An Update

I feel like with my month of absence, I owe you a proper update.

We have had nonstop school for the last six weeks. After one free week to study when we got back from Christmas break, we were subject to the tortures of Exam Week. At the end of it, we were supposed to be rewarded with a trip to Nantes with the school but, since it SNOWED, we were instead rewarded with a day off, to do as we pleased.

When there's an inch of snow on the ground, Rennes shuts down. Every store was closed and the French locked themselves inside to escape the "wintry tundra." I woke up at 7:45am to check if we had school. As soon as I settled back into bed to sleep in, I hear my phone buzzing. My friend Alejandra was calling me and squealing into the phone:
"It's snowing! It's snowing, Laura, there's SNOW outside, ACTUAL REAL SNOW!"
She's from Florida and it was her first time ever seeing real snow. Since she only lives up the road, I walked to her house and we attempted to make a snowman and snow angels with the little snow that was on the ground. After our adventures in the winter wonderland, we went back to her house for hot chocolate.

I hopped on the bus (luckily, the number 9 was working) and made my way to my friend Melanie's house. I spent the day with her, watching movies and discussing life. I was supposed to go home relatively early, but since my bus stopped working I ended up sleeping over with her and Elizabeth.

I left pretty early the next day to go home and study for the SAT, but Grant and I met up in town later for a late lunch because he had been stuck way out in the suburbs for days thanks to the "blizzard."


On the 26th of January, we woke up horrendously early to get the bus to get to suffer through the SAT. Afterwards, Melanie, Omar, Perrin and I met Elizabeth and walked to Sainte Anne where we ate Greek sandwiches, complete with Tzatziki. We needed to unwind after the stressful morning.


The weather has been picking up, lately. On Saturday, I sat on a towel in my garden (for the first time this entire year) playing the harmonica with Alejandra. It was so nice to breath in fresh air without getting rained on.

The weather was lovely today, too, and we took full advantage. Grant woke me up at 10:10am and I sprinted to make the 10:31 bus. Which never came. I waited at the stop for 21 minutes until at 10:52 the bus slowly came to my stop. Everything seems to move slowly in France on a Sunday. I hopped on and was in République in record time, as everyone seemed to be in hiding this morning. Grant and I met and quickly found Will, who had invited us to coffee with his real family. They were visiting from England and we found the one open café in Rennes. Afterwards, we walked them back to their hotel and Will said goodbye to them at the Gare.

To celebrate the good weather and the fact that we only have a week left of school until Winter Holiday, we went to the American Diner and got burgers. Maybe the best decision ever made. We made our way through the streets of Rennes in the sunshine until we got to Parc du Thabor where Wes was eating lunch with his friend who's visiting from Boston, Jamie. She is so amazing and it was great to have her with us for the day. As Wes said, showing her around made us appreciate where we're living so much more. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon eating and taking in the sun and talking about life in Rennes with Jamie and we ended the day at sunset on the steps on the Opéra eating ice cream. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, I must admit. I caught the next bus to my house and finished off my homework in time to write a seemingly never-ending blog entry. If you made it this far, I salute you.

Now to read Gatsby.

"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning .." ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Yours In Dysfunctional French,

-L