it must be the full moon

allo. tish came to visit this week and it was chouette. i hope she liked valence at least a little...i picked her up last wed in lyon and we just chilled in town all week. she saw the finest of valence shopping (yah soldes!), went to school with both me and mandy, ventured into the ardeche (departement across the river) not once but 2 times, climbed to the chateau du crussol, loved tasse as much as the rest of us, ate some moroccan couscous, had cooking parties chez mandy and rocked out to the Plastic Penny Band at the Penny Kenny Pub's one-year birthday party...fuuun times. really truly though, it was great to see someone from home and play translator. tish did pick up some essential francais: bonjour, merci, pardon j'adore le fromage, punaise...when she went to school with mandy, the teachers swore up and down that she wasnt american (high compliment) and my kiddos were just awed by her beauty. cuuuteness! and i miss having my mini-mouflon around now!! (and emmanuel - tasse owner - misses her, too!)

now that she's gone and i have to concentrate on school prepping and whatnot, with nothing to really look forward too, ive fallen into my first dire funk of this stint abroad. it basically boils down to the fact that im a city girl - we all know how eager i was to quit bingo-town - and since valence is about the same size as binghamton, well...it's a silly thing to complain about, but the fact remains that there is literally nothing to do. yesterday we walked around in circles. no joke. it was a greve day, we were all off school...i ended up going to the gym and to tasse et glace TWICE. i mean, i love tasse but i dont want to wear out my welcome! and this weekend, just as an indication of now nothing there is here - tout le monde is super psyched for the Monte Carlo car rally. wooooo..errr..non merci. so im reading tons, writing more than usual, and prepping for my Peace Corps interview THIS COMING MONDAY!!!! oh, and i dyed my hair back to super dark chestnut brown. when bored, hair modification is a decent way to spice life up. and running again - after a month off, what with vacances, la grippe (ooh that was a sad week) and tish's visite - helps, too.