Today we went to the pool. In order to get there, we had to ride bikes. Little did I know, it would be the one of the most frightening experiences of my life (just so you know, I’ve been a very sheltered kind of girl). So first of all, I’m not that experienced with riding bikes. I learned how to and that was pretty much it. My darling petit ami (Neel here’s your shoutout finally!) even gave me a bike for my birthday and I tried to ride it around campus once before I gave up because there were too many people I could potentially crash into.

Me on the bike with a baby attachment, blissfully unaware of the horror that was about to commence

So we started riding the bikes…IN THE ROAD! WITHOUT HELMETS. I could not stop thinking about how in one of my favorite books (I won’t say the name of it in case I spoil it for anyone) the main character gets hit by a car while riding her bike and DIES. Yeah, after you go through about 200 pages with this heroine, that’s how the book ends. Also, in France, the roads are not as spacious. We were riding our bikes in cramped little streets with aggressive French drivers. And my cousins were hopping curbs every few minutes because the bike lane kept changing places, and I have NEVER gone on or off a curb on a bike in my life. It seems physically impossible. But I had to do it in order to avoid being run over by an incoming car, and it wasn’t that bad! After I got over the initial fear of one wrong move resulting in me being squashed by a vehicle, I began to enjoy myself. I felt the wind in my hair and the sun on my back and saw so many cute buildings and stores and rode along the Seine river and next to the railroad tracks.

Finally, the pool! Going swimming here is double the exercise for my cousins because they have to ride bikes there, sometimes even UPHILL, oh mon dieu. The pool was cool.

People don’t sunbathe around the pool, they tan on the grass next to the pool.

Later that evening, we roasted some chamallows. AKA the kids got to make MORE FIRE WOOHOO. We played random games outside like limbo (with a rake), Hide and Seek with teams, Chromino (which is like dominoes but you have to match two colors), and various other French games. Finally we turned off the lights, lay back, and just looked at the stars. I could see the Big Dipper just like I can at home :).

As we all snuggled together contentedly under one blanket, someone FARTED! That ended the peaceful evening and everyone ran into the house haha. When she realized it was 1 am, my cute 8 year old cousin asked me if I have ever been up this late. OH, KIDS.

Bonne nuit!