I Go Back

C'est genial!: It's great!

So this time I have lots to talk about because it was such a busy weekend! So to start with Friday:

Friday evening, I went out with Dimitri and Manon to walk around because from Thursday until this last Sunday there was the Festival de Loire. It's a really big festival because thousands of people from all different cities within the Département come to Orléans. There were plenty of things to see, and listen to, and watch. Each night there was something different. Friday night, they had an acrobatic show that was suspended in the air and people were dangling playing music while the acrobats were doing tricks, it was really amazing. Afterwards, we went back to Dimitri's house to watch a movie and after it was finished [at nearly 3 am] I stayed the night at this house and went off to bed. The next day..

Saturday morning was spent watching the French rugby team play in the Rugby World Cup. Then I did lots of smelling because Manon and her mom was preparing lunch for later. After they were finished, the three of us went to the train station to pick up some friends of Manon's mom. Then, we came back to the house and ate lunch and, for the first time - like most things here, I watched Lord of the Rings in French! C'etait genial! [pronounced: set-ay gen-ee-al]. Later that night, Dimitri came and picked me up and we drove out to his Uncle's house. We had dinner there and this was the first time I got to meet everyone, apart from Enzo who I had met at an earlier time. Afterwards, we watched a little TV before Dimitri and I went to his friend's birthday party. Now, of course, it was a normal birthday party..you know..music, people, talking, and all the above - just as there are anywhere in the world, oh yeah, except the fact that this birthday party was in a Chateau. We pulled up and all the lights shining on the chateau - it was beautiful. Dimitri introduced me to everyone and of course being the American made for an easy conversation. Some people were more than happy to show off their English, asking me plenty of questions and then was I was finished talking with one person, another person was ready to poke there head in my vision and start up a new conversation. My favorite was probably between Christian and I and started out something like this..Christian: "Hey where are you from?" Me: "Me? France, of course. You?" Christian: "But wait, you speak perfect English?" Me: "Oh yeah, that's cause I'm not from France." After meeting a few people, Dimitri showed me around the chateau. It was all wonderful, and too hard to imagine that I was there to just have fun.

Finally, we headed back to his Uncle's house around 3am [at this point, we're both dragging] and fell asleep the moment we hit our beds. Then we got a very warming wake up call from his cousin, Justine, bright and early the next morning...

On Sunday. We woke up around 8am and ate a quick breakfast because on this day, we were taking some vintage cars out for a whole day of driving. We met up with Dimitri's aunt and uncle where they had their old-school Buick parked. Then slowly but surely 8 other vintage cars with something like 20 people started showing up. Once everyone had arrived I was introduced and we all gathered for a group photo and then Dimitri's uncle gave each car a little game of fun trivia questions to play and then at the end of the day we would see who got the most right. Dimitri, Enzo, and I rode with Jean-Luc in a convertible Oldsmobile. Everyone drove to a small little town where we stopped to grab a drink

After the short rest, I switched cars and rode with Eric, Dimitri's dad, in the Fiat. That was a lot of fun because it is so small of a car! But at this point the weather was so beautiful so it was an amazing drive. Not too long after that, we arrived at our destination which was a nice little restaurant in Sologne.

 Enzo, Dimitri, Me, Justine

After eating, we jumped back in the cars and drove to Jean-Luc's family home where we spent the rest of the afternoon. There, we tallied up the points from the game. I believe that Team California came in 4th, so close! But there was a tie between two teams for 1st place, so they added a bonus question to decide the winner. After some hours there, everyone headed back towards town. On the way, I was fighting to stay awake - but I definitely did not want to miss anything so I resisted the urge. Finally, I made it back home and unpacked my things and crashed on my bed. So to say nonetheless, it was an awesome weekend and tons of talking, learning, listening, and having tons of fun.