14 May 2008

La Forêt Domaniale de Rennes

On Monday (the 12th) we went to a French forest. I think I took a total of three pictures, it was really sort of a disappointment. Let me explain.

Jess and I left St. Gregoire at 11h03 in order to get to centre ville buy picnic food, and catch the 12h15 line 50 bus up to the forest (since it was a jour férié each bus line only ran once an hour). We stood in the marché for about half an hour, half thinking that Collin was going to come and choose food with us. Nope. We got meat and cheese, two water bottles, and a green apple. Collin met us at the bus stop, we hopped on, and about twenty minutes later Mark got on when we reached his house. Lucky him, being the closest to the forest.

At Juteauderies we jumped off and walked straight down the road for sevenish minutes before hitting the forest. It was very beautiful. It was great to see real trees, not the poor mutilated things that we’re used to all over Rennes. The French believe that flowering trees are so much more beautiful when you cut all of the branches so they all look stubby and swollen. During the winter they look like poor handicapped plants; though in the spring and summer the blossoms do look pretty cool all so close together…

The forest was paved. Not even exaggerating. Maybe I should have taken more pictures of it just for that reason. We walked in on the blacktop and thought, “Ok, sure, it’s just like this cause it’s the entrance.” Wrong! It’s like that cause the French are afraid to actually be out in the wild. Not that walking trails are “the wild”, but seriously, people. Seriously? Sidewalks in a forest?
The four of us walked for a while before sitting down on a concrete water aquaduct (? Yeah, I don’t really know…but it did sound like there was water flowing through it) and ate our lunch. Bugs bit me, and this one huge flying beetle which looked like a mini scarab kept on flying past my and Jessica’s faces. Mark beat it away with the plastic tray from the lunch meat. I still have bug bites all over, and not just from moustiches. I have tiny little bites on the top of my left hand, too, and I’m really curious as to what got me there.

We left the forest around 3 and ended up at the stop about 45 minutes before the next bus was going to pull through, so we just started walking. We walked about two or three stops down, checking each time to see how long we had to wait for the bus. We finally halted when we had about 15 more minutes to wait. It was hot. I was in jean shorts and a tshirt, and it was HOT. Bleah. It doesn’t help at all that Bretagne is getting just a tidge more humid as the weather gets warmer. I think part of it has to do with how much it rains.

But it was hot, and while we were sitting there in the 34*C spring sun, Mark remembered that there is a McDonalds at the stop right before his house. Yes, dear friends, yes we went to Macdo’s. But only for the icecream! I had a McFlurry with kit kat turds in it. They were so good. Sorry about the turds part. They were just really tiny balls.

Of coursem since we stopped and hung out, and left the shrine of American consumerism just a few minutes too late, Jess and Collin and I missed the next bus down to centre ville. We walked to another line, got there half an hour before the next bus, and decided once again to just walk the road until we had less than 20 minutes to wait.

Once in centre ville Jess and I did this again one time since we had missed our bus by twenty minutes. Buses only running once an hour is kind of a huge pain in the butt. I did get a rather nice even burn on my arms, though. Not too bad, just enough to have people come up to me just so that they can push their fingers into my skin and watch it leave white marks. I find immense joy in telling them that my skin always does that. It’s just a bit more pink than it usually is.
I got home around 6 and the night pretty much progressed as Sunday did.

Funny how it’s suddenly become so easy to just fall into my France routine. When people ask me questions in French, I like to think that I answer them. Maybe I don’t. Maybe that’s why conversations that I begin are so awkward. They’re still reveling in the fact that I tried to introduce a subject.

1 comment:

justacoder said...

hello michel. I was wondering whether to go to the forest. Thanx for your blog, it seems quite a dumb activity to do. Even I havent noticed any good wild life areas (where u can be with nature). C ya