Le Soleil!!! :O

FINALEMENT, on a eu du soleil aujourd'hui!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ça fait des semaines qu'on n'en a pas eu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quel miracle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Et si vous pouvez le croire, demain, on est encore en vacances! Le 1 mai est un jour férié en France parce que c'est la fête du travail! Quel beau jour! :)

À bientôt!

Lyon!

Place Bellecour

So, Lyon! My dear cousin, who is known as C-SPAN in the US but goes by Christophe when in France, came to visit me for a week over my break at the end of February/beginning of March.¹ I took the train to meet him at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, and we caught a train² right after that to head to Lyon!

We were slightly confused by the metro/tram/bus system when we arrived (too many options!!), but we figured it out and got to the hotel, which was right next to a delicious bakery and like two minutes from the metro station. Then we headed downtown, to the main square Place Bellecour. So pretty!!! It’s a huge open square, kind of like Quinconces in Bordeaux, except surrounded by shopping and restaurant streets on all sides. There’s a huge Ferris wheel and a lion. Okay, not a real live lion, but a giant red silhouette. So cool!! I think sometimes, they have letters out that spell out “ONLY LYON,”³ but we just saw the lion. We didn’t have a map yet, so we just walked around on the different side streets and found the river and this cool sculpture of a tree with giant flowers. Back in February, it still got dark super early, so we walked around and looked at all the buildings and bridges lit up at night. The buildings in Lyon were that beautiful stone architecture that’s everywhere in France. I think it will be weird⁴ to go back to the US and have all the downtown buildings looks so modern.

The flower tree!

Painted lion outside of Chez M'man - maybe lions like this are Lyon's version of San Francisco's hearts?

Saône River

We got dinner at Chez M’man, a delicious restaurant my friend Sam recommended. She studied in Lyon last year, so she gave us all the insider tips! Merci beaucoup, Sam! I had macaroni and cheese and pork. I don’t know how typically French it was, but it was délicieux!!!

The next morning, we grabbed croissants at the boulangerie next to our hotel and headed out for some whirlwind sightseeing. It was cold but sunny. We stopped by Place Bellecour again and got a map from the Office de Tourisme. Then, we took quite the hike⁷ up to the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière which is all the way up on a hillside overlooking the rest of Lyon. By the end, I was barely crawling, but the view was amazing!

The Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière was also very cool. I forgot it was Sunday morning, and we walked in as a mass was ending, so it was kind of awkward to take many photos inside.

Heading back down, we took a different route, and stopped at the (partially restored) ruins of an old Roman amphitheater. I told Christophe that with some careful cropping, he could tell people he went to Rome and the Colosseum too! It was not quite as grand as the Colosseum in Rome (but really, what is??), but you could climb all over them, which was fun.

Eventually, we made it all the way back down and walked along the river, where we saw this awesome pedestrian bridge, the Passerelle du Palais de Justice! I thought the one column suspension design was really interesting, especially since said column is all the way to the side instead of in the center. The design and the color and the beautiful weather all made the scene very striking, and I took a tonnnn of photos.

Passerelle du Palais de Justice

 Next, we headed to the Musée des Beaux Arts (Museum of Fine Arts), another recommendation from Sam! (Actually, pretty much everything we did was recommended by Sam!) There were a lot of really cool sculptures and paintings there, including some by Monet and Renoir. It’s always awesome to see paintings by people you learned about in school in real life.

Fontaine Bartholdi outside the Musée des Beaux-Arts

Musée des Beaux-Arts at the Place des Terreaux

After the museum, we went to the Parc de la Tête d’Or, which is a huge open park that turns right into a public zoo. (Free admission! Well actually, no admission since it’s just part of the park. Cray-cray!) The park was really pretty and filled with families and kids playing, picnicking, and strolling around on a Sunday afternoon. Most of the animals in the zoo part weren’t outside since it was pretty cold, but Christophe did see a giraffe for the first time!⁸ When we left the park, we also saw a building that looked like a spaceship.

Spaceship.

Nomnomnomnomnomnom

After a long walk back to the hotel and resting our feet for a while, we headed out to Lolo Quoi, an Italian restaurant, for dinner.⁹ I got this delicious pasta with chunks of cheese and roasted vegetables and pine nuts in it, and it was so so so so so so good. However, I had to wait for-freaking-ever to eat it because I am oh-so polite as to wait for everyone to be served, and someone had to exaggerate their aversion to pine nuts all the way to telling the waiter he was allergic, so that when the waiter accidentally brought his pasta with pine nuts on top, the whole thing had to be taken back to the kitchen and remade. Couldn’t just pick them off instead of complaining… -_______- East-coasters can be so high-maintenance.

The next morning, we got up and caught the train to the city of unparalleled delicious chocolates and $5 cans of Coca-Cola: Geneva! À bientôt!

1. I really still don’t know what to call that break. It’s not winter break, because that’s over Christmas, and it’s not spring break because that’s right now. I guess the French just have so many breaks, Americans don’t know what to call them!

2. There is a train station right in the airport.
3. SEE WHAT THEY DID THERE

4.  And maybe a little depressing.⁵

5.  Not depressing however, at school. Quite frankly, the buildings at the fac⁶ here look like they were built in the 60’s and have had no maintenance done since then. It’s not attractive. I miss all the modern, state-of-the art buildings at UCSD. I wouldn’t describe them as “pretty” the way I would the historic stone buildings here, but they are cool-looking in a different way. Also there’s a house on one of them now!!!

6. “Fac” is short for “faculté” and means university campus. Yes, it sounds like the F-bomb.

7.  The hike was made longer by the fact that we got lost like 5 billion times. For some reason, the Office de Tourisme chose not to mark the names of the roads around one of their major tourist sites on the map they give to tourists. Also, Christophe, despite coming from a family of cartographers, did not feel the need to trouble himself with the map.

8.  Apparently there are no zoos in Maine. Wut.

9.  Merci encore Sam! Also, Lyon is close-ish to the Italian border, so it’s totally justified that we were eating Italian food in France. Also it was vachement délicieux (hella delicious).

Une Petite Mise à Jour

Today, I am trying to do the French thing by writing this from a café, where I bought one drink and proceeded to hang out for hours. Oh la la, Kah-tee, que tu es française! I know, I know. But really, I guess I’m making like any hipster typing away on a Mac in any Starbucks in America. All that’s saving me from that cliché is that my jeans aren’t skinny enough, I’m in The French Coffee Shop¹ instead of Starbucks, and I have a real computer.²

So this week, I am on spring break! I know, I know, when are the French not on vacation? Shockingly, I don’t have any huge travel plans this week. I’ve just been hanging around Bègles/Bordeaux reading, going to some museums, doing a little shopping, and yesterday, I went on a solo trip to Périgueux, a small town in the Dordogne region. I was slightly hesitant at first to go alone, but it hardly seems like a big deal when I remember that I went from Walnut Creek to Bordeaux by myself while dragging a year’s worth of belongings eight months ago.

Pictures from Périgueux to come! And some long-awaited posts from my last week-long break. À bientôt!

1. Yes, I know, the fact that its name is in English kind of undermines its titular claim. But it is next to a Gothic cathedral, so it’s French enough.
2. http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvhpoqZH7o1r1ektro1_400.gif

Les Élections Françaises!

So as you probably know, yesterday was the first round of the French presidential elections! In France, the presidential election happens in two rounds. In the first, there are like 10 candidates, and then the two with the most votes advance to the second round of voting, which is two weeks later. The precincts work like in the US, the local one here was a big meeting room just down the street. Obviously, I did not actually vote, but I did go in the evening as they were closing to watch them count the votes. (Can you do that in the US???) I'm pretty sure the voting system is that in the booth, there are stacks of paper with each candidate's name on them, and you pick one, fold it, and put it into a little blue envelope, which you then put in the ballot box. No huge scantron forms that I saw. I'm pretty sure write-in candidates aren't allowed.

The voter turnout is really high in France. At the local bureau de vote, it was like 82%, and a lot of people are saying this isn't even a very exciting election for most French people. My host-family and some other French people there watching the vote-counting told me that voting is considered a really important responsibility in France; a lot of people, especially older people, get dressed up to go vote, and parents take their children to set the example of being an active citizen. Meanwhile, the US managed 57% in 2008. That's embarrassing...

Watching them count the votes was interesting. There were a couple employees from the mayor's office, and the rest were volunteers. They set up tables of four people, with one person opening envelopes, one person reading off the ballots and organizing them into piles, and two people keeping tally sheets of the votes. At the end, they compare the two tally sheets and recount the piles to make sure it's all correct. I felt kind of weird being an American and watching like the behind-the-scenes of the French elections, but it was also cool to see. Yay transparency of the democratic process!

Anyways, Nicolas Sarkozy, the current president, and François Hollande, the main challenger from the left, are advancing to round two. Hollande had more votes this round, but it all depends on how people who voted for candidates who didn't make it change their votes.

We'll see how things happen in two weeks! À bientôt!

Je ne comprends pas pourquoi il pleut en avril ici. C'est le printemps!!!

Bordeaux:

La Jolla:

POURQUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIII?????????????????????????????????

Un Café Gourmand!

So check out what you can get at the dining hall here! It's called a café gourmand, and it's an espresso with half a brownie, a macaron, and a mini chou or cannelé. (I got a cannelé!) It's quite the treat - and only like $2! UCSD Housing and Dining Services, please take note.

Madrid: Bienvenue? Bienvednidos!

Plaza Mayor

So waaaaaaaaay back in February, I went to Madrid! Olé! It was a muy fast trip; we left Thursday afternoon, stayed Friday, and flew back Sunday morning. It was fun but freezing. This was right at the beginning of that really cold spell, and my friend and I were like, quelle chance that we're going to Spain, it'll be warmer there, right? No! It was literally below freezing the whole time, and I was getting sick too! Aye yi yi. But Madrid was beautiful nonetheless!

So the night we arrived, we took the metro from the airport, which was really easy. And it's pretty cheap in Madrid too! When we stepped out of the metro station, right across the street was a boba¹ store! *gasp*  My friend loves boba, and it is pretty much non-existent in France/Europe in general, so she was super excited to find some! And continuing the amazing food trend, we found a frozen yogurt place too!!! I got tart with chocolate-covered peanuts as a topping! (I wouldn't normally pick this combination, but the topping selection was a little strange.) Mmmmmmmm so good!

Tapas!

So anyways, after checking into the hostel, we eventually got to this tapas bar that my friend had looked up online. El Tigre! If you order a drink there, you get a plate of tapas for free! So we both got a beer and a giant free plate of tapas!² Olé! Now, I know what you're thinking. Katie? In a bar?? Drinking a beer??! Not exactly my usual hangout. But while we're making revelations, let's be honest. I'm a college student studying abroad, on a weekend trip to a city famous for its nightlife- saying I had "one" beer that night is not the whole truth... See, I actually only drank about 75% of it. I was feeling pretty sick and the beer was making me feel more nauseous, so I decided to focus on the tapas instead. Delicioso!

Bear and the Madroño Tree -
the symbol of Madrid!

Afterwards, we walked around a little to see all the buildings lit up at night. It was really pretty, but I didn't take any photos because I was afraid my fingers would fall off from the cold.

The next morning, I was feeling a little better, but it was still ridiculously cold. We went on the free walking tour that our hostel does with other a few other hostels in Madrid, which was a good way to see a lot of sights in not too much time. (It wasn't actually that free since we tipped the tour guy afterwards.) Here are some photos!

Puerta del Sol

Almudena Cathedral

After the tour, we were hungry and headed to the Chocolateria San Gines, which my friend had found online. We got the Madrid specialty: this impossibly thick hot chocolate with a plate of warm crispy churros!!! SO BUENO. Omg the hot chocolate is like a cup of melted chocolate and the churros are so golden and crisp and you dip them in the chocolate and it's so delicious omg.

Ice!!!

Then we walked around some more to head to the Reina Sofia and Prada Museums. Madrid is such a beautiful city, I took so many photos just walking down the street. We stopped at the City Hall of Madrid and the Cibeles Fountain in front of it. We also saw a smaller fountain on the side of the road that was literally ice because it was so cold.

City Hall of Madrid

Cibeles Fountain - lions!!!

Les Oiseaux Morts - Pablo Picasso

We went to the Reina Sofia Museum first, which was amazing. We saw a lot of really cool and famous art, including Guernica by Pablo Picasso. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photos in most of the museum. We also went to the Prado Museum, but we only made it in like less than an hour before it closed, and we weren't allowed to take photos there either. But we saw a lot of cool famous paintings again that I remembered from when we talked about art in history class in high school, like The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch and The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya.

WHAT is this???

Oh... Oh, dear...

 After we got kicked out of the Prado by this lady yelling at us in Spanish that it was closing, we headed to this restaurant my friend had found recommended online. Well. It was something. It was on this little side street, and the waiter spoke only a few words in English. They also didn't have an English menu, so we had no idea what anything was. The waiter drew us a very puzzling picture of like a cloud with stuff sticking out of it and some scissors, and he seemed to think this was a very definitive answer to all of our questions. It was getting awkward to keep asking him to repeat his explanations, but we established that the main dish here was fried lamb intestines. Dear God. Not really my first choice in food, to say the least. He was really nice though, and brought us a sample platter to try. I stuck to the french fries, but my friend is a little more adventurous and actually enjoyed the fried lamb intestines or lungs  or jowls or whatever. After some more confusing exchanges, we figured out that actually all this restaurant had, besides fries, was fried lamb intestines. Luckily, I was not very hungry...

We took the metro back to the hostel, and before you knew it, we were on the plane again the next morning to head back to Bordeaux. And we arrived back to snow! It was so pretty, but I didn't frolic too much since I was still sick.

À bientôt!<sup>3

1</sup> In case you don't know, boba is like this Asian drink that is tea (I prefer iced) with these little chewy tapioca balls in it. So you drink the tea through this giant straw and every few sips a slimy bullet comes shooting out and you almost choke and die the first time and you're like why are my roommates making me try this I'm going to gag and die right here on the Price Center floor yikes, but then after a few sips, you get used to it, and it's actually pretty good.
² So I was worried about getting carded and not understanding them talking to me in Spanish, since people always say I look so young blah blah blah, and I was sick, so I was kind of flushed and puffy, which I think probably exaggerated my natural youthfulness. But my friend was like, are you kidding, the drinking age is probably 12 here! And I did indeed have no problems. (I looked it up later, and the drinking age is 18. *wink*)
³ I tried to shove some of my ramblings into footnotes this time. Thoughts?

Joyeuses Pâques!

Happy Easter! Today, I am enjoying the day off for a holiday I never knew existed, Easter Monday. The French love their vacation days!

Escargot! With fancy escargot fork!

On Saturday afternoon, I headed to Toulouse (which I visited last semester) with my host-family to visit their close family friends. We had a huge dinner that night, and it wasn't even Easter yet! Wine, toast with ham (of course), anchovies (passed), escargot (believe it or not, I ate another one!), some kind of reddish pinkish fish (kind of looked like koi...), vegetables, homemade mayonnaise, a huge amount of this delicious bread, raw sheep's milk cheese, and pineapple. It was delicious! I was soooooo full.

Outdoor market

The next day, we slept in (or at least, I did), and we walked around Toulouse for a while, stopping at a couple of huge outdoor markets and a big indoor meat market. We also walked by Le Capitole and saw the Basilique Saint-Sernin, which I remembered from last time. Unfortunately, it was rainy and gloomy, but all the brick buildings in Toulouse still looked really pretty.

Le Capitole

No egg hunt, sadly! I don't think it's as big of a thing in France though. And here's a fun fact, in France, it's not the Easter Bunny who hides eggs, it's Easter bells. Yes, bells. I was positive I misunderstood my host-mother when she told me this, but it's true. The story is that the church bells don't ring during Lent because they fly off to Rome. Then, on Easter, they fly back and scatter Easter eggs as they go! I know right, whaaaaaaaaat. How are bells supposed to carry eggs? Bunnies at least have paws!!

Basilique Saint-Sernin

For lunch, we had an even bigger meal than we had the night before. Two more types of wine (I tried one from Bourgogne!), some kind of oval ham thing, then something called "cochon glacé," which means "frozen pig." It was not actually frozen, but it was from a can, and there was clearish gelatinous stuff around the solid bits, so it kind of looked frozen. Yeah... I passed on that one. Then we for the main course, we had lamb and pork, salad, mashed sweet potatoes, and bread. Then of course, the cheese course, with four types of cheese - Roquefort, goat's milk cheese, and two kinds of sheep's milk cheese. And then on top of all that, we had homemade apple tart and caramel vanilla ice cream for dessert! Nomnomnomnomnom. (Maybe this is the reason I fell through one of my host-family's kitchen chairs today... Yikes.)

After sitting around/napping for a while, we headed back to Bègles, stopping at my host-father's parents' house for dinner. (I was still stuffed, so I ate like a tomato.) Then I got home and opened an awesome Easter package from home! I cannot believe how much Easter candy my mom got into that box! As soon as I started to cut the packing tape to open it, I could smell the sweet aroma of Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs wafting out to me. Mmmmmmmmmm. Merci beaucoup!

À bientôt!

Boucher du Vin!

Wine bottle tree!

Okay, think of the most French thing you can possibly think of. Now think of something at least 10 times more French. Yes, that's right, I just finished bottling some wine!

Every year around this time, my host-father and some of his friends go to this wine festival thing, where you can fill up huge plastic kegs (whatever you bring yourself) with wine. Then, they take it home and bottle it themselves in the backyard. And I got to help!

It's actually pretty simple; they just fill up the bottles and then cork them with this lever tool. If you "accidentally" put too much wine in, then you just drink the extra before corking it. It seems like it would be hard to shove the cork in, but it actually isn't. I guess because the lever arm lets you exert a greater force than if you were just trying to push it in directly. (Oh-ho! Statics class!)

I tried a little of the wine, and it was pretty good! I think I got more wine on my hands than I actually drank though. Miraculously, I don't think I stained my shorts. It was a ton of wine! Probably like 100 bottles, and we had to stop because we ran out of empty ones. The jug below by itself is like 20 bottles!

Such a French experience! À bientôt!