Visitors...

Ten days, two couples, 35 sq. metres in France - I'm going to pitch it as a reality tv series.  It was pretty cozy up in our studio, and I'd hate to disappoint but there wasn't the drama worthy of reality TV...maybe just a pseudo romance between Jordan and Paul, but that story was years in the making and if it didn't get made while they were tenting up together in the Yukon...it's probably never going to get made.  My dreams of producing reality tv aside, it was GREAT!  Jordan and Vanessa were super guests - they indulged me in my food craziness by being interested and hungry (all the time), they cooked some great meals for us, did dishes AND got us some really thoughtful gifts.  And it was just fun to share Toulouse and our little transplanted life in France.  All fun, all food all the time.   

Ask anyone, I'm always the first one to fall asleep at sleepovers.

Vanessa and I decided that Jordan needed a haircut.  There was a whole series of photos, but I thought I'd spare some of you the photos of people you don't know cutting hair in a bathroom.  The end result looked pretty good to us (but that's because we're not professionals).  Good work everybody.

Riverside, outside our apartment.  On sunny warm days, there are a lot of djembe drummers, and we hear them from our fourth floor apartment.  Our Toulousian friends warned (more like mocked) us about it...like we should have known or something.  

The boys decided to grab a drink at Cafe des Artistes and delegated grocery shopping to us.  This is them saying good bye.  I'm posting thumbnails these days, so you can't really zoom in to see, but trust me they look smug.

On our riverside walk - this is looking at the other bridge.  I should know what it's called, but all we ever see and think about is Pont Neuf...which means "new bridge", but is actually the oldest bridge in the city.  

Jornessa & Pault in Aix-en-Provence

The 4 of us took off for Aix-en-Provence after a week in Toulouse.  It was a cute little town and, from our conversation with the roadside chicken rotisserie guy, seems to be overrun with Brits and Americans.  We went by train, but the next time we go to Provence should be by car...and should be in the summer time so that we get that whole fields-of-lavender-and sunflowers effect.

Lunchtime in a square in Aix.  Like a modern day Renoir - non? It's a pretty typical scene in France.

 

We ate inside that day.  Here is me morphing back into my T1000 form.

"Have you seen this boy?"

I'm holding a contest for the best caption for this photo.

Goodbyes at the train station - Jordan and Vanessa were on their way to Nice, Italy and then Paris.

How did THIS happen?

It's 8:22 friday morning.  I've got class today at 9:00, usually it's 8:30 but 9 for fridays, not complaining.  P's got classes at 8:30 still and I love love love being the person that gets to stay in bed while the other has to get up.  I've been e-absent of late because long gone are the days when all I really had to do was wake up, think about food, read and cruise the internet.  We are full time, elbow-deep in French classes.  I miss the retirement schedule of december, but it's been so great to learn french.  Tradeoffs.  We've gone back to "easy" food for dinners and lunches, but the weekend is coming and I'm going on a market tear for saturday and sunday AND it's Chinois Nouvel An so gotta figure out something to eat...fish, I think it's a must for new years.

Nuther post to come.

Back to (Catholic) school...

School started this week and it was kicked off with some placement tests and a tour of the facilities.  We're taking an intensive month to month course at l'Institut Catholique.  It was established as a university in 1229 (OLD right?) and "inherited" by a Catholic institution.  So, here we are at a catholic school.  The university specializes in theology, philosophy and religious studies.  Aside from the polish monk that's in my class and the name, the French language program isn't all that "catholic".  They don't start the day with confession or anything - but we dress like catholic school children for a more authentic experience.  It was a cold walk for P in his shorts this morning.  P and I are in different classes, which means that we have designated time apart from each other, which was a bit of a surprise/let down at first - but really, it's better that we spend just 19 hours/day together instead of the whole 24.  This will be healthy, I often find myself at a near breaking point at hour 22 or 23.

We took a tour of the school on the first day, and I swear we went up a set of stairs right out of the Harry Potter wizard school - all dark wood and big, and then it led to a hallway with a locked armoire full of what looked like spell books.  For serious.  It better be french we're learning and not spells.

I'm in a level that's a bit further along than I think I should be, but I think I can follow along if I just put in extra time on my own...and if I work with the polish monk, because he seems to be the best in class at this point.  Show off.  We're learning subjunctives now, here's an excerpt from the text I brought from Canada:

For most verbs, the stem for the forms of the subjunctive is found by dropping the -ent  of the third-person plural form of the present indicative, and by adding the subjuntive endings: -e, 

-es, -e, -ions and -ent.  

I'm lucky I have this textbook which is written in ENGLISH.  IT's ALL IN FRENCH DURING CLASS.  I've never really studied a language before and besides my native languages, I don't speak anything else.  Learning a language is ha-ard.  I didn't even know what a "subjunctive" was before yesterday.   The truly difficult part is just knowing the linguistic and grammatical terms - imagine reading a sentence in english with words like, "direct object pronoun", "subject", "indirect object" etc..., just deciphering it in english is hard enough (this is coming from someone who knows just enough grammatical terms to mad lib).  Essentially it's like learning 2 new languages.  "Grammar" and French.  Mad props to anyone who is fluent in another language from studying in adulthood.  

Aside from feeling ESL as well as FSL (it's FLE in french), I'm really excited.  Yay, I love back to school and that perfect first blank page in a notebook where you write everything in the nicest, neatest handwriting (according to my friends I've got ugly handwriting) - the only difference for going back to school this time is that I didn't start the year with new LA gear running shoes.  Don't think the pink and white running shoes would cut it here in France.  

In other exciting news, we got a whack of books from Amazon.co.uk (a gift certificate; I wonder if spending it will help the British economy).  Among them, the biggest, most badass and most occupational-health-threatening to the courier is my "Larousse Gastronomique: the World's Greatest Cookery Encyclopedia".  I think it weighs in at 4-5 kilos (I'm all metric now, so convert it yourself) - I was just informed that it just crushed a stray hazlenut shell (christmas carnage). 

 and...WE HAVE VISITORS!!  J and V are staying for over a week, and eating only gets better with more people.

Christmas and kisses...

(It snowed on the morning of the 26th...big fat fluffly flakes, but was gone by the afternoon - the view of the snow - not in all its glory from our window)

 

So it came and went. P and I spent a quiet, but gastronomically indulgent christmas season.  2 versions of a christmas meal, a french one on christmas eve involving oysters, scallops, duck, creamed chard and other coronary damaging foods and a more familiar dinner of turkey and the associated trimmings for Christmas dinner.  I should also say that I've been doing a lot of "experimental" baking in our toaster oven and we now have a (tiny) freezer full of christmas baking to last us through to the new year.  

Our Christmas night was made a little more exciting by a sudden power outage in our apartment (we were cooking) - everything in the fusebox looked right and the lights in the apartment building on our floor were on...so we had no choice but to knock on Monsieur Boudon's door and ask for help.  M. Boudon lives on the 1st floor of our building and is something of an informal "keeper" of the building.  We were introduced when we first moved in and were told to go to him if we ever needed anything.  M. boudon has a clear, booming french voice (only french) and is an amalgamation of a Hans Moleman in his "youth" and a  character from the "Guess Who" boardgame.  Does your person have small eyes?  Does your person have a big nose?  Is your person impossibly french and exactly the type of short and slightly pudgy person to run your french apartment building?  Is it M. Boudon?!  When we told him that our electricity had cut out, he shuddered at the thought of going up the stairs to the fourth floor, but nevertheless, put on some shoes and brought along a flashlight.  It was a quick fix after all.  Nothing to do with the breakers, but rather a giant button that was apparently linked to the main generator.  It wasn't the first time M. Boudon saved us, so in a panic, I looked around the cupboards for a "thanks/merry christmas" kind of treat.  (Un)fortunately, all we had were some chocolates that we had picked out for christmas from a nice shop...we shyly presented it to him and he refused, but we said that it was a little gift for christmas...he couldn't really refuse.  I got some christmas kisses from him and with a handshake for Paul, he went back to his flat.  Not that we were in need of sweets for christmas or anything and we were more than happy to give them to him...but we kinda missed those chocolates - I'd handpicked each one.

We've made some friends here (through someone from Paris we had met in Berlin) and have since gone out a couple times with them.  Yay for friends!  I was scolded on the first night we'd met because I put out my hand for a handshake and they said, "put that away, you're in France and a girl - you kiss".  Alas, I've been initiated into the world of bisous.  From that point on, it was kisses.  You know, I was wondering about that, if I was going to do them and how it was all going to go down, but it was all good.  I feel 10% frencher.  We went out for drinks the other night with 2 guys and by the end of the evening even P was being kissed goodbye.    

Produce from the market on the morning of Christmas eve.  We went to the madhouse that is Christmas Eve at Les Halles Victor Hugo for the seafood and duck.  Imagine a covered market with stalls of seafood, butcher counters, cheese stands and bakers..and then imagine it packed with frenetic french people clamouring for their christmas food.  Oysters were being sold like chocolates in the shops, each displayed in their own wooden crates ranging from 6 to 20 euro/dozen.  

Pain d'epice (spice cake) from the Christmas market.  This is to die for as it is, and transcendent in a trifle with port and prunes (we had enough trifle to last 4 days - no complaints).  A sexier dessert, I cannot think of.  It's hard to say why this is so mindblowingly delicious - maybe it's the dense texture, or the spicy and at times licorice-y tones...whatever it is, i am sad that no one at home can have a taste and confirm that I'm not crazy for being so seduced by this cake.  There is no shame in being hot and bothered by this cake.  NO SHAME.

This was our Canadian christmas for 2.  We did herbed turkey breast wrapped in bacon accompanied by its groupies.  Christmas in France was a little surreal, and it wasn't until we sat down at this meal that we felt it was Christmas.  Didn't take any pictures of the fancy french dinner - which was a little hairy during the plating and preparation, what with the oysters being shucked and having to deal with all that hot, rendered fat from the duck. 

Vin chaud anyone?

Daytime visit to the Christmas market.  Je voudrais hot in my wine and gizzard confit in my potato.

Hot spiced wine.  Try weaving through the throngs of people with a full glass of hot red wine - we actually chickened out and pulled off to the side until it was a little less full.  Yes.  That's gizzard confit on my baked potato.  Confit means to slow cook in duck or goose fat to preserve things.  Aside from preserving it, it also makes things tender and about 25Xs tastier, but animal fats will do that to things.

"l'esgoulade".  Country style bread, with cancoillotte and shavings of some strong, aged, hard stuff.  They get it bubbly and brown under the grill and then crack the crusty top so that the splash of armagnac has somewhere to go.

It's hot...and delicious.  Winner.

Even ten-thousandsdaires experience culture shock...

I came across a website for Americans in Toulouse and they had an entire page devoted to culture shock.  It's defined by an anthropologist in the 60s as, “the anxiety that results from losing familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse.”  Lacking an active social life (and probably suffering from a mild case of culture shock), I was quick to wrap myself up in the melodrama of being in culture shock.  The general indications for Month 1 was accurate for the most part.  Month 2 sounds depressing and Month 3 is supposed to be marked by depression and weightgain.  P, being my (self-procalimed) "voice of reason", said that we're not in culture shock.  A lack of confidence borne from my foreign surroundings didn't allow me to contest his denial.  Culture shock or not, things are different here.  Some differences good, some bad.

It was somewhat of a miracle that we managed to find a place in a week, without the use of a rental agency...  (read more)