Lavaud!

La Rochelle!

Wednesday 6/24/15

We got up early Wednesday and drove the two hour journey to La Rochelle, the city where Francine was born and raised. It was a bustling, fishing town with tons of shops and tourists. We walked the stony streets peeking in windows of the many, many shops on winding streets in a city centre that reminded me a bit of San Francisco. 

We went down a sleepy street away from the waterfront to find a less touristy place to eat, and Dad found a really nice place that had wonderful outdoor seating and delicious food. I ordered the chicken entreé that had white aparagus, mushrooms and a lovely rich sauce and a dessert of cream puffs filled with vanilla ice cream, smothered in hot chocolate sauce and sprinkled with sliced almonds. John ordered a unique starter salad with a creamy cheese base, some kind of pesto-looking layer and a bunch of finely sliced vegetables that was incredible, and thought he ordered a fish entreé but received the same dinner I did, which he was not sorry about because it was so good. Our French-speaking hosts were at the opposite end of the table when we ordered, and though Fiona speaks French very well, her vocab doesn't yet include the fineries in French cuisine at that level. I was sitting next to Fi and kept asking her what everything on the menu was but she would lean over and say, "I have no idea." I think she is getting a bit bored with having to translate for Aunt Rachie and Uncle John. Gretchen and Dylan have been learning more phrases and are brave in testing them out. I keep recalling all the Norwegian I have been learning, so I have been pronouncing everything incorrectly or forgetting it straight away.

We took a tour of one of two historic towers, climbing the steep stairs to an exhibit that was mostly in French, so I didn't take the time to look at each display, but oggled a cool huge ship in a bottle, then went to take photos from the top of the tower. Here's a cute Schmoopie photo to commemorate that moment :)

 

After the tour, Dad went for a nap in the car and Francine took us around to show us the house she was born and grew up in, and we shopped a bit, and me and Fiona got some adorable glass animals for our respective shadow boxes. We took a brief walk through of a huge church that is being renovated and then made our way back to find Papou (Dad) and head back to the house to prepare for supper. 

Time and space are nebulous at best right now, so please bear with the sparse blogging and lack of details about meals and other minutea that I normally like to include as a sort of writer's scrapbook of our travels. I will say that we are eating better on this trip than any other since most meals are homemade and casual. We have only eaten out a couple of times so far, and though the restaurants have been great, nothing beats a roasted meal of chicken and veggies, salads and bread with cheese and Irish butter. We are very much enjoying the rustic cooking of rural France. 

Love&hugs, R&J 

Angles-sur-l'Anglin

Tuesday 6/23/15

Tuesday was a lovely, leisurely day. We all had a nice slow wake up, lingering over coffee and yogurt, running some laundry in the pokey energy-efficient washer, walkies around the farm and surrounding areas, fawning over the local animals and enjoying a late afternoon coffee with neighbor Luc. The wildlife here is pretty awesome: tons of birds yipping and flitting about, a little nest of tiny baby birds who peep constantly from inside an old, neat water pump, some sneaky little geckos that we can never seem to catch on camera, a whole village of farm cats that we spy when driving by a farm close by, Pomme and Couscous (the two donkeys), the cutest little hedgehogs that live on the property that we have been chasing around with cameras as they lumber along in the grass, as well as an absolutely friendly and adorable neighbor dog, Zigaille (Zig-aye), who was so cute yesterday when she raided Luc's lunch plate and came sneaking around on tip-toe with the entire bagette in her mouth!

In late afternoon, we headed out to Angles-sur-l'Anglin, which is an enormous fortress of a chateau. This chateau was so imposing and creepy, I think it might need to be called something other than "chateau" because while it is impressive, it is so unlike the other chateaux in appearance and history that I think it is in a class of its own. John and Dylan called to me from a little nook called The Witch's Cave, which looked all cool and a place you might catch The Wyrd Sister's setting up their cauldron, but come to find out that people used to be tossed over the cliff from that little hard-to-reach spot. It has been hard to catch all the history because Francine, our walking encyclopedia, is usually just out of earshot for me to catch everything, so I rely on John's account of things afterwards for any major, historical tidbits. 

We hiked around the fortress and got some great photos, then explored a little bit of the charming village that surrounds it. The houses here are so old world, it makes me want to build our own mini-version of some of these cute abodes! I had the idea to buy a plot of land, build a tiny home in the shape of a tiny chateau and then dig out a tiny moat with a tiny rowboat and guarded by baby ducklings. How adorably funky would that be to have our own tiny Chateau Halvorson? Their stairways were are all lined with gorgeous container gardens, and the streets all have giant hollyhocks growing everywhere. It is like their "street weeds" are roses, lavender and hollyhocks, it's incredible! 

We found this cool stairway that led up to an overlook above the village, but me and Dad opted out of the hike up the tiny stone stairs that are less "stairs" than nubs smoothed into the rockface because we both had inappropriate footwear on, so we went down and sipped a refreshing bevvy and chatted until those guys came and showed us all the cool pictures. Back to the farm for an interesting take on dinner: sausages, boiled potatoes, ham and this weird little machine that is kind of like a twist on fondue where you stick a slice of cheese in a tray amd when it gets bubbly, you pour it over the potato with the ham on top. It was scrumtious, but Francince had a rotating cheese-melting regimen that was quite ambitious. Each meal here is enjoyed outdoors, the weather has been just perfect for picnics. Then it was off to bed so we could leave for La Rochelle early on Wednesday!

Hi Harald! Thanks for reading! Have you been to Schuang Cheng for some delicious Chicken in Black Bean Sauce?!