Shoot the moon

14h France time

This past weekend, I took off with Paula and the Romanians to Toulouse, a city in the south that borders the same river as Bordeaux (the Garonne). It wasn't a terribly long drive, and the city was absolutely wonderful. Before we left, I called around to a few hotels to find us an inexpensive room, and a man at the last place I called told me he could give me a room for four for fifty euros. Not bad. He told me he had a bunch of free rooms, so I didn't think we needed a reservation. It turns out that by a "bunch of rooms," he meant seventeen in total and one for four guests. He had given said room away when we arrived, so we began to ask him if we could just work out some sort of arrangement where one of us would sleep on the floor of the room for three. We insisted that we could find a way to fit in there and offered to pay him extra, but he said no. In the event that something happened-- a fire, etc.-- the insurance wouldn't cover a room for three that had four guests. I was about to give up when he said, "You want to see? I'll show you that you can't all stay in this room." His mistake. We went to room #10 and found out that it had one twin bed and one enormous bed; Paula sat down on the big one and we all said, "Oh, we can totally fit in there!" He gave up, telling us that it was our problem, that he didn't know we had a fourth person, that if something went wrong it would be up to us to take care of it. Hahaha. It was great. I always hear about people doing things under the table in France, and here we had an opportunity to rent a hotel room semi-illegally.

We left the hotel soon after we arrived and argued a while about parking (this became a regular feature of the trip; it can be a chore to have a car in France). Then we drove into the city center, when by some bizarre stroke of chance, Andreea and Alexandru saw a German friend of theirs from their college studies in England. This friend of theirs, Daniel, turned out to be the handiest person ever, as he knew how to navigate the city. He directed us first to the Basilica of St. Sernin, the “largest and most complete basilica in France” or something like that. It was an enormous church, full of relics and frescoes and somber people, which apparently used to be on a pilgrimage route. Then we went to see the Church of the Jacobins, which didn’t much resemble a church inside, but had brightly colored windows and these enormous pillars. And the remains of St. Thomas Aquinas. When we were about to leave, I went to peek through a door in the corner of the church, but the women at the information desk there stopped me because I needed to pay to go through. The cloister and the abbey of the Jacobins was apparently what was beyond, and I didn’t think it sounded too interesting. But my friends and I found that if we could all present our expired student ids, we would get in for free.

In the abbey, we found a beautiful garden (the kind with the hedges that you walk through) and a couple of chapels. We all kind of gasped when I opened the door, it was so pretty. No other tourists were around at the time, so we had the space to ourselves to enjoy. After we left the abbey, we went to visit the Garonne to take pictures by the Pont Neuf, a famous bridge in Toulouse. There were tons of people at the riverfront as well as tons of pets; Andreea and I saw a dog try to start a fight with a goat.

That evening, Daniel left us to have dinner with his friends, and we proceeded to get lost and confused. We finally worked our way back to the hotel, from which point Alexandru, Paula, and I went back out to a bar. We met up with Daniel and some of his French friends to push our way through the overcrowded brasseries, then finally settled on a pub near the town center. Everyone there was really friendly to us, and we just hung out there until the bar closed. When we returned to the hotel, Andreea told us, “I have some bad news; there are bugs in the bed.” Hahahaha. She started pointing out these little cockroaches that were crawling around, and I threw a few of them out the window until I gave up and went to bed feeling itchy.

The next morning, we woke up way too late to see anything in the town center, so we sat at a street café and drank hot chocolate. While we were sitting there, a troupe of brightly colored… noisemakers… appeared and started playing in the streets. There were about twenty people of different ages playing drums, shakers, bell-type things, and wearing floral dresses and scarves. Each of their pieces lasted at least five or ten minutes, and they exuded so much energy and made so much noise that they drew a big crowd from the area. We watched for a long time, and Paula and I speculated as to what their purpose was. I pulled aside one of the members of the group and asked him what they were celebrating, and he said, “Oh, nothing! We just do this on Sundays.” It was fabulous. I can’t believe that a French city would be so lively on a Sunday.

We meandered through a Sunday market set up there close to the percussion group spectacle, and then we took off to the Cité de l’Espace in the outskirts of the city. The Cité de l’Espace is a museum that reminds me of a more confusing version of the Science Center. Since Toulouse apparently has a thriving air and space travel industry, the Cité de l’Espace was built to teach people about space, physics, the weather, space travel, etc. We walked around to tons of exhibits that I was hard-pressed to understand, not only because they were explained in French, but because I can’t wrap my mind around mathematical and physical phenomena. A lot of it made no sense. But! There was this machine in the museum that was supposed to make visitors feel like they were walking on the moon. I actually got hooked up to the machine twice because I hit up two different workers; visitors were strapped into a sort of seat that would hold up their weight while they bounced around the room. I took videos of pretty much everyone who did it. It was really the adults who liked it best—little kids just seemed confused. I personally laughed my head off. My friends and I also got to see a movie in the Imax there—an American film about the moon that was dubbed in French. We ran around taking pictures, and then we made the trek home.

Since my trip to Toulouse, I’ve had an incredibly busy week. I keep tripping over opportunities; it’s astounding. On Tuesday evening, I went with my French friends Renaud and Marie to a tiny bar in the center of Limoges. They introduced me to the bartender and owner, a man named Ivan who is so generous that he never turns out profits. He has apparently had five bars in the last ten years. Ivan plays the accordion, as does Marie, and he let me try to play it. When he found out that I play piano, he asked me to sit at his piano and read some of the sheet music he had while he played accordion. I was terrible, but he told me that he was very interested in learning to read notes. He proposed a cultural exchange: he would teach me what he knew about music (presumably to play the accordion) if I would teach him how to read music. I said absolutely! Sign me up. He also let me borrow “Jean de Florette” from his little library of books. Then Renaud and Marie taught me a humorous little drinking song that I keep humming around town. It was a lovely evening.

On Wednesday, one of the teachers from my school gave me the opportunity to see the French countryside around Limoges. She grew up near a little town called Eymoutiers, and her sister inherited the family farm and now raises cows (and veal in particular). The two of them—my colleague, Françoise, and her sister, Maryse, told me all about the cows, the region, the plants that grew there… everything. It was like a tour, but with just me. Maryse had me put my hand in one of her cows’ mouths. Cows only have incisors on the bottom of their mouths. Who knew? The two of them also had me help them to do work while continuing the commentary on farming and what it was like to grow up in that region. Françoise fed me an enormous lunch, complete with cheeses that she picked up just so I could try more French cheese. Then we went apple picking and hiked around the Maryse’s property. The whole day was lovely, and the territory was absolutely gorgeous and peaceful; I wish I had pictures. And when we left Eymoutiers, I was exhausted, so much so that I pretty much dozed while Françoise talked to me. Thank goodness her attention was on the road.

And today I had a wonderful day at school! My kids are absolutely precious; one of them sees me on the bus in the mornings and comes up to faire la bise with me every time. My classes were all very well-behaved today, in my opinion (a rarity). I kept my ten-year-olds engaged in a discussion about foods, and they positively freaked out when I talked to them about peanut butter and cream cheese. Apparently a lot of them like peanut butter. Then I told them about BLTs (and realized how much I missed them), and they were so interested. It was pretty funny. I collected their notebooks today, and they were so in earnest about doing things right and copying down everything I’d written on the board. Which actually doesn’t happen often. I really like these kids.

This weekend I’m going to the Beaujolais region/festivals for wine tasting, which doesn’t really fit with me because I don’t drink much wine. But I’d love to see the festivals! I’ll be traveling with two Americans that I don’t know very well at all. Hopefully it will be a nice trip.