Saturday, December 3, 2011

Saturday 12/3: Birthday Pancakes and STOMP!

Today is Ralf’s 51st birthday! I made a big stack of pancakes for breakfast and we put candles in them so Ralf could blow them out! We ate and ate until we were very full and there were still a few leftovers! I cleaned everything up as well and then spent some time relaxing in my room. The weather here has definitely changed: chilly, gray, rainy, windy… but, it’s good because it makes you want to stay cozied up inside by the fire!

This afternoon I went grocery shopping with Catherine and there were Christmas carols playing—in English! Just the same ones you hear in stores in the US! Hmm. I was kinda looking forward to hearing French Christmas songs…

After tea (with German Christmas cake), I took a shower and got ready to go out tonight. I wanted to dress up a little, but not too much because I was pretty sure everyone else would be in jeans. It worked out fine—I was a little fancier that everyone else, but not obviously. :)

Ralf guessed where we were going (I think he overheard Catherine saying something about a show to someone on the phone today), but only a few hours before it, so it was still mostly a surprise! We headed to Biarritz in two cars (we took Chantal’s kids because she and Philippe were already in Biarritz) and were planning to have a nice pizza dinner.

Photo: We were bored waiting for our food...

However, the restaurant was closed. We tried to go to a Mexican restaurant (the only one in this region, as far as I know!), but they said we were too big a group.


Photo: Keeping ourselves entertained...


So, we ended up at a bar that served some food…everyone had these little sandwiches with different meats/cheeses/olives/ veggies/etc. and I had the only vegetarian option: a grilled cheese (“Croque Madame”) and salad. It was delicious!

We headed to the theatre to see “STOMP!” It was quite the show! I enjoyed it—very inventive! They made music with everything from brooms to lighters to garbage cans to kitchen sinks! It was nice that they worked in a little bit of a story and comedy in…if they hadn’t, it might have become a bit boring. But, I thought it was good! Lots of energy and a good crowd.

After the show, I drove back with Ralf in his car (everyone else went with either Catherine or Philippe) and we had a good talk about music, cars and driving, and other random topics. After about 10 minutes, we decided to switch to English because it was only us in the car and neither of us are native French speakers! So, we figured we’d take a break and switch to English. It was actually a little bit hard to make the switch; although once we were talking I got back into it pretty quick!

Bonne nuit!

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