Easter Vacation – Week 1

Easter Vacation – Week 1

 

The Photos of the Loire Valley

The Photos of Bordeaux and Arcachon
I’m not going to mention too much about the Loire Valley because we didn’t do much besides visit some awesome castles. Also, I’m already out of Besançon and in the south of France, and my vacation was about a month ago. We had about 30 people in our group, with one or two who didn’t come from the CLA.

The first day in the Loire Valley (Saturday)

We spent the first day pretty much just traveling by bus. It was a longgg ride – 8 hours. Luckily, we stopped three times (breakfast, lunch and bathroom). We arrived in Tours, and we were wiped. My friends and I ate dinner together, and then we went right back to the “Auberge de Jeunesse”(hostel for young people).

The second day (Sunday)

We got back in the bus and headed to the first castle – Château de Chenonceau. Wow it was beautiful! Everyone went in to see the bedrooms and all the other rooms. The castle is basically surrounded by water (a river I think) except for the entry bridge and the small gardens.

After Chenonceau, we got back in the bus (boring), slept, and arrived at the second castle – Château de Chambord. It was four times bigger than the first castle. From the exterior (and the interior too), it is extremely impressive. We took some photos of the group (obviously except for whoever photographed it from our group). I didn’t want to go into all the rooms because it’s fairly boring (for me) to do that. So, I walked around the courtyard of the castle to see the tours and everywhere around the castle. Afterwards, we slept at a second “Auberge de Jeunesse” near Orléans.

The third day (Monday)

Finally: the last day in the Loire Valley. We went to Orléans (the birth city of Joan of Arc). We stayed there between 10:00 and 14:00. After 14h, the bus left for Besançon, and Brittany and I took the train to Bordeaux (it arrived around 20:00). That night, we didn’t do anything because we were too tired.

The first day in Bordeaux (Tuesday)

On the “first day”, Tessa and Carrie came from Toulouse to spend the day (with us) in Bordeaux. We did a cool bus tour (about an hour and half duration). I saw the majority of the most important monuments of the centre ville. A bit later on, we visited a really cool wine museum. Inside, there are a few small cellars filled with some history of the wine trade. There were trade ship replicas, trader journals and tons of old bottles. The old labels and bottles are really cool. The design of wine bottles changed a lot since the beginning of “commercial” wine production. There were also a few enormous bottles in the cellar; there was one that can hold 18 L of wine! At the end, we tasted two wines (one red and one white). The white was really good, and the red was ok – nothing special (well, not to my under-developed wine tasting and judging abilities at least…)

After the museum, we walked around a bit to find a place to eat. There’s a restaurant called “Paul’s Place”(if I remember correctly). We ate there. The owner is a guy that is from England but who has lived in France for almost 15 years. Nonetheless, his French wasn’t too good (surprising) so we spoke in English. I had a fantastic salad with pearled onions, tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. As for my meal, I have no recollection of what I ate (as usual). After dinner, Carrie and Tessa went back to Toulouse and Brittany and I explored a bit more then went back to the hotel.

The second day (Wednesday)

On Wednesday, we went to Arcachon, a small town on the ocean. It looks just like some parts of California. There are a few small beaches there, which was a big change for us to see (hadn’t seen one since October 2010). We ate there and then took a boat over to Cape Ferret, a peninsula not more than thirty minutes from Arcachon. A real beach! It was beautiful, fairly warm, and just amazing. I called my mom while I was walking on the beach to rub it in a little; she was very envious (sorry Mom). While we were there, we explored a bit and then visited the lighthouse. There are amazing views from up there, as well as a very cool map of the peninsula. Afterwards, we walked throughout the residential areas. Finally, we (unfortunately) left around 18:30. The water level of the ocean raised an enormous amount between our arrival and our departure – I was really surprised (there are pictures of it below). Back in Arcachon, we had two delicious Stella Artois’s et then went back to Bordeaux.

The water level when we got there
 The water level when we left

The third day (Thursday)

We didn’t do anything exciting because our train left around 14:00. Before the train, we walked around a bit to take in the beautiful views, the French people (and non-French people) and the huge river (La Garonne). Before leaving, we found a street full of antique shops. I bought a Harry Potter book, the first Lord of the Rings and a medical book (all in French of course) for only 5€ – that was pretty awesome, except for the fact that the medical book is way too heavy and I might have to leave it here because my suitcases are already much too heavy. After getting back to Besançon, I relaxed a bit and then took the train to Italy the next day.

– Matt Lipinski

Pugey and Arguel

Sunday, April 3, I went to Pugey and Arguel (nearby towns) with the CLA. The day trip had the same idea as my day with a family in Nans-Sous-Sainte-Anne.

I’m not gonna write a lot about the day because I only have two weeks left in Besançon and I still need to write about the Loire Valley, Bordeaux, Arcachon, Italy, and the end of my stay in Besançon. I can’t believe it’s basically already over!


This time, I was with Carrie: I felt a bit more comfortable because I was with another American (last time I was with a CLA student that I didn’t know). After we arrived, we had some coffee, tea, cookies, etc. Afterwards, we visited Pugey – the preschool and elementary school, the mayor’s “office,” a church, and a farm with cows, goats and…llamas (yes, llamas)! There are (as always) photos below of all that.

After eating, everyone joined up again to visit Arguel, another small village only a few minutes from Pugey. We hiked a little bit to visit another church and to find some amazing views of Besançon and of the two towns. It was another great day.


The classrooms
 The school again
 The world!
 The church in Pugey

Llamas !
 Ô la vache !
 March of the goats
 Another view (with the church)

Animal Planet
 Besançon!
 Pugey and Arguel
 My family (…for the day)
 More views of Pugey and Arguel


– Matt Lipinski

Le Tour du Monde en 80 Plats

So this is going to be a very short post. March 31 and April 1 in Besançon, there was the “Tour du Monde en 80 Plats” (tour of the world in 80 dishes). These nights are absolutely amazing and extraordinary. To simplify the idea of the two nights, students from more than 20 different countries all cook dishes from their own country. Afterwards, each country sells (not too expensive) these dishes to Besançon citizens, students, etc. There were more than 20 countries there, but there is no way I can remember each one. Every dish was incredibly delicious, but I think I like Venezuela, Iran and Thailand the best. I posted some photos below.

For example, there was:

Thailand, China, Taiwan, Libya, Madagascar, Japan, Venezuela, Romania, Russia, Iran, etc.

Venezeula – black beans, smoked chicken and beef with a small corn flour bread thing
One of the best beers of the night


Iran – rice with saffron, and other stuff I forgot; mixed with lentils and a yogurt and dill “sauce”

Thailand – chicken satay


You know how much I love Thai food; here’s some Thai students from the CLA


Welcoming in the hungry people

Amazing Cantonese rice

Venezuela – Yerba Matte

About two-thirds of the alcohol from the first night
Delicious…things from Syria

Fried sweet potatoes with a plum sauce from Taiwan
Japan girls dancing
Me with my pass for the night…this night I was named “Aína”

Chinese rice dish

– Matt Lipinski

 

Madrid Disposables

Disposables are trendy, sure, but it’s also just nice to have physical photos you can paste in an album (not the Facebook kind). Here are some disposable cam shots of Madrid from January to March 2011

A view from the street of some classic Madrid apartments

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I found these goons at The Feast of Fools in Plaza Mayor, one of the Madrid Carnival events in March

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Metro moment with my friends from France

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The view from my bedroom balcony. Madrid gets balconies right. Balconies for errybody!

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Angela is my good friend from New Paltz. She is in a separate program from me and goes to school in lovely Alcala de Henares. (Taken in my bedroom)

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Party Morgan. Me dolled up at a party

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Paris

About two or three weeks ago, I finally went to Paris. It was a great weekend. I’m feeling really lazy today, so I’m going to post a few pictures at the bottom of the post, and the other photos will be on Photobucket (I’ll put a link on here once I upload them). P.S. I hope everyone’s digging this new font…I totally am.

 


The first day:

I got there around 11:30 am, got a map, and made my way to the hotel. I was kinda lost so I just walked until I found La Seine (the huge river running through Paris), then followed it – luckily my hotel was almost right along the river. I checked in, got the room…huge bed! It was unfortunately not that comfortable though.

Afterwards, I ate at this tiny restaurant next to the hotel; I had duck leg with a massive heap of mashed potatoes with garlic and oil – it was sooo good. For dessert, I had a chocolate mousse. That was either the best or second best chocolate mousse I’ve ever had (aside from my mom’s of course).

By around 2:00 pm, I actually started my day. It was really nice out so I just walked everywhere – I probably did a good eight miles throughout the day. I went to the massive Notre Dame cathedral; it is massive, and incredibly cool. The interior is really big, and there were about two hundred people inside. There’s a small treasury inside that I went into (sadly, you have to pay a few Euros). There were old pope headdresses, old crowns, church relics, etc. – very cool!

After that, I was supposed to meet up with Brittany and Alison for dinner at Hard Rock Café, which was quite far away from me. So I gave in and took the metro for a few stops. I arrived…somewhere, and I had about two hours to kill. Luckily for me, I saw “Choco Story,” this really cool…(you guessed it!) chocolate museum! So I went in there, watched a demonstration of professional delicious chocolate making, and then spent about 15 euros on chocolate and a hot chocolate made the way the Aztecs did in BC times – very different, still delicious.

Finally, Hard Rock Café. It was hilarious to see one in French – most of the menu had English names with some French descriptions. As always in Paris, more than half the staff spoke fluent English. I got a pulled pork sandwich, which is quite far from the French diet I’m now used to, so I was quite nauseated that night…oh well. So I got back to the hotel, hung out, watched TV (my first time ever in France), read, then went to sleep.


The second day:

The clocks changed, so I was really confused as to what time it was. That’s not important though. I went to a café and had a delicious bruschetta with fresh mozzarella and basil along with two coffees. I also “second-handed…ly” inhaled about 14 cigarettes, during my hour stay, from the twenty smokers around me – gotta love Paris (and France in general).

Then I went to the Eiffel Tower! Woohoo! I didn’t climb up because I didn’t have cash on me, I didn’t feel like finding an ATM, and I didn’t want to. I met this American couple that somehow thought I was French, even though I have a massive beard, and I was rocking an American t-shirt with a brown plaid-flannel. Those characteristics exist in like 3% of French people my age. Anyway, I took lots of pictures from the exact same spot and then went on my way. I also bought Paris shot glasses and some Eiffel Tower keychains…souvenir obligations for other people. Oh and by the way, there are literally over two hundred vendors roaming around and under the tower trying to sell you keychains and what not – you can encounter one about every fifteen feet. It’s a little ridiculous.

As for my last place to visit, I went to Le Musée d’Orsay. It was incredibly cool inside. You’re unfortunately not allowed to take any pictures inside, though many people did. On my way back to the train station, I walked past Le Louvre to check it out – I had a bit of time to kill. It’s pretty much exactly how I picture it. I’d like to go check it out next time I’m in Paris.

About 7:30pm or something, I got back on the train to Besançon. So the trip was awesome, and I definitely prefer Paris over NYC. I really don’t like NYC. The only downside to Paris, aside from the fact that nobody will let me speak French with them if they realize I’m American, is that Parisians are fairly arrogant. Not a big deal though.

Oh and by the way, on the metro back to the train station, there was a group of “middle aged” people dancing in the train with a huge stereo. It was really weird, and extremely entertaining. They danced to whatever song is “I’ve got a feeling, that tonight’s gonna be a good night…” and a few others. There’s a photo at the bottom. When one of the guys saw me with his camera, he posed a little. Epic train dancing.







To better explain why I did not look French


Awesome metro dance party

– Matt Lipinski

 

Subjective Advice: Ways To Live Abroad

This is a real-life, unrehearsed, unscripted, [awkward] tour of my homestay apartment. Enjoy.

Homestay Tour

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Prospective study abroad students: a big question is what’s the best choice of living arrangement. Stay with a native family? Hunt down your own flat upon arrival?
Umbrella suggestion: it depends on what you want out of your abroad experience. For example, my choice of homestay (in which I was paired with Senora Pilar Gonzaléz Chao and my NYC roommate, Denisa) was motivated by my aspirations to be integrated into the culture.
However, after living with in a homestay for a few months I’ve detected some highs and lows I hadn’t considered before.
Here is a break down of experience of friends living in apartments, homestay families, and student residences in Madrid in the form of- you guessed it- a pros and cons list.

HOMESTAY FAMILY
Pro
– “True cultural experience.”
– Gain little wisdom nuggets from a native you wouldn’t get anywhere else:
historical facts, recipes, best places to eat or get a haircut.
–> 68 year old Snra. Chao told me where the free museums are, how to roll croquetas, where every festival in Spain is, and that the reason she didn’t learn to drive until her 20’s was because she refused to take the homemaking course mandatory with getting a license under Franco. Our dinnertime talks were one of the most meaningful aspects of my homestay experience.

Con
– Full board meal plan = No control over diet. If you’re a selective eater (dieting, vegan, picky), don’t get full board. Be prepared to eat as they people do. Madrileños: small breakfast, large lunch at 2-4 PM, tapas, dinner 10 PM.
– Language barrier (if you have one).
– No friends over. This came as a huge bummer to me because I prefer socializing by throwing pot lucks, having friends over for drinks or movies.
– Not recommended if you need your space.
– You have to eat within acertain time period

Depends
– You can’t be shy about specifying your wants. And prepare yourself for miscommunication. A health conscious peer of mine requested her senora add more vegetables to her carb/fried meals; croquetas and calamari became batter-fried cauliflower and peppers
– You can’t cook for yourself. Cooking is a hobby and creative outlet for me, so it was annoying to be forbidden from even frying an egg. Adding to the bother is when I’m scrutinized or fussed over when I’m just trying to spread jam on bread.
– Yes, you can still maintain a nocturnal social life; they know you are young, funky, and like to go out. You don’t have a curfew. BUT you do need to respect the family you are living with, such as being quiet as you can when you do

APARTMENT/PISO
– If you’ve already spent college living in an off campus apartment, why not try pressing the borders of your comfort zone and do something different? (ie, homestay family?)
– tend to live with other exchange people/ may be from other countries, but they are rarely Spaniards
– you control your own meals: you control your own diet, you miss out on cultural food because you cook what you’re used to

RESIDENCE
– The ones I’ve heard of come with a dining hall and your meal plan is mandatory since you don’t have a kitchen. If you’re a picky eater (or vegan, vegetarian) you may not want someone else deciding what you’re going to eat everyday. The girl I know lives on French fries.
– It’s dorm life. With a roommate.
– Probably procure a gym membership with your residence
– May have to eat within a certain time period; not whenever

*Advice based only from me + a handful of other people, from 1 semester in Madrid, Spain. Take it with grains of salt.

Strasbourg

Saturday, March 19, I went to Strasbourg with the CLA. We left from Besançon around 6h30. I was not whatsoever happy with the hour, especially since I had gotten 5 hours of post-St. Patrick’s Day sleep between Thursday and Friday. Luckily though, the bus stopped during the trip (about a 2.5 hr trip) so that everyone could get some coffee and breakfast.

I have no recollection of what time we arrived. It was ridiculously cold! After arriving and walking through town a bit, we took a boat ride to take a tour of the city – it was awesome! There were headphones at every seat with 16 frequencies to listen to the tour information in several languages – French, French for kids, English, English for kids, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, etc. I feel like I saw almost all of the town. The old buildings there are so cool, as are some of the newer ones.

Later on, we were “freed” for three hours to explore. I ate with Kirk in an Alsacien restaurant – I had an Alsacian dish with chicken, veal and mushrooms, all with a light cream sauce, on top of a bit of some cool bread. Deliciousness! Of course it was really expensive though…

Next, we visited the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg; I learned that it was the biggest building in the world between 1647 and 1874…that’s pretty badass if you ask me. The entrance is surrounded with tons of statue figures – there were a few that made me laugh a lot even though I don’t think that is exactly their intended purpose.

Very funny

 The fourth guy is hilarious

 

Inside, it’s incredibly large and the architecture is beautiful. I uploaded a lot more photos of the interior on my Photobucket album (link at the end of the most) to better explain/show what it looked like. Unfortunately, I didn’t know while I was there that you can climb to the top of one of the big towers of the cathedral.


After that, we walked through the city for awhile; before we had to go back to Besançon, we went to another church, after having found the Hotel of the Dragon on the Street of the Dragon…too funny. The church was creepy inside! There were statues of demons, skeletons, etc. Furthermore, there is a huge statue in the back with a lion, a skeleton or demon and a bloody battle. Weird.

Finally, we returned to Besançon. Strasbourg was incredibly cool, even though I was freezing the entire time.

The rest of the photos of Strasbourg

– Matt Lipinski

 

St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patrick’s Day in France was actually pretty awesome. I had class all day, which was not fun obviously. I easily broke the “anguish” of work by having a large Guinness upon returning back to my dorm. Afterwards, we went out to dinner at this placed called “100 Patates” (100 potatoes): all he cooks for dinner is potato variations. Oh my god was it delicious. We got a student price, which also included salad and a dessert…it was incredibly filling. The first dish is what Carrie and Tessa each got – three cheese! The second and third photo are of my potato – curry, chicken, raisins and grilled onions with a very light curry-cream sauce. It is one of the most delicious things in Besançon.

After an incredibly filling dinner, we went out to Madigan’s Irish Pub, in spirit of the evening, and had Guiness. After some time there, we switched to another Irish Pub, Kilarney’s, to finish off the night with Guiness and Kilkenny’s – both very delicious beers. We unfortunately missed the “free” gigantic Irish hat giveaway, but I did end up with several cool Kilarney’s cups in spirit of the evening. I essentially didn’t take any pictures since I was much too busy enjoying the evening!


The hats we unfortunately missed


– Matt Lipinski