Dear teen years: to you I say adieu

I think one's teen years is like learning how to swim. Nerve-wracking and necessary for survival in the real world, but in the end, a lesson in life you're glad you learned.

Also, something you never have to go through again. Hurrah!

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That being said, everyone knows that leaving behind one's teen years is most definitely not saying goodbye to stress (I'm sure quite the opposite actually). Case in point. Wednesday, 16th of November, day of my birth: went to my 9am class, handed out mini pumpkin spice muffins I made myself, got out of class and went home for lunch. Finished paper for my fashion class, considered not going to the field trip for said 2-6pm class on account that I was tired and had plans later that night for dinner, but went anyways. Got lost trying to meet with class, had to call teacher, who was not too happy, delayed our tour, endured rest of boring tour, returned to school for lecture half of class, got out a half hour later than normal because of stupid field trip, got kicked off the metro along with everyone else due to transportation problems, had to hurry to other nearest metro, transfer to a bus, and got home an hour later to Skype Mom and Papa, hurried to finish cake I'd made, skipped shower (yuck) so I wouldn't be horribly late to Theo's and mine birthday dinner. (The got super hungry and started without me.)

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So yeah, stress-free life from now on? Hardly.

The middle of my day pretty much sucked, but dinner was nice. And everyone loved my cake, which was a two-layer banana bread with a jam center, cream cheese frosting, and shaped and garnished to look like an X-Box controller. I chose this shape because while Theo likes to pretend he's just you're typical suave French guy, I know he's a geek at heart. And I know it was my birthday as well and I shouldn't have been the one making a cake, but I took the excuse that it was also his to bake such a fun cake. Needless to say, he was surprised, and it was a big hit in both looks and taste. :)) Behold:

In other news, I think I've made progress in getting more funds from my school. But I can't expect anything before Tuesday, so my babysitting money has to tide me over until then. I really hope we don't hit yet another bump in the road (knock on wood!) so that I can get a ticket home, not have to worry about rent again and finally buy the things I need for around the house (read: my tiny studio apartment).

Also:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....evvverywhere we gooo...

Actually, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Paris, and while it's beautiful with all the lights that have started to go up, it's really making me miss home. I've already had another birthday and Christmas without them, I'm about to miss a Thanksgiving, so missing yet another Christmas would be kinda depressing. But we'll see.

Here's to hoping for the best,

Rachael

P.S. God, I can't believe I'm twenty!!

Losers see barriers, winners see hurdles

Found this on another blog on Blogger, check out the link, there's tons of these inspiring post-its

Now that I've gotten all the event-y posts out of the way, I can now take the time to post about daily life again. Even if daily life isn't always cheery and full of rainbows.

Well, what my daily events are fine: class, wandering the city, grocery shopping, cooking, baking, preserving...(more on that later).

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Let's talk about school and classes. While all of my classes are at least 3 hours long, I've gotten used to them. Wednesday (class from 9-12, 2-6) still makes me want to bang my head against something concrete, but at the very least I don't have babysitting on those days. And then it means I can faire la grasse matinée, or sleep in (literal translation, make the morning fat aha) on Thursday. And now when I think about how I thought 1.5 hour classes were long, I want to laugh.

Anyways, not sure if I explicitly said this previously, but I really, really love going to school here. Despite having two other classes, they're not terribly demanding and I feel like I can really focus on my French. Of course, I am living in Paris and French is kinda a requirement even outside of school, but still. It's nice not having to worry about writing an 8 page paper on rhetoric. Ew.

Me after my long days

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So I don't really stroll freely through the city anymore, but I just love being out and about. Being on errands, or even just admiring the scenery when studying outside (ok, I did that once, and I didn't study so much as feed hungry pigeons). Also, I love love LOVE Sunday market. Yeah, I have the market 6 days a week, but Sunday is the busiest--and therefore best--day to meander down the entire street, eyeing the redness of apples, or the abundance of lemons and clemetines. The excitement of all the people trying to find the best deals is just so...reviving, especially in the brisk November air. It's also times like these though that I really miss Mom and Papa, because I know just how much they would love it too.

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And speaking of fresh produce, what is it that I do with 2 kilos of apples, a kilo of pears, and 4 lemons? (All for under 5 euros, btw). Why, I preserve, of course! Oh, wait, what's that? Didn't you know I was into this kind of thing? That's ok because neither did I! But apprently I am and now I understand how the Martha Stewart and Paula Deen shows could be so popular. I don't know what it is exactly; is it that I'm living on my own for the first time? Are constantly seeing baked fruity creations everyone inspiring me? Or could it simply be that I have too much time on my hands? Whatever the reason, I now peruse my first ever cookbook (in French, but pssh, when it comes to food it's easy to understand in any language) daily, bookmarking recipes that sound good. Already I've made:

-Broccoli, egg, ham, and cheese souflees

-Mongolian beef

-Broiled pork

-Ginger chicken

-Muffins, twice

-Pumpkin pie, twice

-Pumpkin spice cookies

-Bakes pumpkin seeds with my own seasoning combo

-An ok baguette (was my first time)

-Various jams

Don't worry, I'm not quite this bad...

...yet...

Now I'm just gonna mention this briefly because I don't want to dwell on it too much, but I'm unfortunately having a really tough time financially. All I'm really buying these days is food, and even then, not a whole lot. Guess that's one way to slim down, har har. And if my phone gets cut off for a few days, I guess that's not THAT big of a deal...:/

I'm not babysitting as much as I was originally told I'd be needed for, and that's one problem. The major one is that there are some really incompetent people working for important positions at Western, but I'm hoping against hope that everything will be worked out this weekend and I will have money to buy myself a belated birthday gift. And pay for my phone. And maybe a ticket home for the holidays. Because hoping for anything by Wednesday is kinda pushing it. So there you have it, why this post is titled the way is it.

Well, so that this post doesn't end on a sour note, here's another picture of a kitteh!!

You know you love it,

Rachael

Salon du Chocolat...aka In Which We Gorge Ourselves On Gourmet Chocolate

Alas! This post is finally up :)

A couple weeks ago, the metro started putting up giant posters for Le Salon du Chocolat, (see the bottom of my previous post for picture) a convention apparently only held in Paris, New York, and Tokyo. Panels, demonstrations, samples, and a chocolate dress fashion show?? I was so there.

I'd just set my mind on going when my gastronomy teacher surprised us with the announcement a couple days later that we would be taking a class field trip to said convention--and at a reduced student price. Oh happy was I!! ;)

We went on the first day, and were given shiny, sparkly tickets--because of course Paris has to be classy with anything involving chocolate. I felt like one of those chosen kids from the Willy Wonka movie with their golden tickets...expect no body was knocked off, hehe.

I took a ton of pictures, but basically all it really was was us sampling chocolate after chocolate after chocolate after chocolate after....well, you get my point. Unfortunately, the chocolate dress fashion show wasn't to start until 5, but by that time I had to leave to pick Kevin up from school. Regardless, I loved getting the chance to marvel at such magnificent and artistic creations of the cacao nature--definitely one of the best field trips I've ever taken. Though I think that it goes without saying that everyone was just a tad bit queasy after consuming so much chocolate...

Anyways, enjoy the pics and try not to drool! :D

The entrance:

PILES of chocolate-covered marshmallow sticks:

Chocolate violins!

'Whoa' was all I had to say:

Got to try wasabi chocolate! Different, but not bad:

They had the Grand Marnier crepes going..definitely gonna have to try that sometime:

How clever, wanna try this sometimes too :)

Ok, so these were spices, but the sheer amount was just so impressive...

...though I'm not quite sure what that blue, green, and orange stuff were:

All made out of carefully textured chocolate:

Just realized I put this picture in twice and stupid Blogger won't let me delete it...so Grand Marnier crepes again:

Chocolate/white chocolate pencils and vegetables:

Cigars, too:

Can't forget the macarons:

I want a bouquet of chocolate flowers..!

A lot, yes:

Something they call nougat. Not 100% sure what it's made of, but it's light and airy, but stiffer than marshmallow (maybe made with egg whites?) Either way, it was good:

Sausage-shaped chocolate biscuit:

Cute necklace idea:

You can all wipe your mouths now, hehe.

Love always,

Rachael

Val de Loire

Hey guys,

Once again it's been weeks since my last post, but here's my update on the famous Loire Valley!:

While my trip to Normandy was nice, this trip was even much better. Once again, got up at the crack of dawn and met our group at Porte d'Orleans. After an hour, we arrived at a very familiar-looking castle, Château de Blois, which turned out to be one I'd visited last December with Theo and his family on our way to Royan. We toured that though it wasn't terribly exciting the second time around (it was really exciting the first time either, but I digress..)

Afterwards we all split into small groups, ventured into town and got lunch. Their Saturday market was also going on and it was pleasant to walk around and see everyone's wares.

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Then we were off to Château numero 2. This one, though not huge, was super cute, and sat on a quaint river. Also, we had to take a wooded path to get to it. I think that was the first sign that I was gonna like this castle:

The sun was shining, the leaves were turning...it was beautiful.

I also liked the interior of this castle a lot more, especially the kitchen! How I would've loved to have a kitchen and mess area like this..behold:

Of course there was a wood oven for bread :)

The autumn squashes were a nice decorating touch, too :)

After that castle, we were taken to our 'surprise'. A wine distillery! We did a short tour of the process, and then on to everyone's anticipated part..the tasting. Or dégustation, as they call it here. Oh man, it was beautiful. They had the tables set up for us like so:

I think we all had our arms crossed so that we wouldn't lunge for the food...;)p

Some amazing goat cheese and pork pate stuff, not really sure what it was. And the wine. We can most certainly not forget the wine. Glasses and glasses of it. I suppose it's a good thing there was so much to eat with it, otherwise a few of us might have had some problems. We all had a great time chatting, and here's an after picture of the table:

DEMOLISHED. hehe

I ended up buying some good sparkling wine, and a very nice white wine. It wasn't cheap, but then again, for wine, the French consider anything above 10 euros pretty up there. (It was 12,50)

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Anywho, after that, we continued onto our hotel, where we dropped off our stuff and went out to eat. Dinner this time wasn't that great either. My group was a bit rowdy, and got worse after a couple of them ordered 3 meter beers. Like so:

And my actual food? Someone please remind me never to order something that's supposed to be Mexican in France ever again. Because my 'Mexican salad' was horrid. To top it off, I felt sick shortly afterward and called it an early night when everyone else went off to the pubs. At least I got to take a bath in the hotel room?

Sure, it LOOKED ok, but I think it was the culprit for the upset stomach :/

Next day we visited our last castle, Château de Chambord:

Can't see me all that well, but I'm there ;)

Amazing view!

And what a gorgeous fall day it was, like fall should be. We toured the castle which was fairly impressive itself, but the best part were the grounds. We were given tickets for a bike rental and each of us went in groups and biked around the grounds on paths. It was beyond relaxing and tiring at the same time.

Biking along the river, side view of the castle

At one point, it was also mentioned, that the architect of the castle had designed it so that from a distance, the relatively small size (by their standards) would look like a city to visitors. I can see it:

Shortly after our bike ride we meet up again with our group, and proceeded to a nearby biscuiterie, their (yumy) version of a cookie shop. And behold! Another dégustation! SO. MANY. COOKIES. (The ones pictured below were only a tiny, tiny fraction of the ones we got to taste)

And for those of you thinking, Gee, Chambord sounds oddly familiar, you're right! Chambord is actually also the name of a liqeur sold in the US. Like so:

Originally from this same region of France, the company here was sold to to someone in the US, where they say their liqeur is now more widely bought than in France. (The bottle with the crown is the one sold in the US, the other, here.) Interesting. Anyways, when mixed with white sparkling wine, it makes a drink called Kir that goes great with sweet things, like say, cookies!

In the end, I bought a box of cookies, a little baggie of some kind of delicious brittle called Croukou, and a tiny bottle of the Chambord. I've since eaten the cookies and brittle, but am saving the Chambord for a special occasion (it wasn't cheap!)

Once we were all stuffed from cookies and Kir, we all piled onto our bus and began the long drive back to Paris, all 0f us attentive and perky.

Yeah, right.

If you honestly believed that we didn't all conk out like pre-schoolers during naptime, you are sorely mistaken. Kinda like this:

That was to be our last excursion as a group, which is a little saddening, but at least it was a great one :) Now off to start my next post about the Salon du Chocolat. Here's a little preview, an ad they had everywhere in the metro. Now let's see how long it takes me to get this one posted ^^

Until then!

Love,

Rachael