May/Mai

Here are some things to share from my last month. 

I now live outside of Paris in Vincennes. I live with a cat, who likes to lick ears and she comes in the morning to chat. Meow. My reading has slowed down, but I'm still keeping up an average of 2 books a week. My french is really improving. But on the downside, I spend a lot of time trying to remember words in English. It feels like it is all leaking out! Although my French is improving, I'm having a hard time with the language barrier and the fact that I don't really know a lot of people here. When we go out, I can usually keep up with the conversation and contribute to it, but there comes a point where I can't say anymore and I don't fully understand what people are talking about and I get frustrated because I don't feel like myself and I can't express my thoughts the way I know I can. I don't want people to get the wrong idea of me because I don't talk. But, I've been here for 8 months and it has just come up, hopefully I will get through it. 

So, the month of May,  I did some things. 

I said good-bye to my home and my work in Dunkerque.

I ate this. Yummmm.

Magret de Canard aux Pêches

It's like Canadian Bacon and Pineapple à la française. Super thin slices of smoked duck breast with peaches. 

I read in the garden a lot. And someone who lives in the building next door plays their piano in the afternoon. Things like Amèlie and Feist. 

We took a weekend adventure to the country. We passed all these fields that used to be filled with yellow flowers. They are colza. AKA rapeseed plants. AKA the stuff that canola oil is made of. Because who would want to eat rapeseed oil. That does not have a good ring to it. And we call it Canola oil because the Canadians invented it or something. Anyways...these fields were dotted with little blue flowers and a spattering of red poppies. 

I even got to drive all the way there. In the Kangoo. 

The speed limit here is something crazy like 130 km/hr. Which is like 80mph. Which is fast. I tried to stick to 110, but finally pushed her up there. Also, I learned that it is illegal to drive faster than someone in the lane to your left. And I successfully made a 3-point U-turn on a narrow country road without going into a ditch.

 

Then we spent a Saturday night constructing this! I saw a big basket of little pieces of wood. Which I suggested we use for kindling since it had rained and all the wood outside was wet. I then learned that these little sticks are a pretty pricy toy. And I tried to burn them. So we made a castle instead.

Check out that craftsmanship! And imagine the satisfaction of pulling the tablecloth out from under it!

This is a stinky tunnel in Clamcey. 

This is Vèzeley. We walked all up this hill to the basilica on the top. And coming down the hill past us were hundreds of pélerins or pilgrims. All ages and shapes and sizes and on this day they had been hiking to church to church in the area, praying, and moving on to the next. 

And driving through the forests, we came across these WALLS of logs. Not logs, some of them were almost trees. Walls of them. This picture does not do justice to how immense these things were. 

Then the following is my 'picking poppies and running through a wheat-field sequence.' It was impossible to resist the acres and acres of blowing wheat that we passed everywhere. 

This is the Château de Chambord. Chambord liqueur is made here or named after it or something like that. It has: 426 rooms, 77 sets of stairs, 282 chimneys and 800 chapitaux sculptés which I can't find a good translation for. There is a double revolving stair case. Two sets of stairs spiraling up in different directions. It's also crazy that it was built in 1519 WITH NO MACHINES LIKE TODAY. And it is here during WWII where they kept a lot of France's masterpieces. 

we rowed a boat. 

And I giggled at this one a lot. The inscription at the bottom reads: 

La Reine est Moi.

The Queen is Me/ I am the Queen.