Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving came and passed in what seems like a blink of the eye, and I somehow managed to survive all the chaos and homesickness. To be completely honest, I was mostly frustrated throughout the day because there were so many small differences between an American Thanksgiving and a French version of an American Thanksgiving, that I could see but my family couldn't. Between cooking a dinner for the first time, trying to find all the right ingredients, translating recipes, converting measurements, and arguing viewpoints, I was a wreck.

The first challenge was the turkey. Or lack there of. No matter how hard I searched to find a turkey, I could not find one. It was the most annoying thing ever; but no one else seemed to notice my frustration: How was I supposed to make Thanksgiving without a turkey?! I'm pretty sure that's the main ingredient to a successful Thanksgiving. The butcher told me all the turkeys were being saved for Christmas, and he gave me a duck instead. A duck!

The turkey was just the first minor problem. I couldn't find chicken broth for the gravy, shortening for the dessert, cranberry sauce for plain old cranberry sauce, and a whole lot of other things. Everyone was expecting an authentic American meal, but I had to use substitutes for almost every dish. I was irritable by the end of shopping, and I hadn't even started preparing the meal! Oh - and before I ramble on any farther, I should just let you know that I wasn't home for half the day. One would think that I was at school, and I was supposed to be, but I skipped Thursday and Friday, half in part to make the meal, but the other half because I had all these medical appointments in Valence to get a visa extension. That's a whole new story for a whole different day, but after two days of x-rays, examinations, spending 55 euros on a teensy little stamp I didn't want to buy, and talking to all these officials at the French immigration office, I finally got my extension. Now I won't have to be in France illegally at the end of the year. Yay! Back to Thanksgiving -

The most difficult part of preparing the meal was surprisingly trying to find a happy medium between two, very different cultural viewpoints. You see, the French are very minimalistic. They make just enough food for one meal at a time, and they never really overeat. Everything is about savoring less, not indulging on more. I have been able to live with this difference up to this point, with thanks to my secret chocolate stash, but of course I had the mentality of every other American on Thanksgiving. For one day every year, every American pigs out and is grateful for a huge amount of food and all the leftovers afterwards. My host family did not understand this, and every time I added some more ingredients to the "just enough" small-portioned dish, they politely told me that there was already enough. Several times during the day, I was told that it is better to make less and serve smaller portions than make a lot and have too much. I know all of my fellow Americans are shocked to hear this, and I can reassure you that so was I. By the end of the day, I was frustrated because I had to change my idea of what Thanksgiving should be for the French version of an American Thanksgiving. Talk about being homesick.

Although the meal wasn't the same as my family's Thanksgiving, I was still pretty proud of myself for making my first, real meal. Not everything was perfect; I added too much flour to the gravy and too much pepper to the sweet potatoes, but besides that, dinner was good. My host family enjoyed it, and even though they all ate way less than a typical American on Thanksgiving, I was grateful that they all tried to make me feel at home.

It wasn't easy to be away from real family this year; every time I thought about home, I was a little sad, wishing that I could be eating a real, American Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and not duck. I kept thinking about my family eating dinner at the same time as me with the time difference (around 2 your time and 8 my time), and even though it made me miss home more, it made me feel like I still had a bond with all my family back at home. I'm so grateful for this year in France, but I'm even more grateful to the family and friends who will be waiting for me when I come back home at the end of the year. Happy Thanksgiving!

A Parcel & Fondu

                                            Thanks Mom and Dad!!!

Sorry for getting a tad behind on my blog. I had a very exciting weekend that revolved around food, and I was going to write all about it yesterday, but believe it or not, I was actually busy! Between finally filling out my first batch of postcards, trying to plan my first Thanksgiving Dinner (sure to be a disaster), attempting college application essays with my failing English, and sending in forms for visa appointments and bus trips, I barely had any time to watch Desperate Housewives before I fell asleep. I have a feeling today is going to be just as busy with a Rotary dinner, a promise I'd help Charlotte with her English homework, and about a million errands to run. I don't even want to think about how hectic tomorrow is going to be, considering I actually have to start making Thanksgiving Dinner. Anyway, all these are reasons why writing my entry today during history class.

Friday was, by far, my most exciting day in France. Everything was going on as normal until 3:30 when I came home from school and found out I had a parcel waiting for me! Yay for parcels!!! Anne drove me to the post office where I picked up the heavy, densely-packed box from my wonderful parents all the way in Norwich, NY. Words couldn't describe how happy I was. (If you saw the tear forming in the corner of my eye you would understand.) I looked like a 5-year old on Christmas clinging to my parcel, and I was unbelievably anxious to get home and open it. You can imagine my distress when Anne suddenly decided she had to run all these errands before going home. After an hour of four different stops, me waiting in the car (imagine stationary road rage), and getting stuck behind a student driver who couldn't start his car up again at the stop sign, I finally got home and ripped open my package. The picture above explains my euphoria better than any words I could have use instead. Sadly, the Nutter Butters were all gone within the first few hours, but I've still got most of the food waiting for me at home. That's one thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: If the turkey fails, at least I've got Reese's.

Although the rest of the weekend was slightly less exciting than Friday afternoon, it was still lots of fun and therefore worth writing about. Friday night involved a dinner party at a family friend's house where we had pepper / mozzarella / olive shooters, curried chicken, and lemon meringue pie. The food was really good, but I was glad when the night ended because French dinner parties last forever. As soon as the wine is served, you know you've got about another six hours to go.

On Saturday morning, I went to an art exhibition by a Brazilian artist, Dalva Duarte, with the same Rotary family who took me to Lyon the month before. The exhibition was in an old factory that had been renovated and was now also the artist and her husband's home. Her husband was from New York, and we had a nice long chat about all sorts of things. After the exhibition, we got a tour of their home / mansion. Did I mention they were multi-kajillionaires? They had 2 Steinway's (even though neither of them played) and their own movie theater. I felt like I was on an episode of MTV's Cribs! Luckily, I got the husband's card and was told to come back and play the piano(s) whenever I wanted.

Saturday evening was probably the second most exciting part of the weekend: fondu night! There were over 15 people that showed up to eat the fondu and I understand why. How could a dinner consisting of bread cubes, melted cheese, and wine go wrong? I went to bed with a pound of cheese in my stomach (you think I kid), but the fondu was totally worth it and I have no regrets. However, I am starting to get really annoyed with America's stupid pasteurized cheese rules.

Sunday was a slow day and I was finally able to catch up on some sleep. I spent the afternoon making popcorn, watching Star Trek, and talking to my family on Skype, so it was an overall successful day. I'm sad that I won't be home for Thanksgiving this year, even though I had the date wrong and thought it was the 27th. I knew something was fishy when I started explaining "Black Friday" as the day after Thanksgiving to my host parents, but believe it or not, I didn't fully catch on until I spoke to my parents on Skype. I used to think I was really smart, but lately, I'm starting to think that I'm losing my mind. Today it dawned on me that I forgot how to do antiderivatives, so I got really depressed. To make myself feel better, I took the derivative of 10x¹⁰ + 9x⁹ + 8x⁸ + 7x⁷ + 6x⁶ + 5x⁵ + 4x ⁴  + 3x³ + 2x² + 1x¹ ten different times without using a calculator. If you don't believe me, look at the picture.

Since the bell is just about to ring, I'm gonna get going. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back at home. Enjoy the turkey; I'll be thinking of you all!

Popcorn and Pesky Host Brothers

                                                    Pretty Ardèche                                    

I spent almost all of the afternoon in the water closet. Don't worry - I wasn't sick, it was just the only place in the house where I could escape my pesky little host brother. I won't name names. He spent most of the day putting his dirty socks on my face while I was trying to take a nap. In the end, I took all his dirty socks and washed them in the sink with dish detergent. That had him stumped for a while on what to do next.

Today made me feel like the worst host daughter ever. It was my host mom's birthday, and I had no idea until we went to the supermarket. I started catching on when I saw all this junk food and pastries, which is very unlike my family. She ended up telling me, and I started apology after apology for not knowing, but she just laughed it off and said it was no problem at all. I'm still a terrible host daughter. On the other hand, I was very pleasantly surprised at the outcome of the supermarket trip. It was almost like Anne was shopping for my birthday instead of hers. M&Ms, marshmallows, and popcorn were all part of the loot, and I was euphoric this afternoon when I got to make my first batch of French buttery popcorn on the stove.

School has gotten considerably better these past few weeks. I decided last Friday to reapply to four colleges - Brown, George Washington, Pomona, and Pitzer. Ever since this happened, I've been complaining to everyone in sight about my new workload, but I secretly enjoy having something to do. Most of my classes are spent writing essays, and I find it much easier to focus on college apps when I'm not taking 3 APs. Everything has been going well so far, although I was extremely disappointed when I found out yesterday that the common app personal essay has been cut down from at least 500 words to a new, recommended length of 250-500 words. That's like, 2 paragraphs. (This blog entry just so happens to be 850 words FYI.) Half of my essay was written when I found this out and I'm already over the limit. It will take me longer to cut things out than it did to originally write it.

College apps aren't the only reason school has gotten better recently. I have more friends, and am able to have legit conversations in French so they are more apt to talk to me in the first place. In addition - Thursdays are now one of my favorite days of the week. The principal gave me the key to the music room, which no one has used in the past two years. Whenever I have a free bell (Thursdays I've got 4 of them), I'll go play the piano, take a nap, or eat some snacks. The music room is in a completely empty part of one of the less-used buildings, so it has become my secret sanctuary during the day.

This week, I realized that I'm starting to feel confident about my French. I've found myself at several different occasions thinking in French, and when I went to the movies last weekend to see Intouchables, I understood the story line and a lot of the dialogue. While this is all good and merry, I have continued to fail at convincing people I'm actually French. I was stopped by a car on my way home from school, and asked by the driver if her car would be able to pass through a construction sight ahead. (For those of you who know me really well, you know that construction sights are my forte.) Anyway, in French, I explained that the route was blocked, but at the end of my explanation, the lady said "thank you very much" in a thick French accent. After that, I was kind of bummed because apparently, my French hadn't been very believable.

The only other thing I can think of to tell you all is that this morning, my gym teacher announced to the class that we would be doing lifeguarding skills next week. There will be some butt-kicking involved on my part. I'm pretty excited. Oh - and one other thing - my host mom announced that we would be having fondu for dinner on Saturday. You have got to be kidding me. There has been so much hype about this fondu, and I'm supposed to go to some Rotary concert the same day. Don't get me wrong, I love concerts, but if you recall, I missed my family's fondu the first time for a Rotary concert. This can not be happening. I will probably live my whole life without eating cheese fondu, and I will never forgive myself, which is why I've made up my mind to call up Rotary and tell them that I forgot about a really important dinner with my family on Saturday. My new mantra is to live without regrets, and I refuse to regret missing family fun fondu night.

11.11.11.11.11.11

I am officially writing this on 11/11/11 at 11:11 and 11 seconds. That's a lot of 11s. I really don't have much to say. I just wanted an excuse to write all those 11s, and now that I have written "11" 15 times, I think I'm finished. Happy Veteran's Day to everyone out there; enjoy the day off!

Les Bisous

                                              Lycée Vincent D'Indy

I was taking a nice, long nap all curled up in my bed not long ago. I planned on sleeping for at least 2 hours since I had nothing else to do and was extremely tired. However, about an hour into my nap, I heard all these voices outside my door, and then someone started knocking and woke me up. Turns out, Charlotte had to use her (my current) bedroom for a math session with her tutor. Don't ask me why my occupied bedroom was the only place in the whole house where they absolutely had to work. I grudgingly, ungracefully fell out of bed and dragged myself from my shortened nap. It was not one of my best moments. However, now that I'm up, I thought I'd do something useful with my time and write an entry. And since I'm still not completely awake, forgive all of the incoherent sentences and errors that I'm sure will pop up sooner or later.

This week passed semi-normally. I drew in class, watched more shows on streaming, wandered around aimlessly, and ate a monstrous amount of food. Speaking of food, I finally got around to weighing myself for the first time since I've been in France. There was definitely a significant amount of weight gain that will remained unnamed. I tell you guys pretty much everything, but I've gotta keep some things to myself, right? Anyway, since for the past 5 years, I've stayed exactly the same weight, one would think this new number would upset me, but in actuality, right after I found out, I carried on as normal and ate another chocolate bar. I've just gotten too lazy to care. I'm sure it'll magically disappear in a matter of time; that's usually the way these things work...

There is another cultural difference that has significantly had an awkward impact on my life - Les Bisous. Here in Privas, people kiss each other on the cheek 3 times. In most other parts of France, you usually only kiss twice, but Southern France is a completely different story. You kiss people you just meet, you kiss your friends, adults, your family, your cat; you pretty much kiss everyone. It's kind of awkward traveling to other parts of France where they only kiss twice, because I always forget that it's different. You have no idea how many times I've gone in for another kiss and gotten rejected.

Another different type of kiss is the literal kiss on the cheek with friends and family. Usually you just kiss the air and touch cheeks. However, with people you know really well, you actually kiss them. I'm so not good at this. Usually someone approaches me and kisses my cheek, and I'll kiss them afterwards. However, I never know which side to kiss and I always end up knocking noses or something else completely mortifying. Two different times, I even came unbelievably close to accidentally kissing a friend and my host dad on the mouth. Les Bisous are going to be the end to me. I might as well crawl into a hole and die. My life would certainly be easier and much less embarrassing. Sometimes, I really miss America and its smile and wave greeting policy.

One other strange thing about France is that most of all the bathrooms are coed. I freaked out the first time I came out of a stall and saw some guys hanging around in the bathroom. When you come from a place like America, things like this never happen unless you made a mistake and walked into the wrong room. There was one day a few weeks back when I almost died because I thought I saw M. Saint Clair in the same bathroom as me, but thank God, it turned out to be someone else. On the bright side, at least they have stalls here.

Besides the bisous, my life here is practically normal. I got my first invite to hang out with friends (who are not exchange students) next weekend, so I see that as an accomplishment. It's also easier to talk to people now, and I've had some good conversations, so I see that as another accomplishment. So far, I've had a lot of accomplishments this week, and that is an accomplishment in itself! And - I have decided that when I finally learn the proper way to kiss, that will be my biggest, most prideful accomplishment to date. Until then, I'm just the awkward American who stumbles through "la vie et les bisous."

Caramel Macchiatos and a Walk in the Park

                                        Le Parc de la Tête d'Or, Lyon

I'm sad to report that vacation is officially over. I received a message during my lovely holiday that school was to start Wednesday, not Thursday, like I had originally thought. Now that is exactly the definition of a cruel and unusual punishment. Who takes away vacation days? That's just like the Grinch canceling Christmas in my opinion. I was in a melancholic, depressed mood for a day when I received this news, and what made it even worse was when I discovered that it wasn't going to be my average, 3-hour Wednesday school day. No, out of all the days, we would be having Friday's schedule repeat itself today. Yay for an extra 3 hours of French class.

It was unbelievably difficult to wake up this morning. I set my alarm for 6:30 and I dragged myself out of bed, got dressed, and ate breakfast. I was all ready to go, but Anne wandered in the kitchen and asked why I was up so early. Turns out, I forgot to change my clocks and had been wandering around in a different time zone than everyone else. Quite upset by my shortened sleep, I was stuck in a cranky mood for the rest of the morning. And instead of doing the smart thing and changing my clock and alarm (so it wouldn't happen again), I poured myself a big cup of espresso and turned on an episode of Desperate Housewives.

School passed in a blur today. During my classes, I worked on the equivalent of a psychiatric patient's artwork in my notebook, and it'll probably still take a couple of days to finish it. I've been working on it on and off for a couple of weeks now, and it'll look ridiculously awesome (in a pathetic, crazy kind of way) when it's finished. I'm thinking that after this school year, I will probably belong in a psychiatric hospital. Good thing my host mom works at one. On a side note, after school, I went on my first run since I've been in France. I'm not sure how much I ran, but I know it was definitely over 3 km because Anne showed me a loop that was 3 km and I ran that plus some more. How much more, I have absolutely no idea, because I'm really, really bad with distance, direction, and perception, but it was enough to leave me with soreness and a blister.

I suppose I'm working backwards in time with this blog because I forgot to tell you about the last couple days of vacation. Considering I'm too lazy to rewrite and change everything so that it's all in periodical order, we're all going to pretend that it's vacation again (insert longing sigh here). Marie, my older host sister, invited me and Charlotte to stay at her apartment in Lyon for a few days on Sunday. We left that night for Lyon on the train, and I was excited to get my mind off of returning to school. Marie worked all day on Monday, so Charlotte and I stayed in the apartment all morning watching shows on an internet streaming network. That afternoon, we went shopping and later met Marie at her biology lab before a movie night with candy and pizza.

Tuesday was one of those days where everything was just right (made up for Wednesday when it was the exact opposite). We woke up late, watched Desperate Housewives after breakfast, and went into the city. We stopped at a Lebanese Restaurant for lunch, ate by the river, walked through a park with an alarming number of carnivorous plants, slept on the lawn, did a little shopping, ate chocolate cheesecake and drank caramel macchiatos/ frappuccinos at Starbucks, and returned for a movie before leaving on the train. It was a nice, relaxing mini-vacation, and getting away for a little while before school was exactly what I needed.

Now that I'm back on a strict schedule, life's a tad bit depressing. I like being spontaneous and lazy at the same time, and going to a French high school definitely doesn't allow for that. It's tedious and strict, but I must admit that all the time spent sitting with nothing to do has made me a more creative thinker. When you have only your mind, a pen, and a piece of paper in front of you for 8 hours a day, you learn to think outside the box and come up with things to do for your own entertainment.

Well - that's it for now. I'm in much too much of a lazy mood to think of some clever ending for this entry. Maybe the run really got to me, because now all I want to do is watch t.v., eat, and sleep. So, to keep things short and sweet, Happy November!