L'Anjou Troglodytique & Les Accroches Coeurs

Wednesday: All of the international students at my school were invited to a wine reception with the mayor of Angers, and believe me I really did want to go. What did I miss it for? - food. Wednesday I had already arranged to have dinner with my host family- we have dinner once a week and believe it is not something you want to miss, so I skipped home after school to begin the festivities. Before dinner I talked with my Cecilia for an hour in English! I am doing this in exchange for Carol doing my laundry- who's really getting the better end of the deal here? It was so much more enjoyable to be the teacher than the flustered student, and I even gained some helpful insights. Despite her slow speech and utter frustration with conjugating verbs, I really enjoyed talking to her- for the sole purpose of listening to what she had to say. I realized then that my host family must feel the same way -willing to help me learn, quick to forgive any grammar mistakes, and genuinely intersted in this strange girl who is living in their house. After that little pick-me-up English conversation I proceded to resume butchering French verbs over dinner. Dinner chez Buffenoir is quite an ordeal- I could devote a whole blog entry to this but here goes. First we chat over a bit of crackers and some sort of sparkling wine or champagne. The conversation starts off slowly and I get to hear about the kids day at school. After a while we eat the first course- that night consisted of homemade quiche lorraine (be still my heart) and a tossed green salad. This absolutely must be accompanied by a dinner wine- usually red- of which I learn the origin and palate details from Marc. (Are the Fench required to know about wine?) That course is followed by a round of conversation, approximately 30 minutes, before we begin dessert- usually there is a cheese course between these too. That evening we had homemade pear turnovers with vanilla ice cream- how much puff pastry can my happy heart take? This was indeed followed by more lively conversation, complete with me failing at French, and then some after dinner liqueurs - lemon and apple. After I was completely stuffed they broke out some chocolate toffee candies and we stayed around the table until well after dark. I have come to absolutely adore these scrumptious, warm-hearted, 2 hour affairs.

Thursday consisted of another 8 hours at school pretending I know more French than I feel like I do. The sheer amount of vocabulary that I learn in one day is ridiculous- but will I actually remember the French word for helmet? I'm pretty sure I went home early that night and got some much needed sleep, but you never know. Trying to remember something from last Thursday is proving to be rather difficult- you could come back later and this section might be totally different. :)

Friday we had our first exams in class. We listened to a French person talk at nearly a hundred miles an hour ( well 100 kilometers per hour at least) and had to answer comprehension questions on what we had understood. The second test was also comprehension questions- but over a page excerpt that she had us read. The conclusion of these led to general panicking by myself and Carolyn about how in the world we ever tested into the highest level. I am happy to report though that I got a 14/20 on the written and a 17/20 on the oral. It might be wise to bring up here the wacky French grading scale as explained to me by my teacher. 20 is reserved for God- and they mean it. French students shoot for 10 or better- that is a solid passing grade. 12 is average and anything around 16-18 is extraordinary - her words :) School was thankfully over early that day because most people were going on that afternoon's excursion L'Anjou Troglodytique. I'll gloss over the ridiculously long bus ride which played havoc with my stomach and skip to the good stuff. We visited the troglodyte village of Louresse-Rochemenier (the houses were carved completely out of the soft rock prominent in the region, picture above). The area that we visited had been a working farm until the 1930's and there were still many inhabited troglodyte houses in the area. We saw old farm machinery, wine cellars, oil presses, cisterns, chapels, and everything you would need to live in a sweet underground city. The tour was brief, but very enjoyable- especially the picture gallery of some of the farm's former residents.

We got back on the bus, stopping quickly along the way to see the outstide of a beautiful castle- the first of many this weekend. Our next stop was the caves of the Vueve Amiot a large manufactuerer of sparkling wine- not to be confused with Champagne. We were given a tour in very quick french- but I was able to follow well enough to enjoy the description of the double fermentation process. After a trek through the caves to see the wine in all its stages we were served samples of three wines: brut, demi-sec, et rouge- all very tasty.

We finally made it to the main component (in my opinion) of our excursion- dinner in an authentic troglodytiqe restaurant. The room smelled slightly like cave and was dimly lit, but nonetheless added to the charm of the experience. Our meal was absolutely unbelievable, especially after yet another mystery fish in the dining hall that day. We were served wine, mushrooms cooked in a rich broth, green salad, and a large mushroom covered in an herb ground beef mixture. Thinking this was the main course of our meal we ate almost everything- only to be besieged by the endless parade of delicious mushroom based courses that followed. The star of each were homemade fouées - hearty bread pockets similar to pitas. The fouées were served steaming hot, first to be buttered and filled with a pork pâté, next with mushrooms and a creamy hamburger sauce, and finally with a salty melted cheese on top. No french meal being complete without dessert we forced down healthy portions of apple tart and topped it all off with delicious coffee. This was by far the best meal I've had in France both in quality and quantity, and if we're ever in France together this is something I must share with you.

Saturday morning, after getting in around 11 the night before, I forced myself to get out of bed and head the the marche aux puces- open air market. The atmosphere was quite exhilarating, with what must have been all of Angers bustling around purchasing produce and fares from the ever shouting vendors. I happily bought 12 peaches ( of which I only have 3 left) and and bunch of grapes to serve as breakfast/dinner food. There were booths of olives, spices, produce of every kind, flowers, leather shoes, clothes, handmade jewelry and so much more. This will definitely be a much loved Saturday tradition in Angers.

The rest of my Saturday consisted of making plans for our 10 day break at the end of September. After much agonizing I decided accompany the group touring Italy instead of the one going to Spain- we're working on finalizing the details. Since we had an excursion on Sunday a large group of us went to Saturday night mass where I finally recognized the readings even though they were in French and managed to absorb some of the homily.

Afterwards I met up with Trigg, Phil, and Matt to explore downtown. This weekend in Angers was the Accroche-Coeurs. Basically the whole town celebrates throughout the weekend with large performances and street shows both during the day and at night. The theme this year was angels and demons, and the street was littered with trails of feathers, each leading to the remnants of an exciting performance. The boys and I treked all the way out past the castle of Angers to see a fire-music show. The crew had built a large jungle gym of sorts surrounded by a wide berth of gates to keep crowds at a safe distance. They began the show by passing around buckets of a sawdust looking material- and piling it onto every surface of the structure. Amidst some rather intruiging music and random clips of a United Nations speech, they proceeded to light the whole thing on fire and work admist it continuously adding more flamable magic sawdust and causing large explosions. The men, most with waist length dredlocks and bodies painted like demons from head to toe, had clearly devised a show where they could produce the most fire possible without being arrested, but it was enjoyable in a rather noisy heathanistic way.

After the show we walked back through town and met up with the rest of the ND students who were watching the ND Michigan game at an Irish friendly bar called Falstaff's. They were in the midst of a rowdy, earspliting, crazy-dancing, football watching frenzy with many enthusiastic french boys joining in. I stayed only to see a sad third quater but thankfully left before the rest of the football tragedy ensued. I made it to bed at a decent hour- ready for the excursion the next day.