Mes aventures dans les Alpes

Where do I start? I suppose you'd like to know about Thanksgiving in France. I have to say, it was a unique experience. The restaurant was nice and there were about 120 people there - students, their host families, members of my English conversation group (retired folks, they're very sweet), teachers, etc. I had to give a speech in French and I was pretty nervous. I talked about the origins of the holiday. It went okay, but if I could do it over again, I would just relax! Ha ha. Anyway, the food was good but not at all traditionally prepared. It's the French, they have to fancy everything up with sauces and things. And a tarte au poisson - seafood pastry - is not a usual Thanksgiving appetizer, the last time I checked! :) But you have to give them points for effort on the pumpkin pie... even if they did put the cranberry sauce on it instead of the turkey... Yeah, it was nothing compared to Grandma's!!!

I didn't have a lot of time to critique the meal since I was jumping up and down every two seconds to keep the program running... Madame la Présidente has certain responsibilities, you know... But the students here have a lot of musical talent! One guy has even put out a CD with a record label. Maybe I should have been up there on the piano, but I've scarcely practiced a lick since I've been here. I'll have some work to do getting my fingers back in shape when I get home. This is the first time I've really let music fall by the wayside, and I miss it!

Anyway, the good news is I didn't have time to be homesick. Now that it's December (aaaah!) I am suddenly dreading my looming departure more and more. Not that I don't want to be home, because I do! But I've done so much work to integrate myself into life here, and now I'm just leaving all that behind. It's hard...

Before I go, I'm getting in my last little bit of traveling. Last weekend I went to Grenoble. It was SO fun! I didn't see a ton of the town, because both days, Benoît and I woke up early and went straight up into the mountains to ski. Grenoble is near the mid-southeastern border of France, that is, close to Switzerland and Italy, nestled in a valley between mountains in the Belledonne chain. We went to the 2 Alpes resort, which is huge!!! But apparently not by French standards. It's certainly the biggest mountain I've ever skied on. Unfortunately it's still really early in the season so there wasn't much snow. Only the uppermost runs were open, not even a third of the mountain, but that was still about the size of the resorts I'm used to. There was a good variety of lifts, some steep walls... Plus there were jumps, which I went so far as to experiment with. But after falling on my face a few times and losing a ski halfway up a jump so that I thought someone flying over the top of it would land on my head when I went to retrieve it... I decided maybe that's not for me. Or maybe I just need some practice. :)

Saturday the weather was beautiful. Sunny, warm (well, as warm as you can be 10,000 feet up on top of a glacier), not a cloud in the sky. We stayed out all day, ate our sandwiches at the very top of the mountain looking at Mont Blanc, and went back to his cute little studio apartment (with a beautiful view of the mountains, I might add) absolutely exhausted! Repeat on Sunday, although the weather was worse so we didn't stay up as long. It was so windy and bitingly cold. I've never been so frozen in my life, the kind of cold where when your blood goes back into your fingers it hurts like the dickens and where your toes are like little stiff blocks of ice dissociated from your body and no longer under your mind's control and your nose feels like it is going to fall off. (Yeah, I'm kind of wimpy when it comes to cold...) Still, I adore skiing. I will have to do some more when I get home. I even have my own skis there...

I came back Sunday on the night train, got to Nantes Monday at 6 am. Ran home, got ready for class, started the week still half-asleep. I made it through that day okay but Tuesday was a mess. Didn't wake up to my alarm, was late to class, missed a meeting, you know, a usual helter-skelter, I-wore-myself-out-and-didn't-give-myself-time-to-recover day. But I survived, and now I had better get some work done, because I have a ton due this week and I'm leaving tomorrow (does it never end???) for Germany!

I'll tell you all about the Model EU conference when I get back!