Friday, December 23, 2011

Friday 12/23: Happy Birthday, Mark!!

When my alarm went off this morning, I still couldn’t breathe through my nose and my head felt like it was full of cotton. Ugh. I wanted to go right back to sleep, but we had plans for today!

Pablo arrived at 10am and we walked to the market so that Candice could us get some fruits and veggies while I rushed to the post office to mail something. We hurried back to the house and were picked up by Claude, a teacher from my school. She had invited the three of us to join her and two of her children who were headed to the lake in Hossegor (on the coast). The kids were going to run around the lake (5k) and Pablo joined them. However, I was feeling super crummy, so I decided to walk with Claude and Candice (who didn’t have running shoes). It was a lovely walk, but unfortunately there was so much fog that we couldn’t actually SEE the lake… I was very pleased that there were trashcans all along the path so I could dispose of the toilet paper I was using to empty my brains out through my nose.

When we’d finished our walk, we headed back to Claude’s house for lunch. She served galettes (wheat crêpes) with either cheese and ham or mushrooms for the first round and then she prepared custom ones for the second round. I had one with an egg and non-spicy salsa while almost everyone else had egg, cheese, and ham. It was lovely—we sat around talking and laughing. Three of Claude’s children were there: Jean (28 yrs), Maïté (26 yrs), and Anne (21 yrs) and they were all really friendly. Their family had done a lot of traveling (the parents lived in Africa for a while), so they were interested in comparing experiences, stereotypes, and traditions.

For dessert, Claude and Anne made crêpes (they’re made with white flour) and we could choose our own fillings. I had a nutella/strawberry jam crêpe and a honey/lemon juice crêpe…delicious!

After we’d talked for about two hours, Pablo showed us a slideshow of pictures from Argentina. Claude had requested that he bring some to show us, so he told us about the varying landscapes and climates in Argentina.

After over an hour, we realized that it would soon be getting dark and we wanted to show Candice the ocean! So, Claude took us to the coast in Labenne and we just spent 5 minutes there because it was really windy and cold.

Photo: The beach!

Afterwards she gave us a ride back to Tyrosse, where I hurried to skype with Mark (I was already late!) as it’s his birthday today! :)

This evening we decided to be lazy and just have pizza. We walked around the corner to the little pizzeria where we ordered two small take-out pizzas. We had a salad (with the stuff we’d bought at the market) and devoured our dinner! Tonight we talked, drank tea, ate Christmas goodies, and watched "500 Days of Summer."

I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow!!

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