A Little Eccentric

Seeing the Moon from Paris

Bonjour!
My faith in French people has been restored. After the rough week, I managed to cap it off in a good way. Tchykita and I went to Angers for the weekend. It’s another town in the Loire Valley about an hour away by train. She has a host family who lives there from when she was here last summer. We were greeted by a ton of snow both in Tours and Angers. I was excited because Tchykita has said many times that they are the sweetest people she has ever met and I thought that was an exaggeration until I met them.
We were greeted by Agnes (pronounced “ann-yes”) the mother of the family at the train station. She drove us to the house, which is one of the best-decorated houses I’ve ever seen. She even has her own boutique with all kinds of cool interior decorative stuff that she makes mostly herself.

I also met her sons Thomas and Eliot right off the bat. They also have another boy, Oscar, who didn’t get there until Sunday. The father, Philippe, is about the nicest guy I’ve ever met. He speaks slowly and makes sure I understand everything. I felt bad because Thomas tried to do the “kiss-kiss” thing right when I got there and I didn’t notice and accidentally blew him off. After having Tchykita though, they are used to having Americans who mess up cultural things. Everyone made a big deal of us being there. I had to “kiss-kiss” everyone and it is so weird. No one speaks English, and it was a little hard to understand all the conversation.
The best part was the food. Agnes was THE BEST cook I have ever encountered. She could just whip out amazing, huge meals from scratch.
Right when we got there she served as a wonderful lunch. We had tomatoes, vinagriette and mozzarella for a starter with quiche lorraine and salad and an assiette du fromage (plate with a bunch of different cheeses), coffee and chocolates. This is an average light French meal. All of it was hand-made and AMAZING. Dinner that night was just as incredible. Philippe also explained the law the students are striking over, etc. and the meal lasted for hours. It was seeing the French way of life from the inside out.
The next day was amazing. It was the littlest boy’s birthday and the whole family came over. There were 14 people there altogether I think. It had the feel of Thanksgiving to it with all the food and people and family, but it was just an average weekend for them. It was also Oscar's birthday so we all got to sing happy birthday to him in French. The family was so nice and friendly. There was a little girl, Colleen, who reminded me of my little cousin Justine and she kept trying to sneak up and tickle me. There was also a baby who wouldn’t quit staring at me. I think it was because everyone there had dark hair, pale skin and brown eyes, and I stuck out like a sore thumb with my red hair and green eyes.

The dinner though, was beyond amazing. It was many, many courses. We had aperitifs (like appetizers) of champagne and olives, fresh-baked bread with foie gras, white wine, cuts of rare steak (the first good beef I’ve had since I got here) some type of potato dish with a sauce that was beyond words, red wine, an assiette du fromage, apple tarte and chocolate cake with coffee.



And they eat like this all the time! After dinner and after I had kisses everyone there about 50 times, Agnes drove us to the train station and saw us off. Both of us wanted very badly to stay, but it we made plans to come back soon. It was very good for me to remember why I wanted to come here in the first place. I got to live in France, in a French house and eat sleep, talk and live just like them.

posted by Molly Jo @ 3:55 AM