Weekends in Feurs

...aka, how best to retain sanity when stores are all closed and the school's internet is turned off. I thought for a moment that we'd been misinformed when the internet was working on Saturday morning (or at least what little part of Saturday morning I was awake for; I still seem to be compensating for my sleepless first week), but it turns out that's just because some schools in France are open on Saturday mornings. After lunch it was gone, and my sleeping in also meant I missed the Saturday morning farmer's market. It's actually kind of nice being out of touch with the world, since it gave me a chance to get out and explore when I might otherwise have been squandering my time trying to keep up with the abysmal UGA game.

We had absolutely gorgeous weather this weekend (sunny, windy, 73 degrees... just perfect), so that was even more reason to get out of the house and go explore. I went for a run along the Loire after finding the path that runs alongside it, though as of yet my sad attempts at marathon training have been more of the relaxing variety with frequent pauses to take pictures. I don't think this Loire trail is the 15km one I'd heard about, though, since it dead-ends after about 20 minutes rather than looping back around, so hopefully there is another one to discover.

After my run, Fanny and I had lunch and then went for a walk. Meals here have been very healthy so far. We basically just throw some veggies together (boiled carrots or potatoes, sliced tomatoes, etc., all from the farmer's market), accompany it with bread and butter and/or cheese, then have fruit and yogurt (ok, and nutella or honey...) for dessert. Fanny eats fish but is not very fond of other kinds of meat, so I may buy some tilapia or tuna at tomorrow's market and try to find an interesting way to cook it. I sense that I'm very quickly going to get spoiled off the farmer's markets and am glad that weekly markets have started infiltrating US towns, even though I didn't have the good sense to take advantage of the ones in Athens before I left.

Our leisurely stroll turned into more of a cross-country hike in flip-flops, as the plan to venture east from the school then cut back around to the north and then west towards home was thwarted by no roads or paths going north until we'd reached Salvizinet, a little town 4km away from Feurs. Rather than turning back, we thought to continue with the plan to circle back to Feurs via Civens, which was another 4km from Salvizinet and from there another 4km back to Feurs. After having already run an hour that morning, the prospect of another 12km was not entirely enticing... but hey, I'm training for a marathon, right? Suck it up, Myers. There were plenty of curious cows to keep us company (check out the guy on the left with the wonky horn). We did find a shortcut that let us cut out Civens, so it wound up being probably a 9km or 10km walk.

I had my first official classes today, though they were much like the one I "helped out" with last week. In each class, the professor told the students to ask me questions about myself and the United States, and each time I was met with awkward silence until I finally just decided to start talking and asking them some questions, though even then it was hard to elicit a response. They do seem to be very nice kids, though, just very shy and not sure of their English and probably having some difficulty with my American accent. Most of the professors -- if they've managed to throw off their French accents when speaking English -- have British accents, so it's understandable that I might be hard to comprehend at first. The first two classes I had were beginning English classes and they were very much deer in the headlights whenever I said more than one sentence at a time, but the latter two classes were more advanced and willing to talk, though it still took lots of prompting. This week and next week I'm just observing the classes and meeting the students, but after that I'll start teaching my own lessons, which is still a bit of an intimidating prospect at this point.

My 7:00 cut-off approaches, so I'll close with a better picture of the lycée and my apartment. Off to the left of the school is a track, and behind it is some motocross tracks; to the right of the frame, across the street, is a public gymnasium. Being attached to the school, our front door is a popular hangout for smoking (or, even better, making out) teenagers on breaks between classes, and we keep startling them by opening the door and coming out... mwahahaha.