Snow Day Nantes

One morning I woke up to the screaming of my little French sister. I was well into my second week living with my French family so I was getting rather used to the sounds children make. Feet thumping around the house, making them sound much bigger than they actually are, and screams of capricious wants or desires being thwarted by the logic of an adult. But this utterance of untimely noise, it was seven in the morning you see, was not one of arbitrary desires being foiled but something different. This was a noise of joy.

I roll out of my bed, with my airplane blanket clinging to me with all the static power it could muster. It was probably the best decison I've made so far to relieve the airport of one of their towel sized blankets. It has served me well up until I was given another larger blanket by my host mother. They probably weren't expecting someone my height. The wonderfully orange quilt that they so graciously let me use, is not quite long enough to cover me. So the airplane blanket helped to keep the chill at rest. 

After preparing myself for the day ahead, I mount the stairs to the kitchen. There, in the living room, the little girl is jumping every-so gleefully on the sofa. And, after viewing my quizzical look she screamed "Neige!" Snow. 

Apparently they only get snow one day a year in Nantes and this was it. Everyone was excited for the maybe inch of snow that they received in the night. I looked out the window, the world looked like home. Snow is something I understand. Something I've always had, and loved. The way it can take anything, a dirty city, a spooky graveyard, a boring box like car, go from its original state of dirty, spooky or boring and transform them into something magical. Snow has the way of bring the best out of things. But as I felt the window, I knew that the snow would not last the day.

But that didn't stop me from enjoying it. As I set out on my mile long trek to the IES center, I silently laughed at the cars on the street. Not a single one could figure out how to drive in the snow, the inch of snow that dusted their roads like powdered sugar on a pancake. There were cars trying to move with their front wheels spinning, and their back wheels doing nothing. They even cancelled the buses here because no one knew what to do. And I remembered the story of one time when I was in Queens, New York with my family visiting my grandparents there.

 It had snowed some, more than I suppose they're used to in New York. And we watched outside our window as people struggled to get by. There on the opposite side of the street was a young woman, trying, desperately, to get her car out of a snowed in parking lot. We were laughing at her of course. But my father, being the gentleman that he sometimes is, decided he should help. So he left the apartment and went down into the street. He said something to the women, and she protested, shaking her head. Then, after he spoke again, she gave up and handed him the keys. He got in the car, and in two swift movements, got it out of its snowed in parking spot. The woman was grateful to my father when he gave her back her keys. As he came back inside she drove away. We asked him what he told her and he said "Ma'am, I'm from Minnesota."

Since it was such a lovely day I decided to treat myself to lunch. Above is half a sandwich that I shared with a friend. It had ham and cheese but also lettuce and some other sort of green thing that I still don't completely understand. Then, since all I had was water, I mixed some hot chocolate mix into it. It wasn't terrible, and the more chocolate I added the better it tasted, as is the rule of life. The pear was good though, neither too soft, nor too hard, and just with the right amount of juicy goodness.

But the real treat came with desert. I bought myself a chocolate eclair with chocolate cream filling. And that tiny thing next to it is fudge. Both were so decadent I had to stop halfway into them to enjoy, to savor the entire experience. Chocolate is best when it's snowing.