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Published: February 5th 2010
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This weekend was so fun. I already wrote about the Saturday excursion to Amboise, but I haven’t written yet about how Friday night late Marie and Clare (22 and 10 year old sisters) came home for the weekend. Friday afternoon the family had told that Marie and Claire would get home around 10:45 Friday night and that they were both (but especially Claire) looking forward to meeting me! I was in my room that night and I thought that I heard them come in, but I didn’t want to go downstairs to butt in on family time, I was going to wait and see if they told me to come downstairs, but around 11:10, I decided that I should probably stop looking up travel plans for April break and go downstairs to introduce myself.
I go downstairs to the kitchen and hear chatting and laughing—the whole family of six reunited again. I go into the kitchen to see them all drinking tea and eating peanut M&Ms out of a bowl, with Claire and Marguerite both sitting on their parent’s laps. It was the perfect family picture. As I came in, Claire jumped up (she’s soooooo cute! She’s ten but I’m
pretty sure she’s small for her age) and she came over and gave me two huge bisous kisses on both my cheeks and told me she was so excited to meet me, and then I met Marie who was also so nice—she’s only 22 but she looked slightly older in a very sophisticated way. She’s studying at some prestigious university in Paris, like architecture and something else too.
They were all so nice and so happy that I had come down to join them (it’s a good thing I guess!) Then Beatrice and Marguerite went to go show off their piano/French horn duet in the living room (but it really reminds me of the type of room that should be called a parlor, so I’m going to call it a parlor from here on out haha). I felt like I was part of the perfect French family, watching the girls give a concert to their sisters and parents on a Friday night. We then went to bed, and then next morning I left for Amboise and didn’t see anyone in the morning. (And that night the mom asked me to be especially quiet and not go back upstairs after
Claire and my favorite animals!
You can't really see them in this light... breakfast—usually I go eat breakfast, then come back upstairs and brush my teeth—whoops I guess I’ve been making lots of noise…)
When I came back from Amboisie, the parents were gone for the weekend—date night or something and staying in a B&B I think a little outside of Tours. Marie made pasta for dinner and then I played “Cluedo” with them. (What they call clue. It was kind of weird because all the names were in French, but I got the hang of it. Although Bea won.) It was so cute seeing these group of four sisters together over such a big age span—I could see how they all kind of hate each other and love each other at the same time. We then played Egyptian Rat Screw (the card game) except they call it bataille course or something and whenever they talk about it I always thing they’re talking about battle ship and then I remember. Bea and I came out on top and then called it a draw. (They play the same rules that I’ve played at home except they also slap on 10s and when two cards in a row add up to 10—my downfall.)
My favorite animals!
Hippo, giraffe, dog (I didn't even specify the type of dog and she drew a basset hound for me! I told her about Anne the Dog.) Sunday I leisurely woke up and came downstairs as everyone was getting ready to go to mass. Claire was roller skating around the house in her church clothes, waiting for everyone else to be ready. She sat down with me as I was eating breakfast and asked me what my favorite animals was in her cute little French voice, and then the drew pictures on a etch-a-sketch for me! And they were really good too! (I took pictures.) She drew a giraffe, dog (a basset hound), and a hippo for me! I did some homework while they were at mass, then had some sort of Lebanese food for lunch with them when they came back.
Then Claire practiced the cello (so cute) while Marie, the parents, and I drank coffee out of tiny cups and watched her—she’s only 10 but she’s really good! She’s been playing for over 5 years—what??? Also I forgot the mention that grace is amazing here—they have lots of different songs that they sing for grace, and it’s always really pretty, but when I ate with all six of them—wow. There were like 10 harmonies going on. I’m glad that I’m not expected to sing/understand
because even if I did know the words and was completely fluent in French, I would completely ruin the beauty of their grace before meals with my lack of musical skills.
After Claire practiced the cello she wanted me to go roller skating with her! And if you could see her/hear her voice you would know that saying no would be completely impossible. So I squeezed my feet into roller skates that were probably 2 sizes too small (but I survived) and went roller skating! It was really fun—we rollered up to this museum place with a taxidermed elephant—kind of weird…
It was a crazy whirl when Claire and Marie left—everyone was scarfing down dinner which doesn’t usually happen, so that they could make their train. I think they left our house like 20 minutes before the train left. But they made it.
The rest of this week was pretty good too—I had some homework (and some necessary research to do for April traveling…) So I hung out in the dining room with my laptop quite a bit—and if I work there the girls tend to do their homework there too—one night before Marguerite went to bed,
Making Crepes at Dinner
Mini crepe maker at dinner--I want one. she and Bea started giving each other massages! It was so cute, I had to take a picture.
Also Tuesday is some big-ish holiday in France. Apparently Feburary 2nd is the day that Jesus was presented at the temple for the first time, and every French family eats crêpes for dinner, although how those two events are connected, I have no idea and neither did my family. But we had delicious crepes, (lots of mini crêpes, so lots of different possible things to put in them—ham, cheese, goat cheese, humus, bruchetta type stuff, fish eggs…and of course lemon and sugar for dessert or nutella! (except of course my family didn’t get the run of the mill nutella—it was free trade chocolate hazelnut spread. But tasted the exact same as nutella.) They were really delicious!
Other remarkable things of the week:
We found a cute coffee shop on the second floor of this book store where we thought we could go do work! (Except no wireless, but that’s ok.) So we went back the next day, only to find that if you go before two you’re only allowed to order food—like lunch food, no coffee, no desserts or
anything sugary. And since we’d already eaten lunch, we awkwardly had to leave.
The professor of our International Relations class is awesome. (The class consists of me, Allison, Denise, and Mackenzie.) It’s a three hour lecture once a week which is super rough because it’s all in French, but for the first twenty minutes we asked him about traveling and he talked about all the amazing places in Europe that we should go to. He gives us little breaks after each hour, and he brought us delicious French chocolate to eat during one of our breaks! We told him that we were going to bake a cake to bring to class next week—to which he responded that he would bring the wine. Sweet.
He’s also really hilarious because he throws in English phrases here and there. For example, Denise told him (in French) how she had eaten duck the night before with her host family (a freezer bag with duck and mixed vegetables—only gourmet food in Denise’s family). To this, he responded, in English, “Ah. Wild Duck.” With a hilarious accent.
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It's a good life!
Oh, Valerie! What a fun time with the four sisters! Sounds eventful and fun. Thank you for the great descriptions.