unexpected girls night :)

For St. Patrick's day, we tried to get a bunch of people together, but in the end we ended up with an impromptu girl's night with Nolwenn, Christèle, and myself. We ended up ordering pizzas (sidenote: I forgot how different and AWESOME French cheese pizza is) and watching Nouvelle Star (the French version of American Idol) and then briefly going out in Salon-de-Provence. I think the best part about this time in France is that it hasn't really been touristy at all, it's been more like a normal time, just hanging out and doing normal things with my friends. It's been great seeing them all again, this time I feel like they're my actual friends. It's hard to believe that this time, exactly a year ago, I landed here and met everyone. Oh how things have developed and changed. It's interesting to think about.


I spilled red wine on myself (and a pillow), hence the salt. Then, in order to get the salt off my pants (we were all a little inebriated), I crab walked to the porch. Nolwenn made a video of it. Le voilà:




Girls night at Nolwenn's parents house!






We went to a pub in Salon, which was actually getting ready to close in a half hour. This half hour has created the inside joke of these two weeks: "Brice, c'est mal barré" (translation: "Brice, it's looking a bit iffy.") At the pub, there was a table of 4 rather drunk guys, at one point one came over and tried to hit on us. Then he tried to get his friend to come over (Brice), and I looked at him and said that. Which is a slang expression here and my girlfriends died of laughter. Thus, it keeps getting brought up again and again. Love it.

This photo is of a mailbox in Salon. It says: "Continue to fill this mailbox with ads and you will learn to run." mdr.

Geo-fail.

Well, I made it without hassle back to France. It's been great. My first night here, Michel had an apéritif at the house and (almost) all of my French friends made it. Afterwards, I went to see Oaistar in concert in Salon-de-Provence with Nolwenn, Antoine and Jérôme, which was a lot of fun.

Nolwenn and I also did a lovely scavenger hunt from geocaching.com in old Miramas (Miramas-le-Vieux). The goal is to solve the different enigmas to collect the right numbers of the lat/long. location of the "treasure." We got all the clues just fine... then we never did find the treasure at the end. :( Anyways, here are some photos from our adventure:


The first solution to an enigma--the right kind of pine... Apparently this one here is protected by the French gov't and is over 200 years old.


Me with the tree.


Nolwenn, my partner in treasure-hunting crime.


One clue told us to find the numbers that went with the letters "VC" on this one street... We couldn't find it anywhere, and finally asked a nice guy who works at the ice cream shop at the end of the street--His response? Oh, the VCs (toilets) are downstairs! Then when we explained (the poor guy must've thought we were crazy) he was like OOOOH roman numerals! ... We hadn't even considered that....we are so blond.


A view of the Etang de Berre from Miramas-le-Vieux. If you look at the circle thing, it shows you what you're seeing. Ex. straight ahead is Fos-sur-Mer.


A "post card" type photo of Olive trees then of Miramas-le-Vieux. Took this when we came back to hunt for the illusive treasure a SECOND time.


Another view of our treasure hunt. We know we had the right coordinates, but we never did find it. We even dug in this wall on the right. The boys don't believe us.