Time to get down to business.

Jamaican Chicken Noodle Soup!

When January began I had these grandiose, lofty visions of weekly blog posts where I could leisurely and "petit à petit," describe my adventures in my last few months here. Unfortunately, with full weeks and weekends and less than stellar Internet access it hasn't been the case. Now it's almost February, but as January is coming to an end, I can say that I'm quite content with all that I've accomplished and experienced this month. I only have about three months left, and because I know how fast time flies when you're abroad, a friend and I have decided to make a list of things that we want to do before leaving. Some are simple, like trying a cool restaurant we've seen around town, some are more demanding like exploring Basque Country and going South of the border to Spain. In the last few weeks we've gotten a good bit done, and here's some of what I've been up to:

Part of the outside of the church.

1) Taking a day-trip to Lourdes. I didn't really know much about this town outside of the reference to it in the French film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," and I was surprised to discover that living in Pau I'm only about 30 minutes away by train. Lourdes is a pilgrimage destination for Catholics all over the world and as such, is also a very touristy, but religiously touristy little town. It's right next to the Pyrenees and quite cold right now. Anyway, here's the short story of why it's a holy town in case like me you had no idea. Back in 1858 a girl named Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary appear 18 times over the course of a few months, in this grotto in Lourdes. On March 25 (my birthday!) Mary said to her: "I am the Immaculate Conception."

Holy water jug

So now people from literally all over the world come to Lourdes to visit the beautiful church erected around the grotto, see where the appearance took place, drink, wash and collect Holy Water in jugs and bottles of various shapes and sizes, from the many spouts erected around the grotto. My friend Sarah and I went a few weeks ago and there were some people, but with the cold there weren't too many. I can only imagine the huge crowds during the spring and summertime. Even though it's a tiny town, I was astonished to see so many hotels all over the place, though most of them were vacant now during the low-season. Overall, Lourdes was a very unique, interesting experience. I consider myself to be a Christian, but at the same time I felt really distanced from everything around me. Maybe it's because of my Protestant upbringing, but I really felt like an outsider looking in during my day in Lourdes. Last thoughts: for me it was kind of sad to see a holy experience cheapened to something that store owners could profit from. I suppose though if pilgrims are getting an enriching experience from their time in Lourdes, that's what counts.

Pau's in the green. Check out the Gator referee!

2) Going to a rugby match! Football (or as I always say with my students to distinguish from soccer, American football)? Forget about it. Over here, especially in the southwest corner of France it's all about the rugbymen. Here in Pau the team is known as the Section Paloise, and a few weeks ago my friends and I saw a match they played against Aix-en-Provence (which we won, woot!). I know, I'm American and as a Gator grad I should say that I prefer football, but honestly watching a rugby game is much more riveting than a football game, in my opinion. The juxtaposition of grace and brute strength left my friends and I in awe during the match.

One of the concert posters. Cool, non?

3) Seeing the OPPB (Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn). My roomie and I went to a free student concert last Friday where Pau's orchestra played Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony. It was absolutely beautiful and what was really great was that before the orchestra played the symphony straight through, the conductor talked to the audience about the piece and different themes and melodies to listen for, having the orchestra play examples of what we could expect during the symphony. It was great to see a conductor take the time to make such beautiful music more accessible to the public.

The pastry days continue. A Paris Brest with tea.

4) Chatting with my new conversation partner. After chaperoning on a school field trip to see Dracula with some of my students, I ended up meeting another teacher at the school who knew someone looking for an English conversation partner. After a general meeting Caroline and I have been meeting a few times a week over coffee to spend half our time chatting in English and the other half chatting in French. She's really friendly and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to meet someone new and speak more French. I speak a good bit of French here, but with all of my work done in English I haven't been speaking as much as I would like.

Sewing supplies

5) Going to the Musée Bernadotte. So to add to Pau's list of elite inhabitants is an old general in the French army, Bernadotte. The museum here named after him is actually in his old, traditional Béarnais (referring to the old name of this region) -style house. Things to know about him is that he and Napoleon used to be pretty good pals before the French Revolution and through his travels and meeting the right people this French native ended up getting to be king of Norway and Sweden (Sweet, huh?) A friend and I went to this museum last week and right now they also have an exhibit from a Norwegian artist, created to raise awareness of the many women murdered in Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. This exhibit is basically a bright pink wall with the names of the victims sewed on small pieces of cloth. What's cool is that where this exhibit travels, visitors take a a hand in creating the exhibit, sewing the names of victims on these pieces of cloth (or sewing the word "unknown" in your native language, for the victims who are unidentified). After much longer than I would like to admit due to our less than stellar sewing skills, my friend and I managed to scrape out a very barebones "UNKNOWN" on one of the cloth pieces to add to the exhibit. 

Not the best pic, but the finished product.

Honestly, two weeks here is a lot of time, so it's hard to remember everything. Otherwise it's just been business as usual. Regular pastry days with friends, even in inclement weather. I got a flat on my bike one day and went to visit Andor at the bike workshop, and when I'm in the area I try to pass by and see him even when "tout va bien." It's sales time here (only happens twice a year!) so I picked up a nice, much-needed wallet and cute, not as much needed dress. I tried a Cameroonian restaurant with a friend last Saturday night which was so delicious. With the cooked chicken, rice and plantains it reminded me of the Jamaican food which when at home I use to complain about having all of the time, but now I miss so much!

Petits-fours à la confiture

I'm still trying to whip up some new dishes in the kitchen as well. Going back to my roots, a while back I made some Jamaican chicken noodle soup and on Sunday morning made some cornmeal porridge. Not as good as Mom's, but not bad all the same. At the beginning of this year I marked some of the simpler, more cost effective recipes I wanted to try from the recipe book that my host mom gave me back in Grenoble. I've been pretty good at doing a recipe or two a week. They've all been turning out great except for Sunday's little disaster. I tried to make a soup, and long story short I ended up with mushy, milky pumpkin I couldn't eat (but that my roommate loved). Let's just say that I discovered that regardless of what people here have been telling me, "potiron" and "citrouille" are NOT the same thing. No pictures of the failure, because I don't want to make you barf all over your computer. Instead, check out some of my successes. Until next time!

Sablés. Like shortbread cookies but yummier.

Pilaf à la créole