La Ville d'Amour, et Aussi de Mes Rêves - Paris ! (Lundi et Mardi)

Ok. Paris. Big time awesome.  Fun fact : "awesome" is being officially banished, along with "baby bump" and "man cave."  Don't ask, just accept.  If you don't accept then look it up!

As I was saying : BIG time awesome.  We got up early to catch our bus to Lyon, but first I stopped by the post office to grab two of the three Christmas presents I had ordered for Isabelle and Anouk.  One of them was wrapped really nicely because I asked for it to be (thanks Amazon!), but I had to wrap the other one myself with that cardboard looking/feeling paper because Amazon couldn't wrap something that big (it wasn't that big) and it ended up looking…not so great haha.  I tried to think of it as an oyster…hideous on the outside, but a beautiful treasure inside!

Anyway, we didn't open presents until that Thursday, so I'll shut up.  Papi (Isa's dad) took drove us to the bus station, which is just by the church up the hill.  My friend/teammate from volleyball was our chauffeur for the morning, and he drove us safely to the train station Part-Dieu in Lyon.  We had to wait an hour for our connecting train, but we were entertained by a couple little birds who flew down to say hello in the waiting room.  After eating a sandwich, another sandwich, and a yogurt drink thing we hopped on the train to Paris!

I forget how long the ride was, probably 2 hours or so.  We tried to catch up on some sleep on the way there, and before I knew it we showed up in the middle of a crappy weather streak.  It wasn't raining heavily, but it was like that Seattle drizzle where you're just miserable and everything is gray - until you realize in Paris! Then you're filled with the love of the capital of the République (that would be France) and La Marseillaise (the national anthem) starts playing in your head and in your heart, even if you don't know it.  It's incredible, really!

Mostly I was just cold and wet though.  We jumped on a bus, and then made our way through the nearest metro stop towards our warm and cozy apartmenwith in Montparnasse (pretty much in the middle of Paris, with a view of Les Invalides and even La Tour Eiffel herself!)  It's actually Isa's ex's cousin who is filthy rich and only goes there every so often, so he let's people stay there whenever they want.  The French.  So nice.

It wasn't very late at night, maybe 4 or 5 p.m., but it felt like it was 10 p.m. due to the weather.  But we were going to profit from our time there, so we dropped off our stuff in the apartment and headed back out into the rain to check out Les Invalides and the Eiffel Tower, whose top we couldn't even see because it was covered by a shroud of mist and gloom.  The Invalides is this big, golden domed building that houses Napoleon's tomb, along with several other French army generals and is a museum of a bunch of army stuff.  It was closed by then but it was really pretty to look at.  Unfortunately it was raining and I didn't get a picture of it when we visited, but you can look it up on the interwebz if you really want...it's pretty dang sweet!

Next stop was the Iron Lady, better known as the Eiffel Tower!  I wish we would've gone the next day, or the day after, or the day after, but I was happy to see her again regardless of the wind and rain.  I wanted to take an awesome picture with my camera, but whatevs…I'll just have to go back I guess!  :)  We decided to take an elevator up to the second level, where they said the best view was.  Also Isa Anouk are afraid of heights, so they didn't want to go up to the top anyway.  I've been up there before, so I wasn't disappointed.  I feel bad though, they're totally missing out! Fun Fact : from the ground to the second level is the same distance as the second level to the top! Don't question.  Believe the crazy American guy from South Carolina I heard talking about it behind us in line.

I did get some interesting shots while we walking around the second level.  Check it out!  We walked the perimeter of the tower. which was really cold because it's all outside, and saw and read about all the monuments in the surrounding area. No pictures - A) it was too dark to take a picture without a tripod B) it was raining :(

We didn't stay super long.  After we finished walking around the perimeter we headed back down the elevator and walked back to our apartment.  There was this fancy looking Italian restaurant called Del Arte down the street, and we hadn't eaten yet, so we decided to stop there for dinner.  Isabelle offered to pay for me - she is so so nice!  I got this pasta sampler platter, with lasagna, salmon raviolis in a white sauce, and a spinach/chicken penne dish.  It was way good, and not very expensive!  For Paris anyway.  I've gotten used to dropping $20+ for a meal here.  TAKE NOTE LADIES.   

So after a delicious, hot meal we huddled together and shuffled back through the cold and wet to our apartment, where we all spent a very restless night trying sleep as the neighbor was screaming at the top of his lungs and the blow up mattress beneath me screamed at the top of its vinyl lungs every time I dared move. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep.

If someone had said to me "rise and shine!" the next morning I definitely would have punched them right in the face.  I don't even remember if I woke up to someone moving around or if I was already awake and happened to notice that it was already 8 a.m.  We weren't gonna waste our time being there though, so even though we didn't sleep very well we still got up, ate a bowl of cereal, and headed out to the biggest cemetery in Paris, Père Lachaise.  

There are around 300,000 graves with bones dating as far back as 1141, across 110 acres and over one million bodies, not including the crematorium.  How are there more bodies than graves? you might ask.  Well, a lot of the time families are buried together - I mean like generations worth of families.    

We saw the graves of some pretty cool people I think, although I admit my knowledge of French painters from the 18th century is…limited…There was the grave of the guy who translated the Rosetta Stone (the one with the hieroglyphs, not the computer program), so that was cool! Except for the part that it was falling apart…

Also there was a big memorial grave for the hundreds of people who died in a plane crash that was heading from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.  That was probably one of the most depressing things I've ever seen.  It was this big glass mural with all the names of the people who died in alphabetical order, so you could see all the members of the same family and couples who went down together.  I was pretty somber for a while after that.  Even writing about kinda gets me down…

SO. Our next stop was the church Sacré Coeur, which is big and beautiful.  Before we hiked up there though, we did a little shopping.  Anouk was looking for a party dress, and while we were searching I stumbled across this sweet peacoat.  I'd been looking for one that wasn't a million Euros, and this one was only 50€ and I liked it a lot and I was on vacation sooo I bought it!  

I didn't buy, however, any of the watches or perfumes that were being sold all down the sidewalk.  Nor did I place a 50€ bet on a game where a guy puts a piece of paper under one of three button things and then slides them around and asks you where the paper is.  I watched probably 500€ get lost just from walking around and seeing people pick the wrong button.  How. Stupid!!! I was so frustrated at the idiocy of these people! I had a kink in my neck afterwards from shaking my head every time I saw someone hand over a 50€ bill only to lose it 15 seconds later (p.s. the first guy I took a picture of chased me down and made me delete it).

Finally we walked up the stairs to Sacré Coeur, one of the many beautiful churches in Paris.  We stopped halfway up to sit on a bench with a great view of Paris to eat a sandwich.  At the top there were lots of vendors in front and around the church selling cool bits and bobs, including hot wine, intricately cut up paper pop-up cards, and every sort of food you can imagine. We peeked inside and took a little tour around.  They had small and large candles for sale that you could buy for either one or two euros respective to the sizes, then you light it and place it on an altar or something.  I think they were prayer candles?  I'm not familiar with Catholic customs but that was the idea I got.  Either way, it was beautiful and set a very holy ambience inside.  The architecture was incredible, not to mention all the paintings and stain glass.  Pictures weren't allowed inside though, sorry! 

Not far from Sacré Coeur is la Place des Peintres, a famous plaza where tons of painters come to show off their work and to draw people on the spot.  There were at least a hundred painters there, but Isabelle said that during the summer the place is jam packed with people.  Regardless, it was really impressive!  Every time someone brings up Justin Beiber I just think of that place and my faith in humanity is restored.

The descent was a lot easier than the climb - duh.  Why do I even write these things…I consider erasing them, but I think leaving them up is at least sort of humorous.         

There are some nice people (typically hobos) who line the stairs towards the bottom who try to grab and use your finger to tie a cool bracelet thing with multiple, different colored strings and talk to you the whole time and then sell it to you afterwards, but the key is to not ever make eye contact with them.  Once you lock eyes there is no escape.  You will sell you that bracelet on the stairs of Sacré Coeur if it's the last thing they ever do.  I walked away bracelet-free.

Just a ways down the road is the Moulin Rouge, which I'd been to before but it's fun to revisit, if I can say so without sounding like a creep, but little did we know that the way there was lined with literally side by side on both sides of the street down the WHOLE street with just sex shops.  It's like they were the kebab shops of Paris.  As disgusted as I was, I couldn't help but laugh out of embarrassment.  How the heck do any of those places make any money?! There must have been just under a hundred stores and each one was in full blossom with people bustling in and out.  Bleh.

I took some pictures of the red windmill and we rode the metro back to our apartment to take a little break before tackling the Champs Elysée and the Arc de Triomphe.  I ended up on Facebook while Anouk and Isa napped, but it was nice to just sit down for a while.     

Maybe two hours later we were walking back out of the apartment and into the cigarette-smelling hallway and down the too-small elevator and out the perfectly normal door and into the kind-of-nice weather towards the famous Champs Elysée!  Whew...

We took a metro to the Place de la Concord where they have the Obelisk of Luxor, which was given by the viceroy of Egypt to the French in 1829.  The 3,300 year old monument is 75 feet tall and weighs 230 tons!!! It was quite impressive to stand underneath.  It had started raining again, but I had to have even a crappy picture.  Also there was a giant ferris wheel.  I've seen a million.  Not that this one wasn't cool or anything, it's just lost that special "woah!!!" factor.  You know, like when you see something for the first time...

That's also where the end (or start) of the Champs Elysée is, so we started walking from there towards the Arc de Triomphe at the opposite end, three kilometers away.  There are probably…well over a thousand stores including the little shops and vendors that line the street on both sides.  It was sort of like at Sacré Coeur where they were selling just about everything.  We stopped and bought some crêpes (I freaking love crêpes…) and chocolate dipped waffles about halfway down the Champs Elysée before we started seeing more legitimate retail stores and whatnot.  

There were some street dancers who were all right (they were really good) but they really plugged up the sidewalk, which is still like 20 meters wide.  Also, there were lines pushing into the sidewalk to get into certain stores that were literally marked with 45 minute waits, and people were lined up past them! Crazy sauce.

Eventually we made our way to the tomb of the unknown soldier, better known as l'Arc de Triomphe.  Little did we know that they were actually having some sort of miniature army parade right underneath it, so we stood there and watched for a while.  After they were finished they let the crowd flood underneath the arc to do our tourist thing, after which we went back down the stairs and crossed the busy roundabout (I honestly just had to think for a good two or three minutes how to say 'rond-point' in English...yikes...) back to the metro. 

We got off and crossed one of Paris's 37 bridges, the Pont des Arts, whose railings are completely covered with padlocks.  You cannot even understand the number of locks that are attached to this bridge.  Here's the story - every year the city of Paris has to remove hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of these locks from the Pont des Arts. Why? Because every year, hundreds, if not thousands, of couples cross the bridge.  As they cross, they take a padlock (most with an inscription on it or something with their initials) and lock it to the railing, then throw the key into the river.  How romantic is that?!  I freaking love the French.  I cannot stress the amount of locks on this bridge haha. 

Anyway, we crossed the bridge to make it on time to our boat tour!  It was around 8 I think, and we snagged front row seats outside on the main deck so we would have a great view of everything.  I wish I would've taken notes on everything I learned from the tour.  I honestly don't remember much! :/ Our tour guide was a French student who was studying tourism and stuff.  She spoke like a robot, but at the end I felt bad cause she's just a student like me and so I gave her a nice tip.  Also she was kind of funny (in French - she didn't make too many jokes in English).  

We didn't go very far, but we saw a lot of things that we had already seen before.  There's two islands in the middle of la Seine where the first inhabitants of Paris lived.  I don't know how they found that out…it's pretty sweet though! It's now the most expensive place to live in Paris.

We saw the the Eiffel tower twinkling twice, as she tends to do every hour, on the hour.  I took some videos of the touring, which I can't figure out how to put up on the blog, but if I ever figure it out I'll come back and add it here.  In fact, I took a lot of videos!  I'll have to figure out how to share them…

Our tour lasted about an hour and a half, and then we were in search of munchies.  Munchies turned into another little Italian restaurant, where I actually spoke Italian to the waiter - it was great! I had raviolis with a Bolognese sauce.  Delish.  No dessert tonight, however.  It's ok, I probably needed a break from the sweet delicacies that are French pastries anyway.  So I bought some candy in the metro on the way home…

I'm gonna break this here so I can put up pictures and you can stop gnawing your brain about how wonderful my trip was, then I'll go and finish writing the Wednesday and Thursday part of my journey! 

Dernière Semaine Avant Les Vacances

I couldn't wait to be on my already second vacation of the year.  It was a really just a vacation within a vacation.  We must go deeper…

Basically on Monday I did what I usually did. You should have my Monday-Tuesday schedule down to the button by this point. Say it with me now!  Monday I worked with the chilluns, and afterwards I had a volleyball match.  That night sucked.  We played like garbage!  The good news is that after every match we always eat super well.  The bad news is that 7 hours later I had to wake up and go back to work.

Which I did, with flying colors.  I had been reading the kids "Twas the Night Before Christmas" for the last two weeks or so in preparation for the holidays, so that made lessons pretty easy.  They don't understand 95% of what I'm saying but we always talk about it after I'm done and I teach them some Christmas vocabulary and the kids think it's so funny.  Most of them are loving it!

I took some time out of my Christmas lesson to explain to the older kids something I've come across about a zillion times since I've been here.  I've come up with the four biggest pronunciation problems with the French speaking English - 1) pronouncing H's.  2) pronouncing TH's 3) pronouncing R's 4) pronouncing letters at the end of words. 

The problem with pronouncing the H isn't that they can't do it, but rather once they learn how to do it they put an H in front of almost every vowel, especially 'I'.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Hi ham happy!" instead of "I am happy!" I used that example to explain to the kids that they only have to pronounce the H when they see one at the beginning of a word, except for a couple words like hour.  When I tell them that when they say "hi ham happy" they're saying "bonjour jambon content" they crack up, but I think that really gets them to understand. 

The TH is a lot more difficult to explain, because they never use that sound here. Not ever.  I just do my best to explain that you have to put your tongue between your teeth and blow through it.  They can usually do that just fine, but when it comes to a THR or even THER word they struggle to go straight from the TH to putting their tongue back in their mouth to get the R.

If I thought explaining the TH was difficult, explaining an English R to the French is like trying to count your licks to the center of a lollypop.  It requires extreme concentration, dedication, and patience.  Basically, it's nearly impossible.  I just stand there and repeat myself about a hundred times until I decide we should probably move on to the next subject.

Anyway, I just wanted to include a little bit about what I've been doing at work because I know most of the time I just say I went to work and then went home without much detail!  I'm still working on getting a picture of the kids, but honestly I probably won't have one until the end of the year.

On Tuesday my last day before vacation, we made chocolate covered corn flakes most of the day, and it was really easy.  I explained some of the directions in English, but it was hard enough to explain how to make it in French so pretty much I just acted as assistant teacher that day.  Which, honestly, I prefer!  In Jean Luc's class we sang "We Wish You An Aussi Christmas" together with his guitar that he let me play and it was really fun.  I don't particularly like the song, and would have rather sang the real version, but it was still kinda funny.

Quick culture note! Chords in French aren't based on the letter notes like we do (C, D, E, F, G, A, and B) but rather the sounds of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, and Ti!  That made it a lot harder to learn the song, but luckily I have a decent enough ear and have playing guitar for long enough to be able to figure it out.  

Finally I was done!  It's not like I work really hard throughout the week and needed a vacation, I've been on one since I've been here…I just couldn't wait to go to Paris and to see Tiste!  I had the rest of the week to go through first, however, and I already also had several plans. 

Plan number one:  hang out with Ashley!  I hadn't seen her since the week before, and she was taking off for home on Thursday, so we decided to hang out before vacation.  I went over to her place after work to watch Run, Fat Boy, Run.  I love that movie!  Mostly I love Simon Pegg, but so far I haven't disliked anything he's been in.  

One ginormous hug later and I was biking back home to meet up with Thibaut and some of his friends to get some Chinese food at the buffet in Davézieux that I've wanted to go to for a long time.  I hadn't met the two other guys before, Darion and Jeremy, but they were pretty funny.  They ate enough to make any American impressed; I couldn't even keep up.  The food was way good though, and for 18€ I think I got my money's worth.  

On Wednesday, like usual I went to Thomas's for an English lesson, which can be difficult if he doesn't have homework from school to show me, which was the case that day.  I decided to just give him the same lesson I'd been giving the kids on "Twas The Night Before Christmas," but we did the lesson a little differently.  I would read a paragraph and he would dictate it, I would edit it, and then he would tell me what he thought it meant.  It went really well I thought, I could see progression in his work, which is the goal, right? 

All I have written after Thomas's house is Skyrim, so I'm guessing that's what I did for the rest of the day Wednesday, sorry to disappoint :P

Apparently I didn't get enough rest Wednesday, because all I did Thursday was play Skyrim and watch Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain before I went to an awesome volleyball practice.  Nothing like breaking the dull of a day by throwing yourself around a gym floor in order to push a synthetic rubber ball over the other side of a 274 cm high net.

I was walking down the road in front of my house about to check in for the night when Françoise, my host mom's friend who I play pétanque with sometimes, rolled up next to me to drop of some champagne for Isabelle.  She had just finished with a korfball match (weird basketball, remember? If not, look it up) and since I was there she invited me to have a drink and bite to eat with them in the lobby of the gym where they were playing.  I was starving.  Plus, like I've said before, I'm trying to be Yes Man over here in France, so I tagged along to meet back up with her teammates, who happen to be everybody else I play pétanque with (Gislenne, Alex, Jean Paul, Béa, Jérome, Anthony, etc.) for some fruit juice and cake and bread and cheese and paté and it was great.  I was home an hour and half so later and ready to hit the sack.  But I just went to bed instead.

Big plans for the weekend!  At least for Friday and Saturday.  I was up and eating lunch with Alex and his mom at the mall-like grocery store by Alex's work by noon on Friday, which his mom paid for.  She's so nice! I love the French haha.  After lunch Alex and I headed up to St. Étienne for another party at Romain's that night, but we went early so we could go to the mall and check some things out there.  

We stopped by the SFR phone store so Alex could ask them for a replacement since his as bugging out.  They took his phone to send in to HQ and gave him a brick as a replacement until he got his phone back in the mail, and made him write a 60€ cautionary check.  I wouldn't have paid four cents for the phone he was given as a replacement, but luckily it was only for 15 days or so.  Unluckily, that meant he wouldn't have it for his trip to Nantes to visit his family for Christmas and New Year's.  I felt bad because he's always taking pictures with his phone (it's a really nice camera) of his adventures too, and I couldn't imagine going to Tiste's without my camera! 

After SFR we went to check out some shoes.  I even decided to give the Adidas another look - still didn't want them.  But we did go up to this other sports store where they sell all sorts of other shoes, whether it be for running, tennis, volleyball, basketball, soccer, you get the idea. So we went up there, and I fell in love with this pair of red and black Nike running shoes.  There was another pair of sweet volleyball shoes that were BYU colors so…I decided to get those too.  Merry Christmas to me!

We left the mall for Romain's apartment, where we waited a while for people to show up.  I just realized we're always the first ones to the party haha.  Romain showed us some pictures of his new motorcycle which is really really nice, but locked up in a garage at his mom's place, so we couldn't see it.  When people eventually did show up, we played this fun counting game with them where someone starts with one and points to the next person, then that person says two with the objective of eventually reaching 20, but there are little twists in between like at 4 you have to point the other direction, and at then at 5 you point with both hands but the one on bottom is the direction you go next, and there were different rules but if you screwed up you had to drink.  I tried not to screw up too often.  Two liters of Coke doesn't feel very good in your system when it's taken in one sitting…

Things were pretty chill like that for a while, and we called it a night after a while.  Obviously.

The next morning we all got up to it snowingg outside!  It was the first snow I had seen here, and for some reason it was mesmerizing haha.  We were all hungry, so we left to get lunch at the Casino down the highway, and despite waiting in line for 10 minutes to reheat my food it was really good! 

Alex had told Guillemette he would help try to fix her computer that afternoon so we had to leave St. Étienne around 2 or so, and were at Guillemette's around 3:30.  Her computer was so bugged that she couldn't even get it to start up, so we went over to her older sister's house to help her figure out a Facebook page for her wedding store.  She's the one who made the dresses that my friends modeled for a couple months ago!  Holy geeze it's already been 3 months.  It's going by WAY too fast! :(

Well after we left Guillemette's sister's we went to Kiabi for a little bit because I wanted to check out the raincoats there.  Like the classy, French ones.  Two rows of buttons? Peacoat style.  Unfortunately they're like 100€ sooo I decided to check back later when maybe there would be a sale or more in stock, because they had the style I wanted but not my size unfortunately.  Anyway…

I got back home and probably derped around on the internet and on the xbox until I was ready to sleep.  

I have zero notes from Sunday…I have no idea what I did, but I know that it was the day before we left for Paris so I know I spent a good deal of the day packing and stuff.  But other than that, I'm blank! It's not the first time that's happened, which scares me.  What did I do?!?!

Either way…I'm still alive…and I still ended leaving the next day, so everything worked out! Onto Paris! (French accent Paris, not American. I'm still indecisive on how I will pronounce French words and cities and everything when I get back…do I say them how they're supposed to be said? Do I take it easy on my friends and family and just say them in English? I'll probably just do both. Who knows. Except Paris.  I'll always say that with a French accent. And chocolat.) 

La Fête des Lumières

After my night in Valence I headed straight back to Davézieux, looking forward to a chance to rest up, maybe take a much needed nap.  Unfortunately,  I totally forgot that I had a lunch date with the teachers of Vissenty, so after stowing away my overnight stuff I hopped on my bike and rode down to the school to carpool out to the restaurant with my coworkers.  No nap. 

We went to this sortof classy place in Annonay, where I think everybody but one person ordered the salmon (a very popular item throughout all the restaurants I would dare say).  About halfway through the meal I thought it would be nice if I anonymously picked up the tab, to the point where I started getting nervous.  It was kind of weird.  It's not like I don't do nice things for people and then I was getting nervous to do it for the first time or anything like that, but for some reason I was feeling…tingly.

So as soon and as discretely as I could I got up to 'look for the bathroom,' found the waitress and asked to pay for the bill.  In my haste I forgot to mention that I didn't want the others to know, so when I headed back to the table and someone asked for the check, the waitress just told them I had just paid for it.  I was so embarrassed!  My coworkers gave me a hard time about it, which made me feel worse, but I really wanted to do something nice for them all as a thank you for being so welcoming, helpful and friendly towards me so I pretty much begged them to let it go haha.  Tingly feeling gone.

They were really appreciative, but I could tell they were still a little…not bothered, but maybe just thought it was too much for me to take, so I wasn't surprised when, the following week, they all pitched in to get me a gift card to Intersport (a big sporting goods store).  It was really nice of them, but I'm still kicking myself for botching project Anonymous Amiable American.

After lunch, I biked back home and probably played guitar or xbox at home until I had to head back to the school to meet up with the boys I babysit.  Their mom was there, which I wasn't expecting since I was under the impression that I would just walk the kids home, but I guess she wanted to meet me and talk with me a little bit before she took off for work, which makes sense.  After making me feel even more comfortable in their house than I had been before by telling me her home was mine, she left me with the boys for the next couple hours.

I had made copies of some Christmas flash cards that I thought we could go over for our English lesson for the day, and after we went over all of them the boys brought me into the living room to play this game on their TV, which was actually pretty fun.  They think I am a legend because I helped them beat a few levels of their game haha, I love it.  I could play older brother forever!  And get paid for it?  In France?! Life complete.

After their mom came back, I biked back home and got ready for the big night in Lyon. The city of lights!  We had been planning the trip for a while, and I was really excited.  I had watched videos, heard people talk about it, seen pictures - I was ready to see it with mine own eyes!

Side note - do you know why they have the Illuminations? Not even a lot people in France know much about it, it's pretty much just the Rhône Alps region that puts on the show, and even more specifically Lyon.  Anyway, if understood correctly, either in the Medieval Times or around then there was a plague that swept through Lyon, and the people all gathered at the top of one of the mountains and prayed to the Virgin Mary to save everybody, and the plague miraculously ended!  

Since then they've given thanks to her by lighting up candles and putting them on their windowsills, and obviously it evolved from that.  They still have a big "Merci Mary" sign lit up at the bastille up on the mountain where they gathered hundreds of years ago.  The end!  

So, Alex, Guillemette, and I met up at my house and we were off.  An hour and a half or so later we rolled into town, along with about 2 million other people.  I think the greatest blessing of the day was that as we were circling around looking for parking, someone pulled out of their spot just in front of a hotel, so we parked there and the hotel attendant said that normally you had to be a customer to park there but for that night only we were allowed to stay there.  

It was right next to a train station, so it would be really easy to find on our back,  Plus, Guillemette had done some of her studies in Lyon, so she knew her way around really well.  We walked maybe a mile tops to get into the center of town, where it seemed the rest of the world was also gathered in celebration.  We walked around and admired some of the different set ups of lights and shops they had set up, and then met up with Océane and her friend to look at some other stuff.  Like McDonald's! Just kidding…we were hungry, so we stopped there to eat.  

After we were done ordering we split up with Océane and her friend to go see one of the coolest shows that night, which was this building that was all lit up on the side where the lights played out a pinball scene.  The windows lit up, the gargoyles 'moved,' the doors and the pillars were a part of the game, it was really impressive!  I think I have a video if no pictures...

We met up with more of our friends, Ana (from St. Ètienne) and her friend, where we saw a bunch of lit up eyes.  I didn't get it, but it was cool haha.

It wasn't longer after meeting up that we said bye to them, and went to go watch this big show that played on the side of several buildings surrounding a plaza, which was really cool except for the music which was actually kind of annoying haha.  I only have a video of it I think, so if you wanna know more about it you'll have to meet up with me in person!

We didn't get to stay for long because both Alex and Guillemette had to get up early the next morning to work, so we left around midnight after having been there for 2 hours or so.  On our way out of town Alex and I stopped for a crêpe, where we happened to run into Océane again! We chatted a little while before continuing on.

The car ride home was pretty quite, we were are really tired and ready to be home, where we rolled in around 1:30-2.  Friday and the rest of the weekend still had a lot in store in for me though!  Things don't ever really settle down for me haha, but I'm thankful for that.  How much would it suck if I just sat around all day?  I love my friends and their nonstop partying.

My Beats (by Dre.) came in the morning after the Illuminations, and I was in love at first…listen.  I put on Cinema (Skrillex remix) and literally teared up when the bass dropped.  These headphones are like nothing I've ever experienced.  I pick up different sounds and instruments that I've never heard in certain songs before. Not to mention the noise canceling feature is truly a lifesaver…

I plugged in and listened to music all Friday and worked on my blog (from weeks before) until that night when I got a text from Thibaut inviting me to go out to pizza with him and Alex.  We went to this little restaurant in Annonay that sells really good pizzas for like 5€, and you can rip off a ticket from the box and collect them to get free pizza!  

Have I talked much about the pizza here? It's not normal.  They make pizza out of everything, and it's superb.  Potatoes, ravioli, salmon, you name it.  I got a pizza made with kebab meat.  

Have I talked much about kebabs here?  It's a sandwich that is typically made from a big slab of lamb that has been cooked rotisserie style for hours that they hack off and throw in between bread and it's most delicious.  Here's the thing.  In some cities, there is a kebab shop literally 5 stores away from another one.  Down the whole street.  You could walk around town and cross 50 kebab shops, not even exaggerating!  They're 99% all run by Turks.  That's right! There's a surprising amount of Turkish people here.  I just typed in Valence Kebab in Google Maps and it came up with 1,039 results.  No joke.

Anyway, the kebab pizza I ordered was delicious.  I ate the whole thing :( I'm not gaining weight either, I've just been blessed with a metabolism equivalent to that of a Ferrari engine.  

We said our au revoirs, but had plans to meet up again for two parties the next day so it wasn't a tearful goodbye.  

I didn't have plans the next day and was ready to work more on my blog until our first party on Saturday night, but I got a text from Guillemette inviting me to visit her best friend in St. Vallier and then to go do some window shopping in Valence.  I've been trying to say yes to every invitation, and that was no exception.  An hour or two after waking up (around noon probably), I was in the car with my friend on our way to see her friend and her adorable three month old French Pitbull.

We all had lunch together before heading out to Valence.  My goal was to eventually get to the Foot Locker so I could snag those sweet Adidas I had seen in St. Étienne, but I would have to wait while the girls checked out the Sephora (perfume/cologne) and FNAC (a Best Buy of sorts).  While we were in the FNAC it pleased me to see my Beats (by Dre.) hanging on the wall for a mere 299€!  Did I mention I got them for 120€.  French Ebay. Love it.  

Anyway, eventually we got to the Foot Locker, and I saw the shoes.  That's when one of my infamous Casey Garland qualities came out, and real strong too.  I immediately didn't want them anymore.  I had spent at least an hour on the internet looking them up on Ebay, the Adidas website, all over.  Now, I would love to have them.  But for some reason sometimes when I get really into something that's kinda costly and finally arrive at the store to buy it, I back down 9 times out of 10.  I can't imagine how much money I've saved by doing that.  The end of the story is that I didn't buy the shoes and I don't regret it.

I had to be in St. Victor earlyish for Alex and Thibaut's friend Justine's birthday party, so I said ciao to Guillemette and company and caught a train up to Tournon where I would meet up with Thibaut and he would take me to St. Victor, where would we would wait for Alex to get done with work and meet us.

I can't remember what time we headed to Justine's party, but we were the first ones there.  It was hosted at this community center-like house thing, where there was a dance floor, a kitchen, and a stage for the DJ.  There were tables and enough seats for at least 80 people, and at least that many people came!  It was really fun to meet more people, and I saw Marion there too.  Justine's parents had a butt-ton of food ready for us - entrées, main dishes, desserts, etc.  I think we were there for 3 hours or so before we headed out to Guillemette's party!  We met her and some more friends at her place before we left for the Mykasa club, where we had a table reserved for us.  

After dancing and doing the whole clubbing thing for a while, which included picking up a free mustache tattoo, Alex, Thibaut and I called it a night and headed back home.  I had a lunch date with my host mom and her friend (who happens to be a co worker of mine at Van Gogh) at noon the next day so I needed to get some sleep.

I pretty much rolled out of bed and into the car the next day, I was so tired.  Evelyne, my co worker, had a great lunch lined up for us though, so that woke up me up pretty well.  Her husband is hilarious.  We chatted about soccer for a while over lunch and had laughs about a bunch of different things.  The French love to talk.  They will talk about anything, and they love to express their opinion, especially when they know more than your average Jean-Deau (pronounced John Doe.  Get it?! ha…)

I was hoping we'd have a chance to go home and take a nap before going to Anouk's orchestra concert that night, but turns out we were at Evelyne's for FOUR hours.  Lunch isn't just a drive through at MacDo here, especially if you're hosting it.  You start with an appetizer and something to drink, then you have an entrée, then you have the main dish, then you have cheese, and THEN you have dessert.  Yeah.  Four hours.

We left from Evelyne's and went straight to the concert.  I'm mad at myself for not bringing my camera, but I guess I wasn't expecting to be eating lunch for four hours either.  The concert was great!  Anouk's orchestra wasn't so big that you couldn't hear the flutes, which Isabelle says happens often, so we actually got to hear her play.  What's more, the concert was held in a beautiful church and the sound was incredible.  

There were some light refreshments served afterwards, and we were there for maybe 10 minutes before heading back home.  We got lost on the way back, but thanks to modern technology I was able to locate our position accurate to 3 meters on my phone and successfully guided us back to the right direction.  How about that? An American giving directions to French locals?  I thought it was funny…

On the way home we stopped at the home of a close family friend and their family, whose kids Anouk has been babysitting for the last several years.  It's the same family we'll be skiing with in February, they're so nice and kids are really cute.

We just stopped by to say hello but they insisted that we stay for a little while and to have drink.  I've learned not to to say no to an insisting Frenchman/woman.  You just can't ever win.  Also I didn't really have a choice since I was following Isabelle haha.

Finally, we made our way home.  I got to work on my blog a little more that night before cashing in and resting up for my last week of class before vacation!