: : Chez Mammie [[ Chez nous ]] Chez Didier : :

Okay, so I've decided to be a good little grand-daughter and put my poor grandparents out of their misery :).

So, obviously I've skipped a few days (going to make up for that :D, promise) - yes, well this has been due to being rather busy...

I'll start with Tuesday.

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: : Tuesday : :

The morning moved pretty quickly - soon after eating a late breakfast it was time for lunch, that type of thing...

After lunch Marine and I went upstairs where I began creating a photobook using Snapfish for my first month in France. That took up most of my time...After a while, Marine came into my room with her laptop and helped me choose the photos to upload.

At 4.00pm, my host mum made us each a "banane au chocolat" - which is a banana, split down the middle and filled with dark chocolate before being baked in the oven for about 5-10 minutes. I wasn't really hungry, but Marine was starving, so we proceeded to sneak the biscuits that Tom brought over the night before, some left over "Petit Dejeuner" biscuits and the massive tub of Nutella...Which Marine ate with a spoon, haha.

At about 5pm we packed our bags ready to go to my host-mum's mum's house, where Marine and I were going to spend the night. Once we were ready to go and in the car, Marine and I remembered about all the food we had snuck up to my room and that her dad would be going in there to workout, and that it was certain he would spot the treats that were in clear view on my desk...Oops?

When we arrived Chez Mammie (number two, haha), we had to search for a carpark for a while but Marine and Aurore convinced my host-mum to be "creative" with her parking; however when we told Mammie about this we learned that it's likely for our car to be towed because the area is always being checked. This scared my host-mum a bit, and she left to move the car, despite Mammie insisting that it would be fine.

A while after arrival, we were joined by two other people to eat cheese, crackers, chips, olives etc. After about approximately an hour, Aurore and my host-mum had to leave because my host-dad called saying that dinner was ready. The other two people left soon after.

One is was just Marine, Mammie and I, we sat down at the small table in the kitchen for dinner. We ate quiche (again, who ever said that the French ate small portions???) and this salad of tiny circular leaves with a vinegarette dressing.

After finally convincing her that one slice of quiche was enough, and no, we didn't want any cheese, Mammie brought out the dessert. Wow, a lot of dessert. Which she had spent all day preparing. We each had a large bowl of "creme au chocolat" (which is like chocolate custard) accompanied by a thick slice of yoghurt cake.

After dinner, I think the chocolate got to Marine and I and we both went a little crazy - pictures as proof.



Once we were dressed in our pjs, we went and watched, "World's Strictest Parents" in French - two episodes, before going to bed.

Didn't really sleep all too well that night. I think it might have been my sugar intake :S. I was still awake in the early morning when Marine started talking - at first I responded, before realising that she was sleep-talking. The talking turned into screaming and she woke from a nightmare. We ended up sleeping with one arm around eachother.

Marine woke early the next morning to call Henry on her mobile phone...Not a good idea. Seven euros for four minutes.

Anyway, Marine got up afterwards and went and ate a breakfast of brioche and left over yoghurt cake while I slept for ten more minutes. I joined Marine in the kitchen while Mammie took a shower and ate a slice of brioche with tea and berry jam.

After we had finished eating, both Marine and I went up to the bathroom with our clothes to brush our teeth and decide who would shower first. It was rather funny because Mammie seemed to think that we were going to shower together. I even said to Marine that it would be funny if she went downstairs and Mammie commented on how quick her shower was. And sure enough, that's what happened, haha.

While I was in the shower, Marine's cousin and an ex-postmas dropped by - I went downstairs after to say hello before proceding to our bedroom and photographing the necklace that Marine gave me upon my arrival here in France.




With "aurevoir"s said to the postman and the cousin, Marine and I prepared our bags, grabbed the rubbish, dumped it in the large bins and hopped into Mammie's car. At 12:06pm we arrived home where we would soon be joined by Leila, Bruno and their little son. We ate the snacks at about 1pm - we then went upstairs where I continued with my creation on Snapfish. Aurore and Sammy (little boy) played rather loudly in my bedroom, with Sammy throwing balls at me...rather chaotic. He also wouldn't stop poking me, which wasn't nice, especially with me not having had much sleep the night before.

For lunch we ate duck, with a white wine cream sauce, two different types of mushrooms (picked by my host-dad in the forest last September and last April) and potatos...Possibly the best meal I've had here :D.

For dessert it was "Tarte aux pommes" which was really nice :). We all finished eating at around 4.30pm with Bruno, Leila and their son leaving at 5.30pm.

For dinner that night it was a bit of "just help yourself if you're hungry". When Marine and I went down to get some food, my host-mum remembered the pack of macaroons she had bought me, so I took them up to my room with the platter of food that Marine and I had prepared. We ate baguette with herb and garlic cheese and crab, and some fruit while we watched a French movie on my bed.

At the end of the movie, Marine's laptop ran out of battery and I went to the toilet and after all that, we didn't end up watching the very end of the movie, but we got the gist of how it ended anyway.

Afterwards Marine was stressing about the phone call she would receive from Henry the next morning, so I taught her a few Aussi/NZ slang words and we went from there, haha, that was good fun and wore off the choatic-ness of earlier on.

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Thursday morning, Marine and I woke and ate breakfast together. She was expecting the call at 9:30am. She was stressing about who would answer the phone. As it turned out, her parents ate at the same time as us - which was a good sign. It meant that while we were eating, the office was empty. But 9.30am came and went (although Henry had a good reason - between him and I...a surprise for Marine) - so we made our way upstairs and signed onto MSN - and yes, Henry was online. So we talked to him. Turns out he was stressing about what to say if my host-dad picked up, haha - fair enough. We decided on Aurore answering the phone. So Marine and I sent her downstairs to the bathroom (next to the office) where she would start singing to let us know when to give Henry the sign to dial.

Sure enough, about 30 seconds later we heard Aurore call, "Becky! Marine!". We made our way downstairs to the office, where we spent an hour talking to Henry.

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Afterwards, Marine and I showered and got ready before eating a lunch of spaghetti with beef and tomato sauce (no, not the bottled type :P). The meat was really really nice - never experienced meat "melting in your mouth" until yesterday. After I was finished...I was informed that it was cow tongue and that it was the most tender cut of meat. Surprisingly, I wasn't at all bothered by this :).

After lunch we made our way into the city of Riems, where we visited a cathedral (very very beautiful!)and shopped (famous for its boutiques). Marine and I weren't all that successful with our shopping...We ended up spending the little time we had at a store called "Mim", which is also in Soissons...hehe. I bought a casual black dress and a brown cardigen, and Marine bought a plaid shirt and a star necklace (haha, the "rock star" look we decided to buy for her, haha).

When we were heading back to the cathedral to where we were meeting her parents, Marine and I put on massive sunnies and walked like gorillas back to the cathedral, haha, got a few weird looks.

We then took pictures of our surrounds and waited for everyone.



On the way back to the car, we stopped at a giant champagne bottle where my host-dad took pictures of Marine and I.

Once in the car, we were all rather hungry, so my host-mum took out the "Madelines" (orange flavoured, shell shaped cakes) that she had prepared earlier. After eating one, I fell asleep, and after her second, Marine too.

We managed to sleep all the way back home (45mins) before getting ready to go to Didier's for dinner. When Tom hadn't arrived at Didier's, Marine and I were sent in search for him at his grandmother's house with Oceane and Aurore tagging along too. The house and gate was locked so we ended up standing outside yelling, "Too-ooom! Madame Barbi-eeeer!". But there was no reply, so we walked past the two houses, to Didier's. It turns out that his grandparents made him go to bed at 7:30pm...nothing out of the ordinary, apparently.



Anyway, after eating a rediculous amount of appetisers, we were faced with SEVEN more courses...why didn't anyone stop me eating those nuts?

Course 2: Salad with eggs
Course 3: Pork in white wine sauce with sauteed onions, garlic and bacon, served with buttered green-beans and potatoes (...yes, I thought this was the LAST course)
Course 4: Pork, cheese and onions baked in a loaf of pastry (I only made it to this course...:S...but tasted the rest)
Course 5: Cheese and baguette
Course 6: Red fruit salad (really nice!)
Course 7: Madelines (made by my host mum)
Course 8: Bread and butter pudding (with apple - also made by my host-mum - again, really nice :D)

Let's just say that after that, Marine and I were both pregnant, with food babies. Triplets. Maybe even quadriplets.

After the pork, cheese, onion pastry, when Didier announced that there was more, I picked up my toothpick and began mock-stabbing my heart...That made my host-mum laugh to the verge of tears, haha. And then I grabbed Didier's back-scratcher (hehe, it had a mini-hand) and started brushing Marine's hair with it...haha, judging by her sounds of approval, she enjoyed that, haha. Marine's mum then said, "Ooooh! Oh! Henry!"...haha, yes, laughed myself stupid at that.

After dinner, Didier then went around spraying whipped cream into everyone's mouths...in fear of bursting I declined, haha, didn't stop him trying though :S.

For the majority of the rest of the night I photographed Marine with her necklace...playing with the focus (or what was meant to be a focus, haha).



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This morning I woke up...had breakfast, and showered before going downstairs to meet a 68 year old women who my host-mum had told me about the night before. She was there for an English lesson with my host-mum and was apparently rather posh...

She wanted to hear my accent...I had a bit of trouble finding words to say in English for her, so I ended up saying, "France is very beautiful and I enjoy going to the centre of Soissons".

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After a lunch of soup and the left over duck, mushrooms and sauce served with the left over pasta (yummmm), Marine and I went upstairs, played Cafeworld together and now she's at her driving lesson : ).

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OH! And I had a language breakthrough Wednesday night!

After the movie, Marine and I went downstairs to brush our teeth and get ready for bed. While we were teeth-brushing, I asked her why, in French, some phrases take 'ne' without the 'pas' (the two together wrap around a verb to form a negative) - and no, communication with a mouthful of toothpaste and a toothbrush wasn't the breakthrough :P haha, although I was rather amazing that I had come from not understanding someone speaking one word at a time, to rattling away while brushing my teeth.

Anyway, Marine, growing up with the language, had no idea why, so we went to consult her mum. For about five minutes we were standing there, with my host-parents sitting on the couch with the tv in the background discussing why it was. It was when I shouted out, "OH! The 'ne' is like 'any' for 'ANYthing' or 'ANYone' in english and it's the absence of that thing" (only in French). And my host mum shouted out, "yes! Yes that's it!" and we all let out a sigh of...not really sure what it was...a release of tension, I guess. For me that seemed like such a breakthrough. It gave me the "happy-dance urge" and that smile that doesn't go away, hehe. Bizarre, really. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Probably like in sport, or maths when you work really hard at getting a new Personal Best or working out that one question that makes no sense, and suddenly, it's there and you've done it. The same feeling, only magnified, that I had when I came third for the Make Your Mark competetion. And it's so unexpected, too :). Hm, good times, good times :D.