The holidays have arrived, and I’ve found a few moments to recap what has been going on. I will try to be as detailed as possible, as to best facilitate the greatness of my blog, but it may not come out as ordered as I’d hope. On Friday before the vacation, we were called back into work from the strike to teach the struggling students one day of classes. I worked for eight hours, had one of my classes compacted into another. I showed How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas to better celebrate the holiday season and to entice conversation.

I quickly departed from school to Sarah’s house for a holiday gathering of her, her boyfriend Mathieu, Natalie, and Anne-Céline. We drank a lot of champagne (to make up for missing our normal Friday-outing), and then we embarked on our evening out dancing. We went to a few places trying to avoid the crowds of younger people, in our state but alas we ended up going to a nice little place, danced for a few hours and then went home. I seemed to have indigestion problems from champagne, and thus I had to relieve myself in several different forms in the streets of Caen. I’m amazed that I could bring myself to do it, but wow. Enough of that.

I returned home at approximately 03.30, with needing to wake up at 04.30 to get ready and catch my train at 06.08. I had to walk to the train station, since busses are still out of running, but at that hour nothing works anyways, so I took off. I got sort of lost, and in a panic, so I went into a hotel and asked for a taxi, the guy was really nice and convinced me that the train station was closer and I could get there in 5 minutes. Turns out he was right, and I was just panicking. I avoided the masses at the train station, and was approached by 2 homeless men, and 2 flaming homosexuals that seemed to want a threesome. I quickly took my spot in my First Class seat, and off to Paris I went.

Indigestion killed me during the train ride, and I felt a little drunk still and running on nearly no energy. I arrived at Paris-St-Lazare at the scheduled time, and it gave me 1.5 hours to get from Paris-St-Lazare to Paris-Gare de Lyon. Efficiently planned, I sauntered my way from the train (amongst all the Parisians that were waiting for their track numbers – it’s funny, it looked like a creepy movie!), and down into the metro. My suitcase (which was my only one I had) gave my arms massive pains as it weighed more than me, thanks to gifts I was bringing. I got on the number 14, purple line towards Olympiades, and I got off at Gare de Lyon. I stood around for about an hour, waiting for a track number, and then got to my duplex train, first class (which was full), got my laptop out and started watching Grey’s Anatomy until I arrived to Lyon. The woman sitting across from me was having a panic attack, and was crying and flailing around, I was quite irritated, because clearly people were in First class that wouldn’t normally be there.

I arrived at Lyon-Part-Dieu, and found Cédric amongst the many people, and we departed for the Marseille region. We caught up along the way, and talked about random stuff. It was pleasant to see him again, since it’s been nearly two years since I’ve been to Saint-Étienne and Lyon with him and Chris. He was shocked that I wouldn’t eat anything, but I assured him that I was fasting so that I didn’t gain any mass amounts of weight between then, and the New Year. I’m looking to not be a lonely-son-of-a-bitch, after all. He seems to find it funny, I find it a serious issue among other things.

We got to the village near Marseille, Cadolive, where his family lives and I met the family and placed my things where the should have gone. We chilled for awhile in the village, got some bread, and the weeks events were outlined to me. As per tradition, the family goes into the mountains to do some illegal holly picking, so I had to dress warmly (ha! says the Provençal people). We ate a lovely soup, visited some of Cédric’s childhood friends, and then we came home and chilled before going to bed.