We must be the most boring people in the world...

Crazy H & M hat

Our vacation hasn't gone exactly as planned. Right now, we should be in Paris, chatting with Natalie and sipping delicious wine in front of the Eiffel Tower. This morning, after a late Halloween night, we got up at 6:30 and headed down to the train station to catch the 7:38 train to Paris. We got there aout 15 minutes early, and stood in line for a while waiting for the single slow ticket salesman to help the not-so-long line of people trying to buy tickets. With only about 6 minutes left until our train, we decided to run outside and use the automatic ticket machines instead. But alas, the machines didn't want to sell us a ticket for the 7:38, so we ran back inside to find the line even longer. After another stressful two minutes, we decided that we would buy tickets for the 8:41 train from the machine, and get on the 7:38 anyway (supposedly this is okay to do, as long as you have a ticket for any time that day). With two minutes left, Andrew went to stall the conductor while I tried to get the machine to quickly spit out my tickets.

We missed the train by about twenty seconds. The bastard conducter wouldn't let us on the train crawling away at a snail's pace.

At this point, both of us were in a rage and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I cried like a baby and demanded a refund from the (now, conveniently free) ticketmaster. Of course they didn't refund 10%, which only made it worse. So today I've been in a major bad mood, especially since I was supposed to meet up with several friends in Paris. And while we can go anytime to Paris (it's only 1 hour away), today the museums were free and our vacation is almost over. Maybe this weekend we'll give it another try. The only consolation for me is that the weather report said it was cold and rainy today.

In other vacation news, we went to Beaugency, a little town just 20 minutes from here where we visited my friend Justine and her French boyfriend Julien.

We ate a yummy lunch of smoked salmon tagliatelle and walked around the river and the small château there.

Yesterday was Halloween and we went to a party with the other assistants in Orléans. I dressed as a waitress and Andrew went as Scotch on the Rocks, meaning he wore his kilt with two rocks in his plastic bag for a sporrin and carried around a bottle of Scotch. It wasn't really my type of party, which just goes to show what a geek I am. I much prefer parties where the point is to play games and talk and eat good food, not dance around to club music and drink a lot of booze, but Andrew had fun twirling his kilt.

Tomorrow we're heading to Tours, which is supposed to be beautiful; hopefully the weather will be nicer than it was today. Tuesday we're going to have lunch with two of my teachers from my school, both of whom have studied in the States (one in SF, the other Boston). I'm going to make Bailey's brownies (thanks to Cynthia for introducing me to those so many years ago!).