de saint-exupery

I just met the family who I will be living next to and with for the next year -- any doubts at all that I had about this cute little (itsy-bitsy) apartment are instantly gone.  The parents, Christine and Olivier, are darling, and all five kids are pretty much the essence of adorable.  My bribery worked splendidly, with a little blown glass puddles made with Mt. Saint Helens ash for each of the kiddies, along with some playing cards with Seattle mountains and skyline pictures and a picture book of a Native American legend.  The parents got the same blown glass company's beautiful "Seattle Raindrop" ornament :)  Five kids, four girls and a boy, who are all absolutely mignon (cute en français) -- polite, welcoming, excited to meet me.

figs and farmer's markets and le fou

Mm, for lunch today, I celebrated my spoils from the big farmer's market at the base of St. Aubin church:

Olive Oil

Half an Onion, diced

Balsamic Vinegar

1 cup of vegetable broth

6 Fresh Figs, washed and cut into 1/8ths

Tofu

Fresh thick bread

Good goat cheese

Sauté the onion in the olive oil until it begins to soften, then add a large splash of balsamic and let it reduce for a few minutes.  Add the broth and the figs, and stir as it continues to reduce.  Add the tofu after another few minutes, and keep boiling off the moisture until the sauce becomes almost thick. 

Slice the bread, and layer the goat cheese on top of each slice.  Spoon the fig-tofu-balsamic mixture over top, and enjoy as the cheese gets gooey from the heat. :) 

Yum.  I had a lovely morning, walking around the market and looking at all the incredibly fresh produce, spices, and baked goods.  I also found a vendor selling beautiful hand-painted pottery, which I'm worried I'll have to visit again (he assured me he was there almost every week) because I'm not sure I can only buy two mugs...  I hovered around the stall for probably at least 10 minutes, trying to envision my someday dream kitchen, and pick out the colors that will fit in best. Hm hm.  Green for things that grow, yellow for Sophie's birds, red for the scarlet-colored walls.... :) 

Unfortunately, my high from speaking French so very successfully, communicating how I wanted exactly that sort of cheese, pretty please and yes that size is perfect, was squandered at the bus stop.  Waiting with my groceries, and a few other people, I was about to sit down at the bus stop when a crazy homeless man wandered up with his cigarette and explained how he was going to sit down, if it didn't bother me.  I let him sit, no harm done, and was looking down the street when he tried to ash his cigarette down the back of my leg into my boot.  I was so upset and confused that it probably is a really good thing that my French wasn't prepared for such a situation, because I sure as hell was yelling at him in English in my head.  I mean, I guess it's not his fault that he is insane, but you also don't flick cigarette ash down someone's boots. Hmph.  The other ladies at the bus stop were very supportive of me standing at the other end from him, and as one was getting on the bus, she shrugged at me and something along the lines of "il est fou" -- he's crazy.  Well, I guess I can't have left all the crazies behind, but it was amazing quite how angry it made me not to be able to actually give him a piece of my mind.  Trust the homeless guy to be the one to remind me how, in so many ways, I'm very far from home.  

I'm going out to dinner tonight with most of the other new dancers and some of the ones who have been here a while, to the one real vegetarian restaurant that they recommend.  It'll be nice to get a chance to get to hang out with people (well, actually, I could stop that sentence there and it'd still be true) away from the studio, get to hear more about their interests outside of dance, what they think about Toulouse, all that.  I have tomorrow off as well, and then rehearsals next week for both Giselle and La Reine Morte, the ballet by the director-to-be.  Kader Belarbi is taking over the company next summer, but is choreographing our October program as well.  I'll keep you posted on how working with him is, it should be interesting to get a glimpse into how he runs things.  

giselle

Today, finally, I felt back enough to want to push, to not just be tired and sore but to want to make myself more sore, to do each step exactly so, to create muscle memory deep under my shoulder blades to know exactly how to cross my arms in front of my chest in precisely the way that has epitomized Giselle for over a century and a half.  Day 3.  Not so bad after three months off.

The story, for my non-ballet-aficionados, is centered around a peasant girl, Giselle, and her love, Albrecht, who is a Duke or a Prince or some kind of fancy pants, pretending to be a peasant in order to win Giselle's heart.  Hilarion, an actual peasant dude, also has the hots for Giselle, and figures out Albrecht's secret and reveals him as a much better catch than anyone ever thought (though, um, he also happens to be betrothed, oopsies).  Giselle goes mad, and kills herself.

Act II:  Fog rolls out among the tomb stones.  Giselle has joined the ranks of the Wilis, the ghosts of women who died before their wedding day (the aforementioned dead virgins) under their queen, Myrtha.  Every night, they rise from their graves, and should there be any man who dares trespass, they force him to dance until he dies from exhaustion.  Not the nicest bunch (early feminists, perhaps?).  Hilarion shows up to cry over Giselle's grave, but is driven off by the Wilis (um, not sure if he escapes or just goes off into the wings to die, I'm sure it depends on the version).  Next, Albrecht comes to leave some flowers all nice-like, and is forced to dance and dance and dance -- Giselle, still in love with him (not sure how much we're encouraging necrophilia here, but oh well), dances with him and by herself to distract Myrtha from how much time is passing, until finally the sun rises and the Wilis are forced back into their graves, leaving Albrecht barely alive, and still heartbroken as Giselle disappears.

Heartwarming tale that one ;) Not really a happily ever after kind of tale, but eerily beautiful, and about as well suited for dance as one could possibly wish.  I'll fill you in on how dancing it actually feels in ... two weeks and two days.  Soon.

In other news, I am really liking a lot of the people in the company -- there's a good sense of camaraderie amongst the girls (avoiding pointe shoes together for a long time now), lots of winking going back and forth across the studio already.  And I've found two other vegetarians in the company, so we're already planning an outing to the one major vegetarian restaurant in Toulouse, maybe this weekend.  The family gets home next week, so this weekend will be about finding more little oases in the city and getting to connect with the dancers.

I actually put real makeup on this morning for my head shots before class, which felt very strange, and made me think about a) the last time I wore actual makeup, which was probably for the last show I did in North Carolina and all my people there who are also starting their season this week, and b) the Rogue River, and being so far from silly items like blush and mascara and lipliner that I almost forgot they existed.  I miss that, being out on the river away from news about DSK potentially still being in the running for some powerful political position here and predictions about all the different ways Libya, while better off without Gaddafi, still can royally screw things up.  The river is also partly so wonderful because it is a vacation, a place where you can get away from the stresses and evils of daily life that are weighing on you.... but that doesn't mean they don't exist.  This is the world we live in, evils and joys, and it is only by being out here that we can affect change.  I think. I hope, otherwise, adios, I'm headed back to the river (we might have to bring Dieter.  and a barge for the food. maybe a small cabin. hmm....)  I still haven't figured out exactly how I'm creating all this grand change I'm hoping for, but it's by being out here in the world that most of that figuring happens... though maybe a little river time never hurt either.

first day

I have officially started with Ballet du Capitole :) Today was the first day of work, meeting everyone rehearsing for Giselle. We took class with Nanette Glushak, the director, this morning.  It's interesting, how dancing is a language spoken everywhere, and how more and more I'm finding that it is one I'm fluent in.  Opening a bank account in French, dealing with the post office, figuring out what hours a grocery store is open on a Sunday, all of those are somehow daunting.  But dancing?  Dancing I can do.

Class was taught in half French and half English, with Nanette giving corrections to all the English speakers in English, but all the basic instructions in French.  Rehearsals were great, the morning full of peasants in the village square, the afternoon beginning our Wili training -- the dead virgins before their wedding day.  It's a big difference between a full day being 6 hours of rehearsal plus class (à la Carolina) vs 4.5 hours plus class (ode to European time sensibilities).  A lot, but so much more manageable at the end of the day.  And we repeat it all tomorrow -- I think we're learning all the material, then going back to put the finishing touches on the style and build stamina, but most of the company has done this before, so mostly it will be the newbies learning and imitating as fast as we can so we can be ready for the show in... two and a half weeks.  On y va.

the plus sides

Today was mostly.... hot.  I spent lots of today walking, mostly on fruitless errands (no luck on the mail front).  On the plus sides... I had a pain au chocolat on the way to the bank (hm, dangerously close placement of the patisserie, luckily they're only open in the mornings).  I got to dance, again with the studio to myself, and tried some of the trickier moves that they're going to teach me next week without ending up on my butt (yay for having a DVD).  I got a ride from a very nice stranger who took pity on me because I was walking in the 95º heat, on the way back from a closed for summertime-lunch-2 hours-that-is-not-posted-except-on-some-bitty-sign-next-to-the-big-letters-saying-they're-open-all-day post office.  Unfortunately the pity of strangers didn't manifest every time I got the joneses to take a trip from the bus to the studio, back, UP the hill to the post office, or down the hill again through all sorts of streets that all of a sudden were very unfamiliar for being within 4 square blocks of my house.  Did I mention it's actually summer here in the south of France? 


Oh, and the other plus side?  I got to come home to this, on our back porch (and why yes, I did buy that baguette this morning):

I'm loving Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, it's Dad's old copy (the cover loooooks there like it's attached, but don't be fooled by a crafty photographer) from probably about when it came out (one might hazard a guess it could be from a time when he owned a motorcycle himself), but it's tying in to all sorts of pieces going on right now.  Certainly travel -- it's set on a motorcycle trip from Minnesota to Bozeman, MT, going through Yellowstone, which was exactly where Mackenzie and I were this summer (hm, might Dante know something about this?).  It's always fun to get to actually know the place an author is talking about, with mountain air and how fast it comes at you after the summer heat of the plains, the silence and space of Yellowstone.  

One of the main discussion points Mister Pirsig has set up so far is the comparison between classical and romantic knowledge.  Science versus Art, how they have been separated, the vast differences.  He gets at this with the idea of motorcycle maintenance, how it is closer to an art than a science while at the same time being incredibly logical, rational, reasoned, because without that logic the mechanic would be completely useless.  Lots of questioning underlying form, not thinking but thinking about how one thinks.  It makes me think of the famous choreographer Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit, how she went about creating art almost as though it were science, with endless experimentation in front of a video camera that she then would go through each day to find the seconds and minutes of successful data points, and then string those steps together into incredible pieces of dance.  

More musing later, I'm already thinking I might have to start over as soon as I finish it, figure out what he was actually trying to say.  Word of warning to those of you contemplating coming over to this side of the pond: watch out for bleu cheese. The switching of the "ue" to "eu" is key in this arena.  The French like their fromage staaaann-ky.  Don't say you weren't warned. 

a rainbow

So, not a whole lot to report from today, a lot of it was spent waiting for the mail man,  going to the post office to be informed about how they couldn't actually help me (though I did appreciate what I think was the suggestion to just reach in and see if I could pull mail out), and being mostly unsuccessful on all fronts. Ah well.

On the bright side, it did start pouring for a little while, and then the universe sent me one of these babies:

So to all my loves on the other end of the rainbow, kisses are making their way on down the line.  

rhinestones

Mm, the last few days have been busy, in a nice way, where shops are open and parks are full of people to eat lunch next to me on benches, and watch children play.  Both yesterday and today the studios were open, so I've gone in to give myself barre and put on pointe shoes (they're slowly getting less scary).  It's amazing how close to in shape I am and yet quite how much I'm missing to be ready for a show.  Doing ballet class and yoga all summer was great, and I'm hoping I'm stronger now in different ways, and yet three hours is less than half of a full day of dancing (er, next week is gonna hurt).  But along those same lines, it's been 3 months since I performed, since I got to go to work and dance all day, and I miss it.  Granted, if I didn't, I'd be in trouble, because that's what I came all this way to do.

I have a DVD of Giselle, our first program, which is exciting to think about getting ready for.  It's the classic of all classics, a story designed for dance so explicitly, but with just enough mysticism, nuance, thrill, and romance to carry it through a few centuries.  I got to see PNB perform it in Seattle in June, which was the first time they'd ever done it, so the first time I'd ever seen Giselle at all.  Lots more thoughts about it to come when we actually start rehearsals (or I even know my casting), for now I'm just excited about the idea of it.  I'll get back to you when I've had pointe shoes on for 5 hours, we'll see how happy I am about it then ;) 

Hm. In other news, I am thinking of starting a section of the blog called European Delicacies, or oh Europe!, or something like that (name suggestions svp).  It can the lovely home of stories like the very macho man going by me on his motorcycle in his tight black t-shirt, slowing to do a little drive by elevator eyes, to which my very clever inner monologue responded: oh yeah mister macho? There are rhinestones on your shirt, aaaand they are pink.  Too bad he didn't slow down long enough for me to translate "rhinestones" or we might've had something. (a sparkle = un éclat... Maybe Les Éclats Europeans as a section title?)

Also part of that section could be brief little snippets like: ah, yes Logan, that was an Alfa Romeo I passed on my way to the bank today.  Wanna see?

Let me know your thoughts for the title of that little section of tidbits, I've got enough inner monologue snippets to keep it flowing for a while.  It's amazing how when you can't speak that well, your brain becomes quite the narrator.  Anyway, 2 "productive" days later, I'm the proud owner of a carte pastel -- card for the bus and metro -- with a month of unlimited rides, I've sent my information to the official immigration place so I might be able to stay the full year, and I've set up a bank account.... I need to figure out a little bit more on that front, given I don't have access to the mail box until the family comes back from vacation, and I need the secret codes they're sending me only by mail to access my account... Working on it ;)  I'll let you know more about the mailbox adventures tomorrow.

Sorry about my font difficulties, I've had some serious formatting trouble with my phone-email-blog love triangle.  You'd think menage à trois's would go smoother in the motherland, but apparently not.  Maybe I'll have more patience for that tomorrow too. Til then, my humble apologies. 

theatre du capitole

This morning I went along with my wandering spirit (or pretended to have one long enough to get me out the door), and found my way to the bus downtown, and then all over the itsy bitsy part of downtown I mapped out in my head yesterday.  Four hours of walking later, I was finally tired enough to make my way back, just as the rain started to lightly sprinkle.

I wound my way through the brick buildings and streets to the Place du Capitole, where the beautiful brick and gold-guilded theatre lines one whole side of the square block plaza that marks the cultural center of Toulouse.  In the archway connecting the left side (mayor's office?) and the right (the theater) there was an exhibit on Antoine de Saint-Exupèry -- a famous Toulousian who shares his name with the family with whom I'm staying, who was a pilot and author of Le Petit Prince.  It was a little more aviation-focused that truly could hold my interest for long (yeah, WWI plane lingo in French isn't exactly one of my strong suits), but for the AirBus crowd, it made sense.  It was still fun to see a little more about his life, and made me curious to read his other books, closer to memoirs, as far as I can tell, than children's books.  And oh by the way, this is where I will perform:

Not such a bad place to park myself for the next year :)  Granted, we perform at some other theaters throughout Toulouse as well, but the Halle aux Grains, the other theater I've seen, is equally beautiful, if slightly less awe-inspiring. Eventually, I continued on, though not until I'd had a few mostly failing attempts at containing gleeful giggles, to find the Garonne River.

I walked up along the river, cutting back over through the University (on accident), popping in to a little patisserie to get my first pain au chocolat of my stay.  It's amazing how good a pain au chocolat feels deep in your soul, though I suppose you should expect nothing less when its first three ingredients are butter, chocolate, and flaky warm fluffy air pockets.  Pretty much amazing.

I finally managed to get to the flea market at the Basilique de Saint Sernin, at the base of the beautiful church which had bells tolling every 15 minutes as vendors hawked their wares.  I got some of my essentials -- nut bread, olives, kitchen knives, bamboo spatulas, a bath mat -- and just walked, circling the market (and church) twice, taking in the sights and smells and sounds of a French market.  Around 1 pm, I let myself get shot out from the market's vortex in some direction, took a stab at which street would lead me back to somewhere I recognized, and found myself back at the Place du Capitole.

There I sat, making conversation with the Parisian man on the bench next to me, and wondering at the cafes across the plaza that all too soon will be familiar.  It almost feels like it's actually going to happen, it's not just some crazy dream that I'm going to get jostled awake from, or some joke that has a punch line hovering just as soon as I fully commit.  I'm here. It's done. On y va.

settling in

Somehow even after wandering the streets around my little apartment and looking at all the very French shutters and beautiful Toulousian tiled roofs, it still doesn't quite feel real that I'm here.  Without a routine yet, I still can't quite picture what the next year will include.  This morning I did a lot of research, looking into the various farmers and flea markets, the bus system (guess my adventure planned for tomorrow), and the places I need to visit to get my carte du sèjour so I can stay here legally (imagine that, me following the rules).  

This afternoon, I took a walk to a little park, 15-20 min away, ambling along towards whatever looked interesting (it's a holiday weekend in August, so almost everything is closed) on my way there.  I parked myself on a little green bench and finished the last pages of my journal, watching the little French toddlers run around on the playground and being very proud of myself when I could understand the pieces of conversation that floated my way (yes, I'm almost as good as a 2 year old.  Almost...).  Watching one of the little boys try to dribble (dreeb-luh in French) a basketball, jumping with every bounce, was pretty much the essence of adorable, especially when he decided to throw it over the fence to me, and we had a whole exchange tossing the ball back and forth.  Of course, tossing is a bit of an overstatement, he couldn't quite coordinate himself to throw the ball, but he could hold it proudly over his head for a few seconds before it dropped behind him or his grandmother tapped it just enough to send it over the fence to me, whereupon I'd grab it, and hold it back over the fence until he hit it hard enough for it to fall and bounce on his side.  It's good to know that no matter where you are, kids still love and need to play, and that it looks almost exactly the same.  

Here's the view out my big double window, of the neighbour's house over the garden and street: 

And this is the street sign for Rue Maxime Jouret, which is where I'm living for the next year!

Crossing the Atlantic

I'm perched on my new window sill, with a Toulousian breeze fluttering past, looking up at the pale blue sky beyond the brick-red tiled roofs of all my new neighbors. I have Sophie's bird posters up on my walls (though not yet anything else) and my bags mostly unpacked, into piles on my desk and chair while I figure out where everything is going. More musings to come later, as well as perhaps some catch up about my life this summer, but for now, the journey:

I had the window seat from Seattle to Iceland, w two adorable little blonde boys (6&8 or so) next to me.  The flight was easy, 7 hours, and the moon out my window was beautiful, starting as a white shadow in the light blue Seattle afternoon flight, and getting brighter and yellow-er the further we flew into the night. Out the left windows, the sunset was one of the more spectacular I've ever seen, the whole sky a deep deep crimson, barely getting dark before the crimson returned with sunrise.  I didn't sleep much, which I'm feeling now, but we landed just after midnight Seattle time, so that's not all that surprising. And no, Lindsay, I did not watch no strings attached for a 3rd time in 2 months ;)

So, easy as pie, go through Iceland immigration without my checked bags (that'd be my 25 kg big bag, 20 kg backpack, and 19 kg "carry on" bag that they laughed at and checked through), and 55 min later am on the 3 hr flight to Paris, ready to actually sleep.

But alas, it was not to be. I had the exit row aisle, w an empty middle, and a philosopher in the window seat. Kid you not, actual philosopher, on his way from Montreal to Paris to stay w his French gf's family for a week before they both continue on to India for 6-12 months. We had a fantastic conversation for all three hours, which I was potentially slightly delirious throughout, given the hour, and I'm hoping desperately that I'll remember more of it soon.

PARIS: I arrive, get my bags, say good bye to my new friend after exchanging emails and promising to keep my eye out for his book, to be published soon (a masculine version of eat, pray, love, apparently).  I figure out where I'm going, vaguely remember that I'm supposed to be speaking French, and set off for the train-shuttle to take me to my terminal. Damn cdg, however, doesn't allow you to wheel the baggage carts to the tram, so I load up after trying to push the cart through the bars a few times in vain.  I put on my winter coat (yes, it's august), put on my 20 kg back pack, pull my "carryon" with my massive "purse" balancing precariously on top in one hand, and my 25 kg BAG in the other.  'sall good. A few slight near timber moments as you know, I try to walk/turn in said backpack, but otherwise it's all good. I'm sweating bullets on the moving sidewalk. Luckily, as I get to the tram platform, with the backpack coming off of its own accord when i put my other bag down, almost taking me with it, I am visited by a beautiful elderly French lady, who takes pity on me.  She takes my massive bag on to the train, and off we go. There's sweat dripping down my back now. And just before I fell over my sunglasses came off and got nudged back up by an elbow, along with a few extra inches of hair, so, needless to say, I'm looking pretty hot. Three very warm stops later, my angel is getting off with me at Terminal 2! She ropes in her husband, but as I'm leveraging my shoulder bag (with computer in it, and lunch bag dangling from a handle) up to hand him the "carryon" I hear something snap in the handle. Hand off the bag nevertheless, and off we go, me explaining in broken French how I'm going to Toulouse for une année (un an, my lovely lady corrects me) and them replying in great English to ask more questions. Turns out, they (still don't have their name) have a good friend in Toulouse who works for AirBus who they would be happy to put me in touch with.  The creaky handle finally snaps, but we're to the terminal and there are more baggage carts! (new found appreciation for carts) I get their card and bid them adieu, to email them tomorrow to get the email of their friend.

Still wearing the backpack and winter coat, I set off for terminal 2F. Still sweaty sticky gross, but starting to get zen about it. Embrace the heat, the ugly. No one here to impress. I make it to the 2F entrance, but there are more anti cart gates! No! I unload right next to the soldiers w their machine guns out, and try to figure the logistics of 2 hands 3 bags + a backpack. I search for more people I can rope in to helping me. Instead, I spot an elevator, which looks very cart friendly. I start re-loading my cart, w the help of one of the lovely soldiers. UP! Find my Air France baggage line, where I get q very nice man who informs me that my backpack is too long, so must be dropped off at oversize baggage, my BAG is too heavy and must have things taken out, and my "carryon" is clearly not a carryon, wtf was I thinking, it weighs 19 kg and won't fit in an overhead container. I hide my "purse". He goes and talks to his supervisor, and gets the 200 euro 3rd bag charge to check the "carryon" to be 55 euro, because he's lovely and apparently sweat hogs do it for him. Success!  100 euros in baggage later, between the prepaid 2nd bag, and sneaky 2nd 2nd bag and I can go.

I spend my hour at the gate slightly delirious, type up most of that post, and am surrounded by a mass of lime-green-tshirted teenagers, a church group from Indiana. On the plus side, I got "bless you"-ed by a nun, that's gotta count for something.

I remember nothing of the flight from Paris to Toulouse, as soon as we sat down I was asleep. An hour or so later, I woke up as we were coming in to land at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport. Met Olivier de Saint-Exupery, the father of the family I'm staying with, and got all of my bags into his little car. Trying to speak French while tired isn't necessarily the smoothest operation, but we communicated just fine. We arrived at the house, which they built a few years ago, which is beautiful. It's on a little triangle piece of land, with the house along the base and a pointy garden, with children's play set and some lawn space, off the porch to the south. My room is small, with a table that folds up from the wall, an elevated bed with desk underneath, two chairs and a skinny little stool, and a petite kitchenette. I have a big double window that opens to the north, looking onto a little garden space and the neighbors across the street. It has a thick window sill, which I'm fast thinking is going to become my favorite perch.

Sorry for the length, I have lots more to say and think, but for now, gros bisous! À bientôt!