exhossted

so we did it, we climbed angers/everest via public transport today, and proved it can be done, although we did miss one bus/train connection and got stranded in cholet for an hour and a half between 8:45 and 10:15 (per the bus driver our own fault; we were supposed to tell him we had a train to catch so he would have known to go to the train station FIRST before going to the centre-ville station. whatevs, as krystle would have said). but cholet is a happening town; it provided a croissant and coffee, a tourist office with a very perky young thing with a map, a pretty cathedral, a public bathroom, and before we knew it it was time to get on the next train to angers. we shared all the buses/trains with hordes of junior high school students on their way to school (the rural public buses also double as school buses) which was a bit much at 7 am but it is more fun than being one of a horde of tourists.

in angers, we went to the castle to swan around the ramparts (fabulous view of the river) and also to see the tapestry of the apocalypse, which (straining to remember what the autoguide told us) i think is the biggest tapestry ever woven in western europe? is that possible? it is 14o meters long (that is a lot of tapestry) and depicts st. john's vision of the apocalypse, complete with horsemen, dead people, satanic fire, monsters with seven heads, rivers running blood etc. even if it isn't the biggest tapestry in the world, i think it might definitely qualify as the scariest. then we took ourselves out for lunch, and then a wander around the shops, another coffee, and then back to the train in the afternoon (which C. almost missed, a little bit of excitement).
i got my TGV ticket changed to next week as well, so now i am truly definitely leaving a week from today; all legs of my journey from AC to kiel are now confirmed.

back to AC in time for a 45 minute soak in the bath (i nearly fell asleep, but then the water started getting cold), a potluck dinner with the whole crew (out of the blue! a bona fide delicious brussel sprout recipe from S-J, involving lots of garlic and creme fraiche. will ask her for details in the morning), and then a bonfire out in the garden, with hula hooping competition, bad singing, and mulled wine. everything a bonfire is supposed to have. (and a few things it is not supposed to have, like about five minutes of rain, which luckily was only five minutes).

tomorrow i will try and load some photos - too tired tonight....
love to all and please please please let obama win.