'Tis the Season for Marche de Noels

The first weekend of December I had my first experience at a European Christmas market, and I am already an addict!  After two weeks of moving pains, we took a little break and enjoyed a quick weekend getaway to the city of  Bordeaux.  Actually, we planned the trip weeks ago, and it just so happened to fall right when the majority of our moving tasks were wrapping up.  We only had a couple of days, so despite the fact that Bordeaux is famous throughout the world as a wine destination, we skipped wine country entirely in favor of a chance to see some of the city sights and of course, for the Christmas Market, or as they are known throughout France, "Marche de Noel".

Christmas Trees at the Marche de Noel

We arrived in Bordeaux on Friday night with just enough time to settle in to the hotel, walk the dogs (they were invited on this trip), and catch the tram to dinner.  We had reserved a table at La Tupina, a warming, cozy, "institution" of a restaurant, specializing in French comfort food - a perfect choice for a chilly (below freezing) evening.  We happened to be seated next to another American couple, and after 15 minutes of eavesdropping and enviously eyeing each others foods, we gave in and all but pushed the two tables together for the remainder of the meal.  One of my favorite parts of traveling is meeting new people and hearing their stories about how they got to be where they are.  So while some people might think our dinner date was interrupted, I had a fantastic time listening to this couples family stories, impressions of France, and general philosophies on life.  After dinner I drug Kerry through the freezing cold to a jazz bar, Le Comptoir du Jazz, where we listed to some live music, did a little dancing, and had a middle aged man tell me I looked like famous "princess locked in a castle" in France.  I'm not positive and I haven't seen the movie, but I think he might have been talking about the movie Brave, which really made me want to go brush my hair.

Le Comptoir du Jazz

Saturday was our day for sight-seeing and Christmas fun at the market.  The market wouldn't get moving until around 10:00, so we spent the morning wandering around the heart of the city, called the Triangle D'Or, taking in the Esplanade des Quinconces, Grand Theatre, and peaking at Rue St. Catherine, the longest pedestrianized street in Europe (shopping!).  Our eventual destination was Cafe Dijeaux for breakfast, coffee, and what is supposed to be the best hot chocolate in Bordeaux.  While the hot cocoa was certainly delicious, it was the waffles that I couldn't get enough of.  They were easily the best waffles I have ever had!  Us Americans dump sugary syrup all over our waffles, which is yummy, but in France, waffles come with whipped cream and some sort of sauce, we chose raspberry jam.  After having waffles like this, I am a convert, I will never go back to syrup again!

By the time breakfast wrapped up, the market was in full swing, so we bundled up and headed to the Allees de Tourny.  Over 100 vendors set up with everything from handmade jewelry and toys, to hot food and drinks, live Christmas trees, carnival games for children, and of course, Santa!  It took us over two hours just to walk around and see everything.  The entire market is outside, and temperatures during the day were in the low 40's, so even with our warmest coats and scarves, it didn't take long at all before we were searching for a hot beverage to keep our fingers from freezing.  We thought we would find ourselves a hot tea or more hot chocolate, but it turns out the French have another piping hot beverage they are quite fond of: "vin chaud" - hot wine!  We had to try some!

Hot spiced wine

They heat up wine in big vats and steam it with spices and fruits, the smell alone is intoxicatingly delicious.  I do think most of the alcohol burns out during cooking, which is a good thing, because we kept going back for more and more.  After a couple hours of browsing the merchandise, we stopped for a quick snack at a booth selling one of Bordeaux's specialties: oysters.  I have never actually enjoyed oysters before, but Bordeaux is very proud of their oysters and consider them a classical part of the Bordeaux experience, so ya know, when in Rome... But it turns out, we have been doing it wrong in Texas - not crackers, French bread and butter!  They were really yummy!  I enjoyed them so much I went back for more at dinner.  However, oysters are served very cold.  Which meant that by the time we finished our plate, we were ready to head inside and warm up for a bit.

Oysters and Champagne

Our next stop was an innovative wine tasting room called Max Bordeaux.  The genius of the place is that all of the wine is served from a vending machine in one, two, or three ounce pours.  You purchase a card at the desk, then stick it into the machine, press a button, and out comes wine!  Each tasting is priced relative to the cost of the bottle.  This means that while you can try plenty of affordable wines for just a couple euros each, you also have the opportunity to sample very expensive wines, up to 650 euros bottles, for only 25 euros.  It's still expensive for such a small amount of wine, but where else do you have the chance to try just one ounce of a really nice bottle of wine?  So if you have ever wanted to taste the difference between a 10 euro bottle of wine and a 650 euro bottle of wine, Max Bordeaux is the place to go!  Our personal opinions though?  We couldn't tell a difference.  Blame it on our "unrefined palettes" I guess.

Max Bordeaux

The remainder of the day was spent much like the morning.  We returned to the Christmas market to make our purchases and fill up on vin chaud.  We also walked the dogs to the river to see the Pont de Pierre and the Place de la Bourse with it's Miroir d'Eau (water mirror), which I was very bummed to find was turned off for the day.  Kerry then pointed out that, yes of course it is off, you cannot have fountains running in below freezing weather.  Oh well, we'll catch it next time!  We had been snacking most of the day at the market, so we more or less skipped dinner, but did we stop in for appetizers at Le Bar du Boucher, a popular meat restaurant where you can go up to the meat counter, select the exact piece you want and tell them how you want it cooked.  But in France, you will find much more than cows on the menu, so it's best to study up a bit on your french animal vocabulary if you ever make it to this part of the world.  Before the night was over though, there was one last sight I wanted to see: La Porte Cailhau.  You will find arches built into great stone walls in cities all throughout France.  They are almost always remains of defense walls built up hundreds of years ago surrounding the entire city, with the arches being the only entrances to the city, thus the arches are often termed "gateways" or the french word for door, "porte."  This particular one is no different really, except it is perhaps a little fancier than most others, and I thought it looked really pretty lit up at night.  So we made a pit stop on our way back to the hotel.

La Porte Cailhou

It seems that almost every city in France, if not in Europe, sets up outdoor Christmas markets very similar to the one we visited in Bordeaux, which is a good thing, because I think I will never tire of them!  This one is not particularly famous, but it is one of the larger ones in France.  I found it a perfect way to kick off the Christmas season, and as much as I hate cold weather, it really does make it feel more like Christmas.  Montpellier has a Marche de Noel also, and I think we will be frequent visitors over the next week.  We need to get our fill of vin chaud while we still can!  

           
The full set of Bordeaux pictures can be found here:
Bordeaux - December 2012

   

Giving Thanks For A New Address

I realize Thanksgiving was two weeks ago, and I'm way behind on a turkey day post, but I figured better late than never.  Plus, I have some really good excuses, I promise!

The last two weeks for us have been jam packed with moving and all of the fun that comes along with it.  I have tried very hard so far not to have a blog full of complaints, which is why often I write nothing at all, but this time I cannot avoid it.  Two weeks ago, I think Kerry and I went through the hardest week we have ever had together, and, not to be dramatic, but perhaps one of the worst of my entire life.  Now you expect me to drop some horrible news bomb of a dramatic event that occurred, well no.  Just moving hassles.  But every single day, many times each day, we were surprised with new struggles and disappointments.  When every effort you make over a number of days fails, over and over and over, and you cannot even manage the very basics of life (like a hot shower), it really starts to take a toll on you, mentally and physically.  What started off as an exciting and promising week, very quickly turned into a living nightmare.  

The week of Thanksgiving, we were due to receive the keys to our new apartment Monday afternoon.  Based on this, we scheduled movers to deliver our things on Wednesday and check-out of our hotel on Thursday (Thanksgiving Day).  We arrived at the apartment on Monday to discover there was an issue with the contract, and they would not give us the keys.  In addition, we were allowed in the apartment for a check in inventory and we find that the heaters, which barely worked, had not been replaced as promised.  We have had lows in the upper 30s almost every night the last two weeks, so this is a big deal!  They had not even attempted to schedule an appointment to have the heaters replaced.  Pretty much everything over the next week went about as well as this.  To make a long story short, in one week we dealt with: delays in receiving keys, one week with broken heaters, two days with no hot water, bank cards failing at ikea for no apparent reason (on two separate days), incorrect instructions and a missing key to our storage cellar, broken toilet, movers that broke our television and a vase from our wedding, unpacking 125/130 boxes before finding scissors (sometimes its the little things), three light bulbs burning out, a blown up power supply on our desktop computer (this one is actually our fault), a repairman that shows up one hour late, twice, and a brand new, expensive, cell phone that can only catch a signal about 3% of the time.  Maybe it doesn't sound that bad, but for us, it was awful.  While dealing with all of this, we are still faced with all the basic tasks of moving: back and forth on the tram from our hotel to our apartment to get everything out in time, we lost a day since we didn't get keys on time, rushing to the appliance store to pick out a washing machine, fridge, and microwave, so we can at least have clean clothes and food other than Pringles, unpacking boxes until our fingers are bleeding, assembling 8 boxes of Ikea furniture, and Kerry still had to go to work every day!  So, like I said, it's been a struggle.  

Ok now that thats out of the way, I'll get to the good stuff!  In the midst of all this moving mess, we were fortunate enough to have been invited to two Thanksgiving celebrations.  First, we attended the American Women's Association's Thanksgiving Dinner the Sunday before Thanksgiving with another Schlumberger family.  We met lots of new people, ate all the traditional American Thanksgiving foods, and had a great time enjoying some English conversation.  I don't get a whole lot of that these days so it's really a treat for me!  I did a poor job photographing the event though, must have been too busy talking!

Our second Thanksgiving was a smaller celebration at a friends house.  This was the Friday after Thanksgiving, which means it was right in the middle of our moving nightmares, and therefore a wonderful and very much needed break from all the headaches we had been dealing with.  We were both exhausted by the time Friday night came around, so it was nice to relax with some friends and meet a few new people, although I imagine we didn't make the greatest first impression, we were lucky not to fall asleep in our pecan pies.  Thank goodness for after dinner espressos!        

The spread:

Kerry with one of our gracious hosts:

And one snapshot of us:

During dinner, in traditional Thanksgiving fashion, we each took turns saying what we are thankful for this year.  It was a nice reminder for us that, even though we have faced many trials during this relocation process (many more than most people) we are still very fortunate to have this opportunity, and we are lucky to have each other to lean on when things get tough.  I am also especially thankful that since we have been here, neither dog has come down with any medical concerns, because I am completely unprepared for a French vet visit.  And last but not least, despite all the troubles that have come with it, we are both very happy with, and thankful for, our new apartment!  For the next few years home for us will be:

2bis rue Chamayou

34090 Montpellier, France

We have a lot of work to do to get the place fixed up, but we are thrilled to finally have a place to call our own!