Spring floating

If you have been following my blog (probably not) there has been a lot of negativity lately, so much negativity I have even amazed myself. It'll be weird for me to look at these posts years with the so-called wisdom I'll have.
So let me seize on the chance to be positive. Mostly to let you have a glimpse of why I've been floating in this country for so long.

Today was a day that could never happen in the United States. I got up early to go to give class to a private student in Thionville, a nearby town about 40 minutes or so by train from my home. It's a three-hour intensive class, so it's a lot of preparation added on to the early communte. I get there at 9:00am bang, I wait and I soon I receive an unexpected sms from my one (private) student, Brigitte.... no, she won't be coming to class, she has a headache and is taking the day off. Granted she writes this to me 10 minutes after the time the class would have started! So I feel shitty for having wasted all my time, and I was already stuck their because I had an afternoon class, even if I would still be paid for part of the time wasted. \

That is when I bumped into Nat, the other language instructor who says "no prob, just switch with me, just move your afternoon class up a few hours till now, your students are here anyway doing something else, I'll shorten my class with them too, and we can all take the afternoon off". At first, the little American inside of me thought.... no, they have plans for the morning, have projects, need to have lunch sometine, how would we find a room?, how would it work out?, is that possible? there is a little fraud there somehow... nah nah ni, nah nah nah" . But let it be, and so it was.... I ended up taking an open classroom in the school, and made a deal with my students that we'd do about half the time, no one would know about it, and we all could have the afternoon free. And if we had to blame anyone it'd be Brigitte and Nat! But actually so many people had taken the day off anyway that there weren't even any secretaries or assistants around. So this morning was kind of like organized chaos, everything was on auto pilot, you know... photocopy machine works till the first jam then puff, improvised attendance sheets etc. In the end, I made out better than if Brigitte had come, for a lot of reasons as you'll see later.... financially 6 hours of class in 2.5 hours, with 4 of them paid and a whole afternoon free! Floating in France can either bite you hard in France, or you can win big time.

Next, I head out and start walking back to the station. And what do I see? People dressed up like Halloween singing and drinking beer in the street! So I learn of the BAC carnaval tradition! The equivalent of Seniors in High School sporadically decide (whenever they want to) to play hooky (all of them), go party in the street, all with the excuse of protesting the fact they have to take the Baccalaureat, a hard, thorough exam at the end of their studies, to get their high school diploma. In reality they drink a lot of beer, make a mess and condemn the napoleonic tradition. OMG!

Arriving at the station, I find a crowd of disgruntled people waiting for trains. The SNCF train workers have gone on strike again!!!! Again, nobody knows why, no apologies, no info available. My 1PM train ain't coming! It's 12:35, so I thought, here we go again... I dodged one bullet and survived well, just to get hit straight on in the head with another!! But don't dispair.... what did I see? The 10am train, arriving late, going in my direction! No, I didn't have a ticket, but I couldn't miss the opportunity. I had to jump on that train, like my life depended on it! Who knows when the 1pm would have come. And no conductors, means I could actually get away with it. Even if there were, today was my day and there was no way in hell they'd get a dime out of me...

All in all, I actually won again. It makes you feel alive, and strangely productive. I got up on the wrong side of the bed and turned every bad situation into a success story. Yeah, I know it's pure luck, and it's really the same message as before. My life is floating on a cloud, normally a storm cloud but today a beautiful bright fluffy one. Whatever, it feels good, and speaking of clouds, the underlying reason for everything happening today, the real unspoken reason, be it Brigitte's blue flu, the changing of classes from morning to afternoon, my pact with Nat and the students, the Senior carnaval, and the train strike.... if a miraculous thing happened today.... after 9 months, the sun came out in France. Yes, Spring has finally arrived.. It's incredible really! Getting out of my train in Metz, I looked up, and gasped. Oh my God. Now if you live in Florida I guess you cannot appreciate this, but in France this is really unexpected, because the weather is so terrible almost all of the time. So this was as close to being touched by the hand of God that you every possibly humanly imagine. Then you realize what the century old legends of Springtime in Paris and the beauty of France is about. You suddenly see flowers everywhere, geraniums, nacissus, lilies, green trees, think lawns. You hear the sweet sound of river water slowly floating downstream as you slowly saunter over the bridge. You notice the sunshine ricocheting off whitewashed buildings built centuries ago, gone with the winter coats, on with the miniskirts. The artists and wannabe artists are painting outdoors. Everyone seems to be in love with life and each other, walking, holding hands, running, rowing boats gently across the lake, sunbathing on benches everywhere. The French are just enjoying life and laughing (yes even laughing in France, it does exist), and, sipping those tall glasses of rosé wine in outdoor cafes, and of course, you bump into everyone you've ever met, and celebrate together, for of course, but of course, nobody is working, every bogus excuse is good for for being out, about and alive.

Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay, Rontay