Le Bâteau Ivre

My first week is done. To recap:

• Arrived Monday early evening. No luggage.
  
• Learned the ropes at the office and met lots of great people there Tuesday. No luggage.
  
• Ditto on Wednesday. No luggage.
  
• Ditto on Thursday. One bag arrives (how can they find on and not the other?).
  
• Eric (friend from Marseille) arrived Friday noon. C'est la teuf! (It's been a party ever since).
  

For those of you who don't know Eric, he's one of the greatest, most fun-loving people I know. Finishing his PhD in Aix-en-Provence in English (American Culture), he's married to the most charming woman, Fabienne, and has two sons, Bâtiste (5) and Aubin (1 ½).

The fun started Friday afternoon when we took the typical tourist walk through the old center of Rennes (I'll get photos up here soon). Of course, one of the first stops was in an Irish pub, and that was the beginning of the end. After a few beers there, a walk around town, and a few more at a less interesting place, we returned home for a few minutes then out to a nice restaurant in the area recommended to Eric by a friend of his: Café Breton. The clients and the staff there were all very cool and eventually we struck up a conversation with the couple sitting next to us. Why is it that in some parts of the world, that's ok, and in others, it's not? In Paris, we would probably have been sitting even closer and not a word would have been exchanged. In Rennes, just 2 hours west, it's almost expected that you say hello and strike up a conversation. (I have a few ideas as to why, but can't get into that now since you're probably wondering how drunk I eventually got this evening!)

After dinner, we were invited to join our neighbor for drinks at a bar back in the old center called "Le Bâteau Ivre"… bad omen… for the non frenchies out there, it's "The Drunk Boat" (reference to a poem by Rimbaud). By that point, neither of us needed anything more to drink (but has that ever stopped me? I had to pay homage to Wisconsin some how!). At the Drunk Boat, Eric and I met a few more people, including a gal named Anne Claire (great conversationalist) and Thierry (a doctor!). While the three of us were chatting, somehow Eric got out (makes him sound like a pet ;-) and then he was gone. About 10 minutes later, my cell phone rings and it's Eric. He's lost.

Lucky for us, lost meant that he was about a block or so up the street.

Home by about 1:30 am, up at 9:30. Eric got us croissants and pain au chocolat. Next on the agenda…

• Visiting Saint-Malo. A walled city on the coast, about 45 minutes from here. Mark and I had planned on discovering the city together but let's look at it this way: I'll be able to get us in and out much more efficiently after this first try today. Mark likes efficiency.