"Allez, Ginette!"

Ahhhh, finals!! I had a full day of tests yesterday, starting at 9h and ending at 17h30 (with a three-hour break for lunch, luckily). Wow, that was a heck of a day! I had a reading comprehension test, a listening comprehension test, and a written expression test. The listening one was the absolute WORST!! Completely atrocious, I couldn't believe it. Luckily, the entire class of 60-odd people was ready to kill whoever created the test as well, so I wasn't alone. Why is listening comprehension always the hardest?? I can understand French juuuuuuuuuuust fine when I'm having a conversation or listening to a professor or something, but when they stress you out and give you a random news segment with little to no context and five minutes to fill out 20 answers, it sucks. Oy. Oh well, it's over, and all I have left is my oral exam tomorrow morning! Talking about a subject for 7 or 8 minutes and then answering questions for another 7? I can totally do that.

This weekend was great; lots of time to hang out and take it easy and get together with friends. On Sunday, I did a bit of exploring around town after I went to Talensac in the morning. I had been to the Japonese Garden on the Ile de Versailles briefly with Kris when he was in town, but I wanted to go back and take pictures, so I hopped over there and the coolest thing happened! My favorite part of the garden has a good-sized pond with large stepping stones that you can hop across over the water, and it's surrounded by gorgeous trees and big rocks and lots of plants. So anyway, I was just wandering around when I heard some music and when I made my way to my favorite spot, there was this guy sitting on one of the rocks right by the pond playing Spanish guitar. Oh my goodness, it was so beautiful and fantastic!! He was a wonderful player and the music was so relaxing. I didn't have anywhere to be, so I made my way over to the covered walkway and sat on the railing nearby and people watched and listened to the waterfall and the Spanish guitar for about half an hour. It was absolutely wonderful, a truly zen moment that I really needed. It's lovely when little things like that catch your attention and remind you to appreciate every little thing that's going on around you. I also got to check out the Musee du Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne downtown, which was great! Seriously one of the most amazing and well put together museums I've *ever* been to, they did great work on it.

Today is a lazy day; I'm not getting much accomplished, but I need it! I slept in and cleaned my room up a bit, and I also snagged a ton of French music from Nathan and Mari! Mari lent me this collection of CDs called "Simply France" that she bought at FNAC, so that's about 80 songs of classic French music (Edith Piaf, Georges Brassens, Yves Montand, etc), and Nathan hooked me up with four of Yann Tiersen's albums. Jeeze, Yann Tiersen is GREAT! Awesome, super-chill music with lots of orchestra and good lyrics and classic French accordion. :) My favorite songs are "Ginette", "A Ton Etoile", and "Sur le Fil". Tonight, there's another reception thingy for all the Seattle kiddos with the Seattle-Nantes Sisiter City Association, which should be good, and then a bunch of us are going to our last Nantes Symphony concert.

Heading off to Toulouse on Friday!!! SO excited. :)