New York, New York

A quick post from my trip to New York. I visited NYC for the first time over Memorial Day Weekend this year to hang out with Claire for her 21st birthday. She was in NYC for a Maymester and I thought what a good reason for a mini-vacation. I was only in the city for 4 days, but it was a good first experience. Some of the things we saw: the Chelsea Market, Highline Park, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, 5th Avenue, MoMA, and lots of places in Chelsea.

Overall it was a fun trip, but I could never live in New York. I like cities and plan to live in one after college, but New York is just too big and too expensive. I don't think I would every feel safe like I did walking around Paris. I know all cities have crime, but there was something about New York... However despite all that, I would love to visit again and explore more. There is so much to do in the city that never sleeps.

Football, Wine Tasting, and Birthdays!

This week was a very fun, very typically french week. We spent a lot of time watching football (soccer) because the Eurocup is going on right now. The France-England game was crazy with all the fans, and there was one unfortunate group of England fans. There was a group of about 10 of us, including our new french friends (Groove, Flo, Little K, Romi). Like their names? One (sorta two) of them are rappers, but they are very nice guys and have been a lot of fun to hang out with. We taught them how to play some american card games.

Morgan cheering!

We found a really good pasta place for lunch one day near the Place. I had curry chicken and cheese pasta. It was delicious.

This was the first day it was sunny in about a week. We came back after lunch and relaxed in the sunshine.

Our school is so pretty.

Tuesday, Dr. Persels took the whole group to a Moroccan restaurant. We had cuscus, lamb, chicken, lamb sausage, and veggies. We also had a special "vin gris" or gray wine. It had a very distinctive flavor, but was so good! After dinner we had a special tea they made and baklava (yum!)

Wednesday we had a wine tasting at the Institut. We had one white wine and 5 reds. There was also special cheese and bread for each wine that we had. Our wine man, Michael was very knowledgable and funny. He taught us the proper swirling, holding, and smelling. Of course you're supposed to spit out the wine after tasting, but he let us drink it.

This was a mild cheese with a blackberry jam. Yum

 Learning about cows and goats when he served the camonbere (a non-pasturized cow cheese from Normandy)

Friday, Zach and Austin went to play tennis. They were doing road construction outside of my house, so I decided to tag along and watch because it was far too noisy to stay home. I had the official title of line judge. Zach is the president of the tennis club at USC and Austin played on the varsity team all four years in high school, but neither had played in a little while. It was a fun afternoon spent.

Austin playing

Zach serving.

Saturday was Morgan's 21st birthday. I took her out to dinner at MAO again and we has a lovely time. It was my first time ordering wine at a nice restaurant. They did the whole presentation of the bottle and poured a little bit for me to taste. Morgan was laughing at my awkwardness with it. I had duck and Morgan had steal.

This was a mango with cream sweet rice. It was an amazing mixture of tastes, textures, and temperature. All in all a great meal.