Day Seven: “Boring like the Musée”

29 Dec. 2009

Bonjour!

[Still currently Day Eleven, but once again… :D you should be an expert at pretending it’s the actual day now. Does it help when I include the day I was *actually* supposed to post this?]

This morning, Dad and I woke up at 8:something, and began a quest for a boulangerie/patisserie for breakfast. We wandered through Port Fréjus, looking at all the sailboats and (few) yachts.

Nathalie and Olivier came to pick Dad and I up at the hotel at 10:30 so we could go pick up our rental car. Like every other car in France, it’s a stick shift… which Dad hasn’t driven in a while, so combined with the insanity of French driving, I didn’t ride with him immediately.

Olivier rode with Dad to remind him how to drive (not sure how that went, as Olivier doesn’t speak much English) and show him the way to Carrefour, which is like Wal-mart but Carrefour has a centre commercial attached (kinda like a mini-mall with a huge Wal-mart stuck on). They were just showing us around so we would know where to find all my school supplies.

After we finished up at Carrefour, we drove to the Chasson’s apartment to eat lunch and pick up Quentin. They had me try a lichi (not sure about the spelling), which I did NOT like (I’m fairly certain it’s some sort of citrus? It’s this tiny little bumpy pink fruit, the center is white), so of course Dad and Olivier thought it would be funny to take a picture of me tasting a lichi.

We all piled into the Chasson’s car and drove up to Fréjus-Centre  (downtown Fréjus), where we popped into the Office de Tourisme to pick up maps before walking up to the main square. The main square is based around a Cathedral, which is right next to what is now the mayor’s office.

The nativity scene at the cathedral; those are santons that are about 2 feet tall.

  We were walking through the Christmas village; the peach building is the mayor’s office.

  Once we’d looked around the main square of Fréjus, we drove to my school, Lycée Albert Camus, and then down to Saint Raphaël-Plage, where we parked in an underground lot and made our way up to the Christmas village there in front of the Casino. Saint Raphaël is a resort-town; there was an ice-skating rink, shopping, the casino, and even a small antiques market, which Quentin insisted was boring, though I don’t think he thought it was so boring when we were teaching each other the words for things in our native languages. [He said the market was “boring like the Musée d’Orsay, to be precise.] xD

And then we had dinner (late, like 9 or 10) and discussed boring things like school, while watching French television, which is sometimes quite funny. :)

(Honestly, that’s what we did in the abbreviated form; I’m getting tired right now so I’m going to bed. Sorry for lack of elaboration!)

-Aly