Day Double Deuce

My-oh-my I've almost been ici (here) un mois (a month) ! Today was pretty mellow as well. Pendent la semaine (during the week) je suis (I am) by myself parce que (because) mes parents sont (my parents are) at work. Since I had been up all weekend pretty late I couldn't fall asleep very well last night and didn't get to bed until late. I woke up to Simon's blaring alarm across the hall at 11:30. J'ai lu mon livre "Obits," j'ai regardé un film "American Beauty," et je m'ai bronzé (I read my book Obits, I watched American Beauty, and I tanned).

I love being on Holiday - so to speak.

Day vingt-et-un (that's 21)

Jour vingt-et-un fell on dimanche. Je besoin d'utiliser plus de Française, so I'm going to be incorporating plus into my blog. I totally forgot to talk about going to the beach yesterday! That is silly of me since that was the first thing we did that day. Antoine came and picked Simon et moi up at the house and we drove to Sarzeau where his parents have a summer house. The beach was awesome. The weather here has steadily been in the upper 25 degree range (sorry, I'm getting used to the Metric System.. upper 70's Farenheit) so the beach was great. So far the beaches I've seen (here, and Carnac) have been nice and sandy and there is some neat looking sparkly rocks that look like fools gold mixed in with the sand. We picked a nice spot, I was introduced to all of Simon's friends and we layed out. Stupide moi. I forgot a towel. That was cool, until we went swimming. The only time I've been in the Atlantic was in Key West, Florida. I'd have to say this was pretty similar except when I waded out to about chest level it turned freezing cold. It was still a thrill to swim in the ocean since I come from the Pacific Ocean side where the water stays about 42 degrees year round so swimming risks chances of hypothermia. Another difference is that there were jelly fish everywhere. Ick. That kind of made me paranoid, parce que knowing my luck I'd be the first one stung. I didn't really want to be peed on either. (a cure for jelly fish stings) I also didn't bring bikini bottoms because I didn't know we were going to swim, so I swam in my jean shorts, and as everybody knows they take forever and a day to dry. On top of no towel. I definitely felt like the stupide américaine. Simon donnes moi his towel et I felt stupid the rest of the day. I also felt pretty stupid in my bikini since of course I didn't work out all year and every girl in France (at least on this beach), my age was super skinny. Oh, and I forgot to shave my legs on top of that. That wasn't too bad since I noticed all the girls were la même.

I'm definitely glad I was placed with a family that lives by the ocean. Since growing up around water my whole life je pense it would be really strange and more of a culture shock to live somewhere landlocked.

Didn't do a whole lot the rest of the day since I was tired.

Day 20

Oh my, I've been here 20 days already! It doesn't seem like that at all! I've survived my third day of drinking in a row, hangover free! Gotta love being on Holiday. I have found out that even the French have lightweights and I out drank some of them.

I woke up at 2 pm. Talk about sleeping in.



Sorry, I've been having so much fun that I've been behind in posting!

day 19 - conversions

I somehow mentioned baking brownies in my past and was then obliged to bake some for the family and Simon's birthday dinner. I was super nervous since they don't have ready made mix here and I had to make them from scratch! I don't make anything, let alone from scratch and I had to present them to 10 dinner guests. Luckily none of them had ever had a brownie before and albeit being a tad undercooked I got rave reviews, or they were just being nice. I dunno. Other than that, the dinner was really fun. We had a B-B-Q and all of the Family's friends are really nice and try and engage me in conversation.

It was decided that I need a French Birthday and July 19th has been dubbed this day. That's tight. Two birthdays in one year!

There was a music festival going on in town, but instead of going there with the parents I decided to stay with the kids my age and go to the bar instead, then the local nightclub. The nightclub was probably the highlight of my evening, and not just because I was drunk and less self conscious about my terrible french, but because it was exactly like being back home. All of the music was basically American songs and there was dancing and booze and fun. I miss home.. a little.

I also met my first American-Hater. It took longer than I thought it would, I won't lie. Everybody so far has been super excited to talk to me, like American is some rare thing. Instead this girl just gave me the stink eye all night then left us at the club so we had to walk home. Oh well, she was fat. Way to not stoop to her level, huh?

I hate the God-damned humidity here. The walk home wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't so flipping humid. I don't like feeling sweaty for no reason. Ew. This makes me miss the Pacific Northwest and the non-humid weather. Although whenever I talk to my family it seems to be nasty there.

Day 18 - My alarm is useless

I slept right through it. Not that this is a big deal. Nobody is home during the day since Dominique and Nathalie both leave for work super early in the morning.

I still hate the shower. Still haven't managed to master not spilling tons of water everywhere. And I think the voltage in France is going to make my hairdryer explode. This might cause some problems when I actually really want to do my hair.

There is going to be a party tonight! Woo.

Jour 17 - Somebody with Rap CD's!

Not a whole lot happened today. I try to read the morning paper everyday, not because I can see the stories Dominique contributes, but to actually try and comprehend the language. Today I was in the paper! Woo hoo! We went on a trip to the brick makers and I was in the picture he took. Neat, huh.

After I got home Simon could tell I was bored so we went for a walk in Vannes and had a drink. I had a beer, and actually liked it! (I hate beer, for anybody who doesn't know me)

On the way home, while looking at his cd's, I found some labeled rap! I was so excited. We drove home in gangsta style.

I taught some more this evening. It went well.

Day 16 - Bon Anniversair Simon!

Random picture of the day. I was in the car waiting for Dominique to check on something so I took a picture of the church roof. Neat, huh?


Today is Simon's (my host frère (brother)) Birfday!! He's 21, which means nothing here. I told him if he ever decided to visit Seattle that I'd buy him a beer, and I'd even make it classy, not a PBR or Coors light. He's doing exams this week, though, so he has to study. Boo. I can relate. My birthday always ran the same time as winter quarter finals.

I accompanied Dominique on one of his articles to College Notre Dame, and of course it didn't click that College doesn't equal University, and I didn't realize it until I already opened my big mouth and asked where the college students were. Why all the little kids? Duh. Stupid girl. Dominique introduced me to everybody as the American, as usual, and I got "oh, cool" and a big thumbs up. When we left one guy said "bye bye." Ugh.
[Some poor kid had the job of cleaning the erasers, and people looked at me funny because I was taking a picture of the wall with the F-bomb chalked on it. This is like middle school. no big deal]
Go figure.

I received my first mail today! Woo! A package and a post card. I participate in Postcrossing and it was really hard to describe this process to the family. They didn't quite understand why I'd want random postcards from people I didn't know and kept insisting that Robin (the person who'd sent the post card) was some foreign lover or something. Then they made Robin Hood jokes, so I went upstairs befuddled. My other piece of mail was a visa gift card from the company in charge of this operation. Ironically, the gift card can only be used in the United States. Sweet, I can use it in two and a half months when I get home. The bank got a kick out of that when I tried to get money off of it. Now I have to try and not lose it. Wish me luck!That's the bank. In blue.

At dinner this evening I agreed to cook a meal. Oops. They have this American "better homes" cookbook, you know the one up in the back of the cupboard nobody cooks out of? Nathalie had to dust it off before she showed me. Simon was looking through it and since it's in English they assumed I can cook. Weird correlation, huh? I said I'd try and looked up how to translate "to set fire to" in French.

I bought some post it notes today to begin labeling the house. Nathalie loved it. The kitchen is covered in pink post its. Her favorite was broom which she pronounces "brum" every time. She then decided that she would also label everything in french, for me. I wanted to tell her it's useless in the kitchen since that is the least used room of the house for me, but oh well.

My french might progressively be getting worse. I can't get the accent or pronunciation right yet.. still. It's frustrating. On top of conjugating my verbs wrong and placing my adjectives in the wrong order I pronounce it wrong so nobody understands me anyways. Bah.
Dominique asked if I wanted to see a castle and ponies on our drive home from the bank. Uh, hello? YEAH! What two things could possibly be better?? Ponies and castles?? I'm in! Look, I was so stoked the picture is blurry with excitement. I could even do without the castle (which I didn't bother to photograph) ponies are so cool! Awww..


Not as cool as ponies - the next stop was the local quarry. By next year apparently this is going to be filled with a water reserve. Yeah, definitely not as cool as ponies. I took a picture anyways. Now, if it were filled with ponies..

Day 15 - La famille

So, funny story. I thought that after my shower (which I still have not mastered, because well, just look!)That's the shower! A bathtub with a hose! Wtf? I still haven't figured out how to successfully master it without a.) spilling gallons..no.. pardon litres of water onto the floor, b.) freeze to death or c.) not get all the shampoo out of my hair. I'll probably have it down around September. I need walls in my shower, call me old fashioned. A shower head wouldn't be bad either. Goodness, I've run off topic! Back to the picture at the top! I'm such an idiot. I'm not sure if I missed the memo and French power outlets are way more powerful than American ones or not, but it did something akin to supercharging my curling iron. That, mixed with leftover hairspray on the barrel was a deadly combination. I'm curling my hair, cute, la la la.. then I smell something icky.. and my hair was smoking! I yanked the curling iron out, which was pretty easy since it singed, no straight up burned, half of that chunk of hair off! It's a good thing my hair is layered so it blended in! The rest of the day I kept smelling burnt hair. Ew. How embarrassing, huh? C'est la vie.

Good thing everybody was downstairs. I opened my window all the way.

I wasn't in the best mood after that, especially since my allergies decided it was a good day to be a bother. I love randomly breaking out in hives as much as the next person (for those who don't know me the dr. diagnosed me as allergic to myself. Go figure.).. I really don't like taking my allergy meds since they make me extremely drowsy, give me a headache and a stomach ache all at once. They really make me the life of the party, so I avoid them. Sometimes, though, they are better than hives, so I lounged most of day. Screw looking cute. Nobody in France does their hair anyways.

When Nathalie came home we traveled to La Baule where her older sister lives. All of her brothers and sisters got together to go through old pictures of one of the cousins for his birthday. The French make a party out of EVERYTHING. It's pretty tight since booze is always involved. Naturally nobody spoke English and forgot after 5 minutes to speak slowly so I could understand, so I just sat quietly at the table, drinking some delicious mango booze (strong!) and doodling on a scrap piece of paper. Nathalie's younger sister and her husband invited me to their house to spend a few days ( I think..) and I didn't understand the rest of what they rambled on about. I did catch that her husband is a pastry chef or something, he owns a crêperie. I also caught that they are moving to north of Paris soon because they like to change pace every once and a while and switch life up. I think that they asked about what it would be like to own a restaurant in Seattle, and I just laughed because they expected me to answer in French. As usual, they busted out the encyclopedia/atlas to see where on Earth Seattle was located, and once more all I had to say were the magic words: Grey's Anatomy. "Ahh, yes, Seattle!" God bless the American Sitcom. Dinner was delicious, quiche then some tasty desserts.

At like 11:30, oh wait I mean 23:30 (stupid 24 hour clock) we finally left, and I had be designated artist for the cover of the book of pictures they were making for the birthday cousin. They saw my doodles. I heard somebody say something about having American writing on the cover, but I'm pretty sure since it's in French that it no longer constitutes being American.. Silly French.

Busy Day.

Oh yeah...

Remember how when I first got here their cat, Noisette, couldn't give a damn about me? Well, i've moved up in rank. She now ignores the family. I'm the new BFF in town. Hollah!

day 14 - not dead or kidnapped yet!

Contrary to popular bet I have made it two weeks without being sold into slavery or some other tragic fate.

Bonne fête papa! The whole family had diner together to celebrate Daddy's Day; I called home to wish mon père bonne fête papa, however it was mid-morning and he was out to brunch with mon grand père. Figures. I caught up with all of the gossip from home though avec ma mère. I've got to give a shout out to skype and the cheap minutes although I'm pretty sure my $9.99 microphone picks up more background noise than of me. Still better than phone cards.

This afternoon we went to a big dance "spectacle" where Mathilde performed. All the dances were pretty good and the dancers ranged from very tiny kids to adults. I have some awesome shots with my little camera since I turned the flash off in an effort to not be rude, and we had sweet seats with the bars right in the way. I noticed how the audience acts differently here than back home. I was actually really shocked since the French have been nothing but polite and hospitable. They make a lot of noise while the performance is going on. They let their small children yell and run around wild, which was annoying since we had the first seats on the balcony and all these kids would stand right in the way. The parents just let it happen. It was pretty obnoxious with babies crying and small children in the way. But the dancers were great.There is one of the little brats I was talking about. right in the way.

After the recital we walked home and watched some television. French TV usually just goes in one ear and out the other since I can't understand much of it yet, but this afternoon we watched a program identical to America's Funniest Home Videos. It's comforting to know that people do stupid shit in any country, and I was even glad it was in French so I didn't have listen to the Bob Saget-like crap jokes. It was interesting because the stupid stuff the French did wasn't quite as stupid as good 'ol Americans. I mean, don't get me wrong, there were loads of stupid things - falling, tripping, crashing, accidental violence, etc. but it was just a notch below us back home. It was still a good chuckle.

Then we ate pizza. I had to consult the dictionary for the menu. The French eat some wacky pizza with things like tuna or eggs on it. Bleck. I ordered red sauce, cheese, whole olives (conveniently with pits, too) and ham. Sounded safe. It was pretty good.

The family exchanged gifts (for papa and belated Mathilde's birthday). When they get excited they tend to talk really really fast so I kind of stared out the window. Mathilde is taking a trip to Australia next year so they had me do my best Australian accent. that was a bust. G'day mate. yeah! Then I read some French words in a book Dominique got about going green at home (they are a very eco-friendly family already) and I'm pretty sure I don't ever want to do that again. I was horrible and they laughed at me (great moral support, huh?) haha. I cannot for some reason nail that French Accent. I'll have to work on that.


One last note, I added some pictures finally to the other posts since I decided to be not lazy tonight and actually put them on the computer. Take a looksie.