C’est gavé cool!

   So basically my life here in France just got even more awesome.  My French mom Maylis invited me to the countryside with her and Patrick to visit with her mom and the rest of her family.  I thought it would be cool to see la compagne and decided it would be a good experience to tag along…oh how correct I was.  We went to Libourne first which is about a half an hour outside of Bordeaux.  There we met up with Maylis’ sister, brother-in-law and their two kids Florence and François (they are both maybe a little bit older than me).  We had drinks there and then headed out again.  I had no idea what was going on the whole time, so I actually didn’t find out who those people were until after we got back in the car and I asked what the heck we were doing.  We drive again for a good twenty minutes, passing by these beautiful cottages/chateaux and small vineyards and then we stop and make a left into a vineyard.  As it turns out Maylis grew up on a vineyard and her mom still owns it and her eldest son works on it.  It is beautiful, Patrick said that I looked like a Japanese tourist because I started taking pictures, but I knew that I had to.  Apparently, they visit la campagne every Sunday for mass and lunch.  Today we had pumpkin soup followed by choucroute (an Alsace dish consisting of different types of sausages and meats layed atop saurkraut…so…good).  After dinner we had some gateau avec du crème and a galette du roi which is a specialty during this time of year known as épiphanie.  La galette du roi has a small charm/figurine baked into it and whoever finds it in their piece must wear the crown that comes with the galette.  I basically ate way too much and almost went into a food coma had I not decided to walk around and take some pictures.  

Once again, I don’t really think these pictures do much justice to how amazing this place is.  The building is very old, built in the 1600’s.  In France, there are a lot of very small vignomes instead of the rather large ones we see here in California.  I tried to explain to my French family the reasons why I find this so beautiful, but I don’t think they really understand how young the United States really is and how we don’t have anything like these places back home.  I really hope I can join them for mass one Sunday and visit again, this trip was just so amazing.