hindsight

In a vain attempt to hold onto France, I've found myself doing some little silly things:

I keep my cell phone clock in 24 hour mode.
I write my dates like this 29.09.2010 instead of this 09.29.2010.
I stare longingly at macaron recipes such as this one.
In order to be able to make above recipes, I stick a kitchen scale on my wedding registry.
I talk to myself in French sometimes while I drive.

I miss lovely Toulouse.
Sometimes I walk around the streets of the centre ville in my head. Down Jean Jaures, through Place Wilson, straight past Etam to Alsace Lorraine, down Alsace Lorraine to Rue de Metz...ah, so fun.

I've been back for over a month now, and I'm all accustomed to being American again.
And looking back I'd just like to say,
I'm very grateful for this past summer and for the time I spent in Europe. It was so eye-opening and so...stretching? character-wise. Sometimes it was really hard, you know, and not so fun. But when it was fun, man, it was fun. I cried a lot, I laughed a lot, I ate a lot, I learned a lot, I shopped a lot, I grew a lot. And it was probably my last chance to do something like that since I'm getting married this December and moving back east so my future husband can go to med school and I can go to grad school.

So, thanks BYU French department and International Study Program for this opportunity.
What a neat, neat experience.

home, home, home

It's been about a week and a half since I've returned to the US of A.
In that time I've gotten used to rampant air conditioning and customer service. I very much still miss:

little shops, especially papetries. Why don't we have little paper stores here?
saying "Bonjour!" and "Merci, au revoir!" when you enter/exit said little shops
no salespeople ever bugging you
no waiters ever bugging you at restaurants (no one ever, ever comes around to ask how your food is tasting/do you need anything? I need you to stop talking to me. Kthnxbye.)
cafes
crepes with nutella
crepes with bananas and nutella
crepes with bananas, nutella, and ice cream
crepes with ham and cheese and tomatoes
creme brulee ice cream
fruit tarts
macarons
riding the train
taking a long time to eat/making meals a meaningful experience
shopping at Zara
taking the metro
speaking French, speaking French, speaking French
listening to French people speak French
a slower paced life
really delicious ethnic food
cobblestone streets
beautiful architecture
getting into pretty much anything for less than 5 euros
paying with euros
fantasizing in cooking shops about crepes and papillotes
papillotes!
all of the fun French people we met
singing hymns in French

last post from la ville rose

1st photo: Grand Rond
2nd and 3rd: Jardin des Plantes
4th: Jardin Royal (statue of St. Exupery, author of "Le Petit Prince")

à la plage!

Just a quick note on something culture related:

French vacations are in full force right now. Half of the office is en vacances. Half of the little boulangeries, patisseries, charcuteries, and little restaurants are closed. The metro is stuffed full of tourists.

Summer vacations are taken so much more seriously here than in the US I feel. It's like the entire country goes on vacation right at the end of July/beginning of August. And they stay on vacation for a couple weeks at least.

I like it.

oiseau

Noemi and I planned out a bunch of things to do our last week here. I'm proud to say we've accomplished pretty much all of them (plus some things we never thought we'd do...)

Attend church in French/sing hymns in French for the last time.

Take the Grand Rond walking tour (which included the Grand Rond garden, Jardin Royal, and Jardin des Plantes).

Buy cigarettes for Madame S (her maid/helper lady forgot to get them for her the day before, so what do you know, I bought cigarettes...and it was charitable? oddest feeling ever).

Hand out candy to homeless people (Mme S gave us bonbon as a thank you for the above act, so I handed it out to every homeless person I saw, hahaha).

Go to couscous restaurant with Madame P for her birthday (handmade couscous...yum yum yum).

See the modern art museum Les Abbattoirs (very cool, but very disturbing).

Spend 30 euro on chocolate (and now my suitcase is 2.5 kilos heavier-not an exaggeration).

Go to the soirée familiale for the young adults for the last time.

Eat one last crêpe at Le Sherpa.

Have one last papillote at La Papilloterie.

Tonight we shall get ice cream one last time near Place Wilson.

And then tomorrow morning at 4:30 A.M. I'll be taxing my way to the airport.

greenery

I don't know how we didn't discover this until Monday of our last week, but Toulouse has some gorgeous public gardens really close to the centre ville. Behold, the waterfall of the Jardin des Plantes:

More photos to come of the Jardin Royal and the Grand Rond, when I get back to our residence!

I meant to say this a while ago

sometimes,

we laugh because

if we don't, 

we will cry.

this is the story of a girl

Sorry for the extraordinary number of posts today! I just know that it’s my last Sunday, and I probably won’t have this much time to blog the rest of my time here.

This is a shout out to Noemi, my partner in crime for the past month and a half in Toulouse. I’ve said it before, but seriously, she has been such a lifesaver. I feel so lucky for having her here interning too. I feel like this experience has been so much richer because Noemi is Spanish. I've had the chance to learn more about Spanish culture and European culture in general instead of just France. She manages to be gorgeous and uber classy without being high maintenance (she changed the socks of a nearly blind and deaf elderly woman who stepped in her own pee. while i was wanting to cry in the corner, there she was, with gloves on her hand she found in a closet, pulling off those wet socks). We have a similar tendency to be a little crazy...and sing silly songs when we're walking around...and give ridiculous nicknames to the people we meet. Needless to say, we've become really good friends.

So thanks, Noemi, for all of the good times and all of your help!
It's been a blast!

Boys, did I mention she's beautiful? And single? ;)

metro love

I love the Toulouse metro.
Les petits-freres gave us monthly unlimited metro passes, so it's been our main form of transportation (still not a fan of buses).
It's very clean and very user-friendly.
And it's fun because they announce the approaching station in both French and Occitan (dialect found in an area covering southern France, part of Spain and Italy). So now, Noemi and I take great pleasure in calling the train station metro stop "mar-ANG-oh s-N-ah-say-f-oh" instead of "MAR-ah-go s-n-say-f" (Marengo SNCF) and instead of saying "pat-tay duh-wah" we say "pay-dal-co" (Patte d'Oie).

This photo is of us on our way to enjoy empanadas. You can't really see, but my hair is done for the first (and only) time I've been in Europe.

the countdown begins

Three hours and 103 euros later my hair looks the best it has since I left the States.

I finally bit the bullet and went to the hair salon today near Place St. Georges. My hair has been growing out since mid-May so the roots were about 2 inches (!!!) long. Yuck. I'm so proud of myself because:

a) I called them to set up an appointment (and calling people is always scarier for me since I can't use any hand gestures to help me communicate),

b) I communicated well enough during the appointment to come out of it with beautiful blonde (weave/balayage, not all over color), trimmed, slightly more layered hair/en degrade (accent aigu missing) and cleaned up bangs/fringe! YeaH!

Noemi and I are at a loss of what to do on our last Friday night in Toulouse (hence I am blogging at 9:00 at night). We were going to go to the cinematheque and watch "Rebecca" (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) outside, but it doesn't end until 12:10, and we start to get afraid of the metro around 11...(and we have to be at the train station at 7:30 tomorrow morning to go to Collioure!! Beach!!)

Young people around here just go to pubs and get drinks on the weekend. Maybe we'll go for a coke at Place St. Pierre? Or ice cream at O Sorbet, l'Amour? Or empanadas at that one Argentine restaurant we ate at last Friday? 

Je ne sais pas.

All I know is that today, I walked around Toulouse by myself while listening to my iPod, and I decided that I shall miss this city. And this country. And this continent. 

Confession: I was not madly in love with France when I first got here. Paris was not everything I wanted it to be. Speaking and understanding was harder than I was expecting. But slowly, la Ville Rose has gotten under my skin. I love it here. I love France. I think a little part of me is always going to be wanting to come back, to stay in the Loire Valley, to visit the Alps, to go to Alsace Loraine, to see the Pays-Basque, Nice, the Atlantic coast, Provence, Brittany. I want to come back to Carcassonne! I never got to the see the Musee d'Orsay! Two words: La Papilloterie!
In exactly one week, when I get on the plane to come home I know I'll be crying. 

I just don't know for which reasons anymore.

Photo from Carmes. 

Sign translation: You don't have the right of way (it's a stolen street sign).

parfum peche blanche

Today I had the opportunity to participate in a sortie to go to a cafe at the Jardin des Plantes for ice cream. A new French volunteer and I went to pick up two ladies who are in wheelchairs and another lady who doesn't walk too well. It was fun to speak French with the volunteer because she's closer to my age. We were supposed to meet three other volunteers who were accompanying 6 other elderly people.
There were a lot of mix ups in communication so we ended up at the Grand Rond instead of the Jardin des Plantes which meant we had to get the ladies across a bridge going up and over the street and then walk through the Jardin des Plantes to get to the cafe. Whew. Walking with that wheelchair uphill was tricky. A very nice French lady noticed me struggling and helped me push it up the hill. Going downhill I swear my body was at a 45 degree angle to balance out the force (shudder...having physics 121 free body diagrams come to mind). Anyway, we finally made it to the cafe and had some delicious ice cream. I had a lot of fun talking to a few of the ladies and one complimented my French! (ah, how I treasure those sorts of compliments, makes this all seem worth it.)

All in all, a good afternoon. However. I believed I was going to be getting lunch at this event, not just dessert. So I did not eat lunch. So I was starving. Good thing I was informed of a Chinese restaurant/outdoor hut stand thing down the street from Francois Verdier. Good thing Noemi and I decided to go eat there. Best curry chicken I've had in Toulouse. Yum yum yum.

This weekend we're going to the beach! (provided we can still buy train tickets tomorrow) we're heading to the small, picturesque village of Collioure to get some Mediterranean sun!

it ain't over yet

Noemi found this quote in a cute little store when we were wandering around Rue Alsace Loraine last night*:

"La vie, c'est comme une bicyclette, il faut avancer pour ne pas perdre l'équilibre."

-Albert Einstein

(Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.)

I actually like the French version better than the English. You have to advance to not lose your equilibrium.

Advance...ahh, that is a scary thing indeed.

*This is actually one of my favorite things to do in Toulouse-wander around le centre ville. Noemi bought a walking tour guide book of Toulouse the second week we were here, so with its help we've been exploring the city one little neighborhood at a time. I love it-the streets, the "hotels", the little shops-ah, it's all so French, so beautiful!

Photo of Jeff across the street from Sainte-Mere eglise in Normandy (once again, pardon my lack of accents).

encounters with the word of wisdom

Noemi and I have had a couple of kind of funny experiences accidentally ingesting alcohol:

Last week we had rum raisin ice cream at Madame M's...and after our throats started burning we realized that it actually had rum in it...when she left the room to grab some more water, we had a very tense conversation,
"Oh my gosh, this has alcohol in it!"
"What are we going to do?"
"Quick, open the door, throw it in that plant's pot!"
"Crap, she's coming back!"
"Just let it melt!"
So that's exactly what we did. We let three scoops worth of Carte d'Or ice cream (read: not cheap) melt on our little plates. Oops.

Then today, when we were visiting Madame B in a retirement home, she offered us some chocolate. Little did we know but they were all liqueur-filled. I took one bite and had alcohol something gushing all over the place, so I just held the rest of the chocolate in the wrapper in my hand for the rest of the conversation. Noemi quietly slipped hers into her purse. The problem was, there was still a ton of liqueur in that thing, so when I adjusted my hand all of a sudden there was all of this liquid running between my fingers and all over my pant leg. I couldn't do anything about it but let sticky mess get everywhere. Noemi noticed and then we both started laughing. Rather vocally. Right in the middle of a conversation about the maladies of the elderly. Oh dear.

What can we say? We're easily entertained.

international cuisine with international people

Last Friday, Noemi and I were invited to a goodbye party for Rodolfo whom we met that one time we went and watched the world cup with Pierre and Laura. It was held at an Argentine restaurant that had a.mazing. food. It was also another one of those really cool hey-everyone's-from-somewhere-different! nights. We had someone from China, two from Peru, three from France, one from England, one from America, one from Spain, and one from Brazil. Cool, cool, cool. I am just so impressed with people's abilities here to speak a million different languages. Laura, for one, speaks English, French, German, and Spanish. Noemi, both of the Peruvians, and one of the French guys speak Spanish, English, and French. The Brazilian girl speaks Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish. The girl from China speaks Mandarin, French, and English. How do they do it?!

Anyway, here's a funny story from that night. We came into the restaurant and air kissed everybody and one of the girls introduced herself and said, "Je suis Françoise," which sounds a lot like "Je suis française" (I'm French). Noemi then said, "Je suis espanole" (I'm Spanish), to which the girl responded, "And what was your name?"

Oops.

Sort of similar to the time I responded to "How are you doing?" with "My name is Katie."

hehehe

tolosa

Little by little, maybe I've grown quite fond of this city.

I feel like I'm finally starting to really know my way around all of the little cobblestone streets, metro stations, and outer neighborhoods.

I also feel like I'm only just beginning to be able to really communicate with people.

(Dear Every Single French Teacher I've Ever Had,

Why did no one mention French is a private club for members?*)

In exactly two weeks I say au revoir to the land of  chocolate macarons and papillotes and crepes and emmental cheese and hello to the land of air conditioning.

Photo from a little side road off of Rue du Taur, near Le Sherpa-aka best creperie in Toulouse

*Membership dues include living in France/other Francophone country for at least 6 months. I just don't feel like there's any other way to become fluent. 

one quick note

Cassoulet*....
tastes about as good as it looks...

When we were visiting Madame Fernandez this week we mentioned that we hadn't eaten cassoulet yet, so she went and grabbed a can of it to give to us. It was so nice of her! So we decided to try it this evening, and well, 

we didn't really like it.

I'm betting fresh cassoulet is better, but

we don't really want to spend money trying it.

Sorry, Toulouse,

we don't like your signature dish.

*cassoulet is like a soup with lentils and toulousian sausage and in the case of the one we tried duck confit. but it tasted really gamey...and not like yum.

follow the sun

Apparently, violets are the famous flower of Toulouse. I have yet to see any growing anywhere, but violet flavored and scented things are sold in every little shop. Now, eating something that tastes like a flower did not sound appealing to me, but when I walked into the little chocolatier on Rue du Taur and saw the little purple violet macaron cookie, well, I just had to try it. (I also bought a caramel one just in case I had to get rid of a nasty flower taste in my mouth.)

And then I attempted artsy (read: out of focus) photos on the train ride over to the charming village of Albi.

(10 points if you know which book that is)

I think the chocolatier cheated a little bit because the violet one tasted slightly berry-like. Not complaining, it was delicious. As was the caramel one.

I really enjoy taking train rides across the countryside. It is beautiful! There are all of these fields of giant, hand-sized sunflowers everywhere, in addition to corn fields, wheat fields, and who knows what else (not an expert farmer). 

Noemi and I are now going to go make a dinner of cassoulet (famous soup/sausage dish of Toulouse), steak, baguettes, and salad. Yum! Stay tuned for more on our day trip to Albi!

every member a missionary

I've found myself talking more about religion here in Toulouse than at any other point in my life I think. Religion is really important to a lot of the elderly that we visit (or they at least find it an interesting topic for discussion), so they always ask Noemi and I, "Etes-vous croyantes?" (Are you believers?) to which we always answer yes. We were talking with Madame Robin this week, and she asked us this and what sect we were from. When we answered Mormon, she asked us how that differed from her religion (catholicism). And boom, all of a sudden there I was bearing my testimony about the nature of the godhead, living prophets, and personal revelation. It was the coolest thing, because words were just tumbling out of my mouth. I was simultaneously totally panicked and totally calm as I would reach for a vocab word, and there it'd be. 

I don't know what Madame Robin thought about all that I was saying, but I felt the Spirit testify to me that it was true. 

And that was awesome.

currently drooling

basque fromage: tomato, ham, peppers, emmental cheese

dessert: house made chocolate, pineapple

Oh, Le Sherpa, you are heaven sent.

le temps des cerises

Last night Noemi discovered this French website that lets you download movies and watch about 30 minutes at a time of them (in French). We saw that "The Proposal" was an option so we watched a third of it, and let it be known that we understood it! Of course, we've already seen it in English and it doesn't have a particularly complicated plot, but still. We felt victorious. Maybe we'll even feel brave enough to go see "Inception" version français tomorrow (its release date in France).

Also, I just have to say that I love papetries/librairies. Papetries are little paper shops that sell notebooks and planners and maps and well, paper, and sometimes art supplies. Librairies are bookstores. Noemi and I found this really, really cute one on Rue St. Rome yesterday and I couldn't help myself, I had to spend 16 euro on an agenda and a bunch of cards. There's this one brand La Marelle, that I love love love. So cute!

Now I'm going to go play games with the elderly. Fingers crossed we don't play Scrabble, because I will lose big time in French...