Adventures of a teenage nomad

so i've started the long process of getting the many pictures online! yikes! i could only do abou 1/3 because even the super speedy computer at this cafe couldnt handle it!
so here is of the french wwoof farm:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v474/tofu4ui8/french%20wwoof/

so first off let me start out by saying thanks to my whole family for those sweet thanksgiving pics, i loved them! certainly put a smile on my face to see stuff happening at home!

so where did i leave off? PARIS!

how was it? incredible! im so excited to go back later on to see more of the sites! kara and i started out trying to find the hostel, that took a bit of effort because it was very far away on a street thats name was everywhere! i think if i ever see another richard linoire street sign ill explode! we go there, i rock some french action and we get a room,

next we went out and started rocking (but when did we stop?) we were very hungry so we got a croque monsieur. this is a type of sandwich that french teachers drill into your head in french 1. you learn 3 things:
-bonjour, ca va?
-merci beacoup
-croque monsieur.

so, after hearing so much about it, i of course had to try one! its this sandwich wich ham on this inside and cheese ontop of all the bread- and it was delicious, but then again, we were pretty starving! then we took the metro to champlycee, its kind of like a long blvd with trees, and beautiful houses, and frenchy things! walked around there for a bit. its funny everytime i even got a glimpse of the eiffle tower from far away i had to smile!i kept on thinking "im in france!" ya!

so then, we wanted to take a bus tour so we somehow found a tour bus and hopped on. it was really fun, seeing all the sights while driving really fast.

and then the city went nuts, the metro people went on strike leaving every car in the city on the road. this of course led to a crazy traffic jam. there was also a protest going on. not sure what it was about, but everyone in it wore black. perhaps pro goth?

when we finally finished the loop we got out around the eiffle tower. it was perfect timing because the sun was just setting and its lights came on. of course kara and i bought a french hat for all of the pictures, so we looked like ultimate tourists! took really fun pictures there! im so anxious to get them online! theres so many by this point its going to take forever! oh well! itll happen eventually!

so with the metro being kaputzed, kara and i picked out a restaurant from the super cool touurist giude book and it was delicious! the waiter was really nice and explained the menu to us with a few jokes along the way! very classy place.

i started out with a glass of beaujolais wine. ive heard about it before and i know it only comes out once a year, and this is the time, it was really good, a bit sweet for a red, but good just the same! we had some crusty bread with a creamy sauce, very good to start with. then for an appetizer we shared ravioli with a thick crust of cheese on top, very delicious, but the entree was the best-
she had a beef with a dark sauce, it was tender and pretty delicious
i had a roast duck with a glaze on top- even more delicious!
dessert was a mille feuille, a layered pastry with cream inside, and kara had a lovely coffee thing, we both had coffee as well mm!

so that was a lovely experience! but what followed was not so cool- it took us about 3 hours to get home because we walked and got lost. yikes! but it was kind of fun walking because in the metro you dont see to much, and we definitly saw paris!

we missed a few things like sacre couer, the louvre, and probably a few more, but we had a lot of fun!

The next morning, way to early we got up and went to the airport for milan.

ill write more about that later! for now im going to explore amsterdam a bit more!
bye!
miss you all!
~MARYme

I got up really early (thats a lie) and we ate a big FRENCH breakfast- croissants, and chocolate croissants!! mmm! so we got all the kids strapped in, went to the train station, and when i tried to get a seat reservation with my europass, they were all full until 6am tommorrow. so guess whos back milking the cows?!

the upside is i did the whole ticket thing in french, which DEFINITLY shows progress! downside is i should have made my reservations 5 days in advance, but- now i know!

on the drive home it was beautiful, we went over this hill/ mountain and all the fall colors are beautiful, i was very happy in that moment.

once home the sky turned grey, so i spent the day reading, napping, and doing the last milking. i was really plmanning on taking a bike ride, but who wants to do that in the overcast cold? no one.

so tonight, some of phillippes and marie laureùs kids started showing up, we made crepes, they were amazing- i even got on the griddle for a while! but all of mine were very small, oh well!

how is it after a restfull day that all i want to do is sleep? hmmm...

ok! love to all!!
MARYme

so today, i woke up and got the kids breakfasted up- we then watched anastasia, because i use to think it was a good movie, now qfter seeing it i think its pretty crappy. oh well!

had a few hours to myself, ate, read, computered, etc

then phillipe drove me in the tractor to somewhere in the woods and i played with the kids for about 4 hours- it was sweet, we found a salimander, had a swordfight, which led to a pig pile, and just ran around the woods for a while- its so cool how you dont really need to speak english with kids, theyll just laugh at anything!

so now were home- i milked the cows for the LAST TIME!!! ahhh!

so tommorrow i have 2 options:

option 1- go to the wwoof farm in holland, which would be totally fine.

option 2- go to paris, stay the night with isa, spend monday exploring paris and leave sunday night arriving in holland late. or maybe even staying 2 nights... however- ive been trying to reach isa but she hasnt gotten my message yet. so im not even sure if i can!

and also, with both options, i havent made seat reservations yet. i tried to do them on the computer, but it said it can only be done at the ticket booth or 5 days in advance- dont they know world travelers never know that far in the future?

ok, i might even shower tonight. i stink horribly.

and i need to pack. that usually takes an hour and a half.

ok, peace!
MARYme

Hello everyone !
So this is my first day without isa, and so far so good ! imiss her of course, but i think its also good for me to be alone in this environment for a while. Its funny how polar opposite this day has been as compared to the rest of the week- no english today, no girls today ! i was surrounded by french men- yikes !

Today was big bread day ! so i got up at 630, o wait let me back up- last night i slept on a piece of heaven ! i took my mattress and put it over isas and i realized she had a box spring under hers ! now my bed is bouncy ! i havent had that for about 2 weeks ! its sick !
So anyway, got up had breakfast (yesterday at the store i bought some granola/mueslix so i had cereal !) did the bread thing for a while.i stayed quiet most of all of the time. But it got made- in between one of the rounds i made dough for flour tortillas. After we were done making gallettes on the griddle thing, i did tortillas but more on that later !

So, bread bread bread, a little siesta in there somewhere, had gallettes for lunch, for my dessert round, i had it wwith banana and chocolate chips ! mmm ! then i got the cows, milked the cows (all by myself ! im kind of proud !) it was cool too because about 4 little kids sat on the milk tank and watched me as they munched on their petit pain chocolat. Got pictures of that ! then pee pee came in the room and all the kids ran out of there pretty fast.

So did that, then got hay out with phillippe, watered and gave milk to the calfs, etc nightly routine.

But then, i came inside and started a being a chef extrodinaire ! i started by making the bircher mueslix, taking the apples putting them in little slivers, ditto for pears, chopping bananas, adding yogurt and finally my cereal.

Next i started some rice, but thats boring. However i DID find soy sauce ! so that makes it a tad more exciting. Only a tad.

And then, for my master piece i took the tortilla bits and layed them as the first layer of what would soon become heaven in a dish. I took ground beef, onions, garlic, and found some hot pepper seasoning and layered it with more chips, cheese, tomatoes. Once that was done i put it in the still hot brick oven to keep warm. Once everyone was ready i went out in the garden and got some fresh lettuce leaves, chopped them up, and finally yogurt (but its not flavored, so its more like sour cream)

So how was it…. Awesome ! i havent had anything really spicey in a long time, and this was perfect ! when it got too spicy i mixed it with rice and the mueslix and it was perfection ! the kids dont like spicey food (didnt know that before) so they didnt want to try it- but im sure if there tongue even had one part of it, and they lost their fear of spicey foods, they would fall in love ! might have been a little hot for marielaure and phillipe, because they kept on blowing their nose throughout. But i thought it was very good. I give it a solid a !

Ok, im really tired- i think ill sleep in tommorrow, because its Saturday !

Love to all !
MARYme