saturday

I mentioned to several people last night that we should get together the next day, take advantage of our temporarily unlimited tram pass and explore town. Twenty people showed up. One thing that I find interesting is the most common language tie between all the foreigners is English, and many of the other Europeans prefer to speak that when we hang out. So in awkward Franglish, we went to the Republique again and stumbled upon a gargantuan market of everything you can think of. We spent an hour wandering around, and I bought my first French crepes- with Nutella, mmmmm. Then we took the tram (which is new, quiet, energy efficient and sleek looking) to the furthest point possible, the east part of town, and hit up Aux Espace Naturel. It’s basically a preserved and city-slicker-éfriendly park, with tons of farm animals, a water museum, a stream and such. The weather was perfect, the scenery was beautiful, and after more than three hours we still didn’t see everything that we could have. I got to explain what cow tipping is, take a picture of my German friend touching a horse for the first time and had a dandelion flower necklace made for me: lovely.
I came back exhausted, and spent an hour outside relaxing on the grass. I love outside napping here, because there aren’t a lot of bugs, there aren’t stickers in the grass and it’s more than common to see people just hanging out under trees all the time. I ran into my friend Michel from Gabon and shared a quick dinner, and then I met up with the group again for round three of downtown exploration. We went again to the light show in Vieux Mans and wandered around checking out various places to hang out until the last tram left for the night. I was humbled by two cool Ukrainians, a girl who speaks four languages who has taken French less than a year than me but comprehends better than me and a guy who didn’t know what a washing machine was. We walked into five places, all different, and didn’t end up buying anything anywhere. There was the Irish place again, “Jazz” club playing techno, hippy- indie bar where everyone wore black, a fun place with great music that was too crowded, and lastly a place that literally had black lights and gargoyles inside for ambiance. Emily and I came back home with some energy still left and watched Kate & Leopold. Perfect day.