Blah Blah Blah (continued)

Later Thursday afternoon, they younger sister in my host family asked if I wanted to go out to eat with her and some friends and possibly go out after. I checked my day planner and as luck would have it, that window of time was wide open. Naturally, I agreed. When we got to the restaurant I realized why she hadn't given me any details about the outing. My company for the evening consisted of my sister and 12 of her female classmates from beauty school. That's it. We had a nice long table for 14 on the terrace in the busy part of town and I was right in the middle. I'm pretty sure every guy that walked by gave me an envious look of approval. You know the one with the little smirk and one eyebrow half raised. This is typical French behavior. In fact, as I was leaving the restaurant, two guys sitting at a bar near the restaurant flagged me down to ask me how I managed to score dinner with eight girls. I responded nonchalantly, "thirteen." Anyway, towards the end of dinner the girls randomly started singing vulgar songs together as if we were sitting around a campfire. Completely ignorant of other people around us, the songs kept getting louder and more obnoxious. Again, this behavior is not uncommon among the French. Within 10 minutes, a large table of all guys sitting around the corner from us in the restaurant started singing as well. This logically turned into a competition because guys cannot be outdone by girls, and vice versa. Don't forget about me. All along, I'm just sitting there in the middle of the girls table, unfamiliar with any of the lyrics to these songs. Needless to say, it was quite the evening. The singing eventually stopped when the owner came over and told us to shut up (not exactly those words but you could tell he meant business). After dinner, I dragged them all over to l'Alexandra for a drink. I said hi to the owner and bartenders and acted as if the situation was commonplace.

Friday night was much less eventful. I went back into town and didn't find anyone to talk to at l'Alexandra. I didn't want to turn around and go home just yet so I decided to call the bouncer's friends from a couple nights before (that's the beauty of meeting people in random situations). They happened to be nearby so we met up. We went to a little mini mart and bought a bottle of vodka and some mixers, found a bench to chill on, and talked the night, and the bottle, away. That should have been more than enough, but at the time it seemed like a good idea to go out to the club and dance a little. We did just that, but not before getting another bottle. I stumbled home an hour later. Or at least I started to, when I got a text message from a friend that I hadn't seen in five years (I never thought I'd say that. Does that mean I'm getting old?). Turns out she was in town and wanted to see me. I warned her of my condition but she insisted. We met up just long enough for her to realize that I wasn't lying. That was fine; she had turned into a French hippie anyway. Wow, what a fascinating breed. They're like a mix between our college know-it-all hippies and our low-life Star Wars/video game hippies. They all have these loose-fitting colorful hemp hippie pants. The guys have long hair that has been untouched for weeks. They hang out in crowds (usually by water). They blend in astoundingly well with the the surrounding bums, which hover around them like flies on a rhino. They worship Bob Marley and Kurt Cobain but somehow take a liking to techno and trance music. They smoke and drink their nights away while blindly debating views of politics that they've unknowingly been force-fed by the media. They have a strange obsession with fire, juggling, and twriling things around, and love experimenting with any combination of the three. I have never encountered a group of individuals that are so unsure of who they are. It's mind numbing. I'll have more on them later.

Getting out of bed on Saturday was slow and unpleasant, headache and all. I had lunch with the host family and was served my daily dose of mocking and friendly criticism for staying out so late and drinking. After eating, I packed a backpack for my next adventure and looked online at the schedule of trains to Paris. In doing so, I fell asleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. I woke up 30 minutes before the train I had decided on was scheduled to leave. In spite of the fact that the train station is a 40 minute walk from the house and I didn't even have a ticket yet, I calmly said goodbye to my family and walked out the door. Although relatively insignificant, the following series of events whether coincidence or pure chance, is a prime example of why I started this blog. I was strangely unconcerned with the time and walked only slightly faster than my regular pace. Five minutes into my walk, I came upon the one bus that went from where I was to where I was going. It was stopped at the bus stop just long enough for me to get to it (without rushing), thanks to a stoplight. Less than ten minutes later, I arrived at the train station which was unusually deserted for that time of day and this time of year. I stood in line for my ticket for less than five minutes, which on any other day would have been 10 to 15. I walked to the train and the doors closed behind me. When I got to Paris, I made my way to the metro that would get me to the next train station. Once at this station, there was absolutely no line. Having absolutely no idea when the next train was, I asked for a ticket. The lady behind the window told me to hurry because there was one leaving within the next couple minutes. I did just that, hopped on, and again the doors shut behind me. When I arrived, my cousins were there waiting for me. Under no circumstance could I have made it any faster from my host family's house in Tours to my cousins' place outside of Paris. From there, we went straight to a friend's house for dinner and drinks until about one in the morning when we left for the club. That night can best be described by the pictures on facebook (Paris-Vegas album) so I'm not even going to try. I woke up Sunday afternoon and made the trip back to Tours where I spent the next few days relaxing and recovering.