that's what she said

My friend Cody Meinhardt came to visit me from Paris this weekend. Cody and I met in our orientation group at DePaul in August 2006. Since I transferred to Kent State, we've been in contact only through Facebook, but since he has been studying in Paris this year, he decided to make the 3-hour TGV (Train Grande Vitesse - look it up) ride down to Bordeaux.

Cody also doesn't have classes on Thursdays or Fridays, so he arrived Thursday morning and I picked him up from the train station. Typical Bordeaux weather - intermittent rain, wind, temperatures in the 50s Fahrenheit - had been predicted but it turned out to be a beautiful day. We met Colin for lunch on campus and then I gave him the walking tour of the city center before we reunited with Colin and Ethan in the late afternoon. In the evening, we went to the Frog & Rosbif, an English bar, where the boys ate amazing looking hamburgers (I had an incredible veggie burger) and we all drank beer brewed on premises. It satisfied our commununal mal du pays (homesickness).

The weather took a turn for the worse on Friday but Colin, Cody and I ate breakfast at Karl (unlimited bread, Nutella, confiture, butter, and honey with hot chocolate served in a bowl with whipped cream on top. Then we went to the Musée d'Aquitaine, where neither Colin nor I had ever been before. It was mostly arrowheads and bones dug up in the region, but it was free and a perfect way to get out of the rain. In the evening we went to see "The Burning Plain" starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. I highly recommend this film. Afterwards we all (Christoph, Gudrun, Monika, Alexandra, Massimo, Magda, Colin, Cody and I) went to dinner at Peppone, a wonderfully authentic (even Massimo admitted it) Italian restaurant that I discovered with my parents when they were here in January. Then we went to Dick Turpin's, another English pub, where Raymond met us for a beer.

Saturday I had play practice all day. Our theater class will be presenting an original play on May 15. It's about a troupe of actors who are putting on "Cyrano de Bergerac," but they're really untalented and unprepared the day before the curtain rises. The first act follows their hopelessly ridiculous rehearsals on the eve of the play's debut, and the second act shows their presentation of the play. I play Roxanne, the female lead. We rehearsed for about 8 hours and made progress, but it's hard to pull a play together when most of the actors are only taking the class because it's a requirement.

When I got off play practice, I hopped over to Casino to pick up a few groceries for my vegan curry, which Cody and I whipped up in about 25 minutes before heading to Val and Mariah's for a vegan dinner. It was incredible. I love having friends who love to cook (and who are good at it). There were stuffed peppers, cinnamon quinoa, soup, salads, and even chocolate cake! Tons of wine, too, of course. I wished that more of our French friends had been able to make it. Most of them have rarely, if ever, heard the French word for "vegan" - végétalien - and don't believe that eating that kind of food can be enjoyable. Oh well, more for us!

Sunday morning Colin, Cody, Massimo and I went to the market on the quay and grabbed some mini canelé before putting Cody on the tram to the train station. We introduced Massimo to some of our market favorites, like fricassée de calamars with potatoes and salami and cannelettes, which are crêpes that taste of canelé.

I spent Sunday afternoon/evening in bed, resting and daydreaming...

Such a delicious weekend.