Being Late, Bored, Lost, and Finally Relaxing

Bonjour!!  Well everyone, it has definitely been a week-end for the books!  It all started on Friday when I was supposed to meet my new friends at the University at noon so that we could all eat lunch together, get cell phones, and go shopping.  However, I woke up at 12:08 ... I bolted out of bed, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and was able to make it to the university by 12:25, but my friends were not there, they had already left.  So I decided oh well, I'll just wander around where I suspect they might be and hopefully run into them.  This plan turned into me shopping and buying 2 new umbrellas (a big one and a small purple one to carry around in my backpack), some new purple gloves, and other items of clothing to keep me warm in this frigid weather.  Needless to say, I shopped for about an hour and a half and then went back home.  The rest of that evening was relaxing; Anne-Sophie and I made dinner then watched the news, most of which I was able to follow!  We then watched a tv show that apparently everyone in France watches.  It is a 2-hour show about beaches around the world and guess what...no commercials!!  Yes, the whole 2 1/2 hours we were watching tv, not a single commercial came on.  It was bizarre!

The next day, Saturday, I felt pretty bored.  Anne-Sophie is a psychologist, so she spends Saturdays at the hospital doing therapeutic activities with her patients, like playing music or painting.  So I spent pretty much all day by myslef... I did go grocery shopping, but that didn't take up much time considering that I live directly above a small "supermarche."  So I spent the rest of the afternoon reading and watching American tv shows online until my new friend Amelia (she goes to Central Michigan) facebook messaged me telling me she was having a bad day and was wondering if I wanted to try to venture out her direction and go to the Angers mall since she lives right next to it.  I told her sure, just tell me which bus to take and which stop to get off at and I will be there!  Easy enough....or so I thought.  I was supposed to take bus 11 at 6:00 to get to Lac de Maine, where Amelia's house is.  So I got to the bus stop at 5:45, just to be safe.  At 6:00, 2 buses arrived at exactly the same time.  Without thinking, I got onto the first bus.  It wasn't until half an hour later when I had crossed the river twice that I thought uummmm...this is definitely not right.  I got off at the next stop and realized I had accidentally taken bus 5 all the way to the very north of Angers when I was supposed to be down in the southwest region.....it took me almost an hour to find my way back to where my aparment is (in the center of the city, literally across the street from the train station) only to discover that the last bus to Lac de Maine leaves on Saturdays shortly after 8:00, which meant that I would have no way to get back to my apartment once I eventually did make it all the way out there.  I was so upset that I had let my friend down...I so badly wanted to cheer her up!!  Of course, she was not mad at me, but utterly relieved that I was not kidnapped, haha!  And so was my first adventure, which I feel I handled pretty well for being all by myself.

So today is Sunday and I woke up around 10:45.  Anne-Sophie promptly informed me that her mother would be coming over today for lunch.  So around 12:30, Madame Delaleau (Anne-Sophie's mom) arrived with HER study abroad student from Korea!  Her name is Yuome (yoo-mee) and she is also a French major.  She knows Englsih better though and thinks it's so much easier than French, so I kind of played the translator roll this afternoon, which made me feel pretty awesome!!  I had to translate from French to English sometimes so that Yuome could better understand what everyone was talking about. :)  Yuome and I also exchanged American and Korean coins, which was really cool!  Anne-Sophie's mom said the cutest things.... she thought that my name was "tres mignon" (very cute) and that my blue streak of  hair was "super chouette" (which roughly translates to awesome).  We all had lunch together which Anne-Sophie prepared.  It was sort of a casserole type thing...sliced onions covered in ham, potatoes, and of course lots of cheese on top!!  It was so delicious!  We also had a dessert of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, which was so much richer than any American ice cream I have ever tasted.

Afterwards, we sat around and tried 3 different types of Amaretto that Anne-Sophie got when she was in Italy last summer.  I was really caught off guard because I didn't think there was any alcohol in this apartment, we haven't had so much as a glass of wine!  But they were so delicious.  After tasting the different Amarettos, we all sat around and drank coffee while Anne-Sophie's mom inquired about our families (I did a lot of translating again).  I still feel very American during these times because I will start to clear plates when people have finished their food or whatever and Anne-Sophie is like "no no no, sit back down, we're not done!"  The leisure of everything really does take a lot of getting used to.  In America we are always rushing to get to the next place we have to be...but today is Sunday and we have absolutely nowhere to be, so we have time to sit and drink coffee for an hour.  It has been quite the perfect afternoon :)

A bientot!