Random Facts:

-China has more English speakers than the United States.

-The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.

-Coca-Cola would be green if coloring weren’t added to it.

-Coca-Cola- Coca-Cola's name is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' for the name to look better.

-The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

-A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.

-The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

-The longest one-syllable word is "screeched."

-The French words 'eau' [water] and 'oui' [yes] have no consonants.

-The word 'rhythm' has no vowels.

-The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

-American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.

-111,111,111 multiplied by 111,111,111 equals 12,345,678,987,654,321..

-The human brain is about 85% water.

-Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.

-You blink about 25,000 times a day.

-Dolphins sleep with one eye open.

-Pencils contain graphite or carbon, NOT lead.

-Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.

-The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

-The phrase "raining cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression.

-Bananas don’t grow on trees.
HOW DO BANANA PLANTS GROW?
Most people assume that bananas grow on trees, but this is not true. Bananas actually grow on plants that are giant herbs. These herbs are related to the lily and orchid family. Banana plants are perennial plants that produce fruit for many years. The plants are among the world's largest plants without woody stems. The plant’s gigantic leaves can reach up to 30 feet in length and the stems can weigh up to 100 pounds.

-There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

-There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.

-Giraffes & rats can go without water longer than a camel can.

-From space, the brightest man-made place is Las Vegas, Nevada.

-Saturn is the only planet that could float on water.

-The lightning that we see actually goes from the ground to the sky.

-Lightening is 3 times hotter than the surface of the sun. The surface temperature of our sun is around 10,000 degrees Farenheit, while lightening is 30,000 degrees.

-A dentist invented the electric chair.

-Our eyes never grow, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

-No word rhymes with month, purple, orange or silver.

-The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.

-No president of the United States was an only child.

-Apple- For the favorite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 p.m. Apple's Macintosh is named after a popular variety of apple sold in the US. Apple also wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort and Tesseract. The new company sought to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that was unlike the names of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatle's Apple Corps to use the name 'Apple' and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name 'Macintosh', known now as just 'Mac'.

-In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."

-Stars twinkle because the light we see coming from the stars travels through the atmosphere around the earth and there is turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere.

WineInProvence

Brian and I have been preparing for the Wine & Cheese class that we're offering next week, as well as getting ready for the Wine & Food class after that. Apryl Anderson led us in an aperitif tasting out at her house in the country (she makes her own!), and we cooked with her, as well. Last night I tried a bit of what I've learned on a couple that was taking Dom and I to dinner. I made them Caramelized Ginger Champagne & dates stuffed with almonds and rolled in bacon. It worked! The Champagne was what I was most worried about. I had to make this syrup with crazy spices, but it turned out nicely. Here is the recipe if you are interested...

Ginger Champagne Cocktail:
(Serves 8)

½ chopped fresh ginger root
2/3 cup sugar, plus 2 tbsp sugar for later
¼ tsp Chinese five-spice powder
3 tbsp chopped crystallized ginger
8 whole star anise
1 bottle champagne or sparkling wine

Bring ginger, 2/3 cup of sugar and ½ cup water to a boil in a small saucepan.
Reduce to a simmer; cook until liquid thickens to maple syrup consistency, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat; let cool. Strain syrup; discard ginger. Combine Chinese five-spice powder and remaining 2 tbsp sugar on a shallow plate. Moisten the rim of champagne flutes with water and dip in sugar. Drop anise into each glass. Add 1 tbsp syrup and about 3 oz champagne.

This Weekend...

I tried a yoga class with Andrea. It was fun, but now I am sore! And a group of us went biking again. We rode out to Pey Blanc- a little winery outside of Aix. I talked the owner into a sneak peek of the fermentation/barrel room, and he was nice enough to let us fill up our containers with wine directly from the tanks! John Brubaker (a Westmont grad) was visiting, and I cooked lunch for a group of people on Sunday afternoon, including my French host mother from last year and the yoga instructor! I also sang in church (Dom played guitar) and I played the piano during Communion.

Bike Riding Through the Vineyards

Yesterday, I rented bikes with 5 friends and rode out to a 'Co-operative'. We filled up a plastic gas can type container with wine, carried it home in my backpack, and bottled it together that evening (Dom and I have a bottler and corks). It was so much fun! Perfect weather for a bike ride, I saw the sun set on the way home- beautiful views of Mt. Sainte Victoire, and the wine just tastes better when you've bottled it yourself. =) We had a little assembly line going of people pouring the wine (using a funnel) into the bottles that we had recycled, putting in on the corker mechanism, and then pushing down on the lever that fits the large cork into the small bottle neck. We peeled off the old labels and decorated the bottles with silver and gold pens. The Co-op is in the small town of Eguilles (right next-door to Aix- it's about 11 or 12 kilometers to get out there). It cost 11 euros for just under 8 bottles of wine, and it wasn't heavy to carry home on my back at all because it was just the liquid in the plastic jug and no glass bottles. I want to do this with all future visitors!

Wine Tastings

Last week we were hired to put on the CEA (Cultural Experiences Abroad) student orientation. There were 23 students the first night and 28 the second. During one of the tastings, a young lady in the back raised her hand and said..."Hilary! It's Melanie Lyeth!" I couldn't believe that a girl I grew up with- knew her from Sunday school in Healdsburg, CA- was sitting in my living room on the 5th floor of an apt building in a foreign country! She is studying in Aix this spring semester and we will see each others families when they visit Provence in a few months. I couldn't believe it...I rode horses with Melanie's older sister Margaret in Pony Club, Heather worked at the same Bed & Breakfast, we had pool parties at her house. Small world.

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Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
~Thomas Edison

I stole this quote from off of my aunt's blog www.suzannewoodsfisher.com

Le dejeuner ce weekend

I am very excited because this Sunday, I am finally having all of the French families I know with young children over chez moi for lunch. I have been trying to organize this 'connection lunch' for months, but OH MY GOODNESS everything is harder with kids. It's a miracle that all of these families are free on the same day. One of the families I know from church (I did Sunday school last year with their two children and have babysat for them a bit and give them piano lessons- the mom is American, the dad is French. The owners of Pasta Cosy (an italian restaurant in town) are coming with their two children. Fabien and Cecile are both French. Fabien speaks english, Cecile does not. Cecile is the chef at the restaurant, so I am a bit nervous about cooking her lunch- ahahah! The rest of the families that are coming are all French and I teach English to their children every Wednesday morning- mainly through music. I am hoping that either some of the children and/or parents will like each other. I know the kids will definitely have fun playing with the kitten!

Loving the Countryside

Dom and I had lunch with Marie Francoise (my host mother from last year), and we went on a walk through the hills near her house. It's one of my favorite areas in all of Aix. Just a few minutes walk outside of the city center and you are surrounded by olive trees & vineyards, and have a fabulous view of Mount Saint Victoire. It's quieter in the country and you have more sunlight. In town, all of the tall buildings cast shadows on the maze of streets. Marie Francoise loves parties, and she opened up her home last night for a Birthday party. She hadn't even met the Birthday boy, Riahd! Riahd is a restaurant owner some of us have gotten to know, and he is one heck of a jimbay player! He brought some of his drums last night and people were dancing- African style! Different people played music and it was a great time. Dom and I have been looking at apartments, and after last night's late night loud partying, I realized that only if we lived in the country could we throw a party like that. The neighbors in the buildings in town would have been fuming. It was a great mix of friends from work and church and locals.

Quick Update

My grandma, Honey, broke her hip over the Christmas vacation. AND my grandpa, Poppy, got lost (Alzheimer's). Not the funnest of times. Please keep them in your prayers. Check out my aunt's blog (suzannewoodsfisher.com) for more details. So I gave my first piano lesson today in a long while that didn't involve Christmas music. A nice change. But the season isn't completely over for me yet since just last night my roommates and I finally opened our gifts for each other that were still sitting under the fake tree that the cat keeps attacking and knocking over. Today, Dom and I started looking for our future apartment (this whole 'getting married' thing is starting to become real). The *No Smoking Inside* law has taken affect here in France. It's so odd to see people standing outside of bars and restaurants to smoke.

Christmas music BLITZ!

The best thirty euros I ever spent was buying santa hats. I cannot believe the mileage I got out of those things this holiday season! I must have used them at at least six different venues.
As you can see from some of the pictures below, there were a ridiculous amount of Christmas conerts this year. It was a lot of fun! I will try to get a few recordings of some of the actual live music up on the blog soon.

HEATHER CAME TO FRANCE FOR 2 WEEKS! We spent one of the weekends in Paris (check out the restaurant 'Dans Le Noir'). Then Heath and Dom and I flew to Cali together. I have just returned to France and have the worst jet-lag ever! ahahaha!

Blast from the Past...

Tonight I heard that Zac Hanson (yup, MMMBob) and his wife are expecting their first child. Zac is the youngest of the three Hanson brothers. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Well, okay...he is 22, his wife is 23- it's not completely ridiculous. It's just that Hanson was a Big Deal when I was 15 years old and a freshman in high school in Hong Kong with my cousins. I don't exactly know if they were as huge in the states as in Asia, but my friends and I listened to them ALL the time, knew personal info about each one of the three brothers, went to their concerts, etc. IN FACT, this group was such an inspiration that my younger sister and my four cousins discussed starting our own family band. Our name was going to be the Funky Monkeys. We even held one rehearsal as we sat around our bunk beds.
I haven't listened to Hanson in a while, but I can still recite pretty much all of the lyrics to any one of the group's songs.
All this to say that I will need a little time to adjust to the idea of Zac Hanson, who I can't help but remembering as a 13 year old and singing with a soprano-like voice, having a baby.

I played telephone pictionary over hukah with 7 friends last night- SO fun! And one of those friends, by the way, was John Brubaker. For all of you Westmont alums, John is currently living in Perpignan (sort of near Montpellier) and is working as an English teaching assistant. This is his second time coming to Aix on the train to visit Andrea, Kerri, and me...and I hope he can return next weekend for the Christmas Carol concert in the Cathedral!

Turkey Day!

Last night we had 35 people over to our apt. for an American Thanksgiving dinner. It was legit- we cooked two huge turkeys, made our own stuffing, and found something similar to cranberry sauce. We had French friends over, as well as a Kiwi, a few Aussies, some German friends, etc. Someone even baked pumpkin pie! We had left a note on our neighbor's door below inviting her to the dinner, as well.
She's the one who freaks out if we play the guitar too loudly- so we felt like we should preempt her wrath. She didn't come up for food, but at least the cops weren't called.
A lot of my American friends would sneak out of the dinner party for 15 minutes or so to call their families and say hello, including Dom and me. Yay skype!

Bonjour tout le monde! I am trying this whole blog thing out. I want to find a successful way to let people know what it going on with me over here in Europe. As many of you know, I am ridiculously bad about emailing. And even my aunt has her own webpage!! So I thought I could try it out. (By the way, my aunt is the best author EVER. You should seriously check out www.suzannewoodsfisher.com or www.suzannewoodsfisher.blogspot.com. She was on Amazon's best seller list this summer if you need more convincing.)

Anyway, I will be slowing adding to this page as the days and weeks go by. This is a fun, but busy time of year in Aix right now. No worries- i LOVE being busy =) For those of you who are curious, here's the quick run down of what my week usually looks like...

*I'm the choir director again for the English Christmas Carol Service in the Cathedral. There are rehearsals for the adult choir, and the two children's choirs. Fun facts: Andrea Booth, my friend from Westmont college & from the days of working at Firestone Winery & my current roommate in Aix, is the pianist in the orchestra. My other roommate, Kerri Cole, is one of the people in charge of the entire Christmas Carol Service! (She is on staff with Dom) Kerri is also a Westmont alum and we were in gospel choir together. Who knew the 3 of us would end up living together in the south of France someday! God rocks!

*I'm singing blues, rock, Christmas carols, etc. around town with Dominic and two other friends at local restaurants. SO FUN!

*Every Wednesday morning I am teaching English to a group of French 5 year olds. I am blessed to be in community with these amazing families. I took the group to the zoo last week. We had a lot of fun, but it was a little ridiculous that they didn't end up learning a lot of new animal vocabulary since giraffe is girafe, elephant is elephant, rhineoceros is rhineoceros, lion is lion...you get the gist (and sorry, I haven't figured out the French accents on the keyboard yet).

*I am giving private piano and voice lessons to a few different people- ages ranging from high school on down to 5 years old.

*I'm the musical director for an international bilingual school (IBS= International Bilingual School of Provence). That's sounds intense, huh?! Well, I only work there one day a week. In France, the school system is very different from the states. It's extremely rare to find music, theater, dance, or any other arts offered. This is the first year that IBS has had a music program, so it's exciting and I have a lot of flexibility, which is really nice.

***WINE IN PROVENCE update...Just last night, chez moi, Brian and I led a tasting with 30 students in Aix! There were mainly Americans, some Australians, and a few French people. We went through 6 French wines (white, red, and rose). We talked about how to buy wine in the store, what foods pair well with the wines, etc. AND earlier this week Brian and I met with a German lawyer who is living and working in France. He's one of the many people we are talking with regarding 'getting legal' over here.
If this is the first time you are hearing about Wine in Provence, basically, last year my friend Brian and I started leading some tastings/wine education classes for students. They were a huge hit. Last spring, we tried a few with tourists, as well. It started out as just a word of mouth thing. Now we're working on a website and we've gotten hooked up with a few student organizations here in Aix that are asking us to put on tastings for them. We've had a lot of fun doing it and hope to see this business grow into a MAJOR Provence experience for Anglophones.
Brian is from Portland. He has also worked with a winery, has marketing experience, and is good with website stuff...because I definitely could not handle that aspect of the business. Last year Brian was an English teaching assistant at a French high school. This year he is going to Law school at a French University, is starting this business with me, along with another business endeavor of his own, and is an English tutor on the side.

*I am becoming a chef! Well, not quite yet...but I have been cooking a lot lately. Our apt. has a fully equipped kitchen (hard to find in France) which is great for entertaining. I have found that unless I invite people over for a meal, I won't try new dishes for just myself. So for my cooking debut I made tartiflette for 10 people (yes, I know I'm extreme- of course I invite 10 people over for dinner instead of just one or two!). It was a success...but I learned that you have to offer more than just one thing to eat when you invite people for a meal (I had literally made tartiflette, and that was it). So for Dom's birthday lunch last month, I had many different options. And I cooked for 23 people! Also, Andrea and Kerri and I have roommate dinners every Tuesday night. We rotate who cooks.
-I cooked for a group of Americans visiting from North Carolina.
-I have baked treats for the group of 5 year olds I teach english to on Wednesdays.
-Dom and I have made duck together, breaded fish, tried apricot chicken, pastas with our own French cheese sauce, etc.
-I have even made my own salad dressing!
(And when I first began cooking it would take me hours because I would do one thing at a time =) Now I've figured out how to have a few things going at once so I don't keep guests waiting so long to eat!)