Berries make the world go round...
Well I am about to officially start my university career in France tomorrow! How exciting! I mean, the first day of classes was technically today….but hello, I didn’t want any Monday classes….so Tuesday is Monday for me! ;-) And how the French system works is this: The first week, it’s completely allowable to go to as many classes as you want and do a little test run, and then decide the actual classes that you’re going to take later. It’s especially great for me, and all the other international students (totally weird, I’m an “international student”) because I can see how well I can understand the professor, and how interesting the material is before I have to officially commit to a class. Great! So that’s tomorrow, starting with International Economy, which already sounds really boring. Hahahah.
So this weekend we had our first excursion to two little towns called Conques and Cordes-sur-Ciel (literally, Cordes in/on the sky, and look at the pictures to see why!) and it was so much fun! We left ridiculously early on Saturday morning, got to Conques, had a tour of the town, and then had free time for lunch and to walk around a little on our own. After lunch, we went on a hike in the woods up to this little chapel build waaaaaaaaaay up on a hill overlooking the town. Very cool, and we got some great views of Conques. Also, I couldn’t believe that women used to hike all the way up there to get some of this supposedly holy water that flows in this stream near the chapel in high heels and big skirts! After spending the afternoon in Conques, we departed for Cordes, where we were spending the night. And p.s. the big charter bus that we were on had standard transmission (as do all cars in France), and man, our bus driver really drove like a champ through all these narrow twisty roads way up in the mountains!
When we arrived in Cordes, we got cleaned up and then went down to the hotel restaurant for a really delicious and French dinner (I chose the vegetarian option because I don’t like duck or salmon, and those were both being served!), complete with an aperitif, red wine, and a course of cheese before dessert. But here’s a weird thing: so they bring out the bread with the aperitif, before the salad. Okay, fairly standard. Then 10 million years after we all ate the bread, after our entrée and everything, right before dessert, they bring out brie and Roquefort cheese for everyone. Apparently, in this crazy country, they bring out the bread before the meal, put it at your place, and then expect you to look at it the entire meal, and wait to eat it until the cheese course comes, literally 2 hours later. Come on France! In the United States, we believe in instant gratification, and I am not a patient person. So we ended up asking our waiter for more bread, which wasn’t a problem, but I feel like someone should have given our table a memo about that bread thing.
The next day, we went on a tour of Cordes with a very knowledgeable and adorable guide, and it was so fascinating. The town was built in the 13th century! And people still live and work there today. It’s absolutely incredible and mind-blowing. Then we had 3 hours free for lunch, so Daniel, Tyler, Annie, and I decided to go exploring in the “lower” part of Cordes. So we went down the humongous hill that makes it possible for “upper” Cordes to be called “sur ciel”, and then we ended up finding this little hiking path through some fields that ended having absolutely breath-taking views of Cordes. And then, best part of all, Daniel found some blackberries and we all frolicked over to eat some, except for Tyler because he thought they were going to kill us all. Except, then they were positively delicious, so it was all his loss. ;-) After some shopping in the cute little stores, we left for a wine tasting in Gaillac, which is apparently really big wine country. But I mean, c'mon, France is really big wine country. So we got to go behind the scenes and see these big vats of grape juice, and then taste it, and then taste the actual wine. It was really cool we followed all the rules of wine tasting and probably looked very pretentious. Note: the winery smelled really weird.
That was our awesome weekend! Look at all the pictures. Wish me luck for classes tomorrow! Bonne nuit!
So this weekend we had our first excursion to two little towns called Conques and Cordes-sur-Ciel (literally, Cordes in/on the sky, and look at the pictures to see why!) and it was so much fun! We left ridiculously early on Saturday morning, got to Conques, had a tour of the town, and then had free time for lunch and to walk around a little on our own. After lunch, we went on a hike in the woods up to this little chapel build waaaaaaaaaay up on a hill overlooking the town. Very cool, and we got some great views of Conques. Also, I couldn’t believe that women used to hike all the way up there to get some of this supposedly holy water that flows in this stream near the chapel in high heels and big skirts! After spending the afternoon in Conques, we departed for Cordes, where we were spending the night. And p.s. the big charter bus that we were on had standard transmission (as do all cars in France), and man, our bus driver really drove like a champ through all these narrow twisty roads way up in the mountains!
When we arrived in Cordes, we got cleaned up and then went down to the hotel restaurant for a really delicious and French dinner (I chose the vegetarian option because I don’t like duck or salmon, and those were both being served!), complete with an aperitif, red wine, and a course of cheese before dessert. But here’s a weird thing: so they bring out the bread with the aperitif, before the salad. Okay, fairly standard. Then 10 million years after we all ate the bread, after our entrée and everything, right before dessert, they bring out brie and Roquefort cheese for everyone. Apparently, in this crazy country, they bring out the bread before the meal, put it at your place, and then expect you to look at it the entire meal, and wait to eat it until the cheese course comes, literally 2 hours later. Come on France! In the United States, we believe in instant gratification, and I am not a patient person. So we ended up asking our waiter for more bread, which wasn’t a problem, but I feel like someone should have given our table a memo about that bread thing.
The next day, we went on a tour of Cordes with a very knowledgeable and adorable guide, and it was so fascinating. The town was built in the 13th century! And people still live and work there today. It’s absolutely incredible and mind-blowing. Then we had 3 hours free for lunch, so Daniel, Tyler, Annie, and I decided to go exploring in the “lower” part of Cordes. So we went down the humongous hill that makes it possible for “upper” Cordes to be called “sur ciel”, and then we ended up finding this little hiking path through some fields that ended having absolutely breath-taking views of Cordes. And then, best part of all, Daniel found some blackberries and we all frolicked over to eat some, except for Tyler because he thought they were going to kill us all. Except, then they were positively delicious, so it was all his loss. ;-) After some shopping in the cute little stores, we left for a wine tasting in Gaillac, which is apparently really big wine country. But I mean, c'mon, France is really big wine country. So we got to go behind the scenes and see these big vats of grape juice, and then taste it, and then taste the actual wine. It was really cool we followed all the rules of wine tasting and probably looked very pretentious. Note: the winery smelled really weird.
That was our awesome weekend! Look at all the pictures. Wish me luck for classes tomorrow! Bonne nuit!
posted by Caitlin @ 10:01 PM
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