Joyeux Noël !

Joyeux Noël everyone! In case you didn't know, my family (including my grandmother, Mimi C), just left Cincinnati on their flight to Paris! They arrive tomorrow morning and I will be joining them there around 11am. I can't wait to see them! It's quite surreal that they're going to be here in France, and that we'll be celebrating Christmas somewhere other than Cincinnati. But it's going to be great! Besancon has been bustling these last couple of days as people get ready for Christmas. We got some snow over the weekend, which made it feel a little more wintry. Unfortunately the snow melted pretty quickly and has turned into rain again, not nearly as festive.

I thought I would share some French Christmas traditions with you, since many of them are quite different from ours.


Papillotes

The lack of candy canes is quite startling. Last night the Ultimate team had a Christmas party and being the good God-fearing, chocolate-loving American that I am, I planned to bring brownies with peppermint frosting. Not only could I not find the candy canes to crush for decoration, I couldn't even find peppermint extract to make the icing! And I looked in multiple stores! It worked out just fine because my mom's brownie recipe is so rich that the frosting would have been too much, but I was a little bummed that they could have been more seasonally-appropriate. So what's the holiday candy? Papillotes! The name actually refers to the form: "en papillote" is a cooking preparation term meaning "in parchment" and can refer to any kind of food baked in a folded pouch. But in this case the folded pouch is foil and the food is chocolate, usually with some kind of filling like nuts or praline.



Bûche de Noël  

Chocolate cake not enough for you? Try an entire log of cake, chocolate frosting, and chocolate ganache. I love this tradition, and not just because of my gustation-related attraction. It comes from the time when the winter solsitice was the major seasonal celebration and each family would decorate a log that would then be added to the huge communal bonfire. Now we just use central heating, and if you're me, complain about how short the days are. And we bake cakes in the shape of logs ('bûche' means log), rather than decorating a real log. Wood to cake: that definitely counts as evolution.

*Note: I found this picture on Google Images, it was the best, although none of them are nearly as good as the bûches I've seen in patisseries around here. If I get a chance I'll take some pictures in Paris.



Le Réveillon 

So here the big celebration often occurs on Christmas Eve. This comes from the Alsacian tradition where, at least beginning around 1200, December 24th was dedicated to celebrating Adam and Eve -- the creation of man -- via religious plays and a huge feast. Then, Christmas Day, was slightly more austere and dedicated to celebrating the birth and arrival of Jesus. So the carryover is that many French families have their big Christmas celebration on the eve of Christmas, called "le réveillon." The same term is used for big dinners held on New Years Eve, or special dinners offered at restaurants on the same night.


New Years cards

So instead of sending Christmas cards (or Hanakkah cards, for my Jewish families are more likely to send a New Years card, which might read "Meilleurs voeux," meaning "best wishes." I would say in the stores where I have seen holiday cards for sale, the ratio of News Years cards to Christmas cards for sale is probably 10-1. But to my knowledge Steph and Charly haven't received any of either, and from what I hear sending holiday cards of any kind isn't quite as common here as it is at home.

 
Marché de Noël  

This one constitutes a pretty big difference in my opinion. THE Marché de Noel, or Christmas market, is in Strasbourg, which is now about a 2-hour train ride away, thanks to the new TGV line. They have the gall to call the city "The Capital of Christmas," a moniker I find both pompous and a little disheartening. Is Christmas so commercialized that there's a city claiming to be the official Magic Kingdom of yuletide cheer? Apparently. I love Strasbourg, but I think once was enough for their Marché de Noël. When we visited Alsace as part of the Wake program in Dijon, I much preferred the Christmas market in Kaysersburg. Many French cities and towns have their own Marché de Noël; in the smaller towns and villages, the Christmas market lasts one weekend, or a long weekend. But Besançon is big enough that they've had a few little markets set up since the beginning of December. The main one is in Place de la Republique, in front of the Musée de l'art et l'archéologie. It's also where they set up the giant Ferris wheel. Apparently this is the second year they've had the grande roue, and they brought it back because last year it was such a success. It's quite kitschy, but I like it anyway. And I may or may not have convinced Colin to go on it on Sunday when we explored the Marché de Noël.


Going to the Marché de Noël, at least in Besançon, is sort of like going to St. Gertrude's Festival (for you Cincinnatians), but without the warm summer weather. There's always less to see and do than you think, and really it's just an excuse to eat the unhealthy but delicious food they sell there. In our case, hot wine and morbiflette. Hot wine may sound funny, but it's really yummy and completely ubiquitous in western Europe beginning in, say, mid-October. Usually it's made with red wine and cinnamon-type seasonings, but I've seen hot white wine too. Morbiflette is the Franche-Comtois version of tartiflette, a Savoyard/Swiss dish involving potatoes au gratin with an incredible amount of cheese, in this case, using morbier, a local type of cheese.

I really can't tell you how much the Franc-Comtois love their cheese and potatoes (and don't forget the lardons). And, while sometimes it's starts to look an awful lot like the last iteration of cheese and potatoes, the cheese is darn good, that so far, I'm still eager to try more. Check back in with me in February.

*Note: I found both of these pictures on Google Images, but they look just like what I had at the Marché de Noël on Sunday -- it was being sold out of a giant skillet like the one above, and the food itself looked like the picture below.

Fêtes

So this one isn't uniquely French... I think Christmas parties happen just about everywhere people celebrate Christmas. But I needed a heading for the pictures from the UC Vesontio / Friz'Bistonin Christmas party which took place last night. It was so much fun -- I feel really lucky to have found such a great group of friends. 

 

Bad Students, Good Students, Deported Students: Tales from Ecole Champagne

So grade school in France is officially over for the year 2011. I have to say that this past week offered a panoply of teaching experiences: I got it all, from good to bad to, on Tuesday morning, really really ugly. I experienced the utter frustration of a pernicious class, the bitter disappointment of a completely failed lesson and the heart-warming encouragement of a class of ardent students. And I am very willing to concede that the rosy tint of my farewells to the students may have been influenced by the fact that I knew I wasn't going to see them for 2+ weeks. Here's the story:

Monday I tried to use a lesson I adapted from the one Sylvie taught us during our stage last Friday. It involved teaching the vocabulary for Christmas decorations, along with some basic prepositions to describe their location on the Christmas tree. When planning a lesson, we're supposed to focus on the linguistic tool / language element first, and then add in vocab later. For example, rather than starting with: "Today I'll teach them the vocab associated with food," we're supposed to start with "Today, I'll teach them how to express likes/dislikes, in the context of which food they like or don't like." The current politique (French term for the political mood or the emphasis being encouraged by whoever is in charge) for teaching foreign languages in France is very much rooted in oral production and oral comprehension of language. It's only with the 4th and 5th graders that I am supposed to require them to write, and I'm even not supposed to write myself with the 1st graders. The reason for this is if students don't have a firm understanding of the pronunciation of the word before they see it written, they just pronounce it as if it was written in French, which is often hugely incorrect.

I think this insistence on oral comprehension first is a smart one, because the few times I've accidentally written the words first, the students take much longer to learn the correct pronunciation (or don't seem to retain it at all).

So, the lesson turned out to be a lot harder to reproduce than I expected. My classes on Monday struggled, and I did some serious regrouping in my lesson plan on Monday night. My first class on Tuesday morning, Veronique's CM1s (4th graders) are always the toughest class. Their biggest problem is that they just don't pay attention, so they're constantly asking me questions about what we're doing, or wasting time by giving the answer to another question because they didn't realize we had moved on, or ignoring me entirely and talking with the other students around them. Apparently they and the other class of CM1s were real terrors last year, so the teachers tried to rearrange the composition of the classes this year, but to no avail. Anyway, Veronique had to step out for a second, because one of the kids got sick, and chaos ensued. Most of my other classes are just rowdy or refuse to pay attention, but there are a couple of kids in this class are downright rude. I got really stern and wrote some of their names on the board, but they didn't really settle down until Veronique came back. Still, we weren't getting much done. Then when the girl's mother arrived to pick her up, Veronique had to leave again and things got really bad. Y----, who sits way in the back, started making fun of my French and saying things like "How can we take you seriously when you can't even say the most basic thing!"

I stopped everything and started chewing them out in English, then in French. Veronique came back soon and she was really upset when she saw how bad they had been (my lecture ended with something like "You're right, my French isn't perfect, I often make mistakes. But you know what? I can always improve my French, and someday, I might be able to speak without making mistakes. But if you don't change your attitude and start showing respect, you're going to have big problems. And unlike my language mistakes, these problems will be the kind you won't be able to fix.") Afterward, when I was sitting in the teachers' lounge, two girls came down and apologized on behalf of their class (they hadn't done anything wrong, they're two of the well-behaved ones). They had made me cute little origami snowflakes too. Then Veronique came down with the 4 boys who had been most naughty and made them each apologize individually. And during the lunch break she brought me back a pastry! So, it turned out okay. It was pretty frustrating at the time though.


Then in the afternoon, I had three more classes, and they were also disasters. This time it wasn't the kids' fault. On Monday I realized the kids needed some kind of sheet with the prepositions vocab as a point of reference, so I found one online, modified it slightly, and printed it off for each of them. Unfortunately, I didn't realize at the time that there is more than one kind of preposition. The prepositions I had prepared to teach them were most relevant for describing three-dimensional relationships ("in," "above," "below," "next to," "behind"), whereas the activity I had planned involved describing a two-dimensional Christmas tree ("at the top," "on the bottom," "on the left"). By the time I realized it was too late, and when we moved onto the activity, the students kept trying to refer to the sheet to answer the questions, which didn't help them and only confused them. Yikes!


Luckily, after two full days of getting it wrong, I was in a much better position to get it right on Thursday. Those classes went well, but the Friday morning classes were even better (including Veronique's class, who was the best-behaved they have ever been). Normally on Friday I leave after finishing my third class (at 11:15am), but this week I stayed because the teachers were having a potluck Christmas lunch. I brought an apple crumble (crumble is quintessentially British in my mind, but it's actually a popular dessert here). I was a bit nervous when I pulled it out of the oven on Thursday night, because it was not nearly as visually appealing as the crumbles and crisps my mom makes all of the time at home. I was nervous enough not to take a picture for you, let's put it that way. But it actually turned out really well (I tasted it, because I wasn't sure if the other teachers were complimenting me just to be nice)! We had sooo much food -- there were about 15 teachers there, and everyone brought enough food for a party twice that size. There were a few gateaux (cakes) we didn't even slice...


Then in the afternoon I stayed on to help chaperone a class to the movie at 2:30pm. The whole school went to go see Une Vie de Chat, an animated film which was playing at an indie theater in the neighborhood (it was a one-room theater more similar to a museum theater than to a regular movie theater).

I don't think I've mentioned this, but it's been raining in Besançon practically non-stop for the last two weeks. You can see from the picture below how high the Doubs has risen... I took this picture Monday after school and today the path you see here was completely underwater. Also the parking lot on the far right (partially blocked by the minataur fountain) is now totally submerged.

Yesterday was the absolute pire (worst) -- winds which must have been 20-25 mph and there was driving rain that felt more like sleet. A huge tree was blown over right by the school, and a crew of men had to cut it up with chain saws to clear the road. When I walked out briefly during lunch time, I was genuinely afraid that some of the CP students (1st graders) might get blown away en route to the film. I was a chaperone for Sylvain's CE1 class (2nd graders). These 22 students were rowdy and very excited, and the 15-minute walk each way to the cinema felt much longer. Sylvain is pretty strict with them (requiring them to walk 2-by-2, stopping frequently when they fall out of line -- which happens incredibly quickly), and I think that helped ensure we got back with all 22 of them. The entire school went to see the film -- 12 classes of approximately 20 students each makes 240 kids. Plus one deluge of a storm makes 240 cold, wet kids: not a good scenario. I think they minded the rain and the cold less than the adults did though, and they certainly enjoyed the movie. It was also neat to see all of the students in one place, because it made me realize how many of them I know! I have 8 classes at Ecole Champagne, and even if I don't have all of the students, lots of the students I don't teach have a sibling who is in one of my classes, so they still say hello to me and bombard me with questions. It's amazing how cute they can be!


Speaking of cute, here are some pictures of the gifts / drawings / poems I have received from my students. So far the booty includes: a chestnut, a Sacagawea dollar (thought of you, Trey), two seashells, numerous paper bracelets and a silver ring. My name has been spelled Lauren (once), Lorraine, Loraine, Lorain, Laurene (most frequent, 3 times) and Laurenne -- in their defense there is a region of France called Lorraine which is pronounced very similarly to my name... but still, I think I'll clarify that when we get back.

Check out how "teacher" is spelled in this one... In my defense this was written by a 1st grader...

So this brings me to my last category: deported students. On Thursday during lunchtime I noticed that Magalie, the extra-sweet teacher at Champagne, was cutting out slips of paper and counting them off. I asked what she was doing, and she explained she was making little flyers to send home with each kid. This is what they looked like:

The basic message was to inform the other parents that these two girls, Larissa and Mirabella, and their parents, were detained on Thursday, December 15th (as in, they were sent to a detention facility to be deported) and that their current whereabouts are unknown. The title at the top: "Drôle de Noël" is a bit tough to translate. In this context, it means, a situation that is unpleasant and bordering on ironicly so. Think of that awful Alanis Morissette song, where she names all of those unfortunate situations which aren't really ironic, but just poorly-timed and therefore even more unfortunate. In this case, the fact that these two girls will be spending Christmas, a holiday we associate with family and home, in a detention center or even more likely, somewhere in Romania (their country of origin), rather than in France which had become their home. Apparently at least one family with kids enrolled at Champagne gets deported every year, but it is unusual for it to have happened already. In this case, the girls' family enrolled them in school after immigrating to France seeking asylum. Their request for asylum (political, I believe, but I'm not positive) was denied and so they are now considered to be living in France illegally. Magalie and some of the other teachers went to the Prefecture to protest their deportation during lunch on Thursday and after school on Friday.


I've never been exposed to the issue of immigration on such a personal level before, and it was a bit unsettling. One half of me is very cognizant of the reality that countries like the U.S. and France simply cannot accomodate every person who wishes to come. And I understand the unfairness of letting illegal immigrants stay while requiring those who follow the rules wait years and years before they are accepted. But it is pretty heart-wrenching to think of a family being deported at Christmas because their request for politically asylum was denied. I guess it's true that the risk of deportation was one the parents assumed when they immigrated before receiving permission. But it was a sobering conversation, no doubt. And yes, I had Mirabella in one of my classes.


So that's the wrap-up for my teaching in 2011. I've already got all kinds of big plans for la rentree (back to school) in January!

PS I found out on Friday that Y---- is being sent to another school and will no longer be at Champagne when we start back up in January. Apparently his antics with me were just one instance in a long line of trouble-making (including some fights and picking on other kids). Good riddance!

Say Cheese

First of all, sorry for bombarding you with blog posts recently. Oftentimes fun or interesting things happen, but I don't have the time to blog about them right away. But I'm going to try and make an effort to catch up on those non-time-sensitive entries which I think you might enjoy.

It's hard to overstate how much French people love their fromage. I guess you could say they love wine even more, but even that is up for discussion. And just like with wine, I'm a total novice when it comes to cheese. I'm willing to try anything, but often I forget to write down the name, or just plain don't comprehend when the friend/server/host tells it to me. So, I'm still learning. But I thought you might like an introduction to the cheeses I have tried so far, knowing there will certainly be more to come.

A brief word about French cheeses in general: there are three main types of French cheese:

1. Fromages au lait de vache (cows' milk cheeses)
2. Fromages au lait de chèvre (goats' milk cheeses)
3. Fromages au lait de brebis (ewes' milk cheeses)

Many of them are AOC, which stands for Appellation d’origine contrôlée ("controlled designation of origin"). This is the certification granted to certain geographical regions to produce specific products which can only bear the name if they come from that area -- think, Champagne, which can only be called that if it actually comes from Champagne. This is all based on the concept of terroir, that certain products like wine and cheese are intrinsically linked to the area in which they originated because of its specific climatological and geological features. AOC-type regulations for wine have been around in France since the beginning of the 20th century, and now include other products like cheese, butter, honey, mustard, and meat.

First off, cheese from Franche-Comté.

Comté

It's in the name, and it's the pride and joy of the region. They put Comté on everything (not an exaggeration, I had dinner at Colin's the other night and he and his brother cut up Comté to put on the rice that went with their chili...) It's made from unpasteurized cows' milk and has the highest production of all French AOC cheeses (40,000 tons, or 88 million pounds, per year). It's relatively firm, with a distinctive and slightly sweet taste.

Morbier

The name of this cheese comes from name of its village of origin. It's a semi-soft cheese which is white-ish and instantly recognizable by the thin line of tasteless ash separating it horizontally across the middle. Nowadays the ash is just added for tradition, but originally it was put there to protect the curd overnight, if the evening's milking didn't produce enough milk for an entire wheel of cheese. It is quite creamy, with a rich flavor. 

Cancoillotte

This cheese is produced principally in Franche-Comté, but also in the Lorraine region and in Luxembourg. I've described it previously on my blog and been fortunate enough to try quite a few different varieties (the garlic-flavored one is my favorite). It can be eaten hot (served over potatoes) or cold (drizzled like a spread on bread). The texture is similar to that of yogurt, or slightly runnier if it's hot. 

 

Monte d'Or / Vacherin du Haut-Doubs

This cheese comes from the Jura region and is only available from September 10 through May 10, and since the season was just beginning when I got to Besançon, I saw lots of signs in grocery stores and cheese shops announcing its arrival. It's a soft cheese which is sold in round containers of various sizes and is often eaten as a fondue (I still have to try that). It has a fairly strong flavor.

Sapin

This cows' milk cheese is one I picked  at random in the grocery store and really liked. I find its sweet, slightly nutty flavor to be quintessentially French... I'm not sure why, but the aroma ad flavor is one I seem to encounter a lot here, but never at home. It comes from Franche-Comté and is made by a cheesemaker called Perrin, in the same style as the Mont d'Or. It comes in a wooden box encircled with a piece of Spruce bark, which imparts some of the nutty, woodsy flavor to the cheese. It's a medium-soft cheese, with a creamy white center.

And now, for the rest:

Roquefort

Of all the cheeses I've listed so far, this is probably the only one whose name you recognize. It had heard of it before I arrived in France, but I'm not even sure I could have told you that it is a type of blue cheese. Roquefort, which comes from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in south-central France, is made with ewe's milk, which, along with its AOC, distinguishes it from other types of blue cheese. The cheese is white, tangy, crumbly and slightly moist, with distinctive veins of green mold. It has a very distinctive taste which I happen to love. With 18,000 tonnes being produced annually, Roquefort is France's second most-popular cheese, after Comté. 

Bleu d’Auvergne

While it is also a blue cheese, Bleu d'Auvergne is not the same thing as Roquefort. First of all, it's made with cows' milk, not ewes' milk, and secondly it comes from Auvergne (also south-central France, but not as far south). This bleu isn't as salty as others and has with a creamier taste and a moister texture. I first tried it in Strasbourg, when Brooke and I had lunch at Jeanette et les Cycleux. Apparently it's very popular there because it pairs well with sweet dessert wines like Reisling or Sauvignon Blanc, which are both grown in Alsace.

Munster

This was another cheese I had heard of before coming to France, but definitely could not have identified. It was also part of the sampler that Brooke and I had for lunch in Strasbourg, and it was one of her favorites. It comes from the Vosges mountains, which are between the French regions of Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comté. It's a soft cheese with a medium-strong flavor (not as strong as the Mont d'Or, for example). 

Époisses de Bourgogne

And now we bring out the heavy hitters... This cheese is not for the faint of heart, nor those with extra-sensitive noses. This cheese comes from the village of Epoisses in the departement of Cote d'Or, halfway between Dijon and Auxerre. It has a distinctive orange-red color and is sold in round containers. It also has a distinctive smell... this is a stinky cheese! The people who love it don't mind, but I can't say I count myself to be one of them, at least not yet. It's just a little too much for my taste buds. I tried it first with my host family in Dijon, and have been roped into trying it again a few times since then. Apparently it's best consumed in conjunction with a good Bourgogne Pinot Noir or a Bordeaux Sauternes (a sweet white wine), but I think for now I'll just stick to the wine by itself...

Tête de Moine

This cheese I tried for the first time last Thursday, at Jeremy's wine-and-cheese-themed crémaillère (housewarming party). Jeremy and his wife both work for the local news station, France3 Franche-Comté, and recently moved here from Dijon. When I first heard of the party's theme I found it a bit silly (isn't wine and cheese the theme of every French party?), but once I got there I realized this was no joking matter. There were at least 16 different kinds of cheese, and at least as many wines. Many of them I had never seen or heard of before, including Tête de Moine (literally, "monks' head"). Like many French cheeses, its origins come from the activities of monks who produced it for themselves and as a source of income for their abbeys (in this case, the Bellelay Abbey). This particular cheese has been around at least since 1292. It is characterized by its cylindrical form, and is cut using a girolle, a scraper on an axle planted in the center of the cheese. Actually the cheese has to be scraped in order to develop its flavors, just cutting it doesn't produce the same taste. It's a firm cheese with a mild flavor (about the same strength as Comté, but definitely a different taste). 

Mimolette

A cheese traditional produced in and around the city of Lille, France, it's also known as Boule de Lille after its city of origin, or vieux Hollande. It's a fairly bright orange color (from the natural colorant annato) and the taste is somewhat similar to Parmesean. It's a hard cheese and I find it quite tasty. When I tried it it was served as a wedge, but apparently the wheel in its entirety resembles a canteloupe! 

Chèvre

So chèvre is the French word for 'goat,' and also the abbreviated version of froamge du chèvre or goats' milk cheese. There are 14 different AOC chèvre cheeses produced in France, the largest of which is Crottin de Chavignol (in the Loire Valley). Most of the chèvre produced in France either comes from the Loire Valley or from the region of Poitou (eastern coast of France, contains the city of Poitiers). Chèvre comes in many different varities: fresh, ripened, dry, rolled in ash, grapes, herbs, spices (such as pepper or saffron), honey, soaked in olive oil or in wine. I happen to love goat cheese, although I generally prefer the fresh to the aged kind. It's all about the context though. In general the goat cheese here is not as fluffy or as crumbly as the goat cheese I encounter at home perhaps that goat cheese has cows' milk or ewes' milk added and that gives it a different texture).

Chaussée aux Moines

Another cheese with ecclesiastical origins... this one comes the département of Mayenne in the Loire Valley (northwestern-ish France). I also tasted this one for the first time at Jeremy's crémaillère on Thursday. I wasn't a huge fan, it didn't seem to have a particularly interesting or memorable flavor. It was mild and soft, and sort of a standard white-ivory color. 

Tomme de Savoie 

This is the variety of tomme cheese which comes from Savoie (so logical, right?). Savoie is located in the département of Rhône-Alpes, south and east of Doubs, where Besançon is located). Tomme is the name of a type of cheese produced in the French Alps and in Switzerland, which is normally produced from the skim milk left over after the cream has been removed to make butter and richer cheeses. Because of this they are usually low in fat. Tomme de Savoie might be the most common variety of tomme. It's a mild, semi-firm cheese with a beige interior and a grayish-brown rind. I have to say this one isn't my favorite either; it's a mild cheese, but the flavor it does have isn't my favorite. I should probably make an effort to try it some more though, since it's such a mainstay. 

Langres

I tried this cheese at the suggestion of the guy at the local fromagerie (cheese store). This was back in October when I was doing things like buying cheese at a fromagerie, instead of the grocery store. Then I realized that my teaching assistant salary does not include a gourmet cheese budget, so I got a little more reasonable. But luckily here it's easy to find really delicious cheeses without having to go to a specialty store. But, back to Langres. This cheese comes from, you guessed it, Langres, which is in the region of Champagne-Ardenne. The rind is anywhere from yellowish to orangey-red, and the inside is a creamy white. It's a medium-soft cheese with a strong but agreeable taste (this one's much easier on the tastebuds than an Epoisses).

Hopefully I'll have more cheeses to report back to you soon!

In Bruges

So the title of this blog entry is also the title of a film which came out in 2008, although I had never heard of it until this weekend. Based on the movie poster I have little desire to watch it, but apparently it got a score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe it is indeed worth a viewing...

But this blog entry isn't really about movies, it's about last weekend (Dec 2-4). Brooke took a trip to Belgium this past summer when she was the graduate assistant at the Flow House and enjoyed it so much that she was willing to make the trip with me. I found a cheap flight through EasyJet which happened to go through Lyon, so on Friday afternoon I was able to grab coffee and catch up with Mary-Kate during my lay-over. Then I continued on to Brussels, where I met Brooke in the train station and the two of us took a train to Bruges.

Brooke was in charge of the accommodations and we ended up staying at a hostel very near the city center. It was called... wait for it... Snuffel Hostel. Anyone familiar with my family's "Snuffles the cat" gag will find this somewhat amusing, I certainly did. Here's photographic evidence, but really, would I make this up?

Friday night we got in pretty late, and Bruges is sort of a tourist town, so by 11pm our food options were pretty much limited to frituurs (French fry stands / restaurants). We indulged, then grabbed a drink at a bar called The Illusionist. When in Belgium one can hardly drink wine, so we both tried one of the beers on tap. Mine was a Brugse Zot blond, and we found out the following day on our canal tour that Brugse Zot is only type of beer still brewed within the Bruges city walls. I thought it was tasty!

The next morning we let ourselves sleep in until 9am, then hit the city for some hardcore sight-seeing and chocolate window-shopping (okay, we tasted a bit). The Markt Square is the center of Bruges and it is breath-taking. Brooke is a big fan of Gothic architecture and I can see why she likes Bruges so much -- these people did Gothic in a big way. Usually Gothic buildings in France are limited to cathedrals, so it was cool to see the same style used for municipal buildings. Bruges was lucky to escape the ravages of WWII and so all of these glorious old buildings are intact. All of the Christmas decorations are up to, which are particularly nice because it gets dark so early now (4:45pm here in Besançon). There was also a skating rink set up in the middle of the square, surrounded by the "Christmas market." I put that in scare quotes because most of the wares being proffered for sale were the Made in China variety and half of the stalls were selling the Belgian foodstuff equivalent of State Fair food (churros? pitas?). That's not to say it wasn't still festive-looking, it just felt a bit Disneyland-esque.

So first we went on a boat tour of the canals, something Brooke did last summer and highly recommended. It was cool to see the city from the canals, and our guide was very informative, if a bit monotone. He was British; Brits also seemed to make up a majority of the tourists I saw in Bruges. After the canal tour Brooke and I headed across the square to the Fish Market (which now is mostly populated with craft-vendors, but did have one or two fish vendors). Last summer Brooke bought a watercolor from an artist there, who promptly asked if he could paint her portrait, which he then gave her. Not only was that artist there, but his girlfriend who was running his stand recognized Brooke! The artist, a certain Johan Lootens, was painting in a cafe across the square because of the bad weather (actually we were lucky and it didn't rain, but it looked foreboding all day). We stopped in to saw hello, then continued on our way in search of the perfect Belgian chocolate. Well, I can hardly say that we conducted a systematic scientific study. Mostly we window-shopped, and we may or may not have tried a few samples. There were soo many different chocolate stores, it would take a whole weekend just to look in all of them. Here was one of the displays:

The best chocolate I sampled was from a store called Galler. Despite the immaculate and appealing window displays, the store was completely empty when we walked by (code for: it's really expensive). I tried just one chocolate and it was heavenly. Brooke pointed out that Galler is a "Belgian Royal Warrant Holder," meaning that the Belgian royal family officially endorses their products. How cool is that?

Here I'm tasting a free sample of the store's homemade marshmellows dipped in their chocolate fountain! My marshmellow was cassis-flavored. 

Here is Brooke purchasing the first Belgian waffle of the weekend. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical of all of the hype; I like waffles as much as the next decent fellow, but they don't strike me as crave-worthy, mouth-watery dessert-status. But, I was wrong. These waffles weren't your average slap-on-the-butter-and-syrup kind... they tasted almost like brioche: thick and sweet dough with an almost crispy sugary outside. Brooke went for the nature variety (plain) and she had the right idea. I tried one with chocolate sauce later in the weekend, and the chocolate sort of masked the particular and delicious flavor of the waffle. Overall, a must-try.

In the afternoon Brooke and I did a self-guided walking tour of the city, courtesy of her guidebook. I won't rattle off the facts (let's face it, I don't remember a lot of them). Although there certainly isn't a lack of history, the best part of Bruges was the incredible atmosphere. The quaint architecture combined with the narrow streets and canals gave the city a magical quality, like Venice, but without the haunted side. Here are some pictures:

Then after the tour we climbed the 360 steps to the top of the Belfort (belfry). I thought that the 300+ steps to the top of the Strasbourg cathedral platform were a workout! But the Belfort had convenient little turn offs where we could give our legs a second to rest, I mean, where we could take advantage of the cool views...

It got dark around 4:45pm, and Brooke and I were both a little tired, so we took a quick nap at the hostel before dinner. Unfortunately by the time we got out and started checking out restaurants, most of them were full / booked for the night. We found one eventually, where I ordered a Flemish stew (washed it down with a Brugse Zot brun) and Brooke ordered wallabey! They were both quite yummy.

Sunday morning we were back out to do some more sight-seeing, then caught a train back to Brussels. We got there a bit later than we originally planned, because we decided to stop in the Bruggemuseum in the Stadhuis (town hall / rathaus / hôtel de ville). I'm so glad we did, because while the first floor was a little dull (lots of portraits of old guys on horses), the second floor contained the "gothic room," a ceremonial chamber designed to reflect the artistic, architectural, and historical heritage of Bruges (as in the paintings of historically-significant moments were done in a Flemish style of painting). It's relatively new: I believe it was finished around 1900. I thought it was magnificent, and a really neat way to preserve a city's history.

Then it was time to hit the road! Brooke and I headed back to Brussels, where we had lunch at a cafe called Arcadi Cafe (rue d'Arenberg 18). If you're ever in Brussels, I highly recommend it! Apparently the cafe is known for its quiche and the accolades are all well-deserved! My slice of mushroom quiche was phenomenal -- deserving of adjectives usually only reserved for breath-taking landscapes or miracle births or something equally exceptional. The desserts looked even better, but unfortunately we had to get going.

We really only walked around Brussels for a couple of hours: but I was struck by how much the city reminded me of a combination of Paris and Bruges. Brussels has the feel of a big city, but with some of the architecture I saw in Bruges mixed in. This is perhaps exemplified by the cathedral, which is squashed between two modern-looking buildings and faces a park with modern art sculptures. The main historical center (with the city hall, etc) was jam-packed with people (Brooke actually took these pictures on Friday afternoon when she was waiting for me to arrive... but we went to the same places on Sunday afternoon. They were much busier then!)

As soon as it got dark they started projecting a light show onto the town hall!

I mentioned that Brooke and I only spent a few hours in Brussels because we both had to catch our planes back home. Well, about that. It turns out that the train labeled "airport" (in English, no language issues here) which leaves from the Brussels-Midi train station doesn't actually go to the airport. Instead, it takes you to another train station, where you can then take a train to the airport (after waiting for about 20 minutes). So it turned out that we arrived in the airport train station less than 5 minutes before my flight was scheduled to board. Despite running through the main terminal to security, begging the airport security attendant to let me go ahead in the line (she refused) and then sprinting the length of the longest terminal I have ever encountered (listen, I run enough to be a decent judge of distances, this terminal was at least 3/4 of a mile long).... I missed my flight. Technically the airplane was still there, but they had closed the door and wouldn't let me on. So, I burst into tears. That didn't change their minds though (changing their minds wasn't even my intention, I think it was the post-sprint adrenaline dump). So, I pulled it together, walked to the information desk, and found another flight home. Luckily, Mary-Kate was nice enough to let me spend the night with her in Lyon, since taking the 8pm flight meant I missed the last train back to Besançon. I took the 5:22am train the next morning, which was scheduled to arrive at 8:30am -- enough time for me to make my first class at 9:15am), but which didn't arrive until 9:15am because the connection in Dijon was delayed. Yikes!! I guess I was overdue for a dose of bad travel karma. Cutting it closer than necessary by taking a later train from the Brussels city center was definitely my fault, but the unanticipated second train before the airport, plus the delayed train in Dijon were just bad luck. The school's director didn't seem too pleased (I called the school as soon as I realized I wasn't going to make it on time), but the teacher was really understanding.

Moral of the story: Bruges is really beautiful, but slightly too far from Besançon to go for a weekend. To all of the rest of you not commuting from a small town in France, I highly recommend it as a vacation destination. I bet it's even prettier in the summer too!