July 5th
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 6th
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
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