Peanuts for Thanksgiving

So last week was Thankgiving. I almost forgot this because it is a hoilday that doesn't exist in France (obviously), and the only reason I remembered was thanks to dear old Facebook. Being the only American (as far as I know) in Mayenne, I wasn't really looking forward to this holiday, because, well, I didn't really have anything to look forward to. My host mom was working that night and I had to teach all day long. On top of that weather in France has become the way weather in France is supposed to be at this time of year--gray, rainy, windy and generally miserable. This is as opposed to November in Tucson which is glorious and soft and warm. Anyhow, in general it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving at all; by the end of the day, I was feeling very very homesick and all I wanted was to be with my (real) family.
My host mom is really very sweet. She knew it was Thanksgiving, and, as I mentioned, she had to work, but she decided that we would at least do a little apératif in honor of Thanksgiving. For those of you who don't know, an apératif is what the French call it when you have a little drink with snacks before dinner. So for Thanksgiving, I had peanuts and a kir (white wine +crème de cassis=yummy), which is not exactly conventional per se, but it's the thought that counts, right? Also, after dinner, my wonderful family called me from good old Tucson and simultaneously made me feel very jealous and very happy. It was really nice to hear from them, and really painful to hear in detail what exactly they were preparing for the meal.
The next day my host mom's cousin and good friend was coming to visit and she was very excited for him to come down, so she had got out these enormous cuts from a side of beef from that came from one of the happy cows that live in the region (she has friends who have cattle). I found this fairly unremarkable until she later explained that Pascale was going to cooks the cuts on the fireplace. For some reason, I was a little dubious this prospect--I'm a fan of barbecue, but for some reason the though of roasting meat on an open flame in the interior of your house seems positively medieval. Anyhow, the cousin came over but it was late in the evening, so we didn't really end up eating until about 10:30 or 11 at night, and the meat turned out to be excellent. Although, in typical French fashion, we didn't actually eat anything of vegetable origin with the meat. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to handle not eating vegetables on a regular basis. This is driving me crazy.
My family did, however drink copiously with meat and it was really fun seeing everyone let loose, except that after a certain point I have a hard time understanding without concetrating very hard and so I actually went to bed the first of anyone, including my 9-year old host sister. This is how I represent the US while I am here (party hard and briefly and then sleep!)

The towns here take Christmas decorations here really seriously. Since about early November I have slowly been seeing the preparations for the town Christmas lights go up all around town. I had mentioned to several colleagues and to my family that I was very excited to see them be lit and they said "ah but you have to go down to Laval to see their Christmas lights and their lighting ceremony, it is much better". Anyhow, realizing that my colleagues have lived in this region for some time, I realized that their advice was probably good advice and that I should probably go. The lighting was this weekend and I dutifully headed down to Laval to go and take a look.

As I was on the bus down to Laval, I was looking out the window and listening to music, and I thought to myself "Jesus, that rain is coming down hard. Very hard. I hope it's not like that tonight". It was probably one of the rainiest days we have had here yet. I arrived in Laval, and battled my way against the rain and wind to the Foyer, where the other assistants lived, and went and hung out with some of the Columbian Spanish language assistants for the afternoon. I kept an eye on the window and the rain did not let up. At 6:30 we bundled up to go outside and see the lighting, and the rain was pouring and the wind was howling just as much as it had been when I arrived. Unfortunately for us, we were all in that stupidly determined frame of mind where you are going to do something no matter what because you have been hearing about it for ages and it has to be good--right? Anyhow, about 12 of us left to walk to the bridge where they would be setting off fireworks and about 10 and 1/2 people's umbrellas immediately turned inside out. 5 minutes late everyone's umbrella who hadn't flipped inside-out the first time had turned inside out and about 5 people had had near fatal accident involving sudden umbrella collapse and those pesky metal poles that umbrellas are made out of. At no point did anyone suggest going back.

We finally got to the bridge where we going to watch the fireworks and huddled together for warmth. We had gotten there early to make sure that we were in a good place to watch (because this was really necessary given the weather conditions) and to freeze for a full ten minutes before the fireworks started, during which interval whatever remaining umbrellas were succesfully destroyed. This is how we looked:

The fireworks themselves were actually pretty cool. For starters, in France, they are much less concerned about liability issues such as people getting burned or lit on fire or damage to surrounding property. This meant that the fireworks were launched of a boat on the river that was right next to a row of house and probably about 50 feet from the bridge we were standing on. It was cool being so close to the action and seeing the nearby apartments and wondering vaguely if they were going to sustain any sort of fire damage. On top of this, the wind was so bad that all the fireworks were being blown around quite a bit as soon as they were launched. This meant that gold one that leave the long trails left really cool trails that tracked across the sky. In all, the show lasted about 20 minutes, which would have been great if we weren't freezing our asses off.

With the show finally over, we miserably trekked to O'Regan's, the local Irish pub, and started drinking large quantities of vin chaud to warm up. The rest of the night was pretty much your average night out except for one event, which may have been the highlight of my life (ok, fine, maybe that is an overstatement, but it was very cool). We had gotten a deck of cards from the bar and started playing a game where you had to guess the card that was stuck to your forehead. Anyhow, it was my turn and I said "8 of clubs?" and the others just looked at me and said ".... euh, ben oui, en faite..." (uh... yeah actually) (!!!!). Anyhow, how cool is that? I thought I was pretty awesome.

Besides that, the rest of my weekend was fairly uneventful. I stayed in Laval the next night as well and we went for a walk around town and the illuminations were even prettier when it wasn't rainy and windy (surprising, right?). We also went for a walk earlier that day and saw an adorable goat and some roosters co-co-ri-coing (this is how you say "cock-a-doodle-do").

This week I am teaching a song in my classes. It is Taylor Swift's "You belong with me". I will be lucky if it ever becomes dislodged from playing incessantly in brain.