Thanksgiving: Winter is Coming

Having an American as your flatmate, regardless of what country you're in means (as I soon found out) that Thanksgiving is going to be celebrated. Happily this simply means lots and lots of good food and friends for a dinner party. 

November 24th found me making not one but two cakes (pavlova and chocolate cake anybody?) whilst my flatmate went crazy and cooked everything in sight. I have literally never seen so much food cooked by one person in my life.

The party was a great success and we all had a lovely time, eating too much food, meeting new classmates and playing games. (Note at the table the right-hand side made up of all Colombian friends!) As it was traditional to say what you were thankful for before starting the meal, we all had a great time getting everyone to say their sentiment first in French or English and then in their native language (which meant we had a variety of Spanish, Dutch and Polish among others).

Before long my flatmate had left to go back to America and it was just me in the flat for a month. Although this might sound lonely after living with such full-on people, I very much enjoyed my peace and quiet, and slowly re-arranged the house as I wanted it. November and December passed fairly quietly for me, I went to class, my French slowly improved and I occasionally went for drinks with friends but mostly stayed toasty in my flat as the days got colder and colder (Winter is coming!) and then finally one morning I woke up and it was snowing!!!!! 

The students in my class came and went (with the exception of Emily and Jennifer) and although it was sad to say goodbye, it was always fun meeting new people from all over the world. One of the girls in my class who was English was only there for a short time as she was renovating a chalet in the mountains and simply wanted a refresher course, however we got on well and did a few things together which was great fun. As she had a car we had greater freedom than I was used to, and on her last day of class we went out for lunch in a little village in the mountains nearby. It was rather fancy and normally would be out of my price range, luckily however the lunch dish of the day was only ten euros (and a delicious risotto it was!) so we had a lovely time fine dining in this beautiful old building. 

A weekend in Bologna

Considering I was staying in one location for a while, I decided at least one little trip was in order. I eventually decided upon a weekend to Bologna as I had a friend I could stay with there - my friend Joe who I had met on my archaeological dig the year before in fact - and I had found cheap transportation there. One of the best ways to get around Europe (apart from the bus as it is so much cheaper than the train) is Blabla car. An easy to use website, it's made up of everyday people who are going from one place to another and want help with the gas money or simply company on the long drive. As such, the cost is far cheaper than public transport and often far more pleasant (not to mention faster than the bus). 

By the time I arrived I really only had one full day and a morning, so it was a quick trip but well worth it. Back into Italy I took full advantage of the deliciously cheap restaurants, pizza and prosecco. Have I mentioned how much I love Italy?

Having arrived late Friday night, my friend and I spent the Saturday site-seeing. One of my favourite things was this statue, which may not look too exciting from this angle, but has a bit more to it if you know the story. This fountain of Neptune (commonly called il Gigante) was made by Jean de Boulogne - a young Flemish man - in 1566. However the singularity of this statue is due to the Church and its prudish ways. Jean wished to fashion Neptune with large genitalia and was infuriated by the Church's unsurprising opposition to this, so much so that he built the statue with its arm out and carefully designed the thumb so that from a certain angle to the side of the statue his wish was realized and can still amusingly be seen today. I'm not sure how true it was but apparently the church was so scandalized they had the statue wear bronze pants for a time - that I would have liked to see!

Bologna like many Italian cities is very old, having had settlements here as long ago as 1000 BC. It also has an Etruscan history as well as of course later on a Roman one. 

The Basilica of San Petronio was the center piece of the piazza here, and standing as the fifteenth largest church in the world, it's not difficult to see why. I was confused by the sudden change of styles in this church, but Joe proved to be an excellent tour guide and explained it to me. Apparently in 1561 (keep in mind the church was begun in 1390) a revised plan was made which proposed to make the Basilica so large it would be greater than St. Peters Basilica in Rome. Pope Puis IV soon put a stop to these plans as the idea of anyone else having a bigger church was clearly an affront. He blocked the quarry of stone they were using so the grand structure was capped off short and became this oddity. One of the interesting things inside the church is one of the few depictions of Muhammad - due to this it has been targeted a number of times by terrorists (so far unsuccessfully) as they claim this is an affront to Islam. I made my trip inside somewhat quickly, mindful of the recent Paris attacks. 

Another nifty piece of history were these towers, dating to between the 12th and 13th centuries, there were once up to 180 of them throughout the city. Now only a few remain and their purpose is uncertain, though it is thought they were perhaps for offensive and defensive purposes, and I suspect probably not a small amount of prestige. Sadly most of them were demolished or fell down, and only a few still stand.

A trip to Italy wouldn't be complete without gelato, and the tiny tucked away place we went even had Eggcream flavour! My favorite! The colour put me off as usually it's more of a white colour, but surprisingly it was absolutely delicious, and definitely as good (maybe slightly better!) than Grom's version as it was a little more lemony and creamy. 

My blabla car on the way back was very good, the guy was nice and chatty and spoke excellent English. Better yet we picked up a lovely french lady called Amelie in Chamonix who had in fact studied in Australia! Her studies focused on Marine Biology and GIS techniques (geographic information system) which was interesting to chat about as I only knew a small amount about GIS and purely from an archaeological perspective, so seeing how widely it can be used was fascinating. GIS is basically used for capturing, storing and analyzing data related to the earths surface, creating a map, and can therefore show archaeological sites and capture their exact coordinates, but also be used for an array of different purposes. 

Driving through Chamonix at night was very exciting for me as it had snowed! Real proper snow! Not just a light dusting on the ground but a good layer of it, and it was fluffy as anything. I froze my hands of picking it up and dropping it as we waited to pick up more passengers but it was well worth it. 

Chamonix trip

My friends worked most weekends (the good old au pair jobs, thank god I'm out of that!) however we had a rare weekend where we were all free and decided we should go for a little trip somewhere. We discussed going to Paris that Friday morning, but ultimately I convinced them it was too expensive and we should go somewhere else having such a short amount of time. A note here because it was later that night that this occurred and I would feel remiss not mentioning it. That night (the night we could have ourselves been in Paris) the Paris attacks of November 13 occurred - a coordinated set of terrorist attacks which killed 130 people. There's not much I can say about it apart from the obvious, it was awful, and sad, and horrible as well as shocking.

In light of these attacks and the borders closing, we dismissed our initial Genevre plan and decided to simply take a day trip to the nearby town of Chamonix. A ski resort town, the views were meant to be beautiful, that was all I really knew about the town, but really that's about all there is to it.

One of the oldest ski resorts in France, it lies on the north summit of Mont Blanc and it certainly had beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. This of course comes with a price tag, and I shudder to think of the cost of a night staying here. Even these pretty pastries had a higher price tag than I was used to!

It was a lot colder here than Annecy, but also a beautiful sunny autumn day, so we enjoyed our wandering, warmly dressed and admiring the alpine architecture. We picnicked in a nearby park, making the trip a rather cheap one.

My good friends Emily and Jennifer, who made the trip and indeed my stay in Annecy that much better. 

My last view of Chamonix as we headed back to the car, the sun glinting of this man-made crane which although massive, was dwarfed by the snow-capped mountains surrounding us.

Birthday celebrations and Evil Swans

Just to be somewhat self-obsessed, I'm going to talk about my birthday some more, mainly because it was lots of fun. My close friends in class took me out to a local Italian restaurant for lunch on the day of my birthday, and we all enjoyed pizza and Moscato d'Asti which is a sparkling Italian white wine my friend Emily introduced me to and we all got somewhat addicted to!

We failed somewhat with our basic French and all felt like fools, but we managed to get the general message across and I even asked for the bill correctly! It's the small victories. 

That evening my flatmates made me broccoli cheese soup (which is a lot nicer and a lot less healthy than it sounds) which was then poured into crusty bread leaving you a deliciously flavored bread by the end. 

That weekend I had a small party at my flat and even made a Pavlova for my birthday! My international friends were intrigued by such a cake, and happily all fell in love with it. I can safely say I made more Pavlovas in my five months in Annecy than I ever have in my entire life.

Keeping to the food theme, I tried my hand at overnight cinnamon rolls which were in my opinion, rather a success. 

As the weather turned colder we took to wrapping up warmer and still braving the walk along the lake as it was so beautiful. Although the swans added to the picture, we kept well away knowing their evil tendencies. 

Autumn at its best. I can truly say Annecy is one of my favourite places in France. 

October in Annecy: Autumn and Family Reunions

The second most photographed thing in France after the Eiffel tower, I couldn't resist snapping my own shot. Called the Palais de l'Isle, this old prison dominates the old town of Annecy, but I'll detail more on that later as I did in fact visit this historic monument. 

Annecy in itself is fairly small, so one gets to know the Old Town rather fast, yet I never tired of wandering those old streets, the mountains framing the skyline. It was always fun discovering a new little restaurant or cafe every time - like this bakery selling fancy chocolates that looked like chestnuts! (I bet they tasted much better than chestnuts too).

Another of my favourite things was the lake, the water was extremely clear and blue, and in autumn all the trees were turning beautiful colours. While the weather was still warm enough I often enjoyed walking along it and taking in the views.

Not long after the Cow festival, my birthday occurred as it is want to do (and how different it was this time, and how odd thinking that the year before I had been stuck in the Moroccan dessert looking after a little demon-sorry, child.) The highlight of my birthday this year was that Necia and Yannick came to visit me for the weekend, nothing like having my family there to celebrate! It was quite fun showing them the town as I hadn't really been there long enough to know everything myself, so it was nice to be a tourist too and have company doing so. 

To my delight and surprise, they also came with presents, a gift basket of Italian awesomeness! All of my favorite things! (Including prosecco and good chocolate hallelujah!) 

Because they had a car we took advantage of the beautiful autumn day and drove all the way around the lake, stopping at a lovely picnic spot when we saw fit. We also saw what I hoped to be the last wasp of the year given how they had plagued us all Summer! (I was even stung in Eastern Europe the sneaky bastards!)

After our little feast we stopped off for some photo-taking in this tiny village with the ivy turning crimson. I do love how beautiful everything becomes in Autumn. 

As a fancy treat we went out to the restaurant L'etage which I cannot recommend enough for trying the local food. We shared a cheese fondue (Fondue Savoyarde) and Tartiflette which is a traditional dish from the region involving potatoes, onions, bacon and lots and lots of cheese. Delicious! 

We all tried very hard not to drop our bread in the fondue as the forfeit is of course jumping in the lake like in Asterix and Obelix -and in Annecy the lake is never far away! 

We also went to the morning market as although it is expensive, it has an impressive array of goods, even just to look at and admire if we didn't feel like buying anything. There is also an antique market on the same streets of the old town on a different day, and occasionally I would wander it, though I never saw anything worth buying (and one finds it difficult to cart antique chairs around in a backpack, no matter how pretty or cheap it was). 

Annecy in Autumn was definitely a sight to remember, especially at the Pont des Amours, which as the story goes was built so that young lovers could meet in the middle rather than going all the way around the canal - the other more amusing and probably more accurate story states that it was in fact the prostitutes bridge and was built to make an easy meeting point. Regardless, we used it to get a photo of autumn at its best. I can't thank Necia and Yannick enough for coming to see me for my weekend and making it truly memorable for me. 

Annecy: The Cows come down from the Mountains, and other tales

Getting from London to Annecy was a long train ride indeed, especially as I was delayed in the tunnel for about half an hour as apparently immigrants had broken into the tunnel, luckily no-one was hurt and we were soon on our way. The irritated mood on the train soon abated however when our new train conductor hopped on at Lille. We were soon treated to a Frenchman energetically announcing on the loud-speakers in English (imagine a stereotypical thick French accent) about how we were going to the South of France with 'lots of good cheese and mmmmmmmmm can you smell ze lavender!!?' regardless to say he had the compartment in hysterics and it made my day!

 Finally I arrived in Annecy and made my way to the apartment that would be my home for the next five months. After a slight disaster with the landlord thinking I was coming the next day I finally was able to get inside and meet my flatmates. A very nice and quiet Swiss girl, and an extremely exuberant American - they couldn't have been more opposite if they had tried! The flat itself was something I got used to and grew to really like after time, although my initial impression was perhaps not the best. 

The apartment was old and had its little quirks - don't touch the handrail in the bathroom or it will fall out of the wall, turn the electric jug halfway to the side or it won't flick on, the list went on (let's not forget my personal favourite, the TV remote that was so disgusting my flatmates had glad-wrapped it!) But it was warm, the internet worked, and the kitchen had a gas stove so I was content. And the longer I stayed, the more I liked it (this was probably helped along by my change of rooms in December when my flatmate left. New bedroom pictured below)

The view from the little balcony (which I'm sure is lovely in Summer but rather out of use in Winter) was breathtaking, and it was one of my favourite things whilst living there to watch the sun rise above the mountains in the morning tinting them golden and reflecting the snow, and sinking below the skyline in the evening, turning them pink.

I began my French classes on the Monday (having arrived on the Saturday) and was soon settled into a routine. I made good friends with a couple of girls in my class, namely two Colombians named Jennifer and Bibianna, and an extremely kind American girl named Emily. The great thing about my Colombian friends were they didn't speak English, forcing us to practice French!

The first event of note in my new little town came the week after I arrived, and was a traditional event called 'Retour des Alpages' or the Cows returning from the mountain. 

This festival is an old tradition marking the beginning of winter, as the cattle spend their summer up in the mountains until the weather turns, in winter it is too cold for them to survive up there so they are brought back down by the Farmers. 

All sorts of animals went through the streets, from cows to sheep to my personal favourite, a gaggle of spirited geese! (Note the guy on the left with the goats who looks like he might of had just a tad too much wine before coming)

My American flatmate loved photos, so I ended up in far more than I would usually like!

A photogenic farmer with his cow.

After a number of animals came a procession of a different sort, more people dressed in traditional outfits, people carrying flags, more tractors and even these army men!

I was rather overexcited by this procession of dogs as they actually had the stereotypical barrel around their necks! Apparently popular culture says that these barrels carried brandy in them for avalanche victims to keep them warm until they were rescued. I somehow doubt the validity of such a claim, but they looked awesome with their little barrels nonetheless (although I was put off by the copious amounts of drool).

In the usual French way, the festival was a happy mixture of organisation and chaos, with cows wandering off in all directions creating traffic jams everywhere, and organized cleaners following them to clean up their rather bad smelling presents dropped all over the road.

This photo is one of my favorites simply because of how odd it is. If you saw this with no context how confused would you be! This old man on skis was wandering up and down the road with an enormous bushy mustache and looked suspiciously like Monsieur Leclerc from 'Allo 'Allo.
I thought he was hilarious.

One Adventure Ends and another Begins

Before I knew it our whirlwind trip of Italy was over (for me at least) as really it had only been a few days detour to our top places before dropping me in the airport in Rome. Although it hadn't been a long trip, it was beyond worth it. From eating pastries on the Amalfi coast to drinking chilled Prosecco in campsites (our last night camping was an epic evening of Prosecco and pancakes) to being able to finally cross Pompeii off my bucket-list (and having it made all the better by sharing those experiences with my intrepid travel companions) I will never forget my three months road trip with my family. 

On my last morning camping I said goodbye to my trusty little tent (pictured here) and gave it away, on to new adventures with new owners. I wonder where it is now?

My last night in Italy was spent in Rome, and I couldn't believe how fast the time had flown. It was odd being back in the same place where I had begun my travels in Europe the year before with my dig. And here I was on the same bridge watching the sun set over Rome, the Eternal city. There's something nice about knowing that even if you have changed, it feels like the city has not. We even visited my old neighbourhood Trastevere and bought gelato (we had gelato so much that day I thought I might die) before finishing off the night with a restaurant my fellow travelers Yannick and Necia had been to before. The pizza was potentially the best I've ever had (aside from Naples of course) and it was the perfect end to a brilliant adventure.

Of course, the adventure wasn't over for any of us, we were simply parting ways and heading on different paths, my family continuing to explore Italy, whilst I made a short stop in England to see my friend before heading off to my next adventure in France - but more on that later. Having my friend Joy put me up in England and even offer to keep some of my luggage for me to lighten my load was beyond helpful, and I had a lovely time in the UK. After so much travelling it was brilliant just to relax, and as such I have little to blog about my time there. One notable event was that it was Joy's partners birthday whilst I was staying with them so between us we made him the most epic cake I've ever made it my life (and it tasted just as good as it looks) did I mention it had four layers of chocolatey goodness too?

A typically English birthday, we went out to the pub to celebrate, allowing me to meet their group of friend's which was good fun. (Look at all those pasty white English people!)

The other highlight of my short visit (aside from seeing Joy of course) was getting to see her son again. Look how much Harvey has grown since last time! I'm not usually a person who likes being around children very much, but Harvey was not only adorable but just beginning to giggle and and smile, and he was super fun to be around (why is it so rewarding getting a baby to laugh at you?)  Before I knew it, I was heading off to the unknown, destination France.