Day in the life of a "Angersaise"

First of all, my apologies for not blogging as much as I should.  Transition is hard especially after being on vacation for two full months, living with your boyfriend that you haven't seen for over a year, experiencing the joys of a foreign culture, eating the best food I have ever tasted in my life at every meal, and oh yeah, enjoying French wine "sans limite."  Currently, I find myself with a full course load of a 2 year Masters program compressed into one year, taught in French.  I swear I am not complaining because although I don't think I have ever been so caught up and lost in my classwork (in both positive and negative ways alike) in my life.  My classes change every day.  For example, the 3 hour class I had to day is "Révision et relecture" will not meet again until next MONTH.  So, if I ever lose my schedule, I'm pretty much dead.

There are a total of four people in my class (yes, myself included).  An algerian man in his mid-thirties with greasy slicked back hair and a creepy accent.  A lebonese woman (Melissa you would LOVE her) who fell in love and married a French man and in order to not bore herself to death in being a "femme à foyer" (housewife) she decided to apply for this program.  She is a lot like me in the fact that she smiles a lot, has a rich passion for the French language, and loves frenchmen haha.  Next, there is a hungarian girl who is about my age.  We are becoming great friends and she told me that anytime I would like to visit Hungary, I would be welcome at her house.  She resembles almost exactly the portrait of Grandma Trach when she was around the same age, which was painted my Grandpap O.  She is currently dating a Marocan man who has been living and working in France for quite some time and announced to us today that over the weekend...he ask for her hand in marriage!

I didn't have class this past Friday, so I decided to join Benoit in Pornic Thursday night.  Mussels with a curry sauce and fries for dinner.  We were vexed by the way my creme brulée turned out the last time (and apparently there is a certain "french finesse" that must be done because Mom, you said that you didn't have much luck either) so we decided to buy creme brulée already made.  The only direction we had to follow was to put in the oven at 225 degrees Celcius for 1 1/2 minutes.  Voila, yummy creme brulée.

This past weekend we had another wedding to attend :) I love French weddings, although I am convinced that depite my eagerness to participate in wedding festivities, my cameras are much less motivated.  It's official, Big Red is dead (my faithful little red, Canon camera that captured so many wonderful memories that passed 2 years) and I losted the charger for the Sony camera that Benoit gave me.  As a result, again, no pictures from the wedding.  It's ok, I am currently studying translation with in way can also be considered as a certain art of language.  So, I will do my best to describe it to you!

The mass was held very early compared to the other two weddings that I attended this past summer.  It took place at 2pm.  Benoit, Djo, Enguerran (yes, we still hang out with him...), and I planned to go together; however, we arrived an hour late to the church because Enguerran was late and forgot his suit.  So, in order to avoid the total humiliation of entering the old gothic church, built in the 13th century (no big deal) we decided to have a beer and play fooseball at the local bar.  Haha.

The cocktail was held that the same castle where Anne-Edith, my oldest host sister, was married two years ago.  Of course, it was raining, but luckily that had organized the cocktail inside in the, which was at one time, "the sitting ROOMS" of the castle.  There was an enormous terrace towards the back of the castle, that looked out onto the mote and the castle gardens.  After 3 or 4 glasses of champagne and a dozaine or two "verrines" (see picture below), it was time to leave and find a nice restaurant where we could have dinner (Benoit, Djo, Enguerran, and I were not invited to the dinner, only "cocktail" and "soiree"--cocktail and after party).

After having eating "une bavette avec une sauce d'échalote" (literally translation as a "flank stank with a shallot sauce"; however, I can assure you that it tasted like a piece of filet mignon done rare...mmmmmm!) with a nice 2008 pinot noir to accompany it.  We returned to the "soiree" around 11:30 where we danced the night away until about 3 am.

Small pause!  Gotta make dinner and start my homework before I have a skype date with my mommy!