Tapas, Paella, Sangria, and...Chocolate Pie??

Three of my favorite foods ever came together (kind of) in one weekend. It was wonderful. You might be wondering how and I am about to tell you!

I travelled to Barcelona, Spain this past weekend to meet up with some of the friends from Furman who are studying abroad in Berlin. I got there Friday night, had tapas, and went to bed early (too early for Barcelona), but I was exhausted and used to going to bed by like 10:30. Saturday was a blast! We went on a free walking tour of Barcelona, got lunch in La Boqueria which is a giant fresh market with fish, seafood, vegetables, fruits, candy, chocolate, and a lot of little restaurants, and then visited the Sagrada Familia, one of Gaudi's most beautiful structures. I was lucky enough to visit Barcelona in high school so I had already seen Sagrada Familia, but in at the time the inside was unfinished. Luckily they had finished the inside sometime after my high school visit. It was amazing getting to see the inside completely finished because before it was mainly scaffolding with a few stained glass windows peeking through, but now it's a massive Roman Catholic cathedral with plenty of space and light. It was a day full of Spanish culture and food.

La Boqueria

Earlier in the day we signed up for a cooking class where we learned how to make the famous Spanish dish paella. We accompanied the chef to La Boqueria where he bought fresh clams, mussels, calamari, prawns, salmon, vegetables, and saffron for our paella. We then went to the restaurant had amazing tapas that featured iberico ham, two types of chorizo, manchego cheese, tomatos, bread, potatoes braves (fried potatoes with a spicy cream sauce on top), and fire roasted green peppers. It was all so fresh and really delicious! I was in heaven. We also got unlimited sangria so you know we all took advantage of that. While snacking (technically devouring) on the tapas, I made four new friends who are awesome! There was a big group of us so the girls I sat with and I sat with people we didn't know. That was one of the best parts of the night: getting to know really interesting new people. Soon after we finished the tapas the chef started cooking the paella and the room immediately filled with the mouth watering smell of onions, garlic, and peppers. Once the chef finished the paella he had to let it sit for about 30 minutes for the rice to soak up all of the flavor and broth from the seafood and spices. During that time he taught us how to make sangria. I'm most definitely going to be taking that recipe back to Furman with me for next semester! Finally the paella was ready to eat and let me tell you, it was one of the best things I have ever eaten. I had had paella before, but nothing as fresh and flavorful as this. It is definitely going down in the books as my favorite meal ever, which is quite an accomplishment because 1) I am terrible at deciding my favorite color, movie, book, etc. and 2) I love almost all food. Overall, this weekend was an amazing one spent with wonderful friends and amazing food in a beautiful country!

You might be thinking to yourself, "How does chocolate pie have anything to do with this?" Just you wait. This weekend was a long weekend for us because we didn't have class on Monday, so last week my "French sister", Béryl, and I decided we would make my mom's chocolate pie on Monday! It was quite an adventure. I slept in that morning and found out that it was Saint Martin's day and since my "French family" has a son named Martin, we were going to have a big lunch for him. It's like a mini birthday celebration. I didn't have much time to make the pie, but luckily I only had to get a few things at the store and my little "French brother", Stan who is 9, accompanied me. It started off smoothly but then we realized that the dough we had was for flaky dough, not the normal pie crust we have at home. Also, they don't have cream of tartar here, which is kind of essential to have a really pretty, big meringue. But we decided to go ahead and do the best we could. There also wasn't a mixer like I'm used to at home so I tried using a food processor that worked well enough, but I unfortunately mixed the eggs whites too much the first time so they were just soupy. Then when I was putting more egg whites into the food processor, they fell through the little hole in the food processor and then proceeded to quickly slide off the counter and into the dishwasher...just my luck. I quickly grabbed a paper towel and cleaned it up, but I knew the meringue just wouldn't be the same. At the end the pie came out tasting fine even if the chocolate filling was kind of runny, the pie crust not completely cooked, and the meringue almost non-existent. But Béryl and I had a great time! Definitely a bonding moment.

Tomorrow we're heading to Paris to visit the Musée d'Orsay, which is one of my absolute favorite places in Paris. It used to be a train station so the architecture is beautiful. Also, the best collection of impressionist art in the world is at the Musée d"Orsay (impressionism's my fav). I'll be sure to take lots of photos. This weekend we're traveling as a group to Strasbourg and I have my fingers crossed that there will be Christmas markets. Although I do not support celebrating Christmas by listening to Christmas music or decorating before Thanksgiving, I would love to see what little things they have that I can buy because I can't go to a new place without buying something. I can't believe this will be our last weekend traveling together as a group! We have a little less then three weeks until we leave France to travel for 12 days around Europe on our own or with our families. It's unbelievable how quickly time has passed since I arrived at the beginning of September. I guess it's true that time flies when you're having fun, because I know that I've had the time of my life.

"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." -Ernest Hemingway

(I just finished The Paris Wife by Paula McLain last night. It's a fabulous book about Hemingway's first wife. If you have the chance, you should read it. It's very easy to read and I learned so much about Ernest and Hadley Hemingway.)

Also, I am unable to add anymore pictures to the post! I don't know why, but blogger won't let me right now. Sorry for the lack of pictures! :(

P.S. I have officially succeeded in asking and receiving sushi without seaweed in France. Therefore I know that I could live here forever.

12 students, 1 professor, 23 cities, 2 weeks

What a crazy two weeks it has been! Starting bright and early October 19th, we set off for our two week "Tour de France". During October the french have a two week vacation called "Toussaint." This means that most of the schools are closed and most of the working people don't have to work. It's a time for rest and relaxation, but I can assure that we got very little rest or relaxation. However, we did get to see 23 amazing cities in just 16 short days. It was a little overwhelming at first waking up at or before 7:00 every morning, but after the third or fourth day, I got used to it (kind of). We are incredibly fortunate to have this opportunity. The cities we visited were:

Orléans
Poitiers
La Rochelle
Bordeaux
Pau
Lourdes
Toulouse
Carcassonne
Durfort
Montpellier
Aigues Mortes
Nimes
Arles
Marseille
Aix en Provence
Pont du Gard
Avignon
Orange
Lyon
Vichy
Beaune
Dijon
Vézelay

         fair in Bordeaux

A few of my absolute favorites were La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Lyon, and Vézelay. From wandering around looking at boats in La Rochelle to going on crazy fair rides in Bordeaux to going to the beach in Marseille to going to Catholic mass with a thousand boy scouts from all over Europe in Vézelay, there was never a dull moment on the trip. Even when I wanted nothing more than to sleep all day because I was so tired, I got up and went on the tours and loved most of it! Lyon was probably my favorite city overall. It's a huge town, but it's not all cramped together like Paris is. The Rhône and Saône rivers both run through Lyon and it's just beautiful. There's also a radio tower that looks exactly like the top of the Eiffel Tower. It looks like the top of the Eiffel Tower was blown off by super strong wind and brought to Lyon. We only spent two nights in Lyon, but I definitely could have stayed much longer.

sunset in Lyon

Now onto the food. I'm kind of a food snob, but I love trying new things. The one thing I tried for the first time on the trip that left a not-so-positive impression on me was stingray. I actually ate a piece of stingray. We were in Pau, which is not known for its stingray (I don't know if any area is known for their stingray). We started off the meal with an awesome onion quiche and I was really excited for the next course! Then the stingray came out and at first I just thought it was some kind of fish so I cut into it and realized it was most definitely not "some kind of fish." I finally realized I was eating stingray and had vivid flashbacks to seeing the back of a truck filled with dead stingray in Africa which then led to me not finishing the meal. Other than that, the food was AWESOME. In Bordeaux Chrissy found the best spaghetti ever. I still think about it all the time because it was so good. For some reason we decided it would be a great idea to go ride rides at a fair after eating a ton of pasta and each of us having dessert. That was not the best idea I've ever had. Fair rides in France are nothing like they are at home. The ride lasted no less than five minutes, which doesn't sound like a long time, but when you're being thrown through the air at an incredible speed after eating enough pasta for two or three people, you feel like you're going to die. At one point about 2.5 minutes into the ride it stopped, so I thought it was over. Little did I know it had just gotten started. We then got thrown backwards and it was no longer enjoyable. Somehow I still managed to have a great time even though I thought I was going to get sick.

I had to throw in a picture of Lauren and I in Marseille!

I have just a little bit of time this week to rest and then Friday afternoon I'm off to Barcelona to meet up with some friends who are studying abroad in Berlin and Spain! I got to visit Barcelona for a few days in high school and had a blast. I'm so excited to go back and hopefully get some paella and sangria! When I get back I'll have just three short weeks until it's time to start the travel at the end of the program. I'm lucky enough to get to travel with Chrissy (the spaghetti finder) and her family! Chrissy and I are first going to Munich for four days and then meeting her parents in Rome. We'll then travel around Italy until the 10th of December and then we'll leave for the U.S. the next day! I'm excited to go home but I know I'm going to miss everything about France so much.

sunset in Marseille

Just Call Me Heidi

Heather. It seems like an easy enough name in English. It rhymes with many things: weather, feather, leather. But unfortunately for me, it is incredibly difficult for the French to pronounce. One reason is because they don't pronounce H's at the beginning of words and the second reason is that they don't have words with the "th" sound in them. So far I've gotten Ezzer, Heda, Edder, Eezer, and finally Heidi. My French family finally decided within the past few days that they were just going to call me Heidi since it's 1) easier for them to pronounce and 2) it's a Polish name and they're apparently part Polish. So from now on in my house, my name is Heidi (but without pronouncing the H).

It seems like the time is flying by here, which is good because it means we're busy and that I'm very much enjoying the experience, but it is also unfortunate because I don't want this semester to be over. Of course I miss my family and my friends at Furman, but I'd be perfectly fine if they could all just move over here with me.

Within the past week we have been to Paris twice, Chartres once, had a wine tasting, and learned about French geography, theatre, and grammar. Last week on our free Friday afternoon a group of the students went into Paris to visit Cimitière Père-Lachaise where Gertrude Stein, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, and Oscar Wilde are buried. It was a very beautiful and peaceful cemetery. After that we did a little shopping in the biggest and most crowded department store ever and took the train back to Versailles. Saturday was our day trip to Chartres, an exquisite cathedral with amazing stained glass windows. We had a tour in French of the cathedral, and although I had already seen it in high school, it was wonderful getting to see it again. After lunch we had another tour that was only focused on the stained glass, which was fortunately in English. It was fascinating hearing about the stories the windows tell, plus the tour guide was amazing. He had even been to Furman! Plus he had a British accent. Precious.

Sunday was the first sunny day we had in a while. It was in the mid 60s and really nice outside so I decided to go on a run that was off my normal path. I decided to run around the château and ended up getting super turned around and lost. My 30 minute run turned into an hour trek around Versailles trying to find the right street because every avenue and boulevard looks the same. I was exhausted and starving (but when am I not hungry?). Luckily we had a lunch planned and it was buffet style. Oh yes. We had salad, tomatoes and mozzarella, roast beef, sausage, ceviche, cheese, fish, pork, mystery meat, and plenty of desserts. Good thing I had to run for like an hour that morning. Anyway, the mystery meat turned out to be tête de veau...I had no idea what this was so I ate it. It ended up not being favorite and no one could really tell me what it was. So yesterday during our conversation group I asked Madame Chauchat what it was. It turns out it was the intestines/head of a baby calf. Yikes. Thankfully after that we had a wine tasting where we tasted nine different wines: four white, four red, and one that was aged since 1998 and was super sweet. I liked most of them and was able to learn a lot about wine. We had to spit out the wine between bottles or else we probably wouldn't have been able to walk afterward. Such a waste of good wine.

Our second week of classes started on Monday at 8:30am and it was rough, but knowing that I'm in France made waking up early a little better. This coming weekend we stay in Versailles again and tour the château and the gardens. We had the opportunity to this when I came with Mr. Johnson in high school and I'm really looking forward to seeing everything again (especially the gardens because they make me think of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire during their final task). 

"Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages."

-Louis Pasteur

Excuse My French but I'm in France

Well I have been in France now for a week and it has become significantly less frightening, although I still get super nervous speaking French to my family (even though I shouldn't because they're very helpful).

I can't believe all that we've done in one short week. Last Thursday we went to Paris for 4 nights and did more walking than I've done in my whole life combined and saw some incredible places and monuments, did some shopping (unfortunate for Joseph since he's the only guy on the trip), and ate some amazing food (who knew foie gras sauce could be so amazing??). However, I am very happy to be back in Versailles with my French family. I am not so happy about having to start classes, but our professors seem really interesting and are kind enough to speak slowly!

Today was a really busy and exciting day because after our civilization class we had lunch at the house of one of our professor's, Madame Chauchat. She is actually from America but married a French man and has lived here ever since (my dream...). We then went to la maison de parfums and got to smell a TON of French perfume, which  kind of gave me a headache but also made me want to buy some perfume called "La petite robe noire" or little black dress in English. Honestly, what girl doesn't want perfume called little black dress? After that we went to a restaurant called Monument Cafe and tried almost all of the desserts France is known for including les macarons, les choquettes, les petites madeleines, les beignets, and a lot of French candy. This was seriously any girl's perfect afternoon and I loved it.

Unfortunately and fortunately (but mostly fortunately) all of the food here is amazing and I eat all of it all of the time, which means I have to do some sort of physical activity. Today's physical activity including going for my first run in Versailles and it just happened to be next to a field of sheep and goats. I almost felt like I was back in Kentucky. Then I got home and my little French brother, Stan, gave me a cookie so that kind of canceled out my run, but at least I tried.

So far my time in France has been so amazing and I couldn't have asked for a better trip. I'm sure it will continue to get better!

"Voice mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le couer. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yuex."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

Tiny planes, Narriman, & Zanzibar pizza

Hujambo! Habari gani? (How are you)

After staying in Tanzania for a few days we took the smallest plane EVER to Zanzibar, an island right off the coast of Tanzania. I wish I had taken a picture on my phone of the size of the plane so I could show you how tiny it was. The plane ride was only about 20 minutes and it was awesome getting to see parts of Tanzania and Zanzibar from above. Once we landed in Zanzibar we went to lunch at a local restaurant called Passing Show that is supposed to have the best biriyani in Zanzibar. Biriyani is a delicious Indian dish that has some kind of meat or vegetables in a spiced sauce along with rice that has also been mixed with spices. It reminded me of Indian curry, but it wasn't quite like that. I also tried tamarind juice, which I had never had before. I had only ever heard of tamarind but never knew what it was. It looked and even kind of tested like cranberry juice, but it wasn't as tart. It was actually pretty good! 

A picture of the menu from Passing Show:

Once we were finished with lunch we checked into our hotel and headed off to listen to a guest lecture from Narriman, one of Dr. Beymer-Farris and Dr. Bryceson's good friends. They both said she is quite famous on the island and after hearing her speak, I can understand why. She talked to us about Zanzibar a bit and then told us about a project she has started that is focused on empowering women. Since Zanzibar is a predominantly Muslim society, the women don't have nearly as much freedom and independence as we do in America. Narriman realized this and wanted to help change that so she is working on a very successful project right now that encourages women to collect pearl oysters and use the shells and the pearls to make jewelry to sell. She said that before the project many of the women would barely speak, but after working in the community and becoming a little more independent, they love to talk. Some of the women were even selected a few years ago to go to America to help present the project and their work. The project is much more complicated than how I'm explaining it right now, but it really is an amazing opportunity for the women. Narriman might actually now be one of my favorite people! She was very inspirational and well-respected by the community and someone I really enjoyed listening to. 

Later that night I got to try Zanzibar pizza in an outdoor park where a lot of local vendors were set up and it was so good! It's not at all what pizza is like in America; there's no pizza crust, marinara sauce, or even cheese and they are tiny. It was more like a cross between a crêpe and frittata, if you can imagine that. I got a vegetable pizza that had chopped vegetables, one egg, and mayonnaise in it. It sounds a little weird, but I promise it was delicious! I also ordered a banana, Nutella, and chocolate pizza and it was even better than the vegetable one. You honestly cannot go wrong with Nutella. 

Like the last post there's still so much I want to say but I feel like this post is already quite long. I'm definitely loving my time in Africa so far and cannot wait for what the rest of the trip has in store. It should be very interesting and a great learning experience. 

Karibu tena!

Karibu Tanzania!

Hujambo everyone!! We safely arrived in Tanzania on Thursday night. It's been amazing so far! The jet lag was a little difficult the first night, but yesterday it didn't seem to affect me at all.

Yesterday was our first full day in Tanzania at White Sands Resort. We woke up and ate breakfast outside looking at the beautiful beach. Since the tide was out we were able to walk out pretty far. We saw sea anemones, crabs, and many other little creatures. Since the weather was cloudy and overcast we had planned on staying at White Sands and hearing a guest lecture from Professor Ian Bryceson. Luckily around noon the clouds cleared up and we were able to take Prof. Bryceson's friend's boat over to Mbudya Island. Prof. Bryceson told us how he met his friend when he was 17 years old and they are practically like brothers. It was great getting to meet his friend; he was very kind and friendly.

That afternoon we took the boat over to Mbudya Island and as we neared the island we could see men out in their boats catching us fish for lunch. I was so excited for the fresh fish!! Once we got to the island we listened to Prof. Bryceson talk about how different sand can be on different islands and also he gave us a brief history of Tanzania. It was so interesting! After his lecture it was time to eat our lunch because they insist on eating the fish right when it is finished cooking. It was the best fish I had ever had! I'm not sure what kind of fish mine was but some people got parrot fish. We didn't have utensils so we ate with our hands, which is normal here. It was a little difficult but I got used to it. They had this amazing tomato based chilli sauce that went with the fish; it was delicious too.

After lunch we went out and swam in the ocean. Some of the guys snorkeled but the water was a little foggy so there wasn't much to see. We swam for a bit and then walked over to the cliffs which were coral reefs before the island was pushed up above the sea water. We were able to see fossils from fish, coral, and seashells in the cliffs. My favorite thing on the island was the baobab tree. It was huge!! I have some pictures of it, but unfortunately I'll have to wait until I'm home to post those. After we finished up swimming and exploring the island we headed back to White Sands and relaxed for the rest of the day before dinner.

I feel like there is so much I want to say about this trip so far, but we're about to leave to head to the airport to catch our plane to Zanzibar. Hopefully I can post some more after we get settled in over there. Asante (thank you) for reading!

Below is a panoramic picture of the beach at the hotel we stayed at the first two nights in Tanzania.