France and LED Lights

Hello! Here's a big blog about France and LED lights.

Brendan and I met at the airport. It was a sunny day. It had been sunny for several days in fact. Leaving Cert week. So odd that this country's most reliable week of sunshine is based around a state examination, yet so very accurate. After some faffing about finding a drink-counter app for our phones and eating Burger King, we entered the airport bar to begin our journey.

The trip looked like it was off to a good start. We got chatting to a Canadian girl on the aeroplane (during our second drink - a crappy little Heineken...we were flying Ryanair though, and needs-must), who was living in Ireland. She wasn't all that interesting..a bit strange actually. Possibly Christian. Or some other related condition. Seemed like a good sign though - only 30 minutes into our trip and we were talking to strangers.

Upon landing we parted ways and found a bus. While laughing at an absurd Hiphop/basketball event's poster, we heard English-speaking voices behind us doing the same. An American couple. We started talking and they seemed pretty cool. TJ and Sondy. Peeking into the future of this blog, they turned out to be really cool - see how drunk they got:

We planned to meet the guys for drinks later on and went to find our hostel. Strangest hostel ever. Worst too, but more strikingly was the strangeness. Only hostel in Nantes, so we had decided to stay there to have more fun with strangers etc. Wasn't much cheaper than the hotels or anything. Don't stay there. It took the woman a good 30 minutes to check us in, during which time she charged us for everything under the sun. The place felt like an abandoned swimming pool, with absolutely no guests - even though the hostel was pretty much full up apparently. We didn't want to judge too soon though, and went out for some proper French food. 

And wine.

We had a crepe for dinner. Then a crepe for dessert. So good. We went back to the hostel to get changed for our first night out. Upon entering our room at 9.30 p.m, still bright outside, we meet our room-mates for the night; 3 guys, each one of them in bed reading. I shit you not. Brendan said "hello", one of them replied with a quick "hello", and that was it. We got changed in silence. It was fucking freaky, man. I'm telling you. Christian or something. We decided we'd try and cancel our third day at the hostel and search for a hotel in the morning.

Arriving at the bar recommended on TripAdvisor, we were a little shocked to find a good few of the guys had blood on their faces. This seemed odd, but the bar still seemed rather safe and legit. Kids around the place, sort of a big tent, with picnic benches and whatnot inside. We bought a beer and waited to see if TJ and Sondy would see our Facebook message and come meet us. After a drink we were going to give up on them for the evening and start our own adventure when they showed up. Thank god, in fairness; it turns out it isn't tourist season in Nantes yet, and French people aren't very...approachable. There really wasn't any opportunity to try and talk to strangers. I'm not sure what would have happened had they never gotten the message. We hung around with them for the night, chatting and drinking wine. It was fun. We had to be up for our giant-mechanical-elephant ride at 9, so we resolved to try and switch to their hotel in the morning and went home at around 2am. 

A little fragile, but still excited for our elephant, we successfully cancelled our booking and left the hostel behind forever. I'm not sure if this photo is me being happy because of the hostel, or because I'd just been on a giant mechanical elephant:

It walks and everything. Pretty cool. YouTube it. 

After a pizza for breakfast (with an egg on it. Love France), we checked into the hotel. Hard to put in words how much better it was. So much better. Terrible word choice David. Why do you write a blog? You're not all that good at writing. And even if you were, you still shouldn't write it at 3 a.m coming home a little drunk. You should do that shit sober. Stupid David. 

We went to see a castle nearby. It was fun. I didn't Instagram it though. Only messing. I Instagramed it the next day. So I can't put it here yet. We saw an old French man shaving in the moate. So French. I loved it.

Figuring that Irish bars always have tourists inside, after some tasty duck confit we ventured down to one in the center of town. In fairness, it kind of worked. We got talking to some French people. They weren't all that interesting though, so after a few crappy Guinesses we went off to meet TJ and Sondy again. They were drinking wine at the elephant place (which is a huge open space with lots of strange attractions). Nice. We went to a club someone recommended on Couchsurfing. It had a cover charge to get in, but we'd heard they played the Pixies, so we went for it. After requesting the Pixies, they played Hey. It was a pretty amazing moment of the holiday, being hammered and dancing to Hey. No idea why it was so emotional really though. These things just kind of happen sometimes. The DJ didn't know who Passion Pit were, so I went to get some pints for everyone. 4 pints, how much could it cost, you ask? I know you didn't actually ask. Rhetorical question you see. 40 euro though. I mean come on, 40 euro? That's way too many euros. So we left.

We tried to take a shortcut across a train tracks which resulted in lots of falling and wrecking of clothes. Also just presumed the trains don't run at night. That was a bit silly. No deaths, though. Giving up and walking around to the bridge, we tried to find another bar. No luck at all though - some places were clearly open but weren't letting people in anymore (it was about 3am)....or at least not us, anyway. So we stumbled home.

On Sunday morning we decided to make it a day drinking day - we hadn't any touristy things left to do on our list. So we bought some wine and went back to the castle for a juggle all afternoon. It was nice. Not that warm though, while Ireland was like 26 degrees. Always happens, huh? The guys arrived an hour or two later with baguettes and cheese. So good.

 We balanced said baguettes on our noses, as we are jugglers.

We spent the evening getting progressively drunker. It was great. We sat by a fountain and talked to a good few passers by - an old French man even drew Sondy like one of his French girls.

Sondy then sketched me like one of her French girls, but it doesn't appear to be online. If you see this Sondy, please put said sketch online. Thank you. This blog is great fun.

We don't really know what happened at the end of the evening. Brendan and I both vaguely recall sitting outside Le Shaft (best bar name ever), and talking to people, but we can't remember any more detail than that. I think they were all older people, at some conference. I'm sure that sounded far more exciting at the time.

Home now, 3 weeks left before the big trip. Spent the day getting things sorted (or at least planning to get things sorted) in Das Van yesterday. We bought some sick LED lights for it.

They come with a remote to change colour. Amazing. See you again very soon, France.