Tuesday in Barcelona

Tuesday was our big day in Barcelona, the entire reason we were there.  We had tickets to the opening date of the U2 tour.  Lisa and I had never seen U2 before.  We were going to see them on Lisa's birthday in Paris on July 11th but there is a huge medieval festival in Cordes the 13th and 14th so we knew we would have a lot of work to do here.  We also wanted to see Oriol Balaguer's Chocolate shop while we were in Barcelona.  

We started the day by changing hotels.  We were gone for three nights and stayed in three different hotels.  The third hotel was part of our concert package.  We waited too long to buy tickets so the show was sold out, but there was a UK company selling event packages through the U2 website.  We got a room with breakfast and floor tickets as part of our package.  The first hotel we stayed at in Barcelona was near the airport.  The hotel we moved to was right off Las Ramblas, the major tourist thoroughfare.  After we checked in, we took the metro to the stop closest to the chocolate shop.  Then we walked for about a half hour and stopped at a Starbucks on the way.  The chocolate shop is in a really cool area.  It is in a circular plaza around a beautiful church.  The shop is pretty small but has beautiful chocolate on display.  I bought a bar of 70% chocolate and 4 assorted bonbons.  I haven't tried them yet, they are almost too pretty to eat.  

Our trip took longer than we thought so we took a cab to the Hotel Arts for lunch.  It is the Ritz Carlton property in Barcelona.  Lisa knows a chef there and he prepared lunch of tapas for us at Marina, the restaurant of the pool.  It is a breathtaking place.  It is right on the beach.  The view is amazing.  The food was amazing.  We started with gazpacho and bread with tomato puree.  Next we had a salad with apples and walnuts and crispy roasted corn.  The next course was fish for lisa and grilled vegetables and potatoes for me.  Finally, we had cheesecake popsicles for dessert.  It was by far, the best meal I have had in Europe.  While we were eating the singer from Snow Patrol walked by.  After we finished our meal Lisa's friend took us for a tour of the hotel kitchens and the VIP lounge.  While we were in the elevator coming down from the lounge, the Snow Patrol guitarist got in at a floor below the lounge.  As we were saying goodbye in the lobby LL Cool J and his family got off the other elevator.  Then as we were waiting for a cab, The Snow Patrol bass player walked out of the elevator.  It was a star-studded few minutes.  The hotel was beautiful and the staff was really nice to us.  

We caught a cab back to our hotel to get our U2 tickets then headed to Las Ramblas to catch a cab to the concert.  Finding a cab was pretty difficult.  When one finally pulled up, two gentlemen were also waiting and asked if we were going to Camp Nou and would we like to share the ride.  We got really lucky.  The two gentlemen were a father and son from Ireland who were also going to see U2 for the first time.  The father was very enthusiastic and made conversation with us and also the cab driver.  It turned out the cab driver had been a tour guide for years and gave us a tour of the city on the way to the stadium.  It was fantastic.  We reached Camp Nou and entered the general admission area without a security pat down.  That was a first.  The stadium holds 90,000 people.  It is home to Barcelona's football team.  

Snow Patrol took the stage for at 8:30 and played for 45 minutes.  They were really terrific as usual.  U2 didn't start until 10pm.  They played for 2 hours and 15 minutes.  They were very good live.  One of the highlights, musically, was when they played Vertigo.  The stadium went crazy because of the Spanish lyrics.  It was incredible.  At one point in the evening, the astronauts from the International Space Station.  They were on a live satellite feed on the 360 degree jumbotron.  The stage was crazy and had a crazy canopy contraption above it with moving lights.  We were pretty close to the stage.  Bono dedicated Angel of Harlem to Michael Jackson and sang part of Man in the Mirror.  It was the most theatrical concert I have seen in a very long time.  When the show was over, 90,000 people poured into the streets surrounding the stadium.  It was impossible to find a cab and the metro entrances were jam packed so we walked back to our hotel.  It took 2 and a half hours.  We didn't have a map so along the way we met some people from Ireland with a map and tagged along with them.  We made it back safe and sound with the help of some Barcelona garbage men.  

The next morning we ate breakfast and headed to the airport at 830 am.  We flew to Lyon and had a layover then finally to Toulouse.  We made it back to Cordes at 845 pm.  We were exhausted, but it was well worth it.

Barcelona

Last Sunday, Lisa and I flew to Madrid on our way to Barcelona.  We couldn't find a direct flight.  We were only in Madrid to sleep.  Our flight for Barcelona was at 9 a.m. the next morning.  I can't wait to really explore Madrid.  We really only saw the airport and our hotel.  

We reached Barcelona early Monday morning, checked into our hotel and then left to meet up with my friend  Michael who is currently living and working in Barcelona.  He showed us around town all day.  It is such a beautiful place.  It is right on the Mediterranean.  It was hot and sunny and felt like a completely different world from Cordes.  It was 33 degrees Celsius which is about 92 degrees fahrenheitWe started at the beach where Michael works.  Then we went for tapas for lunch.  We had grilled asparagus, patatas bravas, and a tortilla.  The tortilla is not anything like a Mexican tortilla.  It is like an omellette with potatoes in it.  Lisa and Michael also had something with ham in it.  After lunch we were off for a whirlwind tour of Barcelona.  We walked for hours and saw so much of the beautiful city.  At one point we were walking around trying to decide at which cafe we should have a drink.  We ended up going to Haagen Dazs for ice cream.  

After ice cream we walked to Sagrada Familia.  It is a church that has been under construction for years.  There is no completion date in sight.  It is the strangest church I have ever seen.  After the church we walked around some more then went back to Michaels apartment to meet his roommates and drink Sangria and Spanish wine.  We finally had dinner at an Italian restaurant after 10pm.  Meals in Spain are a little different from what we are used to.  they east lunch and dinner rather late.  After dinner we headed back to our hotel to rest up for Tuesday.

I will post about Tuesday later on today.  Right now I have to walk down to the bakery and get a loaf of bread before there is none left.

Croquant Fest

Croquant Fest  On Sunday, Place de la Bride, where I normally sit to go online, hosted a croquant fest.  Croquants are a Cordes specialty that I make at work almost every day.  They are a crispy almond cookie.  I posted a photo of them earlier.  Two men in old fashioned straw hats came and set up a flat platform grill.  They started a wood fire and then brought the hot coals under the grill.  The process took a really long time.  The end result was really cool.  A plate of hot fresh croquant was 2 Euros.   Yesterday, Lisa and I went to Toulouse so I could get a haircut and to go to the cinema.  We hitched a ride with one of Lisa's friends who is visiting from Colorado.  We were planning on taking the train back, but there was a train strike yesterday.  We stayed at a hotel last night and I took the first train back this morning.  I was only an hour late for work which isn't bad considering we were stranded in Toulouse.  It ended up being a pretty enjoyable evening.  I was a real commuter this morning.  It took more than five minutes to get to work.   I like my new haircut and we saw Terminator Salvation.  It is called Terminator Renaissance here.  I think seeing subtitled American movies is helping with my French.  The cinema already has signs for Transformers in VOST.  VOST means version original sub titles.  That is the key element to not seeing a dubbed movie.  I love going to the movies.  At the theater we go to, you are corralled out a back entrance after the movie.  No double features.  It's always a little disorienting to leave a dark theater descend multiple flights of stairs and then exit onto a street behind the theater.  Luckily we are beginning to become more knowledgeable concerning Toulouse geography. I don't know what is in store for next weekend, but the following weekend we are off to Barcelona to see U2.  I am really excited to try to speak spanish and to go to such a huge concert.

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M.O.F. Event

Last Sunday, Chef Manu drove Lisa and I to Soreze for a day of M.O.F. Demonstrations.  It was about an hour and a half southeast of Cordes.  The M.O.F. is an honor bestowed on craftsmen and women in many different fields.  Many of those fields were represented in Soreze.

There were shoemakers, blacksmiths, marble carvers, fur makers and embroiderers to name a few of the crafts.  The food world was represented by a Chef from Toulouse who demoed Foie Gras cooking, a breadmaker who had an oven set up to make fresh bread to try and Jean Francois Arnaud creating a sugar sculpture.  Chef Arnaud worked at the Musee du Sucre, where I am staging now, for many years. He made many of the sculptures on display in the museum.  At the demonstration, he created a dragon sugar sculpture.  

The event was free and open to the public.  It took place in an Abby.  It was a boys school in the past.  The event was pretty crowded.  

I will post a photo of the sculpture and the building in my next post.  The photo in this post is Lisa and I in the courtyard at the Abby in Soreze.

Back online

It's my day off again and I'm finally back online after a thunderstorm knocked out the modem at work.  Since my last post Lisa and I went to Toulouse.  We took a 9:35 am train that got to Toulouse at 10:35.  Then we walked around all day.  We ate at a cafe facing the Capitole.  The margarita pizza I had was quite good.  After lunch we walked around and went to what felt like hundreds of shops.  The weather was great and it was nice to have a change of scenery.  We took the 7:45pm train back to Cordes.  We are doing the same thing tomorrow.  We are going to see Angels & Demons tomorrow morning.  It's the only film not dubbed in French.  Later on I am going to see a film in French while Lisa gets a facial.  I haven't decided which film yet.  

This week at work we started making quiche.  I have been lining tart rings with dough for the past few days.  We also made some new petit fours, tart tatin and cherry eclairs.  We still make Croquants and bread every day.  

Cordes has been pretty crowded lately because it's a holiday weekend here too.  Thursday was Ascension day, so there have been people here everyday since.  It's nice to have people around.  The shops here don't open unless there are going to be crowds.  

Lisa's sister mailed her old copy of Rosetta Stone this week, so I have been practicing French.  Hopefully I will be fluent soon.   

The photos attached are of the cherry eclairs and The Capitole.

Partly Cloudy

Today is another partly cloudy day.  It's been a bit rainy with some sun the past week.  Bad weather here means that shops don't open and there are no tourists.  It's kind of a ghost town.  

On Wednesday, the chef, Lisa and I went to visit the Yves Thuries Chocolate Factory in nearby Marsac.  We went into work early so that we could leave for Marsac at 2:45.  The town was about 30 minutes away via a very circuitous route.  Luckily the chef has G.P.S.  When we arrived at the chocolate factory, the employees had already left for the day.  The chef there took us on a tour of the whole facility.  It was very cool.

We got to try Pistachio praline, almond praline, violet, cinnamon, fresh mint and caramel chocolates.  They were very good.  The almond praline was my favorite.  We got to see the entire production from making the fillings to packaging.  I'm really glad we got the opportunity to visit.  While we were there our chef got a  phone call informing him that we were moving out of our hotel room for three nights.  When I asked when we needed to be out by, he said they already moved our things.  That was a bit of a shock.  When we came back they had moved our belongings to a dormlike apartment closer to work.  We stayed there three nights and just got to move back last night.  The move really made me appreciate our hotel room.

Tomorrow, Lisa and I are taking the train to Toulouse.  We are really excited to go to a bigger city.  Hopefully it will be an easy trip and we will be able to go monthly.  It is an hour train ride.  The train station is 5km from Cordes.  Mathilde, a woman who works at the shop, is driving us to the station tomorrow morning.   

Happy Mother's Day

Today is my day off.  This morning I walked down the hill to buy a baguette and then came back up the hill on the other side.  The whole trip took me 30 minutes.  The weather has been really great here for days now.  There are flowers in bloom everywhere.  

Yesterday we made macarons for the first time at the shop and of course more croquants.  We make croquants every day.  They are the specialty of Cordes.  They are really crispy airy almond cookies.  They are very good.  We make them at our shop and they get sent to Yves Thuries shops all over the world.  The shop sells chocolates and cakes and other pastries and confections.  The photo attached on the top of the post is the kitchen where I work.  The other photo is a bag of croquants.  I will take a close up photo soon.  

Saturday afternoons are the busiest tourist times.  The cafes fill up at lunch on the weekends.  There is a little train that will bring you up the hill for 2.5 Euros.  It is pretty funny but very helpful.  The hill is steep.  We are on top of a hill that is located in a valley, so you can't see the town until the last minute.  It's truly beautiful.