This past week has been pretty calm. On Saturday, we went a little bit outside of the city to where this big second-hand "store", Emmaüs is. I say "store" because it was actually really big and there were different buildings for different categories (clothes, books, furniture, etc). I guess you'd call that a center or complex. I was feeling sick and coughy and it was cold/foggy so I wasn't on my best behavior, but it was still a cool visit! The clothes section was honestly a bit disappointing because for how big everything was I thought there would be more. But I liked perusing the books and looking at all the dishes.
I forgot but Friday I went to this language conversation thing with a British assistant friend I made at the beginning of the school year. We haven't hung out that much but I have a good time when I do get to see her! I only went to one of these conversation things once before and this time was fun because there were a lot more people. It's a thing the library in Amiens has for people to practice French. Normally I wouldn't voluntarily participate in such an activity, but the bar is low since everyone there is obviously there to practice. And they structure it in such a way that it's not too stressful.
Yesterday, as Naoni said, was Mardi Gras. For the elementary school kids, that meant dressing up and eating crêpes. I think they also did other little activities. The littlest kids told me they had a dance party. It's quite different from Mardi Gras in the US, but I think their traditions are sweet. Since I'm not Catholic, I never did the whole "giving something up" for Lent. I said I could do chips, but I think I would need to examine my faith more for it to really mean anything. That's still on the agenda....
Other than reading I've also started my journey with knitting. I made a cute little scrunchie and I'm making another one before I attempt the daunting task of making socks. I ultimately am interested in making stuff like sweaters and cardigans, but I'm using these more small-scale and delicate projects to work up my skills. Rome wasn't built in a day! (Italy reference, iykyk ;) )
pictures to come!
Rachel
i know!! It's interesting that there are these little mardi gras celebrations/activities in france even for kids. mardi gras was never something i knew about growing up in MA tbh...and glad u liked the language conversation thing. those can be stressful for me hehe but i think it's always worth doing once you work up the
Hmmmmm, I never thought about doing a language learning thing. There’s actually a lot of non-French people here and we have an immigration building in our town, I’ll go to them and ask if they have any free French teaching classes. Similar to what Aboni said: I didn’t know you liked chips that much :0 what is your fav? But idk, I think lent is a good time for re-evaluating new year resolutions. Since it’s sort of a while after the new year, it makes you think about what you actually have been achieving and what you are doing wrong with what you haven’t. And with the added time from removing your vices, it kind of forces you to fit…
I would love to see your scrunchies, and I love the Rome reference. But yeah, I'm not Catholic, but I'm nondenominational and for the longest time I thought everyone did Lent, but since going to Smith and meeting more Catholics I realized that it's pretty exclusive to Catholics, so maybe it was more of my dad's influence (idk really), but giving up chips sounds interesting...didn't know you were that dedicated to them lol. Also, the language practice thing sounds so cool wish there was something like that out here (but instead everyone ONLY speaks french, and I have no chance of not speaking it with nonnative speakers...idk speaking with other language learners is easier, but you don't get all the…