Aix Marks the Spot

Provence to Amsterdam

2012-02-21T12:15:00.004-08:00

ok ok i know i get it. i'm never here i'm never writing blogs it's just not working?

in one last ditch attempt to see if i can ever (ever) keep a blog, i'm digressing to the easiest, shiniest, sparkliest platform.

come see me at:

http://theskyseekingme.tumblr.com/

this winter in provence, paris and amsterdam:

Café olé

2012-02-01T13:45:00.000-08:00

Turns out the French word for "French press" is "French press." I got an adorable little one from a cooking ware shop on the way to the Wellesley Center, profiting once again from the month long soldes going on here.

Turns out Chez Bodum makes a pretty snazzy coffee press...I was sold immediately on the great purple color.

In other news, Molly and I booked our winter break travel...we'll be spending ten days traipsing around Eastern Europe on our Vampire Tour 2012...Budapest (to visit the lovely and very numerically inclined Rachel Insoft), Romania and Prague, covering over 3,000 miles. I can't wait.

Now and then I think of all the times....

2012-01-30T06:18:00.000-08:00

alright, once again, a million apologies for being so mia since...november. needless to say, i'm a little embarassed and my 2012 resolutions (which begin february 1st, right?) include being a better blogger.

unfortunately, today is the birthday of my beautiful beloved simone deslarzes, so i have no time to write today. i promise that in a matter of moments, i will write a ridiculously descriptive blog about the beginning of the new semester and my weekend in paris with crosby and her aunt/uncle/cousins, but until then, watch this video. i haven't been able to stop listening to this song since i heard the ingrid michaelson cover, and this weekend i was introduced to this version, which is pretty incredible.

Frites, chocolate, waffles and beer?

2011-11-09T03:47:00.000-08:00

Greetings dearest blog readers! As I write this, Molly and I are currently in the throws of a serious detox involving copious amounts of salad and self-loathing, in an attempt to purge the heinous amounts of delicious food from our systems after our weekend in....Belgium!

After an incredibly brief respite from our Italian adventures (48 hours, just about), Crosby and I packed up our backpacks (mostly this involved transferring unpacked material from my duffel into my backpack) and hopped on another Ryanair flight with our new travel companions, Simone and Jane, for a weekend jaunt to the land of frites and Flemish. Ryanair is great - we found round-trip tickets from Marseille to Brussels for about 80 euro round trip - so hitting up 3 countries (Italy, France, Belgium) in 3 days was just too much fun to resist. After a lovely bus ride into Belgium (for some reason that I can't understand, but I'm sure it has to do with cheap airfare/weeding out the sickly/incapable of bus transfers, Ryanair flies into airports well outside of any actual city) we found our hostel and, with the help from Comrade Simone's uncanny ability to ask pointed questions ("Where can we find traditional Belgium food...you know, frites, chocolate, waffles, beer?") we were on our merry way into the center of Brussel's old town. We all had one final destination in mind: Delirium Cafe, a bar whose beer selection clocks in at a sickening/wonderful 2400 different beers...25 of them on tap. A little intimidated, we moshed our way into the packed establishment and managed to find ourselves a lovely little barrel table at the back of one of the bar's four floors. A few different samples later, the crowd favorite was Delirium Tremens, which terrifyingly enough turns out to also be the name for a severe type of alcohol withdrawl (coincidence that this beer can only be found in this very specific place and it tastes like angel's nectar? I think not).

the pink elephant is, supposedly, what you hallucinate during alcohol withdrawal

different bar trays on the ceiling!

After a few hilarious hours spent in deep, serious conversation about feminism and the meaning of life (hey Wellesley) we walked in a very dignified manner (stumble-ran) down the street for our first Belgium snack attack: frites and waffles. Never being one to pick favorites, I had to try both, and we happily devoured our goods under the beautiful light of Brussel's Grand Place. Not too shabby.

The next day we awoke from a comfortable slumber, packed up our wares and bid "Adieu" to Brussels, bound for Bruges. I've wanted to go to Bruges pretty much since I saw the movie In Bruges...for those who are unfamiliar, the movie basically involves Colin Farrel being angsty and hating everything about "boring" Bruges, but inbetween his sexy/angry Irish rants, there are a lot of shots of Bruges itself...canals, medieval winding streets, and general beauty. When Molly asked if we could just do a day-trip to Bruges, I practically moved out. I was dead set on spending at least a night exploring "the best preserved medieval town in Europe." My skeptical travel buddies followed along, muttering only a little bit about it being "boring and too small." Five minutes off the train, all muttering ceased, and we all spent the rest of the day wandering around, mouths agape, totally and completely in love with the adorable, quaint medieval town.

We spent most of the day just wandering around the streets, enjoying the Belgium penchant for chocolate and lace. At night, our hostel offered a free walking tour (score!) with a fairly obnoxious tour guide (less of a score) but even through his seriously politically incorrect jokes, we still learned from very interesting facts about the city itself (for instance, the gabled step roofs were not only used to make it easier for chimney cleaners, but as a sign of wealth...you know, my gabled step roof is bigger than yours, nah nah nah). We finished the night...you guessed it!...drinking more beer, this time from a little bar tucked in the back of Bruges' smallest street. The bar had a special type of beer that you could only get there, which clocked in at a whopping 13% alcohol...but you got free cheese with it, which made the super intense taste (almost) worth it. After one glass each, we were all pretty exhausted, so we trekked back through the softly lit streets, pinching ourselves and one another because it was all way too perfect.

sounds of bruges: horse carriages, church bells, soft wind...i know, its so cute its digusting

famous "postcard" view of bruges

The next morning, instead of booking it back to Brussels as originally planned, we lingered a bit in our most favorite place in the world. It was a perfect day, according to Molly and I: grey, windy, the constant threat of rain...just like home! We climbed the Belfry, the large tower in the center of Bruges, and 366 steps later, we were rewarded with a breathtaking panoramic view of Bruges (plus we figured all the steps meant more frites later...always thinking). Another great part of Bruges is their language...though Dutch and French are the most widely spoken languages in Belgium, the Bruges' speak a very specific dialect of Dutch known as West Flemish. Basically, you take German words, take out all the vowels, add a few tongue-twisting combinations of zxhjbw or jhsbschenel and speak in a very deep voice. Are we ready? I don't understand becomes Ik begrijp het neit. Ticket office? Why, clearly that's the het kaartjeskantoor. Want to know if breakfast is included? Don't worry, you need only ask Is het ontbijt erbij inbegrepen? Unfortunately for the kind people of Bruges, my mouth just simply can't form words that sound like that, so we spent most of the trip butchering their native tongue...probably highly offensive to all Brugians, but it definitely lead to a few laughs on our part.

After saying our final Tot ziens to Bruges, we hopped the train back to Brussels for one final night of ~~drinking and eating~~ sightseeing. We started with a quick warm up back at Delirium, because with 2400 different beers to try, skipping a night would have been downright irresponsible. Crosby succeeded in finding the favorite beer of the night: Delirium Noel, a beautiful combination of Tremens and Santa Claus. It also happened to be served in the chalice of Christmas, a beautiful beer glass with gold rims and pink elephants pulling a sleigh. In what I can only describe as a total blackout moment, somehow the glass ended up in Molly's purse and probably isn't sitting in our apartment right now. I have no idea how that happened. After Delirium, we joyfully bounded back to Belgian Frit 'n Toast (not sure where the toast comes in on this one...) for a few final rounds of frites before heading off to see the Manneken Pis, the famed statue of a little boy peeing (yeah, these people definitely have an odd sense of national pride). After renting a telescope from the good people at the statue (I kid) we finally caught a glimpse of the tiny little man (seriously, probably a foot tall). A little disillusioned by the scale of the peeing child (if Michelangelo's David is huge and hugely famous, you'd think the Belgian's would have put two and two together...) we merrily walked back to our hostel.

the happy family during our final snack attack

I feel so lucky that I've gotten to see so much in such a short amount of time...I keep telling Molly that last week, we woke up in Milan on Wednesday and went to bed in Brussels on Friday...so crazy! It will be nice to relax in Aix for a little bit, and we've got some very exciting things on the horizon...Molly's mom comes to visit Friday, then my birthday, then Thanksgiving! I can't believe that in no time at all, I'll be home visiting for Christmas.

Firenze! Milano! Italia!

2011-11-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

Happy November all! I rang in my (almost most) favorite month exploring castles, climbing cathedrals and eating way too much pizza and pasta this past week during my trip to Italy. It was refreshing to get out of France, but it's definitely good to be back in a place where I can (sort of) speak the language and have a (tenuous) grasp on social customs. That being said, I had the time of my life exploring a new place and I loved nearly every second of my jaunt to the booted peninsula.

We were scheduled to leave Aix Tuesday morning after a long weekend of Halloween parties and apartment cleaning, but as the best laid plans often go astray, nature (and my body) had other ideas. I woke up early Monday morning in the worst possible way...with a nasty case of the stomach bug. After much dramatic pleading (save yourself, go on without me, etc.) Molly left me to my sickness and went to catch the train with Travel Partner Number 3, Meredith. Fast forwarding 72 cracker-and-powerade-filled hours, I dragged my less contagious, hungry self out of bed and boarded a train (all on my lonesome) to rendez-vous with the gals in Florence. I've traveled on my own before (PDX -> BOS is a habitual route) but never by train and never in a foreign country; it was exhilarating and terrifying and while it's nice to know that I am capable of navigating twelve-hour journeys by myself, it was such a relief to pull into Firenze on Friday night, hungry and tired, and fall into Molly's open and loving arms.

heading to italy

familiar sights at the nice train station

finally in florence...and everything is adorable

Over the years and through the woods, I had heard whispers of how beautiful/amazing/incredible/etc. Florence is, but being the skeptical traveler that I am, I wanted to save judgement until I could see it for myself. Five minutes into my first day, after Molly and Meredith had taken me past the duomo, through a beautiful arcade passage and into an open air leather market, I was solidly among the Firenze-fans. The architecture of Florence is incredible...the duomo is unlike anything I've ever seen, massive, and made to look so much bigger by the imposing marble facade carefully carved into thousands of different tableaus. Even though it was the end of tourist season, the streets were packed shoulder to shoulder with people ogling the buildings, the shopping, and the native population (they're a beautiful bunch, I tell ya). During a relatively short sojourn in Florence, we managed to be quite the efficient little travelers, hitting up the Duomo, the Uffizi, the Galleria Academia, Siena, and the leather markets, plus or minus various other stops (cathedrals, the pizza shop from Jersey Shore, palazzos, the usual). Seeing Michelangelo's David in the Academia was a definite high point - what the pictures fail to show is the size of the thing...he's massive, but at the same time, so life like (there are delicate veins on his hands). The craziest part is that it's all carved from one piece of marble that Michelangelo got his hands on after other artists (Da Vinci included) had abandoned it...really drives home that old saying that one man's trash is another man's priceless Italian sculpture.

photo credit to the beautiful molly crosby

Our day trip to Siena was also an amazing experience - it's only about an hour or so by bus from Florence, and having heard so much about it from various travel sources (Rick Steves) I really wanted to go meander through its medieval streets. It didn't disappoint, and though the main square and duomo were packed with tourists, winding stairways lead to alleys completely void of any tourism. We wandered around the tiny streets through dusk and into the darkness, savoring gelato and gazing at the Christmas decorations already gracing the window displays of many stores (without Thanksgiving to bog anyone down, Christmas starts early here...it feels so decadent).

shiny, happy tourists

After two days in Tuscany, we hopped on a north-bound train, ready to explore our next Italian spot: Milan! Contrary to Florence, Milan was a city I knew very little about, save the notions of fashion and banking. With this in mind, I was expecting a glamourous metropolis, which it certainly was, to some degree. Like every city, there was a certain grunge to Milan that made it interesting: walking down the street, we were often flanked by high-end designer stores on one side and run-down graffiti-decorated ruins on the other. One part of Milan that definitely exemplifies the glamourous side is Piazza del Duomo, home to the largest cathedral in Italy (and the fourth largest in the world) and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a beautiful shopping arcade. Getting into Milan Halloween afternoon, we decided to celebrate the holiday Milanese-style by touring the top of the duomo. The gothic spires, gargoyles, and misty views of Milan certainly added a spooky feel to the evening. Wandering around the Galleria and Teatro alla Scala (Milan's most famous theater) we stumbled upon a chocolate shop and bought our own "grown up" Halloween candy - Milanese truffles.

milan cathedral

Our last day in Milan was All Saint's Day, so while the vibrant city of Halloween felt a little like a ghost town, we monopolized on our one full day there and attempted to see as much as humanly possible. I was pretty excited because Milan is a Da Vinci city - he lived there while working for the Medici's and painted the Last Supper there, so I was hoping to get my fill with Da Vinci machine-museums and see the famous fresco. Unfortunately, everyone else also wanted to see the fresco, and times were completely sold out for pretty much the entire month of November. Not letting a little set back get us down, we headed out to the Museum of Science, which boasted the largest collection of Da Vinci machine-models in Italy. Two hours later, we still hadn't found the machines, but we did have a great time learning about everything from packaging to clocks. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at a focacceria and ate in the shadow of Castello Sforza, a castle in Milan that used to house important, seriously paranoid Milanese duchies and now houses 14 different museums. We wandered around the interior of the keep, and then throughout the park that surrounds the castle, soaking in falling leaves and a general autumnal aura. After 4:30, the museums open to the public for free, so when 4:30 rolled around, we wandered throughout the castle, looking at furniture, pots, more Renaissance Italian art and...mummies!

museum of science...do not be fooled...da vinci is not featured prominently

castello sforza

angelic

basically how we all felt waking up at 3 am

Knowing that we had a 7 am flight to catch in the morning, which translated to a 3 am wake-up time (torture on the part of Ryanair to ensure that only the strong and fit manage to make it on their planes) we ate a very early dinner (there was no one else in the restaurant the entire time we were there) at a delicious traditional Milanese joint. The rest of the evening was spent panicking about Ryanair's ridiculously Spartan luggage allowance and trying to shove our entire lives into backpacks/recently purchased weekend bags before "sleeping" for the night. Turns out all our panicking was for naught (typical) and the plane ride went smoothly (in all senses)...we were back in Aix by 9 am! Friday, Molly, Simone, Jane and I leave to take Belgium by storm for the weekend...I can't believe that I actually get to be in three countries in three days, but I'm loving every second of it.

My Proustian Moment

2011-10-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

Caveat emptor: not every moment living abroad, and namely studying abroad, in the South of France is sunshine and markets. There are definite down points living abroad in a country that has so many differences from your own. This week was an especially difficult one, as I was expected to not only navigate the French university system, as usual, but produce significant work in the French university system. I had a seven page dissertation (which could be either typed or handwritten...so weird) on Rousseau and Casanova, and a midterm in my Languages of the World class that expected me to recall with stunning detail the phylums and families of the languages spoken in Africa. After days like that, it's easy to come back to my apartment feeling pretty down on the French. Which is why its so wonderful when, even against myself, I love something so much in this country that it fills me with a deep joy. For me, one of those things is the enigmatic madeliene.

Madeleines are these delicate little French teacakes, present at breakfasts, gouters and desert sessions alike. It's not necessarily a stunningly beautiful, singularly impressive looking teacake, so for a long time I passed them over for the more generally recognized French flagship the croissant. Like the croissant, madeleines are made up of a considerable amount of butter; madeleines are also baked in a distinctive pan, which molds them into the distinctive scallop-shell shape famously recorded by Marcel Proust in Swann's Way (the sequel to which, Guermantes Way, I'm now expected to read for class, but that's another story). It's Prousts' recognition of the madeleine's exquisite and simple form that makes me think Proust can't be all that bad - they are the smoothest, lightest cakes with this beautiful almond and citrus flavor. If there's one thing the French can't be easily faulted on, it's the madeleine.

Here's what Proust had to say about them, perhaps slightly more elegant than my attempts. So far, I haven't attempted my hand at creating them myself, but it's definitely on the to-do list. For now, I'll be very content to munch on the madeleines from Bon Maman and toast to the best parts of France.

Old Nice, New Nice: Nice 2011

2011-10-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

When the weekend comes to Wellesley, the closest we ever come to getting out of dodge usually entails fighting our way onto the Senate bus to roam around Boston until ungodly hours of the night, so when Meredith and Natalie suggested that we "get out of town" for the weekend, my PTSD memories of biddies pushing to get onto a bus kicked in until Meredith uttered the beautiful words, "We were thinking about going to Nice." There would be no aimless wandering around Hynes until the balls of my feet felt like swollen potatoes...a weekend filled with Nicoise salads and Riviera beach lounging? Count me in.

We were planning on heading out Saturday morning and returning to Aix Monday afternoon, but as usual, the French populace had their own ideas on how I should live my life. Friday we found out that SNCF, the French national train association, was greveing (striking in English), a true national pastime for these people (Meredith compared it to snow days for the entire French government). We weren't sure if the greve was going to continue into the weekend, thus disrupting my fantasies of blue water and cabana boys, but thankfully we awoke Saturday morning to a greve-free France. Unforunately, Molly and I also awoke later than anticipated, a fact which lead to much running around the apartment (we're practicing pigeon-frantic-body language so as to better understand our neighbor pigeon, whom we've named Viper), slamming hard boiled eggs into our mouths and power-walking twenty minutes to the bus station. Higher powers seemed to appreciate our effort, because when we arrived at the bus station, a lovely, empty bus was waiting to whisk us off to the TGV (France's speed train) station, where we rendez-vous-ed with Meredith and Natalie for our train to Nice.

The train ride was beautiful! I've decided that Provence looks a lot like Eastern Oregon, and the Riviera is much more California...a little greener, palm trees and lots and lots of red-tile roofs. The train followed the path of the Medditerannean, through the foothills right by the sea. There is something so romantic about traveling by train, even if I don't have Omar Sharif right next to me and I'm not wearing my a furr coat. Oh well.

We arrived in Nice and, oh so smartly, went straight to the Office of Tourism to pick up some maps and find our hostel. Sadly, we found out that our hostel wasn't exactly centrally located, and instead we'd have to take a tram, and then climb a mountain (maybe exaggerating a little) to find it. Once we got the hostel, however, we discovered that the trek was well worth it. It was in a beautiful converted monastery on top of a hill (it was rated the #1 hostel in all of France by hostelworld, so it's gotta be good, right?). We didn't even feel like we were in France...everyone that worked there/stayed there (minus us) was Australian, so we started calling it "Little Australia." Also, everyone was so incredibly beautiful. The French have nothing on these people. I am, as we speak, hatching an elaborate plan to run away to Australia to live with my great-aunt and find my beautiful, surfer husband (I figure once I find him, my debilitating fear of spiders won't be a problem, even though Australia is like their breeding-ground, because he will use his amazing Australia skills to protect me...clearly given this a lot of thought). Anyway, after throwing our bags in our room and checking out the beautiful common room (in the converted chapel, I think? There was a beautiful stained glass wall) we grabbed the shuttle from the hostel back to the tram, and then rode the tram down to...the beach! We took a little stroll down the boardwalk, soaking in the amazing sights and the incredible blue of the Cote d'Azur (literally "the blue (azure) coast").

moon rising over the bluest (in a good way) place i've ever been

After our beach walk and multiple, fruitless attempts to find a Nicoise magnetic bottle opener (sorry Daddy) we went to dinner at a pasta place recommended in Meredith's guidebook. Since Nice is so so close to Italy ("nestled in Italy's bosom" as Molly so poetically put it) we figured pasta was an appropriate substitute to the Nicoise salad (I was wayyy to hungry to mess around with lettuce and tuna). Pasta Basta, the adorably named pasta place, was an amazing choice...you get to choose your pasta and then your sauce. I went with the Pietmontaise, which is gorgonzola and pesto, delicious but maybe not the best choice for my lactose-averse intestines.

view from pasta basta...unreal!

place in nice, complete with glowing buddha lamps

After a beautiful nighttime stroll we headed back to the hostel for drinks and bed. Lovely.

meredith made a fort because she's a genius

Sunday morning, or "The Best Day of My Life," began at 10:30 with a 6€ macaron class, where we watched a flamboyant and adorable seven-foot Australian giant bake the world's most delicate cookies. We learned that the French actually stole the macaron from the Italians, and then totally ruined their cooking method (the Italian meringue method, where you cook sugar and water and add it to egg whites) by being lazy French people and cutting out the cooking step. We got a whole rundown on how precision is key in baking, why weighing ingredients makes more sense than scooping, and how to pipe macarons onto the cooking sheet in the span of a half hour. Later that afternoon we picked up a little box of the macarons we witnessed being born, and they were delicious. I can't wait to try my hand at making some; hopefully by Christmas I'll have it perfect so I can add them to my Christmas cookie tray!

you know, just stoked to be here

so much concentration

After the macaron class, we headed into Nice for a day of picnic-ing and beaching. In the running around like pigeons of Saturday morning (see: earlier in this blog) I forgot to pack my swimsuit, or anything appropriate for the beach, so while Meredith and Molly hit up the market for some picnic goodies, Natalie and I ran to H&M, where I put together a makeshift beach outfit consisting of a tank top and some underwear under the hope that, since most people would hopefully be naked anyway, wearing my underwear to a Riveria beach wouldn't condemn me and my family to permanent shame. After reconnoitering with the M's and grabbing an American copy of Glamour (in bold because I'm so excited), we hiked up a hill overlooking the beach to picnic over one of the most beautiful vistas I have ever seen.

not even enhanced. it's really that blue.

so excited for beach days! (note the wardrobe change)

picnic: jambon, tomates, pommes, and delishhh tapenade

Post-picnic, we made the decision to live the Riviera high life and sprung for 12€ lounge chairs on le plage de Castel. Close your eyes and imagine the scene from Casino Royale where Daniel Craig emerges from the ocean, his rock hard body glistening in the tropical sun, his tiniest of tiny flourescent blue speedo barely concealing, well, you get the idea...now multiple that by ten (throw in some Victoria's Secret models and a few adorable French bull dogs)...got it?...ok now add a cabana boy named Sam donning a straw cowboy hat and serving the beautiful people their 12€ mojitos...that is Castel Beach (their motto is literally "a beautiful beach for beautiful people"). I was a little terrified the whole time that we were going to be asked to leave due to the fact that we're clearly American students and not some genetically modified off-shoot of French royalty, but somehow we managed to evade capture and spend an incredible three hours lounging around, pretending to be French big-whigs. We even went for a lovely (if cold at first) swim in the Mediterranean, at which point I literally had to hit myself because I was swimming in the Mediterranean sea. I'm not really sure how I got lucky enough for this to be my life right now, but rest assured, I spend everyday thanking whatever I can for this opportunity.

a beautiful beach for a beautiful crosby

After the beach we headed back to the hostel for happy hour, which entailed 1€ beers and 3,50€ cocktails and an hour wait for pizza...you win some, you lose some. Never wanting it to end, we managed to draw out happy hour from 6-10:30, but at some point, all good things must come to an end, and so we retired to our dorm room for a happy sleep to end a very, very happy day.

The next day we embarked on our return trip to Aix, and our final tram ride back to the train station was a bit of an interesting experience. We have come to learn that homeless people in Nice, completely incidental to being homeless, are very very aggressive. There was a man on the tram that morning who looked pretty disheveled, smoking, and when he had finished his already illegal act of smoking on the tram, he decided to make things even more exciting for everyone by throwing his still flaming cigarette butt at two old ladies sitting on the tram! After this, he managed to terrorize half the tram with his aggressive begging, steal a baguette from a woman standing at a tram stop (without ever leaving the tram) and get kicked off by a controller, only to return 30 seconds later at a different tram door! It was an interesting tram ride for all, certainly. I'm sure Molly will recount this with much more hilarity than I, so head on over the her blog here to see what she has to say.

Monday was also the beginning of another French greve, and it was so funny to watch the train station prepare for it...they were actually taking down the French flags. Oh France, sometimes I don't understand you at all.

Another lovely train ride, bus ride and walk (with much less power involved than before) landed Molly and I back at Chez Nous, tanner, wiser and happy to be back in our Aixoise home.

Aixoise Adventures

2011-10-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

Broken record warning: I get the sinking feeling that most of my blogs are going to begin with an apology along the lines of Sorry it's taken me one hundred years to update my blog, I've just been so busy climbing mountains/interning at French film festivals/slipping into an obsessive relationship with donner kebab (etc.) It's really not that I don't want you (faithful reader, whoever you may be) to know about the amazing time I'm having here - I just really am busy having that amazing time. So, in the sadly long stretches between blog posts, assume that I'm happy, healthy, and having the time of my life - because I am.

Since we spoke last, I've been to the beach! We (Wellesley group) went on a tour of Cassis, including a boat ride that took us to the Calanques, a series of eight beautiful coves surrounded by sheer cliff faces jutting out into the Mediterranean...some people call them Mediterranean fjords, which is a pretty wonderful description of how they look. The night before heading out, Molly sacrificed a couple of pigeons from our courtyard to the weather gods (kidding...maybe) and got her wish for overcast weather, which was great for her delicate Vashonian skin, but not so great for everyone that didn't want to freeze to death on the boat. After a chilly ride, we grabbed lunch (passing up moule frites for a Croque Monseiur, probably a terrible decision in retrospect) and grabbed a little spot on the beach, feeling the sand and rocks between my toes (literally, since we forgot beach towels, whoops) and managed to doze off for one of the greatest naps of my life, a mere fifty feet from the blue Mediterranean. Yes, my life is unreal.

cassis harbor

charmant, comme toujours

turning our empty bottles into beautiful candle holders - crafty at chez nous

The next day, Natalie and I went to morning mass at the Cathedral of Aix, the oldest church in Aix located right in the north of the centre ville. I really enjoy going to mass here - not because I've suddenly become Catholic - but because the cathedrals here are just so incredibly beautiful, I love hearing the organ music, and it's a great way to people watch/listen to some free French for an hour and a half. The inside of the cathedral is painted, which is so bizarre, because while I've heard numerous tour guides talk about this facet of cathedral design, I've never actually seen it in person. It all feels so romantic and Arthurian, which is probably not what I should be thinking about while in a church, but it's a nice little meditative chunk of my week. After the service, there was a picnic held on the square outside of the cathedral, a kind of "meet and great" for new members. The promise of free food and potential French conversations was all the push Natalie and I needed to grab a plate and a seat at the table and chat with some adorable French ladies - sitting under a tree listening to the church bells ring, it really felt like that party scene from Chocolat (minus Johnny Depp, which is upsetting, but I'm going to let that slide for a little bit).

In more exciting news - last week I went swimming twice at the city pool in Aix! It was, to say the least, a very interesting experience (I'll never again feel out of my element in any kind of American swimming institution). The pool itself is beautiful - an enormous 50 meter Olympic sized pool, 2 meters deep all around, with cute little ledges to perch on at the side of either wall. Unfortunately, the French aversion to anything resembling organization really rears its ugly head in swimming pools. There are no lane lines, its just kind of a free-for-all, which keeps you on your toes during a workout as you try to avoid collisions with ladies sharing kick boards and teenagers flouncing about. Sometimes it can be really frustrating, but I've also gone at the most busy times twice, so next week, I'm going to try to outwit the system and go when it opens, hoping the French aversion to anything early can work on my side.

Speaking of the French aversion towards organization, my classes here have been a little along the lines of frustrating. I'm taking two classes which I love - but they're Wellesley based classes, so they hardly count. The first is an intensive review of French grammar with an amazingly adorable professor named Martine Faraco, who is hilarious and spends time in class talking about how much she loves chocolate and teaching us how to text in French. The second is Translation, a course taught by a literal angel (she's the most beautiful woman I've seen in France, which is saying a lot, since the French certainly don't lack for natural looks) that teaches us how to correctly translate from English to French. It's insanely helpful, because we learn how to avoid anglicisms and idioms and sound more French (kinda the idea, right?). Our assignment for this week is translating an excerpt from Harry Potter into French - awesome. On the other end of the spectrum, I'm taking two classes that are just normal Fac classes, and they're not my favorites. Langues du Monde, or Languages of the World, is a linguistics class with an adorable professor (she's really young and nice, and this is her first class ever) but everyone in the class treats it like a social gathering, talking so much I can't hear what the professor is saying. The other class is a literature course on autobiography. It's 4 hours long, which is pretty unbearable (Wellesley classes are an hour and ten minutes, so it's like an entire day of four courses smashed into one). The second half of the class is taught by a professor who hasn't gotten the memo that it isn't a Psych 101 class from 1972, so he spend the entire time talking about Freud and castration. It's maddening. Not to mention the Fac looks like Stanford's campus would look after a nuclear apocalypse - mission style architecture with graffiti everywhere and parts of the building literally falling off onto unsuspecting, constantly chattering French students. Needless to say, I'm endlessly appreciative of Wellesley now.

But with the not-so-great comes the amazing, in the form of Aix's grand marché, the large open-air market that happens every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. It's probably one of my most favorite things I've come across so far - it's a flea market, produce market and clothing market in one. I'm going to make a point of bringing my camera on Tuesday when I go to take a ton of pictures, so check back then for those!

beautiful tablecloth from the grande marché

Last Wednesday, my beautiful, wonderful, amazing buddy Molly Crosby turned 21! In the morning, I decided I wanted to give her a little taste of home by making pancakes, which proved more difficult than one would imagine. As previous stated, the French have quite the aversion to anything timely/early, so it's pretty impossible to find a grocery store open before 8/9 in the morning, and Molly had class at 8. So, as any good obnoxious American would do, I totally ignored protocol and busted my way into a small little grocery store at 7:15 in the morning while they were still stocking shelves (hey, the automatic doors opened, so I think I'm justified here). I was immediately descened upon by two very confused looking French clerks who wanted to know "if I needed help with anything" but I just went about my way, moving their stock carts around to find the necessary acotruments for pancakes, and made my merry way back to Chez Nous, feeling pretty successful. I managed to make Molly a pretty decent spread of pancakes, sausage and a hard boiled egg before the birthday girl made her way to class. That night, a group of us went out for dinner, and then got drinks at our favorite haunt, O Shannons, Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, who knows) Marseille was playing some unknown team in football, so the bar was packed with rabid sports fans, making it impossible to find a table, but fun to hang in the back and pretend to know the words to football songs with the rest of the male population of the larger-Aix area. Then, we headed back to Chez Nous for cake and champagne - it was a wonderful way to celebrate one of my best friends turning into a legal, contenting alochol consumer.

yeah, i bought her a french snuggie for her birthday

Yesterday, the group (minus a few members) boarded a bus at 8 am for a hiking excursion on Mount Saint Victoire, a mountain outside of Aix that is famed for it's large influence on Cezanne (homeboy was a little obsessed and painted the mountain a lot). The day started out typical enough, with Evan, the only boy on our program, taking charge, telling us to get off the bus at a bus stop, which turned out to be the wrong bus stop. We were all talking about Lord of the Flies because, not even ten minutes into the wrong-stop debacle, we were pretty much ready to eat one another. Thankfully, Pascal, the crazy-fit hike leader (also happens to be a teacher at the Lycee Militaire, our neighbors!) came running down the hill to save us, and a fifteen minute walk later, we were ready to start hiking, or, as Pascal terrifyingly put it "attacking" the mountain. What I thought would be a hike turned into a seven-hour climb up a "path" that looked a lot more like the back stairs towards Moordoor (it was steep), but after two-and-a-half hours of intense climbing, we reached the top of the mountain and were greeted with amazing panoramic views of the Provencal countryside- definitely worth it. Unfortunately, we apparently misunderstood Pascal when he told us we could "refill" our water bottles at the top, so we drank all of our rations before the descent, which lead to a hysteria-filled descent in a seriously dehydrated stupor (I took a tumble, twice, on fairly flat ground). Molly and I, at one point, got into a deep conversation about how, when we got home, we were going to blend ice with water and drink blended ice smoothies - you know you're dehydrated when a water smoothie sounds like the most delicious thing in the world. Regardless, we were able to successfully climb the mountain, rehydrate ourselves, and generally have an amazing time with the group. I can say, however, that I am definitely feeling all the climbing the day after.

so happy to have made it! - photo credit to the wonderful becky reeve

a view worth climbing for - photo credit to the wonderful becky reeve

Last night, Molly and I had our first party at Chez Nous to celebrate the birth of four program mates - Molly, Meredith, Evan and Becky, who all happen to have birthdays within a week of one another (counting back nine months gives us the end of January - apparently a very romantic time). The theme was "Young Communists" because of a poster at the university that encourages students to join the young communist club in Aix (we thought it was funny). In short, everyone wore red, attempted to drink red drinks, and called each other "Comrade" all night. It was hilarious and so much fun.

comrades partying for the party - photo credit to the wonderful becky reeve

In "French" news, I really feel like my French skills are improving - if not slowly. I found a bookstore that I've completely fallen in love with (a love that transcends continents) and have bought two books - The Stranger and the Little Prince - to read in French. I also picked up a book on Street Food (obsession) in French, which should be so much fun to read! Also, I'm going to be interning/volunteering with a couple other gals on the program at a film festival in Aix - Festival Tous Courts - an international film festival for short films that happens during the beginning of December in Aix. I'm really excited about that, because it will give me an opportunity to really get into conversations in French with (exciting) real French people! I've started having bilingual dreams, and I'm looking forward to the time where I have dreams completely in French (any day now, I'm sure). Also, last week I discovered a cheap home decor store (think Home Goods, but so much more Euro), so I'm looking forward to finally getting some decorations in our apartment - we've already started with a cute little cake-stand center piece for our kitchen island.

molly making pancakes, my cake-stand decoration in the left corner (see mom! i learned from you)

Bienvenue à Aix!

2011-09-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

First off, a thousand upon thousand apologies for being so MIA in the past two weeks (or so). Apparently, time really does fly when you're having fun, and it flies even more when you're having so much fun that everyday is more booked up than the next. I can't even believe its been two weeks since I've last written, let alone one month since I've been in France!

A week ago Monday (also known as 8 days ago...forgive me, because my French isn't getting much better and my English is definitely getting worse, leaving me in quite the communication-predicament) we packed up our Parisian lives, grabbed a petit dejeuner (European breakfast buffets tend to be my favorites, what with all their delicious meats, cheeses and breads) and got to the Gare de Lyon two hours before our train left due to Massons terrifying organized planning...thankfully, this allowed us just enough time to set up a makeshift gyspy camp with our suitcases, bust out some nail polish, and get our nails did, before getting on the TGV. The TGV is France's high-speed train, and let me tell you, they are not mincing words when they say "high speed." I sat by the window watching the city turn to countryside, and the view was literally hurtling before me. The train gets you from Paris to Aix in around 3 hours, and it moves so fast that going through tunnels makes your head feel like its going to explode all over the person sitting next to you (thank god that person was Molly, the most likely on this trip to forgive my head-implosion ruining her perfectly nice train ride). When we got into Aix in the mid-afternoon, we were greeted by vibrant blue skies, not a cloud in sight, and an overpowering, instant-perspiration inspiring heat. It is unbearable hot here sometimes, which is unsettling for someone not used to constant 80-degree weather, but sometimes I feel silly for complaining about the constant summer-temps and cloudless-skies (even though I found a website that says that Aix only has 60 rainy days a year, which is very upsetting news to this Oregonian).

Last week was filled with activities, from getting to know Aix (oh the markets!) to the greater Provencal area (tour of Arles, Marie Saint Mer and Beaux Provence with 100+ other international students, anyone?), and it sped by. Every day, Molly and get up, saunter around our apartment (which is wonderful, HUGE, has a balcony - mega score, we eat all our meals out there, and is super new) before heading out for the ten-ish minute walk through beautiful, historic Aix to one of the open air markets. There are markets here every day, all year round, which is a testament to both how nice the weather is here, and how important fresh, local produce is to the Aixoise. You can buy almost everything there - and we do. My friend Meredith says that it feels like we're just playing house - I seem to spend all my time shopping, cooking, and cleaning and I love it. As I tell Molly, this apartment is my little domain, so getting on my hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor clean is somehow an extremely rewarding task, not a chore. We've (Molly and I) been cooking all of our meals at home, which is so much fun for me, because I finally get to cook/try out all the wonderful recipes I spent all summer bookmarking! I might be biased, but I don't think we've had a bad meal yet at Chez Nous ("our house" - also the unofficial nickname of mine and Molly's apartment/future restaurant). The other night, I made a chicken cajun pasta that was amazing! I should probably have taken pictures, but our kitchen though new and very nice is also quite small, so cooking tends to leave residue equivalent to a small hurricane. Anyway, it was just one of the many delicious meals we've been enjoying, along with homemade croque madames, shrimp salads, proscuitto with melon and mozzarella, roast chicken and potatoes, vegetable omelets, etc. Funny how certain instincts - or hormones, maybe? - kick in when you need them to. Right now I'm definitely feeling my housewife genes - a nice break from the intellectual, working women genes I'm so often at the mercy of at good old Swellesley.

I've been told that eventually I'll be taking classes here, but so far, they haven't been a huge part of my days. This is probably because last week we were so busy touring Provence we didn't have much time to attend the first week of classes (something Mme Masson insists is not a problem, but as true Wellesley Women, we are skeptical) but eventually, part of my housewife self will have to cede to academia. I'm going to be taking classes at the 'fac' or the Universite de Provence, an institution which could not be more different from Wellesley. There is no lake, but beyond there being no lake, the building is actually falling down. The academic system here is definitely a key cultural difference between France and America - because university here is so cheap, there's not a lot of state money to put into the schools, so classes are big and the buildings are a little worse for the wear. I haven't been to enough classes yet to see if this attitude transcends the aesthetic and affects the general environment of learning, but I'll keep you posted.

That's pretty much it for now...if you're itching for more tid-bits about la vie Aixoise, please do yourself a huge favor and head on over to Molly's blog here. She's pretty much one of the funniest bloggers I've ever read, and she definitely puts my blog to shame on the details end (sorry, Mom, but it's getting late here!). I promise I'll try to be better about posting more regularly, but, as another token of apology, enjoy some pictures!

simone and me during our impromtu-train station-nail painting-sesh

one of aix's many (and very beautiful) fountains

a gaggle of gals out for the first night in aix - at our new fave restaurant, pasta cosy!

note: yes, the sky here is really that blue

happy nights with natalie at madame's provencal dinner!

Weekend at Sea

2011-09-06T03:56:00.000-07:00

This weekend we said à bientôt to the big city and took a trip out to the country, or more specifically, the beautiful northern coast of France. We piled onto a bus at 8 am, and promptly fell asleep (funny sight to see twenty some students try to contort their bodies into the most comfortable sleeping positions) for the four hour bus ride to Arromanches, a beach in Normandy where British soliders built a floating harbor for the D-Day invasions. Along the route, we stopped at a French rest stop to stretch our legs and buy some breakfast. I am amazed by European rest stops - a strange and potentially small point, I know, but as a lover of road trips, I would kill for rest stops like this in America. The bathrooms, for one, are, relatively speaking, considerably cleaner than their American counterparts. But thats not all - instead of some makeshift tiny convenience store by the side of the road, these French rest stops boast bakeries with delicious pastries, an incredible selection of sandwiches, salads and snacks, and general merriment everywhere. It makes a four hour bus ride a little more bearable when you can buy a super-sized pain au chocolat, like Molly did.

molly starts the day off right with her maxi pain

We pulled into Arromanches on a beautiful day - blue sky, blue ocean, signs everywhere boasting the Norman specialities of crepes and cider. We had four hours in the town, so we walked down the beach, lulling at the edge of the Atlantic to contemplate that some of us had swam in the exact same water not two weeks earlier on the other side of the ocean. Crazy. We had a lunch of crepes, which were delicious, though little did we know how many crepes we would be eating on this trip. The time in Arromanches concluded with a tour around a museum that outlined the construction of the British floating port and the way they were able to successfully land their tanks and men on the beaches on D-Day, which eventually lead to the French liberation (fun fact: Saving Private Ryan's opening scene takes place on Arromanches!).

international carousel lover

the other side of the atlantic

arromanches

After Arromanches, we piled back onto the bus for more napping (a constant theme of the weekend), awaking to find the bus stopped outside of a quaint hotel in the quiet little town (village might actually be a more apt description...there really wasn't a whole lot of anything except cute French buildings) of Pontorson, which wasn't really an attraction in itself, but instead was located extremely close to our monument du (next)jour, Mont Saint-Michele. We had an amazing four course dinner at the hotel, which Masson, of course, had a hand in planning. Since we were so close to the sea, we started with a delicious entree of tiny scallops, leeks and onions in a white wine butter sauce...so delicious. Then we had white fish over rice, followed by a cheese course, and dessert of apple and puff pastry. I love it when Masson plans the meals, they are always incredible.

Saturday morning we woke up early again to drive ten minutes to Mont Saint-Michele, a medieval village and abbey built on a rock that, depending on the Norman tide, is either surrounded by the sea or stands alone surrounded by sand. The original visitors to Mont Saint-Michele were pilgrims that walked for three hours at low tide through the sand to reach the rock. It was incredibly beautiful and surreal to see this old abbey rising out of the ocean. Since we arrived so early in the morning, the village was pretty deserted for the first hour we were there, and we had a wonderful time wandering the empty stone streets at our leisure. It definitely looks like something out of a fantasy book (people in our group compared it to both Diagon Alley and Gondor, so it has to be cool, right?). The abbey itself, built at the very top of the rock, was beautiful: the first monks started construction in the eighth century, and the French have continued building pretty much up until present day, so the abbey itself is an amazing melange of history, from Romanesque arches to Gothic knaves, to a wheel that prisoners from the French Revolution had to run around in (like hamsters!).

mont saint-michele rising out of the morning fog

diagon alley!

kind of like gondor, right?

beautiful abbey

yep, that would be the ocean surrounding mont saint-michele

inside the abbey

secret garden

natalie and i repping the letter n!

After an incredible morning at Mont Saint-Michele, we returned to Pontorson for a Masson-organized crepe lunch. I didn't think it would be possible for me to get sick of crepes, but after this weekend, I'm fine taking a break from the crepe-cuisine for a while. The lunch, however, was delicious...I got a crepe called a savoyarde, which had bacon (sold already), potatoes, onions and cheese inside...like comfort wrapped in buckwheat, pretty much. For dessert, I had something called an amadine, which was an over-the-top concoction of vanilla ice cream, chocolate, and toasted almonds. And of course, the ubiquitous Norman cider was flowing pretty liberally!

Post-lunch we returned to the faithful bus for a pretty drive down the coast to the town of Saint Malo in Brittany. It was this beautiful sea port town surrounded by an old wall that you could climb up and walk around for amazing views of the sea. Molly and I spent most of the afternoon napping (traveling makes for tired Natashas and Mollys, apparently) and at night, we went out for a dinner of moules frites, a pot of mussels cooked in white wine with fries (because when by the ocean, taste the ocean, right?). Afterwards we wandered around the town and the wall, got some ice cream, and went to bed. In the morning we had planned to get up and walk around more, but unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard and, lacking the proper attire to combat sideways rain (the trickiest of all, believe me) we lounged around in our hotel room playing with the towel heater (!!) and watching French talk shows. At 11 am, we returned to the bus once again for the trip back to Paris, which took about six hours!

saint malo by night

While getting out of the city was nice for a while, it's nice to be back "home" in Paris for our last week before finally heading down to Aix. We leave Monday, and while Paris has been amazing (have I mentioned that I really like the food here?) I'm looking forward to getting settled into our apartment and
starting to make a little life for myself.

Keeping it Clean on the Rive Droite

2011-09-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday and Thursday of last week were spent exploring the Rive Droite, also known as Paris' Right Bank (the more conservative counterpart to the Montparnasse/Saint Germain filled Left Bank).

On Wednesday, we began our tour of the Rive Droite (lead fearlessly by Lucille, comme toujours) at La Comedie Francaise, a theater which housed/produced the plays of some fairly recognizable playwrights like Victor Hugo and Moliere. Afterwards we saw the Palais-Royal (because the French monarchy didn't have enough cool houses already...I guess their monopoly on all the sweet real estate is why they were beheaded), some more theaters, some gorgeous covered areas called passages couverts, the Opera, and the Place Vendome, the swanky square that houses Paris' most prestigious bijouteries (Cartier, Chanel, etc.) as well as the Ritz Hotel.

very cool metro station...made to commemorate 100 years of the paris metro

beautiful gardens at the palais-royal

stunning

place vendome

Thursday we returned to the Rive Droite, specifically to a church called Notre Dame de Victoire (not to be confused with the perhaps more famous Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cite) to watch Lucille's fiance play the organ! When we arrived the church was completely empty except for our group and a couple of nuns...in a terrible turn of events, one came up and started speaking to me, in French and very quitely (church, remember). Not understanding any of what she said except for "organ" I responded with an enthusiastic "Oui!" as in "Yes, we are here to listen to someone else play the organ!" It was only after she had said "Fantastique! Incroyable!" with a huge smile that I realized she had asked me if I would be playing the organ. Needless to say, I felt awful, but I'm chalking it up to language barrier and stashing it away in my "hopefully I'll laugh at this in a year when my French is much much better" sack of memories.

beautiful church

organ that i under no circumstances know how to play

lucille's fiance, ready to put on a show!

The organ is an endlessly beautiful instrument...it's like a whole orchestra in one, but more than that, it's so powerful. You can tell that it really was meant to be played in a church like the one we were in...the full notes reverberate off the stone walls in such a deep way, it really penetrates right through you. I can only imagine how amazing it must have been to hear the organ played when the church was first constructed and people came to worship...being in that setting, it's easy to see how the church remained such a huge part of people's lives for so long here. I managed to sneakily capture a few seconds of the performance...check it out below (sorry for the camera wobbles!).

After the performance, Molly, Meredith, Natalie and I decided to walk back to the Citadines through the Rive Droite. As we were crossing the Pont Neuf (the longest and oldest bridge in Paris, also happens to be right across from our hotel) I looked across the Seine and saw...the Eiffel Tower, lit up in all it's glory! It was incredible, so we quickly grabbed our cameras and paused for some photo snapping.

molly and i above the seine

oh paris, comme vous êtes belle!

Friday morning we awoke bright and early (well, early for my liking) for a weekend trip to Normandy and Brittany...the details of which I will save for another post, in the interest of keeping these a manageable length. À beintôt!

Guess who lived here?!

2011-08-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

The past few days have involved visiting places where famous people lived, which, in Paris, is neither surprising nor rare, but still really exciting.

Sunday we packed into a bus (something Wellesley girls are veterans at, so we all fell asleep/zoned out with our iPods in about two seconds resulting in a very painless transport) headed towards Giverny, the home of Monet's maison and famous gardens. I have extremely high standards for beautiful gardens since I live in close contact with the most beautiful garden in the world (it's in my backyard, by the way, and it gives Eden a run for its money) so I was wary of these gardens "being the most beautiful in the world" etc., though they may come in a close second to Chez Geiling/Coran. It was surreal wandering the gardens, because everything really did look like an impressionist painting (lily pads included). Monet's home was even more surreal, because there was an entire room packed floor to ceiling with Monet paintings, like it was no big thing. We had six hours to kill in Giverny, so after wandering the gardens and house (which took about an hour) we strolled along the main street in Giverny (Rue Claude Monet), eating lunch and snacking at an adorable restaurant/hotel/inn. When we got back to Paris we were exhausted, but walked to the supermarket anyway to get something for dinner. To our American dismay, the market was closed for Sunday, so we went to Plan B and bought cheap gyros, which we devoured perched precariously on the edge on a bridge over the Seine.

stream at giverny

colorful flowers

molly & me

all kinds of impressionist inspiration

monet's grave

gyros by the seine

sunset over notre dame

Monday was Montmartre, with some of the best views of Paris! Molly and I climbed up the Sacre Coeur and sat on a slope of grass as the entire city sprawled out before us. Some clever man with a guitar was singing funny songs set to familiar tunes, like his rendition of "Wagon Wheel" which included the verse "It took me sixteen years to get into the Louvre/But from Sacre Coeur there's one hell of a view" (taken from memory, actual lyrics may vary). It was charming and funny and wonderful. Afterwards we met up with some fellow groupers for Indian food; ordering poulet tikka masala was pretty hilarious. The night was capped off with punch and stories with a gaggle of gals (and Evan, the one boy, who was being a pretty excellent sport about the whole thing)...sharing stories about our first kisses and the most romantic thing that's ever happened to us. What can we say, spend some time in Paris and you won't be able to get l'amour out of your head!

oh hey, all of paris

crazy crowded streets

delicious cookie store

sacre coeur

Today we spent two and a half hours following Lucille around the 5eme arrondissement, which included such sights as the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Pantheon and the Sorbonne (yes we may have seen it but you can never see something too many times in this city, I am quickly learning). It was incredible the amount of history packed into such a tiny neighborhood: in the span of two hours we had seen the ruins of a Roman arena, the homes of Descartes and Hemingway, the tombs of Racine and Pascal, the Pantheon, the oldest universities in Paris, a centuries old church, the Saint Sulpice, the Jardins du Luxembourg, the Senat, and many other things I know I'm forgetting. You would think that after a while, one would get 'history fatigue' from living in a place like this ("Oh that there, yeah it's just another one of those famous people things, no big deal") but I'm not even close to it yet; every chance I get I whip out my camera and take a million pictures, imagining Hemingway stumbling in after a night spent drinking and hob-knobbing with James Joyce and Gertrude Stein.

remnants of a roman ruin...this is where they kept the lions to fight the gladiators

descartes home

hemingway!

place saint sulpice

Later in the afternoon, Molly and I walked around the corner to Ladurée, a patisserie famous for their Parisian macarons. They didn't disappoint...and look how vibrant the colors were!

yum yum...or in french, miam miam

Dinner tonight was another traditional French bistro...this time I had duck confit, which was absolutely delicious, but I'm quickly falling into a fat/wine-induced sleep, and I still have French grammar exercises to do. I honestly have no idea how the French manage to eat such indulgent food and still have the energy to keep a country running!

Près de Picasso

2011-08-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

standing outside the apartment where picasso painted guernica, around the corner from my hotel

Moelle, m'aime

2011-08-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

I'm in love with Parisian food. Not that this should be a surprise to anyone, considering a) I'm pretty open to loving most food and b) Paris is a renowned food city, but it is truly a gourmand's playground. In the past week days I've eaten countless amazing meals and discovered foods that I've become completely and utterly obsessed with, even on a (constantly salivating) starving student's budget.

Wednesday night, Molly and I had a romantic dinner for two (trend) at a petit restaurant that our director Madame Masson had pointed out to us the night before. Masson, as has been explained before, is an even bigger foodie than myself, so I take most anything that she has to say on the subject to be gospel, and with a recommendation within a stone's throw of our hotel, I wasn't about to waste any time trying this place out. Best decision ever, really. The interior of the restaurant was so picturesque; small and cozy, we sat in a corner bathed in the glow of faint lighting which reflected the red napkins on whitewashed walls. The ambience was already a great sign, but the night took a turn for the incredible when I glanced "l'os de moelle" on the menu. "L'os de moelle" or roasted bone marrow, is one of my favorite foods, but one that I rarely ever get to eat (not really a staple at Salem restaurants or Wellesley take-out joints). I wish I could describe the way it tastes, but nothing I can say could do it justice: imagine the most amazing butter you've ever had, mixed with the faintest tinge of deep beef flavor, and multiply that by a million. I could eat it every day; it's really taken all of my will power to not go back to Chez Ferdinand every night since. The bone marrow was followed by the famed boeuf bourguignon, stewed beef in a rich burgundy wine sauce. I think if I were to be executed tomorrow, I'd want to repeat this experience as my last meal. Really, it was that incredible.

boeuf bourguignon

l'os de moelle

those who know me will recognize this smile as one that can only come after an incredible meal

Thursday was Louvre day. I prepared myself for all the horror stories: crazy crowds, underwhelming Mona Lisa's, and the like. The Louvre itself is a building with incredible history: it's been a dungeon, palace, and museum since it was built. Our guide, Lucille, goes to the Louvre university, so she was a veritable storehouse of information. I was afraid it was going to be so overwhelming that I wouldn't see much of anything, but Lucille was really only interested in showing us the three ladies of the Louvre: the Venus de Milo, the Saint Victoire, and La Joconde, Miss Mona herself. Throughout the whole tour I was so nervous for the Mona Lisa...everything I'd heard made it seem like it would be so disappointing, but when the time finally came, it was nothing of the sort. I'm sorry, but regardless of size and even with the millions of other tourists scrambling to get as close as possible, the sight of the Mona Lisa made my heart drop; it, like so many of the amazing works that I got to see (Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix, which I wrote an essay about in high school... bizarre!) was astonishingly beautiful. I think that's the wonderful thing about art: throughout centuries, amidst the chaos and commercialism of the Louvre, the paintings transcend and strike right at the heart; their creation breeds constant creation, endlessly affecting and shaping those around them.

pretty overwhelmed

After the Louvre, dying of thirst and getting a little grumpy, Molly and I set out to faire le gouté, which is my favorite part of the French day: basically, since they choose to eat their dinner at an ungodly hour (8 pm is early, 10 pm is for cool people) they take a mid-day snack, which basically prevents all of France from starting a war due to extreme hunger-induced anger (or is that just me?). We stopped at a little gelato chain outside of our grocery store, which wouldn't be remarkable, except that when I ordered my petite cone, it came in the shape of a flower. Which is extremely remarkable, in fact.

flower gelato?!?!

Friday night, the whole group of us went to the theater, which was quite a sight, mostly because twenty-odd American students, lead by two very French people (Madame Masson and Monsieur Beauclare, who was sporting an actual ascot, he's so a la mode) piling into a theater the size of a very very small living room can't be anything other than amusing. The plays were interesting, bordering on completely absurd, though I'm sure I would have enjoyed them much much more if my comprehension had been above 50 percent. Sadly, as it wasn't, I spent most of the plays trying not to fall asleep/move around too loudly. After the play, however, we popped over to Maison de Gyros for a delicious 4.50 "Super Greek Pita Extra" (whatever that means); it was delicious and had french fries in it (?!). I'm going back for another one tonight. Like I said, food paradise. Good thing we also walk for hours upon hours; I like to think it all balances out in the end.

Saturday Molly and I walked around the arrondissements around our hotel, Montparnasse and Saint Germain. We didn't have much of a plan, but this isn't much of a problem because no matter where you wander in Paris, you're bound to run into something incredible. This time it was the Pantheon, the Sorbonne, and the Jardin du Luxembourg.

pantheon

unreal view

jardin du luxembourg

One of the most amazing things about Paris is the fact that you can be wandering down a busy modern road, and then two blocks away, find a palace from the Middle Ages. It's incredible to think of all the treasures and secrets that exist in a place as historical as Paris.

look what we found!

Today we went to Giverny to visit Monet's home and gardens...so beautiful! I'll post pictures and more about that later!

Paris! Or, "Why are there crabs in my mussels?"

2011-08-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

Paris is everything I imagined and more. It's amazing to be in a city with so much history; watching Parisians go about their lives against the backdrop of a thousand years is incredible.

We arrived Saturday morning after a quick international flight (weird how fast they go when you take off from the other side of the country) in which, by some grace of God, Molly and I had an entire row to ourselves to spread out, eat junk food, and watch Taken (learning what not to do when we get to Paris). Unfortunately, the general merriment didn't leave a lot of time for sleeping, so most of Saturday was spent in a jet-lagged stupor, mouth gaping open, repeating "I can't believe I'm in Paris!" Surreal doesn't begin to cover the feeling of walking down a winding Parisian street while a street performer plays the accordion and the smell of garlic beckons you to tiny bistros. I'm starting to understand this whole French-pride thing.

The last few days have been spent touring the city bit by bit; the program connected us with a tour guide named Lucille who is a young Parisian studying at the Louvre. She spent a semester working in the Davis Museum at Wellesley, so she knows a little bit about Wellesley/France dynamic. Her tours are great, and she spends time interjecting the basics (French history, what things are, etc.) with anecdotes about literature, art, society and what not. So far we've trekked around the Marais (the old Jewish quarter where we had some seriously kick-ass falafel here), l'Ile de la Cite (oldest island in the city where Paris was actually founded) and l'Ile Saint Louis, the less old and also significantly less touristy counterpart island.

In general I've been eating well and drinking well and walking a lot and spending time with some genuinely amazing people. Everyone in the group is so nice and fun to be around; I can't wait to spend more time with them as the year progresses. My French has been getting me around fairly well, but I'm excited to see where I'll be in a year. Sometimes it's frustrating being unable to describe exactly what I want to the people around me, but between an optimistic outlook and a little bit of Franglais when out on the town, things haven't been too bad at all.

C'est tout for now, enjoy some pictures while I head out to find the next delicious morceau of Parisian cuisine.

Anecdote: The first night Molly and I had dinner at a tiny little bistro near our hotel (which is centrally located right on the freaking Seine, by the way). She ordered the mussels and was surprised to find them much crunchier than the American counterpart: apparently, mussels near Paris fall victim to tiny little crabs that push their way into the shells to eat the mussel, only to be boiled with the bivalve in restaurants. Bizzare, mais c'est la France.

All pictures come courtesy of adventure-partner-and-forever-friend Molly Crosby, whose adventures you can read about on her blog! I promise I'm going to break out my camera soon, since this afternoon I finally found purse big enough to safely tote my less-than-pocket-sized camera in.

wine on the lawn of the eiffel tower #parisianlife #livingamovie

dinner at the eiffel tower

typique parisian neighborhood

notre dame

buddies

molly's got some photo-chops on her

again, molly's fantastic camera skills

finally in paris!

locks of love

just a typical saturday night...under the eiffel tower

L'aeroport - Airport

2011-08-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

At Boston Logan with Molly and the group, getting ready to get on the plane. Paris tomorrow morning! Feeling a little bit under the weather (of course) so hopefully I'll get some sleep on the flight. Getting pretty nervous about all the French. More updates to come!

L'étiquette - Etiquette

2011-07-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

courtesy of

Les bottes - Boots

2011-07-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Open admission number one: I have an obsessive personality. Once I find something that piques my interest, I latch onto it in a manner not entirely different from a pit bull's locked jaw, minus the violence (passion, instead). Friends and family go running, because I tend to fixate on my obsessions (case and point: Criminal Minds. If we're watching TV, we're watching Criminal Minds, or we're not watching it together...leading to lonely TV time for me).

Open admission number two: I love shoes. I own a lot of shoes. Shoes are a downfall, the reason why I might, someday, find it difficult to renounce my worldly possessions and become an ascetic. Heels to tennis shoes, I revere shoes - and, having worked briefly in a shoe store that stressed training above most anything else, I think that I know shoes, the styles, make, quality, and materials.

The leap isn't hard to make: shoes, can easily, become my obsession. And it's happened; I've seen the light; I've found the ones I can't (don't want to) walk without.

courtesy of

They're called Kiboots, and they're breathtaking. Made by a genius duo out of the Netherlands, the boots combine fine leather with killim, or flat-woven rugs. Not only are they endlessly interesting to look at, but they seem so versatile: jeans, shorts, skirts, dresses - they could be worn with anything, and the hip mid-calf height would translate well from short to long.

Conclusion: they must be mine.

Second conclusion: I'm leaving for Europe in less than 50 days, and I'm only allowed one suitcase, and I already have other shoes to pack.

Common conundrum: Impracticality of shoes. Wanting something you don't have space for. Consumerism.

Solution: Looks like I'll be scoping around Europe for these loveliest of boots.

Until then...gaze, enjoy, and join the obsession-club.

courtesy of

Essayer - To Try

2011-07-07T11:08:00.000-07:00

courtesy of

Cuisiner - To Cook

2011-06-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

50 days left stateside. This seems like a big milestone; breaking through fifty into the forties...doesn't anything less than 50 just seem infinitely smaller?

Tomorrow is July, which ushers in the busiest month of the summer (for my family at least). Fourth of July "camping" (about twenty feet from a house) at Devil's Lake, Oregon Country Fair, Art Fair, all kinds of visitors...I'm torn between wanting it to fly by (August! Peach season! France!) and wanting to savor everything. There should be some kind of manual for enjoying every second of life without tying yourself down...but then that's probably the whole point of the experience, isn't it?

Last night Ashley graciously let me crash, yet again, at her place...we made dinner and baked lemon cookies and decoupaged some envelops...so domestic and crafty of us. The dinner was chicken tikka masala, a semi-homemade version because we couldn't find masala paste. Using a combination of a masala sauce and our own twist on this recipe, it came together pretty damn well.

Spicy, saucy bliss.

Being able to cook with Ashley makes me so excited to cook in France; I'm hoping to take a cooking class or two, or maybe learn something from our program director Cathrine Masson, who I've heard is an absolutely phenomenal cook.

With the markets in Aix, I don't think the quality of ingredients should be a problem, so it's really going to be up to me to not ruin them!

courtesy of

Can't wait until I can walk out my door, instead of searching Google Images, to see this.

Here Begins New Life

2011-06-26T12:20:00.001-07:00

I feel reborn, like I've shed my skin and emerged anew into the world. I'm ready to relearn everything, to throw out all my notions and explore the world with curiosity and joy. I can't wait for all the adventures, to see new sights, taste new tastes, meet new people.

Fifty-four days until I leave for Paris!