More than 24h in Le Mans (part 3)

Saturday, again had another sneaky few minutes (by that I mean around half an hour to an hour, I don't remember exactly) sleep after hearing my alarm go off before finally rolling out of bed. As I hadn't managed to get to the Préfecture yesterday which I didn't actually manage to see last time either (a first!) that was my first port of call. It was another goregeous day, so even though there was a bus stop not five minutes walk from the hostel, I didn't use it once. I didn't see the point given that I was so close to town anyway, but the weather was glorious which made it a pleasure to walk. To be typically English and talk about the weather yet again, the weather in Le Mans was totally not how I anticipated it to be, I thought the North was going to be a lot colder than in the South, more in keeping with the weather at home as opposed to Mediterranean climes...how wrong was I! Hadn't come completely unprepared though, had t-shirts as well as long-sleeved tops, so hadn't shot myself in the foot :) Walked the same route as the previous day (meant I got to walk down Rue de Bolton, which I walked down quite a number of times during my stay! :P) although once I got to Place de la République I decided to take the tram even though it was only a few more minutes walk...lazy I know, but my reasoning was that on arriving in Le Mans I had bought a ticket for 10 journeys on the tram thinking I may need them in case the hostel was further away than it was or whatever, and I wanted to use as many of the 10 as possible before I came back to Pau, in order to have not having wasted money. Having received a text from Sarah saying they hadn't yet got up and so weren't going to make the 2pm meeting time we had arranged the night before I decided to take my time. Arrived at the Préfecture and again did the whole touristy thing of taking photos...I was slowly but surely coming to the conclusion that as much as you try and blend in with the locals the fact you have a map in one hand and your camera in the other will never quite cut it!

The Préfecture



Something else I was starting to realise was that town halls/council buildings in France are so much nicer looking than at home, give or take the odd one or two. They just look a lot prouder with the national flag flying outside and for the most part they are striking buldings. Don't get me wrong, that isn't to say that I don't think that my fellow countrymen and women aren't patriotic, quite the contrary in fact, but I do think that there is a distinct lack of such things at home, well except for when the World Cup is being contested and you see flags absolutely everywhere!

After having done my photocall at the Préfecture I rang Sarah to find out what was going on and found out that they were on the tram on their way into town, decided to go to the tram stop to wait for them and even then we managed to miss each other! Once we had all met up we went for a wander round the town, as the others hadn't already had the chance to due to being at the conference on Friday and given that the Leeds people wanted a bit of time to do their own thing they had re-arranged to meet up with the French people in the evening. Just going to brush over the afternoon as not too much to speak of, after having wandered round for a bit we met up with the rest of the Leeds lot (who had gone off for a look round as well) and soaked up some of the sun sat in a café in Place de la République.




At 6, we went down to Place de l'Éperon to meet the French people like yesterday, although not all of them were able to make it for various reasons which was a shame and then as we were waiting Sarah received a text from her teacher saying they had to go for a debrief- talk about no warning! Given that I was the only one among us not to have been at the seminar I didn't need to go, although as Sarah had forgotten to bring my shopping with her which I left at her hotel and they didn't know how long they'd be needed for, she suggested I run back up to the hotel to retrieve it given that they had to leave earlier than me to come home the following morning. Knew roughly where I was going from when Sarah came to meet me on Friday night, although I can't have paid much attention given that the first thing I did was get off the tram at the wrong stop! Clever...then had to negotiate my way through the uni to get back to where I needed to be and consequently find the hotel, which I managed to do fairly easily after I had found where I needed to be! Then jumped back on the tram to go and meet them all. It was on my way back that I receieved my phone call from Sandrine (my friend from orchestra) with info about us meeting up, so had a better idea as to what was going on...I'm really not the type of person who likes to be kept in the dark...

Went back to find the others as there was an hour and a quarter until Sandrine would come to find me in Place de la Rép and I knew I wouldn't get to see Sarah and the others after that given that they had to leave at 9 whereas I had my train at midday.
Stayed with them in the restaurant where they had eaten until everyone moved to a bar in the Old Town opposite the Town Hall taking many a photo en route!

Us with the Le Mans 24 statuette



Once at the bar I literally stayed two minutes as I had to head back to wait for Sandrine to come and find me and then go to a bar where another of the orchestra people from 2005 was celebrating his birthday, so it turned out to be quite a reunion! :) In all, there was Sandrine, Cecile (who both stayed with me in Bolton), Guillaume, Gildas and Thibault (who was the one celebrating his birthday). Was so nice to see them all and be able to catch up! Sandrine paid me the biggest compliment ever too which was good by saying 'tu parles commme une francaise' (you speak like a French woman)...evidently all my hard work and effort hasn't been in vain! Had a great night and saw how the French party, which was great. The only disappointment of the night in all honesty was that I had to leave before the end as I had to get back to the hostel to pack up my things and sleep ready to check-out early and then travel back to Pau. Definitely an awesome few days! :)



Won't bore you about the journey back, not much I can say of any interest about 9 and a half hours on a train, but I was knackered when I arrived back on Sunday night...a memorable weekend seeing old friends, making new ones and having lots of fun! :)