Blogs from Pau, Aquitaine, France, Europe - page 3

I can’t believe how the days are flying by here…and how quickly the Holidays are sneaking up! So, for all my die-hard readers out there (and I know there are oh-so-many of you), here’s this weeks installment of new adventures from my Pyrenees home. Tuesday night meant the much welcome return of Christine’s parents. Mamie and Papi, as the girls call them, are so sweet and adorable. I feel like I inherited a third set of grandparents with the family. We had boudin blanc for dinner, which is a poultry based sausage, with caramelized apples and endives. For dessert, Christine made an amazing cake that she insisted was “rate”, or a failure. It was ground up almonds and phyllo pastry and vanilla custard, but since it didn’t look like the picture in Elle magazine, it’s apparently ... read more

So, all I’ve been hearing around here for the past month is how the Fac (or university, if you will) is “bloquée”, which means blocked. I assumed it was a figure of speech—a way of saying that the students and the government were at an impasse, too deadlocked to work things out. This is France…I should have known better. If I’ve been a bad blogger recently, it’s because in addition to prepping for and teaching classes, I’ve been trying to cram obscure English words and math formulas I haven’t used in 3 years into my head so that I could go and take the GRE in Toulouse this Friday. This is where the “blockage” comes in. Patrick kindly took me to the train station at 8 o’clock so I could get to Toulouse for my 12:30 ... read more

Well, the French have been back from vacation for almost a week now, which means it’s just about time for them to go on strike! Seriously, it’s getting a little ridiculous over here. The students at the university are on strike, the transportation industry is on strike, the electricians are on strike, the professors are on strike….I think you get the picture. Sadly, I’m not on strike, which means it was back to work for me on Thursday. However, I guess I could be on strike if I wanted to be, because I’ve finally gotten my “be French” card from the prefecture. For my Thursday class with my 3eme Europeans, I had them tell me about how they spent their vacation and told them how I spent mine in Corsica. I taught them phrases like “sleep ... read more

Hi everyone! So this entry finds me finally back at home Chez Canterot after an amazing sojourn to Corsica with fellow Furman French grad Hamilton over the Toussaint vacation! I'm absolutely about to explode with stories about my trip, and I've got hundreds of new photos as well, so in the interest of keeping your heads from exploding with a super long entry, I'm splitting up my break into "Mainland France" and "Corsica". Here's the mainland France edition.... Our adventure started in Pau. I got up super early to go and find Hamilton at the train station, where he’d taken a night train from Rennes. We spent the morning touring around town and visiting the Chateau before we met Sam for dinner. We ended up at a fondue restaurant recommended to me by Dr. Strickland called ... read more

So Tuesday for dinner we had an unusual entrée that Patrick and Christine brought back from their recent trip to Amsterdam. Patrick ran a marathon there this past weekend (Just a little something to keep them busy between the Van Gogh museum and bike riding). Anyways, Christine sets a plate of what looks like falafel on the table, and tells us to dig in and guess what it is. I cut into a little fried sphere and watch something that looks tauntingly familiar ooze out. I spear a piece with my fork, chew a bit, and immediately know what I’ve got. None of the other girls have a clue, because none of them have spent the past 4 years living in South Carolina. Yet again, my adopted corner of the States helps me on an ... read more