Dinan & St. Malo

We had to get up WAY to early this morning and hike all the way to school in the cold cause the buses don't start running till after 8. We were supposed to meet at 8:15 but of course had to wait till almost 8:45 cause the people at our school...who preach about being on time constantly...are amazing at being on time. Once we finally left we had about an hour drive to Dinan which was our first stop of the day. Pretty much everyone on the bus passed out. When we got to Dinan we stopped at a little cafe and most people ordered coffee or some breakfast. We choose to just sit in the sun...it was super windy and cold. Once breakfast was over we walked to the Tourism Office and met up with our guide who would be taking us on a tour of this historic city. It was a midevil city that used to have walls all the way around it to protect it. Some of the walls still stand. We looked at a bunch of houses that have been around since the 15th century as well as a a church that houses the heart of a very famous knight from Brittany. We got to see the walls and some of the towers that still stand. It was a beautiful view. We got a few minutes to look through souviner shop and then got back on the bus to go to St. Malo.

St. Malo is another medevil town except this one still has all of the walls intacked, you can walk all the way around the city on top of the walls. I fell asleep again on the way to St. Malo and Morgan woke me up just in time to see the beach as we passed it. We drove around the whole outside of the city while the welcome team tried ot figure out where we needed to go in to get to the resturant we were going to eat at. After we finally got off and went into to the city, they asked some people and the resturant was outside the city. We got back on the bus and drove to a sketchy looking place and stopped outside of a closed resturant, they hadn't made sure the place was open for lunch before we got there. We drove back to the city and went in to look for a place that could hold 40 people for lunch. They picked a really nice resturant and we had a 3 course meal with wine. The appitizer was a little scary but i had chicken and fries for main course and carmel & chocolate ice cream for dessert.

Once we were done eating we were allowed to go explore the city and the beach for about 3 hours. We checked out a souviner shop and bought a few postcards and I got a bracelet with a real four leaf clover made into it. We decided we were ready for the beach. We made our way through the city and outside the walls to the beach. It was absolutely the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!! There was white sand, amazing rocks jutting out into the water, & the bluest water I think i have ever seen. There were also sail boat in the water and a million seagulls flying around. We climbed out onto the rocks to take some pictures and as we started out we jumped up onto a concrete platform to get to the rocks and my foot sliped and I scrapped my shin all up and bruised it (Considering what happend today last year...I think that was an ok injury). We spent forever wondering all over the rocks and take hundreds of pictures. I felt like a mountain climber as much as we climbed up and down and all over the rocks that surrounded the water. I climbed down all the way to where the waves were breaking right in front of me and I was trying to get a cool picture of it when 2 guys snorkeling appearing and caught my attention...a wave a little bigger than had been coming in broke at that point and my jeans and shoes got splashed...it was kinda funny. A bunch of the seagulls floated in this one little pool by the shore and flew up everytime a wave broke while it passed them. We also climbed all the way out to where Mount St. Michel was, it cost money so we didn't actually go in, and explored around it. There was some kind of sailboat convention thing going on so we got to see a ton of boats in the water right by the shore.

Once we were worn out from rock climbing and sick of being blown away by the wind we went back into the city to explore and see all the shops. There were a ton of souviner type shops since it was a tourist town and i think we went in every single one. I think every one of them had owl stuff in it too. We aren't sure if it has some sort of meaning to them but we had never seen so much owl stuff before. We bought these really cute necklaces that have owls on them...we just couldn't pass them up. I also bought a shot glass and a ring with the symbol for Brittany on it becuase I love it. We found a store that was call cinco (which is ironic since thats Spanish) and it was like everythings a dollar...except everything was 5 Euros. They had all kinds of stuff but we both bought a watch. It was the first place we had seen digital watches and they were cheap. I didn't bring either of my watches with me since the batteries were dead and it's too scary to keep my cell phone in my pocket here...and it's bad in class here to have it out even just for time. We had visited every tourist store and it still wasn't time to meet back up to get on the bus so we went in a store we had been in downtown yesterday called Pimkie. I had seen this adorable black leather bomber jacket for only 30 Euros and a really wanted it but i talked myself out of it...that didn't work so well today. It looks really good on me though and it's real cold here.

It was finally close enough to time to head back up towards the entrance to the city where we were meeting and where we had seen the creperie we wanted to get a crepe at (there were tons in the city but this one was the most reasonably priced). I got a crepe with chocolat...which was actually nutella...and it was amazing!! So much better than the last one I had and a lot bigger for the same price. We walked outside the walls and met up with all the students and were waiting for the WellCome Team people till after it was time to meet. Someone finally went back inside the walls and found them waiting there for us. They made all of us come in to them for them to count us...then we went back out and walked all the way to where the bus was. Once we were finally on it was time to head home. It only tool us about 45 minutes to get back and luckily the buses were still running. About 20 of us hopped on the bus that came about 15 minutes after we got back and almost all of us got off at the stop by our apartment. We found out that there are actually 12 students that live here. 8 are Phillipeano...2 of them live on our floor, the rest live on the 4th floor with the 2 girls from Colorado. The girls from Iowa live pretty close to us as well as the super odd Finnish girls...who all wear black and look identical...3 are super duper tiny and one is fat...3 have the exact same color bleach blonde hair except on of the tiny ones has darker hair...they kind of annoy us.

Once we finally got home we loaded our pics on our computers and I made us scrambled eggs for dinner since eggs are the only food we have in our house. We forgot yesterday we were out and that the stores are all closed on Sundays. We were going to go tomorrow before we have to be at school to get some groceries. We have a meeting at 2 tomorrow at school to get our student cards and we are going to take our computers to check our schedules again and hope my other class is showing finally. I am also going to use the good school internet to upload some of my pics from today...I'll put just a few on here but all the good ones will be on facebook so you'll have to check them out there.

I'm exhausted, tired of typing, and my shin needs to get washed off...the scratch is a little dirty. I'll be sure to write tomorrow and tell you the meeting was and get the pictures added. It was the most gorgeous place...they pictures don't even do it justice!!

**Today was definetely a test of my patience which seems to happen a lot here...especially when it comes to the WellCome Team. I'm doing my best not to let the little things get to me and just blow things off. I understand they work on a whole different philosophy than we do about time and punctuality. Maybe this is going to be good for me in helping me deal with people I work with in the future who don't understand that to me being on time means arriving at least 15 minutes early...ALWAYS!! Anyways just wanted to fill you in on the little life thoughts I was having today**