Bordeaux and Saint Emilion

Sitting down to write this right now has just made me realize that it has been quite a while since I last wrote! Wow..time actually has begun to pass pretty quickly. While my everyday going ons have not changed much in the last 2 weeks (still school, homework, etc.), there have been a few new developments, so I will try to cover the highlights. I apologize ahead of time for a very long blog.

Friday, I left for Bordeaux with my friends Allison, Duong, and Julie. I had some days left on my Eurorail pass so we all decided to plan something. Such a fun weekend! We left after lunch, and took a 4hr train ride arriving right after sunset. The cool thing about it is that Bordeaux is known for its nightlife and the beautiful lit buildings. However, we decided that we wanted a nice dinner and to try some real Bordeaux in Bordeaux. So we found our restaurant and we're enjoying our meal. (and I never know how to lead into this story..) So our waitress came over to take our dinner plates. After grabbing them, she just froze for a minute. "Do you want us to keep our forks for dessert?" I said in French. No response. Just a blank stare. Theres more gorey details which I will spare you of unless you want to know, but turns out she was having a seizure! She didnt fall down or move at all, just froze, and since we were all really worried and made a commotion about it, we finally got the attention of another server to come over and help us. They led her away, but after that the restaurant got really busy. We were sitting there thinking "How can we go on with our dinner..is she going to be ok?" Now, in the U.S., someone would have immediatly come over to the table to reassure you that everything was going to be alright. Not France. We were waving down servers, who kept ignoring us, trying to ask for some info on whether everything was fine. Someone finally told us they had called the ambulance and they thought it was a "crise d'epilepsie" (seizure) , but the manager or owner never stopped by and the whole situation was just insane. Ok, so we had a rough start to our weekend. For the record, the Bordeaux in Bordeaux was very good, but not necessarily better than anywhere else, in my humble opinion.

So trying to forget our little restaurant experience, we went for a walk by the Garonne, the river, and took pictures of the famous bridge, plaza, buildings, etc. Bordeaux really is quite a beautiful city, and immense as well. However, as it was getting late, we returned to our hotel for a late night of girl-talk, etc. The following day, we enjoyed a breakfast of Pain au Chocolat and tea at a local Boulangerie, and visited a few medevil cathedrals. Saint Andre in particular was beautiful, with flying buttresses and an immense pipeorgan. Next we climbed the clocktower for a birdseye view of the whole city. It was incredible and as the weather was perfect. We proceded to search for all the cool looking buildings we had seen from high above and ended up across the river where we found this gigantic blue lion (in the picture) just randomlly placed next to the tram. So we had fun climbing all over it like little kids and getting some strange looks from the passing pedestrians.

Later that afternoon, we took a train to St. Emilion, a village of 300 people which is absurdly cute, and known for being surrounded by vineyards which produce some of the best wine in France. The reason we headed this way was that Duong's host father had a friend who owned a Chateau and vineyard nearby and he was going to let us stay with them for free on Saturday night. After everything was arranged, upon further research we discovered that this man is actually a Vicomte! Wow. It was unbeleivable. We were picked up from St. Emilion by his wife and after arriving at the Chateau were offered to be shown the "Chai," where the wine is made. As it was 8:00 and we had not yet eaten dinner, I think we all thought it would be a quick 5 minute walk-through of the building. Boy was I wrong! An hour and a half later, we had just been given a detailed account of how wine is made, the types of grapes used, processes of fermentation, storage, and the history of the Vicomtes family along with tasting red and white wine that was being stored from this last years harvest. It was incredible! The entire time I was thinking, How many people come to France and pay all this money to try to get an authentic experience? and there we were, for free, being given a personal tour of a business that has been in this family for centuries. Simply amazing! A quick antedote from their family history. So the Vicomtes great-great-great......grandfather from the 11th century was a monk. He happened to be the last of his family name, so the Pope (thats right...the Pope) said, "Go, Marry someone, have children, and carry on your family's name" So he went off, got maried and had 9 children! So now the family symbol is 9 monk cords to represent the story. How crazy is that? The fact that one could know the history of their family that far back is equally incoceivable to me as well.

So finally at about 10:00 we started dinner in the Chateau. As no one had lived in the Chateau for about 30 years between the time the Vicomte's grandfather died and the time they moved in, they have been doing a lot of construction inside and outside for the last 15 years to make it more liveable. So when we arrived, the family was in the process of redoing the dining room into a library and therefore we moved the dinner table right out into the living room, a first for them, and had our meal.They have an 18 year old son and 12 year old daughter and It was simply surreal to be sitting there with a french family, to whom wine and vineyards are their life, and to whom we had no connection whatsoever other than that they were a friend of a host parent, and to sit and talk (in French!) for 2 hours about cultural differences, history, language, etc. So many people dream of having that experience. On top of that, they brought out their 1989 wine which they won a medal for in the region, and we drank that with our dinner, which finished around 12:30. We all were So exhausted but we managed to fit in a family pic to document our time there :)

Sunday morning, I got up bright and early to see the sunrise. Amazing again! I walked out to see frost covered vineyards with a light fog covering the lower parts of the fields, but as the sun rose, everything warmed and the vineyards were so serene and peaceful, with every classic countryside noise..birds chirping, the occasional dog barking, somewhere a distant rooster crowing. Just another moment to thank God for this incredible experience. After breakfast, we were driven back to St. Emilion (while fitting in a quick stop at a neighboring chateau owned by some friends) and said Goodbye so that the Vicomte could be off to mass where he sings in the choir. Such a cute old french man. There for the day, we bought samples of everything that is famous from the town/region..foie-gras, Macaroons, and a bottle of wine. Since St. Emilion is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, we also explored the Catacombs and underground church that the monks who founded the city carved out of limestone in the 11th Century. Supposedly, there are 200 miles of catacombs stretching underneath all the vineyards in the surrounding areas, and our guide told us that from time to time, if you are eating at a Chateau close to St. Emilion, they may bring out a bottle of wine from the 11-14th century, because the monks stored their wine in those catacombs that are now under some many different vineyards. (The Vicomtes Chateau was a little to far away to be included) The whole tour and city was very interesting, although a bummer that we couldn't take any pictures.

So Sunday afternoon, we returned to Bordeaux for a few hours, where we had a bit of craziness concerning lost tickets, etc. I beleive 4 minutes before departure, only 2 of the 4 of us were on the train, and the others got on at the very last minute. Phew! I was a bit worried. I think that though we had an incredible time, we were all so releived to come back to Nantes. Its amazing how nice it is to see familiar things, and it was comforting to realize that Nantes is now a place that is something familiar to come back to. Like I said in my last blog, it really has become a second home. I am happy to be back, but I just realized all the work that I have been putting off has really started to build up. So I'll be staying here this weekend, writing papers, filling out internship applications, and reading some more crazy french Microbiology.

Hmm...In other news...I was elected Vice President of my class last week, so since this is my first time doing anything like this it will be interesting. We are right now trying to plan some community service activities, a talent show/pizza night, and a trip to the sea which is only an hour away. Anyways, it is kind of fun to have the experience when your class is only made up of 49 people instead of 350. Oh, and in two weekends from now my parents and little brother are coming to see me, so that's exciting! Assuming that they figure out what they are doing when they are here (Cough Cough Mom and Dad..).

Apart from that, I wish you all a Joyeux Jour de Saint Valentin! (I enjoy saying it the french way because its got my name in the middle :) ) and as always, let me know how you are doing! Or even better(and here's my shameless plug) write me a letter!!! :) Come on...it's gonna be fun..