I am going French...

I was so busy before I left for France, that there are a few things I wanted to do but didn't.  One of them was get a haircut and dye my hair.  Roots is not a good look for me.  So I decided to do it here.  It was a prime example of my epic fail in learning the French language.  So I found a salon and the woman spoke NO English.  Go figure, but she was really nice.  So I walked into the salon and I say "Je voudrais un colour et un coupe." The woman giggled at me but nodded yes that she would do it.   I figured she was laughing at me accent.  Oh how I wish it was my accent.  Now I had asked my French teacher how to say "I want a color and a haircut", and I assumed that is what I said, but of course, it wasn't. Now the word for haircut and the word for ice cream sundae are very similar, and looking back, I defiantly said to the woman that "I want a color and an ice cream sundae."  Ughhhh, go me.  Well anyways, this is way shorter than I wanted, but I ended up loving it!    Here is my new French hairstyle!

Sugar Artistry!

One thing about pastry school is that you never really get to design your own dessert.  You pretty much just make it like the Chef made it.  Which when you have creative juices in you just dying to get out, it becomes very agonizing.  For the first time ever (drum roll please) we actually got to design our own work... and it was a sugar sculpture none the less!  When we first got the assignment, our teacher told us we could do whatever we wanted, and only gave us a height limit.  So my partner and I designed a pretty cool sculpture.  The next day our teacher told us that he forgot to tell us that there was a theme, which was "exotic", and we could only use three colors in our sculpture.  Ummmm, what?  So with little time to actually plan out, my partner and I started our work.  She "worked" on god knows what for most of the time, which I didn't mind because it let me have most of the creative freedom on the project.  So here is our exotic sugar sculpture!  It is mostly mine, the only thing she made on it was the one crazy looking flower on the bottom right hand side.  Everything else I did.





Here are a few close-ups of our work:





And here are the sculptures from the rest of the class... I don't think many of them followed the rules!

My Favorite Class... ENTREMETS!!!

This was hands down my favorite class, mostly because this is what I want to do in life.   They are called entremets and are fancy french cakes.  They are usually only about 2 inches high, and contain some sort of crunchy layer, a creamy layer, a cake layer, and a mousse.  I love the endless combinations you can come up with.  For our buffet, me teacher picked only the best ones to display.  And guess what... he picked every single cake I made!  Woo hoo!! I wish this class could have lasted so much longer!  Here we go with the pictures...

Thursday Morning Markets in Town

I loved the Thursday morning markets in Yssingeaux.  They put farmers markets in America to shame.  You can buy so many things here, tons of fresh produce, meats (some with a twist as you will see), clothes, tires... almost anything!  It was amazing and so cheap!  We would by tons of fresh veggies and fruits and in America, it would have cost you about $30 and here, we would get it all for about 5 euros.  Insane!  Here are just a few pics.  This is one thing I am gonna miss so much when I come home!





And this is how you buy your meat (not even kidding about this...)



They have all other kinds of "meats" too, including live chickens, roosters, ducks, and rabbits!  But for the weak hearted... they also sell meat like you would see in a grocery store too! :)

Chocolates Lab! (Not about a Dog)

Luckily for us, we had chocolates lab the week before Easter.  So our teachers let us make all sorts of Easter candy....with one exception.  It was traditional Easter candy.  So apparently in France, instead of a bunny delivering eggs and chocolates to children, an Easter Bell does it.  Yea, I don't get it either.  And there is a huge emphasize on chocolate hens (makes sense) and chocolate fish and seashells (I give up on French Culture!)  Our teachers also tried to have a little fun with us and we made angry birds out of chocolate!  Had to be one of the coolest looking buffets we made!









And we made a chocolate cake and a chocolate tart as well!!  Chocolate overload!!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM!!!

In going back through my photos, I relize I am further behind on this blog than I thought.  Sorry everyone! (and by everyone, I mean the one or two people who actually read this!)  Ice Creams class was a lot of fun and was very cold!  We got to work on this really cool table that you could turn on and the tabletop turned into a freezer surface.  It was crazy! And unless you a pastry nerd like me, I am sure you consider this pretty dumb!  I can't remember what all of these are, but here are a bunch of pictures....













We also made popsicles made of blueberry sorbet.... I loved them, but they turned my teeth blue.  It was a very good look for me! NOT!

Just an update....

I am still alive :) I have been really busy with school and traveling but I am here.  I will work on a few posts for you now, including my trips to Milan, Venice, Paris (again) and lots of pictures from class!

A Snowy Day in Yssingeaux

This is what it looks like here in France today.  Yesterday too. 



Yes, it it very beautiful... but you must remember that I have to walk to that large castle in the back on a daily basis.  It is hilly and with ice and snow it is an awful walk.  I may have fallen twice yesterday while going to class.  Pants soaked, socks and shoes soaked.

Just a glimpse into my daily life in France.  I am happy to report the snow is melting though.  Thank god.

But when I look at the view here, I don't think of the walk or the falls or the soaked clothes, I think of how lucky I am to be experiencing living here and the beauty this country holds.  Everyone should make an effort to see it at least once in their lifetime.

My Journey to Paris

WARNING:  there are a lot of pictures coming your way and some may make you jealous.

Ok, now that we got that out of the way... let me tell you about my extended weekend in Paris.  To start... it was AMAZING! Paris is even more beautiful than all the pictures you have ever seen.  It really is a place to travel to in your lifetime (this being said, I am going back in two weeks for another weekend getaway).  There was a group of 7 of us traveling together, and by together, I mean not at all due to taxis not showing up and missed trains.  But I am the only one out of the whole group who did not miss a train at some point this weekend.  My half of the group was the first to arrive in Paris.  Sense the other 3 missed their train, we walked around town (after realizing that there is a "Chinatown" of Paris and it was where our hotel is) and we came across this amazing little park.  It was filled with little fountains and a hot air balloon ride.  It stayed attached to the ground, but we got to see the whole city...

And of course... we were being silly!

Look what we see!!!! 

Ok, here are a bunch of other pictures from the park...

After the park... we continue walking around for a while and oh my... look what we found... the Cathedral of Notre Dame!  We decided to wait for everyone else to go in, but the architecture of this building is incredible!

Of course I took on in front of it!!!

More picture of Notre Dame later.  We actually did go in, but not until the last day.  So you have to wait till the end of this post to see those pics. Or if you're impatient, go there now (but if you do, I will find out who you are and come kick your butt for making me put in all these pictures for you to skip to the end!)

Then we took a river cruise down the Seine River.  We did this at dusk and it was beautiful... and EXTREMELY cold.  It took us all night to thaw out.  Seriously.

This flame statue is a tribute to Princess Diana.  It is a replica of the flame of the Statue of Liberty.  This is where she died in her tragic accident.

This next photo is of a statue called "The Perfect Woman".  You make your own judgements about it... but we all had a good laugh about it on the ship.

The next photo is perhaps one of my favorites from this trip...

The Eiffel Tower light show at the end of the cruise :)

Easter Sunday we went to the Louvre.. and by went to, I mean we walked around outside, saw how the line circled around the building and decided to go elsewhere.  Next time I go I will buy my tickets ahead of time!  But we still squeezed in some photos!

We also got to go shopping on Avenue des Champs-Élysées and see the world famous Arch de Triomphe. 

Shopping was awesome... left me explain why.  There were very few things in Paris that were "must do's" for me.  As in I must do them while being here or I would forever regret it.  One was to see the lock bridge, which you will see photos of later :), and the other was to get pastry from a famous pastry shop called Laduree and are very famous for their macaroons.  Well, Laduree is located on Champs-Elysees, and I pretty much had a panic attack when I saw it.  Now pictures aren't allowed, there is security there and everything, but my motto was is if I can get a snapshot or two in, then screw them!  

Below are the smiling faces of two people who just paid 40 euros for 20 macaroons :)  Money well spent in my opinion!

We got one of each flavor!

We then grabbed lunch at a place that the waiters were dressed like sailors.  Seriously, it is the only reason we ate at this place.

We each ordered a bottle of water and this is how much it costs...

WHAT?!?!?!  OVER 30 EUROS FOR FOUR BOTTLES OF WATER!!!! WHAT THE HELL WAS IT?  HOLY WATER?!?!?

Then on to the Arch!  Funny thing about getting to the actual Arch is that it is in the middle of a huge rotary.  At least 4 lanes of traffic, if not 5.  After lots of pondering on how to go see it, we finally saw signs for an underground tunnel to the Arch... Perfect!  We walk around the Arch to the tunnel, go down the stairs underneath the tunnel and see the stairs to go up to the Arch.  We walk up the stairs and realized we ended up on the other side of the Arch.  Screw it.  We weren't going back.  We did get a good chuckle out of our stupidity though.

This bus was literally in my picture forever.  All I wanted was a nice picture of me and the Arch.

It did finally move...

That was about the end of day two.  For day three, we decided to get up really, and I mean REALLY, early to get to the Eiffel Tower.  What you don't hear about until you get here is that there is usually a 2 1/2 hours wait minimum to go up.  We decided the smart thing to do was to get there way before it opened.  It opens at 9:30, so we got there at 8.  Thank god we did.  There was already people in line, about 200 or so, and the line instantly grew after we got there.  After a couple of security checkpoints, and a lot of disorganization among the people who worked there... we were being lifted to the top!

Here is one of the security checkpoints.  I don't know why this amuses me so much, but look at the items security had to take from people.  I didn't realize spoons were the weapon of choice in France.  What is even more amusing is how many spoons there are compared to everything else!

Ok fine, I will post some pics of the Eiffel Tower!

Now back to Notre Dame before we leave...

After Notre Dame we sadly went home.  We almost missed the train... well some of us did, but not me.  Thankfully!  There are a few things I didn't get to see that I will go back to.  We have a weekend planned to see the Moulin Rouge and to also actually get inside the Louvre!

Oh and I almost forgot the lock bridge!  I love the lock bridge.  So the story behind this bridge is that people write the name of a loved on a lock.  They lock it to the fence and throw the key into the river.  It is supposed to symbolize a couples neverending love since the lock can no longer be opened.  Here are a few pics...

Au Revior for now!!!