Traditionally, you celebrate either on the 6th of January or the first Sunday of the month, I have heard both. But I think in practice you have galette des rois anytime friends are gathered after New Year's and you end up having lots of cake. The teachers already had one in the lounge the other day, and the cantine served it again the next. The cake is more of a pastry, round and flat, filled with frangipane--almond paste goodness. Baked inside is a fève, a type of bean but now often a carved statuette. If you get the slice with the fève, you are crowned the king or queen. And to make sure no one cheats, the youngest child hides under the table and says who each slice goes to, without looking, so it's assez randomly distributed.As the 22-year-old, I was the youngest in the group, and I had the privilege of crawling under the table to name all these people I had just met. Fun! But it was a great group. I think there is something wonderful about a group of CouchSurfers, because you all value meeting people, experiencing different cultures, and openness in general. The host was a grandmother who grew up in Algeria before the French had to leave, and is packing up in a few days to spend and indefinite amount of time in Morocco. We spent a portion of the evening learning some French sign language from one of the CSers, and it was fun hearing him explain the origin of each sign. It got us talking about gestures in spoken language, regional accents in sign language, and signs that are totally normal in one country that are swear words in others, all really interesting stuff. There were also two surfers who were passing by, one from Australia and the other from New York. They were trying to hitchhike from Barcelona to Venice!
I had such a great time, and I really felt like this is what I want to be doing with my time, discovering the culture, and meeting all sorts of different people.
