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France 1999-The Trip of a Lifetime
A Daily Journal of a Week in the Overseas
Life of the Smalrus
18/4
Yesterday was a crazy dad. Woke up, did everything and went to La
Patisserie at the corner. Got pain au chocolat (2 as a matter of
fact). Great food. 2 strips of milk chocolate "melted"
into a flaky pastry bread. Very good but food here is expensive.
I guess you never know if you'll come back here again and since
French food is the supposed best in the world, you kinda have to
be willing to splurge, even for the cheaper stuff.
After leaving the hotel around 09h00, we departed for Tours by
bus. Very country, very flat, plains, except it's very fertile
w/green grass everywhere. Cars are smaller, fields of yellow
flowers called Rape exist everywhere. Very pretty, yet very
boring. Looks like the fields in the early Dodge Neon
commercials. On our way to Tours, we stopped for a few hours in
Chartres. Saw the gothic cathedral. The windows are magnificent,
very neat.
After that, Sarah and I branched together and went to La Musée
des Beaux Arts. Some lovely art work there. Tables and easels
provided free to students. We were there a while and then went
shopping. Got a few neat pics and Dave his shirt. Ate lunch at a
corner sandwich shop. Croque monsier, orangina, some weird candy,
and Solero Shots, a citrus ice cream in a funky container, kinda
like dippin dots. Walked Chartres more and at this big bazaar in
the middle of the city, I bought this beret (real deal) for 150F.
(Aha ha ha ha. We are ze French.) Got on the bus again for the
ride to Tours. Turns out that Carrie dreams about "fields of
porn" and Jon had to tell the "janitor he was
here."
On the way to Tours, we stopped at our 1st castle, Chambord. Very
pretty. Had a dual staircase which we monkeyed around on. I went
around the place w/Julian. He was going spastic at almost
everything dealing w/machettes, crossbows, and rifles. It was at
Chambord where I named my beret "Jean-Louis." Got this
nice book, Chateaux of the Loire with nice pix and info. We then
headed off to Tours to stay at the Best Western Grand Hotel. It
was right across the corner from La Gare de Tours and would be
our abode for the next 3 nights. Jon, Andrew, and me. Much nicer,
3 beds and a cot, where we throw all our stuff.
We didn't get a walking tour here cause they felt safe w/us
wandering the city, so we all broke up and went around. On our
way to dinner, we saw a man urinating on the tree on the center
island. Weird, but we later found out that it was very common
among lower class people. After all, it costs 2F to use the
public toilets.
We searched for a place for dinner, but I was the only one who
wanted Chinese, so I went to this little place across the street
from L'Hotel de Ville and ate Egg Drop Soup (more like eggs in
chicken stock) and beef chop suey. Good meal. I took my time and
decided to draw L'Hotel. Came out decent, but I had to be
sketchy, due to lack of time. I took a while, as do the French,
but everyone here is impatient when travelling. Jon and I walked
down the main road all the way to the Cher River. Dirty water,
but has swans. We started heading back and heard 5 gunshots. Very
creepy. On the way back, I also stopped for some pain au
chocolat. Extremely good, best I had yet. Got home, chilled
w/Carrie and Andrew and Carrie got yelled at when she was here at
0h20. Oops. Then I got laughed at by Twizzlehead (Jon) and Mr.
Scrawny (Andrew). Ha ha, look at them. Can't do 10 situps.
P.S. Carrie is certainly strange. Still shows signs of hitting on
A, J, and me, even if she doesn't realize it. She seems to be
subconsciously leading us all on. Very strange girl. Like she
took 5 (ok, slight exaggeration) pics of me on the carousel, put
her arm around Jon, etc....I guess I wouldn't be 1/2 as paranoid
if I didn't have a girlfriend or rather, if she didn't know I
have a gf.
18/4
Well, I actually had time just now to catch up on what we did
today since it's been pretty busy and I forgot my pad of paper in
the room while we're on the bus. This morning, we woke up at
around 6h55 after oversleeping 10 min and went jogging w/Jon, Mr.
McKenna, Mr. Sylvester, and Nancy LaChance. Interesting if you
don't mind running short-sleeved in 30deg weather. Ran 45 min,
haven't run since December, but Mr. McKenna said later that I
looked like I could keep running. Probably could. We touched the
Loire River. Cool. Also freezing. Came back and showered, quick
croissant and jam, and baguette and butter and headed onto the
bus. Today: Chateaux de la Loire.
Did a lot of driving and visited 3 chateaux: Azay-le-Rideau (mine
from that project in sophmore year), Chinon, and Chenonceau. At
Azay, I sketched my chateau. Came out OK, but not finished. At
Chinon, I picked up a weird techno magazine w/sampler. Music's
not bad, but mag is twisted. Good lunch at Jeanne d'Arc. Ham,
cheese omelet. Saw the Gargantua and Pantagruel exhibit. Went
back to bus and there were many piles of "merde de
chien." Almost left the chaperones behind because they were
late getting back to the bus. (Arlene: "My baguette broke in
2 and rolled back down the hill so we had to chase it.) At
Chenonceau, I was the Jr. Paparazzi and got a pic of the tour
guide who looked like Paul McCartney found the fountain of youth.
Very busy and tiring but we made it home. Did a lot but only went
3 places.
Came back to the hotel and chilled for a while cause we had til
24h00 to be in our rooms. We went out to eat. Jon, Bethanne,
Wallis, Julian, and me ate in a pub. Great wafer thin pizza. I
enjoyed it thoroughly. I did a lot of walking to the train
station. Bought Elise a copy The Little Prince en Francais. Some
guy asked me if I had a cigarette. Then some other guy started
babbling to me in French. It was eerie. Got back to the hotel,
did some crap in the room. Find that Wallis has ruined my
facetious comment on my postcard to Mrs. McKenna and Cipollini.
We went out and every one was a pain in the butt to look for
restaurants with. Finally, everyone got McDonalds (go to France
for that), and Bethanne, Jon, Julian, Wallis, and me go to dinner
at some smoke filled pub. Food wasn't bad. I had a pizza w/an egg
on top. French pizza is very-paper-thin crust. Makes it brittle
to pick up. Jon and I have to get escargot. On the T.V. was an
MTV type thing. The commercials had naked women and some full
nudity sex scenes. The country is rather [h]edonistic as far as
sex goes. There is no modesty and is no shame.
No one wanted dessert except Julian and me. We walked down the
ave that Jon and I went on last night. Nothing new, except the
shop w/the great pain au chocolat was closed. We were walking for
a while and on our way back find the discothèque that we shoulda
gone to last night. "Pym's." It's at 170 Grammont Ave.
Looked really cool. Maybe tomorrow night we'll go. One of the
things we found out about at supper that I had talked to Julian
about was the prom. Turns out he's not going w/Betsy Lindell
cause she's taking the SATs the next morning. Instead, we found
out he now wants to ask Jenn Ruocco. She's rather reserved, but
nice. I don't see why not and apparently neither does he so he's
hoping to ask her this week. Meanwhile, Amanda couldn't figure
out if Jenn is gay because she didn't comment on some pic of some
guy, so she's having Jon hit on her, but we dissuaded, saying
that Julian could work his magic instead.
Stopped at a public W.C. You put money in, the door opens.
There's a place to hold your cigarette so you can go and smoke it
again. Waste not, want not I guess. Then you push the handle, the
door opens, closes, and the toilet flushes. Weird. You could
smell a bunch of pot on the street. (Julian: "You smell
that?" Me: What? Julian: Weed. You smell that weed?").
Weird. One thing about France is that they lack public payphones.
You know, the ones where you put money in. There's no shortage of
phones where you run your phone card in or you could always call
collect. But never where you could just put francs in. So... I
didn't get to talk to mom and dad to say hi. And after running
around the streets of Tours in my PJs, I got a McFlurry and
headed home.
 
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