Eats Across Europe, Part One

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned food much in talking about this trip. If you know me at all, you might find this suspicious lack of food talk puzzling, since I can rarely get through a normal conversation without:

1. Talking about a food I've recently cooked and/or eaten,
2. Expressing a desire to be cooking or eating either at this moment or in the very near future, or
3. Actually eating something during said conversation.

Well, if you've been wondering what's up with me and my non-food-centric blogging, here's your lightbulb moment: I've been reserving an entire blog post to devote to food. AN ENTIRE POST. You're welcome.

This is part one of many, since I'm obviously only about a week into this trip and still have many, many foods to sample and enjoy--especially now that I'm in France, the land of macarons, cheese, chocolate, Gratin Daupinois, ratatouille, croissants (au chocolat!), tarte citron, quiche, and SO MUCH DELICIOUS BREAD.

So without further ado, here's the rundown on my trip's cuisine so far. (This isn't every meal; just the ones I deemed noteworthy for whatever reason.) Keep an eye out for the next food post, which will focus exclusively on European candy bars! (I do this for you guys! It's tough work but someone needs to tell you non-travelers what a Daim bar tastes like.)

Grilled vegetables and goat cheese (Prague)

In Prague, I got dinner with Jenny, a fellow American I met on the Prague tour. We asked our guide to recommend a good restaurant where we could try some Czech specialties, and she sent us to a bar/restaurant a couple streets away, telling us it had vegetarian options as well as the more meat-based Czech dishes.

I wanted to get fried cheese, since it's sort of a Czech specialty (and it's cheese! That's fried!) , but the restaurant was all out. If I couldn't have THE fried cheese, I at least got SOME fried cheese. The meal was good, nothing to write home about really (although, ironically, I am LITERALLY writing home about it right now), but it was so cheap: the meal plus a soft drink cost me the equivalent of about seven US dollars. Go Prague!

Donut and butterbreze (Munich)

I wanted some German food. The German vegetarian place near my hostel was closed and I was feeling quite lazy, so I swung by the train station and was like, "Okay, here we go, fine German cuisine." I got a standard sandwich for dinner but accompanied it with a donut and a butterbreze (butter pretzel), since they're both sort of Bavarian things. No Bavarian cream in the donut, unfortunately, but it was still chocolate-frosted deliciousness, a little fluffier and cakier than donuts I'm used to.

Butterbreze is pretty much what it sounds like: it's a pretzel. Filled with butter. Literally, they slice it open and then spread butter on each half before smooshing the sides back together. The fattiest, most delicious sandwich ever.

Tofuschnitzel (Munich)

Delicious. I don't even know everything that was in there...some kraut, I think, definitely mustard, lettuce, tomato. The guy named off a couple of spices, ginger for sure and, I think, cumin. Had a couple bites where I could really taste the ginger and it was quite unexpected and refreshing.

I ate this magical meal at Royal Kebabhaus by the Hauptbahnhof in Munich, after having read about it on happycow.net, a vegetarian restaurant review site. The proprietor was super nice and friendly, really patient with me even though he spoke only a little English and I speak absolutely no German. Since schnitzel is kind of a thing in Germany (but is traditionally made with super-tenderized meat), I was excited that I got to experience it in my own vegetarian way.

Käsespätzle mit Röstzwiebeln and Augustiner Hall beer (Munich)

I'm not typically a fan of beer, but in when one is in Munich it's kind of obligatory to try the beer. I'd already passed on famous Czech beer in Prague, so I felt like my hands were tied on this one. The beer was okay if you ask me, a non-beer-drinker, but my evaluation is probably not the one to go by, especially if you actually happen to like beer a lot.

The Käsespätzle was really delicious, though. "Käsespätzle mit Röstzwiebeln" means " cheese noodles with fried onions." I'm not sure if it's specific to Bavaria or Germany in general, but it's delicious, like macaroni and cheese but even better. (And you know how I feel about mac and cheese to begin with.) The spätzle, or noodles, are made of eggs and semolina, generally, and they are softer and more tender than the sort of pasta I'm used to eating. The cheese was sharp and salty and perfectly balanced by the sweet sharpness of the onion, which had not been cooked very long and had therefore retained a pretty strong flavor. Yummy, yummy, yummy. The picture does not do it justice at all.

As a side note: I got this dinner with Amanda and Rachel, two women I met on the tour to Dachau. Amanda had somehow found out about this place--the restaurant of the Oktoberfest Museum--and had suggested it. It was a fantastic choice--the restaurant itself was cozy and labyrinthine, with long shared tables and bench seating. Very atmospheric, and a good way to cap off my admittedly brief time in Munich.

Socca (Nice)

Delicious. I'll admit that I was predisposed to like it because I like chickpeas and I like crepes and these are essentially chickpea crepes, but OH MY GOD.

While socca is eaten around the entire Côte d'Azur region and into Italy, Nice is particularly known for socca. There are rivalries between different restaurants in the same way that New York pizzerias all claim to have the best pizza in the city, and people's socca tastes vary just as some people prefer one place's pizza over another. Some restaurants make crispier socca, some do it softer, but I think it's safe to say they're probably all delicious.

The traditional way to eat socca is with a little bit of black pepper. I'm not a huge fan of pepper so I put only a very little, and I didn't think the peppery bits were any better than the plain parts. In fact, I think I preferred it plain. It is definitely a savory dish but the socca I tried (I got mine at Lou Pilha Leva in the Old Town) had a really subtle sweetness to it and an almost peanut buttery flavor. Think of it in those terms to understand the sweet/savory balance...it's sort of got the same ratio of sweet to savory as peanut butter. As a result I'm inclined to say (blasphemy?!) that socca would taste good drizzled with chocolate, but if you ask me there are few foods that wouldn't be improved by that.

Gelato from Fenocchio Glacier (Nice)

Fenocchio is an institution in Nice, a famous ice cream/gelato place offering 70 different flavors. I was only in Nice for two days, so I couldn't try all 70, but I made an honest effort and tried six. I went for the weird ones, too.
You're welcome.

Vanilla with pink pepper: Really weird at the first bite (weird but good!), but I got more used to it as I plowed through it. Pink pepper, in case you've never tasted it (I hadn't) is milder than black pepper, and tastes surprisingly good with vanilla. The only way I can think to describe the taste/texture combo is "sparkly."

Cactus: Mild, sweet, and perfume-y, with some strangely citrusy undertones to it. I wanna say it tasted like aloe (it may have actually been straight-up aloe), but I can never remember actually trying aloe so I have no idea where I'm getting that frame of reference.

Speculoos: This is what made me stop for ice cream in the first place. I'm crazy for Speculoos anything (if you've never tried Speculoos, they're like gingersnaps but better), and this ice cream did not disappoint. It tasted a little like the cinnamon-gingersnap ice cream Tracey and I made once.

Honey and pine nuts: Can I just eat this for the rest of my life? Okay, thanks. The warm sweetness of the honey was in perfect proportion to the savory pine nuts, which kept things from getting too sicky-sweet.

Rice and milk: Creamy taste, chunky texture, delicious overall. If you like tapioca pudding, you would love this. If you don't like tapioca pudding, then I feel sorry for you but you should probably just pick a different flavor of ice cream.

Mojito: My love of mojitos is well-documented (see: every picture from my twenty-first birthday) so I figured I'd love this sorbet. And it turns out it was only okay. It tasted like it had dried mint, not fresh (which I suppose is more practical, but it's just not the same) and there was a sour/bitter aftertaste. It wasn't bad, per se, but I wasn't really sure how I felt about it. On the plus side, I wolfed this down because I was quite thirsty after a day spent hiking in the mountains near Nice and this was definitely a thirst-quencher.


Well, that's it for this round of "What's Renée Been Eating?" Tune in next time for Speculoos macarons, famous Marseille cookies, long-lost favorite French foods, and more!

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.

Crazy ACTION-PACKED weekend adventures

Well, hello there. It's Monday night, I have to finish some schoolwork (including hand-writing a page-long response to my reading, Camus's "L'hôte"), but since my weekend was, as the title of this entry suggests, JAM-PACKED with ACTION and ADVENTURE, I wanted to get it out there before I forget it all. (Also, for the first time, I'm going to post pictures here before I post them on facebook. Blog readers, prepare to feel all privileged and exclusive and whatnot.)

Anyway, we ended up getting out of class a bit early on Friday (at noontime instead of 13:45) so I had plenty of time to return to the apartment and deposit my stuff from class before our 15:24 train to Arles. After that, I spent a fair amount of time trekking around the city with my overnight bag trying to remember how to get to Gare de Lyon Part-Dieu (the train station). Eventually I made it to the café where Kelly and Amanda, my fellow travelers, were sitting outside having lunch with some of our classmates. I bought a pizza from the boulangerie next door only to discover that it was not vegetarian (I thought it tasted like ham; the meat-eaters in the group who ate it after I offered it to them told me it was salmon. I haven't eaten meat for like 8 years, though, so what do I know?) Anyway, I finally managed to get quiche, a lemon tart, and some Orangina from across the street, so it all worked out okay.

We caught the train to Arles with no problems. The countryside on the way down was beautiful - picturesque towns perched on hills by the river, newly-planted fields stretching out to the horizon, clumps of barely-green trees flying past the windows. We arrived in Arles three hours later and were immediately thrown into the midst of Feria, or the Easter Festival. Arles goes absolutely nuts during this time, with extra bullfights, a carnival, lots of music, and tons of food. We walked around and immediately saw the ancient Roman arena where bullfights are still held today. It was smack-dab in the middle of the city and pretty un-missable:

The ancient Roman arena located in the center of Arles

After that, we set off to look for a restaurant Kelly had read about as being vegetarian/vegan-friendly (a big draw for us, since I'm vegetarian, Kelly's vegan, and Amanda's open-minded). We finally found it after circling around for quite awhile (which ended up being a common theme of our time in Arles). All the restaurants were cooking giant pans of paella outside in the street, and ours was no exception; the man cooking offered us some little shellfish from the paella, but what with our dietary quirks Amanda was the only one who took him up on his offer. We got dinner (and I got my first sangria - it was very different from what I'd expected, as there was cinnamon in it) and ate it sitting on the wall of a fountain in the square. Afterwards, we walked around Arles for awhile, admiring the scenery (gardens, churches, carnival, Roman theatre ruins) and cheerfully embracing the sketchiness ("Americans! You are welcome!" - random guy in group full of random guys) until we almost got pickpocketed (we think), at which point we didn't enjoy it quite so much.

At any rate, around 8:30 or 9:00 we started to search for the youth hostel we were staying at for the night, and our search took us past Les Alyscamps, an old burial ground just outside of Arles. There was a large crowd gathered at the gates, which was a little out of the ordinary because Les Alyscamps closes at night. We were standing nearby wondering what was going on when a woman came up to us and explained half in French, half in English that they were about to pray a vigil on account of its being Good Friday. She invited us to join them, which we debated for a little while, not wanting to be disrespectful and intrude, and also not wanting to have to leave early and interrupt the procession. When we explained that the curfew for the hostel was 11, the woman told us that we could leave early if we needed to, and that all we had to do was tell her and she'd open the gate for us and let us out. "It'll be an interesting experience," we decided, and we joined the group. It was pretty cool. We sang with the rest of the group and there were readings about the Passion as we prayed the Stations of the Cross. We left about five stations in to get to the hostel, and the man who ended up letting us out pointed us in the right direction.

We made it to the hostel, got our sheets, and made up our beds. Towels for the shower cost 50 cents, so we actually split one towel between the three of us, each paying a grand total of about 17 cents (yay for penny-pinching!). The room at the hostel was actually not bad at all, and we had it to ourselves for awhile until two Italian girls joined us. They went out again almost immediately though, so we had the room all to ourselves until we went to bed.

Our room at l'auberge de jeunesses (the youth hostel)

The next morning we woke up very early in the hopes that we could catch the bus to Le Parc Ornithologique de Pont de Gau, a bird park in the Camargue (the region of France around the Rhône river delta). We ran literally all the way across the city to the train station (where the bus supposedly left from) only to read on a sign that the stop was now in front of the Monoprix (a supermarket chain) down the street. We ran to the Monoprix, where another lady waiting for the bus told us we wanted to be back at the train station. We said no, we'd just come from there. The bus driver then told us we wanted to be at Clemencau, in the middle of the city. We headed for Clemencau and promptly got lost and had to ask some street-sweepers for directions. They were really nice and just walked us there. But because it was Feria, the Clemencau stop was closed. We finally figured out that the stop we wanted was actually only about a 5 minute walk from our hostel, and that we had just run around for half an hour for nothing. Needless to say, we missed the bus, but it ended up being all right, since we were up early enough to spend all morning at the open-air market (which only takes place on Saturdays). We got some breakfast and strolled around, browsing and occasionally buying things. I bought the best-smelling tea in the world from a spice-and-tea stand.

Tea at the market. The one I bought is in the front row, six from the left (almost out of frame). It's green and blue and awesome.

After the market, we visited a few of the sights in Arles, including Espace Van Gogh, a former hospital where the artist stayed that is now a museum dedicated to his work (I think that's the story, anyway), the church and cloister of St. Tromphime, a couple of art galleries, and the remains of some Roman public baths. We got some ice cream at a place called Soleileis, which Amanda's guidebook had recommended as having the most interesting flavors in Arles. (I got "fagoli" - honey, nougatine, and olive oil. It was pretty good, too.) They had sorbet, too, so Kelly was able to have some dessert as well. After that, Kelly and I dropped Amanda off at the Corrida (bullfight) and went to a café, where we sat for two hours resting our feet, doing some reading (Kelly), and taking advantage of the free wifi (me, using Kelly's ipod). We arrived to pick up Amanda from the Corrida just in time to watch the dead bull get dragged out of the arena by its horns (ewwwww) and to see the bullfighters leave the arena being begged for autographs by adoring fans, which led us to wonder: what do bullfighters do when they're not bullfighting? They have celebrity status so I'm sure they make excellent money - definitely enough to live on - but, as Kelly said, "Do they just go around Europe traveling from ancient arena to ancient arena?" It's a mystery.

We picked up Amanda, got food, walked around, got more food, and then went back to the hostel for the night, exhausted from our early morning. We went to bed before midnight and got up early (once again) to go to the Camargue. This time we actually made it to the bus in time, and we arrived at the bird park about 20 minutes before it opened. We spent the time walking around the fairly deserted stretch of road on which the park was situated, watching some water birds in the surrounding marsh lands (we'd already seen some flamingos - which are native to the Camargue - from the bus) and watching a dog "herd" horses on a nearby farm. We got into the park just as it opened and started walking. We weren't very far along the trail when the man walking up ahead of us whistled and yelled something to us in French. We couldn't figure out what was going on until we realized he was trying to show us this:

Mystery creature at the bird park.

I thought it was a muskrat but that idea was soundly denounced by everyone else present (including some British tourists), since they all said it was some sort of beaver. While we were watching, another one jumped right out of the water and ambled right past us, not seeming to care that we were there. It was pretty cool.

Also cool were the flamingos. I'd expected to only see a few, and probably from a distance, but they were EVERYWHERE, and they were LOUD.

Me and only a few of the flamingos we saw.

We went through maybe only one-third or half the park, since we really wanted to get to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (on the Mediterranean) before we continued on to Avignon. So after some debate about how best to get there (there was no bus during the time we wanted), we started walking. We had been assured by the woman in the tourism office in Arles that the walk was "very easy," only about 2 kilometers. WRONG. The walk from the park to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is actually 5 kilometers (just over three miles), which gave rise to all kinds of other adventures. Upon fianlly arriving, we headed straight for the Mediterranean, which was a bit underwhelming in the the clouds and drizzle, although on the beach we did get to chat a bit with an American couple from Wisconsin (and I put my feet in the Mediterranean!)

It was a tad chilly. And there was a spot on my camera lens, apparently.

We walked around a little and got lunch at one of the many restaurants near the sea before catching the bus back to Arles to get the train to Avignon. And, I kid you not, literally as soon as we got to the bus stop the sun came out and the town was bright and sunny and beautiful. I bet the Mediterranean wasn't underwhelming then.

We arrived in Arles in late afternoon and promptly discovered that the YMCA where we had reservations was waaaayyy outside of town. In lieu of trekking all the way there/being a slave to the bus schedule, we decided instead to just fork over a few Euros and stay at a cheap hotel in town. We found one, Hôtel du Park, a block or two away from the tourism office, and, not feeling like running around comparing prices, just booked a room there. (75 € altogether for the three of us - not bad.) We were a little concerned about what the quality of the room would be, since the reception area was rather dark and smelled like stale cigarettes, but the room was actually very cute and bright. We dropped off our stuff, changed into clothes that were more weather-appropriate (it had warmed up a lot since the morning), and headed out into Avignon. The first thing we did was visit the Palais des Papes (Popes' Palace), which was, to say the least, intense:

Not a very good picture, but to conserve my camera battery I'd shut off the viewer screen, which made centering, etc. pretty difficult.

We toured the palace and got dinner afterwards after searching for a vegetarian restaurant Kelly had heard about. (It was unfortunately closed due to its being Easter.) We ate at another place in town and then went to a place called Festival des Glaces to get tea and chocolates (Kelly), some hot chocolate (Amanda), and chocolate ice cream (me). We chilled there for awhile before going back to the hotel room, where we read and did homework for awhile before going to bed early.

We slept in this morning (until like 9:00...heaven!) and then headed out to a couple museums - the Musée Lapidaire, a museum of archaeological finds from Greece, Egypt, and the Roman Empire, and then to Musée Calvet, an art museum located in a renovated 18th-century mansion. After that, we visited the bridge commonly known as the Pont d'Avignon, which was largely destroyed by floods in the 1600s. As per French tradition, we sang the Pont d'Avignon song and danced on the bridge, despite the fact that we were all wearing skirts and the wind was super-intense.

A few minutes before setting foot on the Pont d'Avignon. You can get an idea of how windy it was by looking at our hair. (Well, my hair.)

After the Pont d'Avignon, we ate some lunch and got some more ice cream before catching the train back to Lyon at 16:12. And now I'm back in my room, in Lyon, wearing clothes that I haven't been wearing, in some form or another, for the past three days. (It's lovely.) I really do need to be getting down to work on my journal response, though, so I'd better wrap this up. Until tomorrow (which is my birthday, I just realized now), au revoir!

View of Avignon from the top of the Palais des Papes

Adventures in Television-Watching

This is the life...just sitting on Maria's couch with Maria and Christian, eating Ben and Jerry's and watching 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s, making commentary on the really good songs and the really bad ones. And, of course, singing along.

The entire experience was punctuated by Christian's desperate search for brownie chunks in both varieties of ice cream (Half Baked and Chocolate Fudge Brownie). When Maria found a chunk and let him know, he promptly abandoned the Chocolate Fudge Brownie (which he'd more or less decimated in his search for brownie chunks) and pounced on the Half Baked. I stole the Chocolate Fudge Brownie and - of course - found a giant chunk of brownie, which prompted much whining from Christian: "Oooh! Give it to me! Please! No fair!"

Me, shoving brownie in mouth: Um, no.
Christian, in desperate attempt to get brownie: Kiss me!
Me: No!!! It's mine!
Christian: You bitch. It's like I'm the guy that went to California in 1847 and you're 1848.
Me: I need to facebook quote that right now.
Maria: You should BLOG ABOUT IT!!!

Why, thank you, Maria. I think I will.

Also, Christian permanently lowered himself in my eyes by insisting that Bono is an a-hole. (Um, no, he is not. He is brilliant, socially aware, and quite sexy. I would totally date Bono, even though he is quite a bit older than me and, you know, famous. Plus, he's married, so I don't think his wife (or kids) would be so crazy about me. Anyway. Moving on.

Christian's argument is that Bono does TOO MANY GOOD THINGS. Um, what?! How does supporting Greenpeace, Amnesty, and various anti-AIDS, -poverty, and -hunger campaigns make someone a jerk? I guess Mother Theresa's headed straight for hell, then.

Okay, update from Christian: "Let me change my argument, okay? I never said that. Here's why he's an asshole, all right? Because, um, he -eeeeeee- hold on, I'm watching this commercial. No, don't type that! Don't type that! No. He's an asshole because he does all this good stuff, but that's a cover for his love of himself. He is an egotistical do-gooder asshole. Yep. Yep yep yep."

I would like to ask you, Christian, as you read this over my shoulder (so to speak, since you're more reading this from the side and not behind) what do-gooder things YOU have ever done for humanity. I think being egotistical and doing nice things is better than not doing nice things at all.

We've moved on from the U2 discussion (in response to "One" being named one of the best songs of the 90s) to a discussion of the conspiracy surrounding Kurt Cobain's death: "How could Kurt Cobain shoot himself with a shotgun? Put THAT in your blog. He's not Mr. Fantastic. He was fantastic, but he wasn't Mr. Fantastic. Mr. Fantastic has stretchy arms."

Thanks for your unique perspective, Christian. Even though I tend to agree that Kurt Cobain did not kill himself.

Christian did acknowledge, however, that U2 is an awesome band. I couldn't agree more.

So now the show's over and we're channel surfing...we just came across this gem: "A widower and his daughters enter a surreal world to fulfill an enigmatic prophecy after they are attacked by evil trolls." Seriously, it's on ION. What?!

And now we're watching I Love Money. (Christian: Ugh, not for long.) Our commentary:
Maria: I feel like my brain cells are shriveling up and that my IQ has dropped a gazillion points.
Christian: Here's what the problem is with the show. Mr. Boston is a dirty dirty ho man. Man ho.
Maria: Man skank.
Christian: Yes, he is. He's a man ho skank. And that girl will eat pig balls.
Maria: A white boy wannabe gangsta. Like, 'Oh, I'm so Rico Suave.'
Christian: Yeah, so here's the deal with him. He makes us look like assholes. And he's captain! Oh, he's not my captain! Take that, Whitman! Suck on that, Walt!
Maria (imitating people on TV): 'I am...inarticulate. I don't know what I'm saying.' Okay, stop trying to sound smart.
TV: Okay, so you've taken some time to think about it -
Christian: No, they didn't. Don't give them that much credit.

Explain to me how making out with other contestants serves ANY purpose. At all. Why don't the contestants participate in some type of contest to better mankind, like solving world hunger or sewing Halloween costumes for non-creative, tight-budgeted children? I mean, really. Get some real jobs. The rest of us have to deal with customers to make minimum wage, and the MB is not a seaside mansion. Just saying.

I think it must be kinda hard to be Mr. Boston. I mean, no one really likes him. I feel bad for him. Mr. Boston, you have my sympathies.

Wait. "I have a lot of pride, but I'm willing to put all that pride aside for $250,000."

What? $250,000 is NOTHING. And besides that, if you had any pride (not even a "LOT OF PRIDE," as you claim), you wouldn't be on this show in the first place.

Oh ho, the tables have turned, Chance. You are not a team player. You have refused to participate twice, and you have therefore been disqualified twice.

He may not be a team player, but he apparently has more pride than anyone else on this show. Which is still not a lot, because, you know, he's there in the first place.

Well, we're going to watch Penelope now. Since I'm gonna actually want to pay attention, I think I'm gonna call it quits for this.

Sigh...

But first, a word from Christian:
so, christian he-ahhhhhh with an update. i don't realy have an update i just wanted to say that because it sounds cool. peace, romans, you don't exist anyway. homes.

Okay, Christian. Whatever.