Back home in NH. It feels good to be home, even on drizzly, cloudy mornings like this one. Angel is pretty old now but she’s still the same little puppy, and I love her more every day.

After the rain cleared and the sun reappeared, I went outside for some fresh air. Although the weather this week has been kind of crappy, I’ve definitely gotten more sun at home than I did in the previous month in Paris. These daisies, one of the most abundant June wildflowers in NH, are growing in our backyard.

Another typical New Hampshire wildflower that blooms in June, these lupines are opening up in my mom’s garden. My camera has a hard time photographing flowers, so I had to fiddle around with the focus, white balance, and exposure for this result.

My desk. I spent the last week cleaning and organizing my room — this is the most well-organized it’s been in 10 years. It’s amazing what treasures you find when you clean out those old drawers. And you can’t miss the homage to my Paris memories.

Since I’ll be moving to Toronto for graduate school in the fall, I have to apply for a Canadian study permit. My favourite question on the application: “In periods of either peace or war, have you ever been involved in the commission of a war crime or crime against humanity, such as: willful killing, torture, attacks upon, enslavement, starvation or other inhumane acts committed against civilians or prisoners of war; or deportation of civilians?”

We had a big family get-together at our house on the 13th, so I did some vacuuming in preparation.

Madeline somehow managed to finagle her way into her second 12 of 12 in a row. She asked me to go with her to the Plymouth Wal-Mart so we could pick out a GPS to replace the one she lost in Europe.

Snapped this shot at the rotary in Plymouth, looking towards Mt. Stinson. Maybe I’ll hike it again this summer.

We ended up not finding an affordable GPS at Wal-Mart, but we did find some baguettes to alleviate our gastronomical nostalgia. They taste like day-old French bread, but after a few minutes in the oven, they’re decent. We also came across two French-Canadian biker women while looking through the bakery.

Before leaving France, I had promised myself that when I returned home I would get a hot fudge sundae with Reese’s peanut butter cup ice cream at the Big Catch. We headed to the Catch after Wal-Mart and made my dream come true. When the girl was scooping the ice cream, I overheard her say, “Oh my God… there’s like an entire Reese’s in here.” Turns out, there were THREE full, intact peanut butter cups in the sundae, covered by ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream. It was amazing.

I didn’t eat dinner that night.

To burn off some of those sundae calories, I walked up to Sunset Heights at sundown. It was pretty, but I think I left before the best part.

Now that Conan’s on at 11:30, I watch him almost every night. It really sucks that he moved out to LA before I got a chance to see his show in New York, but I’m glad that the feel of the show hasn’t changed at all to accommodate a more “mainsteam” audience. There are still a lot of ridiculous bits. I’m just happy that the show has a bigger budget now, so those ridiculous bits are even more elaborate. I love Coco.

Part 2 of my two-week adventure!

We left off in Gimmelwald, that supremely beautiful and tranquil little Swiss village. Madeline and I got up early in the morning, were served a little breakfast by Walter, and then took the tram back down the valley. We returned to Interlaken and then got on the Golden Pass train towards Montreux.

This was the only leg of the trip that I had already done before (back in April 2007), but it was nice to see the beautiful countryside along the route again. I can’t stress how awesome the train rides in Switzerland are; practically every route offers breathtaking views around every corner. Although we failed to obtain window seats on the train into French Switzerland, the view of Lake Geneva and the Dents du Midi on the approach towards Montreux was even more incredible than I’d remembered.

Unfortunately, our descent into Montreux was interrupted when the train stopped abruptly near a road crossing. We were never really sure exactly what happened, but we gathered that maybe a truck had gotten stuck on the tracks and they had to move it. At any rate, we had to wait almost 30 minutes before we got moving again.

Once in Montreux, we walked along the Quai des Fleurs towards our hostel near the Chateau de Chillon. It was warm and sunny, and plenty of people were enjoying the nice day on the promenade. This is still one of my favourite places in Europe.

It was nice to be able to speak French again, even if just for a day! The Swiss have kind of weird accents, though, that sometimes sound a bit Germanicized. One advantage of their accent is that they usually speak more slowly than the French (especially Parisians). We bought some gruyere cheese, Swiss bread and chocolates for supper and ate on the edge of the lake as the sun set.

The next morning, we got on a train headed back into Italy. We passed through more of French Switzerland, entered back into the German part, went through a mountain tunnel and emerged in a verdant Italian Alpine valley, all in a couple of hours. We retraced our path a little bit when we returned to the Milan train station, where I was asked another question by a Spanish tourist:

“Esto es Milano Centrale?”

Fortunately I understood the question, but why does everyone assume I speak Spanish?!

From Milan we continued on towards Florence, passing from the flat, industrialized plain of northern Italy to the gentle, forested hills of Tuscany. I liked the “green” feeling of Florence (emphasized by the architecture), although, like Venice, the atmosphere was distinctly touristy. Not as crowded as Venice, but there was a ridiculous amount of Americans — Madeline even met some friends from her program at our hostel.

We arrived in the late afternoon so we only had a few hours to really see the city, unfortunately. We traced a route between the major sights, including the beautiful Duomo:

We saw the exterior of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Ponte Vecchio, and tried to see the Giardini di Boboli, but got there too late. Instead, we opted for some delicious gelato. Based on word of mouth, it seems like the gelaterias in Florence are uniformly good, whereas other food is very hit-or-miss. We scored a “miss” at a buffet place near our hostel. It was cheap, but the food was re-heated in a microwave and pretty gross. The service wasn’t particularly friendly, either.

We did get the obligatory view of the city from the Piazza Michelangelo, which was nice. We spent the evening just walking around, passing by a group of kids playing soccer with a dog. The dog honestly thought he was on the same level as the human players and even managed to get the ball a couple of times. It was adorable.

I felt bad that we didn’t really have a chance to soak in all the cultural and historical offerings of Florence. We didn’t have time for museums or anything. I suppose I’d like to go back someday, although I was still a little turned off by the touristiness that seems to pervade all the major Italian cities.

The following morning, our string of good weather finally ran out. We headed towards the coast under grey skies and rain. Despite a misunderstanding of our train-changing schedule (and the discovery that Italian train station clocks are not uniformly accurate), we arrived in Riomaggiore that afternoon. We took an unnecessarily roundabout route to get to our hostel, which turned out to be more of a room-letting agency.

We were given a room up one of the little side streets in the village. It was supposed to have been a shared 4-person room, but we ended up getting a 2-person room, with a TV, kitchenette, and en-suite bathroom — for 18 Euros a night per person! Pretty sweet. I think the woman who gave us the room was Italian-American — maybe she just liked us.

In spite of the rain, I spent a little time exploring the village, with its narrow, steep staircases and numerous lemon groves. I was tempted to just reach out and pick a few lemons for myself. I really liked the vibe of Riomaggiore — touristy, certainly, but not too crowded, and still very “authentic” in a lot of ways. Not to mention how awesome the “organic” layout of the town is.

We found a nice little pizzeria for dinner, and ordered our pizza to go. We brought it to the rocks on the edge of the sea and ate while the sun set over the stormy Mediterranean.

That night, we were awoken by the sounds of drunken tourists at a bar on the street beneath our room. They sounded like young people, and presumably Canadian — they were singing “O Canada” at the top of their lungs. They were even singing it in French, although I could tell they weren’t French-Canadian. Oh, drunk Canucks.

Hoping that the weather would improve for our coastal hike, we were a bit disappointed the following morning when the grey skies were still overhead. Well, at least there was blue sky over the sea. We set off anyway, following the via dell’Amore towards Manarola, the second of the five Cinque Terre villages. We got some tasty pastries for breakfast at “un bar.” Although the Italians do make some nice pastries, they really can’t compete with the variety and deliciousness of French pastries.

Despite warnings that the path between Manarola and the next village, Corniglia, was closed due to dangerous weather conditions, we found the gate open so continued anyway. We arrived in Corniglia without incident, although we did have to climb up 382 stairs to get there. Corniglia is the middle of the 5 villages and consequently the most isolated. It has a decidedly less touristy atmosphere, probably because it doesn’t sit directly on the water, either. We found the village and the adjacent trails full of cats. I’m not sure why.

After Corniglia, the coastal trail became much “rougher” and more difficult, resembling a true hike more than an even, groomed path. The trail passed lemon groves, vineyards, and olive groves, giving us a nice look at the local agriculture. It was also good exercise. When we reached the viewpoint overlooking the fourth village, Vernazza, the sun finally peeked its head out momentarily. The view of Vernazza was just splendid.

Descending into the village, we found some tasty pesto foccaccias for lunch and briefly toured the castle area. The weather was rapidly deterioriating, however, and we decided not to continue on to the fifth and final town, Monterosso. We knew that the last section of the trail was the longest and the most difficult, and we were already pretty tired. Besides, I had heard that Monterosso lacked much of the charm of the other villages. As we got to the Vernazza train station to head back to Riomaggiore, we knew we had made the right decision — it started pouring.

Oddly enough, the rain gave way to blue skies when we got back to Riomaggiore. We went to the rocky beach near the village and watched the huge waves crash along the shore. The tranquility was interrupted when a huge group of American college students came to sunbathe and swim in the freezing water. We made fun of them for a while before returning to our room. Feeling rather exhausted, we decided to take a lengthy nap for the remainder of the afternoon. All of our fast-paced travelling had really caught up with us.

We decided to make use of our kitchenette for dinner, cooking some kind of frozen spaghetti and shrimp dish, which didn’t turn out that great. Oh well. We spent the evening just watching TV and reflecting on how much stuff we’d already done in one week. I wasn’t sure that I could keep going for another week.

Photos:

Montreux

Florence

Cinque Terre – Part I

Cinque Terre – Part II

My last 12 of 12 in Paris. Where has the time gone?

Le petit déjeuner. I like Nutella, but only in moderation — I’ve been a eating a little too much lately, and the appeal starts to wear off after a while. It’s also one of the only foods in the house that isn’t organic.

My first class was French 300 (Grammar and Composition). The theme of today’s class was French cuisine — we watched a mouth-watering cooking show by this guy, my professor Anne-Catherine’s best friend. We also gave reports on regional French specialties (I discussed my experiences with Alasacian tarte flambée and Daube niçoise). I snapped this shot of my professor during our 5-minute break, when a few of my hungry classmates went to the boulangerie.

My “Paris Avant-Gardes” course was next. We watched A Bout de Souffle. Well, not exactly — I had only had about 4 hours sleep the night before, so I accidentally slept through much of the film. I really wanted to see it, too, since the last time was in high school. I managed to get this shot at the end of it.

When I got home around 2pm, I re-heated the piece of the tomato quiche left over from the previous night’s dinner for lunch. Pico was interested.

Unfortunately, this moment prompted an event that pretty much ruined my day. You see, my host mother makes delicious quiche. There’s always some left over, so the first time she made it she offered me to re-heat it for lunch the next day. Every time we’ve had quiche since then (maybe 3 or 4 times), I’ve always asked if I could have some of the leftovers for lunch, and my host mother has always obliged.

When we had the tomato quiche (a new recipe) for dinner, I wasn’t particularly hungry so I didn’t eat that much. My host mother was surprised I didn’t eat more and thought I didn’t like it, despite my reassurances. When I saw the leftovers in the fridge (only one piece), I figured my host mother had already eaten lunch and would’ve wanted me to eat the leftovers.

Later in the day, my host mother, visibly upset, confronted me and told me that she had wanted to eat the quiche for lunch. When I said I was sorry, she replied, “I hope you’re sorry.” It was the first time we’ve ever had any tension of the sort, but it made me feel terrible. If she had wanted me to eat more quiche the night before, why was it a problem if I ate it the day after? It cast a shadow on the rest of my day, and has been weighing on my mind ever since.

The thing that bothers me the most, though, is how she’s never expressed any kind of anger towards me until this point, which in all reality was a rather trivial affair. It makes me suspect that she’s kept any frustrations that she has with me pent up inside, because I can never gauge her mood. But how can she expect me to read her mind? Or am I just worrying for nothing?

The quiche wasn’t even that good when I re-heated it.

When the cloudy, drizzly morning gave way to a sunny late afternoon, I decided to go for a walk along the Canal Saint-Martin between the 10th and the 11th. When I got out of the metro at République, I stumbled upon a massive congregation of Sri Lankan Tamils who were sort of camping out everywhere. I soon discovered that they were protesting the alleged genocide of the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan army.

In the bed photographed above (hidden behind the two men sitting), were two men who have been leading a hunger strike for 35 days. Apparently, the protestors were forced to leave this morning, but the hunger strikers came back in wheelchairs. It’s amazing how much stuff going on in the world we just don’t hear about in the West.

This was my first time walking along the canal. Paris has so many cool things.

I suppose the canal isn’t as well known as a lot of other Paris attractions because it’s located in a “popular” (working class) area of the city (which is essentially the entire eastern half). There’s such a hugely different vibe between this area and, say, the 8th or the 16th, but it always feels much more lively (I also find that the more touristy the area is, the ruder the people are). I liked the brightly colored shops in this view, which reminded me a lot of England.

I walked through the Square Villemin, a nice little park that was bustling with people enjoying the (recently rare) nice weather. These old French women caught my eye. Nobody in the world is as well-dressed as French women, especially Parisians.

I got on the metro around rush hour at a busy Gare de l’Est to go back home. Line 5 direction Place d’Italie, changing at Oberkampf for line 9 direction Mairie de Montreuil. Descente à Charonne.

After dinner, I met up with Madeline at Ecole Militaire to visit the Eiffel Tower. It was her second-to-last night in Paris, so we wanted to do something special. It was our first time up the tower since 2004.

I think we had to wait in line for about 45 minutes (long for a Tuesday night, eh?), but it was well worth it. There’s just something magical about taking the elevator through the iron patchwork of the tower and then seeing the city of lights from the top. We’re now experts at pointing out all of Paris’ landmarks — we could even see the Ferris wheel at the Foire du Trone.

We had to wait a long time for the elevator back down, so we didn’t get to the bottom until around midnight, just as the tower began to sparkle. We relived one of our early nights in the city by buying waffles from the stand across from the tower. Fearing that we might miss the last metro, we ate them while walking back to Ecole Militaire. Messy, but delicious.

Now that I have time to begin recounting my spring break adventures, let’s start at the beginning.

Madeline and I headed to the Gare de Bercy to get our night train to Venice. When we arrived at our compartment, we discovered that it was overflowing with an entire extended family, and decided to install ourselves in the next compartment over instead, which was almost empty, save for an American girl. After introducing ourselves, we discovered that the girl was actually from the University of San Diego and taking classes at the ACCENT Center. What? Talk about a small world.

Even more incredibly, we also realized that she and I had both been on the exact same trip to Chartres back in February, and yet neither of us remembered seeing the other. Crazy.

Fortunately, I managed to sleep reasonably well on the train since I hadn’t slept much the night before. When we arrived in Venice, we walked out of the train station and ate breakfast on the front steps, overlooking the Grand Canal.

We didn’t have a map, so we figured we would just try to wander around in the general direction of St. Mark’s. I suppose we underestimated how much of a labyrinth Venice really is. I can’t count how many times we came to a dead-end on the edge of a canal. At any rate, it was a fun way to explore the city. I was amazed at how the canals really do take the place of roads, full of boats making deliveries to businesses and so forth. And of course, the stereotypical gondolas and their goofy-looking drivers.

I thought Venice was beautiful, but I was very turned off by the crowds of tourists and the overall super-touristy atmosphere. Once we got to the Rialto Bridge, it was difficult to walk anywhere because of the crowds. I suppose it being Easter weekend didn’t help things. The “tourist alley” between the Rialto and St. Mark’s was ridiculous. However, the views across the Grand Canal were just breathtaking.

Since we had booked a hotel in Mestre, the modern part of Venice across the lagoon, we had to take a train back in the afternoon to check in and drop off our stuff. Since our morning walk had been tiring, we also took a cat nap before returning to the old city. We returned to St. Mark’s in the late afternoon (we hadn’t been inside earlier), but unfortunately we discovered that it wasn’t open to visitors because it was Good Friday. Instead, we went up the Campanile for awesome views of the city.

While waiting in line for the Campanile, I was approached by a Spanish woman who asked me if she could buy tickets for St. Mark’s Basilica from the Campanile ticket booth – in Spanish. I understood what she said, but I could only manage a “Si” before thinking to tell her that the church was closed. Oops. If I only had a few more seconds, I would’ve said, “La iglesia está cerrada.” At any rate, this event begs the question — why did she assume I spoke Spanish? Do I look Spanish?

That night, we got pizza at a restaurant somewhat near St. Mark’s. It’s hard to tell if it was “authentic” or not (although the well-dressed Italian waiters create the façade of authenticity), but it tasted good enough. I feel like pizza isn’t particularly hard to perfect, though — so you don’t need to go to Italy to get the best. Our dessert, however, was Italian food at its best — gelato! I got tiramisu and coffee flavors, which actually provided a caffeine boost. That’s good stuff.

The next morning we took the train to Milan, then changed to a train towards the lakes. We were a bit annoyed by the supplemental reservation fee for high-speed Italian trains, which was much higher than the supplement for French trains. Anyway, the train ride along Lake Como was lovely. We got off at Varenna to take the ferry to Bellagio.

This was easily one of my favorite places in Italy. Taking the ferry was lots of fun, admiring the towering mountains around the lake and the little Mediterranean villages. Once we got to Bellagio, we walked along the shore towards some kind of massive lakeside park / garden belonging to an old villa. I think we were supposed to pay to get in, but we found an unguarded path around the back that let us get in without paying. But hey, that’s their fault for making it so easy to get in!

There was a Japanese garden with red maple trees, rose bushes, and all sorts of beautiful flowers. There was a gazeebo with a shiny blue dome that I vowed to convert into my house. It was gorgeous.

We returned to Varenna, explored the village a bit and then headed back to the train station to continue our journey. We had a while to wait, so we killed time by playing “This or that?”, a game that would come to occupy much of our free time during the week.

We got on the train and headed north into the Alps. The warm sunshine gave way to some menacing clouds, but fortunately no rain. We arrived in the small town of Tirano near the Swiss border and walked towards our hotel, enjoying the 360-degree view of mountains. Upon arrival at our hotel, however, we discovered that it was closed. What? We didn’t want a repeat of the Bayonne incident.

I decided to call the hotel, and while I wasn’t hopeful, I was overjoyed when a woman answered and said she would come down to open the door for us. It was certainly an odd place — when we got there, the woman’s family was eating dinner at the hotel restaurant. We had to use the back door to get in and out. We found a supermarket in town and bought a little dinner of ham and cheese sandwiches and chocolate cookies.

We ate dinner in our hotel room while watching Italian TV — a very dramatic, very Italian “Deal or No Deal” as well as a benefit concert for the victims of the L’Aquila earthquake.

The following morning, we took the “Bernina Express” train across the Swiss border. We climbed through the Alps, passing by the breathtaking Lago di Poschiavo before hitting snow. The snow-covered forests were beautiful and, before long, we were even above the treeline, crossing a landscape that looked out-of-this-world.

This other-wordly landscape was interrupted by a few cross-country skiers. Looked like they were having lots of fun. For a slightly more in-depth account of the day’s journey, check out my most recent 12 of 12.

After a brief stop in St. Moritz where I used some very minimal German to order lunch, we began descending through the Alps in the direction of Zurich. The train rides were wonderfully scenic — Swiss villages, farmland, castle ruins, churches, towering mountains, lakes, rivers… what more could you ask for? The architecture was definitely distinct from that in the Italian portion of Switzerland, not to mention the people — more subdued, naturally.

From Zurich we continued on to our final destination of Lucerne, a very nice historic town on the edge of a lake. It definitely had a “green” vibe to it, with lots of hookah-smoking loungers, very small cars, and a CoOp supermarket. Oh, and the smell of marijuana. We had a picnic by the lake for dinner, and returned to our hostel for the night. I was awakened when one of our Kiwi roommates began snoring loud enough to break the sound barrier, but he eventually stopped.

All in all, Madeline and I both got a good impression of Lucerne — it seems to epitomize the laid back lifestyle of the Swiss. They are definitely a quirky people, what with their coockoo clocks, extremely kitschy decorating habits, and their ridiculous variety of German (who the heck says “Grüezi”?), but they seem generally easy-going and happy. I only wish I could have communicated more in German and less in English, but the French-to-German phrasebook I picked up at Monoprix before the trip didn’t help that much in the end.

The next day, I captured this shot of Lucerne’s old town before returning to the train station:

Our train ride towards Interlaken brought us through some more idyllic Swiss countryside — cows, green pastures, waterfalls, and some beautifully pristine lakes. The most beautiful of them all was the Brienzersee, just east of Iterlaken. Its incredible blue-green color was just unreal (and unfortunately didn’t come out in my photos). It was weird returning to Interlaken, the first place on our trip I already knew. Although I was there 2 years ago, I remembered every mountaintop.

From Interlaken, we took a train to Lauterbrunnen, windows open and enjoying the fresh air as we climbed into the mountains. The view of the Lauterbrunnen Valley was amazing — huge snow-covered mountains in the distance, giant cliffs on either side riddled with massive waterfalls. It reminded me a bit of Yosemite. We took a bus to Stechelberg and then a skier-filled lift to Gimmelwald. The lift dropped us right off in this little Swiss mountainside village.

Man, what a beautiful place.

The views of the Alps from Gimmelwald were absolutely overwhelming — the mountains virtually occupied our entire field of vision, and it was impossible to look in any direction without seeing massive snow-covered peaks. In fact, even Gimmelwald had some early spring snow left on the ground, although the weather was perfectly sunny and comfortably in the 60s. We checked into our hotel, the very rustic and creaky, wooden Hotel Mittaghorn run by a slow-moving Swiss octogenarian named Walter. We felt bad for the guy, all alone…

We spent the afternoon walking around Gimmelwald, enjoying the beautiful vistas around every corner.

Gimmelwald is a place frozen in time. Tourism has not quite encroached upon its supreme tranquility. We wanted an afternoon snack, but since there are no convenience stores to speak of, we visited “Esther’s Shop,” which was part of “Esther’s Inn.” We expected a room full of food, but when we climbed the stairs leading to the shop, we were met by Esther herself at the top of the stairs. She showed us a small shelf covered with her goods — jam, cookies, things like that. She assured us that she made everything herself.

We bought some sort of shortbread cookies and ate them on Gimmelwald’s swingset — certainly the most picturesque place I’ve ever… swung. We then walked through the village, passing by farmers in traditional Swiss garb, some fellow explorers, and some local cats enjoying the sunshine. We sat down on a bench to admire the view when we noticed a wild mountain goat running up the hill in front of us.

The goat passed literally 10 feet away from us on his way up the mountain.

We returned to our hotel for dinner, which Walter prepared for us. It was a delicious and filling plate of rice, shrimp, and mixed vegetables, followed by a fruit and ice cream combo for dessert. After dinner, Walter joined us in the dining room and began a conversation. The communication was a bit difficult, however, since Walter’s English was not perfect (nor his hearing). It was somewhat awkward, but we felt bad because the guy obviously must be lonely. He’s been working at this hotel for almost 40 years. At any rate, we thanked him for the delicious dinner and retired.

We fell asleep serenaded by the “baa”s of the sheep next to our hotel.

Photos:

Venice

Italian Lakes and Alps

Tirano to St. Moritz

St. Moritz to Lucerne

Lucerne to Gimmelwald

Gimmelwald

A month ago, USCers invaded Normandy.

At the outset, the weather was not in our favour. Thick fog and rain threatened to jeopardize the operation. It was a long journey to the landing beaches, and everyone was tired due to the early departure. We attempted to sleep, but were inhibited by our tour guide Mirek’s hour-long lecture on the history of Normandy.

As awesome as Mirek is, his tour guide “method” can be quite fatiguing. He tends to talk well beyond people’s attention spans.

Anyway, our first stop was the Caen Memorial, probably one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever visited and certainly the best on World War II. The exhibits do a great job of tracing the events that led to the war, the operations during the war itself, and the aftermath. The museum has a rather chilling atmosphere — the section on the Holocaust is particularly poignant and haunting. Unfortunately, we barely had an hour to visit the exhibits, which was not nearly enough.

We then watched two films about the Normandy invasion. The first was a side-by-side comparison of German and Allied footage, showing the preparations for the invasion and the battles themselves. It was incredibly captivating, especially with a dramatic, Williamsesque musical score. The film culminated with the two sides coming together in a flyover shot of Omaha Beach, cutting between the invasion and footage of the beach today.

The second film was a very informative account of the invasion, the strategic movements of each army and the battles. More sweet music too.

Afterwards, we headed to Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery for ourselves.

The beach was beautiful and tranquil, and it was impossibly difficult to imagine the death and violence that had taken place there 65 years earlier. Similarly, it was difficult for the painful reality of the endless rows of crosses to really sink in. All in all, a very emotional place.

I made it my mission to find at least one soldier from New Hampshire, which I thought would take forever. As soon as I made this vow, however, the very first cross I saw was for someone from NH. Quelle coincidence.

After our visit, we drove through some lovely Norman countryside on our way into Brittany and Saint-Malo. I was happy to return to this area, as it was (and is) one of my favourite parts of France. A few of us ate dinner at a nice creperie, where I had a “galette complete” for my main course and a delicious crepe with apple cider-flavored ice cream for dessert. Breton food, mmm mmm.

That night, we walked out to the Grand Bé, a small island accessible at low tide that overlooks the city . Although the tide was coming in and the footpath to the island wasn’t far from water’s edge, we ignored the warning signs and enjoyed the view and the darkness on the island. We made sure not to spend too much time there, heading back to our hotel after stopping for a little bit in a nice rustic bar.

The next morning was rainy and grey, making for a somewhat less enjoyable tour of the city walls. I managed to score major brownie points when Mirek asked what the 7 Celtic nations are and I gave them all. I have no life.

I was thrilled about our next stop — Dinan — as it’s one of my favourite little towns in France. The wonderfully preserved architecture, especially on the “Rue du Petit Fort,” my favourite street in France, is so fairy tale-esque. I hyped it by referring to it as “The Beauty and the Beast Street,” and I don’t think my friends were disappointed.

For lunch, we hit up yet another creperie. Whilst eating, the sky finally cleared up and gave to way to some beautiful spring weather. We spent the rest of our time in Dinan visiting a little park / zoo with deer and some colorful but aggressive birds.

The group returned to Saint-Malo for the afternoon, which turned out to be wonderfully relaxing. We spent most of the day on the beach and on the rocks, taking in the sun (and dipping our feet in the frigid water). The Emerald Coast was gorgeous.

Our group dinner that night was amazing. I regretted not ordering the impressive seafood platter for my appetizer, but I did get my first taste of foie gras instead. Pretty good, but maybe a little overrated. That much fat definitely isn’t necessary. My main course, however, was a delicious melange of fish, scallops, and mashed potatoes (both regular and purple!) Made me miss New England food. We also had some good Breton Cola to go with it.

The highlight of dinner, however, was Sylvie’s “bonanza” (or was it “extravaganza”?) dessert. It was a surprise to all of us, but it didn’t disappoint. The dish was essentially a sampler with raspberry sorbet, chocolate mousse, fig ice cream, and creme brulee. Wonderfully delicious.

The following day we headed to Mont Saint-Michel. Sadly, my favourite thing about the place — the impressive view as you approach — was ruined by some heavy morning fog. It was Palm Sunday, so we had to tour the abbey before the hordes of tourists and pilgrims arrived. I would have rather spent more time exploring the village and surrounding areas than the abbey itself, which I find rather underwhelming.

I did end up having some time to eat lunch in a nice little park under the sun. By the time we left, the fog had cleared and we got a great view of the Mont:

All in all, a nice weekend trip and definitely more relaxing than our trip to Provence. I love the Norman and Breton countryside, but I’m hesitant about applying to those regions for my teaching assistantship in 2010-2011; the constant rain and greyness puts me off a bit.

Photos:

Normandy

Saint-Malo

Dinan

Only 15 days late with this one, but I was on vacation! More on the context later.

Our third day of Spring Break found Madeline and myself in Tirano, a small town in the Italian Alps near the Swiss border. We were staying in a small, family-run hotel. Our room had a double bed and a single, so we rock-paper-scissored for the double. I lost. After a minimal breakfast of bread and nutella, we headed for the train to Switzerland around 8:30.

The Bernina Express soon crossed the Swiss border, ascending into the Alps and offering spectacular views of the Italo-Swiss countryside. Since it was Easter Sunday, our train was full of emphatic Italian vacationers who were awed by the beautiful views, such as this one of the Lago di Poschiavo in Miralago. The water was incredibly still, creating this amazing mirror image of the Alps.

As the train continued to ascend the Alps, attaining an altitude over 6,500 feet in the Bernina Pass, the landscape began to look other-worldly. Or at least much like Antarctica. The train-goers took to shifting from one side of the train to the other to take in the landscape. I particularly liked the contrast of the red train against the white snow (we were in the caboose, so that’s looking towards the front of our train).

The train ride ended in St. Moritz, which was still a bit snowy and icy, but not too cold for a short respite. Church bells signaled the Easter services, but unfortunately we had a tight train schedule and couldn’t attend any. Besides, we had entered the German part of Switzerland (or, more appropriately, the crossroads between the German, Italian, and Romansch parts) so we wouldn’t have understood anything.

We continued on to Chur and then Zurich, passing by more idyllic Swiss countryside as we descended through the Alps.

Once in the lower elevations, the countryside was much greener and spring-like (and still spectacular). I spotted these bikers somewhere along the train ride between Zurich and Luzern, our 4th and final train ride of the day.

After arriving in Luzern (Lucerne) around 4:30, we headed to our hostel near Lake Lucerne. We passed through this beautiful park, which was full of some rather “hippieish” loungers (much to Madeline’s delight) and plenty of swans. We then checked into our room (which we shared with two New Zealanders) and decided to explore the town for the evening.

The weather in Luzern was pleasantly warm and generally spring-like, evidenced by these lovely Swiss flowers.

Luzern’s old town was particularly picturesque, with the wooden Kapellbrücke and gilded ornaments on the buildings. For some reason, the bridge seemed to be full of Asian tourists. They sure do get around.

Since we hadn’t done anything remotely “Eastersque” on Easter, we searched desperately for some Swiss Easter chocolate. Although we found a few chocolatiers in Luzern, everything was out of our price range.

We spent much of the evening wandering around the town looking for a cheap place to eat dinner, but everything was either closed or too expensive. Still, it was a pretty walk.

We eventually returned to the train station, where we discovered a sort of shopping centre which included a large “CoOp” supermarket, much to our economic delight. We got some pasta salad, grapes, delicious Swiss bread, and even some chocolate easter bunnies that were about to be thrown out. We returned to the lakeside park to enjoy our Easter feast while the sun went down over the Alps.

Afterwards, it was back to the hostel for a restful night before the next day of our adventure.

I’m behind with my blogging with usual, but I need to scribble out a couple updates before vacation.

A couple weekends ago, Madeline and I took an overnight train to Carcassonne to kick off our exploration of southwestern France. We were in a compartment with 6 couchettes on the train; fortunately, we had the top couchettes so we could store our stuff easily and have a bit more privacy. Unfortunately, I barely slept a wink on the voyage. It simply wasn’t comfortable, and I had actually slept a full 8 hours the night before, so I wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep easily.

We got up around 5:30am and, after collecting our things, tried to open the door of the sleeping compartment so we could get off the train. For some reason, however, we could not open the door. We tried pushing and pulling the handle, pressing every doohickey we saw, but it wouldn’t budge. We spent a good 5 minutes trying to open it, even knocking with the hopes that someone in the corridor would hear us, but in vain. We started to panic a little. Only after all this did we actually try sliding the door open. We spent the next few minutes laughing at our own stupidity. But hey, we were tired!

At any rate, we quickly headed from the train station in Carcassonne across the dark, empty streets of the modern city towards the Medieval Cité. We found a riverside park that offered a view of the castle and ramparts and watched the sunrise whilst eating breakfast. Our breakfast consisted of “Hit Minis” (Choco Flavor), a jam-packed package of cookies sold in SNCF vending machines. It’s a great value and one of our primary sources of sustenance while traveling.

Anyway, the sunrise:

The streets of the Cité were practically empty in the early morning. We got to explore the city and ramparts without the hordes of tourists that must come there in the warmer months. We killed a couple hours just walking around before the castle itself opened. I was particularly enthralled by the orange- and blue-grey-capped Medieval towers, as well as the view of the distant Pyrenees.

From Carcassonne, we headed to the Mediterranean. The train ride was wonderfully scenic — for one portion, the train was on a strip of land surrounded on both sides by water. Even more impressive was the view of the snow-capped Pyrenees in the distance, juxtaposed against the warm, sunny Mediterranean landscape.

Our destination was Collioure, a small seaside town near the Spanish border whose colorful architecture apparently inspired Picasso and other painters. Despite large groups of Spanish high school students on field trips, the town had a fairly sleepy, relaxed feel to it. The bright blue Mediterranean water, vibrantly colored houses, warm Mediterranean sunshine, and a respite on a sandy beach all combined to make the afternoon extremely enjoyable. Our hotel room even had a balcony overlooking the harbor.

Oddly enough, at dinnertime, the town seemed to shut down almost completely. We couldn’t find a single restaurant that was open, aside from a take-out pizza place. It turned out to be a good thing, because the pizza was delicious.

We had to get up early the next morning to catch our train into the Pyrenees. I snapped this shot of the harbor from our hotel room before we headed out. We got to see our second sunrise of the weekend as the sun came up over the sea and brought even more color to Collioure.

We headed to Perpignan to catch a connecting train — which, unfortunately, was delayed due to a mechanical problem. This was an issue, because we had another connection to make — the “Petit Train Jaune,” a scenic train that runs through the Eastern Pyrenees. Despite my worrying, it turned out that the Petit Train Jaune waited for all the passengers from Perpignan arrived before departing.

Our initial train was replaced by a bus service, on which we were accompanied by a class of ~3rd graders. The French kids made for an amusing ride, with their little games and so forth. One of them was distraught about the delay and started crying because he wanted to see the bridges and tunnels of the Petit Train Jaune. They were going for a picnic in the mountains.

Once on the little yellow train, the views were fantastic. We were in a car with an old German couple. We opened all the windows to let in the air and kept moving from side to side to take pictures. We started in a deep valley/gorge, cut out by the River Tet and dotted with hillside villages and Medieval ruins. We gradually ascended through pine forests and onto a high plateau with vast fields and uncanny views of the snowy Pyrenees.

We definitely weren’t in Paris anymore. Several of the train stations along our route were covered with Catalan graffiti, insisting that the region belonged to Catalunya and not France. That said, I think I only heard Catalan spoken once during our trip. More obvious were the delightful southern French accents.

After our scenic train journey, we headed towards Toulouse. Unfortunately, we only had about an hour to explore the city, but I was left with a very good impression. Warm, full of life and activity. Neat, pinkish and orangey architecture. Seems like it would be a nice place to live. I’d like to go back someday.

From Toulouse, we continued on to Tarbes, the location of our couchsurfing host. Our host, Franck, was a very nice guy. He even made us dinner – lentil soup with fish and orange slices. Pretty good, and filling! He told us more about the Pyrenees than I could possibly recount here. He even showed me one of his Occitan textbooks. I wish I had the time to learn it (side note — many of the street signs in Toulouse were in Occitan as well).

The next morning, our luck with great weather ran out. Tarbes was drizzly and overcast. Still, we decided to continue to our destination of La Mongie, a ski resort town in the high Pyrenees where we could take a lift to the Pic du Midi, which offers an amazing panoramic view of the area. We were hoping it would be above the clouds.

No such luck. As our bus ascended the mountain valley, the rain turned to snow — a lot of it.

The road was virtually blocked by cars that were stuck in the snow. People were pushing their cars out of the trouble spots and putting on snow chains. Our bus driver did the same, then somehow managed to plow past all the stuck cars and make it to La Mongie on time — I guess the timetables account for mountain blizzards.

We soon realized that the the Pic du Midi was completely obscured in the clouds and there was no point in paying the money to make the ascent. Instead, we opted to have a relaxed lunch in a café in the ski resort village while the snow fell outside. I had a great sandwich (with huge chunks of cheese) and a blueberry / chantilly waffle. Mmmm.

We returned down the valley (the road had been plowed) and made our way to Lourdes. This part of the Pyrenees was quite distinct from the areas we had seen the day before — much greener, wetter, lots of stone buildings rather than the Mediterranean stucco. But Lourdes was a separate animal altogether, with its plethora of sanctuaries and unfortunate kitschy tourist shops selling Christian paraphernalia.

Our real interest in the area was the Grottos of Betharram — we had to take a taxi to get there, but our driver was extremely friendly and even offered to show us a sanctuary (free-of-charge) in the area after our visit to the grottos.

The caves were just awesome. Lots of cool lighting effects, a little boat ride over a lake in the cave, followed by an awesome train ride that took us out of the grottos. The train ride was almost roller coaster-esque, reminding me a lot of Big Thunder Mountain.

That night, we arrived in Bayonne — in Basque Country. Although we had booked a dirt-cheap hotel in the city, when we got there (around 8pm) we found that the hotel was locked and the reception wasn’t answering the phone. Such is the case with many hotels in province, apparently. We had to scramble to find an open hotel in the city, and stumbled upon a Best Western. Although much more expensive than the other hotel, it was a place to sleep, at least.

Our second problem was finding a place to eat. The city was pretty dead, aside from a handful of bars and fancy restaurants beyond our budget. We were suddenly desperate for fast food, and after Madeline consulted Google on her laptop, we discovered that there was a “Quick” on the outskirts of the city. After the stressful evening, I consumed many a calorie.

Despite losing an hour due to the time change, I got up early the next morning to take a few photos of Bayonne. I was really attracted to the traditional Basque half-timbered architecture, with its emphasis on red, white, blue, and green. The city looked particularly nice with the morning mist over the river that runs through it.

We had to hurry to the train station to catch a train to Saint-Jean-de-Luz on the Atlantic coast, but our haste paid off. We stopped at a boulangerie in Saint-Jean to get breakfast, which we proceded to eat on the beach. It was strange being on the opposite side of the Atlantic, but there was something oddly familiar about it. The smell, the air… something just reminded us of home.

The weather was beautiful and we walked along the coast for a while, getting a great view of the city with the Pyrenees in the distance:

In town, we stopped at the Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the location of Louis XIV’s marriage. Very cool interior with dark wood balconies on the sides of the church.

The streets, lined with traditional Basque architecture, were very charming. I think I only heard the language spoken once or so, but it was just cool to have traveled through so many linguistic and cultural regions in a matter of days. Not to mention climate zones. Going from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic in 2 days was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed the Southwest of France, and it has moved to the top of my list for potential places to settle in for my teaching assistantship in 2010-2011.

Finally, les photos:

Carcassonne

Collioure

Pyrenees – Part I

Pyrenees – Part II

Basque Country

Spring Break is almost upon us, and I’m already wishing I had more time in Paris. In reality, I have less than 6 weeks left in the city itself, and I feel like there’s so much I still haven’t seen.

I know we’re here to study first, but I hate spending my days reading and writing papers in my room while the city moves around me. March was a very busy month and I had little time to explore. My days consisted of waking up, going to class, coming home, taking a nap, eating dinner, doing homework, and going to bed. I still don’t have much free time, but now that midterms are over (at least) and the weather is decidedly spring-like, I’m going to try to experience Paris to the fullest.

That said, I have been able to take advantage of some of Paris’ goings-on. A couple weeks ago, I enjoyed a “concert blitz” wherein I attended four separate shows: les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois, Isabelle Boulay, the ballet “Le Parc,” and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

The first of the four concerts, les Petits Chanteurs, was arguably the best. The “PCCB” is essentially the French equivalent of the Vienna Boys’ Choir — I discovered their music after “Les Choristes” spawned my interest in French children’s choirs. At any rate, I found out that they were performing in a church near my neighborhood (in fact, their school is located two metro stops away), so Madeline and I both decided to attend and were blown away by the quality of the performance.

In addition to a beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria,” and an awesome performance of Handel’s “Hallelujah,” my favourite piece was probably this lullaby by Mozart. I managed to find an older performance of it by the PCCB on youtube, but it’s not as good as the performance we saw:

The performance we saw was flawless. That countermelody is an extremely demanding part, and it was performed with a pitch-perfect, clear, almost superhuman sound. I wish I was that talented at that age.

It was just a really nice experience overall. The music was excellent, and I’m pretty sure we were the only non-French people there. It just felt so…French.

The second concert was Isabelle Boulay — a favourite Canadian singer of mine — at the Olympia. Unfortunately, I forgot that you need to tip ushers in France, so I couldn’t offer anything to the usher when I took my seat. They must make a killing, though.

I was probably one of a handful of people under age 35 in the audience, but I didn’t mind. I’m used to having musical tastes that don’t align with those of my age group. However, the opening act was a young Canadian singer named Stéphanie Lapointe, who was one of the winners of Quebec’s version of American Idol. She sang some pretty nice songs, including a French version of “Bang Bang” by Nancy Sinatra.

Isabelle herself was great to see in person. She seems to have a unique way of adopting a certain character to fit with the theme of the concert, which was her “music box.” It was also really nice to hear her Canadian accent. Made me feel a little more at home. And the music was so much better live than recorded.

Anyway, if you have no idea who I’m talking about, here’s one of her more recent songs:

Oh, North America…

The third performance was a modern ballet, “Le Parc,” at the Opéra Garnier, paid for by USC. Despite its extravagant beauty, the opera is not the most comfortable place to watch a show. We were in the very back row of the top balcony, and the tiny, barely padded wooden seats provided no back support or leg room.

That said, it was an interesting experience. The ballet combined modern and traditional danse, some contemporary composition (mostly atmospheric) and music from Mozart. Ballet isn’t entirely my truc, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The final concert was in Sainte-Chapelle — which, amazingly enough, my Parisian host parents had never even heard of before I mentioned I was going to a concert there. It was nice to see the amazing stained glass again. The first half of the concert is consisted of a series of “hit” classical pieces, like Ave Maria, Bach’s Air on a G String, Pachelbel’s Canon (unfortunately not very well performed; one of the violins was out of tune, too), etc.

The Four Seasons came next. I was glad to finally see it performed in person, although I was disappointed by the small size of the string ensemble (3 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello). The cello was underplaying the whole time and it really could’ve used more bass. There’s such a remarkable level of energy and power in Vivaldi’s music.

My favourite movement (Summer, Presto):

In addition to my studies of art history and avant guard literature, all this cultural exposure has really revived my strong creative urges. I feel like writing poetry, making music, drawing — Paris is just the city of inspiration. The warm weather we’re having now just makes me feel even more inclined to lounge in a park somewhere and create art, although I haven’t had the chance yet.

Some other things I’ve been up to:

• Saw Watchmen opening day (2 days before the US release date!) Really enjoyed it… the cinematography, music, “alternate universe” setting, everything. It’s such a fascinating mix of the cheesy and the profound, the cliché and the unconventional. I can see why it’s considered the greatest graphic novel of all time, and I really want to read the book now.
• Went up the Tour Montparnasse for a view of the city at night. Overpriced, but great view.
• Had dinner at a fondue restaurant in the Latin Quarter. Absolutely delicious, especially the dessert, which consisted of the best raspberry sorbet and chocolate ice cream I’ve ever tasted.
• Met up with my childhood best friend Brandon, who is studying in Geneva and was in Paris for Spring Break. I gave him and his friends a tour of the Catacombs and the Bois de Vincennes. It was only the second time I’ve seen him in the past 9 years.
• Visit to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, my new favourite park in Paris. It’s such a hidden gem. I’m definitely going back when the flowers and trees are all in bloom.
• Lots of museum visits. I know the Orsay like the back of my hand now, although I’ve still only scratched the surface of the Louvre. The Picasso Museum was also really interesting, as was our recent visit to the Gustave Moreau museum. I forsee myself writing my next art history paper on one of his paintings

Photos:

Comme d’habitude

La vie en rose

Pardon the recent barrage of blog posts, but I’m finally getting caught up.

The last weekend in February, we USCers took a weekend trip together to Provence. Being the first part of France I saw in 2004 and also revisited in 2007, Provence has a very special place in my heart. I was really looking forward to going back. And everyone was excited for a little southern sunshine and warmth. Heck, I even left my winter coat at home and just brought my sweatshirt.

Shortly after the TGV departed from the Gare de Lyon, a woman and her young son (maybe 5?) sat across from us. The woman was confused because the seats she had reserved were already taken by other people in our group. After examining her ticket, she realized that she had accidentally booked the wrong day. “Maman a fait une bêtise,” she repeatedly told her son, whilst clearly distraught. She told her son to sit still while she went to find the conductor and explain the situation to him (the train had already started moving).

Her son, who happened to be named Grégory, became visibly distressed when his mom left. His eyes welled up with tears as he wistfully let out a “Maman…” — fortunately, he didn’t break down crying. When Maman reappeared, his face lit up and he exclaimed, “Maman!” They spent much of the ride reading little French stories and colouring, briefly interrupted when Grégory announced “Je vais vomir,” and was rushed to the bathroom (fortunately for us). His mother had warned him that he might throw up after she spotted him licking the window.

At any rate, Grégory’s antics aside, it was nice watching the French countryside go by from the train. The rolling hills, pastures, forests, picturesque villages, mountains… There’s also a point when you can tell that you’ve definitely passed from the North into the South. They’re like two different worlds. We arrived in a sunny but windy Avignon. We would later discover that the city’s name derives from a Gaulish phrase meaning “City of the violent wind.”

Upon arrival, we had some free time for lunch, so I led some of my friends to my favourite place in Avignon, the Rocher des Doms, a cave-like rock formation in a beautiful park. The underside of the rock contains a fountain, while the top provides an excellent view of the area. We got some sandwiches and ate at a picnic table sheltered from the Mistral.

After lunch, we had a guided tour of the Palais des Papes with Mirek, our friendly and enthusiastic tour guide.  I never found the interior of the palace to be particularly interesting, and since I hadn’t slept much the night before, I found myself struggling to stay awake. Later on, the group split up and some of us checked out a local wine store before heading to the Pont d’Avignon, which, unfortunately, had already closed.

I’ve been to Avignon three times and still haven’t danced on that bloody bridge.

Anyway, it was nice to sit near the bridge and enjoy the sunset. Funny, because the last time I was in Avignon, there was a spectacular sunset — which I was unable to enjoy while desperately searching for my couchsurfing host.

We hesitated on where to eat dinner, but eventually settled on a pretty mediocre place… My pizza was filling, at any rate. I just hate paying so much money for a meal and then not really liking my food. But Europe is overpriced in every aspect, I guess. As for our hotel in Avignon, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. Right across from the Palais des Papes, it had a wonderful old atmosphere and some of the rooms had spacious four-post beds (not mine).

The next morning, we left for the Pont du Gard. The weather was gorgeous — sunshine, no wind, and temperatures in the 60s (which felt like the 70s at times!) I was particularly excited about going to the Pont du Gard because I hadn’t had a chance to see it again in 2007, but I remembered how beautiful the area was. My memory did not disappoint me.

A 2,000-year old Roman aqueduct surrounded by lush rolling hills and beautiful, blue-green water… what more can you ask for? I didn’t even need my sweater with all that sunshine. We had a brief tour of the acqueduct, including passage through the top level, where I hit my head on the low ceiling. Ow. Afterwards, I attempted to navigate through some of the hiking trails in the adjacent hills, but decided to be safe and descend back towards the river.

On the river bank, I simply lounged, reflected, and enjoyed the warmth. For a moment, I was able to feel the wonder and happiness of my first trip to France again.

I would have liked to spend the entire day there and have a picnic, but we had to continue on to Arles. Another place we visited back in 2004, it was interesting to see a lot of the sites again — the Roman amphitheatre, the theatre ruins, the obelisk. There was an interesting event going on around the obelisk — some kind of art exhibit where people were serving super-cheap crepes and beverages, which were to be eaten on comfortable chairs and couches arranged on the plaza. We also discovered the “Espace Van Gogh,” which contained a very attractive flower garden.

We all agreed that we had been given too much time in Arles. There isn’t really that much to do, and our tour of the amphitheatre was rather short as well. But it was simply a prelude to the real highlight of the day — one of my other favourite places from my first trip to France — Les Baux de Provence.

Despite its touristy atmosphere, Les Baux really is a beauty. The Medieval cobblestone streets, the castle ruins… but most of all, the breathtaking view of the southern French countryside. As you look out over it all from the top of the castle, there’s something in the southern air blowing across your face that moves you, I think. At the risk of sounding cucul, I’d even say that you can feel thousands of years of history in that wind.

While I enjoyed watching the southern light turn to dusk, I think we all felt a little rushed at Les Baux. It would have been nice to spend more time there, but we had to head to Aix for our hotel and dinner.

And boy did dinner deliver.

Graciously paid for by USC, my meal consisted of a tomato stuffed with mozarella cheese, an amazing leg of lamb with mashed potatoes, and a deathly delicious chocolate moelleux. It was arguably one of the most delicious and satisfying meals of my life.

Our hotel in Aix was also really nice. I guess our USC tuition does have its benefits.

The next morning, we had a walking tour of Aix (under some drizzle, unfortunately) which culminated at Cézanne’s studio outside the city. We returned to the town to hit up the great market and to try some cookies at La Cure Gourmande, which happen to be ridiculously good (fortunately, I’ve discovered a store in Bercy Village). I think Aix is a more attractive place in the spring and summer when the tree-lined Cours Mirabeau is in its full glory, but it’s a nice town nonetheless. There’s something truly authentic and truly Provençal about the city. Its lack of famous landmarks has actually spared it from the encroachment of tourism.

We took the train from Aix to Marseille, in order to take the TGV back to Paris. It was nice to see the Mediterranean, albeit briefly, from the train. We had some downtime at Marseille-St-Charles, so I went outside the station for the requisite view of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde:

Marseille may be a ghetto, but it brought back good memories from 2007. I wonder how my couchsurfing hosts and their plethora of pets are doing these days.

Finally, the photographs:

Avignon

Pont du Gard & Arles

Les Baux

Aix & Marseille

Je viens du Sud, et par tous les chemins j’y reviens…

This is my 6th 12 of 12 so far (half way through a year!)

Getting ready in the morning. I still haven’t really normalized my sleep schedule… I’m still staying up late, sleeping for around 6 hours or so, and taking naps in the afternoon. It makes me feel tired a lot, which is not good. At any rate, I’ve recently been in a hurry most mornings to get ready. The heated towel rack you can see in the mirror makes things a bit easier. Why don’t we have these in the US?

Since I was in a rush to get to my 9am class, I had to grab half a baguette to eat in class for breakfast. After talking about Paris in the year 1900, I hit the faubourg for some 2009 lunch. There’s a tiny little sandwich shop run by Indians that I usually go to; the prices aren’t bad and neither is the food.

I ended up getting a barbecue chicken panini… I know, so American, right? I think I’m just suffering through BBQ Chicken Pizza withdrawl. The delicious Fanta Citron Frappé, however, is uniquely European. I don’t drink soda very often, but I can make an exception for this and root beer. I ate lunch at ACCENT before discussing my French avant-garde literature project with my professor. Resuming a subject studied in my awesome games-centric writing class freshman year, I’m going to work on surrealist games.

On my way out of ACCENT, I spotted this cute little guy. I miss Angel.

After my requisite afternoon map, I headed to the Petit Palais to take a photo of the Monet painting that I’ll be writing a paper on for my art history course. I love having a metro entrance right outside my house. Good ol’ Charonne. (Actually, I wish it was on a more “central” line — I almost always have to change twice to get to the Left Bank. Fortunately I’m close to Nation and République, two major hubs.)

Got off at Concorde on line 8. I liked the contrast between the gold on the obelisk and the grey skies. Generally, the weather has actually been pretty nice for the past couple of weeks.

Aux Champs-Elysées…

Pont Alexandre III near the Petit Palais, with Les Invalides in the background. The two palais and the bridge were all constructed for the Paris World’s Fair in 1900 — which we had discussed earlier that day in class. I’m always amazed at how shiny those gold statues are, even on cloudy days.

My Monet painting – Soleil couchant sur la Seine à Lavacourt. It was hard to pick a painting to write about, but when we went to the Petit Palais, this one just struck me. The luminosity and the colours are amazing and impossible to capture with a camera. I’m still not quite sure how I’m going to analyze it, though. My professor suggested to look at it like a musical composition… gee, that helps.

Inside the Petit Palais. Joli, n’est-ce pas ?

There’s an interesting garden in the middle of the Petit Palais with palm trees and other exotic plants. These blossoming trees caught my eye. Spring is definitely arriving in Paris — the high temperature is going to near 60 degrees F this weekend.

A slight change of gears here. After supper, I watched the season premiere of South Park outline. It involved a hilarious storyline about Mickey Mouse’s abusive management of the Jonas Brothers and his avaricious campaign to sell sex to girls. In arguably the best scene of the episode, Mickey beats one of the Jonas Brothers into a bloody pulp whilst dropping the F-bomb. I freaking love this show.