I like cheese

We are going to attempt a day of skiing again tomorrow. We'll see how it works out . . .

Because we're heading to the mountains tomorrow, we went out yesterday afternoon to buy mittens and gloves, and also to inflate the tires of our car to the correct pressure. We left the house around 4:30pm and got back at 7:45pm. When we checked the messages, we realized that we'd received two from one of Jube's coworkers. "I knew we shouldn't have gone out so late!" he stormed, "now we missed the invitation and I have to call her back!"

Why is that such a problem? you may be thinking (that's what I was thinking, anyway!). Well, Jube didn't want to tell her that we had purposely gone to the store and hadn't waited around at home for her call to invite us to dinner. (In fact, she'd invited him yesterday, but hadn't specified whether it was a dinner or just an apéritif or the time it started.) What's more, we hadn't even bought any wine! Luckily the phone call was just fine, and although we were the last to arrive, it was still within the realms of socially accepted lateness. Even better, they live right next to the Carrefour in town, so we were able to swing by and grab some wine (red and muscat) before we got to their house.

The evening was very relaxed and fun. We ate shrimp and mayonnaise as the first course, which our hostess had bought at Carrefour. I'm still a bit surprised every time I have to pull the big ugly head off of a shrimp in order to eat it, but they were definitely tasty. Then we started in on the main course, chicken and potatoes. Our hostess announced to us that she never cooks, and we were definitely eating Carrefour roasted chicken with frozen potatoes. She told us a funny story about how she had told her boyfriend to go grab some potatoes, and he came back with real ones. She yelled at him and he had to run to the frozen foods section to bring back some just au'four potatoes from McCain. Then we had salad and cheese, and I managed to amaze the entire table by admitting that yes, I am American, and yes, I like fromage fort (stinky cheese). Afterwards we had dessert, coffee, and tea, and we all hung around at the table talking until 1:15am. Then Jube and I went home because we had originally planned to go skiing today--but we decided that waking up at 7:00am was not a good idea.

Today we went into town around noon and ate lunch at "the only authentic Japanese restaurant in Nice." It was delicious! I think we will definitely go back again. Tonight is going to be more relaxed, and we'll go to bed early to be out on the slopes by 9:00am tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have some gorgeous photos of the Alps to share, but until then, wish us luck that there is no Rally!

So Soon?

Warning: Jube will not like this post . . .

. . . because it is about farts! (Before he came to America, he had never heard a girl fart. Too bad for him that he found an American girl to bring back to France!)

Ahem. Back to the story.

My dad once told me that it is only a matter of age before our farts become uncontrollable. He is a teacher, and he dreads The Day. The Day that he lets one rip in front of the class. When he's not in class, he farts as much as he wants.

Today was The Day for me. I think I managed to cover it pretty well, though. I didn't blush, I didn't laugh . . . I pretended like I had heard nothing.

Although I think that they knew it was me anyway . . .

Bad Weather = Good Food

Jube and I were hoping to go skiing this weekend after our last disastrous attempt. Unfortunately, the weather this weekend was terrible. On Thursday night it started to rain on the coast and snow on the high grounds. It was actually snowing near my little villa when I got home! Of course it didn't stick. Jube and I had been hoping for a snow day on Friday, but we didn't get one. With our skiing plans scrapped, what were we to do?

Hmmmm . . . We decided to pretend like we were in the Alps and eat a tartiflette. Tartiflette is one of the best French inventions ever. It is made of potatoes, onions, cubed smoked meat, and cheese. To quote an online recipe, "If you're looking for a balanced, low-fat meal to help you with your healthy diet, tartiflette is not for you*." Thank goodness Jube and I were looking for the fattiest comfort food in the world to help us with the depressing weather! We headed into Vieux Nice to buy some "farmer's" cheese**, which of course makes better tartiflette. When we got to the cheese seller's stall, Jube forgot what kind of cheese makes tartiflette! Luckily he had his American gourmande with him who remembered that it was reblochon. We bought our tasty reblochon and then went to the video store, where we rented The Tai Chi Master to watch. If we really wanted a themed evening, we should have rented Les Bronzés font du ski, but we didn't think of it. Here is a photo of the finished product:



Looks pretty good, huh? (Please notice the raw material used behind the tartiflette. Yep, those are the original potatoes!)

Now I would like to write an ode to Asian food stores in France. Oh, how I love them! They smell really good when you walk inside, and they have aisles and aisles of mysterious products. Sometimes these mysterious products are labeled in English, making my job easier, although sometimes they are translated into French . . . which is hard for me when the French word for "okra" is some strange Asian transliteration. But usually I get by fine, finding everything I need for my strange Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Réunionais, or Mexican (!) meals (or attempts). We usually also find something that we just can't resist, like Green Tea flavored Fig Newtons or frozen spicy meat-on-a-stick hors d'oeuvres. This time we bought sesame oil, bean sprouts, tiger cat shrimp, rice vinegar, and Chinese cabbage. Tonight we celebrated theChinese New Year with sesame shrimp, fried rice, and "fortune cookies." (Actually, these seemed a lot like gingersnaps, but since I made them according to the recipe I will continue to call them fortune cookies.) And that's about it for this weekend.

Tomorrow I go back to work. Only two more weeks and two days until vacation . . . wish me luck!

*My translation.
**When I was little, I thought that "parmesan cheese" was really "farmers and cheese." I just thought of it when I wrote that translation of fromage fermier.

Merd-UH!

Jube was born in Mende, a "lost village" in the middle of nowhere. It also happens to be situated in the South of France. His family and he speak French with a heavy Southern accent, so I picked it up, too. One of the peculiarities of the accent is that the "e"s on the end of words are pronounced. This is especially true when they are upset.

This evening I heard a loud "Merd-UH! Bordel!" from the kitchen.

I have learned not to respond to these outbursts because they're never anything really serious, like I think they are from their volume. Probably the trash bag leaked a little bit or I forgot to soak a pan before Jube had to wash it.

Today I had my own "merd-UH" moment. I was driving to work, which includes driving around a traffic circle. I never learned how to deal with traffic circles back in the US, because we don't really have any. I just copy other French people, which involves going whenever you think the next person won't hit you. Well, today there happened to be two moto-police standing in the traffic circle. I pulled out, and they immediately waved me over. "Merd-UH!" I thought. He asked for my license and registration. I handed him the papers for the car, my American license and my passport. (Yes, this is legal, as long as I exchange my license within a year. Unfortunately I haven't been able to change it yet because I don't have my permanent residency card. But I'm still allowed!) He stared at the passport and license for about 30 seconds. "Mademoiselle, are you American?" he asked me.

Ummmm, WHAT? If I were French, why would I hand you an American passport and an American license and speak French with an accent? Although it's true that I hadn't said anything except "merd-UH," and that only to myself before I rolled down the window...

Anyway, the result was a ticket for 90€!! It's only my second ticket ever, and the first one was in the US. How annoying.

As I drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror. The police had already pulled over two more cars! The only thing I can think of is that driving on traffic circles AT ALL is illegal in France. You just have to hope that the police already have their victims when you drive by.

Beer Flu

The threat of bird flu has been a popular subject on the French news for months now (as I imagine it has in America and the UK as well). Every night the anchorpeople talk about how many cases there are, how close they are to France, and what the risk is of getting it. We hear the words "grippe aviaire" repeated at least 15 times a day.

Le Pacha doesn't believe it.

"Listen to them!" he said. "They're not saying grippe aviaire, they're saying grippe à bière." The whole family laughed and told him that they're not saying beer flu! He refused to believe us. We searched for references in the paper--"grippe aviaire," it said it right there in black and white.

"Well, maybe in the paper they say bird flu. But listen closely--all of the newspeople say beer flu."

Ever since then, when I talk about bird flu, I call it grippe à bière. No one has ever corrected my pronunciation, or even looked at me strangely.

EDIT: I just used an online translator for grippe à bière, and it came back as "seize up with beer." Isn't that great?

Skiing, or the Rally of Monte Carlo

Jube and I woke up this morning at 7:30am. That's right, we woke up at 7:30 on a Saturday. Why did we do that? To go skiing, of course! Isola 2000, the most southern ski station in France, is only an hour and a half from Nice. Since it snowed early this week, almost all of the pistes were open, and the weather report predicted sun with highs (in the mountains) of 2 degrees Celcius. Jube's family loves skiing, and I was pretty excited about our ski trip en amoureux. We drove out of the parking lot at 8:20; we were back 2 hours later.

What happened? At first, everything seemed to be going fine. We stopped for gas on the outskirts of Nice, and as we drove along we could see the snow-covered peaks of the Alps getting closer and closer. The sun was shining on the mountains, and they glistened temptingly in the distance. Then, suddenly, the traffic ground to a halt. We drove in deceiving spurts. First, we were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, with no one getting anywhere. Then we were driving along at 90km/h without a care in the world. Every time this happened, we thought, "Ah, it's cleared up, we can get going now." And then we would see the taillights flash red in front of us, and Jube would pound on the steering wheel in frustration. Finally we decided to turn around at the next intersection and head back home when we realized that we would only be able to ski for 4 hours at most. We finally caught sight of a bridge that crossed the river Var near the town of Gilette. (Do you think that's where they make the shaving cream?)

As we made the U-turn, we saw some policemen directing traffic over the bridge, and some people with cameras gathered around. Then two muddy sports cars revved their engines, and we realized that it was part of the Rally of Monte Carlo. We had some vague knowledge of the Rally's existence from the news reports we had heard all morning. This threw Jube into even deeper spasms of frustration. "Of course we went the only day it would be blocked!" he raged. "Stupid jerky road!" (He actually said "route à la con!" but I figure my translation is good enough.)

So we just arrived back at the good ol' villa. I wonder what we'll do today . . .

My Thursay

I feel bad that I haven't posted anything lately. Let me tell you why:

Last weekend, I got sick. I kind of felt nauseated, but not enough to stop me from eating or to actually make me vomit. I just felt very congested, with a major (non-stop) headache. I felt so bad that I considered calling in sick on Monday and going to the doctor. Miraculously (and I'm serious here) I woke up feeling fine--no headache, just some major snot. [I have a really gross confession about it that I'll post at the bottom of the page so if you don't want to read it you don't have to.*]

I've been working ever since. I thought it might interest you if I told you about my day, since I always say I work, but I don't really describe it in detail. Keep in mind that today is not a typical day, because I don't have typical days; my schedule changes pretty constantly. Today was, in fact, a pretty nice day.

9:20am: Wake up. Ahhh how nice it is to be able to sleep in! 9 glorious hours of sleep!
9:30am: Eat a bowl of "Chocolate Coated Rice" in bed while finishing Douglas Adams's The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
10:40am: Leave for work. 15 minutes from my house to the highway; 7 minutes on the highway; 7 minutes to my workplace.
11:09am: Arrival. Photocopies and last-minute lesson planning.
11:40am: Student arrives, 10 minutes late. Great! I only have to teach until 1:00pm! We talk about the past simple and the present perfect. Wow.
1:00pm: One student leaves, a new one arrives. We also talk about the past simple and the present perfect, with some 1st and 2nd conditional and modal verbs thrown in. Double wow.
2:30pm: I record my lessons and leave for lunch. Today I ate at Courtepaille. It was my first time, and it was great. I ate grilled sausages and French fries, with salad and a hot pecan brownie with ice cream. I read Dostoevsky's The Idiot and relaxed until 4:00pm.
4:05pm: Arrival back at work. I prepare for my new student--a video! No grammar! When I was in high school and college, I used to love it when we watched movies in class. Now I see that the teachers loved it too, because it means you don't have to prepare anything.
5:30pm: Student arrives. We talk and watch the movie (it's about Wales).
7:30pm: Student leaves and I clean up the office.
7:37pm: Student shows up again, claiming that the door to the building is locked. I clean up faster.
7:40pm: I release student and head to my car.
8:10pm: Home Sweet Home!

I hope you enjoyed that. My day was nice, especially since it started off with breakfast in bed. 11:30 as a starting time might be my favorite--it's still the morning, so you don't feel bad about not doing anything before, but it's still late enough to laze around at home. (Jube took the 8:36am bus into town, but he finished at noon. I don't feel guilty about not dropping him off.)




*The Really Gross Confession: I had been trying to hock a loogie all weekend, because I just couldn't breathe out of my nose. Unfortunately, no loogie could be hocked because I couldn't suck it down the other way, either! When I woke up on Monday, I could feel that sucker moving around in my sinuses. My throat was RAW from all the loogie-hocking I had tried during the night. Suddenly--Eureka! I would BLOW my nose! I did that, and within seconds an absolutely humongous glob of snot popped out. Like really, really huge. About an inch and a half in diameter. I wanted to show it to Jube, but he's kind of squeamish about that kind of stuff, so I threw it away... but that night, when I got home, I picked the kleenex out of the trash and looked at it again. It was that prodigious!

I knew watching Star Academy would come in handy!

Yesterday Jube and I watched Le Déclin de l'empire américain (also known as The Decline of the American Empire). It is a Canadian movie, but French Canadian, so it is entirely in French. I thought Jube would be proud of me for picking out a French language film, because I usually insist on getting American or British DVDs and watching them in English. Plus, this movie was nominated for an Oscar and won lots of other awards, which my latest pick (Spanglish) did not. However, he grumbled as we rented it because "they'll have accents."

We settled in to watch the quebécois discuss their sex lives. I didn't find their accents to be too difficult to understand, in part because I had followed semi-religiously last year's season of Star Academy. For those of you not living in France, I'll give you a quick summary of how the show works: a group of about 16 "students" live together in a "chateau" to learn how to become "stars" (hence the name, Star Academy). Every week three students are nominated for elimination according to their evaluations. This is the most gripping episode of each week, in my opinion--the students have to prepare a short piece of song and dance and perform it for the "professors," who then decide who the worst three were. On Fridays there is a huge variety show where the students perform with real stars (last year they included Madonna, Mariah Carey, and Céline Dion). At the end of the show, one of the three nominated students is saved by the public, and another is saved by the non-nominated students. (Phew! What a long explanation it turned out to be!)

Anyway, the reason I say that this year's season helped me to understand the movie last night is because one of the students who made it pretty far in the game was québecoise, and spoke with a really heavy accent. Her accent was much heavier than the ones in the movie last night, so I hardly had any problem at all understanding. Jube, on the other hand, who dismissed my devotion to Star Academy as frivolous, trash TV, had some major oral comprehension problems, even asking to rewind once and wanting to put on French subtitles (unfortunately for him, this DVD didn't have any special features like subtitles).

So I just wanted to give a big Merci, Star Ac'! You help me with higher forms of culture now!

Anti-American?

Yesterday I did the same lesson with two groups of students. It is about the "Slow Food" movement, which was created in the '80s to oppose fast food. The phrase "to counter the American invasion" appears in one of the documents.

In the first class, a middle-aged man read aloud about the philosophy of slow food, breaking off to add editorial comments. For example, after he read, "the traditional image of the family eating together around a table is disappearing," he looked up at me and said, "I am agree." He did this a few times, and was quite interested in trying to provoke me. "Yes, what is the traditional American foods? It's just hamburgers, eh?" However, he loves debating in class, and enjoyed answering me. At the end of class he thanked me for the interesting material.

The other lesson is an individual course with a young man in his 20s. He loves to talk, and unlike many of my students, loves to ask me questions. As he read the offending phrase about Americans, his voice trailed off and he glanced up at me, as though afraid he had offended me. I couldn't help but laugh, and he assured me that he didn't feel that there was any American invasion going on--"I like action films, but there are no French action films, so I have to see American ones--but that is not America's fault." Wonderful!

Of all of my students, none of them has exhibited the "anti-American" sentiments supposedly exhibited by the French. They all love to tease me about McDonald's, though . . .

Nous sommes des gourmets pas des gourmands... je vous le jure!

Does this look like a designer handbag to you? It did to me because of the luxurious image I gave off by flashing my "Canet" logo walking through the streets of Nice. Canet is an artisanal pastry/chocolate shop. Whenever we walk by their window, we are amazed by the gorgeous cakes on display. They all have poetic names (i.e. coeur fondant--melting heart) and amazing presentation . . . with prices to match. One of our favorites to look at is a hemisphere of red mousse enclosed in a matching hemispheric grille of dark chocolate--you can see right through it! Unfortunately there were no remaining mini-cakes of this variety when we got there, since all of the cakes are (rightly!) made fresh every morning. Here's a peek of ours:



When we got home, we settled down for a gourmet dinner. We started with an apéritif of homemade (by Belle-maman) fois gras and champagne (don't tell anyone, but it was vin mousseux). Then we ate my tasty eggplant and zucchini casserole with spaghetti. We finished up with our gateaux from Canet. This was all eaten by candlelight--blueberry-scented candlelight. You are allowed to envy me . . .



NOW.

Thursday

I finally went to the lab today. When I went to the doctor she just wrote me a prescription and then told me to go to this random "laboratory" for a blood sample. Of course I put it off for weeks and weeks, but today was the last day I could do it without getting up really early (my new schedule is crazy--I work nights 4 days a week and start between 9 and 11:30 every day. I say crazy, but I guess it's kind of normal, eh?).

Afterwards, I had about half an hour to kill before I picked Jube up at work, so I went to the train station. Why would I go to the train station? Well, you can find both English language magazines and vending machines, both good things for killing time. There are also lots of people going lots of places, and I like to imagine that all I have to do is buy a quick train ticket and then hop a train anywhere and then I would be just one of them--but they don't know I'm not one of them, so it's perfect anonymity. That might not make sense, but I like train stations. So I was reading my European Time and eating a "lion" candy bar when a young woman approached me.

"Excusez-moi, I'm a journalist and I'd like to ask you some questions. Is that all right?" I explained that I was American, and she might prefer a French person to answer. She seemed a tiny bit let down but continued anyway. "What do you think about the events that happened on the train this weekend?"

She was referring to an incident on New Year's Day when a gang of about 30 youths "rampaged" through a train. They stole things, beat people up, and even sexually assaulted a young woman. When the police were called, only two were sent (for a train of about 12 cars, obviously not enough), and they arrived late.

Well, what can you think about events like that? "I don't approve."

Her expression brightened slightly--I obviously knew how to speak a little French and I knew something about French current events. "Do you feel safe riding trains?"

"Well, I used to ride trains all the time, and I never felt unsafe. I think that the problem was that not enough policemen were sent and they didn't arrive on time."

She got a big smile on her face. "Oh! Well, you speak French really well, not much accent... Do you mind if I record you?" With that, she whipped out a microphone with "RTL2" written on it, one of the biggest talk radio stations in France. "Now, repeat what you just said. Now, what do you think of M. Sarkozy's proposal to put more policemen on trains?"

She even asked me what I thought of M. Sarkozy's politics, but I played it safe and told her I couldn't vote here. I guess I might get famous, now!

Long Post

Okay, now I have some time to sit down and describe my wonderful, chock-full, two American holiday weeks.

On Christmas morning, we all opened our presents. What a haul! I got lots of books, some CDs, a copy of The Big Lebowski (plus accessories), and . . . A TRIP TO NORWAY! Isn't that the best? I'm very excited about our trip, although it will take place in late April and might be colder than Nice . . . hehe. I also got Bride and Prejudice, which my mom and I enjoyed, and then we headed to my dad's house.



There, we lazed around, played Texas Holdem (they had total poker faces, as you can tell), and watched Spinal Tap. I had a girls' night out with my grandmother, aunts, and cousins. Fun, although I didn't realize how much I had stuffed myself until I stood up and almost vomited. But I didn't, so the night ended well. Jube and I went to Maggiano's for dinner one night and ate for the next few days on our leftovers. I also watched Team America, World Police. I'm still not sure of how I feel about it . . .

Then we grabbed a flight to Cleveland and a car to Erie. It was gray, cloudy, and cold, but I got to see lots of people--BB, Nicole, Maria, and even more! I even helped Maria pick up her marriage license (she had almost forgotten to do it, and we arrived about 15 minutes before the bureau closed!). That Friday night, we went out to a Mexican restaurant. Oh how wonderful it was! There were six of us, and we ordered a pitcher of margaritas, but our waiter told us that we would need two pitchers. When the two pitchers arrived, we realized that we only needed one pitcher--but we managed to polish it off anyway, somehow avoiding diabetic shock and alcohol poisoning.



Saturday was the wedding. The church wedding was at 2, and the reception was at 8, which gave us enough downtime to hook up with more friends! The reception was wonderful. The couple had rented the lobby of an old theater, which sounds weird, but was actually gorgeous. Everyone ate, danced, and counted down the new year. Afterwards, Jube and I slept for about 3 hours before heading back to the Cleveland airport for our 10:30am flight to Dulles.



Then we spent about 24 hours traveling before we got back to our good old "villa." We managed to pick up some frozen pizzas before getting home, and I dropped into bed at 9:00pm. That just about brings us up to speed!

Just a Quickie

Jube and I arrived safely in France after another marathon trip (Erie- Cleveland- Dulles- Paris- Marseille- Nice), although I couldn't hear out of one ear and he had neither slept nor graded papers on the plane. More about our trip later, I've just started a new grueling work schedule (no days off??? Seven hours of work a day???). I simply wanted to share a little story from my day that illustrates my new obsession (even more obsessed, yes) with the English language.

I don't know if the song "Lonely Day" has made it big already in America, but I heard it for the first time tonight as I pulled up to our apartment (find lyrics here). Since I had just finished two hours of explaining comparative and superlative adjectives to M. Pècheur, I was absolutely horrified to hear a chorus with repeated misuse of the superlative. How am I supposed to do my job when System of a Down won't take their status as role models seriously?

Come on! "The most loneliest day of my life"?? Not even funny!

Guest Post

This is the legendary BB with a guest entry. A lot of Gem's friends met in Erie, PA for a wedding of a mutual friend. The reception for the wedding starts in about an hour and I'm going to try to hook up with one of the bride's maids. Wish me luck!

Back in the USA

I know, I know, no post for 3 days, but I've just been so busy!

Quick summary? Busy relaxing, eating, watching movies, and visiting Virginia tourist attractions. In fact, I multitask--I can relax, eat, and watch a movie all at the same time! On Saturday, Jube and I arrived after an epic plane trip to a warm house with baked potatoes and broiled steaks. On Sunday we toured Luray Caverns, where we got to hear "real rock music," played by an organ with mallets that strike stalactites. On Monday we saw King Kong, and today we went to Border's. In depth? See below.

Epic Plane Trip: About six weeks ago, our travel company called to tell us that our flight was cancelled. Refund? 3-4 months. In fact, all itineraries leaving from Montpellier were cancelled. Could we leave from another city? Oh well, I suppose that we could swing things so that you can leave from Marseille. At 6:00 in the morning. That means you have to wake up at 3:30am? Well, you'd better choose this way or your whole trip is cancelled. We accepted this without (much) complaint and showed up at 5:30am at the train station of Marseille the day of the trip--only to find that the SNCF had no record of our ticket. We had to buy last-second tickets up to Paris to catch our flight, then wait in line for an hour to get boarding passes, then wait for 20 minutes in a security line. Then we waited for another half an hour to take off, since the ticket counters were so backed up. (And a female security officer patted me down, randomly, I suppose: Je vais vous controller, mademoiselle.) Arrival in the US was much better than expected, since Jube came through immigration almost as fast as I did. When we got home, we ate good food and went to bed soon after.

On Sunday, we woke up and my mom decided that we would visit Luray Caverns. When I was young, I adored visiting the caverns! The magic had worn off slightly this time, but we still had a good time listening to our guide's southern accent (he called the caverns "cavruns" for the entire hour). That evening we ate barbecue and watched French Kiss. I was really disappointed this time around because I noticed easily that Kevin Kline has an accent when he speaks French!

Yesterday we spent the morning deciding which movie we wanted to see. My mother and I wanted to see Pride and Prejudice, while my brothers favored King Kong--and Jube wasn't enthusiastic about anything, besides enthusiastically against Pride and Prejudice. We ate Mexican food for lunch and then went to see King Kong. Boy oh boy was that a long movie! For dinner we ate sushi and lobster bisque. Yum.

Today has been even more low-key than the others. We went to Border's in the morning where I read Glamour; then we went grocery shopping. Jube and I are going to cook dinner tonight--rougail saucisse. Yum. If anything interesting happens this week, I'll be sure to let you know!

24-hour Trip

I'm sure everyone's been dying to know how our trip went. Well, we arrived safe and sound at Dulles about 19 hours after we left Gallargues le Montueux the day before. Yes, there were some travel issues (including buying on-the-spot train tickets), but we finally ended up in The Plains, Virginia. That's it for now--more to come!

I'm So Excited... And I Just Can't Hide It!

I'm serious, no excitement hiding from me. There are a little less than 20 hours between my wake-up tomorrow to drive to Marseille and now, and less than 8 hours before we leave for Montpellier (and over 24 before we actually arrive in America) and I just can't wait!!! Last night I cleaned out the fridge because I was so excited; this morning I woke up at 5:45 and set off the alarm early (7:15) so I would have an excuse to get up. I had a really weird dream that was a cross between the Disney version of Robin Hood (with the snake that gets drunk) with a weird swan who thought I was hot. That's bizarre.

I got an e-mail from my friend BB today, who gave me his number and told me I could call him whenever. I told him that he just acquired a stalker, but I don't know if it was a joke or not in my current mood . . .

Anyway, I'm going to go check my bags again, and I'll see you on the other side!

Nicknames

Today in my group class at France Télécom, I showed Bend it Like Beckham because they had begged me for examples of an Indian accent. None of the students had heard of the movie, and they really enjoyed it, although we were interrupted by an unscheduled video-conference call in the middle of the movie. (Alo? alo? Est-ce qu'ils parlent anglais? Mais on n'est pas chez France Télécom?)

Afterwards, we talked about the penchant we Anglo-Saxons seem to have for nicknames. If you don't remember, in Bend it Like Beckham everyone has a nickname. The main character is Jess (Jesminder), her friend is Jules (Juliet), her sister is Pinky (real name unknown) and her brother-in-law is Teets (Teetu). When I thought about it, everyone I know has a nickname, and many of them use their nicknames instead of their real names. I started remembering how on the first day of class, the teacher would call role, and we would tell her how we would like to be called. This doesn't happen very often in France; usually a French person will have a childhood nickname, but they drop it once they go to school. I asked all of the students what their childhood nickname was, and they were all pretty basic:

Cricri (Christine)
Cripoulette (Christelle)
Maya l'Abeille (Maya the Bee)
Lolette (Laure)

The best, though, was Sylvie. She explained that she had a wetnurse as a child, and this wetnurse was from Germany. "My wetnurse thought I looked just like a doll, so she called me poupée [doll] with a German accent, Poupie."

Unfortunately Poupie sounds exactly like Poopy. I did my best not to laugh, and I didn't explain what "poopy" means in English--but from now on, I'll always wonder what her German wetnurse really thought of Sylvie . . .

Workin' Hard for the Money

Since Jube and I leave on Friday for our long trans-continental trip, we have had lots to do this week: we have to pack, wrap gifts, make final (last-minute) purchases, and do laundry. This is already enough to do in one week, but we also have extra work--Jube has conseils de classe and I have extra hours for a man who wants to brush up for a job interview. We've been arguing about car use--I need it to get to work, but Jube hates to take the bus in the morning because it adds about 45 minutes onto his trip. I've been waking up early and dropping him off in town before heading out to Sophia Antipolis, which makes me grouchy since I lose a few hours of sleep (petty petty Gem!). Plus, for the laundry, we have to do it at night (after 8:00pm) to save money and energy, and then we have to hang it up outside. It's cooooold outside at 10:30pm (yes, it takes 2.5 hours for our old washing machine to finish its cycle). Luckily everything dries by the next night, so we are theoretically able to do one load a night.

Are you bored yet? You're still reading?

That's good, because yesterday we had a few hours of respite from our household chores, and instead decided to run errands! We went out yesterday to exchange Euros for dollars, rent Bend It Like Beckham from the video store, and buy some special rum from the store. We finished the first two of these tasks and drove into town to buy the rum when we saw the Christmas Market. There was a huge Ferris wheel, an outdoor ice-skating rink (the temperature yesterday was in the 50s . . .), and the traditional little stands with local products. Jube and I looked at each other, and decided to spend a little time at the Market. First, we rode the Ferris wheel. It was around 5:00pm, so the sun was setting, and we saw the sea and the city bathed in a beautiful light (poetic enough for you?). Afterwards we watched some kids skating in the rink and took a tour of the booths. I had some amazing cheese at the Franche-Compté booth, but it was too expensive so we didn't buy any. Instead we shared a gaufre à nutella (a freshly ironed waffle smothered in nutella) and walked slowly back into town towards the supermarket and home, where more laundry awaited us.

Was he really only talking about skiing?

Time for another anecdote about le Pacha!

The last time the belle-famille came to visit, it was for Thanksgiving. On our drive down to the city, we can just see the snow-capped peaks of the Alps. (The region where we live is called les Alpes-Maritimes, or the Maritime Alps--we have the mountains and the sea all in the same place.) Beau-père absolutely loves skiing, as do his sons, and Belle-mère puts up with it tolerably well--she also enjoys skiing, but she takes time to visit the restaurants and shopping in the resorts.

Beau-père hadn't started his annual obsessive checking of the weather at their favorite resort, Pralognan la Vanoise, but when he saw the snow, he hopped right online. The conversation at the dinner table was centered around skiing, about which slopes (pistes) they wanted to ski, what classes they wanted to take, and what they wanted to eat at the different restaurants. Le Pacha was particularly excited about retaking a class with a particular instructor who taught with a particular brand of Système D, or the school of hard knocks.

"You start off on a red slope, and by the end of the day, you're on a black one!" he enthusiastically told us. "J'ai vraiment envie de me taper la noire!"

Jube, Belle-mère and Beau-père burst out laughing, and I joined in a few seconds later as his unintentional double entendre registered in my mind.

He had just said, "I can't wait to do the black diamond," or, "I can't wait to get a piece of the black girl!"

I'm Comin' Home . . .

For Christmas.

Hooray!

I don't know if I've mentioned it on here before, although I know I've talked about the New Year's Eve wedding I will be attending. It's in Pennsylvania! I'm going to be visiting a town I've never been to before! Besides that, I will be opening lots of little presents at Christmas. The Christmases I've spent in France were really fun. La Belle-Famille is very welcoming, and I have experienced all the French holiday traditions: escargots, oysters, the crèche under the tree, the TV bloopers on New Year's Eve . . . But nothing compares to my childhood memories of stockings, fireplaces, the crèche on top of the TV, and our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of coldcuts and Californias.

I also absolutely love unwrapping surprises, which just can't happen in Jube's family. Everyone knows what they will get, and they only get one thing. That's fine if you want one big present--but I also love unwrapping my mother's practical gifts. We always receive toothbrushes, deoderant, and underwear, although she stopped giving feminine hygiene products after one ended up in my brother's stocking (he was extremely disappointed!). Jube doesn't understand that I want a surprise for Christmas. Every year, I try to give him hints, but he doesn't remember them. By the end of November, he is actually asking me outright what I want, and if I don't tell him, he gets upset. I know that Jube really loves me and cares about me because he can't stomach the idea of giving me a gift I might like only a little bit. But I like the surprise just as much! [Of course, he has also seen the home videos of my 10-year-old self almost breaking down in tears on Christmas morning because my step-father gave me clothes! It was a really good idea, but badly timed--one year later and I would have been overjoyed. And of course it was all caught on camera . . .]

In order to go back to the States, I had to get my papers in order. That means: a trip to the Prefecture. Ugh. In September, I had received a récipissé allowing me to work, and expiring in December. I was told to come back two months later to pick up the permanent resident card. I waited a bit longer to give them more time, and made the decision to venture back today. Yesterday we called them to make sure we knew the opening times. The first time we called, we were told that they were open between one and two pm, but "why are you asking? The times are written on the récipissé." Uhh, no, they weren't. We decided to call back again to clarify this, and were given a totally different response: "You are not to come back unless you have received a convocation in the mail." By this time, I was ready to cry and I hadn't even been to the Prefecture yet. It didn't seem to be shaping up as the best bureaucratic trip ever.

We arrived at around 1:15pm, and waited in the relatively short (!) line. When it was our turn, I opened my mouth to speak, and this came out: "Bonbonjour madadame, je mumble mumble carte de séjour mumble mumble a pas recu une convocation mais mumble mumble." Jube looked at me, horrified. He quickly took over and explained that all we wanted to do was pick up my resident card. No, it wasn't ready yet, but they extended my récipissé, which is just as good (except that it means we have to go back in another 3 months). I couldn't believe myself--even if the Prefecture experience isn't bad, I manage to create my own problems. After that harrowing linguistic experience, Jube got his international driving license with no problems, and we came back home. I just want my family to know what I went through for them. Maybe they can buy me some presents to make up for it!

joueur de bande

I have been working at France Télécom for about two months now on a 40-hour contract (called a mission in French--I love saying "I have a mission at France Télécom"). The building is "secure," meaning that I have to ring a bell for the secretary to open the doors for me, and wait for someone to let me into the work area. My students were very surprised to find that I use actual audio cassette tapes for their listening activities, and not CDs, and so I have to ask the secretary for a tape player.

On my first day there, I realized that I didn't know the French word for "tape player." I knew the French for CD and DVD player, lecteur CD/DVD (CD or DVD "reader"), and VCR, magnetoscope, but not tape player. I decided to go with lecteur cassette audio, or "audio cassette reader." The secretary didn't seem to understand for a minute, but then said "oh!" and got me a tape player. This happened for the first 4 weeks, and I assumed that everything was going well and I had guessed the right word.

Last week, when I asked for the lecteur cassette audio, she seemed put out. "You'll have to ask Christian for that," she told me. "Oh, no, wait, he's not here today, is he? Well, I'll see what I can do." She called another secretary in the room, and asked her for a magnetophone. That's right, not a lecteur cassette audio, but a magnetophone. So for a whole month I had been asking for an audio cassette reader, and instead of correcting me the first time, she just let me go with it. Now I know better, and I asked her for a magnetophone today (because Christian is hardly ever there). She is very nice otherwise, and she probably was too embarrassed to correct me after the first time she heard it, so she came up with a novel way of demonstrating the right word. Thanks, France Télécom secretary!

EDIT: Jube has informed me that we can use lecteur cassette as well as magnetophone. Good to know!

What a Weekend!

Wow! After the weekend I just had, going back to work (on my long day, too) actually felt like a break!

Last Friday, we were woken up by next-door-neighbor/mother-from-hell's screaming at her children. We attempted to bang loudly on the wall, but it seems very thick and solid. She must really have a thrash-metal voice! Friday afternoon, it rained and rained and rained. It rained all day long; when I headed home at 3:00pm it hailed! Then, back at the apartment, we cleaned, since le Parisien and his girlfriend were due to arrive the next day at 9:00am. Unfortunately for them, the 14 hours of rain had flooded the airport, so they arrived late, around noon. They came back to the apartment and we ate lasagna, and then we headed out to be tourists.

We toured le Site de l'Ancien Château again, and then we visited Vieux Nice and the newer Pedestrian Zone and the main shopping street, Avenue Jean Médecin. Le Parisien loves to shop, so we went in to almost every store we saw. Then, we ate dinner in town at a Japanese Steakhouse, "Zen." It's the kind where they cook everything in front of you, and le Parisien fell in love. The cook catapulted pieces of shrimp into our mouths and cut lobster tails with such amazing dexterity that le Parisien called about five of his friends to describe the action.

Afterwards we went to a bar with live music, the Thor. It was rather smokey, and there was a drunk "dragueur" who would dance to all of the songs and play air drums in between hitting on any woman he saw who wasn't holding on to a man. I had my hand in Jube's all night, and the Lisper was pressed up tight against le Parisien to avoid his advances. We saw Oneika, who told us about her latest news, and le Parisien was very charmed--"You must have fun with a girl like that around!" was his summation.

We woke up relatively late on Sunday and went to Cannes. The weather was wonderful, but since I was still very tired and my feet were killing me from our Saturday afternoon/evening, I was in a bad mood. We had fun walking the Croisette, though, and took some photos of the Carlton Hotel (see above).

After lunch, we went to Monaco. Yes, yes, I know that I said Monaco "wasn't very charming," and I wasn't too thrilled about going, but it was le Parisien's vacation, so we went. And once we got there, we went up to the old part of town, where the palace is, and were very pleasantly surprised! It is, in fact, a cute little village, with a huge (and beautiful!) aquarium/oceanographic museum, a cathedral, and of course the Princely Palace. Le Parisien bought tons of postcards to mail them with Monegasque stamps. Jube and I were standing in the middle of the central place when an extremely short motorcade came by--one police scooter, one expensive black car, and another expensive black car following it. That's right--I saw Prince Albert!* At least, I'm pretty sure it was him . . . I saw a bald man in the back of the second car.

Le Parisien was so busy writing postcards that he didn't see the prince. He took such a long time that Jube and I were reduced to making fools of ourselves right outside of the palace, in the hopes that Albert would come out to watch. Here is a photo of Jube en train de faire le con:



You can see the lower, "uncharming" part of Monaco in the background. Then we went to the grocery store (exceptionally open on Sunday's for Christmas!) to buy shrimp for le Parisien's famous carry crevette. Yum!

*I was listening to the Riviera Radio morning show on the way to work the other day, and they had Prince Albert as a guest. I was amazed to hear that he has a perfect American accent--and then kicked myself! I mean, come on, I'm sure Princess Grace didn't speak with some weirdo European accent with her kids at home . . .

The Modern Woman

Today, I picked Jube up after work. I finished at 12:30 and he finished at 3:30, which gave me a good two hours to shop for Christmas gifts before I had to be in town to pick him up. I priced a few gifts and treated myself to something (for the first time in months!). Then I drove downtown and waited in front of the lycée for Jube to come out. I had to keep my eye on the door, since lots of students were coming out and I didn't want him to miss the fact that the car was parked right in front of the school.

He finally came out (10 minutes late!) and hopped into the car (he found it without too much trouble), and we started for home. He made fun of me, calling me a "modern woman."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, look at you!" he said, "Picking your man up from work, driving your Ka, listening to the radio . . ."

I just shrugged it off. When we got home, he grabbed my purse for me, and started laughing.

"What?"

"The Modern Woman!" he chuckled. "Look in your bag--Salman Rushdie and Cosmopolitan!"

At least the Cosmo was in French . . .

Weekend with the In-laws

This weekend was full of fun! Jube's family arrived on Friday night, and we had the full Thanksgiving dinner. On Saturday morning, we went to Menton in the morning and played tourist. On the way down, we saw the above billboard--it says, "Gini veux tu m'épouser," or, "Gini will you marry me?" [No, it did not say Gem . . . ] I managed to snap this pic during the afternoon on our way to Grasse, where we quickly headed to the Fragonard shop and bought some soap as a gift for Mémée. Then we went to Vence for a gros apéritif at Belle-maman's relatives' house.


We had a good time there, and the apéritif was so gros that we didn't eat dinner, either. Instead, we drove through the streets of Nice to see the Christmas lights. They just lit them on Friday, so Jube and I hadn't seen them. The palm trees on the Promenade des Anglais were covered with small white lights, on the trunks and on the leaves, which made them look like fireworks! Then we came back home and went to sleep.



This morning we hiked to the top of the mini-mountain that borders Vieux Nice, le Site de l'Ancien Château. In fact, we drove the car halfway up and hiked the rest of the way! At the top there is a man-made waterfall that is lit up at night. You can see it from almost everywhere in the city. There is also a big park and a cemetery up there, and when the weather is sunny, there are beautiful views (see above picture for confirmation). Today was chilly but sunny, and the Mediterranean was a beautiful turquoise.

Afterwards we came back to the apartment and ate a tasty raclette. For anyone who doesn't know, raclette is a notorious dish from the Alps, involving potatoes, pork cold cuts, and cheese that you melt yourself. (The word raclette comes from the verb racler, "to scrape;" you scrape the melted cheese off of its little dish onto your food!) When my father, an extremely picky eater, came to France, I specifically asked Belle-mère to prepare a raclette, since I knew he would love the do-it-yourself cheesy (fatty!) goodness. Then they left, and Jube and I have been moping around since then, not wanting to get ready for classes tomorrow, but too tired to go out and do anything else, either.

Thanksgiving Dinner

This is a picture of the turkey before I baked it. I gave it a nice massage with oil and scented herbs and stuffed it full of bread. Then it got to go in the sauna for about 3 hours. And afterwards, it got to undergo surgical weight loss. It was very tasty!

I freaked out about 45 minutes into the roasting because there was no juice to baste it and it didn't looked cooked at all! I called my parents, who reassured me that it would turn out fine. And it certainly did, no small thanks to the thermometer that my mother sent it to me when I couldn't find one in France! All of the guests enjoyed it, and the pumpkin pie was authentically delicious. Yum! I also made green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Miam! On my way home from work, I stopped to buy some cranberry sauce. I had searched everywhere, and finally asked the English video clerk where to find it. There were tons of other products too, like Dr Pepper, Worcestershire Sauce, and salad dressing--even cream of mushroom soup! I had given up on making the green bean casserole without cream of mushroom soup, since I couldn't find it, and I finally decided not to buy it either because it cost about 3 Euros per can! The cranberry sauce cost 2€90, but I ended up buying it anyway. It was worth it.

Now I think the turkey chemicals are kicking in, because we all settled down to watch television (although there is no parade or football game) and are quietly dozing off . . .

I haven't posted yet this week because I have been busy working! I finish after 7:00pm on Monday and Tuesday. When I arrived home at 2:00pm today and entered the apartment, I was surprised to find it so bright. At that moment I realized that I hadn't been at home in the afternoon for the week. I've been going to bed early to have enough energy for the next day, since even when we start later (around 11:00am), our next door neighbor yells at her children at 8:30am. She manages to scream loudly enough to wake up both Jube and me, and we can make out whole sentences, as well. She usually uses the following phrases, in random order: "J'en ai marre! J'en ai ras le bol! Je n'en peux plus! Mais dépechez-vous! C'est pas possible, ça! Non, mais! Allez, allez, on se dépeche, là!" This is something like, "I'm fed up with you! I can't take any more! You're impossible! Let's go! Hurry up! Come on!" Well, honestly, nous aussi nous en avons ras le bol! When we see her walking in the parking lot or pass her on the stairs leading to our door, she always seems very demure and "French," with only a discreet bonjour. If she only knew that we knew!

I've also been busy mentally preparing for Thanksgiving. I haven't actually started cooking anything yet, since we won't pick up the turkey until tomorrow, but we went shopping today to pick up fresh vegetables and spices. We went to Leader Price, so it's not the classiest, but is by far the cheapest--all of the side dishes together cost less than the turkey! I don't think that cooking everything will be the hardest part. The most difficult will be cleaning our apartment. It's not the cleanest it's ever been, and Belle-maman is a pretty tough critic. Ever the procrastinators, Jube and I have been talking about cleaning for about a week, but haven't started yet. Please, don't judge us--we've been working hard! In fact, the simple act of posting right now is just another example of my procrastination. So I'm going to sign off and get to work cooking dinner. Maybe I will actually start cleaning tonight. Maybe we'll finish it 15 minutes before la belle-famille arrives. I'll let you be the judge.

Nice Saturday

Jube and I woke up early yesterday and ventured into town to find a butcher. Why did we need to find a butcher? Because I am going to introduce Thanksgiving to his family, and turkeys are not easy to find at the supermarket in November. We found a butcher's and ordered a turkey (minimum 3 kilos--6.5lbs) for next Friday. The butcher couldn't tell us how much it would cost until he got in touch with his "suppliers." He'll call and leave a message tomorrow. Let's hope it's not too expensive . . .

On to Thanksgiving for a moment. It is a holiday that is relatively difficult for the French to understand and relatively hard for an American to explain [e.g. "It's not a religious holiday," I say; response: "Then whom are you thanking?" Good question!]. Added to that is their inability to pronounce Thanksgiving: it ends up something like Sahnsgeeveen. Since "saint" is pronounced (something like) "sahn," and saints' days are celebrated here (think of Toussaint--All Saints' Day), le Pacha asked which saint's day it was--Gavin, perhaps? So la belle-famille is coming to Nice to celebrate Saint Gavin with me by eating a turkey. I'm sure we will all enjoy it very much. Jube even bought a "spice bread" scented candle to make the apartment smell like America.

We also headed out to Cap 3000 yesterday. Cap 3000 is a shopping center on the outskirts of Nice. We bought a gift for the wedding, and I found my belt! Here is a sneak preview:



I know you can't see either the belt in its full glory or the dress, but it gives you an idea of my outfit. (Add in the earrings and a pair of black slouchy boots and you have the whole picture!) When I bought the belt, I spoke to the saleswoman in French (of course!), and Jube talked to me in English the whole time, making fun of me "pretending to be French." He said the words "French" and "American" so much that as we were leaving, the saleswoman asked if I were French. I was forced to answer negatively, which cracked Jube up for the rest of the night. "Even if you don't have an accent, I manage to give you away!"

Doctor, Doctor!

Yesterday, I went to the doctor. It was probably the best of my medical experiences in France, although there was one major drawback: America bashing! Let me explain.

I made an appointment for 11:30am. I arrived 15 minutes early, armed with a book, ready to wait for a loooooooong time. However, I was seen immediately, and was out even before 11:30! The docteur was a woman, specializing in sports medicine, although she is obviously qualified to do general check-ups. We spoke about my medical history, and then she listened to my heartbeat and breathing, took my blood pressure, and felt my legs. She told me, "Do you play any sports? I didn't think so! We French are very skinny. You, mademoiselle, have to be very careful about your weight. It's not like America here! No eating between meals, you can have 4 a day--that is American, right? In France, we only eat 3. 3 meals a day is best."

But, but . . . ! I wanted to protest, "Just because I'm American doesn't mean that it's in my genes to be obese! And besides, we only eat 3 meals a day." It wasn't the worst I've ever experienced. Living in France has given me an idea of what it is like to be an immigrant in the US, and although it is sometimes disagreeable, it is always enlightening.

Before I left, she wrote me prescriptions. Besides my usual, she asked if I wanted anything else. I was extremely surprised! Why would a doctor ask me if I wanted another prescription? and then I remembered--in France, to get Advil or Tylenol or Aspégic (plain aspirin--Jube's favorite), you have to have a prescription. That is the reason that the French go to the doctor for every little cold--because they need Dimetap! Unfortunately, before I had managed to grasp the reason for the question, I had confusedly mumbled, "Non, merci." Luckily I have enough Advil in stock to keep me for awhile!

UPDATE: No, you don't NEED a prescription to get Tylenol or Advil, you just have to ask the pharmacist and she will give it to you. It's BETTER to have a prescription because then it is reimbursed by the government.

Ho Hum

I'm going to be heading to the doctor's office in half an hour (just a normal checkup, don't worry about me) and as I was waiting, I watched Les Maternelles, a show that is ostensibly for mothers. I like it very much, because there are cute little documentaries of kids at school and "testimonies" (temoignages) from women about all sorts of things. At the end of the show the hostess (whose idol is Oprah, she mentioned today, which is pretty amazing because no one in France knows who Oprah is) announced the following"Calls to Testify:"

Nos seins
Il me trompe. Et alors?

These translate as:

Our Breasts and
He's cheating on me. So what?

Maybe these would be topics in the US, too, but they seemed really funny to me. It reminds me of the "Best Of" news segment I watched at the end of the television season in Montpellier. A "Best Of" the news? Yes! And the best of the best was the following headline:

Invasion de chenilles

Caterpillar Invasion. Not only are they eating all vegetation, worse, they bite!

Monday, Monday

Mondays are the worst days of the week. I know that you've heard this said a million ways (by Garfield, too), but I have a specific reason for it: I leave home at 8:00am and get home at 8:30pm. I begin work in Sophia Antipolis, go back to Nice after lunch, and the go back to Sophia for an evening class. You can check out a map of the area here (it's about 17km one way, between Nice and Antibes). I pay 2€60 in tolls and use up lots of expensive gas, all just to add more stress to my day (and earn a few sous*).

Yesterday was the worst Monday yet. After a three-day weekend, I didn't feel like going back to work. What's more, I started a new morning job "in company," which meant that I had to find the company myself. I managed to arrive at the new company on time, but the building was completely secured. (Sophia Antipolis is the "Silicon Valley" of France, so most of the companies make use of magnetized cards to enter the parking lots, the elevators, and miscellaneous other places.) I pushed the intercom button of my company, and let it ring for about a minute. No one answered, so I pushed the button again. By this time, there were about 3 cars behind me, so I backed up and parked on a dirt pulloff by the road. Muttering in English under my breath, I stomped past the barriers and started to search for the company.

In this particular building complex, there were three or four different companies, and of course there were no signs anywhere pointing me to "mine." I walked all the way up to the parking lot where I should have parked, with no indication of the right direction. When I found the company, I was about five minutes late. I entered the building, but here again the doors were locked against spies, without a secretary on the exterior. I found a door with the company's logo on it with another intercom button. I didn't have high hopes, but I pushed this button, too. I pushed it again and again, each time that it stopped beeping. Finally someone opened the door (in my opinion surprised that I had the stamina to keep annoying them) and asked me to follow them upstairs to the secretary's office. By this time I was 15 minutes late.

They didn't seem to have any clue that an English teacher was coming to give group lessons, but I asked for my students and one of them was at work, so I could teach him. He explained to me (in French) that someone--he implied some disgruntled employee--had put glue in the lock of the secretary's office, so they hadn't been able to enter all day. Indeed, our lesson was interrupted by loud banging and drilling noises from down the hall. When I left, they had managed to open the door and (allegedly) they were ready to open gates and doors for authorized intruders. As I left, I couldn't help thinking about what would have happened if I were a client. I'm already dreading my return next Monday . . .

*I was going to say "bucks," but Euros aren't bucks, are they?

November 11, 2005

Since the weather yesterday was absolutely lovely, Jube and I decided to take advantage of the holiday to go to the Friday market in Ventimiglia/Ventimille, Italy. The market is well-known (notorious, even) in France for its cheap contre-façon--"counterfeit fashion." We left around 10:00am, stopping to get gas before taking the highway. We saw a sign that informed us of "serious traffic jams" ahead, so we exited at Menton. We stopped to take some pictures (one of them seen above), and then headed onward to the border.

Once in Italy, we had to decide which route to take to Ventimiglia--the high road or the low road. We picked the low one because it seemed faster (a tunnel through the mountain instead of driving up and down the mountain). However, halfway through the tunnel, we ground to a halt. It took at least a half an hour to get through the tunnel, and at least 20 more minutes to get into town. When we finally thought we found a parking space, an Italian man appeared out of nowhere and stood in the middle, shouting, "Bettina!" He wouldn't move for us (and we didn't insist very much, both Jube and I being rather nonconfrontational with strangers). So we tried to get back into town, and somehow took a wrong turn and ended up on the high road out of town! We passed a long line of tourists going into the city, and Jube and I had an argument about taking a U-turn and going back into town or not. We ended up back in Menton, where we parked the car and took the train into Ventimiglia. This was a very, very good idea! We paid about 8€00 for our round-trip tickets and didn't have to worry about parking once in the city.

By the time we got to Ventimiglia by train, we were ready to eat since it was about 2:00pm! We covered a lot of ground and finally decided on a relatively cheap pizzeria. Jube had a gorgonzola pizza and I had lasagna and steak. Afterwards, we headed to the market and checked out everything they had for sale. I was particularly searching for earrings and a belt for a wedding I will be attending on New Year's Eve, but found only the earrings. I decided against a fake contre-façon Louis Vuitton bag for two reasons: first, I think that (fake or not) they are really ugly, and second, if you are caught by French customs, you have to pay the price of the original as a fine. (I have to admit that just the idea of breaking the law makes me want to buy a contre-façon wallet or something, though!)



We also bought a bouquet of flowers, because as soon as we got home we left for dinner at Jube's relatives' house. Frances's grandfather was the cousin of Belle-mère's grandfather, and they have somehow kept in contact through the years. We met their son and his girlfriend, and ate an unpretentious French dinner (apéritif, endive salad, lasagna, and store-bought ice cream). We sat down at the table at 8:30pm and got up from it at midnight. The three-and-a-half hours of sitting gave me a stomachache, which didn't disappear until about noon today. Despite that, we had a great holiday, and are glad that we took advantage of the wonderful weather since today it is grey and rainy.

November 11, 1918

November 11th, the stores are closed in France. Everyone is happy to have another holiday to help recover from the longer Toussaint holidays. In America, the Armistice of WWI is nearly forgotten. For my family, it is harder to forget. My grandmother's first memory is of the Armistice celebrations. She has told me many times:

"Of course, I was only 2, almost 3, so I didn't know what they were celebrating, but I remember how happy everyone was, what a wonderful time we all had. I found out later that it was the Armistice."

This weekend, my grandmother is celebrating her 90th birthday. I am very disappointed--of course!--not to be able to go, but I am thinking of her just the same. This post is dedicated to a wonderful woman who still manages to make the entire family burst out laughing with her stories.

I love you, Grandmommy.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

After receiving e-mails and instant messages asking if I am safe and sound after these few weeks of rioting, I figured it was time to let everyone know that yes, I am fine. Both my mother and Belle-maman called us yesterday to tell us that the riots had spread to Nice. We haven't heard anything, no contact with any dangerous rioters. The reason I haven't posted since Sunday is that I started a new, intense work schedule this week--I end around 7:30pm on Mondays and Tuesdays from now on, and when I get home I'm ready for bed. So, there is no reason to worry about us. [Not to completely ignore the problem, here is an interesting editorial about the riots that I largely agree with.]

In other news, Pitchounette, the little cat, has disappeared. When we left two weeks ago for vacation, she was playing around our ankles; when we got back a week ago, she was gone. I am very sad, although probably she just got tired of hanging around our house when there was no one to pet her.

After all of that depressing news, I will leave you with an amusing anecdote. Background: Jube teaches at one of the richest high schools in Nice, Lycee Massena. Lots and lots of the kids are of Italian origin, since Italy is so close. The last test he gave them asked them to analyze an ad from a magazine. It was an ad for sunscreen, and had the objective of the camera looking up into the face of a stereotypically extravagant Mediterranean beach bum (probably Italian--dark hair, hairy chest, deeply tanned . . .), with the caption, "Hellos pretty ladee, I am rubbing your backs with lotion, no?" "Our lotion protects from some sun irritants--but not all." Here is the answer of a 15/16 year old Italian girl (edited):

The picture shows an Italian man, Italian because of his big hair, big hands, and left hand which seems to say "What do you want that is more than simple?" The ad shows the efficacity of the skin lotion because of the comparison between the Italian man with dark skin and the English which would be white. This ad makes me want to buy the lotion and it would be good for students and teachers too.

I'm not sure what grade Jube gave her, but we sure had a good laugh last night!

A Weekend in Nice

After the annoyance of no work/no pay on Wednesday, I showed up on Friday ready to teach. Fortunately both of my students were there, and worked hard for their two hours. What's more, I have about eight new hours of work per week, so I will be a busy bee. Even better, I was paid!! Of course, since I had worked about twenty hours in October, I didn't get paid very much. But it's better than nothing.

On Saturday, Jube and I slept in, and then went into town to deposit my check. Our bank is on Rue Lepante, which also happens to be the music store quartier. So while I was waiting in line to deposit my check (only to be told that I wasn't allowed to do it in person, I had to fill out a form and put it in a drop box), Jube was checking out Guitar Maniac to find a new cable. Why does he need a new cable when he already has at least thirty? I don't know, I didn't ask, and he didn't explain. Afterwards, we hit the shops together, but didn't buy anything.

Last year I gave up eating at fast food restaurants because I read Fast Food Nation and right afterwards watched Super Size Me. I actually managed no keep this resolution for six months, but I weakened one evening and scarfed down some KFC chicken fingers. Since then, I've kept to the resolution of "once a month," and I'm planning to give it up again for New Year's. I hope I can be stronger next time. I wrote all this to tell you that we ate at McDonald's yesterday for lunch.

When we got home, we received phone calls from our respective families. Le Parisien was going to visit us for November 11, which is another holiday (yay!! Armistice, anyone?), but he informed us yesterday that he is not coming. My mother called and advised me on the best way to make a turkey. Finally, le Pacha called just to talk.

After that, Jube and I heated up leftovers for dinner and settled down to watch something on TV since it was raining. . . again! There was absolutely nothing on television that we wanted to see. We had the choice between:

Les 500 choristes ensemble (500 Chorists Sing Contemporary Hits with Stars)
Rugby (France v. Australia)
Le Temps Meurtrier (a TV movie about a murder, I guess)
A Documentary about Versailles (which we would have watched except that it was only an hour long and we had been talking to our families on the phone)
and Charmed

So what did we end up watching? No guesses? Un an et demi de la vie de Metallica . . . la suite (A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica . . . Part 2). Not only did we watch it, I asked to watch it.

Jube hadn't watched it since his high school years, which meant that he hadn't understood everything (the French subtitles are only there for part of it, and they are very very bad), and of course I had never seen it. I'm starting to feel like I know these guys after two or three viewings of Some Kind of Monster and now this. Who knows what we will see next week--Part 1, perhaps?

Back Home . . .

Today was a hard, hard day for me. After getting home late yesterday afternoon, Jube and I lazed around, eating the food Belle-maman had packed for us, and then went to bed early. Why early? Because I had to work at 9:00 the next day!

I woke up early, trying to relax (I was stressed about the class because I hadn't had much time to prepare), but I only succeeded in drinking a lot of coffee, which didn't help very much. I drove to Sophia Antipolis and arrived early enough to make photocopies--but wait! No one was at work except Laure, my French boss! There were no other English classes like normal. I was immediately worried that Monsieur Hernandez wouldn't show up. But that was good--because if the students don't cancel 24 hours in advance, then I still get paid! Suddenly I was less worried than hopeful.

By the time the clock read 9:30, Karen, my English boss, called M. Hernandez's cell-phone. "No, I called and left a message on Monday. I have to work in Marseille today."

WHAT??

Since no one had been in the office since the Friday before (they were all on vacation for Toussaint--All Saints' Day--which was Tuesday), no one had listened to the messages.

I drove home again with the knowledge that I had wasted an hour's worth of gas and 2.60 in tolls. Not even the prospect of another day off could cheer me up.

The Last Day of Vacation . . .

Last night Jube and I went out with Popo and her man. We met at one of the nicest Irish pubs in Montpellier, Fitzpatrick's, whose sign you can see (if you look closely) in the above picture. We sat and talked for awhile, about vacation, work, visiting, de tout et de rien. We stayed in the pub for about an hour and a half while it rained heavily outside. After the storm had passed, we headed back to the belle-famille's house, where they had been waiting up anxiously for us. Le Pacha called me into his room, and whispered to me, "Je t'adore! I'm glad you got home safely!" Unfortunately, his adoration was not to last long. This morning at 8:30, while Jube and I were trying to enjoy our last opportunity to sleep in, he burst into our room.

"Did you have an accident last night? Your bumper is totally ripped off! What did you do?"

Now, it was bad enough that he woke us up by accusing us of reckless driving. The worst part is that I was sleeping without a shirt on. I swear that this is normal behavior, since the new comforters that Belle-mère bought are extremely hot. I was rather groggy and didn't grasp what was happening, but Jube started screaming at le Pacha about knocking on the door.

Well! That is the way to end family harmony! I got up and got dressed, while Jube checked his car for damage (nothing a serious bricoleur like Beau-père can't fix) and Belle-mère yelled at le Pacha for not knocking. He insisted that he had knocked, which changed the tone of the conversation.

"Well, did they say 'entre'?"

"No, but I knocked!"

"You have to wait until they tell you to come in!"

"BUT I KNOCKED!"

Ater that, le Pacha wouldn't talk to any of us for about two hours, until we started making a lemon meringue pie. "If Gem loved me, she would make another pumpkin pie."

At least he likes my food!