June 29, 2013
I'm writing this from the train on my way to
Paris; from there I will metro to a different Paris station, take my train to
Vernon, get picked up by someone from the auberge, and then be taken to my home
for the next to months: Le Jardin des Plumes, in Giverny. I'm so nervous and
curious and excited, I...just don't know. This summer, I will closer to a real
person than ever before. And pretty close to one, I'd say.
(Okay,
okay - most of you reading this probably know what I mean by a real person. But
some might not, so I guess I'll explain. It's not that complicated. If you're
still in school, you're not a real person yet. Once you're out of school, have
a job, live on you're own, etc, you're a real person. Oh, and strop being
financed by your parents of course. And lots of people 'put off' being a real
person by going to grad school or what not. When I think about It's a funny
concept, but everyone talks about being a real person or not these days. So me,
I'm not a real person, duh. But this summer I'll be pretty close to one! Which is
terrifying. And exciting. And unreal.)
Gloria and Pascal took me to the train station
and saw me off. They are so kind. The whole family is. I can't get over how
welcoming, generous, and warm to me they were. They insisted on treating me to
everything as a guest! Pascal said if I had stayed another day I would have had
to cook for them, but since I'm staying only two they'll let it slide this
time. I'm not exactly sure whether he was joking (he jokes a lot, but since I
don't understand French very well in the first place, I never catch French
jokes) but it certainly would have been a very reasonable request and something
that I wish I had done!! If I visit again, I will for sure. But I'm always
nervous about my cooking. Every time I cook for other people or serve dinner
I'm nervous. People think I'm silly because they say every single time I'm
afraid it won't turn out well, and every single time it's delicious. Maybe
that's why I'm scared - people seem to have such high expectations and I don't want
to disappoint! Also cooking is kind of important to me, in case that's not
clear. It's kind of a personal thing I guess - sharing it with other people
makes me feel vulnerable because it's something I take pride in and if people
don't like it, it hurts. I guess it's like performing or sharing your art
pieces, or singing. Anyway, maybe after my internship I'll be more confident.
Maybe.
Ah yes, so I was going to talk about my day
yesterday. My second and last day in Laval. I hope you're not getting too tired
of hearing this, I feel like I'm getting a little repetitive, but...I had such
a wonderful day!!! (For my sake, if I'm going to be repetitive about something,
I would say that's a pretty solid thing for it to be!) Relaxed, interesting,
fun, pleasant...my goodness I'm enjoying myself.
At around 8:00, little Guillaume came running
into my room, looked at me in my bed with wide eyes, exclaimed, "Je
cherche mon pantalon!!!" ("I'm looking for my pants!!!"), got
his pants from the dresser, and ran out. It was the cutest thing in the world.
I then heard Gloria and his parents downstairs telling him he shouldn't run
into my room while I'm sleeping. Haha. I had actually already woken up and was
just lying in bed, so he didn't actually wake me, but it was the funniest
thing.
Well we hung around the house and had a very
relaxing morning. They had already mostly finished breakfast and had eaten
cereal. They asked me what I wanted and I said cheese, sauccisson, and
rilletes. They were all amused that I wanted cheese and meat all the time, even
at breakfast, and they were impressed I think. But once I started eating it,
Elouise realized it seemed like a good idea and served herself a plate of
cheese with a slice sausage as well, and made a pretty tower with it (see picture
below) - she takes really cool cooking classes very regularly (at really good
chocolatiers and restuarants and with very impressive chefs) so likes arranging
her food with pretty presentation. Anyway, she thoroughly enjoyed her cheese
for (second) breakfast and everyone was amused that I inspired her as well.
Later on Pascal told me that's typical of what French peasants eat for
breakfast, too. Did I talk about the rillettes in my last post? I think so, but
I'll talk about it again because it was so delicious! As is all the cheese. Oh
boy. The rillettes is made locally, just 10 km away from where they live. Mmmm.
Like I said, we just hung around and talked and relaxed in the morning. It was
Saturday, so the kids had no school, Helène had no work, and Pascal ended work
at noon. I made Gloria finish telling me her story about coming to America and
how she and Demetrios met and got together. It was so pleasant. I didn't
realized how few things I knew about Gloria's earlier life, so it's been really
cool getting to know her family, her town, her life, her stories.
Then I went out the supermarket again with
Gloria and Helène, to get groceries for lunch and dinner. So much grocery
shopping! It's great. Lunch, just like every meal, was delicious. First we had this
little goat cheese round wrapped in prosciutto. Cooked, so the goat cheese was
melty and warm. Oh my god it's so good, I don't know why I haven't done that
more at home! Then we had this really tasty medley of vegetables, the leftover
salmon from last night, and mayo (served cold). It was really quite delicious.
We had Ile Flottantes that we had bought from the supermarket for dessert.
Gloria especially loves them. I really wanted to go the chocolatier/patisserie
that they had told me was the best, so Gloria, Pascal, and I went. I tried to
buy myself some macaroons and chocolate, but Pascal insisted that Helène wanted
to buy me a box assortment of macaroons. So I got a 16 macaroon assortment.
Then I bought my own chocolate separately - I got 6 pieces, expected it to be
kind of expensive - it was less than 3 euros!! For really good-quality
chocolate. The guy who owns the shop used to cook for the president and at some
super fancy place but he was from Laval so he wanted to return and open up a
little shop. I took them back and gave everyone a macaroon (I can't eat 16
myself!!) - I also gave the kids a macaroon this morning, the last 4 I have
with me on the train as a snack.
Then they took me to a castle an hour away
called...well I forget. I slept pretty much the whole way there - man I get
exhausted sometimes. But it was fantastic. We went on a tour at 3:30. Yes, in
French. Oh boy it was tough to understand. But there were parts that I did!!!
She told us about how a tabletop was made in a special way so that when you
drop coins on it you can tell what the coin is made of - gold, silver, lead. So
you can test whether coins are fake! It was really interesting and cool - but
then I turned to Gloria very excitedly and said "I understood
that!!!!" She was excited for me too. For the most part she would
translate to me what the guide said after she finished. There was a lot of
really interesting stuff though, it was a very enjoyable tour. There was a huge
tapestry in one room that was made for the purpose of keeping the room warm (as
well as decoration). There was a table with weird round edges: she asked if
anyone had guesses about why they were made like that, and then told us it was
for holding candles. She said the workers used to live on the first floor so there
were no windows, but later the owners started living on the first floor so they
had windows built then. We saw the huge library room that had some huge books
almost as tall as my leg, lots of fans made of various materials, including
feathers, and beautiful books with designs on the front made of real gold. The
second floor had a little room overlooking the church so that the wife (who
lived upstairs) didn't have to walk down for service. She talked about various
protection measures: there were cannons by the entrance, a wooden thing of
spires, a moat. But they weren't intended for invaders, they were for thieves!
Kind of neat. She also said it's just a myth that they used hot oil for
protection. Not only did that take too much time to heat, but oil was expensive
- so they used it for cooking. Haha. And then there was a room with a really
intersting ceiling - lots of squares with a different image in each one. it was
called the Room of the Guards evern though they didn't actually live there
because some of the pictures were so inappropriate that 'it must have a guard
who drew it' (I don't know whether I got that exactly right, but something like
that). For example, there was this really weird picture of a man one kne
holding a hat...that is catching the pee...of a woman. It's pretty weird. She's
standing up, lifting her dress up, and peeing just like a dude. It was really a
very inaccurate drawing of how it would work if a girl peed standing up,
though... And then there was another picture of a starving wolf with hanging
breasts and a calm, pretty woman in his mouth. Here's the explanation: the wolf
ate only faithful woman. There were so few of them at the time that the wolf
was starving - he hadn't eaten in ages.
The woman in his mouth is the wide of Louis, the castle owner at the time, to
portray that his wife was the only faithful one. She still looked very calm
though because she had so much trust that her husband would save her. Well,
stories are fun! =)
We got back to the house and ate pistachio
chocolate ice cream cones. I ate it while sitting on a reclining outdoor chair
in the warm sun (yes, it was a beautiful day for me!), with Harry the little
Shitzu on my lap. Not a bad life:
I was exhausted (as usual) so I took a
wonderful nap. I was out in an instant. Apparently Guillaume came to wake me
for dinner, but he went back out and told Gloria, "I can't wake her up,
she's sleeping too deeply!!" (in French, of course). Ha. So Gloria came
and woke me instead. And we had yet another deeelicious meal. Raclette! I know
they eat it a lot in Switzerland, but I didn't realize it was a thing in France
as well. We started the meal with melon and, of course, wine. The melon was
probably THE best melon I've ever eaten. Just because it was perfectly ripe and
sweet. We had white with this dark flavoring thing - I don't really know what
it was. But it was interesting. And ohhh my raclette is good. Gloria said she
got a raclette machine thing back at home also (basically it's just a circular
thing that heat up these little tiny pans on. So you put a slice of raclette
cheese on your tiny pan, put it on the circular heater, and when it's melted
you put it on your meats and potatoes. And, just for me, because I don't eat a
lot of potatoes, they got green beans too! They are so eager to get things
especially for me - foods I especially like, foods that are paleo, etc etc. I
tried to tell them not to worry at all and to explain that I am happy with
everything, but they would have none of it. So it was perfect to have the green
beans as well, which were not only delicious but are also...vegetables. haha. I
actually think I've been doing quite well with my eating! I'm pleased with
myself. I mean okay, yes, I've eaten a lot of different kinds of sweets...but
in small quantities! And I've eaten some bread, but very small quantities of
that. Honestly, most of my meals have been quite paleo. And I'm certainly not
missing out on anything...I couldn't complain about any of my meals here no
matter how hard I tried. Ah yes, I didn't finish talking about the raclette.
Basically it was pretty bomb. He bought SO MANY kinds of charcuterie (meats
like salami, saucisson, jambon, etc) that were all fantastic. My favorite was
the...pavre, I think - I didn't quite hear the name of it. But the salami was
right up there too...as were the rest. Hah. The raclette cheese is really
yummy, and you can putt little cut up onions on the cheese as it melts so they
slightly cooked as well and give it an even more delicious flavor. Well, maybe
I'll get a raclette thing when I get home...maybe - I think it would be a nice
thing for having people over for lunch, etc.
After dinner we ate crepes. So yes, I ate mine
with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, and no it's not paleo, but I gave half
of mine to Elise, and furthermore, it was delicious and I don't regret it one
bit. Really, though, how can you go to France and not eat a crepe?
So one cool thing about Europe is that after
dinner it looks like it's the middle of day. But really, it does not get dark
until 11. Thus, after dinner, you can still go out, take a walk, and kids can
play outside! All of us, Pascal, Helène, Elouise, Guillaume, Gloria, Elise, and
I went to take a walk...through the endless gorgeous green paths they have
around their house. It really is wonderful. So much lush greenery, such
adorable little paths and roads, and plenty of fields. Here's Gloria looking beautiful in a field of knee high grass:
So we stopped at a nice big green field next to a school, aaaaaaannnnnndddd......PLAYED FRISBEE!!!! I brought two discs along
and showed them all how to throw! They loved it, learned to throw and to catch,
and decided they're going to get a frisbee for their family! Guillaume was a
star. He's 5 years old, but he learned to throw, could catch when I threw to
him, and when he missed it and it hit his head, he cried for a minute, got back
up, and started playing again! Before I came to France, Fannie gave me a card.
It had a checklist of things she wants me to do in France. It was an awesome
checklist, and one of the things was find a French person to throw with. Everyone
else from home told me they expect me to find a cute French boy. Well, I'm
pleased to tell you I've found my French frisbee boy!!!!!!!! He even gave me a
little purple flower (see flower in my left hand in the picture below).
(by the way, those picture was taken at
10:20pm...!)
And with that, I will end my narration of my last
day in Laval. My goodness, what a vacation.
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