I saw Tony and Robin (my Halox boss and his wife) Nov. 12th and Nov. 14th and it was fantastic. It was so good to see familiar faces! I also went to see a play at the Bastille, and it was hands-down the most bizarre performance I have ever seen. I was sort of upset actually because I really enjoyed the play when we read it in class: Les Justes by Albert Camus. It was all about a group of terrorists in Russia who were rebelling against the tsar and decide to kill his uncle, the grand duke, by bombing his carriage. However, when they go to do it, the bomber changes his mind because he sees children inside. Later he manages to set off the bomb and kill the grand duke and goes to prison and is eventually hanged, but the whole story hinges on whether or not all lives associated with the "despotism" are forfeit, even those of children, and whether the terrorist had the right to use any and all means to stop the despotism. Camus wrote it as a metaphor for the French Resistance during WWII, so it carried quite a different connotation of "terrorist" than nowadays. Anyway, the play itself was terrible... for some reason there was a point when all the actors sat down in the aisles and ate oranges. I'll spare you further description because trust me, I don't feel like writing it and you don't want to waste time reading it. Even our theater professor was slightly stunned and this is a woman who's seen her fair share of plays. I recently learned, actually, that she's 35... I thought she was 26! The whole class was baffled.
On Nov. 14th I had my last IES excursion to Fontainebleu and Vaux-le-Vicomte... or we were supposed to. These are two chateaux, but for some reason that was never explained, we didn't go to Vaux-le-Vicomte and instead went to the painters' village of Barbizon. Quite boring, really. Fontainebleu was great though... a lot of history there! We saw Napoleon's throne room and bedroom with its not-so-secret-secret doors. Pretty funny.
On Nov. 20th I saw another play, Couteau de Nuit (Knife of the Night) at a theater in the Montmartre quarter. This one was all right, but the best part was that our professor arranged for us to meet the writer/director afterwards. I didn't want our class to look like idiots who didn't have anything to say, so I was happy when some people had questions, plus I asked several of my own. The actors trickled in, which made the situation a bit more embarrassing just because there were more French people listening to us try to pose intelligent, thoughtful questions. They were really, really nice though and would nod in agreement or encouragingly. I asked a question that the author/director didn't understand, and I could feel my face turning really red, but she rushed to say, "It's not because your French is not good, I'm just not sure what you're getting at." I rephrased and it worked out. I've found that in my classes and in my life here in general I'm less and less concerned about looking like a fool. It bores me to tears when no one will talk in class, so I'll do it. It livens things up. I know you're thinking to yourself, "Theresa? Talking a lot? Saying dumb and incorrect, yet humorous, things? Surely not!" Quelle surprise!
On Nov. 16th Mathilde and Slimen invited me out to dinner with them and their friends, which was really nice. Slimen and I took the metro to meet their friend Lucille and then meet Mathilde and the others at Montmartre. We went to see the basilica at Sacré-Coeur at night, which was really nice. Then we went to a restaurant and the waiter gave me a hard time about pronunciation. I took it in stride though... it was sort of my fault, I mumbled what I wanted so Mathilde told me I had to enunciate. But the waiter wouldn't give me my dessert of fresh fruit salad until I said the name for him "une salade des fruits frais" because if I were to pronounce it the American way, you'd say the "s" at the end of "fruits" and "frais" but in the French way (aka, the correct way), it would phonetically be more like, "ewn sah-lahd day frew-e fray."
Wed. Nov. 26th was my final play, thank goodness. It was really entertaining though, and in a classy part of town: the Champs-Elysées! It was a bunch of short comedy sketches with the same two men, and each time it was just a ridiculous scenario, like they'd say "One, two, three... JUMP!" And neither would jump, then they'd get into an argument and be like, "Why didn't you jump?" "I was waiting for you!" "I was waiting for YOU!" "You said, 'one, two, three, jump!'" It was highly enjoyable.
I left for Rome Thursday evening, and it was really stressful. First of all, I had to say goodbye to my host parents... for good. They left for the Alps and won't be back until May. It was really sad, actually; I thought my host mom was going to cry! They hugged me, which is pretty big for French people. Catherine said, "Don't worry, I have your email, and so does Mathilde, so we can keep in touch, and you can come back if you want!" And I told them if they ever get a hankerin to visit Indiana, they were more than welcome to come to my house (yes, my mom already gave me permission). I tried to make sure they knew I was thankful for everything they'd done for me, and Catherine said she was very happy to have met me and really enjoyed having me as a host student. I was kind of emotional on the way to the bus station, and it didn't help that we got stuck in horrendous traffic and I was getting freaked out that I was going to miss my plane. Not to worry, I made it. Next post... ROMA!
No comments:
Post a Comment