A week of bloquée and soirée.

I'm sure that title looks like gibberish to most of you, but I'll explain it. Thursday was quite an interesting day because there was a student "manifestation" at my school. They've been happening all over France in lycées (high schools) and universities in response to what is being called the "loi Pecresse," or the Pecresse law. The law will do a few things, including:

• privatizing universities, which will increase price for French students. Universities are either free or nearly free here, which means you just need to pay for somewhere to live, food to eat, and books.
• increasing class size to a minimum of 35 students in lycées, and
• taking away "demi-classe" hours, which are hours during the week that the class is split into two. This allows the teachers to get to know the students a little better, which is of course better for education if the students take advantage of it.

As a result of this law, these manifestations or strikes have been happening a bit. They've taken the form mostly of "bloquées," where the students block the entries to academic campuses or buildings. That's what happened at my school on Thursday morning, which meant I missed a couple hours of class. The manifestations will probably resume Tuesday, although that is not certain as I do not know the result of the vote that was taken Friday on whether or not to carry on with it. Also, most of the students that are leading the manifestation, not just the ones who were participating to get out of class, are members of the Young Communist Party.

As for the soirée (party) part of the title, I celebrated Thanksgiving here yesterday. So last week I wrote that I was cooking for 10 people, which was true then. However, the night after I wrote my blog my host mother told me that it had exploded up to 20 people. When I heard that the first time we just started laughing because if I had been nervous before, I didn't know what I was going to be when the amount of people doubled.

But it actually turned out pretty well. I woke up pretty early and got started on two apple pies and two pumpkin pies, all before lunch (thanks for the recipes Grampy). That was especially interesting because I used a real pumpkin to make the pumpkin pies, as they do not have canned pumpkin here. After lunch I made the sweet potatoes, roasted the seeds from the pumpkin, and got to relax a little bit. My host mother and I collaborated on the turkey, while she made the stuffing and the green beans and I made the gravy. It was a little different than the Thanksgiving that I'm used to, as we didn't start dinner until after 10 and finished dessert at about one o'clock. Everyone had an excellent time and gave good feedback on the food, which might have been helped by the amount of Beaujolais wine and Armagnac that was consumed. So I survived and had a pretty good time too. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving as well!

Chestnuts really roasting over an open fire

So yesterday I went to St. Ambroix, which is a town in the very north of Le Gard, almost in the region of Cevennes. We went to some friends' house for lunch, and then after took a small tour of the surrounding area. Their house was absolutely beautiful, mainly because it was just such a change for me. Build in the early 17th century, it was actually originally two small houses with a few other tiny apartments. Now all of that is connected, so it has a very tall gap in the middle that used to provide light to a small alley/courtyard in the middle. Anyways, now all of that is closed in and is their house. Since those Centre-Ville French houses are so tall, it has three floors with small verandas looking out on the Plaza of St. Ambroix. Plus the fact that the man used to work for some kind of French foreign services and the European Union, so he has all kinds of interesting pictures, masks, weaves, etc.

After eating lunch we drove north into Cevennes. Besides the beautiful mountainous scenery, we checked out something that I definitely wouldn't have know about if I were just a tourist here: la Clede, which is a small place a guy makes chestnut flour and shows the history of how it is/was made. Here's a link to check out some information about the chataignes, or chestnuts, if you would like.

Tomorrow I'm not going to school again, as there is another strike. Tomorrow is a one-day strike for teachers who choose to do so. The strike for train drivers is still going on, as well. Instead of going to school I'm going to do my Thanksgiving grocery shopping, among other things. I'm getting all geared up, but still nervous to cook a huge meal for 10 people. Hope everyone has an awesome holiday!

Il fait froid!

I haven't been able to translate "I'm freezing my ass off!" into French yet. I think if I said that in French it wouldn't come out right at all. But anyways, I was freezing my ass off today. Five degrees Celsius isn't that bad, but when the wind starts going it can be kind of cold.

I'm trying to think of other things to write, but right now I'm really distracted. I just discovered the massive amount of good music on the NPR World Cafe website, so right now I'm streaming a whole concert of Nickel Creek (which a lot of you might not think is good music, but I like listening to bluegrass in France). So what's going on, anyways?

This has been a pretty tiring week. Having 8 hours of class Tuesdays and every 7 Thursday (8 every other Thursday) can be really tiring. Plus I leave for school in the dark and get home in the dark. But fortunately tomorrow won't be too bad - two hours of a math test from 9 to 11 and then one hour of history from 1 to 2. The other thing I've noticed about school is the number of people who's hands I shake or who I do the French "bisous" with every day. It's not so much the amount of people as the amount of people who's names I don't know or don't remember. This is because of two things: 1) I'm horrible remembering names when I'm meeting a lot of people and I'm not around them a lot, and 2) people remember me a lot easier because I'm American, I'm easy to tell apart by my bad accent and my different style. Oh well, maybe I'll get the hang of it eventually.

In other news, I am about to start riding with my neighbor and the cycling club he rides with. I can't wait to do that, because it means more, and faster people to ride with. Plus they go out for days of 200 kilometers, so I should be in real good shape when I get back to the States next year, and the French bread won't affect me quite so much. I can't wait to ride some real mountains! The little "collines" around here and nice and all, but riding the Massif Centrale in the spring should be pretty sick.

Other than school and the daily stuff, I'm planning for when my parents come here December 31st. I of course can not wait to see them, and I wish I could see everyone. I've been here for just about two and a half months now, and I definitely miss everyone. But it's going to be the long haul after they leave in January! Anyways, love you all, talk to some of you on Thanksgiving and for anyone I don't talk to enjoy your feast. I'm going to struggle to cook my first Thanksgiving for ten people on Saturday the 24th, because I have class until 5 on the 22nd...

Bisous!

Ah, dommage!

I never wanted it to come, but the end of vacation was yesterday morning. And I could barely stand these two days of school after nearly two weeks off, but here the weekend is! And I also realized that it's been a week since I posted, so it was about time.

Sunday I actually went to La Gavotte, which is right next to Marseille. I again ate a lot of awesome food, which this time was a warm Spanish gaspacho. I enjoyed watching it be made as much as eating it. Basically the man who cooked it took this huge pan and set it over a grill. He cooked these small steaks and pieces of chicken in a little oil and then took them off. After he poured on a ton of onion, peppers, and tomato pulp, added the meat back in and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Then threw in a bunch of small pieces of soft bread. Entertaining and delicious, a real French meal.

The other entertainment was listening to my host father's large family debate soccer. As he said, there are 900,000 people living in Marseille, and 900,000 coaches. It cracked me up listening to my siblings' great aunt saying "Cisse est nul, Cisse est la merde!"

The rest of the week was spent avoiding homework and riding my bike. Wednesday morning I got up at 6:30 so I could start riding when the sun came up. I rode a good route to Uzes, but had to take a detour on the way back because some rocks had fallen from a cliff, and I think might have actually killed some people. Needless to say, the road was blocked and my ride, with the detour and my first puncture ever on my road bike (I've been lucky) the ride took a little longer than I wanted. 115 kilometers, I finally got back home at 12:45 and scarfed down some ravioli.

In other news, Thanksgiving is approaching and I think I'm actually going to cook for it. Except we'll celebrate Thanksgiving during the weekend, because I have class until 5 on Thursday. I'm definitely going to cook the turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, and a couple pies; possibly more if more people are coming over. If anyone has any cooking suggestions or serious dishes I'm leaving out please send them my way. That's all I think. Take it easy.

Buenos Días!

Yeah, that picture basically summed up the last few days. Everyone here kept saying that I was going to gain 4 kilos in 4 days, and although it wasn't quite that much it might not have been far off.

Tuesday afternoon we left here, Nîmes, and went to Philippe's parents' house in Sainte Marie la Mer, a town close to Perpignan. It is right next to the Mediterranean, and in the summer it explodes to a relatively quiet town of 4,000 to an enormous 50,000! There's sort of two halves of the town - the side that is inhabited year-round and is really the heart of the village, and the other half, which is actually much bigger than half, which is much more resort-style.

Wednesday morning we went to a town on the Spanish border called Le Perthus, where, once you get to a certain point, one side of the main street is France and the other half is Spanish. I got a haircut on the Spanish side for 8 Euros, which was nice with the climbing exchange rate. After looking around the town there for a little while we went to another town, which I don't remember the name of but is close to Figueres. That's where we ate the monsters you see above, brochettes. I got a bruqeta mixta, which is the long skewer with grilled meat and peppers and onions hanging above a plate of fries and two small plates of salads. That along with calamari, bread, sangria, and espresso filled me up rather well for the day! That afternoon we went and looked around Cadaques, a town on the Spanish Costa Brava that hosts a museum to Salvador Dali.

Thursday morning I got some reading done and looked around the town of Sainte Marie a little bit. After lunch four of us went to the French town of Colloiure (difficult name is Catalan, not French). It was incredibly busy, and I can't imagine it in the tourist season. There's also a small training center there for the French version of Navy Seals, so I got to see a couple interesting exercises they were doing. There a took some really good pictures, too, so make sure you check those out on the pictures link. Many artists have painted or sculpted the church tower in Colloiure, it's really beautiful with the colors and the very blue Mediterranean.

This morning I went and checked out the garden that Philippe's parents keep in Sainte Marie. I thought it was quite awesome, as I'm now enjoying their produce. Their garden is amazing, they grow just about everything there, including apples, peaches, lemons, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, watermelon, honeydew, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkins, strawberries, peppers, almonds, and some fruit that I don't remember the name of but is delicious, sweet, and looks like a tomato except it grows on a tree. Plus they have trees at their house for oranges and kumquats, figs, and possibly a couple other things. Anyways, I thought that was wicked...

That's it for now. It's not almost 2 AM here and I've had a long day, so it's time for me to go to sleep. I'm going to Marseille on Sunday for the day, so I might come back with some more stories or pictures. A bientot