Day 11 Report

Today I couldn't get up again, although it was no surprise since I finished my homework at midnight. Unfortunately it turned out to be a waste of time, because our teacher had a physiotherapy appointment and we had a relief teacher instead.

I had quite a good time at school, surprisingly. Today's topic was the environment, and there were discussions on hydroelectricity, dams, litter, recycling, et cetera. I was sitting between the perky Japanese girl and the jolly middle-aged Swedish guy all morning, which wasn't a bad thing except that I had my back to the window for the first time and the sun was out (finally) but shining straight on my neck. Other than that the time passed surprisingly fast as we did exercises about the environment using the conditional tense.

The funny thing is, though I completely fail at conversing at the level of fluency of the class, I apparently know my conditional tense very well. We had to do a cloze passage with the conditional tense and then write a fake letter to the mayor concerning the environment, and by the end of class my two groupmates were thanking me for helping them.

It's the first time I've felt useful all week.

Lunch was alone with Denise again, because the others went to eat mussels near the Oceanopolis. I didn't follow since I 1) have to save money, 2) had already planned my afternoon, and 3) HATE SHELLFISH. :P

Denise stayed for blogging again, whilst I waited for the 2.01 p.m. bus. The weather was great (if a bit too windy) and I had more than enough time to snap some photos before the bus arrived.

Once in Brest, I headed south again - but this time I walked all the way down to the port and across the big Pont (bridge) de Recouvrance. The Tour Tanguy was situated just at the river's edge.

I went up to the huge door and had trouble opening it till the person in charge opened it from the inside. She surprisingly knew to hand me the English-language guide (maybe a lot of the other students had visited the tower before).

I climbed up the tiny spiral staircase (there were painted coats of arms on the wall) and reached the first floor.

The Tour Tanguy basically chronicles Brest's history up till WWII. The first-floor room was filled with dioramas in glass displays. The dioramas were of events from the town's past up to the Revolution. There were dioramas of the chateau,

the tower,

a naval battle that was fought near the harbour,

Brest at the beginning of the 17th century (the English guide states "18th century" instead, but the actual description of the display - all in French - had "XVIIème siècle" on it),

the procession of a Siamese delegation from the 17th century (the southern road from Place de la Liberté is named Rue de Siam because of this),

and the town on the eve of the Revolution.

The walls were also full of pictures of various important people from Brest's past, but all the descriptions were in French and I couldn't be bothered to stand there and translate everything. Which was a pity, because the English translations in the guide were a bit iffy and the corresponding French descriptions were much longer and definitely had more information.

The second floor was much the same, covering Brest's history from the Revolution to the start of WWII. There were more dioramas - markets, old neighbourhoods, other sites that were destroyed during the war, et cetera. The room also contained many photographs of life in Brest at the turn of the previous century - festivals, exhibitions, markets, the navy...there were so many!

Finally I headed back to the ground floor, where there was a room behind the front desk. The room contained many documents about the town, like architectural plans and royal decrees signed by various kings. There was also a selection of photographs showing the different costumes from various parts of Brittany.

I left after that and made my way up Rue de Siam to catch my bus. I dropped off, as usual, at Moulin Blanc. But this time I walked down to the beach instead. The sky wasn't as bright and the sea as sparkly as they had been at 2 p.m., but it was a nice walk halfway round the bay.

About half an hour later I shook out the sand in my shoes (unsuccessfully) and walked home, where - for the first time since last Tuesday or something - I managed a little nap before dinner.

Dinner was a salad with rice and (I think) tuna, followed by a big fluffy omelette with lots and lots of fries. Dessert was a slice of raspberry and apricot pie from some patisserie. Then Mrs Stephan told me more about her parrots (the green one is jealous of the attention she gives to the little grey one; the little grey one's father died suddenly when the Stephans were on holiday), the birds that come to the garden to eat the bird feed she leaves out for them (lately there's a very rare black-white-red woodpecker that has been visiting), and her garden in general.

Then I (tried to) read the local newspaper that was on the table.

It was actually quite interesting. Front-page news was about the recent demonstrations and strikes by farmers on the ever-falling price of milk (due to overproduction I think). Apparently, they blocked a nearby supermarket and started a fire there today. There were interviews with some of the farmers, who said that they weren't demonstrating for fun but because they had no choice - they had lost lots of money and were unable to make ends meet just farming; they had chosen their profession not because they expected to get rich but because they liked farming and hoped to make a living from it - but now they wish they had never become farmers.

The rest of the newspaper was filled with news about France and the region. There were many articles about school excursions, strangely enough. There was also a page in which the articles were in the Breton language; I suppose it's for people who are learning the language because there was a list of translations for certain words.

Finally I checked the weather (11°C/19°C in Brest and 10°C/19°C in Paris; slightly cloudy tomorrow) and my horoscope (I am apparently very enthusiastic today and it's a good day for meeting people or something...oh, and my heath is very good too) before having my bath.