And so we came to an end...part one

I had this really brilliant plan. I was going to get my packing done early, and then go to bed early enough so that I could spend a good hour writing an entry before it became absolutely necessary to go to bed.  It was a really, really good idea. Unfortunately, life got in the way, it's midnight, I'm exhausted and emotional and shaky, and about ready to go to bed. So unless there's wireless at the hostel or at LaGuardia, the report of the final week is going to have to wait until...Monday-ish. Something like that. But I promise it will come.

If this is my last post from France...it's been more than I can describe, and if the crazy little snippets and anecdotes you get through this wonderful filter known as blogging have given you half as beautiful a picture as the scene I've been living, than I've truly outdone myself as a writer. It's been an incredibly fun and experience even to write the blog; I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. 

So until the next, whenever and wherever that is.

What a week continued again

*Edited for a couple of additions to Tuesday and Wednesday

So there was also some sake and a boat ride on Friday that seem worth mentioning; because of the tomato-bacon-rice thing that was boiling and the sudden entrance of my host family, I didn't really have time to write about it. The sake was quite wonderful; it was the first time I'd ever had it and I still can't decide whether I like it more than red wine or not. And the boat ride along the Seine was lovely, much warmer than when I did it in March with John and Sophie. Most of the time Mat and Julie were trying to convince me to jump in the water, which I refused to do until they showed me how. Since they refused to show me how, I never did. It was a fun evening, if the conversations did get a little tripped out.

But anyway, on to Saturday:

In the morning we drove out with dad and all the baggage to Roissy. John, Sophie, Mat, Julie and Elisabeth all said goodbye in the parking lot and left for the country house; I stayed with Dad and helped out with the baggage up until he went through security. I was surprised at how emotional I got saying goodbye, seeing as it was only two weeks from that point to see him again (and less than that from now). It really hit me again, watching him leave, how much I missed everyone at home, and for a second I wanted nothing more than to be going through security myself and getting on that plane with him.

But then there was Gay Pride Paris, which washed that away temporarily.

I took the RER back to Paris and wasted the morning doing nothing in particular; I went back to Montmartre and photographed some more graffiti and found a few more gifts for people, and then went back to the other side of the river to the American café and took lunch to go, walking around in an elaborate loop to find the parade. I got there about an hour before it started and watched the preparations, and managed to get a spot close to the front of the parade to listen to the speeches by various members of prominent GLBT organizations in France. Liza Minelli and the mayor of Paris were also there, though I didn't recognize them until later.

The parade itself was amazing. I walked for about fifteen minutes and then stopped to take pictures of the rest of the parade; it took nearly three hours for it to pass me by completely. There were all kinds of people there, from little toddlers to octogenarians, straight people, gay people, transgendered people, people in crazy costumes and people in modest dress...but god, how many people! Estimates afterwards put the number anywhere between 200,000-700,000. It was one of the most if not the most enthusiastically joyful public event that I've been to. For a day, everyone was allowed to be themselves, whether considered within the bounds of mainstream cultural acceptability or not. It was empowering to watch. And just about as amusing. I was photographed once for my incredible rainbow awesomeness-- I was wearing a rainbow tanktop, had a rainbow sweatshirt tied around my waist, was carrying a rainbow flag and had rainbow sandals on as well.

But after those three hours, the parade passed by and, covered in various political stickers and with a decent sunburn on my shoulders and back, I headed to the metro to get to Gare de l'Est to catch my train out to the country house.

I remember when I first came out to myself that I had a period where I thought -everyone- knew that I was a lesbian, that I had some kind of gigantic neon L painted on my chest...wearing that much rainbow on the public metro gave me about the same feeling. People (mostly men) definitely stared at me, and it didn't phase me much until this group of four burly guys starting -really- staring at me. I think they were just trying to decipher the stickers on my shoulders (from the way their lips were moving), but they still made me nervous. Luckily my stop was right after when they got on, so I was able to beat a retreat before they could do anything.

However, at Gare de L'Est, there were no trains going in or out because of a power outage. Just because I'm that lucky, my cellphone happened to be on extremely low battery, so I spent about an hour at the station, turning on my cell on the half hour to try to reach Sophie. I sat down against a wall and quickly was surrounded by a group of college-age German tourists (everyone was trying to get to a comfortable place to sit as they waited for the power to come back on so they could catch their trains), who also started staring at me. One took a picture while I was looking the other way. They were definitely talking about me-- I heard a word that suspiciously sounded like homosexual. But they seemed more curious than hostile, so I let it go and after a while they forgot about me. 

In any case, I finally got a hold of Sophie and she told me another way to get at least halfway to the country house and told me John would pick me up there. No one on the metro seemed to give a damn this time around, or at the second station-- or if they did, I didn't notice because I was so frayed from spending so much time in overheated stations with too many people, waiting for something to happen. The train I took was almost empty, though, so I could read the newspaper and relax a little bit. Still, it was a relief to finally get back.

Sunday:

A much, much quieter day, mostly spent on the computer stealing music from John's incredible library. In all, very productive: Bjork, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, David Bowie, Van Morrison, Pearl Jam, Noir Desir, Nirvana... I think my library has about doubled if not tripled since my arrival in France, with all the music people have given to me. It adds variety, so I'm quite pleased. In the same afternoon I also learned to make jam (a useful life skill, if you ask me) and picked some raspberries (one in the bucket, two in your stomach is the best rule to follow). We left the house around six, which normally would have given us ample time to get back to Paris for my eight-thirty train...

...except for the traffic jam. I changed my train for another one in the morning at the first station we came to with a minute to spare, but still had to pay an extra fifteen euros for it. Better than buying another ticket entirely, but still. It was nice, though, to spend another night with everyone; I achieved my greatest accomplishment by getting Elisabeth addicted to Lost (the virus spreads!). We threw dinner together with a little bit of whatever-was-in-the-fridge plus some takeout from the Chinese place across the street; all in all, not a bad way to end my time in Paris for the year.

Monday:

In the morning John and Sophie woke me up and I said goodbye to everyone. I walked out to Montparnasse and got breakfast from the American patisserie one last time: a banana-walnut-caramel muffin, which was so delicious that I'm plotting how to steal the recipe. The train, which appeared to be empty when I got on, filled with a group of rather noisy high school students; I tuned them out with Lost and everything was fine.

In Tours I took the train out to the station at the center of town when Camille didn't answer my calls, and when I walked out to the bus stop and noticed that the next bus wasn't for another two and a half hours, tried again and found her there. She picked me up without a problem, happily sparing me from a weird drunk guy who was at the stop and kept muttering to himself and inching closer and closer to me.

In the afternoon we went out to a friend's house and spent the afternoon in their pool. Most of the time we spent trying to push each other under the water; I'm very good at getting other people (except Louis) under, but not at resisting being pushed under myself. We stopped briefly for cookies and cake, went back in, and then finally left when we realized that we had to leave to get to dinner in time at the house of a couple that Catherine works for. It turned out that they had a pool as well, but by this time we had less enthusiasm for pushing each other under anymore (when your nose and eyes start smarting badly, it becomes less fun), so we ended up being social and spending most of the time talking with Claude and André (the couple who invited us) instead. It was a very nice evening; they're both excellent cooks and have a beautiful garden, and they also were great conversation. They've been all over the world, from Vietnam to the States to South Africa. We also talked about such fine subjects as food and wine, and after dessert they opened a '97 Vouvray that was absolutely delicious, one of the best wines I've tasted yet. We're having them over next week so that I can introduce them to NM cuisine; I hope I'm up to the task. 

Tuesday:

The heat wave continues-- I think the peak was about 32 degrees (almost 90 Farenheit). Most of the day we spend inside with the shutters closed in order to keep the heat out (air conditioning is somewhat rare in France). At around two in the afternoon we decide to venture out for a bike ride around the little towns in the area; we stayed out for two hours and by the end I felt like I was going to die. Everyone made fun of me, saying I should be used to it from living in New Mexico; I had no witty response, my brain having been fried by the heat. Oh, and a butterfly flew down my shirt while we were riding through traffic; I was so ticklish that I'm surprised I didn't crash the bike. It survived until the next rest stop and flew right back out as if nothing had happened. Strange experience.

Oh, and around lunch, Catherine asked me if I was offended by the fact that Claude and André were both men. A little taken off guard, I just quietly shook my head and said that it made no difference to me at all. Camille burst out laughing and said, "Mom, I don't think you realize..." But both of us let the moment pass, so I never ended up coming out to Catherine. It was just funny, though. 

Wednesday:

35 today (about ninety-five degrees Farenheit), so there were no excursions today whatsoever apart from a run at nine in the morning (when it was much cooler out) and a brief walk at noon to go feed the horses not far from us the leftover bread from lunch. A lot of time spent reading, a lot more time wasted on the internet, doing not much in particular. I've had a more or less continual headache the whole afternoon that I think is from the heat. It's supposed to snap and rain tomorrow; I dearly hope so, because another day like this without air conditioning is going to kill me. The fact that we're being green by not using air conditioning is only a very hollow condolence.

But this evening it was much cooler out, so I took a little walk just to get out of the house, and I found, to my pleasant surprise, that the tar had refrozen on the roads (yes, ladies and gents, it had begun to melt during the day), and that the fields of sunflowers, which were just putting out the first flowers on Tuesday, are now in full bloom. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but I'll go back tomorrow with Lea and take pictures.

Right. So now we're caught up. Yay! I think I'll write another entry just before I go to Paris for my plane home weekend after next to recount my last adventures in France, which will include two brief trips to Normandy and Blois, an AFS reunion, shopping, and who knows what else.

Till then! Ciao!

What a week, continued

So on to Tours:

We caught our train at ten, and despite the fact that it was crowded and the seats we were assigned were not technically together, or even in the same car, we managed to get two seats together and keep them up until our stop at St. Pierre des Corps. Camille picked us up at the station and we went back to the house for lunch with the rest of the family. I finally met the infamous Louis and found that his English was quite good-- he has more of a Scandinavian accent than a French one, which I suppose makes sense since he learned English in Finland, but still struck me nonetheless. He and I served as the main translators, though Dad and Catherine managed to talk a little in German and completely confuse the rest of us.

After lunch we went into town and Camille, Louis and I showed Dad some of the essential markers of Tours-- the Studio Cinema, Place Jean Jaures, the Rue Nationale, Place Plumereau, the Loire, etc. At Place Jean Jaures we unexpectedly found some of Louis's friends, so we went out to the Gangette with them for some drinks. The Gangette is a kind of bar on the banks of the Loire which only exists in the summer (literally, not even the stand is there in the winter or spring) and just opened up on the solstice, presumably. It's been coming and going for two years now and seems pretty popular; even on a Wednesday afternoon there were a good few people there. By the time we said goodbye it was about time to go to dinner, so we walked around Place Plume for a while to waste time until Catherine arrived from work. We had dinner at a little creperie just off the square, and it was delicious. I had a crepe with escargot inside, which is among one of the most sublime things I've eaten; everyone else at the table took it as a sign that I've become too French for my own good. For dessert people ordered a number of wonderful crepes that looked (almost) too wonderful to eat; mine was with two scoops of ice cream (one vanilla, two chestnut) with chocolate sauce and almonds. Also among one of the best desserts I've had. I need to find chestnut ice cream and take it home with me. As much as possible.

Thursday:

We went on an all-day expedition with Camille around the area fairly close to Tours. First of all, we stopped at the park center where Camille had her internship a while back, and sought recommendations of where to eat lunch. After that, we went to a little trogolodyte cave/museum for a specialty called 'pommes tapées,' which literally means hit apples. That's fairly descriptive of them: they're skinned apples dried at an extremely high temperature to remove all moisture, and then smashed on two sides with either a hammer or an elaborate machine for this purpose in order to fit better into jars to be preserved for the winter. They're then best served warm with cider or wine serving as a kind of sauce, which is more or less how we tasted them (except that there were cinnamon and cloves added, too). 

After that we drove for a while and found the lunch spot that Camille's old supervisor had recommended. It was absolutely delicious. The entire meal was centered around the regional bread specialty, called fouées: they look kind of like hollow rolls, and are served warm with butter, rillettes, or anything else that strikes your fancy. At the restaurant they had the butter and rillettes as well as a main course of duck with white beans and salad, with crème brûlée for dessert. This is not even mentioning the cheese-stuffed mushrooms as an 'amuse-bouche' (appetizer before an appetizer, which I'm forgetting the name of in English) and the wines (côté de Lyon as an aperitif, and a regional red wine that I can't remember in specific which was also very good). So we left very full, but very, very satisfied. 

After that we headed out for the last excursion of the day to the Château de Brézé, which is unique among the châteaux of the Loire for having been built halfway underground. The tour we took was exclusively through the underground section and it was really interesting. It was completely unlike any other château any of us had visited. Some of the stranger things: for all the defense systems, it had never once been attacked, and the moat, as deep as the ground-level château was high, had never been filled with water. Certainly unique, and worth the visit.

After a brief stop in Chinon for some macarons and a pie made with wine jam and pears, we headed back to the house, where we had some guests over for a little party. All in all a pleasant evening. I didn't have to translate much in the end because Dad spent most of the party talking to some friends of the family who spoke very good English, so I spoke in French with the people at my end of the table. It was a really wonderful evening, to have my two little worlds collide like that...

Friday:

In the morning we took a long walk around Mettray to see its infamous "Stonehenge," which is actually called the Dolmen or the Fairy Cave. We had lunch with the family, ratatouille à la mexicaine (which is to say, with green chile added), which was very good. Dad said goodbye to Catherine and Lea, and then we headed into town with Louis and Camille to do a little gift shopping. Louis bailed fairly early (he'd already made plans to meet up with his friends), but Camille stuck with us to the end, which is a good thing since she was our ride to the train station. We found more or less everything we were looking for and all of it more or less fit, which was good. We made it to the station with time to spare, although our goodbyes were rushed since we were trying to look for two seats together and Camille was so busy trying to help us that she nearly stayed with us to go to Paris; she made it out just before the doors shut. The rest of the ride was quiet, though; I watched Lost and Dad wrote some postcards.

Back in Paris, we picked up some cheese at the cheeseshop by John and Sophie's apartment, and then had a sushi party. Even if it wasn't as good as the restaurant back in Albuquerque that I love so much, it was definitely very fun to make.

And that was it for the stay.

I'll catch up the weekend and the past two days later; I'm halfway cooking dinner as I write and now everyone's come back, so I figure I should get off the computer and be social, as well as attend to the pot of rice-tomato-stuff that's currently boiling. And it's not a bad stopping point anyway.

Bye for now!  

What a week, what a week...

Or past thirteen days, really. And such a past thirteen days that I scarcely know where to start. I guess where I left off? Well, actually, I'm going to skip to Friday two weeks ago, because that was more interesting.

Friday:

I went out to Cheverny with Camille and some of her friends. Cheverny is the chateau that the chateau in the Tintin comics is based off of, which is one of its claims to fame in the modern age. It's a beautiful chateau, and the grounds are outstanding (as well as huge). The inside was stuffed with artifacts spanning half a millenium; there was even a document signed by George Washington (which I tried to take a picture of, but there's a glare right over his signature). After we visited the chateau we stayed out on the grounds for a while stealing cherries and playing JungleSpeed (which is like Uno only weird). At around four thirty we left so that I could get to my train in time and drop off Camille's friends at another friend's house.

It turned out that we got to the station an hour and a half before my train left, so I wasted time in the cafe by reading and getting myself a coffee. I happened to notice, however, that my train did not seem to be on the charts, so I checked my ticket and found that it was actually a ticket for the day before. Originally I had bought a ticket for Saturday, but it worked better for my family in Paris that I come on Friday night. I had a ticket for a train that got into Montparnasse at 9:30, but again it worked better that I come earlier, so I changed the ticket on the Thursday to get in at 8:30 instead. However, the woman at the counter had changed it to the same day that I was changing the ticket and not the day after...hence the problem. Luckily they gave me a ticket to the next train without paying any more for it, but I still had to waste another couple of hours in the station, including the twenty minutes the train was late by. By the time I got into Paris, I was thoroughly sick of the TGV and any and all train stations. But all was well that ended well; we got out to the country house without a problem, and I fell asleep sometime around two in the morning because Mat and his friends were listening to music and talking downstairs directly above my room. In response I turned up the quiet, calming music on my Ipod, which I've since found is not the best solution.

Saturday:

I spent most of the morning pacing and asking people what time it was until John and Sophie got so fed up with it that they decided to just take me to the airport already (well, that and it was about time to go, anyway). And then it turned out that Dad's flight was in about twenty minutes late, and his bag was one of the last to come off the carousel...but finally, he came out of the terminal, and I think I nearly took him down with my tackle-hug (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit, but I was really really happy to see him). After that, I just sort of stared for a second, unable to compute, and finally said, "wow. You're in France!" 

You all know I'm that perceptive.

But in any case, the rest of the day was fairly quiet-- Dad delivered his packages of Poptarts and jerky and bacon bits to my cousins, I received some essential NM items (green chile, biscochitos, a cd of my uncle's band), and we took a long walk on the "ditch" by John's house, which is really a canal but it's still a ditch to me. They're just lucky I don't call it an arroyo.

In the evening we went to the village party, where we watched a bonfire and that was more or less it. There was some dancing and some more drinking but overall it was pretty tame. We went to bed around midnight, which I'm sure was good for Dad's jetlag, and that was day one of his stay.

Sunday:

We spent another quiet day out at the country house and headed back into Paris around six for the Fete de la musique. John and Sophie led us on a tour that lasted nearly three hours, and we heard everything from techno to bluegrass to metal to god-knows-what. Sometimes there were elaborate setups by huge bands, other times it was just a lady and a guitar standing on the street corner. It was absolutely amazing; I've never seen anything quite like it and I don't think I ever will outside of it. I think this is my favorite French holiday.

Monday:

We started the morning with one of my favorite walks, from the Champs-Elysees all the way to the Louvre, where we stopped for a visit. After seeing the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo at the Louvre, we spent most of the time in the quieter galleries (Oceania/Africa/the Americas, Egypt, and Mesopotamia), which also happen to be some of my favorites in any case. I will say, though, that I never appreciated how empty the Louvre was in February until I came again in June. The statement is true of Paris in general, to be honest.

We had lunch in Tuilieries, where the sparrows attacked our plates more ore less as soon as we put down our forks, and then continued on to the Picasso museum, walking all the way. For some reason or another the Picasso museum was free that day (there was just a sign saying "the museum is free for all visitors. Good day."), which was lucky, and we spent a good hour or so there. Dad described it as being like a Van Gogh museum he went to in Amsterdam, except for less Van Gogh and more Picasso, and I found this to be a very apt statement (despite the fact that I've never been to Amsterdam, much less the Van Gogh museum there).

We walked from there to Centre Pompidou, where we had banana and Nutella crepes in a little cafe, and then took the metro back to John and Sophie's apartment. We ate dinner together (and if I remember correctly, there were crepes for dessert, too), and that was it.

Tuesday:

Breakfast was at an American patisserie that I've been curious about ever since I saw it back in April. Evidently it's a Parisian chain, since I saw one at the train station when we left for Tours the next day, but in any case the cafe was without a doubt the most Americanized French-owned cafe that I've seen thus far in France. They pulled off the American pastries really well, and the coffee was excellent. I went back there another couple of times before I left Paris for the last time on Monday.

We headed out to the Musee d'Orsay, but it was fairly crowded, so we went up to Montmartre instead. After meandering up the hill and looking at the shops, we finally ended up at the Espace Dali, which I was happy to go back to. We had lunch at a lovely little cafe next to the museum and spent a little more time walking around Montmartre before heading back down the hill. We took the metro out to Orsay again, and finding that it was still crowded, walked along the Seine for a while and then took the Boulevard St. Michel down to the Sorbonne, where we looked around for a while and stopped for drinks. After that, we headed back to the apartment and went out to dinner with John, Sophie, Elisabeth and Julie to the restaurant we went to with Mom last summer. All in all, a nice ending to the Paris stay.

I'll pick up with Tours and the rest later; it seems we're going out biking soon, and I should probably get off the computer anyway. 

'Cause baby, I've got-- MOTIVATION

Well, it's been a week, right? This blog thing does happen, sooner or later...and evidently, it seems to usually be later.

The highlights:

Thursday:

For our final PE class, only 13 of our class of 31 showed up; we ended up playing rugby in the mud (it had rained the night before). I even have pictures-- one girl who lived close by but was "sick" showed up for solidarity and took pictures of everyone. It was my first time playing rugby, and I'm more or less as terrible at it as I am at all sports, but it was fun nonetheless.

In the early afternoon we had a little party to celebrate the end of the year, with much sugar in the form of beverages and cakes of various sorts. The teachers were all incredibly kind and gave me some books as going away presents-- two more new, recent ones (Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Marguerite Yourcenar) and a copy of de la Fontaine's Fables that is, as they put it, "almost older than your country." I was amazingly touched (I nearly started crying), and began to appreciate just how kind of a community I managed to stumble upon here in France, and how much I'm going to miss them when I'm gone.

Oh, and the potato chip cookies were a hit-- they disappeared within the first ten minutes. Thanks, Leedara!

Then there was the last math class, where we played Scattergories, and that...was it.

Friday:

The last day. There were no real classes (I don't think that anything after the last science class on Wednesday counted as an actual class)-- just several parties, one after the other. To start with, in Spanish we watched the first half of a movie that I'll now evidently have to rent in order to see the resolution. Half the class was playing Scattergories in the back and paid no attention at all and thus are spared the curiosity (it was a good movie, too, which is why I'm so anxious to see the end).

After that was Drama, where we had a picnic of sorts out on the lawn, where we all ate entirely too much sugar, in the best way. The drama teacher, who hadn't been able to make it to the party yesterday, gave me a present as well-- a copy of Celine's Voyage au bout de la nuit. I still can't believe how incredibly wonderful all these people are. In English we had a party with the Italian class (since, by five in the afternoon, most everyone had left, and only two of us showed up to English at all), where there was slightly less sugar but was no less fun for all of that. And that...was it.

Actually, no.

At home I made a cake for Camille's birthday, a real American cake from a box (I asked my parents to send me the mix). Shortly thereafter, I went back to Vaucanson for the Bal de Promo, which was not anything like an American prom but, I think, all the better for it. I only stayed for the first two hours since my ride home, my English teacher, left early since she had her six-year-old daughter with her and so couldn't stay too long. At the beginning I thought that the French students did a lot better job of pretending to dance than Americans do, but once the party really got started it was more or less indistinguishable from any other party with loud music and teenagers that I've been to, except that there was French pop as well. Oh, and they played 'Voulez-vous coucher avec moi'. Because I guess they had to. It made me smile. I've always wondered whether that song would be popular here or if they'd hate it. I get the feeling it's a bit of both, depending on who you talk to... In any case, it was alright. A better way to spend Friday evening that I could have come up with on my own, and it was nice to see the English teacher one extra time before leaving.

And then that really was it.

Saturday:

I spent the afternoon in town looking for presents for everyone back home (and I'm not telling what I bought or where I went). I took myself out to lunch at the same restaurant that I went to with Fanny back in March and had a nice risotto with a glass of Chinon-- the image was so lovely that I went so far as to photograph my little table before I started eating. It was an afternoon quite pleasantly spent except for the sunburn I got on my neck and shoulders (and even that disappeared pretty fast).

The evening was much more...interesting. Camille had her 24th birthday party with all of her friends, and I was sort of halfway invited (I wasn't ordered out of the house like Lea and Catherine), so I stayed just out of curiosity. It was definitely a party-- I think it was summed up very well by one of the neighbors the next day, after being asked by Catherine if everyone had behaved themselves: "Well, they are...young." Everybody drank far too much, but in general the atmosphere was pretty lighthearted, way too much smiling and laughing more than utter incoherence... The only mishap was when one of the guests almost spilled a bottle of...something, some fruit liqueur, I think, all over my backpack full of books and important papers. Luckily, he missed, so there was no harm done. We all got to bed around five in the morning, and everyone was pretty justly exhausted. I didn't really realize how tired I was until I actually went to bed, when I could barely keep my eyes open two minutes after the lights were off and people were quiet.

Sunday:

Sunday was very quiet. I slept until ten in the morning and only got up because it was too light out for me to sleep anymore, and then spent the day puttering around, listening to an audiobook, and taking walks in order to stay awake. Camille slept for most of the afternoon on the couch, Lea was over at a friend's, and Catherine was working, so it was very quiet and peaceful. Olivier came over later in the day and gave me over 600 songs in three different languages, increasing my music library by around 30%. All in all a good recovery day.

In the evening, however, when I was Skyping my parents, they informed me that Powder died a little over a week ago. I wasn't and still am not sure how to react. None of it seems real, as if it's happened on some other planet, not here, not anywhere I know. I know I'm going to miss him badly, though, and I feel guilty that I wasn't there to say goodbye, that I didn't see him one last time before he died. But he died like we want all of our pets to die-- old, in his sleep, and without pain-- so that's a definite consolation. If he'd gotten sick like Sibylle did, I would be having a much harder time coping. 

Rest in peace, puffball.

Monday:

In the late afternoon Camille took me out with some of her friends to do a "tour of Tours" to see all the decidedly non-touristic places in and around the city (for example, the sketchy suburbs and the newly-built American-ish mall complex). It was fun, and afterwards we stayed over at the friends' apartment for dinner, which meant I could finally escape the party leftovers (we had sausage nearly four meals in a row-- I think it'll be another year before I'll want to have it anywhere near me). We also made plans to go visit a chateau together on Friday, which, if it's anything like today, should be fun in the sense of interesting. 

Tuesday:

In the early afternoon Camille and I went out to Amboise to visit the chateau there. My accent was evidently good enough that the woman at the front desk thought that I was French when she sold me the tickets-- we only went back and corrected her because they take statistics on where visitors come from and use them for...some obscure purpose. 

In any case, the chateau itself was beautiful, and we had a personal guided tour of about three rooms since we happened to run into one of Camille's friends who works there. On the way back home we stopped by a bakery in Tours that makes pastries double their normal size, and I found it humorous that nothing in the shop would have been considered outsized by American standards (though I saw clearly that it was outsized for the French). Despite being huge, the quality of the pastries is about the same if not better than other bakeries, and you get about twice the pastry for the same price, so I think I might be going back there at least once before I go. 

And that's more or less it for the week, because absolutely nothing happened today. Well, I almost burned down the kitchen making lunch for Lea and one of her friends (I was cooking meat, and the paper package it was wrapped in got too close to the stove and caught fire. Lea and her friend helped me put it out but then they left me with the mess without another word). But other than that, nothing. 

I'm not sure when I'll have time for the next update, since my dad is coming to visit next week and I'll thus be fairly occupied until next Sunday, so expect something around next Monday or Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday, if the pattern continues more or less like this. Until then!

The weekend

This update thing is going to happen, I swear. Even if I have to do it writing and making potato chip cookies at the same time. Ok, quick explanation-- when Leedara read that I was introducing the French to Rice Krispies and all the terrible things in American cuisine, she sent me a recipe for potato chip cookies, which is exactly what I'm going to introduce them to next. They're actually not bad; the way I messed them up made them more scone-like in texture, and it's not bad, the mix of salty and sweet...in any case, on to the weekend:

Saturday:

I got in at one in the morning from Normandy and slept until nine, which almost never happens. (Usually, even if I'm up until one, (which isn't unusual) I still get up at seven. You could set Swiss trains by my internal clock). I spent most of the morning working on my part of a presentation about Tours, ran to the butcher's to get something for Lea's lunch, and then set out for the house of one of the AFS volunteers in the area, who took me up to the reunion. 

Like most of the other AFS weekends, we did several activities about cultural tolerance and how small the world is, etc, etc, stuff that I've seen before presented not half as well. Mostly the weekend was nice because we all had the time to see each other in one place and talk about how the exchanges are going (or, in the other direction, to offer advice and answer questions from the French students preparing to leave). I spent most of the time hanging out with one of the "partants" (the French students getting ready to leave) named Benedicte. We honestly don't have that much in common but she's really sweet and fun to be around. I'm planning to go up and visit her in Blois the weekend before I leave, after she's finished up with the Bacs (she's in Terminale, so she really doesn't have the time beforehand).

Sunday was more or less similar, but with a barbecue for the parents. I had a long conversation with Benedicte's parents about the exchange process, life in France versus the States, and even the differences in the mentality towards war (I was really enjoying myself), and they said afterwards that they found it fun to talk to an American in French, since most of the time when Americans come to France, you have to speak to them in English. 

At around four in the afternoon we had some tearful goodbyes, and then coming back home was sort of an anticlimax. But then again, it almost always is.

Monday:

Drama was fun-- the Friday I was in Normandy, everyone split into groups and prepared the last two scenes from Dom Juan, with varying interpretations. In the best one, the girl playing Dom Juan (we only have two boys in our class, so there was one group that was entirely girls) spoke a modern, "cité" French, and the rest still used the language of Molière in the script (which is sort of like Skakespearean English as opposed to modern English)-- a brilliant effect, and really funny. It also made me appreciate how much my French has improved-- to get the comedy achieved by the different accents/styles of speaking requires a certain comprehension of the language. I finally feel like I'm speaking real French...which is a shame, since I'm leaving just as I'm getting good.

Apart from that, not much.

Tuesday:

Since so many people decided to skip drama (8/11), class was cancelled and I got out four hours early. I went into town for lunch and then spent the afternoon doing nothing while it rained, which is why I have no excuse for not doing the blog yesterday (or the cookies, for that matter. Which, by the way, I've had approved by Camille and Lea). Oh, and I had my last French class of the year. There's a lot less emphasis placed on the last class of the year than in the US...it was just like any other class, and then, "Okay, dismissed, have a good summer and good luck on the Bac." And that's it; no one makes anything of it. We're a lot more sentimental in the US. Or, at least, we are at Bosque.

Wednesday:

I had my last History and Science classes of the year, which were more or less the same. The science class was like any other, and then we had two hours free because French was cancelled (the teacher is helping out with giving the oral exam for the Terminales, I think). I played Uno with my friends and then we went to History, where we found that half the class had ditched because they didn't want to wait around for two hours. We ended up playing a cool logic game that I adored but seemed to drive everybody else crazy. After that, I had lunch in town again and came home to mess around on the internet some more and make my cookies for the class tomorrow.

And that's...it. I think it should be more interesting next week? I hope.

So there were crazy French people. And...stuff?

You'll see in a second.

Wednesday:

After school I went over to Lucas's (another AFS student from Brazil) house to work on a presentation for AFS about Tours. Three other students, Peyo, Kazuto and Nuria (from Chile, Japan, and Paraguay) were there as well. We ended up mostly listening to music and playing GuitarHero (which I think is the only video game I can say that I enjoy) for hours on end, and mostly improvising for the presentation. It was quite fun-- I completely lost track of time, which is rare for me (I'm hopelessly neurotic about knowing what time it is). At six thirty I suddenly noticed that I had about five minutes to catch the bus that would get me back downtown, where the last bus to Mettray was leaving in forty-five minutes. I ended up walking the wrong way from the house, so I missed the bus that would have gotten me there with enough time to walk the several blocks between the two stops, but luckily I found the stop just as the bus was arriving. I made it to town with five minutes to get to a stop that's normally ten minutes away walking, so I sprinted the entire way and looked ridiculous because I was trying to hold down my skirt at the same time-- the only time in my life that I voluntarily wear a skirt and of course it's the one day I shouldn't have. But, sweating and panting and coughing (because I still had the tail end of the laryngitis from London), I made it to the stop one minute before the bus was supposed to leave, and then it turned out that it left five minutes later, anyway. 

So that was Wednesday.

Thursday:

I got up half an hour early and Lea's father Paul swung by to pick me up at quarter to seven. I slept on and off during the drive up to Normandy (for some reason, since being sick a couple of weeks ago I've been having less trouble sleeping during the day, even now that I'm better). We arrived around twelve and had lunch with the friends of Paul's that we were staying with-- Gaston and his wife, Beatrice. They were...interesting. Beatrice was notable to me because she was the first French person I've met that's expressed doubts about Obama's leadership capabilities (it seems like everyone I've met here adores Obama, pretty much without question), but she was quite nice and an excellent cook (even if she was very much red-meat-and-potatoes kind of style-- we had mutton twice in a row for lunch and dinner, and then sausage and steak the day after. I was in pain afterwards). It was her husband that was...um...I'll say he was a character? 

He tried to tell me the second day that the US has never had a good army and that the only reason we're a world power at all is because we have strength in numbers...I politely disagreed, because I was too shocked to come up with a better comment. Oh, and he wanted to know why I'd learned French instead of Spanish, because with French "You get France, Quebec, and then nigger Africa. What's the point?" (First thought: wow. Second thought: wow. Third thought: what happened to Belgium and Switzerland? Fourth thought: wow). Even if it was a joke... what else... Ah, so the reason I was able to go to Normandy at all: for a living, Gaston buys and sells old military objects, mostly from WWII, and for the anniversary of D-Day there was a huge informal market in St. Mere-l'Eglise (the first town to be liberated by the Americans). In French, the word for this kind of market is "brocante," and I was asking how long the market lasted on Friday (since no one really gave me many details about what we were doing-- I wasn't even sure that I was going to Normandy at all until Wednesday night). But when I asked, he went on this long rant: "Brocante? Brocante? This is not a brocante! This has nothing to do with the damn things! Brocantes are for old clothes and sets of broken china-- no, this is not a brocante!"...and so on for several minutes. So at the end I asked, "what do you call it, then?" And he was quiet for a minute and finally said, "Marché militaire." For a while I thought that I had legitimately made an error, but when I called it that to my host family, they just sort of looked at me funny and said, "You mean the brocante, right?" So...I believe I've made my point on the guy-- he was weird. (Oh! And he cut his nails with a pocketknife. Now I'm done). But in the end he was actually quite nice-- I helped out a little at the stand as a gesture to thank him for letting me stay at his house and come to the market, etc-- I translated for a couple of English tourists and watched the merchandise when he needed to leave, helped loading and unloading-- and in the end he actually paid me for it (I tried to refuse, several times, but ended up taking it-- his arguments were: "I have relatives that I specifically ask to come up and help me out, and you did more today than they ever do," and "you should never refuse money at your age.").

So, the market and the town itself:

St. Mere-l'Eglise is a charming little town, I'm sure, when there aren't so many tourists that you can barely cross the streets. Once you visit the church and the Airborne Museum there isn't much to do, so I spent a lot of time sitting in a little square away from the main plaza, listening to an audiobook and watching WWII-era planes go by overhead (some sort of cargo plane, I've deduced from describing them to my dad, but once I put the pictures up I'll get confirmation on what they actually were). All in all, very pleasant, and the Norman landscape is simply gorgeous (even though Gaston and Paul don't agree. They think the wind turbines ruin it). I'm hoping to go back before I leave to see Coleville and the beaches and perhaps Cherbourg, this time with Camille and Lea as reinforcements.

And that...actually covers Friday, to be honest, so I'll skip to Saturday tomorrow. But it's late and I have class (last week of school!), but I'm getting out early tomorrow and should have time to catch up. So until then!

Look! An update! It's a miracle!

Not that much happened last week...I promise I'll get with it with this whole blog thing, but seriously, there's not much to talk about. I'll just skip and note the highlights:

Thursday I didn't go to school because I was sick (I definitely had caught whatever Julie had, but it affected me worse). It turned out later to be a viral laryngitis-- I walked to the doctor's on Saturday to ensure that it wasn't strep when it didn't go away after a few days (I still have a sore throat, actually, but I feel normal enough that it's not worth it to do more than take the cough syrup I was prescribed and roll with it). I spent most of the time sleeping: I was up at six thirty long enough to have a cup of tea and decide not to go to school, and then I slept more or less until ten, wrote a few e-mails, went back to bed, had lunch, went back to bed until three, took a shower, and then messed with pictures for the rest of the afternoon. And made cherry pie. Something about being sick gives me the strongest urge to bake...anyway, I was weirdly fatigued for the next several days and took naps in the afternoons, which is strange for me because I almost never can sleep during the day. But now I'm feeling much, much better, and I think despite the soreness that the virus has more or less run its course. Or at least, I hope so.

Apart from that...on Sunday we went out to the Botanic Gardens, which was nice. There were all kinds of animals from bears to wallabies to ferrets there (all caged), and wonderful flowers and stagnant ponds. It got me out of the house and walking. I haven't run or taken a significant walk since London, which is sad. I think I will have to tomorrow if I have the time.

What else...yesterday we went out to Florian and Christelle's for the Pentecost (it's a day off in France) and had lunch with them, which was nice. Their little girl is really cute, but she doesn't like me for some reason. She's shy around people she doesn't know, so that's probably why. I don't really care; it's just kind of funny to think that I'm that scary. 

Today I badly flubbed a presentation for ECJS (I got nervous and started saying just random words that came into my head, in an order that vaguely resembled grammar after it's been blown up), and had the wonderful opportunity to listen to teen drama upon teen drama, except in French...it's the second-to-last week of courses (of school, for me, but for everyone else it's still another three weeks because of the Bacs), and everyone's fed up with everything and everyone else, so it's not the most fun time to be at school. It never is even in the States, so I'm trying not to make much of it. But, yes. Life is good, though. Lots of pastries and interesting cheeses (gouda with cumin = the gift of the gods).

The rest of the week looks more interesting. Tomorrow I'm working on a presentation about Tours with some of the other AFSers. Thursday and Friday I'm headed up to Normandy, and Saturday and Sunday I'm at an AFS weekend (the last one before leaving!). Right now I'm sort of where I was in December-- thinking about leaving but still a ways off from doing so, nevertheless hitting a lot of 'lasts' (last recharge of the bus card, last full month in France, last week of school next week, etc). Things will pick up once school ends, though. Camille and I made a list of things in the region I have to see before I leave, so I should have plenty to write about. Just have to get through the tail-end of the academics. I will miss it, but at the moment I'm not appreciating that as much. 

I'm rambling and I should get to sleep, so good night, sleep tight, and until Sunday or Monday or whenever I have the time/energy to update. 

We'll always have...London? (Part II)

Where was I? Ah, yes, Wednesday:

We got up early-ish (7:30, better than for school but still early considering how late we'd been up the night before), had breakfast and made our lunch and dinner for the day (sandwiches!) and set out straight for King's Cross to take the Tube out to Buckingham Palace (the stop was at Green Park and we walked from there). We were given about half an hour free, so after we got the iconic images we messed around for a good bit and took pictures of each other. By some fluke (which might have been planned), we managed to catch the ceremony for the changing of the guards, and I got some pretty good pictures since I sprinted out to the railing before the crowds could get there (and it turned out that most of the crowds were on the other side of the square, anyway). After the first of many group photos, we left on a long walk through Hyde Park and the Kensington Gardens, where we had lunch and fed the squirrels. The squirrels were utterly fearless-- they would eat right out of our hands. They were all also quite remarkably fat.

We spent an hour at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was hardly sufficient time to even see just the theater gallery, but still wonderful all the same. It's a beautifully constructed museum, one of the most beautiful I've been to, and the exhibits are very artfully displayed. I'd like to go back, if I get the chance (a recurring theme, as you'll see). 

At around four we went to the Lycee Charles de Gaulle to meet a group of French drama students much like ourselves, except that they lived and studied in London. We performed little pieces of our scenes from Monday evening and they did likewise (they'd had a performance on the Friday of the week before that we were supposed to have gone to, except that we had to postpone the trip a week because there weren't any openings for 37 people at the hostel). They were pleasant enough, and it was interesting to hear one of the teachers talk about the differences between the English and French systems of education-- a lot of the things he pointed out were things I had noticed myself. Certainly, there are ups and downs to both systems-- the capacity to specialize earlier in the French system, the ability to have courses like math and languages more often in the American one, for example. There are reforms going through now to make the French system more like the American one, and I think that would be a real shame if that were to pass, since the French do certain things much better than we do (although I'll say the same is true the other way around). I think there's a happy balance that could be struck.

After that, we took the Tube out to the Lyceum Theater to see the Lion King, and I finally heard the 'Mind the gap' announcement over the intercom for the first time. I was the only one that was thrilled by this-- the French students didn't get what was so interesting about it and the rest of the passengers were, of course, British, so I was basically looking like a total idiot smiling and giggling by myself. I don't think it would have been half so funny if I hadn't been so tired, but still. Anyway, the performance was absolutely magnificent-- I've been hearing half my life how amazing the musical of the Lion King is and was never really quite sure whether or not to believe the hype, but in this case it actually is true. The costumes in particular were just incredible-- my favorites were Zazu and Rafiki (Zazu was a man in a suit with a puppet bird, with his face painted fantastically in black and white; Rafiki also had her face painted magnificently and was wearing shaman's dress more or less with a large target-type thing over her rear for the baboon's butt-- one of the most amazing mixes of ridiculousness and beauty I've ever seen). You could tell that the dancers had really studied the movements of the animals and incorporated it into the choreography. The only thing that was really weird for me was that all the actors had really strong accents-- it didn't bother me in Zazu and Scar's cases since they have accents in the original, but the rest of them were just strange for me. The hyenas in particular-- Shenzi had a really, really strong Scottish accent, which was just too much of a 180 from the original for my poor language-fried brain to stand... It was a general hit with the French students, although none of the songs were repeated quite so often as 'You Can't Stop the Beat' (as I said, they're -still- singing that one).

We got back to the hostel around ten-thirty/eleven, and went to bed after conversations until about midnight.

Thursday:

We got up at more or less the same time, with the same shower/sandwich/Tube routine. We spent the morning at Covent Garden shopping. We had to stay in groups, and the first shop that I was dragged into (literally) was the Disney Store. All the French students loved the things like that, Starbucks (where I think I went at least three or four times while I was in London, though I only got coffee twice), and Build-a-Bear (where around a third of the thirty-four students made a stuffed animal), and it was strange for me-- I've been surrounded by these things all my life, so I would never think of going to them on a trip to London, but for them these were all pretty special treats. It was interesting to think about. Once we left these stores, I once again confirmed the general rule that I should not be set loose in a marketplace with a full wallet, but about half of what I spent (amount classified) was on gifts for other people, so does that improve things, slightly?

At Covent Garden we also had authentic fish and chips at an authentic London dive, which was fabulous. Whether it was actually that good or if we were just too eager for a change from sandwiches, I'm still not sure.

In the afternoon we set out for the river Thames, where we took a boat up and down to see some of the famous sights (the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, several bridges, a few monuments and museums, etc). The tour guide was quite funny, and I ended up having to translate a lot of the jokes when my classmates asked me why I was laughing so much. We got off in front of the Globe and walked the short distance to the Tate. Unfortunately, we only arrived in time to use the restrooms there and see one room before closing time. We spent the rest of the time out on the steps of the Globe, eating dinner (guess what it was!) and waiting for the gates to open so we could get good spots next to the stage. Since we were in line first, we were right up against the center of the stage-- I was literally leaning against it for about half the show, and had to take my elbows down when the actors got too close (during swordfights and such).

The play we saw was Romeo and Juliet, and it was extremely well done: the actor who played Mercutio was particularly impressive (his talent was such that even the solely French-speaking students and teachers remarked on him afterwards). The Nurse and Lord Capulet were also very well-portrayed. By contrast, Romeo and Juliet in particular I found rather weak in comparison (her soliloquy just before taking the poison was not convincing at all), but it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the play any. It was amazing to experience theater like this, in a way so similar to how Shakespeare originally envisioned it. I think it was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip-- I was so enthralled that I didn't notice how badly my feet were hurting after a day of walking all around the city and standing still for three hours straight until intermission and then when we left-- the French students were not quite as enthusiastic. About half left during intermission and spent the rest of the time talking and smoking outside, but honestly, I don't blame them-- it wouldn't be fun to watch a play you don't understand when your feet are aching and you're tired and ready to go back to the hostel and sleep. We still had to walk a good bit to get back, though we did take the Tube most of the way; I think everyone was grateful to go to bed after such a long day.

Friday: 

We started out the day by going out to Trafalgar Square and the National Art Gallery. I really enjoyed the museum; I spent so much time poring over some of the paintings and reading all the little information cards with background on the artists and the specific pictures that my friends abandoned me after about half an hour and I suddenly found myself alone. I still enjoyed myself in any case-- I especially loved the portraits by Cezanne and the paintings by Van Gogh. There was also an interesting exhibition on Picasso's engravings (which I didn't even know existed). I also saw the Rokeby Venus and a few other paintings by Velasquez and got lost three times looking for the gallery with Leonardo da Vinci's paintings, only to find that half of them had been taken down for restoration. I didn't mind, though; museums are some of the better places you can get lost in.

In the afternoon we had lunch in St. James Park (three guesses what it was) and took a long walk through the City of Westminster to see the important monuments there (Downing Street, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, etc). My camera died shortly after getting pictures of Big Ben, so I didn't get any pictures of my first impressions of Picadilly Circus (where we went after a break for ice cream in St. James Park in the late afternoon). Despite never having been to New York, the place reminded me of Times Square. During the free time we had there, I ended up going to Starbucks with my friends (though I didn't get anything), as well as several souvenir shops where, to my delight, I found a shirt that said 'Mind the Gap' on it. 

At five we went to the Picadilly Theater to see 'Grease,' which unfortunately wasn't very good-- even apart from being not at all the type of thing I enjoy in terms of storyline, the actors had no talent whatsoever and the leads were exceptionally poorly chosen. And it wasn't just me who thought this-- pretty much everyone agreed at the end that it was bad. I guess you can't win them all.

We spent another couple of hours at Picadilly Circus after the show, where, after a twenty-minute discussion of what we were going to do as a group, I ended up going to Starbucks again with my friends (and this time I split a caramel hot chocolate with Laurene). Funnily enough, the people who decided that we were going to Starbucks and were the most vehement that we all do something together (and thus took twenty minutes deciding on what we were going to do) were the first to leave without any explanation and without telling us where we were going so that we could stay together.

I love teenagers. I really do.

Saturday:

We took the Tube out to Picadilly Circus and spent most of the morning there and on Oxford Street. I considered getting new earphones for my Ipod (which had broken our first day in London) at the Mac store on Oxford Street, but decided not to when I saw the price (20 pounds-- 40 dollars. No way. I waited until I got back to Tours and I found some at the Fnac for a quarter of the price). There was one clothing store on Oxford Street that was really popular with a lot of the students-- I think about a third of them had bought something and were carrying the bags with them when we met up for lunch. I wish I could remember which one it was, because it was funny, all of them with these gigantic brown bags... We met up in Leicester Square and ate at Burger King (you read that right; I wish I were kidding), and it was the first time I'd had fast food in nearly six years. Normally I'd refuse on principle, but in the context it seemed too bratty to do so, and I figured since it wasn't me buying it, it wasn't really me supporting it, so I ate and pretended that I wasn't. I felt disgusting for the next two days; you won't find me eating fast food for another six years, at least. 

After that, we went back to the Tate, since it closed before we really had the chance to see anything on Thursday, and I spent most of the afternoon there perusing the galleries by myself (I started out with a group of my friends, but they mysteriously vanished after the first room and I never found them again). The exhibits were absolutely incredible, very moving and inspiring and strange, and very well-presented. The two things that stick out in my memory are a room of paintings by Ed Ruscha and a film by Ana Medieta. The Ruscha paintings stuck out to me for the way that the artist used text as a centerpiece for his art for the most part without focusing on font (although my favorite piece, "The End," worked mostly because of the font chosen for the words 'The End'), something that appealed to me as a writer; the film by Medieta was just very simple, but very raw and powerful and chilling, in a way that I have no comparisons for. There were many other beautiful and inspiring pieces, of course-- I could make a list as long as this entry so far-- but those were the two that stood out to me the most. In the gift shop I found a fascinating book on street art, which I decided to get with the intention of donating it to the art department at Bosque upon my return, and another on the place of ethics in aesthetic philosophy (everyone was curious about the cover-- a man in a prison jumpsuit, hooded by an American flag).

After that, we walked down to the National Theater and had dinner on the little square outside (and guess what we had). The performance, which was of All's Well that Ends Well, was ok-- the setting and costumes were very well done, but I think they played up the tragic aspects more than was appropriate for the play, and the acting wasn't especially spectacular, especially on the part of the actress playing Helena (she had almost no inflection in her voice; it got old listening to her speak by the second act). The French students without exception fell asleep or left; even the teachers apart from the English teacher were seen to be dozing off. We got back to the hostel rather late since it was a long performance, but since everyone slept during the show, no one wanted to sleep when we got back, so everyone was up until nearly two talking when we had to get up at six the next morning in order to prepare everything and leave. There was a brief argument between myself and the people that wanted to talk which didn't end well; things have more or less blown over now.

Sunday:

We drove. For twelve hours. And I didn't sleep at all on the bus, though everyone asked me if I had. I got coffee at a rest station once we got back to France, though, so I felt much better for the second half of the drive. I spent most of the time reading the street art book (had to make sure it was worth giving to the art department; it definitely is), and this time I remembered what I read (as opposed to on the way out). And that was more or less it.

Since I'm not feeling that well (Julie was sick in London, and I think all of us that shared a room with her caught whatever she had) and I have a test tomorrow morning, I'm going to go to bed early now and do the rest of this week on Sunday/Monday's entry. I'm not envisioning that I'll have much to recount, but in any case...

Ciao!

We'll always have...London? (Part I)

Ok. On to the entry! First, the week before last, filling in the major events before my departure:

On Sunday I went out to the Abbé de Fontevraud with the other AFSers of the Tours area (although a few people from outside Tours came, it still wasn't all of the Centre students). It was a nice visit-- the abbey itself was beautiful in a sad, old-building-that-hasn't-been-restored-faithfully kind of way, and the birds were quite lovely and absolutely unafraid of people (one of them kept flying into the windows of the parked car when we were still in it, and there were swallow nests in the eaves of almost all the buildings and flitted in and out, though I seemed to be the only one that noticed them). In any case, it was nice to see everyone again and see how everyone was doing. 

Monday we got out at eleven (technically, we weren't out until two, but we didn't have any classes after eleven) and went to the Salle Oesia to rehearse one last time before the performance. We spent a lot of time hanging around and running lines and trying not to stress, since there were two other theater groups that needed to rehearse on the stage as well. We also ordered pizza, since we decided that the sandwiches we'd brought were not sufficient (little did we know what was to pass in the next several days...). Finally, after nearly six hours of waiting (we got there at two and the performance wasn't until quarter to eight), the show began. 

The Premiere Facultatif went before us (the other theater group that runs for fewer hours per week); they put on 'Le Nuit des rois,' which is the French title for 'Twelfth Night.' It was a fair performance; they didn't speak loudly enough for the most part, since they were used to rehearsing in smaller rooms where you don't have to shout to have the back row hear you, so I had trouble understanding what they were saying sometimes. After that was the Writers' Workshop, which was really funny and cleverly done. Each of the students had a different style in reading their pieces, and at the end they read rejection letters, which they tore up and then stormed from the stage. I think it was my favorite performance of the evening (besides our own, of course).

Finally, it was intermission and with butterflies galore, we put up the set for the first of our short plays. I wasn't in it, but I watched from backstage and it was done really well. I was really nervous up until the moment where we walked on stage-- from there it went so smoothly, we might have been in rehearsal but for the brightness of the light. Everything went perfectly, no problems, and we rushed once the lights went down to change for the next short play. I had literally less than a minute and hadn't quite finished putting on my heels when the music started-- my cue that I had about ten seconds. Luckily I made it out in time and did my little bit as the TV show host without a problem. The play (Inventaires) went well-- there was only one point when one person forgot their lines, but she covered it pretty well (people told us later that they couldn't decide if she'd really forgotten or if it was part of the scene) and there were no troubles from there. I noticed afterwards though that, in the rush to change, I'd forgotten to take a barrette in the shape of a butterfly from the previous scene out of my hair; I hope it wasn't too noticeable (it was a big butterfly). Everyone commented on my dress, though-- the French teacher went so far as to come up to me afterwards and say that she wanted one like it (I know she was kidding, though). 

I missed the chance to get a seat for the Terminals' performance because I spent too much time chatting backstage with people, so I went out to the lobby and listened to a book on tape instead while I waited for the performance to end and Catherine to come and take me home. We got in at about eleven thirty-- I made Rice Krispie treats for the class and a sandwich for myself for lunch the next day, and then I went to bed for three hours.

Susan's father picked me up at ten to four and we were at school within ten minutes (the roads were completely dead so early in the morning). We were delayed slightly in leaving by one student forgetting her identity card and letter of permission to leave the country at home, but finally, we made it off fine, only about ten minutes late.

Most everyone slept most of the ride-- I woke up at around six-thirty when the sun started to rise and couldn't get back to sleep for more than a few seconds of dozing. I remember listening to my audiobook for at least an hour but I can't remember any of what I listened to. At around nine we stopped at a rest station somewhere in Basse Normandie (we never figured out exactly where) and I bought myself a cup of coffee flavored with Milka chocolate, which definitely perked me up.

At around eleven we reached the coast and took the Chunnel to jolly old England (again, I don't know exactly where we crossed). After another three hours' drive, we arrived in London feeling still quite tired but in general more perky from having eaten and from having arrived.

We were dropped off at the youth hostel, Journey's King's Cross, and given time to arrange our things a little in our rooms before we set out for the evening. To describe it, I'm going to borrow the paragraph written about the hostel from the little itinerary packet the teachers had prepared for us (this is a direct quote; no translation):

"You thought you had enlisted a four star trip to London? YOU WERE SO RIGHT!!!! Prepare to eat the best sandwiches you ever dreamt of and this for the next 6 days. You will be staingat the classiest hostel of the CITY, well known for its small rooms (8 persons per bed [this is crossed out and room is written in its place]) and its private high-tech bathrooms (6 showers for 218 tourists and endless hot water from 4.15 to 4.30 a.m). Your tour leaders have selected the best mean of transportation ever: YOUR OWN FEET... Think about it: no problem of car park, no time wasted waiting for the bus, no huge amounts of money lost in the subway fare...........and the best speed to enjoy the scenery! So what do you think? Aren't you the luckiest students at Vaucanson?"

Funny, but no joke. We nine girls in Premiere were all packed into a room together, sleeping on three-tier bunkbeds, with no room to open our suitcases fully, windows that didn't really open at all, drunkards fighting in the streets at night, glass-fronted showers for the whole floor with freezing water...it was a lucky thing that we were really only there to sleep; otherwise, I think we would have killed each other after the second day. 

After choosing a bed and throwing our bags on top of it, we set out for Camden, which is exactly the kind of neighborhood I want to live in someday. It was pretty much hipster heaven (I swear, there must have been a retro clothing store on every corner). After exploring for about an hour, we had our lovely dinner of sandwiches in the square (as it was) and from there went to Shaftesbury Theater to watch Hairspray.

I wasn't at all familiar with the musical beforehand except for the hazy memory of it coming out as a movie with John Travolta in it last year. It was pleasant enough for all that-- the peppy music kept us awake, in any case. Musicals aren't generally my cup of tea, but I enjoyed it well enough despite myself. I think that the entire class was singing 'You Can't Stop the Beat' and 'Good Morning, Baltimore,' for the rest of the week. In fact, they were still singing it on Monday. 

By the time it was over, it was past ten, so, duly exhausted, we trooped back to the hostel and went to bed. Which is where I'm going to leave it for right now, since it's about the same time as I'm writing this and unfortunately I have to go to school tomorrow. I'll try to get the rest of the trip up tomorrow, though-- I get out at one since it's a Wednesday, so I should have plenty of time to finish up.

'Til tomorrow!

Briefly before I go

'Ello, 'ello,

I'm back from London at last! Sorry for the long pause, and that you'll have to wait another day to hear about all that's happened in that time-- it's late over here and I have school tomorrow, and after school we're going to the theater again, so I probably won't get the time to update fully until Tuesday. I'll try to write at least a bit tomorrow, though, provided I don't get home too late.

'Til then!

Rounding the two mile marker

Today marks exactly two months until my return home. Hard to believe the time has gone by so fast...well, they do say that time flies when you're having fun. Other people who have done exchanges told me before I left to savor every moment, because it'll be over before you know it. When they said that, six months so far from home sounded impossibly terrifying and long. Now it seems far too short. At the end of this week I go to London for a week, and then after that I have three normal weeks of classes before I finish up for the summer. There's one week free and then my dad comes, and after that two more weeks and I'm home. When you break it up like that, it seems like no time at all. Strange to think about, hard to believe. 

In any case, that only marks one of several surreal events today, but before we get to that I'll start from Wednesday last week:

The only significant event was an epic four-hour rehearsal in the evening, for which I almost missed my bus. Beforehand I was having doubts about the performance (the eighteenth), but afterwards I felt much better. It helps to have run the script more than just once. Afterwards everyone was exhausted (despite the effects of delicious revitalizing cakes brought by Susan's mother, Alice, and our teacher), but in a fulfilled kind of way.

Thursday we went to the movie theater in the morning as part of the Lycéens au cinema program (high schoolers at the theater, basically) and saw Almodóvar's All About My Mother. I managed to understand everything despite the distracting effects of half-understanding the Spanish and mostly understanding the French (I did learn a few new expressions from the film; nothing appropriate). Afterwards I was free since the afternoon classes were cancelled for a faculty meeting on the new school reforms, so I took myself out for pasta in town and then caught the bus back to Mettray. I took a run, read, and listened to music the afternoon, and Camille came home and she furthered my education in French music.

Friday morning I went to a commemoration service at the Mettray cemetery since May eighth is a national holiday in France commemorating the end of WWII in Europe. It was fairly simple: there were some former military men holding French flags, the mayor gave a short speech on remembrance and the values of freedom and human dignity that the Allied combatants died for, and the national song was sung and afterwards everyone went to the town hall for refreshments. It was interesting. I think that I was the youngest person there (though more kids mysteriously showed up for the cake served at the town hall).

For the rest of the weekend I alternated between reading and procrastinating on my homework and not much else. I also introduced my host family to green chile, which they loved, made them breakfast burritos and made tiramisu for the first time by myself (and they begged to have me make it every week, so I was pleased with the results). I'm learning all kinds of useful things to bring back to the US.

Monday was a fairly quiet, standard day. I read nearly all of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore in my free periods. In English we listened to 'El Condor Pasa (If I Could)' as an exercise in listening comprehension, which made me smile.

Today was wonderful, if it did start somewhat strangely. I woke up fifteen minutes late because I failed to set my alarm the night before. Normally I have some twenty minutes to check my e-mail before I leave for school, but today, understandably, I only had five. I noticed a message in my inbox from my dad saying how he had gone to an awards ceremony at Bosque that evening and that the Yale Book Award, the most prestigious award given to juniors, had been awarded to one of my friends Joel and then another student who hadn't showed up for the ceremony. I was thinking, 'gee, that's inconsiderate of them not to come. what a jerk!' And then I looked at the photo he attached-- it was of my mom accepting the award in my place. I felt incredibly stupid (this is why I shouldn't read when I'm tired) and incredibly touched-- I started tearing up in front of the computer. And then Catherine called from the living room and reminded me I was going to miss my bus, so I shut off the computer and left, and from there the day was absolutely normal. All the usual Tuesday morning exhaustion and irritableness. It was so surreal.

Not much to speak of for the rest of the day-- notes on the Holocaust and a film in History, notes on the book we read over break in French, and towards the end of a lackadaisical rehearsal Julie took me aside and helped me out with my pronunciation (I had to repeat one of my lines a good six or seven times before she was satisfied). 

Then I came home, found that I had three pieces of mail (a copy of All's Well That Ends Well I had ordered from Amazon, a few tins of sweetriots from my mom and a letter from my dad), started listening to John Campbell's series on world mythology, and that was more or less it. I also found many more kind messages from my friends on Facebook and a couple of e-mails from my teachers about the award-- I still can't quite believe it. But in the best possible way. It would make me homesick, I think, if things weren't going so well over here. Instead it just confirms that it won't be a disappointment to come home.

I'll update one more time on Sunday night for the last events of this week before I go (not that I'm seeing something big happening in the next couple of days). And it definitely will be Sunday, since I have the performance Monday night. So until then!

Better late than never

Honestly, there's not much to write about, but in any case:

On Thursday morning I left for Golinhac (a village of about 300 inhabitants close to Rodez, which is in the vicinity of Toulouse) with John, Sophie, Julie, Elisabeth, Mathieu and a friend of theirs named Vincent. I took the train up to Orleans and they drove down from Paris to meet me at the station, and then we continued on together all the way to Golinhac. It was about a six-hour drive and I finished up my reading for French (earlier than the rest of the class, it seems: my fear of being the last to read actually ensured that I was one of the first to finish. Since most people waited to get the book during the break, whereas I got it the day it was assigned, by the time they went to the bookstore there were no copies left and they were thus unable to finish the assignment. So I'm ahead, for once). I also started Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses. We got into Golinhac around eight-ish and had dinner with John and Sophie's friends, Lionel and Rhadija, that we had come to visit, and then went to bed.

Friday was spent in reading and taking walks and cooking. In the evening, we celebrated Lionel's fortieth birthday, with much food and alcohol and bad dancing (by the end). I spent most of the time hanging out with another girl my age who also happened to be in Premiere Litteraire. Unfortunately, she was also there with her boyfriend, so she mostly wanted to talk to him since I had slightly more difficulty understanding what people were saying over the music (as a consequence, I think most people thought I didn't speak French very well). In any case, a good time was had by all; the hall was a mess by the end and I was duly made fun of for starting to clean up in the midst of the party (it's just something I do. When I see plates/cups/etc out of order, I have to arrange them. I just have to, or it bothers me). I think we went to bed around two in the morning and slept in until nearly noon, despite the fact that the churchbells across the street rang the hour quite loudly and insistently. 

Saturday was another reading/walking/cooking day. We had another mini-party in the evening and Rhadija made couscous, which was delicious. We did slightly better and got to bed around one in the morning, if I remember correctly. We woke up the next day slightly earlier (I was the first up at eight-thirty, and then people sort of filed in during the next hour). I finished my book, started another one, we prepared ourselves for departure and then set out for the six hours back to Paris.

We started too late and so I missed my train for Orleans, so we stopped in Bourges (the city we arrived in just about when my train in Orleans was leaving), exchanged my ticket and spent the next hour walking around the center of town, visiting the cathedral, etc. I said goodbye and spent an uneventful train ride reading.

Monday was the first back from vacation and passed relatively painlessly. Not much else to be said than that.

Today was alright. In History we had a test that I'm not exactly sure how I did on; I feel less anxious about it than the last one, but all the same on the last question I started rushing because I spent too much time figuring out how to phrase things, and the second question I think I didn't detail enough, but we'll see in a few weeks. (It was over the Great Depression in Europe and the rise of totalitarianism directly before WWII, by the way). French was cancelled because the teacher was absent for reasons unknown to the general population, so we spent the time practicing our lines for Drama and playing Uno instead. After lunch we took the bus out to the performance center where we'll be performing on the eighteenth for a rehearsal, which went fairly smoothly. We worked out the major blocking for the longest piece and got a start on the two smaller ones. I'm honestly quite nervous for the performance: this will be my first time acting in front of an audience in a foreign language, and also the first time I'll have performed in a stage production since middle school. So we'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow is the last real day of school for the week: Thursday we have a movie canceling the morning classes and during the afternoon the faculty are discussing the proposed school reforms, so class is cancelled then, too. Friday is the anniversary of the end of WWII and is a holiday in France, so there's no school then, either. All in all, not a bad way to start back. After this, one more week and we're headed to London, which I'm looking forward to. And then three more weeks for me once we get back, and I'm done. Since I'm not taking the Bacs, I miss the last two weeks of school: classes are finished on the 12th of June, and the last two weeks are for revision and exams, respectively. Since I'm not doing the exams, revision is rather pointless, so I get out earlier than I thought. Hard to believe that my time at Vaucanson is nearly over-- it feels like I only just got here. Time flies...

I'm almost positive I should be able to update Sunday, so until then!

Pictures and a quick update

Hi!

I realise it's been a couple of days since the last day of what should have been the daily updates...apologies for the delay.

Sunday was spent mostly quietly; in the morning, after waking up late after the epic party, we went to the Grand Palais to see an Andy Warhol exhibition. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and so did John, I think, Elisabeth I'm not sure and Sophie was underwhelmed. There were too many people, even though it was Sunday, so that dampened things a bit. 

The rest of the day we did more or less nothing. I finished reading my American news magazines and that was more or less it. We were going to go see the new Miyazaki film, but an issue with the ticket machine made us miss the show; luckily, we made it to the one after and I had just enough time to catch my train. I loved the film; I love most everything by Miyazaki that I've seen. This one (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea) was very much bubbles and sunshine on the surface, but I think there's a more subtle subtext to be found if you search (or if you read it in). In any case, it was cute and nice and made me smile. It was a nice way to end Paris.

So now I'm back in rainy Tours, pretending to do my homework and succeeding occasionally. Yesterday I went into town with the granddaughter of the odd couple who took me to the France-Etats-Unis meeting and that was nice, and today I payed a visit to a friend of the family who teaches philosophy at Vaucanson. She lent me a few books by Descartes and Rousseau for me to try to read; we'll see how that goes.

And I've uploaded a selection of the Paris pictures into the Photobucket gallery; the upload was interrupted but I think most of them made it in:

http://s711.photobucket.com/albums/ww120/bleumarten/?start=20

'Til Sunday!

Cold feet, pet shops, and poetry

That's more or less all that can be said for today.

I spent most of the time messing with my photographs and poems from the last week, reading Newsweek and generally relaxing. In the evening I went out in search of aquarium plants with John on the row of pet shops by Pont Neuf, and then walked all the way back to the apartment through the lovely little neighborhoods in full Saturday evening swing. I even found an American bakery that I absolutely have to go back to, just to see if it tastes anything like home.

After that, we went to a party at one of their friend's apartments. Everyone drank too much and danced outrageously to things like 'Cry Baby' and the Macarena. It was a good time, even if the cigarette smoke did start to get overwhelming at around twelve-thirty. And now it's one-thirty in the morning and people are attempting to sleep in preparation for getting up early for the Andy Warhol exhibition tomorrow, so I think I'll join them before my sentences get any longer and I get anymore incoherent. Yes.

Ciao!

Writing with the ghosts in Pere Lachaise

There was other stuff that happened today, too, but that was my favorite part.

I'm only going to give a brief sketch since it's one-thirty in the morning:

In the morning, I think I accidentally aided a fare-jumper on the metro on my way out to the Petit Palais (why I didn't just walk I'm not sure). There, I learned that despite the fact that the museums are free, you still have to pay for the expositions even if you're under eighteen. A little annoying, but for all I've gained in culture from the museums of Paris, I can cough up eight euros in return. The exposition was fabulous, very worth the money: it was a collection of the works of William Blake, an author who I really don't know well enough. His artwork was beautiful, though. Very, very, very Romantic. The Romantics make me smile. I adore the style about as ardently as I disagree with it. Anyway, Blake is brilliant, the exposition was very well-done, and afterwards I hung around the museum for another hour looking at artifacts from ancient Greece until I was ready for lunch.

I took the metro out to Parc Monceau and, after painstakingly choosing a place to get a panini, I sat in the park for about an hour or so and wrote poetry (I ate beforehand, if that's not clear...). Once I ran out of things to say and when the soccer game on the field to the left started launching projectiles perilously in my direction, I decided to head up to Montmartre since I'd heard there was a museum of Salvador Dali's work there, and besides, why not?

So I spent the next couple of hours wandering around Montmartre, and eventually did find the Salvador Dali museum, where I proceeded to fall in love. I knew his work vaguely beforehand, but now after having seen more than just 'The Persistence of Memory' and 'Bacchanale' I think it's safe to say that he's among my favorite artists if not my very favorite artist.

After that, since I still had some time to waste before everyone came home, I went out to Pere Lachaise, found a bench after wandering around the gravestones for a while (I found one with a copper pelican on top, but I'm still kicking myself for not going back and figuring out to whom it belonged), and wrote poetry for the rest of the afternoon. In the meantime, about three different people asked me if I knew where Edith Piaf's grave was-- strange only because she was the -only- person people asked me about. And there was also a drunk guy near the entrance who saw me photographing some birds in the trees shading the main avenue, and we had a brief but interesting conversation on what kind of bird it was I was photographing (we decided it might be a kestrel-- "Which isn't an eagle, but they're in the same family, I think"-- and then I quietly excused myself and went the next several alleys over). I was so engrossed in my writing (after the interruptions) that I stayed in a full half-hour after closing; luckily, there was a maintenance person who saw me running from entrance to entrance and kindly opened one of them for me.

So I took the metro home at rush hour and got home around sunset after getting momentarily lost on the way home. For dinner we had cheese I think in every single course, which was wonderful, and then we went bowling.

I'm terrible at bowling. My overall score was a twenty. Anything that vaguely looks like a sport is evidently too much for me.

And now it's two in the morning and I'll write more tomorrow, if life permits. 

Attention, attention, c'est le train de fete de...Angela, Julie, et Elisa?

So, there was Disneyland.

What can I say but that it was Disney?

I'll give more details tomorrow when I've got more time; it's about eleven-thirty here, so I think I'll be going to bed soon. But I thought I'd write something, just to let y'all know that I didn't just forget. So until then, ciao!

Mimes + sushi = just another Wednesday in Paris

I sleep better in Paris, evidently-- I only woke up when Elisabeth's alarm went off at ten, and normally I can't sleep past eight. The morning was a series of failed attempts of trying to do something and finishing by doing something else: Sophie and I tried to do some grocery shopping, but the store was closed (it's Wednesday, is the explanation), so we ended up visiting a series of smaller shops instead, which was on the whole much nicer. I found a shop to get cheese to bring back home, in any case (they'll wrap it so that it keeps better and the dogs at customs can't smell it). After that, we tried to go to a little sculpture museum close to the apartment, but Sophie decided that we would take our business elsewhere when we came and found that we had to pay. Normally the city-owned museums are free (and that was what it said on the museum's website), but when the museum is hosting an exhibition, you have to pay for it. Since the museum evidently hosts exhibitions for eight months out of the year, Sophie found this policy more than a bit dishonest and is going to write the mayor to complain. 

Me, I just say, vive la France.

After having leftover salmon and pasta for lunch, we met up with Julie and took the metro to see a mime show. We managed to get there fifteen minutes early despite getting slightly lost on the way there (I felt slightly better about myself on yesterday's performance). The show itself was interesting; certainly mime is an under-appreciated form of storytelling. I find it fabulous that an actor can communicate an entire world of objects into being without ever saying a single word (unless a few sound effects count). It says a lot about our interpretation of symbols, and our ability to infer... I don't think we appreciate enough the importance of non-verbal communication. But in any case, I don't think it would have been half as fun if there hadn't been a preschool group in the audience sitting ahead of us-- they were really into the show and brought a whole new life into the performance ("No, it's that way! That way!" "Pick me, pick me!"). They did get annoying at times, but for the most part I think it was better that they were there.

Afterwards, we got slightly lost again on the way back to the metro, but ended up taking a long and lovely walk through a public garden, so it wasn't all bad. Back at the ranch, we spent a quiet afternoon reading/on the internet/cleaning/etc, and for dinner we made our own sushi. Noda's is still better, but all the same, it's fun making sushi. It changes things up a bit.

Tomorrow, it appears I'm co-chaperoning a trip to Disneyland. It'll be the first time I've gone since I was three years old...we'll see how it goes. 

Ciao!

So there was art, and sequoias, and occult bookshops...

Hey, look, I remembered the daily update promise! Without further delay:

I got up later today, but nonetheless I still ended up walking around the Eiffel Tower for an hour to waste time before the Musee de Quai Branly opened. It's a charming neighborhood and there were crows and graffiti and stickers to photograph, so I didn't mind. Paris is quieter in the morning; you can almost feel in certain places like you have the city to yourself. Life moves around you, somewhere, and it's peaceful.

The museum itself was nice enough. Not my favorite, but not my least favorite either. There were three exhibitions that were quite good: the first on the history of jazz, the second on the halfway-lost mythology of Manreva (a grouping of islands in the Pacific), and the last on modern-day cultural blend and exchange (basically, the effect of globalization on art and culture). I loved the exhibitions. The museum itself was lovely, too, but by the time I got to it I was starting to get restless. I went through two of the galleries in full-- the Americas and Africa-- and briefly saw the Australia section of the Oceania gallery before I left. The gallery for the Americas had very little from the continental US, and from there mostly from the Sioux. There was only one artifact from the southwest-- a funerary pot from one of the Pueblos (they didn't say which). Everywhere else was pretty well represented. Kenya and many of its surrounding states were strikingly missing from the Africa gallery, but I guess I only noticed that because I was looking for it.

I have to say, the design of the building is intriguing at first, but the distribution of the light is strange and it gets to you after a while. The Louvre was more open, even if its collections of art form outside Europe are rather...limited, shall we say. But still. It was a nice museum. I enjoyed my visit.

I took the bus back to the stop near Sophie's apartment, and from there the metro to the Musee Cluny stop in order to get to the Luxembourg gardens. Once I got out of the metro, I managed to go the wrong way three times, despite the fact that there were maps of the neighborhood every so many feet. I'm just fabulously uncoordinated that way. Once I went the right way, though, I made it without a problem. I bought a vegetarian crepe from a stand near the entrance that Sophie showed me the first time I visited her here ("You have to know the crepe stands; a lot of them are second-rate, but the good ones are -really- good"). This time I had the time to visit the gardens more thoroughly: walk around, take pictures, smell the flowers, enjoy the sunshine...  Let's see, what can I say about the Luxembourg gardens apart from that they're beautiful..? Well, there were some giant sequoias, which was interesting. I wouldn't have expected them there, and actually wouldn't have realised that they were giant sequoias but for the fact that there was a little sign saying so. Yes. And evidently everyone had the same idea as I did, that a nice visit to the gardens would be a good way to spend the afternoon, because it was absolutely packed (or as packed as a park can be). There was a dog that wouldn't stop barking at me while I was eating my crepe-- I guess he wanted some? His owners didn't seem to care; they would just wave a hand once in a while and say, "Oh, mais tais-toi, enfin" (Oh, shut up already), which was about as effective as it sounds. 

So, yeah, that was my afternoon, rather quiet and pleasant... Once my feet started to get tired from walking around, I decided to head back.

On the way back to the bus stop, there was a little news stand that had copies of the Economist, which I've been sorely missing in France, so I bought myself a copy, which turned out to be a good idea-- no one was at the apartment when I got back and I didn't have a key, so at first I walked around and looked at the shops and restaurants in the neighborhood (including a particularly interesting new age bookshop that smelled like incense and cigarettes), but as my feet were tired I quit after half an hour and went to sit on a bench inside the gate and read until Elisabeth came home and let me in. Sophie came home a little while later, and we set out to go see an Andy Warhol exhibition...

...except that the exhibition is closed on Tuesdays, so we walked around the area for a little while, crossed the Pont Alexandre III, and walked through Invalides and eventually all the way home. It was a perfect evening, in terms of the temperature and the set of the light, and it was nice to spend time with everyone else since I've been doing things mostly solo for the past couple of days. On the way home we got a baguette with bacon bits in it to share (it was...interesting?), had dinner, and now we're just relaxing. Everyone is on their own laptop, which is amusing. And now I suppose I'll write something, if I haven't written enough already, or read. We'll see.

Tomorrow we're going to a mime show, which should be interesting, and apart from that I don't believe there's anything on the radar. But in Paris, you never know. Stay tuned!