Late. Again. *Sigh*
So this another incredibley delayed entry...
I haven't got an excuse this time, I'm just really lazy/easily distracted.
Very sorry about that, so here's a nice little update on my Christmas in France, with updates on New Years and the Soldes coming soon!
Turns out that Christmas tradition in France involves starving yourselves before Christmas day. Seriously, I was on a diet of soup and cucumber cubes for about a week! Which isn't actually as bad as it sounds since I rather like the two.
Christmas Eve was really nice, and I ate escargot for the first time! It wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting - we ate in with a delicious sauce in a bowl made out of fluffy pastry which went a long way to making the food palatable. But I'm still not all that into escargot, because as much as I liked the sauce and pastry, their taste would always fade away before I'd finished the actual snail, and then all I could thing was 'Ohmygod I'm eating a slimy snail! EWWWWWWW!!! So I won't be learning how to prepare snails for when I come home to NZ.
We actually ended up opening presents on Christmas Eve as well, after dinner, because there's hours of difference between the time that people wake up, and it was just simpler to open them right then. Present from my host-family was this gorgeous necklace (apparently completely original too), which is all black and asymmetrical and makes me feel very posh when I wear it lol. Presents from back home was a t-shirt with a glittery NZ on it (very nice top, but the glitter sheds like a bitch lol), a pair of paua shell earrings (very pretty!) and Grandy got my a gorgeous pair of Pounamu earrings, which was so amazing on top of everything else she's done for me!
P.S. Mummy and Daddy and Katie and Libbie and Ellie and Simon and Nicole don't think I don't appreciate your presents equally, it's just she's my Grandy!
I think I stretched my stomach to at least five times its normal size on Christmas. Breakfast was normal - just some cereal - but lunch and dinner were held at my host-dad's sisters house, which was cool because they have a really nice and large house haha. Still was a bit cramped, because my host-dad's brother was there as well, plus everyone's kids and significant others, plus my host-dad's mother... It was controlled Chaos basically lol. I think lunch alone was around, oh let's see... five or six courses? It's not quite as impressive when I mention that cheese was actually one of the courses, but still it was a massive amount to eat for both lunch and dinner! And en plus, we took so long eating dinner that we finished about 15 minutes before midnight - bloody impressive I'd say!
Boxing day was a normal day encore, mais only because it was a rest day before taking the four hour drive to go and see my host-mum's family at her parents house. This was even more cramped because my host-mum has three sisters, with their kids and whatnot. Oh but I made friends with the little 5 and 3 year old nieces! So very cute and I couldn't help but be like "Woah, they're so smart, look how fluent at french they are!" haha. However the oldest kid (25 years old) freaked me out honestly. Maybe he was really a nice guy, but everything about his appearence and they way he talked screamed PAEDOPHILE!!!! to me, so I tried to avoid him a bit. I might not be weird with my dislike of him, since Pauline (host-sis) thinks that he's really creepy too.
The food was really nice, but there was so much that I'll only go through the high-lights of the meal/s. Firstly, I learned that there is absolutely no love lost between me and fois gras. It's made from duck gizzards and you eat it on bread, but I just really couldn't stand it. So I snuck it onto Quentin's plate instead (host-brother) lol. The most interesting food came around on our second to last day there, when we took a trip down to the boucherie (butchery). This is more difficult than it sounds since we were walking in minus 5 degree weather lol. Anyway, we ended up buying two of these round, hollowed out bread things. In fait, they make a vaguely mushroom shaped loaf of bread, cut of the top to use as a lid, cut out the bready centre and then use it to make heaps of little sandwhiches, which have salmon or fromage ou eggs inside.
My god, and the chocolate cake they bought! Shared amongst 20 people and everyone still ended up taking a portion home afterwards lol. It was a little too chocolately for me though (yes, I never thought I'd say that either), so concentrated on the ice-cream instead :D
We also bought this absolutely massive loaf of meat. I wall it a loaf of meat because, obviously, it was shaped like a loaf of bread. It was really nice viande too, kinda reminded me of the sausages we have in NZ, which was good because they don't have those kind of sausages here.
Speaking of NZ, I've made it sound like I almost didn't give it a second thought during the whole Christmas period. Honestly, for a while I didn't since I was very determined (after some encouraging words from Mum and Dad) too make the absolute most of my first foreign Christmas. It was only when we went to see Catherine's (host-mum) family that I got emotional. It only became upsetting because I was looking at how easily everyone was talking to each other beause they were family, and it reminded me that I didn't have those sort of connections here yet. Which made me homesick, so I quietly slipped away for some alone time (i.e. had a cry) and managed to clean myself up a bit when Pauline came over with an offering of coca cola. I really appreciate that girl :D
So yup, that was my Christmas, and I'll edit this post/write another one when I'm far more awake than what I am now lol.
I haven't got an excuse this time, I'm just really lazy/easily distracted.
Very sorry about that, so here's a nice little update on my Christmas in France, with updates on New Years and the Soldes coming soon!
Turns out that Christmas tradition in France involves starving yourselves before Christmas day. Seriously, I was on a diet of soup and cucumber cubes for about a week! Which isn't actually as bad as it sounds since I rather like the two.
Christmas Eve was really nice, and I ate escargot for the first time! It wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting - we ate in with a delicious sauce in a bowl made out of fluffy pastry which went a long way to making the food palatable. But I'm still not all that into escargot, because as much as I liked the sauce and pastry, their taste would always fade away before I'd finished the actual snail, and then all I could thing was 'Ohmygod I'm eating a slimy snail! EWWWWWWW!!! So I won't be learning how to prepare snails for when I come home to NZ.
We actually ended up opening presents on Christmas Eve as well, after dinner, because there's hours of difference between the time that people wake up, and it was just simpler to open them right then. Present from my host-family was this gorgeous necklace (apparently completely original too), which is all black and asymmetrical and makes me feel very posh when I wear it lol. Presents from back home was a t-shirt with a glittery NZ on it (very nice top, but the glitter sheds like a bitch lol), a pair of paua shell earrings (very pretty!) and Grandy got my a gorgeous pair of Pounamu earrings, which was so amazing on top of everything else she's done for me!
P.S. Mummy and Daddy and Katie and Libbie and Ellie and Simon and Nicole don't think I don't appreciate your presents equally, it's just she's my Grandy!
I think I stretched my stomach to at least five times its normal size on Christmas. Breakfast was normal - just some cereal - but lunch and dinner were held at my host-dad's sisters house, which was cool because they have a really nice and large house haha. Still was a bit cramped, because my host-dad's brother was there as well, plus everyone's kids and significant others, plus my host-dad's mother... It was controlled Chaos basically lol. I think lunch alone was around, oh let's see... five or six courses? It's not quite as impressive when I mention that cheese was actually one of the courses, but still it was a massive amount to eat for both lunch and dinner! And en plus, we took so long eating dinner that we finished about 15 minutes before midnight - bloody impressive I'd say!
Boxing day was a normal day encore, mais only because it was a rest day before taking the four hour drive to go and see my host-mum's family at her parents house. This was even more cramped because my host-mum has three sisters, with their kids and whatnot. Oh but I made friends with the little 5 and 3 year old nieces! So very cute and I couldn't help but be like "Woah, they're so smart, look how fluent at french they are!" haha. However the oldest kid (25 years old) freaked me out honestly. Maybe he was really a nice guy, but everything about his appearence and they way he talked screamed PAEDOPHILE!!!! to me, so I tried to avoid him a bit. I might not be weird with my dislike of him, since Pauline (host-sis) thinks that he's really creepy too.
The food was really nice, but there was so much that I'll only go through the high-lights of the meal/s. Firstly, I learned that there is absolutely no love lost between me and fois gras. It's made from duck gizzards and you eat it on bread, but I just really couldn't stand it. So I snuck it onto Quentin's plate instead (host-brother) lol. The most interesting food came around on our second to last day there, when we took a trip down to the boucherie (butchery). This is more difficult than it sounds since we were walking in minus 5 degree weather lol. Anyway, we ended up buying two of these round, hollowed out bread things. In fait, they make a vaguely mushroom shaped loaf of bread, cut of the top to use as a lid, cut out the bready centre and then use it to make heaps of little sandwhiches, which have salmon or fromage ou eggs inside.
My god, and the chocolate cake they bought! Shared amongst 20 people and everyone still ended up taking a portion home afterwards lol. It was a little too chocolately for me though (yes, I never thought I'd say that either), so concentrated on the ice-cream instead :D
We also bought this absolutely massive loaf of meat. I wall it a loaf of meat because, obviously, it was shaped like a loaf of bread. It was really nice viande too, kinda reminded me of the sausages we have in NZ, which was good because they don't have those kind of sausages here.
Speaking of NZ, I've made it sound like I almost didn't give it a second thought during the whole Christmas period. Honestly, for a while I didn't since I was very determined (after some encouraging words from Mum and Dad) too make the absolute most of my first foreign Christmas. It was only when we went to see Catherine's (host-mum) family that I got emotional. It only became upsetting because I was looking at how easily everyone was talking to each other beause they were family, and it reminded me that I didn't have those sort of connections here yet. Which made me homesick, so I quietly slipped away for some alone time (i.e. had a cry) and managed to clean myself up a bit when Pauline came over with an offering of coca cola. I really appreciate that girl :D
So yup, that was my Christmas, and I'll edit this post/write another one when I'm far more awake than what I am now lol.