The silliest things can make you crazily homesick.
I'm in France right now, in a hotel in Blois, about ten minutes from the Loire. My computer is at home in Carnieres, and I'm hoping I don't make any glaring mistakes as I type on my iPod. I woke up at five am today, showered, braided my hair and noticed one of the stray kittens from outside was in my kitchen. It noticed me and became horribly scared. I forgot to eat breakfast as I tried to lure it out from behind a cupboard to eat from kitty food. Vero didn't demand I let I outside when she asked me why I was lying on the floor in the living room. She corrected my grammar (chat gris, pas gris chat) and went about her day. I promptly named the cat Oliver. I don't care if it's a girl cat, it's name is now Oliver.
Anyways, after my glaring fail in convincing a kitten to love me, Jean Pierre drove me to the rendezvous with the Rotarians. It was six thirty in the morning when he dropped me off, and seven am when I got on the bus. We left at seven oh six (I remember distinctly) and I settled down for a few hours of sleep. When I woke up at ten o clock, we were eating breakfast. I didn't realise fresh croissants and amazing Belgian coffee came included with bus trips. I also didn't realise people drank champagne at eleven in the morning. It's eleven in the morning!
I think it was one o clock when we arrived at the castle in Blois, but I was jolted awake and checking the time did not occur to me right away. I wish I had my computer so I could upload photos to show you guys; the Chateau de Blois is amazing. We're going to another castle tomorrow and apparently this next one is even more gorgeous.
I'll get more in depth about the castles when I have photos to show you. I just wanted to talk about the people here before I lost the feelings.
The silliest things can make you homesick.
At dinner tonight, we ate cous-cous. At my childhood home, in the basement, we have a pantry that holds mostly beer and pop, but on one of the side shelves is a box of cous-cous I have knocked over while reaching for something else at least a dozen times. I don't even like cous-cous! But there it was, on my plate, saying, "Hey, remember your basement? Remember playing Rockband in the basement with Jessica after school? Hell, remember Jessica? She's always so nice to your mom... Oh, wow, you haven't seen Mum in a while, huh?"
Cous-cous can be such an a**hole sometimes.
So yeah. I miss home. That being said, I don't think I would cut this adventure short for just about anything. I love it here, for all it's difficult in French and it's hard to talk to people and the next two days of my life will be spent with a group of adults who are forty-plus and with whom I do not share a maternal language.
When discussing what time tomorrow's breakfast, the lady who I was talking with suddenly exclaimed, "Sign language! You speak sign language!"
Apparently, I've been making aborted gestures all day and this poor woman must have thought I had some nervous tick as I waved my hands around crazily. I explained why I knew sign and, lo and behold, one of the Rotarians at the table knew French Sign Language. Finally! Something to talk about that isn't an awkwardly phrased attempt to explain what school is like back home (Ack, back home.) or whether I like Belgium or not. The two languages, by the way, are not at all the same.
Another lady asked me what university I planned to go to next year. I swear, if one more old, white lady assumes I'm nineteen... I'll probably just keep my frustration to myself, I guess, so I don't seem uptight. Seriously tho. Do I really look that old?
Anyways. I need to sleep now. Today was an incredible, long, tiresome and awesome day. I hope tomorrow will yield the same happy results.
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