Bonjour à tous !

Disclaimer: I’ve added few pictures that really have nothing to do with this post, but I didn’t really have any pictures that went along with this post. Just some more great shots of one of the many beautiful parks in Rennes to give you yet another picture of this charming city

I feel the need to begin by recounting a few interesting, broadening, and quite honestly, hilarious, dance experiences I’ve had so far. I suppose I can begin when Christine (Richmond friend) and I saw flyers for salsa lessons. The flyer said the first week of lessons would be free, so if you really wanted to get your “money’s worth” (not like you would be paying anything anyways!), you could go to three- four- however many salsa lessons they offered a day for 7 days- what a deal, eh? So yeah, both being interested in salsa and all, we decided to try one of the lessons out. Well, what I really should have started with was how surprised I was to see that salsa was offered at all, nonetheless being publicized in so many places! It’s definitely « hot » right now, if you know what I mean. Anyways, Christine and I met 10 or so minutes before the lesson at the metro stop on campus (yeah, isn’t that great? Incredibly convenient, let me tell you), and proceeded to try and find one of the gyms on campus where the lesson was being held. After getting lost and asking several French people we passed by for directions, we finally located [what we thought] was the correct building. We entered a double door, and voilà(!), we saw people dancing. In the middle of an empty gym was a hugeeee circle of people, mostly young, and mostly female (typical when it has anything to do with dance. I tell you, guys/men want to know the secret to woo women… it’s through dance! Or I mean, even if you’re not good at dancing, there are tons of women at dance lessons/dance clubs, and there are bound to be at least a few who think it’s cute if the man doesn’t dance wel Anyways…). In the middle of this huge circle of salsa-ing folk was a tall, skinny, fair man with dark hair. He looked up when we walked in and pointed at his watch, as if he was offended by our late arrival (we were just a few minutes late, and plus, we had gotten lost!). He started to shout to us over the loud music, saying something in French and pointing in a certain direction. Not wanting to utterly stand out, we unknowingly made things worse by not saying “OK” or “Oui” or “D’accord” (OK in French), and instead kept walking to one of the walls of the gym where we could drop our things off. “Vous êtes françaises?”… “¿HABLAN ESPAÑOL?” I guess instead of trying to blend in and be groovy, we had instead stuck out like glaring foreigners- or Spanish, as he had asked us if we spoke Spanish. Bravo! He stopped everything and finally we understood that we were supposed to go over to the woman at the desk and register for our “One Week Free!” trial period of the salsa lessons. The lesson ended up being great fun- great fun in the sense that this teacher was a hilarious salsa teacher, and by hilarious, I mean hilarious-looking. He moved his body in such a weird way and didn’t seem to have the correct body movements that make salsa salsa. At one point, he even bent over and, putting his arms upside down and together, shook his arms and chest with the motion that people sometimes use for “give me more” when they’re dancing. Maybe that wasn’t the best explanation of the movement he made, but let’s just say it was bizarre and not very salsa-like. Soon he split us into two groups: “men” and “women”, and partnered us up. As there were too many girls, I became “the man”, and learned the steps of the male. Again in the big circle, but this time with a “male” and “female” partner, our instructor taught us a little 15 or so second dance. He began to play music, and then had us go through this little routine with our partners. Then the “men” were to stay put, and the women (not in quotes because they really were all women) switched partners. Let’s just say I ended up dancing with about 20 different French woman/young woman again and again and again because of the rotation. It was pretty awkward most of the time. Most of them wouldn’t introduce themselves when I became their new partner, so I would try to introduce myself. Also, being the male, I had to lead the steps. I knew what I was doing because it was very basic, but some of them didn’t, and let’s just say me trying to correct them in French while trying to concentrate myself and not come off like a buffoon made those 20 minutes pretty interesting. I won’t deny that I welcomed the end of that lesson. I wasn’t so sure I would willingly be “the man” again in the future. However, my friend Christine, who had been a “woman”, told me that dancing with a lot of the French men was really awkward. Some of them stared at her not saying anything, while others supposedly smelled pretty bad and couldn’t keep step/time to the music at all. At the end of the lesson, we saw the price of lessons for the semester, and let’s just say we made that lesson with them our last. Oh well…


Random Picture of the French Garden in the Parc du Thabor, one of Rennes' many lovely lovely parks :)


After giving up on salsa lessons, I found a dance class being offered by the sports and recreation program on my campus that included “rock, lindy hop, etc.”. I was interested, never having before taken dance classes as such (never having seen them even offered in the first place), and the price for the semester was much more reasonable, so I decided to try out the first lesson with two friends. Arriving to a different gym on the other side of town, we found ourselves in a huge gym with about 75 other students. I was shocked! There were so many. The instructor was a Frenchman who looked to be about the age of 35 or so. After registering and all, we began our first lesson. The class again got split in half, “men” on one side, “women” on the other, facing each other. This time I made sure I was a “woman”, but actually there were a pretty equal number of males/females, surprisingly, so it wasn’t a hard fight. Then the professor began to play that song that goes “Freedom… Freedom… Freedom… FREEDOM… think (THINK!), think about what you’re tryin’ to do to me, ohhhh yeah think (THINK!), think about yourself be free.” Anyways, the next 5 min. were definitely some of the best of my life. I was laughing so hard. The instructor was teaching us all these “groovy, cool” dance moves, and all the students were following him. I swear, I feel like I was back in the early 60s or something. Honestly, it was such a great time. I just wonder if the French think Americans really dance like that. I mean, maybe they did at the time, but goodness, not now! Anyways, I just thought you would find those two stories humoring. They are definitely memories that will make me laugh every time I think about them. A good thing to keep in mind wherever you live or study abroad is to try new things and get out of the normal routine from time to time. It can be pretty interesting/fun, and you can meet all sorts of interesting people.

Beautiful path in the Parc du Thabor

Until next time! Au revoir!!

Random Cottage(?- but still cute!) and Ducks