Provence Days 3 and 4: Chateau Neuf de Pape and Vergeze

I didn't mention this in the previous post, but once we finally sat down with Melanie in the Italian cafe, I actually got a phone call from another woman, Annette, offering us a place to stay for the night. Amidst the chaos, I told her we that we had found a place for the night, but what about tomorrow? She said she would send us her information and we could call her if we'd like. We decided to call her the next day, but first it was finally time to taste some excellent French wine! Chateau Neuf de Pape was only about a 45 minute drive from Nimes, so after a morning of walking around the small town, we headed for the hills once again.

Obviously, neither one of us had ever visited a vineyard in France to taste wine. I had been to one in Rhode Island, and that is my only experience at a vineyard. We are, however, well practiced in "enjoying" formidable quantities in the comforts of our homes and favorite restaurants, and do appreciate wine enough to justify stepping foot into a vineyard. We found a nice vineyard (one of hundreds) and walked in... to a near empty room, with only one woman who worked there occupying it. After exchanging "Bonjours" Andy asked if she spoke English. "Non, je parle Francais" she said quite matter-of-factly as she shook her head. We struggled for a few minutes attempting to speak less than adequate French with a woman who spoke no English. After a few awkward moments, we ended up with two pours of red wine, and a woman staring kindly but intently at us over a wooden counter. We mumble a few compliments about the wine in french ("mmm... tres bon...."), and skim through our French phrasebook for a feeble attempt at small talk.

Although the wine was delicious, the experience was painfully awkward. We attempted to pay for our tasting and move on, as we couldn't afford to pay the 50 euro bottles, but the woman insisted that the tastes were free. We left feeling confused and lost. We supposed that all of the vineyards would be a similar experience, and we wanted something a little bit more... relaxing. We drove back to the town center, where there was a multitude of wine shops also giving tastings. One woman who we spoke with was half French and half American. She was able to break down the whole wine tasting experience for us. She explained that the vineyards give all of the shops free samples, in hopes that someone will taste them and then purchase several bottles. They do the same thing at the vineyards themselves. They know that for every tasting bottle that they open, they will sell a certain number of bottles in return. They always hope to make a sale, but it isn't considered offensive not to purchase. We visited several other shops for tastings (we were still too embarrassed to go to another vineyard) and at the last one, we purchased a bottle to share with our host that night.

The plan for meeting up with Annette was to drive to the train station in Vergeze, and call her when we were there. I will summarize that horrible driving experience: We get on the wrong highway. We get on the correct highway... but in the wrong direction. Finally we end up on the correct highway in the correct direction. Annette sends us a text saying not to eat, as she is making dinner. Once in Vergeze, we cannot find the train station, even after many back and forth phone calls with Annette, and to top it off our gas tank is on empty. We arrive over an hour later than planned, but at least we have a nice bottle of French wine in hand!

Despite our tardiness, we are greeted warmly by Annette and Francis, a good friend of hers who is staying with her. Annette is a German woman from Berlin who moved to the south of France in 1990, the year after the wall fell. For the most part, she spoke English very well, but we did occaisonally have some trouble. I wanted to ask her more about why she left exactly, but I wasn't able to procure many details. The most I could get was that she came "for the sun and the sea". Francis, on the other hand, spoke zero English, so it was always an interesting and fun experience to be in a room alone with him trying to have a conversation. It was a lot of pointing, thumbs up, and charades. Over dinner (pizza for an entree, and a pasta alfredo with baguette for the main course) and wine (we really won Francis over with the Chateau Neuf de Pape, it was great, he was so impressed), we chatted and made ourselves comfortable. Of course there was also a cheese course before the meal was through, and several pours of wine. Eventually conversation drifted to French cuisine, and Andy's time cooking and my time as a serever at Pot Au Feu arose. We rattled off the various traditional French dishes on the menu, much to their delight. Francis lit up and expressed his sincere love for the dish Pot Au Feu, while Annette set her mind upon Beef Bourgignone. Over the next half hour or so Annette and Francis lightheartedly quibbled over wich would be a better dish to prepare for us, should we stay for another night. With the promise of Annettes homemade Beef Bourgignone and Francis' tarte tatin for dessert the next day, we opted to stay one more night.

I should also mention the smoking, or more specifically, the chain smoking. Of course we had both heard that the French smoke much more profusley than Americans, but I was not quite prepared for this. Annette was very kind and asked us if we minded her smoking inside, as she knew that Americans didn't smoke like the French. Clearly we aren't used to indoor smoking, but we weren't about to ask the woman putting us up and cooking for us for the following two nights to change her habits, so we told her to go ahead. I was shocked by the quantities they smoked. They both had several before pizza, two before dinner, a few between the pasta and cheese courses, and a few before going to bed. They must have each been nearing an entire pack each in the three hours that we shared with them that first night.

Although we noted the beauty of her house when we arrived, the next morning with the light of day, it was far more apparent. The house itself is a 200 year old stone chateau with vines snaking up the walls on the exterior, and old wooden crossbeams inside. The windows have shutters that actually close and the kitchen has an old stone fireplace that was in use during much of our time there. We ate figs picked fresh from the tree in her yard, one of the many different things that she grows in her sprawling garden, which also included a sizeable patch of tomato plants, eggplant, an olive tree, lavender, basil, sage, parsley, mint, and surprisingly, even a few cannibis plants. The barn attached to the home was nearly as large as the house and held a pool table, a bar, a ping pong table, several couches, beds and chairs. Everything was rustic, beautiful, and practical.

We had planned to visit a national park that day, famous for white ponies and a beautiful coast, but our plans were upheaved when we couldn't find gas. As I mentioned earlier, we were on empty from the night before. We drove to the main road, but gas stations were few and far between and the ones that we did find all seemed to be out of "sans plomb" or "unleaded". They did all have "gazole," whatever that was. Perhaps our little fiat would be happy with either? We call our rental agency to find out. Gazole is diesel, and no, the Fiat would not be happy, they explain. We ditch our plans for the National Park and head back to Annette's. Annette and Francis are both very kind and helpful, taking us to a hidden station down a sidestreet, and even offering her car if we still wanted to go to the park. We decide to relax and lay low for the day instead.

Dinner that night was amazing. Yes, I ate it. Beef Bourgignone was my favorite French food before going vegetarian and when offered it in a woman's French chateau, I couldn't turn it down. Tarte tatin is an apple tart that is baked upside down, so that when you turn it over all the sugar has carmelized on "top". It is a traditional French dessert and was wonderful as well. This night was truly one of our most vivid and special experiences to have so far on this trip. That night, we went to sleep with our bellies full and smiles on our faces.

The next day it was off to Paris!

Cologne

Because every church needs a little modern art:







We were in Cologne for three days after Belgium, but never made much of a post about until now... we are trying to get up to date. Over the next few days we are going to write about Baden-Baden, Annecy, and Paris. Right now we are in a very small town in the Western most part of Austria where we are staying with a few friends that we met while in London. They are in school in Innsbruck so we spent a few days there and then came out here to meet their families for a taste of "small town life."


In Cologne, we stayed with Wolfgang and Lika, a wonderful couple, right downtown. Lika was very welcoming and generous. Even though we didn't meet our first night because she was in a yoga class, she made sure to leave out blankets and pillows for us with chocolates on them! Our whole time there, she was either cooking us tasty macrobiotic food, personally mixing together a blend of different teas for us to try, or being otherwise splendidly hospitable. Wolfgang was extremly knowledgable about the history of Cologne and was pretty much our own personal tour guide during our time there. Our first night, while grabbing a beer at a neat little bar with dried flowers covering the entire ceiling, I breifly mentioned an interest in drinking white wine on the Rhine River. The next day when we woke up, Wolfgang had planned a daytrip for the four of us.

We hopped in his car and headed about 45 minutes away to a small wine region. It was exciting for us to be on the Autobahn, and we eagerly watched as the spedometer climbed to at least 190 kph, which is about 118 mph. It was exciting and interesting at the same time. It felt unusual to to go so fast, yet it didn't seem to be an unreasonable speed and Wolfgang handled the car comfortably. After exiting the highway we were quickly upon a small village that Wolfgang remembered going to as a young boy. We found a parking spot and walked to the village. After strolling around for a liitle while, Wolfgang realized that the wasn't quite what he remembered. Despite being picturesque, it was a bit of a "tourist trap" so we took a few photos and moved on. We drove deeper into the valley, winding around steep hills covered with improbably placed vinyards, skipping from town to town. That weekend there was an large wine festival taking place and every town was saturated with tourists and locals alike- parking seemed impossible. Though intrigued, we lamented not arriving earlier and chose to forgo a stop in one of these villages. We drove part way up a mountain not too far away, which was the highest in the area. We walked the rest of the way to the top on a well-worn path, where we found a tower to climb. The inscription explained that it was built to commemorate the wedding of a king several hundred years ago. We spent some time at the top admiring the view and snapping photos. Wolfgang and Like were thankful to be here as well, as they apparantly don't make it out of Cologne often. Afterwards, we took a short drive to a lake, located on a semi-active volcano. If you look carefully at the surface of the water, you will see bubbles of gas escaping from beneath the lake and rising to the top. We enjoyed the sunset and mallards for a few minutes before heading home. The day was relaxing and wonderful, it was so nice to get out of the city and into the woods, even if just for a few hours.

The next day we explored Cologne. It seems that every city on this trip has a cathedral that we "simply must check out," and in Cologne's case, we agreed. After 600 years of construction the Kölner Dom became the tallest structure in the world before the Washington Monument was built, and there is even a mandate to ensure that no building in Cologne can be built taller. It has a very unique history. During WWII, something like 90% of the city was destroyed and the Cathedral itself took 14 direct hits without falling. The interior was simply incredible - enormous and breathtaking. The high gothic style of the church made for an very stylized and busy exterior, while the interior was gargantuan and graceful with soaring vaulted ceilings, thick walls, and pillars made of heavy stone. After being inside it is not surprising that this structure withstood the bombings. The stone seemed as if would be simply impossible to move. At the time of construction, Germany (and Cologne in particular) was split religiously, between the Catholics and the Protestants. Catholics built the cathedral, and it took over 600 years to complete. When visiting, you are overtaken by the beauty, but at the same time confused as to why they would choose to build such an eyesore of a train station directly next to such a glorious structure. Shortly after the Cathedral was completed, the Protestants decided to build the train station right next door in order to show that they were still the more powerful and influential group. After climbing the tower to the top, if you look towards the Rhine, the trains appear to be headed directly for the church, but at the last second the tracks curve toward the train station. We did climb to the top, and though very rewarding, our thighs were shaking with exhaustion by the time we were finished. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring other parts of Cologne, and later we ate at a local restaurant with some very tasty authentic food!

Pictures!

We've added pictures to just about every post through Belgium. There will be more to come, but for now, enjoy!

Provence Day 2: Aix en Provence and Nimes

Andy woke with cold feet (literally) after our cramped night in Roussillion, and hit the road early, on a path to Aix en Provence. Our top priority for the day is finding a place to stay that is both indoors and has a bathroom. The town was pretty low key, so we just walked around and eventually found a restaurant with internet access. No one had replied to our requests for couches in Provence, it looked like we might be out of luck again. We decided we weren't really "feeling" Aix en Provence and thought we would check out Arles or Nimes, back towards the East. We realized at one point that we had left the phone in our car, but when we got back, there was a text message from a very nice man named Cyril. He saw our message and would be happy to host us in Nimes- but he wasn't actually going to be in town that night, we would have to meet up with his friend Melanie, who had a spare key. This was not typically the way things went, but with our only other option being sleeping in the car again, we took advantage. Before getting to Nimes, we stopped in a small town called Martigues, located between the Mediterranean and a very large lake. Because of the wind, waves were crashing violently over sea walls set a few meters into the lake to stop them from crashing onto the road nearby. Despite the high winds, it was a beautiful day. We walked along the lake for a little while, where they were hanging lights in trees for what looked to be some sort of party later on that day. After the walk, we finished our drive to times, calling Melanie to solidify where we would meet up . That phone call went something like this:

Melanie (H for her) in strong French accent: Hello?
Marisa (M for me): Hello, is this Melanie?
H (sounding cautious): Yes this is Melanie...
M: Oh, great! Hi, my name is Marisa, your friend Cyril told us we could call you to meet up and get the key to his apartment that you have!
H: I'm sorry, I cannot understand a word you are saying... who is this?
M (slower, annunciating more, and maybe with a French accent): I am sorry. My name is Marisa. SI-RIL told me to call you.
H: Who?
M: Sir-real? Sigh-ril?
H: Ohhhh! Cyril?
M: Yes! He told us to meet up with you to get his key!
H: I'm sorry, slower please.
M: He told us we could meet up with you and you could give us his key.
H: You want his key?
M: Yes, he told us you have a spare, and maybe we can meet with you to get it?
H: Cyril... he says a lot of things...
M: Ummm... if you can't, it's no big deal, we can figure something else out.

She goes on to explain that she has to work tonight, but she won't be there for another hour, but we can meet her there if we would like. We agree, she gives us the address of the school where she is working with the explanation that it is hard to find, and we set out to find an internet cafe to find this place. About ten minutes later, without finding internet access, I get another phone call from Melanie.

M: Hello?
H: I have a message for you, but I must speak very quickly because my phone is about to die.
M: Okay...
H: Perhaps I can meet you at the corner of Kennedy and Jean (insert very French last name here) in 15 minutes, is that okay? It is a very famous intersection in Nimes.
M: Yes! Can you just spell that out for me?
H: Yes, well, you know Kennedy?
M: Yes.
H: Okay, and J-E-A-N, like the popular French name.
M: Yes...
H: And gee-
M: I'm sorry J or G?
H: gee-

and the phone goes dead. Okay so now we have 15 minutes to race around Nimes, find an internet cafe and get to this corner. Luckily, not two minutes after she hangs up, I see a neon sign that says those precious words, "free wifi" (well, "gratis wifi...) and start shouting jubilantly for Andy to let me out of the car. He goes to find a parking spot, and I head toward the cafe. Between me and it, however, is a busstop with a map of the city, so I decide to check to see if I can figure out where we are and where we need to go. Strangely enough, it looks like we are about a block away from the intersection (Kennedy and Jean Juares it turns out). Great! Andy catches up with me after parking, and we walk to the corner. We are on Jean Juares, but this is not the intersection with Kennedy. We keep walking, and the next several intersections continue to not be with Kennedy. We turn around and go the other way. No luck. We ask someone if they can tell us what direction Kennedy is, and instead of pointing up or down this street, they point down another street! It seems like there IS no intersection between these two streets. We spend the next 15 minutes running around in circles, searching in vain. At this point, it has been about 25 minutes and we think that we are out of luck. The phone rings again!

M: Hello?
H: Hello, yes, I'm sorry, I think I may have sent you to an address that doesn't exist. Where are you?
M (?!?!?!?): Ah okay, that makes sense, I don't really know where we are, I thought it was the corner of Kennedy and Jean Juares... where are you?

She tells us she is in an Italian cafe down the street, and after a few minutes, running full speed because we are making this very nice girl late for work, we find her! We immediately start thanking and apologizing profusely for meeting us and for making her wait, respectively. She seems unaffected by the whole ordeal, and insists that we all sit and have a drink together. Over drinks, she draws us maps showing how to get to Cyril's apartment, warns us that it may not be very large or clean, and reccommends several cheap eateries in walking distance. Eventually we ask what he does for work. Well, he is a clown and acrobat in the circus, but tonight he is working as an extra in a film being shot down in Martigues... a nighttime beach party scene... just what we saw being set up a few hours earlier! We part ways with Melanie and head to Cyril's for the night where we slept among juggling apparatus and costumes, and showered next to his unicycle, which was stored in the bathroom.

Seriously... what a nice guy.

Provence day 1: Avignon

So, "the Steves" (this is how we now refer to our "dear" friend Rick Steves) says that to see Provence, you really need to rent a car. The trains don't go out to the beautiful countryside, and we didn't want to miss that. There was also rumor of 20 euro a day car rentals (that turned out to be false as far as we could tell) that fueled the fire to rent car. We weren't really worried too much about driving in France for a few reasons. They drive on the right side of the street, we both already drive manual, and we weren't going to be in a city. The largest hurdles would be figuring out street signs, and after a month and a half of seeing and using them, we were pretty sure that we would be able to get by. So with all of these reasons we signed an agreement and got a car for 3 days. However, after shopping around for a bit, the 20 euro per day car dream was quickly shattered and we settled on a tiny new little two door convertible Fiat, grey with a burgundy roof. What? I know. This time of year it was the cheapest option, so we went with it and we kind of forced it to be "top down" weather (it was already sunny, and we pretended it was warm, too). Naturally, the first thing to do was explore Avignon, our first city in Provence, so we drove to the city center and searched for a parking spot. We hit trouble when we accidentally turned down a one-way road. The car did not want to reverse! And an angry frenchman trying to get through is staring us down! So on every manual transmission, there is a diagram showing where all of the gear are located. This one tells us that to reverse, we have to go down from fifth, to the right, and then down again. It does not want to go right. We try twisting the nob. We try pulling. Pushing. We try straight down instead of right and down. Without the clutch. With the clutch again. Nothing works, did we rent a lemon??!! It WILL NOT go right. What the heck, man!!!! As a last resort, we put the car in nuetral, Andy hops out to push, and I steer. Of course at this point we are facing just slightly downhill and one person pushing it is not enough. Two young French guys come to the rescue and help Andy back it up. They ask if we needed any help, thinking it must be an engine problem and maybe we need a jump. We let them continue to think that, but Andy says "no, no. I think it will be okay," and when it starts up, they nod and walk off, not knowing what the problem actually was. "That was just about the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me." Yeah, and we still don't know how to reverse it. We pull off onto a sidestreet where there are just a few cars and we can park without putting it in reverse. After about ten minutes of trial and error (and feeling ridiculously inept and demoralized) we figure it out. Although we tried pushing the nob down, and pulling it up, we didn't consider grabbing the donut like structure encircling the shaft and pulling THAT up. Free at last!

With our newly acquired skill ready for honing, we parallel park the car without issue, explore town, and grab a light lunch. We stop in a little bistro with a relatively inexpensive lunch menu. I order a delicious omelette and Andy a (less than stellar) salmon tart. They offer wine by the cL, either 25 for 3 euro or 50 for 5. According to my recollection, 25 cL is quite small, so we each order 50. When the wine is set down in front of us, my mouth falls ajar: we have each ordered two-thirds of a bottle. Oops. I guess I was remembering that 25 mL is quite small. I guess we are going to be here for a while... Eventually, we down the last of our wine and walk off our buzz before heading out for an evening in the Provencal countryside. We pick up a map at the tourist's office that has little icons representing different towns and attractions (ie grapevines for vineyards, towers for castles, etc). Based on what appears to us to be one of the more interesting icons, we decide to head toward Roussillion, about 45 minutes east of Avignon. The drive is stunning. We are engulfed by rolling hills, olive groves, miles of vineyards fresh from the harvest, and an endless expanse of violet hues- lavender and rosemary. The sun, though not quite setting, has painted the sky an ostentatious shade of orange, and we can't help but stop and take a few photos. The town of Roussillion reminded us both of the (American) southwest, in both climate and color. Red rocks suddenly rose up out of fields of herbs and vines, and vegetation quickly dropped off. It was dry and warm when we arrived, but as the sun set, the temperature quickly fell. We got out of our car and explored the charred red cliffs of the small village, finally trekking to the town center, perched non-discreetly at the summit. Now the sun is in full on "set" mode, and the views (along with more photo-ops) are amazing. After poking into a few shops (wine, cheese, etc) we move on. We stop in an equally beautiful town called Gourdes, a few kilometers away. Gourdes does not have the same southwestern feel to it, but it is atop another hill, with winding cobblestone streets and narrow, climbing alleyways. At this point the sun has nearly disappeared and it is cold and windy. We are hungry, but every affordable place had shut down for the night (it was monday in off peak season, so we couldn't blame them) so we get in the car again and set out in search for food. We find it in another town on the map, Apt, which turned out to us to be a bit... hick. But the people behind the counter at the bakery where we got our dinner were very, very kind and even offered us an extra item at no charge for no apparant reason other than they seemed to be closing up shop for the day. As we haven't found accomodation via couchsurfing for the night, and we aren't ready to shell out cash for a hostel when we already blew our budget on the car, we make the decision to drive back to Roussilion, eat our dinner, and sleep in the Fiat. Several sleepless, backaching, cold hours later, we regret it, but do wake to a beautiful sunrise. :)

Lyon

To backtrack a bit... We spent three nights in Lyon. Getting to Marion's, our host, apartment proved to be a bit difficult. She told us what number bus to take but before we heard where we were to get off, her phone died. We successfully found the busstop and before ours came, she called me back. Once on board we had a new problem. A message was flashing on an electronic sign at the front of the bus, and although I can't read French I could pick out the words,"itinerary deviates after" and then the name of the stop that was two before ours. We called our host to ask if we should get off at a stop before ours or continue on. She hadn't ever seen this messge flash before, so she told us to ask the driver and call her back. A man interrupted our bickering over who would ask the driver if the bus would still go to "Ouillens Mairie", and asked if he could help. We explained the situation, pointing out the flashing message, and he offered to talk with the driver. Well apparently the message was wrong, the bus was stopping at all of the stops and in their regular order. Fantastic! Now we would just pay attention to the message board showing the stops and we would be all set, right?! Wrong. Somewhere down the line we realized that the stops were not in fact in order. Why would the bus driver or seemingly kind man lie to us!? We figured we would wait to see if the bus did stop at Ouillens Mairie before we started asking questions. It did not. We got to the end of the line and as the driver was getting out to stretch we struggled through asking about our stop. He explains the best he can that we missed it, the bus DID stop there. Feeling defeated, Andy pointed to the board saying, "it never said it." The board was not listing the stops that the bus was actually making: the message was wrong, and so were all of the posted stops. He was very kind and let us stay on the bus for the return trip, which had a different route and would not be stopping at Ouillins Mairie. He told us when to get off and pointed us in the direction that we wanted to go.

Marion was very confused by all of this, with good reason. First she gets a phone call from us saying, "oh no, the bus isn't going by you!" then the next one saying, "nevermind, its fine," and finally, "okay, sorry we missed the stop, but we got off here, can you come get us?" At last we did arrive. Marion lives with her boyfriend Rudolph just outside of Lyon. That night she cooked us quenelles, a traditional Lyonnaise dish similar to dumplings, and we chatted about our travels and learned about the three month backpacking trip that they did last year in South America. They reccomended some restaurants, "Bushons," where we could try some more traditional Lyonnaise cuisine. They also served some delicious stinky cheese (camembert, roquefort, and a couple others) and "yogurt" for dessert, which is really more like a delicious custard/pudding.

They were headed out to do some rock climbing, but we decided that we weren't up for that kind of physical activity so they dropped us off on the banks of one of the rivers that had a bunch of bars and nightclubs in converted barges. We strolled around casually checking out each place before deciding where we would land. The first barge had live local rock music and peaked our interest immediately, but we wanted to see what else there was so we continued on. The next one had house music thumping and was adorned with a giant Q on the front of it, and a herd of bros hanging out front. We kept walking. We passed a few places that looked a little divey or maybe even closed and then came to the last barge which seemed pretty low key, decorated with neon lights in all different colors. We ended up here, but only stayed for one drink after paying 6 euro for a pint of beer!! We found another (cheaper) bar not too far away and waited for Marion and Rudolph to call. Unfortunatly, when they came and picked us up, Marion was very sick with some sort of stomach bug. She ended up being out of commission for the rest of our time in Lyon. We offered to find another place to stay but they were pretty insistent that we could remain at their house.

In the morning we explored the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourviere and the hilly gardens leading up to it. The Basilique is a huge church perched on top of a hill with breathtaking views of the entire city. The gardens weren't in bloom (roses) but it still made for a scenic walk. I will warn, however: the climb was not so easy on the thighs. At the base of the hill was "Vieux Lyon," or old town, where there were supposedly a bunch of hidden passageways called traboules to get between buildings that were used by the Resistance during WWII. We spent quite a bit of time looking for them, as they are open to the public, but never found them. I guess they are pretty well hidden. On our way back through downtown we came across a protest, or manifestation in the main square. There were people marching in discontent parades, smoking flares, signs, and a whole lot of yelling things in French that we couldn't understand. We were amused for a little while and then moved on. That night we headed out to find a Bouchon. We had a list of all of the "official" Bouchon's, and even managed to find one that had a vegetarian option for me (they very typically center around meat and fat)! I had French onion soup as a starter (here, the entree). It had several sprigs of rosemary in it, which is a twist I wasn't expecting, but delicious nonetheless. Andy started with an "Assiette Gourmande" which was a bed of fresh mache lettuce with a slice of smoked salmon, several slices of smoked duck breast, and two warm toast points with a generous portion of foie gras on top and a carmelized onion jam on the side. Their house apertif was similar to a kir, but with red wine instead of white. We each had one with our entree. My main course was a plate of vegetables with gratineed potatoes, tomatos, and cucumbers, which was fattened up with a yolky and delicious poached egg. Andy decided to go with something extremely unique and not often found at French restaurants' menu in the United States; it was called "Melange des Gones" and consisted of traditional French components - tripe, saucisson, lardons, and tete de veau. For those unsure of exactly what this is it was a rich stew, slowly cooked, consisting of sausages, pork belly that has been poached and then crisped, the stomach lining from a cow (tripe), and part of the head of a calf, wropped around the tongue and slowly braised. To my delight it was served in a cermaic pot in wich the stew was hidden from view for the most part. Andy found the dish rich and delicious, however the texture of the tripe was a bit tough. The portion size was very large and proved to be difficult to finish, after the sizable entree and with dessert on the way. Dessert was of course creme brulee, my favorite (and yes it was great, but I'm not going to lie: I can still find my favorite in Providence, we'll see what Paris has to offer), while Andy enjoyed the Mousse au Chocolat with candied orange peels on top. Ah, and the wine. A 2009 Jonquieres Cotes de Rhone (we were sitting a few meters from the Rhone, what else were we to order?) complemented both meals and was quite tasty. Overall this was a terrific experience and we got great, quality food at a very reasonable price. With our belly's full, we set off, slowly, for the bus. However, because of the strike, the buses had stopped running by the time we were out of dinner. Luckily, Rudolph was at a friends house not too far away and we could ride back with him later. We met up with he and his friends and it turned out that the apartment was actually part of the traboules, the hidden passageways that we were looking for earlier in the day.

Our last day in Lyon was wasted away in an effort to find my jacket that I misplaced at some point the day before. We never found it, but Rudolph and a friend of his deserve some major recognition for helping out with the search, which lasted for way too long. We had planned to leave Lyon that night for Avignon, but ended up getting in contact with our friend Luke, who we had met in London while both couchsurfing at the same place. It was great to see a familiar face after constantly moving around and meeting new people. We hung out for a few hours with some of his friends, enjoyed some delicious homemade korean food, and then found a hostel to crash in for one more night (he would have hosted us, but after living in Lyon for over a month, he has not found an apartment and is actually still couchsurfing in the city himself).

The next morning we caught an early train to Avignon for 4 nights in Provence where we rent a car and couchsurf with a circus clown!

Internet access is spotty....

We may be off the grid for the next few days...

Lyon was great, I will post more sooon, and we are enjoying the countryside in Provence.... Next up is Paris. Any tips/advice/etc is greatly appreciated!

Embarassing....

We rented bikes today and rode around Lac d'Annecy. It was a great time until I flipped over my handlebars (literally... quite scary at the moment, but pretty cool in retrospect) while halting to a stop. It would have been fine, had the group of twelve year old boys not been there to witness it. There's nothing quite like a pack of pubescent boys making fun of you in a foriegn language. I took a grand bow and moved on. I left unscathed physically but emotionally... an entirely different story.


Tomorrow... Lyon.

Our very first train strike!

Well that was fun....

Yesterday we left Baden-Baden in Germany (Roman baths! So amazing!) after a quick one night stopover for Annecy, France. Using the Deutcsh-Bahn website we mapped our route all the way, but we were pretty confused by why we couldn't take a train from Geneva, Switzerland to Annecy (despite there being a train station in both locations). The website was pretty much telling us, "you can't get there from here..." So we found a bus that would take us the rest of the way. It wasn't until we had missed one of our five connections that a woman told us that the French were striking. Not just the trains, as we had heard rumor of, but buses and airplanes as well. She could get us to Geneva, but from there she couldn't gaurantee us anything.

Once in Geneva we were supposed to walk to a bus station, take a bus to another part of town, walk to a tram stop, and take a tram to the bus station that our bus to Annecy would (maybe, hopefully??) be waiting for us. And we needed to complete these tasks within 32 minutes. We said "screw it, we'll take a taxi." In a moment of panic we ran to an ATM, realizing that we didn't have any swiss francs on us, and also had no idea if the Swiss Franc was even on par with the dollar and Euro. Luckily, it was. We found a taxi driver, showed him the station that we needed to get to together with a 50 franc bill and topped it off with a look of hopeless desperation. He nodded for us to get in.

The bus station was closed and vacant when we arrived, with memos posted on the door that were saying SOMETHING about the buses to Annecy. After a frustrating 20 minutes or so (and no sign of the bus) we finally found someone who was also going our way, but the bus was going to be about 40 minuets later because of the strike. Phew. So, we are happily in France, being hosted by a couple very warm college students who live just a few blocks from the train station and main part of town.

Belgium Part 2: Brussels, Antwerp, and Bruges

We spent 4 days in Belgium. Two days in Brussels, one in Antwerp, and one day in Brugge - exploring each day from our host's, Peter and Lieke, home in Dendermonde(see previous post below).

Brussels is a very laid back city. For the most part we just walked around, stopping when we felt like it for fries, waffles, or a good Belgian beer. At home we are used to shelling out several dollars for a Chimay or Duval, but even in a sit down restaurant here, they were no more than 2.50 euro a piece. We now feel spoiled, and are not looking forward to paying $6 a bottle in a few months. There was a major EU conference taking place while we were there, which may have been interesting, had we known anything at all about EU politics, but ended up being very frustrating. First, it was somehow happening in one of the museums that we planned to visit, but also many of the roads in the heart of downtown were cordoned off with barbed wire fences, making it hard for us to figure out how to get from point A to point B. One thing that made it a bit easier was the free "Use It" maps that our hosts had given us, one for each of the Belgian cities that we would visit. The maps are made by some non-profit organization made up of locals who want you to have a good, non-touristy time in Belgium. They suggest things that might actually be worth our time and money versus what they consider silly tourist attractions. They also listed several ways to act like a local ("run over tourists with your bicycle" or "always complain that Brugge is dead, but if you hear someone else complain, start defending it") and surefire ways to piss them off ("what time does Brugge close?"). In Brussels it told us to skip the costly Atomium (a building shaped like an atom of some element that was supposed to change the face of energy forever, but didn't) and ride to the top floor of Parking Garage 58 instead. We did, and it was great! Totally free, no lines, and clearly no crowds. We were actually only going to hang out for a quick minute and then go see some live music around the corner but we ended up skipping the music and staying for over an hour. The views of the city were amazing. We also starred in a 2 minute student film that was being shot one day while we were looking for lunch (okay, "starred in" may be an overstatement, but we were asked to be in it). Later that day we visited a museum of Musical Instruments. Upon entrance we were given headphones to wear which worked via some crazy infrared technology: whenever we walked up to an intrument, we would hear it being played! The collection was impressive, with several cases of "families" of instruments, but there wasn't much to read in English and it was hard to tell which instrument we were actually hearing. We were in and out pretty quickly. And yes, we saw the peeing boy statue. It was rather ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the swarming Asian tourists snapping endless pictures in front of it.

We didn't get as far as we wanted in Antwerp, due to some problems on the train track on our way in. What should have been a 35 minute ride lasted for two hours. We pretty much used the Use It Antwerp map to plan our entire afternoon. We visited the Ruben House Museum, for just a euro for each of us. It was actually in the artist's estate which was a different twist. Much of the original furnishings and stamped leather walls were still in place, as well as Ruben's personal collection of paintings and sculptures. The architecture of the house and his courtyard and gardens were very pretty too... pillars, columns, high cielings, etc. Next we headed to a vintage shop just off of the main shopping street. Mostly we just looked, as we don't have much room in our packs to add to our wardrobe, but Andy did end up buying a jacket there. The highlight of Antwerp, however, was lunch. Again, it was reccommended by locals in the Use It map. The place was called "Diksmuidse Boterkoeken" and it should have been right down the street from the vintage shop. We had some problems finding it, and walked past it a few times. We finally realized that it was in the basement of a shopping plaza and made our way down. We were standing in the line at the counter looking at the menu, all of it in Dutch, not recognizing a single word and thinking maybe we should go elsewhere, when the little old lady behind the counter offered us a menu in English. A few minutes later, with sandwiches in hand, we were down the hall a bit and looking for a place to sit. The man who had made our (HUGE) sandwiches (for 3 euro each) was pulling out a folding table for us from behind their little deli counter. We thanked him profusely and ate our lunch right there, chatting with the two of them, ending up completly stuffed. They gave us each a free pastry for dessert and we signed their guestbook, which had notes from visitors from all over the world. That trip to the sandwich shop alone would have made our time in Antwerp worth it. That night we cooked dinner for our hosts and watched one of their sons gymnastics class. While we were cooking we heard Lieke on the phone and she came over and asked us if we wanted a place to stay in Bruges. Her friend was attending a couchsurfing dinner the next day and offered a place to stay. We had assumed that since we hadn't yet found a place we would be sleeping in a hostel. We graciously accepted.

Bruges is a very small, very quaint, and picturesque town. We arrived in the early afternoon and stashed our bags in lockers at the train station so we could walk around for a few hours before dinner. The streets that we chose to get us from the train station to the city center were somehow deserted. We were nearly alone, save for a few bicyclists and small cars buzzing by. It really did feel like we were on a movie set. Shortly we were in the town center where, though still quaint, we were far from alone. For the first time on this trip I actually felt like everyone that I was surrounded by was a tourist, or more accurately, everyone I was surrounded by WAS in fact a tourist. It didn't take away from the beauty of the town. It was interesting, looking around and seeing everyone taking a lame picture in a chocolate shop (surely at the displeasure of its owners) or pointing at something, or you know, wearing a fanny pack.... something to obviously denote that they were on vacation. The dinner that night was a much more intimate affair than the previous CS dinner we attended. There were only about 9 of us, and we were the only two non-Belgians in attendance. Again, everyone we met was just incredibley kind, asking about our journey and offering tips on places that they had been. Despite the fact that we were the only two people who didn't speak Dutch, they tried to speak only in English for the entire night, even if we weren't part of the conversation. Of course there were moments they would lapse, and we would enjoy trying to figure out what they were saying based only on body langage and similar words (two girls were recalling, very animatedly, a recent paintball excursion at one point. We were served four courses of vegetarian food. First, crackers with two different tapenades as appetizers, next a homemade miso soup with tofu and seaweed, the main course was a heaping serving of lentils and vegetables, and for dessert we had pecan pie served with hot chocolate shots! What a great night. One of the girls lived in Cologne for several years, and upon hearing that it was our next stop, she gave us all of the "must know" info. The woman hosting us, Martine, left a few minutes before us but made sure to tell us about a beautiful nighttime walk we could take before ending up at her place. The walk was just across the street from the train station, and is definitely a must for anyone visiting Bruges in the future!

In the morning we again left our bags in the train station and set out to enjoy more of Brugge. We were able to enter the Church of Our Lady, which holds Michelangelo's Madonna and Child. We leisiurely wandered around a bit more and stopped to spectate a few rounds of a Bocce-like game played with metal balls by a flock of old men, all smoking cigars and consumed with competition. This was pure entertainment. Later, we hunted down a bowl of reasonable priced mussels for Andy (food here is very expensive), the one Belgian specialty that we had not yet tried. We were about to give up and pay 20 euro for a plate but found some nice outside dining with a 10 euro mussels special! Much better. After that we were on the train again, this time to Cologne. (Ah, but not without a pitstop in Dendermonde one last time, where I had left my shoes!)

Wierd but true...

There are palm trees in Cologne. Also a flock of parrots flew over us in a park today. This is not a dream. Real life. :)

Belgium Part 1: Our Hosts

After Amsterdam we weren't quite sure where we were headed next. A very generous man offered a place to stay in Amsterdam but it ended up falling through based on timing. Instead, at about 4 am on the morning we were to leave the Netherlands, I decided to post an "Emergency Couch Request" in both the Brussels and Belgium groups. This had worked the first time we tried it, in London, and had a great time. To explain, the couchsurfing website has several different groups that you can choose to be part of, and anyone can create a group as well. Most cities and towns have a general group with information on what's going on and fun things to do in the area, and some cities that have particularly active couchsurfing scenes have groups devoted to finding last minute hosts for travelers. When I checked our post a few hours later, we had a message from Lieke, Peter, and kids. A Belgian family of 6, living about 30 minutes by train outside of Brussels, would be happy to host us. We were slightly cautious about staying with a family consisting of four children between the ages of four and fifteen, but as we read deeper into their profile, any doubts that we had were washed away. We quickly responded with a "yes, please! Thank you", and worked out the where and when we would meet.

We disembarked the train in Dendermonde, Belgium at about 8:00 in the evening and walked a mile, more or less, to thier house. It is a small town with well kept traditional Belgian houses and gardens and a quaint downtown area. When we knocked on their door, Lieke (pronounced Lee-kuh) answered immediatly and welcomed us with open arms. What a beautiful home they have! Thier whole first floor was an open floor plan with the living area opening up into the dining and kitchen. The walls were covered with family photos as well as some of Peter's original artwork. In the back of the house was an art studio and the children's playroom. Within a few minutes Peter had come downstairs after putting the younger children to bed and together they showed off their Belgian beer collection, pouring a local brew for each of us. We settled in at thier kitchen table to chat.

They have been couchsurfing with their family for years, mostly as hosts, and much of the discussion was centered around that. Before us, they hosted over 300 people from all over the globe. They explained that of course they couldn't afford to take their children on trips all over the world, so what better way to bring the world to them than couchsurfing? They have a few rules regarding their guests, ensuring that a cultural exchange is truly taking place. First, everyone must prepare a meal from their home country for the family. This was something that Andy and I were genuinely concerned about. Traditional American food.... hmmmm.... what were we to make... hot dogs... meatloaf..?? The second rule is that everyone must sign their guestbook. The rest of the "rules" are more or less guidelines- they expect us to chat with them, exchange stories, interact with the children, be courteous, etc. We were immediatly curious as to what the children thought about couchsurfing. It seems they love it. They bond with some guests more than others, of course, and sometimes fall in love with the cultural traditions that they bring with them (like drinking wine at a special Jewish feast that a man from Israel shared with the family). Each time a person requests thier couch, their profile is shown to the children for approval. Lieke also arranges CS meetings for the community, including singalongs in their own backyard afterwhich they sometimes have 40 surfers in their house and garden! She is the Family Ambassador for the entire couchsurfing network (several thousand families), and the ambassador in charge of making sure that every new member gets a welcome message when upon joining.

They have done a bit of traveling as well. Most recently they traveled to the Czech Republic with the whole family, couchsurfing the entire time. It is difficult for them to find couches for six people, which has landed them in some interesting places. For example, they stayed at the Swedish embassy in Prague for a few days because the Swedish Ambassador is a couchsurfer. Of course he is. I should also mention at this point (and perhaps it's already assumed) that although it is called 'couchsurfing' there are often beds available, sometimes rooms, sometimes a mattress on the floor, or even a square of carpet.

They told us of the positive impact that couchsurfing has had on their children and how it has broadened their views of the world (perhaps not compared to how it was but rather compared to how it might be). This was very clearly depicted in a story that Lieke and Peter shared with us. They were hosting a dark-skinned man (I'm sure they told me his nationality, but I forget what it was) and they asked their son Bavo to hold his hand out. They asked thier surfer to do the same and they asked Bavo (who is seven now - my impression was that this was a few years ago) what the difference between his hand and this gentleman's hand was. He replied that the other hand was much larger, and didn't note the color difference at all. The children have been growing up in a home where they meet people of different races, creeds, and colors on a near daily basis. They didn't need to be taught that everyone is equal because they have never been given a reason to believe otherwise.

And so went our time in Dendermonde. One night we were cooked a traditional Belgian meal, and for our meal we cooked macoroni and cheese with sauteed peas and carrots. We went to watch Bavo at gymnastics one night at a huge athletic facility around the corner from their house. There was a viewing room with a fully stocked bar where we were able to try yet another delicious Belgian beer. After we left, I realized that I left my shoes in their front hall. When we returned to pick them up Lieke gave us a ride back to the train station. Their kindness and generosity is not lost on us, it will not soon be forgotten.

I Amsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam at 7 pm and our host, Stefan was waiting for us at the train station. We were all hungry so he took us to one of his favorite restaurants- a cheap Chinese food joint. The Netherlands at one point occupied Suriname (a small country in northeastern South America) and thus their Chinese food has a bit of a Suriname flare. I still can't quite connect the dots as to exactly why the Chinese food in particular is influenced and not the rest of the cuisine, but nonetheless, Chinese-Suriname it was! The food was accompanied by, of course, Heineken, the only beer (I think) that we drank the entire time in Holland.

After eating, we got the cursory tour of downtown Amsterdam: the Red Light District (not nearly as sexually explicit as I was expecting- girls in windows, yes, but no blatant nudity or obscene gestures), the coffee shops (I think there were more coffee shops than bars - each catering to a specific stoner personality and attitude), and the canals- hundreds of canals with hundreds of bridges and more bicycles (and bicycle attachments) than I can comprehend. We eventually hopped on the night bus (which seems to have the same connotations in every city in Europe- slower, comes less often, possibly more expensive, and a lot of partying kids coming home after a late night) back to Stefan's place, about a half hour ride outside of the city.

The next day we decided to rent bikes- 3 days for 30 euro a piece, and we could forgo public transportation for most of our time in Amsterdam. Given the fact that there is probably twice the bicycle traffic than car traffic, it's really an excellent city to bike in. It is strange though, walking out of a shop and having to look both ways before crossing the bike lane, then again to cross the street, and again to cross the bike lane on the opposite side. There is even a special set of traffic lights for bicyclers. No one wears helmets unless they are racing, in which case they have the tight pants, cool sunglasses, special shoes, etc. This includes the children that are seated two in front of mom, on her handlebars and cross bar, and one on the back, sometimes in a seat, but often just sitting on the bare metal. Hollanders have legs made out of steel. It was sometimes a little disheartening when I was out of breath and one of these moms passed me with three kids in tow.

For the most part the weather was really ideal for being outside as well. It did rain one day, but we decided to just go with it. We paid for these bikes and we were going to get our money's worth! We were soaking wet from the waist down (awesome EMS rain jackets kept our top halves completely dry!) by the time we made it to the Van Gogh museum that day. We are both glad that we went, however it was small and it cost 14 euro to get in, which is far more than we have paid for museums elsewhere. The good news is that the weather cleared up by the time we were ready to leave. Just outside of the museum we came upon a beautiful public park, an oasis from from the tall buildings along narrow streets that were absolutely teeming with people. The park was peaceful and lush with towering willows and vibrant, glistening gardens. Afterwards, we did some more biking around the city, found a tapas bar to grab a meal, and met Stefan to attend a party where a fellow Couchsurfer would be performing.

It turned out that this party was some sort of block party in downtown Amsterdam for all of the neighborhood inhabitants celebrating the completion of a local metro station. The guys who had been asked to perform knew Stefan through couchsurfing in Berlin, so he gave him an unofficial invite. It took place on the empty top floor of an office building and served free beer and cookies all night (we love free). The views of the city were amazing, and although the crowd wasn't exactly "our type" we had fun dancing to lady gaga (yes pokerface, Amy, and no, I didn't do the dance) and trying to get the party started. Riding our bikes home after that made for an interesting experience, getting lost multiple times and zig-zagging our way home.

The following day, we visited the Anne Frank house. It was very, very moving - particularly contrasted with our experience visiting the concentration camp in Dachau. Rather than walking around a compound where unfathomable amounts of torture and murder occur ed like Dachau, we were touring the confines of an attic area where eight people lived in near constant terror of discovery - it felt personal, and real, and sad.

One of our most enjoyable experiences, however, was our bike ride in which we were returning our bikes to the rental shop. With no real agenda for the day, our ride was slow and casual on a sunny Sunday afternoon. As we neared the city center we turned down a bustling street; a long, straight shot to the train station with no cars - only bikes and foot traffic. As we weaved our way through the crowds, the gamut of smells that we whizzed through was intoxicating - fresh, warm grain smell from local bakeries; fragrant wisps of perfume from the posh ladies in the streets; rich hues of curry from the Indian cuisine shops; exotic plumes of dank smoke emanating from the many coffee shops; the greasy smell of potatoes from fry stands; the pungent odors of cheese shops - it wall all terrific and ultimately a symbol of what Amsterdam is - a true melting pot of a variety of cultures all crammed into a tiny, beautiful, cohesive grid of humanity swirling about.

We ended up staying in Amsterdam for slightly longer than we had originally planned because Stefan told us we had to stay for the weekend. Twist our arms. On our last night in town we went to a couchsurfing event and mingled with about 30 other surfers well as some other Amsterdam locals. We actually met someone from Westerly, RI and Zoe from Portland, OR doing an eight month tour of Europe and Asia, with whom we chatted with for most of the evening.Later, we drank some absinthe (the stuff we've had at home in the past was better, apparently this was not the "real stuff"), and for the first time this entire trip stopped into a McDonald's. We would have liked to go home saying that we didn't go to one for the entire time we were here, but oh well. Everyone walking by us had fries and when we went to the place that sold them they had just closed and McDonald's was right there. Oh well, we're not ashamed.

That's about all for Amsterdam, sorry if you were expecting some crazy stories. Next up, we stay with a family in Dendermonde, Belgium and visit Brussels and Antwerp. We left there this morning and it was a really wonderful and different experience so we're excited to share. Check back soon!