Le Jurade de St. Emilion

le 18 septembre dimanche

St. Emilion is a tiny tiny village outside of Bordeaux which is basically the French capital of wine. This village, which one can walk across in 5 minutes, is entirely composed of cave à vins (wine cellars) and restaurants. Outside of the village are all of the vineyards where they make the wines that the city is so famous for. Anyways, a big group of us Californians went for the festival celebrating the first harvest of wine season. The event, called the Jurade de St. Emilion is a BIG deal. Important people in the wine industry from all over the world come and have to wear garb which resembles that of a king’s cape or the pope. First there is a religious ceremony in the church. Then everyone is lead by a band of bagpipe players to the monolithic church for some sort of fancy public conference. Later, all the important people go to the top of the village’s tower and release bunches of black balloons that resemble grapes to symbolize the beginning of the harvest. Pretty cool celebration just for some fruit that will soon ferment, if you ask me! :) It was a really great day and I hope to visit St. Emilion again in the future!

Le jour de patrimoine

le 17 septembre: samdi

The weekend of September 17th and 18th was the “Jours de Patrimoines”, which translates into heritage days. In celebration of their culture and their history, France allowed people to visit any of the public attractions in the country for free! So, Jill, myself and our friend Joe from Ohio visited Le Grand Theatre, le Musée de Beaux-Arts, and two historical hotels.

We also saw a demonstration on barrel making, in honor of the wine culture in Bordeaux. I never even thought about how barrels were made but it turns out that its a lot of work! Theres  fire, wood bending, and intense hammering involved. Who knew the life of a barrel maker was so dangerous! 


At one of the hotels we saw a musical performance where the singers and musicians dressed in 19th century costumes and performed beautiful songs in multiple languages. Among the instruments was a harpsichord which is the specialty of my friend Alexander. The harpsichord is common in 19th century music but one rarely sees one these days so I had to take a picture!

The Weekend in Review

I've been out and about lately so I haven't been around the computer to update this blog thing I've got going here. Time to catch up:

Friday

My first day of my internship started this Friday. An internship is required for my Transformative Action class so I decided to find one that involved sustainable gardening since it has been something I have been interested in for a while. The internship is at a community demonstration garden called Terra Gnomea, three houses away from the beach. It is a hidden little gem in Santa Cruz that makes a great difference in the community.

A hen from the garden's chicken coup. They ate flowers from my hand!

"Terra Kitty", the garden's cute cat!

The garden has a green house, a chicken coop, a bee hive, a barn, and multiple garden beds! Everything is built from recycled materials and they compost everything! During my internship, we plan to build a "gray water" pond which is a way to filter and recycle water for use in the garden. We will be learning about seasonal plants and vegetables, how certain plants balance others' chemicals out, the importance of local plants and more! I am so excited to be learning about something new! The internship will be from 1-5 PM every Friday, but the first half hour will consist of a meal made with food from the garden!

We had rosemary potatoes; a salad with apples, blueberries, red bell pepper, and red onions; and a Moroccan chickpea dish with tomatoes, onions, and spices! It was all so delicious and vegan!

Saturday

My saturday consisted of running errands while Kevin tagged along. I bought a Groupon for American Apparel that would expire soon and I needed to redeem it, so I did. From the store, I purchased some amazing "winter leggings" that I highly recommend for the colder months. They are so thick and comfortable and would be perfect with boots and a dress or even as sweat pants! 

Kevin and I stopped for  lunch at my favorite Santa Cruz cafe, Café Delmarette. All of their ingredients are organic and locally grown so their business is great for the environment and the community. They make the absolute best scones in existence and I am in love with every sandwich they make. On Saturday I went there specifically for a certain grilled eggplant sandwich but it turns out that eggplant is out of season so I settled for a grilled chicken sandwich with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, mozzarella, and garlic aioli. Delicious!

Saturday Night

Kevin and I have felt like we have been spending too much money lately so we decided to find a cheap way to do dinner. So we decided to have a picnic! We made ourselves some sandwiches, packed some apples, apple sauce, and peanuts then walked a mile and a half to the beach to dine!

Sunday

Today I went to the Santa Cruz Chocolate Festival! I went with Laurel, Bryan, Marc, Ashley, and Sean! It was so crowded that it isn't surprising that we ran into all of our bosses and many friends at the event. What is surprising though is that 10 chocolate tastings was too many! I paid for the 10 ticket thinking I would still want more, but by 3 tastes I was on chocolate overload! I collected the rest of my "tastings" to take home for my housemates to devour. It was a little difficult to take pictures there since it was packed and my hands were full of chocolate.