La Lune Pleine

The full moon. It really does make the crazies come out. But more on all that later.

Today was our last Saturday, and 5 of us girls decided to do a day trip. The original plan was to go to Aix-en-Provence, but it turns out that on Saturdays it is both very tricky and very expensive to get there. So we opted for a city a little closer to home: Nimes. Only about a half hour train ride, not bad at all. Such a beautiful city!! So peaceful, clean, and quiet compared to Avignon at the height of the Festival. Definitely a more modern city, as well. More grand boulevards, less twisty-turny streets, beautiful churches and cathedrals built in the last 300 years or so (that's recent, for France). But there are also a lot of very well-preserved vestiges of Roman times, like the "Square House" (an ancient temple) and the ampitheatre, and others that are not as intact but are nonetheless incorporated into the city, like old pieces of ramparts or dilapidated temples. So we got to see some of these monuments, we ate lunch at some little place, walked around for awhile, did some shopping, had some ice cream, etc. But the highlight of the day in Nimes was the time we spent at Les Jardins de la Fontaine (Gardens of the Fountain). It is this huge park where there are these beautiful fountains and sculptures and everything, and if you climb this grand staircase you can get to little grassy areas with flowers and cave-like things and even a little waterfall. So beautiful! And so many great photos.

We spent a good deal of time at the park and just wandering around, but we finally made it back to Avignon around 7 or so and went in search of a worthy restaurant. I decided that for my last Saturday night dinner, I'd go all out and get just whatever I wanted. After quite awhile of searching we chose a restaurant called New Ground which is literally around the corner from school. Possibly the best meal I have eaten here!! I started out with gazpacho, which was incredible. Just the right amount of garlic and a little kick in there too. Then...holy mother of pearl...duck with a glaze of lavender honey. With pistachio potatoes. And some artichoke/zucchini deal that was so yummy. But the duck...it surpassed them all. My mouth is watering again just thinking about it! And of course wine, and opera cake for dessert. Dinner took about 3 hours, which was just fine by me. However, though the food was great and the street was just lively enough with actors and street performers, the service was incredibly bad. They flat-out ignored us for long periods of time. Of course, when you only have 2 waitresses at the height of the dinner hour, it's bound to happen, but this was just awful. If the food wasn't as divine as it was, I would have been truly angry. But that duck...it saved the night!

But as I mentioned before, the full moon was out tonight. And the crazies were out in abundance. Of course, as a woman here in France, I experience this to some degree every day. Men here are very blatant about staring at you, making comments, trying to get in your face, wolf-whistling, all of that. But tonight was worse than usual. It's like a group of 5 young women can't even feel safe eating outside at a restaurant. Well, we felt safe enough, but we were especially creeped out by one guy in particular. He was clearly very intoxicated, and seemed to be not quite right in the head. But he came up to our table and stood behind Dawn for several minutes, and at first we thought he was just going to advertise a show to us--around Festival time you get used to all sorts of people coming up to talk to you about this show or that, give you a flyer, whatever. But he just stood. And he sort of mumbled a few things and made some possibly obscene gestures until Caitlin finally told him to leave us alone. He did, but he stumbled up and down the street a few more times. Thankfully he did not grace our table with his presence anymore after that. But it definitely weirded us out a little.

Other than the full moon bringing all manner of weirdos out this evening, it was a delicious dinner and a very, very good day. I don't even want to think that I have to leave this part of the world. I will be back, absolutely. I am promising myself that. That's the only way I can bear to leave it.

I think that's all for now...tomorrow I'm going to sleep in and just relax, probably get a little studying done.

Love and miss you all!!!
Natalie