Yesterday was a pretty good day, all around. I had a class at two, but nothing leading up to it. So, Lucy had asked me if I wanted to go down to Eurodif, a discount store by the gare. I told her we should go around 10 a.m., and so we did. It ended up that all four of us went: Lucy, Joanna, Chris, and me. After wandering around Eurodif for a bit, Lucy bought some things and the rest of us left.
We met up with Liz for lunch. We ate at a place on the "snack" street called Batata, which serves baked potatoes in a fashion quite similar to McAlister's, although I don't think they're quite as large or quite as good. I'm not a huge fan of the place, but I suspect we'll go there several more times since it's pretty cheap and very filling.
I went to class at 2. Mme. Renault left me with six of her students and some vague instructions to talk to them for an hour. We talked about Harry Potter and Desperate Housewives, on each of which Mme. Renault had given me a handout, and then we talked about other tv shows and movies that have come out recently. These junior high kids speak English better than I speak French, hands down. It's rather disheartening.
At five p.m. yesterday we had a meeting at the Mairie (or Mayor's place, also known as the "Hôtel de Ville") where two women and William Lopez-Palacios, the guy who's pretty much in charge of us, talked to us about cultural exchange, extracurricular English teaching options. I have not yet decided if I'll do that, but it seems like it could be a lot of fun.
After that meeting, which was not at all what any of us expected it to be, we bout a couple of pizzas from a kiosk that some of the others recommended, and ate them for dinner. It's been cool here lately, and when I left home yesterday, I was prepared for it to be cool. The entire time we were sitting at the dinner table eating pizza, however, I was FA-REEEEZZZZINNNGGG!!!! It's hard to know how to dress to be the right temperature the whole time you're outside here, but I think that's probably a result of the changing season more than the location.
After we ate dinner, five of us (Chris, Michelle, Elvria (the new Russian girl), Lucy, and I) went back to the Wohoo for drinks and to hang out. None of us had class today, so it was a good time to go out. After the Marseille soccer (futbol) team beat whoever they were playing, they started playing music, and we danced a bit. In the process of dancing, we encountered a handful of overly intoxicated Englishmen who were highly entertained to meet non-French people. Lucy and I left shortly before midnight to come home, and I heard the others come in around one p.m.
Today, I slept in. It's good to have a day off in the middle of the week. A fairly large group of us went to Carrefour, which is a store kind of like Walmart that seems to be a pretty big international chain, and to Décathalon, a sporting goods store. At the latter of the two, I bought two pairs of knit pants to wear to dance tomorrow night. The stores were both reasonably priced, but I really have just about everything I can think of that I need.
We came back and went to Michelle's place to make dinner. I've been telling Chris that he has to have biscuits, because his perception of biscuits is that they are a dessert thing. So, I made biscuits that tasted kind of like savory crêpes (galettes), a sausage gravy that wasn't exactly gravy, and delicious mashed potatoes. It was better overall than my soup, but that's more because I didn't burn it and less because I knew what I was doing.
After all that, I came home. I just finished putting together a presentation on Jackson for one of my classes tomorrow. If you have any thoughts about things I need to add/be sure to include, feel free to let me know. Now, though, I'm up too late (again) and think I will go to bed.
I assume all is well back home. I enjoy getting emails from everyone, and hope you keep sending them my way!
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