Steph and Charly went to Steph's family's house for the weekend, so I had the apartment to myself. I spent all afternoon Saturday cleaning and getting ready for when Candice, Laurie, Kati, Justine, Franzi, GuiGui and Colin would arrive at 8pm. I wouldn't call my apartment big, but I'm glad it's not any bigger or I'm not sure I would have gotten everything finished in time!
But it worked out just fine and (don't worry Myriam), the raclette was a success. Franzi brought a bottle of Porto to share for the aperitif. I have seen port wine on menus before but never tried it. It's usually a sweet red wine (although apparently there are some white port wines and dry port wines) and it comes from the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It was quite tasty and went well with my sesame and Coppa-and-olive madeleines (see a picture of the sesame ones below).
So all in all the party went really well. We had way to much food (read: I will be eating raclette for at least the next week), which is always better than the opposite scenario. Toward the end of the evening GuiGui played DJ and introduced me to a group called The Baseballs (irony?) who take obnoxious pop songs and remake them in the style of early rock n' roll (as in Elvis-era). Check out their version of Rihanna's Umbrella (the video is good too). If you like that song, check out Bleeding Love, it will make you think the song was written to be sung this way. I'm in love with this group! Their music is the kind that just makes me want to dance, and I almost forget how inane the original songs' lyrics are in the process -- success! I think I might have been born in the wrong era...
Sunday morning I had to wake up bright and early to catch a train to Dijon to see my host family!! Finally! I'm really sorry we didn't find a way to meet up sooner because it was so absolutely wonderful to see them again. It was a little strange to be back in Dijon. It looked exactly the same, except for there are purple barriers everywhere for the tram construction. They were just starting the tram when I studied there in the fall of 2009 and it's supposed to be finished by the end of this year; the area around the train station and Place d'Arcy is still a mess though. My host family actually moved from the house where they lived in 2009 to an apartment just off Place d'Arcy (about a 5-8 minute walk from their old house). Now they're even closer to the train station and the center of the centre-ville.
The move was precipitated by their purchase of a moulin (mill). Let me explain: their friend Dominique owns a 17th-century stone farmhouse and the surrounding property, about 50km from Dijon and my host family loves to go there and take long walks on sunny Sunday afternoons. I went with them to the farm twice and what we did there can only be described as frolicking: walking, hiking, picnicking, enjoying nature. Last year, while they were celebrating Orane's 16th birthday with a party at the moulin (mill) which is part of the farm property, Dominique offered to sell it to them. Joseph and Noëlle, who prefer either the music and culture of Paris or the absolute silence of the country (and who didn't plan to live in Dijon forever), jumped at the chance.
So they sold their house, moved into the apartment, and started planning for the refurbishment of the moulin, which right now resembles a ruin more than somewhere you would want to live. Before I talked to them this weekend, I knew that they had bought a moulin and even seen pictures, but I thought it was a fix-'er-up project for a vacation cottage; I didn't realize their plan was to retire there. Although it is in the middle of the country, apparently there is a train stop not too far away, which means it's only 1.5 hours from Paris.
So you can probably tell from the pictures that we went to see the site after lunch. It was pretty cold, and as gray a day as they come, but I found the area just beautiful. There was something entirely serene about it, and I could imagine perfectly how magical it would be in the summer, with all of the trees and plants in bloom. The little creek you can see in the background is the river Seine, which at one point was the water which turned the mill wheel.
On the way to see the moulin we stopped at la Source de la Seine (the source of the River Seine, the one that divides Paris in half). It's pretty comical to see how small the Seine is at its origin... I've seen bigger streams in the gutter at the end of our driveway at home after a big storm! But as it flows towards Paris this little trickle is joined by thousands of tiny tributaries until it becomes the massive river which empties into the English Channel at Le Havre.
Before we went to see the moulin I caught up with Noëlle and Joseph and we had a delicious and enormous lunch: beef in stewed tomatoes with mashed potatoes, bread and cheese, a fruit tart, coffee, and a kugelhopf which Noëlle had made that afternoon. As usual, it was all delicious! By the time we got back from the moulin Orane was home and I got to chat with her. She interviewed me for her bac project: The Portrayal of Women in American Film. I got back home around 10:30pm on Sunday night after a gloriously relaxing day. Noëlle invited me to come back for Easter weekend, when their whole family will be home, plus Ginou -- the Chinese student who lived with them for a little while and who has become their adopted nephew. I met him when he came to visit while I was living in Dijon. I was thrilled to be invited, I love spending time with them. Overall, another great weekend! I hope yours was just as good!
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