Val de Loire

Hey guys,

Once again it's been weeks since my last post, but here's my update on the famous Loire Valley!:

While my trip to Normandy was nice, this trip was even much better. Once again, got up at the crack of dawn and met our group at Porte d'Orleans. After an hour, we arrived at a very familiar-looking castle, Château de Blois, which turned out to be one I'd visited last December with Theo and his family on our way to Royan. We toured that though it wasn't terribly exciting the second time around (it was really exciting the first time either, but I digress..)

Afterwards we all split into small groups, ventured into town and got lunch. Their Saturday market was also going on and it was pleasant to walk around and see everyone's wares.

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Then we were off to Château numero 2. This one, though not huge, was super cute, and sat on a quaint river. Also, we had to take a wooded path to get to it. I think that was the first sign that I was gonna like this castle:

The sun was shining, the leaves were turning...it was beautiful.

I also liked the interior of this castle a lot more, especially the kitchen! How I would've loved to have a kitchen and mess area like this..behold:

Of course there was a wood oven for bread :)

The autumn squashes were a nice decorating touch, too :)

After that castle, we were taken to our 'surprise'. A wine distillery! We did a short tour of the process, and then on to everyone's anticipated part..the tasting. Or dégustation, as they call it here. Oh man, it was beautiful. They had the tables set up for us like so:

I think we all had our arms crossed so that we wouldn't lunge for the food...;)p

Some amazing goat cheese and pork pate stuff, not really sure what it was. And the wine. We can most certainly not forget the wine. Glasses and glasses of it. I suppose it's a good thing there was so much to eat with it, otherwise a few of us might have had some problems. We all had a great time chatting, and here's an after picture of the table:

DEMOLISHED. hehe

I ended up buying some good sparkling wine, and a very nice white wine. It wasn't cheap, but then again, for wine, the French consider anything above 10 euros pretty up there. (It was 12,50)

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Anywho, after that, we continued onto our hotel, where we dropped off our stuff and went out to eat. Dinner this time wasn't that great either. My group was a bit rowdy, and got worse after a couple of them ordered 3 meter beers. Like so:

And my actual food? Someone please remind me never to order something that's supposed to be Mexican in France ever again. Because my 'Mexican salad' was horrid. To top it off, I felt sick shortly afterward and called it an early night when everyone else went off to the pubs. At least I got to take a bath in the hotel room?

Sure, it LOOKED ok, but I think it was the culprit for the upset stomach :/

Next day we visited our last castle, Château de Chambord:

Can't see me all that well, but I'm there ;)

Amazing view!

And what a gorgeous fall day it was, like fall should be. We toured the castle which was fairly impressive itself, but the best part were the grounds. We were given tickets for a bike rental and each of us went in groups and biked around the grounds on paths. It was beyond relaxing and tiring at the same time.

Biking along the river, side view of the castle

At one point, it was also mentioned, that the architect of the castle had designed it so that from a distance, the relatively small size (by their standards) would look like a city to visitors. I can see it:

Shortly after our bike ride we meet up again with our group, and proceeded to a nearby biscuiterie, their (yumy) version of a cookie shop. And behold! Another dégustation! SO. MANY. COOKIES. (The ones pictured below were only a tiny, tiny fraction of the ones we got to taste)

And for those of you thinking, Gee, Chambord sounds oddly familiar, you're right! Chambord is actually also the name of a liqeur sold in the US. Like so:

Originally from this same region of France, the company here was sold to to someone in the US, where they say their liqeur is now more widely bought than in France. (The bottle with the crown is the one sold in the US, the other, here.) Interesting. Anyways, when mixed with white sparkling wine, it makes a drink called Kir that goes great with sweet things, like say, cookies!

In the end, I bought a box of cookies, a little baggie of some kind of delicious brittle called Croukou, and a tiny bottle of the Chambord. I've since eaten the cookies and brittle, but am saving the Chambord for a special occasion (it wasn't cheap!)

Once we were all stuffed from cookies and Kir, we all piled onto our bus and began the long drive back to Paris, all 0f us attentive and perky.

Yeah, right.

If you honestly believed that we didn't all conk out like pre-schoolers during naptime, you are sorely mistaken. Kinda like this:

That was to be our last excursion as a group, which is a little saddening, but at least it was a great one :) Now off to start my next post about the Salon du Chocolat. Here's a little preview, an ad they had everywhere in the metro. Now let's see how long it takes me to get this one posted ^^

Until then!

Love,

Rachael

New-ish buys

I also got these a few weeks ago now, but I finally got:

-a phone!! :DD and a decent smartphone at that ^^

-a nice blender

-a toaster oven :)

Lugging the toaster oven and blender up the stairs wasn't fun oh so worth it. Especially the toaster oven. It's not huge, but I made sure to get one that was a decent size so I could bake. And so far I've made cupcake (twice) and delicious porkchops. And my list for it's uses keep growing, especially with the holiday season approaching :)

Here are some pics just because I know everyone likes them ha:

Samsung Galaxy Ace. Came with free headphone that I actually really like :)

The toaster oven and blender:

Funny story: While looking for the blender, I kept asking for a 'mixeur' as that's what Google translate gave me when I looked up blender in French. After a couple seconds of a blank look from the store rep, they replied with, 'Oh, un blender?' Totally had a French accent, but yeah. Thanks Google...

More soon, much love,

Rachael

Normandie, a little belated..

Greetings, all

I have to admit that ever since the beginning of last week, I've been dreading posting a new entry. Why? Because there was already so much to tell about just after the weekend, and then with my continuous busy week..oh man.

It's been about two weeks since my last post but here goes:

1. Normandy Weekend (Weekend of the 1st and 2nd): Woke up at the crack of dawn and met giant ISA group at Porte d'Orleans. Because Normandy is said to normally be about half of Paris' weather, dressed in jeans, boots, and my wool pull over thing. Took 4 hour bus ride up to Caen (pronounced like the English word cone). Slept for some of the way, but upon our arrival at the memorial there, realized that we'd been jipped and it was bloody hot out. But time for some pictures:

Also, right above the entrace to the building, there was a giant mirror, so I decided to grab a shot. Can you seeee me? ;)

We watched a rather depressing short film, with no sound but that of plane engines and machine guns going off. The screen was split in two and the two point of views was very confusing until about halfway through when I realize that one had been filmed by the Germans and the other had been filmed by the French. On one side you saw a man being congratulated and being sent into a plane, and on the other side you saw men laughing during a meal, and then dying as they came out of the water on Omaha Beach.

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After that cheery movie, we had lunch there and then continued onto Omaha beach and the American cemetery. They presented a lot of lost lives, but the rows upon rows of white crosses and Stars of David were beautiful. Walked along the shore of the beach barefoot, which was heavenly in the hot weather, and it was hard to imagine that such a peaceful beach where at that very moment families were swimming, hundred had lost their lives.

I was feeling a little inspired, so I took this one in b&w:

One of the Jewish graves. I don't know who you were, but RIP Efraim Loew

Does this look like the final resting place of hundreds?

The water felt sooo good on my feet:

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After the beach, we dusted as much of the sand as we could from our feet, got back on the bus, and drove about 15 minutes to Pointe du Hoc. I'm not going to go too much into it's history, but it was a cliff that the Americans rappeled up in order to 'attack and capture' the German troops they'd heard were there. But once they got to the top, they found that the Germans had abandoned it already, which turned out to be a good thing because supposedly, after the exhaustion from the climb, only about 90 men were in any condition to hold a gun out of the hundreds. Eventually, it was bombed, though most of the bunkers survived. Still, you'll see the size of those craters...

But man, the VIEW. Absolutely breathtaking. And it was such a perfect day, too. Behold:

Thanks to Monique for taking the picture :)

I'm kinda small in this picture, but look at how huge the craters from the bombs were!

A few ISAers and I got into a bunker ;)

Getting out...ho hut!

Later headed another hour or so to an apple press factory where after a tour, got to sample the best tasting apple juice of my life. And this is coming from a Washingtonian. We also tried the cider, pommeau, calvados, and creme de calvados. Basically each one was more concentrated in alcohol than the one before it. After the apple juice, pommeau (pronounced po-mo)was my favorite, though creme de calvados was pretty tasty as well. (Think Bailey's but with a slight apple-y taste. Delicious.) Calvados was fun to try, but it's a lot like port, and ehh, not really my thing. They also passed around galettes (like a cross between a cracker and a butter cookie) and some super tasty jams. One of them tasted like Christmas, and I was sold.

Almost everyone bought something, and I got a package of two bottles of the juice, and a bottle of the pommeau, plus the galettes and 2 jars of yummy jam. But fear not, I did not keep the bottle of pommeau, or even the butter galettes all to myself. A few days later I had dinner at Theo and his roommate's place and we split it there. And I had a couple of the galettes but left them there afterwards. It's still slightly infuriating how the French eat all these fattening things and still manage to be twigs..

Here's a pic of where they ferment all the apple juice:

The barrels that make the calvados, pommeau, and cider:

Almost time for the tasting! Here's Gabriel, our director/server ;)

Pouring some cider for Pauline..us next! :)

But back to my trip. After the apple press factory, we drove to our hotel back in Caen, and went out in search of dinner. We were all on the budget side, so unfortunately my meal, while not horrible, was a little less than satisfying. A bunch of us hit an Irish pub afterwards, mingled for a while, then headed back and crashed. Caen at night is pretty though, so here are some pics:

Caen City Hall:

Next morning, breakfast. Most de-lish croissants of my life. They brought them out in a large basket, still warm from the oven. I kid you not when I say each batch would disappear within the minute. Definitely made up for the saddest excuse of scrambled eggs I'd ever seen in my life. How do you mess something as simple as scrambled eggs up that bad??

After breakfast we packed back onto our bus but left an hour late because ISA had to locate a student who had apparently taken a nap when he'd finished breakfast. (Really, dude?) But also, a pic of Caen's little harbor just outside our hotel in the morning:

Another 2 hours later and we were at Mont Saint Michel..oh it was lovely! Here's a few pics from outside:

So a little about St. Michel. Though very tourist-y, only about 40 people actually live in the old fortress/abby now, a lot of them nuns and monks. Also, St. Michel is an island at high tide. Cool, huh? Well, here are some more pics from in and around. I took many, many more, but in the interest of time I'm gonna keep them to a minimum.

Shortly after entering...for those of you that've seen the Harry Potter movies, I'm sure you can see the resemblance to Diagon Alley!

Picture of the chapel from the outside:

One the way up:

Another side of the chapel:

I think this was once the dining hall, but I loved the arches:

There was a quaint courtyard in the shadow of the chapel with amazing architecture as well, I LOVED it. Here's a pic:

And finally! Got to the top, where they had a couple, large and beaitful terraces looking out over the land. There wasn't a whole lot to see, but seeing the land stretch out like that..it was stunning anyways:

That's all for this post just because it's gotten far too long...but at least I finally got the Normandy recap out of the way! Loire Valley update soon...ish...