An Old Friend Comes to Visit

Look who popped over for a casual week in France last Thursday!!!

DERRRIIICCCKKKKK!!

I was very happy to spend the week with this guy, showing him the best of Brittany and making him very fat. Derrick is actually my best friend's older brother and is one of my best friends as well. He attends DU (like me!) and is currently pursuing a Master's in Finance, as well as a black belt in sheer awesomeness. While Derrick was here in France, he received his first real salaried job offer EVER, and so we had lots to celebrate on top of the fact that we were reunited once more!!

We began his trip as any trip in Birttany should begin: with galettes, crêpes, and kir breton.

Derrick's AH-mazing caramel au beurre salé crêpe at one of my favorite restaurants in Rennes, La Maison de Josephine.

Friday morning, I decided to surprise Derrick with a trip to the Pink Granite Coast, one of the hidden tourist gems of France. At 9:00 we jumped on the train to Lannion, and from Lannion took a bus to Perros-Guirec.

The first thing we did in Perros-Guirec was...eat. We started off with a crab cake, lots of bread and butter (demi-sel, bien sûr!!), and white wine. We steadily moved on to an absolutely incredible sausage, potato, bacon and sauerkraut main dish, and then we finished with a dessert of homemade choux pastry puffs filled with fresh fruit cream, pictured below. 

NO OTHAH BUTTAH BUT DAH DEMI-SEL. 

Chouxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. 

After our wonderfully filling meal, we decided to burn some calories hiking the Sentier de Douaniers along the Coast while admiring the gorgeous rock formations surrounding us. 

We made it to the west side of the coast, in Ploumanac'h, just in time to see the sunset. 

The next day, we headed back on a bus to Lannion and explored the city a bit more extensively than the day before. 

Beautiful view of the city outside of the Église de Brelevenez.

After a quick stopover in St. Brieuc for the night, we decided to head back to Rennes the next afternoon. In Rennes, we....

Drank Guiness at O'Connells Irish Pub.

Ate galette-saucisse at my favorite galette pit-stop in the center of town (where I, right after excitedly buying my galette-saucisse with onions and goat cheese, promptly stepped in a huge pile of dog crap).

Attended an organic wine tasting event hosted by the local bar Mille Potes and Science Po's international student association, Zéphyr.

And, finally, gorged ourselves on wayyyy too much kebab and fries and white sauce. 

It's... ALL GONE. :-O NOOOOOO.

So... in summary, we basically just ate everything. The entire time. 

In his spare minutes (i.e. when I was in class), Derrick was able to take two quick day trips to Dinan and Mont St. Michel. After his time here, he now (correctly) believes that Brittany is the bestest region of all of France.

Derrick caught his train to Paris this morning, where he will fly to Italy to see Jessica and his parents for Thanksgiving. It's always hard to say good bye... we won't see each other again for at least seven months. But now we can laugh, look back, and remember all of our time spent together in France. :-)

Bisous, Derrick, and safe travels in Italy and back to the States. 

Dani

Fun Times in Finistère: Travelling with Zéphyr

This past weekend, before the sun had risen on Saturday morning, a rowdy group of international and French students piled into a bus together and drove off into the wild, savage landscape known as...

LA FINISTÈRE!!

Finistère is the westernmost region of France, as you can see on the maps I so graciously provided below. The left map illustrates all of France, whereas the left is a close-up of the Finistère region. 

For 40 euro each, our 50-ish person group got to spend the entire weekend exploring this gorgeous departement. More ressemblant of Ireland than the rest of France, Finistère is the region most heavily influenced by the tradition Breton language (an ancient Celtic derivative) and contains almost an entire quarter of Brittany's coastline. 

Needless to say, it was incredibly green, incredibly wet, incredibly rugged, and incredibly cold. 

I loved every second of it. 

The trip started as it should: with lots of singing. Imagine a Spaniard, two American girls, a French, a Somalian, and numerous Germans and Italians singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Barbie Girl" together in the very rear of the bus (what can I say? Business up front... party in the back!).

Partner in crime: Lydia!!!  

Their glorious singing voices had to rest after creating such heavenly harmonies together.

General bus chaos. Photo credit to Tim Bieler <3

After singing about a hundred renditions of songs from around the world, we exited the bus at our first stop, not far from the Pointe du Raz, to snap some photos of the stunning coast.

Ain't she cute?!?!

We then continued on our journey to our next destination: sand yachting!!!

Sand yachting is basically hooking up sails to dinky go-karts and using the wind to roll along the beach. AKA... It's awesome. Photo credit to Tim!

Wind+sand+ocean = happy Roselle! Photo credit to Tim!

After sand yachting, we popped along multiple locations along the coast, including this one:

Magic.  

International love!

After admiring the waves crashing along the coastline of the Pointe du Raz, we slowly made our way back to the bus, which we took all the way to our hostel in Poullan-sur-Mer. Much pasta was eaten, much wine was drunk, much traditional (although poorly conceived) Breton dancing was done, and much laughter was had.

The next day, we placed our things once more in the bus and headed to Penmarc'h and Concarneau!

Who needs sand when you have seashells??

In Penmarc'h, we climbed the lighthouse of Eckmühl to get a beautiful view of the seaside. 

Lydia climbing the 200 steps to the top. Who needs squats when you have a lighthouse?

And finally... we made it!

Yes, that is an apple in my hand.

Concarneau is a small city not too far from Penmarc'h comprised of a modern city surrounding a tiny, walled village on an island in the center of the harbor.

We spent our time in Concarneau's walled island eating delicious crêpes (note: pistachio ice cream for Dani) and drinking much-needed lattes. We may not have seen much of the city there, but we can certainly attest to the stellar local Breton cuisine!!

Even considering the fact that I was soaking wet all of Saturday and spent the majority of the weekend shivering, I still believe our weekend in Finistère was one of the most fun weekends I have had since arriving in Rennes in September. It was not only a great way to see more of France's diverse landscape, but it was also an amazing opportunity to bond with the wonderful people that surround me in my everyday life here in Rennes. 

My experience here in France would not be the same without you, and I am so happy that I have met you all. Here's to our weekend in Finistère, and to many more weekends spent together laughing and discovering!

Zéphyr :)

Bisous. 

D

Sorry, Paris, but Rome wins the Romance Award

Vacation is the best. 

I just love it. 

It's not only an excuse to travel and de-stress from work and school, but also to eat freely, get fat, and have zero regrets about anything. 

I love eating. Therefore, I love vacation. 

I digress. 

Let's start with day one: departure to Italy.

Saturday, October 25th

My travel companion Kevin and I made our way from Rennes to Paris via train, where we stopped over for a quick visit to the Eiffel Tower and the Brioche Dorée pastry store on the Champs-Elysées.

After taking a quick selfie per Kevin's request with the Arc de Triomph....

Lots of selfies = necessary on a two-person trip.

....We boarded the shuttle bus to Beauvais airport (as all RyanAir customers know, that airport is HELL AND BACK FROM NOWHERE). 

 Kevin's first RyanAir flight!! And we SURVIVED, YAAAYY for discount airlines!

Once we were all packed onto our magical flying tin can (kudos to Kevin for coming up with that one), it was only a mere hour and a half until we landed in Bologna. Let me tell you, travelling in Europe is SO. MUCH. EASIER than travelling in the States. Everything just takes so damn long across the Atlantic. 

From our plane, we took the shortest bus ride of our life to the back of the airport (like, couldn't we have just walked that? Really?). From the back of the airport, we took yet another bus to the central bus station. From there, we walked about twenty minutes north to our hostel, where we were happily surprised to find that we had a two-bed private room!

So, recap of the day: walk-train-metro-walk-metro-walk-bus-walk-plane-bus-walk-bus-walk. 

Let's just say we slept incredibly well when we got to the hostel at 1:30 in the morning... only to wake up the next day to pop on a train to Ferrara to see my love: Jessica!

Sunday, October 26th to Thursday, October 30th: Italy 

Sunday was the beautiful day in which I was able to reunite with my bestest friend of all time in her current hometown. With a population hovering a little under 150,000 inhabitants, Ferrara is quite a bit smaller than Bologna, and much smaller than my hometown of Rennes.

The day was spent peacefully meandering through the city with Jessica as our personal guide, eating fabulously wonderful pumpkin/squash-stuffed pastas known as cappellacci, eating gelato, eating bread reminiscent of male sexual organs, eating spaghetti, eating pizza, eating tiramisu, drinking wine, and drinking spritz.

Lots of eating. 

First stop: gelato!!! 

Coppia ferrarese, a type of sourdough bread evidently made to look as inappropriate as possible.  

Lots of pictures of food. Be prepared. 

TIRA-MI-GET-IN-MAH-BELLEH

Monday, Kevin and I said our good-byes to Jessica and headed back to Bologna, where we remained for a day to see the city and eat even more yummy Italian food. 

We visited the Piazza del Nettuno and numerous other Piazzas as well as the Basilica San Domenico, where famous artist Niccolo dell'Arca achieved his name by creating the Arc of Saint Dominic. We even took a quick personal tour of the University of Bologna, quite a shocking difference from our petit Institut in Rennes! 

My favorite activity, however, was climbing the 498 wooden steps of the Asinelli tower to get a phenomenal view of the city. 

Kevin climbing up the beginning steps of the tower!

LET'S DO THIS. 

View of the city from the top. Totally worth the huff and puff. 

I could have stayed up there all day.

Our stay in Ferrara and Bologna was markedly non-touristy; i.e. the absence of crowds of people mindlessly bumping into each other, shouting, and checking maps made our lives incredibly tranquil and exponentially easier.

But then came Rome.

And so followed... the TOURISTS.

*dun dun DAHHH!*

Tuesday, we took a two-hour train from Bologna to Rome, where we fought the crowds to see such classic sites as the Colosseum, the Vatican, St. Peter's Cathedral, the Arco di Costantino, the Pantheon, the Piazza del Popolo, and countless other awe-inspiring attractions. 

Italy is one beautiful country.  

Being fabulous on the steps of the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele. 

Wandering the streets of Rome, you suddenly become enraptured by the immense, ancient history of the city, and everything -- even with its flaws and broken parts -- is beautiful. 

Construction on this building began in the 70s... 70 AD, that is, thanks to the Vespian Dynasty.

The Pantheon!! 

Surrounded by enormous, ancient marble landmarks connected by a maze of wandering cobblestone paths, it is hard NOT to succumb to the beauty that is Rome. As my Italian friend Francesco clearly put it before Kevin and I embarked on our journey, "Rome... is MAGIC!"And he was absolutely right. Although a bit dirty, with clear unemployment problems and the constant presence of restoration projects (read: scaffolding), strolling through Rome is like bursting into the pages of a storybook, a storybook that is almost 3000 years old yet never fails to enthrall every new generation that experiences it. 

One of my favorite highlights of the entire Euro-trip was taking a tour through the Museo Vaticani, seeing the Sistine Chapel, and climbing to the very top of St. Peter's Basilica. 

The top of the dome... on the inside. The outside was soon to follow!

Kevin climbing up St. Peter's!!!

Stairs+climbing were a trend of this trip. 

We made it to the top of the outside of the Basilica just in time to see the sunset. 

Rome just brings out the dramatic flair in everyone. 

As I'm sure you guessed by the title of this post, Rome has taken the place of Paris in my heart. Sure, I still love the City of Lights deeply... but sometimes the lights shine brighter in another city, and that city just happens to be Rome!! Even with the insane amount of tourists overwhelming the streets, Rome is incredibly special. I only wish I had had more than two days to enjoy it. 

And here we take a brief intermission to drool over more pictures of Italian food!

.... And, yes, we did go to an Irish pub our last night in Rome. And the Guinness was wonderful.

Barbeque burger. So Italian.  

Friday, October 31st to November 2nd: Germany 

As our week of travel wound down to the end, we spent most of our time leisurely walking along the river Rhine, shopping, sleeping, and eating... like the proper bums we are. Besides celebrating Halloween (and Kevin's birthday!) with all of the local Germans, the most exciting thing we did was to visit Cologne and tour the Chocolate Museum as well as the Gothic Cathedral. 

Düsseldorf on a Sunday!

The Gothic Cathedral was an absolutely amazing structure, taking more than 600 years to finish. Now, it is a World Heritage Site, and is one of the largest cathedrals I have ever seen after the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Duomo in Florence and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

The Shrine of the Three Kings. 

I must say, though, that the Chocolate Museum... was pretty awesome. We not only learned about how cacao is harvested and chocolate is made, but also of all the environmental and social issues associated with chocolate. 

Also.... the Shrine of the Three Kings. Made of chocolate. 

47 carved chocolate figures. Kudos to this artist, Sonja Alhäuser!

In Düsseldorf, I also went on my own personal brewery tour while Kevin took a nap. Trying five different beers made enhaus -- Schluessel, Scumacher, Uerige, Fuechschen, and Schloesser -- I decided that my favorite was.... *ding ding ding* Fuechschen!! 

 

After a week of fast-paced travel abroad, I actually got homesick. But I didn't want to go back to the States necessarily; I wanted instead to return to Rennes. A few months pass, and my heart has already settled into my new home so much that I think of the comfort of walking through the Parc du Thabor, or the constancy of going to the market with Antoine and Kevin every Saturday, or the pleasure of stopping by the Rue de Vassilot for the infamous cookies at the local patîsserie. 

Life is funny. If we don't stop and look around once in a while, we could miss it. 

Cheers.

<3 D