Le week-end de St. Valentine

Bonjour tout le monde!
This weekend was a whirlwind-exhausting, emotional, exciting, and full of chocolate. To start, I had my first experience at a french dance club on Thursday night. It was great to just move to music with no sense of time, but the club seemed to be creeper central. My friends and I could hardly move without some guy zeroing in and trying to section one of us off to dance. I now see how European men like to do things. However, my friend Mair adopted the handy method of literally shoving them off-kind of like ping pong. At about 4 am we decided our feet and nerves had had enough and we stumbled, homeward bound, into cabs.
Friday Katherine ( my friend from school), Ariana, and I went to a chocolatier in the 9th that was first opened in 1761; thus they obviously know a thing or two about creating amazing chocolate. The St. Valentine's displays were all gorgeous and delectable looking, however they were all pretty expensive. The store had a huge display case of all different types of chocolates and it was so overwhelming to try and select a few. I finally settled on all dark chocolates (my favorite). I tried a florentine, a light, delicate cup of dark chocolate filled with caramelized, slivered almonds covered again in chocolate. I also got a variety of different chocolate covered almonds and some truffles. It was my first gourmet chocolate purchase in Paris and it will definitely not be my last.
Onward to Saturday: my school visit to Mont St. Michel. Mont St. Michel is a compact, rocky island located in Normandy. The entire island was constructed around a single abbey, which is ominously perched atop the boulders and overlooks out onto the ocean and surrounding countryside. I do not remember much of the 4 hour bus ride-as I had to get up at 5:40 am to get to school and passed out as soon as I got on the bus-but the brief flashes of French countryside I did catch were picturesque. As much as I adore Paris, the French countryside was a refreshing respite from condensed city life. Rolling hills, tiny stone cottages, and quaint farms dot the expansive fields alongside the highway. As we pulled into the area around Mont St. Michel, I could not help but be captivated by the sweet villages and their lulling quality. It was as if life moved more slowly, more languidly-pulled awake only by the commerce of the local businesses and restaurants. Pulling up to Mont. St. Michel was very overwhelming. It looms over you like a dark castle, with the tiny shops-embedded in rock-winding to its entrance. We started our trip with a free lunch, hosted at a plain little restaurant located at the bottom of the mountain. The food was hearty and rustic; there was definitely no lack of butter. After lunch we proceeded up the tiny passageway up to the entrance of the abbey.
The abbey was breathtaking. Massive, haunting and cold, we wound through the different, starkly decorated chambers listening to an audio guided history about the monks who created it. The abbey took 60 years to build due to the changing tides and challenging process of getting the rocks up the mountain. After our visit we meandered around the touristy shops for a bit and finally headed back to the bus to take another 4 hour bus ride back to the city (which I also slept through).
And then there was St. Valentine's Day. I did not have many expectations for this holiday-just to fill up on chocolate and good food. However, in the late morning there was a knock on my door and there on the doorstep, much to my surprise, was a chocolatier's bag filled with a sunflower, truffles, a chocolate biscuit, and some chocolates. Jimmy. Thus, I headed out to find an open chocolate shop and bakery to return the favor. That night, me and my girlfriends went out to dinner at an amazing local pizza place and each got our own pizza. We ended the night with homemade chocolate strawberries (Ari and I made them earlier that day) and terrible white wine. I am still working on my chocolate :).
On Tuesday my French class took a field trip to a local fromagerie to learn about one of France's essentials-cheese. The shop was closed especially for us and we got a private explanation of how cheese is made and its different stages of fermentation. I learned that there are 400 different types of cheese in France and they are made from three different types of milk: goat, cow and brebis (a female sheep). Most cheeses are made in the mountain areas because the cold climate helps preserve the cheese during its aging process. We then got to try 5 different types of cheeses and some jam. Of course I could not help but buy some after that, so I settled on one of my favorites, Brie. I also got a small container of blackberry jam, one of my comfort foods. It was a really fun excursion and I now know that cheese is not a joking matter in France. It is part of the daily triangle of existence in France: wine, cheese, bread.