Town & Country

I can't believe it's already been a week since my last post!  I feel incredibly guilty for neglecting writing this past week.  This week wasn't even that busy, aside from everyday school stuff, that is.  I absolutely need to write down the fun things I did this week like the boat tour of the Seine and shopping in the Latin Quarter, but first I need to tell you all about this weekend.

It.Was.Incredible.  CEA put together an excursion this weekend to Burgundy.  It is about 2 hours South/East of Paris and incredibly beautiful.  I felt so Parisian escaping the city to the countryside (again). 

All 15 of us (17 if you include the two CEA staff members who came) met at Gare de Lyon early on Saturday morning to catch the train to Dijon at 8:30.  Two hours later we were in Dijon (yes, like the mustard).  Only it wasn't the mustard that attracted me to the town so much.  Coincidentally, Dijon is the city of owls!!  No, I'm not kidding.  Yes, I practically wet myself when I stumbled upon all the owls adorning the city.  They are on the sidewalks, on the sides of churches, t-shirts, you name it!  Of course, my squealing and excitement quickly spread throughout the group and I explained that owl, or as the French say La Chouette--which literally translates to cool/super (yeah that's right, Chi Omega)--is something very special to me.  This meant that all Saturday I was constantly being called over to examine yet another owl memorial or really cute owl oven mitt.  Needless to say, I was so in my element.

This weekend's excursion was all "inclusive" by CEA.  The hotel, train, and some food were already included for our short 2 day trip.  Translation: everything was really cheap.  We started off our adventures in Dijon with a "self-guided" walking tour of the city.  Ha!  Basically, we were given a little booklet with the "Owl's Trail" of the city.  It was very interesting and gave us the flexibility and freedom to spend extra time at one stop or take a long lunch.  After walking and getting lost in the town for about 2 hours, Kaley and I took a tour break to have lunch with another CEA-Sorbonne student, Maggie.  It was lovely and we timed it just right to miss the random rain storm.  I discovered a new favorite food: Salade de Chevre Chaud.  It consists of a big hearty salad with all sorts of vegetables, but my favorite part (of course) is the toast with melted goat cheese on top.  Yumo.  I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it....One salade and two cappuccinos later I was ready for our "tour" of the gingerbread factory.  Apparently they only give tours of the factory once every 5 years because of the intense sterilization that the plant goes through after thousands of people infiltrate the home of gingerbread so we all sat in a room above a gingerbread store and learned about the process of making gingerbread.  It was fascinating and I really enjoyed it, especially the sample portion.  I thought that mustard was the big delicacy of Dijon, but gingerbread or Pain d'epices is a major competitor and I completely understand why.  This gingerbread is amazing and they make such fun flavors.  My favorite has to be a tie between almonds and oranges.  Yummy.  Oh, and a major plus is that they make gingerbread in the shape of an owl.  It took all my strength not to buy pounds of that stuff.

After the tour we had more free time to walk around the city.  This time we veered off the Owl's Trail a little and just ended up walking around looking at the beautiful architecture.  We actually stopped outside a church and caught the very end of the wedding.  It was beautiful.  It's also a French tradition to drive around town after getting married and honk at everyone.  It was a beautiful Saturday in June so the entire day was filled with honking and tulle.  It was so much fun. 

Another cup of coffee later and we were back at the train station and ready for our departure to Beaune "Capital of Burgundy Wine", which is about 45 minutes south of Dijon by train.  Well, if I thought that Dijon was small then I was in for a surprise with the small town of Beaune.  We got off the train in a small station surrounded by vast fields and I actually thought to myself "Interesting.  This is an odd place to transfer trains....".  Nope.  It was our final destination.  Our hotel was located right across the tracks (on the outskirts of town) so it was easy to walk across the street, up two flights of stairs, and collapse from exhaustion.  Before dinner we all showered and watched an interesting episode of Tous Ensemble, which I quickly discovered was the French version of Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  It was riveting.

Dinner was at the small hotel restaurant.  It was delicious.  Three hours and I don't even know how many bottles of Burgundy Wine later, we were all ready to go out and celebrate a friend Carlos' 21st birthday.  Sure, it had way less significance here than in the states, but we all still wanted to go out and celebrate.  There was, however, one small problem.  We were in the middle of nowhere and what self respecting town dating back to the Middle Ages has a night club?  So we made friends with the man at the front desk and found out that there was in fact a night club in Beaune, it was just a 30-40 minute walk.  But we were determined to take Carlos out on his birthday so five of us made the trek out to the chic night club appropriately called "B.O."  I wish I was kidding...

B.O was actually a lot of fun.  A lot different than clubs in Paris.  It didn't cost me a fortune to get in and the people there actually danced.  Go figure!  I had a blast and most importantly so did Carlos.  They played a lot of Latin music with the occasional random American song thrown in there.  I never thought that I would be dancing to Kool & the Gang in a French Club...It was totally worth the lack of sleep for the next day in Beaune.

Aside from it's wine, Beaune is best known for their beautifully well-preserved medieval town.  Perhaps the coolest of these ancient buildings in the town center is the Hotel-Dieu.  Hotel Dieu is this 15th century hospital that was run by Nuns and now is a retirement home.  The majority of the "Palace for the Poor" has now been preserved and frozen in the time of its conception.  It was interesting but very very creepy.  I could just picture hundreds of the sick poor of Beaune all together in this big hall.  They also had this enormous painting of Judgment Day on the back wall, which, in my opinion, would be a tad frightening to look at if you and 60 of your best hobo friends were all dying in a big room...Apparently the painting is very famous, but I found myself creeped out.  After touring Hotel Dieu we had even more free time.  A couple of us went and had (another) long lunch by this little square.  There was a jazz band in the middle of the square who, to my delight, were playing the best of Michael Buble.  I loved it. 

Lunch was followed by a wine tasting at the Marche aux Vins.  It was fascinating.  We were taken down into their cellar and tasted about 8 different wines.  Personally, I've never had wine that is older than 2010 so this was quite an adventure for me.  We were given little saucer-things to drink from and all the wines were absolutely delicious.  There was no way that I was going to even consider spitting out the amazing (and remarkably expensive) wines that we tasted.  I drank it all.  I even bought a bottle too!  Sure, it was the cheapest bottle but it was my favorite of their Chardonnay that I tasted.  I'm planning on sharing it with Kristie and Mom when they get here in 10 days!  It is very tempting though.  I can hear the beautiful bottle calling my name and I know that I must resist temptation.  This is going to be a long week and a half...

After wine tasting we had even more free time to explore the teeny tiny city, which was spent souvenir shopping and eating amazing ice cream.  We eventually found our way back to the hotel and hopped back on the train to Paris-Gare de Lyon.  Overall it was such a fun trip!  It is a place that I would never have thought to visit, but I am so glad that I did!  It also helped me meet a lot of other CEA students that aren't in the Sorbonne program.  Their program ends in a couple days and it made me realize how little time I have left here in Paris.  We all started talking about how nothing will be the same for us back in the States (mainly the bread) and I began to have a little panic attack on my impending departure from Franceland.  True, I do have an extra 8 days after everyone from the Sorbonne leaves, but I know that time is just going to fly by with Mom, Kristie, and I traversing through Northern France.  Wah.
I can't bear to talk about this though.  Not now.  Not when I have another beautiful 10 days in front of me in my current home.  I guess this means that I have to powerhouse and finish my mini "bucket list" for Paris...
It's going to be a busy week!