La Rochelle

Howdy. So this past week I've been keeping rather busy. Wednesday night was Celine's Birthday. We made her a huge surprise birthday dinner (I made cupcakes) and then we went our for a drink at L'Havana bar. Thursday I worked like usual and it was Noreen's birthday so in the evening we went out to the bars again. I awoke early Friday to do some laundry with Pamela before catching a train to La Rochelle for the weekend. When I was pulling my laundry out of the dryer Pamela informed me that we only had 20 mins before we were suppose to be leaving (I hadn't packed, nor showered, nor put my contacts in, nor done my make-up, NOTHING, I was still in my pajamas!!), so I ran home with my laundry, dumped it onto my bed, grabbed a big pile of it and throw it into a suitcase, then threw my make-up in. I literally had no idea what I had packed. We opened up my suitcase once we got on the train to see what I had ended up with and needless to say we all got a good laugh out of it. Thankfully it had all the necessities (like socks, undies, toothbrush, ect), but lacked certain things like a towel, jacket, scarf, ect. Thankfully the weekend was lovely so the missing jacket and scarf weren't that big of a deal. Friday afternoon after we'd arrived in La Rochelle we checked into our hostel and then went to wander the town which is right along the Atlantic Ocean and lined with every size yacht one could imagine. We stopped at a Creperie (a place that makes crepes and sells coffee) for some crepes and ice cream along a pier and people watched for a while. The weather was gorgeous: bright, warm and full of sunshine. We returned to the hostel (which is a 2km walk from the center of town) after picking-up/meeting some other friends at the train station. We got dressed for an evening on the town, then headed back into town to grab some dinner (at a restaurant along the boardwalk) before meeting up with a group of La Rochelle assistants at a bar called "Le Mauvais Garcon" (the bad boy). We had a couple drinks there before heading to another bar/dance club called "the Piano Pub", we spent the rest of the evening dancing there. It was packed with people and the bar had apparently never heard of A/C because it was sauna hot in there. The moment you walked into the club the sweat starts pouring. We retired early (if you consider 2am early) knowing that we had a lot of places to see and visit the following day. Saturday wasn't the nicest weather in the morning. A thick, thick fog had set in during the night and it took it until around 1pm before the sun was able to burn it off. So the beginning of the day was spent shopping at various stores around town (in order to avoid the cold and the sprinkling rain) instead of at the beach like originally planned. I bought some new boots, a scarf and avaitor sunglasses. The afternoon was warm and sunny however so we caught a "water taxi" (a hourly ferry) back to the hostel and threw on some clothes for the beach. We played some games at the beach and then some of the group decided to go swimming (they were crazy, there was no way I was going in that water, it might have been warm out, but with the wind blowing it was still pretty chilly and necessary to wear a light sweater). After the beach we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the evening. We were meeting up with the La Rochelle assistants again, but this time at the beach (not the one close to us, but on the otherside of town) for some pre-gaming drinks before the bars. Drinking wine on the beach was lovely and some guy had built this huge sand turtle (the turtle was wearing armour, kind of like mario brother turtles) and the man had put lit candles in the eyes so it looked totally amazing. That night we visited a few bars before ending up at the Piano Pub again to spend the evening dancing until 4am (so we didn't make it back to the hostel until 5am...it was a very long night). We awoke bright and early Sunday morning to make the most of our time left at the coast. We decided to spend the day at the beach since it was extremely warm. This was a gorgeous day spent at the beach and I have the sunburns to prove it (everyone else got tan, I only got red). Of course on Sundays there is nothing to do in France, because everything is closed (except in tourist towns like La Rochelle and Paris, but still practically everything was closed so the pickings are slim), so everyone in town was at the beach soaking up the rays (and in case you didn't know, public nudity at beaches isn't frowned upon in France, in fact it is highly accepted so needless to say you see a lot more at the beach then you really want to). We caught a 6pm train home to Angouleme and thus ended the weekend at the coast.

The weather over here right now is gorgeous and warm (sunny and in the 70s), so we've been staying busy. Today I went to the gym first thing to workout, then to Auchan (which is a huge mall) to buy some tennis rackets and later on Celine and me went to play tennis. Tomorrow I'll be staying busy with classes all day and then Celine and me are having another match of tennis tomorrow. Wednesday dad gets into town so I'll be busy coming up with ways to entertain him while he's here visiting. TTYL. LoveYa. Katie