This weekend I was thrown into an interesting situation. The Deboutes took me along on a weekend get-away of sorts, we went to a family birthday party in the city of Nantes. You can assume that I was, well to be honest, I was terrified. Its awkward enough living in such close quarters with people I haven´t known but a week and can´t understand half the time, but to add several more French adults to the mix and a large slew of screaming children; I wasn´t sure I would survive the weekend. But without the vocabulary necessary to construct an excuse and having a general curiosity about Nantes I hopped in the caravan. Our first destination was Karine´s sisters house. I couldn´t help but notice that as we got closer Mattis and Hugo got more excited...I soon understood why. Once we arrived and I got past all the awkward introductions and kisses on the cheaks (which still catch me off guard) we entered a house that was fully equipped with all sorts of fancy toys. Huge huge huge tv armed with like 40 wii games and a computer around every corner; this French lifestyle is competely different than the Deboutes. After a few hours of odd Frenglish small talk we ¨adults¨ all sat down for a drink (thank god). Henrik (Karine´s sister´s husband) brought out a bottle of champagne and Franck turned to me and asked if I had ever had champagne. Knowing there was a catch I replied ¨Well, I´ve had champagne but I´ve never had...French champagne.¨ Both men let out a loud scoff and Franck said ¨Well zen you ´ave never ´ad REAL champagne.¨ AHA! I knew you had some French tude in you Franck, I knew it! Anyways, the night continues on and the third round of glasses have been poured. Someone makes a comment on how I must be feeling a little drunk; these French...always underestimating me. I being the polite American girl that I am refrained from scoffing and replied that we are not strangers to drinking in Colorado; hugely understating the fact that if I was in college drinking shape I could probably drink all of these Frenchies under the table...not that I´m boasting of course. Upon hearing this Henrik jumps to his feet and trods off across the room. He returns and hands me a glass of almond cognac that aged for 20 years(!) and was easily the best drink I have ever had. Needless to say, I had a great night.
The next day we packed up the caravan and headed to the birthday party of a 3 years old named Esteban. However, before the party Franck and Karine gave me a quick tour of the Chateau de Nantes. As brief as this tour was it reminded me of one very very important reason for coming to France: to see cool old stuff. I also decided that I want to live in a castle when I grow up.
Anyways, we get to Esteban´s birthday party and I am immediatley engulfed in personal-space-invading-cheak-kissing French people, all of whom are speaking so quickly that I litterally didn´t catch one name...except for Esteban who tugged on my shirt and requested a kiss; adorable but a bit slobbery. Esteban´s father quickly befriended me and chatted me up about America. He attended NYU where he studied things he ¨did not believe in¨ and then lived in New York for another 10 years and met his wife there. New Yorkers, thank god. He was a vibrant fellow, I liked him....didn´t catch his name though. Lunch was this crazy good spanish rice dish (the name escapes me) with rabbit (yeah, more rabbit) which me, Shanna and Iris made once but it wasn´t nearly as good as this stuff. After 2 servings of that the cheese plate was brought out. Now, I am a fan of cheese and would normally claim to ¨know¨ good cheese, however I have never in my life had GOOD cheese until today. I mean, wow. I can´t even describe to you how incredible it was...on top of homemade bread, yum. My new yorker friend stressed to me that good cheese must come with good wine and pointed at a bottle of red merlot made in 1994. I can´t help but chuckle a little thinking about $14 bottles me and Shanna bought all last semester and how we considered it an upgrade from the $9 bottle. At this point I was stuffed to the brim and couldn´t imagine consuming more until....they brought out the cake. The most perfectly subtle chocolate cake that somehow went perfectly with the wine, cheese and company.
I´ve been complaining about France up until this weekend; I´ve been wining about hauling rocks and being filthy, lonely and bored. But now that I´ve stretched my legs around a chateau and stretched my stomach around an excellent meal I can´t help but revel in the fact that I love France. I could shout it from the rooftops!

Something that should not be forgotten:
I am missing all of you and think of you often (believe me, I have a lot of time to think)