bon nuit, bonjour

Yesterday was a day of water and flowers, flies and gypsies, and sun. Lots of sun. But then again, every day is full of sun, (en français, soliel), because right now in Tours, it is dark for only 8 hours a day - the sun does not set until around 10 pm and rises around 6am.

The morning and part of the afternoon was filled by mon classe français, during which we talked about ourselves - how old are you, what is your name, where were you born, what is your nationality...do you like cats...how much do you make a year(to which i answered,-40,000 dollars) ...then we learned the proper way of asking someone if they were single, to which one replies, if answering in the affirmative, "oui, je suis celebataire"...which of course sounds terribly monk-ish, or for the sans-virginity obsessed, quite ghastly...

----for the past 10 minutes, this girl next to me has been watching on youtube a series of prokofiev's violin concertos while flinging her head to every dramatic beat.. resulting in her long hair flicking my arm...oop, there it goes...flick..flick...flick...one moment please while i grab some sheers...
----

BACK. :)

Then we had to guess the answers to the aforementioned questions in regards to our teacher, a 34 year old Parisienne divorcée who found cats comçi comça and played a little soccer - jouer au foot. Then we had to describe his caractère - which included his physical appearance - and someone in my group wanted to use le mot (the word) "skinny" which, in french, sounds quite uncomplimentary... "malgré." I found it reminiscent of, as we say in anglais, "emaciated," and did not want to offend, so I suggested that our group use a less negatively charged mot, hmmm, how about le mot "fit," a lovely euphemism for "skinny." The group agreed. So I looked up the french mot for "fit," in my handy dandy français-anglais dictionnaire, and waited for everyone else to finish.
Another group presented first, and sure enough, when it came to le caractère de Frédéric, they used that terrible word....
"Je suis malgré?!" Frédéric cried.
He gestured at our group, seeking some assurance, and looked straight at me...
"No, I stuttered...umm...tu es...propre." I was nervous at the sudden spotlight.
"Je suis...quoi?" (I am what?) asked Frédéric.
I could not tell if it was because he did not understand what I had said or if I had actually, in my haste, mispronounced "propre" so terribly that I had unknowingly thrown out some other mot from my little saucer of French babble
"Um....propre?" I responded.
"Un phrase complète, s'il vous plait" (a complete phrase, please).
"Tu es propre?"
"What?" cupping his ear.
"TU ES PROPRE!"
"Propre? What is propre?"
And now i didn't want to say it because I had finally realized how shady it would seem if I were telling my single, french teacher, "I think you are fit..."


So after unintentionally hitting on my language instructing and learning how to pick up Pièrres, I went to la musée de beaux-arts, which is about a 10 minute walk from L'institut de Touraine. The museum itself, I found mediocre, but I loved the garden and lay out in the sun for an hour, until I was woken up by a drone of clear-colored flies. So I got up and I walked amongst the wild roses (I think they are becoming my new favorite flower) pink and white and cream and yellow and peach wild roses. I reached an old stone, vine-covered wall. Apparently an elephant used to live behind that wall...

In the wall, there was a wooden gate with a small key-hole filled with spiderwebs. I sat on a bench facing the gate and thought about the Secret Garden, Fairy stories, and nymph tales. My mind really wanted to form a new idea for a children's story but could not come up with a good plot. I just got more and more frustrated with my writer's block (which has been standing strong ever since my arrival) until it was time for me to go home and change for my first French Rotary Club meeting - also, a couple appeared next to me and started making out...and no one wants to see that, especially if they are both old and ugly...

so I walked to center city - centre ville, hopped on the bus, arrived home, and took a hot shower with my new French pommegranate conditioner which apparently is now all the rage...

... but as soon as I was ready to head out the door, I got a phone call from the president of the Tours club, who told me that this week's meeting would be extremely short and that i should come to the next one prepared to give a 15 minute speech in French about my hopes for the future relationship between France and America ....after I expressly told him - JE NE PARLE EN FRANçAISE BIEN ...
Indeed, I felt pretty screwed. So I grabbed my kicks and went on a looong run.

I've been told by a few other students not to go along the rivière ( specifically the Loire River) by myself if I could help it, especially not at night. But this advice was too reminiscent of the advice given to me during my freshmen year at Penn regarding West Philly....and it was not yet night.... so I went running along the rivière.
And it was très jolie! There were lots of gypsies and guys with dreadlocks (perhaps gypsies w dreadlocks?) along the bank, and they looked like they were having so much fun that I wanted to join them. But I'm not yet completely crazy so I practiced some self control and minded my own business. Luckily, soon one of them stopped to speak w me - he shouted out in French, "Hey, what you're doing there looks hard,"...(thank you? I know Im sweaty but I've been running for an hour in hot weather which is prob more than you can say for yourself.... and he was, at first a little creepy, but then turned out to be quite delightful - he asked me if I was having a good time, to which I gave a long response that he understood (!!!!!!!) and then asked me if I would like a cup of coffee, which I was obliged to decline. I continued on my way and got lost in a quartière (but it was okay because i was able to amuse myself with the loveliest narrow cobblestone streets), and an hour before dark, unintentially found my way back to the foot of the main bridge.

There on a old wooden bench sat a homeless man I had seen on the first day of my arrival in Tours. He wore a faded blue tie and carried a plastic bag from one of the most expensive stores in the city.
"Bon nuit!" I told him.
He looked up - it was beginning to dusk. "Bon nuit," he responded, and after a second, added, "Et bonjour."
After a moment's hesitation, "Bonjour," I responded, turned, and ran back home.

"Just as well," I thought to myself. After all, in Tours, it is dark for only 8 hours a day.