10

Well, I didn't post yesterday. That's because…. I just didn't. I don't really have a reason. We didn't go anywhere specific, so maybe that can be a reason. Notable things from yesterday: Tobin, Julias, and I went outside to throw a nerf football thing, and I made tartiflette (a cheese potato dish) from scratch on my own without a recipe. I was very proud. It looked and tasted amazing.

 

 

Today was spent with the Croisats. Very happy to see them again! It's been two years and a lot has changed but also some things have not changed at all. People have gotten a lot taller. Some furniture has moved around. But it's still the same place and the same people.

What I was most excited about was allowing my Canadian family to meet my French family for the first time. It was a bit awkward and slow at the beginning, but as soon as everyone remembered how to speak French and be social it was great. We arrived at noon, just in time for lunch. We ate outside on the stone patio: pasta (with gluten free rice option) and tomato sauce. And bread and stuff. And dessert. It was really nice. This place is so familiar, I think I really missed it. I just keep noticing things that take me back two years ago…

After lunch we headed up to Chamrousse, a ski hill by winter and a hiking/mountain biking hill by summer. We got there just in time with our two cars to cast the last gondola up to the top. They shut it down as soon as we stepped off (it really was the very last ride). Then we started hiking down.

The views were amazing. There was a bit of cloud fog stuff at the top, but it cleared out farther down. Taiga (the dog) ran ahead a lot, Tobin as well. There are certain similarities.

We could see amazing views on all sides all the way down: from the majesty of the great peaks to the vibrant mean couloirs and patterns of the moss on the rocks. About halfway down we saw a group of ten dogs (mostly border collies like Taiga) and four people making their way down. They had stopped at the lake to let all the dogs play a bit. Aline made sure Taiga was on a leash every time we saw them, because she doesn't play well with other dogs, and I can't even imagine what ten of them against her would be like.

When we got to the big lake that we were maybe kinda going to swim in, we felt the fridge door water and said, how bout not. But we still stopped there to eat some macaroons and peaches and apricots. We were planning to put up a slack line too, but it was getting to be 7pm and we were all a bit cold so we decided to just keep going.

We weren't going to end up at the same place we parked the cars, so Mathilde and Nadia ad Taiga went ahead to get the the end of this trail and walk along the road to get one of the cars (Mathilde driving). The rest of us kept going at a normal pace. My family and I started singing any and every song we could think of just for fun and to keep Tobin occupied (everything from northwest passage to blue skies to cat came back to black fly to where the watermelon grows). It was much better than descending the last bit in silence, for sure. And I think Aline and Olivier liked it.

At the bottom, we sorted out cars. Mathilde drove Jeff and Olivier to drive the two cars back to us waiting. I went in the Croisat's car like on the way up, that way Aline and Olivier were in different cars to guide each one.

Once we got home everyone was pretty hungry, so dinner started to be made quickly. I got out Mathilde's violin (it's a really nice instrument) and started to play fiddle tunes. Pretty soon Julias joined in on Clem's cello (Clémentine is coming back from a student trip to Spain tomorrow), and then Tobin joined in on piano and we got out Mathilde's campfire violin and soon we had four people. We played a couple tunes, and did some jazz improv. Later Mathilde and I tried to remember a song that I had sung and she played on piano. We looked it up on YouTube (Robbie Williams- Feel) and got most of it alright.

Dinner was a different kind of fondue than you may think. It was fondue bourgonoise which means little pieces of raw meat dipped in hot oil to cook them. Same idea with the bread fondue except replace the bread with meat and the cheese with oil. It was really good. There was rice and salad as well. We all stayed up talking (and kinda forgot about the gluten free crumble for dessert) till midnight. The younger members (Nadia, Tobin) went to bed before that.

 

I think I'm going to really enjoy my visit here. Our two families seem to be missible. Everyone is communicating fine. My French seems to have almost completely returned to full abilities rather quickly. The only thing missing is vocab, but that has always been true.

It's going to be hard to say goodbye to these people and this place a second time…