C'est Thanksgiving Charlie Brown!

I will take off my iron-clad exterior, just for a moment, and show you all a side of my vulnerability, haha. I will admit, that on Thanksgiving this year, I was incredibly homesick. It hit me when I was eating alone in my room, in silence. At least I had prepared a nice meal for myself, but nonetheless, it was lonely, and it felt slightly pathetic. I longed to be with my family, eating turkey and reminiscing. Instead, I was stuck in a prison sized room, thinking about the French exam I had earlier...which seemed to be an extra kick in the knees.

While the actual Thanksgiving day sucked, I did have something to look forward to. Yesterday, I held a French version of Thanksgiving in my hall's kitchen. Luckily, it was potluck, so I didn't have to cook too much, but I did spend Friday baking pies with my Turkish friend Gulay. We made an apple pie and a sweet potato pie. Surprisingly, both came out really well! (Considering I didn't use recipes and guessed with the metric measurements)

Anyway, my French Thanksgiving turned out to be a blast. It totally cheered me up from the humdrum holiday I had on Thursday. I really should call it an Internation Thanksgiving, because all of my friends from around the world showed up. I had friends from Turkey, Germany, Latvia, Finland, China, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Poland! It is amazing when we are speaking French together, because we all sort of forget that we are from completely different parts of the world, and just enjoy ourselves. Last night we ate and drank and danced, and just had a really great time. I am thankful that I have this opportunity to meet new people from all over the world and have this experience in France!

Check my flikr for pics of Lyon and Thanksgiving!

The Question Everyone is Asking....

How is the food????

The answer is, well, delicious. There is more to it than that, however. When one thinks of French cuisine, thoughts of aging cheeses, foie gras, and garlicky snails still in their shells. While this is indeed a part of French cuisine, there are many different regional specialties that I have only recently learned about.

Starting in Picardy, well, to be honest, we aren't known for much in the culinary world. We have a few dishes of our own. First, we have ficelles picards, which are crêpes, filled with ham and gruyère and mushrooms, and finally covered with Bechamel. I have yet to try these, but they do sound tasty. We also claim to have invented the infamous 'French Macaron', however, I am not sure this is plausible, because we have a macaron here, and it is completely different to those that one sees in patisserie windows. The ones here are made with almond paste and are little golden mounds, rather than the sandwich macarons everywhere else.

In my French civiisation course we have gone over important foods region by region...so I have just decided to copy my notes here, just to make it easier.

Regions and their Cuisine (Starting from the North)
Nord-Pas-de-Calais----Moules Frites (Mussels and Fries)
Normandy----Apples, Pork, Oysters and Calvados
Brittany---Crêpes, Seafood
Paris--Mushrooms, and Brie
Bordeaux---Wine, of course!
Savoie---Tartiflettes and fondue
Alsace---Sauerkraut
Bourgogne or Burgundy---Escargot Dijon mustard,and foie gras (arguably the most stereotypically 'French' of all regions!)
Provence---Seafood, ratatouille, bouillabaisse

As you can see, France has such a vast array of different types of cuisines. Don't even get me started on cheeses and their regions! There are too many to count!

While there are so many different types of food in this country, there are stereotypes that are based in fact. Fact: French people love baguettes, and yes, they carry them under their arm on the way home. Fact: French people love cheese. Seriously, there are two aisles in my enormous supermarket dedicated to cheese. It makes my head spin whenever I walk through there...I don't know where to start! Fact: French people eat 'strange' things like horse, and pigs intestines. The French are much more hesitant to let things go to waste than we are, and aren't squeamish when it comes to eating something that would make an American cringe. I feel as thought because I am here, I should probably taste some of these things, even if I don't end up liking it. But yes, it is not surprising to see fully skinned rabbits, or sausages made from pigs intestines here. The one thing that makes me cringe a bit is 'Boudin Noir' or blood sausage. No thank you. I say no thank you to that in England, too.

So, I have learned how to correctly choose my baguette at the shop and I have tasted rabbit (kidney's intact) in a dijon mustard sauce. In the weeks coming up I would like to taste raclette (a cheese that is grilled fireside, and the melted bit is slowly scraped onto potatos and sausage...its name comes from the French verb for scrape, racler) I would also like to try andouillettes. In spite of all of the Anglophone people I have ever spoken to saying they taste horrible, I feel I should give it a go. Andouillettes are pigs intestines sausages, and in fact they are really popular around here and sold at all the street fairs.

I have this idea, that I will try any sort of new French food, and review it on here, if somebody suggests it. So, I would love to hear from you either in the comment box or send me an email!!

Also, keep an eye out at www.flickr.com/photos/ebamiens for photos from my upcoming trip to the so called 'Gastronomic capital of the World', Lyon.

Je fais 'Le Pont'

So, as it seems around the world, today is Armistice Day or Veteran's Day. While this day gives us a day to think about those who fought in battle or those who are serving today, it also gives us time to do....well...nothing. No school, no classes, what is a girl to do? Stay in her room all day watching reruns of 'Top Chef'? While I have selected that option before, I decided that today I would make a day trip up to Lille, the capital city of the northernmost region, Nord-Pas-de-Calais. This was especially fitting considering that Lille is the birthplace of France's former President and founder of the 'Cinquième Republique', or 'Fifth Republic'. Not to mention he was a powerful general in the fight against the Nazis in World War II. So...I hopped on a train, and headed up north. (Even more North than I am now!)

To be honest, I do not think the weather did this city justice. I think I spoke too soon in my last post, when complaining about the weather here. The rain and wind in Nord-Pas-de-Calais is nothing short of violent. There were several times I was slapped in the face with someone's runaway umbrella. I would really like to go back when the weather clears up, so that I can take a walking tour around the city, and see everything up close.

Luckily, the tourism office was open, and my friends and I went to find something to do on a 'jour férié', or national holiday. We assumed pretty much everything would be closed. However, we got lucky and found out that the tourist office runs bus tours every hour. Normally, riding around a city in a minibus isn't my thing, but it was cold and rainy and it seemed like a pretty great option. So, I saw most of Lille's most interesting sites (including Charles de Gaulle's birthplace) in a comfy warm 50 minute bus ride. The bus also had an audiovisual tour (which I listened to in French, of course) and I got to learn a bit about the city.

Although I was only there for 6 hours, I really enjoyed my daytrip, and I think it has whet my appetite to go back and see more. On my to do list are 'La Piscine', an art museum that is housed in an 1900's bath house, and a walking tour around Vieux Lille, the old city. I also feel as though I should give the regional dish, 'Moules Frites' 'Mussels and French Fries' a try, even if I am not particularly fond of shellfish.

I should mention that I have an EXTREMELY long weekend, this week. To be honest, my weekend has been the majority of the week. I do not have classes Wednesdays or Fridays, and by some freak act of nature, this national holiday, and my Spanish teacher's absence Monday, all fall into the same time frame. So I shouldn't really call it a 'weekend'. I should probably just call it a vacation. The French, however, have a name for this type of weekend. It is called 'Faire le Pont' or 'To make the bridge'. Usually what this means is that if there is a national holiday on a Thursday, someone will 'fait le pont', and make it a long weekend. In my case this was unintentional, but it did not stop my French friend Alicia from teasing me and saying 'tu vraiment fais le pont cette semaine!' or 'You truly are taking some time off this week, aren't you?'

I also want to add that my network here seems to block me from putting up any sort of photos in my blog. I have a flickr account, where you are all free to look at the pictures I have put up from my days here in Amiens, to my other travelling adventures! Enjoy! The website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebamiens/

à plus mes amis!

The England of France

As I write this, I am sitting in my tiny room, wrapped from head to toe in whatever blankets, sweatshirts, scarves and hats I could find. To be honest, I've got a scarf wrapped around my face, and a hat pulled down so far over my forehead, it is a bit hard to see the computer. So please excuse the typo's!
As my friend Naoma (catch her blog here )and I have been discussing, Picardie is truly the 'England of France'. ie. That it is cold, wet and windy most of the time. However, today is truly special.

Today is the first day I feel like my fingers are going to freeze off the second I go outside. I can truly tell that winter is coming.
It seems a bit strange, it feels like only yesterday I was dealing with suffocating heat of Boston during the summer, and now I am shivering indoors, while I watch the sky absolutly chuck it down outdoors. Not much of a transition. The last time I was this cold I was in Raon L'Etape, huddling under all of Emily's blankets for warmth.

This makes me a bit jealous of all of my friends who are living towards the south of France, towards Lyon. One of my friends said 'Oh it was great, we were sitting by the river last night drinking wine until 5 in the morning, and no one had to wear a jacket.' Another friend said 'Oh, it is a bit coldish here'. First of all, if anyone in Amiens were to go by the river and drink wine this time of year, not only would you be covered from head to toe in some sort of warm fabric, you probably would not be drinking the wine, as it had probably frozen by the time you got to the riverside. Oh I long for the days of 'coldish'.

However, this weather reminds me that Christmas...and my family are on their way! I have quite a few adventures coming up...First, in a couple of weeks, I am taking a weekend break from the cold, and heading down to Lyon to see one of my other English besties, Jemma. A few girly nights and some sightseeing should be good fun. Then, a few weeks after that, I am headed to Raon L'Etape (to freeze my butt off again!)and to see Emily. We are going to Strasbourg to see the legendary Christmas market! Finally, when winter holidays roll around, I will make my way to Belgium, where I will be spending Christmas with the family. We will be making a bit of a tour of Bruges, Bruxelles, and coming back here to Amiens, so they can catch the spectacular light show at the cathedral, and see 'my town'.

So, long story short, as much as cold weather sucks, it reminds me that there are definitely good things to come!

HELLO!!!! FINALLY!!!!

Ok, So....Apologies for not writing in my blog for nearly 3 MONTHS. I have been having issues with Blogspot and the internet since I got here. However, it seems to be working now, so keep your fingers crossed!
So updates updates updates!

I arrived here the first of September, ready and eager to start speaking French. And yes, I started speaking French almost immediately! We had a two week 'stage intensif' or a two week intensive French course. It was very interesting, and I got to meet a lot of the international students that have now become my friends! Plus, at the end of the stage, I got a pretty cool certificate, and an 'ez reader' version of 'Around the World in 80 Days'...Only appropriate considering the university is named after world famous author, and Amienois, Jules Verne.

The most challenging thing I have encountered so far was trying to decide which classes I was going to take. This process is vastly different than the process in the UK, where it is pretty much 'These are the classes you will be taking next semester...' Here in France, you can test out classes and see if you like them before fully registering. This came in handy when I decided to check out an Ancient Art history course that turned out to be a total snooze. I substituted it with History of Cinema, and two classes of Contemporary Art History. I am pretty satisfied with my schedule now, which includes 1 Spanish class, 2 French as a Foreign Language classes (similar to ESL in the States) 1 Photography class, and the aforementioned art history classes. Oh, and I am also taking Argentinian Tango, which is pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Life in France has not been especially easy lately. The French have been 'en grève' (on strike) for about a month now. This has caused major disruptions in public transport, trains, and there have even been fuel shortages. Not to mention the demonstrations that block off the streets! This is all due to a reform that Nicolas Sarkozy has been trying to put into place where the retirement age will be raised from 60, to 62. It seems a bit ridiculous as an American, who doesn't actually have a real retirement age, but I respect why they are a bit upset, and I respect their right to strike. However, it is definitely getting in the way of me getting to classes in centre ville, and that definitely frustrates me. I guess this is just a lesson in French culture, and a lesson in how to roll with the punches.

I did, however, get to travel a bit, to see one of my best English friends, Emily. She is posted as a teaching assistant in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny village called Raon L'Etape. While it is picturesque and quiet, I can understand her frustration in not being able to make friends in such a tiny village. Still, we spent a wonderful day in Nancy (about 50 minutes away by train) and then explored the market in Raon L'Etape. It was wonderful to catch up (and hear a Northern accent!)

I can assure you my French is slowly but surely improving. My comprehension has skyrocketed, and I can understand almost anything if the speaker anunciates! The goal now is to get my responses down, and be able to conjugate more quickly in my head. I am sure this will come with time, but I have to remind myself not to speak in English with people who are fluent in it also! That isn't going to get me anywhere!

Anyway, now that Blogspot seems to be working, I will definitely attempt to update more often, and let you know of the goings on in Amiens!

test blog

Testing testing...the internet here hasnt allowed me to post blogs, so I am attempting again.