Tasting the Landscapes

Two weeks ago, I departed in the Loire Valley countryside, to the Closel-Chateau des Vaults. In the heart of the Savennieres hills, it felt like I had landed on an entirely new planet. Angers can be nicely eerie and romantic with its grey, cold, rainy wintery weather, but I didn't know until driving a few miles out how much I've been just wanting color.
It was the perfect day for a wine tasting. The hike through the steep rocky hills up to the peaceful plot of vines, and incredible view of rows and rows of green hills dotted with trees and daisies, made for my first blue skied day.
The winery has been passed down woman to woman throughout three generations with an intense passion for wine and the french landscapes. Madame Evelyne de Pontbriand led our group through the vineyard.

Every morning the Madame gets up, she says, and treks up the hill, where she sings to her vines and the bees and the weeds, amid the wild deer and rabbits. She carefully inspects them, taking notice of each's development and stages, tasting the berries to tell if the vines are ready for harvest.
The wines harvested here are purely from the vine, no additives, no chemicals-purely the result of the landscape. Certified organic, many of the wines are named after their specific plot of land, and as the madame told us, when you are tasting the wine, you are tasting the landscape and you are tasting culture.

*
We began with a spicy white wine-amazing flavor for something purely coming from the grape.
Then we tasted a white wine named Rain Water.
Then a sweet white wine and a newer Rose wine.
All were amazing.
She also talked to us about the many marketing and communication aspects of the wine business, and how wine tastings are the only way to communicate about wine to their audience or customers. California first took notice of this, offering wine tourism, and France soon followed.

It wasn't so much their passion for wine that was so great, but more so for nature itself-the way they respected it and coincided with the natural processes and organisms of the land. It made me want to change my major once again, but mainly made my realize the intimate connection we can have with nature by the everyday things we do, drink, and eat.

The next day at the market I saw this, as people returned to their favorite venders and farmers, getting their milk and their cheese from one, their bread from their favorite baker, their vegetables from another. They know the farmers, whom communicate to them their products like talking about their children. They know their food. They love it. And they don't rush through it.

I will not drink Franzia when I come back to America.

happy valentine's day

i wish i would've seen this when i was on the paris metro

Group Excursion in Paris

The Louvre
=overwhelming, hungry, feet hurt, beautiful
Dinner
=At least we got Creme Brulee

The afternoon was all a blur, until a shot of espresso and a nutella crepe at a food stand near the Louvre.
Saturday night, we went to what's supposed to be one of Paris's hippest clubs: Duplex.
20 euro cover, with 11 euro martinis, and a club full of french versions of jersey shore boys, a few hotties, but way too many polo shirts. Why is Abercrombie and Fitch so popular here? It was an interesting night. The Paris metro doesn't open back up until 5:30 a.m., and my friends stephen and seline, and I found ourselves the last one's to leave, trying to find a taxi we couldn't pay for, back to the hotel we didn't know how to get to. The whole while in the taxi we made plans to stay up all night at some 24 hour cafe and get burgers and espresso with the money none of us had.

Sunday we went to the Montparnasse Cemetery, and I ate a huge French hot dog-delicious and terrible. Then it was a day full of metro adventures. Off to Notre Dame, then Shakespeare and Company bookstore, and a boat ride down the Seine river, and some eiffel tower sightseeing.

I'm hoping to go back in the Spring and see Sacre Coeur, Luxembourg Gardens, and the Catacombs Museum, and then Versailles, and Monet's Gardens.

Paris

Arc de Triomphe

I was too caught up in the concrete landscapes and architecture flashing in front of my eyes to worry whether or not this taxi ride might be my last. My driver barely shaved past the surfaces of many cyclists and a metro bus, whilst shouting arabic curses at the islamic radio station he was listening to. Up since 4:30 a.m., with only a stupid 3 hours of sleep from the past night's crazy "when in france" happenings, I finally made it, an hour early in fact to the U.S. Embassy to hopefully get issued a new passport.

"The Consolate is closed today," a security personnel responded.
What?? Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-11 a.m., walk-in's, the website had said all this.
The security did not know why it was closed, but just said that it was very unusual and random. The one day of course, a friend (who had lost her passport in the airport), and I buy train tickets, 12-25 passes, taxi and metro fare, and book hostels and hotels, would be the day the embassy would randomly decide to close.
They met are blank stares, with a reassuring "well maybe they can see you" and called up the passport services. In the meanwhile, we sat outside, watching as one-by-one they turned away people needing new passports and visas, unaware as well of today's closing.
Finally we were let in. They said that the staff were in a training, so we'd have to wait for however long, until they could take a break or it was over.
After managing to devour most everything from the vending machines, a few hours later, the windows shutters opened and a lady appeared.
My name was called first. I had been told by everyone that the people at the U.S. Embassy in Paris are extremely helpful and friendly, and it would be a pretty easy thing to do.
The security had failed to tell us how utterly important these trainings were, so important that it could lead a 40 something American woman to yell at me, giving personal attacks about expediting my passport last semester...? It was the most completely bazaar situation i've ever been in. She asked me when I decided to study abroad, and if I knew what day Thanksgiving was this last year, and a series of other completely random, unprofessional questions, in which I finally replied, "What does this have to do with anything?" It's incredibly frustrating when you really want to call someone a bitch, but they hold your emergency passport on the other side of the window. I don't know why anyone wants to come to America after dealing with someone like that.
...someone needs to get some. food in that stomach, angry hungry woman.

After the Embassy ordeal, it was off to find the hotel that the two girls I was with had booked. The deal was for me to sneak in, and we'd all split a single room. We didn't intend for it to be a small shabby hotel, in which I had to call up to even ascend the red carpeted spiral staircase. The hotel clerks were right out of rocky horror, a fake crystal chandelier and a couch were about all that fit in the lobby-there was no way they wouldn't notice me staying.

So, then I was off to find a cheap hostel for the night. A tip from a friend led me to Oops Hostel on Avenue des Goblins, near the Latin Quarter, conveniently a few steps from the metro stop. It's thirty euros, booked the day of, for free wifi and computers, breakfast, showers, bunk-bed dorm rooms-not at all bad. We wandered aimlessly, unaware of the direction of the Latin Quarter, into what seemed like the Asian district, where I had Thai Seafood Soup and Pork Dumplings for dinner, and my friends went back to the hotel, and I then headed to to my bunk bed.
I woke up early before the all-boy room were still sleeping, and checked out. Unsure of where I was going to, only knowing I was supposed to meet the rest of our program around noonish for our Paris excursion near the Arc de Triomphe.

Oops Hostel Staircase

I went to the metro. Got off at St. Augustin around 8 a.m., and bought a mini quiche lorraine at a patisserie next to the St. Augustin Cathedral, and sat on a park bench finishing it, before wandering around the completely empty cathedral. My footsteps echoed and the my eyes grew dizzy from staring up so much at the stained glass. The janitor walked in, staring at me surprised. Thinking perhaps I came in during the closed hours, I left.
Following the signs to Champs de Elysee, I was stopped by a couple, who seemed to think I was french. "Arc de Triomphe" they asked me. I pointed to the sign for Champs de Elysee, and they thanked me in their very spanish French... i barely knew what i was doing myself...maybe i was just tired and didn't care...
I stopped for coffee at a street near the Arc de Triomphe, and wandered around not wanting to spend 6 euros on a ticket to go under the Arc, waiting to hear from the group on where to meet them. Then I walked down the empty Champs de Elysee, the employees of Sephora clapped and shouted trying to draw in customers, a gypsy came up to me asking if I spoke English, I became one euro less, and then an irish couple asked if I spoke English as well, and I directed them too to the Arc de Triomphe. Did I look like some English-speaking Arc de Triomphe expert?

St. Augustin Cathedral

I started to love this walking. Although, my shoulders were in pain from my heavy backpack and my feet were already tired, I didn't really want to meet up with the group...or bother to call anyone to see where they were at. I started to like the idea of not meeting up with them at all. It was exhilarating. Why was I doing everything I was supposed to do? I came here to explore...to learn french. For the first time, I was semi doing this. Away from the English speaking other American students in my program, away from the plans, far away.
so i quit the program and decided to stay in paris for awhile, until finding somewhere else to go.

jk. I met up with the group...but as I sat there drinking my espresso, I wondered what do I want? Do I want to be a Psychology major...do I want to be in France...why do I need a degree...really I see myself wandering, traveling, maybe getting a job at a cafe...learning to cook...eventually coming home to open my own place. All I need is a book on business, a business plan, experience, and a loan...
Was all this, which was my life right now, really for me?

Far Away

I had a reoccurring dream before I came here. I'm on a horse, running down a city hill into a busy intersection of ongoing traffic. I pull the reigns, but to no avail, we ride faster and faster. I begin to slowly accept the fate ahead. I let go of the reigns...and I wake up.

Where to start?
...
I began with a crash.
It was a spiraling brakeless descent of unfortunate events, which of course added and bottled up, became every unfortunate event that had ever happened.
My Macbook, my teal blue Cannon Powershot, my cheap French Cellphone, my iPod...all my music, my forty useless American dollars, and my passport-stolen.
Staring at my empty desk, in my empty french apartment, no trace or decoration of home or of myself, no communication with anything outside this little room,
I found myself, for the first time, truly, far away.

So, this is my excuse for being so absent from my blog lately.
The last two/three weeks have been filled with filing police reports, getting locks changed, planning trips to Paris, and finding time to walk 30 minutes to the school computer lab.
I've had no such honeymoon period, that period in which is supposed to set into students as my Office of International Education warned.

As I sat in my room that night, unsure what to do, nothing really to do, I found myself oddly and unescapably here. How Zen right? Except here, in France, I still can barely mutter French sentences or even read a newspaper. But I'm here. I'm taking the numerous bad luck weekends, and my often naivety as signs, because this slow sabotage can't be for nothing, I refuse to believe otherwise.
This month means two things to me:

1.) This isn't your place. Get out of this program. Go join an organic farm somewhere. Truly immerse yourself. Get away.
or
2.) Stay. It can only get better.

So I found myself 2 weekends ago, on a 6:30 a.m. train to Paris and an 8 a.m. taxi ride to the U.S. Embassy.