Weeks of March 5-14

Friday March 5, Ambre and her mom and I went to visit her sister and her husband, Ingrid and Romain. They live downtown in a condo. I like their condo a lot. It's modern but still has walls and separate rooms. And it has a really big terrace, or patio or whatever, from which you can see a tower from a gothic church! We celebrated Ambre's mom's birthday. Ambre had made some applesauce tiramisu desserts and chocolat-covered marshmellows with coconut or praline(I think) shavings. They were all so good!

The next Wednesday, the 10th, was my birthday! My friends at school made me a "cake" with sweet bread and pink jam that one girl's mom made. It was really good. They sang Happy Birthday to me in French and put a candle in the cake. They also had a t-shirt that lots of people in the class signed, even some people I haven't talked to yet! I got cards from my family in Canada and a package containing, among other things...candy! It hasn't all been eaten yet though. They also sent me an Olympics section from the Edmonton Journal. The french broadcasters cut the feed just before the medal presentation and anthems after the men's gold-medal hockey game!!!!! I got over it though. The evening of my birthday, Ambre and her dad and I had a very good and nice-looking chocolat cake with 16 candles. I had talked to my mom and brother earlier on webcam and that was nice.

The next day, there was a carnival at school for the middle of Lent. It involved dressing up in costumes, like at Halloween. Ambre was a cowgirl and I was a chef. There were a fair number of people who actually dressed up, and a couple staff members. They had a costume contest as well. Some other people dressed up as Little red riding hood, Tinkerbell, a cartoon lady from an ad, a skiier-type, and staff members as a garden and a jailbird. The school spirit seemed fairly strong., at least among my class and those who were dressed up. There were a lot of people taking pictures!

The next day, Friday, we went on a fieldtrip for English class to see the movie Invictus. I'm not sure if all the grade 10 classes went or not (there are 8 in total) but at least a few went, and the movie theatre was quite full. The high school payed for our movie tickets. We could either get to the theatre on our own or go with the school, but buy our own bus and tram tickets. In Canada, you take a schoolbus to a fieldtrip, but in France we took public transportation together (city bus and tram, which is like an LRT but over ground and connected to cables above for electricity to run, I think). We also walked a bit. The movie was at a theatre with about 2 rooms. It seemed to be an alternative/foreign film place mostly. We saw Invictus in English with french subtitles. The subtitles actually helped me quite a bit sometimes because I found it hard to understand their south african accents sometimes. The movie was really good and I even did one of the songs in it with my choir years ago (Tshotsholoza - the song at the beginning and when they're in a huddle in the last games.) We were, and still are, studying South Africa in English class, so it was fitting. After the movie, we went back to school, had lunch, then had gym class, also sort of fitting since Invictus involves sport, and then we were free for the weekend at 3:30! Which is the earliest we get out, except for Wednesdays when everybody seems to get out at 12:30.

That evening, Ambre, her dad and I and her sister and her husband went out for dinner at this Alps region inspired restaurant. They all had raclette ( I had this other bake thing with potatoes and chicken and a sauce that was really good.) For the raclette, which I believe is potatoes and an assortment of meats, you put melted cheese on the potatoes. You are given a huge half-circle of cheese(with a rind) on a special stand, and a special heater thing heats the cut (exposed) part. When the cheese at the surface starts melting you scrape it off to go with your potatoes, and put the heater back by the cheese, and repeat the scraping process every time the cheese starts melting. It was quite interesting, at least for me. And the half-circle was quite a bit smaller at the end. There was one of those cheese things for the four of them. Apparently if I'd ordered raclette they would have given us another cheese device. On the menu, it had said for some foods that at least two people had to order that food, or at least that type of dish. I realised why when I considered the cheese situation.

The next day Ambre and her dad and I went to Ambre's cousin's house. Both places are in Normandy, but Ambre lives in Basse-Normandie, in the Calvados region. Her cousins's lives in Haute-Normandie, in the Eure region, where the biggest city is Evreux. It was about 120 km, and about and hour and half drive more or less. The roads were fairly swervy, not as bad as I've ever seen but not great. But they are like that to accomodate nature I think. It really went into rural France. What you would imagine some French country-side to be like. (Well, you'd probably see pictures from the south if you looked it up on Google, but this was very country.) It wasn't that far a drive from the nearest highway or town, but it still felt like you were pretty deep in the country, at least to me. Ambre's dad said it was a "petite heure", which means a little less than an hour (50 minutes ish) to Evreux from the house.

The houses and yards where Ambre's cousin lives are cookie-cutter or pathwork quilt-like in that the lots all seem to be bordering on each other. However, their "borders" aren't straight lines at all. Ambre's cousin's house is I think pretty old, but they've recently redone or are redoing the inside. There were two little buildings in their backyard. The first one was younger - around 50 years old. It was a type of shed that has as its back wall the fence, and so the roof only slants to one side, like a lean-to. However, there was still a front wall with doors. The older building was over a hundred years old! It was a little barn, with 2 stories so that you could store hay or whatever on the second floor. Ambre's dad said that they could turn it into a car garage or something. It would be so cool to have old buildings in you backyard! So long as they don't fall down suddenly!

We went to her cousin's house to see her newborn baby, who was about 10 days old. She was so small! Her name is Emerence. She was sleeping when we got there, and she looked really comfortable! Ambre's aunt and uncle were also there. We had brownie-ish cake and hot beverages and talked. It was really nice - it's always kind of nice to see people other than at school, especially people of different ages. At my school in Canada, I see lots of different aged students every day, even just in passing, but at my school here there are only high-school aged kids, and some a couple years older in prep classes. So it's nice to talk to people whose lives are focused in other areas than school, but they still relate. I find that in France, when I'm in a group of people, they will keep me in the conversation but not make me the only centre of attention, and I like that. It's a comfortable position to be in.

I went with Ambre's dad and uncle to get bread for dinner. (Yes, they do eat a lot of bread in France. It's a lot, but not exclusively, baguette. We go through a lot of baguette at Ambre's dad's, but her mom prefers other kinds of bread (whole-wheat or special(almond, fruit, etc.) loaves usually). At the cafeteria at school, you are allowed to take 3 pieces of bread per person. They are smaller pieces than a regular loaf in Canada though.) The town nearby was also really European feeling, and I got the "omigosh I'm in the french countryside" mindset, or impression I guess, for a few minutes. (I hadn't been in that mindset so much at the time, so this was different that I had felt usually those days.) We looked into the window of an antique shop and saw a white cat sitting on a chair! Driving back, we saw this church with a tower (by tower I mean a quadrilateral prism standing upright with gothic-ish window design.) There was also a statue, I think of a guy with a horse or something, that was a war memorial. I think it was for WWI but then they put WWII and at least one other war on it.

Then we went back and Ambre's cousin's husband and brother came and everybody had dinner. For dessert there was a selection of pie. I had this pie that I'd had at least once before but I don't know what it's called. If I remember correctly, it was yellow with a brown bottom and it's slightly gelatinous or custard-y.

I think at about 11, we started driving home. On the drive home a wild boar ran across the road in front of the car! That was different, since usually in Canada the animals at the side of the road aren't wild boars! We got home at around half past twelve.

The next day we went to a park about 20-30 minutes out of Caen. It had some animals behind fences, but it was more to reserve part of the forest for them than a zoo enclosure. There were some goats, boars and deer. The forest seemed to have fallen leaves on the ground - in March! Ambre, her dad and I also had a snack at a picnic bench. We had Coke (or Perrier) and madeleines, which are these little cake things.

Rest of week off

Hi, I'm going to tell you what happened after I got back from Paris last week. So from February 25-28th.
I stayed up to watch the women's hockey final on the 25th, but it started at 12:30 am on the 26th here. I watched until the end, so about until 3. Surprisingly, I wasn't overly tired the next day. I had been getting up pretty late all vacation though.

On I think Friday the 26th, Ambre, her dad and I went to a D-Day Beach one afternoon. I believe it was by the Juno Beach Canadian War Museum place, but I think the real Juno beach is elsewhere. The beach was quite long until the water started, but not all that steep. (I remember hearing about other D-Day beaches where the Nazis were on cliffs above.) It wasn't too sold, but not too warm. We saw a tank and a little fortifivation that were used in WWII by Canadians I think. We played this game with a mushy ball and raquets, as well as frisbee. We also walked to the water, and on the way I unexpectly got into pretty muddy sand. My shoes and bottoms of my pantlegs got wet sand on them, and it took 4 times in the dryer to dry my shoes! Also on the beach were little rocks and shells, this sea-weedy stuff or maybe it was just green muck, and I guess water.
Near the beach there are what I'm guessing were condos, as well as some museums, restaurants, docks for recreational boats, and a few stores. We went into one selling live seafood. Then we wer going to go bowling but given the state of some of our shoes shoes we weren't sure they'd accept us. We decided to go the next day. Later, I found that the skin on my hands seemed much more soft and moist. I wasn't sure if it was from being close to the sea that afternoon, or if it was mostly because I rubbed some of the green muck on my hands!

The next day we went bowling (10-pin) and I don't think I got a score over about 30! But these people starting talking to me because I was holding the ball with the wrong fingers and after I changed my fingering it helped.

The next day we had coquilles St-Jacques, which is shellfish in a sauce in half a shell. IT was pretty good but the small amount was enough. I also watched the mean's hockey final, which was on at 9:30 pm this time. It was a great game, but they stopped broadcaster stopped broadcasting the game right before the medal presentations and anthem, which I was really looking forward to seeing. I looked online to see if I could watch it there, but I couldn't find anything. I was happy to see that on Facebook people were celebrating though! I was a bit dissapointed the Olympics were over but I got over it.

Paris again

So it's been a while since I wrote. The last two weeks were school holidays. The first week was with Ambre's mom, and that week we went to Bayeux. The second week was with Ambre's dad and we went overnight to Paris!
We left Tuesday the 23rd and got back the next day. On the first day, we took a 7:08 train from Caen to Paris. It was about two and a half hours. It was almost more exciting than flying because I haven't rode trains as much. It was sort nice to be up in the cool, fairly moist air in the morning, and I felt like I had more space to move around in a train than in a plane. People don't stick to their assigned seats as much though. I seemed fairly common for people to say "Excuse me but I reserved this seat".

We got to Paris and dropped our stuff off at the hotel. Then we got something to eat at a cafe. We had had a bit to eat at 6:00-ish but it was good to get more food. Compared to Canada, France sometimes seems to have set-ups where people handle everything. That can be good since you can talk to a person, but sometimes it's hard to know what to do to get your food in a self-serve-ish food place. Anyway, the food was good and fairly filling. We went to the Palais de la Decouverte. It's the same idea as the Space and Science Centre, although that's the old name, in Edmonton. Although this one is bigger and the building is castle-like. It might actually be a castle. The expositions were comprehensive but appealing to probably all age groups. They also had a planetarium like the one in Edmonton, and it was tempting to almost fall asleep under the fake darky, starry sky. They also had a temporary exhibit on dinosaurs. I was going to see if it was like the Royal Tyrell, but it was more aimed at kids. There were a fair number of robotic mopving dinosaurs and that was cool. There were robotic velociraptors! My brother and I have an inside joke there. I also bought two packs of freeze-dried astronaut food. One pack is an ice-cream sandwich and one is... BANANAS! I plan to give that one to my teacher.

Then it was probably 5 pm and we went to the Champs Elysées. I recently realised what the name actually meant and have like the street more ever since. We went to a few stores. I asked if they knew if Le Coq sportif, a store or so I thought, was on the avenue. I wasn't. My brother had wanted me to take a picture of that store but it would have to wait. We stopped at this bistro place and got drinks. I got a lemonade, but it was seems to be typical french lemonade, which is Sprite-ish pop with a hint of a lemon taste. The last time I was in Europe there was a brand of french lemonade, I think it might have been a bit more lemony, and I'm not going to put the name on a website.

That evening we went to a play. It was in a nice, cozy theatre, and yes it was in french. It was about a lady who hires the buttler guy and he fantasises about her, and she does in a way about him. I didn't like the story that much but the actors and the presentation was good. One actress reminded of Donna's tall friend from Mamma Mia! who my mom thought also played Mrs. Weasley. At the end, the audience kept clapping for a long time, the curtain kept rising and the actors kept bowing in intervals of three. They did at least twelve bows!

Afterwards we went to Pizza Hut to eat. It was about 11 o'clock I think. I had a deep-dish pizza that was quite good. We also had dessert and I had a meringue, like on pie, floating in this vanilla custard I think made from eggs. It was pretty good but it depends on your mood how much you like it. I'd had it once before and I enjoyed it more the second time.
Afterwards we went to the hotel and went to sleep. Ambre and I shared a room. It was two single beds, spaced about 5 cm from each other, but for a Paris hotel room is was quite nice. The TV was a flat-screen and big for a hotel room in Europe. However, there seemed to be channels in Spanish and English and other languages, but not in French. How odd.

The next morning, I got up earlier than I had been during the vacation time. I had been getting up sometimes at 11, so earlier than that isn't necessarily saying much. But I started the day later than I remember I would when my family was traveling in Europe. Ambre and her dad's style was less packed, in schedule and in mind. At about 10 o'oclock, we went with Ambre's dad, who collects stamps fairly avidly I get the impression, to a stamp trading place. He didn't take that long, but then he saw a motorcycle helmet store and went in. I think he motorcycles by the way :). He tried on a few and ended up buying one. If I remember correctly, it had a target design on the front. The store was called Elmo, so I took a picture of the outside because it reminded me of Christina :). Then we went to this sopping place called Les Halles. They used to be greenhouses or something vaguely like that that were underground, only the roofs would be above ground...something like that. Now, it's a three-floor deep underground mall. It was pretty cool but I didn't buy anything. Some stores, like H&M and Zara, are popular in France and we also have them in Canada. H&M was in Les Halles and Zara was on the Champs Elysées, and we went into both, and I think Ambre bought something at both. That afternoon we went to the Pantheon. Ambre's dad said there was a street with a lot of old bookstores in Paris, and I think we might have been on it. I think my dad would have like that. There were some books about law, and also science, in some storefronts. Maybe because it was right by the law school, or the old law school building maybe.
The Pantheon doens't seem like Paris' biggest attraction, but it's actually auite interesting. A king a long time ago was dying and he told St. Genevieve that if she let him live he'd build her a church. He lived but the country was broke. They made this national lottery and got profit off that, and then built the church. Then probably because of the Revolution they made the state and the church seperate, so they decided it was now a Pantheon instead. They buried some people in the basement. People get panthonized if they were considered to have emulated things the french value basically. People like Victor Hugo, Pierre and Marie Currie and Louis Braille were Panthonized. Also, a group of people can get honourarily panthonized, which means they are panthonized but they don't get burried in the basement. Sometimes they made statues for groups of people like that. It became and unbecame a church many times, and they kept taking down and putting up crosses, but they left it up the last time I believe. The Pantheon is in the classic - roman and greek-ish - style instead of the gothic style. The tour guide actually said how to get a person panthonized, but it's sort of long to write and it doesn't have anything that wierd in the procedure.
Afterwards, we might have walked around a bit more I don't remember, but then it was time to go back and get our luggage. We went to this special place where I couldn't tell if it was one big store or a small mall, but it had mostly, in my opinion, north-american style clothing. The british style might have been included too. We only had about five minutes to look around. I saw some gold shoe laces but decided not to buy them.
We then got back to the train station, composted our tickets - sorry if that's a frenchicism, I'm not sure of the english word - and took the train back. I think we got back to the house at around 10. They were having fun giving the taxi driver directions and stuff.
I believe we had a snack after that and then went to bed.

So in short...the trip to Paris was fun and different from what a tourist might do. If I was a tourist it wouldn't have been ideal but as a sort-of local of France temporarily it was a less busy way to visit Pairs. Now that I think about it, it's sort of nice ot know Paris can be less bustling and busy and crazy than it sometimes looked when I was touring with my family and with the OSEF group. The architecture is also sort of cool. It's cool to imagine having an apartment in Paris or even in Caen. It would be sort of different, well a lot different, than I live in Edmonton, but it would be close to stuff and if you wanted that and you didn't want a yard that badly, then an apartment would be great. Ambre's mom actually has an apartment that I'm in as I write this. It's outside of the city by a tiny bit and I think most of the neighbourhood is appartments. It's not so much different than my life at home, since I still have a bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom and the TV. There's also space to breath, as in it's not packed to the gills or anything, so it's good.
I think I might be using a lot of commas. I read part of a book in french that had SO many commas. They are used correctly, but there are just so many. I read it and to change the sentence structure would seem weird, but other books I read have fewer commas and it works! Oh well!