It's Vacation Time #2

Well, I’m on to the second set of vacation here, this time I get 2 weeks and 1 day, just like my friends in the USA (I think.) So, I don’t get to brag about how I’m on vacation and  my friends back home aren’t, but that’s ok. I had a very interesting week leading up to that final bell on Friday afternoon that signified the end of classes for the rest of the year(and yes, that repetitive joke about “Oh, this is your last homework assignment for the year” is used here excessively too.) So, lots to discuss in this post.

So, let’s start with food, which is gonna make for a large percent of this post. Last Saturday and Sunday, I spent a lot of time on the christmas cookies(for picture, see previous post.) I made the dough Saturday night(adding extra vanilla because when I first tasted it, it had absolutely no flavor. Then I got up early Sunday morning to roll and cut the cookies into shapes( christmas trees, candy canes, gingerbread men, and mickey mouses.) And then I baked them, filling the kitchen with the lovely smell of baking sugar cookies as my host family walked into the kitchen for breakfast. My cookie working was put on hold for a while after the last batch came out of the oven, since I was going running with my host father and his sons. We went to a mountain made of all of the rejects from the era of coal mining. When the good coal was removed, all the bad stuff was just piled together into a mountain. So we ran up that, around some trees, alongside a canal, and then called it quits.

We came back to the house to find the kitchen in a bit of chaos. Fabienne and Emma were making couscous, but had to decide how they wanted to cook the sausages and shish kebabs. Eventually, everything was ready and we all sat down to eat couscous with veggies and sausages. Of course, being a Sunday afternoon in France,with the whole family around the table, the meal lasted a long time( a bit too long for my taste.) I eventually got up and started working on my frosting, still able to participate in conversation, but not stuck sitting at a table and restraining myself from eating the entire basket of fantastic bread in front of me. Since I had a lot of time, I had fun with my decorating. I split my frosting into different little cups and added food coloring to get bright, fun frosting. I cut up jelly beans to put on my green-frosted christmas trees. And I went to all of the effort to stripe my candy canes red and white(while also using the frosting to glue the broken ones together.) The cookies turned out pretty great, and they were served for dessert.

So, sooner than I was ready, it was time for school again, but it was the last week before break, so the teachers went a little easy on us. I don’t remember doing anything special monday, except studying for my SVT test Tuesday. Wednesday, I got home from school and made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, which my host family had been requesting. The frustrating thing about cooking here is that I make the exact same recipe each time and get a different result each time. Due to the lack of electric mixers and the lack of really measuring spoons, I get different cookies every batch. This time, I used a bit too much salt(working with a real “tea spoon” instead of teaspoon) so my cookies were flat, but had a nice flavor. And, once agin, they filled the whole house with that lovely smell so that as each member of my host family came into the kitchen, they went “oh, it smells so good in here.” My arms were so sore by the end, since I didn’t have an electric mixer. I did everything with a wooden spoon and elbow grease, making the resulting cookies more worth it. 

Thursday, I made tacos for my host family. I had brought taco seasoning from the USA, but apparently it is very easy to find. Once I was done with my dinner, my host mom went into the cupboard and pulled out two packets of taco seasoning. I also made some lazy man’s spanish rice(by adding salsa and taco seasoning to some plain white rice.) We used grated gruyère cheese instead of cheddar, since it was easier to come by. And we had corn tortillas, instead of my preference:flour tortillas. But, it was still great to have some familiar flavors of mexican food. And I think my host mom appreciated not having to cook dinner. And we had the rest of the chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Ok, I know you are all waiting to hear about everything special that happened Friday, the day before break started, but I’m gonna talk all about the last(to force you to read everything else too.)

So, I received some packages from home this week, which was great, even though the contents weren’t really for me. I had written home asking my family to send some fun American things to give as gifts. I can’t go into details now, because some of the future gift receivers might read the blog, and I wouldn’t want to ruin any surprises. But just know I had a fantastic time opening my giant boxes and deciding who of all of my friends and host families to give each thing too. There was also a lot of candy in the boxes, some of which I decided to confiscate for myself, figuring I was entitled to some gifts for myself too. But I think I was pretty good about not being selfish and sharing all of the contents of the boxes.

I’m playing handball right now. Before coming to France, i always thought handball was the game I saw oldish men playing at my Aunt’s tennis club in Tucson. I thought it was like racquetball but without the rackets. I guess that is probably American handball, because it seems handball seems something totally different to the Europeans. My P.E. teacher asked me one day if I played handball and I said no but i would try, so she put me on the school team. So, the first match was my first time I ever playing. And now I go to the practices of a local club which is mostly girls from my school who are on the school team(which doesn’t practice.) And, one of the girls on the team is the oldest of the 5 kids in my future host family, and they live in my town, so I don’t have to change schools. The practices are Tuesdays and Fridays, with matches on the weekend. Right now I don’t play in matches, but we are going to try to get me a license so that I might be able to play in the real games. It didn’t work to get a license for me to play soccer since I had played for a U.S. club the year before. But, given that I had never played handball until last Wednesday, that shouldn’t be a problem. Ok, so what is handball? It is literally like water polo played on land. There are 6 field players and a goalie on the field for each team at a time. The goalie has a special zone where the other can’t enter. You can dribble the ball, but no one really dribbles much. And to score, you shoot the ball by throwing it at the goal(like shooting a soccer ball, but by throwing it. ) I know my description isn’t great, but if you are still curious, I’m sure there are good videos on you tube of european handball matches. It really is exactly like water polo, so having watched my brother play water polo for 4 years, I sort of have an idea of the strategy. The problem is getting my arms to do what I want them to, when I’m a soccer player who has been trained to move my arms out of the way when a ball comes toward them. But, I’m definitely getting better with each training, and the other girls and the coach are really nice to me, so I’m really enjoying it. 

I read an entire murder mystery in French for school, then had to write a 5 paragraph essay about it, including citations. Reading the book was frustrating but satisfying at the same time. The first two times i read the first chapter, I was thinking that Dizy(which is a town) was a character. So, I thought Dizy was the name of the person whose body had been found. You can imagine that I was then very confused when in Chapter 2, the detective goes around with a photo of the body and asks everyone if they know who it is, and finally a man answers “yes, it’s my wife.” And you know those last two chapters of a mystery novel, when all of those many loose threads and random clues come together and the detective explains the whole story? Well yeah, those would be the chapters that I really didn’t understand the first 3 times I read them. But, I eventually figured it all out. And when I was done with the whole book, i was so proud to have read it all in French, and really understood it. When I read Dom Juan in french, I also read it in English at the same time, so i didn’t really pay much attention to the french. But this time, it was all french and I understood it, so I was super happy. And I was able to discuss the book with my classmates, and we all laughed about me thinking Dizy was a person.

Last Saturday was an AFS day. I went to Lille with Nicole and her host parents to spend the day shopping before the AFS activity. We parked in a parking garage and the went to a pedestrian only street, lined on both sides with all kinds of stores. It was sort of like the K-street mall in Sacramento, but super popular. It was crazy crowded and with all of the popular stores. And we could cross the street whenever we wanted without having to worry about cars. I ought a fake-fur-lined, super warm coat for winter here, since it officially snowed for the first time here today. It was just for a few minutes, and it was too warm for the snow to stick. But still, It is pretty cold here and my nice new coat was definitely a good investment. We had a lot of trouble finding a place to eat lunch, since there were so many people doing christmas shopping, with the same idea of eating lunch as us. We eventually found a cute little Italian restaurant, and I had my first taste of a real, expensive(ish) restaurant in France. I wanted water to drink, but we had to order and pay for it, and it would have been cheaper for me to order coca cola. I’m pretty sure the idea of “Are there free refills?” would be outright laughed at. We asked for some bread and got a little plate with some tiny round slices of heated bread. The dishes didn’t contain a whole lot of food, but the food was really good. And yep, we had to ask for the check, instead of having the waitress come over and place it on the table saying “No rush”(but implying, “ok, time to get a move on”) like in the USA. Another thing, the tables were super close together. In general, I am an unconscious eavesdropper. I really have a hard time blocking out the conversations I hear around me, so in a tiny restaurant where the tables are practically elbow to elbow(and we were at a table in the very center of the room, so we were surrounded on all sides) you can probably figure out that I had a hard time keeping myself focussed on our conversation.

So after lunch, we drove to the AFS activity, called Inquest. It was AFS’s gift to us(the exchange students) for Saint Nicolas. Apparently, the choice of Inquest was more for the volunteers than for us. Apparently, every year it is laser tag and then a cheap restaurant, but the volunteers wanted something different this year. So, we did inquest. It’s kind of hard to explain what it was, but I’m going to try. It’s sort of like the tactile dome at the San Francisco exploratorium, but not exactly. We were put into teams of 3-5, and the goal was to work on team bonding and communication through the game. We had bracelets with computer chip things in them so that at each stage, we could scan our bracelet and the controllers could track our progress. There were 4 stages to the game, designed to test mental and physical talents/teamwork. The first was a maze where we had to find pictures with letters on them that made a clue. Then came a game which was like a playground with slides and nets to climb and stuff. There were scanners in the playground structures, and we had to scan our bracelets to get points. The third was a bunch of random questions to answer. The only ones I was dead sure about were the Harry Potter questions(even if they were in French.) There were questions about everything, from the color of random countries’ flags to where certain movie stars live. I think we ended up losing points thanks to this game because we got so many questions wrong. The last game was a challenge course(high ropes course.) We were strapped into harnesses and had a lot of various bridges to cross to eventually end up at the end. We had choices along the way, and got to guide our harness along interlocking tracks to decide which bridges to cross. I thought it was super cool, crossing wires and rope bridges, way up in the air in the dark in the giant building, but some of my teammates were a bit less enthusiastic. And that was it, the end of the game. It took a few hours and I had a lot of fun, but it was actually pretty physically exhausting. Between that and the shopping, I had had a full day, but still found the energy to make my cookie dough that night.

So, I’m with Nicole and her host family for the vacation, before moving to my new permanent family for the restart of school. It was hard to say good-bye to the family where I stayed for just a week and a half because they were so nice to me and we had a great 10 days together. But since they live in my town, I plan on visiting a lot. It made it easier to be able to say “See you later” instead of “good bye.” But, if I had a hard time saying good-bye after 10 days with the family, what am I going to do after 6 months with a family, and a real good-bye, instead of a “see you later.” But, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I have 6 months to develop that fantastic relationship. Back to break...I’m going to London with Nicole and her host family for three days, as well as a christmas market in Germany. Should be lots of fun.

Ok, fine, I’ll get to Friday, the last day of school before break. Well, It wasn’t at all like I expected it to be, but it was really cool all the same. My English teacher(the one that came dressed as a with the day before All-Saint’s break) came to school in a red coat and a santa hat with a flashing bauble on the end. Besides that, I didn’t see any other people dressed up. I wore a pair of Santa Socks that I had gotten in my packages, but no one saw them under my jeans.

Break between second and third hour was when it really became clear that it was the day before christmas break. Break started 15 minutes early because the parent organization had organized to sell food. There were waffles with nutella, cake slices, and crepes to buy inside the rec room. Outside, they were making barbe à papa(father’s beard. Any ideas what that is? Answer at the end of post.) and popcorn. There were speakers playing christmas music and the lights around the school had been turned on. When the bell rang for third hour to start, the principal picked up his megaphone and said that break had been extended 15 minutes, and happy holidays. So we ended up with a 45 minute break.

Then came third hour history, which started out very normally, but ended with a “Bang!”(literally, the bang of chalk being thrown across the classroom.) The teacher finished his lecture a bit early and said we could do whatever we wanted. The boys made paper balls and started throwing them at the garbage can in the corner. But soon, one of the boys drew a target on the chalkboard and they all started throwing the paper balls at the target. And what was the teacher doing during all of this? Sitting on the desk, watching and laughing, refusing to participate because he claimed he had no aim.  Soon, it wasn’t just paper but chalk that was being thrown. One of my friends had a piece of chalk hit her right on the bridge of her nose, because the boy in front of her at whom the chalk was aimed dodged out of the way. Soon, all out chalk warfare was declared. The boys loaded up the eraser with chalk, and then threw it at each other. One boy(the one who started it) was cowering in the corner saying “No, no, please, I’m wearing black” but it didn’t stop the revenge seeker, who covered his back with chalk. At one point, one boy drew a chalk line down the back of another boy. He then took his sweater off to reveal that the chalk was also on his t-shirt. Everyone was laughing hilariously as our next hour teacher came in, quickly demanding to know what was so funny, and not getting a very satisfactory answer.

Fourth hour was math, and instead of doing a normal lesson, we did some programming on the calculator. We programmed a game into the calculator, so it was frustrating when I was trying to figure out the program(especially since I have a different calculator than the rest of the class, so the teacher couldn’t help me too much) but once I figured it out, it was really fun to the play the game I had created. It was really simple. The calculator picks a random number between 1 and 100 then tells you to guess. You enter your guess and then it tells you if it is higher of lower than the real number. And you keep going till you get it right. And if you were really good with the calculator, you could add a counter so that when you finally got it right, the calculator told you how many guesses it had taken you. A lot of my classmates were frustrated because they couldn’t figure out the program, but I enjoyed class.

Lunch was quite interesting. As I decided that night with my host family, I had the choice between Nemo and Bambi. There wasn’t an order of who got to eat first(the secondes or the premières/terminales.) Everyone was squished into line together. The entrées were the same as normal, but then came the special food for the warm plate. We had green beans tied into a bunch by another green bean, a canned pear half, and three hashbrowns(like the kind you get at McDonalds. Fun fact: McDonalds opens at 1100am here, so they don’t serve breakfast. When I explained the concept of an egg McMuffin, my friends were like “Eww, you eat that for breakfast?”) Then we chose between deer and salmon(so not really nemo, but still. When I had asked my friends what the meat was they said “You know Bambi, the Disney cartoon?” And I said “yeah” and they were like “yeah, that’s Bambi.” So i figured since we were using disney characters to describe the meat, we might as well use it for the fish too.)  Dessert was really good. We each got a slice of bouche de Noël(a yule log) with vanilla cake and chocolate filling.

After lunch came SVT, but since it was the last hour of class for 3/4 of the class, we had a party, called a “goûter”(snack.) We had all been asked to bring something for the snack, so I brought chocolate chip cookies. One girl brought meringues and chocolate cake, another brought homemade mini waffles, and the Australian correspondent of one of the girls in our class(who is here for 2 months, her summer vacation, to learn French) made cupcakes(which, fun fact: do not exist in France.) Other less creative people brought bags of candy, chocolate santa clause lollypops, or soda. So we all came in and put our food on the table set up, and then my teacher called the class over. Everyone gathered around and then she said “Julia, into the center.” And I was like “No. What? Why?” But she insisted so I stepped into the center of the circle, with absolutely zero idea of what was going on. And then my friend Laure stepped out from the crowd with her backpack and said “So, we all know that your birthday and Christmas are coming up and that you are a long way from your friends and family. We know that come Christmas we will all have lots of gifs to open, so we thought we could be your French family and give you gifts to help you celebrate. And she reached into her backpack and pulled out gift after gift after gift, all beautifully wrapped, followed by a card signed by everyone in the class. It was so sweet, and I was so surprised. My friends asked me later if I had suspected something, but I was 100% surprised. Apparently they had all been passing around Laure’s notebook with the card hidden inside so that they could all sign it, but I hadn’t noticed anything. It was so nice. I think I have the best class an exchange student could ever ask for. So after they all sang “Happy Birthday to You”(in English with a noticeably strong French accent) we all went to eat the food and hang out. I had wanted to save the gifts to open them on my birthday, but my friends explained that not everyone knew what they were and wanted me to open them. So, the teacher called everyone over and I opened my gifts, while Laure explained the idea behind each one. They got my a pretty pen spangled with stars and two journals, so I could write about all of my adventures in France. They got me a recipe book for Macarons that included a silicon baking mat and a pastry bag. And a kit to make shaped cookies with filling. And a little tin with specialty northern candies. It was so incredibly touching I almost cried. But, I held myself together. I insisted on giving my friends who had picked out the gifts a big hug, even though they just wanted to do the bisous. But I said “no, we are going to hug like Americans for once.” After that, I wasn’t the center of attention anymore as everyone went to eat more food and play foosball. But, the did have fun asking me if I knew the different types of candy we were eating.

After the snack, three quarters of the class went home, but the first half of the half of the class who take Spanish had an hour with the Spanish assistant first. We played scategories, but in Spanish. The categories: A city, a body of water, a boy name, a girl name, a star(movie star, sports star ect) a sport, a food, and an object. Everything had to be in Spanish, the boy and girl names had to be real spanish names, the star had to be a spanish star. My team lost the first round, so we had to dance the Macarena, with the other team filming us with their cellphones. But, we won the second round so they had to dance Las Ketchup. It was loud and embarrassing, but also a whole lot of fun.

So, after school, I walked over to my future host family’s house, since they were driving me to handball that evening. I got a tour of the house, and helped with dinner. Well, actually, i tried to help, but I think I was more of a hindrance. We peeled carrots, but I peeled one in the time my future host mom peeled 7, so yeah. Carrot peeling is definitely a skill that needs improving.

Handball practice was great, since it was the last one before the break. We played soccer for the first 45 minutes of practice, using the handball goals as our goals. It was fun for me to not be the worst player, since when we played handball for the last 45 minutes, I still didn’t really know what i was doing. But it was super fun.

After practice, I went home to eat my last dinner with that host family, since I was moving the next morning. After dinner, I was thinking “Shoot, I really need to go pack,” but I didn’t want to. I decided to stay up and watch a movie with my family, and really enjoy my last night with them. We watched a movie called “The Art of Seduction” which I didn’t really like, but the others did. And then I crashed into bed, figuring I could shove everything into my suitcase the next morning.

I set my alarm to give myself two hours to pack, and barely finished in time. But seriously, when my luggage grows with each packing and repacking, it’s not surprising that it is harder and harder to pack each time. But, thanks to the help of many large plastic bags, I finally got everything ready to go and said goodbye.

And now I’m here with Nicole and her amazing host family, enjoying the first few days of vacation where no one does anything but sit around and enjoy not being at school. We are going to Germany to a Christmas market on Wednesday, and going to London from December 27th to 29th. It should be amazing.

I woke up this morning to find the yard covered with snow. And it continues to snow right now. If it holds up, I will get to have the first white christmas of my life. But, I am thankful that it waited to snow until after I was done with my week of walking half an hour to and from school each day.

So, happy holidays everyone. For all my friends, enjoy being off school. And as my french school teachers told us, “Take two days to relax, then finish all of your homework the first week so you can enjoy the second week.” Ha, like anyone is actually going to finish all of their homework the first week.

Oh yeah, here’s the answer to the question from before. Barbe à papa is cotton candy. It makes sense, but I don’t think I have ever seen anyone with a pink beard, so...yeah.