Don't Bring Me Down

I considered doing a long, deep blog entry, but I’ll sum it up into one sentence: Commitment looks big and scary and I think I’m going to avoid it for the next ten years and live my own life.

Moving on. A lot’s been happening today, hence why I haven’t been able to sit down and write a blog. I’ve been busy living it up for my last month in Bordeaux and Europe, which I suppose is a good thing. Thanksgiving was a couple of weeks ago, and for that the EAP program teamed up with the Bordeaux-America organizations, and there was a large dinner, with the French trying their hardest to give us a Thanksgiving dinner. It was very French, but their pumpkin pie failed pretty badly, though I liked it a great deal. (I had also had half a bottle of wine – I couldn’t let it go to waste, now could I?) I had a good time, though. It was food, it was people; you can’t really go wrong with that. It did, however, cause Becky, Katie, and me to go a couple nights later and bake home-made pumpkin pie. A good night was had by all. Also in this packed Bordeaux weekend, Danita and I went to a French opera, called “Le Balcon.” It was… weird. Very weird. It also included me discovering that my cocktail dress that fit so well back in January was now nice and loose. On top of this all, while walking down the smooth opera stairs, I slipped and fell down half of them, causing the population of Bordeaux to freak out and worry about me, only adding to my embarrassment. It was an experience. Yet another experience to add to the list was the medical appointment all visa applicants had to go through. It was uninteresting, except for the “dreaded” x-ray, in which you had to take all upper clothing off. I, being me, didn’t really give a damn. But many of the Californian girls were absolutely flipping out about it, complaining, whining. One girl went as far as to say she was Mormon so she wouldn’t have to do it, and I’m just kind of like, “…really? I mean, really? How old are you again?” It just seems ridiculous that this is that big of a deal. You get undressed in a little room, you come out, you cross your arms, you push against a cold wall-thing for the x-ray, you get dressed. The female doctor does not care, she doesn’t even look. She’s seen thousands of boobs, she won’t care about yours. (I also already don’t like this girl, so go figure.)

Then after this week, there was the weekend in Lyon for le “Fête des lumières,” or Festival of Lights. Not too much to say about that; I traveled EasyJet with Erick, we explored Lyon. It’s a gorgeous, cold city, but there’s not much to see or do there. We ate decent Chinese food, and at eleven at night we had to go pick up Danita from the bus stop and take her back to the hotel. No comment. We did end up going and getting a late dinner, though, which was nice. The next day we basically retraced our steps so Danita could see everything. Then for the night, we had an amazing two-hour French dinner, and the festival itself was amazing. So many people, and some incredibly creative light displays and shows. It was pretty magical. The only worry I had going in was that we didn’t have a hotel room for the second night, since something like four million people come in for the festival and we couldn’t find one, but apparently our hotel had a cancelation so we were able to snag one. It made me happy. Other than that, really, not much to report. A good time was had.

Then back to Bordeaux one last time. The other night I was walking back from Becky’s place after watching the Avatar finale, and it’s about a twenty-minute walk. And I just looked around and I realized how Bordeaux just has this golden glow about it. Sure, the novelty of the city’s worn off, and I’ve gone to other places and realized that Bordeaux isn’t the wonderful place that it first appeared to me. But I still love it in its own way, especially now that it’s decked out for Christmas. Lights everywhere, Christmas trees around every corner, shops open all the time… And on top of it all, it’s not that cold. This actually makes me very sad; I hear stories back home about people having to pry open their car doors since it’s covered in ice, or that peoples’ locks are frozen. Here, it’s a toasty 50 degrees, sometimes even warmer. This isn’t what I signed up for. It’s comfortable, though, I suppose. I’m certainly glad that I’m leaving Bordeaux in the holiday season, though, so my last memories of it will be very fond. Even though now, I’m getting a lot of melancholy at the thought of leaving this amazing country, I’m ridiculously excited to go home at the same time. Very mixed there. On one hand, I can’t wait to see my friends, my family, go back to a school that makes sense… on the other, I’ve made a couple of really good friends here that I’ll miss, I love France, I love traveling around. I think I’m just starting to feel less like a vacation and more like actual life, and then there I go back to home. But it’ll be nice to be back in the loop again…

The past week has been fun, and I have a lot more ahead of me to do. Trust me. Last night was our “end of semester” cocktail, which was a lot different from what I expected. It took forever to find the place, and then we just stood around chatting for an hour before being kicked out. There were no big speeches, no sad farewells, no closure at all. It’s interesting to think that at least ninety percent of these people I’ll never see again. But that’s generally what happens in life, isn’t it? As people move on through different stages in life, such as high school, college, work, you meet people, but then you change location, and they become only memories. Anyway. After this cocktail (which did have cute little food and lots of wine, which was enough to content me) Betty, Danita, and I all went ice skating. Next to St Andrès Cathedral, one of my favourite places in Bordeaux, they had set up an ice skating rink for three euros, so we went there. It was a great amount of fun; I got the hang of it pretty quick, despite having only gone ice skating once before. However, near the end of the night, I had an absolutely spectacular fall. It wasn’t a “teehee, I fell” type of fall, it was an “oh shit, losing balance, losing balance, slow motion, legs going out from underneath, I hope I don’t break anything” type of fall. Luckily I didn’t break anything; now I just have several bruises on my arm and my bum, and it’s pretty uncomfortable to sit too much on my right side.

So now I’m just looking forward. I’ve started packing my suitcases, traveling will certainly be an adventure. I have some scattered exams from what I can figure out, but we’ll see how those go. Not my biggest concern. I’ve got plenty of things left to do in Bordeaux, many things to explore, football games to see, shopping to do… It’ll be fun.

On a completely random note - whose bright idea was it to give up Figgy?! We're doomed, Angels. Doomed.