Grapes in France

I love grapes. However, the French do not see the need to remove the seeds before selling them in the stores. Therefore, almost all of the grapes here are seedy grapes. Yuck! I have been spoiled all of my life with seedless grapes. I hate the idea of having to spit out a pit like sunflower seeds on a baseball field.
This afternoon, Catherine dropped off Michael and me in Arras. After buying an adorable pair of boots and browsing the bookstore, we walked into a Monoprix all-purpose store. I immediately headed to the grocery section to search for pureed pumpkin. I have been wanting to try to make a pumpkin cheesecake for the past few days. I searched the aisles in vain. Finally, I decided to look in the fresh fruit section, resigned to make the puree myself. While I did not find a pumpkin there, I stumbled upon SEEDLESS GRAPES! I ate one, the sweet juice bursting in my mouth. I chewed through my first green, fleshy goodness warily, certain that a pit would jump out at me and crunch between my teeth. The package had not lied to me; I had truly found seedless grapes! I cannot remember the last time I felt this much excitement towards fruit. I ate almost two pounds and five Euro's worth of them!

Mon Bulletin Scolaire?

So, since I do not actively partake in the quiz-taking except on occasion or D.S.-taking ever, it surprised me last night when Sabine called to tell me that my bulletin du 1er trimestre (report card for the first trimester) had arrived in the mail.
As I had predicted, not all of my teachers graded me. However, adding together all of the marks that I did receive, I have the highest average in my class!
Voila, the grades that I earned plus the teachers' notes: (REMEMBER: THESE GRADES ARE OUT OF 20, NOT 100!)

FRANCAIS: My average-14
class average-12
class min-8,6
class max-15,4
Madison est assidue en cours. (Madison is assiduous in class.)
HISTOIRE-GEO: My average-13
class average-12
class min-9,2
class max-16,2
Eleve attentive et agreable, qui intervient volontiers a l'oral lorsqu'elle est sollicitee. (She is an attentive and pleasant student who intervenes willingly when solicited.)
ESPAGNOL: My average-17,8
class average-14,6
class min-12,5
class max-17,8
Bon niveau de langue. (Good level of the language.)
ITALIEN: My average-19
class average-17,5
class min-16
class max-19
Madison travaille avec serieux et regularite. Tres bons resultats. (Madison works with seriousness and regularity. Very good results)
E.P.S (PE): My average-12,8
class average-14
class min-7,3
class max-19,5
Niveau satisfaisant lors de ce cycle de Tennis de Table reflet d'un travail regulier. (Satisfactory level during this round of table tennis as a reflection of regular work.)
GENERAL AVERAGE: My average-14,9
class average-12,2
class min-9,9
class max-14,9
Madison s'est rapidement integree a la classe et au lycee. C'est une eleve attentive et agreable qui s'interesse a toutes les disciplines et s'investit a l'oral. (Madison has quickly integrated herself in the class and in the school. She is a pleasant and attentive pupil who is interested in al disciplines and has invested herself speaking-wise.)

Just Call Me Julia Child!

Today, Catherine wished me to make a cake of some sort. At first I thought that I wanted them to try Zucchini Bread, since they had liked my Carrot Cake so much. However, when I thought about it, I decided against it because I wanted to make a cake with a topping. Still, I did not know all of the ingredients immediately available to me, so I ended up choosing to bake a Coffee Cake because I knew that I had seen all of the elements I needed in the cupboard.
After I had started that, I notice that the refrigerator contained an obscenely large amount of eggs. So, I decided to quench my craving and make Egg Nog!
I was on a roll!
Once I had removed the Coffee Cake from the oven and shoved the Egg Nog in the refrigerator to chill, I relized that I had no desire to leave the kitchen. Consequently, I commited myself to yet another baking feat. I subsequently began and finished the Zucchini Bread, stuck it in the oven, and am currently waiting for the timer to ring.
To top off my cooking mood, I wore pearls and a lady bug apron, helping me to embrace the persona that is Julia Child!
Bon Appetit!

She Noses It

Catherine told a story last night about how she had an obsession with noses when her eldest, Anne, was born. Apparently Anne had practically no nose at all at the time. Now, she has the beautiful yet rather prominent Helou nose shared also by Nicolas and Franck. According to Catherine, I have a fairly equilibrated nose.
Dinner conversations can include the most interesting and random of topics!

Predictability

Like clockwork, the gastro came again last night. I think it is my fate to get sick as often as possible while I am here in France. This is the fifth time that I have had this stomach bug in four months.
While not the most upbeat of subjects, I think I'm going to start keeping a tally of all the times I fall ill.

Four Month Mark!

I cannot believe that today marks the fourth month of my being in France! Time flies so quickly! I have already been here one third of a year!

Marrons Roasted on an Open Fire

Familiarity is always a good thing at Christmasttime! For appetizers we ate a salad, fois gras, and figs paired with a sweet Bordeaux white wine. While that does not relate at all to a traditional American Christmas meal, it was followed with turkey, stuffing, green beans, sweet potatoes, and chestnuts! While I enjoyed last night's seafood platter, I'm glad that they still know about holiday comfort foods. As usual, we finished the meal with cheese and cake. Today the cakes included a lemony buche de noel (yule log) and a home-made vanilla cake layered with chocolate chestnut icing. I think I died and went to Heaven. On the other hand, it is good that New Year's is just around the corner because it's about time for some major resolutions!

I've Been Dreaming of a White Christmas

After last night's late meal, I was surprised to discover that at nine o'clock this morning, I was the last person awake in the house! Even in France, I love Christmas morning! The little children all opened their presents early, and Garence traipsed all around the house in her new pink princess dress while Emmanuel played with his pirate ship. Laslo, on the other hand, had a stomach bug, so she didn't have quite so much Christmas cheer as the others.
With colorful torn wrapping paper strewn all over the floor, it felt like a true Christmas. The biggest difference that I noticed this morning was that instead of carols playing on the boom-box, we were surrounded by the upbeat melody of Salsa!

Last "Night's" Dinner

Dinner did not start last night until after eleven o'clock pm. What did we do beforehand, you might ask? Why, we enjoyed the aperatif, of course! This included a pata negra (This is a dried leg of pig from Spain that is apparently the best cured ham in the entire world and costs at least 250 Euros), cheese souffles, mini sausages, and Dom Perignon! Normally I don't drink alcohol with my host family, but Dave insisted that I had to truly experience the French culture, so I had a glass of Dom and then a taste of a red Bordeaux at dinner.
With dinner we had shrimp, crab, lobster, and some other type of mystery shelled sea creature. For me, it was a very unorthodox Christmas meal, but it still tasted delicious!
I had made a carrot cake earlier that day with a lemon-zest cream cheese icing. We ate it for dessert with an apple crumble and it was a huge success! I explained how in America we also eat it for breakfast, so I have a feeling that I will be making it rather often.
Since we started so late, dinner did not finish until almost three in the morning! We ate most of the meal today rather than yesterday!

La Grande Famille Helou

Franck's side of the family started arriving yesterday, and today the entire crowd has livened the atmosphere. Christmas is truly in the air.
Amongst the members of the family we have:

Tonton (Great Uncle) Andre: He lived in Argentina for fifteen years, married an Argentinian woman, and had a daughter, Priscilla, whose first language is Spanish. He also is the secretary of his local Rotary club. Today at lunch he accidentally opened a wine from 1975! Oopsie daisy!
Mami (Grandmother) Arlette: Franck's mother, she lives in Paris and was the first to arrive around noon yesterday. She is a wonderful cook!
Corinne and Olivier: Corinne is Arlette's daughter and Franck's sister. She and her boyfriend Olivier differ from the rest of the Helou adults in that they drink no alcohol at all.
Pauline and David: They have a daughter named Garence and a son named Emmanuel and are expecting their third! Amazingly, they can handle the hectic holidays quite well because they are moving houses on Monday.
Priscilla and Dave: They have a daughter named Laslo. They chose that particular name because it can be pronounced in French, Spanish, and English. Dave is a Californian surfer and Priscilla is a doctor. They also have a giant white dog that resembles a wolf who is named Atka after a common Inuit appelation.

All of the children are adorably under the age of four! I have not surprisingly spent most of the time so far talking to Dave; I'm giving my translating mind a break. The great thing about that is that now I have an invitation to the south of France to visit them for a week in the spring!

Midnight Mass at 7h00

Tonight we went to the Christmas mass. It was supposed to be at midnight. However, in France there are not enough pastors for all of the churches. So, they held it at seven o'clock instead. It was a lovely service. The majority of it, in fact, was singing. The pastor only spoke for about ten to fifteen minutes in total compared to the hour we stood there. It was interesting to hear some of the typical Christmas songs that I hear each year sung in French. They did add some new songs to the repetoire, though. At the end of the mass, I noticed the former Directeur of Saint Paul's, who is also a member of my Rotary club, so I wished him a Merry Christmas.

Beaubourg

This morning Nicolas and I went to the Centre Pompidou, a museum of modern art. The first exposition we saw had a feminism edge to it. All this meant to me was that women were allowed to take pornographic pictures and videos of themselves and call it art. Not all of the exhibition was vulgar, though, and there was one picture of a landscape that I actually thought was quite lovely (but in my mind it was not modern art at all). The second exposition presented art by Arman, a woman who turns trash into masterpieces. Some of her work look really interesting for junk. We then entered the gallery that I understood the least of all. De Stijl and Piet Mondrian painted colored-in squares... In the last gallery, Gabriel Orozco had made the most adorable car. It fits two people; one person can sit in the front and the other in the back. It is silver and long, and it looks so abstract car-wise that I couldn't help but laugh at it.
All in all, I surprisingly enjoyed my time looking at modern art, despite the fact that I largely prefer impressionism and cannot grasp the concept of most contemporary works.

Tuesday

Monday night, Nicolas and I took the five o'clock TGV (Train a Grand Vitesse) to Paris! We arrived an hour later when we headed to Anne's apartment in the tenth arrondissement. Once we dropped off our bags, I followed Nicolas onto the metro, and we arrived at Notre Dame. From there we walked around for half an hour or so and then headed back to get a good night's sleep.
We had a rather late start yesterday morning at around ten. So, we headed over to Les Halles, browsed for a bit, and met Franck for lunch. After lunch I pretty much just trailed behind Nicolas like a dog. All I know is that we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the Quartier Latin, admiring beautiful architecture. I have no clue what I saw for the most part, I just know that it was all beautiful. I don't even mind that I don't know because I was just so overjoyed to be in Paris!
When darkness fell, Nicolas and I took the metro to see the Eiffel Tower from a vantage point. Unfortunately, fog had settled in, so in the pictures I took, only the bottom half of the tower is visible. After that I had the choice to either go to Montmartre and see Paris from a view or to promenade around the Christmas market below the Eiffel Tower. I chose to go to see the Sacre Coeur because I had never been before, and who wouldn't want to see a great view of Paris?
We took the metro for a quarter of an hour. When we arrived at the foot of Montmartre, I looked up at what seemed like fifty sets of stairs leading straight up. Let me just state that my legs were already tired from walking around all day long. Right beside those stairs, on the other hand, was a lift. As I looked yearningly towards the lift, Nicolas asked me if I had "the courage" to climb the stairs. Ugh! Of course if he words it that way, I have to answer in the affirmative! So, I climbed the 225 steps two at a time with a bounce! Well, my bounce left after the first set of stairs, but I have discovered that it is impossible for me to climb stairs any other way but two at a time. So, I reached the top exhausted and out of breath, but feigning boredom and comfort.
Of course, after coming all that way, the fog was too thick to see anything. I then decided to climb a few more steps to actually walk into Sacre Coeur, the church. Oh my goodness, if I thought the facade looked magnificent, the interieur was breathtaking. There was a mass going on, so we did not stay a long time, but I would certainly consider becoming a nun if I could worship there every day!
Because we both like old movies and neither of us had ever seen it before, Nicolas and I watched the movie Footloose. Unfortunately for him, the remote broke; consequently, he looked at the pretty pictures and I understood every single word of English spoken.

My First Mass

This morning I attended my first Catholic mass. The music was lovely as was the church in which it was sung! Besides the fact that they spoke in French, only about forty people showed up to the service, and the whole schpeal lasted forty-five minutes, I could not tell a large difference between the Catholic and Episcopal way of worship. To spice things up a bit, though, they added in the baptism of baby Mathilde to the ceremony! Leaving the building, we shook the preacher's hand, and I held Catherine's arm so we would not slip on the ice and snow as we left the building.

L'Attrapage du Froid

In France as soon as I enter a building, someone tells me to remove my jacket. Always freezing, I never do. I always hear the same story. "If you don't take off your coat now, you'll catch cold when you go back outside."
Here's a thought. Maybe if I take off my coat, I'll catch a cold anyways because it's just as chilly inside as it is outside!
Either way, I now have a cold. My throat hurts when I breath, my nose is running faster than Usain Bolt, and I have lymphnodes swollen to the size of grapefruits. On the bright side, I have discovered that I love warm milk and honey more than hot chocolate, Vick's Vapor Rub exists in France, and Catherine owns a wonderful contraption called an essential oil diffuser that makes me feel like I'm in a spa.

Repas de Classe

Yesterday at school we had a Christmas celebration. All this means is that I was allowed to skip Economy to listen to a preacher talk for thirty minutes and sing-along with teachers crooning Christmas carols that I had never heard before. I would call that time well spent!
For the last class of the day, Mme. DeGroote returned! She has been ill and absent from school for the past three weeks. We have all been so worried for her. It was good to see her face again. She looked almost 100%, so we invited her to come to our class dinner that night. She replied that she would make a short appearance with her three children.
So, I went home after that with Somaya. An hour and a few inches of snow later, we got back in the car and began the treacherous fifteen km drive. It had rained the day before, so the roads were so incredibly slick. We ran off of the road at least five times driving back to Lens. After about fifteen minutes into the car ride, Somaya received a text from Pauline, who had organized the dinner, reading that it was canceled due to the dangerous driving conditions. We decided that we did not want our teacher to show up to an empty restaurant, so we went anyway.
There were five of us in total: Camille, Maximilien, Romane, Somaya, and me. Despite the lack of a crowd, we still had a great time! After dinner we screeched along to karaoke music.

My Driver

Since I only have a half day of school on Thursdays because I do not participate in the four hour testing period in the morning, I went to the bus stop at noon. I stepped into an empty vehicle, an thirty minutes later I stepped out of an empty vehicle. I was the only living being, save the driver, who rode in the bus that route. Last week only two other people joined me. Now I know why there are so few bus stops in Vimy.
I don't actually have to be at school until 1h45, so I had a some time to kill when I arrived at 12h30. Last week, I bought an adorable pink coat and black bag. This week I went bargain hunting and bought a pair of pants, some underwear, and two shirts for a ridiculously low amount of money!

Suona Jingle Bells

Today in Italian, we sang Jingle Bells and listened to other Christmas songs. All of the songs to which we listened have original versions in English. Unfortunately, as soon as I heard the tunes, my head blocked any foreign language paroles and sang the songs in English.
This evening Catherine wanted to show me Arras, a town with amazing architecture similar to Lille. However, the plans changed and we just drove through the town square quickly. Not to worry, she told me that she will take me again next week!

Tribunal de Lens

This afternoon, all of the students in Premier who take Political Science spent the second half of the afternoon at the courthouse in Lens.
When we stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the courthouse's ordinary doors, I immediately noticed two scary looking men loitering near us. With 12o'clock shadows, torn jackets, hands black from dirt or oil, dirty motorbikes, and cigarettes dangling from their lips, they practically defined the word, "sketchy." Then I heard them speak. I don't know, maybe it's because I have grown up listening to guys talk about how French is a language for wimps, but it just does not intimidate me at all. Therefore, those two guys lost most of their frightening force when they opened their mouths. However, shortly after, a silent man wearing handcuffs passed by us, and the nervousness returned.
The trials were fascinating. We saw four or five. I must say, though, punishment in France seems to me not very severe. All of the cases we watched regarded either violent abuse or theft, and the highest penalty was a fine of 550 Euros to the man wearing handcuffs.

Le Livre des Coincidences

Today was a journee pedagogique, which means that I was liberated from school at noon. Normally, there are religious activities following the release of the students, but I do not know where to go to participate in them. So, Catherine picked me up from school early.
This past weekend while I translated for the Judo competition, the Helous went to visit family members in the south. I let Catherine use one of my suitcases. Unfortunately, The Secret, a book that I had planned to give to her for Christmas, was still in the pocket, and she saw it. On the bright side, she at least knows that she likes what she's getting.
This afternoon at lunch, we started talking about everything related to The Secret. I learned that Catherine really believes in the power of positive thinking and visualizing her goals. She added that she always gives thanks when something goes her way. On the other hand, she believes in fate. So if something goes opposite to the way she had planned, she feels that there is a reason behind it. She talked about how she does not sadden or anger easily because she acknowledges that there are always people in worse situations than she.
At the end of our talk, she lended me a book called The Book of Coincidences by Deepak Chopra. An example of a coincidence is thinking of someone you have not seen in a long time and him or her calling you shortly after.
Everything we discussed sounded so familiar. It all reflected either an act that I implement in my life, such as the power of positive thinking, or something that my mom believes and that we have discussed in-depth. It's comforting to know that Catherine relates at least a little bit more to the ideals of the background in which I was raised.

The Perfect American Accent

I had a man tell me today at the judo competition that I have a perfect American accent. I think he thought I was French when I was translating for him.
The judo competition needed me less today, so I spent a large portion of my nine hours with Somaya and two of her friends, Justine and Imanne. At one point, they tried to teach me to speak Ch'timi, the local patois. S becomes ch, ch becomes qu, and every phrase ends with, "hein."

Kumquats and Licorice

On Friday after school, I went home with Somaya, a friend in my class. At around six o'clock we headed over to a sporting complex in Harnes where we helped set up for the international judo competition the next day.
We arrived at the same building on Saturday at around eight in the morning. I should probably mention that my role here was to act as an interpreter since this was an international event. I translated the president of the judo club's introduction speech as my first task. I later read it aloud in English after he read his in French.
Over the next eleven hours, I translated disputes made by coaches, announcements, and information about injured players to the medical team on the sidelines.
At one point in the evening, I supervised a weigh-in room where the judo players came in and checked their size for the following day's competition. One group came in and started looking around. I asked them in French if they needed to weigh themselves. They gave me puzzled looks, and one boy looked at me and slowly said, "um, Anglais?" I, without hesitation, quickly changed from French to English, and the looks on their faces were priceless! They obviously did not expect me to be American and freaked out when they realized I wasn't French.
Once the competition had finished for the day, Somaya, her dad, Yusef (her ten year old brother) and I went out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Overall, French Chinese food and American Chinese food do not differ greatly. I had an educational experience there, though. I learned that kumquats are nasty and taste like liquorice.
After dinner we went bowling. Yusef told me that he was an excellent bowler. I soon realized that bumpers were the keys to his success. I ended with a score of 117.

I'm Blue Dabba Dee Dabba Diii

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but whenever the sky is blue and clear here, my mood automatically lightens. Of course, I never have bad moods, I am just always extra happy on blue-sky-and -sun days!

The Clock Shop

Strangely, one of Andrea's piercings has closed, but the other has not. This afternoon, she decided to go to the jewler's and have him repierce it for her. Coming from a relatively large city, it surprised me to learn that the jewler here doubles as a clock maker. Unlike when I got my ears pierced (the second time) back in Charlotte, Andrea did not get to squeeze a stuffed mouse to make her feel better.

Quadratics and the Second Degree

For the past few weeks in math, we have been learning quadratics. Here, it is called the "second degre." The first day, when Mme. Chanteloube introduced the formulae, Marie asked me if I understood. Differently from the American system, the quadratic formula is split up into multiple phases here, making the task unnecessairly long to complete. However, since I learned it in eighth grade, I replied that I did and that I knew a song to accompany it. The teacher overheard me say this. Today, as a result, she asked me to sing it to the class. Thank goodness it's to the tune of Jingle Bells and isn't nearly so difficult as the Star Spangled Banner. I would have to say that the most embarassing aspect of my experience was falling off of the stand in the front of the room. I'm such a klutz!

Tonight, Catherine, Andrea, and I went to a Rotary meeting to tour La Francaise de Mechanique where workers put together car engines. Not personally being an avid car enthusiast, I joined Andrea in frozen boredom. At least now I know what I want to do for a living! (just kidding!)

By the way: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HERMANITO!

Half Day

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I don't actually participate in my English class here. I figured that I came here to learn French, so English would just be detrimental in that sense. Besides, Mme. Meilan speaks well and doesn't need me to help her teach. So, presenting the project today on which Camille, Florine, and I worked was the first time most of my classmates have heard me speak in full English sentences. I tried to speak slowly and enunciate. I even made an effort to pronounce all the "t"s (like in the word twenty) as "t"s rather than "d"s like the British do. Nevertheless, I doubt that any of my peers understood a word I said. Oh well! I can at least say that I entertained them for a few minutes.
After that Mme. DeGrotte and Mme. Braun were absent today, so my class got to leave school at noon!

Chez Madame Tussauds

This morning our group split in two. Franck and Nicolas went to visit the Sherlock Holmes museum. Catherine, Andrea, and I walked through Madame Tussauds' wax museum. We had a blast! I love wax museums, and now I have a picture of myself with the queen of England!
When we left to meet up with the guys, we passed a health food store. Without even thinking about it, I yelled out, "stop!" Catherine and Andrea turned around and followed me into the store. I went up to the cashier and asked her if she had ever heard of molasses. Amazingly, she showed me to the back of the store where she had quite a large stock! In the front of the store, they had displayed free samples of hard candy and ginger beer. Free samples are something that I miss so much from the United States. Harris Teeter's free cookies were a part of my weekly regimen.

Don't Look in the Restroom...

I woke up yesterday morning at quarter to seven and walked around London with Nicolas. It was interesting because we left without giving anyone prior notice. Maybe it's a French thing, or maybe once you become a seventeen year old guy, you can do whatever you want, but I was totally not used to having that kind of freedom to roam a large city without anyone knowing where I was. It was nice, though, because the streets were relatively empty. While there was no snow on the ground in London, the ponds in St. James Park were still frozen, so I watched a duck play slip-and-slide to cross the water.
When we returned, we all went to a Starbucks-type cafe called Pret a Manger. After breakfast, we headed over to the National Geographic store where we spent most of the afternoon. I got really excited at one point because a poster read that Jane Goodall, the lady who works with chimpanzees, was coming to speak on Sunday at 3h30. Unfortunately, the Helous told me that we were leaving town at 2h00.
In the evening we headed over to Covent Gardens where we listened to locals play classical music and watched a man juggle knives on a not-so-tight rope.
For dinner we went to a restaurant on Drury Lane. It took me the entire night to remember that it's the Muffin Man, not the Gingerbread Man who lives on Drury Ln. The restaurant was very ornamental and oriental. It's hard to describe, but there were turkish-looking rugs hanging everywhere and our server was from Kyrgyzstan. The bathroom, on the other hand, was definitely rated X. Not even graffiti, the paintings on the wall were certainly not children friendly.

We ate breakfast around eleven at a Pret a Manger, a cutsie Starbucks-type place with relatively healthy options. From there we went to the National Geographic store.

La Barbe a Bernard

Friday afternoon, Celine, Sebastien, and their five year old son Paul, family friends of the Helous, came over to the house. At around four o'clock, we all piled into their van and started the engine. An hour and a half later, we arrived at Saint Omer where we picked up Nicolas from his boarding school. A little while later, the van drove inside a train, which took us under the English Channel to Great Britian! A few hours later, we arrived at Gatwick Airport. Confused, I learned that we were leaving the van at the airport and taking the train into London where we would walk and take the metro all weekend. I am so glad! It's so much easier to people watch outside of a car.
All throughout the car ride, Paul kept calling Franck (my host dad) Bernard. This soon turned into the joke of the weekend, and now we all call him Bernard.
According to Andrea's English book, cotton candy (barbe a papa in French) is called candy floss in England. I certaintly would not want to floss my teeth with that stuff!
There must have been a foot of snow on the ground at Gatwick Airport! Except for the fact that I would have certainly frozen stiff, I had the strongest desire to flop back in the white fluff and make a snow angel!
We arrived at the hotel around 9h30. It had the best location on Westminster; the London eye, Big Ben, and the House of Parliment were all within a three minute walk from us!

Slogan

The memory loss phase has commenced. Yesterday in English class, I was working on a project with Florine and Camille and I forgot the word slogan. You would think that I could remember it in at least one of the two languages, but seeing that it is the same in both, I completely blanked. I tried to describe the word. I even whipped out my pocket dictionary and looked through the entire "S" section to no avail. It took us thirty minutes to think of it. Finally, at the end of class, I was trying to explain it again, and Camille jumped up and shouted it.
Darn brain freezes!

Duck and Cover

So, to enter the restrooms at Saint Paul, one has to walk across the courtyard and enter from outside. Today, when walking to the bathrooms, a group of guys bombared me with condoms filled with wet toilet paper. They dropped them from the window above the girl's restroom, so I never even saw it coming. I was forced to hide in the bathroom and have a friend spy to tell me when they no longer held the window open, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting victims. I then ran for my life as they hurled the nasty packages my way. If you're wondering, no, I do not know who those guys were.

To the boys here: You are making it way too easy for me to follow Rotary's no dating rule. Please, stop!

Ooooh! Sparkles!

It snowed again last night! This morning it did not really continue, but snow glitter hung in the air while I waited for the bus with Andrea. Since the hour "fell back" I have gone to school and come home from school in the dark.
My new bus comes ten minutes later than the one in Vermelles and arrives at school twenty minutes later. This means that for the past two days, if I had had a class first period, I would have been tardy. Other than that, bus rides are completely hectic. I had to sit on someone's lap yesterday on the ride home because there was barely any standing room.
Mme. DeGrotte has been sick recently. Instead of going to Perm as usual, we have a substitute! So far as I can tell, this guy is view pretty much in the universal substitute teacher manner. From my limited experience, however, I have found that subs are treated worse at public school.

Arrrie Potterrrr

Andrea, Nicolas, and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie today in French! I loved it despite the fact that there were no happy moments. Surprisingly, the French dubbing did not even phase me! Ususally, it bothers me a lot if the speech does not correspond with the movement of the mouths, but this time I hardly noticed! Plus, I understood everything!

Happy Random 60th!

Last night we all went to Lille to celebrate a friend's sixtieth birthday.
Now, I have some advice to any travellers to France. The concept of time here is a tad different than in the United States. If someone tells you that they will not stay late at a party, be wary! Most likely, you will not return home until 2h00 the next morning!

Helou Host Family Summary

So my new host family consists of Catherine and Franck Helou, the parents, and their children, Anne, Nicolas, and Andrea. Catherine and Franck are in charge of the local E.Leclerc, a supermarket. Anne is currently studying graphic design at a university in Paris and is here for the weekend withher boyfriend, Adrien. Adrien likes to wear bright, retro colors to bring some happiness to the drab of the grays and blacks in Paris. Nicolas is in my grade but goes to a nearby boarding school and comes home on the weekends. I have stolen his bedroom. Andrea is in 3eme (the equivalent to 9th grade in the US, but it's still considered middle school here). She goes to Sainte Ide, the middle school that corresponds with Saint Paul.
Everyone is super friendly and rather talkative. I have the feeling that I am going to love living here!

A Bittersweet Moment

I changed host families yesterday at 16h30. On the one hand, I was excited at the prospect of discovering a new aspect of the French life from a different angle. On the other hand, I could not stand the idea of leaving what has been my home and family for the past three months.
I'm glad that I like hand-me-downs because I certainly felt like one. One family handed-me-down to the next. I always like to think that people give their favorite clothing items to their favorite friends to share. I hope that is the case here.

My November Fashion Statement

So, yesterday I dressed myself with the snow in mind. I wore tights, long underwear, and fuzzy socks under my jeans. I wore long underwear underneath my turtleneck and poofy coat on top. Finally, I accessorized with my cloche hat, purple scarf, and big, clunky snow boots that made each foot weigh about ten pounds.
Just to acknowledge my ridiculousness, Mother Nature melted almost all of the snow by noon. At least I was warm!

The View From My Window!

Oh my goodness! Yay! It has been snowing for thirty minutes and we already have at least an inch!!!!!
Unfortunately, I'm certain that I will still have school tomorrow. Unlike in Charlotte where everything shuts down and the town rushes to WalMart to buy bread and milk, life still goes on here. On the bright side, I cannot wait for all the snowball fights to ensue tomorrow! Yay Yay Yay Yay Yay!!! I love SNOW! :D

Sainte Catherine

Today is the day of Sainte Catherine in France. This means that any woman who is over the age of twenty five and unmarried must wear some kooky hat in shame. I told you that France is an anti-feminist country!
I saw my bus stop buddy for possibly the last time (for the next three months, at least) today at the usual time. She told me that her niece passed seventh out of fifty two in her class to become a lawyer! Congratulations for her! She also told me that she had told her family members about me, and that I am one of her few friends that she has made in her old age! I will miss her dearly!
So, today was my first day back at school this week. The doctor that I went to see on Monday had given me an absent note for three days! Needless to say, English and stepping in Sport class were pretty fun!

Thanksgiving in France

Once upon a time, there was a very fat French king. All of the peasants in the surrounding towns, however, were skinny. This king, feeling bad about his fatness, decided to host a grand feast, inviting all of the townspeople. The purpose of this feast, obviously, was to fatten those surrounding him so he wouldn't feel so bad about himself. Of course, he could not give this as a reason to his loyal subjects. So, he told them that he wanted to celebrate and give thanks to them for all the work that they did in his kingdom. His people rejoiced! From then on, the country feasted every third Thursday in the month of November!
So, I think France deserves its own Thanksgiving because it is the best holiday known to man. Since the American feast story between the Indians and pilgrams is mostly fabricated and embellished, I have now fabricated my own Thanksgiving story for France. I will now send this lovely tale to President Sarkozy, and he will declare it a national holiday, and the French will live happily ever after, content, and with full stomaches!
Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Packing Take 1

So, since I was sick on Sunday, I obviously did not change host families, as pre-planned. Now, I am due to swap houses this Saturday at 16h00. My goal is to actually have packed by then.
I remember a quote that once stated that goals are just dreams with deadlines. I must say that I don't actually believe this to be true. Otherwise, it seems a little silly that I dream of packing.

Chez le Docteur

So, I just got back from going to a French doctor. Yesterday makes the fourth time since the three months that I have been here that I have been sick! I am NEVER sick back in the U.S.! I am beginning to feel that my love for this lovely country of France is unrequited!
It was interesting, though, because the doctor's office had a just a waiting room and an examination room. In fact, the entire secretarial area (desks, computers, fax machine, pictures of loved ones..) was located right next to the sanitary cot covered with that really louds, crinkly, uncomfortable paper. It did not at all have the feeling of regular doctor's office. To top that off, Doctor Hoyez wore a striped gray sweater and khakis. Not a single blue-green cotton scrub sleeve in sight!
Anyways, he ended up prescribing me four different medications: Spasfon, Doliprane, Domperidone, and Smecta. Although, I think I will feel like an eighty year old with allergies, a failing kidney, arthritis, and high blood pressure if I take all of them, especially since I'm supposed to take two of each at a time. Besides, I feel a little better now, and this will probably have passed by tomorrow morning. I'll just go into old-lady phase the next time I start to feel the teensiest bit queasy.

Lost

This morning I woke up at nine, happy with my solid five hours of sleep. Once everyone else decided to join me in my state of awakeness, we headed up to Vimy Ridge. Vimy Ridge is the location of the Canadian Monument, one of the first places I visited upon my arrival to France!
We had loads of fun exploring the tunnels underneath the site and walking through the trenches. When we started to head over to the actual monument, I steered myself towards the restrooms close by. It was so warm inside in comparison to the freezing icicles that were beginning to form on my fingertips outside, that I warmed my hands under the hand dryer for about three minutes. It seems that all my unhappy happenings revolve around toilets and restrooms. (Notice the blatant avoidance of the words bathroom and toiletroom.)
Anyways, when I finally exited the building, everyone had vanished. I hurried frantically up to the monument. The Canadian guide told me that she had no clue where they had gone. She drove me to the edge of the monument in her golf cart, and from there I ran. I had a vague idea of the path we had walked earlier, and hoped to catch up to them in time without falling in the mud. The further I kept running, the more desperate I became to see someone. To relax, I told myself that I still had two hours before parents started arriving. This meant I still had two hours before anyone noticed I was gone and two hours before I got into trouble.
I finally caught up with the group after about fifteen minutes. As I had guessed, no one had even suspected that I had been missing. This is why we have chaperones who are supposed to do head-counts.

It All Started With an Apple

So, Michael came over yesterday after school to help cook. Last night was the Rotary "exotic meal" at Lycee Saint Paul where we all made dishes from our home countries. Michael and I made a giant pot of chili, four cornbreads, and two large dishes of apple crisp! All of the French people kept asking us why we had not made hamburgers. Hello! It's called breaking the stereotype!
We finally arrived at the school at 4h15, an hour and fifteen minutes late. After the initial hugging procession, Michael and I led the way through Lens to the center of town. Once we arrived, however, we had no clue what to do. Randomly, I saw a tent out of the corner of my eye and headed over to it. There I learned that it was National Children's Rights Day. All that means is that the entire street had tents set up with free games and snacks for local children. Since we Rotary exchange students have language skills that compare to those of children's, we felt free to partake in all of the merriment! I never want to grow old.
We returned back to school an hour earlier than we were supposed to due to the cold weather. On the bright side, the sky was bluer than it had been for weeks! Since we were early, the Rotarians were still interviewing the potential candidates for next year's exchange. I asked to help, so Martina (Argentina) and I spent a quarter of an hour convincing some guy that Argentina is a much better country that the U.S. (There are too many students who want to go to America.)
The Rotarians then told us that we were not allowed to eat what we had slaved over all day because there were too many guests. They fed us croque monsieurs (grilled ham and cheese sandwiches) instead. If you had cooked for three hours, you would not have listened to them either! It was all delicious!

We finally left around midnight when we all went to Hugues's house and stayed up until 4h00AM playing Rotary exchange student games.

Doubt

So, yesterday I learned something that contradicts the entire foundation of my American education! There are only five continents!
This means that I can no longer sing the continents' song to the tune of Frere Jacques! "North America, South America, Europe-Asia-Africa, Europe-Asia-Africa! Don't forget Australia; don't forget Antarctica! These are the continents! These are the continents!"
WRONG!
The continents include the following: AMERICA (no North or South, just America), AFRICA, OCEANIA (the fancy name for Australia), ANTARCTICA, and EURASIA!!!!!
A continent is apparently a landmass surrounded entirely by water.
My mind is blown! I no longer know what to believe! Does two plus two really equal four? I'm beginning to doubt other aspects of my childhood education. Can I not trust the education given to me? What am I to believe?

Just Call Me The Pink Strawberry Marshmellow

Today, some teacher that I have never talked to before came up to me and patted my head. Because I was wearing my pink cloche hat, he told me that I looked like a pink strawberry marshmellow (similar to a peep). He patted my head twice. It was odd.
I feel like I stick out here like an adorably pink sore thumb. This is how I rebel against the masses of gray, black, white, and tan that the French wear. Combined with the eternally gray skies, I feel personally obliged to add a little cheer and pep to the atmosphere with pinks and purples and pastels!

The Day I "Dried" Italian

This afternoon I skipped Italian. To skip a class in French is translated "secher". Literally, it means "to dry."I don't quite see the correlation between the two definitions, but that's French for you!
I guess it can't really be called skipping, though, because the teacher made me go and get an absence note from the vice-principal. I still got the work sheet from which she tought today. Other that that, I'm a bad girl!
The reason why I skipped is because Marie, Paul, and Yamina, my group from TPE (Travaux Personels Encadres), and I had a meeting at 14h00 with a real estate agent. We are planning on pulling all of our money together to buy a loft in Lens where we will hold parties that blare American music until three in the morning every night!
Actually, our project for TPE focuses on green (as in ecological) houses, more specifically, HQE (Haute Qualite Environmental) and BBC (Batiment Basse Consommation) Effinergie houses.
We talked with the realtor for a good hour, asking him basic questions and inquiring further into what we have researched on the internet. Happily, I understood everything he said, and I even asked a question that was not pre-prepared!

Brouillard

I awoke this morning to white! No, it did not snow. Rather, a curtain of thick fog hung in the air and stayed there all day. So, when riding the bus home in the afternoon, I still could not see but fifteen feet in front of my nose.

The Chicken Who Couldn't Cross The Road

The Pecqueurs have three chickens and a rooster. They just recently replaced their chickens with younger ones because theirs were no longer laying eggs. I remember learning that chickens cannot fly. Apparently, they can jump higher with the help of long wings. Christophe had been meaning to cut the wings. This afternoon when he went to collect eggs, one of them jumped the fence and Apache, the dog, immediately sprang on top of it and bit off its head. Guess what we're having for dinner? Just kidding! It takes too much time to prepare it for tonight, and we have to wait two days anyways before eating it for some health reason, I think, so we will have it for dinner on Wednesday!

Un Grand Echec

Today, for Heloise's birthday I tried to use Grammy's fudge icing recipe and a cake recipe that I found online to make a cake. Heloise and I had a blast making the cake! The room looked like a hurricane had blown through it only ten minutes into the mixing.
The cake tasted like chewy pudding. Yuck! The icing was not much better. I had purchased super-fine powdered sugar at the store, but to the French, powdered sugar is the same thing as granulated sugar, so the icing was grainy.

I must say that it would probably have gone a lot more smoothly if the measurements were convertible. Yes, even using a converter on the internet, it's hard to measure out 113.4 grams of butter. I think that from now on, I will have to stick to recipes that I know by heart, and that I can do with rough estimates and without measuring cups!

Un Repas Chez Saed

Thursday night we all went over to Sabine's collegue, Lizette's house to eat a meal made my her Yugoslavian (Bosnian) husband, Saed. He made us a great four-course meal. According to him, he did not use any recipes and remembers everything from watching his mother and grandmother cook when he was younger. I know this because when I asked him for the recipes, he couldn't tell me. It was all Magnifique! I must say that his homemade backlava outshined any store-bought or restaruant-bought that I had ever eaten before. Other than that, I can't really compare what he made with anything else, because it was all new to me.
Among the party-goers were Saed's son, Lizette's son, his wife, and their two adorably blonde sons who are five and almost three.
The only down side to the evening was that three of the men surrounding me smoked. Even now, two days and three shampoo treatments later, my hair still smells of cigarettes. Heloise says that for every two cigarettes that someone smokes, you smoke one just by being near him. If that is really the case, I smoked at least a pack. Man, I should probably cut back...I'm frightened to see how my lungs will look by the end of this year.

Gay or European

France might be the only country where a guy can get away with wearing a v-neck shirt, a scarf, jewelry, skinny jeans, hair gel, and a "man purse" and still be completely straight!

Consequently, I have the most difficult time discerning a gay guy from a straight one here. In fact, when my friends told me about one of their friends being gay, I honestly could not tell the difference between him and the rest of the guys at my school. I'm not sure if I should be embarassed by this fact, or if the guys should...

Anyways, I've had this song stuck in my head for the past two days! It is totally perfect!

Le Cadre Noir

Tonight, Sabine, Christophe, Heloise, thirty-six other members of the Meurchin Equestrian Center, and I went to see the Cadre Noir of Saumur! The spectacle usually takes place in Paris, but for some reason, it was held in Lievin this year! All I can say is that it was fantastic!!

Pick a Number, Any Number...53

Italian class was awesome today! First, we got back some work that we had handed in the previous class. I had spent an excess amount of time researching mine and figuring out how to translate it into Italian, but all of that resulted in only two medium-sized paragraphs that did not even fill a full page. Pauline, sitting behind me, had two typed pages, complete with pictures and the works. (She actually told me that she had copied and pasted it, though.) I feared that my paper would receive a "sale note" (bad grade) in comparison to the masterpiece Pauline created, but when the teacher handed mine back to me, she gave me a nineteen out of twenty! Yay!
In addition to that, half of the class was absent, so we played with a paper fortune teller the last hour of class! It was by far the best Italian class ever! By the way, the fact that my favorite color is pink means that I'm reserved. I will never doubt a psychic again! Haha

Le Gouverneur

Last night, the Governor for Rotary District 1520 came to the Lens-Lievin club. I love it when esteemed guests come and visit because it gives us a great excuse to eat! Unfortunately, I did not talk much with the governor, but from the few words that passed between us, I gleaned that he is very nice.
At one point in the evening, we participated in a game where a song played, and we had to guess it's movie of origin and the person in the room with whom it corresponded. Hugues's movie was "Les Dents de la Mer" (Jaws) because he's a dentist, and mine was "L'Etudiante," since I am obviously the student of the group.

My suspicions about the lack of feminism in France were confirmed last night. There are only three female Rotary members in the Lens-Lievin club, and they have all recently joined because only five years ago, this club was exclusively for men. Also, there are more female Rotarians in Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco) than in France! Now, that is saying something!

Mortification

I don't blame anyone with the desire to sever all ties from me after my mishap yesterday. First of all, I multiplied two and three and got five. That's normal for me; it's a careless error. However, in History, when my teacher asked me to confirm the date of America's Independence Day, I said that it was in 1777. She gave me a funny look, and asked me if I were sure it wasn't in 1776. I knew immediately that she was right, and I don't know why I said it. In my own defense, French might be the only language (cursedly) in which one has to perform mathematics while counting. For example: seventy is sixty plus ten, and eighty is four times twenty.

At least, to even things out, I got an eighteen out of twenty on a memorized dialogue that I presented in Spanish with Sophie.

Happy Birthday, Heloise!

Today is my host sister's, Heloise's birthday! I made everyone chili for dinner because Sabine came home later than usual. I had difficulty finding chili powder. I subsituted a pre-packaged Mexican chili mix for it, and it tasted almost the same as the normal recipe I use to make it in the US. Sabine also brought home a cake for Heloise, and we all sang in French and English as she blew out her candle five times. (She really liked lighting it!)

Au Contraire!

Today, I spoke a lot with a guy named Baptiste, the one who dances like Michael Jackson! He takes my bus to school. As soon as I stepped off, he came up to me and started quizzing me about my life in America. He was particularly curious why I came to France of all countries because, after all, English is the most popular language. I explained to him that I already knew how to speak English, so it would be pointless for me to do an exchange in my own country! He kept arguing that the French aren't nice people, the language is ugly, the country has nothing to offer, and that New York City's drivers are much nicer than those in France. All I could think to say to that was, "PSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!! YEAH, RIGHT!" In my limited experience, I believe the opposite of everything he said!
It was interesting, though, and I was proud of him because he spoke to me all day in English. I responded in French, of course. I know how difficult it is to speak non-stop in a foreign language, and it was really nice to see him make such a great effort!

Lens vs. Montpelier

Tonight, Christophe took me to my first professional football (soccer) game! It took place conveniently in Lens at the Stade Bollaert (Bollaert Stadium). The name of the soccer team is Le Racing Club de Lens, and their colors are (sang et or) blood and gold (red and yellow). Before we left the house, Christophe gave me an RCL beret, so I looked awesome! When we got to the stadium, I saw groups of people wearing huge red and yellow striped scarves. I think I'm going to have to buy one, so I can tell people who don't know about Lens that I go to Hogwarts and am in Gryffindor!

Lens scored the first goal within the first seven minutes! The second one they scored thirty minutes later. Montpelier didn't score any! Yay, Lens!

I would have to say that American football and soccer are basically the same, except for the fact that the games are totally different. Everyone dressed up to show support, all the men shouted and screamed when something went wrong, everyone chanted and stomped, and there was even a shirtless fat man standing on a podium, egging on the crowd! Yep, exactly the same.

Frenglish

Today, I was looking at one of my new pens when I noticed that it read, "Made in France." At first I thought, "Oh, how cool! This pen was actually made in France and not in China!" Then, I looked at it again and noticed that it was written in English...

Finances...

Mme. Braun, my Economy teacher asked me to write a report today for next week on the financial situation in the US. Wonderful. I'm in France. Shouldn't I write a report on the French financial situation instead?

La Rentree...au PingPong

Yesterday was the first day back at school from my two amazing weeks of Halloween vacation! Since it was a Thursday, I did not have to go to school until one. Everyone else in my class, on the other hand, had testing on Science and Math for four hours first thing in the morning!
So when I got to school, I learned that my English class had been cancelled, so I had an hour of Study-Hall (I've decided that that's easier for you to understand than Perm.) followed by two hours of ping-pong.
In EPS (P.E.) we had an evaluation. I was dissapointingly surprised that I was in nineteenth place out of twenty five and that I had averaged at the table seven out of eleven. (I didn't understand this because I had only been to table seven once, and I had never gone down to the eighth table.) Anyways, I played and did fine; I came in second. Afterwords, I decided to go ahead and ask the coach how it was possible that I had averaged at table seven. As it turns out, I had been correct and my average was actually table five, which would have given me a much lower number than ninteen! I asked at the end of class, so it didn't change anything really, but I'm still fairly pleased with myself.

Hey there, Delilah

Here is a short list of aspects of American life that I currently crave:

• Listening to Delilah's radio show.
• Eating gingerbread cookie dough.
• Raking giant leaf piles and jumping into them. I finally noticed that the trees here have changed colors and look magnificent! Now, I just want to bury myself in a mountain of them!
• Drinking hot apple cider. (Here, cider has alcohol and carbonation and tastes nasty!)

Belgique!

I went to Lille today for the third time during this vacation break! I am so proud of myself, too, because since Michael was in Brittany and didn't go, I took the train all by myself and did not get lost once! I have the strange urge to sing, "I'm a big kid, now!" I met up with James (Australia), Darpan (India), Leah (Oregon), Martina (Argentina), and Carlos (Mexico) at the Lille train station when I arrived. From there, James, who has been here since last January, told us that he knew a great little cafe where we could all go and grab a bite to eat, so we took the metro.

We took the metro to the very last stop, thirty minutes away! I think that James was a tad discombobulated when we arrived because we walked around in circles for ten minutes before we headed in a specific direction.
When we finally arrived at our destination, we were right next to Belgium! Yes, the country! At the same time, we were still in Lille. Since we are not allowed to leave the district, we just took a lot of photos of the sign that indicated our entrance into Belgium.

Unfortunately, it was already past two by this time, and all of the cafes were closed, so we settled with shopping and picking up some groceries at Carrefour. The metro was almost empty on our ride back, which means that we got prime seating!

We spent the rest of the afternoon going crazy, taking pictures, and reading the 2011 Guiness Book of World Records in a larger Carrefour in the shopping center EuraLille.

Bowling et Karting

Two weeks ago before the Halloween vacations began, a few friends (Marie, Yamina, and Laurence) and I planned a day-trip to the bowling alley. Today, we went. The bowling alley did not open until 14h00, so we had a little bit of a wait. When the doors finally opened, Marie, as she had warned us before-hand, charged ahead of the stampede of people crowded at the door's entrance; therefore, she was first in the line and we were able to play our game of bowling before everyone else! We had so much fun! I won, but I just barely broke one hundred. After that we decided to go go-karting (it's just called "le karting" in French). Unfortunately, we had to wait almost an hour for the arena to open. During this time, we took a kaboodle of photos (although Yamina would prefer that none of pictures of her go online).

We purchased two rounds of karting. Sadly, I wasn't able to use my camera because we looked hysterical! Since go-karting is relatively dangerous, we had top wear helmets, but underneath our helmats, we wore cafeteria lady-type hair nets for sanitation purposes! Ironically, there were no seat belts. The first go-around, I came in third place, after two other people who I didn't know who raced against us. The second time I knew how to better handle the go-kart. This time we raced against a group of about five boys. I can proudly say that I passed all of them and came in first place! Say hello to the new Danica Patrick! (I can't believe that I even know who she is!) When we stepped off of the race course, the man who worked there congratulated me for whizzing past all of the boys! I then had a group of guys who looked to be thirteen or fourteen start talking to me. I think they were saying pretty much the same thing that the first man had said, but I couldn't understand because they were all talking at once, so I looked at Marie and asked her what they were saying. She then told them that I am American, so they responded with the typical, "Oh, t'es belle! Je t'aime, l'Americaine!" I was honestly more interested in what they were saing before. Part of me hates being stereotyped as an American, but the other part of me just wishes that the French could be more creative reaction-wise when they discover that I am American.

Honestly, I love being the American in France! It's the best excuse for anything since "my dog ate my homework!"

Ma Premiere Presentation au Rotary

This evening I had to give my first Rotary presentation (in French, of course). Hugues told me that I had to speak for at least twenty minutes. I have no idea how long I spoke, but in the end I think I arrived somewhere in the twenty-minute ballpark. To distract from my less-than-perfect speaking skills and to use up some more of my twenty minutes, I had a powerpoint presentation for my visual aid. I'm not sure really whether or not I was supposed to speak more about my life before in the US or the past two months that I have spent here. (Wow! Can you believe that I have already been here for two months?) I ended up using the first two slides to summarize the previous sixteen years of my existance and the other twenty-two to share all that I have done here (and England this past weekend).
Once I finished my presentation, Thomas summarized his year in Michigan and added in some cute little anecdotes. He concluded the meeting.
Two candidates for the student exchange for next year came tonight, and I listened to their interviews, given by a small panel of Rotariens, Thomas, and yours truly (even though I just listened and did not ask any questions). The first girl's first choice was to go to Canada, followed by Italy, followed by the Phillippines or Argentina. The second girl wished to go to Japan, followed by the United States, followed by South Korea or Taiwan. One of the girls was selected tonight to study abroad, sponsored by my Lens-Lievin Rotary club and that was the first girl. The other girl will still have a chance to go abroad, but she will be mixed in the pot with the other (at least five) students who have completed an application.

A Rotary Joke

There once was a man who loved learning and sharing random facts about animals. He was always spewing the most unimportant information such as:
"Did you know that the ostrich's brain is as big as its eye?"
"Did you know that the elephant cannot jump?"
One night, while his wife was working in the kitchen, he came up to her and said, "Did you know that lions can have intercourse up to twenty times in one day?"
Without turning around, she responded, "Well it's a good thing that you joined Rotary in that case."

Sunday Service

Since the Rotary is a Christian based organization, there was a church service this morning. I must say that it was the most attention-grabbing, eye-opening church service that I have ever attended. The reason for that is not because today is All Hallows Eve, but that the Pastor was Canon White, who is the Vicar of Baghdad. Yes, Baghdad as in Iraq, the troubled country. So troubled is this country, in fact, that this Vicar travels day and night surrounded by thirty-five guards. However, despite the depressing situations, his congregation has over 4,000 members. This is so large that he has services on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. He was so incredibly motivational. He told us that ninety three members of his congregation were murdered last year, yet his church is one of the happiest places in the world. In addition to serving the church purpose, he and his team give medical, dental, and pharmaceutical care along with blankets and packages of food each week. The cost of maintaining his church has gone from 600 dollars a year to over 150,000 dollars a month, yet he has always made the quota. Unfortunately, when a man from the audience asked him whether or not he believed peace could ever return to Iraq, he confessed his great doubts and lack of hope to that.

Three other motivational speakers from this morning included Anne Blight and Craig Hammond from the Starfish Project, helping people to overcome their stutters. They showed a video of Craig's first day with them and how debilitating his stutter really was. Three years later, Craig stood before us and gave a perfectly eloquent speach, taking in deep, sharp breaths before each phrase to prevent the stammer. The progression was truly amazing.
The other woman was Lady Catherine Meyer who spoke to us about how Fate had affected her life. Her two sons were abducted from her by her ex-husband, and she was unable to see them for ten years. They are now reunited, but she has created a charity PACT for the awareness of parental abductions.

I was sad to leave. I think that one of the things (besides the people, of course) that made this weekend wonderful was that alongside the lovely English architecture, all of the trees were beautiful colors and gave the atmosphere a refreshing autumn feel.

Happy Halloween, by the way!

It's All Very British

Yesterday morning's conference speakers included middle school students who spoke about their Interact club at their school, the Canterbury Rotary Club who discussed the successful hospital project in Ghana that they recently accomplished along with four other Rotary clubs and various donators, Frances Allen who discussed the "Inner Wheel" of Rotary, and Peter Burkhill.

The last man, Peter Burkhill told an amazing story. He is a pilot for British Airlines and about three years ago, on a flight from China, both his engines died about a minute from the landing in England, but they did not send off any warning signals until thirty seconds before hand. He discussed his experience there, which involved a lot of quick thinking, but concluded with a successful crash landing that saved every life on board. He wrote a book that I am going to blindly promote here, based on the fact that this man was a wonderful speaker, the topic was fascinating, although dreadfully frightening, and that he is George Clooney's look-a-like. It is called "Thirty Seconds to Impact" and I would at least suggest to check it out of the library and skim it.

After Mr. Burkhill's presentation, a Rotary panel came and sat on the stage for what was called a debate, but which I would rather characterise as a pre-planned interactive questionnaire with the audience.

Once the session finished, I decided to explore the town of Eastbourne for an hour or two, so I walked along the boardwalk, which was beautifully adorned with twinkle lights and which served as the base for some beautiful and charming buildings that made me feel that I needed to be carrying a parasol. The water was a beautiful sea green. Not like the North Carolina coast that can be compared to the Rio Plata of Argentina where you have to guess the color: is it brown or orange or green? This water was truly a lovely shade of bluish green. Once I stepped off of the pier, I tried to walk along the water's edge, but the sand was not actually sand; it was pebbles, and rather large pebbles at that. So, I walked along on the sidewalk. After going along for a ways, I became distracted by a church tower in the distance, so I crossed over a few roads, took a few pictures of the church and began to head back to the conference. If you're wondering why the Rotary let me walk around the town without a chaperone or even a buddy, I'll just sum up the basic reasoning by writing that this is a town for retirees mainly. I do not thing that the crime rate is through the roof.

I arrived back at the theater just in time for Richard Stilgoe to present the Orpheus program that houses and habilitates disabled children. He was wonderfully charismatic and the program, which teaches the disabled how to live independently, appears to be very effective. At the end of his presentation, three of the Orpheus students came on to the stage and sang for us. They had wonderful voices, and at least half of the audience was moved to tears.

In the Friendship House, the dEBra foundation gave me a butterfly pen to add to my jacket and the Westgate and Birchington Inner Wheel Club gave me a free Dessert Cookbook! Yum!

Mrs. WIlton and I returned home, let the dog, Shawnsey, go for a walk, and then I tried a mince meat pie. I must reveal the truth: mince meat does not actually contain meat in it! In fact, it is a dessert, like a tart! It is delicious and the filling tastes rather like homemade apple butter with raisins and some other dried fruit in it. It tastes like fall and winter.

Around six thirty Liz and John dropped me off with their son, his wife, and their two children, Mimi and Ben. We joined in a procession, with most people carrying flaming torches (it rather reminded me of the introduction to Histoires et Reves d'Artois) leading up to the most humungous bonfire. After we watched the bonfire burn down, a brilliant fireworks display erupted behind us. When I returned home, Liz and John had not returned from the black tie Rotary banquet and ball to which I had not been invited (also which they later told me had mediocre food and a not-so-good band). So, I ate a typical English dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (more of a bread than a pudding) and thouroughly enjoyed it while watching Friends on the television.

The Reason for the Bonfire:

On November 5th, 1905, a man named Guy Fawkes attempted to hide several cases of gunpowder beneath Parliament. He was caught, tried for treason, and executed (hung, drawn, and quartered). Later, to commemorate the event and warn others against the serious crime of treason, the British hold bonfires over which they burn effigies of Guy Fawks.

www.rhymes.org.uk/remember_remember_the_5th_november.htm

The Room Mix-Up

When we arrived at the hotel Friday evening, John asked some man where I was supposed to go. The man told me room 331. I went up to the third floor, passed room 321 that had a lively group of people in it, and knocked on the door to room 331. A woman answered and I politely asked her if there was a Rotary function going on in her bedroom. She replied, telling me that she spoke no English, only Polish and German. I asked if she spoke French or Spanish. The answer was no. So, I turned around and knocked on room 321. They had no idea who I was or where I was supposed to be, but this particular Rotary club welcomed me heartily. They were a rowdy bunch; consequently, they were also loads of fun! Pretty soon, I had an invitation to join them at dinner at Mr. Hau's Chinese restaurant.

I must say that an English Chinese meal is delicious. It was five courses all together. We began with fried seaweed, egg rolls, and a type of fried chicken for appetizers. Then we had a corn and crab meat soup followed by more appetizers. For this round of appetizers, one took a pancake (flat sugarless crepe), drizzled plum sauce on top, stuck in a handful of sliced cucumbers and/or onions, and stuffed the rest of it with Peking duck before rolling it up into a mess of delicious Chinese goodness. Next, we finally got around to the entrees (American entrees, mind you. In French, an entree is the same thing as an appetizer.) that included fried beef, chicken, tofu (which I discovered tastes a lot like eggs), rice with peas, corn, and ham, and an assortment of vegetables. Dessert was displayed marvelously with a carrot carved into a crane in the center of the dish, surrounded by fruit kebabs and fried apples.

Not only was the food superb, so was the company. I never felt left out for one moment of the evening. Madison is somewhat of a rare name in England, so I was called Meredith a few times, but I like that name, too, so it didn't bother me. I was also nicknamed, "the American cheerleader" because apparently I look like I would be the type of girl who cheerleads.

The man who sat next to me on my left was the Club President and the man who rescued in the hall when I had been wandering hopelessly lost. The man on my right used to race Ferrari's and other sports cars, and now owns a business (which he has recently downsized to thirteen employees and moved out of London) that makes and restores chandeliers for homes such as Buckingham Palace. We all talked and laughed, and for a much longer time than we were supposed to, for we were an hour late to "Rotary Last Night of the Proms."

What I saw of the Rotary Proms was absolutely magnificent. We arrived just as Kathryn Jenkin began to sing "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady. She wore the most beautiful purple evening gown and had an amazing voice. Of course, the theater was packed, so the only seats left were in the very front row or the back of the third level. We chose the back. The rest of the performance included Clifford Lister, an opera singer, the Sussex Symphony Orchestra, and Heathfield Choral Society. Part of me wishes that I could have seen more, but I did have such a great time with that Rotary club at our Chinese dinner. At the end of the performance, the orchestra played two patriotic English songs and all of the audience sang along and waved the British flag. Peter, the Rotary club of Sittingbourne Invicta President, admitted to me later that he thinks the Americans are still by far the most patriotic in his opinion. It was funny, though, because he tapped the man in front of him on the head (on purpose) with the tip of his flag, but he didn't respond at all. Two women turned to Peter and said almost at the same time, "No sense, no feeling." How clever of a saying is that!

My British Host Family

If people are judged by how they treat their dogs, then Liz and John Wilton must be two of the nicest people. After all, they are welcoming me into their home, with very little prior knowledge about me. After I admitted that I knew virtually nothing about this trip and staying with them, they revealed that they knew so little about me that they thought I was Hugues's daughter. Liz reminds me a little of my math teacher in the face. John, when talking to his dog Shawney, speaks in third person, referring to himself as Master and Shawney as just Dog, and does not use articles. It is quite amusing to listen to him talk to her.

They live in a charming house in the most adorable town right outside of Eastbourne called East Dean. We stopped off at their house briefly in between Rotary events, during which time Liz showed me my room and fed me tea with tomatoes, cucumbers, and a potato, all marvelously displayed. John is a true gentleman; he opens and closes all the doors for me, and will not let me lift a finger, even to carry a plate to the kitchen. He also, apparently, does not like to be called Sir and prefers just John.

Welcome to Sunny Eastbourne

To reach England from Vermelles, France, drive one hour to the coast on the English Channel, take the ferry for an hour until you reach Dover, England. From there, drive two hours to the west, and you have reached Eastbourne.

Great Britian welcomed me with giant cliffs and gray skies on Friday afternoon. I have discovered now that the grey does not even phase me now. The cliffs were impressive and beautiful, and the ride from Dover to Eastbourne was filled with rolling, green English hills and pastures inundated with sheep and splattered with cows. We also passed through the town that invented the television.

Hugues, his wife Natalie, and I arrived in Eastbourne around noonish. After a delicious lunch (for Hugues and Natalie, fish and chips; for me, vegetarian lasagna), we headed over to a Rotary meeting. Let me preface this next part by writing that before that afternoon, all I knew about this trip was that I was coming to England and that I was being kindly hosted by a woman in a town somewhere between Brighton and Eastbourne. So, I walked into the Rotary meeting , embarassed, wearing jeans. Thankfully for me, someone had left our nametags at the hotel where Natalie and Hugues are staying, so I had time to change into suitable pants and my Rotary blazer when we went to fetch them.

This Rotary meeting, I soon discovered, was the conference meeting for District 1120. (It is pretty much the same thing that I went to in Wilmington for District 7680 last spring before I came to France, complete with the House of Friendship and everything.) The speakers at the Rotary meeting included two men who spoke about Prostate Cancer, an Ambassadorial Scholar from South Korea, a man who discussed Rotaract, Andy Garland a BBC Kent radio show host, and Cheryl Baker who used to be a member of the 80's band Bucks Fizz. Mrs. Baker, who spoke last, sang for us; it was beautiful, and she shared with us a story about one of the band members who had a stroke due to blood clots in his brain, introducing the charity Headfirst.