As I type this, Wizards of Waverly Place is playing in the background. I just came home from seeing the movie 'One Day' at the movie theater (which I highly recommend, by the way). I guess that Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez learned French while I was on the plane, because they're suddenly very fluent. In addition, quite a bit of music here is American pop. We were listening to Madonna was on the radio on the way home from the movie theater, and I'm pretty sure that my host father and possibly host sister had no idea what the phrase "like a virgin" meant.
Since my host sister's birthday was yesterday, my family had a big lunch with all the extended family that could come. I met her sister and her beau-frere (brother-in-law), who have a baby due in October, her cousin and her cousin's boyfriend, and her grandparents. I mentioned that lunch is the biggest meal of the day in my last blog, but I didn't explain the real difference between U.S. and French eating schedules. Here, breakfast is light, with fruit, yogurt, bread, cereal, etc. It's a "continental breakfast", you know, the type that hotels promise free of charge and usually ends up being some toast and a hard-boiled egg, if you're lucky. This light fare is dubbed "continental" since, off the Euporean continent, the British Isles perfer a hardier start to the day. Of course, the breakfast here is quite a few notches above Best Western's standard, light as it is. Then comes lunch, the meal with the most ceremony and preparation, often eaten with wine and then cheese, desert, and/or coffee afterward. Dinner is a small meal eaten late, 8:00 or 9:00 pm. For the last two nights we've had French dried sausage, cheese, and bread for dinner- delicieux!!
All this explanation helps to understand the birthday party that was thrown, it was just like a big family dinner, but in the middle of the day. We had hors d'ouvres, a main course (replete with green beans from the grandparent's garden), and cupcakes for desert. I had by first (very small) glass of wine, which I have to say, I wasn't at all taken with. Since my palate is totally unnacustomed to acohol, it was all I could taste, and I felt like I was drinking a cleaning product. Everyone was warm and talkative, give my host sister their best wishes. Her grandfather was especially interesting to talk to, mainly because I couldn't understand a word he said. Bourges and Saint-Doulchard are located in the region of Berry, and he is one of the last speakers of the dialecte berruchon. Everything he said was with a warmly rolling but absolutly impenetrable accent. After lunch, we sat around the kitchen table pinching off the tops and ends of a basket of green beans, and they taught me different words in berruchon.
Today for lunch, I went with my host sister to one of her friend's house. My friends reading this know that if I invite them over for lunch, they really can't expect anything more than leftovers or maybe Kraft macaroni and cheese. In any case, lunch chez moi certainly never includes pink wine with grenadine (which, I'm sure the Rotarians out there are wondering, I only tasted), fresh cooked pasta with meatballs and mushrooms in sauce, and an espresso after. Not to mention the last of the cupcakes, a much appreciated novelty to all!
-to interpose on my account of events, I just took a break for a nice dinner of green beans (the same as mentioned above) and fresh tomatoes from the garden in vinagarette, with bread, as always. Yes, Mom, I even like the tomatoes here! Then cheese- I learned that the trick to eating strong cheese is to eat it with butter in addition to bread. You can see how I had trouble at first, eating in a land where you take your cheese with butter. Then strawberries, also from the garden, with sugar. I hope that your stomaches are all rumbling with jealousy!-
After we finnished lunch, my host sisters friends, to my great interested and surprise, took out little bags of tobacco and started rolling their own cigarettes while they waited for the coffee to be ready. Then we ajourned to repose outside on the sunny steps of the house, so that they could smoke and enjoy their coffee. When I asked if their parents knew that they smoked I recieved mainly no's, but also some yes's. As to why they rolled their own cigarettes, it is apparently far less expensive. I was also informed that I would see at school a cloud of smoke hovering over every break.
When out with my friends at home, as you may know, it is not far out of place to wrinkle your nose pointedly when the smell of cigarette smoke drifts through an otherwise pleasent gathering. But I must be getting used to the smell, because I hardly notice if a new acquaintence greets me with the usual bises (kisses on the cheek), a trail of smoke streaming lazily from their mouth.
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