Lackhead.org

Greetings from Tours yo!

Yes, I’m sitting here at l’Institut de Touraine having finished my first day in Tours. From the looks of things I should be able to post images from here, so hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a photo or two up here.

Today has been a loooong day, and not just because I got about an hour’s sleep last night (combination of weird sleep schedule, a long afternoon nap, and perhaps a bit of nerves). It all started out like any good vacation, with an exam that kicked my trash something good. This test will determine which class I will be placed in, so the questions ranged from fairly easy to “who am I supposed to be, Moliére?” Honestly, I don’t think it will matter too much which class rank I make, as I’m already getting tons and tons of practice in, more conversation today than in all my classes so far combined, and today was just the test and a tour of the city! But today wasn’t super exciting, at least compared to last night.

Yesterday I flew from Stanstead, London, direct to Tours. I was pretty worried as Ryan Air’s fees for overweight bags are massive (about $11 per pound), and my bag, despite the over-stuffedness of my backpack, was still about 8 pounds overweight. Luckily they didn’t charge me for the extra poundage and I arrived in Tours a bit less poor than anticipated. What wasn’t expected was being met at the airport by mon père français, Bernard. I had sent M. Chaigne (Bernard! he insisted) email before I left the states saying that I would take the bus into town, and I hadn’t heard back from them, but hey, free ride- woo-hoo! Bernard and Colette are wonderful people- they have had students from the Institute for years and have the routine pretty much down pat, including talking slowly, having lots of patience, and having all the rules and needs for cohabitation sussed out in advance. In fact, I am just one of several students they are housing right now; the others being a Kuwaiti named Fahad, an American girl who is out of town right now and whose name I don’t remember, and a fourth student who is apparently arriving this week. I have my own room and shower on the far side of Colette’s painting studio, a bit removed from the rest of the house, which is just perfect (pictures soon!)

I spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly through the Sunday market that crops up on Boulevard Béranger, which is the main thoroughfare 1/2 block from my house (the market also runs on Wednesdays). After a lovely dinner of a sorrel omelet (looking up a French word and finding “sorrel” as the English word didn’t help much), accompanied by local mushrooms and followed by fresh strawberries, Fahad took me out to a cafe. Turns out we went to one of the local Arab cafes where we met up with a bunch of his friends from the Institute. Pretty soon I was surrounded by a wonderful group of guys who were smoking Turkish tobacco from nargilahs, drinking tasty, sweet mint tea, and trying to communicate with me via bi-directionally garbled French. The big joke of the night was that Masoud, who is rooming with three American girls (a circumstance he finds unfortunate, methinks), was going to take us all over to his house so we could fight over who was going to marry them! Ha! Being Moslem, none of them date before getting married, so perhaps a proposal is like a first date. Hmmmm….perhaps that wasn’t so much of a joke after all! Seriously though, what a nice and inviting group of people. And how refreshing it is to leave America and the politics behind, and wind up in the middle of a bar in a foreign country, an American surrounded by Moslems, feeling totally welcome and at ease. Chouette! Afterwards we walked through town, along the Loire, staying up way too late. Farad and I made it back home hozever, where I proceeded to stay up way too later reading and studying. Some things never change, I suppose. (ps- kudos to those of you out there that can translate “way too later” into French)

Tomorrow morning our test results should be posted so we can figure out what classroom to report to when we get to school. Yay. But, before that, I think I’ll head home for a quick run before dinner (I believe it is chicken with tofu for me). Bernard and Colette hosted a vegan student obnce before, and they said it was hard coming up with stuff to make for her. After that experience, they said, un végétarien normal n’est pas de problème! so hopefully the diet thing will work out.

So, à bientôt mes amis, hopefully I’ll get some photos online tomorrow.

Peace out yo,

-c

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.