Winter Gone, Hello Spring

The last I wrote winter was starting and today we have 22 degrees celsius with blue skies and beaming sunshine. It is truly a beautiful day as the weather goes, and it is following two days of lovely weather. We could say spring has arrived and Brittany is soaking up the warmth and sun after a typically rainy and cold winter.

Lots has happened on my side, I suppose (thus explaining why I haven't found time to write regularly as originally planned). Here's the skinny:

-Four short days after getting back from Germany I found out that my Venezuelan roommate decided to move out...and he did immediately. The American roommate likewise took the opportunity to bail ship and move in with her boyfriend. In early February one of my best friends here moved in and three weeks later another friend joined us. I'm now living with two French guys--one from Normandy and another from the southwest of the country--and quite frankly the experience is much more enjoyable than how things were previously (as I was often in my room or alone in the house entirely).

-At the end of January I took a long week-end in Portugal, visiting Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto. It remains one of my favorite countries and only gave me desire to return and know it better.

-In February I was called to Rennes to have my medical visit done and to be given my residency card ("titre de séjour"). I, as a result of only having 7 visa stamp boxes left in my passport, sent my passport to the American embassy in Paris and got 24 new passport pages inserted for my future escapades.

-I spent a weekend in March at "Les Gras" in Douarnenez. This is the biggest Carnaval celebration in Brittany and takes place in a small port town near where I used to live in Concarneau. Mostly it is tons of drunk people wearing wigs, funny glasses and strange clothes that walk from bar to bar on the port. I luckily stayed a second night and saw that each night changes. Sunday night is "restaurant night" and while I was still up late and still surrounded by drunk people, I also had a really good time chatting and joking around with them until 12:30am when we left the restaurant.

-After the weekend in Douarnenez I went to Quimper and stayed the week there with various friends, making three times the roundtrip to Concarneau to see my old au pair family, friends from church, and just to see the coast. It was nice to be back there and it still strangely felt like home. A real pleasure to see my old friends with whom I haven't spoken in several months for the most part, but who were as warm and welcoming as ever.

-A week back at school from holiday and I left for a week in England with 50 of my students, 3 colleagues, and a bus driver. We did everything by coach and it was a loooooooong week: Lannion to Calais for the ferry, arrive in Dover, hit London, stay in Stratford-Upon-Avon (birthplace of Shakespear), stay a day in Stratford, day-trip in Oxford, half-day in Warwick, half-day in a Cadbury factory, day in Canterbury before heading back out through Dover and arriving in Lannion at 5am Saturday. Ouch! With two students getting stomach flus from their host family, we were more than happy to arrive at the school and get out of that bus. Can't say I'm a big fan of England and can't say I'm a big fan of chaperoning school trips, but hey, it's over and next year I'll probably say yes again.

-On the ferry to England I received an email from the Spanish administration offering me a post as a language assistant in Asturias for the 2011-2012 school year. Woohoo!

-I also nailed out some plans (ahem) with an au pair family. These plans change on a weekly basis, so I hesitate to say anything for sure, but at the moment I will be in Ourense, Galicia with them from mid-July to mid-September.

-MEANING I will be in Texas from mid/late May to mid-July. Already I know I'll be heading to Wisconsin for a family member's memorial and semi-family reunion, and also going to a friend's wedding in Texas.

I'm excited for each future step, except for leaving Lannion. I've started to feel really at ease here, I have a good friend group, the weather is getting better and better, and there's so much potential in having another year here. Oh well, no luck there, so we'll just have to make the most of the future.