Week Thirty-One

The week went pretty well I’d say. I spent the beginning of this week, as I do with most beginnings of weeks, being lazy and chilling out. However, Wednesday was a busy day. I went to the pool with my gym class. It wasn’t too bad this time. The last time I went I felt pretty close to drowning. I guess any improvement or amelioration would have brought me to a new level. After the pool a couple of friends and I went to a restaurant called For Time. It’s a restaurant, which specializes in a type of sandwich called Kebab. It’s basically a type of gyro but so much better. It’s something I’d never seen before coming to France but am incredibly glad to have discovered.

Friday night we had a party for my host brother’s birthday. It was great. It was just with his and Lou’s friends so it was like an actual party. I didn’t go to bed too late though because I had to get up early the next morning to go to the city of Angers for a Rotary weekend.

I had to get up at 7 AM to leave the house at 7:45. We started the day with some free time to talk to each other and hang out. I think that honestly these are the best times about Rotary weekends. The down time where we talk to each other and get caught up on what’s going on with everyone else. I also met the new Australian girl who just got here. She had a problem with her visa so she came a little later than the others.

After eating lunch we took the bus downtown and spent some time at the castle in Angers. It was a cool castle and I felt like it had a different spirit than a lot of castles in France. There was also a display of a tapestry, which is apparently the oldest of this size. It was fairly impressive. The afternoon they gave us some free time to do what ever we wanted in the city. We checked out a sculpture garden and then did some shopping. On the way back we stopped into a café and bought some hot chocolate. We spent the rest of the night talking and hanging out.

The next day we spent a couple hours at a slate museum learning about the history of the region. It turns out that this part of France is actually really famous for it’s slate and according to the guide it is the best quality. It was at the very least an interesting place and they gave us little samples of slate at the end, which was cool!

It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone at the end of the weekend. We really are coming to the end of the year. The next weekend is at the end of May and it’s the last time we’re all going to be together until the end of our exchanges. I can’t believe how far we’ve come and how much we’ve learned. I have officially less than 100 days in France. I have less and less time every week and when I start to look at the calendar and see the things I’m going to do I realize how fast it is all going to go by. It sort of scares me, the idea of going home. It’s one of the strangest feelings. You want to go home but at the same time you never want to leave.