Cheval

This morning I went to the marché in Arras with Pascaline. I love going to marchés! Atthis one, not only did they sell everything from clothes to live chickens and geese but they also had a man walking around dressed up like a condom! I would hate to have his job.
For lunch I tried cheval for the first time. No, it's not some super exotic dish that can only be found in France. It's just unheard of that anyone would eat a horse in the US. However, I had never tried any, so I specially requested it. If you're already completely repulsed right now,I probably shouldn't tell you that it was delicious.
This afternoon, I went to the zoo in Lille! I didn't even know there was a zoo in Lille! It was small, but it had a pretty good collection of animals. As soon as I saw the Kookabura, I had his song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Watching the apes made me want to go and live like Jane Goodall, immersed in the chimp culture in Africa. When we got to the general Africa area, we saw zebras, antelope, and a peacock who opened his feathers with a shiver and strutted right in front of us!

Dentelle-ification

Andrea and I were planning on lemon juicing our hair again today. The sun, however, hid behind the clouds all day. Andrea and her cousin also slept in until noon, as well, so we wouldn't have had an early start like we wanted. Instead, I watched the Royal Wedding! Thank goodness I live in Europe now because I would have had a hard time waking up at four in the morning in the US! I love princess stories! So does Deby, the dog, since she sat in my lap the whole time. (Shh! I don't think she's supposed to be on the couch...)
Afterwords, I returned to the Adamski's who had returned from visiting Pierre-Alexandre, their son, in Tully, NY.

101 French Dalmatians

This morning we decided to relax a bit and chill at the house. For lunch, I made tuna tetrazzini, boiled down green beans, and Marie helped me with zucchini brownies and chocolate chip cookies. Unfortunately, Anne wasn't feeling well, so in the afternoon we stayed at the house. Marie and I spent the time playing a board game, organizing their entire children's DVD collection (they have almost every Disney ever made), and watching 101 Dalmatians in French!
At around 19h00, I returned to the Helou's.

Disneyland

We woke up this morning and went to the train station again. Luckily, the train wasn't late and it didn't stop in the middle of the tracks this time! We arrived at Disneyland just before ten, which was perfect as all of the rides open at ten. We went directly to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and followed that with an Indiana Jones rollercoaster. Eventhough she is tall enough and likes rollercoasters, Marie freaked out right before Indiana Jones and held our bags for us instead of riding. Ironically, just after that we went to Space Mountain and she rode that twice with me. We then watched Captain EO with Michael Jackson in English. It didn't even have subtitles in French!
For lunch we went to L'Auberge de Cendrillon (Cinderella's Inn). The food was amazing! There were princesses everywhere (I would love to do that for a summer job!) but I do feel sorry for the guy dressed up as Prince Phillipe since not only did he look like a purple, poofy plum, but he had to dance with Aurora every fifteen minutes.
After lunch, we crossed over to the other park where we watched a Lilo&Stitch show, rode Crush's (the turtle from Finding Nemo) roller coaster, which is, in my opinion, the best coaster in the park, got lifted up in the air in the Toy Story G.I.'s parachutes, and RC's coaster.  I conquered my fear with R.C.  Ever since I was ten, I have been deathly afraid of anything resembling the pirate ship that just sways back and forth.  It turns out that it's not so scary after all. 
Before we left for the night, we rode a Star Wars ride and finished with Space Mountain.
I love any and everything Disney!

Pee in Belgium

We took the train to Brussles this morning! I was really excited since I have only seen Brugges, and this ticks off another capital on my world map. When we first arrived, we spent a half hour or so in the grande place.

We than walked to the Mannekin Pis (Little Julien) AKA the little, eensie weensie, statue of the fountain boy with pee water coming out of his penis. I honestly don't know how that became such a major landmark. He's like the Mona Lisa in the fact that he's about the size of a waterbottle.

We read in the tourguide that he had a female counterpart, so we crossed through the prince's markets to try to find her. Jeanneken Pis was in the tiniest sidestreet with no sign indicating her. In case you're wondering, yes, she was crouched down to tinkle.
After that, we stopped to eat lunch. Marie had been dying of hunger since ten o'clock, and it was finally time for the restaurants to start opening. I ordered a vegetable soup. It came with ice cubes in it. Is that normal?

When we finished eating, we hopped on the metro and headed over to the Atonium. I'm not sure what purpose it has, but it's a giant atom of iron made with aluminum. The tickets we purchased included the MiniEurope park next to it, so we went to that afterwords.

I love the MiniEurope! It's not a very large park, but walking around the miniature capitals with a sixty page fact booklet takes a lot more time than expected. The figurines of the capitals were really intricate. I read in the pamphlet that one of them took over 19 000 hours of labor and 350 000Euros! They were beautiful!

Chocolate Chickens

We went to the zoo this morning! I love zoos! It was completely free, and they actually had great animals. We started off with the flamingos and went on to see giraffes, lemurs, monkeys, crocodiles, tigers, and elephants! The only animals we did not see were lions and bears. I could have seriously spent all day long just walking around there!

For lunch we went to George's Brasserie, the oldest Brasserie in Lyon. Since I have five years old in my heart of hearts, I jumped up and down when I saw that they gave Alice, Louise, and Marie coloring pages with crayons. I got one, too! As it turns out, I filled in the spaces at the bottom with my name and age (10) and handed it in to the front. In the meantime, I tasted escargots and loved them. Who knew that snails could be so yummy? To top off that wierdness, they were covered in some sort of green sauce that did not look appetizing at all. When we had all finished eating, the front drew names from the hat. All the girls at my table won either a giant egg or a giant caterpillar. I won a giant chocolate chicken! Oh, yeah!

Easter

Joyeuse Fête de Pâques!
This morning we walked around the market before heading over to celebrate Marie's birthday. 

In the car on the way to the restaurant, I noticed a group of people that I thought I knew out of the corner of my eye.  Luckily we were at a red light.  I asked them to roll down the window, stuck my head out of it, and screamed, "Leah! Julia! What are you guys doing here?"  It was so exciting to see all of my Rotary friends who were doing the bustrip in Lyon!  I only got to talk to them for two minutes, but it put me in a great mood for the rest of the day.  As we were driving away, I saw Jess (NY) turn around and say, "Wait. Was that Madison? Madison! Hey!"

We went to a lovely restaurant for lunch.  In France adults celebrate their children's birthdays as an excuse to reunite with friends and family and have a party of their own.  Elise, Arthur (Elise's 12 year old brother), and I sat at the adult table. The meal was exquisite with about ten courses.

Since it was Easter as well, we had an Easter egg hunt.  Here, they hid the chocolates directly and didn't bother with tacky plastic egg coverings.  Since technically I still am a kid, I got to participate in the hunt!  The French do not skimp on their chocolates, let me tell you!  They hid great candy, including giant Ferrero Rocher eggs and Lindt bunny rabbits!

We finished eating at 17h00 when we went to the basilica at the top of the mountain to see a great view of the city!  After that, we went to the ruins of an ancient theater where Elise and I sang Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" at the top of our lungs.

Then, to finish the night, we went to the grandparent's home to eat some more.  I hung out downstairs with the children and we watched Raiponce (Tangled) in French.

Side note: The weather today was beautiful with a shining sun, slight heat, and baby blue skies!

Lyon

We took the train to Lyon this morning.  At the trainstation we met up with Elise, who is actually in my grade at Saint Paul, and her family.  The train unfortunately broke down on the tracks for twenty minutes, so we were late for lunch.  There I met Marie, the Bultez's ten year old daughter.  From watching Louise hug me so much, she almost immediately adopted me, too!  We had giant US portions at the restaurant where we ate. 

Afterwords we took a tour with a guide of vieux-Lyon.  We began with the statue of Charled de Gaulle.  Since the grande place is so large, the typical meeting point of the Lyonnais is under deGaulle's horse's tail.

We had to hurry after that to go to the church Saint Jean to look at the clock.  It was the coolest cuckoo-clock in the history of intensely-cool cuckoo clocks.  A sentinal walked around the tower, Mary turned toward Jesus, the Holy Spirit came down, God blessed everyone with the cross, and the rooster flapped its wings! 

We then walked through the traboules.  Traboules are open passage ways that cut through apartment buildings to get from one street to another.  We finished our tour in the shop of a silk scarf maker.  While everything that he made was beautiful (more or less), I am glad that I don't have to put up with the noise of his giant weaving machine.

We ate dinner in the Nord (return home!).  I sat next to Elise.  I'm so glad I met her because we get along really well, and she's so nice!

Chez les Bultez

I spent this afternoon in Lille with Andrea.  At 7h30 I met up with the Bultez family from my Rotary club.  They have invited me to spend the next week of my vacation with them.  Since it was close to dinner time, we ate at a fish restaruant before heading to their home in Lompret, a town next to Lille. 
Upon arriving at the house, Louise, their seven year old daughter took it upon herself to give me a tour of the house.  She is so cute!  When she showed me the room in which I would sleep, I bumped my head on the ceiling (it went down in a diagonal).  She started cracking up, and from then on, she adored me.  We played for a half hour in her room, and it was like she had known me for years! 
Right before going to bed, she showed me her Cat in the Hat book, and I translated it for her as a bedtime story.  I hesitated a few times and made up words (If Dr. Seuss can do it, why can't I?) but I think I did a darn good job with my on-the-spot interpretation!

When Life Gives You Lemons...Dye Your Hair

I spent a few hours this afternoon bathing in the sun.  I decided not to take Deby for a walk, even though she loves it, because I'm still pouting about the Ortie incident from yesterday.  My foot now has plenty of red bumps everywhere.  It's digusting.
Around 16h00 Andrea came outside, and we decided to lemon-juice our hair.  I looked up how to do it online, but we ended up adding a whole mess of junk in it.  It reminded me of making "perfume" with Taylor, my younger brother, when we were little. 
In the first batch, we put in lemon juice, a bit of lemon pulp, honey, and citrus olive oil.  I drenched my hair in it.  When it dried, it stuck out in all different directions. I felt like the bride of Frankenstein, and Andrea commented that it looked like we had dreadlocks.  Andrea made the second batch with the leftover lemon juice, pressed oranges (I don't know if that did anything), honey, citrus olive oil, and a capful of oxygenized water (I later realized that this is hydrogen peroxided-I then freaked out because I don't want to look trampy-blonde!). 
After dinner, we mashed up an avocado, put in a natural yogurt, and added a few tablespoons of honey, and then slapped that onto our faces.  We looked lovely, and if I had not added the pound of conditioner to my hair earlier, I would have definitely passed for Frankenstein then!

Thwarting The Ortie....Or Not

I took Deby on another walk this afternoon.  I still let her lead the way, but I made her turn a few more times, so that we took a more scenic route than yesterday.  She led me through a pasture behind somebody's house, which I wasn't too happy about, so I led her through a field that was far away from everyone else.  I wanted to use the field as a cut-through, but when we got to the opposite side, I saw that there was a fence blocking our way, so we had to turn back from where we came. 
Today, for the first time in my entire life, I wore tennis shoes without socks.  I think the French are getting to me, although it that look is equally as unfashionable as with socks, in my opinion.  Anyways, because I wasn't wearing socks, I noticed immediately that my foot had brushed Ortie.  I had no clue what ortie was before coming to France, but when I returned home this afternoon, and explained to Catherine, she told me that it's apparently very good for the circulation.  I personaly don't care about my circulation.  I do know that as soon as my foot brushed that ortie stuff, it felt like I had stepped through poison-filled needles.  When I bent down to pick out the needles, nothing was there!  I rubbed my foot to make the pain go away, and I slowly saw the top of my foot begin to get red.  It soon developped twenty or so white bumps among the redness. 
It's just my luck that as soon as I go awhile without getting sick, I step in Ortie. 

Walking Aimlessly in a Roundabout Manner

I took Deby, the Helou's dog, for a walk today.  I figured that that would be fine for my leg (see torn hamstring) since Deby seems like a calm enough dog, and I wouldn't be running, anyways.  I quickly learned that she is a puller.  Since, I don't really know my way around Vimy that well (it was too cold and wet when I was here last), I decided to let Deby lead the way, and I would follow.  We knocked over a trashcan along the way, but since I'm an exchange student, I don't get embarassed that easily anymore, even though plenty of people saw it and laughed at me. 
Since I let Deby lead, she took me to heaven-knows-where, and I was completely lost.  I still trusted her, and in the end, I realized that we had made a complete circle!  I'm sure she had probably gone on that walk before, but if not, I'm seriously impressed!

Aldi in Germany

We woke up this morning and went to Germany.  Just like that we crossed a bridge, and in five minutes we were there.  I love Europe!  We didn't stay long, though, because we needed to get back to Vimy, but we walked around in a park for about fifteen minutes.  We probably just drove through a nice neighborhood, but everything was immaculate!  The houses also looked more American-style and made me think of Wisteria Lane.  No, I have never seen Desperate Housewives, it's just that one of the houses was covered in wisteria.  After that we went to Aldi's.  We did not need to do any shopping, even though prices in Germany are apparently one third of what they are in France, but since the Helous own a E.Leclerc, they wanted to watch how efficient the cashiers were.  Europeans don't like self check-out (my favorite part of grocery shopping) because they think that it puts people out of jobs. 

L'Enterrement D'un Lézard

Andrea and I probably went to bed last night around 10h30. We stayed up talking until after one in the morning! Of course, the lights were out since we were supposed to be falling asleep. Around midnight we heard the creepiest rasping whisper/scratching noise from the corner of the room! Yes, teenagers still get freaked out by weird noises. Thankfully, it did not manifest again after we turned on the lights.
This morning we all went to church. Since it was Palm Sunday, I expected there to be palm fronds, but this church handed out leaves from evergreen trees. I'm still not sure what to do with mine, but I'm afraid to throw it away for fear of offending someone.
We had a cookout in the backyard afterwords. They invited two other families who both had really cute kids. Nina, who looked about four, came up to me at one point and told me to follow her. When I did, she showed me a dead lizard. Lovely. Not knowing really how to handle the situation, so I suggested we bury it. We covered it with dirt, leaves, and a rock headstone. Andrea almost died of laughter (no pun intended) when we told her about it.
In the afternoon we took a tour of "la Vieille France". Sun makes everything prettier! For the walk back to the car, Andrea and I bounced Nina and swung arms. I ended up carrying her on
my shoulders.
Tonight we played a game called Time's Out. We had cards with people's names, and we had to make everyone else guess the name by using a play on words or describing them. I surprisingly knew who many of the people were. Unfortunately, my main pronunciation problems in France arise when attempting to say an English name with a French accent.

Strasbourg

I arrived at the Helou's (2nd Host Family) last night because the Adamski's are going to Tully, NY to visit their son, Pierre-Alexandre. I am officially on Spring Break! We woke up early this morning to get on the road to go to Strasbourg. The MapQuest estimated travel time is about five hours. Going 140 km/h (87mi/h) the entire way, we pretty much cut that down into three and a half hours.
We met Didier and Andrea in their sunny yellow house, and went out for lunch. I split my dish with Andrea(my host sister), and I'm so glad I did. It was just ok, what they gave me. I expected some sort of potato dish with salmon, but ended up with thick, slug shaped pasta, a teensie bit of salmon, and a kilo of a cream sauce that was not necessarily the best I've had in France.
Now it's time for the politically incorrect joke of the day (in French, of course): Les petits japonais ne vont plus à l'école. Pourquoi? Parce-qu'ils sèchent! (It's a play on words if you just tried to translate that.)
This evening we took a tour of Strasbourg by car. I'm not really sure of everything I saw since I had my window open most of the time and couldn't hear. I do know that we passed by the European Union parliament building, and I learned that it is only used three days per month!

Une Déchirure Musculaire

I went into school this morning eventhough Pascaline said I could stay at home. Consequently, Marie made fun of me for limping like an old lady. After lunch Pascaline picked me up from school and took me to the doctor. Surprise and disappointment: many French homes do not include sinks in the toilets. I did not expect this to be the case in the doctor's office, but when I went to wash my hands, I could not even find hand sanitizer!
According to the doctor, I tore a muscle. I now have to take Advil, an anti-inflammatory, a decontractor, and rub a lotion on my thigh.
I miss walking and skipping!

Craqué

I went to school at noon today to go over the acro-gym performance for this afternoon. We went over it a few times, and Cloé and Florine finally figured out how to descend and get me out of my split in the air without me landing on my head (remember that?). Now, they kneel back down, and I more or less slide down into a split on the floor. After English we discovered that we still had one figure to add. We started freaking out, but we managed to squeeze it in at the end.
Mr. Meurice told us we had six minutes left to rehearse. We went on the main mat/stage to practice with the entire space. Our run through went really well until the split. Going up was iffy because half way into the lift, Cloé announced that she didn't have a good hold on me and my foot almost slipped off her shoulder. The rest went fine until the descent. I have no idea what happened, but all of a sudden we all heard, even over the music and noise of the gym, a nasty knuckle cracking sound that came from my upper thigh. I was so bummed not to be able to perform, especially getting injured three minutes beforehand! I did still wow everyone with my wicked Pledge of Allegiance, but I couldn't even dance the salsa!

Medieval-schmeval

Random event of the day: my French teacher ran out of the classroom bawling for no apparent reason. I really wanted to give her a hug when she came back, but then I realized that hugs aren't very "French".
This afternoon after Italian, I stayed until five to go over the accro-gym presentation with my group that we're going to put on tomorrow. Our project is great! The theme is 'Around The World' and each person represents a country. Camille is the explorer, Florine is the Indian, Cloé is Japanese, Damien is Egyptian, Valentin is American, and I'm Spanish. Pretty much all we did this afternoon was to figure out what transitions we needed to add in between the time when we did our pyramids. It's pretty cool because we're doing meditation, Kung-Fu Fighting, mummy rolling, basketball, I'm saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and we finish with salsa and a closing.
Tonight I went to a Rotary meeting that combined the Lens-Lievin and Lens-Henin Beaumont clubs. The theme was Medieval, but I totally didn't understand that because all I saw were creepy people dressed up in masks and walking on stilts. They did breathe fire, though, so that was neat.

Proximity is a Plus

Today I walked home from school! That's one of my favorite things about this new house! On the way home, I even stopped into a pet shop for a few minutes en route and had my fingers licked by puppies until they turned pruney! My hands smelled terrible afterwords, but oh well. When I arrived at the house, I turned right back around and went shopping in the Auchan shopping complex. Pascaline was in the mood to buy me something, so she got me an umbrella (the third one's a charm, I hope), adorable button earrings, and a pretty necklas. My host sister, Emilie, gave me a collage that she had made for me. How cute!

The Last "Changement de Famille"

Today was my last day chez Les Ghysels. I'm always sad to change! I really loved this past host family! It was really sweet, too, when I left because they got me a scarf, a necklas, a lotion, and Coco Mademoiselle perfume! The French love their perfumes, and I love that the French love their perfumes!
I do like my new host family, despite my reluctance to change. Pascaline and Jean-Michel seem nice, and I'm sure that eight year-old Emilie will be an adorable ball of fun! I'm back to a boy's room since Pierre-Alexandre, their son is in Tully, NY in Michael's sponsor club. The house is nice. I'm not really sure if I think it's large or not on the French scale, but it is very open, airy, and (the best part) sunny!

Rebellion by A French Catholic Schoolgirl

So this morning Pierre and I got to the bus stop, and about two minutes later Pierre turned to me and said, "Ok, Madison, I haven't studied for the English quiz we have next, so let's just 'miss' the bus, ok?" Now, I always get super nervous in this type of situation, but I said fine anyways so as not to be a raincloud. I'm sure it was a good host brother bonding moment, too. We waited for the bus to pass for about ten minutes, but, ironically, it didn't pass at all! So, with no need to fib, we returned to the house. Pierre is still a pretty honest guy, so he called his mom to tell her what had happened. He didn't expect it, but she came hime to drive us to school. We still had a half hour of English that we didn't want to attend, so we hung out on a bench outside of school and waited for class to end.
I feel like such a rebel! Don't worry, though, because piercings, leather jackets, motorcycles, and tattoos still scare me!

Paris-Roubaix

This morning around noon we all hopped in the car to visit Candide, Bertrand, the butchers, and their kids Rufine and Augustin. Like most house calls, this was a six hour sit down dinner. The difference was that today we had dinner and a show, for the bike race from Paris to Roubaix (near Lille) passed right in front of their home!
Of course, since Candide and Bertrand are butchers, the food was excellent! We started with an assortment of hors d'oeuvres including a ball of what reminded me of hushpuppies, followed with salmon starters. For the main meal we dined on Parmesan potatoes, tomatoes, aubergines, and pigeon in the most delicious sauce! We only had had about three bites when the cyclists began to turn the curb, so we left our food standing and threw most of it away when we came back to the table (not by my suggestion).

I've Never Been So Happy About A Sunburn!

Today was another beautiful day! This morning weeks some girlie shopping at the market in Touquet. I wasn't planning on buying anything, but Nadine bought me the cutest beige ballet flats! I love them! The great thing about beige is that I can wear it with all of my clothes that I cannot wear with black. (It's too early to wear white.) The French do not have the "no white after Labor Day and before Easter" rule. I'm sure this is because their Labor Day is May first. (Their Easter is the same, in case you had a brain fart.). Nevertheless, it has been engrained in me never to wear white before Easter, so to sum up this mini-tangent, I'm probably a little too excited about my new shoes!
After the market and lunch, we went to the beach. Since the Touquet and Stella are literally at the tippy top of the point of northern France, it was still too cold to get in the water. I did have a wonderful time just laying in the sun. At one point Mathilde got bored and tried to bury me (in my clothes) with sand. She succeded in immersing my jeaned legs, but that's about it. There was so much sun that I now have a slight sunburn! I'm so glad I can finally start making up for the rays I missed all winter long!
Before we left we took a walk along a nature trail, but we had to leave, sadly.

"Editing"

For a project in English class, we have to write a dialogue about a cult. Of course, I help out most of my classmates and edit what they write. The other day I even told Pierre,my host brother, that if he wrote the entire dialogue in French, I would translate it for him. So, that's what I did. I think we'll just tell people that Pierre wrote it, and I just changed a few things for him. That way neither of us gets in trouble. I was surprised, though, at how little time it took me to translate it! (I was quite proud of myself). It was perfect, too, because shortly after, Mathilde, Nadine, and I packed up the car and headed to Stella beach near the Touquet!
What I love: Now, at around 7h30ish, the sun is still higher in the sky than at 3h30ish in winter here! It's wonderful! We watched the beginning of a beautiful sunset over sand at 8h30!

My Blog Review

So a few weeks ago, Keith (no, I have no clue who he is) reviewed my blog in its entirety on his blog. His blog, atasteofgarlic.com does nothing but review English speaking people's blogs about their lives in France. My comments on his comments about my blog will be in curlieque brackets {}.
So, voilà!

My Life in France is Madison’s Blog.

Madison says of herself… “I am a sixteen year old female spending my junior year of high school abroad in France.”

And I have absolutely no reason to doubt her!

What Madison doesn’t mention is that she’s also a bit of a blogaholic with 218 blog posts since she started in August 2010! {This whole blog thing is like a daily journal for me. It became routine when I was allowed no contact with the US for the first thirty days because of some stupid Rotary rule. No, I am not an -aholic anything, except maybe with chocolate!}

I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I started to review her blog but I was hoping that, as well as the normal Young American Girl in France stuff, I’d also find some weird bits….

And, of course, with a blog entitled My Life in France, I was also hoping for some foodie bits as well!

So, without further ado…

Let’s dive in and see what we can find to munch upon!

The early bits…

The blog starts on the 26th of August 2010 in The Airplane.

Which is where Madison met Rhonda who tells Madison that she looks like Natalie Portman, whoever she is?

After arriving in Paris it’s on to her new home where Madison says.. Bonjour, Vermelles.

And goes on to remark… “Vermelles seems to me the smallest town in the world. It does,on the other hand, have a lot of charm to make up for the lack of size. All of the houses look very similar with a French countryside sort of charm”

After doing the usual tourist thing of visiting E.Leclerc, Madison then discovers that… “The back yard has a small garden and (Dad, you’ll like this) three hens and a rooster!”

Vive la France!

The following day Madison visits le Lycee where she will be spending a year as a student.

She seemed only moderately disappointed that she hasn’t one Smart Car yet – all I can say, Madison, is wait until you discover the VSPs – and then run for safety!

In August, Madison complains about the cold! I’m surprised that no one told her about the perpetual winter that seems to engulf the Nord Pas de Calais!

It’s all she can do to shiver and say… “Je vais crever de froid cet hiver! J’en suis sur que je vais perdre mes orteils!”

Which, for those of you who don’t speak French, means… “I’m going to die of cold and freeze my toes off this winter!” {Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis movie reference}

Vive le Nord Pas de Calais!

And, on a serious note, in Mes Livres d’Ecole, she meets Mateo the Charmeur and goes for another visit to E.Leclerc!

Which leads us rather nicely onto….

The really rather weird bits…..

I’ll start off by mentioning the Noisy Neighbour who, apparently, likes to go into her garden once a day and scream at the top of her lungs.

I’m not sure if I should tell Madison that this is quite possibly normal behaviour in the Nord Pas de Calais and, indeed, many other parts of France? {Lordie, I hope not!}

And I do wonder if Madison herself screamed at the top of her lungs whilst she was busy Ticking Off Another Toilet Tragedy? {Um, yes, I was!}

I’m really not sure what it is about girlies and toilets in France and the fatal attraction of the former getting trapped in the latter?

And I hate to ask why Madison says… I Need a Decontamination Shower STAT?

Because I rather suspect that the story would involve a Turkish Toilet (or Squatter as they are know to us long term expats!)

Of course, there’s really no excuse at all for Madison accepting an invitation to Une Fete de Justin Bieber! {I can't help the fact that I love hanging out with little kids, even if their music choices and superstar crushes don't match up to mine.}

Madison, I think your mind is being warped by all that time you’re spending in the toilets!

Although, I ought to mention, there are more educational weird things to come…

In She Noses It we learn that dinner conversations are largely about noses (and Madison has a fairly equilibrated nose, thank goodness) and Cats Don’t Like Vicks VapoRub!

Which may or may not be the case but…

I prefer to think that most cats are intelligent enough not to want to be petted by a human who is obviously suffering from a cold? Just my feeling? {Fun fact: It is scientifically proven that the purring of a cat has relaxing benefits! (If you're not allergic, of course!)}

Now (and I’m working up to the big one, it won’t be much longer) in Conspiracy! Dead or Alive? Madison pretends to be surprised that everyone in France spends all their time pondering whether Michael Jackson really is dead or perhaps, just temporarily deceased for tax purposes (we are used to that with our legend of rock, Johnny Halliday who often spends a few months of the year temporarily deceased for tax purposes!)

Personally (and like most people in France) I think that The Great MJ is alive and blogging under an assumed identity in Paris!

But then, what do I know?

I do know that Madison is going to be talked about for years and years for admitting that she uses the phrase… Yippy Skippy!

After all…

No one says “Yippy Skippy” do they?
unless they’re…

There’s no ‘unless.’ No one has said “Yippy Skippy” for fifty years and even then it was only little girls with blonde ringlets. {They tell me I was born in the wrong generation, and my hair used to be blonde and curly!}

Exactly. Here we go again.

“Yippy Skippy”.

Perhaps it’s a disease Madison’s got? A clinical thing that she’s taking pills and having injections for- perhaps it won’t last for long? {No Comment}

Moving swiftly on to…

The foodie bits….

With a title of My Life in France I was expecting this blog to have a few foodie elements.

And, delving deep, I did find a few….

Starting with a nice appetiser of Marrons Roasting on an Open Fire followed by some Cooking Lessons from the Dog!

I wonder if it was the dog who suggested that it might be necessary to Add a Dash of Bird Feathers?

To show off her skill, Madison donned a Ladybird Apron and Pearls and cooked Coffee Cake and Zucchini Bread!

And, having done that….

She has every right to say… Just Call Me Julia Child!

Although she, quite rightly, wasn’t too keen on the cheese, as we find out in Chedder… Really, France? Really?

Which is pretty much what I think the great Julia Child would have said too!

The educational bits….

Now, just in case Madison’s parents are reading, I though I’d emphasis some of the many educational entries in this blog. Just so that they don’t think it’s all Getting Stuck in Toilets and visiting E.Leclerc!

So, Madison’s parents, I’d like to let you know that your daughter seems to be studying hard…

As you;ll be able to see from… My Life as an Extraterrestrial where she is spotted discussing with her teacher important matters of the day such as… why there are no pink calculators sold in France! {It's such a pity, too!}

And even on A Completely Uneducational Schoolday Madison has two hours of Table Tennis and then spends an hour of perm (study class) passing notes with Florine and her friend Cloe the whole time. {What else was I supposed to do with that time? Color in a dinosaur coloring book? I did not have any homework!}

Oops! Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned that? Madison’s parents, if you are reading could you just ignore that last bit?

And then, in Three Hour Perm, she made paper aeroplanes and… “talked and listened to the random guys from Terminale play guitar.”

Still, there are some good results in Mon Bulletin Scholaire? even if I can’t quite see what she was marked for her paper aeroplane efforts?

But, Madison does shine when it comes to Quadratics and the Second Degree because she is asked to sing a song to the class and…

I think she only fell off the stage once!

All is not lost, though! Because, in Presque Parfait her teacher does tell us that… “students are perfectable!”

So, there’s hope, after all!

So, summing up…

My Life in France is a wonderful blog that is enthusiastically written by someone who is seeing Life in France with younger eyes than we are normally used to here at A Taste of Garlic.

The humour is apparent in posts like You Say Potato, I Say Pomme de Terre and Frenglish.

I’d advise you all to pop into My Life in France and say hello to a sixteen year old American girl who is…

a). Brave enough to spend a year in France

b). Rather fond of getting stuck in toilets and

c). Good at making paper aeroplanes! {I'm from America. I speak American (according to the French). And it's spelled airplane! haha}

And me? Well, I’m going to have a stiff talk to those boys Madison mentions in Duck and Cover.

You nasty boys, you!

You’ll never get a nice pretty American girlfriend if you carry on doing things like that!

All the best,

Keith Eckstein

Sexy Schmexy

So, I have an ongoing joke with Maddi (Australian) where whenever one of us sees a Frenchperson in a weird outfit, she texts the other with the outfit so we can both enjoy a laugh! It started with a conversation about the horrors of double-denim (you know who you are) and it has evolved into the most wonderful form of entertainment that I feel compelled to share! We don't bother, however, with the day-to-day French-isms. We hold our breath for the best!
Here is what made this week's fashion faux-pas cutoff:

• Purple striped Pippy Longstockings knee-socks with platform shoes
• High pig-tails and a black pirate bandana
• All black with a Hello Kitty hair-bow, neon pink tights, and cat eyes (eyeliner)
• Adidas track pants tucked into socks
• Half-inch thick cat eyes only on the bottom
• Cat eyes on the top with a dash (-) of eyeliner just underlining the pupil on the bottom
• Union Jack tights with sandals and shorts under a long coat
• Leather boots so high the ends can't be seen under a below-knew-length floral skirt
• A top hat, a floor length gown, and a blanket
• Flowers drawn next to the eyes

Last, but most certainly not least..... (drumroll, please)
...wait for it
Worn today by a guy in my class:

• A shiny v-neck, purple leopard print shirt, topped off with nothing else but double-denim! (To all of my knowledge, he is as straight as a sticker bush... But then again, this is France, and one can never be certain.)

There's A Lot Of Water In That Ocean

Today we celebrated Pierre's birthday with the family. It surprised me that not as many people came as usual, but I still got to meet some more cousins and their adorable two year-old, Ocean. Isn't that a great name? She was absolutely adorable! On the down side, she cried for the first hour. On the upside, I resisted birthday cake! Woo hoo! (I'll probably go eat all of it tomorrow, but Yay for today!)

Happy April Fish!

April first is probably the most random holiday ever created. What is referred to in the US as April Fool's Day is here known as Le Poisson d'Avril (the fish of April). Instead of shouting, "April Fools!" after playing a prank, the French will either tape a paper fish on you or just shout, "Poisson d'Avril!"
Unfortunately, none of the pranks I witnessed today were entertaining enough to bother retelling.