I'll be angry on behalf of Montlucon.....

One of the many reasons I chose to take on this European adventure was to take advantage of all the opportunities it allows for me to travel. Unfortunately, I do not have a schedule that comply's with all my travel plans, and I have since had to revamp my idea of traveling, settling instead on doing some day trips most Saturday's with a big weekend trip thrown in every once in awhile.  Saturday was my first day trip, and I went with my new American friend Emily to the town of Moulins.  She had heard of this museum that was hosting a costume exhibit that was supposed to be really neat, so we looked up train times and headed out for the day.  To get anywhere from Montlucon can be a bit of a challenge, because there is not usually a direct train that goes from here to ANYWHERE.  This of course was the same with our trip to Moulins, although the reason behind there being no direct train is far more interesting.....

 Moulins is apparently an important town in the infrastructure of our departement (departement= county) here in the region of Auvergne.  I am not sure why it holds such significance within the government, but it does.  And that is a major point of contention here in Montlucon, because Montlucon is way bigger than Moulins. Back when Moulins was named the "prefecture" of our departement, the people of Montlucon were so angry that they went out to the rail lines that ran between the two towns and started ripping them up!!  Obviously this was done years and years ago, but the tracks have not been replaced, so there is literally no direct way to get to and from Moulins via train.  My traveling partner for the day, Emily, kept reiterating this so many times I finally said to her that I think she is holding a grudge for the town of Montlucon! To which her reply was "I'd be happy to be angry on behalf of Montlucon!" Lol. Oh Emily! Anyway, we managed to make it to Moulins at about 12, where we met the primary school assistant that Emily knows, and then we set off to see the town.  The first stop was the Centre national du costume de scene, where they house all kinds of costumes from different eras that appeared in various plays.  We had heard several good things about it, so we figured it was worth the 2,50 euro charge to go. The costumes that they had on display were absolutely exquisite, some of them dating back to the 1800's.  There were several times Emily and I would look at each other and go "Ohhh, I LOVE that one!". Lol. After the costume exhibit, we of course hit up the Notre Dame Cathedral, and saw some of the sites that the old, historic part of Moulins has to offer.

Centre national du costume du scene

This is a sweet shop on the corner of a road! Love the color!

Cathedral Notre Dame

How would you like to have Mass here every Sunday?

Hello beautiful stained glass window!

Francegiving

Happy Thanksgiving friends & family! I hope you are all enjoying a nice holiday weekend.  Sadly, it is not a holiday weekend over here, and those of you who are jealous of all my vacation time will be happy to know that I have had to work all week, including Thanksgiving Day (it was only 1 hr, but I still had to prepare and actually teach, therefore it counts! ;)  Even though all us Americans over here had to complete our daily duties on Thanksgiving, we still decided to pull together a feast to share with each other and our new European friends. As much as we wanted to keep tradition alive by having all the normal Thanksgiving foods, we sadly had to compromise on many items, including a turkey, since turkey isn't in season until the 1st week of December here (just our luck!), but we did manage to pull together an INCREDIBLE feast of the following foods:
-ham
-mashed potatoes (mashed with a spoon ladle, I might add)
-green bean casserole
-home made biscuits
-carrots
-corn
-stuffing
-2 bowls of Spanish sangria
-3 pies (apple, cherry, and chocolate)

Needless to say, for 6 people, we had a TON of food! Even though none of us were with our families, we were able to create an awesome meal with our new friends, which made celebrating the holiday a little more enjoyable.

Ham is ready for the oven!

In it goes....

prepping the green bean casserole and looking for another serving dish

Only a portion of our food....there was no inch of free space once we got everything on the table

Happy Thanksgiving! (notice how the Americans are big time cheesing and the Europeans are like, eh, whatever)

Grenoble: the French capital of the Alps

The Alps....everyone talks about them, everyone says they are spectacular, breathtaking and quite beautiful.  I can now attest to the validity of everyone of those adjectives.  I was fortunate enough to have a long weekend this past weekend due to armistice day (don't worry-for those of you who think I have way too much time off you will be happy to know my next break will be my 3 weeks at Christmas ;), so Caely and I decided to head out Thursday morning to the city of Grenoble, southeastern city located at the foot of the French Alps.  After a bus and two train rides, we made it into the city and started making our way towards our hotel (which we did need help finding, btw).  After getting ourselves settled into the hotel, we pulled out our map and started locating all the spots we wanted to hit before we left Sunday afternoon.  One of those spots included a fondue restaurant, La Fondue (very cleverly named!), and that's where we decided to kick off our Grenoble adventure, and boy am I glad we did! Our cheese fondue was delicious, and we REALLY enjoyed our chocolate fondue for dessert!

Excited for fondue!

we thought we had died and gone to heaven!

Friday morning we decided that we were going to go to La Bastille, which is an ancient series of fortifications that sits on the mountainside overlooking the city.  There are cable cars that go from the bottom all the way up to the top, so we packed up our picnic lunch, jumped on the cable car and rode the way to the top.  It was only then did we realize that we could have hiked up to the top, which was something we were interested in doing... Nevertheless, however you get up to the top of the Bastille, what awaits you will be absolutely worth it! 

Cable Cars going up the Bastille

View of Grenoble from the top

Enjoying the scenery!

Down the mountain we go...

Saturday we hopped the train and took a day trip to Annecy, known as the Venice of France.  There is Lake Annecy that connects to canals that basically run through the city.  We weren't sure if it was going to be worth the extra euro for the train ticket, but we were not dissapointed......

Why, hello gorgeous scenery!

Yes, you have every right to be envious!

This picture is destined to be a post card

Crystal clear

Palais d'Isle

Picture perfect

The views, as you can see, are just incredible, and the water in the lake and the canals is as crystal clear as if you were in someplace like Hawaii or the Caribbean. The Alps are simply breathtaking-they surround everything and every time you turn around you catch yourself admiring the new view that is in front of you, thinking "that is just the most incredible thing I've ever seen", and then 2 minutes later you are recanting your statement because you've found another yet magnificent view. France (and Europe) are truly incredible, having thousands of years of history hidden in their small, quaint towns like Annecy, while at the same time holding some of the most wonderful wonders of the world.  

Up next on my French adventure: baking using our small kitchen and limited resources, and perhaps a Thanksgiving Day "feast"??

I want to live here

How to celebrate your birthday 4,000+ miles away from your friends & family

Your birthday.....It should be a time of fun and celebration, where you are made to feel special by everyone close to you.  In my family, it's the day you receive tons of phone calls from everyone in the family, wishing you birthday wishes and catching up on what's going on in your life. This year, however, was a very different birthday from the ones I have experienced in the past. It wasn't a bad different, it will just be the birthday that I will always remember as having spent it in another country, something I will be grateful to say in the future years to come. As far as birthday weekends go, it was pretty well spent! I even actually managed to find someone else whose birthday is the same day as mine, so we were able to do a joint celebration! After living here 5 weeks, I've been able to meet several other language assistants who are working and living here in the same town.  There are probably around 10 of us in all, which is absolutely fantastic, because now we can all meet up and do things together in town.  And that is exactly what we did all weekend.  I almost felt like it was a weekend full of traveling and site seeing because I was so exhausted by the end of it all...


Friday night I met up with some of the other assistants here in town and we spent the night getting acquainted.  Saturday, my new friend Stephanie, who hails from NC as well, came to Montlucon for the day where we celebrated my birthday by having the most fantastic burgers and beers at a local restaurant, plus some delicious pastries and macarons.  Sunday I met back up with the other assistants (my birthday buddy, Michael, who is British is amongst the other assistants crowd) at this market that takes place just on the other side of the bridge.  We bought 2 rotisserie chickens, 4 baguettes and 3 kilos of potatoes to take back the Michael's house, where we made a fabulous Sunday lunch.  I spent pretty much the rest of the afternoon in the company of the other assistants, and by the end of lunch I was full and my face hurt because I had been laughing so hard.  Not a bad way to feel on your birthday! If any of you reading this ever spend your birthday on another continent, I wish for you the same kind of birthday weekend that I was fortunate enough to be able to have!




Up next on my European adventures list is possibly a trip to Mont St. Michel this weekend (Be jealous-it is absolutely GORGEOUS!)


A toute a l'heure!

Indian Yogi's, Tacky Trains and Tapas

Ah, Spain...the land of olives, grapes, ham, queso manchego, and buildings that take 370 years to finish (seriously!).  I have just returned from my 8 day vacation in Spain, full of good food and even better memories.  I spent my vacation with my dear friend Stephanie, who lives in Toledo with her Spanish boyfriend Jorge.  They were beyond excellent hosts, and I am forever grateful for everything they did for me while I was with them.

When I decided to go to Spain for my vacation for La Toussaint (All Saint's Day), I expected to see lots of historical & beautiful sights, to visit and catch up with Steph, and to experience a good bit of Spanish culture.  What I got from my vacation was all that plus more! When I arrived in Madrid I was greeted by Steph and her Indian Yogi, Baba (his real Indian name is far too difficult to pronounce, so everyone calls him this); Steph and Jorge are taking yoga classes with Baba, and he is teaching them the ways of a vegetarian diet.  So after being greeted in Madrid, we took off for this Indian food store that Baba wanted to take us to so he could buy ingredients for the food he was going to make us later on that day.  After being lied to by 3 different Spainards, we managed to find the Indian food store where we spent the better part of an hour watching Baba pick out all the spices and other ingredients he needed.

After our Indian food store experience, it was time to meet up with Jorge and catch the bus back to Toledo.  When we arrived in Toledo, it was time for the boys to get busy cooking! Baba and Jorge cooked up quite a meal -I'm still not even sure what we ate, I just know that I ate mass quantities of it because Baba kept piling food onto my plate!   We were so full by the end of our meal that all we could do was shower and lay around the rest of the day....

The next few days that followed were filled with seeing the sights of Toledo.  We started out tour of Toledo with what Steph likes to call the "tacky tourist train". It is essentially a train that takes tourists around the city pointing out the highlights and providing a little bit of history about each one.  I definitely explored and learned more about Toledo from Stephanie and our fantastic tour guide that we had later on in the week, but the tacky tourist train is a definite must do while in Toledo.  Toledo is an interesting and fascinating city, because it is home to not just Catholics, but Jews and Muslims as well.  It is one of the only places in Spain where all three religious groups lived rather peacefully and tolerantly of one another.  The cathedral is absolutely beautiful, and the mosques and synagogues are equally as breath taking. I wish I could put all my pictures of Toledo here in my blog, but sadly there is just not enough space.  So please enjoy the few pictures that I am posting on here:

I hope you enjoyed those few pictures! Now onto tapas....Tapas are a tradition in Spain.  Because Spainards love to drink, restaurants and bars are historically known for bringing a plate of some finger foods that you can munch on so that you have something in your stomach besides a whole lot of alcohol.  This is where tapas come from, and Spain is known for their tapas.  Take a look at the tapas we had Saturday afternoon in Madrid and I won't need to explain anything else about them:

Far left: mozzarella with pesto & olive oil.
Middle: Goat cheese & carmelized onions on baguette
Far right: Stuffed mushrooms on baguette

Because Madrid is only a 45 minute bus ride from Toledo, we decided to spend the weekend there, visiting things like the Palacio Real and other historical sights:

Steph and me in front of the Palacio Real

This cathedral took 370 years to build!

If you ever find yourselves in Madrid,  chocolate and churros are a MUST!!!