It's a very small village (I called it a "Ville" (city) and I got corrected lol), and it's very, very, old.
Despite that, I found that there was enough to do there that kept me occupied for a weekend.
Saturday, Gilles asked me if I wanted to go for a little walk with him. Walk? Outside? Are you out of your mind? It's cold and windy, lets just watch TV instead. But, being the stranger in a foreign land, I've made a resolution not to sit around all day. I want to experience as much as I can. So I said ok and we got in the car! The car? What happened to a walk? Where are you taking me, Gilles? We drove to a cow pasture...really? We are going to "promene" (walk) in a cow pasture? Ok, I'll play along, but if my $50 Steve Madden Gamers get ruined, someone is going to pay.
So here we are, walking through a cow pasture, and he stops. He takes off his backpack and pulls out a kite. A KITE!! Not a trapezoid shaped kite, this one was like a parachute, or something you would go paragliding with. Gilles taught me how to fly a legitimate professional kite! It was SO awesome!! I made it do figure eights, circles and more often than not, nose dives into the ground. I was having so much fun, I forgot all about the well being of my Steve Madden's.
Connor, if you are reading this, I added "get a super cool kite" to my bucket list. You know what that means, I'm actually going to do it. And when I do, you and I are going to fly it, and I am going to teach you how. Oh, and we will take a picnic too. Yeah, that will be fun.
As we were walking back to the car I got an idea...we are in the middle of nowhere, with only tiny back roads...Gilles, why don't you let me drive your awesome manual car...? Of course I didn't ask him that, but I did cross my fingers behind my back. As he put the kite in the trunk, I headed to the drivers seat....my hand was on the handle when he looked up and asked "tu peux conduire un petite peu?" YES!!! Oh I thought you'd never ask!!! I couldn't help but let out a squeal. I LOVE driving stick shift cars. I drive an automatic at home, so the chance for me to use my awesome manual driving skills doesn't happen often. But this guy didn't know that so I had to play it cool.
I. Did. Fabulous! Since I don't understand kilometers, I had to really listen to the engine to know when to shift up and down. And it seemed like my body took over. There was another car approaching and the road wasn't big enough for the two of us so I had to pull over. My mind freaked out. I was trying to drive and not his this car as well as try to figure out how to ask Gilles what to do in French, but my hands and feet did exactly what they were supposed to do. I don't know, I'm pretty proud of myself. :)
When we came back to the masion (house), we walked in to find Lucile and Mariette practicing music. Lucile (she's 7) had her brand new violin out, and Mariette (the mom) had her accordion. It was so fun to listen to them play together. Later Lucile sang a song accompanied by the accordion. It was in a different language...they didn't even know what language it was in...somewhere in Serbia they said. I don't know. But I thought, wow these kids are cultured. At seven years old, I was singing ring around the rosies, not a song from Serbia. Dang, I love Europe.
I also had the pleasure of experiencing something else new this weekend. I went with Francoise (the grandmother) and Jonas (he's 5) to visit a friend of Francoise's. She brought along with her an aquarium full of scorpion/stick bug looking insects. I have no idea why, and I didn't really want to ask. The fact that I had slept under the same roof as those bugs creeped me out enough. In turn, the friends showed us their aquarium full of what those insects are going to look like in 6 months. Picture scorpion/stick bug looking things except the size of a hamster. It was so gross!!!! I couldn't even get near them. Chills. All over my body.
Apparently this family mostly only eats what they can grow or make organically. That would explain the bowl of severed rooster heads next to the sink. And next to that was the hearts. Really people? Take it outside. Haha they laughed at my expression when they showed it to me. Luckily, after that horrible scene, I still had enough of an appetite to try this guys "french bread" as he said in english. It was natural of course, but actually probably some of the best bread I've ever tasted. It was really good.
Sunday, I went with Daniel (pronounced Danielle like a girl), (he's the grandfather) and les enfants (the kids) to the park. We took a little bit of a hike through the forest and he pointed out all this vegetation to me and asked what it was in English. Dude, I don't know! That's a tree, and that's a flower. That's all I know! I was able to identify an aspen tree though, that was good.
So, that was my weekend. Here's some pictures :)
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