Happy New Year!
I suppose I'll start wtih recaping the holidays, go from there...
Every Friday on my way home I stop by a small flower stand on the street to buy myself my favorite flowers: lilies. Every week the sweet florist, Alex, hand picks carefully the best lily stems, and every bouquet I buy he wraps in beautiful two toned colored paper, ribbon, extra leaves- all the bells and whistles for a lovely boquet. It makes me so happy to go home with my little present for myself, "C'est comme ca en France"' he tells me. Super bon. Je l'adore. On the 23rd I went down to routinely buy my flowers, and asked him what he was doing for the holidays. When the question was returned, and I responded that I had no clue what I was doing Christmas Eve (when the French really celebrate Xmas) as Antoine, Mr. Sauce Man was acting strange, and of course all my flat mates had plans (I'll come back to the new flat mate situation later). So he invited me over to enjoy dinner with some of his friends here in Marseille. For the party, I made THE BEST goat cheese stuffed mushrooms I've ever eaten, which makes loosing the recipe quite the bummer. I feel a little bad because everyone was asking for the recipe, and eating my hor d'oeurves with compliments and not really touching those created by the hostess. Hehehe. For Christmas Day I went to Guy's house which was perfect as I consider this lil crew to be part of my family here in Marseille: Mon Oncle (Uncle Bob), Chris (Gay BF), his hubby George, and of course, Guy. It was my job to bring the punch, so I marinated blueberries, cherries and pineapple in vodka overnight and made several bowls of potent punch. I mean, it really packed a punch - get it? Two hours into the party it was clear the punch was doing its job. Bob, who is an excellent chef, marinated mussels and octopus (which I ABsolutely love), bacon wrapped figs, and for a main course made a wild boar stew. It was fabulous. Later, Guy picked up his 4 year old daughter Poppy, another friend of his arrived after dinner, Ines and her 4 year old boy, Max. We played games, ate, drank. It was merry.
For New Years Eve at the last hour I asked to tag along with Kelly, her friend Erin, Erin's boyfriend Gabby (Gabriel, which actually is his middle name followed by Jean-Richard of which he is not a big fan, so when that had to be explained to me, Kelly was calling him Jean-Richard. I found it hysterical, Gabby not so much), and Gabby's best friend Mattieu at his chatlet in Saint Fermin, the French Alps. My tagging along threw a loop in the travel arrangements, so for all of us to get there, we took the van of Gabby's dad. A work vehicle (an electrician?), there is only three seats in the front cab with an empty cargo space for the back. The girls rode in the back, pretty much in the dark as the only window was a long, thin window looking into the cab and we couldn't see anything, with my iPhone and some whisky; and thank god for that because it was pretty damn chilly riding up into the Alps in the back of a dark, cold van. But I'm riding into the Alps with some girls and music and whiskey, so don't mistake that I'm complaining. We arrived to the chatlet and it is FREEEZing as no one had been in it for a long time. The water pipes were frozen, and the boys went to fixing that and starting a fire. Brrough!! Man make fire and water. Brrough! You could see your breath inside the house for the first several hours. It was warmer outside than in, so we sat out on the terrace with a bottle of rose, baguette, pate, and some pastry items we picked up on the way into town - town being 3 tiny streets of houses, one store, one pharamacy, and a bank/postoffice- for a light lunch. We drove about 20 minutes away to a larger store to buy all the goods for NYE weekend celebrations. Sandwich stuff for bringing our lunches to the mountain, ingredients for raclette, pasta, and lamb and potatoes to be grilled on the fire. Champagne, Richard, de la biere, and other necessities. Later that evening, friends of Erin, Margaux and her new beau, Arnaud arrived on the scene. These two were an interesting duo. They are cute, young, in the puppy-dog-twitterpated stage, and boy was it ever apparent. You know, I just turned 30, and it's been a long time since I've hung out with young twenty-somethings. It was fun to be a part of, to sit back and reflect on the differences of mentality and maturity;progression. And I guess I should be thankful, for the weekend made me proud and excited for the next decade of my life.
I've always wanted to try snowboarding. Given how I usually only make it up once or twice a year, I've always stuck with skiing to really profit from the experience. As Erin had always wanted to try as well, we decided we be newbies on the slopes and give it a whirl. Kelly is an excellent snowboarder, and offered to give us lessons. For the first hour, we just walked up and down part of a slope to get a feel for things. I got a few good slides in, and felt confident enough to try my game on the bunny slope. Totally wasn't a bunny slope. We get to the top with a successful dismount off the lift. After a whopping 10 minutes, I got up with a good run, gained too much speed and crashed. Hard. Really fucking hard. Instant tears. Big, fat, salty, wet tears that also evoked laughter for some reason I will never understand because it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, and I could absolutely not move. Erin called to see if I was alright. I knew nothing was really broken, but moaned in pain from my instantly bruised tail bone. I answered that yes I'm fine, continue on with out me. I laid there for a good 15 minutes, the tears still flowing. After collecting myself as much as I could, I tried to descend down the mountain. It was no good. My ass hurt so bad, it was hard to move, let alone on a snow board. There was a little restaurant on the slope, and the crew made a rendez-vous there for beer. We ending up staying there forever because lunch was in the car, there was no way I was getting down the mountain in a reasonable time, read: a snails pace, so Kelly and Gabby went down to grab the lunch and picnic on the slope. It took me over an hour to get down. Everyone split up after lunch, and I gave it another shot. Pointless. "Come on Rachel, you can do this!! You said you wanted to try, so try!!" After another go, another hard fall flat on my right knee and face, another round of big, fat, salty, wet tears that were not accompanied with any form of laughter, I gave up and used that damn snowboard as a sled to get down of the slope. It still hurt, but it was a hell of a lot faster than walking down, which made me feel even more like a looser, and as it was still fun to do. I limped my broken ass to the rental place to exchange the snowboard in for skis. By this time it was 4 o'clock, we were all meeting up at 5, and I only got in 3 runs, two by myself and the 3rd with Gabby, as I ran into him at the lift. This was New Years Eve, and it was a slow start to the party. I was broken, everyone else tired, wanting a warm shower (hot was not possible) of which is was last in line, and therefore opted to just and put my first layer of clothes on the heater and proceed to put on every other article of clothing I brought for the trip. This was something that annoyed me: everyone kept asking me if I was going to take a shower. I was like, "what is your problem? Do I really stink or something? It's my biz whether I take a shower or not, and given that I only like cold showers after I've just come in from the beach on a hot day, a situation I am clearly not in, I don't feel like taking a shower. Laiseet-tombe! (litterally- let it fall, drop it)" Well, as I mentioned it was slow to start, meaning here we are: a tired group of people that don't really know each other that well and thus the exciting conversation isn't exactly flowing, so I went upstairs to grab the booze and start making cocktails. I introduced the game "I Never", and then things started to pick up. We got our buzz on, starting dancing. It turned out to be a super chill, very fun New Years Eve. The boys procured from I have no idea where one artifice (firecracker) and they lit it. POP! that was our firework display.
The next day, Margaux and Arnaud went skiing, the boys went to town to stock up, and the girls chilled at the house, took a walk through the woods, made lunch, and later went sledding. There was no way physically possible of course for me to participate with my broken ass and all, so I sat on the side lines cheering and taking pictures. As it turned out, the events were not as jovial for Erin as they were for me. Her and Gabby got in a fight, said they were breaking up and separating when they got back to Marseille, and he ended up sleeping on the cold, tiled floor upstairs! It happened toward the end of the evening, I was drunk and dancing, and had no clue what was going on. Neither did Erin apparently, because I do remember her coming in her pjs asking where Gabby was because she couldn't find him. She thought he went on a walk or something, and didn't see him sleeping on the floor in the living room upstairs. So needless to say, it made things a little awkward for the rest of the trip. That night, I made a huge pot of pasta for the group, watched Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio - a really damn good film- and went to bed. Matt decided to stay at the chatlet, so on the way back to Marseille, I had to insist that I ride in the cab, with my broken ass and all. Kelly wanted to ride up front as well, as we didn't get to see a damn thing riding in the back of the van on the way up, and Erin said it would be cool for her to just ride back by herself. I gave her my iPhone which is now just my iPod, and Kelly said she would join Erin in the back after we got on to the freeway. It took a lot longer to get back because of the holiday traffic, Kelly just ended up riding up front the whole time, and I did feel bad for Erin. But with my broken ass and all, what else was I gonna do?
Back in Marseille, I was happy to come home to my new flatmates. I now live in another part of town, closer in walking distance to my job, so this is a good thing, with three French flatmates which is an even better thing. The old apt was fantastic, but the neighbors were a bitch, Ludo was a little on the paranoid side, and I was by myself a lot. With all three of my jobs being a teacher of English, being alone at home with my English brain and computer, I wasn't getting a lot of French.. I thought my French would be better by now, and I'm sure it has improved, but it's definitely not where it could be; where I want it to be. Michael, who we call Mika, 28, journalsit. Marlene, sweetheart and a half, 26, works in the hotel industry. Ben, 27?, getting his Masters or PH D in biolgoy or something. I told Mika I don't really understand what it is Ben studies, and he said, moi non plus (me neither). So I'll ask Ben more about that later. The problem is Ben is really good looking, and I get nervous talking to him. We have temporary flatmate Baptise, who is doing an internship in Marseille and is staying with us for 2 months while he works here. When I moved in, xmas break was just starting. Mika tore some ligaments in his right knee and recently had major surgery on it, and is home on work leave. He works often from home anyway as a journalist for tech magazines. I've yet to read his work. Baptiste was also on holiday, and so I spent the first week here kickin' it with these two. I'm very lucky: I found a really great group of people. Smart, sensible, funny, young, talented and sweet. Mika understands English the best, and is my go-to to help with my French. I haven't spent too much time with Marlene and Ben, but the nights and weekends are fun: usually someone makes a big dinner for everyone. There's always a joint or two in the mix throughout the evening. The apartments itself is lovely: lots of windows, two story, two bathroom, 3 balconies. From the balconies upstairs you can take a small ladder that Ben put up to the roof, and there you have sweeping views of Les Calanques and Notre Dame de la Garde. The roof is flat and covered in gravel, and Ben has gathered the flat cement blocks that are used for the entry way, and for some reason or another were put on the roof as well, to make a large cement square so we can exercise up there. I jumped rope for a half hour up there in the sunshine, feeling pretty cool about skipping rope for my cardio of the day on the roof of my apartment. The only problem with the apartment is that I'm subletting it from Blondine, who had gone to work in Paris until the end of April...possibly May. It's not sure. What is sure is how sad I'm going to be when I have to leave. Who knows what's going to happen? So for now I'm just living in the moment, enjoying day by day.
There's more. much more. One of my New Years resolutions: more blogging. You got some questions? What would you like to know?!
Cheers,
Rachel
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Rachel Huffman
Love, Laughter, Adventure: Alive and on Fire!!
