Bon Voyage!

So my friend Emma arrived from Rennes last night, today we're catching a train to Barcelona for 5 days, then she's continuing to Rome for the second week of vacation to meet her family and sister who is studying there, and I will go to Istanbul where I'll meet 9 other assistants!! 

La Reine de Rennes a Toulouse

This morning we went to the marché St. Aubin and made lunch before our train

Expect lots of posts and photos when I get back! A plus!

You Make My Heart Beet

Just wanted to share with you some photos from the Valentine's Day dinner I had with the Mangesters last Monday. It was Michaela's night to host, but as it was "holiday", we all rose to the occasion and brought a little something extra. We had decided to make it a formal affair, and once we had all arrived in our best, we were given hand-made and decorated menus made by Bonnie and Alberto describing the meal to come...

"Stop Being So Mâche-y": Mâche salad with balsamic vinagrette

"Hearts on Fire": Roasted red pepper bruschetta with goat cheese

"You Make My Heart Beet": House made ravioli stuffed with beets and ricotta cheese

"You Make My Heart Melt": Chocolate Covered Strawberries 

We dined by candle light, and in between the dinner and dessert Lauren brought a heart shaped goat cheese that we ate while Cristella and Kristen distributed the valentines they had made for everyone. Bonnie had cut out a bunch of pink hearts our of thick paper, and instructed us all to write one thing we love about each person at the table and that we would then exchange them at the end. It was one of my favorite Valentine's Day's ever. What a wonderful group of people.  

Table shot: Pepper appetizers on the left, homemade ravioli's on the right

Cristella

Ana and I

Mmm..cheese.

Michaela and Bonnie

Alberto and Lauren

Michaela reading her from-the-heart comments

What I love about all my friends...

For dessert I brought an apple crumble that we ate with the strawberries.

Lots of love!
Linz

Lyon

So last weekend (right after John left) I went to visit one of my colleague’s daughter, Sarah, who studies in Lyon in the Rhône-Alps region of France. I met Sarah way back in October when she showed me around Toulouse and made me a list (that I still have) of must-see/eat/read/enjoy things in France. She rocks.

View of Lyon from the basilica Fourvière

I left Toulouse Thursday evening after my classes and arrived with no difficulty, 4 and a half hours later, in Lyon (a little less than halfway North of here to Paris, further East near Northern Italy and Switzerland). Just to brief you, Lyon is known for many things, most notably: silk production, Guignol the puppet, gastronomy, and being the birth place of the Freres Lumiere who are attributed with "inventing cinema."

Bartholdi Fountain at the Place des Terraux - where they set up the Guillotine during the Revolution. The fountain, made by the same Bartholdi who realized the Statue of Liberty, has 4 horses who represent the 4 principle rivers in France La Rhône (in Lyon), La Garonne (in Toulouse!), La Seine (Paris) and La Loire (in the Loire Valley). 

As Sarah had classes Friday during the day, she lent me her Guide Routard, various maps, and some great suggestions of things to occupy myself with. I got a bit of a late start as I caught up on some much needed sleep. Around 11 I started out on foot from Sarah’s place, crossed over the Rhône river to get to the Presqu’isle, or Almost Island, which is the downtown area of Lyon, called such because the Rhone and the Soane rivers almost touch at the Northern part of this district, almost forming an Island. On my way I got snagged by a store, as it was the end of the nationalized sales in France (70% off!!), I had to make sure I wasn’t missing out on a deal. Exhausted from my 15 minute walk and power-shopping pit stop, I broke for lunch at the first destination on my list: Place Bellecour.

Looming over the Place Bellecour you can see a huge basilica, and next to it what looks like the top of a miniature Eiffel Tower, which is used for radio and television communication. The story is that it was constructed during the Revolution to counterbalance the power advertised by the massive cathedral to its left.

While perusing my guide and munching a pumpkin chestnut sandwich (MMM!), I started talking to a gentleman who turned out to be from Mexico, have family in San Francisco, and live in Lyon. He was a photographer completely enamored with France and especially Lyon. A bit of an artist, he started to raptly tell me some of the history and his favorite elements of the city. There’s an element of duality to Lyon, he explained, and I agreed with, as on the one hand it’s very bourgeoisie definitely one the wealthiest cities I’ve seen in France, with palpable, lingering royalist sentiments, yet you also have this history of communism and resistance toward equality and the common good from the French Revolution and also the other revolts that played out in Lyon (of which I found more about later).

“You’re only here for the weekend??!?” He asked alarmed at the end of his digression of Lyon's schizophrenia. “What are you doing talking to me?”, as he continued to talk my ear off. “You have to get out and see the city! This neighborhood alone will take you the whole afternoon!” And, “What? You’re staying with a twenty something? They know nothing about the city!” 

“Au contraire.” I said defensively and showed him my guidebook, maps, and handwritten notes at him. The fire lighted, I set off from the Place Bellecour toward the neighborhood known as Croix-Rousse, that is elvated 250 meters over the city. 

I guess it's okay to double park in the middle of a round-about when your car is the size of a trunk.

The Croix-Rousse neighborhood definitely embodies the aforementioned second identity of Lyon, that of revolt, and inssurection. It was there that the canuts, or silk workers of Lyon, were concentrated (read: exiled) in the 19^th century. The the canuts, and thus the neighborhood have a fascinating history. The workers revolted in 1831 and again in 1834, descending into the city of Lyon and overtaking various buildings in the name of improving their inhumane work conditions. Those were known as some of the first revolutions in France in the name of laborers. In 1848 and 49, influenced by the great social movements of the time, the canuts revolted again, this time in an effort to form a community of interests, or a Marxist-influenced commune of sorts. While in Croix-Rousee I visited the Cour des Voraces, a very symbolic building, designed and constructed by the silk workers that today represents revolt and reisistance in Lyonnais history. You enter the Cour from the street by a wooden door that looks just like the others on either side of it. You find yourself at the top of very large stone steps that descend down under ground. Ahead of you is open, as if someone cut the building in half and you can see all the floods, and  there is a stairway traversing them. There is a plaque that reads that in this Cours de Voraces, the silk workers, the canuts, foughts for their standards of living and their dignity. This place served as a refuge for the canuts during the second wave of revolts in 1848 and 49.

Three of the 15 colored bobbins that contributed to this particular fabric

While kickin in it Croix-Rousse I visited La Maison des Canuts, where I attended a silk workshop where I learned all about how silk is produced from cocoon to spool, the difference between velour, brocade, and embroidery, and also watched a demonstration on a loom. Lyon is still one of the largest silk productors in Europe, with 2 of the 3 main manufacturers based Lyon and the third in Milan. I leaned that for a piece of fabric with 15 colors, like the one the woman demonstrated to us, it takes 8 hours to produce 20 centimenters. Louis XVIII, after a visit to Lyon, apparently ordered 70,000 meters of fabric even more elaborate than this one for he an his wife to be outfitted in. Snazzy.

View of Place des Terraux from the courtyard of the Musée des Beaux Arts

Armed with the savoir-fair I had acquired from my silk workshop Friday, I was ready to enter the Musée de Tissue, or Fabric Museum on Saturday with Sarah. This museum traces the history of different fabrics throughout the world, as well as traces the history of silk in Lyon and the fashions of the courts through the ages. OK so you might be thinking, who cares about valorized velours and hyped hemlines (alliteration!), but it's cool to be in a city that had enough money to be relevant during Napoleon, unlike other places I've lived like Rennes and Toulouse that were still farmland at that time. We always think that Europe is old in relation to the US, which is it, but not all places here have the same level and richness of history. 

A girl after my own heart, Sarah knew her gastronomie, most importantly, her pastries. She took to me to an incredibly popular boulangerie to get some goodies for lunch. 

We got there just before the line!

Lyon is known for its praline confections

We picnicked at an ancient Roman amphitheater in the Fourvière neighborhood on the left side of the river which you have to take a cable car to access (or climb a ton of steep stairs), that has a great view of the city. Thanks to the Guide Routard, which I had my nose buried in half the time, I learned that Lyon was founded between the two rivers, under the name Lugdunum, by the Gauls in 43 BC, and that the origin of the via domitia, or one of the ancient roman roads that runs through Narbonne which I visited with John. 

After lunch we descended Fourvière,  and walked around Vieux-Lyon, or the Old Part of the city that was constructed in the first century AD. The architecture of the solid stone buildings was gorgeous. We wanted around the cobblestone pedestrian streets, waiting for people to come out of the private residences so that we could wedge a foot in the door and see the unique entrance halls of these buildings. They are one of the only examples of traboules or secret staircases and passageways that connect one street to another that were used during the French Revolution and the revolts of the canuts. You enter the old wooden doors, and sometimes you find yourself in a low tunnel, sometimes you descend immediately old worn stone steps into a dungeon like maze of passageways, and sometimes you find yourself in a bright sunny courtyards, with turrets of spiral staircases rising up around you. It felt like I was on a treasure hunt, so cool!

Tour Rose in Old Lyon

Besides all the sightseeing Sarah and I ate out once, cooked at her apartment, and hung out with her friends. It was truly a spectacular weekend. A huge MERCI to Sarah for showing me around and making sure I got the absolute most out of 3 days in Lyon!

I didn’t eat my praline brioche until the train on the way home Sunday morning, which while initially upsetting was probably a good thing as if I had know about them sooner, I would have consumed at least a dozen. Seriously. 

Until the next adventure. Bisous!

Linz

Déjà-John

So John loved the baguettes and cheese so much he came back for some more last week. Only towards the very end did he start to miss Budweiser, cars that are bigger than 4-wheelers, and non-unionized workers. So, lets give him a hand.

Yay John!

We had a more relaxed visit than the first time he came – meaning we stayed in Toulouse a lot more, and as the weather was in the 50’s the whole week, we spent almost every evening (read: happy hour) sitting by the river, which suited us just fine. We did go skiing (in T-shirts) one day, at the same mountain we went to in December, and while there were more trails open, and markedly more people (not saying much as last time we saw less than a dozen the whole day – including the staff), there was arguably less snow. We ended up cruising around, enjoying the rays and the sights and messing around with John’s sweet new GoPro camera, rather than hitting the slopes that hard, as they say. But we looked good doing it: 

T-Shirt, I told you.

                                    

                                               Sweet GoPro shots

Wednesday we took a tour of Airbus, the European equivalent to Boeing that is based in Toulouse. I was at a language exchange a few weeks ago and met a kid who was an Airbus engineer who told me about these tours you can take of the campus, the Concorde and the A380 (huge double-decker passenger plane), and I said to myself, John would like that. So we got it together and went (luckily they had a tour in English). It was a super cool and informative, unfortunately we couldn’t take any photos inside but we saw the huge warehouse where they assemble the parts of the A380 that come in from Germany, Spain and England. We also saw tarmac where the assembled ones are held before being test flown, and taken to Hamburg to get furbished and decorated on the inside, and got to go inside a mock-up. If you happen to have $370,000,000 I can say first hand they look pretty nice.

Most photographed spot of the week - La Garonne

Assistants hangin by the river

John's visit was hinged on the contingent that I find somewhere for him to watch the Superbowl on Sunday. To be honest, I wasn't hopeful, but didn't share that. To his delight and my relief we found a rugby/sports bar that screened the whole thing, staying open till 5am. And, get this, there was even an association of ex-pats who catered the whole thing with nachos, chili, and wings. Chicken wings. In France. Now I've seen everything. Naturally I acted like I knew about all this and picked the bar expressly, otherwise I would've had no pull getting him to come to produce markets or care about what red wine we drank.  

Sunday market photo by John (I think he might have enjoyed it)

He ate again with the Mangesters, funnily enough at Ana’s apartment where we ate last time he was here. She’s convinced he came back for her cooking. We worked on my cruiser who was in need of some love, and after much tinkering, ended up changing the brake pads and cables, realigning the wheels, fixing my light and bell (the latter being my biggest concern of the whole process), and thoroughly, greasing her down. She looked great by the end, which makes me slightly nervous; I can’t be getting to flashy lest someone get any ideas to hawk her on the black market of St. Sernin (yes, where I bought her in the first place, but to my credit I didn’t know where the bikes came from at the time!). Case in point: Tonight I was headed out to a free swing class that I found out about at the Electro-Swing-Cabaret dance soirée I went to 2 weeks ago, and when I pulled up to the post by the metro where I was going to leave her, I saw a lonely bike lock dangling limply off the post. At that exact moment, a girl walked up, started at the post, then at me and said sadly, “J’ai plus de vélo” – I don’t have a bike any more. I just stared at her then quickly apologized, she wished me a good evening, and walked off. Needless to say I wasn’t feeling good about abandoning my ride at that particular moment but I didn’t have time to bring it home and walk back to the metro. I assured myself that lightening doesn’t strike the same place twice, and, thankfully, was right as after my class she was still waiting for me. Phew.

It was great to have him back here, as Gisele said, he didn't come for another visit, but was dropping back by. I'm pretty sure both my roommates think he'll be back next month. Since we planned less than the first time, we were able to have spontaneous, lazy afternoon lunches like this one:  

Carrot-pumpkin soup, mâche salad, and of course bread. 

The weather was so nice we even were able to eat outside

John left on Thursday morning and that day after class I headed off to Lyon for the weekend to stay with an English prof’s daughter who studies there. It was AWESOME and I promise a post about it a très bientôt.

Bisous.

Linz 

Toulouse-Lautrec

Last Saturday I went on a trip to three different cities in the Haute Garonne region: Albi, Cordes-Sur-Ciel, and Noailles. The organization that runs the trips puts together a lot of cultural events and promotions for students in Toulouse throughout the year, and I will hopefully being taking French classes with them later this month!

Saturday was the day after I lost my phone, and I wasn't exactly in high spirits, but I was hopeful that this packed day of tourism would take my mind off things. We (three other assistants and I) boarded a coach bus along with a bunch of other international students at 7:45am. At 8:00am the skies opened up and it didn't stop raining until after we returned to Toulouse at 8:00pm. It was definitely not the day to be a tourist, however, we made the most of it, or tried to.

On the bus on the way to Tarn, the next department over (I'm in Midi-Pyranees), we met our tour guides for the day. We had opted for the French tour guide, versus the English one, wanting to challenge ourselves, and soon became apparent that we had made the right decision. The French guy was very charismatic and upbeat, and cracked a lot of jokes to make light of the fact that we probably should have turned the bus around and postponed the trip, while the English guide (who turned out to be American) was just...weird. Arnaud would give his spiel, and then the woman would take the microphone and lead in with "OK I'm now going to explain what Arnaud said in English...". I mean, EVERY time, as if between the few minute intervals we'd forgotten why she was there, and she'd lose us if she didn't explain. She kept talking about what a shame the weather was, and how much better the trip would have been without the rain. Not the kind of motivation we needed. She also had a very hard to place accent, and kept using words like "convivial" and "tranquil", which are more direct translations from French, and not words we (or at least I) would ever use in English. We were convinced she wasn't from the States but perhaps a weird planet (Canada?), and were shocked to find out at the end she was actually from Brooklyn.

Albi

First on the agenda was Albi, which aside from being the birthplace of the French painter Hénri Toulouse-Lautrec (think Mouin Rouge), was also recently named one of UNESCO's world heritage sites for the old cobblestoned pedestrian part of the city, the gorgeous medieval St. Cecile cathedral, and the Toulouse-Lautrec museum. We took a tour of the inside of the cathedral, which was built in about the 13th century, and still has the original ceiling, which has never once been restored, retouched or even cleaned! The walls behind the altar were painted with scenes of the seven deadly sins and the punishment that would meet anyone how committed them. While the impish devils torturing the condemned looked kind of laughable today, I imagine that back in the day they were quite frightening. The wall separating the the choir from the rest of the congregation (photo below) was so intricately carved from stone that Arnaud called it "dentelle" or lace.

Inside the choir room 

We then walked next door to the Toulouse-Lautrec museum where we had a briefing on the famous, kooky, alcoholic artist, and visited some of his most famous works. I'll sum up the highlights for you: He was born in 1864 to wealthy parents. Who happened to be first cousins. So, unfortunate Henri was born with weak bones, a stunted stature, and also, ugly. I'm not sure if that last part was a result of his parents being cousins or just poor luck. At age 13 he broke his right femur, and spent several months recovering in a hospital. I imagine it wasn't very fun to be a 13 year old stuck inside, and he had plenty of time to pursue his already established interest in drawing and painting. He finally fully recovered at age 14, however, shortly after fell and broke his left femur. (At this point, my missing cell phone started to look like small potatoes). As a result of these successive traumas to his legs, Hank maxed out at 1m52, less than 5ft tall, with the torso of normal proportions, and the legs of an adolescent (if that's not enough to drive you to drink I don't know what is).

Snapping pictures in the rain for the benefit of the blog

Around 17 he decided to blow Albi and head for the big city: Paris, more specifically Montmartre, the epicenter for cabarets, brothels, and dance halls, to kick it with the likes of Emile Bernard and van Gogh. His overprotective mother followed him, and also had his older cousin, Gabriel, tail him. Maybe rightfully so, as Hank had a penchant for the absinth, and also the ladies (specifically redheads, as can be seen evidenced in his work). He managed to bring his cuz over the the darkside, however, and instead of serving Hank's chaperone, Gabriel ended up in the same clubs and brothels as the artist. In fact, Gabe eventually ends up smuggling Hank hollowed-out walking stick full of alcohol into the sanatorium he is sent to laters in life.

Me knocking on the door of Toulouse-Lautrec's childhood home

Many of Hank's paintings are of women (actually, prostitutes), and of the maisons closes, or whorehouses where he spent most of his time. This would come to bite him in the butt (or elsewhere) in the end, as he eventually contracted syphillis, went a bit nutty, and died at 37 in the aforementioned sanatorium. He was always bit of an eccentric fellow, even before the absinthe and syphilis started to take it's toll. Hank was known to spend most of his time half in the bag, and if you wanted a portrait painted by him, it wasn't unusual to go to see him an average of 60 times. Not that you would actually sit 60 times, because, either Hank wasn't there, or, "all there" if you will, or just didn't feel like painting. One subject was calling on the artist in his Montmartre apartment, and heard gunshots coming up the stairwell. He tentatively opened the artist's door and found Hank shooting flies on the ceiling with a pistol. The rascal.

The museum, right next to the cathedral St. Cecile, is a renovated 13th century bishop's palace. If the paintings of the half naked, sprawling prostitutes hanging in an old Bishop's house aren't the epitome of the French's laicism, or their strict adherence to keeping religion from having any influence or bearing on society, I don't know what is.

Cozy interior of the Californian-French restaurant

View of the kitchen

We had a break for lunch, and Lauren, Brittany, Kristen and I stumbled on a tiny hole-in-the wall restaurant which turned out to be owned by a guy from San Francisco who was dishing out California-French fusion. Equally as delicious as it was random. We chatted with him for a bit, mainly asking him how the heck he came upon Albi as a place to open a restaurant, turns out completely by chance if you were wondering, then we scurried back to the bus.

Cordes

Next up was Cordes-Sur-Ciel, or Cordes-on-the-sky. It was a medieval village founded in 1522 that gets its name from the way the village is constructed on a large hil. Not much to say here except that I could tell it would be a lovely place to return one day, perhaps in the spring, when it's not freezing and pouring.

Pretty colors in Cordes

By the end of a day spent in the rain, we were ready for the third stop, which was a wine degustation in Gaillac :)

Other than that life is good. Last night I went to an "Electro-swing-cabaret" dance party, which was as fabulous as it sounds. I'm on my 6th salsa lesson which I am loving. The instructor is super dynamic and fun and the class is a really good group of people. I'm hoping to start going out to real salsa bars after class and on the weekends to test my stuff :) John comes tomorrow for a week, and my mission from him was to find a place to watch the Superbowl in Toulouse...eehh...I'll keep you posted on that one.

Bisous et a bientôt!
Linz