Happy Thanksgiving, Reunion Island!

Every time I mention Thanksgiving to Reunion people, the first thing they say is "is that the same thing as Christmas?" So around November, I find myself explaining the story of Thanksgiving a lot. Even though I'll be in the States for Thanksgiving this year, I really wanted to have one here with my French family too. So I was talking to Julie about it one day when I was visiting her new apartment, and she was immediately on board. She was excited to have a reason to entertain at her new place.

I didn't end up finding a French version of Charlie Brown, but I had the English version on in the background anyway for tradition's sake :-)

In hindsight, it was probably not the best idea to plan it for the weekend before I left, since I had a billion other things on my mind. But Julie's excitement was contagious, and last Friday after work, we complied all of my "All-American" recipes, translated them, and went shopping. Saturday morning, we were up at 8am, and by about 10 we had picked up our newly killed turkey from the butcher (a trip, by the way, that was so disgusting it moved me a little closer to vegetarianism.) and had begun to cook. Luckily, Julie's mom was there to help us...otherwise I'm not sure we would have made it...

The butcher asked us if we wanted her to chop the head off for us--which we obviously did--and that sound of the axe coming down was just---ugggg.

So all day, we cooked the old fashioned way--everything was home-made, nothing was easy. For hours, we chopped vegetables into tiny pieces, we swerved between steps from one recipe to another, we listened to music, and we laughed about everything and nothing. 

For the traditional green beans--you know, the ones that take two seconds to make in the US with the canned mushroom soup and little box of crispy onions?--well to do that here, we had to find out how to make our own condensed mushroom soup and our own crispy onions and THEN add them to the normal recipe with our fresh green beans. 

Also, somehow Julie found a real live pumpkin (!) and so to make pumpkin pie, we had to figure out how to make a fresh pumpkin into whatever usually comes in the can in the US. These small differences ended up making everything taste SO amazing. Seriously. They say that Thanksgiving is the one day that Americans eat like the French, and I agree. But when the French put their spin on our Thanksgiving--I have to say, French Thanksgiving is hard to beat. 

Stuffing and sweet potato casserole

The boys came a little after noon to bring us lunch and help us with the turkey. 

Another huge Julie success was that she found a cranberry-like thing in the land of no cranberries. So I made a "cranberry-orange relish" replica that was close enough.

I was thrilled, but I think the family was mostly confused. I tried to explain it like how they eat chutney with foie gras, but I'm not sure it went over as famously as it did with me...

I got a lot of funny questions like "We eat everything at the same time?" (as opposed to courses, like the French do.) And "you eat sweet and salty things together?" (meaning the cranberries, I think, and also the sweet potatoes, which they thought was the dessert. When I told them the pie was for dessert and we eat it after the meal, they all laughed. Actually wait, I think they were mostly laughing because I pronounced dessert wrong.) Anyway, everything was perfect. I was so happy. After dessert, we all played "telephone" with the kids, which resulted in a very embarrassing moment for me when I misheard something, repeated it wrong, and my new sentence apparently meant something weird/sexual. I'm not sure, I was kind of confused. Luckily, so were the kids. (I am laughing again even just writing about this.) 

We were finished with the meal in probably like two hours, which was another topic of conversation. French dinners seriously last all night. 8 hours at least. That was totally my fault. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to not rush through a meal. After four years in the service industry, it is ingrained in my head that people are not to be kept waiting for their food!! 

Julie and I decided that we make a great team, and that Thanksgiving will be our new annual tradition :-)

Underwater Modeling Adventures

Last weekend after diving, my dive guy, Stefan and I were discussing his upcoming project--a 24 hour underwater relay race called Telethon. He was looking for certified divers to complete their team but unfortunately as I leave tonight for the US and the race is in a few weeks, I couldn't help out. However, as we were going through the day's pictures--he started thinking about advertising for his race, and I was definitely more than willing to help out with that. His deal was this--free diving in exchange for some photoshoot "work" time. How could I say no to that?!

Stefan is the best, safest way to go if you're going to dive here!

http://www.plongee-wulfy-reunion.com/

In my experience, I've learned that for normal photoshoots, for every one usable/amazing shot, there are about 300 mediocre/unusable shots and maybe 100 horrible ones. You have to worry about thinking of interesting poses, the expression on your face, make-up and hair, flattering angles, the lighting, and the timing of the photograph. All of that is difficult enough. For underwater photoshoots---it is a whole other world. In addition to all of that, you AND the photographer are constantly moving back and forth with the currents. Then you have to get the animals to cooperate. Sometimes the animals are cooperating and you look stupid. Or your hair is all over the place. Or you look amazing but there are no animals in sight. Or everything is perfect for two seconds but you have to breathe, so then bubbles are everywhere and the photo is useless. So we'd try again and again and again and again for some photos until we got them right. Luckily for us, we communicate pretty well without being able to speak to each other...

Here are some of our photo fails:

lovely hair

and again...

unfortunate time to breathe

stupid face/bad lighting

sometimes fish jump out of their hiding places and scare the crap out of you

other times, the current takes you up to a school of fish too fast and you scare the crap out of them

This giant blowfish was a little too friendly...

others like to hog the camera

Also, trying to do pics with the flags was definitely a work out.

We had a great time doing it---a total of over 3 hours of underwater modeling--and in the end, we did have a couple great shots, and even a few seconds of film for the advertisement! 

Politics

I usually ignore politics, because it's not really my thing. I dislike the general atmosphere, which you can only classify as pure hatred--the loud bickering, name calling and just basic craziness that goes with elections. Do I really think the Obamas once saluted with their left hands because they are secretly America-hating commies? Please. Do I really give a crap about Romney's binders of women? Not even a little bit. These men are just men--no one is perfect; they are going to make mistakes and unfortunately it's going to be in front of everyone. What human on this Earth has never misspoken or acted at the wrong time? It is actually kind of terrifying how maliciously their mistakes get passed around America in seconds, and it's equally as terrifying how angry some people get about their political beliefs. For me, it is exactly the same thing as religious extremism--close- minded people who believe so strongly that they are right, they could kill someone to prove it. In the comments section on political articles, I saw things like "You're so f#%*@ing stupid, I hope you die!" more than once. Seriously? I hope you die?! Because you believe differently than me, you should die. Hmm. This is horrifying. That's why I usually avoid politics--I don't like to get involved in something so emotionally bitter. Nothing you say will ever change the mind of someone not on your side---(no matter how many ridiculous pictures you post of the other candidate on facebook) and all it does is cause conflict and stress.

But I've learned a thing or two about politics from the French, and the first of them is that EVERYONE knows and talks politics here (and not just French politics but other countries too)--without all the name calling, photoshopped picture crap. At dinner, they like to debate, (even people on opposing sides!) and they do so without hatred and aggression. Upon realizing this, I knew that it was time for me to at least pay attention to the politics in my own country, since everyone here seemed to know much more about it than me! For the first time ever in my voting life, I watched all the debates, I researched both candidates, and I stayed informed on current events. Because no matter what day it was or who I met on the street, someone was going to ask me what I thought about the upcoming elections if they knew I was American. (And also, I had agreed to speak about it on the news, so I reaaaalllyyy couldn't keep my usual non-opinion.) My conclusion on both of these men was just this: they are both super wealthy Americans with ideas to help our country that may or may not work. We don't know if they will work, because we haven't tried yet. We can't try because there is so much division in our "United" States that nothing can ever get done. And so there it is again--the catch 22 that makes getting all riled up about politics worthless.

Honestly I can see the argument on both sides. The great thing about America is the attainability of the "American Dream." The idea that whatever you want--you can get, as long as you are willing to put in the hard work to get there. If you want to win, you can--and big; you are your only limit. The flip side of this is that it creates a nation obsessed with money and material things. Work and profit becomes the focus of our lives, because time is money, and if we aren't working, we are losing money. The other day, I saw some graffiti here that said "Capitalism is the new form of slavery." And immediately, I thought "Oh, you silly French people." But when I started thinking about it---it's kind of true. In America, we work through lunch to make a few extra dollars. We can't spend as much time as we would like visiting our families and friends, because we aren't allowed too many vacation days, and the stress of working to keep your head above the water is just exhausting.  But we have no choice. We take what work we can get, because times are tough, and so we resign ourselves to our destiny. Then we make fun of Europeans for their 2 hour lunch breaks and their month long vacations every year.

Not the classiest way to state your political opinions, but maybe i can see your point. 

 Also, Republicans like to cite the Bible and the Christian beginnings of America--but didn't Jesus (and every other religious leader) live to teach a different lesson than our current reality? Love each other and help your neighbor, even the bad ones. I know the argument--after living in France for a while I have seen the negative consequences of a more socialist government--ie. lazy people living off the system--and it definitely irks me, but I can't help but think it is more in the direction of where humanity should be moving. Because one day, like all Empires, America could fall. And all that time spent on making money and getting ahead would be for nothing. The only true thing in life, the only thing that keeps you alive, are the relationships you create with people and the time you spend maintaining them. I'm not saying that I hate money and we should start running towards the extreme left--I love a new pair of boots as much as the next girl. I don't have the answer and there's a lot of stuff about politics I don't know. I just think there should be a better balance, and that it wouldn't hurt us to reach out a little more to those who need help, even though if by doing that, it means that there will be those who take advantage.

Also, I prefer to live without judging others. I believe every human should have the same opportunites to live as they want and do what makes them happy. 

I think Obama could be a nice in-between of American ideals and the more European style of life. And get this---in France (and basically everywhere else) Obama is conservative. If you really think he is a socialist loon trying to ruin America, I invite you to come live over here for a few years. After seeing what I've seen here, I think he is decent middle ground when you consider where the rest of the world is politically. Maybe America has more money, more business, more celebrity and more glamour--but honestly...is that actually what matters?

A Little Weekend Surprise.

Alors, Thursday was a national holiday and Richard's job gave him Friday off too...so we got a little mini vacation! (yay France!) To celebrate, Richard said he had a surprise planned. Which turned out to be the best surprise of my entire life. Words cannot describe how amazing this hotel was, but some might say it is their idea of heaven. Here, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

 

The welcoming committee. 

                               

 Some fancy lava mushrooms

 The Room

The Cloud Bed

Do Not Disturb!

The Lobby at Dinner

Happiness<3

It was truly magical.

Oh and in other news-- Richard cheats at pool!!!!!! I would totally let him cheat because of this wonderful surprise weekend, but I just can't. Maybe it's because I'm American and we are apparently known for being competitive. (But it's only because we always win!!) So now we have a bet. Someone back me up on this...if you are shooting for the 8 ball, and you get the white ball in instead, don't you automatically lose?!?!

 If it's not already a rule then it totally should be.

On the way home, we stopped to steal some sugar cane from the side of the road. I guess Richard forgot that raw sugar cane has pokey stuff all over it, because after he picked it up, he shrieked and then spent the next five minutes picking stuff off of his hand. Maybe that was our punishment for stealing. Anyway, after that, he taught me how to rip it open and get to the good stuff~

Sugar Cane

Chopped Sugar Cane

Rawr!

Then we made our quick getaway through the forest, very satisfied and happy. 

<3 <3 <3