"Le Bonheur" is ironically named...

After waking up late yesterday morning and frantically getting to class, it turned out that we didn't have class that morning. We have schedule which tells us when and what room we have class each day, just like in American universities, but the difference is that they often change our schedule at whim without any kind of approval or email notification. Now this wouldn't be a problem because I've been in class every day, except that where I'm at with my French right now, allows me to understand most of the words and then take what I know and make assumptions about the rest of what they're saying. Usually, this is totally fine, but unfortunately, this time it wasn't; what I understood to be an optional movie-watching class after our original class was actually our class for the day. So Kelly (who has been sick for 2 days so he got my crappy relayed information) and I had 4 hours before class started, and since he takes the bus for like an hour each way, he wasn't going home; now I could have easily gone home, but I 1) felt like it was my fault he was there at the wrong time and 2) thought maybe it would be better to be out in the city than sitting like a recluse in my dorm room. So we rode into town and eat breakfast at McDonald's. Yes, McDonald's. It was good though; b-fast at McDonald's has always been the better option, especially now that I drink coffee lol then we walked around the Ste. Claire Market to get some vegetables and fruit since my diet is currently lacking them. After that we decided to head back up to campus and check out "la piscine" which is where you can sign up for clubs and where there is actually a pool lol unfortunately by now, it hard started raining and was colder than when I left for class, so by the time we walked back to the API office, we, or at least I, looked a mess haha we hung out in there for about an hour and a half with the Language and Culture kids, which turned out to be fun. It ended up being nice because I got to talk to Kelly and find some things in common (like loving surfing, the Caribbean, and How I Met Your Mother!), since he's the one I know least well in the group. We both reluctantly went to class, where my professor, whom I normally love, talked for like 35 minutes about the movie before we even watched it. Then, we all GOT ON A TRAM to get to the cinema. This was a legitimate field trip, apparently, which I had interpreted correctly, but assumed that I hadn't. The logistics of all of these people awkwardly getting to, onto, and off of the tram was just absurd. I think I got hit with like 5 umbrellas and was not happy about it. We walked from the tram stop, still in the freezing rain and still with wet feet on my part, to the theater were it took another 30 minutes for everyone to get seated, for someone else to talk about the movie, and then to actually start the movie. We got to leave as soon as we were done instead of at the set time, so naturally I wanted things to hurry up, especially since I had expected to be done with class at 12:30 instead of just starting it then. And then the movie...Le Bonheur (which means "the happiness") is kind of to French culture what Gone With the Wind is to Southern American culture: everyone knows it, can reference it, names their children after it. Let me summarize the plot for you: man loves his wife and kids (despite both parents being kind of terrible and neglectful when they're too busy being "in love"), man meets a hottie with a body who looks remarkably like his wife, man falls in love with her and starts having an affair, man tells wife he's having an affair but convinces her he still loves her, wife dies/kills herself(I couldn't tell which), man is sad for like a day and then, here's the kicker, brings in mistress to be replacement mommy like nothing ever happened. Kelly and I discussed the movie afterward and honestly couldn't find any redeeming qualities; I don't mean to be insensitive to French culture because maybe there's some underlying thing there that I'm missing, but I didn't like the plot, the acting, the camera work, the music (which was Mozart so it was nice at first, but they played one song over and over), anything. We have an assignment to pick our favorite scene and tell why, and the only one I can come up with right now is "la scene dernière parce-que j'ai enfin pu partir," which means "the last scene because I could finally leave" lol I'm hoping our discussion in class will shed some positive light on it, but probably not, since I most likely won't interpret it correctly anyway ::sigh:: With the weather and the day's events, I was already frustrated, so when I got home and found that the package my mom sent me was ready to be picked up, I thought maybe that would be a nice change. Nope. The notes they gave me were in French, which I expected, but it was hard to translate them and understand what I needed to do; I went to the front desk to ask, but the communication barrier made it impossible to determine what I needed to do. But I felt a little better after I watched Lost and vegged out a little before Lexi, Ashley, and I went into town. We went to O'Callaghan's, an Irish bar in case you couldn't tell, but none of our group was there yet. So we walked around for a bit and found another, classier bar where I unintentionally got the biggest gin fizz ever haha it was good though, and we just took our time there. By the time we went back to O'Callaghan's, Kelly and Christian had already left, so we talked to the Language and Culture kids some before heading back home courtesy of the Noctibus. Not the most successful night out, but it was our first time trying; we still have plenty of time :) Today we're going on a mini-excursion with API to the "Grottes (caves) de Choranche;" I'm pretty excited because even though it's raining and cold and, you know, caves already are those things, it's with a good group of people, and it's an API excursion so I'm sure it's awesome!