frunneymoon, part two - island time

after soaking up the history in athens, the second half of our trip was spent gallivanting around the islands. (man. just reading that sentence makes me want to pinch myself – i have had so many cool adventures, i sometimes can’t believe it’s real life.) we had organized a three-island route, starting in serifos, passing through paros, and ending in santorini. our plans started off perfectly – we got the ferry to serifos with no problems (except a little seasickness on my part) and made our way up to our first b&b, which entailed a fairly long up-hill evening hike with our bags. little did we know, our host was waiting for us at the dock in his truck… whoops. we found this out by taking a wrong turn at the very end of our hike, and ending up in a very dark, very isolated little courtyard of houses. no b&b in sight. after a few minutes of deliberation, we decided to knock on the door of the nearest house and ask for directions. slightly intimidating, and even worse because of the language gap – thank goodness for those few phrases we had learned! we eventually got our point across and the man called our host, michael, who came to find us. so.. all’s well that ends well, i guess. due to funky ferry schedules, we only had one night in serifos, so we took advantage of our nice b&b to relax, take a hot shower, and just decompress from the hustle and bustle of athens. it was a fabulous evening!

our ferry the following day wasn’t until after dinner, so we had the whole day to explore the little island. we packed our things and brought them down to michael’s little grocery shop on the bay, where he let us store them for the afternoon. after buying a few snacks, we headed to the beach, where we proceeded to plop down for at least an hour. since we were there at the end of april/beginning of may, the true summer season hadn’t yet begun, which meant we basically had the place to ourselves. it was pretty hot, but we were on the windy side of the island, so the breeze kept us cool... too cool, actually, because we didn’t realize how fried we got until way later… whoops. after having a small lunch at a restaurant on the beach, we decided to hike up to the ancient capital of the island, chora. it was only a mile and a half, but it was honestly all uphill. like, a mile of stairs. it was so amazing, though, because the path took us through the old village, past the classic little white houses with blue shutters and big red bougainvillea bushes, and once we reached the top, we had an unbelievable view. really windy, though!! we spent a few minutes taking photos and admiring the view and then started making our way back down to the harbor. we grabbed our bags, said goodbye to michael and his wife, and then stopped for a cup of tea on our way to the dock. that tea break ended up being one of our coolest memories from the islands, all because we met a 98-year-old woman named maria out on the terrace. the waiter translated for us for a few minutes, and we chatted about her experiences as a native of the island. eventually, though, the waiter had to go help other customers.. but that didn’t stop maria from talking to us! we sat there for nearly a half an hour, laughing along with her to jokes we only sort of understood. she had two cats with her, and i’m pretty sure she explained that one of them was the other one’s mother, and also that her husband had passed away a few years ago (she mimed a dead person to explain that one, hands crossed across the chest and eyes closed). but regardless of the fact that we hardly understood each other, it was awesome to sit and share a moment with someone like maria.

after our tea, we headed down to the dock to catch our ferry to paros. as we waited, a man who had talked to us for a few minutes in the café came up to us and handed me a small gift bag, saying it was a “memory from serifos.” when he walked away, we looked in the bag to find two coffee mugs, painted with typical mediterranean villages. mine had a sailboat and liz’s had a donkey! very random and very kind. kind of like greece. the night got weird, however, when our ferry showed up an hour and a half late… which meant we got to paros very, very late. urgh. and due to the may 1^st holiday, the ferry schedules were limited for the following days, so we had to reevaluate our timing a little bit. we ended up deciding to just spend the night in paros and take a 10am ferry the next morning, in order to have a more relaxing stay on santorini. we managed to walk around the main town on the island that morning, but it hardly counted as a visit to the island. oh well.. next time!

in retrospect, our decision was an excellent one. we got to santorini in the early afternoon (a day early) and found the shuttle for our hostel. it turned out that the place liz had found for us to stay was like… the greatest hostel that has ever existed. i cannot express how nice it was. the place was pretty new and beautifully maintained, in the classic white/peach mediterranean style with a huge pool and cabana bar. we had our own suite, with full beds, a huge (clean!) bathroom, a kitchenette, wifi… all for 13 euro per night. and they didn’t care that we were showing up a night early. it was unreal. plus, we met two sisters basically our age on the shuttle who were staying the same days as us, so we had friends for our visit! the extra day we had on the island meant that we could do a fun tour and have a day to just bum around on the beaches, plus we had three evenings to go into the villages. we literally could not have dreamed up a better situation.

our first full day, we were talked into taking an adventure boat tour by poppy, the amazing woman who runs the hostel. she signed us up the night before and told us when to catch the bus down to the harbor. amanda and brianna (the sisters we met) had decided to come as well, so, around 9am, the four of us found ourselves on a big boat full of tourists, heading out to sea. the boat looked kind of like a pirate ship – it was all wooden and had the rope rigging and big masts and everything… it was cool. our first stop on the tour was the volcano in the middle of the caldera. santorini is famously crescent-shaped – the island itself is actually the rim of the volcano crater, sticking up out of the water. we popped over to a volcanic island in the middle of the bay, where were were allowed to get off the boat and walk around. i may have snuck some volcanic rock for my amateur-geologist mom. as it turns out, volcanoes aren’t very interesting if there’s not like.. lava. it kind of just looked like a very arid, rocky, hilly island. but, anyway.. our second stop was to a hot springs near another island in the volcanic grouping. normally, the boat goes way closer to the spring, but there were other tours there already, so we had to drop anchor about 100 meters away from the spring. they had announced that anyone wanting to swim to the springs needed to go downstairs and change clothes as we approached… the four of us waffled for about 10 minutes, and then finally bri said she was going to do it, which propelled the rest of us into action. a quick minute later, i found myself jumping off the side of a (rather large) boat, into the very cold mediterranean ocean. brr. the swim wasn’t very long, but it was tough going with the waves. to make matters worse, when we got to the hot springs, we discovered that it was really more of a tepid spring. to call it warm would have been generous. plus, we had waited so long deciding that we were called back to the boat within like 2 minutes of getting to the spring. sigh. the swim back was even harder, going against the current, but we all made it back and quickly dried off. all in all, kind of a disappointment, but a worthwhile experience, just for the story. the rest of the day was much less exhausting. we stopped at a different island for lunch, and then made our way over to oia, one of the more famous villages on santorini. it’s where you see all those pictures of the homes clustered together on the cliffs, little blue domes of churches poking out here and there. as we hiked our way up some more nearly vertical steps, we stopped to admire the progressively more impressive view. we made it to the top and explored shops lining the single pathway through the village. after grabbing a quick dinner, we headed to the very end of the village’s main thoroughfare… along with a whole drove of fellow sunset spectators. oia is best known as the place to watch the sunset on santorini, because it has an unobstructed western-facing view. and boy, is the sunset worth seeing in oia. we admired the fading pastels (along with hundreds of others) until the last sliver of the glowing sun slid beneath the horizon… and then there was applause. literally. people applauded the sunset. as twilight fell, we made our way to the meeting place and got on the bus back to our hostel. such an adventurous, memorable day!

day two of santorini was perhaps equally adventurous, in a totally different way. along with amanda and brianna, we rented four-wheelers and took off for the beaches! i’d only driven a four-wheeler a couple times, but the guy at the rental place showed me the basics and i picked it up pretty quickly. once we were squared away, we picked up a picnic lunch at the grocery store, checked the map and hit the road. i distinctly remember the feeling of the wind on my face, as we zipped along a wide stretch of road overlooking the ocean. that was a glorious moment. even though we got slightly lost, the whole island is small, so we made it to the beach we had been looking for in good time. we chose a beach on the southern side of the island, known for its red and black sand. after hiking over the rocks to actually access the beach, we settled in for a few hours of blissful mediterranean beach lounging. we played in the water, ate our lunches, and laid around on the sand for a few hours, until we were all simply too hot. so, we packed up the bags, and headed to akrotiri, a cool archaeological site nearby. it had been destroyed pompeii-style by a volcanic eruption many centuries ago, but we got to see a little bit of how the city would have looked just by observing the way the foundations were structured. very historical, very interesting. we made our way back to the rental shop, returned the four-wheelers, and grabbed some take-out gyros to eat by the pool for dinner. we sat and talked for a long time, finally saying goodnight (and goodbye!) as we went to our separate rooms to pack.

we woke up bright and early to catch our flight off the island, heading back to istanbul. the teensy little airport was basically just big enough to manage one flight at a time, so there were only maybe 50 or 60 people there. although our flight plan was changed a little last minute, we eventually made it back to istanbul for a two day whirlwind visit. we stayed with my friend alex again (bless her, and her darling flatmate liz), so liz could have a quick taste of turkey (hah!) before we both flew away to our next destinations! it was incomprehensibly fun to have liz come traveling with me – i love seeing new places, but i love seeing them with friends even more. we had an amazing experience in greece - i would go back in a heartbeat! if you’d like to see some pictures from this trip, you can check out the album here, starting at photo #51. :)

ireland - little island of fairies, friends, and the absolute craic.

just to preface this post, i’d like share a comparison with you that i made the other night while describing my trip to ireland. if countries were animals, france would be a sophisticated but rather unpersonable black cat – sleek, aloof, sometimes holier-than-thou, but charming if you can get on its good side. ireland, on the other hand, is like an 8 week old floppy chocolate lab puppy – never-ending energy, undying devotion and love, ALWAYS down for some fun, and selfless joy. i hope that sheds some light on why i love the irish so much.

monday, 16 may 2011

my journey began on monday, when i left my dorm around 11:30am to catch the bus to the train station, to catch a train to nantes, to catch a shuttle to the airport, to catch a plane to ireland, to catch a bus limerick, to catch a bus to dublin to meet my friends!! all that to say, i had a long day of traveling. a couple of my friends came to see me off at the train station, including one friend who i won’t see again for a long time! ariel, i miss you already!! my shuttle driver in nantes was irish, which i took to be a sign. also, my friends keith and paddy (both irish) were on the same flight as me! so that was super fun – we played crosswords and joked around for the hour and forty minute long flight. once we arrived, keith left to go meet his brother and paddy and i took the bus to limerick. he was meeting friends there for the night, and i had to catch a bus to dublin! he made sure i knew where the bus left from, and then went on his way.

while i was waiting for the bus, an old man came up to the stop and asked a worker if it was the stop for dublin – the worker said yes, and the old man came over to where i was standing. i asked him if he was going all the way to dublin, and he said “no, no, just halfway along the same route – here, sit down, talk to me!” so i did, and we ended up sitting next to each other on the bus as well. his name is donnchadh o’riordan. we talked for nearly two hours, about everything from his childhood in southern ireland, his early days of schooling when he had only thirty minutes of english lessons a day (everything else was in irish), where he’s traveled in the states, and what my travel plans were. we also talked about the irish language for a long time – he explained what his name meant (brown warrior), how to pronounce the letters, what some useful phrases are, and the differences between dialects. it was probably one of the best conversations ever. he was SO nice and cheerful and just lovely. as if this wasn’t already an awesome story, about 5 minutes before he got off the bus, he pulled out his wallet, took out 10 euro, and said “when you’re on o’connell street in dublin tomorrow, buy yourself a coffee” and GAVE ME 10 EURO. what?! i gave him my email, and i’m sincerely hoping he will email me so we can be pen pals. i actually teared up a bit when he got off the bus.. nicest man ever, and he was the first person i properly met in ireland. wow.

the bus arrived in dublin around 11:30 pm, and my friends came to pick me up. it was shane, jessie, and andrea and shane’s friend rowan, whose house we were crashing for the two day visit. it was SO good to see shane and jessie, who i hadn’t see since before i left for spain in april! we all piled into the car and headed back to rowan’s place, where there was curry waiting for dinner, bless them. we talked well into the night and fell asleep around 4am, the 4 of us in rowan’s double bed. it was great.

tuesday, 17 may 2011

at some point in the night, i had to leave the 4-person-to-a-bed situation.. it was just excessive. i made up a little pallet on the floor and cuddled up for the last few hours of sleep.. we woke up around 10am, worked out the kinks in our necks and backs from such tight sleeping quarters, and headed downstairs.. to find zero food. soo we got dressed and headed out in search of nourishment before our day of sights! luckily, there was a little supermarket just across the way, so i had a muffin and some fruit. yum. :) the goal for tuesday was to visit the kilmainham prison – one of the most historical places in dublin. the student entrance fee was less than 2 euro, and we had an EXCELLENT tour guide. his name was ruiari (pronounced rory) and he was SUPER knowledgeable, engaging, and aware. the tour was filled with historical background information, stories, and trivia about the inmates. almost every irish revolutionary was held in the prison at one point, and many of them were executed there as well. i left the jail feeling like i’d learned a year’s worth of irish history in about an hour and a half! it was awesome.

after the jail tour, we walked to the IMMA – irish museum of modern art – to check out a frida kahlo exhibit before walking into dublin proper. on our way in, we passed the guinness storehouse and brewery and even happened to be on the quay as the queen’s motorcade drove by! so i saw the queen of england. no big deal. actually, it was a HUGE deal  that she was visiting at all. it was the first time that a british monarch had set foot on independant irish soil – the last monarch was george, who visited in 1911 before ireland was a republic of its own. there was a fair bit of tension in the air, with people worrying that there would be conflicts instigated by anti-royalists. thankfully, everything went smoothly and the state visit was a huge success!

after our history-packed tour and queen sighting, we got some lunch at a pub in temple bar (irish red wine and guinness soaked beef stew with mashed potatoes.. MMM) and did a little walking tour of the downtown area. we went through trinity college, which was gorgeous, all the way down grafton street and into st. stephen’s green shopping centre. on the way home, we got some groceries for dinner (pasta – surprise!) and took the tram back to rowan’s house. we had intended to go back out after dinner, but we ended up staying in and spending time together, goofing around on the internet and listening to music. rowan left to go stay at his girlfriend’s place, and after he was gone, we all sat down at the table to make birthday cards for him! his birthday is the 18^th. it was actually really awesome, because he was in angers the morning of my birthday, april 18^th,and i got to be in dublin for his birthday a month later! our cards were all really great – very individual and unique. we spent a long time making them and then finally got to sleep around 3am. i didn’t even try to sleep in the bed – i’m fairly sure the floor was much more comfortable. :)

wednesday, 18 may 2011

rowan’s birthday!! :) and also our last day in dublin. since we went to bed late, it was up to me as the morning person to rustle the others into action at a decent hour. they were less than pleased when i woke them up around 11.. oh well. i had intended to go into dublin myself a little earlier to see some sights that we’d missed, but i ended up changing my mind and waiting for rowan to come back – i wanted to see the reaction to his cards! he showed up around noon and was so excited about all the cards – he really loved them, and it was an awesome personal touch. :) we were all basically ready to go, so we just motivated rowan to get dressed and then we headed into town. since we were leaving from the bus station around 6pm, we took all of our stuff with us from rowan’s. i only had a backpack, but jessie had a suitcase and no one really wanted to be lugging anything around for the day, so we went to an internet cafe place downtown that had a luggage-leaving service. convenient! once we were free of baggage, i split off from the group to go see two of the landmarks on my list – christ church cathedral and st. patrick’s cathedral. since they were far-ish away, the others stayed and walked around the neighborhood while i double-timed it across town. on my way, the queen’s motorcade passed by again! so i got to see her twice! as it turns out, rowan was exaggerating how far away the churches were.. it was really just like an 8 minute walk. but it was nice to have some alone time to walk through the cathedral and contemplate the history. there has been a cathedral on the site since 1030AD.. which means they’ll celebrate 1,000 years just 19 years from now. WOW. i explored the main nave and also the crypts below, which were really cool. after christ church, i walked down the street to st. patrick’s. it was a bit more expensive, so i just viewed it from the outside – still amazing!

the best part of that whole property is for SURE the archbishop’s personal library, which is in a little building out behind the church. i was walking along the wall when i noticed a little archway door with a sign that said “marsh’s library – opening hours...” nothing else. no explanation, nothing. but, being the massive library nerd that i am, i decided to have a little looksie. i walked into the house, which really was just a house from the 1700’s, and up the stairs to find myself on a landing with several closed doors. one door had a bell next to it that said “ring for attention”. so, i rang it. and a middle-aged man opened the double-door and asked “would you like to visit the library?” .. “yes?” i replied. and when he opened the doors all the way, i actually gasped. i had stumbled across an authentically-preserved, still active library – that was over 300 years old. it had been archbishop marsh’s private collection at first, and each subsequent archbishop had added to it.. there were over 25,000 volumes of the oldest, most beautiful books.. all leather-bound, sitting on gorgeously carved dark-wood shelves. and that amazing old-book perfume wafted through the air.. it was heaven. the guard told me a bit of the history, showed me a 600 year old book in the case, and then left me to marvel in peace. there are two rooms at the library – the main gallery and the back gallery. in the back gallery, there are cages where the librarians used to ahve to lock people in with the books so they wouldn’t run off! each year, the librarians organize a display of a few select books pertaining to a theme – this year was medical. i saw a book of medicine written and illustrated by rene descartes himself! too cool. i chatted with all of the employees, who were all so nice and so informative. one woman had worked there for 18 years.. dream job, much? once i was officially late for my rendez-vous with my friends, i signed the guest registry and tore myself away. incredible place, and an amazingly fortuitous find!

on my way back, i walked through st. stephen’s green, which is dublin’s mini central park. it was beautiful! and i walked along grafton street again, heading towards the pub where my friends were grabbing lunch. i dropped my stuff with them before running down the street to trinity college, to see the reading room. a few years ago, i found this website that had the 100 most beautiful libraries in the world.. ever since then, i’ve wanted to visit all those places – i’ve gotten to probably 5 of them at this point, so i have a long way to go! but the “long room” at trinity college is definitely on the list. it is AMAZING. plus, since i got there just about 12 minutes before closing, they let me in for free just to have a peek!! so, 8 euro saved there. i even got to take a few illegal pictures. on display in the library, they have the book of kells, which is a 1000 year old, flawless illuminated manuscript, the harp on which the national emblem of ireland is based, the skeleton of a 7 foot tall, 400 pound irish giant, and a medical book with the signature of obama’s irish ancenstor, michael cearney! it was a very, VERY cool 12 minutes.

once they kicked me out, i went back to the pub to gather my friends. we stopped by the internet cafe to grab our bags and then headed down to the bus depot. the ride back to the west wasn’t bad at all – we had snacks, and comfy seats, so it passed quickly. our next sleeping place was shane’s house, which i was so excited to see!! mostly, i was excited to play with his dog. his dad picked us up at the bus stop and drove us back to the house.. through some seriously beautiful fairytale landscape. we finally arrived, met his mom and sister, and went to set our stuff down. it was a little surreal, being in shane’s real house. we’ve all been friends for a while now, and talked about our “real” lives so much, and it was really cool/weird to actually experience that. i’m sure it was weirder for shane, having us in his house. we ate dinner really late, and stayed up talking even later. we all crammed into shane’s little room and had a wonderful slumber party!

thursday, 19 may 2011

thursday was our day to explore shane’s home turf. i didn’t want to sleep the day away, so i woke up around 9:30 with the intention to take lady, shane’s dog, on a walk. except there was such a lovely bathtub calling my name... so i took a bath instead. it was awesome. i went back to lie down for a bit afterwards (baths always make me sleepy) and then we all woke up again around 11.. except jessie. she slept for ages! but she hadn’t been feeling well lately, so she needed it. shane, andrea, and i went downstairs to eat and hang out and then jessie finally appeared a while later. i played outside with lady while they got dressed, and then we all went on a magical romp through the fields. it was lots of fun! we got to really see “the land” that shane loves so much, talk to some cows, do some cartwheels and handstands, take lots of silly pictures, and just spend time together. plus, the weather even held out for us! when we came back, the other three stayed outside and played while i got to indulge my inner domestic goddess and bake. i miss having an oven SO MUCH. so they climbed a tree while i baked some chocolate chip cookies.. my goodness, i sound like a mother. but it was awesome. jessie told me later that she had expressed concern to the others about my being by myself inside while they all played, and andrea just told her – “she is content. she is happy in there.” and i totally was. they came inside just as i was finishing up the cookie dough. jessie helped me by chopping up the chocolate, and then they all got a spoonful of dough. i popped the sheets in the oven, and in 12 minutes – cookies!!! except i had tried to squeeze too many onto the tins, so they were a little squished. but they tasted great. and i felt wonderful. for dinner, we made a chicken stir fry, which was delish! after dinner, we watched ‘clueless’, which i’m not sure i’d seen fully before.. maybe just the end. but it was really good! we had an early morning coming our way, so we tried (and slightly failed) to go to bed at a reasonable hour..

friday, 20 may 2011

our early morning came early for the goobers who stayed up all night.. we had to wake up around 8am to be ready to leave by 8:45. shane’s dad kindly offered to drive us down to doolin, on the west coast of county clare, so that we could catch the ferry to inis oírr, which means ‘small island’ in irish. it’s part of the aran islands, called inis man, inis mor, and inis oirr – big island, middle island, small island. creative, eh? we were joined by our friend danjoe, who met us in doolin. the ferry ride actually almost killed me though.. the sea was CHOPPY and the ride was about 40 minutes.. ugh. shane got a picture of me at one point, which i didn’t see until much later, and i literally looked like a corpse. i do not exaggerate – ghostly pale greenish white, blue lips, eyes closed with a blank expression.... death incarnate. it was frightening. BUT once we got off the boat onto sweet land, i got to feeling much better. we stayed in a hostel, where the 5 of us got our own room, which was fun! once we dropped our stuff off, we went right out and had a LONG walk around the island.. climbing over rocks, checking out tide pools, walking along the beaches.. we even got to pet some nice farm animals and see an old shipwrecked boat! the weather was lovely, too, which was a bonus. we came back and made a late lunch before lying down for a bit of a nap. 

around 6pm, we got back up and did some more exploring. unfortunately, jessie had been feeling pretty atrocious since we arrived on the island.. but being the absolute superhero that she is, she powered through the whole afternoon of exploration. by the time 7pm rolled around, she was not doing so well. we ended up going to the island doctor to get her some medicine, and then stopped in one of the island’s three pubs for dinner. i had some awesome vegetable soup and also had my first taste of guinness in ireland! i just had a few sips of andrea’s, but still. it had begun. we stayed around for a while after dinner, because there were three older men playing music in the pub and it was lovely. i even beat danjoe at pool. we left around midnight to put jessie in bed, and then the 4 of us went back to the pub and continued our night.. played some more pool, listened to music, talked. i ordered my own pint, but didn’t finish it.. around 2am, we left and walked along the beaches for a while until i decided to go in to sleep. the other 3 stayed out for a while – they walked up to the old church ruins and played on a playground until nearly 4am, the crazies. but they came back eventually, and we all slept soundly. the duvet on my bed was amazing.

saturday, 21 may 2011

saturday was a little rough, mostly because we weren’t sure if we would be able to get off the island at all due to weather. so we woke up around 10am because we were supposed to “check out” at 10:30.. except that was a very loose time. we were actually downstairs with all of our stuff around 11:30am, but the weather was so bad that we just sat in the dining room and played games. at one point, we did go out to the store to get some milk to make hot chocolate.. yum. :) around 1:30, we moved over to the pub next door to spend our last few hours on the island next to fire, playing cards and drying our socks and shoes. at 4:30, we got on the one and only ferry back to the mainland. i was verrry apprehensive about the ride, but it ended up being completely fine! who knew. we arrived back to a down called rossaveel, and then took a bus back into galway city. there was a big to-do about trying to surprise our friend trish at work, and also meet up with emma, but my phone ran out of credit and the others’ phones were dead.. it was a big fail all around. we did end up seeing trish for about five minutes, but emma never got to meet up with us. at 8pm, we took a bus back to shane’s neck of the woods. we had a nice dinner – roast chicken, veggies, bread – and then talked until bed.

sunday, 22 may 2011

after finally getting a good night’s sleep, we woke up and did our usual morning routine – breakfast, tea, goof off, get dressed. in the early afternoon, shane’s mom drove us to the coast again to see the cliffs of moher, which were absolutely astounding. the weather was bad for a spell, but it cleared up after a while and we had an awesome afternoon! i had one of the most surreally surprising “small world” moments of my life on the cliffs – we asked a man to take a picture of us, which he did gladly, and then we offered to take a picture of him and his family. after a few sentences exchanged, we figured out that they are friends with my boyfriend’s family in huntsville, alabama!!! their son, stahler, was friends with drew in middle and high school. CRAZY. i got a picture with them. my brain was exploding. after that, we drove down the road a bit to lehench for a snack of chicken and vegetable soup and then continued home. on the way, we stopped for groceries and also at our friend niamh’s house to say hello/goodbye! i had actually never met niamh, but jessie and andrea both had. when we arrived, niamh and her younger siblings had made everyone cards – including me!! the irish are the nicest people EVER. the cards were adorable. we visited for a while and then headed home to cook a fabulous asian noodle stir fry dinner.. yummm. about halfway through the meal, though, andrea commented that it was our last meal together, at which point the food started tasting like ash. the rest of the night was us trying to be happy but actually being sad. we even hugged each other before bed. sigh.

monday, 23 may 2011

after very small amounts of sleep (are you sensing the trend yet?), we woke up and packed our stuff.. we left to drop andrea off at the airport, which was heartbreaking, and then jessie and i took a bus up to dunmore to go to emma’s house! she met us at the stop and it was GREAT to see her. we went to the store to pick up things for dinner and then came back to watch president obama’s address. it was AWESOME. great man. anyway, after all that inspiration, we made spaghetti bolognaise for dinner and then talked for quite a long time. we watched breakfast at tiffany’s before bed. emma’s mom had gone to stay at her parents’ place across town so that jessie and i could sleep in her bed (bless her!) – it was the single most comfortable bed i have ever slept on in my life. margie cheevers, you are a goddess.

tuesday, 24 may 2011

our happy, quiet little day around dunmore. we woke up and ate a little breakfast, hung out around the house for a while, and then got dressed to leave. we bought food for a picnic and then passed by the school to embarrass emma’s brother dan. he ignored us. we walked a few kilometers out of town to eat at the castle! there is a great old ruin just outside of town. after lunch, we took the epic “bog walk” of emma’s youth – a really nice walk through the fields surrounding the village. after the walk, we came back and talked with dan and his friend james for a while. i went upstairs for a little nap before dinner, and then we all ate pizza together. yum. :) after dinner, we did a “pub crawl” of dunmore – and by that, i mean we went to two different pubs and hung out. at the first pub, i FINALLY finished my own pint of guinness – life accomplishment! at the second pub, emma got another bulmer’s and we sat and talked for a while. we came back around midnight and went to bed at a fairly decent hour – i couldn’t wait to get in that amazing bed again!

wednesday, 25 may 2011

my last full day in ireland. :( we woke up early and were all ready get on the bus at 10:55.. only to find out that we had mixed up the timetables, and the bus had actually come at 10:45 – dang. so, we spent a few more hours in dunmore before catching the next bus at 1:55. we got to galway around 2:45 and met up with shane – yay! the 4 of us walked down to my friend hannah’s apartment, where we were staying for the night. i met hannah through one of my best friends from high school, cat. they go to vandy together. hannah is WONDERFUL. she let me bring five of my friends to crash her apartment, and had cookies baking when we arrived. seriously.. amazing human being. we sat and talked at her place for a while before walking into town to do some exploring. we met up with our friends niamh and danjoe in town. i finally got to buy a claddagh ring, which is a traditional irish design – two hands holding a heart with a crown on top. hands for friendship, heart for love, crown for fidelity. it’s beautiful! we went and looked around NUIG, my friends’ university – we played hide and seek in an empty lecture hall, and i kicked butt. around 8pm, we went back to the apartment to regroup before heading out for the night. it was international fish and chips day, so naturally we went out for fish and chips. except i had chicken, because i actually don’t like fish that much. it was great though! we kept meeting up with more and more people, since emma and shane are so popular, so at one point in the night we had a pretty big group. we left the restaurant and went to a pub called ‘the quays’, which was SO fun! the décor was like the inside of a pirate ship, which was awesome, and there was a live band. we played games with the coasters and took pictures and joked around.. it was probably the best time i’ve had in a while. i just love those people so much. after the quays, we went to emma’s natural habitat – a hipster haunt called ‘the roisin’ (pronounced row-sheen). i hadn’t been in such a hipstery place since i left cafe coco. it was fun, though, they had dancing and an outdoor area and a great bar. we stayed there until nearly 2am before getting a cab back. on the way home, we got some milk and stuff for breakfast. shane also got some spring rolls and a bowl of indian food. weird. we got back and cooked the food before making up our beds and hitting the hay.

thursday, 26 may 2011

the day i had been dreading for weeks. we got up and got packed quickly, scarfed some food down, and headed to the bus station so jessie, niamh, and danjoe could make their bus to donegal. after that, i had to wait for 30 minutes before my bus to the airport came at 11:05.. hannah came with us to say bye, and then left to meet her friends. so it was just me, shane, and emma. i gave them each a little bar of chocolate with a note that i’d already written, just so i wouldn’t have to actually say anything meaningful through the inevitable tears. i hugged them each about 5 times and tried to hold myself together.. but at 11:04, i made myself get on the bus. i waved at them and smiled through my tears until the bus pulled away, at which point i absolutely lost it and cried for about 30 minutes. pitiful. shane and emma, i love you two so much and i am literally hurting without you. <3

the rest of the day was a blur of bus ride, airport, shuttle, train, bus, home. it was hard to come back to my dorm knowing that my three main peoples on the floor were gone. but i got to skype drew for a while, which was nice, and then my mom too.

---

as always, for pictures of this trip, check out my facebook album. my trip to ireland was 10 of the greatest days ever.. i miss it, but mostly my friends, so much, and i cannot wait to go back. gráím thú, eire. x

teenager no more!!

first off, i’d just like to thank the many, many people who made my 20^th birthday so very special. it was a birthday i’ll not soon forget!

here’s what my weekend looked like.. :)

thursday, 14 april 2011

i had two exams on thursday – my LAST two! they were both translation tests, french to english (aka the easier kind!), so there was no studying involved. how can you study for a translation exam? you can’t. once i finished those tests at noon, i was freeeeee! i came back and chilled out for a while, doing some planning and requesting couches for my upcoming trip. the evening was spent cooking with friends and hanging out. my friend shane had a visitor for a few days – his best friend from ireland, named rowan. they showed up around 8pm and we all stayed in the kitchen, talking and goofing off. around 10:30, we went over to say goodbye to lucy, one of the girls from the UK, who went home on saturday. when we got over there, though, everyone was going out! as it ended up, me, jessie, claire, shane, and rowan biked into town to hang out with everyone at this bar called ‘okapi’ – it was PACKED with students, because thursday night is student night. we had fun though! it was a slow bike ride back, and we finally got home around 2:30. i pretty much passed right out – so tired!!!

friday, 15 april 2011

friday was my first “birthday excursion”. joined by five of my friends (rachel, newton, claire, ariel, and laura), i took a bus to a chateau about 18km outside of angers, called the chateau brissac. it’s actually the tallest chateau in the loire valley – 7 floors! we arrived in brissac, which is seriously small, around noon and went straight to the tourism centre. the plan was to have a picnic and walk around until the chateau tours opened back up at 2pm. the women told us to try the bakery/butcher in the town plaza, unless we wanted to walk 2km to the supermarket. we bought baguettes, cheese, and salami and had some great little sandwiches! well, i just had bread and cheese.. only one week left of my vegetarian lifestyle!! but yeah, lunch was great. it was a little overcast, but we had fun regardless. after lunch, we walked all over the town, killing an hour. after stopping for some hot chocolate, we made our way over to the chateau. for 8 euro, we got a private guided tour of the chateau, a free wine tasting, and access to the huge gardens! not too bad. the building itself was beautiful – extremely detailed carvings, classic fairytale architecture.. after seeing several chateaux in my time here, i would definitely say it was the most “beauty and the beast” looking castle i’ve seen so far. :) the tour was cool, too. we got to see the main reception room, the sitting parlour, the “ballroom”, the dining room, the king’s bedchamber, the grand theatre.. it was AWESOME. the coolest part was that the noble family of brissac (the duke and his family) still live in the castle! they occupy 10 of the 204 rooms. how neat is THAT! we spent the whole day looking for laszlo, the 16 year old future duke of brissac. :) after the tour, we went and had our little wine tasting before going to play around in the gardens for the afternoon. we had a great time taking silly pictures and sitting in the grass. around 3:30, we left and went to finish our walk around the town before taking the 5:20 bus back to angers. the walk didn’t take that long, so we ended up sitting in the sun again for about 30 more minutes near the bus stop. it was so lovely though.

after a few different buses, we made it back to campus and headed right to superU to get stuff for dinner – we had decided to do a big fajita night! so i bought some things, and got cooking around 8:30. since shane’s a real vegetarian and i’m not eating meat for lent (and because meat is expensive), we just made veggie fajitas. but i made guacamole and we had some other toppings, and the whole result was super delicious! it’s such a great feeling when you cook for lots of people and then at the end of the meal, literally all the food is gone. i love it. we hung out in the kitchen some more and then once the night guard came to close it up, we moved to shane’s room. i stayed for about 20 minutes of ‘the shining’ and then headed to bed. not my kind of movie, and i was so tired!

saturday, 16 april 2011

about 2 weeks ago, i signed up for a ‘daytrip to the sea’ excursion that the international office had organized.. the trip had places for 50 people - for 10 euro, we got to visit 4 cities/sites, get dinner, AND it included transportation! seriously, it was a ridiculously cheap trip. the spots filled up in like 3 hours, but luckily natalie, claire, rachel and i got spots. we met the tour bus at 8:45 outside the school and hopped on for an hour and a half ride toward the atlantic. our first stop was in a preserved village called ‘kehrinet’ – a tiny, tiny place in the middle of nowhere, with about 18 thatch-roofed cottages and some animals. it was really cool to see what those little villages looked like centuries ago! it felt even MORE like beauty and the beast. (i realize that i make this comparison all the time.. but seriously, you can’t understand how often i feel like i’m living in the movie over here!) we walked around looking at the restored cottages, marveling at the fact that thatch roofs actually work, and checking out the artisan shops. after an hour and a half, we all piled back into the bus and headed to the next stop, about 30 minutes away. it was a fortified city called ‘guerande’ – all contained within fortress walls. we got there right in the middle of the saturday market, which automatically means AWESOME LUNCH. we got baguettes, some brie, and roasted potatoes. the girls got some meat for the sandwiches, and i got spinach. and we sat in the sunshine in a courtyard in front of the church and ate one of the most delicious meals i have consumed here in france. there is literally nothing like a market lunch. i am going to miss it so much. i bought raspberries for dessert, which i ended up putting on the waffle that i bought later (see the picture). DELISH. after lunch, we explored the city some more before lying down in the grass for a little nap. at 3pm, we hopped back on the bus – this time on our way to do a drive-through tour of a city called ‘le croisic’ – with gorgeous rocky beaches. our last touristy stop was ‘la baule’. according to our guide sheet, it is the “most beautiful beach in europe”.. i beg to differ. they also said it was the longest beach in europe, which i’ll believe – it was like 12km long. the little town seemed pretty ritzy – i got the feeling it was a pretty standard “rich people come here in the summer” kind of beach town. it was cloudy, sadly, so we layed on the beach for just a little while and then walked around until ti was time to get back on the bus at 6:30. on the way home, we stopped for dinner at what was essentially a mall food court, except they only had one thing to eat. i didn’t get the fish – just veggies and rice. the dessert was this weird marshmallow cube thing in some cream sauce. the bus ride home was long, but i just listened to music. we finally got home around 10pm, and i was EXHAUSTED. i talked to my friends on my floor for a while and then went to bed bed bed.

sunday, 17 april 2011

i didn’t even set an alarm on sunday. i just wanted to sleep. i woke up around 11, feeling wonderful. i worked on some couchsurfing stuff for a while and then showered, etc. i worked on third year writing stuff and layed out during the afternoon, and then went over to my friend rachel’s room around 6pm.

rachel is a youtube guru – she has two channels (one in french, one in english), where she posts videos giving people fashion, makeup, and just all around style tips. she has nearly 6,000 subscribers! a few weeks ago, rachel had a great idea.. she wants us to do a “european adventure” channel, where we document our summer travels. so.. we’re doing it! on sunday, she gave me a little makeover and we took pictures for our channel. it was a lot of fun. :) after the photo shoot, we made dinner and hung out for a while, planning some video ideas and talking to people. i came back to skype around 11pm. i got to talk to my best friend, also named rachel, who lives in california. and then, i skyped drew at midnight – officially my birthday! :) we talked for a while, and then shane came to invite me to a movie night in his room. when i walked in the door, about 6 of my friends started singing ‘happy birthday’ to me! so sweet. :) shane has a blow-up mattress, so his tiny room can actually fit like 10 people for a movie night – stadium seating! we watched the movie ‘snatch’ – always great. afterwards, shane put on his ‘virtual fireplace’ recording and played guitar quietly. it was so lovely – natalie said later it was the most ‘at home’ she’d felt since she left winnipeg. and i know what she meant.. it was just so comfy and nice and awesome. around 3am, i finally roused myself from my semi-sleep state and went to bed.

monday, 18 april 2011

birthday!!!! all my monday classes finished last week, but i still woke up early (painfully) to go to the store and get some things for BIRTHDAY BRUNCH! several of my friends came over around 10:30 and all contributed to a freaking fantastic birthday breakfast. we had crepes (and nutella, strawberries, kiwi, bananas, and whipped cream), french toast, cinnamon apples, eggs, potatoes, juice.. it was amazing. and the best part was that we ate it ALL! yummyyy. after brunch, i hung out with friends and said goodbye to shane’s friend rowan. i took a post-brunch coma nap for a bit before heading over to rachel’s for our girly get ready party at 5:30. i had made a reservation for a big group dinner that night, so a bunch of us got makeovers from the makeup queen herself, rachel martino. and we all dressed up and it was so funnnn! we took the bus into town, stopping by the fountain at the cathedral steps to have a little photo shoot. it was kind of like prom, actually! haha! we hopped back on the bus and got to the restaurant right on time. they had the back room set up for us, because the reservation was for 18 people. i think it ended up being 15 people total! shane had ANOTHER friend named danjoe come visit on monday – he arrived just in time for dinner! and, one of the girls from last semester came back to visit, so she joined us too. :) we had a great time – the food was delicious (and not too expensive), everyone looked beautiful, and it was just a fantastic night. we took one of the last buses out of town, and i scurried upstairs to skype my parents before my birthday was officially over. GREAT DAY!

tuesday, 19 april 2011

no class, still. spent the morning catching up on sleep and then the afternoon working on travel plans. dinner was salad and soup and time with friends! after such a weekend, i needed a quiet night. :)

wednesday, 20 april 2011

yesterday was awesome. i got up and went to class (haha) at 10am, but he only kept us for like 10 minutes. long enough to say that it was the final class, and to ask if the exchange students would be interested in attending a dinner next month. wahoo! that meant that summer officially started yesterday. HOLLAAA! i came back and worked on more travel stuff before going over to superU with emma, shane, and danjoe. we came back to eat lunch, and then shane, danjoe and i biked over to the lake nearby to chill out with some people for a while. we even had a soccer ball, so i FINALLY got to play some soccer. it was marvelous. around 7:30, we made our way back, stopping by the store to pick up some wine for danjoe. we came back and i skyped drew for a while.. around 9pm, i made a quick dinner and then got ready for our GREASE SING-A-LONG party!! about 10 of us dressed up in 50’s clothes and watched grease together. it was shane’s idea, and it ended up being SO fun! i haven’t laughed so hard in a while.. we were positively belting out those songs.. high notes and all. some people left after grease, but a few of us stayed and talked/half-watched ‘rocky horror’ for a while. i finally went to bed around 3. this whole staying up late thing is starting to become a habit! luckily, i start traveling soon, so i’ll get back on track. :)

_____________________________________________________________

the rest of the week is going to be travel-preparation! i’m happy to spend a few more days with people in angers, as several of my friends will be gone when i get back from this next trip! rachel and i leave for barcelona on the 27^th, and will be gone for just under 2 weeks – staying in barcelona for a week and then the french riviera for about a week as well! we’re so excited! :) 

ps - see pictures of this weekend here. and my pictures from bordeaux are finally up as well! :)

a weekend for the ages.

first off, i would like to address a topic/question/concern that has been brought up to me several times since i started this blog. that question being, of course.. “why don’t you use capital letters?” there are several reasons, but in brief; 1) i type fast, and for a long time. hitting shift at the beginning of each sentence is inefficient, and i dislike inefficiency. 2) i punctuate. you obviously know when a new sentence has begun, because there was either a period, question mark, or exclamation mark to signify that break. i quite like punctuation for that very reason. 3) it’s a stylistic choice. i prefer the way my posts look this way... it seems more uniform and aesthetically pleasing to me. 4) i DO use capital letters... for emphasis. (see what i did there?) by withholding the capitalization of letters until i really need it, i feel like my literary voice is more audible in my writing. 5) as a follow-up to #4, when i read capital letters, the voice in my head SHOUTS. (did yours?) 6) does capitalizing the first letter of each sentence actually mean anything? it’s not like the words are different. :)

sorry that was kind of rant-y, but i figured i’d clear that issue up. :)

well anyways, back to business. settle in, because this post’s gonna be a long one.. this past weekend was probably one of the most singularly unique weekends i will ever have. in my life. here’s why;

friday, 1 april 2011

i was going to try to make a funny april fool’s joke here, but i’ve got nothing. april fool’s day in france is called ‘poisson d’avril’ (april fish) – and is a holiday during which school children run around slapping smelly fish stickers on their friends’ backs and giggling triumphantly. so we didn’t really celebrate it. instead, my friends jessie and claire came with me on a fabulous weekend getaway to bordeaux! i’ve been wanting to visit bordeaux for a while, and i was so happy to have friends come with me! we left angers around 9:30am and traveled southward via train. it was about a 4 hour journey, through some seriously beautiful countryside. we arrived in bordeaux around 1:30, greeted by blue skies and sunshine.. starting the weekend off right! we followed the directions that our host had texted to me earlier, and made our way to the apartment where we’d be staying friday and saturday night. as we’re walking down this small side street, looking for number 19, i kept getting distracted by the enormous and very old cathedral that was literally across the street. like... apartment on the right, cathedral on the left. not too shabby of a location, to say the least!!

we were only in the apartment for a few minutes, just to say hi to the girls who’d be hosting us and to drop our backpacks off. we set off around 2pm to find some food and explore. we ended up making it about 50 feet, before deciding to eat at a cafe about 4 doors down from the apartment. they had terrace seating, right on the plaza in front of the cathedral, so we sat down and had some lunch. it was even warm enough for bare arms, bless that sunshine! we enjoyed our meal and then checked out the inside of the cathedral.. there were new stained glass windows (from the 60’s) that really reminded me of the animation from the beginning of beauty and the beast. it was awesome. we left and kept wandering around town until we came across a tourism centre. they gave us some ideas of stuff to do in and around bordeaux, stocked us up with maps and brochures, and saw us off. since the weather was so beautiful, we walked down to the riverfront to relax on the grass for a while. it was here that my earlier-formed hypothesis was confirmed... bordeaux is a hipster city. there were so many young, hip, indie-looking people! at cafés, by the river, walking around.. it was nice to have a little connection back to the hipster-swarming campus of belmont. :) after our little pause, we walked back down the river to the apartment, stopping for a little ice cream snack at the place next door. when we arrived back at the apartment, we sat and talked with mathilde (our host) and her friend enoco for a while. they’re both from the pays basque, which is a region of france that borders spain and has a very distinct culture. they even have a different language (basque), which i heard mathilde’s friend marie speak later. we had been invited to go with mathilde and enoco to a concert later in the evening, so we all decided to eat together at the apartment. marie came over, and we had a vegetable salad, green beans / peas, bread / cheese, and waffles with nutella for dessert. deeeelicious!

around 9:30, we all walked over to the concert venue, which was about 5 minutes away on foot. the show was actually a benefit rally for a local feminist group, raising money and awareness for victims of domestic abuse. suffice it to say, this evening was probably one of the most unique, if not THE most unique, evening ever. we wound our way through tiny alleyways, finally arriving at the venue, which was the size of a small apartment, but had a “stage”, bar, and lounge outside. it was called the athénée libertine, and had all kinds of murals and posters and propaganda on the walls, all supporting various activist groups. my favourite part was the wall behind the stage, which was covered in over 30 hand-painted portraits of the most influential feminists in history; simone de beauvoir, judith butler, etc. we arrived during the second set out of three, initally questioning our decision to come at all. the “band” was just three girls in ‘zorro’ costumes, banging away on instruments and yelling into the microphones. that, combined with the overwhelming smell of smoke and sweat, made for a rather unpleasant first impression. but luckily, they were finished within a few minutes of our arrival, and we had a chance to talk to some girls working the “merch” table – they had t-shirts and pamphlets and patches, all for sale for however much you wanted to give. i bought a patch and a pamphlet that details all of the portraits on the wall. after a few minutes, the third set began. all i heard at first was an electronica-pop beat coming from the speakers.. and then i saw the group. it was comprised of two girls, both of whom were wearing baggy jeans and graphic tees. each girl was rocking a boy haircut and some black-framed glasses, and one had a flat-billed hat that said “whooo!” on it. honestly, they were two of the most androgynous humans i have ever encountered. they could have easily been pretty effeminate boys. anyway. they started their set, which was a series of conversationalist rap songs, discussing oppression in the workplace, harassment, and female empowerment.. from what i could tell. it’s hard to keep up with french rap!!!  the second to last song was actually an air-band lip sync perfomance of some 90’s punk song from the tony hawk pro-skater 2 soundtrack. seriously, one girl played air guitar while the other girl mouthed words that i suspect she didn’t even know the meaning of. the singer even crowdsurfed! just launched herself into the 40 person crowd. i was amazed she didn’t hit her head on the ceiling. the whole time, jessie, claire, and i were just laughing and signing along and cheering with the rest of the crowd.. it was so hilariously fun. but the grand finale came when the girls did their a capella encore (in english?) and started in on the final song. apparently it was pretty inspiring, because one of the girls took her top off, which started a chain reaction... suffice to say, they were definitely girls, and i am fairly positive i will never again in my life witness a french feminist naked rap battle. probably.

so, that was pretty hysterical. we left around 11pm, still slightly in shock, and feeling very empowered as women! bedtime couldn’t come early enough, though.. it had been a long day. we got back to the apartment, made up our futon bed (and claire’s little mattress bed on the floor) and got ready to go to sleep. the apartment was awesome, except the location (right next to the cathedral/plaza) stayed pretty lively on a friday night.. so it was noisy allllll night long. i think there might have been a marching band outside at 4am, but i’m not positive. claire went for a run at 7:30, and there were people just leaving the bar next door.. yikes. note to self: next couchsurfing trip, bring ear plugs!

saturday, 2 april 2011

jessie and i woke up around 8:30 when claire came back from her run along the river. we all got ready and then left the apartment to go sign up for our afternoon tour of wine country! we walked back over to the tourism centre and tried to get places on the tour.. but it was full. :( i felt really bad, because claire was super excited about it and i had told her that i didn’t think the places would fill up.. otherwise, we would have gotten our places on friday. the saturday tour went to the médoc region, but i had read so much about this town called st. emilion and how it was the jewel of bordeaux wine country.. so, in a moment of spontaneous planning, i asked the lady about just buying train tickets to st. emilion and doing our own tour. she said it was super easy, and it ended up being cheaper than the other tour. sweet! she even helped us pick out a wine chateau to go visit and called them to make the reservation for us. so we got our information and then went to find some breakfast. this super nice café had a buy one, get one brioche sale, so we got two loaves of brioche and went to eat them next to the river, sitting in between two flowerbeds. it’s a hard life. after our little brunch, we walked back to the apartment and decided to go to the market just outside the door for a while. we walked around this HUGE saturday market – fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, sea food, sweets, bread, homemade pastries, olives... and that was just the food section. the other two-thirds of the market was filled with stalls selling clothing, fabric, jewelry, shoes, random knick-knacks... you name it. we had a great time exploring. i bought a really cute dress for 5 euro (score), jessie bought some food for later, and claire got this precious little antique jewelry box.

around 12:30, we dropped our stuff off at the apartment and made our way to the train station. it was about a 20 minute walk, down the riverside in the bright sunshine. we got there, bought our tickets (8 euro return trip, thank you very much!), and headed out to the platform. the train was this cute little local car, not one of the big, fancy TGV or TER trains. it was kind of like a flashback, retro train. anyway, we were on the train for around 40 minutes, watching as the view from our window went from urban to suburban to vineyard. when we finally got off in st. emilion, it was kind of like a scene in a movie when the bad guy kicks the main character out of the car in the middle of the wildernes.. other than the station and a few random buildings, it was just vineyards for as far as the eye could see. no sign of a city, really, just one house per property. we took some pictures, met a couple from portugal, and then walked up the hill to our chateau destination. luckily everything in st. emilion is accessible by foot, because walking was by far the prettiest part of the day.. as we walked up the hill towards the chateau fonplégade, i couldn’t help but think about how surreal the experience was. but i had that feeling a lot on saturday. we got to the top of the hill, only to realize that we were pretty much the only people there. at all. the girl who was working opened the door and welcomed us inside. i can’t describe how beautiful this property was – the land, the buildings, the décor.. it was gorgeous. we set our bags down and followed our guide outside. the tour we took was just 15 euro – and it was private (just the three of us), given in french, and lasted about an hour. she walked us around outside, telling us about the history ownership of the vineyard. as it turns out, the property was purchased in 2004 by an american couple from california.. they already have another vineyard in napa valley, so they spend six months of the year in each place. i can’t imagine their life except for i bet it’s AWESOME. we then went inside the distillery and saw all the barrels of the 2009 and 2010 wine fermenting, plus the giant production room with the huge barrels that smelled so good. we even got to peek at the owners’ private wine cellar – it reminded me so much of the movie ‘the parent trap’. actually, this whole day reminded me of that movie. anyway, after the tour, we got to have a little ‘degustation’ – tasting. we tried four of the vineyards most popular wines, including the most prestigious and expensive one. even though i don’t really like wine, i felt so fancy! the guide walked us through the process of properly tasting wine, and then did the whole ‘it has a very brown, floral aftertaste, etc etc’ bit. i’m not sure how something can taste brown, but these people knew how to make wine. claire was so inspired that she even bought a bottle to take home and save! after we said goodbye to our guide, we walked up the hill to the little fountain at the top of the vineyard to sit and have our snacks (and a dance party). that was another one of those “i can’t believe i’m doing this” moments.. we were having so much fun. once the strawberries and olives were gone, we scrambled over the back wall of the vineyard (a huge shortcut) and made our way to the teeny, tiny village of st. emilion. (click that link and read the history - amazing!) it was about a mile and a half away, walking down this dusty, gravelly road that wound its way through endless rows of vines. we finally rounded the corner on the tiny village (approximately 2,000 inhabitants) that makes i’d say 98% of its money from tourists visiting the vineyards. every other shop was a wine ‘cave’. we looked out over the rooftops for a while and then made our way down a STEEP road to the main plaza, where we sat in the sunshine at a cafe and had a mid-afternoon snack. our waiter was a total jerk, but everything else was wonderful so i can’t complain! after lunch, we wandered around a little and then made the slow journey back down the hill to the train station. all in all, the trip to st. emilion was about 7 hours of blissful, surreal, time-machine-to-the-past wonderment. DEFINITELY better than a 53-person tour bus to a completely different, medieval-village-less area for 31 euro. sometimes, things just work out better than you could have hoped for.

after a FULL day of walking and sunshine, a short train ride back to bordeaux, and the 20 minute walk from the train station to the apartment, we got back and pretty much crashed from exhaustion. mathilde had left a note saying she and enoco were out for the night, and for us to feel free to eat anything in the house (they’d stocked up at the market). sweet. we made omelettes and had baguettes with cheese and homemade jam (peach and apple – YUM). after dinner, i took a hot bath (gotta take advantage of a bathtub when i can!) and then the three of us just hung out for a little while before getting ready for bed. there was no way we could have topped friday night’s experience, and we were just way too tired to go out again. mathilde called and said they were coming back with friends, so we could sleep in marion’s room (since she was gone for the weekend). we transferred all of our stuff, and just barely heard them come in before we were all out like lights for the entire night. what a day!

sunday, 3 april 2011

the last day of our weekend excursion in bordeaux proved to be not as sunny and warm as the first two days had been.. which was alright, considering we left around noon. we got up early to go to the market again and replenish the fridge after saturday night’s omelette-fest. except unfortunately the sunday market didn’t have the food section.. lame. so we walked around for a while, saw another gigantic cathedral, found a café for our breakfast, and then stopped in a bakery to buy breakfast for mathilde and her friends instead (croissants, brioche, etc). when we got back to the apartment around 11am, they were all still asleep. so we wrote a note, left the bag of goodies and the keys, and made our way to the train station. the journey home was uneventful, except for when we had to actually get up and find our real seats, because we had just chosen three seats together. the train got more and more crowded with each stop, since that train was going to paris. but we only had to wander around for a little while before we found three more seats near to each other. and then a few train transfers later, we were back in angers. it’s nice, having a place that feels like “home” to come back to after a weekend getaway. and it’s even better to have such great friends to “get away” with. :)

_______________________________________________________________________

for pictures of this trip, check my facebook album ‘barefoot in bordeaux’, coming soon!

alright, i’ve decided that i’m going to double post today – just so this entry doesn’t get any more obnoxiously long than it already is! so stay tuned for another entry, quickly forthcoming!

x

a little bit of heaven on earth.

i have this theory – that heaven is made up of all the people and places that inspired you in some way during your life on earth. while most of the time, we don’t realize we’ve found a small bit of paradise – occasionally, that overwhelming sensation of peace and wonder is just too strong to go unnoticed. last saturday, i found a piece of heaven.

my journey started on friday night, when my friend claire came over to my floor to hang out for a while. her mom and sister had been visiting for the past week, so she was a little sad that they were gone. in a spur-of-the-moment decision on friday afternoon, she bought a train ticket for a day trip on saturday to ward off the inevitable homesickness brought on by the departure of her family. she was telling me and my friend shane about how her aunt and uncle had visited this little town called ‘amboise’, which is about an hour and a half away, and absolutely loved it. shane had actually been there as well, and he confirmed their appraisal. so claire was talking about how excited she was to see the town, and i thought to myself – “jill, this is an opportunity that will not walk by you again.” so i asked if i could join her, and bought a ticket! hooray!

saturday morning i woke up around 8 and met claire at the bus stop at 8:40. we got to the train station in pleeeenty of time for our 9:30 train, so i got a little snacky snack at the café – pain au chocolat (which is a roundish croissant with chocolate in the middle), a hot chocolate, and a little bottle of orange juice. for 4 euro! not bad at all. we got on our train and made our way east towards amboise. we arrived around 10:45, got off the train, and made our way across the river to the town center. the station was pretty much on the opposite side of the whole city (which isn’t big at all, but still), so we walked through one part of town, across a bridge to a mini-island in the middle of the maine river, across ANOTHER bridge, and arrived pretty much right into the main drag of town. which is the street alongside the chateau-fortress. this sounds like a long process, but really it was like 15 minutes – including all of the stops for photos. which were many. we walked down a little street so claire could find something to nibble on, and ended up walking by some really awesome shops and people. there was one place called the ‘dentellierie’ – lace shop – that had AMAZING, hand-made lace concoctions.. the delicacy and detail was mind-boggling! we also saw like 15 people dressed up in renaissance-period clothing, walking through the streets of a town that was in its prime during the renaissance. talk about a mind trip – it was just a testament to how cool a renaissance festival would be in europe. because i think that stuff is cool when it’s on a farm in middle tennessee. anyway, i digress..

claire found her snack (quiche lorraine.. yum) and we headed for the main attraction of amboise – the chateau. now, i’ve visited a few chateaux at this point, ranging from ornately palatial to your average looking fortress. this one was definitely up on the scale of prettiness! we walked in and were immediately impressed by the beautiful gardens, lawns, and towers. it’s so cool, because the chateau is built up onto these cliffs, so you feel like you’re walking around in a garden in the sky. we sat down at a little table to reflect and regroup, and then began our tour. the first stop was the st. hubert chapel, which is perched on the very edge of the cliffs.. actually, it hangs off a bit. but the chapel itself is in the ‘flamboyant gothic’ style – lots of frilly carvings and stained glass. the architecture was nothing compared to what was inside the chapel though.. that being LEONARDO DA VINCI’S EARTHLY REMAINS. yes, leo is enterred in amboise. he was invited there to be a part of the french court, and spent the last three years of his life living in a cool place called the ‘clos lucé’ (more about that later), drawing and designing and inventing and being awesome. so yeah – i stood within a metre of leonardo da vinci on saturday. no big. after marveling at that fact for a few minutes, claire and i walked around the outer walls, taking in the views of the river and small town sprawled out below us. we took a few pictures and then went into the actual chateau for a look around. the amboise chateau is actually a castle-looking place – not a fort like the one in angers. it has white walls and that classic slate roof, with lots of italian-renaissance-inspired frilly work blending in with the french gothic styles. my favourite room in the castle was the council chamber – it had a row of carved columns running down the center, holding up these beautiful vaulted ceilings. the fireplaces at each end were actually lit, which made me feel like i had been transported back to the 16^th century and was waiting for the monarch to enter and hold his council. we walked through the rest of the chateau, checking out a legitimately “king-sized” bed (har har har), some royal portraits, and a sweet view from the top of the tower. the best part of the visit was walking around the gardens, though. the sun came out in full force by the time we finished our interior tour, so we just walked around and soaked up all the warm, sunny goodness. the grounds were beautifully manicured.. my favourite bit was the ‘porcupine’s gate’ – an entrance to the grounds that was flanked by two slopes dotted with little, perfectly rounded bushes – i said that they looked like hedgehogs before i knew it was called the porcupine’s gate! so awesome. after some more garden exploring, we sat down in a sunny patch underneath the ‘cedar of lebanon’ and i took a little cat nap while claire wrote in her journal. it was absolutely divine. we had to tear ourselves away, just to make sure we’d have time to see the rest of the town before our 3:45 train.

so around 12:30, we left the chateau and just wandered around for about an hour. we stumbled upon the town church, ‘l’église st. denis’. we were seriously the one people inside for like 80% of our visit. the alter was this little alcove absolutely covered floor-to-ceiling with paintings and sculptures and frilly decorations. it sounds like it would be gaudy, but it was actually really beautiful. the rest of the church was lovely too, but we only had so much time! the only other thing on our list was the ‘clos lucé’- where da vinci lived. we didn’t have a map, but we figured the town was small enough that we’d find it before too long. so we just kept walking around until we saw a sign with ‘clos lucé --->’. handy! we followed that direction, stopping to get a ‘take-out’ pizza for a picnic lunch. at one point, we thought we’d found it – the arrows were pointing up this verrrry long, steep staircase. we started up but soon realized that it was in fact the staircase to the ‘lookout point’ – also worth seeing. so we kept going. these stairs took us by some amazing sights – houses that were literally carved into the cliffs! they were the homes of servants in the chateau back in the old days, and now most of them are empty. but it was so cool to see the little colorful shutters dotting the cliff face. we finally made it to the top, out of breath and quite warm. i ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in just a tanktop! at the lookout point, we sat and ate our little pizza in near silence, gazing out over the lovely little town. i was starving, too, so i was pretty focused on eating. once we finished, it was time to head for the next stop – and luckily for us, there was a ‘clos lucé --->’ sign pointing us down a hill (not the crazy stairs!) so we didn’t even have to back track. we walked down the street, passing more of the cave-houses, and ended up right at the front door of the clos lucé. now that i’ve mentioned this place like ten times, let me explain what a ‘clos’ is – it’s essentially an enclosed field or green space. there is a big gate, and then you walk in to the courtyard of a beautiful old orangy-brick house overlooking this huge park. unfortunately for visitors, the admissions people thought it was decent to charge an arm and a leg to visit the house and grounds. but unfortunately for the admissions people.. they made the fence SERIOUSLY easy to stoop under. and since we didn’t feel any desire to see the inside of the house, we just followed the lead of some (adult) spanish tourists and popped under the gate into the garden. :) so we got to walk around the park that leonardo da vinci walked around while he dreamed up the designs for a machine gun, a rotating tank (which we saw in real life and which i actually got inside and spun around), double-decker bridge (which we ALSO saw in real life), and SO MUCH MORE. the man was serious about his inventions and designs. oh yeah, and art. honestly, it was surreal. i kept having the sensation of standing somewhere that he probably stood about 495 years ago. crazy. it was MUCH cooler than the mona lisa. we meandered through the gardens, checking out the working models of things that da vinci designed that were placed along the trails. around 3pm, we finally had to leave.. the walk back through town, across the river, and to the train station took about 30 minutes, because we were walking slowly, trying to soak up the last few minutes of awesomeness. but finally, we got the the station, and a few minutes later, the train came to take us back to angers.

sigh.. i don’t know exactly what it was about amboise that i loved so much. certainly, there is the obvious – beautiful architecture, amazing historical significance, wonderful sights. and the weather was great to us – hot and sunny and happy. but it was so much more.. the peaceful ruggedness of the tiny cobblestone streets, winding through town. the pleasant surprise of seeing little doorways that lead to a rooftop garden tucked into a cliff. the chateau, perched above it all, overlooking the daily life of the 12,000 people who live there. whatever it was, it wooed me – amboise is definitely a little bit of heaven.

***for pictures of this daytrip (and of last week's trip to brest), check my facebook album march in france!*** 

_______________________________________________________________________

and for a brief update in regards to school – it’s almost over! this whole 12 week semester thing is pretty rad. but this week, i have more work than every other week of the semester combined. and by that, i mean i have two pretty big presentations and two minor ones. it’s a rough life. but i’m still stressed about the presentations, because i really dislike speaking in front of people. even speaking in english, in front of english speakers. but having to talk in french in front of a classroom of french students.. horror.

at this point, i have gotten through one of the two big presentations.. it went well! the next one is tomorrow. thankfully, it’s a group presentation. i just have to keep telling myself that tomorrow night, it will be over, regardless of how it goes. and then i just have two classes on thursday, and then i’m headed to bordeaux for the weekend! hoorayyy. :)

so, that’s life for now. somehow, it is already march 29^th.. i’m not sure how that happened, but time is passing SO QUICKLY. i feel like i’m coming home next week.. but i still have 3 and a half months of awesome travels ahead of me!

stay tuned... :)

jill

my weekend getaway to brest!

ok team – my apologies for the week-long silence!! i spent last week attending classes and preparing for my weekend getaway to brest. thursday was st. paddy’s day, and my irish had a wonderful day of drunken patriotism (except shane, he was just patriotic). i didn’t go out with them, however, because i had to get up SUPER early on friday! and that is where this blog post begins.....

friday, 18 march 2011

i woke up at 5am, having gotten a good 6 hours of sleep (huzzah!). i was meeting andrea at the bus stop at 5:55am, because she had an early morning train to catch as well! the first bus runs at 6:03, and our trains were at 6:43. i packed up my little backpack with a change of clothes and my toiletries and closed down my room for the weekend. it’s a strangely nice feeling, being so productive and active that early in the morning. andi came out to the stop and we got on the first bus – which had several people on it! surprising. thanks to the absense of traffic, we made it to the train station in record time – around 6:18am. i had gone to the station on thursday to print my tickets out, so all we had to do was get our tickets stamped in the little machine and head out to the platform! andrea was headed to paris, to meet her boyfriend at the airport! he came all the way from seattle to visit her for a week.. precious. as it turned out, we were on the same train!! because i had to switch trains several times, my first leg was in the paris direction. so that was nice, we got to chill on the train together for a while. i had to get off at the first stop, though, so we parted ways around 7:30. i had two more legs of my journey, and nagivated both changes without problems. as i was speeding through the french region called “bretagne” (also known as ‘brittany’), the beautiful landscape really struck me. i kept having the sensation that the ground had lights underneath it – the fields were honestly glowing green. very pretty.

i arrived in brest around 11:30am, and asked the information desk where the nearest tourism centre was. the guy pointed me in the right direction, and i set off. after a little round-a-bout way of getting there, i finally arrived and procured the map/bus plan i was searching for. once i had those in hand, i called my hosts for the weekend. i had found a couple who lives just outside of the city centre – their names are trifine and jean-fred. it was jean-fred’s number that i had, so i called him and he told me to come over whenever! so i hopped on a bus (for the only time during the whole weekend) and went to the stop where he was going to meet me. sure enough, i got off the bus and there he was! he drove us back to their little flat, where i put down my bag and we chatted for a while. i was SUPER tired, so i actually ended up taking a nap for a little while. haha! around 3pm, trifine came home for her break, so i finally got to meet her. she works in a fish-n-chips place down by the port, and the poor girl works doubles nearly every day. 9am-3pm and 6pm-midnight. yeeeesh. so she was exhausted, but we did get to chat for a while before jean-fred and i went in to town to check out the art museum. it was very small, but had some pretty decent works! after the museum, we walked around the town for a long time, just so i could see and admire all the new architecture. i also noticed that all of the signs had information in french, and then another language that i honestly could not identify. it looked like a combination of german, old english, and gaelic. i asked jean-fred, and he told me that it is a language called 'breton' - spoken in olden times in the region (bretagne, if you'd forgotten). as it turns out, until 1960, it was ILLEGAL for breton to be spoken or taught! talk about the french sense of pride in their language.. but there has been a revival in the last few decades, and now at least all the signs are in french AND breton. anyway, there is a small fort, sort of like the one in angers.. but the big difference is that brest is a port town. so there is a huge harbor, with tons of boats and shipping docks and all manners of maritime madness. we even saw a circus (literally, i saw camels and an elephant). he gave me a tour of the docks, which are famous for the insane amount of very detailed and artistic graffiti. it was super cool. around 7pm, we went to a local creperie for dinner.. you can’t go wrong with a good creperie. except i gave up meat for lent, so i just had an omelette. :)

at 8:30, we went back up into the town to meet claire, another couchsurfer i had found during my hunt for a host. she couldn’t house me, but she did invite us to go to this little concert in a local bar! it was really fun, and i had a great time getting to know her and her friends. plus, the band was decent, which is a plus. we stayed until about 11:30, and then headed home. trifine got home around 12:15, and we talked very briefly before i excused myself and went to bed.

saturday, 19 march 2011

they had a spare room, with a futon and a desk/computer, etc, so i had lots of privacy for the weekend. the futon was better than sleeping on the floor, but only marginally. the mattress was pretty non-existant, and it was laid out on top of wooden slats. but, i did have this huge duvet comforter and some big pillows, so it was grand. :) i slept well (and for a long time) and woke up feeling ready for another long, touristy day! except jean-fred slept in (because he thought i was still asleep, since i’d shut my door when i left the room), so i had a lovely morning sitting on the sunny spot on the couch, reading the tales of beedle the bard in french. around noon, he woke up and was surprised to see me. that was funny. but he rebounded and ran out to the local bakery to get some breakfast. he came back with a baguette and two pains au chocolat – good man. we had lots of various jams and butters and whatnot to put on the bread, and the pain au chocolat was one of the best ones i’ve eaten. i love french breakfasts. after we finished, i went and got dressed and we headed out for the day.

saturday was a gorgeous day – clear skies and about 60 degrees. our first stop was a 25 minute drive due west, to the pointe st. mathieu. it’s this gorgeous old abbey that now has a big lighthouse attached to it, perched on the top of these steep cliffs that fall right into the atlantic. it is the most western point of france (excluding little islands off the coast)! i really loved walking along the cliff-paths and looking down to the water. it was so clear, you could seriously see straight to the oceanfloor. i learned lots of new vocabulary from jean-fred, and took some awesome pictures (which will be on facebook soon!). we walked through the abbey as well, and then took our time getting back to brest. we made some stops along the way to check out other lookout points, and i took some pretty pictures of the landscape.

once we made it back to town, i popped by an ATM and then we continued on our little tour. he drove me by the stadium where we would be seeing the football match later on, and then took me to this gorgeous botanical garden. thanks to the lovely weather, there were loads of people walking around with their kids or their dogs, just soaking up the sunshine. we walked around for an hour, and then made our way back to the centre of town. we stopped by a bakery and i got the very last tarte aux frambroises (score!) – it was hidden from the shop attendant’s view, so when she said “we have no more.” i said “but there’s one that’s hiding!” and she looked, laughed, and got it for me. it was worth it, because those things are so delicious. anyway, after my snack, it was time to head to the stadium for the match. we had to park kind of far away and then walk back up to the stadium. we got in and chose our seats, underneath the cover in the “avid supporters” section. i had just picked the cheapest seats available, but it turns out they were the best!! the fans of the brest team are CRAZY and hilarious, so i had just as much fun watching them as i did watching the match! it was surreal to finally see a football match in person – after all the times i’ve watched them on tv, actually being there was a dream come true! i didn’t have much emotional investment in the teams, so i was really just happy to be there at all. the brest squad was facing the team from lille, all the way from the north of france, right next to belgium. lille are actually on the top of the bracket in the french league right now, so it was a fun match. brest lost, but i still saw some good goals and learned some awesome fan chants. i left very satisfied! jean-fred and i walked back to the car, drove home, and made some pasta for dinner. trifine got home early (at 11:30) and everyone was in bed by midnight. long but awesome day!!

sunday, 20 march 2011

i woke up around 9am to say thanks and goodbye to trifine before she headed off to work, and then sat reading on the couch for a few minutes before jean-fred emerged. we had a small breakfast, and then i packed up my stuff. at 10am, we got in the car and went to this really neat area of brest called ‘rue st. malo’. it is the only street in the whole city that has been preserved in its pre-war state. in world war 2, the city of brest was pretty much demolished by bombings. but the rue st. malo is tucked down into a little gorge, so it escaped the worst of the attacks. it is completely cobblestoned, with this huge stone wall and these beautiful old stone houses lining the little street. it’s only about 200 feet long but it’s quite charming. jean-fred said that there was an association that raised money to preserve the little street, and now there is a little party every sunday afternoon with food and music.. so cute. after that, we went back to the port to check out this big music/comic book fair that jean-fred had heard about on the radio. it was a one euro entrance fee to browse through probably 20,000 records and nearly as many comic books. i had a fun time looking through all the vinyl, jean-fred found some good deals. around 11:30, we went to meet claire at one of the open-air markets downtown. she had some friends with her, and we ended up sitting outside a café sipping on drinks and talking for about an hour. well.. the talked. i just did my best to listen and keep up! once we all finished our drinks, we walked around the market for a few minutes before i had to head to the train station. i said goodbye to claire and then jean-fred drove me over to the station. he even walked me inside and made sure i made it on the train! such a great host.. :)

the train ride home was awesome. i stayed on the train for about 2/3 of the journey, and then my ticket said i was to transfer to an “autocar”. which is a fancy word for bus. so i took a regional bus for the last hour and twenty minutes, which was actually fantastic. i got to see the back roads of my loire valley region, which is stunning. plus, the bus practically dropped me off at my door! win!

_______________________________________________________________________

all in all, my trip was lovely. i was proud of myself for going all alone, and even prouder of the fact that i spoke english for probably 6 minutes total the whole weekend. plus, it was lovely to see a part of france i would have otherwise missed. i was definitely happy to get back to school and see all my friends, though!! i can’t even think about what it’s going to be like when we all move back to our corners of the world.. ugh. depression.

this week of school is going to be the week of preparation, because i have two big presentations next week. lots of stuff to do! but there are only like 4 weeks of school left, so i’m almost done. CRAZY.

we have two groups of visitors this week – andrea’s boyfriend and claire’s mom/sister! yay visitors. :)

ok, back to the homework that i’m avoiding... :)

xxx jill