Reminiscing

While in France Mentanna and I reminisced about the good ol' days. One of the things we talked about was our church's youth summer camp after my senior year of high school. We went to Silver Cliff Ranch in the mountains of Colorado. (I just googled them, and they are still there 20 years later!) Anyway, like most summer camps we had t-shirts made for our camp experience. The front of the shirt was standard for everyone. It said Mountain Movers with the verse, "for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. Matthew 17:20b." On the backs of the shirts everyone chose what word they wanted to use to describe themselves. Some people just put their name while others were more creative in choosing their shirt identity marker. At that time Mentanna and I had a good friend named Lisa who we shared much of life with. We decided to be creative with the backs of our shirts. After some thought we decided to use our last names to make a statement. So Mentanna Grace, Lisa Hand, and Natalie Owen became Graceful, Handful, and Owenful respectively. Ahhh...the good ol' days. I scanned and attached some pictures of us that I happened to have from camp. No backs of the shirts though unfortunately!

Me and Lisa...dancing to Sound of Music songs...maybe. It's been 20 years...I can't really remember!

Mentanna and Lisa...what can I say? Hide and Seek anyone?

Me and Mentanna...Poise, beauty, and me in a shapeless, homemade dress with a very frizzy perm. I was stylin' though!

Another one of me and Mentanna. I posted a recent picture of us a couple of days ago. Man, we haven't changed a bit...hee hee.

Happy Birthday!

The Saturday before I left France I had the priviledge of attending a 2 year old's birthday party at the park. It was so fun meeting Mentanna's friends and participating in her life. Thankfully the two families we were with both knew English or I would have been lost! Here are some pictures and a video of that event!


Charlotte...the birthday girl


Juliette, her sister


Mentanna and Sophie, Charlotte and Juliette's mom


Wyatt conquering the climbing wall


Maya and Charlotte





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More Favorite Pictures

Will and Wyatt show off their yogurt moustaches.


Mentanna and Wyatt at Notre-Dame de la Garde.

I realized after I got home that I once again managed to avoid taking Scott's picture. That happened last time, too! I know what you are thinking Scott. Lazy... Take a good picture of yourself and send it to me. I'll post it on here and sing your praises!

Notre-Dame de la Garde

One of the places I visited while in France was Notre-Dame de la Garde. The pictures you see in the slide show show some of the inside of the church and some of the view from the hill the church is on. I will now copy and paste from Wikipedia so that I get all the info right! For some reason I didn't get any pictures of the whole thing so if you are interested in seeing that visit wikipedia.

Notre-Dame de la Garde is a basilica located in Marseille, France. This ornate Neo-Byzantine church sits atop the signal hill of La Garde, the highest natural point in Marseille, being a 162 m (532 ft) limestone outcrop on the south side of the Vieux Port. As well as being a major local landmark, it is the site of a popular annual pilgrimage every August 15th (Assumption). Local inhabitants commonly refer to it as la bonne mère (the good mother).

Statue of the Virgin and Child on the belfry
Commissioned by Saint Charles Eugene de Mazenod, then bishop of Marseille, and designed by the architect Jacques Henri Esperandieu (1829-1874), the church was built between 1853, when the foundation stone was laid on September 11, and 1864. The site was a 13th century chapel also dedicated to Our Lady of the Guard, filled with the ex-votos of safely returned sailors. It shared space atop the hill with a 16th-century fortification established for Francois I, built in 1525, whose own salamander badge is to be found within the present basilica's north porch.
The basilica is surmounted by a 60 m (197 ft) belfry topped with a huge statue of the Virgin and Child, visible across much of the city and from miles out at sea. The basilica took five years to build and required 170,000 tons of material, including 23 shiploads of marble and porphyry from Italy.

In the nave, facing the altar
The interior is decorated with inlaid marble, mosaics and murals. Many of the walls are covered with hundreds of ex-votos, including paintings, plaques, model boats, war medals and even football shirts given by players and supporters of Olympique de Marseille, the local football team

Pick-up time.

Here is a video I took while we were hanging out at Mentanna's house in France. This video has been posted mainly so my family can see Mentanna and her boys. Enjoy!


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A sophisticated, well-refined French experience.

Ok...time for a fun story from France. Pictures not included.

The night Mentanna and I had the light French meal I offered to go buy the baguette we would be eating. (For pictures of the meal see one of yesterday's posts.) I asked for specific directions to the bakery knowing how easily I get lost if I'm not paying attention. My direction sensors must have been on already because she told me it was a 10 minute walk close to where we had walked two days before, and I knew exactly how to get there. So after a little scribble of a map was made I set out. I didn't take the map with me knowing I knew exactly where to go. I know, I know...most of you are thinking I got extremely lost...I've set it up that way. The reality is I found the shop with no problems whatsoever. What happens next is what flustered me. I walked into the shop, confident in my bonjour, and saw the baguettes in a basket behind the counter. I realized that I had no idea how to say one baguette in French. I guess I expected to be able to pick it up myself. The nice lady at the store said something to me. I have no idea what. I held up one finger...my pointer finger then quickly switched to my thumb because I had a dim memory from my last trip to France (2 years and 9 months ago) of Mentanna telling me that in France the thumb was one. I said "baguette" and gave the lady the thumbs up sign...which I now know wasn't exactly accurate...it's more a thumb to the side gesture. I'm sure she was thinking "yabanci" which is Turkish for "you're not from around these parts are you?" or whatever the equivalent is in French. She gave me my baguette and told me how much it cost. Again I had no idea what she said, but Mentanna told me before I left that it would be less than a Euro. I took a Euro out of my pocket, put it on the counter and watched the lady try to figure out how much change she needed to give me. I saw her staring at the coin with a confused look on her face. I looked at the coin and noticed Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, staring back at me. Ooops...that would be a lira...not a Euro. I didn't even realize I had lira in my pocket. I pulled out another coin. Again, Ataturk graced it's face. Oh no...did I have any Euro? Thankfully I found a 2 Euro coin and paid with that. By that point I didn't know how to say thank you or goodbye in French. My 5 French words had escaped me. The nice lady said something else to me so I just smiled, turned Asian on her and backed out the door bowing several times, because I had no idea what else to do. I walked back to Mentanna's house giggling the whole way. I'm sure that several people I passed and the lady waiting at the crosswalk with me wondered what was funny and if I was in my right mind. Fun times! Good memories!

Oui Wee Wii

One of the things I enjoyed most in France was watching Mentanna play on her wii. I had heard of a wii, but I hadn't ever had the opportunity to see one. Quite hysterical I must say. I took several videos of Mentanna playing tennis; however, for one reason or another none can be viewed on the blog. Scott, Mentanna's husband, said that I should buy a wii and bring it back to Turkey. It would be the right voltage so we wouldn't need an adaptor. I thought about it and called Brian to see what he thought. He loved the idea. So as a souvenir from my trip I bought a wii plus a couple of extra games since they will be hard to find here. When the kids asked me what I brought them this morning I pulled it out. Erica and Will were especially excited. Will was so excited that he said he was going to cry...and then he did. I think it was because he was tired and missed me and then the happiness of a wii brought it out. Erica almost cried as well. Jacob and Anna Grace were excited, but enjoyed laughing at Will and Erica crying more than being excited about the wii. Here is a video I took of Brian playing the boxing game today. Again...it makes me laugh to see people making fools of themselves playing this game. I also boxed with Erica today, but nobody got that on video, thank goodness!


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My favorite picture!

This is Mentanna...for those of you who were wondering!

Dinner

One of the nights after the kids were in bed Mentanna and I had a light French meal. It consisted of a baguette, duck liver pate, pickles, olives, two kinds of cheese, and sausage.


The sausage was very fatty but tasted really good.


Here I am showing the duck liver pate spread on a piece of bread. Ready, set, taste!


Tasting the pate. It wasn't bad. Not very livery flavored, but I think it would taste better either hot or cold. The room temperatureness of it kind of reminded me of cat food.


Mentanna showing off the sausage and pate which she loves.

Day 2 in France

Hanging out at the old port in Marseille. Mentanna can comment on here with some nice historical information on the port. She told me, but I don't remember it all. Something about being the oldest port on the Mediterranean...


Turning away from the water this is the view.

France Post #1

I know you are waiting on the edge of your seats for stories and pictures from my trip to France. Here is the first of several posts.

I arrived in France on Sunday, Sept. 30. On Monday Mentanna and I went to Aix, France just to walk around and see the city. I handed my camera to Mentanna and she took a series of street and fountain pictures. Here they are in this slideshow. I didn't put any captions on them, because I don't know anything about them. Also, we aren't in any of the pictures. We also ate at a sidewalk cafe where I ate fish tajine which isn't French...but it was yummy!

Bonjour

Just wanted to say hi and all. I'm still in France and having fun! I've noticed that several people have checked my blog in the last few days so I thought I would check in myself. I'll save pictures and stories for when I am home. Au revoir!