The Greasy-Goat Express

yea!

2009-06-20T12:21:00.002+02:00

i saw the greatest thing today...

i was off going to get some stuff to make cheesecake... i walk along a busy road/bridge thing to get there. as i'm going along, it's normal for all sorts of scooters and bikes to go past on the road...

well, there was an ambulance coming... and everyone was getting over to the side, except this one scooter. i'm all like, "silly scooter... no doubt some hot-shot 18-27 year old guy who's too cool to pull over for an ambulance."

then i saw the driver -- a little old lady (i mean, she was well into her 60s, maybe her 70s...), with a big old helmet on her head... and all gussied up in a business suit.

wow... that made my day.

easter fun, part II

2009-05-29T16:24:00.000+02:00

saturday, evening. we’re out walking around... for the life of me i can’t remember why. i don’t think we were at the university on the internet... but it’s always a possibility. something in the back of my head is telling me that we were out to a restaurant and on the way home.

at any rate... we’re rounding the corner to the round that comes up to the apartment, just right next to the church across from where we live.

we know there’s something going on, because there is a big crowd of people gathered around the main entrance, that of the newer part of the church.

there’s a fire going... and the priest is saying some stuff. we’re just watching, trying to figure out what’s going on.

suddenly (lol...), a lady with a bunch of candles come over and hands us one. we’re trapped... and now we’ve gotta play with them. it’s about 9 pm.

there’s a candle lit from the fire... a bit one... like 2 or 3 three tall. from it, a smaller one -- perhaps several -- gets lit. the priest starts lighting other candles of those around, and as you go in, someone passes the flame on to your candle... and people spread it around to everyone present.

we go in, and there’s a nice little easter mass.

we were drug into a “veillée pascale,” or easter vigil. it was nice.

i think it was the first mass that i’ve actually made it all the way through... with perhaps the exception of the midnight mass that we went to the year before in provo.

now... i’m not sure if this is only an easter thing (i’m not near as up to snuff on my religions as i ought to be...) or what, but it was the first of the like i’ve been witness to. they did an adult baptism. i don’t know if it was a convert baptism, or just someone that was from an inactive family and later in life decided that they wanted to be in on it all... not sure. but... it was cool. the priest said that there were some 3000 adult baptisms taking place that evening in all of france... and i thought it was a pretty unique experience, being from the heart of mormondom and all.

i like going to the services of other religions... it makes me feel happy. i’ve never really liked how we expect people to listen to our missionaries and accept them and their message, or to come and be curious about us... and yet i would dare say most members of the LDS church never go and experience anything other than their own theologies.

easter fun

2009-05-28T16:19:00.000+02:00

we’re sitting in our apartment on good friday. i hear this strange sound floating up from the streets below: a sort of chanting.

sure enough, as i open the window and listen more closely... there is chanting. about a hundred people were walking up and down the streets chanting and there as someone with a microphone talking.

it took me a second to figure out what was going on... but then it hit me. it was an easter processional. i followed one of these on my mission, that was a bit more elaborate, and done by the kids of the parish... some of them the kids of an inactive member that we’d been working with.

i took whitney down to see it. we followed for a bit, and i managed to sneak a few pictures.

for those who are unfamiliar with this sort of thing, it’s a processional that tells the story of the last bit of christ’s life. hence the cross and the pascal timeframe.

if you’ve ever been to a cathedral (well... all the churches i’ve been to here in france... not only the cathedrals -- which is a church that has a bishop... kinda the catholic equivalent of a stake center), around the walls they have the same events in picture format. i think there’s twelve of them... i don’t remember.

the processional follows the same story line, and they stop every now and again, and the priest tells the story a bit, and they sing something and chant a bit... and then walk to the next station.

it’s pretty cool, really.

follow down?

2009-05-27T16:14:00.003+02:00

right... so the fruit loop trees? (or is it froot-loop?)

remember how MASSIVE those flowers where? the next day, i collected some specimens.

behold the results:

the petals of the flower were, some of them, 5 and 6 inches long!

the petals were not only long... but thick! at the base, this one was over a quarter of an inch thick... and spongy too.

crazy trees...

follow up

2009-05-14T10:15:00.002+02:00

so... as promised: the follow up to the naked man story.

as whitney recounted, one evening as we were leaving out apartment, the downstairs neighbor came out to yell at us for the insupportable amounts of noise we made on an ever constant basis. (i still think his hearing is above and beyond that of any canine to have ever lived... but that's me.)

since we've already covered that part in whitney's post, i will spare you to gory details.

the next evening, as i'm cooking dinner, i can hear him -- as usual -- making little grunts and noises with every other step i take. i'm doing the best i can to not make noise... but when you live in a building constructed in the 1800's, there's really only so much that can be reasonable expected. the floor is wood planks... i mean, you look at the poor, warped thing at it creaks in protest!

right... cooking dinner... and i get in to the freezer to pull out a couple of chicken thighs -- i'm making BBQ chicken for dinner, with mashed potatoes and corn. we've got a half dozen or more legs jammed into our freezer that's the size of a large shoebox. seeing as they're all stuffed in there, as i pulled to two nearest the front out, the others decide they'd shift to make more room. this ends in one jumping out, in addition to the two i'm already holding. i do my best -- my leg clamp together like bear trap, my hands go in for the save... but despite my efforts, the third chunk o' chicken escapes to the ground. this has the effect of dropping a large rock.

from below: “MERDE!”

it took a great amount of effort on my part to not start yelling down through to floor to the guy that i just dropped a chicken, and there's no need to go off having an aneurism. i manage to refrain.

i must remind the public at this time that we'd been living in the place for five months. during the first month, we didn't realize to what extent the walls and floors of the place are like rice paper. at the time, the concierge came up and said that there were some complaints (i suspect they all came from the same guy...) about the level of noise that we were making. (this level of noise was normal conversation, mingled with the occasional fit of laughter... we didn't have a TV or anything, so it was just our normal decibel output.) we toned it down... and a few weeks later, the same comment, but with a side note from the concierge that the guy that was complaining was an old, ornery fella who complained about everything, and that we didn't have to go out of our way to be overly quiet... we were well within our rights as far as any disturbance of the peace laws are concerned. we still made extreme efforts, but despite these, almost every day we'd hear cries of muffled outrage rise up through the ceiling... sometimes every 5 minutes for an hour... despite the fact that we were almost not moving, and doing what little movement we needed to in the quietest manner possible.

needless to say, i was fed up with this guy, and quite ready to go down and give him several very large pieces of my mind. for those who know me well... i don't do stuff like that.

where was i? ah, yes... “MERDE!”

he then yells a sting of muffled french, and think he went downstairs, slamming his door on the way, to see the concierge. he might have just called him on the phone. i don't know... this was months ago (sorry).

a bit later, i hear the concierge talking to him, as he's yelling things about how we're making all this noise on purpose just to vex him. (this i hear as i had my ear pressed to the floor to see what all the ruckus was about. i'd actually been tempted to do that. the evening before, when he came out to yell at me in the hallway, and accused of stomping our feet about everywhere we walked... i was on the point of telling him that if that's what he thought we were doing... i'd show him what that was like... give him a week of it, and see how much better he liked the way we actually we comporting ourselves. again... i decided against this. sometimes christian acts are so frustrating...) a few minutes later the concierge came up to our place, and asked if i could come down with him to talk to the guy.

so down we go.

we get to the apartment, and he the first thing he (pierre... the neighbor) says is, “i don't want to have a yelling match, i want to talk like civilized people.” this became a theme for the conversation over the next 20 minutes, as mostly he and the concierge would get over excited and start raising their voices. i did once or twice... but only because he refused to let me speak. i hate that. more than almost anything i HATE it when someone wants to talk and discuss... and doesn't let the other party have two words, but talks and talks, and interrupts... and gets mad at the OTHER person for interrupted when they try to say more than two words. oh that boils my blood...

so, we talked. the concierge left, because he was missing his soccer match, and pierre and i talked for the next hour or so. he smoked... i sat... we talked. i told him we were doing everything we possibly could, but that i weight 210 lbs, and the floors aren't exactly the image of solidity. i can make them squeak even without moving... just a slight shift in my weight. once he found out i'm as big as i am, he calmed down a bit.

so we talked, and just... yeah... talked. i sat on the chair, and he sat on the bed in his navy blue speedo and white t-shirt.

he was much better after that.

now every time we see him, we joke around. we took him some cheesecake, and he
brought us some croissants and strawberries. once we saw him at a café in the next
town over, and he invited us to sit, and bought us some drinks.

we still get a “merde” now and then when we drop something... but things are much
better. he's a nice guy... just an ornery retired man who wants to live the rest of his days in quiet, sleeping until noon and going to bed at 9.

i think he needs to move to a retirement home if that's what he wants... but what do i know?

HOLY FRUITLOOPS!

2009-04-09T19:22:00.004+02:00

so today...

mark and i were walking to the university to do some stuff on the internet and saw this awesome tree...well 3 of them actually... but that's not the point...

lookie this!

pretty!!!....

nice big gorgeous purpley-pinkish flowers on a tiny little tree....

it doesn't look like the tree is big enough to have flowers that big...but look! they are HUGE!

told ya! :]

and those are just the buds....which strangely enough...smelled EXACTLY like fruitloops... :]
cool huh?

tsk tsk

2009-03-29T15:39:00.001+02:00

i am a bad, bad person.

i haven't posted anything here for ages.

i hope you'll forgive me... and chastise me... then forgive me again.

i really need to get some posts up.

breaking rules

2009-02-16T12:53:00.001+01:00

the other day, i’m sitting in class (and by that i mean standing). i’m doing a lesson on food, i believe -- though that’s completely irrelevant information.

in french schools -- at least in the elementary schools -- every class room has a plethora of rulers, protractors, triangles and what-have-yous to facilitate the drawing of geometric lines, squares, circles and other things. i often use these rulers (meter sticks, if you will) as pointers... due to the overwhelming lack of pointers in the class rooms. (there’s one class where the teacher has a four foot bamboo stick. i’m highly tempted to steal it. i think she’d notice. on a side note -- since this totally isn’t already one... -- they’ve planted some bamboo shoots in front of the train station. i want to go cut one down so i can have a bamboo pointer... and maybe a walking stick too. i don’t think they’d notice.)

these rulers aren’t exactly what you’d call... sturdy. they’re plastic. they’re a meter long (just over a yard for the metrically challenged...), and really thin. (ok... not like SUPER thin... but still. thin.) this makes them ideal for flexing. you know... like a saw. (they’re not that thin...)

well... i was doing just that -- flexing -- when the stupid ruler decides to go off and break! (at approximately 3 decimeters -- that’s 30 centimeters, or just under a foot, for the metrically challenged). break i tell you! snapped in two...

naturally the classroom, half filled with 9 year olds, was very quickly completely filled with “ooooo”s and gasps and various forms of giggling.

and... of course... the next question asked (which was on subject -- this is very rare... but happened quickly in this particular instance) was: “how do you say, ‘mark broke the ruler’ in english?”

silly, silly children.

they didn’t let this go very easily. i was trying to be all nonchalant about the whole thing... but they just wouldn’t let it go.

silly, silly children.

i continued the lesson, and as it was getting time to leave (which meant that the kids went out to recess, and i waited for my next class to get back from recess), one of the boys offered to tell the teacher that he had broken the ruler while being a turd in class.

i couldn’t let that happen... he’s usually a very well behaved child. perhaps if it had been one of the actual turds... maybe. so instead, i wrote a note and left it with the carcass on the teacher’s desk. she came up to me after school and said that it was no big deal... happens all the time.

i’m not sure i completely believed her... but then, i forget this is france: kids are terrible here. wow. i would have been shot, strangled or otherwise dismembered by my mother SEVERAL times over, by the age of six and a half, if i had ever thought of being that daemonic!

besides... the gov’t pays for it all anyway... so who cares, right?

I REMEMBERED! i told you i would!

2009-02-13T15:13:00.004+01:00

SO! at long last i have rediscovered the amazing thing i was going to tell you all!

now...i'm just giving a warning...

TURN OFF YOUR VIVID IMAGINATIONS AND TAKE THIS STORY FOR SIMPLY WHAT IT IS! DO NOT DWELL.

got that?

so i don't remember quite clearly how i came about this discovery...but! i thought it was hilarious all the same...granted...i was there when it first happened and also haven't been waiting for a good month or so to figure out what it is...so yeah...anywho i hope i don't let you down...

so...i have alot of hair....A LOT! it is really thick and i shed everywhere! mark is always laughing at me and the large clumps of hair that we have to pull out of the drain after each of my showers...and the numberless hairs that he pulls off of my coat during sacrament meeting in church....( you would think that i'd be bald by now....but no...it's still as thick as ever....:] )

well we woke one morning and started getting ready for the day...mark was getting ready to get in the shower when (like always) he found one of my hairs on his chest....so he grabbed it to toss from himself as he got in the shower ( probably thinking the shower didn't need to be tortured while he was in it ) and was very surprised when he found that it was not one of my head hairs....no, no, no, no, no...but that it was attached!...to him!

YES! my dear friends...mark has a hair on his chest that is a good 3-4 inches long!

i think i laughed quite generously for the rest of the day...:]

good times...

i love my husband...

i decided to spare you all the pain of pictures....however...maybe if you ask nicely...:}

fun, fun, fun

2009-02-11T12:46:00.000+01:00

over the holiday season, there was a nice little rash of entertainment that took place. the feasting and merriment has already been discussed elsewhere on this blog.

the current post is to make note of the games that were played. most notably, uno. (u-no?) twice we played games, twice we played uno. once, it was the normal version. the second time, it was uno-wizz. i don’t know if you’re familiar with this verision. behold:

oh, it’s fun. the wheel-of-fortune feature makes it all sorts of interesting.

the other game that we played was topword. i think this exists in the states... it seems like i’ve seen it. basically, three-dimensional scrabble. (sweet...)

yeah... i like. but i’ll tell you one thing: if you think it’s challenging to play scrabble and other word games in your own language... try it in one you’ve only spoken for a few years. ay!

never prouder to be dutch

2009-02-07T12:45:00.000+01:00

on the way to and from work, i have to cross a rather large bridge. on the bellerive-sur-allier side of said bridge, i cross the street.

there is often a bit of traffic on this stretch of road, and sometimes it makes the crossing more treacherous than at other times.

the other day, as i approach the crossing in question, i see a nice older lady (with a frightening leopard print coat) trying to get across the street. she succeeds in calming traffic before i get to the crosswalk, and so i simply follow behind her.

reaching the other side, i say to her (in french, of course), “this crossing can be a real pain, can’t it.”

“yes, they need to install a red light for the pedestrians.”

“yeah... with a button and the whole works.” (i floundered a bit on the word button in this context, which i believe lead to her next comment...)

“are you from holland?”

???

i must say i take that as a compliment.

i’ve not met an overwhelming number of dutch in my day (and how many of them were actually from holland i can’t say, but that’s irrelevant), but all of them... yes, i believe i can say, without exception, ALL of them have spoken impeccable english -- nearly flawless and with hardly any accent. and they usually speak 3 or 4 other languages too (if not more... i knew a chap who claimed 15 or so). i don’t know what they feed their children, but... i’ve heard it attributed to the fact that all of the cartoons (and i assume other television programs) that are broadcast are done so in the language they were produced in. and honestly, how big of a broadcasting (especially film...) industry can the netherlands have? not to mention that are SO many people that speak dutch. it’s kinda like how all swedes, norwegians, fins, danes and icelanders (?) speak english too.

so, yeah... it made a nice little swell in my ego that day.

socially inept

2009-02-06T17:20:00.000+01:00

so, yesterday i brought my friend katie home with me from school (she is one of the english assistants and she is from maryland :]) because she wanted to borrow our duffel bag for her trip to greece this vacation. (she figured that since she had a dance class at about seven she might as well just walk home with me and get the bag as opposed to having me bring it to school...) we gave her the duffel bag and made her eat something since i knew she would be too tired to make herself anything after she got home from her dance class...

she wasn’t so sure how to get to her dance class from our house so mark and i decided to walk with her so she wouldn’t get lost. as we were leaving, the man who lives in the apartment below us decided that he needed to come out and yell at us for being too loud...

(now, okay...mark at i aren’t the quietest people in the world its true. however, we actually try very hard to be quiet for this man. for the first month or so that we lived here we didn’t even think about how loud we were being...however when the concierge told us that the man below us had complained that we were too loud we started going to great efforts to be as quiet as possible for him. we take our shoes of the moment we come in, we try not to talk much louder than a whisper, we keep our music quiet, and we do all that we can not to slam the cupboards and doors to much. that should be good enough right? maybe in the U.S. it would be....but this is france....and they can get some pretty ornery old people in this country.)

so katie and i got to the apartment at about 5:30 and we left the apartment at 6:30 to get katie to her dance class by 7. we hadn’t really been much louder than normal and really most of it was just because katie didn’t know where the squeaky boards are in our apartment...

we were talking as we were going down the stairs and out came the man as we got to his floor...i saw him and as i was about to say “bon soir” noticed that 1. he didn’t look very happy and 2. he had absolutely nothing covering his bottom half. no pants...no underwear...( yes ladies and gentlemen...this man was only wearing a shirt and it was not nearly as long as i would have preferred it.) noticing these two facts i stifled my disgust (and slight laughter) and continued walking down the stairs as he proceeded to get mark’s attention and chew mark out for us being too loud (which may i mention was rather loud itself....) mark informed him that we always tried to be quiet and that we didn’t have wings so we couldn’t very well fly about the apartment. (the floor squeaks if you look at it...) the man then decided to tell mark that we obviously didn’t put enough effort into it or else he would never hear us and would live happily without being disturbed. mark tried to reason with him saying that we have to walk around to make meals and that in all honesty we aren’t home a lot anyway so he should be content that he doesn’t have to listen to us all day. again the man said that we don’t try hard enough and mark asked the man if he wanted to see what it would be like if we didn’t try at all to be quiet...the man had nothing to say for a bit and then proceeded to yell some more and mark just told him to have a good night and we walked away....

this is slightly frustrating and rather entertaining to me....the man is ridiculous....he wants us to make no sound at all (and if we do he smacks the ceiling with his broom or squawks up at us) but he feels no shame in yelling at the top of his voice in the hallway or in hitting his ceiling to get us to shut-up or yelling up at us....the things we do (walking...on squeaky boards...occasionally slamming a cupboard accidentally) only bother him...however i’m certain that the people that live next to him can hear him yell if we can hear him 1 floor up....and when he hits the ceiling he smacks it with all his might....the guy that lives next door to us hasn’t ever complained about us being too loud....

i don’t know.....the point is i’m really not sure how to reason with the man...and mark just wants to hit the old man upside that head he’s so frustrated....

how do you please people who expect you to be able to fly....?

also...why does highschool have to be so ... awkward....and why was i silly enough to be in it again? if it was hard the first time...it’s hard now that i’m married....i never was very good at being cool....and i’m still not...and i’m just so much better at being a loner...i dunno...i have some really good friends but nothing like what i had back home....and i really just want someone that can be my best friend that i can talk to about anything and they would laugh when i was funny or stupid...and i just want to be myself....i mean i guess thats what mark is now...but....he’s not at school with me....sigh....i’m just socially inept....and i can never think of anything interesting to talk about....i want to be done with school here....maybe i will feel better after the vacation....3 weeks should do me good.....

basically...i miss all you friends and family back home and the freedom i feel when i am around you....i love you all.......

hope all is well

praying for you always. :]

wow...

2009-02-05T11:21:00.002+01:00

okay... so i'm sitting here doing some internetting at the university. i have a habit of doing that. it keeps me from oversleeping.

i'm in the commons area, by the coffee and food vending machines, when all at once some really crazy sirens start going off. i'm not entirely sure, but i suspect they are fire alarms. so... i wait and see if there's actually anything gonna be done about it. after a minute or so, people start filing toward the doors, so i follow suit.

now for the irony.

upon getting outside, at least 10% -- if not a full quarter -- of the students and faculty reach into their pockets... and start smoking.

new fun in the sidebar

2009-02-04T12:09:00.003+01:00

so... there's something new and fun in the sidebar (as indicated by the title of this post).

when we're logged in, you can chat with us direct from the blog!

as long as the little thing isn't grey or red... we're online and available.

try it out next you see us online!

neverland in perpetuity

2009-02-03T18:59:00.000+01:00

when do you start to learn responsibility?

i honestly don’t remember. i hate to say it, but i think i’m finally becoming an adult. or perhaps it’s been happening now for a while, and i’ve been unaware.

seriously... i always thought -- or at least i truly hoped -- that i would never become an adult. that i would get older -- yes. that i would learn things that adults learn -- yes. that i would live an adult life -- yes. but i’m not sure that i ever really believed that i would grow up.

that’s not to say that i have -- or that i ever will -- grow up.

what i mean to say is i never really expected to forget what it’s like to be a child. again... not what it’s like to play like a child, act like a child or behave like a child (in some respects, i think i do that better than a lot of kids half my age...), but rather what it’s like to reason as a child.

like understanding responsibility. when do you do that? when does that click in your head? i honestly can’t say that i remember.

granted... i’m a bit different when it comes to things of that nature. (perhaps i’m wrong... you’d have to ask my mother to verify this... but i think i’ve always been a very well behaved child, relative to other children my respective age -- writing papers, book reports and the like aside.) i think i’ve usually caught on to things of this nature a bit faster than others. but still. shouldn’t a child of 11 or 12 years have a decent grasp on the concept of responsibility for their actions?

the thing that brings this up:

today i was with half of the worst class that i teach, in regards to behavior -- and i was with the better half of them. they were acting like a bunch of chimpanzees out on a play date. i couldn’t get them to shut up for more than 30 seconds at a time.

there was for certain one student paying attention... and the others would pop in and out, so that at any given moment i had roughly half of the class with me. i consider that a good thing with this class... so i kept teaching.

over the course of the next 5 minutes, i went from an average of half the class to the one girl paying attention. in the past, at times like this, i stop and i wait. i wait for the class to figure out that i’ve stopped... and to get each other to quiet down.

i’d already done that several times today.

i had two kids that just walked out into the hall because they were tired of the noise, and the headache it was giving them. i tried to reason with them (who are often two of the more noisy ones in this group...) that they could do their part by a) being quiet and b) inciting the others to do they same. they assured me they had tried, but in vain.

so i had an idea.

i had everyone get back into the room, and into their seats, and made one final attempt to quiet them the habitual way. this, as i assumed it would, failed. so i went to the board and started to write something. they figured something was up... but weren’t quite sure what it was... so they hushed a bit, in case it was important, menacing or entertaining. if it was just more lesson, i don’t think they would have cared.

i wrote: silence

i told them: there are enough dictionaries in the back... everyone go and grab one. (i would have assumed at this point they had figured out what was going to happen... but i don’t think most of them understood until AFTER i had explained what was happening... which was after i wrote what they were supposed to do on the board. sometimes they’re really slow...)

i underlined silence and wrote beneath: take out your scratch paper notebook

and then: copy the definition 3x

i had noticed already that the two kinds of dictionaries had different lengths of definition. the one was about four times as long as the other. and one girl (the good one) had gotten a dictionary out of her desk. (her definition was really short...)

they all groaned and complained. especially when the ones that hadn’t totally understood what i wrote (even though it was in french...) figured out they had to do it 3 times. the ones with the bigger definitions in particular were unpleased. “sorry... that’s the way it goes. stick with the dictionary you picked.”

and i made them do it in... silence.

they had a hard time with that. they don’t like silence.

when there were about 10 minutes left, i had them stop. some had finished... most no. i asked them, “what is silence?” they read me their definitions. “what do you like better: learning english, or learning definitions?” it was the first one.

and i made up a new thing with them. from now on, whenever i esteem they are being too noisy or disruptive or inattentive... i start spelling a word in the corner of the board. i can put down one letter... or two. depending on how i’m feeling, and how big of a pain they’re being. once they word is fully spelled out... we stop. they get a dictionary. and i tell them how many times they have to copy the definition.

i think in the future, i’ll make them finish it. probably not the whole thing in class... a bit, but not all. the rest, they’ll have to finish and turn it in to me for the next class period. and if they don’t... more problems will have to come up.

i hate doing this. i hate punishments.

i don’t like getting them... and i don’t like giving them.

why can’t they just grow up?

the bells

2009-01-16T15:17:00.002+01:00

so, of all the odd things to be taking place today...

i’m walking home from work, where i’ve just been astounded again (more at the end...), when the bells of the church start to ring. this, i take as a normal occurrence because it happens every hour -- at least. and, seeing as how it’s very near noon, i assume it is for the hour.

so, as i said, i’m walking. it seems to me that the bell has been having at it for a very long time... something quite more than 12 rings. and, sure enough, as i sit and count 12 more rings i’m assured that my suspicion is correct.

for at least 5 more minutes the bell continues to ring. this is the first time i’ve known any bell to do that on a friday at noon, so i hop in to the nearest tabac and ask the nice man at the counter if there’s something going on. he’s newer to the region, and says he’s not sure... but proceeds to ask the next customer that comes in... who also has no idea.

nor does the man i stop on the street.

odd.

-------------------------------------

as for the astonishment at school, there are two reasons i was in such a state:

for the past 3, if not 4, lessons with the younger of my classes at that school we have been learning the alphabet. (whether or not 7 year old french kids need to know the english alphabet is an entirely different matter... i just was out of ideas one day, and thought they might like to sing...) the first lesson or two was singing the song. then, because i had absolutely no idea what to do one day... i went down the roll, picking kids’ names at random and writing them on the board. they had to read the letters out to me. (they really, really liked this activity... i need more ingenious ideas like that to keep them all occupied...) today, again with no idea really what i was doing, i reviewed one more time the alphabet song, correcting their mispronunciations; i reviewed colors and food; and then i went through the food vocabulary, spelling the words out loud while they searched their lists for the words. they had to raise their hand when they found it. then we spelled a few more food items of their choosing together on the board. this, too, went over entirely way too well with the little people.

as i’m getting done with class, i head over the computer room to check for a couple of emails that i’ve been waiting for (with no luck...). in the hallway, the kids are lining up and getting their coats and what have you on so they can go home to lunch. there are a couple of classes at the school i don’t teach, either because the kids are too young to start english or because their teacher is adept with the language and teaches them herself. the particular horde of children i ran into in the hall fit in the latter category. they know i’m the english assistant, and that my name is mark (i often speak to their teacher between classes or before lunch... always in english), but they don’t really know me. the last few times, i’ve said hello to them and asked them how they are doing. the largely shy away and seem all sorts of timid-like. this time, i said hello to a couple of them... asked how they were... and then asked their names. i worked with them a bit to help them understand my accent and get what i was saying. the bright little buggers figured it out... and next thing i know i’m surrounded by 20 little frenchies saying, “my name is...,” making sure that i hear each one of their respective names. they were fascinated by me, it seems (also, a bit surprised to learn that i know french). the teacher was later telling me that they want to have me come in with them some time for a lesson (which i would not be opposed to). never would i have thought that simply speaking my native tongue would cause such a reaction among a group of people... even midgitiles.

king for a day

2009-01-06T19:04:00.003+01:00

sunday, we were invited over to the beaulieus. i have a bit of a link with the family beaulieu, just like i have a sort of connection with the branch president. the older of the two sons at home (i’m not sure if they have any other children besides the boys...) was in my mission. we were only serving in the mission together for a month and a half, and he was on the other side of the mission, so i never met him. but, i heard the name of elder gregory beaulieu several times through the course of my mission.

so... like i was saying... we were invited chez beaulieu for lunch. it was quite lovely. like a lot. one word sums it up: raclette.

for those who are not familiar with the marvelousness of raclette, a brief explanation follows, complete with pictures!

raclette means scraper... or something to that extent. it’s also a kind of cheese. the name of the cheese comes from the dish, which comes from the small wooden scraper that you use during the course of the meal.

to truly have eaten raclette one MUST have a raclette machine. (there’s a microwave version out now... but i’m not sure you can do that. it’s like saying mashed potatoes and instant potatoes are the same thing. lies!)

one places one’s cheese in the small tray, which is placed under the grilling surface. there’s a heating element under this last, which serves to both melt your cheese, and grill your cold-cuts and vegetables. sometimes there’s a place to cook crepes too.

the cooking surface is usually non-stick metal, but there are stone ones... and i've seen glass.

while the cheese is melting, you take one or more boiled potatoes (the potatoes here are a yellow potato... very moist and dense, with a slight buttery flavor...) and commence to cut or mash it on your plate. you can also add cold-cuts and vegetables, grilled or not.

when the cheese is bubbling and melted, you proceed to pour it over you potatoes. if the cheese sticks to the tray... you scrape. hence, raclette. then... before you do anything else, you put more cheese in your tray and place it back under the grill. there’s nothing worse in this world than having to wait 2 whole minutes for your cheese to melt, while your meat and potatoes get cold... and your belly is yelling “FEED ME, YOU IMBECILE!” bad form. cheese first, then eat. trust me... it’s for the best of everyone.

we then had some salad (what french meal is complete without it?) and bread... and then dessert (what french meal is complete without it?), which was a sort of creamy pastry thing. it had a puff pastry type crust, with a pastry cream inside (like in a bavarian cream?), and a whipped topping on top, vanilla or praline flavors. good.

and that’s how we spent our king’s day. though we didn’t figure that out until monday... because i couldn’t remember when it was exactly, and so i had to ask folks. (at least in france, it’s the first sunday of january... other sources tell me other things... but i’m in france... so i’m better than you, and that’s that.) so we had to eat our king cake on monday night. (which isn’t so big a deal, because i don’t think we’d’ve been able to down another thing that night...)

king cake, or galette des rois, is eaten on king’s day, or la fête des rois. it’s another puff pastry (i’m not sure i’m describing that properly... very much the same dough that a croissant is made with... buttery and flaky) filled with frangipani, a sort of almond paste. on the inside, there’s a fève, or bean, (which is actually a little porcelain figurine...) hidden in the pie (it’s more of a pie that a cake...). you cut the confection, and tradition says that the youngest person, usually while hiding under the table, dictates at random who will receive which piece. whoever finds the bean (chew carefully...) wins the crown that comes with the cake, is named king/queen for the day. the tradition celebrates the epiphany, or the moment when the magi kings (the gentiles) had the christ-child revealed to them. it’s a catholic thing. it’s also a louisiana thing. but, i think that it’s done during mardi gras in that part of the world.

winter wonderland

2009-01-02T15:52:00.000+01:00

ok... so there’ve been all sorts of holidays going on around here these last days.

first off... i believe it was on the 13th there was the branch christmas get together. a little pageant, and a few things to snack on (mostly different cakes, pies and cookiesque items).

on the 24th, we had a nice little evening here at home. whitney filled you in on that already, in about as much detail as there was to give. except that the power went out in the afternoon... for about 3 hours. the main level of the building had power, but not anywhere else. so we all gathered around the staircase to talk about the power being out, and to speculate about why it had happened... and why the devil the main floor still had power. then there was turning off all the breakers, and then systematically turning each one back on until the offending apartment was found. (i believe they were out for the evening, and they just decided to leave the breaker off for that place until they could get an electrician to come in and regulate the problem... and as i recall, they weren’t very happy to have their power cut, and were threatening to go to the police over it. our poor concierge... what was he to do? leave the one apartment out, or turn their breaker on and have no juice for the other 29 places in the building?)

christmas day, we were invited to the bigay’s house. they had the whole family there: their four sons (mickaël, sabastien (with his girlfriend, élodie), pierre and yann), réné and florence, ming wan (random chinese friend of the family)... and us. vaitiare, a tahitian girl in the branch, was invited too, but unable to come. we had a right regular french christmas: oysters, smoked salmon, foie gras... and then for the main course we had duck with a mushroom and creame sauce. dessert was a homemade bûche de noël. uh... you could probably consider a pumpkin roll as being a variation on the bûche de noël: sponge cake with stuff in the middle. it was a raspberry flavored one. we also had american apple pie (provided by the americans...) this came in normal and non-spiced (the french have this thing with spices and not using a lot of them... except garlic. ok that’s not entirely true... but still). we also were invited back for dinner... which was much simpler: salad, zucchini soup and some left over things from meals precedent. we brought a bottle of champomy to share with everyone (it’s like martinelli’s). all in all, a really nice time.

for new year’s eve... we stayed up watching the first two highschool musicals (for lack of other things to watch), and made some apple rhubarb tarts to go with another bottle of champomy. we also had more fun with the power going off... but only in our apartment and the one next door. we’re on the same breaker with the neighbor. for some reason, it decided (for about 10 minutes) to shut itself off every 45 seconds or so. it was doing that a little bit yesterday too... but only like 5 times.

and that’s been our winter holiday season so far. more to come in a few days. :)

the wonderful view from the top of the staircase chez Bigay...

my wifers!

all the dishes left over from the dinner... for 12 people...

the table during dessert time

patrick and whitney chilling in the living room

i'll remember.... I PROMISE!

2008-12-24T18:15:00.000+01:00

so first off....i’m really awful at this blog thing....

there was something really funny that mark did the other day...and i can’t remember what he did....but i really wanted to blog about it

sorry...

ill try to remember...in the meantime...

HOLIDAYS IN FRANCE!

i’m certain these are really much different than how i have spent them thus far...

however i have found them to rather entertaining...

thanksgiving....well okay...umm obviously the french don’t celebrate this holiday...it being an American holiday....starting with the pilgrims....(have i mentioned yet how much i love living across the road from the catholic church and hearing the bell....?...well...i really do like to hear it it’s fun....) yeah so nobody even mentioned it in passing...i really had no idea when it was....i think the missionaries brought it up at church...but yeah...we ended up buying some sandwich meat (turkey) and some really expensive cheese...(comte....YUMMY!!!) very expensive....we then took that home and mark proceeded to make crepes and we put the comte and turkey in the crepes and they was really good....and of course was saved some for sweet crepes....it was really yummy and made me quite happy

it finally decided to start getting cold here a bit after thanksgiving...all my friends at school thought i was crazy....when i told them how cold it can get in idaho and utah they were amazed.

other interesting things were also going on at school..

it turns out that this year a law is changing that somehow effects the validity of the students diplomas. many students all over france are upset about this. however i just happen to be going to the school that has a record for protesting about EVERYTHING! ALL THE TIME! so for about a week or so people refused to come to school in large numbers and actually blockaded the school to keep people out...however...they really just don’t want to go to school so it was very simple for me to get into school...thankfully...

during this time the only kids that were at school were the ones that truley wanted to be at school and wanted to learn and who saw the importance of their education.

(in france it is REALLY hard to get a job....it’s a very small country with alot of people in it....even when you have amazing specific credentials and are the best your age at what you do...if there isn’t an opening in what you have decided to do....your screwed....sorry about the dirty expression but thats really just how it is.)

so during this week or so...it was basically me and my best friends...(i was very happy to see that my best friends here were the kids in the school talking about how ridiculous the kids outside were as opposed to being the one outside....) I CHOSE GOOD FRIENDS MA! go me!

so yeah school settled down a bit for the last 2 weeks before the vacation and on the last couple days i had more sugar than i think i have eaten in my entire life....i think i almost fell into a diabetic coma.....not even kidding! and they kept offering me more! the frenchies are trying to kill me! so yeah....

Christmas vacation has been fantastic and this evening (Christmas eve) my dear husband and i once again had our turkey and comte crepes and guess what else?!

yup!

LIL’ SMOKIES!!!!

we couldn’t help buying the BBQ sauce when we saw it...and it was pretty dang good stuff for france not gonna lie!

yeah we’re having some good holidays...and tomorrow we are going to get a real taste of french holidays.....or something like that.....

yeah....anywho....french T.V. is really funny.....

more news to come.... :]

white... sundaymas?

2008-12-14T21:12:00.000+01:00

oh, today was absolutely wonderful! as we left for church this morning it was raining (that part... not so wonderful). en route, it was gorgeously foggy and there were hints of frost on everything.

then it started to snow... just ever so slightly.

by the time we got to church, there was a really light snow dusting everything.

i was gonna shovel the walks... but there wasn’t a shovel to found anywhere on the premises... or across the street at the bakery. we tried to sweep the walks instead... but this was a nice, heavy packing snow. i was sorely tempted to skip priesthood in favor of building a snowman.

requiem for a pumpkin

2008-12-07T20:00:00.000+01:00

i’m tired.

last week we were invited to have dinner with a few families in the ward, at the home of a delightful couple whose son is on a mission in canada. we were instructed to bring some sort of gift with us. we really weren’t sure what that meant... one gift? a gift for everyone that was going to be there? and we didn’t exactly know how many people were going to be there... which made things difficult.

we decided that the best thing to do would be to bring a treat for everyone to share.

and who doesn’t like cookies, right?

silly us, we thought the best thing to do would be to make pumpkin cookies. i think it’s just because we saw it on a list of recipes, and that’s what sounded the best at the time.

after looking over several sites, we settled on a recipe that seemed it would yield what we wanted.

introduce problem number one: US/metric conversion.

the site was kind enough to solve this problem for us... sort of. it gave the metric equivalents... but we a) forgot to copy down the american units to compare with (because when it tells you that you need 9 grams of something... it’s really a lot easier if you know that it’s asking for a tablespoon... or i assume that’s what it was), b) didn’t have any way of weighing, for example, our 490 grams of pumpkin purée and c) and didn’t consider the fact that you can’t buy canned pumpkin in france (although getting an actual pumpkin isn’t so hard... but you have to cook the devil out of the thing to remove enough water to get a decent consistency).

uhhh... i guess i also introduced the other problems there too... dang it.

yeah, needless to say, it took a heck of a lot longer to get our cookies made that i had anticipated... and they still needed to be baked! (mind you, we started making them around 8 or so saturday night...)

oooo... i just remembered another problem. we don’t have ground cinnamon. we have cinnamon sticks. that was fun. i spent hours last night destroying our little kitchen knife to get cinnamon scrapings... great times!

so... the last problem (i just keep remembering them... but i’m feeling too lazy to go back and finish the layout scheme that i started... sorry... you’ll understand shortly): our oven is miniscule. we could only bake 5 cookies at a time, for 13 minutes and another 2 for cooling.

aside from that... our downstairs neighbor is gifted with the auditive powers of a dog, and is under the impression that we walk like a heard of elephants doing the salsa. so, i had to move really slowly... due largely to the fact that you can’t look at our floor without it creaking. (i swear... one of these days his entire ceiling is going to fall in, and i’m gonna be staring through the floor at a consternated, dust-covered old man with a broom in his hands and a confused look on his face.)

to shorten the present story... i didn’t get into my bed until 3:30 this morning. and i didn’t even finish baking all the cookies! i got 43 (there was a little bit of a learning curve with this recipe... and thus a few “casualties”...) done, and have enough dough left for at least 20 more.

i’m tired.

click...

2008-12-03T20:59:00.000+01:00

yeah! we have a working camera again. so nice... now we’ll be able to get some pictures of things up and running for y’all. it’ll be a nice change to all the boring text that’s been running around all over the place on this site.

yeah... we probably spent a little more money than we should have to get the thing up and running... but it was only 15€, so i’m not terribly concerned about it. especially since we’ve been making efforts this month to not eat as spendy. we figure we can eat for about 10€ a week... and that’s if we’re getting cheese and bread and the like. we found soup packets for 0,25€ a pop. not bad. and they’re good too!

well... here’re a few pictures for y’all to enjoy. we splurged a touch today while we were at the store and got some Christmas decorations.

this is our bedroom. these lights are super cool... and super bright. we've got our tree, and two advent calendars too!

a nice close-up for the tree. it's chill... and only cost 5€!

silly string

2008-11-28T17:53:00.000+01:00

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!

2008-11-23T18:37:00.000+01:00

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...

2008-11-22T18:28:00.001+01:00

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...

2008-11-11T20:25:00.001+01:00

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

2008-11-10T21:23:00.000+01:00

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...

2008-11-04T20:32:00.002+01:00

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

2008-11-02T18:54:00.000+01:00

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.

a love-hate relationship

2008-10-29T00:24:00.000+01:00

said something this evening that i haven’t said for a long time... at least not out loud.

i love america.

usually one will hear me saying how terrible it is living in america, where they don’t have any real cheese, bread or pastries... where you have to pay so much money for your groceries, and don’t even have the option of buying a decent muesli! not to mention the complete and utter lack of a good, reliable public transportation system.

but today, that was all left behind. today i sung the praise of a country where, even if the politicians won’t, the customer service department of large corporate america will bend over backwards -- while juggling chainsaws! -- to accommodate and assist you, the paying customer.

i called my cell phone carrier’s customer service line tonight (i shall not mention which carrier it was... but i love them. they hear me now... and make me feel like i’m part of a network), to put a billing hold on my account while we’re here... as well as ask some other questions.

the hold thing was done before i had even finished asking the remainder of my other questions. i was promptly transferred to the tech department. you see, i’m supposed to be able to access my contact list on my phone from online. due to the fact that my phone is slightly non-functional at the moment, i can’t get it from the horse’s proverbial mouth.

well... i couldn't -- for some reason that even the techies couldn’t fathom -- access that list. they told me they would not sleep (not so much in word as in sentiment) until they solved the problem! meanwhile, on another technical question regarding my charger, they called the maker of my phone -- in conference call with me! -- to talk to their customer service department... who dutifully walked all around the call center looking for someone who actually knew something, until they got an answer that was, if somewhat lackluster and not completely useful, accurate and complete! it was blissful!

so, while it is true that i am in love with my current surroundings, and just adore this place... i must admit that i DO love america. i greatly appreciate the customer service of large corporations... which often rivals that of small-time works. i like that people look you in the face when walking down the streets and at the very least nod their head in recognition of your existence... instead of walking by as though you were another lamppost.

and, for the sake of my wife... i miss peanut butter.

potential radio silence...

2008-10-28T20:25:00.002+01:00

just so that y'all know... we may not be posting for a little while.

i didn't get paid, like i was supposed to... and we won't be able to figure out why for another week at least, because of the Tous Saints holiday. so... we don't have money for the cyber cafe right now (considering we technically don't have enough money to pay rent either...).

we'll keep writing and put up our posts as soon as we can, once we're not impoverished anymore.

cheers... :)

word of the day: obstreperous

2008-10-21T23:42:00.000+02:00

over the last few days there have been some recurrent oddities taking place... all of which i find to be rather curious.

first off, i’ve been having this weird rash of dreams involving random and exotic spiders. this, i can only assume, started on sunday when i was kamikazed by a fledgling arachnid on it’s flight into maturity (kind of charlottesque, don’t you think?). i would go into detail, but i think for the welfare of those reading... i will withhold.

secondly... and again, for the last few nights (maybe there’s just an issue with the dark times of the day here...), there has been an outbreak of violent and volatile fireworkings. we were so concerned about these (mind you, they were all rather loud, and very near the ground... in plethoras abounding!) that we decided to ask a local if there was some sort of party going on (why hadn’t the police been called to stop the insanity! surely someone was gonna die... or burn the city down). silly thing: it was the city doing it.

in an effort to get rid of the swarming flocks of birds that are crowding the trees in the city parks (and consequently splaying on the benches, walkways and cars of the residents), the grounds crew go around every year -- for a few evenings, evidently -- recreating scenes from the last world war in an effort to convince the birds that this is not the place to chill out.

i see one problem with this: the birds aren’t THAT stupid. they get fed in those parks. not only from random, bothersome foreigners who find unspeakable joy throwing about bits of bread for the little buggers (names shall not be mentioned here), but by the natives who are just bursting with ecstasy as they waltz around with large bags of bird seed, sowing the grounds with a veritable smorgasbord of avian gastronomical bliss!

what more can i say to this... .

a ribbon and a pickle jar

2008-10-20T21:35:00.000+02:00

so i figure i should write something to show the knowledge i have gained in the 1/5th of a century that i have graced this earth...

however...i never professed to have learned much in the past 20 years....(for example...i have this issue with capitalizing things that need to be capitalized. like names and beginnings of sentences and such) so don’t prepare yourself for anything profound.

today i turned 20. it was a very simple day. mark and i awoke and lay in bed as long as possible looking into each others eyes and cuddling (yes we are still disgusting after a year and 2 months of marriage.) mark then made me french toast, eggs, and even peeled my orange for me! :]

we sat about and talked for a bit and then mark had to go to work. i told him that it was a sin to go to work on his wife persons birthday and that i forbade him to go. he had this silly excuse of being a contracted teacher not a student....jibberish i tell you!

while he was at work i went to find a computer with internet so i could send my dear brother a short email saying to watch his mailbox. that took a bout as i sent many other people emails as well. thanks for the “happy birthdays” all those who sent them! they made me happy.

after that i went home and cleaned and rearranged the apartment. ( i might go crazy here)

mark came home late....he was finding a flower shop. :) he came home and i kissed him and all that good married stuff and stuck the dear flower into the best vase i have! (an old pickle jar)

and thus we see that love can come in many shapes, sizes, colors, and yes, even flavors!

funny... bone

2008-10-20T18:36:00.000+02:00

today (that’s a lie... it was several days ago, but i’m writing about it today, so it was today), whitney was on the computer playing solitaire, mahjong or something of the like. i came up, rather innocently, beside her and commenced tickling -- as i am wont to do. it is a loving and affectionate action, as all know.

well... as per usual, she flailed about as though i was killing her. in the process, she smacked her elbow on a nearby thingamajig. this normally stops the flailing (often accompanied by vociferous squealing)... however, she kept wailing randomly, and after a moment shouted out, “it burns! is it supposed to burn?!”

uh... ?

sure. why not. ? what the devil is burning?

apparently she’d whacked her humerus, and it was... well, burning.

yeeaaaidunno. it must be a girl thing.

and a beer, please

2008-10-18T21:44:00.000+02:00

we went shopping today. we decided to go to a store that was a bit on the other side of town... but as i recall a lot cheaper that e.leclerc (where we are presently shopping). lidl.

having received some subpar instructions from our mildly inebriated concierge several days before... our chances of success where slim. so, naturally, i decided we should ask for directions from someone else!

now, this may seem like the logical, normal thing to do. but, you’re never really sure who you’re gonna run into on the streets here... their blood alcohol level... or the reliability of their instruction giving techniques. such can be quite different from what one would encounter in the states.

we fell upon a nice man with wild, frizzy hair and a dog. and he seemed sober. very kind fellow. we asked where lidl was, and he indicated, “oh, it’s a good 900 meters that way.” i was ready to head off, but he said, “it’s hard to get to... i’ll show you the way.” he was out walking his dog anywho...

very kind of him. and they say the french are rude. pah!

we come around a couple corners, and i see where he’s leading us: aldi. not lidl. granted, there’s not much difference between the two... but still not lidl. i was somewhat disappointed: no princess cookies for me.

as we approach the store, i thank him for his kindness in bringing us all the way. meanwhile, he’s reaching in his pocket, grabbing a 2€ coin. “could you grab me a can of beer? i can’t go in with the dog.” i protest, saying i know nothing about beer... i don’t drink! “oh... it doesn’t matter. get the one that’s 0,47€...”

what can i say to the guy? “heck no, you overly nice man with frizzy hair! fie! fie!” i’m too nice... so, i get the guy his beer. on the way back to him, another fellow asks us if we have any cigarette paper to spare. “uh... no, sorry.” “oh, you don’t smoke?” “no.” “good on ya... keep it up.” we give thierry his beer (and, coincidentally, ask him his name...) and go back in to get our own supplies. while there, we see a man stumbling down the isle... 0,47€ can of beer in hand. he can barely stand up... he’s so drunk I’M having trouble walking... and he’s off to buy more liquor. and it’s at this moment i remember, among other things, why i always preferred doing my shopping at e.leclerc.

all that... and i didn’t even get my princess cookies.

what’s my motivation here?

2008-10-16T22:32:00.000+02:00

we had a training meeting in clermont-ferrand yesterday and today.

no... let me rephrase.

“we” had a training meeting in clermont-ferrand yesterday and today. “we” being not me. don’t misunderstand... i was there. but it wasn’t a training meeting for me.

remember the training meeting that i went to at the start of the month in moulins? that was for me. apparently, i was supposed to get an email saying that i wasn’t supposed to attend the training in clermont. i never got that email. in fact, i never got a confirmation email for the clermont training, like i was supposed to (even though i wasn’t going, technically). no emails. anywhere.

i wasn’t the only elementary level assistant that was misinformed. kirsten -- the other elementary assistant in vichy -- also came. actually... we’d been told that we were supposed to be there. we were the only elementary assistants that were informed of the obligatory nature of the ordeal. all others were told not to go.

it was interesting. the first night (we had to come in on the 14th, because the training started the morning of the 15th...) we were all greeted by a nice chap from... well, no one was really sure where he was from. he had an english accent when he spoke french, and a french accent when he spoke english. come to find out he’s irish... living in france for the last 12 years. odd fellow. anywho... he greeted us, assigned us to our rooms, and told us how meals and so forth would work. “meet back down here at 9,” he said as we headed to our rooms. “we’ll be going to the place where the meetings are tomorrow.”

this is important, because he would not be there. i don’t think that was conveyed until we were halfway to the building. being that kirsten and i were up talking to him (trying to figure out where in the devil he was from...), he assigned us as the people in charge of remembering how to get there in the morning. i somehow knew something like that was going to happen. things always go that way. never fraternize with the knowledgeable... it’s dangerous. kirsten promptly decided that meant i was in charge of getting everyone there in the morning. these things always happen to me. always.

to complicate matters (it being already complicated because a] nobody really knew they were supposed to be paying attention to the way to get there and b] because nobody was if they did), we went to an irish pub on the way home. oy! very nice establishment... and i was surprised to find i wasn’t the only one in the group of 50 or so people not taking an alcoholic beverage. but for those that did... and a lot of them did (and a lot)... there was no way they’d recall the way come 9 am when we were heading out. i wasn’t sure there would be that many able to make it at 9 am when we were heading out. they managed alright, however.

the meetings were focused entirely on upper level education. no mention of elementary level. so all two of us there that were teaching elementary focused on the “collège” or jr. high aged kids. technically, that was our goal. get the kids to that level. so, maybe we’d learn something useful.

not really. a couple of websites, not much more. nice websites mind you... handy. but still, not as nice as it could have been. we’d hoped for something, since what we’d done in moulins was -ish at best.

we actually skipped out on one of the classes... because it was completely useless... and skipped out on the whole second day as well, for that matter. so, i guess you could say that i just went for the food. french cafeteria food... the US has got a long way to go.

it's not a lie

2008-10-11T23:17:00.002+02:00

so the other day we were bored. i have been dying to watch a movie because i have gotten a bit sick of playing mahjong. so we bought some snacks including: carambar (yummy fruity tootsie roll type things... but not quite), gummy smurfs and a 6 pack of chips so we can try some of the weird euro flavors. the 6 pack had 3 flavours. 2 bags of each.

we then proceeded to go to the cyber cafe just down the street from our apartment to watch the music man off of you tube. it was the version with matthiew broderick and kirsten chenoweth. it was pretty good but probably not nearly as good as the original. it's okay though.

so as were were watching the movie we had some of the chips. the first flavour we tried was the kebab bqq chips. they were pretty good...the next flavour was chorizo..which is a really spicy, greasy sausage. i didn't like that one so much.

later that night when we got home we weren't terribly hungry, and moreso we were tired and too lazy to make something so we pulled out the last flavour. Rotisserie Chicken. Now...there are many times when abroad that the statement "it tastes like chicken" is used. however this usually isn't really the case. in fact i have rarely found anthing, aside from chicken, that actually TASTES like chicken. well look no further! boy oh boy! they tasted EXACTLY LIKE CHICKEN! the only thing i had to convince me otherwise was the crunch of the chip in my mouth and the absence of greasy bones! it was quite literally one of the most blissful moments of my life. :]

they also have a rather divine cream and onion chip here...it does not, however, taste like chicken.

can we have your milky minutes?

2008-10-11T21:32:00.001+02:00

so we were at orange very recently (uh... a cell carrier). we were there with the intention of getting a livebox. basically, this gives you like 18 megs of internet, digital cable and a landline with unlimited calls to other fixed numbers for around 45€ a month. not bad. we also wanted to get 2 cell phones, with unlimited calls to 3 numbers (orange cells or landlines). all told about 110€ a month with a 12 month contract.

do you know of any company in the states that would turn down a customer that wants to give them $150 a month? i can’t think of one off top of my head.

however... we were told we could not have our super spiffy phones (they were really nice phones... 2 and 3.2 megapixel cameras, mp3 players, bluetooth, internet, tv, fm radio -- i think... and video calls --- all for 1€ and 9€, respectively) or our little central hub box thing that would give us our wifi internet and landline connections. why? i don’t have my carte de séjour (sort of like a green card). i told them i have my récipicée (a piece of paper they give you when you’ve started applying for you carte de séjour). not good enough.

i probably won’t get my carte for another few months. and there’s a chance that i may not get until march... or ever, for that matter. yeah... so we had to get prepay phones instead. the phones we wanted to get were like 159€ and 189€ with the prepay option.

not cool.

but they did both come with sudoku on them! i guess that a bonus. and now, if we don’t want to pay a phone bill for the month... we don’t have to. yea for not having to pay bills. :)

no espeake english!

2008-10-07T19:58:00.000+02:00

i’m not sure what it is... but for the young francophone in english apprenticeship, there is a phrase they simply cannot keep themselves from yelling out at the least prompting: “hello, what is you[r] name?!”

it’s amazing how you’ll hear that being yelled out across the neighborhood once a group of kids recognizes you from a distance.

close friends are “hello, my name is!” and “do you speak english?”

you think they’d pick up something less mundane. you know, like “dondé está el baño?” or “tengo un gato en los pantalones de mi madre.” but then, what do i know?

a cold day in hell

2008-10-06T23:10:00.002+02:00

so i came to a realization today...a very painful one. i miss Utah. yeah i know! crazy right?! but then we always knew there was something a bit off with me...like the time i rode my bike directly off the 18,000 foot cement platform (5 ft building foundation) behind my house. or maybe the fact that i would stow books under my pillow and between my mattresses so i could stay up reading the berenstain bears until 3 am.
I knew i would miss my friends and my job. that was expected. however, the thought of missing the state itself...i had actually always wanted nothing more than to get out of it. and now...i am in france and i want nothing more than to be back in ugly Utah. (yes i know the mountains are pretty and they have lots of pretty temples...but Utah just isn’t my type when it comes to looks)
it took conference weekend of all things to make me see why. I MISS THE CHURCH! okay so i go to church here...i’m not going apostate or anything...there is a great spirit here and all that but the church isn’t as present here. in Utah (and Idaho) there are many members. it is hard to find someone who isn’t a member. much more difficult is finding someone who doesn't know anything about us. Here, if they have heard of us, they think we are a cult. (bear in mind i’m not angry at any french people and i love france. it’s a great place.:]) that just seems to be how it is. Those who are members and would have many deep things to talk about...speak french. those who speak english well enough to talk deeply are amazing and far between...i know of one...maybe 2 and i love them dearly for those spiritual times i have shared with them. I’m sure i wouldn’t miss Utah nearly as much if i spoke french better.
anyway the point is, in Utah there is an LDS church right across from your house and you could be in a completely different stake. you have many things like enrichment and walk and talks and things that go on all week. you have visiting teaching that all too often doesn't happen but they try. and you have church with people that have been LDS all their lives so they are thinking on deeper levels of the gospel. (not saying that you have to be born in the church to think on the deeper topics) anyway...i miss church and the temples and everything that is so terribly churchy in provo and i miss all my dear friends that i had so many discussions with. it’s hard not being able to understand what is being talked about in church. and it is hard for me to retain anything even when i do understand because i’m working so hard on simply, understanding what is being said.
sigh...i will get better and i will survive! i do really miss you all though. i send my love and hugs! i hope all is well.

a most curious thing...

2008-10-04T18:21:00.002+02:00

good morning. at least for most of you. it's early evening our time. on saturday.

we're watching conference.

technology, i've decided, is a curious thing. not only can one live in another country and be watching a live broadcast from the other side of the world... but one can do it from a chill little internet café, and blog about it all at the same time -- all for only the cost of 2 hot chocolates (4€).

tick tock tick tock tick

2008-10-02T21:47:00.000+02:00

Mark went to training today in Moulin.

So, today was the first day that I was home alone all day. Can’t say I’m a fan....there isn’t much to do in our little place. I got really bored. Now don’t go and say I didn’t try! I did, I really did! I did dishes, I put clothes away, I made the bed and picked up our bathroom stuff. hung our wet towels up, had a good long leisurely lunch, played mahjong and even read the first chapter of Nephi in English AND French!! A few times even..(those last two activities took a few hours each.) But still, time ticked away ever so slowly...
As i awaited my dear love’s return it started to rain. We had discussed earlier that if i would keep our kitchen window open he would call up to me (or whistle) so I would know to come down and let him in to our apartment building (we only have 2 keys. One for the outside door of our apartment and one to the room. Technically we have 3 but the other is to the door between the hall and our bedroom and we don’t use it. We just have it.) Well it started raining and I didn’t want all the rain to get into the apartment so I decided to close the window and simply go down and wait on the step for him. As I sat on the stoop i was looking at the old church across the way and I decided to go take a gander inside. However it looked kind of closed up so I walked back a bit and then looked back at it again taking in its old renaissancey glory. sigh...another day. Then a nice looking older lady asked me if I wanted to go inside. I said yes but it was alright. and I would see it another day. Well we got to talking about many things such as religion and schooling and it just was kind of messy. She thought I was trying to initiate her into my cult. Or at least that is how it seemed. She was very kind and willing to talk in English...until she discovered i was Mormon. Then she started talking more in French and expecting me to understand her. Then she talked about how France doesn’t need Mormons because France has different problems than the U.S. All in all it didn’t go so hot and I was not allowed to go in. She said I could come back on Sunday at 11. I think she may be trying to convert me to catholicism. All well. I can’t go cause I will be in church in clermont-ferrand. It would be fun to go to mass sometime though. Anywho, Life’s a bum so kick it.

On an ending note. I love France. But, they are not nice. They have no peanut butter.

for info's sake

2008-10-02T21:43:00.000+02:00

i'll be updating some of the earlier post with pictures and what have you... when i get a moment. so far, we've been rather busy, and i haven't had the time nor patience.

i'll do better. promise

recap of days past

2008-09-30T20:51:00.000+02:00

right oh... today not much interesting at all. slept in too long for that!

however, i do have things from days past to recount. lucky you.

when we came on saturday to finish signing the contract and get into the apartment, it was in the early evening (4-4:30). our concierge, bernard, was showing the new landfolk (as of that morning...) the building, and said he’d be up in a bit. he never came, so since we had to do things in town (like shopping), we went down to the main level and ran into the chap in the office. he was ever so slightly sloshed, despite the fact that he still had 45 minutes on the clock... that didn’t stop him from dutifully assisting us write up the last bits of paper work... in which he managed to spell my name two different ways (marck and marckc) after i spelled it out for him. to give him a few props, he did manage to get 90% of the words on the lines provided... and only forgot to fill in 2 or 3 fields that i had to point out, or fill in myself. not bad. granted, it did take him 15 minutes to do 3 minutes worth of paperwork...

in other news... they have a great little paper store here in town. with pens. :) we like pens. nice ones, too. they even have one for 905€. not shabby for such a small place.

phones and more!

2008-09-29T20:35:00.000+02:00

wow, am i tired! i suppose it could be leftovers of jet lag, or just stressing from finding an apartment and everything else that i need to do. like getting a bank account... which i’m still waiting to hear back on.

we went and looked at phone things today. it was about 105€ to get an 8 megamax internet connection (i have not the foggiest what that means...) with integrated landline that includes unlimited calls to other landlines in france (you pay per call here... and it costs more to call a cell phone than to call a fixed connection), and two cell phones with an hour of minutes each for the month -- but whitney and i would have unlimited calls to each others’ phones, so that wouldn’t be too bad... i mean, who else are we gonna be calling around here, sarkozy? oh... i also saw the smallest laptop ever today! 10” screen. it’s called the medion. check it out. (it's a youtube... watch the first minute to see the size of the thing...)

well, our apartment is nice. 31 m2 (or about 335 square feet...), two rooms, kitchenette, small bathroom (toilet, sink, shower). a few pieces of decent furniture. and only 330€ ($495-ish) a month, utilities included. not bad at all. a little pricey by american standards, but hey. and it’s central to everything, in the old part of town. gorgeous!

we did a little shopping spree to get it all set up and ready... to finish off what they already gave us. we went at the end of the day, when we were both really tired, hungry and all around grouchy. bad move. what’s more, they started to close the store, and we were only like 1/2 done with our stuff. bah! not the best experience of all... and a little spendier than i would have liked... but that life, eh?

church is amazing. me likey much. the branch is so friendly and receptive. great folks. the new branch president (for like 2 weeks now...) used to live in a city i served in on my mission. he’s super chill and funny. comes from a good family. we went to the start of the year institute meeting (something we’re pretty sure we’re gonna keep doing), which was a lot of fun. met some really swell folks there. i like this area... even if the elders do call it “the end of the earth” and “middle of nowhere france.” silly missionaries.

yeah... so major frustration. we went to the bank today to drop off one last little paper for the account. we pulled out 80€, 30 to keep on us, and 50 to put in the account (which, silly me, i didn’t realize we couldn’t do yet because we haven’t actually been approved yet). we then went about our business for other things, and decided to stop off at the pharmacy to pick up some cold medicine (we’ve both been hit with something nasty). my card was refused... twice. so, we paid cash and went on our way. i was a little apprehensive about this, since i noticed like 8 transactions were still pending online, from several days. we go to the store to do some food shopping (because we only grabbed enough for the weekend when we went saturday), and again my card was refused twice. what the frick! i told the bank i was leaving the country for a year... and i’ve been making random purchases for the last week. what’s up? it’s not like there’s a lack of funds... so, we’re gonna try sending my mom an email, and see if she can’t get this regulated with the bank. if not, we’ll have to use the money we have to buy an int’l phone card, and fight it out with the bank sometime. talk about stinking annoying! grrr...

ok... way too much fumage for one day. i’m done.

mac do

2008-09-26T05:47:00.001+02:00

today we went store hunting. there’s a really good grocery store called ED here -- cheap, decent quality products. it also, unfortunately, is clear the buckets up north of town. so basically, we’re probably not going there very often from now on. we did at least get our giant ED shopping bag... cuz i don’t know what we’d’ve done without that.

but i digress.

while we where there, we also went for a little snackage chez macdo... yes, micky d’s. don’t worry, it’s not the hole in the ground restaurant it is in the states, where you’re afraid of catching communicable diseases by merely glancing toward the playground equipment. it’s a semi-classy place in france.

we got one of the specialty burgers (france does this thing where every so often they have special burgers, like variations on regional cuisine and stuff... a bit odd, but good) -- the british touch -- in a combo with a little lemon sundae for dessert. i think it’s the first time i’ve been asked if i wanted a coffee with my meal, as opposed to “would you like fries with that?”

there were three things that i thought were super cool at this macdo that i’ve never seen before at any other fast food restaurant, which i will now disclose in small detail.

a little kiosk where you can order and pay for your food, to have it available at a special little counter in short order. wow! talk about taking convenience to the next step. now if there’s a cashier i really don’t wanna smell or try to understand through their thick accent: BAM!

the urinal (really, only half cool...) was a) flush-less, saving 150,000 liters of water a year -- the equivalent of 4 persons usage -- (this part not so impressive, they have them at craters of the moon), and b) the little panel that informed you of the spiffiness of you urinating facilities LITES UP as soon as the stream hits porcelain. HOW FLIPPIN’ COOL IS THAT!

and no doubt the coolest thing of all... just for going in and selling a small portion of your soul to the mcdonald’s world enterprise -- i mean, we’re talking a small fry or drink -- unlimited, FREE wifi. whoa! it doesn’t get much better than that.

shopping

2008-09-25T22:02:00.000+02:00

mark and i were supposed to go to ED’s today....instead we went to most every store i the surrounding area...and then ED’s....thats what happens when a store closes for 2 hours for lunch...any-who on our grand adventures we went to many cool stores that are dangerous for me to be in.... i like to shop. it’s not a good thing to like doing. there was a craft store that had tons of fabric and cool wall stickers and all that. some really cool buttons as well...really big ones. in there they had those little balls of yarn that are really fun and crazy. normally in the states those are at least 3 dollars if not more. they had a whole gob of them for only a 1, 50 each! so basically i get to make a pretty cool brown scarf only costing me 4, 50....I'm happy. the sad thing about this store was that they didn’t have a very large selection of crochet hooks....i guess knitting is the thing here in France the largest size they had was a 7 which isn’t small but it definitely is not big! but it was made of bamboo so that was pretty cool. it was 5 euros...a little more than i wanted to pay for it but the lady said that that is all the bigger they are.
also in that store were some really cool wall stickers. big ones! we are thinking about maybe getting some just so our walls aren’t so bare...they had some really cool ones of flowers and trees and then some kinda weird monster ones but it was cool all the same we didn’t buy any yet because we aren’t sure what will match with our very vibrant floors.... in fact, I'm not sure the floors even match each other very well but i suppose thats what doors between rooms are for. :]
Anywho, so we went to another store to look at shoes because i have decided that my reflections shoes, that i have had for nearly 4 years now, may have finally given up the ghost. they aren’t totally dead, but they are definitely not pretty anymore. we saw some very pretty brown shoes at a store called Gémo. i found that my shoe size is 37 or 38. Allthough the brown shoe was adorable....it was not adorable on me.....it had way too much toe cleavage, and toe cleavage is not attractive! At least not mine anyway. So the cute shoes remained at the store however, at another store called Kiabi I got 2 shirts for 2 euros! That was pretty exciting.
we then headed home because it was getting late. at the bus stop we met a very nice old lady who lives in an old folks home not far from our house. i understood most of what i heard her say. when she first talked to me i didn’t hear her soi looked to mark to see if he heard her. he took that as “HELP! i have no idea what she is saying!” she said it again and i heard her that time mentioning that it was going to rain. i understood her right before mark to ld what she said and then proceeded to tell the lady that i only know a little french. she then said (in french) “well you should know french cause i don’t know any english!” she was a very kind lady and wanted to talk and seemed a little sad that i didn’t understand her. but mark did very well in taking to her and curbing her need to kick the breeze with the younger folk. :] mark is so good with helping me. he is sweet. i am excited that i am starting to understand more. i’ll probably have to tell him to stop when i understand alot more because i’m usually so quiet he doesn’t realize i’m starting to understand...for the moment however it is fine. :] i still need him very badly! lol
anywho, things are going well and i am very excited to move into our new place on saturday. it is incapable of coming as fast as i would like it to...or so it seems. but its alright. we are in a good place right now. i am just excited about the future as always. :]

oh, balls!

2008-09-24T22:15:00.000+02:00

okay, so after some reflection and minor amounts of sleep, i’ve managed to recall of few of the things that happened over the first couple days of our little excursion here.

first, and perhaps most interesting in many respects, we were walking about town trying to find the office of tourism. i believe this was our first official visit to vichy (coming in on the train aside). we were just strolling about, taking it in and asking the occasional merchant the whereabouts of the places we were hunting for. along the way i saw a game of pétanque, more commonly known as boules. i have a mild fascination with the game, and wanted to show whitney how it was played, having explained it a little before. as we stood and watched, a nice elderly gentleman approached and started conversing with us (me). wonderful guy. we (i) talked with him for probably an hour or so, and then decided we needed to hurry off and continue our errands. well, we’ve run into the chap about every other time we’re in town since then -- in one part of town or another. one of these times i’ll have to ask his name.

secondly, it seems that we arrived at a most opportune time in the country. it was patrimony days -- basically free entrance to all museums and points of interest. the nice gentleman heretofore mentioned told us about it, and suggested a few places to visit. in particular we visited the opera house (which is only open freely to the public for some few short hours a year), which was amazing. we also headed to a few museums in town. there was an art gallery showing some works in glass, complete with the artist on hand to do some signing. there was an opera house museum (i guess the opera in vichy at one time rivaled the paris opera!) to visit, where i snuck some photos i ought not to have taken (though is didn’t get the one i really wanted... a show poster for cyrano de bergerac).

lastly, and most recently, we were walking about the park again, and whitney decided she NEEDED some ice cream... so we stopped of at one of the many shops around that sells it buy the cone, and picked up some raspberry and grapefruit flavored ice cream. oh... nice stuff. painfully expensive (2€ for a ball about the size of a billiard’s ball...), but very good.

and that does it for our recap session. this post is already altogether way too long, so i shall end for the moment. tune in again, same bat time, same bat blog.

yaaaaaaaaaay!!!

2008-09-24T21:29:00.000+02:00

We found an apartment today...its small, But, I think it is bigger than our place in Provo. :] it is newly painted and on the top floor of a very old building. our building is in the old part of town as well so all the homes and buildings around us are from the 1800’s i’m guessing. it is a very quiet part of town and is very beautiful. it is a short walk from many good places to see and some very good and cheap shops that we plan to go to often. i am not worried about neighbors being terrible either because everyone that lives their is either elderly or they are students at the Cavalam, so they are working hard all day. i sort of wish that the Cavalam wasn’t so expensive so i could take classes there. all well Chantal is going to talk to some people to see if i can do a kind of language exchange where i would help some people with their english conversation and they would help me with french. it could be fun and very helpful to all parties involved. i think we might get cable in our place so i can watch some french t.v. as well which will help a lot i think. and i want to read the bom in french. hopefully soon i can get a joseph smith manual in french so i can read it next to my english one. i would really like to understand at least what is happening at church. however things really aren’t as bad as they seem to be with the way i am talking. really i understand a little more each day i think and i am getting a bit braver. hopefully soon i will get out of my rut and start speaking a bit more. i have realized that its not that i don’t know how to say things correctly so i get timid. no, it isn’t that. it’s that the moment i want to say something the entire sentence just disappears from my brain. and sometimes i simply just don’t know the words. it’s frustrating. but it will get better i’m sure! i truly love it here. it is beautiful and i get so much time with mark we don’t know what to do with ourselves....it is wonderful to spend so much time with him. he is such a great man. so excited about life...about france....about me in france....:] he is adorable and the love of my life. never will i find one to match me so again. good job Heavenly Father.

speaking of cheese...

2008-09-24T05:40:00.000+02:00

i learned a very crucial lesson today: not all cheeses are equal. i’ve known for a long time that french cheese is in most all regards superior to american cheese. what i did NOT know is that there are french cheeses that have a vendetta against humankind. this i discovered today.

i was happily perusing the cheese shop (which i have on good authority is the best in all of vichy... though quite possibly the only in all of vichy...) and saw a quaint little grey mass that i thought needed to make acquaintance with my stomach acids. it was all of 1€10, and the size of a small pillbox. harmless, surely.

HA! the cretin! (uh... please no comments as to unto whom that statement refers.) i take it out of the shop (and no doubt earshot of the snickering from the shop owner), and open up my little wax paper package. the thing is nearly rock solid, thwarting my attempts to break it in half. i must resort to brute force of teeth to crack into it. so i take a manly chunk, and begin chewing. decent-ish taste... for about 4 1/2 seconds. then it...

well, let’s put it this way: if you allow the stuff to sit on your tongue for 4 1/2 seconds, you’ll notice it makes you all tingly. come the 5th second, it starts to burn... like acid. in fact, at second 5 that is precisely how i would describe the taste of the cheese -- battery acid. foul stuff, it was. to add to the horror, when i look down at it again, i notice wee bonny bestials crawling about as if they own the thing... nesting in it no less!

i thought, “well, this isn’t unheard of... maybe it’s supposed to be like that.” i mean, it is the first time i’ve made the purchase of such a cheese. so, i decided to stow it in my pocket, and ask the host family on our arrival back for dinner.

reaction: wow... i wouldn’t eat it.

enough said. cheese to the can.

only, this is me we’re dealing with.

so, i take the offending mold outside, give it a good toss on the ground to knock the little bug-gers off, and brush all but one or two diehards off with my fingers. back to the table, where my wife wishes me a fond farewell, and the hosts reiterate that i will be the sole to eat of the concoction. alas... surrounded by cowards!

nasty stuff. i had perhaps 5% of it before it was off to a long, happy and complete life in the dump. it’s still got a good century under the belt before it turns.

into the land of cheese

2008-09-24T05:34:00.000+02:00

ok... so i wasn’t able to post for a couple of days... we had IT issues. namely, our voltage converter is a wanny, and dies every 10 minutes because it thinks it can’t handle the european current. pshah!

well, after much deliberation, reading and consulting experts in the field... we decided we could just plug the thing straight into the wall. it worked out quite nicely, so now there’s computerage for all to rejoice in.

ok... let’s see. interesting things that happened over the last few days: we landed in france without dying. it was after we landed that we weren’t totally sure if or not we’d live. we found out there was a much better way to get to vichy, other than what we’d found online. catch -- we had to take 15000 other trains, metros and buses to get there. all-in-all, it wasn’t so bad. and no one raped us (always a bonus when traveling abroad). taking this cheaper, alternate route meant we arrived in vichy 2 hours before we were expected. after buying a horrendously expensive phone card (pay phone = buy a card to stick in the phone...), we successfully didn’t get in touch with our host family... twice. we left a message, and waited for them at the spot we thought they said to wait for them. luckily, we only had to wait for an hour, and then there they were!

really nice family we’re staying with. a couple of mid-lifers, their youngest son just out of the nest and off to england on some sort of internship. the oldest is, somewhere.

meanwhile, back at the ranch... things have gone more or less swell. there were a few things that i wanted to make particular mention of, but over the course of the last 4 days i’ve completely forgotten all of it. sad, i know, but we must move on.

pppphhhhhttttttt......

2008-09-23T22:28:00.001+02:00

....done.

land ho!

2008-09-19T10:16:00.000+02:00

so here it is...10:08 Friday morning. sept 19th 2008 AND I AM POOPED! my period started last night. which i should have expected. it was my first night living in France...it, being the vicious holiday attacker it is, couldn’t pass up my first night in France. i hate it....so basically i hurt I'm hungry and i have low supplies. also i am dead sore and exhausted because of jet-lag...i don’t like flying....i think i dislike it more than the train..i mean it wasn’t a terrible experience or anything....take off was awesome! i liked it a lot...and i loved it when the plane would turn or go up and down...:] turbulence was fun...we didn’t have much of it though...basically it was terrible because the only thing that showed how fast we were going was the little t.v. in the back of the headrest of the chair in front of me (that was altogether way to close to my face!) that had a map of the airplanes’ progress toward the destination. it honestly felt like the plane was hovering in the same place the whole time....how are you supposed to be excited about going over 600 miles per hour if it feels like you are sitting still in the same chair for 7 and a half hours....(buckled up the entire time....)

anywho! we landed and Paris was awesome in a terribly ugly modern sort of way...it wasn’t at all like the good ol’ USA....but yeah we found the long line for the train tickets and bought the one that would get us to Vichy (pronounced Vee She) the fastest...we were sick of traveling...:] so we took the metro from the airport to Paris north and then from Paris north to the Gare de Lyon probably the weirdest thing i experienced so far was see all the sign and everything in French...then English....then German or Italian or something.....but not actually reading the English....the first sign i read the English but after that i was too lazy to read the whole sign so i stopped at the French....besides in the airport all the signs keep saying the same thing telling you where to go so it wasn’t anything new...

the metro was cool...i think this was the first time i’ve seen graffiti (IN) a train....like inside it...not on the cement wall outside it...it was kinda cool...and at the same time it made me really glad to have my husband with me...:] so we got to the Gare and caught our train to Vichy. that train was really nice...it had really big windows so you could see all the pretty countryside....none of which i saw though....i slept....oh well....i’ll see it sometime in the next year im sure.

we got to Vichy and it finally hit me that this was the place that i was gonna be living for a year....in that moment i decided that i hated France and that it was ugly. haha...boy can your period make you emotional and delusional....we finally got picked up by the people that we are staying with at about 6:15-6:30ish....i say finally because it felt like forever but it was not that they were late or anything...we came early...we were not expecting to get to Vichy until 7:30 and we got in at 4.. we called them on a pay phone and left a message as to where we would be and to come pick us up when they were able to. were figured they actually wouldn't be able to until 7:30 so i was overjoyed to see Patrick when he arrived..:]

Patrick and Chantal are very interesting people. i like them. he does not speak very good English and i don’t speak very good French so it’s kinda fun...he has better English than my French though that is for sure. :] she is very nice and an English teacher. so she speaks very well. her accent is cute :] they speak French that i mostly know so i can understand what they say if i listen and think really hard about it..i still don’t feel comfortable speaking French though. it makes me wish that i had studied more French. but hey thats life...i will learn the hard way...(though it is probably the easy way...:]) they are very hospitable and kind...it’s hard for me to let them be French and not let me help out as much as i am used to. i’ll have to find some way to show how grateful i am to them. they are great people.

So all in all i love france it is Beautiful and different and i am very excited to explore and learn and to be in this great place!

i am excited to go to church and meet all the members and to feel of their spirits since that is about all i understand :] it will be amazing i am sure!

I LOVE FRANCE!

:]

leaving on a jet plane

2008-09-18T06:58:00.002+02:00

so... we’re somewhere over ~~the middle of~~ the atlantic ocean... nearish to england. according to the little flight window, we’ve got 1h35 to paris, a distance of about 750 miles left to go. not bad, considering that we’ve been going for 3400.

i can officially say that my butt is killing me. this is a terrible, horrible, no good, bad day. :) it’s actually not too awful. it’s nothing to the 12 hour flight back from my mission, paris-la direct. that is a vague and somewhat painful memory that i’ve managed to almost completely block from my mind, thankfully.

i was hoping i’d get a little sleep done while on this flight. sadly, i’ve done just that -- gotten little sleep. i dozed for a touch, but nothing worthwhile. whitney, who was convinced she’d not be sleeping a wink on the evil, uncomfortable airplane, has been out for 2 or 3 hours now. i’m happy. it’ll make waking up in paris at 9 a lot easier.

i think i’ve finally realized that i’m going to be back in france. it’s taken me a few months and 6000 miles... but i believe i’ve come to terms with the fact. and i’m pretty sure i’m happy about it.

i was thinking just a few minutes ago, and i think the thing i’m most excited for is showing france to whitney. it’s something that has been such a major part of my life for the past 4 years -- i mean, i’m majoring in the study of the language! it’s exciting to be able share at least a small portion, but what i hope is much, much more than that, with my beautiful wife. it’s already been rather thrilling just to watch her experiencing her first airline experience. it’s really quite fun. i’m looking forward to the next year and what it will bring.

well, with the exception of the next 2 weeks. i’m sure that’s gonna be painful. i wish the school had an apartment all lined up for us. oh well... what can you do?

homeless, homeless...

2008-09-17T03:52:00.000+02:00

so... we’ve been homeless now for about 3 weeks. it’s a little different. you know, not having a bed, or necessarily knowing what you’re gonna have for the next meal... if you even have one.

granted, we’re not purely homeless. we have our families to house us and take care of us, and yes, even feed us. families are great. they give way too much to their respective members.

for the last few days, we’ve been in rupert with whitney’s parents. this has been the final stage in getting ready to leave. we technically started that last night. yeah... eight hours isn’t near enough time to finalize your life for a year. i’m pretty sure we’re forgetting lots of things.

for one, we just remembered that in the rush and chaos of getting things ready we forgot to address and mail our thank you cards. we’re not sure what we’re gonna do with them at this point. probably take them with us, and mail them home to one of our parents’ places to have the whole lot deposited into a mailbox. seems kinda redundant.

on the plus side, i’m fairly sure we should have all the documentation we need for over there. i think. i’ll no doubt check and re-check a half dozen times between now and when we leave in an hour. paranoia is so totally overrated.

i’m not really sure what i’m feeling right now. i’m anxious, i suppose. a little sad to be leaving the little bit of a life i’ve started building over the last year. and, i guess i’m also feeling a little worried about going back to france. what if i don’t love it as much as i did when i was a missionary? what if some of my experiences from my mission and since have jaded my francophilia and left me barren toward the fecund land i grew to adore?

i suppose i’m just overreacting. i do that a lot. probably too much. i guess i’ll find out soon enough.

the beginnings

2008-09-07T18:43:00.000+02:00

once upon a time, man lived in caves. he was happy in the caves.

twice upon a time, woman lived in caves. needless to say, she did not find the same joy in this that man did.

a few years later, they started living in houses. many would say, "ehn... big deal. they're nicer places to live, deal with it."

this is where most people would be wrong. a cave can be rendered amazingly comfortable with a few small amenities, for those who would site a lack of comfort. the biggest bonus of cave though is this: they don't move. not only do they not move... but there aren't loads of them around, so you don't have lots of options of different ones to move to. besides... they really don't differ all that much one from another, unless you have a thing for limestone wall hangings.

this being the case, it was very infrequent that man, or woman, would move from cave to cave. it was just well beyond the point since they were far too far away from each other, and a hole in a rock's a hole in a rock, right?

sadly, a very short time after the advent of houses came automobiles. not only was there a living structure that could be put anywhere, but there was not a means of moving it around.

which leads us to the topic at hand:

this cannot be good.