Tuesday: I woke up around 10a today to have plenty of time to eat breakfast, shower, and get ready for Business in the EU at 1:30p. I decided to switch back to the mug I was using in January (about half the size of the bowl I usually use) because I wanted coffee but not too much.... I don't want to rush my stomach in the opposite direction. This all went over fine and I was able to eat lunch with the family at 12:30p. For lunch today we started off with a salad of julienned carrots and then had a main course of leftover baked chicken (Guilhem got to have chicken nuggets, the brat) and big trees of broccoli. Lionel covered his with olive oil but I didn't want to take things too quick today food-wise. We finished with cheese but I turned it down- perhaps tomorrow. Then we had our fruit (I had a banana) and it was time to head to the bus for class.
Class was whatever. The only exciting thing that happened is another student gave a 10-minute presentation on Poland as part of an on-going class project. We have each been assigned a country that's a member of the EU to present to the class on a specific day. We have to give a short history of the country and talk about its financial status in regards to doing business there (is it easy, worthwhile, costly, etc). Actually, I'm presenting tomorrow and my country is Hungary. Awesome.After class, I went upstairs to one of the computer labs to kill two hours because... tonight was my first cuisine course! I showed up at the USAC office at 5:15p as planned and then Ryan walked all of us foodies over to where the class was being held. There ended up only being two other people with me tonight: Noah and Mari (both USAC). There is another girl, Jamie, who is also signed up but missed this first night because she was in Nice. The class was close by; it was just across the parking lot behind Carrefour in a community type of building. The kitchen there can be rented and it also had a cute little dining area attached. We met our teacher, Françoise, and then commenced to cooking! The menu tonight was: Dégustation Pâté Basque, Piquillos, Poulet Basquaise avec du Riz Basmati, Éclair au chocolat, Fraises (Basque Pâté, Stuffed Peppers, Chicken in a Traditional Basque sauce with Basmati Rice, Chocolate Éclair, Strawberries). The pâté and éclairs where bought and the peppers and strawberries only needed to be prepared, but we got to cook the Basque chicken and rice. Françoise took over a few parts when we were moving too slow, but it was so great to watch the process, smell the smells, help here and there, and talk with her and these two other students I haven't had the chance to spend much time with.
Stuffing the peppers
The chicken :)
To make the chicken, we started off with four seasoned chicken breasts cooking in oil in a covered pan. Then we added sliced up green bell peppers, then cut onions, then some crushed garlic. When the garlic began to brown we threw in a big can of tomato sauce and Françoise added some water to stop the cooking of the garlic. This was left to simmer under cover while we ate our appetizer (the rice was already cooking now too).
The pâté was interesting but overall I liked. But I really really enjoyed the peppers. To make these, we filled hollowed out mild peppers with a mixture of herbed cream cheese, crème fraîche, salt, parsley, and provençal herbs. Yummy yummy!
Our table
Happy Sam!
Appetizer time! I don't know why this is blurry but I don't like it...
Then it was time for chicken. To make this plate, Françoise used traditional striped Basque plates, formed the rice into a mound (which I can now do too), laid chicken next to that, poured on sauce and veggies, and created the Basque cross on top of the rice with two bell peppers. It was fan-tastic.
Our dinner and our menu
Lastly, dessert! Like I said, the éclairs were bought but we cut up and prepared the strawberry dish. To do that, we started with bowls of sliced strawberries, topped them each with a big spoon of crème fraîche, and sprinkled on some sugar. So simple and terrific!
It was a great meal. We ate well, had great conversation, and learned some tricks of the trade. It was still super light out when it was time to go and I took the bus with Mari. She's a lot of fun and I'm excited to spend some more time getting to know her. When I finally got to my neighborhood, the sun was just starting to set and I figured that my family was probably finishing dinner; so, I decided to walk a little bit to kill some time. I saw a really pretty Basque-inspired house, was complimented by a complete stranger who said I had "luminous" eyes and wanted to know how I could be so charming, and I passed by the guy who gave his presentation in class today (Rodney) who was out for a jog.
Lovely <3
When I was settled in at the house, I delivered my gifts to the family (one very messy, leftover éclair and five slices of the bread we had had at dinner) and then I got to work on my presentation for the next day. I think I went to bed very late tonight but I did get everything finished: I typed up a pretty nice handout with all kinds of facts and interesting things about Hungary and found a really cool brochure on Hungary.com (clever huh?) that I was going to use as visual interest during my presentation. I e-mailed these to Ryan right before bed knowing that he could print the handouts in the USAC office, but I wasn't sure if he would be able to play my brochure with his computer on the projector. I guess we'll see in the morning. Goodnight!
Wednesday: I woke up today around 10:30a and the first thing I did was look for Ryan's response to my e-mail. He said that he had already printed out enough copies of my handout for everyone but that I would have to ask Carl to bring his laptop for my brochure. Carl and I commented back and forth on facebook a little and basically left it that he would bring the laptop and we'd see if it would work when we got to class. Okie dokie.
Lunch time: we started off with thin slices of tuna pâté (just for Lionel and I, for whatever reason) and then the interesting, fun, and delicious-all-at-the-same-time main course: a pipping hot, microwave-safe plastic box full of sauerkraut, little potatoes, and bright red, slender sausages. These were like hot dogs on the inside but looked like they were wrapped in a wax that needed to be removed (except that it wasn't wax and was supposed to be eaten). It was so German-y and I really loved it- the flavors took me somewhere great... I don't know where but I want to go back!
After lunch, Christine had to take Guilhem to his weekly Theatre class at a community center I always walk through on my walk to/from the house, so she offered to drop me off there as well since it's close to the university. We finally had a short break today from the grayness and wetness, and it was just gorgeous out. I noticed walking up to the university that the grass is almost more yellow than it is green. Why? Dandelions of course! This place is covered with them and I just love it.
It is wildflower central in Pau right now.
One of the guys in my class, Rodney, walked up next to me in the parking lot so we walked into class together... about 10 minutes early. Oh well. It gave us time to look at the map on the wall and talk about all of the places we still wanted to go or were planning to go. After that Ryan came in with my handouts and then slowly but surely people started showing up one by one. Eventually Carl came in and we tried to get the brochure running. It finally loaded on the projector but wouldn't play past the first slide. Mince. Oh well, it gave everyone something to look at for a few minutes. I gave my presentation to a full class (minus Chai) and it was no big deal. Phew! The last thing that could possibly get me all nervous is over!
Class finished about 15 minutes early today and then I met Cécile in her office to head downtown for our french and english lessons. Lucille and Emile go to a sports center type of place every day after school to play a little bit and let out some energy. Today they were in this giant, green, concrete room playing the Basque version of racket ball (I forget the name of it) with a bunch of other kids and a few teachers.
Lucille in the purple shirt, Emile in the white
Cécile and I sat in the waiting room and talked while we waited for their class to finish. While there, a German woman who Cécile seemed to know pretty well, came in to do the same thing we were doing. I was so happy she came early and was able to kill time with us; what a charming woman! She got caught in her words every once in a while like I do, but she was much more fluid in her french and had such a characteristic German accent that it reminded me of my Opa. She spoke almost everything with the tips of her front teeth touching and kept the biggest, sunshiniest smile on her face that it just warmed my heart. She sat there trying to solve her brand new cube (Rubiks Cube) and chatted a lot with Cécile. I know that Cécile wanted to hear me speak but I was so happy to listening to this adorable, happy woman.
Lucille and Emile finished their class about 40 minutes later and then the four of us headed over to the nearby conservatoire to find a quiet table and do our english lessons. I worked with Emile first today and he was a pill as always. He has too much energy to focus on our lesson or pay attention to things I have already explained to him. But at least his lesson is only a half an hour, and then I get to work with Lucille- who is much more appreciative of english. The two of us worked on her homework for a little while and then did a couple of activities in her english workbook. It was a lesson in patience for me to watch her do her homework: she took a good five minutes to slowly write just the directions for each activity she had to do. It was cool to watch her do her cursive letters ("M" and "N" are beautiful and don't make any sense to me) and incredible to see her persistence in presenting a neat journal by whiting-out every little mistake and re-writing with her fountain pen. She's 11... and those were just the directions!
When our lessons were finished, I politely turned down a ride from Cécile and walked myself down the Boulevard de Pyrenees to meet up with Aleca in Place Clemenceau. It was shopping time! Unfortunately, waiting for the kids to get out of their racket ball group left Aleca and I with very little time for shopping (everything closes around 7p). We did find a very cute store called Pimkie, though, that had reasonable prices, but we were only in there for about 20 minutes before the vacuum cleaner came out and the music was turned off. Guess we'll have to come back tomorrow...
When all the shops were closed or closing, we decided that we could start looking for a place to eat dinner. On our way towards the château we came across three USAC girls (Grace, Mari, and Julie) who were sitting on a park bench each with a take-out box of noodles in their hands. It was perfect, and I found it to be so American!
Grace, Mari, Julie... and noodles
We chatted with them for a few minutes and then kept on our way. We looked at a few menus and then settled on the place we were probably going all along: Visnu! This is the Indian restaurant I was invited to way back in January with Chai, Rosie, and a bunch of others. I am STILL full after everything I ate with Aleca tonight!
Told you: tacky, but friendly
Visnu's version of a bread basket
That would be our appetizer: garlic nan and what was a super-soft lamb, vegetable, and spices meatball. Now it is a mushy-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside pancake and I like it.
Our food: on top you have Aleca's mix of chicken, spices, and all kinds of seafood (and the nan of course), our bottle of wine, and on the bottom you have the saffron rice we split and my steaming hot bowl of cubed chicken, peppers, onions, and spices. SO GOOD!
That would be the end of my fantastic meal (and I'm about to burst!)
And that would be Aleca's.
I'm awesome!
Aleca loses.
But she does beat me in wine consumption haha
This came with our receipt. What it is exactly, no one knows...
The two of us killed a good hour and a half here just enjoying the great food and the tacky, friendly atmosphere. We were the only two people in the dining room for the first half an hour and by the time we left, only two other parties of two had shown up for dinner. It was a quiet evening.
Unfortunately, we had lost track of the time and Aleca had to be back at her room by 9:30p to log onto her school account and register for classes. We ended up having to power-walk to the bus stop (which feels great on a topped-out stomach) only to find that the next bus wouldn't be there for 20 minutes. Aleca kept saying she would run but I talked her into a taxi. There was no way it would be more than 10 euros to take us to the university, and having taken it twice I am well aware of how quickly a taxi could get us to her place. We called for a taxi, he took his sweet time getting to us, and we hopped in about 2 minutes before Aleca's time slot. Five minutes later, our hair was sticking straight out behind us and we were shocked to find ourselves in front of the residence halls. Wow- quicker than I remembered. The two of us paid the guy (who knocked of the 0.60 we owed him, probably cause we're cute) and then sprinted to Aleca's room. The rest is history: Aleca did what she needed to do (except she wasn't able to register for everything she needed because she hasn't declared her major- something she hasn't been able to do lately since it requires showing up to the registrar's office... in America), I flipped through a magazine, Aleca signed on to skype and I got to meet her hilarious family (minus her dad because he is somewhere out in the Mediterranean defending the great US of A), and we mostly just hung out. Aleca opened a couple of beers for the two of us, and I'm thinking that we are pretty much two of the coolest girls ever.
Around 11p we decided to see who was up in the place. We wandered down the hall, saw an open door, heard Carl's obnoxiously loud voice, and went on in. We spent the next couple of hours hanging out with Carl, two french guys, and a few other USAC guys who showed up later. It was actually really fun just sitting around having a good time. We also took our circus down the hall at one point to a french girl's room to score some free food (it was one of our french friends' idea). All of the frenchies were very happy to meet us (and make fun of us, I'm sure) but we didn't stay long. Afterwards, the guys in the group all decided that now (about 1a) was a great time to head over to the local karaoke bar. Aleca and I weren't really up for this so we tried to escape back to her room, but not before one of our friends- Andres- seized one of each of our wrists, shouted, "I got 'em both!" and tried to drag us into the elevator with everyone else. It was pretty funny, but it was even funnier when we got away and waved triumphantly as the door closed in their faces. Ha ha!
It was definitely time to head home. The bus system closes just before 12a here so I had to walk, but at least I had my iPod with me to keep me calm on the walk. I keep it in one ear and turn it down very low so I can hear around me. But one does start to get a little paranoid the longer they are walking at night by their lonesome self and I was a little sweaty when I made it back to my room. Oh la la... too much excitement!
Thursday: I had to let myself sleep in and recover from last night, so I slept until about 10:30a today. When I woke up, I was the only one in the house besides the two workers, so I took my Business in the EU book down to breakfast with me. I turned on the classic radio station, started the hot water, and began making my breads: one butter and jam (I put both both red currant and black currant on this one), one Nutella, and one tiny broken piece with Nutella. Then, I commenced to enjoying my breakfast. Once I was done eating and had put everything away, I went up to my room to get myself ready. I came down for lunch around 12:20p and Christine was in the kitchen finishing the food. She told me that her brother-in-law Jean-Luc (the one who had come with Christine's sister and their kids that one Sunday for lunch) was joining us for lunch today. It was just Christine, Lionel, Jean-Luc, and I and it was kind of pleasant to be able to have a nice lunch with the adults.
For lunch today we started with an apple, walnut, and chicorée (endive) salad, then we had a very curious but tasty main course of lemon chicken. This was cooked as four chicken breasts and four slices of whole lemon simmered in the chicken juices and herbs. The chicken fell off its bone when I tried to cut it and my lemon was just seeping fresh juice from being cooked so long in chicken sauce. With this we each had a pile of plain couscous, and it was all so good. We finished our lunch with bread and cheese. I haven't been taking cheese the past five days or so after my stomach troubles but I finally decided to go for it today. So I had a creamy round of chèvre: goat cheese. It was sooooo good. Jean-Luc and Lionel each had red wine with their cheese but Christine and I still had water in our glasses so we passed. For dessert, we did not have fruit but instead had ice cream! There were two flavors available: crème brulée and café. I could have done both but just decided to go with the first. It had little chunks of burnt sugar in it and was so yummy.
Unfortunately, I completely lost track of how long this lunch with a guest was taking and missed my bus to class. I could have waited for the next one but that would show up in about 20 minutes. So I decided to walk; even though that would take at least the same amount of time. When I got to school I was sweating- the sky was very gray out today but it was really warm! I finally made it inside and went to the bathroom to wash my hands and cool down before going to sit in class (I was already at least a half an hour late so what was a few more minutes at this point). When I was done in there, I heard a weird sound on the floor like something really small had fallen. I looked down and realized that the double-stranded real pearl bracelet I had bought in China in 2008 had broken and one of the strands was dropping beads! It was about time I guess- everything else I bought there has broken by now as well. I think I am missing one or two beads from that one strand, but I did manage to save all of the other ones and get it safely into my purse. I am pretty bummed about this though. =(
Class was the same old same and my teacher didn't even say anything when I came in late- it happens all the time with others and I think he is just kind of ignoring it at this point. During our five minute break in the middle of class, though, we learned that our DELF scores had been delivered to the USAC office and we could go pick them up! There are individual scores for the four competencies- oral expression, oral comprehension, written expression, and written comprehension- but they also gave us a grand total..... 75/100!! You're probably thinking, "oh a C, that's pretty average Sam" but it's not scored like that. You only need 50 points to pass and receive a diploma and after the 50, you mostly just get to see how strong you were in general. And I am extremely proud of this score more so because my class (Group C) and the three classes above us (Groups D, E, and F) all took the B1. The different groups signify a certain amount of hours of french taken (I think there are 150 hours in between each group). So when I saw that my friend Monica, who is in the group above me, got an 85 I was stoked! This means that I was 10 points shy of someone who has had "150 hours" of french more than me... it sounds cooler now doesn't it?
After class, I had my hour-long French lesson with Cécile. We talked about movies (American and French), French musical artists, and what to see in Toulouse/Carcassonne this weekend. It was a very nice hour and I spent quite a lot of it talking; felt pretty great about this. Afterwards, Aleca and I were going to meet back up to do some more shopping but she has been forcibly committed to going to a party this evening and she needed the time in the afternoon to pack for our Toulouse/Carcassonne field trip with USAC. So I went solo. I finally found a bathing suit and simultaneously learned why french bathing suits have a reputation for being "skimpy;" I bought an incredible big, floppy, white and black striped sunhat; and I got a beach coverup for 3 euros. Sweet! After that, stores started closing for the day (everything closes around 7p here), so I grabbed the bus from downtown and headed home. Once home, I settled into the couch and wrote this blog post (up to this point). We had dinner around 8:20p tonight, and that was too late for Guilhem so he ate before us while watching a soccer game somewhere in the Middle East (and he found the Arabic commentary to be quite amusing). Dinner was simple tonight: no soup, just a main course, a spinach salad, and a dessert. The main course was a recipe that Christine hadn't tried in a while and which one of her aunts had actually created. I don't know what it's called but it goes like this: you make a ton of sauce of tomato sauce, 3 big spoons of crème fraîche, and one cup of white wine. You fill a baking dish with pasta, lay four rolls of ham on top, cover with grated Gruyère, and pour on the sauce. It was weird but good all at the same time.
The dish
My plate with my roll of ham and pile of pasta. It mostly tasted like creamy spaghetti sauce
For dessert we had sliced bananas and pineapple drizzled with a raspberry sauce. This was delicious but unfortunately sent Christine and Lionel into a little bit of a tizzy: when they brought it out, Vittorio said he was allergic to raspberries. Christine felt terrible saying, "I thought you were only allergic to strawberries, not raspberries too!" and her and Lionel went and cut up a new pineapple and banana just so he could eat his dessert. Vittorio insisted that they not bother with it at all but he was barking up the wrong tree. After this charade, it was time to split Vittorio's unfortunately un-enjoyed bowl of goodness between the three of us and eat.
Goodnight :)
