Bonjour, y'all!

Who would have thought a move to France would bring out my inner redneck, but I have found that many French seem to love all things country and/or western and I am beginning to discover this whole new aspect to life here. Last weekend Patrice and I attended an American Country Western Festival in Chartres (about 45 minutes from here and famous for its cathedral). I happened to stumble across this when I was looking for line dancing lessons in our area because - don't ask me why - I have had this huge desire to line dance since I've arrived here and we thought it would be a fun couples activity.

We arrived for the first day of the American festival a couple of hours after the scheduled opening (note the keyword here is "scheduled") only to find not much going on and the vendors and expositions were still setting up. As someone who is usually 10 minutes late for everything I have ever done since I was probably 12, I do love the fact that schedules here seem to rarely exist and/or be adhered to, but there are times when you wish things would generally start moving along within, oh, one to two hours of their scheduled start. (On the flip side, we had some friends over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and not only were they and hour EARLY, they brought their dog and two extra people we weren't expecting, so I guess it can go both ways!)

One of the biggest things I was looking forward to about this weekend was speaking with other Americans. When I have attended French or German events in Portland, for example, I seemed to recall actual French or Germans attending or participating. Speaking French 24/7 gets a little tiresome and I was really looking forward to parlez-vous-ing a little anglais, but in this case, I really think I was the only American there, which was disappointing. However, once things got going, we had a great time! It was really cool to see French people taking this aspect of American culture so seriously and really enjoying themselves. There was country and rockabilly music, all sung in nearly accent-free English and there were times I looked around at the crowds and thought I was back home (well, not Portland or course but at least at the Canby country fair).

There certainly was a "we're French and not American" aspect to some of the getups - e.g. Gucci sunglasses, men with baguettes under their arms and jauntily-tied scarves around their neck as well as some of the most frightening ensembles of cowhide print couture I'd ever seen. I was obsessed with this trio of women I saw both days - one of whom I dubbed 'RoboCowboy' because she had a silver cowboy hat and wraparound sunglasses and her 'mutton dressed as lamb' friend had an indescribable combination of looks going on; I was simply hypnotized. My stealth-without-being-a-stalker photo skills were definitely put to the test. The music was great (the BBQ, on the other hand, not so much), we enjoyed the dancing and the people were fun to talk to. I really liked seeing the American cars as well (including the ubiquitous Dodge Ram pickup). We did get information for country dance lessons near our home and we have our first lesson this Thursday! I am super excited but Patrice is nervous because he thinks it's going to be too hard and he'll be impatient, which it will be and he will be, but he'll get it. Most men don't have 20 years of aerobics classes under their belts to prepare them for the wonderful world of group choreography.

I had the really good luck of meeting a Dutch woman here on the "other" side of St. Jean - which I didn't know existed - who runs a B&B for mainly Dutch people and offers English and French lessons. My friend Denise and I saw her flyer offering English lessons to children, so we though we had another 'rosbif' living in the village, but despite not being English, her English was very good and now I have another opportunity to NOT speak French. She hired me for one week to give English lessons to a 17-year-old boy who was visiting with his family and it really great because I enjoy doing it and it showed me how much I miss working in a 'normal' capacity, e.g. actually leaving your house and talking with other human beings.

I am really looking forward to getting my carte de sejour so I can look for a job. As I alluded to in the title of my last email, life here is VERY, VERY expensive. Not like the "go to California and spend ten cents more for a gallon of gas" expensive, but literally $8 a gallon for gas, $70 for a gallon of paint and the aforementioned $15 volleyball-sized watermelon at our local market. I went to buy a carton of cigarettes for my neighbor to the tune of $81. Suck on that for a moment - 81 bucks! (Yes, I am vehemently opposed to smoking but I figure if you're 80 years old and are still putting down a carton of unfiltered Gitanes each week, God bless you, you deserve each and every one.) On the plus side, bottled water is cheap, cheap, cheap (fortunately since, due to our hard water, I wash my hair in it) and the bastion of my teenage leisuredom - the glossy tabloid - is only about $1.50.

I still keep finding my little tastes of home that make life even nicer for me. One of the things I have missed the most is ordering a gigantic mocha at my local coffee shop and poring over the Sunday paper all morning. Despite having lots of little cafes, it is definitely not the same coffee culture as in the U.S. Paris is different - there are 25 Starbucks there - but to recreate my Sunday ritual, it would cost me close to $60: $40 for the train and métro ticket , $11 for a large frappuccino at Starbucks and $7 for the Sunday London Times. Sadly, that not being in the budget very often, I have had my local news agent order me the London Times and I go out for a thimble-sized café au lait in Vendôme or Orléans - a city conquered by Julius Caesar in the year 52 (!!) and place where Joan of Arc overthrew the English in 1429. I still continue to be in complete awe of the history that I am living smack dab in the middle of.

Orléans is also the place where I did my final rounds of appointments for my carte de sejour last week. I had health tests (TB: negative. Blood sugar: normal. Blood pressure: 120/80. Weight: down 17 pounds since my arrival, which was a pleasant surprise) as well as a stealth French proficiency exam (written and oral) which I didn't even know I was being given. All of our conversations with the staff were in French and I was asked to write personal information when filling out forms. Hilariously (and inexplicably) the information given to the group about lessons available to those who *don't* speak French was in French, so I am wondering how that worked out for everyone. At the end of the morning, I was told that these conversations were my exam as I passed, which I was not expecting. When I signed my name to the form, I saw that others in the room were having 300-500 hours of instruction recommended to them, so I felt really proud of myself that in just under a year after speaking my first word of French with Patrice and only five or six formal lessons, I was able to pass this test. However, I am going to take advantage of the free lessons that the government offers, well "free" in the sense that I paid a whopping $400 for my residency permit! I can take three or four lessons a week in nearby Blois starting in October.