Oh My Update... 1/3

Week one of three I have to catch the world up one...here goes...the only downside of not updating regularly is that after a while I decide it's not worth the pain of editing any pictures and so I just post them raw.  Can't even explain the advantage in boosting levels, even just a little makes such a difference.

ANYway.

This week (from what I remember) was pretty legendary.  Starting from Wednesday.  On Monday I went to school and then that night was looking forward to getting my license to play volleyball, only to show up and them not have it.  We had a match that Wednesday, so I was a little worried I wouldn't get to play. A quick chat with my capitan (Maddy) put my ease - she would have it for when I showed up for the match.

I would've stuck around to watch the rest of the match but I was already tired and knew it wouldn't finish till late, so I headed home and probably got on Facebook until late anyway.  Tuesdays for me are getting harder and harder to remember because there isn't really anything special about them except that it's my Friday.  But because I have to work on Wednesdays I don't ever go out or leave town on Tuesday so I usually just keep it pretty relaxed.

headhot. twice.

Wednesday was great.  Thomas and I had as much fun as we usually do, and afterwards I went home to find Skyrim waiting for me.  Fun fact : import tax of a video game from the U.S. are about 33€.  That brought my grand total from a $60 game plus a $30 shipping fee to $134 with the $44 import tax. The good news is that I'm rolling in the dough over here so I can afford to drop that kind of money on a game - even if I really wasn't expecting to and am still a little pissed about it.

Anyway, like I said earlier we had a match that night so I didn't get to play all night like I was hoping to. We had an awesome time at the match though, I didn't play too bad for my first time. I even finished the game with a left handed kill!  Afterwards, like usual, we all changed and showered and headed out to the lobby where they fed us.  By then it was already 10:30, and we didn't even up leaving until probably after 12 and didn't get home until 1 ish.  Good thing I don't work Thursdays!

From my Cliff Notes on what I did Thursday apparently all I did was play Skyrim until I had volleyball practice at 8 that night.  Wouldn't surprise me.

Friday was a lot more productive.  Alex and I were planning on going to this Musée de l'Alambic, a distillery in St. Désirat, just 20 minutes or so down into the valley.  There's a free tour you walk yourself through where you see really old parts of the distillery (which is still in production by the way), and then at the end you can buy products and whatnot.  They make a really strong alcohol called eau de vie, which you drink a little bit of after a meal.  There were a million different shaped bottles and holders and it was really impressive, including sealed bottles with whole fruits in them!

We walked around, saw this little video, and continued on our way until we were in the gift shop. Wall to wall bottles of alcohol.  It was really fun, but we didn't buy anything.

I was really excited to put pictures up from the musée the next day. So excited, in fact, that I left my camera on all night instead of turning it off after I was done transferring the pictures.  Which only takes like 2 minutes, max.  So the next day, when Alex, Thibaut, and I all went hiking in Pilat I was pissed because my camera dead.  I managed to get a couple pictures before it completely died, so here are those. I'll just steal some Alex's and hope he doesn't sue me :)

The hike was great, with a wide range of difficulty of trails.  When we first started, we were just walking on pretty much flat dirt into the forest.  As soon as we passed the tree line, however, we were walking straight rocks the size of...large potatoes.  Our first hike took us the highest point in Ardèche, where we could see several cities and villages in the surrounding area.  We even saw Mt. Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe, but no one was successful in capturing it on film.  Or digitally, for that matter.

We came back to where we had parked for a little picnic.  I feel like I should clarify though.  It was freezing cold, and the wind was blowing like no one's business.  So when I say we "picnicked," I mean we sat in the shelter of a barn on a large wooden pallet and huddled together to keep warm while we split a baguette and some fruit juice.  Just had to throw that out there.

After lunch we started our second hike.  This one was about 23 times harder than the first one.  We pretty much hiked straight down a set of stairs made of jagged rocks and tree roots.  It was awesome.  When we reached the bottom, we followed a stream up to this beautiful waterfall.  We goofed off a little bite in front of it and then instead of climbing back up from where we came we took an even harder route up this rock slide of giant, moss covered limestone.  Then we had to climb back up the vertical trail of death.  Basically I died, but it was really nice to be outside after having playing Skyrim already for hours in my cave of a bedroom.

We parted ways with Thibaut unfortunately, and Alex and I headed to St. Étienne to party it up at Romain's place. Which we did quite well, I might add.  I think something crazy happens every time I go there, it's great.  On that night, I met an LDS girl who happens to be friends with Romain and them and she came.  Small world! She went home early so we didn't get to talk much, but she's way cool.

On Sunday I followed my friends to this warehouse like building where a bunch of universities and companies had booths set up to advertise themselves.  We went home after a while and I'm pretty sure I just kicked back and tried to recover from the combination of lack of sleep and extreme boulder climbing.

On to the next week!