Can't say I didn't try

I tried les cuisses de grenouille yesterday.  For those of you that know me, you know I'm not a huge fan of strange foods, and that I'm a vegetarian, but when in Rome, right?  There are two things that everyone says should be tried as long as you are living in Frogs-legs-a-gogo-land: frogs legs and escargot.  Well, I can now cross frogs legs of my list and say that I'm not missing too much.  I still haven't gotten up the nerve to confront escargot.  I'm not a big texture-phobe, but I can't imagine the texture of a slug is something I'm going to enjoy.  Anyway, back to the frogs legs.  I went out to dinner last night with my colleagues from one of the elementary schools I work at.  We went to a restaurant in Perrouges, which is a little medieval village about 40 minutes from Lyon.  I went there when I was staying with the Roys three years ago, and really enjoyed it.  Last night, though, we didn't see much but the restaurant because it was dark and foggy and cold.  It was a nice little restaurant, but there wasn't much on the menu that was veg-friendly, so I ended up just ordering a salad with salmon and cheesy potatoes (luckily gratin dauphinois is a specialty in the region).  Four of the other teachers ordered frogs legs, though, and insisted that I try them, so I did.  In the end, not bad...a little tough or dry or something, but tastes more or less like something between chicken and fish.  Maybe it's because I haven't had meat other than fish in 5+ years, but I really wasn't impressed, even though everyone else who was eating them were all gaga over how good they were.  To each their own, I guess.  Luckily, the gratin was super delicious.  I love cheese and I love potatoes, and the two together equal a happy Terra.

To completely change the subject, I am officially on vacation!!  Yay!!  I had portuguese this morning, but after I finished my translation test (which I don't feel as good about as I did the grammar test, but I'm hoping the prof will go easy on me considering I am not a native french speaker, so translating from portuguese to french is kind of tough for me), I was done until January 11th.  woohoo.  I'm starting to get really excited about Christmas.  I spent yesterday dressing up my presents.  I LOVE wrapping presents.  I made fancy ribbony bows with Papillotes, which are these lyonnais chocolate candies that people here are obsessed with, and candy canes (which I was hella excited to find yesterday, because this certainly is not the states, and they do not have boxes and boxes of candy canes in a million different forms and flavors in every store).  They are so pretty!  It's a relatively simple set of presents, only for the host fam, Wei-Ching, and my friend Dia, but they certainly look pretty, so that's what really matters.  I also found an "alternative Christmas" station on iTunes radio, so I'm listening to weird Christmas songs, which makes me really happy, especially since I didn't think to bring my own fabulous Christmas mixes with me, and I love weird versions of Christmas songs.  Basically, my room feels quite Christmasy right now.  I hung candy canes on my ficus, and the presents are all arranged around it, and then I have two drawings of Christmas trees from the kiddos hanging on the wall, and then funky Christmas music playing...that's the spirit!

And I have all the ingredients for biscochitos in my kitchen and the family recipe in my email inbox, so Dia and Wei-CHing and I can make them for Christmas.  YAY!!!!  Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Ooh!  And I'm really excited because I was talking to Barbara, the director of the Penn program today, and I mentioned the New Years party and the dressing up in costumes and whatnot, and that lead to making things, which led to her telling me about a fabric store that is more or less like JoAnn Fabrics or other american fabric stores.  Which is AMAZING because I really heart fabric stores.  I'm not all that crafty when it comes to sewing but, I one of my favorite things ever is to buy fabric scraps and make headbands or belts or whatever out of them.  And, I was thinking it would be cool to find some green sparkly material to spice up our costumes.  And maybe, depending on how brave I'm feeling and if I find a store that sells them, I might try to make some fairy wings.   So that is going to be my project for the week.  Should be fun. 

On a less exciting note, I really have managed to get sick again.  It took all the energy I could muster to get up and go to my portuguese class this morning, and I still can't breathe through my nose and I'm all coughy and whatnot.  What the heck?  I don't get sick that often, and this is the third time since I got here in September.  I am not so much ok with this plan.  And the fact that it is currently -1˚C (30˚F) out, probably doesn't help at all.  Seriously, I think I actually feel the cold here more than I ever did back home, even if the temperatures are similar.  I definitely remember last year in the giant snow-dump of 2006, that I was able to be outside in a sweater and a coat and jeans and gloves and was more or less comfortable.  Chilly when the snow got under my clothes or if it was windy, but here I'm chilled to the bone all the time.  Even in two long-sleeve shirts and my peacoat and leggings under my pants and a chunky scarf and gloves, etc.  WTF?!?!

Speaking of being cold, I think I'm gonna go eat me some hot soup cuz I never ate lunch and I'm cold.

Biz.