Amanda Lane in Barcelona, Spain

So when I accepted the invitation to come to France, I had no idea what to expect.  Would this boy have time to show me things?  Would his friends be dumb or rude?  Would I end up alone or feeling like an idiot in all-French events?  Or would I perhaps have the time of my life and everything would be perfect?  The latter is true!  Cyril has taken loads of time to show me around and make me feel comfortable.  His friends are definitely very French- and speak even less English than him, though I didn’t know it was possible- but despite these things, they still reach out and are fun.  Yesterday, after eating baguettes in an outdoor cafe, Cyril showed me another part of the city, and we went to the Parc de la Tete d’or and walked around for hours.  It was sunny and a holiday, so this insanely huge park was full of people doing fun things like laying around on blankets, playing frisbee, walking around, kissing, waterfights, general fun fun fun.  Here is a link to some information and photos about the parc.  It was truly breathtaking- not only were the gates made out of gold (real gold? doubtful), but beyond them looked like something unreal.  I keep coming into these fantastic scenes- mostly involving weather, outside, sun, and good company.  In one spot, the park reminded me of Alton Baker in Eugene, just with it’s extreme greenness and wide-open space.  Except multiply Alton Baker by about a million.  Here is a link to a few photos, but to me, they don’t do it justice.

 

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parc_de_la_Tête_d’Or

 

Fast forward a few days.  It is now Sunday morning at 11:02 am.  I have not been wanting to finish writing everything because I have been having too much fun.  But I have exactly 27 minutes to kill because I have been trying to make American brownies (my mom’s amazing and well-loved recipe) for days now, but there is always an obstacle.  Yesterday, Cyril and I went grocery shopping for a bunch of stuff and I bought everything I could find that I would need.  I could not find baking powder.  This is probably because I couldn’t communicate what baking powder is!  The best I could do was say that it looked like flour, but if you put it on your tongue, it’s fizzy.  When I acted out “fizzy” for my French friend I must have overdone it, because he took me to the candy aisle and showed me pop-rocks.  So when we finally came home, I translated it online and he said “ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!” but the first grocery trip was so exhausting that neither one of us wanted to go back and he suggested that we go today.  Everything closes at noon on Sundays here (and this is even a big city!  Europeans have no idea how nice it is to ALWAYS have a store or two open), and I am supposed to wake him up at 11:30 to buy the “levain en poudre.”  

 

Last night we went dancing at a French club.  It was super super super fun and I’m not sure if it was the cocktails or the clothes, but Cyril looked exactly like Justin Timberlake last night, and in my mind I kept asking myself, “what would I do if I was with Justin Timberlake right now?  This is how it would feel!”  French clubs are pretty much like their American and Spanish counterparts, except that it was mostly pop-music instead of hip hop.  They played Britney Spears though, so they’re good in my book and all is well. 

 

My feet are still recovering from the HUGE, QUARTER SIZED BLISTERS ALL OVER my feet that I earned walking around the park the other day.  Last year, I bought a pair of insanely cute Kenneth Cole wedges, so cute, in fact, that every Nordstrom in the Portland area was sold out and they had to be ordered from Washington- but they are worth it.  I hadn’t worn them since last summer, and I remembered them being very comfortable.  Well, it seems that not wearing a pair of shoes for an entire year is the equivalent of brand new shoes, and feet must re-adjust entirely.  I was in agony before we even entered the park, and that meant we still had the hours of walking around the park plus the miles and miles home to walk.  I could feel blisters forming, but I’m such a stupid girl that I would rather sacrifice my feet than tell someone what is happening or walk in a way that kind of helps.  Even if I’m wearing difficult shoes and/or I’m in pain, I always walk the same way, no limping, no favoring spots that are filling with fluid as a response to trauma.  Instead of walking funny, I just walk slower.  I walk as slow as it takes to walk like nothing hurts.  I’m sure Cyril thought I was just being a lazy American by how slow I was walking.  Now, when we’re going somewhere that requires distance walking, he suggests that I wear flats.  It is now 11;30 and I must pick up the ever-impossible baking powder.  I truly hope that I come back and finish this blog today, or who knows what I will forget and leave out later.

 

So- what else to tell…. I am eating fabulously….. for free.  Cyril is an excellent host- way better than any 23 year old would be in the United States (including myself).  He has been cooking all of these amazing French foods that would not even be as good in the best French restaurants in America.  The other day we ate Croque Monsieur sandwiches and some kind of salad that is from Lyon.  I’m not saying this just to emphasize with a well known expression, but I really cannot even tell you how good it was.  I can’t.  The salad called “salade Lyonnaise” had little cubes of bacon, corn, tomatoes, shallots (so unlike me to eat a shallot, but hey- when in France…) lettuce- not sure what else, but he mixed his own HOMEMADE dressing into it and I almost died when I put it into my mouth.  A croque monsieur is a little bit like grilled cheese, but the grilled cheese is on the outside.  Two pieces of bread, regular ham inside, and outside is a creamy mix of cheese and some HOMEMADE SAUCE that when put in the oven becomes crispy.  My description sucks- and I took photos but they also suck.  Really if  I were to recommend a way for you to understand these little morsels, it would be fly on over to Lyon and try one.  Croque is how they say crunch- so it is essentially a mister crunch sandwich- haha!  

 

Two nights ago I requested a glass of ricard before dinner.  Cyril asked if I wanted to have something to eat with it- like a typical French appetizer.  Claro que si (yes of course) I would like to.  He brought out a big sausage looking thing that was in the shape of a long summer sausage, french pain (bread), and gruyere cheese- it looked very good and tasted even better.  He said that eating this was “soooooooo French” and that he and his friends could put down tons of it.  The sausage tasted like serrano ham in in little pieces with some other stuff in there, and along with the bread, cheese and ricard- I was content.  A friend of his called and invited us to go play poker at his house.  Despite my trips to Vegas this year, I still know absolutely nothing about any kind of gambling- including poker.  Cyril offered to teach me, but I was just thrilled to meet more French people and agreed in a second.  Since walking in the preferred means of transport in Lyon, I thought long and hard about which shoes I could wear that would not touch my new owies- but since there were so many of them, and in so many places, I just had to settle for the least evil- gold flats, and we were on our way.  We stopped at a mini-store and bought some beverages for the crew and walked the short distance to the friends’ house.  They were all so very nice and inclusive.  None of them (including Cyril) had met many (if any) American girls before me- and I feel like I gave them a fun impression.  Before I came on the trip I was kind of concerned about whether or not I would be fun enough.  I thought about the night that I attended the first French party and met Cyril and went to the discoteca.  That was an unusually fun night, and I was most likely in an unusually good mood.  Not that I’m usually unfun or in a bad mood, but I was just concerned that if that night was the precedent for how things were supposed to be the whole time I visited France- or that Cyril thought that perhaps my life was that fun all the time, he would be disappointed, and I would not be able to stay up until 5am each night (like the discoteca night).  Anyway, I realized that his expectations were not like that, and I did fine in fun-factor- but I digress.  Back to the poker party- probably the reason that I don’t know how to gamble is that I have no interest in it at all.  Just like sporting events, it’s entirely social for me- so I just looked at Cyril’s cards and nodded my head like I cared when he explained things.  He ended up winning!  But this particular night, the rule of the game was that the jackpot went to buying more beverages- so he did and no one was thirsty.

 

So now it is Tuesday- I am back home and things are slowly fading from my mind.  I feel this intense pressure to write things down before I forget them.  I will pick up after the poker party.  A few of his friends came over to his house and we sat around listening to music, talking about France, the United States, and if, perhaps, I had any American friends that were single :)  I’m not sure how Cyril does it, but he has THE most vast collection of American music that I have ever seen.  He would play songs or artists that I had never heard of and ask, “you know this?”  By the end of the trip, I would say, “what do you think?” and, “why even ask?”  Now that I’m home I’m trying desperately to remember every cool song I’ve known in my entire life that I can tell him about and show him that I AM a true American.  So…..the afterparty went very late, and I went into “my” room (aka his brother’s) when the sun started coming up- I have no idea when he went to bed or when his friends left.  The next day I woke up around noon?  His normally cute and neat living room definitely looked like a bunch of French boys had been in it the night before.  Ashtrays, glasses and……. just random crap everywhere.  Being the charmer that I am, I picked everything up and straightened out the furniture.  When Cyril got up later, he was very happy with my work and called me, “gentile,” which to my understanding means kind.  That day we were supposed to check out a million things and go to a party far away, but I felt like crap and was really relieved when he gave me the option for us to “do as you like, but for me it is better to be a quiet day.”  It was also kind of bummy outside so wesat around and watched Pulp Fiction and South Park with French subtitles.  He always laughed before me because of the subtitles and I felt stupid when I laughed 3 seconds later like I was copying him or something, even though I was the one who was actually laughing in correct time with the show- oh well.  I didn’t leave the house once that day- it was a total Amanda kind of day, sans shower and hardly moving all day, the kind of day I have in Portland when I’m a little bummy or tired from too much fun.  I went to bed early because we had BIG PLANS the next day!!!!!

 

Early in the trip, like the first day- he pretty much said that I decide what we do.  Even though I know he was trying to be nice, as a stranger to the city obviously I had no idea what to do or what the options were.  We worked together to come up with a list of “things to do” while I was there.  I wanted to see that park we went to, see some old things, eat baguettes and try foie gras, see a French movie, go to a French club (dancing), and HAVE A PICNIC IN THE FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE!  So, Sunday, the day after “lazy day,”(Saturday) I got up at 11 (so early for vacation!), SHOWERED, and put on a cute blue cardigan that made me feel French.  We hopped in his Volkswagen Golf (Frenchies say volksVAgen- pronounce the w as v) and hit the road.  It was a beautiful sunny day and the French world looked lovely, as always.  Getting out of town was slow, as there was a lot of traffic.  I asked him if it was always this busy and he said on holiday weekends with “much sun” (haha!) everyone wants to get out of town.  We drove past signs saying “PARIS” and “MARSEILLE” and things started looking greener.  We passed cute little things and I tried taking pictures from the car- which sucked.  We stopped at a boulangerie/patisserie to pick up lunch, and of course my fatty American eyes beheld the many tempting treats.  I couldn’t resist and bought two teeny weeny pink cookies that look like the ones Kirsten Dunst ate in Marie Antoinette (which, by the way, when I tried to explain this, my pronunciation of Marie Antoinette got me laughed at!).  Then we were back on the road and arriving at some little, country, dirt road all within an hour of when we left his house.  We walked about 15 minutes- passing pretty things like pastures, hills, flowers- and some unpretty things like THE HUGEST VERSION OF A FLY YOU HAVE EVER SEEN.  We found a huge, open grassy area and felt like it was the right spot.  We laid out the blanket and had our baguettes.  It turns out he hates those little pink cookies that I bought- so I went ahead and ate them both :)  Having a picnic in the French countryside IS as cool as it sounds- and YES, I took pictures.

 

On the way back to town, we stopped at his parent’s house (it is in one of the small towns on the way).  His parents had just left the day before for a motorcycle tour of Route 66 in the USA- the house was cool and set up differently than American houses.  Amazing backyard with pool and view of beautiful things.  After that, we went to a grocery store in his hometown in our first attempt to buy the ingredients to make brownies.  Right when we walked in, he saw his old neighbors and went to greet them in the typical French “kiss kiss” way.  It was a couple, and as the woman was giving me my kiss kiss, I hear Cyril say the words United States and no Francais- the guy stuck out his hand instead of kissing me (as is the American way), and I felt like a silly girl.  I imagined what I would think if I ran into a boy I knew with a girl I had never met, and during our introduction he told me that she was from……I don’t know- Germany/France/Spain (somewhere foreign), and spoke no English.  I would probably feel weird about her?  Lol, I should learn from here on out to never ever ever judge foreign people again.  Because I know that I am a totally normal person, but I couldn’t show them- anyway- we were in the store for at least an hour.  Going back and forth- what is this what is that.  He hadn’t the slightest idea what I meant by cocoa- well, I take that back.  He thought he was on to something when he took me to the dried fruits aisle and handed me coconut (the French word for it is coco).  We had a good laugh and he admitted that he was thinking Americans were pretty weird for putting coconut in brownies (even though sometimes we do).  We bought French wine and in the wine aisle I told him I love pinot noir- this got me laughed at again (pronunciation).  Also we passed this really yummy syrup that they mix with water- his favorite is strawberry and lemon, so we got some for me to take home.  This boy doesn’t bake so we had to get EVERYTHING necessary (including pans- but forgot measuring cups).  We got home, he made dinner (again- amazing- pasta with homemade sauce), we drank French wine and we got dressed up to go the club.  This blog is like a circle- I wrote about the club at the beginning, even though it was at the end of my trip……… so picking up after 11:30 on Sunday- we went to the grocery store and bought baking powder.  I also bought diet coke and was laughed at when I opened it up in the store for lack of patience.  Don’t get me wrong, though- he got his fair share of being laughed at, too.  French people can sound reallllly funny when they try to speak English- not only with accent, but also their manner of sentence structure and word choice.  There was a lot of laughing going on from both sides.  Went home and laid around (dance club night was another very late night- don’t actually know what time we got home) for a while, but he really wanted the brownies and wouldn’t let me forget it.  I made the brownies- but was missing something verrry important- measuring cups.  So- not only did I have to convert my mom’s amazing deep-dish brownies into grams (stupid), but I also had to estimate grams but how much was in the entire package, and then trying to divide it………… yeah, ha!  Needless to say, they did not come out quite the same- very good, but not my mom’s.  He loved them and went back for seconds.  

 

He asked me what I wanted to do the rest of the day (my last day- boo-hoo) and I told him it was very customary in the United States to take people out to dinner as a thank you.  I told him to pick anywhere in the whole city that he wanted, and that we should order foie gras and all of his favorite foods.  A few hours later we went to this lovely little street with cobblestones (that my heels couldn’t handle) and outdoor restaurants galore.  We walked down to a restaurant he told me was really famous in Lyon and owned 4 other restaurants of other flavors on the same street alone!  He asked if I preferred indoor or outdoor (as if I would choose indoor in freaking France)- and we found a table that suited us.  The menu may as well have been speaking in tongues, because I could only understand about one word on every page.  He did his best to explain it to me, and while my picky self had an itch to try to get something just right for me- I told him I trusted him and would have whatever he had.  We ordered what is called a “menu” meaning it’s a set of multiple courses designed by the chef.  When the server came to take our order and looked at me for my turn, I felt like a mute and didn’t even open my mouth.  Luckily, Cyril took over, and even told the server the right answer for how I like my steak cooked without asking me (medium rare)- We started with foie gras- a smooth, buttery, and delicate fattened liver of duck served with toast.  Refer to below:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_liver

 

It is somewhat controversial to eat this in the United States.  Kind of like wearing fur, because it’s produced kind of like cruelly.  However, it reminded me of everything perfect I have ever eaten and I enjoyed every bite.  Next came the steak- cooked perfectly in a brown sauce with mushrooms I was unfamiliar with.  Also potatoes au gratin, and stewed endive and tomato.  Although I was truly satisfied after the fois gras (it’s pure fat, you know), and even full after the steak, after the steak came the cheese plate.  Mine tasted like sour cream, but a little different.  There was a really sloppy area and an area with more form, he instructed me to mix it all together, and sprinkle it with the sugar that the waiter had brought us with the cheese.  I didn’t trust myself with what to do- so I asked him to do it exactly like he would for himself.  It tasted very good- but at this point I was just too full to eat a plate of sweet sour cream.  His cheese was something else- something I had never tried before and will never try again- something that tasted moderately bad at first, but super bad with a little more time- something for REAL Frenchies- blech.  He asked me if I liked it, of course I said, “oh yes-” he asked me if I wanted more, and I gave a polite shake of the head with a smile and, “no, thank you.”  He knew- the gig was up.  He laughed and agreed that it was very strong cheese.  Strong is not the word I would use…… ok.  With each course, a new glass of wine was poured until the bottle was gone.  It was time for dessert, and since I love creme brulee in the United States, I went ahead and asked Cyril if we could have it in France.  He didn’t know what it was.  I had to repeat myself 3 times and even asked myself, “am I suuure creme brulee is from France?  Yes, I’m sure”- it was the accent- words I say in French do not make sense to him.  Hahaha- yes yes, oh creme brulee- hahaha.  We had it and it was everything it should have been.  I started to do my out-of-body/everything-in-body-feels-good moment.  Kind of like my recent park ventures.  There I was rolling creme brulee around my tongue at a charming outdoor table on a beautiful night in front of exceptional company in FRANCE!  My life didn’t feel like my own (kind of like my entire 2008), how was I sitting here doing something so lucky- I am not Amanda!  Cyril said that if someone would have told him the night we met that the American girl from the French party would be sitting in front of him tonight he would have laughed and never believed it.  I agreed (since we could hardly communicate that night)- and told him how excited and perfect I felt to be there.  He pretended like I was only dreaming, and perhaps I was about to wake up and realize that I never even came to Spain.  I thought about that for a second and realized how very crushed I would be if none of this had happened.  The truth is- I AM kind of living in a dream right now, and I don’t know how I got here (well, yes, I kind of do- I mean, I was the one that did all the stinking plannning, but I’m being more philosophical here) to this cool year, and I kind of feel like my life does not belong to me.  Either way, I’m here and I’m very happy.  After the burnt cream we had espresso and took the metro home.  I took some pictures of us and a video of him reading a list of French words that we use in English- I will post it.  

 

The next morning I almost missed my flight.  I’m serious- like the woman at the counter was alarmed and had to personally escort my luggage to the right spot to give permission to allow it on the plane.  I ran through security and put my belt back on when I got to the gate where they had just given the final boarding call.  I made it!  I fell asleep before takeoff and woke up to some foreigner beside me informing me with hand signals that we were about to land.  I got off the plane, got on the bus, transferred to the metro, and found myself in my very own bedroom not 3 hours after I left his house- cool!

 

Sigh- there’s the end of the monster blog- I just had to get it all out, now I’m satisfied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.