Yay! I'm going to have a place to live! (Well, kind of)

I have arrived in Mayenne, which is the town that I am going to call home for the next year. It seems like a cool little town. It is not as small as I had expected, and it has a lovely mix of old and new buildings--there is even a castle that has parts of it that were built in the 10th century! There is also a river that runs through the center and there are lots of boats and things. I find both of these things exciting mainly because Tucson has neither a) old buildings and b) surface water.

On top of the prettiness, there seems to be lots of outdoors things to do. There used to be a rail system that connected all the small towns in this region, but they were take off the grid because they were losing money. The cool thing is that they covered over the tracks and now you can walk, run, or bike to any of the small villages that are nearby along these smooth shady pathways. There are also all sorts of small trails that go by the river and the resevoir that will provide excellent places to run. I even discovered on an exploratory walk that their is a climbing gym (not a great one, but it's a gym, so I'm not complaining)--if only there was an ultimate team I would be perfectly content (and if only I weren't so terrified of high school students). But as far as the town itself goes, it looks like are definitely activities to do. Mind you, I still have to make friends and meet people, but having potential activities is a step.

I have also made contact with the head English teacher at the high school, who has been immensely helpful with logistical stuff. He has even found me not one, but two families who would like me to rent a room in their house for the year, and now I must make a decision between the two. I am thinking of devising some sort of gameshow-like series of tasks that the two families must complete in order to determine who I will live with. I might base it off the episode of the Office where Michael tries to make everyone compete for his job. I am sure this will make me lots of friends very quickly.

Contrary to what is to be expected of French people, most of the people I have met here have been wonderfully helpful. We were lost in Carnac last week and a man literally walked from the hotel to the bike rental shop we were trying to find. When we checked into the hotel in Mayenne yesterday afternoon, the owner of the hotel told asked us where we were from and what we were doing in Mayenne and when I told him that I would be here all year long he told me that I had to meet his American friends. When we went down to the restaurant for dinner the friends were in the bar and we all ended up having dinner together with the owners of the hotel. It was actually quite entertaining and it was nice to know that I will have some people to call who are nearby if I am in a panic. It was also very kind of the owner of the hotel to arrange the whole thing.

Anyhow, right now things are looking up, but seeing as I haven't started actually working yet, I shouldn't get too optimistic. At the very least I know that even if I am a horrible teacher that there will be things to distract me...