Chez Moi

Hi all,

Just thought I'd let you know that I had a FANTASTIC time in Toulouse yesterday and Carcassonne today. I'm home safe and sound now and am heading out for a day with the family tomorrow near the Spanish border. Will hopefully write about my weekend tomorrow evening.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Today (April 2nd) marks the 3-month anniversary of my departure on this journey. It also marks the beginning of the countdown until my return: exactly 1 month and 2 days remain! We only have about 2 and a half weeks left in Pau (which sounds like a blatant lie to me even as I write it) and I am already feeling the heartache set in: I am going to miss this place, this family, these friends/comrades, and this experience in a way that will truly hurt inside. They have all become dear and precious to me, and I am already struggling with the reality that these things must come to and end and there is nothing I can do about that. I am looking so forward to coming home; but I am not looking forward to leaving. Ugh.

Anyways, I'm on a little bit of a high from these past two days and can't wait to show you the pictures and tell you the stories that go with them!! Talk to you soon... à tout à l'heure!

Week 13

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 :)

Week 13

Monday: I woke up around 10a and had a fairly normal breakfast; I wasn't brave enough to try coffee yet, though. But I did go American and smear peanut AND preserves on my slices of bread... duh! PB&J! :) And this was sooo sooooo good too: I poured the rest of the peach preserves on one slice and slathered raspberry/pear on the other. Yum yum yum.
I worked on my Weekend 12 blog post after that until lunch time. I was feeling okay to eat lunch this afternoon but not too much because we were having pasta. After our julienned carrot salad, I wasn't feeling a huge plate of plain spaghetti happening. So I had a small serving, smeared a little pesto sauce on it, and drizzled on some olive oil. I ate that with a half slice of ham and ended up having to put back my demi-tranche (half slice) of bread. After lunch, I had another apple "compote" that was mixed with pear and actually turned down an afternoon drink. Hey, my stomach had enough to work with at that point! Although, I did take a small piece of chocolate... but of course, that goes without saying. :) I read a book while Lionel and Christine had their coffee, and Lionel ended up falling asleep on the couch next to me. He snored too, and that made me miss my dad.
Christine took Guilhem back to school soon after that and also took her shopping bag, so I knew she wouldn't be back for a little while. I hung my laundry up in the bathroom to dry and then decided to go back to my room and finish my blog post or read for Business in the EU or something. By the way, now that french classes are done, here's my new weekly schedule:
~3/29-3/31: Business in the EU 1:30p to 3:30p
~3/5-3/7: Business in the EU 1:30p to 3:30p
~3/11, /12, /14: Business in the EU 1:30p to 3:30p
~3/18-3/20: Business in the EU 1:30p to 3:30p
And that's all she wrote! We're closing in on the home stretch now, and I just can't believe it.
I killed a few hours just relaxing in my bed on the computer until dinner. If it seems like I wasted a bunch of time this weekend in my bed, it's not true: my body got really tired after being sick, to the point that going up and down the stairs was a struggle. Plus, the weather took a terrible turn yesterday and it has been stormy, rainy, and windy here all day. =(
I finally had a real meal tonight and even took seconds! We finished off the rest of the zucchini soup and then got to the oh so delicious main course: shredded crab, herbs, and cheese quiche. HALLELUJAH! With this we ate another tasty lightly-salted vinegar spinach salad, and had "Salted Caramel Cream" mousses for dessert. If it sounds good, that's because it was. And it was also as light as cotton candy. After dinner, Lionel finally sat down and sent me all of his recipes. That's right folks- I now have the recipes for the preserves, bread, fish loaf, sweet breakfast bread, and so much more. I am as happy as can be about this. =)
There was a fire going tonight, and with Christine working with Vittorio quietly at the dinner table, I felt like I should try to read my chapter for Business in the EU downstairs. I got about a page in and realized it wasn't going to happen. I felt too comfy and soothed by the fireplace, listening to them talk quietly, watching Guilhem on facebook, and hearing Lionel bang around in the bedroom upstairs. So I had a small cup of vervain, worked on my blog a little, and eventually went up to bed as everyone said goodnight. And now here I am, writing to you for the first time in forever about a day that is not yet over- and certainly did not occur two or three weeks ago!
I hope you're enjoying my stories still... thank you so much for reading!

Weekend 12: Not so Fabulous

Saturday: I woke up feeling a tiny bit better today but not great. I still had some nausea and actually had a lot of intense aching going on in my chest, back, and shoulders. I've decided that this was from not eating for almost 24 hours and the acid in my stomach getting too... well, acidy. I felt like I needed a little food to calm that down, but still nothing sounded good. So I went with a slice of completely plain wheat bread and another cup of herbal water.

Breakfast of champions

And that is mostly what I did all day on Saturday: I laid in my bed, blogged a ton, tried to eat when I could, and drank tea and herbal water. In the late afternoon, I did feel well enough to take a slice of bread with a tiny bit of jam out to sit in the backyard. The two Maries were out there on lawn chairs so I joined them on a rocking, long chair with a book, and munched and read in the fresh air. Lionel came out soon after that and upon seeing me, bent down, put his hands on his knees, and in a baby voice said, "oh la, la pauvre!" (Ohhh, the poor thing!) Yea yea... he then brought out a fizzing cup of beta something or other and said that when he heard I had a stomach virus, he went right out to the pharmacy and bought that for me. =) Did I mention being blessed?

Dinner was the real test of whether I was getting better or not: to eat or not to eat? I decided to eat, but very lightly. I enjoyed tonight's soup terrible: it was the french version of chicken noodle soup. =) AKA: it was perfect! That went down well enough that I decided to take at least a little bit of the rest of the meal. I had a half slice of the provençal, herbed chicken and a small pile of baby-greens salad, and I put a small spoonful of preserves in my yogurt for dessert. The yogurt actually felt really great going down. Plus, I had cushioned all of this with plenty of bread; when it felt okay to eat.

I skyped with my family for a while after that so they could get an update on my stomach status. After talking with them, I did a little bit more blogging and figured it was time to go to bed. I was finally getting hunger pangs, though, and snuck downstairs to steal a hunk of fresh wheat bread with peanut butter on top. That helped but I didn't got to bed with a completely normal stomach tonight.

Sunday: My stomach was hungry enough that I came down for breakfast after I woke up this morning. I had a cup of vanilla tea instead of coffee, and two slices of bread with just jam and no butter. Today was the day that Christine's parents were taking off and also the day that our next house guest was arriving: Vittorio from Italy! He also works for L'Oreal and is moving to Paris just like Kathy will be doing soon. He's in the same language program as she was so he will also be with us for about 12 days. So during breakfast, Christine was running around like a mad woman mopping the floors, putting things away, and just getting everything ready for Vittorio- all in her bathrobe.

I was actually feeling pretty hungry by lunch time so I decided to eat with the family. I even had enough energy to get myself all dressed and make-upd and whatnot beforehand. Since it was our last meal with the grandparents, we started lunch off with an apéritif of various different drinks and little shrimp-flavored rice puffs.

I had a very very small glass of Muscatel

After that it was meal time: cucumber salad, baked chicken, potatoes, cheese (none for me), fruit (Christine brought me an apple sauce), coffee (or herbal water) and chocolates. 

This is always refreshing

"No sauce for me, please"

Cute! Except Guilhem moved

Lionel was very proud of HIS (not Christine's) flowery apron

The lovely coffee tray.... and my herbal water. =(

After coffee, we killed time chatting as we waited for Vittorio to arrive. I'm not sure why, but it was important to Christine's parents to not leave until they had met him. Well, he arrived, we all shook hands, and we figured out refreshingly quickly that he speaks more French than Kathy. He has a very strong Italian accent and he messes up verb tenses all the time but he can speak enough that we can actually communicate with him in French. He also speaks English and Spanish- so when in doubt, we'll find a way to communicate. lol
A little more chatting later, it was time for the Maries to take off. It had been such a pleasure to meet them and spend some time with them, and I made sure to tell them that. I got a wet kiss on each cheek from Marie-Hélene and a friendly au revoir and bonne chance (good luck) from Jean-Marie. It all made me feel good.

Aww, they're empty chairs now...

When the house was quieter and Vittorio had settled into his room a bit, Christine proposed taking him for a walk down the Boulevard de Pyrenees. I was still feeling tired so I turned them down, but Vittorio was surprisingly up for it after all that traveling. I spent the next few hours getting the rest of the way caught up on my blog. By the way, I'm incredibly proud of the progress I have made in getting caught back up on the blog. It's been so frustrating for me to be so behind, and for so long! This day (Sunday) was just yesterday... the 27th. Whoo hoo!

For dinner tonight, I ate light once again. I think I pushed it a little much at lunch today, because I was starting to feel a little bit icky once again. Tonight's soup was spectacular and it was probably incredibly easy to make: it tasted like zucchini and herb soup in a chicken broth. Mmm mmmm that made me feel better! And then... the main course came out. Oh how I chuckled and scoffed to myself: cold veal, pork, chicken loaf. If you can't picture it, it was in the shape and about the consistency of a chunky meatloaf and looked like something that would turn my stomach even if I wasn't feeling flu-like. Parts of it tasted bland and others tasted mysterious enough that I had no interest in knowing what they were. I only took half of a baby slice, thankfully. I had a fair helping of baby-greens salad again and more bread to try to fill my stomach as much as I was able to. Then we had our usual dessert and I made sure to take my favorite preserves- tonight's mix was raspberry and pear, which is much thicker than the one with red currant- just to please myself.  

After dinner, I went up to my room with another bowl of hot herbal water to skype with my family. I made a mistake almost instantly upon getting online with them: I asked my dad what he had made for breakfast (they had just finished eating). "Oh you know- scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon..." blah blah blah. Slobber slobber slobber. I hadn't realized until that moment, and even with a sick stomach, how much I had been missing American breakfast after all of the bread, jam, butter, nutella, and coffee. Oh la la... ;)

Week 12

Monday: I wanted to sleep in again today but there were workers in the house about 8:30a who woke me up. I did manage to fall back to sleep until close to 10:30a but I was still annoyed at being woken up early. ;) I know I know, I'm turning into a princess.
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.