A Musical Soiree

Wow am I tired. We had two events in the past 24 hours. This post is about the first event: a soiree at the home of a person we met at the French American Center.

She invited Elena and I and a guy from Chile to come to her house for a gathering starting at 8pm on Saturday. So after a long Saturday afternoon, we came home to cook up something to bring. We decided on eggplant curry (the only recipe I ever got from Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals) and some cous-cous which we would prepare at the party. We had some trouble figuring out how to transport it to the party, but Elena came up with a large container that had, at one time, fromage blanc. We wrapped it up and bagged it and left for the tram station. Five stops later we were there.

I had looked up the location on google maps in satellite mode, so I knew how to get there. We found her house without too much effort, but were a little unsure because the number wasn't actually on the house. Still the house to the left had a higher number and the one to the right had a lower number. So Elena sent me (the one with the worse French) to knock and see if we got the right place. I knocked, a dog barked, then our hoped for hostess, Claudine, answered the door. Yay! We were in the right place. We were actually the first ones there. We saw her garden and the newly planted olive tree which will hopefully produce olives. It's a nice place. Soon, the door bell rang again, and again, and again. The Chilean guy never came, but all tolled, there were about 12 people there. We sat around and chatted and had light aperitifs. I had pastis for the first time. Tastes just like black licorice.

Then the food came out. I put my 200ml of boiling water into the cous-cous (they made fun of me for requesting 200ml of water) and got it ready. There was a Moroccan woman there, so I sort of felt funny serving a Moroccan dish--especially as the grain component of an Indian curry. But our curry and our cous-cous tasted good to me. I got a complement from her. :-) There were also lentils, chicken, green beans, and a few other yummy foods. We all ate and chatted, but not a whole lot of drinking. Then, after dinner, out came the coffee. Coffee so late? It was probably already 10pm. Why drink coffee? Is is decaf? Or does this room full of middle aged people intend to party like university students?

Then the guitars came out. Yep. We spend the next 4 hours singing French songs (or in my case, listening). Everyone sang and sang and then more coffee came out. Elena and I had to wake up for a 10am meeting for our second outing, and we weren't expecting the party to last until the wee wee hours into the night. So we left at about 1:30 and got a ride back with a sales manager of the French office of a Saint Louis based company.

Wow! I bet those people were singing until 4am. When we left at 1:30, they showed no signs at all of even getting tired. I guess this is how the south of France lives. :-) It will take some getting used to if I have to stay up that late. I like to be in bed by midnight. Even 1am is a lot for me, even if I'm just vegging on the couch watching Family Guy or something like that.

At the end we sang some songs in English. I only knew about 2/3 of them (e.g. I didn't know "Working Class Hero" by John Lennon)--I guess the English language songs that make it over here are different from the ones that make it over there.

So we all had a good time and good food and got to see a side of south of French life. :-)