Bec d'Allier, Cendrillon, and Thanksgiving

Dear friends,

I’ve had quite a great week since my last post – lots to talk about! To start with, I mentioned in my last post that a couple other assistants and I were going to take a walk to the Panorama du Bec d’Allier, the place where the Loire and Allier rivers meet, a little ways out of Nevers. We set off last Sunday afternoon for our weekly walk, knowing that this one would be a little longer than normal. When we left, the sky was blue and the weather was nice, just a little bit windy… After walking for about an hour and a half, we finally reached the Bec d’Allier, and I think we were all slightly underwhelmed, although we were glad it was another thing we could check off the list. About 5 minutes after we turned around to start back to Nevers, we started feeling light raindrops. We were all wearing scarves, so we wrapped them around our heads and continued walking – not too big of a deal yet! Over the next 45 minutes, however, the light rain turned into an icy, apocalyptic, torrential downpour that resulted in all 4 of us getting absolutely soaked to the bone and freezing. We were finally so miserable that we actually stopped at a random house (out in the middle of nowhere, of course) to ask them if we could come in and use their phone to call a taxi – mostly just because we wanted to get out of the rain! Of course, as soon as we stepped inside, the rain stopped and a double rainbow appeared – great. It ended up being an older couple living there, and the husband ended up driving us the rest of the way back to Nevers; it was so nice!! From the comfort of my warm and dry living room, our Bec d’Allier promenade was a hilarious adventure, but at the time it was pretty awful!

It turned out that my other Tuesday school wasn’t striking, so I still had to work, but at least I got an extra-long lunch break! On Tuesday night I went to Never’s Maison de la Culture with Lizzi and Tish, 2 other English assistants, to see Cendrillon (Cinderella). It was being performed by the Geneva Ballet, and I think it was the most interesting interpretation of Cinderella I’ve ever seen! Cinderella was an Asian woman, and instead of a Fairy Godmother she had 5 men wearing nothing but tighty-whities (with wings sequined across the butt), fluffy white socks, and glitter all over their chests…. It also ended with Cinderella topless on stage and the Prince wearing only a jock strap. Like I said, it was interesting! It was a much more modern interpretation than I was expecting, but I still really enjoyed it – and will be laughing about it for a long time!

I didn’t really do anything on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving, but we did have a big Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment on Friday night for 11 people – all the Nevers assistants (as well as some out-of-town friends) – it was a smashing success! As I believe I mentioned in my last post, we had ordered a turkey from a butcher shop in town. I called them on Thursday afternoon to confirm that we still had a turkey and that we could pick it up on Friday morning. The man told me that yes, it would be ready for pickup on Friday morning, but that maybe it was a little bit bigger than what I had requested (I’d ordered one between 5 and 6 kilos, or about 12-13 pounds). Exactly how big was it, I asked. He told me they only had one turkey, but that it was 9 kilograms – almost 20 pounds!! (It was also going to cost €90 – that’s like a $130 turkey, as a reference point) Because we neither needed a turkey that enormous nor had €90 to spend on one, we decided to scrap the “turkey-as-the-main-dish” idea and get a chicken instead. We still had turkey – 2 turkey tenderloins – and all was well! We also had sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, green salad, green beans, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and brownies. Everything was delicious, and it was really fun to share such a quintessential American holiday with our English, German, and Costa Rican friends.

Right now I’m looking forward to the next few weekends, as we have lots of fun things planned. Next weekend a few of us are off to Lyon for the weekend for the Fête des Lumières, then the Saturday after that we’re going to Orléans for the day, and then the next weekend our Christmas break starts! I’ll be spending Christmas with an aunt, uncle, and 2 cousins in Bedford, about an hour outside of London.

That’s really all the news I have for now, hope all is well avec vous!