itinerary....

Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to drop a quick note about my upcoming travels.  Yesterday was my last day at work.  It was wonderful.  I went to lunch with the management team where Henri showered me with Stade Toulousane (Rugby) gifts.  Henri is a HUGE rugby fan.  So now I'm prepared with a flag, shirt and desk calendar.  I also finally took a photo with the team :)  I will write more about France later when I have time...but now Its 6:30 am and I have to be at the airport by 8:30 for my flight to London, so I must finish packing!!! London until Dec 15, then Stockholm until Dec 21, then home Dec 22.  I won't have my computer but will try and send an update at some point.

Coming soon... "My Love Letter to France"

Tomorrow is my last day in France, and to be honest I'm quite sad.  I really love where I work and the people I've met.  But, I am super excited to travel to London and Stockholm.  This week I've been filled with giddiness just waiting in anticipation for my travels.  I will write more later.  And at some point post "My Love Letter to France".  I haven't written it yet, but I assure you it will be good!

Cassoulet...a southern France tradition

Henri has been promising me Cassoulet all year!  So today, we had lunch at a very very very nice restaurant that served an amazing Cassoulet.  Welcome to gourmet casserole my fellow Minnesotans. 

Comments below compliments of Wikipedia.

Cassoulet (from Occitan caçolet [kasuˈlet], French: [kasuˈlɛ]) is a rich, slow-cooked bean stew or casserole originating in the south of France, containing meat (typically pork sausages, pork, goose, duck and sometimes mutton), pork skin (couennes) and white haricot beans.  The dish is named after its traditional cooking vessel, the cassole, a deep, round, earthenware pot with slanting sides.[1]
Numerous regional variations exist, the best-known being the cassoulet from Castelnaudary, the self-proclaimed "Capital of Cassoulet", Toulouse, and Carcassonne. All are made with white beans (haricots blancs or lingots), which have replaced the medieval broad bean Vica fava, and duck or goose confit, meat and sausages. In the cassoulet of Toulouse, the meats are pork and mutton, the latter frequently a cold roast shoulder. The Carcassonne version is similar but doubles the portion of mutton and sometimes replaces the duck with partridge. The cassoulet of Castelnaudary uses a duck confit instead of mutton. Cassoulet is traditionally topped by fried bread cubes and cracklings.


The dish dates back at least to the 14th century.[1]

Berlin

Hamburg

Abbreviated Germany Trip....

Another Trek to Blois… this time in the Snow

This morning I met at the office at 6:00 am for the long trek to Blois.  The purpose of traveling was to complete a training with the sales and research team and to celebrate the retirement of one of the researchers at our station in Epuiseau.   So myself, and two others hopped in the French mini-van for the snow covered, non-plowed and non- salted road trip.  There had been snow warnings all week for this area, but me as a true Minnesotan I didn’t give them much thought… until we were about two hours north of TLS and it looked like a winter wonder land. Ah, an early taste of home. I love it!  So at a cruising speed of 58 kilometers per hour we successfully made the trip in 7 hours.

Germany Part 1: Not sure if Part 2 will ever be written, but here is the abbreviated version.

Germany, I promised a blog on my trip so here it goes. I arrived to Hamburg Friday evening Nov. 19^th.  Successfully navigated myself from the airport to the central train station, where I asked the information desk where my hotel was. Since it was about 9:30pm and dark out and I was in a new city, I thought it be best to know exactly where I was going. Now my hotel was supposed to be very very close to the station, but when I gave the address to the info person, she said ‘Oh no you can’t walk there, you have to take a metro and then a bus…’ I thought this was odd, but as I’ve never been to Hamburg before, I thought I’d trust the native…big mistake. The directions she gave me, dropped me in the middle of no where, on a  poorly lit street with no activity. So I called the hotel, attempted to speak with the German man in English, which got me nowhere until I heard an English speaking person in the background.  So through some sort of communication he handed the phone over to her. Success!  I received directions from an English woman named Suzy.  As I was literally nowhere; she said to try and find a taxi. So I flagged down a taxi, and when I gave him the address, he kind of looked at me like ‘what are you doing all the way out here and why do I need to take you so far….’ But the ride turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I got to see Hamburg at night. Beautiful!!!!! It’s a port city, and was all lit-up for the holiday season.  Suzy said to pop-in for a tea when I arrived at the hotel, so I did and we ended up chatting for almost 3 hours… oh the British sense of humor:  Her life story is amazing; but that’s a story for a different blog.

Saturday I took a walking tour of Hamburg and really fell in love with it.  Great architecture -- with a mix of new modern and old traditional buildings. I learned about the great fire, and WWII bombings and the massive orchestra hall in the process of being built, and the famous red light district. At 3:30 it was time to meet Anna at the train station.  We then boarded a train to Berlin.  Needless to say I need to go back to Hamburg again.  A half day just isn’t enough!!!

Berlin: cold, rainy, but a historians’ paradise.  Sunday: we took a walking tour of the city that focused mostly on East Berlin but had a few stops on the west side.  We saw the Berlin Wall, the sole WWII building that was left after the city was bombed out during the war, the Brandenburg gates, Hitler’s bunker, the parliament area with the famous Reitchstag Building (houses the parliament), Topography of Terror (museum dedicated to the inter-workings of the Gestpo), the Holocaust memorial, Hotel Adlon (themost famous hotel in Berlin where Michael Jackson dangled his baby off the balcony, the penthouse suit is 14,000 per night), Checkpoint Charlie – cold war focused, the checkpoint between east and west Berlin, museum island which houses the famous Pergemon museum, the orchestra hall, etc etc etc . The Pergemon was interesting--my favorite exhibit was the Museum of Muslim Art.  I’m really glad I took time to walk through that area.

The highlight of the trip for me was going to the Christmas market!  Germany is famous for all of the Christmas markets.  Berlin’s was absolutely amazing!  We drank Gluewien, which is a hot alcoholic wine/cider.  Bought traditional German x-mas candies and cookies.  Admired all of the hand-made ornaments.  They were so beautiful!  I bought a pair of wool slippers.  They look like my uggs, just with out the sheepskin outer layer.  I ate this traditional pancake thing…which was delicious. The market was beautiful. 

I also tried the famous Berlin currywurst. I also now desire to go to Bavaria.  I think I’d really enjoy that part of Germany.  So that was my trip to Germany in a nutshell…

Thanks for Thanksgivng

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving. I hope all of you took the opportunity to share who and what you were thankful for. Well this year I didn’t have the traditional Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s, and I didn’t eat the famous Clovia corn noodle bake, or attend 5 different Thanksgivings, or spend the night before Thanksgiving with my friends from high school. But I did make a pecan pie for my boss and his family for dinner on Saturday. And, more importantly I’m finally taking some time to reflect who and what I’m thankful for this year. 2010, I’ve learned a lot about life and very thankful for all of the experiences it’s brought, both happy and sad.


As I’ve told many of my family and friends this week I haven’t been in a writing mood, therefore I haven’t written in my blog for a long time. But tonight is different… I called my Grandparents, thankful I can talk to them when I’m an ocean apart, but only a dial-tone away. I wrote a post-card to a professor who helped me develop my internship in France, thanking her for doing an awesome job at her job. I started to pack-up all of my letters, pictures, and nic-nacs that family and friends sent from home--and although I didn’t re-read any of the cards, I thought about how thankful I am for those who provided constant contact even with a 7-hour time difference. I packed up a stack of American DVDs my friend Pascale gave me to watch when I was bored in my apartment--thankful to have someone here in France who acted as a good friend and concerned parent. I took out the trash, thankful for a good sushi restaurant near by that I can eat at when I don’t feel like cooking. I used the rest of the brown sugar I bought to make the pecan pie, thankful the new recipe tasted delicious and was eaten by the entire Batut family. I listened to my itunes, thankful for good song recommendations from friends. And I took an inventory of all the stuff I need to pack to bring home—thankful for all of the people in my life who made living abroad a positive experience, but a little depressed that 6 months of my life can easily fit in two suitcases and a small box to send home. Life is kinda funny like that, you have a lot of experiences and memories, but in the end you can box it up and fit it in a suitcase or a moving van or a picture or whatever physical bounds you want to put on it. That’s a little beside the point. The point is, I spent 3 hours after work today doing really normal non-exciting things, but in everything that I did, it reminded me of what I’m thankful for. So tomorrow when you’re doing something as ordinary as eating your breakfast, think about how that action represents what your thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving yet again and thank you for reading :)