Slumping it Up!

So lately I’ve been in a real slump. I’ve just gotten sooo lazy here in France. The laid back lifestyle plus the small hours that we must work every week make it hard to slide right into a coma. The month of January really hasn’t been all that active except we had a devastating storm hit us and obviously President Obama took office.

The French for some reason LOVE American politics and love to discuss all of our business. I remember when I was going to Belgium and Rotary told us we would be ambassadors for the US. Well, that same thing happens to ANY person who travels away from their country. The French don’t stop pestering about our politics and the going-ons in the US. I’m not overly political but why does every conversation I have a with a French person seem to turn to George Bush and how he sucked and how they hope Barack Obama can do better. When they talk about the US, they lump us all into ONE big boat like we all share the same ideas about our country and its politics. It is ridiculous and I’m a bit sick of it! The Jamaican was leaving one of her classes on Jan. 20th and the teacher started saying, “kids do you know what day it is today? The United States is getting a very new president.” Georgia couldn’t believe her ears!

One Saturday, Alissa and I headed down to explore Bayonne for the day. It was really nice and I’m thinking of taking mom and dad there when they come. You can see pictures in the photos section!

Last weekend (not this past weekend) France was alerted by the meteorologists that a huge storm was coming into France and that the South West of France would be hit the hardest. They were expecting 130-150km (80-95mph) winds. Well the storm started around 3am on the Saturday and I was woken by the high winds. It was horribly loud and just spewing rain from the sky. The winds lasted ALL day and didn’t die down until the evening of that Saturday. On the news they were saying that people in northern Spain and southern France had been killed and that there was destruction all over the South West of France. I was stuck in my room for 4 days as there were no buses and schools had been canceled and tons of people had no electricity (around 1.7 million people without electricity). I didn’t realize the storms full affect on my region until I took the train this past weekend to Bergerac and saw whole forests just completely blown over. Les Landes, the region where I am in France, has the largest forest in France and someone told me they thing maybe in all of Europe. If I were to make an estimate of how much of the forest(s) have blown over and been destroyed from just what I witnessed on the train, I’d say a good 30% at least if not more!

This past weekend I was invited to go to Bergerac to have dinner with the assistants there. I stayed with my friend Diana (my best friend from my exchange in Belgium) and we hung out all weekend and watched old Belgian Exchange videos. The dinner was really good. Everyone was suppose to make a dish that represented their country. Diana and I made read garlic potatoes but it turns out that the Irish girl made potatoes as well (go figure an Irish making potatoes). We even had escargot (snails) and frog legs, which is suppose to be “sooo” typically French! It was a really good time!

This post is stored in the category of Made in France, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Alissa Morano, Barack Obama, Bayonne, Belgium, Bergerac, Diana Barger, Escargot, Frog Legs!, George Bush, Georgia Irving, Lazy, Les Landes, Made in France, Politics, South West France, Storm

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