I've been a bad blogger. It's been a while since I updated, I know! I've just been pretty busy. Last week I had the party on Sunday, which was a good time. I got to hang out with Dan and get all the food together first and then Ray arrived and we grilled the burgers and then the girls showed up to join in.
We sat around and watched movies and Dan ended up spending the night and while he was passed out on our pullout bed downstairs the girls and I watched American Pie and laughed about high school and past fun times. I wish I could spend more time with Ray and Lauren and Hilary because I never do! We're always in different places living busy lives. It's only a few days out of the year where our lives have the opportunity to intersect.
So my last week of work was very busy filling orders and making arrows. It was a good way to close out my summer though. James Cosimini, another archer who runs the Brandies team, will be taking my place on Saturdays, and a retired friend of my parents will be taking over weekdays when my Dad isn't around the shop. James is really knowledgeable about archery and at first I felt unsure because of some past personal issues I had with him but after watching him and training him in the store I feel a little better. I've been trying to find out more about him. He recently had a break with his long time girlfriend, who was the one who really had the problem with me. Friday night we grabbed a pizza after work and talked about breakups and watched Office Space. I had a better time than I thought I would. I kind of did it out of pity and knowing what a bad break can do and how much having someone give you the time to talk means. But it ends out that we actually had a pretty awesome time!
Saturday morning I got a text from my mom asking if I wanted to do Waterfire. It's a weekly event in Providence on the canal. Basically there's these little floating baskets that are chained to the bottom of the canal and black boats with people all dressed in black go with a torch and light them on fire and tend to the fires until just after midnight. Sometimes they light the whole canal, other times it's only a partial. Friends of my mom have been doing it for years and needed two more volunteers on their boat for their section and gave my mom a call. So after outfitting ourselves in all black we made our way to Providence to the team meeting where we were given the down low on how to stack the wood and light the fires. We were "part of the show" and were "meant to be invisible." Of course people waved but we weren't allowed to wave back, except for maybe a little shake of the hand at waist level.
We boarded our boat, which was stacked with wood on more than half of it and we all stood on the starboard side in a line facing forwards. Because it was my first time they let my light a number of baskets. We were first part of a procession down the canal to the large basin that has a circle of fire baskets. There was one boat with the flame in front of the audience and the other young guy in the boat held out the torch and lit our torch from the original one. Each boat has a torch about eight feet long and gets the flame during the procession. Then we divide up and go to our individual sections and light the baskets. We are constantly moving at about 5 mph so the torch is in the front of the boat and as soon as we get close enough, a wick made of newspaper is within reach. To lit it you have to shove the torch in as deep as you can to the wick, without knocking any of the stacked wood off the basket and keeping it on while the boat is moving away. It takes a bit of skill but it was really fun!
While going down the canal to the sounds of haunting music, I felt like a Venetian courtesan, being applauded for my skills, although mine were fire lighting and stacking on more wood, not being a woman of "entertainment" and intelligence. After lighting them we went back to the dock to take a break and wait for the fires to burn down a bit before stoking them. One of the women in our boat was named Liz and she'd been abroad for a year in college near Madrid. She told me it was the best decision of her life and told me I absolutely had to see the Prado if in Spain.
After a night of stoking fires from a boat, reaching out with two blocks of wood as far as I could reach at times, my legs are a bit bruised from falling wood and I slept today until very late. My Grandpa joined us for dinner tonight. We had my "last supper" as my parents kept dubbing it. I know they're going to miss me a lot considering every time an ad or show or movie refers to children moving on my mom starts bawling her eyes out and my dad gets teary eyed. My brother, Pat, is actually trying to be nice to me and tomorrow we're going to see Pineapple Express, my last American, non-dubbed, movie till Christmas.
Other than movie plans tomorrow will be a fun filled day of packing and getting my things settled at home. Making sure you've taken care of everything is always a worrying process. It's hard to know what you'll need to bring. I need to remember to take pictures of my family. Not that I don't have them on my computer but having an actual photo in my hand is always better.
I probably wont post until I'm in Paris, and that all depends on if internet is free at the hotel or not. Then it depends on if I can find free internet otherwise. But until then I'll be writing it out so I can post a bunch when I get internet again.
The plans so far are:
Aug 26th, depart for Paris at 10pm
Aug 27th, arrive in Paris at 2pm, go through customs and somehow find Lukas in the airport. Get to the hotel and find Sebastien and have a wonderful, Eiffel Tower filled night.
Enjoy Paris.
Sept 3rd, See Lukas off to the airport while making my way to the Gare de Lyon for a train around noontime to Montpellier. Then make my way to my new campus to meet one of the International Relations staff who will get me settled in my new dorm room.
Sept 4th, Meet the other ISEP girls and have a wonderful welcome to Montpellier, whatever that may be!
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