silly string

it was really cold and foggy out this morning... and i really didn’t want to get up, out of bed and off to work... but i’m glad that i did.

on the walk to the school, i kept seeing all these little white strings hanging from cars, trees, sign posts, fences and all sort of stuff, and i thought, “goodness, that’s odd.” and they were everywhere! so, i decided to investigate a little more closely.

what i saw was quite possibly one of the coolest things that i have ever seen: they were frozen spiderwebs! the fog had misted over all the spiderwebs, and because it was so flippin’ cold, the mist froze as it clung onto them... leaving a fine, frosty coating on each and every little strand.

it makes me really sad that our camera is still out of order, because i so wanted to take pictures of it all. but i went online, which is the next best thing, and found these pictures. they’ll do i suppose. :)

oh, que c’est bon!

today after church there were a couple of different families that were staying after to eat together, and they invited us to eat with them... since a) we were gonna be eating there anywho and b) one of the families was our ride home from church, and they knew that we weren’t going anywhere.

woah... it was scrumptious.  there were a couple of salads... mostly made of endives and “mache.”  i’m not entirely sure what that is.  and i’m not nearly concerned enough to look it up.  suffice it to say it’s green and leafy.

uh... quickly, while were on the subject of salad... why don’t we eat more endives in the states?  they’re really quite good.  i think i’ve eaten them once outside of france.  is the bitterness really THAT bad?  honestly, folks...

ok.  done.

for the main course, there were two dishes:  a potatoe... thing.  uhhh... it was like au gratin potatoes... but with a tomato sauce instead of a creamy cheese-type sauce.  and whitney claims there was hamburger in it.  i don’t recall this part...

oh... the bread!  someone brought some homemade bread.  a nice little change from the  usual baguette -- as good as they are.

the second... oh! the second...  lasagna.   oh, but not just any lasagna, my friends.  this... this is france!  silly old italian lasagna... no, no, no!  this was salmon lasagna.  smoked salmon, i believe.  with green olives, mushrooms... and some sort of green leafy object.  i’m not entirely sure what that was... but it was good.  i ate like a portion and a half before i even realized the plant growth was in there.

so good.

wow.

oh.

yeah.

good.

jeepers.

dessert was crème anglaise... uh... i think it’s a custard of some sort (i’m not really sure how else to describe it if you’ve never had it...)  with cookies and biscuits and stuffs of the like.  and cigars (pirouette... but without all the chocolate...).

and we got to keep the left over lasagna.  :)

p.s. -- it snowed.

...dun dun dun DUN...

ok... we've been promising some pictures for a while now.

they're here.

not like we would have preferred... but still.  it's better than nothing.  :)

check them out HERE.

...highschool...

so mark said i need to post something cause it has been a really long time...so here it is...


life is going well...i started school yesterday. it was pretty cool. i really liked it. it was rather terrifying at first...i almost cried. but it ended up being okay....i made friends and survived....however...that was only 4 classes...i have many that i still haven’t gone to....that i am slightly worried about...i just need to tell myself that everything will be okay. and it will.

ummm....yeah...i don’t really know what else to type about....not much happens in my life. but yeah...i am doing well and looking forward to being a fluent french speaker.

i’m hungry.

high (and mighty) school

ok... i really need to get a little notebook to carry around with me everywhere i go. i keep thinking: oh! i should post about this... or: oh! that would be a great post! and every time i tell myself: you should write that down somewhere... you’re gonna forget! but i reason with myself, saying: no... i won’t forget. that’s way to spiffy to forget. and without fail, like 5 minutes later, i’ve completely forgotten whatever the devil it was that i was gonna write about.

so... cool stuff has been going on lately for whitney. and frankly, i must say that i am sorely jealous.

the family that we were staying with for the first week or so in france -- the bigays -- is super cool and helpful. i think God was all like: hey... you guys are gonna need all sorts of help doing things when you’re in france... so i’m gonna prepare a family PERFECTLY suited to all your possible needs. he’s a banker (and we had to set up a bank account basically as soon as we got here, so that we could get paid...), and she’s an english teacher. yeah... how cool is that?

well... she teaches in high school... so her level of english is severely advanced, making it quite easy for communication to take place with whitney. also, she has a lot of knowledge to share with me about methods and stuff... or at least i’m pretty sure she would, if i would just buck up and ask her.

but, alas, i digress... chantal (sister bigay) has been saying that maybe we could talk to the language department of the neighboring university (literally, it’s like 2 blocks from our apartment...) to see if they would exchange using whitney as an english speaking lab for french lessons. we thought that was a great idea... but hadn’t yet gotten the chance to get around to actually asking anyone there. (it’s a really well know language teaching establishment, evidently, and people come from all over the world to learn languages here... who knew?)

last week, as we were on our way to or from church, chantal had this brilliant idea: maybe i could talk to the folks down at the high school, and get them to let you take classes there...

genius!

so... about 5 days later, she calls us up and says that we need to go in and talk to a guy about this, that and the other thing... and she should be able to start school on monday. how stinking cool is that?!

she’s the french equivalent of a high school senior. basically, she’s an exchange student... only 20 and married. nifty, eh?

yeah... needless to say, i’m quite envious. her schedule is quite a bit more relaxed than the regular students... and some of the teachers seem like they’re not even gonna give her tests or anything... i can only assume because they know that she’s not gonna be receiving any sort of grade for them... so why go to all the extra effort of making her take it and then having to actually grade the papers.

yeah... so jealous.

and on top of that... she’s gonna be helping out with several of the english classes. so she gets all the fun of english teaching that i’m getting (well... minus the stress of having to try to wrangle the little tornadoes down into their seats long enough to get their mouths shut long enough to get a chance to speak long enough for them to understand something... if they’ll listen long enough...) PLUS she gets to take other classes too.

if i were a rose... i’d be so green.

quick technical note...

so... if you'll notice to the right, the column with all the little boxes?

ok. here, we will be putting contact info for us... in the event that you want to get a hold of us in a fashion other than blog comments.

also, you'll see there is a Notes section. check here every time you get on the blog. there may be changes and things to note from time to time. once we get a regular internet connection, it may change several times a day (a status update bar, if you will...).

in the meantime... continue reading, enjoying and commenting.

and don't forget to read back over the posts you've commented on already! there are some posts that carry their own conversations in the comment section... and you'll be missing out if you don't follow them! ;)

cheers.

alms for the poor

things finally decided to pan out over the last few days.

you see, we were supposed to be getting a wire transfer (we were told) by the 25th of x% of my october pay... and then we’ll receive the remaining sum with november’s pay. well... that money had not been put in our account by the 25th. nor was it there the 26th... nor the 27th. this caused a bit of worry on our part, because we had rent coming up soon, and not enough money back in the states to be able to pay it off. there was quite a bit of worry, actually.

yeah... not happy.

thankfully, as we happed into the bank wednesday, early afternoon... the money had been put in that morning. we promptly pulled out enough for rent, and proceeded to do our laundry and shopping for the week -- several days late.

you don’t really know how nice it is to have money available for your spending whims until you don’t even have enough for the necessities. rather refreshing, really. i suggest you all try it a time or two.