I have a theory that most great academic work is undertaken in order to prove somebody else wrong. There's nothing quite like the rush that comes from getting to do an obnoxious "told you so" dance, and--if you're a nerd like me--that joy is easily multiplied tenfold when you get to footnote your gloating with sources and facts and snooty research. (Or, in this case, "research" with air quotes.)
It's not unlike a sugar rush, you might say. What an appropriate analogy, because we're talking about Halloween candy! You might think tonight is just a night for costumes and free candy (or, if you're an adult, costumes and booze), but for me, it was the scene of a grand experiment.
BACKGROUND
Like all great experiments, mine had its roots in a great debate. But first, I need to set the scene. My sister and I, being your typical millennials, both live at home still. The difference between living at home as a teenager and living at home as an adult, however, is that when Halloween rolls around, you are now in charge of buying the candy instead of just eating it with wild abandon.
But since communication is apparently not one of Tracey's and my strong points, we did not coordinate on the purchase of our Halloween candy. Which meant that we ended up with ten bags of various fun-sized chocolate bars, a fact that I did not discover until about a week before Halloween, when I mentioned to my father that I'd bought some candy.
"I think Tracey did, too," he said. "But what did you get?"
"100 Grands," I said. "3 Musketeers. Yorks."
"YORKS?!" my dad shouted. He was driving at the time, and I half-expected him to dramatically slam on the brakes in indignation and disbelief. "You bought Yorks? That's the worst candy ever!"
"I like Yorks!" I insisted. "Who doesn't love peppermint? I never used to get them in my treat bag as a kid--"
He snorted. I ignored him.
"--and I would have liked to, so I got them as a service to all the other neighborhood kids."
"I was listening to the radio the other day," he said, disregarding my impassioned defense of peppermint patties, "and they voted those the worst candies. What else did you get?"
"Butterfingers," I said, feeling confident in this choice, at least.
"You got all the terrible ones!" he cackled. "That was like the third worst on the list."
"I've never met someone who doesn't like Butterfingers!" I insisted. "I mean, maybe some of my friends don't really like them like them, but I've never met anyone who vehemently dislikes them."
"I hope Tracey picked better candies than you," was the only rejoinder I got.
The next day, I had the chance to ask Tracey which candies she'd bought. "Milky Ways, Kit-Kats, Snickers, 100 Grands, Crunch, and Butterfingers," she said. "Why, what did you get?"
"100 Grand, Butterfingers, 3 Musketeers, and Yorks," I said.
"YORKS?!" she hooted. "What are you, eighty-five years old?!"
"WHAT DID I TELL YOU?" my dad shouted, appearing out of nowhere to gloat.
"Do you hate children?" Tracey said. "Do you even want people to come to our house?"
It was then that I decided to take on what is undoubtedly the greatest, most relevant, and most important experiment of our time: I was going to prove that Yorks are a legitimate Halloween candy choice, dammit, or I was going to die trying.
THE (100) GRAND EXPERIMENT
I was the sole person in charge of distributing candy this year, given that everyone else conveniently had plans to be out of the house during prime trick-or-treating time. So I put my plan in motion.
I emptied all the available 100 Grands and Butterfingers into the candy basket without bothering to count them--since Tracey and I had both picked them, they weren't part of the argument. I decided to put in equal numbers of all the other candies and observe which, if any, were left at the end of the night. Due to the fact that Tracey had taken some of her candy to distribute among her coworkers, I had only 14 Snickers and 14 Kit-Kats left to work with, so I put 14 of each type of candy into the basket, mixed things up as well as I could, and waited for 6:00 to roll around.
The first hour or so went by pretty uneventfully. The kids were told they could each take one piece of candy, although I saw a couple sneak two. (Clearly scientific variables mean NOTHING to these children.) At 6:55--nearly the halfway point for the trick-or-treating window in our town--I took a tally of what remained (excluding, once again, the 100 Grands and the Butterfingers). Here's what was left:
Snickers = 11 (79% remaining)
Kit Kat = 3 (21% remaining)
Milky Way = 7 (50% remaining)
Crunch = 3 (21% remaining)
Tracey's candy = 43% remaining
Yorks = 7 (50% remaining)
3 Musketeers = 5 (36% remaining)
Renée's candy = 43% remaining
OH SNAP!
Although it's still anyone's game in terms of statistics, so far anecdotal evidence unfortunately appears to support the hypothesis that Yorks are "the worst candy ever," as I watched one little boy pick up a Yorks, realize what it was, debate putting it back, decide it would be rude, and put it into his bag with a palpable mixture of disappointment and vague resentment.
Things really got interesting around 7:15, when a group of around 30 kids traveling in what can only be described as a herd descended upon my doorstep. Two little girls argued over the last Yorks in the basket--score one for Yorks!--and, as a side note, about a quarter of the group went absolutely ga-ga over the Butterfingers, saying we were the first house to have them. Weird.
Needless to say, at 7:20 the breakdown of remaining candy was dramatically different.
Snickers = 1* (< 1 % remaining)
Kit Kat = 0 (0% remaining)
Milky Way = 4 (29% remaining)
Crunch = 1 (< 1% remaining)
Tracey's candy = 11% remaining
*There were actually 2 Snickers of the original 14 remaining, but the package was wide open so I removed it from the basket. I'm many things, but I'm not the sort of person to feed children suspicious candy bars.
Yorks = 0 (0% remaining)
3 Musketeers = 1 (< 1% remaining)
Renée's candy = < 1 % remaining
At this point, we were running low on candy, so I had to add a few bars. I was all out of Snickers and Kit-Kats, though, so I just added 2 candies each of Milky Way, Crunch, Yorks, and 3 Musketeers. (All future percentages for those candies will therefore be calculated using a total of 16 candies instead of 14, because that's how math works. I think. I was an English major and we're talking about Halloween candy; you should really just take all of this with a grain of salt.)
After the giant pack of York-loving children departed, the rest of the night was pretty quiet, although I did have this gem of a conversation with three of the last trick-or-treaters of the night, all of whom were probably under seven or eight years old:
Girl: Are there any more Kit-Kats?
Me: No, not anymore. We had some earlier, but they went really quickly.
Girl, with the air of a defense attorney cross-examining a witness: But there WERE Kit-Kats at one point?
Me: Yeah, but they're all gone now.
Boy #1: Did the big kids get 'em?
Me: I think so.
Boy #2, arriving on the scene: I like Kit-Kats, too.
Me: I know, they're good! But we don't have any more.
Boy #2: I think I've got a Kit-Kat in here somewhere.
He rummages through his candy bag, finds a Kit-Kat, and holds it up for inspection.
Boy #2: There it is!
Me, at a loss: Yep, that's a Kit-Kat...!
Awkward pause as Boy #2 combs extensively through all the remaining candy in the basket.
Boy #2: I don't really like any of this candy.
Me: No?
Boy #2: Yeah. I guess I'll just...
He picks up a 100 Grand, puts it back, ignores his friends calling him impatiently from across the yard, picks up a Butterfinger, hesitates, starts to put it back, then bags it with a "what the hell, why not?" sort of attitude.
Boy #2: Thank you!
Me: ...!
Kids, man. They're priceless.
By the end of the night, the numbers were as follows:
Snickers = 0*/14 (0% remaining)
Kit Kat = 0/14 (0% remaining)
Milky Way = 1/16 (< 1 % remaining)
Crunch = 0/16 (0% remaining)
Tracey's candy = 0.01667% remaining
*Still one Snickers technically left that's not counting toward the total. But let's be real, it probably would have gone anyway.
Yorks = 0/16 (0% remaining)
3 Musketeers = 1/16 (< 1% remaining)
Renée's candy = 0.03125% remaining
CONCLUSION
So Tracey beat me, but only barely. We both finished with less than one percent of our candy remaining, and the thing that kept me from winning, it really must be noted, was NOT a Yorks Peppermint Patty. I can only conclude that Yorks are not the worst candy ever, and my family really needs to have more faith in my candy-picking abilities.
Now...here's to a statistics-free November!
And that's how nerds do Halloween.
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Friday, October 31, 2014
Friday, May 17, 2013
Eats Across Europe: Candy Edition, Part One
Candy--okay, chocolate--is a food group unto itself, I think you'll agree. I had no particular plans to research (read: eat my body weight in) candy bars when I started this trip, but one fateful afternoon at a Prague metro station changed everything. (EVERYTHING!) I was hungry and shaky and so jet lagged and out of it that I felt like I was standing on a ship at sea, rocking back and forth, when in reality I was standing on the very solid and stationary concrete floor of the Malostranska metro station. With blood sugar plummeting and stomach growling, I grabbed the first candy bar that looked palatable. I had no clue what it tasted like or what was in it, but I took one bite and I was in love.
Unfortunately I was still starving and out of it, but the Great Candy Love Affair had began. Since then I've been seizing every opportunity to sample new candy bars. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the sake of giving you, all six-and-a-half (Miss Jessalyn "I only look at the pictures"*) of my blog readers, a complete guide to European candy bars for your future travels. You are so very welcome.
Most of these (with the sad exception of Delissa) can be found in more than one country, so I've just labeled each with the country where I first tried it.
(*Jessalyn, best friend, I love you! Please keep looking at all my pictures. Kay, thanks.)
Kinder Milk Bars (Germany)
Yummy but inferior to KinderSurprise, which is pretty much the same in terms of flavor but of course comes with the added advantage of containing a prize. Apparently the US Customs will confiscate KinderSurprises, though, since they're choking hazards. (Really? REALLY?!)
Anyway, Kinder Milk Bars are standard but delicious milk chocolate candy bars with a white filling that is ostensibly like milk (albeit milk saturated with sugar and whatnot). Market Basket people, I hope this sounds good to you because this is what you're getting from me. (Bought a 30-pack at the duty free store at the airport for like 5€...score!)
Ritter Sport - Yogurt Flavor (Germany)
It really tastes like yogurt!!! I don't mean in the way people usually mean regarding candy, when they say something like, "This Fruit Roll-Up tastes like strawberries," when what they mean is, "It tastes like sugary [but delicious] strawberry flavoring." I mean that Ritter Sport Yogurt Flavor really tastes like yogurt sandwiched between layers of milk chocolate. It's got that perfect, sour yogurty tang to it. Which is good, because I bought it for breakfast at the duty-free store after sleeping all night at the airport. It was between the yogurt flavor and the cornflakes one, both of which seemed appropriate to the situation. I got the yogurt one because it sounded weirder. I sort of wish I'd gotten both. Über breakfast!
Delissa (Czech Republic)
Oh Delissa bars. I can't even begin to express my love for you in prose, so I won't even try. Poem time!
Chocolaty, wafery, hazelnut sweet,
I can think of no better candy to eat.
When I was hungry you came to my rescue,
To which all I can say is, "Delissa bar, bless you!"
Light and delicious with crispity crunch,
It is true that I once ate Delissas for lunch.
The nutritional value may be debatable,
But a candy this tasty is simply unhateable!
Noteworthy: autocorrect has learned how to spell Delissa. Not only that but it will correct other words to Delissa. My work here is done.
Also noteworthy: they come in white chocolate as well, but the filling for those appears to be coconut instead of hazelnut. Still good, but not quite as good as the original.
Knoppers (Germany)
Like layers of Vienna wafers but crunchier, alternated with a layer of chocolate hazelnut and a layer of milk cream. The bottom wafer is chocolate coated. Overall, Knoppers are all right but lack the poetry-inducing magic of Delissas.
Lion (France)
Made by Nestle, so my first thought was: why they don't distribute them in the US?! Upon reflection I realized it's probably because we already have them, we just call them 100 Grands. Lion bars are basically the same thing--chocolate outer coating, then a layer of crispy bits, then some weird but delicious caramel-nougat-hybrid sludge in the middle. I got a three-pack and ate one at breakfast time, one at lunch, and then one at senior citizen dinner time (4 pm on my stalled train). Lion: a candy bar for all meals!
Ritter Sport - Marzipan Flavor
About a month or two ago I bought some almond paste at Market Basket so I could make cookies. I had about 2 ounces left over, and those 2 ounces have been sitting in my fridge ever since, undisturbed except for when I'm craving something sweet but am trying to resist the urge to eat junk food. In these kinds of situations, I will slice myself off a piece of almond paste and happily snack away. Sometimes if I'm craving some chocolate I'll spread Nutella on top of it.
The Ritter Sport Marzipan bar tastes pretty much like almond paste with Nutella, except about a million times better.
Balisto (France)
Chocolate-coated honey almond wafers. I was hoping for a sort of wafery, crunchy Toblerone sort of situation, but no such luck. Had the consistency of chocolate covered graham crackers and was just sort of meh. (Full disclosure, though: this is the opinion of someone who doesn't particularly like chocolate-covered graham crackers. If you happen to be a fan of them, then I guess Balistos could well turn out to be your Delissas. Just something to think about.)
Daim (France)
Sort of like Skor or a Heath Bar: a thin wafer of toffee coated in chocolate. Simple but top notch. Would eat again. DID eat again, in fact, and was eating it with so much gusto that a stranger wished me bon appetit. Thanks, random train station lady who "only needed three more Euros for a ticket to Marseille"! I appreciate it!
And that's it for now! Fear not, I'll continue my candy crusade and be back to update you on the merits of some more foreign candy bars in the not-too-distant future.
Unfortunately I was still starving and out of it, but the Great Candy Love Affair had began. Since then I've been seizing every opportunity to sample new candy bars. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the sake of giving you, all six-and-a-half (Miss Jessalyn "I only look at the pictures"*) of my blog readers, a complete guide to European candy bars for your future travels. You are so very welcome.
Most of these (with the sad exception of Delissa) can be found in more than one country, so I've just labeled each with the country where I first tried it.
(*Jessalyn, best friend, I love you! Please keep looking at all my pictures. Kay, thanks.)
Kinder Milk Bars (Germany)
Yummy but inferior to KinderSurprise, which is pretty much the same in terms of flavor but of course comes with the added advantage of containing a prize. Apparently the US Customs will confiscate KinderSurprises, though, since they're choking hazards. (Really? REALLY?!)
Anyway, Kinder Milk Bars are standard but delicious milk chocolate candy bars with a white filling that is ostensibly like milk (albeit milk saturated with sugar and whatnot). Market Basket people, I hope this sounds good to you because this is what you're getting from me. (Bought a 30-pack at the duty free store at the airport for like 5€...score!)
Ritter Sport - Yogurt Flavor (Germany)
It really tastes like yogurt!!! I don't mean in the way people usually mean regarding candy, when they say something like, "This Fruit Roll-Up tastes like strawberries," when what they mean is, "It tastes like sugary [but delicious] strawberry flavoring." I mean that Ritter Sport Yogurt Flavor really tastes like yogurt sandwiched between layers of milk chocolate. It's got that perfect, sour yogurty tang to it. Which is good, because I bought it for breakfast at the duty-free store after sleeping all night at the airport. It was between the yogurt flavor and the cornflakes one, both of which seemed appropriate to the situation. I got the yogurt one because it sounded weirder. I sort of wish I'd gotten both. Über breakfast!
Delissa (Czech Republic)
Oh Delissa bars. I can't even begin to express my love for you in prose, so I won't even try. Poem time!
Chocolaty, wafery, hazelnut sweet,
I can think of no better candy to eat.
When I was hungry you came to my rescue,
To which all I can say is, "Delissa bar, bless you!"
Light and delicious with crispity crunch,
It is true that I once ate Delissas for lunch.
The nutritional value may be debatable,
But a candy this tasty is simply unhateable!
Noteworthy: autocorrect has learned how to spell Delissa. Not only that but it will correct other words to Delissa. My work here is done.
Also noteworthy: they come in white chocolate as well, but the filling for those appears to be coconut instead of hazelnut. Still good, but not quite as good as the original.
Knoppers (Germany)
Like layers of Vienna wafers but crunchier, alternated with a layer of chocolate hazelnut and a layer of milk cream. The bottom wafer is chocolate coated. Overall, Knoppers are all right but lack the poetry-inducing magic of Delissas.
Lion (France)
Made by Nestle, so my first thought was: why they don't distribute them in the US?! Upon reflection I realized it's probably because we already have them, we just call them 100 Grands. Lion bars are basically the same thing--chocolate outer coating, then a layer of crispy bits, then some weird but delicious caramel-nougat-hybrid sludge in the middle. I got a three-pack and ate one at breakfast time, one at lunch, and then one at senior citizen dinner time (4 pm on my stalled train). Lion: a candy bar for all meals!
Ritter Sport - Marzipan Flavor
About a month or two ago I bought some almond paste at Market Basket so I could make cookies. I had about 2 ounces left over, and those 2 ounces have been sitting in my fridge ever since, undisturbed except for when I'm craving something sweet but am trying to resist the urge to eat junk food. In these kinds of situations, I will slice myself off a piece of almond paste and happily snack away. Sometimes if I'm craving some chocolate I'll spread Nutella on top of it.
The Ritter Sport Marzipan bar tastes pretty much like almond paste with Nutella, except about a million times better.
Balisto (France)
Chocolate-coated honey almond wafers. I was hoping for a sort of wafery, crunchy Toblerone sort of situation, but no such luck. Had the consistency of chocolate covered graham crackers and was just sort of meh. (Full disclosure, though: this is the opinion of someone who doesn't particularly like chocolate-covered graham crackers. If you happen to be a fan of them, then I guess Balistos could well turn out to be your Delissas. Just something to think about.)
Daim (France)
Sort of like Skor or a Heath Bar: a thin wafer of toffee coated in chocolate. Simple but top notch. Would eat again. DID eat again, in fact, and was eating it with so much gusto that a stranger wished me bon appetit. Thanks, random train station lady who "only needed three more Euros for a ticket to Marseille"! I appreciate it!
And that's it for now! Fear not, I'll continue my candy crusade and be back to update you on the merits of some more foreign candy bars in the not-too-distant future.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Lots of stuff happened while I was in Lyon
...and it's probably foolish to try and fit the rest of it all into one blog post (it's gonna get all diluted and second-grade-book-report-summary boring), but oh, well. I mean, I have to write about it sometime, and like I said, writing about travels in France from my room in the US is just not as interesting as writing about them while I'm still in Europe. Granted, it would be even better if I were actually still in France, but England's not a bad runner-up. Plus, it's raining again (I'm not surprised; it's England, after all), and I've taken the day off from sightseeing in order to recuperate from the nasty cold that just slammed into me with all the force of a freight train full of bricks and lead and other really heavy things, so I've got the time to go back over the last few weeks and fill y'all in.
Okay...so...scrolling back through my iPhoto library to get some visual reminders...okay. Here we go. The Wednesday after my weekend in the south of France, our class went on a field trip to Beaune, a town that was, if I remember correctly, about an hour and a half from Lyon (very close to Dijon). It's known for its medieval hospital, Hôstel Dieu (don't pronounce the 's' in 'hostel'), or, more specifically, for the brightly patterned roof of said hospital:
Doesn't even come close to doing it justice. The colors are actually much brighter, especially when the sun's shining.
Anyway, we had a really nice day exploring the town and the hospital and eating lunch (the cold mushroom cream thing I ate = awesome. And since it wasn't vegan, I got to eat half of Kelly's too, since she couldn't.), and we all agreed that it was a lot of fun to do a nice outing with the entire group all together like that.
I miss everyone! =(
Also, why am I so freaking short?!
We all took the train back to Lyon afterwards, and most of us passed the time by napping, doing some reading for class, listening to music, or, if you're me and Amanda, trying to remember all the Kappa Delta info we had to learn for our new member test. Turns out we've already forgotten most of it, but what was most frustrating was that we couldn't remember the name of the shell that's supposed to symbolize the growth of Kappa Deltas. It was one of those things where it's on the tip of your tongue and you just can't remember it. It was incredibly annoying.
Anyway, the rest of the week passed without incident (except for the next day in class when I suddenly remembered that it was a nautilus shell and mouthed it to Amanda, who immediately knew not only what it was I was mouthing but what it was in relation to...ahh, sisterhood). One other cool thing we did that week, though, was attend an herb seminar from an American woman who's been living in Lyon for the past ten or so years and blogs about French cooking. We learned about different kinds of herbs used in French cooking and made herb broth, tarte aux fines herbs, and kir (with acacia flower syrup and verbena syrup rather than the traditional crème de cassis), and it was all delicious:
Behold my foray into French cuisine. Although, to be fair, I didn't really actually assemble any of this. I chopped parsley. That was my contribution.
That weekend was another long weekend for another Catholic holiday (Pentecost this time). Since everyone else had plans for the weekend, I decided to do a little traveling on my own. My plan included Grenoble, Annecy, and Geneva (aka Genève), and Chambery and Aix-les-Bains if I had time/wasn't too tired. Turns out that traveling in the heat and the sun is actually quite exhausting, so I only made it to the first three, but it was still a very nice weekend. I went to Grenoble on Saturday not quite sure what to expect. I'd come to France prepared to like Grenoble, since Aunt Michelle always speaks of it fondly and I was interested to see it, but when I'd missed the train there one weekend (my first attempt to visit it), Corinne had made a disgusted noise and said (in French) something along the lines of "Believe me, you're not missing out on anything." My host family lived in Grenoble for several years before moving to Lyon, and none of them had anything particularly nice to say about it. Mon père's evaluation: "The city is not pretty. The area around it is, though." Jacques: "It's cool when you're young and you want to ski and stuff, but other than that, it's not that great." Corinne: "It's ugly, it's dirty, and there's no history. It's a modern town, not like Lyon where there are old buildings and a lot of history. It's only for scientists and engineers. And the mountains just box you in." So, you can see why I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into.
The reality, as so often happens, fell somewhere between the two extremes. It certainly wasn't the hotbed of industrial filth Corinne had made it out to be. The streets were clean, and there were some pretty statues and fountains, but she was right about one thing: not much history. It wasn't a big deal, though, as I didn't spend much time actually in the city. I just walked through and got some lunch from an indoor market on my way to the famous cable cars of Grenoble, which I rode up the mountain to La Bastille, the 19th-century fort.
Aren't they cuuuuuute?!
I spent the rest of the day up there, admiring the views of the Alps, writing in my journal, taking in the smell of the flowers blooming on the trees (I don't even LIKE the smell of flowers, generally, since I think they tend to smell like a pile of compost someone spilled perfume on. But these flowers were literally the best-smelling flowers I've ever come across. I would go all the way back to Grenoble just to smell them again, seriously. And yes, I know I can probably find them in some other place. But I have no idea what they're called or anything like that, so returning to Grenoble seems like my best bet.)
At any rate, it was a really calm, relaxing, Zen kind of day (and, fun fact, the French use the word "zen" too...I heard it a few times while I was there). I'd love to go back someday in the future when I have access to a car, as I'm sure a lot of the more remote regions of the Alps are even prettier (albeit harder to access, especially when you're dependent on public transport like I was).
View from the parking lot area at La Bastille
I was too tired, as I said, to stop at Chambery on the way back...I'd gotten a lot of sun and was a little bit burned, and you know how a sunburn just saps all your energy. I went back to the apartment and I dunno, probably just ate dinner in my room and watched a movie (mes parents were in the country for the weekend so it was just me and Jacques).
The next morning I set off for Geneva, which was exciting - my first solo international journey! The train ride there was really pretty - at some points the train runs in ravines between mountains, and at other times it skirts along ridges on the sides of them, looking out over marshes, rivers, pastures, meadows...it's like a storybook setting. I took down the names of a couple picturesque towns on the way there, for someday when I return to France. (It WILL happen, I will make sure of it. France was too beautiful to visit once and never go back. I want to visit France as often as possible.)
Anyway, I wasn't particularly impressed with Geneva itself. Not that there was anything wrong with Geneva. And probably my lack of enthusiasm was at least partially my own fault, as I spent the first hour and a half trying to find a place to exchange my money (Switzerland uses Swiss francs instead of Euros) when I could have (should have) just exchanged it at the train station when I got in. And since I went on a Sunday, a lot of stores and museums (including the UN headquarters) were closed. But I did enjoy walking around, especially along Lake Geneva (or, if you're French, Lac Léman). The lake's claim to fame, besides being the largest freshwater lake in Western Europe (thanks, wikipedia!), is being home to the largest water fountain on earth:
It sort of looks like it's spouting from the boat, but it's not. Just trust me.
The major drawback about Switzerland, though, is that it's insanely expensive. My lunch, which I ordered from what was essentially an outdoor food stand, cost me 13 francs (roughly 13 US dollars...the exchange rate's pretty much even), and all it consisted of was a tomato and cheese panini (9 francs!) and a glass of beer on tap (4 francs...I'm not generally a beer drinker but Geneva's supposed to have really good beer and I was like, what the heck, while in Geneva, do as the Genevans do. After all, if you wanna really sample some beer, may as well do it in a place that's renowned for it, right? As it turns out, I still don't like beer. It was like drinking fizzy crackers. Not a fan.)
Anyway, my final verdict on Geneva was that it was fine to visit once, but I'm not exactly eager to go back. I mentioned this to Madison, and she was like, "Really? My parents went for two weeks and they loved it." So I was like, great, maybe I did it wrong somehow. But then I mentioned it to my host parents and they said, "Americans love Geneva for some reason, but it's not all that great." So I felt a little more justified after that.
Monday morning I soldiered on (despite having a pretty legit sunburn by this time) to Annecy, which was beautiful. The lake (Lac d'Annecy) is gorgeous, as is the Old Town with its canals and narrow, winding streets.
Lac d'Annecy
Vieille Ville d'Annecy
Basically all I did was walk around and look at stuff - no special activities or anything. I ate alone in a sit-down restaurant for the first time in my life, and I'm pretty proud of myself for it - I know that eating alone in a restaurant is high up there on a lot of people's lists of social fears, and I must say that while eating with other people is definitely preferable, it wasn't terrible. My waiter was really nice and my meal (ravioli and a glass of kir) was really delicious, so I can't complain.
After eating I decided to get some ice cream since everyone was walking around with ice cream cones and I thought it might be a good idea to follow suit, since it was really hot out. I tried to get a kiddie cone of mint chocolate chip, but it turns out in France that only kids can order kiddie cones (as the ice cream stand guy pretty nastily pointed out to me. Thanks a lot, jerkface.). I should have gone to a different ice cream place, though, as their flavor list was ridiculous:
Flavors include violet (yes, the flower), strawberry basil, orange flower, and Nutella.
And so I returned to Lyon that afternoon exhausted and incredibly sunburned, but happy with my weekend in the Alps.
The next week or so passed pretty much without incident; one Wednesday we were supposed to go to a chateau but that was canceled at the last minute, so we went to a fancy Lyon patisserie instead and Dartmouth paid (good thing, because my frozen chocolate soufflé or whatever it was was like 7,50 €:
Yum.
I also got to try some chocolate with REAL GOLD FLAKES on top. Yes. I have tasted the flavor of decadence, and it is AWESOME.
And that just about brings me up to my last day in Lyon, I think. Not much happened over my last weekend, as I was busy studying (read: procrastinating) and packing (read: trying to make myself feel better about not studying). But now I am DONE with classes (until June 25th, anyway, when I start my summer term), so yay.
And this was a pretty long entry so I'm gonna take a break. I'll probably come back fairly soon and bring this blog all up to date with the end of Lyon and the beginnings of England, since I'm still not feeling much like venturing out (stupid cold has stolen all my energy) but I'm not tired enough to nap or anything. So yeah. I guess that's that.
Okay...so...scrolling back through my iPhoto library to get some visual reminders...okay. Here we go. The Wednesday after my weekend in the south of France, our class went on a field trip to Beaune, a town that was, if I remember correctly, about an hour and a half from Lyon (very close to Dijon). It's known for its medieval hospital, Hôstel Dieu (don't pronounce the 's' in 'hostel'), or, more specifically, for the brightly patterned roof of said hospital:
Doesn't even come close to doing it justice. The colors are actually much brighter, especially when the sun's shining.Anyway, we had a really nice day exploring the town and the hospital and eating lunch (the cold mushroom cream thing I ate = awesome. And since it wasn't vegan, I got to eat half of Kelly's too, since she couldn't.), and we all agreed that it was a lot of fun to do a nice outing with the entire group all together like that.
I miss everyone! =(Also, why am I so freaking short?!
We all took the train back to Lyon afterwards, and most of us passed the time by napping, doing some reading for class, listening to music, or, if you're me and Amanda, trying to remember all the Kappa Delta info we had to learn for our new member test. Turns out we've already forgotten most of it, but what was most frustrating was that we couldn't remember the name of the shell that's supposed to symbolize the growth of Kappa Deltas. It was one of those things where it's on the tip of your tongue and you just can't remember it. It was incredibly annoying.
Anyway, the rest of the week passed without incident (except for the next day in class when I suddenly remembered that it was a nautilus shell and mouthed it to Amanda, who immediately knew not only what it was I was mouthing but what it was in relation to...ahh, sisterhood). One other cool thing we did that week, though, was attend an herb seminar from an American woman who's been living in Lyon for the past ten or so years and blogs about French cooking. We learned about different kinds of herbs used in French cooking and made herb broth, tarte aux fines herbs, and kir (with acacia flower syrup and verbena syrup rather than the traditional crème de cassis), and it was all delicious:
Behold my foray into French cuisine. Although, to be fair, I didn't really actually assemble any of this. I chopped parsley. That was my contribution.That weekend was another long weekend for another Catholic holiday (Pentecost this time). Since everyone else had plans for the weekend, I decided to do a little traveling on my own. My plan included Grenoble, Annecy, and Geneva (aka Genève), and Chambery and Aix-les-Bains if I had time/wasn't too tired. Turns out that traveling in the heat and the sun is actually quite exhausting, so I only made it to the first three, but it was still a very nice weekend. I went to Grenoble on Saturday not quite sure what to expect. I'd come to France prepared to like Grenoble, since Aunt Michelle always speaks of it fondly and I was interested to see it, but when I'd missed the train there one weekend (my first attempt to visit it), Corinne had made a disgusted noise and said (in French) something along the lines of "Believe me, you're not missing out on anything." My host family lived in Grenoble for several years before moving to Lyon, and none of them had anything particularly nice to say about it. Mon père's evaluation: "The city is not pretty. The area around it is, though." Jacques: "It's cool when you're young and you want to ski and stuff, but other than that, it's not that great." Corinne: "It's ugly, it's dirty, and there's no history. It's a modern town, not like Lyon where there are old buildings and a lot of history. It's only for scientists and engineers. And the mountains just box you in." So, you can see why I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into.
The reality, as so often happens, fell somewhere between the two extremes. It certainly wasn't the hotbed of industrial filth Corinne had made it out to be. The streets were clean, and there were some pretty statues and fountains, but she was right about one thing: not much history. It wasn't a big deal, though, as I didn't spend much time actually in the city. I just walked through and got some lunch from an indoor market on my way to the famous cable cars of Grenoble, which I rode up the mountain to La Bastille, the 19th-century fort.
Aren't they cuuuuuute?!At any rate, it was a really calm, relaxing, Zen kind of day (and, fun fact, the French use the word "zen" too...I heard it a few times while I was there). I'd love to go back someday in the future when I have access to a car, as I'm sure a lot of the more remote regions of the Alps are even prettier (albeit harder to access, especially when you're dependent on public transport like I was).
View from the parking lot area at La BastilleI was too tired, as I said, to stop at Chambery on the way back...I'd gotten a lot of sun and was a little bit burned, and you know how a sunburn just saps all your energy. I went back to the apartment and I dunno, probably just ate dinner in my room and watched a movie (mes parents were in the country for the weekend so it was just me and Jacques).
The next morning I set off for Geneva, which was exciting - my first solo international journey! The train ride there was really pretty - at some points the train runs in ravines between mountains, and at other times it skirts along ridges on the sides of them, looking out over marshes, rivers, pastures, meadows...it's like a storybook setting. I took down the names of a couple picturesque towns on the way there, for someday when I return to France. (It WILL happen, I will make sure of it. France was too beautiful to visit once and never go back. I want to visit France as often as possible.)
Anyway, I wasn't particularly impressed with Geneva itself. Not that there was anything wrong with Geneva. And probably my lack of enthusiasm was at least partially my own fault, as I spent the first hour and a half trying to find a place to exchange my money (Switzerland uses Swiss francs instead of Euros) when I could have (should have) just exchanged it at the train station when I got in. And since I went on a Sunday, a lot of stores and museums (including the UN headquarters) were closed. But I did enjoy walking around, especially along Lake Geneva (or, if you're French, Lac Léman). The lake's claim to fame, besides being the largest freshwater lake in Western Europe (thanks, wikipedia!), is being home to the largest water fountain on earth:
It sort of looks like it's spouting from the boat, but it's not. Just trust me.The major drawback about Switzerland, though, is that it's insanely expensive. My lunch, which I ordered from what was essentially an outdoor food stand, cost me 13 francs (roughly 13 US dollars...the exchange rate's pretty much even), and all it consisted of was a tomato and cheese panini (9 francs!) and a glass of beer on tap (4 francs...I'm not generally a beer drinker but Geneva's supposed to have really good beer and I was like, what the heck, while in Geneva, do as the Genevans do. After all, if you wanna really sample some beer, may as well do it in a place that's renowned for it, right? As it turns out, I still don't like beer. It was like drinking fizzy crackers. Not a fan.)
Anyway, my final verdict on Geneva was that it was fine to visit once, but I'm not exactly eager to go back. I mentioned this to Madison, and she was like, "Really? My parents went for two weeks and they loved it." So I was like, great, maybe I did it wrong somehow. But then I mentioned it to my host parents and they said, "Americans love Geneva for some reason, but it's not all that great." So I felt a little more justified after that.
Monday morning I soldiered on (despite having a pretty legit sunburn by this time) to Annecy, which was beautiful. The lake (Lac d'Annecy) is gorgeous, as is the Old Town with its canals and narrow, winding streets.
Lac d'Annecy
Vieille Ville d'AnnecyAfter eating I decided to get some ice cream since everyone was walking around with ice cream cones and I thought it might be a good idea to follow suit, since it was really hot out. I tried to get a kiddie cone of mint chocolate chip, but it turns out in France that only kids can order kiddie cones (as the ice cream stand guy pretty nastily pointed out to me. Thanks a lot, jerkface.). I should have gone to a different ice cream place, though, as their flavor list was ridiculous:
Flavors include violet (yes, the flower), strawberry basil, orange flower, and Nutella.The next week or so passed pretty much without incident; one Wednesday we were supposed to go to a chateau but that was canceled at the last minute, so we went to a fancy Lyon patisserie instead and Dartmouth paid (good thing, because my frozen chocolate soufflé or whatever it was was like 7,50 €:
Yum.And that just about brings me up to my last day in Lyon, I think. Not much happened over my last weekend, as I was busy studying (read: procrastinating) and packing (read: trying to make myself feel better about not studying). But now I am DONE with classes (until June 25th, anyway, when I start my summer term), so yay.
And this was a pretty long entry so I'm gonna take a break. I'll probably come back fairly soon and bring this blog all up to date with the end of Lyon and the beginnings of England, since I'm still not feeling much like venturing out (stupid cold has stolen all my energy) but I'm not tired enough to nap or anything. So yeah. I guess that's that.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Further adventures and blog-related demands
Arg. Another day, another pastry. I'm legitimately getting fat. And yet, almost all the French people I've met are not only not fat, but skinnier than the average person. It's a mystery to me. (And I'm not the only one.) This Wikipedia article claims, however, that "Americans [tend] to lose weight while visiting [France]." Um, WRONG. I guess this is why you can't believe everything you read on Wikipedia.
At any rate, in the title of this post I promised adventures. And here they are:
On Saturday, I unfortunately slept in until noon (...thirty) because I'd been up until 3:30 in the morning doing absolutely nothing after having returned around 1:45 from a girls' night with Kelly and Amanda at Amanda's apartment, which consisted of us eating, scrambling to complete various time-sensitive tasks, and watching Pride and Prejudice. Anyway, after a slightly sketchy walk home (a guy drove slowly alongside me with his window open for about a block...I pretended not to see him whilst maintaining a death grip on the whistle Maria and Cynthia gave me as a going-away present for "scaring off the gypsies"), I made it back to the apartment and really just killed time while continually telling myself to get some sleep. I finally listened to me, but I was too late, thus the waste of a beautiful Saturday morning.
This story gets happier, though, I swear! I met up with Kelly, Amanda, and Laura, and we walked around the city in search of a bio-restaurant Kelly had heard about. We finally found it but discovered that they didn't do take-out for lunch, so we resolved to come back some other time and instead headed off for le Parc de la Tête d'Or, since it was a perfect day for relaxing outside:
Kelly, Laura, and Amanda (and me, haha) at the park.
We spent a couple hours at the park lying out in the sun (I have the faint beginnings of a tan!) and watching the antics of some nearby children before strolling back toward Place Bellecour, taking in all the sights of this gorgeous afternoon.
Bridge across the Rhône to the Presqu'île around 5 pm.
I had thought about going out Saturday night with my friends (not anything big...just a movie or something), but since mes parents were away for the weekend and mon frère was out for the evening, I decided to stay home and take advantage of the empty house to Skype with Jessalyn. (I feel bad Skyping when ma famille is here because, due to the time difference, Skyping always has to happen rather late at night, and everyone else here goes to bed fairly early. I don't want to disturb them.) Anyway, it was nice to spend a nice quiet evening at the apartment, although I still stayed up too late. Oh, well.
On Sunday, we (the group) had planned a picnic for lunch. The idea was to meet in Place Bellecour with everyone bringing something to contribute to the meal, and then walk either to the river or the park to eat. However, we ended up hanging around Place Bellecour for quite awhile waiting for everyone to arrive.
While we were waiting, we watched a group of students walk up to the statue in Place Bellecour, singing songs. We remarked on its being a little out of the ordinary and watched them with amusement for a little while. A few minutes later, we were talking about something else when a couple of guys from the group came over and explained that they were doing a scavenger hunt for the program they were traveling with and they needed a picture with some Lyon girls (I guess we qualified). Would we help them out? they wanted to know. "Sure," we said. The next thing I knew, one of the guys had taken my arm and steered me over toward the other guy, and was like, "Oh yeah, you guys have to kiss so we can get 100 points."
And I was like, "WHAT NOW?!" Because kissing strangers on the street is not one of my top five pastimes. It's like number seven. Eight, maybe.
I jest, of course. But still, I was pretty surprised. It was not how I had expected to spend my afternoon.
But still, they were pretty nice and the guy was pretty easy on the eyes and I mean, it would get them a whole 100 points. So I did it. I'm proud of myself. I think you'll agree it's an excellent story (unless I told it wrong).
After this brief detour from my usual character, we decided to accept the group's invitation for us to join them as they went sight-seeing and completed their tour around Lyon. (But first, Kelly sang "I Will Survive" with them in front of the statue.) It was pretty cool to meet other students (they were all, I guess, engineering students involved in a travel program on their spring break) from all over Europe. I spent a good chunk of time talking to a girl from Belgium, and there were people from Russia, Portugal, France, Germany, and other countries.
We walked around the city completing tasks (such as doing some kind of weird line-dance thing in the middle of a pedestrian street), and we visited the Cathédrale St-Jean in Vieux Lyon. (I still haven't gotten to see the 700-year-old clock do its thing. I did, however, get a couple of good pictures.)
Statue, undoubtedly of a saint or someone with better morals than I, in Cathédrale St-Jean.
After the Cathédrale I returned home to do some work, although this meant that I apparently missed the crowd-surfing that happened immediately thereafter. (Kelly told me about it and I saw pictures.) I went back home, cleaned my room, and then spent a lot of time putting off doing my reading by thinking of other "constructive" things to do. Finally I could avoid it no longer, and I spent the rest of the night reading. Haha, that's a lie. I did do some reading, but it was broken up by checking facebook, checking blitz (Dartmouth's email system), checking my email, eating another delicious dinner avec ma famille, watching two segments of a French TV show with Corinne, and chatting with four people at once. (Don't ever say I can't multitask.)
Monday was pretty ho-hum. Mondays are long in terms of class time (but not as long as Tuesdays...I'm exhausted). I did some errands after school and then went avec mes parents to the Welcome Dinner (which was actually aperitifs and hors d'oeuvres), which was fun. It was cool seeing all the parents and students together, and it was also interesting to see the profs outside of school, especially our two Lyonnais professors: Mme. Villard is adorable and M. Bonivard is kind of a goofball. They're awesome.
I do feel a little bad, though, because when we introduced our host parents a lot of people used adjectives to say how great their families were. Of course, no one told me beforehand that we'd have to introduce our parents, or I would have thought of something nice to say, too, because Corinne and Philippe are wonderful and super-nice, but my lack of confidence in speaking French combined with a touch of natural shyness meant that I was just like, "My name is Renée. I live with Corinne and Philippe. I'm from Massachusetts." The end. I hope they know that it's not for lack of sentiment that I wasn't gushier, but lack of vocabulary.
At any rate, I stayed up until almost 1 in the morning finishing the reading I'd put off (and cursing Past Me for having done so). This morning I woke up at 8, started class at 9:15, and apart from an hour-long lunch break at 11 (during which I schlepped all the way over to Place Bellecour to take care of spring break travel stuff at SNCF), didn't leave the university until 15:45. That's a loooooong day, let me tell you. Luckily, Tuesdays are the longest day of the week, so it's all easier from here on out. And then on Saturday morning I'm flying with Rachelle to ROME for SPRING BREAK!
Our original plans had been to take the train to Milan on Saturday, but fate had to mess with things: there was no cheap (or even remotely inexpensive) lodging available in Milan that night, and traveling on to another town was out of the question since our train would arrive in the evening anyway. We finally decided to fly to Rome instead. We booked the flight this weekend and exchanged our tickets today for tickets back from Milan (to Chambery, where we'll spend Saturday night before traveling back to Lyon on Sunday). Our travel plans are subject to change, but right now we're looking at this: Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in Rome (our flight leaves Lyon around 7 am and gets to Rome around 8, so we have pretty much an entire day there), Tuesday maybe at a beach (it's supposed to rain on Tuesday, OF COURSE. So these plans are, as I said, changeable.) Wednesday, heading up to Florence. Taking a side trip to Venice at some point, and probably seeing the Lakes District before getting to Milan on Saturday for the train back. It's a lot of stuff and we probably won't have time to do it all, but I guess I'd rather have lots of things to choose from than travel to a boring place. (Although, is there really such a thing in Europe?)
I am a little bummed that I won't be making it to Santorini while I'm in Europe, though. The prices of flights after this week skyrocket, so money-wise I just don't think it's doable. =( I'll see Santorini someday, though. I WILL.
In other travel news, Laura has proposed and researched a trip to Bordeaux at the end of May. It sounds like a lot of fun, and it will be easy on the wallet, too - the round-trip flight, accommodations, and wine tour only total about 160 € (just under $220 US). I mean, that's really not bad at all.
I still need to figure out what to do for the four-day weekend in May (yay, Ascension!). Anyone have ideas/suggestions/requests that I visit a specific place as you attempt to live vicariously through me?
Which brings me to the blog-related demand of the title. Comment! One of the main reasons I keep this blog is to keep in touch with everyone, and it's no use keeping in touch with you guys if I don't even know you're reading it. It's like writing letters and never sending them.
So, yeah. Start sending! =)
Time to eat the chocolate rabbit Mareike gave me for Easter. It's been staring at me all afternoon.
Man, I'm gonna get FAAATTTTTT...
At any rate, in the title of this post I promised adventures. And here they are:
On Saturday, I unfortunately slept in until noon (...thirty) because I'd been up until 3:30 in the morning doing absolutely nothing after having returned around 1:45 from a girls' night with Kelly and Amanda at Amanda's apartment, which consisted of us eating, scrambling to complete various time-sensitive tasks, and watching Pride and Prejudice. Anyway, after a slightly sketchy walk home (a guy drove slowly alongside me with his window open for about a block...I pretended not to see him whilst maintaining a death grip on the whistle Maria and Cynthia gave me as a going-away present for "scaring off the gypsies"), I made it back to the apartment and really just killed time while continually telling myself to get some sleep. I finally listened to me, but I was too late, thus the waste of a beautiful Saturday morning.
This story gets happier, though, I swear! I met up with Kelly, Amanda, and Laura, and we walked around the city in search of a bio-restaurant Kelly had heard about. We finally found it but discovered that they didn't do take-out for lunch, so we resolved to come back some other time and instead headed off for le Parc de la Tête d'Or, since it was a perfect day for relaxing outside:
Kelly, Laura, and Amanda (and me, haha) at the park.We spent a couple hours at the park lying out in the sun (I have the faint beginnings of a tan!) and watching the antics of some nearby children before strolling back toward Place Bellecour, taking in all the sights of this gorgeous afternoon.
Bridge across the Rhône to the Presqu'île around 5 pm.I had thought about going out Saturday night with my friends (not anything big...just a movie or something), but since mes parents were away for the weekend and mon frère was out for the evening, I decided to stay home and take advantage of the empty house to Skype with Jessalyn. (I feel bad Skyping when ma famille is here because, due to the time difference, Skyping always has to happen rather late at night, and everyone else here goes to bed fairly early. I don't want to disturb them.) Anyway, it was nice to spend a nice quiet evening at the apartment, although I still stayed up too late. Oh, well.
On Sunday, we (the group) had planned a picnic for lunch. The idea was to meet in Place Bellecour with everyone bringing something to contribute to the meal, and then walk either to the river or the park to eat. However, we ended up hanging around Place Bellecour for quite awhile waiting for everyone to arrive.
While we were waiting, we watched a group of students walk up to the statue in Place Bellecour, singing songs. We remarked on its being a little out of the ordinary and watched them with amusement for a little while. A few minutes later, we were talking about something else when a couple of guys from the group came over and explained that they were doing a scavenger hunt for the program they were traveling with and they needed a picture with some Lyon girls (I guess we qualified). Would we help them out? they wanted to know. "Sure," we said. The next thing I knew, one of the guys had taken my arm and steered me over toward the other guy, and was like, "Oh yeah, you guys have to kiss so we can get 100 points."
And I was like, "WHAT NOW?!" Because kissing strangers on the street is not one of my top five pastimes. It's like number seven. Eight, maybe.
I jest, of course. But still, I was pretty surprised. It was not how I had expected to spend my afternoon.
But still, they were pretty nice and the guy was pretty easy on the eyes and I mean, it would get them a whole 100 points. So I did it. I'm proud of myself. I think you'll agree it's an excellent story (unless I told it wrong).
After this brief detour from my usual character, we decided to accept the group's invitation for us to join them as they went sight-seeing and completed their tour around Lyon. (But first, Kelly sang "I Will Survive" with them in front of the statue.) It was pretty cool to meet other students (they were all, I guess, engineering students involved in a travel program on their spring break) from all over Europe. I spent a good chunk of time talking to a girl from Belgium, and there were people from Russia, Portugal, France, Germany, and other countries.
We walked around the city completing tasks (such as doing some kind of weird line-dance thing in the middle of a pedestrian street), and we visited the Cathédrale St-Jean in Vieux Lyon. (I still haven't gotten to see the 700-year-old clock do its thing. I did, however, get a couple of good pictures.)
Statue, undoubtedly of a saint or someone with better morals than I, in Cathédrale St-Jean.After the Cathédrale I returned home to do some work, although this meant that I apparently missed the crowd-surfing that happened immediately thereafter. (Kelly told me about it and I saw pictures.) I went back home, cleaned my room, and then spent a lot of time putting off doing my reading by thinking of other "constructive" things to do. Finally I could avoid it no longer, and I spent the rest of the night reading. Haha, that's a lie. I did do some reading, but it was broken up by checking facebook, checking blitz (Dartmouth's email system), checking my email, eating another delicious dinner avec ma famille, watching two segments of a French TV show with Corinne, and chatting with four people at once. (Don't ever say I can't multitask.)
Monday was pretty ho-hum. Mondays are long in terms of class time (but not as long as Tuesdays...I'm exhausted). I did some errands after school and then went avec mes parents to the Welcome Dinner (which was actually aperitifs and hors d'oeuvres), which was fun. It was cool seeing all the parents and students together, and it was also interesting to see the profs outside of school, especially our two Lyonnais professors: Mme. Villard is adorable and M. Bonivard is kind of a goofball. They're awesome.
I do feel a little bad, though, because when we introduced our host parents a lot of people used adjectives to say how great their families were. Of course, no one told me beforehand that we'd have to introduce our parents, or I would have thought of something nice to say, too, because Corinne and Philippe are wonderful and super-nice, but my lack of confidence in speaking French combined with a touch of natural shyness meant that I was just like, "My name is Renée. I live with Corinne and Philippe. I'm from Massachusetts." The end. I hope they know that it's not for lack of sentiment that I wasn't gushier, but lack of vocabulary.
At any rate, I stayed up until almost 1 in the morning finishing the reading I'd put off (and cursing Past Me for having done so). This morning I woke up at 8, started class at 9:15, and apart from an hour-long lunch break at 11 (during which I schlepped all the way over to Place Bellecour to take care of spring break travel stuff at SNCF), didn't leave the university until 15:45. That's a loooooong day, let me tell you. Luckily, Tuesdays are the longest day of the week, so it's all easier from here on out. And then on Saturday morning I'm flying with Rachelle to ROME for SPRING BREAK!
Our original plans had been to take the train to Milan on Saturday, but fate had to mess with things: there was no cheap (or even remotely inexpensive) lodging available in Milan that night, and traveling on to another town was out of the question since our train would arrive in the evening anyway. We finally decided to fly to Rome instead. We booked the flight this weekend and exchanged our tickets today for tickets back from Milan (to Chambery, where we'll spend Saturday night before traveling back to Lyon on Sunday). Our travel plans are subject to change, but right now we're looking at this: Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in Rome (our flight leaves Lyon around 7 am and gets to Rome around 8, so we have pretty much an entire day there), Tuesday maybe at a beach (it's supposed to rain on Tuesday, OF COURSE. So these plans are, as I said, changeable.) Wednesday, heading up to Florence. Taking a side trip to Venice at some point, and probably seeing the Lakes District before getting to Milan on Saturday for the train back. It's a lot of stuff and we probably won't have time to do it all, but I guess I'd rather have lots of things to choose from than travel to a boring place. (Although, is there really such a thing in Europe?)
I am a little bummed that I won't be making it to Santorini while I'm in Europe, though. The prices of flights after this week skyrocket, so money-wise I just don't think it's doable. =( I'll see Santorini someday, though. I WILL.
In other travel news, Laura has proposed and researched a trip to Bordeaux at the end of May. It sounds like a lot of fun, and it will be easy on the wallet, too - the round-trip flight, accommodations, and wine tour only total about 160 € (just under $220 US). I mean, that's really not bad at all.
I still need to figure out what to do for the four-day weekend in May (yay, Ascension!). Anyone have ideas/suggestions/requests that I visit a specific place as you attempt to live vicariously through me?
Which brings me to the blog-related demand of the title. Comment! One of the main reasons I keep this blog is to keep in touch with everyone, and it's no use keeping in touch with you guys if I don't even know you're reading it. It's like writing letters and never sending them.
So, yeah. Start sending! =)
Time to eat the chocolate rabbit Mareike gave me for Easter. It's been staring at me all afternoon.
Man, I'm gonna get FAAATTTTTT...
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