Trip to the Beach

Note to self: do not bike to the beach ever again.

It is apparently an hour and a half long ride to get to the sea from where I live. The bike only cost two euros to rent but the terrain was a little on the rough side. There were many hills and for most of the way the path was not paved. The boy who we were following who had been to the beach before had apparently forgotten how to get there so we got lost which added onto the distance of the trip. Once we finally got to the beach it was cold out the clouds had started to role in. The highlight of the trip was seeing the animals though. There were flamingos and horses and some storks or something. I think that the beach will be nice when it is a little warmer out and when I take the bus to get there.


I also tried some new wines yesterday. I bought two bottles, which were both red wines from the surrounding area. I drank the cheaper one and it was pretty good. However later on in the night I had some really good pinot noir. Maybe it just tasted better because I had already had a few glasses of wine... I don't know.



There was a space bathroom at the beach but I didn't use it because it cost .50, however I plan to use it on my future beach outings.

Everyone is doing it...

So... I guess everyone has a blog except me. NOW I DO. I would like to blog about the wine, the cheese, the food and the bathrooms. Let's start with what I'm eating right now. I am having Nutella and crackers. I figured if you can eat peanut butter and crackers you can also eat nutella and crackers. I bought the Nutella because everyone was doing it. I figured that so many people can't be wrong. I didn't think I liked it when I had tried it at home but now I can't really taste the nuts and its just like eating chocolate :) yum. It also comes in a nice glass so when I eat it all I can have a glass of water. Now I'm just eating the nutella without crackers and I need a glass of water...

I also bought my first bottle of wine last time I was at the grocery store it was a Sauvignon from the Loire Valley. It was 2.90 (in euros of course). It wasn't anything too exciting.

I have also discovered that I am very knowledgeable about the animals in the region. I saw a bird I have never seen before and I said "hmmm I bet that is a magpie" and sure enough when I looked it up on the Internet it was a magpie. Then later I was using the restroom and I saw a bug and I thought "hmmm I bet that's a silverfish" and it was.

speaking of the restrooms... here in France the houses have different types of bathrooms than I am used to. The toilet is in a room all by itself, and everything else is in it's another room. They toilets also flush funny. There is a button on the top or sometimes two buttons (one for #1 and another for #2 I think). The water is a lot lower so it is a lot louder when you go to the bathroom which is annoying. The bathrooms in the building where I have class don't have seats on them. It is just a toilet bowl with a rim. This makes them very difficult to use. For some reason these bathrooms also smell very very bad. The bathrooms by the cafeteria are nicer because they have seats but they have automatic lights which seem to turn off as soon as I sit down, so I end up peeing in the dark a lot. I think the french should go on strike for better bathrooms.

Today they were on strike, I'm not really sure why. The students, professors, and transportation employees were all on strike. I'm not French so I still had to go to class. It took longer to get there because the tram was running a lot less frequently because the drivers were striking. Then I ate hot dog pizza...

Other than that it was a beautiful day here in the south of France.