Limoges!

Hellooo all! 5 more days until I'm back in the good ol US of A. It's been a really good summer but I'm ready to come come, see my family and friends and have one more kick ass semester at the U. I still find it kind of hard to believe I graduate in December. Anywho!

This weekend, my last weekend in France/Europe, I blew off our weekly Friday excursion (it was to Pont du Gard, which I saw when I was in Montpellier) and took the train to Limoges, to visit Stephanie, my exchange student from high school and her family. The trip there was a little bit stressful. I had two trains to take, Arles to Toulouse, Toulouse to Limoges with 13 minutes in between the two trains. Well... when the first train was 20 minutes late... I knew there was nothing I could do to get to Limoges as planned. So the next possible route to Limoges was to take 2 more trains, Toulouse to Brive, Brive to Limoges. My train to Brive was 15 minutes late and almost missed the next train. But luckily, I ran off the train, onto the platform and my next train was just on the other side. Needless to say, I was quite happy once I finally made it to Limoges and I saw Nadine, Stephanie's mom, waiting for me. This is the second time I've seen them since I stayed at their house for a week in high school and I feels like no time has past. They very much feel like a second family to me.

After Nadine picked me up, we went to pick up Stephanie's brother Olivier who is working in a bank for one month this summer. He just finished high school and passed the big French high school exam called the Bac which you need to pass in order to continue your edcuation in France. After that, we dropped my stuff off at their house, Nadine served me some incredibly delicious chocolate cake and then we went to get Stephanie from her summer job, also at a bank.

That night, we went out to a Creperie for none other than some delicious crepes! (Go figure right?) This restaurant was really cool. I'm not even sure how to describe it. The menus where inserted into old magazine covers from the 1950's and they were attached to hangers. The decor was very colorful and incredibly original. For the room I was in, the light fixtures were made out of balls of yarn and the walls were sewn canvas pictures all put next to each other to form a kind of wallpaper. I wish I had pictures but unfortunately my camera battery was dead all weekend long because I forgot to check if it was charged before I left. I'm dumb. I apologize. After crepes, Stephanie, her brother and I watched some TV and not long after I fell asleep. I was tired after my long day on the train.

The next morning, I slept until about 11 (again, I was ti ti after a long day on the trains, oh and i forgot to mention I had gotten up at 6 to finish packing and stuff). I had some breakfast with Nadine and watched a little TV which was nice after about 7 weeks without TV. They have satelite so I was able to catch some CNN in english which was nice for a change, a little less work to pay attention. Stephanie got back from work around 12:30 and then I had some lunch with the whole family, which is nice because I can't think of a time my whole family and I ever had lunch together on a Saturday afternoon, that wasn't a holiday or anything else. After lunch, Stephanie went into the city and met up with two of her friends for a drink. It was really nice to meet some of Steph's friends. Afterwards, we did a little shopping. Stephanie bought me a skirt for a belated birthday gift which was way too sweet of her as my birthday was in March but she is much much too nice to me. Then we met another friend of hers and a friend of his for dinner and we all went out to a disco that night called "K ré". It was interesting because I had been to the same place with her in high school but it was owned by a different person at the time so it was a much different boîte (boîte de nuit - night box literally, or club). We didn't roll out of that place til about 5 am. I was exhausted. I threw myself immediately into to bed because I had to get up at 9 to catch my train at 10:56. I would have liked to have stayed longer because some of their family was coming up for lunch that day and they were hoping I would be able to stay but unfortuantely with my class monday morning, and having to take 2 different trains to a small town like Arles, it just wasn't possible. Nadine packed me world's biggest lunch this morning which was absolutely wonderful on the train. It's about 8 o clock now and I'm just finally getting a little hungry. It was really great to spend the weekend in Limoges. The Coucaud's really are a second family for me and I'm so glad I was able to stay in contact with Stephanie after all these years.

That's all I got, home in 5 days!!!!! See you all very very soon!!!!