La Fete Des Meres

We celebrated, belatedly compared to the US, La Fete des Meres (Mother's Day) today.   I took a train back from Lille with Paul (Germany) this morning around 10h00.  With barely any sleep from the night before since I slept over with Sofie (Argentina) and Emma (Finland), I just wanted to rest. 
Instead, I ate a "barbeque" with my host family and Jean-Michel's parents (Pascaline's are actually in Montenegro.).  Speaking of barbeque, I miss it dearly!  In France barbeque is like what you get when you ask for barbeque in California, which means that barbecue is the verb that means to cook out or to grill.  When, in the south, we say barbecue, we mean the real stuff, the pulled pork sandwich with the ketchup-based sauce (because it tastes better than the SC mustard-based or the western NC vinegar based sauces). It's heaven in a bun.
Anyways, after talking briefly to Pierre-Alexandre via Skype, and eating grilled chicked and sausages, I took a nice long nap.  When I awoke, I packed my affairs and headed over to the Helou's to spend the night with them. 

Last Lille

Today was the last day in Lille for me for this year in France.  I met up with Maddi (Australia-whose French has either improved greatly, or who has become a lot less self-conscious) almost as soon as I got there, so we spent most of the afternoon together.  We saw a giant parade of people playing instruments on bicycles for no purpose, we saw at least three groups of fiances acting crazy before getting married, we drank yummy, pulpy orange juice, and we got half of our shopping checked off of our lists.  We also had a super dooper time singing the song 1234 by the Plain White T's.  While we were walking towards the shopping centers, first Printemps, then Gallery LaFayette, I saw a large, creepy, tattooed, biker-looking guy hanging out with the homeless people on the side of the street.  I turned to Maddi and said, "Oh my gosh, that guy over there is so scary!."  Then he moved, and I added, "Oh no, he's walking over here. He's walking towards us!"  Then, as if I were not already freaked out enough as it was by his appearance, he barked at me.  Yes, he barked like a dog, and I screamed at the top of my lungs in the middle of the square in Lille.  I started cracking up afterwords because I could not believe that I actually screamed out loud. 
After Maddi bought her Longchamp bagfrom the Galleries LaFayettes, she ditched me, and I went to hang out with Marti (Argentina), her friend Sofie (Argentina), Cari (Ecuador), Emma (Finland), Tim (Australia), and Paul (Germany).  We all gave Sofie a mini-tour of Lille, and at around 20h, the girls headed over to Cari's house to snack on dinner, chat, and watch the Barcelona-Manchester football game while the guys just went to a bar.  If anyone is vaguely interested at all, Barcelona creamed Manchester 3 to 1.

J'Ouvre Les Parenthèses

Whenever my Economy teacher, Mme. Braun gets off topic in class, which happens quite often, she always opens and closes the parentheses. Today, she made a Titanic reference. When she asked about the Celine Dion song and no one knew the reponse, I automatically said, "My Heart Will Go On." Of course, I used my normal American accent to say this. She just looked at me and said, "Can you repeat that so I can understand?" Without missing a beat, I said, in the most amazing French accent in the world, "My Arte Weeeel Goh Onne". Everyone died of laughter, but Madame understood this time. She then closed the parentheses and went on with class.

My Metaphorical Baby

One of my friends at school pointed out that I would be giving birth to my baby today if I had gotten pregnant the day of my arrival in France. I hope I don't look that fat!

On a more serious note, Daniel's (Mexico) father passed away today. Daniel, you and your family are in my prayers.

Pairi Daiza

Today the Adamskis and I went to Paradisio, the most amazing zoo-park in the entire world! We arrived at 11h00, and immediately wanted to see the feeding of the monkeys.

While heading over there, we ran into kangaroos!

Unfortunately, we walked rather slowly, taking in the breathtaking scenery, and we missed the feeding. I was amazed at the monkey enclosure, though. I thought they would be behind cages, but it was completely the opposite! They had their own little island on which they roamed freely. They even came close enough for us to pet them.

Taking the bridge off of the island, we walked into a grotto filled with seals and penguins!

That eventually led us into the aquarium that housed, among other animals, sharks, bubble-eyed fish, and jellyfish. I wished all throughout the aquarium walk that I had seen Finding Nemo in French, because I could have quoted the entire movie in there.
We had Chinese for lunch. Why is it that almost every single Chinese restaurant on the planet is buffet-style or at least has some sort of buffet in it?

Afterwords, we read on the map about Dr. Yu's. I had read about it, but had never tried a foot massage by fish! It was amazing! I didn't know what to expect, really, but it tickled! It was the oddest sensation to have hundreds of tiny fish eating my feet! (I saw an advertisement for a thirty minute, 45Euro session in the Touquet, but my twenty minute session here was only 5, and it was so worth it!) It was the coolest experience I could ever imagine involving fish! I highly suggest it! (Mommy, can I have a new pet? We don't even need to buy stuff for it, 'cuz I'll keep it in the bathtub, and we don't have to pay for food!)

After walking through the Chinese gardens, lighting incense, tying goodluck ribbons on a tree, and banging the gong, we went to the aviary. MeepMeep I saw the roadrunner! In your face, Wylie Coyote!
We took a quick break for mate tea, and continued on to the African animals.

We were even allowed to feed the giraffes and elephants!

Let me just say that Dumbo has a pretty prickly trunk, but he's very friendly and likes carrots.

We rushed through the rest of the park because it had the shortest hours known to man and closed at 18h00. We saw the elephant get a bath, a show given to us from the raptor center. I totally thought at one point in the show that the eagle would land on my head.

We finished the day in the petting zoo farm area. Guess what I just realized? Mutton is a lot like the french word for sheep, mouton! Whoa!

Le Retour du Gastro

I knew I couldn't avoid it forever, and now it has made its comeback. The infamous gastro (stomach bug) hit once again. Unfortunately for me, it chose the most inconvenient hour of five o'clock in the morning! At least I didn't have school today anyways since it's a journée pedagogique (teacher workday).
So, I went back and counted all of my other blog posts, and this is the eighth time I've had the Gastro since I've been in France.
Why me?

One Month

I only have one month left as of today.  Pauline initiated a vote today inquiring how many of my friends petitioned that I stay.  Marie raised both arms and a leg.  What I'm telling people now is that as soon as my visa expires, I'm becoming an illegal immigrant.  (Let's just hope that no one from the French government reads blogs.) 
I had a full day of school today.  It's for a good cause.  I consequently don't have school on Friday or Saturday!  Plus, I didn't have Italian this afternoon.  I was in a goofball mood all day.  This morning in French class, we were talking about some ninteenth century seductive traits, so I drew a moustache on my index finger and held it up to my nose.  This afternoon in Political Science (The Saturday classes moved to Wednesday afternoon this week.) Florine was yawning, so, while Nicolas and Paul were taking credit for a Powerpoint that Yamina made, Flo and I played thumb wrestling to keep her awake.
This evening, Pascaline, Jean-Michel, and Emilie picked me up while I was walking home so we could all go shopping in Lens.  One of the great things about living in an itty bitty town (approx. 30 000 people) is that when you go out, you know half of the people you see.  I saw Corentin from my class at school in Yves Rocher, Andrea (host sister) in front of Pimkie, and one of the girls with whom I was interviewed for the Rotary in front of Etam.

Powerpoint Playback

I had my second Rotary presentation tonight. Hugues had told me that I could talk about whatever I wanted. I originally thought I should do my life in France up to that point, but since I had to do the powerpoint in my Political-Science class the other week, I decided to choose the lazy route and not make extra work for myself.
It was nice because not only did Sabine, Christophe, and the Adamski's come, but Elise, Louise, and Marie from Spring Break came as well. There was also a futrue outbound going to Kansas named Paul.
I was a little nervous about my presentation to all of my Rotary club, and it didn't helped that half of the pictures on my powerpoint just decided to disappear for no reason. On the plus side, when I did give my presentation, everyone inserted comments, questions, and witty remarks that greatly lightened the mood. They even made fun of me a little bit, but in a teasing way!
After my whole schpeale had finished, we all sat down to eat. At one point in the evening, we were talking about weight gain, and I mentioned how I have an Indian friend who has lost at least ten kilos here. It was followed by the quote of the night given by seven year old Miss Louise Bultez. She said, "But the Indians, they don't exist anymore," with the most serious expression on her face. Have I mentioned how much I love little kids?
When we were leaving, Hugues mentioned how he thinks that I have changed. I am apparently more open and confident now. My secret? High heeled shoes. (I know my dad hates them, but it's true!) Even though I like being short most of the time, hight gives confidence, at least it does for me.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to my blog!  I'm sorry, but due to suspicious activity, I had to take myself off of the internet for a while.  Don't worry!  I've been posting this whole time, so you have a whole afternoon's worth of blog posts awaiting.
Have fun!

Really Bad Art

I had breakfast this morning with the Brambrings. Sabine made the best orange jelly in the entire world! I absolutely had to get the recipe, so voila!
Orange Jelly
2:1 Pressed Orange Juice (without pulp) to Jelly Sugar
1 cut vanilla bean (scrape insides out into the jelly, cook the entire bean, but remove the shell before serving)
2t lemon juice
cook on low heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring the entire time
remove
add 1 shot orange liqueur
put immediately into glasses and flip upside-down for 5 or so minutes.

After breakfast we met up with everyone who had slept in the hotel at Josef Albers Museum. Apparently he's a German artist that the American's adopted. (I honestly have no clue why.) He does not paint just squares-it's a mind trick! He paints a square within a border within a border, and there is a whole mathematical equation behind it. Ziad and I discovered that exact equation! So, you have to look at the paintings from 10,25 cm away, and then you discover that (y⁴x² + 2xy – y)/(x – 1) = axⁿ + bx^{n − 1} Of course, it's much easier to reach this conclusion with Beethoven easy-listening music playing in the background. The funny thing is that the Germans actually took the entire visit seriously and sincerely enjoyed the exhibit.

Thankfully, the second half of the exhibit were dinosaurs!

We had lunch at the German Rotary President's home. He presented our President with a Josef Albers painting (I wonder if he'll actually hang it in his home), and Jean-Michel gave him a bottle of nice wine.

I really like Germany. The people are nice, the weather is about the same as in the Nord-Pas-De-Calais, the homes are nice, the towns are clean, it's in Europe, and it reminds me a lot of the US. I only wish I could speak the language.

Dusseldorf

I woke up at five this morning to meet the bus at 6h30 in Lens. While they had told me that 6h30 was the meeting time, I was one of the first people to arrive, and we did not end up leaving until a little after seven. Unsurprisingly, I slept most of the busride.

We arrived in Germany a little after 11h30 to a warm reception by the Bottrop Rotary club. I surprisingly remembered some faces from the group that had come to the Passation de Pouvoir in September. I was almost immediately introduced to Sabine Brambring, my host mom for the weekend, and Rob, a Canadian. To complete the first activity on our list, we walked along the Rhine to a restaurant where we had a typical German beer-tasting and ate a lunch of fish.
The Eurovision was in town, so we saw a long parade of Europeans in costumes. We even saw West-Point students in the mix. The Eurovision Contest is an international song competition, and today was the finale. Unfortunately, the crowd from the Eurovision parade watchers blocked me, and I got separated from the French group. I was not competely lost; however, I was completely confused the rest of the afternoon following the Bottrop Rotary group's German tour of the city. It was so nice because we passed a spice shop, which smelled heavenly, and I mentioned that I had been craving cayenne pepper, especially since the French hate spices. Sabine then went in and bought me some fresh pepper! She's such a sweetie pie!

After the tour at 15h30, we had two hours of free time. I went with Rob to the shopping center, and we walked around aimelessly. We went into two trinketey shops where we saw the most bizarre objects ever! You know your life is complete when you have seen a toilet bowl brush with a handle in the form of a gun. We then went into a mini supermarket, and I interrogated Rob on everything I saw since I understand zero German.
When our free time had ended, I went home with Sabine and Bernd Brambring, and we prepared in ten minutes to go to dinner at a restaurant. After the appetizers, the lady sitting across from me discovered that I had been a vegetarian a few months before coming to France (I'm not allowed to continue vegetarianism here.) and insisted that I get the vegetarian menu with her. Apparently fish is vegetarian in Germany. It was very yummy, but I also would have been fine eating the duck that everyone else got because that smelled wonderful.

Ecole Primaire

Today I skipped school to attend my host sister's Elementary School. She is currently in CE2, the US equivalent of third grade. We began the morning with the entire class introducing themselves to me. I now know what Leo, Emilie's "boyfriend" looks like and who her best school friends are. I love little kids. I wish I had better hearing, though, because soft voices plus listening to a non-native language does not facilitate comprehension. Mme. Dupas left the room shortly after, and the English teacher came in. Today we learned about the objects in a classroom, and they all sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". It surprised me that the English teacher spoke almost the entire time in English and hesitated to convert to French to explain to them. When the English teacher left, Mme. Dupas had not returned to the class, so one of the boys stood at the front of the room and watched over all of his classmates while they giggled and tried not to speak. (If they did speak without raising their hands, the boy wrote their names on the board.)
Mme. Dupas then came back and began a spelling lesson. Afterwords the class had recess, but I went with the teacher to the teachers' lounge.
Back in the class, I explained a little about my life in the US, and the other students asked me questions. Mme. Dupas gave me a children's book, a booklet of French expressions, and a synonym dictionary to fill the rest of class time.
We had to wait for probably an hour at recess before going to eat. I walked around with Emilie and her friend Alice during that time. At one point a boy who looked to be ten or so came up to us and shouted, "Woohwoohwoohwoohwoohwooh!" Emilie did not know him. Alice did not know him. I still do not know who he is.
It was really nice because I then saw Alice, Elise's ten year old sister with whom I passed the weekend in Lyon during the vacations. She is so adorable!
I felt so popular today. I had so many random children come up to me saying, "Are you American? Do you speak American? How old are you? Do you have a boyfriend? What's your name? Can you say something for us in American?" It was wierd at the same time since I have never seen so many pairs of eyes on me. Without exaggerating, at any time during the recreation periods, half of the kids outside were staring at me. The little boys in Emilie's class were really cute because they would come up to me and say,"You're sexy" or "So-and-so thinks you're sexy." I would respond, "Thank you," and they would all giggle and tell their friends, "Look, she says, "Thank you" when we say she's sexy haha!" After eating I played some sort of dodgeball game with everyone. When we had finished, a possy of boys followed two feet behind me wherever I went. I, in a way, felt like an alien with everyone oohing and aahing all over me.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. They had a grammar lesson, gym class, another recreation period, a geography class, and school then let out a 4h30.
Tonight, Michael came over for dinner. (I'm so glad we're friends again!) We played S.O.S. (the French version of the basketball game H.O.R.S.E.) and then went down to the ducasse and rode the bumper cars for an hour.
For dinner Pascaline made Chinese food. It was delicious!
I would have to say that this was probably the best Friday the 13th ever!

Cookie Connoisseur

Today I made chocolate chip cookies with Emilie and her best friend, Lea.  The problem with making cookies for French people is that they're used to the additive-infested, nasty, crunchy, Famous Amous-type boxed cookies.  So, they don't appreciate the yumminess of a warm, gooey cookie.  I could maybe understand the gooey part because everyone has his or her own bad tastes, but there is just no excuse for not wanting your cookie to be warm!  What ends up happening is that they beg you to make them chocolate chip cookies because they think that that will make them American, but then they stick their noses up at the good stuff for pre-packaged poop.
Note: This mini-rant does not apply to all of the French, just the ones with bad taste.

Audi

This afternoon I went to an Audi dealership with my Rotary club. We listened to a ten minute presentation of data to which I did not pay one lick of attention. It didn't even matter because all of th adults talked about how they didn't understand it either! Afterwords, we had champagne and hors d'oeuvres as per usual, and some people even went to test drive the cars-especially the convertibles!

La Ducasse

Ducasse is a Ch'ti word that means a small, crappy carnival that stays in town for two days. Five year-olds ooh and ah over it, though because it consists of a bumpercar arena, two carousels, and a cotton-candy machine. I went with Émilie this afternoon and we rode the bumper cars for five rounds. The first time was a freebie because we didn't know we were supposed to insert our ticket into the car itself, and the guy came over and did it for us. The second time our car broke down half way through, so the same guy gave us an extra token. Then, we still had three tokens left that we couldn't use on any of the other machines. I feel like such an old person if I complain about my body hurting...but I did have fun nevertheless!

Du Char À Voile

We stayed up so late last night talking. I got to hear all of the gossip about the bus trip. At one point around four AM, we all got quiet for a moment. At that same moment, someone passed gas with a little, loud squeak. I feel so sorry for that person, but we didn't make fun of him/her at all; we just laughed!
I woke up this morning in pain. I have never had problems sleeping on the floor before, and I love camping, so I don't know what's wrong with me!
After breakfast we headed to the beach. We had to put on the nastiest jumpsuits and bright yellow helmets; I felt sexy.
For the next two hours we did char à voile. I don't know how to explain it except that it's a mixture of a tricycle and a sailboat that you ride on sand. It was so much fun! We spent two hours going in circles, racing, and getting soaked with wet sand. By the time it had finished, not one of us was clean!
After our typical lunch of cold chicken, couscous, and fruit we weren't allowed to touch until dessert, we gathered into a group and practiced singing Soleil by Grégoire. After the fourth round and cries for mercy, we finally stopped. Up until now our goodbye hugs have always been given with the knowledge that we would see eachother again within the next two months. This tome, Daniel, SooMin, and Azriel won't be joining us. Half of us cried, half of us sang Disney songs, and all of us gave eachother hugs all the way back to the cars!

Boulogne-Sur-Mer

This afternoon I rode with Asaki to Boulogne for the last repas exotique with all of the other exhangies.  We met up with everyone at a high school, I gave Maddi the homemade snickerdoodles she had requested (we shared them with everyone else, too), and then we went for a tour of vieux-Boulogne.  We started by walking around a beautiful church.  We spent two minutes inside a castle, and I don't know why we did not spend more time than that in there.  I didn't really notice then, though, because I was having so much fun catching up with all of my friends.  There was the cutest group of British children touring Boulogne at the same time we were, and Jess (NY) and I freaked out, jumping up and down, oohing and aahing over how cute they were.  Whenever they passed by us, we would get really still and really quiet in hopes of hearing their adorable accents!  I totally would move to England if the weather weren't so terrible.  To finish our tour, we walked through the Argentinian embassy and former home of San Martin.  Martina (Argentina) aka Margentina was so excited about San Martin and kept telling us that her mother would cry when she showed her the pictures of his home. 
We returned to the school to eat the nasty croque-monsieurs (I never eat them because I know that I will always stuff my face with foreign food afterwords.) and we signed a giant going away card for Daniel (Mexico).  Soo Min (South Korea) and Azriel (Philippines) are also leaving in the next few weeks.  I don't want anyone to go!  I want us all to stay together forever as one giant Rotary family!
I had made tuna tetrazzini for the repas, and I'm pretty sure that everyone liked it.  After everyone had been served, Martina (Canada) danced a traditional Canadian Indian dance for us.  Daniel had written a song for us, and he sang that as well.  There was not one dry eye in the house.

My Sci-Po Powerpoint

Today I gave my presentation on the USofA in my Political Science class. I did not talk about political science at all; the teacher had asked me to present my life in the US. 
I began with the location of Charlotte, North Carolina, talked a little bit about my state, and showed pictures of my town.  I also gave everyone homemade Snickerdoodles at the same time, so that, in the case I did a horrible job, no one would notice because they would be too occupied with their cookies. 
I went on to explain the school system, complete with a public school-private school comparison that included my class schedule from last year.  I followed that with pictures of my homes, my families, the shopping malls, typical hang-out spots, school dances, and my friends.  Thank goodness everyone peppered my presentation with questions because they totally helped me to calm down and enjoy presenting so much more.  I'm pretty sure that I unintentionally confirmed all of my classmates desire to go to school in the states.

Escalade

Today was our first day of escalade in sport. I'm so glad because eventhough I loved the gymnastics unit, I do not think I could manage a split right now. I was pretty pumped about the wall climbing thing at first since I used to love climbing the giant pickle at WCU when I was younger. I did fine getting to the top. I was even fine at the top of the wall. It was there, however, that I discovered I have trust problems. It really would not have mattered who was waiting for me at the bottom, I just hate the idea of lettin go of something concrete for air and potential death. (Note: this is a hyperbole since the climbing wall does not even reach the ceiling, and falling would result in a few broken bones at the very worst.)

"Why is He Biting Her?"

This morning when I arrived to school, Pauline stopped me quickly before walking into class. Then, randomly out of the blue, she handed me a book. I thought she was just lending it to me until I saw the inscription on the inside. I love my friends in France!!!
Do I really have to leave?
This afternoon after Italian, Emilie, Pascaline, and I went to a farm to see the animals. Enilie used to do horseback riding there but stopped this year since she lost interest. We started with sheep (I have a tiny obsessions with moutons.) then we headed over to the bunny rabbits, goats, and pigs. The sheep, goats, and rabbits all had babies that looked to be a few weeks old already. The pig was sleeping, which was a little disappointing. When we left to see the roosters, we heard a loud squealing. Turning around, we saw the pig come out the back, followed by a giant hog (the size of a riding lawnmower) come out the back. Emily then pointed out that the hog was climbing on top on the first pig. Then we passed the geese, peacocks, and pigeons. Outside of their pen we saw two ducks. Emilie made a similar comment, "Why is he on top of her biting her?". That duck was squealing louder than the swine.
Well, this was an educational experience today because I'm pretty sure I never would have seen anything like that in Charlotte.

The Last First Day Back To School

Today was my last first day back to school in France. I awoke to find out that Osama bin Laden had been killed and thought it was a joke. It was all over the news all throughout the day, and everyone in France talked about it. The only difference between France and the USA is that we didn't have any street parties, celebrating, or masses of people chanting, "USA" and waving American flags.
As for school, I had my first class of ECJS since before Christmas, I think. We had today to research, and my topic is 'the dangers of cults'. I'm in a group with Louise, Matine, and Constant. Constant, however, was not here today because apparently he drove in front of a truck on his motorbike, fell off, and got a few of his toes cut of by the truck.
Tonight I made sloppy joes for the Adamskis. I discovered that it's pretty much identical to the recipe I use for meatloaf except that here I add a tablespoon of vinegar, a little extra ketchup, and mash up the meat instead of forming it into a loaf. It was yummy!

Five Boys And A Third Girl

Today I met pretty much all of the family on Pascaline's side. Her sister, who resembles her greatly, has two sons, one of whom goes to Saint Paul with me. I have never even seen him, though. Her brother and his wife also have two sons (they look like they could be twins) and an adorable eight year old girl. They all came over with the grandparents for afternoon dessert. I had made fudge and pumpkin cheesecake. Everyone else also brought a dessert, so hardly any of it was eaten. I had amazing, unheard-of, inhuman willpower and didn't even try any of it!
I know now that I am more-or-less official part of the family since Pascaline's mother adopted me as one of her grandchildren when she said that she was so glad to have another girl for a grandchild!