Our last day at Les Cedres

This is Edwin and Peta (from England), we ate many meals with them. They have been such an encouragement to us. They shared their struggles learning the language, which made us feel a better. It's been a long time since we've studied anything and had to use that part of our brain.
A little fountain with a cool spigot. There's cool stuff everywhere, you just have to keep your eyes open.

This bell has an interesting design on the handle.

The picture on the right is of the drain in the ladies loo.
The French pay attention to details.

I need to finish packing, we will be leaving soon.
I have a lot to process, our time here, all the emotions, the friendships that have been started, not to mention everything we covered in class. This next leg of our journey, visiting friends in Nogent and meeting our dear friend Marci in Paris on Monday and spending 10 days being able to see more of France, will be much more relaxed. A bientot.

La cuisiniere

This is Josiane, the most amazing cuisiniere. She made fabulous meals. She doesn't like having her picture taken, so I had to stalk her. I know, I'm creepy that way. She was kind enough to give me a couple of recipes. It's been good to spend time here, I need to take what I've learned home.

• Clean off the kitchen table so we can eat there.
• Eat more vegetables and fruit.
• Eat slowly and enjoy what you're eating
• We eat waaaaay too much sugar
• Eat simply.

The French don't snack.....bing-bing-bing. Snacking causes big butts. Eat good meals. It does not have to be complicated. Tip: when you eat slow, you don't over eat. How cool is that?!

Just for Becky

Becky, here is the picture of the french guy you requested. Trust me, these photos don't do him justice. He looks alot like Richard Gere, he is a watercolor artist. His work is awesome. Love that frenchy accent while speaking english.
Here he has his hand on Kerri's (sorry I cut your head off) butt. Not really, but it sounds fun.

La retouner of El Guapo

Know what these are? Les anchois.....aka....Paul's El Guapo. Not familiar with El Guapo? Go watch "The Three Amigos". I'll wait here until you do....so go.
Today's lunch was les tomates et les anchois, and rice salad. Confession, I love anchovies...Paul, not so much. He got the double whammy, we also had cold fish :(
Here is Paul, eating what he really likes....eclaires! These were filled with cafe creme.
I've put myself on the 3 bite dessert rule.

Petanque

As we were walking thru a park in Annecy, we saw a crowd gathered watching something. As we got closer, we saw people playing the ever popular Petanque.

Annecy....continued

Picturesque Annecy. The mountains are gorgeous. Little villages here and there. It reminds me of a fairy tale. I love to sit at a cafe, drink coffee or wine and sit in quiet watching the world go by.
Someone else like doing that too, can you find the elderly lady looking out her window? There aren't screens on the windows like in the US, I've seen very few insects.
We went into a church in the town center. Our Lady of Rejoicing. The church is going through renovations. It 's very old and needs work. There was Bach playing softly, the floors creaked as we wandered through looking at the stations of the cross, the alter and carved wooden confessionals.

Unbelievably beautiful paintings and hand carvings.

We stopped at a restaurant for dinner. Paul ordered Raclette. 1/3 of a wheel of Raclette cheese is put into a machine with a swinging arm. The cheese rests under a heating element that will, depending on how long you let it sit--melt the cheese and become brown and bubbly. Yummm!
Waiting for the cheese to melt into brown, bubbly goodness......
Raclette is service with boiled potatoes, meat and gerkins. It is a rich, fabulous cheese.
We walked around the village after dinner, as we entered a cave, we heard music. This man was playing the most unbelievable music on wine glasses filled with water. He would dip his fingers in a bucket of water, then swirl them around the rim the the glasses. Many glasses at once. I managed to get a short video of him playing.....I'll post it when I figure out how.

This is Jean, he owns and manages Hotel des Alpes where we stayed. He has a great sense of humour and was will to help us practice our French. His hotel is across from the train station. The rooms are very clean and comfortable. The petet dejeune was terrific!

More exposes

Olivia is from South Carolina, here she demonstrates ballet.
Katie is from Texas, currently lives in Marseille. She talked about basketball.
Frits is from Switzerland, his presentation was about mountain climbing.
Here is Marcel, (from the Netherlands) he is a Music History professor. He talked about different types of music and played the piano beautifully. Paul had the chance to watch some of La Tour de France with him. He is such an interesting man. He has spent time in Russia and told me about the music in the Russian Orthodox church and how different worship is there.

We have met some tremendous people at Les Cedres. I'm so glad we are able to study here.

Boat tour in Annecy

Sunday afternoon , we went on a boat tour. I usually don't go for that kind of thing, but the area was so beautiful-it seemed a good way to see more of it. We chose a smaller boat, there were say, 25 people.
There were small villages that popped up along the lake. A church steeple in each village.




There were tons of people parasailing. Apparently you drive to the top of a mountain and jump off....bon chance....then you glide around
riding the air currents. We were trying to figure out were they land. Great fun to watch.
Your average castle.......
Erin, look....the cliffs of insanity! um, I talk in movie lines, if you have seen "The Prince Bride", you know what I'm refering to.
The weekend cottage. There were huge chateaus everywhere along the lake. No thanks, I wouldn't want to have to dust all of that.

It has happened........

Today I feel as though I've hit the brick wall.
So much information is being given, verbs, tenses, adjectives. Directions are in French, explanations are given in French. Everything
Our train left Annecy last night at 10:50, the earlier TGV (much faster a 4 hour trip) was full, so our only option was a later train that was also s-l-o-w-e-r train (7 hours). We arrived in Paris at 6:30 am and had to catch the RER (commuter train) to Massey, then a bus to Les Cedres. Neither of us slept on the way back, too many people snoring and yikes were there the mouth breathers! We got back to Les Cedres in time for le petite dejeuner and un douche. We made it through 3 hours of classes, lunch and then were able to take a long sieste. Today's new tense is "L'imparfait"--more things to memorize. I'm not very good at memorizing unless I can find a way of relating it to something else. Today I am truly overwhelmed. We worked on homework after dinner until nothing made sense, everything was getting scrambled. Time to stop for the evening. Maybe a good nights sleep (avec Tylenol pm) will help. One of our classmates decided to leave today. I am sad we didn't get to say goodbye to Marcel. He is a very interesting man. I'll tell you a little about him tomorrow.
Bon nuit.

Market Day

Sunday is market day in Annecy. The streets are lined with vendors, selling t-shirts, skirts, shoes, purses, jewelry and....Beautiful flowers.......
Artichokes...this guy was a real character!Fruits and vegetables......Kerri bought a box a strawberries, they smelled wonderful, they were so sweet and full of flavor
Sausages......
Breads.....
Sweet breads......
and cheese! You could smell this place a mile away, fabulous-stinky cheese!

Annecy

Our friend Kerri invited us to Annecy for the weekend. She has been to this charming village several times, and can't get enough of it. Everywhere you look, there are charming buildings, picturesque scenes and mountains. It took us 4 hours by train to get there. We passed through several small villages, great scenery. I love taking the train. You can watch the world go by and daydream.
The canal in Annecy. There were swans and ducks (8 tiny baby ducks) to watch.
We had a lovely dinner, strolled around the village and decided to have a cognac before heading back to the hotel. Kerri had Genepy (the snifter in the ice bath), a local liquour, it smelled of pine....Genepy....Juniper?

Expose' en classe

Voici, Zeno, il est suisse. He likes to dance, he told us about the different types of dancing he prefers, the special shoes needed-so you can slide and stop etc.
Jonathan est l'allmagne. He told us about handball. It's not the same as in the US. this is played on a field. Very interesting!
C'est moi (chubby) demonstrating yoga. The regime will commence when we get home,.......but I digress.
Here is Paul talking about his love....downhill skiing. His best advice, choose your friends wisely and take a 1/2 day lesson first.
Paul and I have to do ours over (difference subect) because we read too much. (dang it!) (zut alors!) and I need to work on infinif and verbs....double zut!

Les Chambres Necessaire

Each of our rooms has its own sink, but there are rooms we must share.........Voici, la toilette....petite, n'est ce pas? It is indeed a water closet.
Voici, la douche, also a tiny room.
Not much room in here, but it gets the job done. There are 2 toilettes and 2 showers--co-ed.
Voici, la poubelle, isn't that a cute name for a garbage can?
I haven't seen anyone using this (thank goodness) is this a prehistoric urinal?
Voice, la blanchisserie, 2 washers, 2 dryers, and a few racks and clothes lines for air drying.