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!

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!