Yup, I got a black eye...

Hi all, again I am so sorry that I am a failure at blogging but meh what can I do!?  Haha, all is well over here in Angrytown, but I am way behind so I have a lot to catch up on!

First will start with the continuation of my trip to Holland even though that was almost a month ago haha!  So after spending time in Amsterdam with the cousins I journeyed to Tilburg where my second set of parents, Gijs and Jose, live.  It was so wonderful to feel like I was at home again!  It feels like I never left.  While I was there Jose took time off work to hang out with me which was super nice!  The first day we went and saw Middelburg, a town about 45 min by train from Tilburg.  This town was absolutely beautiful but what else can you expect from Zeeland (the region).  The most amazing thing to me is that this town was nearly completely destroyed by bombs during WWII, but has been rebuilt in the historic fashion so you can even tell.  Jose and I took a tour of the town hall and then we took a walking tour of the city.  All of it was in Dutch, but Jose was nice enough to translate for me and one of the guides spoke French so I got part of the tour in French which was a surreal experience to be speaking French in Holland.  We walked around and had lunch outside because it was such a lovely day and then made our way back to Tilburg.  The next day Jose and went to the museum of modern art in Tilburg which I didn't like too much but there were a few pieces that were good.  Overall I think that modern art is bullshit (excuse my french ;p).  I think that if anyone can do it, then it isn't special and I don't really care to see it, but maybe I just don't understand it haha!

Then Jose and I took the bikes that we were riding to a small town called Oisterwijk which is beautiful and we had an excellent lunch in this awesome restaurant.  We ended up biking a total of 25km that day, I was so tired by the end of it and of course it was nothing for Jose haha!  I got to have dinner with Tanne that night at her house which was lovely and a great time to catch up.

Getting home was a tricky situation all on its own.  I had ordered the tickets for my trip in France and had gone to the gare (train station) here to collect them before I left.  I stupidly didn’t check to see that they had given me all the tickets that I needed and of course they didn’t give me my tickets for the way home.  I realized this on the train on the way to Holland, and I figured it shouldn’t be a big deal and that I would be able to pick them up at a train station in Holland.  Oh boy was I wrong…apparently you can only get the tickets at a SNCF gare in France and if I wanted my tickets the people at the Dutch train station told me that I would have to go back to get my tickets to go back to France…awesome.  After much anger, hitting of my computer and 40 extra euros I was on the exact same train as I was supposed to be on before and made it home no problem.  Viva la France…

Getting back to Angers was back to work as usual, nothing really too exciting there except for the fact that I actually got to teach my own classes for once which was both terrifying and exciting and I am seeming to do pretty well because at the end of most of the classes the students seem sad to leave.  After a week back in Angers I got my first real bought of homesickness so I decided to take a trip to Nantes to visit my friend Lindsey who always makes me feel better.  Away I went and it was just what I needed.  It was a weekend of little sleep and lots of good times in which I met a lot of cool people and laughed until I cried!  We went out a couple of times in downtown Nantes which was fun, the only problem was that Lindsey lives 40 mins outside of Nantes and we missed the last tram, so we had to walk home in the rain, but it was worth it for a great of randomly talking to French people in a local pub.

            More to come in the next couple of days, I am too tired to keep writing!  Pictures will be added too!

Revenir d'une blogger perdue!

Hey everyone, as you can tell I have been horrible at actually blogging about my life here so I think that it is time for another update about my adventures, but first we have to go back to go forward.

First of all is an update about my birthday, which was totally last minute but ended up being really awesome (to all of you who sent me cards, thanks so much they were wonderful).  First my friend and neighbor Pierre-Henri took me to go play pool at this cool bowling/pool bar downtown and we hung out together for awhile and then me and 6 of my friends all went to this really cool international restaurant called the Coba Lodge.  It is located on the roop top of the Quai, one of the big music theaters in Angers.  It is a really cool modern building and you have to take an outdoor elevator in which you can see the city to get to the restaurant.  The coolest thing about this restaurant is that you can literally get whatever food you want which is great for a large group because everyone can get what they want.  I had the wok, which at first I made really bland on accident because I forgot that a little bit spicy in France means NO TASTE AT ALL.  So I went back to the wok man and took his chile sauce and poured it all over my food, the French people around me looked at me like I was crazy as usual.

This restaurant I guess tries to be really hip or what not because it is on the top of a theater or something because it has free entertainment that is different each night of the week.  Sadly our night was the most ridiculous entertainment I have ever seen.  It wasn't really a show or anything, but rather, yes you guessed it, an overly flamboyant, gay, French masseur!  Whoever told this man that he should give massages was LYING and or dead because it was so bad.  My friend Bekah decided to get her free massage and as the process began we all couldn't help but start to laugh as he started tapping up and down her body with his hands and lifting his legs in the air in some sort of weird massage dance trance.  

Bekah loves to play tricks on people, so of course she decided that it would be a wonderful idea to tell the masseur that it was my birthday and that I would LOVE a massage.  Therefore he pulled me over and gave me the longest and worst massage ever.  I had to stifle my laughs as I endured 20 min in awkward hell where he gently whispered "Je touche, je touche, je touche" in my ear.  Thanks Bekah.

At this time the grêve was still going on, so I was still not having to go to work and nothing much really happened until I went to Holland.  Which brings us up to date with my last post...sort of.

Well after the train debacle on the way to Amsterdam, I finally made it to Silva's house only 1 hour late but she was a sweetheart and came and got me at the train station anyways.  Her house and her roomates were lovely and it was like I had never left two years ago!  We ended up staying up all night talking and catching up which was probably not the best idea for Silva since she had to wake up at 7 am the next morning to go to work.

The next day while Silva was at work, Freekje came to entertain me and seeing her was like seeing my reflection as usual.  We decided to do what else but shopping!  The only problem is that we only had one bike so we had to do the thing where I sit on the thing that is over the back tire while she rides.  The only problem is that you have to get on when the bike is moving and I am horrible at this, but somehow we made it to where we were going without dying.
We then went to this really cool little store and bought some food to make a wonderful dinner of greek salad, hummus and bread, and homemade pumpkin soup (so good Freekje is an amazing cook)!  I decided to roast the pumpkin seeds since Freekje had no idea you could do that but she didn't end up liking them haha.

Later that night Freekje and I decided that we wanted to go out to a bar so she took me to this bar called Bubbles in the middle of town that doesn't really let in tourists so I had to pretend that I was Dutch which meant no talking and pretending to understand the bouncer.  Somehow I got in and experienced a crazy packed bar full of people dancing their asses off.  Apparently Amsterdam is the place to be because bars don't close until something like 6 am or something ridiculous like that.  Silva ended up meeting us and we partied all night until 5am.  Again we had one less bike than was necessary so I had to play the sit-on-the-back-of-the-bike game, but this time I was drunk so it was obviously a FAIL!  Silva's apartment is a good 30 min by bike from the pub and she biked ahead so that she could make a phone call.  That left me and Freekje to find our own way...again FAIL.  We are about half way into our journey and the bike completely breaks.  Freekje is pissed and throws the bike in the middle of the street and yells that she will pay anyone 10 euro to take the bike.  Needless to say no one wants our shitty bike and I am laughing up a storm so I try to pick up the bike and all that comes with me is the handle bars.  We start roaring in laughter and pick up the rest of the bike and start our trek home.

Freekje was a little upset still so she told me to tell her story to take her mind off of things.  For some reason the only thing that comes into my mind is a story about a bunny who is running away from a hunting party in the woods...bleak I know.  Some poor guy on his way to work (because remember it is now 5:30am) sees two girls walking their bike and talking about hunting bunnies and decides to stop.  Thankfully he did because Freekje and I had no idea where the hell we were going.  He walked us the rest of the 15min  home and we fell into bed not to wake up until 2:30 the next day.

The next day was less interesting, we woke up watched bad television and then Freekje had to leave back to Utrecht to study for exams so Silva and I decided to have a romantic fondue dinner date.

I then journied to Tilburg to see the rest of the fam, but I will update about that later since you have already read a lot.