Since I was able to hold a pencil and make the thoughts in my head appear on paper, I have kept a journal of some sort. In all that time, however, I have never managed to perfect the art of consistent updates and it appears as though my blog is no different. Cool things are happening over here and I'm keeping them all to myself! My bad, faithful readers. My bad.
It's been a pretty good month. Here are the highlights:
Week 1: Setting up house was a no joke situation. On the Friday we were expecting the furniture, I had to get up at the crack of dawn because the delivery was scheduled between 7 and 11am. The dude was there at 7:30 and his old ass was hauling everything up four flights of stairs by himself. I was impressed. Ashley was instrumental in the whole process. Not only did she help me carry stuff from the old place at 6am but she stayed the whole day to assemble furniture and scrub walls with me. She provided a much needed service, I provided beer and food. Clutch. By Friday night, Jason and I had a real bed to sleep in and it was glorious. Check out our new digs!
Week 2: Woooooo! Spring Break! Yeah, not so much. I traded in margaritas on the beach for sponges in some bleach this year, thus signaling the official end of my youth. Goodbye, niKKers. It was fun while it lasted. I don't even have a sexy French maid outfit so there was certainly nothing glamorous about my cleaning spree, but it was essential. If we had waited until the landlord replaced the carpet and painted the walls, we'd still be living at the old place right now and that simply wasn't going to cut it. I almost threw my back out scrubbing 15 years worth of smoke stains off the walls but it was well worth it. We had some of Jason's co-workers over for a nice dinner on Friday and I was rewarded for all my hard work with a trip to the beach on Sunday. I got to put on my bikini after all! It was still much too cold to swim but who goes to the beach to swim anyway?
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| Lacanau Beach |
Week 3: Back to school. For about a month, all of my classmates had commitments outside of school and I was getting private classes every day. It was weird at first but then I realized the awesome potential of being able to learn exactly what I wanted at my own pace and I was a little sad when people started coming back to class. I love them and all, but I was really learning some French there for a minute. Things were a little whacky right before break because Elisabeth was out sick and Mylène is gone for the rest of the year because of her baby so nothing got done. When we got back, we had to take the exams we were supposed to do the week before. Apparently, it was the end of the term and students had the opportunity to move up a level if they passed these exams. I am already at the highest level they offer so it's no big deal for me, but last week, a whole bunch of people moved up to my level and my days of being the only student are over. It's a good bunch, though, and I am happy to have more friends but I am not a huge fan of our new teacher, Carolyne. For someone who is trying to get her students to speak a new language, she sure does talk an awful lot. We're the ones who need speaking practice, not you, ma'am.
We celebrated Ashley's 25th birthday on the 18th. It was an irresponsibly good time. I guess I was making up for my lack of aggressive partying during spring break and I was not a happy camper on Friday. By Saturday I was feeling alive again and Jason and I decided to go to a rugby game. The Bordeaux team was having its last home game and we were lucky to get tickets at the door. The place was PACKED. It was my first live professional rugby match and it was a blast. Oh and Bordeaux won 16-0! Allez, UBB! On Sunday, we were at Ed's place for Felix's birthday party and that was pretty darn cute. We got him some books and a shovel, which were a big hit. He's 3. He likes everything.
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| I WILL get one of those flags. |
Week 4 to now: Nothing crazy. Been spending some quality time with Jason's friends, including some cats that I love, and I even saw Hunter a Louis for the first time in about a month. We had them over for tacos last Friday and then we went over to this other guy's place to make dumplings on Sunday. Real Chinese food is so good. We bought a TV and we have ESPN America, which Jason is pretty excited about and I am excited about practicing my listening skills more regularly. We also bought a washing machine but we ran one load and it was shaking and banging so much we stopped it and discovered that one of the mounting brackets was broken (not our fault). We're waiting for them to determine if it's more cost effective to repair it or just give us a new one. In the meantime, I am out of shirts so I hope it gets warm enough for dresses real soon. Four is too many flights of stairs to be lugging laundry to and from the laundromat.
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| Jason making a friend |
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| And I'm the cat lady? |
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| Mousse and Tira, my new BFFs |
Tomorrow is La Fête du Travail (Labor Day) and everyone has the day off, including bus and tram drivers, so we have stocked up on beer and wine and snacks and Netflix movies. Gonna be a sweet day of sitting in the house doing nothing. Jason's cooking so I better go pretend I know how to help him prepare rabbit with fennel, mushrooms and spinach. You know, a typical Tuesday night meal.
Later, skaters.
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