Friday, August 5, 2011
I missed Target!
I plan a more serious post about being home and what I've learned in the last year (which you should feel free to ignore since it'll be all touchy-feely probably), but for now, man I missed Target! I feel like a kid in a candy store in there. Selection! So many well-stocked different departments in one store! Ahhhh. It's a bit sad how many times I've been there since I got back. Definitely a couple times a week. While there are department stores in France, they would make you laugh. They're absolutely tiny by our standards and tend to have random departments and small selections. I am all for the convenience of being able to get everything in one place. And Target is so much fun. I'm particularly enjoying the girly stuff--clothes, lotions, makeup, shampoo, etc. Some fun new things, but definitely appreciating the old. Like this, my favorite lotion. SPF 15, smells great (aloe fresh), not greasy or nasty at all. I think this one is worth the weight and is going back with me to France. There is a non-existent selection of SPF lotions there, and it's always sunny! Weird. Maybe the wine prevents skin cancer...
Friday, July 29, 2011
General catchup and familial visits to France, summer 2011
Hi! It's been a long time since I posted... more than a month, yikes. And I wasn't even up to date when I posted last! Bad Katie. It's been busy times. But good! Here is a rundown of what I've been up to since mid-June.
I never posted about the parents' visit, other than the croissant news. Oops. So they came for a few days and we had fun. They rented a car, which was great, since we were flexible and could go places I can't get with public transportation! They only wanted to spend a day in Montpellier, which was fine with me! We wandered around town a bit and then headed out to the beach (only a few km from town, but it was only my second time there--I need to get out more)! We checked out Aigues Mortes, a cool medieval fortified city in the marsh, whose ramparts (walls) you can walk around.
We then left town and hit a ton of places. First was Nimes, where I'd been before, but on the day we went they were having a feria, which is a huge Spanish-style celebration with bull fighting, flamenco dancing in the streets, etc. It was very cool once we managed to park the car (biggest festival of the year and major construction=navigator hell). Then it was on to Arles, a nice town in Provence with an arena (like Nimes) and where Cezanne painted some of his famous works. It was a really pretty town, but we didn't spend long there, so I'm definitely going back next semester. My parents are power sightseers, so two towns in one day wasn't enough and we headed on the Les Baux de Provence, a hilltop fortified town. And hilltop doesn't do it justice. This castle was perched like a champ. It was crazy to see. Beautiful, both the castle and the associated village.
After Provence, we headed farther east to the Cote d'Azur. We stayed in Juan-les-pins, where Mom's friends had a place we could stay. The place was awesome. Huge open living space, great patio, really lovely. But we didn't stay long. We were on the beach, man! Time to walk around. We checked out Juan for a little while then headed over to Cannes for dinner. It was just between festivals (film was over, advertising hadn't started yet), and we only spent a little while there, but it was nice (I have no good pictures though-arg)! The next day, we headed back towards Nice via Cap d'Antibes (beautiful) and the corniche roads, which are high roads along the cliffs which provide great ocean views. Finally, we checked out Aix-en-Provence, which is supposedly a real jewel of Provence. It was nice, but I didn't love it as much as expected. I liked Arles better. On our final day, the parents had to head towards the airport, but we made one last stop in Carcassone, which has a huge castle and surrounded cheesy medieval city. Very impressive!
The trip with the parents was a complete whirlwind, but we saw a lot and it was great. The parents had a very good time.
Then, during my last week in France, my sister came to France to compete in the World Championships for shotput (yeah, she's totally awesome). The timing was crazy (I turned in my final paper Monday, took a train to where she was competing on Tuesday, she threw Wednesday, and on Thursday I took a train from one end of France to the other, went straight from the train to the room where I had to give a final presentation, did so, attended the end-of-semester party for a few minutes, took an overnight bus to Barcelona, arrived at 3:30 am and waited for the train station to open, took a train to the airport, then took two flights to get home), but it all actually worked out! And I got to see my sister compete in her first international meet and get 5th! Awesome. But whoa. When I finally got home Friday night, I was a complete and utter zombie!
But it's ok! I am home, relaxed, sleeping way too much, seeing friends and family, and having a wonderful time. It's so nice being back! And now even my blog is caught up :)
I never posted about the parents' visit, other than the croissant news. Oops. So they came for a few days and we had fun. They rented a car, which was great, since we were flexible and could go places I can't get with public transportation! They only wanted to spend a day in Montpellier, which was fine with me! We wandered around town a bit and then headed out to the beach (only a few km from town, but it was only my second time there--I need to get out more)! We checked out Aigues Mortes, a cool medieval fortified city in the marsh, whose ramparts (walls) you can walk around.
We then left town and hit a ton of places. First was Nimes, where I'd been before, but on the day we went they were having a feria, which is a huge Spanish-style celebration with bull fighting, flamenco dancing in the streets, etc. It was very cool once we managed to park the car (biggest festival of the year and major construction=navigator hell). Then it was on to Arles, a nice town in Provence with an arena (like Nimes) and where Cezanne painted some of his famous works. It was a really pretty town, but we didn't spend long there, so I'm definitely going back next semester. My parents are power sightseers, so two towns in one day wasn't enough and we headed on the Les Baux de Provence, a hilltop fortified town. And hilltop doesn't do it justice. This castle was perched like a champ. It was crazy to see. Beautiful, both the castle and the associated village.
 |
| On the ramparts at Aigues Mortes |
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| Arles (the arches are the arena) |
 | |||
| Les Baux |
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| Juan-les-pins |
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| View from the corniche |
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| Aix-en-Provence |
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| Aww, the parents in front of the castle in Carcassonne |
Then, during my last week in France, my sister came to France to compete in the World Championships for shotput (yeah, she's totally awesome). The timing was crazy (I turned in my final paper Monday, took a train to where she was competing on Tuesday, she threw Wednesday, and on Thursday I took a train from one end of France to the other, went straight from the train to the room where I had to give a final presentation, did so, attended the end-of-semester party for a few minutes, took an overnight bus to Barcelona, arrived at 3:30 am and waited for the train station to open, took a train to the airport, then took two flights to get home), but it all actually worked out! And I got to see my sister compete in her first international meet and get 5th! Awesome. But whoa. When I finally got home Friday night, I was a complete and utter zombie!
But it's ok! I am home, relaxed, sleeping way too much, seeing friends and family, and having a wonderful time. It's so nice being back! And now even my blog is caught up :)
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Are you kidding?
I took six hours to complete my statistics exam last night. I was also the first one to turn it in. WHAT?? Evil. That's what.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Finally, another chocolate almond croissant challenge update!
It has been a while since I had a chocolate almond croissant. This was for two reasons:
1. Nowhere had them! I tried! I don't know if I picked places that don't have them or were just out, but man. They were scarce.
2. I decided it would be embarassing to have a heart attack at my age and that my pastry consumption should decrease.
I'll go ahead and admit that #1 was a larger factor, but #2 is how I made it ok in my head.
But finally, I found not one, but two new contenders in the past week!
The first was from Juan-les-Pins, a beach town near Cannes, where I stayed for a night with my parents when they were here last week (yup, there's a post on that coming up as well). I think the bakery was called something along the lines of "Artisan baker," so not a whole lot of information there. I could tell the instant I picked it up this croissant was too smushy for me--it felt like a wet sponge. It had a pretty good taste for the texture, and Mom, a new initiate to the chocolate-almond croissant, was quite impressed, but I really couldn't get past the texture. Good thing though, since it would be quite unfortunate if the best chocolate-almond croissant was that far from me in Montpellier!
The second recent entrant came from the bakery "up a small alley by the botanical garden, with a yellow sign." Those directions were from a classmate, who got them from someone from Montpellier she met in Sweden. That was the entire extent of the directions, yet my classmate found it, and once she gave me the directions, so did I! I guess they are good enough, despite how laughable they are at first.
The place has good chocolate chip muffins when I need a taste of American goodies (the only not good sweet things I've had here have been cookies and cheesecake, both pretty far from French pastry and I guess out of the comfort zone). But anyway, I was in there yesterday and spied a chocolate-almond beauty. It was definitely the most covered in powdered sugar so far! It was also an interesting one. On the outside, it was too crispy, but the inside had a good texture. The taste was nothing special though, unfortunately.
As the semester draws to a close, I am beginning to conclude that there is no holy grail of chocolate-almond croissants. There are several types, and I can be in the mood for various ones, but I have not yet found The One. If I'm here next semester, I'll definitely continue the challenge, while maybe thinking of it more as a sample of the variation versus a search for the perfect specimen!
1. Nowhere had them! I tried! I don't know if I picked places that don't have them or were just out, but man. They were scarce.
2. I decided it would be embarassing to have a heart attack at my age and that my pastry consumption should decrease.
I'll go ahead and admit that #1 was a larger factor, but #2 is how I made it ok in my head.
But finally, I found not one, but two new contenders in the past week!
The first was from Juan-les-Pins, a beach town near Cannes, where I stayed for a night with my parents when they were here last week (yup, there's a post on that coming up as well). I think the bakery was called something along the lines of "Artisan baker," so not a whole lot of information there. I could tell the instant I picked it up this croissant was too smushy for me--it felt like a wet sponge. It had a pretty good taste for the texture, and Mom, a new initiate to the chocolate-almond croissant, was quite impressed, but I really couldn't get past the texture. Good thing though, since it would be quite unfortunate if the best chocolate-almond croissant was that far from me in Montpellier!
The second recent entrant came from the bakery "up a small alley by the botanical garden, with a yellow sign." Those directions were from a classmate, who got them from someone from Montpellier she met in Sweden. That was the entire extent of the directions, yet my classmate found it, and once she gave me the directions, so did I! I guess they are good enough, despite how laughable they are at first.
The place has good chocolate chip muffins when I need a taste of American goodies (the only not good sweet things I've had here have been cookies and cheesecake, both pretty far from French pastry and I guess out of the comfort zone). But anyway, I was in there yesterday and spied a chocolate-almond beauty. It was definitely the most covered in powdered sugar so far! It was also an interesting one. On the outside, it was too crispy, but the inside had a good texture. The taste was nothing special though, unfortunately.
As the semester draws to a close, I am beginning to conclude that there is no holy grail of chocolate-almond croissants. There are several types, and I can be in the mood for various ones, but I have not yet found The One. If I'm here next semester, I'll definitely continue the challenge, while maybe thinking of it more as a sample of the variation versus a search for the perfect specimen!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The Pyrenees
I'm behind on my traveling posts! A few weekends ago I went to the Pyrenees with a classmate whose dad lives there. The weather was rainy and cloudy/misty nearly the whole time, which prevented seeing the most spectacular long distance/whole mountain range/highest-mountain-in-the-whole-chain-right-over-there views, but I thought the brooding, mysterious mountains were quite nice as well. We stayed in the town of St. Beat (Bey-AHT), classmate's dad lives in Eup (pronounced like the word "up"), and we went through Luchon and several other small towns I can't remember the names of, just in case you want to orient yourself! St. Beat is marked on the map below. The whole purpose of the weekend was to look around, so the rest of the post is just pictures!
Oh, but we did also go to a painted cave, Grotte de Gargas with lots of paintings of hands with only some fingers held up (great speculation on what that means). No pictures allowed inside, but the link goes to an image search for it.
Oh, but we did also go to a painted cave, Grotte de Gargas with lots of paintings of hands with only some fingers held up (great speculation on what that means). No pictures allowed inside, but the link goes to an image search for it.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Cambridge
A few weekends ago I went to Cambridge, England! It was awesome. I hadn't been to England in a few years and haven't ever been outside London, so it was really cool to check out another part of the country. It was also awesome to land and suddenly see and hear English everywhere. And then there was British junk food, which is awesome (hello Cadbury's and shortbread, mmm). And normal-person sized coffee (with milk even!) instead of the thimbles of espresso served in France. I mentioned I was happy right? Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying France, but change is a good thing!
So anyway, yes, I was visiting a friend I met during my semester in the Netherlands. He is on a different type of exchange program and got to head to Cambridge for the semester. Very cool. He has a cute room in a townhouse in a nice neighborhood right by campus. Cambridge is a great walkable town, so we went everywhere. The first night I got in lateish, so by the time we ate and headed into town we couldn't get into The Eagle, a famous pub in town. But we went to another place and observed drunk Brits for a while. Quite an interesting adventure. Something I've heard a few times that I can begin to confirm (from Sweden and Cambridge), is that the further north you go in Europe, the quieter the people are sober and the louder they are drunk.
Anyway, Sunday we checked out the Ely Cathedral, a medieval cathedral which was quite pretty.
Then it was back to town for more wandering and some awesome Indian food. India was an important colony, so Indian is the main ethnic food (like Indonesian in the Netherlands). It was a huge delicious awesome meal, and afterwards my friend headed off for a nap, and I went into town for more wandering (I know I keep using that word, but it's the best description)! I treated myself to a cream tea, which is tea with a scone which you eat with clotted cream and jam. So good!
Then I headed around some of the famous colleges of Cambridge University. The colleges are huge residential buildings where classes also take place. The picture below is the back of King's College. That is King's chapel on the left.
The next day I ...wandered... around town again while my friend got some work done (it was Monday--weird flights gave me a Saturday-Tuesday crack of dawn trip). I hit a few more colleges, including Darwin college and got some shopping done (it's impossible to find some things in France, like any kind of face product with SPF in it...). I also ate an English breakfast!
I met up with my friend and another guy I knew from Groningen (they're in the same program) and we ate (fish and chips--checking off the classic British foodstuffs). As we were walking around though, we walked past an area where a festival was clearly being set up. We wondered what it might have been until we rounded a corner and saw a poster for the Cambridge Beer Festival!!! Opening that evening!! Needless to say, I was a bit excited. We had to wait quite a while (turns out the opening time we were quoted was only for VIPs, so we just had to chill for an hour and half outside) but it was awesome. A huge tent completely lined with beers from tons of breweries. There was a catalog there were so many :) So happy. It was an awesome way to spend my last evening there.
And I leave you with a picture of the creepiest clock ever, the Corpus Christi clock. The giant grasshopper thing on the top rocks back and forth, "eating time."
So anyway, yes, I was visiting a friend I met during my semester in the Netherlands. He is on a different type of exchange program and got to head to Cambridge for the semester. Very cool. He has a cute room in a townhouse in a nice neighborhood right by campus. Cambridge is a great walkable town, so we went everywhere. The first night I got in lateish, so by the time we ate and headed into town we couldn't get into The Eagle, a famous pub in town. But we went to another place and observed drunk Brits for a while. Quite an interesting adventure. Something I've heard a few times that I can begin to confirm (from Sweden and Cambridge), is that the further north you go in Europe, the quieter the people are sober and the louder they are drunk.
Anyway, Sunday we checked out the Ely Cathedral, a medieval cathedral which was quite pretty.
Then I headed around some of the famous colleges of Cambridge University. The colleges are huge residential buildings where classes also take place. The picture below is the back of King's College. That is King's chapel on the left.
The next day I ...wandered... around town again while my friend got some work done (it was Monday--weird flights gave me a Saturday-Tuesday crack of dawn trip). I hit a few more colleges, including Darwin college and got some shopping done (it's impossible to find some things in France, like any kind of face product with SPF in it...). I also ate an English breakfast!
And I leave you with a picture of the creepiest clock ever, the Corpus Christi clock. The giant grasshopper thing on the top rocks back and forth, "eating time."
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