last night was a friend of mine's birthday .. how should one celebrate a 21st birthday? on Valentine's day nonetheless at a good ol fashioned pool hall of course! Seriously, there were about 20 pool tables scattered through out Sam's Pub and for a few hours I literally forgot I was in France. More like honkey-tonk USA. It was great actually. Perfect.
Being in one of the most, if not THE most romantic country in the world.. you would have thought that yesterday was overwhelmingly filled with obnoxious signs of love and emblems celebrating the sacred day. but the french keep it very low key. all the patisseries (bakeries), of course theres like 400, had special sections of valentine's chocolate goodies but nothing over the top. (proof its just a hallmark holiday?) even when we all met up in the center of town to go to the pool hall- it was obvious that there were only couples out- but the restaurants were practically dead. i found that to be very odd and backwards. alas, i spent valentines day with my new friends here, a bottle of rose and some yummy truffles! I could not have asked for more.. maybe besides the darling things my mom does for us on Valentines day! Oh and today I am as happy as ever because I got my first piece of mail from home! I got the sweetest most awesome Valentine's card from my grandparents- they are so thoughtful and so wonderful and it makes me feel beyond happy to know how much i am loved!
Well, need to go shower because I have art class at 3. Im excited for our 2nd day of painting and afterwards im grabbing dinner with some girls and we are all going to this wine tasting!! I am so excited to learn ALL about the different wines here and how different they all are and why in France, they dont label bottles with "chardonnay" or "pinot grigio" or my favorite, "reisling" .. though I think i learned the answer to this already.... get this.. they dont label bottles with anything but the name and the region it was made.. because the french are just supposed to know what wines come from what regions. HA. unbelievable.
but after tonight i will be so much more cultured and will have lots of snooty wine knowledge!
