The Cake I Baked

Hello everyone, today I baked a cake. Yup, a cake. Me. Baked one. Here's the recipe if you want it:

semolina cake recipe:

3 cups semolina
1 cup sugar
1 tbs baking powder
4 oz or 125 grams butter
2 cups milk
4 oz nuts

combine dry ingredients
melt butter and cool before adding
mix well and stir in milk
pour into greased cake tin
bake for 30 to 40 mins at 350 degrees...or until cooked through...test it with a knife
while hot, pour syrup over slowly so it spreads through

SYRUP:
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 tbs lemon juice
heat over low heat....

If there's any problems with the recipe, consult my mother (that's not some sort of insult, she's the one who gave me the recipe). Here are some problems you may run into, you may find that 350 degrees is hot enough to burn the outside edge of the cake and leave the middle uncooked. That's what started happening to my cake, but I caught it in time and turned it down to 250 instead. It worked out for me. Anyway, getting all the ingredients together was a bit of a nightmare. First of all, my host family didn't have any semolina in their house, or a lot of sugar, so I had to buy that stuff. And nuts too. If you can, get nuts that are already crushed into itty-bitty pieces, this will make things much easier. I didn't and so I had to crush my own nuts and that was a whole other thing. I ended up using a baking tray and a jar of pasta sauce. If only I had had a sonic screwdriver to cheat my way out of that situation... So I had to walk to the shops to buy that stuff. I didn't mind the walk, but it's getting a bit hot these days. Poor me, suffering in this hot French weather. So I get to the shop and try and buy the stuff and there's a 15€ minimum for eftpos. I think that's too much. Who spends 15€ at the local shop? Certainly not me. She didn't give me a bag either. It didn't get much better after that, I misunderestimated the sheer volume of mixture that 3 cups semolina, 1 cup sugar, 1 tbs baking powder, 4 oz or 125 grams butter, 2 cups milk, 4 oz nuts makes and had to keep changing mixing bowls. Also had to keep changing cake tins too. Syrup went perfectly though, no complaints there. Feel free to add a little bit more lemon into the syrup mix, to make it just that little bit more tangy. Well I'd better go, I need to hide before my host family sees the mess I left for them in the kitchen...
I'm kidding, there's no good spots to hide in this house anyway.

Travel Newsletter

This was originally a group e-mail I sent out, it had pictures and was very nice. If you would like to be on the list, there are instructions on how to join up at the bottom of the blog.

The month of April, busy busy. The only month this year that I haven't gone skiing! But I went to other places like Avignon, Toulon, an old preserved town you aren't allowed to drive in and my host family's private olive tree patch. And also I got some photos of their second house, the one they're doing up. Apparently it was the old post office at Sernhac, now it's a home in the making. But by far the most exciting thing that happened was the Blocus at school.

• A Blocus does exactly what it says on the tin, all the students get together and block up the entrances to the school, then they protest

• This time the Blocus was about the president's new education reforms which will result in teachers losing their jobs and class sizes going through the roof

• During Blocus instead of going to class the students march down to town hall and demand a room to speak with the mayor (I think that's the go, everyone was shouting so it was hard to tell)
  

• When that didn't happen they stood out front and made a lot of noise for a couple of hours

The Blocus, although quite fun, is not quite as effective as calling up channel 7 (although it seems most of the media are already supporting the students and teachers on this one). I didn't bring my camera to the Blocus, and so I haven't got any proof that it actually happened, you'll just have to trust me on that. I did take some pictures with my phone but they're all small and blurry and I can't figure out how to connect my phone to the computer to get them out... The Blocus was pretty good though, as far as stiking students go they put on a pretty good show. However French students have the right to protest when they're unhappy about changes. It's not just the students either, everybody does a lot of striking over here in France.

Next on the list, Avignon, lots of fun! Just a day trip, so I couldn't do everything, but I tried all the same. First we were just walking around a bit, went to a few shops, then in the afternoon we went on a tour of an old castle. My host mum knew the director so we got admission, audio guides and parking for free. Pretty sweet deal. Anyway, this place was commissioned by popes hundreds of years ago and was actually where they lived (at least when they were in France anyway). It was pretty impressive. I won't bore you with the history lesson; I'll just attach a few pics.

Toulon though was lots of fun and I didn't learn any history. Another day trip, this time mostly by myself (my host dad gave me a lift in, he had a work conference). I started by just walking around, but I eventually bought a map (I later received 2 FREE maps from the tourist info place). I went to the market, it was mostly fruit and veggies. There was a boat tour of the port. That was good fun, I saw all the military ships docked there and some other cool stuff too. Then in the afternoon I just walked around a bit and hung out in a park. Oh, and I went to the beach too. Picturesque.

Now, the private olive tree patch was pretty cool. A couple of weekends ago we all went up there to dig out and replat some of the trees. Sounds like a lot of work but my host dad knows someone who owns some big heavy earth moving machines, it was a bit over kill but fun to watch (when I say big heavy machines I really mean it, when they were driving the machines to the olive trees one of the trucks broke the little road and they spent the entire morning recovering it). That was lots of fun, but I forgot to bring my camera so no pics of the machines in action, althoughi do have some pics of the olive trees being burnt.

Anyway that's it from me. They've gotten rid of the virus on the computer so hopefully I'll be able to post more blogs, so keep checking back. If you would like to get on the mailing list and receive Si-Mail straight to your inbox when it comes out (it's not that often, believe me) then e-mail me at emyk.nomis@gmail.com or here and you'll be on the list quicker than I can write the next blog.

Travel Newsletter

This post was originally a group e-mail I sent out to family and friends to tell them about my French trip, here it's just filling up space.

Hello everyone!
Here's an update since the last travel newsletter; I've gone skiing not once but twice, I went to Marseille and also got a haircut. Now the latter might not seem like much (my wallet doesn't think so, at a cool 12,50€), but there were a few subtle differences:

• The sheet thing they cover you up with (to stop hair getting on you) had arm holes, so I could put my arms through and wave them about
• This guy was absolutely nuts with the scissors, he was just choppin' and choppin', I was worried he going to lop an ear off
• The actual salon was tiny, although still very trendy (it had a water feature, it was pretty cool)
• He didn't accept cards, so I had to duck out and run around to try and find an ATM after he had cut my hair
  

If you read that and you're thinking "all hairdressers are like that" then remember that when it comes to getting my hair done, I don't get out much. Anyway I thought I'd better get a haircut because the weather here is hotting up, unfortunately that means there are less and less opportunities to wear the Doctor Who scarf (Mum, you'll be happy to know that I have received lots of compliments about the scarf). Still on the weather; I don't know if you've seen it on the News but there has been some wild weather up here in Europe. High seas, strong winds; Spain's been put on Red alert and several other countries have been put on Orange alert. It's pretty intense, there have been big cargo ships washing up on beaches and stuff (today one of them broke in half, spilling nasty stuff into the water). The weather here in Saint Quentin hasn't been so bad, it's been a bit gloomy and rainy the last couple of days and last week was very very windy (prompting questions like "do you get much wind in Australia?"), but today was pretty good; warm and sunny, 18°.

Anyway, the snow (where it's certainly not 18°) was absolutely great. French Alps kick ass. About 2 weeks ago my host family took me skiing during the 2nd week of the holidays. We stayed at their ski chalet up in the mountains about 10 mins away from the nearest skiing area at the town of St Martin De Belleville. It's part of the 3 Valleys ski resort (which is the largest ski resort in the world, right here in France imagine that!) but we didn't stick around there to ski because the snow wasn't very good (there was more snow there than I had ever seen in my life!). We skied across to the next town, Les Menuires, and the mountain opposite it, La Masse. We went skiing pretty much everyday (but only in the afternoons because we were on holidays and couldn't be bothered getting up early and also one day we finished early because of bad weather) and everyone thought my skiing abilities were really good; which I can only blame on Matt and Josh on Ski Trip '07, pushing me to the extremes (you daredevils you).

I'll put full details of the ski trips (the one with the family and the one earlier with the school) up on the blog you're currently reading at www.you're already reading the blog.com at some time in the near future (you can also read about my trip to Marseille, available exclusively if you scroll down).

Bisous, Simon.

Marseille

Ok well here's the deal, I went to Marseille last Wednesday (the 13th). I know what you're all thinking and yes, school was on that day but I wasn't really missing out on much. They were doing some big exam thing for half the day anyway, and my friends seemed pretty impressed I was taking a day off to go to Marseille (something I'm not sure I should worry about or not).
There were supposed to be other Australians going (the same ones from the culture camp) and we'd all organised to meet there and hang out for the day but unfortunately none of them could make it. So, I ended up going to Marseille and hanging around for an entire day by myself. (It sounds like a good deal, but I found out the following day that Marseille has a really high crime-rate - and I'd just wandered around there for an entire day wearing my incredibly noticeable Doctor Who scarf!)
Well you'll be pleased to know that I didn't let this stop me from having fun. When I got off the bus in Nimes (I had to catch a bus to Nimes to catch a train to Marseille) I walked around and tool some touristy photos (they have their own Colosseum-y thing - this whole area used to be under Roman rule). Then I went on a walking tour of Marseille. I quickly bought a map of place (I got lost quite fast as the walking tour was self-guided and I know nothing about Marseille). During the morning I was just wandering around the streets and I saw this market on the side of the road. They were selling all sorts of things, unfortunately nothing I liked. It wasn't a small market either, it just kept on going and going following this road. But eventually it stopped and so had all the little cafés and restaurants so I had to walk all the way back into town. By the time I'd walked back to (what I assumed was) the centre of town I was hungry so I went to a little restaurant ordered today's plat du jour (which was a lasagne made with a special kind of cheese - and was delish, by the way) and tried to read the map I'd bought. It was freakin' huge. It took me 10 minutes just to find where I was on it. When I did I decided that I'd walk down to the Old Port, then take the Métro back up to the big train station (I couldn't resist taking another train).
So I finished my meal, tipped the waiter 20 euro cents (I didn't really tip him, he just never came back with the change) and headed on down to the Old Port.
When I got there I was totally blown away by how many boats they could fit in that place! Lots. Anyway, then I took the Métro. Buying a ticket was frustrating, to say the least. The ticket vending machine had a wheel you're supposed to spin, I felt like I was playing Wheel of Fortune! (They've also got a French version of Wheel on TV, it seems pretty popular but I'm rubbish at solving the things. And there's a dog too, on the show, he's got a big black spot on his eye. It looks like he's wearing an eye-patch. I call him Patches.) Using the tickets is even harder, they've got the same ticket gates as the ones in Melbourne (those ones that snap shut and eat little children) but the gates shoot your ticket out. It's nuts, I nearly fell over trying to catch mine. It was fun just watching people's tickets fly away though and them chasing after it.
So after taking the Métro and getting back to the big train station I still had some time up my sleeve so I went for a little walk (not too far because I didn't want to lose the station again) and found that there's an arc in Marseille. A great big arc, like the one in Paris but probably not as well respected (I saw 2 dead birds at the arc and the thing smelt of urine). After taking a few photos and doing the whole tourist thing it was time to get back to the train station and go home.
And that is the end of my Marseille adventure.