Seafood Sagas

As a newbie to the world of seafood consumption I have been stumbling a bit lately.

Mussels Mania:

I took myself out to dinner to celebrate the end of my wwoof experience and being back on the road. As I was in Montpellier I decided that seafood would be lovely. As usual the waitress came to take my order too early so I had to make a quick decision. She didn't speak any English. On the menu was a section "Moules & Frites"- I knew that frites are fries so the question is what is Moule? There were three options: Moules Maritime, Moules Fromage, and Moules something else. I didn't know what Moules was but I was sure that Moules Maritime involved something of the ocean and I went for it.

To my surprise... Moules turns out to be Mussels. Duh. And not a few mussels... a huge boat of mussels and fries. I was a little self conscious and felt that people were staring at me as I dove into this massive plate of mussels. I've eaten Mussels only 2 or 3 times and always when part of another dish like seafood pasta or risotta (Bonnie masterpieces). As I did when I ate the mussels with pasta... I carefully and dilligently forked out each little piece of mussel. It was a little difficult... but I made it through. As I was almost finished two other couples sitting near me ordered mussels. I was happy to see that they each ordered their own massive boat but I soon realized that the reason they were all staring at me was probably because I looked like an idiot trying to fork out my mussels when they just slobber them up with their hands. Whoops.

Shrimp Scandal:

Today I took myself out to lunch. As I am being frugal and self-catering most of my meals I am not really trying local cuisine that much because I want to save money. But alas I gave in and as I'm in Nice... I had to get seafood. So I ordered "Shrimp Basket." I figured that would be safe... not much you can do to shrimp to screw it up. First off... there was no basket involved. The shrimp were on ice and yeah there's not much you can do to screw up the shrimp especially if you don't do anything to them! Their heads were on them as well as their legs and everything! Again... wtf? I really didn't know what to do because I've only ever seen shrimp prepared without the heads and all that jazz. I managed to eat them after lots of struggles...but wow... another shock... another embaressing eating episode and a lot of shrimp head and shell mess.

Other than my interesting food interactions lately, everything is going fabulously. I have been in Nice for 3 days and I love love love it! It's beautiful, it's warm and it's the Mediterranean Sea.. what's not to love? I am pretty much just lounging on the beach and wandering around town everyday. Loving it. Met some awesome people at the hostel and last night we decided to go to Monaco to get a drink. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world.

Tomorrow I am going to Lyon and then over to Geneva, Switzerland!

Au revoir France!

WWOOF WWOOF and beyond

Overall my experience wwoofing was fabulous. The family was great and I got to do a lot of different tasks so the work was great as well. On one of my days off I walked 5km to a lake where I spend the day sun bathing and reading.

I cooked a few meals for the family... most notable would be the spicy Mexican dinner! I made really really spicy (almost too spicy for me) cheese enchiladas, guacamole, and tacos (red beans that i mashed and cooked to be similar to refried, mexican spiced rice, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, creme fraiche aka sour cream, red peppers, tabasco sauce... basically the whole shabang). They loved it! The boys weren't incredibly fond of the spicyness but the girls loved it! It was pretty fun. They also looooved my chocolate chip banana bread.
I left the farm yesterday and I must say I am going to miss those fruits and veggies! It was a dream come true having all that produce at my finger tips!

Last night I spent the night in Séte. It's a cute little port town on the Mediterranean. Now I am in Montpellier and going to hit up the beach tomorrow. Then I'm going to relax in Nice for a few days and soak up some much desired sun. It's finally warm and I have been too cold for too long!
Au revoir!

a few new pics but no captions (sorry mom): http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2482770017/a=138185395_138185395/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

WWOOFing in the South of France

For the past 4 days I have been working on my first farm abroad. The farm is located near Cazeres which is near Toulouse in the Pyrenees mountains in the south of France. The farm is about 7 acres and run by a family. Stella and Granville are the parents to Cia (23) and Richie (19) and together the 4 of them do almost everything! They also have another son that is off working elsewhere. Cia and her boyfriend live in a different part of the house made into an apartment. They have a 6 month old daughter named TARA! The family has two dogs, Cashew and Paille (means straw in french and is pronounced like 'pie') They also have 9 friendly horses that roam the surrounding fields. The whole place is surrounded by trees and it is quite beautiful and serene.

So far I have done a lot of sowing and planting. I have sown several different types of lettuce and I have planted beans, beets, celery rave...I have also done some harvesting of beans, peas, spinach, romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce and cilantro. They are very kind and like to give their wwoofers nicer jobs since we are volunteers. My second day on the farm was Sunday- market day. We got up at 6am, drove into town and unloaded 2 van fulls of veggies and fruits. After setting up for two hours, the market lasts most of the day, from 9 to 3. We were extremely busy the entire time. Since I can't really understand what people are asking for, or how to say high numbers in French, I helped by keeping the fruit and vegetable boxes stocked up. It was quite hectic.

The internet cafe is closing so I must go. I'll try and update soon if they take me to town again.

France

After leaving Paris and all my new friends behind I journed west to Nantes. In Nantes I saw the local sights including Cathédrale St-Pierre-St-Paul (looks similar to Notre Dame from the outside), le Château des ducs de Bretagne and a massive mechanic elephant that can hold 40 people as it walks around giving tours of the city.
Unfortunately my plans to go to Bordeaux next were ruined by the fact that there was no room at the hostel available (there are school groups wherever I go and they are crowding up the hostels). Instead of Bordeaux I ended up in La Rochelle- an extremely qauint and lovely port town. I'm extremely pleased that I ended up in La Rochelle because it was gorgeous and I had a fabulous time. I spent a lovely day wandering around town enjoying the east side of the Atlantic. At my hostel I met a British girl, Lydia, and we hit the town in the evening. We went to a beef restaurant where she had dinner (I already ate and obviously would not eat there). Next we went to an Irish pub and I watched some French soccer with some very enthusiastic fans. At the end of the night we found ourselves at a private birthday party. We just walked into a bar that looked like fun and it turned out that everyone in the bar was there celebrating two birthdays. It was no problem that we were there and we had a fabulous time attempting to converse in broken French and broken English. The following night we met a girl from New Zealand and a British guy and we all enjoyed Crépes and wine at a restaurant on the port near our harbor.
After La Rochelle I went even further south to Biarritz. I arrived yesterday evening and have to leave by noon today. Unfortunately as today is a public holiday in France (just found that out) the buses are not running at normal times and I can no longer go into town. It's alright because the hostel is located next to a beautiful lake. I will probably spend the next two hours before my train leaves reading by the lake.
Today is a very exciting day because I start WWOOFing! That means for the next two weeks I will be living with a family working on their farm. I am extremely excited because I am quite tired of cities and moving around everyday. The family is a British family that lives in the south of France in the Pyrenees mountains (they live in the forest and they speak English!) Not sure what kind of farm work I will be doing exactly, so stay tuned!

Paris

After a not so lovely night in the Dublin airport I spent a lovely week in Paris. I saw Paris from many great lookouts like Sacre Cour and the top of the Eiffel Tower. I enjoyed fabulous art work in various museums including walls of Monet's water lillies and the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. When I was visiting Notre Dame it happened to be time for the Sunday evening Mass which was really cool to witness.
My favorite sight seeing activity in Paris was visiting the Chateau deVersaille (ok not technically in Paris). The gardens are beautiful and the inside of the palace was something I've always dreamed of seeing.
In Paris I also met 5 Canadians and 1 American and we hung out every night having a blast together.

Since I left Paris it's been all cheese and bread, cheese and bread and more lovely sights.
Pictures!!! http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2482770017/a=138185395_138185395/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/