A Welcoming French Weekend

France is a walk in the park.

What's more welcoming than a goat?

Last weekend, we attended two (very different) welcoming events. On Saturday morning, we went to the first (though all the pictures are from the second): a welcome reception for people who have moved to Cesson-Sevigne in the past year sponsored by the mayor's office. It was held in the city's cultural center and there were probably 80 or 100 people there, including some kids. (They even had a kind of "youth director" whose job was to entertain the kids during the reception.) The mayor was at the door to shake our hands and greet us. When we informed him we were Americans, he told us his son is currently living in Austin, Texas, of all places.

Kids here learn to build structures out
of soil and plants.

The welcome reception consisted primarily of a 30- to 40-minute-long presentation by the mayor about all the great things about Cesson - its economic development, its schools, its parks and green space, its transportation network, its opportunities for sports and recreation, and its commitment to preserving the environment. The whole thing was in French (obviously) meaning I didn't understand much of it, but fortunately he was accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, so I had things to look at and read, which helped my understanding immeasurably! When he finished, he introduced the youth advisory council. This is a group of 12- to 15-year-olds elected by the youth of the city to serve as a kind of junior city council to advise the mayor on various issues. It struck me as being something that probably wouldn't happen in the US, but as Lisa pointed out afterwards, France may not (we don't know) have much in the way of student council and student government at school so, instead, they have a city-wide council for students to be a part of.

There was a really cute little girl
feeding this asinine animal through the
electric fence. Asinine is also a good
adjective for the questions we heard.

After the presentation, the floor was opened to questions, many of which were rather ridiculous things to ask the mayor, among them:

• "I live next to a business that has outside lights on until 7 or 7:30 at night! That's too late! What will you do about it?" (Mayor's response: "That's not really a civic matter, you have to take it up with the business.")
• "The grass outside my house is so long! It hasn't been cut since I moved here several months ago!" (Mayor's response: "We believe in letting our grass grow here because it's healthier for the plants. But you're free to cut it if you want, we won't stop you.")
• "I've noticed that there are a lot of tree roots that are breaking up the sidewalk and making it uneven. Isn't there anything to do about it?" (Mayor's response: "Well, we can really only dig up the sidewalk and cut off the roots, which kills the tree, and we don't want to do that. But don't worry; everything will be fine.")
• "Where can I recycle my glass?" (Curbside recycling in Cesson only picks up plastic and cardboard, not glass. The mayor didn't really have a response to this one, despite the fact that there are numerous drop-off points throughout the city for recycling glass.)
• "I think it's too far to go from my house to the grocery store. What can you do to help build one closer to my neighborhood?" (Mayor's response: "Actually, a grocery store did a feasibility study about putting a store there just last year and they determined that there weren't enough people living in the area to make it profitable.")
  

This makes the mayor sound kind of like a jerk, but really, he was pleasant to all the participants as they assailed him with demands. The questions just kept coming, and unlike presentations I've been to the US, there was no attempt to say, "We'll have one more question and if you still have questions, you can ask me afterwards." Instead, the mayor wanted to answer every question that anyone had. When that was finally over (before noon), we exited to the lobby for some nice hors d'oeuvres and free wine (very French, right?). As we left the cultural center, we found a demonstration going on outside of baking bread using a wood-fired oven. One of the leaders of the demonstration was none other than the real estate agent who rented us our apartment. He apparently lives a double life as a wood-fired-oven-baker!

Canal, with locks.

The other welcoming event occurred on Sunday. One of the other English teachers in our department, Nicolas, invited us and several other people to the country house that belongs to his partner's mother for an afternoon barbecue. Among those in attendance was our American colleague and former OSU student Todd and his partner Anthony, meaning he could drive us out to the country (after we successfully navigated our way into Rennes and to his apartment around a massive half-marathon that was happening on Sunday morning) - thanks Todd! The house was about a 20- or 30-minute drive outside of Rennes in a very rural area, complete with a corn field and cow pasture behind the house (the field and cows didn't belong to Nicolas and Remy, by the way). We sat around in the backyard eating various hors d'oeuvres, grilled sausages wrapped in galettes (the local Breton variation on crepes--made with buckwheat flour instead of wheat), salads, and a delicious apple tarte tatin - not to mention drinking several glasses of wine. Almost all of the conversation took place in French, but I'm proud to say I understood about 20-30% of it (although unfortunately, I was unable to fully form any sentences in French to respond to anyone).

Nicolas, Todd, Aaron, collecting chestnuts.

Afterwards, we all went for a leisurely walk along the Canal d'Ile-et-Rance which wasn't far from the house. The canal was built in the early 19th-century to link Rennes and Saint-Malo. It was a lovely fall afternoon and there were a number of people walking along the canal, making it all very pleasant. Upon returning to the house, Nicolas offered us some chestnuts and apples from his trees. Lisa made applesauce out of the apples and boiled the chestnuts that decorated our dining room table for the past week since we were there. (Nicolas said that chestnuts are often used in stuffing and that's what we'll probably do with them.) In the end, we spent about six hours in the country and we ate so much that we didn't even need to eat dinner when we got home. It was a very traditional French Sunday in the country and it was welcoming in a much more intimate (and, to me, much nicer) way than the Saturday morning welcome to Cesson.