Saturday!
The
internet for my dorm area is down. All Hell has broken loose. Buildings are
burning. Students are rioting. Baguettes are being stomped on the ground as a
sign of symbolic protest. I feel a 6th republic coming on...
Well folks, as previously mentioned our internet is down in our dorms. When I woke up this morning and tried logging online it didn't work. I thought maybe it wasn't letting me log on because I hadn't paid for my dorm room yet (I didn't know what day the payment was due). I went downstairs to the office and asked about my bill and when/how I
should pay for it blah blah blah. Then she casually mentioned that the internet
in all the dorms weren't working and wouldn't work until Monday. Needless to
say my world crumbled. Just kidding. It wasn't a big deal at all.
After
speaking to her I went to mooch off the school restaurant wifi on a bench directly outside of the restaurant. A minute or
two later the same lady came walking towards me and told me not to sit outside
by myself because people have come buy and stolen phones and purses from
students while they were sitting where I was sitting. 1. It’s sad that that is
a real concern. 2. I would like to see them try to out run me, go ahead!! I doubt I wouldn't catch up to them. Even if they are a
hair faster, I know my endurance is better. But with that being said…3. I have
a few goals here in France: learn French; eat a macaroon; make cool French
friends; don’t get mugged. There are some others on that list as well but you
get the idea. Thus, I listened to her
wise words and left that oasis of free wifi for the cold, harsh, wifi-less,
world. I had a package at the post office in down and decided to go get it
around 11. The post office goes to lunch at 12:30 so I thought an hour and a
half was plenty of time. Incorrect! When I got there they told me it was at a
different post office on the other side of town. No big deal, I should be able
to make it there by 12:30. I hoped on a number 4 bus (which I hadn't ever
ridden before and it was extremely nice and new looking) and got off at a stop that I had previously mapped out because I saw that was close to the post office. I arrived at the post office at 12:09
to find that though this was the same post office organization as the one on the other side
of town, this post officed closed at 12:00 on Saturday for the day and didn't reopen
until Monday.
Oh well.
They man helping me at the first post office said that I have two weeks from
Saturday to pick up my other package or else…I don’t know. They throw it away?
I’m not going to find out. The second post office was in this part of town which I have never
ventured to before and to which buses don’t really travel. I mean they do, but it is one bus twice an
hour to 5 different stops for the area that I was in. It was an incredibly
beautiful day outside so I decided to walk. Here I would like to brag yet
again, because I do not possess and incredible amount of talents. I cannot
paint like Monet or sculpt like Michelangelo, but by gosh do I have a great
sense of direction. Using this blessing
(thank you God, you must have always known that I was going to constantly be on
the move) I found my way back to the main road and walked about a mile and a
half to the grocery store to buy some bananas and a zucchini. At the check out, the cashier handed me a card that I was to put into this game machine outside the grocery store entrance. This game hasn't been there before so I'm not quite sure why it is there now, but it's okay because using my statistic class information I plotted out my plan of attack on this game and ended up winning 5 euros off my next grocery purchase! After
I purchased my items and won 5 euros I headed home and decided to watch a movie on my laptop.
For some reason, my regular movie player did not work here in France; I had to
download a French compatible movie player, which really didn't make sense to me
but it’s okay. The only downside to this is that I needed internet in order to
download the program and internet is what I did not have. So I packed up my laptop, movie
and a book and headed to the library. Well, I actually had to wait until Super
Long French Lunch was over (at 2:00 pm) then I headed to the library. As I was walking to the library I saw two French weddings taking place at the Hôtel de ville de Limoges pictured below. Can't blame them.
I was at
the library from 2:30ish until a little before it closed at 6. There I wrote out this week’s worth
of blogs and posted them all except for today's because the day wasn't over at the time!
Around 4 pm a random group of drummers took to the streets. Drums were banging, car horns were honking and people were whistling and dancing in the streets. This went on and off for about an hour. It was
pretty cool.
At the library I decided to sit at the large table towards to back of the room I was in. I sat down and got to work. About 10 minutes later a guy came and sat right next to me. Normally I wouldn't have thought much of it, but there were about 10 open seats at this empty table and he took the one directly next to me. For me, that was against social norms but I figured maybe it's different in France? But now looking back on it, I think he was just a strange guy. Pretty soon a few other people came and sat at the table at what seemed to be a reasonable distance from one another. Then this guy next to me started getting up every 5 minutes and was extremely loud every time. Like the whole table would stare at him and some people even got up to leave because it was so loud and so frequent. At one point the entire room I was in stopped to look at him. I mean he was being loud. An older man in his 50's or so looked at him with obvious disappointment then looked at me and shook his head. The man next to me wasn't mean or anything, just a little weird.
I left the library around 6 to meet up with Lyndsie and Matt to go to the store. I wanted to buy a mango. While we were in the exotic produce section Matt started talking about the Dragon Fruit or "Pitaya" and the Mangosteen he had in Thailand. We decided to buy some and try it out at the family dinner we were having that evening. So as everyone was preparing their portion of dinner Matt started cutting into the Dragon Fruit and the Mangosteen. Come to find out the Mangosteen is a summertime fruit slowly coming out of season. The insides looked slimy and for one of the Mangosteens that we bought, the inside was grey instead of the expected white. We were still able to try the fruit from some of the other ones that we bought but apparently we have to wait until next year to truly experience it's glory. The Dragon Fruit was nice! A little bland but really beautiful.
The way Mangosteen shouldn't look on the inside...This wasn't the gray one though. We threw that bad boy away immediately.
Once I got
home I decided to do a complete clean down of my dorm! It is spotless now. Just kidding mom. It’s a mess. But I plan on cleaning it
tomorrow, I swear! In reality I watched videos of Thomas Sowell discussing economics. I also watched videos discussing the Israel/Palestine state topic. The first video I watched was heavily pro-Israel and the second heavily pro-Palestine State. They were both about 45 minutes each and I think informative.
My plans for tomorrow are going to a
brunch with the crew, a French girl named Claire and Claire's friend! I am really excited!!
Au revoir!
Candice Marchetta
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