Jambon: Partie II

Ham is also a common flavor of potato chips here...

Une Fausse Grève et ma Marraine!

Today, when my bus rolled up to the stop, I was surprised to see a huge banner reading "Dernier Jour du Boulot" ("Last Day of Work") across the front of it. Immediately, I thought there was a strike going on. Merde, I'm already running late! But then the bus did stop, and the doors opened, so I went ahead and got on. As I stepped onto the bus, I was met with a bunch of laughing and yelling in French. I didn't really understand what everyone was yelling about at first, but I saw colorful balloons and guessed this was probably not a strike. Turns out it was the bus driver's last day of work before retirement! He was wearing some kind of bib that said "La Retraite" on it, a balloon hat, and an inflatable water wing thing on one arm (don't really know where that came from). There were balloons hanging from the bars, and like 6 of his friends were riding with him in the front and yelling about his last day to everyone that got on. Every time we passed another bus, he honked like 10 times and waved. It was actually a pretty fun bus ride! And it turns out I wasn't the only one that thought it was a strike at first; an actual French person told me she thought it was a strike too when she saw the sign.

I also met my marraine today! I signed up for a "parrainage" (mentoring) program with an organization that welcomes foreign students to Bordeaux. I wish EAP had told us about it because it's a really cool program! Each foreign student gets paired up with a French student (a marraine or parrain), who shows them around and can answer their questions about life in Bordeaux, etc. I found out about it on the organization's website, and my friend signed up for it earlier and said it was great. My marraine is really nice! We met on campus and then went downtown to walk around a little. And she showed me this cool coffee shop that makes crazy hot chocolates, and I got one with Nutella in it. So good! She's studying English, but we spoke French the whole time. It was a little hard to understand her when she spoke quickly, but it was really cool to have a longer French conversation with someone outside my host family. And she told me about some cool places to go downtown and French movies and TV shows to check out. C'était génial!!!

À bientôt!

Un Petit Café

I often use a little of my massive accumulation of euro coins to buy "un petit café" in the morning at the dining halls. (Or in the afternoons on Tuesdays, right before a 4-hour block of lectures.) In France, when they say "petit," they are serious. The coffees here are so small! I think it's more espresso, so it's not like it's a lot less caffeine, and it's definitely way better than the coffee at UCSD dining halls. But it still feels weird to pay for something that would be a sample size in the U.S. If you get a "grand café" or a cappuccino, it's bigger, but still only like 8 oz. So the "grand" here is smaller than the smallest size at Starbucks! These French and their amazing portion control abilities!

(Effect slightly magnified by my giant water bottle)

Also, I could see my breath this morning!! I have a feeling I'm going to be missing San Diego weather soon...

À bientôt!

La Foire!

Saturday night, I went to La Foire à Quinconces! It's a big fair that's going on for about a month at Quinconces, which is a huge open square in downtown Bordeaux. We went at night to see all the lights, and the fair was so pretty!

It was pretty similar to the typical American fair, with the same rides (probably more blatant copyright infringement than Disney will let you get away with in the U.S. though), same carnival food, same carnival games. It was fun to see the French translations of different things. Cotton candy is "barbe à papa," and a candied apple is a "pomme d'amour." Also, one ride spelled Scooby-Doo "Scoubi-Dou" - see what I'm saying about the copyright infringement...

Quinconces is this massive open square (one of the biggest in Europe, Wikipedia tells me!), but there are also several historical monuments at the edges of the square. At one end, there is a huge fountain from the 1800's and there are also statues of Michel de Montaigne and Montesquieu (a famous French writer and a famous French philosopher, respectively). It was weird to see these historic statues in the middle of the neon lights of the fair.

The rides were really expensive - some of them were 6€! We did go on the Ferris wheel though. It was so pretty! And they let us go around five times, so it was worth the 4.50€. Bordeaux is so amazing at night, so it was incredible to see it from the top of the Ferris wheel! The Ferris wheel was actually really clean, and really well lit. It was so pretty without even riding it!

À bientôt!

Saint-Émilion!

Last Sunday, I went to Saint-Émilion for the afternoon with three of my friends from EAP. Saint-Émilion is a small town in the wine country around Bordeaux, only about 40 minutes away by train. Tourists basically go there to go wine tasting, see some vineyards, and then go wine tasting a couple more times. But it's also a cute old French town, even if you're not so into wine.

I actually stayed awake on the train for once, and the scenery on the way there was really pretty. The train station in Saint-Émilion is literally in the middle of a bunch of vineyards, and you have to walk by a lot of them to get to the main part of the town. The rows of grape vines go on forever, and there are all these old châteaus and winding dirt paths; it's very hard to not stop every ten steps and take another photo!

The main part of Saint-Émilion is very pretty too. It's pretty small, but all the buildings are all that cool old stone, and the streets are cobblestone and winding and narrow. There are a lot of little shops and cafés. The town is a little tourist-y, but it seemed like it was less obviously tourist-y than places like Carcassonne; it was a little quieter and more quaint. Also, I didn't see a single Renaissance fair.

We didn't do a whole lot of research on Saint-Émilion before we went (although one of us did bring an actual map this time), but we did know that it was famous for its macarons. Macarons are these beautiful-rainbow-puffy-sandwich-cookie-pastries that are in the windows of every pastry shop ever in France. Sadly, despite their prevalence, they're super expensive, so we were all excited to have an a good reason to try some of the Saint-Émilion variety.

However, after some confusion about the store-front pricing of "Saint-Émilion macarons" versus the pricing on the actual cases of rainbow macarons (mysteriously labeled "Parisian macarons"), we realized that Saint-Émilion macarons are actually totally different from those cool rainbow ones! For one, they are not even colored; they're just beige. And they're not sandwich cookies!! Just one thin, flat cookie. (See someone else's photo here.) What! How are these considered to be the same type of pastry! Anyways, two different stores gave us samples of the Saint-Émilion variety, so we decided we had expereinced those enough, and we bought the rainbow kind anyways. The Saint-Émilion ones were good; they taste kind of like angel food cake but more almond-y, but they're just weren't as exciting. I mean, just LOOK at the rainbow ones!!

Three of us split a box of 12, so we all got four macarons. We probably spent 20 minutes photographing them before we actually started eating them! Then we picked in rounds which ones we wanted. Thank God, I did not get stuck with that black licorice one in the corner. I had raspberry, chocolate hazelnut, blackberry, and apricot flavors. MAGIC. They are SO GOOD. The little cookie parts taste like meringue and are crispy on the outside but soft on the inside. And the filling in the center is really sweet and tastes kind of like jam for the fruit-flavored ones. If only they weren't like 1.50 euros each... still totally worth it if you're in France!!!

After very slowly eating the macarons, we started making our way through town back to head back to the train station. Shockingly, we were leaving Saint-Émilion without tasting any wine! One of the shopkeepers must of sensed this because as we were walking by his store, he invited us to come in for a free wine tasting. Or maybe he thought it was weird that we were just standing on the street staring into his shop. (We were debating whether this 8-foot tall wine bottle inside was real or inflatable. Debate inconclusive.) Anyways, he was really nice and gave us two different kinds of red wine to taste. Even though I'm not a huge fan of wine, I did like the first one. The second one was good too, but after a whole glass, I was like oh geeze, must finish to be polite. Then we had to kind of awkwardly hurry out of there without buying anything because our train was going to leave soon. I think he got a lot of business from some of the other people there tasting wine though...

We got back to Bordeaux in time for dinner with our host families. Even though it was short, I really liked this trip because Saint-Émilion was so pretty and French-y. And those macarons!!!!! Unbeatable!!

À bientôt!

Carcassonne!!!

On Saturday, I went to Carcassonne!!! More specifically, the Cité de Carcassonne, which is a medieval walled city located on a hill within the larger city of Carcassonne. It's about a three hour train ride from Bordeaux, so we left early in the morning, and came back late at night the same day.

The entire walled city basically looks like a giant castle, like right out of a fairy tale! It's about a half hour walk through the city from the train station, so at first you don't see it (and aren't entirely sure where you're going if, for example, the office of tourism was closed and you have scribbled directions from Google but no map...), but then you walk across a bridge and, boom, there's a CASTLE in the distance!!

Even though it all looks castle-y, only one part of the cité is an actual castle. And we got to tour it for free with out student ID's!! France is awesome about letting students get into museums and monuments for free. The first part of the visit was a 10 minute video about the history of Carcassonne, which was hilariously over-dramatized, complete with pensive shadow figures and random overlays of scrolls. I have to admit, the whole walled city section is pretty tourist-y, and I think the castle has been heavily restored, but it still seems pretty authentic. And it just looks so cool!!!

After touring the castle, we walked around the rest of the walled city a little. There were some amazing candy/baked goods/sweets shops!!! It was very difficult to make the responsible choice of eating a sandwich for lunch instead of as many cookies as I could buy. There were even samples in some of the stores!!! There is nothing I love more than strangers handing out free candy.

Naturally, we also went to the requisite awesome church, the cathedral within the cité. So much pretty stained glass! Unfortunately, it's hard to photograph.

Later, we walked along the walls surrounding the city - also free with our student ID's! It was really windy and cold, but the sun was out, and the views were amazing! Seeing the city spread out behind the walls of the castle seemed almost unreal.

Afterwards, we left the walled part of Carcassonne, and walked around the rest of the city. We followed the suggested route that was on a map we finally did find. The rest of Carcassonne is not really as interesting or pretty as the castle part, but it was still very French, and a nice little town to walk around in.

On the train ride back, I tried so hard to stay awake and do some reading for school, but it was impossible. The trains are so smooth! I can't not fall asleep! Besides, I was pretty exhausted from sight-seeing all day, and we were going to Saint-Émilion the next day!! I will post about that trip soon...

À bientôt!

Une Éxpérience avec le Socialisme

I had my first experience with French socialist health care today! My host family took me to get an "attestation médicale" so I can run in 5K's here. My host-family-brother does track, so he was going to get one, and then my host family was picking me up from the bus stop on the way home because the doctor's office was near one of the stops. I got in the car, and they announced that the doctor had time to see me, so we were going right now, and I was like, uh okay then. I didn't have my passport or any of my insurance information, but they were like, oh it's fine, you don't need anything. And then we got there, waited a few minutes, and the doctor took my pulse and blood pressure and stuff, and wrote me a certificate. For free!!! So obviously, I am impressed so far with the French health care system. Although the doctor's handwriting is still impossible to read...

Toulouse! (Deuxième Partie)

Gargoyles at the Couvent des Jacobins

Couvent des Jacobins

After lunch, we headed over to the Musée and Couvent des Jacobins. As you can probably guess, this was both a museum and a church. The church part was really pretty, with lots of statues and a huge organ. The museum part had a lot of religious statues, and there was also a pretty courtyard in the middle with a garden and a row of fifteen gargoyles! And yes... I did take photos with all of them...

Cathédrale Saint Étienne

Next, we went to the Cathédrale Saint Étienne. I know, I know, how does one city have so many amazing churches from the 16th/17th/18th centuries?! There were even more that we didn't make it to! The cathedral was huge and beautiful, with really elaborate statues and really fancy wooden seating for the choir.

Canal du Midi

Then, we walked around a little and made our way to the Canal du Midi. Even though it was in the middle of some busy streets, it was just slightly more picturesque than the Contra Costa Canal. We were pretty exhausted at this point, so we sat on a (somewhat questionable but we were tired) bench for a while. After resting our feet (I thought mine were going to fall off at that point), we went back to Le Capitole and found a place to eat. Sandwich and soda for less than 3€! Ouais!! (Soda is hella expensive here, so it was pretty exciting.) Then we got frozen yogurt! At the second frozen yogurt shop I have seen my whole time in France! I was really excited because it said "yogurt glacé" on the sign, which is half French! (Niceberry just said "frozen yogurt.") I have to admit, the yogurt was only so-so, and the only option was plain with one topping. A little weak. Now that I'm writing this, I'm craving frozen yogurt again. Must return to Niceberry! With personal spoon!

We ate our yogurt as we walked back to the train station. Our retour train left around 9:00 and got back around 11:00. It was a little faster because there was only one stop. Unfortunately, I never got to see the scenery because I passed out on the way there (apparently the train made like 10 stops before Toulouse; I have no recollection of this), and it was dark on the way back. We were all super tired and had sore feet; I was practically lying down in my seat! Overall, Toulouse was really fun! And I'm glad we were able to do it in a day, so we didn't have to deal with finding a place to stay and everything. 

Also this was set to post like a week ago, and I didn't realize that Blogger never posted it! Sorry for the delay :( .

Toulouse! (Première Partie)

Le Capitole

On Saturday, I went to Toulouse! Toulouse is a two to two-and-a-half hour train ride from Bordeaux and the center of the fifth-largest metropolitan area in France. Its nickname is "la ville rose" (the pink city) because there are so many brick buildings there. I went with three of my friends from EAP. We sort of looked up where to go on Wikipedia before hand, but we didn't get an actual map until we arrived at the train station. Then we just decided where to go next as we went along. Luckily, all the main sights are within walking distance of each other and the train station. (It was still an insane amount of walking!)

Our train left at 7:30am, and we arrived around 10. First, we went to Le Capitole, which is an 18th century building that houses city hall. The building is really pretty with all the striped bricks, but there was a market going on in the square in front of it, so we couldn't really get any pictures of the whole building.

Basilique Saint-Sernin

Next, we went to the Basilique Saint-Sernin, which featured more awesome striped bricks and a really cool bell tower. After taking in the outside, we walked around inside the church for a while too. I've probably visited a dozen churches and cathedrals since I arrived in Bordeaux, and I still can't get over how beautiful they are here! The architecture, the stained glass, the altars - everything is amazing.

Église des Jacobins

After the Basilique, we walked a few blocks to the Église des Jacobins. When we got there, the sun was hitting the stained glass windows just right so the colors reflected on the walls and lit up the whole church with a pinkish-orange light. I love the stained glass windows here! The designs are all really intricate, and the colors are really pretty. Unfortunately, it's hard to take pictures of the windows without the lighting coming out blurry or way too bright. But the Église des Jacobins had this really cool circular mirror around one of the columns that went out like 10 feet. It was really clear and let you see the ceiling and the stained glass windows without craning your neck, and it also let you take pictures with more even lighting.

Église des Jacobins (picture of the mirror!)

Garonne River and Pont Saint-Pierre

We also walked along the Garonne River a little, by the Pont Saint-Pierre. The Garonne also runs through Bordeaux, but it's a lot less muddy and brown in Toulouse. There was a path along the river on the street level, but also one down by the water which was nice.

Hôtel d'Assézat

Next, we stopped at the Hôtel d'Assézat, which was built in the 1500's. The architecture of the Hôtel d'Assézat is amazing; I loved all the columns and the details in the brickwork. Somewhat confusingly, it is not actually a hotel; "hôtel" in French can mean a commercial hotel, like in English, but the older meaning is a large private house. Today though, there's an art gallery inside, and I don't think anyone actually lives there. Anyways, we didn't go to the gallery because we were getting hungry at this point...

For lunch, we went to a small restaurant that my friend had found good reviews for on the French version of Yelp, Qype.fr. (None of us are sure of how to pronounce that.) I ordered fish, and it came with potatoes and eggplant (that dark brown lump). It was pretty good! And I ate So. Much. Bread. I must have eaten a basket's worth by myself. They kept bringing us different kinds! I couldn't resist! The bread is so good here!


 À suivre! (To be continued!)