A regular Thursday + an interesting dinner party

Well, today was fairly uneventful until this evening. Class didn't start till NINE THIRTY!!! =D when we had an "evaluation" (in quotes because you have to pronounce it frenchly) and I think I did OK...I'm always more confident about the writing part because I can make up anything whereas with the reading comprehension you have to be pretty precise about pulling out the right phrase to justify your answer or whatnot.

I went to carrefour with E, M and H but then when they went back to the Institut I went home and ate the same thing as last night which I was actually really looking forward to (pasta with hamburger and ketchup). I went all out and had TWO plates of salade with a WHOLE apple! Gettin' crazy now...

I was a good girl and went to the student teacher's workshop because she's basically the French version of me...It was me, Andrea, and Jenny (a British girl). It's funny because we're all natural hair-colored hair girls with light skin and light eyes. I don't know why it's funny. But my color hair just sticks out to me--maybe more here because there's so much solid black hair or crazy "I'm in France!" versions of red. OH but hanging out with Jenny brings me to one of the top three funniest moments of the day: Andrea and Jenny haven't been in my class since the beginning of the semester so I gave Andrea my papers to look over and one of them that they were reading together made Jenny randomly summarize with "Karma." Only, she's British, so it sounded like, "Kah(r)ma." OK, let's be honest, it sounded like, "Comma." I could tell Andrea had no idea what had just happened so I was like, "Karma, yeah." And Andrea was like, "oh, Karrrrma..."

Jenny: What did you think I said?

Andrea: I thought you said comma, like the punctuation mark.

Jenny: Oh, cohmma! Why would I randomly shout out punctuation mahks?? But I don't sound any different--

Andrea: Karma

Jenny: Kahma...oh I guess it does sound different.

After class I came back here and had a snack and tidied up a bit--washing dishes, throwing out flowers that were starting to smell, y'know...Good news: the kitchen doesn't smell like burnt anymore. :)

Then around 7 I headed over to Emily's house where I had been cordially invited to dinner. Her host family is a trip. Like, first of all, the oldest son was in a coma when she got there. When I went to her host dad's birthday party, he was really quiet. Now he talks fine except for not being able to find words sometimes. Second of all, they're nobility, and her host dad makes sure everyone knows it. Third of all, this man himself has done, like, everything (which I think I've mentioned on here before.) Things I saw this evening: statuettes from like all over Africa/Afghanistan/India, a newspaper clipping of him and Michael Jackson in Paris, a picture of him and a singer with a spanish sounding last name...S C? can't remember. A knife from a Russian that freed him from imprisonment in the middle east?? We're wondering about a possible misunderstanding there... haha. But yeah, this man is super traveled. I don't know if it's just because we're international or if he tells international stories ALL THE TIME...I guess for as much as I talk about LT and Germany, multiply that by all the places he's been and I can kind of understand. Most of the kids were gone, just the son who had been in the coma was at dinner. It was very interesting because for whatever reason they got going recounting to him the night he got hurt--I mean, he was there for it all, but he wasn't there, soooo....yeah. "No one was sure if it was you or not" "I should've known when the cop was talking so nicely to me that something was really wrong" etc.

As far as food goes, this is another confirmation that I just really don't like wine--couldn't make myself finish it, dad: "You're not going to finish your wine?" No, sorry... "It's a crime!" (in English. He really likes throwing random English phrases in.) "Honey, do you want more wine?" (They sweet talk each other a lot, this family does: "mon cheri" [my dear] "mon chou" [my cabbage] {nope not making that up}). Ok but the food--tarte au poiv.....peppers. I think. Only they weren't very peppery. And she was right to apologize for it not being very salty, but I was too intimidated by the light-up, electronic salt shaker (from like, Morroco, but a French product) that I just ate it anyway. You know how I know that? Because Em's host dad gives you a biographie of everything. The region the wine was from, a small description of the cheese, the country the cheese was from (my head was spinning with African countries by that time, sorry--but I can definitively say that I ate African cheese tonight!), etc etc etc. We also had endive salad, of which Emily regaled us with horror stories at the beginning of the semester, but she's more used to it now. I thought it wasn't all that bad but had the same bitter taste as wine, somehow. Their bread wasn't a baguette but flat crackers. That works.

But dessert, man...dessert made up for anything the main meal was lacking. Chocolate mousse. Yum, yum. Recipe? You betcha. 200 grams of dark chocolate, melted and mixed with 6 egg yolks. You beat the whites until they're white and add a tablespoon of sugar somewhere in there and then mix it all together and chill. I think that was literally all. :)

After dinner, we watched a bit of the news, which I haven't been doing because I don't want to watch slightly gorier French news all by myself when it's particularly depressing these days--bunches of people crossing the border to Tunisia, shaky cameraphone videos of people running around in streets, demonstrations, etc.

Then Emily and I went up to her room where we introduced each other to our families via fb and watched a couple disney music videos and looked up all the stuff that came up in our conversation that we didn't know-- "how many regions does France have?" (22, +4 not in mainland France) "Is hookah worse for you than cigarettes?" (inconclusive--more smoke, less nicotine?) "Do the French resistance and the Underground Railroad have enough in common to write a paper on?" (Emily's not the first person to have thought of it and is therefore not crazy). It was fun times. :)

Now I'm back here and can't believe tomorrow's already Friday! It's the calm before the crazy weekend storm....

Should probably head to bed, really liked feeling rested this morning! :) And I do have a big weekend coming up...Yes, I am crazy and I did choose to do an excursion on Saturday and Paris, Take 2, on Sunday. =D I'm really excited, as long as I catch my train. (Shouldn't be a problem. But.) =)P

Thanks for reading dear readers! =D