It all started with an ending. Jeremy's company decided that I have had enough tutor lessons for French. I don't blame them, it was very generous of them to pay for someone who doesn't even work for them anyway. I couldn't afford to continue lessons on my own so I started seeking an alternative. France is great in that it has tons of places for like-minded people to gather. There are tons of locations that can be rented out for very cheap for "loisirs" (hobbies) as well as numerous youth and culture centers that offer courses in things as serious as finance to things as lighthearted as dance and music. In France no matter how odd your hobby, you will find a group to do it with. As an added bonus, fees for such events and courses are very cheap - I assume because they don't have to charge you out the wazoo because unlike the US they don't have to worry about insurance fees and getting sued if someone gets hurt.
So while I was trying to find a substitute for my tutoring, Jeremy's coworker told him about dance classes being held at MJC - a youth and culture center. We decided to sign up and when Jeremy went to the center to pay, he saw a flyer for French as a second language course! Perfect! He tried to sign me up then and there, but the woman said I have to contact the woman on the flyer first and courses were in less than 2 weeks, so act quickly.
I call on a Friday and there's no answer. I hadn't mentally prepared myself to try and leave a voicemail and I don't even know my own phone number without looking anyway so I have to hang up. By the time I translated what I wanted to say it was too late to call. Monday comes and I call twice, leaving a voicemail the second time (I just don't like leaving voicemails, okay?!). She called back two days later and I was immediately intimidated because of how fast she was speaking. I asked her to please speak more slowly to no avail. I had told her on the voicemail I don't speak well, asked her on the phone to slow down, why is a woman who is teaching French as a second language not getting the hint? It didn't matter anyway because our call got disconnected. I waited a bit for her to call back but she didn't. Over the course of the day I called back a few times and they all were just dial tone noise. I kept calling each day and then two days before the class was to start I found her e-mail address on the MJC website and sent her an e-mail. You probably don't have to guess, I got not response from that either.
I could't find any more courses similar. Now with the tutor cancelled, I've lost my one reason to get out of the house and I'm starting to go stir crazy. Dance lessons are okay but it's only one hour a week and since you're being active, it feels like it's over so quickly. And while it works me physically, it doesn't work me mentally since there is no talking besides the teacher teaching dance steps.
Jeremy decided to check out onvasortir.com, a website dedicated to people meeting up and hanging out, typically in large groups. For instance this Friday, there are currently 35 events on onvasortir for Besançon. There are quite a few for dancing and swimming, billiards, zumba, football (soccer), a drink before dinner, some concerts and plays, a documentary about the origin of the apple, a girl who is looking for other girls to go clothes shopping with, karaoke, qi cong, bowling, and a couple dinners. A person creates an event, a time, how many people they are looking for, and some paragraphs about the event and if you're interested you sign up. Jeremy found an event were people go to practice their English and decided we should go.
It ended up being really fun although I don't get to practice my French as it's a group for practicing English and they want to hear us speak it. But now we go to that every Friday night and the woman who organizes it, upon hearing I crochet, invited me to her knitting group that meets up on Saturdays. Then three other people gave me their numbers to meet up outside of the English meet up so they can practice English and I can practice French. I also got a hold of my old tutor so we could meet up from time to time for lunch and one thing turned to another and now I am occasionally babysitting her kids!
All of a sudden I went from doing absolutely nothing to being busy almost every day. So Friday I met up with my tutor, Marie, for lunch and then had the English meet up that night and then 7 of us decided to go out for dinner together afterwards, Saturday was knitting, Monday was a meet-up with two people from the English group, Séverine and Benoit, Tuesday was a meet-up with Benoit and then babysitting Marie's kids, today is a classical music concert with a couple other people from the English meet-up, Marion and Loz, and then dinner at Marion's house, tomorrow is dancing, and then we're back to Friday with the English meet-up! I am a busy girl, but it's giving me more experiences to write about, so stay tuned!