Poiré, White Wine, Red Wine, Another Type of Red Wine, and Calavados

Last night I had dinner at the home of a British couple with Sylvain (one of the English teachers here) and Huimin. The couple is part of the jury of "Le Concours Lechaptois," the English recitation competition I'm running.
I was pretty much dreading this dinner, partly because sometime Sylvain puts me in a bad mood, but also because I was worried they would interrogate me about Le Concours which I still feel like I'm completely bs-ing.
Turns out I was wrong- it was awesome. Richard and Felicity are amazingly sweet. They spent the whole night saying how we should feel at home, if we didn't like something we didn't have to eat it, if something was the matter just tell them. Most of all they were so sincere in that they want to get to know me. It didn't feel like a "Oh crap, gotta have the american over for dinner, better get this over with," meal at all. They extended invitations to go oyster hunting with them in January and we exchanged contact info before we left. When I woke up this morning I had an email waiting from Felicity with a book list she had been talking about last night. We had an absolutely beautiful meal- trout wrapped round palm hearts, roast guinea fowl and vegetables, a cheese plate, salad and brandied plums with custard for desert. This was all interspersed with drinks of course.
More than anything it was nice to connect on a cultural level as well. Richard is extremely well traveled and has lived in South Africa, New Jersey, Shanghai and Texas. This also meant that I wasn't subject to the usual onslaught of "what you don't know obscure American/Great Britain cultural fact that we're teaching in class right now?! what about the entire work of Shakespeare and every American author ever?" I could actually talk about different conversation topics, rather I could actually participate in conversation!
Thank God I only had an hour of work this morning (at 9am) because I don't think I would have made it to or through much else. We arrived at Felicity's and Richard's just after 7 and didn't leave until 11h40! Quite different from my usual Monday night. All in all a wonderful time and I'm so glad I got to meet them. I hope it continues through the rest of my time here.