Bateau!

Bonjour!

So last weekend, amongst all my studying for finals, my family decided to take me boating on their sail boat! However, the weather took a turn for the worst about half way through our time on the water, and it started pouring! But, despite being soaking wet and cold, it was really fun! Here are some pictures of the experience....

Marie and Christophe

Guillaume

Guillaume, Christophe, Marie
The name of the boat is O hayo, which means Hello! in Japonese

There was some major boat tiltage...

However, although fun, I cannot say that sailing is my cup of tea...maybe it was the weather? But I don't see myself having the patience with all the ropes and cords and putting the sails up and taking them back down....after we were done on the water, we had to then get the boat out of the water, with a ginormous crane, get it on the trailer and park it at the yacht club where they keep it. Another hour in the pouring rain....i'm thinking it was the weather that turned me off of this sport...

crane to get the boat out of the water

attaching the boat....

and it's up!

the boat was then swung around to be placed down on the trailer...

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with final exams. All i can say is that I'm glad they're over. I mean they all went decently, but definitely not my best work, except my Middle East exam, which I dominated on :) Now it's officially SUMMER TIME!!

Wednesday night, my grammar professor, Madame de Pous, had us all over to her house for drinks and snacks - a good way to wind down the semester and say some good-byes. Afterwards I went to my friend Lisa's house for dinner. Excellent food and fun conversation. There was also a coworker of Lisa's host-dad there, who's name was Remy. And once I knew that, I had to tell him that I once had a fish named Remy...he got a kick out of that. Plus he was a young guy and had a pretty good sense of humor. He came back that small red fish are good on a barbeque...ha...ha.

For most of the day today, there isn't much going on. I tried sleeping in, but only made it to 8:30. I have a gelatto date downtown with some friends at 2, and then tonight is the big river boat dinner with IES. We all get to dress up and be fancy, so I'm pretty excited about that! No worries, pictures will be up! Probably by tomorrow, considering I have all this free time now!

Meanwhile, I'm going to attempt to put my bags together and tackle packing...it's going to be a task and I don't really want to do it, because that means I actually have to go home, which I'm super excited about, but it will be tough to say goodbye to the people here and this place that I love so much. Especially because everyone at IES is from all over the United States, and I probably won't see very much of them once I'm back home :( Good thing we all have cell phones and facebook!!

Have glorious Thursdays! Only 4 more days!

Kelsey