Yet another weekend passes

As I said in my last post, this weekend was a much needed change-of-pace. Saturday included sleeping in a little and then going out to the various markets with Alix (I know how to spell her name now) and then coming back for lunch, then I sat down to work on homework. Alix, on the other hand, (lucky girl) took her bike that she's renting around the town. I stayed in and that was nice, but trying to work on a presentation about pollution was not. I was up to my ears in articles about noise pollution, so much so that I was starting to believe that it was the noise of cars that was killing all the endangered species of frogs in Canada! Yes. There actually was an article about that.
Sunday, Alix and I went to Amboise and it was a little more expensive than I would have liked, but it was still really fun. I had visited there before (two years ago) and it was nice to go around at our own pace and visit the house where Leonardo DaVinci lived and did a lot of his work. That was probably the highlight of my weekend. The gardens surrounding the "chateau" were incredible... much like something you would see in an American park, with woods and pathways around bodies of water... much less organized than French gardens... But I loved it. The sun came out after a while and Alix and I picniced there... So incredible. We then had quite a dilemma as to when we should return because I didn't want to return too late, so we went back to the train station, looked at the times, found out that we had an hour to kill, so we traversed the bridge to "Ile d'Or" (literally translated "Gold Island") to walk around for a little while... But there wasn't really anything there. After that, we finally got back to Tours and went out for coffee and a pastery at a café that my director had deemed as one of the "temples" in Tours, basically meaning that it was one of the best patisseries EVER. And it was incredible. The most incredible things about it were the amount of money it cost to refuel my body AND that I was so desperately needing caffeine and sugar in order to keep going that the cost didn't even phase me in the moment.
So, I've been preparing for a presentation, right? And I've been trying to make sure that all the people knew what they were doing... aka I was stressing, but what's new.... So, this morning, we had the exposé and one of the group members who wasn't in class on Thursday or Friday (but I emailed them the info on Weds night) said he didn't get the email, so he "opted out" of the presentation. Whaaaat? I didn't know that was an option! What is all that about? Needless to say, I was rather upset and I had to try and wing it so that the information he was supposed to cover was covered... I'm just glad it's over. Not the best way to start a week... but not the worst...
My host parents are huge Bridge players... They have been playing it every day for almost a week. Saturday night, Mme Anne made dinner for Alix and I early because they were having the Bridge game over here... Then they played Bridge all of yesterday... And then, because I'm home for a little while before I go back to class, I come into them playing Bridge AGAIN with all their friends... I think this would be called "Obsession" but I don't mind. It's nice to see that they love having people around and that they hang out with friends a lot, even if it's during a card game.
Tonight I hope to go to Café des Langues, which is where people go to work on their language skills. I hope that I can meet some French people and hang out with them and just relax. I thought that it would be relatively easy to relax here, and it is if you know what you're doing, but don't count on lunch time for relaxation because apparently that's the time when everyone talks about what is wrong with their host families and what they're not happy with and how dangerous the streets are... I felt like I needed a therapy session after today's lunch... Agh. No thanks. If that keeps up, I might be having my own solitary confinement for lunchtime, thank you.

Alright. Off to class...