Saturday I went to le Mont St Michel with MICEFA folks, it was about a 4 hour bus ride from Paris into the north of France. The bus ride was okay, it was beautiful to drive through the countryside, but of course a couple of girls would not shut up and I didn't get to sleep at all (I was up at 5 so that I would make it to MICEFA on time in case I couldn't get a bus, which I did). For those who don't know, le Mt-St-Mich is an 8th century abbey that is built on an island in the Atlantic (I guess it's in the Atlantic...), and there's a little town there around the abbey and everything. As soon as we got there, me, Cory, Cecile, and Elly decided to ditch everyone else from MICEFA, and we decided to go straight to the abbey, which turned out to be a good idea because we beat a huge group of people. It's really just amazing, I'm not sure I can describe the place in words because it's so much about the feeling you get walking around a place that's so old and so beautiful. It's just sort of incredible to think of what it must have been like in the 10th century when there were pilgrims and monks and who knows who else there. The view from the top of the island is amazing, too. We were so lucky to have amazing weather, too. After we toured the abbey, we walked around on the beach for a while, and it was wild because it's sand there, but it's really just mud because it's saturated all the time. We were there during low tide, but when the tide comes in, it comes right up to the bottom of the island. Unfortunately we couldn't stay to watch the tide come in, which was a bummer, but it was also quite fun to play around on the rocks and in the sand. It was great to get a vacation from Paris for a day, and Elly and Cory and I decided that we may go to Chartres this Saturday because it's so nice to have a break...
The way back wasn't bad, though those girls were annoying again...we didn't get back too late, but traffic getting back into Paris was awful because it was the rugby final and there were just tons of people. Elly came back with me to eat, we took the bus, and then I slept so well on Saturday night. Sunday I was supposed to go out with the same girls for lunch, but I woke up and Anne texted me and asked if I wanted to watch a rhythmic gymnastics competition, so I ended up doing that instead. It was totally awesome, I've never seen RSG in real life, so it was awesome. I'm going to go to some of Anne's competitions in November and December...I'm really excited about it! Afterward we went to Bois de Vincennes with Gregoire and sat by the lake for a while, it was really nice but it got a little chilly. I went home and failed at doing my homework...sigh.
Today has been really productive so far! I went to the Prefecture to do the carte de sejour, and I think I discovered the secret to making French bureaucracy workers not be mean to you...well, the first lady I talked to was not very nice, but then I went in and talked to this secretary guy, and I was very nice to him, and I shocked him by having all my documents...he asked me for them one by one, and he seemed so sure that he was going to stump me, but I had everything and more! Actually the problem came when he needed the attestation d'hebergement, which is the document that says that I have housing, and he couldn't accept what I had, and he even said 'C'est dommage,' as if he were disappointed by the fact that he could not help me, since I already had everything. He gave me an appointment for next Tuesday (I completely forgot that vacation starts then!) and then called Adrien at ACCENT and he's going to try to hurry the guy who's doing the attestation up so that I can have it by then. Anyway he turned out to be nice, I just kept smiling the whole time and being nice and having my documents, I guess that's how to not piss people off! I almost got lost trying to find the exit...it was a little silly.
I decided then to go to the Centre Pompidou to go to the library, but of course I forgot that it's not open before noon, so I thought I'd do my grocery shopping and write this blog. I'm working on uploading the pictures from MSM but of course I have almost 200 so it's taking a little while. I guess I should try to make it to the library this afternoon and I can take as much time as I want, so I guess I'll end the blog for now.
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