This week's post comes at you from the other side of my 23rd birthday. It has been a few weeks since my last entry, and for that I truly am sorry. I had no intention of leaving you all hanging for so long, waiting with bated breath for the next installment of my tales, like, for example, the Walking Dead series finale. The past few weeks have been rather busy, but now time slows down for the next two weeks as I grind out the end of this semester of school.
As I wrote in my last post, I took a long weekend trip to Rome two weeks ago, where I met up with my friend Haley. This was a fantastic weekend, although it did have the obvious side-effect of making returning to school that much more difficult. I left Vannes on Wednesday, spent a night in Paris, and then flew to Rome on Thursday and returned Sunday. All in all, a whirlwind weekend, filled with scrumptious pizza, pasta, paninis, and, best of all, enough real-life history to satisfy a history major's cravings. From the Colosseum, to the Roman Forum, and of course, the Vatican, I was constantly trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing. As a result, this weekend, the one directly before my birthday, upstaged my excitement for my birthday weekend-but that should in no way be considered a complaint.
Now, I am sure you all are well aware that my birthday was last Friday, the 25th, and that you celebrated accordingly back home. If not, I will safely assume that while you may call the feast you ate on Thursday 'Thanksgiving,' it was in fact a giving of thanks for my arrival into this world. At any rate, my birthday was also filled with amazing food and good friends. I had a visitor-my friend Abby from Paris-as well as an Indian dinner with Francoise and a few other assistants here in Vannes. Meanwhile on Saturday we all celebrated Thanksgiving, and yours truly felt it his duty to out-eat everyone present. While the idea certainly seemed entirely logical and warranted at the time, three hours later, when none of this food had been digested, I began to question my decision. Still, the evening was a great success, and I was truly thankful to have a Thanksgiving celebration here in France.
Now for a quick beard update: many of you may have seen photos of me since my arrival here, and you will note that I have been growing out my facial hair. While most of the early reactions were quite positive, lately the mood has changed; rather than encouraging remarks about the beard, I received many polite expressions of dismay at the length that it had become. So with that in mind, my parents were kind enough to give me a set of clippers for my birthday, complete with more attachments, extensions, moving parts and capes than I know what to do with. But the bottom line is that I have trimmed back my facial hair extensively, with Abby's help, so that I hope it pleases the doubters out there. I will do my best to keep it in line.
This week at school I had another great cultural experience. On Tuesday I ate lunch at the school restaurant with the English teachers, the Assistant Principal and the Principal. This restaurant is where all of the cooking and serving students work and is open to the public. It is similar to getting a haircut at a beauty school, in that you get the quality and experience of eating at a fine restaurant for a fraction of the price. For less than 8 euros, I had an aperatif, fresh oysters, a delicious fried fish entree with salad, and a coffee. Of course, the experience means one must eat with the required etiquette, which was a bit foreign to me. A good portion of my meal was spent sharpening my peripheral vision to check out what my fellow diners were doing. But I made it through the meal without any faux-pas, and now I can add that to my list of experiences.
On the same day at school, I had what I consider to be a very typical French experience, though not nearly as positive. My classes finished at 5:30, which is the last hour of class for everyone. So naturally, I left my backpack in the teacher's lounge, as myself and other teachers do everyday, expecting to pick it up after class and leave. Only the school did not have the same plans, and they found it entirely logical to lock the doors to the teacher's lounge at the end of class before I had a chance to walk there from my classroom. However I am becoming a pro at handling these kinds of detours, as they seem to happen quite often here. Rather than get angry, I managed to find the one lady in the entire school with keys to the building. One person with access to the room, but again, why should that be surprising here? Luckily, I caught her just before she was on her way out, and persuaded her that my bag was indeed important enough to unlock the door again. So, no harm no foul, I left school that day with everything I came with, and a new anecdote to tell to you all!
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| Sistine chapel ceiling..shh don't report me |
Well, as this blog is dragging on, I will wrap it up with a glimpse of what is to come. I hope to spend this weekend booking travel plans for Christmas break. While the details are still up in the air, I will be heading to London to see Gabe, Dave, and his family for the holiday, with hopefully an extension of the trip either before or after they leave. More on that to come, once all is booked. Keep it real everyone, Go DAWGS this weekend, and enjoy the link I am posting below to my last article for National Geographic.
A plus friends,
Tommy
Tommy
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