Day 160: Sunday School Party at the LaPorte's

Frere LaPorte, Isabelle, Soeur LaPorte, Cheryl
Isabel, Jennifer, Florienne, Raymond, Kev

7 fevrier 2010 (Day 160)
Another sleepless night…I am getting to be such an insomniac. I did get to talk to my best friend! Amber Johnson at 5am my time though. It was good talking to her, because she is amazing. After talking for a while, I went back to sleep, and had to get up grumpily a while later to go to church. My breakfast made me terribly happy though (no fasting this week…already dizzy enough with food). I squeezed three cold oranges and had fresh squeezed oj with organic wheat bread with butter and creamy honey. If I was rich I think I’d have fresh squeezed juice every morning. It was so perfect!
Walking through the parking lot to get picked up by Stephane in his new voiture (car) was quite the …experience. The garbage men have been on strike, add 500 kid’s worth of garbage and the wind, and you get nastiness everywhere. Definitely saw some things I could have lived without seeing. Stephane’s new car is swell though! It is this itty bitty rusty colored orange piece of machinery. I kind of like it.
Church was nice today. Relief Society was lame. We had a weird and really short lesson about being independent. Our lesson in Sunday School about Noah was good though. And testimony meeting was (gasp) normal! People gave short Christ-testifying testimonies. We also had a baby blessing…baby Emma with so much hair (she must be a Roundy baby). After church our Sunday school got together to go to our teacher’s house for a little fete (party) that we have been talking about since December.
There were so many of us there, and it was so great. The LaPorte’s have a huge home that is white and with lots of windows. They have a gorgeous staircase and their home doesn’t look very “French.” Everyone kept asking me if it was like my house (no). We had drinks and chips and nuts (the aperitif), delicious veggie soup (appetizer), and some amazing chili con carne and rice (plat). They were dolls and catered to Hannah’s vegitarianness and made her eggs and corn. Kev (a new kid to be mentioned later) is allergic to spicyness, so they had to whip up something for him as well. Naturally, it being France, we weren’t done. More bread got pulled out for the traditional cheese (and yogurt) after dinner snack. I was happily filled to the brim. Then they pulled out 3 galettes des rois (frangipane- the almond paste ones, my favorite). I didn’t find a feve in my piece, but I still wore a crown because of Kev. Kevin is around 25, served in Fiji (French speaking), and apparently is moving in with the same family that Isabel stays with. He is a really nice kid, and super funny to talk to. Seeing as I take the galette de rois thing quite seriously, I was gently reminding him (probably more like bothering in his mind) that he had to pick a queen and wear his crown. Instead he just stuck the crown on my head and said, “There.” We made fun of Cheryl together (bless her blonde heart), so he is definitely a keeper in the ward. And I apparently live in the wrong ward. Kev said that in Caen the YSA individuals would always be at a different member’s house each Sunday to have dinner with them, that they all hang out and have an activity after institute, and that they even have monthly FHE together. I am jealous because that would be fun and I am in sore need of social activity that doesn’t occur over the internet.
After feeling ourselves to the brim with amazingness we watched The Ultimate Gift (in English). It was good to see that movie again, it made me think of Miss Emily Anne, because it is her favorite movie. There was a preview for Amazing Grace, my grandma’s favorite, and it made me reeeeeeeeeeeeaaallly want to be in my grandma’s basement with one of her blankets watching it with her. After the movie they fed us more food (is that possible?!?). They had about five flavors of ice cream and more frangipane. Dinner will not be necessary tonight, that is for sure. Did you know that they have chestnut flavored ice cream in France?! Odd, but surprisingly good. The LaPorte’s then drove all of us home. It was a lovely afternoon and so nice to be with lots of people in a homey situation.

The Week of Illness

31 janvier 2010 (Day 153)
The start of the cold…kind of like the abominable snow man…
Waking up was way too hard this morning. I definitely needed to sleep more. Today was ward conference and we had to be there early for choir practice. I checked my phone and realized that had a message. Apparently someone wanted to have a picnic with me yesterday, but they never said who they were and I don’t know the number. I had the missionaries and Isabel listen to it, but none of us could figure out who it was…sorry mystery picnic caller! I was tired and not doing so well at paying attention, so I started reading my patriarchal blessing. It is amazing how something new sticks out every single time. Sacrament meeting ended really late. They had over 6 speakers scheduled and an intermediate hymn (we sang all the verses). It was worth the wait though because there was a big luncheon for everyone to share and eat together after. There was rice and chicken, pizza, quiche, potato salad, and lots of yummy desserts. I helped wash up in the kitchen and it was pretty funny. I think that most adults really are just big kids.
1 fevrier 2010 (Day 154)
Oh boy did I wake up sick today. It is a good thing that I don’t have class on Monday and Tuesday, because all I did was sleep, or at least attempt to since I couldn’t breathe. Hannah was a sweetheart and brought me over some medicine and the movie Chocolat. The movie Chocolat is actually really good. I recommend it…and all those chocolates, they exist. It made me hungry for chocolate!
2 fevrier 2010 (Day 155)
So I didn’t want to call the missionaries on Monday because it was their P-day. After multiple guy friends telling me to call, I got off my high horse and I called Elder Bourgeois and Elder Maxfield a little after ten and asked if I could get a blessing because I’m sick. Elder B. said yes, of course they would love to serve. He told me that they were having splits and so that I could come over to the church at 11:30 and there would be four of them there (not two, like we now have in Nantes) or if I was bed ridden they could all come over later. I told them I’d come to the church (like they’d all fit in my room anyway, and I’m not bed ridden). For once I decided against wearing my sweat pants (I get odd enough looks cooking in the dorm in my sweat pants) and, as Trisha always said, “If you don’t feel good, look good.” So I got ready and I went to the church. On the way there I got some chouquettes (yummy kind of cream puff balls without the cream, but with sugar on top) for the missionaries and some medicine from the pharmacy. The pharmacies in France are the only place you can get pretty much any kind of medicine (it isn’t in the grocery stores like it is here), so it was different. The funny pharmacist was telling me what else I should do besides take the drugs that she picked out for me (retrospect: they didn’t work) and was telling me I should be cleaning out my nose with some sprayer thing and blah blah blah.
So, I got to the church and walked into their little district meeting and Elder Smiley was there on splits with his companion. Elder Smiley grabbed a chair for me and Elder Bourgeois was asking how I was sick and if it was like when he was sick (when you wake up your lips are dry and I don’t know what else Elder Bourgeois was saying). Elder Smiley came to the rescue and was like it is evident she is sick with her stuffy nose (or whatever he said, I don’t remember). He might have said something else, but he was definitely the most concerned (late me rephrase, concerned period that I was sick). I gave them the chouquettes I brought and Elder Bourgeois (who shall now be called Elder B. in this post) started eating them, saying that they taste like French toast. They DON’T taste like French toast, so I told Elder B. so and he was like yes they do and tried to get Elder Smiley to eat some of his chouquette to see that it did taste like French toast and reluctantly (he said he didn’t want to spoil his appetite and that he’d have one later, lol) took a bite and sided with me that it doesn’t taste like French toast, all the while Elder Smiley’s companion was just wanting to know what a chouquette was.
Elder B. asked who had oil and Elder Smiley was the only one who responded so he got his out. I sat down and Elder Bourgeois asked me to say a prayer to invite the spirit. I said the prayer and then Elder B. asked me who I wanted to do the anointing and then the blessing. I said it didn’t matter. He said they were all prepared and worthy. I said I didn’t care because they can all be mouthpieces for God and that they can decide. Elder. B. then said that would be like being prideful if they were like oh I want to and I told him that I really didn’t have a preference. This frustrated him that I wasn’t picking (I didn’t want to pick) and so then I told them to pick a number between one and ten. I picked three, my favorite number. Elder Smiley was the closest, picking four with Elder B. in second with six. Elder Smiley asked if that means he got to pick so he picked anointing and I said no, it means you are giving the blessing. Elder Smiley asked what my full name was and then Elder B. did the anointing. They all got together for part 2 and then Elder Smiley asked them to shut the door. He verified that my name was Mari Lisa and then proceeded to give me the blessing. It was a really nice blessing for health and saying that I’d get better quickly with faith and that Heavenly Father was proud of the work I was doing in France and to continue it and that He wants what is best for me. When it was over they all stepped back at the same time, which was kind of awkward and someone jokingly said, “Hug!” (which we didn’t) They all shook my hand, even on my insistence not to since I’m sick…Elder B. said, “We’re missionaries.” I don’t think that give you super immunity though…but maybe it does.
We started talking about the burrito fest and Elder Smiley asked how Nana, my non-member friend that I brought to the last one was, and that I should bring her. I asked Elder Smiley if he was going to be there. He said no he wouldn’t but Elder B. said that Elder McKay (who went to my school) would be there though. I don’t remember what else happened, but Elder Smiley ended up signing something in ASL. Apparently he signs as well.
I dropped by the boulangerie that is by the church and bought some bread with my last three euros and then made the trek back to my bed. It was quite a long trek because the garbage men are apparently on strike and were burning things today so some of the tram line was closed for safety reasons so there was a multitude of people walking. I kind of like it, it makes life adventurous.
3 fevrier 2010 (Day 156)
Oiy. I’m still sick, but I went to class anyway. My nose would not stop running, it was torture. I made it through all of my classes though (included 3.5 hours of French lit) and then I slept.
Thursday 4 fevrier 2010 (Day 157)
Still sick and going to class. Luckily today my nose wasn’t running like a leaky faucet. In other good news, my money came in, which means I can go grocery shopping!
Friday 5 fevrier 2010 (Day 158)
Wow, this has got to be a record. I think the last time I was this sick, the doctor prescribed me sleeping pills. I do pretty great at sleeping during the day, but once it is night time I am wide awake and unable to breathe. I feel a bit better today than yesterday, which is good. Oh man, sociology of art was so funny today. The teacher really is just so hilarious. Today he was reenacting different parts of the annunciation, playing both the angel and Mary and it was too rich. I actually ended up eating lunch with a French person! I got some pizza (closest thing to I’m-sick-comfort-food that is not the soup which I’ve been eating all week) and went looking for a spot. I saw a girl sitting alone and asked if I could sit by her, but she said no, she had friends coming. I then recognized some bushy hair from my sociology class, so I asked if I could sit by him. His name is Theo and we talked all lunch and it was really good, other than it was hard to hear because my ears are clogged and Frenchies don’t believe in talking loudly. He actually wants to go study in America (who doesn’t) or in Sweden.
We had a really interesting conversation about humanity and races in history. We read a quote from Jules Ferry about colonizing the savages and then about other people who divided the world into races and such. After class I went to commerce because I thought I deserved some melted hot chocolate. I went to Amorino (naturally) and got some orange cinnamon hot chocolate. I was actually kind of disappointed that it didn’t taste more orangy. I took my time drinking it and then went to go try a macaron, because macarons are wonderful things, although expensive. I went in and asked for just one, “nature” flavor (kind of like “plain” I guess you could say) and she gave me one that had a crack in it for free. I told her that I was going to try all the flavors and she said I’ll need 16 weeks if I have one a week, so I better come try another one tomorrow. I think I will. I went to institute and got there ten minutes before class was to start. The gate was locked. Luckily our teacher did arrive and I had a nice long hour and a half of mind wandering. It was pouring, really pouring rain after institute. It was coming in sheets and sheets and there was water everywhere. It was a really neat site to see, I just wish that there would have been lightning as well.

Day 159: Shopping Saturday

Sweet of the week, and my daisy and placemat...

6 fevrier 2010 (Day 159)

I still have my cold, but I’m doing a lot better. I woke up really early this morning for no reason. I made myself go to bed and woke up later, a lot more tired. I should have stayed up when I got up at six. I got ready for the day and went off to the market to see how my vendor friend’s Book of Mormon reading was going. My first stop was to the chocolaterie to get a macaron (Wikipedia it, it is not like a coconut macaroon). Today I decided to get a citron (lemon) macaron and it was divine. I missed out on a whole semester of goodness. I couldn’t find my friend at the market today. I went through at least twice looking for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. I did find some organic heafty bread. For some silly reason I bought the big one of it instead of the smaller. I also bought some potatoes for my potato soup, some apples, and I bought some manadarin oranges from the cutest girl who was around 11, helping her dad. She was too cute learning how to be a vendor.

I decided to head over to IKEA to get Isabel’s Daim (a Swedish crunchy butter almond bar covered in chocolate) cake because I lost our bet. Cheryl happened to find Pierrick and told me that I had to add him because I believe she said we are “a match made in heaven” (to which I disagree). I didn’t think this Pierrick’s picture looked like the boy I danced with, so I bet Isabel a Daim cake. I lost. At IKEA I bought a placemat & a plastic gerber daisy (I’ve been tempted to get both items since I got here). I also found a potato peeler (lately my carrots have had clear white rocks in them…yuck) that is amazing! I want to take it home (it is that good). I went to E.Leclerc, a shopping center, to get some items. I ended up coming out happily with food to eat. I tranquilly took the tram down to the patisserie by my house and decided to get a lemon meringue tarte for my SWEET OF THE WEEK. It was good (not as good as the last tarte) but it had a tad too much meringue…a tad being I put 2/3 of the meringue in the trash can.

Some of my neighbors came and borrowed my plate, knife, and fork (they were having lunch with friends). I still haven’t gotten them back… while I was waiting for my plate to return I did get my room all clean (first time all week) and started to catch up on journaling. Luckily, I made myself delicious potato soup (and put potatoes in it) so no plate was needed.

Day 152: Rois et Reines

The banquet! (Anthony front left)
Pierrick, my crazy awesome dance partner
Benjamin, Mr. I hate France but am going to teach French...and he looks like a king.
Christophe! My awesome crazy dance buddy, "23-year-old dad"
Pretty much my favorite king costume. ever.

30 janvier 2010 (Day 152)
Today was an exciting day. Today I went to a stake YSA activity. It was held in Angers, so I got picked up early in the morning (though my ride was late) to go to the activity. The theme was Kings and Queens, so we were having a dance. I wore my skirt but no one else was dressed yet for the dance. I felt kind of lame, but even more lame when we spent 5 minutes searching for my seat belt in the back of Paki’s car (Paki is a cute girl from Madagascar. Her parents divorced and she comes to church with her cute mom and sister Gaelle). Needless to say, it required the evacuation of everyone from the car and I just felt dumb. It was a pretty drive to Angers.
We got there, signed up, and started the day with a spiritual thought on kings. We talked and read about historical and religious (as in from the BOM) kings (good ones, not the bad ones) and listed their qualities and then saw what qualities they all had in common, qualities that we should have like: humility, walking in truth, justice, being intelligent and wise, having good judgment, etc. We had lunch afterwards, during which Paki told me that Anthony (an 18-year-old from the ward) had a crush on me. But that he also had a crush on all the other girls (okay…). At lunch I talked to a couple of French people, including black-haired Benjamin, a youngster (got sent home from his mission due to illness). He is wanting to go to school either in Utah or BYU-I and then become a French teacher in the US, so we talked about that and he got my email so he can ask questions.
After our picnic lunch (bring your own lunch) we split up into three groups and played a get to know you game. It was a name game and it actually worked pretty well, because I think I remembered everyone’s name in my group (which normally doesn’t happen). After the game we did a rotation of the 3 different activities: food prep, learning dances, and decorating for the ball.
My group’s first workshop (or whatever you want to call it) was decorating for the ball. We started out by working on setting up the tables for the banquet. Pierrick was a lot of help. He is a kid who is pretty fresh off his mission from Germany who speaks English as well. He is pretty eccentric…I think of him as the French version of Michael Dyatt/Nate Schroader. I had the awesome idea of making name tags for the banquet, and Pierrick approved of my decision so we did it. It was pretty cool because it caught on and everyone made their name tags. Mine even got taken by a mysterious admirer (think Little Women and Meg’s glove) at the end of the night.
Our second atelier was learning how to dance. This actually went over really well with everyone. I was pleasantly surprised. Our new dancing skills were even enjoyably used during the dance later! We paired off and started to learn the waltz. Pierrick was very kind (very kind because I am a terrible dancer) and offered to be my partner. I finally really learned how to dance the waltz (it helps to have someone who leads). We then moved on to the minaret. I also did pretty well at learning this ancient dance, and it is pretty fun because it makes you think of Jane Austen novels. Afterwards I was less successful at learning the lindy or something like that. I did okay (Pierrick was pushing, lol) but I couldn’t get the turning part down. We also kept running into people so Pierrick took me out into the hall to try to teach me. I failed. I did start to teach him some Charleston though. The next dance to learn was the Madison (a line dance). I tried for about 10 seconds and then knew it wasn’t the pen for me to learn. If there was a soccer ball involved, yes, but otherwise not happening. Instead I sang the song to everyone (Man I feel like a woman) and tried to make Gwanelle (a girl from the ward around 18/19) feel better about not being able to do it either. I definitely got her to laugh, so it was a successful attempt.
Our last atelier was helping in the kitchen. There wasn’t really anything to do except for wake for the quiches to bake and then put in a new one so we hung out, having arm wrestling contests and playing the piano. Ruben, a boy in the group is going to bring his guitar next time for us to play. I am so excited! Everyone else changed for dinner once it was time. There were some pretty sweet costumes.

But let’s be honest, dinner was kind of lame. There were carrot sticks and you got one slice of quiche, that is it. I sat by some pretty funny kids. This one boy was pretending to be THE king so he was demanding really funny things, including another fork for me. You see, I broke two plastic forks trying to be lady like and eating my quiche with a fork. I guess I am just so strong…

After the dinner we put away the tables and chairs and started our (very long) dance party. It was a lot of fun. Christophe, one of the YSA stake leaders from my ward, was crazy! He was dancing around and having a blast, so I danced with him. We’d go running around trying to get other people to dance. Some rock and roll song came on so he danced-danced with me because I’m American and it was an American song! The old man’s got skills! I danced a slow with some boy who cutted in my dancing with Gwanelle. He never told me his name, but he served his mission in Canada and so he knows Josh Burch, a kid I know from high school who is serving in Canada. The world is so small. I danced with Benjamin, the anti-France frenchie as well as Ruben. Ruben was…interesting. He told me that when he has his pilot’s license he will take me flying and at the end of the dance he kissed my hand after having his arm in my armpit the whole dance (how romantic…not. At least not from him). I enjoyed dancing to Grease “You’re the One That I Want” singing ALL the lyrics with Isabel and trying to learn the moves to some French disco song. I must say that I enjoyed dancing most with Pierrick. He liked to say some phrase (I can’t remember anymore what it was) in a hilarious accent to make me laugh. It worked. We danced the minaret and several other songs. We danced a slow (but not waltzing, which I was okay with) and three other dances. I don’t know what to call them because they were all different- like mamba and country swing kind of stuff minus the country music. Mostly I got spun a lot and had a lot of fun. I even got dipped…successfully. It is the first time that anyone has ever succeeded at dipping me…I’m just not a very trusting person. I had a lot of fun “letting” my hair down and everyone thought I was a good dancer because 1. I danced like every song and 2. Pierrick- when you got a good lead you can’t help but faire semblance to look good!

All good things do come to an end though, as did the dance around 11pm or so. We stayed and helped clean up and started a mini-massage line. By this point it was apparent that Ruben was interested in me and not very happy that I had danced most of the night away with Pierrick. This was manifest by two things: Ruben cutting the massage line in front of Pierrick (who has magic hands) so that I was getting a lame-o massage from Ruben, who now has my number because he asked for it. And my picture…but he asked for that one whilst I was eating a carrot…awkward. Putting on coats Benjamin put my scarf over my head (thanks boys) and I had a nice ride home wanting to sleep. I got home around 12:30am or so and ended up staying up even later talking to Utah friends.

Day 151: Friday (for lack of a better title)

29 janvier 2010 (Day 151)
Friday, Friday, Friday’s my favorite day! Ha ha, not really (Saturday is) but it is Friday already here in France. Sociology was hilarious as usual. The prof is really such a hoot. He is so animated and such a crazy professor, I love it! After his class I went to the resto-u and had some lunch. Today I had nasty green beans (and I normally love green beans) that tasted like butter (the frenchies LOVE butter), bulgar & beef enchilada-ness, and a strawberry shortcake. It was a good change of food since who knows when the last time I had beef.
I did some shopping (I think) and then went back to school for history. There were so many people in the class! There is this one really dumb girl who doesn’t pay attention and asks questions, the kind that the professor just answered two seconds before. Bless her heart. We continued going over a brief history of France (so we can pick up where we left off last semester) which included the end of Napoleon Bonaparte and the beginning of the IIIe Republique. I went home and grabbed something quick to eat and then headed off to institute. Satan just didn’t want me to go to institute today. There was something on the tracks, so part of the tram line was closed and I had to walk. Then at my stop, those darn tram Nazis wanted to see my ticket. I had my pass this time, but she wouldn’t let me off even though it was my stop. The lady was like I need to see your ticket first, and I was like okay, but it’s my stop, can we get off? Then, as the tram started moving she said, “You won’t miss it.” Which I did. So I had to get off at the next stop and wait for a tram going the other way. Needless to say, I was pretty upset that I was going to be late for institute. Luckily, it’s French Mormons, so I was there right in time. We had a substitute (we normally have this older lady Marie-Vaughn. She is really nice, but really boring. AKA institute is normally 90 very long, cold minutes of me day dreaming wishing I was with a Utah religious teacher, like Brad Caldwell.) and he was so great! You could feel the spirit and I learned so much. It wasn’t just the teaching giving us flack for not knowing what city so and so was teaching in in the 34 chapter of Alma.
My French schedule for second semester:
Wednesday: French Literature, Sociology of Cultures
Thursday: Morphology and Syntax, Phonetics and Phonology
Friday: Sociology of Art, History of France

Day 150: Bye John!

28 janvier 2010 (Day 150)
Today was so warm… at least compared to yesterday. This morning when I woke up it was 8C degrees warmer than the high yesterday. I woke up a little earlier than normal so that I could help John take all his luggage to the tram. We waited around for the cleaning lady for a really long time in the hallway. It was getting closer and closer to when John really had to leave at the latest. We had an awkwardly quick goodbye since I had to go to class, but John made it back to Scotland already (to be leaving to Germany in a couple of weeks). My phonetics classes were good. My morphology syntax teacher is a stud, and I’m sure I’ll be telling you this every week, because he is. In phonetics we started learning the international phonetic alphabet and then he had us listen to an excerpt and write it phonetically. Talk about hard! We had just barely learned the alphabet in that same hour! After class I went and ran around the hippodrome (horse racing track) three times and had some leftover rice from last night’s party. I did oodles of things on my to do list today…I caught up on my journaling, made a delicious omelet with cheese & tomatoes, and I successfully gave away the rest of the leftover rice. In the midst of my journaling I started going through my classical music. I have always thought that I hear the same song over, and indeed, it is true. I had several duplicates so I cleared them out and I now know my classical composers on a first name basis, which is enjoyable. A lot of them have the same (or close) first name. So I did waste some unnecessary time, but now my music is one step closer to being completely organized.

Day 149: Goodbye Party

27 janvier 2010 (Day 149)
Today was a brain boggling day. I had to go to French literature (which I have not been looking forward to). Lo and behold, my angst for the class was justified. The teacher of the 2 hour class is very difficult to hear and was blabbering on, mentioning at least 20 different names and the 1.5 hour class (which is more the “application” or lab class, if you will) talked about Marcel Proust in a very dull voice for the whole time. We are to read one of Proust’s books (Du cote de chez Swann, or Swann’s Way from In Search of Lost Time, his 7 volume work) and analyze the text, etc. The professor told us that the book isn’t interesting like the Count of Monte Cristo, that it will be difficult, and boring. He then proceeded to tell us a little about the book and Proust. The three most frequently used words were: homosexual (by far ranking as the number 1 used word of the lecture), love, and jealousy. Needless to say, I am really excited (not) to be studying about a homosexual’s in depth autobiography/novel.
Happily, my sociology of cultures class rocks. The teacher is this nice older gentleman with white hair. Once he found out we (Hannah and I) were American, (or more appropriately united statesman) he gleefully told us about every sociologist that was American and made fun of the French for us. Today we talked about what is “culture.” I love my sociology classes. They are so fascinating. If I wasn’t studying what I am, I think I should like to study sociology (and archeology and psychology). I don’t know what I would do with it, but it is sure that if I studying something in the French language (aka came to a university in France) I would study sociology.
After a depressingly dreadful time at the TD for French Lit (the lab class) where I found out I had to read this homosexual jealous love book (and therefore buy it) I went into centre-ville with a headache so I went and got some couquettes (I know, shame on me, I already had my pastry for the week). They were scrumptious. I went to a couple of the used book stores looking for Proust but I didn’t find any of his books so I went to FNAC (think Barnes and Noble on steroids) and bought a copy for myself and Hannah.
I did some yoga to finish my chillaxing time and then went to make dinner. My neighbor (who has a terribly hard name to say and even harder to remember) was cooking dinner for John’s (the Scotsman) farewell party. I pitched in my rice (we made a sort of fried rice: ham, peas, egg, onions). This was around 7pm. Around 8:30 since no one had seen John we went knocking on his door to surprise him. He wasn’t there so I called him. Apparently, no one had told him and he was out at a bar with a friend. He came back so that we could celebrate. During this time a lot of the Asians (around 5) were cooking French fries and turkey nuggets. They gave us some (we were all starving waiting for John), which I enjoyed thoroughly because I haven’t had fries in quite some time (and well, I’ve never had a turkey nugget).
John came and we ate the fried rice and had a lot left over. We also made crepes. They were also apparently spiked with rum for flavor, but only a little bit (or so I am told). Who would have thought of putting rum in crepe batter for flavor? Regardless, crepes with Nutella and whipped topping are delicious. It was especially funny cooking them because one of the Asian girls wanted to learn how so the Frenchies taught her and her boyfriend filmed, which included the epic crepe flipping. We stayed in the kitchen until we got kicked out (around 11pm I think), and then the talking got moved to the hallway. I said goodnight as I had to wake up for class and to help John take all his stuff to leave on a jet plane.