Americans, Babies and Crêpes

So this weekend, my American biffle came to see Romorantin in all its tiny glory. I warned her that there was not much to see, but she insisted but accepted that she would arrive Saturday evening, and leave at 3pm Sunday. 20 hours is more than enough time to see my town.

Just because I thought it was quite a funny picture...

I finish lessons Thursday afternoon, and had the prospect of an empty Friday and Saturday ahead of me. In fact, I was fairly successful in filling the days with Italian grammar, playing billiards with the boys, saying goodbye to a (now former) occupant of the MAJO, and having a Bible session with some ladies from church. After discussing Genesis 12 and the figure of Sarah, we had some good old fashioned tea and cake. And I made a point of asking for ENGLISH tea with MILK. And I was duly so served to my delight. One woman had to leave briefly to feed her baby, and so the talk turned to babies, pregnancy, the ease of weight gain and the difficulties of weight loss. And I looked around at the seven women surrounding me, all of whom were married and had at least one child. And I thought: is this what I am going to turn into in ten years? And will I be subject to conversation themes dominated by "the weight of my children when first-born", diet changes during and after pregnancy, and the inability to have romantic dinners in restaurants because of incapable babysitters? I shuddered, but comforted myself by thinking that I’ve got ten years until all that (according to my precisely mapped out life plan).

Sadly I forgot my camera, so thank you to Google
Images for providing something resembling my own galette

Shortly after being dropped home, it was time to go and pick up my biffle AKA Erin from the train and bus station. We had a lovely, French dinner in a restaurant in Romo I had been wanting to try for a while called ‘la poele percée’ (the pierced (frying) pan) and they had frying pans with holes in them as lighting brackets! It was a crêpe restaurant AKA crêperie, and Erin and I both chose the Normandie galette (galette = savoury, crêpe = sweet) which included: steak haché, egg, mushrooms, crême fraîche and gruyere. It was soooo good. You could tell it was proper French cooking because they didn’t completely cook the meat or the egg so it was plenty moist and juicy. Larverly. I also began to feel particularly French when Erin explained to me the reason we had little bowls on our placemats, and no glasses. Their function (which I had originally mistaken to be to wash our hands in after the meal – not entirely sure why I thought that, perhaps it’s with Chinese food) is to serve as vessels for our lovely, delicious CIDER. We got the cider doux, and it was heavenly. Galettes demolished, we contemplated the menu once again, but focussed on the desserts section. Could we manage one? Of course. ‘Un crêpe à la maison, s’il vous plaît’, and not too much longer we were savouring the delights of a crêpe filled with peaches and dark chocolate sauce, topped with vanilla ice-cream and chantilly cream. Stuck in our crêpe was a small green clown who we were permitted to adopt, and have named Clarence. Upon paying for our meal (33€ well spent) I asked if Clarence was home-made. I was told not, and Erin was then handed two more clowns, one red/pink (Agatha) and one blue (Basil).

We then returned to the MAJO, played a couple of games of pool. Six months of living at the MAJO and playing pool almost every evening has definitely paid off. Whether it has been a good use of my time is a different question which I deign not to answer. We then retired to my room and proved that it is possible to fit two people (one in a sleeping bag) on a single bed.

Not bad at all. 

Sunday was spent doing some light shopping, sauntering around Romorantin in the glorious sunshine, making double cheese burgers for lunch, watching Gavin and Stacey, having lemon meringue pies from the patisserie for pudding and generally loving life.

A few points to make on the supermarket:

1. There are no shopping baskets, only trollies. Is this another way of encouraging people to buy more? Either you limit yourself to what you have in your arm capacity, or you take a large trolley which has plenty of space for products on offer, things you might possibly need within the next year, new things to try…? Just a suggestion.

2. No free plastic bags. I arrived at the check-out and discovered I had left my coveted plastic bag at home. I asked if they had extra plastic bags and the girl on the till got out a bag for life. Curse the eco-friendly French. The girl then told me I could use one of the cardboard boxes piled up outside the supermarket for free if I wanted. Thanks again to Erin, who explained that it’s a way of people being able to carry their groceries, and for the supermarket to get rid of unwanted packaging which they’d be obliged to recycle themselves. Gotta love the eco-friendly French.

3. Eggs. There were battery-hen eggs, and there were organic and free range eggs. There were no free range non-organic eggs. These organic ones had better be worth the extra euro. My omelettes shall be subject to strict judging procedures.

      

      Talking about organic produce, I had a thoroughly interesting conversation with a man at the MAJO the other day. It started off with him wandering into the computer room and me being more interested in facebook, but before long we were chatting away in general, and before much long after that we were talking about his motivations for becoming vegan (he’s the son of two butchers!). A very enjoyable and stimulating conversation, and the thing which sticks most stubbornly in my head is Yvan quoting Ghandi: be the change you want to see. Yes, I don’t think veganism is going to catch on completely ever, because meat will always be at the least the luxury of the rich, but I completely admire the way he has significantly changed his life style because of a cause that he passionately believes in. How many of us can say the same thing?

Lovely park/woody bit and river running through Romo.
I need to get my running shoes on...

Before we knew it, it was time for Erin to get her bus back to Blois. The bus timetable itself confirms how much ‘better’ Blois is than Romo (I beg to differ, but I’m a country bumpkin): buses go from Romo to Blois is the morning, and return from Blois in the evening. If you want to go from Blois to Romo for a day, you’ll have an hour and a half there before you can take the last bus back to Blois! This was the original reason for her staying the night in Romo, but I very much enjoyed our intellectual conversations. The most helpful of which tackled a question which I’ve been having real difficulties with of late (and which comments – which will be subsequently subject to vigorous debate – from one and all would be welcome):

What is culture?

However for my musings on that particular question, you will have to talk to me directly, because my opinions change on a daily basis. More to the point, I'm stopping because I need to finish off planning my lesson which is starting in 12 hours. Bonne nuit!