2/3 Empty or 2/3 Full?

Four countries….three planes….26 train rides…4 glasses of champagne…..about 6 blocks of cheese….too many baguettes….6 boronic acid synthesis reactions….5 suzuki couplings….two failed aldehyde protections…at least 4 bottles of wine…. 1.22 GB of pictures….and 21 blog entries later….

….I’m 2/3 of the way into my summer in France.

In reality, this is the perfect mark on my timeline. I’m close enough to coming home -- to both those I love and BBQ -- that I don’t feel as if I’ll be lonesome in this romantic country forever. Yet I feel like there’s still a healthy portion of time for a few more grand adventures.

I dove so quickly into this summer (following the cusp of a whirlwind semester) that only recently I’ve even felt like I can breathe again with no air. When granted such an exceptional opportunity you feel pressure not to waste a moment. Every encounter can be absorbed and there are a million + 1 places to explore. At this point I’ve used the hell out of my 12-25 French railcard, and if I go no where else but back to the US I’ll be content with myself.

Do you hear laughing? Because I do.

This is not my style. Not to mention there’s still Paris. ;)


On board a TGV high speed train bound for Strasbourg

All of my blog entries are composed in an agglomerate of places. I started this entry before we caught our train in Caen, got writer’s block, and powered down the laptop. Now it’s 6 p.m. (18h00) and I’m about 35 minutes outside of Paris bound for Strasbourg.

As for the scenery on the train (and I don’t mean out the window):

There’s a group of four middle aged German women at a table of four seats one row up from me. The clacking from a group of semi-tipsy older women – in the prime of their lives, of course – appears to be the same in any language. They have a bottle of red wine, cookies, pretzels, and mineral water open and though each one has a short haircut they each have a different color. There’s the golden blonde, the typical European red-brunette, deep chestnut brown, and then the light blonde with roots: not a natural color present. Each one has earrings and a mom-butt.

Yet another reason I’m jealous of Europeans. These women probably took a ladies’ weekend to Paris and in a matter of mere hours will be home.

Dad went to go sit at a vacant window seat across the aisle, and now my new neighbor is this giant white dog who’s plopped under the seat of a young guy in front of me. The French adore their dogs and not a person complains as they struggle to step over him on their way through the aisle. On the last train someone got their cat out of the carrying case and set it between them and their boyfriend. Right now some of the fellow passengers just picked up the dog’s tug toy and started playing. Awesome.

Yet another reason why I’m jealous of Europeans: they can take their animals anywhere.

I’m guessing it’s also French military who’s scattered throughout the train. They all have military patterned bags but they’re dressed in civilian attire. They also appear to all know each other.

Yet another reason why I’m NOT jealous of Europeans: their military is just nasty, unlike those macho United States Marines. Ok, so I’m just a little bit partial.


The things he brought

My mom may not have come to visit, but she takes her job seriously. My tiny room looks like America threw up in it, and that makes me happy.

Off the top of my head, here are the things my mom sent my dad with:
- individual packets of snack size M&Ms
- two spatulas and two cutting knives for my cooking ventures
- three types of HOTT salsa
- a bag of Tostitos chips, that made it essentially unbroken
- a plate with a big Texas flag on it
- an extra pillow (mine in the room is like a long, flat sausage that I’ve crammed into my pillow case so it resembles something comfortable)
- Clorox wipes for my (excuse my French) but piss covered toilet-seat-less toilets
- Gum
- More deodorant and shaving cream since they don’t make it here (JUST KIDDING, but it’s expensive)
- Ziplock bags
- HEB/Target plastic bags
- Packets of crystal light
- Dry hot peppers for my cooking
- Another sweater
- A webcam and better microphone for skype

I know there’s more but I’m sitting on a train so I can’t remember.

Same time last year

Almost exactly a year ago from when my dad arrived in Strasbourg on June 28 we were gallivanting across Europe in between Vienna and Oxford. I say same time next year…


My dad flew into Frankfurt and took the bus like I did, but I wasn’t exactly sure which bus he’d be able to catch. I told him I’d just ride my bike to the stop by the train station for the earlier one and if he was there, great, if not I’d try again in two hours. So I woke up that morning, just hopped on my bike, and went to try and meet him there.

Sure enough he’d been able to catch the earlier bus so off comes my dad! From there we headed over to the rental car place, got a rental car and then stopped by one of my favorite bakeries on the way back to my room for his first French quiche. We tried two different kinds: one with white asparagus and turkey and the other with prunes, olives, ham?, and something else. The prunes took me by surprise, but it was actually good!

Once we were back to my room we preliminarily dumped his suitcase, re-packed for the weekend, got back into the car, and headed out for adventure number 1.


Would you like mustard with that? How about some wine? How about both.

In order to take full advantage of my free weekend, we took off for the central region of Burgundy (Bourgogne in French). The region is known for the rolling countryside, moutarde, and its wines.

Although the region contains larger and more re-known capital Dijon, we went to the smaller town Beaune (pronounced like ‘bone’).

It was a several hour drive there, but the countryside and conversation made the time pass quickly.


When we arrived we headed straight for the tourist office to get a place to stay. Since we arrived later in the afternoon, finding a hotel room was harder than I had anticipated. With a few calls we got a very nice place to stay that seems like Buckingham Palace compared to my room in Strasbourg.

After unloading our stuff, we headed back into the center of the quaint town. The entire town centers its existence around wine. Tasting, selling, making.

For dinner we selected a patio café serving the local specialties. I got Coq au Vin (cock in wine) and Daddy got boeuf bourguignon (beef burgundy).

Out of all the things to consider while selecting a sidewalk café, “I hope a sucky drum brigade doesn’t start to play in the square” doesn’t cross my mind.

Well it should have.

We ordered and I got a glass of local pinot noir while Daddy avoided the alcohol because of his jet lag. We were in the middle of a conversation when suddenly a drum brigade (at the lack of a better name to call it) just starts BLASTING “music”.

It’s not like they were entertaining. They just played, got louder, and wouldn’t move on. This is THE most obnoxious thing to ever happen to me at a café.

I think it was a part of some sort of really bad music festival, but it lasted the rest of dinner. It took a lot of restraint to keep me from going and hurting someone. I was outraged.

However, the food was good. I also really like ratatouille.


Sunday

Since France virtually shuts down on Sundays, I had double checked to see if the wine tastings would be open.

Apparently on Sunday buying groceries, doing any light shopping, or eating at most restaurants would be inappropriate. Buying wine and/or tasting it is ok.

We went out to try and find something for breakfast.

Apparently ordering food at a café is again inappropriate. Drinking a beer at 9 a.m. is ok.

God love France.

Well we attempted to find something to eat and finally had to just split a sandwich and pastry.

After that we went for our first cellar tour at Reine Pédauque. We were the only people on our tour, so our tour guide just ran through the list of explanations and we tried several white and red wines. The upper region of Burgundy makes some whites, but largely the region is known for the reds. I thought it was funny that after every single one, he asked “do you love this?” instead of saying “do you like this one?” He was very nice and gave a good tour. The cellars aren’t as vast as in the champagne region, but many of the systems hold over. The “cru” ranking of qualities of grapes, sizes of the bottles, and many of the same strategies are the same/similar.

My time in Burgundy also helped me to realize that I prefer white wines and rosés. I can appreciate a good red wine, but when it comes to just causal drinking I’m partial to the lighter, more fruity tastes. I’m also really proud that when they describe the dryer taste, or more complex flavors during a comparison I can actually taste what they’re talking about!

Lookout, wine snob in training.

A the end of this tour we also got to taste an apéritif, which is the small drink the French order at the beginning of meals. It was basically a very sweet, concentrated blackberry current liquor, and I didn’t like it. He said it would taste good drizzled over a dessert and while I can see that, I’ll stick to the wine.

Following the tour we finished up walked around the city and then hit up the Côte d’Or Vineyards. We followed the road that connects Beaune to Dijon that passed through the vineyard covered slopes named appropriately for their “golden hillsides”. Not only was it a really pleasant day weather wise, but the road is scattered with various sleepy towns and local wine makers. We stopped in Nuit St. George for lunch.

Daddy got a tartine, which literally is anything spread over bread, but his was like a pizza. I got kebabs. This time our sidewalk café experience was not interrupted by any band of drummers, but perhaps this is because I know to look for this now.

After lunch we went for a wine tasting just down in the cellar of one of the open wine houses. We tasted two different reds and bought a bottle of their plain summer pinot noir for about 7 euros.

We continued north and went to our next stop.

More later.