Last Pictures from Southern France

Kitty!

The horse meat.

Enjoying our horse steaks.

1966 bottle of muscat.

Mmm...delicious chocolates!

Ordinary bookshelf?

Wrong! 

Hello Again, California

June 19^th –

Longest day ever!! I’ll spare you the details, but I am happy to report that we made it safe and sound to good old California.

I can’t believe the trip has come and gone. I had been looking forward to the France trip for such a long time, and now I just have the memories and pictures. I’m not about to complain though. I had an amazing time over there, and experienced so many wonderful adventures and tastes! I am so grateful that I had this opportunity, and I really need to thank Will’s dad a lot for bringing me along on this trip (not to mention the numerous amount of meals he paid for me).

I definitely would not have had the same experience if I was traveling by myself. Don’t go thinking this is how I typically travel. I admit that I was pretty spoiled on this trip (flying business class, staying in fancy hotels, eating very nice meals…), but hey – it’s not every day Will graduates from college! I don’t know about me, but Will certainly deserved this amazing trip.

Final Day in France

July 18^th –

It was our last day in Paris, and I still had one activity on my “to-do-in-Paris” list – go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. So that was pretty much our only plan for the day. We got to sleep in a lot later than we had been, and we ventured out of the hotel room around 11:30. One quick subway ride and a short walk later, we were at the Eiffel Tower. The line for taking the elevator up was extremely long, so we made the decision to take the stairs. Now, I first thought this meant taking the stairs all the way to the top, luckily they let you take an elevator once you make it to the second level.

Up and up we climbed, and I took the liberty of counting how many stairs we climbed. The total came to 704 steps before it was time for the elevator. That sure was a good work out! On the first floor, we got some lunch at a little cafeteria. Once our stomachs were happy again, we climbed some more, and then took the elevator to the very top. The view up there was of course incredible, and it was fun pointing out the places we’ve visited. The weather wasn’t as bad as it had been the past couple of days, so we were lucky with that. It was still a bit cloudy, but not too bad and no rain. The weather has been so weird on this trip! It wasn’t sunny and warm like I was told it would be. Too bad I didn’t really pack warm clothes. Oh well, I seemed to manage ok with what I did bring.

After climbing back down the Eiffel Tower, Will and I separated from Scott for a while to do our own shopping. I needed to get some souvenirs and gifts to bring home, still. I know… it’s so like me to put off the shopping. Once I was satisfied with my purchases, Will and I took the subway back to the hotel. It’s really convenient having a subway entrance right outside the hotel. We were able to spend some time in the hotel room, and we relaxed with a few episodes of “Friends”.

For dinner, we went the restaurant that we ate at on our second night in Paris. It’s the restaurant where they had little pig marshmallow desserts, but we didn’t get those this time. I just decided to have French onion soup because I was feeling kind of tired of meat. I think I’ll have to temporarily go vegetarian when I get home because I’ve had my fair share of meat on this trip. Well, maybe I’ll make an exception when I go to Erik’s Deli. ;)

We got back to the hotel room and before going to bed we packed up our suitcases. It was finally time to face reality and get ready for the long journey home. 

Back to Paris

June 17^th –

Our trip was finally coming to an end, and it was time to leave Southern France and head back to Paris. We took another train ride, and this time we made sure to leave extra early to be sure we didn’t miss the train. Thankfully, we didn’t. The ride went well, but I started feeling sick towards the end of the trip. I had been looking down a lot at books and a laptop, so I think I got a little motion sickness. Combined with that, these two men would go outside the cabin to smoke and then when they came back in the smell coming from them made my stomach feel ten times worse. At one point I was certain I was going to be sick, but thankfully didn’t. I was happy when we finally got off the train.

We checked back into the hotel we stayed at for the beginning of the trip. I didn’t think it was possible to get nicer rooms than the one we had before, but Will and I managed to get the nicest looking hotel room I have ever stayed in. I couldn’t believe how large it was for just the two of us! There were huge curtains that separated the sitting area and the bedroom. Behind that there was a ridiculously large walk-in closet. It didn’t get much use though, since we were only staying in that room for two nights.

We had some time to relax in the room, and then it was time for dinner. We decided to go out for some fondue, and the hotel recommended a restaurant for us. The restaurant was pretty nice, and we all enjoyed some cheese fondue and a baked potato. Walking back to the hotel afterwards, we saw a lot of police just standing around. There were even some outside of our hotel room. We asked the hotel what was going on, and it turns out that the Orthodox Pope was in town…and apparently staying in our hotel? Kind of weird. Too bad we didn’t run into him, although we did see a priest walking around.

Au Revoir, Southern France

June 16^th –

This was our last day visiting with Hervé, Katia, and the two daughters. Before leaving though, we took a short tour of part of the castle which surrounds the city. It was pretty neat to walk along the outer wall of the castle. If you happen to ever visit France, I would recommend Carcassonne. It really is a unique city.

We arrived in Montredon around 12:30, and soon it was time for lunch. A lot of people reading this will cringe at the thought of eating this meal, but to the French, there is nothing weird about eating horse. This isn’t my first time eating it either, and at least this time it was cooked as a steak. However, I seemed to get a really difficult piece to chew, so I ended up not eating a lot of it. Will helped me finish my steak, thankfully. The taste was fine; I just have trouble eating really chewy food.

After lunch, Hervé and Katia wanted to take us to the “mystery spot”. They told us it was about 30 km away, but the drive seemed a lot longer than that. It also went from a sunny day to cloudy and it was raining by the time we reached the “spot”. It’s one of those places that are like an optical illusion. It looks like the road is uphill (although it really didn’t look like much of an incline to me), but when you put the car in neutral, it will start to roll “up” the street. When coming back, you have to accelerate the car in order to get back “down” the slight hill. It was weird being in the car for this strange phenomena. I know it’s just an optical illusion, but it was still pretty neat to see. We stopped at the nearest town, Minèrve, and we walked around for a little bit. There’s not a whole lot to see there, but it was a cute little town.

We went back to their house for just a little bit after that, and then said our goodbyes before heading back to Carcassonne. We had dinner at a restaurant in town, and Will and I had some cassoulet since it will be a long time before we will have that dish again. The couple next to us was a French man and a Romanian woman, and they had a bet about whether other people knew anything about Romania besides the cars that come from there. Luckily for the woman, they were sitting next to two world travelers, Will and his dad, who have actually been to Romania. It’s a good thing she wasn’t just asking me because sadly, I don’t know anything about Romania.

Since it was our last night in Carcassonne, we needed to spend the credit that was given to us for the bar in the hotel. Will’s dad decided to order a white wine that was 43 years old (Will’s age + my age in a couple months). So it was a bottle from 1966... what madness! There was nobody in the bar, and the bartender said we could come with him to get the wine in the cellar. Of course we took him up on the opportunity! The door that lead downstairs was one of those hidden doors that look like a bookshelf. It was really neat getting to go down and see the wine cellars. There was so much wine down there, and we also passed a room with a huge cake in the shape of the castle. We asked the bartender about it on the way out and he said it was a wedding cake. Then he asked if we wanted some chocolate to go with the wine, and he showed us a room that had trays and trays of chocolates. I was in heaven! So he gathered a tray of chocolates for us, and we headed back up to the bar.

Then it was time to enjoy the wine and chocolate. I couldn’t believe I was drinking such old wine. I also discovered something since this was the first time having a glass of white wine. It is a lot easier to drink than red wine. It was a lot sweeter than red, although Will told me that wine is a lot sweeter than most of the white wines I will drink back home. Can you believe I drank two glasses of it (once again, I’m a wild woman)? We had a good time that night, and it was a real treat that we were able to explore the wine cellars. 

Visit to Perpignan

June 15^th –

Since this was our second morning at the hotel in Carcassonne, we were able to get a free breakfast at a restaurant right across from us. I was pretty happy about that because it had been a while since we’ve been able to actually eat breakfast. It was buffet style, so I filled up with a waffle, ham, croissant, fruit, and a little bit of scrambled eggs. We then left the hotel to head to Perpignan, where Katia’s mom, Michelle, and her husband, Patrick, live.

It was an hour and a half drive over there. We had met Patrick at the airport near their house, and we followed him home from there. They have a dog, which was some kind of poodle mix I think, and a cat, which of course I was very happy to see and pet. It was actually a friendly cat for the most part. It made me miss my three kitties at home. No, seeing the dog did not make me miss the ones at my house… What can I say? I’m a cat person.

We had some snacks and drinks before lunch was served, and I just stuck with Coca-Cola. Once again, this meal amazed me with how much food was brought out. I was told that they usually don’t eat this much food at every meal, but are serving all of it because we are guests. Almost every meal starts off with a platter of meats, and this was no different. After that came the main course and side dishes. We ate duck (I’ve had my fair share of duck on this trip, and am ready to take a break from it once I’m back home), potatoes, and tomatoes. I was so full by the end of that (I couldn’t even finish the duck), but they brought out even more food for us. Next came the salad, but Will and I had to pass on it, as well as the cheese that followed. We did manage to eat some of the little cakes that were brought out later, though. Finally, the meal was over and I could barely move from how much food was inside of me.

Patrick wanted to take us to see his boat. We went in his car, and he took us down to the docks. I was pretty tired by this time, and I was glad that we weren’t going out for a ride on the boat. I guess the water was too choppy to take it out, anyways. We did climb aboard the little boat, though, and he let the engine run for a little while. We also walked to the shore to look out on the Mediterranean Sea. From the shore, Patrick pointed out that the mountains we could see down the coast was actually part of Spain. If only we had time to explore a new country (well, new for me anyways)…

We went back to the house where we had another drink out in their garden, and then we headed back to Carcassonne. Will and I went out to dinner alone, and we shared a vegetarian pizza at the restaurant we ate at the first night in town. Before our food arrived, the man and woman next to us decided to strike up a conversation, noticing that we were speaking English. “Oh, you guys are speaking English. Where are you from?” We told her we were from California, to which she responded, “Are you guys on your honeymoon?” HAHAHA! It was tempting to make up some elaborate story about our “honeymoon”, but decided it was best to just tell her no. It did make us chuckle, though. Hey, the hotel did have an envelope in our room with “Mr. and Mrs. Maynard” written on the front. Maybe there’s something we’re not telling anybody? ;)

French Living

Enjoying some sausage with Roquefort cheese! (Katia and Herve on the right)

Approaching the Millau bridge

Here you go, Brian!

Outside the hotel in Carcassonne.

Check out the view from our balcony!

Horse anyone?

This is the scariest looking fish I've ever seen at a market.

These snails are alive!

These snails are screaming (not really, though).

These snails are ready to eat.

Jo Jo is taking a nap on the couch.

Lili in front of the humongous pot of cassoulet!

Playing some petanque.

Look at my skills! ;)

Love Songs and Fire Crackers

June 14^th –

It was the first day in a long time that we got to sleep in. We had a lazy morning and stayed in the room until noon, when we met Will’s dad to go get lunch. We found a restaurant, and I decided to have another cassoulet. Will ordered pigeon and had me try a piece, so now I’ve tried a new kind of meat.

We spent the next couple of hours shopping. Will and I split off from Will’s dad for a bit. Of course it starts to rain as we are shopping, but Will and I had an umbrella from the hotel luckily. We have really been unlucky with the weather because there have been very few days of sun here. I did not expect the weather to be like this, so of course I don’t have any clothes for this kind of weather. Will didn’t even pack a jacket, but of course says that he doesn’t need one. He’s crazy. ;)

So Will and I went into this one store that was pretty much empty except for the sales woman. There was music playing on the radio, and as I was picking out some gifts for my friends, Will tells me to listen to the song that started playing. I recognize it almost immediately as “our song”. For those of you who don’t know, “our song” is sung by a French singer, Francis Cabrel, and it’s titled “Je t’aimais, Je t’aime, Je t’aimerais”. I was wondering if we would hear it sometime on this trip, and it actually happened! Ok, I know it’s not really exciting for the rest of you, but Will and I were pretty happy to hear it by chance.

After shopping for a while, we met up with Will’s dad again and headed back to the hotel room for some relaxation time. Will’s dad was in our room when he decided to investigate some type of fire cracker that he had bought. Before I know it, he lights one of them. I don’t know why he thought this was a good idea. At first it was just like a candle. All of a sudden, there are two extremely loud BANGs and the fire cracker shoots to the ceiling. Umm…clearly they are not intended for indoor use. There are now two black spots on the ceiling (really high ceilings, might I add). Brilliant! *sigh*

Will and I watched some episodes of “Friends” on his laptop, and then I took an hour nap. For dinner we found a restaurant nearby. I wasn’t feeling very hungry, so I just had some onion soup, which was a lot better than I thought it would be. Will and his dad got meals that came with dessert, and Scott didn’t really want his so I picked out a chocolate mousse to eat. Mmmmm….it was delicious, and a good way to end the night!

Last Day in Narbonne

June 13^th –

Most of the family met us at our hotel, and we went in their cars to Narbonne to walk around a street fair and market. It was similar to other street markets I’ve been to, with lots of booths selling an assortment of items. There was a large building where all the food was sold, and we walked inside there for a bit. There was a stand that was selling horse. See? It’s not that uncommon in other parts of the world to eat this meat. I’ll be eating horse later on this week, in fact.

Afterwards, we went back to Hervé and Katia’s house for some lunch. Before that, though, they decided to make a treat for us – escargot! These were not like the escargot I’ve eaten one time back in the U.S. They collected these snails themselves from the yard, and threw them on a pan to show us. Yes, they were alive. Not for long though. I felt kind of bad for them since they were then put onto the stove and cooked. Katia tricked me into thinking that the high pitched noise coming from the pan was the snails screaming. Will calmed me down and told me that it was the water sizzling in the pan, and that snails do not in fact have vocal cords, therefore cannot scream. Then came time to eat them. I tried one, but didn’t really like the taste all that much. Will convinced me to eat one more, and then I was done. Making the snails was kind of a treat especially for us, and Will says that most Americans will never eat these kinds of snails in their lives because the only kind they make in America are Burgogne snails, which are cooked with lots of garlic and butter.

For lunch we ate cassoulet (bean and duck stew), a specialty of Southern France. The entire family was over, so there was a ton of cassoulet. I couldn’t believe how large the pot was that they used to serve it! More and more food kept coming out, and I was so stuffed by the end of it.

Then came time for petanque. I ended up on a team with Will, Katia, and Katia’s mother, Michelle. I had some poor throws, but then also a few good ones. It was pretty fun, and our team ended up winning the first round. We played it again, but this time the other team won. I was getting pretty tired by the end of those two rounds, so I’m glad there wasn’t a tie-breaker.

We had already checked out of our hotel in Narbonne earlier this morning, so we were ready to head to our next location – Carcassonne. It was only about a 35 minute drive, and we are staying in a walled city with little shops and restaurants. It’s actually a really neat place to stay. Our hotel room has a beautiful view, too. We found a little restaurant to have dinner at, and Will and I had the Croque Monsieur sandwich. The shops were all closed by then, so we decided to do our shopping the next day. Will and I were looking forward to having a more relaxing day than we’ve had since coming to Southern France. 

Stinky Cheese

June 12^th –

It was another early morning leaving the hotel room and an even longer car ride. Hervé and Katia met us at the hotel, and we followed them to Roquefort, where we were going to look at cheese caves. For those of you who don’t know this already, French cheese is kind of a big deal here. I’m personally not a big fan of most of them because they are much stronger than I’m used to. I managed to squeeze in a little nap in the car on the way over there.

We first had some lunch once we got to the city. We ate salad and sausage in a Roquefort cheese sauce, which actually was pretty good. The Roquefort cheese tastes a lot like blue cheese, so I am somewhat used to that flavor. I also had the chance to try a new drink – Pastis. I just had a sip of Will’s drink. It’s really weird because it tastes exactly like black licorice. Now, black licorice isn’t my favorite taste in the world, but I can at least tolerate it. It’s nice that you can make it as strong as you want depending on how much water you add to it. After filling up on food, we made our way to the first tour.

There were signs warning people to wear warm clothes,  and it’s certainly a good thing I decided to listen to them! We have to make our way down into the cave, and it’s about 55 degrees down there. The tour guide only spoke French, but we were given a paper handout with English on it.  Another thing about a lot of French cheeses – they stink‼ We could tell when we were getting close to the cheese because there was a really bad smell in the air. I’m sure the French who are used to this kind of smell have no problem with it, but I certainly did not enjoy it. Besides the smell, though, the tour was pretty interesting. They had some cheese samples at the end, but I decided not to have any.

We decided to go on another cheese cave tour. This one was a lot more crowded, and it appeared that a school field trip was there. Again, the tour was in French, but we were given another English handout with information about the cheese caves. This tour wasn’t as long as the first one, or as interesting in my opinion. There were more cheese samples at the end, but I decided to pass again.

On our way back to Montredon, we stopped at the largest suspension bridge in the world, the Viaduc de Millau. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw it! It was extremely tall, and I told myself that I would never want to cross that bridge. Luckily, we were just at the bottom of the bridge, so I didn’t have to cross it. It’s amazing that they built this bridge in only three years!

After the car ride back, we went over to Hervé and Katia’s house again for dinner. We had leftovers, which I had no problem with because I was happy to eat more of the lasagna. One thing I’ve noticed about French meals is that they never end! Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit, but they do continue for a really long time. Just when I think the meal is over, they will bring out something else for us to eat. Because of that, we end up staying at their house pretty late, and I get so tired by the time we are back at the hotel. This is part of the reason why I’m slightly behind on my blog posts. Oh well, at least I’m having a good time!

Finally, More Pictures For Your Pleasure!

A rainy day at Notre Dame.

Will wants to be a gargoyle too!

Yet another overcast day. I had to borrow Scott's sweater that day.

Chateau Queribus

What a view!

French Castles

June 11^th –

Taking the advice of Hervé and Katia, we decided to explore remnants of an old French castle, Quéribus. We were told it was only 40 minutes away, but it turned out to actually be an hour and a half long. We were really hungry by the time we got there because we didn’t stop for breakfast, so we had to backtrack a little bit to stop for some food. After our stomachs were full again, we went back up the steep hill to the castle.

Unfortunately, the weather in Narbonne tricked me into thinking that capris, a t-shirt, and no jacket would suffice for the day. It was bright and sunny there. However, when we arrived at the castle, it was very cloudy and since it was on the very top of a mountain, there was a good amount of wind. Needless to say, I was freezing! It was nice of Will’s dad to let me borrow his sweater, because I would not have been a happy camper if I had to go the entire time without anything protecting my upper body. Despite the cold, I enjoyed visiting the castle. We explored every room available to us, and the view up there was pretty incredible.

As we were walking back down the hill to the parking lot, we hear a noise behind us and I look to see a military fighter jet coming around the castle…extremely close to the mountain! Before I have time to prepare, the noise increases to the point where I’m sure the jet is going to crash right into us. It was so close! I got really scared and latched myself onto Will, who was smart enough to plug his ears as soon as he saw the plane coming. I really wish I had thought of that because the jet was louder than anything I’ve ever heard before. I’m surprised I’m not deaf right now. Will and his dad estimated that the jet was about 30 – 35 feet from us. It was close enough to see the pilot, although I didn’t see him as my head was glued to the back of Will’s shirt. Man, talk about an interesting way to end our tour of an old French castle! I don’t want to be that close to a jet ever again, thank you…

I slept a little bit on the way back, and when I woke up we were close to Hervé and Katia’s house. We hung out at their house again, like the night before, and this time Katia’s grandparents joined us for dinner. They don’t know any English, and even Will has a really hard time understanding the grandpa because he mumbles, speaks really fast, and doesn’t enunciate. He’s kind of funny though, because he likes to make sound effects when he speaks. His family started making fun of him for it at one point.

Before Manon (the younger daughter) left for a birthday party, we were looking through her English book for school. I was really enjoying looking through it, to see what they are teaching French students in 5^th grade. What is really interesting is that they teach them British English, so some of the words seemed strange to us. For example, an exercise read “Do you often hoover the living-room?” which is supposed to mean “Do you vacuum the living-room?” I also thought it was weird that they taught them abbreviations such as “ ‘cos” for “because” and “ ‘t was” for “it was”. I think I looked through the entire book because I was trying to find some weird English in there.

Dinner this night was probably one of my favorites of the entire trip. Katia made lasagna, and she told me the recipe came from one of her Italian friends. It was really tasty! Also, I finally drank an alcoholic drink that didn’t make me cringe. Before dinner they served Sangria, a Spanish wine with fruit in it. We had lychee in our drink, which I also had never tasted before. I have to say that it was the easiest alcoholic drink for me to handle so far. It was sweet, and I even managed to have two glasses. Look out…I’m a wild woman now! ;) They served another drink after dinner that was also not as bad as I thought it would be, although I prefer the Sangria. This drink was called Cathargene, which is unique to Southern France. Katia’s grandpa actually made the drink we had, which was aged for 10 years. I only had a sip of Will’s drink, but I probably could have handled a little bit more. Look how adventurous I’m being here in France!

After the drinks, we went to the community center to watch a Pétaque tournament. That’s the game that Will taught me how to play at his graduation. There were some really good players. It was interesting that there were no women playing the game, and when Will asked Katia why there aren’t any women playing, she said that women were just never interested in playing, and prefer to take walks with their girlfriends while the guys play. I’m supposed to play it on Sunday with a lot of people, so now that I know it’s not really a woman’s game, I’m kind of nervous. Although, you’d think as a student of computer science I would be used to being outnumbered by men. I’ll just have to put my game face on and show those men up on Sunday! 

*Note: Sorry I'm behind on the pictures. I promise they will be up soon!

A Taste of French Culture

June 10^th –

In the morning we took a taxi to the train station, but when we got there we weren’t quite sure where to get our tickets for the 11:20 train ride to Narbonne. There was supposed to be a machine to print off our tickets, but Will’s dad said it wouldn’t accept his credit card (although I’m not sure why one was needed since the tickets were already paid for). It turned out we needed to wait in a somewhat long line, and because of that we missed our train. We had to catch a different train, which wasn’t leaving until 1:20, so we had some lunch at the station while we waited.

It took two train rides to get to our final location, Narbonne. The first stop was in Montpellier, which was about three and a half hours. During the second train ride, two obnoxious men sat next to us. They were drinking wine from a Fanta bottle, and were asking people around them for a lighter and money. They tried talking to us, but Will’s dad tried to get rid of them by saying that he knows “only a few words” of French (clearly he was lying). Besides them, the ride went smoothly and around 6 pm we arrived in Narbonne.

We were greeted by Hervé and Katia, Will’s French friends who live close to Narbonne in a village called Montredon des Corbières. I had to do the French “cheeky kiss”, which was kind of strange for me, although Will did try to prepare me for it. We got ourselves a rental car (which is manual drive, by the way), and drove to the hotel we are staying at. After checking in and dropping off our luggage, we followed Hervé and Katia to their house.

The village they live in is very small, with only 800 people living in it. Their house is very cute, with a gate out front, and a nice view of the county side. We said hello to their two daughters, Camille and Manon. I think Camille is about 15 years old and Manon around 11. We sat around the table, had snacks, drinks, and then ate dinner. There was duck and pork filet mignon, but I just stuck with the pork that night.

I had an interesting cultural experience this night, because I was in a house with people who only spoke in French. Will and his dad would respond and have conversations with them in French, while I just sat there with not a clue as to what was being said. Luckily, I had Will there to translate for me whenever I asked. I’ve always known that Will was fluent in French, but I had never really heard him speak it much until this night. I loved listening to him talk to the family in French! I’m so jealous of him for being fluent in another language. If only I had the patience and dedication…

Even though I couldn’t contribute much to the conversation, I still had a lot of fun, and enjoyed the dinner and company. We stayed really late, and I was very tired by the time we got back to the hotel. We are here in Narbonne until Sunday, and I will enjoy the experience of spending time with an actual French family. 

Notre Dame

June 9^th –

So before coming to France, I was told it would be extremely warm and sunny. However, most of our time in Paris has been really cloudy and cooler that I expected. This was probably the first day that it rained all day, though. It kind of limited what we were planning on doing, but we still ventured out to see some new (for me, at least). It was our last day in Paris before heading to Southern France.

We decided to travel by subway because it was going to be a lot cheaper than taking a taxi, and now we were feeling more comfortable with figuring out how to get to our desired location. Three subways later, we ended up by Notre Dame. Before making the climb up, we went down into  the Crypt. There weren’t a lot of people down there, and it consisted of some old ruins of the city.

We then entered the church, and I was instantly surprised by just how large it was, and how tall the ceilings were. It was really beautiful, as well. At one corner of the church there was some sort of prayer ceremony going on, but I don’t know what it was for because they were speaking in Latin, a language I am even less familiar with than French.

Even though the weather was not the greatest, I had to experience the top of Notre Dame.  Although it was clear that this was an extremely large church, for some reason I was surprised by how many stairs we had to climb. It circled around and around,  and I was beginning to wonder if we would ever reach the top. We did of course, but not before climbing up a second set of stairs, which felt even longer than the first. I was so shocked to learn that the same staircase we used to get to the top of Notre Dame would be the same staircase we use to get down because there is no way both could happen simultaneously. When we reached the top there were a lot of people waiting to begin their descent. It was still raining when we reached the top, but I didn’t really care at that point. It actually felt refreshing after climbing all those stairs. The view of Paris was still absolutely gorgeous. After making our way around the perimeter, we made the long climb down.

We were pretty thirsty by the time that was over, so we stopped at a café and had some Orangina. Everyone was feeling tired by the time we got back to the hotel, so we all took a nap to refresh ourselves. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, and for dinner we walked around until we found a restaurant that looked appetizing. I had some grilled tuna with caramelized onions that was really good. Since dinners are eaten so much later here, I was again exhausted by the time we left the restaurant, and went to bed after we got back to the hotel . I had to pack up my suitcase first, though, because the next morning we were off to Narbonne! 

Photographic Memories

Yes these are actual bones and skeletons...

Will looks so happy to be here.

This is for you, Tejas!

Hi Nicolette! (I'm skyping with her)

Piggy marshmallows. Aren't they adorable? 

This is the wine list...or more like the wine catalog. It's huge!

Want some ice cream? Well too bad, because this is foie gras. Haha!

The toppings for the caviar from left to right: egg white, egg yolk, onions, parsley, and cream.

The main course: Duck! There's also some weird potato puff next to it.