It’s been a big ten days for us here in Angers, filled with good times and meaningful wins! We’re grateful for all that’s transpired.

First, you may remember that we’ve been studying both the book above and online since September for our written driving test, the first part of getting our French driving licenses. Last Monday, we both took the test IN FRENCH and we both received “FAVORABLE” outcomes, passing with better than 87% scores!

Now we’re onto the practical on-the-road part of the adventure and have signed up with a local driving school to get us over the last hurdle. In mid-February, we’ll take our test drive with them and they will tell us how many hours of driving instruction we need before we are allowed to take the official test. Though we’ve both been driving for decades, I will say it is harder here and more nerve wracking than in the U.S., but I’m confident that we’ll get it. The accident we had in the roundabout a few weeks after we got here (not our fault) left us both with some driving PTSD that it’s taken a while to get through.

Somehow, we we were lucky enough to have ended up with three lunches scheduled with three different couple friends through out last week.

• We started with gourmet pancakes at a delicious little brunch spot called Foodista on Wednesday (a seasonal passionfruit, syrup, and whipped cream for me and peanut butter, chocolate ganache, and bananas for Greg)
• Friday brought a new experience at a souffle restaurant called La Soufflerie (we had ham, cheese, and mushroom souffles, see above, then a chocolate souffle for dessert. Absolute HEAVEN!
• On Sunday, some friends had us over for pasta and of course the required (and truly wonderful) cheese and dessert courses, complete with lots of wine and good conversation.

Angers has been hosting its 38th annual film festival this month and we spent Saturday with a group of folks watching a couple of documentaries, one of which was held in a theatre with the gorgeous ceiling above:

• The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (“La Grotte des rêves perdus” in French) about ancient art in caves in south central France
• Ghost Elephants (“Eléphants fantômes” in French) about the search for an undiscovered species of African elephants in Angola’s highland plateau region

Lastly, we finished our semester-long French language course this week and are ready for a break. We’ve learned a lot, yet still feel relatively tongue-tied when trying to have a conversation in French. We’re moving forward on this though, actively cultivating some opportunities to speak with some (very kind and patient) friends in French and maybe looking towards getting tutors for the next stage of our learning. Our reading of French is pretty good, but our conversational skills are still quite lacking. French grammar is very difficult!

The news of the U.S. is devastating to read and we are thinking about our many friends who are actively working to hold this administration accountable for the atrocities they are committing on the public, in Minneapolis and beyond. Thank you to all of you doing the hard work and may you continue to stay safe!