Come Dine With Me

The language assistans in Avignon have been recreating a British tv show called "Come Dine With Me." The premise of the show is that there are four people and each one hosts a dinner party for the other three. The host is required to make an appetizer, an entree and a dessert. At the end of each dinner the three guests rate their host and the person with the most points at the end wins. My group started before Christmas but because of the break we weren't able to finish. I did my dinner last night and not to brag or anything, but it was pretty dang delicious! When I was trying to decide what I wanted to do, there were so many ideas in my head. Do I do breakfast for dinner? or attempt a French meal with escargot and ratatouille? or a classic southern meal inspired by Paula Deen and lots of butter? I ruled breakfast for dinner out because Aunt Jemima pancake mix in France costs 6.90€ ($9.30) and the syrup is 5.70€ ($7.70)!!! I got my roommates input and they said that they have been craving the sweet potato casserole that I made at Thanksgiving. So I went for the southern inspired meal, using mostly Paula Deen recipes. For my appetizer, I made one of my favorites, Brie en croute. I have made this several times at home in various ways. Good thing cheese is so cheap here! This time I made it with raspberry jam, brown sugar and a pie crust. There is a good chance that we ate it all last night. For my entree I made green beans (unfortunately I wasn't able to cook them in fat back like we do at home, so I opted for onions instead), sweet potato casserole and baked chicken. For the sweet potato casserole, I just used marshmellow topping because some people have nut allergies. I marinated the chicken in EVOO and Herbs de Provence and baked it with cherry tomatoes and onions. Next dessert. Now, if there is one food that I had to pick to import here, it would be canned pumpkin. For Thanksgiving we found a pumpkin patch and steamed the inside and made a pie with fresh pumpkin. It was good, but I am still attached to my canned pumpkin. The fresh pumpkin gave the cake a bit of a gummy texture, but my roommates again convinced me to recreate a pumpkin dessert. A friend brought us two giant pumpkins last week, so we steamed the insides and did a little experimenting. The other night we made a pumpkin pie and again, I wasn't completely satisfied with the turn out. So for my dinner, I looked up a white cake mix recipe and added some fresh pumpkin. Again, the texture was more gummy than cakey, but I think I made up for it with the cream cheese frosting and the candied pumpkin garnish. Overall, it was a great night full of laughs, good people and good food!

Experimental Photos

The last days of Caroline's trip ended with a two-day succession of photo shoots in Avignon. Being that we are American, we have no shame when it comes to taking embarrassing photos in public. We found a photographer who shares our sense of humor to follow us around and take some experimental photos of us.

The Tebow and the Heisman

Teaching our French photographer the "Miss America wave"

Elbow, elbow

Wrist, wrist

Wipe a tear and blow a kiss

Planking

The "squashing photo"

Attempt 1: fail

Attempt 2: success

"There was an old lady who lived in a shoe" photo

The "selfie"

The "Caroline looking in the wrong direction" photo

Props to our photographer for being willing and not too embarrassed to take these photos of us.

Winter sales are here!

This past weekend the sales started!!! Perfect timing since I was broke from my Christmas trip with Caroline and I haven't gotten paid yet, but that didn't stop me from looking! I think everybody in the world was at the mall and out shopping this weekend. The lines for the dressing rooms and check-out were crazy long too! I couldn't stay in one store for more than 15 minutes, it was way too crowded! We were all in H&M and it was super crowded and I wasn't finding much. Hannah and I ducked out while the others waited in the long lines to try on some clothes. We went into NAF NAF which was surprisingly less crowded. I found a few super cute shirts and tried them on. I came out with a keeper! I figured it was a Christmas/early birthday present to myself! That night we all went out and showed off our new purchases!

Job Hunting

Vacation is officially over. I just finished my first week of work for the new year. I love my job but there are some days that I dread the sound of my alarm going off in the wee hours of the morning. However, this week I had a completely different outlook. I was so excited to go to work and see my students! Thursday is the day that I never look forward to because I am kinda scared of some of the teachers and some of the students are slightly out of control. This past Wednesday, I felt prepared and ready to wake up and tackle the day. My dad has always told me that it is important to love your job. Obviously, there wil be days when you don't want to work, but overall it has to be something that you enjoy doing. I think I've found it, teaching. Back in September when I first arrived, I told myself that I wouldn't start job searching until the new year. Like always, time flies by and here we are, in a new year. Leslie and I have created a "thoughts map" with several columns of ideas/contacts/places/etc etc. Yesterday we were very productive, I sent out 4 or 5 e-mails to some contacts asking for their advice, did some Linkedin searching, and even stopped by the French Rectorate for some advice. If I decide to stay in France, I need to know by April in order to renew my visa without having to leave the country (don't worry family I am coming home this May if I stay here or not!!!). So first on the list is to exhaust every resource I have in France. If it turns out that I can't stay here, then I begin my search back in the States. Through teaching English and tutoring business professionals, I have found that I enjoy teaching my own language. I learn how to teach a language that I don't fully understand while learning more French at the same time. Being here has shown me that even though I have studied French for 9 years and have a degree in it (still not quite sure how), there is SO MUCH that I still don't know. It's a very humbling thing. One of my new year's resolutions is to humble myself and realize that I don't know everything, to accept people's help and continue the learning process. Since I have realized this, I don't feel fully adequate to teach French in the States. While I love having an impact on students' lives, I want to teach them to my fullest abilities and right now, I think I am still in the learning phase. I love learning new expressions, words and cultural tid-bits. I want to be able to pass that along to American students, but first, I want to continue learning and soak it all in. Since I know I want to teach, yet continue to learn myself, I am on the search to continue teaching English in France. I can't re-apply for the program I am currently doing, but ideally, I would love to find a full-time position in a school or teach English to French business people. While I have started to take the necessary actions, ultimately I know it is in God's control and he will lead me to where I need to be, what a freeing feeling. Rather than being stressed (which is pointless since no one knows the future), I am trying to look at it as an adventure and enjoy every step of the way!

This is a new year...

All good things must come to an end. After 8 hours of train rides, we are officially back in Avignon. The last two days in Germany were amazing. Saturday night, Ina took us into Stuttgart and we were able to go with her to a youth service that is only the first Saturday of the month, what perfect timing. It was so incredibly amazing to see that many youth (around 250) worshipping the same God, even if it was in German! I was under the impression that most European countries were in the dark when it came to following Christ, but I was mistaken! Although, the numbers don't compare to the US, it was still mind blowing. Ina was a doll and translated the entire message for us. She did a fabulous job and I hear like I heard the message first hand. The speaker had great things to say and it was so encouraging. I have heard that France has a small percentage of proclaimed believers and I haven't been able to find a church here yet and unfortunately, the church in Aix is a bit too far without access to a car. I prayed that God would open up doors or put someone in my life that would help me find this community. I'm sure it has to exist somewhere close by! Sunday, we went to Ina's church in her town. It only has around 75 members, but I could feel God's love and presence radiating from every person in the room. Again, Ina translated the message and did a remarkable job. The pastor also had great words of encouragement. What a great way to start the new year!

Going to the castle and we're...

...gunna get married. Today we went to a German castle about 30 minutes from Ina's house. It's called Burg Hohenzollern and it was beautiful!!! The castle sits on top of a mountains and today it was super foggy so we couldn't even see the castle until we had climbed all the way to the top. We had to climb like 455 stairs to get to the top. We were slightly winded and sweaty once we made it. After climbing all of the stairs, we had to wind up another long road to reach the entrance. Unfortunately, they only offer English guided tours on Saturdays, so we had to opt for the German tour. I tend to lose interest in guided tours so this worked out perfectly for me. I was able to look around and focus on the things that I wanted to see. We had to wear these giant slippers during the tour so we wouldn't scuff up the floor. I think they were made for a giant. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the inside of the castle which normally wouldn't stop me, but the tour guide seemed a little skeptical of us Americans and kept following us around so I wasn't able to sneak any.

Tonight we got to experience another German tradition! On January 6 (Epiphany) they make this special type of bread in the shape of a star and play different dice games. The winner of each game wins a part of the bread. We played four or five different games, two of which I won! I apparently have really good luck rolling dice. The last game we had to roll two dice then say a phrase in German then blow the third dice off the top of the cup. I'm sure I was blushing hard core because I couldn't pronounce half of the words and I'm sure I sounded and look ridiculous. Ina took a video of me and Caroline and we all had a good laugh replaying it! 

Kummerspeck

Deutschland!!! After a race to find the right metro and 2 long train rides, we finally arrived in Stuttgart, Germany. After wandering around the train station, we finally found Ina, Caroline's friend from YWAM. So far it has been great. Ina's family is so sweet and her house is precious! It's been a bit of a shock not being able to speak the language and I keep finding myself trying to speak French. Last night, after eating home  made pizza, Ina's family took us to a hot spring. It was so cool! There were four or five different pools that are heated by natural springs. There were also a few different saunas that were steaming hot. It was rainy today so we had to alter our plans slightly. First, Ina took us to downtown Pfullingen (her hometown) and showed us the cute buildings around the town.

Afterwards, we drove into the neighboring town of Reutlinger to see some more sites and to have a traditional German dinner. We visited a church, saw the world's smallest street and went to Grim's Fairy Tale museum. Again, I was blown away by the beauty of the architecture. We met some of Ina' friends for dinner for a typical dinner. We shared schnitzel which of course was fabulous because it was fried then we came back and feasted on German chocolate. What a great way to end a great day!

2013...Bringin' it in

For as long as I can remember, Caroline and I have always rang in the new year together and this year the Atlantic didn't keep us apart! We celebrated the new year in Brussels. We got all dolled-up, put on our dancing shoes and headed for the town. A friend told us about a local hot spot that was known for it's music and speak easy-like atmosphere. We danced the night away and were able to continue our tradition of celebrating the new year together!

We woke up Tuesday morning and realized that all of the things that were on our "Brussels List" hadn't been accomplished! All I really, really wanted to do was eat fries, a belgian waffle and chocolate. All food, go figure! That night we met up with our local friend and he took us to all of his favorite spots. It was a success, I was able to mark off all three items on my list!