Sitting here tonight writing up my entry for Day 20 marks the completion of 1/5 of my trip. Have I really been gone for that long? When I left Boston, the Red Sox we’re ahead by maybe six or seven games, the Patriots had played one or two preseason games and the Bruins hadn’t played a game in over a year. Right now, the Red Sox are 1.5 games ahead of the Yanks (and have the same record as Cleveland), the Patriots have lost their second game, and the Bruins have actually played a game. By the Boston sports time scale, I have been away for quite a long time.
Anyway, with that prologue, here’s today’s brief entry: After having passed out so early last night, I awoke at around 7am. I felt much better and ended up typing up the remainder of my weekend journal entries. Breakfast was served late, and we didn’t get to Cresp until 920. We took a French test, learned some vocabulary words for Wednesday’s lecture, and then talked about our service learning projects we would be undertaking on Tuesday. Then home for an amazing lunch. Best lunch I’ve had since I’ve been here. Beef and white rice, and some vegetable stuff. The best part: it was warm. The temperature of the food was warm, not hot. I stress the importance of the temperature because when it’s 90 degrees, 95% humidity, and you’re sitting around one bowl with seven other people, it tends to be hot and uncomfortable. Usually the food is so hot and spicy that eating it is extremely difficult, even if the food is appetizing. In this heat, you just lose your appetite (at least I do.) Anyway, today it was warm, so I was able to eat it easily. I mean I was still sweating bullets, but it was bearable. In fact, we ate until the entire platter was empty, and then ate more when our sister came and filled it up with more food. Already feeling the rice starting to expand in my stomach, I struggled to get up the stairs. I had eaten too much. It was alright though. As Rich says, “C’est bon.”
Back at Cresp, Marian gave us a short lecture on human consumption rates; a lecture that basically ended up being “the world is probably ending, this is how much time you have left.” However, there was a lot of very interesting (and scary) information given.
After our lecture, we were told (by Cresp staff) that we were only allowed to hang out at Cresp at certain hours, as they thought we had been spending too much time there. After discussing with the group (and a little arguing,) we agreed to the new rules.
Then, Rich, Deb, Allison and I went to the airport to change money and traveler’s checks. To our dismay, the lady couldn’t change traveler’s checks without a hard copy of our passports, which we had left in our rooms. Great. I returned empty handed.
Dinner was good again, French fries, mayo, bread, and fish. Some good juice was given to us after dinner (Jus de besac) or something like that, which is the juice from the hibiscus flower. We hadn’t had it in a while, and it was pretty good; very sweet and sugary. Overall, it was quite an average day.
