September 28, 2010 - 11:00pm
The apartment is attached to the school and juts out like a cute, cottage-like little tumor. The window on the left is my bedroom. It’s entirely furnished by the teachers’ donations, which is both a blessing and a curse. Woo French social collectivism! We’ve got a lovely little fridge, bed frames, kitchen table, and Françoise has even picked up and restored a big toaster oven (though it's still in the trunk of her car); but there are no mattresses yet because the professor who loaned them in the past took them when he moved away, and the TV gathering dust in the closet definitely looks like it could date back to the French Revolution.All of the apartment’s utilities are tied to the school, which in some ways is nice: I don't have to worry about water, gas, and electricity, since they are included in my rent. But since the Lycée du Forez is éco-responsable, they don’t turn heat on until October, no matter how cold it gets. And it has certainly gotten chilly, in the low 40’s at night. Even during the day it’s only getting up into the high 50’s and low 60's, and everyone’s all bundled up going to and from classes. Last night was pretty rough, though. Like the students and teachers in the school, I’m pretty much in a scarf and light jacket all day, even to go to sleep. The bedding has just a basic blanket, so I piled a couple sweaters, a big scarf, and my heavy winter coat on top, put on mittens, and tried to sleep. I should have listened to Adam Shirley and taken the time to go find wool socks. Or thermal underwear. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for an electric blanket. It’s supposed to get a little bit better when the heat comes on, but a letter left by the last assistant tells me that it’s still pretty cold in here even when the radiators are functioning, and to prepare myself for some nice sub-zero weather in winter.
Hopefully he’s over-exaggerating, though! This is also the past assistant who told me Feurs was a drab town with nothing to do unless you’re into drinking with old Turkish men and betting on horse races, but so far I actually like it a lot. Yesterday (Monday) I made an expedition into town – about a 7 - 10 minute walk from the school – and was surprised to learn that everything was closed. Apparently nothing is open on either Sundays or Mondays in Feurs, but it was nice to get an opportunity to take some pictures without an excessive amount of people crowding them and to peer in some store windows when I otherwise would have gotten weird looks for doing so. It’s got an SFR office (phone company
), several banks (including BNP, which has a no-teller-fees deal with Bank of America, so that’s who I think I’m going to go with), a cinema, a pretty church (Notre-Dame de Feurs, shown on the left), and a somewhat absurd number of bakeries. There’s almost one on every block, sometimes two or
three within sight at a time.
This whole extended-weekend business did make it rather
difficult for me to eat last night (Monday) though, since all the stores are closed and the big supermarket, Carrefour, is too far away to walk to (and probably closed anyway).
I figured a few restaurants had to be open and that I’d rather spend a few euros more than I’d like than go hungry, so I walked back downtown that evening. But even finding an open restaurant proved to be