moo visits lyon!

Moo comes to Lyon!

Well, i'm a little out of order on these posts, but a couple weeks ago my little momma (accompanied by her college roomies, Eva and my Aunt Beth) came all the way from  Virginia to visit me in Lyon!

Don't we look stylish?  Jack and Nancy (family living in France just outside of Geneva) have  a tradition of always dressing up in crazy outfits when they meet people at the airport.  Hahhaaa...so here we are, Bull: Catherine, Cowboy: Jack (equipped with water guns), Cowgirl: Nancy, Cow: Magz.  And we were also really loud and annoying at the airport, cheering when people ran up to meet their families at the baggage claim and by shooting our waterguns (I was surprised they let us have waterguns...don't think that would be allowed in New York).  Mom, Eve, and Beth all arrived with matching hats and scarves and pillows stuffed in their shirts pretending to be pregnant.

Cow and Cowgirl!

All the Swiss people stared at us...wonder why?  I think they liked it.

We spent a couple days in and around Geneva.

Friday night we had a "Southren Party" at Nancy & Jack's house.  Catherine and I cooked up some of Aunt Thelema's buscuits, bacon, and Momma Moo made her famous cheese grits so that our european buddies could taste the wonders of southren cookin'.

Mollie and I having way too much fun peeling apples

Jack used a plastic mold to put the face of the Holy Mary on the biscuits. 

Dinner!

Then we drove over to visit our Bauman relatives in Bern, Switzerland!

more cousins! Here we are at the Bauman homeplace where my great great great grandfather lived before they left Switzerland and immigrated to America. 

This luckily, this coin was in my my great great great bauman uncle's breast pocket and from dying when this bullet hit him - pretty darn lucky!

Eating some Bauman beef with the cousins!

Bauman beef in its previous state

Then, the Baumans took us up to the ridge behind their house for a GORGEOUS view of the valley & the Alps. 

Here is Moo, pretending like she's going to jump of the hang gliding platform. You know Moo, we just can't keep her away from those dangerous, life-threating sports!

Then Mom & Eve came back and stayed with me in Lyon for a couple days! We hiked up to the Fourviere, visited the Roman Ruins, went to the tapestry museum, had picnics along the Rhone, bought pretty dresses for Eve's angel neices, hit up the Lyon street market (like a giant flee market, but french style!), and had dinner at a Bouchon with my host family, Sabine & Dominique!

Moo and Eva on the Saone River

View of the city on the way up to Fourviere. I made Moo and Eve walk everywhere! Hahaa

Moo puts on a show at the Roman Ruins

Me, Ash, Steph, & Kate, after picnicing with Ma and Eve on the quais!

MOO in LYON!

It was so much fun to show off my town to my little momma!  And I can't wait for my Papa to come in a couple weeks! :)

marseille!

After a tiring weekend of working on the farm, Olivia, Tess and I headed down to Marseille to explore the beautiful limestone cliffs nearby, lie by the sea, soak up the sun, and do absolutely nothing.  

View from our bus ride in Marseille

Marseille is either the second or third biggest city in France (If ya ask someone from Lyon, they'll say its Lyon. Ask someone from Marseille, they'll say its Marseille).  Despite the beautiful coastline, a lot of people aren't very fond of Marseille. Its a very dirty city, and although it has some areas with amazingggg french architecture, it lacks the quaint, romantic vibe associated with other french cities.  Also, because its located on the Mediterranean, there is a large immigrant population (which is sometimes viewed as a downfall by some french residents). BUT I really enjoyed my (brief) visit. Marseille has a neat artsy/hippie-ish/"boheme" (i heard a french person say that!) quarter that I really liked.  Its so funny how each city seems to have its own feel or vibe....pretty cool.



So after arriving in Marseille, we took a bus to Les Calunks, which is a section of the Mediterranean coast just outside of Marseille dominated by these giant limestone cliffs. So beautiful.

Kinda reminds you of driving down Route 1 in California, yeah?

walking back from the cliffs, mountains in the background.

looking out over Marseille from the train station. 

the provence pooper scooper

coucou mes amis!

Les Arnoulds

This weekend, Olivia and I went WWOOF-ing in the south of France! 

WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) is an international organization that links organic farms with adventurous souls who are willing to work in exchange for food, lodging, and an incredible cultural exchange. Its a pretty cool system, google it! Each country (and some states state) has its own site. Here is the link to the USA one if you wanna check it out: http://www.wwoofusa.org/

So for the weekend, we worked at Les Arnauds, a farm just outside of Aix-en-Provence, which happens to be my new favorite city in France.  Les Arnauds, they have a small grove of olive trees and several rows of lavender, both of which they make into oil in the fall (separately of course). They also have a little organanic vegetable garden, a TON of rosemary, a Bed & Breakfast, and last but not least - a pool. 

the view from my window, looking out over Aix-en-Provence

This pool is where I spent the most of my time at Les Arnauds. Over the winter Justine (the family duck) had become unsatisfied with her pond and decided to take over the pool. Ugh-oh. Haha, with scrub brushes, a pump, a powerwasher, and some plastic tupperware for scooping out the remaining leaf/duck poo sludge, Olivia, Tess, Fumi, Aya, and I gave the pool a major spring cleaning!

scrubbing da pool

clean pool!

It sounds really gross, and it was, hahaaa but we had a lot of fun!

there were lots of little critters in the (pardon my french) merde de canard.
Big icky worms like this one, and a cute little frog!

Normally, wwoofers at Les Arnoulds do agriculture oriented things like pruning the olive trees, building compost facilites, and planting/weeding the vegetable garden. Since we were there on the weekend, they were taking a break from normal farm work. I dont want to scare you away from wwoofing, haha most people don't end up scooping poop out of pools! Anyways, it was such a wonderful experience, we met so many people...its just wonderful to get to know people from so many different places and walks of life - culture. Pretty cool. I would do it again in a heartbeat, duck poo and all.

On Saturday morning, we headed into Aix to go to the market. 

Tess and Olivia in Aix. Yay for spring and green leaves!

yep, thats a lot of asparagus.

One man band. Notice the sunflower. and banjo. and if he turned around, you would see that he had a rubber chicken that hit the drum on his back every time he pressed a button. YES.

Oh and we ate so well, and SO MUCH all weekend!  Lots of veggies, very fresh, all organic, yummmm.   Fumi and Aya (two other wwoofers) are Japanese, so one night they showed us how to make sushi!

Yes, I ate RAW salmon. And fish eggs. And it was realll good.

Then one night, I made a yummy quiche which we ate by candlelight on the porch. In her former life in Oakland, CA, Tess was pastry chef, so she made us an AMAZING pear tart on the last day!

one of the neighbor's fields, so gorgeous. 

Yes, Ingrid, I agree - "lets get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of france."