I was the only non-worker in the house for breakfast so I enjoyed a quiet one to myself and actually read a book for a little while- and not my darn Business in the EU textbook. I even remember that I had two slices of wheat bread with butter on each, red currant jam on one, and black currant jam on the other. Mmm mmm- always good!
After breakfast, Christine got home from running errands. She usually doesn't leave the house to run errands until the afternoon but there was a problem with the washing machine this weekend and she had to take it to a shop. It is a little inconvenient for me, I have to say, because I had kept the washer free of my clothes the past two weeks in case Kathy needed it. And after this weekend, I was really in desperate need of clean clothes. Unfortunately, Christine brought home the news today that it would probably be a few days until we had a working washing machine again. Ugh.
I got myself ready after this and then Lionel and Guilhem came home for lunch. The four of us had "real" couscous today: a plate that was piled with plain but warm couscous, stewed vegetables, and a long, very juicy sausage. It reminded me a bit of a peasant dish (like Ratatouille) and was soooooooo gooood! My plate turned so juicy and saucy from the vegetables and sausage that I almost preferred a bowl. With this we had bread other than Lionel's for the very first time in the past three months: a freshly bought, super soft and tasty baguette. YES! I had an apple for my fruit afterwards, and then Lionel, Christine, and I had our coffee and chocolates; although, she didn't get to enjoy this for long because she had to take Guilhem back to school.
After all of this yumminess, Lionel went to take his nap and I went upstairs to finish getting ready. I ended up with some extra time on my hands so I decided to re-paint my nails with a very lovely, soft pink French nail polish that I bought a Le Clerc a few weeks ago. It's funny how little things like this can so perk a girl up.
Finally it was time to walk to my bus stop in the beautiful sunshine. I got to campus about 20 minutes before class started, so I used the time to head to Le Clerc to buy the ingredients for my second Tollhouse Pie. Afterwards, I managed to keep myself awake through Business in the EU and it was time to go home. I should probably say this, the class is very well taught and it's not as miserable as I make it sound. It's just a hard topic to focus on when you're living the good life like I am here. I should also say that it was so beautiful out today that I gladly walked home instead of taking the bus- something I haven't done in a while.
When I got to the house, I made myself a cup of hot tea and blogged for a tiny bit. Dinner started off with the rest of last night's carrot soup and then we had a "tortilla" (omelette) that was filled with potatoes. So you can picture it, an omelette like this looks more like a large egg and potato cake than anything else. It's even served in a bowl. We served ourselves a vinegar spinach salad and just-baked white bread, and then Lionel suggested taking our plates to the coffee table to watch the news. We've never done this before and I think we only did this tonight for two reasons: 1) Guilhem wasn't there, and 2) we're all wanting to keep up to date on the status of things (radioactivity, in particular) in Japan. Not to mention, the weather is of certain interest to french people and Lionel often misses watching that when we eat late. While at the coffee table, Christine brought out a cheese plate and little cups of apple sauce for dessert. It was a very cool dinner and it was wrapped up with Lionel wanting to show me before and after photos of Japan that his sister sent him. After that, I bid everyone a goodnight (Guilhem was home by now too) and went up to my room to summarize my day.
Tuesday: Today was the first day of the last week of French classes. Aww! :( I have to say I'm pretty bummed. I've gotten to know this group really well and I'm used to seeing them every day. I'm going to miss my teachers too; they've really become a part of my experience here. Plus, I'm just going to miss actually LEARNING the French language I will be continuing to use for a full other month. Tuesdays have also been our "laboratory" days for the past month+. This means that during the last hour of the morning period of class, we all go to a sound lab to practice our pronunciation in french and get to tweak the recordings we make. This was the last day of that- I was definitely sad about it. I have actually really enjoyed doing this and coming to this room is always a welcome break from the monotony of tuesday mornings...
Us in the sound lab, the last 5 minutes we will probably ever be in this room for the rest of our lives
My spot... bye bye sound lab :(
Thankfully, today was my two-hour lunch break day and it was also gorgeous out. So Roshanna, Erin, and I went to "the little café" (as it has come to be known by us), got some grub, and went and laid out on the grass with some other people from our class. We killed lots of time hanging out in the sun, listening to music, and playing frisbee (or watching others play frisbee, as I prefer to do haha).
It looks like a good dessert to me!
Let's just lay out in the dandelions :)
The "little café"
=) What a beautiful day
Rosie!
haha Erin
The one Brit in the class, Liam and another friend, Alexis (silent "s")
At one point, I had to leave this amazing picture to go pull out euros from a nearby ATM so I could sign up and pay for.... THE FRENCH CUISINE COURSE!!!! I talked about it almost non-stop before I left and now it is finally here!! The course is held every tuesday evening for the next four weeks, it's a class of about 12 people, we will get a run-down of recipes at the beginning of classes, help prepare the recipes, eat our meals, talk about living in France, and receive a booklet of all of the recipes we have prepared. Doesn't that sound incredible?!
When we were done with class, I was still feeling like being outside so I wanted to go downtown for a little while. But I also was not really wanting to go completely solo and it turned out that no one else was free. Roshanna and Chantalle were heading to Carrefour (another grocery store/market) to pick up some groceries, so I went with them. I had at some point during the day decided that I was going to make yet another Tollhouse Pie for our final class party this coming friday, so I needed more ingredients. Once we had all our groceries, we walked out too dangerously close to the bakery just across the way and we then had to buy beignets. Chantalle got an apricot one that was to die for and I bought a Nutella filled beignet. Roshanna wasn't feeling it- poor girl. After that, we parted ways and I caught the bus home. Christine was the only one home (as usual) when I got there, but that meant that the two of us could enjoy some quiet time together. I decided to make myself a chicorée to have with my beignet and Christine ended up making one too. We sat at the dining table together for a little bit, both on the computer, and it was very nice.
Now THAT'S an after school snack!
Then, it was time to get to work on the pie for the family. There's not much to say about the making and baking process so I'll just skip right ahead to dinner. Lionel was called to a conference very suddenly this morning so he was once again not at dinner. And as you might have guessed, the mice were once again dancing! XD Guilhem took instant advantage of the lack of male-head by playing some of his own music during dinner. We rarely have music on during dinner time and if we do, it's always because the classic radio station got left on from the afternoon. But here we were: Christine, Guilhem and I listening to Coldplay, eating our meal, and actually feeling really light and happy about the change of pace. We had another simple meal of pasta noodles dressed with oil/parmesan/etc, green salad, and slices of ham, but this is always good. To finish: THE PIE! I was really happy with the way this pie came out: the crust wasn't as hard as the last one and it tasted just as good. I think I was a little short on sugar but that proved to not matter too much. It was amazing.
Yea, I said amazing
Wednesday: The morning class today went completely normal, and we ate lunch out on the grass again. Ahhh; I could never get tired of this. In the afternoon, our teacher Isabelle started planning what we would all bring to our final class party on friday. She wrote a list on the white board as we shouted out the different things we wanted to bring/make, and then she got to one of the girls in my class, Shay. "I'm going to make Rice Krispy Treats," Shay said. Well, that's not what Isabelle heard. There's no real way to translate Rice Krispy Treats into French so I can't blame her, but what she wrote on the board was hilarious...
"rice scripyships" XD
Oh we laughed and laughed at that. Shay eventually composed herself enough to come up to the board and correct Isabelle, but it didn't matter. We had the evidence on camera! haha
I think she was embarrassed afterwards because she refused to leave that written on the board. Don't feel too bad for her though, she has embarrassed each one of us more than once throughout the semester lol
After class, I headed to Cécile's office to practice french with her for a little while. About 3:45p, she drove the two of us downtown so I could give my english lesson to her kids. It was such a nice day out that we did the lesson outside on the grass and I got a little pink on my arms and chest. Finally- some color! By the way, I've finally figured out why these children are so obnoxious and hard to teach: they usually consume a fresh box of some sort of dessert just between the two of them after school. You know, like how we by small boxes of cookies that should last for about a week in the States? At least they are always told to share with me, so I am getting to try all kinds of french junk food.
After the lesson, I turned down a ride home because I wanted to walk around outside in the sun some more and start searching here and there for a bathing suit. I purposefully chose not to bring one with me when I packed my bags way back on January 1st so that I would have to buy a french one. Although, I had forgotten that french bathing suits have a reputation for being skimpy so good luck to me on that. And if your wondering why I want a bathing suit all of a sudden anyways, it's because I'm thinking a day at the beach will soon be in order. :)
Walking through the Parc Beaumont- everyone was enjoying the sun today
My beautiful Pau <3
I wish you could have been here with me: there were at least 2 acoustic guitars being played and there was also a guy wailing on his saxophone
Again with the pretty flowers :)
I love this picture
The Boulevard de Pyrenees: my favorite place in all of Pau
When I got back to the house, I had just enough time to relax and blog a little bit before... Christine's parents arrived for their weekend at our place! I was a little nervous to meet them, as I always am with meeting people who I know are going to make me practice my french. But I especially get nervous about meeting older French people because they are more likely to speak proper, very correct french and that is still difficult for me. For instance: in French you can refer to a person as "tu" or "vous." These both mean "you" but the latter is always used for those of high status (very rich, powerful, well-known, or well-respected elders), strangers, a group of people, or it is used as a sign of respect when in doubt of which to use. I am very very used to using "tu" because that is how I [correctly] refer to just about everyone in my life right now: my host family, my professors, my classmates, etc. But I knew that I would have to employ my "vous" skills with Marie-Hélene and Jean-Marie (how freaking French is that?) which also requires changing verb endings. (For example: If I want you say, "you're going to do something" with "tu" it's tu vas faire quelque chose; but with "vous" it's vous allez faire quelque chose.) Phew... here we go!
Christine's parents- "Pa" and "Ma," as she called them- showed up and I instantly fell in love with them- they are adorable! Christine refers to her dad as being very chic but I just think he is classically french. He wore the coolest straw sun hat with a black ribbon around the middle of it, carried a cane, and sported a cardigan when he was relaxing. Her mom, what a doll! Marie-Hélene was actually born and raised in Texas, USA. That's right- Christine is actually half American. No wonder she speaks such great English- her mom probably started teaching it to the kids when they were young. I found it incredibly charming and somewhat curious that I could pick out an American accent (just like my own) from Marie-Hélene's french. She's probably been speaking that language and has been living in France with her husband for God knows how many decades and she has retained her accent. She was even happy as can be to want to throw in english words for my benefit. I felt like we were blood sisters in a weird way: the two true Americans in the house, happy to have a fellow teammate for a few days! haha
We had a full table at dinner tonight, which was another first. To my disappointment, we started off with more raw oysters. -_- I should have known that Christine picked up her passion for them from someone (her dad loves them). I asked for three but got four because one has to go on top to make the plate look pretty. It wasn't so bad this time- I was actually able to enjoy the taste a little bit because I wasn't so preoccupied with the unexperienced texture of raw oysters. Guilhem ate before we did (and I know he didn't have oysters) so I didn't get to see his attitude during this sea feast. After our shells were empty and sea water/lemon juice slurped up (something I refuse to do!) we had the rest of the meal: another very delicious salmon and prawns loaf with creamy tomato sauce on the side. I forgot to mention that Christine had also started us off with a little preview of summertime: chilled carrot soup with fresh mint mixed in. It was all very good. We finished the dinner with cheese and bread and then I got to bring out the rest of my Tollhouse Pie. Lionel nearly kissed me on the cheek to see another one of these set in front of his face, and I received plenty of compliments from Jean-Marie and Marie-Hélene. I tried to explain how I made the crust (talking about meal preparation is a favorite dinner-time topic of the French) and was kind of surprised that Marie-Hélene didn't know what Oreos are. Maybe she's been gone from the States longer than I thought.After all of this fun stuff, it was time to go up to bed. At least I did get to talk to my family for a little bit before bed. :)
Thursday: Today was the last day of normal classes. Awww! =( Our morning class went fine except that I had a little mishap with my alarm and ended up making it to class about an hour and a half late. Oops! I apologized and Isabelle didn't give me a bad time, so I was thankfully able to brush it off. I'm not sure why exactly, but she introduced a new topic today: verbs in the subjonctif tense. Being the last day, we didn't really have time to learn a whole new topic to the point where we could all fully understand it, so it was really just a display of, "by the way, there's still plenty you don't know in the french language." Oh well.
I was really excited to go have another sunny lunch on the grass today, but Aleca ended up inviting me to her room for lunch so we could book our hostel for Avignon and reserve our lunch cruise: a happy alternative to eating lunch on the grass. :) When I showed up with my baguette sandwich in hand and chocolatine falling apart in my bag, Aleca was still planning with two other girls (Jessica and Jenna) for their coming weekend in San Sebastián. So, I stood at Aleca's open window, chewed on my sandwich, and enjoyed the singing birds while I waited. They wrapped up pretty soon after that and then we got to booking. We found a cute hostel in the center of Avignon that was pretty reasonable for two nights and Aleca sent our reservation e-mail to the cruise company. Now all we had to do was wait for a reply. Sweet!
Isabelle didn't give us a chance to be bummed about class ending today: she filled the entire two hour block of our afternoon session with a massive final. It was pretty hard because it covered things from the entire semester and it demanded that we try to demonstrate about 50 different characteristics of written french. Well, I did my best- I guess we'll see soon how it went.
When I got to the house, I was instantly surrounded by a calm, happy atmosphere. All of the windows and doors where wide open to let in fresh air and sunlight, Christine was walking around in a cute, sleeveless top, and the two Maries were sitting in lawn chairs under a tree in the backyard reading magazines and talking quietly to each other. *sigh* Life is good here.
For dinner tonight, we had the exact same thing as last night. The only change is I actually took one of Marie-Hélene's leftover oysters when she couldn't finish her whole plate. And we also had small glasses of white wine; but that was true of last night as well. When the cheese plate came around, I finally got to try the infamous Camembert... and you know it was good! I found it to be surprisingly savory and very creamy. Plus, the Tollhouse pie had been officially finished by Guilhem and I this morning at breakfast, so dessert tonight was the usual delicious yogurt (with the raspberry and red currant mixed preserves for me). Also, the washing machine had been fixed and it finally showed up, so I was able to start my laundry!
After dinner- about 9:45p- I started making my Tollhouse Pie for the class party. Ugh. I definitely went to bed sleepy tonight. At least I was well-practiced in the pie-making process by now so I got the crust done about 10 minutes quicker than usual. I asked Lionel just before bed if I should put the pie in the fridge or the freezer and he said to leave it in the fridge because it had eggs in it. I set my alarm about 10 minutes early for the next day- which was already an hour earlier than usual, because Isabelle requested we begin at 8a instead of 9a and our reward would be to leave at 1p instead of 3p- so I would have plenty of time to bake the pie before class. What a day!
Friday: Class party Day! Today was a totally fantastic and completely awful day all at the same time. A quick summary of why and then I'll get into details: first of all, the party was a smashing success and everyone had a really great time; but on the other hand, I very rapidly developed a stomach flu throughout the day. :( Go figure.
I was the first one there this morning and ended up actually waiting for Isabelle to let me into the classroom. Roshanna showed up soon after that and then Erin, and then two other girls in our class, Andrea and Shay. Of course all of the girls would be on time. We together started setting up food tables, turned on some music (courtesy of my iTunes), and just got ready to have a great day!
Isabelle was a little skeptical of the wine, but she let us bring it
After a couple more people showed up, Isabelle gathered us around and announced that we would be playing some games she learned in theater camp. Oh great. The first one consisted of jumping up and down, letting your arms swing where they may, and letting whatever sounds felt natural come out of your mouth. All of these games had to do with trusting the classmates we had gotten to know over the course of the semester and feeling confident in front of them, by the way. For the second game, we partnered up (Roshanna and I went together) and we took turns being the leader or the follower. Roshanna was the leader first. Her job was to keep one hand on my shoulder and tell me where to go without speaking. I had to keep my eyes closed and trust her to not run me into anything or anyone in the room. I started to see the purpose of these games in this activity: it was pretty hard to "give" control of my body to Roshanna when I could hear others passing right next to me. It was sort of nerve-wracking. And then when it was my turn to guide Roshanna, the two guys who had partnered up had a little "mishap." Steve ran Tyler face first into the door. It was game over after that. lol
For the third game, everyone except one person was gathered into a wall formation and told to stick out their arms palms out. We had to lock our arms and stand tall so as to stop the other person from passing- like a wall. That person was supposed to walk straight at us, fairly quickly, with their eyes closed and trust us to stop them (and to not touch them in weird places). Isabelle picked me to go first but then she changed her mind and decided that one of the boys should go first. haha We each took a turn after that.
Shay, Andrea, Steve, Tyler, Erin, Roshanna, and I as a wall
For the last game, we did another leader/follower game but this one involved distance in between the partners- which made it even scarier, not having someone guiding you right next to you. I was partnered with Steve and our job was to come up with a sound that we would use to call each other. When the leader stopped making the sound, the follower was supposed to stop walking. And then when it started up again, you just walked towards the sound. This was pretty fun- with all of the ridiculous bird calls filling the room- until Steve tapped me on the nose and scared the bejesus out of me. haha
Finally... it was time for breakfast!
Breakfast time! Croissants, homemade jam, Nutella, coffee, and tea :)
Tyler picking on my iTunes and me telling him to back off. haha!
We let our food digest very slowly and that's about when I started to feel icky. It came on as a stomach ache and gradually turned into intense nausea. I'll make a long story short and just say that I was pretty miserable by the end of the day and just did the best I could to be there and enjoy what was left of our party.
Finally the rest of the class showed up! New additions from the left: Iñaki (the Basque student you might remember from the fit he threw towards the beginning of the semester), Liam (the one British guy in the class), Jeremiah (USAC student), Valentina, and Josefa (both from Angola, Africa)
Valentina dancing haha
Iñaki gave us an incredible concert of a few very loud, very powerful Basque songs. He sang so loud that the teacher next door came over to tell us to quiet down
And then the American boys wanted to be cool- even though one of them played the chair and another a plastic plate and fork, they were a little bit cool ;)
Group C minus Iñaki: Valentina, Josefa, Erin, Me, Isabelle, Liam, Andrea, Shay, Andres, Jeremiah, Tyler
Me and my buddy! (You can see the sick starting to creep over my face)
Hardly a minute goes by in our class without the boys needing to escape outside to play frisbee
After lunch, Andres played a really good rendition of "La Bamba" that got the whole class clapping and singing along as loud as we could :)
And the finale: Roshanna sang 4 great Italian, French, and German opera songs!
In between breakfast and lunch we played a game of hangman: my team was "the California girl's team" and Roshanna's was "the Diva's team" XD Oh how I am going to miss this class =(
Our other teacher Vuokko was able to show up for a little bit towards the end of the party. She kissed me on each cheek when we said bye and wished me the best of luck with everything I want to do in my life... =,)
Our whole class (still missing Iñaki) with both professors!
Isabelle and I. She got me choked up when we said bye- she told me that I am a beautiful person inside and out and she also wished me the best of luck in my life... =,,)
Tyler's dream come true- surrounded by girls with his arm around Isabelle. XD
After we said bye to our professors and received tearful hugs from Valentina and Josefa, the rest of us went out to the front of the school and sat on the grass under the sun for the next three hours. The frisbee was out, we had the leftovers from my pie (which I still could eat none of), and I busted out the iTunes again. I think this is by far one of the coolest things I have done here so far.
Frisbee circle
Just hangin' out
And then Isabelle joined us to make this all that much cooler :)
It was a gorgeous day and we ended up with a group of at least 15 people just sprawled on the grass
While outside, Shay and Andrea invited Roshanna and I to Biarritz the next day. I had been planning to do that the coming monday to take advantage of my free day, but they said the weather was supposed to be bad that day. So we agree to go with! But that meant that I had to get going so I could look for a swim suit. While on my way to the bus stop, a mere five minutes walk, I felt my stomach take a turn for the worse. I could give you details but I'm sure you won't appreciate that. Let's just say I was thanking my lucky stars to have made it to the house without having to break down and drag my body down the street in pain and nausea. I was NOT going to the beach tomorrow. I was just lucky to make it into my bed and turn the lights off...
Around dinner time, Lionel came up to my room to invite me to the lovely apéritif that was about to take place. When he opened the door to find the lights off and me in bed he immediately offered to make me some herbal water. Christine brought that up on a tray soon after and told me she would bring me another one after dinner. She also said not to hesitate to ask for help should I need some. "You don't have to lay up here suffering all alone," she said. I am so blessed to be here.
Needless to say, I had no appetite- a very useful thing to have in this country!! I had missed out on almost all of the food that was present at our party today, all of the desserts, apéritif, and now dinner. >:( I was not at all happy about it, but I felt too sick to really care in the moment. I finally got to talk to my mom, brother, and sister (dad was still at work) for a little bit and that cheered me up. I had sent them an e-mail when I got home explaining what happened and how upset about it I was. I was really searching for someone to cheer me up. And I got that in an e-mail back from my dad. He said that he wished he could be there to hug me and make me feel better, and to think of his e-mail as his way of doing that... =,) It was just what I needed to get through the night.
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