Oh sudoku!

The day after I saw the scary movie, I saw the Brothers Grimm...much better. Anyway, for the rest of my vacation, I did much more interesting things. On a Tuesday-Wednesday, I went to St Brieuc to hang out with Chris for a few days. We made Mexican food, drank Corona, watched a movie, and watched about half a season's worth of the OC. It was really fantastic to just vege. I hadn't sat down to watch a movie since leaving the states, as I have a TV at my apartment,but there are no channels available - just snow. That Thursday, I took the bus to St. Quai/Portriuex to go to the beach, since it's a sandy one instead of rocks. I really lucked out with the weather, and actually laid out in my bathing suit despite the fact that it was the end of October!! On the 2nd Friday of vacation (I really have no concept of time here), I took the train to Nantes (BIG city a few hours away) to meet up with Chris, Elsa, and Kirstin. My train went to Rennes, and from Rennes, I was herded onto a bus to continue to Nantes. The bus was very crowded, and I was really hoping not to have to sit next to someone that would either: A - hit on me and in general not leave me alone B - have a baby sharing their seat C - smell. I took a seat next to a guy close to my age and hoped for the best...there weren't many options anyway. Once the bus left, I got out my book of Sudoku puzzles to pass the time. I looked at a new one for a second, and put a 1 in a box that already had a 1 as my first move. For anyone who does sudoku, that is a very stupid thing to do. As it turns out, this guy was looking over my shoulder, and as soon as I wrote it, he started laughing! I made some lame excuse about having something in my eye, and proceeded on. However, it's really hard to concentrate on a sudoku if you have someone watching your every move, and presumable thinking to himself how slow you are at it, and how you have no stratedy whatsoever, and how he could've finished the whole thing a long time ago. Consequently, I was even worse at the puzzle than usual. After a little while, I got stuck, so I asked him if he had any suggestions. He said yes, and proceeded to help me with the remaining numbers. As it turned out, he was actually really genuinely nice, and we did sudokus together until our eyes started screwing up, and then just talked awhile. Olivier was in the marines, and worked in Brest, but lived near La Rochelle, so he had a long train ride every weekend to get home. We had a very pleasant conversation, that never did deteriorate into him asking for my number and assuring me that he wants to marry an American as so many conversations with French men do. It was certainly a bit nerdy, but I guess it goes to show that people who do sudoku aren't sleezeballs.