French Cooking

Our two weeks in the south of France taught us alot about delicious French cooking! We had delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners with tea times in between. We also went out a few times to some of their favorite places to try real French cuisine.

Breakfast sometimes consisted of fresh croissants and pasteries, cereal, fresh squeezed orange juice and tea. Some days we would eat breakfast at noon, since we were really good at sleeping in, but it was great to have a real breakfast! They even had peanut butter for me :) SCORE! And homemade jam from Grandma! (Dont worry, we sent some home to share!)

Lunches were either left overs from previous meals or the big meal of the day on the weekends.

1. Boeuf Bourguignon - Francoise made this for us by request after we saw Julie&Julia. SO GOOD! The meat was tender and she used fresh veggies and potatoes (pommes de terre!) from the garden.

2. Veal in some creamy sauce - one sunday, we all went over to Grandma and Grandpas house for lunch and she made some kind of egg and truffle dish for starters and fried mushrooms with a spinich salad. Then the main course was veal with some yummy sauce - I forgot what it was called. We loved sitting down to a huge family meal - everyone was so friendly. It was funny because Alice and Elise would have to translate for us becuase their grandparents didnt speak english. For dessert we had some kind of upside apple pie deal - but I dont know how to spell it in French!

Many days, Francoise would cook us dinner which of course we loved. And dont forget all the fresh French baquettes that we had with every meal :)

1. Duck in a raspberry sauce - Delicious!

2. Quiche Lorraine - that Alice made! Such a quick and easy and yummy meal!

3. Homemade Lasagna - Ivan had us over to his place for dinner one night and taught us how to make homemade lasagna.

4. Pizza truck - one night we stopped by a pizza truck run by Pauls friend James. He made us some pizzas - one with a white cream sauce and one with red sauce. We brought those home and shared them with the boys and they watched a football match - while we drank some tea :)
5. Truffle Pasta - Alice made us some spaghetti with truffle sauce from the left over truffles from grandmas house. Her grandparents have two dogs that they have trained to go into the fields and sniff out truffles! For dessert, Alice made us tiramisu! YUM

6. Paul's Favorite Restaurant - one night after the boys played football, Paul took us all out to his favorite restaurant. It was very colorful and served typical French foods. The waitress explained the menu to us in English. For the first course Ally and I both got an eggplant dish with tomato and mozzerella. Their favorite first course was some kind of duck liver pate spread on toast. Ally and I tried it of course, not our favorite thing. It was a very interesting thick texture. For our second course Ally got some pork and zucchini and I had some steak and potatoe dish. The boys and Alice were much more adventurous and used to the food, so they ate things like seafood and other meats. Good for them! Then came dessert! I had the traditional creme brulee and Ally had a medley of desserts such as creme brulee, chocolate mousse, tiramisu, raspberry custard and something else.

7. Chicken and Potatoes - When Alice came to America, she made us a French meal with some yummy creamy potato thing (gosh I wish I remember what they were all called - but Alice has it all typed out, so ill get it soon). She made it with fresh potatoes from the garden and Herbs de Provence! To accompany the potatoes, we had chicken, and not just any chicken. One that was roaming around the yard just that morning.... Her grandma was nice enough to clean it for us to cook!

Our American/Mexican Meal!
One night, Ally and I made dinner for the whole family. We decided on Mexican! It was kind of interesting because we didnt have all the same things as we do in America. We made chicken tacos/fajitas! We made homemade spanish rice that was kind of interesting, and had white beans because we couldnt find black ones. The best part was probably the homemade guacamole and salsa that we made! The day before, we went to the market in Aix which was full of fresh fruits and veggies that we bought for the meal.

This was in the "stranger aisle" which is where all the international food is! haha!

Since we usually had wine with our meals, we decided to mix it up a bit and made blended margaritas for everyone to try! Yummy :) Since it was a pretty big meal, a fruit salad for dessert was the perfect ending to our American meal.

Desserts - We always had some kind of dessert after our meal. Sometimes it was cheeses, other times we had macaroons, fruit salads, pasteries, cookies and banana bread. Our last night, Francoise brought us her favorite desserts from the bakery.

Baking - Since we had so much free time during the days, we often found ourselves baking. One thing that Alice remembered from her trip to San Diego was the delicious chocolate chip cookies. She even still had the recipe that I wrote out for her 7 years ago! I think over the course of 2 weeks, we made 5 batches of cookies. They turned out a little different every time because we had to improvise often with baking soda and brown sugar. It was interesting, but we did it and they loved them! One night we baked cookies and played cards with Ivan and Axel and there were probably 10 cookies left at the end of the night. We aslo made banana bread (or cake as they call it) which was a request of Alice. The first one we tried to make was at Ivans house and we had to literally guess at how much we were mixing together because he didnt have any measuring devices. It was pretty good, but the bananas sunk to the bottom a little. Our next try was amazing, and we even put in some chocolate chunks!

So much cooking and baking has made both Ally and I really excited to get home and cook :) Get ready parents!!! Alice also gave us a lot of the recipes, so we are good to go!

Yumm - French food :)

Aix en Provence

Let me precface this blog with a short story that happened 7 years ago...

The Youngs are a very welcoming (Jean Welcome! Haha) family and hosted a young (the Young family! Haha) French girl for a couple weeks during the summer of 2002. They had a great time in San Diego!! Years later, Amanda and Alice found each other on facebook. Through the wonderful communication of the internet, Amanda let her know that we would be traveling through Europe and would love to visit her. And now, 7 years after Alice enjoyed her visit in Amanda's hometown of San Diego, she is letting us visit her beautiful hometown of Aix en Provence, in the South of France, for a couple weeks!

We had the best time. It was a holiday during our holiday. When we first arrived, Alice and her fiance Paul met us at the train station. They took us home when her family was gathering for her fathers 50th birthday!! Everyone was very friendly and excited to meet us American girls. We ate a delicious homecooked meal for the first time in a while. After settling in, Alice busted out her scrapbook from her visit to California. It was so fun to look at old pictures and reminice on that trip. Then Alice took us into town where we had drinks with Paul and his brothers, Axel & Ivan. That day was a perfect taste of our next 2 weeks :)

Their backyard and a pic with the family!

We spent many of our days just lounging around their beautiful country home. Throughout the day we would hear the rooster 'cock-a-doodle-doo' but since it was a french rooster, it said 'cocorico!!' They live on a farm where they grow lots delicious veggies and fruits! They have horses and chickens roaming around outside. We would use fresh veggies and eggs while cooking :)

The view from our bedroom and a pic with all the kids :)

Paul is an electririan, so he had work everyday. Alice and her sister, Elise, were in university so they were sometimes busy during the day. When they were not home, we would recooperate from traveling! We liked to relax by watching movies and baking cookies and banana bread! Axel and Ivan also had jobs, but when they were free they would come over and join us all! On one of the first days, we all played tennis...that was entertaining for them! Amanda and I aren't the best at this sport, but its always fun to play :) Some of our favorite nights were spent in Alice and Pauls basement apartment with everyone playing Wii, cards, baking cookies, listening to music and just hanging out. When the boys were gone and working, we spent lots of time sitting around the dining room table with Alice, Elise and Francoise (the mom) chatting about anything and everything and enjoying hot tea and verbena. We also managed to learn some French :)

We did many things over those two weeks, including cooking, day trips, relaxing, visiting relatives, tea times, going to the market and so much more. Stay tuned for details about the trip in other posts :)

A&A

To study in Paris is to be born in Paris! - Right Ellie?!

Our second day in Paris was dedicated to my little (my little sorority sister), Ellie!

She studied abroad last year in Paris, so she had tons of great ideas for us! We werent able to do everything on her list, but we did a few things :) Have to save some for our next trip to Paris...

Below you will find her recommendations (in purple) and what we did (in yellow):

Go buy a baguette right now! They're less than 1 euro and they're incredible. Eat lots of them while you're there!

• YUM! French baguettes are so delish and fresh and cheap! Love that!

Go get hot chocolate at Angelina at 226 rue de Rivoli. It's right by the Louvre (to the left of the Louvre when you're looking at it from the Tuileries). It's amaaaazing and different.

• SO GOOD! In the afternoon, we went to Angelina. It was very beautiful inside and so relaxing. We had their famous hot chocolate which was unlike any hot chocolate I've ever had. It was super think and so tasty :) The perfect treat for a rainy day!

Of course Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, and Sacré-Coeur are beautiful churches, and you at least need to see Notre Dame, but I also love Saint-Eustache.

• Going inside Notre Dame was amazing, it was so big and colorful with all the stained glass. Ally was a little sad that it didnt smell like Christmas like she remembered from her last visit. Bummer! But it was cool seeing a Disney movie come to life (kind of) seeing the gargoyles!



• We saw Saint-Eustache at night time, but it was still great!

Right by Saint-Eustache is a really awesome outdoor market on Rue Montmartre- all kinds of foods (some that they'll let you taste) and clothes and jewelry. The street that comes to a V with Rue Montmartre near Saint-Eustache is called Rue Montorgeuil, which I looooove. So many cool little restaurants! Go there!!!

• Rue Montmartre was a great street. Tons of people and cool buildings and restaurants. We decided to have dinner here (like suggested). We walked up and down the street and settled for a Sushi place since other ones were so packed.
• 
  

Montmartre is the traditional cool area in Paris. Has the Moulin Rouge and Sacre-Coeur and sex shops and souvenir shops. I love that area, but be careful around there with your stuff.

• After dinner we headed to Montmarte and saw the famous Moulin Rouge! Did you know that Moulin means windmill.... we just learned that! So thats why they have a big windmill outside! We didnt go in any sex shops, but we sat down at a restaurant across from the Moulin Rouge and enjoyed some Kir! YUM! (see below for further information)

Lastly, please please drink some Kir in the afternoon for me. It's white wine with a black currant (blackberry?) liquor in it that makes it purplish-red and it tastes a little sweeter. It's my favorite drink from Paris. Kir Royale is the same thing except with champagne instead of wine. Soooo good!!!

• Well it wasnt the afternoon, but we did try Kir! Yummy! I ordered the Kir Royale, but was brought the regular Kir with wine, so I actually got to try both! Pretty sweet deal! And it was delish! (We also tried some in Aix, but we will get to that later)

Have tons of fun, eat lots of pastries, baguettes, crepes (nutella of course, but also cheese, mushrooms, ham and egg), drink lots of wine and kir, and be nice to the Frenchies and they'll be nice to you.

• So that was our day. It was great! I love getting little tips from people about the places we are going because it gives us something to do instead of wandering around and picking places at random.
• So THANKS ELLIE! Youre the best :)

Overall, great stay in Paris!!! We loved it! We could have spent a lot more time there of course, but feel like we got a good amount of things in. Since we missed some things, that just means we will have to return some day :)

Off to Provence!

XOXO,

Amanda and Ally

Meet Me in Paris!

Although our trip to Paris was a few weeks ago, it was an amazing trip! We spent 3 nights in Paris, our hostel was near the Republique. Our first full day there was spend walking around the city.

We took the free tour and started at the Saint Michelle fountain and saw Notre Dame, the Siene River, the Opera house that inspired the story of the Phantom of the Opera, the Louvre, the gardens, Place de la Concorde, and a few other places.

After the tour we walked down the main street (Ave des Champs Elysees) to the Arc de Triomphe then to the Eiffel Tower!!! We took tons of pictures of course and found out that the Eiffel Tower was built for the world fair back in 1889.

We wanted to go to a nearby supermarket and get a baguette, some cheese and wine and have a little picnic in the park, but it was raining so we went to a little french restaurant where I had some delish French onion soup :) and Ally had a ham and cheese sammy. We waited around for it to get dark so we could see the Eiffel Tower at night!!! We always imagined it would be yellow lights like from all the pictures. But this night, the base was red with a few blue lights and the top was white. We arent really sure why, but it sure looked cool!

Then.... IT STARTED SPARKLING! Oh my gosh, it was the coolest thing! First of all, we were in Paris, second, we were at the Eiffel Tower, and thrid.... it was sparking! Holy smokes, it was freaking awesome! You can easly hear my excitement in the video :)

After walking around all day and the rain, we decided to sit down at a bar and people watch and have some wine. We went to the bar where the pub crawl from the tour was starting, so we met some people from America who were also on our tour. We were then convinced to join the pub crawl and ended up going to a few different bars around Paris. It wasnt the best pub crawl, but we met some fun people! We then called it a night and headed home.

Paris was amazing, we couldnt wait for day number 2!!!

XOXO

Köln

After Amsterdam, we made a quick stop in Cologne, Germany. We started getting used to the cold weather and rain with our few previous cities and that carried over to Cologne. We found a cheap place to stay near the train station. We didnt really know what to do in the city, but heard it was a good place. The main thing I wanted to do was see the Rhine river because I learned about it in my German classes and had to recite a German poem about it.

Since it was raining, we didnt really feel like walking all around the city, so we deicded to go to the movies :) Wir war ins Kino gegangen! That means we went to the movies in German!! Its one of those beginner phrases that you learn in school and never think you'll use.... well I just used it! Frau would be proud! We saw Julie and Julia - in English! We actually had to run because we were already late, and it was raining, but we managed. We both decided the movie inspired us to cook more!
After the movie, we stopped at a little German restaurant on the way home for dinner. We both got some yummy Goulash soup and some typical Cologne beer.

We ended up spending two hours at the restaurant, eating, drinking and laughing (something we are very good at!) It was actually a really great evening!

This video shows you just how much fun we can have at a simple dinner :)

On the way back we stopped at a grocery store and stocked up on Ritter Sport - our favorite German chocolate! And went to bed.

The next morning we woke up and walked around the city before checking out. We walked to the Rhine river (yay!) and the Musical Hall, the HUGE Dom Cathedral which you can see from everywhere in the city, the Hohenzollern bridge and a few other things.

Just to give you a glimpse of how we have fun.... this man was the ticket guy at the train station... try not laughing when looking at his sweet hair!

It was a very quick trip, but it was fun!

Our last German pretzels :) YUM!

Now on to Paris!

A&A

Amsterdam!

Before heading down south, we made a quick stop in The Netherlands! Ally and I got to the train station to find that everything was closed - typical for a Sunday in Europe. After walking around we stopped in a Ben & Jerrys shop that had wifi and found a place to stay. We took the tram to our hostel and met two other fellow travelers - Jono and Emma. We decided to go have dinner with them and ended up comparing many camp stories because they too worked at a summer camp, but in New York. After dinner we walked around a bit and hung out in the Leidse Plein area of town.

The next day, we went on the free walking tour of Amsterdam. Amsterdam is such a pretty city with tons of bridges and canals. The houses are very unique and tall and squished together and some even leaning forward and sideways. We got to see many things like the redlight district - dont take pictures here or else the ladies would throw a cup of pee on you, and then break your camera! We also so many churches, the Jewish Quarter where Rembrant lived, the hash, marijuana and hemp museum, and the womens prison.

Half way through, we stopped for a break at a market/restaurant deal. It was pretty cold, so Ally and I walked across the street to get some coffee... meanwhile, our group left! Oops! Luckly, the second group was there, so we joined them for the second half. The last part of the tour showed us the famous coffee shop (Dampkring) from Oceans 12, some more churches - including hidden catholic churches, some Dutch art, the town hall and lastly the Anne Frank house.

We finished the tour and had some lunch at a local bagel shop :) yum! Then walked around the city a bit more, even though it was raining! We walked around a flee market, and a mall and eventually made our way back to the hostel. We bought some food at a grocery store and cooked it at the hostel for dinner.

The next day we got our things together and went to Koeln for one last day in Germany!

On the tour, we actually learned alot about their drug policy.

Some interesting facts:

1. Selling weed is illegal but not punishable

2. Coffee Shops are legal as long as they dont advertise weed and must sell food and drinks - excluding alcohol

Basically, The Netherlands is very tolerant country when dealing with marijuana and the red light district. They have a special Dutch word that they use (we cant remember what is it) in the laws that basically says they dont want to know about whats going on, as long as its not harming anyone. Which is interesting, because some may argue that marijuana and prostitution is harming people... so take that as you wish. :)

Laugh Out Loud!

Some of you may be wondering about Ally and I... When we told people that we would be traveling for a few months together, most people responded with, "Arent you going to get sick of each other" or "by the end you will hate each other" or things of this sort. I am happy to report that after almost 4 months of traveling and being together 24/7, we just spent about 5 solid minutes laughing while trying to brush our teeth in preperation for bed time. 5 minutes.... just laughing. At nothing in particular, Ally had to shield her face from mine in hopes of not choking on toothpaste, or spitting it all out.

Oh the adventures of traveling :) And some reminders of the past...

5 years old at the Paur house :)

Trip to Julian, CA - High School

CAMP! 2009

Good times and lots of love,

A&A

Hamburg!

After a quick stop in Berlin, we were soon on our way to the next town - Hamburg. We got there on Friday and had a little trouble finding a place to stay since the next day was a holiday - the reunification of Germany. We found a hostel a little outside of town and took the S-Bahn (city train). When we got off, the only instructions we had were “Right, then up the stairs” We didn’t really understand that, so we started walking right out of the train station and then down some stairs. We walked a good 30 minutes in a circle - with all our luggage - and finally found our hostel. Turns out, it was right above the train station, so all we really had to do was walk up the stairs instead of down, but hey, we got some exercise!

It has been cold in northern Germany so when we got to the hostel, it was nice to warm up and settle down. The hostel rooms were separated by gender, so Duncan had a bed upstairs and ours was in the basement. The rooms had 6 beds and were all full. After trying to take a quick nap we decided to head outside and find some dinner. A worker at the hostel told us about a popular area in town to go for dinner, so we tried that.

We walked another 30 minutes and found Bok, an Asian restaurant that was suggested. Apparently Hamburg was more known for their Asian food than typical German food. The three of us all shared some delicious meals including California rolls, vegetable tempura, chicken fried rice, and some beef and veggie medley. After dinner, we bundled up again and walked around more.

We stopped at a small café/bar that had wireless internet. We sat there for a few hours, drinking hot chocolate and hot tea and using our computer. Then we made our way home for the evening. We woke up the next morning for a nice free breakfast at our hostel with especially delicious hot chocolate, which was great considering it was freezing and raining outside!

We bundled up again and heading into town for our next free New Europe tour! We met outside of a Starbucks with about 20 other tourists. Our guide lead us around Hamburg telling us all kinds of interesting history about the city.

Did you know that Hamburg has more bridges and canals than Venice and Amsterdam combined?

Or that the city has been rebuilt several times since the great fire of 1842 and bombing after WW2? Or that The Beatles had their debut in Hamburg? Or that it has the sharpest corner in Europe?

Just a few fun things we learned! We love taking these tours because we learn so much about the city. Its kind of crazy how much history there is; the past 2000 years in Berlin, the past 700 years in Hamburg, then compare that to the 200 years of America? Ha!

Hamburg is a popular port city and its pretty quaint. We also got to see the future building of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra which is supposed to be completed in 2012 and comparable to the Sydney opera house. On our tour, we also met a girl from Bakersfield! She went to high school with my parents’ friends’ daughter. Small world! After the tour, we wantedt o check out 'miniature wonderland,' this place that has a small train (the size of what a kid would play with) that travels all around the world that Mr. Paur told us about- and the cities go from Hamburg to London to Vegas! It would have been really cool to see it, but the wait to far too long!! Instead, we went to an Italian restaurant for a snack then made our way back to our hostel.

It was freezing outside and we were tired from walking around all day, so we watched some episodes of Weeds on our computer and lounged around in a common room in the hostel. We also decided not to go out for dinner and ate a gross cafeteria meal at the hostel then played some cards, uploaded our pictures onto the computer and called it a night.

We woke up early the next morning to say goodbye to Duncan - he left for Copenhagen and onto Norway while we were heading west. We slept a little more then woke up for breakfast at our hostel. This whole breakfast included deal at our hostels are great!!! Then we packed our things and left Germany for Amsterdam!

Alles gut!
A&A

Ich bin ein Berliner!

It was a bit sad to leave Munich and the wonderful hospitality we got from Konsta (and his brother) but it was time to move on. Duncan is traveling til November too, so we all decided to go to Berlin together! The train was nice, much easier to store our luggage (probably because we sent home about 50 pounds!!). Amanda and I watched Quantum of Solace and played cards. When we arrived, Amanda spoke with a travel agent and found a place for the 3 of us to stay. It was close to the station, but also close to downtown! The room was set up for 5 people, but we only had one roommate on the first night- an elderly lady who was extremely quiet when she read, but apparently likes sleeping with the light on. After settling in on Wednesday, we walked around the town, checking out all the sights.

Brandenberg Gate.

Duncan had his first kebab, and it was delicious!! Once the sun started to set, it got really cold. Amanda and I weren’t ready for the cold weather in Europe to begin, but we dealt with it anyway! We went to a coffee shop, Balzacs, and enjoyed some hot coffee and comfy seats. When we got back to the hostel, the 3 of us bundled up and watched a couple episdoes of Weeds- our new addiction. The next day, our full day in Berlin, we woke up in time for the free breakfast: cereal, toast, pb and jelly (Amanda was really happy they had peanut butter!), bread rolls, cheese, meat, coffee, hot cocoa powder (not hot sand!), and orange juice. I think it was the best free breakfast we’ve had on this trip!! I was excited for today because we were going on the free walking tour of Berlin : ) I’ve been on these free tours in a few other cities and they were one of my favorite things! Anyways, our tour guide, Mick, is from England but now lives in Berlin. He loves history, so we learned a ton on our tour! He kept the tour interesting and funny. We saw everything important and so much more

.

This is Checkpoint Charlie, one of the entrances from East Berlin to West Berlin.

It took a total of 5 hours to see it all. Mick even told us about the Opera house and how great it was (and cheap!) so we decided that the opera was going to be our night activity. We rested up for a short while, then threw on layers and layers of clothes (Amanda and I were freezing!) and went searching for a restaurant.

We probably should have left earlier because after enjoying our delicious meals and drinks- beer with a shot of raspberry sauce! (recommended by the one and only Rick Steves)- we only had about 5 minutes til the opera started. So after getting stuffed, we RAN to the opera house. We got in a few minutes late but made our way up to the balcony and watched Salome, our first German opera. Amanda understood about 60% of the opera, and it helped that you could read the lyrics. It was hard to follow at times, but the performers and music were amazing! Good fun, especially for only 3,50 euros! After the opera, we walked back to our hostel - in the freezing cold! We were exhausted from a long day of walking and went to bed.

We had to check out of the hostel by 10am, so we woke up early and had breakfast. Then we locked our luggage up at the hostel and walked into the city one last time. The Reichtstag building was open to the public and you can climb up and have a nice view of the entire city.

On the way over, we walked through the train station - at least we tried to walk through, but had to turn around half way through when we found out there was some mysterious suit case on one of the platforms down stairs. There were police and military men everywhere and sections were blocked off. Hopefully they would get it sorted before we had to leave Berlin!

We walked up the Reichstag - now known as the Bundestag - and enjoyed a free audio tour pointing out all the sights we saw the day before. I really like hearing about the things we are looking at because it makes it more interesting and I feel more knowledgeable!

After we were finished we got our luggage and made our way to the train station where thankfully the ‘mysterious case’ had gone away and waited for our train. Then on to Hamburg!

Auf Wiedersehen!
A&A + Duncan