Opera, Fish, Thanksgiving and Tarts

GRR...I had this halfway finished and my internet crashed! I'm so frustrated I almost don't want to retype all of this. Oh well, here it goes.

It's been a little bit and I've been letting my events pile up. So I'll go through them in order of the title.

Opera:

I had the chance to go to an opera last weekend. Mariette, les enfants et Moi bundled up and trekked two busses and three metro trains all the way up to Fourviere, the Catholic Basilica that sits up on the hill overlooking Lyon. It's magnificent! The US has nothing like it, it's really unlike anything I've ever seen. The opera was a snooze fest in all honesty. The acoustics were good inside the cathedral, and I even recognized some of the classical compositions (like the one that goes duh duh duh duh-uh dun dun duh dun dun).But it was warm and dark in there and I couldn't help but to take a nap. I hope no one saw me!

                                 



When I was about 8 or 9, my uncle gave me a Beta fish for my birthday. Ever since then I've pretty much always had a fish in my room. My apartment here is kind of lonely and I miss my fish back home (I miss you Perry!). I decided that I was going to buy a beta during my time here. I mentioned this to the family and last Saturday they took me to buy a fish! I wasn't expecting them to pay for it, but they did, and that was very nice. Meet my fish :)

 I took a long time picking him out and I choose him because he didn't shy away from my finger when I pressed it up against the glass. Instead he puffed himself up and challenged me. I liked that. We took him home and spent the rest of the evening thinking of names for him. We even took out the french baby name book and went through every single name. I wanted a french name, but nothing fit. So, I decided to sit on it. Finally, five days later (yesterday) as I was thinking about it before bed suddenly it came to me! Harrison! I don't know where it came from but it fit. That day (still yesterday) I decided that his bowl looked too empty. I took the bus back to the pet store and bought him some rocks and a plant. When I got back to my place I scooped him out and put him in a little tea cup so I could clean his bowl and add the rocks. The cleaner requires three hours to sit in the water to sit so I so I placed the cup next to the bowl and then settled down for a little nap. I woke up two hours later to find the tea cup empty. I found Harrison dried out on the floor. I KILLED MY FISH! You have to understand, this is very hard for me to write about. I feel very responsible. :/ I knew that the cup was too small but I didn't listen to myself when I thought about putting him into something bigger. It was only three hours after all. Needless to say, I was distraught and there was much sobbing. RIP Harrison, I am so very sorry.

Thanksgiving.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. How did I spend it? Taking a test at school, cleaning up my murdered/suicidal fish off the floor and babysitting. At the store I bought some mashed potatoes to eat because that's my favorite part of Thanksgiving, but they were the sorriest excuse for mashed potatoes I've ever eaten. The French don't celebrate Thanksgiving so really it was kind of a sucky day...moving on.

Tarts
I found a recipe for a chocolate tart in a children's cooking book. It looked yummy so I asked Mariette to help me make it. We made the crust from scratch and it was so much fun! I got to knead it with my hands. I am so going to make it again, as soon as I learn how to convert the measurments!! I don't think Mariette followed the recipe at all though, looking back now we used different ingredients and it looked nothing like the picture. Still, it was yummy and I made it all by myself! We had a lot of extra crust dough leftover so I showed them what my mom usually does with the crust. I rolled it out, spread some oil on it and then sprinkled some cinnamon sugar over top and baked it. They were a real hit. Even more so than my tart I think. Thanks mom! While she was helping me make that, she was also making our dinner, which was also a tart. I am considering writing a book much like Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" except it would be called "Purple Eggs and Leeks." Seriously, that's what it was. When she made the eggs, Mariette had this brilliant idea to put food coloring in them...food coloring?? Jonas choose the color and it turned out to be a purple/grey/blueish color. Pretty nasty really. Once she sauted the leeks (yeah, we eat leeks) she mixed the two, poured it onto the tart and baked it. It actually was pretty good, it just looked really strange! These were our finished products:

 











As a side note, I finally cleaned my room and vacuumed it too! Just thought I would share the proof, I am rather proud of it too. And I went grocery shopping...

 
 

Goodnight tous le monde!

Abigail