Thunder Storms, Wine, and Caterpillers

Today I slept in until eleven. It was very glorious. I woke up and took a quick shower and scarfed down a banana and some apple sauce and a roll before packing up my laptop and heading to Book in Bar to work on my paper. I texted Cassandra and invited her to join me and she did. It was nice to have her there even if we didn’t really talk very much but it was nice to have the company. I finished my paper so that is good and I’m glad to have it out of the way. We stayed there for a good three hours. We ordered two iced chocolate banana smoothies which were very delicious and came with a speculoos cookie! I had been wanting to try them and I discovered that they are the same as the like gingerbread cookies that you get on airplanes in the morning with coffee. THEY ARE SO GOOD! Cassandra says that they are  a Dutch food. But man are they good. I liked Book in Bar. It is an American bookstore and would be nice to go one day and just sit and read a good book. I am at the park in Game of Thrones that I have been waiting for. Though am I horrible that I wish it had been more gruesome? Maybe. But I have to read the whole Brothers Karamazov for my literature class so I doubt I would have time to read the fourth even if I had it. Maybe I will buy it for the plane… But knowing my luck I would leave it on the plane again… I am so bad with leaving things on planes… 

But after I finished my paper Cassandra and I went to find some food. It was about 1:30 and our wine tasting with the school wasn’t until 4. We ran over to Monoprix so I could see if they had those delicious cookies and they did for super cheap and in the pack they were separated in little packets of two! Perfect!

We went to a pasta place that Cassandra knew. It was really good and not very expensive either! It was pretty good. I would go back except that I am not a very big pasta person. Once in a while is fine but I just get sick of it too easily and we usually have it for dinner at least once if not twice a week so that is enough for me. But it was good for today. The lady who made it was also very nice which is sometimes hit and miss as an American. Sometimes they act like they can’t understand you even when you say things perfectly or are more rude, but other times they are very nice and helpful. We were eating outside at a table when a couple walked by trying to figure out how to get to the Tourism Office which was really on the opposite side of town. They were speaking English so Cassandra and I helped them get straightened out before we left on our way. We stopped at a pastry shop close to the school that we know so that I could but an éclair for my dad. Well for me. It was very delicious :-) The filling was really light and it was super good. You can be sufficiently jealous dad. 

We went back to the school and hung out in the cave for a bit while Cassandra worked on her papers and I longingly looked for cheap flights for next weekend to anywhere. I didn’t really find anything. Pretty soon it was time to go and have our wine tasting upstairs in the other building. We went and as soon as you got to the third floor you could definitely smell there was wine. We walked in and were the first ones there. There were thirty place settings with 4 glasses of different wines as well as pretzels and cookies. We took a seat in the back so that it would be easier for other people to come in. We tried four wines today, one white wine, one rose, and two different red wines. They are all from the Provence region where I am so that was cool. I learned that the Provence region is the largest region in the world for producing Rosé wines. 

One of the professors here works in the wine industry so she taught us exactly how to swirl it and what to look for in tasting wines and how to smell for different flavors. I learned a lot of things such as that for each region there are only certain kinds of grapes that you are allowed to grow. There are a lot of strict rules for each region (AC) and the regions are pretty small. One of the common rules is that you have to mix grape varieties in wine here. You can’t just say I am going to use just Grenache grapes to make a wine, you have to have a mixture of different kinds. I also learned that in the Roman times people in France couldn’t make wine because The romans didn’t want anyone else growing grapes to make wine because then they could charge a lot of money for it. Now days you can’t plant more vineyards in Italy as it is illegal because there are already so many. It is almost the same in France but you can make vineyards that are pre-existing bigger. I also learned that it takes three years from when you plant the vines and get grapes until you get grapes that are able and good enough to make wine. Interesting!

The first wine that we tried was the white which was Chateau de Fontcreuse 2012 from the Cassis AC. It was good (I thought all of them were good in their own way). It tasted like sort of apple/peach/florally. It was dry and had a moderate acidity. The Second was a Rosé which everyone agreed was not as good as other rosés that we have had here. It was Domaine d’eole 2012 from the Coteaux d’Aix en Provence AC. It was made from Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, and Mourvedre grapes. I learned that Rosés get their color from red grapes that are allowed to ferment with their skins on for only between 12 and 24 hours. Then they skin them and ferment them the rest of the way before making them into wine. It was also a dry wine (all of them are today) and it tasted like rhaspberry/watermelon/floral/berrys. It is supposed to be served COLD and more cold than the white. 

The third wine that we had was a Domaine de Bastide, Malcare 2010 from the Coteaux d’Aix en Provence AC. This one was probably my favorite but mostly everyone else did not like it. We learned that when you look at a red wine if the edge of the wine looks clearish it is a newer wine but the more brown that it looks the older the wine. It was very dry and tasted kind of peppery to me. The general concensus was that it tasted like nutmeg or gingerbread but I thought it tasted like black pepper. We also learned how to taste for tanons. The way you do this is you put some of the wine under your upper lip and let it sit there for like fifteen seconds. After that it sort of feels like the wine dried out all your skin and it kind of burned. We learned that you can get rid of that by drinking the wine with some sort of fatty meat or with salt, and for vegetarians eggplant.The last wine was a Domaine Castell Reynoard 2012 from the Bandol AC. In this region they have to use at least 50% or more of the Mourvedre grapes in their wine. And unfortunately this is one of the varieties that you either really like or really don’t. It was definitely different but I didn’t mind it. I couldn’t really pick out any flavors because it was really well harmonized. It smelled like chocolate and black cherry. We learned that the chocolate smell means that it was aged in oak barrels. It was really smooth and very dry again. We tried the tanons and even they were much calmer than with the other red wine.  

I liked them all and even learned an interesting fact that wine coolers are only important if you are going to save the wine to age. But that 98% of wine in the US is consumed within 48 hours of purchase! Wow! I guess we really are a very consumerist country! After the wine tasting I stayed around to help clean and put away all the wine glasses. I had nothing to do and saw that it was going to take a while so I decided I should stay a bit. After that was done I came home and started reading. After a while Beebow came in and started laying on the bed with me.  That was pretty cool. We did that for a while and then pretty soon Madame came home and we had dinner. She made asalad with tuna, tomatoes, and avocado, along wirth red peppers, olives and cucumbers. It was all I could do to try and eat it. I would use the red peppers and cucumbers to try and cover up the other tastes but eventually I couldn’t do it anymore and started picking out tomatoes and some of the tuna. Madame asked if I liked tuna and I told her not really and she said oh well next time I will make it with chicken. YAY. But I still wanted to eat it. I got ¾ of the way through before I started picking which I think was pretty impressive. We had water which was A-Okay with me after so much wine.

Then we started watching MasterChef. They were cooking these big lobster things and Madame told me that’s what she made on the Yacht when she worked for that guy and he took her out on his yacht one day. She says they are really good. One guy was cooking something and madame asked what it was and I said a chili and she thought I said Chenille and looked at me really weird and then about twenty seconds later was like OH Chili! And I was like yeah isn’t that also the French word for it and she said yes but I thought you said Chenille which when I looked it up was Caterpiller. We laughed at that and I said I hope it isn’t a caterpillar he would have to be pretty big! It was funny. We were watching that when suddenly the tv went out. Apparently there is a storm tonight! It is really cool! Lots of lightening about every ten seconds. When they get rain here it is usually in the form of a storm and happens at night but then in the morning is beautiful again. But the storm is pretty sweet. I like it. Lots of thunder too!

Kelan invited me to go with him, Julia, and Lauren tomorrow to Cassis so I hope it is nice! We are meeting tomorrow at 8;30 in the morning so no more sleeping in until Tuesday for me but such is the life! I hope that I will be able to post this tonight but I doubt it with the storm. But I will try! Bon nuit!

Girl who has very similar characteristics to Cassidy:

No Rome...

Today I woke up and got ready faster faster than I wanted. So I ended up going to class really early. I got there an hour before class started and decided to do some homework. I did that and was almost finished when Cassandra came in. I ran over and asked her what her thoughts were on Rome and she told me that she can’t go because it is too expensive. DANG. So then I waited for Patrick to come in and he said maybe. And then when LaSia came in she said probably not. :-/ She added Sally to the conversation but she never said anything. So I was pretty bummed. I really wanted to go to Rome so that I could say When in Rome and all that. During class I wrote my notes quicker than usual I noticed because I think I was taking out my aggressions for not knowing what to do. I was debating whether I could just go by myself. I thought about putting a post on the Facebook group but I had talked to Cassandra and hers about Amsterdam hadn’t gained her anything and that was weeks away. I think people were hesitant because it is a bit last minute. But I really want to go! I think it would be a really good way to kick start the plentiful “lights at the end of the tunnels” that I have. Next week I have tests and it would be a cool way to reward myself for finishing them.

So I was feeling pretty bummed. But after class I went upstairs to check the mail and found one for me from my Thadlius. It definitely made my day better J. I went and read it and then went to the library to chill before class. While we were sitting there eating our lunches, a few of us were talking about books and things. I can’t really remember what exactly we were talking about but we were having a fun time. Pretty soon one of us noticed this giant like flying but that looked like a bee. But it was huge! One of the guys thought that this was a good time to show us all a picture of the giant hornets in China. We were not very happy with him. Pretty soon the bug/bee started flying closer to the table and lower so we all started freaking out and running away. It wasn’t really that scary but it was fun to spaz out about it. J We all decided that it was a good excuse for us to go to class.

During class we discussed The Angel Esmeralda by Don Donillo (or something like that). I didn’t really like the work very much but others did. I felt like I liked it more after we talked about it and I understood it a little more. I still wouldn’t place it in my top fifty though. After that I went back downstairs to the library to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my day. I ran into the girl that I had the conversation with last time I was in the library. We both smiled at each other and then kept doing what we were doing. I left shortly after that because I was getting mad at the internet there was being stupid.

I went down to the cave and was sitting and talked to Daniel about Rome and how I was pretty bummed that it isn’t probably going to happen. He said I should just go by myself. And honestly I really thought about it…. I asked my friend Grace but she can’t go either… So now I am sad that I don’t get to go…

I went home and was reading when Paul burst in and started showing me his books called Game Over which each page is like a cartoon scenario and they all end in the character dying a horrible death. English is hard. Then we played the memory game again but Paul just cheats all the time. Then we played with these like Lego thing but they were bigger than legos.

Then we had dinner of Cordon Bleu and fries and Rose wine tonight and then cheese and pudding. Then I went and skyped Spencer who got me addicted to this stupid cookie game: http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/ And then I skyped dad. My financial aid came in so that is good and I paid off most of my Visa credit card.

Then I was writing my journal and then Thad got on so we Skyped. SO then I was trying to multitask and my computer kept dying. Tomorrow I have to write my History paper. It is supposedly going to rain tomorrow. So maybe I will stay home to write it, I don’t know.

Meters and Memory

It sucked getting up today. I should have snoozed but I can’t figure out how to change my iPod to have 5 minute snoozes instead of 9 minutes. So that sort of sucked. Today is Wednesday, which means that Madame doesn’t work and that it is laundry day! This means that I get to reflect on my week! I feel like this week went by a lot slower than other weeks. It seems like forever ago that I went to the Gorge but it has only been like four days. I also feel like this could be because I have been kind of down in the dumps (sort of) and had a cold and just not my favorite week of being here. Also because it is Wednesday Madame is here in the mornings, which is weird for me. I really like that she is usually gone in the mornings. I am a big fan of self-run mornings where I don’t have to talk to people. I just don’t like to talk in the mornings before I choose to and it usually will set the tone for my whole day. In high school mom and I had it figured out that she wouldn’t talk to me until I talked to her and it worked nice. I am not like rude about it I just really like to take care of me and then say hello to the world when I am ready. I don’t have that luxury on Wednesdays. It also doesn’t help that it is one of my wake up early days…

But I woke up and put on a fake cheery face, as anyone who knows me knows that I am not the nicest person in the mornings, and went out to eat breakfast. I had bread and a banana and then talked to Madame about Beebow. She bought him a like cat scratching thing but it is in the shape of a wave. It is really weird and she keeps getting mad that he isn’t using it. I reassured her that it might be because it smells weird that he doesn’t like it yet. But it looks weird and I don’t know how it would really work because when he tried to scratch it, it moves. But I didn’t buy it so I am not too worried about it. I went and packed up my stuff and decided to leave. Madame was wondering why I was leaving 40 minutes early so I told her that I like to be early so that I can go over my notes before class. She liked that answer. I walked to class and was there really early but luckily the building was already unlocked.

On my way to school I got to thinking about how bizarre like memorial monuments are. When you think about it, it is almost weird to have a museum of like Anne Frank’s house. I mean it is a bit strange that we like to go places where like especially with WWII, people were suffering. I mean the people there that went through it would never have thought “Oh yeah later they are going to turn this hell hole into a museum.” DO you see my point? I mean I think it is important and I see why we do it. But it does seem a bit strange…

When I got to school, I got on my computer and looked at tours in Munich again and listened to music while I waited a bit longer. The Wi-Fi at school is much more reliable than at the house. Once Patrick got there I went and talked to him and we talked about my trip to Munich and how I know I don’t have a ton of time there but I want to see everything. So I know I will have to go back there. I was talking about Dachau and Will one of the guys there was like Yeah I really think it is important to do one of those while I am here. We talked about how no one wants to do them because they are so sad and depressing but he told me he was going. I asked which one and he said Auschwitz. I was very jealous. That was where I originally wanted to go but then decided that it was too expensive. But I am excited to go to Dachau.

Class seemed a bit dull today. I think that it is becoming a habit. Class just is not as fun as my free time or my travels so it is definitely on a back burner. Too bad I have a paper and three tests next week… Ooops. I will figure it out. I am not here to get perfect grades, but I will still try and do well. But I have to remind myself that while it is important to keep up, I should not revert to my perfectionist and overly hard working attitude while I am here. That is not the goal for this semester. We talked some more about the monuments in Glanum and then a bit about the creation of Aix in -122 and where the old ramparts and city spots where in comparison to where we are now. It was pretty interesting. A lot of the streets are the same. Also the roman baths are where the spa is now and I guess you can see the ruins in the window. I want to go there and get a spa treatment… $$$. But it is pretty cool that what it used to be 2,135 years ago is what it is now.  That’s pretty awesome. I feel like I want to go there just to say that I did. Maybe I will add it to the list…

After class Patrick and I went down to the Cave. I ran up to check my mail. No letter. L And in the meantime Patrick grabbed us both the new packet reading for The Angel Esmerelda. We went downstairs and I was like if there isn’t a real angel in this I will be sadly disappointed because there wasn’t the Devil in Tolsoys The Devil and I was sadly disappointed. I played around on the internet looking at ideas for travel for next weekend/ the two days after our class trip that we have off (Sunday and Armistice Day). Patrick read the reading and then told me I would be sadly disappointed. I started reading, got five pages in and then asked him if it was ever going to get any better, he said no. I skimmed the rest. It was really a boring piece… I didn’t care for it. After that Patrick, LaSia, and I went to crepe a go-go to get lunch. I got banana and nutella, Patrick got chocolate and coconut, and LaSia got honey. They were delicious as usual. We walked back and sat around in the cave on the internet and doing homework. It was kind of nice to do it there. Some girls came in and LaSia and I exchanged looks for a while. They seemed like they were 12. They were complaining about everything and asking each other the STUPIDEST questions ever. I feel like sometimes girls who have a lot of access to money act kind of dumb… Like not to judge or have a prejudice, but a lot of times I have found that to be the case. But they were acting really stupid and turned out the lights on everyone and when they left I was like were they serious? And LaSia responded that she thinks they may have been drunk. But it was like noon… I wouldn’t be surprised though with the way some people party here.

I read some Game of Thrones when I was avoiding homework. And I read the Red Wedding. And I said to myself… That’s it?! That’s what all the hype was about!? I saw that coming like a mile away! But okay. I am not far past that so maybe more things will happen. I think I will read some more before I go to bed. After that Patrick went home and about an hour later LaSia had class. I went and paid George for Monaco and also for Barcelona! Woot woot! I am all set! I didn’t even have to take money out for it because Cassandra paid me for her portion of Lyon and that was enough to cover it! Yay! After that I went and read before class.

I learned that we have two tests next week in that class. It is mostly vocabulary of all the parts of the body, how to describe people, and stuff for the first one. Then the five senses verbs for the second. Both won’t be HARD necessarily but definitely will need flashcards. That won’t be too hard though. I am thinking maybe Friday I will take my laptop to Book in Bar and sit and have a smoothie or something and write my paper and read all day. Sounds like a fun and French thing to do. There isn’t internet there either so that will make it easier to stay on task. But I am not totally sold yet on that idea. But we will see. We translated a poem for my class that I had translated in high school. It is a nice poem. A bit sad but also it was a warm up for a harder one so that’s why it was so easy. It was nice to have a little reminder of the olden days when I was learning what basic French words were was tough. When class was done I went home.

When I got home I went home and started trying to do a bit more homework but because I had done a lot today I was really unmotivated. Madame came up not ten minutes later to close her window and I went down with her to hang with Paul taking another pack of Pokémon cards. He liked them. After that we watched a show on Disney channel called Victorious. It was pretty Disney-channel-esque. Once that was done we played a memory card game with the pictures of animals on the back of the cards and you are supposed to make pairs. Easy enough but they kept like moving the tiles! So then it was like not remember where the card was but like where it was at the time you remember and then where it could have been moved to. It was kind of messed up. Paul kept cheating and after three rounds of taking turns it ended up going Madame, Paul, Me, Paul, Madame, Paul etc. it was like oh yeah little kids you are supposed to let win. So I started playing stupid and like revealing cards that Paul was looking for and then making the wrong pairs.

We did that and then Laurence came home and then the Nurse arrived for Jean-Claude to give him a shot. She is very nice but I find it interesting that nurses make house calls here. It seems like an old fashion thing to me. But it is pretty cool. I guess old people get nurse or assistance house calls, makes sense I guess but I haven’t heard of it in a long time. Jean-Claude got home a few minutes later. Once we finished the game Paul found a tape measure and so we all measured how tall we are. I am 1 meter 65 cm because of course they use the Metric system! I am not sure how accurate that is to my real height of 5’6 ½” because I am no conversionist. 

For dinner we had Chicken nuggets and cubed hashbrown potatoes. Oh and before that we had avocado… I ate half. And then was very glad that after I stopped eating for a while she asked if I was done with it and she took it away and wasn’t mad. WIN. I don’t think I could have done the other half. I was struggling. Stupid not being able to swallow things I don’t like. Though I have to admit I am getting better at eating nuts since I have been here. So I am trying! I went and Skyped Thad before he had lunch and we had some interesting discussion topics. After that I went back to the living room and watched the last episode of La Source with Madame that is on twice a week for the last few weeks. She falls asleep during it a lot and then I have to remember what happens so I can tell her when she wakes up but since they talk quietly and quickly it is hard for me to pick up everything so it is a bit of a challenge. We had ice cream bars again too.

I found a flight to Rome for next weekend… It isn’t too expensive either. I feel like I am in a weird position though with my host because I asked if I could take her on a trip for this weekend but she shot me down because she has too many responsibilities here in Aix. But she said we could do like a day thing. I said that was fine. But now I am like well it is my last open weekend and if I want to go somewhere farther away this is my last time to be able to do it. So after class when I got home I asked her about it and explained the situation and she was like yeah that makes way more sense do that and we can do it on a Sunday that you don’t have things going on no big deal. She was really good about it. I think she was shocked that I had offered in the first place. But yeah. She is really cool… I am glad that I have her for my host. She is awesome. She wasn’t upset either she was just like yeah you should go far away while you can. So I made a Facebook group chat to see if anyone would be in to go with me. I invited Patrick, Cassandra, and LaSia. So I will see what happens. I told them that they could invite people too. So I will see… But I want to book soon. Like tomorrow so that I don’t lose this deal.

 Déjeuner du matin

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler
Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis
Son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré.

Breakfast

 He poured the coffee
Into the cup
He poured the milk
Into the cup of coffee
He put the sugar
Into the coffee with milk
With a small spoon
He stirred
He drank the coffee
And he put down the cup
Without speaking to me
He lit a cigarette
He made rings
With the smoke
He put the ash
In the ashtray
Without a word
Without looking at me
He got up
He put his hat on his head
He put on his raincoat
Because it was raining
And he left
Under the rain
Without speaking to me
Without looking at me
And I put
My head into my hands
And I cried.

Also as a general statement for past and future blogs, Sorry for my terrible grammar and spelling weirdness. I write my blogs between 10-12 my time so I am tired and just trying to get it done so I can go to bed/ my English grammar is failing because my french is taking over. I try my best to catch it but it isn't really my greatest priority. :-) Also i just put pictures in wherever I think it will look nice. :-)