Morruz

Home Sick :(

September 23, 2008 in France 2008 by xraystar | 1 comment

Well, the countdown has begun. I’m looking forward to comfy clothes and dinner on *my* time. I thought the Roses were bad, eating after 6pm! Also, something other than pastry for breakfast. I know that sounds awful, but it’s true. I’m a protein girl, all the way

Carcassonne has been pretty cool so far, awesome, awesome guest house. everything is big here the room, the scenery, the freaking castle. Wow. Mel and my prep has paid off I think, there have been no complaints in the leg department, and although there have been no Big Up Hill Hikes, I’m still thanking that prep cause I can tell when I walk up that I’m not even close to labouring The Pictures are all going to come up when we arrive home, since we’re only here for a short while longer, and I think this will be the last internet cafe. We were (and are still considering) getting a reservation at a Micheline star restaurant tomorrow, so …maybe we’ll have something (expensive) and excititng to talk about when we get home. we’ll let you know.

Some Highlights:
Truffles, truffles, truffles, truffles. should I do a lottery, or just pick myself? who will it be, who will it be?
In Avignion, I learned what foie gras was: Even I had a twinge of “Meanies!”
And here, in Carcasonne, Chris has schooled me in medieval warfare, very interesting.
I learned what gésiers are: I ordered a “salade au gésiers et artichauds” and, well, I got one of the wierdest salads ever. nice bed of greens, tomatoes, cuces, light dressing, spattering of artichokes, and 2 chickens worth of extra crispy super hot hearts and kidneys.
I had a dream so bad, my hair turned white. (litterally just one of them)
Watched a frenchman laugh at an englishman who tried to buy worschestershire sauce at his shop.
Saw a muskrat so big I thought it was a Beaver
Stepped in Dog shit
Watched a great game of Bocci Ball
Photographed a Nuclear Power Plant
Made out in a 2 thousand year old structure at least once
Went through a river lock twice
Watched a mini lock once
Bought Yarn

That’s a really damned big castle

September 23, 2008 in France 2008 by Chris R | No comments

So, we’re in Carcassonne… and yes, we regret turning down Matt’s offer to find us a portable Carcassonne game, which we both wanted to play within the citadel this afternoon whilst drinking sangria in an open air courtyard bar whose walls date back to the Roman occupation.

Did I mention that it’s a really damned big castle?

I’m really at a loss here; the end of the trip is coming up, and I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to getting home, but I’m enjoying these last couple days.

Are you sure you don’t want to use my Glasses?

September 21, 2008 in France 2008 by xraystar | No comments

not mine, but beautiful none the less

So, Avignon has been awesome so far! I think I would reccomend even bypassing all other stops and just staying in Provence for an entire holliday. The town of Arles we visited yesterday still has it’s Coluseum, whose building was finished in the First century, and still it’s “downtown” is from the 5th century. Much of Avignon is the same, but without the coluseum, and in stead the Pallais des Papes, which, I did get guilted into seeing. Damn Chris and his Catholicism rubbing off on me. Well, actually, I like his catholicism rubbing off on me . . .

Ahem, sorry my mother reads this blog, I should be more discreet

The Landscape is Beautiful, I’ve taken a million photos, So many, in fact, that I need to upload them so I can take more :/ Last night, there was a fireworks display I will let Chris describe, since I can only describe what it smelled and sounded like, as a late France Day Celebration (it’s about 3 months late, since their day is Col’s Birthday, the 14th of July) But it was some history day. (all museums were free, for example)

Today Chris and I are going to take it easy, window shopping and walking around the town ramparts and taking in the old, old sights. Maybe drink some fine wine, and maybe have a lesson on drinking wine in the Giftshop of the Palais des Papes.

And now, Provence

September 20, 2008 in France 2008 by Chris R | 1 comment

Sorry about the long gap; we’ve been busy getting from there to here, as tends to happen when your main mode of transportation is on a schedule. “There” in this case was the lovely oceanside town of Calvi, and “Here” is, well, you can see:

Something I took away from the Mediterranean Sea is a sense that, amazingly, the tourism advertisements and stories I’ve read about the place really do not do the sea justice. I’m accustomed to an ocean that is dark, cold, and remote; a beauty that can really only be appreciated in the sense that a predator’s grace is admirable. The Mediterranean is different. It’s blue in a thousand shades, all of them gem-like. Each isolated cove brings something new.

We saw three firefighting seaplanes, doing water drills. That was special. We were treated to a flyby by some kind of French military fighter jet, which blew past overhead as we picked our way up to a lighthouse on a rocky promontory. We ate haute cuisine at a dockside bar, and dangled our feet over the edge of the pier, watching hundreds of black fish in the deep, clear blue waters just beside a massive ferry.

And now, Avignon.

There is a palace here, one of the finest examples of a Gothic citadel in Europe, still largely intact, and it is huge. Only pictures can do it justice, but the computer at our hotel — from which I post this — cannot recognize our camera, and therefore I cannot show you these pictures. I’ll probably come back and attach them to this post later, so keep an eye on it.

The food is amazing, the hotel is the nicest we’ve had so far, and the people all seem very friendly. Interestingly, I’ve heard more english in Avignon in one day than in the rest of our trip put together. It seems that this place is a very popular tourist destination, and once I have the pictures up, you’ll see why.

I can’t really add a lot more without those, so I’ll leave off here.

jerks

September 16, 2008 in France 2008 by xraystar | No comments

I noticed you guys have better weather than we do right now. Hmph.

Saint Jack here isn’t the same as Saint Jack in the US

September 16, 2008 in France 2008 by xraystar | 1 comment

We just sent back our bikes from our daytrip out to one of the more remote beaches. Nice drive, nice beach, and a restaurant on it to boot. I had a salad of in season fruits and veg that was dressed with shrimp mousse and “garnished” with Gambas, or Scampi. (the scampi were bigger than the glass, let alone any of the individual parts of the salad) Then, there was tanning, reading, lazing and more biking. Nice picnic if you ask me.

I think one of the major differences to me (Chris has a different perspective) between this place and other resort towns I’ve been to, is that the beaches have all these restaurants on them, and you can use their beach chairs, or just drink on the beach and not have to be staying at that hotel, or whatever. I kind of like it. Going off in the middle of nowhere, finding a beach, and low and behold, there is a bar there! and it serves haute cuisine!

Calvi, in a few steps

September 15, 2008 in France 2008 by Chris R | 2 comments

Calvi is a beautiful town, no question. I can’t provide pictorial evidence of that right now because it’s raining to beat the band and I didn’t bring the camera with me, but take my word for it, it’s spectacular. A 20-km bay with white sand and blue sea, capped on each tip by rocks and on our end a citadel, backed by mountains, and 50% of the time a clear blue sky.

Note the percentage

It’s been sporadically nice here; yesterday was alternately 3 hours of rain and 3 hours of sun, today was 6 sun, and rain since, and if the pattern holds I expect clear sky by sundown. Char and I took yesterday to walk to the top of the second hill in from the sea, where there is a small 19th-century fort (the dates on the wall indicate 1849-1852 for construction) that is completely derelict now. We simply walked in through the front gate, and poked into all of the rooms. More pictures will come from that, but suffice to say that there were bits of it that were genuinely creepy. There was a room, third and last in a series of high-ceilinged subterranean chambers, with a window high in the west wall admitting indirect sunlight, with red paint handprints covering the whole wall, around the room, as high as a child could reach. Char has pictures of it, so you can see it later, but I won’t lie: I felt a chill seeing that, and even I know it was just some kids spooking it up.

Today was snorkeling. Both Char and I were fine on the boat, but it turns out we’re both prone to mild seasickness when IN the water. Who knew?

Well that’s not very Nice!

September 13, 2008 in France 2008 by xraystar | 3 comments

So, we made it to the island! So far, we’ve walked around, snorkled a bit off the beach, and ate. We’ve got a pretty sweet little set up here, Right beside the church (I’m not even melting! I think it’s presbyterian, that might have something to do with it) so we always know what time it is and a couple markets, a laundrymat, many many restaurants and shops, and of course the beach. Also, it’s like 10 steps from the port, which makes carrying baggage quite easy. The NGV (Navir grande vitesse) is unbelievable! It is so fast, and amazingly smooth (I coule barely tell we were moving, even while I was peeing) and it only takes 2h55min to travel the 180km.

I have to say, I’m not sure if it had anything to do with my mood, or what, but I wasn’t really all that impressed with Nice. It seemed touristy, with little to offer other than bars and beaches. Cab fare was incroyable! 14 Euros for 800m. that’s like 20 bucks! could you imagine? Anyway, I’m left with the feeling that we missed out on something, cause everyone was so enthused about it.

So far the food here is really good, understandably, and the local animals are primarily goats and boars, so my beach towel is one that has the head of an goat superimposed on the map of corsica. It’s delightfully kitch. The cheese and the beer here are amazing, I don’t even know how to describe the cheese, but it’s really good

More stories will follow, I’m sure. This place is really laid back, and nice. A good change

Another day, another odyssey

September 10, 2008 in France 2008 by Chris R | 3 comments

So, much like Char’s post below, this one is from Reims, at a local cybercafe. Not a cheap hobby, this mobile internet thing…

Anyway, I’m not going to cover the same ground as she did, nor in fact am I going to bother with a lot of detail at all; I’m tired (again!) and I have only one thing to add (and that’s for Amy): Gargoyles!

Nebuchadnezzar

September 10, 2008 in France 2008 by xraystar | 1 comment

Mark, Nat, Char, and Chris rocking out in Epernay

That’s one big freaking bottle! Although we did not drink *that* much champagne last night, We did drink about a Rehoboam of Champage yesterday, starting around noon It turned out to be a pretty expensive night, lots of champagne, lots of shellfish (cold raw sea snails, yuk!) and missing the last train: 70Euros for a cab from the equivalent of Leduc to our house. Ouch. But well worth it all, in my opinion.

The Champagne making process and some other things were well learned and appreciated, the samples at the ends of the tours were nice, and each house had its own different flavor of tour, as well as champagne. At one of the houses, I ate some pilfered grapes from outside. The Pinot (noir or meunier, I couldn’t tell) were really good, but the chardonnay were yuk! really small, tart, unripe.

I’d love to recount everything, but I’m distracted, and just really don’t know how to tell of all the super fun times we had. We met some people, laughed, ate, drank.

Reims (pronounced just like France the french way, but without the F. wierd, eh?) Is a beautiful town, 120 000 people live there, and beacause it’s “small” the streets are wide and you can see the beautiful majesty of the French architecture for a good 200 meters at a time, something that you can’t do in Paris, or even in Prague. It’s a place where they’d crowned kings from the mid 5th century, so it’s well kept, lots of gorgeous monuments etc. Just an all around beautiful place to be.

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