But before Stevie, before the sun graced us with its appearance, I managed to take in a game of spades with my Arabic friends. Now, this is a game I have played a bunch, but not quite like this. First off, the cards weren’t American, with each of the face cards having a name along the side as well as having different letters associated with them- the kings were ‘R’ for ‘Roi’, I assume, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of what the others meant. Plus the rules were different; it was basically boiled down to be as simple as possible, as each country had its own variations. And when I say ‘boiled down to be as simple as possible’ I really mean that the weird variations of whoever was dealing were kept in. I managed to lose quite spectacularly, but many laughs were had, while I struggled to get a sense of the rules through the broken French.

After that, I wondered home in the breaking sunshine to find the aforementioned iPod waiting on me, and given the good weather I headed out for my first run along the Loire. The interesting thing about running here is that while nobody will look at you on the street (you know they’re aware of your existance only because they will move out of the way so as not to run into you), every single jogger I passed looked directly at me and said a quick ‘bonjour’ as we went by each other. I also passed a sign that mentioned the local Centre Municipal des Sports and climbing facilities! I have their phone number now, so my weekend project is to figure out if there indeed is a climbing gym in town. Of course, I have to fit that in alongside the trip to see Château Chenonceau tomorrow, studying, and my homework which involves checking out one of the local galleries and answering some questions about what I find there. Who knew I’d be so dang busy here?

OH! And I have a few more photos copied up and available- just click on the photo here to go over to the gallery. So, I’m off to pick up to see if I can find some good chocolate before hooking up with my group; there is a veritable ton of chocolate around here, but mostly in the form of expensive chocolates or Nestlé. I have to say the Nestlé chocolate here is way better than the crap we get back in the states, but it isn’t my frou-frou Bonnat or Pralus that I’m looking for. You’d think that since they’re just a hundred kilometers away or so the streets would be overflowing with the latest from either of these places. Hmmm, I will definitely try to get over to Lyon to visit one of those artisans choclatiers. It might be difficult, as to take the TGV I’d have to go up to Paris and back down to Lyon. Ah, la vie c’est difficil!

Over and out y’all. ‘Til next time,

-c