France, day off

I've been here a week as of this afternoon, which is crazy. Today is our day off, which is nice, but it's raining. The rain is nice since it got really hot the last few days, but we wanted to go to the lake, and that looks unlikely. I'm happy right now though because there is thunder. This morning some people made pancakes, which was nice. Lots of work though! There was a party last night out in a little courtyard in the abbey. It's sort of strange to be drinking in an abbey to bad techno music. It was fun though, cool people to talk to and a chance to relax a little bit... And the party was more interesting than the local bar... Or the whole town, really! My roommate Nienke and I are still getting along fine. She has been making a lot of oboe reeds, not that that is surprising. The last few days were not nearly as intense as the first days here. Yesterday we just did one rehearsal, a complete run of the opera. We have a lot of coordination work left to do, I think. But it will be good. We have another complete week to work out the kinks. That's all for now!