Les dimanches

Les dimanches (layz dee-mahn-sh: Sundays), I discovered today, is the time of the week where the entire country of France falls fast asleep.  Shops, even in the cities, are closed for the most part, expect for the necessary bread purchase in the morning at the local boulangerie (boo-lahn-jehr-ee: baker's).  This isn't because the French necessarily feel the need to commit themselves to God, Church, and Country.  Oh no, quite the opposite.  You may still have one or two churchgoers from the olden days, but the rest of le pays (lay py-eez: country) rolls out of bed at 10 in the morning, spending the rest of the time lounging around in their slippers, cutting tomatoes and preparing their hunger for 1:00, when lunch is served.

My own very first traditional Sunday spent in France was in the hills of Voiron, a suburb of Grenoble.  Claudie, an English teacher at the lycée (leez-eh: high school) invited me to share lunch with her, her English husband, and her four French sons.

The whole experience was lovely, even though I struggled to understand the slang spewing out of her sons' mouths, feeling like a fool every time Claudie had to translate for me.  And of course there was the inevitable faux pas (foh pah: misstep) of my gaping mouth as Claudie brought out the main dish: curried chicken.  I silently cursed myself for forgetting to mention my vegetarianism, secretly hoping that those large white round blobs simmered in curry sauce was just the French version of tofu.

As I quickly debated with my conscious over whether to eat or not to eat, I decided to bite the bullet and go with the flow.  After all, I hoped to be invited back to her house someday.  I, as politely as I thought possible, asked for the smallest piece of chicken breast and said a silent prayer that I wouldn't spend the next two days hanging over the toilet with the presumed sickness that haunts all végétariens when they decide to swallow their morals and their pride with a meat dish.  The verdict?  Not bad.  Tasted like chicken.  And I'm still alive to write about it.

In all, the meal was delicious and lasted a good hour and a half, followed by a stroll around a nearby lake as Claudie, her husband, and I compared differences between cultures.  Claudie informed me that this Sunday ritual of leisurely meals and sacrificed chickens is currently a hot political debate in France.  Apparently the government is pushing for a more Anglo-Saxon Sunday.  But government be damned: the French, for now, have made it clear that le dimanche is a religion in and of itself.

L'arrivée

After two long days of no sleep and lost luggage, flirtatious immigration officers and cobblestone streets, I arrived on Wednesday afternoon a bit shell-shocked.  I was in France, but my feelings were a bit numb...

But let me back up a little.  The whole reason I'm in France is to be an English assistant for junior high and high school students in La Côte St. André and Le Grand Lemps, two tiny towns in the Rhône-Alpes region of France ( that's on the lower-right side of the map, for those of you who want to know).  I knew when I Googled these towns that they would be small and I might not like them, but I figured I'd give living on campus a shot, given the fact that looking blindly for housing in French didn't exactly appeal to me as a golden travel experience.

On the ride to the town the teacher, Claudie ( a sweet femme (feh-mm: woman) in her fifties who invited me to dejeuner (deh-juhn-eh: lunch) at her place on Sunday) told me how depressing the town was, how quiet, how isolated... I wonder if she could see my chest pounding with terror.  Walking around, though, I realized there was no denying it: La Côte St. André really was a true petite ville française (puh-teet veel frahn-sayz: small French town) where everyone may know your name, but what does that matter when everyone is locked up in their houses by sundown?

Alright, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic (note: alone in big apartment in small French town make Leith go crazy)  but after carefully surveying my options I'm secretly looking for another housing situation.  I can't deny it: I'm a city girl and the beautiful Alpine dirt, noise, and inflated prices of Grenoble are calling to me like a scene from The Sound of Music.  I can't wait until the Italian assistant arrives on Monday.  Maybe she can talk me down from the ledge.  You never know, maybe in a month I'll fall in love with this town.  It could happen...

In the meantime, I'm really enjoying speaking rudimentary, bastardized French to the locals.  You say you're from California and they're willing to forget the fact that you accidentally just asked if you could hump their goat.  In fact, mention you voted for Obama and they're willing to throw a cookie into your purchase for free.

La fête of my depart

Saturday night the clouds parted, the planets aligned, and heaven created a day in my honor: my going away fête ([feh-tt]:party).  Ok, no, I'm not quite that narcissistic (yet!), but with all the delicious food (in line with polylgot American culture, a truly global feast: lasagna, cucumber and tomato salad, chips and salsa, cream torte, cheese plate), gifts, cocktails, and company involved, I don't see why the country didn't just declare the week before my departure a national holiday.

Everyone arrived at 6:30 pm, and stumbled off drunk around 2:00 am, just in time for me to crawl into bed and sleep off a potential gueule de bois ([goo-wl doo bwa]: hangover).  What I learned from the whole night: mix a splash of Chambord liqueur with a glass full of champagne, top off with a raspberry, and you have a refreshing, colorful, delicious drink in your hands straight from France.  Who knew?

A big merci ([mehr-see]: thank you) to my family for spending Saturday night together.  I can't wait until the next family gathering, when baby Sedona will be at the table too.  In the meantime, I leave in six days and here I am, procrastinating in front of Blogger.  I never learn.

Let les cauchemars begin

Well, it's official: the nightmares have begun.  For the past few weeks I've been having strange cauchemars ([coh-sh-mahr]: nightmares) about leaving home and the horror that my sleeping mind seems to believe France will be.  In these sweat-inducing REMs teachers ignore me, students taunt me, or I'm stranded on some country road in France homeless and penniless.  I'd be lying if I said that these dreams don't leave me with chills and a potential heart attack.  Why can't I just sleep as soundly as my dogs? 

A lesser person might feel like she's either having a mental breakdown, or else on the fast track to disaster... luckily, I feel like I've been through this before.

I remember before leaving for England I would have the same terrible night terrors, such as I'd miss my plane and end up living the rest of my life stuck inside a bathroom stall at the airport, among other things.  Let's just say that dream never actaully came true, so I'm cautiosly optimistic that this round of frights won't either... croisons les doigts ([kraw-son lay dwoit]: fingers crossed)!

Of course... there's always the chance that I arrive in France only to find that that the whole experience is a cauchemar in a much more real way than my dreams.  I can't help but let the fear of being miserable and lonely drift in and out every now and then.  I loved Bristol, made great friends, got good grades.  What are the chances that lightening will strike twice?  I know all I can do is wait and find out, so in the meantime I just try not to think.  Period.  Surprisingly much easier to do than I thought it would be.  After all, uncertainty is supposed to be the spice of life or some crap like that.  I hope it is, anyway, because I leave in seven days and I still don't have aucune idée ([oh-koon ee-day]: any idea) what I'm getting myself into, nevermind even a travel book on France.  I should probably look into that...

How it all began...

Il était une fois... there was a slightly naïve and depressed twenty-something girl in the Santa Cruz Mountains who had just about given up on her future.  Broke, single, and with really bad stress-induced acne, she was sitting in her parents' house on a cold, pre-winter day toying with the idea of selling her kidneys on the black market in order to make her first student loan payment.  Luckily, she sidetracked herself first with a generous dose of crazed  Facebook stalking of the people she went to high school with, if only to see if she was the only person from her graduating class with $20,000 in student loan debt with a balls job punching numbers part-time for a vitamin nutcase.

Slightly cursing the Yale and Berkeley graduates and secretly relieved by other graduates who also, evidently, were struggling to find a job, someone's Facebook network status suddenly caught her eye with one simple word: "France".  A revelation!  Little will this underclassman ever know that his publicly viewable Facebook page would change the course of this French-obsessed girl's dreams forever.

(Cliquez to read more)

Remembering Mathilda

If you're lucky, you have at least one person in your life who inspires you, who you look up to, and who, even when they're enterré, you think of everyday as if they were still sitting right next to you over a cup of coffee, chatting about the day.  For me, that person was Grandma Tillie, and today was the one year anniversary of her death, which was spent as a happy remembrance of all the wonderful ways she inspired everyone who knew her.

Some memories of Tillie are impossible to recreate: the fresh, flowery smell of her skin thanks to her religious use of face creams and lotions (she had flawless skin to the day she died); Christmases in her kitchen and the way those chocolate chip oatmeal cookies melted in my mouth just-so; her uncanny ability to break out into song on any occasion... Fortunately, Tillie also left behind a long list of other, more easily imitated memories and habits that I spent the day trying to celebrate.

First off, I visited Tillie's grave and added to her beautiful setting a lemon cyprus and orchid that I'm sure, much to Tillie's delight, made all the neighboring graves slightly envioux.  Later, I ate dejeuner with a tall, dark, and handsome gentlemen (what can I say, she preferred men) at her Saratoga restaurant, La Trattoria, where I made sure to have a glass of white wine with ice on the side scooped carefully into the glass with a fork and fingers.  I then spent the rest of the day with said tall, dark, handsome man basking in the sun at the beach without a care in the world.   I'd like to think I made Tillie proud, though I know what would really make her proud is that my family still talks about her--and misses her--every single day.


For those of you who weren't lucky enough to know her, Mathilda "Tillie" Coughlan Mahoney was a much loved mother, grandmother, dancer, jokster, and beauty extraordinaire, not to mention my family's source of tradition and proud Irish roots.  She meant so much to so many and is thought of avec amour everyday.

The French Repa Chez Lui (My French meal at his place)

I've often debated on which is the more romantic, exciting, fun-inducing setting for a night of wining and dining: a night in or a night out on the town? I always enjoy the idea of spending a night eating and drinking without having to worry about cleaning or dishes, but when I find my bank account dwindling because I have to take out a small loan just to afford a cocktail at the bar, nights at home with friends becomes a bit more appealing everyday. Seeing as I'm going to have to spend a lot of nights in during the next few months because, let's face it, being a teaching assistant isn't exactly the most lucrative job in the world, Andrew reminded me this past Sunday just how romantique a night at home can be.

In order to, no doubt, score points in the boyfriend category, Andrew spent the afternoon boiling, peeling, and mixing together a full course picture-perfect French meal. We started out with pain chaud (warm bread), followed by crêpes decorated with warm framboises (raspberries) and stuffed with artichoke hearts, champignons (mushrooms), and handpicked chèvre from France with the most smooth, creamy, nutty aftertaste I could ask for. This was followed by a cheese plate of smoked gruyère from Switzerland, a wonderful fresh salad with sundried tomatoes and avocado, finished off by raspberry shortcake with handmade whipped cream for dessert. Throw numerous glasses of pinot grigio and cabernet sauvignon into the mix, with a warm cup of café américain as the coup de grâce, I was only able to realize what an amazing meal Andrew had made after the food coma wore off. It's hard to believe the French might eat any better than this. So delicious, even the cat couldn't help but get a bite in!

If it sounds like I'm bragging, it's because I am. Seriously, if Andrew ever decides to give up on the whole fire safety thing, I'm pretty sure he has a bright future at le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Knowing that Andrew can throw together such amazing French meals, I may never want to eat out again. Especially since, this time, he was in charge of the dishes too.

Food of the Dogs

Like Americans, the French tend to adore les petits chiens. Everywhere from bars to four star restaurants haute cuisine allow pooches and their peeps to dine alongside one another for what inevitably turns out to be a rich cultural dining experience. I mean, who doesn't want to chew on a piece of 100 euros-a-plate coq au vin while Fido's slobber drips down your leg? I know I do! There are entire lists of restaurants on Google, pointing out all the dog-friendly cafés spotted throughout le pays de France.

Luckily for me, I adore animals just as much as the French do, which is why I searched high and low for a four-paw-friendly dining experience right here in Santa Cruz. What I found was The Harbor Cafe: a total Santa Cruzian brunch place with doggy menus and bottomless mimosas on Fridays. And you know what? Dog-friendly restaurants are really onto something. The clientele tends to be full of dog lovers (re:nice people), the waiters tend to be nicer to you if only because they're scared of being attacked by your dog if they make a false move, and the poochies inevitably become attention whores who adore the entire experience.

Gearing up for France, my mom, me, and three of our dogs decided to hotfoot it over to the Harbor before closing so we could feast on orange juice, champagne and bacon (for les chiots). Dogs, sun, and mid-afternoon cocktails: the perfect mother/daughter salute to Santa Cruz sunshine and dreams of a dog-friendly France.

Clercking, clacking, cubicles, and champagne

As most people know, champagne is simply a sparkling white wine made from grapes grown only in the region of Champagne, in the northeast of France. Most all countries have their own just-as-tasty knock-offs of the good stuff because, let's face it: celebratory times can only be properly acknowledged with alcohol and bubbles.

I can honestly say that tonight I discovered the reason they invented champagne: to toast the end of depressing cubical jobs spent sitting in front of the blue glow of the computer screen. After eleven months of work under the title "Data Entry Clerk", all I ever really had to show from my job was an ass that has artfully crafted itself into the shape of my swivel chair. That, and perhaps a case of carpel tunnel syndrome.

But no longer. Today was my last day at my (now old) job. To celebrate, Andrew and I went to Red (the restaurant) and toasted with a glass of bubbly to all the old, crappy jobs we've ever had, all of which have thankfully come to end somehow, and to all the (hopefully not so crappy) jobs we might have again. Don't get me wrong, I've met plenty of super friendly, talented people this past year due to my work. Which is why I also secretly toasted that their crappy jobs would soon come to an end too, so that they could move on to bigger and better opportunities at a company that actually gives raises and sick leave. What can I say? I believe in the power of "Cheers!".

So, here's to crappy jobs, great jobs, and all that happens in between those paychecks! As the champagne toasts go in France: tchin-tchin!