Saying Goodbye

Saying goodbye to Tours, I wanted to write a post on some of the things I have done during my time here that haven’t warranted a post, but made up my life as I lived here.

These include:

Cooking Brittany style crepes, made with buckwheat flour and super delicious. I eat them with eggplant, zucchini and cheese or with egg and cheese and I am still surprised that they are not disgusting. Buckwheat flour, I mean, come on. But there is something different about it here, it’s less… chunky. Or something ridiculous like that.

Going salsa dancing with a French boy and girl, a South American girl and a Spanish girl. All of whom can actually move their hips in the way that you are supposed to while salsa dancing. Have never felt that tall or awkward. They are all pretty short. But it was awesome fun, here were drinks and rest breaks that involved watching all the other amazing dancers wiggle across the floor.

Christmas with my sister and three friends, showing them around my town and going off to see a chateau and wandering around IKEA. Decorating my little studio with our found Christmas tree and the amazing Christmas lunch that we made. We had to eat in the main house in order to cook it and eat it properly.

How much I had missed my sister and the excitement of her arrival. We had lunch at Brigitte and Holley’s, with some people from the neighbourhood. Our 85 year old neighbour came; she doesn’t look a day over 60. There’s something in the water.

New Year in Paris. Being a tourist. Sailing little wooden boats in the park. Eating falafels and bagels. Bastille, one of my favourite neighbourhoods. Spending five hours looking around Musée d’Orsay, sending half our group mad with hunger. My friend Niki giving voices to the beaten down Parisian cars while walking home after drinks. New Years, with the rain, the dancing, the Irish bar and the drunkenness. Aretha Franklin's Respect at midnight. The point during those five days that I realised my French had gotten better. Sitting in cafés with my friends. Navigating Paris- “Oh, it looks like it will be twenty minutes!” It wasn’t.

Girls and I in Paris

Visiting Chambord, Chenonceau and Blois. Chambord is the biggest chateau, huge and amazing. Charlotte (Brigitte’s daughter), her friend Paula and I took a day trip out there and while they took the guided tour, I wandered around these giant halls, warming myself on the big open fires. It was a cold, cold day. I saw Chenonceau with my boyfriend, the chateau that Henri II gave to his mistress and when he died, his wife took back. It crosses the Loire, the line of occupation, and was a rebellion vantage point during the war. And Blois, just last weekend, with my friend Sarah- the chateau and the incredible magic house. We saw a magic show which was so sweet and so typically French- or, at least, the image you get before coming here. And of course, the mechanical dragons that pop out the windows every hour.

Charlotte and Paula at Chambord

Dinners with classes. Trying out terrible, halting French and having them love it. Their realisation that I am definitely not the confident girl from class when I have to switch languages.

The Tours chocolate festival and giving myself severe sugar coma. Gigantic brownies and macaroons and chocolate crepes and deliciousness. I went with Sarah, my friend who is an American assistant, and we bought up, sat down, talked for an hour or two about the French and their craziness (very welcome after a few weeks of it).

Picard, the store in France where everything is frozen. It is literally a store of freezers.

Marking papers on stem-cell research and reading “some diseases severed people” when the student was talking about spine injury. Being told that the best teachers are beautiful (?). Performing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ for my class. Hearing “he eats cats” instead of “he hates cats”. Being asked if my boyfriend was a “waster” (waiter). Watching plays put on by students about everything from a brawl over a bad haircut to a pirate ship being stranded on the desert island where Dobby and Rambo live.

Walking the dog around this beautiful place.

The snow.

Carnival, my last day at school, all the students dressed up and competed for best costume I heard one of the best versions of “Feelin’ Good,” sung live by a student. I said goodbye to these great kids that I had spent time with over the last months.

That girl in the front, she's a cloud.

 All my friends, the teachers, the students.

The morning I left, saying goodbye to Brigitte and Holley