Grenoble Part Deux

So, on Thursday night we went over to Ben’s host apartment. He lives with a family, but on the second floor with the son, Madhi. At first, I was calling him Monty, but I may have been confused because of the book I was reading. Hana wants to only speak in French as of October 1^st, so I encouraged her to only speak French with Madhi. We told him wer were going to the Chartreuse distillery the next day. We kept saying “SHAAR-TROOSE” to him and after about ten times he finally said, “ah, Chartreuse!” with the requisite French accent. Story of my life.

The next day Hana and I went along on the group excursion to the Chartreuse distillery in a French Alpine town whose name has escaped me. Before the express bus took off, we found a cute little restaurant offering a “petit dejeuner.” The owners were sweet ad patient with us during our broken attempts to order in French (I took all my cues from Hana). I tried a tartine, which turned out to be an open-faced sandwich, while Hana had the ubiquitous Croque Monsieur. But the real show was the crêpewe ordered for dessert. People in France eat dessert at lunch too! It was called the Mont Blanc and it was crêpe with a scoop of vanilla glacé (ice cream), chocolate sauce, and the biggest pile of whipped cream I have ever seen (or eaten).

I thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the Charteuse distillery, even if it was completely in French. It had a little movie that condensed all of France’s history into about ten minutes with many mentions of chartreuse. It was great! At the end, we even got free samples, but I could not finish mine. After returning to Grenoble, Hana and I spent the afternoon flipping through French cookbooks at a department store and I ate some macarons from a sweet shop. We met Ben at the tram and went to a Belgian bar for happy hour. Two beers and some spicy peanuts later, I was speaking French like a pro. We ate more tartine (I ordered the Tartine al Normande, in honor of my Normandin roots) and we talked to French guy who had studied abroad in Kentucky of all places. We went to the generic Middle-Eastern hookah bar after for some tropical-mint hookah and jasmin tea. On the walk home, Ben climbed up the wall of the Natural History Museum and posed in a window frame. All in all, a very good night.

The last night, it was pouring rain outside, so we stayed in and made chicken soup. Hana was my sous chef (very French) and the soup turned out delicieux. All that was left to do was watch a chick-flick with Matthew McConaughey and eat the rest of the dark chocolate.

Grenoble, Rhone-Alpes

One of the nights we went out, Hana asked me what was my favorite place of this epic trip. It took some deliberation because I have enjoyed so many moments of the long journey, but at that moment, my favorite was actually my current location, Grenoble. I arrived in Grenoble after a full day of train travel. The long train rides are helping me achieve my goal of supplementary reading. If I’m no longer a student, I have the time to read books completely for pleasure, instead of scanning my massive volume of Thucydides. Hana met me at the station, arriving only seconds after me. I settled in at her apartment near the Parc Paul Mistral, and soon after went into town to have raspberry-flavored beer with her roommates and other friends from the study-abroad program. The next morning I set out on my own for the Musee de Histoire naturelle. The Museum was closed for sieste, so I walked a bit around the rose

garden. Roses always make me think of my mom, my granny, and my aunt Moni. I looked for a rose that best reminded me of them. I found this: Le Dame de Coeur, which I believe means Lady of the Heart.

The Natural History Museum was fascinating; I know I found it more enjoyable than the young French boys constantly pressing the buttons that light up the display and play the birdcalls. I left for a café crème down the street at a chic modern bar with a handsome bartender. A girl at the counter laughed at me when I left a tip. If being generous is a stereotype of the American traveler, I don’t mind. Hana met me at the Maison de Tourisme, and we took the bubble funicular up to the Bastille de Grenoble. It has some great views, but it was hazy that day.

We went into a strange modern art exhibit which was equal parts confusing and scary. The next day we were determined to eat fondue. Hana’s program director had recommended a place on the Rive Droit, La Confesse. It had a Halloween theme, but delicious fondue. Hana and I ate and drank ourselves into comas, while Hana’s friend Ben snuck a piece or two when the waitress wasn’t looking.

Return to Spain

The next adventure turned out to be a RyanAir flight to Alicante to visit my good friend Nikki. Being the over-planner that I am, I was nervous about taking a Ryanair flight. I had heard from my friend Gordon a few years ago about how confusing and unreliable their flights were. However, my fears were abated when Rocco told me that these days RyanAir is the only airline in Europe where the passengers don’t have to worry about the airline going bankrupt when they are trying to get through security. Rocco was worried about getting some school-related bureaucratic paperwork filled out, but he still took the time to take me to the bus station. I was sad to leave Rocco, but excited to see Nikki, whom I had barely talked to in over a month. RyanAir had a great inflight magazine with a feature on Berlin. It made me excited to go there later in this trip. I have been kind of anxious to get to the Swiss-Austrian-German part of the trip. Especially when I get to practice my German again and do some hiking in the Alps. It might be a cliché, but I want to go to the Tirol region of Austria and give yodeling a try. I had plenty of time to daydream about later adventures because the weather in Altea was thunder and lightning rainstorms for the entire week. This picture is a little hazy, but I took it before the rain started one day. Most of the week I just rested all day and then went out to dinner with Nikki. 

Tuscany

A lack of internet and a monster cold have prevented me from blogging for almost two weeks. I hope I never leave my readers (few) hanging for so long again. When I arrived in Milan, Rocco was waiting for me in the train station in exactly the kind of outfit a classy Milanese man on a hot humid day would wear: khakis, boat shoes, pink button-down.  

I had not realized how much I missed my Italian friend until I saw him and he immediately took all my bags to carry. His apartment is very chic, with huge windows that open completely to fresh air. I had a simple dinner with his mom, but I think the ricotta with olive oil is actually the best thing I have eaten in Italy so far. The olive oil comes from his grandparent’s house in Lucignano, Tuscany, which is where we headed the next day.

Rocco, Francesca, and I spent a week in Lucignano, mostly touring small Tuscan cities and eating pecorino. The first day we stopped in Pienza to have the first round of pecorino and admire the narcissism of Pio Secondo, Pope Pius II.  After lunch we drove to the Petriolo hot springs, which we would never have found without Fra’s brilliance at reading Italian road maps.

 The hot springs were too hot! We left for a dinner (wine, pasta, steak, dessert, coffee, the works) at an agritourismo called Santa Maria. It was a full moon, so we headed back to the hot springs at midnight to join the German hippie van at their bonfire.

The next day was spent in Siena. I was in a bad mood most of the day until we had some gelato. Fra said I ordered in Italian “perfectly, no mistake.” :) The cathedral was impressive, especially the tile floor mosaics. Unfortunately, none of my pictures turned out very well. On Sunday we went to Arezzo, where they happened to be hosting their yearly medieval festival. 

Every neighborhood has their own flags and colors and team of horse-riders and knights (?) It was confusing but fun; particularly when the rivalries became so heated that everyone was yelling “cheaters!” in Italian and making various hand gestures. We picked up a kilo of gelato from this amazing gelateria called Violetta to bring to La Lite for dinner. The next day my monster cold kicked in and I spent the day indoors at La Lite, napping and dreaming about missing trains. To make a long story short and skip over the Twilight Zone episode that was my first attempt at WWOOFing, I am back in Milan recovering by watching tv on Rocco’s couch. On Sunday I head out for the next adventure (TBD). Here is a picture of the lands outside Arezzo.

Le France

I spent one day in Aix-en-Pronvence, ate Pizza Capri per Noah’s suggestion, but it was so similar to Montpellier in some ways that I felt the traveler’s itch to move on. I did take the time to buy more presents for my family, at this street-side soap stand. 

I also went on a book buying spree at Book in Bar, because I think I will read a lot in Italy. 

When I couldn’t decide on one book, I bought three. The first is The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, which many people recommended to me in Berkeley. In the morning I hopped on the bus to Marseille with a bunch of lost American teenagers (I helped, like I have any clue).

So the first thing that happened to me in Nice was that I got conned by a guy at the tram platform. He did the whole “you speak English?” and then charged me 50 cents for showing me how to use the ticket machine. 

The same ticket machine I have successfully used several times a day since I came to France. 50 euro cents is not bad, but I hate getting conned out of anything. My mood changed when I got to the hostel, Villa St.-Exupery (like The Little Prince).  I immediately started chatting with my dormmates (Aussies and a cute British couple), running through all the traditional hostel questions (where ya from, where ya goin’).  The next morning I tagged along with Eddie and Mike (other hostel-dwellers) to Villefranche-sur-mer.  We got a bit lost, but eventually found: the beach. 

Why had I not been here all along? The beach in the south of France is exactly like a beach in Spain or Italy: Mediterranean blue waters and hot, hot sand. The reason why the south of France is so beautiful is really because of the houses on the Riviera.  I now understand why Santa Barbara is called the “Riviera of the West”.  The next morning, I did not want to leave, but I had Milan and Rocco waiting.