What a week! This week has absolutely flown by. But the funny thing is that March hasn't. I can't believe it's still March. Last night I sat down to do my monthly budgeting, and I realized I still have almost a full week left in the month. What????
To say the least, it's been a rather stressful week. There's been some not-so-fun stuff going on at the bank, and I've spent most of time trying to sort everything out. I won't tell you exactly what's going on yet. I'm waiting until it's done to explain. (It's my way of convincing myself it will be over soon.) But to give you an idea of how much this is taking over my life/mind... Wednesday night I went to bed at about 9:45 (which is much too early for me) because the longer I stayed awake, the more I stressed out, and Thursday morning I woke up at 5:30, without an alarm, and couldn't fall back asleep for the life of me because this bank thing was all I could think about. The good news is that the end of this ordeal is in sight. Everything should be back to normal within the week. I hope.
With that said, this weekend's events couldn't have come at a better time. The weather has been beautiful, and I officially have the travel bug. Considering how stressed I am on the one hand, I'm in a REALLY good mood about everything else. Friday I spent a large portion of my day outside just because I could. It was, dare I say, actually hot out! I met up with Kaitlin and walked to and from her apartment with her while she did her laundry. Random, I know, but it was too nice to sit inside. I went back to my room to eat dinner, and I was just in such a great mood. I don't know why. It's the weather I think. It feels like it did when I arrived last Summer. The excitement of *omg I'm in France* is back in the air. No more dreary cloudy snowy cold days. Just sun!
That evening I went to a concert in Lure with Kaitlin, Corinne, and Emma (an English assistant living in Vesoul, fairly close to Lure). It was a cool concert that I thoroughly enjoyed. The group was called Slonovski Bal. They play Siberian (??) music, and it's pretty awesome. But I think we chose the worst seats in the room. I sat next to a woman who drove me crazy. She wouldn't stop moving, talking, looking behind us, etc. the entire time. Oh, and she couldn't keep a beat whatsoever with her clapping. THAT'S annoying. I was quite distracted by her, as well as by the old guy behind us who kept whistling and yelling out random things to the band. But whatever. I was enjoying the music nonetheless. The main guy, who reminded me very much of Clinton Kelly, played both a saxophone and a clarinet, and there were two guitarists, an accordian player, and two drummers- one with a bass and one with a hand drumb. I was fascinated watching the hand drummer. There were some pieces they sang with (and also had the audience sing parts), but mostly it was just music, which I love about concerts like this. There was one piece where they had people (anyone who wanted to) come to the stage to dance. There were about 20 people up there, including three or four young kids, and they all just held hands and danced in a circle. For a really long time. It was strange to watch because it was basically just a room full of people watching other French people dance in a circle. Like a giant game of Ring Around the Rosie. And there was one piece they played that totally reminded me of, "Oh give me a hoooome where the buffalo rooooaaaam..." Couldn't help but laugh.
If you want to see who this group is, their website is http://www.slonovskibal.com/. Click on "vidéos" on the left to see what they're like!
Yesterday I woke up at 5:45 to go to Colmar with the same three girls. Colmar is in the Alsace region of France, the part that used to be Germany and has gone between the two countries more than once. It's near-ish to Strasbourg. I didn't know what to expect, but I thought it would be kind of small and not THAT cool. But it turned out to be one of my favorite places I've visited in France. A very unexpected gem that I'd love to visit again. There were quite a few tourists, but not as many as in Strasbourg (although, I went there during Christmas... SUPER tourist season.) Everything was just so cute and ideal. It felt really European to me. I know I've said this about cities before, but it really felt like the opening scenes of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which I LOVED as a child. Whether it's typical France/Germany or not, it felt perfect, and I loved it. We basically just walked around, sat in some cafés for drinks and lunch, and shopped. I ate the most delicious quiche lorainne for lunch. I mean really, the most delicious. We even happened to be there during the weekend of Carnaval. So we saw a bit of the parade, listened to some live carnaval music, and attracted plenty of confetti. (I was still finding random pieces around my room daily from Lure's carnaval, and now I'm just finding even more!) At one point a little boy in some costume with an awesome mustache came up to me with a handful of confetti, looked at me for a second, and just tossed it all in my face. :) But it was okay. That's France! However, what's gross to me is that these kids scoop it up from the ground. Do you know how much dog poop is on the ground in France? Yeah. So I don't want to think about where this confetti might have been. Whatever. I don't let it bother me, but yes, I do think about it.
In Colmar, I finally bought a world map in French. It's huge, and I LOVE IT!!!! I debated buying it in the first place, but I am so glad I did. It is awesome!!! And even if I never put it in a classroom, I'll put it in my house when I have one. It's really cool. It seriously might be one of my favorite things I've bought since being here.
Get this: Toward the end of our day, we decided to stop and sit outside at a café. When the woman came to take our orders, the three other girls ordered, and then I said I didn't want anything. The waitress told me I had to order something. I figured she was kidding, because sometimes really nice French people joke around like that with me. Um, well she wasn't kidding. She said if you sit down you have to get something. So I said fine, I'll stand! My friends tried to tell me to just order something and it would be fine, but I didn't want anything, and plus it was kind of to prove a point. That woman knew thhat if she said I had to order something, I would. But I wasn't going to let her win. So I stood, propped against the wall of the building, while the other three sat at the table, in chairs. It was fine and everything. I wasn't bothered by standing. I was still close enough to be part of the conversation. But I was bothered at how incredibly STUPID that was. It's not like anyone else needed to sit in that chair. It was completely empty the whole time, and there was no one sitting across from Emma at the table. Whatever, it was just the dumbest thing I've seen happen in a long time. (Besides the SNCF incident the other day...) Oh, and the other girls had their bags and stuff sitting on a 5th chair at the table. So the bags can sit and not order, but I can't? Stupid. But whatever.
Just before we left the center of town to head back home, we finally spotted a stork nest on top of a building. We'd seen them in the postcards. And we'd seen the stuffed storks all over the place (even in Strasbourg), but we never saw living proof of this animal in Alsace. Until now! And then shortly after that, we spotted an actual stork flying high in the sky! Well actually, the others saw it. By the time I looked up, I only saw a balloon (looked like Dora or something) floating way up there. I was like, "Um, guys, isn't that just a balloon?" We joked that it was the baby the stork dropped off.
All in all, it was a great day, a fabulous weekend, and a good-ish week. I'm crossing my fingers that this week brings good news from the bank.
1 comment:
hahaha to the story of the balloon!!! :)
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