Tuesdays

Tuesday is my earliest day-- I catch a bus around 6:30.  Stepping out into the still-dark morning is a special feeling that often transports me back to rowing practice, when I would be on the water to watch every day unfold. I miss it and it must be prominent in my subconscious because I still dream about rowing.

So, down the street to the bus stop, then the metro, then another bus-- I'm not thrilled with public transportation as opposed to having one's own car, but at least it's cheap in Toulouse.  For young people, it's only 10 euros/month for unlimited bus and metro rides. That looks really good compared to, say, Paris' prices.  The commute takes an hour: on the way there, I nap; on the way back, I read.  I ride to a suburban town called St. Orens, to the high school:

I teach three classes: one of nine sophomore boys who are a bit boisterous and hard to motivate, but they do what I ask, make me laugh, and are altogether intelligent and respectful so I don't mind.  Another is the ideal class: five students, docile, but engaged...

I eat lunch in the cafeteria.  The quality of the food isn't spectacular (it's a school cafeteria) but I find the French-ness of it amusing: a hot main course (like ratatouille), a little salad-- usually including cheese or olives or anchovies or something equally absent in American school lunches-- neatly arranged, then a piece of fruit or a yogurt for dessert.  Everybody gets a mini-loaf of bread, like a baguette the size of your hand.  Today there was also goat cheese... There's two lines, one of which serves greasier food like french fries and one day was a special "American" day: hamburgers  (what else?).  Students never bring lunch to school.  Everyone buys.

In the early afternoon, I ride the bus downtown where I often go to the mediatheque: a 4-story, modern library with a very satisfactory collection of books, movies, music... and it's also a comfortable place to sit and study; I could easily spend all day there:

Last week I met my friend, Gabbie, at a brasserie (bar) and we had croque-monsieurs: the french version of a grilled cheese.  The cheese is grilled on top of the bread, with ham on the inside.  Of the two I've tried, I can't say that it's better than a homemade American version... It's definitely not one of the French's most refined gastronomical achievements, but it's a well-known quick lunch. 

Then we paroozed the little streets and shops; the French take the same approach to their stores as to their food: presentation is everything (except maybe in the case of the croque-monsieur).  We stopped at a couple colorful papeteries.  France produces a lot of high quality stationary...  So much beautiful blank paper almost makes my mouth water (if there was an equivalent expression for the hands twitching to write).

Gabbie in a papeterie

And that brings us to evening, when I go to my French class, where I try to improve in this here language... mardi a fini.

Mondays

I was going to write a post about "An Ordinary Day in Toulouse" or "A Day in the Life," but my weekly schedule is too varied to make it fit!  So instead, I'll go day-by-day, using last Monday as an example of an ordinary Monday in Toulouse.

It's my day off!  Gotta love three-day weekends.  It means I can spend Sunday at church, leisurely eating lunch at the pastor's house, drinking tea until early evening, not worrying about work the next morning.  That being said, Monday is my preparation day.  I do most/all of my lesson planning, which is admittedly minimal.  It usually consists of going to a handy website with a list of lessons assistants have used in the past and then tailoring them to fit my unruly classes versus my docile ones.

Last Monday, I ran errands. Not having eaten breakfast, I slipped into a boulangerie and glanced at the pastries behind the glass, looking for something I hadn't tried, and quickly chose un croissant aux amandes, a croissant with almonds.

Walking down the street with my treat, I wasn't prepared for my first bite-- !! it had no right calling itself a croissant.  This was a donut, a dessert, an inexplicable harmony of flakiness, sugar, cream, and I don't know what else.  I stopped in my tracks and resisted the urge to turn right around, go back, and buy three more for later.  I made a mental note of the bakery (although I've since discovered that this tongue-tantalizer is found in most patisseries).

I enjoyed the French architecture as I went about my business downtown:

 

On Mondays, I dine with Francoise and Lucien, my good friends and the most French people I know.  I can't help but notice the change since October-- I used to have to pay close attention to get the gist of the dinner conversation, whereas now I understand 98% of what they say without straining.  I usually come away with my language slightly refined or a few new phrases in my arsenal.  This week Francoise taught me the French equivalent of "the straw that broke the camel's back;" "la goutte d'eau qui fait deborder le vase," literally: the drop of water that broke the vase.

We start with tea, then the meal gets underway around 7:30.  It's strictly healthy, very simple, and plentiful.  Endive salad, vegetable soups, Parisian omelets, pot roast, duck or curried chicken, countryside specialties, occasionally.  It's here that I've been introduced to the most uniquely French foods and habits.  There's barely room in our bellies for our "infusions" afterward, the herbal tea that wraps up the night.  The combination of food, wine, warm drinks, and the ever-present humor leaves me with a happy heart every time.

Morning at Francoise and Lucien's house, from my first week in France.

Saint Valentin

Happy Valentine's Day.  People ask me if the holiday exists in France: yes, but not to the same extent.  I only started seeing publicity for it a week ago.  And what I saw was low-key: a few romantic ads at the bus stops, signs for Saint Valentin over the florist's, a few red hearts on the candy store window.  Today, red roses were placed at the forefront of the floral boutiques and chocolates were within easy reach at the grocery store.  It seems that Valentine's Day in France is practiced only by couples and the romantic-- it hasn't grown into the card-sending, teddy-bear-giving occasion for all ages that it has become in the United States.

This weekend, a friend invited me to a jewelry-making workshop at a woman's house, a woman whom I know from church and other events, like the card-making party.  We started by choosing the colors for our beads and rolling our clay.  Regressive learning, we were back in kindergarten!

The clay was put into a gun-like device and pushed out into this spaghetti.

We rolled nine beads of very precise size out of the same clay.

Wrapped the colored squiggles around the beads.

When all the beads were wrapped and rolled they were put into a toaster oven for half an hour.

After they were baked, we drilled holes through them with an electric drill, strung them, and voila.

The end result.

I don't have much to go with it, but the process was fun nonetheless! 

Week of Museums

A word on the post "When in Rome:"  I tried to do a parallel list of things, "Unlike the French," which would list the American habits I've retained.  All that came to mind were the things on my wall: a map of tourist destinations in the Midi-Pyrenees, and two posters of French bread and cheese. Pretty sure French people don't hang those up.  Other than that, I couldn't think of anything, which goes to prove one of three things: a) I've acclimated perfectly  b) the cultures aren't drastically different or c) we are often blind to our own ways.  If a French person were to observe me, maybe he could point out some distinctly non-European things I that do.

A week of museums:

Le Musée d’Histoire Naturelle: Looking at the gems, minerals, skeletons, taxidermied animals, and other natural wonders, the same thought kept reoccurring: there is nothing made or designed by mankind that God didn't think of first.  From the shape of pyrite, to the "unnatural" colors on a butterfly, to the glossy feathers of an Ibis, it's good to be reminded of the incredible variety and beauty on Earth.

Musée Saint-Raymond: busts and mosaics from antiquity, an underground nécropolis with tombs found on-site. Toulouse is an old, old place. (Did you know it was once capital of the Visigoth kingdom?)



Musée des Augustins: Fine art housed in a historic building:

 

Musee D'Ingres:  Last Saturday I took a train to Montauban, a town 30-minutes north of Toulouse that had its hey-day several hundred years ago.  Today its two claims to fame are its age (founded in 1144 as a fortified frontier city) and its museum.  The Musee d'Ingres houses art by Ingres, the neoclassical French painter whose most renown works I saw in Paris.  The museum is inside the old counts' chateau and I thought the basement was very interesting:

  

You could see tunnels and dark passages leading from the stairwells and through the walls to different parts of the castle.  Made me want to grab a torch and explore.

Montauban, on the River Tarn

Musee d'Ingres is the large building on the right with two corner towers.

La Fête de la Violette

Violets are the symbolic flower of Toulouse, just as tulips are the symbol of Amsterdam.  This weekend was the annual Violet Festival.

A bit of history: Violets have been grown in Toulouse since the 19th century and, before the widespread use of greenhouses for other flowers, they were the predominant winter flower, blooming from October to April.  In the early 1900s, Toulouse exported violets throughout Europe.  It was the favorite flower/scent of Napoleon Bonaparte's wife, Josephine.

The Festival was comprised of violet vendors selling, not only the flower itself, but a myriad of violet products.  If something can be made out of violets, it has been done!

crystallized violet candies
chocolate-covered violets, violet macaroons
violet bread, violet cake
violet lotion, violet soap
violet perfume, incense
syrup de la violette
liquor de la violette

And when the hundred uses of the flower have been used up, they take the pretty purple color and apply it to porcelain dolls, aprons, and table cloths.  A very pretty festival and very reminiscent of springtime.  It was a sunny 55 degrees today, so maybe it's not too far off!

When in Rome

"Learning about different cultures"... is such a cushy, 21st-century phrase-- I don't like it.  It brings to mind pacifist social studies teachers, out-of-context museum artifacts, and third-hand accounts of people groups I've never heard of... But humor me: ignore the boring connotation and don't roll your eyes when I say:  learning about different cultures is one of my favorite aspect of travel (that + thrilling new things + the undiscovered + the freedom of movement... but they all overlap, don't they?).   On-the-ground, real-life cultural learning is way cooler than it sounds.  People actually live differently-- and not only African tribes that carry things on their heads.

What better way to learn about cultures, than to do them?.. which brings us to the age-old adage: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. ((Often shortened to "When in Rome," as emphasized by Ron Burgundy...))*

So I set about analyzing how many ways of life I've actually adopted in France.  Am I really doing as the French do, or have I fallen back into my habitual American ways?
 
Like the French:

• I don't make pancakes, I make crepes.
• I don't buy salad dressing.  I improvise my own out of olive oil, vinegar, and salt.
• I haven't once bought sliced bread.  I buy it fresh, wrapped in a little piece of paper, not plastic.
• I bring my own bags to the grocery store-- if I didn't, I'd have to juggle everything home.  And I only buy as much as I want to carry half a mile and up four flights of stairs (more of a city habit than a French one).
• I cross my sevens and my ones have long tops.
• I write the date Day/Month/Year, not Month/Day/Year. 31/01/11
• The weeks on my calendar start with Lundi (Monday) and end with Dimanche (Sunday).
• Bread and cheese and red wine go together. I eat bread and cheese alone and something feels amiss.
• I've gotten used to eating dinner towards 7:30/8:00.
• I haven't worn a T-shirt or a sweatshirt in 4 months.   Every time I go out, I wear "real" clothes, make-up, and jewelry.  Only when I'm doing a lot of walking will I go out in sneakers.
• A decorative scarf is a permanent feature in my daily outfits.
• I give "la bise." Def.: the French habit of kissing on both cheeks when greeting and saying good-bye. Men greeting men can shake hands.  For women, it's always la bise. When arriving at a party/church service, it's normal to go around and give la bise to everyone-- a general "hi everybody," "bye everybody" usually isn't kosher (making greeting and farewell-ing in large groups a lengthy process).  The only time I think twice about la bise is when greeting a fellow North American-- we know it's foreign to us both, so do we do it?  Yes, we've decided that la bise is more comfortable than kissing everyone in the room and suddenly changing to a handshake.. that's just cold.

((A Will Ferrell reference for those of you too old or otherwise too preoccupied to watch Anchorman)).

tick tock.

Never underestimate a simple meal. The one I just had, for example: baguette- 85 cents, can of sardines- 75 cents, a couple leaves of lettuce for my greenage- negligible. But what a combination.  And don't turn your nose up on sardines; some Americans have an unnecessarily negative opinion of them.  When's the last time you ate some?  This baguette sandwich is new to me since coming to France, but already the taste is nostalgic: it's something I ate on my bike ride in October.  All I had to do was carry the can, stop at one of the countless boulangeries along the way for the baguette, and voila-- portable oblong goodness.  Tasting it again today brought me back to sitting on a stone wall overlooking the fields of le pays lauragais.

I don't miss American things (besides family and friends, bien sur).  I don't miss peanut butter or barbeque or Redbox movies or whatever else people usually miss while abroad.  Things here are still stimulating, even after 4 months; my mind can't miss what's lacking when there are 10x more things left to try. I'm already anticipating what I'm going to miss when I leave France.  I feel a sense of urgency; it makes me want to sprint down the street and return with armfuls of cheese and pastries! It's not all about the food (but a lot of it is). I'm going to miss the very French-ness of my surroundings.  I'm going to miss speaking French! ... My seven months in France are more than halfway over.  As a fellow assistant said, the first half is spent adjusting and the second is spent making up for lost time.  How true.  I wish I could get the sound of a ticking clock out of the back of my mind, but if it weren't there, would we ever get things done?  Would we ever stop talking about doing things, and just do them?

On that note, I have a museum to visit and a Bible study to attend.