Sunday, March 21st

Charlotte was violent and angry in her sleep last night.

A "probably" tire and a lot of prayer later, we arrived safely in Aix just in time for chuch. We caravanned with Teal's car. He was behind us in the toll line and got stuck because some guy had gotten out of his car and was arguing with the toll booth worker. Oh France, you are a constant source of intriging people.

Dom went literally from driving the van to preaching the sermon. He definitely got a gift. He reminds me of PT sometimes. Tomato is exaused. Straight to bed after church.

Saturday, March 20th

Charlotte was extremely snuggly and rather talkative in her sleep last night.

The Musee du Desert is incredible. It follows the history of Protestantism in France, starting with Luther and Calvin and through the persecution of the Hugonots. There are 2x3 inch Bibles that they would hide in their clothing. There's a tiny space cut out of the rock in a cupbord where priest could hide if the house was searched. Everything for the churches had to be hidden. Barrels transformed into pulpits, communion goblets that screwed apart and formed candelsticks. I am so privilidged to live now, where we can leave the doors to the curch open right in the center of town and sing praise songs.

Lunch was delicious. Sooooo much food. I'm going to explode. For less than 9 euros, it a 5 course meal: omlette, olives and sausage slices, bread and pate, salade, and then steak. I ordered my steak rare. And French rare is RARE. Everyone thought I was a bit nuts, but it was very good.

After lunch, Tomato went with Dom, Teal and David in the white van to see if some place could fix the flat or get us a new tire. But nothing is open Saturday afternoon in a small town in France. We did find a mechanic, but he said the tire would probably make it back to Aix. Probably. Good enough, right?

Both Megan and Nathalie make killer vin chaud. Castles are so cold! Amanda, Marianne and I played Apples to Apples with the little girls while the rest either watched the rugby match or played sardines in the castle.

Friday, March, 19th

The white van made it! Way to go Kerri! The van shakes so hard when it idles, you'd think the engin was going to fly right out of the hood. Thankfully Kelsey discovered that if she puts her foot on a certain spot in the front seat it mostly stops. That's not disconcerting in the least.

Castle, spires and all. This place is gorgous. Something like 15 rooms. Monsieur de Cassennove lets ICCP use this place for free. He has 2 little room for himself, but other than that, we have run of the entire place. It's not a retreat center, it's his familty home. There are generations of portraits on the wall in the main dining room. The stone fireplaces are 400 years old and some of the chairs in the sitting room are from the 1970's and evrything else inbetween. I feel as though I could spend a month just soaking up the history here. It even has a secret passageway between the top towers. The far tower has a library with everything you could imagine. All the classics, Bibles, books on the history of the church and a huge stack of French plays. Again, if I had a week just to sit and read.

Our room, The Laughing Tomatos (Charlotte, Amanda and I) looks out over the whole valley. Amanda has the "floor bed" and Charlotte and I are sharing the "jello bed".

I arrived with the first group and prepared dinner with Amanda, Megan and Nathalie. Not many people came in the first group, so it was very relaxing just cooking and exploring the castle. With the 2nd group, I think we have 43 people here. Plus Monsieur de Cassannove, of course. He is so funny. He lets several groups stay during the year and the group before us was English. They had left some kind of dessert in the freezer. He pulled it out and asked us to eat it. Then went off on a little rant on how horrible it was that the English always mixed their sweets and savories.

Thursday, March 18th

Amanda's birthday! Had lovely tea and cake at Charlotte's in the garden. Getting ready for the Cevenne's retreat.

Wenesday, March 17th

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! I'm really missing The Breakfast Club (+ Kyle). Enjoy the Irish boys, I'm with you in spirit!

Pushed through the huge crowd to the back of O'Shannon's but had missed the text from Isaac so when we finally made it, no one was there. So instead we sat in Parc Jordain and looked at the stars. Tried to watch Boondock chez moi but internet hicupped 30 minutes in. :(

Tuesday, March 16th

Got the grocery shopping done. I'm getting rather attached to that little store.

Monday, March 15th

Got the letter from OFII finally. I have to go to Marseille on April 28th to get a physical for my carte de sejour. Which will then be processed. Who knows, maybe by the time I get back to the states, I'll have all this paperwork complete. Good thing that when I'm back in Helena this summer, I'll have a slip of paper that says I can be in France.

Something about heaters dosen't like me. Maybe it's just dorm heaters. Hmm. Oh well, at least it eventually came back on.

Castle retreat is this weekend. Hooray!

Mid march already. I can't believe it.

Em's letter about her spring break was just amazing.

I love that girl. I can't wait to see what God has planned for her.

Mondays are my favorite days and honestly, it's because of Life Group at the Carroll's.

Doors from Salon

Sunday, March 14th

What an amazing service tonight! Leadship had us set up the pews in a U-shape and Bill lead worship with Hillary. What a gift. We had just enough "Bible Bubbles" (as became their name) for everyone there. Teal had the congregation get together in small groups and read the verse off the bubbles and pray with eachother. I am so blessed to be in this church, especially here. Week after week there is truth from the speakers and community from the people. This church is very much alive.

It was supposed to be the baptism service, held at a different location with a baptismal, but unfortunately the floor of that curch decided to, well, explode a bit. Praise God it didn't happen during the service. So there were no baptisms, but it sounds like the new date will be when Charlotte's best friend is here to see her get baptized. So cool.

Hung out with Alex (friend of Teal's from Cali spending a week in Aix), Manda, Charlotte, Michel (Swiss, from le fac de theo.) and Melissa. Had some great theological discussions. On the way back I tried explaining "that's what she said" to Michel. It's still a work in progress. Oh, American humor.

6 am and still awake. Wish I could figure out this random not sleeping thing.

What I learned:

God uses everything. Even silly girls with paper bubbles.

Internet is really fast at 6am. Vive le Skype!

Saturday, March 13th

Spent 6 hours making origami balloons with Charlotte!

Friday, March 12th

Woke up with the alarm at 9. Amanda got up and dressed before checking the message that Charlotte had cancled the work out. Went back to bed. Got up again, got the message that Lizzy had cancled the Chateau d'If trip. Went back to bed. Pretty great morning.

Went to pick up the letter but it was closed for lunch. French have 3 hour lunch breaks. Who knows what they do. So Amanda and I walked through Park Jourdain to Pizza Carpis and got tomato, cheese, corn and chicken sandwitches. Le Paysanne sandwitch.

Then we found THE BAKERY: Paul. Filled with delicious looking goodies. And Olive bread (Baline aux 2 Olives--black and green olives) Isn't that great mom? I'm eating olives! I must be growing up.

We had set the movie Red Eye to load so we could watch it when we got back. It wasn't quite done so Amanda read me her sister's fairy story she's been writing. Very dark and very epics. Kidnapped parents, evil warlock, mind powers, glowing owl, bear and heart, evil pixies, death, prophecy and secret organizations.

When it was movie time, we started it up and it failed! We were being so patient, and it just stopped. So, now Amanda has been helping me update for y'all. She's the reason all the dates are right and there is only half the amount of mistakes there could be. 3 minutes of video, one blog post, 3 minutes of video..............

Melissa and Katherine have an new beautiful apartment right in Centre Ville. As in next to Hotel de Ville. It's one of the cutest places I've seen here in Aix. Isaac made dinner for Geoff Geoff, Amanda, Charlotte, Melissa and I. That boy is amazing. Fun evening, just hanging out. Congrat Melissa and Katherine!

What I learned:

If you want to do anything in France, do it between 10 and 11 am or 2 and 4 pm on Tuesday or Thursday. That's the only guaranteed time it will be open.

Thursady, March 11th

No afternoon classes! Went back and watched the Count of Monte Cristo in preparation for tomorrow. Then met up with Amanda and Marianne for the wine pairing dinner. Mmmmm...

A French chef made all the food. Goat cheese salade, duck, ratitouille and then crepes. Hillary's ended up on the ceiling. Mad flipping skills.

Wednesday, March 10th

Class.

What I learned:

Difficult words for Asian speakers: chateau vs. cadeau

"b" sound vs "p" sound

Tuesday, March 9th

Hong Chen is.still on the moon. (French for being a total space cadette)

"Tu a parti sur la lune acen ton copain"

Got the mulled wine recipe from Gabriella.

Monday, March 8th

Made a variation of Amanda's Home Made Reeses Cup dessert for Life Group.

Dad might have a job in Ohio!

What I Learned:

French peanut butter is hard to find, expensive and really gross.

Sucre Poudre is not Powdered Sugar

Sunday (or Sandune if Amanda wasn't here correcting my typing), March 7th

Stayed for the member's church meeting at ICCP. Very interesting. They have to go thorugh a lot of stuff for the French governemet to be an organization. Not that that is at all surprising. :)

Saturday, March 6th

Best morning ever. Jason made me the most amazing video. Ever. He got video messages from all my theatre people on opening night before the show. And pictures of the set. (and Lydia and Lisa gave me advice on my accordion problem--having to do with a river) I was so sad about missing the show. As always, he was perfect. I don't know what I did to deserve him.

There are cherry blossoms out the window!

Day trip to Salon with Amanda and Lizzie. Started off with trying to go to the chateau, but it was about to close for lunch. So we went to a little restaurant and had delicious omlettes and dessert. They were playing a Michael Jackson music marathon on the TV, so that was entertaining. The French adore him. It's kind of weird. (On the way back to the car we found an advert for a Michael Jackson cover concert on the car window.)

Found a cool rock/moss/tree fountain.

The Chateau museum was great. It documented over 400 years of French military history. The costumer in me went a bit crazy. And who dosen't want to see Napoleon B.'s death bed?

They have an Egyptian section and the little enterance has a loose tile. Fits pretty well, huh?

We kept running into references to the Dragons. Turns out they were the elite French soldiers. And along the way, we re-wrote French history to fill in the gaps in our knoweldge. I like our version.. Hey, governments do it all the time!

Stopped by Amanda's little village on the way back. She lives with a very sweet kitty named Feline.

Quote of the Day:

Lizzie: "It's Algearian. That explains the little mexican jackets."

Friday, March 5th

Bleh. Stove is out on my floor. Down day all around. Stupid back.

Tuesday, March 4th

Saule's goodbye party :(

Had fun though. Watched Sister Act II. What would we do without Whoopi Goldberg. Finally got Isaac to join us. After 5 phonecalls. And I read Oh The Places You'll Go to them all like a kindergarden teacher. Amanda was the only one who had heard any Dr, Suess! How could that be? The world is a strange place.

Sunday, February 28th

Mexican food lunch with Amanda and Charlotte! Macarroni pasta, salsa, knacks, raped cheese, corn and sour cream all together in a pan with garlic and chilli powder. Turned out amazing! Maybe it's not really Mexican, but it was good. With baguette. Of course.

Went to the Bulldog and said goodbye to Charlie. :( Bon voyage!

Amanda and I rocked our first day of ushering at church, btw.

Saturday, February 27th

Slept in. As one should on a Saturday.

Went to lunch at the "California" restaurant. Earth friendly, fresh food.

Found a really sweet thrift shop.

There was a stamp festival at l'Hotel de Ville. So, we though, why not? It was actually pretty cool. No hot fench boys for Charlotte, mostly old men. The room it was in had some beautiful artwork.

Shoe shopping: found grey and black flats yay! My other ones, that Jason bought me and eveyone loved, finally died yesterday.

Went to the Aix tourist shop and found postcards. Then the rain started pouring down.

Went back to my room for warm pain au chocolat and hot chocolate.

Friday, February 26th

Amanda and I traversed Aix trying to get to the bus station. Finally made it and met Saule, Lizzy and Charlie. Headed off to Les Baux in Lizzy's car with a bag full of Clementines. (and Baby Tiger!)

Drove as fast as Lizzy's little car could go. Went through St. Cannet, Pelissanne (Amanda's little town) and Salon (which has a sweet airplane statue) And by a zoo, a playplace with giant dinos and a sweet Chateau (de la Barben)

Les Baux is beautiful.. The city section reminds me of Ez with the winding little streets. We got into the citadel section and Charlie started "flying" across it, flapping his arms like a bird. And we all had little kid juice boxes. Yep, that's the family for ya.

Had lunch is a little lookout cave on the side wall. About a 300 foot drop out the huge window. We cut the Camembert cheese with floss (Charlie is always so prepared) And we all shared the final communal juice box. Hung out off the wall to get a sweet pic. So worth the near death experience. 12th century chapel was amazing. Still so much to see. Defiantely worth the 6 euro. Especially since we got to put Charlie in the stocks.

Climbed to the top of "The Great Wall of France" (yes we are that cool) and looked out over all of Provence. The stairs up were massive. Felt like they were for giants. Half way up there is a veiw of a valley that matches the desciption of Dante's hell. When we reached the top it was like being at the top of Minas Tirith. So I pulled out my iPod and played the LOTR theme at the very top. So epic.

All of our fingers are dyed orange/yellow from the clementines. So worth the huge mess.

Made it home and Amanda and I took an awesome 2 hour nap

7:30 was Hanna's birthday. Tons of people in a little appartment.
Party with a bunch of international students = awesome food.
spicy seaweed, smoked salmon sushi, Gabriella's chicken wings, amazing coffee flavored cake, lots of wine

I met Sebastain who has a friend living in Aix who is from Helena! Her name's Anna. Need to find her on facebook.
Also met: Sven-from amsterdam
Hailey from Luxemborge
Alexandra from Nice
Floor party with Polarbear paws with Charlotte and Amanda. Really delicious.
Amanda spent the night again. Woot woot!

Thursday, February 25th

Presentation went fine. WIth the help of Amanda, our French powers combined, we restored order to the universe...um, power to my room. Kind of an embarassing conversation with the housing lady trying to tell me to find the fuse box, but all worked out in the end.

Bulldog burgers! Actually good, not like regular French burgers. "Probably the best burgers in Aix!" is there catch phrase. And it's probably true.

Made some sweet designs with the Heinz ketchup, mustard and mayo packets with Vincent.

Helene's last night :( Have an awesome time in South Africa!

Amanda spent the night. Woot!

What I learned:

Laura loves Churchill

Listening to the French try and say "hamburger" is really funny. Seriously, the scene out of the new Pink Panther wasn't much of an exaggeration.

Wednesday, February 24th

Doing a group project for French Culture class with Amanda and Hannah. Oh, Nathan! Our professor looks like the Magician from Citadels. He always gestures with one hand and he has this thing with his eye. He squints it when he talks.

And the power went out trying to finish the Moliere essay. So frustrating! Charlie let me use his compy to finish. Cheers Charlie!

Tuesday, February 23rd

Community Group with Domino's Pizza! Pretty much the same as the US, but the cheese is better. It was moved to today because last week the Carroll's were in Paris looking for apartments.

Celebrated Rachel's birthday.

Sunday, February 21st

Amanda spent less than 6 hours at her own house this last week. Good for us!

Cereal party after church at Minnisota's. It's an amazing apartment. They share it with 6 Sweedish students. A bit crazy, but cool.

On the way back home, Charlotte had a fast food craving. So we went to Quick, a French McDonalds. Smell of grease and everything. Amanda and I refrained from defileing ourselves. Saule and Charlotte went for the burgers. We all did try a fry with curry sauce (like from a little BBQ package) just for the novilty. Thus far, I have not eaten any fast food. And plan to hold out as long as possible.

What I Learned

Fast food is fast food. Dosen't matter where you are.

Saturday, February 20th

Charlotte's family was getting back that night so it was morning power cleaning. Not that bad actually. Although there were 9 empty bottles of wine on the counter and 3 empty jars of Nutella. But let's be fair, it was at least 7 people for a week. Not that bad. :)

Also, Chilli Chilli Rentre! Church chilli cookoff at the Andersons. Beautiful house up by St. Victoire. Amanda developed an itintimate relationship with Charlotte's jeans and she hemmed them while Charlotte was wearing them.

Bonfire at the Anderson's too! Lots of ash though. :(

It was set up like American Idol. Charlotte was Simon, simply because she was English. White, Australian Isaac was Randy and April was Paula. They did a great job. Here is the list of Chillis.

10 chillies

group 1: strangest

pumpkin and beanless with beer

Group 2: French

white bean and a garlic one

Group 3: traditional

pineaplle, naked, kidney beans, sweet corn

Group 4: Spicy:

i didn't try it

Kelsey-wore goggles and Adam and Tasha-homemade spicy sause

Then we all watched Groundhogs day. Such a good show. It had been so long since I'd seen it. And explaining the concept to non-Americans is hillarious. That has got to be one of the most rediculous holidays ever invented.

Met a yoga instructor, Julie Frazier.

Ended the night at the Bulldog: dessert and card games with the family and Kerri.

Then is was the sad sad goodbye. The end of the family week. The breaking of the Fellowship. ( I miss you Em! Oh, and I told them all about the "duck" and "cheese" word replacement. Long live The Lord of the Cheese!)

And apparently I missed out on Charlie's pee dance in the middle of the night.

Friday, February 19th

Woke up at 9am to watch Return of the King. Yes, we are that obsessed. Amanda made amazing blueberry muffins and orange butter. Sooo good.

Made some amazing twice-baked potatoes. Or as Charlotte said, "half-baked". I think that's something else. Charlotte committed a French crime by going out grocery shopping in sweatpants. I know. Scandelous.

Girls decided it was Karaoke night. On the way we took a wrong turn and ended up having to climb over a gate. Charlotte and Amanda were in dresses, Melissa and I in high heels. It was great. I got to know Charlotte REALLY well ;) (see photo on facebook)

We went to Karaoke Box near Cuques. It's mostly a bunch of university age Chinese and Koreans singing song with videos of people running through fields. And ALL of them sounded like "My Heart Will Go On". Not kidding. WE even tried it out.

Helene and I sat back and watched evryone sing. Saule gets really into Karaoke. Especially after a few shots. It was nice just getting to chat with Helene and get to know her a bit more. She is so sweet.

More hot chocolate and 5 minute microwave chocolate cake.

What I learned:

Asians love Karaoke

Don't let Charlotte lead

Everyone loves Spice Girls

Thursday, February 18th

Shopping day! Convinced Charlotte to buy the huge flare jeans. Kin triumphs over French fashion! Found some skinny jeans for me too. Miss Look = Amazing and Inexpensive.

Got back and found that Charlie had ditched us for 4 other women. Rather upsetting. Half way through dinner, we all paused and found that something was a bit odd. Then realized that it was quiet. Because Charlie wasn't there. Not that it was a bad thing, just realized how he always has some random topic of conversation to bring up. Usually having nothing to do with the conversation currently happening around him.

We made orange Madelines which turned out amazing.

It was hot chocolate night for us girls in the bed. Proper hot chocolate, not the mix stuff. And the "I Like Toast" video on youtube. (Compliments of Jason)

Then it was time to watch Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Couldn't quite make it to Return of the King. Really missing my LOTR girls back home. Love you all! Frodo lives!

Quotes from the day:

"Bonjour Mais Oui Baguette Bon soir"

"Baguette! (followed by French laugh)"

Wednesday, February 17th

Belated Chinese New Year! Still at Charlotte's. My room in Cuque is probably starting to miss me. Attempted to make home-made fortune cookies. The first batch turned out to be Unfortunate cookies since we forgot about them while eating dinner. Probably because we were trying to get the camera set up to take a picture of us all. We were eventually victorious. Except I don't think "eventually" and "victorious" should go in the same sentance.

The menu: Charlotte's 2 types of curry (hooray for sauce from Casino!)

Egg fried rice Cantonees style with lardons

Boiled curry rice with coconut milk

And my "asian" potatoes. Asian for the sole reason that they had coconut milk in them. Oh and kind of forgot about the whole celcius/F difference on the oven. So, I cooked them kind of high. Really high. But hey, they tasted good.

Lizzy joined us for the evening and we eventually got the fortune cookies to work out. It was a lot of fun writing up the fortunes for everyone. It turned out to basically be a montage of all the inside jokes we'd formed throught the week.

The movie of the night was Yes Man.

What I learned:

Celcius/F conversion isn't that important

Aparently we all "fall asleep REAL nice" according to Charlie

"No man! No man!"

Fortune Cookies rock!