Last Dijon Days

Well, here we are.

My wonderful stay in this gorgeous city finally had to come to an end. Before I left, I took Frédéric and Mathilde out for a wonderful meal at La Dame d'Aquitaine, a super-fancy restaurant. We ate, drank, and were merry before I had to head home.

What an incredible spread! The restaurant was gorgeous, and we were really lucky to get in without a reservation. It was a magical night.

The "amuse-bouche", or appetizer, creamed asparagus with a cappuccino of cream on top. Mathilde didn't even know that green asparagus existed! Before I got to Dijon, I didn't know anything about white asparagus. All we ate in the house was white asparagus. Both are delicious. 

My entrée, or hors d'oeuvre. Escargots three ways. Clockwise from the left: escargots in a beef bourgignonne sauce with onions and bacon, baked breaded balls with escargots and garlic butter, and escargots out of their shells with gutter, garlic, and parsley. Absolutely divine. 

Frédéric's entrée. Foie gras with cherry jelly. It tasted fantastic! Now I can say I tried it. And I loved it!

The three of us at our table. The night was totally perfect in every way!

I couldn't get over the room. It was built between the 13th and 14th centuries, and is underground. The lighting was so great, though, that it felt like we were outside in the middle of the day. 

This blew my mind. Silver covers over our meals? Wow! Before the waiter took the covers off, he introduced our meals. Our dinner was such a production! And so tasty. 

My dinner. Roasted duck with fig sauce and apples. I'm drooling just writing about it!

A going-away gift from Frédéric and Mathilde. A tiny 4GB USB key full of french music! Mathilde loaded it up with over 25 CDs! What a thoughtful gift. Merci beaucoup!

This is what Frédéric had for dinner. Some of the biggest scallops I've ever seen, with roasted veggies and mussels. He shared with Mathilde and I, who ordered the same meal. Delicious. 

Wow, did we ever look fabulous! 

Dessert. Crème brulée with Burgundian beer sauce on top. And I thought the night couldn't get any better. I was so wrong! This was delicious. 

All three of us marvelled at the décor of the room. It was so elegant! We had a wonderful time. 

This was so cool! We took one of the little white things on the left and put it in the dish on the right, added water, and the little white thing expanded and grew into a napkin! There was lemon essence in the water, so the napkins were lightly scented! A fantastic end to an incredible evening. 

Thursday was my last full day in Dijon. I spent the morning with Katty and Christine, trying to escape the rain and eating Kebaps. Before we parted ways, they gave me a cookbook full of recipes from all of the castles in the Burgundy region. I miss you so much, girls! 

My last, soggy, day in Dijon. Even with the rain and chill, I miss it so much! 

I left Friday morning at 6:30 to begin my long journey home. I travelled over 24 hours in total before I got to fall asleep in my warm, comfy bed. Thanks to everyone who came to meet me at the airport in Calgary! It was great to see so many familiar faces after such a long, difficult voyage. You really made my day. 

Thanks too, to everyone who has been following all my adventures on here. All your messages and well-wishing really made my time away easier. I'm very happy to be home, but I miss Dijon terribly. Today I go back to work, re-establishing a routine in Lethbridge. Hopefully that'll help me keep my mind off how much I wish I was still in France. I can't wait to see everyone here again. Let's start making plans to hang out! I'll try to post a couple more entries on here, but my adventure, sadly, has come to an end. Time to start a new chapter in my life. 

Thanks again, everyone, for your support and love. 

À bientôt!

Bricolage and Bon Voyage

This semester has absolutely flown by.

Today we had to break up our little multicultural group so that some of us could go home. Bronwyn is leaving Dijon tonight, and France tomorrow morning. Isabelle is here till Sunday and leaves France the following Tuesday, and Katty and Christine get to stay all summer before going elsewhere to pursue their educational careers. I'm so surprised that I was able to create such strong bonds with these girls in so little time. I'm really going to miss them!

From left to right: Bronwyn, Katty, Olivier, Anthony, and Christine. Awesome snuggle circle. We enjoyed an awesome picnic lunch before creating the awesome snuggle circle. It was awesome.

This morning we went to the market to pick up stuff for breakfast and lunch, and then came back to my house to eat. Frédéric and Mathilde were nice enough to let us have a bit of a party. It was great! We made an enormous fruit salad with fresh fruit from the market, and ate it with croissants and coffee.

Myam! What a wonderful way to start the day. 

Anthony goofing around at lunch. 

After lunch we hit the park for a wander. We bought Bronwyn a t-shirt at market this morning. I have the same one. I adore it. 

Money from around the world! Top to bottom: USA, Canada, Czech Republic, Euro. Fun stuff.

Oh, how I love these ladies! 

Wednesday marked our last day of classes. Katty, Bronwyn, and I hung out all afternoon. 

This is what a chestnut looks like while it's growing. They're really quite sharp!

Donkeys! There's a park near Bronwyn's house that has a bunch of animals in the middle of it. Not a petting zoo exactly. Just pens full of animals. 

I loved the pen full of birds. The peacocks were gorgeous. But what's that fluffy grey thing in the top left-hand corner of the picture?? 

Bunny! So cute. Pretty hardcore too. I watched it fight off a chicken that was after a treat that it wanted. 

The peacocks were so brightly coloured! 

Food here is adorable! And so is Bronwyn. :)

Emo pony doesn't care what you think about his hair. It's dark like the pain in his soul. 

Land, ho! There were some fun little wooden animals near the real little animals. 

Attack chair! There were chair-themed sculptures scattered around the park. Some were awesome, others were straight-up wierd. 

Jolie filles! Oh, how I'll miss you. 

Bronwyn and I went out for dinner together at a place called l'Épicerie. They specialize in Dijonnaise and Burgundian specialties. This is Kir. I really like Kir. 

Oeufs Murettes. Eggs poached in the sauce from beef bourgignonne. Unbelievably tasty. 

Petit casserole d'escargots. Yep, escargots in cream sauce with croutons. Om nom!

My dinner. Beef with époisse (local cheese) sauce and fries made with duck oil. First beef steak here. Surprisingly good! After the entrées, though, it was tough to finish it all. 

Bronwyn's dinner. Chicken thigh with a mustard/cream/wine sauce named after Gaston Gérard, a previous mayor of Dijon. It also came with roasted veggies and mashed potatoes. 

This has been our project this weekend. Bricolage. We're creating a window between the kitchen and the salon. This is the before. 

While Frédéric and Mathilde cut the hole in the wall, I explored the garden. We have wild strawberries! They're tiny, but so good! Incredibly sweet and full of flavour. We also have raspberries, blackberries, and sour cherries. Yum!

This is the after-ish picture. Hole is cut and needs some adjusting, and the frame was varnished by yours truly. I do good work, if I do say so myself. Eventually it'll be a window with glass in it, to let in light but keep out smells and sounds from the kitchen. The house is full of dust that's driving my asthma and allergies crazy, but it looks pretty good so far! 

To quote John Mayer, "If you never stop when you wave goodbye, you just might find if you give it time, you will wave hello again". I've been waving goodbye to my friends and family back home since the end of January, and in just 14 sleeps I'll be waving hello to them again. I'm going to keep waving goodbye to these wonderful ladies until we see each other again. Hopefully that'll happen soon. My arm is starting to get tired. 

Je vous adore, les filles. 

À bientôt!

Last Scout Weekend and Dijon Days

No, this is NOT the Saint-Malo trip. I started uploading pictures before I left, and didn't get to post them. This is a little taste of what my life has been like the last couple weeks. I'll get to Saint-Malo eventually. Probably this weekend. I have exams this week. 

Frédéric made crêpes for dinner a couple weeks ago! They were fabulous. We did a little drinking with dinner. This stuff is potent. Fred and Mathilde giggled when I drank all the liquor in the little cup in one gulp. Apparently that's not how it's done. 

Crêpe flambée! We poured some alcohol on it ant lit it on fire. Pretty excellent show. Makes me want to do some bananas foster when I get home. 

There was an anti- G8 rally on campus. It wasn't anything special, just a bunch of hippies in tents with signs. But they had some pretty nasty things to say about us foreign students. Jerk-hippies.

Yes! We have Grey Poupon! This sign is on a building not far from the train station. Love it. 

There's a little building not far from our classrooms that has new graffiti on it every couple weeks. Apparently it's sponsored by the art faculty, and students paint on it for year-end projects. 

I adore all the ivy-covered houses here. Our back deck is covered. I'll take pictures of the garden in the next few days. This building is a doctor's office! 

Mmm, mille-feuilles. Another one of my favourite things here. The pastries are fabulous. Oh, how I need to hit the gym when I get home! My wine-bread-cheese-chcolate diet here has been too good to me. 

Last Scout weekend! Prince John (Etienne) and his grand priestess (me) looking grand. I love the idea of following a folklore all year. Keeps things interesting for the kids and the leaders!

The kids hard at work at their ideas for the mural that we later painted. So cute!

A draft of the final product. 

One of the two walls we painted. I love that King King is wearing a Scout scarf! The clovers are there because I decided to do the trefoil that's all over my Canadian Guide uniform. :)

Voilà! My contribution to the wall. The Canadian trefoil in a Dijon scarf. Not too shabby, eh?

The artists. They worked hard all day, and the effort shows! What a great job. 

This is what we do between classes now that the cherries are ripening. Yes, there are cherry trees on campus. Yes, you can eat the cherries. Yes, they're fabulous!

Katty From Czech Republic harvesting cherries. In heels. European women are hardcore like that. 

Yum! 

I'm not as climb-y as Katty, but I do alright all by myself. 

Kitchen time! These are the fixins for charlotte, a delicious and fruity dessert cake. Raspberries, yogurt, sugar, and "cuillères," or spoon pastries. You soak them in raspberry juice to make the cake-y outside. 

Like this! We ran out of raspberry juice, so we added blackcurrant liqueur. I may or may not have drank what was left in the bowl after I was done. 

After layers of yogurt, fruit, and more cuillères, this is what it looked like before we sealed off the mould to let it set overnight. 

And this is the delicious end product! I'm going to make this for the girls when they come over next Friday for our end-of-year party. I can't believe the semester is almost done already!

Yes, I survived Saint-Malo and Mont-Saint-Michel. I didn't get swept out to sea, and I took over 500 pictures in the 48 hours that I was there. I'm uploading pictures and video as I type this, so I'm hoping to get another post together at some point this week. 

Final exams started today. I have 3 this week, 3 next Monday, 3 next Tuesday, and my last one will be next Wednesday. Thursday here is a holiday, so I'm hoping to spend the entire day in the garden or in bed. Next week is going to be ugly. 

In international news, a volcano in Iceland is spewing volcanic ash all over the place since late last week. Over 500 flights in northern Europe have been cancelled in the last 4 days. I hope to goodness that it'll settle down right quick. I have a friend leaving Monday do to a practicum in Ireland, and I'm leaving the 5th of June for a week! I'm more than a little nervous, but I can't do anything about it, so I'll just keep a close eye on the goings-on in Iceland for the next few weeks. Fingers crossed! 

I have to run off and get some studying done. I'll post Saint-Malo pictures as quick as I can. Patientez, s'il vous plaît.

À bientôt!