I have some time this evening so I thought I would just write a little bit about my day in town to give an idea of what it's like here.

The festival is winding down, this is the last week! Posters still up but tattered, actors still doing publicity --- every time I go out I come back with three or four 'tracts' or cards for shows!

I was planning a bike ride this morning but could not get to the bus depot at 6.25 am (that was a bad plan, I should have known I wouldn't make it!!) so I had to rethink my day. I made it an easy one, to deliberately relax now that I don't have to show up for the course every day. I decided to see two plays and take the bus out to the 'centre commercial', a mall that is, of course, 'extra-muros' (outside of this walled city) First I went around the corner to a miniature supermarket to buy something to cook for lunch. This particular store has a real butcher in the back and I asked the guy if he had any ground beef, seeing none in his showcase. He said 'of course, right here!' and pointed to this groovy machine with some nice lean meat sticking out of the top. I ordered up just enough for a petit hamburger and he ground it right in front of me! It cost 1 Euro.

My first play was at 10.15 am and I started over there about 9.30 so I could just walk slow and enjoy the cool part of the day, the quiet and the clean and empty streets. At the Theatre du Petit Louvre, I had time and was invited to wait in the courtyard restaurant. This theater is in an old church (all churches built before 1789 now belong to the state, which maintains them as they do other monuments!!) The courtyard is beautiful, set up to be a restaurant/cafe. Trees provide shade, beige walls lined with ivy are on one side and the exterior walls and architecture of the church on the other. Underfoot is sandy gravel. There are many tables in the courtyard set in groups of 2 and 4. There is a slight breeze stirring and there are faint sounds of instruments and voices warming up in the background. This is only one very lovely place outside a theater here. There are many like it, some not so fancy but places to gather outside for the patrons seem to be de rigeur, nonetheless. These places are particularly breathtaking at night when you add the clink of glassware, the sound of forks and knives on plates; people's voices and laughter, candlelight and of course the smell of food!! If this place existed in Atlanta, it would be booked solid all the time. Here, places like this positively abound.

The play was Les Temps de Machettes, having to do with the genocide in Rwanda. Recommended by the prof., and this director came to talk to us. Well done, important topic but it was just four people talking and a fellow with a stand-up bass playing from time to time. The next play was Phedre/Jouvet/Delbo--39/45 also recommended by the prof. Two stories here, main one is Louis Jouvet, a prof at the Conservatoire and his secretary Charlotte Delbo. Well done for scenes of Jouvet directing his students in Phedre. Afterward, I hopped on the bus and had a very interesting tour. If I had taken my bike I would have gone straight out there and missed this--- the bus, of course, meanders. There is a main road like a beltway about a mile outside the ramparts with just building after building over 5 miles of neat but depressing public housing, as only the French can manufacture it! Such a shock after looking exclusivley at the center city these last few weeks. I would bet that more people live out there than in the center. New thing on some buildings is graffitti. Plenty of it.

The mall felt very American! I got what I needed and got back in time to have a simple, light dinner in an outdoor place before coming in to check my mail. Thanks again for your notes!