Peace :)

Things are slowly falling into place in France. Not with the economy, not with the people still on strike, not with the French people lining up to petrol stations, but just with me! I'm at ease in my little Saint Valéry. I get to walk around a lot, which I would generally not do if I was living in the capital city of Rouen. The only thing I will never figure out is how to greet the French irrespective of where I live in France. The French have various ways for greeting one another. Some will shake your hand or some will embrace you lightly or some will reach forward and lightly do a cheek-to-cheek greeting twice if you're from Paris and four times if you're from regions around Paris. As you know, I have a penchant for getting into really awkward situations. Living as an expatriate in France, has not helped me get better at these kind of social situations. For example today, I rushed into the school, I was already 10 minutes late thanks to the cartons put in front of my gate by the strikers. The principal and the assistant principal were standing in the corridor of my classroom (just my luck). They didn't seem to notice I was late and came forward to greet me. Since I was in such a hurried state of mind, I mixed up all the forms of greeting! :) With the Monsieur le Principal, I shook his hand and also hugged him (not appropriate to do both). With Madame l'Adjointe Principale, I shook her hand and then even after realizing that was enough, I went ahead and gave her the cheek-to-cheek greeting, while still holding her hand. She gave out a little laugh and said that my cheeks were freezing. Which would explain why she had offered me her hand in the first place! Sigh! I feel less embarrassed now that I've put it down on paper. I guess I have to just laugh at myself. There's no promise that I won't encounter more awkward situations like these in the future but hey! they make for a good laugh sometimes don't they?!

Other than that little awkward situation, life is peaceful. I have two weeks of All Saint's holidays coming up. Yes! we have two weeks! French schools operate for three to fours weeks and then they close for two to three weeks of holidays. I'm considering going to Bretagne (Brittany) as I have some friends there and I had visited the place in 2006 (when I won a trip with Alliance Française for writing an essay on the feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir, yes those were the days when I would really challenge myself) and I absolutely loved it. I had originally planned to head for Marseille, in the lovely south of France but then the strike is still on and I wouldn't want to get stranded in the middle of nowhere without any possibility to get home. Bretagne (North west of France) is much closer to Normandy and if the trains are still not working, a friend of mine could drop me back. I really hope the strike gets called off though because life is starting to get a bit dicey. Airports are running minimum flights, factories have shut down, people are queuing up for petrol, the economy is on a standstill and this could cause trouble for the French and my holiday plans! voilà c'est la vie!