Swimming in the Sea and My Experience of French Baking

July 5^th

Francois (Claire Marie’s younger brother, age 21) and I went to Port de Capbreton to pick Claire Marie and her cousins up. At this village we waited by looking at the fish market and going on the board walk.

In the evening we (Claire Marie, Francois, and I) had Mojitos, and Claire and Francois smoked a water pipe while I blew bubbles. It was really cool though when Francois combined the two and had smoke bubbles which released smoke when they popped!!! Claire Marie’s grandmother wasn’t very approving of her grandchildren’s activities but she enjoyed chasing the bubbles as much as I did!

July 6^th

Today, Claire Marie took me out on a small excursion to a little village called Espelette, a village known for drying chili peppers and hanging them out on building façades. At the village we walked around the church and by a river, it was a great walk because it had some elevation up the winding roads and alley ways.

Back at the house, Claire Marie checked the computer for her results of whether she would be in the master’s program or not. Fingers crossed we checked and she got in to La Rochelle!!! The news brought screams of delight as she was one out of 18 students to be accepted into La Rochelle out of 150+ students who applied. We heard similar sounds from Francois’s room where he passed his grades and A levels with top marks! The whole house was in celebration!

Going into St. Pée sur Nivelle, Claire Marie took me shopping in the only clothing store in town. The store was so cute along with all the items of clothing there were within it. I ended up doing something quite unusual for when I travel and that is to actually buy something for myself. I had shoppers luck with an adorable skirt that was on sale for €12. Even more reason to celebrate today!

As the afternoon progressed Claire took me with her siblings to go to the beach and body surf in the waves. This beach was way different than St Jean de Luz, and the waves were absolutely huge! I guess this beach is also known for strong rip currents too. I ended up chickening out since I had my contacts on and didn’t want to lose them. I watched as they jumped in the waves. I guess at one point Claire’s youngest brother, Baudouin, had issues with the strength of the tides that a life guard had to help him to shore. We decided to dry off and head back after that and once again we were in the car with windows down, music loud, singing/dancing in the car, and sunshine beaming in without a care in the world.

Back at the house, Claire Marie’s mum asked me to make a cake and when I told her I didn’t know from the top of my head she asked me what is needed for a cake. I listed off eggs, flour, baking powder/soda, sugar, salt, water, etc. From that, Claire Marie’s mum told me “ok great, let’s make it” and I was worried since I had no clue what the proportions were, luckily she looked up a recipe for me to follow and with the help of Claire Marie and Francois, we made a cake. It looked great going into the oven. Pleased, we continued getting ready for the dinner that night since it was going to be a big celebration with the grandparents and cousins coming over for dessert. Finally the cake was ready for inspection and pulling it out of the oven it looked nothing like it did in the picture online. Claire Marie told me that the oven doesn’t bake evenly as I looked at our sad concoction. At the table we transitioned from dinner to dessert as we added more chairs and brought out the champagne flutes out. Finally Claire Marie’s mum brought out the cake introducing it as ‘Adrian’s cake’. The reaction from Claire Marie’s grandpa was priceless as he kept going on and on joking in French about how horrible the cake was not realising that I could understand ~85% of what he was saying. Then he turned to me and in English complemented me saying something like ‘what a lovely cake’. I felt like I was slapped across the face for how different his reaction was in English vs. French that I started to respond back in French “I know what you said” but stopped myself halfway figuring it isn’t polite to say that to my host family and decided to respond instead with a simple “merci”. It was funny though because afterwards when everyone was having seconds Claire Marie's mother teased him saying that since he didn't think it looked good he was not allowed on the seconds.  The whole scene was just funny, someday hopefully my French can work like a super power for me, who knows?

Anyways I am having a fabulous time and really have to thank Claire Marie and her family for such a fantastic time, I am enjoying every minute of it!!!

xx

La vie est belle en France

*Sorry that these blogs are super late, but I figured I would post them better late than never.

4th of July

Today has been amazing! I awoke around 9:30am and joined Claire Marie for breakfast which consisted of bread with butter and fresh jam, yogurt, orange juice, and a kiwi. Yesterday, Claire Marie and I went on a hike in the nearby mountains and then we joined her mum to the grocery store where we bought food for dinner.
Immediately when we got back, Claire Marie’s Mum put me to work in cleaning the lettuce for a salad. I was happy that I could be useful because I couldn’t figure out what else I could possibly have done at the time instead. Claire Marie put on the water for the noodles and her two brothers helped cut and prepare the food too. Dinner was excellent with a salad which I had with a boiled egg, bow tie pasta with cheese and herbed salt, and bread with goat cheese and honey- yum!! Oh and how could I forget saucisson!! For dessert we had pear with ice cream and melted chocolate on it topped with rum raisins.
After dinner, we went to a festival in St. Pée sur Nivelle where there was traditional dance to traditional music. I was ready to join in but all of the steps were called out in Basque- a regional language that even Claire Marie could not understand. Despite not dancing, we were able to enjoy the music which was kind of similar to folk dance but with accordions and other neat instruments too!
Ok back to today, so we dropped Claire Marie off to the train station at 1 pm today where she will be going to La Rochelle for an interview at the university. Each year in France, students have to reapply to the school since the education is free. Claire was pretty stressed at the time and I don’t blame her one bit. I met her friend Alexander who also went to Southampton, he showed me around for an hour and we went into the church that King Louis XIV was married in. I was quite surprised at how small the church was for a royal wedding of a king that was known for grandeur when in comparison with Prince William and Kate’s royal wedding in England last year.
After the church, Alexander and I parted ways and I went to the beach where I sun bathed (I know unlike me, right?). An hour or so later I decided to go swimming in the azul blue green sea. The water was so warm and lovely! I tried body surfing on a wave- accidentally choosing the one that was from the few high tide waves coming in and it curled!! Next thing I know I am doing summersaults in the water and completely submerged- so much for trying to be like all the elegant French beach going women. So I decided to swim some more to discretely remove the sand from my bathing suit that had managed to find every nook and cranny in my garment as well as on me (belly button, ears, eyebrows, nothing was sand free it seemed). I dried off in the sunshine and decided to head off to the village around 4pm to buy postcards only to realize that I left my €20 in my jeans pocket back at the house. Wandering through the village was none the less wonderful and I slowly headed back to the train station where I was waiting for Claire Marie’s brother, Francois, to pick me up at 5pm. While waiting at the train station a French bum came and asked if I had any money. Honestly I replied, “no” to him, the man began to have a conversation with me in French about the weather and other things, I suppose to warm me up to the idea of giving him money. After a while when I finally failed in comprehending something he said, he asked if I was English, much to his surprise I told him I was American. He continued the conversation in French and eventually asked if I had a cigarette for him, which again I had to disappoint and he shook my hand and when on his merry way.
Francois was a little late in picking me up as we cruised down the road listening to various pop songs with the windows rolled down. Dinner was once again delectable and Claire Marie’s Mom treated me to a Basque treat that is half way between yogurt and cheese- it was delicious! Then she showed me her office in the house.  
Claire Marie’s mum is a midwife, so she taught me how to make a harness/carrier for an infant:
First take the middle of a shawl like piece of fabric, crumple it and wrap in the front crossing at your back, then bring the ends over the shoulders, tuck it into the band at your front crossing it again this time in front of you and tie it to your side or behind you. It was fun and she had me practice it with a plastic baby doll and took a picture so I could worry my mom! She also taught me a lot about the human body and other useful information. It was a really fun evening as she spoke in broken English to me and I would respond in (broken (?)) French back. I really appreciated how she tried to have me speak in French while I am here because after taking French for roughly 5 years I was finally being able to put that skill to use.
La vie est belle!