So it’s been awhie since I wrote anything, so I decided to throw something interesting into the mix. On Saturday I woke up late, as we went out for some drinks on Friday, and I found that it was hot, and I was bored and with nothing to do. So I called everyone’s mobiles, and of course nobody was home at all. When I say nobody, I mean nobody even had their mobiles on, so that made me a little upset at first for a little while. Then I realized that they are probably out doing things, and I am stuck here in my room by myself. The fact that most French people at this university go home for the weekends, doesn’t help the fact; so I am literally the only person left in my corridor (of about 12 people). It also seems that I am the only one that showers / uses the bathrooms, which creeps me out excessively.
So I lay around for the day mostly, and then lay some more, and then watch some Eurovision from 2005 and 2006 as they are the only forms of entertainment that I have (I decided not to bring my DVDs :'(). So I keep laying, and I didn’t call Ginette becasue I knew she was out with a family from Strasbourg that she met in Moncton or something, so I didn’t want to bother her. Then I went over to Charlotte’s room, and she’s studying for her LSAT so she’s always busy and can never find the time in the day to even eat. I asked her what was going on with people, and she told me that the girls were having a pot-luck stir-fry, and none of us were invited. That’s a bit rude, considering that we are here, and they knew that we were alone and isolated. I got over that really quickly, and then ran into Katelyn in the street and asked her what she was doing that night. She told me she was going out for drinks with the others, and then walked off, so I continued my little walk around the desolate city.
So I see Ashley a little farther down the road too and then she sort of asks me if I wanted to come for drinks. This shocked me a little becasue I figured Katelyn didn’t like me, and therefore didn’t want to have me there, but never-the-less I said sure, and then she said to meet us in the lobby at quarter to ten. So I went and cooked some horrible dinner (attempted to) and Charlotte and I talked briefly, and then I realized I was nearly late for going out (but thank goodness for girls always being late!) So I saw them, and we went for a drink at a sketchy little bar down the road, and talked and then left as Ashley was really tired. But since everyone was drinking, their tounges were loostened a bit and it slipped out that they were going to a little village the next day. And then Lauren was like ‘Oh osky you should come’ and I said sure, and then Katelyn tried to give me some lecture about not having my student card so I wouldn’t be able to get a fare something, but eventually told me that they were meeting at 10 the next morning. I got the feeling that she didn’t really want me to go at all, and that she was giving me wrong times so that I would be late, but anyways.
So the next day, which was Sunday, we got on the train to go to a little village outside of Colmar in Alcsase called Ribeauvillé, which supposedly had castles and things like that. So we got a 5 student day pass and only had to really pay a few Euros each, so it was nice; but we got on the train and then we stopped at the Ribeauvillé stop, and Becky was too afraid to open the door herself so the train left the stop and we ended up in Colmar for a few hours. Ashley was pissed, and hid it very well, but it became more and more evident as the day progressed, as most of us got a little bit frustrated with something or another at some point in the day. On top of the fact that Becky doesn’t have much ‘drive’ to do anything, she decided to wear a dress on our hiking expedition, and being the one that organized the trip, she knew that the walk to the castles was about 2.5 hours between each of them.
On top of all the other things, she forgot to bring the tour book so we didn’t know any info other than the name of the village, and the names of the castles. She kept mumbling something about it not being her responsibility, but in all honesty it was hers becasue she was in charge of this one! So we got to the train stop right this time, and the tourist office was closed. We were standing at a door and I saw this huge sign that nobody else did that said that the town was 5km in this direction, and that if we needed a taxi here is the number. I literally said to them “Does this sign say what I think it does?” and everyone groaned and we began the walk to the town in the far distance, while it was raining. Raining raining and raining, and the village looked so far in the distance, and the castles even farther.
As we got closer to the village, the girls were lagging and it took about an hour to get there, and then we were lost, so we looked around and bought some post cards and then asked someone how to get up the mountain and he said walk this way. So we walked, and walked and walked and walked, and the sun came out so it was bloody hot, until we saw this tiny little sign on an abandoned path, saying to go ‘this way’ to the castles. So we followed it, and went up hills that were on an incline of about 60° and struggled, took a pee break, and then kept climbing until I started to hear music, and I thought I was delerious so I asked the others, then I really felt crazy! Then a few minutes later they hear it too, and I feel much less crazy, and we find that music is playing from a tiny little medevial church in the middle of the mountain that is completely isolated. It turns out it was from the 13th century and that it was rebuilt several times becasue of all the wars, but we took some pictures and then kept climbing. After about 3.5 hours of climing the mountain we get to this little fork in the road and don’t know where to go, but then we see a castle and basically run to it in excitement.
The castles were from the medevial era and had since been abandoned and run down, but we explord it and took tons of pictures because we were at the top of the mountain and climbed it. We saw the other castle, and went to it becasue it was close, but we didn’t go to the third one becasue there was a sign that said it was 4.5 hours by walking, and that didn’t interst us in the least. So we took some more pictures and saw a sign saying the way to Ribeauvillé ‘en direct’ which we thought was hillarious because we obviously took the complexe intense route. So the whole 30 mins down the mountain we were laughing about how stupid we were, but happy how good we felt about it, and then we were almost going to be late for the train so we started walking. The girls were deciding if they wanted ice creame but I was against the idea, and thus far I felt sort of irritated at their dilly-dallying as it was the last train to come for the day. I started walking with Ashely, then started to go quickly because time was running out. I felt awkward the whole day because I felt like a 5th wheel that was being ignored, and realized that after this I should probably not go with them anymore because the whole day I felt like some of them didnt want me there. Ashley was being super nice becasue we have similar personalities, and being inclusive to everyone, but they were so cliquey that it was irritating. So along the highway I’m about 500m ahead of them, and then I hear running behind me, and it’s about 4km left until the train station. They tell me we have less than 10 mins to get to the station, and they are booting it to the train.
I was irritated further as I did a 5km run in the morning, and then a 20km hike during the day, and now they wanted me to run another 5km. To say it lightly, I was pissed, so I ran as fast as I could and they kept stopping but I kept going, and then we got to the train station with 1.5 mins to spare, enough time for me to stretch. Thank God we made it, as I would have been so pissed if we didn’t!
We got home, and I fell asleep after some yoghurt, and then Ginette visited and was upset that she didn’t come, but I told her as fun as it was, I felt like I was a loner the whole time and it wouldn’t have been any better anyways. Then I bitched for awhile about how horrible some people are, and about how Becky was being stupid and wearing a dress, and not bringing any food or anything, and then we went to her room to cook some pasta but got side-tracked by the UK students who were in Zahra’s room. So we decided to go in and say hello, and we decided that because we were being ditched by the girls who were going to Switzerland on the weekend, we would look into going to Luxembourg with each other, and they were extatic to say the least. Especially Matthieu who never seems to say anything, but him and I talked a bit (after trying to understand his accent) and it turns out he lives right under me and he joked about hearing me bounce around all the time. I felt horrible, but then admitted that he was joking, so I was super-thankful and then we just gossipped a bunch. Ginette was monopolizing the conversation (as usual) so I started my own with Sonya and Matthieu (who looked very tired).
Eventually I went to bed after making pasta, seeing that I had a course at 08.30 the next morning. Maybe Luxembourg this weekend? We will see.