Mondays and Tuesdays have become a blur of children and volleyball. Not a great combination when put together, but when you spend time with them separately it's a lot more fun. So like the week before and weeks to come, I spent Monday working with kids (also the teachers) and at the end of the day I went off to play in our second match, which we won again! My coach (Rémy, the guy who makes his own apple and apricot juice who I saw at the Gourmandises), asked me after the game if I would come play with his team on Wednesday, which I of course agreed to!
On Tuesday all I have written is "work" haha, so apparently nothing interesting happened that day, and if something did and I forgot and you were a part of it I'm really sorry and must be on drugs...
Anyway, on Wednesday I was with Thomas again for a private lesson and Fabienne (his mom) dropped me off at the train office in Annonay (even though there are no trains) to meet with Isabelle to buy train tickets to Paris and Bordeaux. I'm officially visiting Baptiste from the 23rd to the 3rd! So pumped. Look forward to pictures!
That night I followed Rémy and his squad out towards where I was on Monday, and I had an awesome time with them. They play a lot more competitively than the I play against, so it was actually a lot more fun. Also, winning is a lot more satisfying haha. I've been lucky to only travel super far away on Wednesdays, when I don't have anything to do the next day. So when we did eventually get home around 1 a.m. I was happy to know I could sleep as much as I wanted.
Eventually I woke up to go get groceries with Alex for that night - Thanksgiving!!! My meal plan looked like this - turkey, creamy garlic mashed potatoes, spinach artichoke dip, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. The idea was to keep it cheap and simple so my friends could have a small idea about what we do in the States. 
We only picked up a few things in Davézieux and planned on getting the rest in Lyon where we would meet up with Océane. Guillemette, Alex, and I all took off Lyon bound and got in around 7. We didn't leave the grocery store until close to 9 I think, because guess what? It's a lot harder to translate ingredients than you would think. I couldn't find half the things I needed. The mayonnaise had mustard in it. There wasn't a pumpkin anywhere in the store, nor canned pumpkin. So there would be no pumpkin pie :/I got what I thought most closely resembled the ingredients I needed for everything else though, and we all headed back to Océane's apartment. By the time we ate it was probably 11. I tried the best I could with what I had to ace the recipe's I had, but I came short on pretty much everything...
There aren't turkeys in the markets or grocery stores until closer to Christmas, so we had to buy a rotisserie chicken (please don't hate). The dip was too mayonaissey, the garlic in the mashed potatoes was too chunky, the green bean casserole didn't even taste like a green bean casserole. That would be due to the lack of dried onion rings and cream of mushroom soup...overall, I was a little disappointed in myself. Either my friends are all really good at hiding their disgust or they actually enjoyed it! Hoping it was the latter...
At the worst, we got to spend some quality time together. Also, before we ate I made everybody say something they were thankful for haha. Anyway, Alex and Guillemette had to work the next morning so we left a little after midnight I think and got home around 1 or so.
Ok. Big weekend. We had made plans to go hike in les Gorges de l'Ardèche three weeks before, and to prepare for our adventure I got up Friday and went and got my hair cut. That was an experience. The hairdresser was very professional and quick, I was in awe pretty much the whole time she was working on my hair. For 20€ (including a tip) I was really happy! Content, even! 
Instead of waking up super early Saturday morning and heading south we decided to go down Friday night so we could get a good night's sleep and then get up whenever we wanted to go hiking. We hit up McDonald's and then Thibaut drove Alex, Guillemette and me out to Guillemette's little cottage-like home on a camp ground. We got there pretty late, so I didn't get a good look at where we were exactly, but in the morning I was pleasantly surprised!It was beautiful outside. The weather was really, really nice. Sunny and practically warm. The cottage was super charming, with the one downside being placed right after the take off/landing of a local airway...they were just little two seater planes, but we all had the pleasure of hearing three of them pass right over the house.
We ate a quick breakfast of fresh croissants and pain au chocolat (that's chocolate bread, not chocolate pain). The town was called Ruons, and turns out one of my colleague's parents live there! I never saw them. That'd be weird. Anyway, while we were in town we decided to walk around the "vielle ville" which is like the old part of town. It was really pretty with all the old architecture and structures, even though small, it was very peaceful. Afterwards we and went to get groceries for the lunch. 
We were loaded up and ready for an energy boost. Above the parking lot there was this rock formation that we climbed up and ate on top of. Not the most comfortable setting for a lunch, but the view was beautiful.
From there we hiked down through another little town called Labeaume, across a bridge, and into the wilderness. It wasn't a very difficult path, but there was an occasional rocky part that you had to be wary of. We walked passed several clusters of summer homes that people rent out, and also a few farms. What a life that would be! I can't imagine it. The simplicity would be too much for me. Ha!
We saw goats, dogs, cows, and pony's, which we fed, which was fun. On our way to see a castle that turned out to be off limits to the public, we passed by this fruit tree that looked like it was growing tomatoes. They even felt like tomatoes. I'd never seen or tasted anything like that, so I plucked one off the tree and Thibaut cut it up. It was SO good. After a quick Google search I figured out it's called persimmon, in French "kaki". Fun fact: it's what the Greek referred to when they talked about the nectar of the gods! It tasted like a plum mixed with a fig or a date. In fact, "persimmon" is derived from the Persian word خرمالو which literally means "date plum" (stolen directly off of wikipedia)! Can I just accent how good they are? So. Good. 
We walked this loop of about 10 or 11 km, and headed back to the cottage for dinner. Before eating, Alex pulled a great prank on me. I was completely unaware the French were capable of such things, but was soon at the receiving end of an ice bath. There was lavender under the deck in front of the cottage, and when we got back he was like "hey you should smell that lavender!" When I bent down to smell it, he pushed up on the awning over the deck that had collected a bunch of water and it all came down on my back - ice. cold. It took me a couple seconds to recuperate, but when I did I laughed and had them take a picture, with my camera that had been around my neck at the time of the soaking but was luckily protected from the water as I bent over it. We all shared a laugh and Thibaut offered me a new shirt to wear for the night. |
| taking a picture! |
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| alex taking a picture of me... |
It had been a while since we had eaten, so we prepared dinner - pasta and cheese and hotdogs. It was delicious, and not far from home! After we were well filled we watched the French version of Dinner For Schmucks, which I only understand about half of. It was still really funny though!
Sunday morning we all woke up and ate breakfast like we had the day before, cleaned up a bit, and headed up to climb up to this radio tower that looks over the area. It was pretty fun; I got some good pictures, and Alex got some pictures of me taking pictures! We found a little cave, and played with death on the edge of a cliff. 
We drove back down and headed towards this giant monument of southern France called the Pont d'Arc, which is an enormous land bridge that the river l'Ardèche carved through erosion (obviously it wasn't dynamite or lasers) thousands of years ago. Its size and beauty is, like most things here, impossible to just take a picture of and say "get it?!" You have to go and see for yourself. I will gladly be your tour guide!
After dining on the beaches of the Pont d'Arc we walked up the street and found a path that we thought we lead us to a look out point over the area, but we ended up just walking into the middle of nowhere, so we turned upwards towards this rock slide and sat down for a while before turning around and going back to the car. Everyone was pretty satisfied with the day's hike, and by satisfied I mean whipped.We got back to the cottage, cleaned up completely and packed everything before we said our goodbyes. To the cottage, that is. I got back that night totally drained, and wasn't too excited to get up and work the next morning. Alas, I don't really have a choice in the matter, and it's not half as bad as I make it out to be. That concludes that week though, so I'm off to bed! I'm almost caught up, there's just the week after this and now this week (5/12 - 11/12) and then it's all good. Awesome. Ok bye!
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