Pictures from the country part 1

So I loaded these pictures in order but for some reason blogger hates me so they are out of order. Mah bad. Technology alludes me.

1. Gate and open field I stumbled onto on my walk to oudon

2. Fireplace in the castle d'Oudon, shaped like a castle. Yes please

3.our massive haul from picking fruit at the farm

4.french wildflowers on the road to Oudon

5. This is what the French countryside looks like here

6. Castle d'Oudon

7.view down from one section of the castle

8. Part of the havre river, cutesy

9. Me and all the white currants I picked, ick

10. Casual boat on the havre

11. Picture from the day papi showed me around, told you it was grey

12. Inside of l'abbey st philbert de grand lieu

13. Part of the ruins of the castle d'Oudon

14. Back in the abbey, there is someone in that crypt, papi told me it was one person, my horrible French skills led me to believe there is someone else inside. Who knows.

15. I have never been this close to cows that were not at the state fair. True story.

"oui, il y a beaucoup des chateaus, comme les fromages"

this is the story of my first 1 and a half weeks in the country, photos will be uploaded tomorrow. (maybe).

So, I didn't end up asking Papi to take me to Oudon the next day like I said I was going to, because it was freezing cold and raining and I just felt like laying in my bed and watching the life aquatic with steve zissou. (which didn't work by the way so then I had to watch 500 days of summer. depression)

The next 2 days followed suit. Freezing cold outside, no heat inside and nothing but rain as far as the eye could see. I read an entire book; the Marriage Plot, it wasn't that good, but I still continued to read it because when it rains in the country, what else do you have to do?

That sunday, it was finally sunny and papi told me that we had to go take the boys to meet up with their other grandpa who was taking them for a week. Leaving mami, papi and i with H and her 13 year old cousin E who flew in the night before. I agreed to go on this adventure because what else was I doing besides sitting on the porch staring at the sun because I hadn't seen it in 4 days.

We get into his little car (when I say little I don't actually mean it. He drives a Mercedes, but don't worry- he made sure I knew that he once owned a Ford and talked at great length about the American auto-industry and he nodded approvingly when he found out I drive a Chevy) and we proceed to drive southwest and we get to a little parking lot of a big old stone building. We get out and the boys are running around and goofing off, I am literally just standing in the sunlight trying to warm myself like a reptile when A tells me he has to go pee and B tells me he has to go poo. I sigh and papi laughs. The boys still have an hour in the car ahead of them, so we search out a bathroom. Once we find a public bathroom, A has decided he no longer has to go pee, but B is still in need so he opens the stall door and what does he find, but a Turk. I am unaware of the fact until he comes out and says, I think I'll hold it. I ask why and he says, that's not a real toilet. I go examine for myself and just burst out laughing.

I finally tell him that he has a whole hour in the car ahead of him and he really probably should use the bathroom and he looks at me with a look of absolute horror and he just says, how do I use that thing? I then have to talk him through using the Turk, proper foot placement, correct shorts on the leg placement and everything. In the middle of doing his business he shouts, Amanda, how do you know so much about this toilet? And my response is, I have one of those at home, bro. (He thinks it's funny when I call him bro) he shouts from the stall "IN AMERICA?!" and I respond, no in Paris!

I explain how to flush, he flushes and comes out of the bathroom and looks at me and says, I don't believe you have one of those in Paris. and I can think of nothing else to say to him but... neither do I.

Anyway, their other Papi (papi de mon papa, as A has been calling him) shows up and the boys go and they give me bisous to last for a whole week (by this I mean they basically tackled me to the ground and kissed my forehead off) and then they get into the car and off they go. Papi then tells me that we are standing next to an abbey that was built in the time of Charlemagne and would I like to go inside and look around? Um, yes. thats freaking cool.

So we went inside, papi paid my whole 1.50 euro ticket price, what a gent, and it is soooo cool. There are parts of it that date back to Charlemagne and then you can see the other parts where other architectural design played a part in the building of it, roman influences, gothic structures and medieval elements too. It was super neat, I totally geeked out. I'm casually looking at stuff and papi is next to me talking my ear off and telling me things that I probably wouldn't understand in English about the history of France but he is speaking in French so I just go with it. I take some pictures, I pretend to read some signs, I just kinda explore around. All in all it was pretty neat. I bought some post cards from the gift shop and then we made our way back to Oudon.

The next week is ultra calm with just the two girls, one barely a teen and one is a tween so all they do is watch tv, listen to music and paint their nails. Monday I decide to walk into the town of Oudon (we live on the outskirts) its like a 45 minute walk but I google map it, so I figured I was good. Mami offered me a backpack, an umbrella and a bottle of water and then said she hoped I make it back for dinner, not like a suggestion on time but a suggestion of ability. I thought I would be like, walking along a road, no no, I legit took a trail through the woods and through someones back yard and finally came to a road that I walked on for a while until I eventually found the cutest little park with a lake in the middle. This is called the Plan D'Eau and it is on the outside of the town. I walk through it, and walk by the little swimming beach and then into the town, everything is closed. What the what? It's monday at like 2pm why is everything closed? This is when I remember Mami telling me that everything is closed Sunday afternoons and Monday all day. Lovely.

I sit on a bench on the side of the Hauvre which is a teeny little offshoot of the Loire River, and I just chill for a while, trying to figure out how on earth I'm going to walk back and tell Mami and Papi that I didn't do anything because I forgot that everything was closed. I get up and I walk the length of the Hauvre all the way until I get to a private farm and have to turn around and I walk all the way back. When I get back, I realize that the castle is open! So I march myself up to the castle of Oudon and I buy a ticket and I go inside.

This is where I have realized that I need to own a castle. Glamorous and not at all practical, I need one, end of story. So I hope to learn interesting things about the people who live here in this castle, but come to find out that it basically just is a museum about the Loire river (found out that over 300,000 people were drowned in it as public execution site. lovely little detail) I make it all the way to the top and I wander around, take some photos and then I get a little terrified when I realize how high up I actually am and so I go back down. I then find a sign that says "passage interdit" why is it that whenever someone posts a sign that says you can't go somewhere, you just want to go so much more badly. I have no idea what is at the bottom of that spiral staircase and it will haunt me forever.

Then I start walking away from the castle and I see people carrying baguettes. SOMETHING IS OPEN! At this point I am starving so I just walk in the direction that the people were leaving and by the grace of god I found a bakery that was open and I walk in, order a pain au chocolat avec des amandes (bread with chocolate and almonds, side note: my name basically means almond here) and I eat that on my way back to mami and papi's. I slept so well that night it was absolutely unreal, Papi calculated the distance I walked, about 9 km. BOOM.

The next day, papi asked me if I had anything to do and I said no, so he invited me to go with him, mami and the girls to the farm to pick fruit. We drive to a little "you pick" farm where they show me off to all of their little french countryside friends. Apparently it is ultra-chic to have an American Au Pair and all the french people like to stare at me like I'm a wild animal. Papi grabs a wheelbarrow and tells me that its called a brouette. He then asks me several times throughout the trip, "qu'est que c'est?" "what is this?" to see if I remember. I never did. He and mami then spend the next hour trying to teach me the names of different fruits and vegetables, some of which I didn't know what they were in English so when we finally got the french-english dictionary we were all surprised. Chards? What is that?


Papi's favorite word of the day was "zucchini" he must have said it a million times and then he would just giggle to himself. I guess zucchini is more fun to say than corgette. I picked red and white currants, mami picked green beans, papi picked strawberries and the girls picked raspberries. We then all piled in the car and I went back to bed because my brain hurt from all the new words that I was busy not remembering. 


this is ultra long. I will finish the rest tomorrow. 


ps. cheese is way better in the country than in Paris. Augusta tells me she thinks it is because the goats are closer in the countryside. this makes perfect sense to me.

The old country

So, it is summer vacation for the kids finally. The first week, H went to a dance camp in Barcelona, and while she was gone the boys left for their grandparents house in the country, leaving just the teenager and I.

H got back on Monday, did her laundry, repacked and then Tuesday I took the train with her to Oudon to meet up with the boys in the country. The teenager left yesterday for month in Texas, lucky her.

The French country side you say? That sounds lovely for a few days! I know, right?

We get off the train and are greeted by A and B and papi. Possibly one of the cutest little men I've ever seen. He is extremely French looking and just so sweet. He speaks a little English and has the cutest worn little French-English dictionary that he has only used to find the different names of fruits and vegetables to me.

We walk to the car and he takes my suitcase from me to put it in the trunk and I am immediately embarrassed by how heavy it is, you'd think I was leaving France forever by how much I packed. We get the kids in the car and he starts talking my ear off in French and I try so hard to listen and comprehend, he sees this and asks if I understand and I say I understand a lot but sometimes have trouble. He says this is normal but that my French will return and they will help. Phew.

We get to the house and I meet mami. An equally adorable little French woman who ushers me inside and starts to give me a tour. I take off my shoes and start to walk in, she asks if I have any 'chaussons' or slippers, pointing to the children who are all wearing them. I tell her no I didn't brig any I'm fine thank you, but she just shakes her head and wanders into the hallway saying 'non non non' she brings me a pair and smiles really big. So I mean, what do I do but put them on?

I have come to learn that it is absolutely freezing in this house, thank god mami gave them to me, because of all the things I managed to shove into my bag, socks were not one of them, and even if they were, they wouldn't be enough. I have also learned that slippers are a requirement in this house. If the kids walk into a room without them, even with socks on, they are reminded to go find them and put them on, which i can't say I understand completely. But whatever.

I get a quick little tour of the house, find out there is wifi everywhere, I have my own room in the basement with my own bathroom (HELLO REAL TOILET) and they really don't need me until 6:30 at night to get the kids all showered, and then eat dinner with everyone then brush teeth and to bed, I'm free to come and go as I please during the day. Which would be awesome except they are a car ride away from the nearest town. So I figure, get paid to hang out at a cute relaxing house in the country, read a bunch, play with the kids, save a ton of money by not really doing much and then go back to Paris happy as a clam.

Mami and papi have other plans. They keep telling me how easy it is to take a train to Nantes or angers and how there are a million things to do there. I looked up trains, not too bad actually, I may take a train to Nantes for a day and to angers the next but like I said I'm not made of money here.

So I wake up my first day and I go upstairs to see the kids, mami saved some things for me to eat for breakfast so I have some bread and homemade strawberry jelly that was delicious. I then grab a book that one of the girls left before she left Paris and start it.

I play with the kids a bit, then Mami asks if I want to go run errands with her, so I say yes. We drive into this tiiiiiny little village with a giant castle in the middle, all the while she's pointing out things I should see and do, which is like 'here is our pharmacy' 'that's a library' 'that's our big castle!' it was cute.

We go to the butchers and she walks in, orders what she wants, the butcher wraps it all up and she says something to him really fast, he presses a button on the cash register and her name pops up, then we leave without paying him. I look at her curiously and he proceeds to tell me that she is coming back later that night to buy something else so he is letting her pay for everything then. Which amazes me, but works easily for them I guess. We then go to the baker and get some bread where she asks for a baguette 'bien cuir' well cooked, or a little burnt so at crispier.

Then we go home and the rest of the night proceeds as normal. Today I woke up and went upstairs and papi said he would take me to the tourism office in Oudon. Wait, this rinkydink little town has its own tourism office? And you're taking me to it because....oh, I must look bored. How do I explain to these sweet grandparents that I like to read, and i don't really want to spend too much money, and I'm sure their town is lovely, but it's 60 degrees, rainy and I forgot a coat so I don't really want to explore it? The answer is, I can't. So I go with papi.

He pulls every single tourism pamphlet he can find with a little British flag in the corner, even though I insisted that I can, in fact, read French, and then he grabbed about 13 more in just French.
We then got back in the car and he drove me around, stopping at points to get out and look at things. I took a few pictures. It's mostly grey.

After perusing some of the pamphlets, I believe that tomorrow I am going to ask papi to drive me into Oudon after lunch, visit the castle (self guided tour will take about an hour and 15 minutes) stop in at a small art gallery that may or may not be open, go to the library, maybe stop at a bakery and try to kill about 4.5 hours just wandering around until papi hopefully can come pick me up.

Updates to follow.

Fête de la musique

I am so behind on things I want to blog about, ah!! In no particular order I'm going to list them off so I don't forget:

Climbing the Eiffel tower
4th of July with the kiddos
Summer plans with the family
Cafe oz
Dating/relationships in Paris (don't worry, no experience in this regard, just funny things I've noticed)
French fashion
French culture

But before I get to all of those things I have to first talk about the fetes de la musique.

This is one magical day in Paris that is just full of music. Each year on the summer solstice, all of France is overtaken by music. There are huge concerts everywhere, but what's more is that every corner you turn has a band playing music. To really explain what this night was like, I have to tell you about my night.

I met Siobhan and Natalie out at odeon at about 9pm and it was still super light out. We split some little aperitifs like vine tomatoes, cheese things and had a bottle of wine while we were sitting on the street listening to a cover band play in front of a little pharmacy. The streets were so crowded that cars just reversed down the street because there was no way they could pass through. From there we decided to stop in at wos, so we walked the 10-15 minute walk through the immensely crowded streets, stopping to listen to each band we found (think one per block) for a while we got intensely distracted by a beatles cover band that had taken over the sidewalk in front of a bank. Eventually we make it to wos, say hello to our friends and decide to keep moving.

As we walk down the street we meet the guy who owns the bakery next to wos and he proceeds to introduce us to the guy who owns the restaurant on the corner next to wos, the restaurant owner invites us to come to his restaurant for a little bit and gives us a table on the sidewalk. We sit down and then to the right we see a small crowd so we go to see who/what is playing. Two brothers one 11 and one 13 are hooked up with their electric guitars and are singing French pop songs while the crowd is pretty much made up of their families and then us. We become completely obsessed with these two boys and how adorable they are so we stay and dance for everrrr. We end up being obnoxious and cheering at the end before Siobhan gives a casual 'play sweet home alabama' shout to them and we go back to the restaurant. 5 minutes pass and we hear the unmistakable first two measures of sweet home Alabama

We sprint out of our chairs and go dance like idiots. They finish and start to pack up and finally we decide we have to talk to these kids. Their band name was 'les cacktus' the cactus (no idea the English plural for cactus but I think I'm on the right track)

They pack up and then the baker offers us free food from his bakery so he brings us 6 of his best pastries an we sit at this restaurant, eat these delicious pastries and listen to music for the rest of the night.

It was absolutely fantastic, i can't even begin to describe how cool it was to see musicians everywhere from famous bands in the opera to bands just getting started and selling their CDs I two brothers playing on a side street for their parents and a bunch of rowdy Americans.

Chez le docteur

I mentioned a little bit ago that I had to go to the doctor so I wanted to write a post about how that went! I'm getting behind on all the things I want to blog about!

So, first of all, in France there are no such things as medchecks or anything like that from what I've seen, there is just the hospital and a bunch of private practice doctors, some specialized and some not. So when I needed to see a doctor I didn't know where to start. Thank goodness I have friends here.

I asked my friends if any of them had gone to a doctor here and I got the name of one that was only a couple metro stops away and came with a really good recommendation. So it's Friday morning and I call and ask to make an appointment. The only time Friday that they could get me in was too late for me because I'd be working so Monday it was.

(Ps- speaking French on the phone is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, I just kept saying 'pardon!?' while the secretary undoubtedly rolled her eyes. )

So I leave my apartment an hour and a half early to get to the doctor, just to be sure I'm not late and giving myself time to get lost, because inevitably that will happen. But no, I found it, and was a full hour early, luckily there were a few stores around so I managed to entertain myself.

Finally it's time for my appointment and I walk to the door and can't figure out how to open it. It's not like a store door, it's an apartment building that has been leased out to doctors, lawyers etc. and I'm panicking because I should be able to figure out how to open a door. I call my friend and ask, she tells me there should be a button at the top of a little silver box on the door that has everyone's name listed. I find it and shout "ah! I got it!!!" while 3 French lawyers scoot around me to hit the button, the door swings open and I look like an idiot. Meh.

So I walk up to the door of the doctors office, also locked but before panicking I found the little silver button to press and was buzzed in. I explained to the secretary that I had an appointment and she pointed to a little waiting room. I open the door and there are 5 or 6 people in the room and they are all staring at me, so I nervously sit down and get out a book that I've been trying to read in French.

As I sit there, people are getting called out of the waiting room and more people come in, what I realized as I sat there, is that when I walked in the door everyone WAS staring at me, because I was supposed to greet everyone! I had no idea, but every single person who walked through the door said "bonjour" and then was greeted equally by a "bonjour" from every other person in the room which I thought was bizarre. In the US people don't talk to each other. Haha

Anyway it's my turn and I go into the doctors office and the doc is a sweet little man who reminds me of French Richard Gere and he asks me all sorts of questions and I think I am answering them all correctly, he gets to my year of birth and I think I said 1989.

Quick side note about French numbers, 70- 99 are super complicated. Instead of having their own name, seventy is soixante-dix or sixty and ten, then sixty and eleven and so forth. Eighty is quatre-vingt or four-twenty and ninety is quatre-vingt-dix, four-twenty-ten. Bah.

Anyway he writes me a prescription that I just take to the nearest pharmacy and they will fill it no problem. He then asks for 30 euro as his fee. Which is my favorite part about the 'going to the French doctor' thing. That's not a co-pay. That's it. That's what doctors charge in France. Some charge a little more if they want to be a chic practice but generally never more than 50. And the better part is, he asked if I am on social security, which I'm not yet but will be in several months. He gave me a paper to fill out and once I am on social security, I send the paper in and my visit will be reimbursed about 60% The French government wants you to go to the doctor and be healthy even if you can barely afford it.

So I take my prescription to the nearest pharmacy; hint, there is one on every block with a bright green flashing cross. And for 10 euro I get my medicine and also another form to be reimbursed for social security. Even medicine!

Finally, there are insurance plans you can buy, which I'm in the works of doing, that will get you 100% reimbursed for any medical expenses you encounter.

I think that's absolutely amazing, when you consider my accident prone self and my apparent need to rack up a bajillion dollars in medical expenses at home. (medcheck is a 70 dollar co-pay y'all)

I don't care. Language barrier 101.

Just a quick little lesson for those of you interested in learning a foreign language.

All in all, my kids are pretty well behaved. They gripe and moan a lot when they don't want to do something but so far I have contributed that to them still needing to adjust to me.

One particular incident involved not wanting to clean up snack and a lot of muttering under the breath in French because it was known that it's a little hard for me to understand sometimes. Naturally I went up to my room and began looking up phrases I thought may have been said to me and I settled on "because I don't want to!" which is way better than what I thought.

Fast forward to hanging out with Augusta and a bunch of her French friends. They go back and forth between French and English so we can sometimes be included but it's mostly me asking what someone said or what something means because a lot of it is slang. One such phrase I heard the guys say and I asked one of them what it meant, he told me in English that it meant "I don't care." okay cool. We moved on.

Later that week, B and H asked me to play ping pong with them and I said yes. They asked what side I wanted to start on and I thought it would be awesome to show them that I know some cool French slang like a normal French person so to express my indifference, I threw out this new phrase I had learned.

The kids eyes went wide and they looked at each other with their mouths open and then looked at me like I had suddenly grown another head. The 10 year old immediately corrected me. "um you don't want to say that, say "je m'en fiche" instead. What you just said is naughty"

Apparently what I had said meant "I don't give a d***" my bad guys. It technically means the same thing as "I don't care" with a subtle difference.

Lesson learned: look up every phrase taught to you by a 20 something French guy BEFORE saying in front of your kids.

Le showcase and a barbecue

This last week went by really fast and I spent a lot of time filling out paperwork, running errands, opening a bank account, stuff like that. Things that are annoying to do at home, and difficult to do here because of the language.

The poor guy who works at the bank trying to open a bank account for me. So patient. I experienced the French post office, a French bank, a city grocery store and a French department store, tomorrow I'm going to the doctor (I'm fine don't worry) but that will be another interesting and complicated encounter.

The kids also did some really cute and funny things, but that will be for my next blog post. What I really want to discuss was this weekend. My first French club.

It's called le showcase, and it is literally under the bridge on the siene. Jason Bourne ran over this club. We walk in and it is so loud you can't hear yourself or anyone else, disco lights are flashing so you can't see anything and the drinks are so expensive that they are undoubtedly not worth it. So we kinda all decide to just sit and people watch. Pretty soon a French guy starts chatting with us and it becomes the most disjointed conversation I've ever experienced. He wants to practice his English so he is speaking English and I am speaking awful French and half the time we don't understand each other and the other half we're correcting each others grammar.

He then asks us if we want to go smoke a cigarette and I say no thanks but it's really hot so we'll (all the girls and i) go outside. We go outside and there are seriously twice as many people outside smoking as inside this giant club. He asks why I don't want to smoke in serious confusion because EVERYONE here that is under 25 smokes. When I say everyone, I mean that when I walk the children to school in the morning we walk past the high school and I swear there are 13 year olds smoking. So explaining that I don't smoke is difficult and apparently culturally bizarre so I just tell him that I don't know why but I don't smoke. He seems more confused by this answer.

Finally we've all had enough and decide to head to WOS an English speaking bar worked by friends of the girls that I'm with. At this point it's 1ish in the morning and we have a difficult decision to make. The metros shut down for cleaning from 1:45ish to 5:30am so if you want to go home any time between then you have to take a cab which is so expensive. We decide to tough it out and plan to stay at WOS until 5:30 am so we can take the metro home. We get there and run into some of their other friends. Then it's just a normal night out except the duration is reminding me of IUDM. I'm so tired, all I wanted was to go to bed. When it was fiiiiinally time to go, we hopped on the metro and I got to my apartment at 6am, completely wiped out.

The next day I hung out with Augusta and Hugo and they invited me to a barbecue thrown by Hugo's friend Sysy. Augusta and I are extremely curious what there is going to be at a French barbecue. We get there and there is a grill full of hotdogs and chips and soda and beer just like America. We were so shocked, they even had ketchup mustard and mayonnaise. We went inside where the boys we knew were watching soccer, and I already miss American sports so badly so I decide to give soccer a shot. Aside from cute guys playing it, I wasn't super into it. Apparently 2 girls who want to watch soccer Is strange because every other girl walked in and asked why we were watching.

Hugo brings us hotdogs and I burst out laughing. In total French fashion, the hotdogs had a ripped open baguette as the bun and he had just put mayonnaise on them. It was so bizarre but we found ketchup an it ended up being fine but we just thought it was hilarious.

Let's take something super American and give it a French twist. Totally French.