Solar Racing in the land of no sun

 Metz is no Alaska but since I can only remember 2 sunny days in the last month or so doesn't a solar car race seem funny? Well, for our purposes, even a sunny day wouldn't have been reliable enough so when GTL hosted its OSA sponsored solar car race last week we stayed inside with a 500w light that was masterfully attached to a wheeled desk chair and a race course laid out in tape.

In all there was something like 10 participants and while not everyone's car cooperated with the conditions, it was obvious that they had all put a lot of work into the design. This is our friend Seth racing his speedy little car. He did well as you'll see later.

 While the participants raced, the rest of us stood around the outside eating snacks and acting like paparazzi. 

And here's Siri re-directing her car back into bounds. While many of the cars were very speedy, most tended to veer one way or another forcing the racer to re-direct the car which added 5 seconds on to the final race time. 

Katrina's car was uncooperative at the beginning but after some tinkering and pep talk from Amanda, they go it working like a charm.

And finally, after lots of patient waiting, it was Michael's turn to race.

And he did great! Notice the open mouthed surprise of the timers.

The winners: (L to Rt) 3rd place -- Seth, 1st place -- Michael,  and 2nd place -- Eli and his partner (don't know his name, help undergrads!)

The happy and unexpected winner

Seth and Michael showing off their prize money, which we subsequently blew on expensive wine and chicken that we've been too frugal to buy so far.

I've saved the best for last. You see, the reason Michael's car did so well is because it was so stable, and the reason it was so stable is...

Yup, he made it out of a sardine can. If he hadn't needed to tape on that stupid solar panel it certainly would have won the prize for most fashionable. A big thanks goes to Sarah who passed on these yummy sardines when she moved back to the states.

It's Beginning to Look...

 You guessed it: A lot like Christmas!

Since the French don't have that pesky Thanksgiving holding back Christmas decorations, we got an early start (this coincided with the Thanksgiving decorating) on bringing that festive spirit to the GTL lounge. Michael, Katrina and Peter make sure the tree was sparkling and blinking (much to my chagrin, lights are never static over here, always blinking).

These XL handmade snowflakes that Amanda is holding eventually hung from the ceiling mostly thanks to Francis, the GTL maintenance man and his XL ladder.

 As is customary this time of year, we have been hitting up the local Christmas markets in town, soaking in all the festive smells and sights but mostly, the food and vin chaud (hot, mulled wine).

 The indoor decoration stand was jam-packed with festive folks looking to spruce up their homes.

And much to our surprise, Place de la République, which was largely under construction last year has been miraculously transformed with a veritable winter wonderland complete with a rotating tree ride (which was present last year but placed in the middle of a street during the construction) a giant ferris wheel and an ice skating rink.

Warm and sugary churros and hot wine. Can life be any better?

The next week it snowed like mad, quite literally shutting down all operations in Metz. I have sadly come to realize now that I have a car here in this weather that not only are sidewalks never shoveled, but only main roads are ever plowed, leading to a slippery trip to teach English on Tuesday.

 What else to do but go to the markets again?

 Oops...forgot to rotate this picture! Here I am though, cracking open one of the most expensive confections we've found here: 8 candied chestnuts (marrons glacés) for a whopping 10.99€ (~ $15)! Mostly though, I liked the tin and totally plan to bring it back. I'll take a picture of it sometime soon.

Mmmm, glorious, scrumptious, candied goodness

I'm gonna miss Christmas in France.

Where We've Been

I have no idea how long it's been since I last posted a general update here and really, there's no better time than now! And besides that, I just want to fill you all in on just what's been keeping us busy since our road trip to the south. I'll give you a little hint: it involves lots of food.

First on the menu was this yummy treat, wild asparagus. Well, they're not really asparagus, it's some form of grass. Really yummy grass!

This was Michael's bachelor meal, currywurst, which I know I've mentioned on the site before but can't seem to find (perhaps this is a hint that I need to start tagging my posts). If you have no clue what currywurst is, you can read all about it here. Anyway, Michael had to eat a bachelor meal a few weeks back when some girl friends and I went downtown to a great little place called La Vintage (which I mentioned in my last post, A Fellow Wellsborian). It was a great night full of giggles and stories (there were two Americans, one Brit and one French girl in attendance) and come-ons by the barkeep. He could certainly say "You are very beautiful" in English. Go Figure.

 We enjoyed yet another beautiful sunset over the lake. Sorry if y'all are sick of sunset pictures. I will never be, so you must deal.

 We've worked on our artichoke cooking skills and let me say, for the record, we're getting pretty darn good at it. 

 Then we enjoyed said artichoke with some amazing Lamb Persilliade...

...and these buttery steamed new potatoes. Talk about terroir! Boy, could we taste the soil in these babies.

And for a random lunch I turned these--

--into this creamy and tasty soup. Recipe to come soon if anyone is interested.

We had the pleasure, at some point (don't mind me, my concept of time passage is completely out-of-whack), of taking part in a Champagne reception/dinner with lots of Georgia Tech (and otherwise) big-wigs to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Georgia Tech Lorraine.

That's Vinod in the center...he decided to be a creeper and go around getting pictures taken with all the couples. Here he is with Leah and Kyle (hope you don't mind the link, Leah)...

...and with Rocky and Maria (things started to get silly at this point)...

...and again with Jingfei and Sara. who are not a "couple", but you get the idea. This photo also reveals the source of the bunny ears. 

The next day we got to take part in another 20th Anniversary perk: the undergraduate field trip to the Hackenburg Military Fortress

And the St. Avold American Military cemetery (both of which will be awarded their own blog post in the near future).

That is all...for now.

it's tiiiime for an update!

Despite finding ourselves in the midst of summer (in mindset, not weather), the past week has been quite action-packed and the fun hasn't quite stopped yet. Oh, and I apologize in advance for the horrendous food photography to come, I cannot wait to once again have even a little natural lighting in our kitchen.

Let's see...where did we last year off? Ah yes, our Anniversary!

It was wonderful (if anyone was wondering), thank you all so much for the lovely comments here and on facebook. The past year has truly been an unfathomable and unforgettable experience, and I am so lucky to be here with Michael to enjoy it :-)
And how did we spend said Anniversary? Well, after the sheer gluttony (detailed in my previous post) of the last week, we opted for something a bit less rich but no less delicious. Don't as me how but some how we managed to locate some nice looking tuna (my favorite sushi fish which is nearly impossible to find in good quality, we hadn't had fresh tuna since the move, I believe the find was fate) and make our best homemade sushi to date. We finally figured the concept that "less is more" when filling sushi and actually ended up with pretty maki rolls rather than the exploding messes of rice that we normally end up with.

And the best part about sushi you ask?

You can eat a ton of sushi and never feel that disgusting, going to burst a rib, full feeling; and believe me, we did eat a ton! And as you can see from the picture above, we had a hard time not gulping it all down before opening our wine.

Our absolutely deliciously delicious bottle of Gewurztraminer noble grain. Actually, we didn't really drink it with the sushi because the millions of flavors in this delicious (did I mention that it was delicious?) bottle of wine would have been completely masked over by wasabi and soy sauce if we had tried them together. All in all, a wonderful dinner, a wonderful wine, a wonderful night and a wonderful year. I'm a lucky girl!

On Thursday I had my first four upcoming concerts with Méli Mélodie (my choir) in the nearby town of Hagondange. We performed a beautiful Latin Mass complete with an orchestra.

The Orchestra? Oh, here they are (this picture is completely pointless, I know, taken from the back row of the balcony)! The orchestra was wonderful to both sing with and listen to during the break between the Mass and our last piece, a Medley of Andrew Lloyd Weber music complete with Phantom, Cats, . It's always fun to hear the French pronunciation of "Ze Phahntom of ze Oopera is zhere".

Eek, double chin!! (on me, not the other girls) And here we are, Marie, Fran and I, waiting to go back onstage to perform the Weber piece.

On Saturday, GTL helped to host the first ever Jeux de Metz Technopôle in which all of the schools on the Technopôle were invited to the Lycée de Communication (next door) to participate in sporting events throughout the day.  Michael had to help out for the summer Graduate Assistanceship and I went along to help so I wouldn't be bored all day.

This is what we did most of the day. We sat around...eating croissants (chocolate and plain...if you were wondering). Seriously, there were maybe 15-20 "workers" in and out of this room throughout the day; they managed to eat two huge (maybe slightly smaller than the box behind Jonathan on the right) boxes of croissants, each containing at least 100 croissants. Oh, that those fine gentlemen are (from the left) Emmanuel, Tony and Jonathan. They are also Summer Assistants for GTL. They are funny, funny guys.

Like I said, throughout the day there were various sporting events. And later in the day, we witnessed a Taekwondo demonstration.

First they did some 1 on 1 combat,

Then they did a partnered up, round-robin type demonstration (convoluted explaination, I know),

And finally, the only girl in the group did a great self-defense role-playing demonstration in which she slammed every one of her "attackers". Great stuff.

And guess what? Our own (French) GTL boys won 2nd place out of 11 in the soccer (football) competition (our American team was knocked out in the first game...I think)!

 Here they are accepting their medals and trophy.

I'm so proud *tear*.

And to end out a splendid day we enjoyed a small buffet of finger sandwiches, paté and a wine fountain, then we heard some fabulous music.

These briney fellows here are Les Pirates (The Pirates). They are a wonderful, energetic, local band. We enjoyed their informal performance immensely (partly due to the wine fountain). I'll see if I can post a video in the next week or so of a song I managed to capture.

And for our fellow Gleeks out there, we found Artie's French, Pirate, drum-playing doppelganger here in Lorraine.

Metziness (pronounced: messiness)

Sorry to disappoint but there will be no pictures in today's post. Not only have we not have much to take pictures of in the past couple of weeks (aside from more food pics *yawn* and some fun with three little girls) but I also don't have access to Michael's computer at the moment. He is currently hunkered down in the other room with his powepoints and formula sheet preparing for tomorrow morning's robotics test. Let's see...what have we done lately?

Well, Michael has been hitting the books pretty hard during the past couple of weeks. Immediately following our spring break he faced 2 tests and one long homework (we're talking 8-10 hours staring at a computer screen) and this week he had one relatively easy assignment and the test he is busy prepping for. So needless to say, anytime he isn't spending on schoolwork is spend grocery shopping/cooking yummy meals including (but not limited to) Wiener Schnitzel, General Tso's Chicken and Agneau au poivre (peppered spring lamb chops). My fear now is that we are getting so good at working with just two pots and one burner, improvising with the oven when we hit a snag, that we will have no clue what to do with ourselves when we get back to our 15 or so pots and a normal 4 burner range (and perhaps an oven that can bake a decent loaf of bread). I am thinking, however, that this will be a good problem to have. 

I, on the other hand (along with all the cooking stuff), have been keeping myself abnormally busy with unusual occurrences. Last Friday I had the pleasure of taking Kimber (Janice and Jeremy's 1+ year old) along with me to my English lessons with my two little Italian/French girls Margeurita and Eleanora. The older girls were fascinated by Kimber and she was fascinated with them, which worked out just perfectly. She followed them around their apartment and we all sat together on the couch to read Kimber's color book which was, thankfully, just about the right reading level for Eleanora.

The past few weeks have also left me feeling like a knitting machine. Babies, babies everywhere...seriously! I made a pretty major score on some angora wool at the thrift store ($7 for all 15 balls...each ball would normally cost about $12 in the states) so although it's a pretty impractical material, I've been using it to make two tiny baby blankets for my two pregnant sisters-in-law (Laura, would that be grammatically correct?). I won't post pictures here for a bit because I want them to see the blankets and be surprised before I go posting them all over the interwebs. So not only do I have those babies to knit for, but three wives here are pregnant so I'll be busy over the next few weeks before their shower making some feeding time accessories.

What else, what else? Well, we made at attempt at getting our car title signed over today. Josyane was nice enough to take us downtown this morning only to realize that we needed proof of address and our passports. Ah well, we shall make another attempt tomorrow. Oh, and I almost forgot: I went to my first choir rehearsal earlier tonight. A British friend from GTL convinced me to attend with her to see if I would like to join and I found that I really loved being back in a choir and especially a care-free choir that reminds me so much of my knitting group back in Pittsburgh, with our without the language barrier. However, after a five year hiatus from singing and reading music...not to mention having everything directed in French, I think there may be a pretty steep learning curve ahead of me. My favorite part of the evening was singing an Andrew Lloyd Weber compilation. First I was jokingly accused of cheating because I was singing from the Phantom of the Opera without the sheet music (but really, who can't sing The Music of the Night by memory?). Then I realized that when surrounded by French women singing in English as a foreign language, my British friend Fran began singing with a French accent while I began singing in a British accent. It was all very comical and I am excited to go back.

I guess that's all for now. I will try to get some pictures posted soon. And for those of you in the northeast, just know that I am incredibly jealous of your beautiful weather and will gladly trade our 40º days with 25mph wind gusts if you are at all interested.

Back to the Grind

Although it doesn't really feel like it. Michael's schedule this semester is strange to say the least. He has all of his major classes on Monday and Wednesday morning, which he finishes up by 12:30. This leaves Tuesday majorly free, with only our 2:00pm French class, Thursday mostly free (he has a graduate seminar in the afternoon) and Fridays completely free. Needless to say, this crazy schedule has not led to a very solid sleep pattern for us, which is unfortunate. And with the weather not so nice, there isn't much to do outside of the apartment...which leaves us a little stir crazy. I am hopeful that with either snow or spring (either extreme, rather than this rainy, muddy muck), this time will be put to use with more exploration and walking.

In other news, I finally sucked it up and went to the doctor last week when my on-again, off-again cold was suddenly very much on-again. It was this trip to the doctor that made me realize why it seems that the French go to the doctor at the slightest sign of a sniffle. After checking with one of the GTL administrators on what papers I needed to take along, I walked about two blocks from the apartment to the doctors office where I was buzzed in to sit in an empty waiting room [read -- no receptionist]. I could hear the doctor in with another patient and after maybe five minutes of attempting to read a French gossip magazine (I'm not proud to admit that the reading went pretty well, apparently I am fluent in gossip mag speak), the doctor came out and asked me into her office. She spoke English quite well (I should point out that I found her on a GTL sheet of English speaking professionals in the Metz area) and after checking my lungs, asking the requisite questions (am I allergic to anything, pregnant?), she printed out a prescription for me, took me 22 euros ($30) and sent me across the street to the pharmacy. In the pharmacy I spent another 12 euros ($18) on my three prescriptions. The entire ordeal took roughly 20 minutes (with no appt. made) and $48, which I know doesn't seem very cheap until I point out that said charges are not copays, as we would deal with in the states, but the actual cost of the visit and medications had I been without health insurance. Since we have health insurance as long stay visa holders, we will get 70% of that money back when we submit it to the insurance company. Before making the move here, Michael went to the doctor for a simple check-up in Wellsboro without health insurance which ended up costing a whopping $92 for roughly the same amount of time with the doctor, and thankfully on that trip, there were no prescriptions. I in no way intend to bring politics into this blog, but I thought the differences were surprising enough to note, not to mention the fact that all residents here are granted health insurance (which cost us something like 200 euros for the both of us, per YEAR) regardless of...well, anything. If I were back in the US, not married to Michael, and working as a pastry chef/baker (small business = no employer provided health plan), I would be turned down by every private health insurance company for pre-existing conditions (believe me, I've tried) and would be forced to pay COBRA roughly $450 per MONTH for health insurance. I'm not saying the US should be switching over to socialized medicine completely, but there must be some aspects of foreign medical insurance that we could use to make our system work more efficient and inexpensive. Ok, I promise no more rants on health insurance reform...now on to something more interesting...

A few months back, while scoping out the produce aisles at our favorite grocery store, I came across something I had never seen before, raw olives! In my excitement, I bought a handful and brought them home eagerly to Michael. After stupidly trying one before researching, I realized just why they are always found soaked in oil or vinegar, they are disgustingly bitter. So a few weeks later, Michael and I decided to embark on yet another culinary journey and brine our own olives! The photo to the left is how they looked for the first 2 months while they were brining away. The brine was a simple salt and water solution that we changed every week. While changing the brining liquid every week, I would force Michael to try one of the olives to gauge their bitterness and when they had finally lost all of their bitterness a few weeks ago, we were able to jar them and flavor them as we wanted.

The finished products are flavored with varying combinations of lemon, garlic, cumin, coriander, hot pepper, thyme, and herbes de provence then topped off with red wine vinegar and olive oil. The few we've tasted have been excellent but we're letting them soak up some more flavor before we begin scarfing them down. Next problem: acquiring fresh olives in PA when we move back :-)