"Four things are laid upon me: to drive out the English; to bring you to be crowned and anointed at Reims..."

The second stop on my Joan of Arc tour of France was a bit underwhelming in comparison to Orléans. I went to Reims because on the weekend of June 6^th there was a Joan of Arc festival going on in the city. All that I could find related to Joan otherwise was a statue just outside of the cathedral, and there was another one of her inside it as well.

When I arrived in Reims, the very first thing I noticed was the construction. They are building a tramway in the city, and it looks like it’ll be fairly nice once it’s done, but at the moment it makes the city look as though it’s been demolished. I checked a map inside the train station that gave directions to the tourism office, which is consequently right next to the cathedral, and I was on my way. The quickest route actually took me through a pedestrian shopping area in Reims, and I did a little bit of window-shopping on my way. I got there fairly early in the morning, and nothing was open yet. On the walk, I also saw one of the most magnificent fountains I have ever come across. It was one big circle, with little circles of water forming it… Well, a picture might be better:

I found the tourism office, and inside I picked up the schedule of the day’s events. Nothing would start up until well into the afternoon, so I decided to just start wandering so that I would know my way around for later. In doing so, I ran into a lot of the festival workers setting up, and got to see people before they changed into their medieval clothes.

Pretty soon, I found the cathedral. It was massive, and was very similar to other cathedrals I’ve come across. Outside of it I came across the statue, of Joan. It was actually one of the smaller statues I saw related to her, but I was glad to see it nonetheless. The lighting inside the cathedral made it rather spectacular. They had purple and pink lights beaming up to the ceiling to make the arches look even more otherworldly. Inside the cathedral I also happened across a statue of Joan holding the staff.

As my day progressed, the shops and festival goers started to come out of their hiding places. There were a wide range of items offered – food, medieval wear, jewelry, soap, toy swords, spices, etc.

I also saw many demonstrations throughout the day. There was one on medieval torture techniques, another on the firearms used by knights, a tracking hawk in action, and of course jousting. I saw juggling of blades and fire, fights breaking out in honor of the king, and many other things. Of course, the good guys were the French and the bad were the British, due to the Joan theme. Unfortunately, Joan herself would not make an appearance until the following day, at which time I would be gone. But it was still better to go on the Saturday since there were more events in general.

The entire day had been cloudy and gloomy, but about half an hour before I was due to leave the sun burst out from behind the clouds. It was a nice send off to walk back through the streets and see everything brightened by the color of the sun.

Mont Saint Michel

One of the places I have been told many times is worth the visit is Mont St. Michel. Through some clever train searching, some friends found a good deal for a few of us to go there as a group, so Sarah, Becca and I went over a weekend.

We arrived in a small town called Pontorson. The hostel we had booked had a free pickup shuttle service, and you can definitely understand why since their location seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The couple that ran the inn were from England, and they seemed to have relocated after retirement to open a little bed and breakfast in an area they loved. They had brought over a red minibus with the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car, and it was quite interesting riding in it, especially when the inn owner was trying to pass cars. He had to rely on his wife in the passenger seat to tell him if the coast was clear! Most of their customers are visitors to Mont Saint Michel, and they did a wonderful job in the organization for their guests. As long as you told them when you were arriving or when you wanted to go to the Mont, they were happy to give you a lift. We rode back in the shuttle with a few other guests that were arriving on the same train and checked in. The room was simple, but it was all we really needed for one night – bathroom, full sized bed, and a bunk bed.

Since we arrived a little bit before dinner time, we went out walking and wandered around the area on our way up to one of the restaurants that had been recommended by the inn owners. There was a little ‘town’ area right around the inn that consisted of approximately 4 buildings and lots of farm land. In the direction of the restaurant we just walked uphill along a country road. We were more or less the first customers of the evening at the crêperie, and it was absolutely delicious. The caramelized apple crêpe I had for desert was magnificent: a perfect blend of salty and sweet and the apples were cooked to perfection. While we were eating, the other guests from the inn showed up (two backpackers from America, and one other girl just traveling around).

We left before them and walked around the area near the crêperie. The restaurant was called La Télégraphe after an old telegraph station right next to it. I haven’t done the research, but the inn owners told us that it was used during WWII and is one of the oldest telegraphs in France.

We also came upon a goat in the middle of what looked like grass that had gotten too high. He was eating nonstop, and I think he was probably being used as a lawnmower!

As we started to make our way back to the inn, we again met up with the other guests. We walked back with them, and even wandered down another side road on the way back that included a larger residential area, and English pub, a pottery store, and other random businesses. The area seemed to have a heavy English influence – it’s more than likely a big area to have vacation homes or a place where a lot of people go after retirement. I also stumbled across what looked like ruins built into the side of a hill. It’s astounding to come across ruins, and it always makes me remember the history of an area and wonder if it was just a building that had been knocked down or if there used to be a huge fortress there.

The next morning we had the breakfast offered by the inn, and the girl that was traveling alone sat down with us. Talking to her, it turned out that she was from America (Texas – but not originally based on her accent, though she never told us where else she was from), and she seemed to be bad talking Americans the entire time. According to her, they’re all rude, unsophisticated, overweight, they know nothing, blah blah blah, she didn’t like Obama, and it was just getting a little annoying. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but she was just rubbing me the wrong way. We finished breakfast, and went to grab our stuff to take with us to the Mont since we would be going directly to the train. Originally we had thought about renting bikes from the inn, but they were all booked by the time we asked, so we rode the shuttle instead. Annoying Girl also took the shuttle with us, and she never seemed to be quiet. As we waited for the owner to pull the shuttle around, I came across the kittens the owners had recently acquired. They were so cute, and I enjoyed playing with them!

We were dropped off a little ways from the Mont and stopped to take pictures before we walked the entire way. Once we got through the city gates we tried our best to separate from Annoying Girl. She was asking us about bus times, which obviously we wouldn’t know either, and we directed her to the Tourism Office at the entrance to the city, but she didn’t go in. We had also been told that there was a hotel that would hold our bags for us, so we told her to go on without us while Sarah went to an ATM, but she waited for us. When we got to the hotel, the receptionist negotiated a price on holding our bags, and it seemed very sketchy. I took anything of value from mine since it was just going to be left in a corner of the lobby. I don’t recall exactly how it happened, but I know that the receptionist had spoken some English and we switched over to French, and Annoying Girl went up to the receptionist, got frustrated, and looked at us and asked if we could ask something about the busses. Anyway, I looked at her and replied that the receptionist spoke English, and she doesn’t have to ask through us. Again, she was told that the Tourism Office was the place to go, and finally that is where our paths parted. We ran into her a couple of times later in the day, but I was very happy to not spend the day with her.

It was still early in the day when we left the hotel after dropping off our bags. The inn owners had also advised us to go directly to the abbey since it wouldn’t be as busy when we arrived. So up the hill we went. And up. And up. But it wasn’t so bad since HEC is on top of a mountain, haha. Oh, and I had a surprise Joan sighting!

We walked all the way through the abbey, seeing amazing sights that stretched for miles. From the top, you could see the bay and see the sand that stretched out to meet the water. Sarah said that she had read that when tide comes in the water rises so fast it would knock down a galloping horse. We continued to make our way through the entire abbey, seeing spactacular views and trying to figure out what all of the old machinery had been used for in the past. Finally, we came to the end, which, like most places, was the gift shop. The only problem was that Sarah had wanted to attend mass, and we couldn’t really go backwards through the abbey. So we started at the front again, explained that our tickets were already punched and that we just wanted to go back for mass, and we went. Becca and I only stayed for a little bit of the mass, preferring to go out again and explore a little bit more.

We walked all the way through the abbey again, and this time stopped in a garden area for a little bit before we continued on. As we made our way back into the city like atmosphere it was apparent that the masses of tourists had arrived. It felt like we were the only ones walking down through the narrow streets, and everyone else was walking up. It was a bit like trying to swim against the tide. We stopped off at a few little gift shops and perused the menus available at the restaurants. There was a very specific trend showing up: every place was serving mussels. Moules marinières, moules frites – you name it they were serving it. Since everyplace was basically identical, the only option was to try to find the place with the best lunch menu, or the cheapest. When Sarah came to join us we chose a place with a view and sat down to eat.

After lunch we went outside of the city and decided to walk around the mont. We had to be careful about where we stepped as the sand could be pliable enough to walk on or your feet would just sink down and your feet would be covered. I picked up a little bit of the sand and found that it had a very clay-like quality, which I suppose aided to its quicksand ability. As we were walking, we saw several groups going out to walk the distance to the other side of the bay, and we also found plenty of places that we would not have otherwise seen.

Since I definitely like to be on time (and the hotel owner told us to take the bus before the one we would need to catch our train), we got onto the bus to take us back to Pontorson. Of course there was no traffic, so we made it in fine time and still had a while before our train would come. We attempted to change our tickets to the earlier train to no avail, so we set out walking. Sarah found a book that she had been debating about buying, and so she decided to purchase it. We also got some goodies from a boulangerie-patisserie to eat later for dinner. I purchased a chicken quiche, which was both something that I had never really considered, and was delicious.

We made it back to Jouy safely, after an hour stop off at a little place called Foligny that looked like it had nothing, and continued on in our weekly routines.

Giverny

Emilie wanted to go on a small trip for her birthday, and she ended up picking Giverny as the location. Sarah, Becca, and I joined her on this little adventure. The day started bright and beautiful, and as (more or less) always we missed our train by just a little bit. To give us credit, we got there before the train left, but we didn’t have enough time to actually buy tickets for it. So, instead of going earlier in the day as planned, we ended up going on the 2:20 train. This was a blessing in disguise as it allowed us to grab a bite for lunch. It was an hour to get to Vernon where we caught a bus to Giverny.

When we got off the bus we just followed the crowd through the streets, and eventually found the main stretch of the town. Again (as in the first day going to Les Baux de Provence), we went on a jour férié, so the place was completely and utterly packed. We got in a line immediately thinking that it was the line to get into Monet’s house. In a way it was since his house was in the garden, but it was more or less good that we got into this line.


Since there were four of us we split up and took turns holding the place in line. First Emilie and Sarah went to see just how long the line was and buy ice cream for all of us. When they returned, Becca and I ventured off in the opposite direction and found free gardens to wander through and a magnificent poppy field (coquelicot). Becca went back a week later with her parents and apparently the field had gone into full bloom in only a week’s time. But it was still gorgeous while we were there even though only a few of the flowers had bloomed. After our little wander we went back and waited while Emilie and Sarah explored.



It eventually came down to the point when we would only have half an hour left in Giverny, and the line was still quite long. We gave up on trying to get in and just walked the periphery looking for a view in at least. While doing this, Sarah noticed the group entrance, and since it was so late in the day it turned out that they were letting in individuals as well. We got in that line instead, and then we decided to ask about getting to the front of the line. Sarah used her womanly wiles, and after explaining that we had to catch our train since the one after would take 3 hours to get back to Paris, the security guard helped us get through the line faster. We got our tickets, and then the real journey began.


We went immediately to the nymphéas area, and it was magnificent. There were all sorts of different flowers to look at, the bridges over the water were covered in wisteria, and they even had bamboo. One area also had cotton gum and it looked like there was a light snow cover on the ground.


We all took this in as quickly as possible while also snapping as many photos as we could. Somehow we managed to take a couple of group photos, and when we realized the time we hightailed our way out of the gardens. It was a bit of a maze to get back out, and we didn’t have any time to stop in the house at all. We hurried back to the bus and caught it just in time to actually still get a seat on the bus. I thought they would have stopped letting people on the bus once all of the seats were full, but no, they let people stand in the aisles.


Getting back to Paris was no hassle, and in all it was a good day that yielded a few amazing photos. The place was gorgeous, plain and simple.

More photos: link.

"Before seven years are past the English will lose a greater stake than they did at Orléans, for they will lose everything in France."

My last semester at Drury I took a course about Joan of Arc. Ever since I found out I got the job in France I have wanted to take a tour of France based on the life of Joan of Arc. I decided to wait until spring, and my first stop was Orléans.

Sarah said that she might join me on the trip, but I originally left the campus alone. When I got to the train station in Jouy, I received a call from her telling me that she just got up and she would try to get the next train. As long as she made that train, she was okay to still make the train from Paris to Orléans. I bought the tickets, and we met at the train station to start on the journey.

The train arrived in Orléans, and I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. The station looked like it was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by buildings, and graffiti was everywhere. We followed the signs out of the train platforms only to find ourselves in a shopping mall! Definitely bizarre. There was an information booth in the mall, and we got ourselves a map of the city to accompany the print outs of the Joan sites I had brought with me.


We walked out of the mall and started walking down the main road – suddenly, I made my first Joan sighting of the day. It wasn’t anything big, just a coffee shop called Café Jeanne d’Arc. We went in, and Sarah bought a blood orange tea infusion that smelled wonderful.


After leaving the coffee shop we continued walking and it wasn’t long before I saw my first Joan of Arc statue in Orléans. It was in a main square, and I think I went a little bit overboard on taking photos of it at different angles.


From that square it wasn’t a far walk to the ‘Maison de Jeanne d’Arc,’ or the House of Joan of Arc. It was actually closed when we first arrived, and although admission was only one euro, we decided to wait until the evening since it would be free thanks to “La Nuit des Musées.”


We soon found the Rue de Bourgogne that Sarah had been looking for since she had read that it would be a nice street to walk down. We began walking, taking in the streets and checking out the restaurant menus. We decided on a Chinese place just next to the Rue de Bourgogne. The restaurant was very yellow, and we just had to take a couple of pictures to show that. The lunch was three courses, only 10 euros, and delicious!


From there we wandered back to Joan’s house, and then walked down Rue de Jeanne d’Arc. I also noticed a bakery called Jeanne d’Arc on our little walk down the road. We didn’t get very far before it started raining, and I realized that I had left my umbrella at the restaurant. Walking back through the rain wasn’t very bad since Sarah had her umbrella as well, and when I got back to the restaurant my umbrella was still there. I have a bad habit of leaving it in random buildings, I’ve found out!

Next, we headed to the cathedral in Orléans. It was neither the most nor the least impressive I have ever seen, but it was wonderful because there were a lot of Joan items around the area. This is the cathedral where Joan went to pray before going into battle. In front of the cathedral there were two monuments to her which included quotes from the trials that were held to determine her guilt. Inside the cathedral were stained glass windows that described her life’s journey. It was fun looking at each of them and determining what each window was depicting. There was also a statue of her holding her standard. I found a brochure inside the cathedral that listed all of the Joan statues in Orléans, and it actually contained a couple more statues than what I had originally known about before going to the city.


Right across from the cathedral was the tourism office, and outside of the office there was a cutout of Joan. So… How could I not?


Also nearby was the Hôtel de Ville where another very famous statue of Joan is. Again, I went overboard on photos. Since it was a Saturday, there were weddings going on all day, and I actually snuck in to take close up shots while a wedding party was still loitering and immediately before another wedding came out. We waited a few minutes just to see the happy couples, and the wedding that we saw was completely ridiculous – the outfits were so different, some modern, some not, and the bride was wearing bright orange. I’m not even sure who the groom was out of that group. The cool thing, though, is that the photographers take photos of the wedding party around the Joan statue. So if I were a real Joan fanatic (which I might be since I’m doing this little tour), I would want to get married in Orléans just to have the photos taken there ☺.


From there we walked back to Rue de Bourgogne and walked down a strip that we hadn’t seen yet, and found this little modern park area. It looked nice, but it also looked as though people had been trying to trash it – graffiti and both of the elevators taking you down to the other landing were out of order and they looked like someone had taken a gun or an ax to them. But it did provide a good view of the river from the upper landing.


There was another Joan statue across the river, close to the area where Joan was hurt during the battle. From older photos of the city, it looks like that statue was originally right at the bridge, but now it is down the street from it in its own little square.


Sarah and I were pretty beat after that, and we walked back to a café and both got smoothies as a refreshment. To kill time we went shopping a tiny bit and Sarah bought some clothes, then it was time to go back to Joan of Arc’s house!


The house was supposed to open at 6 for the event, but they didn’t open until quite a bit later. Apparently, one of the employees did not show up due to an emergency, and the one lady who was there didn’t want to open the house alone, which is completely understandable. We just waited a few minutes and pretty soon another employee showed up and we went inside the house. One of the employees told old legends that didn't really fit in with Joan of Arc, but it was still entertaining.

The house had a lot of statuettes of Joan, and general information about the hundred years’ war and how Joan saved France from the English. The house was the location where she stayed when she was staying in Orléans, and the army started fighting without her. When she found out, she quickly got ready, and a pageboy handed the standard to her out of a window as she was leaving the house. The house was recreated in the 1960s and has been a museum ever since. I’m not sure if that means that the floor plan is the same as it was in the 1400s or whether it was just built on the same location, but it is still pretty incredible that they have it there.


Out back, there was a well that had a figurine of Joan at the top of it. That was the last Joan of Arc item I found while I was in Orléans.


Overall I really enjoyed touring around the city in search of Joan of Arc items. It was sort of like a scavenger hunt where I had clues (or locations) of where I could find statues and other things, and it was an adventure to find them. It also allowed me to wander around different parts of the city from what I would normally want to explore. And while my trip to Orléans was more or less dedicated to the discovery of Joan in the city, there was the option to visit other places in the city as I came across them.

More photos: link.

A Room With a View

I’ve been going on a lot of day trips the last couple of months (Orléans, Giverny, Reims, Rouen, Mont St. Michel), and I’m going to write about all of them, but first I thought I’d just give you some insight into the daily happenings around here, and the not-so-daily things as well.

On the whole, the weather is starting to get better around here. So that means that I’m starting to get into Paris a little more often. I still don’t feel like I know it all that well, but I know it well enough to have a few local haunts. For instance, the people at the Crêperie Josselin now know our little group. We went there just last week, and we were greeted very warmly, and they gave us a lot of items on the house.

In France, on the first of May, there are vendors selling lilies of the valley all over the place. My friend Sarah wanted to get one, so Mandira bought her a bouquet in the Massy Palaiseau train station. And that resulted in the following photo:


Also, there was an event held on campus called the MBAT, or MBA Tournament. In this event, HEC invited other business schools to come participate in different sporting events, and then there was a party every night. The first night, the HEC cheerleaders (including Ayoola!) opened the event, and it was followed by the salsa competition. I couldn’t really see anything anyway, so I ended up spending the majority of the evening outside with Emilie sitting on the grass watching a lightning storm in the distance.


The next day Anna, Sarah, and I worked in the information booth for a few hours. We managed to help people get what they needed while we were there, and apparently it was one of the good things that people commented about that there were three people working. You see, there had been only one person working all day that day, and he was also the only person for afterwards and all day the next day. It sounded like the students that help organize this event just don’t get any sleep all weekend! They had three live bands playing that evening, and it didn’t seem like people were really that into it until the last band started playing covers of a lot of different songs. They played 3 songs originally by The Killers, which seemed a bit obsessive but I’m not complaining since I love that band!




The last day I just watched soccer for the majority of the time. It was raining, and somehow I ended up holding a borrowed umbrella, so I just went with it and used it until it stopped raining. That evening there was an event held in a club called Duplex, which coincidentally was the same club I went to my first week here. It turns out that there is a bowling alley in this club, so I spent a lot of the evening in there. It was rather crazy at the beginning, so after we finished our first game we wandered around a bit and danced, but I made it back to bowling eventually. Then we stayed until they closed up for the evening and we were forced to go back to the dance floor. The club had opened to the general public, and this guy that goes to HEC ended up joining us for a while. He was saying that I corrected his CV for him one time, which is entirely possible. We then got a shuttle back to campus, and we were told that it would be a private shuttle. Well… a group from Cambridge got on, too, and they were taken back to their hotel in Vélizy first. One of the guys was extremely chatty and kept hitting his head on the roof while sitting backwards in his seat. Every time the bus hit a bump, he would hit his head and yell out something like ‘Crikey!’ It was all rather entertaining. Then, he started trying to get us to go back to his hotel’s piano bar for a drink, to which I always responded ‘no,’ all the while looking back at my friends for support in that decision, but they just seemed to think it was funny and kept their mouths shut. I was the closest one sitting by this guy, and he started going on about what beautiful eyes I have. And after complimenting me, he would again ask about the piano bar, and saying what a shame it was that I wouldn’t come back. He was also talking about how one of his friends (who was more or less passed out a few rows in front of us) was a wonderful piano player, and he never knew it until this trip, and we should come back just to hear him play. At these moments I’m glad I stay sober so that I can fully recount how absurd it is. Anyways, after they got off the bus, Anna was talking about how he was such a sleaze because he was married – apparently he was wearing a ring. Wow. Why is it always the creepy ones that pursue me? Well, we finally got back to campus – arriving just behind the big bus full of HEC students that left quite a while after us.


So that was a lot of excitement for a few days, then it was back to the normal routine of working and just living. Another event was held on campus pretty soon afterwards called Jump HEC. It was a horse jumping competition that included some of the best horses from around Europe. It was just amazing to watch. As with anything of this sort there were a few mishaps of riders falling off of their horses, but no one was hurt and on the whole everything went smoothly. It is also fun to watch the interactions between the riders and their horses. Some of them got so mad whenever their horse spooked and didn’t want to go any further, and others just remained calm and let their horse get over the fear with kind encouragement. The first evening after leaving the competition, some friends and I decided to try to play Frisbee. My Frisbee was not very good, and it turned into a game of ‘chase the rolling disk.’ Becca went to go get a couple of her mini-rugby balls, and after throwing around the three items together we somehow ended up playing quick cricket, using the Frisbee as the bat and a rugby stress ball as the ball. Needless to say, it was ridiculous.


Sarah and I also went to a math festival in Paris. It was more of a math games festival, but it was really cool. We went to a talk about planetary rotation, and It seemed like there were no groundbreaking finds in it, but maybe I just missed it because it was in French… Anyways, there were a lot of cool games. It also reminded me of this strategic game that I really enjoy playing, so I looked it up online and found it. It’s now in my room, and I have played it a couple of times. The only thing it has shown me so far is that I need to work on my pattern recognition!


A couple of weekends ago there was Roland Garros, or the French Open for tennis. I didn’t go to the actual competition, but I spent a bit of time at the Hôtel de Ville watching it. The first time I went it seemed really nice, just people relaxing and watching the game on the giant screen. They also had a tennis court set up, and a ‘test your stroke speed’ booth set up, and other tennis-related things for kids. The second time I went it was for the last game. I was there with Mandira and Anna, and I made the stupid mistake of not bring ing a jacket or an umbrella. I say it was stupid because it cooled off a ton outside, and then the clouds started pouring down rain. At one point, before the heavy rain started, I went on a walk to stretch my legs, and then I ducked into a McDonald’s when it started raining. When it was over, I went back and stood under the tree cover on the side of the viewing area because as soon as I got back over there it had started raining again. Eventually I went and hid under a sleeping bag with Mandira and Anna, and while that helped with the wet, I was still freezing. But we stuck it out until the end, and rewarded our heroic efforts with coffee and pancakes at Breakfast in America.


More recently it came to the attention of the housing department on campus that they would be painting and doing other work in the building I lived in. They gave us one-week’s notice to move, and originally Anna and I would have had to move twice in order to get another apartment. And wouldn’t you know it, a couple of days after I sent an email noting how ridiculous it was, the same day I started moving stuff, the housing director comes up to Anna and I at lunch and says that an apartment has become available. So, ignoring the couple of bags I had already moved, I only had to move once in the end. After I was done with work on that Thursday I practically moved all of my belongings over to my new room. The layout is a bit different, but the basic idea remains the same – kitchen, bedroom, bedroom, bathroom.


There are downsides and perks to the new room. The major (hopefully only once a week) downside is that I am now directly across from the piano bar where the MBAs throw their bashes, and the music can get quite loud and stay that way for a while. The upside is that there is a swing right outside of the building along with a picnic table (where I’m writing right now, by the way), and I had been wanting to rearrange my furniture in my old room but it was a bit too small with the large desks to do it in a way that would be convenient, so I was given the opportunity to change things up a bit. And one of the original upsides was that Frank Junior Jr. lives right outside the adjacent building. However, after nearly all of the students moved off campus he disappeared, causing me to think that maybe someone took him home. I even bought him some cat food! But now I suppose it’ll go to the cats that hang out around the dumpsters, or last night there was another cat that let me pet her, so if I see her again hopefully the food won’t go to waste. Also, yes, nearly all of the students are gone from campus now. It seems that the only ones remaining are those who just graduated and are looking for jobs, MBA students, or us lowly interns. It feels so empty!


And this past weekend I spent some time in Paris at the Fête de la Musique. It is a yearly tradition that brings out tons of performers and the streets were just filled with every kind of music that you can imagine, as well as street vendors. I spent the majority of my time in the Marais walking around, and I saw things ranging from rock music, karaoke, reggae-ish, sing along, all the way to techno. At the techno, it was basically a dj set up and his friends dancing, and this little boy started dancing along with them. They picked him up and set him on top of one of the larger speakers, and when the music got to a climax he jumped up. After a couple of songs, his father came and took his hand and told him it was time to go, and he just started saying “Au revoir” to everyone. The karaoke also drew quite a crowd – the woman was singing from the apartment above an ice cream shop. A bit ridiculous, but what can you say?



Everything is definitely winding to a close here. Work is slow – there is no one coming to the CV clinics anymore, but we’re still required to be there in case anyone wants to come. And while the CRL work is still there, not many staff are coming in anymore. Today was actually the busiest I’ve been in a while there, but it was still empty for half of the time. Students are gone, and our little stagiaire group will be losing its first member Wednesday – Becca already finished working last week, and Mandira finished working today, although she’ll be sticking around for a while longer. When we moved buildings it really felt like we should be packing up to leave for good instead of just sticking around for another month. But I’m trying to travel more, and being a bit spontaneous at times. For example, I found really cheap tickets to Rouen last week, and just decided to go the next day. Sometimes traveling can be so expensive, but whenever you find those cheap tickets it makes you realize that as long as you are flexible about where you want to go, you can find cheap deals anywhere ☺.


Oh, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here yet, but I was accepted into a Masters program at the Universidad de Alcalá. So, after going home for a little under two months I’ll be popping back over to Europe for another 10-month stay. I’m also glad to say that I have friends on this side of the pond now since I can visit them or they can visit me, whichever works for me. And some of the trips I haven’t been on yet I’m not worried about rushing through them in the next four weeks. While I know I’ll be studying, I also know I’ll have a bit of time to do a little bit of traveling next year as well.