Les choses vont un peu mieux... OR Things are going better!

Things were much better today. I sat in on three classes, and the kids were all very young--14 or 15--and pretty agreable. One of the teachers I like most had gotten back essays from another class, written on the subject of their first meeting with me. The essays were so well-written, sweet, and funny that I got a bit teary reading them. I asked her if I could make photocopies so I could read them when I have bad days like Friday, and she said that was fine. They sort of redeemed my faith in humanity after Friday. So here are some highlights. I'm leaving the errors in because I think they are quite charming:
''The fact that Lindsay has come to see us was very original. I really appreciate that she came all this way to talk to us here in Vesoul. In addition, she was very cheerful, and we saw it we wanted to talk, we discover, and we share her knowledge. For me, I was very happy to meet some new friends with someone who had a smile and wished us know. What is really wonderful is that you could meet one person living in another country and another culture and being able to exchange living with this person.''
''I think Lindsay has some courage to come in France for one year, and alone!''
''We have a lot in common, I agreed with everything she said, except on the fact that french cheese is good! I HATE the cheese here!''
''I didn't think Americans like France. For me, American laughed at French people. But, I discovered they likes us. They likes our culture and our food. I discovered the american accent too. It's funny that Lindsay said ''I like cheese''; We are special humans, we are liked for our cheese!''

In other news, the weekend was fairly pleasant. On Saturday night we met up with some of the Spanish teachers and went to a Latin American soiree put on by the 'Committee for the Support of Latin American Peoples' in a community room in a local high school. We paid €16 for the evening and there was a great live band playing Buenos Aires Social Club-type music. The food was not as good as I was hoping, but it was at least entertaining. It was sort of a French person's idea of Latin American food, I guess, with a first course salad sprinkled with corn and tiny cocktail shrimp, a main course of chili con carne that was basically a thick stew of beans and rice with meat. Next followed a cheese course (somehow I don't think they serve camembert in Latin America, but I could be wrong), and then bannana slices served with chantilly cream and cinnamon. There were no tortillas or corn chips; but there were bread baskets filled with cut up baguettes (yes!) and wine was served, of course!
The evening was Quite long, with a new course served about every hour. We arrived at 8.30 and left a little after midnight! Keep in mind that this was at a high school, and that we were the only young people there, by about 50 years, aside from some toddlers and children playing chase under the trestle tables.
Later in the evening some couples started to dance salsa along to the music and we had a really good time watching them.
Sunday was pretty mellow--I did some laundry with our washing machine and hung it up to dry (on a side note, it is totally different to me to have a washer but not a dryer. We have these huge racks where we hang up our clothes, but since it is kind of humid here it can take almost a week for things to dry! I had kind of forgotten about this sort of thing living in Colorado!). Later, I met up with Elaine, the assistant from Birmingham, AL and we hiked up to La Motte, talking at Mach 9 about all of the cultural differences, not having internet, etc. We agreed that we should really try to find bikes around here, its kind of the only way to get to some good hikes without a car.
Sunday night we went to check out the opening event of Vesoul's Jacques Brel music festival, which was a competition between six unheard-of bands to win a chance to make a cd. We heard a kind of indifferent rap group from Besancon, then a FANtastic girl called Marina, who apparently was part of this reality tv show in France called Star Academy a few years ago but didn't win. She was adorable, and clearly a little nervous. There was this lanky guy who played lead guitar to her rythm guitar and added some perfect harmonies. It was just my kind of singer-songwriter stuff. She totally stole our hearts!
Here is (I think) a clip of what she sounds like from Youtube, but there are no speakers on this computer, so I have't listened to the clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssof-Qh0dp8

After Marina came this guy called Nicolas Fraissenet came on with a larger band. He played piano and sang and there were two guitarists and a drummer. This guy totally went all out and he had a freakin amazing voice, very powerful, with a huge range. The music was pretty epic, kind of reminded me of U2. The songs were beautifully written, with really original subjects--I think one was about a little boy who watches his father driving away, another was about an old woman who reflects on her life while she is starving herself to death (?), and the last one was a very passionate number from the perspective of a goldfish in a small aquarium. Yeah. I know it sounds weird, but this guy was an amazing performer.
The last group we saw was mUch more experimental in nature, with a cellist, a keyboardist, and a the lead singer who had to play both the drums and a series of stringed instruments at the same time because (I think) the drummer was sick. The best I can describe this group is sort of spoken word rock. But there were strange noises and stuff that reminded me of Ross's 'wordless sound poems' from Friends. There were moments when you just had to laugh because it sounded so wacky, but all the same there was something compelling that tied all of the instruments together and made it impossible to stop listening. It was as if this guys were an old-fashioned storyteller, in terms of the types of lyrics, with the sounds and music as the soundtrack....
Anyway, we had to leave before the prizes were awarded because it got quite late and we all had to observe classes early this morning. I STILL don't know who won and I am super curious. I'll have to wait for tomorrow's paper!!!
Here's a clip of Fraissenet, I think:



In other news, I bought a new pillow today because the ones I've been sleeping on are abominable and giving me extreme backaches. I also finally found a large enough mug for my tea (photo above). Guess which one is mine?? Also, since I had finally put my towel through the wash, I had to find another one to use after my shower this morning. I picked a bright pink one that was in the apartment when we got here. It turned out to be way too small to be useful and I didn't notice until afterwards that it must have been used by someone working on a car or lawnmower because there were grease smudges. As a result, I've smelt faintly like a mechanic all day today.
I managed a very nice little dinner for myself this evening, with a lovely local pinot noir, and pasta with pesto and diced veggies that I sauteed: mushrooms, zucchini, onion, garlic, and roughly chopped cherry tomatoes. Kathrin and I finished the meal off with some AMAZING, creamy cheese--Saint Marcel, I think one is called, and another kind that has a very thin stripe of blue cheese running through an otherwise very mild cheese. With our cheese course we sampled dark grapes and a pistacho & dark choclate bar, to see how the flavors were all together-- and felt thoroughly decadent!