A petit week-end in Auxerre

This past weekend, I took the train from Avignon to Auxerre (the capital of the Bourgogne/Burgundy region of France) to see one of my oldest friends, Delphine. It's a funny story, because the two of us met coincidentally when I was in France the last time with my mom 12 years ago. Anyways, we've stayed in contact and I spent the weekend with her and her boyfriend and his parents (since they live with his parents).

It was a really great weekend. Not too touristy, but very relaxed and allowed us to really catch up and just hang out.

As we weren't "trop touristique," we didn't take a lot of photos, but here are a few from our visit to one of the caves that make some of the famous Burgundy wines.


A sculpture in the stone of the cave, aparently they'd been working on sculptures down there for years for an art expo. This particular one had a little story that went along with it (as you can see by the one guy who's lit up, he was "talking" at that point of the recording.


The machines that turn the bottles during the process. I believe in each one there are 500 bottles of wine?


Delphine and her boyfriend Thomas in the cave de Bailly. Notice behind them, ALL bottles of red wine. Apparently, at any given moment the cave contains at least 4-5 MILLION bottles of wine.


Another large stack of rosé. We definitely contemplated "borrowing a few." Unfortunately they arn't the bottles that are really ready for consumption (eg they have bottle caps on the bottles au lieu de corks).


Our pretty glasses from the tasting that we had afterwards.

Fontaine de Vaucluse

For our class on the French Résistance, we took a day trip to Fontaine de Vaucluse, where there is a museum on the Résistants in the région du Vaucluse. There, we were able to speak with a panel of surviving Résistants who recounted their experiences to us, and let us as questions about the war. It was very very impressive and moving. It's one thing to read about the acts that people committed for France during the guerre, and another to hear a woman talk about how her father worked for the Resistance, printing clandestin journals/pamphlets and in the end was shot by the Nazis, or the pair of former Young Communists who spent a decent part of the war in a german camp.

Even more interesting was after the panel when we went out to lunch with them. Although they're getting to be older, they're very full of life, and it was wonderful talking to them and hearing their stories over lunch. What's more, this was all conducted in French, and, there was one moment where I thought to myself "I can't believe I'm capable of doing this, honestly. There is no way that in Eighth grade, sitting in Mrs. Cousins' French class first period every day, that I could have imagined that one day I'd be able to actually converse in French like this." Truly, truly impressionnant/amazing/wonderful. I never could have imagined the level of French I have now, and, what's more, it keeps getting better every day. Example, Michel/Rémy pointed out tonight that "when I arrived I was nice and polite" and now I can give them both crap (for lack of a better word) and tease them both. It's Michel's most ardent wish (well one of them) that soon I will be able to swear in French naturally as well. It's coming, we'll see. Three weeks camping across France with 3 other French people will surely help, I feel. Anyways, here's some photos from Fontaine de Vaucluse etc.


The source that runs through the village. No one really knows where it comes from.

Excursion à Uzès etc.

A quick update of our excursion to Uzès and a Sunday spent with Michel from about two weeks ago. Life has been kind of hectic since then.


A random chateau in Uzès. I really didn't take any photos here. I wasn't really in a good mood that day, hence no touristy-goodness.


As it rained, we couldn't canoe to the Pont du Gard. SOOO with our free time we went to the CANDY Museum in Uzès for Haribo. Voilà Care and me in front of a large bear. Canoeing under a national monument/roman ruin OR visit muesum of gummy bears and eat free candy... Definitely a tough decision, made easier by a lack of sun and lots of rain.


Jenna taking a photo of one of the oliviers by the Pont du Gard. These trees are over 900 years old. No joke. Be impressed.


Carolyn and me in front of the Pont du Gard. This is probably my favorite photo of the two of us ever. It's kind of funny, we lived together for a year and took almost no pictures together. Now we have so many.

(The following Sunday)


At the Chateau des Baux de Provence (again) with Michel. This time, his friend Arnaud is doing a reenactment for the children's day (He's the one standing on the left). I love that in the US, we do reenactments (like Tim) for the Civil War (or here, "The War of Succession") and in Europe, it's all medieval. Very cool.


Sunday, after lunch, Michel and I went on a promenade en voiture (tour in the car) to Marseille. We ended up stopping and walking out on these huge pieces of calcaire (limestone). If you follow the little path in the rock, you end up at a tiny restaurant (and with a great view.


This little rock island is now forbidden for humans. Notice the old remains of an abbey.


Sunset by the rocks. You can see the silhouette of the boat/restaurant on the right.


The narrow path carved into the rocks to get from your car to the restaurant.


The view of another part of Marseille. You can almost make out la Bonne Mère on the right.

Outrunning the storm

Sorry that I'm failure at updating this blog (especially for you, Mom), but it takes an eon to upload photos to this (over a half hour per group of 5 photos), so it's a rather time consuming process.

As such, I'm abandonning putting up all the photos from my amazing weekend with Marie-Hélène et Gérard, as I took a million photos and can't begin to choose so few to upload. Don't worry, I'll show them to you when I get home.

Anyways, here are a few photos I took last Monday, which we had off since it was Pentecost. For a country that claims to be completely "laïque" or secular, I find it interesting that we're off for religious holidays. But that is besides the point. I spent the day with Michel and Rémy and we took a bit of a tour in the car. Unfortunately, we couldn't go to the féria at Nîmes because it was supposed to storm something awful. Instead, we ended up driving to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer to see the Mediterranean (and kill time). As you can see in the photos, the raging storm clouds followed us the whole way, and we only ended up spending a half hour on the beach itself. It's gorgeous. Michel says we're going to go back later this spring/summer for a weekend of camping. That should be fun. Especially as I now have a tent. of my very own. It's green (Michel tried to buy me pink, but unfortunately they were out. Imagine my disappointment.)


Michel wading in the mer. I really really love this photo. Obviously he didn't know I was taking it or else he would have protested or made a face like the one below. Silly man. Also, in this photo, as well as the following one, you can see the dark mean storm clouds sneaking up on us from the North.


Rémy, rocking out his aviator sunglasses, although there was no sun. If you look carefully, you can see me in the glasses taking the photo.


Rémy and Michel. Seriously, Michel won't let anyone take a photo of him looking normal. I have vowed to him on more than one occasion that I will one day get a good photo of him. Though, as I plan on doing my masters here, it could be years before that happens.

I also just realized that although I talk about them all the time and see them all the time personally, these are the first photos of Michel and Rémy that I've posted or even taken. Weird.

A vacation from vacation.

I spent this weekend in the Aveyron région with our family friends Marie-Hélène and Gérard at their lake house in Salles-Curan. It was a really, really great couple of days. They made it their personal mission to show me around all the gorgeous villages nearby. Furthermore, Marie is a formidable cook, so we ate very, very well for the duration. She's going to send me some of her dessert recipes so I can make them in the apartment next year. Very awesome.

Most importantly, I think, was the fact that this time we could actually discuss. As the reason I chose to study French in the first place was because the last time I was here I couldn't communicate with them nor my family, I think it was a really key moment in my French learning/life etc. to be back here and be able to freely converse with them without a dictionary or anything. I was pretty proud of myself, actually. I don't think I could have ever envisioned doing this and having this level of fluency when I started studying French back in the 8th grade. I remember sitting in the corner with Caitlin Myers, Michael Buckley and some others and giggling over silly words (like 'pamplemousse,' which means grapefruit) and debating over which 'French name' to use. Oh, how far I have come.

My train ride was uneventful, thankfully, and I recognized Gérard and then Marie on the platform sans problème at all. Their house is in the Aveyron region, on a plateau of the Massif Central, and about 2.5 hours by car from the train station in Montpellier. It's an adorable house (sorry I forgot to take a photo of it, Mom) and it's very close to the Lac de Pareloup, where Gérard loves to fish.

Our first excursion was to the nearby village of Conques, which is officially on the list of "The Most Beautiful Villages in France" or something similar. I love how in Europe so many villages are built literally all the way up hills and, with all the stone, give the impression of literally growing out of the rock.


Marie demonstrating the stringy nature of Aligot, which we had for lunch. Aligot is a dish typical of the region where one mixes Tome cheese that is only around a week old with mashed potatos. Very yummy.


A view of Conques. I love how the architecture changes so drastically around this country. Very cool.


A view of the engraving over the door of the church.


Sarcophagi outside the church, which at one time contained the remains of (very small) bishops etc.


Gérard posing mid-walk through Conques. Notice the flat rocks that cover the wood beams on the house to keep the wood from deteriorating. How ingenious.


Glycines on a house. I love these flowers. So fragrant and beautiful.

On the way back from Conques, we stopped to check out a source/waterfall nearby. I'm always amazed by how many gorgeous things one can find here just by merely pulling off the main road. I wonder sometimes if there are gorgeous things like this that I'm missing at home in Ohio, but somehow I feel that there are not. At least not of this historic and natural magnitude.

Nice is Nice (continued).

Wow, I am super behind on this whole blog thing. It's truly unfortunate it takes an eon to upload photos.

On Saturday of that weekend we went to Monaco, as it's only a 15 minute or so train ride from Nice, even if it is a separate entity.

I just realized I forgot to mention the random two guys appearing in our photos. They're Irfran and Marwan, who are two doctoral students in Grenoble (in technical engineering or something) who were also here there vacation. We met them randomly our first day in Nice (they asked if we knew how to get to the beach, we were on our way there, we walked together et voilà friendship) and ended up spending almost all of our vacation with them. It was really nice to have new people to hang with, and, as Marwan's english was terrible, we were able to speak a lot of French as well.


A view of Monaco from the steps going up to Prince Albert II's palace.


By accident, we ended up outside the Palais just as they were changing the Palais guard... apparently this is a very big deal/crowd attraction, hence the mob. In the background, check out a glimpse of Royal living, my friends.


Beaching in Monaco. Let's be honest, we really did little sight seeing the whole weekend. Mostly just beach.


Taking a dip. Note: Melissa's face. Priceless. And true.


Small children on the beaches of Monaco. Notice the gravel here. Instead of the caillous (larger smooth stones) of Nice's beach, here the whole beach was gravel... which, although you'd think it would be weird, was awesome. I actually think I prefer gravel to sand (if I dont want to build castles or whatnot). Aside from the powder that gets on your feet from walking, the gravel is nice because you can just brush it off and it doesn't get stuck in your swimsuit. Furthermore, it's much nicer than the caillous of Nice as swimming is much easier. Notice: very pretty, clear water also.

Back in Nice again:


For our last night in Nice, we ditched the boys and took ourselves out to a really nice dinner, leaving no amenity out: wine, dessert, café etc. Voilà a photo of Care on the terrasse with our food/wine. She got Pasta à la carbonara, which was delicious. It was a really great experience as the server was super super nice. You could tell he was pleased (and relieved) that we were all fluent in French (there were a lot of non-French speaking anglophones around us).


My "Fruits de la mer" pasta. Enormous and delicious. Notices the mussels surrounding and the big crevette on top. So delicious. It was really amusing because there was so much left, when the other server came to take it away he was like are you sure you don't want me to reheat it etc etc (He was super conversational, very fun).


Me and my crême brulée


A shot of Vieux Nice. On our last day, we decided we should take an hour out of our beach time to actually see some of the important things in Nice.


Marché aux Fleurs. Pity we didn't discover this sooner. How I love open air markets.


Lavender for sale at the market in all of its various forms. Made me think of you, Mom.

All in all, a very good vacation. Now I just have to put up the photos from this weekend. :-P

Note: The irony of the fact that I took a vacation from what essentially is already a vacation has not escaped me. Very bizarre (and awesome).

Nice is nice.

Our first glimpse of the beach, employing strangers to photograph us on this... pile of rocks that jet out into the sea. (I obviously have forgotten the word for that)


I'd promised myself I'd try McDonald's (or McDo) one time in France, and as we couldn't decide what to have for lunch, we settled on a McDo picnic on the beach.


A view of the beach in Nice. Lots of people this weekend, as it was a holiday.


View from the top of the 268 stairs that we climbed. Very pretty. We really had gorgeous weather the whole time we were there.


My French McDo on the beach


Me and a view of the beach in Nice


Nice. Beach. Pretty. It was worth climbing those 268 steps to get this view of the beach/city.


The only picture of the whole group from the entire weekend. Gotta love getting strangers to take your photo.


The Vieux Port in Nice.

More to come later.