Snoeshoes, picnics, queen, pastries

the rentals (and renter).

ice skates & skaters

This week of infinite speed, and its brief resumé:

Saturday, after my whirlwind baking, some of the other assistants came over for tea and then we went to see an intense film called “Welcome,” the story of an Iranian teenager who is desperate to get to England by any means possible, even by swimming the English channel. It was so uplifting that later in the evening, the only film I found the courage to watch was “Billy Elliott.”

Sunday morning, 8:30am. It was grey and raining, but I layered on my long johns and workout clothes, and Sylvain & I headed off to Mont-Dore, a ski station just outside of Clermont-Ferrand (about a 2-hour drive from here) that is significantly larger than any ski station I have ever seen. It was foggy and partially snowing when we arrived, and when craning our necks all the way back, we could only see half the hauteur while the rest disappeared behind the mist.

We rented racquettes (snoeshoes) and established our craziness in a tangible way, climing UP the mountain, while everyone else was taking advantage of gravity and whooshing downward. After about an hour of sweating beneath the layers and dodging on-coming traffic like MarioKart on a vertical expressway, we stomped over to a patch of perfectly pristine snow just behind a closed run, and ate a picnic lunch of goat cheese & ham sandwiches with chocolate-apple cake for dessert.

Another hour of trudging along more reasonably-sloping runs, and we had basically racquette-ed ourselves out. We returned our rented equipment, and headed into the lower-elevated town to see what we could find. There was an enclosed patinoire just near the bowling alley, and we decided, in sticking with the winter spirit, to test our skills on the ice.

It was a total blast! We figure-eighted our way around, and fell a few times, and laughed anlot, and then walked away mostly undamaged. We stopped at a café not far down the street for a chocolat viennois (hot chocolate with whip cream on top!) and then put our faith back in the French version of Magellan (Marcel?) who got us safely back, with only a few moments of hilarity and panic in between.

Monday and Tuesday passed quickly, as I spent the days at school. I came home to make a card for Louisianne, an American assistant who was celebrating her 23^rd birthday that night, before heading off to the teacher’s lounge for a celebration of the galette du roi.

This is one of my favorite French traditions, because it involves royalty and cake. For the 6^th of January, the Ascension, boulangeries all over the country begin selling these flaky, round cakes usually made with frangipan. They have a very sweet flavor, and can contain all kinds of different things from chocolate chips to fruits and nuts. The one thing that remains constant is that each cake has a little fève inside, usually a porcelain figurine, and the idea is that whoever receives the slice with the fève inside becomes the queen or the king for the day. Every cake is sold with a paper crown (Burger King style haha) and this is often just a good excuse for people to get together again.

I was lucky enough to find a small dog in my piece and wore my crown with pride.

We stayed until 7:30 and then rushed over to Louisianne’s for her birthday dinner. She made traditional chicken gumbo (without ham, for our friend who doesn’t eat pork) and it was deliciously hot! We met her Quebecois roommate, and ate delicious salmon and spinache quiche (à la Sylvain), and chocolate cake that I whipped up (thanks to a box mix, some eggs, and some butter) for dessert.

L had put her iTunes on shuffle during the dinner, and it made me laugh as we listened to “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog” in the middle of France, while eating Louisiana chicken gumbo, with a small-scale representation of the United Nations.

Wednesday morning came way too soon, after getting home at midnight the night before. My three morning classes were stressful, but okay, and then I spent the afternoon in a three-hour meeting. It was kind of interesting, but most of the problems they discussed were the same ones I’ve heard discussed at every school I’ve worked in. Technology is always tricky because it’s unreliable, and learning to use it efficiently is the key – otherwise, people resist it because it creates more work. The question of individualized education is always discussed, too, as teachers waver between the ideal situations and the realities, and try to come to some kind of workable solution. I was happy to understand mostly everything, and to be as equally bored as I would have been in any other staff meeting in America.

I went to the gym straight from school, arriving just in time to use their disgusting bathroom to change, and then to lance myself into an hour of leg-raises, squats, and sit-ups. After a quick shower, I went into the kitchen and used up the rest of everything I had to eat – a zucchini, a package of mushrooms, three cloves of garlic, an onion, and two carrots. Louisianne brought over a can of curry sauce that I dumped into the vegetable mix, and we ate the mixture over a fluffy bed of white rice.

Two squares of dark chocolate for dessert and a sink-full of dishes later, my night was basically over, the French-language processing element of my brain totally used up, and every muscle in my body sore; in short, it was the perfect conditions for ensuring a good night's sleep.