My Birthday Adventures

People say that it's not all that exciting to turn 20 years old. Normally I'd agree with them, however, I turned 20 in France!

I decided that for my birthday on Wednesday, I wanted to venture outside of Clermont. My host family told me the night before about a little medieval town called Royat, which touches Clermont. Royat is supposedly famous for the healing powers of the water from its springs. Having nothing better to do with an afternoon, three friends and I hopped on a bus to Royat not really knowing where we were going or what exactly we were going to do. We just wanted to have a little adventure. We found a restaurant and had an amazing lunch (as if they're not all amazing), then hiked our butts up to the old downtown area. We visited a small church, which was under construction, after which we wandered around for a bit. There really didn't seem like that much to do, and we couldn't find the springs, so we waited around until the “Musée de Royat” opened up at 3.

The museum was situated in a small house, which should have been our first warning sign. Our second warning sign should have been the small bell-boy mannequin with one arm that greeted us at the door. (For any "Arrested Development" fans out there, we coined him "Baby Buster"). As soon as we entered, a flittering little Frenchman came down to greet us and whisked us off to the reception area, where he informed us that the tour would cost 3 euro per person. Not really knowing what was going on, we gave him our 3 euro. We asked how long the tour would take and he told us "a good hour". It's not nice to lie.

The museum had 6 rooms, and probably 15 full-sized mannequins. We skipped the first room and started our little learning adventure of the history of Royat. I was pretty interested for the first hour, I'm not gonna lie. After that, it was pure agony. Every time I’d start to space out or want to jump out the window, I’d see a person in the corner of my eye and wonder if they were as bored as I was until I’d turn my head and see that it was not a person in the corner of my eye, but one of the many freakish bug-eyed mannequins in this man’s personal collection. An hour and a half later, he finally announced that we were about to enter the last room – the costume and doll room. Feeling like I had rounded the bend in the last lap and that the finish line was in sight, I listened with great anticipation as our tour was coming to an end. As he finished showing us the last baby doll holding a miniature umbrella, he remembered that we had skipped the very first room. How dare we leave without seeing the fresque! He skittered off to the fresque and as we contemplated an escape. Unfortunately for us, he was waiting in the hall, standing between us and the exit. He quickly ushered us into the room with the fresque: a giant timeline (starting with the very beginning, like the first 7 days, and ending in 1972) that spanned the entire perimeter of the room. He then proceeded to talk us through the entire timeline. I thought I was literally going to die. I kept snickering to myself and almost completely lost it a couple times. I was fidgeting so much that I think I accidentally danced a jig in place. Well, maybe more like a waltz, because dancing a jig in place is pretty much just dancing a jig. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t just spent the past hour and a half listening to all these exact same things in mannequin form. The only difference was that they were now before us in a timeline. At one point my phone rang and I thought we had an out for sure. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. When it came down to it, I could tell how much the poor guy loved his job and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. After finally finishing and forcibly signing the guest book, we all but ran from the museum. We spent over 2 and a half hours in that building. Afterwards, we were too blown away to look for the springs and just got back on the bus to Clermont. I’ll drink the water another day.

That night, my host mom made an especially delicious dinner, including pasta with mussel sauce and a homemade lemon tart. They stuck candles in the tart, sang to me, and gave me a very nice pair of earrings from Gallery Lafayette. They’re awfully kind to me. Shortly after, I headed out for the evening with the rest of the Kalamazoo crew plus four Frenchies. My K buddies surprised me with champagne and cake, so we celebrated for a little bit underneath a statue of Vercingetorix before going out for the night. Much merriment was to be had. The French boys told me that it was mandatory that I do something a little outlandish for my 20^th birthday, so to appease them, I ran through a row of about 10 fountains, one after the other, in the middle of Place de Jaude. One of my friends told me it was quite a sight to behold; I had four French boys running alongside me, filming the whole thing and yelling in French. We’re only young and stupid once, right?

My host mom told me at dinner that night that she hopes I’ll always remember my birthday in France. I’m pretty sure that won’t ever be a problem.

P.S. Mon cheri just found out that I'm American, not British. I'm afraid he might not be mon cheri for much longer...