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!

Paris!

Before reading/skimming/glancing at this post, I suggest you put on this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9V-zUlrhEE So Parisian!

Okay, now to cover three days in Paris all in one post! (Except for Versailles) Allons-y!

Our hotel was on Rue Cler, which is a very Parisian-y cobblestone street with a ton of restaurants, right by the Eiffel Tower! On the side streets, all the Christmas lights were still up, which was really pretty to see. We arrived in the evening after checking in, we walked over to see the Eiffel Tower at night. So beautiful! It's all lit up, and it sparkles every hour for five minutes.

Video from the ground:

Video from the second level, looking up (from the third day):

Then we got steak-frites!!! Which is pepper steak with french fries. So amazing.

The next day, we went to Versailles and were exhausted when we came back. After collapsing in our hotel room for a while, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower so we could go up it at night and see all the lights. However, it turned out the very top level was closed for some reason (cold? wind?), so we decided to try again the next night instead, and we headed to the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc de Triomphe is along the Champs Élysées (which you should be singing right now), and it is amazing! There are so many intricate statues and carvings on it, it's incredible, and it's really pretty lit up at night. We climbed to the top and got an awesome view of the Champs Élysées and the surrounding streets all lit up. You can even see the Eiffel Tower in the distance!

Champs Élysées from the top of the Arc de Triomphe

The Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe

Les Invalides

The next morning, we got up early and walked to the Musée d'Orsay. The walk ended up being way longer than I thought, but it was really pretty, and the sky was still pink and orange from sunrise. We walked by Les Invalides, which is a beautiful complex of buildings from the 1670's, that house several museums and a military hospital. The gold dome looked amazing in the morning lighting!

A little backstory: the Musée d'Orsay is probably the second most prestigious museum in Paris/the world after the Louvre, and it was closed for a special event when my dad and I tried to go three years ago. Ever since then, it's been my dad's dream to finally set foot inside. And we did! Yay!!!!! He was so excited that the first thing he did inside was start taking pictures in front of a "No Photos" sign.

So I didn't get any pictures in side the Musée d'Orsay, but it was really incredible. It's inside of an old train station with a glass ceiling. On the top floor, there's a giant clock on the outside, and behind it is glass, so you can look out through the clock, which is super cool. We saw so many famous paintings, it was crazy! Rodin, Renoir, Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Degas. Woops, sorry, name-dropping 19th century artists is a common side-effect of visiting a lot of European museums.

Sacré-Coeur

Next, we headed to Montmartre, which is a neighborhood up on a hillside that overlooks the rest of Paris and includes the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. The hike to get up there was quite intense! I remember there was a sign in the metro station saying it was the deepest in the city, and there were no escalators! Call me a lazy American, but I like a good escalators. And we finally reached street level, only to find out we still had a ways to go.

The neighborhood was very cool and kind of like the stereotype of Paris. It's probably played up for the tourists. There were little shops and cafés and street performers everywhere, and even a little art fair. And the view is amazing! It feels like you can see all of Paris!

Nativity scene in a tent...

The Sacré-Coeur was actually finished in 1914, so it's not nearly as old as most of the big churches here, but it's still built in that grand, imposing style, so the architecture makes it look like it's hundreds of years old. It's gleaming white, and all the mosaics and statues are beautiful. But I have to say, I got kind of an iffy vibe from the church. It's beautiful, but you're not allowed to take pictures inside, and there's two big giftshops inside the church, one on each side. They also charged 10 euros (~$13) for a candle. It just all seemed a little commercial. Plus, when we were walking back to the metro, we stopped in this brick church, which had its nativity scene in a tent. So I feel like they could spread the wealth around some more.

View from Montmartre

That night, we finally went up the Eiffel Tower, which was amazing!!! You can see the city all lit up, and the tower is lit up too. There's also a searchlight that rotates at the very top of the tower. It was freezing cold, so we didn't stay on the outside parts of the platforms for very long, but it was still breathtaking. Photos:

You can see where the first two levels are, and the third level is allll the way at the top! The elevator ride is like a  minute and a half. If I was scared of heights, I would definitely find it a little unnerving! But it's really cool to look at the structure of the tower as you go through it. Here's the video from coming back down:

Going up the Eiffel Tower at night was an amazing way to end our trip! I'm so glad my dad could come visit me.

À bientôt!

La Seine!

Paris post coming soon/eventually! =D