France Days 8 & 9 - Annecy/Menthon-Saint-Bernard

I will be sad to leave Annecy.  Tomorrow I leave for Lyon.  Here are some memories from the past few days.

Annecy by night is gorgeous (Annecy by day is also gorgeous).  Loved the solitary swan.

Ice cream from Glaces des Alpes, #24 on Tripadvisor in Annecy.  My teacher told me it was famous.  I had blueberries and génépi flavour which is a type of liqueur which somehow I loved (did not taste alcoholic!).  They give you a small scoop of something to taste and I got speculoos for Lingon.  :-)

Rented a bike and cycled along Lake Annecy.  Visited a restaurant Chez Ma Cousine, #2 on Tripadvisor in the village of Dussard, and had local fish which was amazing.

Purchased some Savoyard pastas to make at home for Lingon.  Interested to try the blueberry one.  Seems weird.  Also got an additional basil noodle one not featured here.

Duck with my favourite mushroom pasta and green beans.  Who would have thunk duck was so easy to make.  I will definitely make it at home.

These cows with a pretty white strip just outside the house I am staying in.

Treat after running at Yogolicious, #14 on Tripadvisor.

Went to see people paragliding.  Not sure if you can see the tiny people in the sky, but it was pretty cool.

Just some weird decor in the old town.

Looking for some tartiflette, in search of Savoyard.  Went randomly to Les Chineurs, #48 on Tripadvisor, which served a neo-tartiflette.  Would have preferred a classic one, but it was REALLY good!  Yum.

Uh oh, went back to eat ice cream at Glaces des Alpes.  Was craving the waffle, but get it from somewhere else.  Stick to the ice cream and the cone here.  Looked good, ice cream was great, green pistachio and honey lavender, waffle much less so but hit the spot.

France Days 6 & 7 - Annecy/Menthon-Saint-Bernard

More pictures of things I have seen and eaten.

Amazingly cute house I saw on my run.

The Old City of Annecy.  <3

OK so this was really funny and I did not make it so I think I'm allowed to post it.  My teacher also teaches kids, and this was a puppet of... Barack Obama that her friend made for her.  She took it out and started doing a mini puppet show for me and I just HAD to take a photo of it.

Kinder Bueno is very cheap here.  :-(  Sadly I cannot justify buying 24 Kinder Buenos for 10 euros.  I might die of heart failure.  Also found this penguin Kinder thing which has to be refrigerated.  Not great but in true Me fashion I demolished 6 of these bars in 2 days.  Thank goodness it was the only snack I bought.  That is why I cannot have 24 Buenos.

How to make Raclette (French).  Methinks I will buy a raclette apparatus.

Mushroom soup and caprese salad.  Such nice easy ideas for dinner.  Shall adopt some for when I'm back in the US.

Melon and prosciutto again, and a crepe.

France Day 5 - Annecy/Menthon-Saint-Bernard, Les Vaud and Geneva in Switzerland

Got my new room last night and it is bigger, has an attached bathroom and a great view.

Despite the lack of sleep, I woke up before my alarm (the first was set for 6.15am) around 6am.  I managed to kick myself out of the house and go for my first run in more than a month.  Not only was it a painful one because I felt very unfit, one of my injuries that I sustained (and hence had to stop running) was still there and I felt another.  Not sure what I'm going to do since I have another half marathon soon, but I guess we will see...  Ran down to the lake and took these photos.

Another picture of the hotel, in a quieter more sombre setting.

Panoramic view of the whole lake which looked a bit weird.  I had to stand on one of the logs of the jetty to avoid having other obstructive images and hope I did not fall in (and thankfully did not).

View towards Annecy.

To my understanding this is the first post office.  I thought it was a pretty picture!

Chickens and goat.

My teacher invited me to go to her church which was in a little village called Les Vaud in Switzerland.  The drive there was more than an hour and I passed out for most of it.  When I woke up I found myself in some small picturesque village with winding roads and not long after we arrived.  Service was long and a bit confusing, but thankfully I understood some and felt a bit better about myself.  Hooray.  After service was a buffet lunch.  I took a picture of the buffet and it came out terrible so I did not post that, but took some of the dishes themselves.  Basically everyone brings a dish and then everyone eats.  My teacher made a Provençal vegetable tart which had onions, eggplant, zucchini etc. in it.  Also on my plate was some BBQ chicken, a salt cod dish which I believe is from the French department of Reunion, and a chicken dish which may have been from there too.  I did not like the last dish but everything else was great.  Everyone was very friendly to me, but I still felt shy and afraid of speaking and was really tired.  Someone asked me (in French) if I was/went to a "culte" and I was very shocked, but later learned that it referred to Protestant church service.

Then, we went to Geneva.  It was pretty dead because it was a Sunday.  Biggest lake and fountain in Europe, supposedly.  Also possibly biggest chair (look at first photo in this series).

Dinner was simple and light.  I was still full from dinner anyway.  A salad and some leftover tart and cheese.  Oh man I could get used to cheese everyday and I'm learning to love all kinds of cheese!

Today I had no class since it was a Sunday.  So far I've managed with very little English, except for the son of my teacher who addressed me in English, and even though I replied in French he insisted on English until my teacher came in and chastised him.

Here is a picture of dawn and dusk views of Lake Annecy from my room window.  Lovely, isn't it?

France Day 4 - Annecy/Menthon-Saint-Bernard

OK, so when I say Annecy, I'm really in Menthon-Saint-Bernard which is a small village about 10km outside of Annecy, in the Haute-Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region.  I actually have not learned classification and just copied this, but I better do so after this blog.  In case I did not introduce what on earth I am up to properly, I am doing a private French course and homestay.

I slept in a temporary room while another student was finishing up.  This is probably a kid's room, since there are toys and stuff in it.

Breakfast was pretty simple.  Bread, jams, cheese, yoghurt, and this morning saw tomatoes because the other student was German and liked tomatoes for breakfast.  I started my French class shortly after breakfast and it was hard.  I will not speak too much of class, but it is draining but everyday just having to speak French I feel myself getting better.

Lunch was delicious.  We started with melon and prosciutto, then a simple main dish (my teacher called it a plat familial, which I understood as a simple dish made at home for normal occasions) made with basmati rice, pan fried diced vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, etc.) and tomato sauce, and ended with ice cream and a biscuit.  Everything was delicious.  Like really delicious.

We went for a long walk after, almost 7 miles.  We started from her house in the village, walked down to the public beach, then along this path towards Annecy, turning back at some point but heading uphill.  We passed a lot of really cute houses.  I took photos of some, but if I took photos of all you would never see the end of it.  Here are some photos I took during our walk.

View of the lake with the Palace de Menthon hotel on the left.

At the beach.

Petanque competition.

Pretty flowers!

Pretty mailbox!

Château de Menthon-Saint-Bernard

Dinner was a special pasta made with mushrooms from this region, and (what I was told) a French omelette with spinach.  Simple but also really good.  So far food has been really good.  :-)  It was late, so I had no time to blog last night nor do my homework.  Sleep is good.