Bourges, France and odds & ends

Wow, I started this blog over a year ago now. I am currently back in the USA! I still have a lot to blog about from my trip, but I am also happily working away at building up my photography business.

Back to Europe...

We took a weekend road trip to visit one of the Foyer's former residents who now lives in Bourges, France. It was a very interesting weekend to say the least. 

First we started out with a little trip to the market to buy food for the weekend.

I miss french cheese now, it costs $11 in the US!!!!!!!

Then we finally arrive in Borges!

We did a good bit of wandering around and playing.

Here's a little video of my turn on the twirly thingy....

They went dumpster-diving, I don't really have an explanation for it. Can you see that I am clearly keeping my distance all the way across the street?This is my all time favorite picture from the trip. William is thanking Spiderman (pronounced "speeder-mon" in France) for all his good work. And only in France would you see Spiderman with a baguette and William holding a bottle of wine on the street.This apartment is where some of the lifelong bonding happened. Some of it happened over a 7 day old bowl of rice and rotten peach pits. I didn't dare photograph that. Also I like how in the following video, we took down the red "E" in the word Ghetto and replaced it with a hand drawn "E". You could almost call it art now.  Oh and I forgot the most important part of the video. Antoine taught himself how to play the guitar by watching youtube videos. I guess you could say the other two musicians are also self taught....

We took a few group pictures when we took William and the Elf to the train station. I can't really explain to you why we call him the Elf. It's just not possible. 

So I realize there are several points in this blog that I said "I just can't explain it..." So I apologize but it was great to be in France long enough to make good friends and have inside jokes. You can check out the facebook album for a few more pictures from Borges. Not too many (by my standards) but a very pretty cathedral, garden and some more good fun.

Click here for the pictures

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2366266&id=12604326&l=42dabe34b8

Also I just thought I'd share a picture I took with my cell phone, then emailed to myself of my friends in France talking to me on skype. Complicated? Yes, but that is France, and I am part French now!

24th Bday: Vingt-Quatrième Anniversaire

So in honor of my one month anniversary of being 24, I will blog about my birthday! My day started out with me being left alone until noon, while my brother planned surprises. I was a little afraid he was planning a scavenger hunt for me to learn more about Limoges. Which quite possibly could have been the worst idea for a birthday present for me. If you have driven with me for more than 5 minutes, you already know that "me+maps=bad times".

But no it was not a scavenger hunt he was just doing some last minute shopping and I was happy to take my time sleeping in and getting dressed. 

Ok so 1st stop, lunch! I looked at the menu and saw a drink called "Cinderella" I thought this would be the perfect birthday drink. I was wrong. It was so the opposite of any of the words you would use to describe Cinderella. We poured it into my water glass because the original glass was too depressingly common. So anyway, it was actually more fun to talk about how sad my fancy drink was than to actually have a fancy drink, so it all worked out. 

Side story, we once went out for drinks, and I ordered a drink called "summer cocktail". I made my request in french but the name of the drink was in english. So when the waiter heard my order he then complimented me for not having a french accent on the words "summer cocktail". I'm sure he would have been surprised to find out I actually had to have what he said translated to me. 

My Crepe! We didn't "save room for dessert", so no chocolate crepes. 

Next stop, haircut! My first haircut since late March. (see pre-haircut picture above)

I love my haircut and the lady was so nice and it only cost 20 euro. Eric's friend/coworker, Christelle, and now my friend, came with me to help translate which was quite entertaining for me and stressful for Christelle. But I think it all worked out.

Christelle got a haircut too! 

Um, we both got haircuts!

Back at Christelle's friend's apartment for a little birthday bakery goodness. Please note single free standing candle for me to blow out.Eric had the very cool/good idea that we should go out for a traditional multi-course french meal. This was our 1st course: Aperitif. I think we were supposed to order a liquor too, but we didn't. (Tip: if you go for a formal french meal, don't fill up on bread at all.)
The menu lets you order from different selections for a set price, there were about 3 choices for every course and 3 of us so we got one of each and rotated. Christelle had to explain to the waitress that we were American, so that she wouldn't die of shock at our manners. These were our Hors d'oeuvres: escargot with salad (not normal, usually its served in the shell with butter and green stuff) I'm gonna butcher it if I try and tell you what the other two were, but I liked the one with bread and dip best, then the salad with something that looks like bacon, BUT IS NOT BACON! And last the escargot. If you go to France, do eat escargot, but the traditional way. Just close your eyes and pick up the tiny fork.These were our main courses. This one was only my 2nd favorite, but everyone else's 1st. It was egg and fish with potatoes. This was not what we wanted to order, but our 1st choice was no longer available, 

so we ATE PIGEON! I know, I know. I didn't like it, I didn't eat much, it was not like normal meat? Is that a good enough description? But I did enjoy walking down the street the next day, yelling at pigeons "Out of my way or I'll eat you!"This was my favorite, to me it tasted kinda like meatloaf. I'm sure french chefs are rolling over in their graves everywhere because of this blog, but its the best I can do.

So when dessert came around, I thought "I'll be french and order cheese and fruit for dessert." And this is what they brought me? I've been introduced to a thing called "Creme Fresh" kinda like yogurt cheese, but nevertheless confusing to moi.

And everyone's personal favorite: Creme Brulee!And fudgey chocolate cake, I'm glad we were splitting 3 ways, this is too much for 1 person.So thanks Eric! Great birthday present! And to say it in french "It wasn't bad."

The next day after we waddled home from our large spectacular meal, we went with a few of Eric's coworkers and friends to a festival in another city. It was interesting. My camera battery died, so not too many pictures, which I find devastating and unacceptable. But here's a few. It was a festival to celebrate flight in this area of the country for 50 years...yeah, I know....anyway.

We just thought this part of the parade was hilarious. It was a Romanian group, but they didn't have anything, no dance, no music, no throwing of swag. They just clapped. It was like someone was like "Guys, we have these awesome outfits, but that's it, we need something else. I know! We'll just clap our hands in no actual rhythm and they'll love us!" 

Um, so this man/baby was racing around in front of the parade shooting people with water/tears/milk? I think....

This is a picture of the band that you can't see in the following video.

So there's really not much to see in this video but the music is cool and they only had like drums and bells etc. 

Ok, now for a seriously exciting part of my birthday. My roommate in the U.S., 

Jessie sent me an apron with owls on it, I have always wanted a super cute apron.

And the 2nd best part is when I opened it up and put it on all kinds of homemade

birthday cards fell out from my friends at home. Thanks so much everyone!

Here's a picture of exactly what happened, exactly when it happened.

Note floor covered in cards and ear to ear grin.

Ok, and finally I think my birthday is over with the free gift of Harry Potter.

A woman at my brother's office gave him 2 free movie tickets and we decided

to go see Harry Potter in french, because originally we decided it would be a

waste of money for me to go see it in french, but since now we weren't wasting 

any money we decided to go see it. We sat off to the side and Eric translated the 

whole thing. He did a good job, plus I know the characters and I've read the book.

But seriously I think the last 2 Harry Potter movies have had no endings, just like

"Ok, there was two hours of Harry Potter, no ending, see you next year."

Here's an illegal taste of watching Harry Potter in french.

I'm not sure what's up for the next blog, but I have lots to blog about so we'll see.  

Home Sweet Limoges, Tour de France & Bastille Day!

So finally I arrive in Limoges. The very first thing we did after arriving was rush off to see the Tour de France. I expected it to be a mob scene and that maybe we had left too late to avoid being crammed against sweaty bodies trying to sneak a peak. But actually Limoges is pretty small and we only had to squeeze a little bit to sit ride on the curb of the road and watch the police blow whistles at anyone who tried to cross the street. It was pretty entertaining. Only a few people would turn around and go back when the police blew their whistle a few people would just turn their back and waltz across pretending they couldn't hear the whistle. One guy just blatantly walked across and when he was halfway just said "Well I'm already across now aren't I?" (french, translated by my brother of course)

Here we are waiting for everything to start. (Eric wearing a nifty cap we caught flying through the air at us.) And of course this is before this is before the whistle was blown at us for having our feet in the street. Which is actually a good idea to move because the cyclists come pretty close to the edge of the sidewalk. 

Here are the poor people who are strapped on to the floats with harnesses and are forced to do clever dances to make you look at their advertisements. In situations like this I always wonder, what was the person doing when he fell off and caused all future float dancers to wear harnesses?

I'm glad we didn't go out of our way to see the Tour de France. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty cool, but its over in like 3 seconds. Whoosh! Gone. I honestly don't feel like I saw it because I just held down the shutter button the entire time, so the only reason I even know I saw the Tour de France is that I have pictures to prove it to myself. 

The best part was the parade of sponsors who threw stuff at us. I was sad I didn't catch any candy or anything useful but here's a picture of everything we did catch. 

This one flew right into my brother's hand. No scooping it out from under some little kids, he got this one fair and square.

I thought this lady was awesome because she bought every Tour de France thing they were selling and was still looking for more.

Oh also I apologize for the giant picture of Lance Armstrong's plastic backside. I think this was passing as we arrived and it was the best I could do. But I feel like the sponsor created image of Lance is important because I don't actually believe we saw him in the race. If anyone can identify him in my pictures, please let me know because I think they let him sleep in one of the buses and then pull him out for the more high publicity cities. 

And here they come!

As much as in my mind, I would like to believe this is an awesome picture of Lance, I just don't think it is. Let me know if you can spot anyone I should take note of.

And there they go!

And now for a quick tour of Limoges...

This picture taken from the bridge near where we stay.

And this is a picture of the awesome bridge from the other awesome bridge. By the way cobblestone everywhere does not equal good for me who is a fan of paper-thin flip flops.In the picture below, do you see that castle-y looking thing in the upper right corner? Yeah, that's where I freakin' live! I'm that awesome. I'm not joking. It was built to be a home for retired priests, but now it is divided into thirds, the priests live in the middle, high school students live in one third (we don't know why they don't live at home) and translated, we live in the "Hall of the Young Workers" section. It's pretty awesome, it's what we all dreamed about in college. Living in a dorm without actually having to go to class. Well, everyone but me has to go to work, but I spend my time in the library/McDonald's blogging to you! It's great because there are tons of young people around to be friends with and most nights we can get together and all cook dinner in the central kitchen.

Limoges is famous for its porcelain/enamel dishes. Here it is called émail. 

Pronounced pretty much; e-mail. 

But what then do they call e-mail? Answer: Mail. 

But what do they call mail? Post. 

Eric and I viewing some Limoges porcelain.

Does anyone know how I can register for dishes in another country, for a wedding that is not actually happening? I found my pattern. 

So cathedrals, kind of a big deal in Europe, but round sculptures are new and awesome to me! Please note how tan I am, this will probably never happen again in my life, so relish it people.

And last but not least Bastille Day! Just a few pictures of fireworks. I also left the shutter open for a few of the pictures and got some crazy shots. Enjoy!

You might need to turn your sound down to watch this video of the fire works. I have to say I think they are the most awesome fireworks I've ever seen, and they even got all my friends to stop talking on my videos because the fireworks were too amazing to ignore.

Facebook album: Limoges, Bordeaux, Tour de France, Bastille Day

Click here

--or--

copy & paste:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2360928&id=12604326&l=73d1769917

Up next: An entire blog devoted to what went down on my birthday in France!

From Munich, Germany to Bordeaux, France

I've been in France for about a month now and I am just now able to write a blog about France. My 1st stop in France was Bordeaux, well actually there was a 9 hour delay on my 31 hour bus ride from Munich, Germany to Bordeaux, France. Also being as I was planning to be in one place in Europe for a year and it didn't turn out that way, I was dragging 3 rolling suitcases and a laptop bag with me everywhere. It was actually easier than you would think, but I attracted lots of stares. Here's a picture of Eric helping me out once I was in Bordeaux. A man stopped us on the street and asked us "Who's idea was that?" Eric pointed to me and said "Her's" He nodded and said "Yeah, women are the smart ones." The best part is they don't fall over if you have to let go for a few minutes. 

So since I was arriving during my brother's long weekend we decided to pick Bordeaux to meet instead of Limoges, where he lives. So back to my 31 hour bus ride that was supposed to last 27 hours. I know I slept at some point but it wasn't great sleep. 

As you can see from my lovely Google map, a straight shot from Munich to Bordeaux would take about 12 hours, but if you'll read on you will come to understand the common French phrase "Why do something simply, when you can make it complicated?"

No one told me that all transportation in France goes through Paris and there was a 7 hour delay in Paris that turned into 9 hours because of traffic. I made a few friends after we got off the bus in Paris. The bus station had no lockers for us to put our luggage in and we had too much to take it with us while exploring Paris, so we couldn't go anywhere. I actually went to Paris in 2005 so I wasn't too disappointed, but still, our only option was to wait for McDonald's to open at 7 (it was 6:00 in the morning). One of my new friends was greatly in need of cigarettes and he almost didn't make it until the stores opened. So we finally ordered breakfast and took turns exploring the shopping center and sleeping/watching the luggage. We finally dragged all our luggage back to the bus station an hour before our scheduled departure and then found out we had a 2 hour delay due to heavy holiday traffic. (Bastille Day) 

Here's a picture of some stopped traffic.

I have to admit I was a little amused as I watched my future friend Samuel of Sweden yell at the bus lady because he was going to miss his train in Bordeaux that was taking him on to the next leg of his journey, to Spain I think. When we finally got to Bordeaux my brother had somehow accidently booked a room with 3 twin beds and we let Samuel sleep in the 3rd bed for the few short hours he had between arriving in Bordeaux and the next train out. I think we arrived at 2 in the morning and the next train was at 7. When we woke up we found 20 euros from him which I think paid for the room that night. So thanks Samuel, I hope you had a good trip!

I also have to tell you another story about my 2 other friends on the bus, Rene and Helhem. (I have no idea of the spelling of Helhem, but it is pronounced eel-hem.) Rene is german and Helhem is from Morocco. They met while Rene was on vacation in Morocco. Helhem was a relative of Rene's friend and she showed them around her city. After two weeks of together, Rene returned to Germany, emailed her for a month or two, then returned to Morocco to ask Helhem to marry him and she said yes. I stared at her in shock at McDonald's and said "You married him after two weeks?!" Traveling can make you get pretty personal pretty fast. (Me with my questioning and her with her future husband apparently.) Anyway they were kind enough to share their beer with me on the bus after we had been sitting in traffic for hours and hours. And if anyone knows me at all you understand how bored I would have to be before I would drink a beer of any kind voluntarily. 

So anyway, here's a picture of me hiding my beer from the bus driver. 

Also I ate this thing and it was really good, no idea what it is, they are everywhere though. I only bought it because it looked gross. 

So after all that Eric and I are now in Bordeaux. The next day we went to Wine School. There was only one other person in our English speaking class, a Canadian. I swear our teacher thought we were idiots. We knew nothing. He made us play a game where we had to identify the smells of random pots of gel. It was to help us identify the smells and tastes in wine. I swear every one of those things smelled like soap or tree bark. Apparently they were things like; cherries, cinnamon, leather, lavender, mint, honey, and various other stuff. 

It was fun, but we got the giggles when he made us gurgle our wine and spit. When asked if we liked them, I had to say no to every single one except the one at the end that tasted like candy. I wanted to drink all of mine but I was embarrassed to be seen drinking the wine when I was supposed to be spitting, so I did a combo of spit half drink and drink the other half in my mouth. But then I realized how classy I was and regretfully poured the rest down the sink. We each got our own sink and light with fancy buttons. I didn't comprehend any of the stuff about where grapes come from to make which wines, but I did learn maybe 3 things:

1. Red wine does not come from red grapes, the insides are clear just like every other grape you've ever seen. They make wine red by getting the juice out and then boiling/steaming the juice over the skins 3-5 times depending on how red the wine is going to be.

2. You do not make a blush wine by mixing red and white wine. Our teacher asked us in class how we thought it happened, and I could tell that was the answer he expected to hear, but I didn't dare say it, but my brother was "brave" enough to say it. The teacher promptly smacked his forehead and muttered some swears in french. Then proceeded to tell us it is the same process as red wine with the boiling juice over the skins just done only 1 or 2 times. 

3. I can now tell approximately how old a wine is by its color. 

Here are 3 videos put together in 1. First is our teacher demonstrating how to taste the wine, then me trying & then Eric. 

After wine tasting I believe we stupidly chose to eat at a bakery, and wanted to walk with our food, but we were somehow forced to sit down outside with no shade at one of two tables situated on a street corner. We ate pretty fast in that hot sun and left, not typical anywhere in Europe where you are expected to sit and eat for hours. 

Then we walked around Bordeaux, saw some old stuff, cathedrals, sculptures etc. And then my favorite part: playing in this fountain that shot water up and then just gently misted water to cool you off, then there was nothing but giant puddles left and they slowly drained away and then it all started over. I love the feeling of playing in a fountain, its like "Am I allowed to do this?"

Oh and then we went to the beach. We got ice cream there and they had some unusual flavors so of course I had to try them. We decided on Litchi fruit (good decision) and grapefruit (bad decision) Ice cream should not make your tongue hurt. 

Here's another flavor we found.

A few pictures from the beach, this 1st one had to be cropped to make some of the sunbathers more appropriate to be viewed on the internet....
Some former beach residents...Eric made a sandcastle with real glass windows and roof tiles.

Up next...Limoges, Tour de France & Bastille Day!