Hospitality a la Française

So the past few days I have been invited to two different people’s homes for a meal, and the experiences have been so enjoyable that I think they warrant a description here. Two nights ago I was invited to a professor’s house for dinner with some other teachers from the area to kick off our vacation (Yes, as of Friday I have started a 10 day vacation from a part time job that I have been at for less than a month, with irregular hours, at best). One of the teachers, Claire, is 25 and in her first year teaching. She’s very cool and picked me up from my place and we drove there together. Driving in France is a whole other experience that I will have to get into at a later time. The meal was a very nice affair, however, I forgot that French dinners last 5-6 hours and I consequently missed a Halloween house party at another assistant’s. Oh well. We started, as is traditional, sitting around the salon with aperos, which consist of some sort of alcohol, in this case red or white wine, and snacks like nuts, olives, chips, etc. Then the hostess started bringing out, one by one, various other little foods. First little tartines with shrimp and smoked salmon spreads. Then a little later came a kind of parmesan frittata that she served in tiny individual bowls. Then a mini parfait with cucumber, tzaziki, smoked salmon, and chives. THEN tartines with foie gras and fig jam. All of these things were served over a few hours time, and by 9:30 I was starting to wonder if that was the dinner, I was certainly full enough! However at 10:00 we moseyed over to the table to sit down for the plat: stir fried beef and rice, which as usual was served with a fresh baguette (fresh bread goes with everything here).  After dinner we had a moelleux au chocolate, which is like a chocolate cake that is liquid inside. I didn’t leave until midnight, and we were not the last to leave! Meals here generally take a lot longer, and when you invite people over for a meal, it is not at all usual for it to go on well into the night. It was very tiring by the end of 5 hours of listening and trying to understand French. It’s also difficult to not be able to express myself or contribute to the discussion as much as I would like to. The company understood however and were very nice about it. There were only a few times towards the end of the night that I let my mind wander during a conversation and then of course was asked my opinion on what has been discussed for the past 10 minutes. Oops.

I don’t really have anything planned for this vacation because I want to discover Toulouse more. I definitely don’t feel the same pull to travel every chance I get as I did when I was studying abroad. I think part of it is the budget I’m on as a teaching assistant, but also I don’t feel like I’m on a constant vacation here as I kind of did studying abroad. I feel like I’m truly living here and am perfectly happy staying in the area. Also, Toulouse continues to be wonderful place to spend time and explore. Everyday I discover a new neighborhood or square that is more charming than the last. I’m pretty sure Toulouse if known for having great architecture so I’ve been trying to take in more of that. There are also a ton of museums that I want to check out. I’ve been finding a lot of cute bars and cafés in my neighborhood that are a lot lower key than the ones in the center of town, which I like. Fun fact: a lot of bars here serve tapas because we are so close to Spain.

My friend Amy, who teaches and lives outside the city in a village called Muret, has been staying here with me in Toulouse for the past few days of vacation. Which brings me to my second story.  Today Amy and I were invited for lunch chez the cousin of her French advisor in the US. She had made plans to meet with this mysterious cousin, and when she told him she was staying with me in the city he invited me as well. So, at noon, Jean-Louis came to pick us up from my house to bring us to his house. Spoiler: We didn’t return until 10:00pm this evening. We arrived and were immediately greeted by his wife, and their 2 sons who are 14 and 11. I guess by this point it’s naïve of me to have thought we were going over for a 2-3 hour lunch, but I was still caught off guard by the pace and extent of the Sunday lunch. We once again started with aperos, and a bottle of rose champagne. When we sat down at the table we opened a red from Bourgogne and were served salads with grapefruit, shrimp and avocado mmm. Then Jean-Louis cooked fresh duck and salmon on a kind of propane grill outside (it didn’t have the grates it was just a flat surface), which we ate with a gratin, kind of like scalloped potatoes, and of course, baguette. After the meal a cheese platter was passed around, and then his wife came out with a gorgeous apple tart she had made a la mode. Somewhere in there we opened a Bordeaux as well. After lunch we had coffee then a digestif (congnac, cointreau, calvados etc.) It was such an enjoyable meal, we laughed and joked and had wonderful conversation. At 5:00 we were still there and discussing French cinema, so then we ended up watching a movie together. Then, even though we hadn’t done much, they wanted to feed us again before we left, so we had a salad with some leftover meat and potatoes, around 8. The time passed so quickly I couldn’t believe it was 9:30 when we were finally leaving. They were such an easy couple to get a long with, and I can’t get over how nice it was for them to spend their entire Sunday with us. At one point we were talking about the differences between typical French meals and meals we have at home. We were talking about how we never usually drink wine or any alcohol with lunch in the US even on the weekends. I was trying to explain that it is kind of stigmatized in the US, and JL and his wife were explaining that in France it is more a accessory to sharing a good meal together and facilitating discussion and is not at all unusual to open several bottles of wine during lunch if guests are over. That might explain why there is wine in the teacher’s cafeteria at my school….When we realized that the cuisine in the US isn’t THAT much different than in France (except for some of their more exotic dishes), I think they were kind of disappointed, so we were talking about how even though we eat the same vegetables, we prepare them different ways, I was trying to say that we sauté things in a pan, which is “a la poêle”, but instead I said, “a poil” which means naked. TO my credit sound the same except for the “la.” The 11 year old appreciated that. On the way home JL kept telling us that if we needed anything to just call him or his wife, if we wanted to come again for dinner or just a drink or if we had any problems at all. SO nice.

The strikes are continuing here in Toulouse but are not as bad as other cities in France. We don’t have rioting like Marseille or Lyon. We do however have a pretty serious fuel shortage. Almost all gas stations are on strike so no one can get gasoline. The trash pickup has also stopped so there are some areas where it is piling up in the streets. The TGV trains that run throughout France have also been unstable, which is part of the reason I didn’t want to plan anything big for this vacation and risk being stuck. The airport has also been blockaded I believe. The busses in town work some of the time and other times not. It’s all pretty random and I can’t tell if it just seems that way to me because I don’t understand everything or if it actually is just irregular.

My best friend Emma from my study abroad program in Rennes is hopefully coming to visit Wednesday to spend a few days here in Toulouse, and then if the trains are running we’ll head up to Rennes for Halloween, coming back on the 3^rd.

OK well that’s all for now! Bisous!

Linz

Roqefort (36 photos), by Lindsay Walter

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Les Pays Cathare

This past weekend I went away with a colleague from Bellevue, Martine, to her house in the country. Five years ago she bought this incredible, 200 year old (!!!) house in a small village called Roquefort in the middle of the Corbiere mountains about 2 hours outside of Toulouse and is in the process of renovating it. She, her 21 year old daughter Lolie, her daughter's boyfriend Baptiste, her dog Tiago, and I spent Friday and Saturday night there and left Sunday evening.

We spent the weekend going on amazing hikes in the mountains, along the Mediterranean Sea, and through vineyards, it was like something out of a dream. Some interesting history about the area is that it is known as the Pays Cathares, or Cathar Country. The Cathares were a religious group who in the 11th century parted ways with the Catholic church and built these incredible castles and chateaus in the Languedoc region of Southern France. The Catholic church eventually waged war against the Cathares and exterminated them from the region but ruins of their chateaus and trails remain.

More info on the Cathars :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar

Saturday morning Martine went out and brought us back fresh croissants and chocolatines from a bakery in town, then she and I went for a hike that started right from the end of her street and led immediately up into the mountains. The landscape is very wild, rugged, and windy. She told me it is a typical Mediterranean climate and landscape. After a while walking she bent down and picked a sprig of a plant we had been walking amongst for a while and told me to smell it, it was Thyme, then she picked some Rosemary. We had been walking in a sea of herbs the entire morning and I hadn't realized it. There were also olive trees and fig trees, it was gorgeous.  Then we descended into some vineyards that have begun to turn red and orange like the foliage in New England. The vendanges, or grape harvest, is in September, but there are still plenty of grapes left on the vines, which are much sweeter and full of sugar because they have been left on the vine past the traditional harvest. In France they make a sweet wine that people drink as an aperatif made from these grapes. The leftover grapes are also for the public to take, stemming (pun intended, hehe) from a tradition of letting the poor townspeople come pick the leftover grapes after the vendanges.

That afternoon the 4 of us drove around the area and stopped off at a town by the sea called Leucate. Martine and I then did an hour long hike along the cliffs by the sea and Lolie and Baptiste took the car and picked us up in the next town over. Toulouse in general is windy,  but I have never felt wind this strong along the water, it literally was pushing us along the path and forced us to jog at some points.

Saturday we also stopped at this house on the side of the road that is half house half museum. Outside there is a sign that says "Baleine," or whale. The man who lives there found a whale washed up along the shore, and dried out the skeleton (or however you do it) and has reconstructed the whole thing in his basement. I know, SO random, but really cool.

Sunday Martine and took the path of the Cathares through some vineyards and picked some more grapes. That afternoon the 4 of us, plus Martine's friend, went on my favorite hike of the weekend which took us through the mountains, vineyards, and to a little cave or grotte.

It was such an incredible weekend, hope you enjoy the pictures! I have created an album on Snapfish if you want to see more:


http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2898981023/a=870321023_870321023/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Welcome to France, the country that strikes.

Last Tuesday there was a Greve Generale (national strike) against Sarkosy raising the retirement age in France from 60 to 62 to pay off the national debt. The teachers I work for were participating in the strike and therefore told me not to come into work either. Don’t have to tell me twice. Tuesday morning I woke up at 10am to horns, chants and cheering outside my window. I live right next to the river and the manifestation was traversing the bridge right next to my house. So, I got dresses and headed out to check out what was going on. Strikes here resemble a parade. There are people singing chants, playing music, carrying banners and signs, and generally socializing. From the manifestations I’ve seen in Rennes and now here, it is more a social event with a tag line than anything. If you did not speak the language and could not understand the words of the chants, or the slogans on the signs, there is nothing else to indicate that people are angry or protesting rather than celebrating. Although one might think that this issue touches only working adults, people of all ages come to “manifs;” – young children carry banners and signs alongside their parents, shouting disparaging songs about “Sarko” as we would a nursery rhyme.

I have spoken with several French people about the issue, both kids my age and adults I work with all sort of laugh, throw up their hands and say welcome to France, we’re known for our strikes. Well, at least they know… One kid told me that he supports the movement against raising the retirement age, but not to the extent that it impedes those who do not wish to protest against it. In France striking is legal, and indeed much a part of the culture here, but blockading public places, such as schools and universities is not. You cannot infringe on others right to circulate and work. However, it seems the two, striking and infringing on others rights, inadvertently go hand in hand here. For example, someone who operates the metro line, or drives a bus, or even a TGV train, has the right to strike just like the next person, but doesn’t their going on strike impede others’ right to circulate? Right now a lot of things are shut down such as pubic transportation and gas stations in order to “make the government listen.” People here accept this disruption in everyday life as normal and necessary for the movement. Personally, I’m getting a little frustrated from places being closed, you may be touching the government by shutting down business and transportation, but you are also hurting other citizens.

 I don’t work Wednesdays and Thursday I woke up at a o-dark-hundred to hustle to school 30 minutes away to print some lessons and make some photocopies before my class at 8:15. Au contraire. When I exited the metro and walked up to the school it became apparent that waking up half an hour early had been in vain – the front gates were blocked with trash bins, duct tape, and students. I continued walking around the entire campus (pretty large) until I finally found an opening. By then, I was almost late, I found a back entrance to the teachers lounge in the library where I could print out my lessons where I found tons of teachers congregated discussing the blockage, and whether they, the teachers, were going to continue to strike along with the students. They call a congregation called an “Assemblie Generale” and they formally vote, so the teachers have voted to return to work, the students however are continuing the strike.

The result is the teachers continue coming into work and if the students do not come, they are marked as absent. There have been about 1-2 students in each of my teachers’ classes. I was talking with one teacher who said that the students striking is part of their culture, part of their youth, and she recounted for me her first strike as a high school student. Seeing the solidarity is cool, because when in America have you ever seen a kid try to lock his teachers out of school? However, I think the adults who strike carry much more credence as they are giving up their salaries for the days they do not show up for work, and the issue is far more pertinent to them. I’m not sure if I believe that this 16 year old kids honestly care about the effects of putting retirement off 2 more years, something that is 40 years away for them, but I can clearly see it is part of their culture. From my perspective, it seems to be an excuse to skip school and smoke cigarettes out front.

So now it is Tuesday, a week from the first big greve and I woke up this Morning to another manifestation crossing the bridge outside my house, this time there are fireworks. This whole week I have turned up at school not knowing if I will have any students or not. There have been froggie SWATs stationed outside the high school to prevent the high school students from blocking out those who wish to enter the campus. It’s very interesting listening to my colleagues talk about what is going on because some are against the striking and don’t oppose Sarko raising the retirement age, and others are very much for the manifestations and striking and the student movement. The issue has also caused uncomfortable tension between some professors because of how intertwined politics here are with everyday life.

That’s all for now. Hope you find this as interesting as I do…

 

Le Vélo en Rose dans la Ville Rose

So this weekend I didn't end up going to the countryside because the weather there was supposed to be terrible, which it was, so we postponed the trip until next weekend. I think it worked out for the better because I was able to explore Toulouse a bit more this weekend and get some things done such as buying a bicycle! I found this one below at a flea market that takes place every Saturday at a cathedral in the center of town. It's pink (which I think is cute because Toulouse is known as the "ville en rose" since most of the buildings are made of brick with red roofs as well, which gives the city an illusion of being pink hued), it's used, it was 50 euros, and it works. Now I just need to buy a lock because bikes go like hotcakes here, Gisele, my landlady, is on her 8th one I believe. The day I  moved in with her her 8th one was stolen, I hope that's not an omen I'll have bad luck.

I also was able to go to one of the marchés with Gisele which was great because she told me which people she prefers to buy from, who is more expensive, etc. The level of appreciation people here have for food, and preparing meals is wonderful. I find going to the outdoor markets to be one of the most enjoyable parts about being here in Europe, but it is also overwhelming because everyone sells mostly the same thing, I'm not too good yet with the volumes in grams, and there is some food vocabulary that I don't know yet etc. There are a million kinds of breads and cheeses I want to try, but little by little it will come. Gisele and I bought a pumpkin (potimarron) at the market and made a pottage for dinner that night with carrots and onions and potatoes, it was delicious! I also like the idea of only buying a few things at once, and eating them for several consecutive days, then after buying something else, rather than buying a lot and risking wasting some. And because there are outdoor markets everyday one can have the luxury to do that. That manner of shopping, and the time it takes to prepare a fresh meal from scratch, makes you appreciate your meals more, I think.

 View of le Pont Neuf from le Pont St Pierre

 My friends, Bonnie, Michaela, Ketti, and me.

 Muscat grapes that we bought at the market.

Walnuts, Cepes (mushrooms that come from this region and are considered a delicacy), tomatoes and shallots.

 Bonnie, Amy and me out for a drink in town.

That's all for now. It is a rainy Sunday and Gabby, Gisele and I have all just been puttering around the house together. A bientôt!

Chez moi

OK, it’s about time I caught up with everything that’s been happening over the past week…

First big thing is that I moved (!!) to a new house much closer to town. I know I just gushed over the first place I found but this one is really it. It’s in a quartier called St. Cyprien and it is right on the edge of the river (called La Garonne) that runs in the middle of the city. A very pretty spot. When I walk out he front gate I truly feel like I’m living in the center Toulouse. There are lot of markets, parks and museums in this neighborhood (all big pluses for me) and then all you have to do is cross this one bridge (Pont St Pierre) and you are in a very cool area for going out/socializing etc in the center of town ! I am living with a woman named Gisele who is a French professor and one other girl, Gabriella, who is 28, from Venezuela and studying to become a French teacher as well. Gisele has taken in 2 different girls of two different languages each year for the past 23 years and the goal of living with her is to improve your French, not just to rent a room. It’s ALMOST like a host family (like I had in Rennes) but more independent. She says the point of opting into this arrangement is to improve your French and be exposed to French culture every day, but also to live a completely independent life. She said she modeled this arrangement after one she wished she had had when she was a student living abroad. So I thought that was cool. She is very passionate her “project” here with her 2 “students” about language and is currently studying English and Greek.

If you type my street in Googlemaps.com you can see my location: Rue Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac, 31300 Toulouse, France. Une addresse tres français, don't you think? ;)

 Usually we make our own meals every night, have our own plans and lives and what not. Our rooms are private obviously, but the kitchen dining room, and sitting room are all public spaces where you go if you want to hang out and talk. My room (pictures below) is actually a free-standing cabana a few steps from the main house. I like it a lot because it feels very private and I have more than enough space. It’s very charming.

Last night because it was my first night (Gabriella has actually been here for 2 consecutive years already as she is trying to perfect her French to become a teacher in Venezuela), Gisele and Gabriella cooked dinner for me and we all ate together. It was the first real French meal I’ve had so far. We started with a pottage of pureed vegetables – carrots, onions and potatoes with crème fraiche, then we had smoked salmon on slices of bread, then we had a truly fabulous (read smelly) camembert cheese that the moment we took it out the plastic wrap oozed all over the place in gooey deliciousness. For desert we had an apple tart that Gisele made herself. So wonderful. We ate and talked for about 2 hours. It definitely reminded me quite a bit of my first dinner with my host family in Rennes.

I’ve been at my school a lot this week and last week as well. I was told by people who have done this program and also by teachers at my school (Bellevue) that they don’t exactly know what to do with you at first once you get there. The English teacher in charge of me just finalized my schedule today and I will really start next week. Thus far I have been going in around 9 or 10 every morning and sitting in the language teachers lounge and offering to come into the teacher’s classes who I will be working with to introduce and talk about myself to the students and get a feel for what they are working on and what their language level is. It has been nice for me because I am more comfortable and ready for next week and I think the teachers have appreciated me being around as well.

It has been gratifying because there are some advanced classes from which students have the option of coming to voluntary, supplemental conversational classes with me in their off time and the sign up list has increased a lot after I have come in to talk to them. It’s cool to see that they are excited that I am there and are interested in me, so now I just have to think of interesting topics for us to talk about! I will also be working with some less advanced classes (there are three levels: Secondes, Primaires, and Terminales in order of least to most experience) where the teachers will give me more direction of the themes they want me to focus on. I get a little more information and meet more teachers and students everyday, which is enough to make me feel comfortable about starting next week. I am in the classroom 12 hours a week (not including lesson planning) and working for 5 different teachers.

One of the English teacher’s, Martine, who I worked with yesterday has invited me to her country house for the weekend with her 21 year old daughter and her boyfriend which I am very excited about. She says that the house is over 2 centuries old and is by the Pyrenees mountains and the Mediterranean ocean. I’m extremely excited to get to see more of this region and to spend time with a colleague and someone my age.  We leave of Friday after classes at 4pm.

Today I did my first big grocery shopping outing and had a very bizarre experience.  I heard that there is one cheaper grocery store a bit out of the way so I ventured there on the metro today since I had a lot of random things to buy to get started here (shampoo, scissors, olive oil, spices, etc) I thought it was worth it. It turned out to be the biggest grocery store of my life, no joke, bigger than Cosco, I was there for an hour and a half!! It was a great store but I definitely wasn’t ready for it. I thought I had the grocery shopping thing down pat from having an apartment in college but in another language, especially in a country where they eat all kinds of weird products , I felt verrry lost pushing around my little cart in this giant warehouse. But when you can buy a wheel of Camembert cheese for 1.50 euros and a bottle of red wine for 2 life is good.

On the subject of food…the other day I was at an open-air market (right by my new place actually!) just browsing around with my friend Amy and I stopped at this one butcher counter because it had the most enormous heart and liver on display that I have ever seen. We stopped and must have been obviously gawking because the butcher behind the counter chuckled and we started talking, turns out he was a boulanger du cheval…horse butcher. I’ve never seen anything like it – the heart was between the size of a football and basketball the liver was the size of a base. It was nuts. The sizes of the chunks of meat were enormous. Not to be graphic, I had just never seen that. 

Well, I don’t want to leave you on that morbid note. So instead, something I’ve gotten a chuckle out of over here are the ad campaigns and commercials American celebrities do overseas they would never air for in the US…