why would you need to cook 2 kilos of pasta?

I think the OL (Olympique Lyonnais, our soccer team) just won, because there’s a lot of unnecessary honking going on outside. I used my incredible powers of deduction to realize that there was a game tonight. And by incredible powers I mean I saw a lot of people wearing OL shirts and the metro B to Stade de Gerland (where they play) was packed. Anyway…

Just in case you were wondering, I don’t think French middle-schoolers are quite ready for the Postal Service. Or the Magnetic Fields. They do, however, all seem to like the newest Green Day cd (which led me to say “oh my god- their first album came out when I was YOUR age!”). Other highlights- someone setting me off on Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch and New Kids on the Block- “oh wait, they were around before you were even born. Nevermind.” and the boy who raised his hand during the cinema discussion to say- “Sometimes Americans make movies that they think are funny, but they are not. Like the new Jennifer Lopez movie. The one with the mother-in-law?” I love this kid. If I ever need a 12-year-old movie buddy, it’s totally him.

This weekend I traipsed all over the ville with Sandra and John (who was very nice and didn’t mind Sandra and I gossiping and reminiscing about, gasp, high school). And, mes amis, sit down, I have an announcement. I have been to Fourviere. Given that I finally got a decent picture of it at night, it was eminent that I actually go. The basilica was beautiful, the views of the city as well, and really, well, you get to take a funicular to get there. I’m all about trips that include funiculars. That was a large part of the reason I agreed to go to the Roman amphitheatre today. What? It’s me, people. You could get me almost anyway by promising a funicular ride. Since Sandra and John are doing a presentation on the Rhône-Alps region, specifically the food, we had to eat a lot. I even stuffed down a salade lyonnaise today, for research and all. What, you ask, is a salade à la lyonnaise? Basically a heart-attack masquerading as a salad. Lardons (thick little pieces of bacon), croutons, a poached egg, creamy dressing and token greens. I prefer the café we ate in on Saturday that specializes in tartines and where they serve jelly-beans with your gateau au chocolat.

Have you ever cooked 2 kilos of pasta? Because I have. I had to do it in 2 batches, because my biggest pot could barely hold one kilo. What can I say, I was really hungry. Or, you know, I was cooking for THIRTEEN PEOPLE. At Taza’s surprise birthday dinner on Friday night (merci à la famille Bonnamour for having everyone over!) she said that the next night, her actual birthday, she’d like to have dinner with “everyone.” Then she stopped and looked at me. This is international for “can we do it at your apartment?” How “everyone” turned into 13 people in the little apartment I don’t know. I made pasta salad and green salad, which is usually quite easy, but considering I had never cooked for this many people before, became sort of hard in the baby kitchen. I did get everything at the marché, though, which is always nice. You would not believe the empty bottle collection ready to be taken down to the recycling bins. Well, you would, because have I mentioned that there were THIRTEEN PEOPLE there? And here I was thinking that it would explode the instant the 8th person entered. Actually, I missed a lot because I spent a large part of the evening sitting on the terrasse with the people smoking (not me!) and talking to Caroline, Omar’s roommate (wait- that’s how it got so big- everyone had their friends around!). It was fun on the terrasse. And this weekend John did what we’ve all been talking about doing and slept on the terrasse, in a sleeping bag. He said it was wonderful. Now everyone wants to come and sleep there, and I think I’m going to have to have a waiting list.