The week with my mommy and daddy started when I surprised them at the Angers train station when they got in from the Paris airport. I was so happy to see them after such a long time! Perfect timing in the semester, as I was getting pretty homesick. We found their hotel and then ate lunch in Centre Ville together. That night they came to my house and ate dinner with Madame and Jean. Wenonah’s mom was in town and came too. It was very entertaining because my parents don’t speak French and Madame and Jean only speak a little English. But Wenonah and I did some translating, and everyone was in high spirits. It was really special for me that my real parents and my French parents could meet each other. After lots of wine (“vin”—the one word my dad learned in French :) ) and delicious cooking by Madame (my mom and dad’s favorite meal in France—turkey, mushrooms, and of course bread & cheese), we ate a tiramisu that Wenonah and I made in celebration of Mina’s birthday. Truly une soirée heureuse (a happy evening)! The other highlight of our time in Angers was getting a glass of cointreau (an orange-flavored liquor made in Angers) at K9—my favorite bar-in-a-church where I like to go dancing with my friends.
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| M&D in K9 |
After 2 days in Angers when I was still in class, we headed south to Bordeaux and spent Friday touring vineyards with our wine guide, Frédéric. The Bordeaux region is made of many châteaux (estates) and we visited three very different ones. The first being Château Gaby. Here we saw big wine barrels and of course, tasted a few wines. I’m not going to try to describe the wines we tried…but I will say that I looove me some Bordeaux wine! The Bordeaux red wines are made from a mixture of three types of grapes—merlot, cabernet franc, and cabernet sauvignon. Frédéric was awesome about describing the tastes of the wines we tried; he was even throwing out flavors like mushrooms and pepper.
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| vineyards at Château Gaby |
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| wine barrels |
We ate lunch at a wine bar and I had some delicious sardines. Then we took a quick tour of Saint Emilion, a small town that is entirely listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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| Saint Emilion |
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| vineyards--I can't get enough of the French countryside |
The next château was not a château, but the house of Arnaud Daudier de Cassini, an artisan and organic wine producer who works just out of his garage. Definitely my favorite stop because we spent at least an hour in his kitchen tasting wines as he mixed them. Another wine maker in the region (this was just around Saint Emilion) was there helping mix the wines and celebrating his birthday. It was a very warm environment, lots of laughing. I got to have real French conversations for the only time during the week, which was nice because I had missed speaking it after only speaking a bit at restaurants. Arnaud and I made jokes about how my parents couldn’t understand anything we were saying and he also made fun of me that I spoke French like a mentally handicapped person. However I would like to assert my proficiency in French by assuring you all that it was a joke, and that he also said seriously that I spoke “vachement bien”, which translates to really/flipping/freaking well. We mostly talked about why I liked France, what I was studying, where I had visited, etc. Speaking in French with French people is the greatest thing about studying abroad here. And oh là là, Arnaud’s wine was magnifique! My parents took a bottle home to open after I finish med school in a million or so years.
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| Good lookin' Koehne clan |
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| another family photo from the day |
The last château we visited was remodeled for guests to stay. It's very nice! I have to get married one day so that I can honeymoon there. We enjoyed a glass of wine by the fireplace with some chocolate chip cookies. We also saw the wine barrels and talked a little about how it was made. This château is run by a woman and she definitely makes an effort to present her product very well.
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| wine + fire + cookies= :) |
Besides the wine, the best thing about Bordeaux was meeting really nice people! Everyone was genuinely welcoming to me, especially since I’m here for the semester. Particularly Frédéric, Arnaud, and Caroline (at Château Gaby) all told me I could ask them any questions, not just about wine or Bordeaux and that I could contact them if I went back
After Bordeaux, we spent the rest of the weekend in Paris. This included the Musée d’Orsay, which we had visited during our last time in Paris together back in ’06, and the Musée de l’Orangerie.
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| D&M in front of the Notre Dame de Paris at night |
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| me and my mommy, also in front of ND |
Claude Monet chose the
Musée de l’Orangerie to house his masterpiece “Waterlilies”. Absolutely spectacular. The paintings are enormous and cover an entire wall each. There are eight divided between two rooms. The rooms are oval-shaped and make the infinity sign ∞ from the top. One of the things I liked best is that he placed the morning paintings on the east walls and the sunset/night ones on the west walls to reflect the cycle of the sun. The paintings speak for themselves...
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| Dad admiring |
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| Mom and me (sorry it's blurry) |
Monday morning (November 15th) I went back to Angers and my parents went back to the US. It was so fun to travel with them and show off my French skills and knowledge of the culture, even if I got a little crabby sometimes with translating menus (sorry M & D). It was an awesome trip together and will go down in Koehne Family history. I can’t wait to see them again at Christmas and crack open another bottle of Bordeaux wine ;)
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| LOVE YOU M&D! (Paris hotel) |
