Today was the birthday of my friend, Valerie. Even though she is now back to working full-time, she took the day off and invited me to spend the day with her to help her to celebrate. Originally, our plan was to go to the city of Rennes for some lunch and some shopping. However, yesterday, there erupted some serious and occasionally violent student and teacher protests regarding some new reforms that the French minister of Education wants to make. These riots were basically confined to the cities of Nantes and Rennes although we did see some evidence of them here last night. When I took Quincy to basketball practice near one of the local public high schools, police cars were racing to the school because some students had set fires in trash cans in the parking lot. I believe that was the worst to happen here.
Valerie and I decided to avoid Rennes today however, so we headed north along the coast to Lorient. Lorient is not a pretty city at all because it is situated on a very large harbor which the Germans held on to for a long time during World War II. Because the Germans held out so long in Lorient, the city was basically destroyed by the Allies. The reconstruction is quite ugly but it is a large and thriving city. Neither one of us knew much about Lorient, so we just pointed ourselves to the city center and began exploring the pedestrian streets and doing some shopping. We found some wonderful Christmas buys and had an excellent lunch at a restaurant that specializes in food from the region of Alsace. Alsace is now a part of France but has an extensive history with Germany so the food is distinctly German. We had a delicious lunch of sausages, sauerkraut, ham, bread, beer, and of course, crème brûlée for dessert! After lunch, we did a bit more shopping before heading home to our families. I have never seen so many friendly and helpful people during the Christmas holidays. Every store wrapped our gifts for no charge and took the time to make sure we had found everything we wanted. I will never get used to shop clerks always greeting you when you enter and always saying good-bye when you leave. They expect the same from you as well! In small stores, even the other shoppers would say good-bye when we left! Amazing!
Max and Calvin were excused a bit early from school today so they could perform a small Christmas singing concert for the parents. The school had a visit from Père Noël while the parents enjoyed some mulled wine and attended a little bake sale. Very, very nice day...
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