Tarbes updates:

- Last Saturday we spent the day in Auch, a city about an hour north of Tarbes.  It's the home of D'Artagnan, one of the three musketeers, and is quite pretty although smaller than Tarbes.  Unfortunately, it was quite cold and windy so we spent most of our time there in a restaurant, a café, and the cathedral.  The best part was the drive there and back, during which Marta asked us to sing to her so we sang songs from her favorite musical, The Sound of Music, and then when we ran out of those we sang every Disney song we knew.

- This week I am doing a lesson on Motown with my students, and with the exception of my first class on Monday, they are all really liking it!  (duh, who doesn't??)  Even my really lame class yesterday liked it so much that when I told them I had more music to play them but if I put it on they might not hear the bell when it was time to go, they were like "we don't care! put it on anyway!!"

-Possibly inspired by my awesome lesson on Monday, my favorite students asked me to go out for a coffee with them.  They are in the class that is always way more enthusiastic about everything than any of the others, and they are the best and most fun students in the class.  It was four girls, and they said they wanted to practice English so we had coffee yesterday afternoon and only spoke English--gotta love the super motivated students!  It was really fun and we talked about some of the differences between French and American and English people (they are all obsessed with England), and one of them asked about fashion in America.  They said that they heard it was more casual--French people put GREAT care (and time, and money) into their appearance, and they were shocked when I told them that it's acceptable to go out in sweat pants or pajamas in public in the US.  That's one of my favorite things about America since coming to France.  I love that everyone looks great all the time, but I'm usually way too lazy to put any effort into my appearance and therefore feel like a frump everytime I go out.  The girls I was with yesterday said they liked my clothes and I was super flattered, esp. since they all dress really cool, and we had a laugh about how they said something about  me to a school employee who didn't know who I was and they were like "You know, the girl who always wears the yellow coat" and the person knew immediately who I was!  I bet everyone in Tarbes knows the yellow coat girl by appearance--here everyone wears black. only. always.  I feel like I have to do my part to indroduce some color into their lives, even if it means never blending in.

- Today I bought my return ticket, which means I picked the date I'm leaving France!  I am leaving France on May 16, flying to Reykjavik, Iceland and staying there for 7 days, then flying from Reykjavik to Toronto on the 23rd.  I had initially wanted to spend more time in Europe in the summer but I decided I would probably be able to afford one "big" trip before coming home and since IcelandAir is really cheap, that big adventure will be in Iceland!  Not to shabby... plus I'll still have a few weeks in France between when I stop teaching and when I go home.