Bienvenue à ma nouvelle vie!

Voici est ma nouvelle famille! Gilles is the one in the front left, then behind him is Jean-Charles (JC), then Silvia (their mom) and Yadira. They are from Venezuela, but they grew up going to a french-speaking school (because their father is French), so they grew up completely bilingual, speaking spanish at home and french at school. They learned some English somewhere along the way too, so they speak English pretty well aussi (except Silvia, she doesn't really speak English but she's vowed to learn now that I am here!) I finally have my internet up on my laptop (merci à JC qui a trouvé le code pour moi!) so thank you all for being patient with me, and get ready for 3 days worth of updating!!!!! PS- I probably should have picked a better picture- dont stereotype or judge them because they're French and drinking wine- that's part of the culture here but even so, we really don't drink wine here. I've only had it once, and that was because we were celebrating two family friends visiting from Venezuela and my arrival.

Oh, and please pardon if I throw random French words in here- I've got French on the brain and I'm at the stage where I'm kind of confusing the two languages or I know what I want to say and make a mix of French and English words where in my own head I'm correctly expressing myself, but I forget that most other people dont understand half of what I'm saying. Oh well. Please bear with me and feel free to ask questions =)

Hold on to your seats folks- this is gonna be a doozy! (or however you spell it lol)

My last day in the States was filled with mostly packing, or, well, thinking about packing until L'ani came over with KFC to motivate me lol. I am very happy to say that my last meal in the US was extra crispy fried chicken, biscuts, green beans, and watermelon. For those of you who don't know me that well, anyone who does can tell you that that meal pretty much sums me up lol. I am very proud to say that I had watermelon every single day for the entire last week in the States. Although you can get it here, I'm sure I wont be able to eat it like I do in the the States. I miss it already- seriously.

I was up super early on Thursday to get some last things ready and L'ani came over again to see me off like the awesome friend she is. At 9:30, we were off! Unfortunately one of my bags was too heavy (35 kilos, around 58 lbs. oops.) so I had to take some things out but it's okay. I said my last goodbyes to my mother and brother, got through security, and of course my gate was the furthest one away but I had about 2 hours before boarding time so that was fine too. Once I got to the gate, I tried to get Wi-Fi on my new Ipod Touch, but it wasn't working so I pulled out my Mac and got to check my email and facebook, and I also bought an electric outlet converter and exchanged some of my money into euros. Now I have to be honest and admit, throughout the two hours I was sitting there, the phrase "What am I doing?" ran through my head about a hundred times. I'm going to France- indefinitely. Am I for real? That's crazy! Normal people don't just pick up and leave their countries and start someplace new. France is different than the United States- I don't know how to get around and commute, I don't know how things work, all the foods are different, the money is different, the rules are different, the measurements are different, the language is different. For the past couple of days, I had been trying to speak to myself and think to myself in French to prepare myself for the big move, and I did pretty well, but then at the airport everything went out the window. I had visions of myself forgetting how to conjugate and structure sentences and making a total fool of myself. What was I doing? Did I really think I could just up and move to France? In talking to people throughout the past months and telling them of my plans, it honestly didn't seem like that big of a deal. I figured plenty of people had done it before so why couldn't I, and was too excited to worry about too much. Then at the airport, it all started to become very real and kinda scary when I realized what I was really doing. Well, there was no turning back though so onto the plane I went...

I was planning on writing thank you notes and journaling on the 5 1/2 hour plane ride to Reykjavik, Iceland but I ended up being entirely too tired and tried to sleep for the majority of the time. The seats were super small and the two people sitting next to me were rather large (well, at least in comparison to me) so I couldn't get comfortable. I decided to use up my time figuring out the lives of these people. They were a married couple, probably in their 60s, and they weren't speaking English. At first I thought they were speaking Icelandic so I decided their names would be Laura and Jann (pronounced yann), but then they chose the english options instead of icelandic on the flight entertainment so I decided they must be something else. Maybe Greek? So voila Laura and Jann became the cow farmers Elena and Stavros. But that still didn't seem right There was no way Elena grew up on a farm. I then thought they might be the Russian couple Boris and Irinka on a super secret mission for the Russian government but they had a book in whatever language they spoke and it definitely wasn't Russian. I ultimately decided they must be closely related to Icelandish, maybe some other Nordic/Germanic people, maybe Scandinavian? And finally I had Georgette and Lars sitting next to me. They weren't very social and seemed like a old grouchy couple, so I didn't try to interact with them- just made up stories about their lives and tried to sleep without disturbing Lars so I wouldnt make him more annoyed than he already looked.

We arrived in Iceland around 11:40pm Iceland time, and it was still light out. It was kind of weird knowing it was so late and still seeing the sun. I don't think I would like to live like that- I like having a separation between day and night. Again, I had a little over 2 hours to kill until our flight to Paris took off. It ended up being delayed about 20 mins but at 1 in the morning, what's another 20 mins? I ended up sitting next to a guy who looked very much like my old boss from Fridays, Eric, except a little smaller. There was no one sitting in between us, so at least I could stretch out a little more. I wrote 2 1/2 thank yous and then fell asleep again. Oh well, I'll have plenty of free time for the first few weeks I'm here in Paris to get them done and sent out.

One of my big concerns about coming to Paris was the fact that I only had a one way ticket. I wasn't sure if they would let me in the country since I didn't have a work visa yet and I didn't have any proof that I would be leaving the country after the 90 permitted days. I have to admit, my heart was pounding and my hands were sweating as I headed towards baggage claim. I also got a bit nervous because my one bag was the first to come out, and then my other bag was the LAST to come out (what are the chances of that happening?) but praise God everything made it here in one piece. I began to follow the other people who were on the plane with me and guess what? We went right into the terminal to exit and never had to go through customs! I dont know if it was because we were coming from Iceland and they dont care about inter-Europe travelers or whatever, but now that I think of it, I didn't even see any signs for customs. We did have to go through customs in Iceland (and security again before that) but not in France. So, praise God no one tried to prevent me from getting in the country or made me go right back to the States! Although now there's no governmental record of me ever entering the country either, so the government has no idea that I'm here (does that make me illegal? I dont think so because I am allowed to be here without a visa for 90 days). But hopefully within those 90 days (or hopefully a lot sooner than that) I will obtain a work visa and all will be right with the world and the countries within it lol.

I saw Gilles waiting for me as soon as I entered the terminal. One of the first things he said to me, after Bonjour et ça va (hello and how are you), was "I decided we are only going to speak in French to each other. It will be hard but it's better for you that way." Now, I am completely in agreement with this, but my friend Gilles, as much as he's awesome, can talk a lot. He asked me to update him on the fun new things in my life but I just said I was too tired to talk (especially in French), so he decided to tell me everything about his life for the past month or so. Golly gumdrops my brain still hurts just thinking about it- it was too much all at once and all I could think was, "I just want to hear some english!!!!!!!" We arrived at the house and everyone was still sleeping, so Gilles showed me where I would be sleeping and continued to talk to me about this that and the other thing. I'm both embarrassed and sorry to admit that I just stared at him with a blank expression on my face and wondered when I'd be able to put in headphones and listen to some music in english or something. Although I have to say, I understood the majority of what he was saying, its just I was too tired to respond and even so I could think of lots of responses in english but couldn't really formulate french responses in my head. Oh boy.... what have I gotten myself into? I really must be crazy.

Then Yadira came down to greet me and thankfully she spoke a little english to me. Mostly French, but she slipped a couple of english sentences- oh la la merci Dieu! Gilles had to leave for work and Yadira told me to come into the kitchen and help her put away the dishes so I could learn where everything belongs. They have so many interesting kitchen gadgets here (I guess because la cuisine is a very important part of the culture), some of them I dont think exist in the United States. Something else weird here is that they don't have an oven! Apparently this is typical around the Paris area, but goodness gracious how do you cook/bake anything? Any baking they do is done in a toaster oven, which, as you can imagine, is nowhere near the same as a regular oven. Oh la la the things I will need to get adjusted to!

Next came my absolute favorite part of the day!!!!! JC came downstairs and told me I should help him make lunch. He really has a gift for cooking. I bet you'll never guess in a million years what lunch was! Sting ray and horse! Yes, my dear friends, you heard me, sting ray and horse. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO awesome learning how to make it! First, we soaked the sting ray wings in a mixture of water and red vinegar to remove the strong smell. Then you put them in water (and add just a little bit of vinegar again) and add a bunch of different herbs and seasonings and les endives, a kind of french vegetable that looks like a cross between a cauliflower and an artichoke. You let that get just BARELY simmering and definitely dont let it boil, because if you do, the meat will fall apart. Then, we moved on to make the salad to go with it. The salad was a mix of boiled potatoes, les endives, and walnuts in a sauce that we made ourselves from butter and red vinegar (JC told me that in restaurants you're not allowed to make that kind of sauce because in large quantities, it's a carcinogen (!) but just for a few people it's okay). Then we put the salad onto each person's plate, (they have a tool for shaping it into a round/cylinder type shape) and took the sting ray out of the pot. JC showed me how to pull the meat off the cartilage, and we mixed that with another kind of herb. JC said to me, "You know you have lemongrass in the United States? Well this is like oniongrass." We put that on the salad we had made and then surrounded the dish with watercress (he reminded me a million times, Presentation is Everything!) and voila!


Then we moved onto the horse. We covered it in pepper (a mixture of black, red, yellow, and two other kinds) and JC sautéed them in a pan, and we made a risotto from rice, cream of mushroom, and mushrooms. We also made a cream sauce out of mushrooms and a few seasonings to put on the horse, and again, voila!


Sorry the pictures are a little blurry- i'm not sure what's going on with my camera but you get the idea. Anyway, I super super enjoyed being able to spend this time with JC. Firstly, it gave me a purpose and let me have something to do and help out which made me feel a lot more comfortable. Also, JC is a super-bon teacher. He's very patient and he takes the time to explain everything, the origins of foods, the way different tastes interact with each other, even some of the chemical properties of some of the ingredients- he explained exactly what and exactly how and exactly why were did everything we did. And he let me do most of it, because he says that's the best way to learn, by experience (and I fully agree!). So he'd show me the right way to chop les endives with the ceramic knife and then I'd do the rest or the right way to use the potato peeler (because what they use here looks nothing like what we use in the states!) and then he'd watch me to it to make sure I was doing it right and let me do the rest myself. It was so so so so cool! And every time we tasted something, he'd taste it, then let me taste it and either tell me it wasn't right it needed more salt or it wasn't the right consistency but instead of just telling me he really showed me so I knew for myself. It was too cool- I'm getting excited just remembering it!!! I told JC he should have his own TV show because he's PERFECT for it, but he just laughed at me.

Then Silvia came home with her two friends from Venezuela. They didn't speak french, but the husband spoke a little bit of english. They were both doctors and actually the husband had training to do ultrasounds in King of Prussia, PA! But he was only there for like, 3 months I think he said. Anyway, we all sat down at the table and JC presented us with a bottle of white wine (a Chardonnay- he had previously explained to me everything there is to know about wine and what everything on the labels mean etc...) and apparently it was a really really good wine because he said in the United States that bottle would easily cost over $100! It was very good though, I have to say. We served that with the sting ray as a first plate, and then followed with a red wine and the horse dish. We finished with a dessert- pineapple mousse- that JC had made the night before. And this was ALL just for lunch! Imagine that in the United States instead of your normal PB&J or ham sandwich! Our conversation was a mélange between spanish french and english, but it was quite a good time!

After lunch, Silvia and her friends left to go see tourist-y things, and Yadira asked if I wanted to help her bake a cake. I agreed but asked if I could lay down first. I ended up falling asleep before my head hit the couch (I didn't even need a pillow) I woke up about two hours later and she was just finishing up the cake. I felt really bad but I knew I wasn't going to be able to function unless I had laid down for a bit. Later that night, I was invited to go to a birthday party at the church my friends go to. I have been to this church several times so I know a lot of people there already. But I didn't know when everyone was leaving; I thought Gilles would be coming home from work first and then he, JC, and I would go over together (Yadira had to stay home and study for final exams she had the next day- can you imagine? Here they have final exams on Saturday and Sunday too, and Yadira had 4 in one day!!! Oh la la thank you Muhlenberg for never making me go through that!). But it turns out Gilles went over straight from work, and JC had a friend come and pick him up. He asked me if I wanted to come with them in the car, but I wasn't anywhere near ready- I needed to shower, fix my hair, put on make-up, etc... so I said I would meet him there later, still thinking that Gilles would be coming home. But as soon as JC left, Yadira told me that I had two options- I could either walk to the church or take the bus. I asked her if Gilles was coming back and she said no, so I quick showered and got ready. I decided it would be best to walk because I didn't want to pay for the bus and have to wait for it, so she said goodbye to me and I asked her how to get there, and she replied, "Just start walking, you'll recognize the way." Thank you, Yadira, for having so much confidence in me, its flattering, really, but contrary to popular belief, I am just an unaware, naive American girl who can't remember my own age half the time, let alone the location of a place in a foreign country an hour away that I'd walked to only once before. I explained to her that I had only walked once and it had been with Gilles over a year ago and I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. So she gave me directions (which didn't have any street names, only , "walk until you see a speed rabbit pizza parlor and then turn right, cross the street, and turn left and keep walking until...). She told me it would take at least an hour to walk there, so I needed to get started aussitôt que possible, gave me bisous, and shipped me off.

I know my mother is freaking out right about now- Mom, if you haven't had a heart attack yet, are still breathing, and still conscious enough to read this- don't worry, there's a happy ending.

I started walking down the street, in France, by myself, thinking about how big the world was. Not only was I alone, I was alone in a foreign country with a language different than my native language walking over an hour to a place where I didn't really know I was going but there I was, going anyway. I kept telling myself how crazy it was, but then again, the longer I am the more I'm convinced that I myself am a crazy nut so I just go with it. It's partially my super-independent kind of rebellious I-can-do-whatever-I-want-because-there's-no-logical-reason-I-can't-and-no-one's-stopping-me spirit which has before and most likely will get me into trouble in the future, but I decided why not, it's another adventure for me to conquer. And actually, it wasn't that bad. Yes, it was a long walk (well, for an American, but apparently here it's normal... and people used to question me for driving 30 minutes to church on Sundays and Wednesdays!) but the weather was gorgeous and it allowed me to get a better idea of where I was and what was around me.

When I got to the church, everyone was super excited to see me. Most of them didn't know I was coming, and everyone was so nice to me and wanted to hear all about my past year at college and my plans for being in France. I had a much easier time speaking French with everyone there, and even met a few people who spoke English (Pascale was born in France but moved to California when she was 6, and just recently moved back). It really was a great time, but I was very very tired. I had been going over 48 hours on about 4 hours combined sleep. It did not take me very long to fall asleep as you can imagine, but before I went to bed I talked with JC and Gilles for a bit and they gave me some very helpful advice for interacting with the people here. I was so happy- I felt like I had two big brothers who were looking out and caring for me. It's such a cool feeling!!!!!

I'm embarrassed to say I slept until 11:30 the next day. I guess it was the jet lag, but I seem to be all caught up on sleep now. Saturday was rather uneventful- Gilles and JC went to work, Yadira had her exams, and Silvia was out with her friends, so I was alone in the house. Again, it gave me the opportunity to reflect on what I was really doing, and just how much adjusting is necessary when you move to another country. Everyone except JC was home in time for dinner though, and we had Cassoulet, a kind of bean and veal stew, which is a traditional meal in the south of France. To end the night, we watched Pride and Prejudice (Orgueil et Préjugés) with Kiera Knightly dubbed in french. I still like the old version with Greer Garson better.

Well, that's a handful for now folks! Tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of my flaky pastry world of adventures (I still have 2 more days worth of updating to do!)
Bisous!