Young Baby Tired

                                "The Road goes ever on and on                               
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say." 

JRR Tolkein 

This week in France has been a lot different from all of the others. We still had all of our ordinary classes and went to Cha Cha Pasta and all of the usual Tours habits, but this one was one of adventure.

Monday was pretty normal.

Tuesday was Valentine's Day and it was the first one where I didn't see little red hearts plastered everywhere, but yeah, pretty normal.

Wednesday was the real first day of adventure. In France, I have become used to getting an appropriate amount of sleep every night. When I get less than that I become groggy and easily unnerved. I think I picked up a bad afternoon nap habit from my father, too. I must be able to curl up for at least an hour before I eat dinner. (Genetics?) I digress. Wednesday the newbs had to get up before the sun did and catch a train to Orleans. (The first one wasn't good enough, so I guess they had to make a new one?) We were summed there by the French Government to affirm that we were actually in the country and that we were physically sound.

Good news: None of us has Tuberculosis! Yay.

The best part about Wednesday though was the fact that the train we took to get to the capital of Centre was one with compartments! Watching the french countryside go by our window was just like magic. The day would have been perfect if not for looming literature presentations and papers to be turned in as soon as we returned to Tours.

Thursday, again normal. We did hang out with a french person that we met last week though. Before meeting him, I was convinced that every single person in Europe that tried to speak English spoke it well, and if they were uncomfortable with their speaking ability they just stayed quiet or waited for you to speak to them in their native language. Not this kid. But bless his heart he tries.

We taught him the longest word in the english language and he finally learned the correct pronunciation of the word "young", but he's still working on the opposite of best. The young people that we are really enjoy going to bed at around midnight, so when I told him that we were going to go home to sleep, he called me a sleepy baby. (#rosiestrawnlove) I learned how important syntax really is when I received a text saying that I was a "young baby tired" I couldn't help wonder about how awful I must sound speaking to French people. But whatever, the cranky bus lady can just try to figure out what I mean when I ask her, "Does this train go to Carrefour?"

Friday was just happy. The team went to the best lunch restaurant in town and Keith managed to get a free bowl of pasta for filling up his handy-me-down frequent customer card. Paisley sewed a button on my coat. The cold front finally disappeared. I wore my toms outside. Now I don't need to keep the sunshine in my shoes. We watched a movie at Jane's house that painted a hilarious portrait of relations between the French and the Belgians. It was all about border patrol. If the U.S. wanted to do a remake, it wouldn't take. They could either do U.S.-Mexico, which could cause some controversy, or U.S- Canada which would last aboot five minutes when Canada decides to just let all of the Americans in with no struggle.   

Then there was yesterday. I don't know about you, but ever since I was eleven years old i've wanted to gaze upon the White Tower of Ecthelion, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, its banners caught high in the morning breeze. (1) Mont St. Michel was almost as good. The city is on an island just off shore in the northern region of France called Bretagne. It looks a lot like Minas Tirith at first glance, though not as big and not as white. I really can't describe it, so here are some pictures:

What Mont St. Michel is supposed to look like

What it actually looks like

There was no need to be tossed to get inside

My never ending search for the White Tree of Gondor

Mont St. Michel also = Hogwarts

The awful thing is that while at Mont St. Michel, my camera died for the first time while in France so I didn't get to take any of my own pictures of my new favorite place: St. Malo.

St. Malo is a city by the ocean, and when we arrived after our visit to Mont St. Michel, it was sunset. The water was a clear blue and tasted salty. Saturday was the first time I stepped in the other side of the Atlantic, the first time I stepped on a rocky cliff face on the beach, and the first time I set eyes on where I'm going to live after retirement. (Paisley lost her hat to the deep depths of the ocean on saturday, too). I'm really upset that I don't have any pictures to commemorate the second part of the day but i'm sure Keith, Ashley, or Paisley might have some killer photos to show in their blogs instead.

Why do I always feel like I have more to say after I finish a blog? Maybe it's because I didn't sleep more than ten hours last night. This is frustrating. But for now, the sky is blue in Tours, and we have a lot in store coming up in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!

Love as always from
Traveling Quincy

1- Said by Boromir in The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Also: Chris Blanchard.

France is My Playground

Guys, I'm sorry.

I came up with this really elaborate story about how team QKAPS JeBeK made this crazy voyage to Asia and how we met a Sherpa who gave us hot cocoa before we crossed the modern day bridge of questions. This was all so I could explain this really cool photo of a photo I took at IKEA today. I really wanted to show it to the world, but I decided against copyright infringement and encourage you all to travel to your nearest Swedish superstore to check it out for yourselves.

(BTW: Sara did actually go to Asia last weekend. If she had a blog, you could read all about it)

Anywho, I just wanted to say that life has become so normal here, I haven't found outstanding things to devote a whole blog to. Now they have piled up beyond my wildest dreams. I don't even know where to begin.

I guess the first milestone was when Blake's friend Rachel came to visit the lovely town of Tours just before going to here semester abroad in Australia/New Zealand. Yeah, I'm pretty jealous. She's a cool cat, and this is my shout out to thousands of miles away to tell her that I hope she had a great time and to say hi to the Hobbits for me. Rachel's visit was not only fun, but it made me super excited for some familiar faces to arrive across the pond in March!

This might have not been while Rachel was here, but France was recently ravaged with cold and snow. This is what it looked like on the day where I woke up and I couldn't tell the difference between the rooftops and the sky:

   

  And the snow is still here, a week later, now turned to ice, and bringing unsuspecting citizens to their knees in slippery madness. (I've fallen twice)

We had some crepes at Jane's house that day. I have no idea where this cultural boundary came from, but I had never realized that some people don't like mixing chocolate and fruit. I think Jane's host mother nearly threw me out when I mixed blackberry preservative with Nutella. (It's really good guys, I promise). Another weird french thing is that they don't really refrigerate milk, but yet, it doesn't curdle.

Most of my time this week was devoted to observing the little things in french culture, like how there is only one 11:11 here. No one would say, "Wow! It's 23:11! That is such a significant time of the day! Let's wish on it." Here, I've determined that the second wishing number is in fact 22:22 or 10:22 to Americans. I know, it just doesn't have the same effect.

In the past two weeks, the group has gotten to know a lot more of actual french people. We've eaten a lot of crepes and spoken a lot of french and these kids are pretty cool. I even met one girl who did an exchange at Lane Tech in Chicago. The world just keeps getting smaller.

Last weekend the four newbs took an excursion to an ancient abbey that's older than I am. It was really cool and decrepit, but really ridiculously cold. We then went to an ancient chapel and kept being cold, and I licked a wall. If technology in the future does a DNA scan of that building, I might get in trouble for it long after I'm dead and gone from France.

We have just been very busy. The team goes to cooking classes and wine tastings and learns random french words that you wouldn't ever think would come up in conversation. On Wednesday I learned that "baver" means to drool, and for some reason I used that word twice on Thursday in actual conversation. Did you know that 90's children called spitting on a table a"Starwars"? Because the spit is like a blaster! Pew Pew!

Patrick is our wine and cheese tasting teacher. He is really classy and wears a purple striped shirt. He really likes me and Keith and Paisley. He really dislikes Blake. (Keith, Ashley, and I were born in a bad millésime, or a bad year for wine, so he gives us some sympathy) Patrick is so cool that he teaches us funny jeux de mots, or wordplay, for looking at wine. We think that we have become a lot more attuned for tasting wine. Instead of going for the sweet and sugary white wines, we now prefer the dryer wine. We can also tell you what Burgundy means, and how it has nothing to do with Merlots or Chardonnays. As far as cheese goes, I'm getting better. I can eat a whole slice of a certain cheese that my host mom gives me at dinner, but you cannot pay me one million dollars to eat a pound of roquefort.

Friday night, Keith, Paisley, and I decided it would be a great idea to go find this really cool playground in South Tours (which is not where we live) after dinner. It was really cold and really late, so Paisley decided that she wanted to bail and go home where it was warm. So Keith and I ventured into the darkness. We were the only two people outside in Tours that evening so we didn't get in trouble as we wandered out onto the frozen lake to try to get to the island in the middle. It was the first time that either of us had walked on a frozen body of water. We skated around the entire lake in search of this playground, and after one whole lap, we found it. The most amazing playground I've ever seen. Though there wasn't a slide, there was a giant zipline and this thing where if you balanced yourself well enough, you could align yourself at a perfect 180 degree angle in the air.

That night was not only the first time where I walked on ice with out skates, but also the first night I hopped a fence. I should've listened more closely to Keith, because I ended up almost losing a foot while trying to climb over. Oops. But again, totally worth it. The pond in the Prebondes garden was completley frozen over. I don't understand why they don't open it up for ice skating. Even the angry swans flew the coup and let us venture as far as we wanted. (I was not the brave one, though)     

The next day, the newbs took a voyage to Carrefour Planet and IKEA. Let me just say that Carrefour Planet is bigger than the biggest WalMart I've seen. It's gigantic. But they have everything there. You can get your haircut, and do some wine tasting. However, I found the best thing of all:

Wait for it....

Keep waiting....

VANILLA COKE!!!!!!!!!! 

Yes, I have found the Nectar of the gods in France. I bought three 1,25 L bottles and lugged them around with me for the rest of the day. So worth it.  I've already finished most of a bottle. Don't worry folks, I'm trying to figure out how I can bring a stash back to America in May.

Seriously, I couldn't be happier.

Also, though I love Davidson with every ounce of my being, I can't wait to graduate just so I can furnish my abode with stuff from IKEA. I know Tyler Durden would be disappointed with me, but IKEA is just beautiful. So, I apologize now if I blog less often because I'm on the website putting together my future kitchen.

All in all, I've decided that my tendency to blog less often is because I think I'm finally extremely comfortable here. Everything has normalized and I remark only my most bizarre experiences. I find that exploring this new world is just so fantastic that sitting and conversing with Pierre (my computer) means I have to do homework. So blogging has become synonymous with busy work. Sad right? Well now, I have to finish a book in just over 14 metric hours.

Until next time!

Traveling Quincy