Food?

I didn't post yesterday. Sorry.  Yesterday was my long day. My busy day. My first class starts at 9 in the morning and my last class ends at 19h30 and by the time I get home I'm exhausted. In contrast to my long Tuesdays, Wednesdays are my short days. I have one class, from 9 to 11, and then I'm free to do whatever I want... I didn't think it was necessary to go home that early, so I went downtown and walked around a bit. My feet hurt so bad, I was wearing my tie-up shoes, which have heels...  I think I'm going to be wearing those until it starts getting cold so I'm sure I'll get used to it.  I don't like wearing tennis shoes all the time, I feel so out of place... No one wears tennis shoes.


So, there was a specific someone who mentioned that all I ever talk about is food. Well I just want you to know, food is a big part of French culture. When you go to a foreign country, after you're done 'seeing the sights,' what is there left to do but talk to the people and eat the food?  You might have seen everything, but there's no way you've tasted everything.  And for some reason, I feel that with Americans it's even more important to see and taste all the food in another country, because the United States doesn't really have its own food culture. We borrow food from other cultures.  I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that -- I love "American" cuisine.  It's just that here I'm in a country that has spent so much focus and so many years building up this food culture to be what it is today.  True, they borrow things from other countries too, like the kebab place I went to or the falafel places I want to visit, but they're still pretty unique to me when I've never seen anything like that.


As such, I think I'll talk about food a little now.. Just a little, not a lot.  I have been told by quite a few people that Georgio's ice cream van is the best ice cream in Pau.  It's not always very easy to find though.  Today, I found it.  And I got a cone with banana ice cream on the bottom, strawberry ice cream next and then pistachio ice cream on the bottom.  I think this stuff was fresh-made, it really seemed like it... It was delicious.  I ate all the pistachio ice cream on it's own and then I ate the strawberry and banana together (I'm a genius). It was definitely worth it.


I also toured the castle of Pau today. You know, the castle where Henri IV, king of France was born.  Yes, that one.  You hear about Henri IV a lot here in Pau.  Supposedly, the castle here in Pau has the biggest tapestry collection in all of France, or something.  It's a nice castle. Really big. And three floors. Remember how I said my feet hurt....?


I'm tired. I've probably been staying up too late. I think I need to go places on the weekend more. Travel to the local places that I can go to.  Avignon is supposed to be pretty, Lourdes too.  And I'd really like to make it to the beach in Biarritz.  I don't think I can find anyone who wants to go somewhere every weekend though.  I just think we need to do it. We only have 12 or 11 more weeks here. At least 5 of those weekends, I already have plans.  (Two in London, one in Paris, another in the Pyrenees and I don't know where the other one is supposed to be but it's a program trip.)  If I don't get my butt moving and actually go to these places, I'm going to run out of time...  Some people are going to Avignon this weekend, I might tag along with them.  I don't really know.


I added a couple things to my sidebar -- first of all, a follow-by-email thing down under the actual followers thing.  Second, my mailing address.