Rien à faire le dimanche: Part Deux

For all in need of a translation, the title is "Nothing to do on Sundays: Part 2." Too bad they don't have Lifetime out here...I got up at 10:00 Sunday morning and got dressed just to find that everyone else was still in bed so I went back to bed too.

My first weekend here without Mommy was pretty cool. On Friday after classes, I went home with Corine. We had dinner and then she and her husband Jacques went to Caen for their dance class. I watched 4 episodes of NCIS in French while they were gone. That show is really popular here and there are only 5 channels of free television available. When Corine and Jacques returned from Caen, we loaded up the car and made the 90-minute drive to Corine's mother's house in La Rondhaye.

I rolled out of bed around 11:00 Saturday morning, got dressed and went downstairs to have a bowl of cereal. Corine only buys chocolate cereal, which makes me very happy. After my breakfast, Corine and I went grocery shopping. Jacques was off fixing up a house that they plan to put on the market soon and Corine's mom Linette was out with friends.

After we got the groceries put away, Corine took me next door to her sister's house. Christine, a.k.a. Kiki, is married to Bénoît and they have 3 children. The oldest son is a 15-year-old army buff who gave me a bunch of pamphlets and a book to read about World War II and historical sites in the area. Reading material in hand, Corine took me for a drive.

First we went to the beach. There are 5 D-Day beaches in Normandy (Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah). The American military landed on Utah and Omaha Beaches. We went to Utah. There are a lot of memorials and statutes there and the beach is pretty. Utah Beach is located in the Manche department. Condé-sur-Noireau is in Calvados. In the picture to the left, I'm standing on Utah Beach looking at Calvados on the horizon.

Next we went to Le Musée de la liberté retrouvée (the Museum of Liberty Regained) in the town of Quinéville, about 10 minutes from Utah Beach. On the way to the museum, we stopped along the route to eat sandwiches. I ate mine inside the car as it was too cold out there for me, while Corine got out to get some air.

Anyway, the museum was "pas mal," as Corine kept describing it, or not bad. It's a small private facility dedicated to life in France under the German Occupation and the time period immediately following the end of the war. I thought it was pretty interesting. The museum sits on what was once a Nazi bunker with a great view of the beach. Corine was trying not to be photographed, but she got caught...

NOTE: I have more pictures that I'm organizing into a slide show to share with everyone when I get home in December, so don't worry about the limited shots provided in the blog.


After the museum, Corine took me to the town of St. Mère-Église. During the invasion of Normandy, as many of you already know, the U.S. dropped a lot of paratroopers into the region. One of these men got stuck on the church in St. Mère-Église and just hung there for many hours. He didn't die there though. Anyway, there is a paratrooping mannequin now attached to the side of the church.

The other title I was going to give this post was "I'm eating my way through France..." My mother's comment about bakeries and their proximity to the school deterred me, but if I keep hanging out with Corine, that's exactly what's going to happen.

I don't remember if I told you how good dinner was when Mommy and I ate there last week, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and Friday night was good too. However, Saturday was amazing. Corine and Linette made blanquette de veau (veal in a cream sauce), with potatoes, fresh veggies and a tarte aux pommes (apple tart) for dessert. One of Jacques brothers, plus his wife and 3 kids, joined us for dinner.

Much like the American South, Sunday only has one real meal and it usually occurs between noon and 4:00 pm. We went to Kiki's house and ate with her family plus a friend. Kiki made French fries, which you know made me very happy. She cooks in her fireplace. I mean she seriously has one of those iron pots hanging from the chimney over the open flames. We had coq (rooster, not chicken...). And then there was dessert. Kiki had gotten an assortment of things from a bakery that they love but are now boycotting. Since I wouldn't be able to have those things again, I ate plenty. Then there's the chocolate cake that Kiki made with three different chocolates and mousse. It was wonderful.

What was even better than all the good food itself, was the gathering of family. While I had a great time, both of those meals made me really homesick. Anyway, I'll apologize in advance for the lack of pictures of these people, the food and the farmland, but they already said I can come back anytime I want since I'll be around until spring, so I'll get pictures on the next trip. Kiki has a golden retriever that will give birth in the spring and Bénoît makes honey on their land. I want to see the puppies and the bees.

So now it's Monday. Today I met the philosophy teacher whose class I'll be "taking" on Tuesday mornings. I figure I can beef up my French skills by sitting in on real French classes. The flaw in the design is the students aren't supposed to know that I speak French. Anyway, I spent most of the morning burning CDs, for academic purposes of course. Joceline gave me a set of English teaching CDs and asked me to copy them because there is only one set currently being shared by 3 instructors. She saw me playing around on iTunes and figured I must know how to do this...

Then I spent the last 3 periods of the day in Vanessa's classes. I'm still not doing anything, but I'm here. I'm really impressed by the students' commands of the English language. They can carry full conversations. When I was 16, I definitely couldn't speak to anyone in French.

By the way, we can add 3 to the list of Black students I've seen. 2 of the boys have their hair braided. I wonder where they get it done...


Bon baiser,

Mlle. Alicia