When the French strike, Make spaghetti and meatballs.

Madness, once again. France is under attack and by none other than its own citizens. At the moment, the government is trying (who am I kidding, not trying, but are going to, whether the citizens like it or not) pass a law that will increase the retirement age from 55 to 62. As a result, the French people have united and decided to terrorize the cities in France until the government changes their mind, which of course, is improbable.

The strikes are not like strikes back home in California. There are no petition forms or "peace" rallies. It is all action, mostly violent action at that. Crowds of people (young, old, retired, students, parents, children, you name it) have been gathering for the past week or so in efforts to protest the law. Their demonstrations are not quiet, and they do not disperse quickly as some do at home. They last for hours and can become incredibly physical. Police will and have already taken action by shooting rubber bullets, tear gas bombs, and down right beating the protesters into submission. But with this many angry Frenchmen, I doubt that the police will even be able to dent the rallies let alone stop them. The French have retaliated against the city in a way that I actually believe neither helps them, or the government. They have started destroying public property (smashing down bus stops, random car windows, etc) and have even resorted to flipping police cars and setting them on fire. They have even destroyed the doors and windows of many small business shops that have not done anything wrong. The whole reason for trying to pass this law is because the country is running out of money, yet the country is protesting by damaging public property which will just take more money to repair. Truly a shame.

As a result of these protests, I have spent most of the past week indoors in order to avoid falling in the line of fire accidentally. A few other exchange students have already been tear gassed and it just doesn't seem pleasant. Some of the University campuses have also been shut down due to the increasing violence. What is even more crazy is that Super Markets and Gas stations are literally running out of certain products/supplies. Many shelves at the super market are out of stock at the moment and 1 out of every 4 gas station has run out of gas to sell. Why? Because even the truck drivers who ship the supplies are protesting and refusing to work.  Hopefully, this will not affect my trip to Belgium and Amsterdam this coming Thursday. I have read some articles lately about planes being cancelled throughout France. YIKES!

Picture courtesy of Elliot Stevenson

To cope with the insanity, I have been cooking non-stop. In the past few days, I have made:
-Pumpkin country loaf
-Rum raisin apple bread pudding with a maple custard using left over country pumpkin loaf
-Maple cinnamon granola with almonds, raisins, and coconut
-Strata (savory version of bread pudding. I put caramelized onions, sautéed bell peppers and tomato, thyme and sage, left over pumpkin country loaf, and topped it with Gruyère, Parmesan, and Mozzarella cheese.
- Rigatoni pasta rolls stuffed with eggplant and Zucchini rolled and baked in bread crumbs, and topped with a pumpkin Bechemel sauce.
- Pumpkin Marscapone Bourbon sponge cake
-Chicken Saltimbocca
-Garlic Bread made with three heads of garlic
-Crab stuffed mushrooms with a white wine, dill, and lemon sauce

I made more but they were just simple things I whipped together in hopes to clear out my fridge in time for the week long break.

And of course, as my title suggests, I made Spaghetti and Meatballs. Super tender, and tasty. Voila. Enjoy!

Here is a picture of the leftover fat I had from baking the meatballs. 

Summer...a distant memory

60 degrees and below this week. 50 degrees and below next week. The warmth of the sun on my face last week now seems like a dream, a dream that I would like again, but have been forced to wake up from and face the reality of this cruel cold world. Nonetheless, France is enjoyable whether my feet feel like they are going to fall off or not. The past week has been a productive one. I have finally met some French people. The past month has been filled with my ever reliable Californians and other International students, but I was really getting worried that my French would really never improve because all of them speak English. So, two weeks ago, I decided to take a step forward. I answered an ad of a  French girl looking for an native English speaker to exchange language lessons with. To say the least, she is absolutely amazing. I love all my conversations that I have had so far despite my lack of vocabulary and my struggles with grammar. The topic is always interesting and its fun teaching each other slang in our respective languages. She even invited me to a "petite soirée" tonight and I was introduced to many of her friends and her fiancé.

On to a more depressing subject...I am HOMESICK. I miss the people honestly. I miss you people back in California reading this right now. I also miss the food you're eating. I wish there was a super cheap plane that could just fly me back every weekend, but then I suppose this wouldn't be a total immersion program if I could just go home when I wanted. Don't get me wrong though, Lyon has quite a bit to offer and I don't think I would want to go home early if I had the chance just because I know that I have this once in a lifetime opportunity to embrace these experiences. Not to mention meet new people and create new networks which I am sure will come in handy in the future. If there is one thing I could change though, it would be the amount of strikes that go on in this country. There is a strike for everything and anything. Masses of people will gather in an area and literally march all through town. All the while they strike, they also interfere with the public transportation system and make it near impossible to get from place to place. I couldn't even get to class today!

Alrighty, it has been a long week. I have barely had enough sleep all week and have had way too much alcohol (which isn't very much at all if you know me.) I will leave you with a few pictures of Lyon. I expect the next blog will have a few pictures of the autumn themed food I am planning to make. Stay tuned.

And here is another picture of Beaujolais that I think better represents the sunshine last week that has now gone to play hide and seek:

Life on a Vineyard

Cheese, baguettes, butter. All these things tend to associate with the country of France. But perhaps one of the biggest things that the French are known for is their production of fine wines. This past weekend, the UC EAP program took us on a field trip to the Beaujolais region of France. It is well known for it's wine production and looks like the Napa of California. However, there is something about the French air, the French region, and the French people that make it so much more beautiful. Pictures can literally do no justice. The image of the sun setting past the vineyard is a memory that I hope will stayed ingrained into my mind for many years to come.

We headed off to the region at 11:45am on Saturday morning. When we arrived, we were welcomed by the owners of a medium sized vineyard in the region. They fed us for 3.5 hours and gave us an introductory lesson in the wine making process. The lunch was held in a beautiful cave where I suppose they usually put barrels of wine to age in. They also let us try a variety of wines that they produced. I particularly liked the last wine I tried which is the freshest wine available. The yeast is still active and it almost looks like strawberry champagne. It tasted citrusy, sweet, and bubbly. A beautiful combination. However, you can not drink too much or the yeast will activate certain things in your stomach that you may not want to smell. The meal was fantastic too. We started off with 4 types of bread. A rosemary bread, pizza like bread, fig and hazelnut bread, and raisin bread. The raisin was my absolute favorite. It tasted as though they used the same grapes that were used in the wine. We also had a pate which wasn't the best I ever tried but it was tasty nonetheless. It was accompanied by a salad of fresh lettuce and chives grown on the owner's farm and covered in a homemade vinaigrette dressing. The next course consisted of stewed meat and rice. It seems like they killed a cow just to feed us. It was SO much meat. The meat was cooked perfectly texture wise but I believe the seasoning could have been adjusted a bit. In between our main course and dessert, we were served three types of cheese. A hard goat cheese, a soft goat cheese, and a cow cheese. The soft goat was by far the least pungent and probably my favorite. The stronger cheeses are more of an acquired taste. Dessert was the part i enjoyed most. They served us a sugar coated eggy bread and a super buttery chocolate chip cookie like dish. It was accompanied by shortbread cookies and coffee. DELICIOUSNESS :).

After lunch, they showed us how to make bread! They baked each of us one loaf in a super old oven that still uses firewood. It was amazing. During the baking time, I went to run in the vineyard, buy some of their wine, and play with the farm dog. I also went to frolic with a few friends in the vineyard. Overall, it was probably the happiest I have felt since arriving to Lyon. The feeling of peace and joy literally enveloped me as I stared out towards the vineyard.

Other things i did this weekend:
-made apple fritters
-took a walk through random parts of lyon with friends and discovered some cool spots
-exchanged some pretty dumb jokes
-fell into a water ditch and disappeared in the Vineyard for a few minutes. and got surrounded by bugs. BAH

PICTURES FOR YOU:

Road to the Rhones

Tips for study abroad students in France. DO NOT rent a car in France. The toll roads will demand a leg and an arm before letting you get through to your destination. A little ridiculous. But since it is all said and done on my part, I will concentrate more on the fun I had and less on the money that was wasted. Destinations we hit included Annecy, Thonon les Bains, Chamonix (aka mont blanc), and Grenoble. All part of the Rhone-alps region of France. Annecy was a BEAUTIFUL city. I loved the way the city was designed and the backdrop of the Alps made it even more breathe taking. I was able to go to an old castle at the top of Annecy and enjoy some of the art works inside as well. I was even able to have lunch inside the castle (even though it was more of a picnic that I brought and snuck into the castle and enjoyed in a very large ball room with no guard...shhhhhhhh).

Chamonix was also a town with a spectacular view. It is situated right on the alps and from Annecy, it is a mostly uphill drive. I stayed at a hostel with a perfect view of what the city had to offer. I was lucky enough to get a room with my own bathroom and a balcony. The hostel would have been perfect if it wasn't for the lady at the reception who ripped me off. I specifically booked two beds on hostel.com for 45 euros and she insisted that i only booked for one person and that an extra person would be 55 euros. I gave in due to my lack of french skills and her hostile attitude. She also tried to charge me the full price on top of the deposit I paid online, but I basically wouldn't pay her until she subtracted that portion because even the paper she showed me said that it was a deposit for the room. All in all, I paid about 11 euros more than I should have. Quite unfortunate. 

After the night in Chamonix, I was hoping to get a chance to ride the gondola to the top of one of the mountains. Chamonix is so close to Italy that the gondola can actually take you to Italy and back if you want to pay for the price. Unfortunately, there were to many clouds that day and I was not going to pay 40 euros to look into a bunch of fog. I can do that back home when I am in Daly City. I did however buy some waterproof hiking boots in the city since I found a REALLY nice pair of rainproof orthopedic gore-tex hiking boots for 69 euros that were originally 160 euros. I think they might have been marked wrong because the salesman i tried to buy it from kept looking at the price tag like it was impossibly cheap. They were also the only pair there and were the perfect fit. It was wonderful since the whole weekend had been raining and my feet were wet and blistered from my crappy flats. Hint to other study abroad students: INVEST IN A GOOD PAIR OF RAINPROOF WALKING SHOES BEFORE YOU GET HERE. Unless you find a good deal or the exchange rates turn in our favor, you will get ripped off. 

Thonon les Bains was a bit of a dud for a city. I arrived on a Saturday afternoon and the town was completely dead. The only good part of the city was the view of the lake and the pizza. Grenoble, however, was a city I wish I could have spent more time in. The city itself isn't very attractive, however, they have a huge variety of Indian cuisine and a VERY VERY large mountain for you to climb and feel accomplished.

I was pretty much dead by the time I reached the top of the mountain and dreaded the journey down, but it is something I won't forget...ever. I guess it would be a "must see" in Grenoble. 

Overall, I don't regret this trip even though it was expensive. It was very last minute so I didn't expect to find any good deals. It was also a good experience driving on the French roads and learning how to navigate the country by car. A little stressful, very tiring, but also rewarding. The only real downer was the MEAN MEAN MEAN lady who ripped me off in Chamonix and the extremely expensive toll booths that were literally on every freeway we entered.  I'm happy to be back in my city of Lyon where all the public transportation is basically free after a small fee at the beginning of each month. The rain also kinda killed the mood, but I always found a way to laugh at something. I wasn't about to spend a small fortune and have a BAD time now was I. I wasn't going to let a little rain waste my time in France either. Now back to cooking all my own food and saving money for my next journey :)

  

pots pots pots

So tonight was a beautiful night. And as assumed by the title, it had something to do with pot. No, not the drug, the actual cooking pot from a kitchen. I made pot stickers! I was hoping my mom would make them for me before I left for Europe but as she was too busy, I was unable to get any. Fortunately, I love challenging myself with a recipe. I gathered my guts and my debit card and went to the asian grocery store to pick up the necessities. After mixing the meat and kneading the dough and filling the dumplings (about 1.5 hours) I finally had enough dumplings (about 40) to feed me, my landlord, and two friends. I still have enough filling left over to make about 60 more dumplings but I will have to make it when I'm not so exhausted. It will be good to have a few frozen for a quick meal. The pot stickers turned out just as they would at home. Spot on seasoned meat/veggie mixture in the filling (might increase the amount of veggies though), and a thick, slightly chewy skin with a crispy almost burnt bottom. Hot glistening perfection was the end result of hours of labor. 

Now making this many homemade dumplings is no small task, I had to recruit Tina and Elliot in order to finish making the pot stickers by dinner time. It was indeed harsh on them, especially since they are both sick, but they seemed to enjoy the food very much :). As they departed we said our goodbyes and had a few pictures.

BY THE WAY. Remember that post about how much I hated spiders? Well I hate them even more now. Why? Because one freaking bit me!

Its a little hard to see but it is definitely bigger and more painful than it looks. 

Today was also the massive once-a-year garage sale in Lyon. Hundreds of people line the streets to sell their non-valuables in hopes that it might be valuable to someone else. It was a jam packed event where everyone was trying to get a deal or give a deal. I was on a search for a decent pair of hiking boots since I am headed to Scandinavia soon, but to my dismay, they were all too big, too small, or too old. I did, however, find a nice pair of pants and a nice shirt dress and paid a total of 3,50 euros. I don't think it can get much cheaper than that.

ratatatatabouli

So, if you are my friend on facebook, you have probably seen some of my status updates on your news feed. You probably also know that I have been eating homemade tabouli salad for about 4 days now. I made enough to feed an army and thought I could down that thing within two days, but alas, I failed. Today, was my last and FINAL meal of tabouli salad. I can't say that I am sick of it but I am definitely tired of it. I won't be having it again for a while. It helps that I try to make something different every night to accompany it. Yesterday, I just happened to have all the vegetables I needed to make ratatouille and some left over parmesan cheese. Here is the before picture:  

It barely fit and I was afraid that I would have to use another pan aka another dish to wash. The bottom layer has some sauteed onion, garlic, and eggplant. Then there is a layer of fresh mushrooms, a layer of zucchini, and a layer of tomatoes on top. Each layer has a sprinkle of salt, black pepper, and parmesan cheese. Super simple dish but after an hour of baking, all the flavors come together wonderfully and you get a delicious soup at the bottom that is perfect with some crusty bread. Here is the after picture (i bit into it already because i forgot to take a picture, it looked too good):

I ate leftovers for lunch today with a fake vietnamese sandwhich. I guess its not really "fake" but it definitely wasn't authentic. I had a crap load of pickled carrots left over from the banh xeo and needed to use them. So I bought some pate (which is 75 cents for 2 squares in france) and mayo. I spread that on a baguette and put a massive amount of carrots and some cucumber on it. It was good but not "Vietnamese..yyy"

I have also been attending my first few political science classes at the university this week and I am COMPLETELY lost. But thankfully, French people are nice and willing to share notes. 

As stated in my earlier post, I am heading for Belgium and the Netherlands soon. I have decided that I am going to try COUCH SURFING! It sounds like a great way to meet people and discover the city more than I would by myself. Unfortunately, all the people I have contacted so far are no goes. But better luck tomorrow! Oh, no class on thursdays. boo yah. 

I will stay up later tonight and try to read more of the bible. I just finished Matthews and I wanted to read more, but I have had class every day at 8am for the past two weeks. Matthews was a really "hard to imagine" book for me. The idea that one of Jesus' own disciples turned him over for 30 silver coins is beyond me. Eternal salvation or 30 silver coins? HMMMMM. 

SIDE NOTE: if you come to france, stay away from the pain au chocolat au buerre or you will get fat and addicted, like i am right at this moment. I have eaten one everyday for breakfast for the past week. Yes i know, im bad. 

New Friends, New Spiders Too.

Arachnids. I'm not really sure why I hate them. They never did anything to me. They just look absolutely disgusting. I mean they have EIGHT legs. Out of all of the things that scare me the most, spiders must be number one on my list. Unfortunately, France is full of spiders. I am not talking about any old regular spider you find back home in the states. I'm talking about massive ones that look like they eat birds for lunch. I literally could not bring myself close to one of the spiders I have seen in fear that it will rip my feet off. Yes, they are that big. And I have a picture to prove it. 

I mean look at that thing!! Use the crushed can next to it as a comparison. I took this picture from a pretty far lengths away. My heart was racing as I did it too.

Moving on to a happier topic, this weekend was absolutely amazing. Elliot (dude from Davis also studying abroad in Lyon) and I went to see our first football (aka soccer) match in Lyon. Football in Lyon is no joke. Apparently our soccer team is the best in France and very highly ranked compared to other teams. The support for these guys is insane. Its nothing like a 49ers game or a Giants game back home. Literally half of Lyon shows up for these things. The stadium holds 40,000 people and the attendance was about 39,500. It was literally a struggle just to get to the game, pick up our tickets, and find our seats. Crazyness. Elliot and I also felt compelled to buy scarfs and show our support. 18 euros bye bye. The game ended up as a tie, but it was very fun and the atmosphere was great. They were singing lyonnaise songs and throwing thousands of pounds of homemade confetti everywhere. 

Afterwards, we went to grab some dinner and met up with our friends Kirsten and Patrick. We then decided that we were going to go and hang out until the metro reopened at 6am. At first we hit a couple of bars and had a few drinks (I spilled my 6.50 euro sex on the quai after drinking about half). It was a little boring and I even fell asleep for ten minutes at one bar (it was like 3 am by this time). Eventually we walked in a big circle and went back to where we started because most of the bars had closed. We sat on a stair case near the opera house and decided to take some pictures:

We were just talking and having a good time when a few other international students started talking to us. They were from Toronto, Manchester, and Romania. They were fantastic company and we ended up hanging out with them until the metro reopened. There were a few other people who tried to talk to us but were extremely drunk and awkward. I was straight up kissed on the cheek by one guy and was really pissed for a good 5 minutes. It wasn't a small peck bisou french greeting kiss. It was a straight up full lipped sloppy one. Well afterwards, we walked around and tried to get into some clubs but were denied because there were far too many boys in our group (the amount of ladies usually have to equal the number of guys). One of the clubs turned out to be a gay club so we gave up on the club scene after that. But what to do with 3 hours left? Obviously, the majority wanted to get some alcohol. We went on a tiny search party for a shop that would still be open that could get us some of the goods. They boys ended up getting about 6 large cans of 11.7% alcohol BEER. Yeah, thats a crazy strong beer. And surprisingly, they all finished it. All in all, I had a very fun night. My first bar hopping experience and also my first full night out in the town. 

I also went to a parade in downtown Lyon on Sunday. I'm not sure what the parade is for but each participating group is supposed to represent something and this parade happens once every two years. The big theme colors of this parade were pink and white. There were instruments, dancing, and singing. Some pictures for you :)

Oh, and look what I got!! I know you be jealous.

My landlord also sneakily bought a rice pot for me to use! He is the epitome of awesomeness.