The Queen and I: France Day 2 - School, Beach, Soccer

So the Berthos have these really high-tech blinds that they close when they leave the house and you cannot see in the window at all. Victor was very nice and let me sleep in his room. He closed the blinds for me before I went to sleep. Well, at 11 am Mom woke me up and I was really embarrassed because I thought that it was still early morning because the room was super dark.

Arthur and Félician had to return their books to their school and so I went with them. It was cool to see since I learned about French schools in my French class. Their friends that were there asked me about Las Vegas and “The Very Bad Trip,” which is what “The Hangover” is called in French. I thought that was really funny.

After the trip to the school, we all drove for about 40 minutes to a beach. It’s where Pierre-Yves spent his summers when he was growing up and where his father was from.

We ate a restaurant on the beach. Victor and Félician had mussels, which reminded me of Mimi. Arthur and I had steak and mashed potatoes because I let him order for me. The parents had different crepes. Pierre-Yves had a crepe that had an egg cooked on top of it. I thought that was really cool. Then the cousins made me order dessert, although I didn’t put up much of a fight. I continued my trend of letting the cousins order for me and Victor ordered my lemon and passion fruit ice cream scoops. They were delicious.

After lunch, we walked down the beach. The beach had the most unbroken shells I had ever seen. Then we walked up a street that Arthur told me is really fancy. We saw a couple of Porsches and went into a couple of stores. Then the boys made me get more ice cream. This time I actually did say no a few times, but they weren’t having it. I got a caramel ice cream cone and they made it all pretty to look like a flower.

After we drove home, Sandrine went to get Oddette to join us for dinner. We played some Fifa while we waited. Sandrine says Oddette is not doing well, but she seemed to be doing good when she came and was in high spirits.

We had some drinks and snacks and talked in the garden. Oddette used a word to describe something and when Sandrine tried to translate it she could not think of the English word. She said that it described Victor, myself, and the wonderful Nicholas Lemonnier. So Félician typed it into his translator on his phone and the words that came up included “naughty” and “kinky.” I still don’t know exactly what the word meant but judging by reaction and what I guess was also Nick’s reaction when I told him, I think Sandrine was spot-on.

The cousins and I played soccer in the backyard for a while. Victor and I were one team and he decided to be USA. Every time we would score, Victor would chant “U-S-A!” and we got creative with our celebrations. We fell behind early 6-2, but ended up coming back to win 10-9. At around the 8-8 mark, Félician ripped his pants. He said he ripped the same pair 3 years ago playing soccer in California. Those pants lived a rough life.

For dinner, Pierre-Yves barbequed steaks and Sandrine made green beans and potatoes. It was terrific. They also had this special salt, which was really good. We had a tiny bit of it at home but Sandrine had a big bowl of it. Mom was very jealous.

Oddette had brought an amazing platter of pastries for desserts. They were the best desserts I had ever had (HAD ever had…I’m getting there…).

After dinner we had a camp fire in their backyard. They got the idea from the Guslands when they visited California in 2010, They just put some big stones in a circle on their grass and then put sticks inside with some cardboard. We roasted marshmallows and Oddette loved the one she tried.