Well, it was a quiet vacation (only 6 weeks until I get 2 more weeks off…yay for not being in UW Engineering…that reading 2 days just wouldn’t cut it for me!). I took no major trips, or even minor ones that you don’t already know about. I had some tentative plans for Lyon and Strasbourg, but both fell through. No worries though; I have all the time in the world (I suppose I should start looking for a job one of these months, but that can wait). Rather than travel I took it easy for the week; walking around town, and just generally enjoying the good weather (thank goodness; it has cooled off again, and there is a significant amount of rain predicted for this week). One trip in to town, though, had a particularly good outcome; Aimee and I found a creperie right in the downtown core. We even passed up what is now known as “my” crepe stand to give it a try. While I’m still convinced that the owner of my crepe stand makes the best crepes in the world, he unfortunately can not compete with the toppings that can be added when the customer is eating at a table; the raspberry, blueberry, raspberry sorbet, whipped cream combination was unbelievable; I will be going back. Not surprisingly, the creperie had dozens of other crepes (as well as galettes; salty more meal-like crepes that neither of us liked at all) many of which I will have to try in the coming weeks. I can’t wait to go back…
On the topic of food, I don’t know what this place has done to me, but I eat more than I ever have. On the other hand, my at least semi-weekly grocery trips usually result in a good work-out, since I refuse to use a cart (if I can’t carry what I want around the store, how will I ever carry it home) giving my arms a good work out; milk, water, juice etc are quite heavy…particularly in the quantities that I buy!. Then my back an legs get a workout along with my arms, as I cram as much of the heavy stuff as possible into my backpack as possible, carrying the rest in bags. This is particularly healthy when I am helping a friend that lives up the hill, but also since I have over 4 flights of stairs between the door and my bedroom; the first flight is extra long, plus the french have this weird thing about the first floor…it’s not the same as the ground floor. Which brings my to another random observation…for some odd reason, while we call the ground floor the first floor, here the first floor is the first floor after the ground floor. But I digress…I was talking about food…gee, you’d think I was hungry or something; wait…I’m always hungry here! Anyway, I haven’t found too much that is new or different from what I know. Thanks to my German background, working in a German store, and the German influence on this particular area of France, things are pretty familiar. Except salami…here it’s bright pink and waaaaay more fatty than at home. I finally found salami that tastes (and looks) like Denninger’s beef salami, but it’s actually turkey, and costs about 2.5 times as much as regular salami here. Brioche and morrissettes are particularly exciting to my American friends, but they are commonplace at Denninger’s; egg bread and pretzel buns. I have yet to come across escargot or frog’s legs, but you can be sure you’ll here about it when I do.
Since I’m totally incapable of linking my thoughts together, I’ll just move on to the next topic that popped into my head; names. While I have yet to meet a Pierre (sorry Lisa!), a Jean-Claude, Jean-Paul, Jean-Marie (that one’s for you Lee!) or any other Jeans, I know two Gaëls and three Thibaults; names I never knew existed. And while Fred isn’t exactly popular back home, I can think of three off the top of my head, and I’m sure I know more (fortunately each of the three goes by something different; Frédo, Frédérique and Beef – to use the English spelling). Some other interesting names I’ve come across are Coralie, Xavier and Léonore, plus Jérôme, which sounds way cooler en français.
And to jump trains of thought again…with all my praise of European genius, I’ve forgotten the biggest danger I’ve encountered; spiral staircases – they’re everywhere! They look really good and all, but I just don’t think spiral staircases and bars are a good combination; almost every bar I’ve been in has multiple levels, and each one uses round staircases. Most notably, O’Bryan’s has one of the super-tight kind, where you’ve turned 360 degrees between one floor and the next. This is especially bad considering that the bathrooms are two floors are in the basement, and the bar is two levels high. Don’t get me wrong – I love spiral staircases, but that’s just asking for trouble!
And finally, the website. Well, it now exists, but is very bare. I have photos up from the first week, and some general scenery around here. I haven’t really explained much, so if you’re looking for the names of any of the people in the pictures, that’ll have to wait. Being that it’s a free site, transfer limitations are strict, so please be patient if you can’t access the site. All that being said, you can start checking out some of my photos at
[sorry, the website no longer exists!]
