Weekend Getaway: Asheville

This last weekend was my fall break from University. My very last one. I can only say it was a much needed break and that Thanksgiving cannot come fast enough. But since South Carolina doesn't have much of a fall most years (though this year has been pretty nice), I snuck home and then went up to Asheville with my mom.

Our trip was mostly just to see the leaves changing, hang out in the mountains, and hit some of our favorite spots in the area. With having such a wet summer, the leaves weren't quite to their peak color which we figured we'd be hitting perfectly. Hoever there was a lot of color and it wasn't disappointing. 

We dropped by the Biltmore Estate, the largest private home in the United States, built and still owned by the Vanderbilts. For years we were pass holders because it was so much cheaper to do when we went up several times a year, but not so much now that my parents travel with work and I'm busy with school. We've seen it in every season, but fall is one of my favorites.

A new activity mom and I tried was the Biltmore Bubbly Tour. The Biltmore Estate is a very large regional wine producer and now produces 6 types of sparkling wine. Our tour took us through the process of creating the sparkling wine, which takes place entirely in the bottle in which it will be distributed, unlike wine which spends time in barrels. We also got to see the machine that corks the bottle and depressurized it. The cage over the cork is attached with 3 turns, so any time you are opening a bottle, it takes 6 half turns and then you're free to enjoy.

We forgoed visiting the house, and decided to just walk around the gardens and grounds.

For food this trip, our tour guide recommended Chestnut, a contemporary American restaurant with a constantly changing menu. I had lobster bisque that was to die for and thai curry mussels. Mom had a beet and goat cheese salad and a roasted chicken with green beans, risotto and a delightful orange sauce. We tried several of their house wines and were able to get a free dessert by sharing a picture of our meal on social media. We chose a chocolate mousse cake and each had a glass of Frangelico.

We also ate lunch at The Grove Park Inn. This is a giant hotel built entirely out of giant stones on the outside. It offers one of the most amazing views over Asheville and we enjoyed lunch on the terrace. I had their crab cake burger with duck fat fries and mom had their house burger. I also tried their centennial pale ale as they are celebrating 100 years. Mom had the Highland Octoberfest. Both were very nice.

A short trip, but a nice long weekend. Unless any other small trips come up, I'll see you next time in Bonaire!

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.

Clos-Luce

Bonjour,


So where I left off was at Amboise. About a five minute walk down the street from the chateau is the house where Leonardo Da Vinci lived for the last three years of his life. It was pretty cool walking through someplace where he lived and worked. Basically the king at the time liked Da Vinci so much that he invited him to live at Clos-Luce so that he could just chat and rest in peace. There is even an underground passage way from Clos-Luce to Amboise. Pretty cool? Jess really wanted to hop the rope closing it off and adventure through. Outside of the house there is a whole park with different things dedicated to Da Vinci's life and work. I have to admit, when we were walked around, some of us were starting to get a bit silly because it was hot and we'd been walking all day. So we probably didn't absorb as much about everything around us as we could have. We learned that ducks like lemon cake though! 

Zach is 6ft tall and he barely fit through the door. French people are small!

 His study

 In the basement there was a whole exhibit on his inventions are the different things that he worked on over the course of his life. There was also a whole thing outside on his use of light in his painting.

Here you could take a Da Vinci style drawing class.

After Clos-Luce, we caught the train back home. That weekend there was a wine festival in town. You paid 5 euros for a glass and then could try all the wine that you wanted. There were over 100  different tents. Around 9 it started raining so we decided that we had had enough and went to MAO, a thai restaurant close to the festival. Below are my and Morgan's dinners. Their noodles were to die for. After dinner we were walking home and ran into a concert going on. It was part of the festival and the guys playing were playing in time with the fireworks that were going off. They deffinitely were shooting fireworks of in front of town hall, in the middle of the street, in the center of town. That would never happen in the US!

Morgan, Lara and I

My dinner

Morgan's dinner