Long time no news...

So I figure maybe it’s time to update you all on my adventures. I haven’t written much lately, because nothing interesting has been happening, and the things that have been happening have been consuming my time.

Let’s start with my birthday. Chris, Laura, Vaune, Scott, Katie and I went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was pretty good. I got the masala chai tea which was delicious, especially because I had been sick for several days and was still very sick. Vaune paid for everyone’s dinner – quite the grand gesture, I must say. Of course, seeing that we went out afterwards and drinks are about 6 euros a pop, she got paid back pretty quickly by people buying her drinks.

We went to Le Falstaff, a bar that we frequent, where the bartender sort of knows us and calls us nicknames. After some time there, Jessie showed up with a birthday card that had been signed by our entire class. Aww :-)

Laura, Vaune, Chris, Katie and Scott au Falstaff

Vaune, Chris, Katie and I


Vaune doesn't smoke, but we were all enamored of this pack of cigarettes.

They say, "Fumer peut entraîner une morte longue et douleureuse," which means, "Smoking may cause a slow and painful death."

After that we decided to check out Soft Bar, which was boring, so we walked down to l’Imanol, which was creepy and quiet. Suddenly, however, a group of young gay men, excited by the fact that we were American, started speaking to us in broken English and guessing the sexual orientations of everyone present. After this fun game, they kidnapped us and literally skipped to a gay bar down the street. It was a little bizarre, but there was a DJ and a disco ball downstairs. No one was down there, so we went down and started dancing, and were promptly followed by half of the bar.

Saturday was a laundry day, less than exciting. I also went to lunch and then Vaune and Chris and Katie walked me home to drop off my laundry and we wandered around the centre ville. I showed them the literally ‘‘hole in the ground’’ public toilet on my street.



Saturday was pretty uneventful. However, Saturday evening I was in the centre ville with Chris, Katie and Vaune, and we were going to get something to eat. I put my ATM card into the ATM and… poof! It vanished. I had no cash and no card. I was completely without any source of money for the first time in my life. Vaune had to buy me a crappy piece of pizza. I had 4 euros to my name.

Sunday was supposed to be our second (and final) excursion, to Les Chateaux de la Loire, which would have made for some cool stories and interesting pictures for you all, but I just didn’t feel healthy enough, so I didn’t go. Instead I spent much of the day sewing (my clothes are falling apart) and also had sandwiches in the centre ville with Chris. Well, Chris had a sandwich, and I watched him eat it. I didn’t want to waste my 4 euros.

The banking problem was exacerbated by the fact that since I’ve been here, I haven’t been able to sign in to my online account, so I had no idea how much money I actually had or anything like that. Luckily on Monday, my dad was able to send me some money via Western Union, and then he managed to report my card lost/stolen and has FedExed me the new one. I should get it today. So that has been resolved, but was temporarily very scary because I was out of phone card money, out of cell phone minutes, and it was the weekend so I couldn’t use the internet.

This week has been relatively uneventful, mostly sleeping and class and sewing and reading and watching The Office. We are going out to dinner tonight, so that should be fun. Also, Carolyn may come visit on Sunday, and Damien Douillard (a teacher from Ste Anne who lived in my residence one year) is coming to hang out on Wednesday because he went to school in Angers for seven years and loves it and lives nearby.