The best thing so far about Brighton, is the vast array of vegetarian options! This is very exciting for me. Many places have 1/4-1/3 of the menu vegetarian and there are many places that are fully vegetarian. So delishuz. I have had pasties, pies, platters. We went to a cafe called Chockywockydodah (not sure of spelling), where they make amazing cakes and chocolate items, and the cafe has 4 items on the menu (liquicd chocolate hot chocolate, cake, shake, sundae. All great.
We went to see the new Captain America, which was very similar to seeing a movie in NZ, but they have either sweet or salty popcorn, or a mix of both.
The beach is all small stones, but I don’t mind that, cause I’m not that keen on sand anyway. There is an amusement park at the end of the pier, with small rollercoasters and things like that.
We spent the end of Friday night packing our bags – can only take carry on with the cheap tickets we have with Easy Jet, but there is no weightlimit on your carry on, you simply have to be able to fit it in the overhead compartment, and be able to get it up there and down again yourself.
We arrived in France to overcast skies, but a decent temperature. Bordeaux is definitely a winemaking area, even the airport is surrounded by vines. We are staying in a house in the countryside, 40mins from Bordeaux. Is it super cute. All the buildings are sandstone brick, again, it all seems so like it should be. A bit surreal. There is a vast amount of grass here, much more than we saw in Canada.
We bought lots of food from the local supermarket – mostly bread, cheese, wine, and meats. Most meals are composed of this. In this area, most people speak French, and many of the shopkeepers have only a very small amount of English. It is very interesting, trying to badly speak french, enough to buy things. I know how to ask for cheese, wine, bread, and where is the toilet? Also, chocolate, candy.
Macaroons are delishus, I bought a few, and promptly ate them all. We spent today wandering around Saint Emilion, which was very pretty, old bell tower, old (but still current) wine cellars, massive amounts of vineyards. Tiny town is fully of cobbled streets stretching up and down the hills, tiny alleyways and side streets, with decidedly french people lounging on the corners, wine for sale in every second shop, and many macaroons!
Sunday we visited a lot of vineyards, and did a lot of wine tasting. Lots of reds. Got shown around a few wineries, and enjoyed the lovely weather. We headed back in the afternoon, to sit outside in the warm afternoon sun, and drink wine, cider, and eat things.
My favourite thing from France was eating Raclette for dinner. Melted cheese on everything. So. Good. Raclette I think is originally swiss, a type of firm cheese that is mostly used for melting, you hold it towards the fire until it starts melting, then scrape the melty part off, and eat it with potatoes. In modern times, we have tiny pans, that are set on an element, and slices of cheese are laid in them, and gently melted, until bubbling, then you slide it out onto your plate, and voila!
We totally ate veges too
My next favourite part was seeing all the tiny towns filled with cute little stone houses and terracotta roof slates. Tiny towns with tiny little cobbled roads.
Also, I thoroughly enjoyed anything that required us to reference the fact that we were in France.
Dale and Becca 