Americanization of France

Happy July 4th everyone!

Today, I find myself all alone at home. But do not worry, I am sharing my patriotism with EVERYONE that passes by, and trust me there are a LOT of tourists. Today, I've turned up the woofers and the tweeters, turned them towards the port and consequently the bars, restaurants, cyclists, pedestrians, the boat traffic, the dogs, the cats and the pigeons have had the pleasure of

1. The Battly Hymn of the Republic
2. The Star Spangled Banner
3. The Marine Hymn
4. The Army Song
5. The Navy Song
6. Various Marine cadences

being blasted into their ears whether they like it or not, but OF COURSE they like it. Tonight my music will be replaced with music from the bar directly below me, so it's fair.

This is one day of the year where I'm putting all my political grievences aside and being simply proud of being an American!

Peace!

Dick and Jayne go to the farm.

It's looking like I might end up a farmer after all. I lived all that time in Iowa and I never caught the fever. I had to come to France to get my first tractor-driving experience under my belt. I'm at my in-law's farm house in the country and Laurent has to help out with the corn. This is something he's done many times, but this year, there's a special new twist. His Dad bought the life-size version of the plastic excavator he played with when he was little! You can consider it the ultamate poney.

Laurent has had the joy of digging a ditch with the back hoe attachment for a couple days now. Unfortunately, like all new toys, the shine wears off and what's left is a lot of work to do. But he did let me take the controls for a little bit and I moved some dirt around like when I was in the sand at the play ground. Pretty fun, but it takes some major coordination for all the articulations the machine has and I hadn't mastered it before it was time to hand the controls back over to Laurent . Maybe next time.

The boys just got back from the field, time to go eat some roast pork. Yummy!

Spring is here. Translation: TOURIST SEASON!

Unless you've been living in a cave (you can come out now) or possibly in a winter-generation machine (why??), you've noticed the warm weather creeping back into our daily lives. So as you dream of seeing Paris in springtime, the Parisians start the mass exodus of their city to go visit 'Provence.' Provence (with the accent on the vence) is where EVERYONE who doesn't live in Paris is from. My particular corner of 'provence' is well liked for its sandy beaches, big surf waves, sprawling forests, and relatively quaint cities. The apartments in my building, as well as the streets, the stores and the beaches, are filling up with vacationers . Everything is starting to cost more, too: the ice cream parlor, the grocery store, the gas station, etc all inflate their prices to make our affluent visitors feel right at home.

At school, the kids are getting anxious for summer and who can blame them? They live in a region that was made for summer fun. I must find a way to convert their unharnessed energy into constructive participation in English class!!!

The arrival of spring is also a reminder that my teaching contract is almost up. This means I have to start looking for next year's visa solution, which I'm hoping will not be too difficult to find. Maybe the public schools will be able to do something for me, or perhaps one of the various private language schools? OR, maybe the family I babysit for will be able to convince the French authorities I deserve the right to live and work on their land. We'll see.

As I look across the port, I see the street teeming with bicycles, pedestrians, dogs, roller bladers -- you name it! It's starting to make me ask myself what I'm doing inside.

Off I go to take full advantage of this blessed spring!

Progress

Well, hello again! It's been a while since I've last posted. Sometimes I wonder why it's so hard to do something so simple, but I musn't beat myself up about it, only make an effort to do better from now on!

This winter has been a good one. With the children I teach, I feel like I'm making progress with many of them! In my fifth grade class, I have a mix of both the biggest challenges and the most rewarding successes! In this class, there is a boy who arrived in the beginning of the school year from Eastern Europe not speaking one word of French who now manages to make full sentances in both English and French! There is also a boy who is actively trying to get suspended so he can go home and play with his baby brother. You can imagine the sort of problems he can cause. However, in this same class, there is a group of girls who are constantly asking me for more work to do, homework, further expansion on my lessons, you name it, they can't get enough English! One of these girls lives in the orphanage and typically fails all of her subjects, so her teachers are just shocked when they see her getting nearly perfect scores on her work in English. I must say this makes me proud and motivated to do a good job for the ones who want to learn.

Despite the many positive aspects of this job, I do get frustrated because I know a lot of the parents don't back the teachers at the school and their kids know it. And sometimes I lose my temper. I told one kid that his mother should be ashamed of him. That's probably not good psychology.....but he did grab a pencil out of his classmate's hand and throw it in the garbage without provocation, and when I insisted that he fetch the pencil and apologize, he said, 'Sorry I threw your f***ing pencil in garbage.' His mother would be ashamed!!!!! (I hope.) Whew, deep breaths. Moving on.

In previous posts I have lamented about my failed snowboarding attempts where I spend most of my time recovering from my previous tumble. However, with a little perseverance, I have managed to descend entire blue slopes without falling once! As it turns out, snowboarding can actually be fun! I don't last very long; at the end of the morning I'm pooped whereas the others are just getting started, but I'm happy to know that I can at least hold my own for a couple of hours.

I JUST got my visa finalized, so now I can start looking for odd jobs to supplement my little teaching job. I brushed up my resume in French and English, and let me tell you, if you think resumes are hard in English, just try it out in a second language. Yikes! And I've yet to find out if it's any good or not. I'll probably end up working with tutoring companies that would hire me out to help kids in English. Hopefully these will be older kids. Frankly, the little ones are tiring and it's appealing to get back to more advanced grammar points than telling time or listing colors.

We are currently on our two week winter break and last week I spent babysitting three little boys. This week is much calmer and I find myself wishing there were more people around to help take advantage of the beautiful weather we're having this first week in March! I hope you are enjoying your winters and and taking the time to appreciate the people around you!

Much love!

Children, children everywhere!

I've worked for a little while now so I can give you an idea of how it's going. I like the other teachers at the school and the Spanish assistant is really nice. I don't know about this whole 'teaching children' idea, though. It's strange that I have 2nd, 4th and 5th grade but not 3rd, and the difference between the two groups is remarkable. The smallest ones are my favorites because they are more worried about impressing me than their classmates. So far, I've accumulated 5 drawings and one bead. I must say I'll take that over the presents from the cats any day.

The older ones are far more of a challenge. Not only do I have more of them at a time, but they really like to assert themselves in really stupid ways. I won't explain but I'm sure you can imagine.

In one of my classes, I have a young boy from Moldova who arrived here two weeks ago after having lived in Portugal for a while. So he speaks Moldovan fluently, Portugese fairly well, a few full sentences of English, and no French. He's picked up a few words but he's not capable of making full sentences yet. He likes to make his classmates laugh by acting out a lot so despite the fact that he can't really talk to his classmates, he seems to be fitting in well. Let's just say he's hard to know what to do with.

So far at the middle school I had been more of a passive observer than a teacher because the school hadn't bothered to get me a classroom where I could take half the class. But, the other day, the inspector came by to make sure Karen and I were working our full 12 contractual hours, and he saw to it that I would have a classroom for the following day. He was far more effective than my or the teacher's attempts to get them to give me a classroom! Also, I have been assigned another school because the inspector discovered that I only had 10 and 1/2 hours of classes. So, I have to go teach a 4th grade class twice a week across town. I don't really have a right to complain but that doesn't change the fact that I'm grumpy about it. And I got a better deal than the Spanish assistant. She only had 6 hours of work, so she also has to go to another school, not the same as mine where I could give her a ride, but a school even farther away. And even with this other school's hours, it doesn't add up to 12, so she will now have to (or get to, depending on your perspective) spend time with the gym teacher and teach kids to play sports in Spanish.

Fortunately after working almost a whole month three days a week/four hours per day, I finally get a well deserved vacation. Yep, it's Halloween break! I've been taking advantage of my extra free time by making travel arrangements for Uncle Allen and cousin Lauren. I've met all the inn keepers in the neighborhood and I now have a few that I can confindently recommend. I can't wait to have the visitors! However, it must be noted that others wanting to come visit will have accomadations with Laurent and I if you so choose. This is an enthusiastic reminder to all friends and family that I would love to host you here!!!

I recently signed up with the music school in Tarnos, not as a teacher but as a student. I'm taking private voice and piano lessons. I was a little nervous to tell Laurent how much it cost, but his reacation was actually extremely positive. He figures he can now spend the same amount on skiing this winter and I won't be able to give him a guilt trip about it. It works, I guess!

The new school year

After being home in Clinton and successfully getting a new visa, I am back in France. Laurent picked me up from the airport in Toulouse, and instead of coming straight home, he took me on an RV trip to the mountains. Not the most restful trip, but definitely one of the best ways to get over jet lag fast! On Saturday, we went hiking on a trail that was supposed to lead us to a lake. However, in the beginning of the trail we decided to cut through a patch of forest where we saw the trail on the other side. About an hour later we were back at the parking lot very confused. It turns out that by skipping that small portion of the path we also skipped the part where it forks off towards the lake. Oops....so we start again. The trail to the lake was very beautiful but very steep! I pretty much had to drag Laurent up parts of it, but I did let him rest a couple times, I promise!


On the way back down, we stopped at a shepard's outpost and bought some sheep cheese. To get there, you have to walk through his pastures aroung his pigs and cows and I must say that these animals are very, very big in person. None of them tried to stampede us, even though I'm pretty sure they would have if we made any wrong moves.


That night we parked the RV on the Spanish side of the border where there was an old train station. In it's hay day it was a magnificant structure serving as a major tranportation hub for the Pyrenees. Now this station is closed and there is only a tiny one-room cabin to serve the few passengers who still come through.

On Sunday, we decided to take a smaller hike seeing as how we were sore from the previous day. In the gorge carved out by a small mountain river, we saw people going 'canyoning,' where they go up and down the waterways of the mountains. We thought it looked hard, so we took a picture!

Then, this trail was beautiful, but the most interesting thing about it was the hiker's refuge that we found. It is a small but equiped cabin provided to any and all who may come across it in need of protection from the weather or just a place to sleep. There is a cabin like this every 6 hours of hiking along the Pyrenees Trail. I was amazed by how thick the walls were and the woodburning stove that people still use, and also the sack of potatoes on the wall left there as an emergency store of food. This cabin is always open just with signs asking people to leave it as clean as they found it and to shut the door on their way out. Amazingly, the place was clean and the door was shut. Aparently there are still people that can use the honor system reliably!





Now, I'm back on the coast and I have gone to visit the school where I will be working. It turns out that I'll have kids aged 7-12. I don't know a whole lot more than than, and I start next Friday after I'll have had my training session. That's it for now!

Motocycle touring

Hello everyone, I hope spring is treating you well. Summer is right around the corner and I'm so happy to have everything green and warm, even if it is all a little damp.

On Saturday, Laurent and I went on a motorcycle trip through French Basque country. His
friend Romain organized the outing and there were five motorcycles all together. The idea was to go to the top of a particular mountain on the French-Spanish border. The roads twisted and turned through the mountains and hills spotted with picturesque (read: touristy) Basque villages. Despite the beauty of our surroundings, we couldn't help but worry about one of the members of our group who was particularly daring, which translates to 'particularly dangerous' when on a motorcycle. Every time we stopped, the guys would 'jokingly' tell him he took a turn a little too fast, or passed when he really didn't have enough time, or tell him 'hey man, the road's not a race track!' The day went on like this, we ate a nice pic-nic by a mountain stream and met plenty of other motorcyclists who wanted to chat about their bikes, their experiences, this or that. It was fun!

The five riders Saint Jean Pied de Port

Our pic-nic area at lunch time

A dam with graffitti that reads "we've reintroduced beavers (into the wild)"


Then, five minutes from the summit, BANG!

Julien, the daredevil, passed a car too fast on a curve, hit a rock, and continued in a straight line where he should have curved with the road! He was so far ahead of the rest of us no one saw him fall except the car he passed. When Laurent and I got to the scene, we saw our buddies waving their arms indicating that we should pull over. When we stopped, there were several men with a rope pulling a motorcylce out of the ravine. I didn't understand what was going on, I thought it was someone we didn't know and we were helping out an unlucky stranger. But no, it was our friend who had skidded across the the scenic viewpoint and over the edge! He and his motorcyle only fell about six feet before getting stuck in the mud. He was extremely lucky- he walked away with some scrapes and a broken toe.

Pulling Julien out of his predicament.



Looking up from where the motorcyle and rider landed


The unfortunate state of the bike; post crash


Coasting down the mountain


He was shaken up, as were the rest of us, but we had to do something about the motorcycle. Even with all the damage, they were able to put it into neutral and he rode back down the mountain to the nearest town. Julien's brother-in-law came with a trailer to load up the bike.

Apparently this guy had bought this motorcycle one month earlier after wrecking his last one, and it was his third time falling after having his liscense for only a year! Some people never learn!

After this exitement, we went home, never making it to our destination, just five kilometers past the crash sight. But you just don't leave a man behind!

Spring's a commin!

This winter has been rather long and rainy and I am really, really ready to venture back into the world! There have been a few distracting activities to help me get through this difficult time of the year.
For example, we once again went to the mountains last week. This time, I was not plagued with constant pain and 'inexplicable' falling because I opted NOT to lock my feet into a deathboard (snowboard)! I've decided I've been brave enough for one winter and that I'll pick it back up next year. Fortunately for me, we have a friend who has a chalet in one of the ski resorts, so that served as my home base as the others hit the slopes. The temperature was hovering somewhere in the high 60s. I don't know how the snow was still still around but it was beautiful. So, I wandered around and took some pictures and made a snowman and sat down in a pile of snow and read in the sun until about noon. Then, I ate with Laurent and the friend we were visiting before heading out again. This time I went with them and they dropped me off at the high altitude café. This may sound ordinary, but when I say 'dropped me off,' I mean that they hopped on their snowboards and our friend Jeffrey carried me down the mountain piggy-back style as the other skiers thought they were halucinating. It was awesome! It was like being the passenger on a motorcycle but probably less stable. Jeffrey had absolutely no problem with the extra 140 pounds on his back, and on the contrary, I only made him go MUCH faster. Once at the café, I sat in the sun with out my coat and my sleeves rolled up and ended up getting a sunburn.

A few weeks ago, 'The Tempest' blew through and knocked down whole forests, cut electricity for millions of people (we were lucky and got it back after 36 hours while others went with out for more than a week), and even worse, disonnected the internet for several days. Things are back to normal now for us whose livelihoods do not depend on the exploitation of pine forests.

The following weekend, we went to Toulouse where Laurent's sister and I visited museums while Laurent and his brother-in-law went to some motorcycle-climbing-over-obstacle show. I feel like I got the better deal out of it, but I suppose that's just a matter of opinion. We also helped cut down a tree that had crashed into another tree during the wind storm the previous weekend. This ended in an enormous bonfire! This episode was followed up the next week at Laurent's mom's house as we cut and burned the two damaged trees in her yard.

Last night, we had this same friend Jeffrey over with the intention of having dinner and then going bowling just down the street. We prepared a chocolate mouse to be eaten after bowling, and then devoured a delicious meal of macaroni and cheese and duck. It was a wonderful combinatin of cultures. After we had finished, we headed out to the bowling alley where they informed us that the bowling section of the establishment had been closed since September. Oops... So, we had to find something else to do. We decided to walk downtown to play some pool. Once at the smoke free establishment, aka the bar, the only pool table was being monopolized by a group of Englishmen. Between me, Jeffrey (whose father is Canadian and speaks fluent English), and Laurent, we logically sent Laurent over to politely ask the English gentlemen if we could have our turn. They were amicable and seemed as if they were going to comply. However, at the end of their game they racked up the balls and started once again. So this time, I went over to see what was going on. Turns out they were playing a tie breaker game and then the table would be ours. Fair enough. We played one long and horrifically bad game of pool, and then we decided to leave, the bar was getting too crowded anyway! The mousse au chocolat was very yummy and properly chilled by the time we completed the long walk home! Yum!

Yesterday I babysat all day. Today, Laurent and I will be visiting his grandparents in Biarritz and we will be eating dinner with his mother. It is sunny and about 55 degrees. Whew! That's about as up to the minute as I can get!

Winter Wonderland

It finally snowed here! This is actually really unexpected and all the residents are talking about how many years it's been, as well as how terrified they are to drive their cars through on inch of snow.

Snowboarding!

Take a good look at this picture... This is what I did this weekend! Granted, it wasn't EXACTLY like this picture. Imagine less of a jump and more of a flat-on-the-back lightning-fast ground slam, or sometimes the ultra classic flat-on-the-face 90° freefall. But other than our varied choices of popular snowboarder moves, I looked just like the dude in this picture, really. And today I look more like this:

So, yes; I had a snowboarding adventure in which I was incabale of breaking, turning, or staying upright. This isn't at all unusal for beginners, however what is unusual is when someone takes you litterally to the top of a mountain on a course labeled for experienced skiers only (translation: red) and then askes you to descend. I got off the ski lift and looked around and realized that it was several MILES to get back to the lodge. Most people take about 10-15 minutes to go down this slope. After a long, long two hours later, I was finished for the day and in a lot of pain. Fortunately, this pain is located mainly in the knees, ankles, wrists, thighs, calves, arms, back, and shoulders. However, this has not discouraged me from wanting try again some day soon, preferably on the GREEN beginners slope, which is more of a hill rather than a whole flipping mountain!

Sanksgeeving

This week saw thanksgiving come and go. I must say that I had a very lovely time with some friends up in Bordeaux. We were at an American friend's apartment with about twenty people. Of this group, I think only 4 were American, but hey, celebration knows no nationality! Everyone brought a dish which made for a rather untraditional Thanksgiving dinner. I brought mashed potatoes, which were apparently 'super bon' (hooray), and instead of a Turkey Chenoa, the American hostess had three chickens, there was stuffing, provided by an American couple, and then there was eggplant parmasean, a quiche, Indian lentil soup, spiced Indian yogurt, stir fry, and probably other things that generally don't accompany this particular holiday, but were still very delicious!

I would say the definite highlight of the evening was when we went around the room and made everyone say what they were thankful for in English. All but one person managed to do so in English, and while some were more gramatically correct than others, it was really interesting to hear everyone's version of 'thankful.' Laurent gave thanks to my family for letting me move to France with him! The night eventually ended with karoke to 80's French songs, and while I didn't recognize a single one, they eventually did play the Saved by the Bell theme song so everyone was appeased.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Spain is a crazy place

My birthday has come and gone, and it was a lovely celebration in Toulouse with Laurent's mom, sister, and aunt. We had three birthdays to celebrate at once so it was a very compact weekend! We went and saw the city as well as spent an afternoon in the country at a house we rented out to fit everybody.

This weekend, Laurent, his Dad and I went on a little visit to Spain. We ate at a restaurant unlike any I'd ever seen! The tables were set up like a cafeteria and the food was served family style. However, the really unusual aspect was that they had eight ENORMOUS barrels of wine built into the walls with a tap. You turn on the faucet from where the wine shoots out like a fountain, finally landing in a bucket about four feet from the wall. Then, you catch the stream of wine with your glass and fill your cup. This was an 'all you can drink' concept. Laurent's dad ended up plastered which left him grabbing at Laurent's step mom a little more than we would have liked to have seen, but in the end it was entertaining! After that, with Laurent at the wheel, we continued our tour of San Sebastian by visiting the port and then the shops downtown. By this time, everyone had returned to normal, which was a relief.

Today is a terrible day weatherwise, but that's probably good because I have to prepare some lessons for my students who will be coming tomorrow!

I heart computer geeks

This week, I got more tutoring students! One of Laurent's co-workers has a son who apparently is terrible at English, so he agreed to send the boy to me to see if I could fix him. He came over on Tuesday for an hour and a half and it went rather well. He and his parents seemed pretty happy. The next day I get a phone call from a mom with a daughter who is also terrible at English, saying that I had been recomended by the other mom. Turns out, the mom of the first student is a hairdresser and spent all the next day gabbing about her awesome new English tutor! Yay! So, this morning I had my first session with this girl. Hopefully I'll be getting some more phone calls when school is back in session in another week.

Right now, I'm in Pau being an innocent bystander to a Lan Party in Pau. For those who are not familiar with a Lan Party, it is where a bunch of people (in this case about 500) who love computers and the accompanying games drag their computers to a giant room where they exchange ideas and above all try to kill eachother in their little vitual worlds. I have no real interest in this weekend-long event, so I brought two books and hopefully it will stop raining long enough for me to take a walk downtown tomorrow!

Random Pictures

Here, I've got some pictures from the fasion show our little cousin was in and a day we went for a walk along the coast. This is not a very cohesive or even time-linear blog entry, but you know, these things happen.

Traipsing around

This weekend Laurent's sister came in from Toulouse. There was eating. Lots and lots of it. Then, we went out for a walk around a lake that was origionally created by Napoleon the 3rd as an irrigation source/diversion of flood waters. Apparently the origional pump with the crest of Napoleon was recently sold off to some collector, which the whole town already regrets, don't know who made that decision!

Last night we went down to Biarritz to see the grandparents where we had some yummy shushi. I've tried my hand at making sushi myself, but I must say the restaurants always make the Japanese rice better than me!

Today, the beautiful weather continued so we took advantage of that with a little walk to the lake that is just a little ways away and then come 7:30ish, we went to the dunes at the beach to watch the sunset.

This week I'll be starting up with my tutoring and I'll be dropping off my resume for a receptionist postion at a sports rehabilitation center for the injured athletes of this part of Europe. This could certainly be an interesting place to work, even though I know I'm not all that employable for the moment. I did have one break through this week - I think I've figured out what I'd like to end up doing! I've decided that I like the idea of teaching English to foreign adults in the setting of a private company. I think my problem with the idea of teaching has always been two-fold, one being the discipline aspect when working with children, another problem being the pandemic apathy found amongst students learning a foreign language. However, if I work with adults who have opted to return to the classroom, I think these problems might be resolved. So, my path will be to get a certificate in teaching English as a Foreign Language through a month-long course in Paris. We'll see how this works out for me!

Back in the Landes

Some of you may remember that I swore to never take British Airways again because they make you change airports. Well, I also remembered this as I booked my tickets, but it was hard to argue with a price so cheap. Alas, I re-declare: I will never take British Airways again. This time I probably mean it.

Our first day back was spent sleeping, but then we went out and explored the town of Montauban. Cute place really. Laurent and I were staying with his sister and it got a little bit crowded as his mom and her boyfriend joined us all out near Toulouse. We had a lovely time and now I'm back on the coast.

And the teaching continues

Last week I started teaching a three year old English. I was a little unsure if she was going to be interested or not, but she seems to enjoy it. I'm using a book that came with a CD. After two lessons, she knows a few animals and likes to say 'What a noise in the zoo!' Hopefully some of this will stick even after I've left the country....

Spain pics

We stayed here one night. Not bad for a view!
This is a big chuch in Barcelona. It's been under construction since 18something and it's architect (Gaudi) was runover by a tramway in 1920 somethingafter having been on it for forty years. They're still working on it!
This is Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. It makes a great hat.
Laurent immitating the flamenco dancers we just saw.
Me on a bike in Barcelona. Aren't I pretty?

Vroom vroom!

Just got back from a little vacation in an RV. We spent a couple beautiful days in Bordeaux, but it was a holiday so none of the trams were running. This was very convenient as we could take the bicycles through the city on the tramway without having to worry about traffic or pedestrians. After Bordeaux, stayed in Foix and saw an enormous old castle. It was preserved extremely well, not at all in ruins even though the first foundation stones were laid sometime in the 11th century. I wondered how this could be, but it turned out that this castle was never attacked. It cost tons of money and time but it was never used. Haha!

After Foix, we went to Andorra. It is a tiny little country in the Pyrenees. The lanscape is so rugged it was easy to see why neither France or Spain wanted it! Let the Andorrans dig themselves out the avalanches! It's a good place to go to stamp a passport because it is not a part of the Schengeun States. That was handy for me, even though all I got was tourist stamp, so I doubt it will count as valid. Hopefully I don't get deported. We also bought gas for about 40 cents less per liter (this is a BIG difference, what, a euro fifty per gallon?) We left Andorra on the Spain side which was good because Laurent had bought tons of tax free cigarettes in Andorra and wanted to avoid French custums. He plans on reselling them in France . In Andorra it was fifteen euros per carton while in France it's fifty. OUCH!

Soon we were in Barcelona where we toured a bit on our bicycles. The highlight was definately the Flaminco dancers! We didn't spend time on the beach as we had planned because it was RAINY. We headed a little north where I saw the Salvador Dali museum. It was amazing to see the diversity of his talents, but I was a little disappointed when I realized many of his most famous works (or at least many of the ones I'm familiar with) weren't there. But never fear, there were plenty of melting clocks. Unfortunately, Laurent got kind of sick and he wanted to come home, and with the rain it made sense. So, here I am back in Capbreton where there isn't a cloud in the sky! Not too shabby!

Andrew's here!!

Found him!!

We spent some time in Paris and now we're in Capbreton. It's really nice to have him here. AND he's eaten things. Everything's pretty much been some variety of ham and cheese for him, but hey, he's found something. And the hamburgers are edible!

We got some good pictures in Paris, so he'll be putting those up when he gets home. Yay!