Musée du Vin - Bordeaux

Because I'm so unbelievably behind on my blog, I'm going to try and keep this one short.

After our amazing day in St. Émilion, we still couldn't get enough of wine, so we decided we would try and learn a little bit more about it. And what better place is there to learn about vino than the Musée du Vin itself?

Wine on wine on wine.

Bigger is always better.

Banging on those drums.

We jammin'.

We also met a fabulous guy named Mario... or Thomas. I'm not exactly sure. He called himself Thomas, but when he added us on Facebook, his name was Mario. Weird. He looked so chic in his turtleneck and blazer, but we found out he liked going to Calle Ocho as much as us. Ha. But hey, he knew his wine, and he was able to tell us the process of how the wine was made and where it came from. And then, of course, our favorite part was when we actually got to taste the wine.

C'est bon ça!!!

I know this blog post was short, but next one is going to be reeaaaalllly long because I'm going to talk all about the fabulous city of Paris. Stay tuned, peeps.

Wine Not? - Saint-Émilion

Once again, I'm writing about my adventures late. I'm just a very timely person, I suppose.

Last week, the Centre de Californie organized a group excursion to a little village called Saint-Émilion. Not knowing anything about the town, I asked my French mom if she was familiar with the place, and she just nodded her head and said, "Wine." Accurate because that's pretty much all we did last Friday, hence the title of this blog post. Let me recap for you.

Taking pictures on the bus because um, we've never been on one.

It didn't take too long to get to Saint-Émilion from Bordeaux centre-ville. Google Maps says it's only a 40-minute drive. We had to pass through the countryside, and as I looked out the window, I just saw plants on plants on plants. It's definitely a stark contrast to the concrete jungle that I'm used to, so when we finally got to Saint-Émilion, I was ready to bask in the glory of this little village.

Basking.

Like really? Views like this exist? #thathairisamess

Largest monolithic church in Europe + me.

This French woman gave us a tour of the tiny village, more specifically this church. She told us this story of some monk who stayed inside this cramped room of the church for seventeen years. Yeah, I wouldn't be able to do that. Ha. We were down there for 15 minutes, and my phone had no signal so I died. I would be miserable if it lasted for 17 years. There was also this magical chair in the room, and apparently, if you sit on it, you would miraculously get pregnant. I'm not about the preggers life though so I stayed standing, but our brave friend Maddie decided to pop a squat on it. We'll see how she is in 9 months.

But then came the part pretty much everyone came to Saint-Émilion for: THE WINE. We had to get back on the bus for 15 more minutes, but soon enough, we finally arrived at Chateau de Roques! It's one of the smaller chateaus in the area, which was pretty baffling to me because I thought this was already a pretty big chateau.

Joelle and Nicole, our fabulous guides from the Centre de Californie, led us into this dark room with dim lighting and introduced us to our tour guide, and the first thing I (and practically everyone else) noticed was that he was really cute. You could literally hear people giggling like middle school girls throughout the room as he was introducing himself. "Hi, my name is Gregoire, and I'm the owner's son..." The fact that he's going to inherit this castle when he gets older... yup, definitely made him more attractive. He did his best to explain how they make their wine in English, but it was pretty adorable when he had to ask Joelle how to say something.

Gregoire's mansion.

And just in case you're all curious, Monsieur Gregoire looks like this.

Creepy photo courtesy of Adena Ramos.

Gregoire taught us how to properly sample the wine. First, you have to smell the wine. Then, you swirl it around in your glass, not so violently that it spills but just enough. After that, you need to smell it again before you finally take a sip.

Sometime between my 2nd and 3rd glass.

We all had the opportunity to buy some of Chateau de Roques' finest wine, but we're all broke college students who weren't down to pay over €20 per bottle when we could just go to Simply Supermarket and buy them for less than €2 each.

As our wine-tasting was coming to an end, we (as in all the girls) realized that they wanted to take a picture with our sexy French tour guide, but we were all too shy to ask him. In the end, we had our friend Eric, a guy, ask. We were all pretty excited to pose with Monsieur Gregoire.

Sorority squat and all.

It was a loooong day, but hey, can't really complain about free wine. Probably the best part of all this is being able to share with some amazing people. I've only known most of these people for two and a half weeks, but I'm happy that everyone's chill.

Above average wine + more-than-mediocre people = good times.

The Day of the Stolen Hat - Andernos-les-Bains

So last Sunday, our landlord Véronique needed to make some repairs on her mother's old house in this tiny little village called Andernos-les-Bains, or Andernos for short. Pretty little houses + the sea = Andernos.

The town was only a one-hour drive from Bordeaux, which was nice because I'm not really one for long car rides. We went into this boulangerie/patisserie to grab a baguette to make a sandwich for lunch. Let me tell you this... everything's way better in France, especially the food. Just look at this.

Look at all these delicious pastries! (that we never get to eat)

After lunch, we left Madame to work on her house and set off to walk around the tiny village. My first impression of it was that it seemed like a French version of the Hamptons, except less pretentious. The people seemed much friendlier, although slightly ticked when Adena and I take selfies in the middle of the street and hold up traffic. I'm kidding. We don't actually cause obstructions on the road... I don't think.

Mom, Dad. Let's buy a vay-kay home here.

So I can take selfies on the beach. #alldayeveryday

Before you continue reading, open up a new tab and keep this song playing on the background for some mood music.

It was nice to just walk on the pier and sit on the beach, not really worrying about anything. Our conversation actually got pretty deep. So far, even though we'd only been in France for about a week at this point, we've already fallen in love with the culture here. French people seem to take the time to just sit back, relax, and appreciate everything that surrounds them. In contrast, Americans are always working, living such a fast-paced life, that no one really pauses to say "thank you" for what they have. And even more, our very university, Berkeley – everyone knows I love it, but the atmosphere on campus is just one of high-stress. Everyone feels like they need to overachieve, to impress the person sitting next to them in lecture. Sometimes when I talk to someone at Cal, I feel like I'm getting their verbal résumé, which is cool and all. I mean, I'm glad you interned at Ernst & Young last summer. That's great. But what do you like to do for fun? And no, networking doesn't count.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is one of my favorite books of all-time, not just because it is so easy to read (you don't need an elaborate vocabulary to get through it) but also because it's just so real. There's this one famous line from the novel: "... and this moment, I swear, we were infinite." And that's exactly how I felt last Sunday while sitting on the beach in Andernos. It didn't even matter that there were people walking past us. Honestly, if they all wanted to stop and sit, breathe in the fresh air, listen to the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean, and bask in the glorious French sun, I would've let them sit with us. But alas, it was just Adena and me and the sound of Chris Martin's dulcet tones crooning out, "... and I could write it down, or spread it all around, get lost and then get found, and you'll get found, not swallowed in the sea." It was perfect. We were happy, and that's all that really mattered.

I mean, look at this face. ECSTATIC.

Is this church the real life? Or is it just fantasy?

Even this tiny, little port is perfection.

Walking around Andernos for hours three straight hours got pretty exhausting, so we thought it was appropriate to have a little afternoon snack.

"It's winter," you may tell me. So what? #stillyummy

On the way back home, we some more pretty houses, so naturally, we had to take pictures of them, or in my case with them. 

I must have really liked this house.

Someone once asked me why I take so many photos. "Because the pictures never change, even if the people in them do."

And it's true. I'm not going to be the same person I am now in a year or two or seven. But at least I have these photographs to remind me that there was a time when I was indeed happy.

Selfie game strong.

Musée d'Aquitaine - Bordeaux

I am currently over a week behind on this blog because I'm absolutely terrible, so I'm going to try to catch you all up on the fun that's been happening over the past week. Believe me. There's been a lot.

Last Saturday, I made the short 15-minute tram trek to Musée d'Aquitaine in the centre-ville to meet up with my two friends, Brendan and Meredith. We had a project due that following Monday, and we were supposed to highlight something that was a big part of Bordeaux life. At first, we were going to do it on chocolate, but we figured it'd be much cooler to just go to the museum and learn a little bit more about the history of the city. There'd be plenty of time to eat chocolate later.

The gorgeous museum from the outside.

Being the history buff that I am, I was pretty stoked to see that the museum had exhibits dating back to the prehistoric ages.

Just hanging out with Mr. Bones.

After the museum's extensive section on the prehistoric origins of Bordeaux, it had a nice collection of Gallo-Roman pieces like this one.

Dat @$$ doe.

Hug me, brotha!!!

Big wheel keep on turnin'.

I'm on a boat.

Our presentation was primarily going to focus on Bordeaux in the Middle Ages, specifically the religious influences on the development of the city. And of course, we had to touch a little bit on the early commerce, which was basically just the trading of wine and, unfortunately, slaves.

In chains.

My favorite part of the entire museum was probably the section on Bordeaux in the more modern ages. I personally also found this part the most humbling, since it really went into detail about the slave trade back then. I mean, the picture speaks for itself.

Haunting words.

This passage reads: "Taking a look at the bridge, I saw a boiling cauldron and black men chained together, face grief-stricken ... I asked them if these white men with horrible red figures and long hair men would eat me."

It just reminded me how far along we've come as a society when it comes to addressing the rights of mankind, but at the same time, there's still much left to be done. Here's hoping that one day, future generations will visit museums and see exhibits of our time and see not just iPhones and MacBooks, remnants of our current time, but something more – something actually worth remembering.

And because trying to read an entire museum in French was so draining, Brendan and I were starving afterwards. Kimberly and Adena conveniently showed up at the museum to work on their project as well, so when we were finished doing our research, we grabbed kebabs.

Bro tip #74: Ask for the fries inside.

We vowed to ourselves that we wouldn't eat kebabs this much. They're about €4 anywhere you go (except this one sketchy place that sells them for €2... I ain't about that food poisoning tho') so we really should hold off on eating them, but hey, YOLO! Or as we'd say in French, "Pourquoi pas?"

Speed Round: Thursday to Friday AKA I Am Lazy - Bordeaux

Nothing extraordinary really happened from Tuesday to Friday to warrant individual blog posts, so I'm just going to condense last week into this one massive post.

Tuesday

We officially started our Intensive Language Program, and my instructor is this ultra-chic French journalist food connoisseur woman named Isabelle. She's fabulous, and she's super sassy, which just made me love her more. I don't have a picture of her, but I'm sure one of us sneakily snapped a photo of her. Let me tell you: 7 consecutive hours of French grammar is not the business (especially on 5 hours of sleep).

But even after a long day, Adena and I still found the energy to take a ton of pictures on the street. There's this awesome garden across our house, and there's also a building with mirrors for walls, so it's the perfect place to take selfies. Observe.

Cobblestone catwalks.

There's also this cute little patisserie a few blocks away from our house, so we make it a point to visit it every so often. Besides, Sarah also wanted to buy un petit cadeau (a little gift) for Madame Véronique for letting her stay at the house for three days.

Galette des rois. Miam miam!

For Sarah's farewell dinner, Madame Véronique and Monsieur Vincent made this delicious traditional French meal: boudin blanc, aka sausage made of mysterious meat, with a side of caramelized apples. It was heavenly. Look. Be jealous.

Dinner time at the Leonards is always a classy affair.

Oh, and I've been getting a fair amount of requests for pictures of the house I'm staying in, so here you go, impatient people.

Welcome to Chateau Fiji.

Bathroom selfies.

Slightly messy. #sorrynotsorry

Thursday

Our electricity went out for a few hours, so we broke out the candles for a little bit.

Lights will guide you home.

It came time to make dinner, and the power still hadn't come back on. We eventually had to eat dinner in the dark.

Kinda romantic, don't you think?

We may not have electricity, but we have wine.

Friday

By the time, it was Friday, everyone in our program was so sick of French, or at least the grammar part. We set out to explore the beautiful city of Bordeaux. Remember when I said I was going to tell you why you should always pay on the tram, even if no one is watching? I'm going to tell you that story now.

Almost everyone from the UCEAP group got on the tram at the same time after our class finished, so there was a good 15 to 20 of us clumped in one area of the tram car. Barely anyone bothered to swipe their cards because no one's gotten in trouble for not paying yet. For some weird reason, I got the urge to swipe mine, just in case (and maybe because I'm just an honest person like that, ha). About four or five stops later, we see a bunch of men in black coats, and I swear, everyone's eyes went so wide that their eyeballs almost popped out. Everyone in my group frantically swiped their cards, and this one girl, who forgot her card at home, intelligently hopped out of the tram, telling us that she would take the next tram and meet us at Victoire in a bit.

Just when we thought we'd dodged a bullet, one of the tram controllers walked up to our friend Emma, and when he scanned her card, it didn't work! Twenty jaws dropped in unison, as he pulled out his special pad to write her a ticket. Once the initial shock wore off, everyone in our group started whispering to each other, obviously confused. "What the heck is going on?" we muttered under our breaths. "Didn't she swipe her card?" As always, our group was louder than the entire tram car. We were now drawing the attention of the French people, earning a ton of head shakes and muttering, "Americans." I had previously heard that riding the tram without paying warranted a €10 fine. Emma was charged €33. Honestly, we think it's racial profiling (they must hate Americans) because when we checked her card, she had four more swipes left. But from that point on, we were all swiping our cards, at least for the rest of the day. (We all probably went back to not paying the following day.)

We just walked down Rue Sainte-Catherine because that's where all the shops are, and they were all having sales, some as much as 70% off. Then, we all got kebabs because apparently that's the thing to do here.

Beef, cheese, and veggies in naan. YUM.

And just in case you were curious, this is what we all, or at least most of us, look like.

Un, deux, trois... FROMAGE!!! 

We walked around for hours, just taking in all the city had to offer us. The architecture in Bordeaux is absolutely impeccable, and it sort of reminded us of Harry Potter.

Spotted: A Ravenclaw in Diagon Alley.

Later that night, we all went out for the first time together, like a mini American family. Everywhere we went, people stopped and stared because we're all so obviously sexy.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

The bar we went to had awesome live music. The band played some Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson, Coldplay, and so much more. It was great to see everyone not so stressed out and just dancing their hearts out, without fear of looking foolish, even though I'm sure we all looked goofy. But hey, all's well that ends well.

Roomie loveeeee. <3

Joyeux Anniversaire - Bordeaux

First of all, I want to apologize for slacking on this blog. We started our Intensive Language Program last Monday, so everything I'm about to describe has already happened a week ago.

Some girl from UC Santa Barbara picked up Adena and me from our house. She showed us how to take the tram to the university, and we quickly found out that it's so easy not to pay because there's no one watching over you. (An unfortunate event made us think otherwise, but more on that later!) We ran into some of the other UC students on the tram, which was nice because I wasn't ready to speak in French just yet. It was so easy to tell who was American and who wasn't. Basically, if you could hear someone, they were probably American because all the French people were quiet on the tram.

The University of Bordeaux 3 Montaigne was only a 15-20 minute tram ride from our stop, which gave me ideas: I could leave for class pretty late and still make it on time.

UB3. Whatuppp.

My first impression of the campus was that it looked kind of old and run-down, somewhat like a Communist establishment, but we were quickly reminded that French universities were state-funded, so it was difficult to regularly maintain each school. It just made me appreciate being a student at Berkeley that much more.

Okay, maybe it doesn't look that bad.

After feeding us pizza, cheese, and cake, they made us take a diagnostic test to see which group we would be in for our Intensive Language Program. I looked at the exam and blanked out, but somehow, I managed to do very well on it. Apparently, I can write very well, at least according to my evaluator. Maybe I'm actually going to survive this semester after all. Ha.

Bread and cheese = the usual.

Not having done any mentally stimulating work for the past couple of weeks, I was drained. Despite mine and Adena's fatigue, it was our friend Sarah's birthday, and we promised her that we'd take her out to dinner. Like the great friends we are, we did.

19, 21, 20, and 20. Irrelevant in Europe. Ha.

We wanted to stay out a bit longer, but it was Monday night and we all had class at 8:30 the next morning. But let me tell you, we're definitely going to be the new regulars at HMS Victory. It's the best. We must win their trivia night at least once this semester. It's my new goal.