Back in Carcassonne

November 13, 2006
Archive


I'm settling back into my French life. November is going to be a pretty relaxing and nice month I think. Yes, I am trying to do
nanowrimo again this year, but just for fun. The weather is turning colder, although today was really very warm, with a gentle breeze that had everyone smiling.

This month, my students are doing internships at local elementary schools, and taking over as teachers for three weeks. In turn, the regular teachers are coming back to the IUFM to do continuing education, which I am teaching. So this month, I am doing language perfection workshops with teachers, at three hours each session! It's a lot of preparation (three hours is a huge amount of time to fill for each class), but I think it will be fun and interesting. Other than that, November is going to be a month of parties, with everyone settling into the winter season and inviting each other round. This week already I've attended two dinner parties, with invitations to three more over the weekend.

So, what have I been up to? Monday and Tuesday I taught and did lesson plans for the continuing education classes. On Wednesday, I joined the gym (that's a whole nother story!), and then met a very interesting woman, Linda, at my friend Anne's shop. This lead to an invitation to an art opening on Thursday and a dinner party on Saturday. After that, I had a dinner party with three German friends, and then Jana and I went to see a very interesting movie called L'Arche Russe (Russian Ark). The local cinema club (which is literally next door to my apartment) is sponsoring a film series this month which is all movies about art. So we went to the movie, and then there was a discussion afterwards about it, which was intriguing because of everyone's interpretation of the film, none of which matched my own.

On Thursday, I went to the gym (again...a great story...to be written soon!), and then the cyber cafe, and then met Emily for coffee at Place Carnot, and there ran into a few other kids we know, including one girl who I randomly met on the train about three weeks ago. Then Jana showed up too. It was just so small town! I met Linda to go to the art opening, but she ran me down to the movie theater, saying that plans had changed, and we were going to see the Woody Allen film instead and then have dinner at the creperie. Whatever, I didn't have an agenda anyway. So we saw the movie, and then went to dinner. Now, the funny thing about the creperie is that it's been a joke between Michaela and I for about a month. We passed it one day, and we were both so excited that there was a creperie in town. But then, we could never find it again. So we started wondering if we had both just imagined it? It's become this joke, like anytime we're not sure about something, we reference the disappearing creperie. But it is actually there, and it's delicious, and it's the first time I've eaten out in Carcassonne, which is crazy! I think about how often I eat out in Portland, and I can't believe I haven't been out yet here. After a huge and long dinner with Linda, who is an ex-American and now British citizen with an apartment in Carca who is a freelance journalist and an expert lecturer on Robert Frost, I walked up to the pub to see who was there, and of course, everyone was there. After an ample dose of the usual crowd, I came back home and worked on my writing.

On Friday, I slept in way too late, wrote and wrote and wrote (my story is becoming a little out of control...), and then I went to sit in the sun (t-shirt weather!) at Chez Felix, one of the Place Carnot cafes, with a book. As I was getting into it, Linda showed up, talked to me for about an hour, had me read her play, and then asked me to come to her apartment to pick up a load of books she had picked out for me. So, I dutifully abided. She also wanted me to meet her hairdresser, Alain, whom she calls, “my sexy French hairdresser.” It's true that for an older gay French man, Alain is pretty charming, but he told me that my hair was too thin and needed “fortification”. It was very thin, he reemphasized, especially at my age. He told me to come back, and we would do a special treatment. Hmmmm, not so sure about all that.

After retrieving a huge bag of books from Linda, I went to the gym (much calmer this time around), and then ran home to shower and get ready for the dinner party Michaela accidentally got stuck throwing. She had originally invited five girls, and by the time we got into the food and wine, there were 15 in the apartment. It was a great party though, with delicious food, lots of languages being thrown around, and an ample amount of champagne. Then I walked my friend Sarah home and had tea with her and her insane kitten, came back home and started working on the load of borrowed books.

Saturday, I went to the market, had coffee with Michaela and Katie, went to the bazaar market, and then home to put away groceries, write, and take a shower. I got a call from Jay inviting me to Montsegur, a cathar castle that I have been REALLY wanting to visit (I even read a book about it!), but unfortunately the times wouldn't work out because I had to back in town for a dinner party at 6, and he wanted to stay longer than that and do a hike. That was disappointing, especially since I haven't seen Jay in weeks, and he's moving to Toulouse at the end of the month. Oh, well, I'll see him soon, and I can go to the castle another time. Then I hung out and wrote and then I had a dinner party at my friend Anne's house, with my new friend Linda and a young couple who have an 18 month old baby, Ella. We ate SO much and drank lots of good red wine, and it was a merry party all around.

On Sunday, I did absolutely nothing except read, write, go for a walk, and eat dinner with Jana. Then I wrote some more and read and went to sleep. That brings us to today! See, my life isn't always glamorous trips to Spain. Most of it is just hanging out, going to the gym, and seeing friends. Like Portland. But without the rain.