Highlights of the last three weeks (in no particular order):

- Hockey sur glace : I went with a couple of assistants to see the Angers Ducs play against some other team in France for the "demi-finale". Thankfully I had already seen a French ice hockey game in Grenoble, so I knew not to get my hopes up for any climactic fist-fights or any spectacular enthusiasm from the "pom-pom girls". Though they ultimately lost, it was still a fun time.

- Cointreau tour : Cointreau is a liquor that (they say) is popular world-wide (never heard of it), and is made right here in Angers! It's made from two types of orange rinds and beet alcohol, and is primarily used in margaritas and other cocktails. The tour was informative, interesting, and the tasting session of a shot and two cocktails served as our happy hour that day.





- Learning to drive : My boyfriend offered to teach me how to drive his manual stick-shift car so I took him up on it one morning. Not until I got into the drivers seat did I realize that I didn't know ANY of the vocabulary related to automatic cars in English, much less in French, so it quickly evolved into me irrationally freaking out and screaming at him in English while the car was snailing alone in the abandoned parking lot. He was a good sport about the whole ordeal and he eventually calmed me down enough to make it all the way up to third gear.

- Battle of the bands : A couple weekends back, we went to a nearby campus to watch bands battle for a spot in an upcoming concert. On the roster included what appeared to be a band inspired completely by Green Day (eye liner and strange facial expressions included), a fur-coat-clad band (they eventually stripped down to silk lacy tank tops for "un moment de poésie féministe"), and finished with a French hand-banging scream-o band (not my fave).



- Prolonged contract: Despite what some of my profs believed, I succeeded in prolonging my contract! I was planning on staying in Angers for the month of May anyways since I had to pay rent for my apartment (and wait for my mom and our friends to arrive in this part of the world to travel to Turkey!) and I'm so glad to hear that I'll actually have something to occupy my time with, even though it's only 11 hours a week.

- Spring!: The weekend before last it was BEAUTIFUL weather. My friend and I went to the market and the boulangerie and then plopped ourselves down to enjoy a nice little picnic next to La Maine for a casual 2.5 hours (I even got a little sunburn on my nose). Although the good weather didn't really stick, I'm hopeful that it might come back soon.



ming.