Une Petite Promenade

Today I had the place to myself for most of the day.  I needed to take a little parcel to the post office, but I decided I should stall and play guitar for a while.  Basically I was just nervous about needing to communicate with someone by myself so I kept putting if off until I put on my big boy shorts and grabbed my camera and headed out!  Isabelle had given me directions the day before, but I double checked myself with google maps before i left.  It was only like a 10 minute walk, tops.  I got some pretty decent pictures of the church that is just around the corner, and then I went to face my fears.

 I didn't know her name, but the poor lady who helped me at the post office must have thought I was mentally challenged.  She didn't ask if I was from the U.S. or anything, but she asked me about something about needing something on the computer and I had no idea so I just said "non," but when she gave me an inquisitive look I changed my answer to "oui." That one worked.  Then, since the French credit cards only have a chip that they scan, I couldn't pay with my debit card and I haven't exchanged any my cash for Euros yet, so she was telling me to go withdraw money from the ATM outside, but it didn't register until after I asked her to repeat herself like three times.  Finally I went out and took out some money so she could get rid of me.  She was very nice.

I left feeling a lot better and worse about everything at the same time.  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to communicate up to speed within a couple weeks.  I'm discouraged that I can't be myself because of the language barrier.  I'm a pretty big pushover, so if I don't understand something I just go with it instead of asking for clarification. I will get better!

Anyway, I left la poste with nothing else on my agenda for the day, and it was only like 11.  So I gave myself a little tour of a small part of city.  I walked past the post office another 10 minutes to the CarreFour, which is pretty much a French Wal Mart.  I walked back and stopped at this big warehouse looking building called Grand Frais, which is actually a big, fresh fruits/vegetables/meats/cheeses/lots of other goodies.  I walked back towards home and took a breather over a lunch of leftover plain minimacaroni that I missed out on last night due to my epic nap, and the last slice of pizza we had the first night.  It's weird.  I really don't like cold pizza...but I could it here for days.

I played some more guitar and then I headed out again to go the opposite way that I had before in search of some other photo subjects.  I walked a ways out without finding anything, but I had the idea on my way back to try to make a panorama of the city.  I took 3 pictures with my 50mm lens, but that would've been weak sauce, so I whipped out the 300mm lens and got 8 pictures of what I thought would make a cool shot.  When I got back I spent probably two hours or so lining the pictures up and, making the colors look similar, and finalizing the shot.  I thought it turned out pretty good for not using a tripod!

Isabelle and Anouk came back while I was working on it, they seemed pretty impressed with it.  Hooray! We ate dinner, which consisted of flaky delicious bread with melted cheese inside (like a GOOD hotpocket), rice, and fresh tomatoes.  It was great.  Dinner here isn't quite as big of a deal as in America.  They usually eat a little for breakfast, a lot for lunch, and then a little for dinner.

So that's about all that happened today.  Another early night I think, I've been yawning since like six and it's only 21:45.  Not a bad sleep schedule, from like 11-8, but that makes it kinda hard to stay in touch with people back home.  Isabelle invited me to go play "pétanque" with her and her co workers, which is kinda like bocci ball I think...then Saturday she invited me to get lunch with them too.  So that should be fun!  And probably pretty awkward!  Hooray!




Travelin' Man is working up an appetite for language learning. And for sleep. First, sleep...