The rest of the afternoon I spent vegging out in front of the computer, which I'm falling into a terrible habit of doing. I really need to get outside and do things instead. I'll make a mental note, promise. Anyways, I later got a phone call from Ben inviting me to go with him and his parents to see Amandine's latest show. Of course, I took the opportunity to see the family and accepted the invitation. He came and picked me up around 5 and we met back up with his parents at the house where we set off with the AB to go to the theater. We got there just in time for the first part of the show. Part One was with all younger kids, up until age 14. The started it off with a sort of "contemporary" dance number, but to be honest, I'm not even sure what it was. I will say no more, because if I continue it's only going to get mean. After two dance numbers, there was a sort of series of short theater scenes. Again, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what was going on. There was a lot of miming and people pretending to be objects. And a boy who played the clarinet in between the scenes. That I liked. He played well. Anyways, after the theater there was another sort of dance number with chairs. That was, again, kind of a fail. But I digress...
There was then a nice long break for everyone to go eat dinner. You had the option to buy a ticket to eat there or go out to find a restaurant. We went out into the town and found a cute little Italian place where we ate outside. I got a pizza that had shrimp and mushrooms on it. You know, I never liked mushrooms in the States. Actually, I very much hated them. I eat them all the time now. Mushrooms and tomatoes... Strange. Anyways, it was delicious, and yes, I ate the whole thing. I remember when I first got here and I saw a girl eat a whole pizza and I was amazed and disgusted at the same time... I may have written about that actually (it was in Bruges). Regardless, I am now one of those girls and it's taking a toll on my waistline, that's for sure. Anyway, after a very nice dinner of good food and great conversation with my amazing host family, we got back in the car and went back to the theater for the second part of the show.
The second part was adults. This time it started off with one lone man on the stage and a woman playing the piano. A very simple song, but I liked it. I thought it held a lot of emotion. And the man danced. A sort of contemporary interpretive dance. It was interesting. I can't say I loved it, but I didn't hate it. It was interesting. And I wonder if it was choreographed or he improved it. I have no idea. Anyways, afterwards, there was a little theater scene with a whole bunch of ladies and one male bartender. The premise was basically that it was a bar that was having a special soirée, "Groovy Sexy Flashy Lady". And all the different types of women that came. It was long. And odd. And I did zone out a couple times. But it was obviously a good group and there was a nice energy about them. And you could tell that they were proud of what they did, so I say good for them.
We had drink tickets for after the show and we went to get an orange juice, but after one sip we realized that it was not regular orange juice (amaretto apparently?) and I opted out. We left soon after to go back to the house. When it was all said and done I ended up staying the night at my second house, which involved the newest episode of "The Big Bang Theory" which was actually the season finale which left SO much hanging! I can't wait for the next season. Yes, I'm a geek, and yes, I'm proud of it. It also involved me wanting to reach into my own ears and rip out all the innards because my allergies are driving me NUTS.
Anyways, I had to get up nice and early this morning to get back to my regular house to go to the communion mass for Philippine. Remember, we had her party last weekend? We all got ready and I put a bow in Philippine's hair and she put on her white robe and we were off. Communions here are different from in the States. Here, you don't have a beautiful white mini-bridal gown for your communion. All the girls wear the same type of robe over their clothing tied with a white cord and a sort of scarf draped around their neck. It almost resembles what the priest wears. The boys had something very similar, but without pleats and with a hood. They all processed in carrying candles and sat in the middle of the church. The mass lasted about two hours and involved every kid going up to the alter and giving a profession of faith which they wrote themselves. Some of them were truly beautiful, and Philippine's made her mommy cry! It really did me a lot of good to go to another mass. Eventually I will write a nice long description witness blog about my spirituality. For now, all you guys need to know is that I love God and Jesus and I truly believe that He is getting me through this exchange, through the good and bad.
Right after the communion, I got to play photographer and take pictures of Philippine with all the different family members that were there, including Karine. I caught up a little with her and then we went home. And then it was lunch time. Which I normally look forward to. But this was something else...
Remember raquelettes (sp?)? Ok well it was kind of like that. Except instead of a plate of cheese and lunch meat type meat being passed around, it was a platter of raw meat. Literally, completely raw disgusting meat. Ok, not disgusting. The meat was perfectly fine. But raw! Like, entirely 100% just butchered the animal raw! And we didn't put it right on the hot plates on the table. Oh no, we piled that raw meat right onto our dishes, up next to our salad and fries. And some of that raw meat, yes, was chicken. Which means there was a nice pool of salmonella just hanging around on my plate. Of course, me being me, I paid A LOT of attention to this and put my meat on the edge of my plate and kept my other food nice and far from it and was very careful not to let my cooked from touch any of the juices from the raw. Nobody else took these precautions. They just let their fries get covered in raw chicken juice. Blech. And then you know, you use the same fork that you eat with to stab your raw chicken and put it on the hot plate. And then you use that fork to turn your raw chicken and then finally you eat your cooked chicken with the fork that has the raw chicken juices on it. Again, I was overly cautious and wiped the fork off with my napkin before using it. Call me what you will, but I do not suffer from salmonella. I was also paranoid about knowing whether or not my meat was actually cooked or not, and I tended to let it overcook a lot. But again, I would rather eat overcooked than undercooked and have salmonella. For dessert we had ice cream with chocolate sauce. i.e. The reason I'm getting fat.
I spent the afternoon, again, vegging out. And sleeping a little since I didn't sleep enough last night. We didn't eat dinner today, but I went downstairs and made a PB&J. I do love PB&J. But it's shower time and then bed time for me. À demain !
After
Glad you got to Mass! :()
ReplyDelete