butter and anchovy spread, olives, vegetable soup, fish stew, desert, and either half or a whole bottle of wine. It was delicious. (And again very cheap... a meal of those proportions in France would be at least €20/person. We paid €12.50 each. I love Portugal.)
The stew came in a HUGE pot for the two of us to share. We did not finish it. We barely ate half of it; it was just a ton of food. The wine was a little confusing, as he left a whole bottle on the table, and we had thought it included half a bottle. We didn't drink all of it, but it was, apparently, included in the price.
After sitting a long time to digest, we walked back along the beach to take a train to Porto. We did a little more shopping around, then went back to the hostel to rest. We grabbed a couple more pastries to say farewell to the land of cheap and delicious food and then retired to pack...
Sunday we spent entirely too long traveling back to Angers. When I am old and rich, I will buy direct flights everywhere, regardless of price. Until then, traveling goes something like it did Sunday: metro to Airport: 30 minutes. Sitting in airport: 1-2 hours, Flight: 2 hours, Bus from Beauvais Airport to Paris: 1 hours 20 minutes, Metro from bus station to train station: 20 minutes, Sitting around train station: 1.5 hours, Cheap train to Angers: 2.5 hours to Le Mans then 40 minutes to Angers, Walk from train station to the Foyer of Good Advice: 10 minutes.
It was a long day, but I spent a lot of that time reading. And a day spent reading is never a waste.
The conclusion: even though Porto wasn't as exciting as Lisbon, it had it's appeal. Plus, we are tired teachairs, so sitting next to the river and the ocean and drinking and eating were major highlights of the trip, as far as I'm concerned.
Next on the agenda: Franzi does France! She's coming next weekend! I'm so excited.
It is the the 1st of May. Do you know what that means? We have made it through 1/3 of the year. ONE THIRD?!?! Doesn't that seem crazy? When did time suddenly start flying by all the time?
What does that mean for me and La Vie Française?
Well I have exactly 2 months left on my contract, and approximately 2 and a half months left in Europe. I haven't bought a ticket home yet, which I probably should do soon.
Anyway, I'm also trying to approach teaching with a better attitude. It's a little late, Allie, you might say. But hear me out: I started with a good attitude. And at times, I've really enjoyed those little (cough cough) kids. Though by about mid-January, I would say, I was just worn out, along with all the other teachers. And in Mid-January, there's not much to cheer you up. The weather sucks. You don't see the sun for weeks. It's cold. Your room is so poorly insulated that you sleep in several layers, socks, slippers, and a wool sweater, and you have to put duct tape over the cracks in your window to lessen the wind tunnel effect your room has.... Then you have to go to work and deal with children who are stir-crazy for the same reasons.
Now, however, it is May, and it is beautiful out.
(A note about April: In April, French people feel that almost anything can be explained by the fact that it's April. For example: the weather was crazy and would go from sunny and cold to pouring rain to not as cold to hailing back to sunny in a matter of minutes. The explanation: It's April. There were train strikes making transportation in France the most frustrating and stressful experience ever. It's April. There seemed to be more absurd things that were answered with "It's April," but I can't think of them now. Therefore, Allie's reason for not updating her blog: It was April.)
And because it is May and beautiful and sunny, I have decided to change my attitude, I am going to come to school each day with a sense of humor. This worked out pretty well this week. I just laughed when the kids said ridiculous things. We're learning how to say "Where are you from?" "I am from..."
The cool thing is that at one of my schools, my kids are from lots of places. So it was kind of fun to hear where they (or their parents) were from, and they got a kick out of the Anglicized pronunciation.
Here's where I have kids from: France, Algeria, Morocco, Cameroon, Chad, Turkey, Italy, Reunion, Congo, New Caledonia, India, Russia, Chechnya, and I think there's more.
More than one kid was convinced that Marseille was somewhere other than France. They ignored me when I tried to explain that it was, in fact, a city IN France. Although, I will give them credit and say it is very different from Angers. It is also on my to-do list for places to go back to before I leave.
This good humor thing lasted pretty well too. Until Friday afternoon when I was tired, and I started threatening my last class with copying lines if they didn't shut up. I can handle a bit of chattering, but there's this one kid in the front row of my CE1/CE2 class that just talks and talks. The teacher even moved the kid next to him, so he wouldn't have anyone to talk to. And he continued to talk, just right in front of my face. I will admit I cut loose a little on him, in English. I basically said, "Would you stop talking, you're driving me insane!" And I hit his desk. He didn't seem to mind too much, as he started talking again about 3 and half minutes later. I prefer it if they're talking in the back, so I can ignore them.
Also, although I've told most people what I'm doing next year, I thought I should share on here, for those people I'm not in constant email conversation with.
I will be attending McNeese State University next year. I will be in the MFA program for creative writing in fiction, and I will, over the course of the three year program, also receive an MA in English Literature.
Now, this is exciting for a number of reason. The first and foremost being that I am incredibly excited to start my masters. But reason 1a is that this is the same program as Kevin.
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but MFA programs are competitive because if they provide funding, there's just not a ton of spots available. So, to get into the same program as Kevin was pretty damn cool.
The other reasons I am excited: living in a new place, being in a program where I can write, eating fresh seafood.
There is funding involved in the form of a teaching assistantship, so I'll be teaching two sections of remedial English in the fall and living off of a stipend.
Finally, this Wednesday, I had the best day ever. I'm learning if you make yourself have a great day, it will happen. I got a run in the day before, so I didn't have to deal with that. I didn't have any tutoring engagements. So what did I do?
I went to a café and had coffee and sat in the sun with my notebook. I sat in the park and read. I went to the library and checked out 3 books. I had a delicious galette for lunch. Then I went to the river with Sam and Elvynia and sat for a long time.
Lauren said this sounded very European. I hate to say I was living the cliché, but I sure did enjoy the hell out of it
Sooo woohoo for May! I'm ready to face the next month of insane children with a laugh.
(note: picture at the top of the post was taken by Elvynia in the Keukenhof in the Netherlands, which I will talk about next time.)
Hello there everyone. Yes, it's been a little while. Thanks to the wonderful academic scheduling of France, I have been on vacation yet again.
It does seem a bit excessive, doesn't it?
But I'm not complaining, espcially since before this break, a bunch of 6 year olds made me cry. It was time for a break. The fabulous thing about this break was that my parents came!
They arrived in France on Wednesday April 7 and were immediately immersed in a true French experience: an SNCF strike. (Learn French! bienvenue = welcome, grève = strike, il y a = there is) SNCF is the train company in France. France has a very intricate and well-connected train system. I'm not sure, but it may be the most utilized system of transportation. So when the good people at SNCF decide to strike -- which they do somewhat regularly -- pretty much all hell breaks loose.
So my parents made it to the Charles de Gaulle airport, only to discover that there were no TGV trains leaving from the airport, and they would have to take a Paris RER train to Montparnasse in the center of Paris in order to catch a train to Angers.
The thing about train strikes in France is that they are simultaneously the most organized and most insanely unorganized thing ever. For example: there are still trains running. They even tell you how many are running, what percent that is of normal train traffic, and what alternate forms of transportation SNCF is providing (mostly just coach buses).
But what that also means is that while less trains are running, the same amount of people are attempting to travel on those trains. The result: very very crowded high-speed trains, full of very very over-heated and annoyed French people.
Trains will also be delayed and/or cancelled.
The story of me and the train strikes goes on, but for now I will say I was very proud of my parents for making it to Angers amongst the, pardon my language, cluster**** that was the Paris train stations that day.
When they got here, we did a lot of walking around Angers and visiting the tourist-y things and eating and drinking. It was nice. I got to visit the castle, which I hadn't actually done yet. My parents visited one of my schools (the good one). They met my friends. We had afternoon snack/tea with Christophe, Karine, and baby Luz. We walked around my favorite parks. My friend Katie's family was visiting too, so our Dads bonded over being fathers in France or something.
The hotel was nice, and I enjoyed sleeping in a bed that was marginally better than my own and didn't make me wake up with a backache everyday.
I guess there's not too much to say about seeing them, other than it was great and I miss them!
We ate at a brasserie near the hotel, and I had Coq au vin, a very traditional French dish involving chicken, red wine, and vegetables. There were very buttery and fresh green beans on the side. It was delicious.
We went to Nantes, which I think was maybe not the most interesting place to take them. We had a nice time, but our hotel was kind of ... um... Well, the guy at the desk was the most friendly unhelpful person I've ever met. We couldn't connect to the internet and his response was "Oh, really? It's working on my computer. I'm very sorry."
He also had a pet turtle wandering around the lobby. Yes, a turtle.
When I asked him about it he said, "Oh yes, she is from Spain. I was in Spain, and my friends had turtles, so I took her home with me." And apparently let her wander wherever she pleased.
We did get to see a pretty cool art installation at Le Lieu Unique in Nantes. Last time I went, it was a art/video installation that all had to do with music. This time it was called Tanguy et La Biscuiterie.
Le Lieu Unique is a former biscuit (i.e. hard butter cookies, American folks) factory that has been redesigned as a art venue/bar/café/restaurant/bookstore place. It is rather industrial looking, which is the appeal. Tanguy et La Biscuiterie kind of played on the LU's history as a former cookie factory. It's hard to explain, but it was set up kind of like a palace with all these cardboard walls just covered in images. Mostly they looked like framed picture in a palace, but they were somewhat grotesque/disturbing. Many of the people were Tanguy (the artist himself) done up in lots of makeup and looking like a crazy person. There was a lot of sexual imagery as well as violent/warlike scens and pictures of food. If you click on the link above you will get a rough idea of what I'm talking about. Click on the video, even if you can't understand you can get an even better idea.
Cedric Tanguy présente son expo au Lieu unique envoyé par presseocean. - Découvrez plus de vidéos créatives.
It was really intricate, though, and interesting to look at. At the end, there was a video interview with him. He basically said it was about our over-consumptive culture, and in an over-the-top kind of way he totally acheived a representation of it. Although it was so self-promoting itself it was hard to tell if that was the irony or if he had fallen prey to the draw of over consumption. And that is my art review for the day.
We also ate at this mussel restaurant that I ate at the last time I was in Nantes. It did not disappoint in anyway. I had mine with Roquefort sauce, and we had a huge plate of shared fries. The dish, Moules Frites, (mussels and fries), is very typical in coastal France and Belgium.
When I was in Lille, we learned the appropriate way to eat your mussels.
This is how:
The mussels are all still in their shells, so you eat one then you use the shell as a kind of fork-tongs and proceed to pull the rest of the mussels out of their shells and insert them in your mouth. Yum.
Also in Nantes, we went to see the Elephant, which continues to be impressive. The elephant is housed in this massive former warehouse looking place.
Nantes has a history as an industrial city, and in recent years that industrial element has been played up in places like Le Lieu Unique and Les Machînes de l'Île. In my opinion, it's working out well for the city, giving it a kind of funky post-industrial feel.
Just now I read the wikipedia article on Nântes, which mentions something I had never heard before: a form of execution supposedly practiced in the city during the French Revolution called a Republican Marriage. I'll let you click the link and read the wikipedia article.
Well, I'm waiting for my parents to send/post pictures from their vacation, so that I can remember what else we did. I'm going to sign off for now and enjoy the AWESOMELY beautiful day:
High of 78˚F (26˚C) perfectly sunny skies...
Going to the Opera is something that you hear about other people doing, or you see people on TV do, or you see Looney Toons making fun of the fat lady.
Sometimes when (if??) you flip through radio stations while driving, you're lucky enough to hit the classical station when a fat lady somewhere is hitting some ungodly octave of "Figaro, figaro, FIGARO!"
But when do normal people ever actually go to the opera? Where does the opera occur? What motivates them to go?
Well, I went to the opera Friday, March 26th at the Grand Théâtre d'Angers because my friend Anne who also lives in the foyer asked me to go. Student tickets were only €10, and it sounded like something different to do on a Friday night.
A very brief history of opera: The first operas were written and performed in Italy toward the end of the 1500s. The art form caught on in the rest of Europe, with Lully (someone who I vaguely remember from a special topics: Versailles class) a composer, courtesan, and friend of Louis XIV, spearheading the establishment of opera in France. Blah blah blah.
If you've heard of anyone in the opera world, however, you've definitely heard of Mozart. He wrote the opera that I saw, Lucio Silla. It was one of his earliest pieces.
I love wikipedia's plot synopsis: The story concerns the Roman dictator Lucio Silla (Lucius Silla) who lusts after Giunia, the daughter of his enemy Caius Marius. Giunia, on the other hand, loves the exiled senator Cecilio.
That, really, is pretty much it. Giunia is held captive by Lucio Silla. Cecilio plots with his friend Lucio Cinna. At the end Lucio Silla surprises everyone and relinquishes Giunna, and everyone lives happily ever after. Seriously.
Things that were interesting:
Cecilio and his friend Lucio (not the evil Lucio) were both played by women. The two parts are written for Soprano. Anne's theory on this is that Mozart was a young man when he wrote the opera, and traditionally young men are played by women (perhaps to distinguish their age by their voice?). And Cecilio and Lucio C. are young in contrast to the evil dictating Lucio S.
The artistic director went super modern for the set, and it worked surprisingly well. On the stage there was this giant rotating semi-circular thing. On one side it was a stone wall with stairs curved around it. When it turned, the inside was white screens with which they did some cool shadow-y things with light and candle light. The costume was very 18th century; the male characters were wearing coats with tails, and the women were wearing long dresses with bell shaped sleeves. It was beautifully put together. A lot was done with lighting and the color white, which made the stark set interesting. At one point Giunia was going kind of mad from captivity and the screens behind her lit up with the shadows of people moving around while she was singing. There was another part where Giunia and Cecilio met in a cemetery. She was with 15 other women, all wearing white dresses and holding candles. Very eery and cool.
The singing itself was impressive. There's not much else I can say about that. They are all professional singers, and the appropriate emotions were spectacularly conveyed. Of note, however, was that the opera was in Italian. So, the theater actually had a subtitle screen above the stage with the French translation. This was great because I don't think I would have understood what they were saying, even if I spoke Italian. And the lyrics in opera (or at least this one) are surprisingly simple. Mostly they say things like "You are always my love; I will love you forever..." over and over again. This made the story very easy to follow.
Finally, it was a whopping 3 hours long. I really didn't even notice. There was so much to take in, to see, to hear, that I didn't get restless at all.
On a blogging note: I tried to embed a Looney Toons, Merrie Melodies** video from youtube on this page. Apparently youtube disabled embedding for that particular video. You can click on "Looney Toons" at the beginning of the post or here is the link for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJAXJWm8G4A
the fat lady sings.
**My fabulous friend Lauren recently shared a Merrie Melodies video with me; I had forgotten all about such things. I'm glad she reminded me about it because it made this post much better. Plus who doesn't miss the good old days of Looney Toons dropping anvils on each other's heads?
So, I feel like I should at least give a brief run down of what I did in Toulouse because, well, because I have pictures. And I want to show those. And somebody, somewhere might be interested.... Sinon, tant pis!
Basically, one of our traveling companions with whom we had booked the hotel in Toulouse, dropped out at the last minute (the last minute being at the train station in Paris). I had booked the hotel through hostelworld.com, which I will probably no longer use. In short, I tried to cancel through the website. They said I had to contact the hotel. I tried to contact the hotel; they didn't answer. So we arrived at the hotel on Friday Feb 19th (Elvynia's birthday) where we were told that if we didn't cancel through hostelworld, we would have to pay for the entirety of the four nights. There was no way to contact hostelworld. Finally the lady let us cancel nights 2-4, but we lost the booking fee. We were tired, so we walked to a nearby boulangerie, bought sandwiches, and had a quiet night in, watching BBC.
The next day we planned to couchsurf.
Saturday we wandered around Toulouse, had a fabulous lunch at an Indian restaurant, and saw this:
Then we met our couchsurfer who, honestly, didn't seem to know what was going on and told us that we could sleep in one of his roommates beds that night, but there were people coming the next day. And he didn't know where exactly we would sleep. We talked for an awkward while and then played Mario Kart then he and one of his roommates made "dinner," which was just a huge thing of pasta with shredded cheese we could put on it if we wanted. They did have a tasty looking baguette on the table, but they didn't eat any, nor did they offer it to us. So we made do with the pasta. After that we met Elvynia's friend Remy for a belated birthday drink (or three). Then we went back to the couch surfer's and slept sideways on the roommate's bed. I did not trust the sheets and slept on my coat.
The next day when we finally got up we got lunch at a very cute little tea house/crêperie: I had a very good green salad with green olives and pesto dressing and a nice little crêpe buerre et sucre.
Then a miracle occurred. Elvynia's friend Yva who she met when she studied in Toulouse met us and chatted for a while. We, without going into too much detail, explained our couchsurfing plight. Then she said "Oh! You can stay in my boyfriend's apartment. He's never there (they were about to get a new apartment together); he stays at my place. It's clean and there's a washing machine. How lucky we were!
It was a really nice, little apartment. It was clean and comfortable. Thank you Yva!
That night Elvynia went to eat with Remy's family. Meanwhile Sheena and I had comfortable night in with some strange but tasty pasta that I made. (It was Sunday, and the only thing open was a night Épicerie with overpriced pasta and tomato sauce. I included a kind of chopped ham called lardon fumé and canned mushrooms in the sauce. Yes, it was weird, but it was good.)
Monday we planned to go to Carcassonne. Per usual, it took us a while to get ready, and by the time we got to the train station, we found out we would have to wait a while for the next train. We went and sat in a café. It was nice. There was also a crazy man/drunk sitting at the table behind us who made quacking noises. Carcassonne was cool. Before going I wasn't sure if I had been there before (during my high school trip to France and Spain) or not. Well, I have definitely been there before. It was nice the second time around, except the sky was gray and overcast, and we were tired. We wandered around.
Elvynia took this picture of me:
I took this picture of some pigeons:
We wandered around the medieval city, which would be impressive if it hadn't been so overcast and hadn't been made into complete tourist trap with overpriced restaurants and doo-dad shops galore.
We walked back to the new city and found a café where we sat and had hot chocolate.
Back in Toulouse we met Remy and a couple of his friends for dinner at this Chinese restaurant. The food was very disappointing, but the guy who owned the place was almost entertaining enough to make up for it. We went to the main student bar that was so packed that we couldn't even buy drinks. Sheena and I decided to rentrer chez nous. (go home), and Elvynia and Remy came back a little while later. Sheena had an early train back to Angers, and we had a later one to La Rochelle.
We had planned to stay two days in La Rochelle, but we were so tired. We ended up just staying one night with couchsurfers Justine and Justine who were roommates and friends and both studied Chinese. They were super nice and welcoming, and it would have been a great place to see. I think we'll go back. It's a very pretty little city, smaller than Angers and a port. Here are some pictures:
We also had some tasty galettes (savory crêpes). Then we came home.
Coolest thing to happen recently: On Thursday, Meredith asked me if I was interested in going to a dinner theater. A Midsummer Night's Dream was this weekends show, and she thought it would be a fun, different thing to do in Angers. So we went last night, Saturday.
Meredith, Elvynia, and I arrived at the Restau-Theater a little after 7:30. We weren't sure what to expect. It was a restaurant with a small stage decorated with bright red, pink, and white plastic flowers and paper leaves. The food was excellent, three courses.
Here's what I ate:
Entrée (appetizer): Grilled Shrimp with something-Provençal, which was like a cold Ratatouille.
Plat (main course): Duck with some kind of dried berry. It said sec airelles. "Sec" means dry, and "airelles" means bilberry, blueberry, OR cranberry. It tasted closest to cranberry, but cranberries do not grow in Europe. On the side were cooked peas, carrots, mushrooms, and potatoes; they were plain but good.
Dessert: Mille-feuilles de pancake avec fraises et chantilly. I thought this was going to be a Mille-feuilles like I had in Paris. Mille-feuilles literally means "a thousand sheets." It's typically a tall, flaky pastry with a custart cream in it. This was not that. This was pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, which was also good.
Anywho, we enjoyed having a semi-fancy meal. Before the show, I commented on the bright scenery, saying that I hoped it was a moderny-interpretation.
It was better than that.
It was one woman. One woman with her hair in crazy braids, sticking out all over her head with a pink dress and stripey witch tights and crazy pink makeup. She came into the center of the dining room and strew paper leaves all over the floor while a kind of electro-rock song played on the speakers. Then she started the play. We knew ahead of time that it was going to be a French translation, but I think the fact that it was in French tripped me up at first. I knew she was saying Puck's lines. Then she put on crazy white hoop skirt and changed the tone of her voice, which I didn't pick up on immediately. I kept waiting for more actors and actresses to show up. They didn't.
There were two skirts, which she put on to play the female characters. She crouched and looked mischevious when she was Puck, and she stood under a blue spotlight to be Oberon, king of the fairies. She did this kind of jumping/creeping dance to switch between characters, which was amusing when two characters were conversing.
She looked like a crazy person.
But, it was impressive. And it was definitely interesting. After getting over the initial shock of what she was doing, I enjoyed it. I understood much of what she said, and she gave us all balloon flowers at the end.
A cute kid story: One little girl asked me Friday, comment tu es née? "How were you born?" I pretended I didn't understand, but she was persistant, so I just told her I didn't know. Then she asked, Comment ta mère t'a appris anglais? How did your mom teach you English? I explained that that was the language we speak at home. Then I asked her what language she speaks at home. She told me "sometimes Morroccan, sometimes Turkish." But she still didn't seem to grasp that I also spoke another language at home. It was very cute, though.
In other news, there is a teacher's strike Tuesday. What does that mean for me?? I don't have to work! I am so unreasonable excited about the strike. I'm not striking; I don't think I even can strike. But because all the teachers I work with on Tuesdays won't be there, the kids won't be there either.
The teachers do not get paid for the days they strike. Christophe told me this amounts to about €60. The strike is for hiring more teachers and changing some benefits.
I have another theory on why they are striking. They, too, are tired teachairs. I've had several classes cancelled in the last couple weeks because teachers were absent for one reason or another. It's almost spring. The weather is nicer, and the kids have spring fever. They are getting crazier every day, and the teachers are just plain tired of dealing with them.
But, I could be totally wrong.
