After my emotional leave from Spain, we headed north through France to visit my friend Ben. He is living in a town called Rennes for the next few weeks to work on his masters. It is a nice sized town that definitely has an authentic French atmosphere. The only thing that kind of took its toll on us was the weather. It is completely schizophrenic. The first full day we had there, we decided to take a stroll through the streets. It was scorching hot. Then, it began to trickle a bit. We saw everyone running frantically as though a Condor Legion was passing by overhead. We felt it to be extremely strange that such a big comotion would be made over some drops of rain. However, about 10 minutes later it began to deluge. Apparently, it rained over a meter in an hour. During this time, it even started to hail. After being trapped in the metro station for about 2 hours as we waited for it to pass, we went back out when it was done. It then went back up to about 31 degrees celcius. Bad luck in that department.
This same evening, we went out on the town with Ben to explore the nightlife. We witnessed a rather bizarre series of events. We went to a bar to catch a poetry reading that was taking place in the basement. As we entered back upstairs, we heard some yelling and screaming. As we surfaced, we noticed that the short, bald bartender was holding a (approximately) 65 year old man in the air in a full nelson. He was removing him from the bar. There was yelling back and forth, and apparently the customer would not pay his tab. He came back into the door way and began to yell FASCIST FASCIST FASCIST repeatedly towards the bartender. The bartender then responded by slapping the man straight across the face. Clean! (video to be coming later).
The next day, we took off on a wild trip outside the city. We were looking through a brouchure, and we found that the Fountain of Youth and Tomb of Merlin were both located in a forest outside of the city. We decided that it would be pretty comical to lead ourselves on a hitchhiking adventure to try to find both of these. Sadly, I was not aware of the fact that neither of them truly exist, and that they are just myths. I have always wanted to be a wizard though.
Anyways, we set a goal for ourselves to reach these obscure places. The effor to get there took about 4 different car swaps. The total time was nearly 3 hours to travel 50 kilometers. That is pretty impressive considering we were asking to go to such remote places. I found it to be pretty hilarious to find myself on the side of the road with a sign stating VALLEY OF NO RETURN or TOMB OF MERLIN (both in French of course). It was even more strange that people picked us up, and were headed in that direction. Jean Luis was one of the characters who was nice enough to give us a lift.
We successfully made it there. So our goal was met. However, it was not too great of a thrill. But the ethic behind the trip and reaching the goal is all that really matters. We even found ourselves walking along an endless road for nearly 12 kilometers in the middle of a thunder storm. All was well with our return, and it now goes as a great tale.
This same evening, we went out on the town with Ben to explore the nightlife. We witnessed a rather bizarre series of events. We went to a bar to catch a poetry reading that was taking place in the basement. As we entered back upstairs, we heard some yelling and screaming. As we surfaced, we noticed that the short, bald bartender was holding a (approximately) 65 year old man in the air in a full nelson. He was removing him from the bar. There was yelling back and forth, and apparently the customer would not pay his tab. He came back into the door way and began to yell FASCIST FASCIST FASCIST repeatedly towards the bartender. The bartender then responded by slapping the man straight across the face. Clean! (video to be coming later).
The next day, we took off on a wild trip outside the city. We were looking through a brouchure, and we found that the Fountain of Youth and Tomb of Merlin were both located in a forest outside of the city. We decided that it would be pretty comical to lead ourselves on a hitchhiking adventure to try to find both of these. Sadly, I was not aware of the fact that neither of them truly exist, and that they are just myths. I have always wanted to be a wizard though.
Anyways, we set a goal for ourselves to reach these obscure places. The effor to get there took about 4 different car swaps. The total time was nearly 3 hours to travel 50 kilometers. That is pretty impressive considering we were asking to go to such remote places. I found it to be pretty hilarious to find myself on the side of the road with a sign stating VALLEY OF NO RETURN or TOMB OF MERLIN (both in French of course). It was even more strange that people picked us up, and were headed in that direction. Jean Luis was one of the characters who was nice enough to give us a lift.
We successfully made it there. So our goal was met. However, it was not too great of a thrill. But the ethic behind the trip and reaching the goal is all that really matters. We even found ourselves walking along an endless road for nearly 12 kilometers in the middle of a thunder storm. All was well with our return, and it now goes as a great tale.
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