How To Crash A Protest

Pardon the absence. A panoply of activities, adventures and the lack of internet kept me away from the blog, though I assure you it was difficult.

So what have I been up to?

I've been doodling like mad, and have gone through four pens in the last week. Can I have nice pens for Christmas?

Today I crashed a manifestation/demonstration. It's been my goal to join in on one, and finally an opportunity presented itself. On my way to buy a newspaper, I stumbled across a Communist/Ecologist manifestation. It was large enough that I could hop in unnoticed, and so I marched with them for a couple blocks.

Protesting is a really jovial experience, with people bringing their children along (you can tell it's a culturally engrained thing) and everyone singing and shouting songs. I made the mistake (silly me) of not wearing red, and I was enjoying myself so much that I had a really tough time looking angry and indignant.

My favorite part of the experience would have to be when an old lady walked up to the people leading the march and started screaming things at them. What I caught seemed to be along the lines of...

"MY GRANDFATHER WORKED FOR THIS COUNTRY, AND YOU'RE BREAKING THE STREETS OUR FOREFATHERS BLED TO BUILD, YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES, YOU'RE AS BAD AS THOSE AMERICANS."

I'm assuming that was a reference to Occupy Wall Street.

When I was later buying my newspaper I got budged by a granny and her snotty nosed grandson. As I don't know how to say "back of the line budger" I just fumed and made faces at the grandson. Who obligingly returned my maturity.

As the time to leave draws closer, I get more and more panicky. How am I going to deal with the absence of daily lectures about the evils of savory food for breakfast? Where else will I find the same degree of Harry Potter and Lion King jokes? Who else will tell me my American accent is adorable?

Made brownies with my host brother, as part of the process of me preparing him for his visit next year to the U.S. He passed the test, licking the bowl and announcing it was "Cool dude."

I'm so proud of my protegé.

Some photos from my Thanksgiving dinner.

Feeling pretty pleased and surprised at how well cooking an entire thanksgiving dinner all by myself went. Miracle happen, and for that I am thankful.

Nom Nom Nom

I made the acquaintance of this fine Australian lady in Barcelona. We told her and her bestie (equally fine) about our irish fireman. So when they went to Ireland, they kindly took this WONDERFUL photo for our enjoyment.

So awesome. Gah.


Was sent this. Made my day.

The new Beaujolais (a type of wine) has arrived, and at lunch today we had a little tasting. Apparently it's a sort of marker of the seasons. When the Beaujolais has arrived, Autumn is nearly finished.

Speaking of nearly finished, I'm now 35% done with my gap year.

Not that I'm counting. Whilst there are somethings about Minnesota I miss (biking everywhere, random adventures and then Uptown Diner around 12, or hip hop concerts I understand) I try to find substitutes and live french culture to the fullest. 

A gesture I learned today that means delicious in french body language.

Nom nom nom.

Immortals and Crazy Things

Currently being treated to blaring techno music... it's like being in a conservative, catholic rave.

We are definitely not in Kansas.

Although, I've never been to Kansas. What is it like?

Some Nantes News you may find interesting (I laughed).

Nantes has been chosen as the newest international big fancy shmancy airport city. Great for when I want to come visit all my friends and host family, although there have been some protests. About 3,000 people rode bike (RODE BIKE) to Paris to protest. Endorphins from manifestations (protests) are enough, we need to get a 15 hour bike ride in there.

Their main concern? There will be tractors on the runway. Heads up, it's not that far out in the boonies.

You could conceivably make this argument for Minneapolis as well. I have been asked the following.
-Is it true you have the world's biggest mall full of red necks? (Welcome to Fleet Farm)
-Does everyone wear plaid there? (We started it! #Hipsternation)
-Why do you live there? (Why don't you?)

FOUR French Phrases I Adore

Utopiste: Someone who believes in "utopia," or a paradise on earth.

Apprendre en s'amusant: Learning whilst amusing oneself. Welcome to my gap year!

Autodidacte: Someone who learns for themself, without the help of a teacher.

Bof: B.O.F. (yes this is an acronym). Stands for Beurre Oeuf Fromage. Butter egg cheese. Means redneck.

Now an introduction to the peculiarities of French society...

In France, a mystical country, there exists a language, a Romance language in fact. It is called French. There are between 90-110 MILLION native speakers around the world. It still serves in many cases as the language of diplomacy, despite losing ground to english, as it is much better than english for technical situations. It is much harder to pin dictators, swindlers, and rule breakers down in vague english than in deadly specific french.

Unlike English, which as far as I know is fairly unregimented and roams as free as whatever word you want to create, French is very strict.

Very strict.

There is an Academy, "Académie Française", which decides which words every year are "French" and therefore are permissible for politicians, soccer players, public personas and postal workers to use. And for the rest of us.

Made up of the "immortals" (I kid you not), these ever living (but not) personages are charged with the important task of making up new words to combat other languages encroaching on their verbal territory.

For instance, computer. Ordinateur.

Or Ipad. Tablette tactile.

Anyways, creeping on their internet page, I can only spot two women in their forty seat-table. How disappointing.

Recent drama according to Google involves the Unofficial (I should probably Uncapitalize that) feminization of various professions, as the academy (pardon, The Academy) insists one must use the correct (masculine) noun. In English, we have less of this problem, because so much slang enters our language and gets spat back out. Hence, people not understanding me when I say that I hear there's a dishy thrash round the corner.

Grandparent slang. C'est un truc de fou.

Bohemian Lifestyle

Only eventful event today was me being diagnosed with a cold by my host mom. The cure for this? Wear socks and drink tea?

Promptly put on wooly socks and made myself tea.

And then fell down the stairs, spilling tea all over my socks.

A tragedy, I tell you.

Do your best to read the following paragraph in an Australian tone of voice.

It appears that there is a rite of passage/diaspora during the 20s for Australians. They all leave their country and bless other countries with their presence. During our Spanish travels, my Canadian friend ("Canadians, they are like the cool cousins") and I made the lovely acquaintance of two Aussie ladies.

Australian: We went to a surfing contest in Portugal, and met the hottest Canadian boy there. My stereotype of Canadian boys is that they are all hot.

Canadian: Well, they aren't all hot. I mean, you can't generalize like that about a population, that's like saying all Australian boys are hot.

Australian: But they are all hot.

Why would you leave a country like that? Anyhoo, Barcelona was magnifique. Lots of french people roaming around due to the Vacances de Toussaint.

French Man (HEAVY accent, stuttering): Um, ahem, er, Madame, do you know where..

Me: Monsieur, je parle francais. Est-ce que je pourrais vous aider? (Sir, I speak french, may I help you?)

Unfortunately aside from speaking the same language, I wasn't much help. I too am a tourist. You can't win them all.

We saw the Gaudi cathedral, various other Gaudi museums, so many chocolate stands, and THE BEST FRUIT MARKET EVER.

Ever.

Enjoy the photos, courtesy of my Canadian (eh?) friend.

LEAVE ME COMMENTS!

Yes Please!

In the course of one's life, it is wise to say yes to random propositions by one's friends to meet up at 7 the next morning to hop on a train to another city for a day of fun.

Especially when they offer this to you at midnight. Who needs sleep anyways?

It's true, my life has seemed a little bit like "Yes Man" the past few months.

Kebabs at 2 am?

Barcelona for reading week?

Red pants?

Foster The People concert?

Homemade colombian food?

Rock and Roll dancing lessons?

The question is never why, but why not?

Of course, one must keep a certain sense of how drastic to be in order to experience life in another country. Learning the how to fend off creepy men (see story below), get past pissy train ticket sellers, make friends and still get an average of 7 hours of sleep is difficult.

But I get my homework done, find time to "study" by watching youtube videos of french rap songs, and bake brownies for my house family. Taking a gap year has taught me (with my semi-anal perfectionist ways) that at the end of the day, it is about passing. You can't do it all perfectly.

Learning this, before going into a hyper competitive environment with grades, tests, boatloads of homework (Yuuuuuck) and freaking out peers, is excellent. I suggest everyone tries it.

Today I went (indeed at 7am) to Angers with my friendsies. We passed a lovely day of mixing up five languages (English, French, Spanish Italian and German), seeing a chateau and hanging out in random parks. Awkward, uncomfortable and rather amusing incident happened with a "draguer" (someone who creeps on you/hits on you) on the train. This man of a certain age boarded the train with a certain eye towards all the ladies in our group. He then proceeded to try and take photos of some of us (was told off very sternly). He still stared and made creepy faces at us.

Friend: I don't like it. I am a very territorial male, I protect members of my herd.

<3

As we got off the tram he gave his number to a friend and started smoking. We realized that a spectacular opportunity had been missed. She should've asked for a light and burnt the paper with it.

But alas, we can't do it all.

Note to my parents: Can you email me the recipes for the two lasagna's that we use to conquer the world?

Funny story I forgot to tell a while ago. So I was sortiring with a group of my english speaking friends and we were overheard by some less-than-sober french guys. They immediately asked us...

Bourré: Where do you come from?
Friend: Oregon.
Bourré: Where is that?
Friend: Above California. (huge explosion of joy at this statement)
Bourré: AH, California, avec les gros seins!

California, forever more known as the state of big boobs.

My Socks Too?

Sometimes (just sometimes) in a world where you don't understand the language, you make people laugh until they cry with the silly misunderstandings you make.

Context: I've written out my home address for my host brother's wife so she can write a letter to my parents.

Host Sister (points to the ground): You can leave the paper on the ground.
Me: What? Is there something wrong with my shoes? I'll go take them off. (I take off my shoes).
Host Sister: Non non non, leave it on the ground.
Me: My socks too?

I got the message after that.

I swear I'm getting better, I correct myself all the time and speeeaaaak sloooowly to diminish my whomping accent (I think it's getting worse).

Currently reading a Chair de Poule novel (GOOSEBUMPS! IT STILL EXISTS) in french. I have an easily awakened imagination, and have to be careful when I read and watch scary things. Being a somnambule (sleep walker) and vivid dreamer, I often reenact scenes. For the sanity of my host family, I only read it over breakfast.

Phrase of the day: Calme-toi.

Calm yourself.

Vachement Perdu

Today I got vachement perdu (really really lost). As in, the 2 km I had to walk turned into upwards of 12, as I made wrong turn after wrong turn.

Short Adverb lesson:

Vachement: Comes from the word "vache" which means cow. French people love using vache in everyday convo... "Oh la vache" (sort of like our "holy cow"). Vachement means literally "cowly" but actually means "REALLY." Like, damn.

Carrement: Also means very. You'll hear "carrement d'ac" in certain age group conversation. Short for Carrement D'Accord, which means "really in agreement."

Vraiment: Translated literally and truly means "very."

I'm feeling rather tired, and while my host brother likes to tease me about going out all the time, I don't think it is completely that. Partially, bah ouais, but not entirely. Learning a language is vachement difficult, and even with proper sleep I find I'm "dans la lune" (on the moon, aka daydreaming) accidentally in class these days. This happened back home too, at about the one month mark. School is tiring. This doesn't change. Still wish I could go back to hippie school and bake me some cookies all day e'ryday.

Fun experience of the day: trying to explain what a baby daddy/momma was to my writing professor. Ah, the things that arrive in the international student's life.

Some vocabulary for you to enjoy! I got most of this from an article about how the second in command police officer in Paris was arrested/charged for drug trafficking and being generally naughty. I shake my finger at you. Anyways, this is regular CSI jargon.

Puant- stinky. Slangy-wise, it means pretentious, or vain. It was puant of him to think he wouldn't get caught.

Indicateur/Indic- Informant. Sort of like our version of "narcs" typically unsavory people who inform the police in exchange for favors or lessening of sentences. "indic" is the shortening of that.

Voyou- GANGSTER. Salut voyou (what's up, badass?)

tonton- What little kids/everybody call their uncles. Also means men of a certain (older) age, typically men you don't mess with. "les tontons flingueurs" is a cult film from 1963 about gangsters. If you speak fluent-enough french, let's watch it together.

Des Papas Poules- "Father hen." Papas who are very occupied with their children, extremely invested etc etc.

So I filched a magazine from the library today (50.5% sure it was free for the taking...). On the back was the advert for dinosaures... Including the Bambisaur.

The bambisaur is the new velociraptor, it's official.

Sad story of today.

Friend (grabs a chunk of my hair and inspects it): My goodness, your hair is a pretty color. How do you get it to be so blonde?
Ex-Friend: The trick is thinking like a blonde.

Shuddap.

Text Like A Frog

So I've had a couple forays into the scary world of texting in french. It's difficult, yes, but with this handy dandy guide you too can make friendsies.

MDR- mort de rire. Dying of laughing. Sort of like our LOL, but way better, because they take it to the extreme aka dying.

Ne tkt- Ne t'enquete. Don't worry.

bjr- Bonjour

bsr- Bonsoir

D100- Descends. Get down/come down.

FDS- Fin de semaine. End of the week.

KDO- Cadeau. Present, gift.

kestufou vs Ksk t'fu- Qu'est-ce que tu fous? What the hell are you going?

RDV- rendez-vous. Please tell me you know what a rendezvous is.

ti2- T'es hideux. You are hideous.

Fun story of the day (for the easily amused): So my tram sometimes is Ligne 1, Jamet. A lovely voice tells us every stop "Terminasion, Jamet." Which is approx. "Last stop, Jamet." Except Jamet sounds exactly like "Jamais" which means "Never." So what the tram lady is telling us is that this train never ends.

I laugh.

Also, flunked an orale comprehension test. This is for two reasons, the first being that the subject was cell phones. I genuinely know almost no vocabulary surrounding cell phone companies (thank you granny for lending me your phone!). So that was rough. The other bit was that I spaced out for half of the test. The answer to my problems is that I'm going to sleep more/better (I started sleepwalking again >:( ) and download french podcasts to listen to. So interesting! The great part about being here for solely my own learning pleasure is that me failing tests is not the end of the world. My grades here don't matter in terms of a later degree. I'm just here to learn french, make friends and grow up.

Welcome to the school of life!

The Most Exciting Scrabble Ever

Typical monday today. Had to act out the part of a grasshopper in a french skit (I'm a pretty terrible grasshopper... One of my truly saddening faults) and watched french films without sous-titres... Impossible, I tell you. It was pretty funny when we had the descriptions for blind people "she is in a taxi, now she answers her phone." (and so forth, but in french and annoying). And no subtitles.

I also had a test on the passé today, which I think I did alright. My drawings will probably get me extra points. There was a crocodile, a skeleton, a bird and an upside down monster with the words "Il faut pas tomber." It means "One mustn't fall." Tis funnier in French.

Other exciting things... Hmmmm. My friends went to the beach yesterday, and saw a sign that said Fete de Scrabble! "Le plus excitant Scrabble vous jouerez jamais dans votre vie!"

In other words, a scrabble party with the most exciting scrabble you'll ever play in your life.

It's great to be alive in a world with parties like those. Don't go too crazy! It's apparently good for ages 9-99. Sucks to be 100... or 8. But when I was 8, I hated reading. They could barely get me to read books like "Bob's Ball." But then I matured to Where the Wild Things Are and everything Edward Gorey, and then when I was 11, I took on Gone With The Wind. Did I understand most of it? Well the bits about Confederate soldiers and Scarlett's business transactions yes. But the sexytime/endless pining?

Yeah the re-read was a bit of a shock.

And for those of you with 8 year olds who hate reading, maybe they'll get addicted like me. Just make them wait till they have had sex ed to let them read Gone With The Wind. Civil War era novels are not the best way to learn such things.

Some Dictionnaire Terms for You! (If you want to keep up with all the terms, I'll be starting a little side bar column thing with all my favorite terms. check it)

Argotique- from "L'argot" which is slang. So it means slangy.

Le sosie- le doppelganger. My german friend took the mickey out of me and my amurican accent. Doppelganger sounds way better in German, but I'm still gonna throw my twangy pronunciation out there.

Die katzo!- Go dickhead! (this is Italian).

Suka- Salope (this is russian). Salope is something you can look up on your own time. I promised my mom this would be a PG-13 blog...

Caf-Cons- Cafe Concerts.

Faire La Manche- Beg for money

Fun Fact Of The Day:
Japanese say "Brado Pitto."

Sax, L'accordion et Cuddles.

I'm running on 2.5 hours of sleep so this one will probably be quick.

Nantes is wicked cool. A really weird place where odd encounters and new friends are de rigueur. I recommend it as a student destination for studying. Great hospitality. Where else my friends can you buy TWO giant pain au chocolats for the price of 2 euros. Where else can you buy dictionnaires d'amour (biligue?)? Where else can you take the tram until 12h30, and then again starting at 4 am? Where else do you find saxophone and accordion duets daily?

Perhaps other places, but Nantes is still awesome.

Currently habitating with the grandparents for the weekend. Nice and quiet. We spent the afternoon spotting poisonous mushrooms ("want a shroomsie for the digestion?") and bickering over how many desserts we could eat before we were officially spoiled.

No matter what number you pick, we are spoiled. Life with the grandparents once again is a constant tug between being pampered and being told to go pick carrots in the rain. They have the good cop bad cop thing down pat.

AND THE CUDDLES. Oh, I could wax lyrical. I've never been so well cuddled in my life. Got some in with my english speaking friends last night/this morning (whenever we made it home) but nothing beats a grandparent hug.

Nothing.

And may I just say to Alex that I win this round?

Favorite quote of the evening:

V: I'm going to sing you a sexy lullaby now.
J: I don't want a lullaby thanks.
V: Even a sexy one?
J: Good night.

Le Rock and Les Menottes

Today I had no classes. It felt pretty great. I made cookies, went to rock and roll dancing classes, took a stroll with a friend and had tea with another friend.

Rock and roll was super duper fun. Everyone was very friendly ("you're an AMERICAN?") and it's not too difficult. The closest thing is swing dancing. Le Rock should be mandatory for all American teenagers, because then dancing will be fun again.

However, it (the class) is half rock and half salsa. I think I'm going to attend the advanced classes for salsa because I don't want to spend a semester relearning the dancing the nice old men at the salsa clubs in Minneapolis taught me. Thank you Eduardo, Harvey, Eddie, Henry, Thomas, and The Man Who Wears A Fedora. Even if those weren't your real names, no sweat. I didn't tell you mine either.

There are a lot of dressed up people hand cuffed to each other wandering around Nantes tonight. Menotté Mardi? ("handcuffed tuesday?") Is that a thing here? If so, why? Saw three guys all handcuffed today. All I can say is, dude in the middle, life is gonna be tough. Bar hopping is no fun without hands at the ready. (wasn't that not a double negative? perhaps it was...)

Learned a stream of french swear words from my bestie from Allemagne. Give me a couple days practice and I'll be an accomplished potty mouth.

Story of the day: Friend got asked out by the postman.

Aerobics and Coupons

I was told I can't publish this BUT I FEEL THE NEED TO PROVE HOW AWESOME MY GRANDPARENTS ARE. This may come down soon if they ask me, but hopefully my loving charm will prevail.

Yes, they make me Cuddle Coupons. *Cue angel music*

Today was fun, but then again, I'm so excited that it's hard to have a bad day. I did show my evil hungry side to my trusty canadian ladyfriend. She survived, but had to restrain me from a hunger-induced rage. Feed me on time, I'm no better than a four year old in this respect.

Who's been kicked out of their house for an afternoon for being a grumpy hungry person?

This person.

Not in France mind you. I behave myself pretty well here. I'm starting to lose my social skills this week a little. My ca vas and bonjours are just a little too late. Gotta work on that, I don't want to be the tactless weirdo blonde girl who puts her bread ON HER PLATE.

Sacrilege, I tell you.

Attended a French aerobics class and witnessed what at first appeared to be very graceful dodgeball. Turned out to be the funkiest lookin' circus class ever!

French aerobics is both great and terrible. Not much of a work out but the music was in english. And aerobics is always great for the awkward, "we should've stopped doing this in the 80s"-ness of it. Tomorrow, cookie baking and LE ROCK! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee.

The Bourse fell today, inciting a "massacre" amongst the banking community. The Bourse is the french stock market (ten points to those of you who knew what it was). One only hopes people get their ducks in a row soon. To cite an awesome friend, perhaps their ducks are in a row, but asleep.

Nighty night from a sleepy duck.

Far From The Land of Platonic Cuddlers

I'm feeling cuddle-deprived.

Maybe it is a Minnesotan thing or just a weird my-friends-habit but nobody here cuddles. Unless of course you're their kiffe (crush, so to speak, though I'm using it incorrectly as a noun).

Ladies and gentleman (pimp and players), this is not the land of platonic cuddlers (nor is it the Carter for those of you who follow this reference). I've got to rely on my friends from Canadia and Britainnia for the physical non-sexual reassurance that I've been conditioned to need.

It's sad. I've come to the land of Loooove and all I want is to be just friends.

But enough of mooshy topics. I learned today that in addition to dancing "Le Rock" (the official dance for rock and roll.... EXCITING, I KNOW) at marriages, things devolve into fist pumping club tunes. At least they don't have grinding here (I hope). But then again, I'm assuming that everyone is well oiled so by the time 2 am rolls around, coordination is such that fist pumping is necessary.

Went for an hour-long walk round the city. I'm actually turning into my father, who lived in Paris during his gap year and took a buncha walks all the time everywhere. Nantes isn't as big, so I hope to find other things to do/places in Nantes to go. I don't get lost as much now, which is less fun.

Other exciting things-
1) There's a massive apple that grows here. It's triple the size of normal apples. You can make it into apple crumble, and funnily enough you get a Class A non-tradeable drug (jokes jokes... but it is that good).
2) Got a french Itunes account. Their selections are fantastic (who knew Europe had so much music?) and you can get all their DJ's stuff months before most Americans. Silly music laws=bypassed.
3) I understood everything almost everything in the sermon today in Church. French Catholics are pretty similar to American ones. Not quite the same as Lutherans (no doughtnuts and coffee afterwards, plus not everyone gets to go to heaven).
4) Everyone yelled "ROUGE" at me after breakfast. Context: I have lots of trouble saying "ou" in french. Thus when I kept saying the incorrect sound, "ROUGE!!!!" came from all around me. Sad day.

L'Amour and Libraries

Super eventful day today. I haven't had comments in ages. Whine. Sigh. Whine.

Borrowed books from the bibliotheque (guess what? people have weird fetishes with libraries here too!). Two en anglais and deux en francais. I'm starting out halvsies. Maya Angelo, Science fiction films, monsters and plays by Mae West. Wheeeee. Learning is so much fun.

In my theater culture class we had to explain what we would be like in 20 years. The teacher got frustrated because she thought I was added 15 years instead of 20 to my age. Nope, I'm actually that young. Maturity is just an act for me.

In my orale classe, the theme today was L'amour.... She said it was important to know basic phrases because (and I quote) "It's going to be a beautiful weekend." They are pretty savvy, these professors of mine. My translated phrases were "love-muffin" (as in the adorable cutie pie "awwww such a love-muffin") and "kindergarden love." Using a pastry as a term of affection seemed to escape them. Muffin d'amour does sound hilarious though. The muffin of looooove.

Odd encounter of the day: Got approached by three groups of girls asking me if I wanted candy or an egg on my head. Um, neither?

We (my friends and I) were talking about stereotypes and my british friend said her impression of the U.S. was a mixture of the O.C., Gossip Girl, American Pie and Mean girls. What a weird place I come from.

This afternoon I was wandering with my Canadian (ay) friend, trying to find a frickin invisible bookstore. We popped into a tabac to ask for directions and saw a porno magazine that came with the following.

"Trois cds, huit heures de hard."

It's really funny here, naked people everywhere. My innocent midwestern self is shocked.

After running around trois fois between two railway stops, we figured out it was in the middle. Hence, "go to this place," "now go back there," "and again."

Quotations of the day:

"When your friend falls in love with a mafioso..." (logical situations in french class)

"I had shit in my eyes." (j'ai eu merde dans mes yeux. tres useful)

and my favorite.

Prof- Where are you going to meet your husband or wife, R____?
R____- In the library.

I hope she or he is studious.

COOKIE MONSTRE!

Note the socks!

This morning I took a tour of the FACs de L'Université. We visited all the classrooms, said hello to everyone (I heard the phrase "come anytime" approx. 20x) and also saw the library. With the handy dandy university card I can rent SIX books at a time. That is twice the number I'm allowed at home. Whether this has anything to do with my late fees is a different matter.

Also in my ever eventful day I was approached by a clown in training, who wanted to practice on me. If I hadn't been late for a rendez-vous I totally would have stayed.

I visited the supermarché with a host brother, and bought some chocolat noir for my baking uses. Learned some interesting French swear words along the way and enjoyed the blaring French radio. To all Minnesotans, be assured, your plight of constant roadwork is shared by Nantes. I think I'm backsliding a little in my french speaking... I seem to become more and more incomprehesible. The benefit of this is everyone's laughing, but my face may soon mould into a constant expression of confusion.

There was one thing I did correctly today! I made chocolate chip cookies. And they are not half bad! They are closer to madeleines in consistency than the usual AMURican ones, but the dark chocolate makes it all worth it. Never again will I cook with milk chocolate. I've created a household of cookie monstres and restored some American pride :)

After dinner we had a cultural exchange of amusing internet videos. My favorites were Sarkozy explaining he had gotten drunk with the Russian head of state due to being a lightweight and the Michael Jackson "Bite It" video. If you parle francais, look it up. Hilarious.

French humor still largely escapes me, probably due to my lack of fluency. All this will change, one hopes.

Blackberries and Manual Transmission.

Today was a small rev in car history and a big roar in mine. I SUCCESSFULLY drove on main roads 7 km there and then another back, up hill and dale, doing hill starts, grocery store parking and awkward beginnings. All that, and only seven times did I kill it. Boom. I drove for over an hour, my first time using gears 2-5, prioritaire a droite (if you're coming from the right and over the age of 50, you don't stop for nuffin).

I also picked 1.1 kgs of blackberries with the grandparents (they had .78 and 1.03 respectively).
As we were ambling back home to make jam...

Me: Look! There's a huge fallen tree.
Granny: Yep, Grunkle pushed it over.

This was a very big tree, so I was confused. The real story is only slightly less impressive, so I'll let you believe this one.

I had leftover pizza and sour grape crumble for a late breakfast. It was thrilling.

Other than that, my day was marked only by drinks with our neighbors from Morocco and an evening of watching the most nerve wracking documentary about all these pastry chefs making giant sugar sculptures that break at the last minute in from of the judges. And then they cry.

Bouncing Round La Baule

Granny: I'm just going to be sitting quietly in the back, a not-speaking granny.
Grunkle: That's the untruth of the century.
Granny: Hey! That's no way to treat a nice little granny.

This was the exchange which kicked off our road trip to La Baule, the largest beach in all of Europe, and one of the most beautiful. Before leaving was marked only by me trying a new food, toast with green gauge jam. It was orange colored, and tasty.

On our drive out we saw Hercules, the shetland pony, and played a really scary game called "Will we make it?"

Rules of Will we Make it:
1) Do something vaguely risky in a car.
2) Shout, "Will we make it?"
3) Make it.

This little town has a very particular style and attitude. Whenever Granny or Grunkle finds an example of the quintessential town-ie-ness, they remark, "That is SO La Baule." I kid you not.

An entire pack of ladies wearing matching floral body suits? So La Baule.

Putting up a wall around your house to protect the privacy of your "swimming tub?" So La Baule.

Every single restaurant having cute waiters? Pretty much fantastic.

Unfortunately/Fortunately I am chained to my loyal Grandparents, who are holding out for a gentleman with a yacht. Who is in my age range. In the meantime I am the slave de la garden, toiling away in the rather crappy weather Brittany has had of late.

But I don't dwell on this.

Today in La Baule was the SALES day, where all the stores take the stuff they didn't sell this summer and price for way less in little stalls outside. It's pretty great. I got some poufy pants and a floaty dress, and a hat that is ADORABLE.

The beach was great, very sunny and unpopulated. The afternoon was punctuated only by my book being confiscated for dinner and dinosaurs. We are watching as I type a documentary (I watched this already with Shporty in English) about dinos. The wise elders currently sit entralled by the adventures and near-death experiences of the soon-to-be-extinct Oscar the herbivore. I think this is a plot by the documentarians to get you to sympa with the scaley thing by naming it. All he does is eat leaves and piss off the "Gargantuas" or T-Rex's. I have higher standards for my dinosaurs.

Grandparent quote of the day:
Me: You seem to share the housework very well.
Granny: We do. Grunk is very good.
Grunkle: No I'm not! I'm very bad.
Granny: Ah, quite right, you're very bad.

Grandparent good deed of the day:
Grunkle fetching water for this sweet little 5 year old who needed her watering can refilled every couple of minutes from the sea. Back breaking work.

The Trials of Shporty/The Best Day Ever

Today so far has been the highlight of my adventures.

The weather was fantastic, the food mind/stomach boggling and the company highly entertaining.

We began this morning with a scrumptious breakfast. There were "oeufs durs" or "hard eggs" (misspelled). The english translation was killer. "Hardly Boiled Eggs."

To my taste buds they were actually very well boiled.

Granny Peppa has also been increasingly worried about what she calls my "klepto habits." So what if I take all the tissues, shampoo and tea I can find? I'm in poor student mode. I've only bought two things so far (an ice cream and a sandwich). And tissues are unbelievably useful.

I lost my wee booklet (courtesy of my darling friend California) and recruited a maid to help me find it in the hotel. In her haste, she ran up the stairs, tripped and did a somersault. We never did find it (I found it later in my luggage) but it was a good laugh.

Visited the chateau of Chinon, learned about Joan of Arc and Agnes Sobel. Ms. Sobel was the young mistress of Charles 2, who displayed prominently her left breast in all portraits and was poisoned at the age of 25.

Shporty has had some trials of late, poor thing.

Shporty: I don't crash regularly!
Peppa: Only on Sundays.

He took a tumble on his bike in Chinon and bruised himself quite badly. Then today at lunch we were eating when all of a sudden...

Doubleoseven "whose bike is that?"

Shporty's bike was being pissed on by a neighborhood dog. Consider it territory well marked.

He also fell into a ditch from exhaustion, got a headache later on during dinner and threw up a half an hour ago. Poor kid.

Other than that though, it's been a GREAT day. We cheered Granny and Grunkle up every hill and dale, went out for ice creams and I accidentally ordered chocolate chicken (they caught my pronunciation error... it was a long day.) We debated the dangers of walking vs driving drunk (in terms of statistics and not experience) and learned about a certain member of the family's close shave. Literally :)

Two final quotes!

Simon: Lucas, Sam, let's go have fun!
Lucas: (dejected) Right now?

(I'm talking about soul mates with Granny)
Grunkle: You aren't talking about me now, are you?
Granny: Oh darling, as if I ever stop.

Thank you to my dearest Ruthie for my mailed package. Grunkle said he cut strips out of it, but I smacked him and found it was a lie. Muchas Gracias et Merci Beaucoup.

A Tour of Tours (and a trip or too)

Today we vacated the chateau. A tearful goodbye was bid, promises and good wishes exchanged. But don't been distressed on my account, I'll see my British grandparents in october!

We then drove four hours in a cramped, fractious car, giggling and picking fights all the way to Tours. We had a lovely lunch and I was sent to go locate the car where we were trying to find our swiss friends.

I went across the street to find some wifi. After being helped by an fantastically good looking and bespectacled young Frenchman ("Excusé moi, mais est-ce que je pourrais AIDER VOUS?"...) I got my directions, bid adieu... and gracefully tripped off the sidewalk.

Smoothness was sadly lacking.

We then met up with our lovely friends, had a tour of Tours, Shrugalot tripped all over kingdom come and we finally set out for annecy de something or another.

Where we met up with my dearest French Grandparents, Grunkle and Granny Peppa.

Grunkle actually isn't even a code name...

It never rains but it hurricanes...

We had some delightful experiences yesterday.

Namely the first was getting soaked up to our knees by rushing water, and drenched to our inner-est innards by what one Parisian called "I've never seen this before."

Motorcycles sunk in the square and one man was up to his armpits trying to unplug a drain... He was most likely just trying to save his car though. Shrug almost cried when a Ferrari (one ah them real nice ones.) didn't make it through the foot and a half (should I say approx 150 cm?) of h20 and pulled over squeaking and grumbling. Ferrari may need to improve the submarine abilities of their sports cars.

We also went out for I-talian food, and were the ONLY ones eating at 7 pm. Silly yanquees. Father (Doubleoseven to you) told us delightful stories of his own gap year, and trials. His work in a French resort was perhaps the most hilarious but also the most unsharable on this PG rated blog.

In our efforts to blend in, we tried to rent some bicycles from their bike share program. Three failed plastic card efforts later, we gave up and walked to the Louvre. (N.L. shoutout: Louvring Life, Louvring You). We didn't want to blend in ANYWAYS.

Some photographs for your viewing pleasure, taken from Pickle's wee flat gadget.