Go On

Just before vacation ended I wanted to take it easy but still take advantage of my time left..

So that Saturday, I offered to help Dimitri's aunt move into her new apartment since I'm somewhat of a master of moving [considering how many times I've moved in my life]. So Dimitri came and picked up me and we drove over there and got to work. We had to put together an armoire for Justine, then while Dimitri was doing some of the stuff only one person could do, I helped carry the boxes upstairs. But after a while, we all left to go to Dimitri's grandparent's house to celebrate Justine's birthday. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet a lot more of his family. One of his uncles that I met was the President of the professional basketball club here in Orleans, so after he found out that I loved basketball he invited me to come with everyone that evening to the game against Strasbourg! So after lunch, Dimitri and I headed back to the apartment to finish setting up his aunt's armoire as well. Then, it was just a quick walk over to the arena for the game. It was so great to be at a basketball game again since this will be the first year I don't get the chance to go to a Jam game. Before I had left Bakersfield, I knew that I wanted to at least come to one game, so I looked up the roster to see if I knew any of the players and sure enough, one of the players - Amara Sy - had played for the Bakersfield Jam a few seasons ago. So, it made it even cooler to have some sort of connection to the team. What made the night a little more exciting was the fact that this game was being televised by Canal + which is sort of like France's ESPN.

The amazing seats we got to sit in.

Overview of the arena

The TV commentators for the game.

But throughout the game, I think I was more of the excitement for Dimitri and his cousins because they hadn't seen how much I get into the game when I watch so every time something happened I could expect to hear a chuckle from behind me. After the game had finished, I got to go with Marie (Dimitri's cousin) and her boyfriend to the "VIP" area where they served an open bar and open food. The food of the night was scallops that were to die for. I think I went through 3 plates of them. But in the VIP area the players give a little speech after they're done changing and then the crowd gets to mingle with them a bit. Since I had mentioned to Dimitri's uncle that I sort of knew Amara, he brought me to him and introduced me in French but just as soon as he was finished I was just like, "Dude. I'm from Bakersfield" and Amara was like "What?! No way! What are you doing here??" So I explained to him that I was studying here and we talked a bit about playing in Bakersfield vs. France and then because we were talking in English another player, Cedrick Banks who played for Illinois, came up and with the same face I'm used to now: "Where are you from??" so it was a great night. To polish it off, Dimitri and his cousin and her boyfriend went out for some Sushi and later we called it a night. The next morning Dimitri and I went back to his aunts apartment to finish putting together her armoire and after we finished [sorta - not really haha] we left to go to Enzo's house to ride some quads.

When we had finished, we had drove out to his Grandparent's house that is in Sologne. It was a beautiful house that felt was in the middle of nowhere, just quiet with trees and a pond. While his grandma had cooked dinner, we all helped his grandpa level out the pool table then we walked around outside the house and at one point we had thought we heard a deer, but it turned out to just be their neighbor's fire haha. So we headed back and sat down at the table for a dinner that I was not prepared for..! The first thing his grandma brought out was a potato soup which was delicious! I had two bowls of it and was going for a third when Dimitri stopped me and told me I better hold off cause there is a lot more to come! So I finished, then she brought out the main course: duck [I think..!] and I had 3 pieces of this with half-side of my plate full of scalloped potatoes. I went through all of that and there was 1 piece of meat left so they insisted that I finished it, so of course I did but at this point I was ready to call it quits. However, the next part of the meal was salad so I had a plate of this and now I already knew what was coming after this, as it is very traditional....fromage! So..Dimitri and Enzo know that I'm not much a fan of cheese but his grandparents don't, and now is not a time to say "Je n'aime pas le fromage" [I do not like cheese] so Dimitri told me to try two that he thought would not be too bad, and they weren't. The only thing was, with the cheese I had eaten nearly 6 pieces of bread so I'm completely stuffed. But one last meal was to come; dessert. When she brought it out I said I would love some, but maybe a small piece. So she hands me the largest piece there was! So I took it with a smile and at the last bite was so glad that I could actually swallow it! Before we got up, his grandpa wanted us to have a "digestive" drink. So he pulled out a bottle of Armagnac and poured each of us a glass. The way he decided to know how much should be in each glass, after he poured he would turn the glass on it's side and let the drink level out and as long as it just touched the lip of the glass then that meant there was enough. Obviously he's had enough time and practice to master this so each glass was poured perfectly on the first try. After we were finished at the table, I just rolled over to the coach and plopped myself down and rested for a bit until we decided it was time to leave and go back home.
Then, of course, Monday was Halloween so it was somewhat strange that I didn't get to carve any pumpkins or decorate the house to scare people, but then again Halloween has never been my favorite holiday either. But we did get together with some friends at Dimitri's house and I did get to give candy to one group of kids who came to the door. In total, we only had 2 groups but that's because Halloween is really dying out fast in France and more and more kids aren't doing it anymore. Although from reading some people's Facebook, I saw that this seemed to be the case everywhere this year. Finally on Wednesday, I started school again and now I'm just on my normal schedule..

But as always, thanks for reading! I hope everyone enjoys it..!