I knew this month was going to be exciting, but I didn't quite realize how exciting. It began with moving out of the apartment I had lived in for the past 9 months, throwing stuff, giving some away, and hanging on to more than I should. The family in Seignosse who I would be au pairing for contacted me via email and said they didn't need me until the 11th of July. No problem. I stuck around Avignon until then and caught the beginning of the world-famous Avignon theater festival, of which I'd been hearing since the day I arrived on the scene, late last September.
I saw 6 plays and only paid for one of them (now that's the way to see a theater festival)! Two of them were final dress rehearsals at the Theatre Etincelle, the theater where Sarah has an internship this month. One of them wasn't all that good (a period piece about convincing a beautiful country girl to fall out of love with the foolish nobody who had won her heart and into love with the local prince...uninspired, dreary, and all the actors were too old...one of the love interests was balding!), and one of them was pretty decent (three guys, talking about and doing random shit). In one line, they gushed about what a fate it would be to spend an eternity in a theater seat! In another, they urged one to be the creaky floorboard on the stage. It resonates, it dares, you can dance and sing... The director of the theater asked us to stay afterwards and congratulate the actors, as some audience members had left halfway through the performance (and being that the audience was only a handful of people, it was noticeable).
Zandra, Sarah and I paid to see a play called Ronald, the clown of McDonald's & I bought a shovel at Ikea to dig my grave, or something along those lines. Three actors, kooky commentary on consumer culture. It was dark and delicious and yeah, we've heard it all before. Then Sarah snuck us into two shows at her theater on the opening day (by now Zandra and I were familiar faces around there). We saw an adaptation of Romeo & Juliet that would try to be funny, but never quite got there, and would always pull back to being serious. They stuck too close to the original, in my opinion, and the final scene was them lying there, dead. No wrap-up speeches or nothing. AND, I'm sorry, but practically every man in the play was tolerably cute except Romeo! He was sweaty and goofy and looked about 12 years old. I was careful not to be too critical, though, as the writer of the thing was there in the audience! The best part was when a gel fell from a light onto an audience member...classic!
My favorite show at Sarah's theater was called The Operation of the Holy Spirit. Set in Heaven, Mary full of grace was played by a man in drag, Jesus was SOOO gay, and Gabriel ran around singing and squeaking in a very high-pitched voice. At one point God gives the angels penises to lower their voices, and Gabriel starts chasing Mary, so he takes them back. It was kooky and awesome, in a very good way.
One of the best parts of the festival is walking around the streets during the day. You see all sorts of troupes of actors singing and demonstrating and handing out fliers to come see their show. One of the fliers I got was actually a free invitation for two people. So Jeff and I went and saw Rockstar, an amazing one man show about...everything and nothing, as these things go. For part of the time the dude was in his own brain, meeting different people on the different levels. It was awesome, and totally worth the price!
On Monday, July 6th Jeff convinced Zandra and I to ride our bikes to Les Beaux de Provence to catch Stage 3 of the Tour de France! He estimates we rode about 60-75 km round trip, all told. Which is really nothing compared to the almost 200km Lance et al rode that day, when you think that it's still going on and they're still riding up mountains and crazy shit! We met some American army dudes who are stationed in Germany right now, and I got lured into being interviewed by some dudes with a camera and microphone who asked leading questions about whether I thought Lance dopes or not. I ended up comparing him to Batman, training himself to physical perfection and all that. We got some free shit in the parade that comes around before the racers (sausages, crackers, candy, beer opener, stupid hats, glasses wipe) and we looked ridiculously awesome with Jeff's 6-foot American flag. I know I saw Lance, (he was in the peleton), but I couldn't pick him out as I tried to take a picture and it was all over in a matter of seconds. Overall, a pretty good day (even though my butt was really sore afterwards).
Continuing my typical French experiences, on July 10th I headed to Carcassonne, one of the coolest castle/fortresses in Europe. Very touristy, very awesome. I was going to take myself out to a nice dinner to celebrate my getting paid finally by the commie French government to help out with my rent for the past 6 months, but instead I ended up staying at the hostel and drinking my dinner with a rag-tag bunch of 'Europeans' late into the night. There was John from England, the hostel barkeep, Mathias from Germany, Cairan from Ireland, (pronounced Kir-on), Vincente from Spain (who was going to do part of the Santiago de Compostollo pilgrimage and was trying to convince me to join him...in hindsight I should have said yes), two Belgians who were also pilgrims (although they were more serious about it), two other Belgians who looked like twins, matching blue shirts and shiny bald heads, and later on a Danish guy and Nick from Canada joined us for awhile. It was one of the best hostel times I've ever had, and made me fall in love with 'the Europe' even more (they made fun of me, referring to Europe as we Americans tend to do, as one entity). I need to get one of them to marry me, if only for the treasured EU citizenship!
The next day I headed to Seignosse, outside of Bayonne, which is outside of Biarritz, to be an au pair. Marnie is 2 and adorable, Stephanie (the mom) is gorgeous and pregnant, and Stu (the dad) is English/South African and owns a hip little surfer joint called the Cream Cafe, right off the beach. Well, there was a miscommunication about September (I changed my departure from the 14th to the 4th without telling them until I got here), which was apparently a deal breaker for Stephanie, so she found another au pair and told me two days ago that the new au pair was coming yesterday. Yeah, she gave me 24 hours notice that I was jobless and homeless for the next two months. I freaked out and started desperately looking around (I even called John from Carcassonne about any leads in the hostel biz, and called the hostel in Sete and said my friend John told me they might need someone...unfortunately the dude wasn't looking for anymore foreigners...damn I need that EU citizenship)! Within hours I had many welcoming friends with many couches and one au pair gig for the month of August. I've decided to take it, so I'm going to be an au pair in Normandy for a 20 month old boy...ah! A little young, but I (hopefully!) can handle it. I was hurt and mad at first, but actually I think it's for the best. Stephanie was kind of a bitch and very particular (I had to iron Stu's t-shirts so he 'wouldn't look like a gypsy' according to her), and I think I'm going to be happier with my new plans. Which are?
I'm in a hotel in Bayonne for two more nights (the weather is gray and gross and windy and rainy right now...I think I'm going to go to a movie by myself tonight...sad!), then off to Sete for two nights, and that hostel I tried to get a job at (hopefully they forgot that an 'Annette' called them a few days ago...). I've heard Sete is nice, and it looks pretty...then to see Whitney in Pertuis, (which is good...it would have been sad to go back to the states without seeing her again), back to Avignon for probably half a day (where my deposit check for my apartment will hopefully be waiting for me with Sarah), then to Geneva to visit my old roommate Xuan from China, who's currently doing an internship with the World Health Organization! I've never been to Switzerland, and it's about darn time! As the saying goes...when life gives you lemons, find someone whose life gave them vodka. I'm making martinis out of these lemons! July 2009 will forever be known as 'The Month of Crazy' by me and my close associates.
Then I'll head to Normandy (I don't even know exactly where yet...I'll talk to the woman on the phone later today) for a month of hanging with a baby. Somewhere in there Aunt Robin and my cousin Reid will swing through. After that, around my mom's birthday (the 25th of August), I'm planning on heading up to the UK, to hang with my pals Ruth and Simon and party our asses off until my flight on September 4th to Cambodia to visit my dad! So you see, as my godmother Irene always says: it all works out when you let it!
No comments:
Post a Comment