During exams, life is dull--and then I make cake!

Hello there, neglected blog. I know, I know, I'm the worst blogger ever. Unfortunately, unlike the last time I took a couple week hiatus from writing, I don't have 4 posts worth of pictures and exciting travel news. Essentially, I've been going to classes and that's it. Until Thursday, when fun stuff started happening. So yay! Fun stuff! I even have pictures!!

For my Francophonie class, I wrote a paper about my relationship with French cooking. I had typed it up on one of the computers at school, and one of my other professors decided to read it. Well, she got all excited and told me about this cooking lesson that was going on at the university on Thursday night (this was Tuesday afternoon). Well, I didn't get the information about it until Wednesday afternoon, and even though I had missed the deadline to sign up, I decided to email them to see if they had any space left, just in case. And boy, was I lucky!

So Thursday night, I wandered around campus to find the Polytech building (that I had never been to or seen before). Luckily, I had a map and got there a bit early. I helped everyone set up the makeshift kitchen and we all got to cooking. Our menu: navarin d'agneau légumes printaniers and some sort of cake (I can never remember the name of the cake). The class was really fun, and the chef was super helpful (considering I don't know pretty much anything about French cooking terms--I only know them in English).

Cooking my lamb

In the middle of the navarin

Comparing the finished products (mine's on the bottom)

My little mini cake.

The class was about 4 hours long, so by the time I got home, it was like 10. And I still hadn't had time to eat any of the deliciousness that I had made. I found dinner waiting for me on the table (<3 my host family), so I ate that and stuck my yummies in the fridge to take to the collège for lunch in the morning.

So Friday I got to go to the collège (middle school) to teach students for the last time this semester. I ended up eating couscous with the teachers (instead of my lamb and cake), and then headed off to observe a French course for an hour. After that, I had my usual two groups of students. We played theatre games, and it was so much fun. I'm going to miss them. :(

This morning, I was up early (5:30 x_x) to head off to the Chateau Amboise and Clos-Lucé (the home of Leonardo DiVinci). The long and short of it: Amboise is beautiful (mostly the gardens; I tend to prefer the gardens to the actual chateaux themselves) and Clos-Lucé is probably the coolest place anyone could ever go. The house itself is cute, fairly interesting. What's awesome is that they have a HUGE park surrounding the house with live-size working models of some of DaVinci's inventions that you can try/play with yourself. Unfortunately, we were exhausted and didn't have terribly much time to play, but it was still fun anyway.

Chateau Amboise

Why does this tree remind me of the Lion King?

The bust of Leonardo DaVinci. He used to be buried here, then they moved him somewhere else.

More Chateau Amboise

Me with my bag of cake.

Beautiful columns around the fireplace

I want to build a wall in my garden someday, just so I can have one of these.

Clos-Lucé

DaVinci's Garden

Clos-Lucé

This bridge is awesome

I don't know what this is for, but you run around underneath it, and make the top turn.

Finally, when I got home from the excursion on Saturday (finally, finally) I got to eat my lamb and cake. (EXCITING). It was pretty freaking delicious. I have the recipes and fully intend to make more when I get home.

Other than that, I am starting to plan my trip to Italy (bon-JOUR-no -- this is actually how my Italian sounds). Definitely getting really excited about that and my trip back to London for the Harry Potter Studio Tour. My classes will be over as of Wednesday (the exception being theater). And then hopefully I'll have much more fun frequent updates for you! I think we're going to Guédelon next weekend, and possibly a trip down to Bordeaux to visit a vineyard.

À plus, mes amis! :)