Le Cheese

My host family enjoys speaking "franglais."  Though they don't speak very much english, but do take pride in the words that they do know.  My mother here usually calls it "le cheese" or "la water."  I enjoy it.  In a couple of weeks their son is coming home for break, and they want me to fix a traditional american meal, which means that I need lots of help, because Chris and I normally eat mac n cheese or something along those lines.  This is beside the fact that there really aren't many traditional american meals (at least something that they have never had before!)  I am contemplating just taking them out to McDonalds and telling them that we all eat there 3 times a day, every day.

Today was the third week of school, and still waiting for the homework to come!!  I am not complaining, but it is just strange!  Also, I saw the weirdest happening on the bus today.  A young man was reading a book and noticed a hair on his jacket.  He continued to pick the hair off of his jacket and inspect it closely.  After taking a nice long look at the hair he put it in between two pages of his book, turned the page and kept on reading.   Maybe a keepsake, I don't know!!

Tonight at dinner we finished the remainder of the Camembert cheese.  I am sad because I became quite fond of it, having a little sliver of it after dinner.  I enjoy watching my family eat cheese.  The cheese to bread ratio is usually, little tiny piece of bread : LOTS OF CHEESE.  They always tell me to take more cheese...they are just confused by my nickel sized pieces that I take.  I have noticed that bread seems like it is not so much something to help make more full, but rather a little, edible plate.  They use it to wipe the remainder of things left on their plate.  Turns out that the other night I unknowingly ate caviar with eggplant.  Mom, you should be proud!!!  Had I known, I may have felt differently, but they tricked me:)

Yesterday I went on another walk with my host family and we went to a nice little park, with an old "château":

Actually reminds me a lot of the Oakes, the camp in Sheffield, England where I worked a couple of summers ago.  Speaking of the Oakes, I believe that I will get to see my good friend Dani while I am here in Europe, and I am so excited!!

Also here is a picture of a palm tree :

I just like how fuzzy they are!!  There are tons of them throughout Montpellier!

And Finallllyyyy: Chris and I have our trip all figured out.  He will get here on Saturday the 26th of February (the day before he turns 23!!!) We will stay here in Montpellier until Wednesday morning, pretty much exploring, devoting some time to finding all of space invaders work, and maybe taking a bike ride to the mediterranean sea...it is that close:)  Anyway, we will then leave mid-morning on Wednesday and go to Frankfurt, Germany.  We will stay there for a couple days, and leave early Saturday morning for Paris.  We will get to Paris by 9.00 so we will stay there until Sunday morning where we will part our own ways until May.  We were going to try and fit a quick trip to Barcelona in all of this, but I decided that the stress of traveling wasn't worth missing out on relaxing time with my husband.  

Not too many updates here, some days are great and some days are hard, but overall I know that I (and even Chris!) will profit from this experience.  It really is a once in a lifetime experience and I must remind myself of that frequently!  

A bientôt!

Carrie