Film cameras handle these conditions better than almost all digital cameras.
If you find digital photography something you might really get into and stick with, I recommend buying a copy of Photoshop CS2.
To fix it/shoot it with what you've got plus photoshop CS2, you could use the HDR (high dynamic range) photo merge feature.
Basically, you take a series of bracketed exposures, then combine them in Photoshop to create an image that has a very high range of lighting.