I suck at updating stuff...

Yes, I know I don’t update very often but that’s me…I start something and then never finish it! So, because I haven’t written in quite a long time, this is going to be a long post.

Salon du chocolate: It was very interesting. It was not interesting for someone who was sick and kept looking around to find the nearest trash can if I had to puke. Other than that and the smell of chocolate making me noxious, it was interesting. I wish that I had felt better when I was there because there were tastes and samples of almost everything. Unfortunately, I missed out on going with my aunt, uncle and grandma because I stayed home to sleep (being sick sucks). When they went there weren’t very many people and my grandma was telling me about a chocolate massage exhibition that they saw. I guess some person in a G-string was on stage and there two other people were massaging him with chocolate to the beat of some salsa music, or something. I’m not quite too clear on the whole thing.

I really wanted to see the chocolate clothes but there were so many people crammed into the tiny stage area that it was impossible to see. Would have been interesting though. After the chocolate clothes exhibition there was another exhibition of Cuban music so we decided to see that. Of course there were some little kids whose parents were not paying attention to them and they were running around the stage around the musicians. I’m surprised they didn’t knock anything over. There was also this lady who thought she was God’s gift to salsa because she also got up on stage and started seizing…I mean…dancing. It was actually really funny because she just looked so bizarre up on stage with the little kids. I had to take a picture. Unfortunately, there was a tall guy sitting in front of me so I didn’t have a very good angle of her dancing. I almost recorded a movie of her “dancing” but then I thought that would have been too much!



Bretagne: I went with my aunt, my great aunt (I’m not really sure what Therese is to me but great aunt sounds good) and my grandma to my aunt’s house in Bretagne for the weekend. She was telling me that Bretagne is the area of Lancelot, King Arthur, Asterix and Obelix and celts. It certainly looked like it. The area is still very heavily wooded and she and my uncle have both run in to wild boar when they have gone in to the forest to pick mushrooms. Me…not a big fan of nature so I’m glad I missed out on the mushroom picking. It was fun. My aunt took me around and showed me all sorts of little towns that are very old and very cute. We even saw a town (not really a town since there were only about 6 houses) of house that had thatched roofs. That was very cool. The roofs were made with the hollow reed-like things and must have been about a foot and a half thick. I can’t believe the thatching actually worked but apparently it does because people still live in the houses. We stopped at a little creperie in the town to have dinner. The crepes weren’t as good as the ones with made with Uncle Albert’s recipe but they were still good.







We also stopped at a tourist shop and I tasted a whole bunch of different liqueurs of the region. My favorite was the blackberry. It didn’t taste like it but they were strong suckers…50%. I had 3 tiny little tastes and I was a little tippy!

Yesterday we went to a little town in Bretagne that is inside a fortified wall. It really is like a middle ages village although it was built long after the middle ages. There are narrow cobblestone streets and lots of little tourist shops. I think we must have stopped in all of them! My aunts and my grandma bought food but I don’t like the cookies too much so I didn’t but much. I bought a gorgeous santon of Marie d’Medici (so Mamie tells me). The detail is amazing. It was really cheap, too. Four euros for a hand-painted, 4 inch tall santon. They had a statue of Henry V also but I didn’t buy him because he was ugly.

Today for lunch it was algae day. My aunt made algae pasta, an algae side dish and bread with algae. Again, interesting because you don’t normally eat algae for lunch but if you didn’t know you were eating algae you couldn’t tell. The algae side was a little salty but that was the only indication that it was algae. I am branching out in the world. Of course I still slathered the bread with butter and my great aunt commented on how that was a very Norman trait. I don’t drink like them but I guess I eat like a Norman.

Right now, my grandma and I are on our way home from Bretagne. I don’t have an Internet connection up there so I can’t do my homework. That’s why I only stayed a few days. It was a nice vacation though. On the way to the train station we drove by the seaside and saw the beaches. It was stormy today so there were lots of waves and surfers. It was cold, too, though. I don’t really like the cold.





I’m sitting across from a lady who complained that my backpack was under my seat because she couldn’t put her legs under the table and didn’t want to keep them in the aisle. Bullshit…the backpack was under my legs and taking up less than half of the space. Whatever…so I moved it to the top rack. Guess where her legs are now? In the aisle! Stupid lady.

When I get back to the house I have to figure out how to use the washing machine so I can wash clothes for my trip to England and Ireland this weekend. It is the first time I’ve visited Alli since she moved to England so I have to take lots of pictures. Then, she and I are going to Dublin for 3 days. Our hotel is right above a bar! I’m very excited. Guiness, shopping, more Guiness…

I just got home after an hour trek through the metro stations with my grandma. My monthly metro card decided to stop working and all of the ticket windows were closed. Fun. At one station one guy let me use his card and then he hopped the fence and at another station my grandma held the gate open for me as I crawled under the turnstyle. This is the 3rd time my card has not worked on the metro...I am not very happy about it. If I had been by myself I would have been screwed unless I asked someone else if I could follow them thorugh the gates. The French metro gates are not like BART where they can easily be jumped or you can easily follow someone through...they have turnstyles that lock after 1 person goes through and usually 6 foot high barriers that open for a few seconds to let that person go through. And I was carrying my 2 bags and my grandma's bag. I miss my car. :(


Pictures to follow tomorrow after I sleep for a little while.