Friday May 11th

Catching up now from the last two days... Juliette and I ventured out to Rennes, in the province of Brittany to visit with Gina and Damien. I was quite grumpy and spent much time chastising the stupid ticket machine that would not issue us our tickets for the train. We then had to stand in line for half an hour behind other enraged customers who were also having problems. It turns out that you have to have some special microchip on your credit card that they only issue in the European Union.

We ended up getting there just fine, the French country side is beautiful, especially when you're blowing through it at around 150 to 200 miles per hour. Juliette and I had fine french sandwiches and coca light and I napped most of the way. Damien met us at the station and Gina got off of work shortly after; we met with their friends and had a nice steak dinner and then proceeded to drink ourselves silly and talk late into the night.

The next morning Gina was quite persistent about waking us up, I guess it was 10:30 in the morning... we walked around the city of Rennes for a while and did some catching up. We also went through the market place, which I would kill for in the states. You can buy fresh produce, meats, cheeses, wines and seafood, just like in our supermarkets except the food is local and generally hasn't been frozen and shipped a thousand miles before it gets to you.

Gina, Juliette and I met Damien for a lunch of guillettes (buckwheat crepes) and then walked to another cafe for coffee and beers. Gina bought us some great super stinky cheese as a gift, very sweet of her, we ate one of the cheeses, the other I'm hoping customs will let us bring through. It's unreal to walk through a city that has so much history, hundreds, if not a thousand years older than any of the cities in the United States. It just opens your eyes and gives you a whole new perspective on the world.

Thanks again to Gina and Damien for putting us up and feeding us!

Our visit was unfortunately cut a little bit short because Gina had to work, so Ju and I hit the train and sped back to Paris. We went to an art show in the suburbs, where we met up with Juliette's friends and then had dinner at L'industrie with Olivier; Vincent and Gael, where I had my second steak tartare.

This morning was hell morning, we had to clean up and pack Juliette's apartment and then lug 12,000 pounds of luggage up four flights of stairs! We made sure that before we carried them up that we had split a carafe of wine over steak frites though.

We just got back from a chinese restaurant and are staying the night at Olivier's before catching our flight in the morning. I feel like I'm rushing through all of this, but I wanted to give some update before we're back in the States.

Talk to you all soon!