Identification Cards, Photos, and Passes.

Le 30 novembre 2004.
The first winter cold of the season is making its rounds through the foyer, and in particular, the assistants. Both Wienke and Jennifer have already been sick, and possibly Louise Plaid too- and now I woke up this morning with my little sniffles and sore throat going into overdrive. It’s quite annoying to be feeling under the weather in the first place, and then to just keep feeling weaker and tired makes it all that worse. The worst bit is how you just seem to lose your head in addition to feeling awful. Walking to pick up my new student card for the regional bus system of Moselle, I completely forgot I was in France and the office would be closed for the requisite two hours at lunch. But il faut profiter, and so I did. I used the time to stroll –as my walking speed is not much more than a stroll today- through the marché de Noël at Place St. Louis; there I picked out ideas for Christmas presents to send home and tried a huge bowl of tartifoulette, or something like that, a Franco-Swiss dish from the Alps, made of potatoes, onions, bits of ham, and about five pounds of cheese (usually gruyere!) per serving. The guy serving up the dish was a funny guy, but super nice. He listened to my accent as I asked for some of the … stuff, and laughingly wouldn’t start scooping up some hot food for me until I properly pronounced the name of the dish. (What a throw back to yesterday and making my kids pronounce fifty properly- as in fifty, not something almost like fifteen. Oh, pronunciation!) It’s such a heavy dish I couldn’t even finish half of it, so I suppose I should have just gotten a monster pretzel, they’re about the size of my face and very thick. I also wanted to ride on the gorgeous antique carousal, but decided to wait until I had a crowd of twenty-somethings to ride with me, so as not to look quite so bizarre.

In a land of such bureaucracy as France, I’ve often commented that they should be more organized than they truly are; yet this disorganization is what makes it so easy to get what you want in France. For instance, a student pass for the regional bus system will get me either fifty or seventy-five percent of the price of my bus back from Ste. Marie on the days I can’t get a ride back into town. The problem being that I can only be classed as a student of life at the moment, hence my ‘student card’ doesn’t have the school years printed on it. Luckily, there existed another card with the school year dates printed on it, and that in combination with my student card were enough to qualify me for the student pass. So hooray for yet another identification card in my wallet! I think I’m up to four cards for some reason of discount or another. But I have found a wallet that I am going to buy, so then I’ll have an actual wallet!

In addition, as I was walking back to Republique to pick up my student bus pass from the hopefully opened TIM office at 2pm, I noticed that the scene of Republique in front of me, at the end of Rue des Clercs, looked rather familiar. In the end I decided it looked like Paris’ wide avenues lined with numerous sycamores, and with all the dappled sunlight coming through the clouds today, it was a really beautiful scene- like a watercolor painting that you’d buy on the street in Paris.

Marie-Pierre is one of the dear-est woman who has ever lived. (Forgive my grammatical errors there! And I’m teaching English, I know!) Besides just being such a sweet lady, she has lent me an entire kitchen—mugs, bowls, soup plates, plates, silverware, glasses, beer mugs, corkscrew, bottle opener, and pots and pans. I couldn’t believe it! I can now cook in my kitchen! It’s so beautiful now too, not just half empty shelves!

Terri has just reminded me that I never mentioned the glorious things that happened on Thanksgiving. After the sad and untimely demise of our pumpkin pie on the Wednesday before, Victoria’s sister arrived from the East Coast on Thursday and they made delicious mashed potatoes and … the best part!... pumpkin pie filling, so we got to have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, just without the crust! But it was so delicious!

On a final note, I think I’ll have to invite the residence handyman to tea one day; for even though it’s his job at the foyer to fix things, I feel between my room and my studio, he has seen me more often than most of the other residents. But yay for a new faucet head tomorrow!