"The Burial of the Life of a Young Girl" aka Bachelorette Party!

With the long awaited wedding of Anne-Laure and Romain finally approaching, Benoit and I were very excited to finally take part in the bachelor and bachorlette parties last weekend.  At 9am Saturday morning, the "kidnapping" took place at their apartment by both les garçons (guys) et les filles (girls).  All eleven girls were dressed in our matching pink polo shirts while the boys supported their love of rugby and decided to all wear their jerseys.

Without reveiling too many details of what exactly happened on the "boy's end" after the two groups parted their separate ways, Benoit told me that they took Romain to the Place Royal (the biggest square in all of Nantes) and paraded around with pots and pans, chanting, "il va se marier, il va se marier!" (he's going to get married, he's going to get married!) Following somewhat of the same plan, the girls took Anne-Laure around the city of Nantes, diguised as an ugly princess and blindfolded, bringing her to prominent places during her childhood; such as her daycare, her schools, ect.  Next, still blindfolded, we drove Anne-Laure an hour and half to her family beach house in Croisic (see map below) where some of the girls had already prepared the aperatif with champagne, kirs, and a lovely lunch afterwards.

After lunch, we decided to take Anne-Laure on a "catamaran."  A catamaran is a special kind of sailboat with two big "floaters" on both sides and thick piece of canvas in the middle, connectly the two.  It is normally a 2 person boat, but since we were an odd number of 11 we had to have a group of 3 (I was part of that group of three because I was the only one that never mounted on a sailboat niether knew how to guide one).

That's me all the way on the right!

Not only was I part of the only group of 3, I was also on the only boat that flipped over in the middle of the ocean!  Please don't freak out Mom or Grandma Trach, I lived through it don't worry!  We got caught in a small wind tunnel that prevented Pauline from changing the direction of the sail.  As a result, the boat turned itself to one side and all three of us were tossed out of the boat.  The current was rather strong that day and the guide (yes, there was a guide to help us, although he was on a different boat, paired with one of the other girls).  Finally, we were pulled out of the water and were able to sail safely to shore.  However, the arranged pairs got jumbled during our cry of man over-board and suddenly I found myself on a boat with just one other girl, Eugenie.  Eugenie took the post of pilot and I was in the cockpit with the job of changing sails according to the direction of the wind.  After a bit of stress and panic, Eugenie and I safely and successfully "drive" the boat to shore.  

After such an event, we all decided it was time for the aperitif before dinner.  We made our way back to the house and directly started to prepare dinner.  The sequence of events were as followed:

-Aperitif+question and answer session with all the responses we were dying to know from Anne-Laure  concerning her "inimate" relationship with Romain

-Shellfish dinner with white wine a flowin' (see pictures below)

-Homeade mojitos and kareoke!  

The next day, we all decided it would be a nice idea to let Anne-Laure (and the rest of us) sleep in.  After we all got dressed, it was time to take the bachelorette in a treasure hunt through the town of Croisic.  The catch?  Once Anne-Laure responded with the right answer to a question and found the box that was hidden, she was able to "keep" what was inside.  However, what was inside were costume pieces that she had to put on (in public) and complete a second challenge.  For example, outside a creperie, she found the box.  Inside was an orange whig.  Anne-Laure had to put on the orange wig and then give a total of 10 hugs to the people who having lunch at the creperie.  Everyone was so friendly and willing to play along--to my surprise because French people are rather closed-off to rowdy and ridiculous things--and even the chef at the creperie offered Anne-Laure a chocolate crepe!

The "Burial of the Life of a Young Girl" turned out to be a great success!  And one step closer to the wedding, THIS WEEKEND!