Aller Bordeaux!

         I have never ever in my life been as cold as I was when I went to this football game.  My friends and I went to the Bordeaux-Nice match du foot at the stadium in Bordeaux and it was pretty fun.  We had seats very close to the field and so for the first half we were almost directly behind the goal for les Girondins (the Bordeaux team).  It was fun seeing all of the rowdy fans, but security definitely kept things under wraps.  They had security, police, riot control, everything they might need for any reason.  I am pretty sure a terrorist threat could have been issued at the stadium and we still would have been safe.  It got so cold though, I am pretty sure it got to be between –5 and 0 degrees Celsius at the stadium, my body did not understand what was going on.  We were all wearing so many layers, and yet we couldn’t feel our feet the entire half hour it took to get back home.  Fortunately the Girondins won 2-0 so, it mostly made up for it.  It was definitely worth the experience! 

Fancy Dinner Party

         As part of our fees for the education abroad program, we paid for the excursion to St. Emilion and a swanky dinner.  Tuesday night was that swanky dinner, and it was fantastic.  It was held at a restaurant tucked away upstairs from the newspaper le Sud-Ouest.  We started the evening with scallops over mashed potatoes (which the French simply call purée).  With the appetizer we also had an interesting drink that I did not catch the name of, but it consisted of a very sweet dark red liqueur to which you add white wine.  The main dish was a white fish with a cream sauce and vegetables and that was served with red wine.  The dessert was absolutely heavenly: white chocolate ice cream with a petit cannelé (which is a specialty of Bordeaux) and a coffee flavored cake/tart/tiramisou type of deliciousness.  Here is what the actual menu said:

- Noix de Saint-Jacques poêlées au pressé de topinambours, jus de rôti aux pignons de pin torréfiés

- Pavé de lieu jaune rôti, embeurré de légumes tournés sauce champagne

- Craquant noisette au café du Guatemala, glace chocolat blanc

I do realize that most of my posts are about food, but honestly, it really is that good!  

 Courtesy of my friend Suzy, here are some of my favorite girls! (L-R Lea, Me, Sandy, Coral, and Emily)

Les Soldes

     Many of you may know about les soldes, but for those of you who don’t: les soldes happens two times a year-once in July and once in January/February (aka now).  During this time stores have ridiculous sales, up to 70% off high quality clothes, shoes, accessories, everything.  Rue St. Catherine (that swanky street I talked about earlier) is completely packed now during this time because everyone is shop-shop-shopping! My friends and I have been walking around and doing a little bit of shopping ourselves, but we realize that we have to do this during the middle of the day because after work the street is packed from side to side.  It is absolutely crazy! Some of these sales are really amazing though, and they keep getting better and better, apparently during the 3-5 of February, everything gets marked down again at least another 30%! France is pretty cool when it comes to purchasing things too because there is no tax, if the tag says 10 euros, that’s what you pay, not 11.34 or something silly like that.  I hope that I can do a little shopping here while the sales are going because these reductions are ridiculous!

¡French-Mex!

            Living in France is great.  The food is delicious—cheese, baguettes, cured meats, pastries—they have almost everything.  I say almost because they do not have beans of the black or refried variety or true tortilla chips and chunky salsa.  Coming from Southern California, all of us UC students eat a ton of Mexican food and we have all been missing it so we decided to have a pseudo-Mexican-food lunch.  We found tomato-y/onion-y rice, tortillas, cheddar cheese, and the weirdest tortilla chips I have ever eaten PLUS we made some bomb guacamole with bell peppers and onions.  We searched long and hard for black beans, pinto beans or refried beans, but we didn’t find any.  We finally settled on baked beans that surprisingly did not turn out too bad.  It was not bad, but it was definitely not Mexican food.  I am just glad that I have a wonderful Uncle Keith and Auntie Barbara who are sending me re-fried beans so that we can do this Mexican food dealio again only better!  For dessert we bought a galette des rois (it’s like a marzipan tart/pie thing with a ceramic figurine baked into it) and we designed our own drink that we have thus named: the Frenchmex.  Really the Frenchmex has nothing to do with France or Mexico, but it was created during frenchmex lunch so it makes sense.  The drink consists of pear or apricot nectar purée and cider—it’s really good and the nectar we found is ridiculously delicious.  When we cut the galette I found the fevre (ceramic figure) for the first time! Which means that I am going to have good luck…and I got to wear a crown.  After eating we were so stuffed that all we could do was sit around for a while and let the food coma set in.  

Making Mom Proud

          This entry is dedicated to my mother, Linda Mocilnikar and to Lynn Gallandt, Karen Day, Scotty Morgan, and really all of the ‘Dillo women:

Today my girlfriends and I went on a (literal) day trip to Bayonne.  I call it a literal day trip because we left at 7:30 in the morning, before sunrise, and came back at around 7:30 just after sunset.  Bayonne is about a two-hour train ride south-east from Bordeaux and is in the Basque region of France meaning that there is a lot of Spanish and French influence. Bayonne is known for it’s jambon (ham), chocolate, and walking sticks.  We got to Bayonne at around 9:30, but the tourism office didn’t open until 10 so we went to a little café and were immediately introduced to the hospitality of Bayonne.  In Bordeaux, people are friendly, but they get flustered with strangers easily and are welcoming to friends of friends, but not as much to strangers—this is not the way in Bayonne, they are very inviting and warm to everyone.  Once the tourism office opened we looked up places to go and wound up walking all the way around the city.  We saw churches and a castle, found a marché, and all of it was so nice and quaint.  We went to a little café again to try some chocolatines and gateaux basques and realized why Bayonne is known for their chocolate, we knew that we were going to a chocolate factory later though so we tried not to over-indulge.  For lunch we decided to get tapas because we knew of the heavy Spanish and French influence there so we walked up and down the river and finally found this little café where we ate tapas (including the well known jambon) and some delicious sangria.  We were definitely being obvious tourists to the region, but the waitress and servers were all so nice and were fully accepting of our silly behavior.  After lunch we decided to go to the chocolate factory and take a tour (including a degoustation (tasting)).  The factory itself was pretty neat and we learned a lot of information about from where they import their cacao.  It cost 5 euros for the tour but really the degoustation is where we got our money's worth.  We tried so many different types of chocolate from all over the world, then we tried truffles, and finally we tried all of the different kinds of sheet chocolate that they had.  We could barely walk out of the factory because we ate SO much chocolate!!  After that we went back to the train station, picked up our tickets and got on the train (after having yet another petite café at the train station brasserie).  I would highly recommend Bayonne for anyone who is traveling in the Basque region: the food is rich, the sangria is cool, the chocolate is plentiful, and the people are friendly as ever.  

Today it happened to be between –2 to 4 degrees Celsius but fortunately there was not much moisture, only a few very frozen girlies and flowers...

Excursion to St. Emilion!

            Our Centre de Californie program put on an excursion for everyone in our program to St. Emilion today with a trip to a winery! St. Emilion is this medieval city on a hill.  There is a huge bell tower and a beautiful semi-walled city with old cobble-stone roads and a gorgeous view.  We took a bus to the city and then took a small tour of the church and medieval locations.  St. Emilion founded the city and lived underneath it for a while in a small room with a rock for a bed.  The church and chapel are built into the hill so when you walk in you think you are inside a structure and when you walk out you realize that you were semi-underground.  We also got to go into the catacombs where martyrs were were laid to rest, but there weren't any bodies or bones or anything because they were taken out a long time ago, all that was left were niches.  Unfortunately we could not take pictures inside the chapel or the church out of respect for St. Emilion, but it was very interesting!  After walking around the city for a while, we got back onto the bus to drive to the winery side note—it was freezing that day, definitely the coldest day yet.  It is definitely colder in the countryside than in the city center, if I had to guess I would say that it was 29-30 degrees The winery is located near St. Emilion which is located in the Libourne area if you are looking at it on a map.  This particular one works in cooperation with 140 of the 720 vineyards in the area.  That is one of the biggest differences I have noticed between California vineyards and vignobles is that in France there are a ton of very small vignobles that all put their grapes into a handful of wineries.  I don’t know if it works the same way in the states.  At this winery we took a tour and learned all about how to make wine—in french.  At the end of the tour, we all got to try some of the wine produced there, and I must say it was quite good! I bought myself a bottle for who knows what! I am still having a terrific time here, I never want to leave it is just so fantastic!!!

La Bourse

     Every Saturday there is a farmers market at St. Michel, which is right next to Place de la Bourse.  La Bourse is a huge building which was once/still is the port authority type place.  Across the street from La Bourse is this very shallow “fountain” it’s really more like a puddle, but it is called le mirroir because La Bourse is fully reflected in it when you are standing by it.  At night the Bourse becomes illuminated which looks absolutely beautiful when reflected in la mirroir.  La Bourse is also right up along the quai (pronounced 'kay') which is a walkway that runs all along the river and just down the way from La Bourse is Pont de Pierre (a very old bridge built in the 1820’s).  St. Michel is this beautiful gothic cathedral with a large plaza in front where the farmers market is held.  This farmers market is much more ethnic than many others in Bordeaux because it is in the african district.  There were a lot of boeurs and maghrebans (immigrants from the middle east).  My host family brought that up when I told them about going to the market (my french family is such a quintessential french family, it's not even funny.  I love it).  On sundays when we go to la campagne  we stop by a marché but it is much different, it's cutesy and very neighborly in a different way.  It was fun though and I had the best banana of my life there.  We will probably go back soon too because it is the perfect place to have a picnic!

AH SCHOOL!

    Choosing classes in France is dumb.  We are in the process of picking our classes for the next semester and it is getting rather ridiculous.  I feel like our advisors, Nicole and Joëlle (who are fabulous by the way) had so much information to give to us that that basically regurgitated a ton of important information at us…in French.  The French don’t do anything online really, at least not for international students, so our advisors are e-mailing us schedules and classes.  We also don’t technically register, we show up on the first day, say who we are and that we are foreign exchange students and then go to the class.  The French are definitely not as stressed about signing up for classes as American students are seeing as how I will be signing up for fall classes in June, not the week before school.  Fortunately though regardless of which classes I take, as long as they are in French, they will transfer over and count for my major.  Some people have a huge problem with this because either their school is very strict or just their specific program is very strict. 

Our ILP (intensive language course) had the final exam today which means that I already have knocked out a class for my major! Tomorrow we are going wine tasting at St. Emilion so there will be lot’s more pictures to come!

C’est gavé cool!

   So basically my life here in France just got even more awesome.  My French mom Maylis invited me to the countryside with her and Patrick to visit with her mom and the rest of her family.  I thought it would be cool to see la compagne and decided it would be a good experience to tag along…oh how correct I was.  We went to Libourne first which is about a half an hour outside of Bordeaux.  There we met up with Maylis’ sister, brother-in-law and their two kids Florence and François (they are both maybe a little bit older than me).  We had drinks there and then headed out again.  I had no idea what was going on the whole time, so I actually didn’t find out who those people were until after we got back in the car and I asked what the heck we were doing.  We drive again for a good twenty minutes, passing by these beautiful cottages/chateaux and small vineyards and then we stop and make a left into a vineyard.  As it turns out Maylis grew up on a vineyard and her mom still owns it and her eldest son works on it.  It is beautiful, Patrick said that I looked like a Japanese tourist because I started taking pictures, but I knew that I had to.  Apparently, they visit la campagne every Sunday for mass and lunch.  Today we had pumpkin soup followed by choucroute (an Alsace dish consisting of different types of sausages and meats layed atop saurkraut…so…good).  After dinner we had some gateau avec du crème and a galette du roi which is a specialty during this time of year known as épiphanie.  La galette du roi has a small charm/figurine baked into it and whoever finds it in their piece must wear the crown that comes with the galette.  I basically ate way too much and almost went into a food coma had I not decided to walk around and take some pictures.  

Once again, I don’t really think these pictures do much justice to how amazing this place is.  The building is very old, built in the 1600’s.  In France, there are a lot of very small vignomes instead of the rather large ones we see here in California.  I tried to explain to my French family the reasons why I find this so beautiful, but I don’t think they really understand how young the United States really is and how we don’t have anything like these places back home.  I really hope I can join them for mass one Sunday and visit again, this trip was just so amazing.

Experiencing it all

     Last night my friends and I planned a night out in Bordeaux, and it turned out to be really awesome.  My family had already planned a dinner party with two couples (Marc, Françoise, Victoire, et Brigitte) so I decided to stay at my house a little bit longer than expected which is good because it turned out to be a great lesson on how the French entertain.  The eldest son of my French parents got married this past summer so we watched the wedding video, which was kind of cool for me to see that too.  Apparently at French weddings, big hats are à la mode, there were so many! While we were watching the video we were eating paté on croutons and croutons with fromage et du jambon (the whole thing had been baked though so it was like bacon…it was so good) and drinking champagne.  For dinner we started with a paté and bread and a white wine.  I felt so refined at this point though because I thought to myself, “oh white wine, I wonder if we are having fish”, and wouldn’t you know it, we were totally having fish.  I had to leave after this part of the meal though because my friends and I were all meeting up at La Victoire at 10, and it was 10:30.  So I left to go and the moment I stood up I knew that I was a bit tipsy.  Fortunately I bought a French cell phone, so I called mes amis on my way to the tram and found out that they were at a sports bar at La Victoire.  When I got to the bar there were a lot of people, but not even half as many as when I left.  There were so many students there! The French universities do exams differently than in the United States.  They wait until after vacation to begin exams, so they finish school before the holidays and then begin finals after new years.  Yesterday was the end of exams for l’Université de Bordeaux 2, which is the medicine and psychology school that is the reason why it was so ridiculous.  The bar that we went to was also very weird.  It was a sports bar with a tiny dance floor in the middle, but of course college students like to push our limits so the dance floor expanded through the entire middle of the place so it was nearly impossible to get from the front to the back and get to the bar to order drinks.  I met up with my friends though and had a few drinks and danced a little (also very different from the U.S., there is definitely not as much sexual pressure in France which is nice).  When we left at around one, there was a huge line just to get into the bar, apparently ten is early to start the evening and one is way too early to leave, but leave we did, which was good because we planned a trip to a farmers market at Saint Michel and I needed to get up at 8!  I am so happy that I am finally learning about French culture, I mean I love my grammar class but going out and experiencing Bordeaux is so important for becoming bilingual and really understanding France as a country.  I only hope that once classes start I will be able to make a few French friends and really learn what their lives are like. 

J’aime bien la France!

Mes nouveaux amis!

What’s even better than getting internet…

     Getting your luggage after three and a half days of wearing the same clothes!! It’s true, I honestly do not know how British Airways did it--I was on a one hour trip to Paris and there were maybe fifteen people on the airplane, but what can you do, c’est la vie! I had my first intensive language programe (ILP) class today and it went pretty well.  Not to toot my own French horn, but I am one of the better speakers in my class.  Our professeur is pretty harsh on those who are not very good speakers.  One student in particular is not very good at speaking so whenever we are correcting our work out-loud she calls on him first and makes him read a lot more.  I try to speak as often as I can even though I know I am really not speaking well.  I guess it’s better to speak a lot and realize when you are incorrect than to never speak and never know, right?  My French mom corrects me and I gladly accept those corrections, she wants to help me speak better which is good, but also funny because she wont let Jean-Lucien speak English to me.  I am making a lot of friends from other UC’s too and hopefully when the other classes start I will meet French and international students.  I still have not had any time to walk around and take pictures and learn about the city, but this Friday night we are all planning to meet up for drinks and then Saturday we are going to a farmers market at St. Michel then picnic-ing afterwards as long as it is not raining.  I will get more pictures up just as soon as I can.  The previous pictures are only a fraction of how truly amazing it is here.    

Et maintenant, je fais le devoir!

Time capsule

Today was my first full day in Bordeaux and I must say that I truly lucked out on this whole studying-abroad-in-France thing.  It is absolutely gorgeous here.  Firstly, my home is amazing,  I live above the store that my host parents run, it is three stories and the third level is where the two lycéens and I sleep (in different rooms of course).  The house is very nice, from what I have heard from my new friends I probably have one of the nicer homestays.  It is very clean and pretty modern, which surprisingly is hard to find in France.  The location is the best part, though.  To get to the university I must walk to the tramway, which is a good ten to fifteen minutes but it is well worth it.  I go straight through the middle of the beautiful Centre de Bordeaux.  There are beautiful old buildings, and to get to the tram a have to walk past le Grand Théâtre, le Grand hotel de Bordeaux, and Rue St. Catherine (which is apparently a very swanky shopping street sort of like a cross between rodeo drive and third street promenade I would guess).  I definitely got more than I could have ever anticipated.  The only problem is that the internet is being dumb and I wont get my luggage until tomorrow, so yes I am still wearing the clothes from a 12+ hour trip.  That is why this blog has become a time capsule because I am writing this and posting it later.  Unlike most time capsules though I hope to be unearthed sooner rather than later and not be stuck in dirt.  

J’espère que l’internet travail tôt!

I took some pictures on my walk home to show you just how gorgeous it is.  I don’t usually like overcast weather but somehow in France it makes the scenery that much more romantic.

                                      

Part deux de mon voyage

            Well the first part of my trip went swimmingly, unfortunately the second part was not as good.  I got on the plane to France just fine and I got off with enough time to get to the train, malheureusement, my luggage did not arrive with me.  I would like to make a shout-out now to my friend Sara Stanford and thank her for the good advice to bring an extra shirt and underwear in my carry-on just in case such an occasion arose.  Hopefully it will be coming today to my address…hopefully, Because my bag did not come I had to fill out paper work which took about a half an hour, leaving me 30 minutes to get to the station, purchase my ticket and get on the train.  After much confusion and some running (thank goodness I didn’t have my luggage I guess!), I got on the train and half-slept all the way to Bordeaux where I met my family.  Mr. And Mme. Michaud are wonderful! They are very nice and speak slowly to me so that I can understand them.  I am also living with two French high school boys, Jean-Lucien and Andreá.  Jean-Lucien speaks some English and was able to help me out last night at dinner.  Dinner was interesting…delicious and interesting.  There was a lot of cheese, and a lot of things that I had no idea what they were, but they were delicious and I hadn’t eaten for a few hours so I was grateful.  I have a very busy day ahead of me now, hopefully my internet will be working later and my luggage will come. 

Au revoir!

Captain’s log stardate 04.01.2011

            I have arrived a Heathrow! This airport is possibly the stupidest one I have ever been in.  Granted it is under construction, but they try to cram in too many ideas like buses and terminals and computers.  I was dropped off at terminal 1, walked 5-10 minutes to the bus stop, took the ten minute bus ride to terminal 5, went through security where I was poked and prodded a great deal, and then got to departures.  At departures, they apparently only have a few gates because you have to wait until 30 min before boarding until they display your departure gate…très étrange. My ten-hour plane flight went pretty well though!  I think I may be in love…with air new Zealand that is! The food was awesome, the flight attendants were awesome, the movies/games/etc were awesome! It was a pretty great experience I even had a glass of wine with my beef and mashed potato dinner.  I made a friend before my flight out who said I should get a French love…haha we will see how that goes.  I keep getting very confused because of the time difference.  I should be very tired because it is 4 am in LA, but it is noon here!  I just hope that I am able to get some sleep soon, I am running on maybe two hours and three cups of tea.  I guess we will have to see how the rest of the day pans out as I begin the second leg of my trip.    (haha…leg..trip…ha)

À demain!