It's Thursday Already!

I think going back to work after a vacation is way harder than going to work the week before vacation. I have been out of the working rhythm all week long, and a little bit sick, too!

On Tuesday night, Jube and I went into town to check out the final night of Carnaval. The King is burned (don't worry, it's a float) and there is a fireworks display. Now, I consider myself a pretty experienced fireworks-watcher, since I've seen "Red, White, and Boom" in Columbus, Ohio; the fireworks on the Mall in Washington, DC; and most spectacularly, the amazing fireworks of Las Fallas in Valencia, Spain. The fireworks for the end of Nice's Carnaval couldn't compare with the amazing displays in Valencia, but they were much better than, say, the fireworks for the 4th of July in Delaware, Ohio. Let me tell you how it went down:

I arrived home a bit late from work because a lot of roads were closed (since there was the Carnaval!). As soon as I walked in the door, we headed out again. We walked along the beach and listened to the music. Then we tried to find a place to watch the fireworks. Unfortunately, the Promenade des Anglais was chock full of people, right up to the barrier above the beach. Luckily we found a way DOWN to the beach, and then we pushed our way right up to the best vantage point. First, they burned the King of the Carnaval out on the water. I have some pictures of it, but it looks really bad, so I'm not posting them. Here are my (pretty crappy but better than the pics of the burning King) pictures of the fireworks.



I like the reflections in the water.

This is the very end. There were tons of these gold fireworks. You should click on this one to make it bigger; that way you can see the two boats that shot off the fireworks.

Vacation Recap

Our week in Gallargues went really well. On Wednesday, Jube, Belle-maman and I all went to Arles. The day was kind of gray and rainy, but we had a good time wandering the streets. Also, the Arles museum was free for the day, so we got to check it out.

On Thursday, we went to Nîmes to meet some of Jube's friends, Herbé and Caro. They are a couple of music teachers who Jube met when he was completing is first year of stage in Alès. They have decided to get married this summer, and so they had come to Nîmes to de-PACS. PACSing is basically a civil union. Homosexuals can enter into a PACS, as can heterosexuals. It provides some of the rights of marriage, notably (in teachers' cases) benefits on where civil servants are placed throughout France. Herbé and Caro had PACSed a few years ago so they could both work in Alès; Jube and I PACSed in December 2004 so he wouldn't have to move to Paris (and I wouldn't have to move back to the US). Herbé told us that it was really funny when they went to de-PACS; both of them were smiling and holding hands, and the civil servant in charge told them that they didn't have to de-PACS since their marriage would automatically cancel it. But since they had driven for an hour, she did it anyway.

Jube and Herbé originally bonded because of their love of guitars. In fact, Herbé saved up his salary for two years to have a guitar made especially for him. It cost him €3,600 (check it out here and here). After having a quick drink in a café, we all went to a guitar store. Caro and I chatted about her wedding plans while Jube and Herbé drooled over the instruments. Let's just say that when we entered the store, it was light outside, and when we left, it wasn't. Luckily that means that I can drag Jube to the mall with me whenever I want and I won't have to feel guilty.

Afterwards we went to Montpellier to have dinner with another couple of Jube's friends. These are friends that he's had since he was about 6 years old and they all lived in Mende. I've always had a hard time enjoying our dinners with them. This is because when I first met them, I couldn't speak any French at all; and then, even when I could speak some French, I discovered that half of the time they talk about "the good old days" when they harassed their German teacher or wrecked a friend's motorcycle and lied about it. Last night was really great, though, because we talked more about the present instead of the past (although there was an involved conversation about the new stores opening up in Mende).

All in all, we had a really great vacation, although I'm still not ready to go back to work tomorrow!

Eek!

Jube and I are taking advantage of our holiday (paid for him, not for me) to spend time in Gallargues le Montueux with his family. While we're here, we get to do lots of great things: have our hair cut by Belle-maman, have our car fixed by Beau-papa, make plans for our trip to Norway, and eat Belle-maman's good food . . . or at least, most of her good food. Lately, we have been eating sausages, pork loins, lasagna, pizza, and soup. What's missing?

The poultry! That's right, cases of avian flu have been discovered in France. The Belle-famille no longer buy poultry at the store; the news warns us to stay away from the municipal pigeons; and le Pacha has been (jokingly) considering calling the police because a neighbor hasn't cooped up his chickens yet. Yikes! It was very sad when Jube and I drove past the marshes by the sea on the way back from Montpellier today. When we looked at the beautiful pink flamingoes, we couldn't help thinking about how they were going to kill us all someday soon.

Bravo pour votre français!

Since I've been on vacation, I've been soaking up the French coverage of the Olympic Games. I've always enjoyed the Olympics, but lately I have found myself glued to disciplines I never would have watched before . . . cross country relay, for example, or the biathlon. 2006 was the first year I watched the opening ceremony, and the first year I watched both the short and free programs for men's figure skating.

Why did I watch both? Well, the commentators in France are amazing, way better than in the US. One is called Nelson Monfort, and he basically falls in love with each participant. Philippe Candeloro is the other. You may remember him from the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, when he won the bronze medal when he took on the roles of the three musketeers in his free program. (That's what I remember him from, anyway!--although he also won a medal earlier, though I don't remember which games.) Imagine: Nelson melts for each new skater, and Candeloro makes snide remarks about their skating and explains everything. Television magic!

On Tuesday night, after our wonderful Mexican meal, Jube and I caught the late-night showing of Turin's free program. Johnny Weir of the US came in 2nd, and Nelson kept enthusing about what a wonderful skater he was. "Oh, Philippe, he's giving us such a show tonight! I'll be so surprised if he's not on the podium come Thursday night!" Philippe was more objective: "And this is a triple flip, well executed. No quadruple jump, though."

After his program, and his 2nd place finish, Nelson kept shouting (in English), "I love you, Johnny! I love you!"

Philippe said, "Look, he's saying, 'Nelson, I love you too!'"

They even had the chance to interview him--which was done entirely in French! Johnny Weir's French was not perfect, but he didn't have a bad accent, and (above all), made the effort. Philippe kept asking about his performance, and Nelson kept congratulating his French. At the end of the interview, Philippe wished him luck for Thursday night's decisive programs.

Nelson said (and I quote!), "Bravo pour votre français!"

To Nelson's great disappointment, Johnny only finished 5th at the Olympics, despite his "nearly flawless" performance (thanks again, Nelson!).

Recap!

Since my last post, Jube and I have par-tayed! It's Carnaval time all around the world, and both Nice and Menton have their own celebrations. Here in Nice, it's more traditional, with parades during the day and at night. In the afternoon, the parades have floats that are decorated with flowers, for les batailles des fleurs. The floats throw mimosas to the spectators for the whole of the parade, and then at the end, rip nicer flowers off of their floats and throw them to the crowd. Of course, just to have standing places for this parade, you have to pay €10! Jube and I paid for the opening of the carnaval, because we had never done it before, but we haven't yet seen the nighttime parades. (Check out fraise's different posts for some pics, commentary, and videos about the celebrations at night.) You can see a picture of the bouquet I gathered above. It's so big and beautiful because I screamned and begged the performers on their floats to throw the flowers to ME ME ME, and then I snatched them out of the air just in front of old grannies and little kids getting flowers for their grannies. But my bouquet is gorgeous, don't you think? Especially the glittery lettuce...



On Sunday we went to Menton, where there is a Lemon Festival. There are huge gardens with different scenes made of lemons and oranges. The theme this year is "Brazil," which is why you can see a representation of the giant Brazilian Jesus made almost entirely of citrus fruit. It was really fun to see all of the things they came up with, including a plantation-like house with jazz players outside that represented New Orleans, and a bridge with a gondola in a lemon-colored river that represented Venice. (Secondary theme: Mardi Gras celebrations from around the world.) After viewing the gardens, we watched Menton's parade.



Here, they threw oranges, not flowers, which was rather dangerous if you didn't know one was heading for your head. (I got two because I shamelessly flirted with the orange thrower boys--see above for the leader of the pack.) This parade was really fun, especially because there were no barracades separating you from the performers. The kids all had cans of silly string that they used to spray the floats and the spectators (Jube hid behind me a lot because he had worn his leather jacket and didn't want it to be ruined.) We had a really good time at this parade, although we probably wouldn't do it again because it was so expensive (€14 for entrance into the gardens + parade viewing!). The only downside was that we parked really far away to save more money, but at least we had some exercise.

Finally, as you may remember, yesterday was Valentine's Day. I had to work until 7:45pm, and then there was a backup on the direct line into the city, so I didn't get home until 8:30 or so. Luckily the restaurant we had scoped out earlier served until 11:30pm, so when we got there at 9:30 it was still hopping. It was a Mexican restaurant! I love Mexican food, and it's pretty hard to find in France. In Montpellier, there was only one real Mexican restaurant; in Nice, there are probably about four. The food isn't very different at these restaurants from what you can find in the US; the big difference is the price. I paid €14 for my big plate of flautas, and Jube paid €17.50 for his fajitas. When we had finished our food, I was looking forward to a gooey plate of refried ice cream or something like that, but Jube told me that it was too expensive. I tried to resign myself to the no-dessert ultimatum, and we drove home. Once we got back, Jube opened up the fridge, and there they were--two little cakes from Canet! They were good, too. What a nice present! (Sorry, no pic this time--they were scarfed down very quickly.)

What was that again?

Yesterday, I confessed to Jube that sometimes I lose track of what my students are saying in class. That's really bad because I'm supposed to listen carefully and correct their mistakes. What can I say? Sometimes they tell me the most boring things, and talk for a really long time. I can't help it!

Jube told me that sometimes he does the same thing, especially when the English assistant is in class helping out. A few weeks ago, he used one of my lesson plans with the assistant. The kids got to read some genuine personal ads and then write their own. They read them out loud and then chose whose is the funniest and whose is the most attractive. Jube zoned out while the assistant did the activities with them. At the end of class, they asked him whose he liked the most. Caught off guard, he said, "Uhh, I like Julie's the best!" The students looked at each other and smiled.

Later, reading through the personal ads, he realized that Julie's looked something like this:

35-year-old English teacher WLTM a young girl with blond hair and blue eyes.

Should I be worried? More importantly, should any of his blonde, blue-eyed students be worried? I laughed for about 5 minutes when he told me this story, and then wondered if I should buy some hair dye and contact lenses . . .

Parking Lot Prediction

Last week I went to the supermarket to buy some food. Not a very unique trip, really; I go to this particular supermarket about once or twice a week since it's near my workplace and it has cheap gas (well, cheaper gas). On this particular day, I got out of the car and was hailed by a short old woman. Somehow she could tell I was foreign, even though I hadn't said anything. She started by asking if I had ever visited Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (The Saint Marys of the Sea, a town in Camargue), and was very surprised when I said that, in fact, yes, I had! This quickly tipped me off that she was a gypsy, or a tsigane as she called herself (in fact, she called herself la mamie tsigane, the gypsy granny). The reason I figured it out is that Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer hosts a huge gypsy festival every year, and there are always gypsies hanging out there. You see, one of the Saints of the church, Saint Sarah, is the patron saint of gypsies, and they light candles in the church basement and accost every tourist who comes to visit the town.

When she saw that I wasn't disgusted or frightened or just plain old not interested, she immediately launched into telling my fortune. She told me that I was a sensitive person with an open spirit and lots of other stuff like that. I thanked her and walked away when she said, "Wait, wait, mademoiselle! I'm receiving three letters in my mind!" I felt like I was on Crossing Over with John Edward! How could I walk away from that?

"I'll tell you the letters, and you tell me if they have a meaning for you," she said. "The first letter is . . . G!"

Wow, I thought, she got "Gem" on the first try! "Yes, yes, it means something to me," I said.

"The second letter is . . . J!" she pronounced.

Impressive! I thought. "Jube" on the second try! "Yes, that one too is meaningful," I said.

"And the last letter is . . . F!"

Hmmmmmm . . . "Not so much," I told her.

"Well, I got two out of three." [She seriously said that!!] Then she told me that the letters were very important to my "sentimental" life (I think in English the best translation is "romantic"), and that all my plans for the future would turn out all right. Then she gave me a lucky charm, "bound with nine prayers." [Yeah, it's just a plastic bead ripped off of a necklace for a little girl, as seen above.] Then she said, "Whatever you want to give to the gypsy granny is fine, because I know you are a generous person with an open heart and you will give whatever you can to the gypsy granny."

Well, normally I wouldn't give her anything (I'm that generous, yes!), but since I had really enjoyed myself for the past five minutes, I dug into my change purse and gave her two Euros. "And you don't have any restaurant gift certificates?" she asked me. I think she could tell from my face that I didn't want to give her anything else, and more asking would get her nowhere, so she then said, "You are a good person. You come from a poor family but you will end up rich! Thank you so much and give whatever you can to other gypsies when you see them in memory of your gypsy granny!"

We'll see how well my future plans work out, and then I'll think about giving to other gypsies in your memory, Mamie Tsigane.

Tout schuss!

Today Jube and I went to Isola 2000 for the day. We skied, we ate tartiflette, and we got back home tired and cold. But it was a fun day.

Sorry that I don't have any anecdotes--oh, well, I kind of have one. Jube has his own (amazing) skis, as pictured above, whereas I have to rent all the equipment. I wear a pretty small size shoe (35/36 in France, 5/6 in the US), but I am a normal sized person. I explained to the staff that I have small feet but fat legs, and they told me "it's supposed to be really tight." They gave me boots in size 36--but they cut off the circulation to my toes! I had to switch them about 15 minutes later.

I improved a bit and Jube was nice and waited for me at the bottom of hard parts to help me up when I fell.

And that was our day of skiing!

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!"