Mallory Came to Visit!

Sorry for making everybody wait so long!! I actually had a very eventful weekend...which meant that I would need to write a lengthy post...which meant, of course, that I would put it off until Wednesday night :)

My college roommate (that's weird to say...makes me feel old) and very dear friend Mallory came to visit me this past weekend! For those of you who don't know, Mallory is teaching English through the French Embassy in Lyon, about 3 hours north of where I am. Since she doesn't start until next week, she came down south to see me in Toulon. I went to the train station Saturday afternoon to pick her up, and while I was perusing the postcard section of the gift shop, Mallory snuck up behind me and surprised me with a big hug :) I was so happy to see her that I cried, naturally (yes I know...you're all dying of shock). But really, it felt so good to see a familiar face in person that I just couldn't help it. We went out for lunch, got some macarons, and proceeded to walk around the Centre Ville for a bit. It was my first time exploring the town without my host family, so I was pretty excited! Mal had her suitcase with her, and the big open air market had mostly gone home for the day...so we took the bus home pretty early in the evening.

Here are some pictures from Saturday:

The train station


The plaza outside the train station


MALLY!!!

The next day we went back to the Centre Ville so that we could see the open air market, which only happens in the mornings. I was really excited because I was able to find my way around without getting lost :) I'm a local! haha Walking through the town was beautiful, as usual:






Then we came across my highlight of the day: A classy old French man wearing a fedora, a white scarf, a nice jacket...and a GOLD DOLLAR CHAIN. Kudos to Mallory for her extra sneaky camera shot:


After wandering around for a bit, we headed to the port to grab some crepes! As you can see from the photo, we are mere feet from the ocean :) Or Sea, I should say...Mediterranean Sea, that is...


We walked around the shops for a bit. Because we are right by the largest and oldest military harbor in France, everything has a nautical theme...as you can see:





Afterwards, we still had some time to kill...so we headed back to the center part of town. Here's a shot of the plaza:


To end our afternoon out on the town, we decided to go see a movie. We settled on seeing Ben Affleck's "The Town"...not knowing whether or not it was going to be in French...but figuring we would be fine either way. Turns out the movie was ENTIRELY in French. We understood the main plot points of the movie, but after walking out we couldn't decide if we knew what was going on because we were actually understanding the French...or just because we were watching the movie itself. Like if we had watched it in complete silence, would we have understood any less?? Not sure. But I think it was probably a good movie :)

On Monday I had school, so Mallory hung out and waited for me in the meantime. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch by the beach with a friend from class. It ended up being a bit chilly and extremely windy - for the first and only time since I've been here - so we unfortunately had to forego our beach plans :( We spent a cozy afternoon at home and I dropped Mal back off at the train station after. I have to admit, I felt a bit lonely after she left.

The entire experience was really interesting for me. Of course it goes without saying that I was SO HAPPY to have a familiar face around...especially to speak English with face to face! But a few things happened that I didn't quite expect.

1) I actually felt like a tourist and a foreigner for the first time in the 2 weeks that I've been here. To me, this is my new home. I MOVED here. I was never in "vacation" mode, so to speak. So it was a strange experience to feel like a foreigner. It was a bit of a reality check.

2) I actually felt like a part of the family with my host family. When Mallory joined us for dinner, my host parents would make jokes with me and tell stories to Mallory about all of us living together. I felt like I was part of the entertaining of guests, not being entertained. I felt like part of the family, and that was fun and unexpected.

So it was a fun weekend all around :) This week has been mostly dedicated to work...so we'll see what this coming weekend has to offer. I'll keep you all posted!!

Talking the Talk

My apologies for my absence for the past two days. Tuesday marked the day that I start watching the baby solo, and it's been tiring to say the least. Lucky for me, she's teething - bad. Which means a cranky baby who doesn't sleep well. Which means I don't get my usual break to blog during her nap time. Which means I'm pooped at the end of the day. Which means I veg out in my room with a good ol' American movie and a book with my phone on silent. So again, my most sincere apologies to e-mails and phone calls I've neglected. I've been pooped and quite honestly have no updates to inform you of.

INSTEAD I've decided to entertain you with my experiences with learning French while here. The Bon's claim my French is very good, and alway tell me how impressed they are. I started feeling pretty cocky until I went to the supermarket and some lady in line behind me turned to me to express her discontent with how long the line was, and I pretty much froze - standing there muttering something like "oui oui..." with a confused expression on my face. It was really just the equivalent of "Can you believe this line? Sheesh!" and I must have looked terrified. Reality check.

With that said, here are some other funny things I've noticed about the French language:
-The French word for one's boyfriend or girlfriend is "petit ami". This literally translates to "little friend". This means that in every day conversation you have the opportunity to say "Say hello to my little friend", just like Scarface, and it would be totally normal. Gets me every time.
-When I first got here, Marjorie and her mom kept calling the baby a "vilaine fille" whenever she would misbehave. I thought it was hilarious! Like a villain in a comic book or something...what a great alternative to saying "bad girl". So much more dramatic: "VILLAIN!!" I looked it up. It just means naughty.
-In French, the verb for sleep is "dormir" - the same as in Spanish. And as a lot of you know, in Spanish when your mom wants you to go to bed she says "Mimis" (for the -mi in dormir). But in French, they say "Dodo" (for the do- in dormir). That struck me as funny since it's the same exact verb...
-The Bon's and I communicate through 3 means: 1) I actually understand what they're saying 2) We look it up together on the computer 3) An impromptu game of "I can't understand you" charades. So naturally when we were strolling through downtown and I wanted to know if graffiti was pretty common, I started acting out the action of "graffiti" like a mime in the middle of the street. Turns out it's the same word in French.

So that's that. I started getting pretty discouraged with my French, but then I think about how much I've learned in the small 11 days that I've been here and I feel better.

In other news, there is a strike going on in France right now because the government is trying to raise the age for retirement from 60 to 67. My french professor once told me that there are 2 national sports in France: soccer and protesting. They protest EVERYTHING. Right now, the protestors include anyone in public service - including the post office. So, if anyone has sent me any letters, they might be a bit delayed. I'll keep you posted (no pun intended).

ALSO! My friend Léa arrived in France as did my (old) roommate Mallory!!! And my friend Lauren arrives in Paris tomorrow (Yes, I have friends). It's so nice to have people to talk to in my time zone. Mallory will be visiting me this weekend too!!!!! Definitely looking forward to seeing a familiar face :) You can check out Mallory's blog HERE!

À Bientôt.

SUPER IMPORTANT!!!

Hey everyone!! I know a lot of you have been asking for my address (GREATLY APPRECIATED) but I just wanted to let you know that if you send me any mail, you absolutely HAVE to cross the 7 on the address or else I might not get it :( My host family just let me know today when I almost didn't get a package from my parents. (but I did, thanks mom and dad!!) If you don't cross the 7, they might think it's a 1 and send it back to you, which we don't want!!

More updates soon!! ...probably about food :)

A Day of Firsts

Today was a day of many firsts. Most importantly, my first day of school!! Actually...no, I take it back. MOST importantly, today I had my first macaron!! Well, my first 2 actually. Yummmm....

Introducing, my new favorite desert:



I know what you're thinking, and yes it is absolutely crazy that I've never had a macaron before. BUT I'm so glad I had my first one in France :) Marjorie said she's going to teach me how to make them later. THANK GOD!

Now for my next first: RAW BEEF. Yet again, I know what you're thinking: "You're telling me you went from being a vegetarian for 3 years to eating raw beef for dinner??" Dad, hold your comments to the very end please! But I figured, when in Rome right?? For those of you who don't know (neither did I) it's an Italian dish called Carpaccio and it consists of very thinly sliced raw meat. Whoa. Ok, granted, I didn't finish my plate or anything...but I did give it a fair try! Marjorie and Olivier were very proud. It actually wasn't too bad, but I couldn't get over the fact that it was raw. I had french fries, cheese, and homemade bread for the rest of my dinner. By the way they feed me here, it looks like I might have to bust out my running shoes after all. Anyone out there want want to mail me a yoga mat??

And last but not least, my first day of school! It went really well! There are about 4 other au pairs around my age in my class and I'm told that there are a few more that weren't there today. 3 were from Germany, and one was from Manchester, England. I think the others are from Hungary and Peru but I'm not sure since they didn't come to class today. They were all so nice! Even though some of them spoke English, the only common language we all had between us was French - so we all spoke our broken French to each other. It was great :) Oh ya, the class! It's a bit hard, but we all move at our own pace so it's not so bad. The instructor is super nice, so that's a plus. There's also a bunch of people in the class who aren't au pairs, of course. I met a girl from Madagascar, and I sat next to a guy from Columbia who was really nice. Hopefully I can practice my spanish with him so I don't forget it (don't worry, Grandma!).

So that's it for today! Thanks again to everyone for your e-mails and messages! Your words of encouragement mean a lot to me :) Today was a super busy day, so if I haven't gotten back to you yet, I promise I will soon!

Mediterranean

IMPORTANT:
The Bon's would like me to inform everyone that THE FRENCH DO NOT HATE AMERICANS. They don't even mildly dislike us. In fact, they weren't shocked to find out that we think so. I told them how it's not only common belief that the French don't like us, but that Americans are often told to pretend to be Canadian abroad just in case. Their jaws nearly dropped. They said they like Americans very much, it's why they play so many of our TV shows! They said that they may not agree with the war in Iraq but it's absolutely not a reflection on their opinion of all the American people. They said America and France are like an old married couple - they may fight from time to time and annoy each other, but really they love each other. So there you have it.

Anyway, I didn't go dancing last night unfortunately. Not quite sure what happened, but Marjorie didn't bring it up again and I was pretty pooped anyways so I didn't remind her. There's always next week :) Instead, we sat around the table for 2 hours talking about which American TV shows are/were popular in France. It boggles my mind, they know and love Happy Days, Bewitched, Dallas, Chips, Little House on the Prairie, and a billion more but they have never even HEARD of I Love Lucy??????? Madness. Olivier said he used to watch Saved By the Bell when he was young and thought it was "super cool".

Oh yes, for dinner we had fajitas! Haha and not too bad, if I do say so myself! Granted, not quite like home, but not bad! I introduced them to tapatio, for which I think they'll be eternally grateful. They seemed to like it.

Today, Olivier's aunt came into town for a visit. She's a chic older French woman who lives by Cannes. She took us all out to eat at this fancy restaurant by the beach called La Vague D'Or. I had cream of artichoke, followed by gigantic shrimp in a yummy sauce, and melon sorbet for dessert. But that wasn't the best part...the best part of it all was the VIEW. I snapped like 20 pictures of the same thing, but I couldn't help myself. Marjorie told me to go dip my feet in the water to see how it compared to the Pacific and let me tell you, it doesn't. It was like BATH water. I know, I know...you all feel really bad for me right now. Well for now, enjoy the slideshow!



PS: I have my first day of school tomorrow! Big update to follow :)

Centre Ville

First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone that has been reading here! I'm so glad people have been enjoying it - it makes me feel a lot more connected to everyone back home :)

Yesterday wasn't too exciting...Michelle (Marjorie's mom) left in the morning which was a bummer...but Olivier came back and pretty much did my work for me! See, Olivier works for the French navy and has to stay at the naval base from Monday through Friday. Needless to say, Gabriele wanted nothing to do with me once she saw her papa. Anyways, for dinner we had steaks with a cheese sauce that is illegal in the US! Rebel cheese! Not really, it's just not pasteurized. Olivier also made us a plum tarte for dessert that was delicious.

This morning was exciting!! Olivier took me to the Centre Ville, which is like the Old Town of Toulon. It was BEAUTIFUL! As we were driving in, Olivier told me "It's not very pretty because ...something something... World War II" (language barrier). I thought "are you kidding me??". This was the "France" I've been waiting for. Anything with a visible history is pretty damn amazing if you ask me. I took some nifty pictures on my iPhone and not my regular camera because...well...I spent $200 on it and feel it needs to be used all the time.

The Centre Ville also has an incredible "marché en plein air" - open air market. It was like a farmer's market on crack. So many amazing smells, foods, fruits...EVERYTHING. Sadly, I don't think the french have the same concept of "free samples"...We only walked through so I'll have to go back and spend a few hours trying everything. I snapped a quick picture, but it doesn't do it justice. I'll take better ones next time!

We walked through the rest of the town and I was fascinated. Olivier got a kick out of me stopping every 5 minutes to take pictures of all the streets, sidewalks, people, street lamps, pigeons, etc. "You do not have this in Los Angeles??" Pigeons? Yes. Tiny French side streets? No.

Eventually I had to stop taking pictures because I was holding up traffic and people kept bumping into me. I don't think Toulon is used to having any tourists...

I did manage to get a few of the Opera House and the Marine Arsenal where Olivier works as well as the port. It truly is a harbor city.

Funny things I've noticed:
1) So we parked downtown and had to walk through the mall to get to the outside. EVERYONE in the mall has these rolly bag things that they carry with them. It was like I was back in elementary school when rolly backpacks were super cool. I guess it's because they walk everywhere and need a way to carry their groceries and such back on the bus or walk home. Oh ya, the supermarket is also a part of the mall. I sneakily (or perhaps not so sneakily) took a picture of this lady's:

2) The escalators are flat! Ok...maybe this exists somewhere in the states but I've never seen it and I thought it was SUPER cool:

3) Not sure if I mentioned this before, but "westerns" are really cool in France. I actually learned that in my French class. This proves to be true since there are several of these floating around the house:


Well, that's it for now. I can't believe it's already been a week! OH...tonight my neighbor might be taking me dancing! Not Magali, but her older brother haha and since I'm in no position to turn away friends (plus I LOVE dancing), I think I might just join him. More pictures to come!

For now, please enjoy the slideshow of my trip to the "Centre Ville".

New Friend and Beef Bourguignon

Hey Everyone!

So I'm starting to come to terms with the loss of my hair. It may take some time, but I think I'll get through it.

In other news, I made a friend yesterday! Her name is Magali and she is 8 years old and lives across the street. She was very impressed that I came all the way from LA to live in Toulon. She knows how to say "you are very pretty" in English and made sure to do so every 5 seconds...we got along great :)

Turns out Magali is also a spoiled brat who doesn't leave Marjorie's salon, bothers all the customers, and throws full on temper tantrums complete with kicking and screaming on the floor if she doesn't get her way. She also curses at her mother, the lovely Danielle who gives us delicious fresh bread every day, until she gets her way - which she always does. Marjorie warned me over dinner not to let her come over and play because she doesn't want Gabriele learning that awful behavior. I fully obliged. Who knew?? But I totally see where she's coming from. I wouldn't want my kid learning that either.

So I'm back to no friends for now! hehe but I'm not too concerned. I start school on Monday and I'm sure I'll meet some people there.

PS: I had Beef Bourguignon for dinner last night. SO GOOD. And Marjorie said she's going to show me how to make French bread on Saturday. I'll keep everyone posted!

Also, here is a picture of the view from my bedroom window:


À Bientôt.

Haircut.

As some of you may know, I got a haircut yesterday. I seriously considered taking a week-long hiatus from my blog to mourn the loss of my hair. In case you don't know this about me...I absolutely LOVE my long hair. Ask any of my hairdressers for the past 2 or 3 years...I FREAK out if they cut any more than half an inch every 6 months. I wasn't planning on cutting my hair while in France, but my host mom, Marjorie, is a hair dresser. On Tuesday, Marjorie's mom, Michelle, pointed out that I have split ends and so Marjorie suggested I come into the salon the following morning for a "trim". I expressed my concern about cutting my hair and she assured me, "just the ends" - so I agreed. The next morning, I went into the salon and came out 30 minutes later missing 3-4 inches of my hair :( Don't get me wrong, it's a nice haircut. And on the bright side, I have no more split ends! My hair is now unbelievably healthy. But with that being said, it did take all my composure not to cry. Now to the untrained eye, it might not look that bad. However, let me remind you, that before I left LA 4 days ago, my hair hung to my elbows. It used to get stuck in my belt. Now...well...voilà:



ugh. I was excited to live upstairs to a salon but now I'm just scared haha Yesterday I think I accidentally signed myself up for some highlights and acrylic nails with the "Louis Vuitton" logo painted on the thumbs...ohhhh curse the language barrier and my inability to say no!

PS: no other updates so far...except that I had cheese soufflé for dinner last night! Yummmmm...

HOW TO REACH ME

Ok, so to make a long story short, if you need to reach me - simply call my cell phone number. Yes, the American one that you have in your phones now. If I have wifi (which I do most of the day) it will ring through a fancy thing I set up in skype on my iPhone and I can answer it like a normal call. ALSO: If you see this number calling you, it's me: (310) 982-7603. You can call either that number or my regular American number and it will ring on my end. **Don't forget I'm 9 hours ahead and I cherish my sleep ;)

The old fashioned way of sending me an e-mail, skype, AIM, or facebook all work too, of course :)

AND for those of you who want to send me regular old snail mail (which should be all of you), PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE shoot me an e-mail or facebook message so I can send you my address privately!! (I don't want to post it here). Don't forget :) - mhernandez25@gmail.com

Likewise please send me your addresses so I can send out some postcards and good ol' fashioned hand-written letters! I could use some pen pals.

Thank you to everyone who has been keeping in touch!! And if I haven't gotten in touch with you just yet, my apologies, I promise I'll get to it soon :)

The Past 2 Days...

have been great!!

Yesterday I woke up, and had some breakfast with Marjorie (host mom) and her mom. They are both super sweet. Afterwards, I got ready and we went to drop off Gabriele (baby) at the daycare. I met everyone there and we were off. From there we went to my language school!! Everyone at the school is SUPER nice and there are some girls from the UK so hopefully I'll be able to make some english-speaking friends. I start next Monday and after that I'll be going every monday and friday morning from 9-12. Not bad. It also happens to be like a 30 second walk to the beach!! That's my favorite part. (see pictures from the post below)...then we went back to the house where I promptly took an absurd jetlag nap. Marjorie came upstairs to wake me up so I could go with her to pick up Gabi (I need to memorize the route since I'll be doing it starting next week). She took one look at my groggy face and told me to keep sleeping. I love it here.

When I finally came to, we went to the mall to get my french cell phone!! Marjorie asked me if I wanted a touch phone like my American phone and I misunderstood her thinking she asked if my phone now was a touch phone so I said yes. So now I have a fancy brand new touch screen phone! haha not that it really concerns anyone in America since you can't reach me on it :) But to all mes amis en France, I get unlimited texting! Afterwards we did some grocery shopping and came home. We had roast beef for dinner. Also, they eat EVERYTHING with mayo and ketchup. And the ketchup tastes weird...

Today was a lazy day. I ended up waking up early and eating some breakfast with Michelle (Marjorie's mom). She is such a sweetheart we ended up talking for a few hours about everything from politics, to traveling, to 9/11, to food and cooking, to future plans and watching reruns of I Dream of Genie in french. She's been such a help to me these past few days, I'll be bummed when she leaves on Friday. Did I mention that?? Michelle is only here this week to show me how the routine works while Marjorie is at work and then at the end of the week she'll be leaving and I'll be on my own. Anyway, after breakfast I went back to bed for a bit before I got dressed and ready for the day. Marjorie ended up picking Gabi from daycare without me, so when she came back we all had lunch together (leftovers and some yummy rice thing). We follow EVERY meal with cheese and that is then followed with some kind of desert. EVERY TIME. Thank god I brought my Bob Harper workout DVD...

I spent the rest of the day writing e-mails and playing with the baby. She's a bit of a handful, but that's why god invented Yo Gabba Gabba, youtube, and the iPhone.

For dinner we had Raclette. Not sure if you guys are familiar, but lemme tell ya that I had it for the first time and I would be PERFECTLY content eating it everyday for the rest of my life. SO GOOD!! They told me that in France there is a tradition that when you try something for the first time, you have to make a wish. So I did :) I liked that...

That's all for today...I'll post an update soon about how to reach me and sending me mail and such...

In the meantime, here's a picture of the baby who says "yayy" and claps every time she finishes stacking her toys:



And don't worry, I've already made myself at home :)

Some pictures

Hello All! Just wanted to quickly post some pictures of stuff that's happened so far. I'll post a more detailed update in a bit, but for the meantime, enjoy.

Made it safe and sound!

Hi Everyone!

It's 5 am in Toulon and I haven't been able to sleep for the past hour so I figured I would give everyone an update.

SO: I arrived yesterday first in Amsterdam. The flight there was a little over 9 hours, but it was probably the smoothest flight I've ever had (thank goodness) and went by pretty fast with the help of a good movie and some great tunes. The food was even good! I landed in Amsterdam around 11AM local time, and hung out at the airport for a few hours. I ended up accidentally falling asleep while waiting outside the departure gate for my connecting flight and some stranger had to shake me awake so I wouldn't miss my plane when everyone started boarding! haha thank goodness for the kindness of strangers... I don't know how long the flight from Amsterdam to Marseille was, mostly because it was impossible for me to stay awake. I think it was just a couple hours...

Anyway, the Bon's were waiting for me when I landed :) They are so incredibly nice and the baby is adorable. We drove the hour from Marseille to Toulon where the Bon's live and passed some pretty vineyards and castles along the way. When we got there, the Bon's showed me around the house, which is old and huge! Marjorie told me the year it was built, but French numbers confuse me so I just nodded and looked surprised because it seemed to be a really old number from the way she was telling the story. The house has all these crazy passage ways and staircases but simply put: It's 3 stories. The bottom floor is Marjorie's salon, a spare bedroom and bathroom (the bathroom is mine), and the garage. The second floor is the living room, kitchen, the Bon's bedroom, bathroom, and Gabrielle's room. THEN the third floor is like a loft-type situation that is all mine with a spare bed, couch and TV, and then my own bedroom! I'll post a video tour later.

So after a tour of the house, I took a shower, got dressed, and we had dinner and drinks. Sliced tomatoes, baguette, delicious pork (which is saying a lot since I don't really like pork to begin with), AMAZING cheese, and cake for desert.

Marjorie's mom is staying here for the week to show me the ropes while Marjorie works. Tomorrow (well more like in 3 hours), Marjorie is taking me to my language school for a placement test and then we're getting me a cell phone so that they can get a hold of me if needed.

ALSO, the "scooter" that they're lending me to get to school and back is HUMONGOUS. Like, really really large. I was expecting some kind of petite vespa type thing, but this beast is massive. I'll have to post a picture of it later. But they're gonna teach me how to ride it :)

Tomorrow I'll unpack and take some pictures, but for now I need to try and get some more sleep.

OH! Also, if you wanna chat with me, the Bon's have wifi so I can pretty much stay connected whenever I'm home.
Skype: Melissa_Yvonne
AIM: MelissaYvonne25
Gmail: Mhernandez25@gmail.com

And I can make free calls to land lines from the Bon's house, so if you have a land line, let me know! Because they're way easier to call than cell phones.

More updates to come!!

Things I Will Miss:

Momma Blanca's chocolate chip pancakes.

UPDATE

Clearly I wasn't as good as documenting the "process" as I thought I would be. The process has been extremely complicated. Specifically, the visa process. But everything is fine now! I have my visa (thank god) and I am set to leave on September 11th - 9 days from today. I am extremely excited and nervous and scared and happy and anxious and thrilled and terrified.

In other words: I can't wait!!!!

There are still a couple things left to figure out before I go, primarily my phone situation and the small detail of packing my life away for a year. But I'm not worried about it. My main concern now is not forgetting anything important, saying goodbye to everyone I can in 9 days, and NOT forgetting every word of french I've ever learned.

Which reminds me! My host family called me last week to wish me a Happy Birthday which was just the sweetest thing ever. It was also slightly unnerving since I could hardly understand anything they said, but I'm sure it will all come rushing back to me once I'm there. I don't have a choice, really.

As of now, I will be leaving in 9 days. Paper work is finally squared away. I stop into Amsterdam first, and arrive in Marseille Sunday afternoon. I'll be switching my iPhone to an international plan so that I can make emergency calls home if need be, but as far as people reaching me immediately...I haven't figured that out quite yet. My American phone will be on airplane mode while I'm in France...which means that I can only use it when I have WiFi readily available. When I do, I can make calls using the Skype app and a few dollars. I'll probably get a french phone when I get there so I can call my host family and future french friends. Perhaps I'll just give people that number if they absolutely need to reach me. Ehh...I'll figure it out later.

FYI: Time difference from LA to Toulon is 9 hours ahead. Keep it in mind :)

I will post again closer to my departure date and from then on be sure to update regularly so that friends and family can have a way to know what's going on with me in France (without me having to write a million e-mails all saying the same thing ;] ).

ALSO - in case you don't know me at all...I absolutely LOVE getting mail! So please, even though we have modern technology and you can just as easily IM, Facebook, Skype, iChat, whatever me...please send me a letter every once in a while, it will be guaranteed to make my day :) E-mail me for my address if you're interested.