So for the past two weeks, my music teacher has been absent (and will be next week too) and occasionally some of my other teachers too. Thus, my school hours per week, on average, have been cut from 33 down to 17! On Thursdays, I have been finishing at 11am! It's awesome! What I normally do is eat lunch with my friends, see them off to their next class and then I'll either go into this cool little hangout room hidden in the middle of the school or I'll go back to my house with Lais and we'll watch a movie. If the weather's nice this week, then we might go into town for a bit!
*Side story*
The little hangout room hidden in the middle of the school is really cool... there are computers you can go on and a pool table and couches and people will hangout, listen to music and so on.
Saturday was incredible. The original plan was to go into Brest with Lais, do a little bit of shopping, hit up IKEA to buy a new desk for Baptiste and then go back home and I would make pancakes for dinner again. What ended up happenning was...
We were in a shop called "New Look" because that is where I could buy a replacement for my scarf. While I was in the shop looking at some of the other things, I remember looking up and seeing a group of 3 girls standing only at the next stand from me. I made eye contact with one of them immediately and I had to look closely and do a double take to recognize who it was (and to make sure it wasn't some freakishly similar clone of my friend-which happens a lot actually....) By the time I had registered that it really was my friend Anna from Rotary, Tammany had screamed my name and came charging at me in the store to hug me. She body-slammed me so hard with a hug I almost fell over! I barely had time to recognize her let alone do anything to prepare myself; it happened so fast! If Lais were to tell you the story, she'd say that the first thing she saw was me being tackled by some tall, skinny and screaming person! Hahahahaha!
Turns out that my friends from Rotary, Suzy (Australia), Anna (California), and Tammany (Texas) were spending the weekend together in Brest chez Suzy. It was pure luck and coincidence that we all met up! I knew that the 3 of them would be getting together at one point but I didn't know when and Brest is huge! They could have been anywhere in Brest and I could have been anywhere! It was just luck that I even found the right store for my scarf! I had no idea where it was and if I would even find it.
We were able to finish shopping in New Look, and then we took a tram down the road to a fancy French restaurant for lunch. I ate a steak and a cake! Not the best meal for a pretty figure maybe... oh but it was so good! Then we walked to the bridge and took pictures of the only old buildings still standing (the only tourist photo spot in the town according to Suzy!). Pretty much the entire city was destroyed during WW2 and so there weren't any old, beautiful stone buildings.
After meeting up again with Sandrine, Lais and I said our goodbyes to the girls before popping into another store with Constance, Sandrine and Baptiste in which we saw them again! After leaving Pimkie, as if my day couldn't get any better, we were swarmed with people holding signs and giving free hugs! No one hugs in France! No one! Some people don't even know how to give a proper hug! It's mind-bottling to some people to think that people don't bisous everywhere in the world! So I very happily hugged the random people on the street! I was actually feeling like I needed a good proper hug last week, so that was just amazing.
IKEA was nice, and then we went home. I made pancakes and bacon and eggs again... it was better this time but still not perfect. It's really hard to cook. I'm not sure I like it...
Today, I woke up feeling all athletic and went for a run with Sandrine. An hour's run, I made it about 6 or 7km, and I came home feeling amazing like I had dropped 2 pounds! Then we go to lunch at Sandrine's friends' house and I was screwed over. If I had known that we would be eating from 1pm until 4pm, then I would not have pigged on the appetizers: carrots, mini sausages, juice... Then, after the appetizer was another appetizer. Feeling already a little full, and indecisive about whether there would be more food after the second appetizer (just because the second appetizer consisted of about 5 or 6 types of meat)I had a little bit but I didn't eat much figuring I would finish filling up on cheese and dessert(there is always cheese and dessert after a meal in France). But no.
After the second appetizer came the main course, a stew of vegetables, meat and fruit that I would never think of mixing together but was surprisingly delicious. I was given a plateful, and I can easily tell you that by the end of my plateful I was stuffed. I ate the plate so slowly... I wasn't even sure I'd be able to finish.
At this point, I'm thinking that they will put a variety of cheeses on the table and people can take what they like. Alright, that should be easy and polite enough to decline. No one will notice me not take something, or not eat something... That's good. But instead, I was given a small little bowl of melted cheese, some kind of beans with it and caramel. Everyone got this little bowl and it was the kind of thing where you felt like you had to eat most of it to be polite. So, slowly, I ate it. I did the best that I could! But I promise you, by the end of my cheese, I was so full, I was starting to feel a little bit ill and I was starting to fall asleep at the table.
Then... there was dessert. This was the worst for me. I should have said no. I wanted to say no. I was planning on saying no. Until... They placed not one, not 2, but seven different types of desserts on the table. Cakes, biscuits, caramel. And it all looked SO GOOD. French pastries are to die for, you have to know that. I was already eating myself to sleep and to sickness at the table... and combined with my extremely poor will-power, I was 100% unable to say no to a raspberry covered, fudge cake and a little bit of caramel. I sat there, guiltily eating my cake, thinking of my wasted run in the morning, and feeling ill at the table for 20 minutes. It took me 20 minutes to eat dessert. That's how full I was.
Elsewhere on the table were various bottles of alcohol that the fathers took turns having me smell each and telling me which one's they liked the smell of most. They all smelled good and sweet... So I didn't mind one bit. Apart from the odd interaction I had with people, I was mostly silent for the whole afternoon. I guess there wasn't much for me to say... It was mostly a rendez-vous for the adults and the food was extremely delicious.
I came home for the second time that day feeling as if I had gained 5 or 6 pounds. So much for my run in the morning. I was supposed to make a second batch of pancakes for dinner tonight but everyone afterwards was feeling like they were exploding from food and so We didn't do much in the evening other than relax and do nothing. I'm fairly sure that I won't be hungry again until tomorrow evening for dinner. I still feel stuffed and slightly ill from too much food. I guess, however, this is a typical rendez-vous French style! Take my advice though, if you're going to a friends house for lunch, do yourself a favour and do not eat breakfast or pig out on the first appetizers. The French like to eat and today we ate for 3 hours straight.
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