J'ai perdu mes amis!

In total, I've had about 13 hours of sleep since I arrived here. It's safe to say that I'm strictly running off of curiosity and the determination to absorb everything French. When I finally sit still, I become acutely aware of the aches and pains in every inch of my body. Mais, c'est pas grave.


Yesterday was possibly the longest day of my life. However, I loved every moment of it.We spent the afternoon walking around and shopped a little. We stopped at a local restaurant and had some delicious poutine. We made a trip to the grocery store so that we don't have to eat out for every meal. It's safe to say that we will probably be living off of Fatima's quesadillas for most of the month. After the grocery store, we went back to the hotel to get changed. It was "cold" here, in the low 70s during the day and in the 50s at night. Coming from the south and 110 degrees, that feels like the ice age.


After eating dinner in our room, we headed back out to the music festival. There weren't any bands playing that any of us were very interested in seeing, but we went to see a few just to listen to some French. We even made a friend in the line for the bathrooms! We walked around for a while until we decided to go dancing.


While we were dancing, all 5 of us got separated. I walked around the nightclub but no one was to be found. I eventually decided that I was going to sit outside across the street from the nightclub, watch the door and wait for everyone to come out. I assumed that they were all together and I was the one all alone. Little did I know, all of us were alone. The crowd in the nightclub broke us apart. I sat and waited for about 45 minutes, just watching the people walk by. During that time, several people came up to me and spoke to me in French. I couldn't understand a few of them because my ears were still ringing so I just nodded along and smiled. It was obvious that I was cold and an older gentleman even offered me his jacket, which shows how amazing these beautiful people are. 


Side note, almost everyone here is gorgeous. I continue to be surprised by this. 


Anyways, two guys started talking to me and I told them my predicament. We spoke almost entirely in French and both of them told me that I spoke French very well, considering that I was American. One of them wanted to speak to me in English so that he could practice. We agreed that I would speak French and he would speak English. He was from France and he didn't have the opportunity to speak English there like the people in Quebec can speak English here. I talked to them for awhile while I looked for everyone. I eventually found Julia and she was with two other guys as well. The 6 of us went to Chez Ashton, which is comparable to our McDonalds, except they serve poutine instead of hamburgers and the food is a LOT better. Eventually we all made our way back to the hotel. Chloe, James and Fatima were back at the hotel already. They came outside and all of us watched the sun rise. We didn't climb into bed until 6am and we had to wake up at 9am. We are all absolutely exhausted. However, there is still fun to be had and people to meet. We can sleep when we're dead.


Hopefully we'll come back to the hotel earlier tonight so that we can get some rest. Bon Jovi is at the music festival tonight, so who knows if that's going to happen. 


The moral of the story? I speak French much better than I give myself credit for. If I can speak to native French speakers for hours in French (and a little bit of English), I'm well on my way to being completely fluent. 


The sun rise:

That's all for now, folks!