Cathedrals, Castles, Quasimodo--Oh My!

While Therese and I were in Madrid we took a day trip via bus to Segovia, which may be one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. 

The best thing about going by bus is the scenery, and how long it stays beside you.  The Guadarrama mountains accompanied us for the whole trip.

We arrived around noon and, instead of craving the traditional Segovian fare, we opted for--cue shame--hamburgers.  They were *special* hamburgers (literally, hamburguesas especiales), and we ate them with the Cidrería's homemade cider Sangria, but still :P

The first thing we saw in town was this beautiful church, about which we know nothing except that it was beautiful.  That's a good enough reason to love something sometimes, isn't it?

Then we stumbled upon what Segovia is famous for: its Roman ruins, specifically the aqueducts.  Dating from the end of the 1st century, they're so remarkably complete and the modern town has grown up to integrate them so seamlessly, they almost seem like part of the landscape, like another mountain range they had to build around in the planning of the city. 

Pretty incredible. 

They had a tourist route planned out in the city that took us through the Jewish district, past several churches, past the cathedral, around the "peninsula" where the castle sits, and back around to the bus station. 

After we traversed the staircase next to the aqueducts, this is the view we were rewarded with. 

I fell in love with the architecture--every single building had its own unique pattern pressed into the concrete, and they were all painted in the warm colors that a Mediterranean climate evokes.  It was really incredible!

Sometimes we had the impression of being in Morocco instead of Spain.  Love this courtyard :)

We found ourselves in a plaza full of people and restaurants with tables on terraces, all facing this incredible feat of architecture: the Segovia cathedral.

This is the last Gothic cathedral built in Spain

and the nave is 33 meters high!  I don't know if I've ever felt so small in my life.

Past the cathedral, we wound through back streets, ogling architecture and, in my case, making a fool of myself.  What's that, you want to hear how I made a fool of myself?!   Well, I guess...

So, Therese and I were walking down a narrow back street and a car pulled onto the street we were on.  We ducked into an alcove to avoid getting hit by the car, and in that moment, I--thinking it would be funny--pretended to bang on the door and yelled, "Sanctuary!  Sanctuary!" like in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  (Therese didn't even laugh!  That's when I knew I was in trouble...) Then the car stopped...and a woman got out...and she opened the door I had just been banging on.  Then she turned to me and asked, "What do you want?"  :|  Mildly embarrassing, mostly because I was stumbling over so many Spanish words trying to explain to her, "I was just pretending that I was Quasimodo!!" and she was just waiting to see why I was assaulting her door.  Meh.

The narrow side streets of Segovia

The best part of her door was the knocker.  Tell me what YOU see....

 We finally reached the Alcazar de Segovia (castle).  It was one of the inspirations for Disney's Cinderella's castle and was built sometime in the 11th or 12th century. 

Even the view of the city from the castle was phenomenal

We made our way back around to the aqueducts and took more pictures of the magnificent view laid out before us. 

We also came across this little guy. 

What I want to know is, does a pig this happy taste better?

The bus took us back to Madrid, we went back to our marvelous hosts' house, packed up our things and commenced the long voyage back home...with a mild suntan, sore feet, about a million pictures and some great memories :)

Winter in Madrid=Exactly What I Needed

Because of the awesomeness of the French school year calendar, we work for 6 weeks (which, especially at 12 hours a week, isn't much!) and then we get 2 weeks of paid vacation.  YES PLEASE.  I'm sorely going to miss that scheduling; it's been so nice to be so greatly rewarded for our "work" (read: entertaining adorable French children by pronouncing funny words from a language they've never heard before) by being given frequent vacations.  American workaholics could really learn a thing or two ;) 

After our Christmas vacation, we worked for 6 weeks and then had our confusingly-named "winter vacation;" I kept referring to it as "spring vacation" until I realized that we had one of those, too!  For winter vacation, a fellow English assistant, Therese, and I flew into Madrid to visit a friend-of-a-friend whom I'd never met but whom I loved instantly :)

We flew out of Paris, but first had a café and visited the still-drab (but soon to be magnificent) Jardin des Plantes. 

Why even bother asking what my favorite part was?  You know it was the dinosaur out front. 

Even in the dead of winter, it has such a relaxing effect in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world!  Spending an hour or so there before the stress of traveling was a great idea. 

Our plane arrived safely in Madrid several hours later.  This picture proves what a long day of travel it was. 

I'm a pretty pretty princess?!

The following day we slept in late, had coffee for breakfast, and traipsed out into the world in real Spanish time: around lunch.  We stumbled upon Plaza Mayor, bought a 3-day public transportation pass, and had seafood paella for lunch in a courtyard full of people in costume. 

Plaza Mayor

As for the people in costume?  Not...

even...

kidding. 

 On our way out of the plaza we saw a flamenco dancer; she wasn't particularly talented, but she danced with a passion that made it hard to look away.  It also helped that she was tap dancing on a piece of plywood and thus making a lot of noise.

We wound our way through the Barrio des Letras,  or Neighborhood of Words.  It reminded me a lot of La Charité sur Loire, France's answer to the call for lexicographic cities, but in Spain the words are written on the ground. 

We arrived at the Botanical Gardens and were pleasantly surprised to discover that our Education National ID cards--the ones that get us in to all Paris museums for free--actually worked similarly in Spain; we didn't pay a cent to wander through mazes, marvel at bonsai, or smell the cherry trees :)

A beautiful time of day to stroll

It's official: spring has arrived in Madrid

From the botanical gardens we crossed the street to the Parque del Buen Retiro, a 350-acre set of lungs in the giant city of Madrid.  Besides being a park good for the obvious--jogging, playing frisbee, makin' out--this park also had some unique features, like...

...the Palacio de Cristal (at sunset)...

...a live jazz/blues band that sounded like it came straight out of the French Quarter...

...and a statue of the Fallen Angel, the only known public sculpture of the Devil, permanently surrounded by people rollerblading.  Wait, is this what hell is like?

During the rest of our stay in Madrid we also: ate fantastic tapas and drank delicious wine offered by our host and hostess, two very dear (and awfully new) friends; we got lost a couple of times, shopped at Desigual(!!), and were given free shots at lunchtime.  Score. 

Valentine's Day Feast for One

For anyone who has ever been in a long-distance relationship, you may agree with me when I say that Valentine's Day in the US can really suck.  Luckily, here in France, almost NO ONE celebrates it.  So, even though I'm separated from my beau by an ocean, 5,000 miles, and a 7-hour time difference, it was nice to almost be convinced that the day wasn't a holiday :)

Still, despite the distance, we did have plans!  Even though the internet is frequently out at my house, we planned to cook a meal together--using the same ingredients and making the same dishes--via skype, then eat it together with candles and wine and celebrate our second Valentine's Day together as a couple.  The time difference meant that I ate dinner at 2 a.m. my time, but it was worth it :)

This is what we came up with: ribeye with gorgonzola cream, mashed potatoes with mushroom and onions in a red wine sauce, and Brussels sprouts with orange and almonds (and also bacon, apparently :P)

However, since most of the English assistants here are single ladies, we decided to have our own Valentine's Day Friends Feast :)

I made palmitos, my favorite little cured ham-and-cheese pastry roll-ups.

Therese went all out and made coq au vin, which I'd never had before!

All those root veggies, sooooo goooood.....

Our faithful cook, hard at work!

The finished product--sooooo goood :)

Appropriately heart-themed dessert

Plus another one called bras de Venus (Venus' arm).  So that's where it went...

Happy Valentine's Day, les filles :)

"Sweet 16 Fiesta, 10 Years Later"

In the beginning of our stay in Nevers we met an American friend who just got married to her French husband and is living in Nevers.  We became good friends, and she invited us to her 26th birthday party, the theme of which was "Sweet 16 Fiesta, 10 Years Later."  She and her husband made Mexican food, the cool people dressed up in costume (:P), we had a piñata and played games all night.

I dressed up as a bottle of Corona, complete with lime wedge :P

Lovely host and hostess, dressed up in the cutest Fiesta wear ever.

There was also a mustache....

That got passed around...

Quite a bit. 

Sarah eating her handmade taco piñata

Innovative swinging range

Birthday cupcakes!

My first real game of Uno...Kali-sized! :)

Auxerre Wine Tasting

There is a group of people in Nevers who know each other only from CouchSurfing; that is to say that they were complete strangers until they slept on each others' couches.  Pretty fun system for budget travel :)  One night, this group met up at a bar, we got to introduce ourselves to everyone, and the very next day we were invited to tag along to a wine tasting in Auxerre with them.

The countryside on the way there was so beautiful, and we left early enough in the morning to watch the fog lift out of the valleys.  It made the whole pasture look enchanted :)

The first stop we made in Auxerre was this church, which from this angle looks one-dimensional--but I promise it's not!  The friend who drove us wanted to go to a special mass there that morning, but we ducked out and had a coffee instead.  Oops.

We did stay long enough, however, to see a parade of winemakers strutting with their musical instruments, period costume props, and homemade wine shrines and banners.  They were all so proud! 

Here the wine culture is really familial; it's not something that a rich man decides to do because he's got money and loves wine, it's something that a little boy or girl sees their parents doing and decides they want to go to school to learn how to do the same thing.  They even have high schools (lycées) that teach teenagers the sciences and techniques associated with winemaking! Makes me want to go back to high school...

Live music was playing everywhere at this festival; we'd turn corners and find new bands playing completely different styles of music, from jazz...

...to cow print, boa-bedecked, kilted a Capella music :)

Right at the center of town sat a gorgeous clock tower, and as the light changed (since we were there from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) we could see how many different parts of it were gilded in gold.  It was really breathtaking.

And another thing that was breathtaking, but in a completely different way: the making of blood sausage. 
Yes, I did try the blood sausage.  Yes, it was just about as gross as I thought it would be :P 

The architecture in Auxerre reminds me of Germany, or of the little town where Belle lives in Beauty and the Beast!  It's so charming and homey, and the whole town makes you feel so warmly welcomed.

The whole town was full of tents that housed winemakers and cheesemakers (and bloodsausagemakers) who were giving out samples of their product.  The nice thing about this wine festival--officially called the St. Vincent du Grand Auxerrois--was that the vendors weren't actually allowed to sell their wines.  The festival was strictly for tasting, and if you found a wine that you wanted to buy, you could set that up directly with the vendor.  Still, it was a relief for three poor college kids to not have to pretend that we were going to buy a case of each wine just so we could sample it!

They had games set up for kids (and, of course, me and Jess) like this barrel roll.  It was actually a lot harder than it looked! I won :)  Thanks, Ian, for your photography skillz.

I think I love this picture because it looks so alien.  That big white bubble in the corner is actually a tiny hot air balloon with a camera attached to it that was taking aerial pictures of the whole festival.  It was remote controlled, too, so the man in charge could send it anywhere, take pictures of anything, and then just summon it back to him like an obedient dog!  I kinda want one....

For lunch we stopped at an adorable café and Jess and I shared a lunch formule that came with an entrée of gougères, or pastry puffs, filled with cream and escargots.  It's apparently a Bourgogne specialty, since Bourgogne is the capital of escargots in France, and we loved them :)

We also opted for a boeuf bourguignon, which is pretty tough to order in restaurants simply because it has to cook for SO long--we're talking 6 hours or more over low heat.  Still, this one was pretty impressive, especially coming from a café on festival day!

I don't remember what this man was doing or selling, but he just looks so French, I had to throw him in here :)  He almost looks like an organ grinder--where's yer monkey, monsieur?

One thing I always forget about is the spittoons where you can spit the wine you don't like or, if you're driving, spit out the mouthful after you've gotten a feel for the taste.  I never do it, of course; if I'm spending 5€ on a commemorative wine glass and an additional 1€ on a necklace carrier for that wine glass, I'm keeping all that wine in my blood, thank you very much!

Speaking of...

As we left, the sun was setting, and the two cathedrals and their ripply reflections showed up on the water.  Auxerre is a beautiful city, big and vibrant in ways that Nevers isn't, and we really enjoyed our day trip there :)