Souffle Sorrow.

Sometimes I forget who I am and instead live in an idyllic fantasy world. I forgot myself today while sitting on a patio in the sunshine, sipping my glass of wine, eating a broccoli and goat cheese souffle and reading Fitzgerald. After sharing some witty banter in French with the waitress I was feeling completely sophisticated and worldly. In my self-satisfaction I took an overly ambitious bite of my salad and as I struggled with the massive piece of lettuce half in my mouth I simultaneously let my book slide of the table and dropped my fork on the foot of a truly classy old French woman. ohhhhh riiiiiight. I'm actually a lanky, clumsy as all get out, silly American girl playing make-believe games. Damn you france for never letting me forget it! 

In other news, today is my last (tragic!) day in Angers, this beautiful little city I've come to know and love. After strolling around the Saturday market, looking over the Maine River from the top of the chateau and treating myself to that fateful (though delicioussss) lunch of souffle and wine, I'm feeling quite sentimental about leaving this place. I'm trying to hold every image in my head, but know I'll lose many of them. I truly cannot believe that today I will go to Super U (the grocery store I frequent daily) for the last time, or ride the bus into town for the last time, or get drinks at Baroque for the last time and see the city--white-washed walls illuminated in the afternoon sunlight--for the very last time. This place has been very good to me, and I'm so thankful for the experience and the people I've had the immense pleasure to meet along the way. Thank you Angers, I wish I could take you with me. 

 The Foch Fountain at night...

[Almost] all my favorite people at the fountain by the foot of the cathedral stairs. Love and will miss you all.

All photos stolen from the beautiful and talented Ms. Natalie Baird.

oh no burnt nose, chateaux, monacos, vélos, vino, Laszlo? who knows…

         Ruh roh, need to backtrack a bit…apologies mum (I think you’re the only one who this is important to). So anyway I’ve stumbled my way magically to the end of my school semester (pretty much…). Sadly, that involved a number of days of REAL SCHOOL WORK. I mean “real” is still relative, but it was horrendous in comparison with the blissful ease of the rest of my semester. In between, however, I found plenty of time to run around, drink wine and visit some nearby sights. Two weekends ago I took a couple day trips with my favorite travel buddies. On Friday we voyaged to see Amboise, which is a small town on the Loire River famous only for its chateau and the fact that Leonardo da Vinci is actually buried there. Go figure, he spent his last years in a tiny nowhere town in France. The day started slowly because we’re all such sun freaks and it was disappointingly cloudy. But after one picnic and two bottles of champagne beside the Loire, the sun made a gracious appearance! So, joyfully, we went to explore the chateau. It looked like this:

        The best part was the really sensational view of the river and the entire town (which is the cutest little old town) so we wandered around the ramparts and spied on people in their gardens. Saw this old guy:

He definitely knows what’s up. We then went and saw my main man Leo:

           Then, as all ostentatious travelers should, we broke the rules and took a long nap on the grounds of the chateau. The French are real weird about their grass. It’s primarily for looking at not for frolicking or napping or playing or sitting on—and they often block it off with low fences. Crazies. We’ve realized that (if it weren’t obvious enough) we look particularly American every time we get excited about some exceptionally nice grass which we inevitably run barefoot through or take a brief cat nap upon. After our sunny repose we wandered down to the da Vinci gardens, which are the towns second (and final) tourist attraction. They expected us to pay 7 euro to wander through these grounds with some of da Vinci’s inventions. Sorry Amboise. We hopped the fence instead. But it was quite lovely…there was lots of this sort of thing:

And we found a great playground! Which we made full use of…

          Some exploring, snacking and sunset watching later we returned to good ol’ Angers.

          The next day we awoke with bright faces and set off with gusto on a 3 hour bike trip to Saumur! OH BUT WAIT it took more than 6 hours and was not in fact flat—as we were told it was. Anyway, it was in general, lovely. We got to cross a river on a little pull boat! Comme ca:

          And there were some gorgeous stretches beside the Loire River, through all the tiniest transitory towns.

        

         With exceedingly sore butts and tired legs we arrived in Saumur, which may actually my favourite Loire Valley city I’ve seen. There was something so wonderful about it. Situated beneath its idyllic, fairytale-esque chateau on the banks of the Loire, Saumur had a sweet little maze of cobblestone streets filled with bars, restaurants and little ice cream shops. We decided to go up to the chateau aaaaand nearly cried when we saw the 500 stairs up to the grounds. Our butts barely made it. 

         We walked the grounds and then back down into the city and treated ourselves to a couple post-bike ride monacos. A Monaco is a “bière blanc” (some light beer, doesn’t really matter) mixed with a grenadine-esque syrup. Now, this may sound gross, but I gotta tell you those things are delicious. We now have all purchased our own personal bottles of sirop de grenadine for just such an occasion. Two monacos, a Florentine galette (savory crêpe), and a chocolat viennois (hot chocolate with whipped cream, nom) later we wearily dragged ourselves to the train station and returned home safe and sound.

"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris"

         So I’d been getting real nervous. See, it’s nearly the end of March and Friday was the 70^th day I’d been in France and all I’d seen of Paris was Charles de Gaulle airport and Montparnasse Train Station.  Unacceptable. And I was getting nervous because everyone here has been to Paris at least once, often twice, or more, or you know just casually lived there for a while but I’d hadn’t so much as glimpsed the Eiffel Tower and was worried no one would want to go with me. Luckily, my darling friends Laura and Newton agreed to make the trip and though we are abysmal planners and frighteningly adept procrastinators, we managed to get tickets and (the day before we left) find cheap beds in a hostel.

         The sun rose on Friday morning, bright and cheerful and I awoke with it—grumpy, groggy, drowning in post-red wine misery, and feeling like I’d been ever-so-gently curb-stomped. Joy. 40 minutes of intense struggle later, I stumbled out the door, flailed my way to the bus and tripped onto the train and was off! Watch out Paris, here I come.  

          We checked into our hostel and immediately wandered off to see Notre Dame. Of all the churches I’ve already seen in Europe (and I promise, there are 12 kajillion) she really is a stunna. Not to mention that it was 70 degrees and sunny, which was absolutely sensational. Anyway, we got our flying buttress on and wandered around inside—admiring the beautiful stained glass and all of the secret intricacies hidden in every corner. Apres ça, we wandered down the along the Seine in the brilliant sunshine and summer-esque heat until we made it to the Musee D’Orsay. This museum, for those who may not know, houses a lot of the ‘newer’ European art like Impressionist paintings and the like. So, naturally, it was mah jam. Art aside, the inside of the museum/the architecture is awesome too. They don’t let you take any pictures in the museum, but here’s one I stole from Google. Thanks Google!

          Hard to say what my favorite thing was in this museum and to differentiate what I saw here from what I saw in the Louvre, soo much great art in so few days! Eep! The little art nerd in me was so excited. I have such a fond spot in my heart for Cezanne’s Apples and Oranges since a poster of it has hung in my bathroom at home since I can remember and you can see it every time you look in the mirror. So that made me smile. There were Monet’s Rouen Cathedrals (pee your pants good) and Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone and one of his self-portraits and soo soo many other masterpieces. Being unaccustomed to waking up before 7AM, all of us were pooped by the end of the museum so we decided to walk to the Eiffel tower and just lay in the grass for a while. So, we walked down by the Seine again and en route we saw this guy:

          Woo! Valentinoooo! He’s so cooool! He had just finished walking his pug and was climbing into the backseat of a very suave car. Definitely the most famous person I’ve ever seen. We pointed and stared blatantly like idiots, but it was totes worth it. Anyway we wandered to the Eiffel Tower (gah!) which is just as cool as I always imagined. I’m just astonished that it exists in real life. Before I saw it it almost felt like one of those things that doesn’t really exist and Hollywood just made up to make Paris look better in movies. But no, it’s real! We lay in the grass for a while and openly mocked some stupid American ginger biddie who was trying so hard to impress the two guys she was with and was failing horribly. I include the fact that she was a ginger merely because she literally talked to them about her ginger hair for about fifteen minutes strait. Girl—no one cares if anyone else in your family is a ginger or not or how interesting and different you think you are because you’re a ginger. Shut up. Go back to America.

         We then had a sufficiently shameful photo shoot in front of the Eiffel Tower just to make sure everyone knew for sure that we were from the states. Sadly, though it was sunny just before and just after we wanted to photograph the Eiffel Tower, it got cloudy right as we got there—great. Ah, well.

of course this sweet picture is ruined because i can't for the life of me rotate them...

        We then took the metro over to an area of Paris called St. Germain des Pres where Laura had stayed before and is awesome—lots of shops and restaurants. We wandered around trying to find somewhere to eat until, on a random side street we were approached by this restaurant owner guy who was trying to get us to eat there. Now usually you just “non, merci” and keep walking, but he wooed us with free drinks and free dessert so we decided to take a chance. After our free Kirs I had some mussels to start followed by a steak with béarnaise sauce, fried potatoes and haricots verts and then some creamy and delicious chocolate mousse. Nom nom! For 12€, not too bad! Stuffed and sleepy we made our way back to the hostel where we had scored our own room (good deal for a hostel) and went to bed quite early. It took me forever to fall asleep because Parisiens are always driving and always aaaalways honking their horns at each other. They love that shit. Bah!

         The next morning we ventured to the Louvre! Everyone was exceptionally dumb and all waiting forever in line in front of the main entrance, but we went around to the Porte des Lions on one side and there was not even a single other human there. Win. I art-nerded out a lot more and kept oohing and getting over-excited, but that place is so cool. Despite the fact that it is absolutely massive, there were sooo many people in every inch of the museum. Not surprising—it’s like the Mecca of the art world. I got to see all of the famous works and took cheesy pictures in front of them all. 

         

Next we sat for a while in the Jardin des Tuileries and ate trail mix (great travel snack, thanks Natalie) and then geared up for some more museuming at the Orangerie. This is a small museum right by Louvre that people don’t seem to go to but it has two huge oval-shaped rooms covered by Monet’s Les Nympheas, which are the giant, gorgeous water lilies murals. Like this one:

    

       We sat in silent wonder for a while just soaking up all the beauty and then wandered back into the sunlight and up the Champs Élysées. This would have been really cool except for it is insanely insanely busy and I was terrified that someone was going to mug me at any second. Fortunately, this did not happen, and we got up to the Arc de Triomphe without any problems. It’s giant (duh) and gorgeous (duh) and, er…triumphant. That’s all I have to say about that…

        

      We went back to St. Germain des Pres to go to this bakery that Laura said was really good. Oh yeah, it was PIERRE HERMÉ. Oh yeah that’s where BLAIR WALDORF gets all of her macaroons. I don’t care if it’s embarrassing that I know that—that shit is DELICIOUS. The line was out the door and it’s quite expensive but we got six macroons and shared them so we could try all the flavors and my mouth has never been so happy. We had Rose, Crème Brûlée, Passion Fruit/Chocolate, Orange/Carrot, Choclate and Caramel. Each one was more sensational than the last and even though some of those combos sound a lil weird, they were like little pieces of heaven. In fact, chocolate was the least good. I KNOW, RIGHT? How can that be? Usually I feel really really good about chocolate, but these other macaroons were just unbelievably good. I could have died and been perfectly content. I can’t talk about it enough. Go eat these. Seriously. Now.

         We then wandered around and stopped for some Croque Madames which are like an open-faced grilled ham and cheese with a fried egg on top (yum!) also, so good. Sadly, our trip ended in the rain, but other than that it was a perfect Parisien weekend. Tellement, Paris, je t’aime.

Newdles--nineteen no mo'

         So yesterday was my dear friend Newton Taluskie’s birthday and we decided to celebrate the occasion with a day trip to the city of Rennes (pronounced *throat clear*-enne). Rennes is a little Northwest of me and bigger than Angers. I actually applied to study there as well and after seeing it would have been quite content there as well. Rennes was lovely. We took a train out there arriving around 2 in the afternoon and set off to find some lunch. At first, ever place we went to had stopped serving lunch at 2 and we were beginning to get quite distressed when we stumbled upon this lovely restaurant the name of which I can’t remember for the life of me and they agreed to serve us! Hooray! As it turns out, all those places that were closed had nothing on this place. It was a fantastic lunch. We mentioned that it was Newton’s birthday and the adorable owner man brought us free champagne! So nice! Newton nearly peed himself with excitement. We started with a charcuterie plate with assorted meats, terrines and pâte. I’ve learned not to consider what I’m eating at all and just do it which has been an incredibly useful strategy. The pâte, God knows what was in it, was so delicious. It was salty and flavorful and so tasty on the French bread toast they gave us. There was some salami and a terrine of what might have been rabbit? Who knows, it was quite good, though. The only thing I didn’t try was this gray spiral-y meat which was just too hard to imagine as anything other than entrails. For my main course I got the Plat du Jour which was a whitefish filet under a creamy sauce of something yummy paired with sensational mashed potatoes (if you don’t already know how I feel about mashed potatoes, I feel REALLY. Really good about them.) and a greens salad with the house made wine vinaigrette dressing. Yummy yummy yummy I’ve got love in my tummy. Such a great meal. I had to really consciously pace myself. After all this I had the dessert du jour which was called “Ile Flottante” (I think that’s spelled right…Dad?) which was this delicious meringue like you would find on a lemon meringue pie with toasted almonds on top and it sat in pool of vanilla cream sauce kind of like a thinner version of vanilla pudding. It was so heavenly and light. I could eat that every day. We merci beaucoup-ed like madmen and wandered off to explore downtown. Rennes has almost more character than Angers because all the buildings are different and most restaurants seemed to have brightly painted. We wandered around and went briefly to the Musée de Beaux Arts (customary in every French city). Dad—I saw some lovely Caillebottes!

        Oh so my camera died within 5 minutes of being in Rennes so you can just imagine these things. Maybe I’ll try to steal some of Newton’s pictures.

       After that we had a couple hours before our train and so we spent them loitering in this cute little coffee shop/bar. Coffee here really is so wonderful. I know I’ve said it before. But really, so delicious. Newton successfully drank throughout his birthday-day and after an annoyingly long trip home we all went out to an exchange student bonfire. Sitting in the woods around a fire having sing-a-longs—that’s something I can always get behind. 

Espana!

So sorry for the extreme delay in this post.

        We met our French friends in Nantes to begin our long journey to Granada. Laura and I didn’t do anything right. I only printed out half of our bus tickets so we had a long negotiation between the Spanish bus driver, our French friends and us to be allowed on the bus. It was a trilingual catastrophe. We brought too much food and ate at inappropriate times and generally tried and failed to behave with any semblance of decorum. After a fitful night travelling through France, the sun rose on a stunning Spanish landscape. The countryside is immediately different. Browns, reds and yellows replace the green and gray of France. And there’s not a cloud in the sky! Praise sweet baby Jesus—sunshine! Travelling in the morning was a treat since I usually miss the beauty of the crisp, bright morning light. Pockets of mist clung to the red Earth—soft yet stubborn—unwilling to disperse as the morning waned. We must travelled through a cloud at one point. The trees, only ghostly silhouettes in the dense fog, wavered in and out of focus and I feared that, when it cleared we’d find ourselves lost amongst the dry, whispering grass of the Spanish hillsides.

       After all that poetic shit, it got horrifically boring. Never take a 20 hour bus ride. Never. Lesson learned. We arrived thoroughly greasy and disgruntled and managed to find our hostel—the classy Pension Britz—which ended up being right in the center of downtown Granada. It was perfect. We rallied to meet Laura’s friend Alex and got our first taste of the complete magic that is free tapas. I know I’ve told anyone who will listen about how wonderful I think free tapas are, but they ARE SOO AMAZING. You pay 2€ for a beer or a class of wine and they just bring you a delicious snack! Fo free! Alex, who was such a goddess the whole time we were there, has been studying in Granada since September so she knew all these really great little restaurants and bars. But we never had a tapas that I didn’t love. Even when we didn’t get to choose what we wanted they were heavenly. We had everything from something like a grilled ham and cheese, to a light little potato-y/tomato-y soup to some sensational Spanish tortilla (which is like egg and potato and kind of quiche-like in texture). In my extreme over-excitement about free snacks (seriously, it’s perfect for me) I neglected to take pictures of any of them—fail. But I swear. Greatness.

Placa Nueva.

Bah. Always sideways.

       The next day we awoke to some Spanish acoustic version of the Beatles playing in the square outside. We opened the doors to our balcony overlooking Placa Nueva to find that it was already 65˚ and sunny. EE! Our day started slowly, like all of our days in Spain, but we managed to go see La Alhambra which is the 14^th century palace of the kings of Granada. It was absolutely sensational. The architecture has a lot of Muslim-influenced and one could easily spend days there without seeing everything. It is massive and incredibly intricate. The most famous part is the Palace of Nazaris, which they are very serious about. You must only enter at the EXACT time written on your ticket…blah, blah, blah…so Laura and I split up for a couple hours and I wandered around the Palace by myself. I met some British girls who were also on Spring Break and were complaining about how horrid and boring their university was. I was like “Oh! Where do you study?” and one rolled her eyes and replied, “Ohh Oxford.” Pff! As if it were the most mundane and unknown university in the world. What a biddie. That aside, the Palace was stunning with its arches, carvings and fountains.

      After a few hours wandering around in the wonderful Spanish sun I got my first sunburn of the year. WOO! That might sound unpleasant, but really, getting sunburned in February is kind of great if you’re a pasty girl from Vermont…We spent the rest of our time in Granada running around eating as many tapas as possible and were very sad to find our time there at an end. A harrowing plan ride later we touched down in Barcelona! In comparison with Granada and Angers, Barca just felt massive. Gorgeous city, to be sure, but there is just so much to do and so much to see and this girl is just not destined to be an adept urbanite.

      I guess that Barcelona doesn’t really consider itself “Spanish,” the Catalan culture is definitely unique and separate and disheartening as I’d just learned some Spanish words and it felt like people in Barca would rather you speak English than Spanish if you don’t know Catalan. Also, Catalan is crazy. I’ve never seen such arbitrary use of the letter “X.” Xocolata = Chocolate. Really? And all the banks are called “Caixas” which we were amused to discover was pronounced rather like “Ke$ha.” Heh heh. So we ran around, getting lost, eating delicious xocolata-covered treats and gelato and obnoxiously saying “oooh hold on I just need to go to the Ke$ha” whenever possible and laughing at how not funny that is/we are. We went to see Gaudi’s Casa Batllo which is wedged into a normal city block and absolutely incredible. Apparently designed to imitate a massive sea monster, the house has no sharp edges, is coloured in blue, purple and green hues and has the most fascinating minute details (like the fish scales subtly painted on the walls). I could spew some more facts about it, but no one cares, it really is just spectacular and definitely worth seeing. Here’s some pictures.

      Among restaurants, bars, stores, other Gaudi buildings, and the harbor we also went to see the Picasso museum. It traced his life and changing periods in his art and I couldn’t get enough of it. Not only was everything just incredible to look at, but the museum included lots of little sketches on which Picasso would jot random words or phrases and were often so quirky and amusing. He seems like he must have been quite the character. The museum also included a whole study Picasso did on Velazquez’s Las Meninas (which my art history nerd self was very excited to see.) Done during his foray into cubism, Picasso focused on each figure or part of the painting and replicated it over and over in slightly varying style. So cool. For reference:

Velazquez

Picasso

       Brief shout-out to Barcelona Central Gardens which was the hostel we stayed in. Such a clean and comfortable hostel and the staff was incredible. We checked out on Thursday morning, but our flight wasn’t until 6 AM on Friday (oh the joys of poor college student travel) and they let us just hang out in the common area, use the computers, watch a movie of our choice (we chose The Holiday, haha) and drink as much tea and coffee as we wanted. They even gave us fleece blankets to snuggle with as we bummed around on the couch. Magic! It’s the little things. Like free tea, or taking cabs when its late and raining. Oh! I hailed my first ever taxi! (Which clearly is evidence that I am a tried and true country bumpkin.) It was a Mercedes cab. I’m kind of a big deal.

       We had a great meal our last night with Laura’s friend Caity, who is studying in the city, at this little restaurant called Palermo. Surprisingly cheap (unlike everything else in Barcelona), I had a feta and tomato salad with olive oil and balsamic and the largest portion of grilled and marinated salmon. It was heavenly. Not to mention that we got three bottles of their house red. They were 2. 75€! We had to. Despite the language barrier, the waiter still managed to make fun of our rosy cheeks.

      We said goodbye to Barcelona and stumbled to the train and cross-stepped to the airport. Laura and I had decided to pack our stuff into one big suitcase so we would only have to check one bag. Smart, in theory. But Larums (somewhere along the way he was thus named after an entertaining misspelling of Laura’s name on the luggage tag) was a heavy bastard. It was quite the struggle to lug him around Spain. So many hours, a lot of waiting, and a couple freak outs (mine…obviously) later, we finally stepped off the train into the blissfully familiar Angers St. Laud train station. For once it was sunny in France and had somehow turned to spring overnight and we were absolutely giddy to be back. I suppose that sometimes you have to leave a place to fully appreciate it. For the first time it really felt like home. <3

Sans sunshine, sanguinity, or significance, Sunday starts--soft and sleepy.

             It’s a lazy gray Sunday and getting cooler in Angers. My friends Laura, Christian and I got caught in a two-minute intense hail storm yesterday which, within minutes, turned into brilliant sunshine. Oh France, I love ya. I find myself with homework that I actually need to do…how unpleasant…I suppose that seeing as how I’m “studying” abroad this shouldn’t really come as a surprise but, what the hell?! I didn’t sign up for any real work…

            I always listen to music while I write these and my iTunes has just shuffled to “Wide Eyes” by the Local Natives which floods me with nostalgia for summer drives in Jack’s bright orange element, staring out of the skylight, the smell of tobacco, and the feeling of being perfectly content (probably because I was stuffed after devouring the farmer’s breakfast at the VK). In a way I relish all the homesickness from being so far away, it makes me so appreciative of everything I have at home. I remember things I haven’t thought about in months. I received my Valentine’s Day package from my family and some of my friends which was the most beautiful little quilt made up of squares that each one of them made. I love it so much. I cried, obviously…its perfect.

          Let’s see, what’s been going on lately…

          I only have class Monday-Wednesday (muahah) but that unfortunately makes those days kind of a struggle so I didn’t do much for the beginning of the week. Thursday night was this big event called “Blue Moon” which was basically just a French rave. These are exactly like American raves. They are sweaty and loud and I spent half of my time trying to find people I knew who had wandered away. People were puking inappropriately (my favorite…), people who cut aggressively at the bar, I lost ten euro somehow, it was all very, meh. Plus, Europeans go out super late and never return home before 5AM. Gross. I would like to be comfortably in my Yoga Pants eating Frosted Flakes and watching Friends by no later than 3AM, thank you very much. Also, everyone in Europe seems to think that product will invariably make your hair look better. 94% of the time this is blatantly incorrect. With all these greased-up, guido-esque, v-neck wearing, cig-smoking assholes everywhere I’d almost rather stay in. Not my scene. Also, half the normal looking guys seem gay when you meet them. Sorry…it’s just kinda true. I explained what “Gaydar” was to one of my French friends last night. It was difficult, I was forced to make some weird boat reference to establish what radar was…planes really might have been more effective, who knows anything about boats anyway? Not this girl…But anyway I told him that my Gaydar didn’t work in Europe because none of the same rules apply. In fact, I haven’t met any actually openly gay men here, which seems strange. It would be much easier to stay in the closet here since you could still rock a deep V, a purple pashmina, pointy-toed dress shoes and simultaneously sing Cindy Lauper without anyone thinking anything of it. Obviously these are not necessarily gay stereotypes, they’re just added challenges when I’m trying to figure out if a guy is interested in me and I should try to avoid him or if he really just has a vested interest in 80s pop divas…

              

             Bittersweet by Kanye just started playing. Seeing as how it woke me up all summer when I was working at the Essex and getting up at 4:45, I don’t have very positive associations with this song…blech.

On Friday I slept nearly all day and finally peeled myself out of bed to go downtown and pretend that it wasn’t a complete waste of a day. The sun was shining and it was easily 55˚ and I was giddy with happiness. Literally, giddy. I just giggled and took pictures of fountains. Despite my day-long snooze, Laura and I were both still struggling so we went and got coffee at La Belle Epoque and lounged on their patio for an hour. The fact that people expect you to linger in France is really wonderful. Take-out coffee does not exist. You order, you wait while the owner chats with the people at the bar and kisses all her regulars on the cheek, you get your café crème (espresso with milk, yum!) and you just sit and no one bothers you for as long as you please. Not feeling very talkative, we simply reveled in the comfortable temperature of the patio, listened to the French chatter, breathed in the omnipresent second-hand smoke, and sipped slowly.

            Afterward we wandered slowly around centre-ville and though we’d eaten a massive amount of grilled cheese and tomato soup mere hours ago, we decided that cheeseburgers were in order. Almost immediately we stumbled across something akin to a mom n’ pop Wendy’s and devoured an obscene amount of French fries. The French don’t understand why we call them that. Neither do I for that matter…

            Saturday was lazy as well. We intended to go to the big market on Avenue Foch but it was pouring so we changed plans. Cointreau, the orange liquor, is from Angers and they have a museum so we found the bus to take us there. The museum is in this weird middle-of-nowhere part of the suburbs. Inside, however, it was very chic. We had only stepped in the door when we were informed that we couldn’t go in unless we’d made a reservation and no we could not make one for that day because they were very busy. There was no one else there…but whatever. What kind of museum requires you to make a reservation? 

           Anyway, we opted for the Musee de Beaux Arts downtown which was lovely. Like an idiot I forgot my camera, but that’s okay. I wandered slowly while Christian whined and demanded I hurry up. Should never take that kid anywhere…just kidding. There was an unfortunate amount of Fragonard and Rococo stuff which I think is pretty stupid looking. Fat, pastel-colored women in fields with frilly dresses is just really not that appealing to me. But other things were really lovely. There was a few Greuze’s, Ingres’, Guérin’s and a sweet little Rodin sculpture. There was also some more contemporary stuff that I found less interesting (if I wanted to look at rhinestones stuck on a door mat, I could make that myself…) but they had a really fascinating temporary exhibit called “Vu pas vu.” Francois Loriot and Chantal Melia created this really interesting, I guess you’d call them installations that play with light and sound and creating images out of light by projecting the light through ordinary objects which then create an image in shadow. Does that make any sense? Here’s some pictures to show you…

            After this visit we decided to get some food and I tried my first Kir which is Crème de Cassis in white wine. It was delicious! Though very small…and I was not about to pay 5 Euro for some stupid bottled Evian. We asked for a pitcher of tap water and our waiter said “That would be very difficult” and walked away. Good thing you don’t rely on tips, darling. But I ate a very large pizza with olives, corn, artichokes, onions and mushrooms which was quite tasty and happy and full returned home. We tried to go out later and met up with our friend Thomas and his friends, but the last bus back out to the dorms is quite early so we weren’t there for long. I was not really in the mood to crash on the floor of a strange apartment. Christian almost got into a fight with one kid who claimed that Americans did not know how to drink and came to Europe had one 8% beer and couldn’t handle themselves. I don’t really think this guy has met very many Americans. The French may drink frequently, but not often to excess. No self-respecting Frenchman would be caught dead at a party with a Jenny-light keg…When one of the guys called me a bitch for not having a cigarette to give him we took that as our cue to leave and yell English obscenities at him. Thomas graciously apologized for his friends’ behavior, but it really didn’t phase me. There are plenty of drunk assholes stateside.

            So here I am on Sunday avoiding my homework and the unpleasant idea of cleaning up my pigsty of a room and doing my laundry. Instead I think Laura and I will go get McFlurries from Mac Do. Good ol’ Mac Do.

Marche Madness and Sublime Sunshine.

           If you’d have asked me a year ago what I thought I would be doing on February 5^th 2011, the thought of the date would have conjured up images of snow and blankets and tea and runny noses and my purple Saint-Mike’s sweatshirt (which I miss sooo much, why did I ever leave it behind??). But today, February 5^th 2011, I awoke quite early for a Saturday and was out the door by 10.30 and headed downtown with a couple of friends to explore the open-air marché on Avenue Foch au Centre-Ville. Without really thinking I put on a sweater and hiking socks, my winter coat and a scarf and packed mittens just in case, but when I stepped outside a soft 53˚ breeze fluttered my bangs and the sun shone playfully through the trees. Everyday it’s so perfect outside all of us can’t help but remark on how lovely it is for this to be the weather in February. Not being much of a winter-girl myself (perhaps the understatement of the year…) I am blissfully happy every time I feel the warmth from the sun and can wander around outside without immediately losing all circulation to my fingertips.

          We arrived in Centre-Ville and strolled leisurely up toward Avenue Foch stopping to have des cafes au lait on the patio of La Belle Epoque. Coffee service here is far superior to the hectic mess of Starbucks. We ordered inside then sat out on the patio and minutes later the pleasant French owner brought our four espressos with cream to the table with free gingerbread cookies. For delicious espresso, France is definitely less expensive than the States. Our coffees cost only 1.70 € each which is about $2.20 and I usually spend at least $3.50 on my large cappuccinos at home. Coffee, bread, wine and cheese are all so cheap! The French know what’s up. After our brief stop during which we could only marvel at the weather and giggle about sitting on a patio in the first week of February, we wandered up to the market.

           I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so much produce in one place. It was gorgeous. I wish I’d bought more but I was completely overwhelmed by the spectacle of it all and was content just to wander through it without a plan or purpose. It seemed like you could find anything. They had usual winter vegetables like potatoes and beets and carrots and the like but there were also fresh tomatoes and lettuce, apples, avocados and grapes. Where are they getting all this stuff? There were cheese vendors and bread vendors and olive vendors and spice vendors and soap vendors (he was my favorite) and one very loud and boisterous clementine vendor who insisted that we taste his clementines. It wasn’t dirty, I swear…

I'm sorry these pictures have ended up crooked again...I can't seem to figure it out...last time they just magically corrected...

           All the displays were perfect and there was such pleasant French chatter and negotiation all around. Down the street a ways (aways? Now that doesn’t seem like a real word…I’m confused) anyway, we stumbled into the seafood section which was astonishingly extensive. The stands on either side formed a tunnel of dead fish and oysters, shrimp, crabs, eels, any size and kind of fish you could imagine. Now, I love me some seafood, but this got a little intense. I don’t think I’ve ever been around so many dead crustaceans at one time. If only I knew how to cook, then perhaps I’d be less afraid of all the meat, but I think the French are much more adventurous than I in terms of meat…I’m just not too thrilled about cutting the head off of a chicken I’ve bought or gutting a fish or breaking down shrimp with their little googly eyes staring at me. No thank you. I’ll stick with smoked salami and packaged sliced turkey for now.

           

          I did buy a baguette and snacking on it as I wandered through the market in the sun with my jacket unbuttoned, I think I found my happy place. I had a sudden feeling of being incandescently happy to be exactly where I was. My only wish would be that my friends and family could be seeing what I’m seeing. It’s a beautiful view…