Day 177: Tours and Chinon (where I got lost in the Dungeon that Joan of Arc lived in)

Chinon Castle
Walking to the old ville in Chinon
Hannah, Jessica, and Mari
THE GIANT Tours Religieuse
Cathedral de Tours

24 fevrier 2010 (Day 177)
Well, I didn’t sleep to well last night. I woke up to a rainstorm and went out walking in it at 4:30am. You see, I booked the train for Tours at 6am because I figured that the tram would be running well before then. The tram doesn’t come by where I live until 5:25am…whoops. Needless to say Hannah, Jessica (cute girl 21 from Washington), and I went out in that rain to walk to the train station. It was a really nice walk (besides the wind and rain) and we made killer time. We got to the train station in less than an hour (normally it takes 60 minutes just to get to Commerce). Needless to say the shortcut that I found to the train station yesterday on my run was indeed a shortcut.
I loved Tours. On the train ride there we saw the most beautiful sunrise. The sun was gold and the clouds were purple and blue. It was amazing. Elder Bourgeois’ map was more than accurate. We saw the turtle fountain, the tree-lined walkway, and I found THE BOULANGERIE. It is only the boulangerie that ALL the missionaries talk about that is in Tours. It is a perfectly normal boulangerie except that everything is huge. There were meringues as big as my head and éclairs that were about a foot long. They had the infamous Tours Religeuse so I bought one and took it to the Tours Cathedral and tried to down it there. It was toffee flavored so I didn’t really like it and it was HUGE! It was about the size of my head. I downed about half of it and had to stop for a while. We went into this gorgeous gothic cathedral from the 15th century with flying buttresses and amazing stained glass windows, it was beautiful. We went back in again later and someone was playing the organ. It was an experience to be in that cathedral with the music playing. I can see how they would find it so mystical. We then wandered to a park-like square that looked like it was straight out of Pride and Prejudice. I wished I was wearing an old fashioned dress and had some handsome young man trying to woo me. Instead there was a 16,000+ dead elephant! It was from Barnibum and Bailey’s circus in the early 1900s. The elephant was about 80 when it died and they stuffed it. There was also this humongous Lebanon Cedar. I really have never seen such a large tree. It was 31 meters (102 feet) tall with a branch span of 33 meters (108 feet). The trunk has a circumference of 7.5 meters (24.5 feet)…does that give you a picture of how big it is? It was planted in 1804, so it is pretty amazing…over 200 years old of CO2 stored up in that baby.
We went by the opera house and some of the older part of Tours to go see the cemetery. On the way we went past the chateau of Tours and over a bridge. The cemetery was really impressive. French cemeteries aren’t like American cemeteries…there isn’t really any grass. They also will frequently have mass family graves. By the time we got back by the train station the girls were pooped so I went exploring by myself. I found the Place Jean Jaures with the Town Hall and the Palais de Justice that was white and taken right out of Greek antiquity. I followed along the tree-lined walkway and found an infinitely long (I never made it to the end) flower market which then turned into a clothing/food market.
We hopped on the train and headed to Chinon. Chinon is a ridiculously old city. King Henry II (England) developed Chinon a lot and Charles VII met Joan of Arc at the castle in Chinon in 1429. It was so unbelievable to be where Joan of Arc was. She is such a mystical historical figure that it was so weird to think that she walked on the same ground. Hannah also peed on that ground, lol. I was proud of her for peeing in the forest, I wouldn’t have. We headed up into the hills where some of the old fortress remains and had lunch looking down on the countryside. The vielle ville (old city) was completely deserted. I felt like I should have been on a horse instead of walking down those cobbled streets with my tennis shoes and backpack. It was incredible. We went into a wine cave which was really cool. They had huge barrels of wine and hundreds if not thousands of bottles of wine.
We then found the official castle and went in. It was really windy on the top of that hill! We had a tour and our guide was great. She taught us about how Phillipe II perfected the circular guard towers because it was more economical, has a better view, and it is more crash resistant against cannon balls. Our guide also told that store about King Richard and how Robin des Bois came about. I wish I would have taken notes (it was cold and windy and hard to hear her as it was). Needless to say, that castle has an amazing history. We went to the room where Joan of Arc supposedly met the king. I also went to the dungeon that Joan stayed in. Yes, she stayed in the dungeon. Apparently it wasn’t that bad of a place to stay (they’d have guests stay there). It was a nice dungeon because it had a freezer and toilets. I got lost in it. I also ran through (literally) the Joan of Arc museum and then the castle was closed.
The girls were pretty whiny by now so we went to a cute café and got some hot drinks. I had some pretty good hot chocolate and the girls warmed up. Jessica also remembered at this time that she forgot her toothbrush. We went to a grocery store by the train station, but they didn’t have toothbrushes! We went into a nearby café/bar to ask where we could find a toothbrush. We asked (in French) this older man and he was so funny. He immediately tried saying our question in English and asked how you spell teeth. “T-ee-double e-t-h.” It was really funny. The lady who ran the place then came, corrected his English spelling and they told us to go to the pharmacy. We walked back to the middle of town (not far) and found a tooth brush. I bought a delicious pear at that grocery store that was amazing. We also bought some avocados for tomorrow.
We totally almost missed the bus. You see, we thought the bus was going to be a train. Luckily some nice gentleman that was also riding on the bus informed us that it was a bus we were waiting for and that it was going to leave. We all lounged out in the back of the bus and got nervous that the driver forgot our stop. Luckily he didn’t and we got dropped off in a small city by Tours to catch our train to Blois.
We spent a while in Blois trying to figure out which way to go to find our hotel. We guessed the right way but couldn’t find it. I asked a lady who was walking her dog. She was very nice and showed us the way. The man at the hotel was interesting. He tried to talk to us in English but I kept on answering in French so finally he spoke in French. He asked if we found the place alright because people always get lost (I wonder why…they don’t have any directions on their site). He showed us to our room and the girls were in heaven. Three beds, a tv, and a bathroom with a bathtub/shower was all they needed to think that I was the greatest in the world (never mind seeing stuff). They decided they were going to sleep in tomorrow and I was going to explore Blois on my own. We all took showers and watched some of the Olympics. Watching the figure skating without the Todd Hamilton commenting was just not the same!

Day 176: 7 Miles with an English Lesson

23 fevrier 2010 (Day 176)
I am the bomb. The bomb being someone who ran over 7 miles today. I ran everywhere! After almost getting ran over (don’t worry, I am a pro at jumping on the hoods of ladies who aren’t paying attention and trying to squish me flat), I ran to the Japanese Garden, a couple of squares, the castle, and all over the Jardin des Plantes (Plant Garden). I finished my run before a lot of rain. I was so proud of myself for running so far. I went over lots of bridges and it was adventurous. I had some Chinese food for lunch (I bought egg rolls). I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed having Chinese food…yummy!
Before I went to help teach English at the church I went and got my weekly macarons (vanilla was surprisingly disappointing), I went to the book store (still no Harry Potter 5-7), and printed off my train tickets for our trip which will start very very early tomorrow morning! I was reading Proust on the tram so I didn’t notice that Elder Lazarev and Knapp were on the tram. I guess Elder Knapp was trying to sneak up to steal my book but there were some ladies looking at him so he had to talk to one so it didn’t look suspicious. I got a text from Hannah which woke me up from my book and I noticed the Elders. I am sure that the lady next to me thought I was crazy because I kept looking at the missionaries (Knapp was talking to a lady and Lazarev was making faces) and vice versa. While walking to the church the Elders joked that I put a GPS in one of their bags because I keep running into them. This one was not on purpose though. Yesterday I had a gut feeling that the missionaries would be at Carrefour. Well, Elder Knapp continued to be (cough) so kind to me so he had me introduce myself and then told the small group there that I was going to be teaching the lesson today. Well then, now wasn’t that interesting. Elder Knapp (after correcting some of my English) then disappeared and so I had a wild ride impromptu-ing a lesson. It wasn’t too bad, but you know me and I like to be organized. I’m going to figure out sometime how to get Elder Knapp back. Elder Bourgeois broke the chalkboard (can we say funny!). Don’t ask me how, but he did.

Day 175: You Can Buy Me a Drink

22 fevrier 2010 (Day 175)
Today I ran into the missionaries at the store. It was pretty nuts. I went to Carrefour to get some oats and canned goods and low and behold in the yogurt aisle…the missionaries! Elder Lazarev gave me an odd look and went marching down the aisle away from me. Elder Knapp tried calling the other pair telling them that they were contacting this cool lady and that they should come meet her. It didn’t work. It was great because I needed better directions for how to get a “Tours Religieuse” in Tours and Elder Bourgeois drew me a very very detailed map.
After I did my shopping I went on a nice six mile run around the riverbanks of the Erdre. The other highlight of my day was going to John MyByrne’s, a popular Irish pub in Nantes with my friend Andrei. I met Andrei at an Autour de Monde activity. He is 22/23, Romanian, and perfectly trilingual (English, French, Romanian). We had a nice time talking and saying goodbye. He has been here on work experience in the hospitals for the past 6 months because he is going to be a doctor. We talked about movies, his hair (he is growing it out- he asked me what I thought about it), vacationing, where he should work, his sister, etc. He had a beer and bought me a hot chocolate (how nice). I was mostly really impressed that he convinced them to make me hot chocolate. We stayed there for a couple of hours but after a while we were both yawning so we went home. It was sort of weird because it was kind of a date because it was just us and he bought me a drink, but it kind of wasn’t. Fun stuff.

Day 174: Oh Elder Knapp...

Elder Knapp, me, and Cheryl with "The Skirt"

21 fevrier 2010 (Day 174)
Today was another early Sunday, but luckily it wasn’t as cold. I got some really good studying done even though there was a creepy drunk guy who just had to sit by me with his smelly drunk breath all shivering. There were a billion other benches. I was just thinking in my head “Protection. I’m reading Preach My Gospel!” Poor Hannah may have caught my cold. Sucks to be her (though why it took SO long doesn’t make sense).
Church was good. I spent a lot of it thinking about the possibility of going on a mission. I talked with Elder Knapp about it a little bit from across the font on Saturday, so I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I gave the prayer in Relief Society and it was okay. Isabel bore her testimony in sacrament and she led as well. One of the Elders asked her to and he sat by some investigators. Some people from Madagascar thought I was a sister missionary. And the young women’s president in my ward, that I have talked to before who sees me every week, asked me if I was a missionary. I really wanted to say, “I’ve been in your ward for almost six months and you have never seen me with a companion or a missionary tag. I also introduced myself many months ago and you sustained me as a new member of this ward.” But I didn’t.
The elder’s helped answer some of my Preach My Gospel vocab questions which led to some good conversations. It was definitely eventful after church today. Isabel and Cheryl were singing and dancing the hokey pokey. This was before they tried to make lots of jokes about me wearing my black skirt and being hot. I shouldn’t have told them. They proceeded to take pictures of my skirt, them with my skirt, them lifting my skirt, me with the Elder who made the skirt comment, and it was really embarrassing. As Elder Knapp put it, he was really surprised when he found out that they were both at least twenty. After that episode, I definitely agree. We had a crazy YSA meeting to try to figure out our next activity/making crepes/a goodbye party for Isabel.
Riding home was awful today. The tram didn’t come when it said it would (came twenty minutes later) and then it dropped us off at a stop and told us to wait for the next tram. Luckily no one really bothered me though. I definitely wasn’t the happiest child when I got home though because my compartment syndrome was acting up in right leg (weather change maybe? I hope so). So I listened to the Mormon channel online, read a lot of church talks, wrote in my journal, and kind of took a nap (it was a state in between paying attention and sleeping). I am apparently still really tired.
Hung didn’t come to church today like she said she would, so around 9:30pm tonight Elder Knapp (Elder Knapp because Elder Lazarev just has problems when he tries to converse with me. His crazy puppy syndrome gets worse. He doesn’t pay attention at all.) called and asked if I would call Hung (I think it might be spelled Han) to see if she was okay and if she wanted to go to French lessons on Saturday. After talking for a couple of minutes with Elder Knapp, which included me bothering him for the fact that he didn’t mention that he goes to UPenn, the 4th ranked Ivy League in the nation that Ben Franklin founded and is ranked in like the top 15 universities worldwide and has the most awesome looking campus ever. I’m totally jealous and feel really dumb that I didn’t realize that when he said I go to the University of Pennsylvania it wasn’t some public school, but one of the best private schools out there. He doesn’t like people knowing and gets really embarrassed and just thinks he is good at taking tests. Yeah right. He is double majoring and double minoring…French maybe economics…I don’t remember.
I called Han and talked to her for a couple of minutes. She didn’t hear her alarm go off and that is why she didn’t come. She felt really badly and couldn’t call the missionaries back because she is out of phone minutes. She is planning on going to the French lessons at the church on Saturday though. I reported back to the missionaries…they said something (possibly funny) to which Elder Knapp said, “It is Mari” and then someone took the phone and was like there is an incoming call and I’m sorry to cut this conversation short but Elder Knapp has to go.” Before that I was saying that we needed something awkward for this conversation and Elder Knapp said, “I could get Elder Lazarev on the phone. He is in the kitchen right now.” I totally burst out laughing. It was funny. He gets points for that one. It was great and it wasn’t even bad sarcastic humor (hint dad and Kent).

Day 173: A day in the life of a missionary (with kisses!)

20 fevrier 2010 (Day 173)
I ran twenty miles this week! Hurray for me. So far I have slid down muddy hills, slipped on icy bridges, ran across lots of mud that had salt on it (yes, they salt dirt paths here), and saw two cute boys running. They both ran a lot faster than I do though. I saw one of them today on my run around and around the horse track, he didn’t stay very long though, and for that I was a little disappointed.
I got a lot of things done this morning. My floor got swept AND mopped (very rare to get mopped), I listened to lots of Conference talks and who knows what else. I went off to the market with the intention to see if my vendor friend would maybe want to come to church (Elder Lazarev had asked me yesterday if I’d be willing to sit with some of the investigating people at church, especially the ones I know. This got me thinking that I should ask some of my friends to church.). I probably spent about 45 minutes looking for him today (or at least it felt that long) but I didn’t find him. I also went to the market around 11:30 (normally I’m there between 9 and 10:30) and it was PACKED. It was ridiculous. The market is definitely less enjoyable when my vendor friend is missing. I did get my apples from the usual people (there are three of them, an old lady, and younger woman with dark hair, and this man) that only sell apples. I also found some genie pants for cheap! They are the most awful looking pants ever and the ones I found are practically neon! Genie pants (they are really poofy…think of the pants Aladdin wears) are really popular in France, so I am pretty excited that I found some cheap (in both senses) genie pants. Continuing with my exotic Arabic-ness I got some sort of flat bread. I asked the man what it was called, but I didn’t understand. He was a mumbler. I was hoping it would taste like naan. It tastes more like breadsticks. I also got some Viking bread! It is a special super healthy bread with lots of seeds and such that is sold at the boulangerie by the church. It reminds me of a kind of bread that you could find at Great Harvest, so needless to say, I like it a lot.
I got to the church about 10 minutes to one and the missionaries were teaching someone in the primary room, so I just waited in the hallway. At about 1:15 the missionaries asked me to help teach French at 1 got there. After some time they eventually got the partners switched and Elder Knapp and Elder Maxfield changed to go cut fagots. That would be chopping firewood, but we English speakers enjoy calling it fagots. It was really weird seeing the missionaries in non-proselyting clothing. It definitely gives you more of an idea about their personalities. Elder Lavarez told me too look out for Chinese people while he went in to the primary room. He didn’t come out for about two hours. No Chinese people came. A man did come wondering about geneology though. For that I interrupted the missionaries and they helped him. While he was leaving Elder Bourgeois invited him to the baptism tonight and this old non-religious man got all upset and said that is what he hates about our religion and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, that we are always insisting. Elder Bourgeois said no, that he only invited him and then wished him a good day. Later he said, “If I invited him to have 1 million dollars he wouldn’t say that I was insisting.” It’s true, but I was impressed with how Elder Bourgeois handled it. It was a good reminder that not everyone is nice to the missionaries. So essentially, I was left all by myself in the church waiting for the missionaries. It was kind of a good thing (in that lame sort of way) because I was able to read more of my required reading for French Lit. It was definitely the most I’ve read (and I still haven’t even passed page 100).
After what ended up being a 3 hour lesson the missionaries were done and Tao decided that he was going to be baptized next month, when he finds a good Chinese day. You see, Tao is Chinese and so once Elder Lazarev went in they started talking in Chinese and Tao was able to ask all of his deep questions about the Chinese culture and the religion, about green tea, etc. They played ping pong with Tao for a while and then Tao left. Then the missionaries kept playing ping pong (sometimes I think those boys do nothing, then I realize I probably see them when they are needing ‘missionary breaks’ so I try not to judge). They could have at least invited me to play or apologize for leaving me without knowing what was happening (typical boys). They are goofs. After playing for so long they realized they needed to go get stuff for the baptism and clean out the font, etc. Seeing as I would be late for the baptism if I went home and came back at this point I offered to clean the font. They had a nice little drumming moment (at least 3 minutes) together and then they headed off and I tried to figure out how to clean a baptismal font. I made it up as I went and succeeded. I then made sure that the rest of the meeting house was all set up. I am a monster! I set up all the chairs and tables. When I was done Elder Baker and Elder Horne walked in. Elder Horne is a blondie from Murray and Elder Baker served in Nantes for a while. He has grown up so much! He is so much more confident and comfortable with himself. It was amazing to see the difference in him. He is doing really good though and LOVES his companion. You’d think that they were just two best friends since they were six. Elder Maxfield and Knapp came and I got to turn on the font. I was pretty excited. I should have started it earlier than the other elders said though because it barely got filled in time!
Adessa’s baptism went really well. Elder Lazarev through an investegator on me. He basically said, (or mouthed/hand signaled) “This is Hung, she speaks English come talk to her.” I then got to try to explain baptism and the Holy Ghost to a sweet Vietnamese girl who knows nothing about Christianity. Talk about feeling inadequate! I was just praying that she could feel the spirit and that I could say the right things. She said she liked it and said she was going to come to church tomorrow, but she didn’t. The talk about the Holy Ghost was really great. Adessa’s testimony was…interesting. She talked a lot about some crazy revelations she had and I was thinking about Hung so I wasn’t completely paying attention to what she We had treats after the baptism. Someone bought brownies and they tasted like America…aka sooo good! While we were cleaning up Elder Knapp called me a drageur. That is calling someone a really big flirt in France (mentioned because of what some of those crazy girls said). I got a little offended, but mostly pretend offend. I still found a note in my backpack from said elder saying sorry and that he was teasing. I finished helping to clean up and then headed home with one of the three sets of missionaries (the other two got a ride home) and Paki and Gaelle. Best part of the ride is that I got a kiss. And it was good. It was also from a missionary. Now before you freak out, it was a mint. And Paki and Gaelle got one as well. It was great though because Elder Knapp asked, “Do you want a kiss?” Me: “Yup!” They were called kiss mints and it was blueberry flavored and really really good. I like missionary kisses and I think I need to find some more. We definitely joked about kisses after that one.

Day 170: I Hate French Lit

17 fevrier 2010 (Day 170)
It is so nuts starting the week on Wednesday. It also doesn’t help that class starts at 8am and is French literature. Today my notes were filled with “I hate French Literature” doodled in available white space. I don’t like studying literature in English, and in French it is even worse. Today our teacher was (at least attempting) to talk about surrealism but he kept on going on these odd tangents and mentioned at least 50 people (but not anything that they did) which I am sure we are supposed to have memorized. I walked into class and my understanding of French was just crappy today and so it made it a lot worse. I did understand when the teacher quoted A. Breton as saying, “Literature is one of the sadest ways…” or something like that. I agree. The class made me really stressed and so I went home and had some hot cocoa to mellow out. I also read on Wikipedia about surrealism. My two hour class was summed up on that one page. It kind of made me wonder why I went to class when it was clearer online.
Luckily sociology of cultures doesn’t suck. Today we actually spent almost two hours analyzing a graph that was about the style of music listened to by French persons divided by sex, age, and their job. It was actually quite interesting. Boys have a tendency to listen to the “harder” stuff (theories to why included boys being more virile…ha ha awkward!), the youngest listening to the crappy stuff (by crappy I mean rap, hard rock, etc) and the older you get the more classical, opera, etc. There wasn’t really a difference between the different jobs, except CEO kind of people listen to classical more than the other groups. The second French lit class was a little bit better. Only because it is one and a half hours and not two. Our teacher did say some noteworthy things though. We (by we I mean he) got talking about why people write. So apparently (I don’t agree with this all but whatevs) there are four systems of signs: mundain, love (often erotic), memory, and art. To receive the truth you must go through these four systems. So since Proust wrote a totally boring book with no intrigue or hero, that let him dabble in his perverted homosexuality while reviewing his past (memory) in 7 freaking books, he reached the summit, or another universe that has truth. Yeah, fantastic, isn’t it. So, when I’m older I’ll write about wanting my mother to tuck me in and then disguise my homosexual relations by changing that character to a man in my book and then I will be a timeless author. Yeah, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not a fan of Marcel Proust. His style of writing is great, but I don’t care for what he writes about. Needless to say I have a new appreciation for Shakespeare (and I don’t like Shakespeare) and his ability to not suck.
It was humorous because I was looking up a word in a French dictionary and I saw the word “happy end” (not happy ending) and then not 30 seconds later my teacher used “happy end” in a sentence. I’m so glad the French have such a great command of the English language, lol (laugh out loud for all you old folks). I think I am pretty much going to say “happy end” all the time now.
I went on a relaxing run after all this fantastic ‘to know the truth you must be an erotic snob who thinks about the past to access pure time’ crap. I think running is pure time. Running lately has been giving me some stellar blisters on my left foot. I’m not sure why, my Brooks have never given me blisters before and I should have lots of miles left on my shoes even though I’ve had them for a while. And also I don’t want to try to get a new pair of shoes and have to lug them around all summer. Hopefully my feet and legs will hold up until July.
I decided to buy some taboulé and have it for dinner. I thought it was cous cous with tomatoes (which it is). I felt so proud of myself for getting the can open with a knife (no pop top and I don’t have a can opener) and then I found out taboulé has mint in it. A lot of mint. So basically I had a spoonful and it gave me a stomach ache. Instead I had a potato with cheese and some rosetta meat and peas. There were some new people in the kitchen who weren’t American or English but they were speaking English…it was weird.
Horror story: I saw an American eating like Kraft singles here. She was putting it in an omelet. I had this urge to slap it out of her hand. Who eats over processed cheese individually wrapped in plastic in France?!?!!? What Frenchman has the nerve to sell that stuff and call it fromage in France??!! Needless to say, I’m appalled.
I was going to go to bed early because I was tired, but I somehow started looking up day trips for next week (we have a week off of school). I ended up planning a two-day four city trip including what trains and where we can sleep. It is going to be pretty close to Nantes (a couple of hours by train from Nantes) to see some awesome castles and such. I ended up going to bed around midnight because Brad Call (my brother’s brother-in-law) was telling me about how I have to find a Tours religieuse while I am in Tours. It is this giant pastry that sort of looks like a religious building that I think is like an éclaire (besides in looks).

Day 169: Fat Tuesday Indeed

crumble noisette
16 fevrier 2010
I am so proud of myself today. I didn’t sleep in (even though it was really tempting). I set my alarm for 7am and got up then. I was secretly hoping that I could talk to some of my friends online then, but the internet wasn’t working! I had breakfast, did yoga, and read my scriptures. Right as I finished reading my scriptures the internet started working. Some of my friends were still on even though it was after midnight for them, but they didn’t really stay on to talk to me.
I went downstairs and got new sheet s and went off on a run. It was a nice run, only -4C today. At first I was planning on heading to my favorite forest but then at the last moment I changed my mind and decided to run along the river. I saw the boy’s cross country team running as well as a bunch of other people. The highlight was definitely when I was running on the board walk. They have these intermittent switchbacks like annoying-things to keep bikers from going too fast because you have to weave around to get through. I was happily running along, trying to catch up with the very attractive very fast runner ahead of me (he was really moving) when I slipped going through the switchback! I banged my knee and one of my feet went through the side planks and was partially stuck. I had a little audience for this and they made sure I was okay. I finished up my run and when I got home, glory glory I have a magnificent hematoma. It is definitely now more painful to walk then it was to keep on running. After showering I noticed that I had a lot of standing water so I decided to clean out the drain. Eww. Eww. Eww. That is more disgusting than the fish tank in Finding Nemo when Nemo makes the filter stop working.
I’ve discovered Cat Stevens this week and have been listening to him a lot. I really like his songs “Can’t Keep It In” “Father and Son” “Don’t Be Shy” and “The Wind”.
You’ve got so much to say, say what you mean, Mean what you’re thinking, and think anything. Oh why, why must you wast your life away, You’ve got to live for today, then let it go. –Can’t Keep It In
It’s not time to make a change, Just relax, take it easy. You’re still young, that’s your fault, there’s so much you have to know. Find a girl, settle down, If you want you can marry, Look at me, I am old but I’m happy. –Father and Son
While I am writing random things, I got sent this today and I really liked it.
Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right.
Love the ones who don't just because you can.
Believe everything happens for a reason.
If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.
If it changes your life, let it.
Kiss slowly.
Forgive quickly.
God never said life would be easy.
He just promised it would be worth it.
So today is Mardi Gras. I was planning on going out with Hannah into town but Hannah is going ice skating and seeing as I banged my knee today, I am not up for ice skating so I am spending a quiet evening at home instead. I probably need it since I took a nap today (that cold got me good). Also Hannah has noticed that going to real French classes just exhausts you because you work so hard to listen and take notes. I’ve yet to study my notes though (oops) or read more of the stinking Schwann book…it is just not Harry Potter, lol. I did have a nice rice and bean creation for dinner as my celebration of Mardi Gras, although I don’t think I’m giving up anything this year for forty days. Maybe if I think of something…
SWEET OF THE WEEK I decided to get my treat today since my knee was turning purple and I felt badly for it. I ended up getting a “crumble noisette” why she said it is noisette, I don’t know. But basically it is a tarte crust with chocolate and apple filling with chocolate crumble on top. It was pretty decent and perfect to soothe my chocolate craving tooth today.