In honor of France's birthday

It's Bastille Day! Run amok in the streets! Storm the prisons! Behead the nobility! Tie tri-color balloons to your nether regions!

The star-crossed roomie and I are celebrating tonight wiz zuh steenky cheez and zuh wahn zat ees compleecated lahk a womun ov zee certayne ahj. But we can celebrate right this moment here in cyberspace with a selection of Frenchy blog posts I've freelanced for my friends at Go Green Travel Green. 

Your guide to mealtime in France: You know I was something of a gourmande last year. This post describes all my favorite dishes and desserts, with a special section on les apéros.

How to use the French train system (SNCF): We Americans who live in Fly-Over Land sadly have little occasion to discover what rail travel is all about.  I compiled an exhaustive list of tips on how to ride the French rails for choo choo novices, from how to get your ticket to where to put your luggage.

Paris museums off the beaten track: I ended up going to Paris eight times last year to meet up with various visitors, and I got real sick, real fast of going to the same durn places all the time. These museums are the ones to check out once you're all art-ed out.

Paris in a day: If you're only going to be in Gay Paree for a couple of days but want to stuff as much of it into your eyeballs as possible, read this guide (based on a real-life 25-hour visit).

In other news, I now officially have only three weeks left of funemployment before I rejoin Society as one of its Productive Members. I've learned to keep work and blogging separate so I won't publish the name of my soon-to-be employer here, but if you're curious you can send me an email.


I'm looking for ways to make a little extra dough betwixt now and then (gotta keep up that fromage habit somehow), so if you think you might like to pay me to freelance a bit for your site, let me know in the comments below.

Perfect Berlin Day

A perfect day starts out with a balanced breakfast. We went to the café across the street from the palace we've been staying (thanks Jonathan!) and played the "I Have No Idea What This Means But I Hope It's Delicious" game when ordering from the menu. I got a plate with a hard-boiled egg, cheeses, meats, butter and amazing house-made marmalade, accompanied by a basket of baguettes and slices of hearty German bread. The Dude had the XL version, with smoked salmon, fruit slices and horseradish spread. This kept us full all the livelong day.

Next stop was Tacheles, recommended by my friend Jessica. Originally built in 1907 as a department store in Berlin's Jewish quarter, it has since housed a Nazi prison, the Free German Trade Union Federation, and a movie theater. Shortly after the wall fell (and right before the building was scheduled to be demolished), an artists' initiative took over the building. It has since been used as an art center and night club.

According to their website:

In the course of changes since the wall came down, Tacheles has been confronted with the difficult challenge of remaining true to its roots and ideals without becoming too sentimental about the old squatter times.

The building was partially bombed during WWII and it's completely covered inside with graffiti. Each room features work from different artists-- collages, paintings, photography-- and there's a sculpture garden out back. I thought of many of my Portland buddies who would drool at such a gnarly artist collective.

Next was the Neue Synagogue down the street, which was way overpriced for the amount of information. We went to the German Historic Museum on Monday and paid 4E for three hours' worth of moseying through their gigantic exhibit, and we paid 3E50 for two small rooms of info at the synagogue. Lame.

We were totally parched by this point, so we stopped at a local watering hole for my new favorite refreshment: apfel schorle. It's like fizzy apple juice. So delish. As we were sitting outside the sky opened and started thunderbooming, so we were forced to move inside and do shots of jägermeister. Those are the rules.

When the rain let up an hour or so later, on the recommendation of my buddy Kathryn we headed down to Bernauer Strasse, which has a couple of museums dedicated to my favorite subject: The Berlin Wall. The first had videos of the history of the wall (which left a German woman in the row in front of us in tears) and an explanation of the death strip, the 100-meter zone between walls on the East and West sides filled with sensor-triggered barb wire, patrol dogs, beds of nails, trip wire, and of course lots of lots of soldiers ready to shoot at anything that moves.

There was a park adjacent to the museum that had some old pieces of the wall on display, as well as informational panels about what had happened. It also had photos of the 136 people killed as they tried to cross the wall.

We arrived at the second museum 15 minutes before closing, so we only had time to climb up to the observation deck to see a preserved section of what the death strip actually looked like.

Minutes after we left we got caught in another thunderboom, so we hopped the streetcar to the grocery store to buy the fixings for a big dinner for Jonathan and his roommates.

Today is our last day in Berlin, and I have the sads. I can definitely see why so many people love it here so much.

Life in the GDR appears to have been somewhat awesome

We got into Berlin on Wednesday afternoon, and approximately four curry- and bratwursts later, one of our first stops was an English-language bookstore. I have been STARVED for a good book in English since I got over here, once I discovered that my Nook doesn't want to cooperate in France. I picked two books, one called A Woman in Berlin, about Berlin-post-war, and one called Stasiland, about Berlin-post-wall.

Stasiland is full of harrowing tales of what life was like in East Germany under the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik): never trusting anyone (they may inform on you to the secret police), no privacy, and no room for free thought. So I was prepared for a somber experience inside the DDR Museum.

What we got instead was a gee-whiz, hands-on collection of DDR memorabilia, with placards touting the ingenuity of the East Germans and making things like group bathroom breaks (a first lesson in Communist brotherhood-- no one can get up from the row of potties until the last one has finished) look positively adorable. 

These fun little guys taught the young comrades to eat more fruit, conserve electricity and use resources responsibly.

Here I am practicing the Lipsi dance, specifically created by the DDR in 1959 to be void of any and all sexuality and to counter rock 'n roll. Watch the video below to see what it looked like.

This diorama was dedicated to the East German penchant for promenading au naturel at the beach.

My favorite exhibit let you create a "new socialist human" bit by bit. You were given points for how well your choices conformed to the socialist ideal. I did well with my shoe choice ("Sturdy footwear is important for creating initiative in productive labor. Both feet firmly on socialist ground!"), but not so much with what I put in my left hand ("You have an exemplary husband! But why are you bringing flowers to work? Has your admirer just brought them here? Has he no job?").

Wes Anderson's Happy Place

I'm coming off of a week of hardcore Paris touristing with the little brother, which came on the heels of a week of hardcore Morocc'ing, both of which I fully intend to tell you about. But I want to wait till I'm back in my Digoin palace and have the leisure of staring contemplatively at the wall for hours on end, which is how I usually prefer to blog.

I spent yesterday and today at a much more leisurely pace, and tried my best not to feel too bad about wasting precious Parisian hours in a movie theater watching Love and Other Drugs (en version originale, no less) and in St. Nicholas and Kelly's apartment reading March by Geraldine Brooks.

But then the guilt was just too much, so Kelly and I hit up the NYT-approved Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature. It's full of taxidermied animals and velvet wallpaper and twee hand-written explanatory signs and drawers with elaborately decorated guns in them and boar heads and stuff.

And bears!

And weird stuff in jars!

And the heads of small horned beasts arranged geometrically on the ceiling!

And stuffed gorillas about to dine near an artist's rendering of their innards!

And the insides of hunting cabins so twee you can hardly stand it!

I know of several people who would get a huge kick out of this place (Will, I'm looking especially hard at you), so why don't you just drop the pretenses and fly to France this month? I'm looking at at LEAST a 1.5-month-long visitor drought till manf gets here.

Just saying.

More creepy French mannequins delight, terrify American tourist

I know I've been posting like a mad dog this week, but I'm trying to make up for the time I'll be sans computer in MOROCCO in a mere week and change. Did I mention I'm going to MOROCCO? I'll be travelling with a very lovely lady named EJ, an assistant in Angers (pronounced /ON-zhay/, not /AIN-gurrs/). You should read her blog. Anyway, we're going to have a lovely five days in Fes wearing the eponymous hats, huffing spices and riding magic carpets. Bonus: she speaks a little Arabic.

But MOROCCO (did I mention I was going there? In like a week?) is not the reason why we're gathered here today. No sir; we're here to talk about the creepy brand of museum mannequin that France does so very well.

"I hope you don't mind if I stand here and get a really good vacant stare going, my good sir. It is ever-so-tiring to maneuver through Medieval France with these ridiculous wings on my shoulders." "Oh, not at all, Sister! I intend to do the same."

One of my cousin Kiki's very most favoritest hobbies is to go wine tasting. Living but a wee distance away from Nappa Valley in California, it's something she's able to partake in on the reg. As she is currently residing in Burgundy, it was only natural that we sample the local, world-famous brand of delicious fermented grape.

My partner in crime Missy Rococo wrangled her buddy Atomic Tom into chauffeuring us to Beaune, a city known for its beauty, hospices, and wine, of course. Every year the city holds a gigantic wine auction to benefit charity.

"No, I don't think I shall sew anything today. I'll just fondle these spools of thread and stare vacantly into the distance. Tis the new fashion, you know."

After we sampled what the caves at Patriarchie had to offer (b-t-dubs... you're left completely alone in their cellars and can sample as much of the wines on display as you dare), we made our way to the Hospices de Beaune, a hospital founded in 1443 under the rule of Burgundy Duke Philip le Bon. It features beautiful tiled roofs, examples of red-blanketed hospital beds tailored to the short men of yore, and a healthy stock of be-wimpled creepy mannequins. Jackpot!

"I'm famous 'round these parts for being one of the few people who can appear to be engaged in the task at hand. That and skinning rabbits."

Toussaint Vacation Days Five and Six: Grenoble and Lyon

I got a little slowed down in my constant updates. I've suddenly become very popular. In the past few days I've had so many meaningful interactions with the townsfolk that it would make your head spin. In fact, I'd much rather write to you about that than about my last two days of vacay, so I'm going to make this one a bit short so I can move on to bigger and better things.

Back to Grenoble. Our first stop on Saturday morning was the Musée de la Résistance, which details all the things Grenoblins did to resist the Nazis. As it turns out, they did a lot of things. Many, many things, none of which I can remember, in fact.

Rabbit trail: I've started picking up some of the English phrases the Frenchies are fond of using. It's very common for them to say "En fait," (in fact) at the beginnings and ends of the sentences, and it makes sense they would translate it when speaking English. I had lunch with some of my students today, and one of them said, "In fact, I do not like making my homework on the weekends, in fact." FACT.

After a stop at Gus and Line's to have leftovers for lunch, we returned to the Musée Dauphinois to check out the ski exhibits, which we had skipped the day before. They had ski examples from all of time and from every conceivable material, which were probably fascinating if you had actually been downhill skiing more than once, and if that one time you didn't end up in hospital. Ahem.

We went to one more exhibit on the Holocaust called, "Spoilé!" and then raced to get our bags so we could make our train to Lyon. Kelly accidentally left her scarf there, and Line's going to send back it to her for free. That's how cool she is.

We arrived an hour and a half later in soggy Lyon, and went on a forced march to our soggy hotel, where our room smelled like gerbil food. Despite being totally exhaustified (vacations are hard!), we dragged ourselves to the Old City to eat dinner in a bouchon, a type of family-owned restaurant that Lyon is famous for. On the way there, I stopped at a supermarket to stock up on some staples, since I knew everything in Digoin would be closed when I got back Sunday, and they would remain closed on Monday in observance of Toussaint. We spied a bouchon that advertised a 15E fixed price meal, but only until 8 p.m. As it was 7:55, we hurried inside and asked the hostess if we could still get it.

She took one look at my sac en plastique with a bag of roasted chicken potato chips and cans of tuna inside and promptly sat us between the kitchen and the bathroom, warning us that we could only be there if we promised to leave by 9. I ordered a delicious smoked salmon salad as my entrée, and was desperate for a basket of baguette to nom the last morsels of sauce. As we were situated directly adjacent to the kitchen, I could see the waiters bringing bread to every other patron in the place but us. Our waiter managed to whisk away my plate before I could make my request.

Just before he was about to scurry off after bring the main courses, I asked for some bread. I saw him go into the kitchen and remove all the bread from one of the baskets save for three slices. Shocking treatment, I tell you.

One stop at a crepe stand for a chestnut cream confection later and we returned to Gerbil Land.

Notre Dame de Fourviere

The next day we hit up the Roman ruins, the beautiful basilica Notre Dame de Fourviere, and the Musée des Tissus et Arts Decoratif. We were bone tired. Could-not-bear-to-hit-up-another-tourist-site-if-our-life-depended on it tired. So instead we decided to go to Quick (France's version of McDonald's) for lunch and see The Social Network afterward.

When you order American food in France you have to try to say it with a French accent. You can't order a hamburger; you must request a 'amboorgahr. You can't order the rustic fries on the menu; you have to ask for frites roosteek. The cash register lady recognized that we were Anglophones and insisted on practicing her English, though when we responded in kind she couldn't understand us. It was a total communication melt down.

We headed across the street to the theater and stood in an epicly long line, only to find out that they only accepted French debit cards (carte bleue) and American Express. Thus we were forced to go to a cash machine and milk our American bank accounts even drier with the terrible exchange rate plus ATM fee. We stood in the ginormous line again and finally--finally!-- got into the theater and had the pleasure of being the only people laughing at many of the jokes.

Lyon really got me down, man. I suppose it was a good way to end an awesome vacation, though, because it made me look forward to going home. And Digoin really does feel like home now. More on that later.

Toussaint Vacation Day Four: Grenoble

I want to you know that I have tasted heaven and its name is speculoos. As you may recall, this manna first passed my lips in Arles, when I was suffering from a horrible clogged face and couldn't verify its deliciousness because I couldn't smell/taste a blooming thing. After days of searching, I finally picked up a jar of Speculoos a Tartiner at the supermarket this afternoon and it is amazing. Don't be surprised if I buy a crate of this to take back with me to the States, and dole it out as gifts for only very important occasions. Your half birthday. Presidents Day. Armistice Day. I'm not going to share this stuff for just anything.

Um... writing that made me hungry and I need to go get some more.

OK I'm back. Whew, that was delicious. Good thing I got an extra baguette on the way home. Alvays sinking, I am...

The périphérique balls we took to the top of the mountain.

Kelly and I woke up on Friday morning after having finally gotten a great night sleep on the bed of clouds. We didn't have to spoon each other for warmth-- there was a gigantic and perfect down comforter that kept things cozy. We went back upstairs to Gus and Line's apartment, where Line was waiting for us with homemade bread, homemade fig jam, and a tea infusion. I think I'm in love with her.

Gus scolded her for keeping us inside talking on this glorious Grenoblin day, so off we went to take the périphérique to the top of the mountain for some incredible views. I could not have been happier. The sun was shining, it was actually warm, I was wearing my super cool new red imitation leather jacket I'd gotten in Dijon for 29€, I could breathe through my nose, and I was gazing upon the most beautiful mountain vistas I'd ever seen in my life. I could have stayed up there all day.

Look at all the patrimony down there!

But alas, one needs to eat. We descended our mountain perch and found some sustenance at a sandwich shop in the old city. Our next destination, naturally, was the Musée des Automates, because robots are like family to me. It was closed when we got there, so we amused ourselves by going to the gare to arrange train travel to Lyon for the next day and stopping in a patisserie to sample the local specialties.

Along with Chartreuse, which comes in yellow and green flavors that are equally alcoholic, Grenoble is famous for their caramel walnut cakes. Uff-dah, were they good. If I thought it would have survived I would have bought one and saved it to send home as a present. Unfortunately, there was just no way, and I was forced to gobble a mini one right then and there, and buy two more the next day that weren't long for this world.

Having wasted enough time, we returned to the Automates museum only to see that they charged more than 5€ per person. In what appears to be a pattern, this turned us off of the museum and instead we headed for the (free) Musée Dauphinois, which is nestled in one of the foothills.

Kelly tried to take a picture of me jumping for joy. Instead I look like I'm being carried off by a condor.

Did you know that the word dauphin can either mean dolphin or heir to the throne? I have to wonder which sense of the word came first.  Either way, the French must revere the dolphin as a very noble beast. Aha! Wikipedia to the rescue:

In the 12th century, the local ruler Count Guigues IV of Albon (c.1095–1142) bore a dolphin on his coat of arms and was nicknamed le Dauphin (French for dolphin). His descendants changed their title from Count of Albon to Dauphin of Viennois. The state took the name of Dauphiné.

In any case, the Musée Dauphinois concerns itself with the history, culture, and, yes, PATRIMONY of the people living in the surrounding area, namely the Alps. Much like the Museum of Burgundian life, there were artifacts from la vie quotidienne (minus all the creepy mannequins). Did you know that the Alps farmspeople and their animals lived together under the same roof in the winter? It reduced heating costs, apparently. I can just imagine the townies coming across such a situation and yelling, "You live in a barn! No, seriously! You live in a barn! With your animals! In a barn!" That must have been really tough for the Alpers to take...

The museum's first floor was dedicated to technology, which is a big industry in Grenoble. The exhibits included... robots! Take that, expensive Musée des Automates!

My robo-bretheren

After leaving the museum we embarked on what was easily the most frustrating part of our journey. We had promised Gus and Line a dinner that night to thank them for being the Best Hosts in the World. There are only so many things I can produce with neither measuring cups nor a recipe on hand, and if you're a longtime Neenuh friend odds are I've made them for you more than once. We were going to start with goat cheese and pear crostinis, with a main course of orzo with roasted vegetables, feta, and pine nuts. Dessert was going to be Lynn Rosetto Casper's wine-and-honey-marinated figs with marscapone to dip them in.

If you haven't figured this out by now, France is not like the United States. In the US you can get pretty much any ingredient you want at any time of the year. They taste a lot fresher when they're in season, of course, but it doesn't need to be June for you to find strawberries. In France, they seem to only stock the produce that's available at that moment in time. Which is great for the environment and all, but really maddening when you're looking for specific ingredients for a specific meal.

One thing I've found particularly shocking is the paucity of fresh herbs. Can't a girl get a little basil up in hurr? I was also lacking a non-wrinkled red bell pepper, green onions, eggplant and red onion, all key ingredients in my dish. I ended up having to make a poor man's version of my orzo with zucchini and slightly less-wrinkled yellow bell pepper, pine nuts, and feta, with a pasta that was close to orzo but was not orzo. Oh, the shame. I promised everyone involved that if they ever popped over for dinner in the US I would make them the real thing and their mouths would explode in happy.

The Best Hosts in the World, Line and Gus.

 All was not lost, however, for the pear and goat cheese appetizers and the fig and marscapone dessert were declared delicious.

Next up: another day in Grenoble, and a soggy trip to Lyon.

Toussaint Vacation Day Three: Dijon and Grenoble

I woke up before 6 a.m. I still haven't adjusted to Daylight Savings Time, which happened in France this weekend. After two hours of reading a dear friend's blog from her time here during the 07-08 school year, I decided to scrap my plans for a morning nap and get back on that blogging train.

Thursday was the big day of my medical appointment in Dijon, the one I first heard about during my orientation in the beginning of October. We needed to get examined to make sure we didn't have TB, and as a present for good health they would give us a stamp in our passports that would allow us to leave the country and re-enter. Back then they told us it was going to be on Oct. 19, the day before our second orientation in Montceau-les-Mines. Being the responsible lass I am, I immediately sent away my birth certificate for a 39€ official translation (a requirement of the visit, they said). I also gathered every conceivable document they could possibly need, including my college transcript, to bring along.

Then they emailed to say just kidding, the appointment will actually be on Oct. 28 in the middle of your vacation. Hope you didn't already make plans!

The one thing I still needed on the morning of my appointment was a passport-style photo. I got up and out the door of my hotel at an ungodly hour so I could get some snaps at the train station's photo booth. You're not supposed to smile for official French portraiture, but I did my best to smize. The result made me look like an exhausted stroke victim. But hey, at least my hair looked good.

Pretty much the best photo ever taken of me.

Kelly had never been to Dijon before, so we spent the morning before my appointment sight seeing. First we went to the Creepiest (and Best) Museum in the World and grilled a young docent about her thoughts on the ubiquitous mannequins. Did she ever change their clothes? (Answer: No.) Did she ever change their positions? (Answer: No.) Did she ever put them in different rooms? (Answer: No.) But the guy mannequin in the baby cradle scene looks hungry. Shouldn't he be in the kitchen scene instead? (Answer: No.)

On the second floor they have recreations of several storefronts, including one for candy. I tested one of the lids to see if I could catch a whiff of stale, late-1800s bonbon, and incurred the wrath of the Upstairs Docent. She spent the rest of our visit shadowing us to make sure we didn't get any other wise ideas.

After leaving the Creepiest (and Best) Museum in the World, we headed for the Notre Dame church that bears an owl statue on one of its corners. If you rub the owl with your left hand you're supposed to get any wish you desire. Except, apparently, for a shower of gold doubloons to come raining from the sky into your pocket. Trust me. I tried.

Kelly is mini and can barely reach the owl!

We had lunch at a pretty swanky place, where Kelly ordered the local specialty oeufs en meurette, eggs poached in a heavenly white wine sauce. I ordered spaghetti bolognese because I'm a cheap jerk. I could have really used that gold, Monsieur La Chouette.

True to form, I had a burning desire to get to my medical appointment an hour early. I had only originals of many of the documents I had brought with me, and had tried in vain all morning to find a photocopier to make duplicates. Dijon suffers from a serious lack of FedExes and Kinkos. FYI. I tried the machine at the post office, but it was broken (of course). The lady there directed me to the nearby department store Galleries Lafayette, which was "Exceptionellement fermé" all day so they could do inventory. Of course! Of course they were. So I guess I thought if I went early enough to my appointment the kindly front desk lady would allow me to copy whatever I wanted, and for free. Except this is France, and the offices were closed until 1:35 for lunch, at which point the crowd of about 40 people (all with 1:30 appointments) swarmed the door.

I managed to be second in line, and after presenting my summons from the Office of Immigration and Integration, I sat in the waiting room for about 10 minutes. The doctor there asked me if I had any health concerns, anything I thought she should know about. I kept my bubonic plague, malaria, and diphtheria a secret, but told her everything else. Then she asked me for my weight and height. The metric system still stumps me (thanks a lot, America!), but thankfully I have a conversion system on my new genius phone. "Would you like my weight in kilos?" I asked. "Yes, that would be preferable," she deadpanned. I gave her the number. "And my height in...kilometers?" I asked. "Uh... no. One uses kilometers for highways," she said, stifling a guffaw at the immeasurable stupidity of Americans.

In the next room I was told to strip to the waist and then enter the x-ray machine, which had two bulls eyes on the wall to indicate where I was to aim my bosoms. "Plus proche! (Closer!)" the brusque X-Ray Doyenne demanded, as she flattened me against the cold plastic partition. I got to keep the x-ray as a door prize, and it would appear from the faint outline of my flesh that I'm alarmingly lopsided. Also, they only document they needed from me was my Attestation of Logement, which says I officially have a roof over my head.

That horrific experience over, I was free to do what I came to Dijon to do: taste mustard.

I quite liked the chèvre mustard. Myam myam.

Outside, of course, they were rioting. Pourquoi? Pourquoi pas! The streets were filled with smoke, and every now and then they would light something in the street that made a terrific noise. Dijon go BOOM! A month ago, this would have really freaked me out. Now it's just annoying. Yes, yes, I know the government is trampling all over your rights but could you just please go back to work? Please? Who knows? You might really like it. I know I would.

What are they manifesting? Probably destiny.

Thanks to this selfsame strike, our train to Grenoble had been canceled, and we got to the train station about 30 minutes before the one train we could take was set to leave. We waited patiently in line to buy tickets as the time ticked away, and finally got to an agent 10 minutes before go time. She told me she couldn't sell me a reservation for my train pass because they were all sold out. With the stress of our imminent departure making her frantic, she somehow gave me a 1€50 first class ticket to Lyon, and a 19€ adult 2nd class ticket to Grenoble. As was typical for this trip, no one even checked my ticket on the train, so I kicked myself for shelling out.

Finally, finally, after much durm und strang, we weary travelers two arrived in the promised land of Grenoble, the land woefully lacking in Patrimony according to our dear Arlesian friend. We trudged through the city center to our hosts' apartment. We were enthusiastically greeted by Line (pronounced /leen/) and her husband Gus (pronounced /goose/) as delicious dinner-type odors wafted about our famished heads. Kelly had contacted them through www.couchsurfing.com, and they came very highly recommended. They ushered us into the salon for some wine and port before giving us the best surprise of the trip: the aforementioned delicious odors were from dinner! Dinner we could eat too!

We ate herbes de Provence-y roasted chicken, onions, and tomatoes, with salad and squash au gratin. Cheese course! Fruit for dessert! Heaven. After dinner, Gus poured us shots of Chartreuse, a spirit that gave the color its name. It's made with a secret recipe that is closely guarded by a nearby sect of monks. It's 54% alcohol.

With that, they sent us to bed in our own private apartment (!) on the other side the building, with a bed made of clouds. We were so, so happy.

Coming up: Grenoble, Grenoble, Grenoble! My new favorite city.

Toussaint Vacation Day Two: Arles and Dijon

I had major plans for today, my first back chez moi in 10 days. Most of them included laundry. Since I only have 3€24 in small change to my name and a load costs 6€, and everything's closed today for Toussaint, there's nowhere to get change even if I did free even more cash from my American account. So that gives me license to have spent the ENTIRE day on my computer, right? There was really nothing else to do. I swear. Nothing. (Stop looking at me, sink full of dirty dishes!)

Moving on. We woke up on our second morning in Arles to the sounds of Cécile fighting with her alarm clock. "No way!" she yelled when it first went off. "I do not want! I so do not want!"

Our lovely hostess Cécile chez elle.

A brief aside to tell you how adorable Cécile's English is: whilst hanging out this summer, we were discussing how weird it is that in French the subject and object are reversed when you're talking about someone/thing missing another. Ex: In English you would say, "I miss customer service." In France you would say, "La service à la clientèle me manque (Customer service misses me)." I asked her if it would be funny if I said, "Je manque le frommage" instead of "Le frommage me manque." "Yes," she said. "Because then, is like the cheese need you." She'll also stare at you intently while you're talking and then say, "Sorry, I do not listen to you," when she means she didn't hear or understand what you said. Mignon!


After Cécile got her booty to class that morning, Kelly and I enjoyed a breakfast of leftover baguette, homemade jam we found in the fridge, and swamp tea. We had been introduced to swamp tea the day before. It's when you have loose leaf tea but no bag, so you're forced to fish the sodden tea leaves out with a fork, say, and pile them on an old receipt, say. The level of difficulty is exponentially increased when you're drinking from a dark bowl that camouflages errant leaves. 


We headed out in search of the museum with the really old statue face they found in the river that runs through Arles and may or may not represent Julius César. We got a bit lost getting there, which wasn't so bad when we happened to meander past an olive tree. Now, I've never met an olive I didn't love, so I went ahead and popped one right in my mouth. Holy bitter nasty poison. My sense of taste chose that moment to come rip-roaring back after its vacation, causing me to "Kak! Kak! Kak!" all the way down the street. 

Oh, so many places to go!

We finally arrived at the museum after a few additional wrong turns, and I suddenly lost any and all interest in going inside. I'd already had about as much patrimony as I could take. Cécile called, wondering where we were. We told her we'd gotten really lost (true) and weren't able to find the museum (lie) but now we were hungry for lunch (so, so true). After a couple of false starts we ended up at a place called La Mule Blanche, where they served bull meat. Cécile was really insistent that we try the regional specialty, especially since we weren't able to see the statue face that may or may not have been Julius Cesar personified. 


I ordered the boeuf stew made with bull, and Kelly ordered a glorious salad with quail eggs, duck cutlets, and a hefty portion of foie gras on the top. We ate about half each and then switched. Did you know you're not supposed to spread foie gras? It's not pâté, you animal. In any case, it was really f'ing delicious, topped only by the raspberry millefeuille with English cream and meringue cookies for dessert. This may have been the best meal I ever had in France.

Bull bourguigno

 We then had to bid our hostess adieu and take off for the train station. We were treated to the most sunshiney glorious weather as we rolled through Provence in our Harry Potter-esque train compartment. The only thing not charming about that train ride was that Kelly beat me in Scrabble. By a lot. 

Our next stop was Dijon, where I was required to go for my medical visit that would garner me a very important stamp in my passport that would allow me to keep all my limbs if the government ever found out how often I buy purchases under 2€ for the express purpose of breaking a 20 into more manageable sums. Or something.

After a very blasé dinner in one of the few bistros still open, we happened upon a sight that made Kelly squeal in delight (rhyme!): Workers hanging Christmas lights in the streets. Seeing this was one of her long-cherished dreams since girlhood. And the French government made it happen for her, by forcing me to cut my trip in Arles short so I could get that shiny new stamp. And you said they never granted any wishes...

Christmas lights go up in Dijon, joy explodes in Kelly's heart.

 Next up: medical visit in Dijon, meeting awesome Couch Surfing Grenoblins in Grenoble.

Toussaint Vacation Day One: Arles

Remember how I'm only working here seven months, but I still get two months' worth of vacation in that time? I got my first chunk of vacay last week, which was well-deserved after my first two arduous days of actually teaching the students by myself.

That means I probably shouldn't complain about the fact that I opened my French bank account more than a month ago, and I still can't use my check card because I don't have the PIN code, which has probably arrived at the school but it's a national holiday and I might not be able to get my mail until school reopens on Wednesday, which might not even make a difference because I haven't been paid yet even though I was supposed to be on Oct. 26, and thus I've had to use my American debit card and I imagine it's going to be a nightmare to transfer funds back to that account so I don't overdraft after my next student loan payment. So I won't complain about that one bit.

Ahem. I plan to do a post for each city, and then aggregate them into an overview post on Truth Pirates so you can read only the parts that interest you (although it's bound to be entertaining so you should probably just read all of it). Allez-y!

My travel buddy was Kelly, who is doing the same thing I'm doing but in Paris. She and her husband are kind enough to host me in their love nest whenever I pop up to Paris, which has been alarmingly often. Kelly is really f'ing funny, super good at saying "merci" and sounding French, and teaches me a lot of useful things, like that WTF can mean "Welcome to France." She has also been instrumental in ensuring that I don't die by showing me a number of dishes than can easily be prepared in teeny tiny French kitchens.

Kelly getting blown away by Arles

The strike, as always, made traveling difficult. The French don't like to tell you what platform your train will be on until 5-10 minutes before the train is scheduled to depart. This results in huge masses of people crowded around the departures board, getting cricks in their necks from gazing up. As soon as a platform number appears, a great horde will detach from the larger mass and run there as fast as they can to ensure good luggage storage and a seat. Yes, in these dire times of strike, your ticket purchase does not necessarily guarantee you a seat on the train. Ours was stuffed to the brim, with people packed into the aisles for about an hour before things thinned out enough for them to sit down.

We were going to Arles to stay with my friend Cécile, who I had met in Portland last summer while she interned at a dance studio and worked on a paper about American cultural institutions. She was coming back from Paris the same night we were due to arrive, but had arranged for one of her friends to meet us and give us the keys. I got a flurry of texts from said friend, some of which didn't make a whole lot of sense in English ("Ok so marjo waiting you to the place du forum. She gives you the keys. You can eat to the restaurant and wait Cécile."), and some of which made absolutely no sense in French ("Marjo va o ciné moi je sortiré du sport dc jvé pa lé amené juska ché toi et veul alé o resto els oront lé clé dc el tatendron envil.").  In the end, our train from Lyon was more than an hour late, so we just waited for Cécile herself at the train station.

Roman ruins in Arles

The wind was just HOWLING when we got in, and did nothing to warm up my Frenchy friend's frigid studio apartment. She made us some bowls of ramen and then Kelly and I huddled together for warmth in Cécile's bed as we tried to get enough feeling in our toes to go to sleep. I had been feeling poorly since a rain-soaked tour of the Versailles grounds a few days earlier, and awoke completely encrusted in sick. My head was pounding and I couldn't breathe out of my nose, which was probably for the better for it prevented my two favorite allergens-- cat and cigarette-- from gaining access to my face.

We scooted out the door by 9 so Cécile could go to class and went to a café for a typical French breakfast: crossaint, baguette with butter and jam, and a hot drink of your choice. Then we mosied around the Roman ruins while trying not to get blown over by the wind. We made a stop at an antique shop, where Kelly happened upon this gem in a newspaper from 1916:

Who better to relieve constipation? Mini WWI-era soldiers!

Next stop was the Musée Réattu, home to some fine art by Réattu himself, a few Picasso drawings, a few carpets and dresses from hometown hero Christian Lacroix, and a whole lot of contemporary art I was not too fond of.  Not represented at the museum was Van Gogh, whose scenes of Arles are some of his most famous. My favorites were the photos of museum workers unpacking the Louvre's masterpieces once the war was over. I also really like this guy, who managed to embody exactly how I felt that day:

Ay wad do suff'd up

After all our forced marching in the wind, it was time for a pause that refreshes. We settled at a tapas restaurant and ask if we could see the menus. As it was 3:00, it was clearly no time for food, stupid Americans! We could have drinks, crepes, or waffles, and that was IT.  I ordered a crepe with speculoos, a gingersnap cookie cream I'd read about on one of my favorite blogs. I think I liked it... I'm pretty sure I liked it... I know I definitely enjoyed the texture... but I was incapable of tasting anything that day. Now that my sinuses have cleared I've become obsessed with finding speculoos so I can properly give it a whirl, and it has of course chosen to elude me. Welcome to France.

We made dinner for Cécile that night (which both she and Kelly assured me tasted good since I wouldn't have known a truffle from dog poo at that point), and then she took us out to a bar to meet some of her friends. Understanding French is hard. Understanding French over loud music when the speaker is turned away from you is harder. Understanding French over loud music when the speaker is turned away from you and you can't hear anyway because your head feels like it's wrapped in styrofoam is impossible. And that was my evening, in a nutshell.

This café was supposedly inspiration for one of Van Gogh's famous paintings. Cécile says it's a fake, but I'll always believe, Vinny!

The one part of the conversation I was privy to was about Kelly's and my future destination: Grenoble. One of Cécile's friends insisted we wouldn't like it because it didn't have any patrimony. Patrimony was clearly a big deal to the Arlesians, who had not only Roman ruins gracing their fair city, but they had the head of a statue that may or may not have been a likeness of Julius Cesar sitting in one of their museums.

We went to sleep prepared this time with long underwear and all the Minnesota heritage we could muster. Next up: Day Two: Arles and Dijon.

The creepiest (and best) museum in the world

Tomorrow all the language assistants in the Burgundy region will be gathering in Dijon for our orientation. Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to come a day early and check out Burgundy's largest city.

My No. 1 priority for tourist-ing was to visit the Mustard Museum, because, well, how cool is it that a mustard museum exists? Except it doesn't exist. At least not anymore. Quelling the desire to get right back on the train back to Digoin, I soldiered on and visited the huge (and free!) Musée des Beaux Arts in the Ducal Palace. After wandering around there for a few hours, I moseyed the streets of Dijon until I happened upon the Musée de la Vie Bourguignonne.

Quick aside: can I just say how awesome it is to go to museums by yourself? You can go at exactly your own speed and you don't have to pretend to be interested in things you aren't interested just so your companion thinks you're brainy. I highly recommend it.

So. Back to the Museum of Burgundian Life. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this:

"Bonjour! We are two bare-breasted mannequins with ratty bits of hair stuck to our heads. We like to fight over this one arm between us and use it to slap each other when no one else is around. This is very Burgundian."

What followed was a series of vignettes from Burgundian life-- marriages, trapping babies in odd wooden contraptions...

I went through three such rooms all by my lonesome, giggling to myself and imagining I saw them move. Then I really did see one move! I jumped and yelped, "Oh my God!" Turns out it was a museum docent. I tried to explain to her as I clutched my racing heart, "Oh mon dieu! J'ai pensé que vous étiez un mannequin! C'est tellement affreux! (OMD! I thought you were a mannequin! That's really scary!)"

She descended into giggles. I gave a start when I saw another humanoid docent lurking around the kitchen scene. "Il y a trop de mannequins ici pour avoir des vraies personnes aussi (There are too many mannequins here to have real people as well), " I scolded him.

Next was a series of recreated storefronts. There was a candy shop, a butcher shop, a milliner's, a fur shop, a dry goods shop... and this. A shop of horrors.

Turns out it was supposed to be a hair salon. The lady on the left is getting her hair permed and the lady on the right is getting hers dyed. I think. Either that or they used hair salons as fronts for psychological experiments and/or lobotomies.  

She looks awfully serene for having such a contraption attached to her noggin, no?

Three of my meals thus far have had a Nutella course

I'm trying to stay up as late as I can to limit my jet lag to one day, so I thought I'd update my favorite ninnymuggins on my adventures thus far.

After my travails trying to make my flight in San Francisco this summer, I was determined to make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare yesterday (my goodness; was it only yesterday? feels like many moons ago). Thankfully The Dude was able to wrangle a gate pass, so I didn't have to spend that extra 2.5 hours staring moodily into the distance and missing him. Instead, my fellow passengers were treated to a gross display of human emotion as I boarded the plane and we were forced to part. What can I say. Four months is a long time without your beloved.

I wedged my way into my window seat next to a fleshy Englishman intent on invading my personal space. He promptly dozed off, leaning ever-closer to my shoulder, when he would awake with a snort and correct his posture. This continued for all six hours of our flight into Reykjavik, as I made several failed attempts to find a comfortable position that would allow me to doze. We made it into Keflavik Airport at 6:30 a.m. Icelandic time, 1:30 a.m. Minneapolis time.

(At this point jet lag claimed me. It is now Sunday morning for moi, the middle of the night for toi.)

I stumbled around the airport bleary of eye and definitely not bushy of tail. I got a croissant that was 250 krona. I thought it was kind of a lot of money for a croissant but I handed over my card anyway.

My next flight was much more comfortable and pleasant. I enjoyed looking at the quaint English hamlets from above and imagining that they populated by Middle Ages peasants as illustrated in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The plan was to meet my high school buddy Nick (henceforth known as St. Nick) at the RER station at Terminal One of Charles de Gaulle Airport. Which was great, except it doesn't exist. I took the airport shuttle to the next terminal, where I approached an official-looking man in a red vest to ask, with a huge smile plastered on my face, "Euh... excusez-moi, monsieur, mais ou est la station RER?" (I worked really hard on pronouncing that AIR-euh-AIR in my sleep-deprived state.) His response was something like, "Garble garble nonsense ferme garble garble bus nonsense. Tu comprends?"

I tried again. "La station AIR-euh-AIR. C'est ou?" Big, big smile. That tipped him off that I was a dumb American, and he told me, "The train ees close. You mus' take zee bus to next station. Go by there. OK?" No, I told him. Not OK. I was supposed to meet my friend by the train station and now I don't know where to go and I think I need to call him and I need a phone is there a phone I can use? At this point a Helpful European decided to take me on as his cause and he led me to a pay phone. He told me I could use my credit card to make a call. I thanked him profusely for all his help. Which was great, except my credit card wouldn't work. I awkwardly wielded my two suitcases into a shop with bizarrely small doors and bought a phone card. I awkwardly wielded my two suitcases out, went back to the phones and, as I called St. Nick's wife Mrs. Clause, I saw a tall lanky dude loping toward me. St. Nick! Merry Christmas!

Thank Rudolph for St. Nick, for I have no idea how I would have lugged my two gigantic suitcases up and down the dozens of flights of stairs on the way back to his abode. Elevators, Paris! Get on it! Mrs. Clause was waiting for us in their adorable French apartment with the yellow cupboards and blue and yellow dishes and view of Parisian rooftops. She made us delicious baguette sandwiches and, more importantly, proffered a giant vat of Nutella for dessert.

Once I could make my legs move again, we headed out for the Centre Pompidou, home to the world's best modern art. I'd gone there maybe five times before but never made it inside. The first gallery we went into had a gigantic painting of two faces. That's odd, I thought. That one's mouth looks like... and that one's eyes look like... oh. And there was a fiber sculpture in the room that looked like a weird canoe, except... oh. And there was a video of blood coming out of... oh.

Moving on...

I saw more nakedness in that museum than I have in my whole life. There were videos of butts clenching and unclenching. There were videos of naked ladies hula hooping with barbed wire on the beach. There was a massive sculpture of bloody gloves.

Once I get my teacher's card that gets me into national museums for free I'm totally going back.

The rest of the evening was a blur of skinny, booty, scarfy, chic, skinny, OMD eat a crepe Frenchies; me trying to make OMD (oh mon dieu) happen; Nutella; and crashing.