Et Les Cours Commencent...

Classes began this Monday, and so far I have only had one two- or three-hour class each day. It sounds idyllic but listening to French spoken really fast for that long of a time is TIRING. Really tiring. But I can surprisingly understand more than I thought I would and definitely more than I can understand in casual conversation. (sometimes I think that French people don't breathe in between paragraphs when speaking.)

Yesterday I had a class at 8 AM. So I got to see the sun rise:

If I see the sun rise at school in New Orleans, it's only because I had to stay awake all night to write a paper.
 Also no windows in New Orleans show the sun rising over the sea.
So Nice wins this round. Again. 

And then I had an exhausting two hours of class. But when I finally made it down to the beach in the late afternoon, it looked like this:

The Little Mermaid jumped off of these rocks just as I was taking my camera out. 

I didn't feel like cooking that night so I went to the campus cafeteria for the first time. It only costs three euros for a meal (which is the best deal in all of the land apparently) and you get a ton of food. Malheureusement, the Campus Carlone cafeteria is not one of places renowned for its cuisine.

I got a hamburger steak-ish thing (viande?), pasta (pâtes), zucchini (courgettes), cheese (fromage), bread (pain), and yogurt (yaourt). A LOT OF FOOD. (BEAUCOUP DE NOURRITURE)

If you don't think it looks tasty, that's because it wasn't. 

I've been craving Company Burger so it was nice having ground meat, I guess.

You can't beat 3 euros, but I think I will stick to cooking for myself and/or eating in real restaurants unless I'm in a bind.

But three euros! C'est pas cher!

Éze

Today we visited Éze, which is located a convenient 30 minute bus ride away. Of course we got a little lost and missed the bus leaving Nice that we intended to take so we grabbed a quick lunch in Nice. 

We ate at a hole-in-the-wall place that Erin and I had stumbled upon last week and at which we had DELICIOUS kebabs. I'm not altogether sure what was in it but it was amazing and cheap and amazing. 

It had meat (kebab meat, I guess? that's a thing right?), french fries (I know), lettuce, onions (I think), and garlic sauce. Sooooo good. 

It doesn't look like much, I know. 

 Today when we went back, the guy remembered Erin and I and called me his sister, which was weird. So I probably won't be going back there...

Anyway, the town of Éze is actually split into two parts, kinda. At the top of the mountain (or maybe it's a reallllly big hill technically), there is the medieval village of Éze that is all stone and has an amazing garden.

A garden that, surprisingly, features a lot of cacti. Including agave, which you can eat! #foodblogging

And then the rest of Éze, where I think real people live/work is situated on the lower hills and seaside at the foot of the medieval mountain. You can take the boring road down to it or you can hike down, which we did. 

It was unexpectedly brilliant. We felt like we were in South America or Ireland or Narnia. 

I'm still half-convinced that we were in Narnia for a while, because it was that awesome. Awesome like the original meaning of awesome, as in awe-inspiring. Awe-inspiring like hiking with your mouth open in astonishment. And your feet in inappropriate shoes. 

 I didn't actually eat anything in Éze because we couldn't find any restaurants or cafes.

But I did buy fancy French perfume! From a perfumerie that has supposedly been in operation since 1747 near the medieval city.

Songeries means 'musings' in French. So I'll be like a beautiful, musing princess when I wear this perfume.
But only on special occasions, because I can' t waste of a drop of it. 

Saint-Paul de Vence

We took a day trip to Saint-Paul de Vence, which is a small city pretty close to Nice. It was the home of a medieval duke and a fortress or something along those lines. It was so quaint! 

The old town in the background. 

I also had my first crêpe of the trip! They sell them everywhere, but some of the places are a little pricey. The most popular crêpes are the ones with Nutella, sugar, or some kind of fruit. Mine with ham (jambon) because it was around lunch time.

He made it on a large crêpe stone but then cut it up for me.
I guess I looked like I couldn't handle eating it the normal way. 

 We toured the city museum, which is filled with awkward mannequins portraying the town's history (spoiler alert: a bunch of white dudes signed a lot of papers once and built walls). We also saw a church that looked super old on the outside but inside was filled with really nice modern artwork.

This entire wall was a mosaic! Super amazing. 

The icing on the cake was a chocolate shop that we visited. All of the goods were made in Bayonne, France which is the southwest corner near Spain (where my friend Savannah was born!). The guy gave us lots of free samples. Of course I had to buy something so I got 100 g of dark chocolate. 

I really had no idea how much 100 g was when I ordered it, but I'm not complaining. 

 I have a feeling that now I've had a crêpe and good chocolate I won't be able to stop eating them. Oh well....

Cagnes-Sur-Mer

Today was a rainy day, so I went with two of my American friends to a house in Cagnes-Sur-Mer at which one of them was housesitting. Cagnes-Sur-Mer is a small town really close to Nice; we took the bus for like 25 minutes and we were there.

Cagnes-Sur-Mer is mentioned in On the Road by Jack Keroauc as a city visited by one of the characters, if anyone was wondering. 

The house was cute and had an awesome view of the hills around Cagnes-Sur-Mer. The house also had an oven, so we were stoked to bake something because the university residence kitchens don't have ovens.

Helen was our host. She's a fan of baked goods too. 

We stopped at the local grocery store to get ingredients for pizza. It turned out awesome. 

For the base we used garlic, parmesan cheese, and crème fraîche, which is the French version of sour cream without as much sour. And then we put more cheese, onions, bell pepper, and tomato on top.

Ovens are magical, as was this pizza. 

We made salad with walnuts, cheese, onions, and raisins. And homemade dressing. 

It's like we're almost real people. Who can cook things. 

 For dessert, we baked apples with oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Plus tea/coffee.

Real people who eat dessert with their meals!

Helen was so jealous. But we're best friends now anyway. 

Side note: After the rain, the waves were crazy at the beach!
They came up so high that you couldn't even walk on the beach. 

Ma Mère est un Garçon

On Friday night, mon amies et moi dined at a restaurant in Vieux Nice called Chez Mamère. It was super funky and cute. It was very bright inside and all of the menus were in old record covers. 

ABBA 4 lyfe

After a few minutes we noticed that there were pictures of drag queens everywhere, kinda hidden, and there was a huge picture of a naked guy in the bathroom. One of my friends asked the waitress the story of the restaurant and she said "Ma mère est un garçon," which means mother is a boy. I didn't really understand the rest of the story, but she referred us to the mural conveniently located right beside our table. 

Apparently Ma Mère's talents were many.  

We got to the restaurant around 7:30-45, and it was practically empty. French (and European) people eat dinner LATE. The restaurant was completely full by the time we left and the poor two waitresses were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. We ordered a three course meal for only 12.50 euros, which is a totally badass price for Nice, especially Vieux Nice because it draws a lot of tourists. But we soon learned that a three course meal at Chez MaMère meant a three hour meal. Three. Hours. A full three hours. That's like three times too long for me.

L'entrée: Calamari (calamars en français). It came with mayo-esque sauce on top of une salade & it was pretty good. I'm not the biggest calamari fan, but it seems to be pretty popular in Nice. I only remembered to take the picture after I had eaten most of it.

It definitely beat Olive Garden calamari, which is the only place I had eaten it before.
 Squid is weird though. 

 My main dish featured petit scallops and crawfish in a heavy butter-cream sauce. It wasn't what I was expecting; my mind was so clouded with excitement for scallops. But it came with rice, and I could eat it almost like a stew. Or soup with rice. But it was good. Very rich, but tasty. There could have been a bit more seafood in it, but I was so hungry at that point I would have gone to catch my own scallops in the freezing ocean.

I don't think the picture does it a lot of justice.
The serving dishes were interesting too.

For dessert I got flan and it was AMAZING. I'm a sucker for custard. 

And by the time we got dessert I was hungry again. 

Fabulous Flannnnnn

It was an interesting, and long, dinner that was long and also took a long time. I can't complain about scallops and flan.

Home Cookin'

I have to cook for myself now, and I pretty much hate it. Hopefully I will get better at it? And have real food eventually? Ugh. 

My cooking skills are limited. 

Like I can add cheese to stuff. That's cooking, right?

And there's so much good French cheese! 

#omgfrenchcheese

I loveeee blue cheese, and this made me feel so fancy.  I bought it on a Sunday afternoon when it was raining and only a little corner grocery store was open. I felt très française. 

At first cooking in the résidence universitaire was complicated by the fact that I had 0 cooking utensils and even 0 eating utensils. But then I got a plate and a cup and six forks!

My first meal on a plate. Spinach salad with mushrooms & carrots & blue cheese.  So sophisticated. 

And eventually I bought a saucepan and a pot and a spatula! So now I can cook, although it is kind of a pain in the ass to cook all three meals with the same stuff. Because that means more cleaning. #whining.

My first meal cooked with my new saucepan I don't know why I put a can of green beans on top of pasta and mushrooms. It happened so fast; it was all a blur. And then it tasted weird. 

And then I bought onions and bell peppers and garlic powder so I could REALLY cook.

This masterpiece is a can of red beans with sausage and rice. PLUS onions and bell pepper. 

Before this, most of my meals in my room consisted of bread (ALWAYS BREAD EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME) and an apple or a carrot. Maybe if I hadn't bought any cooking stuff, I would lose a lot of weight and wear all black and finally be chic like the French ladiez?

Ooh la la. 

Enfin à Nice!

So Nice is an awesome city, despite the fact that many of its inhabitants are adherents to the great cult of French bureaucracy. It's super beautiful and the weather is (usually) nice. The day that I arrived looked like a day off of a postcard!

The view of the city from my dorm-closet. 

Specialty dishes from Nice are called Niçoise dishes. I think it's part Provencal, part Italian, and part Mediterranean. (Fun fact #1: Nice wasn't a part of France until 1860.) All of the Niçoise stuff that I've had so far has been reallllly good although I haven't taken any pictures of it.

But some things I've tried:
La pissaladière: a mini-pizza (or une tarte, comme le français dit) with shredded onions, black olives, and anchovies. I ordered it at a restaurant on our first day walking around Vieux Nice because it was the least expensive thing on the menu. I had no idea what it was. It tasted like it had crab meat on it to me, but I think that was just the anchovy flavor. It's a popular appetizer (fun fact #2: in French, an appetizer is called l'entrée).

Pâté: This came on a Niçoise sampler plate. If anyone was wondering, it's disgusting. It's dog food for people. (Fun fact #3: French people love their dogs. Like LOVE their dogs. Like love them so much they bring them into restaurants & stores and then NEVER pick up their shit from the sidewalks.)

Magret de canard: Duck breast! Super delicious, and it was cooked with vegetables and potatoes. It was salty and sweet.

Poivrons: Big grilled red peppers.

Beignets de courgettes: Zucchini that's fried in a batter like tempura.

And tons of pizza!!

I walked off my Niçoise meals by walking on the Promenade des Anglais which goes for 4 miles along the coast of the Baie des Anges, which is pretty much the Mediterranean Sea. No big deal. 

I didn't have internet for the first week and a half, so my travel companion Erin and I were constantly looking for places that had free Wifi so we could check our emails & communicate with the world. One fancy restaurant on the Promenade des Anglais had Wifi so I had dessert for lunch there in order to use it. 

It was pain perdu, which is what people in Louisiana call French Toast. I was curious if it was the same thing here, and it was. It was super delicious, with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. I don't know why people don't eat it constantly. 

After our ISEP orientation, I went out to dinner with the other three participants. We found a random restaurant and the food was awesome (which seems to be a theme with my descriptions of food).

This was called a Grillé Madame, which I think is the same thing as a Croque Madame. It's a fancy grilled sandwich with ham, good cheese, and an egg. All of the yellow stuff was cheese.
SO MUCH CHEESE. SO MUCH GOOD.

And to those who are curious, I have been doing things other than eating. Like going to museums, getting lost, crying over paperwork that administrative offices say they need but don't actually, using public transportation, and buying groceries! And going to the beach de temps en temps. 

Oh, hey beach.

Bier in Wien

I flew out of Vienna to go to Nice so we spent the night with one of Miki's friends, Pal. We went out for Austrian beer. 

Miki was driving so he didn't even finish his beer. A model EU citizen.  

My beer was only the middle one! 

On a slightly related note, people are allowed to smoke in bars in Vienna which sucks a lot and reminded me of New Orleans!

Au revoir Eastern Europe!

Not Hungry in Hungary

hah. 

So I visited Miki in Hungary before going to France, and I ate many delicious things! Hungarians like carbs and sour cream and bread and having a language with 40+ letters.

  Töltött Káposzta: Pickled Cabbage stuffed with meat & rice with sauce and, of course, sour cream.
We got it at the Christmas Market. 

It's hard to eat with gloves and plastic utensils. 

Unicum is a drink that is supposed to be consumed when you're freezing your tail off in the Hungarian winter. It tastes like licorice and a little bit like death but it does actually warm you up! 

I was unprepared for my first shot. 


All this pleasantry and it didn't even snow. 

Miki's mom is an excellent cook and made a lot of the food that we ate while I was there (Miki was too busy trying to convince me to go to the butcher shop). She made a dish called the Emperor's Last Crumbs or his Favorite Crumbs or something. It's crumbly sweet dough kinda, with raisins, and it's served with jam.

We had it for New Year's Eve.

Another New Year's Eve treat: Irish coffee in a Presszo, which is like a bar but not really a bar. Just a place that serves a lot of drinks. Anyway, this particular place, in a town called Vac, served their coffees very strong. 

Hungarian desserts are pretty heavy and full of cream and butter and good things. They go well with coffee or espresso or just straight liquor (kidding).

We had this little snack at the Gödöllö Palace. It's eszterházy cake.

The top was caramelized sugar, which I learned you had to eat by hand.

Like I said, espresso.


Another really good Hungarian dessert is kürtöskalács. It's sweet dough roasted over fire with a sugar coating. You can get it with nuts or chocolate or other things.

It's a good warm snack for a cold day.
Also it will make so you fat that you won't even need a coat next year!

Hot chocolate: Another good warm treat.

I don't know about all Hungarians, but Miki only likes to eat one big meal a day so sometimes he starved me in between meals because I am used to eating smaller meals throughout the day. 

So we had to start bringing emergency snacks with us. 

A popular Hungarian food is langos, which is fried dough served with cheese and sour cream or even meat sometimes. It's like a huge salty beignet that is amazingly delicious. I think it was used by Hungarians of yore to fatten up their children to keep them protected in winter.

They are not stingy with the dough. This one had ham and cheese inside, no sour cream. 

It was one of my favorites but I'm still trying to burn off the calories. 

There were many more foods but I did not document them with my camera sadly. Another trip to Hungary must be made I guess ;)