Since I have such a bad time grocery shopping on the bike I haven't done any american dinners for my host family yet. I found a recipe for the not very pretty but super yummy Memphis barbecue brisket junkyard beans and coleslaw sandwich. (The "Po' Boy"; you can get it during happy hour from the Lazy Dog on Pearl Street). Moreover now that I think of it I'm willing to bet that the concept of Sports Bars is one hundred percent American. So in the morning I asked my host mom to buy some ingredients for me. I used google to translate all the ingredients into french but I had a hard time explaining the right type of beans that were necessary. Cooh-boy beans, yes? We'll try haricots rouges.
After two months in France, the day just before my depart I finally made it to the post office to send some words back to the states. The postman was super nice, an older gentleman and self-proclaimed autodidact, I think I have to go back tomorrow to mail a box of sweaters to myself I dearly hope I'll see him there again. Me: "Excusez-moi Monsieur, je parle pas très bien le français et j'ai besion de deux petite boîtes pour envoyer des affaires chez moi aux Etats-Unis". Postman: "Mais non vous parlez mieux que moi! Je viens de m'apprendre à parler français...."
After class I bought a tea tin and a cornet of macarons for my host family and rushed home to beat the rain. It's such a funny feeling when you hop off after a really strenuous bit of biking and it's as if you no longer have any legs, or they walk all by themselves. My 9-year old host sister was watching Aladdin and I learned the french words malfrat "crook", canaille "riff-raff" and funeste "deathly; disasterous". I dumped my sock drawer and some books in my suitcase and then I went downstairs to start dinner.
My host mom didn't know what barbecue sauce was, but she assured me that curry would make a good substitute, haha. It was raining so we cooked the brisket in a wok, and furthermore the teaspoon and the tablespoon say nothing at all to a french kitchen, so we improvised the whole way through. In the end it was fit for consumption.
I will go to Geneva tomorrow afternoon, and tonight I sniffle stuffing gingerly french treasures into my luggage.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Déboire
Today I will tell you of how I drowned my heartaches, gorging myself on patisseries and tomme de chèvre.
I woke up at dawn, wide-eyed as a marigold, and descended the stairs for provisions after an abridged version of a good night's sleep. I have got in the habit of eating two fig soy yogurts one after the other, and now I simply can't imagine how anyone could stop after one. Back in the U.S. I'm going to miss having a real expresso kick-start my day. I can't wait however to fill myself up with a real American breakfast. One week ago the family brought home a petit chaton and I have been witness to the darling little monster's psychological nosedive. She was so nice the first couple days, and cute as a button. This morning she can't stop attacking my feet but she somehow got it into her furry little head that if I think I can fool her by wearing socks then she is going to climb my leg.
Crisp, leather-jacketed, and out on the bike at 8am. Two months ago it used to take me a trentaine to get to the other face of the lake, but now I can do it in under twenty, in the top gears. I don't hesitate with the extra to reward my new level in cyclism with a tartelette poire amande from a super tasty boulanger in the old village. It will whip me up knowing it awaits me in my bookbag for the sanctified 20 minute pause in my 4-hour long class.
After class I went to search for some gifts for my American cohorts. After lunch on the roof of a little beachside café, too much emmental cheese, not my top to begin with, I made a tour of my favorite little shops for some groceries in extremis to anticipate the return of my host family. I didn't weigh my bananas and somereason I was too embarrassed to ask the cashier to speak more slowly, so I left without them, and I'll say, I always took seedless grapes for granted in the states, what a luxury is in store! Moreover in my debacles got the wrong pain aux céréales, the pain that takes a true dental vigor to overcome.
There was sun in the afternoon at last, a lovely little buttonhole for me to study french in the garden. With a glass of mango juice and a giant cheese plate I cracked the binding of Harpers Grammar to find there is a whole world of things I never could have imagined to do about personal pronouns. I got as far as "Les gens qui vivent avec un chien finissent par lui ressembler" and then I took a sweet little nap on white clovers.
My host family came back, the clock had 9pm and I was not even hungry. We watched a film set in Nazi-era France which as a comedy subject was quite awful and with my french slumping all day long I ascended with the taste that you have in your mouth after drinking a bad drink.
I woke up at dawn, wide-eyed as a marigold, and descended the stairs for provisions after an abridged version of a good night's sleep. I have got in the habit of eating two fig soy yogurts one after the other, and now I simply can't imagine how anyone could stop after one. Back in the U.S. I'm going to miss having a real expresso kick-start my day. I can't wait however to fill myself up with a real American breakfast. One week ago the family brought home a petit chaton and I have been witness to the darling little monster's psychological nosedive. She was so nice the first couple days, and cute as a button. This morning she can't stop attacking my feet but she somehow got it into her furry little head that if I think I can fool her by wearing socks then she is going to climb my leg.
Crisp, leather-jacketed, and out on the bike at 8am. Two months ago it used to take me a trentaine to get to the other face of the lake, but now I can do it in under twenty, in the top gears. I don't hesitate with the extra to reward my new level in cyclism with a tartelette poire amande from a super tasty boulanger in the old village. It will whip me up knowing it awaits me in my bookbag for the sanctified 20 minute pause in my 4-hour long class.
After class I went to search for some gifts for my American cohorts. After lunch on the roof of a little beachside café, too much emmental cheese, not my top to begin with, I made a tour of my favorite little shops for some groceries in extremis to anticipate the return of my host family. I didn't weigh my bananas and somereason I was too embarrassed to ask the cashier to speak more slowly, so I left without them, and I'll say, I always took seedless grapes for granted in the states, what a luxury is in store! Moreover in my debacles got the wrong pain aux céréales, the pain that takes a true dental vigor to overcome.
There was sun in the afternoon at last, a lovely little buttonhole for me to study french in the garden. With a glass of mango juice and a giant cheese plate I cracked the binding of Harpers Grammar to find there is a whole world of things I never could have imagined to do about personal pronouns. I got as far as "Les gens qui vivent avec un chien finissent par lui ressembler" and then I took a sweet little nap on white clovers.
My host family came back, the clock had 9pm and I was not even hungry. We watched a film set in Nazi-era France which as a comedy subject was quite awful and with my french slumping all day long I ascended with the taste that you have in your mouth after drinking a bad drink.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
One week remaining. How I will be sorry to leave resplendent little Annecy!
Chèvre Chaud
Very incorrect response to in-class assignment. What if Native American Indians had conquered Europe?
Cartoonist: Libby-Lou Helmer.
Believe it or not I've done nothing to enhance this photo.
Bike wreck formula: taking curbs not totally straight while carryng an umbrella. Pas agréable.
The most extraordinarily outfitted of musicians.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Chalet Saint Gervais
I received an invitation from the cellist to spend the weekend in the mountains with his family in Saint-Gervais near Chamonix. It seemed like a very misguided idea to everyone I told but I was confident that he had a good head and even in the case that it should turn catastrophic I would one day make a good story from it.
I caught the train just by a nose and I finished the end of Salomé by Oscar Wilde on the way. I was maximum apprehensive, hard-pressed to follow the words that I read, and my head was turning uncharitably the whole way. I could only guess that the cellist was having as many doubts as I was about how the weekend would end up going.
Saint-Gervais is in a beautiful valley where everywhere looked as it were or it would be well to be painted, We had pains to communicate at first but once we'd arrived at the house I was completely put off my nerves. Bric-à-brac galore, a wonderful log house from the early 1900's with a feast of stories everywhere you looked!
We sightread a bit of music, (they've got a soviet piano which has never in thirty and something years been tuned and because of it's iron-strength construction it has quite incredibly not gone very far off! But it's not a wonder that this maker never caught on because it gives you soap for response).
We visited a charming middle-age village across the valley for some grocery shopping and stopped at a baroque era church. He and his mother took the length of the car ride to decide on what to prepare for dinner. If the French are not eating, they are either talking about what they are going to eat or what they have just come from eating.
The day after we went to Megeve to meet some other musicians and to hear some jazz music. I was very at ease with his friends, and I realized something really neat about speaking in a foreign language. It is easier to find that sensation you get from people you just meet and you find that you could really get to know and who are truly interested in getting to know you. In a basic set of terms, maybe a foreign language makes easier the judging of actions and not of words.
I suffered my way through conversations about trash metal, philosophy, nuclear energy, religious cults, and the latest Coen brothers' films. I spoke the whole weekend in French which means that I spoke very little, or if not was a monster abuser of the language.
Another day we went to another village higher in the mountains and across from Mont Blanc where we stopped at another church. It was a modern church with a Chagall and the most moving stain glass works I have ever seen. Apparently, it would be the weekend of the church.
I arrived back in Annecy and I couldn't find a single place open to buy fruit on a Sunday. I met up with a friend from the institute and I was bent easily to have a scoop of sorbet from the Glacerie des Alpes. The weather was turning awful and the topic of conversation turned from sibling rivalry to how we imagine two people in love as we walked to the opposite face of the lake where I live. The cellist told me about a wedding of a friend he went to recently where they read from Nietzsche and finished by saying "One person does not belong to another." What a beautiful ambience to walk home in the rain with.
I caught the train just by a nose and I finished the end of Salomé by Oscar Wilde on the way. I was maximum apprehensive, hard-pressed to follow the words that I read, and my head was turning uncharitably the whole way. I could only guess that the cellist was having as many doubts as I was about how the weekend would end up going.
Saint-Gervais is in a beautiful valley where everywhere looked as it were or it would be well to be painted, We had pains to communicate at first but once we'd arrived at the house I was completely put off my nerves. Bric-à-brac galore, a wonderful log house from the early 1900's with a feast of stories everywhere you looked!
We sightread a bit of music, (they've got a soviet piano which has never in thirty and something years been tuned and because of it's iron-strength construction it has quite incredibly not gone very far off! But it's not a wonder that this maker never caught on because it gives you soap for response).
We visited a charming middle-age village across the valley for some grocery shopping and stopped at a baroque era church. He and his mother took the length of the car ride to decide on what to prepare for dinner. If the French are not eating, they are either talking about what they are going to eat or what they have just come from eating.
The day after we went to Megeve to meet some other musicians and to hear some jazz music. I was very at ease with his friends, and I realized something really neat about speaking in a foreign language. It is easier to find that sensation you get from people you just meet and you find that you could really get to know and who are truly interested in getting to know you. In a basic set of terms, maybe a foreign language makes easier the judging of actions and not of words.
I suffered my way through conversations about trash metal, philosophy, nuclear energy, religious cults, and the latest Coen brothers' films. I spoke the whole weekend in French which means that I spoke very little, or if not was a monster abuser of the language.
Another day we went to another village higher in the mountains and across from Mont Blanc where we stopped at another church. It was a modern church with a Chagall and the most moving stain glass works I have ever seen. Apparently, it would be the weekend of the church.
I arrived back in Annecy and I couldn't find a single place open to buy fruit on a Sunday. I met up with a friend from the institute and I was bent easily to have a scoop of sorbet from the Glacerie des Alpes. The weather was turning awful and the topic of conversation turned from sibling rivalry to how we imagine two people in love as we walked to the opposite face of the lake where I live. The cellist told me about a wedding of a friend he went to recently where they read from Nietzsche and finished by saying "One person does not belong to another." What a beautiful ambience to walk home in the rain with.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
My pathetic-fallacy day.
It starts to rain just as I get the bike out of the gate. I saw myself as the poor little cartoon man with a raincloud always above his head. The umbrella is waffling inwards and outwards and I notice I've been following behind a man on a (stolen?) pink children's bike.
This morning there was one American nickel in my bag of centimes. I flipped, and I caught it---that never happens---it was a heads. Heads Chamonix.
As I was leaving there was a man ringing at the porte. I thought I ought not wake anybody up, but I didn't know how to answer it. I waited. My host dad came downstairs but the man had already gone.
The second I opened my mouth my face screwed up and I started to cry.
I decided on fig yogurt from the Monoprix. It was raining harder so I continued on foot. An older man looked me straight in the eyes and gave me a crooked grin as I walked up to the Café Buvette. I sat with my back turned and hugged the wall. In a split second I took a café instead of the vin chaud I'd come there for. It rains harder. Il est quelle heure? Une heure moins cinq. On y va? On va où?
Après ma classe, je'ai cru faire la natation tout le long du chemin à la maison. "Tu as de la poésie." That's just another way to say I'm not practical.
This morning there was one American nickel in my bag of centimes. I flipped, and I caught it---that never happens---it was a heads. Heads Chamonix.
As I was leaving there was a man ringing at the porte. I thought I ought not wake anybody up, but I didn't know how to answer it. I waited. My host dad came downstairs but the man had already gone.
The second I opened my mouth my face screwed up and I started to cry.
I decided on fig yogurt from the Monoprix. It was raining harder so I continued on foot. An older man looked me straight in the eyes and gave me a crooked grin as I walked up to the Café Buvette. I sat with my back turned and hugged the wall. In a split second I took a café instead of the vin chaud I'd come there for. It rains harder. Il est quelle heure? Une heure moins cinq. On y va? On va où?
Après ma classe, je'ai cru faire la natation tout le long du chemin à la maison. "Tu as de la poésie." That's just another way to say I'm not practical.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Whoever said there is no rose without a thorn?
En Suisse. "Play me". Subtext: "catch the same rheum as everyone who came before you." ALLthough, as it is in Switzerland, there is a good chance it's the cleanest instrument you've ever seen in your life.
I took a bike ride yesterday around the lake which was really just a guise so that I could get a head start on some real estate prospects for my retirement.
Today I climbed Mt. Veyrier, summit at 1291 kil. I have the feeling that my legs are made out of marmalade. Je vais faire dodo toute de suite. Bonne nuit!
Saturday, July 9, 2011
La fortune sourit aux audacieux
Yesterday I passed a cellist and a clarinettist busking in the street. I was inspired to speak with them but as it wasn't the best moment for chatting I decided to leave a note in their bowler instead. I asked them to forgive my french (which is undreamedly worse when I write), and if they were interested in making an evening of musical conversation over a glass or two. It turned out to be very Amélie Poulain-esque of me!
Normally I wouldn't have gotten in such a dither about it but I nearly died here without making any friends yet I could talk deeply about music with. It has surely been good for me to step outside of that universe for a while but as only three weeks remain I think it would do me well to re-acquaint myself with my former self.
Not a half-hour later I received a text message asking to meet that evening. As I was previously engaged to a dinner with my lovely family I took a raincheck and we organized a way to communicate in the meanwhile. (I should have known that they weren't from Annecy, their loafers and lime green ankle socks). As for the mails, it is reassuring to hear when french people tell me now that they suppose their english is worse than my french. I am quite nervous to test my ability however to speak about music in my second language.
Friday, July 1, 2011
If you don't watch out, this lower altitude could really make your stomach swell.
Le Jour du Marché
Si vous n'êtes pas capable d'un peu de sorcellerie, ce n'est pas la peine de vous mêler de cuisine.
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