Grenoble!

Sorry in advance about the length of this post. It’s also for me, so I’ve included convenient, bolded, capitalized section headings so you can read whatever interests you! Thanks to everyone for all the emails and comments! They are much appreciated and enjoyed! This post includes two pictures! I hope to post an album on Facebook tomorrow!

TGV/PARIS
I’m currently on the TGV between Lyon and Grenoble. It was a very quick 2 hour ride from Paris to Lyon…you don’t feel like you’re moving as fast as you are. Yesterday was quite fun. Célia (young French kids have no school on Wednesdays), Lisa and I went to Notre Dame to buy books for Nicolas for school. There’s this *massive* bookstore that sells textbooks and used books of *all* sorts. Economics, computer programming, sciences, travel, 4th year ancient Greek text- and workbooks for French children, etc. Bekah and Mom would’ve been in heaven here. After that we went to Notre Dame because we were right by it…went inside too. It was fun to see it again!

When we came out of the Métro in Issy-les-Moulineaux (where the Morins live), there was this huge market. Every Wednesday they have a market in the afternoon with all types of foods, crafts, clothes, junk, etc. I bought some Fourme d’Ambert cheese (a bleu cheese), and then we came home and had lunch once Nicolas got back from school. I had a simple, delicious Roquefort sandwich!

We all just hung out in the afternoon taking it easy, playing with Nicolas and Célia. Lisa let me do laundry which was very nice so I have all clean clothes now! For dinner we had lots of seafood! They wanted to introduce me to various French seafood delicacies since I’d never had them before! First I had a white port aperitif (white port on the rocks…quite delicious albeit sweet) and then we had escargots. The kids are totally obsessed with them and very protective of each one! It’s quite funny. And everyone was very into the sauce and who had more than someone else and the like. You eat the escargots with this special tool and tiny mussel-like fork. You hold them with the tool so they don’t slide around and then scoop the snail out from the inside, dip it in the butter-herb sauce on the plate and enjoy! Pretty good, a little chewy. Escargots are eaten with Burgundy white wine so we had a nice Chardonnay de Bourgogne with them!

Next was mussels, baked on silver plates just like the escargots. I liked them a whole lot too, more than the snails. Very tender! Served with the same sauce. Finally we had coquilles St. Jacques (scallops in a cream sauce with some veggies and herbs). They’re really pretty as they’re served in a big scallop shell. In France they eat this orange part of the scallop that we don’t in the US so that was in there as well! Lisa was into taking pictures of me eating all this, so y’all will get to see that soon hopefully!

We ended with a good simple salad with vinaigrette. Quite a delicious and filling dinner! Baguette is used to mop up all the sauce with each course! Lisa, Eric and I sat around the table until almost 11:00 just talking and hanging out. Very nice and fun evening.

GRENOBLE/ORIENTATION
Such an awesome nice little town! I love it so far! Really pretty buildings, architecture, shops, restaurants, bars, cafés, etc. All surrounded by amazing tall mountains! Incroyable! Had orientation yesterday then went out to a crepe/gallette Brittany-style restaurant for dinner. It was really good. Had a crepe with some new cheese I hadn’t had before and chives which turned out to be quite delicious, and a salad with amazing fresh chevre and walnuts. Did you know that Grenoble is well-known for walnuts??? We also had cidre to drink, the sparkling, dry cider that’s popular in Normandie. Most people were quite tired and out of it, so that was a bummer, but it was fun nonetheless. We got back before 21h to the hotel so Evan (roommate…he’d been in Europe for a while also—from Memphis!!...goes to Carleton in Minnesota) and I weren’t tired so we went out and walked around for a while which was fun and then went to some cool London-style bar playing random American/European music with tons of college students which was fun. Decorations on the walls were flags from various countries and license plates from US states. It was pretty hopping even on a Thursday haha. Then came back here and just chilled and talked for a while before going to bed. I meet my family this afternoon! Very excited. I found out Marie-Eve that my family is really awesome and that, according to her, I’ll definitely want to live with them in the spring too (year-long students can choose to live with their fall family again or switch families).

FAMILY/HOUSE
So my parents, Alain and Maé (pronounced mah-ay (ay as in hay)), came to pick me up from the hotel. Walked back to their apartment which is right downtown in the Arab quarter. But it’s more the shops that are Arab, not the residents they said. It’s an interesting apartment, very rustic-looking in a building that dates back 500 years. Before we even got back, they said that my French was at the most advanced level of anyone just arriving of the 4 foreign students they’ve hosted before! So that made me happy.

So anyways, the parents are awesome they’ve hosted 4 students (all Americans) before. Before we even got back to the apartment, they said that my French was the best of any students they’ve had upon arrival! So yay! I understand well they said. Speak too, but especially understand. But they’re sooooo nice and accommodating. I have my own room/bathroom that’s interesting. You have to go down a steep ladder down below to get to my room. Kind of dark even though it’s on street level, but Maé said that since it’s dark I’m welcome to hang out in the living room or wherever anytime I’d like! Had a wonderful dinner…ravioli but they’re super tiny and she cooks them sautéed in the pan rather than boiling them. She said it’s a different way of cooking them that gives them a different flavor. Definitely more strong a flavor and very good. We had salad too that was great with lettuce from their garden at their mountain house. Then cheese…the dad loves cheeses so that was fun. He has a cheese dryer (I guess it’s that in English) at the mountain house and we’re going to do experiments with chèvre to see how the flavor changes after a day, two days, etc! After cheese we had grapes and homemade applesauce for dessert. Maé makes lots of stuff homemade…jam, bread, garden with tons of stuff, applesauce, yogurt, pretty cool! We sat at the dinner table until 11:30 pm (!!!) talking about everything from politics to travel to differences in Europe/USA and the election and French ways vs. American ways of doing things, etc etc.

Just now I met Mathis, my host brother. He’s really nice and seems cool and my age which is neat. He was in Paris visiting his sister, Méliné, for several days which is why I didn’t meet him until now. He’s not eating dinner at the house tonight though because he’s going to see a friend who’s leaving tomorrow for the North for university.

BEAUJOLAIS/BIRTHDAY PARTY
Yesterday we went to Beaujolais for a 60th birthday party for a couple of theirs who both turn 60 this year. There were tons of people there…maybe 60 or 80ish…from all over France! On the way, though, we stopped at Pérouges (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perouges or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perouges), a super old medieval town in the Rhône-Alps region that dates back nearly 1000 years! It’s on a hill, surrounded by an old wall…very pretty and tons of old houses, courtyards, etc. Very little and cute town haha. We were going to go to Crémieu too but it was raining a ton and the weather was quite bad so we didn’t.

We ended up getting to the party site (an agricultural school in the middle of Beaujolais) quite early, which was weird, but everyone got there early so I guess French people just do that…. We ate inside somewhere for our picnic since it was raining. Really good picnic with tons of yummy stuff brought from home! We just hung out for a while talking to people during the afternoon. It was kind of weird because it was mostly family with some friends but it was fine. Alain, my dad, thought it was weird too, and we were both kind of bored which was fun to bond over. Everyone was really nice though. I called Aliza for her birthday in the meantime!

Eventually the party started with people just talking and hanging out in the big room with tables set up. Then René (birthday boy) gave a little talk welcoming people and we went into another room for the aperitif—French people are really into their aperitif (drink before dinner) and always have it usually with food. There was watermelon and various breads of every different flavor (mozzarella, ham, bacon, artichoke, olive, etc.) to eat, and wine made from grapefruit and sangria to drink. Grapefruit wine was interesting…sweet but still the grapefruit flavor. Fine for an aperitif but not something I’d want to drink with dinner or more than a glass….

Then we went into the big room for dinner. We started with the entrées (in French, entrée is the first, not main, course) which everyone had brought, so there were tons of things to choose from. All quite delicious…many savory tartes (very popular and French), a couscous salad, regular salad, omg a million things I can’t think of now. Then we hung out for a while, more talking and stuff, and finally the main course, pasta, venison, and these amazingly delicious circular potato gratin-ish cakes. They were quite possibly the best potatoes I’ve ever had; Blair would’ve gone nuts haha!

With the entrée and the plat principal (main course), we had one of the most amazing wines I’ve ever had. (Before some of you start to doubt that, I’ve tried some really good and expensive wines in Kansas with Emily’s dad and at Back Inn so give me some credit!) It was a Beaujolais, of course, as that was a main theme of the whole evening. Table decorations were little bunches of each of the different grapes and leaves of the 12 crus (varieties I guess?) of Beaujolais and a label, and there were posters of all the different crus on the wall, big maps of the Beaujolais region, etc. But this wine (picture to come soon on Facebook) was so amazingly delicious…fruity, fresh, could really taste the flavors of the grapes. I feel like it’s going to make me not appreciate really oaky wines as much because these grapes were so good and full in flavor that they didn’t need any oak to improve it! Jarrod and Michael would’ve been in heaven (I certainly was.) And copious amounts of Beaujolais were freely flowing!

After dinner there were some skits and a trivia game which were quite funny. I was pretty decent at trivia! And the skit was really funny. And going along with the wine theme of the evening, Marie Jo and René (birthday couple/hosts) told all men to wear a tie and women to wear a hat decorated for the upcoming wine harvest. So there were all these crazy elaborate ties and hats with grape leaves, grapes, corks, bottle openers, wine boxes/bottles, etc. Very funny. There was a contest in which everyone had to vote for our favorite and prizes were awarded. Prizes were awarded for trivia too! I was kind of skeptical of wearing a crazy tie, but Maé had brought ties for me and Alain (host dad) so we tied water bottles we had in the car to it and I stuffed grapes into the bottle and tied it onto the tie. People thought it was pretty clever! Here’s a picture of us in our garb!

On the way out we got little jars of homemade jam to take home! Then drove home and got back at 1:30 am!

BASTILLE/DINNER
Today I slept late and we (the group) went up the “boules” (cable cars) to the Bastille on the mountain. First to lunch at a local restaurant which was very fun. They get wine for us at every lunch and dinner out which is fun. I’ve drank wine like every day since getting to France I’m pretty sure. Back to the boules, the ride up was really fun and it was so unbelievably gorgeous from the top. Tons of mountains EVERYWHERE…very high. And you could see the whole city and both rivers. Simply incredible. Perfect weather too. We then hiked down which was really fun. The city is just amazingly pretty with the mountains all around it. I kept saying to people, “We live here!!!” Totally unreal! We also had Patrice with us, our academic advisor. He’s a professor at the University here and really cool and knowledgeable about the city (born here). He’s into helping us and talking with us…not just like it’s a drag to have to do work with these stupid Americans.

Briefly saw the Museum of the Dauphinois (we’re in the Dauphine region) including a really nice garden and cloisters and church…simply gorgeous. Then crossed the Isère coming back into the city to walk around with Kelly and Clare, friend from Maryland, for a little bit in this huge outside market then came back home. We had dinner tonight (chicken, potatoes, amazing salad, applesauce, chocolate cake, port, and white and red wine). The only down side about all of this is that when we have dinner, we eat at like 8 pm but are sitting around the table talking until about 11 so I have no night! But I suppose that may change when the work/school week starts….

Tonight at dinner we talked about our days of course and I told them how lunch isn’t as big of meal in the US, and I explained the whole brunch concept to them, as it doesn’t exist in France. I tried forever to explain rosemary when talking about what we do with all our potatoes from the CSA but they didn’t know what I was talking about. I did a damn good job of explaining it though, and finally they looked it up and got so mad at themselves for not realizing what it was! I talked about how it’s Italian; you eat it with lamb; we put it on focaccia; described color and shape; said you don’t usually eat it plain since it’s so strong; etc. So that was funny. Told them about our CSA and restaurant/cooking habits in the US. Then Mathis got back and he hung out and we all talked for a while. He’s really nice and fun it seems like. Decent at English too which is funny to hear him say random words and phrases. He watches lots of American TV shows and movies.

Tomorrow we have our French placement tests so I gotta go to bed, but glad to get this all down on paper! But honestly, it’s simply astoundingly gorgeous here. Everywhere you go, gigantic mountains are all around you which are just so amazing and breathtaking. Can’t believe I live here! C’est un rêve…la vie est parfaite!