This week we had another ‘cultural activity’ with Middlebury organized by our ‘guardian angels’. We saw the absolute most bizzare play i’ve ever seen, called « Un pied dans le crime » (A foot in the crime). Imagine a comedic parody of clue – on steroroids, set in the 18th century France with all french characters and their weird cultural quirks – but it wasn’t funny. And as the maestro explained to the audience before the play started, it was traditional in the 18th century for the audience to sing the chorus of the songs in the play along with the actors, so we spent the first 15 minutes of the show learning some completely bizzare songs. And in the end your learn everyone in the play had been lying to eachother, and that no crime had actually been committed – so they all sing together. Probably my favorite play ever.
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| Top of the Dune du Pyla |
Since it was a fluke hot day on Friday in all the cold weather we’ve been having today Karina, Amanda and I took the train to Arcachon again, but this time not to go to the beach. Instead we hike the Dune du Pyla – the highest (i think ?) dune in all of Europe ! It only took about 10-15 minutes to hike to the top since you started pretty high up to begin with, but it was extremely hard to run up basically what was a straight up wall of sand ! There was a beautiful view of the ocean, some islands, and the amazing coastline of Arcachon and many other beaches. Laying on the dune and taking in the sun felt kind of like we were in the desert in Africa – complete with a couple small sand storms here and there which got us all coated in layers of sand.
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| Me, Amanda, and Karina after hiking up |
It was a little bit of a consolation since we decided against visiting Morocco for our mid-semester vacation, because of all the terrorist warnings and things that have been going around here. A few days ago they arrested 12 suspected terrorists in the south of France, including one in Bordeaux – but we’re not too worried. The US state department sent out a travel advisory to all American citizens in France which made the situation sound pretty scary, though. Apparently it’s awful to be living in Paris right now, with one of every few public transports getting stopped and thoroughly inspected by police and their bomb dogs. Nothing really seems to have changed here, besides a couple warnings on the news and in the press. So at least we got a little (fake) bit of Morocco on top of the Dune !
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| Jacqui and I at the fair |
Jacqui visited this weekend from Montpelier ! For some reason we had a lot of extremely bad luck – the our first bus ride into the city we got stopped by the controleurs, the guys who come on public transportation very rarely to check whether everyone has validated passes. And of course we didn’t, so we had to pay the fee. Thankfully I argued it down 15 from the full fee ! We did some touristy stuff, then tried some ‘mexican’ food – which was NOT mexican whatsoever. The ‘fajitas’ we got had no spice whatsoever, and the tortilla chips were probably doritos, served with like a tablespoon of fake guacamole.
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| Me, Amanda and Karina at the fair |
Later we visited the fair/carnival that replaced the circus that was here last month, which has everything like a traditional american state or county fair. Little rollercoasters, a ferris wheel, haunted houses, fair games, and fair food – but industrial sized ! I think they have an extremely overexaggerated impression of what fair food is. The cotton candy is like 6 times of what you can get in the US, and there are 30 different flavors you can choose from (yes, 30, one of my friends counted). They also have churros – which you can only get plain if you order 12 or 20 at a time ! Or if you want one big one, it comes stuffed with chocolate in the center. Then of course there’s all the grease food, fries and candies you could ever want. And they say Americans eat badly !
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| Ferris wheel next to the monument des Girondins |
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