Chateau des Ducs de Bourbon

(Click on the photo to enlarge.)

Part two of a series of Montlucon scenes.

Marx Dormoy, militant socialist

(Click on the photo to enlarge.)

Part one of a series of Montlucon scenes.

Belated Thanksgiving meditation

I woke up Thanksgiving morning at my friend Ali's apartment in Clermont-Ferrand. She had left early that morning to teach in Vichy so I made myself a cup of hot tea and breakfast and sat looking out the wondow at the plaza three stories below. I had two hours before I had to leave for my doctor's appointment so I just sat there and enjoyed having nothing to do.

I didn't realize right away that it was Thanksgiving, and when I finally remembered, I ran through a short list of my blessings as is the tradition. I disovered I couldn't possibly detail all of them and I became really anxious. Do I really have so much that I can't possibly truly appreciate just how lucky I am? Do I really deserve to have so much? Do I take things for granted and let my blessings become just mundane details?

I wake up here every day truly happy to be in France, but I don't think I take the time to really be deeply thankful for the amazing details of 'life in France' or even of my life in general.

Well, the SNCF strike disrupted not only my sleep on Tuesday night (as I caught the only train to Clermont obscenely early yesterday) but some of our hiking plans: Originally Meredith and I thought we'd rent a car and drive to the base of the Puy-de-Dome and explore the trailhead from there. There were no rental cars to be found -- which seems very logical in retrospect -- so we had to think of an alternative plan. The Puy-de-Dome is 10 kilometers outside of Clermont so that seemed too far to walk, but the tourist information office directed us to a different trail closer to town. Compared to the other mountains surrounding Clermont, this was one of the smallest but, after a few wrong turns and some short-term trespassing, we found a side trail with a gorgeous view of the city.

We walked down the opposite side of this mountain with our eye on another in the distance. Unofrtunately, there are no signs that explain which roads go up so at every intersection we had to guess. Somehow we made our way to a little village just outside of Clermont where the chocolates in the patisserie we begging to be eaten. I had something called a Puy-de-Dome which was so amazingly rich sometimes I forgot that breathing should have been a higher priority than eating. The woman at the patisserie had given us rough directions so we followed the road through the village, but really, after about five minutes, we were just wandering aimlessly around these country roads and villages, just looking for a route to take us up.

When we got to the point of the day where we needed to turn around and head back to town we had managed to climb probably twice as high as the original mountain we'd hiked that morning. I wish it hadn't been as hazy, but the surrounding farms, mountains and distant buildings were beautiful from that height. Later we realized that we'd walked for nearly seven hours and had probably covered 20 miles. It was really quite an amazing day of aimless hiking and conversation.

I am feeling an even stronger pull now to hike the Puy-de-Dome.

My footprints

My personal world map

visited 11 countries-


Create your own world map

Frustration

I am off to Clermont-Ferrand tomorrow at 6 am, thanks to the SNCF workers striking this week. According to the linked article, a small fraction of trains are running in the Paris area as well as the majority of international trains, but -- take it from this witness -- no trains are coming and going in Montlucon. When I stopped by the station today, the tickets windows weren't even opening. When I get up painfully early tomorrow I will have to buy my ticket from a machine, which would be impossible if I didn't have a French bank account.

Adding to this frustration is the fact that I just spoke with Meredith who told me that the doctor's appointment was pointless. The doctor never examined him, just asked a couple questions such as, "How much do you weigh?" To top it off, he waited to see the doctor for over an hour.

I am concerned I won't be able to make it back to Montlucon in time to teach on Friday if the strike doesn't resolve before then. The only bus runniing between the two towns leaves Clermont around 6 pm whereas my doctor's appointment on Thursday is at 5.

On the bright side, I am going to spend most of my day tomorrow with good friends, surrounded by dormant volcanoes and beautiful scenery. Photos and stories will follow of course.

A successful party and plans for a mini-vacation

Saturday night Meredith and I hosted our first real party here with about 35 of our best friends in France. People came from as far as six hours away (near Metz), as well as several assistants from Riom, Clermont-Ferrand, and Brioudes whom we had met at our training session back in October. All the Montlucon assistants were here of course, as well as Meredith's volleyball and basketball friends, a couple teachers, and a couple guys from Montlucon's pro rugby team. Kim and Julia tried peanut butter for the first time, and one of the funniest moments came when Emma realized that one of the basketball players was her student! If the disastrous condition of the apartment the next day was any indication, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves!

I will actually be seeing several of the Clermont friends again very soon since I have a doctor's appointment there Thursday to (finally) obtain my carte de sejour so I can live here legally after December. Meredith is going for his appointment tomorrow since neither of us work on Wednesdays we're planning to meet there Wednesday morning to hike the Puy-de-Dome.

This sounded like an excellent plan until it was announced yesterday that the SNCF (the French train system) would be on strike this week and therefore only a fraction of trains are running regularly. Given that Clermont-Ferrand and Montlucon are the first and second largest cities in Auvergne, one would think that there would be several regular trains running between the two but no. Meredith just informed me that the only way he can get to Clermont tomorrow is by bus at 6:00 am. I am afraid to check my own timetable.

Cold

We finally broke down and decided to turn on the heat in the apartment. Who cares if the electricity bill is huge? When I woke up this morning my thermometer read 49* inside.

Come home and turn on your heat, Davy Chardonnay!

Looking out the window

Looking for some help

Thanksgiving is coming up in six days now and I am hoping to host a sort of mini-dinner for friends here. I don't care what we eat, except I would really like to make a pumpkin pie. There are several obstacles, however. First, I can't find pre-made pie crusts at Carrefour. I know, I know, I could make a pie crust from scratch, but that would require buying massive amounts of ingredients (flour, for example) that I won't use again. Can I substitute pre-made crepes?

The second potential problem with the pumpkin pie plan is a complete lack of pumpkin in any form: No canned pumpkin, no fresh pumpkin. I think sweet potato pie tastes a lot like pumpkin pie, and sweet potatoes are easily available. Any good suggestions or recipes? Keep in mind that I have almost zero cooking tools and just a toaster oven.

Second, I need some help coming up with worksheets for my students. I design my own lesson plans and I expect to need pages on animals, food (fruits and vegetables), family, and activities. I'd prefer that they would be black and white outlines, and therefore colorable. Meredith and I have both looked for resources on the internet and found little or nothing. If anyone knows of any good online resources or has anything to send electronically I would be really grateful.

Finally, I need a job for next year. I can be picky about the prospects later, but if anyone hears about any job openings that I might like, please let me know!

Another beautiful run

Tuesday evening Meredith and I went running and explored a new trail with a killer hill that took about five minutes to climb, but gave a great view of the city and surrounding hills. The trail continued farther along the fencelines of neighboring farms, and several were labeled as bike trails, making me even more anxious to buy a bike. We figured out that the trails led somewhere near the Allee Jean-Charles Varennes, where I usually run.

We went out tonight to run for a little over an hour and started in the direction of the Varennes trail. I wanted to see if we could find a way to connect the two trails, so when we came to a side trail marked Ferme des Reaux we turned onto it and into a narrow wooded path that dipped and rose and then turned rocky and climbed further until we were standing on the side of a grassy hill looking over the farms in the valley and the sun setting over the hills.

We kept running uphill farther, crossed a road, and eventually found ourselves in the farm fields, where Meredith fortunately recognized the trail that would take us back to Tuesday's starting point. Instead of taking the same way back however, he wanted to explore a side trail. Really, it would be almost impossible to get really lost out there; you can see the city from anywhere and all you need to do is go downhill, so we turned onto the narrow trail. It started out flat and rocky, and turned steep and rockier until eventually it seemed to just be a drainage ditch for water running down the hill! Even the large rocks were loose and the sides of the path sloped sharply toward the center so I stuggled to just walk it. It was very slow going but eventually I joined Meredith at the road of the bottom of the hill. The sign posted there needs no English translation: Passage dangereux.

My job title

My official job title here is "English Language Assistant" but after having taught now for two weeks I have realized that it is quite inaccurate. I am teaching classes and planning lessons solo. I am not assisting anyone! I think the French government has to refer to us as "assistants" for lack of a teaching diploma, but from now on, I will refer to myself as "English Language Instructor."

The coolest invention

I have discovered the coolest invention, or at least one that belongs in the top ten. Tonight Meredith and I decided to rent a movie...from a movie machine. Just around the corner from our apartment is a little kiosk where you can insert your bank card or movie club card, choose a movie, and return it at the same place. You are charged based on how long you keep the film. Six hours is just 1E50.

When we arrived, we found that it is more expensive to use a bank card than the Cinebank member card, so we went inside the store and Meredith signed up for an account. The guy who worked there was nice enough to show us how the machine worked and it is amazing. There is a huge selection, and you can search by genre, actor, or title. If you make a mistake and select the wrong movie, you can return it within 15 minutes without being charged.

So now, in order to improve my French slang, I am off to watch American Pie in French!

Food

I have this theory that if I trained for it, I could be an eating contest champion. I did win the most recent edition of the family eating contest, after all!

Today started off quite well, as Meredith brought be back a present from his American friend he met in Paris - chunky peanut butter! I enjoy my generic brand Nutella of course, but peanut butter is really incomparable. I know I've made a general open invitation to anyone to come visit me here anytime, but I need to request that you bring a jar of peanut butter. If nothing else, I want to make my students try it! Is it true that Americans eat butter made out of peanuts?

I mentioned yesterday that grocery prices are much cheaper here, so I'll give an example of what I bought at Carrefour today. Prices are in Euros, and 1000g (1kg) is 2.2 pounds, so about 450g is a pound.

Generic brand Nutella 750g .93E
Milk chocolate 500g 1.21E
Milk chocolate 500g 1.21E
Organic pasta 500g 1.05E
Yogurt x 8 2.20E
Drinkable yogurt 750g 1.62E
Milk 1 Liter .62E
Frozen pizza 300g .93E
St. Nectaire cheese 282g 2.24E
Bananas (2) .51E
Pomegranate (1) .50E
Multigrain bread 300g 1.20E

In other exciting news, I am trying to get my running back on track. Yesterday I set off for an as-yet undecided distance and managed to get about 13 miles in. I took the Jean-Charles Varennes trail all the way to its end in Neris-les-Bains where I accidentally found a back way into the campground through a muddy trail. It was my longest run since mid-October and I felt a bit tired this morning, but the good kind of tired. Friday's race definitely got me excited to run fast again.

Mixed blessings

Electricity is very expensive here, although I will not know exactly how expensive until the end of the month. For lunch I heated up some tomato mozarella soup I made yesterday (from a box, but with fresh tomato added). Immediately after taking it off the burner I started cooking my second dish (potatoes, onions, and green peppers) to save on heating the burner a second time. It was a little awkward trying to eat soup and stir the veggies at the same time, but I managed and the food was excellent. The best part is that vegetables are really inexpensive so that counterbalances the cost of electricity and makes me want to buy more veggies than anything else.

I know my mom is concerned about where I do my laundry so I should write about that. I dragged my laundry bag and detergent to the laverie on Wednesday. It was a pretty simple process and there were only three of us there so I didn't have to wait for a machine at all. Unfortunately, the other two were making out in the corner, which was hard to ignore as I tried to plan my lessons. In addition, my laundry experince has inspired my new life ambition: Own a laundromat in France. I paid six euros to wash and dry one load of laundry! I tried to make myself feel better about that ridiculous expense by telling myself that at least I am providing some heat for my friend Dan, who lives above the laverie.

The guy who rents the apartment below mine is named Davy Chardonnay and he likes to turn up his music so loud that my floor and walls shake. I can hear every word that is sung, and I remind myself that it is a good thing the walls are thin so that the heat from his apartment will warm up mine.

Lazy Saturday

Today Joe, Dan, Emma and I piled into Emma's Peugot for a daytrip to Bourges, about 90 kilometers north of Montlucon. It's a pretty drive through the hills and farms, but unfortunately it was cold and rainy today. We visited the Cathedrale Saint-Etienne and ate lunch at a little bar/cafe before spending some time at FNAC and H&M. Compared to Montlucon, Bourges is a metropolis and the stores were a little overwhelming!

This is just a short quick entry because Joe has never eaten a taco, so I am about to go meet the others at Montlucon's Tex-Mex restaurant!

One more thing: The results of yesterday's race are available online - scroll to the bottom for my race. I'm not sure how or why, but it lists me as 12th place. My race consisted of juniors and seniors racing together, so perhaps they removed the juniors in the results. I also have no idea what the abbreviations (or lack thereof) after my name mean, except that 'AUV' indicates that I am from the region of Auvergne.

Happy Armistice Day!

My Armistice Day celebration consisted of a cross country race in Arnay-Le-Duc, near Dijon in the Bourgogne region. I woke up at 8:00 before my alarm rang and had breakfast with Meredith, who was rushing off to catch a train to Paris for the weekend. I met the other runners at the Hippodrome and at 9:30 we were off on a dizzying 3 hour ride to Arnay-le-Duc.

I wish I could spout off some facts about the town, or at least tell about the interesting buildings, but all I can really tell you is that they have hosted this 'cross' for 38 years and it is ridiculously cold there. I wore literally all of the running clothes I have with me in France (except a couple pairs of shorts) and I was still chilled.

There were several races before the seniors femmes including some really cute tiny kids who ran about a kilometer. I watched the cadet(te)s from Montlucon Athletisme; we had one girl and one boy who each finished in the top ten.

While I was waiting to warm up I learned all sorts of useful new vocabulary like points (spikes), dossard (race bib), and parcours (race course). I also learned the French term for safety pin, but only temporarily. More interestingly, I found out that this race offered prize money to the top ten so there were a lot of fast people there, especially a Russian woman who a lot of people were talking about.

I warmed up with Cecile and Stephanie and gradually started peeling off layers of clothing. We did about a million drills and then lined up at the depart. The actual starting line had a string held taut about 3 feet above it and -- after playing some techo dance music I'm sure I've danced to in a discotheque -- they fired the starter's pistol and dropped the string.

The women sprinted out of the start and I was left in the back half of the field, not a good thing since they course veered right after 100m and then took another hard right turn about 50m after that...onto loose sand! We were only on the sand for about 200m before looping around the starting area and setting off on a loop around the lake. At one point we crossed a long bridge before heading up a short steep hill. I could see the women running in front of me, and I was just outside of the top 20 at that point, so I decided my goal would be to finish better than 20th.

After the sharp uphill there was a well-placed downhill and then some gentle ups and downs. I could see Stephanie running inside the top ten and Cecile a few places ahead of me. Sometime after hurdling two logs (!) and before touring the starting area to our second loop around the lake, I found myself running in 18th place and moving up. Of course I readjusted my goal and set my sights on the woman running in 15th.

I didn't feel as energetic the second time around the lake loop, but I tried to keep a steady pace as I passed a couple women and moved into 17th, 16th, 15th and then 14th place. We came upon the logs again, cruelly placed with the first around 600m left, and the second placed where we had just 400m left in the race. I tried to stay strong as I toured the starting loop, not knowing how close my competition was, speeding up for the last 100m and finishing in 14th, three places behind Cecile, and four places (twenty seconds) out of the money. Stephanie finished 6th and won 90 euros. The Russian woman won in 19:02 and took home 400 euros.

I was pleasantly surprised, especially when I saw that I had finished in 22:17 for the 5.45k, which means that I ran about 20:27 for 5k. This is only nine seconds slower than my fastest cross country 5k, and I haven't exactly been focusing on running recently. I think I also surprised Christian (my coach) with my performance. We do a lot of speed workouts at practice and Cecile thoroughly kicks my butt, but over a cross country race, I can rely more on my endurance.

After a short cool-down -- where we decided that we made for a really strong three-woman team! -- we bundled back up, sought Stephanie's check, and piled back into the minibuses for the ride back home, Montlucon.

P.S. Did I mention how cool my roomie is? Not only has he put up with my obsessing about the race, but he sends me encouragement and congratulations messages. Plus, he thinks it's funny when I polish off a pound of chocolate in just two days.

P.P.S. I am not saying this just because he now has this web address.

On teaching

Me: Hi, how was class this afternoon.
Meredith: It went okay. You?
Me. Fine, but I had to kick a kid out of class.
Meredith: Me too!

Like I already wrote, I really like teaching so far. I am in a unique position as a teacher here because the students' progress is not evaluated and does not count for anything. Therefore, students aren't motivated to pay attention to avoid failure which can be a good or a bad thing. It makes for a more relaxed environment which can mean either a lot of positive energy or trouble, like with my poor student today. Ultimately, he didn't miss a lot of instruction, and it won't affect his grades; I just hope he gets the message that English class is not the place to screw around.

I wrote a few weeks ago about my own progress with French and how I planned to apply my language-learning experience to my teaching adventures. In my teaching notebook I have the following directions written to myself:

Speak slowly.
Be animated.
Be repetitive.
Keep it simple.
Make it fun.

I think I am doing okay with all of those objectives, but it is so hard to tell this early. I am a little disappointed so far because I am technically supposed to speak only English in the classroom (that's the unwritten sixth direction) but it would very difficult to begin at the beginning with a group of eight year olds with what would end up being a 45 minute monologue in English. Even the nine and ten year olds who have had a year or two of English instruction don't have a completely solid grasp of "What's your name?"/"My name is Paige." Today I introduced, "How old are you?" to the class of nine year olds and when they caught on to what the response should have been they all said, "I am neuf years old. So I went through the numbers with them, to which one of them responded, "We already learned the numbers last year through twelve." Then why say neuf years old? I am a little afraid that what I am teaching them this year will be forgotten.

On a more positive note, I have a good story from one of my Monday classes. After I introduce the "What's your name?"/"My name is ____" phrases, I always ask for two volunteers to introduce themselves to each other. I have yet to find a simpler English words to substitute for volunteer so unfortunately that's the term I use reptitively for this and other practice activities. In this particular class, there were two boys named Valentin, and every time I said "I need two volunteers," they thought I was referring just to them, so they'd march without hesitiation to the front of the room every time! When I asked for just one volunteer there was a rush of whispers as they decided just which Valentin would demonstrate this time. This was the same class where I jumped on a desk, and afterward the kids asked me for autographs. Clearly, it was a good time!

The Montlucon routine

When you first arrive in a new city, nothing makes sense. Everything's unknown, virgin. After you've lived here, walked these streets, you'll know them inside out. You'll know these people. Once you've lived here, crossed this street 10, 20, 1000 times it'll belong to you because you've lived there. That was about to happen to me, but I didn't know it yet.
-Xavier, L'Auberge Espagnole

It feels really good to be settled into my apartment, teaching regularly, going to running club, and making friends. I can't imagine how comfortable this place is going to feel eight months from now and how hard it will be to leave.

Meredith and I spent a couple days before school restarted buying necessities for our apartment and arranging the furniture. There is a great secondhand store in town called Emmaus where we got eight plates, six bowls, a set of silverware, a spatula, six glasses, a pot, a pan, a colander, a phone, a flannel shirt to use for cleaning rags and a silver sequined skirt for just 12 euros.

Silver sequined skirt? I promise there was a good reason to spend a euro on that. Meredith's volleyball team held a cotume party Friday night and since I've met a few of the players I was invited to tag along. I was a little overwhelmed to be among so many French people for purely social reasons (rather than discussing my teaching objectives, for example, where there is a clear direction to the conversation) so I was glad to have met some of them previously.

Saturday evening we invited the other teaching assistants and some volleyball friends over to our apartment for what turned out to be a very successful evening of music, beer, and French conversation. It can be awkward to speak French when the majority of people are native English speakers, but the conversation flowed very smoothly, probably because Marie, Elodie and the others were really patient and interested in helping us.

After meeting so many friendly volleyball players I decided it might be fun to go play with them last night. I forgot why I don't usually like to play volleyball. I did have a good time meeting people and socializing but when I came home I had jammed a finger and it was still and swollen, and my wrists were bright pink and already beginning to turn black and blue. I am still in some pain today, and I must be a little crazy because I think I am going to return next week.

Of course my real sport is cross country and I am getting excited for my first race Friday! In order to compete in any sport in France, one needs a medical certificate. Since I hadn't received my social security card yet nor my invitation to see the doctor in Clermont for my carte de sejour the president of Montlucon Athletisme helped me out by contacting a doctor friend of his. I was able to call the doctor on Monday and get an appointment for today easily, and I am now approved to race!

The "cross" is Friday in a town called Arnay-le-Duc in the Bourgogne region. My race, the seniors femmes is 5.35k. There are three other senior women running, as well as some men and juniors. I am definitely excited to race, but I think the best part will be getting to know my new teammates. Tonight when I stopped by practice to drop off my certificat medical and the other paperwork I need for my club licence I stayed after a little while to talk with Guy (the president) and Christian (the distance coach), which was really fun.

And the real reason I am in France? To teach! If you've read this far, it's probably obvious that I am really happy here and my job is really contributing to that feeling. I don't have time to write in detail about it, nor do I want to make this entry ridiculously long, but I will say that my students are really fun, interesting, and enthusiastic. Of course there are some troublemakers, but it's nice to be the cool teacher who comes in for a fun 45 minute lesson and leaves the real discipline to their regular teacher! I get to talk, sing, and jump around the room. Meredith and I were amused to find out that on Monday both of us had jumped up on desks during class, although for different reasons!

So much is happening here and I feel like time is only going to pass by more quickly. One of my goals here is never to turn down the opportunity to do anything and I am so far successful in doing that.

Chez moi!

Toussaint travels, a delayed summary

I am annoyed with myself that I am just now getting to write about my travels over a week after I’ve returned. First, I am not going to describe what I did as well as I would have been able to immediately afterward. Second, I don’t like simply listing events. With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s my much-delayed summary of my Toussaint travels.

I left Saturday afternoon from Montluçon for Bordeaux. I had planned to use the train ride to read a French book I borrowed from the library, but I was exhausted from the night before, so after approximately two sentences, I fell asleep. The woman next to me had been pretty chatty when I first got on the train and, when I awoke briefly at one stop, she struck up a conversation about this particular author. After a couple minutes’ conversation, she asked if she could read the book for a little while. By the time we reached Bordeaux, she read the whole novel!

I arrived in Bordeaux around 9 pm and I needed to get into the city center to find a hotel. The roads outside the train station were confusing and I couldn’t tell which way I needed to go, let alone which road was Cours de la Marne. I asked a couple people who didn’t know, and another guy who answered me in English – “I don’t know.” I really wanted to say, “Look, Monsieur, if I know any phrase in French, I certainly would recognize je ne sais pas!” I don’t like when I speak French to someone and they respond in English! I can do that in Ohio.

After asking a hotel doorman (why didn’t I think of him in the first place?) I was on my way to the city center. Like any town, the area near the train station is sketchy, so I had to walk past several sex shops advertising various products and services feeling uncomfortable but not unsafe.

It was about two miles to my hotel of choice, but they didn’t have any rooms available at their branch so they sent me to another hotel where I was able to get a single room…in another building. It was a long day and I fell asleep almost immediately when I got in bed.

Sunday I woke up feeling much more energetic. I ran about four miles which helped me to get my bearings in town. I walked to the Cathédrale Saint-André and took pictures from the outside, since they were holding mass inside. I also checked out the Tour Pey-Berland, a free-standing bell tower next to the cathedral. The sky was bright blue with wispy clouds, and when I stood next to the tower and looked up, the movement of the clouds made the tower seem as if it were beginning to tip over.

I headed toward the Garonne River next, which was muddy and frankly not all that pretty, though there was a good view of the Bordeaux skyline. I came upon the Marché Dominical des Chartrons, a street market where I bought some oranges and the others there shopped for everything from oysters to new wine to rotisserie chickens.

It’s difficult to travel on a Sunday because nearly everything is closed, but fortunately the Musée d’art contemporain was open. They even accepted my student ID so I got in free. I was overwhelmed by the museum because the building is quite large, the map they gave me was unclear, and not all of the rooms are used for exhibitions, but I managed to find some really striking pieces. I should mention that I really dislike classic art (especially El Greco, right Dad?) and I love the stuff that’s really abstract and even debatable as to whether it is considered art. My favorite at this museum was Sans titre (Untitled) by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. It consisted of two inflatable swimming pools with various sized bowls and a few wineglasses floating in the water. A motor in each of the pools created a circular flow of the water and the bowls and glasses collided at irregular intervals to sound various tones based on their sizes. It was hypnotic to watch and to listen.

Later I wandered toward Saint-Louis church where I unexpectedly found a street market and festival. I really enjoy even fruit and vegetable street markets, but I could spend hours looking at all the antiques, jewelry, books, and such they had at this market. If there is anything I like more than a market, however, it is street musicians, which could be heard from a block away. It was a huge group of young people with flutes, guitars, trumpets, a drum set and an electronic megaphone. They played their instruments, danced, sang, and shouted to a growing crowd. I was hooked until they packed up and dispersed.

On the way back to my hotel for the evening I passed through the Esplanade des Quinconces and a large carnival. I didn’t play any games or ride any rides but it was fun to watch kids go into the haunted house and play on the bumper cars.

Monday I woke up early and ran six miles around town before I checked out of my hotel and into a cheaper one. I made a trip to the train station to get a ticket to La Rochelle for Tuesday morning and then took some time to go to Zara and H&M. When I lived in Spain, I really almost lived at Zara because their clothes fit me so well and the prices are decent, so I was disappointed not to be able to find anything that day.

After lunch, I walked to the Palais Gallien, the ruins of a Roman amphitheater from the 3rd century. As I took a few pictures four young people arrived and I overheard them speaking English. I asked them where they were from and we discovered that three of them were teaching assistants like me from near Metz. (The other guy, Jian, was Irish looking for work as a chef in Bordeaux; they had all met at the youth hostel.) Steph was from Texas, but even funnier was that Jeff and Alex had both recently graduated from Calvin College and MSU! They were nice enough to let me tag along with them to the Cathédrale Saint-André and then out to dinner. French restaurants don’t open for dinner until around 7 pm so we had some time to kill and, being in Bordeaux, it was only natural that we should pick up a bottle of wine before the stores closed for the evening. Alex and I stopped in a wine store, but the prices were steep and they didn’t have any bottle openers available, so we realized Monoprix, a chain supermarket was the only option. It was about a mile away from the plaza where we’d been hanging out, but Jeff and I powerwalked and managed to find a bottle opener and some Bordeaux before closing time.

We had dinner at a little Asian restaurant with decent prices, good food, and excellent conversation. After dinner we used my new bottle opener to uncork the bottle of Bordeaux and split it five ways on the street on the way to an Irish bar. Although the karaoke background tunes were excruciating we had a good time playing cards and talking before everyone walked me back to my hotel around 12:30. We exchanged email addresses, phone numbers, and goodbyes before I tried the door and found it locked. I didn’t have the code for the keypad so the only options were either to sneak into the youth hostel with the others or somehow get the attention of the hotel proprietor and convince them to let me in. Fortunately, Steph had a copy of the guidebook I used and it had the hotel phone number. If you’ve ever tried to learn a foreign language, you’ll know that talking on the phone is one of the most difficult things to do. The couple drinks I had had worked in my favor, and I wasn’t nervous at all as convinced the proprietor in French to give me the code.

The next morning I caught a train to La Rochelle, which had one of the nicest train stations I’ve ever seen. Because La Rochelle is right on the Atlantic Coast, a lot of French families travel there for vacation, so the prices are higher, but I managed to find a cute room in a hotel above a bar where the proprietor’s wife encouraged me to take as many showers as I wanted and for as long as I wanted. Maybe I smelled bad, but I was more than receptive to her encouragement. On that first day in La Rochelle I visited the Cathédrale Saint-Louis, walked around the harbor to see the old towers protecting the city, and saw the Hotel de Ville, which was right around the corner from my hotel.

Wednesday morning I woke up early and went for a run with the goal reaching the beach at Les Minimes on the southern edge of town. I spent a few minutes walking around on the sand before heading back north and around town a little bit before finishing about nine miles. The weather that morning was perfect for running and in the afternoon it warmed up perfectly and I took my supermarket-bought lunch down to the beach for a picnic.

After lunch I tried to visit the maritime museum, but it was closed. I decided the aquarium was too expensive, and I really just enjoyed walking around the harbor, so I spent the afternoon doing just that. I visited Monoprix again to pick up dinner supplies and again took my towel to the beach to picnic. There were many people there and as the sun set over the ocean it was almost as if the sloping sand was stadium seating and we were watching a great performance.

Thursday I caught a train to Nantes where I immediately made a fool of myself at my chosen hotel, thinking it was locked when I should have been pulling the door instead of pushing. Of course, there was a bus stop right there to witness this scene.

Once I figured out how to open the door and deposited my bag, I met up with my mom’s co-worker’s son Johnny who is studying abroad in Nantes. No, I had never met him before, but I went out with him and some of his friends to a little café. It was really fun to hear about their study abroad experiences which reminded me of my experience in Spain as well as what I’ve already experienced in France. Johnny went home to eat with his host family, but Molly and Meredith were nice enough to let me tag along on a shopping trip to Zara and H&M and then to an excellent crêperie for dinner. They invited me to go out with them that evening, but I was starting to get sick so it was a better idea for me to get some rest.

The next day in Nantes I was still not feeling well, so I sort of unenthusiastically saw the sights: the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre, the Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne (although it was being renovated so I couldn’t go inside), the Ile Feydeau (a neighborhood), and the Passage Pomeroy (a historic shopping arcade). It was bittersweet to realize that I was tired of traveling and ready to go back to my new home in Montluçon.

Unfortunately there were no direct trains from Nantes to Montluçon, so I was forced to change trains twice. After a disaster in Berlin where I tried to catch a commuter train to the airport and wound up in Hamburg, I have been very nervous about taking the correct train so this trip was a bit stressful for me. I managed to catch the first train (at 7 am, how awful!) and make the two switched without incident, aside from a marriage proposal from a random man in the Vierzon train station.

Back in Montluçon

This will be another short boring post to announce to the world that I am back in Montluçon. The only exciting part of this (and for me it is very good new!) is that I am no longer living at the university residence but in my new apartment! I don't have a lot of time right now, but I will write some about my travels and the moving experience int he next couple days. A second bit of good news is that we will soon have wireless in our apartment, so I will be able to maintain much better contact and update more often and on a more timely basis, I promise!