every time i close my eyes, i see my name in shining lights, a different city every night oh my!

bonne annee to you all!

i am home in teeny old serignan again after a fabulous 2 weeks in nantes, fontenay and la baule. this post is going to be enormous so i suggest you get yourself a snack and into a comfy position.

since my last post was 10 days ago, i will do shorter recaps of whatever i remember. this is important to me since i seem to have lost all my pictures from fontenay with ben.

fontenay: while we were here, we really didn't do much. the weather was gloomy and rainy throughout and so we stayed in and did lazy things. one of the evenings i made a giant chicken biryani for ben's friends and they inhaled it, so i think it was a success even though i couldn't taste it. i made myself a veggie one and a raita in case i went a little chili powder happy. they all said it was delicious and ben was quite thrilled that the house smelled like india for a day after. his mother francoise tasted it too and thought it made her hiss and fan her mouth, she said it was quite good.

we visited la rochelle for a day and it was rainy and so i didn't see much of the supposedly beautiful city. we went into a mall for around 45 minutes since the boys could really only handle that much at a time. they didn't buy anything as usual and neither did i, though i fawned over a lovely sweater-dress.

nantes: i took a train and ange met me at the station. we public-transported back to her apartment. she lives with her aunt and her family but they were out of town for the holidays and we had the place to ourselves. that night we stayed in and watched french reality tv (about as awful as american reality tv but in french so no painful nasal accents) and made crepes for dinner. she made the crepes and i made the filling and it was delicious. crepes with salty caramel filling for dessert and we were stuffed. woke up lovely late the next day and headed to her family's house an hour outside nantes in a village called saffre.

it was xmas eve and so the whole family was in party mode and ange has 5 siblings all under the age of 10. 2 year old princesse, 3 year old la roy shama, 5 year old la reine pistis, 7 year old noblesse and 9 year old jane de la neige and yes those are their real names. there were plenty of champagne and chocolates so we were all in very good moods and the kids were highly entertaining. they would call my name and when i replied "oui?" they would giggle and run away. this kept up for an hour or so until their mother yelled at them to stop.

ange's aunt and her incredibly misbehaved 4 year old son came over for the festivities which included ridiculously loud african music and much dancing and drinking (chocolate eating on the part of the children, bad, bad idea). ange and i spend much of the night gift wrapping last minute gifts for the kids. they were all getting at least 6 gifts apiece.

the custom in france seems to be to get everything over with on the 24th and then do nothing on the 25th. so all our wrapping was just for 30 minutes or so and then the brats ripped them all open. big waste; i think i'm very anti the whole concept wrapping paper. all my gifts were without any kind of wrapping or embellishments. but before gifts was dinner and ange's mom was super sweet and separated all the veggies from the meat so i could actually eat! and it was delicious: a veggie stew with chick peas and cous cous and they had some harissa so i spiced it up. and dessert was 2 cakes, one with obnoxiously bright layers that was super yummy except for the fruit cake dry fruit bits (i hate those and picked them out). and the other was a buche de noel which is a christmas log cake and it was supermarket bought and tasted like plastic. and an assortment of chocolate and champagne- the theme for the night.

putting the kids to bed was difficult to say the least. and once done we were pooped and passed out. tried to wake up late the next day but there were 5 kids screaming and jumping and crying and whining and other kid things. so we lazed around and tried to ignore all the noise. i felt like the grinch at the beginning of the cartoon "all the noise, noise noise, noise, noise noise!" so the next afternoon we split and headed back to nantes and the empty apartment.

and we chilled and relaxed and slept and hung out with a couple of ange's friends. it was lazy and full of french tv shows. and then we packed up and headed to la baule by train.

wednesday the 29th of december: christian met us at the train station and it was a very happy moment seeing him again my french father :) that day all of us arrived and we were a group of 6: me, ange, yana from ukraine who is studying in paris, asuka from japan who is also studying in paris, julia from russia who came down just for her winter break and her friend ana. and we all had a blast just talking and cooking and eating and hanging out in front of the fire. and christian kept us well plied with wine and croissants and pastries and other unhealthy things. and every night we'd sample some of his 'digestive' alcohols that would burn like a raging fire going down and leave a nasty taste in your mouth. needless to say tongues were loosened and everyone was rather jolly.

and new year's eve: we did a huge appetizer and cheese dinner with bruno and pascal mainguy- good people who helped out with the camp. it was awesome and we ate and ate and ate. there were over 50 assorted appetizers like in the movies; mini pieces of bread with spreads and caviar, foie gras, salami, sausage, veggie ones with tapanade, cheese, jams, and puffed pastry ones with escargots, veggies, cheeses, mini sandwiches, all these one bite taste explosions that were oh so so delectable. and then there was over 10 different types of cheese from basics like brie and camembert to 4 different chevres and a few brebis and then even 5 hard cheeses that were so mouthwatering. there was even a super bright orange cheese that was over 6 months old! and to accompany was champagne with the starters and a bordeaux from 1989! it was so yummy! and old! and he even brought out my favorite type of wine for dessert- a sweet red dessert wine from perpignan. and desserts were little mini desserts; eclairs, macarons, chocolate cake bites, fruit tarts, pastries with chocolate and some without, with berries and other fruits. and there was a homemade chocolate cake that was the perfection of a moist cake and so so very decadent, i must get the recipe. and there was also a buche de noel with some cointreau in it that was interesting. and this was followed by some delicious passion fruit and sicilian lemon liqueurs. yum yum yum.

the next day, for the first day of the year we all slept in and woke up super late and did nothing all day. talked and lounged in front of the fire and ate leftovers from the night before.

then on sunday corinne drove ange and i back to nantes and i headed back home to serignan.

it was a good good break. and thank you to all of you who let me stay and fed me and were just amazing!

and now today, tuesday the 4th of january: last night 3 of 4 teachers contacted me to let me know that i wouldn't be needed so i only had one class. woke up nice and late (catching up on sleep after the holidays) and ate a giant breakfast which consisted of oatmeal and leftover soba noodle stir fry from the night before. and i watched ugly betty episodes and read until i had to leave for work.

i had 12 year olds and i decided to work on new year's resolutions with them: a brilliantly apt and creative idea for the first week of january. and they needed to revise "i will..." i made them each come up with around 5 or so and they were quiet-ish and really well behaved. this was one of my nightmare groups so i think that their teacher must have scared them into being good. some of my favorite resolutions were " i will ride my motorbike;" "i will misbehave less;" "i will go;" and "i will not kill the children." and then they asked me how to say 'i love you' in tamil and i was stumped.

i got home and pottered around, cooked myself some yummy masala rice with red pepper, tomatoes, carrot and onion. and got to work on contacting professors for letters of recommendation for the programs i'm applying to for next year.

i am so so so scared about applying and what i'm going to do next year in general. when i'm browsing websites and getting info, i actually start sweating a little.

phew!

craving: a moist lemon pound cake
currently listening to: ariel salvaro blabbing to me on skype :)