Sur le Pont d'Avignon...

Today’s been a long day. I woke up at 6:30 so I could go do the last of my laundry right when the Laundromat opened. I spent the rest of my morning finishing up the housecleaning, which has me pretty freaking pissed off right now. After everything—I even got on my hands and knees to scrub the floor with a towel because I don’t have a mop—they’re saying that the room’s not clean enough and they’re going to have to charge me for it. I did absolutely everything they said to do, as best as I could anyway (they refused to provide the promised cleaning supplies). I think they just had it out for me. Which is ridiculous, because I’m not even in one of the cockroach infested rooms (yes, about half the building’s having cockroach problems). So, I think the only thing I can really do is say: C’est dingue ça!

I headed down to the train station a little early to see off Emily and Alejandra to Paris, which is hilarious because I ended up hauling so much baggage. At one point I had my 50lb duffel bag on my back, my 20lb backpack on my chest, and Alejandra’s two 50lb suitcases (one in each hand) as I tried to leap over a puddle. Emily took a picture or two, hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on them. They almost didn’t make it onto their train. More accurately, Emily and all of their luggage almost didn’t make it onto the train. They conductors closed all of the doors immediately after Alejandra climbed on board. It took a little work, but we got them to open them again.

So, they were gone. I’m probably never going to be seeing Alejandra again, or Jennifer, probably not Elizabeth either. Stephanie I will see again, at least briefly. She has my other suitcase so that I don’t have to drag it all over the place with me. Speaking of dragging stuff all over the place, how the hell did I carry this duffle bag around for 2 weeks in Normandy? I know it’s heavier now than it was then, but seriously, this is freaking ridiculous.

Some weird church (at least I think it's a church) in Beziers.

 So, after a six hour train ride, I arrived in Avignon. I walked into town at around 8pm, looking for some breakfast (yep, that was my first meal today, hopefully USAC will find out that I was so busy cleaning my room I nearly starved to death). I told myself that I’d skip heading out to the two main sites to see in Avignon and leave them for tomorrow. Well, I lied to myself. Dear god, the papal palace is amazing. The bridge, is much less so, but hey, it’s famous too.

Much more fortress looking than palatial.

 I got a kebab for dinner, which is probably something I’m going to miss when I get back to the States. Kebab stands are really quite helpful here in France, and they’re pretty good eats despite how un-hygienic they seem. Get ready for a history-leaden post whenever I actually manage to get the next (and past two) blog posts up, it’s going to be a fun one: I’m in Avignon!

TCF Is Nothing.

Yesterday, after our final French exam, Stephanie’s family flew in from Ohio. So we spent the evening making a few new friends. Today was much of the same, with a lot of packing and cleaning interspersed. I move out of my dorm tomorrow, which is kind of a surreal experience. But the other big story of the day is that it’s Stephanie’s 21^st birthday. That’s still a milestone for her, even though she’s been legally allowed to drink in France the entire semester.

We started the day (at almost 2 o’clock) by heading down to get some pizzas for lunch. We achieved our goal despite being beset by the most extreme storm I’ve witnessed since being in France. The storm was probably about normal for Reno, but for France it was kind of weird. Rain was falling sideways. Yeah, wrap your heads around that.

The rain stopped and we headed downtown. Stephanie and her family were going to go to Avignon with me, but didn’t realize how far it was. They opted for the shorter train-ride and decided to go to Carcassonne, which is a pretty great idea if you’ve got less than a week in Southern France. Sadly, the trains were too full for them to get all the way out there. So I guess they’re heading to the neighboring town, Lourdes, which is a world-famous religious site but is otherwise un-noteworthy. I’m kind of sad for them.

We walked them around downtown Pau and showed them all the main sites, some of which I haven’t seen since my first few days in town. It was pretty weird, it feels like such a long time ago now. We went to the 50’s diner for Stephanie’s birthday dinner, where I finally got to try some horse meat. Then we headed back to the dorm rooms with Stephanie and her sister. We had planned on going out to a bar (really, Stephanie had planned on dragging the rest of us out to a bar), but the rain had started coming down pretty hard again, so we stayed in.

We did our best to enjoy our last night together as a group. Tomorrow Emily leaves for Paris and then the States. I’m going to Avignon for a couple days, and I’ll probably be back in Pau for one night before catching my flight back to the U.S. I’m getting pretty excited to be home. In fact, today I thought of another item to add to my “things I miss” list: pickles. I haven’t even seen a damn pickle in four months.

(Un)Wrapping Up

Today I pretty much finished up school by acting out my sketches in the Spectacle. I would have had video for you all (all three of you reading this), but my camera’s battery died just seconds into my first sketch.

Les Papiers

Apparently I did well, because I’ve heard nothing but how funny my sketches were. I credit the luck of the draw, I just happened to pull the two funniest parts in the whole dang show. I didn’t even have to do much.

The Aftermath

 We also celebrated our Christmas as a group; it was the last night we would all be able to gather together. After an informal dinner we got to opening up presents. Jennifer and Elizabeth unwrapped the boxes of chocolates that I got them, but for some reason Alejandra refused to unwrap her present. I don’t know why, but she absolutely refused. She opened up the other presents that were given to her. It kind of hurt my feelings.

Yep, she opened everything else but mine...

 Emily got her mini-painting that Stephanie and I got her from Mont St.-Michel, and Stephanie got the quill and ink set that I got her from Chinon. They got me a trophy for best historian/taste in television/salsa maker/procrastinator. Lots of awesome memories all around.

Emily and I with our food products.

It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas...

Sorry for the lag in posting… I’ve been wanting to update on the concert I went to last weekend, but have been waiting on pictures of the event from Stephanie and Emily. Well, as it turns out, there’s not a whole lot of good quality pictures of the night. But, as we’re counting down our last two weeks in the country, pictures don’t seem to matter so much. We’re on a mad dash to hang out as much as possible.

 We’ve planned out our Christmas party, and I’ve wrapped up presents for my friends here and most of the presents for my family at home. I’ve realized now, though, that my favorite presents are the two life-long friends I’ve made. I don’t know why I’ve hit it off so well with Emily and Stephanie… maybe it’s because we’re all in the same boat in a strange place, but I don’t think I’ve ever become this close with anyone in this short a time. It’s too bad that I can’t bring them home with me. They’re my two favorite souvenirs.

A lovely assist from Emily on the tree... I'm so glad I know an artist now.

 Oh, and also the armor I bought. That’s my favorite, too.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

So tonight we had some fun. For the past month, we’ve witnessed Christmas lights being hung up all over the city of Pau, but they’ve been left unlit. Until today. Today they had the “illumination festival,” where they provided some entertainment downtown before lighting up the entire city like the Griswold’s house on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Seriously, there are places in Pau where there are so many lights, I not only didn’t need a flash for my camera, the images were completely washed out.

You see before you the only picture to date which features both me and Emily

 So the festival started with what I wanted to call “Salsa Night” outside the town hall. It was a very South-West inspired night of entertainment, with a unicyclist, two cowboys, and a Mexican looking guy doing who knows what with badminton racquets and drumsticks. And then there was the “Urban Dance Troupe.” After that, fireworks, the lighting of the Christmas lights, and then a band singing Edith Piaf songs. Very Christmas-y.

I'm not sure either...

 I’ve got to say that the Christmas decorations are very impressive, especially at Place Clemenceau, which is the big outdoor mall. Sadly, by the time we got there, the crêpe stand was already closed. So then it was back home to watch Kingdom of Heaven. Oh yeah, it was a good night.