Savonnières-en-Perthois

Well, I did it.  I survived what I expected to be a long, painful week, surrounded by children in the middle of the country with no escape in sight, and I had the time of my life.  Val and Nico brought me along to be the children's entertainment so that they could go golfing everyday for about 5 hours.  To me, this translates as you get paid to work 5 hours a day, but let's be real, you're trapped here with us, we can tell you what to do and when to do it whenever we want.  I expected to have to occupy the kids all day everyday and I dreaded it.  Turns out, I was right, I did have to occupy the kids all day everyday, but it wasn't so bad, and I actually enjoyed doing it.  This week gave me a chance to truly be a kid again and run around, roll in the grass, swing on the swings, create masterpieces out of some scrap wood and nails, and not have a care in the world.  It also didn't hurt that I had all my meals prepared for me and I got to sit out and enjoy the fresh air, warm sun, and work on my tan with book in hand...just an added bonus, you know!

The weekend started Wednesday afternoon when we boarded a train from Paris to Bar le Duc.  Grandpa and his girlfriend Annie met us at the train station to drive us back to his house.  Grandpa lives in a small small village called Savonnières-en-Perthois, which is in the region of Champagne.  The entire area is full of tiny (population 30) WWI villages scattered along one road that connects two "major" (population 3,000) towns.  All the buildings are ancient stone buildings, and in his town alone there was just 1 butchery and 1 bakery, not even a market or anything!  This just tells you how old and small the village really is.  When we pulled up to his house, just outside of the village a few meters, a big gate opened for us and we drove into the driveway of a spectacular, typical French style country house.  It was grand and beautiful, yet simple.  The kids were so excited to have me there, as was Grandpa, he and I have really bonded through all his visits to Paris, plus I was the first au pair that ever visited his house!  Immediately I was dragged out of the car and taken on a tour of "garden", aka backyard, by the kids.  What a dream this yard is.  What a dream my job would be if we had a yard like this in Paris.  We come around the house to see amazingly landscaped grass, flower beds, gardens, orchards, buildings, all surrounded by towering trees, for as far as we could see.  Then we ventured inside to see the 4 floors of pure French architecture and antiques.  Such grandeur everywhere I looked.  Incredible.  Before I knew it, we were sitting down for dinner in the grand formal dining room, windows and doors open, breeze blowing, eating a very traditional French meal.  Starting with a delicious salad, we moved on to raclette (melted cheese slices) with potatoes, 3 types of homemade pork sausages and hams (they have been raising a pig and had it slaughtered just for us, so we ate pork alllll week), and lastly, a meal very traditional in the country...head cheese.  *gag*.  It looked like a jello mold, but it was black with white and red chunks, so it looked more like molded vomit.  They urged my to try it, and I almost folded, until Nico made the comment that it was homemade, so they left the TEETH in it.  It was at this point that I proceeded to excuse myself from the table to regain my cool.  We finished the meal with typical French desserts: cheese and fruit.  For the cheese option, they decided to appall me once again by bringing out the strongest, stinkiest, most foul of all French cheeses, Maroilles.  Wherein they urged me to try the head cheese for an experience, with the Maroilles, they urged me to leave the room before they opened it, knowing that I (and my stomach/gag reflux) would not respond well.  They were right, even from 2 rooms over I found myself tearing up at the stench.  I was able to re-enter the room a bit later to join in the fruit course: delicious pears and strawberries, obviously I was quite content.  Soon after, it was bedtime for the kids, and I took it upon myself to call it bedtime for me as well.  I proceeded to my room at the unheard of hour of 9:15pm, where I nestled in with my new favorite book, Bright Shiny Morning...(READ IT, if you haven't yet, so great!!)

Thursday morning the family so graciously allowed me to sleep in, and when I emerged at 10:30 ready for the day, the kids were perfectly content playing together in the yard.  So, I grabbed my book, retreated to the sprawling lawn, and laid in the grass for 2 hours, where I worked on my tan and finished my book.  Then the kids asked me to play with them, so we had a somersault contest across the entire length of the backyard.  Those aren't so easy to do as an adult, after 2 flips my world was spinning upside down and I had to forfeit.  Because I'm a wimp, we decided to graduate up to cartwheels, which require a little less spin.  Teaching the kids how to do cartwheels was hilarious, and it inevitably ended up in just purposely falling to make each other laugh, but it was well worth the grass stained jeans.  Soon enough, it was lunch time, where Annie presented us with a delicious pork dish with a creamy white wine sauce and homemade fries, along with a tomato salad.  Immediately after lunch, Val and Nico left to go golfing and the kids ventured outside to play some more.  So Grandpa, Annie, and I sat and enjoyed some fruit for dessert, followed by coffee, a bit of chocolate, and a French lesson.  Annie speaks absolutely zero English, and Grandpa's English is a bit hard to understand, but with my knowledge of French and his knowledge of English, we are able to communicate sufficiently.  It was great talking to them and learning more about Annie, and of course hearing Grandpa's stories of their (very distant) family members who live in Alabama, which he insists on telling me every time I see him.  After cleaning up, I went out to play with the kids, where we proceeded to have a swinging competition (Alice won), a giant game of tag (no clue who won, but it definitely wasn't me), and bricolage.  Bricolage is their simple word for what would best be described as woodworking I suppose.  Spare wood, nails, and hammers and they were content for hours.  Because we were not only celebrating Easter, but also Grandpa and Annie's birthdays, the kids decided to make gifts for each of them.  My favorite was by Lucien, he took a piece of wood, hammered in nails in the shape of a star, and under it he wrote "Grandpa, you shine to me like the stars shine to the sky", what a little Shakespeare.  For dinner this night we decided to move outside, as the weather was perfect all week.  We had a big BBQ of all the remaining pork-ribs, chops, loins, etc, along with the leftover fries, and tomatoes.  We toasted with Champagne to Grandpa and Annie's birthdays, and yes, the champagne was unlike anything I've ever tasted, so delicious!!  We finished the meal by singing Happy Birthday in both French and English and digging into a delicious birthday cake!  The kids were off to bed soon after, as was I at about 10pm, where I started my new book, Something Borrowed, also quite good!!

Friday.  Oh Friday.  What an interesting day.  I was awakened quite early by the kids jumping on my and shouting "we're going swimmin, we're going swimming!"...ummm...what?  It's 9am, there's no pool in sight, and it's been a longggg winter, not sure if I'm ready for this.  Sure enough, we drove 20 minutes to a bigger town with a huge indoor pool, hot tub, water slide etc.  As much as I was dreading the whole thing, I soon realized I had a bigger problem...speedos.  It is BEYOND ME why speedos are so popular in Europe, but this pool in particular has even gone to the lengths to ban board shorts.  I mean, come on, who does that?!  Needless to say, I kept my head up, high up, all day.  We made it home from the pool just in time for lunch, where we sat outside again in the gorgeous sun.  Today Annie had prepared an entire 2.5 kilo (5.5 lb) salmon with a creamy lemon sauce and rice.  Possibly my favorite meal to date, it was incredible.  After lunch Val demanded that the kids go play and leave the adults (and moi) alone to have coffee and chat.  It was nice to be included in with the adults, even if the conversation left me cross eyed.  However, I did quite a good job of holding my own in the conversations all week.  Even though I couldn't contribute much to the conversations, I was able to almost completely follow along, and I even picked up on the jokes before the laughing commenced!!  After lunch, the kids were playing so well on their own that I was able to just lounge on the grass and read again for a while, before they demanded my attention for more bricolage a bit later.  At this point, due to the early swim and the sun, the kids were cranky, so siesta time it was!  Val and Nico retreated outdoors to play Rummikub, the kids remained comatose in front of a movie, and I ventured to the kitchen to prepare mom's famous sour cream coffee cake (or in this case, creme fraiche coffee cake).  I also hard boiled some eggs and prepared the dyes for us to dye eggs later that day.  When it came time, the kids joined me for snack and egg dying, Val retreated to the office to get some work done, and Nico ventured outdoors to mow the lawn on the big tractor (funniest thing ever, seeing him on that tractor).  Afterward, Lucien went upstairs to read and Alice skipped happily around the perimeter of the entire yard, singing to herself, for a whole hour, while Grandpa and I sat on the bench out back to commence the reading.  Later that night, we all partook in some delicious fondue for dinner outside, along with tomato salad, pasta, and a delicious homemade flan.  Then, for a record third night in a row, I was in bed by 10pm and asleep by 11:30.

Saturday morning Nico and Val headed to the golf course bright and early, so I was awakened at 9am with Alice's wet finger in my ear...pretty sure Ian taught them that little trick!  We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of fruit, coffee cake, and coffee, along with the typical baguette and butter/jam.  Because Nico and Val took the car, Grandpa had no way of getting into town to pick up the daily bread order before they closed at noon.  So, the kids and I set off down the country road on foot to retrieve the baguette.  It was a great little walk, where I taught them about ants, roley poley's, and earthworms, and they taught me, more like showed me, how deathly afraid they are of all of the above...poor city kids.  When we got back to Grandpa's, we decided it was hot enough that a water fight was in order.  They put on their bathing suits, and when they arrived outside I immediately power-hosed them down, thus waging a war...I, of course, won, but they had fun nonetheless.  We went in for a quick bath after this, just in time for Val and Nico to arrive home and prepare lunch.  We ate the leftover salmon, lemon cream, and rice, all cold, all delcious still, and finished off most of the desserts with our coffee, all bad.  After lunch, the kids and I swung on the swings, did some more cartwheels, picked flowers to play "he loves me, he loves me not", only the French version is "he loves me, he hates me", how sad!  We whipped out a game of Uno, and then a game of "snap!" and next thing we knew, it was time for the Easter egg hunt!  Val, Nico, and Grandpa had hidden all of our eggs throughout the entire backyard, along with some chocolate bunnies.  We found the eggs, then let the kids hide them for the adults, and soon enough, it was time for me to leave.  Val and Nico had agreed to let me come back to Paris a couple days early because I had plans with friends for Easter Sunday, so they drove me to the train station, we said our goodbyes, and I was riding first class non-stop to Paris through the beautiful Champagne countryside.  I arrived home at 7pm, only to change and head out again to meet up with Jaimie and her boyfriend and Ally, her boyfriend, and her aunt, uncle, and cousins for fondue!!  We had a fun, delicious meal, then made our way canal-side to share a bottle of wine, then met up with a friend to discover a new bar.  It was a fabulous end to a great week!

My Easter turned out very different than what was planned.  I ended up staying home, doing laundry, cleaning, unpacking, skyping with friends and family, and overall just relaxing.  Then I met up with Al and her family for a very un-traditional Easter dinner...pizza!  While it was different than usual, and much different than expected, it was a nice, low-key Easter, and at least I got to spend it with some sort of family, even if it wasn't my own!  Ally, Jaimie, and I are practically like sisters now, so her family adopted us for the weekend, and vice-versa.  Needless to say, it was a wonderful, relaxing vacation for all and I'm so thankful I had the opportunity to go!

In other news, Jaimie and I just booked a trip back to Amsterdam at the end of May to visit friends and to attend a big music festival, so excited!  Also in the works is a trip to Portugal for Amanda's birthday sometime in May, early June!  I can't believe April is almost over and I only have 3 months left in Paris!!  Better make the most of it ;)

Grandpa's gorgeous house

Alice on the swings

Grass for miles

Karate Kid

Grandpa, Alice, Annie, and Lucien after singing Happy Birthday!

Our beautiful colored eggs

Walking into town for bread

Cheeseballs.

Lucien, the epitome of a little French boy...capris and a baguette under his arm.

So beautiful!

Water fight!

They decided to bathe IN their swimsuits

Easter egg hunt!

Val, me, and les enfants

Back in Paris at fondue with Jaim and Al

Party of 10 seated at a table for 6. Not pleasant.

Ally and Jonny (visiting from Canada!)

Me, Jaimie, and Ally at the canal :)

Next post: Gretchen and Devyn's visit, Alexi Murdoch concert, and life in springtime Paris!