Road Trip Day 7, Final Day: Return to Tours via Carcassonne

Tuesday, November 1 is Toussaint holiday, or All Saints Day in France and Spain and it was my last day of holidays before having to go back to school, so that day we basically just drove back to Tours.  Alanna had noticed that the town of Carcassonne was somewhat en route, and since we both had heard of this place because of the board game of the same name (one of those German board games), we were intrigued.  Once again, we turned to Rick Steves for an excellent tour description and we really enjoyed this amazing old, fortressed town.

Definitely take a read of the google link there about the town.  Note, that the ss are pronounced as "s", not as "z".  There is a folk story that tells of a woman named Carcas who, when the city was under siege,  threw a pig over the wall causing the attackers to assume that the city still had enough supplies (or else why would they waste a pig?) and that there was no way that they'd be able to win so they gave up and left.  Then the city sounded the bells, from which "son" came and from the two, Carcas-son, came the name.  Apparently. 
Here is a statue of the lady right beside the drawbridge!







Not a lot to say, just a lot of pictures to post again!

Rick informed us that we could see red bricks that are remnants from the original wall from Roman days.  (See next picture.)  This was consistent with what I had learned in my History of Tours class, since there are remnants of a Roman amphitheatre in Tours, and there is a noticeable difference between Roman-built walls and walls built in the Middle Ages.  At Carcassonne, the second wall was added in the Middle Ages.
(These next photos are credit to Judy again because my camera battery died again at this point.)

We enjoyed some regional food at a restaurant within the walls and then realized we were kind of behind again and still had a long way to drive!  (Behold the map!)

At some point when we were supposed to switch onto another autoroute, I missed the entrance and the GPS (who we had named Ginger P. Sky by this point--and had her becoming the petite-copine of Rick Steves) recalculated.  We just followed along this new route and well, it was VERY dark and VERY windy (as in, winding around)!  We were still a couple of hours south of Tours and, although I have no idea what roads we were on and what dark villages (small-town France is very quiet after 19:00) we went through, we never actually lost any time!  Good ol' Ginger.

And thus concludes the Road Trip adventure.  The next day, I went back to school (starting with another lesson out on the streets about Tours' history) and my friends went shopping!  I ordered some escargots at dinner for them to taste and the following day, we had a little adventure on the Tours bus in the rain, searching for some final French wares for them.

Amazing that a month has passed already and I have since visited another castle near Tours; wandered around a nearby village, some vineyards and a wine cave; learned lots more neat things about Tours' history; had a couple of tests and a class presentation on the ban on Muslim women wearing integral veils (I forget what we would say in English instead of "integral"); ate a French seafood platter (apparently this is a thing one must do); went skating and ate some Lebanese mezzés (that was last night); and, travelled to Switzerland and had an amazing time visiting some old friends!

So there are obviously photos to share and things to write, but well, I have been seriously procrastinating studying for my upcoming exams (three next week), researching for two upcoming presentations and other homework.  So those posts will come another day.

Road Trip Day 3: Mont-Saint-Michel and Dinan, Bretagne

Friday was another full day!  Full of amazing sites.  After a somewhat overpriced breakfast at the hotel during which I tried to get the girls to try all the cheese, no matter how smelly, we set off for the nearby Mont-Saint-Michel.  Even though it was still morning, the tourists were flocking in.  And once we arrived, it was not surprising to see why.  What an amazing place!  We just started climbing, up and up, with no clear direction and when we eventually reached the abbey (I think in English we would also call it a monastery) we started reading Rick Steves self-guided tour notes.  I will just proceed to post a lot of pictures and if you want to know more about this amazing place, click on those links I just put.  My camera battery was still dead at this point, so these pictures were mostly all taken by Judy.

From Mont-Saint-Michel (seriously, read those links, particularly Rick's if you want a short and interesting overview) we carried on to see what we could of Brittany (Bretagne, in French), neighbour to Normandy and home of cider and crepes!!!  Again, if you don't know much about Brittany, know that the Bretons are of Celtic heritage and, take a read of the wiki link there.  Since we still had to make it back to Tours Friday evening, we took the Autoroute most of the way and exited a little before Dinan so to see a little something of Brittany.  The different style of architecture was very evident, particularly in that the buildings seemed made of dark, small stones.  Dinan was gorgeous and there was a lot to see by just wandering around.  The town is surrounded by walls and we walked along the Ramparts for awhile.  (Ramparts was a word we came across more than a couple of times in our journey.)  Again, here are some photos courtesy of my companions.

And of course we had to try out some cider and crepes (galettes).

Mine is the heaping one in the background

It is also important to pay attention to the people around.  These are a couple of pictures I really wanted to take, so thanks once again, Judy!

There was still a three and a half hour drive left to get back to my house for the night.  Yes, a full day indeed. 

Road Trip Day 1: Tours to Versailles to Rouen

In 2007, I had the privilege of travelling around France, Switzerland and Italy with three friends and I wrote all about it in this blog starting with the post post here (click)!  We ended the road trip that summer in Versailles and here are my thoughts and photos from that trip.  This time in France, my slightly different group of four started our 7-day tour of France and Spain in Versailles.  I rented a wonderful car from Europcar again, this time through the discounted website of Auto Europe (they served us well in 2007 and their prices are still the best)! Here are Mel and I posing beside our suave car.

It is an Opel Insignia--I finally got to drive a French car!  It was very nice.

So on Wednesday, I drove Jenelle and I to Versailles (from which she was continuing on to Paris) where I was meeting Judy, Alanna and Mel.  Jenelle and I were trying to avoid driving on any toll roads, but right outside of Tours, we came across a strange detour that instructed us to go back to Tours!  It seemed ridiculous and we weren't the only drivers who decided to ignore the signs and find their own way.  We were following this little red car and ended up at a farm!  The driver of the red car was asking the farmers where to go and we learned that we really did need to follow the detour signs!  I decided to just take the Autoroute with its tolls after all, at least for a bit until we could find another highway.

There's not much new to write about Versailles this time.  The leaves were changing colours and there were no flowers; they'd added a couple of ugly, modern sculptures.  And we were able to go inside this time.  Here's a statue of the the guy responsible for Versailles with a bird on his head!

That curved copper thing in the background is one of the new items

He liked his gold.

They changed the tree pruning since last time.

My camera battery died inside Versailles right around this photo...

We ended up leaving Versailles a little later than we planned and we still had a ways to drive to our planned destination of Rouen, the "historic capital of Normandy".

 We also couldn't get our GPS working right!  Mel had brought a Canadian GPS on which she had made sure to upload European maps, but it wasn't locating the satellites at all!  And we didn't have any maps so we had to do our best to figure out how to find the suburban hotel we had in mind.  We ended up missing it and ended up in downtown Rouen.  Fortunately we found a quad room available at the Hôtel Versan that was reasonably priced and right where we ended up!  It also seemed to be right near the main attraction of Rouen, the cathedral.  Or so we thought--that is the next day's story.  The only downside was the angle of incline on their underground parking--I went to bed feeling quite nervous about the forthcoming and inevitable ascent. 

But we arrived successfully, got settled in and set out to wander around and find somewhere to eat at 9:00!  Something that would fit everyone's craving for vegetables and salad (apparently the other three had been lacking in this department during their three previous days of travel and in Paris).  We asked some locals for their advice, but didn't end up taking it (they sent us to a place that served tapas, but no salad) and instead found the very nice Restaurant 16/9 who made some mean salads (huge!) and amazing cheese and spinach ravioli and served some nice wine!  All in all, a little crazy and stressful at times (particularly concerning the GPS) but all-around good first day!

Commercials and Cranberries

I've recently had an epiphany to the fact that cranberries are native to North America.  I probably already knew this, but it's striking me lately because of a commercial that is airing here a lot at the moment and because my French housemate has been buying Ocean Spray cranberry juice lately and remarking at its goodness as though it is a newly discovered thing.  The bottles here are a lot smaller than in Canada and kind of expensive and the first thing I noticed was the label "Cranberry" since in Canada, our bilingual label says "Canneberge".  I questioned my housemate and then my French dictionary about it and neither knew of this "canneberge" word so I made the exciting discovery that it is a Canadian word.  (Seriously, I really do dig language things like this.  And the origins of plants and such--kinda neat, I think.)  So yeah, France says "cranberry" with a French accent.

One day I decided to find this Ocean Spray commercial online so that I could post it and that's when I found a lot of other Ocean Spray commercials...some of you may know those Straight from the Bog commercials in English with the two cranberry farmer guys standing in the bog with the cranberries...well apparently they exist in England and Australia too.  In all of them, the two guys have a kind of North American farmer accent.  Funnily, the French one has two guys who are meant to be from Québec, so their accents definitely stand out on tv here.  I've assumed that they're not really from Québec and that they are some French actors imitating Québecois and in my YouTube search, I found that Quebec has its own version of the commercial in which they actually ARE Québec guys, with farmer accents (I'm assuming).  Here they are...whether you speak French or not, you should be able to hear the difference between the two.  Also, you may be able to pick out the two different ways that they pronounce "Ocean Spray"--the France one says, "Océ-an Spray" while the Québec one says it in English.  The French imitation of the Québec accent commercial is actually a little easier for me to understand than the actual Québec one.

#1 Québec


#2 France


And just for fun, here's another French commercial that's on right now that's kind of fun (and there's no talking, so you'll get it)!

First French Festival...Fine French Food...

I'd been seeing posters around for the last few weeks advertising the 25th Jazz Festival of this area, held in Montlouis-sur-Loire (that's a Wiki link in French because the English version has about only one sentence about the village) and meant to be an International Jazz fest.  So me, a lover (and former player and singer...well in high school anyway) of jazz, was determined to go.  I managed to find a couple others interested in checking it out, in combination with a search for a rumoured nearby castle.

Once again, we ran into some trouble with the bus schedules working out well; they only returned to Tours up until 18h43 (there's some 24-hr clock for you) and the first concert wasn't scheduled to start until 16h30.  So, we really only had time to attend one concert.  And, well, it was pretty small...not many there.  And the town itself felt tiny and empty, although the festival wasn't in the downtown (presuming there is a downtown), so it's hard to know.  Definitely a different festival experience than the Montreal Jazz Festival, or even the Waterloo Jazz Festival.  There were later, not-free concerts, but we attended this first one, set in the "Village Gourmand" (which, by the way if you're into language, "gourmand" and "gourmandise" is used a lot here on menus, at festivals, etc and therefore isn't translated as "glutton" or "gluttony" like a standard bi-lingual dictionary may suggest and instead seems to imply something more like what anglophones mean when we say "gourmet" or "gastronomy" but not quite that fancy) where many types of foods were being served.  Mostly regional foods ie. "Tourangelle" food, food from the former province of Touraine (although there was a random booth of Portuguese food and another serving Tapas).

Here I am eating some Fouée, a type of bread cooked in a wood fire oven and then filled with various items of choice.  My friend chose Nutella and I chose Rillettes d'oie (oie being a word I coincidentally had just found in my dictionary this morning while trying to explain to my friend how Canada is overrun with geese and I wondered why foie gras or other uses for geese meat hasn't caught on).  So Rillettes are a regional food (check out the link for an explanation) and yes, I chose the goose meat version.  It was ok, but had some kind of fermented cabbage taste to it...I couldn't tell if it included cabbage or onions, but I decided it was like sauerkraut. I also tried out a Rosé Pamplemousse.  Nice.

The concert itself was decent.  The ensemble was Word Out and the lead guy (the pianist) was English but his French was fabulous and nous étions jalouses!  We particularly enjoyed the "grimaces" of the bassist and the fact that it was nearly impossible to capture a photo of the drummer with his eyes open.

We successfully figured out where to catch the regional bus to take us back to Tours and voilà...

It was like we were riding our own private limousine: the coach was completely empty for the entire 20 minute ride!  And the bus driver maneuvered some pretty tight, narrow French country roads too!  And all that for only 1 Euro!  For the entire day, including the city bus too because this weekend it's the European Heritage Days in France.  There are a bunch of things going on and transportation is almost free!  So tomorrow, we'll play tourist again and check out some of the free tours and such.

Yes, we did visit the castle today too.  But I'll save those photos and comments for another post.

Indian and Chinese food...

So trying the adapter plus the converter with the straightener resulted in the ceramic plates overheating and melting the plastic in which they are encased!!  In about 2.3 seconds!  I guess I won't be using the straightener again.  After unplugging it, I still used it in that moment and saw my hair straight for the first time since I got it cut a few weeks ago (without any frizz and the annoying kinks it is prone to)!  Sigh...too bad that will be the last time for awhile.  My housemate offered me her curling iron, explaining that it can also be used for straightening.  I really cannot see how that is possible: the barrel is round!!  I'll keep you posted.  (I know you are all very interested in this.)

So I went out on Thursday with my new friends and we, true to Beth-birthday form, went out for Indian food!  I overheard my new British friends talking about finding an Indian restaurant, so I figured my birthday would be a good night for trying one out.  So, upon the advice of Christèle (my housemate), we checked out Surya Restaurant.  When we arrived, no one was there, so we were concerned.  But yes, 7:45 is apparently too early.  After 8:00, the people started rolling in.  We chuckled while watching two separate couples, one old and one young, assume the same positions: both arms stretched across the tables, clutching one another's hands.  And their tables were beside each other, so it looked particularly funny.

 So how was the food, you ask?  Different.  It was good, but different from other Indian food.  It had flavour, but not as strong or as spicy as I think the English girls and I were looking for.  It had a sweeter taste, the curries were smaller and runnier too.  But we had just the right amount of food and it was good.  Everything is so much more expensive here, particularly noticeable with food, but we did a good job at keeping the cost of the meal down while having a big spread.

On the topic of food, I got to accompany Christele grocery shopping yesterday so that I could pick out some things.  Really the only thing that has been a bit hard is breakfast, where they tend to eat cake-type food or very chocolate-y cereal.  So I picked out some nice Muesli which I had this morning...so yummy with yogurt.  At the supermarket, it was interesting to see how yogurt takes up an entire aisle.  So do packages of cookies (biscuit-type cookies).  It has been nice to get up every morning to a fresh pot of Italian coffee (Christèle's favourite and mine too), but I'm not in the habit of drinking this much coffee.  I hope I don't have withdrawal symptoms at any point.  I had some pretty bad headaches last weekend, either from that or from too much sun/dehydration.

Last Sunday was a Bradérie in the downtown.  Many of the streets were open only to pedestrians and it was basically like a big street flea market/clearance sale.  The items for sale were very random, some as though the vender had emptied the contents of his attic.  Then the shops were having street sales and there were lots of food vendors.  Unfortunately, I picked the first one serving kebabs (like shawarmas) without checking out the proper food area where there was a large variety of food, including traditional food from Breton (crepes, cider, etc), Spanish paella, mussels...and what I had wasn't very good and was overpriced.  Boo, I should have known better!

That morning, I attended one of the few Protestant churches in Tours (I think there are only 5).  Although there is one within walking distance, I decided to go to the largest one, downtown, Eglise Evangelique de Tours.  There were about 200 people there, the majority of African decent I would say.  It was great!  I was well-greeted and welcomed; I loved how people prayed out during the worship-time and during communion and I felt quite "stirred in my spirit" (for lack of a better expression).  I knew some of the songs and the ones I didn't were easy to learn.  I was even able to follow the sermon!  It was interesting to me that it was based on Psalm 84 and about the House of God, since I had wavered on whether or not I was going to intentionally attend church while here.  Reading the text in English, I have always interpreted it to be about living in God's presence, about spending time with God personally (like that song, Better is One Day), but hearing the pastor speak about it from the French version, I was hearing how good it is to belong to a community of believers.  Isn't it interesting how easy it can be to focus on making one's faith so personal and independent, when it cannot be that alone?  Even just now, doing a search for the word "dwell" in the Bible, the idea of "God dwelling within" is a communal thing!  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.  Yup, together.  It is always a beautiful thing to observe and to even be a part of such a community in places away from home; to observe how they worship, how they share the bread and wine (or grape juice...here, it was wine :) and how they demonstrate God's love.  I'm looking forward to attending again tomorrow.

I completed a week of a 4-hour French class that was a type of orientation.  Apparently I didn't do that well on my level-placement test, so in two weeks time, when the French-for-foreigners classes start, I'll be in the second level (there are four).  The first week was a little too easy, so I hope those classes are ok.  (Some people were surprised about some of the placements.)  I don't mind if I'm in a lower level if I can do well, but I think I'll mind if it's too much review.  For example, we were going over passé composé on Friday...something a lot of us started learning around grade 7 or 8!  The main thing I'm concerned with, is that I am not allowed in a certain class I need because I'm not at a high enough level.  I've convinced them to let me try, but that is pending if there is space.  That class doesn't start until October and I figure I'll have improved by then anyway.  I can already tell that I'm improving with my oral and comprehension!  (Now to work on writing well under a time constraint and without a dictionary...like what was on the test I guess I bombed, AND on the exam from my summer course that I didn't do that well in.)

Figuring out courses is a bit mental!  I finally have it together, but there is a conflict.  I have to make up a certain amount of credits to satisfy my home university, but I am asking them if I can be a few short because of this conflict.  AND because, I already have to take 11 courses!  These 11 make up 16 hours of class per week.  I think that's just a little bit more than at Laurier.  These classes are Spanish and Portuguese and they start on Monday.  We basically just show up and THEN register.  Something like, we just introduce ourselves to the prof and ask to be in the class!  We have until November to have our classes all figured out and decided.  Pretty funny!  I learned this week that university in France costs students on average 400 Euros a year!!  I'm wondering where all of my tuition money is going!

Friday's last class included a bit of a scavenger hunt around the city where we learned some things and saw some neat things.  I think I will pass on some of those interesting bits and photos in a future blog as this one is getting quite long!  Thanks for reading!

Oh I forgot.  Last weekend, I also went to a Chinese Buffet where there was karaoke in French (of course).  It was huge and people were quite into it and singing along while they ate.

I also got a homemade chocolate cake, card and "Joyeuse Anniversaire" song (yes, different than "Bonne Fête" like in Québec) last night from my housemates (mom and daughter) for my birthday.  C'était très gentil.

Post-Europe Trip Reflection #12: In Conclusion.

What a whirlwind! I am certainly proud to say that we traveled over 3000 km (actually I don't even remember what the number was now and that number seems low seeing as how I drive 4000 km every year going to New Orleans) and got to drive through five countries! What North American gets to do that?! And it was very affordable. Getting to see friends who I hadn't seen in a long time, was wonderful. Perhaps too short. The girls I have lived with and met over the years through YWAM are people who will always be close to my heart and even though it had been so long, we were able to pick right back up and it was sad to leave so soon.

The way that our accommodations worked out and the fact that we got to leave those types of things until the last minute and they still worked out without stress, was so fun! Exactly how I liked it to be. Being able to make decisions about where to go and where to drive through next was our perfect way to explore Europe. For this time.

It certainly was a trip with its share of exhaustion and that was why spending those final days relaxing in rainy Liverpool was the perfect finish.

I probably wish that I had more time to take in more of certain places, such as the Louvre and other artsy things. Maybe a little less time shopping; but we had fun and it was a great bonding time for the four of us.

Italy was my favourite country out of the list although Italian bread was the worst! Overall food (if you couldn't tell) was a highlight. The cost of Europe definitely is alarming for a Canadian although the way we did transportation worked out well and none of us were particularly wanting to do the backpack thing this time around. As always happens in my travels, I am inspired to return to places and explore further. We'll see.

(Yay! This post-trip reflection is officially finished.)

Post-Europe Trip Reflection #10: Last Night in Continental Europe.

17 July

After our wine tasting and spitting, we were back in the van headed for Versailles. In my books, no one can visit France without a stop at Louis XIV lavish estate. As was becoming our tried and true method, we had no place arranged to stay yet, but figured we'd figure it out when we got there!

What a place! The town was completely overrun with tourists and parking was nearly impossible. We had read that to go later would give us a cheaper entry fee to the main buildings and we knew that July was quite a peak time for tourists, BUT we didn't know that many buildings were under renovations. And even at 5 p.m. the entry line was hours long. Disappointing surely, but not worth it as far as we could see. So we just wandered the grounds. Entertained ourselves. Peered in windows. Speculated about those who once lived in the extravagance.

Someone had put a flyer under our wipers for a hotel that seemed like an amazing deal and we went as far as to drive out to it. It was outside of Versailles and well, not exactly what we had hoped for. So we pulled out Rick Steves' book again and made some calls from a payphone. Fortunately there was another quad room available for us in what was apparently the livery and stables of the king once upon a time. Now it is Le Cheval Rouge Hotel. Driving back into Versailles took some doing with one-way streets and traffic, but we made it and settled into our new little room.

Consulting our new favourite and dependable book, we selected a couple of dinner options. In the end, we chose a wonderful crepe place, Brittany-themed which meant it served ciders in very cool mugs. The tables were actually right on the walkway/street. A most excellent final meal in France.