Rushing Around, Keeping Busy, Doing Things

As I'll be changing locales soon, I've been packing as many adventures and good times into my schedule as possible!

Last Wednesday: Sarah, Steve, Zandra and I headed to Armand's parent's house in Tavel, home of France's #1 rosé. Apero (pastis for me, as usual), great BBQ, great local wine grateful Frenchies (Armand's dad thanked us for our ancestors' kick-ass bang-up job in Normandy, on a June 6th way back when...we said, "Uh, you're welcome?"), the sun, a pool...idyllic. The day ended with Steve scootin' me home...did I live that day or did I dream it?

Thursday: Party chez Julie, the Arizonan mom-of-a-5-year-old-1/2-Frenchy who lives here in L'Isle. The party guests were 3 English truck drivers (one of them Charlie, my 2-doors-down neighbor), 2 North Carolinian girls from Peace University (no joke) who were "studying abroad" in L'Isle sur la Sorgue (what?!?!? In a 20,000 person tourist trap in rural France? Yeah, that's what I thought...), and a partridge in a pear tree! We sat on Julie's sweet terrace drinking wine, laughing, getting drunk, and eating good eats late into the eve. Then I had to wake up and teach the next day. Suck!

Friday was my last day of teaching little kids! I checked out weeks ago, so this was a VERY welcome turn of events! I got some presents from some of my students (a cell phone sock and some sweet black and red feather earrings), and it's true I'll miss the little buggers, but I'm stoked to be officially en vacances!

This last weekend was Avignon's first pride festival (I think), and I was there! I saw part of the parade (yeah tourist trains finally being put to good use!), and got bubbled (it was basically a foam party in the street), but other than that, it was pretty underwhelming. San Francisco it ain't! We went to L'Esclave Saturday night (translation: The Slave), but there were too many people (among them too many straight American girls...didn't my friends and I have a monopoly on that??), and I wasn't rockin' the Sardine scene. [Though I was rockin' my new H&M dress with parrots on it...my mom sends me 6 fab dresses in the mail and what do I go and do? Buy another one...I'm a mess...a hot mess!] Plus we ran into a confused French friend, (cruising solo but has a girlfriend...uh huh, that'll last), and as Steve says: "It's annoying when people don't accept themselves." So we went home and I promptly fell asleep.
Like I said, underwhelmed. Maybe the gayest part of the whole day was all the Michael Jackson music videos we watched. And that's not a comment on MJ's sexuality or alleged pedophilia, but rather on his fashion sense...that man can dress himself! Rest in peace Michael, and thanks for Ben, my new favorite song...oh those homicidal rats!

Today, Sunday, was another spectacular day, beginning around noon. Zandra and I woke up and promptly ordered all our friends over to Zandra's house for coffee...and to bring food. So in short order we had baguettes, pain au chocolats, and croissants at our fingertips, and we hadn't lifted a finger (unless you count texting)! I bought Carly's bike for 15 euro because the bike I'd borrowed from one of my teachers was stolen...and I felt bad. [Plus I have to even out my karma: I broke a pinkey swear I made to a couple kids on Friday promising them to come to their end of the year spectacle and raffle...sleep was just way more important.] So Jeff and I had bikes, Steve and Zandra had a scooter, and Sarah had a train (well, she could catch one). We all headed to L'Isle sur la Sorgue. That's right, I rode a bike from Avignon to L'Isle sur la Sorgue! That's like 22 kilometers (or about 13 1/2 miles)! WOOT WOOT! I'm so proud! I had thought about doing that before I came here, but then I saw how far it is, and how big that hill by Chateauneuf de Gadagne is...which today I made my bitch!

Once here, we got ice cream and walked to Partage des Eaux. On the way we saw water jousting! Jousting, on boats, in the river! None of us had seen anything quite so simultaneously ridiculous, amazing, bizarre, and stupid before. Oh these L'Islois! It was kind of like this, only minus the music, and the boats we saw were motorized.

What's next? Two days of cleaning, packing, recycling, distributing of things to their old or new owners, mailing my modem back to my internet provider, checking out of my apartment, and by Tuesday night I'll be in Avignon again! Last week I got an email from my summer family (the family for which I'll be au pair-ing this summer) that something came up and they don't need me until July 11th. So I'll be living with Patrick (South African/Irish Settlers aficionado, among other things...therefore, cool as shit) for about a week and hopefully catching the beginning of the Avignon theater festival I've been hearing about for 9 months. Sarah, Zandra, Patrick, Jeff and I will be crying into our beers, missing Steve like crazy by that point. Then I'm hoping to head to Carcassonne (really old French fort action, ho hum) on my way to Biarritz (well technically Seignosse, a beach town a bit north of Biarritz). Phew! This adventure continues...