Day 12 - i'm tired.

Today I got up early to accompany Nathalie to the French equivalent of the mall. I've already forgotten the name of the place. She went to get her hair done and I walked around and pretended to shop. All of the stores were pretty expensive, on top of the lousy exchange rate. I avoided all of the sales people so I wouldn't have to look stupid and it worked in all but one store where one of the girls caught me and asked if I wanted to try it on. I politely gave her a blank stare then stammered I didn't speak French. So, she asked me in English. Vive la France. When Nathalie was through we did go into a more moderately priced store and I purchased a cute shirt and even cuter scarf ( I told Nathalie it was so I could at least look french).

When we got home we lunched then I went with Dominique on some stories. First we visited a Dog Competition, or so we though. Apparently the dog show/competition was tomorrow, but there were still a few people there so he could get a story and picture. Next we headed to a private primary school function sort of akin to a kids carnival in which a few classes of children gave performances. I'll have to say, even though I didn't understand it they were pretty cute. This was one of those things were the children look absolutely ridiculous and they will hate their parents later in life for photographing this event.These kids are going to hate it when the photo albums get busted out for the girlfriends. Yeah, that's hot chocolate on their heads. And yes, it took me until the encore to figure that out.

The last stop was an ancient (no, really) brick making. There was some sort of festival celebrating the property and the proprietors who are all like 5th generation brick makers (if I understood him right, which I probably didn't). It was still fun to see the kiln where the bricks cooked and an assortment of pottery that has been made over the hundreds of years. I'm pretty sure he made fun of me and the fact that his bricks were as old as my country. Vive la France.
That's the kiln thing. From inside it looked like a pretty mean spider hang out.
We went home for a little while, then picked up Simon their son. After le dîner we went to a inter mural basketball tournament that practically every person in the town my age attended, as well as their parents. (so basically the whole town was there, so it seemed). Back home an event like this would cater maybe bottled water and hot dogs. Not here. We had a concession stand with crepes and white wine with strawberries in it. Everybody was drinking and playing basketball, having a gay 'ol time. After two of these I was ready for bed. I'm pretty sure that wine/strawberry combination was stronger than any mystery drink I've had at UW frat party (and that stuff is deadly, obviously, how else do they get girls?). I was ready for bed at midnight, but they told me the festivities would probably continue until 3 am. The French really know how to party and get down, and stay up late. We went home, thankfully because Simon was tired, too, and not just because I'm a lame American.Yay! Go Green.. or orange.. who cares? Everybody's drunk!

It was a very busy day, to say the least.