Chez Barnabé, Crazy Boy, and Vegemite

Today was très très bien. I only had class until ten, because my history teacher's wife had their fifth son last week, so he'll be staying home for the next two weeks- leaving us with a research paper to do in our spare time. Yeay. Mine is on sports in the 1850s, and I'm doing it with the other American in my class. We though sports'd be simple, but we didn't think about how easy it is to find information on sports in the 19th Century in France (its not). Anyway, I made plans to meet up with a few of the other exchange students from Annecy this afternoon.

I was going to go with Tannia (Mexico) to Lycée Faure down the street to pick up Eric (Canada) and Maite (Argentina) at their school, we would then continue to the Gare (train station) to pick up Molly (USA), and then Zara (Australia) would meet us when her bus got to town. Things never, ever, work as planned. First off, Tannia wasn't at school. So I headed down to Lycée Faure to meet Eric and Maite by myself. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to find them in the throng of thousands of kids that were certainly waiting outside the schhol, but I noticed Maite right away. She informed me that Eric told her he had to sign up for something, and he'd be out in five minutes, so we waited five minutes, then fifteen, then twenty. And after a half an hour I called his cell phone and left a message saying we were leaving. By the time we reached the Gare Molly was long gone. The two of us met up with Zara and grabbed lunch at the best place EVER, Chez Barnabé and ate it in the park by Bonlieu. While we were eating and chatting at Bonlieu a boy came up and sat down with us, completing our circle. Each of us thought the other people knew him at first, but it soon became obvious that he was a total stranger. He sat with us for a few minutes, asking where we were from, and then held up a small ball of paper and told us he was going to "shove it on one of us and then we'ed have to make a unnuhhh and he'ed leave". We agreed, wanting to get rid of him. So he asked which of us we wanted him to do it to. None of us volunteered, so he chose Zara. He stood up, threw it at her, and had her make a little grunt and left. We burst into laughter afterwards of course, he had mentioned it was a dare, which made it make a little more sense, but it was still really random. Later Zara went home to do work and we met up with Eric and went to a cafe and talked. On the way to the cafe we say the boy with his friends again- he called after us so we all started to run. He didn't follow far though. Later we took the bus to Zaras, looked at pictures and tried Vegemite. It wasn't too bad- I had no idea that it is yeast and salt. The taste grows on you. The three of them were going to some Rotary dinner (Im not in their club) and they dropped me off home on the way. It was a really good way to spend my afternoon and we'll do it agian next week. I actually speak out more in French with them because I don't need to be scared of making mistakes, its a good way to learn. Bonne Nuit et Gros Bisous!