Just my Luck

So here are a few things that happen to me and can only happen to a person like me in Tours.

• One: buying an umbrella and as soon as I get out of the store it stops raining.
• Two: buying a pack of cigarettes to pen out my anger and realizing after that I am only left with 2 euros for the rest of the week.
•  Three: meeting an awesome French guy and the last night I am in town he says he’s too lazy to get out of his pjs and come to the bar.
• Four: made quite an impression on my host family as I walk on the street with my roommate holding a bottle of wine each trying to get drunk as fast as we can and of course our host parents decided to walk on the same street at the same time we did.
• Five: paying 22 euros just so I can transfer my photos from my camera to my my laptop so I can make my blog, instead of actually listening to my parents and brought with me the big ass device that transfers the photos to the computer
• Six: buying a snow coat at the beraderie (something like black Friday sale) without actually knowing it’s a snow coat and finding out that it never snows in Paris. ( I have to go somewhere where it snows so I wouldn't feel like an idiot for buying the coat)
• Seven: eating a green soup that looks and tastes like moss for dinner 2 days in a row
• Eight: eating pigs intestine and having to eat my roommate’s share too because we didn't want to make our host mom feel sad that we didn't like it. (my poor stomach was in pain for the next few hours) 
• Nine: dressing warmly for Paris and finding out that it’s one of those really hot weekends there
• Ten: Finally having to walk around for 4 hours in Paris trying to find a machine for my metro pass that accepts American credit cards.

 But in all fairness best times of my life I am living right now in France. Vivre La France!

1st weekend in Tours

After being jetlagged and got used to the timing, it was time to get used to the weather. For only one day, I experienced the four seasons in less than 3 hours. There was sun, then clouds, then rain, then wind, back to rain and finally sun. It kept being this way the whole weekend. I discovered that I do attract rain. Every time I go outside, it rains. Just my luck. Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared for winter climate just yet. I had to walk in the rain after having a couple of glasses of wine. Finally, found a store that sells umbrellas for cheap. Well, it wasn’t cheap, paid 10€ for it. And as soon as I come out of the store and open my umbrella, the rain stops…

On Saturday, we visited le Château de Chambord and le Château de Blois. The architecture is amazing. The Château de Chambord was huge!! There were so many chambers and stairs and doors by the dozens. My friend Rouge said the perfect quote, she said no wonder they could get away with so much adultery in their times, you could go for weeks without seeing a person who’s living in the same Château. I filmed a little bit of the Château to be part of my virtual blog. One of the problems was that I still haven’t gotten the converter just yet. So my camera was running low. I filmed and took as much pictures as I can. Then it died.

I thought the Château de Chambord was the best castle I have ever seen, till I saw the Château de Blois. OMG, whoever worked on the plans for that Château is a genius.  Well, there were multiple people because the Château is constructed in 4 different eras?? First part is Gothic, built in the 13^th century, the second part is Flamboyant built during the reign of Louis the 12^th, the third part is Renaissance, the construction place from 1515 to 1520 and finally the last part is classic constructed from 1635 to 1638. I know what you are thinking, boring!!! Where are the pictures? Well, by the time I went to the Château de Blois, my camera was already dead and let’s not forgets that I am forgetful and I totally forgot to bring my camera cable. So, all the footage and the pictures I have on my camera are inaccessible. Lucky me.

Sunday, it was so boring. Slept till noon, woke to a brunch where I finally had eggs and some type of meat for “breakfast”. The French don’t eat protein in the morning. It’s all carbs!! Your typical breakfast is bread, jam, butter and coffee or tea. That is supposed to last you till lunch. Me, being used to having eggs and bacon every morning for breakfast just doesn’t work. I am usually starving by 9:30. I eat breakfast at 8:15. It just doesn’t work. I have considered waking up early to go to a café and buy me a quiche or something that can last me through the day. However, I am not a morning person and I am always late to class. Back to Sunday. Everything closes on Sunday. There was no market open, no clothes store open, only a few cafés. So what do French people do on a Sunday? I will tell you in my virtual blog :P Anyways, I decided to explore Tours, which means basically me getting lost lol. I did get lost then a French garçon approached me. He wasn’t my type. Dark, tall and spoke too fast. I thought why not talk to him, at least just to practice my French. I made sure that I made it clear that I am available. When he asked me if I am single, I made up a boyfriend in England who owns a restaurant and who will come visit me in Paris and take me to Italy and England. Of course the French guy is devastated but he kept me company for a while trying to convince me to leave my boyfriend and have babies with him. Not go out with him, or become his girlfriend; no, straight out have babies with me… French guys are weird. We went to the park and when his called, he left. After a little bit, I went to the other side of the town, the ghetto part. I didn’t know exactly where I was because the streets I was on were not on my map. I had to figure it all out by myself. Walked for a 3 hours-ish then I found a flea market. I asked a nice lady how to go back to where I started and apparently it was just around the corner.

Finally made it home. I was exhausted. But of course, with my luck, I get insomnia as soon as I arrived in Tours. I have only been able to take naps and wake every 2 hours. Try to communicate in your third language while you are half asleep. C’est très difficile. However, the next day in my first day of class, I was able to understand everything even when they were speaking in the speed of light lol thanks to my French friend who I will never see ever again…

The day I arrived in Tours

   It is 6:30 pm in Tours. The weather is gloomy but not cold. The flight from LA to Washington DC was 5 hrs. It wasn’t that bad except I was starving the whole time. They offered food but I would have to pay extra. When I got to DC I was so happy to have my friends come in first. I would have been completely lost at the airport. They reminded me that I had to eat, which if you know me, it is vital to ask me if I ate or else I would starve myself without even knowing. We went to the Marriott for a meeting and then got back to the airport right away. We stayed at the airport for 4 hrs. I ate lasagna which was hella expensive but a girl gotta eat. Red met a South African guy while she was getting her food.  He was really nice. He let us charge our phones on his laptop. And of course the South African accent is unbelievably charming.

   We got on the plane at 9:30 pm (DC time) and we were all sitting far from each other. At first I was sitting next to a baby right by the exit door. Notice I have the worst luck when it comes to seating arrangements. However, when the plane took off, the stewardess asked me if I can move to a different seat because the baby wants more space. I was happy to leave the seat. I ended up sitting next to a French guy named Axel. He was really cute. He kept talking about his American girlfriend the whole time. They met in Paris when she was studying abroad and now they go back and forth to visit each other. Makes you wanna believe in love again.

When we landed in Paris, there was no time to buy a phone card to call my parents. We went straight to the bus and left for Tours. I was jetlagged so I slept for the first 3 hrs. We stopped at a rest area and the chaperon gave us 10€ each to buy lunch. I got a ham and butter sandwich. It wasn’t bad for a rest area food. An hour later we were in Tours and our host families were waiting for us at the institution. My host family were Monsieur Bernard and Madame Emilienne. They own a brewery and a farm. But we were staying at their city home.

   The  house is full of foreign students. I have someone else from Sweet Briair. She seems really nice and she actually wants to learn Arabic and go to Egypt. It is good to have someone I can speak English with or else I will forget it completely; that would be a problem when I come back from France.  It is a beautiful house: at least 7 rooms, a kitchen, 7 showers, 1 toilet, 1 salon, 1 living room and 1 office. It is an old style house. It looks like American homes in the 20’s. There is one but vital problem right now. I have yet to contact my parents and letting them know that I am here in France safe and sound. There is no internet in the house. My phone doesn’t work and about to die. I have yet to buy a SIM card for my European phone. So I have no way of contacting anybody for that matter till tomorrow. And I forgot to bring a converter for my phone, my laptop and my hair straightener. Safe to say I am not washing my hair today. Dinner is always at 8pm. We can’t make loud noises after 11pm. She hasn’t told us yet what time is breakfast. It is so hard to understand Emilienne. She doesn’t speak English at all. Even the words that I don’t know in French, I have to find a way to explain them in French. Anyways, dinner is in an hour and I have to go wash up. I don’t usually talk with my family over dinner but I don’t know about Bernard and Emilienne. This will be interesting…