Tri-Lingual "Frenchgiving", and "How Do I Get There"

This week was Thanksgiving! I did lessons about it with almost all of my classes -- teaching them some vocabulary, telling them the story of Thanksgiving (the simple "Disney" version, not getting into all the strife that happened afterward), and having them say what they are thankful for. The lesson mostly went over really well -- and I even had a couple kids say that they were thankful for me being in class with them (d'awww). It was an interesting mix of things they were thankful for -- some of the kids were thankful for Christmas/presents, a lot were thankful for births of cousins, a lot were thankful for their families/parents/siblings, one young boy was thankful for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, and there were some touching stories as well. I had one high schooler really trying to butter me up (thinking he'd get more cookies), who said that he was thankful for me making cookies, for me helping them with their English, and for me cooking for them. And with the high schoolers, instead of vocabulary, I had them pretend to be turkeys and they had to convince me to eat the other turkeys instead of themselves. That's probably the most amusing activity. 10/10 A+++ Do recommend.

On Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving, I bought myself one sad little slice of turkey and some potatoes to mash up. Except, turns out, those potatoes weren't actually for mashing (there are special mashing potatoes???) and so the mashed potatoes were horrible. But I did get to Skype with my family (where they set me in front of the pumpkin pie I couldn't eat -- thanks mom! xD). Friday, I was busy making more cookies (the third batch of no-bakes in three days) and getting ready for our Thanksgiving à la française ("French style") that Kirstin was hosting on Saturday.

The saddest Thanksgiving dinner ever. (And my Disney Princess advent calendar. ....I'm an adult....)

Friday night/Saturday morning, I even attempted to make apple cider (since the only cider you can get here is the alcoholic kind). Unfortunately, I got a little distracted wrapping Christmas presents for my parents and all the water boiled off and the apples burned a little bit. "No big deal," I told myself, "I can fix this". And I tried. Oh goodness, did I try. Saturday morning, after letting the apples cool overnight, I mashed them all up and tried to strain them as best I could. The recipe also called for cheese cloth to use to squeeze all the juice out of the apple pulp. But, as hard as I looked, I could not find cheese cloth anywhere. I ended up using a clean t-shirt as cheese cloth -- putting the apple pulp in the shirt and squeezing the ever-loving daylights out of it. And even after all that, the burnt taste unfortunately came through in the cider and I had to throw it all away. An exercise in futility. C'est la vie ("That's life").

The beginnings of the apple cider. I had SUCH high hopes...

Saturday morning was also supposed to be the Christmas market in Dax. But um, search as we did, there was no Christmas market to be found. :(

BUT,  I went with one of the other Americans from Dax down to Biarritz where her friend was having a big Thanksgiving get together.

First off, Biarritz is beautiful. It's on the Atlantic coast, and Kirstin has an apartment with a FANTASTIC view of the ocean. I ended up spending the night in a B&B not far from where Kirstin lives (I didn't think there'd be enough room in the apartment), and it was honestly just lovely. It didn't have the same view, but the bed was tempurpedic (aka: HEAVEN) and breakfast was incredible.

Tempuurrrrrpedic. (I need to buy one of these someday)

Adorable room

View out the kitchen window

Basically, Thanksgiving was a blast. The food was good, the company was even better, and we spent the evening laughing and drinking wine and talking and playing games. Basically it was perfect, and much appreciated. We even had a couple Spanish-speakers, and a French girl (Kirstin's roommate, her roommate's friend, and a friend of hers). So we spent the night swapping back and forth from English to French (to "franglais") and learning some useful words in Spanish.

The lovely Kirstin with the wine (and Becky)

Molly rocking the mashed potatoes!

Mulled wine, yeah!

Beautiful flowers

"Turkey" (aka chicken)

Carving the "turkey"

Schooled on carving meat the French way (with a spoon and a fork)

Getting ready to eat!

Belated food picture

Another belated food picture

Turkey turkey turkey!

At dinner!

This morning, I went down to the center of town to see when the bus left for the train station (my train was at 12:30), and had some time to wander around. Originally, I thought I was a lot further from the ocean than I was, so I was going to find a cafe to sit at to kill some time. But then, all of a sudden, I looked to my right down an alley between some buildings and BAM! Ocean. Unfortunately, I couldn't get down that alley to the ocean, but all of a sudden I had a purpose: "There's the thing; how do I get there?"

First view of the ocean

And get there I did. Needless to say, the ocean is spectacularly beautiful. And there were plenty of people surfing. I decided to go down to the water to stick my hand in... I went wading unintentionally. Basically, I was standing at the edge of the water and bent down to stick my hand in when I saw a little baby wave rolling in. I was like, "Aw, how cute? Come here baby wave!" But as it came closer, I saw that baby wave wasn't so baby after all. It crashed in around my feet and knocked me back a bit. My pants got wet. Luckily my boots are mostly waterproof, so only the barest hint of damp got through them. I did, however, manage to avoid falling completely on my butt. And honestly, it was just so ridiculously funny that I just had to laugh at myself.

All the crazy surfers

On the way down to the beach

OCEAN

This beach is seriously beautiful

GPOY (p.s. lookit my fancy new coat!)

When I got off the beach, I saw what looked like (at first glance) a little garden on an island in the middle of the ocean. But there were people walking around on it! So once again, I asked myself: "The thing! How do I get there?!" (There was a bridge.)

The island (not from the original view)

Bridge to the island

There were a couple locks along the railing; it's apparently a popular thing in France

Lighthouse!

As I finally started walking back to the bus stop, I had a sort of epiphany: when it comes to physical places, I am very good at finding a way to get to where I want to go. Oh, yeah, I get lost along the way, horribly so at times, but I generally get to the thing that I see from a distance and say to myself, "THAT! I need to find THAT!" But when it comes to real life? I'm not actually very good at the "How do I get there?" game. I know where I am, and I see where I want to be, but the steps in between to get me there are just never as simple or as obvious (or as risk-free, in general). So sometimes I don't even dare to step at all. Basically, I'm challenging myself this year to take those scary steps (hellooooo grad school applications; yes I will finish you.....), to forge ahead even when there is no evident path.

Life, unlike cities, doesn't have a map. And that can be terrifying. But the more I wander around cities with no map, the more I get lost and find things that are even more exciting than what I was originally looking for, the more I want to find those things in life, too.  /extended metaphor

So today, in one last "spirit of Thanksgiving" post, I'd like to say that I'm thankful for my family; I'm thankful for the amazing friends I have back home who've been keeping in contact through Facebook and sometimes keeping me sane; I'm thankful to be here in France; I'm thankful for all the people I've met here so far (and all the people I've yet to meet); and I'm making a promise to be more bold. (To boldly go, as it were.) Here's to life and taking the scary steps forward. Tchin, tchin!

I Should Have Gone With the Duck...

So today marks the one month anniversary of my arrival in France! Hooray! I feel like I've barely done anything though. I think my paperwork is done though (for now): OFII dossier (folder) sent in and received; Social Security and Mutuelle paperwork handed in, completed, and received my (French) SS number in the mail; CAF dossier sent in and should be complete once I give them my French SS. Whew. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it felt like a lot of stuff (and a lot of waiting for stuff to get done).

Yesterday I went on a bus tour to a winery in Jurançon and to the castle of Henry IV in Pau. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting in a town like Dax (basically the Florida of France due to the supposed "healing power" of the thermal springs in the area), but I was definitely the youngest person on the tour by a good 40-some years.

In the morning we stopped at the winery (wine tasting on a Sunday morning?? Yes, please!). After a tour of the winery (which was set up a lot more like a museum than a functioning place) we got to taste 3 different white wines (which are the specialty of the region). I decided not to buy any although they were really well priced because I actually haven't been drinking that much wine here (a CRIME, I know!). But the wines were pretty fantastic, and the winery itself was actually quite gorgeous.

Cave du Jurançon (Winery of Jurançon) and the Pyrenees in the background

A little obsessed with the mountains

Mosaics found in the area from the 4th century (yes, like 1700 years ago...)

(If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of my jaw hitting the floor. I LOVE ancient stuff)

Collection of wines old enough to not even still be potable

The cards they use to mark which wine is in which shiny metal tower

THAT IS A LOT OF WINE

Boxes for shipping/storing wine

EVEN MORE WINE (yes, this stuff is all aging in this gorgeous museum-like setup)

An oak barrel that's aging some white wine

The beginning of the tasting

The three wines we tasted (the one in the middle was the best)

After the wine tasting, we headed into the city of Pau to get lunch before going on a guided tour of the castle. This is where disaster struck. So, it's like 12:30 at this point. I left my house at 8am to catch the bus and only had a bit of baguette and a peach before I left. So I'm starving. I ended up sitting at a table with 3 very nice ladies who I obviously didn't know. After debating between a plate of ham or a salade Béarnaise (Bearnaise salad) and between cuisse de canard (duck thigh) and ris d'agneau (which I now know means "Lamb sweetbreads" but didn't know anything other than lamb at the time). I finally decided on the salad and the lamb (having heard of Bearnaise sauce before, and getting a lot of duck at school).

When the salad finally comes it is practically SMOTHERED in meat. Mostly on the rare side, but also with pieces of what I assume was ham that they attempted to make into croutons or something (the worst possible combination of tough and chewy). So I mostly scraped the meat to the side and ate the lettuce and tomatoes. Then the main course comes out. I have a HEAPING plate of what, at the time, I could only assume were pieces of brain (grey, vein-y, sort of rubbery, etc). I'm kind of kicking myself for not taking a picture, but I'll just let you go ahead and google "sweetmeats" for yourself.

Still hungry, I decide to dig anyway. Because what's the alternative? Send it back untouched? Order another entrée (there wasn't enough time for that anyway)? I ate a good half of the meat that was there. A combination of hunger and a stubborn streak kept me eating for that long--plus some fried potato slices that masked the texture/taste of the meat. Once I ran out of potatoes, I ran out of willpower to keep eating the meat. I finished the vegetables that they put on the side of the plate and just gave up and decided I would go hungry. What I did eat did keep me reasonably full until I got home that night, so that's something.

When I got home, I immediately googled a translation for "ris d'agneau". Apparently it is "lamb sweetmeats". To wikipedia I went... Gullet and/or pancreas. My brain is still trying to decide whether these are better or worse than the prospect of lamb brains. All I can say (with 20/20 hindsight) is that I really should have gone with the duck...

The visit to Henry IV's castle was LONG (2 hours--I don't think we even spent that long in Versailles). But the castle itself was pretty beautiful and the history behind it was really interesting (at least what I could understand anyway--the tour guide talked REALLY fast). Apparently, after the French revolution of 1789, the castle was ransacked for stuff and all that was left were 2 forks and a tortoise shell (all 3 still on display in the castle).

In the city of Pau

The castle entrance

I'm not obsessed with the mountains...

...really, I'm not...

...at all...

detail on the gate/archway into the castle

the two forks left in the castle

The dining room table. It's only, you know, about twice the length of my entire house...

Playing around with my camera (but the tapestries here are some of the best in the world)

Gorgeous lighting

This is meant for travel... (you put up the desk bit and it latches and is supposed to be like a suitcase)

That looks like a couch. It is actually a bathtub. (I am not even joking--you lift up the cushions and it's a tub.)

The tortoise shell--possibly used as a crib for Henry IV (thus the elaborate imagining of the crib)

Mountains?

What mountains?

Found this little guy hanging out on the way back to the bus. Favorite book ever.

So all-in-all it was an extremely good day (food fiasco aside). And between last night and today I got my trip for the end of October planned out. I'll be heading out for a week and visiting Amsterdam and Brussels. I had to cut out Reims due to lack of affordable hotels. :( I was also hoping to couchsurf, but with such short notice, I was worried about not being able to find anything and then not being able to find a hotel either. Couchsurfing will have to wait for the December or February vacations since I've got more time to plan for those.

Not sure what I'm going to get up to in the next week or so (though starting this weekend I'll hopefully be taking some mini-trips until I head to Amsterdam on the 25th), but I'm sure you'll read about it eventually. As always, thanks for reading. (Oh, and DFTBA.)