November 3rd, a Friday?
Generally I like second hand stores because very few
people shop there, but apparently they didn’t get the memo and neither did we.
As we were pulling up to the area so I could purchase a suitcase, we were
surprised at the enormous amount of people and vehicles coming and going. Guess
we picked the wrong day; the day of the 30% off sale, and everybody and their
wife was there. No, really, the line was so long to pay; you had to wait 20
minutes because the place was jam packed. It wasn’t even funny.
I did manage to snag a hard suitcase which unfortunately
takes up 6 of my 20kg weight allowance and another 10 kg is designated for
something that Mom and Dad bought that I'm bringing down. This leaves me with 4
kg to pack my personal belongings and presents for people. Sigh.
November 4th
It was cold as we all piled in the camping car for the
drive to Hennebont, up the coast in Brittany. I was packed and with a train ticket back to Nantes on the 7th, and excited to visit more of
France. Yes, I know, this sounds like the beginning of a horror story, but its
not. Not yet. It was a casual road trip about 180 miles or so, and once again I
was asleep for most of it. I don’t know why but every time I'm in the camper or
even just the car, I get sleepy, and fade in and out of consciousness. Its
weird. On the boat I’ll get seasick and I used to get motion sick in the car
but not anymore I guess. Upon our arrival at Christelle and Bleuenn’s house, we
met the mom’s boyfriend, his daughter, and joy, the 2 cats. I miss my cats, and
yes that makes me sound like I'm going to be a crazy cat lady someday, but I
don’t mind. I really like cats. The one who is male is grey and has green eyes,
and is quite possibly the fattest cat I have seen in my life. When he lies on
the couch he looks like someone let a silver gumdrop melt. The female is black
and white, with a perpetually surprised look and enjoys snuggling under your
arm. Trust me to focus more on the cats then remembering the boyfriend or his daughter's names.
November 5th
6 degrees as we ate our breakfast this morning. I would
much rather have stayed in bed. We were right by the river and you could hear
the birds and the joggers going by. After regrouping at the house(I spent the
night in the camping car with Jean Luc and Ginette as there weren’t enough beds
in the house and they weren’t leaving until midday Sunday) Jean Luc,
Pierre(Christelle’s boyfriend) and I went to the forest for some mushroom
picking. We recovered quite a few chanterelles, and some chestnuts for grilling.
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| Looks just like the ones in Puerto Rico |
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| A little window |
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| The entrance to the underworld, or just the beach |
Monday, November 6th
How do you like waking up early? How about 6.30 am? I
know most of you get up every day and do the school and work thing, but I
don’t, I actually hate it, but here I was, preparing to dive headlong into my
worst nightmare: high school. Just the name is enough to make a person shudder.
In a high school, you can get lost amongst the huge river of teenage humanity,
basically carried along the tide to whatever direction its flowing. But I
prefer to fight the current and go my own direction, make my own tide, which is
why I don’t like schools, because they don’t always encourage individualism,
but more about one giant workforce. At least the school lunch was decent,
potatoes with bacon in cream. Yummy.
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| Feels like prison bars |
Tuesday, 7th November
Day two of school wasn’t as hard, owing to the fact that
the French teacher was sick, so we didn’t have to go in to school until 11 am.
English and Spanish were only an hour each and they were a breeze. The English
teacher was from France, but had stayed in Maine, and learned English. After
being picked up and eating lunch at the house, Bleuenn and Christelle drove me
to the train station and saw me off. I was invited to stay at their house
anytime I was in Brittany.
They are so kind and I love their cats. The journey
to Redon was only 50 minutes, and the train glided smoothly along the tracks,
so smoothly in fact that I nearly fell asleep. In Redon, I disembarked, and
frantically tried to locate my platform, knowing I had only 6 minutes to catch
my train. I managed to catch my train and grabbed a seat next to some
schoolgirls, then proceeding settled in for the hour ride. Upon my arrival in
Nantes, Jean Luc was waiting for me at the platform and we walked to the car in
the freezing cold. The drive back was silent, mostly because I was asleep. This
seems to be a recurring theme. We drive, I sleep. Funny. But we made it home
safely and I almost wept tears of joy at the sight of my bed. I was exhausted,
so I slept…..
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| Goodbye at the train station. |
Wednesday, 8th of November
And slept, and slept, til 10.30 in the morning, at which
time I managed to haul myself out of bed and eat, and then get back to a slow
day. I observed Ginette and her sewing for a while, which was very hypnotizing.
She’s quite good at it and the orders she fills always look great.
Thursday, 9th
Today was a relaxed day, with Jean Luc at golf until the
late afternoon so it was just us girls at the house. I betook myself to the
shed and got out the bike I've been using, and then proceeded to the Place de
Napoleon square in the center of town for a chocolate croissant and some people
watching.
Technically its called a pain au chocolate but for the non French
speakers I translated it. Before my croissant, I was at the supermarket buying
ingredients for a chocolate soufflé cake for Friday, along with a few articles
from the clothes section which will come into play later…
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| Building art |
All went well and I made it home for a quiet evening.
Friday, 10th
Boy, Friday was a whirlwind.
It started normally, like it always does, but after lunch
things got busy. Now, when Jean Luc and Ginette came to Flores, they had with
them some relatives, called Suzelle and Michelle. Friday was Michelle’s
birthday and I made a fab chocolate soufflé that’s my moms recipe, its to die
for really. And after that I wanted to head back to the supermarket to return
the items for a bigger size cause they were just the tiniest bit too small. So,
like an idiot, instead of going the usual way, I went the back way cause I
didn’t want to peddle up the big hill to the supermarket. Great idea. I took a
wrong turn somewhere, ended up in a cul de sac, had to turn around, took
another road, ended up outside the city limits, road 4 or 5 kilometres on the
highway with my bike, trying to find a road back in, eventually finding a
gravel road, going down that, it split into two, asking directions from an
elderly couple on a stroll and finally ending up meeting Michelle and Suzelle
200 feet on. That was a weird coincidence, but they were nice enough to explain
how to get to the damn supermarket. Upon arriving and locking my bike up, I
approached the lady at the counter and asked if I could exchange for one size
bigger. Her immediate response was ‘no we don’t take clothes returns’, which is
a stupid policy, if you ask me. Nowhere to try stuff on and no return policy if
the stuff doesn’t fit. Not fair.
Once home, we all started getting ready for the big
birthday dinner out. I got my high heels on and only once we got to the
restaurant realized it had been a bad idea. But hey, it was either that or my
grey converse all stars so I think I picked the classier look. It was a fun
night anyway though. There was no one my age, they were at minimum 25-40 years
older then me, given that it was all the family and everyone was old. There
were a couple of small children, but they didn’t say much. My soufflé was
greatly appreciated by everyone and I was happy. We only made it home at 1
o’clock and I only managed to fall asleep at 2.30am.
Saturday, 11th
Finally, the day I had been waiting all week for,
actually the day that I've been waiting a year and 7 months for: the day I got
to be reunited with my best friends from England. Its been such a long time
since I saw them last that I was worried that I wouldn’t be the same Anneleize
they remembered, of course not, but I was nervous. It was raining when a car
flashed its headlights at me and I started waving. There they were. Igal,
Micha, Noga, Telem, and Matar; All the way from Portchester, England. I was so
happy, and there was a round of hugs for all.
Everyone came inside to be introduced, and have some tea.
Poor Igal had coffee because he’d been driving since 4 am after they got off the
ferry, and it was roughly 500 kilometers. Matar told me 3 times that he’d had a double
shot of espresso so he was wide awake. We all went out for lunch at a pretty
decent supermarket cafeteria, and then made our way into the heart of the
supermarket jungle, searching for sustenance for their apartment. The apartment
was small but with enough beds, and the kids played cards for an hour while Igal
napped.
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| Such a pretty smile |
Nighttime was bowling time. After we collected my pajamas
from Jean Luc and Ginette’s, we hit the bowling alley. I, having only bowled
once before in my life, and then it had bars down the sides so you couldn’t
gutter your ball, did abysmally, but everyone else was quite good, even Matar
with his left handedness. We didn’t
sleep until 1 o’clock that night either, just stayed up and talked for ages.
Sunday, 12th
My run in the morning was cold, gray, and windy and when
I got back, Matar was mad cause I didn’t take him with. I have previously
stated reasons for not running with people, but also he was asleep so that’s
part of the reason. We took a passagiata to the Place de Napoleon and played
with the mechanical animals in the park which you can control with levers and
switches and buttons. O f course it then started to rain so we sought shelter
in a café and drank hot chocolate with a ton of whipped cream on it. We raced
down back streets, splashed each other from puddles,
and climbed on banisters
and railways like groups of kids do when they’re having fun. Lunch was quite
good despite the fact that it was store bought, store made food. France is good
at food. After lunch we went to the rink. The last time I went ice skating was
a year ago when my brother and I traveled half way across a country to surprise
a friend for her birthday, but I wont get into that now. It took me at least an
hour to get good enough balance, though during said hour I landed on my butt and knees
a good many times. Matar and I had to go exchange our skates for bigger sizes
because mine were pressing into the back of my leg painfully and his feet were
too flat so they were being squished. He had to trade a size up 3 times. They
cleaned the ice and then had a minute of speed racing on the fresh ice and a
few games of red light green light, neither of which I participated in. I was
doing really well, except that my skate kept chafing at my leg and even tucking
my jeans in didn’t help. One of the guys who worked at the rink took a special
interest in my case as I probably fell the most. He was also really fast and
there was a competition to see who in the rink could catch him and he was right
behind Noga so I shoved her towards him and said ‘touch him!’ and she did and
won a prize ticket, and I take full credit for my speedy friend. The reason the
guy was right behind us was because at one point a lady was trying to catch him
and I tried to get out of her way but she just slammed into me and didn’t let
go and fell right on top of me, HARD. So yes I am fully responsible for that
bit. Yay me. We had Panini’s with Nutella in them and that may have been one of
the best things I have ever eaten. After the parents were in bed, the 4 of us
curled up on the couch all under the blanket, though occasionally Noga would kick
it off, and watched The Big Lebowski in French. A perfect ending to a perfect
day.
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| I miss you guys so much! |
Sunday, 13th
Today was a sad day.
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| The final breakfast before the leaving part |
Tuesday, 14th
Jean Luc took me to Les Sables d’Olonne, which was a
pretty seaside town, much like the ones we visited in the camping car. However,
there was a special alley where two specific artists had created murals with
shells and sea glass and it was gorgeous.
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| Lighthouse |
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| A cunning sundial. |
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| And of course the siren. |
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| I like this one best |
Wednesday, 15th,
What a beautiful day, some photos got printed and we
visited a lake. It was so peaceful, just a couple of fisherman, and planes in
the sky because of course there was an aerodrome near there and the pilots were
doing acrobatics with their planes. That was cool to see.
Thursday, 16th
Three days till I leave! The time has flown by so fast I
cant even believe it. Jean Luc and I finalized a box that is being shipped to Flores
filled with French goodies, yay! And I took the bike out and went on another
Anneleize tour, though this time I made sure to check landmarks so as not to
get lost. I actually ended up passing the same gravel road that I turned onto
when I was lost that day, haha. I biked to the lake from yesterday, just to see
how far it was, about 8 kilometers, but ended up not cycling around it cause I was
losing daylight. I enjoyed driving through those little hamlets, with their
vegetable patch and chickens, reminding me of Flores and how excited I am that
I’ll be returning very soon and seeing Mom!
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