Après Midi à Annonay

I was right, I am writing another post today. Who knew? I knew. Anyway. I didn't really have any plans for today until last night Holly (the English girl my age who's also an assistant teacher) mentioned she was going into Annonay to go to the bank and asked if I wanted to meet up for lunch or something!  I haven't figured out the busses yet, and I hadn't been into town yet by myself on my bike, but I figured then was as good of a time as any.  Well there was a little confusion, and we didn't know when or where we were actually meeting up, but here's the story:

I finally I got the impression that we were gonna meet at this bank by my house.  That was a relief, cause it was cold and I didn't wanna bike in the cold, and then bike back uphill in the cold. Or get lost, or a number of other things.  So I went to the bank and sat outside for like 20 minutes waiting, when I finally texted Holly to see if I was in the right place.  Turns out I misunderstood, we were actually supposed to meet downtown, and she was already out waiting for me.  I felt so bad, because I had to walk all the way back home, get my bike and then bike all the way to town, and it took me probably 30 minutes to finally get there .  What's more, as I was biking it started raining.  Then my bike chain fell off.  Then I got lost.  I asked some sketchy looking girls if they knew where to find the place I was looking for (I love speaking French to people now, hooray!).  

I wasn't too far from la Place de Cordeliers (where we were meeting) so I just kept riding my bike in hopes that I'd get there eventually, which I did.  Holly and I grabbed some stuff from a patisserie, I got a pizza with ham and mushrooms and a fruit tart thing, and she got this goat cheese spinach puff thing (I would've taken pictures, but I didn't bring my camera due to the rain and biking).  Everything was super tasty.  And it was only 5 euros! 

We walked around a little bit, but she needed to be somewhere kinda soon so we didn't get very far, and then we said goodbye and I headed towards home.  I got about two minutes up the road when one of the links on my chain split and caught on the chain guard, which made it impossible to bend back with my fingers.  So I just broke the link and took the chain off so I could at least roll the bike home instead of slinging it across my back for the next hour as I walked home.  Ten minutes into my walk, however, I looked up to see my host mom walking towards me on the sidewalk! I was all...?! 

She happened to have just picked her daughter up from school and was on her way home when they saw me walking, so they pulled into an auto-shop just off the street and waited for me there.  We stowed the bike in the shop (they were nice gentlemen) because the bike wouldn't fit in the car and we drove home, where I was able to wash my grease-caked hands using laundry soap.  It works really well!

So basically it's been a pretty crazy day.  After I got home I just chilled in my room and played guitar and tested out the recording quality on my Nikon, and it's way good.  A lot better than using PhotoBooth!  Maybe I'll post some videos later...? I've been in here doing that basically since then...I had leftover quiche and pasta for dinner and a chocolate yogurt for dessert - so good.  And right now I'm going to eat some sour patch kids my mom bought for my plane ride. 

Twix the cat really likes me.  I realize I'm making the same face in most of these. It's a joke.

this actually really hurt.

Tomorrow is my birthday!  I wanna try making this delicious cinnamon roll/pancake recipe that I stumbled upon, but I don't know if half the ingredients even exist in France...ok I'm sure they do, but I haven't seen them in my home yet.  Other than that, I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow.  Probably not a whole lot...Twix and I will play.