I have lived in America all my life and I have never had a better Thanksgiving then the one I had in France this year. My friend David went to America last year and he absolutely loves the states. Sometime last month David asked me what I was going to do for Thanksgiving. I said something along the lines of I am not really sure and then very excitedly he suggested that I cook Thanksgiving. I agreed to cook if he came to help, so Friday night David came over around seven and we went with my host mother to go and buy ingredients. We got back to my house and started eating dinner. Ayan showed up in the middle of dinner and started eating with us too. After dinner we began to cook. I believe we started with the carrot cake, but we cooked so many things that I am not sure. While the carrot cake was baking we made the Strawberry jello Salad. They don't have Jello in France, but luckily I had 2 packs of cherry jello saved in my room. The Strawberry Jello Salad recipe reads as follows, disolve jello in boiling water mix pineapple and bananas, refrigerate one half of mix until congealed, add sour cream and other have of mix and cool overnight. Well I messed up and add the sourcream to the jello and what not before refrigerating, it didnt congeal in the fridge so we put in a special kind of gelatin mix and stuck them in the freezer 3 hours before our meal. The taste was fine so everyone liked it and wanted more. After the jello salad was in the fridge we started making the corn bread. I forgot to write cornmeal on the list of grocceries but it was ok because luckily my host mother had some. The cornbread came out great too and everyone ate it and wanted the recipe. We took a break after the cornbread was made. Ayan and I watched Pride and Prejudice a bit while David and my host dad played a game. After our break we started making the stuffing. Which also came out great. I never liked stuffing back home, but the stuffing we made here had so much flavor and was the perfect texture. It was really awesome. Our turkey weighed close to 10 kilos which is over 20 pounds. My host dad calculated that it would take more than 6 hours to cook so Friday night David and I seasoned the bird and rinsed it. David was so funny he wanted to remove its insides. At one point during our cooking session Ayan and I discovered a lemon with mold on the side. I told David I would give him 1 American dollar if he licked the mold. He did. When he licked it all this green powder came off the side and flew into the air. David almost vomitted, or so he said. It was so funny, I was busting up laughing. We didnt go to sleep until about 2 30 that night.
The next morning I got up at six. I soaked to cheesecloths in butter then draped them over the turkey. I put the turkey in the oven and did some dishes while I waited for my host mother to wake up. When Anne got up we basted the bird with the butter that had collected at the bottom of the pan. We put tin foil over the top of the turkey and she let me go back to sleep for a bit. When I got up the next time I took a shower and changed for the day. When I came down stairs Ayan and Anne had started the apple sauce. Next David and I prepared the salad while Ayan was in the shower. Then Gilles and I went to the store to purchase some of the things we had forgotten yesterday.. When we got home Ayan and Anne were making the mashed potatoes.. Oh yeah we had to do so much improvising it is ridiculous. We litterally made butter milk and cream cheese. France does NOT have the same grocery stores as the US there is a LOT less selection of products and a LOT less variety. Gaspard came over around 11 to help us bake the cheese cake and pumpkin pie. We started setting up tables just a little bit before the doorbell rang and the first group of guests started showing up. Everyone commented on how good the house smelled. We set up two huge tables in the living room. We had place for all of the 17 of us. It was so awesome. Once Zoe and Jade showed up we started eating the salad. Shortly after that the turkey was finished. We put the pumpkin pie and Cheese cake in the oven and quickly cooked the green beans and corn. After we had finished the meal and were waiting for desert we went around the table and everyone said what they were thankful for, however, I dont think the others really understood what to do because everyone ended up thanking me and telling me the food was great. That made me embarrassed. I said I was thankful to be in france and was thankful everyone came. We then ate desert. All in all we had turkey, stuffing, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, apple sauce, salad, jello salad, carrot cake, pumpkin pie, and cheese cake for thanksgiving.
After the meal we were getting ready to go out and play football. I was asking my friend if Florent if he was ready to lose and he looked down at me and asked me the same. I said "Je ne crois pas" with a real attitude and we both started laughing. We tossed around the football a while then came inside. We all talked as our guests slowly left. Zoe and Jade spent the night and we were up until midnight talking. I was very physically exhausted, but very happy. Thanksgiving was a real sucess.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Toussaint Vacation
So this blog post is long over due, In France there are four main school vacations. The first is for Tousaint and you have a little over a week away from school, the next is for noel and you have another week of no school, the third is in Febuary for Winter for a week, the fourth is in Spring for a week and then you have Summer vacation for 2 months. Toussaint or in English All Saints Day occured Saturday the 25 and lasted until the 5 of November.
I went with my host family to their second home in Auvergne. We had a really great time there. Anne and I read Les Fourberries de Scapin by Moliere. She helped me understand what was going on because Moliere is the equivalent to Shakespear. Reading with Anne helped my pronunciation A LOT. Anne and I did lots of mother daughter stuff like watching girlie movies and cooking. We walked to the next village to buy things for dinner one day and she introduced me to the butcher. From what I was told the butcher hates everyone and is somewhat rude, but she was really nice to me and wanted to know how much meat we eat in the states and what kinds. It made me laugh a bit. It made sense to me why a butcher would love an American.
Something really bizare happened while I was in Auvergne. I was relaxing in our home about to take a nap when I heard a knock on the door. I got up and it was a little boy. I invited him in and he asked me if I wanted to play in the snow with him. I said yes and put on my coat and gloves. We went outside and he yelled out snowball fight. I of course was ok with that because I love snowball fights. We started throwing snowballs at eachother and he kept getting closer and closer to me so I kept backing up and eventually he tried to tackle me. I grabbed him by his shoulders and swung him down to the ground. I started running to another yard because ours was scarce with snow. He started rolling a huge snow ball. I kept rolling little ones and throwing them at him. He was kinda fat and he couldnt really keep up with me so I ran way down the street. On his way to me he kept rolling this big snow ball. When he got to the spot where I was at I could see that the snowball was the size of a snowman's head. There was no way I was going to let him hit me with that, so I cut through the yards of some people and eventually when I ran past him he threw the ball and he missed and it smashed a little bit on the ground. He picked it up and I knocked it out of his hands and we ran down the street again to my yard and continued playing. The kid was so weird, he kept asking me if I was afraid of him and things like that and I kept telling him no then asking if he was afraid of a me. We were hiding behind bushes, so he ran up and I threw my snowball, he kept running and tried to smash the snowball on my head. I didn't let him so he took my gloves then tried smashing another snow ball on me. I told him to give me back my gloves or I would quit playing. He kept saying no so I went and tried to take my gloves. He tried to smash a snowball on me and I pushed his arm away and told him to give me my gloves again. He tried to smash another snowball and this time when I pushed his hand away he grabbed my hair. He said he wouldnt let go I yelled at him in French to let me go, that didnt work so I yelled in English. I am quite pleased that I didn't swear. Eventually he let my hair go, I quit and told him to give me my gloves, he still wouldnt do it, he kept acting like he was going to throw them onto the roof. I was mad beyond belief. I told him I was going inside. He gave me my gloves and I said Merci Au revoir and shut the door. His name was Maxime and Gilles started calling him SuperMaxime. I told Anne and Gilles and Gilles told him to be nicer with the girls. Maxime came back the next day and we played soccer. It was pretty funny that he came back.
One day Gilles and I went searching for a tree to plant. We found it but when we came home we also had icecream and candy. The look on my host mother's face was hilarious. She hadn't seen the tree and I am sure she assumed we had only bought candy.
The last two days of our stay in Auvergne there was a lot of rain so Sunday, before we left the village I heard a siren and I started to kinda panic. I asked my family if there was a tornado and they laughed. (There are no tornados in France). I asked them what the siren was for and the told me flooding. On our way back there were bridges that had been destroyed by flooding. We had to take an alternate route back home. Monday I went to my friend Jade's with Zoe. Their neighbor wanted to meet me because I am American. That was a little bit weird, but I understand and I think it is good to be curious about other cultures. I came home late Tuesday evening and relaxed Wednesday. I started school Thursday.
I went with my host family to their second home in Auvergne. We had a really great time there. Anne and I read Les Fourberries de Scapin by Moliere. She helped me understand what was going on because Moliere is the equivalent to Shakespear. Reading with Anne helped my pronunciation A LOT. Anne and I did lots of mother daughter stuff like watching girlie movies and cooking. We walked to the next village to buy things for dinner one day and she introduced me to the butcher. From what I was told the butcher hates everyone and is somewhat rude, but she was really nice to me and wanted to know how much meat we eat in the states and what kinds. It made me laugh a bit. It made sense to me why a butcher would love an American.
Something really bizare happened while I was in Auvergne. I was relaxing in our home about to take a nap when I heard a knock on the door. I got up and it was a little boy. I invited him in and he asked me if I wanted to play in the snow with him. I said yes and put on my coat and gloves. We went outside and he yelled out snowball fight. I of course was ok with that because I love snowball fights. We started throwing snowballs at eachother and he kept getting closer and closer to me so I kept backing up and eventually he tried to tackle me. I grabbed him by his shoulders and swung him down to the ground. I started running to another yard because ours was scarce with snow. He started rolling a huge snow ball. I kept rolling little ones and throwing them at him. He was kinda fat and he couldnt really keep up with me so I ran way down the street. On his way to me he kept rolling this big snow ball. When he got to the spot where I was at I could see that the snowball was the size of a snowman's head. There was no way I was going to let him hit me with that, so I cut through the yards of some people and eventually when I ran past him he threw the ball and he missed and it smashed a little bit on the ground. He picked it up and I knocked it out of his hands and we ran down the street again to my yard and continued playing. The kid was so weird, he kept asking me if I was afraid of him and things like that and I kept telling him no then asking if he was afraid of a me. We were hiding behind bushes, so he ran up and I threw my snowball, he kept running and tried to smash the snowball on my head. I didn't let him so he took my gloves then tried smashing another snow ball on me. I told him to give me back my gloves or I would quit playing. He kept saying no so I went and tried to take my gloves. He tried to smash a snowball on me and I pushed his arm away and told him to give me my gloves again. He tried to smash another snowball and this time when I pushed his hand away he grabbed my hair. He said he wouldnt let go I yelled at him in French to let me go, that didnt work so I yelled in English. I am quite pleased that I didn't swear. Eventually he let my hair go, I quit and told him to give me my gloves, he still wouldnt do it, he kept acting like he was going to throw them onto the roof. I was mad beyond belief. I told him I was going inside. He gave me my gloves and I said Merci Au revoir and shut the door. His name was Maxime and Gilles started calling him SuperMaxime. I told Anne and Gilles and Gilles told him to be nicer with the girls. Maxime came back the next day and we played soccer. It was pretty funny that he came back.
One day Gilles and I went searching for a tree to plant. We found it but when we came home we also had icecream and candy. The look on my host mother's face was hilarious. She hadn't seen the tree and I am sure she assumed we had only bought candy.
The last two days of our stay in Auvergne there was a lot of rain so Sunday, before we left the village I heard a siren and I started to kinda panic. I asked my family if there was a tornado and they laughed. (There are no tornados in France). I asked them what the siren was for and the told me flooding. On our way back there were bridges that had been destroyed by flooding. We had to take an alternate route back home. Monday I went to my friend Jade's with Zoe. Their neighbor wanted to meet me because I am American. That was a little bit weird, but I understand and I think it is good to be curious about other cultures. I came home late Tuesday evening and relaxed Wednesday. I started school Thursday.
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