So I really did intend to update before right now. I SWEAR.
But I just had other things to do, like read in French and be in class, procrastinate, and spend time outside.

I mean who wouldn't? It's been beautiful out.

But anyway. Where to begin?
Last weekend Betsy, Krisztina and I rented bikes and took a 20mile bike ride down La Maine and part of La Loire. It was absolutely gorgeous out and we got to see some really nice French countryside and even helped other bikers who had a flat tire! We ate a picnic lunch in a small town called Behuard; which was SO French. Cute adorable little houses. People strolling the tiny little streets and a really pretty church sitting on top of some sort of rock. It was adorable. Places like these make me fall in love with being in France all over again, when I'm feeling slightly disenchanted.
After our bike ride we were pretty much dead, but thought we were going to go biking on Sunday.
Wrong. It rained. And rained. And then it poured. Everyday until Friday.
Now to be fair, I'm not talking constant rain every second. But just enough rain where you really can't spend any large amounts of time outside or you'll get soaked. Bummer, right? There was a nice rain-break on Monday night though, so after our classes Betsy and I took the bikes our to Avrille (a suburb near Angers) so we could see where Betsy was supposed to live. This should have been a pretty easy 30 min bike trip, but it turned into kind of an insane uphill work out. We got lost on the way to Avrille and ended up near Ile St. Aubin, and had to bike up this GIANT hills to get to the village. Luckily the landscape was great. And we saw HORSES and found the entry way to the island (which we missed last time we were there).
Bonus about going to Avrille? We not only got to find an incredibly cute little town but also we totally found, took a picture of the house Betsy was supposed to live in, and found the RIGHT way back home that was gracefully downhill and only took 30 min ;) (Also afterwards we had great food from McDoner. Awesome!)

As you can probably guess, because it rained everyday last week not a lot happened. The rain put me a tiny bit in a bad mood all week, along with the realization that I'm just about halfway through with my study abroad experience. This has been incredibly bittersweet for me and it's been a real endeavor to try and figure out how to deal with it. On one hand I'm loving France but on the other I really do miss everyone at home and will be really glad to see everyone again. Plus I have a lot to look forward to with next year with it being my last year in college. Whoa, that came up too fast. It's exciting, but it's a lot. On the other hand, I LOVE France - I love my friends here, and the food and my host family. It's going to be rough leaving it all behind and I don't want to get so caught up in the next year that I shortchange my time here. Bleh.

Anyway, even though it has been raining and I've been angsty, it has been a pretty good week. Thursday's dinner with our host mom was fantastically fun. We had some really delicious casserole and a great bread-pudding, cherry and marzipan desert that I took a photo of (my host mom thought that was hilarious). After dinner we watched two reports on TV with our host mom, which was...interesting. Don't get me wrong it was a lot of fun, French tv is great and so was the company. What I mean to say is, we watched a report on Burlesque dancers in France, and then one about AIDS in Romania.....
Not exactly what I had in mind for a typical Thursday night program. The burlesque one was really entertaining though. They talked about American burlesque dancers which caused some serious laughs for all of us.
Also on Thursday we received some awesome pink carton paper stuff to replace our missing shutters in my room and the bathroom. The shutters got repaired last Friday and have been gone since, because the guys forgot to paint them. Since then Betsy and I have been hanging a towel over the window in the bathroom for  privacy and I've been veryyy careful in my room. We're supposed to have shutters sometime next week though. Phew.

So yesterday it was finally nice out again. Betsy and I accidentally walked to Lac de Maine and had just an awesome time. I wore flipflops because it was sooo nice out - we discovered a cool sustainable garden too, super bonus. Later that night we watched Beauty and the Beast online and just chilled for most of the night after some time spent at the bar with friends. Today we met up with Heather and Mary Beth and booked all our hostels for Spring break which was a huge load off of our chest, and then walked downtown to the Carnaval (Basically a huge parade in the streets). It was really great and strange and nothing like it would have been in America. The parade was followed by this dance routine thing in the middle of Centre-Ville. I had no idea what was going on, I think most everyone knew at least some of the dance though.
Great times in Angers :)