A French Day

I am going to be real honest, I did not do much today. In the middle of the day I heard a whole lot of honking, which is 100% not normal. Apparently, a wedding was occurring and it is customary to honk from the ceremony to the reception, bride, groom, and guests (plus you know everyone else will join in). In a small village, this is a lot of noise. Apparently many people come to St. Sulpice sur Leze to have weddings as it is cheaper and a bit nicer than Toulouse. I did not see the wedding or the bride and groom but I heard it.

The day was pretty quiet and I was able to figure out where I will go from here and get some hostels in place which made me feel a lot better. We were not sure if Fanny's grandparents were going to come over or not, but around 4 they stopped by with her father. They were very cute and walked around the garden and looked at the masterpiece of a well that Fanny was creating. I smiled and said hello my name is Stacey (after her father asked me for my name) in French. Now this is all basic French, stuff I know in my sleep; not to mention the fact the Christian was working me over a bit before they got there to make sure that I could do basic small talk. Despite all of this I failed miserably. It is more that I am afraid that they will not understand me and so I do not try to say a lot, which is crazy I know, but true. When I was in Paris or Toulouse I would try things and was getting better. I would talk because I had to. Here I felt that I would just sound so stupid and so I just smiled...a lot.

I wanted to give Fanny time with her grandparents and so I magically found weeds to pick and stones to gather from the garden. They were eating the cake that they brought and would not eat without me. (I should point out that Christian said that they did not understand his description of WWOOF and what I was doing and so he told them that I was a maid). Anyway, I sat down and we ate, when I say we, I mean everyone except for her grandparents. It was like the fruit tart that has a crust and custard and is topped with berries and pineapple and such; only it was topped with canned papaya, cherries, pineapple, etc. It was so sweet but I felt that I needed to eat it to be polite. They left soon after. I said au revior and wanted to say thank you for the cake but thought that they would not understand, so I just smiled.

The conversation during the cake was good. I understood very little, but I enjoyed it. It forced me to pick out the ideas and make out whatever I could. I said I was from around New York (they did not know New Jersey) and then changed it to The United States. Then I said I taught math and I am going to Italy. I thought I said for one week (in fact I am almost positive!) but Christian said they thought one day (which explains them laughing and making fun of me). Anyway, it was amusing and fun and I wish that I had the guts to talk more. Perhaps when a bilingual teacher is not around...