Hello all! The past two days have been great -- I've met lots of new people and seen/done a few new things. First, for Sunday:
On Saturday afternoon Charly asked if I would be interested in accompanying him to the vide-greniers (collective garage sale/flea market) the following morning. He and Steph had already mentioned that they frequently go to the ones which are held on Sundays in and around Besançon to look for video games and books, respectively. I obviously have nothing to offer in the video games-advice department, but I thought it might be an interesting experience, so I agreed to tag along. I actually ended up buying a book, Le Premier Jour by Marc Levy. I also bought a set of Allemand pour les Nuls (German for Dummies) CDs. The set was new (still in the wrapping) and I thought it might be a neat way to complete my "learn a third language in a second language" goal. Obviously this one is a bit humbler than my original, world-famous-language-institute plan, but at 2 euros, you really can't beat the price!
So we left our house around 8am (Charly and I, Steph was at her family's house) and drove east for about 10 minutes. There were about 50 vendors set up selling all of the typical flea market items: clothes, books, jewelry, sundry electronics. There were also a few less-predictable items: a giant donkey statue, tires, headlights from a car (but not at the same table as the tires), board games, boat keychain fobs, and more. Charly suggested we go methodically down one side and return by the other. About halfway there was a food vendor's table set up and we each bought a piece of gâteau au ménage, which is apparently a regional pastry. It's a sweet bread, a cross between cake and bread, with a thin layer of sugary glaze on top. Very tasty! We continued, and eventually Charly found what for him constituted a jackpot: a Sega console and 10 games. He bought the console for 25 euros, pleased because he is planning to sell it online for 40.
We were at the first vide-grenier for about 45 minutes, and then drove to another on the other side of Besançon (but equidistant from our house, about 10 minutes). The vendors were much more concentrated here, but I didn't find anything and Charly bought only one game, a Lemmings game. We also ran into Charly's uncle, who lives near by and collects stamps. Sort of an interesting mix of people at the vide-grenier: lots of families, some older people, but mostly younger ones. Charly pointed out one professional vendor, but most of the people there appeared to be locals just trying to clean out their closets and basements.
Sunday afternoon I also got to meet up with some other assistants -- Gemma (from Southampton, England) and Sean (from Helena, Montana), who are both assistants at the same high school in Planoise. I had coffee with these two on Saturday. At that point they were the 4rd and 5th people I knew in Besançon, so I was pretty excited. And then Sunday we met up with Candice (from Michigan). It's sort of nice getting to know people as they trickle in, rather than all at once as we will at the stage d'accueil (orientation) next Tuesday.
And then Monday: I had hoped to check out the horseback riding opportunities today, since so many other things are closed, but alas, the centres équestres (stables) were closed as well. Zut! So, it was pretty much the standard: run in the morning, breakfast, errands, reading, etc. But then I got some good news: details of the practice times/locations for the local Ultimate team. They have practice on Monday and Friday evenings and both locations are sort of in the middle of nowhere, so I asked if someone could give me a ride. Gaëtan, the club president, volunteered to pick me up on his way, at 7:45pm outside the gare. It took about 15 minutes to get there, and the practice took place on what they call terrain stabilisé. I could in no way find a translation for this, and I'd never seen sports intentionally played on gravel before, but that's basically what it was like. Smaller than gravel though, and dustier.
The club is called UC-Vesontio and there were about 18 of us there tonight (including 3 other girls and me). Apparently the club is 5 years old, but most of the team members haven't been playing that long. Gaëtan told me on the way over that they recently lost a lot of veteran players and have acquired a bunch of rookies, so there's a pretty big disparity amongst different players in terms of knowledge of the game. The practice was similar to any I've ever done: warm-up, drills and then a scrimmage.
Between the drills and the scrimmage though, the two captains called everyone over and began describing some of the basics. However, instead of using a dry-erase board, they used .... Lego men. Seriously! Someone set down cones in a not-at-all-to-scale representation of the field, they plopped down a Frisbee (with one of the handlers' tiny tiny hands touching it) and proceeded to explain a vertical stack, cutting, etc. I can't remember the last time I wanted my camera so badly... the two captains crouched around these little Lego men was hilarious! It was actually pretty effective though, or at least I thought the explanation was clear.
So then we played!! It was a perfect evening -- in fact pretty much since last Monday, when it rained all day, the weather has been unbelievably great. It's cool, around 55 degrees in the morning, gets up to about 70 at noon, then slowly cools down again. The air is crisp with little humidity. So despite the less than desirable surface, the conditions were really great.
And the players were very friendly! When they heard I was from the US everyone assumed I was studying at the fac (short for faculté, meaning university). I know the 3 other girls are still in school, and I would guess lots of the other players are too. There was one older guy there, but the average age was probably early 20s. Overall, the evening was a huge success. It felt great to play again; although I was really tired by the end. We did drills, then 3v3, then a scrimmage for about an hour with 2 subs for each team, and I'm out of shape! I'm definitely going to go back for the indoor practice on Friday.
I'm worried that I'm going to be awfully sore tomorrow. The only reason it might be unpleasant is that walking is actually one of my scheduled activities: around noon I'm taking a train to Leisle, a little town only about 20 minutes away. There I'm meeting up with the family of my high school physics teacher's sister (yes, a little tenuous, I know). She invited me over for lunch and a "walk in the forest." I'm very excited! Before that, I'm meeting with my liaison for the school where I'll be teaching, she's the woman who will introduce me to the proper people on Monday when I start. All this adds up to a busy day, so I'd better go to bed.
(PS I know I fudged a little on the word count, I hope you'll forgive me!)
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