The countdown begins... again... sort of... huh?!

As you can tell from the title, I am completely OUT OF IT. In English and French, I am completely unfit for communicating with people at the moment. Let's blame it on the fact that I sleep 1 hour a night! Too much hw? Too much partying? None of the above. In fact, I just lie there thinking... I'm leaving in less than 2 weeks. Holy COW.

I just bought my tickets for London to Salzburg and then to who knows where! Very exciting stuff! And scary at the same time!! Unfortunately, I also just realized that despite myself I fell in love with France. Even Bordeaux. The trams where you feel like you're going to suffocate. The disorganized school system. The toilets with no seats on them. The mean ladies who work at the cafeteria. I don't know how to feel. So I lie in bed wondering how I'm supposed to feel and what to do with the fleeting days...

I even feel depressed hanging out with my friends who I will soon say "au revoir" to. I want to enjoy my moments, but realizing that I'm TRYING to savor every second, remember every joke, it's tiring.

OKAY! That's enough of that! This is the regular dance of falling in love with a foreign place and with the people and then having to leave... it's not new.

Anyways, I have finished 2/6 finals!! Go me!! So far, I have gotten grades that make me happy, but I have a feeling the ones that are to come will not go as smoothly... :P Pray for me!

I just cleaned my room and I found all the presents I've been buying for you folks along the way... if anyone wants anything tell me now! Or else you get some random junk that I pick out.

Today at the gym I started to say "Bonjour" to all these random people instead of studying while elliptical-ing. Eye contact is so key here! If you didn't know, to make eye contact with someone here is the equivalent of saying "Hello" or, and sometimes this happens "Helloooooooo" ;)

Oh yes, so far people have asked me about which country has the hottest guys, etc... Well, I don't think one single country or city harbors all of the hotties of the world, but each place seems to have a distinctively beautiful feature. Let me explain: French people have GORGEOUS eyes, Italians have nice noses, Spanish people have the best proportions (tall and lean with legs up to there), and uh... that's as far as my general observations go. Donc, voila.

Okay, I should probably go and sleep. My one hour. Ha ha.

Oh yea! The Chaperts had a dinner party thing today and while I was not invited, I did get to speak with the guests and experience another authentic French evening! Whoo! (It is wide known that French dinner parties are the most exclusive events EVER. Not French? French, but not cool enough? Bonne chance.)

PS My love for France and my friends here is completely separate from my love for you guys and how much I miss you all. But yea. It's France. And they're French. You understand. :P (hahah jk!!)

April showers... or TEARS

That's right! April is filled with tears, or SWEAT! I have so much work to do, it's crunch time folks!

I'll update one day... maybe! Until then catch up with me via facebook and my photos there!

Peace out!

A hiatus from food.

HAHAH Due to popular demand I will refrain from talking about the f-word. ("Food", don't be dirty!)

Alors, aujourd'hui je suis allée au marché de St. Michel!! J'ai acheté beaucoup de cadeaux. =] C'est pour ça que je peux pas mettre des photos de mes achats, mais j'ai pris quelques photos du marché. Il y a du tissu, vêtements, sacs, chaussures, et de la végétation! C'est génial!

Comme la plupart de vous ne saviez pas, je suis un cours d'art ici à Bordeaux. Je suis, je pense, la seule étudiante qui ne spécialise pas en art. C'est dur, mais si si si amusant! haha J'ai fait des amis avec des types "artsy", et ils sont tous très sympa, particulièrement parce qu'ils savent que je suis une étrangère. En fait, une fille, Morgane m'a aidée en achetant et en trouvant tous les matériaux dont j'avais besoin. Elle est SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII gentille!!! Alors, je vous présente quelques "oeuvres". C'est franchement crotte-y, mais, ben... =P

Hier Morgane et moi avons eu une fête en faisant de l'art! Whoo! Elle a un apt... g é n i a l. (Comme tous lesquels français) Alors! Elle m'a permise d'utiliser ses outils... Morgane, merci!! Après avoir bu du thé de l'Egypt (mmm) nous avons commencé! J'ai fait un tableau qui est supposé d'imiter le style de Basquiat avec le thème du petit déjeuner. Alors, je comprends rien du tout de l'art moderne, alors, pardonnez-moi. LOL

D'accord, amusez-vous bien à ma galérie. ;)


**
Okay, so today I went to the market at St. Michel! I bought a lot of presents! =] Yea, so I can't put up pictures of what I bought, but I took some pics of the market. There were textiles, clothes, bags, shoes, and fresh foods! It was great!







Like most of you don't know, I'm taking an art class here in Bx. I am, I think, the only student who is not an Art major. It's hard, but so fun! I made friends with "artsy" peoples, and they are all so nice, especialy because they know I am from abroad. In fact, one girl Morgane helped me buy and find all the stuff I needed for the class. She is SOOOOO nice!!! So, I will show you some of my "works". It's seriously poopy, but yea...

Yesterday, Morgane and I had a little "art party"! Whoo! She has a kickycool apt! (Like all French apts) So, she let me use her tools (paints, paper, etc), Morgane, thank you!!! After having some Egyptian tea (mmm) we started! I did a painting that is supposed to imitate the style of Basquiat with the theme of breakfast. I understand nothing of modern art, so excuse me!!


Tea time!!


Morgane, the cutie!



She works hard!!


Okay, have fun at my gallery!! ;)


Okay, so here is the breakfast pencil drawing (I got a so-so grade for this), and in the beginning I totally messed up on the Basquiat imitation. Prof. Garcia told us it was "technique libre" (free style) so long as it was modern. Well, he lied! It was supposed to imitate the artist.


Here's my mess-up. Bof.


here is my Basquiat. eh heh...

Okay! It's REALLLLY gorgeous today, so off I go to the Jardin Public avec Katie! :) A +!

l'argot français [French slang]

les aléas de la vie : twists that life throws at you (usually positive)

une crevette : literal- shrimp, slang- 1) a wimpy/non-buff guy, 2) someone who has a nice body but a not so good looking face [comes from the fact that you rip off the heads of shrimp when you eat them, LOL]

un tombeur / une tombeuse : a lady-killer / a hot mamma


patati-et-patata : 'blah blah blah'; 'and so on, and so forth'

une peau de vache : literal- the skin of a cow, slang- a mean girl
*NB* it's equally mean to use it! :P


un loup dans le nez : literal- a wolf in the nose, slang- a booger
*NB* typically used by very young children

Le fromage de Savoie

Alors, juste sud de Genève, dans les Alpes, au côté français, se trouve Savoie. Une région qui produit du fromage… DELICIEUX. J’avais de la chance d'en goûter ce soir au diner. Mon favori c’est le Beaufort !! MIAM MIAM. Et il y avait aussi le Reblochon, et puis Tomme le Savoie. Tout est bien. C’était marrant, parce que Dominique a commandé Eric d’aller au frigo pour m’apporter le fromage. Ils savent que J’ADORE LE FROMAGE. Je pense que le fromage et le pain me manqueront le plus quand je reviens. (A part de mes amis, bien sur ! haha)

Okay, so just south of Geneva in the Alps, on the French side, is Savoy. A region that produces cheese... it's DELICIOUS! I was lucky enough to try some tonight at dinner. My favorite was the Beaufort!! YUMMY YUMMY. And there was also the Reblochon et also Tomme le Savoie. Everything was great. It was funny because Dominique made Eric go to to the fridge to bring me the cheese. They know that I LOVE CHEESE. I think that I'm going to miss cheese and bread the most when I go back. (Apart from my friends, of course! haha)

For my mom!

Hi all! This post is for you all of course, but especially for my mother!
Umma, you wanted me to post pics of the new shoes and bag I just bought! (They are for school, okay???)






And voila~! Okay! I am trying not to go on Internet too much because my French has gotten worse, and I will see all you lovely people in 2 months, anyways!

But before I go, I saw August Rush tonight and it was awesome!!! I was so surprised! And the music... PHENOMENAL! WOW!! So incredible it was credible!! (It was followed by French and English slang lessons with Pierrick, haha)


Tomorrow night... more Ethiopian food! And hopefully photos this time! =]

<3,
Michelle

I love Korean food!

Yes, like the title indicates I LOVE KOREAN FOOD!!! <3

My host family had never had Korean food so I happily agreed to introduce them! The only problem: I don't know how to cook it. -_-;;

With the help of Ian's google search, the Food Network website, and DaeGon I found a recipe for Korean Barbecue. Then I hit another stump, short rib meat needed for this dish does not exist in France! haha I even called a Korean restaurant in Paris to ask them how to say the name of the meat in French. I first started talking in Korean and the person says "I don't speak Korean" and so I switched to French. And then they say "Even though our restaurant is called Korean BBQ we don't really have any..." WHAT?! HAHAHAHA I started laughing at them. They should call it NOT Korean and NO BBQ restaurant.

Anyways! Eric (host dad) bought some super thick meat which I had to chop up into tiny pieces and dunked it in the marinade. I found a lot of good ingredients that are hard to find (like Asian pears and sesame oil) at a local Asian grocer's! Lucky! I also found sticky rice, dakkwang (pickled radish), kimchee (which was SUPER sweet, so not up to a Korean spicy standard-- but my host mom said it was spicy!), and kim (dried seasoned seaweed, yum!). It was great!! I had so much fun being in the kitchen again. Don't scoff, for those of you who have lived with me, I am not a master in the kitchen I know, but cooking is so nice! It was getting to be like dorm food where you just sit and wait for the food to come. So I let the meat marinate over night, and then last night it was time to cook!! Whooo!!!

I actually did a really dumb thing too! I was going to cook the rice first because I had never used their rice cooker (but super lucky they had one!) and I didn't know how long it would take, so I washed it and put it in the cooker. But I didn't want to leave the cooker on for too long since I was about to go to the gym, so I decided to let it sit. When I came back 1.5 hours later the rice absorbed all the water!! haha But this is how we learn, so I just laughed it off. Besides, the rice was SO GOOD.

So yes! They really really liked it! I was surprised! Tom (the 7 year old) actually ate the kim and Dominique (host mom) didn't believe it. And Dominique ate most of the dakkwang, she kept making fun of it earlier saying that it was a pineapple or a banana or something, and then she couldn't stop eating it. Haha. Eric LOVED the kimchee and the kim. (I showed them how to make kim-bahp! mmmm), and Dylan (13 year old) said the meat was "hyper bon" (HAHAH). And I was just content with the rice. MMM. So I bought 2 kg of rice (I WAS going to be cooking for 7 people who eat a LOT, myself included, I mean it's RICE), and Eric was like "Why 2 kg? 1 Kg serves 40 people at my restaurant". Oh yes, but Eric, this is not French rice, this is Asian rice! But just to not freak him out, I only cooked about 5 cups of rice... they all got mad at me for not cooking enough!! haha So I ended up cooking 1 kg (8-9 cups of rice) for the whole evening. Ya hoo!

So I guess I'm learning how to cook Korean food in France.

Oh and they had chopsticks, so that completed my happiness.


RICE!!!!!!!!! BAHP!!!!


Hello, Kim!


Cooking the meat... at the time I thought, "at least it smells good" haha


CHOPSTICKS!!! tee hee!


HAHAH =)

--

The night before (aka the night I marinated the meat) I went to my friend Jenny's birthday party, which was a dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Never been to one... but... I will definitely go again! And I already looked up places in LA and SF for when I go back home. It was SO GOOD. You eat with your hands! So they set down a plate with a tortilla-like circle sheet (it was very soft yet sturdy! I was surprised at how well it kept together) with meat with spices and sauce (MMM) and salad. Then there was another plate of the tortilla sheets. You rip off pieces of those and you use those to pick up the meat and salad, and you wrap it up and pop it in your mouth for HEAVEN. It was sooo good!!!! And then for dessert, one of Jenny's friends bought her a cake, and it was like nothing I've ever tasted before!! It was chocolate, with cream and a crunchy rice cake (like KitKat) layer... oh man. Yea, this is why I joined the gym. ;P


Jenny et moi <3

(Sorry! I didn't take any pics of the food!)

More updates later! And maybe about stuff other than food. Maybe not. ;)