It's Spring in Brittany

The rain has stopped and the clouds have cleared. Not only are the trees flowering, they're leaving out. Yesterday it was hot! As I walked the 2 miles to and from Lanvallay yesterday I was sweating under my thin shirt and wished I had put on sunscreen before leaving.
The first burst of sunshine ignited spring fever in primary schools. Last Friday I had to expel 5 boys from my class of 2nd-graders before I could teach properly. And it wasn't just me; other teachers I spoke that weekend had had similar behavior problems in their classes. Thank goodness for weekends.

Saturday I went home with Béatrice, a colleague from the primary school La Ruche, to her home in Borseul. It was a fantastic weekend. Béatrice has 4 kids, 2 girls and 2 boys, and her youngest, Gwen, is a hilarious 7-year-old with incredible attitude. Gwen was a boon because, like all little kids, she likes to play so there was never a moment of awkward downtime like there often is when visiting other people's houses. After lunch Béatrice, her 2 girls and I went to the beach near St. Jacut de la Mer and walked along the coast to the ruins of the castle of St. Cast-le-Guildo, an impressive fortress with a great view of the estuary. At low tide, the muddy sands stretch out for miles. Boats in the port lie comically on their sides and the air is filled with the smell of drying mud.
We walked back along the beach and when we reached the spot we had started from we were joined by my neighbors, Vincent and Simon, who Béatrice instantly invited to dinner. After a rousing game of soccer on the sand (with Gwen as goal-keeper) we went back to the house and had savory buckwheat crêpes for dinner and sweet white-flour ones for dessert, accompanied by homemade cider. Very Breton.
At around 10pm Béatrice and I left Simon, Vincent and the kids at home watching "Kung-Fu Panda" and headed to Matignon for a Fest-Noz. My young friends from Dinan were already there, dancing away. It was a smaller crowd than usual because there was another dance in Pleurtuit the same night, but I appreciated having the room to move around. These dances can get pretty suffocating otherwise. There's something magical, though about a mass of people all doing the same steps to the same rhythm, arms linked and moving clock-wise in concentric circles. I've gone out with my neighbors before and found it difficult to stay awake and enjoy myself after about midnight, much to the annoyance of Vincent, who likes to go to the night club/bar and not come back until 6 or 7am the next morning. But at a Fest-Noz I can dance 'til 2am without a wink of boredom or fatigue... Which is exactly what we did.
The next day Béatrice took me to visit some more ruins before taking me back to Dinan. I turned in early, knowing that daylight savings meant I had to get up an hour earlier than usual for my first class. This week will be a busy one; tonight I'm giving a presentation on the US at the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs, Wednesday I'll be rehearsing with Carole and Raphael in Plancoët, Thursday is another trip with Béatrice, and Friday I've agreed to perform some American fiddle tunes for my music class.
Soon it will be Easter vacation (April 7-22), then one more week of classes before my contract is up. Then it will be one more month in Dinan, a visit from the parents, followed by a flight home to Oregon on the first or second week of June.
Until then, I'll be sending best wishes and sunshine to you all!

Just A Fiddlin' Around This Town

Well, it may be February 4th already, but hell, I'm going to write about January.
Only yesterday did the last of the Christmas lights come down from the trees in town. They were spectacular. I've attached a few photos. The lights paired with the colorful, half-timbered houses made Dinan really magical to walk through at night. And seeing as nightfall comes so early in December and January, I saw the lights quite often.

January is the month of store sales, closed cafés, and Kings Cake.  Many restaurants, cafés, and stores close during January and February because there is so little business after the holidays. Most stores prefer to stay open, however, to put all of their old merchandise on sale for the month of January. I believe it is the law in France that January and July are the only months when stores are allowed to advertise sales.
France is a very Catholic country, and Epiphany is taken very seriously. Once January 6th rolls around, every store and Boulangerie in the country brings out the butter, puff pastry and almond paste to make "galette des rois," or Kings Cake. To Americans like me, King's Cake looks more like a pie than a cake. It's a delicious, flat and golden circle of puff pastry traditionally filled with frangipane and one "fêve" (bean) that, should it happen to be in your slice, designates you king for the rest of the day. The "bean" of today is most commonly a ceramic figurine that can be anything from a biblical figure to a Disney character. Each cake comes ready with it's own paper crown. I've been "king" 5 times! I think it's a sign... probably that I've been eating too much pastry. But during the month of January, a kings cake showed up at every event I went to. The holiday is of course beloved of children, so every school has a day where they serve kings cake. Though they might say otherwise, adults clearly enjoy the holiday just as much. Cake showed up at my music lesson, at dances, at meetings, everywhere. It's a reason to invite people to tea, to get together with friends, and have dessert more than once a day. For those who dislike frangipane, the cake also comes in applesauce and pear/chocolate versions, but if you ask me, the frangipane is really the best.

 Galette des Rois

 

Fiddle workshop with Jean-Luc Revault. The fiddles are laying in the center so that we could dance with our hands free.

 

 Fiddle workshop with Olivier Pont

 Olivier showing off a renaissance instrument

 I made a new friend, an English lady who happened to know some Irish and American fiddle tunes.

The fiddling pictures up above are from la fête du violon at the school of music in Dinan. It consisted of a weekend of workshops on traditional and renaissance fiddle playing, followed the next week by a concert and dance. I took the traditional music track, taught by Jean-luc Revault and Olivier Pont, maker of stringed instruments dating to the renaissance and beyond. Olivier's wife, Nelly Poidevin, plays the stand-up bass and is an archetière, or maker of historical bows. Jean-luc is the teacher of my weekly fiddle class, so I was already acquainted with his teaching style. It was a pleasure to get to know Olivier, though.

Jean-luc Revault

Last Thursday I went to Folk Night at a bar/hotel called the Cheval Blanc in the town of Plancoët. It's a monthly gathering, catering mostly to an Anglaphone audience, but the music is anything from old French songs to Irish balads to German folk pop. The owner, Micheàl, is a really sweet Irishman. Folk Night itself is run by a lovely man named Peter, who is an excellent singer and musician, and brings out the best of everyone who participates in the open mic.

 Me playing "Your Cheetin' Heart" with Peter in Plancoët

Me singing "Old Time Drunkard"

That same weekend was the fête du violon at a museum just outside of Rennes. No workshops this time, but There were a bunch of great fiddlers leading dances under a tent outside, and an interesting display of old violins that came frome someone's personal collection. At the end of the day, I performed a bunch of tunes with the rest of the people from my class in Dinan. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was a lot of fun.

 Jean-luc playing a fiddle made out of a cookie tin

 Dancin' to the fiddle.

Well, that's it for this month's post. Believe it or not, I'll be on vacation at the end of next week. French schools go much later than American ones, but they have more vacations spread throughout the year. I'm taking full advantage of the break to head down south to Nîce, a city on the Mediterranean to catch a few more degrees an possibly even some rays of sunshine. I'll post pictures at the end of February.

Until then, warm wishes to you all from France!

Breton/Belgian holidays

Happy 2012! My excuses for such a late post.
I returned home to my little apartment in Dinan last night at 9:30 after 14 hours of sitting on trains. As comfortable as European trains are, I'd rather not set foot in another one for a long time. The trip wasn't supposed to take so long; after staying up all night for New Years-something I haven't done since high school-I was pleased to catch some zzzs on the train from Liège to Paris (2hrs) Sunday morning. The experience was so nice that, after crossing Paris by metro, I did likewise on the train from Paris to Rennes (2.5hrs), and arrived at 2pm excited about the hour-long bus ride ahead of me. I had forgotten, however, that this was Sunday, and a national holiday to boot. The next bus to Dinan wasn't until 6pm, and though I would have relished a nice long walk, my bags were heavy and I was anxious to get home. I returned to the train station and saw that there was a train towards Dinan at 5pm. It seemed well-worth it to cut an hour off of my wait, so I bought the ticket and read in a café until 5:00.
There is no direct train to Dinan from Rennes. Travelers have to change trains at Dol de Bretagne, a small and rather uninteresting town north-east of Dinan. And this is where I took the sleeping-thing too far. I missed Dol and woke up an hour later on my way to Caen. Miserable, I gobbled a few chocolates to keep from panicking. Rodrigo (Coraline's boyfriend) had given them to me as a going-away present.
I hopped off at the next stop, and burst into tears when the stern woman working ticket office told me that I wouldn't get home until 9:30pm. I thanked her and walked out into the rain to hide my embarrassment. Outside, a Tbus was waiting, empty except for it's driver. Feeling I had nothing to lose, I tapped on the door and asked if there was any chance the bus was heading in the direction of Dinan. The driver shook his head and said "Mont Saint-Michel?" He was English. The were, indeed, no more buses to Dinan, and though the driver seemed sorry for me, he didn't hesitate to give me a lecture on European ways of life and how, though it may be a shock for young Americans like me, buses don't run 24 hours a day in France. I didn't bother to explain that where I come from, there is no public transportation, but set out into the downpour to find an open bar. I found one and sat, sipping my beer and dripping pools of water on the floor until the next train.
It is nice to be back, though the holidays in Belgium were great fun. Before leaving for Belgium, I played fiddle with a group of Breton musicians at the Christmas market in town, a great way to celebrate Christmas.

In France and in Belgium Christmas Eve is the big day. Presents are opened at midnight, after a big dinner and (traditionally) Christmas Mass. Our evening was a bit more calm. Corinne (my host mother) had chopped the top off of the holly bush next to the house, dragged it into the back yard, where it was visible from the big double doors in the kitchen, and declared it a xmas tree. She had to attach long lines to nearby trees to keep it from falling over in the wind. This holly bush had no berries, so Corinne also pruned the female holly and stuck branches of it into the "Christmas tree" to give it some color. The weight of these extra branches made the beaded strands circling the tree look a bit strained, but no matter. I prepared the stuffing and pumpkin casserole for the next day's meal, and then we had racklette for dinner; a wonderful meal consisting of lots of melted cheese and sizzling charcuterie on bread. Extremely healthy. Corinne had the beginnings of a migraine from having worked hard the week before, so after that we watched a movie and went to bed.

 Corinne decorating the door with laurel leaves.

The next morning, Coraline and I got to work cooking Christmas lunch. She had picked out some great recipes, that I never would have thought of making myself--things like a cold apple and cucumber soup for starters. Anyway, by lunchtime everything was ready and family members started arriving. My host uncle and his family were there, as well as "Mamie," my host grandmother, her sister, my host brother, and his wife.

My host uncle, Eric, my host cousins, Marine and Olivier, Coraline and myself with the capon.

 The next day, Coraline and I explored the beautiful city of Gent. The Christmas market was still open, and the whole city was lit up.

 I've never seen so many Bicycles. Belgium is very flat, especially on the Flemish side, and everyone rides a bike.

 Train station in Gent

 Hot chocolate at Leonidas

 Christmas market in Gent

 Vin chaud, or hot spiced wine.

Coraline has been hired as an extra in a film called "Populaire," set in the 1950s in New York (though apparently all the screening was done in Liège and Brussels) so while she was was doing that I happily spent my time sleeping and reading. Jean-Pierre has taken up the drums as a hobby, and on Wednesday took me out to a Pink Floyd concert performed excellently by a German band.
I celebrated New Years with friends of Coraline. They are a great group. Our host, Noemie, prepared a fancy spread, with racklette as the main course. We spent the rest of the night dancing, talking, and trying not to fall asleep.

Dancing in bars and Turkey-less Thanksgiving

After spending all week teaching about Thanksgiving, I spent my Turkey Thursday the way I do every week, working and then going to music class. My feasting would come later.
Friday evening I hitched a ride with Thérèse, one of the women from my traditional music workshop, to a town near Dinan called la Hisse. We headed to Le Shetland, a restaurant/bar that had agreed to let us host a monthly traditional jam session there. I had no part in the organization of the jam, but was delighted to come along. Most jam sessions in little towns like this one are inaccessible to anyone without a car because the buses stop running early in the evening. Going to a jam session therefore usually means figuring out how to stay the night.
I was impressed at the number of people who showed up to this first jam session, though like folk musicians in the US, they all seemed to know each other some how or other. Groups from different parts of the region played pieces from their repertoire, and in the end everyone joined in to play together. Those who weren't playing danced. In Brittany, many of the traditional dances take the form of a circle, with the dances holding hands (or pinkies!) and stepping in time. This makes them easy to join, as you just connect to the end of the line and then try to copy the steps of the people next to you, although a few of the dances are quite complicated.
It was had a blast. I felt quite at home with these people who so warmly welcomed me into their midst simply because I share the same love of music, dance, and tradition as they do. Much like the folk music scene at home, come to think of it. I got home quite late that night (or early, depending on your perspective), still humming Breton tunes.
The next morning, I slept in and then wandered over to the apartment of the other teaching assistants to start cooking a late Thanksgiving lunch. We chose to have it there because they have an oven, a larger fridge, and the right amount of silverware. Kiara and I had already made pies a couple of days before, so all we had left to do was cook our root vegetables, stuff our chicken, and toss a salad. We left out the cranberries, as they are hard to find in France.
The meal turned out wonderfully. I have to say, I much prefer chicken to turkey. It just has so much more flavor. No one had tried pumpkin pie before. Even though it's texture was a bit lumpy (we used a potato masher instead of a blender), the flavor was right and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We were 8 total: myself, Kiara and Zac (the Australians), two young French teachers, two Germans, and my Polish neighbor, Carolina. It was a very international Thanksgiving! I was very grateful to have such great friends to celebrate the holiday with. As per tradition, we all ate too much and then ambled over to see Enzo Enzo in concert. She's best known for her rendition of "Juste quelqu'un de bien," but has written a lot of her own music as well.
Sunday, Zac and Kiara and I took the train to Combourg, a small town known for it's castle. Combourg turned out to be even more deserted than Dinan is on a Sunday and the castle was closed, but we had a nice walk before returning home. You can see the photos below.

 Combourg from afar

 The castle peeking over the rooftops

 There it is!

 Church in Combourg

 Poisonous mushroom

 Brittany looks a lot like Oregon sometimes

Sending warm thoughts your way!

How to travel on a Sunday

After scouring maps and bus and train schedules, I concluded that it was impossible to go anywhere on a Sunday in France without expecting to stay overnight. Buses stop running, stores close, and trains cut their schedules in half at least. I set my travel books aside with a sigh and stared out the window; I had to do something. I had a free day in France and felt it was my duty to use it wisely. Outside, the sky was a solid grey and it was windy, but no rain.
I called up Kiara, the Australian teaching assistant. She had come to the same conclusion. "Do you want to go for a walk?" I said. At 12:30 we met up at the top of Rue Jerzuel, the steep, windy, and very picturesque street that leads down from Dinan's high ramparts to the port below, and then headed north along the river. The road soon turned into a park-like path hugging the banks. Every few minutes, signs would appear pointing towards villages and sights west of the river, a few of which we explored before returning to our path. By 2:30 we reached the La Vicomté-sur-Rance, a lovely port town with a damn keeping the southern part of the river full of water while the northern side empties out at low tide.
It was a strange sight. The muddy contours of the river bottom were exposed to view, filling the air with the smell of wet clay. By the banks, fishing nets hung high and dry, waiting for the water and fish to return. We crossed the bridge over the damn and stopped for hot chocolate in a café next to the port. Warm and rested, we figured we should start heading back; the cold air was great for walking, but with such thick clouds nighttime was sure to come early.
We were not, however, in any hurry. Feeling adventurous, we naively decided to find a different route back. There was no quiet path on the eastern side of the river because of high rocky cliffs, but a map in town showed a couple of main roads heading south. We inevitably got lost. After wandering past little communities with amusing names (La Ville des Petits-pois, or "pea town") and reading street signs with no mention of Dinan, we decided it was time to either ask for directions or retrace our steps. As it was Sunday, not many people were out and about, but I spied and old man coming out of his house with a little white dog in one arm. He was understandably surprised to hear that we had come so far by foot, but explained that he was headed to the forest to feed his cat and would be happy to drop us off on the main road to Dinan afterwards. He seemed harmless, so we hopped into his car. It turns out he is a retired school-teacher. He bought a piece of land in the Forêt de Coëtquen and built a cottage for himself as a getaway from the hustle and bustle of his village. His cat was a big old thing who is apparently too independent to live in the city, but unhealthy enough that Monsieur felt obliged to come and feed him every day. Monsieur was clearly worried for the old cat's health. He set out at least a dozen bowls full of warm milk, several different kinds of wet food, dry food, water, medecine, etc. and waited around until he was satisfied that the cat had sufficiently eaten. The whole process took about an hour.
When the cat was fed we hopped back into the car, eager to be on our way. It was getting late and the weather felt colder now that we had stopped walking. Monsieur turned the key in the transmission. Nothing happened. The battery was dead. He had accidentally left the heat on for the little white dog in the front seat, thus draining the battery. Monsieur was embarrassed and at a loss for what to do, but we cheerfully offered to get out and push, which we did, up and down the driveway without success. Just when Kiara and I thought we had better start walking, Monsieur said, "You know what, I've got another battery we can try." Battery #2 was bigger than the first. We barely managed to jam it in there and reattach the cables, but when he turned the key in the transmission the car rumbled to life.
It was 5pm by the time he dropped us off at the cross-roads he had mentioned. It was a busy road without sidewalks that lead into Lanvallay, the city immediately across the river from Dinan. It took us at least 2 more hours to walk back to Dinan. We were tired and hungry, and the twinkling lights of our city seemed so far. Night had fallen by the time I stumbled up the steps to my apartment. There was dinner to make and classes to prepare for. To my delight, the heat had been turned on in the apartment complex. I never slept so well.

Port of La Vicomté-sur-Rance

 The river Rance at low tide.

The "barrage", or damn

Kiara photographing the locks

"Careful, don't drive into the river!"

Kiara pointing to cliffs on eastern side of the river.

Inserting battery #2