I'm Back!

I’ve neglected this way too long. I have been avoiding writing my blog because I need to write so much, but this is my blog, so I can write about whatever I want I suppose.

Well I went to and came back from Dijon; my little mini vaca with Paige and Meghan. We left early Sunday morning to catch our 7:30am train and arrived in Dijon at 10:30am. We started by visiting the tourism office and buying a booklet that had a tour in it called the Owl Trail where you follow little owls throughout the city to important landmarks. We ended up doing the whole thing that day to introduce us to the city, which was really was a great way to see everything.

We saw a park that had a statue of a polar bear in it for some reason and lots of pretty buildings/churches. That day was extremely cold and windy, so it was hard walking outside all day, especially with our backpacks, but we made it through. We found a cute restaurant that we stayed at for two hours for a well-deserved break. I ate the special, which was cheaper, and it was skate—some kind of sting-ray fish thing that was pretty weird, but the sauce it came with was yummy.

We met our couch surfing host later on that evening. She met us at a restaurant where we had just ordered drinks to get away from the cold. We had Vin chaud—hot wine, so delicious! It is warm, red wine with spices like cinnamon added and an orange slice, so it reminded me of sangria in a way.

Anyway we met our host, Marion, and she brought a friend, Diane. They asked what we wanted to do, and we just said we’d rather go home and have a night in because we had had a long day, so that’s what we did. Marion drove us all back to her house, which was great. She lived outside Dijon with her parents (who were on vacation), so she lived in a nice house with a cat! The cat was awesome, and his name was Paillasse, which Marion said means Carpet, so we called him Carpet the whole time haha. Although, I just looked up what that word meant, and it said straw mattress or lab bench? The cat will always be Carpet to me though!

So that night we just chatted and Marion made crepes, so it was a nice, chill night in general. We went to bed at like 11pm or so and took our time getting ready the next morning. We got to the city at like noon the next day (Marion dropped us off), and we visited a museum, and I am trying to think… we also went up a tower to see the view from the city up above, which was really cool. We then went shoe shopping for Paige because she needed warmer shoes, and the other museum we wanted to go was closed. So we visited all the cheapish stores, and Paige found some shoes at H&M. We then went to a restaurant for drinks, and I got a waffle with nutella while we waited for Marion to pick us up again.

We told her we wanted another quiet night (walking around all day in the cold is tiring), but we went to a grocery store first to get some food. That night was more or less the same as the first night. We had a frozen pizza and finger food and wine for dinner, and just chatted a bunch. At one point we all took showers, and Paige literally flooded the bathroom and some of the outside floor while taking a shower. It was pretty funny. We had to use so many towels to soak up all the water. Luckily Marion didn’t seem upset about it anyway. We went to bed early because we had a 6:15am train that morning to Beaune.

We arrived in Beaune at like 6:30am, and it was FREEZING and dark, so we immediately found a brasserie and ordered hot chocolate and stayed there till like 9am waiting for the sun to come up. We then went to the tourism office and got a map, and the lady showed us where all the cellars were for wine tours, so that’s what we did all day—wine tours and walking around. We did four wine tours overall, and two of them were pretty authentic. We actually went down to the cellars where you did a self-guided tour and drank wine with these “tastevins;’’ little, metal cups used for tasting wine. I was exhausted at the end of the day, though, so we took an earlier train back because we just wanted sleep. We ended up going to bed literally at 8pm; we were that tired.

The next day, we had a 7:30am train, so we were up early again. Marion dropped us off at the station (she was so nice to drive us), and we headed to Montbard. The train was a little late, so we missed our connection in Montbard, but this guy helped us and got us taxi vouchers, so we continued to our final destination to Chatillon-sur-Seine via taxi for free.

This town was extremely small and didn’t have much to do there, but it was very pretty and quaint. We first went to a museum with Celtic artifacts, which was actually pretty cool. We left our bags there in lockers all day, which was nice because walking around with backpacks makes walking around all day so much harder. We then went to a super marché to buy some lunch, where I bought a baguette for 45 euro cents among other things. We then walked with our food down a walking path that goes alone with the Seine (yes, same river in Paris), and followed to this BEAUTIFUL spring. I literally saw where the Seine originates, pretty cool! The spring was so pretty, and the water was so clear. I took oodles of pictures haha. We ate lunch and watched a guy getting ready to scuba dive in the underwater caves!

Then we walked around and found some stairs, which lead to a church and cemetery with an old castle thing that looked over the city, so there was a nice view. We chilled there then walked around some more and headed back to the museums for our bags. We then saw some kids dressed up (it was Halloween), which was cool because France just doesn’t have Halloween spirit here really. Then we went to a café and chilled out for a few hours because we had nothing else to do.

We decided to take an earlier bus back because we were bored, so we went to the bus stop and waited for the bus. It was like 5 minutes late, but eventually came and then completely passed us! The car behind it honked and pull-over, and out came two pissed off French people, who talked to us, but we couldn’t understand anything they said. They eventually left, though, it was really weird.

So we decided to walk to the bus station for the next bus (our original one). I was pretty pissed off at this point because I didn’t want to take the original bus because it only gave us 10 minutes to spare to make our train to Paris, so I was all worried. We just didn’t really know where the bus picked you up, since it ditched us the first time (at a spot where the office of tourism lady said to go). The station was way across the town, so we made the long trek and just waited. Meghan was super stressed because the next day she was going to Italy and had to make this Paris train because it was the last one of the night, so she ended up taking a taxi. I wanted to go with her, but didn’t want to leave Paige alone, so I stayed at the bus stop and just hoped it would all work out.

The bus did come on time (and stopped) and arrived on time, so everything worked out! We got to Montbard with just enough time to wait for the train for five minutes. We all had different seats, so we sat separately during the ride and got back to Paris at like 10:30pm. I headed straight to Jerome’s and then went out with him and all the boys because the next day was a bank holiday and it was Halloween that night! About 10% of the people were dressed up, but it was a fun night in general. We went to a bar first and then a club near the Arc de Triomphe. We got home at like 6:30am (stayed out till the first metro opened). It was exhausting. So the next day was chill, and I didn’t do a whole lot. Nothing worth mentioning.

Today I have coincidently stayed home all day. First by choice, but then around 5pm I wanted to go to the grocery store, but couldn’t find Jerome’s keys, so I am stuck here. I texted him asking where they were, but I doubt he will respond until after work. I wanted a lazy day, but I am hungry now and want to go to the store to buy food! I wanted to make them dinner too; we will see if I still have energy for that.

Rewind to Saturday before Dijon. I was smart and didn’t pack a winter coat for break, so I spent Saturday shopping for a new, warm coat. I didn’t wanna go all the way home to get my coat and anyways, the fam didn’t answer the phone anyway. So I bought a new coat, which was super warm and perfect for Dijon, so it was a good purchase. That night Jerome took me to a gastronomical restaurant, which was cool. I had never heard of one, but you order a lot of little dishes for a whole meal. It’s nice because you get a full meal, but get to eat a lot of different things. It was really good. We split all our dishes together, so I had a lot of different foods! One of them was beef tartare, raw beef, which I have been wanting to try. It was good of course!