churches and thigh highs

Beautiful day number 4! I put my sun glasses away last night because I thought it was absolutely impossible that this could happen. Maybe it’s because the Pope is around. Thank God for organized religion.

On Sunday, we traversed to Louisa’s turf. Two buses and some confusion later, Kassie and I arrived near the lake where Louisa met us.

So this is where the nature has been hiding itself. Although it’s amusingly easy to tell that this is the only water in Dijon. The abundance of “beach! Camping!” signs and “nautical club” on this lake (cough pond cough) are slightly crammed. And lest we forget we are in France, they were selling crepes on the beach.

We also had our first game of Frisbee, oh how I’ve missed thee. Lots of running, throwing, and semi catching ensued. We also saw so many runners. For anyone who runs, you know that sense of guilt that can surface when you see one/a million people running when you haven’t in a while? That’s the worst. My writhing from guilt became a full-fledged dance when I walked past a sign reading (demanding?) “courir” (run). The running gods punished me by giving me the hiccups but Louisa taught me how to say “I have the hiccups” in German (strictly phonetically speaking “Ich haabe einen schloooookawf) so everybody wins

We scrambled up and up and up the mountain cleverly labeled a “hill” (see photos) to Louisa’s house and it was completely worth it. She lives in a semi crazy house with a semi crazy woman but we sat on a patio to end all patios (more photos!). It was a little tragic to go back to centre ville because it was Sunday so life had shut down. Although, we have found that one creperie that is open on Sunday. YES. Never again shall I be such a cranky pants towards an impending end of week!

Yesterday, Monday, classes. Language classes. Eh, over it.

Afternoon real kid class. If I could only find the words to explain. If you ever thought I was exaggerating about my professors clothes…I would have sold my soul to the devil for a camera phone in those 64 minutes.

From the waist up: Socially acceptable.

From the waist down: bright red shorts. Thigh high black boots.

There was a lot of silence between the three of us when we left class. There were complete minutes and blocks walked between departure from class and channeling out emotions into words.

After that, ran to the post office to track down a rogue package that has not yet arrived. Have to call an official number. [Update: called the number this morning. Got some random old woman. Shockingly, she knows neither my mother nor the location of my package.]

Returned quickly because Kirsty (Scottish girl also here for the year) arrived and was sitting on the stoop. I was so stressed to go let her in because I have this concept that to get to France, one absolutely must travel for no fewer than 24 hours and then will be dirty and tired and unable to form real words. She had left that morning.

Wednesday –

This morning I had to go to find someone to give me some civil responsibility insurance in case I am very irresponsible sometime in the next 8 months and destroy her gold woven basket or brick collection.

As always, in between classes I wandered in centre ville. We three dispersed so I made my own fun. In Dijon, this equals walking for extensive periods of time but I’m all into that. Found about 8 more churches, two of which are literally right night to each other. They have so many churches around here that they’ve started changing them into theatres. I’m no expert, but Leviticus sure says a lot of things. Is there anything in there about making houses of God into temples of sin and intrigue? Maybe if the Bible were a musical…I could get behind that.

Other than that, think that I’m becoming a cathedral snob. Enormous ornately stained glass windows with impeccable arches, an organ the size of my house and an 11^th century vault?? The guy down the corner has an 8^th century. Just saying…You could do better.

In other news, last night we ate a meat product which I was unable to identify. Never been as thankful for an inadequate vocabulary just in case she did slip the name into conversation somewhere. I have some guesses but we’re just going to let this one slide. Also have some old bananas which are just waiting to be made into banana bread. Mireille doesn’t really understand this concept and it took some intense google imaging until Kirsty got behind it. She’s a trooper I can already tell.

Tomorrow is another day. Stay tuned.

Byeeeeexoxo