blag changez & C-side weekend

salut, tout le monde!

first off, i just want to let you know that i added more photos to my picasa page from the past few weeks (the same ones you'll find on facebook). it's such a huge mess right now and i apologize but since i have the photos organized on my laptop AND on facebook i really don't feel the need to organize them AGAIN somewhere else. plus, i'm not even really sure who looks at them so...yah. OH and some of the pictures were taken by my friend nicole from our trip to london and paris earlier this year. she was much better at including HUMAN BEINGS in her photos so i threw those in to make it more interesting for y'all. THANKS, NICCI P.!
also, i think i figured out how to change the settings on comment permissions so that ANYONE can comment, whether or not you have a gmail or blogger account. can someone give it a shot and test it out? thanks!
and i changed the song at the top of the page. it's the same artist, though. can you guess who it is? i know robert already knows!!

right quick, except you KNOW i've never told a quick story, i wanted to tell you guys about mine and megan's weekend visit to the seaside on the 12th and 13th. we were invited by one of megan's profs référents, laëtitia, and her partner? husband?, valentin, - they're pacsé, which is joined in civil union - to his family's little cottage in Les Grandes Dalles, which is pretty close to the other seaside town i visited earlier this year, Fécamp. p.s. they're a really nice couple and we've hung out with them before so it wasn't an awkward invitation at all.
valentin took megan and i and laëtitia's sister in his car for the hour drive. there were many winding roads in the countryside and the french are big fans of the roundabout, plus i was hanuhungoverukkah, so i felt nauseous pretty much the whole way there. when we finally arrived, i let out a lil' lady burp and said EXCUSE ME!! MOM! don't worry and saw this:

now, i realize from this photo it doesn't look so bad but in real life this house was like 20' x 20', the windowpane was shattered and the door was rotted. and i'm thinking, "valentin said we were going to get our own rooms? uhhh, NO WAY." but then valentin starts walking up a little hill away from this SHANTY (joking!) and we see this:

so cute, right? well it was just as cute inside. except the heat didn't work. or rather, valentin said the heat DID work and was recently repaired but it must not've worked unless you were sitting on top of it so we had a fire roaring in the giant fireplace all day and into the wee hours of the night to keep warm. it was so cold we had our coats, hats, gloves, scarves, boots, etc. on and it was still frigid. you could even see your breath in the house!

while we were waiting for laëtitia to drive up with her OTHER sister and her 3-month old kitten, valentin, megan, barbara and i decided to walk to the beach and climb up the cliffs. it was also FREEZING and windy there but very beautiful. here are some favorites that i took:

 

 

 

 

after that, we returned home. the girls finally arrived with the adorable chaton, winston! here he is:

he was SO energetic and playful and believe it or not, although i haven't taken my medication in a while, he did not really aggravate my allergies. maybe he's too young to start producing the protein allergen in his saliva, i dunno! but he really made me miss my maugwi...who, dad said, killed a mouse yesterday! blunt trauma to the head, apparently.

after sitting around and talking for a while, valentin made us fondue savoyarde for dinner which was AMAZING. i got kinda shaky, as i tend to get around cheese, because it smelled SO GOOD!

after dinner, we talked some more and eventually retired to our rooms. i had a hard time falling asleep because it was so cold (i was still wearing all my winter gear in bed) and i was convinced i was going to see a ghost in this centuries-old french cottage!! i swear i'm 23. but i FINALLY fell asleep and took some pictures in my room in the morning:

the next morning, megan and i cooked the frenchies some american pancakes with syrup and we headed out relatively early to return to civilization and warmth.  

it was a great weekend!

un miracle de noël

before even looking out the window i knew it had snowed this morning. for one, they've been predicting flurries, not a blizzard, for the past 2 days and two, there was no sun shining through my shutters at 8h30.

the snowfall was nothing substantial (see photos), especially by chicago standards, but it's a lot for rouen apparently and early in the year for this meteorological phenomenon. they maaaybe got an 1/8"!

outside ma windah.

the abbatiale.

when i came home from the gym this morning, about to get into the shower and take the bus out to mont-saint-aignan, i noticed i had a missed call and a voicemail. i listened to the voicemail and it was one of my profs référentes, annie, who told me i shouldn't come to school today because it was "too dangerous in this kind of weather"! WHAT?! so, i called her back thinking she couldn't be serious. but she was! she said it had taken her 2 hours to get to school and hardly any pupils had come. in weather "like this", the buses run infrequently or not at all. i guess they have no public works division that salts and plows the streets plus there are many hills in rouen and its surrounding agglomerations.

DONC, all of my tutoring lessons for today have been canceled, i've been told NOT to come to school today or tomorrow so my christmas break starts RIGHTNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if it only took an 1/8" in chicago for a snowday...sigh...i'm a little sad i didn't get to say goodbye to the students at jean de la varende but, oh well!

christmas cookie baking begins in T-minus 1 hour!

another quick story:

tuesday at english club i had all the kids make christmas wish lists just for fun. i translated what they wanted in english and then they wrote the french equivalents next to them for their parents to read. so, yesterday at the beginning of class, one of the little 5è girls (7th grade) from english club came up to me and handed me her wish list. she had gone home and continued to work on it (without me asking her to) and attempted to translate the rest of her list herself. i was absolutely THRILLED that she did this and she did an excellent job, too! A+ for effort.

so, i'm reading her list outloud and right after her requests for clément garcia to be her boyfriend and some CDs she wrote "and I want (que vous veniez à notre spectacle demain)." she didn't know how to translate it into english but it reads "and I want you to come our pagent tomorrow." as soon as i read that, all the girls in the class were like "YEAH! YEAH! YES, MISS!" so, tonight my roommates and i are going to the 5è classe christmas choral pagent. doesn't that just melt your heart kind of? aww...

❄  ♥ ♥ ♥  ❄

a lil' history leçon!!

half-timbered homes from the middle ages! gothic churches! joan of arc! cobblestone streets! gustave flaubert! as i pressed the rouennais for more history about their wonderful city one of them recounted this little jewel from it's more recent past.

DISCLAIMER: NOT for the faint-of-heart or easily nauseated! and do not, DO NOT, do a google search on Issey Sagawa. seriously, don't.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/prison-cannibal-attack-chills-france/2007/01/07/1168104863500.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

p.s. the doctor that i tutor told me a friend of his performed the autopsy on the inmate who was attacked and said that he was most likely alive during the feast up until a certain point.

AND AND AND - there was a THIRD DETAINEE IN THE CELL during all this?!?!?!?!?! what the FUNK was going through his mind? ? ?

update

xmas shopping DONE, officially broke, nursing MY FIRST! ✡ hanukkah hangover ✡, leaving for the seaside in 2 hours...

:]

I SPY ASSISTANTS!

how to play:

hit ctrl + click on the photo to enlarge it.

now:

1. can you spy Lauryn?

2. can you spy my 2 roommates?

3. how many redheads can you spy (hint: there are a LOT)?

4. can you spy someone who looks just like Pete Moss if he were a rocker in a shitty band in the first 2 rows?

5. can you spy those over 30?

6. can you spy Kinzie?

7. can you spy the native French speakers in the first row (hint: there are 2)?

❅and i'd like to give a shoutout to my newest reader, Mary Kay. hey, girl!

preeeshus! isn't it, yes?

i can't wait to see this!

oprah! lenny kravitz! mo'nique! mariah carey without makeup on! i don't care about tyler perry, though. ROBERT - don't see this without me!!!!!!!!!!

2 B Franch (& sanksgiveeeen)

welp! it was a thanksgiving miracle!! the assistants got paid on the 26th instead of the 30th. not sure why they decided to deposit the paychecks on a thursday but we didn't spend too long trying to figure that one out. th€ am€rican assistants in franc€ w€r€ grat€ful for many things that day...

in case you're wondering how my thanksgiving was - it was great! my roommates and i were all invited to a friend's apartment about 5 minutes away to celebrate. megan made green beans with slivered almonds, lisa made a pear crumble with ice cream à la mode and i made the cranberry sauce. except i forgot the raisins!! oops, nobody knew. a spanish and a chinese assistant joined us as sacrificial thanksgiving virgins (they're also kinzie's roommates) as well as another american assistant, darcy, and kinzie's mom, grandma and brother who were in town visiting. we had SO MUCH FOOD. it was amazing, especially considering most of the cooking was done at kinzie's and all she had was 2 hot plates, a toaster oven and a microwave to cook with. there was corn bread, vegetarian stuffing, banana bread, creamed corn, lentils with goat cheese, sautéed mushrooms and zucchini, toast points with carmelized onions and brie, steamed carrots with butter, a little chicken and i think more that i've since forgotten due to the food coma i was in. plus, there was tons of beaujolais as this is its peak saison and we had some benedictine as an apéritif. yum and fun! we seriously laughed and joked the whole time (in french and in english since not everyone knew both). kinzie's family was wonderful and made us feel like we were in their own home for a traditional thanksgiving meal. we even went around and said what we were thankful for...awww.

thanksgiving is not one of my favorite holidays for many reasons, especially since i don't eat turkey or like football, but this year made me realize how much i take the day for granted. i really enjoyed my french thanksgiving but i would've given anything to be with my family. here's a picture my dad sent me (this year was at todd and kelley's condo). lovin' that shirt, sam! and how come there ain't more wine in them glasses?! fill 'er up, kath!!

ok, now let's get down to what this post title is referring to: french mannerisms. these are things the sociologist in me has observed. i'm not trying to be mean and i'm not trying to stereotype. all i know is that the french people i've encountered tend to do / be these things more often than other people i've met. americans in france - back me up here!! here goes.

• tardiness. as lisa likes to say, "the french have a fluid sense of time." it is perfectly acceptable to be late by up to 10 minutes to virtually ANY appointment (maybe not job interviews and surgeries). and the french often are. hey, that works great for me!! except when i get impatient and leave after 5 minutes thinking they're not coming. hop-là!
• talking to themselves. THEY LOVE to do this. it made me so uncomfortable at first to be in the computer lab with one other person and all of a sudden they start talking in full voice and i'm thinking 1) were they talking to me? 2) what did they just say? 3) how do i respond? and 4) do i care? so to be polite, i kind of just slowly turn and give 'em a closed-mouth smile and then when they keep talking i say something like "oooh." or "c'est vrai?" and feel even more uncomfortable. then they start to slap me across the face and i don't know why! haha no, but really this scenario took place a couple of times before i realized you don't look for an answer to a rhetorical question. so i just let 'em be. lil' cuties.
• lines. they don't exist in france. seriously, they don't. ok except maybe in a store or a post office where they have little ropes that FORCE you to form a line but other than that, not really. try walking down a school hallway during passing periods! YAH RIGHT! in france, everyone fends for themself and just kind of places their body close to the front of whatever they're trying to get to. it's also something they make fun of the british for: always "queuing".
• walk of shame. although a fashionable bunch, the french do not find it taboo to wear the same outfit 2 days in a row. depending on what you did on day 1, you might not want to wear your outfit on day 2, but you could, if you were in france. this makes walks of shame a lot less...shameful. not that i know personally!! this habit might also cause one to smell, let's just say, not quite as fresh as they did on day 1. GRAB YOUR BAGUETTES AND DEAL WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!
  
• along the same lines, the french are a lot more laidback than their american step-cousins. there is no sense of urgency among the french. things get done when they get done, and it doesn't matter who it's inconveniencing or who's paying for it. nothing is so important. this is not surprising in a country that places just as much importance on leisure time as it does work time. they have 5 weeks of vacation every summer, not to mention state holidays and school vacations (if you're a teacher or a student). WOW! i could get used to living in a place like this. BOI-OI-OI-OING!!!!!!!!!

anyone else have any french mannerisms they'd like to add? BE NICE!! after all, i'm like 1/128th french and i might take offense. but once i get my DNA tests for christmas (please, mom and dad?) then i'll know for certain! :]

k, i'm sick of typing. read this, i wrote it yesterday:

for better or for worse, european style is starting to have an effect on me. i've taken a fashion cue from amy winehouse a certain colorful british celebrity and bought me some pink ballet slippers to wear as...shoes. i know, i know - slippers AS SHOES?!?! you must be wondering if i've gone totally bonkers. well, that's for you to decide!

à votre santé! *Lauryn

ahhh p.s. i taught my 3è and 4è euro the cha cha slide today. they LOVED it!!