The Beach Boys

It all started like any other normal day. Stephen and I woke up and needed food. The obvious solution was to go to Cora and pick up the essentials for the weekend. Within an hour we had returned with everythin we needed. Baguette, bread, rice, pasta, sauces of various sorts, cheese, and a swimming pool. Yup, you heard correctly. We bought a pool at the store. Eight feet in diameter and roughly two feet deep. It was quite the deal for a mere 20 euros. We came back to the room and made up a plan, and we thought it up quick. The pool would go in my room for several reasons. First, it was closer to the bathroom, the source of water. Secondly, if something went wrong, it was closer to the bathroom, the fastest way of getting rid of water. Finally, it was better for hiding the pool, since you look right in on Stephen's room when you walk into out apartment. We got to work. We opened the box and spread the pool out on the floor. It was huge. There was hardly enough room to walk around it. We begain filling garbage cans with water from the bathtub and sinks. This was going to take a lot of water. Now, you might be thinking that we are quite dumb
for doing this, but on the contrary, we planned ahead. We calculated the load-bearing ability of the floor and the worst-case scenario: 1.5 inches of water in my room. We felt confident. As we continued to fill the pool, we ran out of hot water. We had to put ice cold water in for over an hour. Man, the pool was going to be cold. They Stephen had a breakthrough. The next thing I knew, pots of boiling water were on the stove, ready to help make the pool a bit more pleasant. The total filling time was right at two hours. It was a lot of water. We turned the heaters on all the way (to make a sauna-like room) and make the chilly water a little more bearable.

Look at us. See how happy we are in our new pool? To be honest, the smiles were forced. That water was some of the coldest water I've ever been in. But the timer on the camera was set and there was nothing we could do but smile and feign joy. Notice the little European bathing suits? Those are standard here in France. You too should get one. The other pictures are from the First Annual ALOES Pool Party. John, Derrick, and Dan (not shown) came down and hung out with us, listening to the Beach Boys, Cake, and a lot of horrible random music that Stephen's computer like to play.

It was so cool. There are more pictures, and some really awesome videos. I'll post the pictures with some details about the taking down of the pool, but you're just going to have to wait until I return to the US to see the video that Stephen is putting together.