Our Week with Laura: Part One

A lost boot in the Rennes cathedral. The sexton did not
look pleased when I handed it to him.

Less than two days after Chris left, Laura arrived, so we didn't have much time to start missing American company!  We went to the market, bought food for the week, and then met Laura at the train station.  We came back to the apartment for our traditional baguette sandwich lunch, which allowed Laura to get over the transatlantic flight in a much more relaxing way than jumping head-first into Paris's best.  She had brought two pounds of jelly beans and some Reese's cups, and we dug in.  It rained most of the day, so we didn't do very much.  We cooked a traditional galette dinner so that Laura could know what our regional food was like and then went to sleep to prepare for Sunday sight-seeing.

Tulips at Thabor.

Abbey church by the Thabor Gardens.

Sunday, we ventured out into our very wet city and saw the major churches, educating Laura about the different architecture and time periods.  We went to the abbey church in front of it, which seemed to be a residence for homeless people, based on the man inside as well as the odor of the place.  We also went to the Thabor Gardens themselves, which are absolutely gorgeous and where a presidential polling station was very active.  Laura educated us about some electoral information since she works for and international electoral company and took lots of pictures of the process.  It was very good for us because otherwise we might have missed out entirely on the local election process.

Watching election results come in.

That evening, we went back into the city to Town Hall to watch the election results come in.  It was another local experience that also gave us the opportunity to see inside one of the city's great buildings.  We should have arrived a bit earlier to see if there would be more of a crowd, but still, it was very interesting to see the percentages come in and watch the people react a bit to them.

Some of the only blue sky Laura saw in France.

Monday I took Laura to Mont-St.-Michel, which was my fifth time there.  It was quite nice because it actually didn't rain there the entire time.  We visited some of the shops and made a thorough tour of the frigid abbey before eating our picnic lunch while watching the hoards of tourists arrive to storm the castle.  We were glad we got there early!  We didn't stay the whole day because we wanted to get back to see the opera highlights of Mozart's Don Giovanni in Rennes before English Club.  

A view of the opera house in Rennes.

The opera was all sold out, and Aaron was especially disappointed, but the woman at the desk said someone might come in with extra tickets.  A very nice lady came in with exactly three extra tickets, and she worked for some sort of organization that couldn't accept money.  We were able to enjoy the opera, and the tickets were a gift!  It was very good, and the space inside was also very pretty.  The other funny event was that two non-French girls beside me were in very intense concentration throughout the opera.  During one break though, one of them nudged me and asked if I was French.  I said no, American.  She said, "Well, I just can't understand anything they're singing!  Is it French or what?"  So I then explained that no, it was in fact in Italian.  I'm not sure she enjoyed the opera any more than before, but she was happy to know she wasn't crazy.

Aaron and Estelle at English Club.

We then went on to English Club where Laura got to meet Estelle, my friend who practices her English with me and with whom I get to practice my French.  We had a very good time discussing language, idioms, and other cultural information.  We didn't stay too terribly long, though, because we had to leave early for Paris Tuesday morning!

Aaron, Laura, and I all agreed that someday we should have houses with
wisteria growing on them.