Christmas Break in France

Well, it is almost the end of one week of Winter break here. Actually, before I move on, you should know something. Winter break here is in February. The vacation we have right now is officially called Christmas break. Back home, we always had to be careful to call the break in December Winter break, and then the break in February was Ski Week. So, I have a hard time agreeing when my friends at school try to say that France has more separation of Church and State than America. They said that Obama taking his oath to become president with his hand on the bible would not have been allowed if he was becoming the president of France, but then they turn around and call a national school vacation Christmas Break. Do we have a bit of a indecisiveness here?

So far, break has been fantastic. The snow didn’t stay, so we won’t get to have a white Christmas after all. The rain came and washed away all of the snow, so the countryside is beautiful and green, but I was really hoping for snow.

My current host mother, (who is really just my host mom for break, and then I will make the permanent move) made us lasagna one day. Ok, what’s the big deal, right? You open the box of lasagna noodle, open the can of bolognese sauce, and sprinkle on some cheese, right? Not in this house. Here, homemade lasagna means literally everything was made by hand. She made the pasta dough with the kitchen aid, and then got out here pasta pressing machine to flatten the rounds of dough into lasagna noodle. Meanwhile, there was ground beef cooking on the stove, and homemade tomato sauce bubbling away. Then she layered it all together with some parmesan cheese, and stuck it in the oven. It filled the house with the amazing smell of cooking lasagna, and when it came out of the oven, it was a masterpiece. I counted 11 layers of noodles in my pice! The lasagna was so big that we got to have it for 3 more meals as leftovers.

Nicole’s host family has a billiards table in the...well I don’t really know what to call the room. It is wooden floors, and all of the walls are class windows. When the sun is shining, the room heats up pretty quickly. So anyway, in the center of the room is the full-sized, super nice billiards table. I have never played much billiards, so the first few times I played, I was lucky to even have the cue ball make contact with another ball, let alone making a colored ball go into a pocket. I’ve discovered that I have the same problem with billiards that I do with golf. I take my eye off the ball at the last second, so often don’t end up making contact with the ball. But, Nicole’s host dad gave me some help with how I hold the cue and I’m actually pretty decent now. I play a lot when I get bored, just to get better. I have even beaten my Nicole’s host father a few times these last few days.

Nicole’s host father took us out to lunch one day, to a place called Buffalo grill, which I believe exists in America too. It was exactly the kind of place that I would imagine going to with my grandpa who lives in Arizona, lots of steaks and western food and fake Native Americans on horses in front of the restaurant. So when we walked outside after the great meal, I was like “Wait a minute, I’m in Arizona, why is there snow on the ground?” It took me a few minutes to remember that I was in northern France, and no Tucson, Arizona. Reading menus in a foreign language is really not easy. You would think it would be simple, since it is just food, right? But, the problem is that it is not vocab that you hear every day, not vocab that you learn in class, so it can be really confusing. The one part of the menu that wasn’t confusing: the dessert menu. Actually, the dessert menu made me laugh. It was split into two sections: American classics and Buffalo Grill specialties. It was so funny the things they considered “American Classics,” like donuts and profiteroles,and then they didn’t even have what I consider really American: a banana split. The other section included Creme Brulée, scoops of sherbet, and gooey center chocolate cake. The reason it was so easy to understand and so hard to resist: pictures corresponding to every dessert. Even though I had already eaten way too much, I got profiteroles, and they were 100% worth it. The pastry was super fresh, with a scoop of cookies and cream ice cream in the middle(to make it more American) and then warm chocolate fudge poured over the top, which then solidified just a bit on making contact with the ice cream. They were absolutely fantastic. So, I loved the restaurant outing, but by the end, I was so thirsty. Water is not free at restaurants here. When you order a drink, there is no chance of it being free refills, more often, it is just a small cup that isn’t even big enough to hold a whole can of soda. If you do pay for water, you just get a bottle, and when it is gone, oh well. I ordered chili con carne, so it was pretty spicy, meaning I had finished my drink pretty quickly. When we got home, I downed at least three glasses of water before doing anything else. But, it is standard across the board here that you have to pay for water, so I can’t blame this restaurant.

We went to the movies one day, just to do something and get out of the house. I had been seeing billboards for the movie “Hugo Cabret,” and since I have read the book, I wanted to see it, but was a bit ashamed to ask if we could, since it is kind of a kid’s film. But, when we really started to look at which movie we were gonna go see, I spoke up and said I wanted to go see that one. While we were the oldest kids in the movie theater (I was sitting next to a five year old girl and her grandma) I still really like the movie. It was exactly like the book, with good acting and great sets. Plus, I really understood the French, so I was proud of myself.

One day after dinner, I played karaoke with Nicole’s host mom. Normally, you have to put in a lot of effort to get me to do karaoke, but here, I was like, “Sure, sounds like fun.”  We started with a lot of Greenday songs, which was fun for me since I knew most of the words, and I laughed at Christelle’s accent, but it was a bit embarrassing when I got slaughtered at songs in English that I have on my ipod and she had never even heard them before. After the greenday, we started doing some french songs, where I really fell apart. But, we had a lot of fun, laughing with Nicole and Joseph watching, so purpose accomplished.

Another day, before dinner, we sat around and played Uno. it turns out we play with different rules, but I’m sure there are Americans who play with different rules, too. We played a few rounds, and pretty soon, it just turned into talking. We sat there for an hour, all of us fiddling with our cards while we just talked. I love being here and just talking to Nicole, since it has been a while since I had a good friend to really talk to.

Before I move on to talking more about myself, here is a cultural reference, an observation Nicole and I have made. You never stay in the car when you go to someone’s house, just to drop someone off or pick someone up. You always go in, have a drink, and chat for awhile, before finally leaving. Back home, when my friends’ parents come to drop them off to hang out with me, the younger siblings stay in the car, and the parents might walk to the door to talk to my mom about what time to pick their daughter up. Sometimes we invite them in but they usually have stuff to do and say “No thanks.” Here, you always go in and have coffee, even if you are just there to drop someone off or pick them up. Even if you have stuff to do and places to go, you still go in. It is just politeness.

Ok, more about me. Wednesday, Nicole and I and her host parents went to Germany. But since it was such an awesome full day, I’m going to do a whole separate post for it. So, keep reading.