Pastry... Tuesday?

Finals week is upon us. I have five exams in four days, and two papers, and on top of all that, am attempting to plan my May travels and ignore the fact that I'm getting sick. Desperate times call for desperate measures, ie. eating pastries on days that aren't Wednesdays. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean I'm not eating pastries tomorrow. Having actually LOST weight due to my poverty stricken state in Barcelona, I feel as if I can afford it. In addition, I have only one week left in Lyon, and I don't feel like I've eaten nearly enough pastries. I need to make up for lost time. It will be difficult, but I think somehow I'll manage.

Today's treats were two mini tartelettes that I bought on the way home from school at a cafe near my house. The one on the left was prettier before it was put into a bag, but it was super delicious anyway. It's a tarte au citron, and is basically lemon curd in a little pie. Fantastic. The one on the right is shaped like a little leaf (the only reason why I bought it without any knowledge of its contents) and is cake with jam inside a marzipan coating. Life changing, to say the least.

Now to study. Can't procrastinate any more by writing blogs. More pastries tomorrow.

Barcelona/Mallorca

Since I don't currently have time to write a long blog about my AMAZING time in Spain, I thought I'd put some photos up to tide everyone over for a while. I spent Friday in Barcelona, flew to Mallorca (small island off the coast) on Saturday, and then flew back to Barcelona for the rest of the week on Wednesday. Although I didn't exactly get the beach vacation I was hoping for (I bought a new swimsuit, pathetic), I still had such an incredible time and can't wait to go back one day.

Some friends and I in Gaudi's park, on the longest bench in the world. Great view of Barcelona.

House designed by Gaudi!

Mercat de la boqueria! I got the most delicious juice there for only one euro.

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La Sagrada Familia! Still under construction until 2026... I'll be 34!

Interior of the Sagrada Familia

Tiny door inside the giant door of our hostel

Ahh, Palma

Another church renovated by Gaudi. He's all over Spain, apparently.

Me on the beach in Mallorca. So heavenly.

Un-Pastry Wednesday!

Today, I was too exhausted to drag myself to a pastry store. Last night was my friend's birthday, so even though it was Tuesday, there were festivities. I had no problem with that, besides the fact that my classes were again 11 am - 8 pm. So when I got home tonight, the stores were closed, and the fridge contained a very special treat that I'd been drooling over ever since I bought it last week.

France's grocery stores don't just have any old pudding selection. They have wonderful special gourmet puddings with coconut flavoring, or caramel at the bottom, or raisins. They even have rice pudding! AND, best of all, they have creme brulée. I am aware that creme brulée from a grocery store is obviously not as good as some from a restaurant, but guess which one was only 2 euros for two little glass pots? They come with a pouch of crunchy caramel to pour on yourself, and it solidifies into a layer much like real creme brulée. It also had real vanilla bean in it. I was extremely happy with the results. The thing about French food is that even grocery store desserts are frighteningly delicious, and so are the pre-made foods. Don't even get me started on their frozen pizzas.

So that's what I dug into tonight, as I watched Grey's Anatomy on my laptop. Barcelona in two days!

Prague: Penises and Pierce Brosnan (in the same day!!)

One word that sums up Prague: Interesting. It's a magical place where ABBA is still beloved, where beer is cheaper than water, and where you can buy terrifying puppets on the side of the street. It's a place where you can be flashed in the forest and see a famous person in the same day. Last week, my friend Missy and I spent four fantastic days wandering the cobbled streets and investigating churches, castles, and synagogues that make up Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

We stayed with wonderful friends of my parents, Nancy and Rick Johnson, who have lived in Prague for the better part of a year, and took great care of us. Every morning we ventured out to see various sights the city had to offer. We bought a pass to the Jewish Museum, which is made up of multiple synagogues and an extremely interesting cemetery, all housed in the Jewish Quarter. The cemetery is about four meters above street level, because they didn't have enough room to expand and kept piling more and more graves on top of each other. The gravestones were all moved up, though, so it's completely filled with them, leaning every which way. However, not everyone in the Czech Republic seems to have used this method when attending to graveyard issues. On our third day, Missy and I took a day trip to Kutna Hora, a small town about one hour outside Prague. The attraction to Kutna Hora is a small church on the outskirts of town, which is decorated with thousands and thousands of human bones. Apparently, centuries ago, during the plague, the cemetery started to fill up, and they had to dig up all the old graves. Naturally, the strange folk who ran the church thought it would be a dandy idea to use these old bones as decoration for the interior of the church. Like I said, the Czech Republic is an odd place. But, it makes for one heck of a tourist attraction.

Most days we would go to the grocery store and get lunch for later, spending way too much time marveling over interesting new foods and the large variety of breads. The groceries in CR are interesting not because of the kinds of food, but because normal foods are rendered unrecognizable due to strange packaging and completely incomprehensible language. We knew which chocolates were good, though, and were delighted to discover (once we'd painstakingly calculated the strange crown to dollar ratio) that they were much cheaper than the same brands in France. I bought an 8 pack of Kinder Bars to take back with me (they're gone now) and some marzipan, which was really popular in Prague as well. I'm starting to like beer, which is great, because I definitely need to add to the list of things I like that make me fat. But it was cheap in Prague, so it was consumed frequently as well. One night Rick and Nancy took us out to eat to a traditional Czech restaurant and we all had some goulash, which is a meat stew with "dumplings," or slices of doughey bread that soaks up the sauce. It was heavenly.

The amount of walking we did there definitely made up for the amount of food we ate (or at least I like to think so). I may have permanently damaged my feet, but it was worth it. One day we decided to take the trail up to the top of the large bluff that overlooked the city, on top of which rests a monastery and a very small replica of the Eiffel Tower. I have to warn younger readers and those who are easily offended to skip this part, because something that was kind of disturbing (funny now, though) happened to us up there. We were almost to the top, and were quite alone, when an old man walked past us on the trail. Good for him, out-hiking two college girls at that age, we thought. As we were standing there, contemplating where to go next, this man popped out from behind the bushes. I wasn't really even looking at him until Missy started shrieking, and there he was, making this really frightening, lecherous face at us. It took me a full couple of seconds to realize that it was not, in fact, a hot dog he was wiggling around out of his pants. Hmmm. How does one react in that sort of situation? I didn't scream, but did manage to made a kind of offended sound and shout some expletives at him. I informed him of how disgusting he was, and we turned around and walked very fast back down the trail. Looking back, it's a good story and quite hilarious, but at the time I had a stick with me on the rest of the way up the hill "in case he came back." I also contemplated going back and throwing rocks at him. So many options. But what we really did was continue to enjoy our day and eat bread overlooking Prague, while laughing hysterically about our strange lives.

However, I'm really glad that all happened, and here's why: If we hadn't made that detour, we wouldn't have seen something (or rather, someone) that entirely made up for seeing that old man's family jewels. I'll explain. A bit later, we were semi-lost (90% of our trip was in this state) and wandering around looking for the castle, which was remarkably hard to find. We came to a street that we recognized, and about to turn onto another, when a car pulled up and some fancy people got out. Three men in suits and one very pretty blonde woman, all wearing sunglasses. They walked ahead of us for about twenty feet, and were about to go into this restaurant, when one of the men (the less-beefy of the three) turned around and said in a British accent, "Oh! I forgot my scarf!" The others said something to him, and he turned around and went into the restaurant, and at this point I realized that the man who had forgotten his scarf was in fact, PIERCE BROSNAN. JAMES BOND. (Well, one of them) THAT ONE GUY IN MRS. DOUBTFIRE. BASICALLY JUST A SUPER FOXY BRITISH MAN. I turned to my friend and re-affirmed this just as the girl in front of us turned around and said, "I know! I'm texting my sister about it right now!" We freaked out for about 20 minutes and took stalkerish pictures of him standing on the patio from about 100 feet down the hill where we had a good view. It was great. He probably looked at me, since I was standing directly in front of him. Luckily I hadn't at that point yet made the connection, so my face was completely expressionless and nothing like the face I made about 5 seconds later when I realized I'd just seen the guy Sally Field dated in one of my favorite movies. Definitely a high point in my life.

So all in all, Prague was a success. Any place where I can see history, art, some old man penises, and celebrities is okay with me.

Pastry Wednesday: Late

Pastry Wednesday came and went, and I had no pastry. Midterms were in full swing, and I didn't have any time that day to get a pastry. It was a sad day (as was my performance on some of my exams. Let's not talk about that.) However, yesterday, I was wandering around enjoying the GORGEOUS weather with some friends, when we felt the need to sit down and have some pastries in the setting sun. Wise decision, right before dinner, but I felt entitled to my weekly pastry!

We went to a Brioche Dorée, which is like a café chain, but since it's a FRENCH café chain, it's still really delicious. I bought this puffy thing that immediately caught my attention, because it looked like a cross between a really big cream puff and strawberry shortcake (two of my favorite desserts.) We sat down and watched the people on the street. People-watching is a great thing to do in France. It mostly consists of oo-ing and ah-ing over people's clothes and ingenious outfit combinations, but sometimes you get the odd fasion-disaster. That's always fun. Yesterday I spotted a woman wearing some kind of extremely tight black dress (not flattering, I might add) and you could see her large, pink underwear through it. Luckily, in France, when you're just starting to feel bad about your own fashion knowledge, someone usually comes along to make you feel a bit better in comparison.

My pastry had a really long and complicated name, and I agonized about actually ordering it because I didn't know how to say it. But I somehow pulled it off because the smiley brioche man understood what I wanted AND didn't start speaking English back to me. This is a common problem, here. I think people are trying to be helpful, or practice their English, but it's kind of depressing, especially when you only say about one word and they immediately know you're not French. My accent isn't that bad, is it? When I was in H&M the other day (bad idea) literally the only words I said to the check out guy were "bonjour," and "merci," and he still said as I left, "Heve a nize dayyy!" And, when I was walking to school, a woman came up to me on the street in a WWF smock saying, "Hello! You speak English?" HOW DID SHE KNOW? I WAS WEARING A BLAZER, FOF GOD'S SAKE. I angrily ran away saying, "Non!" Oh, France.

Anyway, back to pastry, it was delicious. It was also really pretty. It tasted exactly like a cream puff (only slightly eggy-er and lighter crust) and had little nuts sprinked on top. Definitely an awkward thing to eat, though. I had to take the top off and eat it separately, and then the bottom. There was SO MUCH whipped cream. It was wonderful.

Awkward Metro Moments pt. 3

France doesn't have open container laws. This means, if you so desire, you can walk around with an open bottle of wine and nobody arrests you or judges you (well, maybe a little judgement). On Friday and Saturday nights, this leads to quite a bit of fun on the metro. It can be really awkward if you're going to your friend's apartment to watch "The Notebook" and drink tea and everyone is taking huge swigs out of their various bottles, dancing, singing, etc. But if you are one of these people, it can be a blast. It's a magical time of night when everyone on the metro becomes friends and shares bottles, etc. I've had a girl offer me some of her whisky, once. (I didn't take it though, she looked kind of dirty)

Last night some friends and I were on our way to a get-together of international students, and we took the metro. I didn't have a bag, so I was lugging a sizeable bottle of vodka and two cans of Red Bull. Healthy, I know. We sat down across from some guys carrying a few bottles of their own. However, I was pretty apprehensive of them. There is a kind of guy in France that is very unlike the usual hipsterish, peacoat-wearing, swooshy hair type. These boys (usually they are teenagers) can not be described by any other word but "hooligan." They wear shiny, puffy jackets, track pants, and sneakers, and they all have the same bizarre hairstyle. It's really short all over the entire head except the VERY top, where there is so much gel on the remaining hair that it stands up in wet-looking tufts that I'm sure are quite sharp and not at all normal hair texture. I'm not a fan. If there is anyone ever causing trouble in the street, or in the metro, 90% of the time it is these boys. I don't understand who they are, why they always seem hell-bent on making everyone around them uncomfortable, and most importantly WHY they wear their hair like that, but whenever I see them I literally cross the street because the chances that I'll be harassed are very high.

So when I sat down across from these guys, I was kind of nervous they were going to give us trouble. But as soon as they heard us speaking English, they got really excited and started trying to talk to us in English as well, which was hilarious. The most talkative one's name was Mahmoud, and the only phrases he seemed to know were things like, "I have 24 years old," and "My name is Jack Daniels." They seemed to mean well, though, and soon we were all conversing happily. And by conversing happily, I mean they were talking to us and we were laughing at them/trying to ignore them. They were drinking some kind of sketchy off-brand soda out of the can, and apparently wanted to mix them with something, because one asked me if I had a "goblet." Sadly, I did not have such a thing, although I think I'd like one so I could feel like Harry Potter when I drink out of it. Anyway, lesson learned, I suppose. Even hooligans can be nice, apparently, on the magical night train. I'm going to do some more research next weekend.