Exploring Paris with a Viking, Cheesehead, and Chilean :) Day 1

We dropped our bags at the hotel, Tiff and Grube enjoyed their first baguette, and then the four of us had cafés at a place on the Seine. We walked over to Notre Dame, and that’s when I was able to confirm that I approve of Tiff and Grube’s travel style ... quickly appreciate the beauty of Notre Dame, take the obligatory photos (including “hunch-backing” in front of the cathedral), and then be on our way. No time for long, touristy lines and entrance fees – I like it! We walked along the river to the Louvre and then headed over to Pere Lachaise, the famous cemetery where tons of old Parisian families and famous French/international musicians/writers are buried. It was cool because I’ve always wanted to go there but have never made it. Jon’s mission, along with almost every other lost tourist we found in the place, was to find Jim Morrison’s grave – a harder task than you’d think … but it was really interesting to wander through. Lots of the graves are covered in elaborate, gothic-like, above-ground tombs. After that we went to a train station to take care of their Amsterdam reservations, and then took delightful afternoon naps at the hotel! Quick note about the hotel – I’ve stayed there before, great location, really good price, etc. The 3 of us paid about 15 euros each to split a triple room for the night, which is really good for Paris. When I made the reservation, I was told that we’d get a double room with an extra twin bed – perfect. So we found a room with a double bed and a mattress folded up on the floor, so I went down to ask for the cot/bed frame to go with it … but no, it was just the mattress, haha. It actually ended up being comfortable, but I still don't think they should be able to call that a "third bed" in the reservation.

Below: Hunchbacking at Notre Dame ... and totally lost in Pere Lachaise

After our naps it was time for Target Happy Hour, Parisian style. Tiff, Grube, and I headed over to the Bastille area where there you can find a different bar about every 10 feet. We found a 2-for-1 place and enjoyed beers an the beautiful night - once again, light out until about 9:30, I love it! The 3 of us enjoyed catching up, throwing in a little career talk, of course (to Grube's disdain, haha), getting the gossip on Minneapolis friends, etc, etc. Super quality time with both of them :) Then we headed over to Place d'Italie where we met back up with Andrea and a group of her Parisian friends. Most of them were architecture students, inevitably speak a bit of English, and I think they two of them enjoyed conversing with some Frenchies in English. We ended up in a great little neighborhood known as Botte aux Cailles ... definitely off the beaten tourist track, filled with tons of little bars/cafes/restos ... regardless of which bar you were actually in, it was easy to mingle with tons of people because everyone spilled out onto the sidewalks. Then a group of about 8 of us got hungry and found a nearby restaurant (Tunisian, I think?). Then we luckily got the last metro home before our hotel closed at 2am ... then proceeded to cancel our room for the next night at the hotel, since we found out that we could stay (for free) at a friend's apartment ... no brainer! But I wasn't sure if I had successfully cancelled it ... until our rude awakening the next morning with a 15-minute warning that we had to check-out ... brilliant!

Happy Hour (aka planning out tomorrow's path) & impromptu hood-of-car-bar a Butte aux Cailles ...

They had no problems making new friends in Paris ... :)

That was the first night I spent at the hotel with Tiff and Grube ... and when I realized just how perfect they are together. See below ... they both brought travel, night-reading lights. No joke.

Paris :)

Then we took a packed train from Toulon to Paris, and about 20 minutes before getting in, we heard from our friends in Paris that they were stuck in Lyon so we wouldn’t be able to stay with them that night. I called the two hotels that I know in Paris but no luck there. We thought of everyone we knew in Paris but ended up staying with a random friend-of-a-friend Chilean who lives in Paris. So Andrea and I called him, explained how she got his number, and basically asked if we could crash there for the night. It was slightly bad timing because his mom was there visiting from Chile; but they were awesomely hospitable and told us to come on over. It made for a slightly awkward situation but beats sleeping in a train station or street. He had a really nice studio about two blocks from the Louvre – good location! We slept on yoga mats on the floor in the same room as his mom sleeping on the couch – a bit uncomfy, but it was incredibly nice of them to let complete strangers stay with them. It’s crazy – there’s kinda an unofficial network of Chileans who seem to just open their homes to each other. I guess it’s not even just a Chilean thing at all – I’ve had tons of French people, or other Europeans, offer me places to stay, either with them directly or with their family/friends. I’m not so sure that this same mentality exists in the US. Sure, if you know someone personally, it’s not a problem to stay with them, etc – but I don’t think it’s as common to open up our homes to friends-of-friends, or foreigners who are traveling, etc. Anyway, here it’s awesome, very welcoming, and obviously helpful for travelers on a budget.

Friday morning we got up and went to the Opéra in Paris, my planned meeting point with Tiffany and Jon (referred to as Grube in the rest of this post). So I was walking down the street with Andrea, heard someone yelling my name from across the street – and that couldn’t be anything else but my friends fresh from good ‘ole Minneapolis! More to come on our visit together when I have more time to write ... but here's a quick picture of us being idiot American tourists in front of the mini Statue of Liberty replica on the Seine:

Beach Day in Toulon

Thursday we woke up to the joy of yet another French national train strike. That’s great news when you’ve already bought two tickets for the day. It was a bummer because we had tickets to go to Cannes (as it is the film festival right now!) for the afternoon, before coming back up to Paris. I have no idea what it would have been like in Cannes/how close you can get to the event/etc … but I’m sure it would have been a cool experience. But our train from Cannes to Paris was cancelled so we stayed in Toulon for the afternoon to take a different train. Not as if I was totally crushed … I mean, Toulon is another beach town on the Mediterranean coast and I wrote this post while sitting on the beach … so no complaints from this beach bum! If two of my besties from Minneapolis weren’t getting to Paris the next day, I would have had a hard time leaving the South. Regardless of what town you’re in, the dark blue sparkling water with back-drops of other coast towns & mountains … is amazing. It is a completely different charm from the rest of France, and I love it. The people, landscape, food, markets, etc are completely different from where I’ve been living the past 7 months. I’ll be back, Provence, don’t you worry! So the beachside afternoon in Toulon turned into five hours in the sun … after a winter in Bretagne, this kicked my butt! I got somewhat friend – face, arms, back, etc … but the sunburn has since died down and it’s good to have some color, haha!

Beach, Sun, Drinks, Pain au Chocolat ... think I just defined my paradise :)

The Multi-Ethnic World of Marseilles ... followed by Toulon

On Wednesday morning we took a train from Montpellier to Marseille. It’s absurd because of the four or five times that I’ve been to Provence and the Cote d’Azur, I’ve never stopped in or visited Marseille, the 2nd largest city in France with quite a reputation. I was expecting a large, chaotic city that would be somewhat hard to navigate through … but was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed the afternoon there. First we walked through the old port and then broke off to explore a couple of the older neighborhoods.

It’s obvious that Marseille is a large city, but it’s really manageable to visit because it’s broken up into distinctly different quarters. It’s the North African immigrant capital of France, and depending on what quarter you’re in, it’s easy to feel like you’re in Maroc, Algeria, etc. We walked through an area that was full of African markets & shops, which was pretty cool. Then we met up with Andrea’s Chilean friend Milena, who’s an assistant in the nearby town of Toulon. After a lunch of baguette sandwiches we toured the Palais de Longchamps – palace and park built on a hill, with a huge fountain as the centerpiece, overlooking part of the city. I’m sure that Marseille’s got a vivid nightlife, but we left around 7 to go back to Toulon to spend the night at Milena’s (she has a room in the apartment of a French woman). That night happened to be the Champion’s League Final between Chelsea and Manchester United, so we picked up fresh pizza and beer and watched it at home. None of us were too excited about the outcome – never fun to end a game in a shoot-out, and I was kinda leaning towards Chelsea anyway. And Ronaldo, you better be thanking your lucky stars right now.

Le Palais de Longchamps a Marseille

Finally - the South of France!

After several departure date changes due to my doctor visits/stitches, etc, Andrea and I finally left Rennes for the south of France on Monday. After getting my stitches removed in the morning, we took a train south to Montpellier. Via good ‘ole Facebook I’d arranged to stay with Eric, my French “host brother” whose family I lived with in Lyon for a summer. I hadn’t seen or talked to him for 4 years, but that’s the glory of Facebook – random acquaintances that pop back up in your life! He picked us up from the train station and then drove into town for a night tour of the city. Early in the night we had an unfortunate run-in with one of Montpellier’s finest/most annoying police officers – or “flics” as we like to call them in French. So Andrea and I were sharing the front seat belt in Eric’s two-person car and had the bad luck to pull up right next to a cop. He took all of our ID’s and spent 40 minutes seriously looking through a book, with the help of 3 other officers, to apparently find the rule that we’d broken. We assumed that he’d give a ticket to Eric – being the only French person and the driver of the group – but he came back and gave a 90 euro ticket to Andrea! And she was actually in the real seat – I was sitting on her lap. So I guess we have a new joke – there’s a car with a French person driving a Chilean and an American … Who gets the random ticket? The South American. Yiikes. Anyway, no one’s going to pay that ticket, and I think even the cop was aware of this. Below, Andrea and Eric proudly dislaying the ridiculous ticket:

From there we walked all over the city – very lively for a Monday night, people all over the outside terraces of cafés/bars, full plazas, etc. Apparently the city has a large international student population – like Rennes but with way more fortunate weather. We had a drink at a bar (try “Faro” Lambic if you get the chance – fruity & great) and it was fun to catch up with Eric after four years. I had gotten to know his friends pretty well during my summer in Lyon, so it was interesting to get updates on all of them. He had to travel for work the next day but was super generous and left us his keys so we could stay a second night, explore the city, etc.

Tuesday we went to the nearby port city of Sete, which is one of the oldest fishing villages on the French Mediterranean coast, with canals and a distinct Italian flavor. We spent the afternoon walking around the city and canals, had a long lunch of fresh mussles outside, and then took a boat tour along the coast. It was a really small boat with a Popeye theme (music & all), and the best part was that the driver encouraged the two of us to sit on the solarium – basically just the unfinished top of the boat. We tried to listen to the guided visit but ended up taking naps and enjoying the view. Quite an enjoyable afternoon in the sun!! We came back to Montpellier in the early evening, enjoyed drinks on a cute terrace at the Rebuffy Pub – a bar frequented by locals and students, full of board games, lively atmosphere, etc. It was a short visit to Montpellier and an even shorter visit to see Eric, but well worth it.

View of the canals in Sete / Our sunny boat ride through Sete:

Nightlife in Montpellier:

Next Post Probably in early June

Tomorrow my roommate Andrea & I are heading to the south of France ... first stop, Montpellier, where we are staying with my French "host brother" Eric from Lyon! I haven't seen him for four years, so this will be great! After a day or two in Montpellier, we're heading to Marseille, potentially another small coastal town, and ending up in Toulon to stay with another Chilean assistant. On Thursday we're spending the day in Cannes to scope some stars ... that's right, it's the Film Festival! Then Thursday night back to Paris to await the early Friday morning arrival of Tiff and Grube from Minneapolis! It's a star-studded week, for sure :)

I have tentative plans to meet up with Tiff & Grube in the Opera area of Paris ... but Jon has promised to wear an American-flag tank with jean cut-offs ... combined with that loud Wisconsin accent, I think it should be pretty easy to find him, haha! So I will get to spend a couple of crazy days in Paris with some of my Minneapolis faves, before they head to Amsterdam to continue their Euro tour.

On the 28th Andrea and I are flying to Portugal ... starting out north in Porto, then going to Coimbra to stay with our Portugese roommate, and finishing the week in Lisbon. Potentially a day in Lagos in the south but the itinerary is open at this point.

I'll be back in Rennes on June 4th to wrap up my last week in Bretagne before coming home on June 10th. So more to come on the above!!!

We are excited, see below for verification!! :)

Nuit Inter-Celtique de Rennes

Awesome night of live music, dancing, and general celebration of Celtic (Breton, Gaelic, Scottish, Irish, etc) tradition and history. Last night was the annual “Nuit Inter-Celtique de Rennes” held outside at the football stadium, and I went with my two roommates, along with about 20,000 other spectators. Tickets were only 15 euro and it was a lot more lively & entertaining than I was expecting! There were over 400 singers, musicians, and dancers from Brittany, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and northern Spain. I tried to take pictures but that didn’t work so well, so hopefully I can upload some videos because I took plenty, trying to capture the awesome music. Apparently this year’s theme was “Youth & the Future” (while obviously celebrating very ancient traditions), and they pulled together an interesting mix of music … a crazy combo of traditional bagpipes, harp, violin, air guitar, drums, flutes … the result was awesome! First there was a general procession of traditionally dressed Breton dancers (long dresses & lace “coifs” on the heads for the women, and dark suits/vests/straw hats for the men … a combo of Scottish/Amish looking, to me) and bagpipe/drum bands around the stadium. The first group to perform was a crazy-entertaining young band from Scotland called the Red Hot Chili Pipers; I’ve always loved the sound of bagpipes and have always had a corresponding image of old men playing in the middle of rolling hillsides of Scotland. This group threw that image out of the water – about 8 young guys seriously rocking out with bagpipes, air guitars, and drums – I don’t know how you can literally jump around on stage while playing a bagpipe, but they did it. They finished with a bagpipe rendition of “We Will Rock You,” and the crowd loved them! Other acts included the most famous bagpipe troupe from Brittany – Bagad de Lann-Bihoue (I actually just got a CD of theirs last week and then got to see them live!), a solo harpist, Scottish Highlands bagpipers & choir, traditional Irish dancers, a Welsh male voice choir, a solo Scottish bagpiper, a solo Breton singer, the Spanish performer Carlos Nunez, and of course plenty of Breton dancers. I’ve actually attended a Breton dance session before, but can’t quite pull it off. I can’t really describe it well, but it always involves circles of people holding hands, jumping around & kicking their feet, then occasionally breaking out into couples to dance in lines. Then the night ended with a performance of “Amazing Grace” by the Scottish bagpipers and Welsh choir. Chills, baby, chills.

I kinda wish I was Breton now ... but I guess Molly McGuffin's got to have some Celtic flavor back there somewhere in her roots, right?? :)

Below: The Red Hot Chilli Pipers "We Will Rock You"

The Quest for my Ortho Shoe

This will be short and sweet, but I just wanted to show you the difference between what I could have had (ewwwwww!) and the shoe that I ended up with (actually kinda cute until you put it on my foot ... at which point it becomes not-so-cute and awkward). Yesterday I found a store that specializes in orthopedic/support shoes, which I thought would be great ... bigger selection, etc. But THIS is what they brought out for me to try on when I showed them my prescription:

I'd like to thank my lucky stars that they didn't have my size immediately available ... otherwise I might have been talked into buying it then. It was seriously uncomfortable and even more seriously un-cute. I tried walking with it, and it completely threw my whole body-balance out of whack ... I seriously think a month in that think could have given me back problems for life. The woman suggested that I would need to wear another natural platformed shoe on my good foot to even out my balance a bit. I was about ready to change my plane tickent, throw in the towel on trying to enjoy my last 4 weeks here, and come home early. However they were out of my size so I had to go to a different pharmacy. PHEWWWW

So Andrea and I (she's awesome & has accompanied me everywhere!) went to a different pharmacy, and when I showed them the exact same prescription as the other place, THIS is what they presented me with ... MUCH better :

Now do you see how it's kinda cute, like in a creepy way? Well, it's way cuter when it's just sitting there on the floor than when I have to wear it. Anyway, it has grown on me and is definitely leaps and bounds more comfortable than the alternative. AND ... no more crutches! After eleven days on crutches I had hit my max! I have a new-found respect for all of you brave enough to have survived multiple days on crutches - not fun!

Ok, off to explore la ville in my new kicks - tootles!

Vous N'Avez Pas de Mutuelle?!?

.... followed by incredulous gasp from someone French working in healthcare administration at a variety of locations in Rennes. This is the common response when I've been asked, probably 15 times in the past 10 days, if I have complementary health insurance in France. My answer is obviously no, and then they gasp and look at me like I'm completely lost. But then I whip out my French social security card and that takes away a bit of the shock! All French citizens, including me as a foreigner working officially in France, qualify for public social security/medical benefits, but most of them also have complementary health insurance to cover the difference. But I didn't opt to buy any additional coverage through a French company, and I don't know any other assistants that did, either; it just really doesn't make sense based on our salaries and the length of our contract.

So it's obviously unfortunate that I had to have surgery, go to the hospital, etc ... but I've been really pleased with the quality & efficiency (yesss, that's right!) of the French healthcare system. Well, I haven't received the hospital bill yet (and you'll be sure to hear from me after that one), but supposedly I will pay 30% of the total and the rest will be covered by my social security benefits. Anyway, I left the hospital with a packet of prescriptions including antibiotics, painkillers, anti blood-clot shots for 10 days, and all of the materials to re-do the bandage every two days for two weeks ... and I paid about 45 euro for that out of my pocket; once again my social coverage was 70%. Yesterday I finally bought the orthopedic shoe for my foot and paid 22 euro after my coverage. At least from a financial perspective, I feel like the system is very fair ... particularly for a foreigner who was here for a short contract period of 7 months (working 12 hours a week) ... I feel rather fortunate to be able to take advantage of their social benefits. Obviously I don't enjoy paying these completely unanticipated costs, but it could definitely be a lot worse. I keep thinking of how my situation could be reversed if I was a foreigner under a similar situation in the U.S., and based on the execution of our super-cher med system, I don't think I'd be as lucky. I'm simultaneously knocking as wood as I'm writing this, since nothing's over until my departure on June 10th :)

Finances aside, I've also been pleased with the medical care I've received. Sure I spent forever waiting around at the hospital for news & was a bit frustrated at times ... but that's normal for hospitals everywhere. My anesthesia, surgery, and follow-up visits have all been great - of course they weren't enjoyable, but from what I can tell, the quality was good. I was particularly impressed to have received a call two days after my surgery to set up a follow-up visit with an orthopedic doctor. So I went to that appointment this morning, where they informed me that it was very clean & healing well but that we need to wait another few days to take out the stitches. Unfortunately I'd jumped the gun and bought train tickets to go South this weekend, but I can reschedule those without a problem. So the nurse at my school who's been treating me will take out the stitches on Monday and then I should be able to continue with my little shoe, minus the bandages, for the next 5 weeks. Ugh but 5 weeks will be interesting with this shoe ... I've (almost) gotten over the asthetic/fashion aspect, but I'm already thinking of how painful it's going to be to lug my 100+ pounds of baggage back to the US on June 10th. I keep picturing myself falling out of the train while trying to get my bags out with one good foot. I know we've all probably cussed at those huge golf cart-like cars that whizz through the airports with high-speed priority ... but I'm honestly not opposed to the option ... we'll see how I feel :) Anyway the doctor today scheduled another follow-up appointment in three weeks ... it's technically on June 9th, the day before I leave. But if my foot feels fine at that point, then I'm just going to continue to wear the shoe, cancel the appointment, and wait to go to a doctor in the U.S. two days later. Ohhh and I got some more specifics on the injury - I cut (broke? I don't know what term works here) the tendon that makes my big toe bend! Based on how dead this toe has felt the past two weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if the little guy never works the same again ... we'll see, yiikes! But it feels pretty darn good to ditch the crutches and walk with my special shoe, woowoo!

Et, voila, I'll leave you with a picture of my shoe and I:

Best Breton Bar Ever!

After 7 months I think I've finally found one of the best, authentic Breton bars in Rennes! Well as far as authenticity goes, I'm obviously no expert, but I loved the atmosphere in this place. On Monday night Andrea and I went downtown to see a small group play live Irish music. We know someone who plays in the group, and they usually give small, informal, free performances on Sunday nights at the local Irish pub. But this time it was at a different bar, and it was great. We, of course, scoped out the accessibility of the place since I was still on crutches, and it passed my test. Well, I've given up on the possibility of actually being able to use the bathrooms in bars (lots of them happen to be at the bottom of intimidatingly tight/twisty stairs ... not kosher with my crutch/funky shoe combo) but other than that, I've been able to get around pretty well. We had a couple of pints of Coreff Breton beer and enjoyed the live music for a few hours. And the weather here has been gorgeous lately - upper 60s/low 70s and light out until almost 10pm, so that made for a very enjoyable evening. Bien sure, quelques photos :


Check out the dried sausage hanging from
wall for sale, far right :

Per keeping with the Breton/Celtic lore, a

wizard's cape hangs above the bar :

Hobbling home after a good night:

Jordan's Visit!

As I’ve already mentioned, the seriously bad timing of my little injury coincided with Jordan’s trip to Europe and our planned travels to Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. I called him from the hospital on Saturday, after I learned that I couldn’t do much of anything for the next two weeks, and asked him if he wanted to cancel his flight or something. He was like, “My flight’s in four hours, so I’m coming.” What a trooper, haha! He’d already bought a Eurostar ticket from London to Paris, and our plan was to meet in Paris but that obviously wouldn’t work anymore. “I’m going to call some people, look up some stuff online, send a few emails, then you can call me back in 30 minutes and I’ll have a plan of what I’m doing.” Thank you, Jordan Shane – I honestly don’t know anyone else who could have handled this as coolly as you. So his plan was to come to Paris from London and then try to find a train to Rennes … basically I had no clue when I’d hear from him or see him again. But Andrea had called her friend in Paris, who had agreed to meet Jordan and let him spend the night at her place if needed … so we had a back-up plan!

Sunday night I was back at home and got a message from a random Belgian cell phone saying that Jordan would be in Rennes at 7:30 that night. I’m still not sure how he did it – even for someone who knows Paris & speaks French, it would be tight to arrive at Gare du Nord at 4, buy a ticket to Rennes, and get on a train from Montparnasse at 5 – but he did it! Then operation-pick-up-jordan-at-Rennes-gare started. My roommates & I couldn’t go into town to get him, so Andrea called her Chilean friend who kindly volunteered to go to the train station, find him, take the metro to the bus, and then put him on the right bus to my place. So Jenny and her boyfriend spent about 20 minutes asking random strangers if they were Jordan – turned into quite the fiasco. I was on the phone with Jordan, trying to describe to him the people who were looking for him, while Andrea was on the phone with her friends trying to pass along my description of Jordan. Well it worked and he eventually showed up!

I can’t say that I was too exciting the first couple of days he was here, with the weird side effects from the medication, having trouble sleeping, etc. He got to know my two remaining roommates, Andrea and Maria, pretty well, went to the grocery store with them, spent some time online to figure out his travel plans, etc. One day he took the bus by himself to Mont St. Michel and then we met up downtown that night to eat at a creperie. I think he enjoyed his ham/cheese galette and chocolate crepe, or in his words “this is awesome – the best parts of breakfast for dinner!” Then we had drinks outside on the “Rue de la Soif” – bar street, glad that Jordan got to see that part of Rennes a bit. Oh yeah did I mention it has turned beautiful here – like 70’s, sunny, light outside until at least 9:30? Mmhhmm nothing like superb timing.

On Jordan’s last night here we had some friends over for drinks (Andrea & Jordan's now-famous caipiroskas), which of course turned into Jordan teaching everyone how to play Raznick’s Rollers (or something like that) – a drinking game involving dice, a table, and a bowl/dish, invented by he and his Milwaukee buddies, of course. I think he loved getting to meet some of my international friends, and I’ll be surprised if there’s not a new “Chilean Rule” initiated into the game of Raznick’s Rollers. They also had a rather lively debate about the pros & cons of the giant beachside swimming pool at a resort in Chile (Jordan being a huge fan of it and Andrea being completely against it as an unathentic tourist trap). Through a strange mix of Spanish, English, and French, Andrea & Jordan seemed to get along really well ... great because the three of us would have traveled really well together ... and sad because we didn't have the oppotunity. Well, I'm still holding out for the future - who knows! He left Thursday morning to spend two days in Paris before flying to Seville and then onto the coast of southern Spain. Needless to say, I’m jealous. I don’t know many other people who could do solo travel for a week, but Jordan can talk to pretty much anyone. Stay tuned for some of his travel stories – I’m expecting details so that I can live vicariously!

Rousing Game of Raznick's Rollers at our place ...

20 Hours in a French Hospital, woowoo

*Warning: Don’t scroll down if you’re scared of a few bloody pictures*
My karma is officially pissed off at me. Two days after officially finishing my teaching contract, I end up in the hospital in Rennes. Nothing like impeccable timing … 2 days after my insurance here enters “questionable” status, 2 days before the arrival of Jordan from the US, and 3 days before our flight to Portugal for my open-ended May travels.

I bought tickets to go to a multi-group, outdoor concert on Friday night at a nearby university; it’s called Rock n Solex and it’s a four day event featuring “solex” motorbike races among students during the day and concerts in a big tent outside at night. First we went to a friend’s apartment for aperitif hour to meet up with everyone before the concert, and then all walked over together. The atmosphere at the concert was pretty crazy –tons of people everywhere, with what seemed like very little security or control. Anyway, Andrea and I got separated from our group at the entrance because everyone was pushing, etc, and it was chaotic. So as we were “waiting in the line” or lack thereof, I apparently stepped on a broken beer bottle and got a piece of glass stuck in my left foot. It entered pretty deeply – through my Converse and everything! I immediately sat down in the grass nearby and took off my shoe, which was completely soaked in blood. Pretty gross, sorry but here are some pictures.

Beginning of the night, then an hour later ...

A first-aid staff person came over right away and tried to clean my foot off a little bit, then determined that I needed to be taken by stretcher to the medical tent. I was begging for them not to use the stretcher because that’s super embarrassing … seriously, it’s like being in the middle of MusicFest (for you Memphians) and being carried away on a stretcher = not cool. Even thought I knew like 15 people out of thousands at the concert. But it was the only option, so they carried me over to the medical tent where some friendly nursing students consoled me while waiting for the ambulance. At this point the pain honestly wasn’t too bad, so I didn’t think it was all that serious, beyond having to remove the chunk of glass and getting a few stitches. One of the workers was even kidding around with me, saying hopefully the paramedics would be cute. So two paramedics arrived (one of which was pretty cute!) and drove me to the hospital. Andrea was with me during all of this, but had left a few minutes earlier to go get my French insurance card and then met me at the hospital She’s awesome – actually flagged down cars to drive her to our place for the card and then to the hospital. Now that’s an amazing friend!

The awkwardness of the stretcher ...

I stayed in the emergency room area at the hospital for about 4 hours, and the nurses there were really friendly. I still wasn’t in too much pain, but they gave me an IV for the night, and then finally removed the piece of glass; it had entered between my big toe and the toe next to it. Here are some glory shots of me in the emergency room, once again, sorry for the gore, but it's been well-documented :

They had me spend the night at the hospital, so that the surgeon could look at my foot in the morning and determine if I needed surgery. Andrea didn’t want to go home, but the nurses finally made her leave around 4am or so. I guess I slept through the night and then woke up in the morning when the surgeon wanted to have a look at my foot. He said he didn’t think there was much damage but they needed to perform exploratory surgery anyway. Surgery in France? Sure, why not! Ugg so the surgery was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life … yuuuck. I had anesthesia in my leg & foot, but they explained that my foot wouldn’t be completely “dead” to touch – rather, I still had sensation in my foot but couldn’t feel pain in it. I don’t know how to accurately describe it, but it was gross being awake through all of that … ewww. So after the surgery the surgeon explained that the glass had entered deeply enough to cut a nerve and tendon; so they fixed those and then sewed the foot up.

I obviously was really disappointed with this news because it was more serious than I originally thought. What it means is two weeks on crutches without walking on the bad foot, a week of antibiotics, 10 days of a daily shot (which my roommate is giving me!) to avoid blood-clotting, a month wearing a funky orthopedic shoe (with a 3 inch heel so avoid putting my toes on the ground), and 2-3 months without running. Bummmer. But the most disappointing factor was the horrible timing with all of this. Jordan arrived two days after this happened, and he, Andrea, and I had already bought tickets to fly from Paris to Portugal, then from southern Spain back to France. So he obviously had to drastically change his plans but has been amazingly awesome about it. It just really sucked for all 3 of us, but everyone’s being positive about it.

So anyway I was able to leave the hospital Saturday night around 10pm, and my two roommates have been taking care of me ever since. And Jordan was able to get a train to come to Rennes for a few days, so it was awesome to have him here, even if circumstances were a bit strange! More to come on all of that … just wanted to give the medical update! So for now, I'm taking it easy, hobbling around a bit on awkward French crutches, and not doing much else for now.

French Haircut, Round Two

On Friday I finally got around to getting another haircut, and I thought that would be my most “interesting” French interaction of the day … but, oh no, it gets better. Anyway, I had a rather uneventful (but loooong) haircut. For some crazy reason this place doesn’t take appointments but is always full of walk-ins … not the most efficient process, so I was there for almost 4 hours (well, this includes a slight misunderstanding when I unintentionally lost my place in line by going to the bathroom in the salon while waiting). But I got home and realized I kinda got bangs!!! Yiiikes, see below for proof! But they’re only “drastic bangs” when intentionally styled that way, so this will probably be the only picture you’ll see like this.

Last Classes

I got back to Rennes from England to technically finish the last 3 days of my teaching contract … nothing too exciting to report since I only had about 2 hours of class to do in these 3 days. So I had my last classes with certain groups of students last week. My favorite group at Chateau brought some treats to celebrate my last day – it was so cute! I worked with several of them in Prom organization last semester, and they’ve always been really enjoyable to work with, so it’s a bit sad to say bye to them. We took a few pictures at the end of the class, and I’ve just noticed that one student put up a Facebook album – “Saying bye to Molly.” How cute is that?! It’s cool to feel that I actually established good relationships with this group. Here's a pict with one of my favorite groups: