North Atlantic

Good god, I’m not even off the boat yet and already I’m meeting musicians from Brittany. There was a world music band playing the cabaret, mostly Bretons. I talked to the accordionist after their set, to ask about Breton music opportunities. He told me that I’d find music in pretty much any town in Brittany, and dances pretty much every Saturday. Later in the evening, a couple were playing harp and violin together in a corner of the restaurant. I talked to them for a bit, and they gave me their phone number and told me to call tomorrow night once they were home, and they would see what they can find for me.

The hard part of it all is that I’m conducting these conversations in French. It’s good to know that I can conduct them, even if I’m only catching about half of what’s being said to me. Hopefully that percentage will increase as the weeks go by. (While writing this, I committed cross language typos for musiciens and musique. It looks like context switching might be tricky.) Right now, it feels like I’m lifting weights with my cerebral cortex, and I have to suck up a bit of courage and swallow a bit of pride every time I open my mouth. Of course, I’m not actually even in France yet…