Manual Labor is the way to go

For all of you uninformed on my life (which is odd since you're reading my blog) I am *finally* in swing with all my classes, well, starting Monday. Close enough. I am taking a course for preparation for taking the DELF (which is a national - government language for non-French residents to take to certify them to teach, work, anything really...it basically is a fluency test), a course on the "patrimone" - history of architecture and culture in France, a course that is focusing on the history of economic thought, and lastly a biology lab course about wine and cheese.

That's right. Wine and cheese. It is, more correctly, a class that is exploring the terrain of France and how different products are grown in different places, particularly AOC (which stands for "Appellation d'origine contrôlée" translating to me "controlled term of origin") products. These are insanely regulated products in origin and is furthering into quality. For example: once a year an inspector comes and counts the BUDS on the vines for random plants throughout the vineyard and they each have to have 9 (I believe) or they'll lose their AOC licence. Also, AOC vineyards are forbidden to water their vines, it all has to be natural rain. Crazy people. Great (cheap!) wine.

So this past Thursday our professor signed us up to be the "vendages" for the vineyard called "Caves du Père Auguste" also known as the "grape pickers" or migrant workers all the way from the United States. We received a brief tour after walking up a HUGE hill up to the vines where in we tried lots of grapes off the vines of different wines. The first was a "fines bulles" wine grape which was tangy and incredible and the vine is over 100 years old!

Did you know? Red wines are grapes that have red pulp, white wines have a translucent pulp, but the outside skin can still be red (skin color has nothing to do with the type of wine! go figure! Though for different wines they use the skins differently, sometimes grapes are put into the vat whole and uncrushed and other times are put in as grape juice! Different techniques for different flavours).


We then each picked up a bucket and a pair of plant cutting scissors and got to work cutting grapes, filling our buckets, dumping the buckets into the "backpack buckets" on the backs of very strong, sturdy guys (the buckets full can weigh nearly 100 pounds!!) repeat until the vines have no more ripe grapes on them :) (We only worked for 3 hours...the people who do it all day are serious champions, serious champions in great shape, I am so sore today!)

The grapes we were picking were a "Gamay" - full name "gamay noir à jus blanc" which makes a red wine (which I totally bought a bottle of afterwards) that is apparently strong, but light, and fruity and is only cultivated by hand.
I'd like to note that this vineyard overlooks the valley of the River Cher and the Château de Chenonceau, known as one of the most beautiful castles in all of France.
After lots of not-so-long hours of working and very sticky fingers, we stopped and got to see the machine they use to strip the grapes from the stems and crush them into juice and then were allowed to try the freshly squeezed grape juice. Welch's could and really should take notes from them. This is the nectar of the earth, no joke.
We were then led into a room and were served a 5 course lunch with 4 different kinds of wines - a "fines bulles" (known in the United States as "champagne" which is blasphemously incorrect most of the time), a rosé (pink! very yummy), and 2 types of reds. Along with lots of cheeses, meats (I love that most of the time I have no idea what I'm eating and it's usually amazing), salads, pastas, and lastly - a pear tarte prepared by the 70 some odd year old great granddaughter of Père Auguste (the vineyard is now run by 3 of HER 4 children)

After a very long, very delicious meal (where in one of the young migrant workers "Franc" ate with us and was flirting shamelessly with 11 girls at the same time...pretty impressive, actually), we were given a tour of the "cave" or cellar of the establishment by the great-great granddaughter of Père Auguste. The limestone cave was dug out by our dear Père Auguste in 1880 by chipping away, putting dynamite in the stone, blasting it away over and over again, and then he used the rock to build the house and the cavern to store and make wine in! Genius!

My favorite part was going into a storage room with upwards of 300 bottles of wine, all covered in at least a quarter inch of dust, all unlabeled. Apparently the grandfather and father of our tour guide at one point forgot to label some bottles and when they took them out, they had forgotten what they were so into storage they went. The bottles are all around 50 years old. On special occasions the family takes one out and tries it, if it's great - fantastic! But if it's terrible they throw it out and pick up another bottle until they find something worth drinking!

We then all bought wine (three bottles 14 Euro...not bad) and sadly, departed.
Brilliant sort of day.


And when I came home Laura, another American, had arrived! Party in the house. It's nice having someone to talk to (still in French) that is a little more on my own wavelength. Tomorrow we're visiting two chateaux so look for another (highly pictorial) update soon!!

les endroits que je préfère

Welcome to Giverny, the home of Claude Monet. I'm pretty positive that this is a place where part of my heart will be for the rest of my life. This is where we went Saturday morning of the Paris weekend, about an hour away. Beautiful, cold morning and we couldn't have picked a better time of year to come. There are virtually no tourists because it's mid September, just some locals and elderly people on a giant tour. All the right kind of people to have in a garden.

Right after the entrance this is what you see - the arches that have vines starting to grow on them. I want to come back some day in the spring and see them full of roses and morning glories. I took literally hundreds of photographs of flowers, bees, of scenes, of the hills behind, at Giverny. There were also hundreds of moments spent with my eyes closed, inhaling the impressionism, which I had never realized had a smell. It does, and a distinct one at that.

The entire time I was there it made me think of people that I'm very close to, especially my mother and my sister. My mother, for those of you who do not know her, is an incredible gardener and has turned our home into a piece of paradise with our garden. And my sister is an artist. I would have given anything to have had them there with me...they probably would have loved it even more than I did.

When I was walking to the waterlily pond I realized that as much as Monet had a talent for impressionism, I cannot see how anyone could have lived in Giverny and not been an impressionist. There is a tiny bridge going over one of the small streams off of the large one that circles the pond with long grasses growing in the water. The blades were at least a foot long and the way they undulated in the current underneath waves of weeping willow branches blowing in the wind...Impressionistes were the first artists to see through creating pictures, the exact images of what they saw, and instead painted what it really was. They painted feelings, movement, they painted life.

Enough poetry :)

These two are some of my favorites. Throughout this entire weekend I attempted to take pictures of the things and palces that millions of people have taking photos of differently. With different angles, different focuses, and in these, I think I truly reached this goal. The waterlilies. You can see them, they're there and they're beautiful, but the focus on Monet's home. I wish I could show this to him and ask him if this captures his home. I hope he would say yes.

Okay...more photos of waterlilies and willow trees...

I could go on about Giverny for hours and show you every single one of my photos. When I come home, I probably will. But for your sake, and my sleeping needs, I'll move on to Chatres.


Sunday morning after visiting the museum which features Monet's paintings of his waterlily garden, we headed out from Paris. Chartres is located roughly half way between the two which was convenient and lovely. Chartres is an adorable little town, very provincal French looking. Sadly the front of the catheral is being restored, so I didn't get any spectacular phots of the front, so I resort to google images :)

There is no way to describe how impressive the cathedral is when you stand in the back looking at the immensely huge interior. It's huge...as someone who lives right outside of New York City and looks at skyscrapers frequently, it's HUGE and impressive. As pointed out by one of the girls - it's impressive to us today, imagine what it was like for people in the 13th century who lived in hovels. The stained glass is incredible, the organ is huge (Chartres homes a huge organ competition twice a year), the choir curtain is 20 scenes carved in stone that took 200 years to finish, so much incredible everything. I wish I could remember all the history told on the auditory tour.



Everything was nearly unbelievable. I wish I could do it justice with words and photos, but it's impossible. Truly impossible. So I'll finish with a fun story!
As I turned the corner outside during the tour (we each had individual headsets) I saw a bride and groom coming up the side of the cathedral. They then took pictures underneath some of the most beautiful overhead arch way carvings and the columns were beautifully carved too.
Happy day, happy ending. And they all lived happily ever after.

Only a little late

Yeah...it's Tuesday, really it is...not Sunday. I suppose I could just backdate this and convince you all that you're crazy, but that seems mean somehow. I've had a very relaxing weekend in Tours just doing homework and studying economics. We have completed our terms at the Institute so this coming week will be a bit of a vacation. I only have economics on Monday and Friday, and that's it since none of my other classes have started yet!! Hurray!

I'm going to split this into two posts - one about Paris and another about the 2 side trips we did over the weekend, Giverny and Chartres, just so that it won't be such a long post.

ok...heads is Paris, tails is Giverny/Chartres (oohhh it's with an españa 50 centimes coin)
HEADS!
Okay

Let us begin with Paris...


So we left on Friday at 6am and the place we were leaving from was a half hour walk from my house. Needless to say, I woke up super early, but I was still SUPER excited :)

After several hours in a coach bus that I don't remember, we finally ARRIVED! in PARIS! It was still very early in the morning so the first thing we did was take a 2 hour tour on the bus with a wonderful tour guide. She was a real character and kept flipping into English by accident because most of the tours she gives are in English. After the first hour around the city, we got out here, at the Palais de Chaillot which has an incredible view of the Eiffel Tower.


The place was positively filled with tourists and tons of guys trying to sell little Eiffel Tower key chains and statuettes. Kind of ridiculous, but fun at the same time. I'm happy with the photos that I got :)



After another hour in the bus seeing EVERYTHING (seriously, every major monument) we were set free in the city for the rest of the day. Bucknell bought us all huge bagged lunches with so much food in them so we found a park and ate!


After eating we decided to head to the Louvre (well why not? we were in Paris) and on the way we passed Notre Dame. So funny story, we were in Paris the same weekend as the Pope. Here's a tip, unless you're going to see the Pope, don't go to places where he's going to be. The crowds were massive, the security was even more massive, and we were told we couldn't see Notre Dame until Saturday because the Pope was preparing for holding Mass and needed all of Notre Dame to himself. True story. On the bright side, we practiced our French with some really cute French Gendarmes (policemen). Side shot of the back of the cathedral:



From the outside, there is no way of describing just how impressive the architecture of the Louvre is. Yup, gotta leave it at "just look":


The inside is really beautiful as well, as it should be, being the old palace and all, but I found that the intensely ornate rooms often distracted from the art being displayed. It was a history overload, but fun nonetheless.
Yes I saw all the famous stuff, but this post already has enough photos and you all should know what the Mona Lisa, Venus di Milo, and the Winged Victory look like, so here, have some cool Middle Eastern wall carvings:


After the Louvre we walked down the Champs Élysée seeing the Concorde and some really pretty fountains. France is the fountain capital I've decided. Everywhere, absolutely everywhere, there are fountains.


On the avenue we saw a couple of street performers doing dancing, which was fun and then we ran into other girls from Bucknell from our group (...what are the odds of that happening??) and so we all made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. One thing I've definitely taken from this trip is that Napoleon was a very cool, very rich, very VERY narcissistic dude. But hey, without him, most of these national monuments wouldn't exist, thus - good for you Napoleon, I like your trees.


Then, since our hotel was in the 14eme arrondissement (aka far away...Paris is split up into different sections in the pattern of a spiral shell starting in the center) we took the subway back. On a stop a guy with an accordion got on the subway and started playing, very awesome. Even better, as the subway went past the Eiffel Tower (gorgeous view) he was playing La Vie en Rose. Perfect moments. So of course, I took a picture :)


After refreshing ourselves we went back out and went to Montmartre which is the northern section of Paris where the Sacre Coeur is. We got dinner at a little café and then sat in front of the Sacre Coeur with about a hundred other université aged people just talking, drinking wine, smoking. It was the epitome of French culture. Then 2 girls started doing fire poi which was INCREDIBLE to watch, first time seeing poi in real life, let alone fire poi, at night, in front of the Sacre Coeur, over looking most of Paris. Brilliant.

The next morning we got up early and went to Giverny, which I'll talk about later. On the drive back, Professor Jordan pointed at a café and said "I think that's a famous place, take a picture and we can look it up later."

I indeed looked it up later and here is the wikipedia article:
Les Deux Magots is a famous café in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area of Paris. It once had a reputation as the rendezvous of the literary and intellectual elite of the city. This derived from the patronage of Surrealist artists, intellectuals such as Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, and young writers, such as Ernest Hemingway. Other patrons included Albert Camus and Pablo Picasso.

Go figure.
The rest of Saturday afternoon was spent wandering around Paris, we tried to get into the Catacombs and failed (sad story), so instead we just ate chocolate crèpes. Then we decided to start wandering toward the Eiffel Tower to climb it at night. On the way we found a very cute little restaurant called La Petite Scala and each had our own very French, very gourmet pizzas!


After dinner we got to the Eiffel Tower just in time to watch it sparkle, which happens for the first 10 minutes every hour from 7pm to midnight, I believe. We then got in line and got up!! I was brave enough to get to the 2nd level, the rest of the girls went all the way up. Good for them :) While we were up there it sparkled again, and we got to leave during the twinkling, it was beautiful.
Normally, as you may have noticed - the Eiffel Tower is usually lit up in a golden color, but as you can see - it's very distinctively blue here. And usually doesn't have the circle of golden stars. As you may not know, Nicolas Sarkosy, the president of France, is also the current president of the EU, thus the Eiffel Tower, until December 31st, will be blue with the golden stars!

After the tower we went to bed...so much walking around, we were all exhausted.

Sunday morning we went to the Musée de L'Orangerie, which is where all of Monet's giant paintings of the waterlilies are, as well as a huge collection of Renoir's work and some other cool artists.

After this we got in the bus and said goodbye to Paris. On the way back we went to Chartres, which will wait until later.

Thus, here endth the trip to Paris. Hope you enjoyed. And yes, I have hundreds more photographs :)

Promise

This weekend was truly magnificent and I have many stories and many many photographs. I also have a lot of homework. For one of the Bucknell classes we are required to write a four page paper (in French!) on the trip, our impressions, etc. So instead of using that energy here it has been rerouted to that.
Today was the first real day of the economics course and it's the last week at the Institute, so - this is a promise post: I promise that tomorrow I will write something stupendous with lots of beautiful photographs.

Excellent story of the day: My host brother Augustin knocked on my door today and I helped him with his English homework for an hour. It was blissfully fun. They had to read a "policier" (the French have wonderfully specific titles for genres) and then write a 300 word ending. Interrogation, lies, murder, all the good stuff. We spent most of the time laughing. His grammar really is autrocious and makes me feel so much better about life.

Quick last week update that was promised: On Wednesday night it was the president of the Université welcoming all the first years and international students in a huge hall of the Hôtel de Ville, which I learned is actually just a town hall (go figure). All the residents of Tours are required to get married there (in a gorgeous room). We listened to not-so-inspirational speeches about how we should access all the resources of the town, but then we were all given champagne, so we didn't complain.




À demain!

Almost "Friday"

Friday gets to come early this week because instead of just doing a weekend in Paris, we're doing 3 full days. We leave Friday at 6am (yes...6am in the morning and the place we leave from is nearly a half an hour walk from my house EEK! At least we'll have a three hour bus ride to sleep before we get there). Should be a rocking time, especially since we won't have to go to classes at the Institute!

These pictures are over due, so - have a look at my French maison!

This is the gate I go through to get to my house!

This is the house! Very French :)

In front of the house there's a little garden with a giant fig tree. When it's nice out it's fun to eat out there!

This is my WONDERFUL French puppy that I love so dearly. Twistie came running over when I got home and started taking pictures.

The Herve's beautiful kitchen. I love the huge windows.

Little triumphs of the week:
- Ordered a book I need for my economics class from the guy at the bookstore!
- Played lots of Resident Evil with Flore, awesome girl bonding, killing zombies. She now comes freely into my room. Yesterday we had a fashion show with all the new clothes she bought (at awesome prices...seriously 150 Euro jeans for 40!)
- Laughing about how all the BEF girls are having nightmares about being at home instead of in France
- Keeping my room clean
- Mastering the 5 minute shower with ease

I'll write again tomorrow about today, lots of homework to do now!

Two days in a row? Never again

Well..probably never again, but here I am.

Today was awesome...and spent lots of money, but on things that I love (Mom and Dad - when you visit, definitely pleeeeeeeeeease bring space to take some of my heavier things with you - you're the BEST).

Got out onto the man boulevard and nearly fell over. To all those that live in Lewisburg, go to Bucknell, have visited Lewisburg, and have been to Street of Shops, Attention: This is so much more. Imagine Street of shops, now double it, then take 10 blocks of street, block it from cars, and cram all that stuff into it. Then take another 5 blocks and dedicate that to food. Then go to the middle and put 15 blocks X-ing through it with higher class clothing, jackets, dresses, scarves, shoes, boots, EVERYTHING. Now put speakers in all the trees and blast it. Now add guys in silver glitz selling balloons. Now add 5,000 people, all trying to shop. This is not exaggeration. If anything, it's diminishing it a bit because I didn't walk end to end of either streets. Random side streets also had vending persons, I have only noted what I walked.

*Note: I believe you can click on the pictures and see them bigger - it makes it faster for me to upload them if they're smaller - please let me know if it works!!



Apparently this happens on a Sunday every once in a while

Be proud that I only bought 4 things, and decided to wait until next week to do all my Christmas shopping. Things I bought: Ultimate Brown Leather Bomber Jacket that I look SUPER European in (and love love love), Coffee table book about every chateau in France - great history lessons, these huge harem type pants (brown linen) that are UBER popular here and massively comfortable (it's the anti straight leg jean), and the best sausage/mustard on a baguette (French version of a hot dog) in the world...it was so amazing.


After shopping for the morning, Caroline and I headed out to the Musée de Beaux Arts, since it's free the first Sunday of the month. It was a cute little museum - the outdoors is the best part (and is open for free whenever the museum is open).

The giant tree is truly impressive and over 200 years old! On the side there is also a (real life) stuffed elephant that used to be part of Barnum and Bailey's Circus, but he died in the streets of Tours during a parade (bad day). So here he rests. His name was Fritz.

After that we went and saw a film called "Le Sel de la Mer" but the actual title is "Salt of this Ocean" or..that in Arabic. The cinéma "Studios" plays films in their original text with subtitles. It was interesting because it was 80% Arabic, 19.9% English, and .01% Spanish, so a lot of the time I was listening to Arabic reading French subtitles. The subtitles were nice though and helped me understand. The film is very artsy but makes a beautiful statement. Definite suggestion for those interested in the life and history of the Middle East, specifically Jerusalem.

Off to homework. Start classes early in the morning tomorrow and have my econ class, but I have excited butterflies in my stomach.
Bonne Nuit!


** Edit: apparently Salt of this Ocean is something like hatha assaam il-sifaa. Thanks Kev - (he says that might not be it exactly). And for those who don't know - street of shops is an indoor barn the size of 2 football fields full of every antique anything you can think of that has been made ever. Ever.

First real Saturday

If this town believes in one thing, it's that weather is fickle. Today has been, cold, hot, sunny, rainy, and everything in between. I guess this is why past students warned us to always wear layers and always bring sunglasses and an umbrella.

This is going to be a mostly pictorial update with a running commentary.

I woke up early (ish) and took a walk along la Boulevard Heurteloup, which is beautiful, probably thanks to Napoleon and his lining of trees down the roads.

This road leads past the train station (fountains are found absolutely everywhere in Tours)
And if you keep going you'll get to the Hôtel de Ville (and the beautiful garden in front of the hotel - there's another one identical on the other side of the street making a half a circle with the shops)


If you continue on this road, which changes to the Boulevard Béranger, and it's a Wednesday or Saturday you will see the open air flower market, as well as the open clothing/bag market and food.































Eventually on this road, I turn right (every morning for the past week) and make my way up the Rue de la Grandière to the Institut de Touraine, which is near the oldest part of the town.


There are beautiful churches in this part (this one I think looks like where Cinderella's ball should have ended up...except in a palace not a church!)

This is part of the old Cathedral, le Saint Martin.
If you keep continuing in this direction you run into the Loire, these are the stairs you can walk down to get to the river. The bar to the right is a great place at night apparently for music and there's a dance floor. It opens when the weather is nice in the spring and closes on September 20th. A bunch of the girls and I are going there tonight to listen to some jazz music!

This is one of the bridges to get to Tours-Nord (North Tours). I love the flags that run along side it.


Just on the other side of the bridge is the public library and a memorial dedicated to the United States.

At noon all the Bucknell girls, along with Mme Fazelly, Professor Jordan, and his wife and three kids met up at a crèperie and ate lunch - really yummy! And Mme Fazelly informed me that the economics class that I'm going to be in is weird and will be starting on Monday - two weeks before any of the other classes! Very exciting (and nerve racking!!!)

Then we took (another) tour of Tours (3rd one in a week!) with the coolest tour guide ever. She's a professor of art history and knows so much about the city. And she had a great sense of humor (not to mention being entirely and utterly enthusiastic).

After the tour, Caroline, Stephanie, Melissa, and I decided to get some afternoon tea at a little café. Seriously amazing tarts.


Tomorrow will probably be another picture update - in the morning we're going shopping at the open market on one of the main streets for fun then going to the Musée de Beaux Arts because it's free every first Sunday of the month! Then seeing a movie (Prince Caspian of Narnia...in French!) Should be fun!