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| The Fountain of Youth. |
On Sunday, we spent the afternoon with our colleague Margaret. She drove us west from Rennes to the Forest of Paimpont, It's one of the small parts remaining of the once-huge forests that covered most of northern Europe. Part of it is a protected nature reserve, but a lot of it is still owned by private individuals. More interestingly, Paimpont has been frequently identified by medieval and early modern authors as the magical forest of Broceliande, with ties to King Arthur and especially Merlin. There's a small Stone Age rock formation in the forest nicknamed "Merlin's Tomb" which we saw. There's also a little spring called the Fountain of Youth not far away that again is mentioned in various King Arthur legends.
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Matt and Aaron enjoying the forest.
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It was cool to walk around the forest a little bit; it was one of the few times this year when we've experienced (mostly-) pristine nature. It's hard to do in Europe because it's been densely settled for so much longer than North America and there are just fewer natural places left to enjoy than in the US. I'm sorry, too, that we waited so long in the year to finally go to Merlin's Forest and that we didn't spend more time there hiking around, but to be fair, it's very difficult to get there without a car (Sarah managed to do it when she came to visit, but she only was able to spend an hour or so there). Margaret also took us to a concert in the chapel of Rennes' hospital that afternoon. It was an acapella group, one of whose members she was friends with. They did a few older, Renaissance pieces but most of what they sang were modern 20th and 21st century works, some of which were quite fun. It was an enjoyable concert.
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Dinner with three pieces of furniture.
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Monday, Lisa and I were busy with last-minute errands and packing so Matt was on his own. We explained to him how to get to Dinard and Saint-Malo because he said he wanted to go to the beach. He got there and back OK and we hope he had a good time without us. While he was gone, Lisa and I went to campus to turn in our keys and say good-bye to whoever was there, especially our direct supervisor, Perrine. She was wonderful to work with/for and we'll certainly miss her. That night, once Matt returned, we all went to O'Connell's Pub for one last "English Club" night. Mainly, it was just our French friends who were there so it was a fun send-off to say good-bye to all of them.
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Final lunch at the apartment.
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Tuesday was the big day. Margaret came first thing in the morning to collect a coffee table we gave her as well as several boxes of things which we'd sold to the OSU person who's coming next year and which Margaret kindly agreed to store till his arrival in August. Next, we went to the laundromat to give a table and chair that we couldn't sell, along with our air mattress and some extra bedding, to the laundress. She had told us on Saturday that she could definitely find someone who would be able to use it (whereas almost anyone else we asked about it said we should just throw it away). She said she hates wasting things like that and would find a good home for it. It was sad to say good-bye to her because she's one of the nicest, friendliest people we met all year and always wanted to chat with us whenever we came in to do laundry. When we left, she even said that if we ever come back Cesson, she would be happy to let us stay in her house! After that, we dropped off a couple more boxes at the post office then I took Matt into central Rennes to catch his train to Paris while Lisa stayed at the apartment for the final walk-through with the property manager. It all went smoothly and by the time I returned to the apartment, the manager had finished.
Lisa and I went to the bakery to buy a last baguette and tart and say good-bye to the women who work there. We then had a make-shift (and kind of pathetic!) lunch sitting on the ground on the little patio behind our apartment. After lunch, we locked the apartment, put the key in our mailbox, then got our three huge suitcases and two carry-on bags on the bus to head downtown to the train station and begin our long journey home to the US.
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Almost all of our possessions in France,
ready for the trip home.
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