Today was quite eventful. Ce matin, Paul and his host family picked me up at my house and we went to view the fire station. I thought most French men seemed to be on the shorter side, but that's only because I had not yet met the firemen of the Cote d'Azur. Mon Dieu! These men were gargantuan statues of safety. Paul and I got to climb up onto the Mercedes-brand firetruck and view the several different types of rescue vehicles. Quite interesting. At first, I was a little nervous because I thought we were going to join the gym. As I glanced around at all the men, I thought, I don't know if I can work out with these enormous firemen. That might be a good bit intimidating. But, soon to my knowledge, we would take a looksee at the gym apres our tour.
We left the pompeirs (firemen) and went to a few stores for some delicious foods. It was at this moment that I was in the idyllic French scene. A crammed street lined with open air speciality stores. First, we visited the fruits and vegetables. The sweet scent coming off of the perfectly ripe melons was intoxicating. Each tomato was a rich, blood-stained red. The apples and grapes were abundant in all sorts of varieties. Ahh... I was simply in heaven. Every basket holding its precious cargo was marked with a sign to tell the name of the food and its place of birth. The majority came from France and several from the Provence region. Following was the fish market across the street. The smell of fresh seafood wafted through the air as we entered into the crowded room. A large, whole fish was being stripped of its head with a long, serrated knife at the moment we entered. The prawns were about the size of my forearm, and several pairs of eyes glared up at me from the iceboxes as I inspected the sea creatures. We walked next door to pick up some bread, of course. This time the scent in the air was sweet with sugar and dough. My mouth watered as I gazed around at the pain au chocolat, croissants, brioche, baguettes and more. Thank goodness I left my euros in the car, or else I would've bought everything I could grab. After purchasing a few baguettes we were off to return to Paul's house.
Following the food shopping was hang out time. Paul and I killed some time before eating lunch with his host parents around 2 o'clock. We had some of the fish bought earlier that morning, salad, one of the baguettes, and some cheese. Voila! The perfect meal. Mmmmm.
To get some exercise and burn off some of the lunch, Paul and I walked down to the beach to meet up with some of the French girls I have hung out with previously. The beach was lovely and not too crowded. We spent a good hour in the ocean chatting away, and then continued the conversation lazily on the beach. The sun was beginning to dwindle behind the mountains of the town when we decided to all part our separate ways.
I look forward to the conversations that will happen at the dinner table here. Sometimes I'll spend moments before meals planning out how to say something that happened during my day. My host parents are so happy when I speak in full sentences. They give me encouraging looks and help me find the words I can not bring to mind. Tonight, we ended the evening with Disney movie conversation. It's fun to hear the different titles in French. My host dad cracks me up all the time. Tonight, when I asked if they knew Mulan they said of course of course. After recalling the dragon's name, Mushu, my host dad continued to tell me the other day he saw a girl with a dragon tattoo on the back of her neck. He said out loud, "It's Mushu"!! The girl was confused, but everyone else understood and laughed. Haha! I thought that was hilarious, plus I was extra happy because I understood what he said (he speaks very fast French). While my host mom was cleaning up some after dinner, he told me something, but I did not understand the main verb. He spelled it for me, and I looked it up in my little dictionary. Turns out, my host dad loves bothering my host mom (J'aime bien embeter Laurence). Haha! He's quite the character.
Well I believe that's all for today. Tomorrow I have exciting plans, but I will not reveal them on my blog until after the day is finished. I have to keep y'all someone interested.
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