So Wednesday the 28th of October, Elisa Faison prepared a heavenly Mexican feast for a group of us at her house. It was seriously the best present ever, since I’ve been craving Mexican food since the day after arriving here. French cuisine is still superb, don’t get me wrong, but at times it lacks variety, and Mexican was EXACTLY what I needed. The evening was a lot of fun; Forest’s French brother Benoit and his girlfriend came to the party as well, making it a legitimate French party, and we all had a lot of fun dancing, drinking margaritas, and trying to teach Benoit how to make the “th” sound. To no avail. Thursday, after helping Elisa clean up her house, Hanna and I headed to the bus station to wait for Jonathan, who ended up arriving around 2:30pm after traveling around 13 or 15 hours. We took him for a walk in le Jardin des Plantes, around the Chateau, into the Cathedral, all of our favorite Nantes haunts. He was obviously impressed. 
He came back and got to see our apartments, and then after a while we headed to the Creperie Heb Ken where we continued to impress Jonathan with our knowledge of French cuisine, advising him as to which crepes were best to eat, what kind of cider to get, etc. We also took him to get the best gelato that exists in the world. Then we met up with Horace and headed to the L’Hurluberlu, our neighborhood bar, where we met up with Forest of Sewanee. Jonathan and Forest used to live across the hall from each other Freshman year. Anyway. Talked a bit. Shared a funny moment where Forest realized he’d stepped in dog crap (a frequent occurrence in France.) After an hour or so we parted ways, Jonathan going home with Horace who graciously offered him a place to stay.
The next morning, we got up around 10. Hanna and I bought the boys some pain au chocolate, which we shared before heading to the train station for our 9 hour train ride to Avignon. This ride was a bit stressful, us having no reserved seats. We at times ended up sitting on the floor. All in all though it was pleasantly passed. It is so much more enjoyable to take a train with friends than to take a train alone.
We got in Avignon a little late, checked in to our hotel, which was excellently located but a bit ridiculous (the walls were painted bright, bright bizarre colors and the beds were all CRAZY old and droopy and had cardboard underneath the mattresses in an attempt to add support. Also, Jonathan ended up getting bit by bed bugs, I’ve been informed.)
Then we walked around. Avignon was a little crazy, it being Holiday week, and there were lots of people wandering around drunk. So the first night we didn’t stay out too late.
Our first full day in Avignon, which was actually Halloween, we got up and headed to the Palais des Papes. It was very interesting, incredibly large. I loved best the rooms where they hadn’t added a history exhibit of any sort and it was easier to imagine what it would have looked like when lived in. I find it really amazing all of the different monuments humans have built over time. Then we headed to the Pont d’Avignon. I was so glad to be there – I’ve sung the song my whole life. I got to read all about St. Benezet and how half of the bridge was swept away centuries ago in a large flood. We, of course, all danced on the bridge, finishing with a lovely Charlie Brown style dance. 
That night we went to get kabobs for dinner and loaded The Nightmare Before Christmas and It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, our only Halloween celebration consisted of watching those movies. I was a little homesick, it being the first year I’ve ever failed to dress up, carve a pumpkin, eat chili, and a number of other traditions.
The next day, we spent almost all day at the Jardin des Domes, a garden that sits atop a green hill next to the Pope Palace. It was very beautiful, full of happy French families and swans and a friendly cat. We walked around, and stopped in a church for All Saint’s Day. I bought a candle to light on behalf of the holiday. It’s strange because I was sort of kind of raised Catholic, in my early early years, and I still feel a very strong attachment at times to all of the rituals. Especially when in Europe.
We made sure to go back to the Jardin des Domes to watch the sunset. This is what it looked like:
That night, we had a more expensive meal at a nearby restaurant. It was more expensive but fairly mediocre. We also rode a carousel! Which was wonderful! And then we went to a nice bar called the Red Sky for drinks. Which was fun. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel room and stayed up for most of the night talking. About lots of serious things, like religion and relationships. It was very wonderful, and it felt so nice to have my two besties together.
Then came the long train ride home, this time Hanna and I alone. One of our trains had a weird spazatack climbing up a mountain which was slightly alarming; I would have been more scared if Hanna and I weren’t in such a goofy mood. Anyway, this made us ten minutes late, which caused us to miss our next train, which caused us to have an hour and a half lay over, but as a result we got to take a double decker train the rest of the way to Nantes. Which I enjoyed a lot.
And then.
We were back in Nantes!
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