Provins...

My friend Anne and I were saying the first thought that went through our heads when we walked into Provins, a provincial french town from the 1200s, was : "There goes the baker with his tray like always..."
For all you out there who HAVEN'T watched Beauty and the Beast...well...you don't deserve to get it.
The town was so cool! I'm always amazed at how all those old buildings stood up to time. They looked brand new! We actually ate lunch at the one above. Here's another one:On a hill in the middle of the town is a tower where guards used to watch for invasions. Needless to say it had an AMAZING view! Here's pictures!There's no walmart around here folks! But really, it was beautiful. Inside the tower there were some dungeon prison cells which actually weren't that creepy looking. The windows were really teeny tiny, but we decided that if I had been imprisoned in the 1200s I probably could have escaped based on the fact that I am about 2 feet tall. Here's my attempt:
We find out moments later that the windows aren't the only small things in this tower! The stairwells were literally just wide enough that you could fit your shoulders through. Maybe it was their way of weeding out the fat, lazy soldiers from being able to work in the tower. Better hope no one was claustrophobic!This is Anne showing you just HOW small they were! And she's tiny! After making it through those teeny staircases we were STARVING! We went to lunch in that restaurant from above, and there I had another one of my famous experiences with french cuisine. What follows is some sort of ground, raw, cold patty made out of duck, with a savory duck broth JELLO on top. It was very, very strange. I ate it anyway just so as not to insult the chef, but I had to keep telling myself "Rare burger, rare burger, rare burger" Sometimes it didn't help and I kind of gagged myself, but for the most part it didn't taste that bad! Afterwards they redeemed themselves with this DELICIOUS chocolate cake. Anne thought she was gonna steal mine but I think you can see that I wasn't going to let that happen :-) Here are a few more random pictures...Overall a successful day! Definitely better than the studying I've been doing the rest of the weekend :-( Apparently here we are the only ones actually paying attention to the tour guide... I think she was leading us to the restaurant, which would make a lot of sense. One of me by an old wall... The fortified wall that surrounds the city...amazing that it's still in such great condition! These are my friends Theresa and Shelly inside the tower

Nemours and Le Relais du Picotin

This weekend I went horseback riding in the countryside! I loved the horseback riding but what I loved more was who took us... I came up with the idea a few weeks ago when I was staring at the giant horse poster that takes up half the bathroom wall here. Apparently one of the Chalufours million children had a thing for horses. So I started to poke around on the internet and by chance came across this place called "Le Relais du Picotin" in Nemours, France, about an hour from Paris by train. I called the guy up and after struggling through the phone call (no matter how well you can speak, phone calls are ALWAYS a struggle!) we made a reservation and he told us he would pick us up at the train station at 8am Sunday morning. The train ride was pretty cool... Once you get outside of Paris you see the fog rising up over the fields mixing with the pink from the rising sun, and you can't help but smile. It looked like this :
Looking out the train window I really had to reevaluate how lucky I am to be here. I didn't even know the half of it! When we got there we shivered outside the train station for a few minutes before an older man with a white handlebar mustache and two sheep dogs in the back seat pulled up and waved us down. As we drove he showed us the sites in his beautiful town, Nemours. Apparently the town was built over a series of canals, so it's laced with little rivers and docks. Nothing could be more charming! Here's a picture I took of the main river:
And here's a picture of the cathedral that's been there for hundreds of years:
Talk about picturesque right?? It was gorgeous. So anyway Christian, our host, drove us about ten minutes outside of town and just as I was thinking it couldn't get ANY better, we pull up to this: Le Relais du Picotin

This place used to be the stable house for an old chateau. It was AMAZING. Apparently Christian bought and renovated the place a long time ago. He lives on the second floor but eats all his meals with his clients. He says he thrives off of making people feel at home. He's pretty good at it too. We walk through a giant doorway into a kitchen that I could live in for the rest of my life. The dogs follow us in of course and lay down at our feet as we're offered coffee from beaten up mugs while Christian introduces us by name to everyone who comes into the room. Here's the kitchen, with Christian at the head of the table.So after breakfast we saddle up and take a ride. That is something that I can't stop thinking about either! Here's me and my horse, Naia:

Isn't she pretty?!! It made the little girl in me come out again. I just wanted to break down in my "Hoysthes!" voice all over again. It was hard to hold back. The girl who led us around figured I was a good enough rider that she'd let me go with the more advanced group so, get this, I got to GALLOP!! I know for all you non-horse enthusiasts out there that may not seem like a big deal, but it was amazing. I was galloping through a french forest with the leaves all turned fall colors and the breeze on my face. It was perfect. Here's what the forest looked like :
So ANYWAY this is getting long. It was AMAZING, we came back, had a picnic outside, and Christian wrote us a secret note telling us the "Carolyn, Amy, Sarah" special that he'd give us if we wanted to come back. He said he loved having us so much that we'd get half price, free lodging, and free meals if we ever came back. I would LOVE too. Here's a parting shot:

UPDATES

Once again I've falled off the blogging bandwagon. I'm sorry! There actually has been stuff going on, I just haven't felt those creative juices flowing, so every time I sat down to write nothing came out but fluff. Plus I've hit the midway point of this experience and getting over those last few steps uphill were kind of hard! It isn't the France part that overwhelms me, it's the big city. I love speaking and learning French and I've finally had some small town experiences that I LOVED that proved that it's not french people that are rude, it's city people.

This many days until I get to see my family and my Joe!

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Umm....

Ok...Even I'm a little ashamed for France....

This car is being showcased on the Champs-Elysees right now...ahem...France? What the hell?

What's going on, America??

Personally it freaks me out a little bit that I'm in FRANCE when the American economoy is crashing and burning. Due to the fact that I haven't watched TV in a month, my knowledge of what is actually going on in the states is really, really limited. As of right now I'm expecting to come home to this:
Which, of course, is slightly unreasonable. It's so strange though being absent for all of this chaos. I hope something terrible isn't going to happen while I'm gone! I would much rather struggle through the chaos with the people I love than stay here any longer than I have to. I think some students here have the tendancy to reject the US and praise France and Paris for all their wisdom and beauty. I'm happy I'm here, I'm happy I'm experiencing the culture, but my loyalties lie in good old US of A, for better or worse. You don't just start cheering for the other team whenever you lose a game...

grumble grumble...

OK so I guess if I'm going to accurately document this little journey I'm on, the bad has to come with the good. Today = Bad. Not that I'm overall having a bad time or anything but today is one of those days where I'm learning all about the things I DON'T like about France and French people and all French dogs and French food and French cities. Basically, if I had an american flag right now I would walk through the street waving it on a pole and singing the national anthem at the top of my lungs. So now you know the what, here is the why:

It seems to be the ongoing joke in my french family that I'm "bavarde." For all you anglophones out there that's a less polite way of saying "talkative." Perhaps I'm mistranslating, but I thought this word was kind of an insult. Now I know, I know, all you people out there who know me are saying "Geez Cal, what's the big deal? Isn't that completely and totally the truth?" I know, I'm a talker. But honestly, at their dinner table I literally only speak for a total of 45 seconds during the whole half hour dinner. They babble on about their days and their weekends and their homework and I sit there mute carefully contemplating the correct way to hold my fork.

Now normally I would think that it's better to try and enter into polite conversation at the table, rather than stay silent and sullen throughout the whole dinner, so, OCCASIONALLY, I agree with something that is said or interject with my own commentary. When I say occasionally I mean it too, man. So what bugs me, is that while I'm sitting there saying literally nothing the whole dinner, my occasional interjections merit a negative label that has to be joked about at every dinner from now until I leave?

Here's the kicker... am I not here to learn how to SPEAK FRENCH? CONVERSATIONALLY?!@! Why even take on an exchange student if you're going to discourage them from talking. Blah. A month in and I still feel like I'm a stranger to these people. Everyone says it's cultural, but personally I just don't think it's right. Hospitality is a universal cultural attribute in my book, at least when you are the one extending the invitation. Maybe it's just my southern heritage talking, but personally, I like my southern hospitality way better than whatever you call what I'm getting. Whereas the french may call us loud and obnoxious and fat and claim that we invade other people's privacy, I say that we are warm and friendly and welcoming and we enjoy sitting down to a good meal with good family and friends. I'll take the noisy Fenwick clan over these guys any day!

France just needs to give me some space, man. It's just a little quarrel...we'll get over it. But no, I'm not sorry right now, I don't want to kiss and make up, and I don't want to resolve our differences. I just want to be mad for a while!

Kids...

Does it say something about my personality that I would much rather go through the Louvre with three kids under the age of ten dragging their feet and asking silly questions than go out partying with people all weekend? I had a blast this weekend with Jenny and Kurt and their kids. Being with family for the first time in a month and a half was the most wonderful gift. It's amazing how family, even as distant as second and third cousins, can recharge you. There's something about a genetic connection that you just can't get anywhere else. It's love at first sight no matter how long it's been since you've seen them, heard from them , heard ABOUT them. Even with the head cold/sinus infection/ martian death flu that I have right now I still had fun traipsing around Paris with them. Plus it was nice to eat something substantial. Either because they are Americans or because they are my family, we came home every night with nineteen different gourmet pasteries, 7 sandwiches, baguets, croissants, cheese, and 2 bottles of red wine and piled it up on the table and took a little bit of everything onto our plates. I loved the food but I loved that warm familiar chaos more. I've never felt more satisfied in my life.

Anyway, sickly-ness is making thinking much harder than it should be, so I'm thinking the best medicine is probably sleep! Love you guys!

Sick sick sick

So being sick in france STINKS! Does anyone know how to say decongestant in french? or Mucinex? I'm dying....

Ok so I'm lazy blogger....

But I do have an exscuse. kind of. Classes started for real last week and its really hard! I know, I know. I'm a terrible person. So here's an update:

1. My new favorite snack is green olives and feta cheese. For some reason this is everywhere! They marinate it in something delicious, add some marinated onions and roasted red peppers, and voila! Delicious snack. Healthy? Who knows! Do I care? Nah. I tried to find a picture of my little tubs of olives-fromages, but alas, there are none.

2. Paris is getting colder! And Greyer! And rainer? Is this just my mood talking? No but really, I'm doing alright here. I miss my Joe and my family and beautiful Missouri but this is an amazing experience and I can't forget that! In order to make myself feel better I had to buy this coat:
That made me feel alot better.
P.FREAKIN.S. That delicious looking yellow casserole that i ordered without knowing what it was? Wanna know? It was pureed fish! Again!!! What is it with these people???

3. I'd managed to avoid stepping in the dog doo that litters the streets here, UNTIL TODAY when I literally slipped in it and almost fell flat on my face on the sidewalk. Apparently all my dog doo karma was building up to this one horrifying moment. Plus people saw.
Girl next to me: Did you just SLIP in DOG DOO??
Me: Grooossssss!!@#$^$%!!@#!@!!@#%$%^#@11`!!!!!!
Her: I guess that's a yes...

4. I'm going horseback riding in the french countryside!!@#!!@!!!
5. I'm going to Geneva!@#!@#!!!!

That's all for now. Love you guys!